Guild Wars 2

Guardian (mace+shield) or Warrior (banner/shouts).

Engineer also has a solid bunker build: http://intothemists.com/guides/402-vozs_immortal_tpvp_engineer_bunker_build
^ But it has almost no stability, so eating knockdowns/fears will kill you. Also it’s hard to play.

Warrior + Rifle = ultimate sniper build.

I used to think Engineers with static discharge build could snipe people well (and they can), but then I learned what warriors can do with rifle. It’s insane.

Mash Hog.5672:

Disregard everything that I have said.
I thought you were asking for a WvW Build.

……..

Cmon Gasmic, how does one get so immersed into PvP that they start reading all PvE posts thinking about WvW :P

DEKeyzToChaos.7381:

If you really want to run staff in dungeons, you really should go with excelmaster Guang’s advice and run 30/20/10/10/0. I tweaked what he had a little bit to optimize for arcane lightning instead of taking zephyr’s focus, but if you need the dodges definitely take zephyr’s focus instead.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmKbsxzwjEAkCoEeQADFMK0hQhFQA-jgxAYfAqAQyrIasF3ioxqrxUuER1A-e

You don’t want to stack in melee if you don’t have to, but you will want to stay within 300 range of the majority of your partymates in order to share boons with them. Also, when it’s appropriate, run in to blast your fire field. If things look hairy when you get up close to your target, use fire 4 to get out quickly after that and reposition yourself.

But really, staff is often a suboptimal weapon for combat in dungeons.

Awesome, thanks for this. Already doing the run in > blast > fire 4 trick, and of course fire 4 into a wall for big damage.

The main reason I went with staff is because the other alternative is S/F + LH…and LH was just getting me killed too often, I’m just not good enough at staying alive in melee range to use LH effectively wearing full berserker gear
Also I got sick of scepter 1 fire/air, the damage is so bad compared to staff 1.

Dec10 is bringing Blasting Staff down to Adept tier which will be interesting, might grab that for big lava fonts and meteors…lots more breathing room :P

Umm sorry for being a newbie but…who are you o_O

Surely your mesmer can’t be anywhere near as annoying or cheesy as perma-evade thieves or hambow warriors. You could literally bake enough cheese rolls to make a anorexic girl fat using just those 2 builds, that’s how cheesy they are.

I highly recommend Mesmer since you’re new to GW2.

Elementalist is a very punishing class (lowest health/armor) and a complex class (15+ double-layered cooldowns). It takes a very long time to learn and master…but the sad thing is that you’ll still be performing roughly the same as other classes who require less effort to play, so what’s the point.
Mind you, Elementalist playstyle is quite fun and interesting once you get the hang of it.

Once you level your Mesmer to 80 and start learning how this game’s mechanics and fights work, maybe then you can try Elementalist as your 2nd character.

Mash Hog.5672:

I’m saying take Air Training, Arcane Lightning, and Bolt to the Heart.
You don’t need any of the grandmaster traits.

Ah right, that makes sense.

Mash Hog.5672:

Oh and you can cast meteor shower and lava font then Switch to Air for the bonus 10% damage.

But then I’ll lose the 10% from Internal Fire (Fire VI) won’t I?

Ah ok, thank you

Why Air Training over Arcane Lightning btw? I’m slotting Arcane Wave + Shield, the crit buff lasts 15 seconds, so really high uptime on +10 crit damage. Also I’m sitting in Fire almost the entire time (other than opening with Earth blast finisher).

Mash Hog.5672:

If you are running a staff then you shouldn’t normally be within 600 range of the target.
As a staff you should be far away from most of the devastation meaning you won’t be taking much damage and your health would usually be over 90%.

This makes Vital Striking the obvious choice.

You’re welcome!
Next?

So I take Vital Striking, that still leaves the question of 30 Air vs Stone Splinters. I can pick 2 out of the 3 things I listed, you named 1 :P

It’s really hard to determine whether the +10% crit/damage (all the time) is better or worse than +10% flat damage (within range). The “Real Staff Build For Manly Men” thread here: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/85568-lh-is-the-new-bearbow-the-real-staff-dps-build-for-manly-men/
^ That guy goes for 20 Air + Stone Splinters + Vital Striking.

Hi guys, I’m running a staff build for PvE. 30 Fire is a must for Persisting Flames, but I’ve run into a bit of a problem with the rest of the traits and need theorycrafting help. I have to pick between:
> 30 Air (vs 20 Air) – +crit /damage, I love big crits and this build crits very often
> 10 Earth – Stone Splinters, +10 damage when within 600 range of target
> 10 Water – Vital Striking, +10% when health above 90%

The problem is I can’t have all 3 of those things at the same time, so I have to pick 2 of them. Which 2 would result in the most sustained DPS for long fights?

Please also critique my sigil/slot skills setup :S
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmKbnR2gjDAkCoEeQADFIe8gFQA-jgxAEEgkXR0YLuFRjVXjpcJiqt3FRrGA-e

I know a lot of things come down to player choice/playstyle but would love to have some input

Cheers,
Wintel

Trixie.7614:

Yeah, I prefer to do 5x the damage I do with all my ele skills by pressing 2. Also I enjoy surviving mobs that do 16k damage. I’m having so much fun with my warrior. Too bad I’ve wasted so many hours on that useless thing.

Mobs can’t hit Ele’s for 16k, because we’re balanced around having infinite stamina and dodging forever.

Oh…wait…

You can’t. It’s pointless anyway.

A warrior walks into a bar…the bar disintegrates to get the hell out of his way.

Lordrosicky.5813:

What will be bad is any rabid/settlers build (so almost the only viable ranger, necro and engi builds) vs diamond skin ele. Then you literally do have 0 chance. Even a rank 5 ele will destroy you. Everyone good at the game told anet not to put in more bs like diamond skin, but anet dont care. They just listen to baddies

I didn’t know 1 change deep into a trait-line that no Ele currently goes into means that the entire class changes. I highly recommend you actually PLAY as an Ele before spouting nonsense, so you at least know what it’s like to have the lowest health/toughness out of any class, track 15 different double-layered cooldowns, almost zero build flexibility and have all your survivability tied to dodging (something that everyone else can do as well). Maybe then you’ll realize that Diamond Skin change is almost irrelevant because of how much the Ele has to sacrifice to get it, and royally screw themselves against any build that can deal the slightest amount of direct damage.

Even WoW had a functional ready-check system in it’s 5man Dungeon Finder….back in 2009.
You joined the queue, the system assembled a group, when it was ready everyone had ~30 seconds to accept the ready-check. If someone didn’t accept, the system dropped that person from queue and kept trying to assemble a group. The dungeon/instance would ONLY start if all 5 people indicated they were ready to go. All this happened automatically, it worked great!

We’re all human, we can have things that cause us to go AFK after joining a queue (or forget we queued). It happens. So it was crucial to have a system that could deal with that elegantly. People were only penalized if they went AFK/quit during the dungeon run, an un-removable stacking debuff (condition) which prevented them from queuing again for ~1-2 hours or more.

So why the heck didn’t Solo Queue implement something as like that, such an old idea? It’s good to borrow simple ideas from other MMO’s if they make a positive difference.

I was too tempted to buy the set when it appeared in gem store, lets hope that when they re-do the armor it still looks decent

It seems burst-longbow warriors are the new fad. I thought I could do high ranged damage on my Engineer as static discharge build (glass cannon), boy was I wrong. A warrior comes along and literally melts me with longbow.

Here’s the catch – if I try to go toe-to-toe against a longbow warrior in a ranged fight, he turns out to be VERY defensive with so much more toughness and health (+ blocks + heal signet)….while dealing better ranged damage than me. Not “bunker”, but they still have insane survivability for how much damage they can do! Guaranteed stomps with stability really rub it in.

That’s just not fair. Not fair at all.

Harbinger.8637:

Yes please. It’ll add to the skill cap. Right now people just spam dodge, not using it the way it’s suppose to.

For people who live outside US (e.g. Oceania) and regularly play at 350-400ms latency/ping, “spam dodge” is the only way to play because it’s impossible to dodge on reaction, we have to do it BEFORE the attack even happens (i.e. predict). I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been hit/killed mid-dodge…the game’s mechanics break-down at such high latency.

It’s what happens when an MMO company has it’s entire server farm in one location (Texas) and raises the middle finger to everyone who isn’t fortunate enough to live in the US of A.

What’s the point of having such a discussion when the original poster is flat-out ADMITTING that he has no clue what he’s talking about (8v8 hotjoin casual, if it’s not “godlike invincibile” then it’s not overpowered, etc).

The one class that you haven’t played, according to your sig (hint: hammer time).

Laserbolt.6731:

And when there are only 4 players with a rank greater than 20 in the queue waiting to play SoloQ? Then the higher ranks just do not play for an hour or so?

Then the system has to make an exception, duh.

ITT: Keep Ele’s as stomp fodder

Locuz.2651:

I started this game with 30ish some of the most hardcore pvpers. Multiseason wow glads, tournament level RTS players and high level moba players.

Im the only one who didnt quit within 2 weeks.

But they all bought the game didn’t they? That counts as sales

Rank 20 is too much, Rank 10 is enough IMO.
You can’t expect someone to rank all the way to 20 in hotjoin (some people have jobs/family you know :P), it won’t help them learn the finer aspects of ranked PvP like positioning, strategies, etc which are only available in a more coordinated/stable environment.

The main purpose of the system should be to stop new players from accidentally joining ranked when they have only just started PvP.

It is possible to win 1v1 vs a Thief, but you need to HEAVILY out-play them – so either you have to be extremely good, or they have to be terrible. At the same skill level, the Thief will always beat you because their class is simply better designed for PvP.

Actually the same could be said for most 1v1 scenarios involving Ele

To notice the true speed-difference in combat try out Engineer’s Rocket Boots

Crovax.7854:

That’s because the other healing skills are bad, not HS being too good.

I would recommend playing another class and seeing their healing skills. HS needs to be brought back in line with other “bad” abilities.

noobftw.9654:

+10000
Warrior is totally fine, op nub l2p qq thread. Warrior is not op , all other profs too weak. HS is more than fine, all other healing too weak. Warrior is only stronk when traited. If no trait warrior can’t do everything. Op needs to learn how to dodge. Dodge all warrior attacks op l2p. Op need to keep warrior poisoned 100%. Op need to learn bringing friends to fight warrior, when facing 3 players warrior goes down fast or runs away fast. Warriors is balanced its op doen’t know teamwork. Whoever says warrior can do everything is nub. Warr can dps tank cc sustain support run but Warr can’t steal, can’t clone, can’t invis, can’t haz pet, can’t summons spirits, can’t rtl, can’t backstab, can’t sanctuary, can’t haz z axis teleport…. 100b worst dps skills no one uses it. Kills shot can be dodged reflected. Hammer f1 predictable. 5 is too slow. Wtf warrior can’t even use short bow how can warrior be op?

Oh god…I just…I don’t even…wat

hooma.9642:

is it that bad to invest in arcana knowing it buffs the class mechanic? thats like complaining about investing in discipline as warrior.

Are warriors FORCED to take 30 Discipline for every viable PvP build, or suffer huge consequences?
Because that’s the case with 30 Arcana for Ele’s.

cymerdown.4103:

Nah, it’s that it’s bad game design.

The entire Ele profession could be considered bad game design (at least as far as SPvP goes).
A huge number of impractical/ineffective abilities with long cooldowns, further separated by another set of cooldowns. Incredibly squishy, too many handicaps, not enough reward for skill, no real role in SPvP that isn’t done far better by other professions, extremely restrictive builds, etc.

It’s a buff against 1 specific build of Necro, and against all other builds/profs the Ele will be completely screwed due to over-reaching so far into a useless trait line.

But yeah that image about sums it up :P

Well one of the devs did claim they could do amazing things as Staff Ele (which loses 1v1 to absolutely everything) but at what level and against what kind of players, one can only guess.

This isn’t the thread to be discussing suggestions for Diamond Skin because it all ties in with the greater issue of bringing Ele’s up to par with other classes.

There are far bigger concerns with Dec10 Ele changes than DS.

On my Engi as “full condi build” my very first round of grenades already does at least 1k direct damage. Even Pistol auto-attack can do that.
As soon as the Ele hits 89% health it’s game over because they will be loaded with conditions…assuming they aren’t already getting owned by direct-damage. Thanks to investing 30 points into Earth, they are either lacking cleanse (no water), or damage (no air), or taken a huge hit to overall survivability/utility (no arcana). The cost will never be worth it.

Imagine if you had an amazingly powerful gun, but it only works after you shoot yourself in the foot with it. That’s what Diamond Skin is post-Dec10.

Caffynated.5713:

Wintel.4873:

The same is not true for Ele. Going 30 Earth to pick up Diamond Skin leaves the Ele in a VERY awkward place. 30 Arcana is still mandatory, leaving 10 free points and a mess of a build that will deal pathetic damage…because all the power/damage traits are sitting in Air. What’s the point?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQM9A5LGSpM

Most of the damage came from Lightning Flash + Arcane Wave+Blast + Fire Grab crit, plus you’re wearing Berzerker amulet….so literally ANY Ele build can do that.
You are pretty much screwed in any real combat situation with that build that isn’t fighting an AFK target.
Even after DS buff you will lose to a condi class because once your health dips below 90%, you will be loaded with conditions and it’s game over (no Water traits).

What was your point?

Oblivion.8307:

Current ele state is kill before it kills you, you can’t outsustain the damage people put out unless you go full bunker and in that case you should be 0/0/20/20/30 or 0/0/10/30/30 anyways.

“Kill before it kills you” is something every other profession can do better with their burst builds while having more survivability.
If you’re going so deep into Air/Fire and only 20 into Arcane then you might as well hang a sign on your back saying “please insta-kill me”, I’m sure the nearest enemy with a damage-heavy build will be happy to do it.
You’re just a one-trick-pony, all the enemy has to do is evade/block/whatever your initial burst and then you’re left with nothing, just a sitting duck made of paper. At least Thief/Mesmer can escape easily if their burst attempt fails.

Oblivion.8307:

@guyabove 30 arcana is not mandatory. ele is where balance SHOULD be, i wish idiots would stop trying to get eles buffed when its not the answer, classes need to come down not kittening go up holy kitten.

Well good luck going meta-level without Evasive Arcana, the 1 trait which Ele gameplay revolves around. Heal on dodge, AoE damage on dodge, blast finishers, etc. Dodging = everything for Ele, it’s the only way to survive.

Something is wrong with “ele is where balance should be” considering that it’s an outlier class. That’s like an crazy person who insists they are sane and everyone else is crazy instead.

JinDaVikk.7291:

Wintel you cant call trait lines to a specfic build type…

Engis (rabid) are condi based right? Well every single one uses power/vitality trait lines.

Its not an arguement of op/not op atm its that it’s a bad mechanic and a hard counter. Which shouldn’t exist.

Condi Engi always goes at least 20-30 points in Bombs (condi duration+power trait line). Grenade Kit + Pistol combo allows the engineer to unload a ton of condi pressure very fast. The remaining traits go towards survivability and it all comes together with fantastic synergy while offering great flexibility/variation.

The same is not true for Ele. Going 30 Earth to pick up Diamond Skin leaves the Ele in a VERY awkward place. 30 Arcana is still mandatory, leaving 10 free points and a mess of a build that will deal pathetic damage…because all the power/damage traits are sitting in Air. What’s the point?

Yes it’s a “no skill passive” trait and we need less of those, but we are dealing with a profession that is just plain terrible in every aspect of SPvP and needs ALL the help it can get. Playing Ele successfully needs a whole another level of skill compared to any other class/build. Keeping track of double-layered cooldowns between 4 sets of abilities (or ruin setups, or die), perfect positioning with abilities, perfect dodge timing due to being so squishy, etc. It’s just a punishing class which has to work 3x harder to do the same job.

Just leave Ele alone

Holy knee-jerk reaction…clueless about Ele traits/builds much?

Diamond Skin is a 30-point Earth trait. EARTH. The condition damage tree. If you see an Ele with Diamond skin, they have already put themselves at a huge disadvantage against almost every meta build.

Currently there are NO decent builds involving 30 Earth because “condi ele” is something that barely exists. Necro and Engineer have superior condi application in every way. So you will still see most Ele’s going 30 Arcana + Air/Fire (burst) or Water (defensive).

What is wrong with people lol…

Wait, am I missing something here? Rifle #1 is really nice when used with a burst-oriented build (x/30/x/x/30). It pierces by default and can be traited for 1200 range.

This is probably a minor thing but it’s really great when leveling, it’s what got me hooked to rifle (besides the immobilize + knockback) :P

Raven.9603:

this thread implied there are rangers running traps <.< >.>

thatd be like finding an ele thats thats running some type of glyph spec.

Dude glyph spec is totally OP :P

Actually even calling the class “Elementalist” is misleading to anyone who is coming from most other MMO’s. People usually assume Elementalist = Mage/Sorcerer class, but in GW2 it’s nothing like that. Class descriptions are mostly only relevant to new players and the GW2 Ele just flat-out wasn’t what I expected to be.

In a typical MMO e.g. WoW you have the Mage class, which is very squishy…but to counter that, they are equipped with tools to immobilize/chill targets (root/snare) while hammering them with spells from a distance. Oh and they also have access to some quick get-away spells or emergency “oh poop!” abilities. So basically gameplay revolves around kiting.

But as newbie Ele I found that if mobs attacked me before I was “ready”, the only option was to either run away or die. Almost ALL my hard-hitting abilities seemed to require the target to stand perfectly still, but once they started chasing me it was borderline impossible to land a Dragon’s Tooth or Lava Font. Some (pathetic) kiting abilities are available in Water/Earth, but at low levels switching attunements = shooting yourself in the foot because now you’re locked-out of your Fire for 16 bloody seconds and hitting like a wet noodle. The experience feels quite broken.

Were I a WoW Mage I would quickly hit Frost Nova (immobilize, frost/water), hit Blink (15 yard teleport, arcana) and then proceed to blow up the mob with Fireball/etc. All the spells I need were available to me….but in GW2 playing Ele you need to make super-careful decisions all the time or risk dying, all of that with no real pay-off in damage output compared to other classes.

When I switched to Engineer suddenly I was loaded with a slew of abilities to keep targets at bay (rifle) while being able to hammer them from long range. Ranger can also kite+kill enemies from range better than Ele can, so it greatly confused me as to what exactly was Ele’s PURPOSE in the game when even a Warrior/Thief could equip ranged weapons and have an easier time putting out sustained ranged damage than Ele.

I have come to understand Ele largely as an extremely gimmicky support class with no real focus. All this is putting aside just how RIDICULOUSLY difficult to play Ele is, requiring a whole another level of awareness/timing/etc on abilities compared to the other 7 classes (or dying a lot).

They need to add in the Ele description “greatly reliant on player skill and good ping/latency”. That will stop newbies from accidentally rolling an extremely punishing class that requires decent knowledge of the game’s workings.

The only pay-off to playing Ele is the knowledge that you are playing at genius-level to accomplish the same tasks as other classes, and I guess some people like that sort of thing :P

I like the recent changes to it, the guard rails make it less common to get randomly knocked off. That being said, 3 changes still urgently need to happen:

> Skyhammer Cannon needs to either be dodgable OR no longer have the knockdown effect OR have it’s damage lowered.

> Skyhammer Area is still unbalanced with gigantic glass panels and open edges, heavily rewarding classes with knockdowns/fears or high stability uptime. Warrior/Guardian bunkers are borderline unstoppable…bunkers are supposed to have low damage output, but all that changes when the main way of “killing” is knocking people off edges/glass.

> Points A and C – glass panels need to be GONE, or instead of 3 panels just have 1. It’s still laughably easy for certain classes to push/pull enemies into glass, especially how some can do it from stealth. All concept of “positioning” is irrelevant. Falling down should be ONE of the ways to die on those points (to add flavor), not the entire MEANS of fighting on those points as it often is.
People can still be punished for having bad positioning if they are fighting too close to the edge.

Lordrosicky.5813:

bromi.7809:

and IDK ele diamonds are incoming anyway.

God this is such a fail. More condi immunity. I am sure it will be fun having an INSTA GIB s/f ele chasing me round the map WHO I CANT CC/PEAL FOR MYSELF at all with. Fear shouldnt be effected by condi immunity imo

Any Ele willing to go into 30 earth to pick up Diamond Skin will be a condi ele. I.e. you’re not going to get insta-gibbed by S/F, and you can proceed to stomp their face because Necro is a vastly better condition-friendly class than Ele will ever be. Now you know.

After Dec10 changes you will STILL see 95% of Ele’s running power-based builds, i.e. no Diamond Skin and dipping into Fire/Air/Water + Arcana.

I’ll actually be very interested to see if any condi Ele players even come along in the meta.

Tracker.6483:

Would be nice if a Dev could comment on any plans to address this issue.

They have commented. Multiple times now.

Mister Fluffkin.7358:

Ele´s are truly in a strange spot. They provide tons of aoe dmg in teamfights plus having some nice rezz control due to this, but they are rather weak in any 1on1 situation.

Staff Ele is an extreme version of that. With Fire+Air traits and Blasting Staff combined with Tornado (double power + precision), it’s possible to do HILARIOUS AoE damage.
Meteor Shower can crit around ~5-6K on low-defense builds, that’s EACH meteor randomly falling from the sky (no dodge queue) with a small blast radius of it’s own.

Unfortunately if anyone actually attacks the staff Ele it’s a guaranteed death unless teammates come to the rescue :P

ronpierce.2760:

as purposefully using minions to body block is a skillful tactic

Hahahaha oh god my sides XD

Even taking a Churning Earth to the face really shouldn’t matter considering how much healing and condi cleanse/immunity warriors have.
As an Ele it’s entirely possible to run into an AFK guardian/warrior, go absolutely butter-nuts bringing them down to low health, then they wake up, heal-up and it’s game over for the Ele thanks to pathetic sustain.
It’s either go all into glass and risk getting one-shotted, or get survivability traits but end up being as much of a threat as a toddler armed with a water pistol.

Dec 10 changes seems to be more of a nerf to Ele survivability (yes you read that right, a nerf to Ele survivability) than truly opening up build diversity. ANet is failing to realize some very key things that need to be addressed with that class, like having the lowest base health combined no passive defense/evasion mechanics (compared to what Mesmers and Thieves have), and mandatory Evasive Arcana + Cantrips which will be just as mandatory after Dec 10.

Playing Ele is just one big ball of frustration.

Sounds like an L2P issue. Play carefully, use 1 attack/ability and then back off. The hardest part when fighting an Ele (especially a glass one) is to show discipline and self-control.

A truly skilled Warrior can step on an ant without hurting it. You just aren’t good enough.

How is this different from all those “class tier list” threads we used to have :P

Anyway I’ll chip in:

Guardian = +6
Warrior = +6
Engineer = +5
Necromancer = +5
Ranger = +5
Thief = +4
Mesmer = +4
Elementalist = +1
AFK person = 0

hooma.9642:

maybe u should rate builds and not classes!

Mine are sorted by the best build that classes have use. Most classes have 1 specific build that is considered “meta” (i.e. optimal) e.g. bunker Guardian, hambow Warrior, grenade condi Engineer, spirit Ranger, etc.

Marcos.3690:

I propose a much more interesting topic: Game balance.

I start: Ele is the weakest class I’ve seen in any pvp game. Warrior is godlike.

Ele is actually very strong if the guy playing is approximately ~10x more skilled than the guy he’s fighting. It’s how the class works.

Thank you for advice everyone. I play Elementalist but with my build and health I have to kill people quickly, or they kill me. Thats why mesmer give so much trouble because they keep delaying with clones and going invisible…by the time I find real mesmer, I am out of defense and health and took too much damage.
I get scared to use defense abilities and dodges to survive clone attacks because then the real mesmer might come out and I have no more defense. But if people say that mesmer does bad damage without clones, then I should be OK?
There are different mesmer builds one of them uses a SO MANY clones, no matter how many I kill they just keep coming (no cooldown/limit??) and its frustrating because it feels like 3-4 people are attacking me and im getting nowhere.

I make a mesmer now and level him up to learn how class works. I dont have to do this with any other class because they are simple enough to understand but mesmer so confusing…

Hi guys
How to find real mesmer? Many clones and sometimes the real mesmer runs in a straight line at me pretending to be a clone. And then I get confused because one clone hits me really hard with spinning helicopter sword attack. But then I hit him back and he vanishes, but then there are 3 other clones who appear. But any of those clones could be real mesmer, I can’t hit them all.
I dodge and block many attacks but still can’t find real mesmer and die. Only when I was downed then real mesmer comes to stomp me. That is CHEATING, why not fight me like a man? Too many clones they all look the SAME, what do??

How to find real mesmer? This is so annoying.