Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, I was just playing with an Elementalist dagger/dagger and I couldn’t help but notice the duration of boons and how many he was able to apply. I was noticing 50 seconds of regeneration, about 40 with swiftness and a high duration fury along with a slew of other boons on high duration. Is this normal?

yes this is normal this is one of the few things eles can do good atm so please dont say it as a bad thing we had a bad enought time last patch

Few things Elementalists can do? They are on par with Guardians in terms of bunkering and they have more damage and mobility. Also, I’ve never seen any other profession hold that many boons for such an extended duration.

The reason many Ele’s are so tanky is because of their boons. The two things are related. However, where were you? In a group with other people giving out the buffs as well?

High Vigor can easily be achived with 20 Arcane. And Swiftness is an easy thing for D/D, Staff Elementalists. The Regeneration you say was probably an outside source (Engineer Healing Turret?), + Recent Water Attunement (10 Arcane) + Glyph Heal in Water.

What you probably didn’t see though was a large amount of Might or extended Protection duration.

The reason why the regeneration wasn’t from another profession was we just played a tournament and he was roaming. Every so often I would take a look and couldn’t believe how high the duration and how many of these boons were applied. And it’s not like you can strip them as fast as it can be reapplied.

Lol kitten I knew it would go from is this normal to let me tell you exactly what ur class can do and why i lost to it as a insert* (class) here… or why it seems unfair by comparing it it to other professions that has not tried to specialize in boon duration and boons because they have many other options…

let me tell u something arken,

with arcane being a very important trait line it increases boon duration… due to switching attunement and the first 10 point arcane trait this makes a boon every change of attunement… with certain rune this can be increased again.

now let me set u straight and say no didnt want to play like this… i didnt want 30% more boon duration but since it is the best line atleast some points are needed… i didnt want to get boon duration runes… this is what the elementalist is cornered into… play one and u will understand… that is all

Just because he was roaming doesn’t mean he couldn’t have an outside source of regen for a few ticks. However, if he’s specced for Soothing Distruption (atleast 10 Water) and used 1-2 Cantrips along with what I said earlier, it’s not unbelievable that he couldn’t have that high of a duration.

Boons are what Elementalists do. It’s why Null Field, Corrupt Boon, Corruption Well, and things like that are what beats them pretty handily. Another good way to beat an Ele is to immobilize, but you have to know when to do it. If you catch them right after they swap into or out of Water Attunement, they have to use a cantrip to hopefully remove it.

I never said anything about losing. Read up and take a look, i’m just curious is all. No need to be rude.

Ryld.1340:

Just because he was roaming doesn’t mean he couldn’t have an outside source of regen for a few ticks. However, if he’s specced for Soothing Distruption (atleast 10 Water) and used 1-2 Cantrips along with what I said earlier, it’s not unbelievable that he couldn’t have that high of a duration.

Boons are what Elementalists do. It’s why Null Field, Corrupt Boon, Corruption Well, and things like that are what beats them pretty handily. Another good way to beat an Ele is to immobilize, but you have to know when to do it. If you catch them right after they swap into or out of Water Attunement, they have to use a cantrip to hopefully remove it.

Thank you, I appreciate the explanation.

30+ seconds of swiftness is doable with air swap, GoEH while in air, and double auras w/ zephyr’s boon. Updrafting somewhere in the process will get you over 40 seconds of swiftness.

High vigor uptime is common w/ renewing stamina and soothing disruption.

High fury uptime is common with aura rotations and constant attunement swaps.

50+ seconds of regen is possible with water swap, GoEH while in water, and insta-popping triple cantrips with soothing disruption. You can get a little more if you run 2x water and 2x monk runes.

It just seems a bit much. I keep hearing complaints of Guardians boons but they’re, at most, 5 seconds in duration each per skill on high cool down.

The difference is that Guardians can block and have a naturally higher armor. We don’t.

Block what? Once every 40 seconds? The difference between light and heavy armor is very small. Is that it?

Arken.3725:

It just seems a bit much. I keep hearing complaints of Guardians boons but they’re, at most, 5 seconds in duration each per skill on high cool down.

Keep in mind that everything I said above is a best case scenario per boon. Things won’t always play out that way.

Not all d/d ele’s run triple cantrips. You obviously can’t use GoEH in multiple attunements at once. Not all d/d ele’s even use GoEH – many still like signet of restoration and a lot of players are using ether renewal now that the channel time has been reduced. You don’t always want to spam attunement swaps on cooldown. So on and so forth.

Practically speaking, you’re not always gonna see durations that high.

You need to look more into the abilities of a Guardian if you think they can only block once every 40 seconds. Also, they have a few more source of health regen along with a decent amount of enemy control to mitigate incoming damage.

Technically they can block 4 times if renewed focus is activated along with Valorous defense(this doesn’t mean it’s 4 concurrent blocks). Plus 3 if you utilize a focus. That means if you did decide to block a few attacks, your skills would be on CD for at least 45 seconds.

Health regen is tied to the amount of allies nearby(elementalist doesn’t require this) to heal effectively while remaining in a small circle.

I understand Noctred, I really appreciate your input.

It may seem like a bit much, but as Ryld pointed out, the two are related. Eles are much weaker than other classes without their boons. While many other classes count boons as pure bonus, eles essentially require them to perform well. If they’re supporty, they give out those boons to allies around them, if they’re a more selfish build they focus on secondary effects or higher stacking of boons. As far as I can tell this is just part of their design.

Of course this is exacerbated by the fact that their boon duration trait line is their best line and most eles I’ve seen have it at 20+ points.

Being able to easily obtain 30+ seconds of protection(-33% reduction),regeneration,vigor more than makes up for the 300armor extra that the heavy armor provides to the Guardian,especially the protection boon which allows you to be much more tanky.

The Guardian cannot keep up boons for too long even if they spec into 30% boon duration.They may have a few blocks, but elementalists have other ways to avoid/absorb damage as well making them an excellent bunker.

I also see elementalists stacking up the Might boon up to 20+ very often,(that’s 700power and condition damage) and fury,swiftness are on a long duration as well allowing them to do decent damage compared to a bunker guardian.

So unless you are a class that can remove boons on your opponent,you will have a much harder time to drop down an elementalist than you would had with a guardian.

The reason why Guardians are better buffers is mostly due to the fact that they have access to Retaliation. Whereas bunker/boon Eles are annoying they don’t have a silly amount of passive damage hitting you while trying to get em down.

OneManArmy.5617:

Being able to easily obtain 30+ seconds of protection(-33% reduction)

Elementalists can’t get over 30 seconds of protection, you may want to look into your numbers before you just throw them out.

OneManArmy.5617:

The Guardian cannot keep up boons for too long even if they spec into 30% boon duration.They may have a few blocks, but elementalists have other ways to avoid/absorb damage as well making them an excellent bunker.

Can you list the ways elementalists can avoid/absorb damage, besides mist form (which neutralizes the point, thus rendering them a useless bunker)?

That silly amount of passive damage is really only 200-250 a hit. So while you’re getting stabbed from a thief for 5k damage, you’ll be able to destroy him with that 200… =)

Griffon.4716:

OneManArmy.5617:

Being able to easily obtain 30+ seconds of protection(-33% reduction)

Elementalists can’t get over 30 seconds of protection, you may want to look into your numbers before you just throw them out.

OneManArmy.5617:

The Guardian cannot keep up boons for too long even if they spec into 30% boon duration.They may have a few blocks, but elementalists have other ways to avoid/absorb damage as well making them an excellent bunker.

Can you list the ways elementalists can avoid/absorb damage, besides mist form (which neutralizes the point, thus rendering them a useless bunker)?

Before the last patch bugged out the leap finisher on magnetic grasp is was pretty easy to get 30 seconds of protection. Even now just cycling cooldowns in the mist I can maintain 100% protection duration. That’s just using earth attune, shock and frost aura, and armor of earth.

Arken.3725:

I never said anything about losing. Read up and take a look, i’m just curious is all. No need to be rude.

For someone who is ‘just curious’, every subsequent comment from yourself has basically been a whine.

Just be honest, this is a whine thread. Yes, it’s a bunker guardian making a whine thread over d/d eles..

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

Before the last patch bugged out the leap finisher on magnetic grasp is was pretty easy to get 30 seconds of protection. Even now just cycling cooldowns in the mist I can maintain 100% protection duration. That’s just using earth attune, shock and frost aura, and armor of earth.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Leap_Finisher

Please show which of those fields gives protection?

Griffon.4716:

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

Before the last patch bugged out the leap finisher on magnetic grasp is was pretty easy to get 30 seconds of protection. Even now just cycling cooldowns in the mist I can maintain 100% protection duration. That’s just using earth attune, shock and frost aura, and armor of earth.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Leap_Finisher

Please show which of those fields gives protection?

fire aura with the trait elemental shielding

Yeah DD boons is nice.

However you try to play an elementalist? Its alot of work, only class other then necro I could not just faceroll with and own people. Lots of twich reflexes needed.

Respect to all the people that play ele instead of just going easy faceroll guardian mesmer or thief.

I did not have it in me to continue learning ele, necro is plenty of work so my alts are all faceroll Thief Mes guardian War. Less work better/same results.

Griffon.4716:

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

Before the last patch bugged out the leap finisher on magnetic grasp is was pretty easy to get 30 seconds of protection. Even now just cycling cooldowns in the mist I can maintain 100% protection duration. That’s just using earth attune, shock and frost aura, and armor of earth.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Leap_Finisher

Please show which of those fields gives protection?

At maximum by using rune of earth and elemental shielding trait along with 30 Arcana you still reach max 22s protection by using all your high CD skills; but pls tell me how is unfair to other professions to reach 22s protection after using a : 25-45-90s CD skills.

To have 100% protection unpkeep is a pure lie, even with 30 Arcane the attunement swap is at 9.5s min and earth attunement protection boon last 4s max treated, the above mentioned skills have long CD so where you’re getting your 100% protection upkeep is unclear

Arheundel.6451:

Griffon.4716:

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

Before the last patch bugged out the leap finisher on magnetic grasp is was pretty easy to get 30 seconds of protection. Even now just cycling cooldowns in the mist I can maintain 100% protection duration. That’s just using earth attune, shock and frost aura, and armor of earth.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Leap_Finisher

Please show which of those fields gives protection?

At maximum by using rune of earth and elemental shielding trait along with 30 Arcana you still reach max 22s protection by using all your high CD skills; but pls tell me how is unfair to other professions to reach 22s protection after using a : 25-45-90s CD skills.

To have 100% protection unpkeep is a pure lie, even with 30 Arcane the attunement swap is at 9.5s min and earth attunement protection boon last 4s max treated, the above mentioned skills have long CD so where you’re getting your 100% protection upkeep is unclear

I have to go with Arhuendel on this one.

Getting 20+ seconds of protection is VERY hard and requires speccing into it, blowing almost all your cooldowns (some as high as 90s), and cycling attunements JUST to obtain high protection duration, i.e., they’re neglecting doing ANYTHING else in the fight quite simply to stack prot.

Not something folks should be worried about.

Swiftness, on the other hand, can be stacked indefinitely to an infinite amount (I ALWAYS travel with full swiftness uptime) and doesn’t require anything special. Again, though, you’ll be blowing cooldowns and cycling attunements to do this, so it’s not practical when in combat.

Just get null field or corrupt boons and it’s a dead elementalist (usually).

Oh boy, I really hope ANet doesn’t see this thread and think Ele’s need some MOAR NERFZ. Not to be a pain, but Ele’s almost depend on their boons to do any real damage and have some survivability, and we’ve already taken a hard kick in the teeth with the EA nerf from the last patch.

Also, most ele’s have boosts to boon duration because of our Arcana tree. Most builds require at least 20 points in Arcana because a 15s cooldown on attunement swap is brutal, and we need this just to keep up. It just so happens it increases boon duration as well.

Arheundel.6451:

Griffon.4716:

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

Before the last patch bugged out the leap finisher on magnetic grasp is was pretty easy to get 30 seconds of protection. Even now just cycling cooldowns in the mist I can maintain 100% protection duration. That’s just using earth attune, shock and frost aura, and armor of earth.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Leap_Finisher

Please show which of those fields gives protection?

At maximum by using rune of earth and elemental shielding trait along with 30 Arcana you still reach max 22s protection by using all your high CD skills; but pls tell me how is unfair to other professions to reach 22s protection after using a : 25-45-90s CD skills.

To have 100% protection unpkeep is a pure lie, even with 30 Arcane the attunement swap is at 9.5s min and earth attunement protection boon last 4s max treated, the above mentioned skills have long CD so where you’re getting your 100% protection upkeep is unclear

Arheundel is right, which is the point I am trying to make. Its very easy to say “I blew my 90 second cooldowns and only swapped to earth for half a second,” but you are still negating your earth attunement and wasting your 90 second cooldown to do that.

If you take 10 earth to get elemental shielding you are removing the ability to keep fury/swiftness uptime by the same way, and with protection being easy to get when you actually “need” it, I would take the perma fury and swiftness time anyday.

Point is, you can’t stack 30+ seconds of protection by normal means, where-as you can stack fury and swiftness and regen that high by normal means. If you are getting 30+ seconds of protection please indulge us as to how, because I am pretty sure you are going a best case scenario and not how it would actually play out in a tournament match.

Arheundel.6451:

Griffon.4716:

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

Before the last patch bugged out the leap finisher on magnetic grasp is was pretty easy to get 30 seconds of protection. Even now just cycling cooldowns in the mist I can maintain 100% protection duration. That’s just using earth attune, shock and frost aura, and armor of earth.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Leap_Finisher

Please show which of those fields gives protection?

At maximum by using rune of earth and elemental shielding trait along with 30 Arcana you still reach max 22s protection by using all your high CD skills; but pls tell me how is unfair to other professions to reach 22s protection after using a : 25-45-90s CD skills.

To have 100% protection unpkeep is a pure lie, even with 30 Arcane the attunement swap is at 9.5s min and earth attunement protection boon last 4s max treated, the above mentioned skills have long CD so where you’re getting your 100% protection upkeep is unclear

The earth attunement protection boon has a base duration of 5 seconds. With 2 water, 2 earth, and 2 monk runes the duration is 8.25 seconds (using the updated nerfed duration bonuses). This can be activated every 12 seconds (10.5 in theory but it never works out that way).

Elemental shielding gives auras a protection duration of 4.95 seconds

If you divide the boon duration by the source cooldowns and get a value of 1 that equals 100% protection uptime. So if I do this for every source and add them up and the value is = 1 then that would mean 100% protection uptime is possible. If the value is greater than 1 than you could cycle through the cooldowns gaining a surplus and achieve continually greater protection durations

8.25/12 earth attune +
4.95/25 shocking aura +
4.95/40 frost aura +
9.9/72 armor of earth +
= 1.14675

Now if magnetic grasps leap finisher wasn’t bugged we could add in

4.95/15

even without armor of earth factored in this would = 1.33925

Before they bugged out the leap finisher on magnetic grasp I was able to achieve a minute duration of protection on target golems just using fire/frost/shocking auras, and earth attunement swapping. In actual fights in spvp I would notice durations of around 30 seconds after a battle would be finished.

Playing thief sb and s/p i find bunker eles very difficult, since the patch more difficult than bunker guards. My feeling is they are a little over strong and may see an adjustment next patch, whenever that might be. On the other hand someone mentioned immobilising them at the correct time can work well – perhaps i need to figure that trick out. I would be surprised if immob made very much diff though

Bsquared.3421:

Arheundel.6451:

Griffon.4716:

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

Before the last patch bugged out the leap finisher on magnetic grasp is was pretty easy to get 30 seconds of protection. Even now just cycling cooldowns in the mist I can maintain 100% protection duration. That’s just using earth attune, shock and frost aura, and armor of earth.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Leap_Finisher

Please show which of those fields gives protection?

At maximum by using rune of earth and elemental shielding trait along with 30 Arcana you still reach max 22s protection by using all your high CD skills; but pls tell me how is unfair to other professions to reach 22s protection after using a : 25-45-90s CD skills.

To have 100% protection unpkeep is a pure lie, even with 30 Arcane the attunement swap is at 9.5s min and earth attunement protection boon last 4s max treated, the above mentioned skills have long CD so where you’re getting your 100% protection upkeep is unclear

I have to go with Arhuendel on this one.

Getting 20+ seconds of protection is VERY hard and requires speccing into it, blowing almost all your cooldowns (some as high as 90s), and cycling attunements JUST to obtain high protection duration, i.e., they’re neglecting doing ANYTHING else in the fight quite simply to stack prot.

Not something folks should be worried about.

Swiftness, on the other hand, can be stacked indefinitely to an infinite amount (I ALWAYS travel with full swiftness uptime) and doesn’t require anything special. Again, though, you’ll be blowing cooldowns and cycling attunements to do this, so it’s not practical when in combat.

it’s incredibly easy to keep protection up. D/D for 2x aura’s, Earth runes for +Protection duration, + protection proc on hit, + 6pc Aura proc, Earth traits III (free armor of earth) and V (protection on aura use), + points in Arcana for +boon duration (at least 15pts in Arcana being a must for any Ele build). On top of which you can keep solid dmg going through might stacking, fury duration, along with uber avoidance from all the vigor and cantrips, as well as cleansing from Water. Survivability on an Ele is just amazing.

Do you guys actually play an Ele?

hackks.3687:

Earth traits III (free armor of earth) and V (protection on aura use)

D/D eles typically run aura share and there’s no room for more than 10 points in earth since you need zephyr’s boon, powerful auras, and at least 20 in arcane to make shares worthwhile. The most common builds are probably 0/10/0/30/30 and 0/20/0/30/20, neither of which has anything in earth.

If you’re not running aura share, you might as well run s/d or staff imo.

Longish boons isn’t that big of a problem except for protections or stability. And for protection, it really isn’t very long on most skills compared to the cd. The majority of it comes from elemental attunement, which gives 5 sec on swapping to earth. That should probably toned down to 3 for pvp to be more in line with guardian(maybe even 2), but other wise I think the boons are fine. Of course anet will probably hit us it another hard nerf anyway.

Noctred.6732:

hackks.3687:

Earth traits III (free armor of earth) and V (protection on aura use)

D/D eles typically run aura share and there’s no room for more than 10 points in earth since you need zephyr’s boon, powerful auras, and at least 20 in arcane to make shares worthwhile. The most common builds are probably 0/10/0/30/30 and 0/20/0/30/20, neither of which has anything in earth.

If you’re not running aura share, you might as well run s/d or staff imo.

this is just supposition and conjecture. whether the Ele runs aura share or not would have more to do with his given role in the group rather than just merely being in a group. Ele already shares a good amount of boons just from 15pts in Arcane, whether aura share is there or not. It is not required nor do I see it being used regularly. I do however see lots of protection and Armor of Earth procs. I main a Necro these days and pack a good deal of corruption when fighting Eles because it’s a kitten to kill them without it.

hackks.3687:

Noctred.6732:

hackks.3687:

Earth traits III (free armor of earth) and V (protection on aura use)

D/D eles typically run aura share and there’s no room for more than 10 points in earth since you need zephyr’s boon, powerful auras, and at least 20 in arcane to make shares worthwhile. The most common builds are probably 0/10/0/30/30 and 0/20/0/30/20, neither of which has anything in earth.

If you’re not running aura share, you might as well run s/d or staff imo.

this is just supposition and conjecture. whether the Ele runs aura share or not would have more to do with his given role in the group rather than just merely being in a group. Ele already shares a good amount of boons just from 15pts in Arcane, whether aura share is there or not. It is not required nor do I see it being used regularly. I do however see lots of protection and Armor of Earth procs. I main a Necro these days and pack a good deal of corruption when fighting Eles because it’s a kitten to kill them without it.

Pretty sure Noctred is speaking from a tPvP perspective. Aura sharing is the strongest thing D/D Ele can bring to the table in 5v5 team play. If you’re not aura sharing, S/D is arguably better because it provides more burst/AoE damage in a group scenario, plus it brings respectable group might stacking to the table.

In sPvP, where most people are rolling around solo, no one runs aura sharing because they’re not really concerned with team play. If you’ve got 30 points in Water as D/D in sPvP, you’re probably going to be running Cleansing Water over Powerful Auras. And D/D is arguably better than S/D in sPvP because you don’t have teammates helping you CC people to land your big damage abilities.

d/d elementals most common “useful” builds is boon stacking at least 20% boonduration from arcana, aswell as runes if they choose to use them auras grant fury/swift and maybe protection depending on the build, infinite vigor is easy as well can get 30% chance to gain it on crit, also cantrips granting regen/vigor and might (if you spec for it) id say considering our base stats.. the boons are really essential.. and we already got a big nerf last patch so just leave it ye :P.

p.s bunker ele isnt anything compared to guardian anymore since the loss of EA trait.

hackks.3687:

whether the Ele runs aura share or not would have more to do with his given role in the group rather than just merely being in a group.

That’s why I said -

Noctred:

If you’re not running aura share, you might as well run s/d or staff imo.

Yeah, it depends on your role. Aura share is what d/d does best and in a lot of situations it can turn team fights around quickly (especially with the current well-spamming necro meta in NA).

If your role is close or far point defense, you’re better of running staff imo as it’s still a strong bunker regardless of the EA nerfs. If you really want to bunker with something other than a staff, both s/d and x/f are arguably superior to d/d because the former has more sustain and the latter has more straight damage mitigation.

If your role is aoe pressure, s/d is better imo.

In either case, the original point was that the builds most commonly used for d/d in tourneys these days do not put any points in earth – maybe 10 at best, sometimes.

Also, what mouse said.

mouse.1689:

hackks.3687:

Noctred.6732:

hackks.3687:

Earth traits III (free armor of earth) and V (protection on aura use)

D/D eles typically run aura share and there’s no room for more than 10 points in earth since you need zephyr’s boon, powerful auras, and at least 20 in arcane to make shares worthwhile. The most common builds are probably 0/10/0/30/30 and 0/20/0/30/20, neither of which has anything in earth.

If you’re not running aura share, you might as well run s/d or staff imo.

this is just supposition and conjecture. whether the Ele runs aura share or not would have more to do with his given role in the group rather than just merely being in a group. Ele already shares a good amount of boons just from 15pts in Arcane, whether aura share is there or not. It is not required nor do I see it being used regularly. I do however see lots of protection and Armor of Earth procs. I main a Necro these days and pack a good deal of corruption when fighting Eles because it’s a kitten to kill them without it.

Pretty sure Noctred is speaking from a tPvP perspective. Aura sharing is the strongest thing D/D Ele can bring to the table in 5v5 team play. If you’re not aura sharing, S/D is arguably better because it provides more burst/AoE damage in a group scenario, plus it brings respectable group might stacking to the table.

In sPvP, where most people are rolling around solo, no one runs aura sharing because they’re not really concerned with team play. If you’ve got 30 points in Water as D/D in sPvP, you’re probably going to be running Cleansing Water over Powerful Auras. And D/D is arguably better than S/D in sPvP because you don’t have teammates helping you CC people to land your big damage abilities.

I never bother with hotjoins and just stick to tourneys, so my frame of reference is entirely rooted in tourney play. I’m just recalling from my own experience playing my Ele as well as attempting to kill Ele’s both before and after this latest patch – which by and large requires counting 2x Armor of Earth, Mist Form, and their water attunement going on CD before attempting to lock them down and finally take them out.

I’m not trying to begrudge Ele’s the one thing that makes them viable, but it does seem a bit overboard. The primary reason it’s so popular is because there really aren’t many other Ele builds capable of competing with it due to some lackluster traits littering the Fire and Air trait lines in addition to the steep drop off in survivability/functionality by forgoing the Earth, Water, and Arcane traits. To say that there are only two “auramentalist” builds being utilized at the moment though is pure conjecture as is the shared auras being required in a group – uber combo fields/finishers, attunement bonuses, and water traiting already offer quite a bit to a group and reside at the core of most Ele builds – because Ele in not limited to fulfilling one role within a group.

call a good necro and turn his boons to conditions and watch his eyes bleed…

that wont work so well. boon – cond is 45s cd. elem can easily remove the cond and stack new boons.

Pillow.3296:

that wont work so well. boon – cond is 45s cd. elem can easily remove the cond and stack new boons.

It works pretty well, he usually gets kittened on before he can do anything if he has stability up.

Pillow.3296:

that wont work so well. boon – cond is 45s cd. elem can easily remove the cond and stack new boons.

It works pretty well, he usually gets kittened on before he can do anything. Not always of course.