Guild Wars 2

Nikkinella.8254:

………. And i’ll eat them alive with conditions. Pin down on my bow does nearly 19k worth of bleeding…………

Lets just start with one of your claims.

The condition forumla is: (0.05 * Condition Damage) + 42.5 per stack per second at level 80

With a 1000 condition stat, that is 5%(1000)42.5, That is 5042.5= 92.5 damage per stack per second. 6 stacks for 12 seconds is 72 ticks. 72 times 92.5=6600 total damage. Please tell me how you got from 6,600 to 19,000 and how much condition you carry?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Baladir.2736:

We need to be able to get MORE STACKS of our 2 condtions. More stacks from more weapon skills, more options to stack from different attunements, instead of one trait in fire for bleeds, one mediocre sigil for bleeding, and a glyph for burning.

More stacks isnt the answer, in my opinion they need MORE conditions. Sure burning but Ele need access to other sources.

They should add “Arcane” Attunement. Aimed at giving conditions, this would be a “dark” attunement so the kills would have more of a “evil” feel to them but not Necro as necro is more about death. This sort of attunement could REALLY open up the class to proper condition builds.

More conditions sure lol. Why not ask for the moon.

Ya know, using the Arcane trait line for attunement conditions sounds nice actually. The things we get in Arcane now we use just to survive. We could get them for free and that only equals balance. So give me a self heal on water attunement for free. Give me evasive aracana for free. The heal and blast finisher there are the only things any good and are not OP. Give me renewing stamina for free.

Having an entire trait line devoted to survival and Getting to equality is a waste of trait points.

You should put that in suggestions forum.

Dadnir.5038:

“Burning precision” : 30% chance to cause burning on crit (adept fire magic)
“signet of fire” : 10s burn (20s CD)
“Glyph of elemental power” : 25% chance to trigger a condition depending of attunement

Just sit on earth with this and a sigil of earth on a scepter and you gain : perma bleeding (at least 13 stack), perma cripple and perma burning. Not even challenging…

When you are on air or water you will still add burning and bleeding on crit… plus weakness for air or chill for water. Come on I don’t like to say this but here, it’s a L2P problem… or perhaps a L2Gear and build problem ^^

Superior Sigil of Earth has a two second cooldown, provides one stack of bleed for 5 seconds. Maybe you are getting 2 stacks. That is not much to get excited about given the other options. (0.05 * Condition Damage) + 42.5 per stack per second at level 80.
Or take 5% of stat +42.5, per second per stack, times two stacks, is not alot at level 80. Probably why it is only about 70s on the TP.

Going 10 in Fire for Burning Precision. (0.25 * Condition Damage) + (320) + 8 damage per second at level 80. At least we are getting 25% of our condition damage and 4 times our level is added (the 320).

In other words, we don’t get alot for the couple of extra stacks of bleed using a valuable sigil slot. The one stack of burning however can add up to some decent numbers even without any condtion stats, over alot of time.

I can take the same number of points in condition and put it in power and get bigger results. In condition we are only getting a fraction of the stat added to the damage. In power, we get that stat multiplied by up to 200% by weapon skill coefficients. Granted condition is not mitagated by armor. But in a game where other classes can burst our health in light armor to zero in seconds, the time it takes to apply enough burns and bleeds to add up to anything takes too long. It’s a nice bonus though. I do like to see the stacks of bleeds from Eruption and Churning Earth. Too bad they cant both be had on the same weapon sets.

btw, the Glyph of Elemental Power only uses the attunement bonus that you were in when you proc the Glyph. It does not change bonuses as you change attunements. Maybe you knew that. I just was reading your post and interpreted what you said as thinking that you were procing all those condtions all the time in all the attunements as you change attunements. You only get one. You chose that one when you use it.

We need to be able to get MORE STACKS of our 2 condtions. More stacks from more weapon skills, more options to stack from different attunements, instead of one trait in fire for burning, one mediocre sigil for bleeding, and a glyph for burning.

Tristam Green.9178:

I’m relatively new to Elementalist. I have been playing it for about a month, and I am going to hit 80 tonight.

That said, I’ve leveled it exclusively betweeen WvW and Queen’s Jubilee zerging.

It doesn’t bother me that I can’t solo camps in WvW. I can disrupt trade routes with almost no effort with my staff, CC skills (Earth Magic is godlike) and a fire elemental to wreck a Veteran Guard’s day. To me, disrupting trade routes and preventing Yaks from leaving camps is just as important as capping those camps.

It is very important. Also, as you become more familiar with the class everything will fall more and more into place. With Staff for example, if you are going to lay down an Eruption for damage on the Yak, put a Lava Font, Frozen Ground, or Geyser on top of it at just the right time to stack Might, Frost Armor, or Mass Healing. The delay in the blast finisher of Eruption will allow you to lay a combo field down on top so they combo when the blast goes off. There’s a thread in here somewhere of elementalist tricks. Not everything is obvious at all.

CETheLucid.3964:

Lol, this thread.

“Hey guys, my friend laughed at ele”
“LOL BECAUSE ELE SUCKS”
“No, ele is very strong in most areas of the game.”
“OK Fine, Ele sucks in tPvP. That’s what I meant all long!”
“Further, unless your r40+ in tPvP you can’t have an opinion! Hahaha!”

Hm.

Nice. Further you could be more specific

“OK Fine, Ele sucks in tPvP (and add:only in the current meta, before that they were OP.)

as we know, metas change. This last one was for the worst for eles.

Hanako.1827

…………..no mater how good you play you’re pretty much scraping the average outcome any other class can put out without even doing half the effort..

I had to clip that out Hanako. Players often talk about the “effort”, as if sitting in a chair and hitting a few extra buttons was “effort”. They say we have to work so much “harder”. I guess maybe I had to put down the book I was reading to play the ele.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

The bigger problem in my Opinion is WvW. Pretty much any class can go solo, take camps, 1 Vs1….well almost, ele from what i have seen in WvW just cant. It has to much emphasis on the healing and support and not enough on damage (and conditions!)

The major heals of the ele come from players blast finishing the water fields they cast. That requires no healing power stats on the part of the ele. The support is CC which are that skills themselves which require no stats of any kind. Condition removal is for example, Healing Rain, a long cooldown skill, again no stats. Evasive arcana can remove conditions and going high into water traits can, but only to those in close proximity which is useless in a zerg. Going high in water traits in fact has nothing to do with support.

In other words, everything you mention and are looking for can be done by a glass cannon ele specd for damage. The determining factor of how much damage an ele puts out is simply the amount of vitality and toughness and “self” healing that player needs to stay alive. The better the player, the less they need.

Ryld.1340:

BlackBeard.2873:

Camps require a certain strategy, as well as a little more damage. If he took a little bit more damage (either condi or power), and looked up how to group up the camp npcs, cast glyph of elementals, and then aoe-nuke them in groups he would be able to do it. The only problem is, you have to go pretty fast b/c if someone shows up, you stand little chance when you have skills on CD against a competent human + a bunch of pretty strong NPCs.

It’s not nearly as complicated as you make it sound. You don’t need GoE or any elites to take a camp.

Are we talking about a basic un-upgraded camp? Or a fully upgraded? There’s a difference.

I’ve tried DD, SD, and most recently Staff. The staff is by far the easiest way, but takes longer. So long in fact that I someitmes have to deal with respawns.

I like the SD but have to resist the impulse to group them up on me while I proc Churning Earth. With Vets and a Supervisor beating on me, even with the protection of Earthquake, Arcane Shield, and Armor of Earth, I can die before it goes off lol. But, the aoe 3000+ crits and all the might stacked bleeds are so nice I can never resist.

DD is alot of work. Getting in melee range of one will pull alot of others as opposed to pullng just one or two NPCs at range. Instead of just picking off the ranged archers first, we now get to deal with them and a melee supervisor breathing on us at the same time.

Anyway, the Art of the Pull is part of the enjoyment of the game for me.

I followed a glass cannon mesmer around not too long ago. Omg, the npcs went down so fast I almost missed the entire fight. I definately have to work harder than he does. I don’t have a glass cannon build but unbuffed I am still about 1700 power, 1700 precision, 45% crit chance before fury, 50% crit damage, 1150 toughness, and 16k health. I need every bit of that 16k health in wvw. I have pretty much settled on that as my minimum.

Whatever, I am not into who does what best. Just if I am having fun. and I have fun running my elementalist.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Ryld.1340:

No, don’t get rid of the support and healing it does. It’s how I play Elementalist.

You play PvE only? I mostly play WvW and i think that is part of the problem for Ele i just dont see how it is viable in anything other then stand at the back of the zerg and heal people.

I like to do it all, Solo, small groups, and Zerg attacking and defending keeps and towers. I like to go solo taking camps and such. I just dont see how this is at all viable on Ele

lol. Solo as in 1v1, I don’t bother. I get up and go get a drink. So, I am not the one to give you an answer there. The rest of it we do fine. We don’t have alot of healing skills. If you are managing to just heal, I have to wonder what you are doing the other 90% of the time.

We have Renewing Stamina and Zepher’s Focus traits that give us alot of endurance for dodges.

11,600 is glass cannon territory. I run my ele with about 15,800 before buffs . We are expected to avoid damage with dodges. We compensate for our low vitality with health regeneration and heals which we get from skills and traits. Carry only as much vitality and toughness in your character as you need to survive and the rest into power and precision. I prefer a high crit build. Many do not run any condition damage or healing at all. Of those two, healing is more benificial than condition damage. The condition stat has a low return on investment imo. You can dump a substantial amountof points into the condition stat and will see very little percentage increase in damage numbers. If you wanted to increase condtion damage, you get better results out of condition duration and might stacking.

It is viable for fun

You don’t have to buy or craft any armor if you are short on mats or gold. There’s not much of a grind to get exotic armor in dungeons. You can also get exotic armor from the karma vendors located at the temples in Orr, 42,000 Karma apiece I believe.

finally Neko, something you say that mades sense to me! Although I am inclined to believe

A long explantion I know but what do you think?

I have to think the use of condition builds in the current tPvP and sPvP meta is what led the OP to be wondering about this. The other thing I notice about that meta is that Stabilty is up almost all the time on players, which would render our interrupts useless for procing the Runes of Perplexity.

@OP I see now where you were coming from. I popped into the Spvp forums and read this post

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/An-Elementalist-s-frustration/first#post2661968

and now also better understand your comment, “Go climb the soloq ladder beyond 200 or even 100 instead for a challenge:P”

Your post in that thread and the posts of other eles, and the consensus of the community on ele’s, in SPvp, TPvp are clear.

But, I don’t do that lol.

yes, it has become straight forward. I remember when it used to be much more challenging. And, there was a time we thought combo fields would be much more necessary to an outcome, Cc much more useful. Not that knowing any class well isn’t useful. I don’t know how many pugs you have been in recently Some are pretty helpless. But, anything in the game is expendalbe and unneccessary. The loss of the trinity.

You miss the point. Whether or not something is interesting, your post title, has nothing to do with anything else. If I see a girl, I may or may not find her interesting. I don’t care what other girls look like or what they do or do not do or what anyone else thinks. The relationship is between me and the girl. Between me and my elementalist in this case.

So, Mr. 1500 hours, if you find the class uninteresting , tell us why you have played and continue to play after so long. Let’s hear some truth here instead of what you brought into the forums in its place.

P.S. Spoiler for free. Btw, I solo supply camps with a staff lol. It is by far the easiest way for me.

also, Zephyr’s Focus with 10 in Air will regen endurance for dodges at 100% when channeling a skill. You might be amazed at how many skills are channeled.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Channeled_skill

Leveling up, crit chance is going to be low to proc Renewing Stamina from crits to get the vigor for endurance regen.

If having trouble with ranged, the staff also has a knockdown, a chill, and an immobilize.

in Pve the Elemental is always a great companion.

Avead.5760:

I sat down and thought about each gw2 class so far and out of them all ele seems to be the most boring non standout class at the moment.
Let me explain. Yeah the concept of switching elements is cool and looks sexy at first.But after playing more classes…Attunement swapping is something YOU do and its the way YOU percieve the game when playing on your ele. Your teammates dont care whether you switched from air to fire and did a combo to burst.All they care is that you did a cc and bursted…Now count the amount of ccs,mobility and burst skills we have,add their cooldown on the equation and you see that 20 skills arent that impressive at all!
Now if you accept that the main mechanic is actually a gimmick that does little to alter the result of your actual actions,what are you left with?
(lets pretend that staff doesnt exist!it really doesnt exist in pvp at least )…It cannot offer party wide effects such as quickness,stability (earth trait is a joke with its range),burn or prot on hits etc
It doesnt have any important field apart from fire,…It doesnt excell in mobility or cc and is very far away from having a condition build.
The only utilities that were ever non pure crap were selfish effects or pure damage boring skills…ele gets crappy signets,crappy glyphs with selfish effects aswell,semi decent selfish cantrips and pure damage arcanes with some minor utility added as blast finishers (wtf??)
Where are the game changing elites?
In the end its just a very straightforward class with mediocre versatily at best hindered by the inability to weaponswap and adjust its range…An ele simple doesnt have options in the fight.He just goes to attunement does a few skills and leaves the attunement in the same pattern over and over again (exclude perhaps fresh air builds)
The skills although flashy are boring and basic and any kind of pure support it has always been based on the traits elem attunement,evasive arcana and the whole water line! and its now nerfed to not having any worthwile effect in pvp due to abudance of condi spam
There i got it out of me and feel lighter !! And wow it was longer than i though

lmfao, I edited your post and left out everything other classes can do because I don’t care what they do lol. That concerns me none in the least and why should it? What is left is basically proof that you do not know how to play an ele. You have obviously done your book learning, but besides that, nothing of merit. Go solo some camps in Wvw or solo any but one champ in the game, hes impossible, in Pve, or provide artillery support for your favorite group in Wvw and then come back and talk to us, after you have learned to play the class.

Hold my application until after she’s gone. :0 I keep thinking I might feel like giving her a shot tommorrow. But, tommorrow hasn’t come.

and Why?.

For me, reasons have to be other than gold. There has been content in the past I enjoyed repeating for fun and challenge.

Jebus.6942:

By far the simplest way to do it in my experience is to grab a set of gear with 800+ Condition dmg, then use the fiery great sword skill 2 ONLY. That way he will simply die to burning dmg before the time runs out and since the skill deals no direct dmg he wont spawn any adds.

omg

All the weapons have a place.

Rotations are based on a) cooldowns. b) combo fields and finishers. c) sequences to maximze an effect in conjunction with other skills. Could be burst damage, condition damage, crowd control, speed boost, fury, whatever.

a) Generally, auto attack is our lowest dps skill and lowest effective skill. Changing attunements allows us to use higher dps skills and useful skills as they become available off of cooldown.

b) Might is the most coveted result of combo fields and finishers but there are others. The Wiki has table of all the fields and possible effects from area and projectile finishers.

This all takes time, even learning and scratch paper. Or, there are alot of ele guides that already have much of it covered. There’s a DD guide in this forum somewhere.

Give yourself some tests. Do you know how to proc Frost Armor for example. Can you think of some situtations that might be useful? Alot of these skill effects you don’t have to go out of your way to do.

Naw, I prefer to go get a drink if I get caught alone with a staff in wvw. Swapping weapons would make me feel like I should stay and fight. I like those little breaks too much.

1) No, it is not our most versatile. It is simply different. Same can be said for all our weapons.

2) Aoe is fine for melee and short range. dd and staff are different aoe. Each have their own uses and so we swap.

3) Condition damage is substantial from some of our skills, but alot of stats investment seems to be a poor choice. You can try this out in the Mists and I do not have figures in front of me. I do not see a cooresponding percentage difference in damage when increasing or decreasing my condtion stat, even when that is a big percentage difference.

We don’t have any formulas on condition damage either. We do however have formulas on direct damage and critical damage and the change in the stat is multiplicative.

The biggest difference in condition damage I have seen comes from Might generation, and it is substantial. Might generation is something we are very good at, affects all our damage, and something SD is very good at generating btw.

Many elementalists play with no condition damage in their stats, or healing either for that matter. That is how they are able to get such high power numbers. It’s simply a matter of mixing and matching amoung sets of gear and slotting your own runes.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil

Brother Grimm.5176:

The duration of Burning is (in most cases) is MUCH shorter than other conditions. Most skills provide 1 – 3 sec with a few going as high kitten – 6 sec.

If you are trying to kill something quickly (like in PvP), applying strong pressure immediately (like you can with a single burn) is a better option than having to apply 7 stacks to get the same DoT. Also, how much work you have to perform (and how long it took) to apply X DoT is important when it can all be brought back to zero in a single Condition Removal. That is why the FEAR component of a TERROR traited Necro is considered by many to be OP as it can’t be self removed.

Not a PvPer so I could have translated what I have heard about the issue incorrectly, but that’s my take on those conditions.

That’s how I have always looked at it. No matter how many stacks of a condition there are, one removal and it is all gone. Players will do two things with conditions. 1) Only take off the ones that they find most dangerous. 2) Take them off only when they start stacking too high.

A complete discussion of sigils can be found here on the wiki:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sigil

@TooBZ Not correct. Only the sigil in the main hand will proc. Has nothing to do with the weapon that scored the kill. But, if you have identical sigils on both weapons, the on kill effect stacks twice as fast. Go figure lol.

True the que is inconvenient, but this allows us to watch the matches of others who are in the individual que with us. Also, apparently, the different arenas have slighly different mechanics which can also be observed. These positives far outweigh the negative of the time spent waiting for a turn. The time spend waiting is short. I have not seen a que longer than 3.

synk.6907:

Baladir.2736:

All hot keys. Its’s the only explanation to fire the skills off as quickly as he does. There’s no hunting around for the icon on the gui to click with the mouse here.

Setting this gauntlet aside, I would urge you to get comfortable with hotkeys/shortcuts and try to stop playing via clicking, if you are.

It is generally much faster and smoother in MMO play.

Got it. I have always been able to get by with a combination of both until now. I think Anet has made your point.

Even if the orbs are RNG and we are not fast enough to get out of the way of the aoe, downed skills can destroy them, so we can rez from the downed state.

The pattern of the aoe per this video

is:

2
3 4
1

This build by an elementalist utilizes a fresh air build that enables alot of dps while kiting.

Both in phase 2 kite her to the outside. There are safezones along the outside edges. The elementalist in the 2nd video uses Sunspot, master fire trait, to destroy an orb when he is pulled to it.

I’ve noticed that the vids of successful attempts always make it look so easy lol. Duh. Implementation and keeping our wits about us is something else entirely. In the elementalist video I noticed he used fast-cast ground targeting tied to a hot key, of course, to proc a successful lightning flash and avoid an aoe. Same goes for fire attunement. All hot keys. Its’s the only explanation to fire the skills off as quickly as he does. There’s no hunting around for the icon on the gui to click with the mouse here.

The use of hot keys for skills is something I noticed happening regularly on all the vids I have seen. When we have to keep our eyes on the screen to keep an eye out for movement, illusions, aoes, positioning, target switching, camera view, check health, check cooldowns, etc, there is no time to be hunting with the mouse key for icons to change attunemets, blind, heal, proc utilites, dps, and everything else. In other words, when you see an illusion dangerously close, there is no time to take the eyes off the screen to mouse click icons to change to earth or air attunement to cast blind.

yearsonehundred.6139:

What Challenging Is Not:
Challenging Is Not forcing players to respawn at a waypoint that costs money in order to play a minigame.
For that matter, Challenging Is Not forcing players to respawn after a failed match at all. It would be super easy to have the time limit just boot players out, and have death do the same. Player death is not a necessity for a challenge, and in this case, it seriously dampens the fun of the content at hand.
Challenging Is Not doing the previous, and then having a dynamic event that blocks the pathways to the Queen’s Gauntlet with very difficult enemies that can easily take you out.
Challenging Is Not giving armor damage for a failed Gauntlet match. Can you imagine if armor damage applied to Belcher’s Bluff, the Keg minigame, Southsun Survival, the Aspect Arena, and other minigames?
Challenging Is Not requiring tickets to play, and then making them cost a boat-load of money (for players of average and moderate means) to purchase in small quantities, or making them requiring farming and grinding. These are for a minigame – they’re not specific grindy titles or pets here. And while Liadri is indeed a pet, that’s only because she’s so dang tough, and thus beating her warrants a reward of some sort for the continued persistence required to do so.
Challenging Is Not allowing awful camera angles to interfere with gameplay.
Challenging Is Not having a queue for a minigame. Furthermore, there have been times when I’ve shown a team player spirit by resurrecting people who have fallen, and by necessity (when it was just me and that one person) not queueing myself for a new match while I resurrected said player, and then in the middle of the resurrection, someone runs up, queues, and takes the turn that should have been mine.
Challenging Is Not putting a time and movement critical minigame in the same instance as another gameplay aspect that results in incredibly lag-causing zergs. Queen’s Gauntlet should have ALWAYS, both in conceptual creation and actual development, been tried, tested, and released in its own instance. With something so sensitive, a separate instance is an absolute necessity.
Challenging Is Not allowing dozens of bugs work their way into the “finished” product. Given the quality that usually comes from ArenaNet, I would have rather had the whole Queen’s party event delayed and the Pirate event continued until the bugs were ironed out, than had the awfully buggy mess that the Gauntlet currently is.

These (and more that I can’t think of) are not Challenging, they’re Punishing. Punishing is not Fun, it is not Challenging, it is not enjoyable – it is complete Frustration (and in the case of less patient players, it is rage/rage-quit inducing). And right now, Queen’s Gauntlet is mainly not Fun, nor is it mainly Challenging – it is mostly Frustrating, painful Punishment.

ArenaNet, I know what you’re capable of and I know that you have great plans for the future.

So please take the time to fix this – as for me, I’m going to go do some other things for a week (maybe some PVE, maybe some SWTOR, maybe some more Star Citizen forum surfing) and then come back and see if Queen’s Gauntlet is less Punishing and more Challenging/Fun.

If you forgot something, I don’t know what it is offhand. +1 for your nicely done write up.

I have to think that since these activities will be rolling out every two weeks that we are going to see more of the same. The 4 ? teams have just two months from start to finish for the content releases every 2 weeks.

I have an additional concern re the skill bar now set for Pve.

Liadra is great challenge. I have had to learn new skill techniques and builds to get to her on my elementalist. Unfortunately, I may not have time to master the skills I probably need to finish her off before the event will end. Did Anet have to make the use of hot keys to proc skills mandatory for mastery of the gauntlet? Is that now the level of expertise the game will now require for pve? That confounds me. That is the realm of sPvP. I have never before seen any mmo where Pve at the highest levels could not be mastered using a mouse on the gui to proc skills.

Smooth Marc.8743:

I used a spread sheet written by Puandro
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3A3Op-Hj3dOUkJRU0xvcng5ZWc/edit?pli=1
Here is the link if you want to input your stats and traits.

Going off tooltips/wiki isn’t a very good idea because they don’t give accurate skill activation speeds or damage values.

Eyeballing damage numbers you get in game isn’t a very good way to compare skills either,because you can’t control certain variables.The only way to properly figure out skill damage values is by using a spreadsheet.The spreadsheet takes everything into consideration.So the numbers I gave include condition damage,critical damage,power,banners,food,buff etc.

Lighting whip does actually exceed the damage of churning earth.Using lightning whip is not a huge leap forward in damage.It just means you to use focus offhand without losing dps.

I don’t see how we’re hijacking the thread.The op was interested in how to build his character for Fotm.Arguing which weapons are the best is no different from arguing about which traits are the best.

LOL. That spreadsheet is based, before buffs, on 2842 power, 916 vitality, and 916 toughness. 1) You are taking a skill like Churning Earth which has direct and condition damage. 2) You are comparing that to a direct damage only spell. 3) You are only buffing the direct damage, and to the point you have no extra vitality, toughness, or condition damage. 4) You are using this example to prove that under all conditions, not just this one that only crazy people run, that one skill with maxed buffed direct damage is better than a skill with max buffed direct damage and unbuffed condition damage. 5) And, you are suggesting to the OP, who has trouble surviving and why he posted, that he take zero toughness or vitality in his build. I can assume no less since that build is where you are getting your facts from for your skill discussion.

I struggle to put this in ways you can understand since you obviously posted this believing what you had to day was valid and entirely missed the obvious flaw.

People are using such extreme analysis to compare gear, skills, and builds while entirely ignoring dozens of different variables and while making absurd assumptions. As an academic exercise, it’s fair to see where the extreme limit is. But, what is true at that limit is not true everywhere else.

Have no idea where you are getting your numbers. For simplification lets use the wiki.

Damage LW is 1/2 second cast, 232 damage, Range 300

Damage Churning Earth is 3 1/2 second cast, 1092 damage plus 2720 in bleeds and is a combo finisher and 4 seconds of cripple, Range 360

LS is 1/2 second cast and 3 swings in 2.82 seconds= total 3.52 for 358 each per 3 swing. Range 150

But, anyway, take the damge only and anyway you do the math there is no way LW or LS exceeds the damage of CE plus the added benefit of might stacks and cripple. The condition damage of course has no mitagation. The wiki damage stats are mitagated by 2600 armor i believe. You can spam LS and LW all you want, but when CE is off cooldown, nothing is better. This analysis fails to take into consideration condition damage of the character. No doubt you guys will tell me an ele shouldn’t have any

You guys are nitpicking anyway. The post I answered dealt with the advantage of focus over offhand dagger. Nothing to do with mainhand dagger or lightning hammer. If you guys want to hijack the thread, lets start a new thread about the best dps burst weapon set the ele has. True, I did make a general statement about best dps skill.

Kahzi.5467:

Jordo.5913:

I want to be a ranged damage dealer….and since the staff is apparently very support driven…

Have you tried the staff?

I think people use the word support very loosely, so loosely it has ceased to have any meaning at all. Staff has many types of skills and some of those do some decent dps. Depends on the situation, ie. WvW in 1v1 or small or large group, sPvP, or Pve as to just how effective it is doing what specific type of dps you want and under what circumstances.

Smooth Marc.8743:

Actually players need to be within 360 units of were the blast finisher occurred to receive the might/fury.Which is the same range as receiving auras from an aura share build.

I can understand someone not enjoying these builds, but both of them are very practical.

By the way Dagger/Focus is way better than Dagger/Dagger.I’m surprised people still haven’t realized that dagger offhand offers basically nothing in pve.Fire grab is on too long of a cool down to give your a noticeable dps increase, and bosses are immune to know-downs.So you’re left with a 1.5k heal on a 45 second cool down, and a bigger fire field to use combos in.

I find that comment…interesting. I have a hybrid build of sorts. Nothing special in the Power dept and just 50% base crit chance and 45% crit damage. I swap attunements after I have started Churning Earth to get 2 seconds of fury when it goes off and it Crits for 4000+ on 70% of the aoe targets, plus of course the bleeds. That damage is by far the best aoe damage our class has, even better than any single target damage we have. Plus it generates might. Arcane shield prevents interrupts. Higher crit damage and Power of course will increase that substantially. I am runnig with some much smaller numbers for Crit Damage and Power then many Elementalists because I carry about 16K health.

You are running with enough condition removal? Ive been running with x-x-x-15-30 builds for awhile now to get condition removal with Evasive Arcanca and Water Attunement and still find myself carrying Cleansing Fire to have enough.

SilverUniverse.7103:

about 12 players fighting Champion Ketsurak in Lawen Ponds. i’m the only ele (staff) and i’m the only one at range. everyone else was at melee

i was the only one the champion ran after and ultimately died.

i thought maybe i was doing too much damage (which should be impossible since was running buff/support, yes i’m too lazy to swap specs), so i respawn and watch a guardian being chased by it. i throw out Fireball (nothing else but the #1 fire auto attack) and the champion runs directly to me again, ignoring ~5 GS warriors hitting it at full force

later on i just watched everyone else fight it with 3 longbow rangers and a guardian with sceptre/focus jumping in later

Edit: now that i think about it, i might have ended up as the anchor during the fight, not sure how much defence everyone else had.

Some bosses, npcs, favor ranged targets over melee. If you were the only ranged and he was targeting you…seems like a good time to get in melee range

The Game Slayer.7632:

Nikkinella.8254:

If you don’t understand how losing the ability to go through multiple targets and hit them with how it is now without homing would be a nerf, then there is just no help for you. If it homed in, it would stop at the target it hits, it would no longer go through it and hit multiple targets. you would be significantly lowering its offensive capabilities. If you’re so inept that you can’t hit a target without training wheels, then maybe this isn’t the right class for you. Thief may be more your style, you’ll only need to press 2 buttons to win 90% of all fights.

Lol, why the negativity? We are simply talking about a skill, not making direct insults to one another. Try to be conducive. Right now you’re showing just how high your intellect really is if you can’t make a point in an argument without using personal attacks on me. So, that being said, let me try to type again what I have been typing for this entire thread, that you’ve failed to read.
1- IF the homing system was implemented, you can still perform what you’re talking about. Its called de-targetting.
2- I have ALREADY taken in and understand the points made from the rest of the people in the forums, and now I ask, what about ground targeting? Having a skill that even when I have an enemy targeted goes in the direction my character is facing is completely horrible design, taken into consideration that IT IS THE ONLY SKILL THAT ACTS THIS WAY EVEN THOUGH THERE ARE SIMILAR SKILLS LIKE IT. IE, whirlwind on wars Gs, the other whirlwind skill for eles FGS, and a few others as well.
3- Stating that IF it did home in, it would lose its capabilities to do AoE dmg is completely not thought through. However, it seems it would make the skill worse if it did home in, so back to square 1 , what about ground targeting?

Since it does separate damage along its path, seems shortening it would limit its damage under some circumstances. Also, it would interject another function to using the skill, the placement of the ground target, that would have some negative consequenses for many players too. I understand your arguement, but accomodating you negatively affects other players. In other words, they had to design it and they did it their way. Some like it, some don’t. Same can be said for your solution.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Here’s what I use pretty much everywhere. I like it because it has pretty good defensive capabilities without skimping too much on damage. It’s also a very versatile build that allows me to switch between direct damage, condition damage, support healing, and control as I please, plus it has good mobility and a ton of dodges. Arcana 6 gives you permavigor and my Sigil of Energy procs every 9 seconds giving you basically 4x the base amount of Endurance regen. Oh, and you get permaswiftness just by casting 6 in Air, which is great for getting around the map.

I also like this build because it gives me a solid foundation on which to make changes out in the field. The utilities are all negotiable depending on what the situation calls for, and I can even swap to Staff if I need the range or AoE (just swap Arcana 6 for Arcana 8 and you’re good to go).

Anyway, it’s what works for me. (I actually use Water runes but since the #6 is bugged I’m hesitant to recommend them.)

Where did you get that Beserker back piece? What is its name?

I would ask if you are going to be doing alot of roaming. If so, that is going to control your build. I have tried various builds and almost all of them seem to do pretty well in large and small groups. What will set them apart is what I find when I get caught out in the open in 1v1s or 2v2s etc.

So I ask, do you expect to run? Do you want to win? In my case, there is usually a home borderlands that is fully in the hands of the opposing home team. There is no zerg roaming the map and so there is no opposing zerg. That is where our players go who like to solo camps alone or in pairs and because they do, that is where you will find the opposing home server players looking for you solo and in small groups.

If that is what you like to do and you want to be extremely successful doing that, the build that can accomplish that can also be a passable build for the large group raid support roles. The same is not necessarily true the other way around,

If you don’t care if you can solo supply camps and/or aggressively pursue 1v1, 2v2 combat, that opens up alot more build options.

Avatara.1042:

Maybe it is the staff? When I use a staff, the Fire Shaman world boss ALWAYS go for me and only me.

Im guessing you are refering to the boss in the Fractals? I was in there last night with a staff and he ignored me enough I never had to worry. Only the occasional hit. Go figure.

Snubber.4967:

…….I really enjoy playing elementalist but they are extremely squishy. I would be fine with this if they did huge dps but they don’t! I feel like the squishier professions should do the most damage whilst the heavy armor professions should do less, so the game would be more balanced. ………… What do you guys think?

What is true is that the balance is not two dimensional between dps and squishyness. It’s more like a dozen or two dozen dimentional.

The solution is not to add dps to a class that is squishy. Dying the same as always but doing more dps is not the answer.

There are all kinds of tradeoffs going on. Ranged aoe dps vs. melee single target dps vs. crit dps vs. non-crit dps vs. condition dps vs. healing vs. condition removal vs. boons vs. roles in a group vs. trait builds vs. gear vs. weapon preferences vs. sPvP effectiveness usefullnes vs. WvW vs. Pve and on and on.

I suspect if you learned how to utilize the elementalists survival skills more effectively you would be happier. We don’t have to die any more often than anyone else.

Conncept.7638:

Not even a little. Nothing about purchasing, farming, or getting lucky are in any way impressive.

Could be worse though, every time I see a fused weapon skin I am literally sickened.

Lol, at least I am not alone there. I bought bank space though for all the skins and legendary mats that have been collecting, that I have no intention of using. So, they got some of my gold there. I can’t bring myself to delete them. I have to be the stupidest person I know.

Shockwave.1230:

LightningBlaze.4913:

The Game Slayer.7632:

mjharrison.3209:

Neko.9021:

We have all been asking this question, every day, ever since the game was released.

The other question we ask every day is why we all have to spec 20-30 points into arcane just to make the class playable.

To make the class playable? Ive got 1400 hours played on my ele on my 2000 hour account. I almost never run arcana anymore unless i need to, such as staff trait or bunker. This isnt a case of it being unplayable at all, its a case of the players not wanting to try other things and get used to not having arcana. Believe me, it is the players not wanting to change, and resisting it. Adapt to the game, and you will find out you CAN play the ele without arcana. I honestly feel like arcana traitline is training wheels for a noob ele player. (unless, like ive said, you NEED to run it for staff or bunker). L2P.

I second this ^. Never been a fond of investing more than 10 points in the arcane tree. As a burst focused ele , more than 5 points in it is not necessary and it is most certainly playable.

These two comments I whole heartedly disagree with. As an ele besides a Lightning Hammer build, optimal efficiency comes from having access to any one of your skills at any given time. Our skills are gated twice, once by the skill recharge and a second time by the attunement cooldown.

The attunement cooldown has one sole purpose, to not allow the elementalist to use whatever skills they want that are on cooldown. Why create something with that purpose? Because you haven’t spent the time to balance the way the skills interact with each other.

I see Fresh Air as an attempt by ANet to slowly work towards reducing or getting rid of the Attunement cooldown, because it gives Elementalists access to Air attunement whenever they want to use it. That’s 1/4 attunements that they are potentially reviewing for reducing/eliminating the cooldown.

We all want the attunement cooldown gone, the only thing standing in the way is balance. Once ANet figures out how to balance it, we should see the cooldown on attunement recharge reduced.

Time will tell of course, but I think it was instead a move to make investing points into Air more rewarding. A build has to give up quite a few abilities to get that 30 points into air. Many builds only had 10 there before. I gave it a shot and found I lost too much healing and condition removal. And for what? The added dps of Electric Discharge is the big draw.

For burst dps glassy Eles, it gives an option, at a penalty.

Not coincidently we only have one combo field in Air, with staff, and no combo finishers.

imo this change to enhance the Air trait line is a far cry from a move to eliminate attunement swapping. If it was, and this is as far as they have progressed in a year, I think there is going to be a real long wait. If so, I can’t wait to see what they are going to do to keep the arcane trait line viable.

xbaunx.6438:

Shockwave.1230:

These two comments I whole heartedly disagree with. As an ele besides a Lightning Hammer build, optimal efficiency comes from having access to any one of your skills at any given time. Our skills are gated twice, once by the skill recharge and a second time by the attunement cooldown.

The attunement cooldown has one sole purpose, to not allow the elementalist to use whatever skills they want that are on cooldown. Why create something with that purpose? Because you haven’t spent the time to balance the way the skills interact with each other.

I see Fresh Air as an attempt by ANet to slowly work towards reducing or getting rid of the Attunement cooldown, because it gives Elementalists access to Air attunement whenever they want to use it. That’s 1/4 attunements that they are potentially reviewing for reducing/eliminating the cooldown.

We all want the attunement cooldown gone, the only thing standing in the way is balance. Once ANet figures out how to balance it, we should see the cooldown on attunement recharge reduced.

And this. It’s good to see some thoughtful responses since some of the above forumers are only interested in arguing semantics.

That’s funny to hear you say that. Above you responded to me saying:

“Yes, it would have an impact on skill combos. Would a reduction upset the balance so much that the class would need to be reworked? I don’t think so, our DPS is still average and our best skills do in fact have cooldowns already.”

I would add. Seriously? You can’t think of new skill combos that would fundementally change the use of skills as we know them and the balance of the class?

Strang.8170:

Pve…whatever floats your boat mate, it´s not gonna be a problem there.
Pvp, short answer no, long answer NOOOOOOOOOO

Lol, lets add a footnote to that. Depending on the diffuculty of the content and the strength of the rest of the party. The ele won’t be pulling their own weight in other words.

Generally I seem to have noticed a greater agro radius and mobs will chase far longer, but not always lol. So yes, it certainly seems something has been tweaked. It’s just a feeling. I have no proof.

Daecollo.9578:

Is there a way we can focus on one element instead of 4?

It doesn’t make any sense to do that. After your skills are on cool down in one attunement, another attunement usually something better than the auto attack you are left with. Staying in one attunement loses you cross-attunement combos and finishers. The list goes on and on.