Guild Wars 2

Suizen.5614

I agree with the fact that the forums are depressing to read sometimes, and ANET doesn’t really get appreciated for anything it does. The only problem I find with them is there lack of community responses for key issues (consumables in wv3 comes to mind, especially spikefruit / similar cons), and priority on what is important. Some of the key issues right now are actually resolved by some simple solutions, as posted from the forum, but again the decision making / implementation is a little too slow (there needs to be better project management imo). If you don’t resolve those key issues, or at least declare that any work is being done regarding key issues, it affects the game negatively with bad PR on your own forum platform, which looks really bad. The forum is plagued with bad PR. It needs to be fixed by community responses on key issues that matter in a timely manner, and quicker hotfixes and patches.

@Sil.4560/plasmacutter.2709
A class should not really be based on one build, but it is for the elementalist. They spend alot of time balancing classes which is good in my opinion. I believe the nerf to D/D elementalists will be reasonable, and in compensation they will buff skills from the focus weapon set.

The mesmer nerf that you are talking about was actually needed, and I do agree on the hotfix they had made. Mesmers were considered the strongest PvP class before the nerf, due to a permanent 25 stacks of might on top of extremely powerful burst range damage w/ consistent pressure, and evasion tactics. It was basically the damage burst output of a thief, but with the utility of a mesmer’s teleports / clones and sustained ranged DPS with high survivability.

Idk anything about this retalation with guardians you speak of. Retaliation itself needs to be re-worked to be a % of the damage taken by a skill, because it is extremely unbalanced against classes that perform multiple hits. For instance, unload from p/p thiefs and flamethrowers from engineers get a larger penalty bonus for doing multiple hits

Ojike.3179
I recommend getting knights jewelery or clerics jewelery at level 80. PVT jewelery is just hard to come by and not really worth it.
I prefer knights over berzerkers, I only use berzerkers as an alternate set. My knights provides me with good DPS and tankiness. Berzerkers leaves me vulnerable to getting killed.

Sly.7205
I updated all the items I use in the equipment section in guide. 70% boon duration is from 30% (arcana) 15% (2 sup monk) 15% (2 sup water) 10% (2 maj water) for a total of 70%
Condition damage comes from triforge, karka shell, and my lunaria ring (+all stat items)

I use knights daggers (toughness, power, precision) and knights armor too

Zen.1965
+1 :P

Ozymandias.5704
:D

Xialoh.7261
I can’t remember what I use in PvP, lol. Well here is what most people run to my knowledge.

6x Divinity’s runes, or
6x superior rune of ogre, or
2x monk, 2x water, 2x divinity

Valkyrie’s amulet with Soldiers Jewel
(Power, toughness, crit damage, healing power) and (vitality, toughness, power)

(Clerics amulet and Soldiers Amulet are viable as well)

Dagger Sigil 1 (Sigil of battle , 3 might stacks)
Dagger Sigil 2 (+10 power per kill)
Dagger Sigil 3 (5% more damage)

wombat.6123/Ozymandias.5704
+1 ozy

Ozy is right, I have a alternative berzerker set: P

Suicide Yammer.2540
Still the same 0/10/0/30/30

JeKo.9540
I don’t need that much vitality in the first place anyways, since I can sustain myself with all the ways of healing as a d/d ele. I like killing things faster anyways :P

Knights dominant stat is toughness(which means more defense!)
PVT’s dominant stat is power

@Tei.1704

I haven’t really thought about that, but yes it does not make any sense to utilize a signet when the battle is going to be easy. At the same time, since the battle is easy, you can passively end it quicker without the need to cast a heal.

For harder scaled battles, you do want a heavier burst healing option. The end goal is survivability against any situation, so you are right, you should go for a GoEH or ether renewal.

I do not believe you should take SoR in any case for tPvP at all though.

When it comes to SoR vs. GoEH and Ether Renewal, it is a matter of playstyle. Passive players that want optimized damage go SoR if bursting is not going be an issue, vice versa ether renewal.

When it comes to tactical options (i.e. healing when needed).
SoR is great because you can use its passive and focus on water attunement primarily for burst healing.

GoEH and ether renewal are good in the sense that you can burst heal whenever needed, on top of waters attunement swapping. I tend to think of the utility 6 and water attunement as different modes of healing, giving yourself more variety to different situations. In this instance, you are using 2 burst heals from 2 different sources. There are no passive heals like SoR, so if you want to optimize damage, you would rotate into water as a passive heal, and GoEH / ether renewal for a burst.

At your argument concerning burst healing and being suspectible to another burst, you are correct, that is a flawed argument. I just prefer that if I had use GoEH, that my burst healing with GoEH did not overlap with my burst healing option with water attunement. This is because I worry about overhealing, since my vitality is low, thereby making the use of heal less effective. GoEH is used in earth attunement as well as another viable option, so this alleviates that need. GoEH casted under fire attunement is a waste, and imo a waste with air as well because perma swiftness is easy to obtain.

Tl;dr
You are right that signet is rather inferior in most regards. The only positive aspect of it is killing easy enemies in a faster frame of time. In the other regards, ether renewal / GoEH is much better. I use ether renewal every now and then in WvWvW, where you can alleviate its long interuptable obvious cast by using LoS or mist form. Personally I don’t like GoEH due to its long CD, but thats pure preference.

Sil.4560/Raif.9507/Mahanaxar.1386
The game is balanced around tPvP and sPvP, because that is just how all MMO’s with PvP systems work. They need to work their way toward a balanced class system, in order to make the game an E-sports eventually. That being said, elementalists atm in tPvP are too strong. You might see paid teams running 2-3 D/D elementalists because of their mobility, utility, and AoE DPS. Just having an elementalist on your team in PvP gives you a large advantage as this is the current meta game in tPvP.

WvWvW is never suppose to be balanced anyways, albeit it does need some form of it but not as much from a tPvP perspective.

I would imagine they would nerf mobility (ride the lightning comes to mind) and healing in some aspect with the incoming nerf.

SeanPoez.8407
I do recall that critical damage did have different stat returns on various pieces of the gear. It isn’t a bad idea to go some pieces of valkyrie gear.

I definitely agree with you on valkyrie orbs/ berzerker orbs over divinities runes since they are marginally the same, yet the orbs cost way less.

Ill check out your theorycrafting when I got more time

IceBlink.4317
I prefer the ascended version of ‘celestial’ stats (aka triforge stats)

paleeshi.1924
Thats definitely a viable option, but the only downside is no evasive arcana:(. f you wanted more DPS, 0/15/0/25/30 is another great option as well :P

Revelstoke.8924
Air is definitely a good tree to go with due to efficiency in stats when it comes to critical damage. I think going to 30 air is a bit overkill though, as none of the grandmaster traits are really appealling (if I had to go air, I’d stop at 20 or 25).

I find that a bare mininum of 20 arcana is needed due to optimizing attunement rotation as well, plus arcana has some of the best traits too

mizaru.1385
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_Forge

I could see those runes being potentially useful, but you get way more boon duration stat bonuses with the setup I use (2x rune water sup, 2x rune major water, 2x sup monk).

Robyz.6380
+1 to response

Revelstoke.8924/Dandelyn.1362
I updated the armor part of the guide =P
Personally I like PVT armor still for high level fractals
(Plus you need to do AC to get superior monk runes too!)

Dedalus.3065
Minor corruption (+10 condition damage per kill) is still a viable choice imo. I personally like more power :]

For infusions (the ones with stats and +agony resist), I recommend either Vitality, power, or toughness. Vitality because vitality is hard to come by if you dont use PVT (which I don’t atm). Power because its one of the best offensive stats, and toughness for defensive. Honestly +5 stats for a lot of $$$ is not really worth it, just go for the simply infusion you get at fractals (5 agony resist). I also believe I read something that there are going to be new infusions in the future anyways, so wasting your money on +5 stats is not good

Sepreh.5924
I like my avatar of melandru elite, but some other notable elites are from the Norn’s snow leopard (Invisible + 1600 distance super sprints), Sylvari for its immobilization / seed turret summons, charr for its giant bazooka for long range as d/d / summons, and asura because its harder for enemies to see your churning earth.

boondocksaint.6529
I recommend going knights for an overall setup, and when you get to 30+ fractals PVT armor will shine because its easy to die if you don’t have enough vitality from those agony attacks

Avrilliest.2836
:D

Ozymandias.5704
Currently right I use “The legend” staff (Power, precision, critical damage) because I don’t need as much toughness at long range. I use knights for my daggers at the moment

Raffoo
Currently I use this armor, because of its critical damage bonuses
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Symon%27s_History_of_Ascalon

PVT is perfectly fine for higher level fractals, I think vitality is alot more useful in fractals if anything else :P

Neoranger.6215

I think it did, but it scales very poorly iirc. Doylaks HP reg is like 30 hp/sec, and doesn’t get much higher (I think the most I got out of it was 32 HP/ sec)

IceBlink.4317
I have my own pair of berserker daggers, they work great. If you are not on the floor dying asking for help all the time, then feel free to go for more damage :P
Its actually efficient to get DPS from daggers based on this reddit article

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/12dmi5/tip_stat_optimization_with_crit_damage/

Atamaz.4195
Triforge > all other amulets in my opinion. The difference between solaria / lunaria vs stats such as

Power, critical damage, toughness,
Power, toughness, vitality
Power, precision, critical damage

is not really all that different. Personally I use one ring of power,crit dmg, toughness, and one solaria/lunaria. Power, toughness, critical damage is awesome though, because toughness has a higher stat bonus than the power on the rings.

zarel.1832
I bought it off auction house: P. It can be crafted too, or you can buy a “set” of armor also. Just filter exotic, level 80 armor with “berserker” as the search

ArmageddonAsh.6430
o.O thats an interesting setup there :p. I like my cookie cutter setup though lol

IceBlink.4317
Pure preference I guess :P

Atamaz.4195
Didnt know that :S

Gibson.4036
Thanks for the tip, I may have worded it wrong.

As to your question, I’m the type of person thats impatient when it comes to combat and like to kill things fast. Personally I like power for that reason (one of the reasons its the more expensive option too). Vitality is another very useful stat imo for lower levels, so as toughness. I think you should focus on PVT stats and healing power

Scenarios:
Case 1
You are fighting 1 good player or several mediocre players and you are able to effectively get ~32 casts per 25 seconds.

SoR: 32×240 = 7680
GoEH: 5100 +optional 2300

Case 2:
You are fighting 2 high tiered competent PvP players. Assume this is a worst case scenario, and your 32 spells are halved to 16, and that you have to run, utilize LoS heavily, and get interupted extremely heavily.

SoR: 16×240= 3840
GoEH: 5100+2300

Case 3
My general case scenario in WvWvW and PvE. I rush in into a large zerg army and rambo (10-20 people, culling issues, underleveled players, clueless people, etc.)

SoR: 28×240=6720
GoEH: 5300+2100

Conclusion:
Glyph of elemental harmony can outheal SoR only if your using it under water attunement (you would only use GoEH in earth attunement elsewise as a D/D elementalist). You don’t want to blow off all GoEH in water attunement all of the time, because this makes you vulnerable to instagib burst attacks since ALMOST ALL your healing is on CD. In addition. In addition, GoEH has a long CD, and is only best for burst situations (lots of hit + run). Its regeneration is useful because it scales with additional boon duration gear, and because you do not utilize water attunement all the time so that the regeneration is optimized.

Signet of restoration pairs well with a playstyle oriented in using water attunement for burst healing, and SoR as a passive healing mitigation. Your also given the option to utilize its active in case you do need to run and heal, much like the bursting options as a GoEH has. SoR’s passive is not interuptable either, and you do not need to worry about overhealing either unlike that of GoEH (meaning GoEH scales in effectiveness from vitality). SoR allows you to draw out battles longer as well, making kiting much more effective. In addition, you can also freecast SoR while running away to utilize additional healing effects, and use it’s active to burst heal if needed.

SoR is generally almost always better for situations that you do not have to worry about bursting. This is mainly in easy PvE situations, and most sustained WvWvW situations because most people are not top tiered players. Glyph of elemental harmony shines in burst situations, where you are fighting competent teams and need to run / heal often. Glyph of elemental harmony is also superior to signet of restoration underwater, due to an effective reduction cast time to 1/2 second.

I did not do a comparison to ether renewal because that would take too long. Ether renewal is better than glyph of elemental harmony in PvE by a long shot (especially fractals), due to its effectiveness in healing output. WvWvW and tPvP its situational because it can be interupted while you are casting it, making it less useful.

Tl;dr
Signet of restoration is better in most cases as a D/D or S/D elementalist, but is bad for staff elementalist. Glyph of elemental harmony / ether renewal are good for staff elementalists, and when burst heal options are needed (tPvP situations, hit and run, burst thieves, etc)

Specifically with signet of restoration, there are some advantages of using it over other spells. As mentioned earlier, swapping to water is meant mainly for a burst / condition removal /situational heal, and the utility 6 should provide an alternative healing method so you have more options in combat (and therefore more chances to win).

Before talking about how effective SoR is comparitvely to other spells, let’s take a look at how many spells you can get from SoR. I will assume the 0/10/0/30/30 setup or 0/15/0/25/30 variation that most elementalist use, with evasive arcana as one of its traits.

Spells are broken down to 3 forms:
Attunement swapping counts as 1 spell
Each unique evasive arcana roll is 1 spell
Casting a spell to the full duration is 1 spell (i.e. cancelling fire2 early does not count).

I am not going to figure out the theory and math behind everything. I will make some assumptions:

Lets use signet of elemental harmony and signet of restoration as a comparison. Both have CD’s of 25 seconds. Lets also assume that you do not cast signet of restoration whatsoever, because that is a last resort.

I am going to estimate that following averages for spells cast with SoR:
I timed myself in 25seconds on just randomly casting spells and combos that felt natural to me.

I got an average value of 21 spells casted without the use of Arcana wave or arcane blast
I got an average value of 11 attunement swaps + dodge rolls

Thats a total of 32 spells casted. Obviously this is not always the case, and the realistic value is somewhere ~28 spells due to enemy interuptions, vigor + more dodges, less/more attunement swaps due to various situations, running away, etc). It could at the same time go up to ~36 spells as well due to utility skills such as arcane blast and wave and maximized attunement swapping.

Healing power is at 360 (its always at least 300 if your running 0/10/0/30/30). Lets assume the 360 healing power case though

My hp per signet of restoration is at ~240. Signet of restoration active is at ~3.4k
My hp per glyph of elemental harmony is at ~5.1k heal. Regeneration at 13 seconds (no boon duration armor) (~ 2.3k healing). Assume that you will only cast glyph of elemental harmony in either water or earth.

Here is my perspective on why I use signet of restoration vs. glyph of elemental harmony vs. ether renewal. I am not going use in depth calculations here as it would take too long, just my intuition / experiences

Staff does not utilize signet of restoration at all effectively, due to the long cast times of its auto attacks and drawback animations. In addition, you are actually encouraged to utilize your auto attacks much more frequently than D/D (especially in fire attunement) at least from a PvE perspective. In addition, you have longer cast times among other spells as well, such as meteor shower and earth 2. For staff, I usually run ether renewal for PvE and WvWvW. Staff to my knowledge is not used in sPvP a whole lot, glyph may be favorable if you don’t want to get interupted.

In a D/D standpoint, your cast times are much more shorter. Note that your play style should focus only on water attunement when seriously needed. Instances where you should utilize water attunement swapping is when your hp is 50~75% (so you can EA water dodge roll + heal from water attunement swapping), removing conditions such as immobilization right before a shatter spike is going to occur, etc. Knowing when or when not to to swap to water attunement and when to utilize auto attacks from other attunements distinguishes bad elementalists from good ones. The utility skill 6 provides another alternative method of healing to prevent using water attunement spells / swaps. This could be SoR, GoEH, or ether renewal as mentioned earlier.

It all depends on what you want, and who your enemy is.

1. Is your enemy burst oriented and can interupt effectively? Then you don’t want ether renewal, b/c it has an obvious long animation that is easy to counter. You would go for glyph of elemental harmony
2/ Does your enemy focus mainly on conditions? Then you might want ether renewal, and utilize LoS to prevent interuptions
3. Do you need a frequent high burst heal? This applies most to PvE, where ether renewal shines the most
4. Are you focused only on killing your enemies, and dishing out as much damage as possible? Then go Signet of restoration
5. Are you a staff elementalist?
Don’t go signet of restoration, go with the other 2.
6. Are you playing competetive PvP?
Your not going get a lot of spells off with signet of restoration, because teams coordinate spike efforts onto you, and you have to jump in and out of battle (aka you need burst healing options more).

Toughness has diminishing returns, as it has an inverse relationship ( Y/X relationship, where the X refers to armor, and Y refers to a bunch of damage calculations that I don’t recall). Armor is the final stat you care about when your talking about reducing damage. It helps out alot when you stack armor heavily, as this reduces all incoming damage against you making it much easier to survive. It is good for both short term and long term situations (i.e. situations where you jump in and jump out due to many enemies, or sustained battles against a few enemies/bosses). Vitality tends to shine in situations in short term situations, and healing power in long sustained situations.
Therefore I rank toughness > healing power / vitality most of the time.

Power is just all around awesome, and has noticeable effects in damage, so as critical damage.

If I had to currently rank stats right now, in terms of both my playstayle in offense and defense, it would be

14k~15k HP vitality
Power=Critical damage=Toughness>Precision~Healing Power>Condition damage

Because I can already get condition damage anyways from stacking might (fairly easy to achieve as D/D, not so much as staff or S/F, S/D, D/F, etc). 25 stacks of might ~850 power and condition damage. Vitality has a perceived value depending on how much you want more max HP, I would rank it below toughness, critical damage, and power though.

@kidmaomao.9267
Thieves that spam heart heart heart after the initial spike must be dodged. Let them burn out their initiative while you use up your dodges, or pop air3 shocking aura to counter. You can also use earthquake (earth4) right after a dodge roll. Also don’t forget about cantrips (mist form and lightning flash) are great ways to avoid them too.

@metaform

Altruism rune does only shine with ether renewal (3stacks of might, 10seconds + 7 seconds from boon effects). Cast time of ether rewewal is at 3.5? seconds, which means it takes at the mininum 18.5 seconds to almost contiously upkeep 3 stacks of might. I think 15% boon duration from having 2x superior monk and 2x superior water outweighs 3 stacks of might upkeep.
Plus its not like your always going to use your heal when its not on CD.

I hope this answers all your questions about stats.

Heres my gear set I usually use and its respective stats, since everyone always asks :P.
Also will put more analysis since everyone likes to theorycraft

http://imgur.com/yDEDhdX

I use full knights armor usually. Sometimes I’ll run PVT armor in fractals with Clerics accessories w/ 3% crit dmg jewels if I need to survive more often. I use full berserkers with rubies (2% critical damage, 14 precision, 20 power) if I know I won’t take any hits from the enemies.

Accessories:
Valkyrie jewels in all spots. (Power, Vitality, 3% crit damage).
Karka shell b/c its better than all other accessories

The following from ascended rings:
1. +All stats rings, +5% crit damage
2. Power, precision, +8% crit damage (for berzerker build setups)
3. Power, Toughness, +8% crit dmg ( for knights setup)

I am running ring 1 and ring 3 atm

For amulet, I am running ascended triforge amulet. I calculated the amount of stat returns you get for each of the ascended items. Triforge is superior in every regard, as you get 300 total stats +6% crit dmg with 4% MF which is always nice (as with all +all stat items).

IIrc, any stat/stat/stat ascended amulet adds up to 294 (with no critical damage). Any items with stat/stat/crit damage totaled up to ~210 w/ 9% critical damage. A 3% critical increase from ascended for a trade off of 90stats is not worth it.

Analysis on stat returns from Triforge and in general

Precision is also calculated to be worth about 1/2 the value of power (power and critical damage have the same amount of value) (see reddit links on my thread, on page 1, at the bottom of my last edit). It also has less of a return due to the perma upkeep of fury (20% critical chance + all the time). Its still good on knights armor though because the toughness stat is highest among 3 stats.
Power=Critical damage > precision, where ~20 power =1 critical damage point

Condition damage < Power, even though both give the same % stat return (100 power gives 7.5% damage increase). This is b/c power scales with both precision and critical damage, condition damage does not. Also condition damage tends to be mediocre against bosses, calculated at 66% efficiency or less iirc from threads I’ve read (due to conditions lasting shorter duration time frames against bosses). In addition, condition damage is easily removed anyways, whereas direct damage is immediate. Also must factor in the fact that condition damage ignores armor.

Healing power is subjective, with a stat return depending on whatever healing spell your using. I believe someone had made an analysis on how much returns healing power does on each spell here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/GW2-In-Depth-Guide-The-Elementalist-Mindset
Do note that healing power has crap stat returns as mentioned by lots of people, and is especially crappy for classes like warrior who have access to only one or maybe two healing methods. Elementalists have regeneration, regeneration x6 (from staff water5’s field), passive healing (from water attunement casts), Signet of restoration/utility skill, evasive arcana, water 5, water 2, water attunement swap etc.

Vitality is something you need only if you really need it. Its value is dependent on how much you think more HP is worth. I find myself happy at ~15k HP, as I can react to burst attacks from thieves in ~0.5 seconds (thieves take 1.5seconds at the mininum to spike ~13k damage at my armor level). If you have lag or problems like that, or your reaction isn’t <1 second, vitality might be something you’d like more. Vitality is also great for fractals too at the high end levels, where agony takes off a humungous chunk of your HP, but usually in between fairly long intervals thereby giving you enough time to heal up.

If your doing high level fractals, PVT armor is a must have. Vitality tends to shine alot more the harder fractals levels get. You don’t want to be downed in one shot by a boss or by trash mobs as a dead elementalist is not a very useful one.

For fractals, I use all weapon types and pick the one tailored to each situation. For instance, at the grawl final boss, S/F tends to shine the most due to air4, earth 5, and the ability to constantly break his shield quickly using any of your auto attacks (asides fire).

Staff is great when you need to kill a large number of trash mobs , and also shines by traiting water12 (aura share) with air1, and the earth3 magnetic aura. Magnetic aura is extremely useful in instances such as the dredge final boss, where you can reflect his mines back at him. You could do the same thing with S/F

D/F is a good alternative to D/D, as it provides much more defense while in turn sacrificing mobility. You really don’t need to use either S/D or D/D in higher level fractals, focus tends to be a much better option all around (level 20+ fractal). A dagger offhand doesn’t offer as much because most bosses are defiant and are immune to crowd control abilities most of the time (such as against updraft, earthquake, etc.) rendering your skills less useful.

The reason why focus is so great in fractals is because you get 2 very useful skills, earth5 and air4. Earth5 can be channeled while rezzing an ally, and be then used with mist form to provide yourself with invulnerability for 6-7seconds. Air4 is just useful everywhere where projectiles can 1 hit you if your vitality and toughness is too low.

@Rookni
:P I’ve been using more damage for sometime already =]. I have like 4 armor and weapon sets, lol.

pm me if you wanna join my ele guild
(p.s. i need more bank space for myself :P)

@Plasmacutter

Arcane shield is really useful against harder mobs like champions or high level fractals, where each hit takes a large chunk of your hp.

@Raffoo

I personally just buy knights accessories right off the auction house and use valkyrie orbs at the moment. Sometimes I use clerics accessories with those valkyrie orbs too.

@Scarn
Its definitely a matter of choice, personally you can use PVT armor, clerics, or knights. Usually I run knights most of the time because I do not need the extra healing power, and am used to avoiding damage whenever possible. You do get much more damage using valkyrie or berserker jewels as someone had mentioned earlier in this thread.

@TGS
I have considered it, but I personally like those might stacks I get from attunement swapping:]. I can see the potential applications with energy sigil in PvP, where dodging may be more vital. The only problem with dodging more often is that your also outputting less damage overall, because you will be more tempted to dodge and avoid it instead of tanking it + dealing damage back

@Banzai
:D np

@tisme
I use primarily knights accessories, and sometimes clerics\

@Ozymandias
Try placing valkyries or berserker rings in the accessories, it really helps alot with damage.

@BasedGod
:D. I remember those times, they were fun=]
Pretty sure the enemy team hated me:(

@convenn
D/D eles do have a decent amount of access to condition damage, but condition damage does tend to be usually inferior to regular damage (power, precision, crit damage). Since power affects both your regular damage and critical damage and does damage instantly, I prefer regular damage. It does get mitigated by armor though, whereas condition damage does not.

@Wreckdrum/convenn
I think that having the option to not target people brings up more options in combat, making it more fun and complex. For instance, I don’t have to use RtL on enemies and use it to escape situations whenever I want, or attack enemies that are invisible , etc.

Sometimes adding a target to those situations makes your skills hit much easier, for instance fire2 or water2. When it comes to PbAoE spells, it doesn’t matter if you have a target or not, but rather your positioning (fire4, earth4, etc)

@Paleeshi
The only way to kill a mesmer is to be aggressive, as they have the advantage at range, whereas you have the advantage in melee range. Always avoid the shatters as much as possible, you can see it coming if you fight your enemy’s and its clones at mid range distance. Shatter requires the clones be within point blank range of you to explode. Another thing to watch out for is there staff2 ability, which teleports them back relative to you. You must save your gap closers until they use that ability, and then force them to burn off their utilities. When you see a cripple on you from a clone, dodge asap, because an impending shatter strike (Leap+Blurr frenzy+shatter) is going to occur. Mesmers can easily output over 10k damage in a shorttime frame, so you have to be mindful when the shatter strikes going to occur. You will be immobilized when it happens, so swapping to water attunement+dodging is an automatic counter. A good mesmer however would strike right after you swap to water attunement, leaving you vulnerable

Also if possible kill the mesmer’s clones with your AoE while trying to harass them at the same time. Clones do damage via explosions, and phantasms can hurt alot if they aren’t dealt with early on

@Zartheon
I prefer the ascended items that have critical damage on them first off, since critical damage is hard to come by.

As to stats, and what options are available, I prefer either:
Power, toughness, critical damage
All stats, + critical damage
Power, precision, critical damage

Personally I like power,toughness, crit damage rings and the new ascended all+ stats and crit damage (triforge pendant).

Backpack I use power, toughness, crit damage

I also made an elementalist guild if you guys wanna join =p. Pm me on forum or in game and I’ll send you an invite

@Thunderbrew
Your getting 6000 damage crits on meteor shower?!?! I haven’t tested full berzerkers 30/30/0/10/0 yet so I can’t say much. All I know is that my crits on meteor showers are usually 2-3k=p

2. I do that all the time, minus the arcane shield since 3 hits against a mob doesn’t last long.
You can always try something I call “air casting” which is based off of “air dodging” from my original d/d thread.

Instead of pressing jump followed by dodge to do an “air dodge”, you can actually do “air casts”, Just swap the original dodge to your skill you want to use.

Advantages of aircasting are the following:
You get a clear line of sight to your target so that you can initiate casting your AoE, and then be behind cover in the duration of your jump. This effectively prevents you from getting hit alot defending a castle from single targeting spells.

You can use something like D/D’s churning earth and channel its ability in midair / jumping off a cliff and have it hit finish casting the moment you hit the ground.

Aircasting is done by pressing jump+using your skill in a very short time frame after jumping. Imagine doing air dodging except your using a skill instead of dodging.

3. I think chain lightning is great too as an overall auto attack ability. IIRC if your first target blocks/evades the attack, all 3 of your attacks are negated.

@Thibash
I thought about glyph of elemental power until I realized its a 5 second internal CD
edit: nvm I didn’t realize that the 5 second internal CD is counted for each target. Sounds pretty useful for a condition damage setup

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glyph_of_Elemental_Power

@wolf

That seems too easy to dodge

@anadur
No idea why you chose those traits. Air30 doesn’t really serve a purpose o.O. Also you don’t usually channel the meteor shower under fire attunemment

@Kythor

A lot of people originally thought of using 0/0/30/20/20 setupts because of written in stone, but there are a couple of downfalls to it.

The only good signet really is “Signet of restoration”. Signet of air is inferior since movement speed bonuses don’t stack with swiftness. Also the active ability of the signets have a long CD, making it less useful. The only other good signet imo is signet of earth, immobilization is incredibly useful for S/D setups. Signet of Fire is okay, you can get access to burning anywhere and it only adds a measly 4% crit chance bonus.

@Got E
I use knights and clerics accessories, karka shell, and ascended backpiece.

@Waraxx

I had a hard time reading that comment :S. Not sure what you meant by

“in my opinion the water 20% cd reduction is better than most water traits because it lets me use my combo ( as i described before) 20% more often, meaning my group have 20% more fury uptime. "

There’s no water skill that grants fury, unless you consider earth2+water4+air I trait

@Hypno

You could definitely use FGS (fiery greatsword elite) :P. Staffs single targeting dps is kinda meh, so FGS is definitely useful.

I’m not a big fan of Fire XII trait (10seconds of 1 stack of might per fire spell cast) even if your on fire the entire time. Auto attack spells from fire 1 are kinda slow, so I’m not sure about it. I think the most stacks of might by purely using this with full boon duration (30 arcana+boon duration armor) was like 16-17 stacks of might. Note that I can get 22ish stacks of might using d/d easily. I get 9 stacks of might pretty easy with sigil of battle (3might stacks per weapon/attunement swap), plus an additional 3 stacks from just using earth blast finishers on staff per 10seconds for a total of 12 stacks of might. You really don’t get that much more from going to a pure DPS fire build imo (12 stacks of might vs 17 stacks of might).

Also I think air>fire if you want to get more DPS overall. Critical damage is not really that easy to come by, so I think you benefit more from using those traits.

Were you implying that spells from FGS also proc on the Fire XII trait too? Or maybe if your in fire attunement casting it?

Do you prefer a 30/30/0/10/0 setup or a 0/x/0/x/x setup?
I think that 0/25/0/25/20 would be less favorable in terms of DPS but offset that with much more utility and be more useful overall.

@Kodiak

1. I definitely agree that if you want to go raw DPS on a staff, rubies is definitely the way to go. 20+power +2% crit damage +10 precision at a fraction of the cost of divinity’s runes. Berzerkers is also good too

2. It all depends in what situation your in. In Wv3, I like running 3 cantrips too. PvE is more predictable, and icebow tends to shine much more so I always take conjured icebow.

3-4. I agree with those statements

5. I forgot to mention glyph of elemental harmony for perma swiftness :p

1. I didn’t even realize that conjured lightning hammer did AoE blinds lol :P , or the fact that you picked 20 fire just so you have the option to get +10 more charges for FGS and conjured hammer. I will put that into the build list sections =]

@atomic sharks
Could you link it here? I can’t see staff being a good condition damage either, but I might be wrong until I test it out.

@Rhoto
:D

@ChaosDoom

Crit % for me with fury on goes up to 60% for me usually with knights gear. Can be pushed up higher though. 30% with fury on for tanking gear.

Number of dodges is determined by my high upkeep on vigor. Can only dodge twice in a row.

@Tgs
+1
I’m not that much of an expert on PvP as you :P

I do the autoattacking + signet too all the time.

@Oneira
Its personal preference =P. Whatever you think is good use that, I don’t run arcane shield too often cause I like stun breakers

@Fykas
Wolf answered that

@Wolf
You bring up a good point. It all depends on the situation really, on whether or not I use an earth dodge roll onto a fire field. Sometimes using a dodge for 3 stacks of might as part of a rotation is not worth it (i.e. when I’m heavily pressured against lots of players in WvWvW by myself). Re-positioning (like behind a tree) with dodging in that case outweighs 3stacks of might anyday. Sometimes I do try to get the best of both worlds, by careful positioning of fire fields such that I get a new position that is strategically useful after dodging, and gives me the blast finisher on the fire field.

If I’m on the offensive (such as there running away from me), I don’t always go for the earth blast onto the fire field. I’d rather just kill my enemy ASAP, might stacking with dodge just buys them more time when I don’t really need the extra damage. Remember that you should not always follow a rotation, albeit it should be a guideline. Sometimes you’ll find that skipping certain skill during rotations in various situations is for the best outcome, as you can save that skill for later / save time not casting spells you don’t need.

@Everyones suggestions
I read the suggestions you guys made, and put them into the guide / looked deeper into those subjects. Also put credit for most of them too =]

@Strife
I feel as if backpedaling is needed in certain instances, you can’t go ignore bind a backpedal key, it serves a purpose. Yes backpedalling is less efficient than strafe casting.

There is no optimal skill rotation for elementalists. Most of the staffies skills are dependent on the situation. For instance, you don’t need to cast water heals if you don’t need it. You don’t need to cast air5 is its not going do anything against PvE ranged mobs. You don’t need earth 4 against purely ranged mobs, burning retreat if no ones attacking you etcs. Just spam the skills you think feel relevant by going through that attunement rotation.

There is an optimal attunement rotation though in terms of most DPS/CC/support/heals in the shortest time frame(as stated in guide). You don’t necessarily go in this rotation in PvP or WvWvW, where rotations are more important

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Earth Spells

Earth1 (Stoning)
Twice the arc length as all the other autoattackers. Grants 3 seconds of weakness (not 1 second) which is extremely useful. It has no AoE associated with it. The range on the spell is 1200 units. It is optimal to use this at close – mid range, as it is harder for enemies to dodge this ability. This spell works really well against melee classes, and is considered to be a physical projectile combo finisher for your elemental fields. 0.75 second cast time

Earth 2 (Eruption)
Your only blast finisher skill in the staff arsenal (not including EA and utilities). Damage is fairly good with a mix of condition damage and regular damage. It hits for ~2k on criticals and does 6 stacks of bleeding for 12 seconds. Earth2 has a delay of app. 3 seconds before its damage takes in effect, as well as its blast finisher effect (don’t confuse this with D/D ele’s earth 4 and earth 5, their blast finishers are applied at the start of the spell). Radius is 240 units, increased by blasting staff

Earth 3 (Magnetic Aura) – Aura
Gives you 5 seconds of magnetic aura, which reflects all projectiles. Combines well with Air I traits and Water XII trait. Can be used to permanently upkeep fury+swiftness with those 2 traits on to the team. Does not reflect siege weapon attacks.

Earth4 (Unsteady ground)
This is not an elemental field. It creates a line that cripples anyone walking past it. The first proc that the enemy receives last 2 seconds, and any proc after that adds an additional 1 second. Total number of procs from this spell is 10, and like all AoE spells can hit up to 5 people. The best way to utilize this is in PvE is to position it such that any melee mobs are forced to run through the entire line thereby taking the full damage and cripple effect. This can be done via positioning your character correctly. The line is always created perpendicular relative to you (imagine a bunch of radial lines coming off you, the earth4 is perpendicular to those). Range 1200 units.

Earth 5 (Shockwave)
Creates a shockwave that bleeds and immobilizes your target. Note that this spell can be dodge, and it goes right through enemies. It hits everyone in a straight line in front of you, dealing its full damage and conditions to all. Range is 1200 units, immobiliziation lasts 2 seconds, and the bleed lasts 20 seconds. It is considered a physical projectile combo finisher. Works best in hallways where you can immobilize and hit everyone.

Air spells

Air1 (Chain lightning)
This skill is one of the best auto attacks a staffie has. Unlike the other staffie auto attacks, this one does not arc whatsoever, so you could say it is slightly harder to dodge this one. It hits up to 3 targets, with a a range of 1200 units. It does not have any AoE associated with it. The best place to use it is to hit two targets next to each other. Aim for the target you want to hit the most, as the shot will bounce onto his ally then back onto him. Casting time is 1 second, cooldown animation at 0.35 seconds.

Air2 (Lightning Surge)
Had infinite range at one point in the game, but its range is now at 1200 units. Radius is 120 units (240 with blasting staff), and the projectile blinds all enemies affected for 5 seconds. Has a really long cast time at 1.5 seconds. The blind is really useful against bursty classes. The spell hits instanteously at the end of the cast. Still can be obstructed by walls.

Air3 (Gust)
Pushes back enemy with a projectile. The projectile moves at a speed similar to the air1 ability. It is the only staffie weapon skill that pushes back enemies, and it can be incredibly useful for knocking people off cliffs /instagibbing them in WvWvW. Used in PvP for point control reasons. Gust has a range of 1200 units, and knocks back 400 units. Combines extremely well with lightning flash, as you can prechannel this ability and control where you want your enemy pushed back with lightning flash. You can kill d/d elementalists this way by standing on a cliffside and wait for their updraft + do a quick air3+lightning flash from behind.

Air4(Windborne Speed)
Use this whenever its available or to counter CC conditions. Grant swiftness to you and all nearby allies, and cures crippled,immobilize(especially immobilize), and chill!. Duration of swiftness is 10seconds (with no boon duration), and radius of 240 units.

Air5 (static field) – Lightning field
This is a lightning field. Grants swiftness with blast finishers. Creates an electric field that stuns any enemy for 2 seconds crossing it. Used for point control in PvP, and cutting off chokepoints in WvWvW. Enemies cannot dodge through the field as they will still get stunned. Radius at 180 units, increased by blasting staff. Duration of field at 4seconds.

Water Spells

Water1 (Water Blast)
Mediocre auto attack spell. It’s considered to be one of the worst auto attack abilities a staffie has. Damage is really low, has the same arcing animation as fire1. Radius is at 120 units on end location for both damage and healing. The healing is at 370 + 10% (Heal Power), for a small uncontrolled radius. Not recommended to use. Attack speed is 1 second, cooldown animation is 0.35seconds.
edit: water1’s damage is single target, only the healing is aoe. (Akbaroth.2861)

Water2(Ice Spike)
This spell is amazing as the damage is very high, and applies 5 seconds of vulnerability to everyone affected. Time for spike to drop ~2seconds. It is optimal to cancel this spell early, as it does not need to be channeled to get its full effect. The best way to end the channeling is by dodge rolling (you should anyways with Evasive arcana to get that heal). Another method is physically pressing “escape”, but you have to close your window to do this (if your inventory its 2 “escape” clicks!), so I don’t bother. You can also cast Earth2 followed by this Water 2 spell, and they will hit simultaneously for burst AoE damage. Great for Line of Sight ambush at chokepoints. Range at 1200, radius at 240.

Water 3(Geyser) – Water field
This spell is a water field. It can heal up to 5 allies at a time and procs up to 3xs per person under the full duration. Range is at 1200, and radius 120(increased by blasting staff). It’s a fairly decent heal spell, and stacks with Water5. The spell itself lasts 2 seconds, and heals for 808 +0.25 (Healing power)

Water 4(Frozen Ground) – Ice field
This spell is an ice field. It does no damage, meaning you can actually cast it on someone and do advanced weapon swapping initiation techniques if you wanted too. Range cast is 1200, radius at 240 units (increased by blasting staff). Has a duration of 5 seconds, and procs 2 second chill effects to anyone in it. It procs up to 6xs total (total of 12 seconds chill), and can affect up to 5 enemies at a time. Combined with a blast finisher, it can give an area frost armor for 3 seconds.

Water 5 (Healing rain) – Water Field
One of the best water fields / heal skills in the game. Provides a stack of 4 regeneration to your allies in the area. Note that the regeneration heal gained is just your regular regeneration scaled by 4. Cures conditions once every 3 seconds. Radius of 360 units (increased by blasting staff), and range 1200 units. Duration time is 6 seconds, and must be casted standing still. Animation cooldown is kind of long.

Fire spells
Fire1 (Fireball)
Shoot a dodgeable projectile that arcs with 1200 range. Upon destination it has an AoE effect of 120 units (radius). The damage is not really that bad, it can hit fairly hard at 1-2k with criticals depending on your stats. Cast time is 1 second and a cooldown animation of 0.4 seconds. Considered to be the first or second auto attack of choice for a staffie
edit: Fire1 has a radius of 90, and increased by blasting staff (Akbaroth.2861)

Fire2 (Lavafront) – Fire field
This spell is one of the clutch spells for the staffie. It is one of two fire fields that you possess. It has a radius of 120 which is increased by the blasting staff trait, and range of 1200. The damage hits around ~1k for each critical (depends on stats again) and can proc up to 4xs. Remember that you can also hit up to 5 enemies as well, with the 4 procs on each person in it. So you should cast it such that as many enemies stand in the field as long as possible. Affected by blasting staff trait

Fire3 (Flameburst)
This is a very short cast time spell at ½ second cast, and a decent CD. You should use this ability as soon as possible, and should be casted after any spells that have long cooldown animations, as this spell will override them. Its best to use this after an auto attack Fire1, or any spells from other attunements that have long cooldown animations. Has an AoE of 180, range of 1200. Damage depends on condition damage, and applies 5 seconds of burning. Evasive arcana creates a similar close up version of this spell. Affected by blasting staff trait

Fire4 (Burning Retreat) – Fire field
The only movement displacer in your arsenal as a staffie. It is also a fire field as well, but should not be combined with earth 2. The only time you would utilize its fire field effects is if you go from Fire then Earth, in which case you would cast this then do a EA earth dodge roll forward. Alternatively arcane wave could be used as well for stacking might. The actual fire field created from this spell is actually the same fire trail left behind from the D/D ele’s fire3 ability, and this one lasts 6 seconds long. It works best in PvE mobs when you know they will follow you in a straight line, thereby taking the full damage. Also as mentioned in the D/D guide, the trails can hit many times depending on the hitbox size of the enemy (only applies to PvE), and if used on a corner it could proc even further on big enemies (as trail distance sections get smaller). It is also recommended that you position the fire field between your allies and the enemies, in order to get burning projectile combos. Another use of this ability is to avoid damage, as this is essentially a long drawn out dodge. This means you can counter immobilize with this ability like you do with updraft, by dodging in place. Also don’t forget the “About face” key (Its in Options panel) for more added fun, reversing your direction + utilizing allows you to use it moving forward.

Fire5 (Meteor shower)
This is your signature move. Every player should be aware that a staffie has this, because throwing meteors down onto the ground is noticeable. It shoots down a lot of meteors when it is cast at its full duration and most of the meteors drop after the full casting time is met (drops for like an additional 10 seconds after cast). You can also cancel the meteor shower early, but this results in fewer meteors hitting the target area. Radius of spell is 360 (increased by blasting staff). I believe blasting staff also increases number of meteors drop too, but I don’t feel like slowing my video down to count all of them :P. Each meteor is a projectile (literally almost the same as the fire1’s auto attack damage) and has a damage radius of 90. Combines great with lightning flash. Also note that the meteors hit randomly in the target area, and your “target” that you are trying to hit may not even be hit at all.
-F5 projectiles all have the ‘max 5 hits’ so it truly is amazing AoE. Scales with hitbox size (Hypno.2649)
-Fire5 not affected by blasting staff (Akbaroth.2861)

More combination field types + battle tactics 2