Guild Wars 2

A2. I have no problems with regular hardware. I’ve learned to adapt to it and to have quick fingers.

I might say the ele is slightly UP only due to having so many bugs with skills and traits just not working. Though, I’m sure other classes suffer from bugs as well.

I wouldn’t say that it’s ‘required’ by any means. However, to fully utilize the class and it’s mechanics I think you need to switch very often.

I play D/D almost all the time (pve, spvp, and a lot in wvw with some staff too). How I’m speced (currently) is 30/20/20 Earth/Water/Arcana. Sure this gives me a lot of defensive, but the ele is the weakest class in terms of base health AND armour class.

In dungeons I’ll use D/D (unless I absolutely need range and I’ll go to staff) and I do just fine. In fact, a lot of times I’ll be the last one standing. I’m only able to do this through the use of tune-dancing. I’m not in 1 attunement for more than a handful of spells (say 3-5).

No one forces you to tune-dance, and I don’t think it’s a ‘must do’ thing. But, I do think to be a more effective player you would need to learn how and the chains you can do with all of the spells. Not everyone is that hardcore of a player, so not everyone will play ele the same. Find a play style you like and enjoy. Cheers~

I’m a personal fan of d/d with a staff on hand in case I really need the range or projectile reflection. Using the following combo I’ve seen up to 11 stacks of might solo: I’ll rush in with Ride the Lightning and then use Updraft to CC. Next, you’re in just about perfect distance for Burning Speed, follow it up with an instant Ring of Fire. At this point use Arcane Wave for some extra might (only if you want to use this utility). As fast as you can switch to earth and use Earthquake (which is a great CC) and follow that up with a Churning Earth. You can end the combo with a Ring of Earth for more aoe damage and another stack of bleed. At this point you can have 9-11 stacks of might (average is 9 and have seen 10-11 sometimes) and the mobs might be almost dead. (I spec 20/20/30 water/earth/arcane)

Imo, staff is for bosses that require range and don’t move very often which means a lot of aoe damage. Other than that, I find the animation speeds of the auto-attacks and such are far too long. This makes it a great weapon for WvW when attacking/defending a keep.

Interesting break downs here, and I don’t disagree. But there is one reason I rarely use staff (unless I need the range for a boss or something): The auto attack is rather slow. Sure IF you land all your aoes then your damage is just crazy, but mobs don’t really stand still.

Sure you can make the areas bigger, which is really great actually, but again, most mobs come at you with melee attacks and move from the aoes. I find myself doing much less damage with staff in almost all pve situations.

I favor dagger/dagger for several reasons. 1) The auto attacks are pretty quick 2) Lots of condition damage from burning and bleeding and you can stack it fast 3) Really good melee range CC 4) non-target area skills.

For group things, as you’re only talking about that, I still favor d/d because I can dash in and instantly hit the mobs with an aoe and they can’t dodge or run out of it. With staff I could place Lava Front up but it only hits the mobs 1-2 times before they move out of it. Plus, most of the dagger skills are aoe anyway so you can be stacking bleed and burning as well as auto-attacking at a much faster rate than with staff.

I don’t disagree that staff can be good, but I just don’t prefer it. Though, each person plays differently and that’s very much part of our differences. I don’t think any one weapon can out perform another, it’s just the matter of how you use it.