Guild Wars 2

Before you just jump in: “oh god, shut up you noob spammer”.

My traits are for pure dmg output. Fire/Air + 10 arcane.
Iam interested in MAXIMUM possible dps… Nothing else.

Iam realy interested to see your explanation to get more dmg in atunement jumping.
Just.. Prove it to me its worth locking yourself out from fire 13 seconds.
And also remember to prove your atunement jumping realy works against moving target… not a dummy.

These are the numbers i get: these are without food or buffs.
Note.. all are non crits. and with Staff.
And since practice dummys can not burn, iam losing alot of dmg still.

Fire:
*1 = 1100 autoattack. (i have seen 2.7 k crits in wvw sofar).
*2 =1000 dmg lavafont. (4 second cd).
*3 =130 dmg. (test dummy can not burn, losing 2.7k). (8 second cd).
*4 defensive skill..
*5 =16-1700 / meteor hit. (24 second cd).

Water:
*1 =300 dmg.
*2 =1600 dmg. (4 second cd).
*3, *4, *5 are support skills.

Air:
*1 =700 dmg.
*2 =1400 dmg. (8 second cd).
*3, *4, *5. are support skills.’

Earth:
*1 =500 dmg.
*2 =1300 dmg. (dummys cant bleed, losing 5.7 k). (6 second cd).
*3, *4, *5 are support skills.

The way i see it:
2 equal geared elementals. staff. same traits for max dps.
Both are moving around to avoid AoE.

Now, the same second one of them tries to use atunement jumping.
He loses the battle.
why ?
Because the other one remain in his dps element, and keeps nuking and doing his 1100 – 2.7 k dmg autoattacks. and also explosion burnings
(*3 can never miss unless out of range, while ground aoe is easily avoided).

While the other one just droped 50 % of his dmg, to get some.. utility ?
Unless you can regen more than 3 k / tick. you lose the battle.

So any of you, who are complaining that staying in 1 atunement for max dps is bad.

Please show me it is worth to jump around in all atunement for max dps against a moving target.

Why should i use atunement jumping.
(other than to cc and get away, wich i already do).

What skill combination do you use, and why does it increase my total dmg ?

Water #25 gives you 2% damage boost for each boon you have. As long you have 4-5 boons your damage will be same as with that 300 power boost from fire and survivability will be much higher.
With staff attunement dance works other way with D/D ele. D/D got many short cooldowns and every 2-3chains skill with longer cooldown unblocks. Staff ele should switch and drop AoE (water 2, earth 2, fire 2 – always ready after switch).
For group fights there is no possible way you won’t hit anybody. As for solo…. we’ll, staff is rather poor solo weapon choice.

I dont think anyone i denying that staying in Fire will grant you the highest dps if specced for direct damage.

attunement dancing in staff is for Support and Control. If you have a condition damage Build you are more likely to stay in earth for dps.

in d/d and s/d its Mendatory because you Need the surviveabilty through water attunement (evasive arcana) and you can Stack a Lot of might – which increases dps.

Asmodal.6489:

I dont think anyone i denying that staying in Fire will grant you the highest dps if specced for direct damage.

attunement dancing in staff is for Support and Control. If you have a condition damage Build you are more likely to stay in earth for dps.

in d/d and s/d its Mendatory because you Need the surviveabilty through water attunement (evasive arcana) and you can Stack a Lot of might – which increases dps.

Yup and attune to fire for fire 3

I think there are many factors in place in calculating the total damage output, all dependent on your runes and traits, therefore the result can be a bit different.

For example, at the moment I’m running a more offensive dps staff build. 0/25/0/25/20. The key traits here are:
Air – VI: 20% more damage to foes with less hp than 33% , X: 10% more damage in Air, Minor trait: Electric Discharge (deals damage on swap to air).
Water – VI – Deals 10% more damage to foes when your health is above 90%, Minor trait: Bountiful power (gives 2% more damage per boon).
On top of this I run with 6x runes of scholar which gives additional 10% to your damage when health is above 90%, so total 20% with the water trait.

I have considered 10 points in Fire for Internal Fire trait (10% more damage in fire), but I moved those to water for extra 2% per boon.

Why I play it
I mainly play PvE and some WvW with my Ele, mostly dungeons and fractals or meta events. This means that mostly I play in longer fights against bosses, hence the 20% more damage from Air trait gets pretty handy. (I also want to note that I swap weapons and traits constantly depending on situation). Even in WvW it’s pretty useful, where I run with bigger or smaller groups.

How I play it
This rotation works pretty well against bosses and mobs since they are more static than players. This is how I rotate for “burst”. I’ve recently started using Arcane Power since it will ensure that my high damage skills will land as critical. So..
Arcane Power
Water#2 -> Earth #2 -> Air (Electric Discharge triggers) -> Air #2 -> Fire nuke 2,1,3, 5 till you are ready for rotation again.

The reasoning behind it
Ok, first of all, I haven’t calculated all the damage done in a certain matter of time while doing this combo, compared to just staying in fire, and I probably never will. So why do I swap like this? First off, I want to hit with all my hard hitting skills. Swapping also gives boons (through Arcana-V trait), which adds more total damage.

Also, despite that I’ve play offensive, almost always when I swap attunement, I end up using more than just my DPS spells, cause there’s usually some need for CC or heals, therefore I always find it more beneficial to swap.

Reason why I go water, earth, air, fire or fire, water, earth, air, is because if I’m gonna lock myself out of fire, I’d rather stay in Air which is the 2nd best dps tree. (Hence 10% more damage in air trait). However, duo to constant need of using CC and heals, the lock out is usually rather short. Also, I wanna point out that if you’re just using one skills in one attunement, say earth #2, it’s always good to attunement swap while channeling the skill and thus lower the total CD on attunements.

Conclusion
I don’t know if this rotation will bring a higher DPS over time than just staying in Fire (I’ll never be kitten to calculate it, sorry), but I feel it’s way more beneficial to rotate duo to more boons, better sustain, better support (there’s nothing wrong with giving a bit of support while still playing a DPS roll), and access to higher damage skills.

The overall sustain given to yourself (helps me keep myself at 90%>health for more damage) and people all around you will indirectly affect the total damage output of yourself and them. Hence I think it’s extremely hard to calculate what is more effective (staying in fire or swap). If you gonna look just at your damage numbers purely, it might show you one thing, but in reality it’s just too many factors that affects the total result.

Said the exact same thing as OP before, even same specc, nobody would believe me. Also nobody said that you should never switch out of fire – if the situation demands it you have to switch to water for heal etc. But just for pure dmg, staying in fire is for sure the best decision if you have a 30-30-x-x-x specc

eldain stenlund.4306:

While the other one just droped 50 % of his dmg, to get some.. utility ?
What skill combination do you use, and why does it increase my total dmg ?

This is the key phrase, really. In the beginning of your argument you state that it must be proven against moving targets, yet you automatically assume that all your spells land. Granted, the non-fire spells in general are a bit harder to land, but just about all snares are in the other attunements, so overall, the jumper will hit more often, not less. Not to mention Magnetic Aura, which will reflect a good chunk of damage back at you.

However, assuming that hitting your target isn’t that much of an issue, there’s still a few damage boosts that attunment ‘jumpers’ gain that fire mages don’t.

~Fury (near permanent in boon builds)
~Combos (a Stoning fired through a Lava Font deals as much damage as a Fireball for example)
~The 2nd slot skills from the other attunements, which deal fair (Blinding Surge) to heavy (Eruption) damage.
~Ice Spike’s vulnerability (and that of the Static Field combo) will greatly increase the dps in group fights. You may lose some, but the total damage will be higher.

As for wheter these effects compensate the damage loss, I agree with the previous posters: it’s hard to tell. However, I feel that even if it’s slightly lower, it won’t be that much that it warrants dismissing all the excellent support you gain from jumping.

EDIT: One of the nice ‘jumping’ combos you can make is casting Meteor Shower, then switch to water to gain Fury, and the cast Ice Spike. Makes your highest damage spell hit for a lot more. Again, not sure if it makes up for things, but it’s sure powerful in dungeons.

If you are truly interested in the maximum possible dps, the staff is the wrong choice. It is a defensive/support weapon and there’s nothing wrong with that. The real problem is that eles can’t swap weapons in combat so there are very few options to fall on when Guild Wars 2’s dynamic combat… dynamically changes.

30/30/10/0/0 is the highest else dps spec while using staff or D/X.

You gain DPS because you will stay alive longer to do your damage instead of dying. Given if your are in an easy dungeon, anything works and you can maximize dmg all you want. In a more difficult scenario, especially wvw or spvp, you die before you do any dmg if you don’t utilize atunement swap.

A very simple example, you say switching out of fight you will lose a dps battle. However, if I am another staff ele who is constantly moving and put up my magnetic aura, what would you do to me if you stay in Fire attunement? Lava font won’t hit. Meteor takes forever to channel and you might die before finish channeling. Auto attack and get reflected…? Of course it is an ideal situation if you can just stand and auto atk in fire but sometimes it is not that easy.

Vanillea.5764:

You gain DPS because you will stay alive longer to do your damage instead of dying. Given if your are in an easy dungeon, anything works and you can maximize dmg all you want. In a more difficult scenario, especially wvw or spvp, you die before you do any dmg if you don’t utilize atunement swap.

A very simple example, you say switching out of fight you will lose a dps battle. However, if I am another staff ele who is constantly moving and put up my magnetic aura, what would you do to me if you stay in Fire attunement? Lava font won’t hit. Meteor takes forever to channel and you might die before finish channeling. Auto attack and get reflected…? Of course it is an ideal situation if you can just stand and auto atk in fire but sometimes it is not that easy.

lol, thats an awulf argument, you are saying something that applies to everyone; “you cant do damage if you are dead”, what the op is asking is how to maxime damage to the point of actually killing something, even if it means danger to self.

Personally i believe the staff does need some improvements, my guess is to distribute the damage from fire a little to other elements and make it actually land on something other than the golems. The damage is ok, it is just that once you get out of fire you have none, and once the enemy discovers the have a dodge buttom and a strafe keys they wont be dying any time soon, or ever.

Fortus.6175:

The damage is ok, it is just that once you get out of fire you have none.

That’s also an ‘awulf’ argument. Ice Spike, Blinding Surge, Eruption, Shockwave and Chain Lightning deal plenty of damage.

Oh hooray. This guy again to litter the ele board with more spam -_-

skinnyb.5920:

Oh hooray. This guy again to litter the ele board with more spam -_-

Iam interested in evidence that atune jumping gives me maximum possible dmg.
Considering: Gear & Traits.

If you have nothing to say about this, you dont have to read, or comment.
(Iam not forcing you).

I have read the comments above.
And i see your arguments. Pros / Cons.

The one with getting 2% more dmg for every boon.
sounds nice. but requires me to lose dmg in first place.
As i whould have to change either my crit %.. or my dmg on elemental specc.

And to keep the boons constant. on staff. i whould need a full Bonn duration gear.
Wich whould drop my dmg alot more than i gain, even if i had 5 – 6 boons 100 % time.

Its a good read for someone who wants to be multi-tasking on the field and want to survive more though.

But by pure logic.
Full dmg (zerker) all over + full dmg traits. and staying in the top dmg element. Fire.
Still seem to yield absolute maximum dmg.

I did had a 4k+ crit on my NR2 air skill last night in wvw.
The player was downed, and i switched to see what dmg it whould make for fun.
(I did have a few buffs on me, and him a few vulnerability stacks).
4k+ crit surpriced me abit. But it locked me out from fire for 13 seconds :P
(my fireballs on same enemy did around 3k+).

And i also saw my highest Meteor shower dmg on same night. 5k+.

Anyone have ideas how to make a Totaly Maximum healing set ??

This is my second choise i want to try and play.. from time to time.

NO dmg. Just maximum healing support.
Using my healing skills as often as possible, and possible give people a protection buff at same time.
BUT, healing comes first.

I have no idea how to make it.. any ideas ?

eldain stenlund.4306:

Anyone have ideas how to make a Totaly Maximum healing set ??

Try this build: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1aun6t/ive_written_up_three_diverse_elementalist_staff/c90waod

eldain stenlund.4306:

But by pure logic.

If approached from a logic standpoint, you should probably consider effective damage instead of total damage.

For example, if your opponent is chilled, you will have a much easier time actually hitting your target and will spend less time on trying to keep yourself alive.

On a downed target, a burts combination of Meteor Shower/Ice Spike may do more effective damage because the time spent doing damage is minimized. You may deal more damage in 10 seconds using only fire than you do using Fire and the Water. But if you only need 5 seconds of damage, the burst may very well take just 4 seconds.

Fire will likely deal more damage if you can stand back and fling your spells at ease. But in actual fights, there are a lot of variables. Even seemingly tiny things like granting your entire party might or vulnerability can end up increasing the group’s damage way more than staying in Fire and tossing around fireballs.

Of course, wheter this is actually true will be very hard to either prove or disprove.

I tried a 30/30/0/10/0 in mist on a heavy golem, using my regular burst rotation with water #2, earth #2, Air minor trait on swap, Air #2. I used arcana power to ensure crits.

Then I tried killing it with fire. I made sure I had 6 stacks of might first (since I picked that trait over the 30% longer duration on fire fields). 6-7stacks was what I could keep up normally from just using fire spells. I also tried with Meteor Shower, but it wasn’t effective against just one target since you will land either 0 or 3-4 hits over a pretty long duration. I tried both with 3,2,1,1,1 and just 2,1,1,1… even 5,2,3,1,1,1… Always with Arcana Power of course.

To be honest, my regular burst rotation needed less hits (this includes the ticks from lava font) to kill the target than Fire rotation (3,2,1,1,1 rotation or 2,1,1,1,1). What can be said against it is that in the first scenario the burst took a bit longer time to proc, but overall damage was a bit better. It also requires that all the skills will land, but this can be used as an argument against fire as well. Only problem is that with no points in Arcana, it will take much longer to get back to fire after the burst is done.

It’s of course obvious that if you go full zerker gear and full dps talent (power/crit chance/crit dmg), then of course the dps will be much higher since you have maxed stats there. But it comes to a point where you ask yourself what you’ve sacrificed by getting there and that’s my main issue with the 30/30/x/x/x builds. If you don’t really care, then go ahead.. But personally I feel that what I sacrifice in sustainability and efficiency doesn’t justify what I will gain from a 30/30/x/x/x build.

With my current build I have 50% crit chance and 80% crit damage, but I also have much higher HP and armor than a full zerker. I dish out pretty nice damage still, some 4-5k from certain spells. For my own taste it’s plenty of damage compared to what I gain from other stats and talents.

What are these stories of 50% less damage with other attunuments :P… I didn’t take it seriously but you seem to pop it everywhere so I guess you actually think that is the case.

OP seems to be under the impression that he is alone thinking staff could use help in some areas of the game. And everyone is out to get him. I’d say big reason for negative comments he gets is because he spams and creates multiple topics with same provocative ill-informed stories of what elementalist should in his roleplay opinion be like (wow mage, dagger combat mage doesn’t fit my roleplaying idea!!!!) and how he does not seem to have too much experience in attunument rotations, aka how to deal good damage while providing control, boons and healing.

Not just how to deal damage, and then switch to control or heal, and have no idea how to deal damage in this odd situation. This is also why you don’t teach new elementalists “just stay in fire while u lvl, ull be fine.” or talk about the elements as totally seperated, fire damage, water heal, … . You combine them, combos, rotate – will make you more diverse and able elementalist, who is comfortable in every situation.

Aight back to the top, lets see which one of the 5 topics he has created is this.
Maximum staff dps, hmm k.

It’s correct if you use a spec that is not built for attunument rotation and want to provide dmg and dmg only. You stay in fire. I didn’t think that was much of a secret.

Unfortunately that is not a spec that most people would run in a staff frienly environment – wvwvw, and perhaps harder fractal content when you might need to kite and control packs of mobs. In these cases you are not there just for the lava font, or just for the static field or just for the healing rain. You want to integrate these to deal good damage while proving this control, boons and healing/condition removal. And burst combos!

Out of intrest I did some testing between da glass 30/30/0/10/0 only fire and “da bunker” 0/10/0/30/30 attune rotation. I had just around 20% loss of dps for all those (EA, water traits, staff area, need i say more?) boons, utility and healing I had available for me, without the dmg on/off switch with only fire.
Should do this with “pen and paper” for proper numbers but, there is no controversy anyway, so not required.

Anyway, I’ll just repeat so there is no confusion for the slowest kittens. Yeah damage only situation, with glass no arcane spec, use dat fire. It’s no controversy.
But frankly I hope that the content Anet provides stays/gets/is dynamic enough and complicated enough that you want to bring more than just damage.

kubetz.3058:

eldain stenlund.4306:

Anyone have ideas how to make a Totaly Maximum healing set ??

Try this build: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1aun6t/ive_written_up_three_diverse_elementalist_staff/c90waod

This looks interesting.

Sabull.5670:

Anyway, I’ll just repeat so there is no confusion for the slowest kittens. Yeah damage only situation, with glass no arcane spec, use dat fire. It’s no controversy.
But frankly I hope that the content Anet provides stays/gets/is dynamic enough and complicated enough that you want to bring more than just damage.

This. I don’t see the point with playing this certain type of spec and thus removing 3/4 of other potential contribution to the field. If you want to focus single target (ranged) dps, there are better choices for that (mesmer, warrior, even rangers dish out pretty good dmg from 1500 range with LB). Other than that, I don’t even understand why you so much want to focus on single target when AoE is obviously better in WvW (and I got the impression that’s what you play mostly).

sabull
I run my full dmg.. and dmg only gear in wvw.
For maximum dmg, Wich is what iam after.
My defense is in my playstyle. not my gear, and i have a few “o crap” buttons if needed.

works nice for me, because as i use staff.. everyone expects staff to be the mediocre dmg specc.
They expect everyone to be using the higher utility and survival gear / specc.

But i can agree with paleeshi.
If the enemy is somewhat unware of you. starting in another element and doing the AoE combo… going thru all elemens untill you land in Fire.
You could make a good impact.

But it they are aware, landing AoE will be impossible.
They dodge straight tru it, or just move out of the way.

But i like the Idea of starting in another element and going up to fire.
Perhaps you can only land 1 of the other AoEs, before you realise, this isnt working.
You still have Fire access.

Attunement swapping, boon duration and self combo’s give 20+ might and constant fury. That’s a lot of damage, 700 power extra and 20% crit change. The water traits give me 20% extra damage. I can use evasive arcana as an extra damage skill. My crits have 20% to apply a condition. I also apply vulnarbility wich further increases damage.

Also, on a rotation of ten seconds I cast lava font, flame burst, ice spike, lightning surge and eruption. I see an auto attack as a waste.

The pure damage output from an 30/30/x10 pure fire ele can be the same as a swapper statwise. But it can’t make up for the loss of eruption, ice spike and lightning surge. And a pure fire ele sure misses out on a lot of support and Control. So much that it’s not worth it.

If I remember when I’m home, I’ll upload my damage calculation spreadsheet.

You can’t look at Ele skills in the vacuum of pure DPS. ESPECIALLY with Staff.

Why? Because from the outset, the Staff is built as a support weapon. Yes, some of our largest AoEs, but also most of our best combo fields.

As an example, playing with a Thief the other day, we were just bumming around in Gendarran Fields, doing a few random DEs. We decided to do the Tamini Mogul group event. He was a D/D and Shortbow, I was using Staff.

To put it bluntly, had I stayed in Fire, we both would have died, and quickly. By cycling attunements, using all my CC, rotating earth elementals, providing water combo fields for healing, kept burning up, etc., etc. we prevailed.

Was my damage as high as just spamming 1,2,3 in Fire? Probably not. But people asking that question make the incorrect assumption that a Staff Ele can sit back safely and nuke, never needing to dodge, or kite, or support teammates. Since the game does not work like WoW, you don’t have the luxury of sitting at max range casting arcane missiles or whatever.

Which is why I always laugh a bit when I read people asking about DPS charts, meters or builds, as if that’s the be-all, end-all of consideration. Every profession in the game needs to bring DPS, support, CC and rez ALL the time in every battle. To think otherwise is to miss the point of the combat system.

ThiBash.5634:

Fortus.6175:

The damage is ok, it is just that once you get out of fire you have none.

That’s also an ‘awulf’ argument. Ice Spike, Blinding Surge, Eruption, Shockwave and Chain Lightning deal plenty of damage.

key word: reliable, unless their movement keys dont work, neither will shockwave, eruption, ice spike hit any enemy, as for blinding surge it can hit, yes, but more often that not people will dodge it seen they can see it coming for 2 seconds in whcih you are doing NO damage, and chain lighting doesnt hit that hard…..it is an auto attack with average damage and has a 1 second casting, and it wont be hitting twice unless is a hunter, cuz if it is a mesmer it will hit all clones and only the original once, too, as for everyone else, it wont be hitting anyone a second time neither in a teamfight nor a solo match.

once again, RELIABLE

Kaleban.9834:

You can’t look at Ele skills in the vacuum of pure DPS. ESPECIALLY with Staff.

Why? Because from the outset, the Staff is built as a support weapon.

You can do a similar amount of support with d/d and that weapon is considerably more effect for doing damage.

Oh didn’t realise you were talking about WvWvW well then absolutely not only fire lols :S….

….

But i like the Idea of starting in another element and going up to fire.
Perhaps you can only land 1 of the other AoEs, before you realise, this isnt working.
You still have Fire access.

Definetly. You want to set up for that burst dps to really get people melted in PvP.
Simple lava font and fireball doesn’t kill anything, but 3 spells hitting together can really pack the punch.
Let’s say you want to do set up a good burst combo on the rammers of keep door.
The standard combo is the following:
1. Eruption (earth 2) → Switch Water last moment of cast (fury maximised)
2. Ice Spike (water 2) → fire
3. Lava font
Those 3 will hit very close to each other.

And if meteor storm is available and good situation you can add it there, + tornado for added damage ( >+50%).
With 30 arcane specs you loose little dps while getting massive amount of sustainability and utility, while making your dps much more bursty with the more frequent combos.

What I would concider as the standard attunument dps rotation with 30 arcane is:
1. Earth 2 → Water 2 → Fire 231spameti spam until Earth and Water ready.
2. Earth 2 → Water 2 → Air 21spam until Earth and Water ready.
repeat.

Then ofc in real situation, depending on what is necessary you add skills between the CORE DPS ROTATION. For example:
1. Earth 2 and 3 → Water 2 and 4 → Fire spameti spam untill E&W ready
2. Earth 2 → Water 3 (blast) and 2 → Air 5 and spameti spam untill E&W ready

Point is currently the arcane based specs will make you so much more versatile in many cases, especially for Wvwvwv. With loosing very little for gaining very much.
This is obviously problematic, having very little possible specs.

This comes with experience of 100k+ STAFF world versus world kills.

Kaleban.9834:

Every profession in the game needs to bring DPS, support, CC and rez ALL the time in every battle. To think otherwise is to miss the point of the combat system.

^This +1

Fortus.6175:

key word: reliable, unless their movement keys dont work, neither will shockwave, eruption, ice spike hit any enemy, as for blinding surge it can hit, yes, but more often that not people will dodge it seen they can see it coming for 2 seconds in whcih you are doing NO damage

When it comes to PvE/dungeons, hitting isn’t a problem. As for WvW, hitting is tougher 1vs1 but the same can be said for Lava Font and Meteor Shower and if anything, damage is not the thing that will decide the duel. Utility will. Which is also why I run Glyph of Elemental Power, so I can constantly cripple or chill my targets, making them easier to hit.

As for chain lightning, it really depends on when you use it of course. It won’t automatically outdps fireball. But it’s a decent backup plan.

Oh, and if they dodge blinding surge…better! I’d rather have them waste their dodge on that than on Frozen Ground, Shockwave or Gust.

Asmodal.6489:

I dont think anyone i denying that staying in Fire will grant you the highest dps if specced for direct damage.

Oh I deny it whole completely. In fact, it is patently wrong. I will do more overall damage than someone staying in fire no matter how they spec.

eldain stenlund.4306:

Anyone have ideas how to make a Totaly Maximum healing set ??

I have no idea how to make it.. any ideas ?

There is no such thing. There aren’t enough healing abilities for you to act as a healer in any sense of the word. The elementalist class does not work by being locked down to a single role. It is designed to fluidly change between roles on the fly and regularly throughout a fight.

Puandro.3245:

30/30/10/0/0 is the highest else dps spec while using staff or D/X.

Not really. You aren’t going to spike anyone down that isn’t wearing zerker gear like a noob anyways, and while you may have slightly higher initial dps, you are going to lose the total damage race very quickly.

Kaleban.9834:

You can’t look at Ele skills in the vacuum of pure DPS. ESPECIALLY with Staff.

Why? Because from the outset, the Staff is built as a support weapon. Yes, some of our largest AoEs, but also most of our best combo fields.

I disagree with it being primary support. It is pretty balance between CC, support, and AoE damage.

Sabull.5670:

Oh didn’t realise you were talking about WvWvW well then absolutely not only fire lols :S…

(More text..)

I also wanted to add a few things to consider when playing WvW, especially in larger groups.

First of all it’s rarely that you will just stand/move and spam skills.. There’s a lot of time spent moving (avoiding hits or getting in range of a certain target). A lot of the time is spent to use skills tactically (as this poster also showed in the video, to know where to put the AoE to make sure they will land on enemy and to control groups). In reality I find that there are many pauses between casting spells, hence you don’t just stand and nuke.

An other thing I’ve noticed just this last week (since I started do more WvW)… Many people might think that a zerg is a zerg and it doesn’t matter what you do or how you gear. I’ve seen several commanders just this week to complain of how fast people that run with them simply die too fast due to low survivability. They will always say survivabilty>damage and most will recommend using knights or soldier gear. I’m not saying you should do like the commanders bids, but survivability is a lot more important than doing tons of damage. Zergs are not just big numbers of people. They require their people to stay alive for the strategies to succeed when you’re going against an other zerg.

Honestly, staying in fire, with low survivability, nuking with auto attack is not gonna bring much to the field. Pretty much just a useless pug who will only give rally to enemy. This game doesn’t have healers and tanks. Even though you can contribute with heals and other sustain to the group, it is mainly YOUR job to keep yourself alive. You cannot compare this game to WoW where the class mechanics are completely different.

blackgoat.5172:

Kaleban.9834:

Every profession in the game needs to bring DPS, support, CC and rez ALL the time in every battle. To think otherwise is to miss the point of the combat system.

^This +1

^This – 1 for the original post and -1 for the post above.

Sifu.6527:

blackgoat.5172:

Kaleban.9834:

Every profession in the game needs to bring DPS, support, CC and rez ALL the time in every battle. To think otherwise is to miss the point of the combat system.

^This +1

^This – 1 for the original post and -1 for the post above.

you don’t have to like it or agree. Doesn’t make it any less true though

For maximum DpS I think the build would be this

However, from what I tested, Rune of Strength is currently bugged so you’re not getting the extra 5% damage.

When you have Pyromancer’s Puissance it is a DpS loss to switch OUT of fire. That essentially gives you around 7~10 might stacks by yourself (you don’t even need to hit, just keep spamming 1 – don’t remember if you need a target or not, or if you need to be in range… I used to do this with the Scepter).

Why would you switch out of a 245~350 guaranteed extra Power?

I’m tempted in crafting this gear now… Rune of Strength might be bugged but there’s still Rune of the Flame Legion which should work as well (though no extra Might duration).

Wow, just imagining achieving nearly 100% extra raw damage and 100% extra critical damage… if a Guardian/Warrior gives me Fury & 25 Might stacks, will I one-shot someone?

Danicco.3568:

For maximum DpS I think the build would be this

However, from what I tested, Rune of Strength is currently bugged so you’re not getting the extra 5% damage.

When you have Pyromancer’s Puissance it is a DpS loss to switch OUT of fire. That essentially gives you around 7~10 might stacks by yourself (you don’t even need to hit, just keep spamming 1 – don’t remember if you need a target or not, or if you need to be in range… I used to do this with the Scepter).

Why would you switch out of a 245~350 guaranteed extra Power?

I’m tempted in crafting this gear now… Rune of Strength might be bugged but there’s still Rune of the Flame Legion which should work as well (though no extra Might duration).

Wow, just imagining achieving nearly 100% extra raw damage and 100% extra critical damage… if a Guardian/Warrior gives me Fury & 25 Might stacks, will I one-shot someone?

You could have 4 more might stacks permanently if you took inscription and quick glyphs just by using your heal(5 if you pop your elite pet and more if you lose a cantrip but that might be pushing your luck). This is assuming you want to sit in fire attunement to get the most out of puissance, there is no reason to trait air cooldowns unless you wanted swiftness which can be attained elsewhere. Traiting glyphs is nice because you can either get perma swiftness or regen or 30+% protection uptime. Plus glyph is our fattest heal and traited for 20sec cd really rivals ether renewal imo.

covenn.7165:

Puandro.3245:

30/30/10/0/0 is the highest else dps spec while using staff or D/X.

Not really. You aren’t going to spike anyone down that isn’t wearing zerker gear like a noob anyways, and while you may have slightly higher initial dps, you are going to lose the total damage race very quickly.

Its the highest dps but it doesn’t mean its viable in PvP, it is a great PvE dps spec if all you care about is dps.

covenn.7165:

Asmodal.6489:

I dont think anyone i denying that staying in Fire will grant you the highest dps if specced for direct damage.

Oh I deny it whole completely. In fact, it is patently wrong. I will do more overall damage than someone staying in fire no matter how they spec.

This.

Phil.5280:

covenn.7165:

Asmodal.6489:

I dont think anyone i denying that staying in Fire will grant you the highest dps if specced for direct damage.

Oh I deny it whole completely. In fact, it is patently wrong. I will do more overall damage than someone staying in fire no matter how they spec.

This.

Staying in fire and gaining might is more dps than gaining fury while swapping atunements using lower dps skills.

Puandro.3245:

Phil.5280:

covenn.7165:

Asmodal.6489:

I dont think anyone i denying that staying in Fire will grant you the highest dps if specced for direct damage.

Oh I deny it whole completely. In fact, it is patently wrong. I will do more overall damage than someone staying in fire no matter how they spec.

This.

Staying in fire and gaining might is more dps than gaining fury while swapping atunements using lower dps skills.

You also have to consider:

You’re not getting any might unless you’re switching to Earth, either for Earth 2 or evasive arcana. Or unless you use arcane wave.

Also, you can maintain 10 stacks of vulnerability with 2 hits of water 2, so now your enemy is taking 10% more dmg.

Air 2 offers good damage as well, and all you have to do is switch to air> cast air 2 and get back to what you were doing, so the time it takes is negligible.

You can do all this and get back to fire just in time for meteor shower to be off cooldown.

Puandro.3245:

Phil.5280:

covenn.7165:

Asmodal.6489:

I dont think anyone i denying that staying in Fire will grant you the highest dps if specced for direct damage.

Oh I deny it whole completely. In fact, it is patently wrong. I will do more overall damage than someone staying in fire no matter how they spec.

This.

Staying in fire and gaining might is more dps than gaining fury while swapping atunements using lower dps skills.

At what percentage of crit damage and crit chance does that occur when taken into consideration might stacks a proper ele will get playing correctly as opposed to spamming fireball when other abilities are on cool down? Also add in the net gain from other conditions and factor in the ability to ensure the abilities actually hit the target which is impossible by strictly sticking in fire. If you want to use might stacks gained over time by spamming fire abilities, then you need to compare it with everything else as well equally.

Attunement swapping eles revolve around fury gain while swapping and might gain from fire attunement swap, battle sigil and lastly any combos being done.

My PvE spec revolves around staying in fire and using http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pyromancer's_Puissance.

First let me say D/D > Staff but Staff doesnt do too bad, scepter sucks.

Full berserker gear.

Top 10 skills in terms of DPS (Note that i used DPS not Damage) starting from the highest.

Burning Speed
Ring of Fire
Fire Grab (when burning)
Drake’s Breath (Only when no burn is on the target)
Churning Earth
Ring of Earth
Lightning Whip
Dragon’s Claw
Earthquake
Cone of Cold

Even attunement swapping, gaining might and fury it does not do more damage then sitting in Fire, gaining might, and using traits to boost your dps in Fire.

If i take Internal Fire, Dragon Claw does more damage then lightning whip and then the only 2 attacks that do more damage is RoE and CE in earth. Also if the party is providing some Fury it makes attunement swapping even less attractive.

Fire staff is also waaaaay better than any other attunements. Lava font is just too freaking good.

Another thing of just sitting on fire attunement is that you can swap to your CC or heals on demand when you need to.

Puandro.3245:

Attunement swapping eles revolve around fury gain while swapping and might gain from fire attunement swap, battle sigil and lastly any combos being done.

My PvE spec revolves around staying in fire and using http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pyromancer's_Puissance.

First let me say D/D > Staff but Staff doesnt do too bad, scepter sucks.

Full berserker gear.

Top 10 skills in terms of DPS (Note that i used DPS not Damage) starting from the highest.

Burning Speed
Ring of Fire
Fire Grab (when burning)
Drake’s Breath (Only when no burn is on the target)
Churning Earth
Ring of Earth
Lightning Whip
Dragon’s Claw
Earthquake
Cone of Cold

Even attunement swapping, gaining might and fury it does not do more damage then sitting in Fire, gaining might, and using traits to boost your dps in Fire.

If i take Internal Fire, Dragon Claw does more damage then lightning whip and then the only 2 attacks that do more damage is RoE and CE in earth. Also if the party is providing some Fury it makes attunement swapping even less attractive.

Fire staff is also waaaaay better than any other attunements. Lava font is just too freaking good.

Another thing of just sitting on fire attunement is that you can swap to your CC or heals on demand when you need to.

How can Burning Speed and Ring of Fire with 10 s CD the highest DPS skills xD. They might have high DPC ( damage per cast) because of the short casting time but no where near the top DPS skill. Some candidates for highest DPS skills might be Lighting Whip, Drake’s Breath or Fireball + Lava Font.

Vanillea.5764:

Puandro.3245:

Attunement swapping eles revolve around fury gain while swapping and might gain from fire attunement swap, battle sigil and lastly any combos being done.

My PvE spec revolves around staying in fire and using http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pyromancer's_Puissance.

First let me say D/D > Staff but Staff doesnt do too bad, scepter sucks.

Full berserker gear.

Top 10 skills in terms of DPS (Note that i used DPS not Damage) starting from the highest.

Burning Speed
Ring of Fire
Fire Grab (when burning)
Drake’s Breath (Only when no burn is on the target)
Churning Earth
Ring of Earth
Lightning Whip
Dragon’s Claw
Earthquake
Cone of Cold

Even attunement swapping, gaining might and fury it does not do more damage then sitting in Fire, gaining might, and using traits to boost your dps in Fire.

If i take Internal Fire, Dragon Claw does more damage then lightning whip and then the only 2 attacks that do more damage is RoE and CE in earth. Also if the party is providing some Fury it makes attunement swapping even less attractive.

Fire staff is also waaaaay better than any other attunements. Lava font is just too freaking good.

Another thing of just sitting on fire attunement is that you can swap to your CC or heals on demand when you need to.

How can Burning Speed and Ring of Fire with 10 s CD the highest DPS skills xD. They might have high DPC ( damage per cast) because of the short casting time but no where near the top DPS skill. Some candidates for highest DPS skills might be Lighting Whip, Drake’s Breath or Fireball + Lava Font.

DPC is a bad way to see if a skill is good, if the attack takes 10 seconds to go off but does the highest damage of all your skills then its the top DPC ability. Basically if the attack will increase your DPS over spamming your auto attack then its a good DPS skill.

if Damage / cast time > Damage spamming #1, then its worth casting.

Also dragon’s claw does more DPS alone than spamming Fireball + Lava font.

Kaleban.9834:

You can’t look at Ele skills in the vacuum of pure DPS. ESPECIALLY with Staff.

Why? Because from the outset, the Staff is built as a support weapon. Yes, some of our largest AoEs, but also most of our best combo fields.

As an example, playing with a Thief the other day, we were just bumming around in Gendarran Fields, doing a few random DEs. We decided to do the Tamini Mogul group event. He was a D/D and Shortbow, I was using Staff.

To put it bluntly, had I stayed in Fire, we both would have died, and quickly. By cycling attunements, using all my CC, rotating earth elementals, providing water combo fields for healing, kept burning up, etc., etc. we prevailed.

Was my damage as high as just spamming 1,2,3 in Fire? Probably not. But people asking that question make the incorrect assumption that a Staff Ele can sit back safely and nuke, never needing to dodge, or kite, or support teammates. Since the game does not work like WoW, you don’t have the luxury of sitting at max range casting arcane missiles or whatever.

Which is why I always laugh a bit when I read people asking about DPS charts, meters or builds, as if that’s the be-all, end-all of consideration. Every profession in the game needs to bring DPS, support, CC and rez ALL the time in every battle. To think otherwise is to miss the point of the combat system.

This is accurate. Pure DPS, go Fire. However, attempting to be “pure DPS” all day, e’rr day doesn’t work as well in this game as it does in WoW.

Einlanzer.1627:

Kaleban.9834:

You can’t look at Ele skills in the vacuum of pure DPS. ESPECIALLY with Staff.

Why? Because from the outset, the Staff is built as a support weapon. Yes, some of our largest AoEs, but also most of our best combo fields.

As an example, playing with a Thief the other day, we were just bumming around in Gendarran Fields, doing a few random DEs. We decided to do the Tamini Mogul group event. He was a D/D and Shortbow, I was using Staff.

To put it bluntly, had I stayed in Fire, we both would have died, and quickly. By cycling attunements, using all my CC, rotating earth elementals, providing water combo fields for healing, kept burning up, etc., etc. we prevailed.

Was my damage as high as just spamming 1,2,3 in Fire? Probably not. But people asking that question make the incorrect assumption that a Staff Ele can sit back safely and nuke, never needing to dodge, or kite, or support teammates. Since the game does not work like WoW, you don’t have the luxury of sitting at max range casting arcane missiles or whatever.

Which is why I always laugh a bit when I read people asking about DPS charts, meters or builds, as if that’s the be-all, end-all of consideration. Every profession in the game needs to bring DPS, support, CC and rez ALL the time in every battle. To think otherwise is to miss the point of the combat system.

This is accurate. Pure DPS, go Fire. However, attempting to be “pure DPS” all day, e’rr day doesn’t work as well in this game as it does in WoW.

As long as your other team members have the other things covered going DPS works quite well, thats what wars do in a war/guard/mesmer grp.