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Is Elementalist the most "frosty" prof in GW2?

Shrike Arghast.3856

By Shrike Arghast.3856
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Shrike Arghast.3856

Shrike Arghast.3856

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Not here to antagonize - just asking an honest question: is Elementalist the most "ice focused" profession in this game (which is to say - not very ice-focused at all, since those spells really represent only - at best - 1/4th of the kit)? I know Reaper has a few abilities that are somewhat ice-themed, but there doesn't really seem to be anything that's really the equivalent of an ice-wielding fighter... is there? Or have I missed something?

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Infusion.7149

Infusion.7149

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No , reaper is. See skills such as :

and traits such as  https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cold_Shoulder
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chilling_Nova

If you are using water attunement on elementalist it generally is low DPS. So you'd generally only run a healer of some sort such as water tempest with Frost Aura via maybe "Flash Freeze" and blasting. Frozen Ground (staff) and Frozen Burst (dagger) are more or less what you get.

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Shrike Arghast.3856

Shrike Arghast.3856

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1 minute ago, Infusion.7149 said:

No , reaper is. See skills such as :

and traits such as  https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cold_Shoulder
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chilling_Nova

If you are using water attunement on elementalist it generally is low DPS. So you'd generally only run a healer of some sort such as water tempest with Frost Aura via maybe "Flash Freeze" and blasting. Frozen Ground (staff) and Frozen Burst (dagger) are more or less what you get.

Yeah, I knew that water/frost for the elementalist was more support-oriented. 

Does Reaper force you to use the scythe? It's not an aesthetic that really appeals to me.

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Infusion.7149

Infusion.7149

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5 minutes ago, Shrike Arghast.3856 said:

Yeah, I knew that water/frost for the elementalist was more support-oriented. 

Does Reaper force you to use the scythe? It's not an aesthetic that really appeals to me.

It's part of the skillset but nothing forces you to use the skill(s). Those both act as CC skills.

Power reaper isn't a particular strong archetype for instanced group content right now but is very strong in openworld against trash mobs.

See also 
https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Reaper_-_Power_DPS

and https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Reaper_-_LI_Reaper

Edited by Infusion.7149
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draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

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There isn't really a good frost-themed build at the moment. Elementalist has been taken over by healing effects of water, reaper is more about the chill of death than throwing ice around. Revenant also has an association with cold, but not really a theme-defining one.

Visually, you could probably go with sceptre/focus, elemental summons, glyph of storms, and ice bow, but sceptre water isn't exactly strong.

Similar observations apply for lightning themes (unless you go mesmer) - engineer has a bit, but primarily as a side theme, although fresh air tempest can get you a fair amount of lightning. Earth themes are also hard to do, although some rev builds might count. The GW2 elementalist focus on attunement-switching really did come at the expense of the more element-specific concepts.

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Doggie.3184

Doggie.3184

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Best you can do here really is just buy a buncha Ice weapons, infusions and make Jormag legendaries for an elemental theme. Once they add the Gen3 Jormag weapons you can turn all your projectiles into ice with it, which is something I'm looking forward too, as well as water element.

I've always found it weird that fire is always the DoT and DPS element in games and ice/water is almost never considered, despite it being just as destructive~ it's always reserved as a slow debuff or healing.  The only difference is it doesn't spread everywhere as easily as fire. Ice continiously slices your insides to pieces as crystals form and can instantly sheer your skin clean off just by touching something too cold. Logically Chill should of been what Torment is and force you to move to generate heat to stop the DoT. It was a DoT at some point for Necro but they removed the trait for doing too much damage.

In GW1 I exclusively used water on my Ele, since every element was capable of DPS in different ways on there. Ice's thing was mostly low cooldowns for rapid attacks. So I wasn't much of a fan of the big design shift for the class in GW2. They even meganerfed "Water Trident" into basically a healing only splash when it was a damage elite machine gun that also did knock down in GW1. No healing  on it XD

 

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draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

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23 minutes ago, Doggie.3184 said:

Logically Chill should of been what Torment is and force you to move to generate heat to stop the DoT. It was a DoT at some point for Necro but they removed the trait for doing too much damage.

Technically speaking, revenants with Abyssal Chill do apply Torment. That's a setup that probably works best with Mallyx/Glint and few of the visual effects fit the theme, though.

Reaper had the chill-being-a-DoT thing, but it has changed into applying bleeding when you apply Chill instead. It is possible to do a chill condi necromancer (it even had a brief resurgence in raids about a year ago), but again, most of the visuals don't really fit (one of the main skills is/was Well of Darkness, for instance).

Might also be possible to pull off an ice theme with ranger. Axe mainhand, frost trap, arctic-themed pets, and appropriate weapons.

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draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

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2 minutes ago, Eva.3629 said:

I wish they would actually make a whole elite spec based on ice/water element. Never liked fire skills anyway :)), but yea that s too much hopium i guess

Yeah, we've kinda got enough fire. Any condi guardian is fire-based, condi berserker is fire-based, condi revs are going to be throwing around a lot of fire, and any DPS ele that isn't leaning heavily on Fresh Air is probably spending a lot of time in fire (to the point where for a while top DPS as elementalist was just camping fire altogether). 

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Jski.6180

Jski.6180

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There an real issues where other classes are better at atument magic then ele is. I would say rev is better "rock" or earth magic then ele is gurd is better at fire magic necor is better at ice magic and maybe ranger is better at "crit base" air magic.

It would be fine on its own but these classes have magic out side of there one atument like magic so they are not just purely one atument like magic so it comply undermines the ideal of "well its just one atument so its ok to be stronger then ele 4 atuments" getting back to the old argument that ele is an jack of all traids class so it should be weaker when realy all classes are simply stronger jack of all traids classes then ele.

An forst ele should be torment base condi and chill base hard/soft cc (block of ice out side of forst bow) as well as having counter boons and healing though chill striping and water poisons. It would also be nice to see more dmg vs targets whom are chilled.

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draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

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10 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

There an real issues where other classes are better at atument magic then ele is. I would say rev is better "rock" or earth magic then ele is gurd is better at fire magic necor is better at ice magic and maybe ranger is better at "crit base" air magic.

Mesmer and, to a lesser extent, engineer are probably the professions you go to if you want to go with a lightning theme. Mesmer attacks are technically chaos energy of various forms rather than lightning, but it basically manifests as purple lightning.

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Ragnarox.9601

Ragnarox.9601

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8 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Mesmer and, to a lesser extent, engineer are probably the professions you go to if you want to go with a lightning theme. Mesmer attacks are technically chaos energy of various forms rather than lightning, but it basically manifests as purple lightning.

Or you could go with kralkatorik weapons, lighting armor like shatterspark then color everything in purple and pew pew pew.

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Doggie.3184

Doggie.3184

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On 9/14/2022 at 8:32 AM, draxynnic.3719 said:

Might also be possible to pull off an ice theme with ranger. Axe mainhand, frost trap, arctic-themed pets, and appropriate weapons.

My Ranger wears a Sub Zero outfit and uses Ice Weapons. Took me 60-70 Dragonstorm runs to finally get the Frostsaw Greatsword for him. XD

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Sifu.9745

Sifu.9745

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To me, the most "ice focused" class is Power or Support Guardian: everything is so blue/white. Every non condi weapon effect look icy. Especially Dragonhunter is thematically closest to some kind of a frost warrior.

 

Elementalsit with Frost Bow (conjured weapon) and Watter Attunement might work as an ice alternative as well.

 

Necromancer? Nope. Necro is a green monster, minion master, death magic wizard. He has absolutely nothing to do with ice.

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LyraOrpheo.8450

LyraOrpheo.8450

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On 9/7/2022 at 10:41 PM, Infusion.7149 said:

No , reaper is. See skills such as :

and traits such as  https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cold_Shoulder
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chilling_Nova

If you are using water attunement on elementalist it generally is low DPS. So you'd generally only run a healer of some sort such as water tempest with Frost Aura via maybe "Flash Freeze" and blasting. Frozen Ground (staff) and Frozen Burst (dagger) are more or less what you get.

 

It could use more visuals though, a majority of those are shadow-like effects.  Executioner's scythe very briefly shows some ice apart from the ice field.

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