Guild Wars 2

it all depends on what build you’re using. if you’re using knight’s gear, i believe you should have something around 30% crit. if you’re going full zerker, it’s easily 50-60% crit. if you’re using full soldier (power/vit/toughness), you should have 0% crit.

you can factor in the fury + swiftness boon from your arcana trait line… that’s another 20% for 3 seconds after attunement swap.

that being said… crit chance isn’t a major factors for eles to consider. it’s more of a niche more suited for glass cannon warriors and thieves. instead, you should be asking yourself how much power, toughness, and vitality you have.

Many people have done the math: people have salvaged thousands of items and wrote down the results. Statistically, the amount of ectos one gets from salvaging a high level rare is a 1:1 ratio, so why not just remove the system and make it so 1 rare drops 1 ecto?

The current system in place is yet another example of the almost universally despised RNG system everyone past 100 hours of gameplay faces. Rares salvage for 0-3 ectos. When you receive 2 or 3 ectos, you celebrate. When you get 1, you are satisfied. When you get nothing at all, frustration sets in as you realized you just lost 25 silver.

Unfortunately, it is our nature as humans to remember the bad parts of a situation over the good. We remember, when fighting with our best friend, all the terrible things they’ve done to us and none of the wonderful moments we shared. Likewise, even though we know that statistically, we should eventually even out, it is still a frustrating and aggravating thought to lose money to this forced gamble.

Since the drop rate of ectoplasm is a 1:1 ratio, why not make it a guarantee that whenever you salvage 1 rare, you get 1 ectoplasm?

this will cause multiple effects:
1. ectoplasm supply will increase due to increasing amounts of people willing to spend money on them, stabilizing the market (as a larger volume of ectos will buffer any market fluctuation)
2. the price of tier 5 fine crafting materials and high level rare drops will equalize as the risk is removed as a factor
3. remove the aggravation one feels when his hard-earned gold is taken from him because of an arbitrary system based on luck and chance that he doesn’t even want to participate in.

while there IS power/prec/toughness, maybe anet thought it was too OP to add a power/prec/vit. i can understand why. someone did the math, and apparently, 1 point of toughness works out to .47 points of vitality in terms of effective health.

1. l2dodge. no explanation needed.
2. l2spec. basically, the fire spec tree is almost useless for an ele while arcana is almost necessary.
3. l2notusestaff. seriously. staff is probably the worst weapon set of any profession for soloing. After the nerfs suffered before the release of the game, solo elementalists are required to dance around more than thieves and play a purely melee role. use dual dagger for dps and scepter dagger for burst.
4. l2attunementswap. restricting yourself to 1 element is using only 25% of your potential. saddled with both low damage output AND excruciatingly high cooldowns, you are forced to put points into arcana and swap attunements constantly.
5.l2knowwhatyourskillsdo. You can heal back 70% of your hp within 3 seconds with dual dagger and your 6 skill even if you don’t have cleric’s gear or have 30pts into water (i still highly recommend at least 15pts) that’s something around 8-11k hp easily.

If you can do all this, you’ll be extremely survivable. armor of earth basically gives you a 30% larger health pool. final shielding and arcane shield means 6 hits worth of invincibility (no matter how powerful each hit is), and with 15 points into water, your 3 main heals (1-1.5k just by attuning to water, 1-1.5k from cleansing wave, 4-6k from whatever 6 skill you’re using) will heal you for most of your health and will give 3k back to most of your allies… not to mention the on-demand condition removal it gives. With dagger offhand, you even gain access to 2 knockbacks/stuns.

if you’re one for escapability, there’s an app for that too. ride the lightning means you’re almost as fast as shortbow thieves. and arcane shield means you don’t take damage, which also means you don’t get bumped down to combat speed if you’re hit with arcane shield on.

Even though arenanet was brutal to the profession, elementalist can still be a very fun class to play once you get past the learning curve. I’ve logged 500 hours on my ele alone, but have multiple alts in levels ranging between 30-80. after playing ele, no other class can rival the profession in terms of depth (though mesmers do come close imo) and versatility, and no other class comes close in terms of button mashing fun.

anyone else getting “connection error(s) detected. retrying…” when they’re updating the client?

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

And so it begins …

But seriously he probably used a combo like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEYjdwxHNFQ

i had that used on me before… armor of earth made sure the poor guy didn’t stand a chance >:D

all i can say is if this gets popular, bring a stability utility skill and you’ll never have to worry about this.

i once 2v1’ed another ele and a mesmer in spvp and i finished them both without going below 70% HP.
granted, they played as if it were the first game in their lives, but the victory was exhilarating nevertheless.

there’s also how i put 30 points in air as a no-holds-barred total glass cannon just for the heck of it, and dazed thieves randomly appear next to me, ripe for the taking :P

theredone.3845:

i musta read something wrong

i would imagine that make auramentalists slightly less viable??? might have to plan to move along a diff trait line

aura based elementalists are totally viable. the ability to stun anything that hits you? yes. taking 33% less damage? yes PLEASE. the 20% extra crit chance and swiftness are just bonuses. besides, it’s not as if 1 player should be able to control 10+ others in a game like this anyway…

also, permaswiftness is achievable on staff easily by using air 5, arcane wave-ing in it, air 4, and glyph of elemental harmony (one of your heal skills)

creslin, i honestly wouldn’t mind at all if you couldn’t go through portals with mist form, and eles may be “unkillable” if you do go out and fight, but what’s 1 ele going to do vs. a full fledged zerg anyway? it’s not as if you can do much anyway, and in a fight for a keep, you have to wait for downed sickness to CD each time before you venture out only to get instakilled…i’d imagine this method doesn’t do any more than standing on top of the walls autoattacking things.

i personally get bored walking up to things and pressing hundred blades over and over again. at least with an elementalist, i know i have to chain together the combos needed to not die, and it’s more eventful than “click on target, press 2. mash f. rinse and repeat.”

go for power+vitality.

vit > toughness in the game. someone mathematically proved that vit scales better than toughness.

a dual dagger ele can deal a somewhat decent amount of condition damage, but most of the damage comes from direct damage and condition damage’ll never come close to that of a necro.

it doesn’t activate if you get instakilled without ever reaching below 10% hp.

well, along with thieves, we’ve got the potential to be one of the fastest classes. (near-perma swiftness, anyone?)

why do we need warning circles?

catapults.

’nuff said…. not to mention that elementalist hiding in the corner channeling churning earth in a 5v5 battle…

get good at dodging his stuns and shocking aura-ing.

what prince said. if you spec glass cannon, a thief with the same spec will still deal much more damage and still be more survivable than you. glass cannon for ele is not the way to do things…

so what i’m basically understanding here is you want people to put 30 trait points into a single element just for something that makes only that element slightly better, and also that you want a major nerf to ele gameplay in general?

i hope you guys realize they fixed the downed sickness bug for mist form about a week ago… ele’s downed abilities still suck, but they don’t kill you now.

i’ve beaten a mesmer and another elementalist 2v1 in random sPvP before.

ele OP? no. it was simply luck and an isolated case that probably won’t happen again.

Areann.1304:

And in PvE I never had any problems. My friends are even complaining that the staff elementalist is way overpowered. Events are easy, veterans are easy, personal story was easy. I only need ONE other good guy to take on champions. With two other guys I can complete group events easily. Even the explorable modes are very well doable for me, with a staff.

For example, you can create three area heal combos in three seconds, all by yourself. Cast eruption, place a gyser on it, dodge in it with evasive arcana trait and use arcane wave. You just healed yourself and your allies for more health than your skill six gives you. The same can be done for area might, area frost armor and area swiftness.

I’m not much off a SPvP player, but even there the staff is good when capturing or defending a node. A meteorshower above a node is a strong defense/offense. And in SPvP I try to run alongside an other player, since staff is always AoE.

So please, detail your problem and we can probably help you with it. But keep in mind that the staff is an AoE weapon, not a single target weapon. So you can’t expect it to do the same damage as a single target weapon.

so… do you perhaps have any evidence of what you’re saying is true? i, and probably 90% of your readers highly doubt this.

while i cannot imagine a staff elementalist beating even the most unskilled thief, i’ve beaten my fair share of thieves using dual dagger. try that instead.

Personally, i go 0/0/30/20/20
with: earth III, IX, and XI. III grants armor of earth when my hp hits 50% (really, it’s a glitched number closer to 30-40%, but w/e). IX reduces slows/stuns/etc. by 33% duration, and XI grants me 2s stability. with said stability, finishing a guardian or warrior becomes as easy as finishing an ele… their knockbacks stop working.

with water, i use III and V. honestly, i don’t really have much of a use for my III skill… but i put 20 points in water so i could use V, since it’s pretty decent in teamfights. (enemy elementalist uses churning earth? if you can’t escape it, just let it go off, immediately switch to water. the 8 stacks of bleeding on you and your teammates will be instantly wiped off and you’ll all heal for 50% of churning earth’s damage. therefore, a 5 second channel (i just realized it says 3 1/4 seconds on the tooltip) did 1k damage to you and your teammates, far less damage than autoattacks given the same amount of time… also, if you have multiple conditions stacked on you, cleansing wave gives you another chance at clearing said 8 stacks of bleeding)

I run arcana 4 and 5. final shielding… well, that’s a given. it has saved my life countless times, and is indisposable as both a trait and a skill. (even though that’s bugged and activates at ~10% hp as well) trait 5 grants you a stack of might (yeah, yeah… not too much. but it IS something), regeneration (again, a tiny bit of hp, but it’s still a decent feature to have.) what i really like are the swiftness and protection it grants. now… protection is a TON. 33%? as soon as a pistol whip spamming noob starts attacking you, arcane shield + switch to earth element + lightning flash away, and you’ll escape with half your hp left. the rest… well, is up to you and your opponent’s skill levels. and swiftness… well, as i switch elements rather often, and i tend to initiate with air element, the swiftness is good for both travel and for jumping into a fight.

I run signet of fire, lightning flash, and arcane shield
signet of fire… it’s a free 3.7k damage every 15 seconds that combos well with fire grab. what’s not to like?
lightning flash is my stun breaker and it combos well with churning earth.
arcane shield… no words are needed to describe how indispensable this ability is.

personally, i use 5 runes of the fighter for the focus on survivability and damage it gives me and a rune of divinity (i’d grab that 6th rune of the fighter if the effect weren’t bugged)

and finally, i use soldier’s armor (power/vit/toughness) for maximum survivability along with maximum base damage.

so in comparison, your build to mine… mine is more survivable in all situations except for when i get chain stunned and a warrior 100b’s me to death in 1 hit because i only have 1 stunbreak… my damage will be somewhat lower, but i make up for it easily by using a sigil of battle. generally, i have anywhere from 7-10 stacks of might at any given time during a fight, which brings me up to 2364 power and 3345 attack.

doing some math, i assume you have 2741 attack. compared to my 3345 attack, it means i deal 22% more direct damage per skill than you in combat.
compared to your 1836 armor, i have 2840 armor. with this math: you have 23035 (your hp) x1836(armor) = (meaningless number that can only be used to compare the relative amount of damage one can take before being downed)
your number is: 42,292,260
whereas mine is 19345*2840, or 54,939,800.
my number/ your number = relative amount of damage i can take compared to the amount of damage you can take. the number = 129.905%.
for sake of simplicity (and my laziness), we’ll ignore the 300 condition damage i have from speccing 30 points into earth, and your 20% bonus in condition damage duration from speccing 20 points into fire.

*TLDR: i can take almost 30% more direct damage than you AND deal 22% more base direct damage than you… so if you use my build instead, you’ll win even more.

edit… i forgot to factor in the 30% passive crit rate you have over me, so in retrospect, you will, statistically speaking, deal 11.4% more damage than i will if you’re lucky. the numbers would be tipped in my favor if we factor in the adept arcana trait, but i’m going to go there… math -_-

Oznug.4290:

Anet – when are you going to acknowledge that the staff Elementalist is subpar in every role category in comparison to other classes and fix it?

Seriously. Do you even play the game?

no. staff is only terrible in terms of single target damage output and in specific situations, survivability.

switch to dual dagger/scepter dagger in that situation, and your problem is averted.

meteor shower is god at killing buildings (20k damage easily, even without a damage build), and a staff elementalist is fantastic at controlling a WvW battlefield… we’ve got a massive amount of combo fields, support options, and AOE damage options.

i agree with luterin. the OP seems to be saying that elementalists are unplayable. they certainly are playable. even though every other class ATM do things more easily and faster than an ele, it doesn’t detract too much from the fun if you’re not just constantly thinking and complaining about the disparity in the difficulty of the game.

heck, if you’re not into competitive sPvP and just use the browser, a well played elementalist is actually considerably better than a FotM thief from my experience.

edit: i have 400 hours on my ele, have had 100% world completion for several weeks now, and rarely lose 1v1s in WvW or hot joins in SPvP.

Selix.5670:

It’s called might stacking, and having 4,000 attack, and perma swiftness, vigor, and regen. HP is vastly overrated.

^. HP IS overrated. just look at guardian. they’re the most survivable class in the game and they have the same amount of HP as we do.

however, selix…warriors stack might far easier than elementalists do, still deal far more damage, and are much more durable.

also, permaswiftness, vigor, and regen are only available when you spec for it… making you rather useless in a combat situation such as the ones you encounter in SPvP.

though people say elementalists are the best at AOE and are tied with guardians in terms of support, this is only for staff. i’ve never seen a staff elementalist hold his own against anyone but the most mediocre of opponents, and believe me, i’ve searched. on the other hand… scepter/dagger and dagger/dagger, the two highest DPS weapons elementalists can use, still pale in terms of damage compared to just about every class, and are innately considerably more selfish in nature compared to staff.

even if an elementalist is godlike in terms of skill, many would agree that a team with an elementalist instead of, say, a guardian, is lacking a team member due to lack of said cooperation.

edit: back to the main topic: what would 2k more HP do? not much. it’s 10% more hp, which would translate into… what, 3-5% better survivability in a stretched out combat situation? a miniscule and almost imperceptible difference… unless the OP’s reasoning is to prevent a thief from instakilling an elementalist with a backstab combo.

also, considering how an elementalist’s 6 skill + water element skills in dual dagger, for example can heal oneself for 70% of our health, i doubt it’s HP that’s in question.

if 100%ing the world didn’t involve 100%ing the world, what point would there be? all you’d have left would be WvW areas, instances, and PVP areas.

…which would mean it’ll take you 2 hours to complete the whole world…

Granted, as most of the thieves i face in SPvP really do suck something terrible (spam pistol whip on a squishy elementalist and i STILL beat you? cmon.), I can’t provide you a way to fight skilled thieves.

i suppose you could do what the first reply says. save up RTL, updraft, earth 3, and earth 4 combo.
personally, i like to use signet of fire after my updraft, earth 3 to them, and knock ‘em down. fire grab, and burning speed follows this up if you get all of these down, your thief opponent is down to less than half his HP (assuming glass cannon build for the thief). with this alone, you could be critting for 7-8k damage (which isn’t that unlikely if you do it fast and have the arcana trait that grants you fury)

"

i’d imagine any random thief would wreck you… amirite?

Nope, Thief is quite easy if you know when to avoid the burst.. combine that with alot of dodging, place down areas and keeping him slowed with the earth and water spells.. its quite easy."

however, the flavor of the month for thieves right now seems to be stealth + steal + quickness + pistol whip you to death (well, not to death, but it’ll certainly take away most of your HP before you can react unless you’ve magically got shocking aura up)

the thing is… when done right, you won’t even notice the thief until he’s busy slashing you in half. yes, eventually it’ll almost guaranteed to be nerfed heavily, but for now…

also, after this ambush, you’ll be at 20-40% hp. even though the thief is geared towards pure damage, i can’t imagine a staff user being able to fight a full hp thief let alone fighting at 20-40% hp, as staff’s 1v1 viability is rather abysmal.

i’d imagine any random thief would wreck you… amirite?

i agree. when i first started, i was wondering why nobody showed up on my map… but of course, you should be able to toggle it on and off if you just want to use the map.

So I have an idea: when a mail or chat box comment receives, say, 15 reports, have an automated system check for anything that could look like a gold-selling website and blacklist it. Then, substitute the website’s name with “kitten” every time it’s posted in the future from then on.

Then, put in some code so that gold sellers can’t substitute “dotcom” for “.com” and “0” for “o”

Of course, a whitelist is needed so that websites such as google and yahoo aren’t replaced, but that’s pretty simple to do :P

What would this do? Well, it would force gold sellers to continue to buy new domain names for their gold-selling websites and cut into their profits… also, it would be entertaining to see gold sellers spamming: “Welcome to Kitten. we offer gold for low price” over and over again.

yep.
there’s also no PVE set that grants power, toughness, and vitality. (unfortunately)

Eicherjw.3926:

What traits give you that 30%?

air.

Derps.7421:

With my mesmer my illusionary thief can get 8.7k crts ^^ But I don’t even think their should be a downed state in spvp

there has to be a downed state, or else the only guild participating in guild wars would be the thieves guild…

but i agree. many downed states are FAR too potent, while many are simply terrible.

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

The might duration benefits from +boon. Full arcana + 2 monk + 2 water + 2 hoelbrak runes = +80 percent might duration. The stacks now last 36 seconds. This way you can have 6 stacks for 27 seconds, 9 stacks for 18 seconds, 12 stacks for 9 seconds, and possibly 15 stacks for 1 second if you’re lucky. You should be able to maintain 9-12 stacks pretty consistently.

and you factor in your combo finishers, the (optional) might when switching attunements, and you’ve got yourself 20 stacks of might in the best possible situation… meaning fire grab could crit for 5k even without a berserker build.

first, anet needs to make each weapon viable in each situation, since eles can’t swap weapons in-combat.

THEN work on balance.

you said so yourself: you put everything into fire and air.

the thing is… you have to realize that even with a spec like that, you won’t be dealing as much damage with as staff as other professions would do with their weapons WITHOUT a glass cannon build.

imo, it’s not worth it to try. personally, i recommend dual dagger and max out earth for toughness, but if you’re afraid of its survivability, you can go scepter/dagger in pve as well.

i run dual dagger, with 0/0/30/20/20 traits. i don’t focus on any single element; i use everything available to me at any given time… and depending on the situation, i run signet of fire/arcane wave, signet of air/lightning flash, and arcane shield. and i use hounds of balthazar to tank for me and make my life easier (though elementals work too if you’re not human)

on my mainhand dagger, i use a superior sigil of battle, which is basically 7-10 free stacks of might whenever i’m in a fight. (hey, it rhymed)

i use earth 3, 9, and 11
water traits 5 and 7,
and arcana 4 and 5.

with this, i have 2 arcane shields, armor of earth (which i hear is supposed to break stuns… meaning anet might fix it in the future), and with water, each time i attune to it i heal as well as cure conditions.

and i’d recommend either carrion or knight’s armor (though i’m personally too cheap to buy it for myself)

yep. cursed shore near caer shadowfain.

Mytheos.7205:

Of course I am serious, if a build with less DPS and better survivability can outdps one that has more DPS, I would love to see it and then talk shop after.

the principle.. is i can survive fights you can… and you won’t be dealing damage if you’re dead. orr you could go and solo a veteran giant in orr… tell me how that goes for you.

Mytheos.7205:

Challenge accepted, name the time and place

whenever… and add me if you’re serious about it

it’s perfectly fine to play elementalist if you’re not into TPvP. personally, i have roughly a kdr of 3 in hot joins, while playing thief and spamming heartseeker only gets me a kdr of ~2. if you’re getting crushed, it’s either you’re playing ele like you would any other class, or you’re using staff.

yes? if so, why?

here’s my reasoning: as of right now, i use signet of fire, lightning flash, and arcane shield as my 7-9 skill, and major elemental as my elite… however, i would also like to add signet of air for the 10% movespeed increase and the blind and tiny bit of extra damage… it makes me that bit more survivable and gives me that tiny boost. I don’t feel our elites to really be very worth using in the first place, and i’ve never seen them to be very effective in any fight i’ve participated in (except for OP whirlpool, which was nerfed).

no? if so, why?

so THAT’s what acolyte armor looks like on a male character.

Jay wilson.1702:

@pukknub you know i am a more skilled ele then that i have 2 stun breakers. i go air press 3 2 1 then dodge your rtl or wait to see if it bugs(they still never fixed it) then i will rtl you will updraft since your blinded it will miss mine will hit i will switch to fore use fire bird ring of fire then swap to earth for another knockback put some bleed then press 2 while swaping to ether water or air again to destroy you.

OR you just get a backstab thief and watch me run away

we have a term in starcraft 2 called “theorycrafting,” where things may be viable on paper but in practice, truly aren’t. we’re both “theorycrafting” right now, and neither of us could prove it unless we went toe-to-toe with our builds in a 1v1 fight… and even then, there will be a skill disparity in which the higher skilled player will win.

RTL glitches 70% of the time if your opponent even so much as moves… whoever initiates a fight between two elementalists will get the short end of the stick. most likely, it will miss, and ele no. 1 will updraft ele no.2 while ele no. 2 is basically stunned by his own RTL.

and there’s the thing about arcane shields and final shielding. in an elementalist vs. elementalist fight, arcane shield will benefit more the person who did not spec full glass cannon due to the inherent design of the build: it blocks 3 shots no matter how much damage the shots deal.

also, scepter is far too dodgeable a weapon… in my experience, it only works on noobs who walk backward slowly and waste their dodges. for example, as soon as i see your fire 2 dropping down on me, it’s easily predictable to expect the slow-moving phoenix to follow soon… in which case, a dodge in any direction renders me unharmed. same, again, with the churning earth + teleport combo. count to 5 seconds and press V. you escape unscathed… OR you could RTL or dagger earth 3 to your opponent and updraft/ earthquake them.

also, an elementalist doesn’t benefit drastically from berserker’s armor. even with one of the tankiest builds possible (0/0/30/20/20) fire grab crits for 3-4k damage after i apply signet of fire on an opponent. that means my opponent just took 7-8k damage. in your case, that’s half your HP. dagger fire 3 gives me another 2k damage, fire 2 and water 2 will double as arcane shield breakers and will both do 1.6-2k damage apiece.

bottom point: sure, you can deal damage, but far too much of it is far too easily avoidable and counterable.

i have 4% crit damage, and have been wearing the same assorted exotic set i’ve owned for the last month… and i can kill things faster than you.

elementalists isn’t about glass cannon. i once saw someone write: “I’d like a bit more cannon to go with my glass.” that is especially true with us. a thief with the same gear will be dealing almost twice the damage as you in a single target scenario, but will still be slightly less squishy due to medium armor.

glass cannon ele is not the way to go. if you spec earth and water with 10 points in arcana, you will be very survivable. anecdote: i haven’t died in a fight vs. <5 normal mobs for 3 weeks, and i can solo veteran giants in orr… i seriously doubt you can do the same with a glass cannon staff build.

finally. someone ELSE who roams the world by himself killing everything they see

…but…. are… you running a full berserker’s build? -_-

GankSinatra.2653:

Theres a 9 second cd on it but it does work.

You can also get the one that has a chance to give might on crit, it has no cooldown, unless a cooldown on a (weapon proc) sigil gets triggered.

the thing about the might on crit one is it relies on putting points into air to be reliable… and we all know how air is a purely support element…

ThiBash.5634:

wertyuio.8630:

it would reward skilled players for juggling their attunements better.

You mean pressing F1-4 mindlessly right? It would be a powerful buff, but it wouldn’t be the best way to ‘fix’ things.

On a side note, if you’re good with Evasive Arcana and Arcane Blast, you can still get to 15-19 stacks of might if you’d want to.

you forget the cd on attunments. if you press F1-F4 mindlessly, sure, you’ll have 12 stacks of might on whatever attunement you end up with… but you’ll just be that: an elementalist with 12 stacks of might restricted to a single attunement…. basically, you’re almost useless. it does require thinking… though if there is no cd, 25 stacks of might… could be rather bad. fire grab would be able to crit for 5k damage at 25 stacks of might even if you’re not using full berserker’s…

don’t worry…. the stuff they nerfed was almost useless most of the time anyway.