Guild Wars 2

Whenever I’ve played a MMO, I’m usually that traditional mage class. Long range and massive damage with the downsides of having cast times and long cool down. I started with a Necromancer just to mix things up and lvled that up to 80, but now I’ve gone to an Elementalist to try and go back to the style I’ve always enjoyed the most. At this point I understand that the Ele isn’t your traditional mage, and it has parts that I enjoy, but there’s still the feeling that this major archetype was left out.

So, was wondering if anyone thinks that the Elementalist will eventually be able to fill that roll of a long range massive damage mage class? (The Staff really doesn’t do that damage)

Also, for those who came to the Elementalist looking for that traditional mage feel, do you miss it or have you adapted and learned to love the Elementalist?

Note: I want to clarify that I’m not upset over what Guild Wars 2 has made the mage class into! Guild Wars 2 is it’s own game and I don’t expect it to mold to what has become popular. I’m enjoying the Elementalist a good deal, just saying that I feel there isn’t that traditional mage class that so many MMO players love.

Several other people, including myself, were talking about this same thing
under different posts, and I agree completely.

Personally, I enjoy the staff and have been doing very well with it. What I dont
like is the fact that invisibilty went to mesmers and “mage-like” spells similiar
to mirror image (clones) went to mesmers. Those were always traditional
mage abilities. Its like Mesmers were made into an Illusionist mage sub class,
but some of the main mage-like spells were not given to the Elementalist.

To make matters worse, the bunker d/d ele is very effective but its not my
vision of a mage in the traditional sense. I never would have believed that
a caster class would be a better bunker than a warrior in WvW until I played
both.

Too much attention was given on Conjured Items (which take up 4 skill options) when all four of those should have been 1 skill (and the effect is based on the attunement you are in). Hundreds of hours in WvW and Ive yet to see someone use the Conjured Earth Shield.

Dont get me wrong though, I enjoy playing my Ele very much, but I would like
to see some improvements (and hopefully its not a year to see any).

I love it. I always wanted to be able to use all 4 elements efficiently. It is much more mobile than standard mage and I like it. Chaining skills and building might will also improve dps by good margin. Combo fields are your best friend

its fine! anything else feels like garbage wow stuff

Elementalists are multi-faceted spellcasters that channel elemental forces, making fire, air, earth, and water do their bidding. What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.

I guess where I’m coming is that when I read this, the description of the profession, chaining up attacks and combo fields isn’t that single powerful attack. The main question is whether or not you think it’s possible that we will be able to eventually fit this description. Simply saying it’s fine is ok, but this description seems very misleading.

This is what I’ve been thinking as well.

There’s no reason why they cant with traits, make the Ele have both the fast paced, attunement swapping builds everyone currently uses, and also a more static, fire or air mage where you mostly use one attunement, and swap occasionally for the odd CC or something.

You can see that they tried to make this work with traits like Internal Fire (Fire VI), and One With Fire (Fire X). However, these traits don’t make it work like it has the potential for. Other people have suggested making a Grandmaster, minor or major that severely reduces the cooldown of your specced element, and increases damage (or utility, crit, etc based on the element).

It could literally be done with nothing more than the changing of a few traits. No one would lose their current playstyle, it would just open up more options.

To the people who say they don’t care about this happening, just because it doesn’t affect you in particular doesn’t make this a bad idea. On my Necromancer, currently Death Shroud only works well with power builds. A lot of people are asking for changes to make it useful for condition builds. That change wouldn’t affect me at all, but I still support them because it would benefit the profession overall, adding variety, more options, and a more dynamic playstyle for all.

isn’t staff your ‘traditional mage feel’? or am I missing something

FourTwenty.4268:

isn’t staff your ‘traditional mage feel’? or am I missing something

Staff doesn’t do the damage to qualify as a ‘traditional mage feel.’

Mesmer is always a good choice if you really want a long range class with heavy burst damage. Probably something along the lines of a Greatsword / Staff shatter build (20/20/0/0/30). I personally play my Elementalist as more of a support role in dungeons. I feel like I help the party a lot with tons of boons, might stacking, AoE healing, and some control abilities. I’m also pretty survivable despite the fact that I primarily play in short range (D/D).

I think staff will get a buff—but not a big buff as most would want. Since Anet’s new mantra is to introduce slow and gradual buffs (so it won’t affect the meta), I don’t think we’ll see staff be considered that “classic mage” glass cannon for a while.

Alilinke.7690:

FourTwenty.4268:

isn’t staff your ‘traditional mage feel’? or am I missing something

Staff doesn’t do the damage to qualify as a ‘traditional mage feel.’

are you talking about long range single target DPS? like, you want to do the kind of DPS D/D does, but from 1,200 distance?

maybe the game can’t be balanced around that, maybe that would be too OP

im really enjoying the d/d playstyle. its like mage 2.0. just like with the boring old trinity, break out of the ‘traditional’ mold you’re used to.

In terms of lore, I think it makes perfect sense to stay as it is. Tyria is moving forward into an industrial revolution. Already tanks, sniper rifles, machine guns and possibly even poison gas (ala WW1) have made their appearances.

The point being that combat is going to move increasingly towards industrial-styles of warfare, meaning that a mage standing up with a staff casting a spell just isn’t going to be useful anymore. The mages of steampunk warfare are going to have to be quick and mobile, able to throw down lots of power quickly before the front-line infantry can get a clear shot.

FourTwenty.4268:

Alilinke.7690:

FourTwenty.4268:

isn’t staff your ‘traditional mage feel’? or am I missing something

Staff doesn’t do the damage to qualify as a ‘traditional mage feel.’

are you talking about long range single target DPS? like, you want to do the kind of DPS D/D does, but from 1,200 distance?

maybe the game can’t be balanced around that, maybe that would be too OP

How do you explain rifle warriors then popping 8-15k snipes(that pierce) from 1500 range while wearing heavy armor?

I do miss being the “nuker” from gw1 but I find this version more engaging. Being the “combo setup” guy has great advantages. I like the feeling that I’m controlling the flow of battle. I’d definitely be lying though if I said I didn’t miss being a more traditional magey type sometimes.

Staff already got nerfed from beta. I doubt they’re going to revert that anytime soon.

for killshot from warrior, theres a pretty hefty cost and cast time for that. in small squad/1v1 fights ur suppose to be able to easily dodge/reflect it consider its considerable and obvious cast time/animation. in WvW downing 1 person is…annoying but usually theres enough people in the zerg to res the downed right back up unless u can follow up. which from 1.5k range is.. difficult

what kind of dmg are u looking for in the “traditional mage feel”? on high dmg build with staff u regularly score crits of 5k+ on multiple people at once in an enemy group without setup. staff ele isnt the high single target dmg, its high aoe dmg. staff ele has the highest aoe dmg of all class/builds. only churning earth from d/d does more dmg in 1 go, except d/d isnt able to follow it up with anything else unlike a staff

SuiRyuJin.4615:

for killshot from warrior, theres a pretty hefty cost and cast time for that. in small squad/1v1 fights ur suppose to be able to easily dodge/reflect it consider its considerable and obvious cast time/animation. in WvW downing 1 person is…annoying but usually theres enough people in the zerg to res the downed right back up unless u can follow up. which from 1.5k range is.. difficult

what kind of dmg are u looking for in the “traditional mage feel”? on high dmg build with staff u regularly score crits of 5k+ on multiple people at once in an enemy group without setup. staff ele isnt the high single target dmg, its high aoe dmg. staff ele has the highest aoe dmg of all class/builds. only churning earth from d/d does more dmg in 1 go, except d/d isnt able to follow it up with anything else unlike a staff

Totally agree on KS. Ive been downed many times by it while in a zerg and it doesnt
matter because I get rezzed. If its a smaller scale battle, especially 1v1, anyone should
be able to see it coming and dodge it.

As far as the AOE damage as a glass cannon staff ele, I have zero complaints. What
most people do not do, is QUICKLY fire off a 3-4 rotation combo in a group of people.
Example: Meteor Storm > Eruption > Shockwave > Ice Spike > Chain Lightning Spam.
In large zergs at chokes, its amazing how many people will not move out of that because of all the action going on and the “mob metality.” That chain alone can
over 15k damage followed by Chain Lightning spam for 2-3k over its targets.

The point of the OP was not about the damage, but about the feel of the class
in general. The more I think about it, it makes more sense to look at an Elementalist
as a subclass of the mages we are accustomed to in past games.

With that aside, I still think the utility skills need some work, for reasons posted in
other posts.

I’m no Mage good sir I am an elementalist! Forget about all that riff raff in other mmos on “Mage” class once you figure out how to work this class it’s soooo amazing to play. Myself I don’t like to play for pure dmg it just seems pointless to do when you have all these skills you can help your group out and the staff is perfect for it. Crowd controls healing dps you name it and its there. The key is to not get stuck using just one element the whole time.

I Agree. I Use staff, i get loads of damage and i still can help my team with CC and combo fields. Some people dont understand how important it is to stack vulnerability Different with staff and sd is that u dont have the burst but you still have great damage.

The class is called Elementalist. It’s not called Mage, Wizard, Sorcerer or anything like that. It’s ELEMENTalist.

Personally, I’m not suggesting upping the damage of the staff. I can see where doing melee damage at 1200 range is OP.

What i’d like is for traits like One With Fire, and Internal Fire possibly be combined as a Grandmaster, also lowering the cooldown of just that attunement. That way you have the option of going Arcane for the ability to skillfully use ALL attunements, or the ability to spec heavily into one or two Elements to masterfully use those specific ones.

All attunements would start at max cooldown time, but when obtaining the Grandmaster traits, it would reduce the cooldown of only that attunement to maybe 1 or 2s lower than having max Arcane. After all, you did just MASTER that element. That way you can still switch to another attunement when needed, like water for some heals, or air/earth for some CC, but still be able to quickly switch back to your specced element. You would of course, have to wait the full duration for the other attunements.

Heck, maybe the Grandmaster trait should increase the cooldown of the other elements, that would certainly make it more fair.

One of the things that may be the cause of this feeling is the fact that the staff has so many combo fields. If you have a field that causes each arrow flying through it cause burning (350+ damage each), then of course you cannot go crazy on the base damage of the field itself. Static Field has this effect to an even greater extent, alone, if you even combo with it at all, you’ll deal a few % more damage. In a team, you got much more vulnerability out of it, which then more players can exploit. So its power grows exponentially.

This makes staff skills feel rather weak, as the actual effects aren’t as apparent as raw damage. Not to mention the fact that the power increases relaive to the number of other players present. So by yourself, you’re stuck feeling (and somewhat being) underpowered unless they would do away with all combo fields.

I used to like that traditional mage feel. But D/D ele is so much better, more active, mobile, fun etc. Who wants to spec into one element lol. One of the bad things in gw1 was that you had to spec into a single element. GW2 is much better in that aspect including all elements when you play, as an elementalist should.

Josh P.1296:

I used to like that traditional mage feel. But D/D ele is so much better, more active, mobile, fun etc. Who wants to spec into one element lol. One of the bad things in gw1 was that you had to spec into a single element. GW2 is much better in that aspect including all elements when you play, as an elementalist should.

Never played GW1 but I’m glad 2 went the route it did. I love being a whirling dervish of elemental death! It’s just a lot more fun to be running around swapping attunements and making combos than sitting in the back and just hitting the same button over and over like WoW.

Levian.6742:

This is what I’ve been thinking as well.

There’s no reason why they cant with traits, make the Ele have both the fast paced, attunement swapping builds everyone currently uses, and also a more static, fire or air mage where you mostly use one attunement, and swap occasionally for the odd CC or something.

There is no such thing as an even half way decent elementalist that only uses one attunement primarily.

Thunderbrew.7034:

What
most people do not do, is QUICKLY fire off a 3-4 rotation combo in a group of people.
Example: Meteor Storm > Eruption > Shockwave > Ice Spike > Chain Lightning Spam.

You can get much better effect doing that differently. Just sayin.

I really love the d/d elementalist. Anet really did an awesome job keeping the traditional mage (staff ele) and made new directions with it, such as d/d. D/d, thematically, appealed to me because it was this up-close, in your face style where I wield the elements in astonishing ways like making bursts of fire, blasts of erocks, waves of water, and sparks of electricity. Visually, the d/d elementalist looks very very awesome to watch in combat.

D/D Ele is the choice of ADHD sufferers world wide for stimulating game play.

Or for anyone bored of the traditional “tank and spank” method of online gaming!

If the damage was more reliable, scepter would probably give you the playstyle you’re looking for. While not 1200 range like the staff, it does provide high burst at range. Only problem is at range, that burst never hits.

Another problem staff has is all of the attacks suffer from obstruction due to being so easy to strafe out of. Earth 1 for example I’d say I hit maybe 1 in 10 shots with it.

Perhaps if they just exanded the combo/blast options for staff to give you some real burst potential it would help give staff a better position against the dagger and scepter.

Overall I do agree though. Too much effort was spent making the staff an AE weapon, that none of the AE options available to it really stand up to the AE options of the scepter or dagger.

I say just make the projectile speed increase to that of the ranger’s bow attacks and put some upfront damage on fire2 and earth2 so they can actually do something without waiting 5 seconds and things may improve dramatically. If not, explore the idea of giving staff some blast finishers to use with combo fields to add damage.

Atherakhia.4086:

I say just make the projectile speed increase to that of the ranger’s bow attacks and put some upfront damage on fire2 and earth2 so they can actually do something without waiting 5 seconds and things may improve dramatically. If not, explore the idea of giving staff some blast finishers to use with combo fields to add damage.

You mean like Earth 2 on staff?

I think GW2 has the worst mage implementation of any of the games i’ve played. The “feel” of staff/scepter is just not there.

There’s no good gameplay reason for long attunement CD or why the vast majority of traits are so ineffectual.

covenn.7165:

Levian.6742:

This is what I’ve been thinking as well.

There’s no reason why they cant with traits, make the Ele have both the fast paced, attunement swapping builds everyone currently uses, and also a more static, fire or air mage where you mostly use one attunement, and swap occasionally for the odd CC or something.

There is no such thing as an even half way decent elementalist that only uses one attunement primarily.

You’re right, there isn’t. Not currently. But a-net was trying to make this possible as you can clearly see from the traits that boost damage and other effects the longer you stay in one attunement.

It isn’t quite a strong enough boost to make it viable yet, but I feel it has the potential. There is no reason to use every element. When I swap attunements, I usually do it for one or two specific abilities, then swap back to my damage dealing attunement – fire or air. Since I just swapped to another attunement – say water, for healing – I feel that I may as well blow all the cooldown since I’m already there anyways.

Thats what my idea does. It lets you swap to another attunement for the select skill you need – a blind, a heal, a stun, or what ever – then swap back to your main specced attunement faster.

mjharrison.3209:

I think GW2 has the worst mage implementation of any of the games i’ve played. The “feel” of staff/scepter is just not there.

Gotta disagree with you there. Rather than the standard, long range glass nuker, we get a quick thinking, rapid speed caster that affects not only what they do, but their allies as well. They’re more akin to the spellcasters from books that always seem to know dozens of spells instead of the plain old boring I-got-3-spells-that-I-rotate-and-that’s-all-I-know ones. If anything, spellcasters in GW2 are closer to the fantasy lore wizards than many MMOs have come in years. (I know we’re not talking about Mesmers, but have you considered that this game’s the first MMO that actually uses illusions in an actual distracting way instead of just xx% chance to miss?)

GW2 is trying new stuff, and I find that for the casters, they’re spot on. They’re great fun to play!

There’s no good gameplay reason for long attunement CD or why the vast majority of traits are so ineffectual.

There are ineffective traits, true. There’s also some very effective traits, especially when you start combining them to go for a theme (cantrips, signets, auras). As for the attunement cooldown, the reason’s likely that they want your choices have some impact instead of correcting mistakes instantly. Quick reflexes ain’t enough, you’ll need quick planning.

covenn.7165:

Thunderbrew.7034:

What
most people do not do, is QUICKLY fire off a 3-4 rotation combo in a group of people.
Example: Meteor Storm > Eruption > Shockwave > Ice Spike > Chain Lightning Spam.

You can get much better effect doing that differently. Just sayin.

Was cited as merely an example, but theres always a better way depending
on the situation. Based on the last two nights, the order becomes less of an
issue because the enemy balls up into one stack (a tactic which I have never seen
work).

I posted about this a long time ago. Eles does not play like mage in any mmo. Eles play like melee dps with magic, kind of like a fighter/mage that uses daggers. Both DD and SD play more like melee than ranged class. Staff is the only ranged weapon and it’s gimp as hell unless all you do is zerg.

staff has enough of a traditional mage feel for me
It’s just more speed focused than power focused, overall. instead of every spell being like meteor storm, you just have a few of those and then a bunch of faster spells that you chain together to get your massive damage. Staff definitely does tons of damage; it’s just that it’s easy to dodge it. If it gets any buffs, I want to see that aspect improved. Improve its ability to hit evasive targets.

Mogar.9216:

I posted about this a long time ago. Eles does not play like mage in any mmo. Eles play like melee dps with magic, kind of like a fighter/mage that uses daggers. Both DD and SD play more like melee than ranged class. Staff is the only ranged weapon and it’s gimp as hell unless all you do is zerg.

I am D/D myself unless in a siege. Staff done right destroys people in that situation though.

Being a big fan of traditional caster classes I have to agree with the OP, I love my Ele, But my Ele along with my Mesmer is does not feel like a caster. They both fight with melee weapons, in melee with effects similar to the other melee classes. In fact my character that feels most like a wizard/sorcerer/mage is my Guardian by far.

If I were to pick an archetype for my Ele/Mesmer I would say they feel more like rogue/ninja/assassins than any wizard. It’s sad because I love the wizard archetype and while you can find wizard like gameplay from ranged Rangers and Warriors, that type of gameplay (Back line high damage) simply doesn’t seem to exist in magical form in this game.

Love my GW2 Ele… Miss My GW1 Ele.

Lokki.1092:

Being a big fan of traditional caster classes I have to agree with the OP, I love my Ele, But my Ele along with my Mesmer is does not feel like a caster. They both fight with melee weapons, in melee with effects similar to the other melee classes. In fact my character that feels most like a wizard/sorcerer/mage is my Guardian by far.

If I were to pick an archetype for my Ele/Mesmer I would say they feel more like rogue/ninja/assassins than any wizard. It’s sad because I love the wizard archetype and while you can find wizard like gameplay from ranged Rangers and Warriors, that type of gameplay (Back line high damage) simply doesn’t seem to exist in magical form in this game.

Love my GW2 Ele… Miss My GW1 Ele.

I agree. Mesmer is like a rogue illusionist and D/D ele is well lets call them battlemages :p but I love it like this. Just my opinion.

Thunderbrew.7034:

Several other people, including myself, were talking about this same thing
under different posts, and I agree completely.

Personally, I enjoy the staff and have been doing very well with it. What I dont
like is the fact that invisibilty went to mesmers and “mage-like” spells similiar
to mirror image (clones) went to mesmers. Those were always traditional
mage abilities. Its like Mesmers were made into an Illusionist mage sub class,
but some of the main mage-like spells were not given to the Elementalist.

To make matters worse, the bunker d/d ele is very effective but its not my
vision of a mage in the traditional sense. I never would have believed that
a caster class would be a better bunker than a warrior in WvW until I played
both.

Too much attention was given on Conjured Items (which take up 4 skill options) when all four of those should have been 1 skill (and the effect is based on the attunement you are in). Hundreds of hours in WvW and Ive yet to see someone use the Conjured Earth Shield.

Dont get me wrong though, I enjoy playing my Ele very much, but I would like
to see some improvements (and hopefully its not a year to see any).

Over the years the traditional mage have evolve into two different mages (Elementalist and mesmer) Like magic they focus on different branch of the origin magic principles.Try play both classes they are both very interesting class to play. As you already said you have yet to see someone use the conjured earth shield try making a build out.

Staff is great in zergs but is a very limited weapon and has some glaring issues.

1. all of it’s hard hitters have long delays. Lava font, Ice Spike, and Eruption can all do a decent amount of damage, but they’re easy to avoid in small group fights and even if they land, the DPS isn’t actually that high. Targets that I can kill in 1-2 seconds with D/D or S/D and 3-4 with S/F take 6-8 seconds with staff. Is that little bit of extra range seriously worth doing 1/3 – 1/2 of the damage and having your best abilities be easily avoided?

2. range means very little in GW2 outside of zerg/wall fights. Every class has multiple gap closers, so every fight with a melee is a knife fight after the first 2 seconds (maybe a little longer if you invest in immobilize). At that point, you’re left holding a weapon that does 1/2-1/3 the damage of a close range weapon and have very limited options to maintain range against competent opponents.

3. staff has some nice defensive abilities, but they’re on such long cooldowns that they’re only useful once per fight and situationally limited. Frozen ground is awesome, but it’s easy to avoid and cleanse. Magnetic aura is only useful against ranged attacks.

4. obstructed! obstructed! obstructed! It isn’t an ele specific problem, but by simply tapping the strafe keys left and right as you approach a range projectile class, you can avoid nearly 100% of all projectile damage. This makes your fire, water (as if it wasn’t already) and earth auto attacks almost worthless, and greatly affects earth 5 as well. Considering how much of a staff ele’s damage comes from autoattack, it’s a big problem. At least air is still reliable.

5. Fire 3 and 4 need a decent direct damage component. Using fire 3 actually lowers the DPS of a power/crit build unless you’re invested 25+ points into fire for +10% damage vs. burning targets. Earth 4 needs to cover a larger area. Right now it can be jumped over and is effectively worthless.

6. Blasting staff is good, but it needs to effect every staff skill, including the blast radius of individual meteors in meteor shower (not the total area of MS).

Right now, there’s just no reason to use staff unless you’re fighting a big mob of people, and even then I often find the AoE burst damage from D/D and S/D are more useful. They do more damage, give you better defense, better mobility, and are easir to land your best attacks with (especially D/D).

Why use staff unless you’re in a fight where going into melee range means certain death?

necro with a staff feels a lot more casterish. try that.
That said… who cares!
do we complain when gandalf whips out a great big sword? Is he supposed to kite the demon around and try to pull out scrolls and whatnot?

ele is the most fun caster i have played. mesmer isnt bad either.

Crunchy Gremlin.5798:

necro with a staff feels a lot more casterish. try that.
That said… who cares!
do we complain when gandalf whips out a great big sword? Is he supposed to kite the demon around and try to pull out scrolls and whatnot?

ele is the most fun caster i have played. mesmer isnt bad either.

Actually many people did complain about that with Gandalf And Peter Jackson admitted he just doesn’t like wizards all that much. Which is a fine preference.

But I always say that if they made a warrior that could only use bows and rifles, Or a thief that only used 2 handed weapons or sword and board. We would hear the same complaints in their boards. For some reason they decided to pretty much scrap the wizard archetype and replace them with elemental and illusion ninjas. I dont think people dislike the current Ele we are just wondering… “Hey, where are all the wizards at?”

I may try a Necro at some point. perhaps there is where my wizard is.

Caffynated.5713:

Staff is great in zergs but is a very limited weapon and has some glaring issues.

1. all of it’s hard hitters have long delays. Lava font, Ice Spike, and Eruption can all do a decent amount of damage, but they’re easy to avoid in small group fights and even if they land, the DPS isn’t actually that high. Targets that I can kill in 1-2 seconds with D/D or S/D and 3-4 with S/F take 6-8 seconds with staff. Is that little bit of extra range seriously worth doing 1/3 – 1/2 of the damage and having your best abilities be easily avoided?

i think this is whats wrong. people see the DPS potential of D/D and they expect to be able to nuke people like that from 1200 range.

Sorry, that’s OP

In fact I would say just the oposite. Staff’s Elementalists have that classic feeling (boring…) for mages, while D/D get’s all the fun…. So yea, I only use Staff when I need to =D

FourTwenty.4268:

Caffynated.5713:

Staff is great in zergs but is a very limited weapon and has some glaring issues.

1. all of it’s hard hitters have long delays. Lava font, Ice Spike, and Eruption can all do a decent amount of damage, but they’re easy to avoid in small group fights and even if they land, the DPS isn’t actually that high. Targets that I can kill in 1-2 seconds with D/D or S/D and 3-4 with S/F take 6-8 seconds with staff. Is that little bit of extra range seriously worth doing 1/3 – 1/2 of the damage and having your best abilities be easily avoided?

i think this is whats wrong. people see the DPS potential of D/D and they expect to be able to nuke people like that from 1200 range.

Sorry, that’s OP

So just ignore point #2?

Range is almost useless outside of zerg/wall fights. Every class has multiple ways to close to melee range almost instantly and then they have 2-3x your burst DPS and almost certainly possess better defensive capabilities. Who is going to win that fight? Hint: not the staff ele. Also, it’s not like other weapons are 0 range. D/D reaches out 300-400 range and scepter can reach out to 900.

You’re also ignoring how easy it is to avoid projectile damage by simply tapping your strafe keys as you run toward the staff ele.

There’s a reason that staff isn’t used by most of the better eles outside of zerg busting, while D/D is the FotM and S/D is still a favorite of tournament eles. The only reason staff still works against zergs is because people will compliantly stand on top of eruption, ice spike and lava font. When there are not 30 other red circles on the ground, people easily avoid that damage and then staff is just terrible.

Caffynated.5713:

Staff is great in zergs but is a very limited weapon and has some glaring issues.

1. all of it’s hard hitters have long delays. Lava font, Ice Spike, and Eruption can all do a decent amount of damage, but they’re easy to avoid in small group fights and even if they land, the DPS isn’t actually that high. Targets that I can kill in 1-2 seconds with D/D or S/D and 3-4 with S/F take 6-8 seconds with staff. Is that little bit of extra range seriously worth doing 1/3 – 1/2 of the damage and having your best abilities be easily avoided?

2. range means very little in GW2 outside of zerg/wall fights. Every class has multiple gap closers, so every fight with a melee is a knife fight after the first 2 seconds (maybe a little longer if you invest in immobilize). At that point, you’re left holding a weapon that does 1/2-1/3 the damage of a close range weapon and have very limited options to maintain range against competent opponents.

3. staff has some nice defensive abilities, but they’re on such long cooldowns that they’re only useful once per fight and situationally limited. Frozen ground is awesome, but it’s easy to avoid and cleanse. Magnetic aura is only useful against ranged attacks.

4. obstructed! obstructed! obstructed! It isn’t an ele specific problem, but by simply tapping the strafe keys left and right as you approach a range projectile class, you can avoid nearly 100% of all projectile damage. This makes your fire, water (as if it wasn’t already) and earth auto attacks almost worthless, and greatly affects earth 5 as well. Considering how much of a staff ele’s damage comes from autoattack, it’s a big problem. At least air is still reliable.

5. Fire 3 and 4 need a decent direct damage component. Using fire 3 actually lowers the DPS of a power/crit build unless you’re invested 25+ points into fire for +10% damage vs. burning targets. Earth 4 needs to cover a larger area. Right now it can be jumped over and is effectively worthless.

6. Blasting staff is good, but it needs to effect every staff skill, including the blast radius of individual meteors in meteor shower (not the total area of MS).

Right now, there’s just no reason to use staff unless you’re fighting a big mob of people, and even then I often find the AoE burst damage from D/D and S/D are more useful. They do more damage, give you better defense, better mobility, and are easir to land your best attacks with (especially D/D).

Why use staff unless you’re in a fight where going into melee range means certain death?

This totally. Anet really needs to re evaluate the staff to make it viable.

There is obviously something wrong if the overwhelming majority of players go for the same D/D build (generally speaking of course), yet Anet sees them as the “king of versatility.”

Thunderbrew.7034:

Several other people, including myself, were talking about this same thing
under different posts, and I agree completely.

Personally, I enjoy the staff and have been doing very well with it. What I dont
like is the fact that invisibilty went to mesmers and “mage-like” spells similiar
to mirror image (clones) went to mesmers. Those were always traditional
mage abilities. Its like Mesmers were made into an Illusionist mage sub class,
but some of the main mage-like spells were not given to the Elementalist.

To make matters worse, the bunker d/d ele is very effective but its not my
vision of a mage in the traditional sense. I never would have believed that
a caster class would be a better bunker than a warrior in WvW until I played
both.

Too much attention was given on Conjured Items (which take up 4 skill options) when all four of those should have been 1 skill (and the effect is based on the attunement you are in). Hundreds of hours in WvW and Ive yet to see someone use the Conjured Earth Shield.

Dont get me wrong though, I enjoy playing my Ele very much, but I would like
to see some improvements (and hopefully its not a year to see any).

I actually have to agree with this. But when you remove everything that made the GW1 mesmer unique you have to put something else there y’know?

And I actually don’t have a problem with bunker ele’s. Elementalists were pretty much the strongest tank in GW1 too.

Lokki.1092:

Crunchy Gremlin.5798:

necro with a staff feels a lot more casterish. try that.
That said… who cares!
do we complain when gandalf whips out a great big sword? Is he supposed to kite the demon around and try to pull out scrolls and whatnot?

ele is the most fun caster i have played. mesmer isnt bad either.

Actually many people did complain about that with Gandalf And Peter Jackson admitted he just doesn’t like wizards all that much. Which is a fine preference.

But I always say that if they made a warrior that could only use bows and rifles, Or a thief that only used 2 handed weapons or sword and board. We would hear the same complaints in their boards. For some reason they decided to pretty much scrap the wizard archetype and replace them with elemental and illusion ninjas. I dont think people dislike the current Ele we are just wondering… “Hey, where are all the wizards at?”

I may try a Necro at some point. perhaps there is where my wizard is.

well i dont care much for how peter jackson did it either really.
all that telekinesis and old men throwing themselves around…
but gandalf did use a sword. foe-hammer or something.

but… yeah wizards…

but the worst part of this game… the name tags. can see them anywhere. almost impossible to hide.