Guild Wars 2

That story actually made me like Sylvari more.

My mesmer thanks you for the link

Panzerjaeger.7612:

My mother said that a Flying Moa dropped me down the chimney.

Figuratively? Yes.

It’s so when your young asura mind got curious, you’d likely ask questions like the type of Moa anatomic structure that could support aerodynamic capabilities or the repercussions on infant development after being dropped into a chimney and not questions like where the moa got you to deliver you in the first place.

There’s quite a lot to fix regarding Asura weapons…like shields floating a good space from the holding arm or holding some of the swords in their wrists…

Hmm, I think I’m gonna go play my Mesmer a while. Maybe after a couple weeks, the crybabies will get rid of all these grumpys with a good nap.

I mean, it’s like some of the complainers have blinders on and don’t realize they sound exactly like every other complainer on every other profession. Do you honestly feel you’re more right than all the OPs of ‘[insert your profession here] is the worst class and is unplayable’ threads across the boards? Because it’s not possible for everyone to be the worst…

Cathbadb.6079:

Watching an Asura fight is like watching the Yoda vs Count Dooku fight in Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie at the end. Epic cuteness armed with Grandmaster Jedi fighting skills.

This.

When I made my Asura Warrior, I built his look around his hammer because I wanted him to use blunt weapons and bash stuff (cause he be barbarian-esque :P) but I just so happened to pick up a greatsword and WOW! I mean, I’ve seen Hundred Blades on my Charr Warrior and I’ve seen Human and Sylvari characters using Hundred Blades but MAAAAAN~ Asura take the cake with greatsword. It is literally Yoda flying around smackin kitten with a big sword.

So yeah, I’ve got a Hammer/GS build for him and a Bow/Sw+Sh build. I just like to do everything with him, he so fun :P

I once made a suggestion on the elementalist forum built around the idea of a character specializing in one element. People suggested bonuses for ‘locking’ yourself into an element but I suggested a type of ‘major/minor’ element mechanic thrown in.

Basically there’d be a button to lock yourself into…water element, for instance (like the weapon swap button). Once locked into water, water becomes a ‘Major’ element while the other 3 elements become minors (and basic button presses rather than toggling on as your current attunement).

The idea would be, combine your major element with another to make a minor element so Water+Air would be Ice while Air+Water would be Storm. Something like Water+Earth would be Swamp while Earth+Water would be Plants. These would add special effects (and visuals!) for a time to emphasize the combination.

I’m personally more interested in metal and magnetism as magic/superpowers. We sort of do have some magnetic abilities like Magnetic Grasp and Wave but not much beyond that, sadly. I want to combine Air and Earth to make metal :P

OTGBionicArm.2417:

This thread isn’t a Guardian vs Warrior flame war. I was asking if there was a way to play a Warrior with a more “Guardian” feel and apparently I can’t. :p

Lol I want to play a Warrior with a Mesmer feel. How do I do that? :P

Rieselle.5079:

Just do a google image search for “medieval war hammer”.

or: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_hammer

I guess people’s taste vary on just how cartoony they like their stuff.

Just do a google search for ‘medieval greatsword’.

Don’t be a hypocrite. Either the in-game greatsword is stupidly sized (there’s actually some with reasonable sized looks) or hammer could use a few ‘thicker’ options.

You can sort of just do the story mode and leave the rest of the game untouched…just invite a high lvl buddy to help you out. Never tried that though, so maybe it locks you out after the missions are over a certain lvl gap?

But if you want to just solo it, I’d say tough. This is an MMO, not a single player game. Although there are ways to skip parts of the content of the game, the game would be badly designed if it didn’t encourage you to try all of it. The missions take you to various locales that you need to explore to open up which can net you xp all the same. If you could just pop to your next mission without word or thought is rather (not to be rude) dumb.

If you want to skip levels to continue your story progression, go craft.

OTGBionicArm.2417:

The only way I’ve figured to even feel remotely durable is to spec everything into defense and vitality, use a mace and shield and make shouts heal myself. Lemme tell you, that is booooooooooooooooring. It’s also still no where near as good as a Guardian who can do the same thing, be kitten near unkillable with a hammer and have 4 times the DPS.

I read some advice for a strat to help survivability on any DPS character:
-Slot Blood Sigils in your weapon
-Use +percision in your gear
-Keep your fury up
-Eat Omnomberry Ghost/Pie
-Use them multi-hit skills

Works for me. I don’t have the super gear other posters seem to have to throw down 15K+ damage but I guess my gear and strats are at least somewhat effective in PvE. Combine weakness with your life-steal and you often just nullify the foe’s damage.

I’d say furious reaction isn’t all that compared to rending strikes which procs pretty often if you went 30 into Arms and it buffs the entire party’s damage. Just use FGJ and your elite for fury. With 20% boon duration, you should have fury more often than you don’t.

Beyond that, I’d say it’s good to be able to remove conditions. My current build has practically 0 unless I put on my sword/warhorn combo and have to swap out Shrug it Off for it. Conditions are annoying for me…

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

When you use increase stance, for frenzy it increases the quickness and the double damage duration. I think 4 seconds is long enough to do the dew

The wiki says Sure Footed doesn’t affect Frenzy. Checking in-game, with or without the trait, the Frenzy tooltip lasts 4 seconds. Activating Frenzy with or without the trait, the buff icon lasts 4 seconds. I’m not sure if the effects themselves last more than 4 seconds as I don’t have the means to literally time it, but I’m going to believe the wiki this time.

Balanced Stance is pretty nice though. Not sure if boon duration affects it or not but mine lasts halfway between 10 and 15s depending what gear I’m wearing and it recharges in 40 which is reasonable. When you know you’re up against foes with annoying CC, it’s a life saver. Don’t walk into AC explorer without it :P

That and Shrug it off from Tactics and you’re pretty slippery.

But to make the stances decent, you’d either need to increase their duration or shorten their cooldowns. 20s Stability/40s Cooldown, 20s of Adrenaline/60s cooldown, 5(whole)s of No Damage(0 HP changes)/30s cooldown, 4s Quickness/10s Frenzy/30s cooldown….now stances are suddenly too good.

I’d probably add the stipulation of only being able to use 1 stance at a time. Activating another stance overwrites one you’re using except Frenzy which locks you into it for 10s and unable to activate another (without traits).

As for the Trait…well, if it worked it might not be so bad.

Udolpho.1209:

A Sylvari choosing avatar of Melandru, hm, okay.

An Asura changing his “religion” (?!) and then transforming into a werebear? o_O

Some work and some are just plain wrong.

Well, if your dad was Asura and your mom was Norn, maybe it’d work? :P

From what I can tell, it doesn’t make Endure Pain last any longer than the description says. It also doesn’t increase the duration of Quickness from Frenzy, AFAICT. It only seems to affect Balanced Stance, giving a slightly longer duration stability…and Berserker Stance seems rather useless…if I need adrenaline, I’ll hit something.

I wanted to make my Warrior a user of stances but they don’t seem to provide the damage, mitigation or utility of Shouts. I use sometimes Balanced Stance, Endure Pain and occasionally Frenzy for some extra burst but the other stances seem less than worth spending a trait on.

My asura warrior only eats pies and tarts and he’s still pretty skinny…although if he started getting chunky I’d have to swap him to a high protein diet instead. Too bad meat doesn’t replenish health like in other video games

One I heard rather randomly while picking stuff up:

“The secret…is to lift..at the knees!” along with the “Where’s a golem when when you need one?”

My Asuran ‘barbarian’ warrior. Don’t ever call him cute though.

1st pic is his default look that I kept for him which I still want to modify slightly. The 2nd pic is his new look he crafted after getting to 80 a few days ago.

Deqx tries to be manly (I was going for a masculine warrior look) but not sure if he pulls off any of that (just cute).

Hammer’s a pretty effective weapon for survival and doesn’t slack on damage.

That is, swap the rifle for something with damage mitigation.

If you play your Ranger like I’ve seen lots of rangers played (pet charge forward, you stand back and pew pew pew) then I’d chalk it up to playstyle.

You have AxeAxe/Rifle which has minimal self preservation tools and the only defensive utility you have is 5 seconds of taking no damage. Even if you had pure defensive gear, I’d find it hard to get by without something to fall back on.

And this is just all my opinion. Axes build adrenaline pretty fast already so why use Embrace the Pain? You’re also using a healing signet, does Restorative Strength even work with Healing Signet unless you actually use it? Mending would be much better as it recharges faster, heals 2 conditions and would remove an additional condition with Restorative Strength? And a swiftness trait? Signet of Rage gives 30sec of swiftness…

Seems like some wasted trait choices and very self contained, IMO. I almost question what the rifle is there for as it doesn’t synergize with any traits or weapons you’ve got. Could always just swap it out for a shield and take the shield master trait for extra defense…it’s like endure pain but recharges in less than a 3rd of the time.

Or swap into some points in tactics and use a warhorn to remove conditions instead of using Restorative Strength.

Navi.7142:

- Gizz
- Giizm

I would advise against those names if only because if ever pronounced with a soft G, may not be very flattering.

IMO, you don’t need a double letter in the name to be Asuran. If the name is available then sure but no ones going to pronounce a double letter anyway.

Right, I had looked in 2 of the zones but the gloves weren’t in either which got me thinking the site is incomplete.

The way I found it was looking up the specific vendors in the zones that site mentions then porting directly to the vendor. Basically, I was unsure where to look.

PS: Wondering if anyone knows of a good set of boots that match this set’s gloves. I wanted to make this set of armor use a more studded armor look and the gloves work great. The boots are hardly there though. Any ideas? Something heavier…

This site ( http://www.gw2armor.com/ ) is what I use to preview the different options but I bet the site is missing some sets…

Thanks, I didn’t know if the wiki or other resources were just wrong or if I was just misinformed.

If anyone else is looking, a good resource to see what various renown hearts sell, this site helped me find exactly which NPC I needed to talk to:

http://dulfy.net/2012/08/28/guild-wars-2-karma-vendor-list/

Took the guesswork out of tracking down the right guys.

I thought of putting this in the Crafting board but didn’t know if it’d fit.

I’m looking for this armor set: http://www.gw2armor.com/asura/male/k2/heavy/front.jpg

Specifically, the gauntlets now. The resources say vendors in Kessex Hills sell it and I did get the chest piece but the gauntlets look nothing like in that pic.

Can’t the autoattack already apply burning? Just lay down your burn field and shoot through it…

How about instead…you decrease the duration of Warrior Bleeds?

Make it so they have 2 kinds of bleeds: small and big. The small persist like they do now and maybe do less damage while the big cause lots of damage but last for a very short time (perhaps only for 3 tics).

Ultimately, you’ll stack fewer bleeds (without some sort of condition duration/bleed duration +stat) but do more damage in a shorter time. Basically, by the time someone goes to remove the bleeds, the big ones have already done their harm and only the small ones are around to blow your cleanses on.

The reason I love my Asuras: the first I made was just cute. The 2nd one I remade a look from someone who posted a pic in the cutest asura thread (modified for male) and he looks awesome and even cute at a certain angle :P

Been playing my Asuran warrior a lot lately (63 now) and I mostly do dungeons when I’m not collecting transmutation stones to keep his look with new gear.

One thing I notice is in a lot of dungeons, especially the earlier ones, there is a distinct lack of bleeding. After tanking some mobs and going down/dead at one point in CM, I was curious and let myself stay dead as I watched the group clear up some mobs and…they were taking forever on a pair of bandits. Minimal bleeding or condition damage, really.

So I pull out my sword and longbow and start going to town with conditions. Granted, I’m slotted in Rampagers/Carrion gear and I have various ways to apply conditions but stacking 9-18 stacks of bleed + some confuse + some poison + burn and mobs were practically melting in a fraction of the time.

Basically, yeah you can dish some serious pain with a sword on a Warrior IF there isn’t a Necro or another Warrior or Thief applying bleeds already…and if you slot for condition damage (like I do), it makes a bigger difference.

I’m no expert though, I just like to play in dungeons and the place where bleeding and Warrior Sword/Rifle shine is in PvE dungeons where mobs have a ridiculous amount of HP. If a mob lasts more than 10 seconds and you’re applying 60-80ish dmg a second, that’s 600-800dmg on top of whatever damage you’re doing.

No good experience with Guardians so couldn’t tell you how it fares against their combo.

Calling them ‘God abilities’ gives the impression that the abilities are impressive on their own.

They’re called ‘Racial abilities’ because they offer unique flavor of the race you chose but that’s really the only purpose they serve

Alsonia.4753:

Ahh yes DiE a fair weather guild. One shotting glass players doesn’t mean anything; and WvW has certain builds that work; damage isn’t balanced around WvW.

Nothing to see here but glass cannons hitting hard with a channel skill. Don’t want to get instagibbed, don’t build glass.

From what I could tell, he wasn’t so much insta-gibbing people, some of those targets looked like they were taking quite a few shots of high damage before going down…I think what seems attractive about the video is how easily that damage is dealt. Just learn to time the Kill Shot and that’s about it.

It certainly makes me want to give a snipe build a shot. I do love complex combat (my first 80 is an Elementalist who uses daggers, scepter and focus) but occasionally something simple is a nice change of pace :P

Shadowscamp.8065:

Personally, condition damage seems a bit lackluster on a warrior, though I have never tried to fully spec into it. I’ve heard on the forums that condition damage can be done better with another class, but I’m pretty sure that condition damage is viable on a warrior.

Just curious and chiming in about this comment.

I’m actually playing a War right now and wondering if this is fully true. My Warrior is Asuran so, in DPS situations, I have sword/shield for bleed, hammer for control and bursts, Pain Inverter for Retaliation and Confusion and Radiation Field for Poison and Weaken. I was thinking of specing him for condition damage/duration (make bleeds, poison and confuse do more damage + lengthen weakness duration) but perhaps those utilities are overshadowed by other warrior utilities?

To me, either are no slouch since Pain Inverter recharges pretty quick and Radiation Field lasts for a good while for its recharge. In dungeons (so far only AC as the warrior is only 53 right now), the conditions have serviced me well but maybe later they’ll turn out as lackluster?

I’ve decided his weapons will be sword/shield, hammer, greatsword and longbow…no idea about traits. Sword+shield/longbow really puts down the condition damage with poison, bleed, burn, confuse and can apply AoE weaken with shield bash; SSh/hammer is his standard setup with more weaken and I throw in greatsword somewhere because hundred blades on Asuran just looks more awesome than on any other race :P

Kill.6973:

The only thing i was interested was how did he manage to get that coat.
Anyone knows what he is wearing, is that Hotw gear?

That is a good question…Almost thought he was a Ranger or Engineer or something. How’d he get that medium armor coat!?

I made a post in that Finishers thread about just this. In general, I feel that the balance of each weapon is off. To me, it’s like Staff is suppose to have lots of fields but few finishers. Daggers has finishers but limited to Earth, Scepter has a decent blend but nothing in the realm of combo fields and Focus is utility heavy but still lacks fields. Whether the devs want to preserve the balance the weapons has or shift it to be more even, additions could definitely be added to all the weapons, primarily in their usability/combo-ability on teams.

But yeah, my perspective tends to lean toward Air and Water being deficient in the combo-ability quotient. They just lack and lean heavily on what performance they add to the profession. That might also be why I choose those trait lines to specialize in (Water and Air). Because I’m always striving for balance, fire and earth are already great without any traits so the water/air traits help to power up those attunements.

Fire and Earth are great for combos and damage (with fire delivering faster, in most cases while earth provides a bit more CC on the side); with Water traits, being in water regens HP for me and allies, I get healed by swapping to water and my heals are generally not worthless thanks to the +healing; with Air, it provides me with a large source of my damage (namely the +crit damage and precision which are also the focused stats of my gear) and auras granting fury. All in all, those traits just bring up Water and Air to a somewhat even level with Fire and Earth but not for the same reasons.

I actually find this okay, and the point of all my rambling is, if the devs don’t want Air and Water to be as combo-able as Fire and Earth, that’s fine because combos are fire and earth’s ‘schtick’. In that case, Air and Water need other sideways alterations to make up for their lack of combo finishers/fields. Basically, they either need combos or they need to be powered up as compensation.

I sort of stumbled into my exotics because I just happened to have an elementalist with 400 in tailoring. The recipes that unlock are kind of a give-away of how to make them.

After making mine then transmuting them into some of the HotW pieces, I’m sort of stumbling around Orr looking for these karma vendors. Since you have to finish an event to free the area, you need people to help and it seems everyone is busy with the new events so no karma set for me (I’m actually looking for a piece for another character).

I say, if you have the $$$ to outright buy exotic stuff, you have the $$$ to level a craft and make them, but to me all this stuff is just obscenely expensive…I think I ended up spending over 15g on exotic jewelry and it’s probably not even the best stuff.

Apparently, you need to hit up the Mystic Forge for the really good stuff >_>

Galrond.5972:

D/D:
Magnetic grasp (not in the tooltip, probably gets “fixed”)
Churning earth
Earthquake

S/F:
Comet
Phoenix
Dragon’s tooth (bugged)

Staff:
Erruption
Stoning
Shockwave

You forgot Flame Leap from Lava Axe, Lightning Leap from Lightning Hammer, Magnetic Wave from Focus, Thunder Clap from Lightning Hammer, Arcane Wave from utility slot, Arcane Blast from utility slot, Frost Volley from Ice Bow, Hurl and Stone Shards from Scepter, Fiery Whirl from Flaming Greatsword, and we’ll just ignore Tornado (seriously, just forget about it).

So 10 skills you forgot to mention, 5 of which are available without conjuring weapons.

But yeah, with the changes to Evasive Arcana, I feel it would be perfectly acceptable to spread around Elementalist combo-ability throughout their weapons. This should also account for Combo Fields as well as Combo Finishers.

Staff has plenty of fields but few finishers: Ice Spike and Gust would round out the Blast Finishers while Brurning Retreat could add some more utility as a Leap Finisher.

Scepter might use some help but it has finishers: Frankly, don’t know why Ice Shards isn’t a projectile finisher and it’d be grand if Shatter Stone created an ice combo field, making chill a prominent tool of the scepter…that would certainly warrant the skills lower damage. Make Dust Devil a Whirl finisher and Scepter would be your go-to for combos as practically all the skills can work in a combo in some fashion.

Dagger is strongest for damage/mobility but lacking in combos: If you gave either Frozen Burst an ice field, Cleansing Wave a Blast finisher plus make Ride the Lightning and/or Updraft leap/blast finishers (respectively) then it wouldn’t pump up dagger utility too far while keeping its strengths.

Focus is nice: But why isn’t Swirling Winds some sort of combo field? It’d be kind of cool if Focus had a unique field unavailable to other weapons of the Elementalist…a light field or a smoke field perhaps. It just doesn’t make complete sense for ‘Swirling Winds’ to be a lightning field despite being in the Air attunement.

TWMagimay.9057:

Well, that is your issue. I use it to give chaos armour to everybody and that useless retaliation from the mage has saved my party in dungeons often enough. But your preference or mine doesn’t matter, rally, it’s still a buff.

I’d rather just use staff for support…or shatters. It’s certainly underwhelming compared to other off-hands. Period.

Oh, sorry bout that, didn’t feel like checking names and went with the more general approach.
The 6th reply in this very topic mentions that the fix didn’t work. Which is what I meant with not reading. You know that picture of the black guy shouting “Read the * topic before you ** post”? That just came to mind when I saw the YAY. And the “eventually” is what bothers most people. It’s mostly the disappointment, I think. People read the notes and expected 60s cd, they logged in and tooltip said 60s cd. And then…75s cd….

Well, if you couldn’t tell, I’m playing the game as I read the topics and notes. I’m actually playtesting the changes instead of just moaning about them. I’m also the one that posted the info for conjures for the person that asked, making the comments about longer lasting Frost Armor (I’d have sworn it only lasted 3-4 seconds but that could just be the graphics being buggy and not often appearing or lasting their full duration) and the delay I’m seeing with Soothing Mist (which I’m really hoping is just buggy on my character ATM).

TWMagimay.9057:

Wait, what? Torch is off-hand… It has it’s Phantasm)confusion/retaliation) just like every other offhand weapon and no clones, just like every other off-hand weapon. What it does have is a blast finisher and is a nice support weapon. Mesmers from my guild reported 2k+ with Prestige without counting the conditions…

Right, I forget about Phantasmal Mage as it’s so underwhelming, I hardly use it. The Prestige is the only reason to use Torch, IMO, and mainly for stealth because you have to do nothing (no damage) while using it.

As for the person you’re referring to that ’yay’ed stuff, it’s the same person you’re replying to (me). I indeed read the patch notes as I was reading the OP. The reason I ’yay’ed first was because people ‘boo hoo’ed first before actually researching too. Yeah it’s a bummer that Mist Form still doesn’t work…maybe it will work with the trait eventually…and maybe Tornado will be considered a cantrip or something. It really is an awful ability…

Still, it’s far and away removing the ONLY viable means of playing elementalist, this patch that is.

Another thing I’m noticing while playing, Soothing Mist seems to have a delay after attuning to water. It is either a glitch with the icon not appearing, or they put some sort of timer on it, but soothing mist does not show until after the regen on swapping or the fury on swapping that I’m granted…same with allies.

noticed something…frost armor lasts a long time now…or is that just in my head?

[quote=746310;TWMagimay.9057:

Awww, poor mesmers.
- 100% dmg increase on presitge
- Moa usable under water and pulls necors out of DS
- Phantasm cd reduction trait works
Let’s sit in a circle and cry about how horrible it is that mesmers can’t cast phantasms through walls any more and have longer cd on portal.[/quote]

Lawl Prestige…Might actually care if Torch wasn’t generally garbage since it summons no illusions.

But yeah, the only real buff to them was to Moa. Phantasm redux did work, just not across the board and uniformly. Now it might actually be worth using on a Phantasm build.

And YAY for you not only not checking, but also not reading. Enough people confimred that MF cd still isn;t fixed.

It’s the thought that counts, IMO. Mist Form is suppose to cool down faster with the trait rather than it being changed from a Cantrip to a Transformation which has no trait to decrease cooldown. It will get fixed and this is one step closer.

Btw, bout ER…doesn;t less duration = less pulses = less condition removal? I can’t really place myself in a situation where I can reliably check it….and I use SoR as main heal anyway, but was just wondering…

It will remove conditions quicker, AFAIK. It has the same amount of pulses, just faster. If anything, because it casts faster, that means it will start recharging faster and therefore = more available healing.

Aether McLoud.1975:

You cannot completely gut the only viable build a class has in a patch and not give them a single buff to compensate.

Sure you can. It’s not like, later when they throw some add into the game, all the min/maxers won’t flock to the new FotM like the sheep they are.

Ele is dead. PVP is dead. This game is dead.

lol doom?

Checking in game:

Frost Bow = 1min +180 Healing and 20% condition duration
Lightning Hammer = 1min +5% critical damage and +180 percision
Earth Shield = 180 to Vitality and Toughness
Flame Axe = 180 power and condition damage
Flaming Greatsword = 260 power and 180 condition damage

Lol well can’t please everyone.

The way I see it, the game is a continual work-in-progress and changes that are meant to come will come. Just be glad you’re not a Mesmer (like me) and nearly all your good skills got nerfed (need LoS, the ‘attack’ must connect and the target must be harmable or else your illusion will fail)…except Moa Morph which now can turn people into Tuna underwater…

My opinion:
crosses fingers with Magnetic Grasp/RtL It feels like those skills have gotten worse since I started playing, that is more and more buggier…

Evasive Arcana…lol, it felt a bit pointless on Dagger/Dagger anyway and just made Staff broken. Needed to be done, IMO.

YaY for Ether Renewal! It is probably the best heal now while Signet of Restoration is still #*!@.

Yay for my cantrips. Now I can use Mist Form more.

Yay for my Scepter/Focus! Now I can buff team might with Fire Wall + Dragon’s Tooth + Phoenix! And I can finally tell when Magnetic Wave stops reflecting stuff!

They’re trying to make the conjures more attractive…let’s see if it works…

Everything else is probably meh…the worst that could come of this is 30 in Arcane isn’t such a no-brainer…although I didn’t keep 30 in Arcane for very long.

Just to add to the topic, just curious if, as a staff main elementalist, do you use the Arcane Wave as just a blast finisher or as an attack?

I’m still rather clumsy with staff but I tend to forget arcane wave and just swap out for arcane shield because I’m too busy laying down fields to keep bursting off them. Of course I only have 10 points in Arcane so no Evasive Arcana but even then, you’re looking at sitting right in the thick to get/spread the effects of those fields which seems rather counter to the range of the weapon to be standing close enough to blast off them (not counting Eruption).

This is mainly discussing the combos fields. I always found Dagger to be limited as you’re looking at Churning Earth, Earthquake and Magnetic Grasp for any type of finisher effects which are all in Earth. I found Scepter combined with Focus as a super handy teaming tool although it lacks team heals. You’ve got Comet, Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix and Magnetic Wave spread though out 3 attunements to burst off of as well as your projectile finishers.

I guess my perspective is Dagger is limited but Arcane Wave is a really nice tool that adds more to it, IMO, than the other sets; Scepter/focus has a bit more variety but even less field options while Scepter/Dagger has a similar numbers but a better fire field; Staff seems to have all the fields but limited bursts and not as much use from Arcane Wave since you won’t be in range of it to hit lots of stuff often. All those fields though makes Evasive Arcana an even better pick for a staff user but I find its usefulness as a Daggers or Scepter user limited. I tend to use my dodges for dodging which may be close-minded of me.

I found it can still revive fallen NPCs like the dungeon ones (or maybe only the dungeon ones). Yeah not very useful but kind of came in handy when I was the last guy kiting that spider in TA while the other guys ran to make it back. NPCs can take a lot of punishment apparently…

TWMagimay.9057:

It’s not a “crappy feeling”. It’s long range vs short range. Some people just don’t like being in the middle of the fight and prefer nuking from behind. Having in mind OP is looking for sustain dps with -some- survivability, staff would work much better exactly because of the range(which provides some extra survival by being outside the battle). The only thing daggers provide that OP wanted is swiftness. And I didn’t see him complaining about One with Air trait or looking for an alternative. Air is a very good fight opening attunement for staff. For one, air5 allows you to restrict the enemy in a certain location then drop sand storm/bleed/cripple and go into fire aoes.

Nah, I think it’s a ‘crappy’ feel. That’s just how it’s going to feel when you swap to an unfamiliar weapon/style. I know because I’ve done the opposite, swapping from Daggers to Staff and it did and still does feel a bit crappy. It has mundo support but its damage and control is different and niche. When I’m using a staff, it very much feels clunky because the meat of the skills foes can simply move away from.

It’s not so much short vs long because you can make up for that with utilities and tactics same as your long range and control. But that never changes the feeling you’ve trained yourself to recognize as a player of a specific weapon. You’ll see a situation you could have capitalized on with this weapon or that but you’re stuck with the one you have and that thought and hesitation make one just that bit less capable.

So do staff builds. You know, the weapon OP actually likes playing. Yes, you can get that with pretty much any weapon combination as long as you get the right traits and gear. OP already made his weapon choice(which is basically the one thing he’s not asking about).

Why limit the topic though? For one, I don’t think staff needs anyone defending it…practically all elementalists use staff. I think it’d be healthy for the topic if ALL possibilities are open for discussion. Even if it doesn’t help the OP it might help someone else that is reading the topic and is also lost.

I’ve found great success with a focus on Vitality. If you have a large HP pool and with enough ways to provide yourself regen and heals, you can tank and kite lots of content.

I’m a dungeon junkie and that’s practically all I do, jump on random parties and push through. You just have to have a flexible and reactive playstyle.

I stand by my Valkerie exotics and runes of the eagle. Keep your utilities defensive and run when you think you’re in trouble. I think the worse you can do is die and let the mobs reset vs staying just out of harms reach while using your utilities when the foes try and snap you into their jaws.

It also might help to know what type of weapon you use. Staff is more support-ish, dagger is controlly, scepter is safety in range and focus has tricks to keep you alive in various situations. You’d be good to be able to switch to a better tactic with the one you’re using isn’t working for you.

Exactly.

One common example, Decimate. There’s the literal historic meaning (execution of roman army soldiers by drawing lots, the 1 out of the 10th soldier was executed by the other 9; literally “removal of a tenth”) Then there’s the basic English adopted meaning of causing great destruction/damage; reduce greatly in number.

So no problem here.

I’m reading mixed signals. Some say it’s useless in PvP while others say it has its uses. Some say it’s bad in dungeons and others say it’s a good survival tool.

I can’t say if Focus is good for PvP since I rarely set foot in that arena, but it’s certainly good in dungeons from my experience. Eventually I’ll try it out in WvW. As a dagger/dagger, I tend to end up downed a lot and if I’m not, I tend to be kiting the hordes until they die or I do. Scepter/focus, I’m usually the guy that’s last standing and/or kiting the champion mobs until everyone waypoints back (did this several times in SE which seems crazy/impossible for my dagger/dagger).

Currently, I’m doing Honor of the Waves so I can get the armor and the times where I’ve played with other elementalist, I’ve spent picking them up after they fall down.

Yeah, you won’t do as much raw damage with a focus but you may do more DPS by purely not needing to kite or get downed as often…I think it’s a different kind of playstyle.

Just a few more specifics, as a dagger/dagger, I use mostly cantrips with water trait for lots of regen and the elemental elite, with high HP and regenerating alot, it makes kiting worthwhile. For scepter/focus, I don’t use any defensive utilities but instead use Arcane Power + Glyph of Storms + Elementals and quick glyphs trait and it does alright for overall AoE. The combo itself feels like I can use all those offensive utilities without worrying about crippling myself which is probably far from the case in PvP but it’s obvious in PvE.

I’m also curious about people’s thoughts on the scepter since that’s also something people rarely use. Every now and again I’ll see scepter/dagger though.

Just curious that I haven’t really heard much about the other elementalist weapons like the scepter or specifically the focus. I scoured the forum but mostly it’s about Dagger and Staff.

Me personally, I’m a Dagger/Dagger but use Staff in WvW. I don’t really PvP. I’m mostly PvE and love running dungeons with random groups. That said, from 1-80 I’ve mainly used daggers and swapped to staff when ranged was needed and even then I’d lean toward using my Ice Bow when I knew I needed range.

But that kind of goes against my nature, tuning out a mode of play…but I tried using Scepter and Focus before while lvling but it just didn’t stick. I resolved to force myself to learn the nature of the combo and kept playing with it. I have to admit, it’s fun specifically the focus.

I tend to be the guy that helps bunker down his team, blinding the foes, reflecting and destroying their shots, rushing in to press the attack and keeping a constant stream of fire going. I’m still going to be a Dagger elementalist at heart but now I’ll be keeping a scepter and focus in my inventory for special occasions.

Well, I guess the point of the thread is, do people just not use Focus? Because I rarely see it in-game.