Guild Wars 2

I just want to point out (again) that the argument about Swords similarities to Dagger is totally totally unfair, as Warhorn is even more similar to Focus. Warhorn is the dumbest weapon in the game, and I think Arenanet want to conveniently forget that. I know there’s the odd Warhorn lover out there, but we have to look at it realistically. A Focus is basically an object that is not a traditional weapon, but can be used as the FOCUS of magical power to perform some sort of offensive or defensive magical spell. If you look at the Focus skills on Elementalist now it even already has a clearly stormy reflect zone. Consider thematically what a Warhorn is once you put it into the hands of an Elementalist – it literally IS a Focus. Sure, maybe Arenanet think they’re being real crafty by making a Warhorn call storms rather that a Sword, because if they don’t take that chance it’s unlikely Warhorn will ever thematically fit a future Ele Elite Spec, but is the thematic link between storms and warhorn really worth continuing to endorse the ugliest weapon in the game by giving it to the class that will likely get the least out of it in terms of actual playstyle, ie. what every Ele I’ve met cares most about? Based on every discussion I’ve been a part of, the response from players to the concept of a Warhorn Elementalist is dramatically negative, and considerably more so than the response to any other elite spec thus far. There’s really no burst damage Elementalist build worth speaking of in Conquest, and a main hand weapon would make significantly more sense to fulfill that role. In PvE, there’s really no reasonable tanky role for an Elementalist, and the potential for Sword or Warhorn to fulfill that role is pretty equal (although focus already has 2 reflects and an amazing total invulnerablity skill that fit that role fine). The problem is that ultimately we know so little about the way either would work that to say that one weapon would have a bigger impact on playstyle changes than another isn’t really fair. There is only one true speculation we can make, and that is that it has very clearly always been the intent of Arenanet that your main hand weapon choice has a heavier impact on playstyle than your offhand weapon choice, particularly when we consider that most of the damage a player does comes from the main hand, and off hand choice doesn’t effect the Ele’s 3rd skill. If they want to really make any difference to the way Ele plays, it HAS to be a main hand weapon or a two handed weapon, as Elementalist has 1 less option for main or two handed weapon than any other class in the game with the exception of Engineer, and Engi can take 5 kits and not have to plan nearly as much to use them as we do to use our conjures, all of which pretty much suck in sPvP.

It worked alright for me, but really just alright. A huge portion of the burning you can stack with any build comes from Glyph of Elemental Power, Arcane Power, and Glyph of Storms (trait into arcane, air, and fire) but you need to be creative with your flame wall also (which likely wastes it as an evasive measure) to stack more burns and you have to rely a lot on the Fire 2 skill. The best thing about it is that it’s easier to get burns off on a lot of targets without effort, but it isn’t many burns. Staff also brings less to the table than the alternatives for quality of life in most PvE group play. The primary reason anybody would want staff is for water fields. My suggestion is to go Scepter/Focus with the same skills and traits. As much as I hate the appearance (and change) it has been a fun build and it’s very powerful. Woodenpotatoes takes Dagger because the Dagger autoattack has 3 projectiles and it hits fast. I’m not sure that the 3 projectiles individually can trigger Glyph of Elemental Power because the tooltip says each skill, but it hits more than twice as fast and thus gets that much extra use out of the Glyph, as well as taking better advantage of your power from sinister with direct damage. It does have 3 chances to crit though, and so it triggers the first fire trait more more than SIX times as often in the perfect scenario. That sounds pretty convincing, but then consider this – Scepter already applies a lot of burning on autoattack – in fact, it stacks more burning than you’d get out of 6 crits from dagger, plus scepter has TWO blast finishers you can use JUST in fire and one of those (though hard to land on moving targets) also stacks burning. On top of all of that, it has nowhere near the same restrictions in terms of range that Dagger has, which can really throw you off in a lot of scenarios. I’d say you can get away with what you like for the time being, but it might not stay that way. Taking Scepter over Dagger is basically a small cop out on burst condi in favor of sustain and ease of use – Staff is an even more extreme cop out for even more ease, probably beyond the point where it’s worth it.

I swapped my ascended to Sinister (pwr/CON/pre) and used the sinister trinkets from LS2 achievements (can also buy for 1k Bandit Crests + 10g each), put in Flame Legion runes, and Bursting and Smoldering sigils on a staff. I’m built F/A/E, with the healing signet, Signet of Fire, Glyph of Storms, and the rng on hit conditions glyph with FGS elite. You can also swap the lame rng glyph for Flame Axe when it’s useful (and build hella might). Staff two is easy aoe burning, as is Signet of Fire with the signet trait. Earth and Fire are the attunements that dish out condi’s so we’re not too bad off because switching to earth does give us a blast finisher anyways, and is the only attunement with physical finishers that can build more condi stacks in fields, plus the CD on Fire 2 lines up well with swapping back to Fire from Earth. It’s very difficult to say how good this really is, because with the stat changes damage is a lot higher from everyone, but I do think the build is pretty strong.

nearlight.3064:

Lauriewonnacott.9841:

Has the prospect of more than one weapon with an elite spec been completely put to death? I’m really not sure, but I don’t see why it has. Also, is main hand warhorn completely out of the question for warrior? Say a tactician or something who punches for an Autoattack? I’m not gonna deny that it was probably poor decision making to make and bind Bolt without any certainty, but I’m definitely not alone in having done that for Tempest. This is something a lot of the community thought really had the potential to bring something new to the table for ele’s, and warhorn just can’t accomplish as much. At best it will be similar to Focus. Beyond that, the feedback on this thread is overwhelmingly negative towards the idea of Warhorn Ele. In addition to all of this, as I’ve said before, there are already datamined sword skills. It’s plenty possible that those have been removed and were just a work in progress. They definitely have a history of trashing work in progress – but isn’t it more likely that they’re making an ascended version of EVERY one of the weapons, and just haven’t finished the others yet? They can’t use every weapon in giving out weapons to elite specs, so it’s plenty possible that warhorn was done, and was made loosely on the concept of an elite spec despite the fact that NO elite spec is getting a warhorn.

Like I said with Laraley, I don’t see a reason why warhorn would be bad. It has arguably more potential to open up new playstyles than a sword does, given the established role of dagger. we just have to wait and see really.

So wait.. you made bolt specifically for Tempest getting a sword, and have no plans to use it on any other character? Like I said, 6/9 classes can use sword since revenant will get it too, unless you only play ele and the warhorn specualation turns out to be true, you will be sad, other than that I don’t feel bad for you at all.

I play Ele main, but since I bound it, obviously I do have characters to play it on – that doesn’t mean that was my intention. The problem is that if there is no sword I’m gonna keep using staff. The argument that Warhorn could make more difference than sword is totally bunk. For starters, sword would give us 3 new skills per attunement and warhorn 2. The argument for the comparison of Dagger to Sword is also pointless, because you can make the exact same argument about focus compared to a warhorn. Dagger itself isn’t even as good a weapon as it’s made out to be. It’s fallen way out of favor recently for staff. On top of all that, dagger it’s even a “true” melee weapon. The only way that warhorn could make a significant difference is if it complements and synergizes with a new way to build ele, and sword can achieve the same thing.

Has the prospect of more than one weapon with an elite spec been completely put to death? I’m really not sure, but I don’t see why it has. Also, is main hand warhorn completely out of the question for warrior? Say a tactician or something who punches for an Autoattack? I’m not gonna deny that it was probably poor decision making to make and bind Bolt without any certainty, but I’m definitely not alone in having done that for Tempest. This is something a lot of the community thought really had the potential to bring something new to the table for ele’s, and warhorn just can’t accomplish as much. At best it will be similar to Focus. Beyond that, the feedback on this thread is overwhelmingly negative towards the idea of Warhorn Ele. In addition to all of this, as I’ve said before, there are already datamined sword skills. It’s plenty possible that those have been removed and were just a work in progress. They definitely have a history of trashing work in progress – but isn’t it more likely that they’re making an ascended version of EVERY one of the weapons, and just haven’t finished the others yet? They can’t use every weapon in giving out weapons to elite specs, so it’s plenty possible that warhorn was done, and was made loosely on the concept of an elite spec despite the fact that NO elite spec is getting a warhorn.

That seems really strong as a WvW Condi Ele build, but I’m shooting for something as glass cannon as possible purely for PvE’s sake. I think I’m just gonna do it and see how it goes in Sinister. At least the swap back is cheap too.

Anybody tried full Sinister with a burning build? I have the trinkets so I threw them on and it’s doing okay, but I wanted to get some other peoples input before I re-stat my armor/weapons. Any thoughts on Runes/Sigils too? Flame Legion looks like an option.

I already made Bolt and Account Bound it with my thief, so I sure as hell hope not. To be honest a warhorn Ele sounds really really really lame. Since a whole bunch of clearly elementalist sword skills were datamined, Sword seems not just a little but SIGNIFICANTLY more likely than warhorn. I just don’t see what extra a warhorn could possibly bring to the table.

Too much staff change. Those projectile speed increases are too much. This is a jack of all trades classes. There is no other class who – entirely out of their weapon skills – gets a knockback, stun, blind, immobilize, a wall, 2 water fields, 2 fire fields, and a frost field, and because of that, none of them are supposed to be as powerful as the others. The stuns and blinds and immobilizes you can get out of a thief are easier to apply and less counterable than the static field, warriors and rangers have MUCH better knockdowns/knockbacks, but we have to be okay with that stuff. I can get behind you on a few things – fire needs “burst” or at least better dmg. TBH it is actually pretty bursty. It’s a long autoattack cast time with a long travel time and one hard single hit. What we need really is the improvements to condi’s, particularly burning, and staff will be able to do high sustained dmg in between fireballs. That’s all coming, and I don’t think there’ll be many staff eles after that patch who aren’t taking the fire trait line. I can also get behind one of two things for the water 3 knockback. Either it moves faster, or it’s wider. I still think the cast time shouldn’t be reduces to reward timing, and to make it counterable. I don’t know that I’ve ever had it interrupted intentionally by an opponent, so we’d be nerfing something that needs no nerf. Water 2 just needs to be a blast finisher, that’s all. Then it would be in keeping with the style for staff blast finishers – cast time and build up time. If you’re struggling to cast it, you need to chill them first and bait it better. It’s a very high damage ability. If anything needs the cast time and build up gone it’s the Earth 4 wall. That skill is more counterable than Air 5 because it’s already difficult to angle properly in a hurry, it’s not a full ring, and it doesn’t start working immediately after the cast time completes.

Missions makes significantly more sense to me in terms of the GW2 lexicon. I’m not really attached to a name though and I think most people don’t care. I think people do want very difficult PvE group content though. There’s some of that as is – I mean look at Triple Trouble, and some dungeons and fractals are quite challenging, but what we’re missing is instanced content that you and a group of more than 5 players can struggle over before finally achieving it. Raids as we’re used to in other MMOs involve practice and more than one attempt. GW2 has a lot of options to take that principle and make it better. Say they made 25 man content in largish maps (smaller than current zones but bigger than current dungeons) with a long event series and a story. Unlike normal raids in a game like WoW, it might be beneficial or necessary for a group to split up, perhaps coming together to kill bosses after taking part in much more strategic objectives to ultimately advance the mission. The different parts of this greater mission/raid would slowly unlock check points and save the current state of the mission so that players can come back to it later. If we could get something like that even in just 10 man content, I think a lot more players will stick with HoT after it comes out.

Extremely tanky is really a waste of time, because you never will be extremely tanky in the same way a Guardian is. Ele can sure survive, but it’s relying on a lot of utility and such to do so, and that isn’t very helpful in Zergs of any type – WvW or WB or whatever. In a dungeon, maybe, but the guardian would still be better. You can build to have some less consistent burst damage and also a great deal of 1v1 potential for WvW. I do this a lot. I’d go for half or more Celestial armor, and the rest Soldiers or Valk, then berserker trinks. Choosing staff will allow you to still do big area damage in the zerg, and then modify the normal sPvP build (00266) to something a bit more zergy, like 40226, or 20246, but not the usual hardcore zerker build. You can swap to D/D or whatever you prefer 1v1 if you have the heads up to do so, but it isn’t impossible at all to 1v1 with staff, and arguable easier to 1v2 than D/D if you play very well. As far as runes or sigils, if you really wanted to be tougher I just don’t know if there’s a rune that’s worth it. The value of having Runes of Strength on an Ele is pretty hard to match. The only thing I could really suggest otherwise is a healing build, and they really are not viable – you could keep yourself alive great though, I don’t doubt that, so maybe that’s what you’re after.

Hi! I’m a very active player looking for an Eredon Terrace WvW guild or a guild I can at least do EotM with very regularly. I have a level 80 staff elementalist (actually I have two 80 eles, but one is obv. useless) with full ascended armor/weapons, and half ascended trinkets, as well as an 80 ranger with exotics and a soon to be 80 thief. I am open to using a build of your guilds choosing in WvW, however I should warn in advance that my ascended armor is half Valk and half Cele, my weapon Valk, and my trinkets are Zerker, and I’m aware that’s far from typical or recommended, and won’t bother to defend it here. I do intend to create more Zerker armor/weapon in the future though, and I’m happy to use Exotic Zerker gear for the immediate future if your guild would prefer. A guild who regularly do sPvP (if only for fun unranked games) is a big plus for me but not essential, particularly if you’ll allow me to occasionally represent another sPvP guild. Additionally, I should warn that I have very very little WvW experience, particularly in a large organized zerg, but I have be doing EotM a lot recently and am very eager to learn. Shoot me some in-game mail or an invite or add me and wait to see me online – whatever your thing is. Lauriewonnacott.9841

BlackBeard.2873:

DanteZero.9736:

I’m not that excited only because I’m not entirely interested in wielding a sword on my ele. Greatswords would make me remotely interested, but rifles would have me bouncing off the walls with excitement. Still, I’m interested in the new heal/elite/utility skills but not so much for the new weapon type.

Yea, Dagger/dagger is about as melee as I can really imagine. Since we don’t have any weapon-swap, they are going to have to give some really strong ways to avoid being easily kited. Even d/d (which is semi-melee) struggled slightly with this at certain points in the past (especially during the dark days before the 4/15/14 patch). Further, being forced in melee range 100% of the time will really need some powerful defenses to avoid cleave. The 300+ range on dagger allows you to avoid some of that pressure, but sword at 130 range is really going to be vulnerable.

I don’t know why they’d make sword lower range than dagger. That makes very little sense. Even if it did, S/D thief is in a similar boat and still does excellent. I expect Tempest to be similar, in that it will have lots of evasion to survive in the thick of things, lots of movement to gap close (but presumably ground targeted dashes, dodges, and charges rather than instant shadowstepping), and while it likely will have less hard CC like immobilize and stun, I expect there’ll be a great deal of softer CC like chill.