Guild Wars 2

Thank you so much!

With so few good ele builds for PvP, this is a welcome version of staff. When I get some free time later tonight I’ll definitely try it out. Thank you for posting!

I don’t even run a meta build or am that great as an ele, but just by doing some DE’s in Orr, it feels…different: more powerful, more sustain. The patch notes didn’t make it seem like Ele’s got super-buffed, but I die a lot less now from random enemies. Anyone else getting this vibe, or was I just getting lucky. I’m sorry I don’t have pics/hard numbers/any other evidence. I’m not a hardcore player but just made this observation today.

It is “gimmicky” by nature of it existing outside the meta. However, VS and ZF do work well together in theory because if you’re running ZF you’ll want to take as many channeling skills as possible, and scepter has 2, Air auto and Earth auto, which unlike the dagger’s 2 channel skills, aren’t on a cooldown, Earth auto can be paired with fire wall, and Air auto is used in Fresh Air builds to proc criticals, so both skills can be decently used. VS grants a minimum 50% recharge increase which bumps to 100% when using a channel. Also take Ether Renewal for another channel, plus it’s an awesome heal with condi removal and a crazy fast recharge.

Do note that Endurance Regen does cap at 100%, so one could see using both traits as overkill as the “full” effects of ZF will never be reached because it only increases regen by another 50% with VS on rather than it’s usual 100%. On the same note, taking both is pretty much the max you’ll want to focus on endurance regen even on such a gimmick build. I would use a different food buff because of how much endurance regen you already have, probably something that gives power or precision.

I would use this trait combo in a modified form of a Fresh Air build. Use S/F for good defensive skills to be paired with your increased # of dodges. (2 blinds, Obsidian Flesh, Magnetic Wave, Swirling Winds, and Gale just to name a few) By wising using your dodges, channels, and defensive skills you can mitigate a good amount of damage. Use S/D for an additional channel and more damage based skills. Adding 30 points into Arcana nets you Evasive Arcana, which with your increased dodges is especially potent. This trait build lacks power from the fire trait line, so consider Zerker armor to make up for lost DPS along with increasing crit chance and crit power for fresh air, and also take 10 points into water for vital striking, which combined with Scholar Runes will give you a 20% damage boost above 90% health, which, if you’re using S/F and dodging/using blinds right, shouldn’t be hard to maintain. This build also makes you glassy, so if you screw up your dodge/defensive rotation, you’re toast.

The above is by no means a highly viable build for Ele nor one I recommend you try speed clearing or PvP’ing with, but if you want to try out endurance regen, it won’t kill you, provided you don’t mess up those dodges. FTR the above is basically what I’m currently running, and while I’ve sworn at myself for doing something stupid and getting killed, people have also stared in disbelief as I throw myself all around the battle and never lose one HP.

katniss.6735:

I’m going to corpse camp keeps to let my team know when it’s safe to attack, and where all the siege is. Rotating camera is our best trait.

Need that gate repaired? No worries. I can max out swiftness in my spec for running back and forth from camps!

Out of supply traps? No worries, because every elementalist knows to get burning oil mastery first, and hop off to do swirling winds/ heal up for this highly neglected piece of siege.

Do you need a tower trebbed from the third floor of stonemist for 8 straight hours? I’m there! I won’t even be botting because I’ve adapted to this. I’m still playing an elementalist after all!

Spvp?
Don’t worry, I won’t go to the laser with Tornado off CD.
I will indeed fire that cannon, and pick up every single spawn of hero’s potion.
They killed our treb? Allow me to run the repair for it to be back up. I will even sit on it all game!
You’re being attacked? Don’t worry, I’ll show up and immediately, everyone will stop targeting you.

My sides are splitting right now; this is too good! Reminds of GW1 where the only viable Ele specs were utility builds that basically were built off the non-profession skills from EOTN. Ele’s…never change.

Welcome to GW2, seriously the best game ever =).

I’m not trying to patronize you with this advice, but if you’re having trouble (dying a lot, not quite getting the whole MMO system, etc.), it might not hurt to switch over to an easier to learn class like the Warrior or Guardian to kinda get a grasp of the basic concepts of GW2. Elementalists have a crazy high skill ceiling (IMO the highest of the game); they’re tough to play right (lowest armor + lowest health = ouch), and even if one plays an Ele well, the current state of the Meta (how the community views certain play styles over other ones) does not favor eles…at all. That will hopefully change soon, but for right it’s understandable if you’re having trouble; you’re playing a very hard class.

On the flip side, if you can kick butt with an Elementalist, you can kick butt with pretty much anything. So if like the challenge, go for it—sticking with Ele will only make you a better player in the long run. The official forums are a great place to get help on not only Ele stuff like skills, traits, and builds, but also anything pertaining to GW2 or MMOs in general.

There’s some really smart people here (I’m not one of them), and the advice they give is killer. Most of the topics you’ll see pertain to high level content, but there’s plenty of great leveling advice for Ele if you ask around. Good luck!

Both Ele’s themselves and other professions have raised concerns about the state of the Ele in the Meta. Certainly good Ele’s are out there, but overall the class is outpaced by other classes and the viable builds available are few in number. More and more often players groan whenever an Ele enters a dungeon or PvP match; the class is very quickly becoming dead weight or free kills for the other team. What are your plans for dealing with the challenges that the Ele faces, and how quickly can Ele players expect changes to their profession?

I agree; I’m going through some of the zones again for the immersion and it’s incredible how intertwined and connected some of the DE stories are. Honestly it’s some of the best writing of the game, and it’s a shame it’s ignored so much.

Very true, and I suppose perfection is somewhat extreme word choice, but my main point is that their blatant favoritism currently story-wise may lead to serious repercussions.

But this Elder Dragon, whom many suspect is Modremoth, the fabled “nature” dragon is smarter than that. (Already we have a fit here between Mo and the Sylvari: nature. But that’s beside the point.) Mo is really smart compared to his brother Elder Dragons. He’s figured out that the current dominating races cannot be defeated by pure force. The races are simply too powerful to defeat through force. So he uses the Sylvari to create a massive group of sleeper agents to overtake the world.
Their Utopian society helps them gain respect from the other races and integrate into the modern world. This is extremely important because it helps them spread out without causing problems. To alleviate suspicions against the Sylvari on being “too perfect”, Mo creates some Sylvari purposefully bad, forming the Nightmare Court. However, he screws up because the Sylvari still act perfect and have bonuses other races lack, such as corruption-immunity.
It doesn’t stop there though. Not only is Mo using Sylvari to rapidly spread his forces throughout Tyria, he is also manipulating politics. Because the Sylvari are so respected, he can do things that seem good on the surface but really only further his goals.
Like the Pact.
Think about it. All the most powerful races, organizations, and nations are now aligned together, even if only somewhat, and are in one group: one group that can easily be wiped out if one has the means to do it. The Pact may be able to resist current threats in its current region of the world. But the cost of unity has been that the Pact is confined withing the chains of those that make it up. The Pact will be hardpressed to stretch far behind the reached of the humans, Asura, Norn, and Charr. Mo can blow them out of the water in terms of numbers of this land restriction. Not only that but once the Sylvari turn evil, the Pact will be weakend by vagrant Sylvari killing off everywhere. In addition, the other Pale trees will produce Sylvari, and stockpile them in other parts of the world until Mo is ready. Now he also has a great number of backups. Pact-controlled land vs. the rest of Tyria = Evil Sylvari curbstomp
“Wait,” you say. “What about Zhaitan? Saying Mo created the Pact is saying that Mo allowed a fellow dragon to fall.”
Exactly; Mo is smart enough to create these sleeper agents; he’s also smart enough to act as a chessmaster. Zhaitan served as a starting bishop for the heroes to take in this game of deadly chess. It allowed the Pact to form under the harsh circumstances, and his reign as villain weakened part of Tyria. Mo will continue to use the other Elder Dragons as pawns to weaken the heroes until he is ready to strike.
When that time comes, he will attempt to take control of the Pale Trees and therefore Sylvari. It becomes obvious the price the Sylvari paid for having such a communal society. No Sylvari is spared, not even the soundless, because even they have a small connection with the Pale Tree.
After this point…I don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far. However, I’m not saying it will end with all Sylvari characters evil. Somehow the PC Sylvari will fix things and save their race or the world from total destruction. However, the perfect modern-day ideal progressive pedestal they’ve been put will break, just as the human’s broke after GW1. This event will serve as the conclusion to the Elder Dragon arc of Guild Wars 2 as well as the major initial history of the Sylvari. Things will change, racial tensions against the race will increase undoubtedly. However, some of the positive aspects of their influence will remain, such as the Pact. However, their impeding domination as the possible leading race will end. Trahearne may step down as Pact leader and another character of another race will take his spot. The world, and the Sylvari, will recover and move on towards the next story the world of Tyria will face.
Will it actually happen? I doubt it, but it never hurts to dream. =)

Players just can’t avoid it: it’s everywhere. From their perfect Utopian society to their major appearances in the personal story and living world, the constant perfection of the Sylvari is hammered into players everywhere. From Trahearne displacing our character’s role as the hero of the personal story to Scarlet becoming one of the most powerful and influential villains of the series, there’s simply nothing that this race can’t do wrong or worse than the other races. However, Guild Wars may have a lot of faults, but contrary to popular belief the writing is not one of them. Yes, there are corny scenes and questionable choices, but compared to other lores and stories of the genre Guild Wars’ has stood the test of time well, and A-net is always improving from the first release of the game.

This major writing gaffe of a Mary Sue race (yes, evil villains can be Mary Sue’s too. Just because Scarlet is evil doesn’t mean she doesn’t exhibit most of the Sue characteristics) is simply out of place in comparison to the more mellow and benign errors A-net has made. A-net claims Scarlet’s story will have a major payout to players, and I don’t doubt them.

Theory time.

You know those characters in movies we think are awesome? They always do the right thing, help the hero but don’t take his or her glory, and just in general are ensemble darkhorses so to speak. Then at the end of the movie they’re all “LOLz, double agent/sleeper agent/actually an kitten,” and suddenly audience members feel dumb for trusting them so easily.

That’s who the Sylvari are, and there are two major pieces of evidence that fuel this speculation.

1. Sylvari are immune to elder dragon corruption. This seems to go along with their list of Mary-Sue powers, until one considers, why? Why are they so special? Is it because they’re magical plant people?

2. The Sylvari storyline reveals that there aremore Pale-tree type creatures that birth Sylvari. Most likely one or more these lie in the Maguuma Jungle/Waste area we haven’t explored yet. Point is, they’re spreading rapidly, far faster than any other race has. In just 25 years they, through magically communal thought powers, have achieved what has taken a multitude of races, supernatural beings, and gods countless years to build up. Why? Why are they spreading so quickly?

These questions led to this speculation that the Sylvari are some form of sleeper agent for an elder dragon. Yes, this is indeed basically the Elder Dragon minion theory you’ve all heard of by now, but bear with me. Consider this. If they are minions or pawns of some sort, then the elder dragon spawning them wants them to infilitrate the world en masse. Most elder dragons do this through violence and fighting, and it rarely works out.

I too cannot log in. Good to know I’m not the only one.

Like most everyone else here, I second this notion. News/whatever can be added to the spacious old login screen, and be made optional to those that prefer the launcher.

Call it nostalgia, but losing that login screen killed just a little bit of Guild Wars 2’s magic for me. Waiting for BW1, trying to login with no success countless times, all with the epic music in the background.

4 times complete
Human
Ele
No speed boosts

Esorono.1039:

I would vote Rytlock would win by default since Logan would run away.

Except for perhaps dungeons (idk I’m not there yet), S/F in PvE is pretty useless, at least in the lower levels.
Staff or daggers are a far better choice as they allow you to rake in multiple foes and kill them off quickly,
netting you more exp. and more items.

However, PvP is a different story. The Focus’s defensive skills saves the Ele’s squishy kitten
provided you spec at least somewhat into water and earth.
(when I first started I picked S/F because I thought it was cool and then specced a glass cannon build….oops)
The skills are also very vigor/endurance friendly,
especially if you spec 30 into Arcana, giving you multiple vigor and dodge traits. Water and Earth grant
you better defensive stats and traits, and as stated earlier, spec 10 into Air and grab Zephyr’s Boon.
While a D/D build would get more mileage out of it, you still have the very so useful fire shield
that will benefit from it. I really wouldn’t spec that much into fire, if even at all. (although I am
experimenting with lava tomb to reasonable success. It brings our downed state from completely useless
to almost completely useless)

NdranC.5107:

daphoenix.4283:

@Vincent Highwind

I have no idea what his build is. I read up on some random thread about him and have a slight idea of what hes running, but I can’t compare it unless I know the exact build setup.
Can you post it here

Woodenpotatoes Video Explaining his Build.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Tcr7A2htMMI

Thanks for posting that

daphoenix, your build is amazing. I’ve never seen such a skilled ele before. You give me hope for our class. =)

I must ask for your opinion on WoodenPotatoes Aura build. How does it compare to yours? Currently I’m using an unholy combination of your build and his.

I know it’s simple, but I don’t see how to do it in textile.

I was planning to reply to a topic on the ele discussion forum when I backspaced to read something again. Now, I can’t access the topic anymore. Whenever I click on the topic, I all I get on my screen is the reply box.

Bump for help, please, someone, help me.

For example, say I have a staff that has a weapon strength of 244-275 and then I have two daggers that have a weapon strength of 204-217. Which is stronger, the two daggers or the single staff?

Hi, I’m a human ele getting close to level 30, so I’m looking for a casual guild to make some good dungeon buddies. I also PvP so having some people to hot join with, or maybe even tourney would be awesome. I primarily play during weekends and days off due to schoolwork and my Eagle Scout project. I’m by no means an excellent player, but I’m always seeking to improve and learn. I would also prefer a guild that has a VOIP server to make dungeon runs go smoother. I know I can’t offer much in return, but I always try to help guilds in any way I can.

Please reply or message if you think you have the guild for me. Thanks!

- Vincenth