Confirmed at the GW2 Heart of Thorns announcement:
Rangers will be able to turn into Druids (profession specialization), which give them access to a new heal skill, a new elite, and the ability to use a Staff.
This sounds like a good Major Master trait.
Seriously. Cele Ammy comes and now we get:
-Might nerfed
-Battle Sigil nerfed
-Drake’s Breath nerfed
-Lightning Whip possibly nerfed
Please. If you do these things, all it does is push the class further into Cele Bunker. Tone down Cele amulet before you start messing with all of our other stuff :/
Dedicated Condition Elementalist sucks, it really just does. Just get passed it and move on.
Use Berserker gear in PvE and Celestial gear in PvP.
Use Power instead.
This is not a trinity game. There are no dedicated healers.
Dude, I’d love to watch the Dog teleport to the enemy it attacks when it KDs.
To the OP,
Why not try a different class if the Staff Ele in particular isn’t working out? I feel like you’d like the Necromancer based on what you’re looking for.
No one does. Ranger was the class that did but then they changed the Bleed stacks on Maul to Vuln stacks (and even then, it was kind of an iffy set to use for that purpose). So no one gets any benefit from Condi Greatswords.
Do these Sigils still drop from Wintersday stuff this year? They were added to sPvP, so I assumed that the devs would re-add a way to get this sigil in PvE.
Unless things sit in all ticks of your Lava Font all the time, Staff can feel pretty underwhelming, for sure. The main thing about Staff is that it has a high amount of utility to it. Organized WvW guilds use it all the time for its Water fields, Static Field (which have no AoE limit), Line of Earthing, and Frozen Ground that still affects things with Stability. A well-placed Meteor Shower can be deadly to an ill-placed Zerg.
For sPvP, the set was popular for a bit right after Ele got buffed, and it definitely still seems pretty decent. It just took people a while (for whatever reason) to realize that the standard D/D Ele was that much better, hence why it completely dominates alongside Cele Engi. I think what’s important to understand is that Cele Staff is actually very strong in PvP, but the Ele’s other build – D/D Ele – is one of the two really highly dominating builds in the game right now.
I think in the end, Staff Ele is best for its group support (very strong in WvW and still good (though not meta) in sPvP), and for its incredibly high damage in places where things will sit in all your Lava Fonts (mainly dungeons and fractals since the open world has a lot of movement and sitting there waiting for Lava Font to tick on each mob can kinda slow you down). In other words, it’s a really good group-content weapon. I think this fact gives the set a very strong place in the game, hence why it hasn’t been changed to be more solo friendly.
If you want to play a Caster in PvP formats that sits at the back and does damage, have you considered Necro?
(edited by Neko.9021)
RTL already got nerfed. Please no more.
I just had a thought. Since Courtyard only lets you advance your score total by killing another player, if everyone on one team just agrees to leave (perhaps by logging off), they can leave the other team trapped in there for the full duration of the round, huh?
…where are people going to put all their kittening (myself included)? This sub-forum was a great place for people to vent their concerns and now that it’s gone, it shall be unleashed dispersed all over. Keep it all in one place, for everyone’s sake.
Whatever they nerf, I just hope they don’t touch Signet of Restoration again. That was the most horrible experience ever.
Ele Condition Damage build in PvE is pretty bad, sorry. Honestly I think it’s pretty bad in all formats, though I’ve started to see some Signet-Condi Eles in sPvP (that I don’t think are that good) and of course Perplexity Runes can turn almost anything into a passable condi build in WvW.
I remember finally stumbling on Dagger/Focus Ele and thinking it was like the coolest thing ever, though I more or less got the build from talking to friends who were far more talented than me. It also took a really, really, really long time for players to settle on the builds Eles have. I blame it on the fact that it’s easy to get intimidated at the low base stats, and unfamiliarity with the content will punish an Ele more than other classes, generally. In fact to this day, it’s still pretty hard for a completely new Ele player to pick up a full DPS Ele and run it through instanced content that they’ve never ever done (whereas Guardians and Warriors have so much innate tankiness that makes that content far more forgiving). The upside to Eles of course is that they’re just all around very useful and powerful.
Let me clarify something.
Some people here seems to be playing the game only for a very short time.
The only buffs (beside elementals) Ele has received lately, was the Blast on Frozen Burst, and the evade on Burning Speed.
So, if I read certain posts from certain people, these 2 buffs made the Ele COMPLETELY OP AND OVER THE TOP
Really people, look the Elementalist history, how long we`ve sit in the dark, NOTHING has changed beside those 2 buffs ( and Elementals ).
Please, before posting bullcrap, get your stories straight.
If you need advice on how to counter a DD Ele, send me a whisper as Ive been maining one sicne launch.
This is completely untrue.
In addition to what you said, the buffs made to the Elementalist directly were:
-The removal of the ICD on Cleansing Water in sPvP
-The un-nerfing of Signet of Restoration in sPvP
In the game as a whole, the following changes were made:
-Strength Rune was buffed
-Sigils could now dual-proc (two swap sigils, such as Doom and Battle)
-Celestial Amulet was buffed
To be quite honest, the most direct buff to the Elementalist, in all likelihood, was the change of Signet of Restoration, which had a base 168 + Healing Power*0.08 heal per spell cast in PvP (as opposed to the current, un-nerfed 202 + Healing Power*0.1 per spell cast in all formats now). Once the signet heal became good again, the Ele became much better. In fact, when Signet of Restoration was stronger (double proccing from Evasive Arcana), the Elementalist was crazy strong.
Often times, a class’ strength in PvP is tied to its sustain and its healing. It’s no wonder then that the Warrior became stronger when Healing Signet and Cleansing Ire were buffed.
A D&D Wizard is far beyond the scope of GW2, capable of creating or destroying an entire town at max level. A D&D Wizard could simply become permanently invisible, summon a horde of minions, fly away, and charm the local military into dedicating themselves to killing you. No way you can compare any class in GW2 to the D&D Wizard at its full power. And if for some reason he had to fight you himself, he could put you to sleep for a minute, kill you in one hit with an illusion, or point his finger and kill you instantly.
I think the Mesmer, Necromancer, and Elementalist all embody the spellcaster archetype in their own unique way. Try them all.
I love my Incinerator <3 . And crafting it together with the help of my best friend only makes it more special to me.
Cool, I’m going to try those! Thanks!
Out of curiosity (and because I like to try unusual builds) are auramancers dead? It seems like a signet-based one would still be pretty competitive?
It would be terrible no matter the format. Auras are just not worth speccing into ever since they fixed/nerfed Zephyr’s Boon.
Can d/d work in pve?
The thing about D/D is this – You mainly use Mainhand Dagger because you can pair it with Focus to get some really great defensive skills (Swirling Winds, Magnetic Wave, Obsidian Flesh, mainly). Mainhand Dagger, while still retaining incredibly high damage when all is said and done, still has less damage than Lightning Hammer or Fire Staff. The main thing Dagger has going for it is that the autoattack is very easy to hit and leaves a lot of room (300 range) to strafe around while attacking, and the Focus has all these great defensive utilities.
Offhand Dagger is a mobility and damage weapon, and the mobility is nice as a one-off during trash runs but doesn’t see that much use otherwise. The damage increase is pretty ok , which is why we sometimes see OH Dagger used in Scepter builds. However, the Focus still has better utility and better might stacking, so again, just outshines it in many situations.
In the end, that’s why these three fairly distinct builds exist. D/D is still fine, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t have a niche to fill like these three builds listed do. You basically have the lowest damaging MH of the three choices (Dagger, Scepter/Hammer, and Staff), and you have the least utilitous of the two OH choices (Offhand Dagger, Focus).
The Ele is one of the best support classes. How can you argue with permanent Fury and tons of Might generation, along with the ability to bring tons of Vuln or Blindness with Glyph of Storms and a projectile block with Swirling Winds on Focus? Not to mention the blast finishers + blinds with Lightning Hammer, or the long CC and burst with Ice Bow 5 + 4.
This is the best general dungeon PvE Ele guide right now.
- Here is a Dagger/Focus Elementalist guide, and here is a video on it. The D/F Ele has the best self-defensive mechanisms of these builds and is good for harder content and PUGing.
- Here is a Scepter/Hammer Elementalist guide, and here is a video on it. The Scepter/Hammer Ele has extremely high DPS and great might stacking, as well as constant blinds with the Lightning Hammer autoattack.
- Here is a Fire Staff Elementalist guide, and here is a video on it. The Fire Staff Ele has the highest damage in the game.
Renewing Stamina is a million times better than Windborne Dagger outside of Open World PvE (and even then, you usually just take Air Signet instead).
He’s the same troll in HOTW and in that one you kill him pretty fast. Given, due to stat scaling, I suspect the AC one is actually harder. >.>
I am always interested in watching GW2 streamers.
If you’re looking to play a “Spellsword” sort of character, the class set that you should be looking at is the Double Dagger Elementalist:
Put simply, it’s a terrible build. It’ll have low damage, and for all that tankiness you’re offering 0 support to your team whatsoever.
Here’s a great Dagger MH PvE build: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_D/F_Elementalist
Tanky brawling Ele has always been the best spec for the Ele.
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_Staff_Support
Celestial Staff Bunker is very strong, has been seen in top tier play, and is great at offering a team a solid mixture of damage, support, and control. Honestly in my opinion, both Celestial Staff Ele and Celestial Dagger Ele are incredibly powerful and viable.
PvE = Berserker
WvW = Other stuff
I just wanted to clarify that. When people are speaking about full Berserker builds, they’re USUALLY talking about PvE. There are some cool Berserker Ele builds to run in WvW too but those aren’t the “standard” like they are in PvE.
Anyway, in WvW, Celestial gear is very strong, but many people here who play small-scale WvW far more than I do insist that a mix of Celestial and non-Celestial is the way to go. What exactly that mix is, each person has their own opinion on what’s good, though I will say that Celestial in general is just very solid for any PvP Ele.
In sPvP proper, Celestial Amulet is pretty much standard for any “Bunker Ele” or “Tanky Ele” builds. There are also some Berserker Scepter Ele burst builds that are decent.
Actually Neko, its most of the time not really best to use that heal and sometimes FGS can be really useful for the extra evade. You of course probably knew this but I’m guessing that OP doesn’t…
@OP, start out in berserker because honestly you’re going to get destroyed no matter what gear you’re using if you don’t evade at the right times. Ele can often be a pretty bad class for soloing depending on what dungeon it is, due to how unforgiving it is.
Best word of advice is that you should be changing weapons and traits frequently depending on the encounter. Don’t stay D/F all the time, don’t stay staff all the time, don’t keep the same traits throughout everything.
Most of the time 66002/66200/64202/62222 tend to be the trait point allocations that I use.
Very true, I think I was just more trying to give a singularly presented guide with one solid build versus the rather terrible one the OP was starting with.
But yeah, like anything in the game really, you’ll actually find changing things up (Staff on some encounters, Dagger/Focus on others, maybe even Lighting Hammer autoattack with its blinds perhaps) based on the encounter is the way you really should play, whether it’s solo dungeons or group dungeons.
You should probably make it more apparent that the Dagger/Dagger build is the most common / best of all of all of those.
This is the correct build to use: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_D/F_Elementalist
It turned into an AoE buff for all instead -_-
The Elementalist has been a highly problematic class for a good portion of the game’s history, when it comes to balance. At the game’s start, the class was misunderstood by the vast majority of the playerbase (like all classes), though players eventually began to understand the power of the "tanky-DPS’ Ele, and Bunker-Damage Arcana-Water builds soon proliferated through the mists. The class remained largely dominant over the PvP meta until patches of the summer of 2013, when a multitude of changes were made:
-5 second ICD to Cleansing Water
-18% nerf to Signet of Restoration
-Doubling of Ride the Lightning’s CD
-Mist Form changed to no longer allow Heals or Utility skills while active
-Removal of stunbreaks on Cleansing Fire and Lightning FlashThese, along with later buffs to Necromancers and Warriors made the Elementalist outright garbage and unplayable in PvP for an entire year.
Later on, in the recent April patch and beyond, Dhuumfire was nerfed, Warriors were nerfed, Double-Sigils were made a thing (Battle+Doom, for example), Strength Runes were buffed, and Celestial Amulet was buffed. On top of all of these things, the ICD on Cleansing Water was removed, as was the nerf to Signet of Restoration. The nerfs to RTL and the cantrips stayed. Elementalist went from worst class to best class, and still the class has yet to know a prolonged period of time where it wasn’t either god tier or garbage tier in PvP. This is upsetting, especially to players who want to stick to a class without fear of having it get continuously rocked back and forth on the viability scale due to the flow of patches. It’s also frustrating because it seems the balancers at ANet cannot figure out a way to make an Elementalist that is not:
A. So fragile and easily killed by anything because of its low base stats
B. Outsustains everything around it with constant healingSo here’s the thing, it’s clear that the class is far too strong in PvP. The problem is that despite ANet’s philosophy of gradual changes, they changed a bunch of things at once in both balance patches that made the Ele terrible, and then made it too strong. Celestial Amulet, Strength Runes, Double Sigils, no ICD on Cleansing Water, and a stronger Signet of Restoration are a deadly combination, but it’s difficult to pinpoint which of these things could be changed without risking destroying the whole class all over again because too much was changed at once. There’s also the fact that the changes to other classes such as the Dhuumfire nerf might have actually been the real tipping point that changed the state of the Elementalist. And we’ll probably never know, because changes are made in gigantic bulk, rather than the gradual process over time that ANet promised us.
So here’s the problem with the Ele – it’s a class that is highly influenced by changes in the game, due to its low base stats but high return on using those stats. Celestial Amulet makes a huge difference, as does a stronger Signet of Restoration. But would one be too strong without the other? It’s hard to say, because they were both changed at the same time, along with a million other changes to other classes.
This is my plea to the balancers. We all know that the Elementalist is next on the chopping block for nerfs over the course of the next balance patches. As it should be. But do us a favor, and change things slowly, emphasizing re-examining changes you’ve made to gear (Amulets, Sigils, etc.) before possibly re-destroying Signet of Restoration (which, in my opinion, is the real heart of the Elementalist’s viability, much the same way that Healing Signet keeps the Warrior viable). Change things slowly, rather than piling on a bunch of balance changes into one patch like you guys have done in the past.
tldr
can you make a tldr for lazy people like me?
ANet’s two major balances around the summer of 2013 and April 2014 brought the ele from overpowered → terrible → overpowered because they made drastic changes both times, rather than small but meaningful changes over time like they promised. My hope is that they change more things over time rather than yearly mega-balance patches like they have been, or the Ele will likely never reach a good middleground of balance.
It looks cool but not that good compared to what’s out there. I’ll just make your life easier and tell you what’s strong right now:
PvE:
Highest Damage
More Survivable
PvP:
Best
Decent
The Elementalist has been a highly problematic class for a good portion of the game’s history, when it comes to balance. At the game’s start, the class was misunderstood by the vast majority of the playerbase (like all classes), though players eventually began to understand the power of the "tanky-DPS’ Ele, and Bunker-Damage Arcana-Water builds soon proliferated through the mists. The class remained largely dominant over the PvP meta until patches of the summer of 2013, when a multitude of changes were made:
-5 second ICD to Cleansing Water
-18% nerf to Signet of Restoration
-Doubling of Ride the Lightning’s CD
-Mist Form changed to no longer allow Heals or Utility skills while active
-Removal of stunbreaks on Cleansing Fire and Lightning Flash
These, along with later buffs to Necromancers and Warriors made the Elementalist outright garbage and unplayable in PvP for an entire year.
Later on, in the recent April patch and beyond, Dhuumfire was nerfed, Warriors were nerfed, Double-Sigils were made a thing (Battle+Doom, for example), Strength Runes were buffed, and Celestial Amulet was buffed. On top of all of these things, the ICD on Cleansing Water was removed, as was the nerf to Signet of Restoration. The nerfs to RTL and the cantrips stayed. Elementalist went from worst class to best class, and still the class has yet to know a prolonged period of time where it wasn’t either god tier or garbage tier in PvP. This is upsetting, especially to players who want to stick to a class without fear of having it get continuously rocked back and forth on the viability scale due to the flow of patches. It’s also frustrating because it seems the balancers at ANet cannot figure out a way to make an Elementalist that is not:
A. So fragile and easily killed by anything because of its low base stats
B. Outsustains everything around it with constant healing
So here’s the thing, it’s clear that the class is far too strong in PvP. The problem is that despite ANet’s philosophy of gradual changes, they changed a bunch of things at once in both balance patches that made the Ele terrible, and then made it too strong. Celestial Amulet, Strength Runes, Double Sigils, no ICD on Cleansing Water, and a stronger Signet of Restoration are a deadly combination, but it’s difficult to pinpoint which of these things could be changed without risking destroying the whole class all over again because too much was changed at once. There’s also the fact that the changes to other classes such as the Dhuumfire nerf might have actually been the real tipping point that changed the state of the Elementalist. And we’ll probably never know, because changes are made in gigantic bulk, rather than the gradual process over time that ANet promised us.
So here’s the problem with the Ele – it’s a class that is highly influenced by changes in the game, due to its low base stats but high return on using those stats. Celestial Amulet makes a huge difference, as does a stronger Signet of Restoration. But would one be too strong without the other? It’s hard to say, because they were both changed at the same time, along with a million other changes to other classes.
This is my plea to the balancers. We all know that the Elementalist is next on the chopping block for nerfs over the course of the next balance patches. As it should be. But do us a favor, and change things slowly, emphasizing re-examining changes you’ve made to gear (Amulets, Sigils, etc.) before possibly re-destroying Signet of Restoration (which, in my opinion, is the real heart of the Elementalist’s viability, much the same way that Healing Signet keeps the Warrior viable). Change things slowly, rather than piling on a bunch of balance changes into one patch like you guys have done in the past.
I didn’t realize, but after scouring the internet a bit, apparently just knowing a user’s Skype information is enough to compromise a person’s internet connection. There are apparently services that trace people by their Skype username to their IP address, then you can pay to DDOS them. That’s pretty screwed up.
I have a theory for how the player inflicting the DDOSing could have gotten the IP addresses.
A lot of the PvP community plays on certain community Teamspeaks together, and a lot of the players on those top teams in the tourney have mixed around and played on each other’s Teamspeak servers together before.
Now, in order for this to work, the user needs to either needs to be an admin on the TS server (so that they can see the connection logs and see people’s IPs), or they need to know how to extract other people’s IP addresses on a TS server even without admin privileges (requires a bit of knowledge with how TS works).
If you were all playing on not-private Teamspeaks (such as simply playing on one of the community ones but in a password protected room) a person could have watched you connect and re-connect to TS, and used that information to DDOS accordingly.
everyone says full zerker.. but if u rly got issues surviving, get some soldier gears first and slowly switch to zerkers as u get used to it
Wrong.
What is expensive/time-consuming to change? -> gear
What is cheaper/easier to change? -> traits!Keep zerker, change your build, until you are comfortable enough.
Check the paragraphs called survining and equipment in my guide
Basically this, yeah. There’s also other benefits to playing around with the Ele’s playstyles outside of their absolute full DPS specs, as I think it gives you a bigger picture about what the Ele can do outside of just a small section of PvE. But I also feel that for most people, changing traits over time is gonna be easier than changing gear for just one format.
Also, D/F Ele is a still underused spec for whatever reason, even if it’s probably easier in some situations than the more popular Scepter-Hammer and Fire-Staff builds.
Elementalist skill floor for a totally new player is a bit higher than other classes, especially if you haven’t played other MMOs before. Lower health and armor and more buttons to press means it won’t be quite as easy as the other classes for a completely new player.
However, if you play an easy build in PvP such as the 0/0/2/6/6-DD-Cele-Strength Rune Ele, once you get the hang of the idea (basically, mash all your buttons and swap attunements a lot), it’s pretty much as faceroll as almost every other class in the game.
Almost everything’s pretty faceroll in this game at its skillcap, especially Ele.
Anyway, in the defense of Teef (…Teef Teef Teef…), most Eles running Celestial are running D/D. If you’re running Scepter, you’re usually Berserker burst. There are a few who run Celestial Staff but those are honestly so rare compared to Celestial D/D that it’s generally a pretty fair assumption that if someone says they’re playing Cele-Ele, they’re playing Cele-DD-Ele. And even then, each class’ playstyle is so different depending on the weapon set they choose, especially for Ele. If you mainly want Staff advice, you should probably state you play Staff Ele.
Anyway, Staff Ele likes Celestial gear arguably even more than D/D does, so better get started on those quartz crystals. >.> You can run something else, but Celestial just does it so well for Ele.
You’re going to get more damage and more utility out of just using the standard, boring, 0/0/2/6/6 Water-Arcana bunker build in PvP formats.
For PvE dungeoning in particular, I have to suggest using a damage oriented build, so here’s the three I’d suggest:
Fire Staff
Scepter Hammer
Dagger/Focus
If you’re having trouble with those, I suppose you could run one of the PvP builds in Berserker gear and then switch out traits over time until you ended up using one of the actual PvE dungeon builds listed here. Personally, I like the D/F one the most, but it’s up to people’s preferences I find.
Looks pretty bad.
Rune of Strength and its variants still beats most of these rune ideas and so they’d never see play even if they were added. I love this game. >.>