Guild Wars 2

Gaudrath.6725:

And then it is damage. While elementalists cannot provide the same amount of burst damage a 100B warrior can, burst damage is not important in PvE. Sustained damage is. Which is where all of our conditions and AoE effects come in.
.

i’ll tell you a secret.

Easy PvE = DPS BASED
medium dungeons = Tanky Based
Difficult dungeon = all dps you are going to be oneshot anyway…… unless you provide some reliable TEAM support that is not healing 1/10 of health
That reole can be covered mostly by just 1 class….

All those funny combo field are useless when you need costant evasion, positioning etc….like my might aoe stacks are not easy to land when people have to spread for various reasons.

If you fight a static boss they push damage, otherwise they don t do a thing.

Now if you want to give credit to a warrior player who seems to lack knoledge of his own class and refuses to talk of any data or just show anything in game….you are free to do that.

Just i prefer discussing with ele mainers….those players that were here before fotm and know how we worked the class, wich issue we had etc etc etc.

put zephyr boon as elite….you just destroy the only build because it just blend that skill in the ONLY trait sinergy we have on ele.

Sorry man, but your post is all over the place, not sure if you’re agreeing with me, disagreeing, or have even read my whole post even though you quote parts of it.

LordByron.8369:

i’ll tell you a secret.

Easy PvE = DPS BASED
medium dungeons = Tanky Based
Difficult dungeon = all dps you are going to be oneshot anyway…… unless you provide some reliable TEAM support that is not healing 1/10 of health
That reole can be covered mostly by just 1 class….

eh, right. What are medium and difficult dungeons?

i answered what o quoted…..

PvE needs DPS as the difficulty increases…..
Bosses are not balanced like players due to their low AI they need OP skills.

After a while they just mostly oneshot you….or they are so easy you don t need to care of wich class/build you are using.

This is expecially what happens in difficult paths, you either us etactic to avoid Attacks (be it a Group of classes negating damage somehow) or you just DPS and rely on skill to avoid everything.

for the warrior thing i m not referring to you….sorry.

LordByron.8369:

i answered what o quoted…..

PvE needs DPS as the difficulty increases…..
Bosses are not balanced like players due to their low AI they need OP skills.

After a while they just mostly oneshot you….or they are so easy you don t need to care of wich class/build you are using.

This is expecially what happens in difficult paths, you either us etactic to avoid Attacks (be it a Group of classes negating damage somehow) or you just DPS and rely on skill to avoid everything.

for the warrior thing i m not referring to you….sorry.

What point are you trying to argue? You say PvE needs DPS as the dungeons difficulty increases, but you don’t make an argument why that is for or against the Ele.

I will make it for you:

Ele has great damage on the move (i.e., burning/bleeds,fields to kite mobs through)
Ele has great CC to make it easier to kite (cripple, immobilize, mass chill)
Ele provides great stun breakers to get out of a tight spot (i.e. Mist Form, Lightning Flash, Armor of Earth)

On top of all of that, we can lay down fields that our teammates can utilize to do more damage or provide themselves with boons with their projectiles (i.e. warrior rifle over fire field provides burning damage or ranger longbow over a water field provides regeneration or a thief uses unload over your lightning field for vulnerability or an engineer uses their pistol attack over your ice field for chill). Combo fields associated with the proper finishers provide tremendous benefits. If you and your team know what you are doing, providing combo fields works amazingly well.

LieutenantGoogle.7326:

Serp.3264:

Wow, I never thought I would hear the argument that the Elementalist is actually weaker because it has MORE abilities and MORE versatility.

This game (and most MMOs in general tbh) aren’t about pure damage. Providing boons for your and your teammates, condition removal for you and your teammates, supplimental healing, and conditions on top of the damage you deal is usually much better than just damage.

A 100B Warrior provides:

- High Damage
- Boons (If Shout build, might and fury)
- Conditions (Vulnerability, Cripple)
- Combo Finisher Whirl

A Staff Ele provides:

- Damage (not high, but not low either)
- Combo Fields (Fire x1, Water x2, Chill x1, Lightning x1)
- Blast Finisher x1/Projectile Finisher x1 (utilized with those combo fields – if using lightning hammer, even more)
- Boons (Fury, might, regeneration, protection, swiftness – personal vigor if using Soothing Disruption)
- Heals (Geyser, Healing Rain, Water attunement swap, blast finisher in water field)
- Condition Removal (Healing Rain, Water attunement swap using Cleansing Water)
- Conditions (Burning, Bleed, Chill, Vulnerability)
- CC (Stun, Knockback, Cripple, Immobilize)

Honestly, in my opinion, it looks like the warrior is less than half a staff ele. An ele isn’t going to be absolutely decimating with damage like a 100b warrior can, but a warrior falls behind the ele in every other category imo.

You are a bit wrong on the warrior aspect and in PvE a lot of the “pro” that the elementalist is negated or has a limited effectivement.

Warriors can provide AoE healing with shouts, AoE condition removal (abet not as good as the ele but its still there).

Even if the warrior falls behind in most non damaging categories in comparison to the Ele, truth is that those factors are better for PvP while being almost worthless in PvE.

It’s not about quantity of pros being compared but the quality, in which damage is unsurpassed.

What from the elementalist is negated or has limited effect in a PvE environment? Also, the build you are referring to for the warrior is their survival based build. They aren’t glass cannon if they build for healing shouts and rune soldier runes (although I’m not sure if they remove a condition on everyone or just the warrior). Their damage is mostly stationary with 100b as well, which means they take more damage by just standing there, another factor people aren’t considering.

Also, while I am writing this, I want to be perfectly clear that I don’t think either class really outshines the other that much. They provide different things to the team, but they are each equally useful in my opinion. However, I will note that it is much easier to find a bad ele than it is to really notice it on a bad warrior. A warrior pulls out their greatsword and hits 100b, whirl mixing in some shouts here and there over and over and over again. An ele needs to be jumping in and out of stances, laying down fields properly, staying next to teammates properly to provide them boons, creating auras properly. There is a complexity involved with an ele that makes it easier to notice if you are not the best, but that isn’t a class problem.

Serp.3264:

What point are you trying to argue? You say PvE needs DPS as the dungeons difficulty increases, but you don’t make an argument why that is for or against the Ele.

check posts in dungeon/general area to see how bad condition is compared to direct damage.

I will make it for you:

Ele has great damage on the move (i.e., burning/bleeds,fields to kite mobs through)

Staff 2, earth 2 i suppose just to talk….
As i said slow spells that are problemtic and have a high miss chance being slow.

Ele has great CC to make it easier to kite (cripple, immobilize, mass chill)

do not agree they are subpar compared to other classes, and most opponent are immune
Also look at duration AND cooldown….

Ele provides great stun breakers to get out of a tight spot (i.e. Mist Form, Lightning Flash, Armor of Earth)

maybe……when they will fix them….not for now.
except lightning flash.

On top of all of that, we can lay down fields that our teammates can utilize to do more damage or provide themselves with boons with their projectiles (i.e. warrior rifle over fire field provides burning damage or ranger longbow over a water field provides regeneration or a thief uses unload over your lightning field for vulnerability or an engineer uses their pistol attack over your ice field for chill). Combo fields associated with the proper finishers provide tremendous benefits. If you and your team know what you are doing, providing combo fields works amazingly well.

I tried to say that its quite hard to consciously lay combos with teammates……
It happens you do random combos but with the increase of difficulty, the necessity of careful positioning negates most of them.

Doing this you just waste your dps.

Now if you try to tell me your team carefully plan fields and finishers between different players in difficult dungeons, i d just argue you are the exception and not the rule.

There is simply not enough time in most case to SEE and react to a 2-3 seconds combo field.

LordByron.8369:

Serp.3264:

What point are you trying to argue? You say PvE needs DPS as the dungeons difficulty increases, but you don’t make an argument why that is for or against the Ele.

check posts in dungeon/general area to see how bad condition is compared to direct damage.

Damage is damage. Why would condition damage be worse than direct damage? The only thing that could be said is that things like bleeds have a cap which is easy to reach, but maintaining that cap is important. Also, burning increases duration and is a constant source of high damage. It is an amazing condition to keep up. I disagree with your assessment here.

LordByron.8369:

I will make it for you:

Ele has great damage on the move (i.e., burning/bleeds,fields to kite mobs through)

Staff 2, earth 2 i suppose just to talk….
As i said slow spells that are problemtic and have a high miss chance being slow.

I am not sure what you mean here. Staff 2 and Earth 2 do take a some time to explode, but it is all about timing and placing your fields in the proper place. If you are kiting the mob, place the field in front of it far enough so that when the mob is crossing it, it explodes. It is not the simplest thing but it also isn’t that difficult.

LordByron.8369:

Ele has great CC to make it easier to kite (cripple, immobilize, mass chill)

do not agree they are subpar compared to other classes, and most opponent are immune
Also look at duration AND cooldown….

What is it subpar compared against? Can you give me specific examples of how all the other classes are better at CC? Also, most opponents aren’t immune to all CC. That is an incorrect statement. Bosses tend to have Defiant, but you can wear that down by continually applying CC, something an ele is great at. It is important to continually use that because you can wear it down and then apply CC on the target. It is a team effort to get this done.

LordByron.8369:

Ele provides great stun breakers to get out of a tight spot (i.e. Mist Form, Lightning Flash, Armor of Earth)

maybe……when they will fix them….not for now.
except lightning flash.

What exactly is broken with Mist Form and Armor of Earth?

LordByron.8369:

On top of all of that, we can lay down fields that our teammates can utilize to do more damage or provide themselves with boons with their projectiles (i.e. warrior rifle over fire field provides burning damage or ranger longbow over a water field provides regeneration or a thief uses unload over your lightning field for vulnerability or an engineer uses their pistol attack over your ice field for chill). Combo fields associated with the proper finishers provide tremendous benefits. If you and your team know what you are doing, providing combo fields works amazingly well.

I tried to say that its quite hard to consciously lay combos with teammates……
It happens you do random combos but with the increase of difficulty, the necessity of careful positioning negates most of them.

Doing this you just waste your dps.

Now if you try to tell me your team carefully plan fields and finishers between different players in difficult dungeons, i d just argue you are the exception and not the rule.

There is simply not enough time in most case to SEE and react to a 2-3 seconds combo field.

When I am running with my guild, yes we coordinate combo fields and discuss it in vent as well move. We talk about laying light, water, ice, dark, fire, etc fields. Then it is up to each individual to know what finishers to use on it to give the desired effect. This doesn’t work all that well with pugs, but if you are coordinated it works incredibly well.

Serp.3264:

Damage is damage. Why would condition damage be worse than direct damage? The only thing that could be said is that things like bleeds have a cap which is easy to reach, but maintaining that cap is important. Also, burning increases duration and is a constant source of high damage. It is an amazing condition to keep up. I disagree with your assessment here.

To interject, I’d have to agree that condition damage isn’t as good as direct damage because your main source of effectiveness is via stats. The higher your stats the better your damage. However, conditions don’t seem to be as supported by stats as direct damage is.

You’ve basically got condition duration and condition damage which will scale your damage up with specific skills. However, for direct damage you have:
-Power
-% Critical damage
-Percision/Critical chance
-% Damage

Beyond that, you have things like quickness which will speed up your animations so you can hit with direct damage faster/more often. Now if Quickness also sped up the ticks of conditions (suddenly bleeds tic every half sec, burns/poison every 1sec but last half as long) that’d at least be one way to improve the returns…

But there are just lots of counters to conditions, namely cleansing and -condition duration. Sure, conditions bypass toughness but with the factors for direct damage in play, you can get huge returns quickly whereas you’ll quickly reach a ceiling (stacks/max duration) that caps condition effectiveness.

But this isn’t an elementalist problem, just a condition problem.

Leo G.4501:

Serp.3264:

Damage is damage. Why would condition damage be worse than direct damage? The only thing that could be said is that things like bleeds have a cap which is easy to reach, but maintaining that cap is important. Also, burning increases duration and is a constant source of high damage. It is an amazing condition to keep up. I disagree with your assessment here.

To interject, I’d have to agree that condition damage isn’t as good as direct damage because your main source of effectiveness is via stats. The higher your stats the better your damage. However, conditions don’t seem to be as supported by stats as direct damage is.

You’ve basically got condition duration and condition damage which will scale your damage up with specific skills. However, for direct damage you have:
-Power
-% Critical damage
-Percision/Critical chance
-% Damage

Beyond that, you have things like quickness which will speed up your animations so you can hit with direct damage faster/more often. Now if Quickness also sped up the ticks of conditions (suddenly bleeds tic every half sec, burns/poison every 1sec but last half as long) that’d at least be one way to improve the returns…

But there are just lots of counters to conditions, namely cleansing and -condition duration. Sure, conditions bypass toughness but with the factors for direct damage in play, you can get huge returns quickly whereas you’ll quickly reach a ceiling (stacks/max duration) that caps condition effectiveness.

But this isn’t an elementalist problem, just a condition problem.

This is true in the terms of fight other people, but I was referring strictly to PvE because that is what LordByron was referring to.

You make a good point based on stats. However, 1000 damage from burn and 1000 damage from a sword are both just 1000 damage. That is all I was saying with that comment. The only difference is 1000 damage from burns take more time than 1000 damage from sword. The upside is that 1000 damage from burns is ticking while you apply other conditions and/or hit with direct damage.

Serp.3264:

Leo G.4501:

Serp.3264:

Damage is damage. Why would condition damage be worse than direct damage? The only thing that could be said is that things like bleeds have a cap which is easy to reach, but maintaining that cap is important. Also, burning increases duration and is a constant source of high damage. It is an amazing condition to keep up. I disagree with your assessment here.

To interject, I’d have to agree that condition damage isn’t as good as direct damage because your main source of effectiveness is via stats. The higher your stats the better your damage. However, conditions don’t seem to be as supported by stats as direct damage is.

You’ve basically got condition duration and condition damage which will scale your damage up with specific skills. However, for direct damage you have:
-Power
-% Critical damage
-Percision/Critical chance
-% Damage

Beyond that, you have things like quickness which will speed up your animations so you can hit with direct damage faster/more often. Now if Quickness also sped up the ticks of conditions (suddenly bleeds tic every half sec, burns/poison every 1sec but last half as long) that’d at least be one way to improve the returns…

But there are just lots of counters to conditions, namely cleansing and -condition duration. Sure, conditions bypass toughness but with the factors for direct damage in play, you can get huge returns quickly whereas you’ll quickly reach a ceiling (stacks/max duration) that caps condition effectiveness.

But this isn’t an elementalist problem, just a condition problem.

This is true in the terms of fight other people, but I was referring strictly to PvE because that is what LordByron was referring to.

You make a good point based on stats. However, 1000 damage from burn and 1000 damage from a sword are both just 1000 damage. That is all I was saying with that comment. The only difference is 1000 damage from burns take more time than 1000 damage from sword. The upside is that 1000 damage from burns is ticking while you apply other conditions and/or hit with direct damage.

I speak of PvE as well since my knowledge of PvP is very limited (I only do WvW and don’t touch tournys or structured).

Yes, 1000 dmg from burn is the same as 1000 dmg from a sword strike….but apply vulnerability and that 1000 dmg from the sword goes up but not for the burn. There’s random buffs teammates can apply that improve direct damage like fury and crit dmg but rarely is there anything to make conditions function more attractively.

PS: I believe condition damage isn’t horrible, it just takes a back seat to actual direct damage. You only use burns and bleeds to supplement direct damage not as a prominent source.

It’s actually why I wish there was a gear set-up with Power/Cond/Crit dmg. I managed to get my scepter/dagger elementalist build to around 35% crit chance (without Fury) and around 75% crit dmg but that means my conditions are pathetic. I’d gladly sacrifice some of my HP so that my conditions were stronger while keeping my crit damage.

Leo G.4501:

I speak of PvE as well since my knowledge of PvP is very limited (I only do WvW and don’t touch tournys or structured).

Yes, 1000 dmg from burn is the same as 1000 dmg from a sword strike….but apply vulnerability and that 1000 dmg from the sword goes up but not for the burn. There’s random buffs teammates can apply that improve direct damage like fury and crit dmg but rarely is there anything to make conditions function more attractively.

PS: I believe condition damage isn’t horrible, it just takes a back seat to actual direct damage. You only use burns and bleeds to supplement direct damage not as a prominent source.

It’s actually why I wish there was a gear set-up with Power/Cond/Crit dmg. I managed to get my scepter/dagger elementalist build to around 35% crit chance (without Fury) and around 75% crit dmg but that means my conditions are pathetic. I’d gladly sacrifice some of my HP so that my conditions were stronger while keeping my crit damage.

You make excellent points with Fury and Vulnerability. Might gives condition damage and power, but outside of that there isn’t much to modify condition damage outside of gear.

I also agree I would rather have direct damage. 1000 damage from a sword attack is done the second the attack happens while a condition can be removed and have most of its effect negated. I would also agree that condition damage takes a back seat to direct damage, but it is still useful.

Serp.3264:

What from the elementalist is negated or has limited effect in a PvE environment? Also, the build you are referring to for the warrior is their survival based build. They aren’t glass cannon if they build for healing shouts and rune soldier runes (although I’m not sure if they remove a condition on everyone or just the warrior). Their damage is mostly stationary with 100b as well, which means they take more damage by just standing there, another factor people aren’t considering.

Also, while I am writing this, I want to be perfectly clear that I don’t think either class really outshines the other that much. They provide different things to the team, but they are each equally useful in my opinion. However, I will note that it is much easier to find a bad ele than it is to really notice it on a bad warrior. A warrior pulls out their greatsword and hits 100b, whirl mixing in some shouts here and there over and over and over again. An ele needs to be jumping in and out of stances, laying down fields properly, staying next to teammates properly to provide them boons, creating auras properly. There is a complexity involved with an ele that makes it easier to notice if you are not the best, but that isn’t a class problem.

In PvE mobs will almost always be standing still and a warrior can still be dishing out 25k per 100b with berserker gear + soldier runes, condition removal has limited effect in PvE because either the conditions do almost no damage or are continuously applied, survival in PvE is honestly a joke either you can face tank 3 monsters at once with glass cannon items or you get 1 (sometimes 2) shotted with P/V/T gear. There is nothing bad per say with the elementalist in PvE but rather that the warrior is too good.

An ele could be stacking might for the team 4 might every 9 seconds but that’s still a lot more effort when compared to a warrior who just presses 1 button and provides temporary fury as well, they could be providing heal burst with eruption and rain, but honestly in PvE that is going to do little to save someone, chances are if they survived after you heal, they probably would’ve survived even if you didn’t heal unless you are willing to use up a utility slot for arcane blast.

People who complain about the ele being ineffective in pve are either blinded by a warriors root skill 100b or doesn’t understand how to play the ele.

A ele is not going to be able to stand in front of dungeon mobs and face tank something like a warrior. Granted the only difference is 2 hits, but still.

I don’t understand why people complain about the ele dmg and health so much. Mine has 16k health with 2.7k power and I destroy things in dungeons. I don’t even have all p/v/t toughness gear either. I use p/pre/crit dmg rings, etc. I have 2k armor, yes that is low, but that is not the end all be all of the survival of the ele.

The survival of the ele comes from all the boons they are blessed with. Not only can I keep up swiftness 100%, but also, Fury, and vigor. I can keep up protection, regen, might (around 3-5 stacks if I don’t combo) around 75% of the time. The protection alone makes it like I have at least 2.5k armor (if not more). The biggest thing is the vigor boon. I can dodge more than I know what to do with. Not to mention, even time I dodge I get either more dmg, condtions, or get healed and remove a condition depending on which element I choose to dodge in.

So I say, my ele is far greater compared to my warrior in both pve and pvp. The only way a warrior could win a battle is if both targets stood still and traded hit for hit.

edit to add screenshot of health perma fury/swiftness (can’t do vigor unless in battle) along with stats. Please note that is after switching elemental 3 times and using one skill.

Vanthian.9267:

People who complain about the ele being ineffective in pve are either blinded by a warriors root skill 100b or doesn’t understand how to play the ele.

A ele is not going to be able to stand in front of dungeon mobs and face tank something like a warrior. Granted the only difference is 2 hits, but still.

I don’t understand why people complain about the ele dmg and health so much. Mine has 16k health with 2.7k power and I destroy things in dungeons. I don’t even have all p/v/t toughness gear either. I use p/pre/crit dmg rings, etc. I have 2k armor, yes that is low, but that is not the end all be all of the survival of the ele.

The survival of the ele comes from all the boons they are blessed with. Not only can I keep up swiftness 100%, but also, Fury, and vigor. I can keep up protection, regen, might (around 3-5 stacks if I don’t combo) around 75% of the time. The protection alone makes it like I have at least 2.5k armor (if not more). The biggest thing is the vigor boon. I can dodge more than I know what to do with. Not to mention, even time I dodge I get either more dmg, condtions, or get healed and remove a condition depending on which element I choose to dodge in.

So I say, my ele is far greater compared to my warrior in both pve and pvp. The only way a warrior could win a battle is if both targets stood still and traded hit for hit.

edit to add screenshot of health perma fury/swiftness (can’t do vigor unless in battle) along with stats. Please note that is after switching elemental 3 times and using one skill.

Agreed, watched the D/D ele video… so much wasted dps imo.

Whole power behind an ele is attunement swapping.

No one said elementalists are ineffective in pve all people are saying is that warriors are better because they are doing twice our damage maybe even more.

Staying alive is not really a problem as an elementalist.My problem is you can’t use berserker gear to maximize your damage unless you want to risk getting gibbed.

If warriors want to spec for 100% damage they can without risking death if they make a mistake.Elementalist have to spec into survival traits to survive.Thankfully we also pick up a ton of support by specing into survival traits.Warriors don’t have to do this their Self Healing/HP/armor/Utility slot condition removal is enough.

The damage problem I’m complaining about is you can’t make a 100% damage oriented build that can compete or even come close to warrior dps.

@Namu please post a video of yourself killing the boss faster than me with an attunment swap dps rotation.I’d like to see proof your claim that I’m doing it wrong.If you can’t video record I’ll gladly record it for you just send me a tell whenever you can do arah.

Changing attunments as staff is a dps loss.Casting lava font on cooldown and spamming fireball is the highest dps possible for staff.

Swapping as scepter/dagger is worth it because the fire auto attack is crap and all the fire skills for scepter/dagger have long cool downs.

Swapping as dagger/dagger is up for debate but there is no way to really know if it’s worth it without a dps meter.You could swap to earth use ring of earth,churning earth then go air ride the lighting then auto attack until you can get back into fire.Even then its only worth it if burning won’t fall off before the boss dies.

According to the spreadsheet Puandro made

Dragon’s Claw averages out to 2071 damage per cast and takes 1 second to cast – 2071 dps.
Drake’s Breath averages out to 8274 damage per cast and takes 2.85 seconds to cast – 2901 dps
Burning speed averages out to 4994 damage per cast if the target sits in the fire field the entire time if not then 4091 damage per cast the skill takes 0.9 seconds to cast- 5548 dps or 4545 dps if the target moves out of the fire field.
Ring of fire averages out to 4177 damage per cast and takes 0.9 seconds to cast – 4641 dps
Fire grab averages out to be 5154 damage per cast and takes 1.3 seconds to cast – 3965 dps

Nothing in water is over 1300 dps so its not even worth going into water unless you or a party member needs healing

Lightning whip averages out to be 2577 damage per cast and takes 1.15 seconds to cast – 2251 dps
Ride the lightning is 1841 damage per cast and takes 0.35 second to cast – 5260 dps

So its only worth it to go air to use ride the lightning then auto attack until you can get back into fire.

Ring of earth does 2804 damage per cast and takes 1.3 seconds to cast – 2157 dps
Churning earth is 9043 damage per cast and takes 4 seconds to cast – 2260 dps

If you look at the numbers non fire skills are slightly better than dragon claw spam.However the extra damage you gain may not be worth it because you miss out on drakes breath and pyromancer’s puissance if you are 30 points into fire.

Like I said before elementalist are fine to do all content in the game and great sword damge is broken theres not much left to discuss.

Smooth Marc.8743:

Like I said before elementalist are fine to do all content in the game and great sword damge is broken theres not much left to discuss.

There is nothing wrong with the warrior greatsword damage. It is all the warrior has. If you took his damage away he would be like a guardian without any of his defensive skills or abilities. In other words, completely useless.

The point of the warrior is to deal damage through straight power and not via other means (aka conditions). Where as the Ele not only hits for those 2k+ hits but almost always lays a condition on top of that. You are completely negating half of the ele’s damage by turning a blind eye on the conditions.

edit: Forgot to add that all of those skills minus Churning Earth are all mobile skills, the only skill you are more than likely complaining about is 100 blades and that is a self root skill.

Smooth Marc.8743:

Changing attunments as staff is a dps loss.Casting lava font on cooldown and spamming fireball is the highest dps possible for staff.

Swapping as scepter/dagger is worth it because the fire auto attack is crap and all the fire skills for scepter/dagger have long cool downs.

Swapping as dagger/dagger is up for debate but there is no way to really know if it’s worth it without a dps meter.You could swap to earth use ring of earth,churning earth then go air ride the lighting then auto attack until you can get back into fire.Even then its only worth it if burning won’t fall off before the boss dies.

You aren’t accounting for all the bonuses you get my switching, such as the ability to apply vulnerability/bleeds and the boons you get which increase your damage (such as stacking might/fury).

Wethospu demonstrated that warriors can use 100 blades on fights where you have to move often.The only time the root is a problem is pvp because players don’t stand there and take it.

I agree warriors should bring lots of damage to the table.But I don’t think warriors doing twice the damage of someone who is geared and spec’d for maximum damage and no support is fair.

The numbers I listed are condition and direct damage of skills added together.For example drake’s breath does 4592 burning damage + 3682 direct damage for a total of 8274 damage if you land an entire channel.

The spreadsheet assumes you have 100% up time on fury.If you want to see how much more damage you get from the one stack of might from switching to fire you can do so.I’m not re listing the entire dagger spell set so you can see how much more damage one stack of might is going to give.

I can’t account for electric discharge or sunspot without making a dps simulation spreadsheet or having a dps meter.But I highly doubt there is going to be a massive gap between sitting in fire and attunment dancing.

If you really think attunment dancing offers superior dps to sitting in fire attunment then do some testing and post the results there’s no point in speculating about it because we’re just going to go back and fourth.

Vanthian.9267:

People who complain about the ele being ineffective in pve are either blinded by a warriors root skill 100b or doesn’t understand how to play the ele.

A ele is not going to be able to stand in front of dungeon mobs and face tank something like a warrior. Granted the only difference is 2 hits, but still.

I don’t understand why people complain about the ele dmg and health so much. Mine has 16k health with 2.7k power and I destroy things in dungeons. I don’t even have all p/v/t toughness gear either. I use p/pre/crit dmg rings, etc. I have 2k armor, yes that is low, but that is not the end all be all of the survival of the ele.

The survival of the ele comes from all the boons they are blessed with. Not only can I keep up swiftness 100%, but also, Fury, and vigor. I can keep up protection, regen, might (around 3-5 stacks if I don’t combo) around 75% of the time. The protection alone makes it like I have at least 2.5k armor (if not more). The biggest thing is the vigor boon. I can dodge more than I know what to do with. Not to mention, even time I dodge I get either more dmg, condtions, or get healed and remove a condition depending on which element I choose to dodge in.

So I say, my ele is far greater compared to my warrior in both pve and pvp. The only way a warrior could win a battle is if both targets stood still and traded hit for hit.

edit to add screenshot of health perma fury/swiftness (can’t do vigor unless in battle) along with stats. Please note that is after switching elemental 3 times and using one skill.

Hah! 2.7k attack only and you “destroy” things? Don’t wonder then why people don’t take you seriously when you consider such a mediocre attack stats (berk warriors easily boast over 3k) to be “destroying”.

If you run 30 fire for Might on spell cast lava font + fireball is top dps for Staff. If you don’t and weapon swap all the time then it MIGHT break even with Fury but i doubt it.

Lava Font + Fireball spam also is about 2-3% more damage than spamming Dagger Auto Attack.

To the people who say Warriors don’t bring utility i guess FGJ + Banner of Discipline + Shake it off is nothing. Warriors do too much damage while bringing damage boosting buffs to the group.

Wethospu (sp?) can get Lupi to 25% in about 90 seconds in his latest video IIRC. On my D/D Ele with full berserker and arcane spells i can do it in 2 min and 30 seconds. That’s 1 minute longer than him. I already shaved off 30 seconds from my usual 3 mins so i doubt i can get much more faster than 2:30.

Zenith.7301:

Hah! 2.7k attack only and you “destroy” things? Don’t wonder then why people don’t take you seriously when you consider such a mediocre attack stats (berk warriors easily boast over 3k) to be “destroying”.

That 3k attack warrior can boost all he wants. It means nothing when he is on his back.

That is all the warriors have is that “over 3k attack”. They give everything in their lives for that 3k attack. I give up nothing to get 2.7k easy. “Zerker” warriors sit around 3.2k – 3.4k attack unbuffed. The only difference between my ele and them on attack is 500 at best and 700 at worst.

But tell me, what good is that attack when they can’t even take 3 hits before kicking the bucket? That is right, it is useless. Not to mention I have on protection. So their “over 3k” power is more like 0 power if they don’t have a baby sitter. Also, they have crap healing while the ele has extremely awesome healing. Ele also has protection which everyone knows is one of the best boons in the game. You write off the ele as weak and you don’t even understand their strong points.

Vanthian.9267:

Zenith.7301:

Hah! 2.7k attack only and you “destroy” things? Don’t wonder then why people don’t take you seriously when you consider such a mediocre attack stats (berk warriors easily boast over 3k) to be “destroying”.

That 3k attack warrior can boost all he wants. It means nothing when he is on his back.

That is all the warriors have is that “over 3k attack”. They give everything in their lives for that 3k attack. I give up nothing to get 2.7k easy. “Zerker” warriors sit around 3.2k – 3.4k attack unbuffed. The only difference between my ele and them on attack is 500 at best and 700 at worst.

But tell me, what good is that attack when they can’t even take 3 hits before kicking the bucket? That is right, it is useless. Not to mention I have on protection. So their “over 3k” power is more like 0 power if they don’t have a baby sitter. Also, they have crap healing while the ele has extremely awesome healing. Ele also has protection which everyone knows is one of the best boons in the game. You write off the ele as weak and you don’t even understand their strong points.

Add Guardian, boom perma protection. Add Mesmer and you get Phantasmal Defender + perma Regen. Now add 2 warriors for DPS. Last spot goes to a guard if you want more utlity or a warrior for more dps.

When you have Guards and Mesmers Eles bring nothing to the table.

Smooth Marc.8743:

No one said elementalists are ineffective in pve all people are saying is that warriors are better because they are doing twice our damage maybe even more.

Staying alive is not really a problem as an elementalist.My problem is you can’t use berserker gear to maximize your damage unless you want to risk getting gibbed.

If warriors want to spec for 100% damage they can without risking death if they make a mistake.Elementalist have to spec into survival traits to survive.Thankfully we also pick up a ton of support by specing into survival traits.Warriors don’t have to do this their Self Healing/HP/armor/Utility slot condition removal is enough.

The damage problem I’m complaining about is you can’t make a 100% damage oriented build that can compete or even come close to warrior dps.

@Namu please post a video of yourself killing the boss faster than me with an attunment swap dps rotation.I’d like to see proof your claim that I’m doing it wrong.If you can’t video record I’ll gladly record it for you just send me a tell whenever you can do arah.

Changing attunments as staff is a dps loss.Casting lava font on cooldown and spamming fireball is the highest dps possible for staff.

Swapping as scepter/dagger is worth it because the fire auto attack is crap and all the fire skills for scepter/dagger have long cool downs.

Swapping as dagger/dagger is up for debate but there is no way to really know if it’s worth it without a dps meter.You could swap to earth use ring of earth,churning earth then go air ride the lighting then auto attack until you can get back into fire.Even then its only worth it if burning won’t fall off before the boss dies.

According to the spreadsheet Puandro made

Dragon’s Claw averages out to 2071 damage per cast and takes 1 second to cast – 2071 dps.
Drake’s Breath averages out to 8274 damage per cast and takes 2.85 seconds to cast – 2901 dps
Burning speed averages out to 4994 damage per cast if the target sits in the fire field the entire time if not then 4091 damage per cast the skill takes 0.9 seconds to cast- 5548 dps or 4545 dps if the target moves out of the fire field.
Ring of fire averages out to 4177 damage per cast and takes 0.9 seconds to cast – 4641 dps
Fire grab averages out to be 5154 damage per cast and takes 1.3 seconds to cast – 3965 dps

Nothing in water is over 1300 dps so its not even worth going into water unless you or a party member needs healing

Lightning whip averages out to be 2577 damage per cast and takes 1.15 seconds to cast – 2251 dps
Ride the lightning is 1841 damage per cast and takes 0.35 second to cast – 5260 dps

So its only worth it to go air to use ride the lightning then auto attack until you can get back into fire.

Ring of earth does 2804 damage per cast and takes 1.3 seconds to cast – 2157 dps
Churning earth is 9043 damage per cast and takes 4 seconds to cast – 2260 dps

If you look at the numbers non fire skills are slightly better than dragon claw spam.However the extra damage you gain may not be worth it because you miss out on drakes breath and pyromancer’s puissance if you are 30 points into fire.

Like I said before elementalist are fine to do all content in the game and great sword damge is broken theres not much left to discuss.

I say wasted dps because you only look at direct damage, you refuse to count condition damage and other things ele brings by attunement swapping. I dont play staff so cant comment there because imo its kitten all boring.

Ill do a kill when I get the time tbh im in no rush to be in a kitten contest with you, so when I get to it I get to it.

Smooth Marc.8743:

The numbers I listed are condition and direct damage of skills added together.For example drake’s breath does 4592 burning damage + 3682 direct damage for a total of 8274 damage if you land an entire channel.

The spreadsheet assumes you have 100% up time on fury.If you want to see how much more damage you get from the one stack of might from switching to fire you can do so.I’m not re listing the entire dagger spell set so you can see how much more damage one stack of might is going to give.

I can’t account for electric discharge or sunspot without making a dps simulation spreadsheet or having a dps meter.But I highly doubt there is going to be a massive gap between sitting in fire and attunment dancing.

I went over everything you’re complaining about.

There is no point in talking about healing/swiftness/protection boons because we’re discussing if it is worth attunment swaping for extra dps or not.If you’re in danger of dying then you should use earth attunment for protection and water attunment for regen.

Here is what you get from 15 point traits using an attunment swap rotation .

I went fire 3 times and air 2 times over 1 minute.

3 sunspot hits for 1200 damage – 3600 damage per minute
2 electric discharge hits 1700 damage – 3400 damage per minute

I gave up on trying to get non critical strike after 20 minutes so lets just pretend attunment swap damage will always be a critical strike.I used a Risen Plaugebearer mob to do the testing so it has less armor than the spreadsheet’s target(which has 2600 armor) .Don’t take these numbers too seriously I just wanted to give you a rough idea of how much damage attunment swap damage traits do.

Here is the link to the spreadsheet so you know where I’m getting these numbers from.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3A3Op-Hj3dOUkJRU0xvcng5ZWc/edit?pli=1

Zenith.7301:

Hah! 2.7k attack only and you “destroy” things? Don’t wonder then why people don’t take you seriously when you consider such a mediocre attack stats (berk warriors easily boast over 3k) to be “destroying”.

OMG! That’s why warriors are so awesome! They have gear that can get them over 3k attacks and no one else can!!!

News flash: attack is just a stat. EVERYONE can get over 3k attack, not just berseker warriors. Now they are the only ones with Forceful Greatsword, having a chance to get might on crits. But might stacks is a whole other issue.

3k attack rating with how much hp + armour? Combined with almost perma fury, swiftness and minimum 5 stacks of might? And people kitten about ele boons. About the only bad thing warriors have going for them is less condition removal than an ele (who is traited for it). Biased much?

It is not about a glass cannon warrior or elementalist being better than the other. It is about the player themselves. There are A LOT of bad elementalist out there, that make the entirety of our class look like idiots. My own guildies have come across individuals that say they are “dedicated healers”. Then there are the glass warriors that can not dodge for the life of them. I’ve run high level fractals where I CONSTANTLY had to help a downed warrior because they had no ability whatsoever to dodge.

So in my book, it’s neither one or the other, it’s about the players skill and how to optimize the best out of the group in its entirety. It does not rely on one single person, but the whole.

Zenith.7301:

Hah! 2.7k attack only and you “destroy” things? Don’t wonder then why people don’t take you seriously when you consider such a mediocre attack stats (berk warriors easily boast over 3k) to be “destroying”.

You mean like this?

We can get get well over 3K attack just as you can. And yes, I only have 12K health, but even in my glass cannon staff build, it is easy for me to survive most situations in fractals and dungeons. Hell, dungeons at this point are on farm for me. So don’t try to puff your chest out and talk down to a person. it makes you look childish.

MarzAttakz.9608:

3k attack rating with how much hp + armour? Combined with almost perma fury, swiftness and minimum 5 stacks of might? And people kitten about ele boons. About the only bad thing warriors have going for them is less condition removal than an ele (who is traited for it). Biased much?

You don’t have to trait for condition removal. You simply take Ether Renewal.

Puandro.3245:

When you have Guards and Mesmers Eles bring nothing to the table.

You could easily build a ele to have 3.4k attack with 50+ crit dmg and 40+ critical chance just like the warriors. The only difference is they have 100 blades. So, a ele could easily pump out a lot of dmg while still add conditions. Not just two conditions, but around 5 while still having control on their weapon set.

MarzAttakz.9608:

3k attack rating with how much hp + armour? Combined with almost perma fury, swiftness and minimum 5 stacks of might? And people kitten about ele boons. About the only bad thing warriors have going for them is less condition removal than an ele (who is traited for it). Biased much?

I play both warrior and elementalist. Sure my warrior might have 3.2k attack with 47% crit chance and 50 critical dmg but I only have 2.8k armor with 19k health. Now that sounds impressive but in reality I have to stand still to greatly benefit from all that attack dmg. Where as my ele is still mobile and could accomplish the same thing.

Vanthian.9267:

Puandro.3245:

When you have Guards and Mesmers Eles bring nothing to the table.

You could easily build a ele to have 3.4k attack with 50+ crit dmg and 40+ critical chance just like the warriors. The only difference is they have 100 blades. So, a ele could easily pump out a lot of dmg while still add conditions. Not just two conditions, but around 5 while still having control on their weapon set.

My main is an ele i am proficient with all weapon combinations and i am aware how good the ele is in certain scenarios. Ele will NEVER pull the DPS a warrior can, + a warrior has FGJ and Discipline banner to further increase dps. For you do add buffs to the group you need to attunement swap and that lowers your own personal dps.

Puandro.3245:

Vanthian.9267:

Puandro.3245:

When you have Guards and Mesmers Eles bring nothing to the table.

You could easily build a ele to have 3.4k attack with 50+ crit dmg and 40+ critical chance just like the warriors. The only difference is they have 100 blades. So, a ele could easily pump out a lot of dmg while still add conditions. Not just two conditions, but around 5 while still having control on their weapon set.

My main is an ele i am proficient with all weapon combinations and i am aware how good the ele is in certain scenarios. Ele will NEVER pull the DPS a warrior can, + a warrior has FGJ and Discipline banner to further increase dps. For you do add buffs to the group you need to attunement swap and that lowers your own personal dps.

Maybe that is okay. Not every profession should be 100% alike. Not every profession in this game should be able to hit a max of say 20k crit dmg. If you were able to pull a 20k crit off with a ele like you can with a warrior’s 100 blade then you would need to give the warrior all the buffs the ele’s get. You want to complain about a dmg gap of maybe 5k dmg ( which is not all that much) when the defensive gap is unthinkable. I would kill every Charr in Guild Wars 2 to have a perma vigor, swiftness, and fury boon on my warrior.

I don’t understand everyone’s agruement for lower dps on attunement swap. When I swap attunements my skills are on CD, it is gaining dps swaping to another element to have more skill. So fire→earth→fire, when I am in earth my fire skills are on cd anyway. You can say, well take longer for your attunement swap to recharge than the skills. Well, maybe skill 1 and 2, but for 4 and 5 that is untrue. Your hard hitting spells are are cd (Fire Grab for instant) for what? 45seconds? Or a little less? 30seconds? It takes all of 9 seconds for a attument to recharge with max arcane.

Thats what people dont understand, is if you had the damage of a warrior + all the other goodies we get as a class…. we would be op as hell.

Vanthian.9267:

Puandro.3245:

Vanthian.9267:

Puandro.3245:

When you have Guards and Mesmers Eles bring nothing to the table.

You could easily build a ele to have 3.4k attack with 50+ crit dmg and 40+ critical chance just like the warriors. The only difference is they have 100 blades. So, a ele could easily pump out a lot of dmg while still add conditions. Not just two conditions, but around 5 while still having control on their weapon set.

My main is an ele i am proficient with all weapon combinations and i am aware how good the ele is in certain scenarios. Ele will NEVER pull the DPS a warrior can, + a warrior has FGJ and Discipline banner to further increase dps. For you do add buffs to the group you need to attunement swap and that lowers your own personal dps.

Maybe that is okay. Not every profession should be 100% alike. Not every profession in this game should be able to hit a max of say 20k crit dmg. If you were able to pull a 20k crit off with a ele like you can with a warrior’s 100 blade then you would need to give the warrior all the buffs the ele’s get. You want to complain about a dmg gap of maybe 5k dmg ( which is not all that much) when the defensive gap is unthinkable. I would kill every Charr in Guild Wars 2 to have a perma vigor, swiftness, and fury boon on my warrior.

I don’t understand everyone’s agruement for lower dps on attunement swap. When I swap attunements my skills are on CD, it is gaining dps swaping to another element to have more skill. So fire->earth->fire, when I am in earth my fire skills are on cd anyway. You can say, well take longer for your attunement swap to recharge than the skills. Well, maybe skill 1 and 2, but for 4 and 5 that is untrue. Your hard hitting spells are are cd (Fire Grab for instant) for what? 45seconds? Or a little less? 30seconds? It takes all of 9 seconds for a attument to recharge with max arcane.

You are confusing Burst with DPS.

Fire Grab on a 45 Sec CD is good burst, its not good DPS.
HB on a 8 sec CD is good burst AND DPS.

I have NP swapping attunements to gain utility AND buffs for the group while lowering my self DPS. The problem is that ATM there is no way an ele achieve warrior DPS in PvE even if they give up all of their utility and buffs. Let’s not even mention being twice as easy to down in PvE if you decide to go that route.

It is NOT gaining dps if you attunement swap from Fire to Earth on an ele even for CD’s. Your fire Auto Attack does a little less than 10% of what Ring of Earth does if you could Spam it (which you can’t) The auto attack isn’t great if you are going full dps.

Puandro.3245:

The problem is that ATM there is no way an ele achieve warrior DPS in PvE even if they give up all of their utility and buffs. Let’s not even mention being twice as easy to down in PvE if you decide to go that route.

There is no reason for a ele and warrior dmg to match up exactly. A guardian could complain about the same thing. A warrior can complain that they don’t have the boons and buffs of a elementalist and a guardian. Point is, the dmg gap between a warrior and ele is honestly not that big. The dmg done at the end of a boss fight might be the difference of 20-30k tops.

I see no problem with ele’s dmg being slightly lower. Even if you spec full power, you still have more mobility and healing than a warrior could.

It would be a rather boring game if everyone hit for the same direct damage, applied the same conditions, and had access to the same defensive.

How exactly does mobility aid you in PVE (not counting Orr) other than running away when things go wrong? Where are you going to run to in dungeons?

Regarding healing, have you seen what a Warrior can regen. using a healing shout build combined with life on crit. food? Same thing with a Thief using Omnomberry Ghost and Signet of Malice.

I agree that this would be a boring game if everything was the same.

Vanthian.9267:

Puandro.3245:

The problem is that ATM there is no way an ele achieve warrior DPS in PvE even if they give up all of their utility and buffs. Let’s not even mention being twice as easy to down in PvE if you decide to go that route.

There is no reason for a ele and warrior dmg to match up exactly. A guardian could complain about the same thing. A warrior can complain that they don’t have the boons and buffs of a elementalist and a guardian. Point is, the dmg gap between a warrior and ele is honestly not that big. The dmg done at the end of a boss fight might be the difference of 20-30k tops.

I see no problem with ele’s dmg being slightly lower. Even if you spec full power, you still have more mobility and healing than a warrior could.

It would be a rather boring game if everyone hit for the same direct damage, applied the same conditions, and had access to the same defensive.

Warriors give the group Might and Fury without giving up DPS.
Eles give the group short term buffs of might/fury/regen/protection/swiftness. You have to reduce your dps to do so.

See if i decide to go full berserker and do top dps with my ele i have almost no existent support buffs and heals, while being twice as easy to down as a warrior. Warrior can go full berserker and still bring FGJ and Discipline Banner.

I warrior can go healing shout build and bring buffs with condition removals AND still do more dps than a support ele while living longer?

Ele isn’t very good in PvE compared to warrior, it’s simple math.

Was doing some CoF path 1 farming couple days ago. First we had different group but then we took in douple eles, swapping a pure glass warrior out actually. And our melt definetly felt going up. Thing was we rocked full group wide 25 might constantly with the usual fury. And with the regular healing&protection minimal avoiding and using time to heal was required. Doing the good 6-7min runs.
Ofc I can’t say full causality, but 2 well played eles definetly did not slow it down. Note we all stacked together for max boons and heals. And ofc there would have been boons floating about without the 2 eles, but definetly not as much.

25 might stacks is over 35% direct damage boost and 70%-100% condition damage boost for most people in direct damage gear.
So definetly can’t say anything bad about good d/d ele in a group pve situation.

Puandro.3245:

The problem is that ATM there is no way an ele achieve warrior DPS in PvE even if they give up all of their utility and buffs. Let’s not even mention being twice as easy to down in PvE if you decide to go that route.

There is currently no way for an elementalist to ‘give up all their utility and buffs’. Regardless of if you use them or not, take advantage of them to their fullest or ignore them, they are still there when you DO need them.

The difference here is, a full-on DPS warrior cannot provide the team support that a full-on DPS elementalist can be that support via heals/regen, CC or damage buffs from might stacks off of fire fields. All they have to do is press F1-4 and those utilities are at their fingertips.

Conversely, a full-on DPS warrior is likely using a GS which only has vulnerability and cripple as side-benefit and a rifle or something (but why use that? 100blades all the way!! :P) The amount of support available to him at any given point will offensive in nature and therefore limited in application.

I believe that might be your (and others’) problem. You can try to specialize elementalist as much as you want but that doesn’t erase the fact you do have versatility in your other attunements no matter how hard you try to ignore them…versatility that a warrior lacks.

How much you value that versatility is probably a whole other topic.

MarzAttakz.9608:

How exactly does mobility aid you in PVE (not counting Orr) other than running away when things go wrong? Where are you going to run to in dungeons?

Kiting. Keeping distance. Getting behind them. Moving out of red circles. Shall I go on?

I have been levelling a warrior for a brief time and I find it to be a pain to have to switch weapons for different situations. I’m not used to having to open the hero menu and switch my weapon sets around if I want to use a different combination. For example if I want to get to a place quickly I used sword/warhorn + greatsword but then I need to switch sword/warhorn with longbow or axe/axe and I just hate opening the hero menu to do that.

I love that elementalists get 4 weapon sets and I don’t need to open a menu to use them. If I want to quickly get to a place I just switch to air and then when I need to set fire to something I switch to fire and do exactly that XD.

Leo G.4501:

Puandro.3245:

The problem is that ATM there is no way an ele achieve warrior DPS in PvE even if they give up all of their utility and buffs. Let’s not even mention being twice as easy to down in PvE if you decide to go that route.

There is currently no way for an elementalist to ‘give up all their utility and buffs’. Regardless of if you use them or not, take advantage of them to their fullest or ignore them, they are still there when you DO need them.

The difference here is, a full-on DPS warrior cannot provide the team support that a full-on DPS elementalist can be that support via heals/regen, CC or damage buffs from might stacks off of fire fields. All they have to do is press F1-4 and those utilities are at their fingertips.

Conversely, a full-on DPS warrior is likely using a GS which only has vulnerability and cripple as side-benefit and a rifle or something (but why use that? 100blades all the way!! :P) The amount of support available to him at any given point will offensive in nature and therefore limited in application.

I believe that might be your (and others’) problem. You can try to specialize elementalist as much as you want but that doesn’t erase the fact you do have versatility in your other attunements no matter how hard you try to ignore them…versatility that a warrior lacks.

How much you value that versatility is probably a whole other topic.

It’s not my problem, i am fully aware trying to stick to 1 attunement to max my dps in a dungeon group is horrible thats why i don’t do it, and i think its dumb that if i decide i want to play that way i can’t achieve high dps. You say our utility is a swap away but really if you go full dps you aren’t putting any points in arcana or water, and you are using arcane spells for dps. Lastly i wouldn’t call a small ground target heal in water and Healing rain real heals, or an imob. Warriors go 20/25/0/10/15 for max GS dps and they can carry a 2nd weapon set for cc and buffs also and swap back to GS in 5 seconds. Don’t give me that crap that we can bring so much more utlity and heals/cc than wars when the tradeoff is not worth it.

Puandro.3245:

It’s not my problem, i am fully aware trying to stick to 1 attunement to max my dps in a dungeon group is horrible thats why i don’t do it, and i think its dumb that if i decide i want to play that way i can’t achieve high dps. You say our utility is a swap away but really if you go full dps you aren’t putting any points in arcana or water, and you are using arcane spells for dps. Lastly i wouldn’t call a small ground target heal in water and Healing rain real heals, or an imob. Warriors go 20/25/0/10/15 for max GS dps and they can carry a 2nd weapon set for cc and buffs also and swap back to GS in 5 seconds. Don’t give me that crap that we can bring so much more utlity and heals/cc than wars when the tradeoff is not worth it.

I didn’t mention much about swapping attunements for DPS (actually, I believe a build can outperform an attunement dancer at specific tasks if built for it, specifically a fire mage focused on maximizing burn, burst, might and positioning).

I was pointing out the discussed comparison of potential; that a max geared DPS elementalist can’t reach the same geared warrior.

And I point you back to the video you seem to be QQing about (the solo arah one). No, he’s not using a secondary weapon for CC. He’s using a secondary weapon for range and that’s for self preservation, not utility, because equipping a mace or hammer (traited or untraited but likely not) in PvE isn’t going to tip your survival any if you don’t have the toughness to get in the mob’s face.

As for the ‘crap’ you’re referring to, I’ll simply say that’s YOUR personal problem and either suck it up and deal with it or play a different profession with the hopes that one day we can throw away water or air attunements and get a bigger bang from fire. Disregard the heals and CC you INNATELY get all you want, but they’re still there and Anet has balanced the class knowing an elementalist will always have access to them REGARDLESS of what weapon they use or how glassy they trait themselves.

Leo G.4501:

Puandro.3245:

It’s not my problem, i am fully aware trying to stick to 1 attunement to max my dps in a dungeon group is horrible thats why i don’t do it, and i think its dumb that if i decide i want to play that way i can’t achieve high dps. You say our utility is a swap away but really if you go full dps you aren’t putting any points in arcana or water, and you are using arcane spells for dps. Lastly i wouldn’t call a small ground target heal in water and Healing rain real heals, or an imob. Warriors go 20/25/0/10/15 for max GS dps and they can carry a 2nd weapon set for cc and buffs also and swap back to GS in 5 seconds. Don’t give me that crap that we can bring so much more utlity and heals/cc than wars when the tradeoff is not worth it.

I didn’t mention much about swapping attunements for DPS (actually, I believe a build can outperform an attunement dancer at specific tasks if built for it, specifically a fire mage focused on maximizing burn, burst, might and positioning).

I was pointing out the discussed comparison of potential; that a max geared DPS elementalist can’t reach the same geared warrior.

And I point you back to the video you seem to be QQing about (the solo arah one). No, he’s not using a secondary weapon for CC. He’s using a secondary weapon for range and that’s for self preservation, not utility, because equipping a mace or hammer (traited or untraited but likely not) in PvE isn’t going to tip your survival any if you don’t have the toughness to get in the mob’s face.

As for the ‘crap’ you’re referring to, I’ll simply say that’s YOUR personal problem and either suck it up and deal with it or play a different profession with the hopes that one day we can throw away water or air attunements and get a bigger bang from fire. Disregard the heals and CC you INNATELY get all you want, but they’re still there and Anet has balanced the class knowing an elementalist will always have access to them REGARDLESS of what weapon they use or how glassy they trait themselves.

1) Yes a 30 Fire Spec with D/D is your best DPS option, problem is Dragon Claw doesn’t cleave.

2) Im not QQing about any Arah video, Wethospu (sp?) is a great player and knows his stuff but that’s not the point, the point is that you can attempt to do what he does on his warrior on an Ele and you have much less room for error then a warrior due to your low health and armor. Heal’s don’t matter when you get 1-shot.

3) I dealt with the problem of an Ele not being great in a dungeon group with rolling a guardian for one (months ago). I use my Guardian for Dungeons, i use my Ele for PvP. There is no reason for me to bash my head against the wall when i can roll a better class for PvE.

I have 1,500 Hours played on my account across 4 characters and 700 are from the elementalist itself. I have 5 different gear sets for my ele depending what i want to do. I consider myself pretty good when it comes to game balance and i KNOW that giving eles the health of even Mesmers (Mid Tier) would be freaking broken because tanky DPS eles and Bunker eles would be out of control but thats where the problem lies.
You cannot play a Pure DPS eles like a Thief/Mesmer/Warrior can because eles just fall over in PvP and this weakness transfers over to PvE. A warrior can be tanky and he can be bursty, a Mesmer can also do the same. A thief can pseudo tank with blinds most mobs in PvE and can be pretty hard to kill with stealth in PvP, although only viable in WvW not sPvP, and be a bursty BS build, they can also be tanky and DPS with S/D.
Some characters have many options and some very little, eles aren’t the only ones with this issue but it is an ele issue and since its my main i will drop what i think about it on the forums because i know the devs read them.

Also if you have time to burn.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llHO8EFnGlE (Me soloing AC in full zerk gear).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rHXZ2VjKBs (Last WvW Video i made).

Vanthian.9267:

MarzAttakz.9608:

How exactly does mobility aid you in PVE (not counting Orr) other than running away when things go wrong? Where are you going to run to in dungeons?

Kiting. Keeping distance. Getting behind them. Moving out of red circles. Shall I go on?

Ranged weapon swap abilities. Moving through a mob. Dodge. Signet of Rage. Ditto.