Guild Wars 2

I’ve copied this from the guildwars website, but what am I missing… I know of not one Elemental skill that inflicts massive damage in a single attack.

“Elementalist

Elementalists are multi-faceted spellcasters that channel elemental forces, making fire, air, earth, and water do their bidding. What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack."

Can someone point me in the right direction, my ele full beserk doesn’t touch the damage other proffessions are capable of doing.

S/d fresh air. Sure its not 1 button press, but you can do it just as quickly as a normal attack, and it is massive dmg. Churning earth and fire grab are also massive dmg

When I was playing around with my d/d ele and put on condi gear my churning earth did 14,000 damage in bleeds alone lol. Also signet of fire can do 17,000+ full condi spec.

Eles have a lot of aoe attacks. If you add the damage you do to multiple enemies together, it will obviously be higher than just the single numbers you see. A skill that hits 5 people only needs to deal 3k damage to each to deal 15k total. Dragon’s tooth deals comparable single target damage to backstab or eviscerate except it’s aoe. It’s way easier to avoid, but massive damage is there.

The damage isn’t the problem. Eles are capable of outputting the highest damage in all aspects of the game. It’s the ratio between damage and survivability that could get some tweaking.
It also can be quite hard to actually deal the damage, and in most cases it’s easily avoided. Doesn’t mean it’s not there though, just means you gotta work a bit more for it.
But to give you an example that is often overlooked or underrated:
Drakes breath with a balanced(celestial) build. That kitten wrecks people!

These are the usual number i get from a casual run. Usually around 10-15 of each buff (might, bloodlust, vulnerability, etc).

Fiery Rush against a wall : 175-200k dmg
Fiery Rush without a wall, but still without target : 50k dmg
Fiery Whirl : 10-13K dmg
Ice Bow : 15-20k dmg (about 30k if all shards hit)
Light Hammer auto-attack : 14-18k for the full 3 attack sequence.

Keep in mind that these are number i remember in the moment and that my elementalist is not 100% complete. The actual number should be higher than that.

^ not really a single attack, but here are some average numbers for ele (30/30/10 LH or 30/10… staff build)

fgs rush – ~3k per tick, 70ish ticks?
whirl – ~30k, not amazing dps tbh
icebow – ~6-8k per tick, wiki says 20 ticks so probably less
LH auto – roughly 10k10k15k?

I don’t use LH much though, I normally run staff.

eles have a number of heavy damage single attacks like dragons tooth, fire grab, lightning strike…

and if your full zerk ele (in pve) isn’t beating almost every other class in terms of DPS you’re doing something wrong

Thaddeus.4891:

Fiery Rush against a wall : 175-200k dmg
Ice Bow : 15-20k dmg (about 30k if all shards hit)

If fiery rush does 200k damage (2.9k ticks), ice storm hitting with all shards (it’s actually more than 20, I already had 23 hits on bosses like Lupicus or Howling King) would deal about 180-200k damage aswell. The skill is highly underestimated.

You’re all making valid points but the majority of damage seems to be dependant on conjured weapons and all the skills you’re mentioning I’ll agree have potential to do high damage but for the output you get I don’t feel the return is enough especially when you look at the cooldown on skills and how physically weak we are.

It is wrong in many aspects to compare but the warrior I play isn’t geared out completely yet – he has over 20k hp (my ele has 12-3k) and he hits 5k with every swing of his axe to multiple chars at a rate my ele can’t even compete <— I could be completely wrong but something to me just doesn’t add up I don’t see the damage I see on my other classes it isn’t just specifically the warrior I play just using him as an example.

Well of course you are dependent on Conjure weapons. Its one of the strength of the Elementalist. But trust me the Cooldown you see is nothing. Of course is you play the elementalist badly and stick to one weapon, waiting for the cooldown, then you will have bad dps.

But when i’m attacking a boss (not the same strategy for all of them, but just to give you an idea).

- Attune to fire, fire field, stack 6 might on boss
- Attune to earth, stack 3 more might
- Arcane brillance and Arcane wave for 6 more might
- Attune to water, stack 3 more might
- Drop Ice Bow, use Skill 4 for a burst
- Drop Light Hammer, auto-attack.
- When i have 5 charge left, attune to fire, finish the LH charge
- Fire field, stack 15 might on fire and earth
- Take my second LH on the ground and auto-attack, switch to water ASAP.

You can maintain that rotation for ever, so you never have to wait for any cooldown. And you can add the FGS at strategic moment (usually i can use it 1 to 3 time in a dungeon).

There is also the Staff build, that does more DPS, but i don’t use it enough to remember the dmg per attack.

I think OP is speaking from a PvP/WvW standpoint. Correct me if I am wrong.

Delgan.8619:

You’re all making valid points but the majority of damage seems to be dependant on conjured weapons and all the skills you’re mentioning I’ll agree have potential to do high damage but for the output you get I don’t feel the return is enough especially when you look at the cooldown on skills and how physically weak we are.

It is wrong in many aspects to compare but the warrior I play isn’t geared out completely yet – he has over 20k hp (my ele has 12-3k) and he hits 5k with every swing of his axe to multiple chars at a rate my ele can’t even compete <— I could be completely wrong but something to me just doesn’t add up I don’t see the damage I see on my other classes it isn’t just specifically the warrior I play just using him as an example.

Are we talking PvE or PvP? In PvE Ele’s can do some of the highest sustained damage in the game with Staff (meteor > lava font > fireball spam) and THE highest AoE dps in the game with Frostbow, Fiery Greatsword and Lightning Hammer. Frostbow and LH cooldown is actually the same as their duration (roughly) allowing extremely high uptime. FGS is the only conjure with a long cooldown but it’s because it is so ridiculously strong in corner/wall-zerg situations. With 2 Ele’s in a group you can get 4x FGS and basically 1-shot stuff.

If you’re talking about PvP, then yeah disregard all of the above. The amount of setup & complexity with max-DPS rotations is extremely hard (if not impossible) to pull off in PvP where targets are constantly moving, dodging and destroying you.
But it’s old news that Ele’s are terrible for PvP with the most horrible skill vs reward out of any class…some buffs are on the way but no idea when they’ll arrive.

I’m not sure about the numbers in sPvP, but in PvE and WvW you can land 13k+ fire grabs with a d/d arcane build.

Something like: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEAQJAoYnMISJDWzA+MAfEGAIPaJFUEKsAiiiYmB-zECBYfChEEAkFJMHtIasFXFRjVXDT5CQFbR1kCIilRA-w

I’m pretty sure there’s optimizations you can make to that for the situation (i.e. using ether renewal for condi clear, sigil of intelligence instead and arcane wave instead of arcane power, trait adjustments, &c.), but it’s the same basic idea.

The shard of ice trait makes your arcane skills apply vulnerability (arcane power can apply 15 stacks alone), and arcane lightning boosts your crit damage up by 10%. The main combo is to try and inflict burning and vulnerability on the enemy (i.e. arcane blast and burning speed), use arcane power to cause guaranteed critical hits, use fire grab, and swap to water attunement during the fire grab cast time so it hits them when you’re in water attunement. Since the target has vulnerability, the piercing shards trait causes a +20% damage increase, which allows you to pump out very powerful fire grabs.

It is necessary that you do the attunement swap to get this, and you need to have both vulnerability and burning on the target. It’s really a bit gimmicky, and you will probably not be that successful using this build for roaming in WvW, but there’s a certain pleasure in seeing three targets take over 10k damage each. In PvE and larger group play it can work somewhat well though, although I find ether renewal and mist form/lightning flash to be better choices in WvW instead of arcane brilliance and arcane shield.

all comments appreciated greatly…

but I don’t see this damage, I’ve just done Frac only Lv29 – my zerk warrior is hitting 27k by the end of his chain attacks effort required 0.

You’re saying work my kitten off switching excessively – 10k damage?

…as for the conjure weapons I don’t want to use them, it’s too gimmicky play my way they said right? I don’t want to use Frostbow or LH in every confrontation. As for GS yeah I hear you and understand the wall run fire trap but who really wants to run at a wall? seriously… dull

I’m a moaning bag is what this likely boils down to but I just don’t see the dps you guys speak of.

PVE btw, already well aware of their tank or go home abilities in PvP.

I once hit a rabbit for over 300k, thats the power of an Ele

Delgan.8619:

all comments appreciated greatly…

but I don’t see this damage, I’ve just done Frac only Lv29 – my zerk warrior is hitting 27k by the end of his chain attacks effort required 0.

You’re saying work my kitten off switching excessively – 10k damage?

…as for the conjure weapons I don’t want to use them, it’s too gimmicky play my way they said right? I don’t want to use Frostbow or LH in every confrontation. As for GS yeah I hear you and understand the wall run fire trap but who really wants to run at a wall? seriously… dull

I’m a moaning bag is what this likely boils down to but I just don’t see the dps you guys speak of.

PVE btw, already well aware of their tank or go home abilities in PvP.

Eles generally have to do more setup or use more things compared to warriors, it’s just inherent in the class design.

However, now that you mentioned it’s PvE, this is mostly irrelevant. You’re talking about things that will simply stand inside 100 blades and not make any effort to dodge, block, or much of anything, really. There’s other nuances in sPvP and WvW to consider, whereby the ele can sometimes be superior.

Additionally, the fire grab I quoted is just one ability that takes approximately 1 second to complete. Thus, it’s an attack that has over 10k DPS. If your “chained” 27k damage consisted of 100 blades, whirlwind, and whatever else, it’s not a valid comparison because it’s multiple attacks that may also be channeled overtime (i.e. 100 blades), and the mobs aren’t moving or doing much except using an attack now and again.

In addition to the fire grab I mentioned, the ele can also set up basic combos that can hit kitten multiple attacks. For instance, a combo can be as such:

Ride the lightning -> updraft -> arcane blast -> swap fire -> burning speed -> arcane power -> ring of fire -> fire grab -> swap to water during fire grab -> frozen burst after fire grab (and frost aura for good measure, it’s instant cast) -> swap earth -> ring of earth -> earthquake (blast finishes in fire field) -> churning earth -> lightning flash onto mob before churning earth finishes -> &c.

Things like burning speed and ring of earth can hit for 4-7k-ish on their own, plus you would have up to 18 stacks of vulnerability on the target, some burning and bleeds, as well as CC. Some of this damage will also occur in an AoE, meaning you can hit multiple targets with single high damage hits (as opposed to many, less individually powerful hits like 100 blades).

Such combos are still more technically difficult to perform and the abilities tend to have much higher cooldowns, which is partly the reason why warriors are so prevalent in PvE. However, in sPvP and WvW, you can’t simply activate 100 blades, sit back and take a sip of your drink, and watch while stuff dies.

Also gotta watch for them meteor showers from those berserker eles. The damage will surprise you underestimate them, and it’s a very wide AoE.

EDIT: dumb censor thing screwed part of it up, but I forgot what the actual words were, so oh well.

Delgan.8619:

Also gotta watch for them meteor showers from those berserker eles. The damage will surprise you underestimate them, and it’s a very wide AoE.

A wise decision.

Dyno.9467:

I once hit a rabbit for over 300k, thats the power of an Ele

OPPPPPPPPPPPPPP

Apologize for the multiple posts, but it gives you the idea.
Also, wrt rabbits. +600k. I’ll go get another screenshot tonight :-)

Oh, not this discussion again.

You’re misreading it. It’s not a single attack on a single target. It’s the fact that your aoes can hit a lot of targets, and combined they do a lot of damage.

Even if you just consider the ‘artillery nukes’ Meteor Shower and the skill on Frostbow, you cannot say they don’t deal a lot of damage.

Provided you have any sort of meaningful build of course…

Delgan.8619:

all comments appreciated greatly…

but I don’t see this damage, I’ve just done Frac only Lv29 – my zerk warrior is hitting 27k by the end of his chain attacks effort required 0.

You’re saying work my kitten off switching excessively – 10k damage?

…as for the conjure weapons I don’t want to use them, it’s too gimmicky play my way they said right? I don’t want to use Frostbow or LH in every confrontation. As for GS yeah I hear you and understand the wall run fire trap but who really wants to run at a wall? seriously… dull

I’m a moaning bag is what this likely boils down to but I just don’t see the dps you guys speak of.

PVE btw, already well aware of their tank or go home abilities in PvP.

Ok so you don’t want to use Conjure weapons. Then use the staff build, its higher DPS, but less might stacking. I’m pretty sure i know why you don’t see the numbers we are talking about. Having Zerker gear is only a tiny part of the Ele DPS. The Trait are where you gonna get your DPS, and far more than any other profession. On your DPS ele you want to concentrate on your Damage modifiers.

On a typical fully buffed staff build 30/20/10/10/0 or 30/10/10/10/10 you can have a total damage modifier of about 112%. You more than double you damage. That is the strength of the Ele DPS.

Yamsandjams.3267:

The shard of ice trait makes your arcane skills apply vulnerability (arcane power can apply 15 stacks alone).

Can anyone verify this? Are you saying that each of the five crits from using arcane power will give 3 vulnerability totaling 15 after arcane power has run its course?

I did some experimenting and couldn’t get results to support that, but the numbers were still higher than saying it has no effect.

The best explanation for the numbers I got was that with the Shard of Ice trait all five crits from Arcane Power count as crits for procing Weak Spot trait, contrary to the standard opinion that crits from Arcane Power will never activate a on-crit proc. I was just playing around with the trait so I’m not counting this as serious experimenting.

MotherKitten.6795:

Yamsandjams.3267:

The shard of ice trait makes your arcane skills apply vulnerability (arcane power can apply 15 stacks alone).

Can anyone verify this? Are you saying that each of the five crits from using arcane power will give 3 vulnerability totaling 15 after arcane power has run its course?

I did some experimenting and couldn’t get results to support that, but the numbers were still higher than saying it has no effect.

The best explanation for the numbers I got was that with the Shard of Ice trait all five crits from Arcane Power count as crits for procing Weak Spot trait, contrary to the standard opinion that crits from Arcane Power will never activate a on-crit proc. I was just playing around with the trait so I’m not counting this as serious experimenting.

Arcane Power gets effects per hit. Seems like not a lot of people know about Arcane Power.

Just a heads up for those who don’t know:
Arcane Power with Elemental Surge can easily apply 25 seconds of burning or 15 seconds of chill) in D/X weapon sets. I use it in my Chillmentalist build.

there are loads of single skills that deal ridiculously high damage,
as many have said, FGS rush can deal something like 100,000 in seconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4HzAM2ern8

or my favourite, the meteonado

Applying large quantities of a duration stacking condition is usually a bad idea, especially if you don’t have a lot of cover conditions. You’d need to find a way to slowly apply the chill so that it’s on the target near-permanently but applied in small doses each time it times out/gets removed. That said, Chill is a very underrated condition. The insanely long cooldowns are a real killer.

Ray.2640:

Applying large quantities of a duration stacking condition is usually a bad idea, especially if you don’t have a lot of cover conditions. You’d need to find a way to slowly apply the chill so that it’s on the target near-permanently but applied in small doses each time it times out/gets removed. That said, Chill is a very underrated condition. The insanely long cooldowns are a real killer.

GoEP + Hydromancy should be decent enough for “passive” chilling for D/x builds. When do i use Arcane + Elemental Surge? When you know your enemy’s out of cleanses. Imagine applying 15s of chill to an elementalist who just blew his Ether Renewal and swapped out of water. He’s pretty much dead if he doesn’t have 30 in water or Cleansing Fire.

As for the topic regarding Massive Damage, Phoenix hits up to 3x and deals massive damage.

Killshot>Phoenix>Eviserate>Backstab

or if the Phoenix hits 3 times AND multiple people (let’s say 4 people rezzing 1 guy) I’d say Phoenix does more overall than a nonpiercing Killshot.

Delgan.8619:

I’ve copied this from the guildwars website, but what am I missing… I know of not one Elemental skill that inflicts massive damage in a single attack.

“Elementalist

Elementalists are multi-faceted spellcasters that channel elemental forces, making fire, air, earth, and water do their bidding. What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack."

Can someone point me in the right direction, my ele full beserk doesn’t touch the damage other proffessions are capable of doing.

here ya go.