The tooltip used to say way more damage than it actually did
On the plus side, Meteor Shower, Geyser, and Unsteady Ground are now pretty awesome
join the ever increasing pool of warriors
I can’t be the only one that thinks this should of replaced Zephyr’s Speed for the 5 points in air trait?
then it would actually be good, and we obviously can’t have that
…the cast time is removed/notably reduced.
The main reason conjures aren’t good is the cast time. After you fire off that Burning Speed or whatever, the time it takes to actually fire off your next skill is pretty huge if said next skill is a conjure skill.
well, one with air does literally nothing out of combat, so this isn’t much good for while running around
the hard cap being a, well, hard cap, even for traits like this one is really dumb
The trait isn’t much more than “movement speed reductions are removed for 1.5 seconds”
you clearly know nothing about support
my fingers NEVER leave the movement keys, ever. Even when I stop to type, I don’t move my left hand’s position (I use ESDF, not WASD)
The function keys are way too far away. I have the attunements bound to middle mouse, 2, 3, and 4 (the 1 key is too far to reach without moving my hand). and I use my 4 side mouse buttons along with A, W, R, Z, X for skills. and B (elite skill)
I wouldn’t be able to play this game either with the default keybinds
I’d like a melee weapon that actually gets used as a melee weapon sometimes. Impale my target and then my sword releases a fiery explosion while it’s inside them. Stuff like that. Doesn’t need to be that for every skill (and shouldn’t) but definitely would be great to have for some of them.
but where is this vulnerability coming from?
all conjures need to be castable while moving
and earth shield needs 0.25-0.5 sec shaved off of the cast time
you could take 20 in earth and give people stability. might be more useful than removing 4 conditions in water instead of 3
30/20-30/0-10/0/10
initially in air, and then right before you start, you switch to fire for the fury and might (10 in arcane)
then, if you have 20 in air
switch to earth when you’re done casting in fire and are going to conjure that lightning hammer, for more fury (and some protection, which you’ll need), and then to water for more fury (and some regeneration, which you’ll need), and then to air for Electric Discharge and, yes, more fury. Then you sit there (because all your attunements are on cooldown) getting that damage bonus from Air Training until earth attunement comes off cooldown, at which point you may proceed as outlined in post 1 (eruption)
if you have 30 in air, switch to air first when conjuring the lightning hammer, and then to earth, and then immediately back to air when it resets, and then to water, and then air again when it resets
also, always throw in flame burst immediately after your first lava font after switching to fire, unless someone else has your target permanently on fire
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best dps possible does not involve sitting in water
you take on-attunement-swap traits and constantly swap attunements while swinging that lightning hammer
also, instead of throwing out a fireball after channeling meteor shower, use flame burst, so you can cast that second lava font sooner. and also do more damage.
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does daggerstorm not grant stability after an early cancel anymore?
earth shield
X/focus
mist form
10 seconds of invulnerability isn’t too shabby. but you don’t even need a bunker build to do it
I use a mix of zerkers and rampagers. they synergize pretty well
works about the same as when I was running pure zerkers and better than when I was running pure rampagers
sigil of battle
blasting staff increases the AoE size by a lot
it’s a 20 point trait in the arcane line, so lv 40 is the earliest you can take it. but I wouldn’t take it at 40 since at those low levels the stats on the traits tend to matter more than the traits themselves, and arcane’s stats are boon duration and attunement swap cooldown. which aren’t any better at low levels than they are at 80 (indeed, they’re a bit worse, since you don’t have as many other traits for them to amplify). meanwhile earth is flat condition damage and toughness, and fire is flat power (and condition duration), so they’re the best low level traits by far. so I wouldn’t take staff until 50.
But staff can do good single target damage, provided you land all of your attacks. It has two SUPER strong attacks (eruption and lava font), and they are ground targeted delayed AoEs
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scepter/whatever for low level easy mode (may not be the fastest way to level, but it sure as heck is easy. put your traits in earth and stack bleeds on your enemies. also use that toughness buff and never hurl the rocks)
dagger/dagger for fastest killing, but you’ll probably die a bit until you get used to it (assuming you’re like me and like to fight things a few levels higher than you)
and staff I can’t recommend until you have the blasting staff trait
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there’s been a fair bit of talking past each other here
so
Everyone complaining about Elementalist is talking about PvP
Yes, Ele is fine and not underrepresented in PvE
-Gust:
[…]
reduce the knockback distance, but make it a short range aoe based around the caster.
DO WANT
Anyway, I agree completely with the general idea of your post and have been saying it for a while. Staff needs to be better able to land its damage on evasive targets (players that can see you)
If you’re going to wear soldier’s gear you might as well just drop trying to DPS altogether and go shout heals or something. Mix it with Clerics or Magi or something.
why? It’s not like wearing full berserker’s increases damage by 500% over soldier’s. The soldier’s guy is still going to about 65% as much damage.
before considering the part where ability to do damage without dying translates into more damage
a pull would be awesome beast hax win
I like that you can choose not to leap if you don’t want to, just using it for the immobilize, or you can cast something else while the projectile is en route. It’s much better as a two part skill
Maybe he likes having good hp and armor. Did you ever consider that? Hmmm?
Seriously though, precision is mediocre at best unless you have a lot of crit damage, and crit damage is obviously useless unless you have a lot of precision (or are a thief with that 100% crit in stealth trait). If you want to have a lot of toughness and vitality, your best bet for damage is just straight up power. And then where you can’t get power, condition damage. You won’t have enough stats left after your tough/vit to make crits worthwhile.
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Hm, good question.
I always took persisting flames for the field duration rather than for the fury. Making your best dps skill 25% stronger is pretty great. The fury is just icing (very good icing though). And the 100 power is basically a +5% damage trait (or +4%) by itself. I also love condition duration (for the longest time I thought signet of earth was base 4 seconds immobilize, since I’m always running some condition duration). Monsters don’t remove conditions, so it’s amazing in PvE. So I wouldn’t dock any from fire.
Arcane lighting is indeed pretty weak. Zephyr’s boon, however, is also pretty weak. The only auras staff can produce are eruption->frozen ground, and magnetic aura. And frozen ground is too powerful and on too long a cooldown to only use it when you can combo it with eruption, so you may not even always get that aura. Air’s traits don’t strike me as too hot for boosting your damage. The stats themselves, of course, are great and give about +7% damage. Furthermore, the 15 point minor trait, electric discharge, is awesome for damage.
Water! gives 10% damage, but only when above 90%. How often are you above 90%? Regardless, as the stats don’t give any damage, this trait is going to give you less damage than either of the two above. The extra 1k health of course is nice, but if you’re staying above 90% anyway, you probably you don’t need it! So I’d axe this. This is of course handwaving the healing power. I don’t expect it would be very useful, but I could be wrong.
Earth. Since you’re using a staff, you won’t always be in range for this to take effect. I do end up doing the majority of my damage at less than max range for general PvE, so it is of course not entirely wasted. But I’m not sure how much closer. I don’t have a good feel for where 600 is. Also, the extra condition damage will add up a bit even without focusing on condition damage. Does it come out to more or less damage than that 10 in air? I do not know. But if you include electric discharge, it’s definitely less.
Anyway, if you take my suggestions, you’re left with the build that I switched to after also getting bored of the heavy arcana/water build, which is 30/20/0/0/20. The only thing I really miss is the condition removal from water. But now that I’ve said that I realize another plus for taking Vital Striking in water. You can, whenever you want, switch over to Cleansing Wave and get that delicious condition removal. Which makes the choice hard again. Less damage but more flexibility. Decisions, decisions.
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Ele is great
except when the target can dodge and hit back. ie PvP
I still say conjures need usability buffs rather than power buffs. like cast speed/delay. Shorten the dead time between when you cast the spell and when you can start using the weapon, and lower the cooldown. Make the things more fluid to use. Alternatively, add a trait that does this.
Agreed. I’d prefer the changes to be to thing like casting speed, casting delay and things like Meteor Shower’s range of the individual meteors.
sad thing is ele already had a round of cast speed buffs. but I agree
Anyway, what’s the best way to make staff better able to actually hit things? Whatever that is, that’s what I want to see. Every staff spell with any oomph behind it is super delayed and telegraphed, which is a huge problem with how dodging works in this game. Except for the wide AoE chill. That one is good (except for the the cooldown).
if you want to heal things as much as possible, then yes, staff. two water fields
Which is staff better at? Hm, I’d say… AoE.
Bloody hell my “support” deals more damage than warriors!
How is it having 14k hp and less than 2k armor?
fun
thanks for asking
no SINGLE skill will outdps 100B against a small target
but 100B is also a skill that has a 3.6 second channel. you can easily use a combination of skills during that 3.6 seconds that puts out more damage
There’s also no class in the game that can auto-attack at a rate of once every half second.
if you count the two hits of Double Strike as two attacks, thief’s dagger chain is 4 attacks in 2 seconds !
staff is my waifu
or immobilized by an ally
or they already used up the last of their endurance when they dodged your Fire Grab. it has its uses.
But srsly, what makes it great is those visuals/sfx. Even if it isn’t a stellar pvp skill, it’s still great
an extra lightning whip every 6 seconds for free is kind of a lot of extra damage for a 15 point trait
or every 12 seconds if you’re not fresh air spec. still pretty good. Against single targets, it’s flat out better than if it were “Do 5% more direct damage.” and pretty comparable to “Do 10% more direct damage.”
what? electric discharge is great (and the other 15 pointers too, I guess). It’s literally free damage. it’s half as much damage as Mug, but can crit and has a very low cooldown and hilariously huge range. (does it even have an internal cooldown? I haven’t tried a fresh air build.) It adds a nice chunk to a burst combo. since it’s, you know, instant and all. I do not believe these traits need buffs.
Except for lingering attunements. This thing needs to actually work
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somehow I expected a race
like with a starting line and a finish line
and related to the fact that thief can cover ground faster than any other class
lava font is godly dps because you channel it for half a second and then it keeps doing damage for you for 4-5 seconds. meaning you’re free to dps with your other skills while lava font adds a really good chunk of free dps. few skills have such a high damage to time opportunity cost ratio
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never actually tried it, since the downed state in general already feels like cheating half the time
RTL used to be hilariously OP, so I really don’t mind. A 1500 range super dash is honestly kinda nuts. Sure it was fun, but it was pretty broken.
churning earth is AMAZING. that animation is so brutal, and the charge up time just makes it feel even more visceral. one of the best skills in the game for sure. makes you feel awesome when you land it
ele is bad at spvp but good at everything else
One of this game’s biggest problems is the controls+camera is pretty terrible for platforming. Even when my character is facing to the right, pressing up to make her go right isn’t very intuitive. If I could check a box that would make my character move in direction I press relative to the camera (with or without changing facing direction), that would be superb. GW2 would be solidified as one of the best recent 3D platformers. (which is kinda sad, really. that an MMORPG is the running for best platformer. and on that note, if anyone has any recommendations for good non-Mario 3D platformers—ones where you actually move in 3D. none of this 3D graphics but 2D motion stuff—drop me a line.)
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I’m imagining a group of 10 eles throwing down meteor showers
“You must have stability to pass through here”
also, meteor shower is actually OK for single targets, provided the target will stay in the AoE for the full duration. You’ll get about twice as much damage out of spending your time channeling meteor storm as you would spending your time throwing fireballs, on a smallish (player sized or so) target
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