This couldn’t be any more inaccurate. Not leaving fire while meteor storm, lava font and flame burst are on CD to hit earth and drop erruption/shockwave, then to water to cast ice spike, then back to fire is just playing your class about as poorly as you can.
Plus if you aren’t utilizing your own burst combo fields with erruption then you’re even more unprepared not only on how to play your class properly but in how to provide proper boons for your party.
You still get the dmg boosts to targets burning in any attunement.
Lava font has 4 sec CD. When you switch attunement, you get 15 sec CD. So your DPS is greatly reduced for 11 seconds if you have 20 or more points in fire. This is because most traits are specialized and support only one attunement. And all traits for attunement swap are arcane, but arcane tree doesn’t provide any stats, so it’s almost useless for DPS build.
So attumenet swap is needed when it’s dinamic boss fight and you need buffs from attunement switch. But switch when you need high DPS for standing target is just pointless.
@Arheundel.
You almost died in 1vs1 with noob thief. Why noob? Because HS spam for all initiative points when you in mist form. Ele is fine against noobs. But you shown us, even against noobs ele is hard to play. And you fight against dps build for 1:30-1:40 with your funny damage.
@LordXy
If you are not GC in WvW, you are almost useless at siege or wall defence. So…
D/D is good, but you can’t play using only air attunement. Because it has only one viable damage skill – auto-attack. As for traits, of course you can put 30 points here, but most popular traits wotk with all attunements.
1. No, it’s best for dungeons or champions which kill you in 1-2 hits in melee. Staff damage skills are AoE and require target to stand still. D/D or S/D are better choise (I like D/D).
2. Just keep using condition attacks =) . And use utility skills like signet of fire, because without it (or 30 points in arcane) you can’t keep burning and bleeding. You need to find effective for you combo yourself and it’s depend from situation. For mass damage is good churning earth > dragon’s breath for example. But for one target dragon’s breath/tooth > earth auto-attack and renew burning with signet of fire.
3. Condition damage stat affects all condition damage (burn, bleed, poison).
I personaly don’t like condition build. It’s to slow. But some pople like ti.
If you want to survive, stop gearing in glass cannon. Hybrid gear/spec with toughness (knight gear at 60 lvl) and you can kill pack of 5-6 mobs with AoE and D/D (even in Orr). No need in full tank, damage will be terrible.
We all know ,that warrior have good survivability in DPS spec and can kill everything with 3 buttons. Just live with it…
P.S. Solo play in Orr is not fun for any class. Fast mobs with tons of CC.
Yeah, then you can spend an hour on each and every mob group, but you’ll never die…
What don’t you understand in words “no need in full tanks”? I killed mob packs using one AoE combo. If they are alive, roll back and use dragon’s breath. Overall damage is ~3/4 of pure damage build (may be little less). Just don’t use all items from one set, combine differents sets (valkyrie/knight+berserker for example). Knight gear is not for condition builds, it’s power/crit, what means not bad burst damage. You just need enough survivability to live while using burning speed – ring of fire – arcane wave – earthquake – churning earth.
P.S. This doesn’t mean elementalists are fine, it’s just way to play in PvE with not bad damage and survivability.
They wont “go back to wow” they will simply choose a different class that gives better results for less effort. They shouldnt have to do that.
I hate opinion “just pick another class”. Personally I (and many other people) want to play elemental mage, not curse/DoT user, not prestidigitator and not boring warrior-type class (I like guardian, because it’s semi-mage, but I hate his ranged attack). Anet said there will not be roles for each class. But elementalist is forced to play as support most time.
@Shockwave.
I know about other CC, but many of them are just waste of utility slot in certain situations (like lightning hammer). For example in WvW you need mist form and arcane wave (to activate combo fields for team). So only 1 slot left. I used it for flash, because without it i’m dead in seconds after shot with cripple or immobilization.
If you want to survive, stop gearing in glass cannon. Hybrid gear/spec with toughness (knight gear at 60 lvl) and you can kill pack of 5-6 mobs with AoE and D/D (even in Orr). No need in full tank, damage will be terrible.
We all know ,that warrior have good survivability in DPS spec and can kill everything with 3 buttons. Just live with it…
P.S. Solo play in Orr is not fun for any class. Fast mobs with tons of CC.
Em… forgot about Meridian 59, my bad. Btw I know about MUD, but I don’t count it as MMORPG. It’s just… em… another… religion =). It’s more like massive multiplayer online interactive book =)
As for elementalist, just watch video here https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/elementalist/ and find difference between these trolling videos and game.
You don’t need to be full tank. I played bigger part of game in hybrid build/gear always with D/D (staff only for dungeons and WvW). Pow/pre armor/accessory with toughness runes (and later toughness/vitality, like dolyak). At 60 level you can buy knight gear (pow/pre/tough) and spec traits more offensive. This way you can get good damage and survivability. And earth armor is your best friend for killing packs with AoE. At 80 lvl if you don’t want knight, buy at least valkyrie gear and combine with berserker acccessory. Just keep crit chance close to 40%.
I’ve tried to play in condition tank build, but it’s to slow and boring for me.
There are tons of skills have push back, knockdown, stun, cripple, and some that give you invulnerability. Just learn how to use your attunements and you’ll be good.
2 huge CD skills from 20 in D/D is not tons. I don’t count auras, it’s bad CC skills which requires to recieve hit for activation. And frozen burst… hydromancer signet is better.
wy are you all hating on a bulid people congrats me in tourneys i can 1v1 any bulid and kill them unless you guys are saying this bulid sucks so anet if anet buffs ele this bulid will be very very strong?
I don’t say build is bad. Just let’s call a spade a spade. It’s not OP build, because elementalist doesn’t have OP builds, and it does much less, then 3/4 of pure damage build. Plus it’s almost glass cannon spec (zero toughness, berserker amulet, you talk about sPvP). Thats all.
Buff doesn’t mean straight increase of numbers. For example remake of conjured weapons doesn’t add nothing to this build, but is strong buff for class.
Elementalist and OP are incompatible things. Elementalist doesn’t have OP build and there is nothing to nerf. Zero tougness means glass cannon or close to it. Casting 2 earth in S/D when you attacked by thief made me laugh. When you finish cast, you lose half HP.
And btw, this build can’t do 3/4 damage of pure damage build. Because you lose 300 power, 15% damage and might stacking from fire traits and 20% damage to stunned enemies from air trait. But survivability is better, of course.
Some elementalist’s functions are analog to other classes function, but much worse:
1) Attunement swap CD out of combat (but it’s analog to weapon swap which has no CD)
2) Huge CD on main damage abilities
3) Some builds make 2 attunement from 4 almost useless, other classes can equip second weapon to fit their build. Engineer doesn’t have weapon swap, but he can edit 25 from 30 available skills using kits, which have no CD.
I don’t understand guys, who protect elementalist’s bad features and saying “all is fine”. Are you want to be elitist or just like to eat cactus? All is far from fine. At least we need to get rid of range stuck (weapon swap or viable conjure system similar to engineer’s kits or something new like swap one attunement skills with conjured weapon skills) and get critical bugs (like RtL) fixed. And then it will be close to “fine”.
You can go bunker spec and still deal 1000+ DPS with Eruption. Is ~1000 DPS really funny damage? Maybe I suck but as a glass cannon Ele I couldn’t deal significant more damage over time with it.
DPS with 4 seconds delay skills (2 sec cast and 2 sec delay after)? Are you kidding me? As you can see I said about PvP aspect. Enemy must be completely idiot to stay and watch how huge piece of rock slowly rises under his feets and blasts. Even if you hit, any class can remove condition. Good luck with your DPS in PvP lol.
P.S. Mobs in PvE can be facerolled with auto-attack.
P.P.S. And I do 3-4k crits in glass cannon spec just with auto-attack and lava field. So yes, 1000 dps with one and only effective skill is funny. Btw, how do you know about 1000 DPS without DPS meter? =)
It’s worth for WvW sieges with staff or instances (with staff again).
I do PvE in Orr now in glass cannon with D/D and mastering Yoda style =). Yep, it’s some kind of masochism, buts it’s only way to see interesting damage numbers, like ~10k crits with fire grab.
Just get valkyrie gear to get some survivability and berserker accessory.
P.S. In glass cannon D/D spec earth armor is your best friend for PvE IMO.
@Korgath
Of course elementalist has good things, like AoE, combo fields. But he has more bad things, like range stuck, lack of direct damage skills (almost all are aoe or cone type), almost can’t defend himself when solo with staff (can only try to run), CC are very specific (easy to miss, to get single target CC you need to waste utility slot, or major arcane trait AND still waste utility slot).
Of course elementalist can swap weapons between combat, but by this scenario – “meet thief/warrior > dead > weapon swap”. People can’t predict future for swap weapon before combat start.
@Westley
These skill videos are fat rolling, rly. Killing mobs with water trident (and using it with staff), chain phoenix, no cooldown for lightning field and meteor shower, churning earth with focus (!!!). I think we know already that Anet like to troll people. I just can’t find any other reason why these videos are on official site.
Be careful with the phrase ‘Whatever u want’ as well. Just because you can’t get something to work doesn’t mean it’s impossible
[Not sure why you would want me to 1v1 someone with a staff. It’s obviously not built around 1v1 engagements, square peg in a round hole much?]
Some thing are just impossible =). And about staff. He wanted you to 1vs1 because its standart situation in WvW. When you are in zerg, you are cool AoE death bringer (bwahaha), but when you are little away from zerg – 100% kill for any thief, warrior, guardian etc. Of course you can be in bunker spec, but in this case you are useless in siege with your funny damage. And all this because we don’t have weapon swap or VIABLE conjure weapon system.
Staff is an aoe/support weapon. Trying to 1v1 with a staff as well as a S/D or D/D is like saying a bow or rifle warrior should be able to melee as well as a GS warrior. All weapons have purposes, staff is not a ST dmg weapon.
Warrior is not bad with rifle in melee (and he have knockback btw). But don’t forget, warrior can switch to GS in melee, and we can’t switch to D/D from staff in combat. So rifle warrior is very bad argument.
So then Eles and only Eles, who already have more skills than everybody else, will get even more skills.
Its funny when people complain about elemetalist skills. Do you know, engineer can have even more skills (5 weapon + 5×4 kits + 4 belt + 1 elite = 30)? But without cooldown for swap, and he can edit amount of skills to choose effective for his curent build, plus he doesn’t stuck in one range. So enough to carry nonsense that elementalist has huge amount of powerful skills.
P.S.We have attunement cooldown even out of combat, when other classes can swap weapons without it.
I rly want to see (and play of course) dervish. Elona closed now – not a problem. Make some portal like in Eye of the north or something. Anyway, whispers somehow get from Elona to Tyria both ways. But one problem – dervish must be restricted for other races except human. Because without restriction its will be even more wrong then sylvary engineer.
Actually it’s good to make race specific classes IMO. For example:
Human – Dervish
Asura – Alchemist (they are alchemists in lore, but there is no such class)
Norn – Shaman (like in GW1)
Sylvary – em… druid
Charr – dunno >.< my imagination is ended
You died in Arah?
thats like the easiest dungeon ever.
And atleast you got greens, all I got were blues.
Other guys was first time here (as myself, but I died last from group). So if group wiped, what can I do alone with elementalist?
May be it’s easiest dungeon, if you got defensive builded group in full exotic gear. And how it can be easiest with zergs of mobs with tons of CC?
Anyway, we talkning not about Arah dificulity. Reward for finishing main and only storyline is completely joke.
@Moderator
I spent several hours for nothing (for map exploration I get exotic gear and money, which is MUCH better then story ending reward), lost 42k karma due bug and waiting for support answer for 4 days, plus patch notes for elementalist is another bad joke. I’m sorry, but after all of this it’s hard to provide feedback calm.
So finishing story quest reward consist from two parts:
1) Arah story – got useless yellow hat and 26 (!!!) silver. kitten I spent more for repairs in this instance.
2) Finish last quest – got siege weapon, letter of commendation and (attention) 3 green items from random loot bag, which was sold to vendor.
Is it a joke? When you finish GW1 campain, except for awards you get access to unique weapon/armor vendors. And in GW2… these green items, kitten… I can buy this kitten and kitten siege weapons myself at low levels. For that I don’t need to get 80 level and finish the game.
I’ve explored 2 maps in Orr with elementalist and got 2 pieces of heavy armor and shield. Wth is that? Don’t you think reward should be for class you play at curent time?
Suggestion: reward need to be for class which was you explored bigger part of map.
Switch to almost useless in combat attunement (for D/D spec, and I mean damage dealing) just for get viable auto-attack? It’s sad :/. There needs to be rework – change dragon’s claw to (drumroll) fire whip and make air attunement more mobility/CC, anyway its terrible for damage dealing as it is now.
@Aries
Kill mobs in 2-3 hits… in Orr… This can’t be true =)
May be it’s bug, and will be fixed as other minor bugs, which gave elementalist minimal advantage (of course without fixing critical bugs). Anet hates elementalists, live with it…
@Kellhus
20 doesn’t mean they all are good and useful in any build. Let’s look at D/D power build:
Air-water skills can’t be used for good damage (cone of cold will miss most damage at moving target, but not bad for heal, RtL is bugged and can stun you), only auto-attack, which is terrible, compared to other classes. 1-2 earth skills are only good for condition build (but in condition build much more skills become useless). So we have 5 skills from fire attunement and 2 from earth. And none of them have target direct damage, only aoe or cone type, which are easily avoidable and easy to miss (fire grab, burning speed etc). So we don’t have 20 effective skills.
Dodge doesn’t cos much in condition bunker spec, but not in power. So it’s like to say “For warriors dodge doesn’t hurt much, he just switch to another weapon and carry on”. And he does, because all warrior’s skill are effective. And I can’t find idiotic mix of condition and power based skills on one weapon (like ours fire scepter, earth dagger).
P.S. I begin to doubt that these people made Guild wars 1. In GW1 so many viable build for ANY class, but there we are forced to play with 1-2 effective builds with some classes :/.
@Kellhus
Mm…. not every. I have warrior for pve/pvp and thief for spvp. Warrior have high survivability even in pure dps spec. Thief… just spam 3 in dual pistol build and get top score… ~7k damage per skill and can use 3 in a row, plus ~4k damage traited steal. And these skills can’t be dodged. One (!!!) kitten button to overdps elementalist’s piano style. Funny, isn’t?
@Ensign
Don’t you think when people choose elemental mage, they expect for pure damage, not wonderful support? Anet said, all classes are self-sufficient. No pronounced supports or tanks. And what do we see? When I play elementalist in PvP and using Rtl or Burning speed to land other skills (and this kitten piece of kitten jumps anywhere, but not to enemy or just stuck for few seconds), I start swearing dirty and loud.
And for doing damage less then warrior doing buy 3 buttons (which almost impossible to miss) I need 7-8 buttons (and skills are very easy to miss, or it’s just bugged kitten RtL and fight is over at start).
P.S. Last sPvP match kitten 1-button pistol thief just run around and press 3-3-3-3… and I can’t do anything, because signet of earth on CD and after use RtL without it I stun myself for 3-4 seconds and make job for him easier. GJ Anet for fixing any kitten or skill which does minimal advantage, but not critical bugs.
@hackks
And whats wrong with messmer? It’s best PvP class, that’s why he is not so effective in PvE (except fat elite mobs). Only annoying thing – illusions are linked to target, thats why PvE is not comfortable.
For example PvE combo for pack:
Elementalist: Burning speed
Why are you using double daggers for a pack? It’s great for a single target burst, but the AoE is attrocious compared to Scepter-Dagger, Lightning Hammer or Staff.
Because all used skills in combo are AoE, fast and give 3 stacks of might after first skill.
and @Truga
I don’t like scepter, it’s slow, for dragon tooth you need to stay at one place for a long time, bugged arc lightning is annoying and fire auto-attack is only good for condition build. I have 80 lvl elementalist, in Orr for solo you need fast instant skills, because mobs have to much CC. D/D is good for solo AoE if you have good survivability.
Btw, I didn’t said this combo is bad or weak (it kills packs) . I said for same and more damage warrior needs 1-2 buttons, not 6-7. And cooldown for warrior most damage skill is not 45 seconds.
P.S. To kill someone in Orr with only fire attunement I need ~10k damage per skill with scepter and this is not possible.
This is important function. Today due a bug (when game counts single click as double in shop) I lost 42k karma for unneeded healer gloves.
Game needs:
1) Short time return function for bought items back to vendor if they was not upgraded. Like it implemented in WoW.
or/and
2) Buy confirmation for expensive/karma items.
2.1k power, and hitting 1.5k burning speeds normally is fine? I hit that much on my auto att with axe warrior with same power.
The huge difference is that we have four attunements we can switch between. Meaning we (theoretically) have twice as many damaging abilities.
Quantity does not mean quality. Warrior can have 3 skills and do more DPS and burst damage then elementalist with 20 skills.
For example PvE combo for pack:
Elementalist: Burning speed > Ring of fire > Arcane wave > Earthquake > Armor of earth > Churning earth. 45 second cooldown combo (if not count 90 sec CD for earth armor).
Warrior: Gather pack > Hundred blades > 8 sec wait > repeat if needed.
And warrior does same or more damage per combo, but much more damage per second.
I’m sure ppl tried that and result was bad. Charge system, 1 minute cooldown and almost no synergy from traits. For effective using conjured weapons need system, similar to engineer’s kits.
First of all, this build is pointless untill Anet will fix RtL stuck bug.
Second – no stun breaker.
Third – no CC skill. People will not stand still like golem.
Fourth – build with 45 second cooldown damage ability (can’t do good damage untill at least 1 ability on CD) is not one of most effective things =).
But yes, it’s not standart air-fire-arcane combo. And that’s good.
High damage for slow animation? Guys, what are you talking about? Many classes have instant abilities with more damage and only 2-4 second longer cooldown. Dragon tooth now is only good for PvE carebears with permanent tank slave. End of story.
P.S. At sPvP opponent will use 1200 ranged weapon and kill you in seconds while you will cast this shame with 900 range and terrible cast time.
Glass cannon does more DPS. But you can’t do DPS, if you are dead, so… =). Btw, you have 2 more options:
1) Glass cannon D/D spec (but, you need to be true jedi xD).
2) Hybrid D/D spec (10 fire for damage, 10 air for mobility, full earth etc).
I use hybrid spec, dps gear with toughness/vitality runes. Not bad survivability and damage. Can’t play at mid levels in full tank build with terrible damage =).
i play thief, and have a 25-ish lvl ele alt with which i occasionally wvw.
i find it very annoying how most skills have an unneeded casting time,
or root you, or a very slow animation until they take effect.
especially the staff, which i like most.
Get used to it. Btw, its funny when thief player say something like “L2play” to ele players (it’s not about you, just btw). Now you know what feels ele in pvp =). Slow skills, lower damage, only meteor shower in glass cannon spec is good.
Staff is best weapon when defending/attacking points. Plus staff provides more useful combo fileds for your team (dont forget, WvW is team based game) and good CC. D/D can be good if we get weapon swap or Anet remove annoying charge system for conjured weapons.
And now compare that to Heartseeker > Heartseeker > Heartseeker …
Bull’s charge > Frenzy > Hundred blades > profit – not much better :/. But Anet nerfed piano-style elementalist’s combo, not this 1 or 3 button idiotism.
Happened 2 times per day. When we took keep and stonemist. I spent several hours figting french zerg with ppl ratio ~1:10 with lags, invisible enemies, not working skills for NOTHING.
In my situation I play on european server Vabbi, which has evening prime time and medium population. And after last match we play aginst Jade Sea, which has high/full population 24/7 and several zergs on each map. And I want to ask… wth?! Don’t you think it’s “little” unfair match? There must be IP restriction or something. Or just move server like this with high americans population to US servers. It’s very “funny” to play with ppl ratio 1:10 or something like that.
After second deleted elementalist (nerves =) ) I try one more char. I’ve seen topics about condition build in PvE (only effective build etc). But when I try condition build, I kill mobs so slow (even at WWW with ~1500 condition damage). And here OP says about fast killing in condition build at low-mid levels. So a question – is somewhere a video of PvE gameplay in condition build? I’ve found only old PvP movies at youtube.
