Guild Wars 2

The Game Slayer.7632:

Eviscera.9703:

.. OP’s post …

You seem to not grasp any idea of what an elementalist is.
Jack Of All Trades, Master Of None
If you don’t like it, go play another profession. I’m really tired of people like you on the forums.

I enjoy helping people learn to think critically, so that arguments can become constructive debates. Not everyone can be helped, but I like to think of everyone as having the potential to be a great thinker.

The phrase you bolded is a social agenda term. The proponent principle is communicated by another popular phrase – practice makes perfect. Any logistician will cringe at these because a logistician is keen about a Logic subtopic known as false logic. The primary examples of false logic are visible throughout our society – stereotyping, generalizing, profiling, industrial education, etc. The common mistake of these is an application of reasoning that has limited scope or unproven truth as if it were a universal truth. Often a logical argument will infer one or more facts that are not true as a result.

A Jack of all trades confers that every subject this phrase is applied to can exhibit nothing unlike Jack; that is to say, what happens to Jack happens to everyone no matter what. Master of none confers a few ideas: 1. That a master role is the goal, 2. That having no mastery is despicable, 3. That there is either mastery or no mastery, and 4. That this declares the boundaries of results for everyone. Linking the two phrases makes one phrase that promotes the idea that life is a pursuit of profession with two outcomes: mastery or failure.

By now you should have a good idea what societies have historically fostered this idea, making it a principle of their social policy, even. If your mind is drifting toward Asia, then you are doing well. Let me ask you something. How long do you think it would take to become a master at balancing a spoon on your nose? Years? Decades? It is a goofy question, but a critical thinker will realize that a valid argument was raised by having asked such a ridiculous question. Point 1: a profession is a collection of tasks. How many tasks makes a profession? I know, the question is rhetorical, but a critical thinker will know that another valid argument was raised. Point 2: a unique profession requires a unique experience. Is it possible to master life skills and master a job to pay for life? Ah, the wheels are starting to turn, no doubt. Point 3: everyone is necessarily a learner of multiple masteries, and must master more than one to be proficient enough to survive. Final question: Is a national economic policy based on the principle of one lifelong skill mastered by each person competitive enough in our global economy, such that fluctuations in demand will not put lives at risk? Ah, yes. I will leave you to think about that one.

Cheers! Oh, and, be good.

fadeaway.2807:

Comparisons like that are useless because the usefulness of those skills goes up and down depending on their interaction with other skills, base hp, traits etc.

People who love their other classes, and never want to die to an Ele again always come to our threads to flame us with that exact argument. The fact is that behind all of this is math, so, yes, you CAN compare any skill to any other skill. When you talk about so many factors that it cannot be calculated, what you are talking about is called a math function. Each function acts as something called a variable. We even have math that allows us to graph the results. That is called Calculus. What is amazing about computer games is that billions of calculations go on per second to calculate these formulas in the millions.

Diamond Skin,
You want an idea? OK. You are correct, 90% makes it a skill that will be rofled after the patch. You are also correct, that a well protected support Ele could make it appear OP. I honestly think 50% is not too low of a threshold to excuse 30 points in Earth, but there is another option for the skill that will appeal to high Power and high Health specs.

Diamon Skin – gains a chance to reflect conditions inversely with health percent until dropping below the threshold. [threshold = 25%].

The reflect condition chance would be 0% at 100% Health and 50% at 50% Health. As an optional secondary bonus it could make the Ele immune to blind while above the threshold as well. This will insure the Ele applies up-front damage.

Elric.6971:

JonPeters.5630:

… working hard to make the right decisions ..

.. why even bother posting these notes .. It honestly feels like arenanet will not accept or hear any actual concerns and critiques and only listen to praises.

Elric,
Lay off the man, huh? It’s a job, but one everyone affected can get passionate about. I can tell you for a fact that they have listened and made changes due entirely to player customer requests and complaints. I’m such a nerd my eyes actually got watery when I read Jon’s words here. Be good you two.

Larynx.2453:

silvermember.8941:

… Does it make sense for a class that has higher hp, more toughness, 5 second weapon [swap] to have more mobility than a class that has 3/5 its HP? …

… Elementalists have 20 weapon skills, yet a warrior only has 10 …

/em dumbfounded
Correction sir. The Ele can equip 40 skills if you count conjure, and can spread those skills to one other player with each conjure cast. The warrior could be the other one to pick up the conjured weapon. Also, if you count the skill of the Elementals, then an Ele can equip 30 active skills + 20 passive skills (pets). Maybe the Ele should be confined to a lounge chair with all those choices, or a straight jacket for showing up to play.

FrownyClown.8402:

ranger is worst class. Ele is close to being good but we will see.

I usually enjoy your downbeat or confrontational posts, but how about we not let class politics cloud the discussions until after December 10th, huh? I save Ranger for the times I want to reap the most bags in WvW. It’s an incredibly strong class. I feel loads better when Ele becomes too depressing to play.

A crack fiend will commit crime when out of money. An Ele will do anything for HP.

Elementalist gives alternatives. Let us be clear about this: versatility means role diversity.

Here is one test:
The d/d Elementalist is a magical assassin. It is the counterpart of a thief. The skills should be equivalent. The playtesting could literally make them use the same skill set, while the Elementalist survival options are balanced against the thief’s stealth and stealth-supporting abilities. Obviously, the different attack options would be compared after the survivability is balanced. If someone is thinking that the Ele “must be weaker”, then that is the design flaw that has led to the problem now – weaker in every way. If the Ele must lose effectiveness at the cost of versatility, then isn’t a 5% nerf a reasonable fix?

Here is another test:
The lowest armor + health is the fair tradeoff for the highest armor + health if the first has stronger skills. If the game concept requires that one be inherently more survivable, then the skills should be equal offensively. If one of the two has no ranged option and no gap closers, then the offensive options can be slightly unbalance to favor the one with no ranged skills. The warrior has ranged, gap closers, invulnerability and superior healing. That is beyond sufficient. A one to one comparison of every five skill sets should result in the class with the lowest armor + health having substantially more offense. You will see it is opposite this sure logic.

My three suggestions:
1. Diamond Skin should be Water Crystal. That coincides with water as the cleansing line, and synergizes with the Vitality need. Toughness has horrible efficiency for an Ele. I once ran full toughness and had 3600 Armor while channeling. I still got killed before Churning Earth finished casting. Make an amazing protect AndOr regen, instead, that severely mitigates damage while the Ele is above 90% Health. More synergy.
2. Remove the slag. Element specific traits and broken traits have combined to severely limit Ele options. Restore the broken traits to their former glory before considering tier changes, and combine the element-dedicated traits into one decent 25 point trait in each line.
3. Back when Windborne Dagger would apply its speed permanently I was happy that, if nothing else, I could enjoy rapid movement. After it was changed to its now useless state I stopped working toward world completion. Make Windborne Dagger apply its speed augmentation permanently.

Please [LIKE] this post if you agree.

If EA water proc was an ice combo field that crippled, meaning it didn’t heal, then you would not see the demand for 30 Arcana. In fact, the devs would be fixing everything in Arcana to get people into it.

Lavadiel.6231:

Gasoline.2570:

avilo.1942:

The developers are clueless.

Watch out now, you might get banned!

if they would ban ppl for “clueless” I would get perm ban long ago.
And as as I said, they must know what they do and we must know why.

They are very sensitive right now. Two nights ago they infracted my post in Black Lion Trading for saying that they’ve “made bad decisions.” The moderator didn’t even leave it up for 24 hours with a line through the title. It was removed and disabled immediately after the moderator read it. Be careful expressing dissent at this time. It is intolerable.

Evoneva Drakon.1754:

hey guys its fair, we have 2x more skills right? so even our traits should need 4x more investments….

Not true Evoneva. Counting the conjured weapons Eles have 40 skills at their disposal. Five are elite skills with crazy fast cooldowns. <sarcasm> I, for one, always cast all 40 skills in under 5 seconds, so my Ele will get all the benefit of what the year’s worth of nerfs were based upon. In addition I slot every glyph and every cantrip for maximum effectiveness. Why everyone does not do that I do not know.</sarcasm>

Gorani.7205:

… Although this looks like a buff on paper, it changes nothing for 95% of all Elementalists …

I do not know whether we agree or disagree. It looks like an “ataboy” that reads like a complaint. If old builds are preserved, while new build options emerge, then that is good right? People who go deep in Arcana and love it are scantly affected, I agree.

I am very vocal about Ele issues, and, though I do not agree that Ele has been in a good place since launch, thereby being denied buffs; rather, nerfed, I do congratulate the devs for recognizing one major obstacle to refreshing balance after the many changes. Is it too soon to say I love you guys? Maybe that is too much. I don’t know. I was recently infracted for supposedly having slighted devs. I am not sure what that was about. Maybe sarcasm or something. Anyways, you are working to reestablish trust with the Ele community. Bravo! You have a long way to go.

FrownyClown.8402,
That is an option for people who sacrifice what they want for a small boost to the team. I look at other classes’ skills, and wonder why I ever thought the Ele could do anything support-worthy. It’s just that a lot of players of other classes are too selfish to use their incredible support skills. Eles are happy to still be allowed in the group, so they’ll do anything. We’ve been nerfed to the point of desperation gameplay.

Par for the course. I happily welcome all who choose to join ranks with me and the other beleaguered ones. There is some good news here, though. My hope for a survivable build outside of Arcana is nearer. I have suffered for years (it feels that long) in my contempt for Arcana after all the dastardly nerfs to it.

Another good thing is that warrior has a big damage nerf, and not to meaningless skills, but to a few that are popular. Truly, I almost skipped over the Ele portion to read only warrior notes. That is the bane of the GW2 community. Half way through I could feel the anger rising. It was all buffs. Then, snuck into the last notes were hefty nerfs for the warrior. I will sleep good tonight.

We can do this together. Stay vocal, and keep helping each other. We have a long road.

It worked all the time in the beginning. People made snide remarks about me using it back then. They questioned why, since there were other ways to get speed. It doesn’t even work in combat. It is completely broken.

Yeah, so, after my last post was infracted I feel like bringing some clandestine GW2 knowledge to the Ele forums. that will help me feel better. I have been working on a way to present the damage calculation equation in a way that finally shows the HP equivalence of points in Armor; termed Armor Efficiency. You all might not know this, but the real equation is still unknown. It was sought since the beginning. People got close, but never pegged it. I have figured out more of the puzzle. Be looking for my post to come – probably Sunday. Below is a sneak peak. You might have seen another roughly done example in a post last week. The image below is not the same.

Cheers!

Kind of a weird occurrence. I am not the type of customer that gives attitude to places I go buy stuff. I will leave a customer comment card. I talk to managers, too. I do those things when I want to recognize a good employee, or to offer a suggestion about the business practices.

Yesterday I had a post infracted for writing that I did not like the decisions made about the Ele. I certainly was not rude. I was sincere. I think you all should know, since I do not want anyone to get thrown off the forums for expressing dissent. They are squashing dissent. Be careful with your suggestions about change. I guess they will ask you if they want your opinion.

STRanger.5120:

ImProVocateur.5189:

STRanger.5120,
No. Warrior is straight forward. Isn’t it boggling why it took the first players so long to figure it out?

Yeah, that was sarcasm m8 I should have added that to the post obviously….

I know. I was using your post as a platform. I saw the smiley faces.

As an avid QQer in support of reviving the Ele with mechanics, rather than on the battlefield, I wonder why more people do not bring up the following valid point: In the beginning, all things were created equal. The devs made that claim. Do I need to link to 15 month old posts as proof? Am I the only one that remembers how much the devs talked about the balancing investment they made? Am I the only one that remembers how their confidence in the testing done by their paid programmers and gameplay specialists made them quickly reject player suggestions for change? They flat out told people no changes would take place for months, and reviled the thought of nerfs. They did not want that term associated with GW2. Who remembers?

Basically, all the re-balancing that the new dev commanders have done over the past year totally disrespects the work that was done before. Seriously, what does it imply when so many over-the-top changes have taken place? What does that say about their true confidence in the earlier work, or their treatment of the player base that tried to help early on. It is disheartening to think about.

OP,
I consolidated all the Ele traits into one spreadsheet screenshot. Click this to see the thread. It is the first attachment. Look at how many traits are wastefully dedicated to one attunement. Add to that sum the traits that were intentionally disabled without a replacement trait, like Windborne Dagger . You made this thread to suggest a fix to an iffy design decision that is not broken. I am sad to inform you that they do not care.

One of the ways Ele has had its damage reduced is by calculating long duration conditions as part of the overall damage, as if every condition lasts. The best damaging condition to have is a 1s condition. The condition is usually unmitigable, and that causes the balance to increase the direct damage. Additionally, you can increase the length of that 1s condition to substantially increase the actual damage inflicted. The base duration of Ele conditions is so long that it will be Cleansed most of the time, meaning a duration increase does nothing buy steal points in something else. Increasing condition duration is a wasted effort. Try to find a rotation that only uses conditions with 3s or less durations before considering condition duration as a value adding option.

Now, with this knowledge, go back through the patches and see how many nerfs to Ele damage was done under the guise of exchanging direct damage for an increase in condition duration.

LordByron.8369,
You express that Capitalist concepts are too flawed to allow to go unfettered. How would you go about instituting change that would rob a Capitalist minded player of profiting however the market allows?

oZii.2864,
I understand the multi-purpose of your question. The worst thing we can do is act like a [WARNING: Loaded word ahead. Use caution.] “support” role is the right mindset for devs to have. I would rather we think of every player action as a support action. Someone needs to kill the enemy. That is damage support. GW2 was made to differentiate classes based upon their damage support. Every class is supposed to be able to provide non-damage group support in role relevant ways. The Ele does that mostly with combo fields, yet there is little in the way of traits to enhance that with all attunements. To think of support in any other way is counter productive, so you must accept my decline to imagine otherwise. I would be interested to see your idea, though.

Strang.8170,
Woe the Ele for the many disempowering mechanics plagued upon it. I hope you are wrong about the icd for Earth’s Embrace . I have been practicing with this build (obviously not using the disabled Arcana 20 trait) in sPvP, and have had more success than expected with d/f. I will try to pay more attention to when that buff works or not.

Your numbers are all over the place when discussing Earth/Water trade-offs. We all know that every skill and trait is not available at all times, but nerfs to the Ele are done as if any skill or trait is always active. Your own claim to the benefit of Water asserts the same illogic. I have one trait to bind at Water 10, or two traits to bind at Water 20. I most certainly do not have Cleanse, +20% damage, +10% damage, Regen & Vigor proc, and inflict Vulnerability. I have one choice among those options. Ten more points in Water gives one more option. You are stretching the truth quite a bit to make your point. May I suggest one or more .jpeg that proves your argument. I would definitely like to see how you figure 23k and 140k as compensable damage to excuse toughness speccing.

Oh come on. I hope no one truly thinks they want Ele to escape death. You’re the sacrifice, seriously. They intentionally broke Windborne Speed . I.n.t.e.n.t.i.o.n.a.l.l.y, that should tell you something. The One With Air change was another nerf. That is all.

The chart #s are questionable. I come to forums to push Ele back up to preferred status. Ele used to have a healing signet as good as the warrior, then it got cut in half. It seems warriors did not have a large enough metal cup to withstand the power of a class that has less of everything else. Nope, warriors could not live as long as Ele had the same healing signet, roughly. I question the #s because the Ele healing signet should not be “par or higher” than the warrior healing signet. That makes all the other #s questionable.

You have a good idea. It would be like a legends of the mists thing. Builds that have the highest win/points ratio would be recorded. The rotations that go with those builds would be recorded. It would have to be separate from the normal NPCs. They could add a small arena area the has many gladiators with the top builds and play styles. I would use it.

Blimm.5028:

5 Warrior teams in “top tier” matches… why am I still playing this game?

I start liking PvP after a few rounds. Then the cheaters come out to play. Then I remember why I do not sPvP regularly. The same exploitable bugs are in WvW. I cannot get away from them, but at least WvW is big enough to make me feel like I can. Tonight I submitted a buf report for some thief exploiting the downed stealth. That won’t get fixed. It’s a feature now. The unfinishable thief, on sale now. Why do the classes with the unkillable downed state bug have to be the hardest to defeat for my crippled Ele? The warrior has that bug where the stomp gets interrupted perpetually.

style.6173:

Fortus.6175:

a t s e.9614:

Warrior is not the old D\D ele because even the OP ele had to press dozens of buttons but the current warrior only uses 3 .

and not only that, the old D/D ele would be ashamed of today’s warrior, old D/D today would be balanced among all the other OP stuff in the game.

Wrong. The Old D/D ele would still be OP today. I think you forget how many nerfs it has received.

It was never OP. Remember, Eles had to go against Eles back then, too. I started six characters soon after release. The Ele I played the most. Yes, I did go d/d Ele. Yes, mainhand dagger was stronger than scepter is now. Eles had more conditions, double the healing, double the direct damage on some very important skills, quicker cooldowns, etc. Healing signet for Ele was as good as the warrior one. Many good players avoided Arcana, and went full zerker gear. Ele was balanced enough that most Eles did not care about d/d because staff was so versatile. It used to be exciting to run into a d/d on any class I played because I knew it well. I knew it was easy to counter. Most of the time the d/d Ele would teleport away. Their strength was is the aggressive and quick-paced action. The confidence of players was easily shaken back then. Not now. Things are so out of whack now because of the way we d/d Eles attacked player confidence in the beginning. My Ele in PvP tonight got hit for 10.5k in one shot by a warrior, yet my total Health is less than 14k. Another warrior I was fighting (who runs around most the time to make a joke out of the class) had already gotten my Health to 9.5k That second warrior teleported to me and finished me off with an instant damage skill like a thief would. It is insanity. There was zero thought about balance to get GW2 where it is now.

STRanger.5120,
No. Warrior is straight forward. Isn’t it boggling why it took the first players so long to figure it out?

cheshirefox.7026,
Should we begin demanding buffs to our downed state, so that our most used skills allow us to fulfill our support role better?

Strang.8170,
The chance to heal a character is why DR is more valuable than HP. Given an option to add more DR or HP, assuming equal effectiveness, DR is preferred. This is a topic that could run a lengthy thread of its own, but I think we both understand it. The +180 Armor from Earth line 100 is a bet that a fight will go past base Health. Hopefully I can a play skilled enough to make healing useful. Also, Earth’s Embrace does not trigger Armor of Earth’s cooldown, and, unverified by me, the wiki claims it also triggers Spell Slinger and Soothing Disruption.

oZii.2864,
Repeated passing of the 50% Health threshold should repeatedly invoke the buffs.

My last argument in favor of my build is that (time on target) > (water attunement(locked 2s) every 9s)

This comparison list shows the attributes values for any light armor class. Upgrades for weapons and armor are not factored. These values reflect exotic items.

The charge up was taken away to mask how much the damage to Churning Earth has been nerfed. It was very high damage at first as a reward for actually managing to stand still that long and still hit the enemy. Actually, it was more to punish the enemy for not stopping the cast than to reward the Ele. It would be so nice to get the original version of Churning Earth. Anyone thinking it through would realize that Churning Earth needs to

Part 1 – during channeling
Cripple(1s) – instant inflict, plus 1 stack every 1/2 second inside the radius

Part 2 – cast complete
Knockdown(3s)
Bleeding(6s)x3
direct damage equal to base dps * cast duration

^ it seems so, but expect more nerfs if a hoard of new players playing warrior complain about the Ele before they learn how to play their already overpowered class. Pray it does not happen yet again.

I do not like the hidden slavery message in the elemental mechanic. Direct control of the elemental would make that message stronger. You have bid a life form to accept your mastery, bonding it to you for a time. I would be happier if the elemental was manifested, but acted with self-interest. It should be a free agent that attacks only what attacks it. I would go so far as to say that it has no allegiance once spawned. If it is supposed to act as an ally, then there should be a pact mechanic. In that case, the elemental certainly would not be controlled by the caster. In fact, if every Elementalist had a pact with all the elements, then no elemental would attack an Elementalist, regardless of the fight going on. Both Elementalist would be allies of the element. Along with that, why would elementals of the same element attach each other? The current game allows it because it is based upon enslavement lore, which should not be promoted in this era.

Continued nerfs have pushed the Ele toward extinction. It is now considered a dedicated support class (in a game without dedicated support classes), so it is expected for the Ele to play a major part in pushing the GW2 combat mechanic ideas (combo finishers, a.k.a. “static fighting” or “huddling”). You will be expected to be a buff bot because even great players cannot maintain 100% performance; thus, it’s the only thing people know any Ele can accomplish (and huddling). Lastly, just because other classes say they love you, remember that the love ends when you miss a huddle. Stack it tight.

OP,
Cantrip Mastery (Water9 – reduce cantrip recharge) is one of those traits that waste your time. Like the pun? Your base stats for Ele (exotic equipped) are:
1869 Power
4% Crit Chance
1836 Armor
10,805 Health

The Ele is scraping the bottom. Do not waste stats potential. You really want to use no more than two stats combinations for gear. If you must use three stats combinations, then you would do better substituting Celestial.

Let me show you the proof. Let us look at several of your gear choices, not all. You are using Berserker, Valkyrie, Cavalier, and Soldier for seven of your gear slots, as shown in attachment one. Power is obviously important to you, but you do not want to sacrifice survivability or critical bonus to damage. Attachments has the Soldier’s back piece and makes the weapon and amulet Berserker. The remaining four trinkets are Celestial. Here are the trade-offs.

You lose:
-108 Power, -6% Critical Damage (-8% ascended)
-111 Armor

You gain:
+ 154 Condition Damage, + 6.1% Criticals (+ 8% Ascended)
+ 1240 Health, + 154 Healing Power

The second is statistically the better choice, but it comes down to how much that Power is worth to you. In that case, you could equip anything with primary Power stat and be happy. I mean, if none of the other stats strength matters to you, then whatever right?

The third and fourth attachments show the whole picture: #3 shows what you have, #4 shows what it could be revised to with a better mix (even sticking with your Berserker +Valkyrie upgrade trinket idea).

You lose
-2% Critical Damage (-4% Ascended)
-238 Armor

You gain
+ 50 Power, + 7.4% Criticals (+ 9.4% Ascended), + 27 Condition Damage
+ 420 Health, + 27 Healing Power

cursE.1794:

ThiBash.5634:

I’m guessing there’s only 2 options in your view right? Either instakill burster or undefeatable bunker?

That sums up quite well why many think the elementalist is broken in PvP. You just have to cut the “instakill” and the “undefeatable”.

Instakill burst? Undefeatable? Are we talking uplevel versus 80? Someone smart in this forum said that class viability is shown by the prominence of play. You do not have to over-think this. Less Ele hours played = less viability. Less staff played = less viability.

There is a mindset among rpg players that certain roles are tanky. Many players expect those roles to dominate in a 1v1. It is a game destroying expectation in PvP games, and it becomes a selfish demand that devs in every game cater to, for some reason never stated.

Here is the deal. Top players could play OP classes better. They do not have to, so usually they kick back and enjoy the free extra power. If they really wanted to kill the Ele, then they could trait for it and there would be nothing any player could do to stop them from killing Eles en masse.

In conclusion,
1. Play what is most fun for you, and
2. Play to win more than shine.

Zariuss.2357,
Arcana > Blasting Staff is usually used for combo finishers in WvW. There are a couple downsides. Meteor Shower spreads the same number of meteors over a larger circle without an increase in the splash damage radius for each meteor. Static Field becomes so large that the enemy can avoid the stun effect. Although players within the field are sitting ducks for aoe, they are also in a perfect position to spam their own combos, coming out of the static field buffed and healed. Those two downsides are huge in WvW. The psychological downside to the trait is that it is part of the Buff Bot build. Are you a buff bot?

Ozii.2864,
Yeah. If you want to experience the full hell that Ele gameplay is, then come to Tarnished Coast. I promise you will get a new perspective. This forum should require that a player verify they are on TC before having the option to have an opinion.

Bima.9518,
Celestial does, in fact, kitten Power and Condition Damage, as opposed to Soldier or Dire. The survivability Celestial gives is more than a smidgeon. Think of Celestial as the average value of all stats. Primary and secondary stats on normal gear greatly exceeds Celestial, but is limited. If a character has all it needs in three stats, then normal gear should be used. If a character needs offense and defense, then Celestial is a good item to equip into a number of slots that best supports the role that character plays.

Below is an example of full Carrion and a Carrion/Celestial mix.

I recommend the Cavalier back piece, but stay away from gear with Toughness as a primary stat. The only exception to this is if you decide to go a mixture of Knight and Celestial. I still would not recommend this, since you will rely heavily on passive healing and rapid cleansing. Look at attachment one to see the stats for that.

You will probably be much happier with a combination of Valkyrie and Assassin gear. You will have a 30% increase in Health (untraited), and have good critical potential.

Cheers!

Use the attachments to verify my numbers.

We can see that Celestial provides ample survivability. Gear causes a tradeoff between offense and defense. That usually results in Celestial being the better choice if a character wants both offensive and defensive stats. What puts Celestial ahead is that it adds to seven stats, not three. The problem is not in the survivability stats that Celestial gives (Toughness, Vitality, Healing power). The problem with Celestial is in the mediocre Power and Condition Damage. Power needs to be through the roof to make a significant impact. That is why people stress stacking Might. The difference between Celestial and Berserker/Soldier is 600 Power. That is 17 stacks of Might worth of Power. Yes, it is a BIG difference. Again, Celestial has the Critical Damage, but that is why it is best to spec into the Critical line of traits when using Celestial. Mixing gear is probably the best choice.

Treborlavok.3504,
I will try to shed some light on the Armor inefficiency conundrum for the Elementalist. Please refer to the small .jpeg attachment for figures. Aside from any hidden code limiting the effectiveness of Armor for the Elementalist, damage reduction is less useful for a character that has less Health. We know every point in Vitality adds 10 to Health. We can calculate how much Health each point in Armor is worth by factoring its efficiency. Now, I won’t try to explain the whole equation, but you can see in the attached Microsoft Excel screen shot that the equivalent Health value of Armor points increase as the Armor moves further from the mean (Armor 2600). It makes sense to put a small number of points into Toughness to raise Armor at the low level, but Armor efficiency is reduced greatly as it nears the mean. Using a Cavalier back piece makes sense. Maybe even using one other +Toughness item. The build you have shown uses too many Cavalier items. It would be best for the Ele to use Valkyrie because of the inefficiency of Armor due to the low Health.

As a d/d Ele, the only Ele I could not defeat was a full bunker s/f. We fought a few matches. It was funny because everyone that came between us died. He went undefeated. I died only to him. They were memorable fights. He was close to dying many times, but focus has enough defense to allow heals to win by attrition. Most of his hits did not make contact, but eventually my dodges and heals ran out every time.

Arcana is not wasted points for any weapons. I have rebelled against Arcana since the nerfs started, even though I have felt the drop in quality play ever since. Check out my thread here: my post . Use that spreadsheet to check what I’m saying.

Reasons why players serious about winning feel stuck with Arcana:
.. All the weapon specific traits are in Arcana
.. 2 of 4 “on crit” procs is in Arcana (the 25 freebie trait is one)
.. 1 of 2 “on dodge” procs is in Arcana
.. 4 of 6 Endurance buffs is in Arcana (the 25 freebie trait is one)
.. 2 of 4 “by attunement” multiple spell option traits is in Arcana
.. the most accessible Fury proc is in Arcana
.. freebie boons are in Arcana

If you do not spec 30 in Arcana, then you are rebelling against the system, like me. That makes us both wrong, and to advise others to do the same is irresponsible.

Let us not hand over a list of more things to nerf, please. Thanks.

zencow.3651,
… and anyone not rebelling against conformity will go 30 Arcana.

Presto! You get mobility (after a 1 second rooted cast), and you get 15 highly mobile chances (as long as you cast nothing else) usable with two skills that also damage quite well (if you weren’t busy running <psst: spin in a wall, /em cuteface>). You just have to wait 3m between uses of “your mobility”.

Disclaimer: FGS will not stop you from getting epic-killed by cc+dmg from the classes we love the most. We’ve done everything we can to ensure your demise, so lodge any complaints with the trash bin over there.

Enjoy and play on!

ThiBash.5634,
Slavery is great for economic strength. If we ignore all the other slavery factors, then we can say it’s the perfect plan for national wealth. Umm, then again, maybe not.

So … not ignoring other factors, I totally agree with the OP. Elites should be so good that the player opts to take it. I mean, how good is the design if players must be forced to take an “Elite” skill, or get nothing.

I expect someone will point out that the attribute modifiers and the constant traits at 5, 15, 25 are missing without the trait lines shown, so here are those.

Here are two screenshots showing two spreadsheets that I made for classes with traits that are convoluted. It turned out that I only needed it for the Mesmer in the beginning. Now, it is useful for the Elementalist. I think the category listing of traits might be helpful to others. Trait numbers are color coded for convenience. Duplicates exist if a trait is substantially part of more than one category.

The spec is what I run at the moment. It is my first time back into Arcana after vowing not to return until Lingering Attunements was fixed and the attunement delay timer was returned to the shorter time (basically, reverse the nerf). I do not plan on staying with this spec for the same reason, but I wanted to gauge Arcana after the last patch.

Use the ss if they help you. Comment on anything you want. Let me know if there is a trade-off in my spec that is undesirable, and tell me why.