Guild Wars 2

It’s very funny to see people calling you OP for playing a specific profession while mentioning only a specific build and if you want to play a different build without 30 in Arcana you get called a noob, basically if a new player come on these forums complaining about eles as they’re rubbish…he get called a noob for not playing d/d with 0/10/0/30/30…wow.

This is the only profession whose sets have not been looked at ( in a positive way: no ultra nerfs) since BWE1 and people still dare to say that Anet has done a fantastic job with the ele and call you baddie if you want to play anything different than d/d 0/10/0/30/30.

We’ve got no viable burst option, many people keep mentioning updraft, but you can’t have a burst available every 40s not forgetting that the burst won’t kill anything except awful glass cannons in the best case scenario, after that you’ve got spells that hover in the sky for 4s before landing and other which takes 3s to travel from point A to point B, the enemy got plenty of time to get away

All in all, scepter/focus/staff need a serious look along with the fire traits/elites and non cantrips utilities, so let’s stop pretending this profession is fine when only 1/4 of our weapon sets is considered viable

0/15/0/25/30 is much more fun.

0/0/30/20/20 for me. Work fine.

Being pigeonholed into a specific spec is nothing new to MMO’s. You can tell you’re playing a bad one with no creativity or one that isn’t going to break any new ground when you see everyone min/maxing into the same spec and class. I’m not surprised to be honest.

The only thing you can do is keep bringing up the issues with Scepter and Staff as well as the countless useless skills and traits available to the class and thank the heavens that you’re not a Necromancer, Ranger, or Engineer… each of which could be removed in a patch tomorrow and no one would notice.

The same can be said about just any profession. No profession has much more then 2 outstanding builds.

There are different ones tho. I was doing well with a signet/aura build back in my first days and I don’t think it would be too bad now neither.

The problem is that alot of traits just appear pointless compared to our strong ones. I could list multiple traits here that no one would ever use and I’m sure most of you would agree on those with me, still they are still there making our decision which trait to use much more easy.

TLDR: It’s NOT solely an elementalists issue.

It’s human (or gamer) nature to gravitate towards the specs that prove both easiest to play with good performance. Doesn’t necessarily mean that’s all you CAN play, but of course that’s what is going to be the most popular.

0/10/0/30/30 is just a build with many trait options that synergize well regardless of weapon choice. It also provides a much needed boost to our low base hitpoints. It’s an obvious choice, which when discussed in multiple guides, makes it a safe option for anyone new to the class.

Hopefully the upcoming class and AoE adjustments improves the synergy of other builds so we can branch out a little more. I think we had a lot more options before all our damage nerfs, but now we tend to rely on boons in order to do anything useful.

Scepter and staff are fine. Scepter is actually far better damage/burst and if you properly land your fire skills and invest at least 15 points in lightning for Electric Discharge (and the damage scales extremely high with how easy it is to stack might in your fire field). Staff is more of a support weapon imo, and it excels at that role incredibly well.

I don’t have that much experience with focus so I can’t comment on it, but overall I feel Ele weapons are fine as is. People tend not to pick focus or staff due to the lack of mobility offhand dagger provides.

If anything needs to be changed it’s how strong passive healing is on Eles so that investing heavily in the water trait line is not viewed as a necessity.

Still can’t choose between 0/10/0/30/30, 0/10/10/30/20, and 0/10/10/20/30…

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhImkbwx5gjDAkHn4CLiCPUeMTO2A (Maybe switch between Cleansing Water and Powerful Aura.)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhImkbwx5gjEAkHn4CLjCiIK8QRxM5A (Maybe switch between Cleansing Water and Powerful Aura.)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhImkbwx5gjEAEFn4yogIiCPUeMTO2A

If anyone has any feedback, feel free to post/PM me. I love constructive criticism. :>

I do perfectly well with my glass/cannon ele 30/30/0/0/10, I only tend to lose with good mesmer players as they constantly play with my mind and make me waste most of my skills lol. There are not many good ele players out there and most of the tanky/defensive build eles are so easy to beat.

so basically weve heard 0/10/0/30/30, 0/15/0/25/30, 0/0/30/20/20, and one guy who goes glass cannon

all but one of these is still following the norm 0/10/0/30/30

lots in water and arcana. little in offense.

somebody who is good can easily beat a GC elementalist imo. compared to other GCs their dmg is sub-par and they naturally have low health and toughness. this makes it even riskier for less benefit

anybody can make claims on a forum. but in experience i dont see any GC ele builds accomplishing anything in SPvP or WvW. anything is viable in dungeons except higher level fractals, the real question is WvW and SPvP.

too much risk for too little gain compared to GC builds for other professions

in a skilled environment GC eles will lose almost all the time to another build

LightningBlaze.4913:

It is not really the build, it is more about the player skills. If you can predict most of your opponent attacks, you can easily avoid them by straffing, dodging, or blinding. It takes a lot of practice. It is definitely more challenging to master and it can frustrating at first until you really become good at pvp against other players. Very few of the good players you will never see them post in the forums for various reasons. Most of the things you see here are amateur builds and skills and you can tell you are one if you are following someone elses build and way to play in pvp.

Right…like you play 1vs1 all the times where the opponent fights you face to face, numerically speaking a thief can one-shot you from the back and you don’t see him coming, it takes nothing…stealth behind the corner-mug-backstab-HS and you’re done for.

Of course you cannot join a battle as it starts neither you can burst people when they see you coming, the ele burst is extremely predictable therefore no doubt even the most gifted self-proclamed pro ele will use hit and run tactics, basically playing an ele like a thief…already met this type of eles, they will never fight in the open, always hiding behind their allies and running away with RTl once they lose the element of surprise..basically a thief.

Maybe..just maybe not may people like to play the naruto version of a wizard…ever thought about that?

Its not like we have many other effective options. The ?/?/?/30/30 build has great synergy. Boons make you deal more damage. You have increased boon duration and very fast attunment switching which grants boons. The condition removal and healing tools that this build provides is very powerful. It might not make you hit very hard but, it allows you to withstand a lot of punishment.

Games where players die in 1 second are poorly designed games anyway. It’s not the fault of the player; its the designer that doesn’t know what he’s doing.

LightningBlaze.4913:

I do perfectly well with my glass/cannon ele 30/30/0/0/10, I only tend to lose with good mesmer players as they constantly play with my mind and make me waste most of my skills lol. There are not many good ele players out there and most of the tanky/defensive build eles are so easy to beat.

Where is your condition removal?

Cleansing fire has a 50 second cooldown and ether renewal is at best a hot join heal.

Ele is a extreamly diverse class. In dungons, all i say is that you should invest into water magic at least 15 trait points, Eles have some extreamly potent support skills, especially with the staff, and even a half support build is still a considerable contribution to a group.

I run 0/20/0/20/30 while using D/D and 0/10/10/20/30 on S/D for power-based builds respectively. S/D has this great ability to absorb almost as much damage as a Valkyrie D/D while using a Berserker amulet.

I have to disagree a bit about the “Elementalist only have one viable build” stuff.
There are many variations (more dmg, more defense) of that build, there are some other condition/bunker builds using signets and the staff glass cannon.

What I think its the “problem” here is that Daphoenix and some other users have done such a good job explaining that one build and the weapon set and strategies that it requires/work better with, that most of new eles go for that and dont even bother to look further. Its a great build, its fun and can be very good, but its not “the only viable build”.

You can argue, maybe, that its the “most viable build” we have, but not the only.

Am I the only ele that runs 20-10-30-0-10?

Maybe.

But I seem to be the only one that always keeps 30 in air >_>

Also, since the beginning, I’ve usually had 30 in water but as I play dual dagger less and less the amount of time I play elementalist, the Powerful Auras trait gets less and less useful.

One of these days I’m going to have to take all my points out of water and put it into earth because I really never use earth traits. Or maybe something drastic and take all points out of air and put them in earth instead.

I usually let the build dictate the style rather than try to pinpoint a desired playstyle then build toward it.

Personally I like earth for the ‘Written in stone’ trait, and whatever trait it is that produces protection when I make auras. Combined with the trait that reduces signet recharge by 20%, the fire trait that grants fire shields on sig activation, and the air trait that gives auras fury and swiftness, I have a fun time running around with perma fury, prot, and swiftness. I don’t have quite the healing/party support abilities that the other D/D eles have, but I find it fun and very tanky due to the protection while also hitting very hard. I’ve seen the ridiculous healing and party healing that their builds do, and it’s fantastic, but for my personal playstyle I like my build.

nothing new that all eles are going some kind of Auramancer build or heavy water/arcane nothing else is worth it… some eles traits really need rework

i was playing 0/25/0/15/30 for a long time but it still thing its some kind of heavy water/arcane build… now i switched to 0/15/0/25/30

I go 20/0/0/30/20 and I do pretty well. In fact I’m often alive longer than others when I group with them. Though even with fire at 20 I find my damage still kind of lacking. (I use a staff by the way.

I have to admit that having a Cleansing Wave on a 9 second CD with Evasive Arcana and a minimum of 15 in water to get Healing Ripple for another burst heal is just too much to give up even with no healing power.

I have been doing well with 0/30/0/20/20. I like it because its viable for D/D and S/D.

I am a 0/0/20/25/25-And I love it. People have this misconception that im a bunker ele, built for a hell of a lot of surivival. In a sense I am, but I actually built that way because the one line I wanted to be good with was awfull.

I hate air. I wanted to be a Storm Ele, with a focus on control, and damage. Then supplement that with healing. But I absolutly Despise the scepter, and the dagger, and Staff air attunemnts. Scepter is pretty much pure damage, dagger is heavy control(with that awfull number 2), and staff is just terrible. "Chain lighting, Surge, Speed buff, Static feild, and that terrible pathtic thing known as gust).

Eles should have many viable builds, rather then a select few. The D/D build just synergizes extreamly well, and its very easy to get a grasp off. You play the opposite of attrition. In the begining your at the weakest, but as you get going and rev up you become pretty much unkillable.

If Air was much more viable, with plenty of Stuns and dazes, and heavy damage, knockbakcs, etc etc. Then It would be much more used. In fact I am a water ele out of neccesity(becuase staff just can not synergize ith air, it can’t). Once they fix air, and make it less of a “Speed buff” and more of a “Control and Damage” option-then ill be happy.

Id jump ship. My orinal plan was to be a 30 Air, 20 water, 20 Arcane build with emphisis on control-then damage-supplemnted by healing and fast recharges. I tried the build out for a while, and it falls to peices. Air is just soo useless.

It’s kind of strange that so little has changed with ele builds since launch. Most other classes have seen new and interesting builds that change the class meta and ele is still being played air/water/arcana the way we have since August.

Its because earth and fire aren’t as strong compared to the returns you get with air, water, and arcana. I’m currently running 0/20/0/20/30 on S/D elementalist which I prefer to the traditional build mentioned in the topic title. Certain traits need to reworked for them for them to viable in comparison.

I do 10/0/10/30/20 for extra might from cantrips and protection from auras. Don’t really like evasive arcana.

Caffynated.5713:

It’s kind of strange that so little has changed with ele builds since launch. Most other classes have seen new and interesting builds that change the class meta and ele is still being played air/water/arcana the way we have since August.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zZDtrhwZ_w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2c47lYupA0

What classes have seen “new and interesting” builds that change the class’ meta? It certainly can’t be Guardians because we’re also pigeonholed into a cookie-cutter build (0/0/30/30/10). Our offensive traits are terrible so we’re almost forced into using our defensive/utility traits, Honor (Vitality) and Valor (Toughness), similar to Elementalists with Arcana and Water. Evasive Arcana in Arcana is your “must-have” trait and for Guardians it’s Altruistic Healing in Valor.

D/D Ele’s are ridiculously powerful and flexible, I wouldn’t complain if I were you.

Well most people just can’t look past their own profession. No other class has received new interesting builds from any change. I play 6 different professsions (engineer, ele, thief, guard, necro, mesmer) and all builds I have known and used for any of them were avaiable from the start. Infact they just cutted down some pretty good builds by some restricting nerfs yet.

You guys need to stop seeing problems only within your class. It takes 2 minutes to analyse other profession forums and to realize that all of them have their own problems. Some got less some got more and elementalist definetly is one of the stronger classes (if played properly).

There is no prof with more then 2-3 (good) builds (infact not too much builds come close to the common D/D build). It’s definitely not an elementalist issue.

The real truth is you see a 0/10/0/30/20 spec (with other points elsewhere) because D/D and Staff gets the most out of the traits in those points. This is because our trait lines are garbage.

Fire is terrible and is mostly used for the +Power it gives. Air has two good traits both of which are available 10 points in. Earth is almost decent but suffers from trait placement so it’s also garbage.

However long as I’m not as bad as an Engineer is I am okay with the way things are.

Somoe.3621:

What classes have seen “new and interesting” builds that change the class’ meta? It certainly can’t be Guardians because we’re also pigeonholed into a cookie-cutter build (0/0/30/30/10). Our offensive traits are terrible so we’re almost forced into using our defensive/utility traits, Honor (Vitality) and Valor (Toughness), similar to Elementalists with Arcana and Water. Evasive Arcana in Arcana is your “must-have” trait and for Guardians it’s Altruistic Healing in Valor.

D/D Ele’s are ridiculously powerful and flexible, I wouldn’t complain if I were you.

I’m not talking about changes brought about by patches. I’m talking about player innovation and developing the class.

Mesmer at launch was primarily played as a phantasm burst spec with a spread of other builds. Within a month the meta had changed and most mesmers were shatter burst specced, but you still saw phantasm builds a lot until the nerf. Recently the confusion spammer has become more popular ( at least from what I’ve seen).

Warrior was pretty much a glass 100blades bot with bullrush, bolas and frenzy at launch. Now you almost never see that outside of free kills in hot join. Great sword is still popular, but the class is no longer played around all or nothing 100 blades. Burst tends to come from whirlwind and eviscerate. In WvW the hammer warrior became very popular after some guilds started running knockdown/back spec groups.

The meta changes for ele and thief have pretty much been based solely around patch changes. Evasive arcana nerf pretty much erased staff builds in structured and tournaments. Nerfs to perma daze lock and pistol whip made those builds unpopular. For the most part, people still play these two classes exactly the same way they were played in August except where patch changes have directly affected the balance.

The biggest change I made was abandoning my 30 20 0 0 20 glass staff bomb ele for WvW when I moved off JQueue to a lower population server. In structured my ele is still the same 0 X X 30 30/20 burst or bunker that it was when I created it on August 24th. Ele is stagnant with almost no innovation from the players. When is the last time anyone posted a thread with a new spec idea and it actually caught on? Ele builds rarely deviate more than 10 points outside of the 0 X X 30 30 build. If somebody is really innovative they will change around 15 points and make a thread about their exciting new idea.

Caffynated.5713:

Mesmer at launch was primarily played as a phantasm burst spec with a spread of other builds. Within a month the meta had changed and most mesmers were shatter burst specced, but you still saw phantasm builds a lot until the nerf. Recently the confusion spammer has become more popular ( at least from what I’ve seen).

I still play as Phantasm burst and it still does pretty kitten well. The only real nerf I’ve felt to it on my Mesmer was the no LOS thing in WvW. The build is just so perfect in terms of offense and defense it’s hard to give up.

Kodiak.3281:

I still play as Phantasm burst and it still does pretty kitten well. The only real nerf I’ve felt to it on my Mesmer was the no LOS thing in WvW. The build is just so perfect in terms of offense and defense it’s hard to give up.

It isn’t a bad build, but it isn’t nearly as popular as it was. I would compare a phantasm mesmer to a glyph ele. It works and it’s pretty strong, but you’re clearly less powerful than other options.

Caffynated.5713:

The biggest change I made was abandoning my 30 20 0 0 20 glass staff bomb ele for WvW when I moved off JQueue to a lower population server. In structured my ele is still the same 0 X X 30 30/20 burst or bunker that it was when I created it on August 24th. Ele is stagnant with almost no innovation from the players. When is the last time anyone posted a thread with a new spec idea and it actually caught on? Ele builds rarely deviate more than 10 points outside of the 0 X X 30 30 build. If somebody is really innovative they will change around 15 points and make a thread about their exciting new idea.

And I think we all know why that is. The 30 points in water brings so much to our support and survivability, while most eles who use attunement swap frequently would say that the 30 points in Arcana is a must. And agree, most “new builds” I see in the forums is really the same old, repeated all over again with one or two traits changed here and there. But idk who I would blame, Anet or the player, tbh. Are we really so forced to spend those points into water/arcana to have a viable build or did we just grew too comfortable? I’m still working on theocrafting something new to play around with, but it’s pretty hard. I really don’t want to give up faster attunement recharge, nor all the goodie traits in water.

Caffynated.5713:

It isn’t a bad build, but it isn’t nearly as popular as it was. I would compare a phantasm mesmer to a glyph ele. It works and it’s pretty strong, but you’re clearly less powerful than other options.

Dunno every time I bring stupid amounts of reflect cause of 25 in Inspiration and kick out 4-6k Berserkers I find it hard to have a Shatter build come close while still offering huge hit points, toughness, power and precision. Honestly tried them with all sorts of gear combinations and none of them really came close to performing as well as the Phantasm burst.

I’m contemplating going for a maximum toughness build for wvw due to wanting something different to 0/10/0/30/30 or 0/15/0/25/30. I’ve weened myself off Clerics a while back and as much as I’m going to miss Aura Sharing, Evasive Arcana and Elemental Attunement I think it’s time to be brave and see how a 0/10/30/20/10 build goes with almost 3k armor, protection, fury, swiftness, vigor and group stability.

Is there a spec that lets you just sit in one attune all day and perform well? I think that’s the reason most people are going so deep into arcana and water. The class encourages you to swap attunes consistently – so why wouldn’t you take traits that give you boons and other benefits for doing so (along with reducing the cooldowns)?

It’s almost like most of that stuff should just be baseline.