Guild Wars 2

in the dagger dagger chain i insert flaming axe after fire or earth depending.
generally i slip it in after earth and use it while in water.

first step is getting down the chain.
second step is how to handle starting mid chain.
a lot of the dagger dagger ele tank is control and movement.

conjured weapons are hard to use. just like the ele.
i feel the axe and fgs do their job pretty well.

I can live with no changes to them. save that i would like fgs to be castable on the run.
cant speak for the others as they dont fit well in d/d play style IMHO.

it does take a while to get the combos down.
the learning curve to the ele is brutal.

there is no shame in giving up
this is a good result

i took me around 300 matches to get to the point that i feel very strong in 1v1 at level 40. i also felt like giving up several times. do it. play something else. then come back to the ele.
but it was worth it to me as now i using the same mechanics in pve and its very strong. i also see now how pve can help my pvp when dealing with losing battles and judging when to bug out.
pvp is a harsh learning environment.

go to the mists and practice on the NPC’s and dummies. it takes a lot of time to get the muscle memory in the fingers worked out. you need to do it without looking or thinking about what you need.
least i do.

i actually find the earth shield to be better in concept than the actual damage dealing weapons. It feels more natural.
Its utility and it makes sense that way. Thats hard to describe.

but i haven’t put a lot of time into figuring it out.
The only weapons i have put a lot of effort into are the ax and great sword. the others are too slow to use or not mobile enough on their face.
lightning hammer keeps me too close to the target for too long for my comfort.
im still at noob in a lot of respects at this.

the main thing i feel that conjures need is to get rid of the ground target.
that extra time to use makes them really hard to learn as that delay can kill the ele.

I would like the FGS to be castable on the run.
No ground target and castable on the run would make that weapon usable in a lot more situations.

Not trying to be a jerk so much… Im just saying do you really want to propose changes to something that you don’t use on a regular basis?

Some of the ele abilities are really powerful when used right but look like kitten poo when not used right.

I suggest forcing yourself to use them. replace one utility.
flaming great sword doesnt count as you have to stand still to cast it which makes it highly situational.

lava axe works pretty good.
try…
ax/lightning flash/mist form/greatsword
use the axe whenever the main attacks are on cooldown. basically dont use the autoattack from lightning except to take out illusions.
use the greatsword against objects and occasionaly against groups where you have safe ground.

use the ax with a standard d/d build 0/10/0/30/30
it works better when there is more power and crit behind it though.
0/20/0/25/25
it takes a lot of time to figure it out. I would not call myself and expert at the ele for sure but… i have been using conjures for most of my current learning curve.

are you an expert at the conjures currently? do you have some vids to show how you use them now?

The tracking that RTL does is pretty cool. goes around corners.
i have actually been RTL’ing to a downed character who them moved to a new location midflight and RTL corrected itself dramatically.
at least thats what it looked like.

video was not bad. the use of that healing skill.. i have never used it past findingout it was channeled. But it makes more sense now seeing it in action. i use the others basically the same way.

Imho try and get your power to 3k (80).
i have had some success with signet/aura builds and the damage output is pretty nice.

try to use the conjure from water. combine it with the +20% from vulnerability if you can. Then you get regen and combat power.
i prefer runes of the forge as the protection kicks in at 50% HP’s rather than 20. ele can pretty easily get hit in one shot for more than 20% of their HP’s.

Im not currently a big fan of lightning hammer. Flame ax works just fine for me… however there are those that swear by the hammer.
this is just an example of an aura/signet conjure build.
(copy the link text into a new tab dont click it.)
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fEQQFAWhMmYbyRAxjEAEFo4SQhADMKESRxN4A;TwAZUCvkQpiS5FlYGxEiZFzJmUsBBA

also… go to the mists and try out stuff.

a d/d ele is really something to see when well played. they are all over the place in skills and map and HP’s always going up.
There are a few bug fixes and maybe some ease of use things that would help here but i can take out GC thieve now. took a long while to get there but once i start that combo from air… they have to be reasonably good to survive.

What irritates me the most about thieves is not when they jump out of nowhere and start back stabbing/heart seeking me. thats pretty easy to get out of…. no what really sucks is when im fighting someone else and then they drop out of nowhere and start doing 4k+ damage to me and i cant see it happening. That gets tiresome.
but im getting good enough that i can jump in to a group of lower skill theives and kill at least one of them.

THAT ground targeting effect is about useless and easily adds .25 to a full second delay depending on how good you are at ground targeting but it always adds a delay.

id like that to be removed and just have it cast on target or at my feet.

Its so much easier to use these things with fast ground targeting.
however im told its better to spend your experience points to add skill levels to normal ground targeting as learning to use it fast is very useful. its just that on the conjures its a detriment.

kirtar.8453:

Crunchy Gremlin.5798:

Neither is the earth finisher according to the stickied bug list.
It’s Shockwave but the animation is churning earth

To be fair the spell effect is also churning earth since shockwave causes immobilize and is linear rather than radial.

yeah true. who knows what that thing is.
likely its not casting any other spell in code. its casting a new spell that is supposed to be something else but is a copy and has not been updated to match whatever the actual spell is.

ThiBash.5634:

Kodiak.3281:

ThiBash.5634:

Kodiak.3281:

" Evasive Arcana: This trait no longer creates unintended blast finishers."

Even so, it should at the VERY LEAST create a blast finisher on Churning Earth. Since, you know, the dagger version also has a blast finisher.

Seems like Anet was a bit too thorough with the blast removing. This cannot have been intentional.

No where in Evasive Arcana does it state the intended effects are supposed to be Blast Finishers at all which could also mean that they were never intended from the start.

The description of Churning Earth clearly states that it’s a blast finisher.

its not churning earth. wiki says it is but it obviously isnt when it goes off. bug list says it shockwave which is much more in line with the damage done but not the immobilize.
that may be a bug in that it is supposed to be churning earth but it clearly isnt.
doing churning earth would make EA a very useful trait again.

Damage: 1,092
4 Crippled: 1 s
8 Bleeding: 8 s (2720 damage)
Radius: 360
Combo Finisher: Blast

Neither is the earth finisher according to the stickied bug list.
It’s Shockwave but the animation is churning earth

hey you know that none of the spells associated with EA are blast finishers right? It obviously isnt casting churning earth. well… not obviously visually…. but obviously in effect.
Its ok guys. You were smart enough to figure out the EA thing you can find another.
Ele is hard to learn. that is part of its charm.
Hope you all recover from this pain.

ThiBash.5634:

Evasive Arcana no longer has any blast finishers at all. Not even the Churning Earth version, and it should be a blast finisher.

it doesnt cast churning earth. its shockwave. see evasive arcana bug list.

daphoenix actually says in his commentary or guide or whatever “dont get use to evasive arcana blast finishers”

Lifelike.5862:

Very disappointed to hear that the conjure buff only affects the first weapon sommoned though…

I dont much care about this as I am a loner… but i get that having the dropped weapon be buffed would make an ele very group friendly.

makes them the best weapons in the game doesnt it? save for maybe other other environmental weapons.

err… not best… biggest power buff. on par with legendary weapons i guess. hard for me to compare.

Leo G.4501:

Checking in game:

Frost Bow = 1min +180 Healing and 20% condition duration
Lightning Hammer = 1min +5% critical damage and +180 percision
Earth Shield = 180 to Vitality and Toughness
Flame Axe = 180 power and condition damage
Flaming Greatsword = 260 power and 180 condition damage

thanks Leo.
Thats a fairly substantial boost but still low enough a lot of people wont care… except when given to other folks.

Zenyatoo.4059:

I dont know how I feel about the changes to the conjure skills, especially fiery greatsword, seeing as only one of the moves gives a condition that does damage.

actually 2… there is one when cast.
But it also maybe retroactive.

flame axe has 3 one of which is a 25sec burn…

it really depends on how much of an increase they get.
Id expect about 100 which is… not really interesting.

try it on the practice NPC’s.

Lifelike.5862:

Conjured weapons got buffed though. I’m very pleased by this.

can you see how much the buff is?
i wont be in game for 7 hours or so.

that was expected to be changed for a pretty long time.
Is that changing in the patch?

besides fixing bugs…
Move “written in stone” out of the grandmaster to a lower slot.

nostromo.
default with
two rows of 5
1 row of 4
and some extra keys on the side.
almost as if the game was designed around using it.

the question is wrong but the answer is… sure it is.

The question should be is the ele worth the time to master?

I think it will take much more time to effectively use the ele as compared to any other class and you still may never be as good as some PvPers that have high reflex skills/dexterity/muscle memory.

if you want to put the time into using it then its likely has the highest action value of any of the classes.

practice NPC’s with lava axe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SER5Nl__1g&feature=youtu.be

IMHO the conjures should be in low arcane builds.
I really dont care about the extra weapon yet. maybe later when i learn more tactics around it. I would rather the weapon conjure wasnt ground targeted. It complicates its use and delays its cast for very little benefit.

Water IMHO is the best atunement to use conjures from.
utilize the +20% damage on vulnerable enemies and combine that with signets causing vulnerability or air minor 25 to cause vulnerability on critical hits and water minor 25.
this gets +30% damage fairly easily.
Lava Axe being my favorite here.

This gets a passive regen and bonus damage to high damage attacks.

Imho this is where a low arcane build would be used. however being as awesome as a high arcane build is questionable. but if evasive arcana changes it may increase this kind of builds viability.

water attacks themselves are awesome only where these attacks are awesome and i think those are pretty much corner cases or situational.

its unfortunate that written in stone is a grand master trait as if it were in a lower tier it could be made into a fairly potent +damage aura conjure build.

Couple of things:
*1 whats your thoughts on fast ground targeting?
I have been using this for a while.
My skill are pretty weak but i like its instant effect better than having to put the target down. I am just wondering if you have put any time into learning to use this ability and if so why don’t you use it.

*2 Chat and fighting
How in the kitten balls do you do that?
In your videos i see you doing some fairly complex running around and chat with editing of that chat.
that is amazing to me.

daphoenix.4283:

@Strodor
I noticed a big difference in survivability

@Katniss
Evasive arcana is considered a blast finisher, but don’t get used to it cause it was probably never meant to be this way.

Here’s my newest video
enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5LPuQdiMCE

nice ending. classic sci fi.
so on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is as much fun as you have ever had in a game.
how would you rank this?

BTW the commentary is pretty good.

i can see possibly laying down a ring of fire. conjuring the shield sucking people through the ring with MS#4 and updrafting them back out of the ring….

Ms#4 info says it should effect multiple targets. “radius”
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magnetic_Shield_

maybe some other ideas along that same line.
maybe meteor shower,lava font, MS. MS#4. MS#5

Id say lava axe is the easiest to L2P.
Id say magnetic shield is the hardest to L2P.

Lightning hammer is pretty cool but i haven’t used it much.

Mik Hell.8206:

Crunchy Gremlin.5798:

i dont believe that they are essential and i also believe that they are hard to learn to use. just like the ele.

so puttering around for a few hours with just one is not enough to show how they work.
IMHO you need to have a build based on their use. a standard D/D build is not good enough. thinking specifically pvp.

I was about to write a wall of text, but then I realized that if ANet took away Conjured Weapon I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

It’s not like they are bad, uneffective or underpowered.

I think they are just unoticeable.

I see people arguing over which weapon is the “best”, some say it’s staff, others are scepter/dagger supporters etc…

But I’ve never seen someone step up and say “you are all wrong, you dont need to use x weapon, conjure a bow/axe/whatever and you will be done, mark my words”.

I am sure there are people out there using them, but I havent seen one spawned in a very long time and I havent used one myself for even more time.

please excuse me for my long opinion here…

Yes my feeling for this is that the conjures are hard to learn all on their own. they have a long cooldown, limited number of uses, and change the way the ele plays a great deal when used.
So the only people that will be able to say much about their ability are people that actively use them with some success in hard content/wvw/pvp. these folks are in the vast minority because the Ele is already hard to use. I mean honestly how many folks will willing make the ele harder to play. Personally i love that learning curve:) (Ex EvE player. ran outta time to play)

I don’t think they are that special but they are utility or elite skills.
So the real question IMHO its not if they are better than regular weapons, but if they are better or at least as good as the skills they replace in a build that is designed to use them.

I think the answer to that is yes for at least the lava axe.

I am OK with taking out 1 of my normal utilities to use a conjure. But i am only moderately skilled in lava axe and in the ele overall.

flaming greatsword is even harder to learn as its cooldown is 3 times longer than the others but its impact on the build is less as the other elites are either near useless or can be ignored. stability from tornado or fire and forget elementals. I am betting that elementals actually hard to learn as well but less obvious due to their nature.

that one is again stunning… how are they not focus firing you into nuthin.
still what is your level of enjoyment from doing that amazing work?

i dont believe that they are essential and i also believe that they are hard to learn to use. just like the ele.

so puttering around for a few hours with just one is not enough to show how they work.
IMHO you need to have a build based on their use. a standard D/D build is not good enough. thinking specifically pvp.

you all need to make sure you actually use them seriously before deciding they need a change.
Flame Axe works fine. Throw it in at the end of a dagger dagger opener.
I have not tried to use the others much.
There are builds that work better with specific conjures although i like using the the axe from water with +20 damage from vulnerability and +2% damage for each boon.

that isnt to say that its better than a more accepted build but it is what it is.

Being able to switch to them like a normal weapon would be pretty powerful.
Overall though they are not a game changer.
They fit well into low arcane builds but if they were more powerful than a high arcane conjureless build a lot more people would use them.. specifically the more experienced players would be using them.

they are not useless but they are hard to use. in the ele concept just like the ele.

yeah i think you gots to have a water field to really heal.
ranger/ele is a pretty good combination for healing.

Yup its a hard pill to swallow. IMHO i say that pill is impossible to swallow at once.

Its part of the ele learning curve i think though:
Do everything i have learned up to now.
Plus a little bit.
Recognize that what im doing isnt working. <—- this is the part about the pill looking impossible to swallow.
Try something else. <—- This is the swallowing part.
Other stuff…

well played ele is cool to watch.
hit and run.
pull some chasers. kill them.
use speed/maneuverability to control the fight.
thanks for sharing man

runes of the centaur.
10 points to arcane 5 for elemental attunement
reduced signet CD.
signet of restoration.
20 sec run buff every 20 sec.

still not as good as
glyph of EH.
runes of the centaur
air 8 inscription.
arcane 5 elemental attunement
40 secs of base run buff. 20 for the group.
perma + with one button pressed.

yeah dont forget lightning hammer plus combos.
thats not perma but you can get a long group runbuff that way. at least i dont think there are limits on it… maybe there are… i dont use that much.

Wildclaw.6073:

The 20% will work for the Dragon Tooth as well, as long as your in Water Attunement before it lands.

Ah, stupid me. Does gale last long enough though? It is only a 2s duration and DT isn’t known for its fast animation time.

it doesnt last long enough to knock em down and then cast DT. they can get up and dodge before it lands.
although it could be combined with a signet of earth immobilize or some other immobilize or possibly chill.
Still they are likely to have a stunbreaker and nullify the whole combo. better to use it on a point with a lot of action… for me anyway.

Wildclaw.6073:

At least it sounds good on paper.

Until you realize that the +20% to vulnerable targets trait is crap as your water spells will still do much less damage than your other attunement.

+20% to vulnerable targets is only really decent with Conjured weapons, which basically means PvE Lightning Hammer build.

Lava axe is a valid PvP weapon IMHO. Its like a second longer range higher damage D/D fire atunment. rather a higher sustained damage.

it fits pretty well into a slow rotation.

theonewhoknocks.8641:

Wildclaw.6073:

At least it sounds good on paper.

Until you realize that the +20% to vulnerable targets trait is crap as your water spells will still do much less damage than your other attunement.

The 20% will work for the Dragon Tooth as well, as long as your in Water Attunement before it lands.

Nice trick.

fires embrace looks real nice on paper except that the ele can not fully spec for aura’s.
need 25 water to get the +2% damage for each boon to fully utilize fires embrace in my humble opinion but i cant do that AND get written in stone so that the signets can make up for the loss of the other useful utilities that are given up for them.

thats my humble opinion. after much internal debating i came up with a conjure build utilizing this… but its still lack luster without the extra 10-14% damage from water 25.
Conjures reduce the need to swap and I like them best used from water.

http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/elementalist#3|3|1119|628|2815|630|1027|20|1661|918|0|0|0|0|0|30|1649|2255|1891|20|1673|2260|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|49960|49960|49960|49960|49960|21025|0|0|0|0|0|

but i think i like this one better…
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/elementalist#3|3|1119|628|2815|630|1027|25|1664|918|0|10|1887|0|0|10|2255|0|0|25|2260|1673|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|49960|49960|49960|49960|49960|21025|0|0|0|0|0|

i use it in hard pve content.
havent found a use for it in pvp

you are on a long and arduous path.
you will go through many phases should you stay with the ele.
some of them wont be pretty.

eventually you likely end up back at scepter/focus and consider it completely differently than you do now.

have fun!

i have a naga and an n52te nostromo.

on the naga i put tagetting stuff.
cycle targets, target called target, call target
use, 0,0
target nearest,0,0

the rest of the many buttons i do not have mapped… i will get around it when i get another character to 80. i plan on using them for canned responses and gestures.

i have issues with the many buttons on the naga… they are small, numerous and have no texttile change. I also use my thumb to stabilize the mouse a lot and i do not have the dexterity built to delicately use my thumb.

the nostromo just falls right in place. almost like the game was designed with it in mind…
12345
67890
f1,f2,f3,f4
thumb for swap weapons
direction pad for control when my mouse is doing something else and for strafing/reversing.
space for jump.

comet is a fast blast finisher and it can hit mobs.
its useful for building might.

water in scepter is weak.
dagger/focus/conjure might be better for pve and possibly wvw.
Havent wvw’d with my ele more than a few hours.

still i like all the quick blast finishers in scepter/focus and the range and the defense.

the anti projectile stuff is pretty powerful. it blocks treb hits in spvp. the air one.
the magnetic aura does not seem to but it would be so much cooler if it launched the treb hit back at the treb.

against rangers in AC the anti projectile stuff will save your butt. the beauty of the ele abilities is that they do not stop the ele from being offensive.
although i think the swirling air anti projectile is not friendly meaning it will block friendly projectiles but im not sure of that.

most graphic drivers will have some sort of utility panel that will let you change default settings.

for nvidia there is a slider under a spinning 3d logo that will let you see in real time what the slider does. thats a global setting.
if its set performance then things will looks like your game does.
if its amd then it is likely auto tuning itself. there is a setting for that as well under performance and i think the option is Catalyst A.I.

otherwise just figure out the kind of video card you have and how to change its default performance settings.