Guild Wars 2

Mesmer is still easy mode. Even with a full zerk build I still usually die last in PVE Dungeons and Fractals when things go sour. I don’t do as much AOE damage as my Ele in WvW but I’m such a royal PITA especially for people manning arrow carts on top of the battlements. The only problem I really have with Mesmer is they walk so slowly.

But aint’ that the beauty of every other class except Ele? They can swap weapons with a button press in combat!

PU Staff Mesmer can keep something like Sword Pistol or Scepter Pistol in the wings; iDuelist will knock that Ele’s health down to size. Or better yet, GS — one of the best long range weapons in the game which has fantastic range to snipe the Ele, and summon iZerker to deal the pain.

I made a decision last week to start building a BiFrost. It’s for my Staff Ele, of course. Currently doing Been There Done That and am at ~60% map completion with my Ele. I will think of it as a badge of honor to have that start next to my Ele’s name.

Although playing Ele sucks in that it’s frikkin hard mode, with the slightest mistake resulting in death, always dancing around, afraid of stacking with the rest of the party in dungeons and fractals, but what the heck, this is my main and I will stand by it. Once I have my BiFrost it’s gonna be even sweeter. That ain’t happening for another 3 months though, haha!

LightningBlaze.4913:

The skill isn’t as strong as I expected it to be for my burst non glass cannon Ele in WvW. The threshold gets bypassed too easily even when my burst Ele has 3k armor buffed. I can only see this trait working very well for those extremely bunker eles that run with 0/0/30/30/10 build or something very similar where even the gears are for bunker spec and probably even a defensive weapon set such d/f or s/f.

Haven’t tried the trait yet, but the way I imagine I’ll be using it is in a nuke build. The main problem with 30 Fire nuke builds is that if you get hit by Chill, Immobilize or Cripple it’s pretty much game over.

With this, you can avoid those issues, and continue to kite at the outskirts dropping bombs. However, going 30 Earth is really going to kill my damage potential. I’d have to give up my powerful Fire traits to use it — but I’ll experiment and see how I like it. Will do that in the weekend, no time to do it now.

Draehl.2681:

If this was designed to counter condi builds, fine, but what about power/tanky necros who rely on (non-damaging) conditions such as Chill or Immobilize to even get close to a ranged Ele? Its not like we’re anywhere in the neighborhood of needing nerfs (quite the opposite in certain areas)… it would be one thing if Diamond skin read “you are immune to condition damage when over 90% health” but this is far too much for such a low mobility class running melee to not be able to use these tools to slow our enemies. That’s all we have aside from the easily dodge-able Dark Path.

This trait was designed to help not just against Condi Builds (and thus try to break the Condi Meta lock the game is in now) but also to give Eles a fighting chance against things like Stun Lock Warriors who just come close to us, throw their bolas and smash us with hammers and we just die.

It’s nice to finally be able to shrug off these immobilize/cripple/chill attacks that just kill us because we can’t tank, and we can only survive by dodging and fancy footwork/kiting.

Stop crying me a river, this trait is a badly needed ability.

Too bad I couldn’t use it, since I am currently in a 30/10/10/10/10 build, but one of these days I will experiment to try using it, I wonder how great my survivability will become….

There’s no such thing as a “condi” class. All classes can do Condi Builds, and all classes have non-condi builds. Except Eles, who have no viable builds.

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

Not every game fits every person. I can’t imagine a game that’s easier to level in than this one. There’s nothing going on at higher levels, except some specific dungeon runs and being the best in WvW that you can’t do at lower levels.

I have 9 80s now, and I’m working on my 10th. Level 69…but I don’t grind. I do what I want, when I want. And the levels come.

For some reason, there’s a type of player that levels matter to more than the game requires them to matter. I think it comes from how things are in other games.

Sadly enough the level matters a lot. You get better loot with a lvl 80 char (loot seems to be based on your level) you are much stronger in WvW and dungeons and you can not easily go to all area’s when you are a lower lever.

Personally I would love to see levels not existing and then exploring, doing quest, events and stuff reward in other ways. Just to see if that would work.

Leveling by itself can be fun but not when your goal is to reach the max level and for the previous stated reasons that is the case when leveling alts.

Check out a game called Second Life. No levelling.

Two Things:

1. If you don’ t like levelling, don’t play RPGs.
2. Guild Wars 2 is already one of the easiest RPGs to level in. I gain levels for doing pretty much anything in this game. You can’t get out of the timesink — that’s what levelling is about, that’s the core of CRPGs — gradually increasing the power of your character as you go along

If you aren’t able to accept this, you are in the wrong game

Here’s what I run:

30/10/0/10/20 w/ Pyro Alacrity, your choice of the two GM traits. Bolt to the heart in Air, Vital Striking in Water, and Blasting Staff in Arcane.

Come tomorrow, that will become 30/10/10/10/10 as blasting staff moves down to Adept, so you can take Earth Stone Splinters.

Use Full Zerk with Scholar Runes
Slot Skills I recommend Glyph of Storms, Mist Form, and Signet of Air

Have two zerk staffs with Bloodlust and Force respectively, switch to force once you have all your stacks. Use Food and Oil as you see fit — kinda expensive that Spicy Butternut Squash Soup.

And no, there are a lot of good reasons to run 30 Fire. Don’t listen to all these naysayers.

Oghier.7419:

Part of me wants to try a 30/30/0/0/10 staff build in full zerker gear. But the other part of me thinks that would not be an elementalist, but a trebuchet with boots (also, a rallybot). I doubt the fun would last long.

I have really enjoyed 0/20/0/30/20 as a balanced all-rounder for WvW group play, and it looks like nothing important will change.

Nah, that’s not true, I’ve been having fun with full zerk 30/20/0/0/20 build for the past two months in WvW, Dungeons and Fractals. The fun never stops! And you won’t become rally fodder if you play it right.

Like Diogo said, us 30 Fire builds are gonna have a lot of fun come December 10, being able to reduce Arcane to 10 pts will be awesome, now we can get an extra Stone Splinters or Vital Striking or something to augment our damage. Inner Fire to 10% also gives an extra 5% damage that is much appreciated.

It’s great.

Eles have such a sucky health pool, but you know what? Just suck it up!

I’ve been going full zerk glass cannon Ele for the past month and I’m doing better than a lot of heavies and mediums out there. It’s definitely a high skill class, but you can rest in your elitist satisfaction that you are able to lord as an Ele.

30/10/10/10/10 is actually the build I will be using once Dec. 10 hits. The only reason I’m doing 30/20/0/0/20 or 30/10/0/10/20 is because of Blasting Staff.

I used to take Persisting Flames, but I changed it to Pyro Puissance (spelling) because the might stacks were great. You can usually maintain about 10 might stacks by yourself easily — with others giving stacks it goes higher up, in many 5-man groups I easily hit 25 stacks almost constant. If your opponent isn’t attacking you and you don’t need to kite, you can easily maintain around 14 stacks by yourself.

ThiBash.5634:

Mochann.5298:

How do we deal 10k without glass cannon? I have to go full glass to achieve those numbers.

Multiple hits. I get 2k non-crit per meteor and I’m not even in berserker gear. Hitting with 5 meteors is relatively easy, even on single targets like bosses.

Ahhhhh I thought you were doing 10k per meteor, hahaha! Ok that makes more sense.

As for Staff 2 skills, problem with most of them is that they are slow as hell. Only Lava Font is really usable, all the other 2 skills take forever to hit. In certain situations they are ok, but the time delay makes their DPS much lower than they ought to be.

For melee train Guardians are really strong in Zergs.
I suck at D/D so I can offer no advice on how Eles do in this situation. I’ll try to learn D/D someday.

For 30/10/0/10/20, I assume you are using Blasting Staff from Arcane, and Vital Striking for the 10 in Water? I have not experiment with this setup, but I think I will try it, as my current build is 30/20/0/0/20. I would like to get Vital Striking, I’ll give up some Precision and end up with a slightly lower crit chance… I guess around 44%?

Don’t listen to the staff haters, Staff is perfectly fine. I have finished all the dungeons except Arah P4 with staff. Working for my dungeon master title, will get it once I get a party that actually wants to do P4.

As for Lupi — Staff is great for Lupi as you can do it at range. Some people like to melee Lupi — that’s fine, but since I don’t know how to melee, I am surviving at range. The only problem I have with Lupi is that green bolt he fires out in Phase 2. I seem to be too stupid to see it and dodge it. I will get used to it. I can avoid all his other attacks no problem.

It’s easy to hit Lupi with Staff AOEs, especially if you have other party members he is paying attention to. Staff does the most damage to Lupi out of all Ele weapons because of Meteor Shower, which blasts him hard. I will usually hit Lupi for probably 50k-80k damage per Meteor Shower attack. Not really sure, hard to count. I do admit that I tend to dodge a lot so I can’t really hit him with Meteos all the time once cooldown is over. Usually I need to time it right — usually I use Meteo once he starts shooting his own Red AOEs in P2.

P1 is easy, just keep hitting and dodge when he does his grub thing. if your team is having trouble with the locusts, drop a lava font on yourself when the locusts come. P3 is also very easy, when he flies up you hit him with Meteo, it’s like a bonus stage. None of his attacks will hit you in P3, you’re out of his range. P2 is the only challenging part, I have no trouble dodging his red AOE attacks, and his shadow step is easy to dodge. The hard tech that gets me all the time is that green bolt he fires out. I haven’t quite figured out how to defend it properly yet.

My Config is a little weird. I stopped using my Belkin/Nostromo a long time ago, I just never got comfy with it. Instead I got a small keyboard that I can use to type quickly in this game.

Function keys for attunements are lousy, so I rebound them to Z, X, C and V.

I use 1-4 for skills 1-4, then E for Skill 5. Q is for heal skill.
On the Naga, I have 1-2-3 bound to the three utility skills.
Naga 4 is bound to weapon swap (whcih is not used for ele) and 5 is for Heal Skill, 6 is for Elite. Yeah, Heal Skill is bound to two keys for some reason.

Using the naga keys for Skills 1-10 don’t make sense to me because the Naga buttons come in sets of 3, and we have 5 weapon skills and 3 util skills, so it made more sense to me to make it 3 utility skills.

Overall, the Naga is a sucky mouse, but there aren’t many options for mice with this many keys that’s wireless (I have the Naga Epic, not the Naga).

I’m not a fan of the num keypad stuck on a mouse, I rather have a Naga Hex, which is a better design IMO, but it doesn’t come in wireless flavor.

The Logie G700 seems a better mouse IMO, but I haven’t gotten one yet, and I am wary of buying Logie products because they all suck to be honest, they all break down after a year or less. I’ve gone through 3 Logie mice in the last 4 years, got a Naga Epic last year. So far the Razer is lasting longer — but it already has an issue with the RMB. Go figure. Ah enough of my mice ranting; this is about the Naga Ele config.

How do we deal 10k without glass cannon? I have to go full glass to achieve those numbers.

So… will the Dec. 10 Diamond Skin trait protect against Agony?

Because when I do Fractals, my main problem is Agony that I receive not from boss hits, but just for being around a Level 10+ Fractal. For instance, the Molten Core Boss fight, I die not because I get hit (though that happens too sometimes) but because I get Agony just by being on the platform. If Diamond Skin will protect against that proc, then I could conceivably get away with not having any Agony Resistance at all in mid to high level fractals.

Will this also affect things like Toxic condition? In Tower of Nightmares I hate being Toxified just by walking around.

Have to ask — why are you forcing yourself to lose Arcane? If you put 30 points in it anyway, the trait reshuffling won’t matter, right?

Anyway for me, I only play with 20 arcane, happy that I can bump it down to 10 arcane, since I only use 20 for Blasting Staff. Now I can get it with 10.

Monk/traveler/water is also the way for me.

I just want them to buff Meteor Shower into shorter cast time. Shorter cooldown would be icing, and buffed damage cherry on top.

Oh and faster cast for fireball.

Give me that and Ele becomes balanced for all the woe we have as glass cannons who die when someone looks at us.

People actually use Glyph of Renewal? I canned that useless skill ages ago.

That lightning hammer build is very far from this one, since you swap to water, losing out on the 20% Dmg bonus of staying in fire and keeping opponents burnt. There’s no synergy.

They better not remove this skin, or there will be hell to pay.

Gillian.1859:

I am so relieved to log in and to see that they have pulled that cheap T3 armor knock-off the gem store. It seriously hurt to look Charrs and Norns running around with our Prestige armor.

They can add particle effects to Cultural Armors we can buy and add to our existing Cultural Armor but to make them available to all races is simply destroying whatever cultural diversity they have tried to build in the first place.

Posts like this are the proof that “T3 Exclusive” people just wanted the particle effects. It’s sad really. You yourself are admitting its a cheap knock off.

If that’s the case, and you truly, sincerely believe that it is nothing but a cheap knockoff, then it shouldn’t bother you at all. Because your original, real, authentic T3 armor is still an exclusive Human-only prestige item that nobody can get for $10.

The fact that you are whining shows that you actually think the “knockoff” is better than the original, and that you actually just care about the particle effects; and nonsense being spewed about racial pride and all that is just that: crap. An excuse to whine for particle effects.

Silas.8630:

There’s nothing childish about fairness. If humans can’t have any other race’s cultural armor, they shouldn’t be able to have ours. Period.

It’s amazing that you whiners can get aNet to bend to your whims after just a day of bellyaching and kitten ranting, when Things That Actually Matter like the broken Elementalist Class balance Mechanics or WvW matchmaking population balance issues are still an unsalvageable mess half a year later.

Way to go priorities. I guess that’s how ANet rolls when Gem Store Purchases are involved.

This whole Flame Kissed Armor debacle has really brought out the worst in everyone, Anet and their money grubbing and the entitled, shallow side of players.

I mean over a freakin’ armor skin. Really puts a bad taste in your mouth.

Setsunayaki.4907:

I wished that cultural armor wasnt earned through dropping gold. I wish it was earned from performing missions for that said nation (like accumulating rank with the nation itself or a new token) In doing so, possessing cultural armor for your character would mean you have heavily been involved with the said nation or culture, not simply throw 120g into it.

Cultural Armor is special not because of Race itself, but should be because of the devotion towards such a culture. It should not be bought, it should be earned. Buying it means even a lowly bandit thief who prided his life creating criminal acts agaisnt the said nation can steal enough money from tyrian innocents to buy his armor. How much value does it have then?

I am hispanic, born in the U.S and I know English, Spanish, Japanese and auxillaries to a dozen languages. Should I be denied to wear and represent a culture I like or support on sheer race alone?

Such a stance is pure racism. It goes against what this nation represent (as well as being human). We bring our colors from all over the world in order to share them, wear them, and represent them. A lot of Americans are loyal to the U.S but loyal to their roots as well. We are a people of two worlds.

I think people get lost in sight beyond how things truly are.

Cultural Armor should be earned, not bought! That was the first mistake. It should not be one race…I mean c’mon…..

The whole game deals with bringing races and people together for a grand war, I mean look at Divinity’s Edge…

…..and here we have this heavy fight about cultural ."

Funny how you say we lose sight of how things really are, and end up whining full-TLDR Pseudo-socioPolitical mode about an armor skin on an MMO.

Ironic, to say the least.

Lazy staff build

Zerk, scholar, force/bloodlust
30/20/0/0/20

Start off with earth 2/fire2 might stack combo, then nuke away with fire spells. Will self sustain around 13 stacks of might, will get to 25 if a staff guardian is around or if someone else has might stacks.

I only run into problems with the Asura Floor disappearing fractal, get dps’d cuz I can’t concentrate on dodging as much and this is a new fractal so I haven’t practiced it much yet.

Variants of this build are already in use by Eles. I would go against putting more points in Water; this build Is going for power and you only need 10pts for Vital Striking. Nothing else in water is going to help you.

Personally I also take Fire Alacrity, since you spend most of your time in fire anyway you need to max your skill cooldowns to dish out more damage. I also take the Pyromancer Gm trait for self-sustaining might stacks, I can keep myself at 10 might stacks or so without any additional effort or assistance.

My current building use blasting staff, after dec. 10 my build will g stronger as blasting staff goes down to adept, freeing up 10 more points for some other +DMg trait.

scerevisiae.1972:

First, if you’re gearing beserker in zergs then you’re only helping the other side. You’ll tag a bunch of people, even down them, but then you’ll be downed yourself in seconds potentially rallying half their zerg again.

Second, have no illusions, your main contribution as an Ele in ZvZ is as a healbot with clutch CC. Damage is a distant 3rd to healing/condition clearing and watching for key CC opportunities, surviving at all costs.

If you want to be a primary damage dealer in zergs and be effective at it, reroll warrior or necro.

This post is just so wrong on many counts.

That may be how it works for you, because you play style isn’t making it happen for you. But I, and many others here, have already proven on the fields of battle that Zerker Ele can clear house with damage without becoming rally bait.

paleeshi.1924:

Mochann.5298:

Enemy CC/conditions aren’t supposed to hit you because you’re in the back line. If you are getting hit, you are not positioned properly.

and the rest of the text…

You making it sound as if a zerg is always moving in a straight line, which obviously is not the case.. A zerg will always move left, right, back or in a circle.. If you are just gonna stay in the back you will most likely fall behind.

Obviously since you are aware of this fact, you should have figured out that when I say “back” I mean the side of your Zerg opposite where the enemy Zerg is. That’s what positional awareness is all about in playing Zerker Ele in Zergs.

If you aren’t able to do AC properly, why are you going into Arah?! Master AC first, pug mechanics and all, them move in to Arah. If you’re getting kitten d in AC, Arah will be 100x worse.

You can’t compare dungeons to fractals, especially now that the rewards for Fractals have been revamped. You can get Pristine Fractal Tokens now on even the lowest level paths, which are an easy way to Ascended Gear. You can also pick up Ascended Weapons from fractal box drops.

Gold for Dungeons, Ascended Gear for Fractals. Makes sense to me. The gear you get from dungeons is basically only good for salvaging Luck.

As for the gold rewards for dungeons, their may be some imbalances, but you’re being way too picky. I only do the easy dungeon runs for the gold. That’s the usual AC1, AC3, COF1, COF2, and HOTW1. Don’t really other with the other paths as they tend to take longer, but that’s six GP their and I’m happy. If I am looking to make more gold or am farming certain dungeon tokens, I run some extra paths but otherwise I like to keep the dungeon running fast, and spend the rest of my time on something I Ike to do, like wvw.

By going full zerk I support my party by killing the boss in half the time it would have taken them with their tanks builds to do.

In dungeon runs, the important thing is to finish the dungeon fast, not to give everyone tons of healing.

If you died, you died because of your own inadequacy and not due to someone else’s actions.

Enemy CC/conditions aren’t supposed to hit you because you’re in the back line. If you are getting hit, you are not positioned properly.

As Staff Nuker Zerk Ele you need to hide in the back where the enemy can’t get you. You don’t need to be in the zerg and receiving all the buffs, though usually you can get the might stack buffs when your zerg stacks. After that no need to stay in the middle of the action, do that and you will be rally bait.

As for pushing… generally, you don’t push — you stay in the back. When your zerg pushes, you don’t push with them, you cast Meteor or Lava Font in front of them to aid in the push. That’s how you push — with your magic, not your body. Lava Font is great for pushing because many zergs (especially PUG zergs) instinctively avoid red circles, so when you cast a blasting staff lava font where your zerg pushes, they tend to break and your zerg can push in.

If you need to go through a choke point — you let your zerg do it, you stay behind until its safe. If you really need to go with your zerg, which is rare in my experience, you use Mistform to get through an AC zone — usually in gates or in entrances like in Stone Mist Lord’s room. Then you sneak into the sides, and cast from the side of the room. But again, generally, you don’t need to — for instance in SM when the enemy has the Lord’s room corridor dotted with AC rain, your zerg pushes in with their usuall zerg ball tactics and support/defense buffs, you stay in the back outside of the red circles. Once your zerg is in, the fire shifts to them, THEN you push in behind your zerg, then rain the meteos and lava fonts. It’s simple really — not sure what the problem is. Again, you don’t push with your zerg, you stay behind your zerg in the back line and support with damage.

Don’t stay in the zerg. Stay behind/to the side of the zerg. Screw your commander. If he wants you to do certain things that’s wrong, he doesn’t know how to use you. As full DPS Zerk Ele your job is to soften the enemy greatly with Lava Font and Meteo, and or kill them outright. You can turn the tide of a battle single handedly. You wont win single-handedly, but your damage support is often enough to totally win the battle for your zerg.

You can do massive damage, it’s not uncommon to wipe ten enemies in a meteo smash when you dart in at the right moment, cast, and run back out. Repeat this a few times in a big zerg fight and you’ll win in no time.

That’s how to play Staff Ele. You don’t need a cleaving auto attack, your AOE is far better, and safer to boot.

ATMAvatar.5749:

How old is the video? Remember that Elementalists took heavy damage nerfs between beta and now. If it’s sufficiently old, that could explain the damage.

Also, as an aside, if you pop tornado while meteor shower is going, it greatly increases the damage, though I don’t remember if it’s 2x or 3×. You probably won’t see 20k per hit, but 10k is not out of the question.

The video was from this October.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKmo4FsMxPM

Here’s the right link, sorry. Silly me the build was right there in the vid. Will use this build as I am already used to fighting in this style, just not hitting as hard because I’m lacking a few traits and buffs.

Thanks Blackhat for the build, I will swap out some of my trait choices to try that one, and get the Sharpening Stones and Butternut Squash Soup. Should help greatly.

Blackhat.4016:

20k Meteor Shower? Maybe against low level players without any armor but other than that I don’t think it’s possible. If you could post those videos/screenshots we might be able to help you.

Well here’s a video I saw in YouTube. I’m at work right now so I didn’t view the vid, but this is probably the same vid I saw before:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx0G8L-VS3M

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&ved=0CD0QtwIwAg&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dvx0G8L-VS3M&ei=QJCXUrRgxZe0BvzvgLgD&usg=AFQjCNHSd3CRJnORWQa2PO42hTehyKdgeQ&bvm=bv.57155469,d.Yms

Someone also posted a screenshot here in this forum, can’t find it right now though. The Ele was fighting the COE P3 boss in the lava pit, was getting 7k Lava Font ticks.

What trait is the 10% damage when stamina full? I don’t have that.

I didn’t think of getting the +20% damage to knocked down/stunned targets, not sure if I have slots for it.

I also didnt’ get Stone Splinters (600 range 10% bonus) and Vital Striking (scholar rune trait) but I have all the other traits.

Thanks for the listing, I guess realistically it’s not viable to be hitting like that all the time, but man would it be nice if I could. As it stands I do substantially more damage than some Warriors or Guardians who aren’t going full zerk, and at range, but my survivability is shot. I would have wanted to do even more damage considering I get one shot sometimes by some enemies, and usually die in 3 hits to most other enemies.

Have a question for you more seasoned Staff Experts here.

I’ve seen videos/screenshots of people doing 5-7k damage per hit/tick on Lava Font and Fireball, and upwards of 16k, even hitting 20k on Meteor Shower per meteor.

Try as I might, I can only get my fireballs and lava fonts to hit for about 4k max. Normally I only do 3k. My meteors only hit for about 5-7k each.

Obviously I am disappointed, and I am already maxing out my gear in Exotics with Full Zerk, Scholar Runes, Sigil of Force, and Exquisite Rubies. I haven’t gotten any Ascended trinkets or weapons yet, but surely the difference there shouldn’t be enough to almost double the damage.

Even with 25 Bloodlust stacks and 25 might stacks, I still can’t hit anywhere close to these figures. I also eat +100 food, haven’t used sharpening stones yet. I’ve gotten my power as high as 4,800 with buffs, but still not hitting 7k fireballs.

What am I missing?

My Traits right now are 30/20/0/0/20 with the usual Fire skills (using the Fire Field grand master trait, Bolt to the Heart in Air, and blasting staff in Arcane. I did not take Stone Splinters or Vital Striking in this build, but I am thinking the extra 20% damage in those optimal conditions shouldn’t double the damage up to 7k.

Any help to make myself even stronger would be much appreciated; I’ve sacrificed a lot of survivability to do this and I’d at least like to be hitting that hard.

You really should include Staff DPS builds here. I’ve used a staff DPS to great effect in many dungeons.

I also tried S/D for Condimentalist, it was also easier in a sense, but your focus moves to burn over bleed as Scepter has some nice burn appliers. That sort of works since Burn does comparable damage to mid-sized bleed stacks (I think 1 burn stack does similar damage to about 15 bleed stacks), and you can apply it over and over with Fire 1. Bleed from Earth is decent but I find it doesn’t compare to Staff’s bleed.

D/D I find to be inferior for condition builds. S/D is better IMO.

Because Celestial Set is inferior to Zerker for damage. If you want to be a middle of the roader, that’s your choice. Celestial works great for support builds, if support is what you want to do.

But one of Staff’s greatest strengths is dealing massive damage to the enemy en masse, and if that’s how you want to play, you run Zerker. Full Zerk gear (Exotics without Ascendeds) will get you to around 3,500 power base and something like 80% crit damage. Celestial may have 100% crit damage or what not but your lower base power doesn’t make up for it.

And as Zerk you can provide Support just as well as a Celestial build if need be — though frankly if you want to do damage you aren’t gonna waste your time doing support all that much.

Fact is, Ele can’t do everything at the same time — it’s the weakness of attunement cooldown. Every second you spend providing support is time you spend away from dealing damage. You have to choose between the two playstyles what you want to do, and gear up accordingly.

Regarding dodge meteors — when the fray is intense that is when people don’t realize they are being hit by meteors, and they get smashed easily. You’ll find the right timing for this easily. I do agree with Graendall opening with Meteo at the start of the clash is not smart. The key is to wait for the opponent to get distracted by your other teammates before you smash them with meteor — since meteor doesn’t have a red ring, people tend to be oblivious to it when they’re distracted.

However at the start of the fight you can already soften them up with Lava Font and Fireball and Flameburst. I also use Glyph of Storms. I take the first hit, and the last. Some of you may prefer to CC instead at the start, up to you I guess. Whatever works. Personally I find going full DPS is much more effective and softens the enemy a lot more, making them go down faster. I think it’s because of the meta — everyone and their mother is prepared to deal with CC and Condi. So I just ignore that and go straight to the damage.

I guess I’m so used to getting one-shot as an Ele that it is bizarre to me not to have someone die a Warrior melee.

BTW I have done Condimentalist before. It… sucks to be honest. The bleed is quite strong and is semi-useful in team PVE settings (like dungeons) but DPS is more effecetive. Major issue is that Eruption takes forever and is a pain to get to hit; its easier when you have guardians and warriors tanking for you. Otherwise you cast it on your foot and wait for the enemy to stop in front of you to attack you. It’s a hard, hard life.

Eruption though does big, big damage. I think it may be the single most damaging condition skill in the game. If only it were easier to hit things with it.

Bet he’s a disgruntled PVEer who got nothing but insults and attitude from the WvW Elite Clique. That shows you!

CattivoUomo.7198:

3. Achievements – I see nothing wrong with achievements. Sure, there were a bunch of PvErs that came in just to do the achievements, but then that is one way to actually recruit more players into WvW. Problem is, most WvWrs didn’t necessarily take it as a good thing and instead helped make the PvErs feel so unwelcome that they may have intentionally began to grief or simply not help the team. Contrary to popular belief, we were all PvErs at some point in our gaming life, whether it was in this game or some other game.

It’s this WvW Elitism that really ticks me off. Glad to see someone else call it out.

Krypto.2069:

Yes, it was putting a Band-Aid over a bullet wound. They thru in some achievements and the promise of an end-of-the-season chest into WvW. Basically, a distraction attempt from the real problem with WvW – population imbalance regarding the matchup system.

And for a lot of people, it has been very disappointing as they were roflstomped weekly and found out they can’t get their achievements done. So no chest prize for these 3rd world server folks.

So, yeah, I’m disappointed.

My server got ROFL Stomped every week (Eredon Terrace) and yet look I’m now a Veteran of the Mists. Don’t blame the server or the rules, blame yourself for not playing well enough.

Tongku.5326:

It is true that a map falls apart without a commander. I have commanded few times and for the large part, refuse to do so anymore unless I have my particular crew with me (what I consider core players) due to my experiences as follows in no particular order:

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At this point I would rather lose the whole map and towers/keeps or whatever, then have to deal with this sort of crap anymore. So unless the wider game population starts to put in at least reasonable effort, let them run around in EB like chickens with their heads cut off and get farmed.

So if anyone complains there is no commander, then they need to fix all of the above 1st. And not just for themselves but for their guild / server, then there will be plenty of commanders as we will not need to tag down so much or not tag up at all.

What server are you on? Man your server sucks. I’ve been running Commander a few times and I never had any of these problems, except the Team Speak one. But my view on the Team Speak issue: I don’t know if I’m doing it wrong, but when enter Team Speak I have to put in an IP Address and Port. And after that, I need permission from the server to get on.

But for some reason, Commanders and Guild People only give something like, “Get on Teamspeak. et.enjinvoice.com” and expect me to be able to get on without giving me permissions, without providing IP Address for the teamspeak, so yeah if they wonder why nobody gets on, it’s because you’re not helping them get on! Help them out; some people don’t know how to use it the way you do.

I also sometimes run into the problem of people dropping extra siege. No biggie. I tell them, “I’ll drop siege, nobody else drop siege” and they all comply. If you can’t get them to do something as simple as this…. something is wrong with your leadership.

Really though, seems your server has a lot of sucky people in it.

Yes they do. It’s called tPVP.