Guild Wars 2

Seemingly every time I invite an Elementalist to a group, they always just stand there spamming Fire #1 on Staff, even on bosses. No conjure, no buffs, just spamming Fire #1 on staff.

Even when I do Harpy fractal, they just stand there using Fire Staff autoattack instead of switching to Scepter/Focus and making life easier for the entire freaking team.

Elementalist has what, only four weapons? Would it kill someone on level 30 FoTM to have those four weapons, instead of just standing there spamming Staff Autoattack?

Y U no block projectiles!? Y U no protection!? Y U not use melee on boss we need melee!? Y U switch to D/D on boss we need ranged? No Ice Bow for the Snowblind Elemental!?

In all seriousness, what is with all the bad Elementalists? I’ve never met a decent one. Enlighten me. Is there something I’m not understanding about the greatness of their staff autoattack? Or are they just bad and deserve to be kicked from level 30 FoTM?

Because Focus is obviously so bad and Offhand Dagger is just so much more superior in every way. ;/

In all seriousness, despite what I’ve written in the past, I basically run Focus most of the time for this exact purpose.

The worst players are the ones kicking other players from groups without first explaining to them what they could do different to benefit the team.

OP apparently thinks eles can weapon swap in combat…

Aether apparently thinks eles are combat locked through an entire dungeon…

Aether McLoud.1975:

OP apparently thinks eles can weapon swap in combat…

Or swap out of combat…

Raven.9603:

The worst players are the ones kicking other players from groups without first explaining to them what they could do different to benefit the team.

And if they refuse or ignore? Or if they outright don’t have a focus by level 30 FoTM?

Many PuGs are apparently mute.

I’m only lvl 70 (don’t do much pve, infact I have made it to lvl 65 by doing no zones over level 30 lol, those friends and their alts) and I still have 2 dagger, a staff, a sceptre and a focus in my bag.

You may see some good fire eles, may being the key word. They are the ones that build for support and not auto attacks.

Talindra.4958:

diff players play differently. and i agree tht it isnt nice kicking other players.

It’s also not nice to completely ignore teams.

The elementalist in question kept pulling the Raving Asura boss when we wanted to use the kiting strategy, and kept activating Old Tom.

If that isn’t worthy of a kick, I don’t know what is. He was definitely a liability.

Kain Francois.4328:

In all seriousness, what is with all the bad Elementalists? I’ve never met a decent one. Enlighten me. Is there something I’m not understanding about the greatness of their staff autoattack? Or are they just bad and deserve to be kicked from level 30 FoTM?

In all honesty, there arn’t many good ones from my experience. The class just seems to be very appealing, yet skill/intelligence intensive. Hence tons of players, but few good ones.

I honestly don’t fancy myself as being a great player. I get downed all the time it feels like due to my relative squishiness. That said, I’ve had numerous people ask me for advice on how to spec, or tell me I’m the best ele they’ve ever played with.

You’re right though, one of the simplest things an ele can do is carry all their weapons and know when to utilize them. Another thing I’m complemented all the time on is the fact that I have a pretty good knowledge of (and extensively use) combo fields. Apparently, comboing is an art mostly lost on this class. /shrug

Wow the posts from the pve staffer are gone… I’m sad.

Yes, elementalists can make life easier in the harpy fractal for all of 6 seconds that the swirling winds last. About the fire auto attacking with the staff, it’s the only viable skill with decent dps that can be done. Sure you can F1 2 3 5 F2 2 4 F3 2 F4 2 to deal more damage than an autoattack fire ball except for the fact that, it takes ~5 seconds to cast that sequence and you’ll be stuck in earth autoattacking for 4 more seconds until you can switch back to fire. Also, in the harpy fractal, if they are underneath the platform, Air 1 2 and Earth 1 won’t even hit the harpy because they’ll be obstructed leaving the small aoe from fireball and the skills from fire staff the most viable damage output while underneath a harpy for staff. Yes the elementalist could switch and spam dragon’s tooth with a scepter, but I’m giving you the reason why they’re in fire if they only have a staff.

Virlyce.4519:

Yes, elementalists can make life easier in the harpy fractal for all of 6 seconds that the swirling winds last. About the fire auto attacking with the staff, it’s the only viable skill with decent dps that can be done. Sure you can F1 2 3 5 F2 2 4 F3 2 F4 2 to deal more damage than an autoattack fire ball except for the fact that, it takes ~5 seconds to cast that sequence and you’ll be stuck in earth autoattacking for 4 more seconds until you can switch back to fire. Also, in the harpy fractal, if they are underneath the platform, Air 1 2 and Earth 1 won’t even hit the harpy because they’ll be obstructed leaving the small aoe from fireball and the skills from fire staff the most viable damage output while underneath a harpy for staff. Yes the elementalist could switch and spam dragon’s tooth with a scepter, but I’m giving you the reason why they’re in fire if they only have a staff.

Why are you defending bad eles? even with staff they could at least cast earth 3 and air 2 to aoe blind them…

How to be a good Elementalist:
Use Focus on first few mobs with Swirling Clouds and interrupt from Comet.

During cooldown if out of combat, switch to Staff if you can share auras and use Magnetic Aura on allies.

For Utility, I would recommend Ice Bow for “Deep Freeze” to keep them stunned.

So much could be done to mitigate knockback and damage. Much better than 1-spam.

On the Harpy Fractal, parties need to stick toghether and melee the Harpies and fight them one at a time (if you do that, they don’t trigger their balls of electric death). Players should chain interrupts and projectile blocks to prevent the bulk of their damage. The Elementalist can do all of these things.

All this sounds like a bunch of work. I’m gonna grab some pizza. My fire attack should keep going off. Page me if\when we kill him.

Virlyce.4519:

Sure you can F1 2 3 5 F2 2 4 F3 2 F4 2 to deal more damage than an autoattack fire ball except for the fact that, it takes ~5 seconds to cast that sequence and you’ll be stuck in earth autoattacking for 4 more seconds until you can switch back to fire.

Y’wot? You have /so many/ combo fields on your staff, and you’re making… no use of them. Within a few seconds of starting a fight I can get up 7 stacks of might on a bunch of allies, with earth2, fire2, arcane wave in the field giving 3 stacks each from two blast/fire combos, and an extra single might from swapping to fire with the arcana… V? trait. Whichever one shares a boon on attuning. Anyway yeah, srsly, if that’s how you think of ‘maybe dealing more dps’ as a staff ele, you’re not utilising the massive combo potential at all and you’d probably be noted by a group as a bad staff ele. You shouldn’t concentrate on dealing damage; your damage contribution should come from your combos and the aid you can provide to party members to increase /their/ damage – through sharing might or keeping foes where they want them or just keeping allies alive.

You can share might, as I just said. You can do pretty brilliant aoe crowd control, both soft and (with air5) hard. You can apply huge healing bursts using the above combo but with water3 or 5 as the combo field rather than a fire one.
The ele mentioned in the OP, who just spammed fire1, was (hopefully) just using whichever fire trait gives might on fire attacks… which gives some dps, sure, but completely ignores the team’s needs and has very little use compared to the real beauty of the staff, which is its ability to throw a great variety of useful things all over the battlefield.

EDIT: formatting and clarifying what I’d said. I should preview posts.

the projectile defence from focus does not work on bosses at all. Plus over 50% of the focus’s skills don’t do damage and the few that do do very little damage. It also doesn’t come with a healing skill ( only weapon that doesn’t).

So:
no damage
no protection against bosses
no heals

That’s why you don’t see us using focus.

As for conjures, because of our light armor and low health pool and the nerfing of bunker we need the slots for our cantrips to survive that’s why most elementalists don’t bring conjures. (I do though and die alot because of it).

Haven’t made it to that fractal lvl yet. Fractals just haven’t been able to interest me all that much yet. Too many hardcore players; I try to stay away from hardcore players because of all their trash talking.

As for fireball spamming… Possibly a noob. Earth auto-attack is better. Gives weakness which results in 50% reduction in outgoing damage on single foes. Which is decent I guess. Water auto attack heals a bit (300ish health). Air auto attack hits 3 targets for decent damage (for a ranged attack that is). Fireball does tiny aoe’s (bigger when traited) and does decent damage but nothing special.

S/D is my new personal favorite. I like D/D roaming but bursting 2 people down in one S/D rotation made me switch.

Kain Francois.4328:

How to be a good Elementalist:
Use Focus on first few mobs with Swirling Clouds and interrupt from Comet.

During cooldown if out of combat, switch to Staff if you can share auras and use Magnetic Aura on allies.

For Utility, I would recommend Ice Bow for “Deep Freeze” to keep them stunned.

So much could be done to mitigate knockback and damage. Much better than 1-spam.

In dungeons if anyone is in combat so are you meaning you can’t swap weapons during fights.

Kain Francois.4328:

Seemingly every time I invite an Elementalist to a group, they always just stand there spamming Fire #1 on Staff, even on bosses. No conjure, no buffs, just spamming Fire #1 on staff.

Even when I do Harpy fractal, they just stand there using Fire Staff autoattack instead of switching to Scepter/Focus and making life easier for the entire freaking team.

Elementalist has what, only four weapons? Would it kill someone on level 30 FoTM to have those four weapons, instead of just standing there spamming Staff Autoattack?

Y U no block projectiles!? Y U no protection!? Y U not use melee on boss we need melee!? Y U switch to D/D on boss we need ranged? No Ice Bow for the Snowblind Elemental!?

In all seriousness, what is with all the bad Elementalists? I’ve never met a decent one. Enlighten me. Is there something I’m not understanding about the greatness of their staff autoattack? Or are they just bad and deserve to be kicked from level 30 FoTM?

What if you saw a warrior do the same with a greatsword? Would you kick him too for not using a mace to knockdown foes?

SInce when Air 2 becomes AOE Blind??? Sure they can use Earth 3 Magnetic Aura to reflect the arrow but that is only for himself unless he is an Aura Sharer and his team mates close to him to get the share. If not, he is still being blamed for not supporting the team. With Harpy Fractals, I usually just stay still under the ground and Cast Fire 2, Fire 5, Water 2 Water 4, Earth 2 until they all dead. Sure it take longer time to achieve but it is the safest way to do. The other reason, people not bring Focus in their inventory is they don’t want to sacrifice 7 good skills just for one specific skills. They rather to stay alive and deal more dams than going down fast and trouble the team and only be able to help every 30s for mere 6s Reflect Projectile. With Staff, you have much easier time against most of the boss. I only use D/D when I know the boss very well. But I agree with you, that using D/D on the boss that required kiting or staying in one attunment is the sign of bad Eles though. Last question: Why you need Frost Bow to for Elemental-Dredge Fractals when you can kite with Staff?

Stealth.9324:

SInce when Air 2 becomes AOE Blind???

except it is.

if you have 30 in water and projectiles are more of a problem than conditions, then use the aura share. radius of ~360-400 (same or greater than meteor shower). doesn’t matter that much if you aren’t specced for giving boons with auras when you can give 5 second projectile immunity to your team (1 second less than swirling winds but they can run around with it), whilst having good aoe heals

i’ve always felt the focus is only good while in earth and everything else was either situational or so-so

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

What if you saw a warrior do the same with a greatsword? Would you kick him too for not using a mace to knockdown foes?

That’s like comparing the strength of a gorilla to the strength of a kitten. Don’t compare Hundred Blades to Staff autoattack.

Also, FYI it takes two people to kick someone, and the elementalist in question kept messing up pulls and ignoring the team. So don’t demonize me over kicking him, unless it was you we kicked?

But to answer your question, if four people asked the Warrior to run a particular weapon and he refused, I would kick him. FoTM 30 is a little late in the game not to have a complete weapon-set. “Play how you want” is for open-world.

Kain Francois.4328:

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

What if you saw a warrior do the same with a greatsword? Would you kick him too for not using a mace to knockdown foes?

That’s like comparing the strength of a gorilla to the strength of a kitten. Don’t compare Hundred Blades to Staff autoattack.

Also, FYI it takes two people to kick someone, and the elementalist in question kept messing up pulls and ignoring the team. So don’t demonize me over kicking him, unless it was you we kicked?

But to answer your question, if four people asked the Warrior to run a particular weapon and he refused, I would kick him. FoTM 30 is a little late in the game not to have a complete weapon-set. “Play how you want” is for open-world.

Bad attitude can get you kicked. but your question in topic is ‘y u no projectile block’. I merely responded (maybe not clear enough) with the question why you no ask warriors to stun-lock foes? Is WAY more viable than the few seconds of projectile defence (which doesn’t work on bosses and for which we need to get rid of 50% of our dps and group heals/mightstacking/CC) yet you come to the elementalist forum to complain about one elementalist who didn’t listen to your demands and was a bad player over all saying that we should all use focus instead of staff. Quite frankly spamming fireball is more viable than spamming swirling winds every 30 seconds. (might’ve been better to bring some embers though)

as for why you didn’t: its because warriors do good damage and elementalists don’t. So the guy who drew the shorter straw gets picked on for not having the skill to press on more than just 1 while a warrior can press 1/2 on Greatsword because he’s a gorilla and we’re a kitten.

On a related note, why don’t eles use Ice Bow in the hrapy fractal?
Its #4 is insanely strong on those small platforms because if there are no other places for the icicles to fall to, they are all going to fall on that tiny platform and 90% of them will hit the Harpy.
It owns harpies if I use it on my thief – multiple 4k+ crits per second.

Aleth.9630:

On a related note, why don’t eles use Ice Bow in the hrapy fractal?
Its #4 is insanely strong on those small platforms because if there are no other places for the icicles to fall to, they are all going to fall on that tiny platform and 90% of them will hit the Harpy.
It owns harpies if I use it on my thief – multiple 4k+ crits per second.

If you like using a particular conjure weapon on a particular map, and you’ve got an ele in your party… ask if they’d summon it? I’m more than happy to call up a frost bow if someone wants to use one, and most folks should be able to swap out one of their utilities without ruining their builds.