Guild Wars 2

I have played staff with my elementalist since lvl 70… I love it… I chose staff because the skills emulate and expand upon the build I used in GW1… I think the ele staff is the best designed weapon in the game… It’s a swiss army knife… giving all capabilities one could hope for.

The trouble with ele in this game is that we begin with the lowest stat potential…. being light class we have the lowest armor… and we also have the lowest starting HP… a glass canon ele is a truly vulnerable creature lol…. Most people then sacrifice damage potential to bolster survivability…. giving staff ele the reputation of a support class….

I set about to create a damage/support hybrid build for staff ele… to prove its destructive yet loving power… and came up with a truly elegant solution… The secret of the build was to spec offensively in gear… then pick up support and survivability from traits. Heres what i came up with:

Fire – 6: Spell Singer – Internal Fire – Pyromancers Puissance
Water – 4: Cantrip Mastery – Soothing Disruption
Arcana – 4: Renewing Stamina – Elemental Attunement

Armor: Berserker – Divinity Runes
Staff: Berserker – Sigil of Accuracy – Sigil of Strength
Back: Berserker
Amulet: Soldier
Ring: Berserker
Accessory: Rampager

This build was desiged to be executed at full asceneded level to reach max stats (These are approximate):

Power: 2300
Crit Chance: 48%
Crit Dmg: 200%
Cond Dmg: 200

Armor: 2000
Health:15,500
Healing Power: 250

These stats represent the starting point… and were all magically amplified through use of my skill rotation… Glyph of Elemental Harmony- Armor of Earth – Cleansing Fire – Essential (other slots filled to choice)…. The offense was amplified by generating might… the defense and support coming largely from cantrips and elemental attunement… here is the rotation.

(Armor of Earth – Cleansing Fire) – Eruption – Lava Font (same location) – Flame Burst – Metor Shower(alternate)- Frozen Ground (alternate) – Ice Spike – Static Field (alternate) – Lightning Surge – Shockwave (alternate) – Eruption……. and on……

This rotation cycles through the attunements allowing Ele to unload the most powerful skills one after another without waiting… interspersed with judicial CC and healing…. With this rotation… The Ele can generate 20-25 stack might and maintain it…. during combat… the Ele benefits from permanent speed… vigor…. regen… protection… and fury on all major hits….. The Ele also passes about 60% of this to the group passively.. simply by continuing the skill rotation…. and unloading Cantrips when available… well this is how it was before the patch…..

By removing protection from Sooting Distruption…. A Net has stripped away the defensive capabilities of this build… which were essential to survivability… Armor was kept low… to keep the agro down… allowing a wonderful tactical gameplay… but oc you can never fully avoid physical combat… and though discouraged… stacking is a real part of the game we all play… Having near permanent protection was not overpowered on this build… it kept the damage managable… esp in high level content and WvW… since the protection has been taken away… Too much time is now spent negating damage… and ultimately has spoiled the gameplay that this build offered…

Please understand… I’m not just making a case for my own build or idea… I think this problem is universal for Ele… I shared the specifics so you can see how this effected me… and to know that this request is made thoughtfully… by someone who is trying to think outside the box and create new builds…

Basically… Ele… esp staff Ele… needs more protection…. not less… we r a vulnerable class and already seem to have a miserly access to boons compared to other classes… Staff Ele has no skills that grant Protection… permanent Vigor is already available with only 2 points investment in Arcana… adding it to Soothing Disruption is redundant… Soothing disruption requires a 4 point investment in Water… a heavy price – and all u gain is regen from cantrips… most ele builds ive seen have points in Arcana…

If A Net didn’t want protection… how about something like retaliation? The replacement of protection with Vigor is useless…. considering how easy it is to get otherwise… I think if we dont have more magical ways to defend ourselves then staff ele will always remain a second class

Please find new ways to give Protection to Staff Ele… Magnetic Aura(?)… and It really would not be too much to add protection back to Soothing Disruption… and leave Vigor there as well… if its important…. for now I’m stepping back from my ele main ;’( and will focus on other classes for a while… I really hope that this request is heard… and that an upcoming update – brings protection back <3

We get plenty of protection if traited for it. You need to invest in earth. Change a sigil to restoration.

Why are you complaining about living when you are running almost no condi damage with a rampager’s accessory. Within a few seconds of reading this I can tell you are clueless at how to play staff ele because you have no blasting staff and no evasive arcana on a staff build. Also you’re running almost straight zerk with not many defensive traits (besides the 4 in water) and complaining about being a glass cannon, you might want to start with a heal skill that isn’t trash to start and then after that open your eyes and notice perma prot is easy if you have earth’s embrace with the armor or earth on your bar and elemental attunement. All I’ve got to say is is it’s a player issue because you obviously made it up yourself and quite frankly your build is trash. I could go on about how badly the min/max on your staff sigils are but I think you get the point. You also have 2k armor and are expecting to live through straight prot up-time, which is possible if you know how to blast frost fields, but hoenstly its mroe like you need to re-work your gear because like I’ve said 100000 times in this (it seems) you are expecting to live on a glass build and obviously don’t know how to blast waters and such and the player skill isn’t there for running a zerk build. It’s not the class that is weak, it’s you. and it kittenes me off every time I see a post like this and its really just another bad elementalist wanting the easy way out. Welcome to the highest skill cap class in the game. You can get perma prot but first you need to stop running bad traits and get gear someone at your skill level can handle.

The problem is only universal for bads, don’t imply everyone has your problems.

Excuse me, but unless there was a bug in the trait I never knew about, when did Soothing Disruption ever give protection? IIRC, it was always vigor and regeneration. The only time you ever got protection from a cantrip was when you used Armor of Earth. Also, your overuse of the period is annoying. It makes me think you’re really depressed. If so, you should take a break from gaming and go outside and get some sun.

yeah.. so I’ve tried staff elementalist and will most likely try it again but just for comparison sake; here are the stats of my zerker staff necromancer in pvp:
3200-5000 power (lich form -> 30 sec. and might stacking up to 15 thanks to one trait)
100% crit chance (90% of the time due to one other trait)
200% crit damage.
2400 armor (90% of the time thanks to another trait).
close to 40k hp thanks to Death shroud and life force generating abilities.

Result: I kill 3-5 in the 30 seconds of lich form without having to stomp. and can kill around 2-3 in death shroud in that amount of time with just pure raw damage.

DPS for each form and normal form:
3k dps in normal form at close range, a third of that at long range.
2.5-5k dps at long range while in death shroud.
4-10k dps while in lich form.

All dependent on what the opponent does and how much armor they have. Normally I down people in 2-3 hits in lich form and 5-8 hits in death shroud form. When taking minions and daggers full zerker it takes maybe a second or two to down the lower armor guys which works quite well with the dagger immobilize.

I’m interested in your build if you can get even halfway to those results since I like elementalist the most of all professions.

Why did you post this twice instead of continuing the discussion you started in your thread literally one day ago? https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Please-Give-Protection-Back-To-Eles

You’re building glass-zerker, using Glyph of Harmony, and you don’t have Blasting Staff. All in all I have no clue what you’re doing with your build. It’s obvious you want to be glass cannon, but you’re complaining about being squishy because you’re glass cannon. If you want more survivability… why not just build a bit tankier? Honestly if you’re having a lot of trouble with surviving as a staff Ele, you’re going to have to look at your build or your playstyle, because protection isn’t going to save you from everything.