Guild Wars 2

Yeah, I’ve had it. I have been up and down, back and forth across the talents. I’ve spent more gold on respec than anything else in the game, just LOOKING for something viable.

Nothing. My build advice is to try and get every talent that ele has in the menu. If your game is not bugged, then it won’t work, and you should go with another class.

Really. That’s what it would currently take. You would need every single talent slot occupied. Don’t get me wrong. We have great talents and interesting skills, and a fun mechanic. It just. Doesn’t. Work.

The burst is unreliable, and a bunny could 1 shot you. The bunker is not bunker. Trying to balance will get you monumental failures. 2 of our 5 traitlines are pointless to explore, and 1 traitline is absolutely mandatory for ALL areas of the game. Mandatory for more failure.

And what’s wrong with conjures (other than they also don’t work)? If they were viable, I’d throw one in. At this point, I’d wear a funny hat and go all the way into the new Cancer traitline if it meant I could have some fun.

TY for the vid. Yeah, wow, that was better damage than I expected. Still extremely glassy, but it actually seems like it would be worth it for those interested in min/max dps. I understand that those players weren’t necessarily pro, but watching that hp just melt under the burst was pretty sweet.

I completely agree with Froze. The mechanics are actually interesting and a lot of fun to improve at. After the downed state fix, we just need all our bugs taken care of and I think people will really start to see how good this class can be because the number of viable specs will open way up.

Support ele will not die to a “passing thief” if they are played semi-decently. As for 1v1 against a thief… you realize that most of them pretty much design their build to kill you 1v1 right? If you are a soft-target alone, then you are exactly the right target for most thieves. If they couldn’t kill you 1v1, it would make them cry and switch classes.

And yes, I think that designing a class specifically for 1v1 fighting is choosing a very specific role, and probably sacrificing a lot of other uses for the ele class. If I encounter a thief I say, “come on little buddy lets go for a walk” and I drag him toward my teamates.

If your spec is so glass cannon that all thieves are instapwning you, then take solace in the fact that they are doing the exact same thing to each other. Which thief wins? The one that opens first.

“and” followed by “I” followed by “keep” spells a derogatory word for homosexual females

Rainshine.5493:

…I’mma have to disagree here. Staff is good for nuking people ON walls, and nuking people FROM walls. Any battle on the ground and I contribute way more with D/D than I would on staff. Specced correctly you can participate in melee pushes while still putting out solid, steady damage.

Yeah I was pretty much thinking of this, ankittenep a staff handy for siege. When I am running with a small group to hit camps, however, I go back to D/D because its much more fun imo and does as well if not better in small group fights.

Yeah, why get mad at the downed state change? You think that every person who didn’t want to use a lava tomb build is a noob? Use your spec or suck? w/e The new downed state is useful to all ele now, like it should be.

yeah, even the highest burst damage builds for ele cannot dish it out as fast as thief, AND they don’t survive as well. When it comes to thieves, other squishy classes need at least some time to press a few more buttons and feel like they are playing the game before they die.

Interesting tactic. Many players will choose not to try and range a downed ele because they know that mist will kick in before the ele is dead, and almost any player will see a single lava font and decide that it’s worth the risk. This would only work once against good players, but it sure is funny.

True, D/D are the main benefitters, but S/D and staff needed less help (not that I think they should be ignored). There’s only so much that can be done at one time. I’m just happy they put a decent portion of their effort into getting our class cleaned up in general. Downed state was a big deal.

I agree with Corebot. Staff ele are no joke in team play, and everyone knows there are viable S/D builds out there. I still think focus is lame, but that may just be me.

This does look like some impressive bleed damage, but yeah… I think the problem is that it relies on only one form of condition damage that is just too easy to remove, and it takes a bit too long for the bleeds to do their work. The burns would be decent, but its the bleeds that need to stick. The added fact that this weapon set leaves you mainly single target would make for some frustrating spvp play. Now if all that bleed was AoE…

If you are interested in condition damage with staff, earth does the job well. Fire can max out in stacking duration, at which time you would want to start stacking some bleeds and perhaps throw in a bit of cc. The bleeds are not weak of you are built for condition damage, and they are a short-range AoE as well if I’m not mistaken. By switching between earth and fire you can do some very good AoE condition damage, and still have an impressive array of healing abilities through water. Air would be less useful with such a build, but its nice to have some defensive control on hand.

Also, try placing #2 just before you switch away from earth and then placing a field at the same spot (fire, water, or air). You can switch attunement even during the cast, and it will explode after you have set down the field for a good burst combo that you can do all by yourself.

Yeah, you just have to get a feel for the distance, that’s all. Also, keep in mind that conditions which slow you will cause you to travel a shorter distance before the explosion, and swiftness will cause you to travel further (especially outside of combat).

Its a great skill to lead with since it has a fairly short cd and rtl/updraft/bs is a common way to enter the fight and get some early burst on multiple targets.

Its not that the idea is bad, but it would change the play style of the class. It would sort of make elementalists no longer elementalists. Switching through attunements is both a limitation and an advantage, especially with the bonuses and simultaneous spells that activate along with switching. No attunement has everything that you need at any specific time, and that was done on purpose.

I get the feeling that a lot of players want to play the “wizard” class, but they don’t like the mechanics of it. It’s sort of like playing a warrior and saying “I’m not into this whole adrenaline thing.”

I think papaj is saying that D/D is not great in WvW, and I have to agree. It’s my favorite weapon set with ele, but I am hard pressed to find a good use for it in WvW. It lets you take down stragglers trying to run away, gank solo players in some cases… that is all. Full support D/D can be helpful to allies if they run in and out of the fray, but not really any more so than staff.

Well-timed stability along with an immobilize will often allow you to kill them quickly once their slot skills are gone. Its not such a big secret. When facing a 100b warrior, if I only have one escape skill remaining, I get outta there.

Some of the problem with ele frustration is trying to force a role. People say “I want to solo gank people and get the kill no matter what.” Or they say “I want to tank against three and stay in the circle.” Sure, these things are possible, but there are other classes designed to fill those extreme roles.

Elementalist is about versatility. Middle-of-the-road strategies can actually work as ele, and this is something that few classes have ever been able to do in mmo pvp. When its time to pwn, you can put out moderate damage with frequent control. When things are iffy, you can support allies in a significant way. When things get bad, you can escape the situation and move to another point. Nobody will say, “thank god for that ele,” but your contribution is huge if you play smart.

Killing blows are for other classes. Outlast is for other classes. If you believe that there is nothing fun outside those two categories, then there are other classes you will have more fun with. Never underestimate the power of shenanigans.

Ele attunements are class defining. The idea is to create a build that allows you to use them in a way that you like. For instance, many high damage builds rely on delivering a fast burst in one attunement (usually fire). In this case, the other attunements are meant to support this burst and buy time or allow escape for the next burst. Other classes do the same thing in a different way, but they have fewer options. Support specs will often rely heavily on water while switching to earth just after heals are exhausted.

Ele that relys heavily on a specific attunement will often reduce cd on those skills by 20%, which is very noticeable— especially since most encounters are basically a cd race.

Ele has a lot of problems, its true, but after really getting to know a weapon set and creating a few decent builds, I find that a smooth transition between attunements starts to happen. You start to really get a feel for what’s available and what to do. For instance, I no longer blast all cds in an attunement just because I’m afraid they won’t be available after I switch. Its hard to get over that, and the idea that you are locking out certain skills for a short time can make a guy nervous.

But an avoidance is just as good as a heal— especially when it buys time for a heal. Controlling an enemy is just as good as healing an ally when you can take some heat off your friend. If you are running out of burst too early, then you are probably choosing the wrong time/opponent to deliver it. There is always something to do, and sometimes you have to let the class sort of decide it for you.

Oh, and the reason people feel like ele requires twice the effort for half the result is because they do. We literally press more buttons because we don’t really have viable builds that rely on hacking away with our #1 weapon skills. I think the answer for that is to open up the amount of viable builds that ele can choose. Fixing our massive number of brutal bugs would go very far toward helping with this issue.

Well to be fair the OP said it was a glass cannon and that’s exactly what it is. I suppose the main problem is that anybody who knows our class will be able to survive it. There is nothing unpredictable about the way it bursts, and elementalists (in my experience) sort of rely upon the fact that they can choose a number of different actions according to most circumstances. They are difficult to predict. This build narrows the options to just a brief set of actions that all wait on a big cd. Afterward, you have to somehow get away from the fight, and pretty much any other class can decide to say “nuh-uh” and pin you to the floor.

As others have stated, there are other classes that are much better at this, such as thief kittenz. I’ve been dropped by a thief so fast I don’t even think he was having fun.

It looks like a really fun build for some spvp pug lulz and maybe some WvWvW banditry. After embarrassing a thief or warrior, however, they will come looking for you next time, and they will win.

@Corrupt. I’m not surprised. I think the devs overestimated the average player’s sportsmanship. Many people would rather grind a defeated opponent’s face into the ground than challenge someone who can fight back.

Well, we should be realistic. AR wvw is bad. I don’t know what your definition of “suck” is, but we are almost always getting stomped.

That said, it still isn’t miserable. I have rolled with a small guerrilla group, and it’s really a lot of fun. Taking supplies and hitting yaks and roads before the enemy can react is exciting, profitable and spreads out the opponent forces as they attempt to reach the conflict areas in time (and fail). Underdog is where its at. Doing these things in a small group instead of solo allows for much greater speed and protection from other small groups.

We should also consider forming small group of “bandits” to wait along the reinforcement routes that the enemy uses to defend the towers or keeps that our bad zerg is slamming into at any given time. Just draw a line on the map from their spawn to the action and kill the poor guys on their way to help their friends. That’s just good fun.

We do not have the population to dominate on all fronts, so I really wish that people would choose the right places to fight. Scrambling for 2nd place just doesn’t seem very satisfying when you have the chance to force a leading server to fight on two fronts, but I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir right now.

Personally, I think that two losing servers should not have the option to populate each others’ borderlands unless other maps are filled or close to full. This would create the 2v1 dynamic that the devs had in mind when they created 3-way warfare. If a server is winning, it should become MORE difficult for them to keep winning, not easier.

Very nice vid, not just for ele but also some general team related tactics. I’m not very 1v1 oriented myself, and I usually opt to disengage if my odds are looking anywhere near 50%. Thankfully, the game is designed so that the ability to escape is a valuable thing, and ele is good at escaping a bad fight.

However, I would not say that it is a strong class compared to others because there are simply fewer viable builds with ele. You can be competitive, but only in a narrow range of weapon/slot/talent choices. In my opinion, a class with only 1 good build type (see mesmers) is not “strong” as a class.

I think that MUCH of these issues will be cleared up as the massive amount of elementalist bugs are addressed. There are a ton of synergies in other potential builds that simply do not work out due to a buildup of small bugs that reduce boon times, interfere with skills that help mobility, and break directional attacks. Bug synergy. This leaves S/D damage and staff support (with fairly specific build types) as the only decent options.

To me this is sad because jumping all over the place in awesome D/D play is what attracted me to the class in the first place.

PS. I can’t imagine having a problem in pve. Ele destroys it.

Truga.5897:

For churning earth, use it in combination with lightning flash. Start channelling, then just before it’s done proceed to jump into 5 enemies and impale them onto spikes.

Phat. I bet they remove this capability at some point though.