Elementalist Discussion

[Zephyr Storm]

Except for 'reduced cooldown by 20%' on earth and water spells everything is some sort of survivability trait, like shields at certain HP % or cantrips.

I can only assume I wasn't doing enough DPS to tag anything. I was using scepter/dagger and tried every AoE in every attunement. I even wailed on one of the veterans for a while thinking for sure that would count, but I didn't even get credit for that kill either.

I don't know what's going on with events. It seems like doing any kind of damage doesn't count anymore, you have to have competitive damage to people around you (reminds me of the way the contribution meter used to work in Rift). Elementalist isn't the only class I've had this problem with either. I have the most success on my ranger (my only semi-decently geared character), but (using Shelter in Cursed Shores as an example) I'm still lucky to get one lootable corpse per wave. Champions as well, if there are a lot of well geared 80s holding nothing back it's virtually impossible for me to get gold contribution even if I'm there from start to finish doing constant DPS.

Either your account is bugged somehow or you really need to learn to play. No offense, but i generally get gold level contributions for just simply walking through the area of a DE or killing 1 to 2 mobs at a DE. How you are getting zero contribution or just bronze or silver while you're there the WHOLE time and actively doing stuff sounds like you are either experiencing a major bug or you are greatly exaggerating. I can't even remember the last time I got anything less than gold level participation for a DE, and alot of times I am simply passing through the area while a DE is going on. So yeah....you might want to get that checked out.

[Meledelion]

Zephyr, we're not talking about killing anything. As stated Lane is trying to "heal" her way through DE's and then filling the downtown with doing dmg. But as we all know having (close to) 0 offensive stats greatly reduces your dmg which could mean that she simply doesn't do enough dmg to get a tag.

I only have numbers for warriors but it's the same. An optimised dps war will do 18k dps, an optimised "heal" war will do 3k dps. If a monster has 21k hp the warrior will have done 86% of the dmg and the healer will have done 14% of the dmg. It's quite possible that the "healer" didn't get enough dmg in to tag something.

[Durzlla]

Zephyr, we're not talking about killing anything. As stated Lane is trying to "heal" her way through DE's and then filling the downtown with doing dmg. But as we all know having (close to) 0 offensive stats greatly reduces your dmg which could mean that she simply doesn't do enough dmg to get a tag.

I only have numbers for warriors but it's the same. An optimised dps war will do 18k dps, an optimised "heal" war will do 3k dps. If a monster has 21k hp the warrior will have done 86% of the dmg and the healer will have done 14% of the dmg. It's quite possible that the "healer" didn't get enough dmg in to tag something.

Boom, the only 2 chars I'm a "healer" on are my guardian (who was a lowbie and is now dead) and my ranger (lv 80 full magi gear), and I gotta say I never had an issue on my ranger due to my pet dealing amazingly competitive damage, and being a drake he's full throttle AoE, the guardian on the other hand... If there were anyone there that was geared/built towards offense I'd have the same issues as Lane because guardian staff does horrible damage to begin with (pre-empower) then when you build yourself to be Healy and the such... Yeah nothing.

[Lane]

Go out to Cursed Shore during prime time, on a high pop server, in a full on vitality/toughness build, wearing blue Shaman's/Cleric's gear and let me know how well you do. Likewise, hit up that champion troll in Queensdale while you're at it too. All it takes is a handful of well-geared, well-traited 80s to keep you from gold.

Scepter's not the weapon I see recommended for Cursed Shore either and I can see why. Waves of enemies were dead literally before a Dragon's Tooth ever hit the ground. (I wasn't trying to farm with this setup, by the way. I was passing through when the event happened and stayed to participate.)

Not all DEs situations are the same, but when it comes to places like Cursed Shore or heavily farmed champion events it does make a difference.

[Karizee]

D/D Ele pov in GvG/WvW

[sacrypheyes]

Go out to Cursed Shore during prime time, on a high pop server, in a full on vitality/toughness build, wearing blue Shaman's/Cleric's gear and let me know how well you do. Likewise, hit up that champion troll in Queensdale while you're at it too. All it takes is a handful of well-geared, well-traited 80s to keep you from gold.

Scepter's not the weapon I see recommended for Cursed Shore either and I can see why. Waves of enemies were dead literally before a Dragon's Tooth ever hit the ground. (I wasn't trying to farm with this setup, by the way. I was passing through when the event happened and stayed to participate.)

Not all DEs situations are the same, but when it comes to places like Cursed Shore or heavily farmed champion events it does make a difference.

even though it's been a while i've been in Orr, i think i used to run those events as D/D as otherwise i wouldn't AoE enough to tag those packs.

staff AoEs are good for mob tagging (even in orr) but have too high cds (which makes you miss at least 1 pack out of 3), and S/D takes indeed too long to deal enough dps on those packs to tag them properly as they tend to die litteraly in seconds to HB wars and the such.

thought i read some patch notes where this could have been fixed, not sure if it's actually the case though.

[Deleted]

I always play with staff. ._. Can not cope with fast play-style of D&D. While leveling I used S&D, but now I only run with staff.

Here is my WvW / PvE build&gear (no ascended items on this link, only exotics) http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/...p56.k58|2e.7|e

Skills that I run with most of the time: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAW...GmgikRFWUUMzOA

Stats with above build&gear:


I tried to find balance with defense & offence. Boons give extra damage and all boons stay 50% longer with runes. Idea is that you can freely swap attunements (no "gain might per fire spell"-traits, etc) and get Fury & other boons with attunement swaps. Crits apply vulnerability and with all the AoE you get loads of crits.

I know Evasive Arcana(trait) / Arcane Wave(skill) would give more combos, but they force you to move where your field is. I prefer to stay at range.

[Valeron]

I go with an aoe fire based staff build on my elementalist. Works pretty well I feel

[Karizee]

Taugrim on the D/D Elementalist after the February 26th changes.

[Meledelion]

TLDR, still OP as fck.

[Xuvial]

I don't know about you guys but that looks pretty damn skillful to pull off, the way he switches like that. Is ele the prof that becomes "OP" with skill? Because I'm reminded of WotLK frostmages, pretty average overall but crazy powerful in the hands of a skilled player.

[Kelesti]

I don't know about you guys but that looks pretty damn skillful to pull off, the way he switches like that. Is ele the prof that becomes "OP" with skill? Because I'm reminded of WotLK frostmages, pretty average overall but crazy powerful in the hands of a skilled player.

Ele was always shown to have the highest skillcap. Stuff like this was happening since launch, it just never caught on because everyone was all "STAFF ELE IS ONLY ELE", crying every time that they died because they couldn't do enough damage.

[Meledelion]

It's not really skill based. The switches are more of a flow/rotation than you'd expect.

The damage comes from some basic combos, fire 3+5 earth 4+5 (with blink if needed) when those combos aren't up it's 11111 in air.

For defense it's mostly just passive healing/protection and quick uninterruptible heals (water 5/3).

Everything else is just "stalling" the fight. Air 3/2 can be used when you're at 75% but want to keep dpsing to force a break point. Earth 4=>5is a turn around spell that can make someone who's sticking to you have to move away (pretty far since the AoE is huge and teleport makes it even bigger)
Air 4/5 are great ways to set up a fire 3/5 combo that does insane dmg and becomes close to undodgable.

Here's the basic "dps" combos explained: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX1OjClufdk#t=12m20s. if you want to know the way the build works just watch the entire clip, a baboon can roll that build and never die as long as he switches attunements often.

[Karizee]

daphoenix has put together a comprehensive guide, includes the latest changes.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...-3-13-12/first

[Deleted]

I don't know about you guys but that looks pretty damn skillful to pull off, the way he switches like that. Is ele the prof that becomes "OP" with skill? Because I'm reminded of WotLK frostmages, pretty average overall but crazy powerful in the hands of a skilled player.

Not really, there is a reason sPvP is full of D/D eles and other than thief it is the roamers choice in WvW, it is simply OP and very forgiving in that you can disengage (and then reengage) so easily and doesnlt require extreme skill.

Whilst it is has a higher skill-cap than some classes, it is lower than others (engy with 3 or 4 kits for example), once you have nailed down the various rotations it is pretty easy to play and is very forgiving compared to most classes who can not disengage/rengage, heal up, CC, do damage, etc in one build the way certain ele builds can.

[Xuvial]

Hmm. I've got a 60 Eng and a newly-made 20 Ele, I'm glad I have both the classes that are considered too good / below average to be prepared for whatever incoming buffs/nerfs

[Karizee]

Zoose is streaming how to Ele right now (world #9 player)

http://www.twitch.tv/soacgaming

[Xuvial]

Thanks, watching right now. Lots of interesting questions and answers, will probably will help me suck less

[Karizee]

Friday, June 28th at Noon PDT, developer Isaiah "Izzy" Cartwright will be guiding players through playing the best PvE elementalist that they can.

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2

[Xuvial]

Gave up on my ele because it's just way too hard to land the cone/short-range attacks on moving targets at high latency and D/D is really the only viable thing in sPvP. I've lost count of how many fire grabs I've "missed" despite blasting it off in their face, sick of it. I'm going to keep her PvE-only now.

Having a ton more success on my Eng with both bunker and burst builds because rifle kicks so much ass with instant CC like Net Shot and Overcharged Shot. Not to mention just the freaking AUTO ATTACK with rifle (crit build) seems to do higher consistent damage than I can pull off with D/D ele, and the range is so long that I can annoy the crap out of enemies by eating chunks of their health while they're just trying to travel across the map lol. The literal "BOOM" that happens when all toolbelt abilities fire off (plus discharge) + grenade barrage + massive Jump Shot crits > anything Ele seems to be able to put out.

It just makes no sense, I must be playing Ele horribly wrong or something despite watching so many long-ass videos. Ele really, really isn't about dealing damage as much as the other (vastly easier to play) classes seem to be able to do, attunement switching is just a whole lot of faffing-around with no pay-off. I get how the Evasive Arcana dodge-tanking is supposed to work in THEORY (and in videos) but I just can't fucking do it and get insta-killed the moment I get hit by Immobilize/knockdown.

/endrant