Guild Wars 2

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

Grimreaper.5370:

MightyMicah.7451:

I don’t know man. I like the idea, but Ele’s have plenty of ways to close in gaps.

We do have some good gap closers on d/d Ele. Regardless of these gap closers it bugs me that a couple builds have the capability of spamming snares/immob/chills and kiting you for 50% or more of a fight. If magnetic grasp was more reliable that would be really nice. D/D is so fun to play, but also so frustrating when you fight a kiting build and have no option for ranged attacks/gap closers.

Just respond in kind. If they’re using all that you ought to use the same on them, no way that they can escape. I can charge ‘m with 12 seconds of chill, several seconds of immobilize, cripple, gap closers and CC’s all the while outputting tremendous damage. Enough damag to take down everyone who’s stupid enough to stay right next to me…. well its not like they have much of a choice.

First off I’d probably mention that you’re using a chill spamming build, which is really only viable in duels. Regardless of your chill from dagger and focus weapon and your signet of water, you’re still not going to be able to catch some of these classes kiting you.

If you’re an asura you wait to LF until you’re at the peak of your jump, if you’re any other race you wait till your body has turned to its side.

conditionmancer is definitely still viable, even with high condition removal they still manage to reapply condis and destroy you.

You have designed a game which has such amazing PvP potential! When can we expect each class in this game to get the touch ups they deserve? While the PvP potential is outstanding the lack of viable trait choices is lacking, some weapon skills need a revamp.

Warrior should never of gotten nerf to melee weapons

MightyMicah.7451:

I don’t know man. I like the idea, but Ele’s have plenty of ways to close in gaps.

We do have some good gap closers on d/d Ele. Regardless of these gap closers it bugs me that a couple builds have the capability of spamming snares/immob/chills and kiting you for 50% or more of a fight. If magnetic grasp was more reliable that would be really nice. D/D is so fun to play, but also so frustrating when you fight a kiting build and have no option for ranged attacks/gap closers.

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

Grimreaper.5370:

The part of your sentence I put in bold, I’m not quite following. You can use BTTH effectively in any attunement no?

Yes, but when your opponent is squirrelling at ~20% health, water and earth auto-attacks is unlikely to put them down because their damage is inherently low. Add to that, that their auto-attack has to score a direct hit, so a strafing opponent (moving left and right at 600 range) will give you ‘obscured’ misses.

Fireball has a splash which makes it more reliable out to about 600-800 range, and lightning (with BTTH) becomes 100% chance since it auto-tracks and both will hit for ~1k before crit.

I really wish I could fit BTTH on my build, but I can’t give up all the healing that comes from the water tree.

On my 1v1 dueling video I used BTTH and lightning tree instead of fire which I really liked. But I couldn’t continue with it under the current meta because of a serious lack of condi cleanse which the fire tree assists me with

(The old build was 0/4/0/4/6)

I’ve also found 6/2/0/0/6 doing more damage than 2/6/0/0/6 btw. That says something about the ferocity nerf I think. You should try “killing” the invincible dummy as fast as you can and clock your speeds with multiple builds, try and find a nice balanced build by assessing the dps of the build in this manner along with your healing potential in mind. I did this for d/d with tons of builds in mind, testing on the invincible dummy and the heavy dummy, I was quite surprised by some of my results.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

Hello,

I like to create builds and made this one but I lack the skill to effectively make use of it.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAodhcM6Z24woBdEBBASsAzyJaV54lXD-TJhHwACeAAAOBAk2fYZZAA
So I’m looking for experienced and talented elementalists to show how to effectively use this build.

Please try it first. The gameplay is basically sticking to the opponnent as long as possible using the highest number of skill possible. Made possible through permanent pbaoe chill. And I mean permanent as in they have chill on them for as long as they’re alive.
Chose arcane shield for the extra blast after it expires, chose the glyph because if you use it while in air it’ll give some very good weakness up time. I chose the cantrip obviously to clear conditions from me when earth focus 4 isn’t available.

I’ve ran a chill build recently. This was my setup.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAoNhcM6c24wohAFAhYychCIaR5vTzC-TJBIwAAeAACOBAZ2fgYZAA

Cantrip mastery synergizes well with spell slinger, Zypher’s boon is going to provide better returns opposed to bolt to the heart. Cleansing wave + evasive arcana = 2 condi removals every 10 seconds, which is the minimum I’d run personally. I chose hydromancy sigil because it applies damage as well as chills. Sunspot is not worth going 15 in fire, Electric discharge is much better. Not sure why you had lava tomb traited…

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

Grimreaper.5370:

.

Btw I edited my first message!

Haha, me too! I updated mine so its clearer

I can definitely see where you’re coming from. I think the message I’m trying to convey in the video is that it’s usually very hard to ‘get them down that last little bit’ because people get squirrelly™ when they get low on HP.

It makes it hard to apply damage when they back off, and move unpredictably making it hard to combo. Which is why its important to try to get into fire (or lightning too if you have BTTH) to get them down that last little bit with a powerful auto attack.

Getting your attunement order just right in order to be ready to switch into your ‘finisher attunement’ to deliver the killing blow can be a bit tricky.

BTTH definitely helps with that last sliver.

The part of your sentence I put in bold, I’m not quite following. You can use BTTH effectively in any attunement no?

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

Grimreaper.5370:

I just wanted to raise one question, why not drop 10 points in water and put 10 more into arcana? evasive arcanas dodge in water heals for more each 10 seconds, removes a condi, provides you with 6 seconds of burning to compliment your build and blinds. You would be losing some vigor and regen so I’m not quite sure if the trade offs worth it but it may be since you’re only running one cantrip and have a second one which may proc depending on who you’re fighting.

I could see that working, if that’s what you’re in to.

But another thing that you trade is the vitality and healing power. Attunement speed and boon duration aren’t a great benefit to me. Although on the plus side, you would get flame blast on roll which is a nice way to apply burning—or potentially a blast finisher with earth.

So there is definitely some viability in that. Personally, I prefer to save my dodges for actually avoiding attacks though—which is still possible with EA, but it encourages a wasteful behavior when it comes to dodging—especially without vigor.

I believe bolt to the heart + glyph of elemental power used in fire would help a lot with your damage sustain issues.

Btw I edited my first message!

I just wanted to raise one question, why not drop 10 points in water and put 10 more into arcana? evasive arcanas dodge in water heals for more each 10 seconds, removes a condi, provides you with 6 seconds of burning to compliment your build and blinds. You would be losing some vigor and regen so I’m not quite sure if the trade offs worth it but it may be since you’re only running one cantrip and have a second one which may proc depending on who you’re fighting.

I have been running this build recently and I really enjoy it on d/d. It also has 6 points into fire and uses persisting flames!

This is what I would personally run
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWnMISLD2zAGNArEGgAQCHowARlKv9bZA-TpQOgAA7PsWGAA

I do recall you saying its the hard to finish someone off with staff when they’re almost dead due to low dps sustain. This build should help that thanks to BTTH.

Luimes.4281:

Please gief magnetic leap 10k damage k? moar damage

You do realize people are asking for it to just have a base 67 damage delve increase along with proper functionality right? … If anet implemented this minor buff/fix right now with out telling us on patch notes I’m sure you would never even notice.

Luimes.4281:

whine whine whine, ele class mechanic is fine.

This isn’t about the current potential of the class, its about opening up different build options.

I feel like Anet gave up on us, a response just to know they are taking feedback into consideration would be wonderful.

Sir Kaboomski.1508:

runeblade.7514:

Stealth is a equivalent to a immunity button against ranged and casters. So I don’t think it is a problem.

This statement could not be more false.

It actually does hold some relevance, although keeping target when a player comes back from stealth is not a good idea imo. I’d rather not simplify the games complexity while in battle. I would like to see damage remove stealth though as long as it wasn’t condi damage and just direct damage.

Stars.2179:

Grimreaper.5370:

xFireize.6318:

I suggest play your guardian more to get a better grip on how it works. A few traits in your list are far from being useless. Please, at least try the trait yourself next time.

Care to elaborate on which traits you find useful and why?

Care to read the rest of the other posts before picking on one poster who probably didn’t care to list it because it’s already listed before?

Again I pointed out Communal Defenses is overpowered, which according to your opinion has little use and “bad”

Consider Shattered Aegis used in conjunction with Communal Defenses in a group of 20 – 40 guardians. Perma Aegis, perma damage to anything that touch that zerg and all they have to do is seat there and press F3 turn by turn once in a while.

Also Retributive Armor is good. It gives you minimum +3.4 % critical chance up to +6.5% crit chance for an adept trait (and please do your calculation before asking “oh where do you get your number”?). And for a DPS build +3.4% permanent crit chance is a lot, and for a bunker build +6.5% crit chance can help out.

Woah, such hostility. I simply wanted to hear about every trait on my list you felt were up to par. Second of all I didn’t say communal defenses was bad, I said i’ve heard its not worth picking up and asked for community feedback. Perhaps you should read? Can I get a touche? btw I removed this trait from the list because of the community feedback. I do read what you guys have to say my good sir

I like the fact its semi-hard to land. Although sometimes I feel like it should be landing and it doesn’t.

SmokinBuda.1398:

I find Gust on staff the worst skill,with the amount of gapclosers melee have in this game,a soft caster like a staff elementalist should have a well-working point blank AoE knockback.

Definitely can agree on gust being a poor design.

Anomaly.7612:

ammayhem.5962:

Elementalists get 10 more skills, more combo fields/blasts, and thus far more options.

How about we compare Ele to Thief? Untreated Steal is just a gap closer with an RNG skill that might be useful.

Warrior just gets an extra skill per weapon.

Engineer gets 4 extra skills based on Utilities.

But hey, the forums are here, so I guess why not ask Anet to break a class?

Thief has it pretty rough. As a Thief, you pretty much have to trait into steal to make it worth anything aside from a gap closer.

Thats just another bogus part about the game though, thief having to trait the heck out of steal just to see it be effective. Its just ridiculous that they have to spend so many trait points just to make it effective. Steal should steal boons passively with out a trait… its called STEAL. It should also deal some damage without the trait mug AND be able to crit.

IMO elementalist is missing that special mechanic everyone else has which is just apart of their class. Sure we get four weapon swaps… But a lot of our skills are either low in damage or dysfunctional. Churning Earth won’t land if someone experienced sees it coming, Ice spike and eruption take far too long to land as well, same with shatterstone. This could be the elementalists special perk, a boon per attunement swap. And think about it for a moment, I don’t think it would be op to receive this trait for free. With out points in the arcana line you lose boon duration, and a longer CD on attunements! And even with this boon for free, most eles will still probably pick up 30 into arcana because of EA. It would probably just mean a free slot from the master trait if anything. If they’re playing a build with no point investment into arcana its only going to be ~5 seconds of regen, protection and swiftness… 5 seconds of Protection (The reason this trait is so great) in Earth with dagger off hand doesn’t mean much since your usually knocking your opponent down for your blast finishers during that protection time. Focus off hand has a 3 second immunity in Earth which you’re probably going to use before swapping into air or water, thus making that whole protection duration not as relevant. Staff is either going to immobilize or block off your target in earth and if your target swaps to range you’re probably going to reflect projectiles… Lets not forget to mention 3 classes can steal boons.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

So i am wondering what your condition eles are running for Runets? I am still running my Perplexity but wondering if i could manage to change it. It just kind of sucks just how important Perplexity is. The fact its a new condition and the damage it does is very good.

Flame Legion seems a decent option. 175 Power, 10% Burning Duration, 25% chance to cause 1 second of burning (10second ICD) and 7% Damage to Burning foes.

The things i dont like about it – 1 second Burning every 10 seconds is like 100damage, if that depending on the build. I run with around 2,000Condition damage when fully buffed. Would have 50% burning duration which would be okay the 6/6 i don’t like – i have NO power on any of my gear currently so this wouldnt be that big of a buff.

Really disappointed that Torment runeset got barely a change at all. It needed a chance on hit added as 4/6 and the 6/6 needed to be buffed. Krait could be better as well.

D/F + perplexity is win, try hyrdo sigil + battle. Use Glyph of elemental Power in water attunement. You’ll be chilling your target left and right while they have nothing but crappy auto attacks. 2 points in fire means .5 more seconds of chill from both every time they proc too.

Would you like it if Windbourne dagger gave elementalist a mechanic that would allow them short bursts of super speed opposed to perma 25% run speed when dual wielding daggers? Something along the lines of a dodge producing a short burst of super speed? Or super speed on crit? I wouldn’t mind taking a nerf somewhere if it meant I’d have a better shot at catching people who kited while playing d/d. Every other class can switch to ranged when kittenz hit the fan, D/D Ele is stuck around ~300 range on average.

MightyMicah.7451:

I haven’t noticed this at all. In fact, I like lightning flash better because it also deals damage.

Lightning Flash is really deadly when combined with other skills. It deals damage unlike Blink. If it had a shorter cool down that would mean an ele could effectively burst much easier more often. I’d rather things not get too easy for us. I’d love to see a stun added to it though and a much smaller radius. It would be harder to land but that much more rewarding.

I can definitely agree with this.

I don’t think warriors need any more nerfs, just because 2 warriors are used on one team doesn’t mean they need nerfs. Every 5v5 game should want and need a tank or two on their team! Why shouldn’t tanks play a vital role in this game?

Rezz.8019:

I don’t agree with lack of different game modes. I think conquest is perfect mode and no other mode can ever work.

However, PvP is in very bad shape right now. I couldn’t care less if I win or lose a match. There is no benefit from winning at all. Leaderboard is pretty much a fail at its current state. Something has to be fixed about that.

Plenty of other people along with myself heavily disagree with you. There needs to be options. I have done conquest for years now and I’m getting sick of it.

Rally is one of the most absurd things in this game.

1.) If you get hit with a huge crit when you are almost dead, thats overkill. You should just die instantly.

2.) Downed state should not allow you to live as long, stomping should happen faster, if you immediately start stomping a player you just downed, you should not have to worry about a knock back or mist form, any counter to stomp from the downed player.

3.) People reviving a downed player should not be allowed to until they are out of combat.

Its unfortunate that GW2 SPvP solo and tournament play revolves around one game type. There was a recent team death match map added, I like this idea and I’d also like to say I really enjoy the terrain layout of the map, but I feel the map is far to small to really enjoy the potential 1vX, 2vX fights that could happen.

Heres some ideas on game modes and additions I’d like to suggest Anet looks into:

Free for all map- Let each player run into the ring and wreck havoc upon each other, this could get quite intense. You’d run into a fight not ever really knowing how it might turn out. Perhaps a warrior is far to tanky for you or another guy to take out, so you gang up on him, perhaps a mesmer is about to die to someone you have taken a disliking to so you assist the mesmer and save him, but then he kills you! You get the idea by now I’m sure.

-Add a game type with siege which spawns at random locations at the beginning of a match

-Add a game type with spirits which appear for a short moment of time and carry/teleport you to a different location of the map

-Add a game type with NPCs which fight with you or against you, depending on your standing with them.
(Perhaps a small objective in some spvp matches could allow you to gain favor of these NPCs, if you failed at pleasing them then they may come after you more often than others! The NPC should not strictly pick any sides though. I’d like to think of this NPC as some giant hulk like monster on a rampage)

-3 side wars, 5v5v5

-MOBA style map. This game type could revolve around the moba play style, similar to DOTA/LoL. Although there would be no farming gold for gear or leveling, there could be some sort of reward which made your team stronger the more you killed players, eventually allowing you to gain enough strength to rush into the enemy teams base and destroy it.

-Invent a map style where the terrain of the map is constantly after you! You must always watch your back.

-Invent a gladiator ring which takes place with a 5v5 match up, but only has 1v1 fights going on. After one player is killed, the match randomly selects two other people to 1v1. Allow the other players who are watching their ally fight to minorly assist in the 1v1 battle via structures around the map, mobs they may summon, ect.

-Add a game type with one player vsing 5 people, the player fighting solo has his/her stats boosted, making a 1v5 a very tough fight for both sides.

Hello, I main ele. I mainly use D/D as well. The best way to kill them is to steal as many boons as possible, and use ranged weapons since D/Ds range is very short. I’ve dueled many thieves and I’d have to say the hardest thieves to beat are the ones with high dodge rate, many evasive maneuvers and ones that keep their distance and never stay close for too long.

I will teach you how to fight a d/d ele by telling you about their most effective dps. This is when you should avoid them. Its all about watching which attunement they’re in. There is an icon which indicates which one they are in.

Heres what you want to look out for

Burning Speed: When they are in fire, this is when they will burst. Burning speed which makes the ele dash forward has a dead give away in its animation. The Ele will turn to their side before rushing forward and then blast the area they stop at for major damage. This is their main burst method. If you get used to what burning speed looks like and just stay on the defensive side when they are in fire, you will live much longer. Eles who are a little more advanced know to use Burning speed with their lightning flash combo, this is a little harder to see coming because the only indication is the ele turning to their side(or hopping up in the air if asura) before teleporting to you with the blast of burning speed coming along with it. Burning speed has a range of 600 units, but can travel up to 900 units with lightning flash.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Burning_Speed
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lightning_Flash

Fire Grab: This is also part of the fire attunement, this may be followed up by burning speed, drakes breath, cleansing fire or a dodge roll on top of you while the Ele is in fire attunement (which will cause 6+ seconds of burning). Fire Grab hits much harder when you are set on fire, this means you want to clear burning as quickly as possible when you are set on fire and the elementalist is in fire attunement. Fire grab has a max range of 300 units.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fire_Grab
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleansing_Fire
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Drake's_Breath

Ring of fire: This does moderate damage and wont hurt you while standing inside of it, but standing inside the ring of fire is a bad idea, the elementalist will use his blast finishers inside this ringe, one of them called Earthquake will knock you down( You can see earthquake coming by watching the elementalists feet come off the ground). Ring of fire will only burn you if you step onto the ring, so dodge or teleport through it to avoid burning. If you can daze the elementalist as ring of fire is present and stop them from casting spells, you will stop them from stacking might as well as preventing a little bit of healing if they have their healing signet equipped(It only works when casting spells). Ring of fire is a point blank aoe.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ring_of_Fire
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Earthquake
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Restoration

Lightning Whip: This is the auto attack that hurts the most from d/d ele, when they are in air attunement you are susceptible to a knock back while they stand close, its call updraft. While an ele is in air make sure you also watch out for their shocking aura, this will stun you if you attack them (Unless you are 300+ units away), allowing them to either get free lightning whips off or potentially swap to fire and get a burst off. The stun only last 1 second and can only affect you once per second. This skill has a max range of 300.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lightning_Whip
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shocking_Aura
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Updraft

Atherakhia.4086:

While swapping attunements is clearly the overall design of the class, is anyone else concerned that Elemental Attunement is simply too strong to be given to the class freely? Tons of other classes have mandatory traits to consider in their specs and several don’t have the luxury of it being a 4pt trait, but a 6pt one.

And why make the claim that Elemental Attunement is the issue and not say Cleansing Wave, the other trait most consider mandatory in their builds as an elementalist?

I do agree that build diversity is quite bad on the Ele with 8 points tied up at a minimum and most would consider 10 or even 12 points to be far more realistic. But Elemental Attunement is simply too powerful to be a freebie or even an adept trait and would likely need to be nerfed considerably.

Is it worth the risk?

Elemental Attunement used to be an Adept trait. Do you understand why this trait is vital? Without protection the Elementalist has taken a fairly reasonable hit on their survivability. The regeneration is nice, the might and swiftness are mere icing on the cake. Giving this trait as a passive bonus won’t mean the Elementalist spirals out of control, it just means they will be able to take a few more hits with a dps/hybrid build, and receive a very small bonus to their damage if they aren’t already running a might stacking build. Without 30 into the arcana line they lose a heal, with out 15 points in water they lose a heal. That is what makes the Elementalist potentially so tanky, that and their mobility + dodge rate. Elemental Attunement is a small, but valuable part of their defense.

With my idea of making the 3 point traits a passive part of the elementalist and an affixated 10 second reuse on attunements, the Arcana line could then boost the effectiveness of these 3 point traits(which are passive by class design for the sake of this conversation), meaning they start out very weak but grow in strength as you spent more points into Arcana. A hybrid build focusing on dps won’t benefit nearly as much from healing ripple. I think this could work and if it was done right the elementalist wouldn’t become OP. It should be small boost in survivability for hybrid dps builds if anything.

Should work on making all traits viable choices, the trait choices need to all look so good a player will say to him self, “WOW, which trait to I pick?!”. I don’t think Anet should worry TOO much about creating something OP, as long as they keep a close eye on things and balance accordingly after getting some feedback from pro teams, forums, solo que spvp.

New weapon choices should be implemented, while old weapon choices see the love they may deserve.

AI pathing becomes fixed, the damage from AI is then lessened due to proper mobility.

Leaps are fixed, so that leaps do not bug out and send you in a direction you don’t wish to travel in.

Renny.6571:

Am I the only one who thinks attunement swapping shouldn’t have a cooldown, but add ICDs to on-attunement swap traits? Right now chill fooks me more than any other class and engis do 20 skills better than the tetramage archetype.

I’d love it if attunement swapping didn’t have a cooldown and the elemental attunement buff had a cool down just like evasive arcana does. This is an idea thats been brought up several times, it would open up many amazing combos for the ele making it that much more of an intuitive class design. The problem is several things would have to change. The 3 point traits would also need a cool down, fresh air would become irrelevant (but thats an easy fix, just have it lower electric discharges cool down), some of the cool downs would more than likely need to be revamped, but not many since the CDs are already pretty high on a good majority of our skills. I’d truly love this change more than anything because I enjoy playing the Elementalist for its complexity, I just don’t see it happening though because its a lot of work to make this change a reality.

Yamsandjams.3267:

I think giving the 3 point minor traits by default is too good, especially for water and air magic. Perhaps incorporating the 1 point minor traits into attunements by default could work out though. Those traits give you some kind of passive “change” while in the attunement, so you don’t end up being in a situation where using an attunement provides you no special affect other than letting you use different skills.

The whole point of having the Arcana line make the current 3 point traits scale in effectiveness, is so they wouldn’t become OP.

Nuithari.3728:

LOL – I used to run both Elemental Surge and Powerful Aura in tPvP :P
Both are really good traits if you have the team for it!

I’m sure Elemental Surge can have its moments, for example, hitting your opponent with an arcane spell while in earth attunement as they are about to get hit with Churning Earth. This trait is no where near as rewarding as Evasive Arcana though, have you ever seen anyone use this trait in a pro tournament game? No.

Also, I said while Powerful Aura is a good trait I felt like it lacked a purpose that would drive solo que players into using it. Please read before responding.

oZii.2864:

Prysin.8542:

oZii.2864:

Sounds like your friend isn’t familiar with engineers, warriors, necros, or any class with cripple. Was he a thief?

warrior and necro has cripple?

Very little cripple, and it’s only available in very few viable builds that are only support focused.

Warrior actually has moderate access to cripple. Necro doesn’t need cripple they have access to abundant amounts of chill.

frans.8092:

Grimreaper.5370:

There is only one condition in this game that truly bothers me… Confusion >.<
the description for this condition should read. “Go friken kill your self, nub”.

A direct descendant from Empathy – and Spiteful Spirit – in Guildwars 1 – those were strong hexes, against AI. Confusion stacks though, and in a fast paced game like this it is admittedly more dangerous then it’s predecessors. Still, the concept is good to retain.

Immunity timers ….

Can we has them against direct damage as well then?

I don’t feel like you took the time to read my post, I only suggested immunity timers for crowd control effects. For example, after the duration has ended on a form of CC, you then have immunity to that specific CC for a small time frame. I NEVER implied there should be an immunity vs condition damage. Every class has conditions which provide CC, EVERY class, regardless of condi or power build.

In my opinion conditions which deal dps are not as big of a problem as everyone makes them out to be. They have a hard counter, we have the option to remove conditions. The main problem is pubs, pubs don’t work together like an organized team does, people in pubs are selfish and don’t pick up traits to remove conditions for their allies. If more people played for the team and not just themselves, conditions would be less of a problem. Conditions are only OP vs selfish builds focusing solely on dps and when dueling vs builds that have little condi removal. I honestly think if all conditions were toned down, more people would scrap condi clears and aim for more damage with direct damage. This would just ensure you all died in spvp/wvw even faster.

Some classes have no access to torment or fear, or hardly any conditions at all. I honestly think the last thing this game needs is more conditions. If you are looking into the classes which have high uptime on burning, keep in mind they also have less options than your necro when looking into conditions that deal damage.

IMO necro doesn’t need more condition damage, how ever I would like to see the necro gain some mobility options.

Heres an idea that could potentially open up more options for builds, this would allow for much more diversity opposed to the current mandatory 30 arcana and 15+ in water.

-Elemental Attunement becomes a passive part of this class
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elemental_Attunement

-Lingering Elements (which only effects the minor adept traits) gets fused into the 1 point arcana trait.
-the new 3 point trait in the arcana line is then replaced with renewing stamina.
-A 10 second reuse timer on attunements becomes the norm, regardless of points spent in arcana.
-The 3 point traits in Fire, Air, Water and Earth become a natural part of swapping to an attunement.

Heres the catch

If the reuse on attunements is an affixated 10 seconds that means the Arcana line needs a second perk (the current two perks for putting points into the Arcana line are boon duration and attunement recharge reduction) I propose that the Arcana lines new second perk make the current 3 point traits in Fire/Air/Earth/Water, scale in effectiveness. (which are a passive part of this class for the sake of this conversation) Sunspot, Electric Discharge, Earthen Blast and Healing ripple will start off with a lower effectiveness level than they currently have, as you spend more points into the Arcana line you will then gain bonus effectiveness for Sunspot/ Electric Discharge/ Earthen Blast/ Healing ripple. In order for this change to not bring the elementalist into an overpowered state, the 3 point traits after becoming a passive part of the elementalist, should then get toned down in overall effectiveness.

During the winters day festival Anet released a patch which affected the Elementalist, their goal was to make spending 6 points into the Arcana line not as vital. They lowered the overall cooldown of attunement recharge by 3 seconds making the base recharge 13 seconds, but then they moved Elemental Attunement from an Adept trait to a Master trait. This contradicted their goal.

Elemental Attunement*(A Master trait in Arcana)* is perhaps the most important trait on an elementalist. Without this trait the elementalist loses a great amount of survivability therefore making them rather fodder. If Elemental attunement became a natural part of this class then going 20+ points into arcana would not become so mandatory. 30 points into arcana would still be quite effective since the GM trait Evasive Arcana is an additional heal added to the class when dodging in water attunement.

xFireize.6318:

I suggest play your guardian more to get a better grip on how it works. A few traits in your list are far from being useless. Please, at least try the trait yourself next time.

Care to elaborate on which traits you find useful and why?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

(i will be concentrating on Earth and D/D in particular)

Skills:

Impale – Seriously poor skill. I would prefer it if it was changed. Maybe something kind of like Vapor Blade with a solid range that can hit more than one person and inflict conditions to each one.

Idea: Turn it into a Chain skill.
Chain 1 – 1/2second cast Damage targets and inflict Bleeding 1 stack (8seconds)
Chain 2 – 1/2 second cast Damage targets and inflict bleeding 1 stack (8 seconds)
Chain 2 – 1/2second cast Damage targets and inflict Torment 1 stack (2 seconds)

the “projectile” would look the same for Chain 1 and 2 but differ for chain 3 due to it inflicting a different condition. Would be like a Boomerang of rock sort of deal. The range would be increased to 900 so D/D has some reasonable kitting ability.

Ring of Earth – It is decent but could be improved.

Idea: Bleeding. Reduce the duration to 6 seconds, increase the stacks from 1 to 2. Keep Cripple the way it is, add 3 stacks of Torment for 5 seconds.

Magnetic Grasp/Magnetic Leap – This is needed, we just need it to be redesigned so that it doesn’t bug out and miss the target so much.

Idea: Magnetic Grasp, maybe add some Bleeding stacks to the initial attack as well 3 stacks of Bleeding for 3 seconds or something. Magnetic Leap could do with a buff. 5 stacks of Torment on leaping to your target in an AoE would be nice.

Earthquake. Good skill. Lower cool down.

Idea: Decrease the cool down from 45 to 30 seconds. I would kind of be interested in maybe it knocking people back rather than down as well.

Churning Earth – Threat yes, viable – No.

Idea: This needs to have quite a bit of work. Reduce the cast time to 2 seconds. Increase the Cripple duration per a stack to 2 seconds because even with it being 1 second people can still just walk out before it goes off. Finally make it more punishing just to leave. Like you have to decide what would be more damaging leaving it or staying and trying to block, dodge invul the actual attack. This could be done with high stacking Torment that gets applied during the channel, kind of like how Cripple works.

Traits:

Serrated Stones – I find this rather lacking. Who actually uses it?
Idea: Remove the damage increase, Increase duration increase to 50% and add chance on hit to inflict Bleeding (works in ALL attunements) for 8 seconds, 2 second cool down. 50% Chance. This would be on HIT and not on Crit.

Stone Splinters – Another rather terrible trait.
Idea: Remove damage increase and change it to 10% Increase to Condition damage when within 600range of your target. This is the Condition trait line after all.

Geomancers Freedom – Decent, could be better
Idea: Increase duration reduction from 33% to 50% These conditions are a killer to pretty much any Ele and not being able to change weaponset and changing from melee to range or range to melee is rather annoying and punishing.

Geomancer’s Alacrity – Average. Average. Average.
Idea – This goes for ALL the skill reduction traits. Rather than just decrease the cool down they should also have a secondary affect like others do. An increase to Toughness and Condition damage would be solid here. Say 5% increase to both.

Diamond Skin – Works well….against some classes.
Idea: change the health threshold from 90% to 75% Engineer has it so that it is immune from 0 – 25% so why is ours only 10% on a squishy class that can take that much damage from auto attacks…

1. )I actually find stone splinters to be one of the better adept traits for d/d
2.) Diamond skin would become far too OP with that kind of an HP threshold. The engineers automated response actually got nerfed to reduce the duration of conditions by 50% when under a 33% hp threshold. The whole idea behind diamond skin disgusts me, I hate the idea of a trait that hard counters other classes. This trait makes me feel completely unskilled and noob when VSing pure condi builds.

I’d really like to see it become less mandatory putting 20-30 points into the arcana line.
-Make elemental attunement a passive part of the ele.
-Lingering elements fused into 1 point arcana trait.
-10 seconds cool down on attunements regardless of points spent in arcana.
-Add renewing samina to the 15 point trait line.

This would allow you to actually have a choice when looking into the adept and master traits in arcana and it would allow for more diverse builds. The other adept and master trait choices in the Arcana line are not anything significant so you really wouldn’t see the current meta build for Ele shoot through the roof because of these changes. A couple of the adept traits are actually quite pitiful.

-Vigorous scepter- Completely useless due to renewing stamina being a much better option. (they don’t stack)

-Windbourne Dagger- Fairly(but not completely) useless with any meta build in mind due to high swiftness uptime with d/d

+1 this post guys, if Elemental Attunement becomes a passive part of this class, and their is a fixed amount of 10 seconds for attunement recharge, then anet will finally have accomplished what they were aiming for in the wintersday patch.

MacedoPT.9684:

Hi there everyone, kinda new to the forums, this is my first post actually

So my problem is: I have a lvl80 Ranger, i have like 3 full sets of exotics on it, some ascendeds, commander status, i pretty much know how to work every viable build, and so on and so on, but u know… its ranger and im always in a doubt on either i should go on on it and do everything to improve my ranger or in the other hand just give it a long sleep time and move on to smth diferent in wich i can spend my time and actually accomplish something…

So my question is: Should i or should i not was my time levling an elementalist to lv80?
My goal is not to have the most op class all-round, if i did i would simply go Warrior…wich i dont want to… My goal is to have a class that is good at pve (wich i know elementalist are), either played hardcore (boon wise) or softcore (firestaff) wich is awesome…

Also my thing is, can it actually be good in wvw, small scales and/or largescale battles? pvp can be attainable with good practice?

(my other options are: Mesmer, and maybe, Guardian.)

Hope i get some nice awnsers from u guys, and sorry for the long post.

Ele is a great class if you take the time to learn the class, if you can play it near perfect with out many mistakes then you will be a force to reckon with. (this means using your combos correctly with out creating down time between attunements.) The only downside IMO is ele doesn’t have many variation in builds.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Durzlla.6295:

Navzar.2938:

2. I’m guessing the answer is no, but does Stone Heart work with lingering elements?

2) I’m almost positive it does since lingering elements makes you stay in your attumenets for X seconds after it ends. If you look down above your utility skills when you shift attunements while lingering attunements is equipped you’ll technically still be in the previous attunement.

Im afraid you are wrong. The devs have already confirmed that Lingering Elements only affects the 5point traits and does NOT work with Stone Heart

This is why lingering elements should be combined with the 1 point trait in Arcana… Also wish they would make Elemental Attunement a natural part of changing attunements so the Ele had more potential hybrid builds.

Just to be clear, you don’t need spell slinger to hit 25 might stacks, or 2 fire shields, its fairly easy to hit 25 stacks in 2 full rotations with out spell slinger or fire shield. Spell slinger will allow you to hit 25 stacks in a smaller time frame though.

Build looks pretty cool snowflake, I’ve been using GoEP my self, but mainly for the constant weakness or cripple, depending on who I’m fighting or how many people I’m fighting.

You fight like young grasshoppa, sensei will show you the ways

cheshirefox.7026:

elementalist is mediocre support that needs support to survive, it serves no practical purpose in this game

O.o Serves no purpose? There are a few things about ele thats lack luster imo… But to say the ele serves no purpose whatsoever?

Heres what you need to do Cheshire, go to the “Elemental Attunement” post under the Ele forums and +1 it.

Aedrion.6483:

Grimreaper.5370:

This is my personal ranking system, when it comes to playing spvp. 1st tier being the hardest to play, last tier being the easiest. This is a generalized list.

Tier 1
-Ele
-Thief
-Engy

Tier 2
Mesmer
Necro

Tier 4
-Ranger
-Warrior
-Guardian

play styles with the highest skill cap IMO are Staff ele and Sword/dagger Thief.

I agree mosty with your list, though shatter mesmer goes in T1, along with burst guardian. Staff ele is deffo T1, D/D ele is tier 2; it’s not as hard if you have the right build. Power ranger goes in T2 in my opinion, not easy, but not hard either. Necro, warrior and Spirit ranger are the easiest.

Like somebody pointed out earlier, a lot plays into how easy or hard a class is to play. The build you run, the skills you use, the people you fight, but overall, in PvP, having a lot of health and a lot of control makes the playstyle much easier and forgiving than having no control and low HP.

I rated the classes with how hard it is to execute skills with optimal efficiency in mind. Even if some classes are easier than others to win on, it still may be hard to play optimally. After 1300 hours on my ele I still practice d/d combos to this day. There are actually quite a few potential combos that do take quite a bit of skill. Like activating shocking aura and then using the burning speed + Lightning Flash combo as soon as your opponent is stunned, this will allow you to make your opponent eat more of the fire trail.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Well_of_Corruption

The only thing thats OP about mesmer is their abundant amount of stealth. Then again thats really their only saving grace…

From the bad to worst, these are the traits I feel need a revamp.

Please +1 this post if you agree so Anet may make these traits viable, providing more choices when traiting

Minor Adept traits:

Valorous defense- Gain aegis while struck below the threshold.(50%)(90s ICD)
(The trait is self is great, the CD on it though is far to high, its only blocking one potential hit, after that hit has been blocked this adept trait is doing absolutely nothing for 90 seconds, reduce the ICD imo)

Adept Traits:

Shattered Aegis-When aegis you applied is removed, damage enemies.
(This trait is lacking compared to other available adept traits, blinding jeopardy and Fiery wrath directly compete with this trait)

Inner Fire- Gain fury when burning is applied to you.
(I just can’t agree with the idea behind this trait, burning is somewhat prevalent but you’re also taking quite a gamble when slotting this trait)

Retributive Armor- Gain precision based on your toughness.
(The amount of precision gained from this trait is too minor IMO, not worth taking over the other adept traits available)

Defender’s Flame- Burn attackers when blocking.(1s)
(This is a decent idea but the guardian already has pretty good uptime on its burns)

Retaliatory Subconscious- When effected by CC, gain retaliation.(4s)(30s ICD)
(A good trait when setting the ICD aside, reduce the ICD)

Minor Master traits:

Courageous return- virtue of courage is renewed when you rally
(I’d rather have a trait that effected me while I was alive and kicking)

GM traits:

Amplified Wrath- Burning damage is increased by 33%
(Love the idea behind this trait, but it doesn’t seem to provide good enough return, Kindled Zeal also directly competes with this trait)

Radiant retaliation- Retaliation scales with condition damage opposed to power.
(Nice idea! Except guardians don’t have viable condition builds :*(

Purity of Body- Your virtue of resolve passive effect also regenerates endurance.
(I may be wrong because I have not unlocked this skill yet, but like every other endurance regeneration buff, this doesn’t stack with vigor right? Which would make it the worst GM trait in the game >.<)