Well elementalist are squishy. When it is a mob against an ele it will certainly be more interesting then a mob against a team of 5 or such. So yah, it is more boring when there are people there to draw that 3 hit fire off you and revive you if you mess up. I mostly play in dungeons with a staff. I like it, but sometimes I get lazy and just go with fire and nuking because I can. Actually, even in solo I usually just do that… I really only bring my A game to the big bosses where it is worth my time to chill them.
I agree attunements are the problem, but in different ways. The cooldown is a big issue. I like Fire, it is my favorite type of damage. Yet if I swap to water I am locked out of fire for 15 seconds. That really sucks IMO. Sure my other attunements have good skills, but I can never just pop over to water to throw a heal on me, then go back to fire.
However, the cooldown is more of the problem than the swapping in general. Every profession swaps, but they have half the swaps with half the cooldown. I am not saying our cooldown should be 7 seconds, but 15 second is pretty high. So high in fact that it pretty much forces me to use Arcana to 10, which I feel is wrong. I think lowering the cooldown times would benefit everyone. It would make less players feel depend on Arcana while giving players who like Arcana really short cooldown times, maybe even under 7 seconds ay 30.
The other problem of attunements is that we are meant to use all 4, so 1 attunement will never be strong on it’s own. Even if we go all out fire with the best fire traits and geared all our other traits to fire support, I doubt we will have higher or equal damage compared to any other profession who ignored their swap.
What it really comes down to is that other professions can ignore their F keys and do just fine, but we can’t. a ranger never needs to use their pet’s control to benefit from it. A mesmer never needs to shatter their illusions, or even summon them, to do well. A guardian never needs to use their virtues to make use of them. For some like Necro and Eng they don’t really benefit from them if they ignore, but they also aren’t handicapped because of it.
It really seems like ANets expects two of our attunements to be just as powerful as 1 weapon of another class. Maybe it isn’t that way, but it at least feels that way at times. I’m all for lesser cool downs and making elementals stronger on their own, at least if you focus on it (aka, if you get 30 fire and 30 air, you could just use them and ignore rest without failing horrible because of it).
Yah, I see some truth in this. Personally I like going after goals, even if they aren’t fun XD So GW2 will probably always keep me playing because there is always going to be an achievement or legendary to go for, a character to level (I got all 8 professions created), and a dungeon to play.
I did notice some dips in my interest though. First came at level 80. Before I hit 80 I was working on map completion, but once EXP no longer mattered I was like “eh”. So I focused more on Personal Story with some in making $ and working at Dungeons. After I beat story, it was nice but also a bit disappointing. I spent most my time afterwards playing dungeons for my exotics sets (trying to ignore the fact that my purpose for playing was maxed stat armor with shiny skins, which in itself is meant to be used for other things). I got a full set of exotic armor now (half of each set I am working at) and now went back to map completion. I probably will get bored of this character soon enough once I complete map. And I doubt my next character will have same burning desire to level and play as first.
Still, there will be always something I’ll want to go after or learn to use, if not master. So while I may have beat a couple of the end games (80 and story), I still have many stones left unturned =P
Personally, I like Glyphs. I use Glyph heal and Storm Glyph with Quick Glyphs most of time. However, I would say the most important skill for a leveling Ele, or any ele, is Arcane Shield. That skill has saved me more times than I can remember. It is great to give you time to use your heal after a big hit or if your get stunned/knockdown. Arcane Wave is another great one I use a lot for Comboing. For leveling, things will probably be easy enough to use Signets too.
I’d say get Arcane Shield first. Then get Signets that interest your, or just all of them. Then Glyph of Storms if you like nuking. Then Arcane Wave. Then Lesser Elemental Glyph. Then just skills as you can afford them/if they seems intresting. Although if you’re going right after a legendary you may want to save up points.
Also don’t forget to save for an elite. As for Elites, I only use Elemental now. I hate Tornado, but you need it for Whirlpool. I did love the Greatsword, but only before I hit 80.
I still haven’t got the hang of Burning Speed either. Although IMO it seems much easier to control than a Ranger’s Sword XD
Well for things like Boons and more of exact builds runes may be better. But for builds focused on offense and defense (aka, Berserker and Soldier) I see raw stats being more common since a lot of rune effects feel situational to me.
NP =P It is a bit odd to only have 1 upgrade slot. Most games that start with 1 early on get 2-3 by late game… and if ever did get 2+ upgrade slots, I’d doubt you could run 2 sets of same runes…
The good news, after playing an elementalist well everything else will seem like easy mode =P It’s been my main character and I’ve learned to use it rather well in PvE. In PvP, well…I still play it, but I am not a good PvPer to begin with…In PvE I usually run Staff with a 20/20/10/10/10 build (I prefer to stick to the background when possible). I do great in dungeons since team usually can keep most monsters from getting in my face. In PvE like orr, I can usually handle mobs of 1-4 with staff (but usually die and then rally myself for mobs of 3+). I haven’t learned daggers enough to comment though.
I’m just glad I didn’t plan today to be a GW2 day for the event. Instead I’ve been waiting around all day to see update XD Oh well, I’m use to waiting for updates. Last mmorpg I played would tell you it was coming this week, but not which day… so I could wait half a day before they tell us it is tomorrow >.<
I’m sure future GW2 Content Updates will learn from this though…
Claws of the Desert daggers seem to be Carrion. Would have saved me a few minutes if you just said that XD
Anyway, I am leaning more towards ignoring condition damage. My armor and play style focuses more on critical than condition and from what I read condition damage only beats critical once you build stacks up high enough, which I don’t see myself doing.
Now the only question is should I get Berserker, Knight’s, or Soldier stats, which is something I’ll need to decide myself by playing them more. I’ll probably lean more towards Berserkers though, since unless I go all out tank I always have Critical in armor or jewelry. And if I do need to go all out tank, I doubt it is someplace where I’d want to be using daggers XD
Someday I may get a set of condition based armor and jewelry, but not anytime soon. If I ever do (probably when I seriously consider scepter outside of PvP), I’ll consider a new set of daggers as well.
Yah, I have no problem with the power of its offence, nor is that what I am questioning. But it is suppose to be our defensive element yet it seems to give far more offence than defense. I see earth as being our shield. I’m all for a shield being able to bash someone in the face, but I’d expect it to be used more for blocking. With earth, it seems it has 4 bashes and 1 block, which is disappointing. However I wouldn’t want to make it 4 blocks and 1 bash so it ends up being horrible damage like water, but I think it could have a better blend of kill and defend.
Personally, I think Arcane Attunement is a horrible idea. Why? It would either be underpowered or overpowered. It also seems to defy the nature of the elementalist (e.g. we are meant to cycle attunements yet arcane would an attunement we could stick with all the time). So it may be underpowered to people who like to swap because it would just be a clone of the others really. I would assume that the big skills would still share cooldowns so if you just cast meteor shower on fire and then swap to arcane to cast it, it would still be recharging. If it didn’t do that, it would be overpowered easily.
It could also be overpowered just by the ability to choose our weapon skills from 4 choices. Like for staff I could pick Chain Lightning, Lava Font, Flame Burst, Frozen Ground, and Healing Rain/Shockwave. If I had all those skill at the same time, I wouldn’t feel the need to change attunements as often. Yet at same time I’d be weaker because I wouldn’t get a passive effect like Flame Shield and I’d lose my 10% damage on lava font, maybe even quicker cooldown.
I’d rather each attunement be boosted than adding another.
Also, the Ether/Psychic stuff sounds more like Mesmer than ele.
However, I could see this being an elite skill. Or better yet, and elite skill that varies with weapon (we only got a handful, so not that outrageous). Arcane Attunement could take all our attunements and roll them into one. For example, on staff the 1 would bounce around like chain lightning, weaken like earth, heal like water, and AoE on each blast like fire. Of course some of the effect could be weakened to prevent it being totally OP, but I still think it has potential. For Dagger it would have a different 1 attack though, combining Vapor Blade, Dragon Claw, Impale, and Lightning Whip instead (no idea what that would look like).
So all for Arcane Attunement Elite, but not as a 5th attunement. [leaves imagines what a Static Wave Healing Shower would look like…]
“I don’t think Runes and Orbs overlap actually. I’m not sure about Crests though. They might.” [Can’t seem to find quote option for some reason…]
Why wouldn’t they? They boost stats and all stat boosts I’ve seen stack.
Yah, for a Boon/Healing Build I can see why you’d pick 2 Water and 2 Monk. My Guardian will be going for Runes of Rune of Dwayna for his healing set. My comment is more focused at sets like Berserker where it is usually all about the damage or Soldier where it is about the Power/Defense. Usually with those I see the raw stat boosts being better than the runes. Which is kinda sad since I would almost like to use some runes, but it just doesn’t seem to be worth it. Although I won’t be replacing my Rune of the Baelfire on my Flame Legion Berserker Armor with Ruby Orbs until I know for sure XD
I never really had any problem with Tanks or Healers in Dungeons. I play a Staff Ele, more focused at Offense. A few times our team had no real Tanks (2 Eles, 1 Thief, 1 Ranger, and 1 Eng I think) but we still got through just fine. I actually found it was harder when we had too many tanks (3 Warriors, 1 Ele, and 1 Thief I think), although it was more because the path we did required us to kill mounds quickly and warrior didn’t seem very suited for that. Still, we made it.
I do use my fields to help combo and heal my allies when I can. But most of the time they don’t need my healing or help. And being squishy, I know when I need to slip back and heal. If anyone messes up, most teams are usually quick to revive from downed (although if you die, best to run back 90% of the time). I’ve cleared all explorable paths in CoF, HotW, and AC and my team never really needed to discuss roles. Although once or twice I did see people shouting for a Ranged Class in melee heavy teams.
So yah, it is really more about how well each team member player and how well they play their profession than preset builds. I mean I was last one left alive in CoF Path 3 at the part where waves of Flame Legion attack the capture point. Me, an ele with a 20/20/10/10/10 trait build and a Berserker/Solider Armor mix with Emerald Jewelry. I am far from a tank yet I managed to keep them busy and keep myself alive until my team ran back. Funny thing is I always sucked at kiting until that moment XD
Welcome. I couldn’t find an “Item Discussion” forum, so I thought this fit best here. Let me first say that I liked the idea of runes increasing in power the more you have since I first heard it. But after looking over the upgrade slot items, I rarly ever pick runes. Why?
Runes usually give boost 1, 3, and 5 to their primary stat, which always totals 165 (25+50+90) for runes that follow this pattern. While some have effects for 2 and 4, others have a minor stat which total 50 (15+35). The last effect is always an effect. However, most of the time I have found the final effect useless.
Orbs or Crests on the hand all have the same stats: 20 to the main stat and 14 to two secondary stats. A full set of 6 of these totals 120 to your main and 84 to two secondary attributes. So the total amount of attributes boosted is 288 vs. the 215 from runes. Now if you dropped the 6th rune and used a Orb/Crest instead you could bump your main attribute to 185 and make the upgrades total 263 attributes boosted.
So if you wanted your main attribute to be maxed out, 6 Runes or 5 Runes+1Orb/Crest is best. But most of the two, I’d rather have my primary weaker for the third stat.
And some runes are just said. Look at Rune of the Golemancer for example. It gives 10% Critical Damage, 50 Precision, and a 5% Chance to Summon a Golem. That better be one powerful golem, because with 6 Ruby Orbs you can 120 Power, 84 Precision, and 12% Critical Damage.
Also, I do know Rune of Divinity gives the highest total Attributes (360+12% Critical Damage). But I don’t like how spread out it is, giving only 60 to Power, Toughness, Vitality, Precision, Condition Damage, and Healing Power (+12% Critical Damage). Even my Elementalist never found a good use from them because I’d rather focus on 3 attributes. (Although my Soldier Armor set, currently using Crest of the soldier, may make use of them someday.)
Anyone else feel this way about runes or is it just me? Some do have abilities that look nice, like Rune of the Dolyak, but when I found out how low the healing is I decided it wasn’t worth it. Most of the other abilites still don’t list exacts on wiki and several seem very specific, especially for an Ele who uses all 4 attunements. So it seems better to just boosts the 3 stats you want than to rely on chances.
[Note: The only exception to this for me is Magic Find, since Runes give far more than Orbs/Crests.]
My current plan is to get Ruby Orbs (120 Power, 84 Precision, 12% Critical Damage) on my Berserker set and Crest of the Soldier (120 Power, 84 Vitality, 84 Toughness) on my Soldier Set for my Elementalist. Can anyone think of Runes that would be more beneficial on those armors for my Elementalist than that? Or do you agree that Crests/Orbs seem best?
I play mostly in PvE, especially Dungeons, currently. My armor is a bit mismatched since I decided to Dungeon it rather than buy (one set is dungeon only and the other I liked dungeon skin). I run a 20/20/10/10/10 Trait Build with Staff. I currently have Berserker (Flame Legion Skin) in all slots besides Body and Legs. My Body and Legs are Soldier (Svanir #3, Power Main, Toughness and Vitality Minor). My Jewelry is Emerald, good for Crit+Def.
Personally, I am not a fan of condition damage. On the Staff, fire only has 1 burning skill. Besides that, it is only from my Flame Shield trait thingy. Even for Daggers, Fire is a balance of Burn and Critical Damage (although as my signature hints I am still having trouble deciding if my daggers should have a Condition Damage boost). Condition Duration is near impossible to find outside of trait line, which is Fire I believe.
So it really depends on weapon. For Staff I’d say go for Crit over Condition. For Scepter, I’d say Condition over Crit. For Dagger, it can go either way. The exceptions would probably be if you use Air a lot, since all weapons seem to have few conditions that damage with Air, making it good with Crit.
Personally, I found it easier to make my armor focused to just one thing (Aka, Full Berserker with Ruby Orbs in mob slots) and then just use more defensive Jewelry. Emerald is a good jewelry set since it gives more Precision than Ruby while giving good Toughness and a minor in Power (Toughness is main on Jewelry, but the mod has Precision main. Weird atm).
At level 80 it is around 21 Precision for 1% crit chance. IMO, when you get it around 30-40%, it doesn’t need to be higher unless you’re going all out DPS. If you want to go more defensive with upgrades, I’d suggest Crest of the Soldier. It is Power main, with Toughness and Vitality minors.
Note: In case you’re wondering why I suggest Orbs and Crests over Runes, it is because I think they are better. The only real advantage I see in Runes is the 6th ability, which is usually not worth it in most I’ve seen. A set of Runes give 165 to primary attribute and 50 to secondary attribute. Orb/Crests on the other hand give 120 to primary attribute and 84 to two secondary attributes. So Crests give more total attributes while still being more focused than Runes of Divinity, and far cheaper (Crest of Soldier at 17 Silver is most costly of all Orbs/Crest last I saw)! However, if you really wanted to focus on one Attribute, Runes would be better since it gives 165 and not 120. Also, instead of a 6th rune, you could use a Crest or Orb to get primary attribute to 185.
I never thought of the Vulnerability on Crit trait for water… I just assumed it was meant to be used with Shatterstone/Ice Spike/Vapor Blade…
So I guess the real problem in PvP is being force to play extreme defensive… Maybe I wasn’t too out of line to suggest that Earth isn’t defensive enough from skills XD
Staff is as close as you’ll get to DPS. If you focus heavily in Fire (10% more, quicker recharges, Might on Fire cast) and combo (Blast Finisher on Fire Field for Might) you can get the damage up. I just don’t compare the numbers to other professions and enjoy my damage =P
Although, I will say that Ele can be a bit misleading since a lot of players expected higher damage from it. While I don’t know much about DPS for each class, I’d say make a ranger and use shortbow and just dress it like a mage XD
Just to restate current question, which is:
Is it worth having Condition Damage as primary or minor Attribute on a Dagger? Or would it be better to skip it an focus more on Crit considering that is already what my armor does?
Either way I will probably add some defense to it. If I feel to squishy I may just go for Soldier Daggers.
(edited by BioMasterZap.4350)
Thanks for all the comments. I did forgot Weakness is somewhat defensive. I am more focused on Earth Staff than other weapons since that is what I’ve been using for most the game. It does have a lot of things that help defensive, but I still feel that it lacks direct defensive abilities. It does have great offense with conditions, and I have no problem with that. Still…
Well, I did do a bit of Earth Builds in GW1 before GW2 came out. A GW1 Earth Ele focused on Defense isn’t even comparable to the GW2 Ele on Earth at all IMO. I did a Sliver Armor build that not only made me immune to all damage as long as I kept buffs on, but it also quickly killed mobs in melee range (Nolani Academy Build).
With that being said, you can see why Earth in GW2 is a little disappointing. It can still whip out a ton of condition damage, but it cannot come close to GW1 Defensive builds. I am not saying that elementals should be able to be situational immortal in Earth again, but I just wish there was a certain weapon type that heavily focused on defense in earth (Maybe Scepter and Focus can pull it off…) and that all weapon types had more defense to the in earth.
However, I will say that after reading some comments I do see how Earth on Staff can be a bit more defensive if used right. It is more of keeping meleers away then reflecting ranged projectiles. Although that works, it still feels a bit situational, mainly because it won’t help much if you are being nuked (let’s say by a dungeon boss that throw down uber strong fields). So I still wouldn’t mind the Protection Boon being added to the staff, preferably with Magnetic Aura. [Side note: yes, I know the Aura traits have one that gives protection on Aura, but staff only has 1 Aura so it doesn’t seem worth traiting it.]
I agree with OP, at least mostly. I hate to waste points in Arcana. Currently I put 10 in because I cannot do without it. I run a staff as main weapon and throw down fields a lot though (and like to get back to fire for my lava fonts =P). With 0 Arcana, I did find it hard to attunement swap and 10 felt like it made a world of difference (plus the boon on attunement are nice, but not great imo). But when I got 20 to try Blasting Staff, I didn’t notice a big chance in cool down (in fact, I feel it was bugged and didn’t lower as much as it should have, but my math may have been off too). Also, I didn’t care for bigger staff nukes, lava font wasn’t bad, but I felt I didn’t need it and would rather have 10 more in air. I did try 30 for the Dodge trait, still not big cooldown change and I never got hang of dodging and hated losing 20 trait points.
However, if you like Arcana like, it can still be useful. Mainly for traits over cooldown effect. A lot of good builds can use of Dodge Trait for Blast Combos which I would say is worth it if you do it right. And you can’t get Attunement cooldown from boosts on armor and jewelry like you can the other attributes.
Still, unless you really need Evasive Arcana for your combos (dagger/dagger or staff mostly), I’d say 0-10 Arcana should be enough. Arcana certainly isn’t a requirement for all builds, and if elementalist really do need to use Arcana always, then I think the initial cooldowns are too high since no profession should be required to trait their unique line to use their special mechanic.
I’ve been playing elementalist for a while and have considered a lot of it’s flaws. One that sticks out to me is the earth attunement. In fire, I can nuke and spike well. Air has a mix of single tartget, aoe, spike, and control to it. IMO, air feels a bit off too, but it may just be my play style of it. Water gives a lot of healing and chill. But earth seems like it missed a little.
Now, I mostly play with a staff, so this may not apply to all weapon choices. But I feel that earth is meant to be our defensive element, yet it has so little defensive skills. On the staff, 3 of the 5 water skills serve as heals. But for earth, I’d say 0 really help with defense. The only true defensive skill is the third that reflect projectiles, but while it is useful, it doesn’t help at all if foes aren’t using projectiles. The immobilize can be defensive, but if you get mobbed it isn’t much help.
I get that earth is focused on more than just defense though. It always seems to deal a lot of bleed and has several slowing effects, like cripple or immobilize. I know that the scepter has a good defensive skill (2). But overall, I just feel that earth is lacking compared to others. Even with the 80 toughness while attuned to earth, I don’t feel that much safer on earth. For me, it is just a weaker fire (although fire is my main and I do like bleeds on earth).
Personally, I feel all attunements should give effects without traits. Like if earth gave more armor/toughness just for attuning to it and the trait made it stronger. I’d like to see earth be a bit more like water at times, where the skill may be aggressive but it also gives some buff to defensive. For example, Magnetic Aura could also give you 5 seconds of protection. So it would reflect projectiles and give protections for the non-projectile attackers.
Other skill could give you defensive buffs as well like protection, aegis, or maybe even retaliation. Or maybe elementals could get their own unique earth buff that improved armor somehow. After all, there are no Earth Fields at the moment, so combos with an earth field (unsteady ground and eruption for example) could give protection or a new elementalist unique defensive boon.
So do you agree with me? Do you feel earth should give more buffs to defenses with its skills and passive? Or do you only think staff has this problem? Or do you think it is just me? Also, do you think we should get earth field combos?
I run a 20/20/10/10/10 build in PvE (I don’t pvp much). My damage and criticals would drop, but I doubt I would notice, even if noticeable, since I don’t pay attention to number too much. I doubt I’d miss the toughness or vitality too much either. However, I would miss the passive regen on water, the condition removal on water, the armor of earth at 50% health, 10% more damage on fire, and the boons on attunement.
And those are the more minor things I’d lose. I would certainly be much weaker without my 20% attunement recharge. Those 10 points make a world a difference for me. Also, my 20% quicker recharge on fire spells would be noticed since I am use to spamming lava font very often =P And Inscription and Quick Glyphs would be a huge loss too, since I run 3 nearly all the time (heal, storm, elemental elite).
Although I will say that I kinda get the general idea of topic. The play style for an ele matters a lot more than traits, or more so attunement swapping over those little boosts. Still, some builds, like Aura, are highly depend on traits. I am sure there are other builds that need traits too. Like dagger build with dodge trait for blast finisher. Probably some earth bleed and fire burn build as well…
And if ele traits ever get tweaked, they will probably only matter more.
If only our immobilize interrupted too it would be a great downed stat… It is annoying how mist form quickly builds down penalty though, but it is very useful at escaping to self-heal at times.
Tbh, the thing I hate more than the death at end is health reset. For example, I could be near full health, but am forced to use mist form to dodge an attack, but now when I go back to downed state I will be 50% Health, 25% Health, or Dead. I’d rather Mist form keep your health the same, or even heal if you have the trait, and ignore downed penalty, but instead kill you if it is used too often. Aka, if you use it 3 times in a row you still die, but no longer counts as downed penalty.
Still, as far as PvE goes, it works good enough for me.
Thanks for the comments. I have read wiki, but I never said that swap and crit didn’t share cooldowns so thought it was worth checking with people who may have tested. If they do conflict, they complicates things and make me think that 2 fire would be easier since they stack.
I am considering Fire, Battle, or Hydromancy. I can always decide sigils after getting weapons and playing them more, but it is hard to get a feel for the stats I need without daggers XD I do have a set of rare ones though, so I may try them a bit more before deciding.
So getting back to discussion more on the stats… Do you think condition damage is worth it for daggers? I heard before that it wasn’t the most useful, at least compared to condition duration, and it is only on two elements while works with all 4 and goes better with armor. If condition damage is worth it, I may just go with Carrion, even though I’d prefer condition be a minor. Or Rampager’s if I feel daring enough to drop vitality. Or Soldier’s/Knight’s if I feel too squishy. If condition damage isn’t that useful, I’d prefer Berserker or Valkyrie probably. So knowing how useful condition damage is would help a lot in choosing. I kinda would like condition boost so a dagger would be more useful if I used scepter, but at same time I don’t want to pick it and have a weaker dagger dagger because of it.
I will probably use daggers more for casual PvE and still use Staff in dungeons. But when I am running around Orr or such, I tend to use staff at point blank range with nukes, so Daggers seem like better choice due to quicker damage. With a berserker staff, I currently don’t feel too weak defense wise…but with lose of range from daggers, lack of my field I’ve grown use to, and running into boss, that may change.
I take it your getting Solder Armor (Power Main, Toughness and Vitality Minor)? I am working at that too. Currently I just kept runes it came with. But I actually plan to not use runes on it. I plan to use Crest of the Soldier.
Why? Runes give 165 to the main stat and 50 the minor. Some have effect instead of a minor though. Personally, I didn’t find any I liked 6th ability on, so it was really only the Stats. Crests (or Orbs) however give 120 to the main and 84 to two minors (20 to Primary and 14 to 2 Secondaries each x6 parts of armor). So you’d get 120 Power, 84 Toughness, and 84 Vitality with 6 Crest of the Soldier. That totals 288 Attributes vs. the 215 from a set of Runes.
However, if you want effects, Runes may be better. Rune of the Dolyak is one I considered for defense due to its healing with 6th rune. I felt it was too minor though. Your call really if you like the effect.
I forgot to mention Sigils. I was thinking 2 Sigils of Fire to have a higher chance at the AoE on crit. 1 Fire and 1 Battle would work, but I wasn’t sure if they share cooldown or not (Aka, if I swap and battle activates, does that mean fire cannot activate for 9 seconds?).
Also, I don’t plan to add more armor and jewelry any time soon, but I’ll consider Carrion Daggers. I am just not sure if Condition Damage is really worth it on the dagger vs. Critical or even Toughness. I assume it is wise to have at least Vitality or Toughness somewhere on dagger though, right?
I wish I could have added to these forums sooner, but a bug kept me off them for about a month! I was shocked at all the negatives I saw when I first came to the ele forum. I’ve played ele in betas and made it my main character in launch (I actually enjoyed others more, but I wanted ele to lead since it was first in gw1 and I felt its versatile was useful as a first character). I got to around level 70 before I checked forums and I never really felt I had problems because of the profession.
Since then I’ve hit level 80, learned a lot more, and learned that a lot of this forum are being a bit extreme. I do just fine in dungeons and never once have been turned down because I was an Ele (mostly CoF and HotW). In solo, it can be a bit harder but 1v1 against risen in orr is usually easy. Mobs can be a bit more challenging, but I can take a lot with nukes. Usually, I focus on Fire for nuking power. I do have a balanced build (20/20/10/10/10) and I do attune to the others, but only when there is a need (like a tougher dungeon boss, then I throw down all my fields). But just doing around low levels areas, Fire+Staff does just fine.
I played my ele in pvp, as well as thief and warrior and I will say it may be a bit underpowered there, but I felt I did pretty well consider I am not a big PvPer. In WvW it is more my lag than the profession that gets me killed.
Short Version/Summary: There are a good bit of bugged skills and traits that need to be fixed and I wouldn’t mind some tweaks on things to make the profession more balanced, but I have been enjoying and plan to keep playing my ele. It may be squishy and it may not be strongest, but I got use to a lot of its styles and I find it very fun.
Hey, I need some feedback with Elementalist more experienced with Daggers. I’ve used daggers before and liked them, although I still need to work on my dagger tactics. Anyway, I want to work on Exotic Daggers, but unsure what attribute mod I should go for.
I am currently using a Berserker Staff of Superior Fire. I have or am working towards Soldier’s Armor Set (Power Main, Toughness and Vitality Minor), Berserker Armor Set, Emerald Jewelry Set, Ruby Jewelry Set, and Soldier Jewelry Set. I also plan to get a Soldier’s Staff of Superior Battle. I don’t want to add any more armor and jewelry sets though, since I already got a good defensive and a good critical set.
So the question is what stats the daggers should get. Since Daggers are more up close, I was thinking something with a Vitality or Toughness mod. But they also have a good bit of Condition Damage with Fire and Earth so I considered that as well. From what I seen, Daggers can still make good use of Critical though, so I considered of keeping that theme going. I could have each dagger with different mods too, which just makes it even more confusing imo XD
The main mods I’ve been considering have been Rampager’s (Precision Main, Power and Condition Damage Minor) to keep up Critical while adding some Condition Buff. I could just use Berserker Daggers (Power Main, Precision and Critical Damage Minor) as well. Valkyrie (Power Main, Vitality and Condition Damage Minor) or Knight’s (Toughness Main, Power and Precision Minor) would be more defensive options. I could also get Soldier’s Dagger (Power Main, Toughness and Vitality Minor) but I am unsure if I really need that much defense on the dagger. Then there are Rapid, Shaman’s, and Carrion as well, although I am not considering them as much.
So which do you think is best? I could get two sets of daggers like I did for Staff, one offensive and one defensive, but since they are already putting me in close it seems I’d always want to the defensive set. But at same time, when played right, daggers probably can dodge over tank (plan to practice that after I get daggers).
Well I see no reason to keep stating and restating the indecision I’m having. Any suggestions for which mods and playing daggers in general is appreciated.