Guild Wars 2

tanztante.6532:

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

just keep practicing, Staff can actually beat D/D but you’ll need crazy luck and skill to pull it off (luck as in bad opponent).

well, in pvp i consider an opponent beaten, when he gives up or takes too long to cap the node. on some nodes, it’s fairly easy to outplay a d/d ele, since his damage is not the highest and your survivability with staff is nearly similar. plus, you have the same cantrips. that only applies to staff support though. surviving an equally skilled d/d with a zerker staff build is much much much harder. close to impossible, i would say.

Kako.1930:

I haven’t seen as many staff eles in tpvp ever since they announced the nerf to meteornado though. For a while, it seemed almost meta to have a meteornado bomber ele on a lot of the teams.

i haven’t seen anything else than support staff eles in eu pvp since i myself tried out the meteornado on an offensive staff spec a long time ago. i guess the meta in EU’s very different from NA

I basically only run zerker spec with elementalist nowadays.
Zerker staff, Zerker D/D, Zerker D/F just don’t like the high apm requirement for S/F and S/D fresh air builds. I prefer my combat fluid, consistent and with high dmg.

Greatsword-signet, soldier amulet… heal on dodge, sigil of energy etc.

just keep pressure on him, he’ll back down or stay downed if ya do it right. Though there are scarier builds out there for elementalists the fresh air build is not to be underestimated. In the right hands it can turn someone near unbeatable.

Second guardian now and trying to figure out why you brought a hammer….

just keep practicing, Staff can actually beat D/D but you’ll need crazy luck and skill to pull it off (luck as in bad opponent).

Mbelch.9028:

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

Mbelch.9028:

This is just my personal feelings speaking, but all condi builds can just go into the trash. For all classes. This game would be better off without them

disagreed, the thief, warrior and ranger condi-spec are not trash.

Disagree all you want. I’m not saying they’re not effective. They’re annoying. Low skill floor, low skill cap and high frustration factor for others.

They’re just annoyances. Making conditions part of power builds and reworking the game to move away from condition damage is my personal vision for the game.

That’ll never happen. But I can dream.

I have highlighted why I disagree. Zerker thieves are more annoying than condi specced ones. Condis can be seen and countered a backstab cannot.
As for skill caps. condi warrior and condi ranger aren’t that easy.

Avead.5760:

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
no more ground targeting, I hate it because it stops me from getting into the atunement dancing. If I could I’d hide this post I don’t want more skills to be ground targetted. Arcane Wave becoming a ground target spell has already ruined the skill for me.
If you prefer ground targetting just use staff don’t change the other weaponsets.
Seriously if this were to happen I’d quite the game all together.

So because you cant handle 1 more variable when usning 2 skills the rest of us will stay with crap.Those skills even with the delay they have.. could be so much more than what they are now if only you could lead the target when using them. I cant be more certain when im saying that id witness a huge increase in how many DTs i land if i could chill a target and then throw it at the direction he is heading instead of the location he is at that moment. Or the possibility of reliable zoning areas to save/help teammates more reliable blasting etc..It would be so good and such a buff to s/f !!
Comet is aoe comes down pretty fast.Im sure if it was ground targeted you could catch more people in his radius as well.

if they let you choose to either auto-target or ground target y’rself then I’m fine with it but simply imposing something on everyone even though it’ll make it more complicated and near impossible for some just because you think you might be able to land more hits is selfish and not very nice.

Gorani.7205:

>> The Signet buffs are nice across the board.

>> The Glyph changes are a first step and reward active use of skills. Sadly they did not take a second step and reduced and tweaked some recharge times on them e.g. with making “Quick Glyphs” have a recharge reduction from 20% to 25% and also reducing cool down and duration of GoEP to encourage more active skill use and make it viable as a stun breaker.

>> The trait changes are a great improvement for Contingency and Rod. Ashes has to be checked in game because of possible internal cool downs.

>> The nerf on Meteornado and FGS#4 was lingering for a long time and is fine. What could have been done better is giving us a bit more as a trade off, like (again, rewarding active skill use) reducing the recharge on Tornado to 120 (and Whirpool too which ATM has 30 secs longer cool down) and non FGS to 150. They allowed the “exploit” of these skills for a very long time, that’s why I think a little buffing is OK, because those huge damage spikes did not appear out of nowhere after a recent patch.

>> Not OK is the nerf to Burning Speed/Retreat which is a by-product of the FGS#4 nerf. They have to work on that, because it randomly reduces the damage of skills not connected to the skill that was balanced.

+1

most definately.

Belorn.2659:

Tornado will be in the same league of conjure earth shield. There is not a single aspect of gw2 in which it will be favored to use.

In WvW, it is a liability in which all party support and DPS is sacrificed for a weak kd aoe which has smaller area than lava font. If you are facing semi-competent players, or just a large enough group, they will have stability. All you will have done is removing yourself from the fight.

In PvE/PvP/dungeons, its useless, and often counter-productive.

Earth shield can be used…
As for the tornado nerf, its completely unforgiving. Do elementalists have any good elite skills once these nerfs come to pass? I’m fine with the rest of the changes but our elites are being nerfed to the point where they’re worse than ordinary weaponskills.

Mbelch.9028:

This is just my personal feelings speaking, but all condi builds can just go into the trash. For all classes. This game would be better off without them

disagreed, the thief, warrior and ranger condi-spec are not trash.

I use D/F + glyph of elemental power (in air it applies weakness). Nowadays I’m back to using Pyromancers puisance, lava tomb and blasting staff for a nice aoe when I go down. Half of my kills are due to my downed skills >_<

panicbutton.1053:

@Swimsasa, would you mind posting the D/F build you’re referring too(unless its literally all zerker as you mentioned), as it would be interesting to know what food/util you run? I was originally interested in D/F but made the post in reference to D/D so that more people could relate to the topic I main a thief and constantly get my butt handed to be by talented D/F ele’s, so I figure it would be interesting to try one out.

@Carpboy, I only notice less condition, and more critical percentage/damage with the link you posted. I feel like one could easily tune the link I posted for that, with slightly inferior stats. That and all ascended gear, which all in all will lead me to crafting, which is what I’m trying to avoid doing

What I’m currently running is literally all zerker but with lava tomb. 66002 D/F
Its crazy how fast people go down with it and when you go down (which you will) you’ll do even more damage then before >_< (2k lava tomb and 3k on downed skill)

But when I’m in a more serious mood I use 60026 or 60206 or 40226 or 40244 and I do sometimes pick different grandmasters besides evasive arcana.

Purple Miku.7032:

Why don’t these skills have ground targeting? It doesn’t make sense to me why things like banners, conjures, and earthshaker on warrior hammer F1 should have it yet these two do not.

Doesn’t it seem silly to have to do this with your camera every time you want to cast this spell without a target?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8aTckoIrxI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isY7G4uNYP0

I don’t see how giving these two skills ground targeting would have any drawbacks, so… they should be implemented ASAP.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
no more ground targeting, I hate it because it stops me from getting into the atunement dancing. If I could I’d hide this post I don’t want more skills to be ground targetted. Arcane Wave becoming a ground target spell has already ruined the skill for me.
If you prefer ground targetting just use staff don’t change the other weaponsets.
Seriously if this were to happen I’d quite the game all together.

Its good to see so many D/F elementalists since I’m one too. This morning I did some pvp as a staff ele zerker and was able to beat 1v2’s against thieves while skirmishing. It was early so I wasn’t even playing at my best and obviously neither were they. Won about 60% of the 1v2 fights against them. Then when I got beat bad by them I switched to D/F and completely wrecked them :p

panicbutton.1053:

@Lostwingman, good question! I’ve noticed conditions from rotations to be pretty effective. Since a traditional D/D ele seems to be more sustain than burst, keeping a mediocre amount of condition is nice. I hope someone with more experience can contribute..

@Swimsasa, what about toughness and healing power? I would assume that a talented d/p thief could drop you incredibly fast if you cant tank/heal through his initial bursts.

Keep a constant eye out for thieves in all directions, If you see a thief stealth count to 3 and dodge. Also I use D/F so I have plenty of defensive capabilities even with a little bit less healing power and toughness.

DrDivine.5378:

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

D/D 02066 or 00266 for starters who still need to learn the skills, combos and mechanics I’d say try cleric amulet, sigil of battle, sigil of doom, signet of restoration, armor of earth, cleansing fire, glyph of elemental power and pick FGS if an opportunity arises to use it.

Thank you, I’ll have to try this one out. Some class click with me (mesmer, engi, etc.) while others don’t (Thieves lol), I think ele is somewhere in the middle

I play all professions except mesmer (initially because last time I played mesmer it was WAY too op) but now its just because I lack the character slot for it.

I play all professions in tpvp. I had trouble learning thief, ranger and guardian but every other class has been quite easy to learn. Got 1500 hours on elementalist and started with the above mentioned build, once you’re used to DD cleric switch to Celestial, once y’r use to celestial try different weaponsets and see which fits your general playstyle best. Once you find your prefered playstyle get real good at it and when the time is right switch to zerker. Once you master zerker spec in tpvp 1vx fights you will have truly mastered the profession.

As for the thief:
Carrion amulet, Krait runes, Sigil of Agony, Sigil of Geomancy, D/D and P/D, 10616.
battle-seq.: Steal-switch to D/D, spam death blossom a couple times, stealth and retreat. Rinse and repeat each time your initiative is up again.
That’s step 1 to learning to play thief, I’m still working on that first step; it allows you to contribute in tpvp matches and I have once beaten a 1v2 against 2 thieves with it. Was lucky on the rally though :p

D/D 02066 or 00266 for starters who still need to learn the skills, combos and mechanics I’d say try cleric amulet, sigil of battle, sigil of doom, signet of restoration, armor of earth, cleansing fire, glyph of elemental power and pick FGS if an opportunity arises to use it.

Honestly based on my recent experience I’d drop the celestial and just go full zerker. Been testing it out in pvp, still in the early phases of testing it but so far I’ve been able to take down 2 thieves at the same time multiple times in several matches. Different thieves every time. With every other set-up I always die with facing a thief-combo.

But as for celestial-like pve stats. I go for 2x knights trinkets, 2x cleric trinkets and 2x zerker trinkets. Then depending on my weariness I go for full zerker armor, soldiers armor or clerics armor. I also have rabid armor but rarely use it nowadays since you can get high condi dmg with mightstacks as well.

Signets might seem good on paper but in the field I find ’m lacking. I prefer running earthshield by a long shot. But. Signet of Air is a nice stunbreaker, speedboost and aoe blind.

I’d say staff ele in tpvp is doable. In fact all weapon combinations are doable in tpvp. Just gotta know your enemy and make sure you bring the right counters to everything. This means, passive healing, passive and active condition removal, dps, cc, support and some spell or another that lets you stomp people without getting interrupted. Too often I’ve seen players play really well but then fail to stomp in time or at all.

For the answer of the above mentioned question see the videos below:

sorry for the low quality, I made single-atunement builds for all 4 atunements followed by a build using all 4. I went through similar motions for all 5 builds and as you can see below the 5th was shortest by far (forgot to take down the light golem though).

Fire (4 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnrdQPpd5S8

Air (4 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5LI8Bxv7_8

Water (7 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwnP2Xfd-ds

Earth (5 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4lFzWnqayE

All 4 atunements (3 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2EQ2i2aGh0

Recorded and all but the quality is very very low as expected.

Fire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnrdQPpd5S8

Air:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5LI8Bxv7_8

Water:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwnP2Xfd-ds

Earth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4lFzWnqayE

while I am of the same opinion of the previous commenters I can’t help but think of this as a fun challenge.
After 1500 hours of playing elementalist its grown to be kinda dull. So maybe as to challenge myself I could try out this one-atunement thing. I’ll record and upload the results.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAsYVnMqQJLWLIusAXLGQQoWFAtfhaoFc3E3wXnyPqgUqA-TJxGABA8EAy9UAwUZAR2fAA
Try something like this. Important to note is: use the f2 skill from river drake when river drake is positioned with its mouth towards the target foe. Please do use this skill as much as possible.

Kaybosh.5183:

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

XD, I guess I won’t need to make a video then…

same weapons, same rune, same amulet, same armor and almost the same pets and almost the same trait setup only I use different utilities.

xD contact me a in game a video with double power rangers would be awsome
.

Actually I’ve met about 3 people with this exact build already over the past 3 days. Even without good coordination as long as we were within 1k range from one another we could burst down anybody that came even remotely close.

frostbow ftw.
04226 all damage traits/arcana.

lure in big mob and pack ’m nicely together, then apply vulnerability if possible, cast frostbow, switch to water and cast no. 4 with an arcane shield on you.
in pvp you can take down the heavy golem with just that one skill alone.

CDC.3810:

thx for feedback and im in sorrow’s furnace

2bad, I’m on a piken square based guild.

oooooooh I’m sooooo happy right now all those changes greatly compliment my new current ranger build. I wonder when this patch’ll become live. Especially glad about the change to signets, that was such a horrible grandmaster trait that you just had to have…

Cecilia.5179:

I ran a lb/gs moment of clarity ranger in WvW for 3 days. I had surprisingly good success with it, but there were a few things I noted:
-you never realize how many reflects and projectile blockers there are until you play ranger
-thieves are by far the hardest fight
-spider F2’s have misleading tooltips (says your next attack, but it’s your spider’s next attack)
-hunter’s shot is very unreliable
-a good hilt bash maul combo hits like an eviscerate
-gs 4 is amazing. Almost 3 skills in one.
-people underestimate you and suffer the consequences
-great at chasing
-the upcoming buffs will only make things better for me
-some people are too lucky with random dodges

I love the GS random dodges, solo’d a champ with just that, the dodges lined up perfectly with the bosses’s attackspeed.

XD, I guess I won’t need to make a video then…

same weapons, same rune, same amulet, same armor and almost the same pets and almost the same trait setup only I use different utilities.

Don’t know about you but I like longbow for its vulnerability stacking… Then I hit ’m with no. 5 on greatsword so that no. 2 can hit for 50% more damage. Have hit opponents for 9k dmg with the no.2 alone, it makes for a decent burst even with soldiers amulet.

mash up some clerics and zerker D/D or D/F or soldiers with runes of the grove or runes of strength or ruby orbs, could also use Staff but its hard to master that weaponset for most. 02066 standard build should let you roam quite nicely.

D/D 02066 or Staff 02066 or 64220

1v1 is easy, the problem is that thieves never roam alone. Just this morning I downed a thief 3 times and every single time I get interrupted and killed when trying to stomp. Thieves also like to jump into 1v1 fights often in the opponents favor. This is why their backstab is so ruthless because they stab you in the back right when you least expect it.

As for how to beat a thief; here’s a tip:
if they use death blossom alot watch your bleedstacks.
if they don’t their burst thief so you should apply weakness on them when you can
if they stealth count 2-3 seconds and then dodge preventing them from stealthing again with no. 5
if they use shadow refuge counter with updraft or churning earth
if they roll around alot apply movement impeding condis.
if they use sword, stay away from it….

reading your story,
I’m no elite or don’t consider myself to be but reading about what you want to do I think you should try out Celestial stats instead of Rampager.

Also a true dpser only shines when he’s able to deliver the pay-load. Condis get cleansed. Therefore stacking many condis is worthless, it is far more important to just continue to apply pressure through condis AND direct dmg staying alive so you can do more damage is also important in every situation. I prefer to kill my opponents before they do damage and conditions tend to allow your opponents to do damage on you while direct damage doesn’t. Also since you almost never pvp alone you might be running with people who do fully spec for conditions and your weak conditions might overwrite theirs thus nullifying much of their damage.

That’s all the general feedback y’r gonna get.

As for the guild.. What server are you on? Am in 3 guilds, officer in 2 and guest in the third. One is for general fun, Two is for teaming up with people for tpvp and Third is for big meta events like Wurm and Tequatl.

lightning rod should be more like something that happens when y’r hit…

:o you call that a lightning whip build >_<

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAoYhcMKaWzwnBd0AOA2oPg4IQAoDW+KMFeCA-TxBFABIp8zhTAAN7PgqSQVU/ZD9AA8AAAA-e

try this!!! I love doing random builds but they need to work in pvp.

So basically the idea is spamming lightning whip with glyph of elemental power active to provide near permanent weakness on foes. Next is the arcana grandmaster trait in combination with arcane power which lets you apply blind 5×.

Also if you really want an air build why didn’t you equip sigil of air? Ya should actually also use the rune of air but the rune of the ogre is better.

ah and as for the idea behind the build, blind ’m and burst ’m thus preventing them to do damage to you or your team mates… so in a way its a support build.

1st, you get the boss into a corner; untarget him, cast FGS and use 3 and 4 against the corner/wall so that the fiery trail hits the boss.
2nd anything works, I prefer D/F overall but FGS is a conjured weapon so it replaces your weapon skills. not sure but the fire grandmaster trait might be able to help as well.
3rd Preferable zerker stats though. and
4th Ele can give lots of might around 12 with D/F aoe. Or you could give ally a lava axe and let him do it himself.

cry for joy I hope.

I also main elementalist, champion magus at that (have been working kitten the achievement today only to find out I already had it).

2400 hours over all, play all 7 professions except mesmer. All at lvl 80 with 1400+ hours on elementalist.
I’m hanging out around the 95-96% of tpvp fooling around with random builds across all classes (except mesmer).

Here’s my gripe:
Doesn’t matter what profession I play if there’s one good thief in the game I’m bound to die whenever he shows up. In fact 90% of my deaths are either by being outnumbered 1v2+ or because a decent thief showed up.
The remaining 10% are just really good players.

What I want to say with that is that thief are not just the bane to elementalists but to all professions. If any profession goes slightly offensive they’re gonna feel more hurt by these thieves. THIS is also why I think ya shouldn’t compare our dagger fire #5 skill with the backstab… Instead think of #3 on the dagger in fire. Its an evade, (jump finisher… I wish) with good damage and a burn + a firefield for mightstacking (possible fury). Please point out any skill that compares to the usefullness of this one skill. I can’t think of any.

Next; your sad about Dagger fire no. 5 and air no. 4 but only when they miss….
Sometimes skills miss, they can be evaded, blind, blocked, invulnerability etc. This is not just something the elementalist has to deal with but all professions have to deal with it…. and you’ve only complained about dagger off-hand, why not try focus off-hand? Takes some getting used to but it’ll benefit you greatly in the end.

Message has gotten quite long… sorry… But honestly ya don’t need to worry. Elementalist is now fun AND rewarding to play, ever since that april 15 patch. Before then… well lets say it gave me enough reason to try out the other professions which are now all lvl 80. Elementalist was nerfed too much; WAY too much. I just hope this upcoming patch doesn’t ruïn the sweet balance the elementalist now has.

all my builds use shortbow… in my opinion its by far the best weapon the ranger has…
I use it in a power build, the conditions are just an added bonus.

as in I’ve tried it with conditions but its just kinda clunky. It can be effective but still… its clunky.

imagine this:
max crit damage is as far as I know somewhere around 213%, + 15% from arcane air trait, +10% while above 90% hp x2 (runes and trait), 5% from sigil, 20% on targets below 33% hp, 10% when within 600 range, +20% dmg while in water on vulnerable foes.
Since each percentage boost will up other boosts it’ll do even more damage than just addig it all up so you’ll do over 300% damage if you got all of that equiped. + there’s still the vulnerability stacks on the opponent to take into account.

For fun I did all that with frostbow on a stunned target (another+20%) and then cast 2 and 4 while in water atunement. With that one skill you can bring down all that is in its path. Sadly its a giant telegraphed aoe so I can only see this being effective in pve; tried it in pvp, works fine the first couple times but later… not really

AR = blast finisher, look it up in wiki to get the exact details.
ER = not needed unless you don’t have enough condi removal
Signet is for early mornings or late evenings when y’r tired and lazy.

On my tanky ranger build I use both and the signet that gives passive health regen plus its an extra stability. Sigil of purity and sigil of generosity + runes of water or grove.

AdziH.2360:

absorbing all conditions for duration could be an option….

there’s a signet for that, might work well in combination with the shout.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWnMISjDW4AWNAdEGwAwCnACA9wR3gyrhtQYA-TxRBABecgAuS5XHXQAa2fAgHAAlq/YmSQA-e

try this, use the glyphs in earth to tank for you, in fire for extra dps.
cantrips give you extra might, dodging into your fire field while in earth will grant you might as will no.2 in fire field or heal skill in fire field. You can create fire fields with 2 and 4 in the fire atunement. Make sure to use your crowd control to set up your big hits.

trooper.2650:

So, while I am leveling with a mix of scrolls and open world to get the feeling, I have been trying things here and there but somehow I am more attracted by staff. I really like it.

For now I mainly stick to pvp. WvW would be a waste of time since I do not have the gear nor the experinece. Do you have builds/gear/tips and tricks to share? I am trying to get used to the various combos but which attunement do you mainly start off with or it is rather dictated by the situation or the profession you are facing each time?

I do not feel comfortable to go full glass yet, so for now I am on celestial amulet and a build that looks like this

Any improvment that can be made?

First off:
Staff, is completely fine if not better if you like and learn it. In fact the best elementalist players I’ve fought all except for one used Staff. That one was a skilled S/D burst ele all the others were Staff users.

As for the build (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWnMISjDW4AGNAdEGIEIIv1cNKocd5KA-TJxHwADuAAa2fAwDAoYZAA), I tend to always ask what staff build they run and it has always been like this though the utility glyph of elemental power might be swapped out by lightning flash for extra mobility I presume. Since cantrips give regeneration they also remove one extra condition as does switching to water.

Atunement swapping: I tend to initially start a fight in air because prot, might and regen are all nice to get at the start of the fight due to the ‘Elemental Atunement’ trait that gives those boons when you swap while swiftness which you get for switching to air is pretty much useless in a fight… I think that’s about it.

Ah and evasive arcana; dodging in earth gives an extra blast finisher. Blast finishers are nice to use in water fields to get your team healed back up or in fire field for lots of might or before the game even starts to give decent swiftness to the intire party through the use of blast finishers in the static field.

well its true that veteran eles can easily time their dodges to churning earth; not that it fits in the chain-attack but you could use earth-3 for a set-up for churning earth, can also grab a fireshield while y’r at it.
I used to pop all my cantrips while doing that with the spell slinger trait on. Its good for the burst but really bad for a sustain fight.

I use runes of the grove for more sustain and a pesky root, and runes of infiltration for dps-staff. Since it does an aditional 12% damage on foes below 50%. +5% from sigil +10% from fire trait +crit dmg. But for more sustained dps I prefer to use the runes of the wurm.

I’ve tried out several builds out with blinding ashes and I’d say it can be very very effective but its still quite taxing to play.

here’s what I ran: (went back to my standard build since its not as taxing to play)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAodhcMac2zwwBf0AGAW4EQAoHO6GU+MsFCDA-TJxHwADOBAe2fAwDAQZZAA

Also ran it with D/D for a while and it really shines in 2vx fights. The zerker amulet really helps and since you have such low hp anyways healing back up to 100% is quite easy to do.

condi necro is as cheesy as a stealth spamming thief. We have a trait specifically designed to counter your cheese and you want it nerfed… Now if only we had a trait to counter thieves as well instead of having to build our intire traitlines around the thought of countering condi necros and stealthy thieves.