Elementalist Discussion

[Lurker87]

The only problem with staff that I see is that the bulk of our damage comes from ground targeted abilities. If someone moves, our damage is reduced by almost half (from what I've seen at least).

I was thinking about how it could be fixed and had an idea when doing the volcano fractal. The boss in there adds a burning aoe onto the player and when that player gets close to someone, they also take damage from it.

If something like this was added to our Lava Font, Ice Spike, and Eruption, our single target damage wouldn't be nearly as avoidable as it is now while keeping our aoe. Lava Font could be similar to the ability in the lava fractal, it would do damage every second for 3-5 seconds and would add burning to targets near the affected target. Ice Spike could put a ring of icicles around the target that follows it which, after a second or two, thrust inward causing raw damage to the target and explodes for less damage to all enemies near. Eruption could cover the target’s skin with stones, which explode for little damage but adds bleeds to it and everyone near

The damage may have to be lowered a little bit to make it balanced but it could be a good fix. Just an idea which will probably never happen. Oh well.

[Ananan]

You'll want to drop ring of fire, phoenix, dragon's tooth(switch to earth while casting this), earthquake, churning(cancel do not let it finish just grab might), switch to air, use arcane power+rtl+updraft+lightning surge+arcane blast, stay in air untill updraft is halfway reloaded then switch to fire and repeat.

Churning Earth is a bit weird. At the moment it shows the combo, like "Area Might" in the beginning of the cast, but the combo doesn't actually trigger until you finish it. I'm guessing that they are trying to get away from cancelling it just for combos. The good news is that if you end the sequence with the Churning you can get all four fire+earth finishers to combo with the Ring of Fire, since even though the Ring of Fire will have expired at the end of Churning Earth you will still get the Might. But you have to finish it, so it won't always be a good idea. Maybe all combo skills work like this and I never notice it on the quick ones...

I love Radiation Field as Asura elementalist. Try it as scepter+dagger with the finishers mentioned above plus Arcane Wave. You'll really stack up Weakness on everything around. It lasts for 15 seconds, so you can even whip out a Lightning Hammer for a Leap and another Blast finisher (which also gives you even more blinds). For a racial skill it's really nice.

[Meledelion]

Churning Earth is a bit weird. At the moment it shows the combo, like "Area Might" in the beginning of the cast, but the combo doesn't actually trigger until you finish it.

Learned something new here, lovely!

And yup I already listed radiation field below that paragraph for the condition build (some racials are really good, especially the Asura ones for conditions, haven't checked norn since I didn't lvl my norn yet )

[Durzlla]

Learned something new here, lovely!

And yup I already listed radiation field below that paragraph for the condition build (some racials are really good, especially the Asura ones for conditions, haven't checked norn since I didn't lvl my norn yet )

Any channel finisher (except whirl) occurs at the end regardless of if the field expired or not, I know I've been doing it with my mes via The Prestige + a combo field (poison is my favorite =D), churning earth can be the same if you lightning flash to somewhere else as the combo finishes.

IE: cast churning earth in a water field, lightning flash into a huge swarm of enemies (with allies in it) and then you do a ton of damage AND heal your allies when it finishes =D!!

[Lane]

Damnit, y'all are making me reconsider keeping my Asura elementalist when I was going to reroll Charr. :P

Isn't it kind of detrimental to your survivability to have Radiation Field/Pain Inverter/Arcane Wave as your slot skills though?

[Meledelion]

Not at all, elementalist survivability comes from weapon skills, you can heal more, get more protection(not the boon just protection) simply by being an elementalist. Now add passive healing by casting (and being able to chain this endlesly meanint rtl, knocback => go water, 5 heals for shit tons) and regen upon swapping + protection every time you swap to earth...

[Ananan]

I don't know if Pain Inverter is worth it. I use Radiation Field, Glyph of Storms (for the blinding sandstorm), and Lightning Hammer (for finishers, blinds and dazing strike (lightning field+leap finisher)). This gives me tons of blinds with scepter+dagger and option to stack Might or Weakness.

[Valeron]

I found PI so disappointing compared to the same skill in gw1. But I suppose they couldn't have done the same thing, it would wreck the game.

[Kelesti]

I remember talking about seeing what a Dagger/Dagger ele could do, for ages. When everyone and their mother was going "NO ITS STAFF BECAUSE THAT'S WHATS GOOD" and I'm like "uhh, you should try daggers" "WTF SO I COULD DIE?! THATS WHY IM RANGED"


.....you know, I do find it ironic that it's catching on now. And despite not a lot of changes that made it better (The air-1 being a cleave, I believe), it's now "AMG SO OP MUST NERF WTF". Community, slow as always.

[Valeron]

Heh, Kel

My Elementalist is a staff focused one just because I enjoy the aoe support options. Dagger/Dagger is a blast though, ride the lightning is so fun.

[Lane]

So, is there any benefit to a Charr elementalist? (Other than being completely badass. :P) And though it's probably not the right thread for it, anyone know if Radiation Field works as well (or better) with other classes than it does the elementalist?

[Kelesti]

So, is there any benefit to a Charr elementalist? (Other than being completely badass. :P) And though it's probably not the right thread for it, anyone know if Radiation Field works as well (or better) with other classes than it does the elementalist?

There is no benefit to being a <Race> <profession> at all. The Racials all generally suck (the humans moreso than the others, but hey), and are all pretty much outclassed by actual profession skills.

[Valeron]

There is no benefit to being a <Race> <profession> at all. The Racials all generally suck (the humans moreso than the others, but hey), and are all pretty much outclassed by actual profession skills.

Indeed that was by design to make the racial skills weaker. I'm of the opinion that they should have put in an 11th skill slot just for a racial skill. For balance sake maybe not have that option for sPvP. It would have provided a bit of flavor I think.

[Kelesti]

It bothers me when I ask another Mesmer to pop time warp and they're like "I can't, I'm running Golem" ............................... the fuck are you doing?

[jaakkeli]

There is no benefit to being a <Race> <profession> at all. The Racials all generally suck (the humans moreso than the others, but hey), and are all pretty much outclassed by actual profession skills.

The elementalist is a bit of an exception to this rule, actually, since the elites are so bad that it's not like you're losing something important...

90 % of elementalists out there just run with the elemental summon elite. It doesn't do much but at least a bit of damage is consistently useful.

[Durzlla]

It bothers me when I ask another Mesmer to pop time warp and they're like "I can't, I'm running Golem" ............................... the fuck are you doing?

lol i always reply with "I can't i'm running mass invis" xD, oh the rage i've gotten for that....

@Jaakkeli, LOL you think ele elites are bad, are you serious? You clearly don't know the true power behind the fiery great sword or the tornado...

[jaakkeli]

@Jaakkeli, LOL you think ele elites are bad, are you serious? You clearly don't know the true power behind the fiery great sword or the tornado...

They are both complete garbage for 90 % of this game. Sure, you can come up with some particular trash wave in some particular dungeon where tornado just shines but those moments are so rare that it makes a ton more sense to just run elemental summoning or some random crappy racial. The elementals suck balls as well but they do something that's useful in nearly every situation (ie a bit of damage) while tornado is completely useless most of the time.

Besides, we were comparing racials to profession elites and a lot of the racials are actually amazing for some specific but really rare situations as well...

The elementalist has the worst elites of any profession I've tried by far.

[Durzlla]

They are both complete garbage for 90 % of this game. Sure, you can come up with some particular trash wave in some particular dungeon where tornado just shines but those moments are so rare that it makes a ton more sense to just run elemental summoning or some random crappy racial. The elementals suck balls as well but they do something that's useful in nearly every situation (ie a bit of damage) while tornado is completely useless most of the time.

Besides, we were comparing racials to profession elites and a lot of the racials are actually amazing for some specific but really rare situations as well...

The elementalist has the worst elites of any profession I've tried by far.

You do realize you're saying that THE LONGEST whirl finisher (whirl finishers are better the longer it lasts) and a skill that launches all nearby enemies endlessly as well as being able to blind and KD enemies out of launch range is awful right?

And if you want damage you want great sword, it increases your condi and power by 180 and 260 respectively is bad, you know, not like 2 people get to use it at the same time or anything....

Your ignorance of the ele elites knows no bounds...

[Lane]

There is no benefit to being a <Race> <profession> at all. The Racials all generally suck (the humans moreso than the others, but hey), and are all pretty much outclassed by actual profession skills.

Well, after several posts of people saying how much they like Radiation Field on their Asura elementalist I'm a little confused. O_o So, as an Asura is there another slot skill besides that which would actually be more effective?

Edit: Or do other races have skills that benefit elementalist as much as Radiation Field?

[jaakkeli]

You do realize you're saying that THE LONGEST whirl finisher (whirl finishers are better the longer it lasts) and a skill that launches all nearby enemies endlessly as well as being able to blind and KD enemies out of launch range is awful right?

Err, yes. It's awful. You trade all your abilities for launching enemies and dealing unimpressive damage for 15 seconds. This is awesome for precisely those situations when launching tons of trash mobs around you is awesome which is, like, umm, well I'm sure there's some situation where it's awesome. At other times it's just better to stick to your regular toolset and use an elite that doesn't require you to throw it away.

And if you want damage you want great sword, it increases your condi and power by 180 and 260 respectively is bad, you know, not like 2 people get to use it at the same time or anything....

Again, you trade away all your skills to use this. The only really strong point of the ele is in the large variety of utility/heal/support skills that you can use on demand and you throw that away when you use any of the elites besides elementals.

Not to mention ele survival is designed around using the protection and healing as needed and throwing that away to use a melee weapon that doesn't actually do that much more damage than regular skills is just not awesome at all.