Elementalist Discussion

[Meledelion]

This is the issue with bunker d/d eles even people with little experience can stay alive against multiple enemies due to howmany boons they can stack and how fast they can remove conditions.

The guy in this vid clearly didn't play a lot with the build yet since he should be able to kill glass specs relatively fast, the only builds I know that are able to survive bunker eles are bunker engis and bunker guards...

[Durzlla]

This is the issue with bunker d/d eles even people with little experience can stay alive against multiple enemies due to howmany boons they can stack and how fast they can remove conditions.

The guy in this vid clearly didn't play a lot with the build yet since he should be able to kill glass specs relatively fast, the only builds I know that are able to survive bunker eles are bunker engis and bunker guards...

Well i've -survived- one on my ranger, me and the ele spent the entire game fighting at my trebuchet, i had to keep telling my group "leave us alone, the longer he stays here, the longer he's not destroying you guys at points", luckily he didn't get his team to come help either and we ended up winning because their bunker was to busy fighting me...

Did either of us get a kill? Oh fuck no we didn't, we spent the entire game in a 1v1... i personally think the build needs to be nerfed in some way shape or form, it's too durable and has too much damage, they should have to sacrifice one of those imo...

[Meledelion]

I should've posted "out-live"

[Durzlla]

I should've posted "out-live"

Well my ranger drawer with em xD, neither of us had any burst, we got REALLY close to killing each other a few times, but could never quite do it.... I personally think they're sturdier than bunker guardians (those I can butcher) than again, bunker guardians and bunker engis have A LOT better point control...

[sacrypheyes]

Well i've -survived- one on my ranger, me and the ele spent the entire game fighting at my trebuchet, i had to keep telling my group "leave us alone, the longer he stays here, the longer he's not destroying you guys at points", luckily he didn't get his team to come help either and we ended up winning because their bunker was to busy fighting me...

Did either of us get a kill? Oh fuck no we didn't, we spent the entire game in a 1v1... i personally think the build needs to be nerfed in some way shape or form, it's too durable and has too much damage, they should have to sacrifice one of those imo...

so he has "too much" damage and yet doesn't get to kill you, but he's also too durable because as a ranger you should have killed him?
am i getting it right?

[Lane]

I find it funny that I ended up deleting my level 80 elementalist because it felt so weak compared to my other classes. I was actually going to remake a new one to try D/D since everyone keeps going on about how effective it is, but now with the rampant complaining about the build + AoE nerf it may not be worth the effort.

Honestly, if you don't use D/D what do you use? Everything I tried just felt awful. I didn't find the DPS to be high enough to compensate for being made of glass and I don't consider essentially being forced to have most of my elite skills as survival abilities just to function much fun either. The only other thing I was going to try is a conjured weapon build since their abilities seem to do more DPS (and overall have more practical use) than elementalist's basic weapon abilities.

It could be I just suck at the class, I don't know. I run "glass" builds on other characters and I do substantially more DPS and have substantially more durability than I ever did on my elementalist.

[Meledelion]

lane for pvp or pve? The d/d build we were talking about is pretty much only useful for pvp since it's a bunker build.

In pve there are two/three main routes to go
d/d raw dmg s/d raw dmg and s/d buff/condi dmg

The first works but is annoying since you only get finishers in earth attunement. And you rely heavily on fire skills for dmg the build is something like 30/30/0/0/10 (don't know it anymore)

s/d raw dmg is probably the best dps we have. This one is 10/30/0/0/30 relying on arcane spam/might stacking. You'll always want to start out in either water or fire (depending on how important the first dmg is you get from swtiching to fire+might). 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.

s/d condition support is very similar 15/0/30/0/25 This one also uses might stacking to the max, some major differences. Start in air => use all instants=>fire chain=> earth +stay in earth. Best "race' for this would be the asura. Poison field + pain inverter work like charms and you can keep up nearly all conditions in the game like this. Your third slot will either be arcane wave (more might) or glyph of ele power (some more conditions)

For PvP an alternative to d/dbunker is s/d raw dmg. One trick pony use all instants at once. Or 0/10/30/30/0 d/d a very boring build to play where you're simply the supporter of glass canons. Due to attunement sharing.

If you're an asura you should definatly try out the s/d condi build.

[Lane]

PvE. I guess I'm getting confused about D/D builds. >_< Regardless, most of my play time is spent out in the world doing DEs and/or map completion. I'm not much of a dungeon runner and only do PvP if I have to for achievements.

A big part of my problem is I got 'stuck' using staff a lot due to the luxury of the range and relatively low cooldowns on AoEs. It just seemed better for most DEs, but then when I'd quest solo the DPS felt terrible and I felt like I was made of paper. I went to a 30/30/0/0/10 build in an attempt to capitalize on DPS (or so I thought). It didn't seem to make much difference other than I went from paper to tissue. :P

I tried a few other things, but nothing really turned out to be as effective as I'd hoped. It got to where the only fun I was really having was messing around with conjured weapons.

Is the condition build significantly better than the others? I was thinking about going Charr elementalist this time.

[Meledelion]

I haven't grinded another set of gear for my ele to check out the difference in exotics but so far it seems like s/d direct damage does most damage.
The condition build imo lacked more conditions to really be useful (this is why being an asura helps so much, but it's still a bit unreliable)
since the raw damage can do pretty much the same thing utility wise. And of course by now everyone knows how much condition builds are "suffering" in dungeons/DEs which simply isn't the case for direct damage.

In theory condition damage>raw damage dps wise, sadly it's harder to pull off and requires you to have a "stacked" team.

TL;DR in theory it is significantly better, in practise it isn't (just like all other condition builds )

[Deleted]

PvE. I guess I'm getting confused about D/D builds. >_< Regardless, most of my play time is spent out in the world doing DEs and/or map completion. I'm not much of a dungeon runner and only do PvP if I have to for achievements.

A big part of my problem is I got 'stuck' using staff a lot due to the luxury of the range and relatively low cooldowns on AoEs. It just seemed better for most DEs, but then when I'd quest solo the DPS felt terrible and I felt like I was made of paper. I went to a 30/30/0/0/10 build in an attempt to capitalize on DPS (or so I thought). It didn't seem to make much difference other than I went from paper to tissue. :P

I tried a few other things, but nothing really turned out to be as effective as I'd hoped. It got to where the only fun I was really having was messing around with conjured weapons.

Is the condition build significantly better than the others? I was thinking about going Charr elementalist this time.

Felt the same so I mostly ran S/D while solo and staff in a group. S/D will help a lot with the "made of paper" bit since it has quite a few very good survival cooldowns ( 2 blinds and 2 knockdowns).

[Durzlla]

Huh, my ele uses staff pretty much solely and i feel like a god amongst mortals, the AoE + Range is just absolutely amazing, combine that with the control, retreats, blinds (i use glyph of storm which makes blind plural), etc.

PS: If it's ranged the fight doesn't last long enough for me to use half of my skills/combos, and in some cases even leave earth attunement =(

[Lane]

Huh, my ele uses staff pretty much solely and i feel like a god amongst mortals, the AoE + Range is just absolutely amazing, combine that with the control, retreats, blinds (i use glyph of storm which makes blind plural), etc.

Come to think of it, I haven't really liked staff for any class. It always seems like the weakest weapon of the arsenal.

As far as "god amongst mortals", the closest I've come to that feeling is on my warrior. I always feel so ridiculously OP, even with my 'glass' build. I don't see numbers like that on any of my other characters, not even close actually.

PS: If it's ranged the fight doesn't last long enough for me to use half of my skills/combos, and in some cases even leave earth attunement =(

What strategy do you use? o_O I could seriously run around for a good 2 minutes trying to kill something with my staff elementalist. "Die already!" became my mantra. :P

[jaakkeli]

Come to think of it, I haven't really liked staff for any class. It always seems like the weakest weapon of the arsenal.

I wonder if any of these people saying they're doing major damage on their staff elementalist have actually tried other classes.

As far as "god amongst mortals", the closest I've come to that feeling is on my warrior. I always feel so ridiculously OP, even with my 'glass' build. I don't see numbers like that on any of my other characters, not even close actually.

And if you want a ranged aoe class, a longbow warrior will be far superior to an elementalist. Pretty much no one builds ranged warriors because melee warriors do even more damage but if you actually do build and gear for it the elementalist ranged aoes are shit compared to what warriors will do. Of course the elementalist has all that "utility" behind element swapping but elementalist damage is just pitiful outside a few specific d/d combos.

[Lane]

Of course the elementalist has all that "utility" behind element swapping but elementalist damage is just pitiful outside a few specific d/d combos.

At least half of that utility is dedicated to survival too. Maybe if elementalist pushed out some amazing damage numbers I could understand it, but it seems like a lot of sacrifice for little reward. Sub-par DPS (with too much reliance on combos, IMO), nearly non-existent stand alone durability (unless you spec heavy into vitality/toughness, I suppose), mandatory attunement swapping that no one else but engineer has to do (no one else even has to weapon swap if they don't want to), majority of slot skills devoted to cantrips instead of DPS boosts or "fun stuff" (at least for the bulk of the builds I've looked at this is true), no out-of-combat weapon swap which makes switching from short to long range (or vice versa) a pain, etc. That's just off the top of my head. :P

I really want to like this class (sorry, never going to get into the habit of calling them professions), but I feel like it's fundamentally gimped (comparatively) at several stages.

[Durzlla]

Come to think of it, I haven't really liked staff for any class. It always seems like the weakest weapon of the arsenal.

As far as "god amongst mortals", the closest I've come to that feeling is on my warrior. I always feel so ridiculously OP, even with my 'glass' build. I don't see numbers like that on any of my other characters, not even close actually.



What strategy do you use? o_O I could seriously run around for a good 2 minutes trying to kill something with my staff elementalist. "Die already!" became my mantra. :P

Well I'm condition, power and I think toughness? Maybe it's vitality idk, my survivability comes more from staying at range...

And I normally will just open with my line of earth onto of a ranged person, followed by an eruption (and if they're shooting at me magnetic aura) and will immob them right before eruption goes off, then if I need more damage ill swap over to fire and just lay waste to the area they're running into, which normally causes them to eat the whole thing.

Idk how you guys think ele staff doesn't do much damage, fire,earth, water, air ALL have strong attacks, you just need to make sure you're smart with their placement and good at manipulating the enemy out of the frying pan and into the fire (IE dodge roll out of meteor storm and into the eruption + ice spike)

[Zilong]

Come to think of it, I haven't really liked staff for any class. It always seems like the weakest weapon of the arsenal.
As far as "god amongst mortals", the closest I've come to that feeling is on my warrior. I always feel so ridiculously OP, even with my 'glass' build. I don't see numbers like that on any of my other characters, not even close actually.
What strategy do you use? o_O I could seriously run around for a good 2 minutes trying to kill something with my staff elementalist. "Die already!" became my mantra. :P

I think it is the "weakest" of the arsenal really, but that's because staff usually "refers" to a different gameplay style....which means you won't do big raw damage. It's more of a critical/managing/strategical thinking of defeating enemies (And how could it not be? Ever try to staff a person down? How about a sword? XD haha big difference).

I can't say much for Guardian staff as I've never spent much time on that (Altho I did play it a bit). But for Mesmer (which are really awesome with staff), Necro and Eles. I think they hold their own pretty well.

This goes for all 3 of them. It's imperative to know your CD's well and use weapon swap/att. swap. They are part of the mechanic and even more at play when with staff. Eles are already a hybrid class and the Staff provides great range of support too, but if used well (IE attacks with control (including survival) and some mobility) it's pretty awesome. We all know it works overly well at WvW/PvP, okay maybe not fully damage part, but still works well. In PvE it just takes getting used to it and above everything else liking the gameplay that comes with the weapon. Hard to say you like slashing enemies and dislike a sword XD...staff is just a lil bit more strategic I think. That's what I think at least.

But I do agree it would be awesome to see a lil bit of single target dmg on Staff. Maybe they will balance the AoE nerf to a bit more Single Target? Regardless playing with Staff is more than viable (and probably just very strong in the way you guys don't want/care).

-------

I like playing staff on Eles but I'm one of the "I want to use just 1 element, maybe 2 at tops and be viable" and I'm thinking whether or not suggest in the official forums about a "new" weapon specific to one attunement that unables you to use 2 to 3 attunes. Say a battlefan that empowers air magic by a considerable amount (or even change a lil bit of the skills), and makes you not able to use water and earth for example. That would be cool...but still sounds horribly impossible XD haha. air attunement fan detected

[Deleted]

I'd like to use the teleport thing more but it's so damn buggy. Potential is great but probably because of jumping puzzles it fizzles even whey you're in front of a rock.

I'd also like mist form to drop "aggro".

[jaakkeli]

I think it is the "weakest" of the arsenal really, but that's because staff usually "refers" to a different gameplay style....which means you won't do big raw damage. It's more of a critical/managing/strategical thinking of defeating enemies (And how could it not be? Ever try to staff a person down? How about a sword? XD haha big difference).

Staff is meant to be a support weapon with limited damage options on every class.

The elementalist kind of suffers from this as most people think "ah, it's the mage of this game" and expect to become a ranged damage dealer but actually the ranged weapons are either the group support set (staff) or the defensive set (scepter/focus). The elementalist also doesn't get the choice of having a support weapon and a damage weapon to swap between and the attunement thing doesn't really compensate for that.

Me, I'd throw in a quick fix by adding a fire Grandmaster trait "deal x % more damage with staff skills" and making the larger aoe fields from arcane a base line ability. That way you could build a staff elementalist for damage at the cost of having to sacrifice utility and survival because of the 30 points in fire (so that you can't also go deep in water and arcane at the same time). In an expansion I'd like to see a long-range weapon designed for offense added to the elementalist, that should fix the class (well, for me at least).

I can't say much for Guardian staff as I've never spent much time on that

It's a support/utility weapon and pretty nice for that but pretty much the worst weapon in game for actually dealing damage.

[Zilong]

Staff is meant to be a support weapon with limited damage options on every class.

The elementalist kind of suffers from this as most people think "ah, it's the mage of this game" and expect to become a ranged damage dealer but actually the ranged weapons are either the group support set (staff) or the defensive set (scepter/focus). The elementalist also doesn't get the choice of having a support weapon and a damage weapon to swap between and the attunement thing doesn't really compensate for that.

Me, I'd throw in a quick fix by adding a fire Grandmaster trait "deal x % more damage with staff skills" and making the larger aoe fields from arcane a base line ability. That way you could build a staff elementalist for damage at the cost of having to sacrifice utility and survival because of the 30 points in fire (so that you can't also go deep in water and arcane at the same time). In an expansion I'd like to see a long-range weapon designed for offense added to the elementalist, that should fix the class (well, for me at least).

It's a support/utility weapon and pretty nice for that but pretty much the worst weapon in game for actually dealing damage.

Yeah, I think that traits have a long way to go for a better... miscellaneous options to make it really diverse. A big bunch of the choices are "no-brainer" simply because if you do X trait line with Y weapon you are going on the second tier get Z trait and so on. At first and up to this day I always wanted Traits on Gw2 to be less centered in the weapons you use. Like the "20% less cooldown on X weapon" or "Y weapon does 15% more damage" is just on the way of nice/fun stuff to use. I think I made a post on official forums saying that they should be removed from the trait options because it's fairly no-brainer, you will use them if you do damage on that weapon and if you are more of a support build you will use lesser cds ones. I did post that I realize that there are alot of builds not using them but I think they could be just a passive thing unlocked at 10/20/30 points used on a trait depending on your weapon of choice, leaving nice and fun choices to be chosen at will.

[sacrypheyes]

Idk how you guys think ele staff doesn't do much damage, fire,earth, water, air ALL have strong attacks, you just need to make sure you're smart with their placement and good at manipulating the enemy out of the frying pan and into the fire (IE dodge roll out of meteor storm and into the eruption + ice spike)

staff fire is the only attunement with strong attackS.
air got one average single target ability, auto-attack is meh on single target and decent at most with 2+ targets.
water got one (not even that strong)
earth got one with a HUGE delay to account for if used on moving targets.

and that's it, every other staff abilities are either utility or hit like wet noddles.

nope, staff is definitely weaker even though it was meant to be the most AoE oriented weapon at first.