Guild Wars 2

staff with air traits

focusing crit gets pretty close to that.

air #4 and glyph heal give very very close to perma swiftness

water fields + blast finishers can get what feels like perma regen (plus the various water passives a tick heals too that arn’t strictly regen but act like it) also maybe traited heavy water for regen on cantrips?

and vigor on crit with a decent crit chance is easy perma vigor (or at least functionally)

you can add an extra step to the fire combo with the #4 skill to try and line up a firefield to blast combo, increases the damage for the firegrab due to might stacks.

arcane wave is also very good to have as a utility for that purpose (plus it deals roughly 1k PB AoE itself-ish)

an excellent suggestion, i will try that myself.

thanks!

i feel that some changes and reinvigoration of our trait trees would really hammer in support for all our varied playingstyles, i’ll give an example (though i would be sure they probally already thought of this and that it is probally this way for a reason)

the minor traits for adept and master for our elements could be swapped.
the adept ones reward staying in an attunement which i don’t think is good that early in the tree because it does very little for the stance dancer who doesn’t hang around in a stance long and also doesn’t necessarily want to commit more points to that trait line.
the master level does a thing on attunement, this seems a little counter intuitive as you were being rewarded earlier for staying in the attunement? and if you leave the attunement you have to wait a fair while before you could attune back to gain the benefit. {this applies much more from a new player perspective}

if they were swapped, then the stance dancer would be rewarded for spreading their points out by having all kinds of effects going off while they shift, yet someone who commits a bit deeper to the line starts to see payoffs to their dedication to the element, but also is able to get some reward from dipping a few points into a second element (supporting all three build styles)

so with just a little tweak like that you can make it so that different players with different tastes can all enjoy the profession that they decided they wanted to play.

{of course, i am very very very certain that arenanet are not stupid, therefore would have already thought of this and since they chose to do it the way it is, there must be a good reason why… which is where our discussion could lead to speculative insights}

but this is some outlining of how builds accomodating theses 3 styles could work

X-mancer (i’ll be honest, this is actually how i want to play my elementalist)
runs full 30 in only one line, skims other trees for useful little traits/utility skill enhancements, has traits that reward/make the primary focus of the build staying in that attunement
plays by staying in one attunement, only switching when a situation really calls for something else and switching back as possible afterwards.

Dual spec (this style of building is what i believe most people would do, because the game suggests it to you with the how many trait points you are given)
goes deep into 2 lines 30 in each, might grab 10 in something complimentary or otherwise into the arcane line to ease transitioning {also 10 in arcane has probally our best adept trait EVER}, might have a specific role to build towards that is supported by the synergies between the two chosen elements (earth+fire conditions etc.),
plays ironically like most other professions do lol, switching between the two focused elements {like weapon sets} and focused more on a role than anything else. of course like the X-mancer, the other non-speced elements are still there and to be used but only situationally (though certain roles/builds could make use of shifting attunements more frequently due to wider synergies in itemisations {e.g. power is almost universally useful to varying degrees})

finally our profession specific one (which due to it playing on our unique mechanic is the one alot of people would think that we are encouraged to use for optimal play)

stance dancer (attunement dancer, but i prefer the assonance :P, plus old lingo from WoW days)
at least 20 in the arcane probally 30 and then a cherrypicking of traits from anywhere else to produce the desired effects.
plays by shifting rather frequently, procing effects on weapon swap sigils, boons, on attunement spells, focuses on knowing when to use the right attunement while in the heat of battle, rather high skill cap (relatively, due to needing to not only know your spells, but recall cooldowns, and also when switches might help for certain boons/condition removal etc.).

whats even cooler about our profession is that we even get some far out freaky builds that don’t even conform to these ideas. like aura builds and stuff.

i think that it should be a good thing for a person to be able to play the class they want the way they want.

some people like to throw fireballs, so they should have a way to build for that.

some people might find appeal in the idea of mixing two elements to produce a greater effect or style (e.g fire and earth condition builds or earth water control)

some people really like the flexible approach that dancing between all 4 gives…

what is truely great about this game is all theses approaches to this class are supported by the way building a character works (itemisation and traits)

i think that analysing it to ensure that theses different approaches are all viable can only be a good thing, because it increases the amount of playing styles and ultimately satisfaction of players playing the class.

i haven’t finished going over everything myself (plus i keep missing stuff every time i go searching around the forums for new builds)

an interesting build, proves there is hope for our burst…

too bad that its strapped onto something that can only be done once per 30 seconds (at least) and has the consistency of tissue paper

but if you ever do manage to pull it off… it will be LEGENDARY!!!

they can… check out the arcane lightning topic lol (its a rather specific build that is probally useless for all but benchtesting)

that said, most damaging spell.

i would say a toss up between fiery greatsword (i can hit 2k with some of its swings) and arcane “something” i forget if it was blast or wave… i think blast, but brain not working at the moment…

with churning earth coming in under that and firegrab under that.

deselect target (this can be done by clicking on nowhere i believe)

you have to have a clear UI (no target) for it to work, not just a cancelled auto attack

you may experience trouble with this if you have sticky targetting on, check over your options and experiment til you get it to work. it is worth it

ride the lightning is AWESOME!! (when it decides to work lol)

what would be nice would be if the grandmaster traits were changed a little to work maybe something like

one makes staying in that stance a bit longer more rewarding
the other is a more general buff to an aspect of that elements focuses (more explosions, condition removals, control, etc.)

its already kinda present in the traiting a bit, the first tier minors reward staying in a stance, and one of the grandmaster’s is usually called “X-mancer’s Y” (which is awesome) so make that do something to make you really feel like an “X-mancer” (pyromancer’s might thingy is cool… not cool enough though lol :P)

a stance dancer could skim lines to pick up the ones they like.
a dedicated X-mancer could go deep one line and skim others for syngeries
and a dual deep spec would be able to focus on 2 attunement style fighting

i personally think the trait system is robust enough to accomodate 3 different approaches to elementalist building.

hmm this has me somewhat inspired, i will go and work on something….

i am sorry to possibly cause offense, but i believe that within that reddit thing itself, it was proven that that calculation was false…

it doesn’t make sense just from in game stuff…

go hit the big golem verse the light one in the mists… they only have 200ish toughness difference (its armour, but armor is defense {from gear} + toughness, the golem i believe have no stats, so just provides a stationary benchtest against the different armor types)

the difference between the heavy and the light is at least 20 damage per attack… usually alot more.

a damage formula that gets closer to what numbers get reported (but may not be correct and i prefer to simply use it as a guideline) is

(power*weapon strength*skill bonus power thingy)/1000(defense+toughness)

no idea if that is right, but it so far gives numbers that seem so…
so using that as a guideline
varying levels of toughness give increased percentile damage reduction, with rapid diminishing returns…

2700 armor is about 33% damage reduction. (over none… or rather baseline {which is about 1800 armor- the minimum armor we can have, rounded down)
2100 is about 15%

i find using the idea of choosing how tanky i want my build to be in those terms helpful

about 15-16K hp with 2100 or more toughness is fairly survivable.

for ALL professions, the answer is both

you want to balance all building around what you are trying to achieve.
toughness will give you more bang for your buck compared to vitality… EXCEPT
1) doesn’t work against conditions
2) as you start stacking it, it becomes less and less effective

these two things are what encourage the idea of having both.
you need enough HP to survive things, and enough toughness to protect that HP. (stack 30K HP and no tough and watch a thief kill you in one heartseeker spam rotation)

also toughness seems to suffer from very rapid diminishing returns.

as the lowest armor wearer (light) this means we get a little more mileage from points in toughness…

but we also have the lowest base HP, so vitality is necessary to move us out of certain “danger zones” for damage.

each hundred points of toughness gives 5 down to1.5% damage reduction (or at least appears to, these numbers are merely guidelines)

to survive fairly good, i have found that you want at least 2100 armor, this gives about 15% damage reduction.

from there getting your HP to over 15k is a very good idea. (playing catch up with other professions base numbers really…)

you can get those values without too much work,(e.g. either full points in earth or a couple of toughness jewelry for the armor ) and they are numbers you should try to aim for… any less and you can be rightly called “glass” +/- the “cannon”

HOWEVER there is another thing to consider on the elementalist…

we can get protection pretty good… which is 33% damage reduction.
if you build in a way to keep protection up as much as possible (auras, cantriping, team synergies, boon duration etc.) then you can pretty much ignore toughness if you wanted… (don’t. still aim for the minimums i believe are good, cause they you become warrior level tanky)

actually, i think there is merit to the idea…

WvW while it is pvp, does still have pve elements already.

there is a big grub that spawns sometimes in the eternal battleground. its super awesome fun to kill.

really tense, watching out for invaders coming to steal grub.
what could be cool would be a couple more of them (not up all or even most of the time) but more agressive… if left alone they head towards a base and start attacking the walls/gate.

this would create opportunities for players to capitalise on and incentives defending /upgrading bases.

maybe even have one that give a server-wide buff for the next hour or something, just to give your zergs a bit of an edge (if worried about the “strong get stronger” problem, just make it that you only get the buff if score is X or something like that)

but i don’t think that player control over this phenomenon is necessarily a good idea.
the clever can work out how to use it as an opportunity (MAYBE make some kind of way of directing it… example: go give 1000 supply to ogre camp, they call in a huge ogre who attacks a nearby enemy camp.. though this example is kinda like building a seige golem… the theory is that a small team of players could pull it off under the noses of strong enemy presence and that it allows for opportunities to cause mayhem without the need for a zerg )

so yeah, i think that dynamic events should play a bigger part in WvW… some of my most fun experiences there so far have been when an event tied with a battle (there was a time where mosquitoes where in the swamp, we were killing them and then the enemy counter-zerged quentin… man it was intense trying to finish off the mosquitoes in the midst of the zerg {and yes i am aware that it was a terrible idea to divert resources from the fight to such trivial things, but it was the best thing to do in that situation})

but you would begin to push the already powerful aura builds into slightly more broken territory…

signet is probally fine, its the glyph that might indeed need toning down lol

i jest, honestly i feel our heals are pretty balanced and good, even ether renewal (i don’t use it often, but i like tht its an option for builds without condition removal)

i actually feel inclined to agree here.

when i heard about their approach to crafting and gear, i was really excited.

i was hoping that the system would be something like this.

-crafting would produce gear and “insignia/inscriptions”
-the gear would look “generic” (this part is how it is now, and its fine)
-the insignia’s get added in during the crafting process to determine the stats (which funnily enough is how it works now)
-if you are unhappy with your look/want something to do… then you could go out and earn your alternate gear appearences from other activities (dungeons/WvW/sPvP/karma/story etc.)

that way crafting would be the central pivotal part of the economy as it is the part you NEED to do to get stats (sPvP broke away and thats fine, and WvW is also fine offering karma sets with the power vitality for peeps who want to level solo via WvW)

so yeah the system is fine… it just didn’t go far enough me thinks

all stat combination should have been availible for crafting, mats varying for all of them… it creates this nice balance between crafters and gatherers and stuff…

what might have been super awesome would be some method of making different stat combinations “rarer” so requires discovery or something…… but i don’t think that would work in practise

so conclusion, everything about crafting is “good”, i just don’t think they went far enough… and the not including all stat combinations is an example of that.

unfortunately, it is something that will not change.

boosting healing power will increase the heal to a “more respectable” amount… but don’t be deluded into thinking it will save you.

the signet seems to be more designed for long fights, where the heals per cast can start adding up, also you need to play better with it. (this statement sounds inflammatory but its not ment that way, what i mean is that you need to play in a more conservative way compared to the other heals)

signet also has combos with the aura builds.

basically, signet will not save you like glyph (particularly in earth will)… unless you go the aura build lol (20 second CD, protection, fury, swiftness and fiery aura? yay)

like alot of things about the elementalist, its about the greater whole than the individual parts. So you gotta think what each part is gonna do for you.

short answer, don’t use signet unless your build supports it.