Elementalist Discussion

[Xuvial]

My elementalist feels like a sponge pudding compared to my engi. Not only can the engi take hits a lot better without dying, but you almost instantly learn Net Shot (ranged root on very short cooldown) and Overcharged Shot (massive knock-back + CC) which helps immensely at low levels.

From what I've been reading Ele's get decent later on, but at low levels boy are they a PAIN to kill stuff with. Especially solo. Just 1 AoE snare tied to Water attument (and Water abilities do SHIT damage), no CC, after 2 dodges I basically die.

Also Grenade Kit seems to do way better AoE damage than anything the Elementalist can do, what the hell...? Thought Ele's were supposed to be AoE masters or something.

[Deleted]

My elementalist feels like a sponge pudding compared to my engi. Not only can the engi take hits a lot better without dying, but you almost instantly learn Net Shot (ranged root on very short cooldown) and Overcharged Shot (massive knock-back + CC) which helps immensely at low levels.

From what I've been reading Ele's get decent later on, but at low levels boy are they a PAIN to kill stuff with. Especially solo. Just 1 AoE snare tied to Water attument (and Water abilities do SHIT damage), no CC, after 2 dodges I basically die.

Also Grenade Kit seems to do way better AoE damage than anything the Elementalist can do, what the hell...? Thought Ele's were supposed to be AoE masters or something.

Elementalists are in a bit of a bad spot at the moment. They have the potential damage to burst down classes really quickly; but then so do Greatsword Warriors and Heartstrike spamming Thieves. The Elementalist has damage on par to other bursty classes, but without any of their survivability.

[Ashnazg]

Elementalists are in a bit of a bad spot at the moment. They have the potential damage to burst down classes really quickly; but then so do Greatsword Warriors and Heartstrike spamming Thieves. The Elementalist has damage on par to other bursty classes, but without any of their survivability.

Which ele weapon/attunement combo gives them a burst combo on part with HS thieves?

EDIT: We're talking about roughly 15-16k hp in ~5 secs.

[Zephyr Storm]

Eles are kinda underpowered atm to be honest. They can still do decent damage yes, but their survivability suffers GREATLY in order to do so. Whereas other profs can do great damage on top of having great survivability *cough* warriors and guardians *cough*, eles are honestly forced to choose one over the other. Either be a glass cannon and do good damage and die in a hit or two. Or be a tanky ele, and do mediocre damage (and still die fairly quickly anyway, at least compared to other profs). It's pretty dumb atm. Not saying ele is terrible, just that we could definitely use a good tweaking by the devs.

And it's also pretty dumb that the general consensus in-game right now for eles in WvWvW, dungeons, etc is go staff of GTFO. -_-

[Profyrion]

I'm having a tough time enjoying Ele staff gameplay. I like the idea of the staff much more than the implementation. Here is a collection of minor gripes (all about PVE staff combat):

1. I love Air attunement's basic attack (Chain Lightning) and I hate it. The jumping lightning is amazing for large packs of monsters in a dynamic event. It's also a huge pain in the ass when there are non-aggro targets in the jump range. Too often it will jump to a neutral target and pull things I never intended it too, like a random Yak or a Moa. Naturally they make a bee line for me when I should be concentrating on other things. The spell needs to be a little more intelligent about how it picks targets. I don't really care if it nukes a non-combat critter every now and then, but it needs to at least not pull neutral targets into the fight from odd directions -- only targets that I'm actually "in combat" with. Somebody will probably say that's the "chaotic nature of Air magic!" but that excuse is poop. The spell (the whole attunement really) is largely useless for single target combat.

2. Mobility is ass. The only dodge spell we get is in Fire attunement (Burning Retreat), and it has a moderate cooldown. Our one Pushback ability (Gust) seems to fail a lot. Possible bug? A single placed area stun (Static Field) and a single placed area slow (Frozen Ground), both with cast times and significant cooldowns (40 and 45 sec, respectively), don't really give you a lot of options for crowd control. Plus if I'm mouse-looking to strafe/kite, I have to move the camera at odd angles and play a guessing game just to put them down in places where they won't be completely useless. This lack of mobility coupled with the fact that we are very squishy, makes single target combat tedious with a staff... especially against melee targets (most targets). I would happily switch to dagger/dagger for those fights, but we don't get to equip a second weapon set like some classes.

3. With the possible exception of Shockwave, Earth attunement feels very weak and gimmicky. I'd like Magnetic Aura a lot more, even though it's only useful against ranged projectile-based opponents, if it had a higher uptime potential. 5 seconds of deflection for 30 seconds of cooldown hardly seems worth the GCD. It might block 3 projectiles if I'm very lucky. 15 seconds uptime with 45 or 60 seconds cooldown makes it a button I might actually use.


I'm probably doing it wrong. I realize staff isn't ideal for solo PvE. I have a set of daggers too, and they have a much better feel for that sort of combat. I just hate switching (so clumsy... need a macro) and I wanted to see if I could make it work somehow. There's gotta be a way. I want to be the PvE staff hero. Help me make staff not suck.

[Zephyr Storm]

I'm having a tough time enjoying Ele staff gameplay. I like the idea of the staff much more than the implementation. Here is a collection of minor gripes (all about PVE staff combat):

1. I love Air attunement's basic attack (Chain Lightning) and I hate it. The jumping lightning is amazing for large packs of monsters in a dynamic event. It's also a huge pain in the ass when there are non-aggro targets in the jump range. Too often it will jump to a neutral target and pull things I never intended it too, like a random Yak or a Moa. Naturally they make a bee line for me when I should be concentrating on other things. The spell needs to be a little more intelligent about how it picks targets. I don't really care if it nukes a non-combat critter every now and then, but it needs to at least not pull neutral targets into the fight from odd directions -- only targets that I'm actually "in combat" with. Somebody will probably say that's the "chaotic nature of Air magic!" but that excuse is poop. The spell (the whole attunement really) is largely useless for single target combat.

2. Mobility is ass. The only dodge spell we get is in Fire attunement (Burning Retreat), and it has a moderate cooldown. Our one Pushback ability (Gust) seems to fail a lot. Possible bug? A single placed area stun (Static Field) and a single placed area slow (Frozen Ground), both with cast times and significant cooldowns (40 and 45 sec, respectively), don't really give you a lot of options for crowd control. Plus if I'm mouse-looking to strafe/kite, I have to move the camera at odd angles and play a guessing game just to put them down in places where they won't be completely useless. This lack of mobility coupled with the fact that we are very squishy, makes single target combat tedious with a staff... especially against melee targets (most targets). I would happily switch to dagger/dagger for those fights, but we don't get to equip a second weapon set like some classes.

3. With the possible exception of Shockwave, Earth attunement feels very weak and gimmicky. I'd like Magnetic Aura a lot more, even though it's only useful against ranged projectile-based opponents, if it had a higher uptime potential. 5 seconds of deflection for 30 seconds of cooldown hardly seems worth the GCD. It might block 3 projectiles if I'm very lucky. 15 seconds uptime with 45 or 60 seconds cooldown makes it a button I might actually use.


I'm probably doing it wrong. I realize staff isn't ideal for solo PvE. I have a set of daggers too, and they have a much better feel for that sort of combat. I just hate switching (so clumsy... need a macro) and I wanted to see if I could make it work somehow. There's gotta be a way. I want to be the PvE staff hero. Help me make staff not suck.

Unfortunately, staff is just kind of that way. It lacks in many regards but excels at others. It is, in all honesty, they best well-rounded weapon that an ele can use though, in regards to both damage and support. Daggers may have some decent damage, but eles are WAY to squishy (even when specced into survival stuff) to be that close to the enemy at all times. Scepter/focus isn't to bad either in terms of damage, but once again staff offers much more utility and support. The bad thing about eles, is that you can't quickly switch between weapon sets, so most people just stick with one of the above options, whether it's ideal for the situation at hand or not. And it's really bad when you get into a group of people, and the vast majority of them are telling you to go staff or GTFO. It's just the current mindset and it sucks for us eles.

[Thor015]

Personally I really like scepter dagger. I also use mist form as an additional escape along with tornado to knock people around.

I find that some of the knock backs/downs with this combo are pretty nice. But if I get focused on I am screwed and being in the midst of Melee land can be troublesome. So I have to be quick on my feet.

[sacrypheyes]

snip

been playing as staff ele until a few days ago.

found air pretty meh in solo pve as you would barely have 2 damaging spells (out of which one with a such a looooooooooong cd). only decent with 2 targets (your main target would be hit twice - nice for champions with a random minion with him).
otherwise, i'd mainly switch between fire and earth, being able to "land" eruption is critical in earth attunement and that's where the snare (4) and root (5) help a lot.
also, i'd often switch to earth for the projectile relect (3) to counter ranged attacks, not to mention most ranged minions are also easy target for eruption.

as for the fire attunement, i'd usually start with metor shower (5), lava font (2), flame burst (3) and burning retreat once he gets to melee, unless i can burn them down with arcane wave/blast. if not, i'd just kite them to death with all the skills available in water/air/earth attunements.

feel like i didn't die that much during my leveling and the only real threats i've seen as a staff ele were thieves who would shadowstep to you, thus ignoring all snares.

Personally I really like scepter dagger. I also use mist form as an additional escape along with tornado to knock people around.

I find that some of the knock backs/downs with this combo are pretty nice. But if I get focused on I am screwed and being in the midst of Melee land can be troublesome. So I have to be quick on my feet.

kinda like the scepter/dagger setup, though i'm using armor of earth (needed the stability boon to use churning earth (5) without the fear of being interrupted + the protection boon is very welcomed) and arcane wave to accentuate the aoe burst in fire attunement.

i don't find tornado to be worth it with negligible damage and all, rather use the fiery greatsword in groups or elemental in solo.

[Advent07]

kinda like the scepter/dagger setup, though i'm using armor of earth (needed the stability boon to use churning earth (5) without the fear of being interrupted + the protection boon is very welcomed) and arcane wave to accentuate the aoe burst in fire attunement.

i don't find tornado to be worth it with negligible damage and all, rather use the fiery greatsword in groups or elemental in solo.

Love Scepter/dagger myself; however I also chain in the hammer and the bow summons as well,as I find it gives me the variety of skills I need. Start out in air attunement, use the charge, then the instant shocks (damage and blind), then use the push back/back flip skill (cant remember the name #5 skiil) summon the lightning hammer and charge + 3 hit #1 combo. Use the hammer knock back, summon the bow and slow using the multishot. Dodge roll back and shoot the freezing arrow, then Aoe frost arrow volley it to death. Most things are dead at that point or way earlier in the combo to be honest though. I find Fire attunement to be a good option also to combo off of after air if you decide to not go into the summoning weapons, As you can ring of fire and do the fire cone very quickly for some decent damage, along with phoenix giving you extra endurance to dodge around.

[Lucky_]

For those using staves in solo or dual PvE, you should consider starting in earth and having blast finisher arcane skill in utility.

You start with earth 2 on enemy mob as you run it, swap to fire and cast fire 2 over earth 2 before it has blown up, run on top of it and use arcane blast finisher at about the same time as earth 2 blows up. At this point you will have 6 stacks of might (7 if traited 10 in arcane) and enemy that lost a decent chunk of health to your opening burst and has six stacks of bleed with potential burning/vulnerability (if critting and traited). From there you can choose if you want to meteor shower the enemy, or just fire 321 it to death, or if it's a veteran/champion to start the standard kiting procedure.


Personally I've been playing with staff ever since I hit the last orr zone, both because dagger survivability is junk and because solo elementalist in cursed shore is half suicidal and in fully suicidal if in groups as scaled event mobs will typically one shot you before you can react. It also doesn't hurt that my staff is exotic while my daggers are still only rare.


Finally to answer the question about air 3, it often misses because it's actually a slow projectile that is aimed at your target. If target moves enough during projectile travel, air 3 projectile will miss completely.

[Zephyr Storm]

i don't find tornado to be worth it with negligible damage and all, rather use the fiery greatsword in groups or elemental in solo.

Tornado is more for the knockbacks than anything else. Yes it still does damage, but like you said, is pretty negligible for an elite skill. The knock back can wreak havoc in PvP though.

[dPwnShop]

After reading the last few pages of this thread I feel a little bit better about the last few day's I have spent trying out some spvp. Up until then I was heart/DE hunting unless my the guildies were grouping up for WvW. I have absolutely had a blast up until I gave spvp a try and have been getting steam rolled. I haven't tried staff in spvp. All my games have been either d/d or s/d.

I have tried heavy glass cannon d/d builds, defensive s/d builds and a few things in between. I don't remember playing an mmo when I have felt this bad at a game. My glass cannon builds don't seem to do enough damage to make up for the lack of survivability. I have found when going with a more of a defensive build I'm able to stay alive for a lot longer but unable to put out enough pressure to get a kill and find myself hoping that help arrives. I have been invited to do some tpvp with my guild but honestly I was too worried about ending up being a drag on the team instead of being a help to even try it out.

I searched out this thread hoping for some build advise and noticed a few build links a couple of pages back that I plan on trying. Getting opened on by a thief and seeing HS being 90% of the damage done in such a short amount of time really makes me envious. I've seen a lot of complaints about warriors burst but I haven't had much trouble with them unless I get caught in a stun w/o my mistform up. With DT being so easily avoidable I would have thought when I do actually get it to land it would hit for harder than it is hitting for now.

I'll keep checking back, I'm sure with more theorycrafting and tweaking the brains out there that play ele's will come through with a solution. To anyone else checking these forums that are in the same boat as me, know you are not alone lol.

P.S. For the possible l2p resonses... that's why I'm here, knowledge is power. If anyone has had success since release in spvp with an offensive playstyle instead of complete support build I'd love to hear about it. I've never rerolled because I've felt underpowered because the reward for success playing a class/prof that I've struggled with is so high. For the guys/gals putting in time doing the number crunching and theorycrafting, thanks.

[LuckyBucky]

Everyone is pretty much attuning to all the different elements on cd right? I find I can whip out elite earth ele and pull as much stuff as I can find near me then blast through everything in one massive aoe fest.

Arcane wave is silly AoE dmg. Glpyh of storms, Meteor shower, lava font, flame burst, ice spike, lightning surge, static field, eruption, unsteady ground.

Not all in that order, but follow through with all of those and you pretty much solo most events. You can use all this stuff on a single target too for silly damage. stop thinking of AoE skills as AoE only.

[Ashnazg]

Everyone is pretty much attuning to all the different elements on cd right? I find I can whip out elite earth ele and pull as much stuff as I can find near me then blast through everything in one massive aoe fest.

Arcane wave is silly AoE dmg. Glpyh of storms, Meteor shower, lava font, flame burst, ice spike, lightning surge, static field, eruption, unsteady ground.

Not all in that order, but follow through with all of those and you pretty much solo most events. You can use all this stuff on a single target too for silly damage. stop thinking of AoE skills as AoE only.

The problem is that at higher levels you will get 1-shot by several mobs before you even get a chance to use any of your channeled/cast-time abilities.

E.g. in Orr spectral weapons hit for ~2k damage in an aoe with a stun attached to it. Necros channel an attack for ~1.5k per hit. They also pull you to them and knock you down.

Basically there is enough stuff going on that you won't be able to cast channeled or cast-time abilities easily unless you use arcane shield all the time. And staff has a few too many of those abilities.

[Larynx]

Which ele weapon/attunement combo gives them a burst combo on part with HS thieves?

EDIT: We're talking about roughly 15-16k hp in ~5 secs.

Scepter/Dagger, Ring of Fire + Arcane Wave/Arcane Blast/Dragon's Tooth/Fire Grab.

Arcane Wave/Blast are both instant abilities, therefore all four can literally hit at the exact same moment.

On the subject of Ele survivability; it's fine. Eles have active mitigation of damage. They might have 13k health, but they're just as tanky as a warrior with double that HP, and due to the nature of the mechanics have the potential to be even more so.

Want to know the best part about the above spec? You're not a one trick pony. You don't do that, and be useless or lose if it misses. Thieves devote all their initiative to the burst. At the end of it, they're left with zero endurance, no weapon abilities besides 1, and at most 1 utility. They, like Eles, depend on actively avoiding damage. Without any way to actively avoid the damage, on top of being a glass cannon, they're incredibly easy to kill.

Greatsword warriors follow a similar rule, but they're not as useless. They aren't that squishy and don't need to rely on their utilities as much, and they still have all their endurance. They wont be as good as a normal warrior who depends on those weapons (typically axe/shield+greatsword) without the cheesiness, but they wont be sitting ducks.

[Eggoman]

Scepter/Dagger, Ring of Fire + Arcane Wave/Arcane Blast/Dragon's Tooth/Fire Grab.

Arcane Wave/Blast are both instant abilities, therefore all four can literally hit at the exact same moment.

On the subject of Ele survivability; it's fine. Eles have active mitigation of damage. They might have 13k health, but they're just as tanky as a warrior with double that HP, and due to the nature of the mechanics have the potential to be even more so.

Want to know the best part about the above spec? You're not a one trick pony. You don't do that, and be useless or lose if it misses. Thieves devote all their initiative to the burst. At the end of it, they're left with zero endurance, no weapon abilities besides 1, and at most 1 utility. They, like Eles, depend on actively avoiding damage. Without any way to actively avoid the damage, on top of being a glass cannon, they're incredibly easy to kill.

Greatsword warriors follow a similar rule, but they're not as useless. They aren't that squishy and don't need to rely on their utilities as much, and they still have all their endurance. They wont be as good as a normal warrior who depends on those weapons (typically axe/shield+greatsword) without the cheesiness, but they wont be sitting ducks.

Scepter/Dagger, Ring of Fire + Arcane Wave/Arcane Blast/Dragon's Tooth/Fire Grab is approximately: 1000+1500+1500+2000+1600 = 7600 dmg. Which is about 3 swings with a great sword from a warrior.

Ele damage is low compared to other classes that are direct damage as well. I've tried glass cannon builds and they do put out the most dmg a elementalist can put out but its less than or equal to the damage of a survival based build ranger/thief/warrior/guardian.

But right now Ele damage (staff) is probably where it should be at because Ele's have a ton of AoE fields that are huge. If you were to drop all the AoE's on one area the total damage can easily take out an entire health globe. With blasting staff you can basically cover most of any capture point in sPvP.

The dagger/dagger ele has the most burst out of any ele spec but very little compared to the other melee type classes. But D/D has the greatest mobility out of any profession. It is a good chaser and assist (i.e. run in between capture points to help support).

[Larynx]

Um. You do realize Arcane Wave/Blast are guaranteed crits, Dragon's Tooth and Fire Grab can do over 7k? (upwards of 9k+ on glass cannons)

The Ring of Fire is simply to increase the damage of Fire Grab.

Yeah, don't use the base damage values, or else I can just as well say hundred blades only does 1.7k damage. Don't cry underpowered if you don't know the profession.

We also have the pheonix from the scepter, but that typically isn't used in that combo. It's a good follow up, but easy to dodge and hard to get just right so it hits multiple times.

And lets not forget the fact that this is essentially turning into a "this profession can do X damage in Y seconds, therefore it's better" argument, which is incredibly illogical and stupid for many reasons.

[Suggs]

Ok so if im using a staff and fire spec, when it comes to traits ive maxed out the fire (30 points) for power and condition duration and added the deal more dmg glyphs etc, what would be the next best place to put points in your opinion?

Currently i have stuck 10 points in water to give me more health and that extra bit of healing if i need to help out with healing in dungeons and 7 in air for that extra crit/precision. (currently only lvl 63).
Should i as fire spec be putting points into earth maybe where i get extra condition damage or does that not benefit burn as much as it does say bleed?
Im a little confused about it, condition duration in my fire spec obviously means it burns longer and condition damage i guess would mean higher burn damage...bleh ive still got the fire crit thing in my mind from wow, im starting to get the feeling i should stick points in fire and air for that damage and crit and whats ever left over put anywhere at my will....i also hear to reset the points it costs 2g (((((

[DrakeWurrum]

There isn't really such a thing as "Fire spec" or "Air spec" or anything like that. It's highly recommended that you regularly jump between attunements. It takes practice and memorizing which tools are in which attunements, but eventually it's expected that you jump into each attunement for the various tools they offer, rather than just sitting in a single one.

[Artorias]

I pretty much agree with the idea that Ele's are underpowered. It's the exact opposite of the problem that occured in Diablo, which was this:

1. In Inferno, Ranged classes died in one hit, while Melee classes died in 4-5 hits.
2. Ranged classes were excessively more powerful than Melee classes.
3. Ranged classes were... ranged. They didn't have to take hits at all if they could evade well enough. Melee didn't have this option.

In Guild Wars, it's exactly the opposite.

1. 'Squishy' classes deal the same damage as 'Heavy' classes.
2. Squishy classes die MUCH quicker than Heavy classes.
3. Squishy classes can't kite enemies around all day, such as the case was in Diablo 3.

Same thing, just backwards. My warrior, while having 2-3 times as much hp and TONS more armor than an elementalist can put on a few skills that allow him to burst down any enemy in PvP in about 4 seconds. Bull Rush + Frenzy + Hundred Blades + Shield Bash + Eviscerate = DEAD ENEMY. Easily a 20k+ damage combo while being literally invulnerable if you use Defy Pain.

I'd say that's a descrepency.