Elementalist Discussion

[rhandric]

If they weren't meant to hit twice then why make them hit twice?

That's a ridiculous statement. Of course you want them to connect both hits. Damage is the entire point of the ability.

And don't fucking patronize me. I never said anything about Recount.

Yes, you want them to hit twice...but survival > them hitting twice.

[Profyrion]

Aside from Glytch, who here has insulted you? I'm simply pointing out to you that you don't need to get both hits to hit the enemy in order for it to be an effective weapon. You won't be at your top potential, duh. But that doesn't mean you're suddenly ineffective.

Compared to nearly every other ability... Yeah, it feels pretty ineffective, especially if I'm busy trying not to die. Again, it's a consolation. I'll take it, but I'm going to bitch about it later.

Here's what I like about it: 1. It's pretty good at hitting multiple targets in a mob. 2. It heals a little bit with the right trait allocation.

Is that fair enough for you?

[DrakeWurrum]

To be sure, I do wish it was a 900 range instead of 600. Not to mention wishing that some of the other water-dagger spells weren't short range, primarily the Frozen Burst. The thing about Elementalists only having one weapon set, is that having four attunements is supposed to make up for it, and allow them to be just as effective.

[rhandric]

I'm talking about solo content, not group content. In solo content, I don't see the point of constant switching, b/c all that matters is DPS. Switching doesn't protect me from the games stupid habit of "You defeated the mob group, heh lets spawn another 5 mobs in melee range right next to you and see how you handle that ha!". Seriously it's the lamest thing a designer can do.

Instead of giving the mobs interesting abilities which you have to avoid correctly and show your skill, they just throw more stuff at you that has ... auto hit. Ridiculously dangerous auto hits...

GW2s game play really reminds me of Diablo III. Always playing the kiting game, never get hit... it's not even remotely difficult it's just frustrating, because getting stuck on a piece of rock can mean your death.

(staff)
Example: I'm low on health and my selfheal is on cd.
-> switch to water
-> Ice patch on the ground to slow them down
-> place 3 in front of me, run through it to heal ... a bit.
-> need moar ... water 5 .. ok.. i think it heals me...

... ok healed up ready to go, what now... duh fire still has CD.. oh look another group of undead just spawned!<_<

Well, I currently have 20 points in Arcane, so my attunement CDs are...well, shorter. The thing is, every attunement has useful skills, for damage, control, and/or support (most attunements will have at least 2 out of the 3). Don't need water anymore? Swap to lightning, throw down a field then blow them back into it, then swap to earth, bleed them, throw down the earth line (I don't use staff much, so the names elude me) that slows them, by this time fire should be off cooldown, swap to fire, set them on fire....

Sure, you're not going to get the massive damage that fire gives you in your other attunements. Water is a primarily support oriented attunement, air is control, earth is control and survival (somewhat related, but the differences should be obvious). Even single player content isn't meant to be rofl-dps-faceroll, it's meant for you to actually play the game.

[DrakeWurrum]

It could be said that air is offensive control while earth is defensive control. The line between that is extremely soft, however.

[rhandric]

It could be said that air is offensive control while earth is defensive control. The line between that is extremely soft, however.

Yeah, but as you said, the line is extremely soft, there's overlap between them. I mean, what's the difference between knocking something down (earth dagger 4) and stunning something (air staff 5, air trident 5)?

[DrakeWurrum]

Yeah, but as you said, the line is extremely soft, there's overlap between them. I mean, what's the difference between knocking something down (earth dagger 4) and stunning something (air staff 5, air trident 5)?

TBH, I'm somewhat annoyed with how they've handled air attunement. Even the description in-game of the tooltip claims that air attunement is for "high damage" spells. But they're... not anywhere near the high damage of fire attunement. It doesn't feel like it properly matches the precision/prowess trait line.

[Granyala]

And this here is your mistake. O_o

Why? I don't have any reliable CC that last more than what 3-4 seconds. I don't have an Interrupt (staff, I know scepter has one: Blind). I don't need to change attunements to heal myself as long as I don't screw up because my self healing ability isn't bound to any attunement. Burning down the mob as quickly as possible is all that's left.

Sure there are situations where I can use other attunements:
-Earth when I want survivability or when I need a tanking elemental.
-Lightning 1 is really nice for AoE auto attack esp. on mobs that are immune to burn condition.
-Water to heal if I screw up or to remove debuffs if my utility dispel has CD. (though it's healing is pretty weak and in most situations it's not enough to save me, and the fact that you have to wait an eternity to do damage again often causes other problems)

But most of this stuff I decide before the pull not after.

[DrakeWurrum]

Why? I don't have any reliable CC that last more than what 3-4 seconds

Nobody does. Well, except moa morph.

[rhandric]

TBH, I'm somewhat annoyed with how they've handled air attunement. Even the description in-game of the tooltip claims that air attunement is for "high damage" spells. But they're... not anywhere near the high damage of fire attunement. It doesn't feel like it properly matches the precision/prowess trait line.

Yeah, I agree. Scepter 2 for air is probably the only high damage ability the attunement has. They kept it the same as it was in GW1 (blinds, other control), which is fine, but the tooltip doesn't match that. I'm wondering if the design changed during development (you know, iteration), and the tooltip failed to be updated. Sometimes I feel like earth is more offensive than air, due to its ability to cause bleeds and some decent aoe.

[h3lladvocate]

Two things that have help me be a pretty damn good ele.

1. Arcane Traits, don't over look them. They become quite nice. You cannot play optimally by staying in Fire or Earth or w/e 100% of the time, and Arcane helps with that by giving boons while switching and lowering CD time. Also, the weapon specific buffs are amazing. 15% damage, bigger AoE'ss, etc. Love those.

2. Arcane Wave is simply too good not to have. Low on HP? Water 3 + Arcane Wave Finisher. Want more might stacks? Arcane Wave that Lava Font.

You should always be switching your Attunements. Typically only Skill 2 has a short CD, and it's usually semi-decent. For instance, in story, when I have several mobs to kill. As staff I do this. Water 4 -> Earth 3 (if ranged attackers are present), Earth 4, 2 -> Fire 2(Combo Fire, 3 Might), 3, 5, 2 Again -> Air 4, Dodge Backwards, 5, 2 and Repeat. Things generally don't touch me for very long. Especially with Arcane Shield and Flash to create distance. With staff and Arcane Trait 20 skill, I have huge AoE's, so my Water 4 is a rather large slow. 2 defensive Utilities when the brown stuff hits the spinning blade on the ceiling, Arcane Wave to combo any field I want it to, etc. I get a buff for rotating Attunements (Might, Regeneration, Speed, all very useful), and its way more fun than being in Fire, blowing your load and then Auto-casting while waiting on CD's...

Now, my spec is Support based so I spend points into Water trait, but for more damage, I could easily dump points into Fire and do sooo much more damage, while maintaining most of my surviveability. The Elementalist is designed around Attunement swapping, that's why Skill 5 is almost always 25+ sec cooldown, you are meant to stay in the Attunement, hit what you needed and get out. If you are staying in one for more than prob 5-6 seconds, you are likely Auto Attacking too much. Skill 1 really doesn't do anything...

Now I haven't really played with MH Dagger, usually just Staff or Scepter/Dagger. Both of those seem pretty powerful, I'd imagine with the correct trait build, Dagger/Dagger or anything else is equally effective. You have to realize that A. Staying in 1 attunement won't cut it and B. maybe your trait/utility's are not optimal for that spec. If surviveability is your issue and you have 3 damage utilities, then yea, you will have survivability issues... You gotta play around a bit and not just be "30 Fire/Earth dagger/dagger is unplayable Dagger/Dagger is broken" (no one said that, not aimed at anyone, just an example). Maybe you need like double shield utility, 30 Arcane/Earth, so you have tons of surviveability and can just sit there in melee range, rotate CD's and then play the range/dodge game for the seconds you have nothing up before you jump back in.

That's my 2 cents at least. I'm not pro or anything, but I mean, I think im level 65 now, and have had 0 issue with Elementalist, heck, I can generally pull 2 mobs 2 levels higher than me and still survive (panicked and near death, but I live, that counts right? T_T)

Edit:

Yea, Air seems off. It isn't the High Single Target abilities the description makes it out to be. It does have pretty strong control though. As for CC's, I think we have plenty of CC's. Staff: Water 4, Air 3, 5, Earth 4 (Sort of hard to use well), but I don't know what other professions have. Lot's of gap creating spells (or closers), a few blinds, a stun or 2, and then whatever utility you pick.

[Granyala]

Even single player content isn't meant to be rofl-dps-faceroll

Yeah it's rofl-run-in-circles-and-dps-faceroll. I don't know I'm only 50, maybe it changes later on, but I just did the priory-attack-mission in lionsgate and it was well. tough and boring.

Tough because of the stupid "spawn on top of my head zombie teleporter" (Trademark pending)
Boring because all I really did was run around in circles waiting for bleed/burn condition to tick down mobs with unnecessary large HP pools and mash the dodge key in panic when another zombie spawned next to me.

I don't know I just hope the game play gets more engaging in higher level content. ._.

The Balthasar avatar quest was fun though.

[DrakeWurrum]

Yeah, I've been tempted to try a 10/10/10/10/30 build. I could make it work with cantrips, and even still grab Zephyr's Boon and Elemental Shielding.

---------- Post added 2012-09-12 at 12:21 PM ----------

Something like this or this.


Random aside: Does Quick Glyphs affect the Glyph of Elemental Harmony?

[Voorhees83]

I can understand what you are saying Gran, but to play an ele at any higher level you need to be switching through all attunements all the time. I use air/fire/earth all the time almost everyfight and quickly. I dont use water much because im not a fan, it has its moments but not for me. Now in group I use all 4 and use water more.

If you are not switching through all of them on a regular basis you will not succeed more than likely, or you are going to have to play a kite fest style.

Sorry, but I do think I understand your concern and I think Ele might not be best for you.

[Lucky_]

I can understand what you are saying Gran, but to play an ele at any higher level you need to be switching through all attunements all the time. I use air/fire/earth all the time almost everyfight and quickly. I dont use water much because im not a fan, it has its moments but not for me. Now in group I use all 4 and use water more.

If you are not switching through all of them on a regular basis you will not succeed more than likely, or you are going to have to play a kite fest style.

Sorry, but I do think I understand your concern and I think Ele might not be best for you.

That wasn't the argument. The argument was that as elementalist, your damage is so small that you end up having to essentially kite entire hoards around in story mode due to enemy spawning faster then you could down the enemy. By your measuring stick, elementalist is then "not the best" for anyone.

Swapping attunements is a part of normal gameplay. At level 50ish, if you're not having a "kite fest", you are dead. Regardless of gameplay style. Even dagger/dagger spends a lot of time essentially circle strafing the target abusing the mob's lousy targeting ability to not take damage.

[Ghosty]

(staff user, don't like to melee)
Normal world mobs yes.
Personal story mobs no. (they just seem to have ridiculous HP pools)

Your main dps seems to be the condition damage. Since you can't keep that up mobs live forever due to waiting for ability cooldowns.

I'm using primarily staves as well at level 64 running a 20/10/10/10/0 build.

For single or two packs of mobs I primarily use fire attunement to kill since they don't last very long. For stronger mobs, I'll start in earth, use the elite earth elemental, stack up some bleeds, change to to water and pop the lesser water elemental, throw down my heal spells on the earth elemental, switch to fire, and use put 2,3, & 5 on cool down then switch back to earth, then pretty much rinse repeat until mob is dead or the elementals die. When the elementals die you switch up to kiting until you finish the mob off. Arcane shield and 2 armor of earths mean you can take a number of whacks if you are waiting on dodge to recharge or get yourself in a bad position.

I intend to go 30 points in Fire and 20 in earth once at 80. I primarily look for gear with Vitality and Precision on them.

[Deleted]

Ok so I tried playing some PvP! Not the world vs world and I went 30 points in arcane/air and took precision stats in ma gear. I went with scepter/dagger and I dine ''ok''. But sometimes I just get killed in seconds!

Any idea on a better spec?

[DrakeWurrum]

One that doesn't focus so heavily on doing damage. :P

If you build a glass cannon spec, you will get killed in seconds.

You can do decent damage without a build that's 100% focused on damage, you just won't do as much damage. It's certainly more damage than you do when dead!

[Deleted]

One that doesn't focus so heavily on doing damage. :P

If you build a glass cannon spec, you will get killed in seconds.

You can do decent damage without a build that's 100% focused on damage, you just won't do as much damage. It's certainly more damage than you do when dead!

Yeah but if I dont do damage they r killin me and my mates! Im changing stance alot, to heal my friends and such. But still.. It feels like a Mesmer is 10x more powerful

[Deafknight]

Ok so I tried playing some PvP! Not the world vs world and I went 30 points in arcane/air and took precision stats in ma gear. I went with scepter/dagger and I dine ''ok''. But sometimes I just get killed in seconds!

Any idea on a better spec?

Do this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fEEQ...joGbNuak1MEZWA

This build takes place mostly in fire(for damage) and lightning(mobility) attunement, you deal relatively big ammounts of damage while still having a decent HP pool / defenses. Its essential that you have Fire/lightning bound to an easily reachable key since the following will happen rather often.

Ride the Lightning to the Opponent, Arcane Wave + Updraft simultaneously to trigger vulnerability and get knocked back.
During the knockback switch to Fire and once you land Burning Speed to the opponent again (might need to adjust the distance a little before doing so but you are usually in exactly the right one.
Ring of Fire, Fire Grab, Arcane Blast and standard Dagger play from here.

Im not set on the Armor / Weapon Runes though