Guild Wars 2

Magical Things.8465:

Salshazar.7023:

Flurry of dancing flames.9830:

I had this discussion with a veteran Ele friend of mine the other day.
Seraph’s gear is fun-looking but hard to utilise fully, and not actually that good for an Ele.
If they’re gonna be healing, they need some bulk (pref. vitality due to low health pool) is why Apothecary/Magi is better. With Shaman, you can do something like 3-4k dps per second while giving out CONSISTENTLY GREAT heals and amazing support via auras and protection/vigor sharing.

Seraphs is sufficable for a Druid/Engi (if people let you bloody play it) and a couple others prolly like a Revenant hybrid perhappps, but it falls a little short on ele.
Also, to make Seraphs do ANY damage, you neeeeeed the condition duration in your runes/sigils and food. It’s mandatory.

I agree with most of what you say, however, Shaman is quite useless in general. If you wish to support as an elementalist you only have 3 options, which are Magi, Apothecary and Clerics. The reason for that is that you want to maximise your healing output, so healing power needs to be the gear main stat.
Apo is best for fractals with dagger warhorn, and Magi is best for raids with also, either dagger warhorn or staff.

For fractals wouldn’t Apothecary and Clerics give you too much toughness?

Also for healing wouldn’t Zealot’s be the better choice for fractals? Power/Precision/Healing power. While it won’t pack the punch full zerk does it seems like the most logical option to support and actually do some damage.

For Raids you are correct. Whenever toughness tanking is involved there, you dont want toughness on your healer, which is why i say to use Magi there, but in fractals the extra toughness is not only helpful with survival, but you grabbing aggro actually is a good thing. You can be both, the tank and group healer, supporter, with that setup, which is amazing.
As for damage, Apothecary is your best bet, which is why i use it. With a dagger warhorn setup, which you should use for fractals, you will do quite a bit if damage while supporting. Warhorn earth 5 for the blinds also stacks good bleeds, as does overload earth, which you use for protection stacking anyway. You can stack some neat burnes as well with fire attunement, so apo really is the best option. I tried it on a golem and i get 4-6k dps if i focus on damage.
But remember, your job as a support ele is not to deal damage. Its to give out permanent 40% damage reduction via protection, perma vigor and MASSIVE hps with good burst healing in between and rebound to ignore one shot mechanics. It makes 100cm runs stupid easy.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H9pD-gFr9Zo

Flurry of dancing flames.9830:

I had this discussion with a veteran Ele friend of mine the other day.
Seraph’s gear is fun-looking but hard to utilise fully, and not actually that good for an Ele.
If they’re gonna be healing, they need some bulk (pref. vitality due to low health pool) is why Apothecary/Magi is better. With Shaman, you can do something like 3-4k dps per second while giving out CONSISTENTLY GREAT heals and amazing support via auras and protection/vigor sharing.

Seraphs is sufficable for a Druid/Engi (if people let you bloody play it) and a couple others prolly like a Revenant hybrid perhappps, but it falls a little short on ele.
Also, to make Seraphs do ANY damage, you neeeeeed the condition duration in your runes/sigils and food. It’s mandatory.

I agree with most of what you say, however, Shaman is quite useless in general. If you wish to support as an elementalist you only have 3 options, which are Magi, Apothecary and Clerics. The reason for that is that you want to maximise your healing output, so healing power needs to be the gear main stat.
Apo is best for fractals with dagger warhorn, and Magi is best for raids with also, either dagger warhorn or staff.

The Shatterstoner!

“Scepter will now require the Shatterstoner specialization to be equpped, so Anet wont have to make a new mainhand weapon with 12 new skills for the Elementalist.

All skills on it stay the same, except for Shatterstone, which will now inflict 10 (!) stacks of vulnerability on every target it hits (increased the explosion delay of the shatterstone to 5 seconds, to compensate)."

I see it coming! :O

Its not the Elite Spec Gotham wanted, but the Elite Spec Gotham deserves!

@Ohoni.6057

From a pure pve standpoint you are correct, wich is why I said the fire overlaod is somewhat viable, cause a firestaff pve ele will usually camp fire anyway.
Same with air, mainly cause of fresh air here, however, even in a full healing, support build, you really should not stay in water at all.

When you swap to water you gain an aoe heal+ regen and condi cleanse and then you dodge for another from evasive arcana, but the latter has a 10 second cd anyway and ofc you cant switch to water for the on switch effect if you camp in water.

What this means is that even if you go full support and try to maximize your healing output, you want to go in, dodge, burn your skills and get out.
Like this you get a much higher healing output, than if you would just stay, cause everything, worth a cast will be on at least a 10 second cd anyway. So why would you want to cast the water overload and lessen your potential healing output, by staying in the attunement?
Sure, you can argue that the overcharge substitudes for the “on switch” trait and you can dodge again after the channel, to get the same heals, but then you still put a 20 second cd on water and will run into potential problems, when you actually do have to switch out of it after overcharging.

Also, for support you also need earth to give aoe stab, protection and possibly some earth wep skills. So even as full support and heals you willl have to at least alternate between water and earth to be effective (also, good celestial staff eles combo with their own fields and to do that even a Tempest had to change attunements).

As to the reason why I would like to get a new mainhand rather than an offhand.
Its not because Im greedy, but because I sincerely believe that we currently need it more than we need another offhand.
But that is only an issue cause of scepters autos. If we got the equivalent of lightning whip on one of our scepter autos I would not even complaint about getting an offhand, but as it stands only the dagger is a viable mainhand weapon.
Scepter always relied on lightning hammer autos to fill the auto attack gap, wich is a problem.

The last point you mentioned is about adaptability. You might get away with it, or it might even be required of you to stay in 1 attunement in pve settings (fire cough cough), but in pvp and wvw you have to switch around and use all your skills at the right time to be competitive, or you will not be on par with anyone else.
And no matter what ANet choses to add to the Tempest, they will not be able to change that fact, unless they completely overhaul our class mechanic when we go tempest.

As it stands now the current overcharge system feels like self mutilation to me rather than something beneficial.
However I agree with you that fire in pve and air in pvp dont suffer from the current system whatsoever. Still not worth sacrificing an almost madatory traitline for it though :/.
Still trying to keep an open mind and hoping for the best however.
In the first beta weekend Revenant sucked balls, but now its was really neat. Who knows maybe they do change Tempest into viability as well.
Fingers crossed

Well, the problem with the Tempest and why those who value some form of viability are dissapointet with it is, that its mechanic goes contrary to what the Elementalist base mechanics actually are, wich makes it fail in the long run.

The only attunements that the Elementalist stays in long enough to actually get the option to overcharge it, are fire in player versus environment and air in player vs player.

However, you never stay in water or earth for the 5 seconds it takes the overcharge to be available, and even if you did, overcharging it then would be counterproductive, as you are crippling yourself, by putting the attunement cooldown on an extra 10 seconds (6 if traitet) for a total of 20 seconds attunement cd, wich defeats the purpose of water and earth.
Eles go into water for heals and cleanses and then leave it again ASAP, in order to put it on cd, so that it also is available again ASAP.
Earth is the same. We use it to migrate damage with protection, or gain stability, or use blast finishers, as well as invulnis, only to get out of it fast again in order to put it on cd so we can attune to it again sooner rather than later.
Ergo we will never stay the 5 seconds and lock ourselfs out of it for 20s instead of just 9s base with the Arcana traitline.
Not to mention that the overcharge effects are utterly bad for the price they cost, with perhaps fire being the exeption.

The warhorn offhand was also a bad idea, because we already have 2 excellent offhand weapons.
Dont misunderstand me please, im not a sword fanboy. I actually like the warhorn, however we needed another mainhand, not an offhand.
As it stands now warhorn is either worse than dagger and focus and will see no play, or replaces either dagger or warhorn, wich will also be bad.
Either way, it doesnt increase our options, especually since the scepters sustained damage is horrible due to its horrible auto attacks.
So that leaves us only with the dagger as a mainhand (staff doesnt even compete here cause it a 2 hander).

So how can it be fixed?

Imo tempest needs to add something on top of that, wich we already are doing, in order to make it worthy for either replacing water, or arcana in our pvp setup.

This is how I think this can be solved:

First of all, get rid of the cd till overcharge. Make it available the moment we hit the attunement.

Second, make the overcharging push us out of our current attunement when the channel is done and place said overcharded attunement on a normal 10 seconds cd, just like we went out of it on our own (in order to still be able to chose wich attunement we go in when overcharging, keep it so we can switch while the overcharge animation happens. If we dont switch ourselfs make it switch automaticly on a priority system. If all attunements are on cd, make overcharging impossible).

Thirdly, buff the overcharge effects.
Give all (exept water) a baseline stack of stability. Air overcharge needs its damage increased to make it worthy of a cast, earth needs to knock down foes during the channel every 2 seconds for 1 second and water needs its healing beefed up.
My personal preference would be that it would scale bad with healing power, but heals half of what the elite water elemental heals with its active skill, during the overcharge channel. That way it wouldnt become op on celestial, but non healing power builds would actually get a nice extra heal, every 12 seconds or so. Also without stab on water overcharge, the heal would be easy to interrupt wich I think is fair.

All right, on to the warhorn:
As i have said, another offhand was a bad idea, but if you really want to roll with it you need to give it a niche role that both dagger offhand and focus cannot fullfill at the moment, that however at the same time, is viable. What that would be I cannot say, because honestly, nothing comes to mind, however if you truly dont want to give us another mainhand, you definatly have to fix the scepter auto attcks. No way around that. It should be done anyway but its even more important then.

Last but not least, and this one is like a slap in our faces, cause we have been asking you for a good one since forever: give us a kitten elite worthy of the name!
Compare the elementalist ones to all the elites mesmers, engis, warriors and necros have, and you will notice how bad ours really are, but the new shout is just not even funny anymore. Its like you guys are not even trying to sell us kitten as rain anymore, but straight pee in our faces!
Make it a strong aoe alacrity buff that lasts for 10 seconds with a reasonable cooldown.
I mean we deserve a good elite, come on!

Anyway, thats my 2 cents.

Cheers!

Imo the problem with the Tempest is, that its mechanic goes contrary to what the Elementalist base mechanics actually are.

The only attunements that the Elementalist stays in long enough to actually get the option to overcharge it, are fire in player versus environment and air in player vs player.

However, you never stay in water or earth for the 5 seconds it takes the overcharge to be available, and even if you did, overcharging it then would be counterproductive, as you are crippling yourself, by putting the attunement cooldown on an extra 10 seconds (6 if traitet) for a total of 20 seconds attunement cd, wich defeats the purpose of water and earth.
Eles go into water for heals and cleanses and then leave it again ASAP, in order to put it on cd, so that it also is available again ASAP.
Earth is the same. We use it to migrate damage with protection, or gain stability, or use blast finishers, as well as invulnis, only to get out of it fast again in order to put it on cd so we can attune to it again sooner rather than later.
Ergo we will never stay the 5 seconds and lock ourselfs out of it for 20s instead of just 9s base with the Arcana traitline.
Not to mention that the overcharge effects are utterly bad for the price they cost, with perhaps fire being the exeption.

The warhorn offhand was also a bad idea, because we already have 2 excellent offhand weapons.
Dont misunderstand me please, im not a sword fanboy. I actually like the warhorn, however we needed another mainhand, not an offhand.
As it stands now warhorn is either worse than dagger and focus and will see no play, or replaces either dagger or warhorn, wich will also be bad.
Either way, it doesnt increase our options, especually since the scepters sustained damage is horrible due to its horrible auto attacks.
So that leaves us only with the dagger as a mainhand (staff doesnt even compete here cause it a 2 hander).

So how can it be fixed?

Imo tempest needs to add something on top of that, wich we already are doing, in order to make it worthy for either replacing water, or arcana in our pvp setup.

This is how I think this can be solved:

First of all, get rid of the cd till overcharge. Make it available the moment we hit the attunement.

Second, make the overcharging push us out of our current attunement when the channel is done and place said overcharded attunement on a normal 10 seconds cd, just like we went out of it on our own (in order to still be able to chose wich attunement we go in when overcharging, keep it so we can switch while the overcharge animation happens. If we dont switch ourselfs make it switch automaticly on a priority system. If all attunements are on cd, make overcharging impossible).

Thirdly, buff the overcharge effects.
Give all (exept water) a baseline stack of stability. Air overcharge needs its damage increased to make it worthy of a cast, earth needs to knock down foes during the channel every 2 seconds for 1 second and water needs its healing beefed up.
My personal preference would be that it would scale bad with healing power, but heals half of what the elite water elemental heals with its active skill, during the overcharge channel. That way it wouldnt become op on celestial, but non healing power builds would actually get a nice extra heal, every 12 seconds or so. Also without stab on water overcharge, the heal would be easy to interrupt wich I think is fair.

All right, on to the warhorn:
As i have said, another offhand was a bad idea, but if you really want to roll with it you need to give it a niche role that both dagger offhand and focus cannot fullfill at the moment, that however at the same time, is viable. What that would be I cannot say, because honestly, nothing comes to mind, however if you truly dont want to give us another mainhand, you definatly have to fix the scepter auto attcks. No way around that. It should be done anyway but its even more important then.

Last but not least, and this one is like a slap in our faces, cause we have been asking you for a good one since forever: give us a kitten elite worthy of the name!
Compare the elementalist ones to all the elites mesmers, engis, warriors and necros have, and you will notice how bad ours really are, but the new shout is just not even funny anymore. Its like you guys are not even trying to sell us kitten as rain anymore, but straight pee in our faces!
Make it a strong aoe alacrity buff that lasts for 10 seconds with a reasonable cooldown.
I mean we deserve a good elite, come on!

Anyway, thats my 2 cents.

Cheers!

PS: for gods sake, fix skill 4 on the fiery greatsword already. You nerfed the trail damage and the stacking but never gave us the actual damage increase on hitting a selected target with the skill for compensation, like you promised in the patchnotes back then.
Only the tooltip has been changed not the actual skill!

^ 9/10 Love the glasses and the hair. And the outfits are just Kawai!!!!

This is my pve look, and the one I run around mostly with.

Meet the mighty Jadziah!

Ignore all defensive stats.
Stack as much offense as you can, pick up a staff and build towards a 30/10/0/10/20 build. Or 30/0/0/20/20. Focus on fire traitline primary, on arcana secondary and water and air tertiary.
Trick with this build is to stay in fire for your dmg and only attunement swap if you need the utility to survive if you pulled to many mobs at once, or fight a nasty veteran.
The idea is to simply kite around your lava font so the enemy runs around in it, trying to catch you while you nuke it with your auto attack and let it burn.
Thanks to 10% more dmg against burning foes and the cd reduction on fire spells you can maintain lava font 100% of the time, while putting out awesome aoe dps. Blasting staff and boons on attunement swap in arcane traitline. All berseker gear.
No one needs defense while leveling with this, cause you will kill so fast mobs cant touch you. Also, arcane blast and its projectile finish counterpart are your friends. You have many combo fields. Trigger them with your own finishers.
I used to just facetank mobs when i lvld like this. And staff has been buffed last patch, so you should do well with this. Also, like slasher said, keep your gear up to date. Then at 80 you can change your build to sometging more defensive if you like.

Btw, srry for bad formating… Writing this on a mobile.

Cheers