Guild Wars 2

What in your opinion is a huge mistake while playing an ele? What makes an ele player noob? What would you avoid at all costs?

Ill start: i have a friend who i play with, we both have ele alts, i like scepter focus and he likes staff. What makes me cringe though is the fact that he uses fire 99,99% of the time…. Just spamming fire 1 and sometimes fire 2 and 3. He only switches to air only while travelling for the speed buff..

I just… cant handle his style of ele playing… So much wasted potential…i guess he is used to playing those dull warriors and rangers only..

ok your turn.

Andovar Edoras.2143:

Ill start: i have a friend who i play with, we both have ele alts, i like scepter focus and he likes staff. What makes me cringe though is the fact that he uses fire 99,99% of the time…. Just spamming fire 1 and sometimes fire 2 and 3. He only switches to air only while travelling for the speed buff.

depending on the group and the eles build, this may be the most effective way to play staff-ele

Gorni.1764:

Andovar Edoras.2143:

Ill start: i have a friend who i play with, we both have ele alts, i like scepter focus and he likes staff. What makes me cringe though is the fact that he uses fire 99,99% of the time…. Just spamming fire 1 and sometimes fire 2 and 3. He only switches to air only while travelling for the speed buff.

depending on the group and the eles build, this may be the most effective way to play staff-ele

No, no and no. ONE Earth #1 and you just applied 3s of weakness. This means every non-critical hit is a glancing blow which only does 50% damage. Now do you think an overall 50% damage reduction is something to be neglected in favor of a little more DPS?

What about chill? What about AoE healing and condition removal? What about stacking vulnerability on bosses?

Staying in one attunement 99% of the time is pretty much the only wrong way to play an ele, regardless of your build and trait lines. Players who do that ignore our main class mechanic and do not take advantage of it in any way. End of discussion.

for average and low AI mobs in open world , that will do but for anythig else he will find it very difficult to continue using this pattern.

I have to agree. I play 100% staff on my ele. In open world PvE you can get away sometimes with never leaving fire. I find that switching to earth for the cripple and weakness helps a lot. I also put my elemental out from earth for its survialablity.

But I am constantly switching between attunements while playing with a group. This allow me to setup multiple fields at once if I am fast enough for combo’s, dealing damage, and adding some regen to the melee characters trying to hold agro. I also use the cripple from earth on pulls to give more time before the mobs get in close. Overall if your not switching attunements you are missing out on so much.

Running signets.

I run only a signet build. I use the Water, Earth, and Air. Depending, I may switch the air signet out for the fire if I need a better crit chance, but the normal way I run it works great for both solo and group play. The air works great in dungeons for the aoe blind it does when the enemy is grouped up. I switch up the water and earth for slowing the enemy and then hit them with the blind to do a lot of damage before I get damaged. Works really well. Also having the earth elemental out holding agro while doing it makes fights speed along really nice.

Andovar Edoras.2143:

What in your opinion is a huge mistake while playing an ele? What makes an ele player noob? What would you avoid at all costs?

Ill start: i have a friend who i play with, we both have ele alts, i like scepter focus and he likes staff. What makes me cringe though is the fact that he uses fire 99,99% of the time…. Just spamming fire 1 and sometimes fire 2 and 3. He only switches to air only while travelling for the speed buff..

I just… cant handle his style of ele playing… So much wasted potential…i guess he is used to playing those dull warriors and rangers only..

ok your turn.

That’s a perfectly acceptable way of playing staff ele, mainly because the earth damage is so low that its weakness becomes pointless. You are better off sticking with fire and getting a quick kill.

Earth only comes into full effect on staff when you have the stats and traits to back it up and even then its best used as an opener and then followed up by fire.

This isn’t a problem with your friend’s play, its a problem with staff and the fact that so many of the traits only function when using fire. I think most agree that if they changed the fire bonuses to work in all elements, then it would be a much needed buff to the staff.

number 1 mistake is to use staff I see a staff ele and it’s free stomp for me. Number 2 mistake , spam rotation without knowing who you are fighting against. An ele who try to cc and land big aes at the start of a fight are most likely a bad one. Good eles wait till they build up might and the other guy have used up cc breakers before dps dump. 3’d mistake is not knowing when to run. So many times I see eles fight 1 v 3 and not start running till it’s way too late.

The only real mistake when playing ele is to assume that your way of playing it is better than the other guys. Speaking honestly the class is so diverse that I cant really fathom saying build A is that much better than build B (in PvE that is).

That being said in dungeons not being aware of the condition situation of the party. Most weapon sets have a water field or a cleanse built in that goes to the party. Using those skill can help classes like Zerk warrior keep chugging along.

Mogar.9216:

number 1 mistake is to use staff I see a staff ele and it’s free stomp for me. Number 2 mistake , spam rotation without knowing who you are fighting against. An ele who try to cc and land big aes at the start of a fight are most likely a bad one. Good eles wait till they build up might and the other guy have used up cc breakers before dps dump. 3’d mistake is not knowing when to run. So many times I see eles fight 1 v 3 and not start running till it’s way too late.

1. Mistake is use the wrong weapon set for the wrong context. Staff has incomparable utility for medium/large groups (WvW). While x/d setups trade for more survivability and mobility that are more suited for roaming and s/tPvP, they contribute almost nothing in a large fight except an extra body.

@OP, whether he stays on one attunement would also seem to depend on his trait build. But for PvE traited into fire (cooldown and damage) it seems viable while PvP where direct damage is rarely the right answer, it’s wasting way to much potential utility (defense, cc, healing) skill cooldowns.

Staff is good for 1 thing and 1 thing only that is zerg. Range and AE that do not require target makes staff good in zerg v zerg. When you lag to 1 frame per second you can just spam your ground target ae and hit all the poor kittens who can’t even move out of it due to lag. In every other situation x/d is better. As long as the zerg isn’t big enough to lag your pc out you can go in and out of a zerg fight a cause a lot of problem as x/d ele. That being said you can always play x/d spec and switch to staff when you zerg. The difference between a pure staff trait ele vs a x/d ele who uses a staff is minimal .

chronometria.3708:

That’s a perfectly acceptable way of playing staff ele, mainly because the earth damage is so low that its weakness becomes pointless. You are better off sticking with fire and getting a quick kill.

Try shooting Earth #1 and #5 through a fire field and see how’s the damage then. Plus, Earth #2 is a really nice damage+bleed AoE and it is our only blast finisher on the staff, so basically if you only use fire not only you’re not utilizing all the advantages of other elements, but you’re not doing any comboing like:

-AoE Might
-AoE Heal
-AoE Swiftness
-AoE Frost Aura

And that’s just from our combo fields. You’re also missing out on creating AoE Retaliation, AoE invisibility, AoE blindness, AoE Weakness and AoE Chaos Armor from combo fields put down by other professions.

Furthermore, when it comes to pure DPS, I can guarantee you that you will be killing stuff faster if you rapidly cycle through your attunements and drop all the most damaging spells on your target. In WvW I would never be able to down and kill opponents on walls if I only used fire. But if I use Earth #2, Water #2 and #4, Fire #2 and #5, I often manage to down a few and often kill them.

In PvE, try killing a single target before they get to you without moving. With fire – no chance. With all four elements – a walk in the park. So there really is no real reason to not go for attunement switching.

Which is also the reason why people don’t spec heavily into fire – more interesting traits are only useful if you stick in the fire attunement, which makes you kitten yourself for everything else. If you need extra power, use food or just make a power heavy build using gear/weapons.

Mogar.9216:

Staff is good for 1 thing and 1 thing only that is zerg. Range and AE that do not require target makes staff good in zerg v zerg. When you lag to 1 frame per second you can just spam your ground target ae and hit all the poor kittens who can’t even move out of it due to lag. In every other situation x/d is better. As long as the zerg isn’t big enough to lag your pc out you can go in and out of a zerg fight a cause a lot of problem as x/d ele. That being said you can always play x/d spec and switch to staff when you zerg. The difference between a pure staff trait ele vs a x/d ele who uses a staff is minimal .

I would add that the main use for staff in zerg fights are AoE CC’s spells. A well placed Static Field will wreck a zerg charge. That together with AoE Chill and Cripple will totally destroy their cohesion as many commanders like to have their zergball punch through an enemy zerg and out the other side, swing around and come back for more.

Once the two zergs are fighting in one place, our AoE damage from staff cannot be matched by any other weapon set we have, especially if you have Blasting Staff traited.

Gaudrath.6725:

No, no and no. ONE Earth #1 and you just applied 3s of weakness. This means every non-critical hit is a glancing blow which only does 50% damage. Now do you think an overall 50% damage reduction is something to be neglected in favor of a little more DPS?

Wrong. It’s 50% chance to be glancing, but weakness is still not to be taken lightly when applied in long duration. It’s also worth noting that earth auto attack is a 100% chance combo finisher. I agree with the rest of what you said.

Moving along, it is important to consider that staff elementalists still have decent ability to stack might. With Evasive Arcana a staff ele can keep up about 10 stacks of might without a sigil of battle. This combines well with their ability to apply large aoe bleeds/burns while dealing aoe damage.

on the other side of the spectrum we have the elementalists who stack healing power and stays in water 99,99% of the time.

once i found a staff elementalists in a Pug and i realized halfway through the dungeon that i had not seen a single meteor storm, i asked him nicely to throw down a few meteor storms to help out with the dps but he simply says “no, then i lose healing abilitys” note that this is AC pre patch and we never were below 75% of health because we had 2 guardians.

so yeah, i prefer a 100% fire ele above a 100% water ele anyday of the week beacuse they actually do something <.<

when i play elementalsits i usually am 50-90% of the encounter in the fire mode because its AA is the only one that is good enough, sure earth weekness is ok but it isnt aoe. also fire 2 is realy nice dps wise and fire field. in some boss fights i never exit fire because they are so simple. i.e frostbite last boss fractal or AC bosses pre patch.

The worst way to play an ele is to think that because they’re loaded with healing power, sitting in water attunement is a good idea, when a large amount of healing comes from the switch TO the attunement to get the burst heal and regen.

It is superior to put the abilities on cooldown and leave water, do something else, then come back to water and put them on cooldown again. More damage, more healing, no downside.

Mighty Assasin.3816:

Running signets.

If I could give you my like I would. A signet build on ANY profession is a recipe for disaster cough warrior cough

My two cents. Staff users don’t feel the pressure of being targeted (most of the time) so really any “tactic” will work for them, because they don’t know what doesn’t work. As a D/D wielder sitting in one attunement is guaranteed suicide, whereas someone sitting on the sidelines could one mash and think they’re helping.

if an ele is traited into fire, he can maintain a constant ~9-10 stack of might just going through fire 1-2-3. if the ele has boon duration that 9-10 can be anywhere from 10-15 stacks or maybe even more from just the 1-2-3 spells. while switching attunement provides alot of other utilities staying in fire will generate the highest dps for that ele over time. if the ele was traited into fire/arcana with sigil of battle, it might be worth it to cycle quickly every so often but doing so negates some of the best benefit of fire trait. if hes traited 30/30 fire/air then anytime switching out of fire hes losing single target sustain dps.

the wrong way of playing ele is simply believing u have to attunement swap. there are certain build that simply dont need much attunement swap, these are usually built specifically for certain task in the game, but its can perform that task better then the general attunement swapper can usually.

I don’t think focusing on 1 element is “the wrong way”.
I know many many and again many Eles who don’t want to swap a lot and spam everything on CD or rotations, they like specialized play.
It’s just the Ele class lacking a proper specialization system with T3 traits.

I.E.
Pyromaster: Fire spells have their critical chance doubled.
Attunement recharge rate increased to 60s and spells of other attunements have -50% dmg/healing.
Stormcaller: Air spells have their damage increased by 25% and recharge 20% faster.
Attunement recharge rate increased to 60s and spells of other attunements have -50% dmg/healing.
Stoneguard: +250 toughness and condition damage. Armor of earth cooldown halved. Attunement recharge rate increased to 60s and spells of other attunements have -50% dmg/healing.
Frost Mage: +250 vitality and healing power. Water spells cause vulnerability.
Attunement recharge rate increased to 60s and spells of other attunements have -50% dmg/healing.

1% recharge rate per point in trait. 30 in fire would yield 30% faster skill recharge in fire only. Only problem I see is a low cd on cleansing wave. They should increase recharge on attunement switch to discourage attunment swapping. But increase the 2 percent per point in arcane trait line. Ppl can do more specialized play this way.

Red Falcon.8257:

I don’t think focusing on 1 element is “the wrong way”.
I know many many and again many Eles who don’t want to swap a lot and spam everything on CD or rotations, they like specialized play.
It’s just the Ele class lacking a proper specialization system with T3 traits.

I.E.
Pyromaster: Fire spells have their critical chance doubled.
Attunement recharge rate increased to 60s and spells of other attunements have -50% dmg/healing.
Stormcaller: Air spells have their damage increased by 25% and recharge 20% faster.
Attunement recharge rate increased to 60s and spells of other attunements have -50% dmg/healing.
Stoneguard: +250 toughness and condition damage. Armor of earth cooldown halved. Attunement recharge rate increased to 60s and spells of other attunements have -50% dmg/healing.
Frost Mage: +250 vitality and healing power. Water spells cause vulnerability.
Attunement recharge rate increased to 60s and spells of other attunements have -50% dmg/healing.

I actually wouldn’t mind seeing this implemented, I doubt I would personally use it but it would be interesting to see what others made of it. It would probably be a staff only trait as you need versatility to stay alive on the front lines.
Maybe not a whole minute on attunement swap, an increase yes but not a whole minute, that’s a bit absurd. The damage and healing penalty is enough to not bother with other attunements.

I think the WvW’ers would cry about how OP the staff Ele’s would become, as they can now stop at 40% or so crit chance from zerkers and use Valkyrie to give them high toughness whilst still dealing full Bezerker damage <- One of many of the ways these traits could be used, it would still be interesting to see what other people can come up with, and to see people break out of the default attunement dancing :]

Ironically, our highest damage build option is to:

1.) Not Switch Attunements

2.) Stay in Water Attunment 95% of the time

3.) Use Conjure Lightning / Fiery GS (w/ 25 use trait)

So, don’t be too judgmental of your friend or other eles, sometimes their build is simply better than yours, with the right modifications, traits, and group composition

Additionally, against a stationary target, Fire-staff is one of the higher consistant DPS options in the game. Lavafont’s short cast time, and very high total damage, and fireball’s respectable damage, and Meteor Showers devistating total potential damage, actually make Fire-staff one of the if not the strongest ranged dps weapon in the entire game. Again, vs a stationary target. Guardian’s scepter is similarly quite awesome in this situation..

The More You Know!

(shameless build plug, click here)

(shhh don’t tell anyone you can crit potentially for 8,000 x2 + 12,000 every 3 seconds with my build in an optimal group)

PS: Grab lightning hammer and actually be useful with your Fire-staff friend. If you are at least L.40 you can take the 25 uses trait for the conjured weapons, use Conjured Lightning’s auto-attack Blast finishers on the foes while your staff friend keeps a constant Fire Field up. Say hello to 25 might pretty much when ever you want it, while doing way more damage than your current set up.

Dolan.3071:

Mighty Assasin.3816:

Running signets.

My two cents. Staff users don’t feel the pressure of being targeted (most of the time) so really any “tactic” will work for them, because they don’t know what doesn’t work. As a D/D wielder sitting in one attunement is guaranteed suicide, whereas someone sitting on the sidelines could one mash and think they’re helping.

Or be a real Norn and use Conjure Lightning (and the build i made for it!). I never attunement swap with that, and with the constant Blind against non-champs I can hang in melee for a loooong time in Arah and Fractals.

Gaudrath.6725:

Gorni.1764:

Andovar Edoras.2143:

Ill start: i have a friend who i play with, we both have ele alts, i like scepter focus and he likes staff. What makes me cringe though is the fact that he uses fire 99,99% of the time…. Just spamming fire 1 and sometimes fire 2 and 3. He only switches to air only while travelling for the speed buff.

depending on the group and the eles build, this may be the most effective way to play staff-ele

No, no and no. ONE Earth #1 and you just applied 3s of weakness. This means every non-critical hit is a glancing blow which only does 50% damage. Now do you think an overall 50% damage reduction is something to be neglected in favor of a little more DPS?

What about chill? What about AoE healing and condition removal? What about stacking vulnerability on bosses?

Staying in one attunement 99% of the time is pretty much the only wrong way to play an ele, regardless of your build and trait lines. Players who do that ignore our main class mechanic and do not take advantage of it in any way. End of discussion.

This isn’t GW1…Weakness in this game is different …When weakened, There is a CHANCE every non-crit is glanced

Weakness is useless. most of the time

And concerning your friend …I play his build and had touched Daggers for 3 hours tops in my whole gameplay.
Staff since beta, Staff today ….trust me, staying in fire is Optimal because nobody cares about broken skills and 2 second conditions ^^

Currently :

• You do ~1000 dmg
• He does ~1150 dmg

What you WANT :

• enemy slowed for 2 seconds, blinded for 1 attack, crippeled for 2 seconds
• You to deal ~1100 dmg (to weakened foe)
• He does ~300 DMG

I prefer the 1st build/gameplay

Gaudrath.6725:

Gorni.1764:

Andovar Edoras.2143:

Ill start: i have a friend who i play with, we both have ele alts, i like scepter focus and he likes staff. What makes me cringe though is the fact that he uses fire 99,99% of the time…. Just spamming fire 1 and sometimes fire 2 and 3. He only switches to air only while travelling for the speed buff.

depending on the group and the eles build, this may be the most effective way to play staff-ele

No, no and no. ONE Earth #1 and you just applied 3s of weakness. This means every non-critical hit is a glancing blow which only does 50% damage. Now do you think an overall 50% damage reduction is something to be neglected in favor of a little more DPS?

What about chill? What about AoE healing and condition removal? What about stacking vulnerability on bosses?

Staying in one attunement 99% of the time is pretty much the only wrong way to play an ele, regardless of your build and trait lines. Players who do that ignore our main class mechanic and do not take advantage of it in any way. End of discussion.

I never said you should avoid using other attunements at all costs. But for pure DPS staying only in fire is the best way (like said, depending on group and build). For example applying vulnerability might be good for the whole group but your DPS is so low in water that the overall-dmg of the group will be lowered. Of course switching to earth/air when you have to kite or to water when you have to heal is necessary. But a standard-rotation with staff isn’t the right way to do DPS in my opinion.

@original topic: speccing into earth or going for condition-dmg; also speccing less than 20P in arcana if you use D/D oder S/D

Gorni.1764:

Gaudrath.6725:

Gorni.1764:

Andovar Edoras.2143:

Ill start: i have a friend who i play with, we both have ele alts, i like scepter focus and he likes staff. What makes me cringe though is the fact that he uses fire 99,99% of the time…. Just spamming fire 1 and sometimes fire 2 and 3. He only switches to air only while travelling for the speed buff.

depending on the group and the eles build, this may be the most effective way to play staff-ele

No, no and no. ONE Earth #1 and you just applied 3s of weakness. This means every non-critical hit is a glancing blow which only does 50% damage. Now do you think an overall 50% damage reduction is something to be neglected in favor of a little more DPS?

What about chill? What about AoE healing and condition removal? What about stacking vulnerability on bosses?

Staying in one attunement 99% of the time is pretty much the only wrong way to play an ele, regardless of your build and trait lines. Players who do that ignore our main class mechanic and do not take advantage of it in any way. End of discussion.

I never said you should avoid using other attunements at all costs. But for pure DPS staying only in fire is the best way (like said, depending on group and build). For example applying vulnerability might be good for the whole group but your DPS is so low in water that the overall-dmg of the group will be lowered. Of course switching to earth/air when you have to kite or to water when you have to heal is necessary. But a standard-rotation with staff isn’t the right way to do DPS in my opinion.

I don’t know who came up with “for pure DPS stay in fire” idea, but it’s simply not true. I can outDPS any “fire mage” all the time by rapidly cycling attunements and using my most damaging spells from all elements + dropping Static Field in a ranged group will quickly max the vulnerability stack which means 25% more damage for the group.

Depending what weapon you’re using, attunement rotation speed and sequences can be different, but if you’re saying that only using fire on staff can outDPS every big hitter from all the other elements which can be lined up much more quickly than waiting on cooldowns in fire, you’re wrong. While you’re flinging fire autoattacks, I have landed several combos, big damage spells (try using Ice Spike once, or shoot Stoning and Shockwave through a fire field and let me know if the damage is low) and returned to Fire to recast spells which have just left their cooldown.

The only reason people can get away with ignoring our class mechanic in PvE is because PvE is so dead easy.

Staying in fire seems to be close to optimal when running staff Pyromancer’s Puissance with reduced fire cooldowns.

Clearly you swap out for utility spells, but that’s a trade-off with damage.

The long story short is without damage meters or damage measuring tools there’s virtually no way to determine what play style or even spec is more effective. Even the combat log doesn’t measure conditions.

People swapping attunements till they’re all on cool down could be 100% more damage than people who just stay in Fire and there’s ZERO way to back up that claim. For all they know those 27 seconds out of Fire could be half the DPS of what just staying in Fire is.

People claiming that AOE Might stacks increase more damage for the group than the damage they lose while doing those AOE Might stacks with a staff have ZERO way to back up that claim. For all they know they could have increased the damage of the group by 50 total while in the meanwhile they could have been doing 100 damage themselves instead meaning the group lost 50 damage (obviously fictional numbers).

A lot of what goes down on these forums and consequently we see in game is just wild speculation, bold assumptions and regurgitated nonsense with almost ZERO basis in fact (because the facts aren’t available to us).

More importantly, anytime anyone does try to prove it they usually state an incomplete scenario. For example they list a spec, but not a weapon or a weapon and not the gear and spec. GW2’s combat systems behind the scenes are actually quite complex. There’s a lot of soft-caps on damage and damage scaling as well as how conditions actually work. Since things like boons and conditions don’t even show up in the combat log you can’t even parse it manually for an accurate picture.

Play what you want and if someone ever gives you lip about your play style simply ask them to prove mathematically that their play style or spec is better. Just keep repeating to prove it till they go away (because they likely won’t back down despite being wrong).

Or kick you from groups doing high level fractals and dungeon romping for being inefficient. Not that I agree with that sort of behavior because I’m not a min/maxer, but it will happen.

And if you try ignoring your class mechanics in WvW, well, prepare to be farmed for badges. If WvW’ers give you lip about you staying only in fire and not dropping Static Fields (if you run staff) and Frozen Ground in front of enemy zergs, you deserve it.

If you happen to be solo roaming with D/D, nobody will give you lip about staying in one element only, you’ll just die a lot.

Gaudrath.6725:

Or kick you from groups doing high level fractals and dungeon romping for being inefficient. Not that I agree with that sort of behavior because I’m not a min/maxer, but it will happen.

This doesn’t reflect my experience. I’ve never once been kicked out of groups and have played as all Fire. Most fractal groups I do ends up with someone leaving if people aren’t performing well.

More importantly, why would people who don’t even play the class even think to look for it? Because of the propagation of assumption and stereotyping of game play. They may very well kick you, but it isn’t because you’re doing low DPS only because they THINK you are.

Gaudrath.6725:

And if you try ignoring your class mechanics in WvW, well, prepare to be farmed for badges. If WvW’ers give you lip about you staying only in fire and not dropping Static Fields (if you run staff) and Frozen Ground in front of enemy zergs, you deserve it.

I honestly never get any feedback on game play in WvW because there’s so much going on no one can really pay attention to what people are or aren’t doing. I also don’t get farmed for badges and survive in many cases in Berserker gear where I see people I know who are in PVT gear go down.

However, in the interest of being objective (gasp), that doesn’t necessarily mean their specs or gear choices are any worse than mine. There are any number of factors that could have contributed to that person dying and me living (being focused, less player skill and countless other factors).

In the end you just said a lot of stuff that COULD happen, but again nothing that actually happens to everyone (because none of it’s ever happened to me).

I would like to be able to weaponswap while in combat on ele, but with the downside of not being able to swap attunements.

Kodiak.3281:

Gaudrath.6725:

And if you try ignoring your class mechanics in WvW, well, prepare to be farmed for badges. If WvW’ers give you lip about you staying only in fire and not dropping Static Fields (if you run staff) and Frozen Ground in front of enemy zergs, you deserve it.

I honestly never get any feedback on game play in WvW because there’s so much going on no one can really pay attention to what people are or aren’t doing. I also don’t get farmed for badges and survive in many cases in Berserker gear where I see people I know who are in PVT gear go down.

However, in the interest of being objective (gasp), that doesn’t necessarily mean their specs or gear choices are any worse than mine. There are any number of factors that could have contributed to that person dying and me living (being focused, less player skill and countless other factors).

In the end you just said a lot of stuff that COULD happen, but again nothing that actually happens to everyone (because none of it’s ever happened to me).

You should google “statistics” and especially the deviation part of it. Just because you manage to stay alive in zerg fights doesn’t mean everyone will and certainly doesn’t mean you’re doing a good job as an elementalist – those guys you see in PVT gear dropping like flies? In part because a certain fire mage in the back failed to CC the enemy zerg and they got mowed down.

This is not a theory. Staying in any single element 99% of time in WvW, regardless of weapon set, is a recipe for being a free badge or pretty much useless to the group you’re running with. That’s a fact. If you want to DPS so much, roll a thief or a warrior, they’re better at it.

There simply is no argument here. GW2 elementalists are designed to use all 4 elements. Our individual skills are weaker because of that. They’re meant to be used in conjunction with each other.

And given equal skill level, a player who uses all four elements will outperform the player who doesn’t in everything, sPvP, WvW and PvE. That’s a guarantee.

I’m not even know if i play well ele, i don’t even care, i play as i feel is good in that situation, if they don’t like, just say something i will try what the party want me to do, in dg i switch in water and fire, normally i stay in fire for mods and switch to water if i see my party weak i have healing area skill too in my healing skill, in boss normaly i stay in water to give some healing and reg, and for not call the boss for me, cuz if i stay in fire the boss came after me, i’m an staff ele, i like more staff cuz the skills are more fun, usefull but i like scepter too with focus, if an party say for me to change weapons i change. My main problem in the game is i used to play single player games, when i use only the wasd and mouse to move camera and attack, in GW2 i first was in difficult cuz the camera doesn’t help for me, when i notice i was only playing with keyboard, and because of that i was very limited, i coudn’t have total control of camera, but i well i find out an ’’way’’ to get the camera rotation with mouse and have the first attack in right bottow and dogde in left botton of the mouse and that help me a lot, i can see that now i’m better playing with ele i don’t die so easy, now the most dificult is walk around and attack with others attacks, sometimes i wish have 3 hands i put the attacks close to wasd but i still have a little difficult, my boyfriend say for me put the char in auto run and only focus in attack i have to try that in dugeon.

Kodiak.3281:

The long story short is without damage meters or damage measuring tools there’s virtually no way to determine what play style or even spec is more effective. Even the combat log doesn’t measure conditions.

I would go further and add that any damage measuring tools are inherently inaccurate due to the combo system.

If the warriors, rangers and thieves deal 25% extra damage as a result of a 25-stack weakness on the enemy, the staff elementalist who put down the lightning combo field does not receive the credit.

If the warriors, rangers and thieves deal I-don’t-know-how-much extra damage because they each have 10-15 might stacks, the scepter-dagger elementalist who put down the fire combo field AND the 5 blast finishers does not receive the credit.

Gaudrath.6725:

You should google “statistics” and especially the deviation part of it. Just because you manage to stay alive in zerg fights doesn’t mean everyone will and certainly doesn’t mean you’re doing a good job as an elementalist – those guys you see in PVT gear dropping like flies? In part because a certain fire mage in the back failed to CC the enemy zerg and they got mowed down.

This is not a theory. Staying in any single element 99% of time in WvW, regardless of weapon set, is a recipe for being a free badge or pretty much useless to the group you’re running with. That’s a fact. If you want to DPS so much, roll a thief or a warrior, they’re better at it.

There simply is no argument here. GW2 elementalists are designed to use all 4 elements. Our individual skills are weaker because of that. They’re meant to be used in conjunction with each other.

And given equal skill level, a player who uses all four elements will outperform the player who doesn’t in everything, sPvP, WvW and PvE. That’s a guarantee.

I’m going to say that the guys in PVT gear died because they failed to out damage the enemy. They lost because they didn’t deal enough DPS and had they been wearing full Berserker gear they would have won. Prove me wrong.

Warriors and Thieves do more DPS? Prove me wrong.

I contend that I can stay in Fire all day and perform better than any elementalist in the world who swaps attunements. Disagree with me? Prove me wrong.

You talk a lot about good and bad but you got ZERO facts to back up what you’re saying. You have a lot of assumption and absolutely no proof to anything you say. The only difference between your argument and the people who argue that they can stay in Fire all day is that in general more people agree with the former instead of the later. Neither argument has any more truth behind it and quite frankly people need to stop saying what’s “right” and “wrong” when they have no factual basis for their claims.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

I would go further and add that any damage measuring tools are inherently inaccurate due to the combo system.

If the warriors, rangers and thieves deal 25% extra damage as a result of a 25-stack weakness on the enemy, the staff elementalist who put down the lightning combo field does not receive the credit.

If the warriors, rangers and thieves deal I-don’t-know-how-much extra damage because they each have 10-15 might stacks, the scepter-dagger elementalist who put down the fire combo field AND the 5 blast finishers does not receive the credit.

Well technically everything can be broken down to a mathematical value.

For example take your stacks of Might. First we have to measure the actual up time of Might. How much Might does a person have over the course of a Minute. Then you gotta measure how much damage that actually adds including any external factors like possibility of diminishing returns for Power and whether or not Might is affected by that (meaning a person who didn’t stack Power may end up getting a greater benefit than someone who did). You have to do this for each player affected by Might cause it will be different and others will be entirely out of range and get no benefit. Where it gets really complicated is when you reach the Might Cap (25) and the contribution from others adding into the Might equation (Warriors, Guardians, etc). This mathematical value represents the added (in this case) DPS to the group.

That group DPS increase can then actually be compared to raw damage values. What did you do to perform that DPS increase? Could you have been doing more DPS by just DPSing instead of buffing your team? Without having the tools to measure this, we can’t provide factual answers to these questions. While it’s fashionable to assume that providing a group benefit is in fact “better” there’s really NO way to prove it.

Kodiak.3281:

I’m going to say that the guys in PVT gear died because they failed to out damage the enemy. They lost because they didn’t deal enough DPS and had they been wearing full Berserker gear they would have won. Prove me wrong.

The game proves you wrong every day. The reason why front-line zergers all go for high HP and toughness is because your DPS is 0 when you’re dead, and glass cannons die real quick when hit by a zerg. You probably don’t even render for them before they’re already scooping up the bag you leave behind.

If a glass cannon zerg hits a PVT zerg head on, PVT would and does win every time. You can pretend to be wiser than every single experienced WvW player out there, but that doesn’t mean anything.

Warriors and Thieves do more DPS? Prove me wrong.

Again, the game proves you wrong every day. Now, if you think you can outDPS a thief, go ahead and arrange a duel with one. You both have to stand still and use the skills you have at your disposal with you staying in fire only. Pure DPS race.

You will be dead before you get your second fireball off.

I contend that I can stay in Fire all day and perform better than any elementalist in the world who swaps attunements. Disagree with me? Prove me wrong.

Instead of saying that the game proves you wrong again, I will remind you of a simple rule in a logical debate that the burden of proof is on the one who makes the claim. So no, you prove it.

Or else I can claim that I am a god… prove me wrong. See?

You talk a lot about good and bad but you got ZERO facts to back up what you’re saying. You have a lot of assumption and absolutely no proof to anything you say. The only difference between your argument and the people who argue that they can stay in Fire all day is that in general more people agree with the former instead of the later. Neither argument has any more truth behind it and quite frankly people need to stop saying what’s “right” and “wrong” when they have no factual basis for their claims.

On the contrary, the only one without any factual basis for your claims is you. I have plenty of empirical proof available to anyone actually bothering to come up with an optimal build for their class. You just like fire a lot and try to justify your gameplay with unsubstantiated claims.

Why don’t you just say “I like fire” and be done with it? I certainly won’t hold it against you (unless you drop the ball in WvW and I get stomped because you refused to CC the enemy and even then – it’s just a game). Don’t claim it’s an optimal way to play because it is not. It’s your preference and as such you are entitled to it. There is no need to justify it and certainly no need to mislead new elementalists.

Gaudrath.6725:

The game proves you wrong every day. The reason why front-line zergers all go for high HP and toughness is because your DPS is 0 when you’re dead, and glass cannons die real quick when hit by a zerg. You probably don’t even render for them before they’re already scooping up the bag you leave behind.

If a glass cannon zerg hits a PVT zerg head on, PVT would and does win every time. You can pretend to be wiser than every single experienced WvW player out there, but that doesn’t mean anything.

Again, the game proves you wrong every day. Now, if you think you can outDPS a thief, go ahead and arrange a duel with one. You both have to stand still and use the skills you have at your disposal with you staying in fire only. Pure DPS race.

You will be dead before you get your second fireball off.

Again you’re going on about things you have no factual basis to. You know nothing about me, my experience or what I run into when I play. You need actual facts to back up what you say in order for them to actually be true. You have no facts so all you are left with is an opinion.

Show me the video of the PVT gear zerg overrunning the Beserker geared zerg. Show me a screen shot of them dead. Can you actually prove anything you put on these forums?

Are we measuring DPS or survivability? If a thief can burst me down before I can burst him down it doesn’t mean we have less DPS it means we have less survivability. Here’s a better scenario. Have a thief DPS on a target dummy and an Ele DPS on a target dummy each for a minute and tell me who’s the higher DPS.

Gaudrath.6725:

Instead of saying that the game proves you wrong again, I will remind you of a simple rule in a logical debate that the burden of proof is on the one who makes the claim. So no, you prove it

On the contrary, the only one without any factual basis for your claims is you. I have plenty of empirical proof available to anyone actually bothering to come up with an optimal build for their class. You just like fire a lot and try to justify your gameplay with unsubstantiated claims.

Why don’t you just say “I like fire” and be done with it? I certainly won’t hold it against you (unless you drop the ball in WvW and I get stomped because you refused to CC the enemy and even then – it’s just a game). Don’t claim it’s an optimal way to play because it is not. It’s your preference and as such you are entitled to it. There is no need to justify it and certainly no need to mislead new elementalists.

The only claim I have made (not made mockingly) is that stating playing one way or another is “right” or “wrong” can’t be proven. That people, like yourself, who make claims that there is a right way to play the class have no factual basis in what you’re saying. You can’t prove it and by your own words burden of proof is on the person who is making the claim.

You have no way to prove swapping attunements will yield higher DPS. In the same light, I have no way of ever proving that staying in Fire full time to DPS will out perform swapping attunements.

Instead of trying to prove your claims after you’ve been called out to do so you’ve done nothing but repeat them over and over as if that is in itself proof. It is not. Alternatively you’ve resorted to personal attacks in not only assuming what my play style is but also my performance in said play style. Not quite sure where that falls into the logical debate structure. Something about if you can’t attack the message attack the messenger.

If you’re going to go around telling people there’s a right and wrong way to play the game you better be able to back it up.

(when i use staff; which is nearly never) i stay in fire, only switching to water/earth if i need to heal/control, air then becomes my ‘filler’ attunement until fire is up (or if enemies are grouped far enough apart for its auto attack to be better than fire1+2)

(when i use scepter; which is nearly never) i stay in air most of the time (because i have barely any condition damage – but rotations are more important than with staff)

(when i use d/d, which is most of the time) i stance dance alot; but air is my auto attack attunement (unless i need a little breathing space; in which case i go for water), pop into fire as soon as its off CD; burning speed>drake breath (if fire grab is off CD)>fire grab (if off CD)>ring of fire(whilst moving slightly to the left or right)>earth attunement (3 might)>EA dodge (6 might)>earthquake (if off CD – 9 might)>churning earth (if off CD – 12 might)> water (if me of the team needs a bit of a top up or cleanse)>lightning>shocking aura>lightning whip>lightning whip>lightning whip>lightning whip

i see no problem with someone using one attunement for the majority of the fight (well… as long as its the right one for their build)

what i consider as bad ele habits:
not using CC when it would be beneficial
not switching to water when people start dying
using blast finishers without combo fields (im appalled at the amount of eles i see who dont use earthquake and churning earth in their ring of fire)
using CC negatively (updraft to spread a group of mobs… gale to punch an enemy out of a group of mobs)
refuses to switch utilities for more appropriate ones
D/D eles who dont carry a staff or scepter for range
D/D / S/D eles who dont carry a focus for projectile defense
claiming conjure fiery greatsword and glyph of elementals are crap elites (they arent; they just need to be thought out when using them) and use terribad racial elites

Kodiak, I have given you a number of solid examples and situations supporting my claims. So far your response has been to the tune of “lalalalala you can’t prove it, you can’t prove it!”

That’s no way to lead a discussion. If you want to discuss this seriously, please address my arguments. Provide examples. Do some math. Counter-arguments. Whatever. Otherwise this is pointless.

Gaudrath.6725:

Kodiak, I have given you a number of solid examples and situations supporting my claims. So far your response has been to the tune of “lalalalala you can’t prove it, you can’t prove it!”

That’s no way to lead a discussion. If you want to discuss this seriously, please address my arguments. Provide examples. Do some math. Counter-arguments. Whatever. Otherwise this is pointless.

The inherent problem with your examples are in fact they aren’t solid and based solely on empirical data which has no solid basis in fact. Basically you see one thing and therefore take it as fact. More over I’d take it a step further and say your interpretation of what you’re seeing is completely wrong.

For example we’ll take something you said:

Just because you manage to stay alive in zerg fights doesn’t mean everyone will and certainly doesn’t mean you’re doing a good job as an elementalist – those guys you see in PVT gear dropping like flies? In part because a certain fire mage in the back failed to CC the enemy zerg and they got mowed down.

The problem with this statement as “fact” is that the scenario presented (a zerg on zerg battle) has a lot of moving parts. Not only do you have the basic elements (class make up each zerg, gear and level of each zerg, terrain or other environment factors, etc) but you also have soft elements that are much harder to measure (level of organization, skill of each player, etc) and only get more complex the more players are involved. To try to say a group died because one person didn’t drop a Chill Field in such a complex situation is absurd.

In fact, the only plausible reason someone could ever possibly say something like that is because they’re trying to make a point and are grossly overvaluing the effects of a single Chill while ignoring every other factor that contributed to the outcome of the group wiping.

I want something concrete. I want something you can mathematically show to prove your point that one way is better than another. What I’m asking for shouldn’t be that hard if it really is better. Instead I get a lot of opinion based on your experiences. Personally I don’t think you want a discussion based on your responses. You just want to say this is the right way and are annoyed that someone is calling you on it and wants you to prove what you’re saying.

crazy posting format errors

Hi.. just hear reading things as Ima warrior thats mad at ANET atm and going to make an alt ..ranger or ele until they fix WvW lag.

Hi.. just hear reading things as Ima warrior thats mad at ANET atm and going to make an alt ..ranger or ele until they fix WvW lag.Kodiak your very well spoken ..lotta fancy words up there.. " empirical data" I like that.

Hi.. just hear reading things as Ima warrior thats mad at ANET atm and going to make an alt ..ranger or ele until they fix WvW lag.Kodiak your very well spoken ..lotta fancy words up there.. " empirical data" I like that.< shuffles feet > Well I am a 80 warr, Asura, geared ofc.. and I run Rifle/GS in WvW and Mr. I oneshot almost all glass cannon specs in the game…and Eles are my favorite because your easy to spot. Once I see you and get you w in 1200 range you have 2 secs to start rolling back or your dead. Most times you wont see me Im small and come in from angles.

Hi.. just hear reading things as Ima warrior thats mad at ANET atm and going to make an alt ..ranger or ele until they fix WvW lag.Kodiak your very well spoken ..lotta fancy words up there.. " empirical data" I like that.< shuffles feet > Well I am a 80 warr, Asura, geared ofc.. and I run Rifle/GS in WvW and Mr. I oneshot almost all glass cannon specs in the game…and Eles are my favorite because your easy to spot. Once I see you and get you w in 1200 range you have 2 secs to start rolling back or your dead. Most times you wont see me Im small and come in from angles.So maybe PvE wise you can ask these gents here for some " data " but in WvW? your just a badge

Hi.. just hear reading things as Ima warrior thats mad at ANET atm and going to make an alt ..ranger or ele until they fix WvW lag.Kodiak your very well spoken ..lotta fancy words up there.. " empirical data" I like that.< shuffles feet > Well I am a 80 warr, Asura, geared ofc.. and I run Rifle/GS in WvW and Mr. I oneshot almost all glass cannon specs in the game…and Eles are my favorite because your easy to spot. Once I see you and get you w in 1200 range you have 2 secs to start rolling back or your dead. Most times you wont see me Im small and come in from angles.So maybe PvE wise you can ask these gents here for some " data " but in WvW? your just a badgethanks all for good read!

Jonathan.1580:

Hi.. just hear reading things as Ima warrior thats mad at ANET atm and going to make an alt ..ranger or ele until they fix WvW lag.

Hi.. just hear reading things as Ima warrior thats mad at ANET atm and going to make an alt ..ranger or ele until they fix WvW lag.Kodiak your very well spoken ..lotta fancy words up there.. " empirical data" I like that.

Hi.. just hear reading things as Ima warrior thats mad at ANET atm and going to make an alt ..ranger or ele until they fix WvW lag.Kodiak your very well spoken ..lotta fancy words up there.. " empirical data" I like that.< shuffles feet > Well I am a 80 warr, Asura, geared ofc.. and I run Rifle/GS in WvW and Mr. I oneshot almost all glass cannon specs in the game…and Eles are my favorite because your easy to spot. Once I see you and get you w in 1200 range you have 2 secs to start rolling back or your dead. Most times you wont see me Im small and come in from angles.

Hi.. just hear reading things as Ima warrior thats mad at ANET atm and going to make an alt ..ranger or ele until they fix WvW lag.Kodiak your very well spoken ..lotta fancy words up there.. " empirical data" I like that.< shuffles feet > Well I am a 80 warr, Asura, geared ofc.. and I run Rifle/GS in WvW and Mr. I oneshot almost all glass cannon specs in the game…and Eles are my favorite because your easy to spot. Once I see you and get you w in 1200 range you have 2 secs to start rolling back or your dead. Most times you wont see me Im small and come in from angles.So maybe PvE wise you can ask these gents here for some " data " but in WvW? your just a badge

Hi.. just hear reading things as Ima warrior thats mad at ANET atm and going to make an alt ..ranger or ele until they fix WvW lag.Kodiak your very well spoken ..lotta fancy words up there.. " empirical data" I like that.< shuffles feet > Well I am a 80 warr, Asura, geared ofc.. and I run Rifle/GS in WvW and Mr. I oneshot almost all glass cannon specs in the game…and Eles are my favorite because your easy to spot. Once I see you and get you w in 1200 range you have 2 secs to start rolling back or your dead. Most times you wont see me Im small and come in from angles.So maybe PvE wise you can ask these gents here for some " data " but in WvW? your just a badgethanks all for good read!

Empirical data was taken from Gaudrath.

I always get told a lot that I am going to get one shot or I am going to die when running around in Berserker. I remember I ran with this group of guys for a few days who swore up and down the board about PVT gear and it was impossible to do any kind of group play without PVT gear. The passive AOE was so much you’ll just fall over dead. During those few days, in Berserker gear, I was almost always was one of the last people to die. I laughed cause this guy was going on a rant about it during this 30 minute battle we had over a Supply camp near the enemy’s borderland entrance and I didn’t get downed once till the end.

This is not meant to imply I never die nor is it meant to imply I don’t get bursted down only that when I do it’s usually a situation in which I would have died anyways. I will say I have never died to a Rifle warrior yet in WvW in the last 6 months.

In the end it’s all very well and good to say what you would do in a fight but until you actually get in a fight with me it’s all rather unproven whether or not it’d actually work.

Kodiak, the reason you’re the last one to die is because those guys take the brunt of enemy fire and us elementalists usually stick to the back or sides and often get neglected in the commotion.

Try rolling as a frontliner in ’zerker gear, let me know how it handles.

As for rifle warriors, they can oneshot a glass cannon ele, the only problem is that they have to stand still and their target has to remain unobstructed and in range while the shot is priming, which often doesn’t happen.

Anyway, try small group action or 1vs1. I bet you can’t even solo a supply camp if you don’t use all the elements. There’s your empirical data.

Coast.5162:

I would like to be able to weaponswap while in combat on ele, but with the downside of not being able to swap attunements.

…

Staff eles bring a lot of team support; staying solely on fire is a waste in my opinion. Even if you are in full zerk gear, throwing a meteor shower followed by water 4,2, then air,5, earth 2 then fire 2 (for might stacks) is better than just doing a fire 5 and then spamming 2,3,1,1,1,3,1,1,2 (something like that). You can also throw in water 3,5 for team healing, then earth 2 + arcane blast for more 2 area heals. Or, water 5, earth 2, roll inside in earth + arcane blast for 3 area heals. Full zerk build probably won’t have 30 in arcane, but water 5, earth 2 + arcane blast are still 2 area heals. Or if you team has high hp already, you can simply do earth 2 into fire 2 and arcane blast on it for 6 might stacks. On top of what you can do with your own skill set, your team can also use your combo fields. Projectile finishers through air 5 can add a lot of vulnerability stacks; 10+ seconds of chill in ice field. Bunch of blast finishers in your fire 2 can add lots of might stacks fast.

tl;dr. In my opinion, staff elementalists need to attunement swap for maximum potential. When I run into staff eles only using fire, I turn into a very sad panda :c

Gaudrath.6725:

Kodiak, the reason you’re the last one to die is because those guys take the brunt of enemy fire and us elementalists usually stick to the back or sides and often get neglected in the commotion.

Try rolling as a frontliner in ’zerker gear, let me know how it handles.

As for rifle warriors, they can oneshot a glass cannon ele, the only problem is that they have to stand still and their target has to remain unobstructed and in range while the shot is priming, which often doesn’t happen.

Anyway, try small group action or 1vs1. I bet you can’t even solo a supply camp if you don’t use all the elements. There’s your empirical data.

I’m glad you’re finally starting to see my point that playing a particular way isn’t wrong and like most things it’s all based on not only how you play but the situations you put yourself in.

InFluEnZa.6908:

Even if you are in full zerk gear, throwing a meteor shower followed by water 4,2, then air,5, earth 2 then fire 2 (for might stacks) is better than just doing a fire 5 and then spamming 2,3,1,1,1,3,1,1,2 (something like that).

Prove it.

InFluEnZa.6908:

Staff eles bring a lot of team support; staying solely on fire is a waste in my opinion. Even if you are in full zerk gear, throwing a meteor shower followed by water 4,2, then air,5, earth 2 then fire 2 (for might stacks) is better than just doing a fire 5 and then spamming 2,3,1,1,1,3,1,1,2 (something like that). You can also throw in water 3,5 for team healing, then earth 2 + arcane blast for more 2 area heals. Or, water 5, earth 2, roll inside in earth + arcane blast for 3 area heals. Full zerk build probably won’t have 30 in arcane, but water 5, earth 2 + arcane blast are still 2 area heals. Or if you team has high hp already, you can simply do earth 2 into fire 2 and arcane blast on it for 6 might stacks. On top of what you can do with your own skill set, your team can also use your combo fields. Projectile finishers through air 5 can add a lot of vulnerability stacks; 10+ seconds of chill in ice field. Bunch of blast finishers in your fire 2 can add lots of might stacks fast.

tl;dr. In my opinion, staff elementalists need to attunement swap for maximum potential. When I run into staff eles only using fire, I turn into a very sad panda :c

That’s all very situational. For example, you can’t guarantee that your entire team is close enough to get the might stacks. In fact for some more difficult encounters, your party is probably doing something wrong unless you’re coordinating grouping together. There’s no point in going up to someone to give might or heal them when two or more you are going to get downed in one shot.

In a lot of situations, the damage you lose by switching to earth and waiting the 12 or so seconds to switch back to fire results in lost total dps (just going by my own anecdotal observations) since the other attunements offer less dps, at least for crit/power builds because you wouldn’t be hanging around in fire if you have some staff bleed condition build. I’ve found no reason to swap attunements unless I needed some utility from another one while using staff.

If someone’s going to swap attunements for the sake of attunement swapping just because someone on the forums told them eles revolve around constantly doing so, I’d rather have this person contribute to more dps by staying in fire. Most likely I’m in a pug for some easy encounter to meet bad players in the first place so it wouldn’t really matter much. They probably can’t recognize when it’s appropriate to swap and likely tunnel vision their own health. Just focus and keep yourself alive so I don’t have to.