Guild Wars 2

With close to 1000 hours on ele, I’ll do my best to think back to my leveling days and answer your questions accordingly

Question #1:
Is there a cookie-cutter (most default) build for an aspiring PvE elementalist? If yes, what is it?
- Yes, I would focus on Water Trait Line primarily, as ele does require a lot of attunement dancing and boons to remain viable, and you wont have enough trait points or understanding of the class until you reach 80 and beyond. Even there you’ll probably almost always have 20-30pts in Water. We are a squishy light armor class, we become tanky by learning how to maintain boons and dancing around like a ninja. The 0/10/0/30/30 trait lines are very common with many weapon sets for ele. Toughness is just a stupid concept in the game, imo, I’d rather have more vitality. As a jack of all trades class, there’s no reason to max out a glass cannon build in precision/power and just stick to nuking in fire attunement, that’s just stupid. A balanced approach between healing and power/precision is best. I have run multiple builds that do not require 30 in arcane, and they work just fine, especially for early levels and a lot of pve content… but the more time you spend in dungeons and WvW/PvP the more you will need that extra cooldown, and equally if not more important, boon duration. Boons and combo fields/finishers are your lifeblood as an ele.

Question #2:
I’ve seen a lot of threads talking about the support ele, providing auras, boons and regeneration. What is that?
Aura’s are basically a shield you provide yourself that give different benefits to you and problems to your enemies. Aura’s can be enhanced through traits to add boons when Aura’s are applied and both the aura’s benefits as well as the boons associated with them can be shared AoE with 30 points in water, trait 11. A d/d ele can perma swift a 5 man team, you can perma fury yourself and a 5 man team through aura’s and attunement swaps and a little bit of boon duration.

Question #3:
Arcana Trait Line. Since I am a stance-dancer, doesn’t that mean that I have to max this line? To benefit from the attunement recharge rate?
Not necessarily. However it’s not just the lower cooldown on attunement, but also the boon duration to consider. Also, the best ele’s out there understand there is a reason we are given the best access to combo fields and finishers, and having 30 in arcane does give you one extra blast finisher. If you’re not playing a style heaving on combo’s and boon stacking, you’re severely limiting yourself as an ele and might as well go play warrior or ranger

Question #4:
The last trait in the Water line talks about transferring auras to other allies (Powerful Auras).
Hopefully I’ve already answered that, as well as some of the other responders to your questions Just basically a shield you put on yourself, fire aura burns foes, frost aura chills them, shock aura dazes them, all when they hit you. And with 10 pts in air for Trait 1 each time you apply an aura to yourself you gain swiftness and fury. With 30 pts in water each time you apply an aura to yourself it gives it to anyone in range. That means each time you apply that aura to yourself, you teammates get it also, AS WELL AS swiftness AND fury. This is why in group play the auramancer build is extremely popular

Question #5:
I am thinking of going an all-out asset to the party, being the support elementalist. Is the Water trait line necessary?
For one of two reasons yes. Either a staff ele with regen and condition removal support (splash healing using 6 runes of water), or a d/d or scepter/dagger ele for aurashare and AoE might stacking (boon duration runes including two runes of the monk, two runes of water, and two runes giving might duration). I have a different armor set with different runes depending on what wep set I want to use, but primarily just run P/T/V with the runes I listed for aurashare (boon duration).

Waking.6052:

I hit Maguuma hard all week for a few reasons

1. You guys talk a lot on the forums, it’s easy to want to test you out.
2. You seem to enjoy direct conflict, and I still have a lot to learn about commanding. You’ve been educational all week on your BL.
3. You won a whole lot in lower tiers, and I want practice for fighting against Kaineng.

… I think you all hit us very hard this week Especially the first couple nights, a lot of running back and forth, especially in EBG between both sides of our land, trying to fend off an FA onslaught in time to make it back to fend off a DB onslaught… We held SM for a while (my guild capped SM from FA with about 15 people on reset night? how the kitten did you let us do that?), and had almost constant North and South battles going on the walls. It was exhausting, felt like you forgot you were playing each other too

You guys gave us a great welcome to Tier 3 and personally I think it’s been a blast. Cant wait for reset next week, and after what I’ve seen, FA, I’ll be rooting for you in tier 2!!! And DB, we’re comin’ for ya, all in a love-of-the-game sorta way of course

Ashecroft.7321:

Several people up here have stated what I believe is the Ele’s problem in dungeons. Warrior’s especially are a very forgiving class. Having the highest HP pool and the highest armor class lets them if they happen to do something foolish. Ele’s on the other hand sit on the other end of the spectrum. And when you run with a PUG, nobody has any idea of the skill you may have with your class. Some people just decide to go with warriors because they believe they will survive even if the other people are idiots. So don’t be discouraged if someone turns you down because you’re an ele. That person is probably not too confident in his team’s ability to begin with.

^ this is very true. However, as an ele in most places, dungeons, WvW, pve, pvp… I’m almost always the last man standing in a very bad pug group.

I will say that I’ve seen some very bad ele’s out there too. It’s a class that requires a different mindset and playstyle, unlike any other class, and for some people it just doesn’t “click,” or frankly it’s just too much dexterity and hand-gymnastics to do it well. For me, I like the challenge of stacking boons, dropping might, cycling through blast finishers, dropping AoE and single target dmg, AoE healz…

I find there’s nothing in the game ele is the “absolute best” at, we can’t down someone like a thief, we can’t crowd control like a guardian, we can’t heal like a shout warrior… but there’s nothing in the game ele is the worst at either. We are great at everything, perfect at nothing, terrible at nothing. Except for might stacks and other combo finishers… no one has the blast finisher arsenal we do, especially in scepter/dagger, so I take that back, that is one thing we far outshine anyone else at.

Nothing makes me happier then when I’m in a PuG group and people keep typing, “where’s all this might coming from?” or “How do I always have 25 stacks of might? is that some banner or shout from the warriors?”

<— secretly smiles

Wolf Fivousix.4319:

@Slim, you forgot the quickness bubble ^^

oh yes, Time Warp is great, good point. But that’s another skill that a lot of people think should be nerfed… so many cries for nerfs imo, it get’s old.

also, wasn’t knocking on mesmer, mesmer is my second favorite class and I use it a lot in WvW. Just don’t think any one class vastly out or under performs any other… except ranger… of course

Dragons Tooth for me is nothing more than an additional blast finisher. It’s just unreasonable to expect any semi-decent enemy to wait around for it to hit them.

Regarding taking out those hidden arrow carts? Well imo I think it’s kind of nice for there to be at least one skill out there that can get that siege so brilliantly placed that no other skill from any other profession could. Keeps things sorta balanced… but that’s just my opinion.

Remember, things like this work both ways… that’s why I don’t quite understand why people cry for so many nerfs on the forums, if something works well against you, use that back against them. Not mocking you for bringing it up by any means, just sayin. If you’re an ele, use it back against your enemies. If you’re not an ele, make sure your fellow guildies who are know to use it back against your enemies.

depends on the dungeon and where you’re at in it. I run a lot of CoF and AC (probably like a lot of other people) and I use d/d, s/d and staff, switching up somewhat often. If I had to pick 1 and only 1 weapon set, then I’d use s/d for CoF and staff for AC (only because it speeds up the borrows, between frost bow of course).

Evasive arcana is still useful, it doesn’t do a lot of damage but you do get an extra blast finisher, great for might or healz and I still use it. Plus the flashbang in air can be useful sometimes too I guess?

In s/d you can easily stack 18 might immediately on your team and maintain 25 throughout a boss fight. You can have 6 blast finishers include EA and Arcane Wave, and all of which can be done inside ring of fire if you practice the chain and have enough survivability to be within melee range to pull it off. D/D allows you to stack 12 might consistently with both EA and Arcane Wave.

In staff you can get off 3 AoE healz in Healing Rain with EA, Arcane Wave and Eruption, at lvl 80 that’s around 4k AoE healing plus 20% of whatever you have spec’d into healing power, plus another 2k or so from Rain itself. Not amazing, but can save the whole group in a pinch.

So I guess my opinion is that while you’ve lost some of the damage affects from EA, you still have the blast finisher, which still plays a great support role for the team.

Chalky.8540:

Maniac.5163:

Dunno. Old Maguuma had their chance against FA back in the day, neither had night time coverage.. It’s a bit of a stretch to say Maguuma got in the tier they are now without transfers. It’s not really a stretch to say that for FA – we’ve been here. For a loooong time. I think FA earned the right to stay in T3 and we have shown that to CD, YB, TC, DB and IoJ.
With no “big asian timezone” guilds. We beat SoS when they were rising up too, although it was incredibly close, so I guess it is possible to be competitive; just don’t expect to dominate the tier easily..

Totally, I’m not saying you don’t have the right to be in T3 – you do, and if it wasn’t for Kaineng I’d say you were a T2 server – but Maguuma isn’t really able to compete in T3 because we don’t coverage over night. FA doesn’t dominate over night either, but you’re able to hold your own far better than we can – I mean hell, right now we have 10 points according to the millennium website (I’m at work so I can’t check first hand).

With DB it’s the opposite problem – they seem to get destroyed during the day and nightcapping is where they get the majority of their points.

Sad fact about the top tiers is that servers without big asian/oceanic guilds can’t survive. FA will probably experience a similar thing if they stay in T2 long enough to face Kaineng – at least you can give DB a run for their money during off hours in T3 to keep your head above water and give yourselves a chance to get a decent lead during the day.

Sad but true. And with free server transfers at an end, we may be stuck with that. I’m fine with that, I don’t mind if we’re a middle tier 3 or even a top tier 4 team having little to no night presence, as long as the competition stays strong. I’m guessing with free transfers over, there should be more stability eventually in the rankings, meaning we may get good fights week in and week out. It’s just so boring to do what we did the last couple weeks or what Kaening or Sanctum are doing this week because decent servers lost all their people. A tier 7 or 8 server getting blown out? Sure… but a tier 4 server? That shouldn’t happen anymore with transfers over… at least I hope not.

Every night this week I go to bed at midnight and we’ve either caught up or taken a slight lead over DB… wake up the next morning and we’re 4-5000 points behind… that’s a lot of ground to lose in a short period of time. The scores would have been quite different this week if only… but the world doesn’t work that way

Not complaining, kudos to DB for making sure they had that presence, and of course kudos to FA, you’ve pretty much outplayed both of us all week and I’ll be rooting for you next week in tier 2 (even though I still feel like you and DB went out of your way to gang up on us for the first few days, but nothing wrong with giving the new guy a warm welcome to the upper tiers

How about a live arena like ancient Rome That’d be awesome… probably impossible from a lag standpoint, a thousand people all pack into some arena somewhere in WvW map or something, but it’d still be awesome

Dedalus.3065:

Tbh what everyone is describing as GvG sounds a lot like tPvP (except for guild halls).

It’s similar, the main difference is it was more of a “last man standing” brawl. No running around capping things, just a battle of who survived and who didn’t.

I’d love to see GvG offered at different levels, not just an 8 man cap. GvG 20v20, maybe even with flexability, have levels of players like tier 1 is 10 or less ppl per team, tier 2 is between 11 and 15, tier 3 16-20 and so on. That way you’re not always waiting around for exactly X number of people to sign on against your guild.

I like this idea because as a primary WvW’er, you often see two roaming guilds smashing heads in open ground over and over and through the course of the week some rivalries develop on the WvW forums. It’d be nice to let those two guilds have somewhere they can go duke it out for bragging rights, with no chance of pugs joining the fight and interfering. A guild of 25 wants to take on a guild of 30? Why not!!

edited title name. apologies.

thanks for the responses, unhelpful attacks are always welcome on the forum.

No, I don’t expect an individual response, but I’d love to read something on it.
A better question would be, “how are people so completely incapable of reading an entire post before they comment on it.” Pretty clear that I mentioned the lore aspect in my original thought. Besides… really? I make a joke about the name of the game and that’s what you fixate on? Wow.

Is it so unreasonable to ask for something as wildly popular both within WvW as well as the previous game as Guild battles on an epic proportion without being attacked for it? Good grief.

Regarding my original title, fair enough, stupid idea, I changed it.

If you don’t agree with the idea of bringing gvg back, say so, if you do then say that. Other than that, why waste your time attacking someone on meaningless things in their post rather than the idea… this is a suggestions forum, do you have a better suggestion as to where I can put my suggestion? Do you have a link to a thread where the devs have discussed this in detail recently? That’d be awesome.

1. Players should be able to run supply from camps and drop them at keeps/towers etc. The fact that I can’t drop my supply at a keep is just silly.
2. Sentry’s should be able to kill dolyaks, otherwise, what’s the point of claiming those positions anyway if they don’t serve any beneficial purpose.
3. All NPC health and attack should be much higher. A single real player should not be able to cap supply camps, frogs, dredge, quaggan, etc.
4. As mentioned above, each server should get it’s own map for their homeworld BL… probably a boatload of work, but there are ways to make it easier on the devs… piggy-back on existing maps, changing aesthetics. All the western jungle-esque lands of Tyria could be similar to each other. The mountainous regions similar to each other… etc…
5. There should be some elevated positions for each section of that map. It’s unreasonable that the Garrison and NW and NE tower for the homeworld team can treb both keeps, but nothing can get elevated enough to treb back at the garrison.. Now that I think of it, I guess that’s actually reasonable that the homeworld gets a slight advantage over the invaders, so I withdraw this one, unless others think it’s a good idea
6. Here’s an interesting idea. What if point tally was somehow based on opponent population? This is more of a gripe than anything, but two evenly matched servers, whoever has the most late-night coverage wins for the week. Seems unreasonable to have a great fight for 16 hours of the day and then get blown out because God-forbid we want some sleep.

Waffler.1257:

I would make it so that each server had a unique borderland map based on their server name (e.g. Crystal Desert borderlands is actually in the desert). Not only would it make fighting new servers unique and fun, but you might see players transferring to lower population servers just because they have a cool map. Of course it would be a lot of work to make 24 unique maps, but I’m a workaholic so it wouldn’t be a problem.

^ THIS would be amazing, but a lot of work of course… but the game should be around for years, so maybe something work towards. There were multiple maps in GW1 for GvG, perhaps something they could work towards?

I know I’m not the first person to suggest this, especially 6 months after launch, but I still want to speak my peace. I’m also sure this has already been discussed at length at Anet, and so far you’ve decided against it… Can you at least share with us why? I also doubt the devs have time to read all the threads posted, but I hope you read mine.

WvW has created what has become “the roaming guild” or “the ganking guilds.” These are guilds far more interested in open ground fights, have less interest in scoring points for their server than they do stoking their own egos by downing their enemies. There’s nothing wrong with this thought process, and this isn’t a gripe that it’s, “killing WvW” by any means, this stuff should exist.

However, it’d be nice if there’s a place to go to settle this. Every week on the forums, fights break out over which guild would win in a fight. The problem with this in WvW is your 20 man guild will also have a handful of pugs with them and vice versa. When those disputes break out, there should be a place those guilds can go to settle it once and for all. No holding points like PvP, no pugs, just let the ego’s sort themselves out, last-man-standing style… vanquishing your enemy style… For Pete’s Sake the game is called GUILD WARS… give us back the right to war between guilds.

I remember reading once somewhere regarding the Lore of Tyria, the idea that the Guild Wars were what ravaged the human race, the best of the best focused on fighting each other and not external threats like the charr, etc allowing them to claim what was theirs, so I understand, but this is a multi-race event, and we’re already fighting in WvW ravaging ourselves as opposed to the dragons anyway, so staying true to lore cannot be the excuse to ignore this mechanic that will be extremely popular and you know thousands of your paying patrons would love.

Please, at least consider bringing back GvG. Fight to the death, no controlling land, just 1 team vs. another. I also suggest offering battles at different sized parties, 10v10, 20v20, 30v30 etc with some flexibility, if a 20 man team wants to take on a 25 man team, sure, why not? Some limitation of course, a 10 man team shouldn’t get paired against a 30 man team randomly, but if they want to, why not?. That way when two guilds are constantly clashing heads in WvW and talking trash on the forums, there’s a place they can go to settle their disputes.

Perhaps make it a neutral site in WvW that has nothing to do with scoring more or less points for your server, a place where spectators can watch and cheer and sling congratulations to the teams from their server and mud at those on the other.

This is a game about epic battle… give us a chance at that.

newzac.5783:

I learned the game on an ele so that’s my learning standard now. Everything else just feels slow, stale, and limited.
TL;DR ele 4uvah.

Same… ^ this is so true

Ele will remain my favorite class regardless. I’ve never been shunned from a group, I know how to might stack s/d in dungeons. The only party groups that get annoying are the CoF path 1 farm runs looking for 4 wars and a mesmer… all that means is they’ve never played with an ele that knows how to stack might and drop boons, which makes everyones damage output all the better… and what’s this with mesmers? The only time they’re “really” beneficial is when you have to carry the orbs through the rolling fireballs, and frankly if you can’t make it thru that you’ kitten This game is just fine running 5 of whatever class you want. Ele requires a lot of thought and a lot more dancing around your keyboard than other classes, unfortunately a lot more effort than a lot of people are able to put in.

nevermind, found it here
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Water_field

Anyone know the math on how blast finishers for AoE healing in a water field (ie healing rain or geyser) is calculated and what numbers to expect? I assume it’s based off of healing power, but what’s the equation to figure healing output from each blast finisher within the field?

dunno about patch size, but regarding your other question, yes you should get a chest and a small amount of experience (like 20% towards your next level) for area completion.

Myself, another guildie and a PYRO ele rotated, saving our walls for about 10 min last night on DB BL at West Keep. After about 10 min DB Garrison gave up. Came back 10 min later and they still weren’t trebbing. Tried again about an hour later, we stopped them, they gave up again. If you don’t like doing it, don’t do it. If your guild forces you to do it, find a new guild. It’s a awesome mechanic that’s extremely useful, the cost, it requires someone to give up their time. Seems like a fair trade to me.

Sir William PD.9615:

Bunzy.8674:

Waaah, Waaah, Waaah, Waaah…

I miss Ehmry Bay.

This is all I am seeing when you post. It’s possible my computer at work doesn’t have a QQ translator.

unfortunately those most vocal on this thread seem to be guilds more interested in roaming and GvG battles in open land of equal numbers then they are about actually scoring points by claiming and holding positions. It’s WvWvW, the point is to take and hold positions to score points… not to have my group of 10 beat your group of 10 over land that doesn’t matter. Kudos to the rest of you who are playing WvW to win for their server, not to brag about their guild.

Real bragging in WvW should include, “my guild took a fully fortified keep and held it for 5 hours.” Or “My guild took SM and held off both of the other servers for hours…” Not, “my roaming group of 20 defeated your roaming group of 20 at a supply camp.”

On that note, Anet should just suck it up and bring GvG back, perhaps larger numbers than 5man PvP. Set caps at 20-25 maybe, and let it be like GW1 where the fights aren’t about controlling land, but about killing the enemy. If we had that, this thread would be a heck of a lot shorter and the roaming guilds would get to test themselves without the inevitable loser screaming “culling and we were outnumbered is the only reason we lost.”

score update plz

GuardianOMS.8067:

SlimGenre.6417:

GuardianOMS.8067:

cesmode.4257:

SlimGenre.6417:

For what it’s worth, we made huge strides over the last couple weeks because we dominated dead servers. Tonight we’re up against two strong servers, and holding our own. At least in EBG we’ve been handed a “warm” welcome to tier 3 and clearly ganged up on, pinballing back and forth from North to Southeast fighting off DB zerg after FA zerg and I don’t recall seeing either of those servers taking land from each other for the 4 or 5 hours I was in tonight.

This is more fun. This is far better than what we’d had for a while now, enjoy it.

The fights in the Lord room of SM were a lot of fun.

We were overhyped, but that doesn’t mean we don’t belong here. I don’t know all this about so many transfers over the last few weeks, the same commanders I’m used to seeing were leading and the people that are used to following them were doing so. Enough with the troll posts. Lift your heads up Maguuma, you belong at this level among good competition and who knows where the week will end.

I think maguuma has creted a bad rep for themselves. Some are humble, others blatantly kitteny, others hide their arrogance by “trying” to be polite to those server it just steamrolled, but letting them know they are clearly better.

I don’t think there’s any question about this. There’s also the fact that many of the person we’ve faced are crying babies and take the first chance they get to sling mud at us. Jesse Cox ring a bell? Yeah, lots of people are like that. Entire guilds of servers are like that. We simply don’t make an effort to correct them.

In regards to the post you quoted, no, we don’t belong here. We didn’t fight our way here, and climb by aiming to be the best and winning. We faced dead servers, and got bandwagoned to T3. We also have a heap of commanders and pubs that are clueless. Saying anything otherwise is foolish.

I think the score at the end of the week may speak otherwise. No, I don’t want to be a Tier 1 server either, but I sure don’t want to fall back to steamroll mode like we were the last couple weeks. Good competition makes for a more entertaining WvW experience. Yes, I do still believe we deserve to be here, or at least a solid tier 4 team, let’s just see how the week progresses before you tell me I’m foolish.

I didn’t say you were foolish, I said what you said was. We got here by punching kids who were already crying about their scrapped knees on the blacktop. Whether we win or lose won’t matter in this tier, the way we got here was cheap

Fair enough… I wont disagree with that. But my initial point was that we may have gone up 2 tiers in 2 weeks because of kitten competition, but that doesn’t mean we’re a kitten server. Maguuma welcomed our guild with open arms a few months ago when Mag was ranked 14 or 15 and we had a fun couple months, good team unity, enjoyed working with the existing leadership, lots of chatter on mumble, training in specific classes, commanders working together… then we have two crushing weeks and jumped two tiers and instead of coming together to see if we really have what it takes to compete at this level, the people on this thread who are complaining about Maguuma ARE Maguumans. That just seems rediculous to me.

We finally have good competition. Let’s make the most of it and at least see where we end up… is that so much to ask for? And if we lose, well, all the fair weather fans that joined the server last week will probably leave before transfer end next week… but you guys have clearly enjoyed playing together for months, why come unglued about it now?

GuardianOMS.8067:

cesmode.4257:

SlimGenre.6417:

For what it’s worth, we made huge strides over the last couple weeks because we dominated dead servers. Tonight we’re up against two strong servers, and holding our own. At least in EBG we’ve been handed a “warm” welcome to tier 3 and clearly ganged up on, pinballing back and forth from North to Southeast fighting off DB zerg after FA zerg and I don’t recall seeing either of those servers taking land from each other for the 4 or 5 hours I was in tonight.

This is more fun. This is far better than what we’d had for a while now, enjoy it.

The fights in the Lord room of SM were a lot of fun.

We were overhyped, but that doesn’t mean we don’t belong here. I don’t know all this about so many transfers over the last few weeks, the same commanders I’m used to seeing were leading and the people that are used to following them were doing so. Enough with the troll posts. Lift your heads up Maguuma, you belong at this level among good competition and who knows where the week will end.

I think maguuma has creted a bad rep for themselves. Some are humble, others blatantly kitteny, others hide their arrogance by “trying” to be polite to those server it just steamrolled, but letting them know they are clearly better.

I don’t think there’s any question about this. There’s also the fact that many of the person we’ve faced are crying babies and take the first chance they get to sling mud at us. Jesse Cox ring a bell? Yeah, lots of people are like that. Entire guilds of servers are like that. We simply don’t make an effort to correct them.

In regards to the post you quoted, no, we don’t belong here. We didn’t fight our way here, and climb by aiming to be the best and winning. We faced dead servers, and got bandwagoned to T3. We also have a heap of commanders and pubs that are clueless. Saying anything otherwise is foolish.

I think the score at the end of the week may speak otherwise. No, I don’t want to be a Tier 1 server either, but I sure don’t want to fall back to steamroll mode like we were the last couple weeks. Good competition makes for a more entertaining WvW experience. Yes, I do still believe we deserve to be here, or at least a solid tier 4 team, let’s just see how the week progresses before you tell me I’m foolish.

For what it’s worth, we made huge strides over the last couple weeks because we dominated dead servers. Tonight we’re up against two strong servers, and holding our own. At least in EBG we’ve been handed a “warm” welcome to tier 3 and clearly ganged up on, pinballing back and forth from North to Southeast fighting off DB zerg after FA zerg and I don’t recall seeing either of those servers taking land from each other for the 4 or 5 hours I was in tonight.

This is more fun. This is far better than what we’d had for a while now, enjoy it.

The fights in the Lord room of SM were a lot of fun.

We were overhyped, but that doesn’t mean we don’t belong here. I don’t know all this about so many transfers over the last few weeks, the same commanders I’m used to seeing were leading and the people that are used to following them were doing so. Enough with the troll posts. Lift your heads up Maguuma, you belong at this level among good competition and who knows where the week will end.

Monztor.9207:

Gonna be sad I’ll miss the openers in an hour, was looking forward to seeing new starts and seeing some of our training pay off

But I’ll be gone for the whole weekend so good luck to all the servers! I will mail someone cookies if someone gives score updates!

done

Don’t understand the complaints. The guilds are dedicated to WvW, the communication is good. The commanders work together across all BL’s. And we’ll see how we respond in the coming weeks in higher tiers against better competition. The game just came out like 5 or 6 months ago, it’s still new and it’s not unreasonable that guilds are still building alliances and settling into their worlds. There’s no way one person could know on release day which world would end up dominating others in WvW. Once transfers are done, then it’ll really matter. What’s probably going to happen is we’ll have 8 or 10 really strong servers, and the rest will be lame ducks. It’s unfortunate, but that’s how it goes. There are a lot of players in the game that have no interest in WvW, and they should stick to those other servers. Who cares if guilds are trying to make a place in a new server as long as they’re willing to work with the other guilds in that server.

Glad to be in tier 3. Excited to see some quality competition.

ALL HAIL GREAT LORD FLAMERAM

Resouled.5614:

Basic might stacking combo with EA and Arcane Wave:

Start in either water or air> switch fire, fire 4> switch earth while moving a bit forward, dodge backwards, hit arcane wave, earth 4, 5. Churning earth will actually blast finish twice even when the combo field is gone before the churning goes off, activating churning is a blast finisher. With this and boonduration, sigil of battle you should be at 18-19 stacks of might.

That’s 4 stacks AoE (12 might total for group and self) plus possibly 7 more for yourself (1 from fire attunement, and 6 more if you have 2 cantrips on your bar and spell slinger). The most might you can stack in a single chain d/d is 12 on party and 19 on yourself. Churning Earth will display the AoE Might message on your screen, but will not trigger the 3 stacks until after the blast. You can be knocked down during Churning Earth cast time and the might will not trigger.

s/d or s/f is better for AoE might, but it requires a little more work, 6 AoE might plus the 7 on yourself. S/D is easier because there’s only 1 attunement change (from fire to earth) whereas S/F requires Fire, Water and Earth attunement changes.

Don’t forget, if you have another ele who can put down healing rain, you can AoE heal for 4 blasts on d/d or 6 on s/d-s/f too.

wish more ele’s understood that we are extremely useful in WvW and Dungeon’s if we focus on these support roles as well as just our own damage output.

Blind affects “next” outgoing attack, if the bubble caused by, say Null Field is still present when the enemy attacks, does blind continue to reapply itself until Null Field dissipates? This obviously requires the correct traits in Illusions for blinds applied on glamours. I assume it only matters when an enemy enters or leaves the bubble, but if they stay in it it only affects the first attack.

boons from aura’s are shared, but I agree, if boons from cantrips were shared, it’d be nutz

my favorite facepalm… when someone in your dungeon group, before you’ve even started a section says…

“just stay in fire.”

lol to those who don’t ele… and epic facepalm when it’s another ele… those are the guys I hunger for in WvW

it’s funny, now that I think about it, it’d be awesome if we could just have 5 more trait points JUST 5 TINY POINTS ANET

Then you could still run 15 in arcane to get fury on swap and have 10 in power for might stacks with spell slinger.

c’est la vie I suppose.

I prefer healing power to vitality personally, and with might stacks I’m not too worried about condition damage. I wear full zerkers exotic jewels for a little extra punch. I figure either I’m going down or they are, and if they’re going down, I want it quick.

i believe regen is affected by healing power yes. the best part of healing rain is not so much the healing it gives, but all your teammates sending out healing bolts, shooting regen arrows through it, blast finishers inside it, etc. I also pull the staff out when I come up to a keep, just more versatile for that situation.

as far as 1v1 goes, it’s rare I have to heal even once, let alone multiple times in that kind of fight. we can throw down so much damage, knockdowns, magnetic grasp to keep them from running, etc, as well as stack boons, especially protection when you need it, most of the time you should only ever lose a 1v1 to someone who is frankly just a better player than you, which happens to all of us, in my case I really only ever lose 1v1 to really good thieves who get sneak me and I flub a mist form, or to any mesmer worth their salt, other then that, you should be fine.

So, you’re standing on a wall in a keep on WvW and you can barely reach the ground in front of you?

This doesn’t make sense to me. Meteor shower, healing rain… c’mon, we’re elevated, it’s unrealistic that our range should is shorter when we’re elevated. Siege works better the higher it is in most cases, why doesn’t our class… I’m guessing ranger’s barrage is the same way… doesn’t make sense to me.

d/d is what a lot, maybe even most ele’s run now a days, although I’m seeing a lot more s/d in WvW and play it some myself too. However, d/d really doesn’t shine until you get those trait points and learn how to perma lots of boons during fights, and even some when you’re just out and about (an ele who can’t perma swiftness doesn’t deserve to ele).

I was old school ele, so the learning curve was rough for every class from day 1 of release, ours especially. There’s lots of great guides now that the game is a few months old, I suggest reading some (I know I have been on mesmer and thief, the next two alts I’m working on).

Although some disagree, my preference is dungeons for leveling, plus you’ll want the exotics when you hit 80 so it’ll be nice to have all those tokens stored up by then, imagine hitting lvl 80 and immediately being able to exotic out all your gear, and have enough gold to skin over with tier 3 cultural… dungeons only viable way to do that…

downside of course… the grind… for me that’s not a problem, I usually only have a few hours a day to play at best, so it’s nice to feel like I’ve really accomplished something in a short amount of time.

Up until lvl 35, map out all the starting areas and the 25-35 areas.
After that, do all 3 explore paths on AC daily. You do not need to have done story mode to get into explore, just someone in your group must have. Those 3 paths net you a fair bit of tokens for the dungeon, about 3g or more, should jump you up at least 3 levels no matter what level your at (each dungeon path completed gives 70% towards next level, plus all the exp you get from the kills) and will take you about an hour and a half to complete in a good group. After that, hit those map completions again.

As far as wep sets, d/d is amazing the higher you get, need to be able to spend those trait points for it to really shine. Up until that point, as boring as staff is for some people, its a great way to learn about combo’s and finishers, the lifeblood of any ele. Scepter/dagger is another viable option at earlier levels, and a little more exciting gameplay than staff… but d/d once you get to lvl 40 or 50 and on is a favorite of most.

ele is a steep learning curve at first. What makes an ele great once you get to the top is attunement swapping regularly to perma lots of boons during fights… but before you get those trait points to spend, it can be quite frustrating.

I recommend she consider scepter/dagger to start, that way she can have some ranged safety but still lay down some good damage. As she can start spending more and more trait points, she’ll probably switch to dagger/dagger. I was an early-on ele, from day 1 of release, so for those of us finding our way in a new game, the learning curve was rough. I spent my first 10 levels in scepter/focus and then staff for a while… my how much I’ve learned since then. I have about 600 hours logged on ele.

Staff actually isn’t a terrible wep set early on, especially if you have someone else with you. D/D works fine, I used from probably lvl 40 and up, but it really doesn’t shine until you get those trait points and learn what ele is all about, blast finishers and stacking boons on yourself and your team.

Also, if you’re a good boyfriend you’ll be running with her helping her level, and maybe taking some of that melee off of her

I’ve been running AC power/vit/tough gear, but I’m thinking of trying a precision/vit/healing power gear some time just to see if it makes a difference. With ele I’ve found that with all the boons we can maintain, my biggest concern has less to do with keeping myself alive when someone is plinking at me, but more the massive backstab crits that can take you down in 3 or 4 hits if you’re not prepared or if mist form is on CD. I’ve been very pleased with with the gear I’m running now.

as far as your specific question, I just don’t think d/d is the right wep set if you’re looking to be traditional “healer.”

for the most part I don’t think we have a lot of blast finishers for healing on d/d, which is what you’d be looking for for group heals, compared to staff. D/D is more of an offensive wep set then staff, so I’d focus more on offensive/defensive boons, which you can stack well as an ele on yourself and group, and keep a staff in the bag for when you need it. I do run 30 in water, but that’s more for sharing aura’s then group heals. I don’t know any numbers on how healing power increases, but I’m sure someone has done a spreadsheet somewhere.

how much is a makeover kit? not that I’d consider it, just wondering what people are paying

rolled a female human ele on day 1 of release. White hair. I’m sad to see it too.

I feel like that guy who came home from WW2 with a tribal band tatoo, he must have been kitten when the ’90’s came around and every college frat kid in the country had one.

also in party’s, if you have the water trait 30 where you share aura’s, you can perma swift your entire team too, helpful in WvW

no, I didn’t say it caps at 1m. I said when you hover your mouse over the icon it will only show 1m, even if you have over a minute of swiftness.

i probably wasn’t clear, apologies

i don’t use arcane wave, and stack to 17 might after the chain tarvok posted and popping cantrips, however for dungeons I really should consider swapping cleansing flame or armor of earth (both give 3 stacks with power trait spell slinger) out for arcane wave if it’s a 10 stack add. Cleansing flame does serve a dual purpose for WvW and PvP, helps get out of tricky spots when rangers, thieves or other ele’s slow you up, however for dungeon runs, I’d sacrifice the condition removal and 3 stacks of might from cleansing flame for the 10 stacks that wave offers!!!

@timebomb perhaps you’re right, but I’ve never been outrun by a thief

33% swiftness, but duration doesn’t end. However the timer stops at a minute, so if you hover your mouse over the swiftness boon icon to see how much time is left it’ll cap at 1m, even if you have over a minute of swiftness… when I was learning boon stacking and had way too much towards boon duration I remember running the zerg in straits of devastation and looking down and seeing that 1m timer for like 20 seconds or so, so you can stack much longer than a minute, but it wont register.

ele is all about attunement swapping and stacking boons on yourself and allies. I run mainly dungeons, WvW and PvP. I’m primarily d/d and I wear AC exotic armor, power/vit/toughness. I have boon duration runes, precision/crit sigils and weps, and zerkers jewelry. It is insane support for your team, especially dungeons, maintaining perma swiftness at all times and perma fury and stacking at least 15 might to open during battles (can easily stack 25 might on a second pass through my attack chains) on yourself and all allies. Ele is a great for offensive boons and while other classes have to sacrifice their own dps for helping their team, ele’s do not.

I have about 600 hours logged on my ele, here’s the build I’m currently using, have tweaked it from time to time back and forth from 10/10/10/30/10 and 10/10/10/20/20.
http://www.gw2builds.org/create/bwe_1/elementalist#1.0-2.12.9.10.3-10.10.10.30.10-13.11.2.9.2.7.6

I always carry a scepter and staff in my bag, especially necessary for WvW.

human, female, with tier 3 cultural… smexy

didn’t bother reading every response so if this is a repeat, apologies.

Ele is a difficult profession to learn, harder to master, but once you get there you may never go back. I’ve got about 600 hours logged on my ele, multiples any other character, and been playing her since the beginning. It took a while to learn how (I think) it’s meant to be played, but attunement dancing is all it’s about.

Consider investing in a good gaming mouse, one with at least 4 thumb buttons. I use a razer naga, overkill I know, but I use 9 of the 12 thumb buttons, and have all my attunements there. Very easy to switch.

I’ve been running something similar, especially in WvW and dungeons… I sacrifice the extra 10 in arcane for the might i get from power when I’m in a party, I carry full zerkers jewelry (although I’m working on my fotm rings and stuff) and AC exotic armor, power/vit/tough with 2 runes of monk, 2 runes of water and 2 runes of (I think rage) whatever give fury duration.

even with less in arcane, with the runes I’m able to maintain perma swiftness and fury, keep at least 15 stacks of might on myself and allies, crit chance at 60% after fury, crit dmg at 63%.

Here’s mine: http://www.gw2builds.org/create/bwe_1/elementalist#1.0-2.12.9.10.3-10.10.10.30.10-13.11.2.9.2.7.6

what if they only have 4 fingers?