Guild Wars 2

Hmm, okay. Are they any new good builds to use with it now?

I haven’t played for a while and I was wondering if the staff ele has seen any better play? Does it still crumple in smaller fights, or if it’s played right then is it better than it was a couple months ago?

Thanks.

Really? That seems kind of weird that they share the same cooldown. Yeah, then I’d definitely take bloodlust or force, etc. Thank you for that info.

Navzar: Yeah, I would too. It’s much better overall and works best with the ele in my opinion. (:

Ok. So with a battle sigil in addition I’d be getting somewhere around 10-12ish stacks fairly easily? I think depending on how well I can kill people I might just take bloodlust instead.

Ah, gotcha. That makes a lot more sense now. I did get confused on what he said after I looked up the damage formula.

Yeah, that would probably be better. I think I’d do that. I like the healing glyph because of the choice of boons that I can get when needed.

Thank you for the suggestions. Quick question: Do you know how many stacks of might the Sigil of strength gives on average? I’ve never tested the sigil before.

Alphard: This is the link to the topic where I saw them say power isn’t that good. There was a debate/argument thing with a whole mess of number crunching (something I tend to stay away from), and then he ended up saying:

“Build uses a meaningless stat (attack). It is rubbish and should not be attempted”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Best-PvE-tank-bunker-build/first#post2509357

I still think power is useful to a certain extent, but that’s just an opinion coming from someone who doesn’t actually go for the nitty gritty and figure it out numbers wise.

Sabull: Thank you for your detailed response. I don’t mind criticism as long as it is constructive.

I made a few changes to the build to add in more power and healing. The effectiveness of condition damage is all based on how the build is used and how often you hit with the condition attacks, and when playing I would definitely take advantage of that. As far as Ether Renewal vs Signet of Restoration I think my choice on those skills would just depend on the enemy team. If there was a lot of condition spam then I would take Ether Renewal and Arcane Shield. If not then I’d pick the signet and mist form.

I took 5 points out of air and 10 out of earth so I could get 15 in water for the healing minor traits and the condi removal. The reason I kept 25 in air is so I can still apply vulnerability and also so I could have zephyr’s boon and quick glyphs ( for glyph of elemental power). I changed arcane power to glyph of elemental power and would use it in air for the much overlooked weakness in general situations. If I wanted to really burn them down or chill or cripple I would use it appropriately. The quick glyphs trait reduces the cooldown nicely by 9 seconds so I would be able to keep it up most of the time, with just 6 seconds in between, if I wanted to. The arcane traits I just switched to the fairly standard 5, 6, and 11 traits (5 and 6 being the changes).

For gear I swapped in sigil of battle and strength for a bunch of might stacking (Sigil of Strength is a new one for me. I usually use bloodlust). Then I brought in Dolyak runes for the extra regen to make use of my healing power. Maybe not all of the changes you suggested, but enough to overall improve my build.

Overall summary of changes:
Gear
-Sigil of Intelligence
-Sigil of Paralyzation
-Divinity Runes x6

+Dolyak Runes x6
+Sigil of Battle
+Sigil of Strength

Traits
0/25/0/15/30
-5 in air
-Arcane Lighting
-10 in earth, Stone Splinters
-Arcane Retribution
-Arcane Mastery

+15 in Water, Cleansing Wave
+Elemental Attunement
+Renewing Vigor
+Quick Glyphs

Utilities
Ether Renewal+ Arcane Shield, OR Signet of Restoration+Mist Form
-Arcane Power
+Glyph of Elemental Harmony

Here is the build link. (It’s also in the first post)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmObxR0QlDA0DmIZ8QFlHzkjNA-TsAAyCsIsRZjzGjNSbs2ME5wxMDA

Feel free to point out more flaws or places that can be improved. Just be constructive in your criticisms is all I ask.

Yeah, I was debating on whether or not I should put it there or not. My first thought was that I didn’t have as much healing/tankiness, so I’d at least get the regen, but I usually don’t do a bunch of number crunching so I didn’t know the specific amount of healing that it gave. That amount of healing isn’t very worth it though, so I’d get a lot more benefit from the extra points in air. Thank you for letting me know about the number specifics.

Anybody? I didn’t really think the build was so great that there was nothing wrong with it (note sarcasm :p).

(Bump)

Yeah, that is true. I tend to bring it and hope that I get some good kills. :p Yeah, this build does kind of lack that. I think I would probably just bring Elixir C instead of Elixir Gun in this build. In the regular build for my engi I haven’t ever had to worry about a mass amount of conditions (except when I was alone fighting 3+ or so people lol ) which I’ve found interesting because I didn’t really worry about them that much except for automated response system. Then again the build I use is ridiculously tanky.

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama: Hmmm, well if not hybrid, then how about “tanky build that tried exploring something besides just tanking”? I will admit though that I don’t have as much experience with hybrid builds, as I like to use tanky builds and be that troll engi that (almost) never dies. :p

digitalruse: Yeah, that’s probably a more solid choice. The guardian runes were more of a filler. The idea came from the STD build that was posted a while back that I think would be cool to try putting it to good use. The reason I use power wrench is mainly for the cooldown reduction on the tool kit skills so I can block more often. I don’t care as much for the turret healing or the cripple. They’re just extra. Your trait choices there are fairly solid. For me I would still take power wrench (4 seconds less for blocking each time is pretty nice) and then swap the sigil of force for a bloodlust or corruption, but that’s probably just a personal choice.

Firing through light fields does remove conditions, but fumigate doesn’t. You’d have to somehow hit yourself with your own weapon. If there were two engis with this build then they could use it on each other and be cleansing a massive amount of conditions.

Hey everybody, I got bored and was messing around on the build editor and came up with a build that focused on having a lot of crit damage and a fair amount of crit chance. I’ve a few people mention that power is not a really good stat at all, so I figured I’d make a build that doesn’t rely on it so much.

Here’s the link:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmObxR0QlDA0DmIZ8QFlHzkjNA-TsAAyCsIsRZjzGjNSbs2ME5wxMDA

Weapon Choice
I chose Dagger/Dagger because it is the fastest hitting weapon for the ele (unless you get CCed or don’t dodge real well), so I would crit more often and then be doing more damage.

Utilities
Ether Renewal and Cleansing Fire are there for my condition removal since I don’t have any condition removal elsewhere. Mist form is there because I can make sure I get a stomp with it and also not be affected by slowing affects so I can reposition myself in a fight. Depending on the situation I might take Arcane Shield so I can cast Ether Renewal more safely.

Even though I have a reasonable amount of critical chance (and more with fury), I decided to take Arcane Power so I can just crit more often and also control more of which attacks I want to crit. So if I was going to use Fire grab while my opponent is on fire then I can pop Arcane Power to maximize my damage there.

Since Tornado can now be cast while moving, putting it there would have a number of uses. For example, while running around I can cast it and get a free knockdown or two and give some of my skills time to recharge.

Traits
The 30 in air is mainly for the crit damage, so the Arcane Lighting will proc with Arcane Power and give me more critical damaging goodness, and the fury and swiftness on auras is great for more crits. Tempest Defense is a nice bonus aura for extra fury and swiftness, plus I can take advantage of the 20% extra damage when I stun them with the aura or when I knock them down.

The 10 points in earth are just a personal choice of mine for more damage that can be swapped into water so you can get condi removal or the water skills reduction, etc. Fire isn’t that worth it to invest points in compared to the earth or water trait lines.

The arcane traits were quite different because I’m not using the standard elemental attunement and renewing vigor traits. Instead I’m using Arcane Mastery and Arcane Retribution so I can have Arcane Power come up even more often. Most likely Arcane Retribution will proc very quickly because of how squishy eles are, so that can be used smartly with burning grab or something.

Gear/Runes
I went for all celestial and divinity stuff which normally I’d rather not do, but the overall stat gain is quite nice actually, mainly because the elementalist is able to benefit from using all of the stats at once. There’s conditions, healing, damage, tankiness, and all of that benefits from every stat boost. Plus is also gives me a bunch of crit damage, which is what I’m going for in this build.

On my weapons I’ve got the superior sigil of intelligence so I can just add on to the critical hits after critical hits after critical hits after critical hits….etc. The sigil of paralyzation is there to extend the duration of the stuns from my shocking auras (not tested though) so I can take advantage of the tempest defense trait. The 25 minor air trait can stack enough vulnerability, so the frailty sigil isn’t necessary.

I thought about making this into a fresh air type of build, but with the large amount of critical hits this build can dish out I decided against it (at least for this version of the build). This build could easily become a scepter dagger fresh air build if desired.

Let me know what you think and comment/critique. It’s different from the standard “required” ele traits, but any critiquing besides repeated mentioning of not using those traits would be great.

EDIT: Updated build with 0/30/10/0/30 traits, putting the 5 from water into air and getting the Tempest Defense trait.

Swapped Sigil of Frailty for Sigil of Paralyzation to extend the stun time from shocking aura and get more out of the Tempest Defense trait (Not tested yet).

Greetings my fellow engineers! This build came from me messing around with the skill builder and I’d like to see what others think of it. The build is more of a tanky build but with a potential for some nice damage.

Here’s the link:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqqbH5SrF1LJxIFdW0hKUYQFqroH6vxOG-TsAA2CuIwShlDLDWSssYNW40x8DA

There isn’t so much of a main focus to this build as it is more of a compilation of a few ideas that I’ve seen (and used) in other builds. The pistol/shield weapon set is my favorite choice just because I really like the shield’s versatility and vast number of uses.

Utilities
I normally choose Med kit because I like how the toolbelt heal synchronizes with the recharge traits at 25% health, but I chose healing turret this time because of the condition removal on the overcharge skill. And with the 15 sec recharge it gets from picking it up instead of blowing it up that means I can clear more conditions more often.

Elixir Gun is a really nice skill overall in my opinion. The stun break and the regen on the toolbelt skill is really handy for whenever needed (I used to almost never use a stun break, so the added stun break was a sweet bonus for me). Dropping Super Elixir is a sweet heal, and you can use Acid bomb to get retaliation and if the conditions are running rampant and the other skills are on cooldown you can use the auto attack to remove conditions in the light field. The 3 skill Fumigate is nice because it removes 5 conditions at the end of the duration, so if you’re with a buddy you can help them out. I tend to switch this around with bomb kit for the CC depending on the situation.

Tool Kit is used because the block just keeps you alive longer and burns the enemies at the same time because of the runes of the guardian. The rest of the skills are just really nice and handy in different situations.

Flamethrower is where more damage can come. Napalm is just a really great (and satisfying) skill that can do some fairly nice damage even with a bunker build. The knockback is really great overall (when the enemy is lying on their face on the ground their not doing any damage to you. :p )

Supply Crate is just there because the build doesn’t have a specific need for the other two skills.

Traits
Fireforged Trigger is there because is lets me use fumigate and super elixir, and napalm, and all of those skills even more often. Now just with fumigate you can remove a condition every two seconds.
Protective shield is really nice to counter burst and just reduce damage.
Protection Injection is one of my favorite traits for countering burst builds because it can keep protection up on you for a while and give you a chance to recover.
Deadly Mixture is nice for the extra damage and is more useful since I’m using both FT and EG.
Automated Response System is there because it is great for countering heavy condition builds. With this build it’ll go off at approx. 6,703 hp, and that is a decent amount of health to stay alive with, especially since all of the toolbelt skills will recharge and you get regen when hit.
Speedy kits is just all around useful for the extra mobility
Power wrench is there so I can block more often (therefore taking much less damage) and magnet people more often. The cripple is also nice.

Runes/Gear
I decided to not build so tanky and add a little more damage to this build, so I chose a knights with a carrion jewel on it and the overall stats bring me to more of a hybrid damage dealing/tanking build. The runes of the guardian are so that when I use the gear shield block and the off hand shield block I can burn people down so I don’t lose as much DPS while blocking. The sigil of corruption is there so that the burning actually does noticeable damage, and the sigil of energy is for more dodges which equals less damage I take.

Let me know what you all think of this build and comment/critique. Feel free to test it out if you want.

xbaunx.6438:

JuniorSB.7089:

I was messing around with the skill builder and the fact that Tornado gives a massive boost in Power, Precision, and Vitality, and wanted to make a build that abuses that fact…

I hope they don’t nerf this

Hmmmm, well warriors, engineers, and necros have similar skills that buff them as well (Rampage, Elixir X, Plague, Lich Form), so I doubt they’d nerf it. The tradeoff for that combo is that you have a LOT less survivability, and when you’re using tornado you can’t cast any of your other spells, so you’d just be sitting there for a few seconds while meteor shower does it’s stuff.

Which build are you using right now? What kind of playstyle do you like? Based on what you’ve said right now I’d say the build that would help you not die as much would be either using a staff or using a scepter/dagger so you have range to help you. Kite the enemies with a staff since you can cast most all of the staff skills while moving. You can use the Look back key as you’re running forward and cast behind yourself. Eles have a steeper learning curve so it takes time to get used to it and learn how to survive. My first suggestion would be to use staff or scepter/dagger though so you can have more time to think.

I was messing around with the skill builder and the fact that Tornado gives a massive boost in Power, Precision, and Vitality, and wanted to make a build that abuses that fact. This is a build I made with zerging in WvWvW in mind.

Here is the build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhMmYbmR4QlDAkCoEUQADiHWAhEA-jkxAUBgkXR0YLuFRjVXjpcJiqN4FRrWKgIGDA-w

The idea of the build is very simple: Cast Meteor Shower in a good spot and cast tornado right afterwards to end up having about 5041 power, 92% crit chance, and 108% critical damage. Let the meteors destroy. >:) Then cast stuff as usual, being the good support/damaging zerg ele you are, and then when Tornado recharges repeat. There’s several combos and things you can do to make this combo even better (mag aura before tornado, lay down a combo field water for regen while in the tornado, etc. ), and once the meteor shower is over you can just exit and continue fighting as normal. I would love to see how this idea would work if a group of eles did this at a choke point. >:)

Thoughts on how this might be improved?

EDIT: Note on the choice of utilities: Heal signet for passive healing while running around in a zerg when you’re not hit as much so the passive heal can heal you up while you attack so you can increase your dps, arcane power for buffing meteor shower and the extra bonus in crit damage, and armor of earth so your meteor shower doesn’t get interrupted. Everything else is geared for as much damage as possible.

When playing in WvWvW you can use Tornado to massively up your damage because of the buff that Tornado gives you. You don’t even have to move in the tornado. Just find a semi safe spot, cast meteor shower and then immediately cast tornado so your meteors are buffed like crazy. >:)

These are some pretty interesting ideas, and there are quite a few I like (and might want despite how they would make us OP :p ), but I think Blaine made a good point with some of the conjure skills being not that great. Most of the time you see people using the 4 and 5, possibly the 3, skills and then just hopping out, so I think if conjures were given a shorter cast time (and I’d say get rid of the ground targeting aspect and just have them drop at your feet when you cast them) and a small buff to some skills then they’d be lesss clunky but still retaining they same idea. It might not be a permanent fix, but it’d make them a lot more enticing to use them if the cast time wasn’t so clunky.

Another idea that I thought would be cool is if there was a way to equip the lava axe and the earth shield at the same time. There could be a trait that replaces those skills with a combined lava axe and shield utility skill that would only be there with that specific trait. The first three skills would be from the axe and the 4 and 5 skills would come from the shield. With some tweaking I think that would be really sweet to do with the conjures, and it would be quite original, seeing as no other class does that. With the other conjures it wouldn’t work as well since they’re all two handed weapons, but the axe and the shield could work great together.

tl;dr
A lot of good ideas. Until a better fix is found, just reducing/removing the cast time/ground targeting of conjures would make them nicer.

Imagine the idea of being able to combine the lava axe and earth shield. :O If people like the idea I’ll expand upon it.

So I was thinking of this idea the other day. Yes, the conjure weapons lock us out of 20 of our skills for only 5 skills that we probably would only use the 3, 4, and 5 on and want to get rid of it. So what if we did this?:

1. Instant cast like engineer kits
2. Weapon drops at your feet when cast instead of ground targeting.
3. Same cooldowns still

That way it’s not so much of a wasted effort with all the casting time and targeting, and also there’s a surprise element. Weapons like the earth shield would actually be worth taking without having to rework the entire weapons.

Thoughts?

Hey guys,

I’m gonna play some PvP on my mesmer, and I’m interested in glass cannon builds. So my question for all the experienced veteran mesmers out there is what is the best glass cannon mesmer build for PvP?

Thanks.

I think that’s a pretty sweet idea! I love the idea of the “random” jumping around at targets (partially ‘cause I love messing with people >:) ). I suppose it’d depend on how the skills work with other skills/what they are actually, but I think it’d be cool to get something like this.

Also, when thieves pop Shadow Refuge, I like to dodge in there really quickly and use the #4 shield ability to instantly pop them right out and make them lose their stealth from it.

@Grackleflint: That’s a really cool idea. Now I want to mess around with it lol. Props to Penguin.

@Leadfoot: In pvp I went and got 6 of each of the runes that I considered tanky and one of the ones I tried was dwayna. I actually went against a condition mesmer who actually got me down to about 3k hp, and I didn’t have the auto response. Then again, that might have been a result of me playing effectively against him by mostly attacking the real one. Yeah, I agree with you. The comments are hilarious lol. “You’re freaking tanky as kitten!” etc

@Mister Mustard: Yeah, that is pretty nice, especially since we can have perma vigor fairly easily. Does Adrenal Implant stack with Vigor so we can have 150% energy regen?

@JubeiTM: Troll-gineer is my favorite kind of play with the engi lol. I don’t have to kill them, but I like to mess with them lol. Killing them is a bonus.

I chose the 6 runes of the guardian because between the shield, and the gear shield (one of the best blocks in the game as far as uptime in my opinion) I can put a lot of burning on my opponent, and a lot of times they won’t really notice it that much, especially if they keep attacking, they just burn themselves a whole lot more lol. I was actually thinking of taking 10 points out of alchemy and putting them into inventions for the elixir bombs and switching out elixir b with bomb kit since it’s such a great kit.

Well thank you. The runes of the guardian were inspired by the STD Build that was around a while back. I like how there’s no stun break in this build, and yet it can still be as tanky as kitten lol.

@Lupanic: Thank you for pointing that out! I didn’t notice lol. I tested this build out in one of the dueling servers in PvP, so I didn’t get as much experience with taking on multiple people, but there were some people that I was could’ve fought while standing still because I was so tanky lol.

Hey guys. I’d like to see what the tankiest build for engi is that the people here can come up with. I don’t usually care about killing someone to fast, and I’d rather take my time and kill them slowly if possible, but the main goal would be to be tanky as kitten. So, post your tankiest engineer build here and feel free to rate them, try them, etc.

This is my tank build that I’ve been working on so far (This is in PvP, so I don’t have any food). I was able to last 5 minutes against a warrior who had the most insane kind of bursting ability and I killed him first, and then he killed me after a lot of running around etc. (5 minutes, literally)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqel0pSXH5yuF17IxIFdW0hUUYDL6h+tc+B-ToAg2CrIwShlDLDWSssYNEY+B

tl;dr Post your tankiest Engi build here. It can be PvP or WvWvW. Trying to make tankiest engi build out there.

I’m an engineer because……I am Panthro the Fixer of the Thundercats! (; Plus, I really like having the versatility that an engineer has, so much that now I rarely play anything besides ele or engi. My favorite part of being an engi though is all the trolling I get to do to my enemies while I prybar them in the face and kill them. * evil face * >:)

Personally, I think our elites are fine. Sure, they’re not the best, but they can be helpful. If I had more friends that had higher leveled engineers, we could all go into WvWvW and have a mass mortar attack on a supply camp from 1400 range and take it, or destroy a node in PvP. You could do something similar with supply crate and go out kicking kitten with a massive coordinated dropping of boxes on people. :p Elixir X is also pretty fun to use. It ups your health, but more importantly it gives you a massive increase to attack and critical hit chance, which can be used with skills that have a delayed activation time (like Big Ole Bomb. ) and do a lot more damage. I’m sure there’s plenty of other ways to use these skills, but those are a few that I just thought of.

Ah, gotcha. That makes a lot of my battles make sense lol. Most of the time I did fairly well with them. I suppose unless they fix it then I’ll have to put it in a place that counteracts that.
Thanks.

Hey guys. In general the engi’s turrets are quite fragile and are often destroyed in the heat of battle, most of the time rendering them useless. However, if they’re mostly never in range of the attacks that are killing them, they’re quite viable. I was experimenting with the Deployable Turrets trait (Tools V) in PvP, and was able to put the turrets on the pillars over by the profession npc area. During the fights the turrets couldn’t be hurt at all, and I was able to defeat each profession with relative ease just because of my use of terrain. I tested my prototype build in several PvP matches, and every time I took on somebody 1v1 I would win. When more people came it was harder (obviously), but I still ended up surviving for a decent amount of time. After some more testing I found out that for some reason when I would put the turrets up they would just shoot into the wall and wouldn’t turn to shoot at the enemies. I’m not sure if that’s a bug or if that’s how it’s supposed to work, but that only happened once.

So, my question for all of the master engineers out there is:

Is Deployable Turrets a viable way to use turrets effectively in a PvP or WvWvW situation?

Let me know your thoughts on it. If there’s something about it that I don’t know (a bug, etc.) then let me know, because besides the issue of turret cooldowns and not being able to pick them up off the wall this looks like a plausible idea.

Below is a picture of me using the deployable turrets trait on the pillars over by where the profession npcs are for those who might not know what I’m talking about.

Here’s my build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqyVH5SbF1LJxIFMW0hekYQvYQFsroC6H-TkAA2EGpMyZkxIpRWjGdMJB

It isn’t completely finished (just made it :p), but so far I like playing it. Basically, the placement of my turrets is how they stay alive. By using the Deployable Turrets trait I can put my turrets up where they can’t be hit by stray AoE but they can still hit my opponents. In the heart of the mists by the npc’s there’s a bunch of pillars that I can use to place them there, and they’re usually just fine. I don’t know if Deployable Turrets is plausible in top PvP stuff, but so far it’s been working for me.

The link above was after I made my first changes. This is my first “draft” of the build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqyV3zSbF1LJxoCMO0jED6FLqg+/oQu0F-TkAA2EGpMyZkxIpRWjGdMJB

tl;dr Use Deployable Turrets trait intelligently.

EDIT: Posted a picture of the deployable turrets trait (Tools V trait) being used over by where the profession npcs are.

“Obviously fire’s not going to bleed things – it’s more likely to cauterize the wound if you somehow made fire sharp” Dingle

I really like the idea of the 1v1 duelist sword, and this ^ made me think of an idea for a fire spell that would deal extra damage based off of how much bleed was on an opponent (more stacks=more extra damage) but after the attack all bleed stacks on the enemy would be removed, or “cauterized”. I’m not sure where the attack would go, but if there was an off hand sword skill set, then make it a 5 skill with some good burst potential. Thoughts?

If you want to see a pretty good point holder Engi build, check this one out:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Time-to-see-a-doctor-it-s-the-STD-Build/first#post1393921

With this build, I’ve been able to hold a point against 2 people for a good amount of time (longer against 1) while my teammates went to cap other points. It is probably one of the tankiest engi builds I’ve tried. It takes a bit of time to get used to, since you have 3 kits it almost feels like an ele switching attunements, but once you get the hang of it, you rarely die.

This build is really cool! I tried it out on my engi for a bit in PvP, and i ended up fighting someone for 8 minutes straight lol. I kept getting comments about how bleeping tanky that engi was, and it actually took a few people to kill me when I actually died. I switched out backpack regenerator for the trait the makes you go invisible when immobilized. One of the things I noticed was the times where I was in the most danger were when I was stunned for an extended period of time or by multiple people.

One of the funniest moments was when a person asked me how I was getting protection every time they tried attacking me because it was messing with their burst, or when people were thinking I was cheating somehow lol

I’m gonna probably mess around with this build a little bit and see what I can do to make it better.

This is just a thought, but what if they make the AoEs do less damage when only one enemy is hit, but when there’s more people, scale the damage up? Then they could increase the damage a bit on some single target stuff to compensate, ‘cause the AoE’s won’t work as well just for 1v1 fights, but when there’s a group of enemies, the AoE’s will really shine.

I don’t know if that’s what they’re going to do, but it would be interesting to see. Thoughts?

Gallrvaghn: “Why not make it usable in a way that it becomes some sort of an extra weapon swap for its duration or number of charges?”

I have a possible idea for the conjures is similar to this. I think the conjure skills should replace the corresponding element’s skills for the minute with 15 charges. For example, if someone used Frost Bow, their water attunement skills would be changed to the Frost Bow skills for the duration of the skill, and they would be able to switch attunements without losing the bow until the skill goes away. Obviously this would lead to the ele being much more OP, so there would have to be something to counterbalance that boost a bit, like when the ele switches attunements and uses other skills it would use a conjure charge for each one, or the stat bonuses would have to go away, and some other mechanism be put into place to balance it out.

Either that, or give the ele some more traits that help conjures so they can be less clunky.

“You are the most annoying build in human history,” one gc thief whispered to me.

I loled pretty hard at this.

Hey so I really like your build idea, it’s pretty cool. So I did some experimenting in the build editor and here’s what I got.

*Note that I am not the master of engineers, so I could be wrong with my ideas

Here’s the link to a build reflecting the changes that I would suggest. You’ll probably have to copy and paste it.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqyUnrynF1LJxIFMm0hKgfRFq8nHylutF;TsAg1CtosxYjwGrNObk2Mi4QwcBA

“1.What Amulet?”

I kept the Rampagers Amulet, but I put a Soldiers jewel for a bit more survivability ( I like being durable more vs damaging).

“2. Is the last 10 points in tools worthwhile?”

In my opinion, not really. It’s good for keeping your explosions and CC up more, but if you’re not able to kill people, then you should invest a little more in power.

So what I would suggest is to put those 10 points into explosives and get Explosive powder like you said. The extra 10% damage is just awesome, and the minor trait gives vulnerability, which is great as well.

“3. What runes and sigil could be better?”
I put in Dolyak Runes because I like the regen and tankyness it gives you. On the weapons I put minor sigils of accuracy and corruption so as you kill people your precision and cond. damage get better.

Now, some other changes I put in:
Changed the Alchemy trait to IV Self-Regulating Defenses. This trait has saved me countless times, and with about 20k hp, it’ll be going off when you’re at about 5k hp.
The protection is nice, but I’d rather have 3 sec of almost invulnerability

The other change I’d like to mention is the weapons. You mentioned the purpose of the build was to use a lot of CC, and the shield on the engineer is awesome at it. The 4 skill reflects projectiles, blocks attacks, and has an AoE knockback. This skill can be used in a variety of ways to mess with your opponent and can be used really easily. The 5 skill is one of my favorite skills on the engineer ’cause I feel like Captain America when I use it, plus the boomerang daze effect is pretty sweet.

Hope this generates some ideas for your build. I actually want to try it sometime on my engi.

EDIT: If you decide to take out Bomb kit (I would) and get Tool kit, I’d put on a soldier’s amulet with a soldiers jewel instead.

Yeah, our keep in EB was being attacked, and there was a hole that led right to the front of the gate, so I just jumped down, used obsidian flesh, popped magnetic surge and then ran back in. I looked at my chat box and I saw "So and so defender was hit for (500+ damage usually) by X. It was pretty cool to do. With that and swirling winds, their ranged attacks were lessened by quite a bit. If I had more eles with me it probably would have been a lot better.

Hey guys, so I’m assuming a bunch of you have played in WvW at one point in time, and you have taken part in defending a tower, keep, etc. One of the problems that I’ve seen for people camping in the tower is that they don’t defend it as well (unless they’re an organized group or have a commander giving directions) as they could. Another thing that makes it more difficult to defend a building is siege obviously. Just recently I was in WvW and while I was at a fairly upgraded tower, a group came in and within 5 minutes they took down the wall using 3-5 trebuchets that were put up within seconds, and proceeded to take the tower. I don’t know how it ended ’cause my compy froze, but you can imagine what happened.

Normally, the siege attacks are only stopped by going out and taking them out, but sometimes you don’t have a group large enough. But as I’ve found out, the elementalist has something that is greatly overlooked when in WvW combat: the focus.

The air and earth skills on a focus are like a gold mine when it comes to tower/keep defense. The #4 air focus skill destroys projectiles, which is different from reflecting because this skill destroys siege attacks. This is extremely helpful for defending places because it takes the pressure off the gate so you can last long enough for your group to come. The problem with this skill is the recharge time, but there are two things that you can do:
1. Get the Air Trait that reduces recharge time on air skills
2. Get a small group of eles to take turns using it so you can keep it up indefinitely

Now to talk about the earth skills.

I just recent discovered this trick today while defending a keep. Most of the time when a zerg is attacking, the gate will be under heavy fire from ranged attacks, so what i do is go through the portal, pop obsidian flesh, and then use magnetic surge to reflect a whole bunch of stuff, then run back into the portal. I usually have mist form handy just in case something goes wrong. Now if a group of eles were doing this, they’d probably be able to hold off a zerg for quite a while, especially if there were some D/D eles stacking Churning Earth and teleporting through the portal, unless the walls got attacked, then it’d be harder.

The point I’m trying to make is that even though the focus isn’t as good overall as the dagger, there is a whole lot of potential for it in WvW. This isn’t saying that I think the focus is good as it is, it’s not, especially fire attunement. I’m also not saying that all the eles in WvW need to switch to focus right now because they don’t. What would make them more valuable is if they carried around a focus and only switched to it when needed.

tl;dr The ele focus skills are extremely useful in defending towers and keeps in WvW and a well coordinated team of elementalists can hold off a zerg that is attacking a keep or tower fairly effectively.

Please leave comments and opinions, but don’t flame or troll this post, please answer intelliegently. Thanks.

Now let me preface my idea with two things: One, I don’t know how regularly Anet updates GW2, and Two, I’m not a game designer, so I don’t know how long things like bug fixes or skill changes take.

But, I still want to throw out an idea that I’ve been thinking about to the gaming experts out there and it’s this:

Wouldn’t it be nicer to have more frequent “patches” and updates closer to being once every one or two weeks, rather than getting pumped up for a big patch, and then (possibly) be unsatisfied by the results?

Now I’m not saying that the big patches should go away, I think they’re good for the game, but I don’t think simple things like bug fixes take too much time. The big patches could be for things like skill and trait effect changes, and the updates every 1-2 weeks could just be bug fixes, because I would think that most players agree that if more bugs in skills/traits/gameplay were fixed, then the gameplay would be even more enjoyable.

If this is completely unrealistic due to bug fixes taking longer than I thought, let me know. Don’t flame or troll this post please. I just want to know if it would be plausible.

Thanks.

Hey if any of you have videos of you playing staff ele, feel free to post them here. I’ve never done videos on games, but I think I might try to and see if I can get any good videos.

Bumping this thread. How about some people show what utilities they like to use and why? For me I generally like to use a stun breaker, Arcane Blast, and Glyph of Storms. Arcane Blast is handy seeing as it’s a combo finisher, and Glyph of storms is really handy, especially while in earth attunement because of the blindness.

Sweet, that helps out a lot.

Ok, I took out the Blasting staff tip. Could you guys post some builds for different types of staff ele (Support, Glass Cannon, etc.)?

-Boozer: The build is short 20 points because my ele isn’t lvl 80 yet, so I’m showing what I have right now, and not some build that I’m not able to test out. I do realize that I’m not the best ele player, but as I said in my first post, this topic is here so people can post their own tips for staff based elementalists and have them all in one place, kind of like daphoenix’s guide for D/D. I’m not trying to tell the veterans how to play (sorry if I came off that way), I just want to start up a guide which can help people (like me), play better as an elementalist.

I’d also like to know why you disagree with my tips as well ‘cause if they’re not good pieces of advice then I’d like to take them off my post.

Reserved for list of staff ele tips

Hey guys, I really enjoy playing on my staff ele (been playing on it since beta), and I’d like to have a topic that compiles all the tips and tricks that they can do. I know they’re not as popular as the D/D ele, and the staff skills could use a bit of a damage buff, but they’re still viable, especially while being support.

So post your builds, combos, strategies, etc. about the staff ele here.

To start off, here are some basic tips for beginners:

-Make use of your range. Nearly all of the staff skills have a 1200 range (The exceptions being burning retreat, magnetic aura, and windborne speed) and this is extremely useful for keeping enemies off the tops of keeps and laying down a bunch of combo fields for your group while staying out of trouble for the most part.

-Try to stay in a group in PvP situations. Staff elementalists generally don’t do as well in 1v1 scenarios because of the lack of single target damaging skills, but if you’re in a group you provide give might to your party (increasing overall damage), party-wide healing (in a huge area, especially with the Arcana VIII trait), area wide swiftness (when you’re running to the next place to capture and want to get there faster), area frost armor, regeneration, and the list goes on and on.

-Know your combo fields and what effects they give. As a staff elementalist, you’re able to lay down 4 different types of combo fields: Fire, Ice, Water, and Lightning, so knowing the effects of the finishers for each field is essential to playing a staff ele.

Here’s the build I’m using right now:
http://www.gw2builds.org/create/bwe_1/elementalist#0.0-2.12.4.16.1-0.10.0.20.20-4.4.5.6.5

Instead of the Icy Mist I’m using Arcane Abatement, it’s just that the builder hasn’t been updated for the patch yet.

Right now my ele is lvl 63, and I’m trying to get him to lvl 80 as soon as possible.

So there you go, please post your builds, strategies and tips so we can encourage other eles to try something else besides D/D, and to show that D/D ele isn’t the only build that works on eles.

EDIT: Took out Blasting Staff Tip

Right now I’m leveling up my elementalist, currently at level 52ish, and I want to know if there are some guides out there that help to level your crafts to 400 in an efficient and cheap way. I just recently followed Skye Marin’s guide on cooking and got my cooking to 400 today. Are there any other guides like her’s, but for the other crafts? I’m a noob when it comes to crafting, so I need some advice.