Guild Wars 2

The change to Renewing Stamina I saw as a positive, but I never used Soothing Distruption or Cantrips to stack vigor, I depended on crits in battle to get the first proc. Now, I can get it pretty quickly where as before there could be a delay.

Yes, I have lived with running out of dodges while running away lol. But then I have always lived by the, “If you run you die.” philosophy and think that is fair.

As a poster up above already noted, it is still possible to get some pretty big stacks of vigor going. So, I have to wonder what the big deal really is. I wonder if it may have to do with eles being able to cap points in Pvp using the speed of dodges to cross the map. Less stack = less dodges out of combat = no crosssing the map at warp speed.

Evyl Hart.1980:

I will never understand the point of going full support. The heal is totally not worth it, and you sacrifice so much damage to run it. Not to mention all the combo fields/condition spreading is still used in damage builds. But I guess people miss monk so much that they will try anything…

All the players know that there is no healing class and that we are all responsible for our own heals. So, we never hear, “Heal me.” (That is so nice!) No one every hears complaints like, “Why did you let me die.” lol. An elementalist is not a required member of a party. In fact, a fifth is not a required member of any party for almost any make up of professions or quality of players or content.

In other words, the “support” elementalist may very well be completely unaware that his contributions are not making a huge heck of a difference. That’s not to say they are not helpful. I am just saying that spec’d and playing differently, things might be moving alot faster and many elementalists may not be aware of the difference.

Welcome. I saw your post in the engineer forum and thought I would look you up here because someone over there was recommending you build for “staff”. Well, today was my first venture into the engineer fourms and from what I can see, their traits appear to be very much geared towards what weapons and kits etc. you carry. That’s not the case for elementalists.

Sure, there are some players who like one weapon set better than another. But, for the average players our traits for the most part enhance the effects of the attunements, and very few actually affect the weapons directly. There are some exceptions. One example is that dagger/dagger favors the use of aura trait synergy, but they are fine just as they are and not taking all of those traits is not a big deal for the average player who is generalizing his build and not going for some min-max stuff. Anyway, there are uses for all the weapons. For me, switching up the weapons completely changes the game and adds to the enjoyment of the class.

The best one piece of advice I can think of relates to attunment swapping. Swapping between attunements, putting together combos of skills in different attunements, and triggering skills on attunement change is the single biggest part of the effectiveness of an elementalist However, if they do not want to be doing dungeons or Wvw, there is not alot of pressure to heal yourself, remove conditions, place boons, etc. Out in the world map exploration and events are relatively non stressing. To start leveling I would suggest they simply look at points in Vitality(water) for health, Toughness(earth) for survivability, and look at the first few tiers in Arcana to see if anything there interests them. Once the profession gets past the squishyness of the lower levels and into about level 50, and they have had a chance to play around with the different weapons and skills, they will have a better idea what they like to do best with the class. Surviving the lower levels can be tough and apparently many elementalists drop out there. High vitality and toughness will help get thru that.

guccimamasan.1082:

Im been using Staff since since beginning till level 80. My traits are 30/10/0/10/20. Though my damage are good for solo but cant survive raid, wvw or even pvp. i dont want to change to D/D since lots of forum keep mentioning it… Any advise how should i change my traits? and what tier to choose? trough this forum i saw the traits 0/0/10/30/30… was wondering what tier it use.

You will need some toughness and vitality in your gear. At the very least high vitality if you carry little additional toughness. I recommend a high vigor source for plenty of endurance and dodges. Dodges are our best defense. I suspect that alot of your damage you are taking is condtion damage and you need to have several reliable ways to cleanse those.

Alot of dungeon survival is being in the right place and knowing how to avoid many of the bosses and mobs attacks. So, read up on those or ask advice if you can’t figure it out.

WvW and PvP is always going to be tough with PvP the toughest. For PvP you want a special build just for Pvp. The Pve and/or Wvw build just won’t do for that. The condition removal, high vitality, and dodges are even more important in WvW than Pve. You will also need stun breaks, swiftness, and CC. You are in light armor with low health. You can’t afford to get locked down, crippled or dotted up.

/agreed with everything everyone said.

Support means alot of things. You can remove conditions, lay down combo fields for a lot of special blast and projectile finshers for your party, grant boons to your allies such as protection, regeneration, swiftness, might, armor, lay down substantial aoe crowd control, single target crowd control, deflect incoming attacks, grant heals and regeneration, increase party dps, and on and on. By Anet design, the best class able to do all of this is the elementalist.

Still, you can’t outheal incoming damage, lock down a mob for 30 seconds, mute casters for their remaining lifetime, or take 30% off the top of a mobs damage output as healers and crowd control classes are able to do in other games.

Our efforts only complement, not replace, other classes efforts at the same things. So, we have to be able to do our fair share of damage output. Our damage is not inconsequential but we aren’t going to win the dps profession of the year award.

Re your question re full support. Since we can’t give full support, how can we call something a full support build? You could call it a, “I’m doing the best support that I can and I know you are all still dying so you better go back to healing yourself” build, I guess .

There is a balance in there somewhere.

You have time on your side, much more than you would against any other type of damage because condtions simply take time to add up. Just burn the necro down while managing the conditions as best you can.

btw, how many condtion removals do you have?

Grevender.9235:

Baladir.2736:

I am happy with the changes.

The fact that the Evasive Arcana in Water change was targeted at PvP is appropiate. With that skill, an expert player was able to affect the outcome of a tourney match in PvP.

Same goes for RTL. Primarily affects PvP expert players in tourney play and balance in those matches.

The Wvw and Pve worlds will continue to turn and nothing we have lost or gained has nerfed the class to extinction or turned us into OP jugernauts.

so you are hoping that they continue to punish expertise? great…

When a player’s expertise in the elementalist profession preordains the ending of a match in the controled environment of PvP, yes. Somebody tell me if I am off base, but 3 or more elementalists on a team equals success is what I have heard more than once before.

I don’t think the above average player is good enough with hot keys and recognition of and reaction to opponents actions to ever acheive the level that is theoretically possible with this profession. Without a god mode to view matches I am sure I have rarely seen it, but I have no doubt it existed. Hopefully a 1/2 a heal less in Evasive Arcana and a few second longer cooldown on RLT will be enought to equalize things. These are petty changes for almost all the players of this profession.

Compared with the changes the community thought were necessary to equal things out, we dodged a bullet as one poster in this thread has already astutely pointed out.

•Renewing Stamina: This trait now has a 5-second cooldown between activations and has a 100% chance to activate, increased from 33%

This is a happy surprise to me since I run a high crit % build specifcally to proc this trait. I have always enjoyed dodges as a way to mitagate damage and run very little Toughness. This increases the flexabilty of possible builds immensly since I dont need Toughness on gear or traits and can put that into other stats.

I am happy with the changes.

The fact that the Evasive Arcana in Water change was targeted at PvP is appropiate. With that skill, an expert player was able to affect the outcome of a tourney match in PvP.

Same goes for RTL. Primarily affects PvP expert players in tourney play and balance in those matches.

The Wvw and Pve worlds will continue to turn and nothing we have lost or gained has nerfed the class to extinction or turned us into OP jugernauts.

Darth Llama.9217:

…….

Do you guys think this can work? Can a Staff Elementalist be fairly durable with a high Vitality and no Toughness? Thank in advance for any advice.

I would suggest you try Renewing Stamina the Arcana trait if you are going low in toughness. That should give you plenty of dodges to evade damage with your high crit chance build. A high vitality is necessary to take the big hits which you have, decent condtion removal for the dots (damage over time), and the traits and/or techniques to self heal. You should do fine in dungeons. Just how well you do depends on your ability to evade damage, that will be a big one. I run 1200’s in toughness and do just fine, but that is far from none which is 900 or so base I think.

Seems a bit hardcore to go 20 in air to lower the skill recharge rate so that you only need two eles with swirling winds instead of three to block incoming siege equipment. Destroying the siege equipment would be more effective. Assigning an entire class to seige defense is not a good use of resources for a commander.

Windwalker.2047:

Too much free time is too much free time…..
As for the question zerkers all the way,precision is worthless without crit dmg and conditions are just an afterthought on the ele not our primary dmg source.

There is a balance in there to be sure re precision and crit damage. I would say it the other way around. Crit damage without precision is worthless. Precision by itself is just fine.

Base crit damage is 150% of base damage. A crit percentage increase via precision of around 40-50% would give a significant overall increase over total damage even if someone was carrying a zero additional increase in crit damage. A crit percentage of 40-50% is not hard to get with mostly gear and that is without Fury figured in. The OP should not have any trouble at all with 25 in Air. Add fury and this gives a significant overall increase in the classes damage without having to go into power or crit damage at all.

Another significant benefit of high crit percentage imo comes from the Arcane trait Renewing Stamina which gives vigor on a crit. High crit percentage is alot of Endurance for alot of Dodges, the best defensive skill we possess.

Heavy use of dodging as a damage modifier has its pluses and minuses. Evasive Arcana is all about dodges. Resulting in a slow pace of play, dodging does not, but obviously at some point the dodges can run out.

imo the subject of dodges however significantly alters the converation re precision. It’s not just about the damage if we can generate reliable vigor too.

ThiBash.5634:

It would be nice if it worked though. It might (emphasis on might) help players build without Arcana if they wanted to.

Sure, why not nerf an entire trait line, entire builds? Sorry, couldn’t help myself. The 9 second cooldown is a primary reason to take Arcana. The 9 second cooldown happens to equal the attunement cooldown from 15 to 9 seconds that 30 in the Arcana trait line gives. Attunement proc’ing sigils can be used in one of these builds to take advantage of this. In fact, the entire trait line is made up of traits that proc on attunement changes. Traits in other lines also proc on attunement changes and are most effective with a 30 in Arcane build.

Durzlla.6295:

emikochan.8504:

Reflects don’t work, only spells that destroy projectiles.

Nope, reflects work (they don’t reflect but they BLOCK) as long as the treb crashes down ontop of the reflecting person and not hit them with the blast, I only know this because I’ve blocked more than my fair share of trebuchet shots with Whirling Defense and Magnetic Field (w/e reflect on ele staff is), granted every single one of those was unintentional…

Does that protect the wall or piece of seige equipment that is being protected? I think that jist of what many are saying is that an Elementalist can prevent any damage to anything the treb is targeting.

Ralloff.7359:

Rookni.2469:

People finally learned to play and from that we saw a mass ele fotm rerolling. So now you will find a handful very skilled D/D elementalists causing havoc and LOADS of Pow/Tough/Vit D/D eles that cant kill a thing, but wont die either

Prepare for a kittenstorm in this thread from raging forumwarriors though

Just about nailed it on the head.

LoL, there are alot of min-max players who have narrowed the class down to one weapon set, even just a few builds. However, there are many who use all weapons and many different builds. Imo the later is more common. The class can be played many different ways. Whether one way or the other fits your style is completely up to you.

If you have 30 in the trait Arcana, the trait Evasive Arcana gives a dodge roll in Earth attunement as a blast finisher which can be easily used.

Procing our own fields is of limited use imo because party members are not often in the same vicinity as we are and have to be to benefit from our blast finishers. Arcane wave and arcane blast are nice skills to be sure but take up a valuable slot I have other uses for, not worth it to me for the occcasional field when off cooldown. For a PvP or WvW build Arcane can be a great burst damage dealer when used in a chain of skills though.

Our combos are great for the projectile finishers and can be great for the party. By putting a water field around a mob for example, the melee get healed as well as the ranged who use projectile finishers. A lightning field can be used to stack alot of vulnerabilty in a short time if a party takes advantage of it. The others can be used similarly.

Gold is so easy to get in this game. I have not seen cost of repairs or seige to be an issue for months.

Mighty Ice Arrow.9268:

…….

WWW it’s for the server achieve victories, not people, or guilds. …….

Mighty Ice Arrow
“I Love GW1 and GW2 from the start”
Lev 80 – Ranger –Guild [PT] [Os Lusitanos]
Seafarer’s Rest Community

lmfao. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but when someone plays the game they get to play it how they want. I think you know what I would think you could do with your opinion if you felt you could approach me in game and tell me I was not playing “your way”.

Otaur.9268:

yawg.4172:

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According to the rankings as they are right now, only 2 servers are moving up and 2 servers moving down, of these, only one of these up/down movements is across tiers and this is Yak’s Bend trading with Maguuma for T5/T4, the other movement this week is Eredon Terrace waking up a bit and Ferguson’s Crossing rolling over and going back to sleep while we on Sorrow’s Furnace continue to steamroll them.

I wonder how long it will take for the other 6 tiers to complain about the stale matchup of having to fight the same servers for the second week in a row…

GoM and HoD have been fighting for 9+ weeks and for the past 6 weeks it’s been GoM/HoD/DH while the past 7 weeks it’s consistently been FC/ET/SF in T8. Though at least the T7 servers have some fight and trade places occasionally, not down here in T8 where all three servers are losing members because it’s such a stagnant and un-fun matchup for everyone involved (except those in SF who are all about winning without a challenge).

Glicko needs to be adjusted or completely replaced with some other system. Adjustments could be a ranking floor and ceiling, or any number of things. But SOMETHING needs to be done and at the VERY LEAST, ANet should step into one of the three threads we have going now on this subject and make some sort of statement or acknowledgement because at this point it’s completely about morale on these stagnant servers and even ANet stepping up and saying ANYTHING on this matter will be better than the silent treatment its received over the past two weeks.

ANet, please, tell us something is amiss and you’re looking into it, that’ll save some morale on our servers. Tell us you’ve identified an issue or anything and that you’re working towards a solution, that’ll give us a boost. Detail us a plan you’ll implement in the next week or two and morale and interest in WvW will resurge a bit.

But if you come down and say things are working as intended and things will work their way out eventually and you can literally just go ahead and sit back and watch the populations of FC/ET/SF/HoD/GoM/DH shrivel up and float elsewhere or die off completely.

The way things are right now is NOT FUN and that’s the bottom line here, this game is supposed to be fun, but WvW down at T8 is more demoralizing than fun. Our servers are suffering, please help us.

We got zerged again, DH owned all of EB, we had 10 players trying to defend vs 25 – 40 DH. This is NOT fun, and I wish I could say this was a Rare occasion, but it is quite the norm.

If there is no chance to win the score or defeat the zerg or defend a tower, I don’t understand what you are doing by trying to do just that.

My recommendation for a more enjoyable game would be to get out into a borderland and pick your battles on your own terms. They are going to be lighly populated if they are in the others hands and therefore offer great opportunities to find smaller groups. Stopping anywhere at all for very long will get you caught by other players who are sure to come, in smaller groups to start with which could be fun. Moving across the map you are sure to come across smaller groups regularly anyway.

Pick your battles on your own terms. Have fun. Forget the kitten score because it means nothing.

*edit Unless you like sitting in a tower and then I have nothing to say that will make a difference.

You can go to the sPvP Mists and there are practice dummys.

Simplified, all sigils share their cooldowns. Those two will not proc at the same time. The main will trigger first and while that one is on cooldown, the offhand is too. The Wiki says, “These sigils are currently bugged with on-crit proccing sigils in the secondary weapon slot, and cannot work within 45 seconds of a crit proc effect.”

So, every 9 seconds you can get 3 stacks of might with a attunement swap and that has a duration of 20 seconds. In

If you are refering to the Ghastly Dager with the Sigil of Ghost Slaying, that has no cooldown and will work all the time just fine.

That shouldn’t really come as any surprise. It’s been that way in every game that I have ever played that had both Pve and PvP anyway. Pve has always had the larger community.

The PvP community always appears to be more vocal, but that is often because all their outlet for expression is limited to just a couple forums. Compare that to the sheer number of forums for Pve.

New rewards and better rewards are not going to change that balance. People play this game for fun. If they don’t find WvW fun, it will not matter much if you give them a piece of cake instead of a cookie to play. There will be some difference to be sure, but generally the people who play alot will still play alot, only now they will have bragging rights and something to show for it. The player who hates running into zergs or being in a zerg will still not come out to play. The players who likes or dislikes roaming solo or in small groups looking for combat on a smaller scale will still do or not do that.

Let’s get real. What would be the reward that would be so great that it would enduce someone to play a part of the game they do not enjoy? Ascended Gear? Lol How well did that turn out? Everyone can now get that by doing dailys. Simply put, they will not offer something in WvW that someone can’t get in any other part of the game. They never will. Players do not have to craft, or do WvW, or PvP, or Pve to get something.

Krakah said:

If the goal of the format is true 24/7 fights. Then the whole system would need to be rebuilt from scratch. Since the chances of that happening are zilch, I’d settle for top 6 as defacto PvP servers and T3 – T8 just merge up.
———————————-

I am pretty sure t3-t8 are happy where they are, the majority anyway. The players who like the 24/7 zerg fests in t1 and t2 are in the minority in this game if the threads from the other tiers are any indication.

Awlbiste.1803:

Hubris.7039:

Missing you, SBI.

It took 3 posts for this week’s forum to turn into a kitten show.

Best of luck this week!

We miss you too! Apparently SBI is a horde server on this tier. Just one tier up and we were hilariously outmanned. But it’s all okay, we keep our chin up either way. Those couple weeks of matchup threads were the best.

Ya, this matchup is great. There are no ques on SBI. Often all the borderlands have been in the home servers hands 100%. I’ve gone onto LoJ and DR borderlands several times since the matchup began and found maybe a few handfuls of players roaming. Pretty empty and deserted. Lots of fun that way. The NPCs tower pushes are a great to wake everyone up lol. I am glad they added that. Yet, still the large commander led groups and the large scale tower and keep attacks are in full swing in the EB for those who like that. There’s a bit of something for everyone.

You have no stun breakers in your build. If you did, that leaves at max 2 utility slots available for an arcane utility, which have longish cooldowns of 20, 30, 45 and 75 seconds. One could argue that stun breakers are not needed “as much” in Pve, but they are everywhere else.

You have zero condition removals. If you took Water 5 you would at least have one condition removal, but only once every 9 seconds. Condition removal is needed everywhere.

Crit damage can be really nice, especially on a Churning Earth. Seeing that skill crit in the middle of a group of mobs or players is pretty nice. I can see why this interests you so much. It does me too.

Don’t forget that if you have a sigil with a cooldown in the other hand, they will share the cooldowns. In other words, one can’t proc while the other is on cooldown.

And, most important, we look good in a dress.

The wiki makes no sense:

Deal 5% more damage when you are within a distance of 50 of your target.

— In-game description

[edit] Notes
Effective range is 600 units.
Retrieved from “http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stone_Splinters”

How can there be a range of 600 if the effect is on us within 50 from our target? Sounds to me like the notes are altering the in-game description. As for AOE, unless the description specifically makes the distinction, I think we have to assume it does unless it says differently, and it doesn’t,

Ray.2640:

Get any random combination of trait points.
Any random combination of gear.

Use Dragons Tooth -> Ring of Fire -> Phoenix -> switch to earth attunement -> (Dodge roll if you have evasive arcana) Earthquake -> Arcane Wave somewhere in between -> Churning Earth (will still give you the might if the ring disappears during the channel so don’t worry). Repeat as many times as possible with as many ready blast finishers as possible.

Enjoy 25 stacks of might for the entire party near permanently(if they’re close enough, range seems to be 600-900)

/signed This.

Stone Shards is a projectile finisher as is Rock Barrier/Hurl. Rock Barrier/Hurl will give you 5 rocks at +50 toughness apiece and Hurl each of the 5 rocks is a projectile finisher. Nice if you have others using fields.

I put Fire Grab into my rotation before i move to Earth. Whether or not that loses me a might stack is fine because the 1% 1 might gives is less than the damage by Fire Grab on a burning target. Of course that is when I am in melee range.

The nice thing about scepter/dagger is that you can start the fight at range but get more powerful in melee range. For the Dragon Tooth to stack might on you for example, it has to explode on you, the target location, which you are if you use it in melee range.

Kodiak.3281:

Drawing Guy.3701:

I’m curious as to how D/D can outdps a warrior… a warrior can just sit and spam axe 1 and average over 6k per second. 100B + WW + axe or rifle filler can beat that. If a D/D can beat that, there’s zero reason to be running warrior over ele. D=

Don’t you see, that’s the fun bit of it all! We can all quote random numbers and make wild proclamations and no one ever has any way to back it up! If anyone ever calls you on it, all you gotta do is call them a noob who doesn’t know what they are talking about and you never have to actually prove anything! Just keep the numbers high but somewhat within reason and you can totally get away with it.

4 warrior and a mesmer combo? That’s for noobs. It’s all about the 5 Ele groups all able to dish out 8000 DPS each and each able to stack might to 25 while healing for 3000 on demand in berserker gear with permanent of every other boon while being immune to conditions. Don’t know how to do it? Don’t be a noob. Want a video of it? You ain’t worth the time to make a video. I’m too busy DPSing to take a screen shot of my numbers let alone a video. I dare you to disprove anything I just said!

lfmao! luv it. I sometimes wonder also myself if anyone actually plays the way they write they do. I’ve never been in a dungeon yet where anyone is standing still long enough for anyone to stack anything lol. It’s plainly not needed.

No one mentioned Dodge or Swiftness. Moving the feet is a foolproof way to avoid damage and most skills can be used while on the move. Most mob attacks have a “tell” leading up to the attack. Look for it and dodge. If you can throw in a cripple, chill, or some other skill so much the better. Kite them if you have to until you lose agro.

The mobs are stonger than we are. That’s why there are 5 in a party. In light armor in a dungeon, all the damage mitagation and health in the world will usually fail if they can lay a weapon on you.

Kodiak.3281:

TheGuy.3568:

Would you guys relax. You have literally taken a talk pertaining to Spvp and applied it to PvE. Now until they nerf us in PvE I see no point in the chicken little skyfall routine. In Spvp lets be honest it has to be nerfed. If you have played tournament with 3 DD bunker eles you’ll get what the problem is and there isn’t that much room for complaint on out side anymore.

The ways they discussed nerfing us was that some of our healing support when piled on top of each other is too effective. A very specific example was permanent Fury which is a thing for us. Another was the way all our tiny heals, regens, and condition removals all stacked up together giving us very strong defense.

It’s extremely unlikely, or at least they haven’t so far, take the time to separate said nerfs from PvE/sPVP/WvW because they want the game play feel to be “consistent” (as if sPvP felt at all like PvE or WvW even in the slightest).

So yea, it all kinda pertains.

I hope they are very likely to split the effects even further. They have already made changes to the Ele that affect only one aspect of the game. Balancing all classes, skills, traits, and gear for both Pve and PvP is an impossible task. I am surprised they have done as well as they have for as long as they have.

zTales.4392:

So you’re saying that all Elementalists should always have Fiery GS as their elite? Is that how you play the class right?

Apparently that and Cantrips as condition removal. One of those one build min max things I guess.

ThiBash.5634:

Baladir.2736:

Well, that’s just not right. Someone should mention earth lol.

I have 15 in earth, and only 15 in earth, for Earthen Blast. A 3 second AOE cripple every 9 seconds for an easy attunement change. That just looked too good to me as a light armor wearing class. Couldn’t pass it up.

It’s good yes…but it’s also the same thing the Evasive Arcana earth dodge roll does, and that also causes bleeding and is a blast finisher.

I have that too. Also 15 in water for Cleansing wave and a little HOT. A5 Elemental Attunement. A6 Renewing Stamina with Zephers. Decent condition removal for a party and decent party healing, including as well as party protection 5 seconds etc. About 1637 precision for a base 38% crit rate with Lyssa gear and depending on weapon load out, I am a dodging attuning fool. It is a tricky fast paced way to play that I enjoy very much. In a pinch I use an elite skill and remove all conditions and get all boons for 5 seconds. Toughness is terrible at 1276 but I have around 17445 health with some Healing Power. The key is not to get hit, lol, but I can take a hit. Food is a bonus but I never need it.

The support capabilities of the profession for a party are important to me. Considering I can go thru all attunements in 9 seconds and can dodge at will, I can provide decent healing and condition removal. Crippling enemies and providing swiftness and protection to allies are no little thing. To maximize that dynamic I use a staff in dungeons. I guess I would have to rate crowd control as a top contribution of the build too. And, for some reason, I seem to get chased around quite a bit in dungeons, which many have gotton a kick out of, because mobs can’t touch me. Neither can most players in WvW.

I look at it as a middle of the road, general kind of build that is very easy for me to play solo as well. I guess fun is the best part. I took to heart the part about 1) dodging as the #1 primary defensive technique of the game. 2) support as one primary function of an elementalist 3) have fun.

Ok, get every spell in every stance. All the weapons are good to use in different circumstances. You will want to change attunments but with a purpose when you do so. That will take some time to put together.

Your character will be squishy to start and does not come into their own until higher levels. You are in light armor. You will need to learn to avoid damage first off. Dodge and swiftness are your best friends. Those are followed by crowd contol and self healing. imo. You have plenty of time before you need to worry about traits.

plasmacutter.2709

…..
I’d also like to point out that earth is so lack luster nobody is even mentioning it here.
…..

Well, that’s just not right. Someone should mention earth lol.

I have 15 in earth, and only 15 in earth, for Earthen Blast. A 3 second AOE cripple every 9 seconds for an easy attunement change. That just looked too good to me as a light armor wearing class. Couldn’t pass it up.

Leo G.4501:

Baladir.2736:

As you can see, just above I got my butt chewed because someone misunderstood and thought I was supporting a one attunement style of play.

If you’re talking about me, I was ‘chewing’ for the opposite reason. If the team needs damage and not much else, saying ‘your limited DPS is pointless’ undermines a whole meta of team play people look for. And DPS is highest in fire.

Yeah, you can say ‘should just put down ele and roll a warr/thief’ which is basically admitting ele sux and can’t function in a damaging aspect, which is a dumb conclusion. Even if ele isn’t the best DPS class, doesn’t mean no one should play it and have fun with it.

K, your post makes alot more sense now. DPS is high in fire, but there are long cooldowns. An elementals dps as a class is not bad because there is good damage in other attunements while waiting for cooldowns. To sit and not do much more than auto attack for a good portion of the time in fire, as you say, lol, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play it. Heck, he/she paid the same for the game as everyone else, he/she has every right to play their way and have fun. That wasn’t the question the OP asked.

The OPs question was, “Is it seriously that big of an issue?” Not in your case of a team needing only limited dps (a point I inititated in my post you originally responded to). Question then becomes, where does an Ele find such a team? I would strongly recommend the advertisement, “Fire dps only ele, f2,f3,f4 on my keyboard do not work, lfg” not be used.

Majora.6028:

I was having a hard time picking a class after my Ranger. I was walking about in the Norn area and was inspired by an Elementalist. Usually, I wouldn’t even consider one. I hate swapping, it messes with my OCD. This Ele though, didn’t swap. She said she was pure fire. She had awesome damage, didn’t die often, and was just what I was looking for.

I was leveling my Ele, enjoying it VERY much, and it came up in Map Chat and people started insulting me, calling me a selfish kitten and saying that I’m and idiot for not swapping constantly.

Is it seriously that big of an issue? I feel like quitting now, I haven’t enjoyed the other classes, and now I’m being harassed and told that I won’t be able to play me class at all later if I don’t fix myself now.

By the way, they were very rude people in map chat to be insulting you. There are people like that everywhere on this planet unfortunately.

You are not the first person to play in one attunement and likely will not be the last. In your case you apparently did so unconsciously having been told it was a viable way to play. Whether or not you choose to continue to play the class this way is up to you. As you can see, just above I got my butt chewed because someone misunderstood and thought I was supporting a one attunement style of play.

It is, by 99% of the population, not a viable way to play the class . The first reaction people often have is one of disbelief that someone plays that way, but, there are, after all, fire mages in other games so why not?

If my previous post was harsh, I apologize. At least one person thought so anyway.

I notice from some of your other posts that you are having issues with other classes too. The forums are a great source of material and feedback. Also, the GW2 official Wiki at http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Main_Page

This isn’t a simple game, however it is not hard to master. There does have to be time spent reading about the class you are playing however for best results toward the end game. About the time you are spending gold for triats at level 40 and then again, whenever the last is, would be a good idea at least then.

Leo G.4501:

Baladir.2736:

I can’t see how anyone who has played the class for while doesn’t see skills in lines other then fire that they would like to play.

I can’t see how anyone who has looked at the traits doesn’t see any that they want to use that affect lines other than fire.

Personally I could care less how you play, as long as you are not taking up somebody else’s spot in a group that is doing difficult content. Yes, PUG groups can easily 4 man the dungeons and fractals. Maybe no one has noticed your lack of contribution. Just don’t kid yourself into thinking your limited dps, is which is all you are providing, is making a difference….

Hold it hold it…

What the kitten?

You have professions that often run those fractals with nothing BUT DPS and bring nothing more. I can understand some of you guys hold your profession to a higher standard, but seriously, stop kidding yourself. Just because you can hand out boons doesn’t mean they’ll make a difference if the team was fine without them to begin with. The only thing in those instances is doing damage to speed up the process, which none of the other boons or conditions help with.

Although I’ve never had trouble getting fractal teams, maybe that’s why teams may overlook eles for their groups.

Basically, quit the premadonna bull-puppy.

Lol, If the OP is running fire attuenment only as he claims, that is what he would be doing if he has been running these. Not knowing his level of play or how long he has been playing an Ele, he may very well been doing this and gotton away with that for a long time. The fact is, a 5th wheel in a decent party could walk behind and do nothing and the group would still finish a fractal or dungeon.

Do I recommend this? Lol. Do I really need to state the obvious?

I am of the opinion the points in trait lines don’t make much of a difference. It’s the traits you get from them that do. I don’t understand why many players say “I run x-x-x-x-x build, what do you think?” when we know nothing about what traits they have.

You at least are talking about traits, but seem to be thinking that the Healing Power stat figures into the decision. I don’t think the little bit of healing power or vitality that 20 points gets you is a game breaker. I run 15 in water for Cleansing Wave and Healing Mist.

Having said that, I do think an Ele in GW2 needs at least 17,500 hit points in Pve to take hard hits and avoid getting one or two shot. If you are falling much below that you need to make some of that up, somehow.

Some may think 5 points in water primarily for Healing Mist is a waste. HOTs are in general undervalued, usually by those who have not played a healer in a game. Heals Over Time add up.

I can’t see how anyone who has played the class for while doesn’t see skills in lines other then fire that they would like to play.

I can’t see how anyone who has looked at the traits doesn’t see any that they want to use that affect lines other than fire.

Personally I could care less how you play, as long as you are not taking up somebody else’s spot in a group that is doing difficult content. Yes, PUG groups can easily 4 man the dungeons and fractals. Maybe no one has noticed your lack of contribution. Just don’t kid yourself into thinking your limited dps, is which is all you are providing, is making a difference. There is a reason the boons, buffs, conditions, etc for all the professions have such short timers. It’s because everyone needs to be doing their small part and only together is the result nothing short of fantastic.

The OP seems strangley absent since he started this thread. I’m kind of curious OP.
Are you seriously claiming not to see the benefits of the different attunements? Do you seriously claiming that playing in fire alone with no crowd control, no healing, no buffs, no nothing is as good as everything else? Come one, I just want you to say it. Pleeeeeeeese.

ThiBash.5634:

…….

Other than that, a fire trait that grants Vigor somehow would seem like a good idea to buff glass cannons.

Getting good vigor takes effort. There are builds and gear that, with work, grant alot of vigor and take advantage of it. I am sure players who don’t have it, want it, lol. Glass Cannon and any other build can get all the vigor they need with Arcane VI Renewing Stamina and a high crit rate. Giving that away or free to any build? I don’t get the reasoning other than a huge buff to the profession and destroying the builds who have sacrificed to get it.

ThiBash.5634:

To me, increasing base health while at the same time lowering the effectiveness of healing power seems like a good way to adress bunker builds without nerfing glass cannons. In fact, glass cannons would get a small boost, which is what they need currently to become truly playable.

Other than that, a fire trait that grants Vigor somehow would seem like a good idea to buff glass cannons.

I would disagree. Healing power and base health, or vitality are not the same thing. To a player who is swaping the two stats between themselves on the same character, they may seem to have a similar effect, but many builds out there are weighted to one or the other.

Healing power is more akin to toughness. It can provide alot of healing over time and offsets damage over time in much the same way as toughness mitagates damage over time.

High vitality on the other hand for a light armor class does not last long, just long enough actually to absorb a few large hits giving the caster enough time to escape. High vitality abosorbs high burst damage.

The contrast might be easier to see if you try to take a piece of gear with either healing power or vitality and substitute one for the other and see the results.

Taking away my Eles healing power also takes away one aspect of his supporting role.

Dragon’s tooth works well as a melee skill in melee range. You are essentially dropping it on yourself, inside the ring of fire or example. It is going to hit whoever you are in melee range with if you stay close. Ring of fire, Dragons tooth, Phoenix skill chain is alot of aoe on the caster’s location as well as blast finisher. You don’t have to wait for the annimation for Dragons tooth to finish. I my experience players are so happy to have the elementalist in melee range they won’t leave to avoid it.

Baladir.2736:

SlimGenre.6417:

……. Unless you just stand there and take a beating, then as you progress with your skill you wont need to spec heavily into toughness, vitality or healing power… but you will always keep some there. …….

Omg lol. You said that outloud. Good for you. The GW2 world seems so tied up in p/t/v. Everywhere you look it’s p/t/v. Legendary weapon stats lol, p/t/v.

I run a high crit-high vitality build. I use the crits to generate high endurance regen for virtually bottomless dodges. High vitality ensures I can take big hits.

The point he is making OP, and I am trying to, is that there is more than one way to accomplish the same ends depending on how one likes to play.

HeatBlast.9346:

Hey,

Can anybody give me a good elementalist build for Spvp/WvW. I like to do range damage. Also after the nerf will they be good or just the worse class in the game?

I am going to go out on a limb here and assume you didn’t know that your sPvP build is just for sPvP. Once you enter the SPvP zone, the Mists, at any level, you are promoted to level 80 and you get to select your traits anyway you want just for sPvP. That is saved and can be redone for free anytime you want. Also, you get free pick of any gear and any runes and sigils to mix and match anyway you want, as many times as you want. All free. It’s like walking into a candy store and you can have anything you want and it’s free. It’s a blast.

After the nerf the Ele class will be even better than the best profession in the game. The nerf will cause the community to revisit Elementalist builds. Most everyone will discover there were far better builds than what they were using. Most never realized it before because they were doing what everyone else was using instead of doing their own research. They will see the error of their ways when they have to wonder why the next best thing is better than what they had. j/k

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Sorry for not going into deeper detail, I specifically meant for PvP, and when I mean advantages besides range and combo fields, I mean..

-Does the Staff have better/more CC than D/D?
-Are traits any more flexible for Staff than D/D?
-Can the Staff do better damage in any elemental attunement?

As well as a bit of curiosity as to what kind of builds do staff users make since DPS goes to D/D?

You should probably edit out where you typed “PvE” lol.

Even then, sPvP and Wvw are two different PvP environements where there are entirely different viable roles for a Elementalist to play. Sometimes roles are only effective in one and not the other. In addition, unless someone has an elementalist who is built solely for WvW, a player will use a build that is effective in both Pve and Wvw supporting the style they want to play. How they like to play is as much a determining factor as anything.

So, are you asking about sPvP or WvW builds? If WvW, are you interested in a build for full time WvW use?

Your questions seem overly broad and general and simplistic. DPS numbers are pretty easy to add up. More or less CC pretty easy to count. What are you really asking?

Solo.9027:

All I’m saying is that since we cannot weapon swap and the focus offers very specific very limited utility we should have its abilities rolled into other more useful weapons and just let us use the awesome focus skins on other weapons since its all just magic anyway. After all, ele are supposed to be about versatility right?

I absolutely love how mmo forums immediately resort to personal attacks, I have a couple foci and have used them well in wvw and even certain dungeons, but as soon as the specific purpose is over with I always swap back to dagger or staff but having to be out of combat to do it sucks. IMO its not fun having to break away and open my inventory just to swap when other professions can do it with a button press.

Based on what you like and don’ t like, your proposal make perfect sense lol. You just don’t appear to be getting much, if any, agreement in your thread. I think almost all the rest of us learned to live with weapon swapping a long time ago.

Shimond.2478:

Any class is going to have a small handful of builds that become popular and termed ‘viable’ by people, that doesn’t necessarily mean that other builds won’t work. This class does have a couple easier to play builds (d/d in particular) that perform really well, so you’ll see a lot of people use similar builds to that.

Doesn’t mean it’s the only way to play.

As to whether you like the class or not, nobody can tell you that. You’ll have to start one and see.

/signed

So true.

If you are looking for a profession with alot of possible build, skill, and weapon choices that in different combinations favor different styles of play, I would say the Ele can fit that bill.

Min Maxers will always distill a profession down to just a couple of setups out of hundreds. That is what they do, but they do so using thier own scale of how they enjoy the game and what is most important to them. This profession can be played in many different ways. Part of my enjoyment of playing any profession is playing in ways I never thought I would enjoy. I used to love playing glass cannon casters, but now get as much if not more satisfaction also in a support role. In support, I can have a very dramatic effect on a parties’ performance. The profession’s overall result is not about me, it becomes about us. A whole new world of builds and weapon choices opens up that way as well as the fun of learning what is in essence a new profession.

In other words, if you limit your acceptable results by judging using just a few criteria, any profession will be limited to just a few builds.

Raf.1078:

Some people just play… too much. Thats the only reason for burnout. OCD as gaming theory?

Try PvE, tradeskills, spvp, Fractals, dungeons, another game…or even watch TV for a week. Then come back.

“Balance….grasshoppers.”

I have to agree with what is behind this door. It’s like people here are blaming the game for having no self-control over their bodies. Lol, ya get burnout by not allowing the mind to rest and recover. The brain is not a fricken computer processor.

If someone wants anyone to blame for lack of control, look in the mirror. It’s just a game. It doesn’t matter who wins when the mind and bodies’ health comes first.