Guild Wars 2

My staff one-trick-poney combo:
- Shockwave
- Eruption
- Signet of Earth
- Ice Spike
- Froken Ground
- Flame Burst
- Pewpew Fireball

If everything lands it kills someone, sometimes. If the guy cleanse or stunbreak the root its a fail. It has however nothing to do with root/tooth/nix/electric discharge/lighning strike burst.

S/D holding 25?
Glyph 3
Tooth 3
Phenix 3
Earthquake 3
AW 3
EA 3
CE 3

Thats top 21 and you cant really keep it up.

Anyways, 4/2 seems to be indeed a fair trade. As for useless boons, Regen is pretty much always useless on duration, even if its good for Cleansing Water trigger. Swiftness is so common that its hardly an issue.

or
40% BD + 50heal/10vita
versus
15%BD + 165heal + 5s/15 Fury + 10s/15 3might

only considering the buff uptime on D/F Powerfull Aura (Cantrip, non Signet) and ignoring Elemental Attunment (too hard to calculate since you dont mindlessly swap whever you can), Altruism seems a good chunk ahead.

Altriusm is also bringing more damage buff and less “useless” buffs (Swiftness/Regen). But doesnt affect Stability or Protection.

Naysayer:
- Geomancer Freedom doesnt give “nearly snare immunity”
- 15 in water (cleanse and heal) gives more than quick glyphs, even if you use glyphs.
- You cant use glyphs in Mist Form anymore. Storms in earth is amazing but it is somehow hard to land on the frontline now.
- Elemental Power is good for kite situation but this wont happend when fighting a zerg

I play mage Stabmage in 0/0/30/20/20, full cantrip+Ether. Full boon duration. But thats the same spirit.

Vaugh.7193:

Haha hell no, I get 5k dmg of the fireballs alone. Then add all ticks of lava damage. Then add the burning damage. Outcome is a nearly downed player.

5k dmg fireball in cleric gear? That was on a rabit sir.

haviz.1340:

PierPiero.9142:

@haviz.1340 i agree with u. In my opinion however there are builds better than bunker build. With bunker build i feel to low dps. It is a personal opinion obviously. I am more confortable with 30 in fire or 30 in earth. It is correct that cond damage is less usefull … but you have to consider even that with earth u gain toughess. There are situation in which i prefer 30 in fire, other going to earth … it depends. It is obviously a personal feeling and not a god truth

Have I ever stated I was using bunker build or that I thought it was the most optimal? Even in full zerker you still won’t come close to the amount of dps that warrior can achieve or the amount of support (aka reflections/absorptions) mesmer and guardian can achieve simply because that’s not how elementalist class was designed. It will never be best at anything but should be good at everything. The problem is that currently, pve meta doesn’t promote those other things (like normal support, cc and conds) so ele is just good at dps and projectile reflections, unlike “holy trinity”.

I wasnt comparing to other classes. You probably wont use an Elem at all if you go for the “best”.

Well spending 25 points into water and using 3 Cantrips isnt really “staying away from bunker”, no offence. And Arena Net made intelligence so stupidely important for Elem gameplay that you cant really stay away from it.

You can be midly successful with 30/30/0/10/0 also with a good team.

Ozymandias.5704:

Maybe of the summoned weapons were more like engineering kits they could be a bit better.

If we had engie kit we would be engies…
Having to drop the weapon on a specific place but being able to pick it back would be a good trade.

haviz.1340:

You won’t do non-junk dps unless you use lightning hammer which whole gameplay is simplified to leaving your autoattack on. Elementalist won’t ever achieve good dps build (and that’s, plus projectiles reflecion, what counts in pve) because that’s how this class was designed, jack of all trades. Shamefully, those other trades are mostly useless in pve.

We could have a 123 pages thread about how usefull is indirect dps and support VS damage. However permaburn25bleed does a crapload of damage and is more versatile than Thor build.

1- Let us drop conjure weapon on the ground and pick them later like every other environemental weapon.

Building for D/D in PvE is bad. Build for PvE, dont build for a specific weapon because some events requiers you not to melee.

0/20/0/20/30 ring and back cavalier weapon valkirie and rest berserk

is crap and you do junk dps.

Great Ideas. I would add:

Water Blast:
Better make is a channeling attack healing every second all allies standing in the ray.

Eruption:
The idea is great, I dont think it does need a “lower damage if activated”

Shockwave:
The best would be to drasticly increase the bleed part to make condition damage more viable on staff.
Another idea would be to affect (current immob+bleed) all targets on its way, its a shock wave after all.

Unsteady Ground:
Maybe too good. It does already goes past the AoE target limit as all “line” attacks. Adding 2/3 bleed (like mobs on fractal final) would be nice.

Ice Spike:
I like the idea of having heavy hitter very punishing for bad players. Increasing damage would be a better design than increasing falling speed.
The best design imo would be that staff Elem could sometimes create a very punishing “dont melee me” zone throuhg the use of some attacks (Spike/Eruption/Lavafont) instead of having to rely on low speed low damage auto attack and low/average kiting abilities.

A good thief should know when to melee and when to go away instead of mindlessly stick to you mashing skills.

Nice vids, great teamplay.

However I fail to understand how is 25 air better than 30 water.

I spent all my playtime in sPvP since patch to test every possible builds I could came up for at least one hour. I am very sad to see that 0/0/10/30/30 and 0/10/0/30/30 are even more powerful than before, i mean better than other Elem builds.

Signets, even with buff are complete crap due to casting time.
Arcane squishy builds and Glyph oriented got smacked in the face with Mist Form nerf.
Staff/Support’s only point was Cond Immune zone with Healing Rain.
Cantrip D/D is hardly affected by Cleansing Water and is the only set up able to survive Mist Form Nerf.

Success!

As D/D Cantrip classic:
sPvP is roughly the same just lower mobility. I found myself using Cleansing Wave instead of Cantrip mastery and its actually even better.
WvW is annoying due to longer travels. Fights are the same.

All in all its the same. The only thing that took a heavy hit are squishy builds relaying on Mist Form to cast glyphs. Again, unintended victims of badly designed changes.

The only major change is the viability of Wrinten In Stone builds.
Staff support build will be hurt by Cleansing Water nerf.
Glass canon squishy builds by Mist Form nerf.

If you were getting stomped by D/D Bunker Elem : You still will.

Air XI is crap and should be changed, shocking aura under 90sec CD, seriously?

However I wouldnt invest a trait for RTL cooldown reduction, 20% off all Air is better.

Xaos.3257:

Well There is obsidian flesh and magnetic wave…

Patch note 19-07-2013:
To give more build and weapon options to Elementalist profession, since everone is now playing D/F
- obsidian flesh is now 10 minutes cooldown if used over 10% hitpoints
- you cannot use utility skills and heal while under magnetic wave
- swirling winds doesnt blocks projectiles in PvP
- flamewall now doesnt deal any damage… oh wait thats live already

Trebuchet hits blocking was an annoying feature. It made Elems grossly overpowered in structure fights. I spent last night nearly one hour with other Elems of my guild pretecting our Treb against another defended machine… it was boring as hell.

If you consider RTL, Cantrip and Cleansing Water nerf, I would bet my money on more /F Elems after next patch.

makku.2508:

innocent ouarior.1954:

1- Cleansing Water wont affect Cantrip D/D much. Many people were already running Cleansing Fire for its low cooldown. If you werent, you shouldnt.
Whats ironic is that staff Elems will be more affected but the change than tanky D/D.

Just on a side note, the part about staff water 5 in the youtube video was actually the most epic facepalm.jpg moment I had in years. It was literally like this:

1) Devs explaining the changes
2) One of the guests: “So, you guys are aware that changing the Cleansing Water trait will actually have a vast impact on any kind of ele build, especially staff?”
3) Both dev’s facial expressions suddenly going holy-kitten-we-didnt-think-about-that-what-did-we-do-oh-ma-gawd for a few moments, then all of a sudden they’re both “yeah of course we thought about that, we intended it this way. IT’S ALL GOOD GUYS, NEXT QUESTION PLOX!”.

With every other patch they release, I’m getting more of an impression these guys have absolutely no idea about what they are doing.

Exactly my thoughts. And this goes for almost everything they said on all classes. I am seriously afraid for the futur of the game.

Everyone agrees D/D EA tank builds are too strong, and every patch since release made all Elem even more pingeon holed into D/D.
Mist Form nerf? Hits staff and squishy builds more.
EA blast removal? Hits staff more.
Cleansing Water nerf? Hits staff more.

And I’m a D/D player since release. I rolled Elem because I liked melee mage idea but it is so idiotic every Elem is stuck into D/D.

As for using AoE for single target… seriously? Thats the whole point of GW2. The whole difference between this game and classic mmo scheme.

In other mmo:
ST dmg > AoE dmg but it doesnt affect defense.

In GW2:
ST dmg = AoE dmg but if you go for AoE you lose defenses.

Going back on that is a shame it would ruin what makes GW2 unique. Its like this different rules for PvP/RvR/PvE, hey and lets add taunt, resilience and raids… errrr wait?

These two guys looked like the devs team just changes random stuff, just a bit so people dont whine too much and see what players come with.

Buff Arcane:
- Make Arcane Lightning 10% (up from 3)
- Change intelligence to make it an improved scaling version of Arcane Precision (from 0 to 60%)
- Make attunement cooldown linked to the number of points invested in the line (ie you can go back to water faster if you have more points in water)

Buff Glyphs:
- Make Elemental Power proc more
- Make Inscription in the line of Glyph of Elemental Harmony (ie 3 Might)
- Make all pets (in the game) immune/resilient to AoE

Buff Fire line (water brings more damage!)
- Burning Precision burns for 5sec
- Persisting Flames also reduce cooldown of field by 30%

Nerf Boontyfull Boons for self, buff for support
- Your boons gives also give 1% damage per boon to you or friends

Nerf Cantrips:
- Soothing Disruption give vigor and protection to self and 5 allies
- Make RTL a cantrip and Lightning Flash the /D #4

Conjured Weapons:
- Let us drop and pick Conjured Weapons like all environemental weapons in the game

Buff Elem Elites
- Let us use utility skills in Tornado
- See Glyphs and Conjure for other Elites

Nerfing D/D bunker isnt bad. The way it is done is bad.

Mijo.3274:

OMG! What the hell is all the whining i’m reading on the forums??

My main is an ele since bwe 2, and of course i’m playing a DD cantrip build.
But just admit that OUR CLASS IS OP, everybody know that, just watch the number of eles in pvp in the last 2 months, that’s just stupid, 2/3 ele in almost every party.

So what the kitten is thinking all the people that ask for buffs? We cant have buffs, we need nerfs!

By the way, here the solution i’m goin to adopt:
1) Less condition removal: gonna put Cleansing Fire in my utilities
2) Signet of restoration nerf: goin back to a PVT set up instead of cleric, gonna use the Glyph
3) RTL nerf: just gonna use it to escape, not to enter the fight, not a big issue for me, the only real problem is that roaming is gonna be slower for us

And i want to make you know that signets are gonna get a buff like banners in the last patch, so i’m definetly gonna retry a 20-10-x-x-x aurasignet build

1- Cleansing Water wont affect Cantrip D/D much. Many people were already running Cleansing Fire for its low cooldown. If you werent, you shouldnt.
Whats ironic is that staff Elems will be more affected but the change than tanky D/D.

1b- The real nerf is Mist Form, not being able to use ustilities (heal/glyph) while mist form will actually means many Elems are gonna skip it for Cleansing Fire or Armor of Earth.

2- Signet of Resto wasnt amazingly scaling with healing power anyways. Unless you run a Written into Stone build noone will use Signet anymore.

3- Like most said they made RTL such that you will use it more to charge and less to escape. Its a good change.

All in all the changes are no strong enough to discourage D/D Cantrips and strong enough to hit again staff support Elems who didnt deserved it.
More Elems will go to 0/0/10/30/30 D/D tanky build : Success?

I cannot agree less.

This patch will actually not hurt us that much.

However there are VERY bad signs on the way Anet seems to work:
- Devs seem to pay more attention to GW2Guru than to official forums. Not to mention Euro forums, not to mention non english forums. Its dead there.

- The changes even if they don’t affect the gameplay that much are incredibly bad calculated. It doesnt aim the right target. Its an American air strike not a surgery work.

*RTL nerf again
Yay. The problem with RTL is that is that its the only mobility tool available to Elementalist. And its off hand dagger. If you want to be mobile = go offhand dagger.
The change (20sec CD with a target, 40 without) is actually a good idea. But it doesnt solve the main problem : Elems beeing pigeonholed into D/D

*Cleansing Water nerf
This is one a of the most stupid decision I’v seen in a while.
If you want to nerf Cantrip Condi removal spam, hit Soothing Disruption instead of kicking every Elem actually trying to play something different. The worse part is that this change actually hurts more Healing Rain and Dwaynax6 than D/D Bunkers.

General “D/D Bunkers are too strong” thema
Elems feel pigeonholed into D/D Bunker because :
- Staff and Scepter are nearly ineffective in sPvP because they are slow and very avoidable.
- There is no synergy in Elem traits line besides aura+signets and cantrip+cleansing
- The best DPS line is Water because Bountiful Boons is too good (and other master traits too bad).
- You *have to spend points into arcana, not only because of boon duration and water#25, but because it would be giving up all what Elems are designed for : attunement dance.

TD;NR suggestions:
- Swap RTL/Lightning Flash making the 1st a Cantrip and the other an air OH Dagger ability. Keep the 20sec/40sec nerf planed.

- Don’t nerf Cleansing Water. Change regen for Aegis on Soothing Disruption.

- Improve Staff :
Haste Fireball travel time.
Water Blast a channeled water jet.
Increase substantially the duration of Healing Rain.
Increase substantially the damage, travel and animation time of chain lightning but make it single target.

- Nerf/Change Bountiful Boons so it gives heavy support instead of the best overall damage trait possible.

- Remove/Change Intelligence. Give to every trait line an innate reduced cooldown to go back to the related attunement depending on how much points you invested into the line. So attunement only traits doesn’t feel wasted.

The upcoming changes will actually not hurt us that much.

However there are VERY bad signs on the way Anet seems to work:
- Devs seem to pay more attention to GW2Guru than to official forums. Not to mention Euro forums, not to mention non english forums. Its dead there.

- The changes even if they don’t affect the gameplay that much are incredibly bad calculated. It doesnt aim the right target. Its an American air strike not a surgery work.

*RTL nerf again
Yay. The problem with RTL is that is that its the only mobility tool available to Elementalist. And its off hand dagger. If you want to be mobile = go offhand dagger.
The change (20sec CD with a target, 40 without) is actually a good idea. But it doesnt solve the main problem : Elems beeing pigeonholed into D/D

*Cleansing Water nerf
This is one a of the most stupid decision I’v seen in a while.
If you want to nerf Cantrip Condi removal spam, hit Soothing Disruption instead of kicking every Elem actually trying to play something different. The worse part is that this change actually hurts more Healing Rain and Dwaynax6 than D/D Bunkers.

*General “D/D Bunkers are too strong” thema
Elems feel pigeonholed into D/D Bunker because :
- Staff and Scepter are nearly ineffective in sPvP because they are slow and very avoidable.
- There is no synergy in Elem traits line besides aura+signets and cantrip+cleansing
- The best DPS line is Water because Bountiful Boons is too good (and other master traits too bad).
- You have to spend points into arcana, not only because of boon duration and water#25, but because it would be giving up all what Elems are designed for : attunement dance.

TD;NR suggestions:
- Swap RTL/Lightning Flash making the 1st a Cantrip and the other an air OH Dagger ability. Keep the 20sec/40sec nerf planed.

- Don’t nerf Cleansing Water. Change regen for Aegis on Soothing Disruption.

- Improve Staff :
Haste Fireball travel time.
Water Blast a channeled water jet.
Increase substantially the duration of Healing Rain.
Increase substantially the damage, travel and animation time of chain lightning but make it single target.

- Nerf/Change Bountiful Boons so it gives heavy support instead of the best overall damage trait possible.

- Remove/Change Intelligence. Give to every trait line an innate reduced cooldown to go back to the related attunement depending on how much points you invested into the line. So attunement only traits doesn’t feel wasted.

Grevender.9235:

what amazes me is that everyone QQ about zergs in W3 and yet devs haven’t realized that actually insanely BOOSTING AoE would be the only solution against ’em.
Having AoE be lethal for enemies and -say- 50% damage for allies too, would force everyone to spread and actually be more careful instead of mindlessly zerging.

I dont see why this is an Elementalist topic…

Anyways, Zerg packing isnt boosting AoE, at the contraring, AoE limit supports zerg strategy and is completely stupid. AoE should be promoted to combat zerg behavior.

Strong and lethal AoE are fine as long as you have to run a squishy build to make them work. The current state of the game is perfectly balanced on that point.

S/F 0/30/0/10/30
Stick to air, use 3 arcane utilities. Blind, Blind, Blind, Blind…

Its 25×2 charges, more than what you need to hit constantly and be large on cooldown.

Statwise obviously Celestial or Zerker (if you are at exotic gear level) for jewelry.

PvE isnt heavy on damage if you know what to dodge, even more if you play with a staff. I would advice a mix of zerk and valk, toughness only affects direct damage so basically the direct hits you will take and you can pretty much avoid all of that.

Dr Hashbrown.7104:

I don’t know about you guys, but I once ran Arah exp with a staff ele, zerk war, and here’s the best part, engi(me), ranger and necro. It was a piece of cake, had no problems at all.

I don’t believe in profession priority, guild wars 2 depends more on skill rather than on gear and profession.

Another day, I decided to roll the same path of Arah, this time, I rolled my zerk warrior. We had the same guardian, the same necro, but instead of the staff ele and the zerk warrior, we had a thief and a guardian. They were both well geared with exotics, but kitten kitten they were useless. I could not remember the amount of times we wiped at lupi. They couldn’t dodge the AoE, they complained that they can only dodge twice because they’re too stupid to realise that they can walk out of the AoE if they can.

I’m just saying that doing dungeons mostly depends on player skill and experience.
My engineer is full berserker geared and uses a static discharge rifle crit build. I feel much more useful than condition damage or support tank. Wouldn’t you guys think a 3.5k crit hip shot(auto attack) is great?

This was mostly theorical thread. Side question what Engie spec makes Zerker gear better than rampager?

haviz.1340:

I meant guardian being burnt, not applying burning.

There are way more reliable ways to gain perma Fury, having a ranger or an auramancer is probably easier. Fury btw isnt such a incredible dps increase.

ThiBash.5634:

Ah, I’ve misinterpeted it then. My apologies.

Misinterpreting an unclear message isn’t that bad.
But yeah, I was talking about CFG#1.

OP here.
1- I was talking about highest dps over a run with a min maxed team. So thats without someone stealing your hammer or having to ask yourself if the guys is a decent player or not. Otherwise we’ll all take rangers and warriors because they are easier not to suck with.

2- As for Lightning Hammer charges: With 25 charges you rarely need the second hammer on most boss events. If need be the second 25 charges gets you way beyond summoning cooldown so its almost a non issue.
Using Burning Speed/Fire Grab/Ring of Fire/Earthquake one in a while before grabing another hammer is, I think, a DPS improvement.

3- I always seen CFG as an “ok” tool for mobile dps. I would really like to see the calculations of people stating its the best dps possible (this is not a taunt).

4- I am amazed how people still get confused by channeling damage. Last hit from 100b and from CFG#1 doesnt deal what it says, its the added damage. Quit saying “lol I hit for 50k” nonsense.

5- “What gw2lfg thinks” is ridiculous. People are sheeps and most of them have no idea whatsoever of what is good or bad.
As for the “fotm” meta, its about the same. Look at Elems, a couple of month ago they were underdogs and widely considered as underpowered and weak. After 3 patches of pure nerf its all about “OMG D/D Elem is so OP”… seriously.

haviz.1340:

Guardian deals similiar dps to warrior if he gets fury from outside source or is constantly burning. And asking about guardian buffs is a bit silly.

The question of the guardian is off topic but yet interesting.
Burn as a DPS source isnt always reliable. It stacks in duration. That means all the burns you apply are wasted if, from you or another source, its already 100% uptime.

Spirit Weapons in WvW and Agony Fractals is stupid. I think this game really needs to have AoE immune pet feature.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Speedruns-Thor-Elem-or-Zerk-War/first#post1852106

What brings more dps/utility? Lightning Hammer Elem or Warrior? Glass canon zerker build of course.

How comes so late after the release some people still cannot understand how damage text works on canneling attacks?

GrandmaFunk.3052:

innocent ouarior.1954:

There are 2 major flaws in my opinion:
1- RA system, even if we can at least say there is one now, is poor and non apeeling.

What’s an “RA system” ?

Realm Ability.

Luthan.5236:

There is no op class in WvW because you run in zergs of 50+ people and every zerg should have a few players of all the classes so it is balanced in the end.

^ this pretty much.

If you are in a group of more than 5 people every AoE hitting you means someone else takes 0 damage. No matter what class you are staying alive and close to your mates is the best possible support. Smart playing actually means you DO want to stand in AoEs.

Preacher.9018:

Theres a whole metagame you just dont get – starting from strategic situation on map, guilds organizations, time shifts, exciting times with sleepless nights like match resets, switching forces, trying to minimize losses being outnumbered etc. If you dont get all of this – you are only enjoying a small fraction of WvW you could be.

I do agree on that for the most part but you cannot take actual combat off WvW. Its like saying an RTS is all about macro management and micro doesnt matter.
The is on major flaw in the current state of the WvW when it comes to combat because mass does makes everything and target limit encourages this.

lordkrall.7241:

Siege are as far as I know not effected by the AoE limit though.

Interesting. If its true.

All field with “when you enter” effects have no limit. Thats why I said mesmers and guardians have an edge over other classes in WvW atm. But in my opinion they are just “normal”, I mean in punishing zerg for blobing through anything ignoring AoEs.

As for combo, if I’m not mistaking each field is limited to 5 combo use so thats not much against 80 guys if you consider all physical projectiles are single target attacks.

lordkrall.7241:

SchuMidas.4782:

siege weapon too weak
balista and arrowcart should be the anti – zerg weapon

And they are.
Try taking a tower with wellplaced and manned arrowcarts.

Done and redone. An arrow cart can stop 6/7 players.
Nothing stops 80… or maybe 30 arrow carts.

But seriously siege engines are fine. High quality balistas and arrow carts are deal a kittenton of damage. The problem is just AoE target limit. Zerg packs you see in WvW are only stopable with even numbers, when you throw 100 guys on a keep they just bite doors open under siege fire.

There are 2 major flaws in my opinion:
1- RA system, even if we can at least say there is one now, is poor and non apeeling.
2- With 5 targets AoE limit there is no other strategy than blobing your way through stuff. The more you are packed together the stronger you are against AoE damage.

The rest (lag, queue, meta) has room for improvement but since release it is incredibly better.

Unless your ranger can hit 80 foes he is dead in 4 seconds.

I thnk it was Jon Peters thank you.
Is he still in the team?

LordByron.8369:

innocent ouarior.1954:

If you consider WvW is about zerg vs zerg and keep taging than Mesmer (because TP and wall of invis) and guardian (because most consecrations doesnt have target limit).

It doesnt make them OP tho. AoE target limit pretty much makes any class question non-important.

well do you know how to use combo fields?
If yes then some AoE don t care at all about cap….now try to think wich are best combo fields in zergwars….

If you don t get it, try to go www look preparation before 2 zergs collides

If would have be interesting, maybe even informative if you were precise.
What has combo field to do with AoE target limit?

Blast in Fire Fields is used a lot to buffup groups before impact (in both PvP and PvE if you play with teamplayers) but I dont see why I has anything to do with WvW and profession balance.

As for D/D Elems and Confusion Engies stated earlier. I understand how strong they can be in sPvP (or actually in pickup sPvP) but I fail yet to see how great is a build limited to 5 targets while facing 80.
Of course if you consider solo roaming a skirmishing lost or farming players a World Versus World activity than yes, they are good at that.

If you consider WvW is about zerg vs zerg and keep taging than Mesmer (because TP and wall of invis) and guardian (because most consecrations doesnt have target limit).

It doesnt make them OP tho. AoE target limit pretty much makes any class question non-important.

I cant remember what was the name of the ArenaNet Develloper who claimed in a MMO dev conference a couple of years ago that DAoC was his reference MMO.

Anyone can help?

LususNaturae.4503:

Muppet got it right, except for the fact that I thought auras from your combo finishers won’t give boons to other people (you will still get them).

When speced into ZB my Arcane Wave into Frozen Ground gives boons to nearby allies.