Hello, I’m a returning player that has not played in at least 8 months, and upwards to 10 months. I’ve always loved Staff Eles but when I last played they werent useful for much other than spamming buffs and water fields in WvW. I have an interest in playing GW2 again and would be playing a lot of WvW & sPvP. How are Staff Eles in those areas? Since I haven’t played in so long, I’m basically a born again newbie. I plan on rerolling entirely to get a feel for the class again. I know Ele in general is hard to master, but I think that makes them more worthwhile when it comes to playing.
If anyone could point me in the direction of great support builds to start me off, it’d be much appreciated. More difficult builds would be appreciated as well once I get the hang of Eles.
Tips & Tricks for Staff Ele?
PvP staff build: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_Staff_Support
Take ether renewal heal though, sig sucks on that build
Pros: very tanky if played right
- team support only rivaled by a bunker guardian
- unrivaled team healing potential
- still capable of dishing out very high amounts of damage
- unrivaled on-point pressure
Cons: – completely incapable of chasing enemies down (cannot focus low HP targets effectively compared to other specs)
- big parts of the damage dealt by this build have either channel time (meteor shower, eruption) or only cover a small area and can be easily avoided if not fighting on-point (lava font)
- requires knowledge of every skill on staff and appropriate time/place to use it (swapping to earth and casting magnetic aura automatically when a ranger starts rapid-firing you), otherwise performance of the build will be sub-optimal, but that applies to all ele builds.
The site I linked also has a WvW zerg build. You don’t want to roam with staff in WvW, there won’t be anyone you would be able to kill with that spec on your own. Instead, go for d/d for roaming and staff for zerg support/damage. Eles are amongst the best zerg classes in this game, so you might enjoy that.
[S]illy [L]ittle [U]gly [T]rolls – our little dungeon forum community
“My mind has left, my body follows”
Non-canonical Staff Ele tutorials that will get you thinking:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Scrap-The-Zeitgeist-Staff-PvP-Tutorial-Video
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Azilyi-s-Zeitgeist-Staff-Ele-Duels-Video
Carrying enemy team since 2012
“Multiclass implies you can actually play the class” – a certain royalty
This isn’t really very helpful in sPvP, but maybe in some WvW situations, and definitely PvE: Learn to ‘aim’ your meteor shower (and Ice Bow #4, Ice storm) well.
Each impact from these spells can only land on valid solid terrain: That is to say, if you aim half on a wall and half on the ground: you’ll have twice as many impacts on the walkable ground.
You can condense the damage into smaller areas, resulting in some stupidly high potential damage.
This also applies to the Charr racial Artillery Barrage, but it’s pretty much never worth slotting due to the massive cooldown.
For the toast!
WvW build Glass megacannon. 6k crits on heavies with meteors 4k crits with lighting glyph of storms (usually better to use earth glyph of storms tho) auto attacks 2-4k keep a scepter and dagger in your bag at the very least for close quarters locations like lord rooms in keeps best to have every weapon set available tho
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFIQFAWlcMonhVPwpBktNABgFOAEBWAiLBZghYp3AA-TFiDABLcAB4THxAPAgMV/BgLEQXKBdS5nK7PEA4A43fD893c+5nf+5n3v/+7v/+bpAGbZE-w
PvP build Again keep your other weapons on hand incase your enemy is build with thiefs i find a staff will mess up thiefs pretty bad. and D/D tends to treat me well vs guard/warrior heavy teams. But this build is bunker heavy and you got more heals coming your way than a tank in WoW
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJArYhcMKb23wnBf0AZACpXjD04S5g12B-T1BGABBcCBWS5XN7Poo6PA8gAaTPhVKBDAcAMchDg1Xf91Xf9Ge4hHe4hLFg5SjA-w
Tutorial on this page was C/P from the GW2 official forums, but i used my supertank commander elementalist build for the build link in the post.
For spells that call down attacks, meteor/icebow, if you have quickness while you cast them the attacks will come faster but for the same duration resulting in more attacks. Unfortunately ele has no access to quickness normally but if you can somehow get some you can basically get free meteors. You also don’t need to keep quickness up during the attack, quickness just needs to be on when you start the cast.
For spells that call down attacks, meteor/icebow, if you have quickness while you cast them the attacks will come faster but for the same duration resulting in more attacks. Unfortunately ele has no access to quickness normally but if you can somehow get some you can basically get free meteors. You also don’t need to keep quickness up during the attack, quickness just needs to be on when you start the cast.
I keep considering the Sigil of Rage, since if used at the start of a fight one could quite reliably get a full MS cast off during that window of quickness… but in extended fights it just feels awkward and doesn’t give any consistent benefit. Good for ganking, I guess?