Elementalist Discussion

[Deleted]

For the sake of the scenario, I'm going to label the number 1 skill as the "filler damage", and number 2-5 as "situational spells".

The way I envision playing the class efficiently, as there's a minor cooldown on the ol' switcheroo, an Elementalist would only switch attunement to use specific situational spells, using filler damage according to the current attunement in order to be prepared to use another situational spell at will. I'll draw out a scenario to show what I mean.

We're playing the Battle for Kyhlo, and are assaulting the enemy-held clocktower, specifically the elementalist (me in this made-up case, wielding a staff) and two of my chimpanions. I start out in Air attunement for the speed boost up the stairs, and when we reach the top we've got two hostile defenders to handle. I start tossing out filler lightning at them, and suddenly two rangers appear in the windows. Immediately I attune to Earth for the projectile protection and toss pebbles at them. My companions notice the rangers and manage to close the distance (with, for example, an Engineer's Backdraft). As they're starting to take a pounding by now, my attunement of choice becomes Water to throw out some minor healing to them (with a few water bolts for filler), and then Fire for some lovely AoE on the clumped up enemies (filling with Fireballs). After a miraculous victory and cap I'd switch to Air again for the speed boost as we speed towards our next objective.

I hope my thinking gets across. My understanding of the attunements is that any of the filler damage abilities are just as good as the others (roughly), with the main difference and hence your reason to switch being your situational spells. Rather than switching to whichever filler damage ability that does more damage whenever it's off cooldown, I see the most efficient way to play to be keeping as many attunements off cooldown for as much time as possible, to be able to adapt to ever-changing situations.

[Squirrelbanes]

Snippidy

Pretty much I think.
Our attunements are ofc just like other classes weapon swapping, and they'll be situational as you describe. I don't know how long the cooldown is (because they have changed it soo many times I stopped bothering to remember) but yes, it seems best, to me anyway, to try to ensure you have access to those skills which will save ur ele ass as much as possible.
So then it's best to limit switching for offensive purposes unless it's strictly necessary. An example would be switching to air from fire when faced by one person if you think they will go down anyway.
Wasting attunement changes and cooldowns, and then dying in a sodden pool of your own stupid self-induced blood, will prob be one of the more frustrating moments in pvp.
Would hope to avoid them with good skill strategy

[DrakeWurrum]

I can agree with that. The skill barrier to the elementalist will be simply figuring out when the best time for attunement switching is. Dagger/dagger, for example, doesn't really get any ability to help keep himself alive (well, no mitigation anyways), but he does get AoE abilities that will KD and cripple.

I'm hoping they change some of the dagger earth attunement spells to include some sort of defensive move besides all those, but oh well.

[Chaith]

Dagger/dagger, for example, doesn't really get any ability to help keep himself alive (well, no mitigation anyways)

Armor of Frost - Water attunement, dagger offhand would like a word with you.

-33% damage taken, and chills attackers.

There's your mitigation. There are lots of ways with Dagger / Dagger to deterr an attacker other than armor of frost. You can: Burning speed blast away, Ride the lightning blast away, AOE chill enemies on a 15s CD with Frozen burst, pop your healing wave to aoe heal and remove a condition, shocking aura to stun attackers, updraft to launch attackers, the aoe knockdown and cripple in Earth you mentioned.

I mean .. it may not be invulnerability, but when you're pressured with Dagger / Dagger, you have stuff to do to play defensively.

[takolin]

I hope my thinking gets across. My understanding of the attunements is that any of the filler damage abilities are just as good as the others (roughly), with the main difference and hence your reason to switch being your situational spells. Rather than switching to whichever filler damage ability that does more damage whenever it's off cooldown, I see the most efficient way to play to be keeping as many attunements off cooldown for as much time as possible, to be able to adapt to ever-changing situations.

I was under the impression that some filler damage spells are significantly better than others and the difference can be enlarged or shortened with the use of certain trait(lines). Thus you need to make a constant choice between: Shall I stay in attunement 1 and deal subpar damage but end up with a bigger pool of skills because most of my attunements are off cooldown OR shall I hop back to the most damaging attunement after dealing with a certain situation and risk of not being able to cope with the next one.

[DrakeWurrum]

Armor of Frost - Water attunement, dagger offhand would like a word with you.

-33% damage taken, and chills attackers.

There's your mitigation.

Was specifically referring to earth, but I find it surprising that WATER was the one with damage mitigation in it. Maybe they should switch Frost Aura with Earthquake or Churning Earth or something (and obviously alter certain aspects of the spells) in order to fit the attunement theme better.

There are lots of ways with Dagger / Dagger to deterr an attacker other than armor of frost. You can: Burning speed blast away, Ride the lightning blast away, AOE chill enemies on a 15s CD with Frozen burst, pop your healing wave to aoe heal and remove a condition, shocking aura to stun attackers, updraft to launch attackers, the aoe knockdown and cripple in Earth you mentioned.

I mean .. it may not be invulnerability, but when you're pressured with Dagger / Dagger, you have stuff to do to play defensively.

Obviously. I was just saying there was no damage mitigation, but I also didn't expect water to be where mitigation could be found.

[Chaith]

..but I also didn't expect water to be where mitigation could be found.

JEEZ. I mean, how could you not look in the support attunement for mitigation skills. Haha, jokes.

I would tend to agree with frost armor's functionality being better suited to the earth attunement. There are are certain cases / builds when it's not time to pop earth attunement when you are under pressure.

[DrakeWurrum]

JEEZ. I mean, how could you not look in the support attunement for mitigation skills. Haha, jokes.

I would tend to agree with frost armor's functionality being better suited to the earth attunement. There are are certain cases / builds when it's not time to pop earth attunement when you are under pressure.

Yeah, when I read the off-hand dagger earth skills I was thinking "What? AoE movement slowing? I thought that was water stuff..."

Back to the original reason I brought any of that up, though, I'll have to get used to recognizing when to switch to water for the healing and mitigation, and I guess I'll have to switch to earth for aoe cripple and knockdown (and even bleeding, it seems).

[archaea]

Is there any consensus what weapon combination be preferred in PVP vs PVE?
staff (pve?)
scepter / focus (pve / pvp)
dagger / dagger (pvp)

Perhaps all are viable in any situation?

[Futhark]

I'm trying to figure out a way to make Lightning Hammer work in any build (because it seems awesome), and having a hard time seeing how it fits in any Elemental setup.

If it really is a melee based, AoE weapon, then I would think you'd obviously want to use it against multiple enemies when you are not at range. I would think this would mean you would want to balanced your weapon choice with scenarios that the hammer would not be useful or it would be a wasted ability. This would mean avoiding choosing scepter as a weapon since it is already focused on melee range, and gravitate more towards staff. But since staff is also focused more on AoE, is seems D/D is the best way to cover your bases so you can cast heavy single target Air spells and AoE Fire spells at range, and then when forced to melee, switch to Earth (for damage mitigation) summon a Lightning Hammer, and start swinging.

Does that make sense? How else could Lightning Hammer work for a caster?

[DrakeWurrum]

Daggers are shorter range than Scepter, but I still grab Lightning Hammer for my Dagger/Dagger Elementalist.

[Larynx]

Daggers are shorter range than Scepter, but I still grab Lightning Hammer for my Dagger/Dagger Elementalist.

I've heard scepter is actually the close range one, and daggers are medium ranged.

I doubt that information though.

---------- Post added 2012-03-20 at 03:14 PM ----------

Is there any consensus what weapon combination be preferred in PVP vs PVE?
staff (pve?)
scepter / focus (pve / pvp)
dagger / dagger (pvp)

Perhaps all are viable in any situation?

I think that a staff will be mostly used for PvE or WvW. But beyond that small bit I have no clue, I think they all could work honestly, it just requires different playstyles.

[Deleted]

I've heard scepter is actually the close range one, and daggers are medium ranged.

I doubt that information though.[COLOR="red"]

From what I've seen from the vids, dagger's spam attack has the shortest range.

[DrakeWurrum]

From what I've seen from the vids, dagger's spam attack has the shortest range.

^this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...bqPWpEo#t=489s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...bqPWpEo#t=803s

[DrakeWurrum]

TotalBiscuit encounters.... The Lightning Hammer!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...EvAmFg#t=1643s


Doesn't seem to have a lot of charges.

[Larynx]

TotalBiscuit encounters.... The Lightning Hammer!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...EvAmFg#t=1643s


Doesn't seem to have a lot of charges.

15 charges for conjured weapons.

[Deleted]

Daggers are shorter range than Scepter, but I still grab Lightning Hammer for my Dagger/Dagger Elementalist.

It used to be that way at the earliest Demos, but they changed it.

[DrakeWurrum]

15 charges for conjured weapons.

What I'm wondering is, are those charges for uses of the #1 skill, or using any abilities at all?

[Larynx]

What I'm wondering is, are those charges for uses of the #1 skill, or using any abilities at all?

15 abilities total.

So probably avoid spamming one unless all the abilities are like 40 second cooldowns.

[DrakeWurrum]

That actually sounds a bit frustrating. It would make more sense, imo, for it to last a certain amount of time, rather than a certain amount of uses. Blaaaah.