Guild Wars 2

Lictor Alpha.3724:

PvE class

Lawful.5314:

In PvE, he is one of the better classes, in PvP, he is still mediocre.

Looks like you answered on the offtopic subject of PvP before answering on the OP’s topic of PvE.

Lawful.5314:

Nothing changed, that is how Elementalist is, the damage is rather low compared to other classes, but you have a more skills to spam, to compensate with quantity over quality.

…. or we have one of the highest potential damage output of the game, awesome group utility, and wonderful group support? But maybe we are not playing the same game!

Oh so what happened to “wave your arms around until you get to the end chest” Kodiak? Could it be possible that you have discovered that being efficient is nice ??

Lictor Alpha.3724:

strongest PvE class

That would be the class played by the player with the strongest will to achieve more

There is no easy mode! The ele is difficult to play but it can do so much more than other classes.

To answer your question: yes the ele has changed significantly, mostly positively, but what has changed more than anything is our understanding of the class. Once harnessed, the power of the elements makes us masters of PvE, and warriors cannot rival with that.

Well yes staff is a different story. But if you play S/x then stacking in combat and subsequently using IB results in time gains.

My comment about on what is bad elementalist or what is a good elementalist was directed at those people who go through dungeons like a train goes from point A to point B: if there happens to be even just a single bump on the tracks then all hell breaks loose and they do not know how to react. This makes me think of overly disciplined circus animals who would panic if the show does not fit perfectly to what their trainer taught them. We are the masters of the elements, not their slaves! Brothers, don’t reduce our beautiful class to the cheap tricks that inferior professions expect from us

Psst, if you stack might during a battle then you save time and increase your dps

Milennin.4825:

If you don’t stack Might before a battle you’re a bad Elementalist

Today is the day I learned I am a bad elementalist

Sounds like the OP is looking for a complete PvE guide !

The base defense of thieves is not that much higher, yet it is offense that remains king for them. To each his own.

The problem is not that we need defense, but that our defensive skills/traits/utilities are quite better than our offensive ones. Look at fire/air traits for example, they are terrible. In addition, our attacks are generally hard to land or ineffective while our healing abilities are strong and almost automatic.

I am experimenting with new builds on my own and I can tell you that using arcane is not mandatory. I have tried interesting combos with GoEP and GoLE and they work rather well. But so far the only thing that I have found to be required in all builds is a strong cleansing potential.

hybrid.5027:

Since bosses have defiant, or will have something like that, the idea everyone is having of Taunting a boss to keep him locked on a tank is pretty ridiculous.

Yep, but if we consider that taunting is a “weaker” mechanic than deep freeze for example, then we could hypothesize that its duration may be longer than that of deep freeze. Since it only requires an immob to make taunting the equivalent of deep freeze then it could be possible to control bosses for more than 5 seconds. But this is only an optimist hypothesis

The way I see it: taunt + immob and target out of AA range = hard cc

Celtus.8456:

Cooldown timers for Staff #2 skills:

Lava Font: 6 seconds
Ice Spike: 4 seconds
Lightning Surge: 10 seconds
Eruption: 6 seconds

Can you spot the problem?

Real cooldowns for staff 2:

Lava Font: 6.4 seconds
Ice Spike: 5.4 seconds
Lightning Surge: 11.7 seconds
Eruption: 7.2 seconds

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Elementalist-Skill-Data/first#post2404215

I checked it and he did update it thoroughly. Although, not for the last patch it seems.

It is a very good spreadsheet, but I am not fully satisfied with its handling of the elementalist. This is why I used to have my own publicly available calculator, but it is out of date now. If anyone is interested in the ele then I will work on it. Otherwise Puandro’s spreadsheet is definitely the tool to work with.

This is Puandro’s spreadsheet is it not?

edit: godkitten censoring

What if taunt is applied by two different sources at the same time?

I am just going to put this out there:

If you were not one of the few that abused LW then the last patch actually gave you a slight buff. Yep.

I may finish updating my ele spreadsheet if you really want it

I completely agree with BlackBeard

Oh but I could go on!

Water auto attack: it’s really beautiful to watch the blades as they slice threw the air hitting nothing.

Churning earth: I deal more DPS by using drake’s breath.

Dragon’s claw: heh, good for people with aegis, but not much more than that.

Ride the lightning: remember that time when we asked devs to make this go on the short cooldown if it hits a target that is dodging/blocking so that it is balanced for combat? That was a long time ago.

Updraft: please, if I get controlled just after I pressed the button, I do not need to have updraft wastefully casted when I finally recover from the cc … !

Flamewall: haha

Fire shield: well at least it’s an instant cast skill! Otherwise I could feel like I wasted precious time if ever my fingers would slip onto that button.

Freezing gust: look, even the cast animation is bugged…. (it deals damage before casting is finished) Maybe it’s time to look at this spell?

Comet: Philae was hard to land on it, but apparently landing a comet is even harder.

All conjured weapons: nope.

Yep, that’s the way to go Iris

It’s interesting how you did not even mention firegrab! People do not realize how terrible this spell is. Allow me to give you a little breakdown:

Total animation: 1.3s
Coefficient: 1.75 normal | 2.8 on burning target
Real cooldown: 45+1.3=46.3s
Casting mechanic: you have better chances at winning in a casino in Syria while being underage than landing this spell.
Range: 300, but you only have a chance to hit if the target is 150 range away. So the target limit of 5 is just irrelevant.

Comparison: Burning speed

Total animation: 0.9s
Coefficient: 2
Effects: evade (kinda), movement (so it takes accuracy to land the spell), burning.
Subspell: burning speed trail, coeff 0.1, burning, fire field.
Real cooldown: 15+0.9=15.9s
Range: 240 radius 400 range away, yeah you will hit those 5 targets easily.

Do you see where I am getting at? We have a 46.3s cd spell with terrible casting mechanics that deal more damage than a 15.9 cd spell if and only if the target is burning, assuming that the target did not walk into burning speed trail (because then burning speed with its trail could deal more damage than firegrab on burning targets!).

Reward for effort?
Well I guess the feeling of beating the odds can make you feel good, but that’s really not related to combat in any way

Oh by the way, try to compare firegrab to eviscerate, try not to cry, then cry in a corner.

The point of my rant you ask? The ele has a defense system that is too automatic with the synergy of water and arcane traits. But this is required, because our attacks are seriously under-powered. A while back I asked devs to give burning speed an evade factor; they did it. Hopefully my rant will reach the attentive ears of caring devs To give the class room for development you need to nerf the automatic water healing, then make our attacks more relevant and easier to land. I’ll give more details on each of these aspects some other time.

Eruption also has a long delay time (which is completely different from cast time) and yet it is very easy to blast fields with it.

I think that a blast finisher on a 5.4 seconds real cd (4s cd + 1.4s total animation) is a bit over the top guys. Anet will not take this seriously.

But staff does need a buff in the air attunement.

Those who say that staff is already strong are right in a way: in PvE it is powerful, but let’s put PvE aside when talking about balance; in PvP staff’s strength mainly comes from the same source as D/D’s strength, that is, the traits. Whether our traits are balanced is a question for an other topic, but objectively speaking it is hard to argue against a buff in the air attunement.

On the question of how balanced eles are, haven’t you people noticed something: as an ele you have to pay a lot of attention on dodging relevant enemy attacks, but do you really feel that our opponents are under a strong pressure to dodge any of our attacks? Most of the time our opponents hardly understand what we do. That’s also due to the fact that most ele players don’t know what they are doing But anyway I find that this lack of symmetry is striking.

edit: overprotective censorship

You know what really needs a blast finisher?

Earthen Blast

Hell, I mean just put a blast in my blast so I can blast while blasting!

Supreme.3164:

Take ele for example, I could choose between 5 viable elites( searing flames, shockwave, mind blast, blinding flash, invoke ) out of 12 elites…in GW2 I have at most 1 and half elite out of 3, how is it possible?.

That is a gross overstatement: we have at most 0.5 elites (glyph of elementals)!

Yep, this is a good idea, and it is used a lot by advanced runners. You can also use some focus and MH-dagger skills to generate more stacks.

Yes, Zanzibar, the rune of the ogre is one of the cheap alternatives to strength/scholar runes. But as Jerus explained, the AI of the rock dog can be an issue. Purchasing power was never really an issue for me in-game, so I never looked into this matter carefully, but when I started my character I used ruby orbs everywhere.

Side note: I am quite fond of the place that your name refers to

Yep that’s correct

Keyz and I wrote about this some time ago, check our posts for the rotation:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-DPS-Elementalist-for-PvE/page/3#post3966994
Note that we did not include water 5, but that it can be used as Painbow described of course.

skeptic.2409:

to everyone else go suck a kitten

Allow me to take this as literally as the “read” in your title

I disagree: you can play dd or staff with a lot of efficiency. The D/F and S/F have also been used at the competitive level. I have a number of builds I use when I am just training on my own, and my observation is that it is quite viable to use less arcane.

I do not use rotations. I really like Phantaram’s guides though (and Zoose’s of course). I think he gives the best guidelines on how to perform decently, but then you need to make your own decisions to reach a higher level. I have also learnt a lot by watching Denshee’s stream.

Other classes having better healing the ele? I doubt that.

Yes, the base stats of the ele are not in our favour. In fact, a lot of our skills are underpowered. But many of our traits are completely OP compared to other classes, and we have strong synergies (at least in arcane and water).

I would say that the ele is balanced. However … it requires a ton of practice, which is its disadvantage compared to other classes.

A while back, I was training with a warrior friend for 1v1 in pvp. Then we deciced to swap roles. He had barely tried the ele before, and I had never played warrior in pvp. I completely destroyed him without having to dodge at any point. I was just spamming my keys for the first dozen of duels, then I learned a bit, so I rekt him even more.

The problem of the ele is that it takes a lot of effort to be as effective as other classes. But with renewed efforts we have the potential to perform better than others.

People complain that our healing and cleansing are too automatic, and they are right. But dealing our damage takes a lot of attention. I am guessing that this, in addition to the irrelevance of fire/air/earth traits compared to water/arcane, is why we have been stuck in the semi-dps role for ever.

I just hope that forum specialists are properly compensated for doing a job that Anet has failed to do since ever.

Let’s clarify:

In pvp the ele was always good, sometimes too good, sometimes just above average. But it required a high skill level to perform well.

The interesting story is in PvE. There has been two major changes for the ele: the nerf of FGS, and the introduction of persisting flame. Two years ago, most PvE players followed the advice of Daphoenix: they used a pvp spec to have a high sustain and survive. Meanwhile some players were developing other specs (zerker staff 66002 was my very first build for leveling and dungeons), but it is true that our skill level was not that high at the time, and we felt underpowered compared to warriors for example. This was a l2p issue. For instance, I switched from my now-meta staff build to a 02066 d/f to complete arah (still zerker though :p). As we learned how to better deal with encounters we developed more efficient builds, like the LH build by Kitsune. Then the FGS abuse gained popularity, so the ele was perceived godly. After this persisting flames was introduced, so staff became top DPS in the game and the ele assumed the universal buffing role. FGS got nerfed but IB4 got a buff, we learned that corner stacking is not that efficient, so now eles are perceived as even stronger than before the FGS nerf compared to other classes.

Long story short: there was a learn to play issue! At least for half of the first year of the game, people were using defensive traits. Only after we spent enough time learning dungeons and our class capabilities did we switch to more offensive – all in – builds. And yes, this is perfectly normal! People nowadays read meta guides and think they can just copy paste a build and perform as well as the speedrunners they see in records. Big misconception. Most of the speedrunners I know have been through this phase when they used defensive builds. In fact, if you look at the early messages on my old guide, it was first released advocating a defensive build! Only after a while did I switch to a 66xxx build. This is because I learned the game as Anet developed the class. I had a lot of time to experiment, to train, and to master the encounters. A build is specific to its owner, and becoming a good elementalist requires practice. This is why I advise new players to use defensive builds in my guides, like the 06044 D/F, but investing in defensive gear is a waste of your money and a short-sighted decision: you will rapidly progress in the game so defensive gear will soon become irrelevant, and getting used to the zerker mindset is the best way to improve your performance rapidly. Last – an possible most important – piece of advice: use the leveling period to learn how to dodge enemy attacks, get used to their animations, their patterns, because mastering them when the danger is low is the best preparation you can have for difficult dungeons.

I can’t wait

Haha, no I have too much empathy to watch you do that

Show the community some good D/F play, my apprentice, make me proud!

I would like to see S/F no conjures, full signet, 02660, with nomad gear, thanks <3

Dub.1273:

Rising Dusk.2408 Forum Specialist – Dungeons & Fractals:

Did I miss something?

It’s a few threads below

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Dungeon-Fractal-Forum-Specialist/first#post4788085

Proper challenging instanced content = volcano fractal
Just so Anet gets a benchmark

Good luck! You will need some

Kodiak.3281:

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having the stance that there is only one way to play and that’s your way.

Yet, this is not my stance.

If I remember correctly it was Kitsune who first introduced the idea of stacking damage modifiers and using LH.

Also, Neko has had a strong role in bringing the elementalist out of obscurantism

Lawful.5314:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

It was never the worst class in the game.

About a year ago, or more, elementalist was the officially worst class in Guild Wars 2 for PvP and it was mediocre for PvE.

Only true loyalists would play it, that liked the mage class in general.

Is it good in PvP atm?

About a year ago, we were using FGS everywhere so the ele was king in PvE.
In pvp, the ele got a few well deserved nerfs because it was obviously too good, and after this it fell in line with other classes.
But yep, the general opinion of the public did not reflect the actual state of the class

I play since the pre-release and I have always found that the ele is pretty good. It has always been top tier in pvp, and its popularity kept increasing in pve.

It was never the worst class in the game.

Attractiveness is important for reddit

Kodiak.3281:

You can look at this thread as an example. Person says sneak in a bit of defensive stats, and you claim that’s entirely wrong and that they should either get better by using traits instead of gear or wait for a better group.

I give people the knowledge of the right way, that is how to be most efficient in doing what they want to achieve. Whether people follow my advice is of little concern to me, at least they know, so they can choose wisely.

I am of course not perfect and I make mistakes.

But I would never make the mistake to tell people to abuse the trust of their comrades. The very fact that you seem comfortable with giving such immoral and unproductive advice casts a new shadow on my perception of mankind

Kodiak.3281:

You actually have a lot of problem with people who just want to get the job done but as you say we’ve been down this road before and you typically are incapable of understanding.

I love internet arguments because people are so assiduous in backing their claims

In the guide I wrote with Haviz, we make it clear that there is no one-size-fits-all build to solve everything, we emphasize the need to adapt to each encounter/group/skill-level, and we even advise a build designed for people learning dungeons.

See? I claim that I understand how people need to get the job done, and I back this statement.

In comparison, you claim to make people stop feeling “bad” by telling them to stop caring.

It is, and we highly appreciate it! Thanks

Kodiak.3281:

Most people have one desire: Not to feel like they are bad or playing bad. That is why they come to these forums and ask advice.

And your advice is to pretend.

In any society there are implicit rules. Cheating on them is just as immoral as breaking the law.

We have had this discussion before. I have no problem with people who just want to get the job done. However, I have a problem with people who come here to brag about how clever they are at profiting from the efforts of others.

I read the url your provided then I decided to click it. That thief was terrible, you could have won this fight years before the mesmer arrived.

Iris Ng.9845:

Oh boy! So the former cheater thinks it is good to advise new people to cheat because he himself can’t get caught for not playing anyways. Do you think it’s a good advice? Or just come here to proudly brag about how you cheat?

A bit of side story I was reminded of a cheating scandal 5-6 years ago. A very bright PhD student faked her entire 4 years worth of thesis. It was so detailed and convincing that her talent which was put into deceit could have brought out an actually excellent work. So her cheat bought her fame; three articles on the most prestigious journal. Soon, it was found out. Her degree was forfeit; her boss and her department were put into investigation for improper work ethics. The girl's name went viral on every major university's talks in North America. Cheating is bad, even if it starts small. You never know if it becomes a habit and ruins you.

I remember this story too! There was comparable story more recently. One girl in Japan (iirc) faked her research results in biosciences and when the rest of the world appeared to be unable to reproduce the output of her work it became obvious that she had faked the experiment the whole time. She was stripped of her degree. Cheating does not pay off.

I am the inquisition. I pug a lot, even though I am in rT. I can see from miles away the people who deal no DPS. It is so simple. One hit taken and still 70% hp left? soldier gear. Swapped to water and got a lot of HP back? Cleric. It is very interesting how dishonest people are with their performance. The thing is, I privately whisper to these people to give them advice on how they could improve their output and most of them are happy to receive enlightened knowledge, but you Kodiak, you are satisfied with under-performing and fooling your unwise group at the same time. I care about helping the community perform better, you care about leeching what good-willed people let you reach. You seem proud to be so malicious. But people who come on these forums are here to learn about how to achieve more. Hopefully most of them listen to those who have had the patience to learn. To the others I would like to say that cheating never gets you far. The elementalist is a difficult class, if you are not up to the challenge then give up now, but if you have the will to be disciplined and assiduous then you will achieve more than anyone else.