Guild Wars 2

I’d imagine the design concept was a sound one.

We have low health, low armor, and lots of ranged attacks. We’ll need to move fast to kite stuff around and avoid damage.

Unfortunately, with all the gap closers available to every profession, Swiftness isn’t all that great for avoiding damage or kiting except for PvE.

Burjis.3087:

“Run us out of 2 health bars” is not a very precise way to put it. Life force generation on a condition build is pathetic enough for necros to not have much life force in most encounters.

It’s imprecise on purpose.

When I’m playing my Necro I’m intimately aware of how difficult it is to generate and use Life Force. If I use it for damage or CC, then I don’t have it to absorb burst. If I use it up too fast then it’s gone, and it’s very difficult to get back on a conditions build.

When I’m playing against a Necro all of these details are hidden to me. All I see is that he has 2 health bars and I can’t burst through them both without getting stacked full of bleed/poison/torment/burning/fear.

People aren’t accustomed to long fights.

To beat a Necro you have to run us out of 2 health bars while taking substantial condition damage. This is going to involve ducking out of the fight to cleanse several times. The good news is that Necro has pretty awful mobility. The bad news is that our Condi Damage output is incredibly high, and if you get hit by fears at the wrong time you lose.

I play a Necro in WvW a good bit, but I play my staff Ele more. I got schooled by Necros in WvW before I figured out that I was taking loads of damage from Spectral Wall + Fear Damage, because I was a dummy and ran into it multiple times. Also, I was failing to run away from Necros because I would assume I had more time to hold out for cleansing…then get triple feared and drop dead.

Now, I range them. If I can stay close to max range all they can do is attempt to drop marks (which are easily dodged) and throw a bad auto-attack. They run out of LF eventually, and can’t really get away unless they flee to a keep or their group mates. Necros are incredibly vulnerable to ranged damage now. Closing to melee is crazy, since I’ll just be loaded with condis and feared to death.

If I played a Warrior vs a Necro I’d probably just swap to Rifle and kite him. As long as I can dodge the Dark Path and most of the marks there’s not a lot Necros can do about it.

That wasn’t true pre-patch. Pre-patch you could melee a Necro down faster than the conditions could kill you. Now you can’t. That’s not OP at all. It’s just different.

TL-DR: Necros are only a threat inside of Scepter range. The profession has extremely low damage output at long range and bad mobility. Kite to win.

You’re talking about Necro, right?

Because other than one Bleed Warrior that schooled me in WvW once, that’s the only other time I’ve ever felt remotely threatened by condition damage.

Now, Necros are pretty scary with their Terror builds right now. I can lose half my health before I can even do anything about it, since Fear Juggling really reduces the impact of stun breakers while killing you.

I don’t see the point of finally making Necro a relevant pressure class, only to indirectly nerf them by giving everyone else better cleansing.

Rayean.8726:

So Elementalists, does this mean if I create one as a serious alt to my engineer I will still be treated the same, or better?

You’ll be treated the same as everyone that isn’t playing a Warrior/Mesmer.

covenn.7165:

PinCushion …I havent tried out that fire trait, but are you saying when you blast a fire field you are giving fury to other people?

Yeah. It gives Fury to your whole party (or nearest 5 people) every time you blast-finish a fire field.

I usually have around 20-30 seconds of Fury at all times, as does everyone around me.

I’ve enjoyed a rather odd stat combination lately that I’ll be changing for Celestial as soon as I can cobble the armor together.

30/0/10/0/30
Cleric’s Armor
Celestial Trinkets
Runes are all +Might Duration
Rampager’s Staff – Sigil of Battle

The damage is pretty bad, but that’s not really why I like it.

I can keep 15-25 Might stacks up almost all the time, plus permanent Fury on all of my party members and myself.

If the situation turns bad I can easily switch to a support footing, toss out some quick burst healing with Water finishers, throw down some CC with Chill and Static fields, and go back to putting out AoE damage and stacking Might again.

With a decent amount of Might stacks the damage goes from “Bad” to “Okay,” but I figure the amount of damage I’m adding by buffing everyone around me balances that out well enough.

I like S/F and run it often, with Staff being my primary weapon most of the time.

The problem with both of those weapons is what kills me most of the time. Melee. I can outrange or LOS ranged attackers very easily, and Focus and Staff both have defensive skills that work great against range. Melee, however, is the thing that destroys me. Once they get on me I can’t get away. CC is of minimal value, and what lands is easily cleansed.

With D/D the thing that kills me most often is running out of cooldowns. Melee or ranged doesn’t matter because I can disengage fairly easily, even with the increased RTL cooldown. It’s even easier when I’m running Mist Form and Lightning Flash.

Focus is bad because it doesn’t help against melee, but it’s got shorter range than staff. After my Obsidian Skin wears off I’m dead, and my mobility is so bad that there’s no way I can get away while my Invuln is up. I use it anyway, though. I take the approach that Ele is just not designed to get hit, and I try to burst people that are already in combat with someone else. If I get focused I’m just gonna die unless the attackers are terrible.

This approach causes me to die a lot more, but it also lets me have a greater impact on fights if I can stay alive long enough.

covenn.7165:

…just about worthless across the board.

Navzar.2938:

“You’ll be sort of good at everything, but not great at anything, which is an ele personified”- Master Blixx

A matter of perspective.

We tend to get hard-countered by the most popular classes and builds. Thus it seems that we’re underpowered, when in truth we’re just easily countered. This is especially true when running staff.

TGSlasher.1458:

PinCushion.7390:

TGSlasher.1458:

It is caused by queing skills after shatterstone.
Try turning off water auto attack and not performing a skill until it appears (that includes changing attunement as that attunement’s auto attack will happen).

The same thing happens with Flame Wall on Focus.

Indeed, same fix as well. I play focus on my pve and pvp character and can tell you that not having firewall appear as I cast dragons tooth into phoenix into change for earth 4 blast finisher is so frustrating.

Hooray for All Attunements and skills on CD for no Might stacks….

:(

Air 1: Speed up the projectile a bit, and add a Vulnerability proc on it or increase the damage a little

Air 2: Change the Blind to a Daze. Suddenly it’s worth the long cast time.

Air 3: Widen the projectile just a little, and make it a touch faster. It doesn’t need much tweaking to go from terrible to decent.

Air 4: Awesome skill. Good OOC Utility. Good anti-CC cleansing. No complaints.

Air 5: Awesome skill. OOC Utility. Great area denial.

kirtar.8453:

At the least it gives the option of “eh too lazy to change armor”

I’ll be using it for precisely this reason. I don’t really care about “optimal,” because optimal builds do not adapt to changing circumstances very well.

Ele is currently the best at switching roles on the fly, and full celestial will make us even better at that. And I’m so tired of burning gold on a new set of gear every time I want to try a slightly new build.

Atherakhia.4086:

For as powerful as you all make stealth appear to be, you’d expect the thief to be some kind of unstoppable juggernaut in this game. It’s not. In any capacity. Want to talk about good roamers? Thieves, Eles, Guardians, Mesmers, and Rangers are each equally viable despit stealth the way it is now. Want to talk about zergs? Thieves are functionally useless. Want to talk about burst? Mesmers, Warriors, and Elementalists are capable of more. Want to talk about mitigating damage? The thief can’t… it has only avoidance. Want to talk about avoidance? Elementalists and Mesmers regain vigor faster, and Thieves have less health.

So yes, stealth is powerful. But the thief class apparently isn’t gaining so much of an advantage to put it above more than half the classes out there. And you all are here thinking you’d get away with adjusting stealth in some fashion without dramatic improvements elsewhere?

The only thing that could possibly even be considered at this point is an adjustment to the leap finisher to smoke field from granting stealth to instead provide protection or aegis. I’d argue this isn’t even the problem as I see nothing wrong with perma-stealth in theory. I only see a problem with not seeing a noticeable damage reduction in exchange for the added utility being provided. And this is an issue with initiative regen (the root of all your complaints if only you all played thieves to the same level you’re playing forum warriors).

Initiative regen is my only complaint. I don’t have a problem with Thieves having permastealth as long as it’s the focus of their build. I don’t have a problem with Thieves having insane burst, as long as they’ll run out of steam at some point. I have a problem with Thieves that get effectively perma-stealth AND great burst AND great sustain at the cost of low HP/Armor. I wouldn’t mind seeing Thieves get a damage increase, as long as it was for higher burst and way worse Initiative regen.

And, honestly, if they never changed that stuff I wouldn’t even care. The Thief issue isn’t that big a deal. They gank me now and again. Sometimes they try and run away. Most of the time I’m near group members and they stay away.

Tribio.8531:

Condition removal -> Confusion countered
Regeneration -> Retalation countered
? -> Stealth countered

Any build that can dodge or CC the Thief into the Revealed debuff, then burst him to death before it wears off.

If you can’t do that then you can’t fight a Thief.

Stealth countered. Yes, it’s really hard.

Tribio.8531:

Aberrant.6749:

So you won the fight… but are complaining that you didn’t get the lootbag?

I cba with lootbags..

Aberrant.6749:

Part of the class design that they can choose their battles and leave if they don’t like where it’s going. Personally… most of the time I do get the loot bag off of them though… because I’ve plaid a thief and know what most of these WvW players will do in a typical situation…

Agree.. But that’s somehow broken actually: Whatever a thief attempts (if he has half a brain and one arm), he has no risk whatsoever of a negative outcome. In the worst case scenario he’ll have to stealth out and reset (or give up the fight), but never ever will he have to fear for his life..
Before I’d do the same with my ranger (my main, so quite skilled with it), I’ll have to check who my opponent(s) is/are and if I can even succeed in getting him/them. If not, move on.. But a thief? Just try it nevertheless.. If all goes wrong, stealth out and carry on..

I agree also on the fact that, if you encounter a class where you have issues with, to roll one (I have all 8 classes) to check their skills and how to counter. And that’s a bit kitten with the thief’s stealth: Nothing to be done to counter it (and don’t mention stealth traps, or I’ll have you eat them)

So I think that what people annoys the most is that this is the only class that can easily break off a fight without any consequences..

I kept getting schooled by Thieves in WvW, so I rolled one and came to the same conclusion. If they’re good or they catch you at a bad moment, then you die. If they’re not great, or they attack you with all your CDs up, then you don’t die. If they’re terrible they get instagibbed sometimes, but usually they just run away after you don’t die to their opener.

So, I deleted my Thief because I dislike the playstyle. But I also changed how I play WvW. First, I try to never be alone. Second, if I get jumped while catching up to my group my goal is to CC and run away. I don’t bother trying to solo duel them, because if it looks like I might win they’ll just leave. So I just leave. Third, I just expect to die a lot on my grouping character (Staff Ele). My build isn’t really set up to 1v1, so if I get jumped by a Thief I’m just going to lose. It’s not about skill. It’s not about luck. It’s about counters. Thieves are the hard counter to a startling number of builds, and mine’s one of them. People keep complaining that stealth has no counter, but what they don’t realize is that stealth is the counter to them.

For example, when running my staff ele I get stomped by Thieves easily. But they’re supposed to do that, because otherwise I’d just AoE everyone’s face off at max range.

When running my power Necro I wait for them to gank someone just to pulverize them. But my power Necro is pretty bad in a group/zerg setting. Which is why Thieves don’t do so well against it.

TGSlasher.1458:

It is caused by queing skills after shatterstone.
Try turning off water auto attack and not performing a skill until it appears (that includes changing attunement as that attunement’s auto attack will happen).

The same thing happens with Flame Wall on Focus.

Big Tower.5423:

i prefer only to play one role

You picked the wrong class.

Elementalist is designed to be mediocre at filling multiple roles at the same time. You can pick the roles, but if you want to specialize then you’d be better picking any other profession.

This is doubly true for Staff, as it’s our All-Rounder weapon with the best CC/Support/AoE and pretty bad damage.

You’ll get more mileage going DPS/Support. Tank/Support works so-so, but nothing really works well 1v1 with Staff.

I’m mostly a WvW player, which I find somewhat dull. It’s too zergy to really feel like I’m making any contribution at all. I really like the concept of sPVP in this game. So, why don’t I play it more?

Because everytime I hotjoin I get dumped on teams with 3-5 exceedingly good players that are always grouped with each other, focus bursting and bunkering like no tomorrow. I die a lot, contribute almost nothing, and lose without learning anything.

Or I get dumped on their team by chance, and I coast to victory while trying to help out, and without learning anything.

I’ve never gone into a PVP match and left thinking, “Wow, that was really cool how they won that match!” I usually leave thinking, “Why did I waste 2 hours of my time on this? It’s awful!”

I’ve been a huge fan of PVP in every MMO I’ve played, and usually spend the bulk of my time there. I don’t in GW2 because the gap between experienced and newbie players, in terms of builds and team coordination, is so huge that I’ll never realistically catch up. So, I don’t bother. And neither do most of the PvE players that I’ve asked.

Zero.5307:

In the current environment where many classes have adapted the ability to removes conditions at fast paces, most recently the warrior for example with “Cleansing Ire”; How do you expect the conditions of burning, blind, and chill to fare that mainly are based around stacking condition duration?

Why does it seem that Elementalists have been forced into a more melee role in comparison to its fellow light classes the mesmer and more healthy necromancer? Was this intentional?

Can elementalist look forward to content that is more based around their skill sets?

If you had to give a loose opinion of what an elementalists “role” in the game is, or what they would likely accele at, what would it be?

There is worry in the community that the elementalist is going to become another “jack of all trades” mmo class that eventually gets “abandoned” by developers or is left not fully balanced within the game. Players have already seen this issue in other recent games such as SWTOR (star wars the old republic) with their classes. What can you do to ensure this doesn’t happen for those worried few?

Is it the intention of the developers to leave the 5 maximum target limit to the elementalists AOE abilities? Will abilities such as piercing shots on a warrior also be limited in the future in a similar manner?

There have been many complaints from elementalist players about the weapons they can spawn. In what way have you addressed those complaints or intended to develop them in the future?

While the game is supposedly a game where you can play any role, there are obviously limitations to what a game can provide. In light of the fact that many classes such as the warrior can achieve some amazing results with burst rifle builds, in essence making them similar to a “glass caster” or “fire ball caster” a role normally filled by light classes in other games; How is it supposed to be possible for an elementalist to do the reverse and become a tank? Are we doing it wrong or is a glass harasser the best we can achieve?

I find I have far more impact by just blast-finishing my fields in WvW than I ever would by doing damage to enemies.

I can keep 9-12 stacks of Might on everyone around me and switch to pulsing 1500 heals + Regen or group Swiftness when needed. The damage I do is incidental to all that, even if I build for pure glass-cannon.

Raiza.6538:

So I’m aiming to make the best support healer I can with fields for WvW and I’m not to fluent with the Ele as I haven’t met any others that run support.

Here’s my build idea: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|6.1k.h6|0.0.0.0.0.0|1m.71d.1m.b1d.1m.71d.1m.71d.1m.71d.1m.b1d|1k.68.1k.68.1k.68.1k.68.1k.68.1a.68|0.0.k39.u15b.k58|4d.0|1l.1v.1s.24.29|e

I’m hoping it works the way I think it will with the regen and boon duration. My big question however is; does all that healing power apply on allies within my fields or just mine? If not then any suggestions on how to tailor this build to be the best support staff build for group play?

Thanks!

Regen and heals that you put on other use your Healing Power. Heals that people get from finishing your Water fields use their Healing Power. Support Ele is fairly good, but the best thing is it’s very easy to play.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Renewing Stamina and all the equivalents for the other professions should be nerfed, imo. I would make it 6s vigor every 10s, not 5 every 5s.

The + damage to burning foes should be upped to 10%, like Guardian’s version. The + burning on critical should be buffed to the Engineer’s version, although I’m unsure if that one is used or not.

Diamond Skin should offer 15%, have an extra effect, or go down a tier. 5% isn’t even good for an adept trait (as the air trait shows), so I wouldn’t be surprised if diamond skin was fine even as an adept trait.

Incendiary Powder

Yes, lots of Engineers use this because it’s awesome. It’s so awesome that they gave Necros the same thing.

Dhuumfire

Whereas Elementalists get (and almost never use)

Burning Precision

Edit: In all fairness the biggest difference is the internal cooldown. Powder and Dhuumfire have a cooldown that makes them useless for AoE skills, as it’ll only effect 1 person. Precision has no cooldown.

Still, I think the %chance is a little low. It’s difficult to tell when it actually procs on stuff.

A hidden bonus of long duration conditions is they keep people in combat longer provided their cleanses are on CD.

It makes it more challenging to reset a fight.

Mammoth.1975:

With 100% crit it’s still pretty sketchy. If 1% DS is worth .6% of your hp pool, that means it’s healing .2% of your hp pool every hit. If your hp pool is 20k, it’s ‘healing’ you for 40hp each attack. Less of a lifeswing than vampiric precision, so I guess if you think vampiric precision is too OP (without bloodthirst), you could use this instead.

If you don’t have 100% crit, multiply that 40 hp by your crit rate, i.e 58% crit = 40 * 0.58 = 23 ‘healing’ per attack.

For this scenario don’t think of it as more EHP.

Think of it like this: 1/3 of your crit Life Blasts will net you one extra Life Blast for free.

The trait is there to let you stay in DS longer and Life Blast stuff more. It assumes you aren’t getting hit.

Long cooldowns don’t matter because by the time I trudge to a fight all my skills are off CD anyway. There’s a bright side to bad mobility!

I’m glad that the class has finally been compensated for the fact that once we’re in a fight we can’t really run away. People complain that Necros do a ton of damage (which they did prepatch too) and have loads of defense (also had that prepatch). What they’re forgetting is that when our 1v1 becomes a 3v1 we die. Even Warriors have a few GTFO skills.

That said, I fully expect Necro damage to be nerfed into uselessness in a couple of months. But I’m a bit of a pessimist.

The odd thing is that I don’t have a lot of problems with Condi Necros when playing my S/F Ele. I just DPS them until they’re out of LF, knock them over when they raise their hand to Consume Conditions, then burst them to death. I don’t get what all the fuss is about.

Terok.7315:

The developers will analyze the data and trends and determine what needs to be readjusted. I can promise you that these trolls threads don’t make any difference to those determinations because (like here) they’re often filled with nonsensical, exaggerated, and/or ridiculous claims (or they’re simply obnoxious without a shred of useful or constructive information). Be assured that most of us look forward to the nerf’s so that these incessant juvenile threads stop plaguing our community.

I agree somewhat, but don’t forget the incessant whine threads after the nerf that will drown out any semblance of civil conversation. If you want to know what I mean go look at the Elementalist threads. D/D Ele was an incredible build for months. There were countless threads there defending how great it was with “L2P Newb.” Then they nerfed Ride the Lightning and a few other traits. Then it was a constant stream of “OMG Nerfs I Quit!”

Most discussions on builds got pushed to page 2 within a few hours. After the recent buffs it’s gotten slightly better, but only slightly.

That’s probably what this page is going to look like in 3 months when ANet finally gets around to nerfing chain-fear builds. And, in my opinion, that’s the only thing on Necro that’s currently OP. The condi damage is impressive, but no moreso than Condi Warrior (yeah, nobody plays it). What is unfair is being able to chain-fear people until they die from Bleed/Poison/Burn/Doom and there’s little they can do once they burn their stun-break and get feared again.

I think it’s a little late for them to start worrying about how to get people into sPvP. They’ve made numerous decisions that seem designed specifically to chase people out of it.

I would have liked to get good at the sPvP side of the game, but currently there’s no solo-queue option that gives me space to learn. I use auto-join, have fun for a minute or two, then get steamrolled as the teams instantly fill up with Champions or empty out because one side is losing. Occasionally my team is the lucky one that gets all the Champs that are obviously coordinating in Mumble, but who wants to get carried by 3-4 people while learning nothing?

So, I don’t do sPvP anymore. And I won’t. Because it isn’t fun, and getting farmed isn’t what I want to do with my spare time.

I only bother to write this message because I know this forum is likely frequented by people already invested in the sPvP side and I thought they might want to know why there are so few new people bothering with it.

Psy.7386:

I mostly have problems with Mesmers and Thieves. Thieves seem to stealth way too much, and I can’t track a Mesmer’s movements with those clones. I’m a D/D ele, and using Dragon breath and Frost breath seems to hit them occasionally. Otherwise these classes are impossible to beat down.

Mesmers usually have buffs running that their clones won’t have. Clones don’t change targets, only auto-attack, and have very predictable movements. Clones are basically just there to mess up Tab Targeting. Wait for all the clones to run at you at once, dodge them, then counter-burst the Mesmer while he doesn’t have enough clones to use Distortion.

It’s not fool-proof, but it’s the only way I’ve found to reliably combat them. I don’t usually run D/D though. I play Staff almost all the time, and have been experimenting with S/F lately. S/F is way better against Thieves and Mesmers and way worse against Warriors and Guardians.

Sunflowers.1729:

Unless by ‘beat’ you mean ‘win’. Then no, there is no way to ‘beat’ a competent Thief, especially in WvW (in sPvP you win by capping the point).

QFT.

You win vs. Thieves by not wasting time fighting them. Tag them a few times to see if they’re bad players. If they’re not bad players try to bait them into blowing a bunch of Initiative on Mist Forms or Arcane Shields, then CC them and run away.

You have low hp and low armor. They have lots of burst, can’t be kited, and excel at avoiding targeted attacks. They’re the hard counter to 2 of your 3 main hand weapons and a huge number of your utilities. Unless they’re baddies. Then you win because they’re bad.

Urukami.4796:

Timelord.8190:

AndrewSX.3794:

Timelord.8190:

Staff is still terrible in spvp. Firbeall doesen’t don’t even hit for more than 500hp.

Hint: hitting hard is not the point of a support weapon/build.

Hint: A guardian gives way better support in spvp and deal more dmg. So why even use staff ele?

Look i’ll post a video up explaining some things

Please do! I look forward to watching it! CC/Support is my preferred playstyle and it’s nice to see how others do it and pick up a few tricks of the trade.

Aydain.5012:

In light of listening to Izzy talk about elementalists and how every stat effects them ect ect. Would a Conditimentalist with something like 30/0/30/10/0 be viable at all? I speaking mostly from a PVE/WvW concept. Rabid gear and or divinity runes…Full Celestial style. Probably grasping at straws atm I know.
If not what would a balanced ele, like he seems to want us to be? What would be our goal to aim for? Mediocrity in everything?

I’ve been playing a build that’s close to this mentality for a while. I go 20/0/20/0/30, use Arcane Power, Arcane Blast, and Arcane Shield. The key trait that makes the whole thing work is Elemental Surge. With that I can stack either Burning or Chill easily, and have a 5-chain of Blind or Immobilize for scary moment.

My gear is all Carrion, with Elementalist runes and Celestial jewlery. I also use a Rampager staff for a bit of extra Precision.

The verdict?

The damage is mediocre. The burst is nonexistent. The tankiness is mediocre. The ability to escape is mediocre. The ability to support allies is mediocre. The control abilities are pretty good unless there’s an excess of Shout guardians on the other team. The overall mobility is mediocre.

Why do I run this build if it isn’t good at anything? Because it isn’t BAD at anything.

I also run a Power Necro and a Healway Guardian. The Power Necro does great damage and is very tanky. It’s really good at those things. It has no group support, the control abilities are pretty awful. It’s got mediocre mobility with Swiftness and Dark Path, but the ability to escape is pretty bad unless I can just out-tank stuff while running away.

The Healway Guardian does great group support and is insanely tanky. It does mediocre damage, mediocre mobility, and bad escape ability. Control abilities are also pretty bad.

Both my Necro and my Guardian are terrible at range, and only excel at AoE damage when in melee.

Now, compare that with my Ele.

It does more damage than my Guardian, but less than my Necro.
It does more group support than my Necro but less than my Guardian.
It does more AoE damage than my Guardian, and at long range.
It offers more control effects than either.
It tanks worse than either other class, but since it spends most of its time at 1200 range that doesn’t matter as much.
It has more damaging condition output than either, but less than a Condi Necro.

In short, it’s ok at most stuff and fun to play. I’ll never burst stuff down like I will on my Necro. I’ll never tank 5 guys like I will on my Guardian. But I’ll do ok, and can switch gears quickly if circumstances change. There will never be a YouTube video of someone running my build pwning 20 newbies in a row. That’s what “Jack of All Trades” means. It’s always going to be better at what the other guy is bad at.

ANet doesn’t hate Elementalists. They buffed our scepter burst build dramatically with the last patch.

They don’t hate Staff Elementalists either. They buffed our ability to apply debuffs and our ability to provide support.

ANet hates kiting. Their entire game is built around kiting being really really hard. Haven’t you noticed that there’s a zillion ways to close range, and only a few lackluster ways to build range? Haven’t you noticed that most control effects are pretty easy to ignore or don’t last long? Yeah. ANet wants melee to happen, so if you don’t thrive in melee you’re gonna have a bad time.

Staff is a low-damage, high utility weapon that needs range to do well. It also has no way of keeping range other than a few of easy-to-dodge control effects. If you’re using Staff and your target isn’t busy fighting someone else you’re probably going to lose.

Notice that most of the recent staff buffs didn’t touch our damage much. They increased how easy it is for us to apply control effects and support. That’s a hint.

So, the short guide to playing a Staff Ele is still the same.

1) Find Other People Fighting Each Other
2) Apply Pressure AoE and Support
3) Run Away

If that playstyle isn’t your cup of tea then you need to find a different weapon. Scepter/Dagger is amazing right now, and Scepter/Focus is getting there.

Edit: And as to the question of whether the Support/Control specialist is a viable role, that’s not about Ele. That’s about core game design, and effects all classes. My opinion is that Control/Support is largely irrelevant when compared to how much damage or inherent survival you could have brought if you hadn’t bothered with that other stuff. When Control effects work (i.e. your opponents run out of cleanses) they’re awesome. But the rest of the time they seem like a waste of points. I don’t tPvP, so maybe it’s different there.

You guys are making me jealous. All I do is stack Chill/Cripple/Burning on loads of people so my zerg can have lots of easy kills.

I can’t solo well at all, but I bring a lot of control effects. Shout Guardians shut me down hard to the point that I might as well not be there, but otherwise it’s working out very well. The patch was a pretty significant buff for me, as half my traits, all my weapon skills, and Arcane Shield got buffed with no real drawbacks.

Zelyhn.8069:

Swim.6830:

Zelyhn.8069:

I speak mainly for PvE, so let’s see:
-Fresh air is awesome all around, it synergizes with lingering elements and reduces the need for arcana at the same time = build diversity
-Persisting flames: fury share was what made d/d-f very viable in PvE, now we can share fury in scepter and staff as well, and not just a bit! =build diversity
-Staff improvements =faster paced, damage
-bountyfull power: water traits no longer give you more damage than fire traits= build diversity
-10% crit damage on arcane spell (air trait) = awesome!

Yes there are still some useless traits, but many less!

The extra 10% crit damage is negligible… should be 20% extra at the least.

10% crit damage is really decent! and it comes at almost no cost: if you trait for damage then you necessarily have 30 in air, so plenty of room to choose this; then it’s just one utility slot for arcane wave, 10 points in arcane and you have your quasi-perma 10% bonus. That’s a 4% damage increase on a dps build, it’s just a good option to be able to choose when you have dps-checks

The buff you get lasts 15 seconds. Traited, the cooldown of Arcane Blast is 16 seconds.

Perma +10% Crit Damage.

Bah. If these notes are real, then my build is now dead.

It’s too bad, I was really starting to like it.

The class needs an overhaul.

It has:

Low build diversity
Limited use outside of a narrow role (PvP Roaming)
A playstyle that only functions at the expense of everyone else’s fun
Depends on a core mechanic that has no counter

I’m not saying “OMG Nerf Thief!” I’m saying “Make Thief a Versatile, Fun Class.”

And by “Fun,” I mean fun for everyone and not just the Thief. In PvP, if I get my tail beat by most classes (e.g. a Ranger) I can think, “Wow, that guy’s a great player” or “Holy cow, how’d he get so much cleansing in his build?” Those are rewarding experiences, even if I lose! With a Thief I can’t really do that, mostly because I can’t see them for much of the fight and can’t keep them targeted long enough to get any information about boons/food/sigils. I can’t develop any respect for their skill or build because I usually have only a sketchy idea of what’s going on in most Thief fights. I might get a glimpse of what weapons they’re running, but that’s about it.

And, to the OP, if you want more info on how to fight Thieves in WvW you should go to sPvP and tPvP. Spectate on matches with Thieves in them, check out their builds, and watch how the good ones play. Until I did this, I assumed all Thief players were simply abusing stealth and that the class was totally OP. Now that is not the case. With spectator mode I can observe their gameplay, whereas in WvW it’s invisible. There are some very talented Thief players out there (and lots of bads). The class isn’t OP. It’s actually poorly designed in a few key areas, and needs some work to make it an fun addition to the game in general, instead of just a tool to troll or gank people.

TGSlasher.1458:

I tried to play my ele again the other day, in PvE … They ruinzed it. Poor Gollum.

Loving that a 20 lower lvl warrior can kill things faster then me (mind you I was lower in stats due to de-levelling/scaling), not take any damage and generally troll 10 mobs, while I have troubles trolling more then 3 at a time. He gets hit by a champion and only takes about 24% damage, instead of almost insti death and then proceed to solo that same champion, while I basically sit back and watch for fear of imminent death.

Which champion? Some of them are super easy.

Swim.6830:

PinCushion.7390:

Swim.6830:

razn.7160:

Screw you ele’s got mobility, burst, cleansing, healing… Stop trolling

So same things thief has, while thief also has stealth, better mobility and better burst with no cooldowns…

You forgot all the AoE CC and AoE damage that every Thief weapon has baked into it…. oh, wait….

Nevermind

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cluster_Bomb

Go bs elsewhere, thief has options for everything they need. It’s not like they need the aoe and the x2 damage more than makes up for it. Also thief has enough CC to kill anything.

But alright, I’ll drop another one, why is staff ele (when specced for full dps) so much weaker than shatter mesmer DPS wise? Where is my 7k dps every 15 (or less) seconds on a small aoe?

You know, you could just level a Thief. If you used crafting you could have it done in a few hours.

Swim.6830:

razn.7160:

Screw you ele’s got mobility, burst, cleansing, healing… Stop trolling

So same things thief has, while thief also has stealth, better mobility and better burst with no cooldowns…

You forgot all the AoE CC and AoE damage that every Thief weapon has baked into it…. oh, wait….

Nevermind

While I wouldn’t say it’s “The Best Build,” I enjoy Carrion gear with Runes of the Elementalist, Celestial jewelry, and a Rampager staff w/ a Sigil of Doom. My build is 20/0/20/0/30, and attempts to leverage Elemental Surge as much as possible. Utilities are Arcane Power, Arcane Shield, and Arcane Blast (sometimes Arcane Wave).

You might say, “Condition Damage? That’s so bad!” Well, you’d be right most of the time. But I’ve gotten accustomed to Eruptions that proc 5 seconds of Burning. Arcane Blasts that proc Burning, Chill, and Poison all at the same time, or load someone up with 30+ seconds of Chill in one go (like, you know they just used their only cleanse.) Or how about Arcane Shields that double as an AoE Blind when they pop? That one’s great for getting away when you’re getting focused.

It isn’t so much the “Condition Damage” bit that makes it a cool build for me. It’s the combinations of conditions we can drop on someone very quickly, all while doing fairly ok damage and kiting like a champ.

I don’t really die all that much, and I have a great time in WvW and collect loads of bags. People that say that conditions are worthless because of all the AoE cleansing have a fair point, but I don’t find it to be that much of a problem. If my conditions are getting cleansed a lot, I just swap to shorter duration ones like Immobilize and Blind.

Also, really long Burn/Bleed allows you track people on the other side of keep walls by watching where the damage numbers go. It’s like having x-ray vision.

emikochan.8504:

Gear with condition duration% would be nice for the supportive builds imo. We cant to control enemies and heal friends.

tbh why is there crit% but not cond% ? especially with that food that reduces it so much.

In theory? Armor and Toughness.

Something that might be far easier to implement, but would provide a similar feeling of commitment of forces, would be waypoint cooldowns in WvW. I think 5-10 minutes would be sufficient. Basically, the idea is that once you go to a zone in WvW all of your WvW waypoints go on cooldown. This would mean that once your forces enter a zone (a Borderlands, for example) you’re essentially stuck there for 10 minutes, which means that whichever zone you left would have to do without instant reinforcements for the same amount of time.

Caffynated.5713:

MandJ.8965:

No when your Healskill has a short c, 15-20 seconds its the best idea!
1) 33% to run away or get faster to fights
2) you don’t need to use runes and you can choose a better ulitie.

Glyph has a 25 second cooldown. That’s several lifetimes in the burst happy GW2 meta. Getting to the fight faster and then instadying because you can’t heal is a bad plan.

It usually takes me more than 25 seconds to get from one place to another. I stack Swiftness from multiple sources before I head from one place to another. My cooldowns are nearly always back up by the time I get where I’m going.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Deniara Devious.3948:

Could you please tell me couple of examples of the creative use of a siege?

So you ask for examples then declare me wrong before I respond…

Do me favor, prove to me that you can even listen to what I say, Mr. “I bold important things because they’re just so true”.

He was trying to make a rhetorical point. He doesn’t actually care what you think, because you don’t agree with him.

I don’t agree with him either.

Without strong siege weapons keeps lose all strategic value and become a source of WXP that nobody would bother defending.

But a lot of people don’t really care about that. They want Group vs Group combat and rolling zergs with their finely tuned team. If an upleveled newbie can hop on an AC and ruin all that fun then it doesn’t need to be there.

Icarrus.5421:

I understand that. So I guess what I want to get a flavour of are some of the tricks you can pull off as an ele

Some basic tricks:

Loads of AoE Might stacks using blast finishers in Fire fields. Scepter/Dagger is probably best at this.

Constant AoE 25 Bleed stacks in a Condi build. Staff is best at this.

Permanent Chill, which can be useful in a few boss encounter.

Very high ranged burst in Scepter/Dagger. Most useful in WvW.

Incredible mobility and survival with Dagger/Dagger. Most useful in WvW.

Loads of buffs and high Protection up time with a D/D Aura Sharing build.

Decent burst heals and long duration Regeneration with ample CC using Staff Clerics build. This is interesting in WvW, and useless in dungeons. Very newbie friendly, but not the most effective build.

Instantly kill siege weapons by casting Frost Bow and having a buddy pick the extra one up in WvW. Frost Bow 4 × 2 will put a huge dent in most siege, if not kill it completely.

There’s more stuff you can do and builds you can try. The general theme is that there are often classes that fill individual roles better, but few that can be built to switch roles on the fly as easily.

I use 20 Fire, 20 Earth, 30 Arcane.

Works well with Scepter or Staff.

Elemental Surge is great for getting extra Burning on things, or stacking Chill duration so you can kite easier.

Utilities I use are Arcane Power, Arcane Blast, and Whatever (usually Conjured Axe or Arcane Shield).

Carrion gear and Runes of the Elementalist, with a Sigil of Doom or Sigil of Corruption.

Edit: Just read the “signet” part. You could probably take 20 Fire, 30 Earth, 20 Arcane and use Sig of Fire + Whatever x2. I’ve tried that build and found it very dull and one-dimensional.

Don’t run Cleric’s gear in dungeons please. You’ll be tanking every fight, because everyone else will be in Zerk gear. Your healing will be great, but not that great.

T K.5173:

It would be nice to see trait changes that provide a means for breaking stun and or give stability without cantrips. So tired of using same utility bar.

I just stopped running them, and started using range and situational awareness to avoid getting hit.

It’s gotten mixed results, but I’m really starting to like Lava Tomb!

ProxyDamage.9826:

…
And then, on the other side, you have diminishing returns, which start becoming evident within less than 1 hour of play and you nerf farming spots whenever they’re found. I’ve done enough farming since this event started to start noticing the patterns in the DR system, and when I start “fresh”, with almost 400% MF, I find something in almost every drop. A green, a T5 material, a blue… something. Almost no junk or whites. Before an hour elapses I’m starting to find junk or nothing in most kills. This is consistent behavior. It hasn’t just happened “once” or to myself only. You sell 1 hour MF boosts ffs, and your DR kicks in before that…

This is currently the biggest problem I have with PvE right now. I don’t farm one spot for more than an hour, but I’ll often stay in the same zone for longer than that. I notice a dramatic decrease in dropped loot after about 30 minutes of consistent fighting. Is this DR? Bad luck? Who knows?

And that’s my problem. Nobody knows, and nobody can know. ANet has deemed it unsafe to let us know how this particular mechanic actually works, because “The bots might use it to bot.” I think their (mostly justified) fear of bots is responsible for most of the insane design choices they’ve implemented. After a bot-infested release they’ve gotten the problem under control. Bots aren’t gone, but they’re nowhere near as widespread as they used to be.

DR effects me every time I do PvE content. Or does it? Not informing players of what their current DR point total is, and how DR actually works, is offensive. How am I supposed to know if I’m playing the game as intended if I don’t know what the rules are? The rules seem to indicate that I need to change zones every 40 minutes and log off for every other hour. First, does this make any sense at all? Second, we’ll never know if it makes any sense because we have no idea what’s actually going on.

TL – DR: The Diminishing Returns system ruins a lot of PvE for me, not because it’s there, but because I have zero information about what’s going on with my own character. If ANet wants me to change zones or mob types every 45 minutes then they should just tell me and not make me guess.