fuzzyp.6295

(assuming this isn't a troll or anything) Running Scepter and Dagger on core is difficult. If you used it on Weaver, you may have better luck since there is atleast the potentional for playing that risky one shot build. Might be better to swap to Focus, you get two great stuns, an on demand chill and strong condi removal depending on the build you're running. I also think Torando is better to run on core than FGS simply for the knock back. Since Cele Weavers don't have a lot of stab locking them down with Tornado could lead to a follow up burst with Phoenix/Dragon Tooth or Shatterstone. That's assuming you're using fresh air though. If you're running like a condi scepter/dagger well gosh I dunno try the good old mono-earth build and pray haha 😉

Folks have given some good advice. But I want to know what classes are you playing that you are having trouble with Celestial Weaver? Different classes may have different ways of cheesing out a win. Crowd Control is very strong against Weaver as they usually have one a single stack of stab in their entire build. Time your CC so they will burn through their stun break quickly and then go ham. CC'ing while a Weaver is in Water (Riptide) is a great way to punish a Weaver since they wil usually only be hitting Water to heal up. High Burst builds can still devastate a Celestial Weaver. What makes them strong is that they can make the fight go on for a long time while maintaining their heals and barrier. If you can burst them down quickly, they will struggle to regain the momentum of the fight even if they survive. If its a Sword Weaver, then even the slightest bit of range on them should play to your advantage. Keep up your mobility and kite them. If possible, chip them down at a distance and keep them there. Sword Weaver has some of the worst mobility in the game so if you have a good range build, use that to your advantage. Chill is a strong condition against Elementalist because it not only slows down our skills, but attunement swapping. If you can time your chills correctly (usually after they leave Water attunement) you will usually get them in a disadvantaged state. Abuse Stealth. Weaver has no way to reveal any stealth using opponent. Don't be afraid to use it frequently in your fight it if you can.

A lot of fun changes in here. Some are nice, but some are just overpowered. I do find the idea of limiting effects to core classes interesting, but I wonder how letting that genie out the bottle would be. Surely we'd have to go through and apply that to all the classes haha. I don't see a point in trying to nitpick at much of these skills since these changes will obviously never happen. Overall, they're all interesting but some seem like that would be stupidly broken. Stone Heart for example? Unless you forgot to add the only core descriptive to that one. One small thing I do wanna say though is Mist Form needs to stay 3 seconds since its only practical use is safe stomping nowadays. Otherwise, sure, I'm all here for making Ele an OP god. We can all dream, right? EDIT: Oh, Stone Heart said Barrier and Earth, I thought it was just while under Barrier. Nevermind.

I know you have mentioned you want a Staff build and some others have given good advice/builds with it. I just want to chime in and say that a lot of builds that use Dagger can also be substituted for Scepter without much of a problem. IF there is a build that interested you but said it needed dagger, maybe try it with Scepter instead before dismissing it completely. From experience, the build I use in open world is a Power Tempest that runs Scepter/Warhorn and I really enjoy it for all that brings to the table. Since you've mentioned you might swap over to Tempest, that might be something to consider once you get the elite spec if you're finding Staff isn't your thing.

The only people who get one shot by Elementalist in WvW are uplevels or players running their beserker PvE armor. If you're looking to kill those folks, you'd honestly have a better time playing marauder staff. It's a great time farming those bags. If you're seeing other players getting one shot that don't fall into this category, chances are they weren't at full HP to begin with. Against any remotely competent player, a Fresh Air burst (the iconic 'one shot') will only usually drop opponents at most 80% of their HP bar... and that's assuming every hit of the combo lands. To be truly devastating, you need to time your burst to correspond with good timing with your CC skills to keep them from being able to react. You also have to be hoping they're not running any defensive/sustain armor, something which is becoming much more common in todays meta. If they are running something like celestials, well your burst will be doing a lot less and if you waste it trying for a one shot, you'll be out of luck. There are some meme builds out there like the Scepter/Dagger one shot build that is basically using the same combo, but even then they're mostly one shotting zerg players and you don't need to run such a memey build for good results there. EDIT: If you want a real one shot, maybe try that Norn Ranger build? Does that still one shot or did Anet get around to nerfing it.

At least someone finally admitted what this thread actually was! Yet another thread complaining about the current state of the ranged weapons on Elementalist. That is why this entire thread and its discussion is ridiculous. Whatever issue you or anyone has with the current meta problems surrounding those weapons is completely unrelated to whether or not Elementalist is a mage or not. All of the Elementalist specs still have your traditional 'mage' weapons. All of the weapons (melee or ranged) the Elementalist uses as magically infused. The Elementalist is a Mage. Just because the 'traditional' ranged mage weapons aren't currently as strong as they have been in the past doesn't somehow invalidate the entire classes identity as a spellcaster. If you really think I'm out here trying to gatekeep 'mage' when people are in this thread discussing saying Ele isn't a mage because they lack magical damage or suggest that the second a mage puts down their staff they are no longer a mage is laughable. I'm not trying to gate keep anything, but it is a ridiculous arguement to suggest that the Elementalist, the only class actually labeled spellcaster, is not a mage. To have others come in here and tell us that the Elementalist is not a mage because in other fantasy Wizards only cast from range is equally ridiculous since its completely unrelated to this franchises universe. Give me a break here... Players have valid criticisms about the current range options for Elementalist, but that has nothing to do with it being a mage or not.

Assuming we're talking WvW, I've seen a couple of Elementalist using Celestial Sigil, although in my experience the Eles who use it tend to be running a bit more on the supportive side than aggressive. But overall its not really too common to see an Elementalist with Celestial Sigil. While it's not a bad sigil for Ele, I think its more in used for Scourges? Celestial Scourges were a thing at one point, although I admit I've kinda fallen off keeping track of the meta.

A Mage is a character that can use magic. All of the weapons, ranged and melee, use magic. Therefore, Elementalist is and always will be a mage regardless of them using a staff or using a sword. And lets not forget that, if weapons really are the deciding factor, all of the Elementalist specs can use the traditional 'mage' weapons, regardless of what you play as. So if that is really what you're defining the word by (which is wrong), then it would still be that Weaver is a Mage. Tempest is a Mage. And Catalyst is a Mage. It doesn't matter what the lore of D&D, Final Fantasy or any other fantasy series have to say on the matter because this is not their universe. The Elementalist is listed as a spellcaster, therefor uses magic and is a mage. Bottom line, end of discussion. This is the weirdest attempt at gate keeping I've seen on these forums.

This is such a ridiculous argument to be having, yes of course Elementalist is a mage. Mage does not mean they stand in the back, shoot fireballs and do nothing else. Honestly though, why are we even still trying to apply the definition of other games and universes to GW2? If they said Warrior was a mage because adrenaline was a magical resource, then its a mage.

I mean it kind of just comes down to your personal preference here. Do you find they are more of a hindrance than a help? If so, drop them for something else. Personally, I've always found the Lesser Elemental summons to be more useful on long range builds with Staff as you can use them keep enemies at a distance and with multiple summons out you can fight larger groups of enemies more effectively. But unlike Necromancer, we really don't get any sort of build that 'works' with the summons. Judging by your experience, it doesn't seem like the Lesser Glyph is really working with your play style. Since you're running condi focused, you don't need the distraction these summons would provide and their damage isn't really all that good. So why not try running another skill that can help your DPS since it seems that what you want from it. 1) Glyph of Elemental Power can syngerize well with your condi focused build by adding more burn/bleeding and it also doubles as an emergency stun break if you need it. This is probably the one I would recommend trying most. 2) Signet of Earth will help increase your toughness, which assuming you're using Strength of Stone, should raise your overall DPS. You also don't even have to ever use this one since its honestly better just for its passive. 3) Signet of Fire isn't really needed for its passive ability if you're running condi, but the burn on its active is pretty strong. As for your trouble with your elite, Weave Self is not a bad elite if you're running Sword Weaver builds. In addition to the buffs it gives you when you swap into those attunements, you also get the reduction on attunement cool down which means you can swap back and forth between fire and earth quicker while its up, increasing your overall damage by a bit. If thats not your speed, I mean, the Elemental Glyph isn't a bad elite as it is anyway. The other elites offered to weaver aren't really anything to write home about if you're running condi. Fiery Great Sword, as far as I'm familiar with it, is more scaled to power so it wouldn't be the better choice and Tornado is more of a PvP/WvW elite than PvE. I hope this helps?

OH Dagger is pretty meh right now, but it doesn't need a major rework. Return some consistency to Fire Grab would be the best way to make it viable again. Ever since the death of Arcane Fury, this move has been pretty poor as the daggers finishing move. I'd like to see it changed along to something like having it always crit on burning targets (with some numbers changed about, perhaps lowing the base damage to compensate) to allow for more consistent finishes. Right now, even if you hit a target on fire, if you don't crit you may only see it hit for around 2-3k... which is pretty poor for the finishing move. Earthquake is also pretty fine the way it is. Churring Earth is probably the one that needs some change. It's still painful long to charge up and the damage is still mostly focused on the bleeds. I honestly feel bad anytime an Ele uses it when fighting me lol why would you subject yourself to that charge time. Water and Air skills are pretty good as is and buffing them just for the sake of buffing them is kind of a waste. I don't really like the new updraft, but its fine. RtL is also perfectly fine with the on hit conditional. Yeah, idk, let's just return some damage to Fire Grab and maybe buff the pass through burn damage on Ring of Fire to make it a pseudo control skill where you can either stay and fight the ele close range or walk across it and get some nasty damage to get away.

I think its a nice idea to have weapons have a mix of ranges. Since Ele lacks weapon swap, having a weapon that is either full melee or full ranged will always have its disadvantages. But I don't think having Air be the go to ranged spec makes complete sense if you ask me. Consider abilities like Ride the Lighting and Updraft on off-hand dagger, these are iconic skills of the Elementalist that are arguably melee oriented. Air in Guild Wars 2 is also more than just lightening arcs, it also encompass the winds which can arguably be used in ways to buff one sense like Windborne Speed or defend oneself like Swirling wind, neither of these are ranged by nature and trying to change them to be so probably wouldn't work too well. Interesting idea, but limited it to just Air is probably not the way to go.

Lightening Rod is an incredibly useful skill for PvP air builds, adding quickness to it would be... strange. It could work, but it would probably change the skill to be more supportive in nature than it's current focus on distruption. If there is any grandmaster that might be changed, I'd wager itd be bolt to the heart. Flat damage increases are pretty boring all things considered and its usually only taken because the other two grandmasters dont work with your play style, not because it's a fantastic, build defining skill. Not saying I would want Bolt to change, just its the least interesting of the three traits. Honestly I think all three GM air traits are fine. Personally I think adding quickness to Zephyrs Boon might be a little OP unless it's like 1 second...even then we'd probably need to add an ICD to it, which I don't really like. But maybe if they reworked the skill completely it could work.

Sao is right, those 10 second cool downs are by attunement not overall, so if you combo in Fire then in Water you should still get the two auras from the trait. It would only come into effect if you tried to combo twice in the same attunement. So it might be better to use your blast/projectiles/whirls before leaps since Leaps should refresh the Aura as its unrelated to the Elemental Epitome trait. Are you referring to general outside of this trait line that we need more leaps to get Auras when that trait is on cool down for example? That's a valid concern, but given the amount of finishers Ele has, I don't see it really being an issue to make sure we have an Aura up. It will just require a steady rotating through attunements I think.

Yeah, considering that 3 out of 4 of the combo finishers in this game are melee oriented, it wouldn't make much sense to have a combo heavy class using a ranged weapon. The only projectile finisher that would bring something new to the table that Elementalist can't already do is the Poison field. Maybe if Catalyst had a Dark and Ethereal field for Leeching/Confounding bolts but thats not the case. EDIT: And.. if someone is looking to play that way of dropping fields and spamming ranged attacks... surprisingly, that option already exists for Catalyst... with Staff...

Changes look fantastic can't wait to give it a go! I'm hoping the Jade Orb mechanics work better and can give more reliable access to fields when on Hammer.

The color corrected trailer looks a lot nicer. The jade can be bright green once its processed but the sea really shouldn't look like goop.

I really hope ANet can readd some textures or even a bit more blueish green tints to it. That first picture of the new jade is horrendous...... How on earth is this okay? Even if there is some stupid excuse about new dragon engery being infused, it shouldn't look like a high rez slime block from Minecraft.

This beautiful bright green looked fine when it was showed off as statues or processed into creatures. But it looks awful in the sea... it needs to be more blueish green, atleast in the wave forms. It looks like... waves of disgusting green glop. The Jade Sea was my favorite area in GW1, please don't mess this one up ANet. 😞

Tempest is a fantastic open world class as well, however Weaver is usually a better option. It has more DPS (either power or condi focused) and has some better survivbility built into it with barrier and evades. That said, you absolutely can run a Tempest in open world and have great success. I run Tempest for all my PvE related events. Here is my build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgEsEWGBjipwuYn4ors2yA-zRJYiRDfZEYBUaCY7A-e A few things: I have it here basically full marauders, but this is not actually what I run. Its really up to each elementalist to mix and match their gear as they see fit. What works for me might not work with you. If you want more power start swapping out some gear (shoulders, gloves, boots) for beserker and then go from there. You can also try running Beserker Weapons instead of Marauders. You really gotta test it out yourself though because what I enjoy might be too glassy for your taste. Full Marauders is the safest bet if you're unsure of anything though. This build also uses Fire, but if you want more defense you can instead run Arcane (1-3-3) for a bit more sustain instead of DPS. You can also use Dagger on this build instead of Scepter, but I find that Scepter lets you play more glassy since its a ranged weapon. If you wanna do Dagger, swap in some Knights, Valkyires or Celestial. The trade off is, if you run Scepter you will kinda have to dance around a bit more if you're fighting more than one mob to try and get them hit by the autoattack or mostly rely on your overload to kill mutiple mobs. Dagger can hit more, but you're also getting hit more so.. /shrug. I like Scepter more personally, gives me that good ol' real mage feeling. EDIT: Arcane Shield is also only a recommendation, if you want you can also put in stuff like Lightening Flash, Eye of the Storm or Aftershock for more survivability, or if you really wanna go ham, get your Lightening Hammer, but I honestly think thats just a little TOO much. There is a bit of a rotation on this build. It may look complicated, but once you get the flow of it down, its really not. Basically: 1) Attune to Air, use Air 1 and 2 for damage until you can overload. 2) Overload fully. You will go on cooldown and get the Transcendent Tempest Buff 3) Swap to either Fire or Water. You can usually drop your Fire Warhorn 5 or a Dragon's Tooth while your Air Overload is still ticking away. The Air Overload should crit (since you're heavy power) letting you swap back into Air. Water can also be used for Shatterstone, basically you just want to attune out of Air for a moment so you can refresh the cool down. 4) Attune back to Air. Now you should have both the Transcendent Tempest and Fresh Air buffs. With these two buffs, you then wanna drop some of your heavy hitting moves (Air Warhorn 5, Gylph of Storms, FGS). You'll only want to drop one though because your Damage buffs should be wearing off soon, so use only one and save the others for your next rotation through. 5) Swap to the other of the two attunements you didn't before. So if you did Fire, now swap to Water and drop Shatterstone or vice versa. Your air should refresh. 6) Repeat from Step 1. While this rotation is what gives you the best DPS, its not super important you follow it to to the letter. As long as you constantly try and drop your heavy hitting moves with both Transcendent Tempest and Fresh Air, you should be fine. There may be times where you need to stay in Water, Fire or Earth for their overloads depending on the situation, don't stress it. If you are getting hit hard, swap to Water for your heals (Scepter 3, Warhorn 4 and 5 all heal.) Earth has Sand Squall which is great projectile hate. You also have Heat Sync on Fire for more Might but I usually don't need that between might and battle I have plenty of might. Its honestly overkill at time so I swap out my sigils depending on my mood. Consider this build if you're looking to play more power based gameplay. Yes, you are a bit more fragile than the condition builds, but its still very fun to play and feels really good. Hope this helps!! Don't give up on Ele!! 🙂

Changes will absolutely be coming to all of the Elite Specs. But they're not going to just randomly mention off hand any changes made in an unrelated stream, they will at the very least make a forum post if not have a guild chat dedicated to the changes. Even then, the changes from the beta test will be small. Large changes wont happen until we as players get our hands on them for more than a few days. Once metas are established and builds begin to form, then well get the real changes.

Fresh Air in PvP isn't really as good as it used to be due to power creep. Anytime I run it in PvP, I find myself dying more often than its worth. It can be kinda fun if you run a FA Sword build, but not really practical for climbing ranks. FA overall is much better in WvW where you can customize your stats more to your liking and have better flexibility in moving through out the map. As for Necros, keep in mind that Air builds struggle against conditions and excel at single target damage, both of which Necros kind of counter if they're running a MM or Condi focused build, not to mention their natural high toughness. Fire focused builds have better success. The Hardstuck build linked here is probably best place to start, when working on Transcendence I ran a build very similar and had very good results. It offers good sustain and pressure. Other good runes to consider are Forgeman, Balthazar or Resisitance (if you choose a more aggressive amulet like Sinister). Lightning Rod builds can be really fun, feel very satisfying to use and down right deadly. If you love Elementalist, its worth giving them a shot. But there will absolutely be times where it feels like the only thing you are accomplishing is hitting a Tornado on point because you're not able to withstand pressure from your opponents. If you're just looking to grind through the titles, my advice is to stick with Fire. Weaver builds Tempest Support is also a pretty easy build to use if you're interested in switching up a bit. It's not as powerful as it was a year or so ago, but its still a decent alternative if you want to play support or duo with a friend. https://www.godsofpvp.net/builds/elementalist-tempest (EDIT: I dont think this build has been updated recently, but its a good place to start if you want to dip your toe in support)

Well OP mentioned they were core but also wanted new stuff, figured I'd give some core advice if thats what he wanted. I think he has expansions though so all that great info on weaver is still helpful

Core Elementalist can work well in Open World content, but if you're interested in getting into more end game modes like Fractals, Raids or PvP/WvW, you will probably want to look into getting the expansions. Tempest and Weaver are overall better for these areas than Core Elementalist. Personally for Core Elementalist I find that Dagger is the most fun of a weapon to use. Scepter and Staff are both pretty slow and on Core the damage pay off isn't really that good. That said, if you want to run a staff build, Fire/Air/Arcane would be your go too for the big deeps. Here is an example: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGQAYlJwoYKsLGJO6KbreA-zRIYRUwXC2OA-e This build is very DPS heavy and very glassy, it would probably be better to throw in some Marauder gear (you should be able to buy armor from the expansions now on the trading post) so keep that in mind. Other gears that might be helpful are Knights or Valkyires. The traits and utilities are not set in stone, you should pick the ones you feel work best with you. For Scepter, Fresh Air builds work the best. Fresh Air Tempest is really, really fun in Open World, I use it with scepter myself, but core fresh air scepter is a little lackluster in open world (kinda typical of all core builds though). Dagger can be fun for both condi and power play on Core. But since Core is a much more in your face class, you will probably not want to be running beserker in open world for it. Celestial is a really strong stat for Elementalist across mutliple game modes so investing in a set of Celestial Gear will be useful, even more so if you get the expansions.

I would have preferred mace, but I have been really happy we got Hammer. I love the idea of an Elemental Wizard using such a brutal weapon and being a unmovable wall of elemental powers, its wonderful. The fact that it is also a mix ranged weapon instead of fully melee/ranged is also fantastic. That said, the weapon could use work and I hope it gets some changes. I'm still hoping it gets a fire field and I wouldn't be opposed to opening the range of either Fire or Air to 1,200 to give it even more overall flexibility for those who wanted a longer ranger weapon. I know a lot of players feel Catalyst is lackluster, but I don't think that the fact that it was hammer is the major reason for this. The skills they chose for Hammer can use work, but that could have been the case if it was a Longbow or Rifle or whatever. I don't think the choice of Hammer was what is holding it back, but rather ANet not knowing what to do with the class overall and struggling to make a busier Ele that feels different from other classes. So overall, yes, Hammer is fantastic I'm shocked we got it but in the best way possible. It started out rough but I think it can only get better from here. I can't wait to use it. 🙂