Guild Wars 2

Christos de Soufre.3802:

Let me try to put it this way…

WW causes you to spin 3 times. Each spin is capable of hitting every target around you. If it hits five targets all three times, that is 15 attacks.

WW also fires 9 projectiles over the course of the 3 spins. Assuming these 9 projectiles all land, that is another 9 attacks. This totals up to 24 attacks when using WW against 5 targets.

You are correct to assume that none of the targets are hit 24 times by themselves. Each target is hit 3 times by the spins, and then each projectile hits a random target. So yes, each target is getting hit only 4-5 times on average, and only four VoJ procs will occur over the course of the WW against 5 targets.

How does that square with this from the wiki:

“The spin hits 7 times and throws 7 projectiles, for a total of 14 possible hits on a single target. Damage listed appears to be for all 7 spinning hits and 2 projectiles.”

One spin? Three spins that each hit 7 times? 7 projectiles total, or for each spin? It’s just so confusing.

Graill.8596:

With the failure of developers with the Engineer, i went Guardian and never looked back, though i hope my little guy becomes useful at some point other than an escape artist.

I follow three folks on this forum and have learned a ton. My first solo fight with this class in the mists jumping puzzle against three other folks was great i killed two and the ele finally took me down, but what a long fight. My Engineer would have been dead in seconds in a three on one. My education continues.

Though not as good at escaping as my old Engy, i can go into active shrine areas etc and survive, wheras my old main could not and would be attritioned down in short order.

For support i am much more versatile, from healing, buffs, taking conditions from folks in party, popping the skill to turn all conditions to boons is too sweet.

Damage is low though that doesnt bother me with the punishment i can take. I look forward to the day when we can button spec two or more different builds without the need to go back and respec, which is an old game mechanic, not stating copy other games……but if it works.

It’s great to hear how durable the Guardian can be, but I have to stress that in my case, I’m only talking about PvE right now. None of my concerns so far are PvP-related, just in case that matters to anyone.

Right now I’m using “Strong” gear for power/precision. I suppose I could devote my trinkets to vitality and toughness, instead of more power/precision, although I feel like for simply PvE leveling, it always seems to be standard practice to focus on damage output, and worry about survivability later. Perhaps that rule doesn’t apply to GW2 though…

Christos de Soufre.3802:

WW deals damage in a circle 3 times PLUS 3 projectiles per spin, so it’s actually 12 hits on a single target.

If you’re surrounded by 5 targets, you will land a total of 24 hits (15 spin ticks + 9 projectiles). VoJ will proc on every 5th attack, so it’ll proc 4 times over the course of a 5-target WW, assuming all projectiles land. Only the four targets that got hit by the procs will suffer the burning, whether it’s the same target every time or different targets.

For clarification, the projectiles hit only one target each. And if you hit one target four times, but your fifth attack (whatever it may be) hits a second target instead, the second target is the one that gets burned.

I guess part (or all) of my confusion stems from not understanding the underlying system of “hits” and “ticks” and all that. Where did you get 12 hits from? And 15 “spin ticks”? And 24 total hits? So however many total “hits” (or whatever the proper word would be) you do in the course of a single WW attack, is it correct that all the targets are not hit with each hit, but rather the hits are distributed across all the targets? So a single target gets hit 24(?) times, but 5 targets each get hit only about 4-5 times?

Christos de Soufre.3802:

I don’t recommend just stacking signets. Use utilities that provide consistent boon coverage, like Hold the Line. Regeneration and Protection are a big deal for a class with a low health pool and no clones, pets, or minions to draw aggro. The Guardian has an unusually high leveling skill cap due to its lack of tankiness at lower levels.

Also consider secondary weapon sets included the focus off-hand. It’s 5 skill is invaluable for defensive play. Running a scepter for kiting or mace for additionally defensive play while leveling will also help.

Edit: When I was leveling, effective use of blinds, blocks, and dodging made everything much easier. I recommend putting 15 points into Radiance while leveling for VoJ blinds, shorter SoR cooldown, and VoJ recharge on kill.

Right now I’m using the other utility skill that grants you all boons (and takes conditions from allies, which doesn’t matter much for my solo play). It has higher regen than Hold the Line, but perhaps HTL has a longer duration?

My other weapon set is Sce/Torch, which is fun, but I prefer to use the GS and be in melee range. I don’t want to have to rely on switching to a different weapon set because I’m taking too much damage. I’m more concerned with the fact of taking too much damage in the first place. It just seems like something a Guardian shouldn’t be doing, even in melee.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

Assume five targets.
You use an attack that spins five times and hits all nearby targets.
On a full spin, you hit all five targets, so your fifth hit procs the burn.
If you hit every target every spin, that’s 25 ticks of damage.
25 ticks of damage = 5 procs.

I’m still confused. Let’s use Whirling Wrath as an example. Here’s the description from the wiki:

Spin in place and swing your greatsword while hurling powerful projectiles.
Damage (9x): 1,251
Combo Finisher: Whirl
Range: 600

So let’s just assume that WW hits 9 times (even though a note below the description seems to say otherwise). If you are surrounded by 5 targets and you use WW, what happens? Do they each get hit 9 times? Or does each target take a hit, so that the 5 targets each get hit once, and then the first 4 targets each get hit again, totaling 9 hits?

If the former, then seems to suggest that (assuming you apply burning on your first hit), you will apply burning on the first hit and the sixth hit to ALL 5 targets. If the latter, then it seems to mean you apply burning on the first target to get hit, and then to the second target once it gets hit for a second time (which would be your sixth total hit).

Does this make sense? Are either of these correct?

Actually my first character was a mesmer, and I never really noticed any problems with dying or even losing too much health.

A couple weeks ago I started an Elementalist and was shocked at how squishy they seemed to be. I died very often, and even when I didn’t die, I lost a lot of health even on 1v1 fights (PvE). Most of the suggestions I heard were to trait into vitality and toughness lines, but I wasn’t happy with this because I felt like I shouldn’t waste my traits simply to make the profession playable.

Now I’m playing a Guardian, and while the experience was nowhere near as bad as that of my Elementalist, I still seem to take a lot of damage from time to time. So far I’m only traiting in Zeal for +Power, and also Virtues for Inspired Virtue. I don’t want to have to trait into Valor and/or Honor just to remedy the issue of losing health fast.

Is it something else I’m doing wrong? Perhaps not using my skills or utilities properly? I mainly use the GS, Signet of Resolve, Bane Signet, Signet of Judgment, and the third one sort of varies as I experiment with different ones.

I use Virtue of Justice often, since the CD is manageable, but the other two Virtues I often don’t mess with unless I’m in real trouble.

I suppose the reason I even thought of my Elementalist, since I’m not actually dying like that character was, is because the Guardian has the same base health as an Elementalist, which strikes me as odd and makes me think that’s part of the issue.

Or is it simply that ALL professions, even the warrior who also wears heavy armor and has more health, has this issue until you trait properly for defense? I know that my necro never really had an issue with losing health or dying, even before I got traits that restored my health.

Thanks.

For Virtue of Justice, I read this on the wiki:

“Burns every fifth hit, allowing skills that hit multiple times to trigger burning more rapidly. AOE skills that hit multiple targets at once only count as one hit.”

But this isn’t clear to me. In fact, one sentence seems to contradict the other. So for Whirling Wrath, for example, it hits multiple times. Against a single target, will it trigger more than once? The first sentence (above) seems to say yes.

But what if you use WW against two or more targets? It seems like it would still trigger multiple times on each target, but the second sentence seems to suggest it won’t. If not, what really happens?

And as far as Virtue of Resolve, what does it really heal for? Currently, at level 26, mine says something like “Healing: 27,” but I can’t imagine it only heals for that much, when my health is around 1500 or something. It seems useless to put it on a 60 second cooldown for that!

Thanks!

I was reading the wiki, but it seems so severely out of date that I don’t really trust it too much. Is there a newer wiki, perhaps? The discussion page for Plague contains mostly (or all) comments made before GW2 was even released.

Anyway, one thing the description on the wiki says is that by hitting a Plague skill once, that particular effect (bleeding, etc.) gets added to each tick of the plague, so you don’t have to keep spamming it. So I have two questions:

1. Is this even true? If I just press #1 once, then every tick from then on will cause bleeding?

2. Can you only have one skill active at a time, or can all three be pressed and then you get each effect on each tick? i.e., if I press #1 and then press #2, do I still get the bleed on each tick, or does the #2 effect replace #1?

Thanks.

P.S. While I’m on the topic, I’m curious what everyone thinks of Lich Form compared to Plague. I’m asking strictly about PvE, so PvP concerns don’t matter to me. My thinking so far, after just a bit of use with LF, is that Plague seems much better suited for AoE, whereas LF seems more like a single target, high damage skill. Is that about right? I’ve been loving Plague so far, but I just spent 30 skill points to get LF, so I want to love it too!

But how can you reliable use Consume Conditions so that you are getting the most benefit from it? In other words, what are the tricks to guarantee that you have a few conditions before using CC?

I’m thinking mostly in terms of solo PvE, so something like Plague Signet probably won’t be that helpful. Are there other ways?

I’ve read that D/D is a common weapon set for necros, and I definitely love a dagger in the main hand, but I’m wondering if the D/F combo isn’t even better. I know the off-hand dagger provides a bleed and blindness, and on top of that, the #5 focus skill is not all that useful for a main-hand dagger user, BUT the #4 focus skill seems to make up for all of this. It inflicts vulnerability, which makes the dagger even stronger, and it gives you regeneration, which is very helpful in melee combat. Also, if it’s just a one-on-one fight, the vulnerability will stack 12 times (3 stacks of 4) on the mob, giving you a nice boost to damage. And since the dagger damage is more burst than prolonged, it seems like this would be better than the longer bleed from the off-hand dagger skill.

Any thoughts on this? Is the D/D set still better somehow, or does the #4 focus skill compliment the main-hand dagger like I think it does?

Oh yeah, this is strictly PvE I’m talking about. Thanks.

Vayra.3290:

JohnJSal.8634:

MarzAttakz.9608:

John please mate, stick with your Ele man! I know it can be frustrating but seriously mate, it does get better and learning to play the Ele well will teach you how to play your other classes even better.

Seriously mate, playing an Elementalist is like having the game stripped down to the bare neccesities of survival, once you’ve mastered that and apply what you’ve learnt to your other characters you’ll notice a drastic improvement in your personal abilities. Heck mate, you’ll even be better at other games.

I get the feeling that he will call to me again, since I still enjoy the element switching aspect. Maybe right now I just needed to take a break from the frustration. As I was playing him, I kept telling myself “Alright, don’t just give up because it’s annoying to take so much damage and die often,” but also I was thinking “Yeah, but I shouldn’t force myself to play something that just isn’t fun and has me screaming at the screen sometimes.”

Like I said, it’s a weird relationship I have with my ele, but I think I’ll probably be drawn back to him at some point.

How is your gear compared to your level? And what stats are you focusing on? I leveled tailoring alongside my ele so I almost always had a source of decent gear for my level.

I keep my gear within 5 or so levels of myself, and right now it’s all toughness and vitality, with the same for the upgrade slots. So maybe that’s helping me not die a fifth or sixth time in a row, but I’m still dying often enough to find it annoying.

I guess the thing is, while I enjoy the element switching, I don’t want to HAVE to switch to water to heal in every fight, even in a one-on-one fight. I shouldn’t have to rely on it that much, except for when I get into more trouble than that.

Also, I don’t want to have to build myself up to be tough, with toughness/vitality gear, Earth/Water traits, etc. I feel like too much time and energy (and gear and traits) are wasted on just making the ele be able to survive, and not on making the profession more FUN to play, e.g. with power/condition/precision upgrades.

In other words, every profession should have a bit of survivability independent of their gear and traits. We shouldn’t be forced to make ourselves playable at the expense of all the other gear/trait options.

MarzAttakz.9608:

John please mate, stick with your Ele man! I know it can be frustrating but seriously mate, it does get better and learning to play the Ele well will teach you how to play your other classes even better.

Seriously mate, playing an Elementalist is like having the game stripped down to the bare neccesities of survival, once you’ve mastered that and apply what you’ve learnt to your other characters you’ll notice a drastic improvement in your personal abilities. Heck mate, you’ll even be better at other games.

I get the feeling that he will call to me again, since I still enjoy the element switching aspect. Maybe right now I just needed to take a break from the frustration. As I was playing him, I kept telling myself “Alright, don’t just give up because it’s annoying to take so much damage and die often,” but also I was thinking “Yeah, but I shouldn’t force myself to play something that just isn’t fun and has me screaming at the screen sometimes.”

Like I said, it’s a weird relationship I have with my ele, but I think I’ll probably be drawn back to him at some point.

Dante.1508:

JohnJSal.8634:

I just started an elementalist and I really enjoy pretty much every skill they have, but I’ve noticed a little more recently (I’m level 12 now) that once the mob closes to me (if they do), I barely have time to glance down at my health before it’s nearly half gone.

I’ve played a mesmer (to 57 so far) and I don’t recall losing health that fast. Is there something inherently weak about the elementalist, or does it just have that much less health than other classes? Or am I just doing something wrong? I haven’t settled into a groove yet, because I enjoy swapping weapons and attunements, but even still, I seem to get hurt fast and die often if I’m not extremely careful.

(I do tend to run around and stay mobile, so it isn’t that I just stay put and let the mobs beat on me.)

Thanks.

I’m feeling this too, and got much worse at lv 23, i effectively gave up playing ele they are just so incredibly weak and the damage is not great (at least at lower levels).

I was dying from mobs 5 levels below me, i moved around as much as possible, i switch elements as best i could (why should we no other class is forced to do this why is ele?)

I gave up trying to kill stuff my own level then after multiple deaths on lower level stuff and not being able to do events and skill points solo i completely gave it up…unless Anet decide to revamp them or add more defense/damage i guess she’ll sit in my selection for a long time to come.

I’ve leveled Ranger, Warrior, Guardian and Engineer with no issues all to level 80, i’m now currently leveling a Mesmer and must say its a lot more fun than elementalist, not sure why Guildwars 2 Ele was so bad i really loved GW1 ele and had no issues with it..

Unfortunately, this is about where I am again. I kept giving my ele a chance but I just wasn’t having that much fun taking so much damage and balancing on a knife’s edge during every fight. Do I want to one-shot everything? Of course not. Like I said, all the element swapping is fun, but I can’t believe eles are just so WEAK that an extra pull has a very good chance of killing you.

I’ve seen a lot of “it gets better” comments, but I’ve also seen some “it gets worse,” so all I can really go by is how I feel playing it. It’s a mixed feeling, because I love the play style itself but I hate the fragility.

I got him to 20, but I think he’ll sit there for a while. I just made a necro and I’m going to see how that is. In fact, I already am noticing quite a difference. I was level 2 and I fought a level 5 skill challenge mob, and it was rather easy since I can deal decent damage and restore my health at the same time. I even had some trouble with this mob on the warrior I created, so the necro seems pretty sturdy so far. Hopefully it won’t take ages to kill something!

Lifeson.4352:

Also I suggest getting a Sigil of Battle in one of your weapons, since every attunement change counts as a weapon switch, you get alot of might stacks this way.

Wow, I had no idea! That could be helpful, even if there is an internal cooldown. I didn’t use these much with my mesmer, since I stuck with the staff all the time, but switching attunements is like breathing, so I know I’ll get the benefit at least once per fight.

Berial.4860:

Another thing that can help. Keep your gear up to date. Just buy some blues/greens every 4-5 levels from the trading post, selling your old gear to a vendor. The cost is minimal and it can really make a difference.

Yeah, I definitely try to do this often. In fact, I figured this might have been part of my problem when I first started having trouble. I hadn’t really upgraded from my level 1-2 gear and there I was level 12. Of course, even after upgrading I had some problems, hence this thread

cznrhubarb.5946:

When I started playing Elementalist, it went something like this:
Levels 1-12: This is really fun! Look at all these weapon skills I get!
Levels 13-30: I do good damage, but WHY AM I DYING SO MUCH.

This is so funny because it was the same for me. When I created my elementalist a few nights go, I played for a few hours straight and was learning all the skills, and I was like “Oh my god EVERYTHING they can do is awesome and does a ton of damage and looks cool, etc. etc.”

And then the next night when I hit around level 11-12, I started taking a ton of damage and dying and suddenly went from “This is amazing” to “What the hell just happened to me overnight?”

cznrhubarb.5946:

Great to hear, John!

Also, if you’re looking at combos (which I am shamefully just learning to use well), you should know that a couple of the elementalist skills are combo-able even though they are not labeled as such in the tooltips. I don’t remember the main hand scepter skills, as I haven’t used it in a while but here are a few I just found out about recently:
Main hand dagger in earth’s Magnetic Grasp is a Leap Finisher.
Off hand dagger in earth’s Churning Earth and Earthquake are blast finishers.

Good to know! I was wondering why those earth ones weren’t part of some kind of combo!

Here’s sort of a fun progression I’ve been using just now:

Air: 2, 3, 4, 5 > Fire: 2, 3, 4, walk/roll back so they cross the fire twice, 5 > Earth: 4 if they’re close enough to knock them down, 3 if blind would be helpful at this point, maybe 1 for some bleeding, and if necessary > Water: 3, 5 for healing and a bit more damage

It’s very rewarding to do all this in the space of about 3-4 seconds. It feels much better than when I just ran around creating clones of myself. (Not that a staff mesmer wasn’t a blast too)

Edit: Oh yeah, this is S/D

plasmacutter.2709:

I’m in the same boat as OP, but i’m RTFM and from what i’m seeing it’s important to get the boon stacking traits asap.

Until then, I’m feeling squishy but at least understanding why.

Yeah, this seems to be another aspect of the elementalist that I didn’t realize at first. They rely on the boons you get, either from your healing skill, or the Arcana major trait, or combos, or wherever else. They help a lot, especially regen and protection. I’m looking forward to having 10 points in Arcana for that trait.

Well, I just came back from another play session of basically just killing mobs (of equal level) and testing out some combos. I was using S/D, but I do like D/D too, so I’ll try that as well.

This time, I switched attunements like a madman and it was not only fun, but I did seem to kill them faster than either sticking with one element or just switching to a second one. I used all four all the time, and it’s just the right amount of complex playstyle that I think will keep the profession interesting to play (and hopefully keep me alive!).

One thing I’m learning and really need to focus on is that I can create combos myself. I always assumed combos were more for group play, and with my mesmer I never bothered with them, and didn’t seem to need them anyway. But with the elementalist, it seems like I can create a lot of combos myself, whether AoE blast, or healing, or whatever else. I need to study the skills a little and experiment a bit more.

BlueprintLFE.2358:

JohnJSal you are not doing anything wrong by dying fast, in fact I started a thread on this very topic when I first picked up the ele and started leveling and playing. I was getting one shotted by Amrit bottle throwers at lvl 7 and had a rough time till lvl 20. After 20 with elemental attunement it became much easier to level, and by the time I was 30’s and up with extra healing, I stacked some toughness power gear I was destroying groups of mobs.

Edit: found the link here
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Feedback-brand-new-ele/first#post468703

Interesting read. That’s just about how I feel right now. In fact, I just logged off with the though “Okay, maybe I’ll try a ranger or a necro…”

I REALLY like the mechanics of the elementalist, but I just died about three times, even after trying some tricks like switching to water for some healing and regen and using Healing Rain + Arcane Wave (which DID help, but still).

I’ve never enjoyed playing classes in any game where I end a fight with less than half of my health, and that’s what happens every time with the elementalist. I also don’t want to HAVE to switch to water in every fight just to stay alive. I like having that as an option if I get into trouble and pull too many mobs, for example, but for that to be a required tactic in any fight is just ridiculous.

So I don’t know. I don’t want to give up yet, but at the same time there’s no reason for me to continue playing a profession that frustrates me every few minutes and makes the game not fun anymore.

I suppose I’ll try it a bit more though. I’m not even 20 yet, but just GETTING to 20 is too much of a chore.

Ah yes, perhaps that’s the difference. I’m mainly interested in PvE and simply playing the profession well while leveling by myself (and doing events). I know leveling is probably the least interesting aspect to many people, but I actually enjoy the process of learning and using the profession mechanics, so my focus (and the reason I asked this question) is to figure out how to play the profession well while taking on 1-3 mobs at a time, by myself.

Learning special tactics for group events would be great too, because I do events, but mainly I just want to know what I might be doing wrong because I lose health so fast and die fairly often. I stay mobile and I even got gear with vitality and toughness, but I still feel like a piece of paper in combat.

Gaudrath.6725:

And also, always chill tougher opponents. The reduction in attack frequency directly translates to your survivability. You can even chill them to slow down their attacks, then cast lightning hammer and do the AoE blind chains which now, thanks to the chill effect, makes them perma blind and unable to hit you for the duration of the chill effect.

And my advice when leveling is to get to know all weapon sets intimately. D/D is great for dueling and roaming, but staff definitely has its uses in PvP, especially WvW.

Ok, this may make me sound like a total noob, but a lot of the condition effects seem worthless. I mean really, applying chill or invulnerability or whatever else is great, but the durations are always like 2 seconds. I barely have time to do anything else before the duration is over! What am I missing about this?

BlueprintLFE.2358:

JohnJSal.8634:

Thanks, that’s very helpful. I do enjoy switching attunements but I probably don’t do it enough yet. Some of the air skills seem a bit weak, damage-wise. I tend to use fire and earth, although I tend toward earth because a fire mage is just such a cliche at this point.

What are your thoughts on the healing signet? Is it worth it, or is the default skill good enough?

I wouldn’t buy t right now with your points, dagger and dagger ele is the only time it is worth anything IMO, and glyph of elemental harmony offers some really good options. During a fight do you need more healing? Use GoEH in water for the extra regen, will you be at a good hp level after your heal and there are still more mobs? Use it in Earth for the extra protection. Want more damage? Use it in fire for might. Air for swiftness. It’s too good to pass up IMO. Offers tactical choices for us. Like said above, we have the lowest armor level and lowest health, but eles can be very tanky, our tankiness comes from 2 things protection and heals/regens, the more ways you can get those buffs, the easier your life will be and more you can focus on damage.

From the sounds of it you are using staff?

I’m not really settled on any particular weapon yet, although I tend to use S/D or D/D more than the staff right now, unless I know I’m heading into multiple mobs. I feel pretty safe with the staff in fire attunement, so I tend to bring that into my personal story, not knowing what I’ll face. Otherwise, I’m still experimenting with all the skills, because they all seem pretty fun.

Thanks, that’s very helpful. I do enjoy switching attunements but I probably don’t do it enough yet. Some of the air skills seem a bit weak, damage-wise. I tend to use fire and earth, although I tend toward earth because a fire mage is just such a cliche at this point.

What are your thoughts on the healing signet? Is it worth it, or is the default skill good enough?

Also, what’s a good trait line to spec into early? Like I said, I haven’t settled on using just one element primarily yet, but I’ve put my first 5 points into Earth both for toughness and to help my burn and bleed effects.

Kthr.2781:

Not to sound like a jerk, but you can(and should =P) test those things on spvp. You can play around with your build and have acess to all non-racial skills, and some golems to stand around and get hit.

Now to the answer: If you use Staff it’s not so good(You should use the water field and blast finished from arcane wave to heal that way). Other than that, with the amound of skills you can use with S/D, and especially D/D it’s a godsend. I lvled all the way to 80 using it with DD. It will also help counter the small amount of health we have, since you will be using skills so fast that the heal will stack up, switching to water so you can use the heal skills if you get to ~50% of health.

It’s also really good in PvP. I had people telling me how annoying it was to kill me, since they rarely got my hp lower than half, even during 1v2. Of course, if they get a really glass cannon build after you, you’d better evade else get dropped like a sack of potatos.

I don’t find the PvP tests that useful for seeing how well it will help me now, because when I’m leveled to 80, it heals for so much, and I’m wearing special PvP gear, that I can’t really tell how that will translate into me doing the same thing at level 15.

Interesting about Healing Rain + Arcane Wave. I have a lot to learn about combos, apparently.

In terms of PvE leveling, how fast can necromancers kill mobs of equal level? I’ve read that while they are hardy and tough to bring down, they also take forever to kill something. Is that true, or can you kill quickly? How good are they with taking on 2 or 3 mobs at once?

Yes, Arcane Wave was a point very well spent!

And wow, crazy that the Guardian’s base HP is the same as a caster!

Another thing I wanted to ask, if this would help, is…how useful is the healing signet that heals you on each skill use? It sounds good, but I don’t want to waste 3 skill points if it turns out I’m better off with the default healing skill. I did that with my Mesmer (for the healing mantra) and I never used it much, because it wasn’t as good as it sounded.

I just started an elementalist and I really enjoy pretty much every skill they have, but I’ve noticed a little more recently (I’m level 12 now) that once the mob closes to me (if they do), I barely have time to glance down at my health before it’s nearly half gone.

I’ve played a mesmer (to 57 so far) and I don’t recall losing health that fast. Is there something inherently weak about the elementalist, or does it just have that much less health than other classes? Or am I just doing something wrong? I haven’t settled into a groove yet, because I enjoy swapping weapons and attunements, but even still, I seem to get hurt fast and die often if I’m not extremely careful.

(I do tend to run around and stay mobile, so it isn’t that I just stay put and let the mobs beat on me.)

Thanks.

Thanks, that makes sense! I already switched the +crit for Mind Wrack trait back to the confusion duration trait, which I had before.

Someone said that confusion doesn’t help against basic mobs because they don’t use skills. Is that true? I thought everything in the game was a skill, or does the #1 skill not trigger confusion, for example?

Embolism.8106:

I’d replace Precise Wrack with Illusionary Elasticity. A 10% increase in Crit chance, especially when your Crit chance is already 40 – 50%, is not that significant; plus without Power your Mind Wrack damage is quite low even when it crits: and since all your Shatter skills inflict Confusion (due to Illusions 15) it probably does more condition damage than direct damage anyway.

Illusionary Elasticity on the other hand doubles the damage your Winds of Chaos do while in medium to close range. That’s far more significant than a small crit chance increase to a skill on a 10s+ CD.

I might also add that using a condition damage build myself, I almost never use Mind Wrack: the only Shatters I use are Cry of Frustration and Distortion. Unless you reconjure three Illusions immediately the paltry damage your Mind Wrack does will be less than the damage your Staff Clones would’ve done, and while it is perfectly possible to reconjure three Staff Clones every 10s or so; it will tax your Clone generation rate and may leave you temporarily unable to recover if say an AoE wipes out all Clones at once.

Cry of Frustration on the other hand has potential to do a lot of damage, and using it every 20 – 30 seconds or so is just about right to augment your AoE damage without compromising your Clone generation.

How is CoF better than MW, once you have the confusion trait from Illusion?

Thanks guys! Very helpful responses! I’ve switched to condition/precision gear and despite a 100 point drop in Mind Wrack damage (as listed in the tooltip), I still seem to be just as strong as before, probably thanks to all the crits. I use a mix of condition/power/toughness/vitality gems and runes.

I’ll check into Illusionary Elasticity because I have 20 points in Illusion, but I have the Mind Wrack crit and confusion duration traits right now (unless one of those IS IE).

I never had any problems surviving with my mesmer, but it did take me a long time to settle into a particular weapon set. At first I wasn’t thrilled with the staff because I thought I was just applying random conditions that weren’t helping me kill mobs, like slow, daze, etc., but really, most of the conditions ARE damaging, like bleed, burn, and poison. It’s basically a DoT weapon.

I suggest trying the staff, opening a fight with Phase Retreat and Phantasmal Warlock, then PR again when it’s off CD. Mind Wrack and/or Cry of Frustration are good to throw in there when necessary. And don’t be afraid to use skills 4 and 5, despite their CDs.

Once you get some trait points, I’d go with Illusion first, because it reduces the CD of illusion-creating skills, which is very helpful.

The description simply says that it increases “damage” by 3% for each active illusion. Does this refer just to direct damage (from power), or does it also apply to condition damage?

Thanks.

Embolism.8106:

JohnJSal.8634:

How do you conjure three clones in one second? Mirror Images?

I find Mirror Images to be on too long a CD to be particularly effective, especially if you’re losing Clones or if you’re fighting multiple weaker enemies. Plus it takes up a Utility slot. Deceptive Evasion, create a Clone on dodge, is the best for constant, rapid conjuration of Clones.

This brings in another benefit of high Precision for these builds: it allows you to proc Critical Infusion (Vigour on Crit) more frequently, giving you plenty of Endurance to dodge.

Getting Illusionist’s Celerity and Chaotic Dampening shortens your Phase Retreat CD to about 5 – 6s, which also helps greatly to spam Clones.

Simonoly.4352:

I’m running a staff/sword+torch build currently. I’ve traited for condition damage and condition duration. As power and condition duration increase in the same trait line it only seemed logical that I took advantage of that power too by complimenting it with my weapons. So my staff and my sword+torch all focus on condition damage and power. Also my iwarden damage increased significantly when I focused a bit more on power.

+Condition duration is not as useful as +condition damage to a condition Mesmer because it doesn’t affect conditions dealt by Illusions.

Also, remember that condition damage is not as obvious as direct damage as you don’t see one big number showing how much damage it did. iWarden’s damage actually scales equally well with Power and condition damage if you have high Precision with Sharper Images.

Condition duration doesn’t affect illusions, but condition damage does?

So if I focus on condition damage and precision, would the Dueling trait line be better than Domination?

How can I tell which attributes affect illusions and which don’t?

I’ve settled in quite nicely with the staff, but I also like the greatsword. But I agree that some other choices aren’t as fun, but it could be because I’m not using them right.

The torch and focus seem very underwhelming in particular.

The only downside seems to be that if I go condition damage but no power, I can’t switch weapons without losing a lot of dps. All my gear would be for the staff only.

Is this normally how it is for other professions, or do they tend to use the same stats for all weapons?

Embolism.8106:

JohnJSal.8634:

So what I’m hearing is condition damage is important, of course, but neither power nor precision is that useful for a staff. Is that correct? I figured toughness was more for melee types, but I guess if I don’t need any other stats, maybe it will be helpful. Or perhaps vitality would be better?

P. S. Yes I’m talking about PvE. I know worrying about stats is probably not necessary simply for leveling, but I still want to know the best practice.

Also, does power affect condition damage at all, or are they completely different stats?

Precision is very useful for the Staff because of Sharper Images, which allows your Illusions to inflict Bleeding on criticals; and the critical chance of your Illusuons is the same as yours.

Power and condition damage are completely separate stats. The former affects direct damage, the latter affects the damage dealt by damaging conditions.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

This thread’s replies are so clueless.

Staff needs power, even to a higher extend than Condition damage. The latter being nonviable in PvE and iWarlock having most of his damage scaling with power. Indungeons 3 warlocks with maxed power + autoattack/Storm support > any crappy confusion/conditon damage there can be (on mesmer ofc).

A Power Staff build that relies on iWarlock only can work, but is unreliable: iWarlock is on a CD, you need about ~30s to conjure three (assuming none gets destroyed and your target survives for that long, which pretty much prevents you from achieving your maximum DPS against anything but very tough mobs), and while your iWarlocks will hit pretty hard with Power your own WoC will not.

With a condition Staff build on the other hand a lot of your damage comes from your Clones (which attack more than 3 times faster than iWarlock and can deal similar amounts of damage through Burning/Bleeding), and you can conjure three Clones within a second and reconjure them instantly if lost. Also, investing in condition damage greatly improves your WoC, and Staff Clones can give boons or hit two mobs at once.

Overall, a Staff condition build has similar maximum DPS to a Staff Power build, can achieve its maximum DPS in 1 second instead of 30+, doesn’t care if it loses an Illusion or two and has better AoE and support capability.

How do you conjure three clones in one second? Mirror Images?

So what I’m hearing is condition damage is important, of course, but neither power nor precision is that useful for a staff. Is that correct? I figured toughness was more for melee types, but I guess if I don’t need any other stats, maybe it will be helpful. Or perhaps vitality would be better?

P. S. Yes I’m talking about PvE. I know worrying about stats is probably not necessary simply for leveling, but I still want to know the best practice.

Also, does power affect condition damage at all, or are they completely different stats?

I’m still a little unclear about what power affects, versus condition damage. I know I need CD as a staff user, but does power still matter?

I ask because I’m wondering if I should get a staff with power and CD, or precision and CD. Or does precision not matter? Can conditions crit?

What’s best for a staff?

Thanks!