Welcome to Vabbi Diva. I am there too :-).
I know that evasive arcana ist the top pick for most eles and it is for vigor running cele eles. But i also like the arcane skills and run S/F with elemetal Surge and Arcane Precision.
I usually go in with firewall and Phönix (+Tooth), swap earth and blow arcane and magnetic wave in the wall. In earth my arcane blast will caus burning(projectile finisher) and a short imobilize! this can land the tooth too and then they are in real trouble.
I usually contiune earth auto and go air for the finisher blind/bolt + the knockdown. This can be davasting ….
(edited by Wolfric.9380)
Unfortunately the combination condi + signets is now weaker. Stone heart helped a lot and thats now exclusive. I think that was done intentionally. I am working on a viable condi ele with scepter that uses bleeding. And it seems to work. But i am still looking to make it perfect, because i often lack damage, especially when much cleanse is up….
Also my playerskill is still not good enough. But after only about one month WvW thats not surprising. I think my build would have won manny fight just by better play. I could often feel the pain of my oponents … even when loosing after 1 minute :-).
I know i might get much more punch using dagger. I think i will try that but the range is something i don´t want to miss :-/. I could use krait runes instead of traveler. But the lack of speed would be awful and loosing a slot to air signet is also bad. Air spec is also not useful.
(edited by Wolfric.9380)
Thats right. And if you get a build done that has condi cleanse without water, then water is no longer needed. Thats what i did. I still use cleansing flame, but no other cantrips and water. Plus i have magnetic wave on my focus and am traited for geomancers training . Arcana helps my group and i get more damage off. So i went F/E/Ar and am fine with it.
Give ele a good arcane Elite. Like:
Arcane Field:
Arcane energy creates an elemental flield relatet to atunement.
Recharge 60. Cast Instant. 360 radius. Duration 6s
Fire: Flashfire. Burns all within for 3 Stacks 6s . Creats a fire flield
Water: Arctic waste. 6s Chill and ice flield.
Earth: Spiked ground. 5stacks bleed for 6s and poison field.
Air: Glitterdust: 6s Blind and Light flield
This would be great and might make picking arcane skills over evasive arcana viable and might be an option to go for offensive arcane over cantrips
(edited by Wolfric.9380)
I did´t know the old system but have no Problem with the new. I do PvE and WvW and its easy to complete three. I am not forced to do world bosses or four events in one zone.
I usually take the vista and collect resources then go to WvW.
I swap it in ocasionally when jumping off a cliff or wall to take a shortcut and for a jumping puzzle (which is rare).
After 3/0/3/3/0 i am now using 3/0/3/0/3
I traded the super cantrips for boons and damage and like it. Maybe i go down a bit earlier but i kill. Its more agressive and has stronger short term defence.
Did always feel water is mandatory, especially for a tanky build but works great without.
I agree that i sometimes miss LF and earth armor but the tradeoff seems fine.
Edit: oh its a D/D discussion … I am not runing daggers :-/.
(edited by Wolfric.9380)
I did not build a D/D ele till now. And if cele gear is out of reach it doesnt help.
I find Knights with a zerker weapon very tempting and did a staff build with it that is quite nice.
But it is has low healing. You have to know how to position and when to disengage.
(edited by Wolfric.9380)
Sorry celestial is account bound :-(. So yes Knighs is a good one.
That might fit then:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAoIA-T1CBwA8Ux5oSOInAgFm8A8AAMrcgoKBp0DUc/hJKB1pOAhAIvFA-w
I would also buy an exotic celestial armor set. I don´t know if you can get exotic celestial daggers from the WvW merhant for badges. Zerker are fine for damage.
Then buy an amulet with your laurel from the laurel merchant in WvW, and one ring.
You can then trade the remaining trinkets for your karma from the temple merchants i suggest soldiers from : http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Keeper_Jonez_Deadrun . Even if thats not celestial you can adapt it with the gem. Als you get more laurel you will change the trinkets out slowly.
This might look like: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAoIA-TVCBwA4V/5oSOInAgFm8A8AAMrco4+Dp0DMRJIhAIvFA-w
Fits you buget and will do the job :-). The rune is a matter of taste.
I did think doing this. It would also help swaping elements making the build much stronger. I will suggest that to him when i see him handling his char well enough. So its the next step. Yesterday we lost a 2:2. After bringing down one oponent, while i had much on cooldown, the remaining warrior attacked him. Well my friend did´t evade taking the beating til down and that dam worrior did constantly heal so i could not bring him down alone :-(. For now a bit more burning damage might do the job.
I think this build is quite fine. When you take geomancers training and rotate elements its a good one. Greatest problem might be it has only one passiv stunbreaker/stability.
Currently we win small fights when i am targeted and get a rough ride if he is on the hit list ^^.
I personally would propably run this version. But its much more active, dishing out more damage.
(edited by Wolfric.9380)
Exactly :-). And i think its realy good for not rotating elements much.
He runs around in air, puting static field and goes to fire for most of the fight. Easy to use, stacks might very fast. Just don´t forget to constantly fire your sigils. I would save earth and water for fleeing oponents or to catch someone in my meteor.
Its a good build for learning positioning, targeting and moving and not to care much about other things :-). I think very good for a casual player that does PvE and WvW without changing his build.
(edited by Wolfric.9380)
Hi
I made a build for a friend, that did play a bit PvE in the past and now came back. Hes had an ele and we finisehd 80 fast and equiped him. So he´s like a new player just pulled to 80 with his first character.
The builds goal is to be easy to use in PvE and WvW and of course work well in both. There won´t be much options to change gear. He got all sponsored and has no karma/laurels left. As a rookie he sould not die in one or two shots and dish out good damage from range.
It think the build will work well and does most automatically. So whats your opinion?
Also i am not shure if we can get the generositoy sigil (Gold is not a problem at all), currently we did put a cheap +7% crit chance in.
(edited by Wolfric.9380)
I am also not sorry for playing a tough condi ele.
I have fun playing it. Fights last long and i have a very hard time against high vit/condi cleanse, but it´s so funny to be that anoying ele running around and not going down.
Yesterday i had a 2:2. A friend, totally rooky, had his first real small scale fight with me.
He es using an easy to play might stacking fire/air/arcane staff ele in knights/soldiers.
I dashed into the two oponents blowing in firewall/dragon tooth/phönix and swaped into earth with stone heart. They both targeted me … and got blasted.
I don´t care that i constantly loose to necros, have hard fights to condi/hybrid builds and can´t bring down bunker builds. I endure long and i destroy most zerkers. Its like a rock/paper/scissors system. And thats great.
Elementalist can´t swap weapons. Elementalist “swap” four elements. You decide between long range (staff), medium range (scepter) and short range (dagger).
Then you get four elemental sets to attune using F1-F4.
Well realy easy solution to autos would be reduce casting times for fire and earth auto to 1s. Not shure it that will already be to much damage increase. If yes i would reduce direct damage a bit.
Thats it eles are passionate and get the max out of their class. Ele is like a swiss knive. Normaly you are lost against the machine guns, rocket launcher and tanks..
But give it to Mac Gyver and ….
I am not shure it works with berserker. I can imagine an aura build for team support. So fire/earth/water maybe dagger/dager and less cooldown for water skills. So you have auras for picking up weapons, auras in the weapon set, protection in auras ….
I am running stone heart and its the reason is love my ele and did stick to her. But thats because i like playing surprise specs and to play for the team als “Decoy”.
But: I can´t bring annything down beside glass cannons if i stay earth. I totally loose against necros, i have troubles against annything with good life and condi cleanse.
But yes, zerker builds are endangered and the most anoying thing for them ist that they are used to blast targests fast but can´t do it with her ele prey if in earth with stone heart. I also fought a mesmer camping earth. It was endless till the assist train rolled over me.
So to say. I am forced to swap out of earth if i want to finish my target. Shure its some kind of evil enduring tactic wating for the right moment to go into air for the assault :-). Its diffrent, its more reactive and a bit more forgiving, but you have to learn how to use it, otherwise you will always miss the chance to kill someone. (Which is often for me … still learning )
For balace you should ask experienced players, and listening to the mass does not work. I work on game balancing for a very long time. When you ignore or override the competence carriers, to please the mass, then disaster follows long term.
But: You must not ignore the comunity! You must always listen to them and develop things they wish.
So the trick is to take the players input and build it with the knowledge of the best. If you only let the veterans work, the game will slowly rot, if you only let the comunity decide the game mechanic will break and you will loose players in “Shockwaves”.
The fun would be if we can localize stealthed players with it … Then the scepter would have a real and mostly unique untility
There is another probem. Eles seem desigend to need more player skill for getting the maximum out, and that maximum is often winning and this will cause complanis. Having much utilities at hand is strong for itself. Use the right mechanic/chain/build in the rigth moment and you win. Even with my low playtime i experienced that. My build destroys most zerkers (but will loose against manny others), and doing a perfect reaction on the oponent can also be devasting. So you can get more out of eles then other classes if done rigth. On the oter side eles bite the dust on mistakes/surprises much easier.
And what effect does that have ? How long can someone be chilled if it´s aplied every few seconds after the “Nerf” ? For me it doesn´t look like a large change just a bit more of a security cap.
Eles don´t complanin about ele is bad. They complain about manny traits and utilities are to bad to use :-).
Staff and dager builds that run water are in a good place. Thats what i said. Water + cantrips are shadowing over the rest.
In the end water is to strong (group support + cantrip synergy) to leave it out and arcane generally supports the playstyle of elemental swaping, regardless what you build.
So no wonder ….
In PvE you want to do damage and fully block/dodge some time. The one healing skill is all healing you usually need. I recomended fire/air/arcane to a friend going full arcane utility for added blasting(critical damage + ferocity boon). You support your team by blowing up the mob …
You go to air for running around and swap to fire after using a few air skills. If you realy want healing swap to water and put down water flields and swap to earth as long as fire is on cooldown.
well scepter can be used, but dager or staff usually are just better depending what you want. But there are viable scpeter builds even if they are more fun builds.
Its only a slight push for auto attacks doing more condition damage like longer burn for fire auto and bleed for earth and you have something that is difrent and good to use in small fights.
I don´t give up condi ele. :-). I tired goning F/E/W with cantrips but i felt my damage was too low. Now i am using arcane skills (F/E/A) + cleansing flame. I go down often, but i always feel that i loose because of bad play. I am in Gw2 for about two month now and still have to learn my controls. The only class i feel is not doable is necro … And mesmer is so anoying, but i can survive.
General i think builds in soldiers with good condi cleanse is very bad for me :-).
But zerker is very bad against me (which was what i wanted). That exta punch from arcane is great and while my healing is limited i give good boon support and have added protection.
I recognized manny oponents come into meele, and when a zerker does that his life is gone faster then he thinks ^^.
An example of a fight two days ago:
It was late and i was left back alone in WvW. A thief jumped on me out of stealth propably thinking i am easy pray. Within 10 seconds i was at 50% and he below 20% with deadly condies on him.
I coud feel his surprise …
But then he cloked and cleared the main condi.
I fired one AE to decolak him but failed, he jumped on me a second time.
And failed again cloaking.
I fired reaper aura (had this up instead of my usual FSG ..)
He sat it out in stealth coming for a third strike.
He failed again, cloaked and i did hit him out of stealth.
He dodged away and cloaked again … How anoying.
At that moment i was below 50% nearly all on cooldown.
He came again … And now he got me, but it was my fault, i still had obsidian flesh as emergency button up, but did´t fire in time.
He was definitly a good player and i failed due to lack of training, but it was a good fight. I get better which each of it and feel my condi build with mainly arcane skills for added burst damage works.
I use S/F as my main weapon set, currently with F/E/R exotic rabid armor, dire+rabid trinkes and a bit power. I use arcane healing, shield and blast with traited arcane surge maintaining the precision boon from it.
I can constantly maintain about 2k dps stream in earth (if not cleasned to much) and add bursts either from arcan as from swaping air/fire when the situation calls it (still need to get that timing better …)
Only the scepter auto attacks seem a bit weak but i like having more range than only close up. I perform well in small fights roaming with a friend. For keep/zerg i swap to staff.
I will propably test mainhand dager now.
Greetings
Wolf
Earth 2 is a bit strange to use. As an instant but hurling wit hcastign time it would be great.
But i would prefer a condi instant. Air has ligning. Earth could have:
poison shard: 6s cooldown low damage 3s posion.
or searing stone: moderate damage with 1 stack 3s burn.
both projectile finishers.
this would make earth more offensive with a condi adon.
As soon as you are going to keep battle staff ist it.
I use scepter in romaing and swap to staff at keeps.
Maybe some skill swaps will do better.
Swap D fire breath with D fire grab.
Swap staff flame burst with scepter dragon tooth.(exchange ranges)
Swap scepter rock barrier with D ring of earth.
I run fire/earth/arcane (previous water) Water was more sustain with cantrips but arcane allows me to bring down oponents and also helps the group more with boons and doing more pressure. I wanted to try air bit i see no real point to go F/A/E.
And I’m still of the opinion that getting around faster is the best boost to leveling speed.
Thats why the first thing i took was sigil of air not even knowing GW2 well after the first days.
Take staff, use fire (+10% damage -33% cooldown trait!) run fast and burn all down. Ad arcane for more damage and its fine.
We all know scepter has good non auto and fresh air supports that.
But if you don´t want to use fresh air you need better autoattacks.
In WvW you meet much more diversity not only meta.
Now much changed and its even more. People try out.
I met a necro 1:1. I expectet to get lots of conditions and i had so much condi cleans with water, clensing flame and focus that i usually don´t care.
I did go down after about 30 seconds fighting (it was just the moment i wanted to fire my heal the second time) not recognizing a condition … he seemed to be a power build and just shoot me down.
That made me change my build to use arcane instead of water… I had the feeling that i never have a problem with condies but i do not enough damage …. Now i try the arcane version for my S/F ele.
Thats it. Scepter needs a bit more condi damage.
Swap flame burst from staff with dragon tooth from scepter (exchange ranges). This will fit both styles.
Increase bleeding duration from stone shards to 10s.
staff main sword off would be jsut stylish. But i can live with warhorn too :-)
Warhorn 5 is elemental storm (like glyph for each element)
Warhorn 4: Fire: team Retaliation, Earth team resistance, air a blowout cone, water chill cone).
that will fit the theme and horn.
Sorry for multiple posts. Its jsut so funny to imagin. You say godby to your teammates, they lay down swiftness and invisibility, you run ahead, ….. Boooooooom. The last thing is your acane shield blowing up on your flamewall when your team charges the zerg :-).
ah and maybe use the posion sigil. Because you swap bevor exploding. A bit of posion and healing reduction ^^.
Funny use:
Fire obsidian flesh, run straight in the WvW Zerg and fire all you have. Then die ….
I can hear the screeming …..
It is a very funny theme build. Incredible powerful in PvE.
But in PvP/WvW i consider it nearly a free kill. Shure if you stand still for three seconds you might be incinerated. Its some kind of glass cannon, that can be avoided/shaked off easier then the zerker thief. Its diffrent and not evryone can handle this “Surprise”.
I as ele have a hard counter. Dodge out of the firewall/circle using stop/doge/roll
not critable under protection would be plain OP.
When you use stone herat, your damage output is limitet and forced to be largly condition damage, so its slow. You are slow, oponent is slowed in damage… Fine
When you put it on protection, crazyness would follow.
E.g. Zerker build aith air/arcane, Stone heart and earth embrace.
You fire earth armor and rotate air, fire, water for full damage output, heal a bit, and are -33% uncritable. after wering off you are hit, boom another earth armor goes up…
No brain easy to play direct assaut build. Full damage output while massiv absorb AND stability….
Just look how close mobs are. It can be a bit more stress if you hit multiple at once, but usually no problem at all. Staff is good here. you have long range. I just fire 3(burn) and auto fireball. Put lava font (2) on ranged oponents or when they are on you. When they hit you in close combat burn by rolling back. You can test glyph of elemental power and glyph of storms (I just pull the monsters to me and firestorm them). Both can do a lot damage. My favorit is cleansing flame.
I use scepter. Put down a flamewall and fire phönix and dragon toth. Thats a very hard opening strike. But thats not camping an element. I swap after the strike (air or earth). Usually i even need not move. The mob drops at my feet after missing from the blind.
The weapon is a matter of taste. If you like to play WvW keep battle learn staff. I prefer roaming and the scepter/fokus style. Traind eles use daggers, which is great in small group fights.
This is the reason i love Elementalist. You can build counters to the meta. That does not allow you to play passiv/camp an atunement. I am a stone heart lover. But when i stay in earth, i can hardly bring annyone down , if my oponent has a very high power i won´t sutain the damage very long and have to switch element at a good moment. If not, all i can do would be taking the hits for a while and flee . I won´t contibute much to a fight except being a bullet catcher for the team. (Which i enjoy :-) )
For leveling ele is very easy and you can do it straight forwar using fire. But at Lvl 22 you barly touch the eles power.
Ele is propably the most adaptable class in building and hard to play in real fights. Eles need to move alot and swap 3-4 elements to get the maximum of their power. If done well its serious. If not theres not much HP buffer to survive. Learning eles start at level 30.
And yes eles are more bouncy like rubber balls …. (I prefer to call them crazy chicken^^).
I don´t regret taking ele as my first character. Did need a month to find a build to fit my playsysle and still thinking how to adap it.
I don´t feel most things people complain. But i guess thats because i am an all around build, that can swallow a zerk burst and cleanse all condis fast plus have some power in my rabid gear. I have weaknesses like power builds with good condi cleanse and bunker that i can´t bring down fast buts thats fine, i usually get the “Meta” with a non meta build :-). And as soon as you beat the meta people start to cry OP not thinking that you might have build just for that.
I like stone shards, but its a bit weak, a faster more direct arc would be nice. And yes all the scepter auto feel weak, but the non auto phönix, blinding flash, lighning strike and dust devil are good.
Yesterday i did run with the zerg using staff instead my usual S/F. … While the range is fine i did´t like it. But condies where no threat. I got constantly hit by them and had only my cleansing flame as removal (i did run glyphs yesterday and air instead of water) but they were no immidiate threat. I always hit ground by being bursted down. I go down 1-3 times with my S/F (F/E/W) in 1-2 hours WvW. With Staff i got finised at least five times in less then one hour yesterday…. But i know i can contribute more in keep fights with the staff … But i did´t feel like not doing much even when my metor and storm glyph did hit the enemy group.
I would love to have bleeding damage a bit increased and burn stacking (not overal base damage and duration) lowered. Maybe the burn stacking must be done for each class now. I ahd another idea to clean burning always first, so a singel condi remover will remove burn. But maybe that would be a hard burn nerf.