Guild Wars 2

We have perma vigor though we are forced to trait 10 points into it which is not really ideal if you want flexibility, that’s it for evade.

My main concern would be the cooldown on our stunbreaks. All our stunbreaks have very long cooldown that if I mess up with it, I usually have a hard time to recover. But well, that’s me. I’m not a pro who doesn’t have any problems playing the class.

Actually, an Off Topic question. Feel free to ignore me though:

How do you guys counter condi engis as a D/D or S/D? Especially ones with runes of perplexity. Even if I have lots of condi removals, they just put it back so quickly. Confusion is also a really hard counter against D/D eles. As for Diamond Skin, a few random auto attacks renders it useless. TBH I don’t even want to trait for Diamond skin just to counter 1 or 2 classes in WvW.

ThiBash.5634:

Taldren.7523:

Even after the hammer nerf my warrior has 500 more armor, nearly double the hitpoint, and can press just about any attack and deal more damage than my elementalist whenever he wants.

Then why don’t you go play warrior if they’re so great? Because hitting for more than 3k with my staff ele certainly isn’t a problem for me…but if it’s not working for you, why play it?

It’s people like you who makes the ele forums sad and gloomy. You guys always spout something along the lines of “I’m not having any problems with my ele, re-roll to another class if you are” instead of actually helping.

@TS
You’ll get somewhat acceptable amount of damage with around 3k+ attack and 40%+ Crit damage regardless of the weapon you use though it’s not really comparable to what warriors can do. Stacking up might helps a lot which is pretty easy for eles especially with a Sigil of Battle. If you want a good amount of damage, then you probably need at least more than 3.6k attack and 70% crit damage. This is for WvW, I play in JQ where our enemy worlds are usually tanky.

As for fire grab, the easiest basic setup is to probably use Burning Speed (be sure that you pass through your enemy so he’ll be standing in the fire trail) then immediately turn around and cast Fire Grab. It hits a lot more than using Drake’s Breath then aiming your Fire Grab on a moving player, at least for me.

But to be precise, the damage of an elementalist does not come from a single attack but rather by chaining your skills especially on non staff builds. If you miss a lot of your skills, don’t expect to get an easy kill.

Thanks. I’ve checked it a few hours ago and everything was still intact. I only had 50g so if ever the hacker was able to log in, he must have just decided to ignore my mere 50g lol. I honestly don’t know how he got my info, I’m not sure if it’s a malware because I’ve been only using my laptop for the past few weeks and I only have GW2 on my desktop. I haven’t been doing anything related to GW2, not even open my email until yesterday.

I’m going through this right now. I haven’t been playing for a while (only once in the past few weeks) then earlier this day I got an email that someone was trying to login my account from China.

I’m not that rich and I’m crossing my fingers right now because I’m still patching the latest updates. I hope my account is safe.

Depends on your play style and build.

If you have decent amount of condition removals (1 or more of these: Ether renewal, Cleansing Fire, 30 pts in Water with Cleansing Wave), you can opt for any runes to your liking (Divinity, Boon Duration, etc.)

If you don’t have a lot of condition removals, you might need to opt for Melandru (toughness, -25% condition duration) or Hoelbrak (Power, -20% condition duration) runes.

Personally I use 3x Superior Water and 3x Superior Monk and 30 pts in Water, occasionally swap between Cleansing Fire and Armor of Earth depending on the situation.

Lettuce.2945:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0iPjSQJvPM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCPpZiqStt8

I would say this guy is doing great dps. 3-4k lighting whips, 10k churned earths, 8k fire grabs…And he’s playing smart enough to survive well. Even his tornado is doing 2.5k’s. Yeah eles aren’t viable anymore.

I was roaming with him last night, we had 3 eles in party, we just kitten d everything we touched. So, I honestly don’t know what you guys are talking about. Getting tired of those whiny threads. Don’t like it? Re roll. I’m quite content.

Not trying to be rude, but a glass vs another glass dealing those damage is quite… normal. And your “I’m doing well which means this class is fine” attitude isn’t exactly helpful in any way.

I have to give props to the guy in this vid though. I’ve been watching a lot of his dueling videos and he’s really good.

Pros:
- Runes of perplexity would synergize well with ele because the 6th effect has no ICD.
- Additional source of condi damage aside from Burning and Bleeding

Cons:
- Ele’s interrupts have long CD
- Eles still have way too few conditions to dish out

This is only my opinion and I’m not saying that condition eles are not viable, I’ve been trying them a lot too (D/D and S/D) A good thing is that an Ele’s condition has long duration. The bad thing is the new condition meta forced people to use condition duration reduction gears and food in WvW. Another bad thing is that a good player will bring a decent amount of condi removal and ele’s don’t have the ability to reapply massive amount of conditions in a very short amount of time unlike engis and necros.

TL;DR – This build is very fun but don’t expect to faceroll your enemies a lot especially if you’re against another good player.

Kodiak.3281:

We have the lowest HP pool going against everything in the normal game design. Necro/Engie are tanky and have highest base HP.

Actually, Engineers are on the middle HP class.

Kodiak.3281:

This is where it gets messed up… Mesmer has Meidum pool of HP with mobility/stealth abilities to avoid damage entirely (plus clones). Elementalist has low HP with healing and mobility. It’s crisscrossed for Light Armor from Medium and what to they do to answer it? They reduce our mobility and healing with zero compensation

Very well said. I can’t put it into words any better. Everybody should read Kodiak’s long post because it’s very informative and addresses almost all (if not all) of the Elementalist’s core problems in class design. I hope devs can read his post. I just quoted this paragraph because I believe this is where the real problem lies:

Eles live off by relying on mobility and healing but They reduce our mobility and healing with zero compensation

You can’t share Auras you get from blast finishers so you’ll only be able to share magnetic aura if you use staff.

@Naab
I think what he meant was Ele can be specced into whatever role you want, but there will always be another class that can do it better

He explained very well. You want a glass burst player? Go S/D thief. Very glassy yet still has high survivability because they can go perma stealth, unlike a glass S/D ele that can burst pretty good but doesn’t have much tools to escape when focused by the other team since most of our skills and cantrips have very long CD.

Even glass GS/Sword+Pitol Mesmers has better survivability than S/D Ele because they can just drop P.Zerker> P.Gunner > Illusionarry Leap + Swap > Blurried Frenzy > pop decoy or blink + stealth if you’re taking too much damage after B.Frenzy. Even more, they can just drop P.Gunner and P.Zerker and kite people 1200 range away using GS. If people focus them, pop invisibility.

In the end, Eles are what Anet described. Good at everything, but some other class will always be better than it.

It hurts to see that people are underestimating engineers, even those people who main the class.

All classes have their uses. Engineers are in a very good place in PvP and small group roaming WvW. The same goes for rangers and thieves.

Turrets are broken because they die so fast?
Then maybe they’re not meant to tank AoEs which means you don’t exactly drop them at a place where opponents can hit them easiliy. The last hosted 1v1 tournament I’ve seen was won by an engineer using 2 turrets.

Celestial gear takes 2-3 months of farming
I’m not trying to be sarcastic or rude but every single class takes 2-3 months of farming, not only engineers.

Your downed skills are weak
Yes they are, I agree. But you are not alone. New conditions can still be applied to Elementalist’s even in Vapor form (downed skill #2). Downed skill #3 doesn’t exactly stop people from stomping you (bleed and immobilize, but given how people run condition reduction setup now it’s pretty useless). It’s probably a bug though and Anet said they fixed it but there are still people experiencing getting new conditions while in vapor form.

The lack of consistent stability
Engineer is not the only class to lack access to stability. In fact, engineers are lucky to have traits that reduce damage when CC’ed (Stabilized Armor, Protection Injection. That’s an instant 53% damage reduction). There are other classes not as lucky as engineers to get the freedom to trait anti-CC (necros, elementalists, thieves). It can be fairly justified as well. Engineers have a lot of CCs but don’t have access to stability… but they can trait to counter it. Thieves and mesmers don’t have stability but they can go invisible. Guards and Warriors have long stability duration because they can’t hide nor trait to counter CCs.

The Ranged Weapons
You can always opt to equip Tool kit or bomb kit if you don’t want to be stuck as a ranged player. Elementalists are stuck on choosing between melee or ranged.

Champion weapons skins/Legendary weapons skins and limited backpack skins and being told they’ll fix them now
I completely agree with these two though I don’t think it’s enough of a reason to label Anet as Engineer Haters.

The Nerf hammer
No, just no. Engineers are in a very good place in PvP and small group WvW roaming. Just as I said in my first sentences, all classes have their place but guardians and mesmers are the 2 most balanced classes in PvE and PvP. Engineers are well loved as allies in PvP. They’ve got a couple of buffs this recent patch, even the condition runes are very useful for the engineer more than other classes.

@Nikkinella
You have a point, it’s probably a GM trait because it had no ICD but maybe the proc chance is not 7.5% on crit. I’ve used armor runes that has 5% proc chance and are more noticeable (Rock Dog and 30s fury/swiftness).

So yeah, I’d agree as well that we get this GM trait changed rather than improved. So far Lingering attunements is bugged (only soothing mist and Flame Barrier works), but I don’t want it replaced because I like soothing mist. Flame Barrier is crappy too as it only grant 1s burning.

Necros are not very scary when fighting 1v1 but they’re very effective and deadly when left unnoticed in a group fight.

Of course there are good necros who do well in 1v1 too, I actually got owned by a necro in Maguuma after he used Fear Wall on me on a wall. All my Cantrips/Stunbreaks were on CD so yeah, I ran to the wall eating conditions and dropped dead eventually.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arcane_Precision

Last time I checked in PvP versus dummies it was working (a long time ago). At least the Fire one which does a crappy 1s burn.

It’s pretty hard to notice unless you’re spamming Fire and Air especially if you’re on DD since Water and Earth #1 naturally inflicts Vulnerability and Bleed respectively which is redundant to Arcane Precision’s effect.

It only has a 7.5% chance on crit and given how most eles don’t stay in 1 attunement to spam #1, it’s very unnoticeable. I think they should improve the skill by making the burning duration higher (1s is crap). All other attunements are fine as is. They should also increase the proc chance, maybe 20% and add an internal Cooldown instead.

EDIT:
@Avatara – thanks for pointing that out, forgot to put on crit.

Mbelch.9028:

Kyon, I wakitten last night in mist form, so I don’t believe it is 100% fixed. Maybe they tried fixing it, but I’m not sure. I know they read it. But when was the last time we got a good response on the state of Elementalist, where the class is heading?

Emiko, if no glyphs make sense, why put it on a glyph. That’s my thought on it. If something doesn’t make sense, don’t do it.

Sovereign.8520:

I may be mistaken but did you say that fire grab was pointless?

Oh no. Never. Fire grab helps me shock and awe. Without it, idk if we would be viable. “cumbersome or pointless skills like fire grab and dragon’s tooth” I said it is cumbersome. The sentence structure was just a little confusing :p. I think dragons tooth is pointless.

I see. Can you please tell what skill was able to CC you? Was it in PvP or WvW(PvE)? As far as I have tested Fear Wall and Warrior Mace stun doesn’t work in PvP when you are in Mist form. In WvW, I can only assure that Ele’s Static field doesn’t work when you are in mist form. WvW is too chaotic that I’m not able to see what stuns me unless I check my Damage tab. But so far I haven’t been CC’ed (or I probably didn’t notice since I drop to 10 FPS when I’m in zerg battles) in WvW while in mist form again.

Setsunayaki.4907:

Sorry to bother everyone here.
Just a question to ask.

How come Evasive Arcana reads that on dodge roll will run a Churning Earth, but when I hit enemies the damage log reads the attack as “Shockwave” in the combat log and it only does a single stack of bleeding and applies cripple with the animation of Churning Earth?

The original skill applies 8 stacks of bleeding so its not a tooltip error.

My second question is:

Is it the intention of the developers to have the Evasive Arcana version apply less stacks of bleeding for gameplay balance? Specially when a dodge roll gives 1 bleeding stack while primary attack on Scepter and underwater weapon apply three stacks? Doesn’t make sense to me…

As to why it reads as shockwave, I have no idea.

It only has 1 stack because 8 stacks of bleed + cripple + damage from the original Dagger Offhand skill is OP if you can use it every 9 seconds by just dodging. Even the original Dagger Offhand skill you have to channel it for 3.25 seconds, it isn’t fair if you can cast it by just dodging and get the full effect.

If you want them to increase it to 3 stacks, well yeah that’s good but most people use it primarily as a blast finisher.

Devs and Mods read the forums, even the dreaded elementalist forums. That’s why they delete certain posts.

I think Mist Form was fixed already. I haven’t been CC’ed for a while now, but it’d be better to wait for other players to respond.

Fire Grab isn’t pointless, just pure buggy.

ANet nerfed Elementalist Regeneration and Mobility because it was OP back then . That’s the key word, back then . So how about now?

It’s true that most people can still play ele fine (TBH I still find it OK), but now that they’ve buffed other classes to a point where it was the reason eles got nerfed, I don’t think it’s fair for us.

Now that they’ve boosted the mobility of most other classes (warriors, engis, GS rangers, etc) and Healing Signet of Warriors, I think it’s about time they buff our nerfed skills (RtL and Signet of Restoration). You’ll see a new group Rifle warrior roaming build where they’d kite people from 1,200~1,500 range afar then switch to GS and run and cover around 1500+ distance using GS when things go sour.

Yeah I think it got fixed, there was a small patch earlier. I was getting CC’ed last night and I remember my guardian guildies saying they were able to CC eles using Hammer(Ring of Warding) and Staff (Line of Warding). I thought I was just lagging like usual until my guildies pointed it out.

Been playing WvW for some time today, haven’t been interrupted in mist form stomping yet.

LightningBlaze.4913:

This is very true. Tested it today in a couple of duels against necros and warriors. I might actually change it for another utility if this is intentional and not a bug. Then again I’m completely sure this is just a temporary bug just like how it happens with many other skills across all professions then Anet fix it so… don’t panick!

Hi, did you test it in WvW or PvP? I just tested it in PvP. Warrior Burst Mace Stun and Necro Fear Wall doesn’t work on Mist Form and I’m still invulnerable.

If you tested it in WvW, it might be a bug (let’s hope it’s not a nerf )on PvE settings.

At level 80, the opponent Armor value used to calculate the tooltip’s direct damage is 2600.

Tooltip damage = (average weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (level-based Armor value)

2600 Armor is used in the tooltip damage computation.

Source: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

I’d love to see a Signet Elite Skill. Blackbeard’s Signet of Arcana sounds cool, it will allow us to add 1 more heal in our heal burst(if you have 15pts in water) by switching back to water.

Here’s mine:
Signet of Elements (60s)

Active: Increases Boon Duration by 20%
Passive: Grants stability and an aura based on your attunement. You inflict a condition to your enemies when switching to an attunement.

Notes:
1. You can only get one aura based on your attunement when you cast this signet. Auras from this signet last for 7s.
2. Stability lasts for 5s.
3. In a 15s timespan after activating the signet, you can inflict conditions when changing attunements.
Radius: 360
Fire – Burning(3s)
Water – Chill(2s)
Air – Weakness (3s)
Earth – Cripple (2s)

Pros of this Elite Skill:
1. Finally, an access to auras aside from weapon skills.
2. Another access to stability.
3. Without putting points in Arcana line, you can still inflict all the conditions by switching to all attunements. Even when you put 30 point in Arcana line, the conditions applied isn’t long enough to apply permanent conditions because the 2nd effect of the signet has a 15 second duration.
3. We can finally replace boon duration runes if ever someone uses them in PvP.

Cons:
1. Boon duration isn’t exactly useful to all elementalist builds. This might be actually more helpful in PvE or WvW
2. The 2nd effect when you activate this signet is somewhat redundant to other trait effects.

People can read between the lines. Whether you try to sugarcoat your words or not, it was obvious.

Anyways, my verdict was Water EA is fine, Air EA should be buffed instead. It was you who dragged this topic longer than it should have been. Seeing how you just went directly to the sarcasm route, I don’t see any need to prolong this discussion.

Whether you just went to the sarcasm route because you can’t back up your words or you are just naturally playful, we’ll never know. Have a nice day and I hope you learn how to say things straight instead of playing with words and sarcasm.

Fishbait.6723:

Kyon.9735:

How about a change like this:

When Out of Combat – 1200 distance travel range, 15s/20s Cooldown and no Cool Down Penalty when you don’t hit anything.

When In Combat – 1200 distance travel range, 20s Cooldown, 30s Penalty when you don’t hit anything.

TBH I’m still doing fine with the nerfed RtL in PvP/WvW. My main problem lies with PvE and WvW map roaming.

People were complaining how we can just simply run away (same as GS Warriors/Thieves/Mesmers -.- ) when we’re losing a fight. I just want it back on a low cool down when you’re out of combat for roaming mobility.

Nope.
Again, why should one class be penalised for using a mobility spell when no other class is?

If it`s good for the goose, it`s good for the gander.

Either no classes have a double in their cd for mobility spells or they all do.

I only suggested it like this in case Anet won’t revert it to its old form. But of course it would certainly be better for us if they revert it.

SonOfKrypton.4357:

Kyon.9735:

So Air EA is just for stomping?

That is one use for it. I believe you mentioned another, blind in general.

Kyon.9735:

The fact that you gave a situational use of it makes it bad.

Hmmm, I think the fact that I gave it a situational use makes it USEFUL.

Kyon.9735:

BTW you can dodge roll to avoid some #2 downed skills, why waste mist form?

You’re most certainly right. OR, I could just dodge roll in air and blind them and make their #2 skill useless.

Kyon.9735:

I only use mistform stomping when there are other enemies who can CC/burst me while stomping.

Oh wow, really? Congrats!

This conversation isn’t going anywhere. You aren’t really giving out any concrete answers or suggestions, instead you try to pull off pointless /sarcasm.

YOBO – You Only Blind Once.

1. People who think will spam #1 and wait for you to start stomping. They’ll use their #2 skill when you’re usually in the middle of casting stomp. Blind EA can only be used once every 9 seconds. After dodging and blinding them once, they can just hit #1 to remove that blind and still be able to pull off #2 before you finish casting the stomp.

2. Try giving out other uses for it. It only has 180 radius and gives a single stack of blind. IMO even if I have perma Vigor I’d still save my dodge for either Water or Earth EA. This applies even more in PvE. I’d rather dodge in Water/Fire/Earth for decent healing or damage instead of a single stack of blind.

Don’t be so close minded. People try to point out the flaws of a skill which you like and give suggestions then you go “I’m so Pro, have you ever tried Blah Blah Blah? It’s so OP, you don’t know how to play. 1 stack of blind is so OP, I can stomp anybody in any given situation.” and starts pulling off /sarcasm instead of giving out more informative tips.

ProxyDamage.9826:

Simple: Too much of an advantage. Being able to instantly clear 900/1200 distance is already one of the best things in the game. If you could clear heights as well it would be far too good a getaway/close in.

I don’t really see it as a huge advantage since we’re among the squishiest classes in the game. Mesmers can have their blink CD reduced to 24s with a stun breaker. Bow thieves can blink with no problem. These 2 classes can jump from one place to another without any height restriction. Now as an Ele, I can reduce my blink to 32s at most. I can’t always jump from one place to another if there is a height difference. And when I blink to safety, I’m still stunned and cant move so enemies can just run back to me since my blink has a crappy 900 range.

If Anet removed LF’s stun breaker for the purpose of spreading our stun breakers among our skills:
1. They could have just added stun breakers to other skills without nerfing LF
or
2. Put our stun breakers to a more useful skill instead of putting it in GoEP or Signet of Air

SonOfKrypton.4357:

Mek.2947:

The only weak one is the air where you have to dodge into the target to blind.

Kyon.9735:

This means Water EA is fine but rather Air EA should be the one fixed.

Not sure what you’re talking about!

If they change EA Air I’ll be a very sad panda. Ever tried dodge rolling over a downed Warrior, Guardian, Necro, Engi, or Ranger while attuned to Air? Try it pl0x. Why waste a mistform when you can blind stomp.

So Air EA is just for stomping? The fact that you gave a situational use of it makes it bad. If you want to keep the blind, at least make the radius of the AoE blind larger or or maybe add 1 more stack of blind. BTW you can dodge roll to avoid some #2 downed skills, why waste mist form? I only use mistform stomping when there are other enemies who can CC/burst me while stomping.

How about a change like this:

When Out of Combat – 1200 distance travel range, 15s/20s Cooldown and no Cool Down Penalty when you don’t hit anything.

When In Combat – 1200 distance travel range, 20s Cooldown, 30s Penalty when you don’t hit anything.

TBH I’m still doing fine with the nerfed RtL in PvP/WvW. My main problem lies with PvE and WvW map roaming.

People were complaining how we can just simply run away (same as GS Warriors/Thieves/Mesmers -.- ) when we’re losing a fight. I just want it back on a low cool down when you’re out of combat for roaming mobility.

Somoe.3621:

Mek.2947:

EA is not just used for the water heal. People also use it as a blast finisher for earth and also aoe fire puts out nice direct damage. The only weak one is the air where you have to dodge into the target to blind.

EA heal is huge to survivability. People either need it OR the 15 water trait for extra heals. If they nerf EA heal to a chill effect (it would be a complete nerf) then everyone would just spec 15 water as the new mandatory trait. That would make already crappy build diversity worse.

They need to buff our terrible traits, not nerf our only useful ones.

If Elementalists need Healing Ripple and/or Evasive Arcana to be viable it’s unhealthy for the class as a whole and needs to be fixed. Obviously this would include reworking or buffing other traits to more evenly distribute power across the class’ trait trees.

There’s this saying “Don’t try to fix something if it ain’t broken. You might end up breaking it instead.”

As per our tooltip:

Fire Attunement – Gain Heavy damage and burning abilities.
Water Attunement – Gain superior support and healing abilitites
Air Attunement – Gain Heavy damage and control abilities.
Earth Attunement – Gain superior damage over time and defensive abilities

This means Water EA is fine but rather Air EA should be the one fixed. TBH Water and Arcana trait lines are good already, they should rework Fire Traits before “fixing” Water and Arcana.

You were probably fighting a bunker ranger and it can be pretty hard to kill them because their regen is too strong (IMO it’s OP especially underwater because of their pets).

Make sure you watch the latest videos out there because if you’re watching the old videos pre-Ele nerfs you’ll really feel weak compared to those eles in the old videos.

http://en.gw2skills.net/ might be better and is more complete. I don’t think gw2buildcraft.com has Celestial and Sentinel gears in it.

IMO celestial gear is only good for balancing out stats. Going full celestial will land you High Crit Damage(on stat sheet) but will be pretty useless because you’ll have very low Power.

I have 2x celestial daggers and a full set of celestial trinkets but I don’t use them at the same time. I mix them with Ascended Cavalier trinkets and Berserker/Valkyrie Ascended trinkets to make up for the loss in power and toughness.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

(Please note, I wanted to make this comparison thread sooner, but I was afraid of getting either Eles, Mesmer, or any other class nerfed. Its a kitten shame that people are scared to make informative threads for fear of nerfing, Anet.)

- Up to 25x Might / Fury (AltruismRunes, Signet) / Perma Swiftness / Perma Regen / Perma Vigor / Aegis / Protection (a bit unreliably) / Perma Retaliation / 2.9k AoE burst heals every 3 seconds.

I don’t know a lot about mesmers, but how are they able to get those buffs? Can they get those buffs and boons alone or do they need fields and finishers?

I’ll jump straight to Staff Elementalist since D/D was already discussed. A staff elementalist is vital in supporting a zerg in WvW because they can get unlimited might, healing and frost armor as long as they have people who use blast finishers. Hammer guardians are rampant in WvW and each blast finisher on water fields heal for 1.3k~2k depending on the Healing Stat of the user. Add the fact that they have a lot of Soft and Hard CCs too (Knockdown, Chill, Cripple, Stun)

If mesmers are able to get all those boons alone, then they’re superior in supporting a small group(small group roaming in WvW or PvE dungeons) while staff elementalists have the upperhand in supporting larger groups and zergs because they can get as much heals/might/frost armor as they want as long as there are people blasting their fields.

TL;DR – If mesmers are able to get all those boons without the need of other people blasting fields:
Mesmer>Staff Ele in small groups
Staff Ele> Mesmer in large groups

Most people would take Guardians over Elementalists because it’s the most balanced class in all aspects of the game. You might get a hard time joining FotM and Arah dungeon parties if you’re going to pug using an elementalist.

Guards and ekitten th have their own special places in WvW. But if you want an easier time in PvE, I suggest you roll a guardian since it’s more balanced in WvW and PvE.

Xunleashed.5271:

My build has enough dps to kill a PVT, fighting 1v2 with 2 pvt is easy with this build, the problem is when u fight glass cannons, that can come out from nowhere bursting u down.
If u don’t kill a balanced enemy (not a full bunker) u have problems with ur combos.

I’m using enough condition removals, didn’t have too much trouble for now, but yes conditions are op atm

Nah, I do think your build is good but my OWN preference is somewhere around 2.6k~2.7k armor, meaning it’s my own opinion and I’m not telling you your build is bad. From what I can see you’re pretty good and comfortable with 2.4k armor.

What I was saying was there were a lot of glassy players in your video which can’t be helped since lower tier servers love running glass, unlike in T1 servers where most people either run bunker/balanced builds which makes 1vX fights a bit longer which makes the chance of more enemies coming higher. But yes, I do admit I have my troubles landing Fire Grab(like most people do) and I have to say you’re really good at it.

Sadly, T1 and a few guilds from T2 servers bandwagon Condi Engis and Necros too much that it’s annoying. I still have problems removing conditions even with Ether Renewal, and 3x Cleansing Wave(Trait, dagger 5, and EA Dodge Roll).

May I suggest for you to try using Superior Sigil of Blood and compare it to Sigil of Leeching? Since you have really good Crit Chance I think it might work better(400+ HP steal every 2 secs assuming you’re lucky with that 30% chance)

I used this build pre-necro patch except I only had 54% crit damage with 2.7k toughness. I also use Superior Sigil of Blood(around 400+ HP every 2s on 30% chance on crit) instead of Sigil of Leeching(900+ HP every 10s on swap).

I tried running this build again after seeing your video, but can’t find much success since T1 servers love running PVT unlike lower tier servers where even frontliners are somewhat glassy. I can’t keep up with the new Condition meta without using Ether Renewal

Bovinity.8610:

I think the TL;DR here is that the Celestial gearing strategy seems like a good way to make a non-glass burst build, but I’m dubious of the value of it for any build that isn’t running 30 in Air. (Mostly because the Precision from Celestial alone ends up being too low to take advantage of the high crit %)

This. I’m facing the same dilemma right now. I’m running a mix of PVT + Celestial Helmet and a mix of Celestial and Cavalier Trinkets. I’m pretty happy with most of my stats as of now. Pretty tanky but has a decent crit chance/damage (17k HP, 2.7k toughness, 73% crit damage, 51% crit chance, 447 healing).

The problem lies now in Power. I only have 2,587 attack and I find it pretty weak even after getting might and 25 stacks of bloodlust. I’m unable to use Sharpening Stones because my Crit chance will drop below 45%. It’s easier to hit 3.6k atk with the right food and stacks of might and bloodlust when I was still running the standard PVT set.

TL;DR – Celestial is good when you’re balancing out defensive and crit related stats but don’t let it deceive you as you lose more Power than you’d notice. I don’t know the math, but as far as I’ve noticed high crit damage with low power doesn’t cut it.

I really like your changes and ideas. I actually feel a bit thrilled when I imagine my ele having these traits.

I’ll skip to earth since nobody has reviewed them yet.

Unfeeling stone – This is a good idea for sPvP, but would make anti-condition eles OP in WvW. With melandru runes, Lemongrass food and Geomancer’s freedom, it would be possible to have 100% condition reduction at least for cripple/chill/immobilize.

Sisyphus – I’m not sure how to comment on this. As a D/D Ele I like it but some people might find it a bit OP when people use it on Scepter. You get:
250 toughness (25 points in Earth for this minor trait)
250 toughness from Rock Barrier
X toughness from Sisyphus.

That’s instant 500 + x toughness already. If i’m down to 50% HP, I’ll get a total of additional 750 toughness which is pretty huge. Additionally, I’ll trait 30 points into earth to get GM traits for Written in Stone and possibly get Signet of Earth(+180 toughness at lvl 80) if I want to stack more toughness. Now that’s a total of 730 + x toughness based on your HP. At 50% HP you’ll easily get an additional 980 Toughness.

TL;DR – It stacks up an insane amount of toughness even without using armors that give you toughness. Bunker eles can simply go x/x/30/x/x (I’m thinking of 0/0/30/10/30) and get Vit + Condition damage armor sets to compensate for the damage. Bunk an area, stay in earth, spam #1 for a decent damage of bleeding while rarely switching out to other attunements based on the situation. This new trait can revolutionize S/D eles as the new ultimate bunker/semi-condi build for elementalists.

Very high armor
Decent HP given that you get +Vit armors
Ultimate Anti-Condition build (Melandru, Lemongrass, Geomancer’s Freedom)
Decent Condition damage (you only get bleed though. But as a bunker having, decent condition damage is a bonus already)

Like A Stone – Can you please elaborate the damage absorbing shield? Duration/internal cooldown/how much damage it absorbs?

Earthquake – people will cry that we’re OP again if we get a CC every 10s (x/x/x/x/30 build). Maybe add an internal cooldown for the knock down?

Overall, Elementalists are supposed to get DPS from conditions when attuned to earth (As the tooltip says). Going full defensive is against Earth Attunement’s original function.

Don’t let my review get you down. You’re doing an awesome job overall. Your ideas make a whole bunch of possibilities for new builds. Eles might find a reason for not running 3 cantrips anymore. Devs should definitely take a look and consider your ideas for trait changes.

RedCobra.7693:

nevhie in regards to your response i dont believe you have addressed my concerns and not only that, youre telling me it doesnt work? im telling you is does, i very rarely loose 1v1’s and i normally run with torch, the extra target breaker allows for huge survivability not only that, with perma vigor if you are getting hit by enemies then ive got bad news for you

also, i run in a zerg killing team of around 5-8 people and i can tell you that yes you are correct about the agro, however i use this to my advantage. with your build that you have posted and the video i have just watched i have to admit that i could due 3 of you and still win, i mean it with concern, this is a terrible build

I play perma vigor Engi and D/D Ele. I still make it a habit to bulk up my armor without sacrificing DPS too much.

1. Even with perma vigor you can only dodge 2 times consecutively, 3 at max if you’re using sigil of energy. After wasting all your dodges, you’re gonna tank enemy damage. Good luck tanking playing a low armor toon.

2. This is WvW, bursts and instagibs can happen anytime especially in few vs many. What good are all your dodges and evasions if you get bursted by a surprise attack in 2 seconds and you don’t have good enough reflexes to react? Even that 1 extra second you get by bulking up armor can save you.

3. I’m afraid you’ve come to a conclusion that evasion is the only means of survival. Mesmers have enough tools to survive given that they are not too glassy to be bursted in mere seconds because they don’t have decent amount of armor.

4. You say you run with a goup of 5-8. Playing with more than 5, that’s a medium sized roaming party right there. It’s harder to focus fighting against a party of 6+ especially if they have a mesmer. It’s completely different from playing with a roaming party of just 2~5. The chance of you, as a GC, being targetted a lot is a lot lower compared to a group who has fewer numbers.

5. I’d love to see you try win against 1 vs 3 against a decent organized group. Your stun breakers and evasions will eventually run out.

Deified.7520:

Engineer’s are more of a support role. Bomb is alright, however engineers don’t have a whole lot of survive ability close range, so I like to try to keep at range.

Here are skills I focus on…

Elixir Gun
Elixirs
Toolkit
Grenades
Net Turret
Heal Turret

My build right now is a roaming support. I run toolkit, elixir gun, and net turret. I run with groups of 5-6 and I can basically lock someone down for 10 seconds with immoblize while my roaming friends just destroy him. I have a ton of condition removal and heals, so if one of my friends starts getting conditions on him and dieing, I use elixir #5 for some condi removal and heals, healing turret + detonate for even more healing, 2 toolbelt regents, and the elixir gun condi removal if needed.

Right now Necromancers and Engineers are probably in the worst position in WvW and are the hardest classes to play in WvW. Necromancers don’t have too many escapes and immobilize them can easily counter them, engineers are either sacrificing all of their damage to have more survive ability or sacrificing their survive ability for damage. They said they might fix it next balance patch, so we’ll see.

I know a frontliner bomber engineer in a T1 server(Jade Quarry) who has over 50k kills with just 3.5k deaths and I’m pretty sure it’s the only class he ever plays. I’m not sure how you can say engineers don’t have much survivability in close range.

Gear Shield 3 secs block
Shield #5 2 secs block
Elixir S 3 secs invulnerability
Elixir S from Self-Regulating defenses is another 3 secs invulnerability
Perma Swiftness and Vigor given that you traited for it

Just use this skills wisely and you have your so called survivability.

Yamsandjams.3267:

One issue with this is that an engg would just swap to that kit and back and needed to repair seige. You wouldn’t need to invest in toolkit, it would just be another thing you swap to and swap back from when you’re done with it.

Toolkit is an excellent kit for WvW though, as well as sPvP. In PvE it’s not quite as valuable since the opponents are AI controlled, but it still has uses. A lot of builds that I run end up using this.

And it’s a 3 second block, not 4 or 5. 4 or 5 would be crazy.

Throw wrench is also a guaranteed projectile finisher that can hit twice.

I dunno, have someone help you test it in PvP and you’ll see it looks like that it blocks for like 4-5 secs. And there was a patch where they increased Gear Shield duration by 1 second where they probably missed updating the tooltip.

Shield off-hand #5 blocks for 2 seconds while allowing you to attack/heal/stomp. 4 seconds gear shield isn’t OP if you compare it to that.

1. Perma cripple when traited with Power wrench.
2 . Prybar confusion + awesome damage.
3. 4 secs block (I actually think it’s 5)
4. Magnet Pulll

How can you not call that amazing? And I doubt Anet would give a single class to have the lone ability which is only usable in WvW. All other classes will start crying and ask for a WvW only skill as well.

@MrSilver
I don’t know what you’re doing, maybe you didn’t even really try but toolkit can hit harder than a rifle…

Using a Zerker Rifle with no sigil at 1696 power, Smack and Whack deals 489 damage + 6secs of vulnerability (.5 casting time) while Thwack deals 1,070 damage (1 sec casting). Rifle #1 though deals 472 damage (.75secs casting).

Usually I’d just dive into the enemy zerg and drop bombs then switch to my toolkit for AoE cripples. Deals decent damage too.

The first problem I see with gadgets as a whole are their insanely long cooldowns and they lack upside in using them. It’s rare to see people using more than 1 gadget in any area of the game be it PVP/PVE/WvW because you’d rather go with 3 kits than 2 gadgets in your utility slots.

RB – has self CC and you can get immobilized again mid-air. Can’t we make it targeted like Ele or Mesmer’s teleport skills except it’s not instant?
Utility Goggles – has a very long cooldown for a stun breaker that gives you 10s(default) of fury and immunity to blindness.
Throw Mine – has a short CD but I can’t see much of an upside to it aside from using it as a Blast Finisher.

Like TS said, we should get more upside in using gadgets like removing conditions and stuff. I’m hoping one day I can play my engineer using 3 gadgets and be effective.

Six months have passed, but still no option to log in as invisible. I believe they had this option in Beta, is it that hard to put it back?

Anet may be against this as we already have a tool kit to be used for melee, but I believe engineers need hammer as well since tool kit isn’t really a “Control Weapon”.

I hope it’d work like Guardian hammer mixed with Tool Kit for #1 and #2 at least.

1 – Bam!(1/2s, 5s vulnerability) -> Blatt!(1/2s, 5s vulnerability) -> Splat! (1s, 5s weakness). The Hammer auto attack. Pound your enemies with a combo of hammer attacks. Works like Tool Kit auto attack at most.

2 – Hammer Time!(5s CD, 1s Cast Time, Blast Finisher) -> Smash your Hammer to the ground causing AoE damage. Works like Guardian Hammer #2.

3 – Fix! (15s CD, 5s Cast Time, 240 AoE) -> Heal yourself and your allies in pulses for 5s. Removes a condition in every pulse.

4 – Hammer Overload! (18s CD, 2s Cast Time, 180 AoE, Lightning Field) -> Overload your hammer with electricity causing it to do an AoE knock back on your surrounding. User gets knocked down.

5 – Hammer Boomerang! (15s CD, 1 1/2 s cast time) -> Throw your hammer like a boomerang. Targets it hits will be dazed for 2s.

Water Field – Engineer water field is the most ridiculous combo field in the game. The water field pops for only a second. Regenerating Mist has a 60 second CD which is not fitting for a 1 second combo field. You can pull out 3 blast finishers given that you’ve readied your turrets and mine for detonation before popping a water field but that’s it. It’s hard to execute it with a team(multiple finishers from multiple players) because you only have a 1 second window to execute so it’s not even viable in WvW.

Extend it more to 5 or more seconds.

Lightning Field – Only elementalists have access to this combo field. Give Engineers access to this combo field as well as we are probably the second class that can be related to lightning and electricity.

Maybe give a 3~5 second Lightning Field to Flash Grenade.

Thanks for answering. If that’s the case, isn’t it ridiculous that the water field pops only for a split second? Maybe anet should make it longer to 5+ seconds.

IMO engineer water fields are the worst combo fields in the game in terms of duration. I can pop 2~3 blast finishers in that 1 second given that I’ve readied my turrets/mine for detonation so I just have to detonate them after popping the water field. But in terms of team play, there’s no way you can do decent combo finishers with your team given that you only have 1 second to execute.

Question 1: Is the Healing Turret really supposed to pop a water field? It’s not in the tool tip.

Question 2: Are Engineer water fields working as intended? Water fields from Healing Turret and Regenerating Mist only pop for 1 second which is very ridiculous especially for Regenerating Mist since it has a 60 second CD.

Wethospu.6437:

Kyon.9735:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Iruwen.3164:

Puandro.3245:

What is the new internal cooldown to life stealing foods? This change affects many builds that rely on it and it would be nice to know a # instead of just a mystery number you guys like to give out, thanks.

There are builds that rely on food?

Yes, there are. Many of the glass cannon builds rely on the food buffs for lifesteal that is greater than healing. I added a 1 second cooldown after each proc to stop abuse using certain skills that could heal a character from near death to full health due purely to critting with a food item.

Zinkey.6983:

Was sad to see no mention of any spy kit nerfs in the patch notes, I suppose the stealth changes mentioned could be there to address this…would be a bit silly to break the crystals from caledon forest but leave spy kits.

Great catch – I did in fact do something to spy kits (both OOW and Ash Legion) that got dropped out of the patch notes by accident (Stealth stealth nerf!). I’ll go make sure they are properly put into the patch notes.

So you mean you nerfed it completely without even adding a buff on it? May I know if the nerf was completely of your discretion or you had some other devs look into it or even had other people who use and who *don’t use *omnom pies/ghosts discuss it with you?

IMO Devs should never nerf something 100% without giving it a little upside. You could have at least made it lifesteal 1.5x or 2x more than the older one. You see, the price of omnom pies went from around 5s yesterday down to 2s today and will continue to go down the drain. Obviously, most people see this food completely useless now. So congratulations to those unlucky people who hoarded this item only to see them get nerfed today.

That’s the point of nerfing, make it worse. It’s price alone showed how powerful it is. It is still very good food.

I don’t think you got my point. I know nerfing means making it worse, but not completely useless. It was nerfed completely without an upside. From useful to almost useless. Its price itself shows how people find this food useless all of a sudden. Well at least I still find it better than Mango Pies.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Iruwen.3164:

Puandro.3245:

What is the new internal cooldown to life stealing foods? This change affects many builds that rely on it and it would be nice to know a # instead of just a mystery number you guys like to give out, thanks.

There are builds that rely on food?

Yes, there are. Many of the glass cannon builds rely on the food buffs for lifesteal that is greater than healing. I added a 1 second cooldown after each proc to stop abuse using certain skills that could heal a character from near death to full health due purely to critting with a food item.

Zinkey.6983:

Was sad to see no mention of any spy kit nerfs in the patch notes, I suppose the stealth changes mentioned could be there to address this…would be a bit silly to break the crystals from caledon forest but leave spy kits.

Great catch – I did in fact do something to spy kits (both OOW and Ash Legion) that got dropped out of the patch notes by accident (Stealth stealth nerf!). I’ll go make sure they are properly put into the patch notes.

So you mean you nerfed it completely without even adding a buff on it? May I know if the nerf was completely of your own discretion or you had some other devs look into it or even had other people who use and who don’t use omnom pies/ghosts discuss it with you?

IMO Devs should never nerf something 100% without giving it a little upside. You could have at least made it lifesteal 1.5x or 2x more than the older one. You see, the price of omnom pies went from around 5s yesterday down to 2s today and will continue to go down the drain. Obviously, most people see this food completely useless now. So congratulations to those unlucky people who hoarded this item only to see them get nerfed today.

VOLKON.1290:

Fiontar.4695:

The problem is that they have offered no offset and have thus eliminated a number of builds from the list of “end game viable”, which for many professions was already a very short list. This problem has been acknowledged by the developers, with the admission that they want at least 5-6 viable builds for each profession, but many are currently stuck with one or two. You can now scratch at least one “end game viable” build from each profession with this change, maybe more.

This is the kind of nerf that always irks me the most from MMO developers. Looking at the heal on crit food effect in isolation, it may have been obviously disproportional in it’s impact on the game. However, when taken in context with the greater whole, it had just become an “unintended” FIX for an aspect of the game that was clearly BROKEN, which was variety of end game viable builds.

So, yay to the developers, you managed to snatch some very low hanging fruit, while making the game the worse for it by pushing the change with out the needed fixes to professions that would have made the food effect redundant.

How strange… I simply have a build on my mesmer I threw together to be balanced and there’s no end game content I can’t handle, including WvW. Oh… never used Omnomberry pie either.

Your sarcasm fails. He didn’t mention a specific class or build nor did he generalize that all builds would get affected. If my reading comprehension is correct, he did say that <b>a number of builds will be affected</b>. So before you go throwing sarcasm on other people, make sure you’ve understood what they were trying to say else your sarcasm gets back on you.