Guild Wars 2

But the description says so?
I just found two more bugs with lingering elements: the reverse of the two previous bugs I listed before.

• When you swap from earth to fire you can not cast earth spells in fire for any amount of time.
• When you swap from water to fire you can not cast earth spells in fire for any amount of time.

So in total we have four bugs for this trait. Woaw, I am puzzled

Waaaiiiit
Actually it is also bugging with earth:
When I swap from fire to earth I should be able to cast fire spells for 5 seconds in the earth attunement but I can only cast earth spells … I don’t get it

Edit: it’s like two bugs in one!

Since I am going to rewrite most of my guide I would like to know if there are any question that you would like me to elaborate or aspects of the class you would like me to expend on. It is easier for my guide to be more complete if I base my ideas on discussions I have had. Please let me know!

Also I am going to be much more specific in what I talk about: I will talk almost exclusively about the weapon set up I use most, this is D/F, with a hint of staff/scepter.

You know what Nike, when I read your post I thought hell yeah that would be cool! But then I told myself wait, if we get to calculating a “difficulty scale” for each boss then maybe we have faced them a bit too much and it is high time we get new content

But you forgot about the para-virtual force skewing the rules of maths in-game!

It would be very much appreciated!
At the moment I am limiting my calculator to direct damage but I will expend it do conditions later on. For the necro I would need the details of the rotation for optimal direct damage in a speedkill situation. What I mean by this is the series of spell you would want to do if you were concerned only with damage. It has to be a repeatable loop. I need this in great detail: for each spell I need the coefficient on single targets, the animation time, the number of hits and any other relevant factor for direct damage. Then I add all relevant traits for direct damage in the calculator, but this is easy since most data is already available.

So if you can help me with
- details of rotation (and explanation of mechanics involved)
- details of spells involved
- most common traits to look at
I can then add the necro to my calcualtor in a matter of minutes

The flame axe is quite interesting now, especially since the conjuring animation time has been drastically reduced.
I am estimating the animation time of lava axe’s auto attack to 1 second.
Each auto attack gives you one stack of might for 8 seconds (base value), so the lava axe in itself gives you 8 stacks of might on average.
You can boost this by taking pyromancer’s puissance (fire grandmaster trait, 30 points), which will give you 1 stack of might for 10 seconds (base value) per cast (with some odd delay, to be confirmed, but irrelevant) so this means 10 additional stacks of might on average. The total is 18; and if you have 10 points in arcana it will reach 20. This is a very high self-sustained level of might just from auto attacks. With a few combos you can very easily get to 25 if you stay in the effective range of combos: within 360 units of the blast. However, I have some issues with all this.

The axe rotation deals high damage for a ranged weapon. The high might stacking may even be enough to compensate the gap with melee weapons with few might stacks. Therefore it can be a good option when an encounter does not allow you to be in melee any more. However the axe’s projectiles will hardly connect at range if the target is moving, and I do not know many encounters where ranging is required.

A very obvious problem is that for this high might stacking to happen you need pyromancer’s puissance. This is a trait we do not take by default since we are not casting a significant amount of fire spell (and since lingering elements is not working). We usually take persisting flames instead, for the purpose of fury stacking. So unless you actually planned to use lava axe in a fight and switched your traits you wouldn’t be able to might stack that well at range.

Might stacking is nice, but when it is only for your character it is not that strong. The idea is that if you cap might for yourself then all the might your group mates could give you is wasted. If you are producing too much might then you are not using your resources efficiently. In fact I would take persisting flames over pyromancer’s puissance any time of the day, because perma fury for the group is much stronger than 10 might stacks for yourself. Also the extended fire field duration allows you to have a fire field ready every time the lava axe’s blast will be off cooldown if you manage your spells correctly. But then benefiting from this requires you to be within 360 range of the blasts you do. That is only 60 range further than Lightning whip.

In conclusion the most efficient way of using the flame axe would be as a semi-ranged weapon with persisting flames. I do not know in which scenario this would be particularly desirable yet. This is just my first opinion on this utility. I need to experiment more with it before I can give you a well founded opinion on this topic

Edit: Bear in mind that the the axe’s blast finisher has a cooldown of 5 seconds and an animation time of a little over 1 second (estimation), therefore its effective cooldown is 6 seconds not 5.

Hello Anet
From Lingering elements’ tooltip I understand that I should be able to cast fire spells for 5 seconds after switching from fire to water. I tried this in game and when I switch to water after fire all I can cast is water spells. I do not understand

Yes Keyz, actually I will need help with every single class
I want to make my calculator an easy-to-use tool for everyone to estimate his damaging potential.
This is why I am asking for help from the community.
You contributions are invaluable, I wish there were more people like you to support this project!

While I am a complete maths addict I would agree that in-game testing is vital

He is slowly turning to the dark side …

I think anyone willing to improve his Arah performance should read this thoroughly.

Can I get my golds now Haviz ?

Kodiak.3281:

Mbelch.9028:

People need to stop saying FOTM and start spelling it out. I see it used as flavor of the month and fractals of the mists. Someone clarify, as there are no contexts to what this guy is asking.

My answer works for either scenario

Fotm is like the only place where warrior isn’t that good :o

I didn’t like the D/D bunker either, but I liked that mobility !

Fror.2163:

This is for a speedkill. With Honor’s 2nd slot, you have either Empowering Might (VIII) or Two-Handed Mastery (IX). With this kind of rotation, I believe you lose too much if you take Two-Handed Mastery. You could try to put this in your calc and compare both actually, but that’s what I think.

Yes empowering might is definitely better.

You take blind exposure in your build but don’t use any skills that apply blind in the rotation?

My calc gives me the following result for a speedkill with your build with full buffs (perception + sweet and spicy): 10k dps + burn
Does this sound correct to you?

I still have to fully recheck animation times.

Ok I will add it to docs if it is compatible, that’s a clever idea.

chronometria.3708:

I rerolled warrior when I first heard about the AOE nerf. I knew there would be nothing good in this patch for my staff ele, but I take no joy in being proven right.

Even in WvW I see less and less elementalists. Its uncommon now to see ele aoe attacks during tower and keep sieges. They are almost all gone.

ooh man, that aoe nerf !!

AoE spells with a maximum number of targets will now count combatants that block or evade the attack towards that maximum.

Yeah it’s definitely making the ele worse than any other classes in the game, no doubt, despite the multiple buffs that were given to staff this patch.

/s

Indeed, that’s right.

I think I have mapped most of the common builds. I am surprised that there are not many traits affecting direct damage output.

For a speedkill the rotation would be the same except with GS mastery?

It’s not mobility that hurts us most in PvP, it’s the condition meta.
Mobility was the fun factor

Hey there

Yes staff is a nice and friendly weapon to start with in PvE. I don’t talk about it much in my guide though. You have to be aware that the vast majority of the damage in staff comes from fire (lava font, fireball, meteor shower). Therefore you can boost its damage most by investing 30 points in the fire trait line and picking persisting flames.

I am not going to give a full build for staff for two reasons:

• it is important to experiment when you are just starting the game, so re-trait often, try everything, don’t be stubborn.
• I do not like the staff myself, so I any advice I would give wouldn’t be completely honest.

Gaunglai’s advised build is 30/20/10/10/0. This deals a lot of damage. I do not support his guide though.

My favourite weapon set-up is D/F and you can find everything I know about it in my guide

Naqaj.6219:

Another nice change that seems undocumented is our Persisting Flames trait. Changed from 30% to a flat 2 seconds, for Lava Font a 50% increase, which now makes it easier to blast it with Eruption when switching both ways.

It was documented

Thanks!

You do three full auto attacks chains between symbol and WW then right?

Yes I play elem with lightning whip only because swtor was a huge deception for me and I needed to feel like a sith again.
I played the jedi outcast series, star wars galaxies, I waited a long time for a chance to return … now I can electrocute people to death again MUHAHAHAHAHA

You are a monster for revealing the darkness deep within me Haviz

But PvE players are the one who buy gems so … ?

How long is the animation of WW?

Thanks, can you give me your build (with the name/numbers of trait choices) please?

a t s e is a true jedi

You scumbag elitists are just siths

Can someone give me the exact rotation for guardian dps in a speedkill situation please?

Also, for elementalists we have this thread referencing our skill data. Do other classes have a source where I can find similar information?

Can anyone test when you do a dazing leap (lightning field + leap combo) with LH’s 2 if it dazes three targets please?

I hate potions of slaying almost just as much as I hate sigils of slaying.

Wethospu.6437:

AoE changes are same for everyone else. What makes you think your Elementalist is the special snowflake?

Anyways I would like to remind everyone that their philosophy is to do small changes and let the meta evolve. If they say massive they probably just mean lots of changes.

I agree. And if we look at the number of skills they have changed we must admit they are true to their word.

Excelsior comrades!

This is my view on the patch that was recently released. It takes some time to evaluate the effect of a patch so expect updates on my opinions as I get more familiar with the effects of the new changes.

Tooltips
First of all I am very happy with the new tooltips. This was a much needed change! providing players with accurate information is necessary for clever decision making. With this patch they have made a good step in this direction. On this topic I would like to attract your attention to the skill data thread , which is still in construction would benefit from the help of willing contributors

Normalisation
I really appreciate the idea of “normalizing” our trait and spell effects. Yes it may appear as a nerf to some people, but the truth is that it helps us to be more constant with the use of such effects. I often find many oddities with our skills, so this initiative is a step in the right direction: it enables us to better master the effect of what we do, which then helps the developers to better evaluate the potential of our skills.

Staff
I see buffs to a weapon that desperately needs some. In case you have not noticed yet they have been buffing staff bit by bit in the last few patches. Yes, it seems to take some time, but they are going in the right direction. My advice to the devs is to take a look at the air attunement next.

Conjures
At last! Now these weapons are meaningful. I don’t know yet how much more powerful they are, but they were so disappointing that any buff is highly appreciated. Of course the conjuring part is still lacking, but at least now we get something.

Traits
One with air has no use in PvE. Persisting flames has been buffed and this is affecting a number of builds, starting with the full dps staff.

Conclusion
It’s a fair patch. I am definitely not against any of the changes operated.
Of course it is not enough and I would have a billion suggestions to push this further, much further. However, they are going in a direction that I tend to support.

For the future
Please keep normalising, fixing, and optimising. There are still so many aspects of the class that need attention. I will give my list of priority things to look at very soon.
First thoughts:
- arcana trait line (highest concentration of weak traits)
- fire trait line minors
- traits afffecting conjures
- staff’s air

Keep the positive work and thank you for listening to us

Roger that!
Thread updated
If you want to add a creative factor to this challenge any time just let me know

The patch was actually full of buffs.

Not enough buffs, but buffs nonetheless.

And I like the general direction that they are taking, I just wish they were less fearful

Staff got a nice big buff this patch

Too bad they didn’t buff the most lacking aspect of staff: air

It was fun in the stream when they said “you can use one with air in daggers to catch up with your targets”

Yeah

It’s morel like targets catch up with us while we desperately run away

Daphoenix key bindings were not that great

Try mine:
RDFG movement
SPACE evade (very important)
Z jump
ETVBN weapon skills
3456 attunements
S heal YHJ utils
W switch target A change weapon Q sheath weapon
M about face

It is less straightforward but as soon as I know what rotation is optimal I can compute how many stacks of conditions the build will provide on average.

To know the effect of on-crit sigils you just need the number of hits per second your rotation outputs, it’s only a bit more complicated when sigils have ICDs.

Just so people can know how you do this: you don’t take damage if you don’t move? or is there a special range?

So Wethospu, any ideas?

Yeah in WoW we were fighting to get 0.5% dps more than other groupmates so a 14% difference wouldn’t walk by untouched

what do you mean exactly?

I need to update this guide thoroughly

I will explain my position on arcana more in depth when I update this.

I can’t remember the number but it may have been more around 1.4% or something like this. WoW was a game where you could solve a pvp fight on paper, so in comparison PvE was like reading a book!

sigil of strength has a cooldown

But it would be interesting to test for some runes/sigils that create spells on hit

Elitist Jerks <3

It’s a clever practice but it only applies to empirical tests, doesn’kitten

Persisting Flames: The duration increase for fire fields is now consistent.

Persisting flames now adds a flat 2 seconds to the duration of our fire fields. This means that the trail of burning speed will last for 6 seconds instead of 5. This is very interesting.

If you are not familiar with the rotation of D/F 30/30/10/0/0 then I would advise you to look it up in this thread before reading on, it is not too far back.

The idea is that if the trail last 6 seconds then we have a bit of extra time to blast it. In fact we have enough time to swap to air, cast three lightning whip attacks, then swap to earth/water to blast the trail. This is a nice dps increase because of:

• One extra tick of burning speed’s trail (minor boost to burn and direct damage)
• Better swapping pattern to proc sigil of battle (one additional swap at a convenient time for the rotation)
• One more proc of electric discharge
• Bypassing the 2s attunement swap cooldown by using fresh air more. Without this additional swap to air we would have to spend 2 full seconds in fire before swapping to water/earth. Now we can swap to air during the cast of burning speed (provided you crit to proc FA as you swap to fire).

The disadvantage of this is that you put more time between the creation of the fire field and the blast, which is an increased risk to miss the blast finisher of comet due to the target moving out.

This is my first impression on the effect of the patch on the D/F gameplay

Ah yes I see, but it does never work out of fire attunement or with lingering elements, so no change in fact.

Does it work with utilities (signet, arcane spells, glyphs, conjuring the weapons) ?

Each fire spell you cast grants you might.

So much for traits’ descriptions … but well at least it sounds interesting, we can’t complain!

This is new then, because I tested this a while ago and it didn’t work.

Can you check if you keep getting double might even when out of fire? Also does it work with lingering elements?
Can you check if other conjures benefits from their corresponding attunement’s bonuses?

If you are going to destroy my position then you should do it thoroughly:
Say that if you dodge in LH you loose 10% damage
Say that bosses are much larger than humans so meteor shower deals more damage
Say that staff is better because you can afford to dodge: the rotation allows for a gap of 0.6s without dps every 4.6 seconds.
You know just push it, don’t leave me any hopes for a come back!

In all seriousness staff has been buffed quite a bit with the last patch. It is still hard to know by how much because there is some uncertainty about the consistency of lava font casts, but it can become quite viable for those who like to play with fire