Glyph of Renewal (as with the reviving skills of other professions) will only rally downed (not dead) players. Though it was once possible, as of this post, Warriors are now the only class that can also revive dead NPCs.
I agree with your assessment of the skill. Considering the long cast and recast time, it very rarely sees itself on my utility bar.
IIRC, we can still use Evasive Arcana and Attunement swap bonuses while Mist Formed – this means that you can still cleanse additional conditions and heal while running away. What I can no longer do is use my healing slot or prepare a Lightning Flash to gain additional ground.
The stun break, mobile invulnerability, and “stability-like” stomping/raising are still good reasons to use this Mist Form. Its usefulness may have been toned down, but it’s still plenty useful.
If ArenaNet intended to hit bunker builds with these changes, then I’d say we have a lot more nerfs incoming because these barely scratch the surface. Learn to adapt or die, it is the Elementalist’s modo after all.
I’d recommend checking out the “Pure Condition Build” here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1aun6t/ive_written_up_three_diverse_elementalist_staff/
It’s fairly decent. MANY people in WvW (at least in Tier 1 and 2) don’t cleanse, and for those that do, you’ll at least be able to keep burning on them (through the signet or the Staff’s Flame Burst) because they don’t have nearly enough cleanses to keep it off. This build is also nice because all your conditions (like weakness, chill, cripple, and immobilize) last for a long time. Remember that Glyph of Storms is a very nice defensive spell when you’re getting focused or when your group is making a push through a lot of enemies.
If you’re running with a class that can drop poison fields or ethereal fields, make sure you spam your Earth projectile finishers through them so you’re applying those as well.
I didn’t like the lower duration on my boons/swiftness and the lack of condition removal (though Ether Renewal and Healing Rain are both solid choices). Taking down siege weapons was also a bit more annoying, but on the flip side, it was quite easy to kill siege users. Tossing glyph of storms for glyph of elemental power is pretty fun if you’re running with a group and want to dish out massive snares – it actually makes Unstable Ground pretty useful, if the added cripple (8 seconds) procs.
(edited by Kaleden.9386)
Even out of combat weapon switching is pretty OP, considering how many boons we can dish out and stack. Shared cooldowns for Element/Slots would probably go a long way to reducing the ridiculous number of combos and boon-generating skills we’d have available.
The boons that are cast on ‘weapon swap’ mostly activate in combat only. As for the ‘on attunement swap’ boons, of course attunements should share cooldowns. Thirdly, the actual swapping of weapon/trait should be like a channeled spell, taking at least 3 but preferably 5 seconds….
Oops, I wasn’t referring to the weapon swap boons, just the boons we could make through combos and skills by having all weapons available. For example, using Static Field on the staff, switching to earth, switching to */dagger using Earthquake and Churning earth, then swapping to */focus and using Magnetic Wave. I also get frisky with Zephyr’s Boon OOC by swapping weapons and going through the total aura rotation: Staff > Magnetic Aura, Focus > Fire Aura, Dagger/Dagger > Shock Aura/Frost Aura… and then drop an Ice Field, equip focus and toss out 2-3 more blast finishers for more Frost Aura.
Uberkafros’ suggestion of boon stripping would negate this, though. And while it’d make me cry a little, I wouldn’t be abusing my mouse with all the double-click swapping I currently use.
Even out of combat weapon switching is pretty OP, considering how many boons we can dish out and stack. Shared cooldowns for Element/Slots would probably go a long way to reducing the ridiculous number of combos and boon-generating skills we’d have available.
I really think the game would benefit from loadouts that can provide out of combat weapon, gear, and trait switches (limited to trait point allocation), especially since many traits do nothing underwater.
Whizzy.5723
Air5 is the only spell that misses against invisible people. I’ve tried it before with an enemy thief in the party.
Air5 dagger? Are you sure? I often run to the center of Shadow Refuges and use Air 5 to force a thief out and reveal them. Admittedly, I probably haven’t done this since the March patch, but prior I would often find a thief fading into view and starting to stand up as if I hit them with Updraft.
I think cantrips are so popular due to the low HP pool of Elementalists. All our healing doesn’t amount to much if we’re stunned/immobilized and burst down. IMO, an additional 3-5k base HP would go a long ways to adding diversity to the class.
I like the staff and I think it’s a great weapon. It could use a few improvements (I’m looking at you, Gust), but a complete overhaul is unwarranted. I’m curious how the OP plays it – do you really stay in one attunement the entire time? How are you traited and what utilities do you use?
Imo, traits and equipment are used for tipping the scale (as you put it) and weapons are used for setting the stage. If you want ranged, single target high damage – scepter may be better suited for your needs. Regardless, Staff is extremely potent when traited and equipped for damage. The down side that I’ve experienced is that I’m squishier and generally less flexible on the battle field.
Staff has a lot of damage output, but your skills have to hit. To hit a target using the staff, you either need to catch a stationary target or use our stuns, immobilizes, chills, knockbacks, and cripples to force a target to take damage. If you stay attuned to Fire, you really only have a few CC options available to you via utilities/elites. In my experience, it’s just not an effective way to play against players.
Instead, I prefer rotations like this – Eruption > Shockwave > Static Field > Ice Spike > Ice Field > Flame Burst > Lava Font > Fireball > Fireball > Finisher > Loot. For melee tanky characters, replace Finisher with Fireball > Flame Burst > Burning Retreat > Eruption (and other might stacking targeted on self) > Unstable Ground > Ice Spike (behind target) > Gust > Lightning Surge > Flame Burst > Lava Font > Fireball > Fireball > Finisher > Loot. Very effective, also lots of buttons. For fewer buttons, see other classes. Optionally, soften with Fireball/Flame Burst while luring to wall > Gust > Static Field > Fiery Greatsword (on enemy) > Whirl > Rush > Firestorm > Autoattack > Finisher > Loot.
It’s just decent damage, with a fair bit of CC and an auto attack chain that ends with a blind and blast finisher. If fighting in a field, every third attack could yield another 3 stacks of might to you and your allies, AoE Frost Aura, AoE weakness, AoE healing, AoE retaliation, AoE swiftness, AoE stealth, or AoE chaos armor.
The Static Field (5) is great for its stuns, but can also be used to combo with Lightning Leap’s (2) leap finisher to daze a target. Wind blast’s (3) knockback is good for knocking people off cliffs or into the static field for a stun. It has a slowish cast speed, so it’s not a great interrupt unless your target is using a slower skill. It can also be used on downed players to toss them about (and interrupt all their allies trying to rally them).
As a thief, you could always pick up the hammer, use Static Field, then drop the hammer and spam heartseaker to keep a target inside the field dazed. Or if you have the shortbow equipped, provide 30-40 seconds (base) of swiftness to you and your allies.
I hope they do not intend to change retaliation. It seems to be working as intended: a counter against multi-hit and (to a certain extent) AoE attacks. As others have mentioned, there are decent counters to retaliation builds – patience (it generally doesn’t last long or is restricted to a certain area), high damage single-hit attacks, condition damage, and boon stripping. Vitality also becomes a better defense against the boon than toughness (much like condition damage).
ArenaNET has said many times that skills are not meant to be spammed, they’re meant to be timed properly and I think retaliation (and confusion) are mechanisms which support this ideal.
The trick to working with Obsidian Flesh is ensuring the projectile hits you before it comes in contact with the ground by standing or jumping in front of its contact area. A few patches ago, I thought they removed it because I was having bad luck positioning myself, but just last week I was protecting Hills from treb fire and was able to “catch” the treb shot using this skill. When this happened, no explosion animation played and the wall’s health remained constant (it was a paper wall, so it should have been noticeable). I think it’s just very touchy.
Focus – Air – Skill 4: Swirling Winds will destroy any projectile (including those from Siege). It doesn’t work aground ground-targeted attacks (such as those from arrow carts) or melee attacks. Cooldown 30 seconds.
Focus – Earth – Skill 5: Obsidian Flesh also destroys projectiles, but you have to be very precise with your positioning. Cooldown 50 seconds.
Due to cooldowns, you wont be able to protect an area forever without having additional Elementalists with a Focus equipped.
Oh my, BG pulling into first and increasing their spread. Nice to see a final push before the match finish!
Had some fun fights this week!
Hmm, where to comment. I love playing Staff Ele, but will often switch to d/d or s/f, depending on the situation. I have found the Staff offers excellent support for my group (especially if they know not to kite targets in random directions), excellent crowd control with moderate escape capability, and decent damage. IMO, it requires a lot of cross-attunement combos and buildup to really be effective.
I play using a semi-balanced gear set, with a focus on crit damage and boon duration with your standard 0/10/0/30/30 (usually). Recently, I’ve tossed Blasting Staff for Renewing Stamina because when I swap to another weapon or I’m underwater, the trait is useless. Even in combat, it’s not always helpful – I find Static Field, for instance, to be much more effective as a small cage than one in which enemies can dodge around in. Mind you, I’m not entirely sold and I miss the larger Ice Field, for instance.
That said, I agree that Fire attunement is pretty strong and wish Lava Font would hit on the initial cast or whenever a target first enters the field. That said, it’s still a very strong skill and like most Staff Ele skills just needs to be cast where the target is going to be (not where it is). Against melee, this is pretty easy to do, but against ranged it can be a bit annoying.
Were healing rain insta-cast, I might use it a little more often than I do, but its still a powerful spell. Not only does it regen and remove conditions (2 per tick if traited), but like Burning Retreat and Ice Field, it lasts long enough that you can follow it up with an Eruption for a combo.
I rather like Air on the staff. The auto attack has decent damage, is particularly good against characters with pets (especially rangers with 1 pet because it’ll typically hit the ranger twice, pet once) and tracks your target so it actually hits moving characters at long range. I agree that Gust could use some improvements because it’s hard to land unless your target is stationary, at point blank range, or running directly towards or away from you. Airborne speed is awesome as an AoE cc cleanse and Static Field is phenomenal as-is. I think it’d be too powerful if it stunned characters caught inside for too long (just like Ring of Warding shouldn’t knock me down if I don’t hit its sides).
Perhaps I’ve simply adapted to Earth’s downsides, but I think this attunement binds the others together. Stoning could still use some tweaks so it lands more frequently, but infinite projectile finishers that cause weakness are great in 1v1 situations for piling on those conditions. I agree that Eruption is hard to land on targets when my CC is down, but its blast finisher (which can be placed and used before any of our fields or after a select few) makes up for the delay. Unstable ground is probably my least favorite due to the cast time and low duration cripple. However, it works quite well as a source for 5(4?) seconds of immobilize when paired with Elemental Surge + Arcane Power. It’s also decent when used with Glyph of Elemental Power since it ticks damage. If Unstable Ground affected a circular area instead of line, I’d probably be very happy with it. As for Shockwave, while I wish the cooldown was shorter without having to trait into earth, I rather like the skill – not only is it piercing (great on bridges) and a projectile finisher, but I’m pretty sure it tracks targets because it connects FAR more frequently than Gust (maybe even Stoning, for that matter).
We have some nice utilities that synergize well with traits and skills. However, I never leave home without at least 1 or 2 cantrips. The arcane spells are nice, the Glphys are okay, and the conjures are situational (though I’ve taken a liking to the Lightning hammer post conjure and aura buff). I’m not a fan of Signet of Air because it doesn’t stack with the Swiftness boon, but the CC signets aren’t so bad.
I think that it made sense to reduce our overall damage when any trait could be equipped on the first major trait slot. However, since the designers made the traits tiered, we certainly hit with a lot less umph. Slightly more damage or slightly better CC (ie, longer condition duration, or lower cooldowns) wouldn’t be too shabby for our class.
I think I’m definitely missing the point. So the problem is profession skills function differently, coordination brings success, or that the counter requires some non-projectile based attacks (which all classes have)? Don’t you think there should be some kind of counter/delay to getting sieged or do you like that towers can be trebbed from inside the safety of adjacent towers?
Honestly, you can see such powerful coordination with 4+ of any profession: 4 guardians could prevent anyone without stability/teleport from getting through a choke point, 5 traited mesmers could keep feedback up indefinitely, 4 thieves can stealth 20 people for 15 seconds, 5 warriors could stunlock and explode any player, etc.
Just about every profession brings something unique to the table – do you want them to have the same skills just with different names/visuals? Or do you just want them to remove defensive skills altogether?
When this happens and you don’t have anyone willing to suicide their siege down, you should prepare for your gates/walls to be taken down and build inner siege appropriately (for example, a few ballistae near the guild claimer and arrow carts out of harms way). Once inside, the enemy force still needs to make their way through multiple choke points in order to actually take any tower or keep. Plan accordingly!
I’ve used Swirling Winds many times to protect counter-siege and stop forces that easily out man the few defenders inside. Its utility goes both ways. You may be happy to know that with so many of their elementalists using a focus, they have very little CC capability and reaching their siege may be a bit easier.
When I found out about this, I was honestly quite excited that professions and builds actually counted for something when controlling a siege weapon. I applauded the added strategy that this mechanic brought. While other professions may not do the same as a leg-specialist warrior, they can affect siege weapons in unique ways (adding weakness, confusion, burn, blinds, etc.). Of course, all these conditions can be removed by cleansing abilities or fields (null field, healing rain, etc.) which your 50 man zergs should have in ample supply – not to mention actual supply for building counter-siege or taking down a wall/gate from a distance.
Because you’re focusing on boon generation, also note that there are a few fields you can cast before quickly switching to Earth attunement and using Eruption. These include Burning Retreat, Ice Field, and Healing Rain. If you have Evasive Arcana, you can then dodge into the field for a second blast finisher, doubling the boons/healing you provide (or tripling if you also use Arcane Wave). The cooldown on Eruption is pretty short, so you could lay some CC or spam Stoning (weakness and projectile finishers are quite nice) on your target, then use Eruption > Field-of-your-choice to get more blast combos.
Honestly, I think Staff is more dependent on swapping attunements, than, say D/D. Fire has no CC to keep targets in your fields, so I find myself needing to swap around for immobilizes, cripples, stuns, chills, etc. With D/D, you just need your targets to stay in your sights long enough to finish casting skills.
Well that was a fun watch! Was that 0/0/10/30/30? I noticed Armor of Earth and a lack of Zephyrs Boon. Were you using precision food? You seemed to have a fair number of crits in there.
I love using Tornado to break up the defense in Hills Lords room. Elementalist squads are fantastic ^^
Powerful Auras doesn’t share auras generated by combos (ie Fire + Leap = Fire Aura or Ice + Blast = AoE Frost Aura) or the Arcane Resurrection trait.
That’s not true, I just tested it. With a staff, use ice field + earth #2 blast finisher, and you + group members are granted Frost Aura. It doesn’t last 7 seconds like using it with a dagger, it only lasts 3 seconds, but it works.
Fire Shield however, is only applied to the elementalist =/
Don’t worry, this certainly confuses a number of people, especially those who didn’t level using the Staff and combos.
The combo you initiated was an AoE Frost Aura which applies to 5 people. You do not require the Powerful Aura trait to apply Frost Aura to 5 people and it does not affect the combo in any way. Any player or profession that uses a blast finisher in an Ice Field will apply Frost Aura to nearby allies (max 5 people).
Unlike blast finishers that provide AoE effects, leap finishers typically create single/self targeted effects. Thus, Ice + Blast = AoE Frost Aura but Fire + Leap = Self Fire Aura. Neither combo is affected by the Powerful Auras trait. Fortunately, they are both affected by other aura-enhancing traits, ie. Zephyrs Boon and Elemental Shielding.
Balancing is meant for sPvP. That’s where you get to play strict build vs. build. If you remove nourishment from WvW, you’ll be destroying the cooking economy, reducing build diversity, and lowering the XP earned.
I’d wager WvW increases the demand for foods significantly more than open world PvE and Dungeons (except maybe FOTM). Not only do WvW players probably use a larger diversity of food (eg, not just MF+), but they’re pressured to use it more often because if they don’t, the enemy would have the edge.
Foods can increase build diversity by sheering up the weak points or enhancing the strong points enough that it overcomes other weaknesses to the point where it becomes valid.
And finally food provides a bonus to XP, which can be very helpful in WvW where XP can be hard to come by.
Powerful Auras doesn’t share auras generated by combos (ie Fire + Leap = Fire Aura or Ice + Blast = AoE Frost Aura) or the Arcane Resurrection trait.
Weakness is a good condition for reducing endurance regen and thus the frequency that players can dodge. If you wait until after they dodge or are CCed and can not dodge (ie, stunned, knocked down, or immobilized), it will make landing your heavy attacks much easier.
The range on Powerful Auras with the Fire Aura (the focus skill, not the combo because it doesn’t apply to the combo) seems very small. The rest are alright, but imo could use a range buff.
@rmBossa
Oh really? Is there a sticky somewhere? I’m not aware of this space you’re referring to. Somewhere in northwest EB?
Good suggestions here – I typically swap to Staff, but sometimes I don’t have time to get out of combat to swap. Running supply is definitely a bonus, considering our mobility with D/D. You can also jump on some siege if it’s available/you have blueprints.
That said, D/D is a major disruptor. If you have Arcane Abatement, you get a third AoE knockdown in Earth attunement which you can use to disrupt enemy siege activity. Note that you’ll probably want to use your auras for additional disruption and survivability. If you can coordinate with someone else, even better. The key is to cause a ruckus, damage the siege, and knock whomever is using the siege off to buy you some more time.
You can also build up might and use Churning Earth on the ‘safe’ side of the door. It may be wise to do this prior to jumping down to scare a few of the melee door heros away. Might is excessively easy to build when facing a large group now that Fire Aura provides the boon.
Stoning is nice, though I like shockwave followed by stoning. It’s fewer stacks of weakness (reduced damage and endurance regen), but is another projectile finisher and immobilizes them in the Ice Field for more chill (or they’re forced to use a cleanse).
What’s 1500 radius, Baladir? That doesn’t happen.
*Obligatory complaint about how elementalists suck at ranged combat.
*Obligatory counter argument against false but popular statement.
Excellent points, and as a primary Staff Elementalist, I agree completely.
Did there happen to be a flame ram on the battle field? They have a nasty long fear on a low cool-down.
Maybe they can be used to make up for a gap in the ele’s build, such as hammer on a staff ele for some close-ranged action? They kind of suck for that as conjured weapons have relatively few defensive skills and lock you out of attunements.
Hammer on Staff ele is actually quite nice. Especially now that Fire Aura provides Might because you can quickly hit 25 stacks of Might under the right circumstances (eg, fighting zergs or tower offense/defense). The additional stuns, knockbacks, and dazes are great, too. I do wish conjured weapons were faster to summon, though.
Dont forget, our conjures also let us swap attunements – providing boons, heals, damage, etc. I actually forget whether our sigils still function… I’ll have to test that out.
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Great fights this weekend, everyone! It’s so weird being red; I keep wanting to take supplies from BG’s camps only to have a bunch of angry NPCs in my face. Also, BG and JQ have so many glass cannons… I either explode into a fine pink mist or am able to reach my stun break moves in time to make a decent fight out of it.
If you’re looking for small group battles, check in /team for a pickup group and stay around the camps. I’ve had a lot of great small-scale PvP trying to escort yaks.
Good suggestions, here. I use ghost pepper poppers when I’m feeling cheap (because they’re so inexpensive, but useful).
If I’m farming the enemy zerg, I usually use Chocolate Omnomberry Cream (+40% mf with boon, +20% boon duration)
If you find yourself dying a lot, try Bowl of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew (Might on dodge, +40% endurance regen) or an Omnomberry Ghost/Omnomberry Pie (66% chance to steal life on crit, +70 precision).
Arcane Power + Glyph of Storm (Earth) for AoE immobilize, blind, bleed, and damage is probably my favorite. Also Arcane Power + Unstable Ground make a nice immobilize wall. Sadly, I don’t think + condition duration affects Elemental Surge conditions.
The staff is great in WvW – especially in confined spaces, taking out siege, or fighting large groups of people. If you want to provide support, the first thing I’d suggest is learn your combos! http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combos Some require quick attunement swapping (like burning retreat or frozen field > eruption), but with others you have more time (like eruption > frozen field or eruption > lava font) and can sometimes squeeze in a quick skill before you place the field.
The next thing I’d suggest is learn how to use your defensive skills – like Magnetic Aura (Earth 3) (good for both finishing off or running from ranged opponents), Burning Retreat (Fire 4) (which is helpful at gaining distance in a fight or dodging nasty attacks when immobilized), frozen ground (even better now that Frost Aura provides some damage mitigation), healing rain (which you may have to cast on the “run” – using lightning flash to make up for lost time), and the rest.
I usually run with a mix of Valkyrie and Berserker gear, with a combination of various boon duration runes. I always have at least one cantrip equipped, but typically run with 2 (Mist Form and Lightning Flash). I also use a sigil of energy on most of my weapons which maintains my endurance for GTFO’ing and Evasive Arcana.
Rallying enemies is rather detrimental, so when first starting out in WvW, you may want to consider PVT gear so you don’t die as often. As you learn what skills to avoid and how to respond to getting locked down, you should have no problem trading out the PVT gear for more offensive or healing stats.
As for food, I have a bunch on hand depending on the situation. Ghost pepper poppers for when I’m feeling cheap, Chocolate Omnomberry Cream for farming enemy zergs, Bowl of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew for super endurance, Omnomberry Pies when I need more staying power, and Plate of Truffle Steak Dinner for more damage. I also use Sharpening Stones (stacks with food effects).
/end wall of text.
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The only way to prevent damage (afaik) is to destroy the projectile or put it into a miss state (via smoke screen). In these situations, the projectile is rendered useless and all siege equipment, players, walls, etc. remain unscathed. I used to be able to catch enemy treb fire using Obsidian Flesh (Focus, Earth 5) fairly regularly, but haven’t had much luck in the last week or two (maybe bad luck, maybe ninja fix). When done correctly, the projectile is destroyed before it has a chance to damage anything.
I haven’t had luck with reflects, though (Focus Earth 4, Staff Earth 3, or Mesmer Feedback), but they may be equally difficult to use.
What’s the problem with mages being dangerous at melee range? In D&D, mages get nasty point blank and touch attacks. Melee in GW2 is supposed to be more deadly because it’s also a riskier position to play. Considering our tremendously low base HP, our melee weapons have a lot of decent defensive/mobility skills for getting in, dishing out the damage, and getting out.
Based on your posts, I’d say you underestimate the power of the Staff or are using it in situations where it is weakest. In the open field, it’s not very good against targets with ranged attacks. However, Staff excels at area denial and control and when used appropriately, wrecks your enemies. For example, since melee need come to you, just lay your AoE attacks on yourself and kite them over Frozen and Unstable Ground for the lulz. Either they take massive damage from Lava Font, Meteor Shower, Ice Spike, etc., or they run away and you can either try and chase with your perma swiftness, additional CCs, and range or let them run because you lack ground gaining moves (like RTL or the Fiery Greatsword).
Er, what? I can’t speak for shatterstone or gale because I never really used those in beta, but Unsteady Ground works the same it did before. It never blocked movement – the person recording the video is plainly wrong (as he is on several skills in the video). Check out the wiki’s history on the skill – in Feb 2012, it lists a 2 second cripple for enemies that move through it (meaning enemies can move through it).
I also don’t see the issue with Static Field. Are you complaining that the stun is 2s instead of 3s? I used to be able to dodge through it (perhaps it was just a bug in beta), but now I can’t. Seems like a good change, to me.
It’s not the weapon, it’s how you use it ;P
And you weren’t even using food. Nicely done!
As others have said, you get range, combo fields, control, and support.
With staff, you don’t need Powerful Auras in order to grant fury/swiftness to allies since you can place Frozen Ground and use blast finishers for AoE Frost Aura. You have to be a little more mindful of where the enemy is going to be when dealing damage.
Staff is awesome if you have good party members who don’t knock your target out of your fields or kite them endlessly (note that you have some control over this as well, considering the plethora of CC skills).
As Gallrvaghn said, note the skills you’re using and those that are still present on the battlefield before using Arcane Power. Most multi-hit skills or damage fields will consume a charge per tick. On Staff, for instance, never use while you have a Meteor Shower raining.
Yup, entirely possible. Also, I believe added damage, say from Sigil of Air, will be lumped in with the skill that triggered it (though I could easily be wrong). Lightning Surge is one of the heavy hitters on Staff.
Get into a group and fight together. Works for all classes. Reduces the amount you alone must contribute to get a chance at loot.
If you’re not clear about a particular mechanic in the game, use /wiki “mechanic” – chances are someone has created a page to help explain what’s going on. This works for all conditions and boons, as well as Unshakable. For those who like to use CC abilities, immobilize, chill, and cripple still work on Unshakable mobs regardless of their Defiant status.
Most interrupt skills do very little damage (if any) so there typically isn’t a reason to spam them. That said, some also act as finishers, so there is sometimes a trade-off that makes you consider when to use them for a combo or when to save them for a coordinated Defiant strip (or both).
I don’t think making PvE even easier would add any depth to the game. The unshakable mechanic rewards those who coordinate – especially when fighting a boss with a particularly nasty ability or heal. For better or worse, bosses have been weakened so that those with no sense of coordination or desire for teamwork can still be successful.
(edited by Kaleden.9386)
That’s a question for someone more in line with your traits/setup. The real question is, what do you want to do as an elementalist and are there runes that would help enhance your goal or reduce your shortcomings?
My typical rune setup is 2 water runes + 4 earth runes for the additional boon duration, toughness, protection duration, and protection on hit effect because I’m geared a little on the glassy side, but like to provide buffs to allies. I’m not sold on this setup, but I have no real complaints about it, either.
That said, I’ve read there may be a bug with the protection duration buff and I may just reslot those to something with more crit damage or might duration. I’ve also wanted to try full Lyssa for the 5 seconds of every boon benefit when using an elite skill.
I hadn’t considered the blind from Arcane Wave/Blast while stunned. That’s a nice trick. One of the more fun combinations I had done with a build similar to yours is Arcane Power + Glyph of Storms in Earth Attunemnet for an AoE damage/blind/immobilize that was pretty fun to toss down on zergs in WvW.
Thanks again for sharing, it makes me want to give my Arcane Surge build another go.
Probably only a slight exaggeration. Vapor blade isn’t a projectile finisher so sending it through lightning field does nothing. Using Shards of Ice + Arcane Power + Vapor blade means every hit gives 2 stacks of vulnerability, which can mean 4 stacks if it’s hitting on the outgoing and incoming attack. Arcane Precision would probably proc on at least one of the attacks. Add in Arcane Wave (3) and Blast (3) and in 3 seconds, you might see about 16 + 1 + 3 + 3 = 23 stacks.
Toss in a consumable like Skale Venom and you’d probably reach 25 stacks easily. Though I’d love to hear from Asmodal, as arcane builds seem like fun if I could learn to be without my cantrips.
I see your edit and raise you this: it’s not sustainable on your own, but nice for a quick burst of damage. Rare veggie pizza would likely increase the duration of some of the vulnerability conditions, but probably not to the effect that it’s entirely sustainable by one character.
(edited by Kaleden.9386)
I find conjure weapons to be useful in the right situations. I mostly play WvW so those situations depend on where I am, how many allies are with me, and how many enemies I’m up against. Typically, in WvW, damage isn’t the most important or unique aspect I bring with me to a fight.
For dungeons, I don’t think the conjures provide a lot of defensive abilities, except maybe Lightning Hammer – which includes a knockback, an AoE blind and Blast Finisher on every 3rd auto-attack, Static Field, and a leap finisher which you can use with Static Field (both the one from your staff and the one from the hammer) to daze enemies. If you have other classes putting down fields, you can create a lot of combos with this weapon. That said, the ice bow has its share of defensive skills, but fewer and on longer cooldowns. I also find the effects from blast and leap finishers to be more worthwhile than projectile finishers.
I think you’ve found the issue, though – with staff, you typically don’t need to be close to the enemy unless doing something specific like using Evasive Arcana, combo-ing with your fields, positioning burning retreat under your enemies, trying to land all attacks from Frost Fan (Frost Bow 3), or stacking retaliation against an enemy. All other times, you should stand further away.