GUILDWARSINSIDER

If there’s one thing that Elementalists do really well, it’s cause mass destruction. Most of the time, our standard attunements are enough. On occasion (or rather, every 3 minutes) we like to do something special. We like to show our enemies that we respect them enough to give no hope of victory or even survival. It’s times like these that we use our Elite Skills.

Elite skills take up the final slot in our loadout and cost a grand total of 75 skill points. That’s a lot of time and effort to get three measely skills. Fortunately for us, they’re not measly, and they’re worth every point. There is no wrong answer as to which one you’d want to pick up first, but I know that everyone does have one they’d prefer. I’m writing today’s column with the idea that you might read about the two Elites you haven’t tried, and decide to go a different route when we’re finally released into Tyria!

Tornado

Tornado is an Elementalist ability that requires very little skill to use effectively. You get a boost to health and some major damage and crowd control (CC) options for 15 seconds. It’s a solid skill, and the one that I see the most Elementalists using.

Cooldown – 180 seconds (3 minutes)

Why you should choose it – Because everyone else does! Seriously, I saw not one single Elementalist without this skill! I must have been on a boring server of sheep.

Obvious Benefits – You become a freaking tornado. How much better can it get than that?

• Gain a boost to health; roughly 1.8x your normal amount. This is a solid boost in survivability, and makes the Tornado a decent survival skill.

• Mild damage – deal a small amount of damage whenever a foe is launched away. Keep in mind that this is simply the “I’m going to ram you with my Tornado until you die” kind of damage. You can spam Electrified Tornado, but you’ll be using precious cooldowns that should really be used for CC.

• Send enemies flying away from you and your allies by ramming them (for a single-target toss) or using Debris Tornado (for an area-of-effect [AoE] toss).

Subtle Benefits – Tornadoes are rarely subtle…but there are some benefits from our trail of destruction that aren’t so obvious.

• Become stable (immune to effects that move your character without your input, including Fear and Daze) for 15 seconds. Great for escaping groups of enemies.

• Can be used underwater to be a Whirlpool, pulling foes towards you. I never tried this skill underwater, but I’m told that you lose all normal Tornado abilities in this form, leaving you a large, floating magnet. Tell your friends to throw all the AoE they have at you!

Gameplay – The 3 Tornado skills are on a 1 second cooldown, making them spammable. You have to choose between extra damage (Electrified Tornado), decent damage and an AoE Blind (Dust Tornado), or mild damage and a knockback (Debris Tornado). Make sure to always be spamming one; if you’re not then you’re wasting Tornado.

Tips – It’s fairly easy to be destructive as a whirling dervish, but here’s a few tips anyways:

• Press the button whenever you even think it might be useful. The skill is much more effective if used often, as opposed to waiting for the perfect moment. If you’re outnumbered even 2 to 1, it’s a good time to use the skill.

• The knockback from ramming enemies and the Debris Tornado can throw enemies off of structures, forcing them to take falling damage and usually die.

• If you have a lot of backup, use Dust Tornado to keep you and your allies healthy through AoE damage mitigation.

• Popping Tornado at your keep’s door right as it’s broken down is a good way to keep enemies out for 15 seconds…but you will die in the process.

Overall, the Tornado is an easy skill to pick up and play. It’s almost always beneficial (though it can still be wasted) and can be used as an offensive or defensive skill.

Glyph of Elementals

This is Claude.

Summon an Elemental minion that lasts 1 minute. Which Elemental you get is based on your current attunement. I really do adore this skill. Everyone needs some companionship, and who’s to say it’s wrong when it feels so right. So what if he’s made of stone? Claude is amazing! He also doubles as a punching bag, which is nice because I was tired of being the one getting hit all the time.

Cooldown – 120 seconds (2 minutes). The cooldown doesn’t begin until the elemental is killed or returns to its realm 60 seconds after being summoned. Ipso facto, if your elemental usually doesn’t die, you’re looking at an effective cooldown of 180 seconds, rather than 120.

Why you should choose it – The spell cast animation! Your Elementalist draws the forces of the damned from some alternate dimension of C’thulu, materializing a Glowing Button of Doom™! You then press that button to summon the elemental. Oh, you press that button with some finesse! It’s like an elemental vending machine. Press a button and out comes Claude!

Obvious Benefits – So what awesomeness comes from our new friends?

• Massive uptime – Your elemental is by your side for one of every three minutes, unless it keeps dying (a bit of a problem, admittedly). If it does die, though, the two minute cooldown starts then.

• Utility – Gain one more layer of the utility that you bring yourself. One extra heal, one extra chance to stun, one extra hit received, and one extra splash of damage no matter which one you pick!

• Distractions – If you care to use them as such, Elementalists make excellent distractions. The trick is to get the enemy to attack them and not you, though.

Subtle Benefits – What other things can we use these guys for?

• Make solo content easier – A leveling Elementalist can use the summoned elementals to help deal damage, stun, or take damage in their place. This remains true for the Elementalist who solos content in the Mists or in Tyria.

• Cheap – The Glyph of Elementals only costs 15 skill points, making it the cheapest Elementalist Elite skill to buy, and thus the easiest to get.

• Two of ‘em are huge – Claude and Benny, the earth and ice elementals, are both enormous! Being as big as they are, other players will gravitate towards attacking them simply because of their mass-ivity! My minions are so huge that I can even make up words!

Gameplay – The use of this skill depends largely on how you’ve built your Elementalist, but a good general strategy is to summon either the element you use least or the element you use the most. Use the minion as a distraction first and foremost while taking advantage of their abilities secondly.

Tips – I don’t have any tips for Benny or Claude, but you could probably use a few:

• The Earth Elemental isn’t just great for some pseudo-tanking, but an awesome specific use for it is to grab the attention of structure guards in WvW while you get at whatever they were guarding.

• Air Elementals are hard to see in PvP, with all the spell effects flying around. Add in the ability to stun and you’ve got a great sPvP companion!

• Summon whenever the cooldown is up. No, seriously. If this skill is ever off cooldown, you’re doing it wrong. Doing what wrong? Everything.

These elementals are useful. These elementals are special. Claude and Benny can take a beating, while Victor and Penelope are great at dealing damage. Yes, I did name them all! Don’t make fun of me, or I’ll have Benny eat you!

Large and in charge! Kinda…

Conjure Fiery Greatsword

Conjure Fiery Greatsword is easily my favorite Elite Skill. It does everything! Extra utility for allies, extra damage for you, a screaming entrance from the very heavens! It slices, it dices, and it burns your house down! It’s the Fiery Greatsword!

Cooldown – 180 seconds (3 minutes)

Why you should choose it – Because it’s a freaking meteor sword made of fire! It also finally gives you the ability to act out all those weird Warrior fantasies you keep having! If you want any more than this, I’m gong to have to ask you to leave.

Obvious Benefits – Still here? Awesome! There’s a lot of obvious benefits from having this skill slotted:

• Provide immediate damage – When the sword is called down from whatever fiery asteroid of awesome it normally inhabits, it lands with a surprising Ooomph! The damage scales off of Power from what I can tell, and does considerable initial damage while also applying a 3 second burn effect.

• There are two swords – One for you and one for an ally. The first gets materialized in your hands right away while the second appears where you’ve decided to rain death.

Subtle Benefits – Nothing really subtle about this, but you can mask your actions as an Elementalist really well with this skill:

• Gain the element of surprise – An oddly large number of people who attack from a range never fathom having to take out melee weapons. Most Elementalists use the Tornado too, so almost all ranged professions will never expect you to whip out a giant sword and start pummeling their face in! They’ll either have to run away, or pull out melee weapons to compete. Either way, we’ve got surprise on our side, and that’s a huge advantage.

• On the flip side of that… – If you have a teammate, say an Engineer, who uses primarily ranged weapons, you can surprise the evalivin’ out of someone who sees a gearhead charging at them with a greatsword. Engineers are a good example of this anyways because they’re underpowered right now, making them generally the least targeted players in a PvP match (in my own experience anyways).

• It’s my favorite Elite – Y’know, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Gameplay – Summon this monster when things get hairy. Turn off your auto-attack if it’s on (It shouldn’t be, environmental weapons usually don’t remember having the toggle switched). This weapon has 15 charges, and using an ability consumes a charge. Once they’re gone, the weapon disappears. The rest of your abilities have low enough cooldowns that you won’t need an auto attack anyways.

Tips –

• Throw it to the ground with one of two things in mind: the most AoE damage to enemies, or the easiest access to its intended recipient. If you can accomplish both at the same time, all the better!

• Traiting this with Conjurer will increase the number of charges to 25, almost doubling the amount of abilities you can fire off.

• You can use this as an escape tool, considering the two movement abilities it has (Fiery Whirl and Fiery Rush), but this is more of a damage-dealing Elite. Only use this one if you’re already in combat (and thus cannot switch to the Tornado or Glyph of Elementals) and have exhausted all other escape options. If nothing else, you can go down like a badass!

The Elementalist has some pretty varied Elite Skills. They’re better than most other class’ skills (minus the Mesmer’s Moa…those cheating, bird-loving bastards). There’s a relatively small skill cap to master these skills and they’re ideal for a lot of situations. Buy all the skills; they all have their uses. Tyria is a land of big monsters and pointy objects, so being big and pointy is something we too need to strive to be!

Which one of these skills are your favorite? Mine is the Firey Greatsword, but it certainly isn’t the go-to skill for all Elementalists. Have you tried all three? What would you change? Let me know what you think in the comments below!

Release is imminent, so in the coming weeks we’ll come up with some theories and possible strategies to wreak as much havok as possible when August 28^th rolls around. Until then, I bid you farewell!