Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

I’v been theorycrafting about with a new dagger/dagger build using the new fire grandmaster trait and I’d like some opinions on if you think it will work or not!
My plan is to have 30 into fire as a base for my future build using “Burning Precision” burn on crit 30%, “Burning Fire” Activate “Cleansing Fire” when struck by 3 or more conditons and lastly the new grandmaster inflict blindness when burning.

I guess it will be just another cantrip build but more focused on offensive defense rather then selfhealing. As for gear I’m planing on running full celestial which might not have as much critaldamage as before but hopefully gets a strong buff to the other stats. Mainly I’ll try this for spvp but one thing bothers me, the RNG of the blind, will it be as relible as “fresh air” scepter blinds?

Anyone else plan to try out this new trait any ideas?

Hello I’m new to ranger and I got a question!

I’m going for a beastmaster build and I tried to combine three healing skills for my pet, natural regen (grandmaster trait), singet of the wild (utility) and canavrous appetite (trait) but when I tried it out agianst the class dummies in the mist it’s only the utility heal that works.

Is this intended?

What disturbs me is that a warrior running berserker amulet can have some level of substained defense as a elementalist running clerks amulet. I don’t think warriors are overpowered but other classes surely need some buffs so they can fight on the same level.

talking about lockdowns there is no such thing in this game it seems there is so much stability and easy ways for melee classes to catch you it’s kitten. If warriors are supose to have this high armor/health/healing/damage midigation I think it would be reasonable to be able to lock them down aswell. I play elementalist mainly and I can say that it would be a BIG relief to get a breather every now and then when fighting a warrior as it is now you guys just pop your stances and steamroll, no fun at all.

Here’s my list,

Utilities:

- Make all Signets instant casts.
- Lower cooldown on Arcane Shield to 40sec and Arcane Power to 30sec.
- Make all Conjure Weapon skills appear instant with a 1sec delay on the weapon summoned for allies.

- Lower cooldown on Glyph of Storms to 25sec, lower casttime on Glyph of Renewal to 1sec, make Glyph of Lesser Elemental + Glyph of Greater Elemental scale with your power/toughness/vitality/precision.

- Lower cooldown on Lightning Flash to 20sec, Cleansing Fire 30sec, Armor Of Earth 40sec and Mist Form 40sec.

Reason for utility changes:

- Signets

The Elementalists singets are extremly subpar to other proffesions signets and making them instant casts would maybe open up new build options with traits like “Fire’s Embrace”

- Arcane

Arcane Shield is a elementalist trademark and is highly used in all aspects of the game lowering the cooldown would further our defensive capabilities which is highly needed especially since this skill aint a cantrip!
Arcane power is a tricky one it’s mostly used in Staff builds since Staff is the only weapon that really benefit from this skill and making Staff more viable is something I know Arena Net wants too.

- Conjure Weapon

Here’s another trademark of the elementalist, our conjurations! Conjure Weapon is so close to becoming a very good skill especially the Frost Bow and by making these skills instant cast you can really make some intresting play with them.

Maybe reworking some of the conjurations skills would serve us good aswell, thinking of Earth Shield, Flame Axe and Lightning Hammer. The Hammer if good for PvE as is but not quite home in PvP yet.

- Glyphs

Glyphs were intented to be elementalist trademark skills by the looks of it but is currently our worst skills. Glyphs are highly underused and are in dire need of some rework. My suggestions are to lower cooldowns and make them more apealing for offensive use since we already have other utilities to serve as defensive skills.

- Cantrips

Cantrips are by far our best skills but I seriously think they need lower cooldown and the main reason is this:

Lightning Flash compared with→

- Shadow Step (Thief) 50sec CD, stunbreak removes 3 conditions two flashes, one -breaking stun one removing conditions.
- Infiltrator’s Signet (Thief) 30sec CD stunbreak passive effect and easily combined with strong instant attacks.
- Blink (Mesmer) 30sec CD stunbreak.

Cleansing Fire compared with→

- Arcane Thievery (Mesmer) 45sec CD not only removes all our current conditions but also steal your targets boons.
- Elixir C (Engineer) 40sec CD convert all current conditons into boons.
- Shadow Step (Thief) yet agian.
- Shake it Off (Warrior) 25sec CD stunbreak condition remove partywide
- Berserker Stance (Warrior) 60sec CD condition imunnity for 8sec

Armor Of Earth compared with→

- Stand Your Ground! (Guardian) 30sec CD stunbreak partywide stability and retaliation
- Protect Me (Ranger) 60sec CD stunbreak damage imunnity for 6sec (As long your current pet is able to survive)
- Balanced Stance (Warrior) 40sec CD stunbreak 8sec stability and swiftness

Mist Form is elementalist specific and had it glorydays but now is deemed useless by meny.

These are my opinions feel free to criticis!

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k3d;2BJ-P065gMkY0;9;5TT9;258B57A5;3UN;4G3G3G3G35BO

I tried to pick up as meny dmg modifiers as possible and going with rocksolid for getting a secure ether renew, diamond skin vs condimeta, GoEP for kiting / weakness on thiefs warrs. any suggestions on what to change?

I play it all infact don’t be so judging. I belive medium armor would be fitting since the way elementalists play is very similar to how engineers play, a mid fighter, stay close for maximum effect but can’t handle melee pressure. Elementalists HAD the tools to stay in prolonged fights but that was taken away. So why not treat the proffesion for what it is, a mid fighter give us the right tools to be a “battlemage” not a “caster”.

lets take a look at other games with “casters”, ever played WoW, one word: frostmages, dealt insane damage had you immoblized or chilled all the time but once you got to them they had very little defense and was taken out fast.

So make Elementalists into “battlemages” agian, through boons armor utility whatever!

Yeah I guess it would be the best way to go. What about making our defensive skills have a passive effect aswell, “Armor of Earth” now passivly grant us 500 toughness and Stability + Protection on use for example. Maybe give secondary effect to other abilities aswell so armor of earth don’t become a no-brainer utility. Signets would be a good canditate for improvements.

Of course but still. I mean elementalist in guild wars 2 isnt your traditional caster class and as of now (in curent meta, like you said) we don’t meet okey values. Medium Armor would be one way to go but I’d be pro trait aswell, like even easier access to protection. Better Protection uptime would be boss and not through investing 30 arcana, I hate the arcana line to be frank.

Hello,

Why isnt elementalists in the medium armor bracket it would totally fit their gameplay?

What the hell.. Isnt it considered rude beating on a already beaten man. Elementalist needs every little buff there is not nerfs.

A major advantaged condition builds also have is that it’s dealing damage all the time (unless cleansed) while a direct damage build need to hit something for it’s effect.. So I belive in Effective Damage Dealt condition builds are better.

If now combine this tankygear + high condition dps it becomes really annoying for a powerbuild to fight.

Hello elementalists, I’ll get right to it!

First suggestion,

Rewamp on Pyromancer’s Puissance (grandmaster trait fireline)

While a target is burning all attunement will work accordingly:

Fire: Every attack generate 1stack might per cast
Water: Every attack cause 0.5sec chill per attack
Air: Every 3rd attack will cause 2 stacks of confusion
Earth: Every attack cause 1 stack of bleeding

Second suggestion,

revamp scepter 2# fire attunement, make it a two phase cast with 10sec cooldown. First tap, 1 sec cast time “burning chill” apply 1,5 chill to your target, second tap instant cast drop an explosive dragon’s tooth on your foe same old.

Third suggestion,

revamp focus 4#, 5# fire attunement and 5# water attunement.

Fire 4# “Flame walk” gain stability for 4sec, while flamewalking you move 33% slower 30sec cd.

Fire 5# “Soulfire” cause “Push” to nearby enemies maxtarget 5 and cause 3sec burn whirlfinisher 25sec cd.

Water 5# Comet groundtarget, radius 180.

please feel free to argue and comment!

Hello, alot of wierd and nice looking suggestion and I’d like to add one!

About conjure weapons, what about making it so that when you summon a weapon it’s not bound to lets say "frost"bow but instead is “Conjure Bow” and the weapon conjured will work with the attunements aswell. This would require alot of work ofcourse since you would have to implement 15 new abilities per conjure weapon but it would be kitten sweet!

Also the abilities in each attunement needs to synergize better, for example updraft + dragons tooth should be a 100% chance of landing if the target aint using a stunbreaker same goes for earthquake.

Our weapon skills in general needs some cd reduction so you have atleast one good attack per attunement ready to use when swapping to it. I’m fine with our autoattacks being below standard compared to melee classes but in return we need strong reliable cd skills.

But all in all I think dec 10th was a good patch for the elementalist atleast I’m using the new fire trait and I did give diamond skin a try until I realized it was useless ^^

Hi!

For dealing damage scpeter is the best weapon but otherwise you could try a 0/10/10/20/30 d/d build. Go for boon duration gear together with “barbarian” amulet or “Valkyries”. It’s a aurabuild focusing on having high uptime on protection + fury.

And yes you can level in spvp now, I think it’s about 110k glory and about 16g and BAM lvl 80

scepter/x require you to do combo-attacks alot I’d say but there are more easy options aswell. Tried “Fresh Air” yet? simple go from air into x wait until you crit back into air and so on.

That sounds sweet, if conjures where like kits it would be amazing!

Balefire.7592:

Necros already suffered focus-fire issues and often needed a hand – now we need support to do damage as well?

Why do you think necromancers suffer focused fire? because you deal tons of damage and can wreck a whole team if not taken care of. So No I don’t think you need support dealing damage. When I have a necromancer on my team I usualy want to team up with him since necromancer and elementalist synergize really well together but as it turns out things get nasty when we fight. ^^

About the warrior trait of course it aint the same thing but it’s still a situational trait my point is that I belive people are taking things alittle to far on how good this trait is.

amazing! this thread looks like the elementalist forum have been for a long time and still is, alot of people complaining!

About that new necromancer heal doesnt it steal health? I mean you say that the new heal is bad and that diamond skin is overpowered why not just use your new heal steal health 1 or 2k and bam diamond skin aint taking effect.

I’d also like to add that an elementalist let go off alot of damage to pick up this trait which might be very strong agianst rabid/settlers but as said would be completly useless vs a thief for example. A Grandmaster trait that is useless vs certain classes but good vs others, a fair trade!

Didnt see anyone complain about that warrior trait that makes them deal more damage depending on how meny boons their oppenent has.

+

this is a teamfight oriented game and shaving 1-2k hp off a elementalist is a pretty simple task if you bring a friend.

hello everyone,

so patch day, what now? doom and gloom reroll and what not well before you do something as stupid as that try this build out!

fiah magix- 25 points embers might + condi cleanse
earf magix- 30 points armor on 50% + 10% condi from toughness and diamond skin
watah magix- 15 points regen on hit

utilities- signet of restoration + goep + cleansing fire + conjure frostboss and conjure great fiahswurd.

gear- carrion amulet + sigil of dhuum + sigil of corruption + 6x runes of the elementalist

weapon scepter + focus.

And guess what!? for some wierd reason it’s kinda working!

necro comes to your turf summon frostbow and /laugh when your immune to all this condis and regen 700 health per with with frostboss + signet.

spiritranger think he’s cool and comes to kill you activate geop in fire attunement and use frostboss 4# now you have bleeds ticking for 600++ and burning ticking for 700++ all while the barrage nearly killed all his pets.

TEH mighty warrior comes with his hambow build trying to immoblize you! active earth attunement 4# focus and reflect that pesky immoblize to his face and summon a dragons claw on him.

The build works + it’s sort of fun having high condition damage (about 1400 or more with sigil) while pumping nearly 2k power aswell.

want a more tanky version?

go 10 fire 30 earth 30 water magic pick regen when crit’d regen when using cantrip, condicleanse when regen. go same utilities or all out cantrips.

wanna stay a whimp or do you wanna be a boss!? get that rihanna song out and play it loud and proudly, SHINE BRIGHT LIKE A DIAMOND!

Hey, Nice video! Is it possible to get a build-discription? I’m currently running a fresh air build myself with s/f + we do use differently utilities, I go with Arcane Blast, Mistform and Conjure Frost.

same rotation works just fine with 0/30/10/15/15 fresh air build. 10%dmg when within 600 range + 10% damage when health is above 90%. It’s what I run at the moment.

Well the build I had in mind is 10/30/0/15/15, internal fire 10%, air training 10% and piercing shards 20%. Rotation with s/f = water 4# + 5#, air 2# 3# + 5# and fire 2# + 3# + arcane ability = target dead

aha, thanks for the answer Ozi! Shame though, imagine the burst coming from piercing shards/air training/ internal fire ^^

hello everyone, I’m a bit confused here..

how does this trait work? Is it working with traits like “piercing shards”, “internal fire” and “air training” ?

10/10, I really like graphic names that has to do with something about the character.

I play elementalist sylvari male: Quickspring Yama

this is what I play for spvp,

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k3d;2BJ-P0-57NkY0;9;5T9J9;156B5;028-4;0SN;4bRm8bRm85BE

With the new patch coming I might end up taking zero points in arcana, havnt decided yet.

if you want to use the scepter/x fresh air is always good, if you’r worried about AoE using focus try to stay midrange and use fire 2,3,4 water 2,4 air 1 (aline yourself good and arclightining will pierce through everything) and earth 3,4. Using earth 4 offensivly will cripple your defense though.

Why do you want to use ride the lightning for escape? Stay awesome instead, fight to the death.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Condition -> boon coversion is entering necro/ mesmer/ guardian ground, and there was a time where Jon Peters said, in gw2’s pvptv streaming, that adding more cc to elementalists would make them too strong.

As it goes for CC something needs to be added or improve already excisting CC. For example “Earth Quake” on dagger offhand maybe could work like “Updraft” so it becomes another tool to land a relieble “Dragon’s Tooth” or maybe even a “Churning Earth”. When you have acceses to strong attacks like “Dragon’s Tooth” it’s really annoying that you hardly ever can use it because it will be a waste of time. (player vs player perspective)

I love the idea of signet of air being a knockdown on activation that would be really nice!
I don’t see why there should be any increase to cd since using a stunbreaker offensively promotes for skilled play.

I’d also like to see singet of earth become a instant cast and lowered cd to 25 sec, I mean running s/d and sometimes s/f it’s wierd that a ranged elementalist got so few lockdown abilities to keep enemies at bay.

Alright, thanks for sharing! switched “of Earth” to “of Force”

on swap and crit sigils share ICD since when? :S

Who’s Brock? and why did you quote what sigils I run?

I see your point, I got a “Fresh Air” version of this setup aswell but the main focus of the build aint auto attacks from earth, it’s the damage dealt from air and fire.

I run superior sigil of doom + superior sigil of earth and got burning on crit and burning on demand from glyph of elemental power, so the "high condition damage is from burning, it’s nice being able to dish out suibstained dps + midhigh crits while having access to 3 strong conditions in all attunements.

the “fresh air” version is 10/30/20/10/0.

Hello everyone!

here’s a nice and balanced build I made for s/d that both got high condition damage, well controlled burst and substained damage.

with this setup I’v meet and killed all popular builds for the current meta and I’m confident I’ll be able to make a even stronger version of this build after 10th dec.

made a little video of a nicely played tournament game,

enjoy

I like the attunement cd reduction aswell, something I’d like to see though is a cd reduction on our weapon skills. The elementalist got some really strong weapon skills but some got crazy cds and some have crazy activation-time. For example the staff, why is there such a long activation time on all the power damaging skills and that goes for focus offhand aswell, a maximum of 25 – 30 sec cd should be for all offhand weapons and dagger-oh earth 5# should get a 1sec cast time.

-reason

1. the elementalist got really weak armor and health and long acivation times and cds is really hurting our incombat life time.

2. making our weapon skills stronger will help out with build diveristy since it would give us better tools to stay alive and be able to go into more offensive builds then just spending 70% of our trait points into water and arcana.

3. lower activation time for example dagger-oh earth 5# would make it a threatning ability while now in it’s sad state it’s a invitation to “come and kill me” same goes for scepter-mh water 2# it never hits!

I’m with you Gesamtkunstwerk, I’d also like to see some changes to our crazy long cooldowns on our offhand weapons. I run scepter/x, s/d got two knockdowns to enable dragons tooth but I’d like to see the focus get a rewamp aswell since I really enjoy using it but it’s just too weak at the moment.

Cooldown reduction on offhand weapons for elementalists!

Hello everyone!

I got some idea for the focus off-hand weapon which would perhaps bring it to more play.

Fire Attunement:

4# “wall of fire” replaced or redesigned to cause cripple, if replaced it would work like the shackles does underwater.

5# “fire shield” removed and replaced with an evasive attack 1.5sec evade highdamage and 30 or 40sec cd.

Water Attunement:

4# “gale” up the damage abit otherwise fine.

5# make it fly along the ground dazing everyone it passes. Readjust to projectile finisher.

Air Attunement:

4# reflect projectiles instead of destroying

5# lower cooldown to 30sec

Earth Attunement:

4# good as it is

5# lower cooldown to 30sec and redesign animation, perhaps like conjure weapon: shields immunity?

Would be nice to able to play as a spellcaster and not a spellbrawler aka d/d!

In general I think elementalist should have more ways to handle incoming damage

First, you need to count with that there is a acctual human behind every character and if you run up to their face with a homemade flamethrower firin’ it up most people react: RUN!

Secondly, the damage is great if you can combine it, simply using #1 aint going to cut it. I run a pistol/pistol + flamethrower and with superior sigil of earth on my offhand pistol + superior sigil of might on my main you become a condimonster all while doing highcrits with flamethrower 2# and interrupting heals with 3#.

thirdly, Gear up right! for PvE/WvWvW I run rampagers armor with 2x monks, 2x water and 2x traveler (the new boon duration runes) and as for offset I go with celestial for that sweet critical damage and everything else I need.

In sPvP I run valkyrie with same runes except traveler which I swap’d with rage.

Traits: 20 explosive for burn on crit, might on heal. 20 firearms, 20% reduction on weapon skills, toughness + might while using flamethrower. 30 alchemy for protection when stunned, 15% more damage while using flamethrower and passive regen while in a kit.

Utility: medkit, flamethrower, elixir B, flameturret or throwmine or thumperturret or rocketboots or utility googles or elixir S AND elixir X for elite.

You need to look at flamethrower 1# from a different perspective, see it as a condition is it still bad? it’s all from 2-4k over 2sec.

Alright, thanks a bunch! So basicly I need to drop my d/d p/p setup because it seems to suck

I’m using D/D – P/P 10/0/0/30/30 berserkers armor, What about his minions, the damage he dealt to me was mainly from his minions.

hey!

I’m currently playing as thief and I’m new to this proffesion (still learning) so I got this huge roadblock I need to pass, namely necromancers. How do you take a necromancer out as a thief? they are unkillible. Today I fought a necromancer that killed me while pretty much standing still placing marks around himself all while his minions killed me.. I mean yeah sure I can go stealth and stay stealth if I want but what do I contribute with to my team if I do that? So as a thief what do I do, and why are there no viable option to make a substained dps/tank build? I don’t know but perhaps this is not a proffesion for me.

maybe I should reroll healing signet warrior? :P

hey!

This is just an idea don’t know how it would work with programming and all but shouldt this dragon be able to get downed even tho there are like 20 people or do you need a maxed out zone to kill it? If so I don’t see me killing it ever unless I go guest on another server, and what servers actually tries to kill the dragon? on Gunnar’s Hold it seems like noone is even bothered

okey, thank you!

Hello thiefs!

can anyone answer me how this trait work “Improvisation” does it reset one of the utilities you have equip randomly or just all utility even though you don’t have it equiped? Also does your stolen items count as a “bundle” ? (it says bundles will deal 10% more damage)

Would be super sweet if someone can answer my question, perhaps even someone from arena-net!

Thanks

adding a cooldown would be no cool at all. Sword 2# allows for great openings into a fight but that’s it, as a thief we need the great openings or we would get destroyed. For example if someone else attack me first I need to use a utility right away.

Making things more visible might be the right way to go though, that goes for all class mechanics really.

Hey ArenaNet!

I’m currently trying to build a new intresting thief build and then I found this bug! The trait called “Hidden Thief” in “Shadow Arts” doesnt work correctly, this trait should grant you stealth when you steal which it does but it break stright away. There is a way to come around this problem by dodgin’ right before you steal but otherwise you do a normal out-attack without the benefit of being stealth.

Suggestion, make this trait “Hidden Thief” work the same as our utility skill “Blinding Powder” don’t know if it’s easy to repair but since you already have the code for “Blinding Powder” I don’t see any problem with making this happend for next patch!

best regards,

the experimenting thief

still trying to rock the turrets!

Alright fristly I know what you are talking about we don’t have specific role to play since we are pretty much something of everything. When I tried to figure out what to go for after discovering that our turrets (Turrets was the reason I wanted to play engineer to begin with) are alittle, hmmmmm LESS usable than I expected I tried going into specific trait tree’s like all out explosives, all out firearms but I never felt that anything was worth it, except alchemy which is the only utilities I really dislike about the engineer (want that mecha style of play). So now I’v been playing engineer for my whole gw2 career and guess what I find everytime I tried to reroll something else? I always come back to my engineer, heck I even got two engineers on my account. Engineer in my opinion should be played as a mad man. I play with Rifle, tool kit, bomb kit, tumper turret and mortar or charzooka, here is what I bring to the fight, I can pull and knock enemy targets stright into my group of allies to feast on, if someone is in trouble I can stealth them, on the run I’ll slow my groups presuers with “box of nails”, in time of despair when noone really now if we should attack or run away I can “jumpshot” stright into the enemy line and lay destruction with my bombs. Don’t underrestimate the power of red circles, people with break group formation if not SUUUPER coordinated

So what is the engineers role? we bring the chaos and if our plans fail we got plenty of tools to run away and even help our allies run away, we arnt a soldier class nor a adventure class we are something else and I don’t know what it is

Hey everyone!

So I’v been tinkering around with an idea to create a close/melee build and I know alot of you out there have been discussing why engineers don’t have access to melee weapons (I’m one of them!) but this build is the closest I got to a melee build.

utility,

healing turret or medkit
toolkit
flamethrower
slick shoes or thumper turret

weapon,

rifle

armor stats,

a healthy mix of everything. my aim was 800-1000 condition damge, 40-50% critical chance, 20-40% critcal damage, 1300-1600 power, 1300-1500 thoughness, 20k + health and some healing power if you manage to squeeze it in.

traits,

0/30/0/20/20

firearms,

sitting duck or hair trigger (sitting duck for utility) juggernaut and napalm

alchemy,

invigorating speed and backpack generator

tools,

speedy kits and power wrench

The idea is to stay right up face to face with your enemy going for all the highpower attacks first, so what “highpower” attacks you may ask?

jumpshot stright to your target, blunderbust or netshot (this is where sitting duck trait may come in handy, since not only do you immoblize but you also apply cripple and vurnability) now you use your weapon of choice depending on the situation, Pry Bar or Flame Blast.

Things to keep in mind: don’t you overcharged shot rifle 4# if it isnt needed, use when you get immobalized or crippled remember that you have other great tools at your disposal to minimize damage taken! For example, flamethrower 5# aoe blind or 3# aoe knockdown, toolkit 4# gearshield and your regular movement, the trait powerwrench will cripple your enemy with every 1# from toolkit so run around and make sure to land the third attack in that attackchain it hurts!

So pros and cons of the build!

lets start with pros;

great mobility
three knockdowns
short cooldown block
high uptime on cripple
no real super counter, since you apply both medium damage condition plus medium damage power strikes at a rapid rate

the cons;

low condition removal
the fact that you have to stay close to deal damage can be hazardous in some situations
yet agian close combat with sort of low health and thoughness is a high risk playstyle

If someone is intrested I might post a video with this build in action, thanks for reading!

best regards, Sne Hertigun Ruins of Surmia [EU]