Guild Wars 2

Before you say that I got owned by a d/d ele in my match and thats the reason I am crying. No, I am a elementalist main. But I absolutely HATE d/d celestial ele for 2 reasons:
1. It has too much sustain and can survive focus fire like no other, unless people bring in a necromancer to strip boons. Otherwise its nearly unkillable – coming from my own experience.
2. It is killing elemntalist build diversity since its the only viable build for ele alongside celestial staff == nearly the same as d/d ele. But staff has some downsides to it, while a d/d ele can heal by swapping into water for like 7-8k health, then switch to fire and do a 5k burning speed, all while maintaining 15+ stacks of might. Other builds dont even come near to this. Fire elementalists get their fire cleansed quickly, since d/d can pretty much only put up fire condition (plus I hear its getting nerfed), earth AA is just wortheless (not counting sigils or runes). Fresh air elementalist can either choose mobility – offhand dagger, or focus – tons more survivability but absolutely no mobility. Scepter condition ele has 1 ability – its earth AA. Meaning only celestial d/d and staff ele are usefull.
Nerfing water might seem like a good option, but if you nerf water you pretty much kill all other builds for ele. Glass canon ele becomes like dust – you sneeze at it and it dies, condi builds wont be any better or worse, dire gear becomes a must. It would be far better if you made eles heal less depending on how tanky they are. This would also fix the problem of immortal elementalists running earth with Stone Heart, since they can sustain massive amounts of damage then simply swap to water and heal like 6k.
Do something about this Anet, but please dont kill build diversity (almost happened in the past).

So bring a necromancer to strip boons.

Most of the elementalist community agrees on it being overpowered, but largely just because of how overturned burning is, and we’ve ALWAYS had sustain, its our only viable form of defense and most of us would love to see it tuned back if they would give us any freaking defense anywhere else! There are a half a dozen threads on it right now in the ele forums if you want to contribute to any of them.

And the entire ele community has SCREAMED FROM THE ROOFTOPS since launch about how awful our build diversity is and what Anet could do about it. Its a preexisting problem that fixing the DD ele and burning has nothing to do with it. ANet has done nothing with three years of feedback, and even most recently taken away two nonviable but at least mostly functional build paths and given them back to us in a specialization. So don’t except any improvements on that front anytime soon.

I disagree with the second point. I use s/d cantrip and I do good enough in all areas of the game. It may not be meta, but there is nothing saying you have to play the meta. I can easily fight most 1v1s in sPvP to a stalemate. The only things I have trouble facing are mesmers and some ai builds.

The problem isn’t the sustain in and of itself. The problem is that they do great damage in addition to the sustain. Before the condition patch I could easily fight a d/d ele to a stalemate because while I couldn’t kill them, they couldn’t kill me either, which is fine balance wise.

Now they do 1000000000000k burning dps on top of being unkillable. Which is just stupid right now.

Its not hard, just reduce Fire Ring to 1 or 2 stacks or burning instead of 3, and reduce the scaling / number of burn applied by Drake’s breath.
Put the damage taken from Fire 2 into Fire 5 to compensate maybe, because that one is actually hard to land.

You also could reduce the base duration of fire ring so they cannot maintain a full might stacking rotation while taking Blinding ashes, forcing them into the other Grandmaster extending fire field duration.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The problem isn’t the sustain in and of itself. The problem is that they do great damage in addition to the sustain. Before the condition patch I could easily fight a d/d ele to a stalemate because while I couldn’t kill them, they couldn’t kill me either, which is fine balance wise.

Now they do 1000000000000k burning dps on top of being unkillable. Which is just stupid right now.

Actually, because of the way ele’s burn, you do 1000000000k burning dps to yourself. Ele burning is the easiest to avoid. Doesn’t even require dodging.

DaShi.1368:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The problem isn’t the sustain in and of itself. The problem is that they do great damage in addition to the sustain. Before the condition patch I could easily fight a d/d ele to a stalemate because while I couldn’t kill them, they couldn’t kill me either, which is fine balance wise.

Now they do 1000000000000k burning dps on top of being unkillable. Which is just stupid right now.

Actually, because of the way ele’s burn, you do 1000000000k burning dps to yourself. Ele burning is the easiest to avoid. Doesn’t even require dodging.

Would be great in theory if teleporting out of a fire ring wasn’t bugged and gave you like 11 stacks of burning instantly.

The sustain is required and has to be there, other wise ele’s are dead if you breathe on them. Remember they have the lowest base armor and base HP… Those cantrips and water attunement + 100% uptime on vigor are their best defenses..

Whats making themover the top right now is burning is ridiculous.

They have no hardcounters right now thats for sure… Only seen a cele signet necro take down dd ele in a 1v1 so far… mesmers who pull off a moa are close depending on their skill cap but the burns are too much pressure and ele can survive the burst easily.
Warriors on rampage might be able to beat dd ele as well.. but thats about it lol

I agree the sustain is required (otherwise we’re useless), its just that the celestial amulet gives you alot of healing power and healing power on water with elementalist is godlike. Maybe reducing scaling on healing power would be a good idea (just a bit). On the other hand, I absolutely adore s/d fresh air elementalist, since it requires a lot of skill, also it isn’t so dependant on rotations as other builds. Scepters autoatttacks are very bad, making them give more bang for buck would give scepter eles more sustained damage, rather than just swapping into air and out all the time and wasting much needed attunements on 8s CD, just to get that 1,7k more damage :/. (Btw, I know Anet doesn’t care about these threads, but I just like to express my opinion and see what others have to say).

Nocta.5274:

DaShi.1368:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The problem isn’t the sustain in and of itself. The problem is that they do great damage in addition to the sustain. Before the condition patch I could easily fight a d/d ele to a stalemate because while I couldn’t kill them, they couldn’t kill me either, which is fine balance wise.

Now they do 1000000000000k burning dps on top of being unkillable. Which is just stupid right now.

Actually, because of the way ele’s burn, you do 1000000000k burning dps to yourself. Ele burning is the easiest to avoid. Doesn’t even require dodging.

Would be great in theory if teleporting out of a fire ring wasn’t bugged and gave you like 11 stacks of burning instantly.

That would be all fine and dandy if they couldn’t keep you permanently locked out of capture points or bounce you around like a pingpong ball in and out of the flames.

Are D/D Cele builds the only good build for an Ele in PvP? If so, perhaps it’s because the other options stink.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Are D/D Cele builds the only good build for an Ele in PvP? If so, perhaps it’s because the other options stink.

You can go with a Staff build(with the exact same gear, traits, and utilities) and do okay, but it’s not nearly as strong as D/D.

Malchior.5732:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Are D/D Cele builds the only good build for an Ele in PvP? If so, perhaps it’s because the other options stink.

You can go with a Staff build(with the exact same gear, traits, and utilities) and do okay, but it’s not nearly as strong as D/D.

Been there, done that. Yeah, staff in that config is pretty weak.

Burns aren’t what makes cele ele op, it’s the might stacking. Eles are able to maintain 20-25 stacks of might in a typical fire build without having to sacrifice their utility slots (ie engi) allowing them to have up to 1.3k power and condi damage as well as the +560 on other stats.

My suggestion would be to nerf the might stacking and duration from Burning Fire (rly auto 3cleanse+3might on cantrip use as adept?) and from Fire Shield (potentially >5 might/sec in a team fight) and fix Ring of Fire applying extra burns and ele becomes way more balanced without hurting the condi dps of other classes.