Guild Wars 2

Glad to see someone else running a signet condi build. I’ve been running something similar for the last few patches between glass fire staff builds. I have been desperate to find all of the viable builds possible that don’t use arcane or water. Dunno why, but I hate those lines and how everyone thinks they’re mandatory.

Main diffs for me is that I normally run 00662 for the indomitable healing and use a settlers am. Trying out your 6×600 build, and I think I might still like settlers more than rabid. The healing (I use ER) with the extra toughness gives you a higher baseline toughness but with slightly less condi damage.

Not sure if I like your condi dmg or my survivability more yet. Gonna play around with it. Any thoughts? I feel like with your setup I get dropped too often, but that could be me adjusting to the playstyle.

No reason to criticize how I play my Elementalist. You’re just grasping to be mean at that point because you don’t like how I frame my ventilation. I’d rather we not resort to petty jabs at each other. You’re a talented and knowledgeable necro, and I’ve no interest in trying to pick a fight.

But there’s an undeniable event horizon of sorts for when a competent and competitive adult gamer can’t easily make a class work enjoyably in a simple majority of instances. Add in how choosing viable trait combinations and playstyles are difficult to the point of being prohibitive (this was the case with pre-patch ele for a long time), and you find yourself closer to my premise, which was that the class can be nigh-objectively classified as “not fun.”

And kishter, thanks, I’ll try powermancer again… but that again just makes me sad.

I’m playing a necro — the class that can summon undead minions and access to many conditions and a bunch of vampiric traits. But what am I going to trait for? Power. Gross.

But nonetheless, I need a break from the Mozart playstyle that is Ele.

I’m surprised by the lack of ability to detect sarcasm or dramatic overstatement in some of you.

Also, some of you missed my point (flow – you in particular). So let me be very precise. I’m not actually saying people can’t make a necro work or that certain builds aren’t viable; I’m saying that those builds are not well conceived and are clunky. How can I make such a shockingly subjective claim? Play another class. You’ll see. Sure, several other classes have the same problem, but the necro is especially clunky.

Telling me to watch a video or that skill>class or try another build has nothing to do with this: 1.) the necro class’s traitlines have MANY glaring rabbit trails that they once intended for you to think about but then later second-guessed and nerfed into uselessness; and 2.) the working builds (those that have higher survivability via attrition or whatever other factor) are NOT the builds that the traits were centered around yet they dictate almost all of the balancing. 3.) The necro’s viable mechanics are therefore often clunky and do not synergize well outside of PvE.

The case in point is the vamp build. YES, I get it, it’s not viable. But it is exceedingly obvious that they at one point intended for it to be viable, created quite a few traits around it, created weapon effects that harness it, and made it synergize theoretically. But alas, it is a bygone relic of some dev’s theorcrafted brainfart, because it is absolutely not usable in any major form.

The warrior / guardian advantage are the perfect examples, though most of you fanboys can’t see it because you don’t want to. Those classes are infinitely easier to play and have plenty more options. Their skills harmonize better, they’re well-defined, and yet they have plenty of powerful variation. The argument for the necro is “no complaining! there’s this one build that works if you just get this one thing right.”

Trust me because I’m right. I’m just venting because it’s sad that necro was crap and then was godlike and now has been brought below par again, where we have “oh yeah, everyone knows those builds that the class was obviously built around won’t work.” And it’ll be months or years or never before it gets ironed out.

Trust me, I’ve mained an ele for pvp since launch, so I know un-enjoyable gameplay and mechanics. And there are two main things…

1.) Quite a few traits, including GM traits, are not part of any viable build. Like old-school ele, however, there is an illusion that they synergize well with other traits, which is confusing. You might think that a vamp build is viable, for instance. Or an in-and-out DS boon build. Ha! Poppykitten.

2.) I don’t know what’s happened with the meta, but sPvP matches are MORE intensely lop-sided than they used to be. This isn’t a balance issue on a class-specific basis, but it does exacerbate the problem that necros are kinda crap all-around when compared with (any) other class in whatever its prime cheese build is.

Now I don’t say all of this lightly… I make this scientific announcement and analysis with all due solemnitude and sobriety: I’d love for necro to be fun — but it’s just not on par. And I don’t deny that some people have made it appear to work. But that was also the case a few months ago when some still argued that Eles were viable (and they were categorically not, despite my love and devotion).

That’s about all I had. Guess I’m a bit frustrated b/c the game’s been out a while, and the class tweaking is still pushing and pulling classes out of balance by large margins (and again, I love the progress of the last patch [for everything other than my necro]). And so it looks like necros, who went from complete obscurity around launch to OPness during condi meta and are now plunged into the depths of mediocrity (along with rangers and warriors that are AFK), will not get their day to shine for me, because I don’t think I can really stomach the lameness of warrior/engineer/thief-centric PvP much longer.

Also, if this has been a bug for a while, then there’s no excuse. ANet is big enough that it can find an AI guy to work out a debilitating flaw in a class’s main elite skill a couple years after the fact.

Yeah, this is a super lame issue. We can build our spec around our pets, and yet the largest damage dealer of the group has a giant hole in his attention span. It does seem worse for me now than it used to be, but I can’t say for sure. All I know is that the past few weeks, it’s like it participates in 33% of the fights.

I love you, Attunejam. Thanks for the build!

Also, this thread has revealed that I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

cheshirefox.7026:

let’s see what’s on the menu
cheesey scepter burst, wet noodle staff bot,
oh and daggers is the soup of the day Again
no thanks, i’ll pass

Well that’s a bit unfair, now isn’kitten Mr. Sadpants? Every class has weapons that either aren’t great or are situational. The only item I don’t have much success with is the focus, but it’s great when soloing PvE. Some people do well with it in sPvP.

And calling the staff a wet noodle makes you sound more like a troll than an elementalist giving any sort of feedback.

I don’t have anything scientific, but I return with experience gleaned from the fields of battle.

We are in a really great spot. I wouldn’t say the zerker specs are much stronger. They’re different, time will decide if it’s good or bad. I often felt I was exchanging one boon for a major flaw.

But where I didn’t expect the help, we are now much more highly rewarded for dipping some into defense. I feel like I can get a situation going (in D/D at least), get the damage started and get some combos, but if things go south, I can bail. I can bail if there are four people following me. I don’t die. But it’s not like previous bunker D/D… I can actually kill people pretty quick if they don’t pay attention to me.

I’m not sure how far this extends into skill vs builds and whatnnot, but it’s made PVP a hell of a lot more fun. Weird idea that is… that viability is somehow followed by enjoyment.

So maybe the general nerfering of stats and certain combos really has helped out more than anticipated. I look forward to exploring the new options.

I ran with battle / strength for a while and was easily hitting 22 stacks of might, but it wasn’t wrecking anyone. Only difference I saw was that I could handle a little more sustained focus, which wasn’t an effect of the might.

So it seems like doing lethal damage as an elementalist is the same as it was before the patch — a mystic unicorn that requires specific combinations and perfect lighting to achieve. Whereas I could play any of my other more boring characters and win at least half of the battles without intense pre-meditated multi-step combinations.

I hate how much I only love playing my elementalist.

To be fair and show some positivity, I do love this recent patch. I think it’s a fantastic direction for everything. Only disappointment is that I thought elementalists would be more… different.

Does anyone recall the Ele dev that kept commenting on how epic this patch would be for us? It sounded like he almost felt guilty at how awesome the Elementalist class would become, and that there was a whole new world coming.

Maybe I missed something. I get wrecked by the same classes (sPvP), though I do feel like I survive a tad bit longer with some builds. The only major difference I’ve seen practically is that rangers don’t need to attack me directly, they just send in their white owls. So what am I missing? Some new L337 mixture of traits?

It’s not that hard. You go to fight one of the knights. There are 50 available slots to fight the knight and do damage. If you get the attunement to the knight’s color, then you’ve got a slot. If not, go to another knight.

When the knight dies, all three color fields appear. You do not have to go to the other knights to get the other colors. You do not have to re-enter the original (it lasts much longer now). So if you fight one knight, and people are able to kill the other knights, then you are able to proceed without running around. It’s quite simple.

The Prism fight is even more simplistic, although it’s hard to avoid the fields. You get the three attunements, and then you can do damage. That’s it. Once it splits in three, you split up and kill all three. When they go UV, you kill the UV minions. Then you win. If this seems difficult or too much, then I’m not sure you appreciate endgame raid-style events in MMOs, because this is actually very straightforward if you have the numbers. Other popular games require all sorts of complex strategies including specific gear tailored for the encounters. This, on the other hand, just requires people to read one buff description per enemy and to not stand in fire.

Thanks, Muppet. I’ll have to try that. I use the Arcane Blast early to get the +10% crit before the Lava Font and the Arcane Wave and anything else that happens to occur. Plus, with a 16 sec CD, I’ve found it’s better to go Zerker in playstyle than to hold back, but perhaps you’re right.

And the combo sounds pretty cool. I happen to hate Lightning Flash, but if it works for the OP, power to it. Thanks for the input. I’ll try it out as well.

I don’t even know off the top of my head this morning what Water 2 on Staff is.

No one so far has any idea what they’re talking about. (I’m kidding! But really.) I have zero idea how scepter can be considered burst, but whatevsies. To those that make it work, woo woo.

I use staff for the omgzerker build. My favorite setup is 30/30/0/0/10, or 20/30/0/0/20 both Blasting Staff AND the Arcane cd mod.

The trait choices are:
Fire – VI, VII, XII
Air – VI, VII, XI
Arcane – V

In Fire, VII can be swapped for V if you like the condi pressure. In Air, I sometimes don’t focus on Arcane as much and swap VII for IX so I can do more Static Field- Eruption – Lava Font combos.

Skills: Arcane Blast, Arcane Wave, and Arcane Shield
Heal: Either Ether Renewal if you want the condi cleanse (you won’t need a bursty heal since you’ll die anyway, but you don’t want to die to stray condis… that’s just embarrassing) or the Arcane heal thing.

Amulet: Berskerer or Barbarian

Make sure you master this combo: Static Field, Eruption, Shock Wave, Arcane Blast, Lava Font, Flame Burst, Arcane Wave. It’s all gotta be fast AF up to the Shock Wave if it’s going to work.

Also, Meteor Shower + going straight into Tornado is a really, really awesome move for big node battles.

Tips: Don’t be afraid to stick in fire after you’ve intro’d in Air and Earth. Those might stacks add up beautifully and your Fire1’s will be doing up to 3,000 dmg a pop after some warmup. Also, if someone gets low, remember your Bolt to the Heart +20% modifier and the Arcane crit buff… so don’t be bashful with an Arcane Blast / Wave double combo. If you do have to heal, take advantage of the water fields on Water 3 and 5 and either use your blast heal or arcane wave inside it to get a combo. These can also be used to heal up your teammates from afar.

With this setup, you’ll either kill someone while they’re still laughing at the idea of an elementalist attacking them or you’ll die miserably.

I take it sometimes because I now like the 10% to burning enemies at 25 pts in Fire. Doesn’t seem to hurt, and I can’t find anywhere else I’d rather put the five points I usually have left. That’s especially the case because it can’t but help when the particular build I use it in is for gigantic damage with lots of auto-attacks in fire when possible.

I like the ideas that ANet has when they post around here. I feel like they’re honestly trying. I just don’t have any idea what they’re experiencing. I’d love to see a full, blunt dialogue on the process that goes behind balancing and patching.

But despite my optimism for their efforts, like… they can’t really fix Elementalists as they are right now without some really, really sweeping changes. And that doesn’t sound as if it’s on their calendars given the patches. Not to mention, the “buffs” are just as BlackBeard said — they make viability harder to achieve. Why? Because they’re grossly overestimating the value of the traits they push upward, and they grossly overestimate the value of the % tweaks they make to the not-complete-crap traits.

For example, on my Thief (that I don’t know much about, mind you)… Every. Single. Trait. that I took is of significance. My playstyle was decided and defined by my traiting, and I had to make hard choices because there was real power in my options. I could even make the exact same P/D condition type thief but with 10 different major trait variations. But on my Elementalist? Half the crap I could care less about. And the big choices aren’t even THAT big of a difference in practice. There’s not a single style for D/D, Staff, S/F, or S/D that has so many effective trait combinations and so many amazingly synergistic choices.

For example — Thief has Slowed Pulse: Regen(10s) 1300 health when you get two stacks of bleed (mix that with regen and condi clear when stealthed). Elementalist has Soothing Wave: Regen (3s) 390 health (10s recharge) when critically hit. Nice.

Let’s talk about useful skills… take my beloved staff for example. MOST of my weapon skills are completely useless. Earth 1 and 2? Uhhh. Earth 3, okay. Earth 4, only reason I really switch… and it’s when I’m running. Earth 5 never really seems to hit. Air is alright, but the time it takes to use its control keeps me from doing anything else (i.e. killing someone) so it should be more like kits anyway, but that’s another topic. Fire is okay. Water 1 is stupid. Water 2 is a complete and utter disgrace. I have zero idea why I ever try to use Water 3, but I do. Water 4 is only used in shame when Earth 4 didn’t work so I’m trying to jump off the edge of something and take my own life before I get ROFLstomped. Water 5 is like Water 3.

I’m just ranting now, so I’ll back off. But basically, I played a thief and engi crappily and it blew my mind right out of my head and onto the floor. Pyrite and P Fun have it exactly right… other classes seem to do more faster and with less effort. It’s not about whether my P/D build was so leetballs. It’s that the random, awkward setup I picked was 10x stronger, more synergistic than my favorite, most practiced Ele build.

Sorrynotsorry for the title. But it’s an accurate transliteration of my real life reaction to switching to one of my alts for a while for the first time in months. I really, really love the idea of the Elementalist, I guess? I don’t know. It has a (currently) unexplainable (and irrational) draw to it that brought me to this game in the first place and has swaddled me in the warmth of its (abusive) love ever since.

So anyway, first, I logged on my Engi. I don’t know how to play an Engi. I hate it, actually. But those kitten ed kits are so fluid that you can’t help but love them. AND he has great base stats. In fact, his stats are so effective, that without having any idea what to do or how to spec, I can jump in a hot join and kill people effectively. 1v1’s last a while and feel fair. 2v1’s can go my way if I’m fancy.

I says to myself, “Self, let’s try a class that also complains of being nerfed… like ze Thief.” So I log on my thief. I have no idea how to spec my Thief anymore, so I make up a crazy-looking P/D condi build. You’re probably thinking, “Well yeah, condi P/D builds are OP right now.” Let’s be clear: Not Mine. I have no idea what a real P/D build should look like, I forgot to switch out my stupid runes, and my weapons didn’t have sigils. But you know what? I could drop anyone I ran into in <10 sec if I didn’t screw up my rotation. And if things didn’t go my way? I’d switch to SB, drop SR, and get out.

So anyway, maybe I’d lost my perspective. Other classes are immensely more effective in sPvP with much less skill, and Elementalists’ traits / stats are nowhere near on par. Sure, we can overplay and get kills periodically, but it is laughably more complex and less effective.

I know that’s not news to a lot of you, but I’ve been defending Ele in my mind for months since I found I could make my fire staff build “work.” I shan’t defend him now. Ele’s got real problems, and a couple changes to percentages, tweaking boon uptimes, or moving traits up and down the totem poll are not going to fix them. That’s just silly.

I’ve been trying any build that seems potentially viable, but there isn’t much that delivers. That said, I have had some luck, and I’m still trying to identify what’s working and what’s not.

My personal weapon of choice is the staff. I feel like it offers the most functional spells for my playstyle. D/D is a close second, but I don’t like being so squishy and so close to people. I also like using arcane blast and arcane… whatever. The one that shoots and the one that’s a targetable region. Since escapes are pretty easy many times, I’ve been playing with ether renewal, which is total crap for D/D, but it gives some great condition removal along with Fire 20.

So with that up front, I’ve noticed that my strongest builds are no longer glass cannon fire-focused gear/trait setups. Instead, I can pick to either gear defensively and trait offensively or vice versa. Right now I’m enjoying this 20/30/10/10/0 build aiming for some +% dmg modifiers and defensive skills and gearing defensively (like soldier w/ whatever runes). Other setup was gearing offensively for crit and power and traiting into earth / water.

Doesn’t sound great, but I’m being really surprised by how it puts out damage and lets me stay alive a bit. I’m avoiding blasting staff for now b/c I’m not convinced of how great it is in PVP, and the freed up Arcane points are letting me get some really nifty skills I’d otherwise miss out on.

This is a strange viewpoint. I don’t know if I’ve ever created a build based on Elemental Attunement, and I do quite fine. Sure, it’s handy, and it’s fairly strong. But if you consider it “forced,” then that’s probably because you’re unwilling to learn to live without it. You may be offended by that idea, but consider that there are obviously many other players that think otherwise. You are either the only person with a clear understanding of the trait’s value or you are perhaps too narrowly interpreting other options.

We’re already struggling to be viable in general, so how can anything be considered “forced”? It’s more like we have fifty shades of mediocre. Or perhaps we haven’t yet stumbled upon the wonderful confluence of mechanics that will allow the elementalist to shine.

“Feral druids of vanilla” is the exact, PERFECT description of Eles right now. Well, except that they were badkitten at soloing.

And I remember every kitten ed patch and every piece of raid gear was geared toward Resto. Crappy, old, no-fun, no-shapeshifting Resto.

For how I play in sPVP, these are great changes. It’ll probably increase the pressure to use Staff, but hey, if it’s viable, I’m a happy Ele.

If any dev cares, I don’t think this will solve ALL of our easy issues, though it’s a lovely step and I appreciate it.

The other easy issues are 1.) a lametastic health pool and 2.) personal regen scaling. I get that we’re good at healing others, but for us that want to play strong self-healers in PVP, we should be comparable (or better, since we lack their armor and health and damage in that setup) to heal-shadow thieves and passive regen warriors (who can use Soldier’s[!] and still regen better than I can w/ Cleric).

Also, our health pool is stupid. I have to really work to beat someone 1v1 if they’re not just kitten ing. With this build, it’s possible for me to do, but I’m always at a disadvantage (with any build… just having rolled Elementalist). The idea that increasing our health pool might throw off balance is COMPLETELY ridiculous. Especially if they think War regen and 30k necro health polls are “fine.” I play both regularly, and I can tell it’s unfair while I’m laughing and killing people.

Nice, Blimm! Is your build different than mine?

I tried Vital Striking w/ Scholar runes, and I did get bigger hits. They seemed quite a bit bigger, actually. But I felt like I was much less successful. My only explanation is the loss of instant burns since I had to pull the 10 pts from XII in Arcane. That would seem counter-intuitive, but that extra 20% dmg requires a.) I be above 90%, which is hard with such a small health pool, and b.) that I do more direct hits. The burns allow me to fire and forget, which is a large part of my survivability. I tried to maximize that aspect of the build by adding +45% to burning duration, but they’re too short to gain much effect. And picking up any +cnd dmg or duration was all detrimental.

Meteor shower can be awesome if it works properly. I’ve killed several thieves by arcane shielding and dropping a lava font / shower on top of me once I see the steal-blind coming. And that works best with my initial build, because Arcane shield does the 25pt burn plus the bigger burn from XII on top of the chance to burn from Fire traits and the fire blast on the staff rune.

Anyone have any improvements or suggestions on the build? It’s the most fun I’ve had playing elementalist, and much more effective than previous D/D or S/F builds I’ve tried. Only other staff build variation I’ve liked has been 20-20-0-0-30 to get the 20% decrease on Fire recharge.

For anyone trying it, I thought I’d drop some more info. about how it works if it’s not readily apparent. It’s all about burning and big crits.

I’m not a big fan of the Arcane utilities, but you pick up the 10% crit dmg boost from Air after using Arcane. On top of that, your Arcane spells have an effect when dmg is done to opponents, i.e. burning. So Arc Blast is on a 16 timer, you throw it out and get a +10% crit dmg boost on top of the 32% from gear and the 30% from traiting in Air. Do it while attuned to Fire and you also apply burning. And your Fire spells do 10% more damage, with a +20% dmg bonus when they’re stunned or incapacitated.

Normally w/ an Arc Blast opener, Fire1 is doing ~1,800 dmg a pop w/ splash and the 30% chance to do a fire blast. Fire2 forces movement and is more for passive / AOE dmg as opponents don’t always avoid areas well. Sometimes you can pull off an Air5 to Fire2 to force them into the area. It’s also great to pre-empt someone getting w/in melee range. Fire3 adds more burning w/ big crits and splash. For another big burn, you have Utility2, Signet of Fire, which is nice when they clear your first burn. Fire5 is better for stunned / chilled groups and petting zoos.

So if you’re like me and you’re used to re-attuning all the time, you have to re-adjust. This is primarily a fire build, where the other attunements add quick utility when needed. Water especially sucks. The rest of the time you’re in fire and keeping continuous, nasty area burns and crits on your opponents from a good distance.

I don’t think I’ve ever posted on here, but I’ve played casually since the beginning. PVP’s about all I play any game for, so my primary goal is to 1.) have fun and 2.) be viable. Sadly, that makes playing as an Ele a sad life. As you can imagine, I often switch over to my necro or my warrior.

BUT, I found a staff build that’s finally fun. It’s similar to the Bright Wizard in WAR. There are gigantic holes in this build, but it kills people like a thief would at 1200 range.

It’s 10 (VI) – 30 (VI VII XI) – 0 – 0 – 30 (I VIII XII). Utilities are Arcane Blast, Signet of Fire, and Arcane Shield. Divinity runes and Bers Amulet (w/ Valkyrie). Fire Blast on Staff.

Basic strategy is to keep distance and find a nice sniper spot. I start in Air so I can position and hold people off if I get caught too early. When I’m ready to destroy, I go Fire, drop a Fire 2 under the target, hit Fire 3 for the burn, then Utility 1 and Fire 1 a bit. You can then proceed to Utility 2, but typically the person is blowing all CDs to stop the sudden deathstream, so I like to go Air or Earth depending on what sort of CC they need. Or you can Fire 5 if it’s a group and go back to Fire 2 / 3 until everything stops moving.

Escapes are interesting and depend on your speed. If you blow’em and can’t get away, you real dead.

Mesmers are total jerks for this build. Regen Wars can be annoying, but it depends on their build. Everyone else seems to be game.