Guild Wars 2

Hey all,

I was looking to pick up Elementalist but have been pretty turned off by them mechanically. I enjoy the idea of a caster but find Necro too indirect (IE: it’s a lot of conditions, whereas I just want to hard-nuke people). Is there an option to make the Ele more single atunement focused?

At launch I ran DD Combo for the high dmg crits on Fire Grab and that was fun. But in terms of viability I feel like it’s pretty bad right now. Too many people run stability and that shuts down your combo for a good 30s~.

Anyways — I’m just looking for some ideas on playing a more single atunement Ele. Any thoughts?

You could possibly get away with it, however the class was designed to use all 4 attunements.

JediSange.1645:

Hey all,

I was looking to pick up Elementalist but have been pretty turned off by them mechanically. I enjoy the idea of a caster but find Necro too indirect (IE: it’s a lot of conditions, whereas I just want to hard-nuke people). Is there an option to make the Ele more single atunement focused?

At launch I ran DD Combo for the high dmg crits on Fire Grab and that was fun. But in terms of viability I feel like it’s pretty bad right now. Too many people run stability and that shuts down your combo for a good 30s~.

Anyways — I’m just looking for some ideas on playing a more single atunement Ele. Any thoughts?

You’ll want to avoid the Arcane tree like the Plague, and you can’t totally ignore your other attunements BUT you can use them a lot less.

If you want to be a “Pyro Mancer” you may look into a 30/20/10/0/10 build, you’d wanna take Arcane purely for the Arcane reduction, or you could go with 30/10/10/20/0 and go for a more Cantrip Oriented build.

Keep in mind both of those builds are GLASS, you essentially have to goal of blow up the enemy before they can do anything to you.

You could also try a “Fresh Air” build, granted you will swap a lot, but it’ll be more of Start in air, leave air, go back to air sort of swap than the usual swapping.

You could likely do the Same with Earth and Water, I just haven’t tried with it yet, I’ve seen plenty of “Healer” water builds that seem to work pretty well though so I’d imagine it can work!

EDIT: I just wanted to Clarify all the builds I listed above STILL swap attunements, they just don’t do it as often because they focus heavily on one role instead of a few, IE pyromancer wants to stay in Fire as much as possible for those might stacks, but should still swap if/when they need other things or to burst.

Hey Jedi!

To be frank, Elementalists are only really played to their full potential when they use every attunement. The core mechanic is to ‘dance’ between the attunements and know when to do what in each situation. That being said, I believe it’s hands down the most interactive and interesting of all of the professions.

I’ve never played one, but as I understand it there are a few builds that focus on single attunements, like the “Thor” (Lightning Hammer in water attunement) build or a Staff Earth Condition Ele. Still, I’d like to reiterate that to play an Ele truly well you need to switch attunements constantly.

If you haven’t tried one yet, check out the Mesmer — while not exactly what you’re describing they end up being more of a ‘traditional’ nuke-caster. If you don’t like it, give the Ele another shot! When I want to nuke as an Ele I play Scepter/Dagger 0/30/0/10/30 and while mechanically more complex than other DPS classes I find it has great variety and flexibility. Good luck!

I feel Jedi’s pain. The core issue with the class is that it’s expected of EVERY elementalist to do the attunement tango. The fact that so many players here support it (and some to the point of cult-like levels) while continuing to desire build variety is mind boggling. That’s like insisting all mesmers use all of their shatters or expecting guardians to burn their virtues as soon as they are off cooldown.

If you really want to be different than the ele standing next to you then you should be demanding attunement-focused builds and the ability to swap weapons while in battle. The fact that so many are reliant on 30 Arcane, not so much for the traits, but for attunement cooldown should be a huge red flag! Not everyone has or even wants to be the avatar. Some of us just want to be Zuko. Or Katara. Or Toph! Yes, PLEASE let me be Toph!

But I that’s not what was asked so I’m putting my soapbox away now.

The sad truth, Jedi, is that while you can stay in one element, the class is balanced around you being able to jump to another at a moment’s notice. I have a build I call the Mightmancer that sticks to fire and works fairly well… until you try to solo something that’s better fought at range. Until Anet and half the guys here wake up and realized that build variety would burst open at the seams the moment they lose the “Jack of all Trades” gimmick, you’re doomed to homogeny.

Your effectiveness would be horrid.

Main issue isn’t losing functionalities of other 15 skills, but the fact that the CDs of the single skills are designed taking in account the 4-skill bar rotations.

They’re far too long to play single attunement cause you’re supposed to cycle trought other 3 skillsbars before need to fire a skill again.

Anet decided to kill single viability, while forcing eles to take Arcana to reduce attunement time. Yes, they fail.

Instead of trying to force elementalists be something they’re not, you could just use a power necromancer. A well burst necro is about as direct as you can get

Sorry but this will not work, its like playing a guardian without virtues or ranger with no pet.

You can focus on 1 attument and switch to others based on the occusion.
What you can do is play with staff and focus on fire, switch to other attuments when you need something specific from them. If you need heal, condition remove or chill switch to water, if you need protection, reflect, immobilize or cripple switch to earth and if you need blind, swiffness, stun you switch to air this way you will be most of the time attuned to fire.
You cant just lose all those things that the 4 attuments offer, eles are made to use all his attuments. Even if you focus on only 1 attument it will never be half as stong as all the other 4.