Guild Wars 2

I just feel the developer doesn’t know how to communicate and shouldn’t have had this session. He may be right in his assertions regarding the intent of the class, but the execution of the class is still lacking. There’s a lack of conveyance in respect to what each attunement switch will offer in terms of openers and finishers. Luckily, Staff is the most of both, so you can quite literally roll your face across the keyboard and get something akin to the desired result, but for other weapon types such as dagger, scepter, and focus, there can be as few as three openers and finishers before you unlock your utility slots and powers. This means Izzy’s thesis doesn’t help much in terms of helping other playstyles. Moreover, it had been echoed that you can play “your way” by the developers in the past. So, why now the reversal for the Elementalist class? Is it because it conflicts with intended future features or simply because Izzy’s own opinion, no matter how well informed as being a principle developer for GW2, is clouded by his subjective experience of the class. It takes more than simply slapping together a class with some abilities to make it playable or even enjoyable to play. In this case, Izzy, imo, has lost his argument on all fronts since he can’t or won’t address those two principle points that are common to just about every complaint made in respect to the class.

I want to point out that by implication duo-spec elementalists are failures due to the same logic that has been utilized so far (that one that does not cycle through all elemental attunements cannot utilize 100% of their trait benefits). So, how exactly is focusing on bleeds and extending them and only utilizing them as the primary mode of attack in PVE a bad build? The last time I checked very few bosses can cure conditions or have immunities to bleeds (or burns for that matter).

That means either the min-maxers as usual are being hyperbolic in their statements or they don’t actually grasp the build as posted. Nor do they actually seem to discuss in a valid manner the flaws of an Earth mono-spec at all (most here have not fully explained the weaknesses of bleeds or dots in general).

So, I will ask again, explain in detail with facts, not supposition, how the Earth mono-element spec as I posted has flaws (not your beliefs, not your wishes, but facts in terms of either raw numbers or downtime or whatever that can count legitimately as a fact).

Also, I need to point out that I’ve even used this in group events where there are veteran NPCs on top of boss NPCs and I did well especially since very few players exploit bleeds as their primary DPS (even among thieves and rangers, which often in open world will utilize bleeds to their advantage in my experience).

@Nicomachiavelli

Nothing personal, but why do you assume to think that there’s only one way to play a class when there’s multiple weapons and elements at its disposal? You seem to take a similar stance of trinity class model players when it comes to GW1 where some builds are so frowned upon, that despite operating well in a wide range of PVE and PVP scenarios, that they disregard them as impossible by some invisible/intangible logic.

Please explain exactly how playing mono-element is bad in detail at least to the similar capacity of Micro Hard or Nick Danger. Don’t echo a belief without substance if you want people to take you seriously or to consider your opinion valid (be it here or in real life). Just saying.

I would just love to have them fix some of the traits and abilities first before doing anything major to the class. I’m not saying it doesn’t have its problems, but the apparent ones are easier to fix without breaking the class.

I love how people make one-liners and really don’t contribute to the discussion. If you don’t like the idea, explain why you don’t like it. If others have done a good enough job, then don’t post. I think that’s the best I can do as a criticism to you DrakeWurrum.

It can’t to my knowledge, but it’s not a slow cast either (I believe it’s instant-cast).

Sammy, in this case I try to drag up at least three critters to DOT up and utilize the cripple attack to keep them there while I drop eruption on them. If you use scepter/dagger you can use earthquake to drop them and then use churning earth after you pop arcane shielding to weather most of the DPS.

fire focus: power, precision, vitality, toughness, and condition damage
air focus: precision, power, vitality, and toughness (no abilities in air benefit from condition damage)
water focus: healing power, power, vitality, precision, and toughness.
earth focus: condition damage, power, vitality, and toughness (bleeds don’t crit so no need to stack precision at all).

I love playing a mono-element elementalist when others say it’s playing as a ‘baddie’ in PVE (LOL WUT). Especially since I can outlast most veteran NPCs without breaking a sweat (I <3 Bleeds).

Nefarious, if they can disable gear damage in being downed in PVP then they can disable weapon swap out of combat for elementalists too. Don’t play a false dichotomy here, okay? Be honest and aware of what you say has a context and that context is how things work in PVP (and how PVP operates differently from PVE).

Most people that play Elementalists, as with all the classes, will not be playing PVP, thus the ruleset for PVE can be tweaked w/o breaking PVP.

Yeah, this is purely meant for PVE. What I run in PVP either is some support spec (which requires quite a bit of element juggling) or a crit spec (you die quite a bit, but so does everyone else) that revolves around fire and air (best staff attacks imo).

The reason for going mono-element is the fact that while in Earth my toughness remains bonus remains per the trait line, whereas leaving the element (unless I spec heavily into arcana which I’ve done) means I miss out on the benefits of it. Also, this doesn’t mean I remain only in Earth all the time, rather that Earth is my primary attack line of choice to start up bleeds then either turn to water (to out last or tank) or fire (to add burst damage). But in essence, Earth is the defacto majority element in terms of skill rotation since Eruption is on a low cooldown like Lava Font and other #2 staff skills.

@Tolmos

You’re doing it wrong. I roll with a sword/focus mesmer in PVE and she does great. I guess I must be lucky. :S

I thought I create this thread since I rarely see any other elementalists talking about their own Earth-specs if they should have them. In particular, I want to open a discussion on the strengths and weaknesses of utilizing Earth as you primary attunement in PVE and PVP (I rarely do PVP, so my comments are without any useful knowledge to that end). As well as share Earth-based specs among each other to compare notes on how we utilize the element in question in play.

So far this is the spec I’m working towards. I’m not sure if arcane is very useful in PVE, but I’ve found it complements Earth when I need to add burst without leaving my attunement as such (so this is sort of a mono-element spec for me). I can say that this has worked well even in group events where bleeds do stack up rapidly since I can change over to other groups of NPCs to start DOTs on them as well.

So, if there’s any criticisms or advice you have to offer on this feel free to leave some here.

Water is good for minor heals and freezing (slows movement and skill recharge).

@Amnon

Nothing personal, but your preference is yours, not others. Until you gain the power of prescience, you can’t suppose to know the intended goal of Anet for the elementalist or what other plays think/feel about the current state of the class. Please keep this in mind with respect to your posts, okay?

I would die for just an out of combat weapon swap only because I wouldn’t have to rummage through my inventory to get my staff ready (since it seems item drops are common for me for whatever reason even though I don’t have any magic find gear).

B1 and I play with a Razer Naga. It has little to do with the reaction time if some PVE event dumps a major amount of DPS on you and others into a downed state that has pretty weak abilities (and I also play a mesmer so I have at least one caster downed state to compare).

I think water and air have aura based boon traits.

Nice use of the elements at key times.

1. The stat choice tends to depend on the primary element, so I would say follow some rules of thumb about each element.

Fire is all about the power aspect since most of its damage is front loaded with only a minor DOT from burning as back loaded damage.

Air is all about critical hits and damage, so precision and power both equally help in this regard (precision more so for the crit chance).

Water is all about healing, so healing power and power are good stats to keep up.

Earth is the primary condition element, thus needs condition damage to offset its low burst.

Overall vitality is a tertiary stat which only needs supplementation from time to time considering most of the time you will want to avoid attacks regardless (even as an Earth spec, you will not have the health to facetank).

2. Air is a defacto viable element in PVE simply because it’s real easy to bolster precision to get approximately 40-50% critical hit chance. To make Air attacks really hurt you will have to put on some power gear or runes as base attacks on Air are paltry compared to Fire attacks.

3. Aside from Fire and Air as good elements to use in solo, Earth attacks are great if you can deal with waiting for bleeds/DOTs to accumulate. By the second round of most attacks the NPCs shouldn’t be standing or at least half of them ought to be dead (even if they’re a higher level than you). This is especially true if you use a staff since eruption is a good way to mass bleed NPCs while you burn them down with Air or Fire attacks.

You have to admit, heartseeker is a bit imba in PVP regardless of any ele problems like magnetic grasp locking you up when you hit an anthill.

If you spec into fire and air, then you really don’t need to juggle attunements much. It’s more for convenience than for optimal performance. For example, you get hurt and you want to heal up ASAP, so you drop into water to do that and switch over to a more DPS friendly element like air (while fire is on cool down).

Gelrod, yet you don’t get the benefit of them when out of the attunement outside of the base trait bonus to stats. That’s the problem. There needs to be an inherent ‘lingering attunement’ phase which can be extended by the Arcana trait line, which would benefit both Arcana users and all elemental specs.

Gelrod, it does force you to take advantage of that attunement more so than others. The cross-element traits are fairly rare for elementalists. I should know I have an ele and a mesmer. It was far easier to find traits from other lines that would match well with each other. Whereas with my ele I had to judge if I wanted to boost fire and air or earth and fire, or I just boosted signets over glyphs and so on. It really is a PITA imo to spec an ele.

1. Daggers are fine if you’re use to dodging as you would under a thief that’s dagger based as well.

2. Keep a staff handy for group events since your AOEs are generally on lower cool downs than dagger attacks offhand or mainhand.

3. If you want old reliable DPS then fire is your main goto element, otherwise you have three elements with different looks/feels. Air for critical hits (oddly this one can mix with fire to produce quite good results imo) and some CC in the form of blindness and knockback. Water for heals and freezes (equivalent to cripple in effect). Earth for DOTs and some cripples or knockdowns (weapon dependent as with all the elements).

4. Don’t be too scared to stack for vitality early on over power or precision. The fact is that early on the return on stacking a single stat like power is fairly low. But if you’re interested in a good mix of surivibility and punch, go with this general order: vitality, power/condition, toughness and precision until later levels (around 40 imo). Play with the order to see how it best fits your play style.

5. Look to utility spells to round off any deficiencies in offense, defense, or CC. This is one area where I think Elementalists get a good bag of tricks if they want to utilize them. Specifically, LEARN what each glyph and signet does since some are attunement based (glyph of storms comes to mind).

6. In PVP expect to learn to juggle elements for the situation you’re in. If you need to heal yourself drop into water when it’s feasible. If you need to burst down an enemy drop into fire or air.

7. HAVE FUN playing with traits until you find a play style in the class that fits you best (some love to juggle elements and use arcane utility spells, some love to switch between two elements (me), or whatever).

This post is in response to Gelrod’s nonsense that the Elementalist is all jack and no master in any trade. Lets look at the trait lines themselves for evidence.

You have the Fire line which focuses on power and condition duration. This is obvious because what are the two base components to a fire attack in most cases? DAMAGE (burst) and Burn (dot). So, the fact the line benefits those two is obvious.

What about Air? Precision and Critical Damage. Again, most air attacks are based on burst and cc. In particular, with the option to do more per critical attack chance (precision and critical damage).

Now onto the Earth line. Toughness and Condition damage are its focus. Obviously this follows since many of the Earth abilities are purely defense like Obsidian Flesh and Magnetic Wave. And then there’s the DOT component of many main hand attacks like Impale, Earth of Earth, and Eruption all of which really do most of their damage as a DOT.

Now, the only trait line that justifies any argument of jack of all ‘elements’ is the Arcane Power trait line which focuses on boon duration and attunement cool down reduction. Since all the abilities it would influence are primarily utility slot abilities like the Arcane Shield, Arcane Power, Arcane Wave, and Arcane Blast one can assume these are meant to be the bread and butter of the line with some side benefits for doing so by the attunement switching time reduction.

So, really, only one line out of four justify the jack of all trades thesis so far. Now, unless Gelrod can show me how this is justifiable I can’t see this argument holding any weight. If the Elementalist was meant to juggle attunements there would more inter-elemental bonuses for doing so outside of the Arcane Power trait line. In fact, some elements could be redesigned with a minor change in mind where they are complements or matching elements. Think Earth/Water as a tank spec or even conversely Earth/Fire or Fire/Water for strange mixtures of Tank/DPS or DPS/CC where there are major traits you can select to benefit the other element. I doubt Anet is going to do that this early in the game. Maybe in some future expansion sure, but now not a chance.

Yeah, I’m a bit confused on the PVP side of things, but tbh any multiplayer game with PVP turns by default into pubbies vs pre-mades calling targets. It’s no different in GW2.

As for PVE, I love doing scepter/dagger or even dagger/focus (odd combo, slow as hell, but it actually makes you tanky as well) with Earth as the primary attuned element with fire or water as the situation calls for (DPS or some healing or chill conditions).

Are you using the Earth D/D skills as your main DPS? If so, it should be noted people with half the sense will always have a cleanse on their utility slot to remove all condition damage like burning (fire) and bleeding (earth). So, expect your DPS to take a hit. I’m not sure, but I would hazard a guess air would be a better element to attune to during your rotations since you can close gaps and do direct damage (basically, more burst less condition damage dependence). Mind you, Earth has plenty of things going for it, but not for D/D in pvp. Maybe scepter/dagger where you get some nice defensive skills on the MH (#2) and OH (#4/#5).