Guild Wars 2

I understand where people are coming from , theres this concept that an elementalist has to change between elements in order to be effective.
And that is true for most of the cases but in a PvE environment going as a Glass Cannon Fire mage is quite effective.Its the best damage dealing build available to an elementalist.Theres no need to swap between elements since fire is the best damage dealer and you’re able to build those stacks of might on you.
So I’m trying to understand all this hatred towards ‘’fire mages’‘.I think people misunderstand roleplay whit an actualy good build.
For the record I play an elementalist and I have 3 separate builds to it and since I like going pure Glass Cannon whit all my characters in dungeons I don’t see why shouldn’t I on elementalist too.
I’m curious to hear some second thoughts on this.

Staying in one attunement for an entire fight is limiting yourself to a quarter of your skills.

When I come across Staff “Fire Mages” in dungeons, I either politely ask them to help their team by providing DoT, CC’s, and heals or to please leave the group.

skinnyb.5920:

Staying in one attunement for an entire fight is limiting yourself to a quarter of your skills.

When I come across Staff “Fire Mages” in dungeons, I either politely ask them to help their team by providing DoT, CC’s, and heals or to please leave the group.

But you build around fire , damage.You help by dealing damage and considering how unnecesary support realy is theres no point even considering it.Sure ,there are certain situation like the Spider fight in AC where the healing wells are realy useful but other than that its all about damage.

skinnyb.5920:

Yes, you might build around damage but there are many other classes that easily out preform you in that respect.

You might want to step into a dungeon other than AC if you think support is unnecessary. The boons, healing, and CC I provide for my party are very useful indeed.

So just because you don’t hit as hard as a Thief or a Warrior ,Elementalists are not alowed to spec to damage? thats a load of BS lol.
No , support IS unnecesary in any dungeons you’re playing.Sure its more confortable but yes, unnecesary.Everybody is perfecly sustainable on their own even if they are entirely glass cannon.I never needed the support of another class to keep me alive in this game EVER, no matter what class I played.
So again , whats wrong whit fire mages?

It’s a myth that ele can’t hit for the damage of warriors or thieves. Scepter/dagger and dagger/dagger glass cannond does not only craploads of aoe burst, easily the highest of the bunch overalll— but it also brings considerable condition damage alongside it.

My dragon’s tooth can easily hit for 9k, and accomapny that with burning. Fire Grab goes as high as 11-12k, 3-4k Circle of Fire, 3k Arcane Waves, into 8k Churning Earths and 10 stacks of aoe bleeding.

Of course you will switch attunements for the utility, but the bulk of your time will be mostly spent on fire and air simply because the sustained damage of both is supremely better than the other attunements, and water and earth are pretty much worthless once you use the heals/cc with their high cd’s.

From a Glass Cannon perspective Health and armour is exacly the same as on a Thief.
Thief makes up for their survivability whit stealth .Never being targeted by mobs.
Warrior makes up whit more health and armour.
Elementalist makes up whit distance.Their range on D/D is 400 .Not exacly melee.Its the perfect distance to atack from.
As for damage , I play all 3 and the damage difference isn’t that huge vs single targets.And their Aoe is unmached.
I’m surprised that I don’t see more of Berserker Elementalists.They are not bad at all.

Can you post your build?

Its a simple build.30 fire 30 Air and 10 Arcana .The traits are realy not that hard to figure out.

What would you say about this build I made up?
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fEMQJArdhEmmbwR6wjEAEFn4S4hCDkwoQIiCWA
Entirely dedicated to fire. I could explain more. Fire weapons you conjure add might stacks too. You have 4 blast finishers to get up to 12 might stacks by itself. Should be normal to reach over 20 might stacks at will. With cantrips used for might alone you could easily hit the cap of 25 might stacks.
The cooldown for switching elements is a burden, but since you have 3 sets of fire spells, you can switch to other elements for needed utility and still fall back on one of the conjured weapons while they recharge to go back to fire. Didn’t test if might stacks from skill spamming still appear from the conjured weapons while you are in an element other than fire.
But I don’t think burning is that good for DPS, because it doesn’t matter how enthusiastically you stack the burn, it won’t increase the DPS, only prolong it. All the burn damage is the same, only the duration changes. On the other hand, you get quite a massive amount of power from the might stacks. Could alter the build, especially stats. The point is the utilities, weapons and fire traits.
Also, it really isn’t hard to remove burn, right?

Think of it this way: imagine for a second you’re using the staff. Now, you can spam your auto attack to your heart’s content while remaining in fire, or you can go to each element in turn, starting with Fire and do something like this:

Lava Font/Meteor Shower/Lava Font
Ice Spike
Blinding Surge
Eruption/Shockwave
Lava Font, etc.

With the right setup, you’d be casting high damage spike skills from the other elements instead of Fireball. Seeing as how they deal more damage than Fireball, your dps will be higher.

It’s a very basic example of course, but I think it shows the appeal of using the other elements as well. Skills like Ice Spike, Blinding Surge and Eruption simply do more damage than Fireball. So if you switch, you get acces to a few more high damage aoe spells instead of your basic auto attack.

skinnyb.5920:

No, not exactly. The thing is, Warriors have one of the largest base HP pools in the game along with wearing heavy armor. Thieves either get extra dodges or can heal themselves in stealth constantly, while still hitting hard.

These classes can usually kill the enemy before it kills them, elementalists aren’t usually as fortunate. They have one of the lowest base HP pools and wear the lowest tier of gear. Without specing for survivability, you won’t be alive to do your damage.

There is nothing wrong with specing into damage if you can survive to do so. The problem is sitting in 1 attunement and ignoring 15 other skills.

This is really the reason (stupid reason at that) why they hate fire mages. Why would any dps purposely lower his dps by locking himself out of his heaviest hitters? It’s such a simple concept I can not even imagine how stupid someone has to be to not get it. Those 15 other skills they value so much do nothing but lower DPS.

ThiBash.5634:

Think of it this way: imagine for a second you’re using the staff. Now, you can spam your auto attack to your heart’s content while remaining in fire, or you can go to each element in turn, starting with Fire and do something like this:

Lava Font/Meteor Shower/Lava Font
Ice Spike
Blinding Surge
Eruption/Shockwave
Lava Font, etc.

With the right setup, you’d be casting high damage spike skills from the other elements instead of Fireball. Seeing as how they deal more damage than Fireball, your dps will be higher.

It’s a very basic example of course, but I think it shows the appeal of using the other elements as well. Skills like Ice Spike, Blinding Surge and Eruption simply do more damage than Fireball. So if you switch, you get acces to a few more high damage aoe spells instead of your basic auto attack.

Staff no no.Staff is crap.
D/D ftw
But even whit staff.
In the time you cast Ice spike you cast 2 auto atacks in fire.And you don’t have a cooldown.And fire auto atacks are 3/4 damage compared to Ice Spike .So Ice spike , not that great.
Eruption takes long until it explodes and the raw damage isn’t that great.And the bleeds are slow.Same goes for Shockwave.
The damage doesn’t improve at all if you change atunements.
Those Fire autoatacks are pretty strong , and keeps your might stacks up too.

NightyNight.1823:

In the time you cast Ice spike you cast 2 auto atacks in fire.And you don’t have a cooldown.And fire auto atacks are 3/4 damage compared to Ice Spike .So Ice spike , not that great.

The casting time is similar to fireball and you can switch on to the next element while casting it. Also, the cooldown is irrelevant because you’ll be moving on to the next attribute and thus the next spell. Finally, the vulnerability will increase both your own and your team’s damage by a bit. So the total damage due due to Ice Spike will be quite a bit higher than fireball.

Eruption takes long until it explodes and the raw damage isn’t that great.And the bleeds are slow.Same goes for Shockwave.

The time they take doesn’t matter much for any fight that lasts longer than 10 seconds. The finisher effect however, does if you cast Lava Font after it again and buff up a teammate with might.

Those Fire autoatacks are pretty strong , and keeps your might stacks up too.

So does Sigil of Battle when you swap attunements often enough.

The key to the whole thing is not to linger in any attunement for any length of time, but to cast the most powerful spell(s) and move on.

Why would you NOT rely on the other attunement spells
while your main fire spells are on CD.

By the way, its WITH not “whit” in your grammar.

The casting time is similar to fireball and you can switch on to the next element while casting it. Also, the cooldown is irrelevant because you’ll be moving on to the next attribute and thus the next spell. Finally, the vulnerability will increase both your own and your team’s damage by a bit. So the total damage due due to Ice Spike will be quite a bit higher than fireball.

The cast time of Fire auto atack and Ice spike is exacly 1s for both.But ice spikes takes another 1 second to drop.So you can cast 2 auto atacks in that time.Dealing a great deal more damage considering that Fire auto atack is 3/4 damage of ice spike.The 5stacks of vulnerability is not even worth considering but if so , you gain much more damage building might.
Earth main damage is by bleeds so not worth switching to it aswell.Because bleeds are damage over time .In the time it takes to burn the 6 stacks of bleeds over a period of 15 seconds for 4k damage you can do 15 auto atacks 3k each whit fire.
Earth only goes whit condition builds and power builds deal way more damage .

The time they take doesn’t matter much for any fight that lasts longer than 10 seconds. The finisher effect however, does if you cast Lava Font after it again and buff up a teammate with might.

The faster you cast the more damage you do whats that hard to understand.

So does Sigil of Battle when you swap attunements often enough.

Or gain even more might from sigil of strenght and fire trait line.

Why would you NOT rely on the other attunement spells
while your main fire spells are on CD.

Because spamming fire auto atack deals more damage than any other spell in other atunements while also building might.

The cast time of Fire auto atack and Ice spike is exacly 1s for both.But ice spikes takes another 1 second to drop.So you can cast 2 auto atacks in that time.Dealing a great deal more damage considering that Fire auto atack is 3/4 damage of ice spike.The 5stacks of vulnerability is not even worth considering but if so , you gain much more damage building might.

The problem with your logic here is why the hell are you waiting for it to drop before moving on? I use my one second cast, during that cast, i switch to air or earth and as soon as that 1 second cast ends, I start casting my next ability. Also, 5 stacks of vulnerability isn’t exactly useless, its a 5% dps increase for the entire party, which is quite significant if you ask me.

Earth main damage is by bleeds so not worth switching to it aswell.Because bleeds are damage over time .In the time it takes to burn the 6 stacks of bleeds over a period of 15 seconds for 4k damage you can do 15 auto atacks 3k each whit fire.
Earth only goes whit condition builds and power builds deal way more damage .

Random note: according to the wiki, fireball has a 1.4 second casting time, or 1 attack per 1.4 seconds with 314 damage. Assuming eruption has a 2 second cast time, its still doing 462 damage + bleeds however paltry that may be, its still damage, (3060 without any condition damage to be precise, if you factor in the 30% condition duration from fire 30, you get 3978) it also theoretically gives 3 stacks of might to your team.

The faster you cast the more damage you do whats that hard to understand.

The thing is, your casting higher damage spells in the same time your casting fireball while providing more utility to the entire group.

Or gain even more might from sigil of strenght and fire trait line.

Blast finisher in fire field, cough eruption cough

Because spamming fire auto atack deals more damage than any other spell in other atunements while also building might.

Using other spells not only out damages fireballs, but provides more utility as well.

Jusanden.3897:

The cast time of Fire auto atack and Ice spike is exacly 1s for both.But ice spikes takes another 1 second to drop.So you can cast 2 auto atacks in that time.Dealing a great deal more damage considering that Fire auto atack is 3/4 damage of ice spike.The 5stacks of vulnerability is not even worth considering but if so , you gain much more damage building might.

The problem with your logic here is why the hell are you waiting for it to drop before moving on? I use my one second cast, during that cast, i switch to air or earth and as soon as that 1 second cast ends, I start casting my next ability. Also, 5 stacks of vulnerability isn’t exactly useless, its a 5% dps increase for the entire party, which is quite significant if you ask me.

Earth main damage is by bleeds so not worth switching to it aswell.Because bleeds are damage over time .In the time it takes to burn the 6 stacks of bleeds over a period of 15 seconds for 4k damage you can do 15 auto atacks 3k each whit fire.
Earth only goes whit condition builds and power builds deal way more damage .

Random note: according to the wiki, fireball has a 1.4 second casting time, or 1 attack per 1.4 seconds with 314 damage. Assuming eruption has a 2 second cast time, its still doing 462 damage + bleeds however paltry that may be, its still damage, (3060 without any condition damage to be precise, if you factor in the 30% condition duration from fire 30, you get 3978) it also theoretically gives 3 stacks of might to your team.

The faster you cast the more damage you do whats that hard to understand.

The thing is, your casting higher damage spells in the same time your casting fireball while providing more utility to the entire group.

Or gain even more might from sigil of strenght and fire trait line.

Blast finisher in fire field, cough eruption cough

Because spamming fire auto atack deals more damage than any other spell in other atunements while also building might.

Using other spells not only out damages fireballs, but provides more utility as well.

You and I play completly different classes then.
3k is exacly the damage you do whit normal atacks.How can you possibly do more damage changing to earth!? And channel skills whit 2 times longer cast times.And what utility omg .
Your damage DOES NOT improve if you swap between atunements , go test for yourself .
IF ICE SPIKE DOES 4k , FIRE AUTO ATACK DOES 3K 2 TIMES FASTER !
ERRUPTION DOES LOWER DAMAGE THAN AUTO ATACKS ITSELF ,WHIT A COOLDOWN AND CAST TIME !
And then you’re blocked out of fire, facepalm.
Dude , did you ever put your hands on an elementalist , ever?

you people mention sigil of battle for swapping elements but have you ever consider if u simply use sigil of force or like sigil of air and dont swap so u keep the might stack from fire trait going u might end up doing more dmg?

also if u get 20% cd reduction, lava font has a 4.75 sec CD with a 4 sec duration. if the enemy ur dding is mostly stationary lavafont> all other aoe since not only does it only have a .25 sec cast time, it barely has any downtime. and if the enemy stays in it for 2 ticks it probably does about the same as icespike and eruption.

also, in full gc build attunement swap takes… a long time. if u could simply swap to for 1 ice spike and 1 eruption and back to fire it might be worth it, but u cant. once u swap out ur forced out for over 10 sec. u got to consider the amount of dps ur losing over that entire period considering both ice spike and eruption has a cd gap and their auto atks are crap. u guys provide arguments without looking at the side effects fully.

First of all: take a chill pill. Second of all, you’re repeating stuff you’ve already said. 3k twice as fast is false due to the fact that you should NOT be standing around doing nothing for the timeit takes for the ice spike to fall. Cast a frozen ground, cast a healing rain, switch attunements or w/e. As I have stated, have you taken the bleeds into account? In a dungeon, your kinda hard pressed to run into 19+ stacks of bleed even with a condition spec on the team. Its an additional 4k ish damage assuming absolutley no condition damage. Thats the causes eruption to be around the equivelent of 2 fireballs, with a lower cast time. It’s also a blast finisher giving might. And I’m using wiki data which i think assumes base power only thats why the numbers are low.
What utility? Let me start listing everything you can’t get with fire only:
Area might
aoe swiftness
knockback
aoe stun
aoe blind
the only lightning field in the game
aoe regen
aoe condition removal
aoe chill
aoe vunerability
aoe heal
Water fields
a good spammy blast finisher
perma weakness
aoe cripple
projectile reflection
aoe immobilize
aoe protection
aoe frost armor

Seriously, even if there was a dps gain by staying in fire, you would be increasing everyone’s damage by switching.

If staying in fire 100% of the time fits your style then feel free. I do suggest you pick up the fire cooldown reduction though, to make up for losing the cooldowns in your other atunements.

Swaping attunements takes time ,a LOT of time.
No I’m not taking bleeds into account , at all. Already said why.
And here I’m talking about a DPS build and he comes at me whit support arguments .You do realise you can’t do damage while you’re supporting, do you?

NightyNight.1823:

Swaping attunements takes time ,a LOT of time.

Agreed. My main point wasn’t to show you that you cannot deal dps as fire. My main point was to show that you could deal just about equal dps and still cycle through your other abilities too.

No I’m not taking bleeds into account , at all. Already said why.

But you should, because it’s still added damage. Unless you got a team that exceeds 25 stacks of course. Then you’d be right.

You do realise you can’t do damage while you’re supporting, do you?

Disagree strongly with this statement. If through support, I cast vulnerability on a target, or might on my allies, the extra damage is a result of my abilities. So while they may not show up on my damage monitor, it’s still damage caused because of me.

EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to add one thing…swapping attunements gives you 2-3 seconds of Fury each time you switch. If you swap quickly enough after casting Meteor Shower, it can easily get +20% critical chance through its entire duration.

The simple fact is, even if swapping attunements wastes time and lowers dps, which I disagree, it adds a ton of utility and more importantly for a gc build, survivabilty. If your dead, your dps is worse then 0, someone has to come and revive you after all.

Considering most fights have multiple targets, as a glass cannon
staff ele, I can assure you I do more damage with Chain Lightning.
Dont beleive it? Look at the damage with CL as a GC ele over 2-3 targets.

If I was forced to not change attunements (which I never would), I would
be spamming that all day.

NightyNight.1823:

You do realise you can’t do damage while you’re supporting, do you?

- Vapor Blade
- Cone of Cold
- Frozen Burst
- Earthquake

- Powerful Aura/Zephyr’s Boon/Fire’s Embrace + Any signet/Frost Aura/Shocking Aura

I would imagine having 4 people with fury will have higher dps than 1 person staying in one attunement.

Agreed. My main point wasn’t to show you that you cannot deal dps as fire. My main point was to show that you could deal just about equal dps and still cycle through your other abilities too.

No its not , not just about.Thats what you people are missing.Your DPS is mugh higher in Fire.Changing atunements decreases that DPS by a lot.Specialy if you’re build around power crit builds.

Recycle.5493:

NightyNight.1823:

You do realise you can’t do damage while you’re supporting, do you?

- Vapor Blade
- Cone of Cold
- Frozen Burst
- Earthquake

- Powerful Aura/Zephyr’s Boon/Fire’s Embrace + Any signet/Frost Aura/Shocking Aura

I would imagine having 4 people with fury will have higher dps than 1 person staying in one attunement.

Those are bad DPS skills.

Disagree strongly with this statement. If through support, I cast vulnerability on a target, or might on my allies, the extra damage is a result of my abilities. So while they may not show up on my damage monitor, it’s still damage caused because of me.

The ammount of vulnerability and might you’re giving are close to insignificant compared to the ammount of damage you can ditch on your own and the time you’ve wasted changing atunements.

NightyNight.1823:

Recycle.5493:

NightyNight.1823:

You do realise you can’t do damage while you’re supporting, do you?

- Vapor Blade
- Cone of Cold
- Frozen Burst
- Earthquake

- Powerful Aura/Zephyr’s Boon/Fire’s Embrace + Any signet/Frost Aura/Shocking Aura

I would imagine having 4 people with fury will have higher dps than 1 person staying in one attunement.

Those are bad DPS skills.

Oh, did you say “You do realise you can’t do MASSIVE damage while you’re supporting, do you?”

I thought I see “You do realise you can’t do damage while you’re supporting, do you?”

And do you really think you alone, can out damage the benefit of your 4 party members having fury buff?

Do you really think “The DPS” in holy trinity would work in GW2 and you don’t have to do any supporting? All you’re doing is slowing your group down.

BUT, if you’re a solo’er, sure, do whatever you want, if killing newbs in WvW is the thing for you, or you feel accomplished at killing mobs in 2 seconds.

There is far too much bickering in this post. If the OP finds staying in fire the whole time fits his style then why say more. I personally dps in water-atune 100% of the time and still out dps atune-dancers.
Just because someone doesn’t wish to atune-dance doesn’t mean that it is inferior. Staying in fire surely has its benifits, utilizing them over other atunements is his personal choice.

Recycle.5493:

NightyNight.1823:

Recycle.5493:

NightyNight.1823:

You do realise you can’t do damage while you’re supporting, do you?

- Vapor Blade
- Cone of Cold
- Frozen Burst
- Earthquake

- Powerful Aura/Zephyr’s Boon/Fire’s Embrace + Any signet/Frost Aura/Shocking Aura

I would imagine having 4 people with fury will have higher dps than 1 person staying in one attunement.

Those are bad DPS skills.

Oh, did you say “You do realise you can’t do MASSIVE damage while you’re supporting, do you?”

I thought I see “You do realise you can’t do damage while you’re supporting, do you?”

And do you really think you alone, can out damage the benefit of your 4 party members having fury buff?

Do you really think “The DPS” in holy trinity would work in GW2 and you don’t have to do any supporting? All you’re doing is slowing your group down.

BUT, if you’re a solo’er, sure, do whatever you want, if killing newbs in WvW is the thing for you, or you feel accomplished at killing mobs in 2 seconds.

Those numbers are so insignificant is pathetic . To even mention them for the ammount of damage you’re loosing by wasting your time using such useless and unnecesary utilities is ridiculous.
And every proffesion is perfecly sustainable on thier own whitout your support and your buffs.Theres a reason no one takes elementalists for fast runs .Too many idiots in support builds.
These are the last words I’m adressing to you .You’re obviously just a troll crying for attention.

Interesting debate. I believe that staying in one attunement (e.g., fire) provides less partywide damage than attunement switching. However, it would be interesting to test the hypothesis that attunement switching provides greater personal direct damage over a fixed period of time than staying in fire. For this specific case, I think fire (particularly for S/D or D/D) could do better. However, this ignores the effects of damage buffs provided for other party members as well as condition damage.

Zaviel.1245:

There is far too much bickering in this post. If the OP finds staying in fire the whole time fits his style then why say more. I personally dps in water-atune 100% of the time and still out dps atune-dancers.
Just because someone doesn’t wish to atune-dance doesn’t mean that it is inferior. Staying in fire surely has its benifits, utilizing them over other atunements is his personal choice.

Its not that its my style , I don’t even like fire at all but I’m defending a good DPS build.

Next time you watch any other class, see how often they switch weapons.

Now you try to switch weapons

Oh wait…you can’t?? Huh…oh thats right thats what ATTUNEMENTS are for.

If you have quick fingers, and as an Ele you have to, you should be out DPS’ing non-stance dancers as a stance dancer. You inflict more conditions, gain more buffs, and have access to stronger abilities

Take a stance dance build for instance. You use the Sigil of Superior Battle. 30 in arcana for the reduced cooldown, increase boon duration. You have at least 25 in water for the 2% more damage/boon trait.

Now if your stance dancing, your gaining the boon from Elemental Attunement. Your getting the Might. Your getting the fury. If you apply an aura, 2 more. do a couple abilities, switch.

When someone says “go burst” with an Ele, they dont mean cast all fire attacks and sit there and auto attack.

In a matter of 10 seconds with D/D, you should be going Air: Shocking Aura -> Ride the Lightning -> Updraft (only if ur sure it’ll hit) -> Fire -> Burning Speed -> Ring of Fire -> Drake’s Breath -> Fire Grasp -> Earth -> Magnetic Grasp -> Earthquake -> Churning Earth. Try to match that with staying in fire…

If your talking PvE and NOT in staff, you should be. AoE after AoE after AoE increases the damage in that area, and on top of that, adding combo fields/whatever to your team.

If your not helping the group, your not in a group. Its as simple as that.

Edit: and for someone who doesnt even LIKE fire, you sure are bashing those who bash it ^.^

And he’s not trolling. He’s right. IT IS small damage, but damage is damage

One thing I’ve learned from playing MMO’s is that you have to either adjust your playstyle when picking a class or accept the reaction people have to the class.

Just a summary of what I think should be noted:

People who are suggesting attunement swapping aren’t doing it for autos, they’re doing it to access the skills. You don’t try and compare the autos because the base reason for attunement swapping is to take advantage of all the spells you have at your disposal. No, you won’t be doing a lot of damage yourself- but you will allow the team to do more damage than you can alone. It’s a topic of perspective. Overall, you can achieve equal/higher damage, it just won’t be on your end- likewise, you’ll actually fill up two roles instead of one, making yourself way more appealing and valuable to a team.

This is just how I perceive it though, and it makes life much easier as an elementalist. Plus, attunement swapping is pretty fun for me- adds a lot of challenge.

In a matter of 10 seconds with D/D, you should be going Air: Shocking Aura ? Ride the Lightning ? Updraft (only if ur sure it’ll hit) ? Fire ? Burning Speed ? Ring of Fire ? Drake’s Breath ? Fire Grasp ? Earth ? Magnetic Grasp ? Earthquake ? Churning Earth. Try to match that with staying in fire…

Well go time that and come back and say 10 s again.

The only thing that isnt 10 s is the Churning Earth casting time. And I’ve timed it. 10 seconds if u remove the Drake’s Breath, as its only required if they aren’t burnt.

Practice Practice Practice. And hotkeys

DXIEdge.2789:

The only thing that isnt 10 s is the Churning Earth casting time. And I’ve timed it. 10 seconds if u remove the Drake’s Breath, as its only required if they aren’t burnt.

Practice Practice Practice. And hotkeys

LIES, I have network lag and was only able to do it within 13 seconds with Ring of Earth as an extra. How will you compensate my MASSIVE damage lost in those short 2 seconds if I do it without RoE?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEECFJQeSJ0

ThatOneArtistGamer.2914:

One thing I’ve learned from playing MMO’s is that you have to either adjust your playstyle when picking a class or accept the reaction people have to the class.

Just a summary of what I think should be noted:

People who are suggesting attunement swapping aren’t doing it for autos, they’re doing it to access the skills. You don’t try and compare the autos because the base reason for attunement swapping is to take advantage of all the spells you have at your disposal. No, you won’t be doing a lot of damage yourself- but you will allow the team to do more damage than you can alone. It’s a topic of perspective. Overall, you can achieve equal/higher damage, it just won’t be on your end- likewise, you’ll actually fill up two roles instead of one, making yourself way more appealing and valuable to a team.

This is just how I perceive it though, and it makes life much easier as an elementalist. Plus, attunement swapping is pretty fun for me- adds a lot of challenge.

Different attunements are build for different builds.Swaping to something you’re not build for is not as effective.The only advantage you’d get from other skills is mechanicaly.Which they are not required if you’re build around, lets say, DPS speficicaly.
Party wide buffs .25 stacks of vulnerability is often achieveable whitout even trying.Not sure exacly how much vulnerability you can maintain on your own but I’ve seen up to 10 stacks only by autoatacking whit the 25 points in air tree line .And its probaly more since I never payed much attention.Might and fury is what any proffesion has acces to and maintain on their own.So they don’t need you to to buff them.

DXIEdge.@ Well , firstly , its not 10 s.But thats no important.Thats a combo for PvP and we’re not even talking about that.We’re on about damage potential and changing atunements doesn’t improve DPS.So whats your point.What burst.
And the only combo fields are in fire whit D/D.
And you are helping your team by providing top DPS.
So you guys tell me what party wise buffs you are even talking about and this build opposed to what is not as effective.

“Best DPS to what?” A solo target standing there doing nothing? You say you
are interested in hearing other opinions but refuse to take a second look at
what your saying.

At least in WvW, staying in fire and autoattacking contributes zero to
large scale battles. Its rediculous not to use all of the other AOE and control
abilities. Saying that “auto attacking with fire” offers the best single target
DPS means absolutely nothing in contributing to mid to large size battles.

At least preface your argument by saying “versus single targets I can do the most
by …..” but dont take a strong stand on speaking in general use (WvW).

Thunderbrew.7034:

“Best DPS to what?” A solo target standing there doing nothing? You say you
are interested in hearing other opinions but refuse to take a second look at
what your saying.

At least in WvW, staying in fire and autoattacking contributes zero to
large scale battles. Its rediculous not to use all of the other AOE and control
abilities. Saying that “auto attacking with fire” offers the best single target
DPS means absolutely nothing in contributing to mid to large size battles.

At least preface your argument by saying “versus single targets I can do the most
by …..” but dont take a strong stand on speaking in general use (WvW).

Hey genius , did you read my opening post? We’re not talking about PvP.It should be pretty clear by now from the arguments brought up so far what we’re reffering to.If you want me to make it anymore obvious than it already is , sure.Dungeons ,happy?

Genius? Not really, but I have a better command of the English language
it seems.

Maybe Im wrong about it. If people find damage results on target dummies or solo
trash mobs useful, Ive done allot of tests on that as a GC ele and Ill post some numbers up.

Thunderbrew.7034:

“Best DPS to what?” A solo target standing there doing nothing?

The few things I could think for this kind of build to be effective are bosses like Kasha Blackblood who stands there and does around… well nothing. Other than a few of those bosses, there aren’t any mobs that are safe for anyone to do “only dps.” Throw in a few trash mobs and this build will lay flat on the floor in no time.

And OP isn’t even posting his ideal build yet, I would really like to see how utility skills would come into play with this glass cannon build.

@NightyNight

If you’re JUST looking at buffs alone, you’ll only get a very thin clue of what potential you have as a mage. CC and healing are major elements to a mage, they’re a major archetype to the character. A master of elements will only be limited by that which he/she restricts himself/herself to, it’s that simple. There are insanely effective, multi-attunement builds out there- you’re just lacking in some area or another (gear, playstyle, mentality) when it comes to a hybrid build.

People simply want more supportive builds and aren’t looking for a “numbers” kind of mage when it comes to damage. If you can keep people alive, you are contributing to DPS, you are sustaining the party- which is good. We have tools that restrict movement/knock down/slow, which is invaluable in certain fights and can make kiting much easier in more enclosed environments. It’s just more appealing.

From a party leader perspective, I would rather have someone who is frail, but can majorly support the party with a wide variety of tools, than someone who is actually MORE frail due to the lack of attunements that wants to simply inflict damage. There are much bulkier, much stronger classes for that. And you’d be surprised how little a difference in damage it is if you simply swap effectively and use your skills correctly.

If you stay in fire, you completely abandon the healing of your water spells, the utility of earth, and the manipulation of air spells. With equal gearsets, an attunement build is simply much more dependable, in MANY other situations. That’s just how it is. I understand that you don’t like swapping, I didn’t either when I first started, but it’s really not that hard to do.

Here, something that I use that might help you. Try binding your attunement swap keys to combinations- it’s weird I know, but give it a shot. For example, you can bind F1-F4 to Shift + Whatever key of your liking, since it’s so close to your left pinky- you can access it very quickly. In fact, I bind my first four skills outside of my auto to shift and combination keys, and that tiny bit of space saving helps. It’s very unorthodox, but it really matters to me as a player.

Thunderbrew.7034:

Genius? Not really, but I have a better command of the English language
it seems.

Who cares about PvE. Give some insight into actual WvW and PvP which
is more skill based than a trash mob standing there taking your auto attacks.

Yes, I got it.You’re a very inteligent person , you speak good english and all that.
This is obviously below you to even consider PvE even in a PvE topic.
Have a wonderful day .
I asume you’re not going to post here anymore.

Why would I? Your the one starting off name calling.

Spend your attention on what ThatOneArtist is saying, as
opposed to attacking people who have a different opinion than
you.

ThatOneArtistGamer.2914:

@NightyNight

If you’re JUST looking at buffs alone, you’ll only get a very thin clue of what potential you have as a mage. CC and healing are major elements to a mage, they’re a major archetype to the character. A master of elements will only be limited by that which he/she restricts himself/herself to, it’s that simple. There are insanely effective, multi-attunement builds out there- you’re just lacking in some area or another (gear, playstyle, mentality) when it comes to a hybrid build.

People simply want more supportive builds and aren’t looking for a “numbers” kind of mage when it comes to damage. If you can keep people alive, you are contributing to DPS, you are sustaining the party- which is good. We have tools that restrict movement/knock down/slow, which is invaluable in certain fights and can make kiting much easier in more enclosed environments. It’s just more appealing.

From a party leader perspective, I would rather have someone who is frail, but can majorly support the party with a wide variety of tools, than someone who is actually MORE frail due to the lack of attunements that wants to simply inflict damage. There are much bulkier, much stronger classes for that. And you’d be surprised how little a difference in damage it is if you simply swap effectively and use your skills correctly.

If you stay in fire, you completely abandon the healing of your water spells, the utility of earth, and the manipulation of air spells. With equal gearsets, an attunement build is simply much more dependable, in MANY other situations. That’s just how it is. I understand that you don’t like swapping, I didn’t either when I first started, but it’s really not that hard to do.

Here, something that I use that might help you. Try binding your attunement swap keys to combinations- it’s weird I know, but give it a shot. For example, you can bind F1-F4 to Shift + Whatever key of your liking, since it’s so close to your left pinky- you can access it very quickly. In fact, I bind my first four skills outside of my auto to shift and combination keys, and that tiny bit of space saving helps. It’s very unorthodox, but it really matters to me as a player.

I am not here to get advice on how to play an elementalist lol.Read my opening post.
Certainly have no problems changing between atunements .I am here to argue about the effectiveness of the idea for a pure DPS GC build to swap between atunements to improve DPS.
I play effectively a lot of different classes GC through dungeons and never had to depend on another class to keep me alive and support me.To me, support in dungeons is completly unnecesary.Excluding High level fractals of course which is a higher difficulty cap.

NightyNight.1823:

I’m curious to hear some second thoughts on this.

But then you say you are not here for advice…which is it?

Im not here to criticize, just trying to see what the point of this post is if it isnt
for other peoples thoughts. TheOneArtist is trying to be helpful, not flame you.
Is it advice you are looking for, or confirmation for your build?

I mean, I know NN isn’t looking for a build- he’s arguing the point that his fire mage is effective. But the thing is when people dungeon they don’t consider straight up DPS and nothing else as effective on a mage, they want a jack of all trades and a supporter- at least in my experience they do.

Now, what I would suggest is that the OP get some buddies or a nice guild so the issue will be irrelevant. I play with chums all the time that use sub-par builds, and I’m completely cool with that. It’s all about having fun and playing together that makes the game interesting. Of course, I would probably advise this through a voice service like Teamspeak or Skype or something, since typing while fighting with a mage can get hairy if you aren’t quick at the fingers.

As for what has higher damage? For me, and with my build, I can contribute much more with attunement swapping than simply staying in fire. I’m not just in the class for the damage, I’m in it for the spells.

Scrakevink.7982:

Is it advice you are looking for, or confirmation for your build?

Mind you that there isn’t a build posted by OP in this thread just yet, so not really a confirmation of anything; just OP’s “theorycrafting.”