Guild Wars 2

10/30/0/10/20 Scept/dagger

1644 Power / 838 weapon dmg / 185 condition dmg
1728 Precision / 43 crit chance / 50 crit dmg
941 Toughness / 736 defense
1016 Vitality / 11805 hp / 100 healing power

All my gear is 100% drops,

Ozx.5683:

and then we could get infinite swiftness by switching back and forth into air. sounds good to me

You can already get infinite swiftness by traiting for glyphs and using the glyph heal.

DeanAdamFry.7106:

To improve our survivability without increasing our vitality and toughness I would propose the following changes:

1. Attunements no longer have a cooldown and go on a 0.5 second cooldown after swapping.
2. Add Element only buffs that as long as you stay in this attunement you get the following bonuses: Fire – Retaliation Water – Regeneration + Condition Removal every 10 seconds Air – Fury + Swiftness Earth – Protection.
3. Decrease all weapon skill cooldowns that are over 40 seconds by 5 seconds.
4. Attunement Recharge Trait will now decrease the weapon skill cooldowns in all Attunements by 10%, 20% and 30%.
5. Lingering Elements now has a 10 second internal cooldown.

I think this would be a nice start but you tell me.

You sir have no idea what it means to balance. One of ele’s most powerful traits is Elemental Attunement which grants base 5 second buffs on attunement. Imagine if these were permanent, that is insane. Reducing the cd of all skills by 30%. Dear lord. No cd on attunement is also far too powerful. Remember, other classes have a 10 second cd on weapon swap.

Also Re: Bursts.

You have 2 weapon sets, if you don’t like or want to use the GS burst skill (I don’t), then you can weapon swap and use another burst skill (such as the bow, rifle, or axe finishers, all of which are quite a bit better depending on situation).

You can also opt to not use the burst skills, there are 2 very easily accessable traits that support it (up to +12% dmg and up to +9% crit respectively).

Am I saying the GS burst skill couldnt use a buff? No. I’m just saying it isn’t the end of the world that it isn’t a top performing Burst skill.

I’m not defending or supporting GS but there are some inaccuracies in your breakdown.

1) You don’t mention that this attack is a Cleave. Being able to hit multiple mobs is something that not all warrior 1 skills can do.

2) I hear this so much. Hundred Blades does NOT immobilize you. If you move it cancels the the channel, but it does not prevent you from moving, you are completely free to move out of the way if theres an attack you need to avoid headed your way. Warriors that refuse to cancel their 100 blades are bad. Optimally you will be able to finish your channel (especially because the last hit hits the hardest), but don’t feel like you have to if it means living to use the skill again, the cd isn’t that long, especially if traited.

3) The whirlwind attack (imo) is in about the same place as hundred blades, ie: a very powerful attack with drawbacks.
—It has a very fast animation
—It evades attacks
—It hits multiple times (adrenaline, procs)
—It is a mobility skill
—It does alot of damage
—It does even more damage if you can use it if your enemy is against a wall or something, but the damage is no slouch without a wall type object.
—Using Bladetrail or Rush after it can offset the positioning issues.

4) Has serious issues with getting gutted by walls/ledges that make the thrown weapon unable to return, this is more of a combat mechanic issue that needs to fixed rather than a balancing issue. It has a longish (relatively speaking) cast time, so it needs to hit twice to be effective dps on a single target. Great for AoEing.

5) Like Bladetrail it has some combat mechanic issues that need to be worked out in regards to passing the target and continuing the channel even if the target is reached.
There are also balacing discrepencies that need to be worked out in regards to it’s near clone Ride the Lightning (elementalist offhand dagger) which unlike rush, can be used in the air and is completely unaffected by chill, cripple, and swiftness and has a faster base movement speed as well as a shorter cooldown.

Greatsword is also something you need to trait for, it’s not something you can just slap on any build, a big reason why the Greatsword is what it is, is because the traits that affect it and are incorporated into GS builds are as strong as they are.

They just need to give us multiple build slots that we can switch between.

Right now you can only have 2 builds, 1 for sPvP, and the other that you have to use for everything else.

It costs way too much to retrait everything for a dungeon run. If I could switch between builds for different types of content then I’d gladly run a support spec for dungeons, but the game doesn’t support that right now.

Really you need 4 builds:
PvE/Soloing
PvE Dungeons
WvW
sPvP

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t226/Dshinobi/363wow.jpg

I do consider at least 20 pts in Arcana to be necessary, as I’ve said before.

And just reiterating what Bunzy said, the actual traits in Arcana being as good as they are make it feel much less like I’m being forced into speccing Arcana just to get the atunement recharge reducation. Elemental Attunement provides a massive increase to the pace of any build, being able to apply buffs at instant speed is incredibly good (especially earth, since you can switch to earth while CC’d to grab the 33% dmg reduction so you don’t get bursted as hard while you can’t act). Vigorous Scepter and Blasting Staff are also really good for their respective weapons they benefit. As is Evasive Arcana further up in the line, but I personally stop at 20.

If the traits in Arcana were crap then I’d have an issue relying on Arcana to get my attunements recharging faster, but both the traits and the stat bonuses are just so good (too good?) to pass up.

The elemental summons are not a complete waste, both the elite and the utility. However I can see why you would think they’re trash considering you said you don’t switch attunements which means you’re not rotating your knocks and blinds to help keep your summons alive.

@OP’s video. On multiple occassions you use dragons tooth and phoenix right before using ring of fire, using ring of fire first would be giving you and nearby allies 3 stacks of might each. This is basic stuff man.

DrakeWurrum.6049:

Im Too Godlike.5629:

Cool. Your opinion is that elementalists are fine. You are in the minority.

Nope. The forums are a vocal minority. Popular forum opinion: loleleisweak!

That’s the minority opinion.

The forum community is a minority, that does not mean the opinions of those on the forums is not shared by those who do not post on the forums.

The only thing that I have noticed to “linger” is soothing mists. And by that I mean soothing mists does not apply to your character right away when you switch to water attunement, it takes a couple seconds to kick in before it actually appears, you can actually switch out of water attunement before soothing mists kicks in. Lingering Elements allows soothing mists to trigger (or re-trigger) even after you’ve left water attunement. (soothing mists is a 10 second buff that refreshes every ~5 seconds, it will “linger” by itself but it cannot trigger or refresh outside of water attunement, lingering elements extends the duration that it can trigger or refresh).

Everything else is broken when it comes to lingering elements. From the 5 point minor traits to the +10% dmg when in x attunement traits. Fixing this could go a long way to making elementalists better. (as well as shoe-horning elementalists into requiring ~20 pts in arcana to be effective, but thats another topic entirely)

I only see 3 issues with mesmers at the moment:

1) Multiple Mesmers in the same team in sPvP is incredibly imbalanced. The more mesmers in the same group in sPvP the more OP they are. No other profession stacks like this. I’ve only actually quit a pvp match once, and it was when somehow I ended up facing 4 mesmers in the same group, unbelievable.

2) Mesmers can prolong death far too long while in the downed state.

3) Players should not be able to call target on a mesmer to mark the real one. If a mesmer gets marked it should mark their clones as well. It just kinda defeats the purpose of them, imo.

I’d say something about Moa but it’s already been mentioned enough in this thread already.

I wouldn’t categorize myself as hardcore or casual. I used to be a very hardcore gamer, and while I still play alot of hours and min/max my builds, I typically don’t care enough anymore to grind out the best of the best gear like I used to. So I’d say I’m semi-hardcore now, or whatever you want to call it.

As far as the dungeons go, they’re not fun right now. I wouldn’t call them challenging either, as there is a big difference between challenging and what dungeons are right now which could be described as:

1)Do you know what the boss does?
—if no, die and respawn
—if yes continue on
2)Did you dodge roll the 1 shot mechanic?
—if no, die and respawn
—if yes continue on
3)Repeat #2 10-20 times until the boss or mob pack is dead perfectly, or die and respawn.

There is alot they could do to make the dungeons still be challenging and not completely revolve around 1 shot mechanics and being able to dodge roll each and every one of them.

Air’s autoattack (the first skill) is normally a spread attack with 3 bolts, however if you are close (melee range) with your target all 3 bolts will hit, for very respectable damage, especially considering the fast cast time of the skill. This really makes up for the rest of underwater ele combat, which is frankly awful.

The cone earth bleed is also decent dmg, and earth has a good sink too.

The aoe sink/regen in water is good, as is the charge (#5) but only if you can get your target against a wall.

The steam aoe in fire is good, but otherwise fire is probably the worst element underwater.

On my elementalist I have 30 points into air but I actually spend very little time in air, except when im just running around.

Fast element swapping is definitely the best way to play elementalist in my opinion, and by extension I would also say at least 20 points into arcana is also necessary. Effectively rotating and fully utilizing all your cds is the way to go.

As an scepter/dagger ele with 30air, 10water, 10fire, and 20 arcana i regularily rotate between all elements with most of my time being spent in fire or earth and the least amount of time being spent in air and water.

fire- main dps/burst and aoe might stacking (swap>ring of fire>arcane blast>dragon tooth>phoenix>earth attune>EQ>churning earth=16 stacks of might for you and nearby allies/pets)

air- In combat I typically only stay in air attunement for 2-3 seconds at a time. Lightning Strike on attunement+lightning strike skill+blind are all instant casts (zero animation) which you can do while lightning rodding to your target and updrafting for CC/dodge/swiftness. Also the attunement I spend me time in while running around, perma swiftness from the Glyph heal and lightning rod get you around fast.

water-specced 10 pts for condition removal on attunement (SO GOOD) also attune here for the 2 heals (#3 and 5) to heal self/allies as well as for popping your glyph heal which grants 20 secs of regeneration when specced for it (hence the pts into air attunement). Also gives soothing mists gives aoe regen that does stack with normal regen. Typically you don’t want to stay in water attunement for very long, just swap in for your heals then swap out, the sooner you swap out the sooner you will be able to swap into it again to remove more conditions.

earth-3 main uses for earth attunement..
a) go from fire>earth for aoe might stacking (explained above)
b) go from air>earth for lockdown (2 blinds and 2 knockdowns can keep mobs locked down for a long time in dungoens
c)Swap to earth when you get CC’d or otherwise can’t dodge for instant protection (33% reduced dmg) from the buffs you get on attunement.
-also Stone shards is probably our best auto attack as a specter/dagger

Redscope.6215:

Also, sounds like DreadShinobi is the classic Elementardist that hasn’t figured out how to counter HB yet…so bad.

dodgeroll

OH BOY I WIN.

didn’t dodge roll
Mist form!

OH BOY I WIN.

Also I main my warrior in pvp, not my elementalist, I have alot of experience both delivering 100 blades and receiving it, I know exactly how it works, kthx.

Shockwave.1230:

but I think the solution in RtL’s case is to make this skill unaffected by autotarget.

Yes, having RtL (and by extension, Rush) be unaffected by autotargetting would be the optimal solution.

I haven’t used auto targetting in nearly 2 weeks now, and I’d never use it anyways in anything where what I target actually matters (spvp/wvw/dungeons), but when I’m running around and stuff for whatever reason then I’d rather have autotargetting on and I’d like that to be an option for me, because with skills like Ride the Lightning and Rush, it isn’t an option.

Nucleardraft.4078:

It happens to me way too often. Considering just dumping the GS and switching to dual axes for now.

Hey, if you do it now, you won’t qq later when gut 100 blades.

It is absolutely worth traiting, at least from my experience with it in sPvP.

I use the standard GS burst spec (I know, I know), with vengeance in that spec it nearly guarantees me to win vs any non mesmer (mesmers being able to stall out vengeance with how long they can survive while downed).

I’d say it wouldn’t be quite as good in dungeons unless you’re confident you can burst your target down in under 15 secs, which can be difficult sometimes when you need to avoid 1 shot mechanics, and obviously doesn’t work against any non-add boss.

And if you die while in vengeance, make sure you’re definitely over the buff’s duration before you respawn. You just need to be smart about it for now til they fix that crap.

Just rank 10 so far. Mostly been pve’ing.

I don’t mind the downed state, they just need to balance how effective each class is while downed.

ie: Elementalists are way too weak while downed (immoblize doesn’t really prevent you from getting finished, and mist form becomes available far too late and doesn’t really help much when you do use it as ppl can easily follow you).

And mesmers on the other hand are way too strong while downed, finishing off mesmers is by far the most tedious and overly time consuming thing to do in pvp.

thieves are strong while downed, but I wouldn’t say they’re over the line like mesmers are.

The character designer is lacking as a whole. It is very hard to get into my character when everything feels so preset, like I’m not even playing my own unique character. It’s not me, it’s just one of X number of preset designs for that race.

What MMOs should be trying to live up to in terms of character design:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYf9Z8hcYvg&feature=related

Ride the Lightning works very poorly with Autotargetting.
-If I have autotargetting on and use Ride the Lightning with no target and no target infront of me sometimes it will work, other times it will target some mob way off to the left/right and send me hurdling off a cliff to my death.
-Using Ride the Lightning as a proper escape tool cannot be done with reliability with autotargetting, because if you latch on to something you aren’t going to go in the right direction or for the full 1200 range.

I like autotargetting. It’s a great feature, but I can’t use it because it completely ruins Ride the Lightning as a general use skill, a mobility skill, and/or an escape tool.

In a similar vein the warrior Greatsword skill “Rush” (which is otherwise a clone of ride the lightning in functionality) should work the same way as Ride the Lightning. IE: It should ignore swiftness/cripple/chill.

The elementalist scepter skill in earth attunement “Stone Shards” is way too loud. To the point that I have to lower my volume to where I can’t actually hear other things well enough. That or sometimes I’ll just avoid dpsing in earth attunement entirely.