Guild Wars 2

Staff is completely useless compared to the other weapons, which are what we SHOULD be comparing, as opposed to build vs. build. I use scepter/dagger and I feel most of the skills except water 1 (weak non-condition auto attack) and water 2 (weak aoe that takes too long and adds an insignificant amount of weakness) work just fine and all have uses. Every other skill from this combination of weapons has a good use, be it burn and dps, pure channel damage with a fast 1-5, or bleed/cc/blind. This is a fun class to play in pvp and pve, and I can honestly say I’ve never seen a staff do anything remotely useful in pvp or pve. They generally just cast meteor shower and healing rain, followed by a quick death. I understand the combo fields are nice, but they should be an addition, not the primary focus. Point is, there are just too many useless skills on a squishy weak class to even bother with staff. I’m not talking pure dps either, I play an earth 30 arcana 20 ele. Most of my damage comes from the conditions and combos. But staff does need help so glass cannoning can be possible if the player wants to.

I would make a guide but I’m not so eager to give away my build and have it be not so unique any more. All I will tell you is I run Earth 30 and Arcana 20 with scepter as my main hand. If you’re skilled enough to put together the rest, you’re welcome to come join the ranks of Elementalists that Faceroll.

JemL, I have no clue, then. I’ve hit level 80 in pve, gotten first in over 100 spvp matches, led entire platoons in wvw, beat almost every dungeon in explorable mode, and fought most of the major map bosses. I can out-dps any other class and can survive longer than these glass-cannon builds that arent meant to work in GW2. And by the way, if your argument stands on an observation at level 1, you really need to play more.

There’s most of your problem. A. you haven’t hit cap, and B. you have 0 trait points in defense. I would say C. don’t use a staff as a beginner, but that’s up to your discretion. Try dagger/dagger or scepter/dagger for a bit. reset your trait points for a silver (I think) at the trainer. Keep a majority (but not 30) in fire, then play with arcane 0-20, earth 0-20, light 0-20, and water 0-20. Look for major and minor traits that benefit your play style. For example, if I like to have running speed to kite, and I like staying in air attunement, I might get air 10 to run 35% faster and have more precision. Don’t build traits off of damage, build traits off of playstyle. Your gear should reflect your need for more defense or more power, etc. Make sure your accessories and gear all work towards the damage/survivability you want, as traits only make a minor impact in that area at 80.

The tone in this thread is discouraging. You guys are missing the true potential of the elementalist if you feel sub par. Sure, a warrior using “for great justice!” and a build for burst only dps on his burstiest skill will kill a mob rather quickly. However, put the same warrior against a veteran mob and watch him become poisoned, immobilized, and melt. The power of the elementalist isnt about damage numbers, its about conditions. I’m sure the same warrior would not fare well while chilled, knocked down, knocked back, blinded twice, burnt, bled, and out-healed.

@Daedalus have you tried a different type of damage? How have you built your ele? What do your traits/points look like?

Elementalist does NOT need a buff, I believe they are fairly balanced as-is. My guess is you just bought the game, went into spvp, made a random build that made no sense in how the ele really works, and died a lot. You tried to add tons of power and expected things to die in one hit. This isn’t how the elementalist works. We get 20 skills plus util/elite. Most classes get 10. In essence, depending on a player’s skill, elementalist is actually a bit more powerful than other classes. Give it a few weeks and actually take time to look into the details of a build when you make it.

-Level 80 Elementalist, 400-400 crafting, 10+ total days of beta and release pvp experience