Guild Wars 2

Just created a Mesmer a few days ago and am having a blast leveling in PVE really.. It’s so smooth tbh.. Just have to think about the fact that you’re a clothy, so be careful..

Anyway, compared to my Main (Elementalist), it’s pretty much a walk in the park

Compared to my warrior, it’s indeed a little harder, but nothing too bad

I recently started using a staff to get a bit the hang of it, in terms of “Muscle Memory”. I’m used to D/D and these combo’s are pretty much imprinted in my fingers in various kind of sequences.

Now, I’ve tried around with staff for a few days and I’m wondering how you pull off the right combinations. What annoys me on this part, is that you have to cast the finisher (earth-2) before you place a combo-field in order to get it to work, seem illogical to me. Anyway, they don’t seem to work the other way around for me..

Traits to enhance switching Attunement / Cantrips:
Fire : Spell Slinger (3 stacks of Might on Cantrip)
Arcane : Elemental Attunement (Boon based on Attunement)
Utilities :
2 cantrips (Mist form & Lightnign Flash)
Arcane Wave

I’ve figured out how to get 40 seconds of speedbuff:
———————————————————————————————————-
Earth-2 > Air 5 (Static Field) > Arcane Wave > Air-4
Is there a possibility to get more than 40 seconds without using a signet?

Might Boons:
—————————-
I read about a lot of people getting up to 25 stacks of Might boons in one combination, but so far, I haven’t found this combination. The one I use is already a hassle to pull off and it only leaves me with max 13 stacks of might.

Spell Slinger Trait in Fire -> Check
Earth-2 (again, finisher before Combo Field??) > Fire (1 Might) > Fire-2 (3 Might) > Arcane Wave (3 Might)

This brings my total to 7 Might, I could get 6 more if I blow all my cantrips, but I don’t really want to do that, do I? Occasionally, I blow the Lightning Flash CD, which gives me a total of 10 Might Stacks

What am I missing? This is still a long way from the 25 I hear people can pull off.

if you don’t get frustrated too easily and you’re a good player (sophisticated button mashing instead of just facerolling the keyboard), you’ll have kittenloads of fun..

It’s the most fun class to play in this game as far as I’m concerned.

Lord Byron’s answer pretty much summed it up apart from 1 remark
“D/D is the most fun”
He’s right, D/D is the most fun, but Staff isn’t too bad either. I switched to staff a few days ago, and it’s like playing an entirely different class, almost equally satisfying as Dagger/Dagger.

Reason for the switch to Staff: you’ll have to be able to play both, there’s just no way around that, get used to it.

D/D in sPVP is the best fun ever
Staff will give you more in dungeons
WvW = depending on the situation. Picking fights = D/D, mass PVP = Staff (more or less)

Same here, occasionally, the fire aura procs from Fire4+Earth3, but I never get Fury / Swiftness from it. Don’t know if it’s intended, but either way, it sux!

I’ve tried a few
- Warrior —> Got bored after 20 levels
- Ranger —> Got bored after 4 levels
- Necromancer —> Only done 2 levels, but seems kind of ok, just too many pets
- Mesmer —> Looks promising, but only done 4 levels

In conclusion: Most classes look a bit bland after playing an elementalist, so I only tried the above..

Turbo Whale.1738:

Sucky D/D Ele: Dances like a buffoon
Pro D/D Ele: Dances like a buffoon, but hits

I lolled so hard! +1 for this post

It’s probably a Scepter/Dagger Ele, I play D/D and I can’t burst down people that fast, I did however run into an S/D Ele and he handed my kitten to me like there was no tomorrow, at least 4 times in one fight. Did not have any chance to react.

Pretty hard to play from my experience, but I’ve been playing D/D mainly, so it might be my inexperience with the setup..

Same for Magnetic Grasp (Earth 3)

Yes
Everything that keeps you locked in a spot is a bug, RTL should go straight for your target and stop casting when you hit, but most of the time, you’re still bugged out for about a second, which leaves you completely vulnerable..

@Kuthos:

I was mainly talking about only 1 viable spec for Ele’s being Arcana 30 and the rest in protective traits (water/earth) in stead of offensive.. Which means kittening our own damage output..

I’d love to see a viable spec for D/D but more focused on power
—> get in → hit hard → get out

Now, you can only get as far as “get in → get down” if you’re specced into damage

I find every single other class boring after playing Ele as a D/D, even though I have a lower survivability (not really, but hard to accomplish), lower damage output and horrible bugs..

tbh, I would not spend any points in fire mate.. All goes to Arcana and Water I’m afraid..

Naga set to Numpad
Keys 2 & 5 feel most natural, so I have most of my skills bound to the both of them.
I’m used to using modifier keys a lot (shift, ctrl, alt) from in my Logitech MX500 – WoW days.. I always try do do as many skills via the mouse as possible

So :

Main Bar:
2 = Autoattack skill 1
Shift + 2 = skill 2
Alt + 2 = skill 3
5 = skill 4
Shift + 5 = skill 5

Heal
1

Util
4
Shift + 4
6
Shift + 6

Elite
3

Attunement
R, Shift+R, W, Shift+W

Move
ESDF

Also running a bunker build variation (not that there’s a lot of versatility possible, but…..) since it’s our only viable build.. I try to be as annoying as I possibly can be..

Still, as an Ele, I get focused on like there’s no tomorrow..

A friend was playing SPVP with me the other day and he was in the opposing team for 3 matches. His remarks on TS:
- Lol, the moment my team sees you, you get crosshaired, so all I do is press T and hope I can get a hit in before you’re down, lololol!! Free kill!

Seems like the Ele Icon next to my name is a sign with easy kill on it..

If you talk 1vs1 on the other hand, I don’t have issues besides low damage, ,but I don’t mind taking a bit longer to kill someone really..

I have a Razer Naga, but I don’t use nearly as many buttons as I do in other MMO’s

- ESDF for movement instead of WASD which frees up an extra column on the left side
- Attunements : R (fire), Shift+R (Water), W (Air), Shift+W (Earth)
- Skills : Naga —> But2 (1), Shift+But2 (2), Alt+But2 (3), But5 (4), Shift+But5 (5)
- Util : Naga --> But1 (Heal), But4 (Util1), But6 (Util2), But3 (Util3)
- Elite: Naga —> Alt+But3
- Autorun : 3
- Dodge : V
- Weapon Drop / Change Weap : A
- Interact : G

MG only works on stationary characters atm.. I don’t even bother using it on a thief or fellow ele since they’re moving and it will put me in CC state for atleast 1-2 seconds, in which a decent <insert class except ele> can finish me off without breaking a sweat..

Alright, I’ll try to land it ahead of players then.. In PVE I have no problem whatsoever, landing the skill, just felt like in PVP I need to be much closer to the target than in PVE.. Will try this tonight, cheers for the responses..

RTL and Magnetic Grasp are both the 2 most needed fixes for Ele’s at the moment.
Yesterday I had a target straight in front of me, I hit RTL and I go straight the other way, toward nothing. My Auto target is off and I definitely had the right target, because when I ran back in and did magnetic grasp, I did end up moving to that target..

Horribly annoying really

Aginor.3490:

That fact that you need to stop for it to land correctly shows its broken as our class should stay mobile all the time

Stopping to cast an insta-skill is ok in PVE, but not in PVP tbh

Aha, so it’s not an L2P issue.. Glad to hear

Is there something I’m doing wrong when using Fire Grab? Because it seems to miss most of the time..

I play D/D, so I’m supposed to be in melee range : Check
F2 -> 2 for burning on opponent : Check
F2 -> 5 for increased damage Fire Grab due to burning : Fail

I know they changed the size of the cone in front of us to have it land more easily, but it still seems to miss more often than not to my experience.. (it misses like 8/10 times)

Anyone else has this happening to them?

Cone of Cold and Dragons Breath on the other hand, have a perfect hit-area

I guess I’ll have to take another trait in this case, nothing worse than a useless trait..
Same for the earth 50% type-shield, it sometimes doesn’t proc either.. Only fails to proc on thieves / warriors though.. I guess they have the highest burst or w/e..

Lightning bolts do not take de-tours IRL, fix this so it goes straight for the target please
:)

What? Is this true? So if I’m standing on an edge and I want to RTL to someone on a lower level from me, I can’t anymore?

/sad.. RTL was already too buggy and now it’s gotten nerfed on top of that?!
It was by far my most favorite skill allthough it bugged out 50% of the time..

You say :
- Fire 3, Fire 4, Arcane Blast, Earth 4 and then lightning to Finish.. I’ve also tried this in SPVP, but it seems I can only knock of like 15-20% of HP in this combo, so there’s no “finishing-off” for me I’m afraid.. Also, after using these skills, your interrupts are depleted and you have nothing but raw-(low)-damage or very slow skills left in your arsenal, which means people can either run away (stupid, since you’re a free kill at that point), or just finish you off without breaking a sweat..

Am I doing something wrong perhaps?

I still love it as much as the first day!
But what you say in your post, is all true afaic

I’m kinda happy, but the jumpskills like RTL, Magnetic Field etc need to be fixed urgently, You can simply not count on those very important skills

And the ’ harder’ work you do compared to other classes, could be rewarded just a little more in terms of CD, or damage, or survivability..

Buuuut, I’m not complaining

Tips on S/D:

I go with following build:
20 Fire —> More damage
10 Air --> Faster runspeed while attuned to air
10 Earth —> 50% shield
0 Water
30 Arcane --> 25% Shield, Evasive Aura, Boon on Attunement Switching and faster Attunement Switching

Utility:
- Glyph of Elemental Harmony
- Arcane Shield
- Cleansing Fire
- Mist Form
- Elite Glyph of Elemental

Skills:

Start in Air (usually up for the faster runspeed)
- Air 2 & Wait for Air 1 to do max amount of damage
- Air 4 to jump in, Air 5 to knock down and jump back
- Fire 4 (Combo Field)
- Fire 3 (Finisher for +might)
- Fire 2 (Finisher for +might)
- Earth 4 (Finisher for +might & Knock Down)
- Earth 5 (Finisher for +might & Massive Damage)
- Cast Arcane Shield while channeling Earth 5 (will not interrupt channeling)
- Earth 2 for more armor (do not use it a second time)
- Earth 1

If mobs are not down, switch back to air and repeat the sequence

throw in a bit of water to keep healed up and use your elite-elemental only when in water, don’t need it to tank for you, only to heal

To OP:
Nice setup you’ve got there, I’ve tried it last night. I wasn’t fond of D/D playstyle until I tried your build, works pretty great, gonna play around with it a little and see where I can change some things..

Nice post!

Truga.5897:

Sojou, that’s all great, but my experience is that S/D takes care of mobs faster, because you don’t even need to swap attunements. 4 -> Arcane wave -> 2 -> 3 takes care of pretty much anything you will ever run into, whether it’s a solo mob or 5 mobs, and the stacks of might you just filled will make short work of the next group you run into, whatever you choose to do with them. After that cooldowns are up and it’s free fire again.

With staff you kinda need to swap around to kill fast, since staff in fire is more about sustained DPS than burst, while sceptre brings quite a lot of burst in fire alone.

Not playing with all your attunements while wielding S/D is like playing a warrior with dual Cotton Buds, I’m sorry, but this will not work…

I had the same problem for as long as I played with Staff.. It’s horrible, wel, NO, it’s not horrible, it’s just not my style, i just suck with staffs..

Switched to Scepter / Dagger with a 20 10 10 15 skilltree atm and I’m killing stuff fairly easy, even multiple mobs.. I’m currently 65, but on level 58, I have done my story quest up to 62 with this setup.. Make sure you always have the best greens for your level and most importantly : Learn your combo’s, specifically, the combo’s to stack might. It helps a whole lot.

e.g. I start out in Air most of the time —> Air 2, wait till Air 1 (automatically) does the most damage possible, it adds up every tick —> Air 4 to jump in close —> Air 5 to jump back and knock down
Now you’ll want to switch to fire —> Fire 4 (ring & Combofield) —> Fire 2 (Dragons Tooth for might) —> Fire 3 (Phoenix & extra Might)
Switch to Earth asap —> earth 4 (knock down & extra Might) —> Earth 5 (Massive damage and yet an extra stack of Might).
Now you just need to consider the situation, but usually, I bring up Earth 2 for the extra armor and I kit around with Earth 1 until my Air attunement is available again.
Switch back to Air and go in with Air 2 and Air 4.
Now, if needed, you can go back to Fire and cast another ring and another Dragons Tooth to regain some stacks of might, but most of the time, the mobs will be practically down by now..

Important notice : in this playstyle, you cannot get out without loss of HP. Consider your HP while going through this sequence, because you might want to break it off before-time.

I run around with the following Utilities:
- Glyph of Elemental Harmony : Decent heal + Boon on switch of attunement
- Cleansing Fire : to get out of stick situations
- Arcane Shield : My favorite Utility. Blocks all damage for 3 seconds, so you can stay in the routine just that bit longer, pop it right before you go down and heal yourself up with Glyph
- Mist Form (I do switch this out with the Blink Skill and the Earth Shield)
- Glyph of Elementals (I always use the elemental glyph while in Water, for extra healing and slows.. Rarely ever use the other Elementals, if I need to be healing myself in water, it means kitten is in the fan, or I’m in an event and people just need some healing)

Hope this helps

Playable
Fav: Female Human
Least: Norn, too big for my liking

Non-Playable
Fav: Kodan
Least: Naga-type stuff, always seems to team up on me

Korath.7402:

S/D: Fire 4, fire 2, fire 3, arcane blast, earth 4, earth 5 = 15 stacks of might for your entire party.

I tried using this before, but the timing is just too short, 8/10, so I don’t find it reliable. It’s very good when it works though, even when soloing..

Nowadays, I use a shorter version which doesn’t stack that much might, but does give me some more time to react:
S/D : Fire3, Fire5, Fire4, Fire2, Earth4, Earth5, Air5

Explanation:
Fire 3 while running in (phoenix)
Fire 5 when in close range
Fire 4 (ring of fire), to put enemies inside the ring, so they at least take some damage if they run out
Fire 2 (dragon’s tooth) to get stacks of might, wether or not it hits. I usually stay in melee range at this time, so enemies are less prone to run away, thinking they get a free hit, while I’m actually getting a hit of with my DT.
Earth 4 (knockdown skill) to do just that, knock people down, and give you a bit of time to channel
Earth 5 (churning earth) which stacks another few mights on top of the existing
Air 5 (Updraft) To get out of the action and finish enemies off with whatever skills you don’t have on CD with around 7 stacks of might

Main is still Ele, mostly for how it looks and for the challenge while playing.. I also play a warrior to see the differences and they’re substantial (in favor of warrior), but this doesn’t mean I like my ele any less..

Just waiting for the bugs to be fixed and the balance issues to be resolved, but I’m not in a hurry

150 hours of gameplay on several characters combined, highest level character is only 57 (didn’t feel like rushing through this game like I usually do) and still having loads of fun.. It’s great!

It’s actually worth taking time to craft in this game.. in most other games, it just costs loads of money and the craftables are sub-par.. Here you have more initiative to craft and not let it wait as a necessary evil, for when you’re max level.. Love it

Didn’t notice it at first though.. was watching TV while crafting and wasn’t really watching the numbers on the screen, when I closed down the crafting dialog, I was kinda surprised.. Thought it was an exploit at first, lol..

LOL, I had to laugh pretty hard with this..

Allthough, I have to admit, back in WoW, I was completely and utterly disgusted by the big spider in that icy dungeon (WotLK).. I always turned my camera away from the spider when we had to kill her.. Safe to say it was one of my least favorite dungeons..

Affably.7102:

I would suggest instead of Churning Earth having a faster wind-up time that you could determine an activation time (a la “press and hold” or alternatively “press to activate, press to release”) and deal more cumulative damage the longer you wind it up, the way skills in some other professions or bundles work.

Or something like this ^^

Please change Churning Earth (OH Dagger #5 skill) to either have a shorter cast-time, or invulnerability to “push-overs” while channeling.. It takes 4 secs to cast and if someone merely bumps into you, you don’t get the spell of and you have a CD of 30 secs on your kitten..
You should still be receiving damage while casting the skill offcourse, I’m not talking about full invulnerability, just to stuns and the likes..

On top of that, it’s a rediculous combo finisher.. What combo are you gonna finish with a 4 second cast-time anyway?
(or am I using the spell wrong?)

Ele / War here and I don’t like it, I just don’t.. Has nothing to do with how it works in game, I just don’t like it.. Same in WoW Cata, just plain hated the first levels in underwatercombat.. Same for air combat in other games, for that matter.. Not my kind of bag…

I was also pretty worried about not having healers in a game, since it’s my most favorite class, but the system was pretty well thought out tbh. You can play support as ele, while switching to DPS when possible. At least you’ll be on the tip of your toes all of the time..

Midnightjade.3520:

Suggestion to improve Elementalist: respecify which Staff skills are Combo Fields and which are Combo Finishers.

Currently Water has 3 Fields and no Finishers, while Earth has no Fields but 3 Finishers. Switching attunements to access a Finisher often takes longer than the duration of the Combo Field, leading to over-reliance on skills #7-9 (eg Aura Blast).

Simplest way to fix: add Projectile Finisher attribute to #1 skills in Fire, Water and Lightning (Fireball, Water Blast, Chain Lightning). In Earth attunement, switch skill #2 (Eruption) frmo Combo Finisher: Blast to Combo Field: Earth.

This will allow Elementalists to more easily self-combo, increasing their flexibility when soloing and allownig them to better help the group when in Dungeons.

I wouldn’t put a finisher in every attunement, but it would be great to have finishers in 2 attunements at least —> especially the Earth change you proposed.. You cannot use the #2 Earth skill as a finisher, since it takes way too long before it erupts..

Maybe it’s a problem with the combo fields too.. I’m under the impression, the “healing rain” staf #5 skill, does not last for 9 seconds at all.. If the field remained for the actual 9 seconds, you could use finishers, but as it stands now, you cast it, switch to earth and you get 1 projectile off (2 if you’re lucky), before it fades. It’s probably because the rain buffs people, but doesn’t leave the field available to combo.

Same for fire attunement with Dagger as Offhand —> Duration of #4 (Ring of Fire) = 6 seconds, yet I can only get 1 projectile through it, after switching attunement to earth.. 2 if I’m very lucky.

When I tried with my longbow on my warrior with the burst-skill, I had plenty of time to get a few shots through the ring of fire, before it faded..

Going out from the posts on reddit, I think what is being said by GM’s, is in the grey zone (they won’t give a specific answer if if’s allowed or not), for the following reasons:

The use of CM in itself, is not going to be banned, since it doesn’t play any part of the game for you, it’s just a fancy type of “tape down your right mouse button”, you still have to do every single action yourself

BUT,

They want to keep the option for banning people open, just in case the CM is ‘exploited’. e.g. Tweaks being made to CM, to let 1 button press, play the game for you, aka : botting etc

If they publicly stated the use of CM is allowed and somebody finds a way to exploit the system, they don’t have a foot to stand on, so they’re not able to ban that specific person. That’s why their answer is in the grey zone imo.
If it was NOT allowed, they would have made a statement, saying specifically that.

This is just my opinion though

Strange that Arena-net hasn’t commented on this though..

Kitten, was kinda getting my hopes up with this thread and coming to the last page, I see that it’s not allowed.. It’s a shame, this could make GW2 the best game I’ve ever played..

I loved Tera for this combat system and I love GWII for the surroundings, storylines, … …

Please implement this in game, or hire the maker of the mod to do it for you asap!

http://gw2cartographers.com/

website in beta, and is currently not showing vista’s etc, but normally, I check this website for anything that might be missing in my exploration.. Works like a charm

Curious as to what Arena-net says to this, but if it’s allowed, I’m definitely for! (Gonna paste some black tape in the middle of my screen to serve as crosshair now!)

:D

What people are farming, is the random-supply-bags.. You get tons of those in the starter area (used to get). On my warrior, I had a supply bag on practically every mob.. —> Click on inventory —> Deposit to warehouse —> Farm some more —> Not good for economy and it makes it really easy for the currency selling farmers

Moiraine! I hate you for stealing the nick I wanted to use for my Elementalist!!
I had to settle for a version of “Elaine” —> Ylaine
Oh well, I get to run around with a red-head now, I guess it isn’t too bad

Í could do with a few more skills myself.. i like having a firm arsenal within my grasp.. Not a must though..