Sarm.5923

Grain of salt since I haven't tried it myself yet, but the weapon really doesn't look fun. 😕 Regardless of how it's tuned, I don't understand what the appeal is supposed to be in having weapon skills, especially *defensives*, that don't fully function unless you prime them with their neighboring skill first. Not even normal attunement swapping has this problem because at least you can instantly use whatever skill set you're calling up in that moment. It kinda looks like the weapon was designed to slightly mimic Weaver's gameplay disability, and I've never heard of anyone complaining about ele being too simple to play.

I've been struggling with this decision since I see that they're on sale again. I constantly hear praise for the copper-fed one especially, that even though you'll never offset the gold cost in gems, people consider it worth the cost for its utility in the shared slot bar. But if that's the case, isn't it even more convenient (as well as more cost effective) to simply TP all of your stacks of unidentified gear? I know the infinites can't be easily offset or else they'd become a pay-to-win item, but it sounds like the only alternative is them being an idiot trap for those who only value a lesser convenience when auctioning unIDs is both moreso and a functionally free option on top of that.

To me, that only sounds entertaining as a once-in-a-blue-moon encounter. Cranking up the AI on general enemies might make a single fight more intense, but I feel that gameplay fatigue would quickly set in as you have to deal with it over, and over, and over again.

I guess this might be the best place to ask this, and I guess I already know the answer since I'm leaning hard on "no" but interested in thoughts anyway: As someone who's only interested in playing solo (elementalist) but isn't driven by collecting achievements, is End of Dragons worth the price right now? I had mostly enjoyed GW2's story when I went through it, but I found myself petering out hard after I finished it. I didn't mind that, since I got the HoT/PoF combo via the discounted $15 offer, but given that I'd only be buying the expansion for the story (Catalyst doesn't look fun to me), $30 feels like too steep an asking price for me when I'm not compelled by the endgame that's available to me.

Is there anything a core Elementalist can do that the elites don't do better? I remember initially being turned off by the elites because I didn't like how I was feeling penalized for preferring being at range, between Tempest's overloads and Weaver's Primordial Stance being close range abilities. Not to mention how frustrated I felt when learning one was "the designated DPS spec" and the other one relegated to support. Felt like it left the vanilla class feeling incapable of having a use of its own. Edit: Don't know what Catalyst is like, though. Still don't have EoD and the class looked conceptually stupid to me, between the jade sphere, the hammer's skill 3 ability not being fun at all when I tried it during the beta, and how awful Elemental Empowerment sounds to play with. I've heard people refer to it as Core+ but gameplay-wise it sounds like a Core- elite instead.

I know it's probably a me issue, but I think I found the existence of transmutation charges having a bit of a reverse feedback loop for my gameplay, since the only thing I was interested in was overworld PVE content. Being limited in my charges discouraged me from wanting to use any, which then made me wonder why I'd even want to collect skins at all if I wasn't 200% sure I wanted to commit to using them. And since 99% of the end game appears to be fashion, I found little motivation to actually do that.

I get why people are ragging on the water/earth sword3 skill because it's the only change sword got, but isn't that pairing used for the water field multi-combo heal gimmick? Wouldn't the bleed on its skill help slightly lessen your damage drop during that transitory period before you go back to attacking like normal?

Ignorant question here, but what's the point of water attunement being the healing element if one of your weapons doesn't let you heal other players with it? Don't those design intents conflict with each other?

I get where you're coming from. I've only been playing GW2 for a few months off-and-on, and I consider myself a bad player to boot. While it can suck to feel like you have to put in more effort just to meet a bottom-of-the-barrel baseline, I still wouldn't discount the overall theme of the class if it's something you enjoy. I started off with the elemental summon utility spells as training wheels and found I didn't want to swap out of them, because being able to summon your own tanks or defiance-rotters on demand was too convenient, and I feel that's been both plenty workable and fun for solo content. I think I'd burn out of the game way faster if I tried to play something more efficient but something I'm just not thematically into. It's not like any other class lets you be a fireball-tossing wizard, after all. And there is a kind of freedom in going "to hell with it" and playing anti-meta when you're alone because logic be damned, I want to try being a dagger weaver healer. If there's anything I'd recommend, it's to go back to what it is about elementalists that appealed to you before you get into any game mechanics. While necro or mesmer might be alternative ideas, if you just wanna have fun with fire/water/air/earth, why deny yourself that?

For transparency, I'm a bad player and not really experienced with the class, but I figured I'd ask here anyway. Outside of playing an overload-spamming Tempest build, what's the point of Fresh Air? I got the impression that the class wants fire to be your primary DPS element, and I guess you alternate it with earth for weaver or water for healing. But (again, outside of FA Tempest) I've never found myself in a position where I'm like "oh boy, I can't wait to immediately go back to air after I just left it!" If you could spec for air's weapon damage to be better than fire, I could understand it because the trait would minimize the time you're out of your strongest element, but usually if I have to go air, it was to use a utility skill that are all on cooldowns equal (or even longer than) its overload would be. So there's nothing for me to do even if I did flip back early.

I don't have End of Dragons so I couldn't play Catalyst even if I wanted to. Although I dunno, the elite spec looks really unappealing to me, from top to bottom. 😞 Another reason why I started this thread was because I felt bad not offering any support while I was working on my 5k kills achievement with swords, although I ended up hitting that about half an hour after my last post so I guess I'm a dagger weaver now, lol. I know I could theoretically go tempest at this point, but I already spent a bunch of time playing it and I needed to switch it up or I'd go nuts from the sameness.

Oh, I see what you mean now. Yeah, I think the translator might be messing up your intent a bit. It's not racial discrimination, but a potential gameplay disadvantage for those who can't get used to it. I know I initially had some difficulty adjusting because I kept mistakenly thinking my character was positioned further ahead than he really is. But I don't suffer from motion sickness so I can't judge. I play a charr elementalist and I think them running on all fours is part of the race's charm. ❤️

If I recall correctly, the charr shaman who stood upright did it specifically because they wanted to look superior to others, even though it caused neck problems to maintain that stance. While I'm not opposed to a toggle for running on two legs, I think equating it with intelligence doesn't fit with the charr because they're not a fully bipedal race. Switching between two legs and all fours would be seen as natural to them and just who they are, instead of something to be ashamed of.

Fortunately I'm already mostly in Celestial gear, although I think it'd be more accurately described as the illustrious "take what you can get" bargain bin selection from your local Wal Mart, lol. I know they weren't brought up, but the reason why I'm attached to my elementals as a button is because as much as I try to "get good" and dodge as best I can, the fact is I'm simply not a great player and need those training wheels to keep me going. Plus, in a roundabout way, pulling up the occasional earth elemental is decent open world "alternative" mitigation because enemies start attacking them instead of myself, or whoever I want to heal.

Whoops, I didn't mean to put Signet of Earth of all things in that link. It was supposed to be air, but oh well. I suppose neither is appropriate. Also I had completely forgotten about arcane's minor trait making it easier to apply protection than relying on combo fields in leap finishers with Powerful Aura. My bad. I think I was trying to split the difference and mitigate my damage loss a little bit with the earth tree and Signet of Fire, but I suppose that's counterproductive to the whole point of trying to force a healing build on weaver in the first place. But if Frost Bow's considered overkill, maybe I can squeeze in one of the other signets there. Thanks for the feedback!