Guild Wars 2

I got to Legendary using exclusively Marauder Amulet, Staff Tempest with Conjure Earth Shield. Ask me anything.

Congrats! I’ve always been a fan of your shieldsmanship

What are your hardest, and conversely, easiest match ups individual profession wise and “team comp” wise?

how many games?
who/what did you queue with?

reikken.4961:

how many games?
who/what did you queue with?

Alone, solo queue. Diamond took 4 days to climb. I did not count the number of games, under 250 perhaps… But I did not play much between mid December and late December.

ok
what do you do with the shield?

Swiftwynd.1685:

Congrats! I’ve always been a fan of your shieldsmanship

What are your hardest, and conversely, easiest match ups individual profession wise and “team comp” wise?

Bunker Staff Tempest on small point is easy. But, most match-ups are fair, though thieves generally get caught by Earth Shield pull or comboes.

Hard 1v1 is Retribution (stability spamming) zerker Revenant. Viper Revenant are painful too, but possible with the nerfs they got (yes, resistance was affecting a power build: no more chill, cripple, immob, weakness, blind= rip). Mostly, it’s the stability spam that gives trouble like the Reaper shroud 3. Scepter Reapers must not be given any chance, don’t try to 1v1 this one.

For team-match-ups, it’s very favorable when enemy team does not have quickness rezzes since the cleaving level is obscene (if burst is pre-casted).

Nota Bene. I forgot that you can pressure bunker mesmers heavily and kill them unless they go Sentinel amulet.

just one question. Why did you post this both here and in the pvp forums?

reikken.4961:

ok
what do you do with the shield?

Use it while Overloading, it means you have can Fortify after air overloading near the enemies. It also secure an auto-attack chain dealing the highest dps (it’s bigger than Lightning Hammer with 2225 power due to attack speed and base values) while waiting for overloads. The delay before overloading becomes filled with better cooldowns other than just mediocre auto-attacks.

There is also a few sets of wtf bursts comboes. Hint: the first tick of damage from Earth Overload is absolute instant and can used for stability + protection. Another hint, the Fire Overload first tick takes about less than 0.2 seconds.

Shadowflare.2759:

just one question. Why did you post this both here and in the pvp forums?

They are relevant to both forums. Elementalist is to explain build in detail; PvP is to talk about build “viability”.

With your title, it just seems more about advertisement than anything, I would have just made a guide explanation for the ele forum and have it titled as such. But whatever floats your boat. I went against you. you hurt a lot. Congrats, I guess?

Shadowflare.2759:

With your title, it just seems more about advertisement than anything, I would have just made a guide explanation for the ele forum and have it titled as such. But whatever floats your boat. I went against you. you hurt a lot. Congrats, I guess?

Nothing is wrong with that, I hope.

Love staff eles. Do you happen to have video of your matches?

What build did you use?
I struggle to much with pressure on a marauder amulet. How did you survive pressure?

Alekt.5803:

They are relevant to both forums. Elementalist is to explain build in detail; PvP is to talk about build “viability”.

Is Arcane Shield a flex utility spot or required for the build and playstyle? I may try this, but I’d go conservative and keep using Lightning Flash there at first.

Alekt, I’d like staff to have a better option for 1v1 potential and therefore I think since you should share some of your ideas on how to improve this weapon with us. I had a lot of fun playing a staff marauder build on duel servers, probably one of the more interesting weapons to duel on a tempest with actually since the tempest playstyle when considering overloads seems to synergies with staff oh so well, unfortunately I ran into some popular builds which put the staff weapon to shame due to its clunky nature. If elementalist sustain is taking a dive I’m afraid a staff marauder build is going to fall deeper into the pit of builds to play for fun and not for relevance.

Which staff skills do you find lack luster and think should be improved upon and why?

HiggsBoson.1976:

Alekt.5803:

They are relevant to both forums. Elementalist is to explain build in detail; PvP is to talk about build “viability”.

Is Arcane Shield a flex utility spot or required for the build and playstyle? I may try this, but I’d go conservative and keep using Lightning Flash there at first.

I would say its probably quite needed since staff marauder is quite squishy before you build up your protection with an earth overload. Earth overloading in front of a condi reaper can be certain death, that shield could be a life saver.

Mark.1679:

What build did you use?
I struggle to much with pressure on a marauder amulet. How did you survive pressure?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XC9XiFRA+MA8RglHAzdyeZ/sCBgDQLkYIEE2BA-TJRBABR8AAua/BAuAAxXGAA

Conjure Earth Shield is the secret. You can swap attunement when using conjure without worrying about dealing with new skills, it means you can recharge overloads with a good skill set, and even have a chance to recharge those cooldown due to the 4 sec channel of overloads (2x FGS spin for instance)

HiggsBoson.1976:

Alekt.5803:

They are relevant to both forums. Elementalist is to explain build in detail; PvP is to talk about build “viability”.

Is Arcane Shield a flex utility spot or required for the build and playstyle? I may try this, but I’d go conservative and keep using Lightning Flash there at first.

Grimreaper answered it pretty much. At first, I thought it was a flexible spot, then I thought no. I am not a fan of lighting flash, that’s a personnal thing. I tried armor of earth, but it gets stripped, corrupted, or stolen. Arcane shield protects from many good things and can add some burst damage at the same time. And it’s pretty useful against hammer revenants, dragon hunters, big hitters.

Ha! congrats! I remember you helped me with my build I posted weeks ago that is very similar ! Glad you succeed with it, I had lots of fun with it but kinda surrendered to the trends and the last days been playing the normal DS tempest. I am kinda glad they nerfed DS so I can get out of earth elem, will go back to this or give a change to this new build I came with that seems as effective.

Lightning rod build (for reference):
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/True-Tempest/first#post5871280

Grimreaper.5370:

Alekt, I’d like staff to have a better option for 1v1 potential and therefore I think since you should share some of your ideas on how to improve this weapon with us. I had a lot of fun playing a staff marauder build on duel servers, probably one of the more interesting weapons to duel on a tempest with actually since the tempest playstyle when considering overloads seems to synergies with staff oh so well, unfortunately I ran into some popular builds which put the staff weapon to shame due to its clunky nature. If elementalist sustain is taking a dive I’m afraid a staff marauder build is going to fall deeper into the pit of builds to play for fun and not for relevance.

Which staff skills do you find lack luster and think should be improved upon and why?

I find every auto attack except the air one lack-luster: they simply never hit at range, again except air. Even on air, I fail to understand why this attack is a projectile.

Shockwave is very lackluster. The cooldown, the power ratios, and the accuracy are completely off. Moreover, 1 bleeding stack over 20 seconds (same for evasive arcana) is an artifact that should be put out: it only inflates perceived numbers (wow! 2k bleeding damage?! Hell no).

Magnetic Aura used to be in that list before auras were better supported by traits. Focus 4 was just better in every ways, deals dmg, blast finisher, reflect, lower cooldown, best condi clear on ele. When I read Focus QoL changes in the balance patch, I just can’t see how they can add more QoL to this broken weapon.

Gust is a joke. It deals no damage, needs to be casted only in melee to hit, and can be jumped over to avoid CC (press jump key at the right moment). If the target is moving to sides, it will never hit.

Healing Rain’s long cast time killed me many times against condition reapers because I would be interrupted all the time. The 45 sec cooldown is odd.

Fire attunement is unrealiable to deal dmg. Lava Font first tick could be immediate, but I hear that is was the case in beta of gw2, but was changed (because it was too strong).

The whole fire trait line is garbage for marauder staff. Nearly every trait points needs you to be on fire attunement to do anything: extra damage on burn, cooldown reduction of fire skill + dmg increase when on fire attunement, blind on burn (but you need fire attunement to burn usually), might when casting on fire attunement, longer fire fields.

How do you actually do your damage? Overloads and earth shield auto?

Also…

It also secure an auto-attack chain dealing the highest dps (it’s bigger than Lightning Hammer with 2225 power due to attack speed and base values)

What do you mean by this? Last I checked, shield’s full chain is actually slightly slower than hammer’s. and then of course each hit is weaker, bleed aside

reikken.4961:

How do you actually do your damage? Overloads and earth shield auto?

Also…

It also secure an auto-attack chain dealing the highest dps (it’s bigger than Lightning Hammer with 2225 power due to attack speed and base values)

What do you mean by this? Last I checked, shield’s full chain is actually slightly slower than hammer’s. and then of course each hit is weaker, bleed aside

Tooltip on lightning hammer read 1/2 sec x3 for 1 1/2 sec full cast. But, with aftercast, it takes 2.82 seconds to complete the full chain. Earth Shield takes approximatively 2.20 seconds. Now, considering attack speed, base damage and ratios, you have a higher dps with 2225 power (marauder + 175 power rune) (without counting bleed stacks).

You deal damage with Lightning Rod, overloads, staff skills, earth shield and FGS.