Guild Wars 2

Lithril Ashwalker.6230:

i still say the reason for the stealth hit was becasue of people that kittened too much about dying while they were trying to roam around WvWvW alone and got punished by a thief. your not suppseod to roam around anyway – whiners got their way. ANYOEN can kill a thief in OR outta stealth. there was no reason to make the change – should buffed OTHER classes instead of nerfing one

Well, it’s not like thieves lost their stealth or anything… They can still attack/kill roamers from stealth. It helped a lot in PvP where all that stealth was a little ridiculous.

It’s hard not to agree with this.
I hopped into tPvP with a couple of guildies and we communicated via voice-chat, but we had to pick up two random players. We tried talking to them in team chat, but they seemingly didn’t notice. So annoying. I would rather just do a 3v3 than get stuck with people who should really be doing hotjoin.

One and two are so true that it just makes me hate that part of the game. Why not just have people respawn at 0 health if they can’t figure out how to balance downed abilities? Some are pretty clearly superior and, honestly, what’s the point anyway?

Three is a great idea and I have no idea why it doesn’t work like that. The good news is, I’ve gotten into tourneys pretty quickly lately.

I really don’t have the time, or patience, to read every post on here, but I mostly agree with the OP. I don’t agree with the OP’s completely out-of-left-field comment about eles when the rest of the post was fairly generalized, though.

They made GW2 avoid the typical roles found in MMO’s, but instead it created new roles. I honestly hate this. It just seems like a complete fail to me.
My biggest issue in PvP, though, is that it seems each class has only one or two build(s) that actually work well. The rest of the traits/skills seem almost useless. There are even weaponsets for each class that are generally considered to be superior. It feels so incredibly imbalanced that I would probably quit playing if it weren’t for my boyfriend. I cannot find a class that doesn’t have balance issues for most possible builds.
The amulets are probably one of the biggest issues. Your gear, traits, weapons, etc, are COMPLETELY different in Heart of the Mists, yet there is very little customization for your overall attributes in PvP compared to either PvE or WvW. This seems like either an oversight or complete laziness on ArenaNet’s part. Instead of multiple trinkets or whatever, we get an amulet and a jewel. If we want stats that compliment any build besides the norm, too bad for us!
I am so frustrated with PvP right now, I just don’t have any motivation to play anything but my engineer—Which I’m sure will get nerfed soon because that’s all they know how to do. I guess it’s too difficult to buff multiple traits/skills when they can just nerf one or two!

Taril, I think you and I have similar play styles with our builds. I wish they’d do something about that useless passive effect on Signet of Fire, but your build seems to utilize the extra crit chance better than mine.
Sabull, I’ve been really curious about making a build with 30 points in Air, but I hadn’t even thought of changing to Scepter main hand. Very interesting build.

The healing for Cleansing Wave and for swapping into water are both scaled 1:1 with your healing power. So, your first option will heal for 211 more than your second option. It will be less of a difference for Cone of Cold (the healing breath move). I would recommend the second option since you’re a clothie in melee. Sadly, I had the same dilemma. If you want, look up my previous thread titled “Healing stat on D/D useless??”

I’m not sure whether you mean the trait line or the skills, but I use both heavily on my D/D.
I have 30 points in Earth magic and I focus a lot on auras and condition damage. Earth is GREAT for stacking bleeding. Churning Earth is absolutely one of my favorite moves. Start casting it, then hit Signet of Air to blind the players around you and make their interrupt fail then BAM! Not fail-proof around thieves since they can interrupt constantly, but a lot of thieves are more likely to move out of the way just to be safe. Earth’s moves 2, 4, & 5 are all AoE and I love them. The auto-attack is a fast way to stack some bleeding.

PhelanDisturbed.1650:

Hahahahaha!

Yeah, I had originally reserved engi for my bf, but he didn’t like it. His class choice is heavily dependent on the weapons they have and he didn’t like any of the options for engi. He prefers melee. So now I have an ele and an engi that I love and he jokes that I’m gonna get carpal tunnel. XD
I’m the opposite of your gf, though. I only PvP. lol. I just have no patience for leveling. If it was only to level 20, I’d do it, but 80? Ugh. I only leveled my Priest in WoW because once you got to level 10 (ish?) you could level entirely through PvP. Albeit, slowly.

I’m close to being a bunker, but mostly it’s just a balanced build: 3k attack; 3k toughness; 24k health. I use Pistol/Shield and the Bomb Kit.
What’s your build like?

PhelanDisturbed.1650:

People just knock us so often because they can’t quite figure us out. Not that I’m complaining. I like being the rare breed… And an underestimated one at that. :p

Me, too! I made an elementalist that was so completely different from everyone else’s because I couldn’t stand having the same build. lol.
Then I got started on my engineer and, honestly, it might one day become my main. I didn’t expect to love it so much because people always seem to give up on the engineer class. I kick kitten in sPvP and it is not easy to take a point from me. Do not approach me alone unless you want to die in a fiery explosion! =P

Sororita.3465:

No such thing in WvW…my guardian can survive a very long time with 3 80 thieves on it…the engy gets steam rolled even playing smart.

An engi shouldn’t be able to handle 3 thieves unless it’s a tank build. Sounds kinda like you are comparing different build types.

I can’t say that I don’t use Elixirs, but I do think I have an abnormal build.
Engies are very versatile and have decent base stats. It is SUCH an improvement from the frustration of working on an ele build. I switch to my engi for a breath of fresh air and to kick some butt. (Edited: Apparently when it changes a bad word to “kitten” it leaves off the punctuation.) I love the bomb kit and the shield. Having solid stats and a super-fun play style make engi one of the best classes IMHO.

I lol’d. I did not notice the similarities. =P

I still consider my main to be my ele, but I couldn’t resist the urge to create an engi—probably because it’s been called the weakest class.

I LOVE my engi in sPvP and I am so glad I created her! I rock the bomb kit and enjoy the hell out of it.

My Engi build that I have fallen in love with for sPvP.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mVMzM9Mz0MNoGMMNoGMa0xx0cVkqMob8khV7khf7070z7khA707kGo70V7owY8ofy

Pistol/Shield (though the pistol is kinda useless — except for the blind)
Sigil of Superior Hydromancy/Sigil of Superior Energy
Superior Runes of Strength

10/0/30/30/0
Explosives III
Inventions V, VII, XI
Alchemy II, VI, XII

Slot skills:
Elixir H
Bomb Kit
Elixir B
Elixir S

Elite Skill:
Supply Crate

So, I end up with 3,201 attack, 3,075 toughness, and 24,522 health.

I focus mainly on holding points, but I’m also good at getting the Orbs in Spirit Watch (my favorite map). My build gets most of its damage from using the bomb kit, which is surprisingly viable in PvP. In hot join it often takes 2-3 people to take me down and I have been told that I am not easy to take out. Maybe that isn’t terribly exciting, but I was proud since Engies are oft considered the weakest PvP class.

I’m curious if there are any other eles out there running builds that are different from the norm. The most common build I’ve seen is 0/10/0/30/30 and occasionally I see slight variations from that. I’d like to see some successful builds with less than 30 points total dedicated to Arcana and Water. Let us know if your build is for sPvP, PvE, or WvW.

Feel free to post a link to your build, but try to give us the basics, like traits, weapon(s), utility skills, amulets, etc, and not just an outside link. It seems most of the build calculators have a few minor errors and I find that irritating, so I know I can’t be the only one.

Here’s my current main build for sPvP:

20/0/30/20/0
Fire: III Ember’s Might, IX Fire’s Embrace
Earth: II Signet Mastery, V Elemental Shielding, XII Written in Stone
Water: I Aquamancer’s Alacrity, VII Stop Drop and Roll

D/D
Sigil of Superior Geomancy
Sigil of Superior Energy
Superior Runes of the Earth

Slot Skills:
(I sometimes change these up)
Ether Renewal
Signet of Air
Signet of Fire
Cleansing Fire

Carrion Amulet w/ Shaman’s Jewel

So, my overall attributes look like this:
Attack- 2,666
Crit Chance- 8%
Armor- 2,426
Health- 18,495
Cond Dam- 1,173
Cond Dur- 20%
Healing Power- 275

Ugh. My computer crashed and I finally got it back up again. I’m not gonna be able to reply to all of you this time. Sorry. D=

This is what I’ve gathered so far……

Healing stat is NOT useless for D/D ele IF you follow certain criteria in your build. That’s… fine, I guess. Annoying that I have to be like everyone else and spec heavily into Water and Arcana for it.

In short, here’s how to make healing for D/D viable:

30 points into Water- Make sure you get condition removal and cantrip-related Traits;
30 points into Arcana- Make sure you get Elemental Attunement and Evasive Arcana;
10 points wherever you want it- Why not do Air like everyone else?
Make sure your health is between 10k and 14k to get the most out of your healing. (It will be if you follow this.)
You’ll still die if you don’t use 2-3 cantrips and plenty of condition removal, though.
Use Signet of Restoration for your heal slot.
Pick an amulet. You’re choices are Cleric’s Amulet, Cleric’s Amulet, or Cleric’s Amulet.

If I sound bitter, it’s only because I am.

Oh, two more things… Most people don’t stand beside me waiting for me to heal them. In fact, they generally don’t pay any attention to me what-so-ever. I do my best to run around behind my teammates to heal them, but in a lot of cases a larger, targeted AoE works best. I’m not asking for that, I’m just letting you know that half of my AoE heals do not heal my teammates because they run away the second I click it. Dodge rolling into them is definitely the most sure way to heal allies for a D/D ele.

And, like someone else kinda mentioned, we don’t really have a whole lot of ways to get Auras via combo fields. In fact, we have only one way of doing it on our own (which is totally ridiculous to rely on). We have to create a fire field, then switch to Earth and use Magnetic Grasp, hope it lands, then use Magnetic Leap. I don’t think I have ever done it quick enough to actually get Fire Aura/Armor from it, because you lose a second when attuning and it takes half a second to cast Magnetic Grasp then about half a second for it to become Magnetic Leap, and then Magnetic Leap has to animate (though it might trigger part-way through the animation, rather than on landing….. maybe).

ThiBash.5634:

That makes sense. I do prefer that. However, I was quite disappointed when I first realized that it wasn’t a 120 second cooldown that starts immediately. lol.

Vicarious.3047:

Ok, the frost mage comparison might be a bit of an over exaggeration, especially since Anet isn’t catering to Eles like Blizz does with those OP mages lol

But their single target damage is pretty freaking high, MANY tPvP teams I’ve come across have switched out their burst thieves or 100B warriors cause their D/D eles burst just as much but can survive a thousand times longer.

Ofc those D/D eles have to sacrifice Aura sharing, which in it’s own right is extremely freaking powerful lol

I know for a fact the D/D eles can’t burst that high. Unless you are counting the added damage from a Fire Elemental, which I still don’t think adds up to that much.

Either way, the problem is more or less our DPS, not burst damage. Burst damage isn’t all that helpful when you have really long cooldowns and nothing to make up for it. Our “burst damage” is also generally easier to evade than most classes.

Also, yeah, the other classes don’t generally have to “sacrifice” to get high burst damge. =/

Vicarious.3047:

Didn’t realize my comment would be hard to understand, seems pretty straight forward to me o.O

I mean an ele can fully heal themselves 3 times in 10 seconds while in a full burst spec and continue keeping up pressure on their target….

Seems fine to me lol

lolwut?

You a troll?

Please, tell me how one would accomplish that!

ThiBash.5634:

Maybe we will get a way to have a permanent elemental summon too then someday.

Would be interesting concept…a signet version of the summons. Though maybe better not on the elementalist…

I’d be slightly satisfied if they reduced the cooldown on the Glyph of Elementals or just made it work differently. I don’t understand why the cooldown doesn’t start until my Elemental is dead. That is weird. Honestly, I almost feel like I’m cheating when I use the Elemental, though. I prefer to win on my own merit, y’know?
Unfortunately, it’s the only elite skill available that I actually like.

ThiBash, I used “support” not “heal” for a reason. There is not really a way to get the stuff you need as a supporter because of the way the Traits are laid out. D/D has the most/best access to Auras, but you have to spec 20 into Fire to get the Fire Aura on Signet use, and 30 into Water to be able to share Auras with allies, then you only have 20 points left and you can’t even get the Earth trait that allows you to maintain passive effects of Signets. You’re probably also going to want the 10 point trait in Air that makes Auras give swiftness, but you also practically need 20 points in Earth to get Protection from Auras and 20% reduced cooldown on Signets. Even if you can successfully choose to eliminate one of those traits, you won’t have anything in Arcana—which most say is necessary.

Why give us the Auras? To tease us?? D=
If we can’t use those well, then we should have weapon heals that are equivalent to the Staff.
SOMETHING needs to be fixed. I am just giving a multitude of options on these forums in hopes that someone will listen/understand.

Vicarious.3047:

Ele complaining about not being powerful enough?

It’s like Frost Mages all over again!!!!!! I thought I had escaped that kind of player when I quit WoW!!!!!!

:(

Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. I take offense to that! Totally different!
We could definitely use more powerful single-target stuff. Frost Mages in WoW were straight broken.

Lert.6287:

Either in sPvP and WvW one has no problem going for 1300healing without runining every other stats. Don’t forget it might go 250 higher due to sigil of life and at WvW it’s even higher due to 7% healing power improvment ’’Medic’’ grants you.
In sPvP cleric amulet gives 798h.p. according to wiki. Another 300 comes from points in water. It can go 165 (from runes) and 250 (from sigil) higher – so guess max is 1513 at sPvP (might be wrong). So regeneration gives 320health per sec and soothing mist around 160. Cleasing wave itself gives 2815.
I’m not going to argue you over internet mate, but don’t you see people would be more likely to agree with me than with you?

Did you read the original post? Even a little? lol.
I specifically based my numbers around the Cleric Amulet and Jewel, giving 925 healing power. Then I added 300 to that for the Water Trait line, bringing it to 1225. If you want to get a little extra then you use the runes. However, that barely brings it above 2.5k. If you are using the Sigil of Life successfully on a support ele build that has 1225 dedicated to healing power, you are either some kind of ridiculous PvP beast or you are playing 3 year old girls.

I love you guys for posting great, intelligent things. I agree with Minion of Vey, TheGuy, and Zenith wholeheartedly! <3

GrandmaFunk, I get that it is a balanced build. But it still uses what everyone considers to be the minimum required traits from Water and Arcana. Which is what this thread is all about. We think they need to make it so that we can branch out a little more. It doesn’t need a full overhaul or anything, just a revamp.

Lert.6287:

I’m sorry, but don’t you see that the problem is rather you? Not the ele’s healing power.
Look for eg. ranger – best you can do is to improve just a little healing skill with quite much no self-regeneration.
Running with 140-150hp rec/sec from soothing mist and twice as much from regeneration applied by cleric elementalist is huge difference. Beside that ~450hp/sec healing ele can recover 7k health of party member in no time:
>Be around ally during battle
>Dodge switching to water
>Cleasing Wave – 5
With healing gear each of those 3 gives 2.5-3k health. The triple combo you can do every 40sec, else 2/3 every 10sec = 5k health.

Sure…. we can all agree that ele is still so underpowered far behind rangers and necros.

Sorry, but you must not be talking about PvP. It is not possible to get your healing quite that high in PvP because of the limited amulets. But, uh, thanks for trying?

Dolan.3071:

Daggers = greater damage and mobility
Staff = greater support and healing.

It is as simple as that.

Indeed, it would seem that way. D=
However, the point of GW2 was supposed to be that you could have pretty much any build you wanted. You should be able to focus on just about anything (within a realm of reason, of course) in any class and make it viable. And why give me those lovely heals and clearly meant-for-a-support-role Auras, but make a support build lame? You can’t possibly focus on all the things needed in a D/D support build because of the Trait lines. Which is another topic entirely, I know…. Ugh.

Jarek.2430:

Honestly, I entirely ignored Water Trident in the Wiki because I assumed it was an underwater ability. lol. That was silly of me to overlook. At least now I see why some people use Scepter.

I am also admittedly a bit confused by how you are showing it. Sorry. D=

100 healing power should give

WEAPONS
Staff:
Water Blast = +10 healing
Geyser = +25 healing (but techinically x3)
Healing Rain = +50 total healing

Dagger (Main):
Cone of Cold = +32 healing

Dagger (Off):
Cleansing Wave = +100 healing

Sceptor:
Water Trident = +100 healing

HEAL SKILLS
Signet of Restoration = +50 healing
Heal bonus per cast = +10 healing

Glyph of Harmony = +75 healing
Regen (when in Water) = +125 total healing

Ether Renewal = +120 healing

This is according to the Wiki page for each, individual skill.

Please note that healing per second is just as important (if not more so) than burst healing. Especially since the largest “burst heal” heals for about 20%, or less, of your total health.

First of all, I would like to say that I am comparing a D/D ele in the sense of a support class. I am not necessarily concerned with healing MYSELF with these heals. I have the cool AoE heals for my teammates (I don’t think Cone of Cold even heals me when I use it-I sure as heck have not noticed it doing so), but it seems they have overlooked D/D as a good support weaponset. It just feels like a silly overlook to me.

Minion of Vey.4398:

For anyone using signet of restoration, D/D also heals more than the staff with that too due to faster attacks.

That is, indeed, a very good point. I suppose I didn’t think of it because I don’t like that Signet. It’s a great concept, but it seems to not work properly. I have no idea what it considers “Spells” because it definitely doesn’t seem to keep me alive as well as Ether Renewal. I both love and hate using Ether Renewal, but it seems to work best in actual battle (PvP).

Thrashbarg.9820:

The first thing you said is good info, if somewhat obvious. Eles don’t have a lot of damage mitigation that they can share with their teammates, however. It is soooo annoying when I can’t help my teammates stay alive for kitten, then one of them heals me practically to full in 2 seconds flat from about 10% health. I feel so useless when that happens. I don’t even know how they do it! I’m pretty sure my Necro heals better than my ele! Those Wells.

The second paragraph……. lol. I play a D/D ele. Standing around? Hahahahahah, like I could even TRY to stay alive that way. If I’m standing in one spot for more than a second, it’s because I’m casting an AoE.

The third paragraph is good info and truly seems to be an answer to my orginal question. Thank you. BUT…. the 1,200 range should more than make up for not having a gap-closer. My RtL has a base 20 sec recharge and it’s hardly viable to get the cooldown reduction trait in Air for a single move. Air is not strong enough to waste the trait points. RtL is the only good long-range move I have and people still cry over that kitten.
Oh, and to elaborate more on the Signet of Restoration: Until they make it so that Auras can stack, it’s useless for me to have more than a couple signets, unfortunately. I end up wasting them too quickly because I need the others more. I chose to eliminate Signet of Restoration because it seems the least helpful (and consistent). I like Ether Renewal.

Dingle.2743:

I guess I should have said that a little better. What I mean is that I cannot stand toe to toe with a Staff ele healing-wise and/or support-wise. I am comparing the weapon sets as if both were being used for support. Which is why I asked if ArenaNet just doesn’t want D/D eles to be good at support. I find that ridiculous if it is the case.
I don’t think I’ve ever fought a Staff ele 1v1, so I couldn’t tell you whether or not I’d beat them.

Yes, we can be support, but not very good support compared to multiple other classes even. It is very unfortunate.

Also, you generally cannot afford to put that much into healing as a D/D ele because to survive long enough for that to be helpful you need Vitality and some Toughness. In fact you should have Reduced Water Cooldown, Cantrips, Condition Removal, Extra Heals, etc…. But OH WAIT those are ALL in the same trait line. I’m simply explaining why it is obnoxious that Staff eles have more healing available in their weapon set and therefore it is easier for them to make a build around.

Vicarious.3047:

I still can’t believe there are eles complaining about not healing enough……. I mean, SERIOUSLY!?

Please, feel free to elaborate. Your strange outburst means nothing to me without some facts to back it up.

Kodiak.3281:

If they improve Fire to affect other trees more and offer more synergy with burns then it might not be so bad for a Condition based build that’s built around Carrion gear (massive Vitality), Toughness from Earth, and large amounts of condition duration/damage.

This is essentially my build.
I run 20/0/30/20/0 right now with Carrion Amulet and Shaman’s Jewel for PvP. Just switched from 30/0/30/10/0 because Fire’s Grandmaster Traits are pretty useless. I also needed condition removal which is (annoyingly) only a water thing.
I don’t agree that Condition Duration is particularly useful, though. I need more ways of getting stacks because they remove them so easily. Especially with a Necro around… And Necros tend to have the highest health.

GrandmaFunk: And my point is that if you were trying to show variety in builds, you fell short. You still focused on Water and Arcana which proves the lack of variety.

No, I am not missing the point, I just thought that what I meant was inferred in the statement. They make it so that we need to switch elements a lot to stay alive, but yet there are a LOT of traits that are only good if you stay in one element.

Exactly how I feel about condition damage. They really need to fix the way it works. And since it doesn’t seem to even work the way it should half the time, I don’t know how they’ll do it.

I would say that all of our trees tend to focus on one element too much, but especially Fire and maybe Air and Earth. They really need to do something about our traits.

Kirin.7306:

I tried staff in WvW and it was suicide.
Why did they ever nerf this?

Staff is mostly support now. =/
But hey, they are REALLY good at support! lol

GrandmaFunk.3052:

I rock a balanced condition/survival DD build that runs 15/0/20/20/15 in WvW and I do just fine.

That…. is hardly impressive. You still have 20 in water and 15 in arcane. If you made a build with 10 or less in each, then maybe that would prove the point that the trait lines aren’t bad.

I run 30/0/30/10/0 on my main and I’m not too bad. Honestly, a lot better now that I know weapon swap sigils work for eles. o_O

TheGuy, thank you for posting that, however it changes nothing. My statement still stands that D/D is weaker than Staff healing-wise.

Thank you, ThiBash for the info. I am truly appreciative. However, it is unfair that I cannot stand toe-toe with a Staff ele in PvP.

I am not even sure if half of you read the original post.

D/D eles are clearly weaker than staff eles at healing. I am curious if this is an oversight, or if they really just didn’t want D/D eles to also have super strong healing builds like the Staff ele.

Yes, like I have said at least twice now, I realize that there are traits that improve the healing aspect. However the traits are the same for ALL ELEMENTALISTS. Which means I am disregarding those in this comparison because I am comparing the DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE TWO.

Doctor Orderly MD PhD DDS.7625:

Although not specific to D/D ele,
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_Ripple
scales excellently with healing power.
that + cleansing wave = practically a 2nd slot 6-heal skill

Did not mean to leave you out! : )
However, yeah, it still bothers me that that is available to all eles. I feel weak (healing-wise) compared to staff eles who can just stay on the outskirts of the battle and heal their allies with super strong heals, while I have to be right in the thick of it with lamer heals.

Mckeone.9804:

I’d put together a broad list of the changes I would make with accompanying explanations, but I get the impression it would probably just be wasted.

I would certainly like to see it! However, you are right that the devs probably will not see it. D=

I wish I understood what you people are talking about, so I’ll try to address you individually…

Torqky.3682:

You are crazy. You have heals that scale 1.0 for every healing power… Your good healing skills all align with good specs/traits etc.

Hahahahahahahahahahah! Where do you see that? Cleansing Wave does and that is hardly enough. Which I guess is why it has a ridiculous recharge. Still, it is not powerful enough to offset that recharge (I’m counting the 20% reduced cool-down). Most players have low-recharge attacks that BLOW THIS HEALING OUT OF THE WATER.

Natedogg.9254:

So… just to be clear, you want each tick of the healing cone to heal for your full healing power?

Now that wouldn’t be absurd or anything.

That is not even close to what I said. =/
I’ll explain as simply as I can, though. Cone of Cold has a base heal of 740. If one has a healing power of 1,225, then the math would look like this:
740 + (0.32 * 1225) = 1132
Which means that Cone of Cold heals for a total of 1,132 per use. That is split between 4 tics, which means 283 health per tic. Yeah, it’s a noticeable increase per tic, but that’s still pretty lame considering most teammates run out of the cone before getting all 4 tics. If 283 doesn’t look like a lame amount of healing to you, then you must not realize how dps works.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

So doubling the value of the heal is “terrible” ?? 0_o

Uh, no. That 32 second recharge even with the 20% faster cooldown is just crazy. But yeah, other games have higher multipliers for good heals or you have more ways of getting higher healing power. A multiplier of 1 for healing power that cannot even come close to as high as the stats for power, toughness, vitality, etc. is not all that great. Even conditions (which generally can’t get any higher than healing power) at least can have stacks.

Speaking of which, condition damage per second is easily brought to 600 (per stack!) for burning. Regenerate doesn’t even ever get that high; at 1,225 healing power, regenerate tics for 283.125. That is laughable. We have limited options for dealing with conditions and the lowest health? Poorly planned out, IMO.

Seriously, can someone show me the math before telling me I’m wrong?? Is someone on the wiki trolling and giving false info? If not, everything I am showing you is exact, impeccable math as far as I know.

I guess my point is that it could be a lot better. It’s kind of ridiculous how high the recharge is on Cleansing Wave. The only reason (IMHO) that D/D ele isn’t completely useless with healing is because of the traits that give other heals—which are available to all eles, not just D/D. They’ve made it so that we practically depend on the water trait-line, but the +300 healing power we get from it is utterly useless. I hate that.

Am I the only one who feels like it’s hardly useful to spec into healing power? Let’s say you get 925 healing power from your amulet and 300 from speccing into Water. That puts you at 1,225 assuming you aren’t getting any other bonuses. What, exactly, does that mean for your heals?

DAGGER:
Cone of Cold goes from 740 to 1,132 (8 sec CD) ((Oh, and for those who didn’t know “The healing is separated into 4 small heals which added up to the amount stated…” according to the Wiki. Which means it doesn’t do 1,132 healing per person unless there is only one person AND they stay in the cone))

Cleansing Wave goes from 1,302 to 2,527 (32 sec CD—Holy cow, that is terrible)

STAFF:
Water Blast goes from 370 to 492.5 (With no CD, so not bad for those who use Staff, I guess. “1 attack per 1.35 seconds” according to Wiki, which means Water Blast would heal 11,851 in 32 seconds if spammed… which I don’t think actually happens, but still. That is approximately 5x better than Cleasning Wave! )

Geyser goes from 808 [x3] to 1114.25 [x3] (16 sec CD, which means in half the time it takes Cleansing Wave to recharge it does about 30% more healing; In other words, Geyser does 2.5 times more healing than Cleansing Wave in the same amount of time. )

I could go on, but basically what I’m getting at is this: Healing in this game sucks for D/D elementalists. It doesn’t even come close to mitigating enough damage. You might as well get Vitality or Toughness because even at max you aren’t going to out heal most character’s dps.

Is it because they don’t really want healing to be a part of the game? If so, why does it seem like Guardians and Staff Eles have much better heals? D/D eles have the same base stats as Staff eles, but they have to rely on close combat and they don’t even get close to decent heals?? Daggers have quite a few good support moves, so why would they kitten the healing aspect of the skills for what was obviously meant to be a support class?

Please, let me know if I am incorrect on these numbers or anything else.

ThiBash.5634:

For me, a good change would be to move Renewing Stamina to Fire, and change Elemental Shielding to trigger on signets instead of auras. That would open up some new playstyles imho.

No! Not my Elemental Shielding!! Fire has IX Fires Embrace that gives an aura when you use a signet. That should just be bumped down to Adept, or they should throw in some better Adept Traits. It feels like a waste to put the first 10 points in Fire when I don’t like any of the traits for my build.
Also, Fire needs a better replacement for XI Persisting Flames. I am undecided on XII Pyromancer’s Puissance, as it seems great, but it really isn’t that easy to get a lot of stacks. The best way to do it is to auto-attack for 10 seconds. lol.

Hahaha, so he/she has to figure it out on their own, but they pretty much have to put 30 in water and 20-30 in aracana? Well, there goes the customization part of making a build! lol.

Honestly, you should decide what you want to focus on first. Damage output or survivability? Then you can go from there.

Cinnamon Goddess.3869:

Now sense everyone seems to be building their Ele’s basically the same way this is also another problem. What is the point of having other options on building your Ele if all the other builds suck? Are the other build options just fluff? What is with Arcana anyways? That isn’t one of the four elements. A fifth option is great but why cant I have a great Fire Ele or a great Water Ele? I would like to see the Ele class brough more in line with the current best classes in GW2….and please Arenanet don’t weaken the other classes as you often do bring the weaker classes up. Make the game fun for all class and all builds of all classes.

I so agree. <3
I hate that everyone tells me to build a certain way. If I have only one or two “options” for my build, something is wrong. Mind you, most classes have a couple of preferred builds, but you don’t get insulted in-game for using something different.

In my opinion, Fire and Earth are centered on AoE, so it doesn’t bother me that they aren’t very powerful against a single-target, but I think we should have a stronger single-target attack in Air and Water to make up for it.

I read a post on another thread where someone suggested that they should have AoE attacks perform slightly differently. For example, have it do 3k damage total and if it hits multiple targets, the damage is split between them. However, I think they would have to add a total damage multiplier per person. So maybe it’d look more like this: 3k damage if it hits one person, 4.5k split between two people, 6k for 3 people, 7.5k for 4 people, etc. Then it’d be stronger for a single target AND it would be less powerful (damage per person) against more than 3ish.

Obviously a very rough idea, though. lol.

OHMYGOD. I have been living a lie! Weapon-swap sigils work for eles???? I both hate and love ArenaNet right now. First of all, that is awesome! Second of all, WHY DO ALL OF THE DESCRIPTIONS FOR THINGS HAVE TO BE SO DIFFICULT TO INTERPRET AND INCONSISTENT? I should have known to look it up after all the other issues I’ve had with horribly defined things. Thank you.

However, with that said, I still don’t think we have enough weapon choices.

>>>Have you considered asking any Engs what they think? Eles have it easy compared to Engs.

There, did that make you feel better? :-)<<<

I wish it made me feel better, but I already know that engineer is the weakest class in PvP…. Being better than the weakest isn’t much better. D= lol

>>>you’re shooting yourself in the foot to not take advantage of that fact<<<

Probably very true. However, like I said, I hate doing the same thing as everyone else. It isn’t fun. Isn’t that why so many people left WoW for GW2?? Elementalist is the only class that I truly love (it’s closest to my priest), so I really hope that they don’t leave it in it’s current state. It needs to be expanded in some way.

Like I’ve said in one of my posts before (somewhere…..), I would be happy if they just gave me more amulet options. But new weapons would be great. Or just a revamp of the weapons we have. I like certain aspects of scepter, but there is no advantage I see in actually using it.

((Why is this box so small? I hate having to scroll up and down so much. lol.))

>>>it is not possible, but imho this is how ele should be<<<

I would have to disagree. I should be able to spec into condition damage. I almost can make a good build of it, but not quite. There are a lot of little things that make it difficult and if they just fixed one or two things, I’d be set. Condition damage in general is pretty lame with how it stacks, but I could work around that issue if they gave me another attack that puts more than one stack. Condition removal is a dime a dozen. I have to also focus on power on my condition build, but that sucks for a—sorry, THE ONLY— class that has the lowest base health and toughness.

>>>then dont play 30/x/x/x/x
right now I play 0/25/0/25/20, on pve ber/ram gear on pvp more balanced but in certain party setups also ber gear<<<

Why not? Besides, like I said in my orginal post, I’ve tried almost every build imaginable. I, too, loved speccing into water and using all those lovely cantrips… Until I realized that is exactly what everyone else does. Besides, you do not know the full details of my build: Amulet, Jewel, Sigils, Runes, Slot Skills, etc. =P

I want the signets to be a little better, too, maybe? That would help a condition build. Especially the Signet of Fire. That one is…. lame. It would also be nice if they put some condition removal somewhere other than just water. Most other classes have traits that are, I don’t know, more evenly distributed?

Oh, and the only reason I don’t WvW is because I don’t PvE, so I think that means I’m weaker than everyone else. Unless they changed that.

Baladir.2736:

It’s easy to aim the cones. 1) target the player 2) get in the other characters face. d/d has three skills that do that, two automatically. 3) take your finger keys off the movement keys and fire. The game will hit every time even if the target is moving. It will even instantaneoulsy swivel you 180 to hit a character behind you. If you already know this than please ignore the post, but then I dont know why you are having problems.

No, that does not work for cones. Maybe if they have no speed bonuses, but most players do. Oh, wait are you talking PvE? Yeah, duh. PvE is easy.
Anyhow, when targeting another player with a cone, it usually drags a— behind them as they move.

Edit: Also, like I said, I do use Ride the Lightning for that. Maybe I’m having a brain fart, but what 3 moves are you talking about??

Edit: Oh, Magnetic Leap? That is a poor move to rely on as you have to get both off without being interrupted, blinded, etc.

Kodiak.3281:

The Fire line only helps fire. On a class that encourages swapping attunements having 10-30 points in a line that only assists one attunement is kinda a bad investment.

The Air tree has really bad Grandmaster traits that are Master level quality. The only time you end up specing 30 Air instead of 20 Air is if you want the crit/crit dmg.

The Earth tree is lackluster. It’s trait setup is poor to encourage Condition builds. Signets in general are terrible because they’re 30s cool downs with 3-4s effects. Signet of Fire is good, but has an issue with it being Power and not Condition damage. Water is novel but is vastly outpaced by the Water line’s condition management. Air is outpaced by permanent swiftness which is easy to obtain in a variety of specs. Earth isn’t bad but could use a 1s bump on it’s active effect. A lot of it could be solved if they moved Geomancer’s Alacrity to Adept to allow for a Condition build which would synergize with Signets (which are more conditions). The rest of the defenses that this tree gets are vastly outpaced by the Water tree (outside of the 10 points for the free “Armor of Earth” which is what you commonly see).

Water is your quintessential Elementalist tree. It has many small working components and heals that all add up to a large amount. It also improves our most powerful utility slots: Cantrips. It provides supreme condition management with Cleansing Water especially with our numerous sources of Regeneration.

Arcane used to be absurdly good as well back with Evasive Arcana was a blast finisher for everything. Instead it’s been pretty lack luster ever since and can easily drop to 20 points and still cover all the major abilities while still rocking good attunement cool downs.

When you break down the trees like that, it isn’t hard to see why people spec the way they do. They need to sort out the Earth tree to really bring the Condition/Signet build on par with other builds as well as open up Fire’s benefits to work on additional trees while looking at coming up with some alternatives for Grandmaster Air (the reactive stun isn’t bad but you see that kind of thing as a Master trait for other classes). If they do this, we should see some good build diversity.

THIS.

Baladir.2736:

sapphyredragon.6437:

I think a few people are missing the point… We’re talking about the limited options for ele. Yes, the few builds that work well are great. Congrats. We don’t all want to waste 30 points in Arcana and 20-30 in Water, though.

I don’t think Earth is useless, but I guess I like that it gives toughness and condition damage. I always spec into Earth and get V (Elemental Shielding).

I am not so sure. If you are having problems outside of pvp surviving without a bunker build, there are other issues. Bunker builds are not at all needed in pve. Vitality, yes, but bunkers, no. The skys the limit in the number of builds one can craft with good vitality that do not need to have 30 in water to get decent vitality either.

This is especially true with exotic gear which frankly makes the game so much easier to play. I went thru all of Orr with under level karma green gear and found it very challenging. With exotic it is a cake walk, relitively speaking. Dungeons are so much easiler with exotic gear I can not tell you. Leveling up we were all level appropriate as soon as we qualified in green karma gear or inexpensive crafted gear. If people are having issues running these dungeons, which are almost all underlevel, in exotic gear, something is wrong and the build is probalby not the issue, as long as a character has decent vitality. And that doesn’t mean pvt gear either. My exotic rings and accessories have a total of 28 toughness. My gear is Lyssa gear which carries precision as its main attribute. There are no pvt runes on that. My build has only 15 in water. I have 17,000 health. I do just fine with that in Wvw and Pve. I do decent damage. I just don’t pretend I can run into a group of players in Wvw, outmanned, and survive lol.

I guess this thread is probably about all types of play, but I was talking about PvP. I don’t PvE…. lol. Sorry.

PvE is pretty well balanced for all classes, I would imagine. You at least have more options for everything that influences your attributes (besides your traits, of course).

I feel as though they created elementalist to excel in PvE, but they weren’t really sure what to do with it in PvP. It is really only good as a bunker build overall, everything else is situation dependent. Some builds more than others.

I’m gonna just ignore all the previous replies, because some of them were just……. pointless?

I totally know what you mean. Everything that we have that does high damage is an AoE of some sort and can fairly easily be dodged. We advertise every move we make, so anyone with skill can avoid the high-damaging stuff. I use D/D and often have to rely on RtL/Updraft to just get an almost guaranteed hit. (Updraft will knock them down, then I can hit them. lol.)
Don’t get me wrong, my AoEs are great in a big battle, but 1v1 is much harder. It’d be easier to aim my cones and whatnot if the movement in the game was more smooth. Maybe it’s because I’m Norn, though. =/

Agreed. I think the trait lines just need to be tweaked a little, though. I mostly like everything, just a few things in Air and Fire that could be better. Especially Fire.

I saw that they are looking into Greatsword for ele. That’s great and all, but totally useless for me. I would like another main- or off-hand weapon, not a two-handed weapon. (Though two new weapons would be best!)

Not being able to weapon-swap takes away a LOT from us, so we should be able to have more options for the perfect weapons. We lose the chance at all of the swap-related sigils, too, so we truly do need to spec into Arcana because of those losses. Otherwise, we are essentially gimping ourselves.

I think a few people are missing the point… We’re talking about the limited options for ele. Yes, the few builds that work well are great. Congrats. We don’t all want to waste 30 points in Arcana and 20-30 in Water, though.

I don’t think Earth is useless, but I guess I like that it gives toughness and condition damage. I always spec into Earth and get V (Elemental Shielding).