Guild Wars 2

Softspoken.2410:

I don’t know how to balance it, but giving my team Aegis with any method besides Virtue of Courage has some fun combo potential with traits.

Uhmm… Retreat? Yeah, it isn’t a weapon skill, but Virtue of Courage isn’t either.

Heya

Currently i’m using this build for pugs (or spontaneous guild groups) in dungeons and fractals:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJASWl0ApXo1CxfH8DRBARkjdBYW3fdXaGA-ThCBAB4p+jg7PYnOAHVCCwDAA6jAgZK/24QAMjmgAuAAAA-e

The build isn’t meta (so it isn’t full on damage) but it’s meant to make a run go smoother, while not neglecting all DPS.

I mainly use hammer as a weapon, and a staff for might stacks and self heals.
The key traits are Altruistic Healing, the Virtue of Justice improvers and symbol improvers.
I use celestial gear as i can make decent use of every single stat (maybe except for condition damage).

I use the build this way: Before a fight i use empower to give 12 stacks of might to the party, lay down a symbol of swiftness (for the bit of damage and self healing through altruistic healing) and then switch to hammer.
Using hold the line gives the party a start up protection (as well as a decent self heal if you got hit in the meantime) until the symbol of protection from the hammer auto chain is up. This is enough to give the party perma protection.
The symbol of protection doesn’t only do it’s normal stuff (protection, damage) but also heals myself for about 400 every tick through altruistic if the party stacks. If i need extra healing i use mighty blow after the 3rd hit of the auto attack chain.

While doing this i keep virtue of justice on cooldown. With my traits it grants 3 stacks of might to the party, heals myself for over 1000, applies blindness and 3 stacks of vulnerability and of course the burning on the next attack for the party. It recharges whenever an enemy dies, so it can be used several times even in short fights.

I’m often the enemies or bosses punching bag, so if the self heal with the hammer isn’t enough there are 2 options: If i don’t have to move or don’t think i’ll get interrupted i switch to staff and use empower. If the whole party is withing range it heals more than the healing skill. If that isn’t enough or i need to move i simply activate all virtues and then renewed focus, and if necessary all virtues again. Due to the boons applied through the virtues and altruistic healing i get another several thousand hitpoints out of this. I hardly ever activate the healing signet.
I switch back to hammer as soon as possible.

I hardly use active condition removal since i loose 2 conditions every 10 seconds which is usually more than enough (and i don’t need to pay attention to it :p) and if i see the party needs cleansing i use save yourselves to draw the conditions on me.

Edit: Changed the link, so it links to the correct build now…

Sorry, i’m still confused. So the first part of the vigil arc is already lost for that character forever? What happens if he isn’t the owner of the last episoede in an arc? And if he isn’t and he accepts my decisions, what happens? What happens if he doesn’t accept my descisions in the last episode of the arc?

Thanks for the answer. I found an answer like this when i searched with google yesterday, but i’m not quite sure i understand this correctly.

After i found something similar on google yesterday, we tried to do the next step but he didn’t accept my choices, the result was, that he is now one step behind me, so that confused us…

So if we continue through my chapter 4, which is the first durmand priory storyline, he has to accept all my decisions except for the very last one of chapter 4? And not accepting that magically sets him back to the beginning of his chapter 4 even though before that point he just stays where he is on my storyline?

A friend and i play new characters together and we also did all the story steps together. My char is Sylvari and i chose the priory, my friend’s is a Norn and he cose the vigil.

Then we reached chapter 4, the first step being “Setting the stage” where Destiny’s Edge comes together in Lion’s Arch. I started it and my friend was asked if he want’s to accept the choices i have made (there weren’t any). He did, but now his main story quest line is “Dredging up the past”, which is the priory storyline, even though he chose the vigil at the end of chapter 3 and his story log lists it as such.

Is there any way to get him back to the vigil path as it should be?

Sorry, but in this form guesting is completely useless to me. I have some friends who play on NA servers and we were hoping for the guesting to finally allow us to play together (like it was possible in GW1). If guesting doesn’t cover that, you can keep it. Because the people i play with on EU servers all gathered on the same server.

before you complain about guardians on the Southsun Cove: I had much less trouble there with my lvl 18 upscaled guardian than with my lvl 80 exotic equipped elementalist.

Phase 1: It was extremely laggy for me and almost not playable. The general idea wasn’t bad, but i think there is a bug on overflow servers. I think the EU and NA people are on the same overflow, but don’t see each other and also have different events. If the event is finished on either side, the event will also be finished for the other side. In this case, the final boss popped up for us and a new event startet. A few seconds later (he didn’t take any damage) he ran away again. I guess that was the ancient Karka we had to defeat in Phase 3, it’s the only place i can imagine it showing up before, and it was never mentioned in any quest text either.

Phase 2: The 30 minutes wait before the event was a pain, don’t do that anymore. The Lion’s Arch part was extremely short, after a few minutes we won. This time i was in a party with some people from NA (i play on EU servers) and we were in the same overflow (i saw their blue dots on the map). For them, the event didn’t even start, and when we finished it, they could also use the ship, without seeing the lion’s arch part at all. And anyway, what were those catapults they built for? They weren’t used at all…
The part on the island was fine.

Phase 3: Generally i liked it. I liked that there it was hard enough so even a group of 100 players was close to wiping several times. But the reinforcement waves when driving the ancient Karka back to it’s nest were a huge pain. They weren’t hard, just extremely tedious and boring. Make them 1/3 to 1/2 as long and they will be much much better.

Rewards: The rewards were fine. I got 2 exotics, the bag and the shell (and 2 rares), that’s just fine for the effort and the occasion. BUT: next time, please restrict the random exotic rewards to items your class can use

General idea for the lag: If possible, split up the events to various locations and let them run simultaneously. I know, people will miss parts of it, but they will split up and the lag problem should be much better and the event be more enjoyable overall for everyone. For example you could have had the Karka attack at various locations at the same time in Phase 1 and 2. And if you are forced to choose just one, you also get that feeling of “i wonder what would have happened when i chose the other option” which you get from your personal story.

Zealot’s Defense is also a lot of hits in a short time.

ah, that explains it. thx

good to know, thanks for the testing
i’m not much of a PvP player, that’s why i didn’t test it in sPvP, my shortcomings in PvP wouldn’t do any build justice. and the build isn’t intended for PvP either.

if you reach 60% crit chance anyway i think i won’t miss right-hand strength that much since it should crit often enough to be at EM’s internal cooldown anyway. and the more players are around the better EM and thus AH gets.

now i’m looking forward to try it out in a dungeon.

thx again

you think once per second for all nearby allies isn’t enough?
and as i said, the torch is meant for a setting where high defense required (soloing in PvE), as soon as you switch to focus or shield you have other boons at your disposal, and depending on your utility skills you also have a bunch of boons.

Additionally: people seem to like to couple AH and EM with the hammer. the hammer is much slower and doesn’t have that many boons either (the symbol at the end of the chain and the following blast finisher), or does that make such a big difference?

Disclaimer: I’m new to guardians and most of this is just theory crafting. I like the style of the sword, so i want to use it as my main weapon. I already play a condition build on my elementalist, so this time around i want to focus on crit for damage. With the high attack speed of the sword it should generate a lot of crits, which in turn should trigger empowering might a lot, not to mention vigorous precisision. Since all those crits give boons, going for Altruistic Healing sounds like a good idea.

Anyway, i ended up with this build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUEQRAsf5dlYg6CnFSPEf4EhlCASQMFaE+XPooDZIA

Don’t focus on the utility skills, i just picked some since i haven’t unlocked them all and haven’t tested them yet (as i said, a lot is theory crafting). The first two valor traits and the first honor trait aren’t set in stone either.

As for the other weapons: I like the mace as a defensive weapon against multiple enemies. All 3 offhand weapons seem useful to me, depending on the situation. When soloing coupling the sword with a torch increases the damage, while the focus as an off-hand for the mace increases my own survivability.
In a group-setting or when i need more defense (probably dungeons, i haven’t been in one on my guardian) i’d go for sword/focus and mace/shield.

The equipment stats would revolve around precision, vitality, power and some healing and toughness.

Is there some downside to this idea? Even though i searched a lot in the forum i couldn’t find a build that couples the sword’s attack speed with altruistic healing and empowering might. Of course, 10 more trait points would be amazing so i could get another 15% crit chance on the sword and the mace by going 30 points into radiance.

argh, yes, of course
the best option would be just to add a “Toggle Language” below the already existing “Text Language” and “Audio Language” options

Currently the language toggle (keeping the right right Ctrl key pressed by default) seems to toggle from the game’s language and the operating system’s language (or maybe to english if neither of them is english).
Please change the target language to the system’s locale, like it seems to work in GW1. If the game’s language and the locale are the same, take english as target language.

I play the game in english on a german server in a german speaking guild, where lot’s of people play on a german client. Previously i had a german windows 7 installed, but my HDD died and i had to install windows again, in english this time. Before that, the game toggled to german, but now it doesn’t anymore. It’s a pain to communicate with my guildies now, especially when talking about places on the map, and knowing the feature is there, but doesn’t help due to an oversight.

unfortunately yet, and afaik no word about when it will be available

Arian.2850:

It’s probably the best skill to go in dungeons with random groups. I used to have it on permanently for a while. In earth it will fully resurrect three people from a dead (not downed) state. Underwater it doesn’t even cast for a second.

If you’re in a dungeon you can save the teleport + run time for up to three people. There is nothing better in a boss fight, really.

Since the patch on Octobre 7th it doesn’t revive dead players anymore. Hence the skill became pretty much useless since bringing someone back to their feet by simply pressing F is faster than using this skill.

as i said, my keyboard is already set to Swiss German

I play on a german server and a lot of my guildies use a german client, but i prefer to play the game in english.
Until my HD died a week ago i had a german windows installed and pressing the right control key translated the game to german as long as i pressed it (the language toggle feature). But now i installed an english windows on my new HD using German (Switzerland) as locale and keyboard layout. But the language toggle doesn’t work anymore. What determines the “secondary” language of Guild Wars 2? And in case it’s the language of the installed Windows, is there a way to override it?

No, because you can kill the fun for other people. Imagine 3 level 80 characters running around in a lvl 20 area making any event absolutely trivial, even more than they often already are.

If you play in a lvl 10 area with your full exotic lvl 80 character you are already extremely overpowered the way it is.

And does it really help your friends if you just do all the work for them?

about 1)
I can only talk about tailor armor on a human female: but they are fine, there is a great variety over the levels. I noticed though that all crafted staffs look exactly the same until you reach the level 80 rare ones, and i think that should be changed

/signed, i’m missing that as well, it’s annyoing to always check whether a friend/guildie came online or not

delmarqo.5038:

Newb question: Sigil of Battle says it applies Might when swapping to that weapon in combat. While Elementalists can’t swap weapons during combat, lots of people here have recommended using this Sigil for +Might.

So how does it work? Does it give you +3 Might when you use a skill associated to that weapon? Or does it give you +3 Might when you switch to that weapon outside of combat?

And is how it currently works a bug we can expect to get fixed?

Attunement swap counts as weapon swap

afaik there is also no equipment with power/precision/vitality

I’v played pretty much the same build while leveling and a bit at 80, since then i adapted it a bit. And as you, i had 10 to 20 points i wasn’t sure where i should put them. So here are a few thoughts i made myself when i was in a similar position:

Arcane Mastery (20% cooldown reduction on arcan spells) is nice, but what about Evasive Arcana? I tried it out and really liked it. Suddenly i began making offensive dodges :p Put a Lava Font on the enemy, dodge in for a free flame burst (including blast finisher with 3 stacks of might), use Arcane Wave for another 3 stacks of might and then use burning retreat to get out again. Maybe switch to earth and dodge in again, for more damage and another 3 might stacks (though you won’t have any energy left by then to dodge out again, if you want to do that).
If you are in a party you can dish out quite some healing with evasive arcana as well. Put down a rain of healing, dodge inside for an area heal, use Arcane Wave for another area heal, switch to earth for protection and dodge again for another area heal. Also works in small by putting down a geyser a bit in front of you, dodge into it and then fire arcane wave.

Try it out and see if you like it. You can change major traits any time outside of battle for free.

Personally i use Internal Fire (10% more damage when in fire attunement) over Burning Precision. Especially now where i hardly have any precision left and took up more condition damage (which is useful for staff as well, and when soloing i mostly use S/D now).

And eventually i gave up on the 10 points in air for 10 points in water. There i switch between Cleansing Wave (AoE condition removal on attuning to water) and Shard of Ice (3 stacks of vulnerability when using Arcane Spells (and sigils)). Sometimes i still use Glyph of Storms, but mostly i use Arcane Blast. Sometimes i use Mist Form instead. I don’t miss the glyph recharge that much, which surprised even myself. If you want to move some damage to survivability consider 10 points in earth or water instead of fire. Pyromancers Puissance seems more useful for S/D than with a staff. In a dungeon (where i always use a staff) i switch it out for Persisting Flames, because i can’t find anything more useful. So when using a staff i think those last 10 points in fire aren’t that good anyway.

Just to give you some ideas for build refinement, but in the end they all should work well, you have to find for yourself what you prefer.

I’d stick to rampager. Even the staff has condition damage in half of it’s most used damage spells (Flame Burst, Eruption and Shockwave).
And rampager will give you much better results if you switch to S/D (which i started using in solo PvE after leveling to 80 and playing through orr with the staff because it’s so much faster and more convenient).

But if you want to go all rampager/berserk with your armor and accessories you’ll be a horrible glass cannon even if you got 30 in earth and water. And reading your post i don’t think you do.

and i finally started to like and use the skill this weekend in dungeons…

what Pinkerton said

And additionally in your calculation example above the condition damage is lowered by about 10%, on the other hand the condition duration is increased by 45%. If you had much less condition damage to begin with and would lower it by say 50% to gain these 45% duration the numbers would look completely different.
It’s similar to the vitality vs. toughness problem. At some point stacking vitality (“duration”) gives you more “life” than stacking more toughness (“anti-damage”).

In other words: the best way is somewhere in between, as always. And it’s situation dependent (as Pinkerton explained)

this is the only staff skill i NEVER use, it is just a waste of time to cast it. And because of the long cast time you can’t use it to “interrupt” an attack you see coming.

This spell either needs to be instantly cast (like flame burst, fire 2) or have a much much higher damage.

Make that Air does what it should do according to ANets description:

“By harnessing wind and lightning, elementalists can target specific foes with focused, high-damage attacks. "

Especially on the staff, this couldn’t be further from the current reality with only 2 spells that deal damage at all, they deal both AoE damage, which is lower than the damage of any fire spell with shorter cast time and cool down.

Today i bought some superior runes of the pirate because i really liked the effects, they sound very funny. Also the magic find is great and the runes are cheap.
After playing for several hours i never noticed the Yarr shout even once. After stocking up to 6 runes i went to queensdale and let 3 lvl 2 mobs hit me constantly. the parrot (effect for 6 runes) procced as expected (and killed my monsters, so i had to take off one armor piece). After taking several hundreds of hits from moas and cliff bats, the Yarr shout still didn’t even procc once. I guess it’s statistically sound to say: it doesn’t work as intended.

Prowl.5097:

Air and water aren’t meant to br dps, so in a short fight vs s regular mob there is little need to use either, water and air are for support either via positive team effects, of negative monster effects.

That being said, even vs normal monsters, I ride the lightning in, then blow us both back, then fire I hit 3 then 4, then I earth combo 4 then 5, which usually the monster is dead before I need 5. In any event, that chain of attacks kills anything faster than just using fire, can I kill the monster with just fire?? Sure, but its slower and not as fun

So, in summary, different attunements are for different purposes. It would be like asking for a heal in the fire spell line.

First of all: According to their own description air is meant to deal high single target damage. See here:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/elementalist/

And what you say might be true for S/D (and maybe D/D, i hardly used it), but not for a staff. No matter how you combo stuff together, simply staying in fire deals the highest damage, by far. The only option is opening the fight with Eruption and Shockwave and then switch to fire and stay there. But if you are at a place where there are a lot of mobs you can’t switch out of fire, open the next fight and switch back because fire will still be on cooldown.

Prowl.5097:

As you get to be a little higher in level and the monsters get harder, I started to notice I was lacking something, now I switch between all 4 attunements in battle often, it makes multiple monster fights easier, gives a higher curling in terms of how many you can take on, and makes fighting veteran monsters with a couple adds possible.

As i wrote, it’s like you say if you fight multiple monsters oder veterans. But as long as you fight a single monster there isn’t much of a threat to die, there is no need for all the utility. Using the utility when fighting a single non-veteran monster just slows you down. Yes you end the fight with more HP, but the HP regenerate so quickly between fights that you don’t have to wait for it. So why switch to anything but fire when you can simply outdamage the monster? It just slows you down which is especially bad in Orr with it’s fast respawns.

To clear up a possible misunderstanding: I was talking about PvE, not PvP

that’s why i said “i agree” in the middle. Your statement of “While most players that are spending too much time in fire trait and not in any other trait are obviously and clearly playing elementalists wrongly” is probably just written in a way it could be understood incorrectly, since the way the game is now it’s usually the right descision to stay in fire (at least in PvE soloing).

Personally i’m fine with 2 elements simply being transitional utility elements. Using ANets description those would be water (for chilling and healing) and earth (for immobilize, crippling and damage mitigation) and they did that more or less (maybe earth could have some more damage mitigation and some less condition damage). Fire is fine as it is as an AoE damage element.

The problem is, as i said: Air. At least with the staff it’s some random utility without an actual theme to it (some light damage that jumps to 2 more targets, some medium damage AoE blind, a knockback, an AoE swiftness and an AoE stun when the enemy moves through), there is no real theme in there, especially not the one they claim there to be.

If you had 2 viable damage elements you could stay in one, use the utility from the 2 utility elements if necessary and then switch to the second damage element and stay there again for a while. If it were this way the 15 seconds cooldown to switch back to an element wouldn’t be as much of an issue anymore as it is now. People would use the utility elements much more often because they could just switch to another damage element after using them instead of doing significantly less damage until the element is ready again.

Imo S/D does this quite well, but with fire and earth instead of fire and air. I also think this is the reason why it’s so popular and imo the most effective for solo PvE.

let me quote 2 parts:

While most players that are spending too much time in fire trait and not in any other trait are obviously and clearly playing elementalists wrongly

Damage is a good thing, but utility can be just as useful given the right circumstances

I mostly use a staff, even when soloing.
Usually i fight the monsters 1-on-1. There is no need to go the extra mile to prevent taking damage since you heal up very quickly after the fight. So you don’t need utility and the quickest and most convenient way to deal with the monster is to deal as much damage as possible. In other words: Stay in fire and don’t swap attunements.

If you don’t travel a lot and kill monsters in fast order (either because you want to stay in one place or because there are so many monsters that you will run into the next one in a few seconds anyway) switching to another attunement as a fight opener also only lowers your killing speed since you’ll have to wait to get back to fire.

This is the normal scenario, switching out of fire would only do you a disservice. You have 100% time in the same element, but imo the player is clearly playing the character correctly.

As soon as you get too many adds or fight a veteran things become different of course since you can’t simply outdamage them in fire and you need to start attunement dancing.

But i agree: it’s a design flaw, especially air. They state that air is the element for large single target damage. But take a look at the staff: There is no single-target-damage spell. Even worse: there are only 2 damage spells in total, even water has the same number. And of those 2 spells one has a long cooldown, long casting time and bad damage (number 2), and the other (the auto attack) only becomes viable if there are at least 2 targets nearby. But if they are too close to each other the fire auto attack is better again (as well as when there is only one enemy). And if there are more than 3 targets close to each other, fire is also better. On top of that it has a huge tendency to bring unrelated monsters into the fight.

So air is not a viable attunement to stay in. At the latest after you have used all your cooldowns, there is absolutely no point in staying in air. Even water is better for that because ice spice has a much shorter cooldown and decent damage. So air is simply useable as a pass through element to use the utility skills you need at the moment (knockback, swiftness or stun and combo field) and then you go on. This seems not to be what the element was supposed to do if you look at their description.

Bunzy.8674:

http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/1/15297/719617-avatar_aang_super.jpg

This is how I feel!

This, especially when i attune to an element and the character calls it out, like “Air!”

Or like this:

http://fstatic1.rennrad-news.de/img/photos/2/7/3/2/5/_/medium/eierlegendewollmilchsau.jpg

In german there is the term “Eierlegende Wollmilchsau”, which roughly translates to “Egg laying wool-milk-pig” and means something that can do everything (basically: jack of all trades)

Zaor.6085:

Give me a link where anet say elementalist is a class support.

This is the description of an elementalist.

“Elementalist

Elementalists are multi-faceted spellcasters that channel elemental forces, making fire, air, earth, and water do their bidding. What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.

You just quoted it yourself. What else than support could versatility mean? “Damage” is a single facette, support is much much broader.

And they are able to inflict massive damage in a single attack, just not to a single target. Hardly any other attack in the game can dish out as much damage as a single Meteor Storm.

which spells are broken other than these? i don’t mean what people see as “broken” balance wise, but obvious bugs, where a spell doesn’t behave to it’s description.

Teaturtle.2094:

why is there a cooldown for any kind of swapping?

to punish someone for being good? O.o

if you could swap… means the other guy can too.

imagine what would happen with the Elemental Attunement trait if you could swap at will without cooldown. Not to mention the weapon sigils that activate on weapon switch.

i never tried it, but couldn’t you chill ranged attackers as well this way? or does the frost armor only help against melee attacks?

Razgriz.7319:

Shockwave actually can hit multiple targets, you just have to line it up as a skill shot. It travels in a straight line towards your target, rooting anything in between and goes a certain distance past. I’m not sure if it just travels it’s full range (1200) or if it travels a set range past the target. It’s probably the former though, not traveling beyond the 1200 range.

If you get good with it, it’s pretty easy to root 3 or more mobs into a Eruption + Lava Font combo.

Good to know, i never tried that. Thanks for the info.

I’m not much of a PvP player, so i’m heavily PvE oriented. And i haven’t reached max level yet (currently 76) and haven’t been to Orr, so i don’t know if i’ll keep my current playstyle, but so far it has worked very well. I’m using a staff basically all the time even though i solo a lot, so i wanted to give you an idea what’s possible with a staff.

First of all: my build is like this (as i’m not at max level fire isn’t at 20 points yet)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fEEQFAWhImIboxzgjEAkCmEUQADiCVUeMzOxA

There are some alternatives i might change to later on, i probably will experiment around a bit with the build later on to see what i like best. But more about that later

Against a single normal mob i usually cast Glyph of Elemental power in fire, Fireball (1), Flame Burst (3) and when the mob closes in Lava Font (2) and Arcane Wave. When the mob reaches me i use Burning Retreat (4) if i have the space, cast another Lava Font (2) and then run in circles around the mob, but stay close to him inside the Lava Font. Cast Flame Burst (3), Lava Font (2) and Arcane Wave whenever they become available, also reapply Glyph of Elemental Power if necessary.

I know this ignores a lot of the elementalist’s possibilities but i this is the fastest way to kill a single normal mob and there isn’t need for more.

A veteran mob is a different story though. Usually i cast an earth elemental before the fight, it’s a really good tank that can usually keep the veteran mob off you for the entire fight. As long as you don’t aggro it you can just cast your fire spells on it and deal maximum damage.

If you don’t have an elemental as tank, for whatever reason things get more interesting. During all this stay mobile and keep your distance. If the mob closes in on you you can switch to air and cast Gust (3) to knock it back, follow that with a static field (5) and back away a bit. Also cast a Gust of Wind (4) at some point, running speed can’t hurt, especially if it’s an instant cast. Switch to earth and cast Shock Wave (5) to immobilize it. Follow that with Eruption (2) and Unsteady Ground (4) in front of it. Depending on your health you can now switch to water and cast Frozen Ground (4), Ice Spike (2), Glyph of Elemental Harmony if you need a heal, maybe also Geyser (3) or Healing Rain (5), while staying in Water drop an Ice Spike (2) whenever possible. Frozen Ground (4) is a tremendous crowd control spell and gives you a lot of room to cast other stuff, even if it’s a Healing Rain (5). You can now either switch to fire and start the whole process again. If you didn’t need the healing you can combo your own combo fields. When i’m in earth i tend to wait for a second Eruption (2), cast it and immediately after beginning to cast it switch to fire and place a Lava Font (2) on top of it, and stay close. This will combo in 3 stacks of area might. I often also use Arcane Wave as well at this moment, which is another 3 stacks of might. And the switching to fire was another one, so i have 7 stacks of might at this point. And from here on it starts again.

You can also combo the eruption (earth 2) and arcane wave with a geyser (water 3) for some extra healing.

I usually don’t cast meteor shower on single mobs, because it hardly hits for it’s long cast time where you have to stay stationary. When i do then it’s before i start the actual fight. I also don’t use Lighting Surge (air 2), i think the cast time is too long for what it does. And i also hardly use Magnetic Aura (earth 3), because i always forget about it, i need to change that.

I tend to use Glyph of Elemental Power in fire btw.

Fights with several mobs are a mix of above strategies, Frozen Ground (water 4) comes in especially handy there, where as Shockwave (earth 5) and Gust (wind 3) are not so useful since they only target a single mob.

About the elementals: I mainly use the earth elemental as a tank, or the fire elemental for extra damage (it deals really good damage, but is quite squishy), i hardly use water or air.

Alternatives: Take 10 points from arcane or fire and put them in Fire, Air (Inscription as trait) or Earth (Earth’s Embrace). If you take 10 points from arcane keep the blasting staff trait and remove one of the other 2.

I’m still unsure about the glyph of elemental power. Sometimes i take Glyph of Storms (mainly for Sandstorm, it applies blind every second or so to all mobs inside the storm, which makes it an awesome defensive and offensive spell against static mobs), sometimes i take summon lesser elemental.

I don’t say this is the best (or even a good) way to play, but it’s fun for me and so far it worked well in PvE (dungeons are another story). But to give you an idea what you CAN do with the staff in solo play.

Edit: Ok, this post got longer than i thought :p And it seems others do similar stuff.

Adversary.7325:

Naryoril
its from the brady games stratgy guide that i bought and got autographed at the Austin Opening Launch Party.

Secondly your attitude is confusing. You rage at me for discussing the damage of the elementist and when I state that I dont want to play a support you say that I have support so therefore I HAVE to play it? So guardians have to tank? Healing spells are nice but they dont do much when you dont have a heal rating. I have noted your comment and now kindly ask other players to ignore you.

I didn’t rage at you, if you felt this way, i apologize.

Nowhere in the Brady Games guide does it say anything about the elementalist being a glass cannon. In fact, the 2. paragraph of the “Elementalists in PvE” chapter (page 162) says the same thing i do:

“Indeed, elementalists’ power lies in their flexibility. Their ability to shift almost effortlessly between damage dealing, healing, and buff/debuffing is second to none. Even in the middle of a fight, you can switch from high area-of-effect damage to keeping everyone healed, and then back tho wholesale desturction.”

And i don’t say you have to play support, but i say you can’t complain about bad single target damage and survivability when you have amazing support and excellent AoE. If you refuse to use the best parts of the elementalist because you don’t like to use them you probably picked the wrong class.

And you ask others to ignore me because i don’t have the same opinion as you? Uhmm… ok…

Edit: typos

Adversary.7325:

The Elementalist is described as a direct damage class and a glass cannon in the different strategy guides I have peeked at. Now taking that information and ignoring all the support roles the Elementalist “can” fill and focus on the damage portion.

I don’t know what guides you are reading, but i think this is the first part that’s wrong, and because everything in your post is built on this assumption, everything that follows is wrong as well.

The elementalist has a huge variety of weapon skills at his/her disposal. Let’s take the staff as an example: You can apply burning, bleed, vulnerability, chilled, blind, stunned, weakness, crippled and immobilized, and most of these are AoE. You can also (just using the staff) buff your allies with might, swiftness, frost aura and regeneration (by using the combo fields together with erruption). You also have the most potent healing spell in the game at your disposal, which doesn’t only regenerate in a huge area, but also removes up to 3 conditions over 9 seconds. And it combines with erruption to give another extra healing to everyone nearby. Oh, and you can reflect missile attacks and knock back/down enemies as well.

On top of all this, you also probably have the best AoE damage of all classes.

All this isn’t even considering utility spells (arcane wave makes the buffing much easier for example).

And now you also want top notch single target damage and survivability on top of it?

I haven’t played that much with other weapons, but from what i can see they also have a lot of utility on them, although not as much as the staff.

Imo people still have the mage of other games in their mind and think the elementalist is a glass cannon like in other games. It’s not, it’s an extremely versitile supporter which also has great AoE damage, but you have to use your tools, and not just “focus on fire and earth”, the elementalist can use all 4 elements.

I agree though that they need to change something about the second air spell on the staff, the damage is too low and the blind doesn’t last long enough for it’s long cast time. Increase the damage, or make it an instant cast with a longer cooldown.