Dagger/dagger Elementalists; how to counter.
Go look at the elementalist board. There was a multi-page thread that tells you exactly how to kill a d/d ele.
Out of Attunement – D/D Ele
Maguuma
Maguuma
1) If you’re burst with no sustain , don’t try 1vs1..you lose, a burster comes-deliver and leave
2) Ether renewal is 3.5s channeling, I can’t think of any build on any profession which hasn’t got an interrupt, don’t spamm it on recharge!( like 90% of people do against me)
3) D/D doesn’t offer any block/invulnerability or such…eles use soldier/shaman/cleric/valkrye amulets..and they’ve all got toughness + runes
4) If ele use mist form to counter your burst , GG, you’ve been outplayed try again!
5) You can see incoming ele attacks from miles away, there is a huge display every time they change attunements…impossible to miss that! utterly impossible!If you can’t dodge a burning speed ele…GG but you’re worst than him hence you’ll lose
6) Steady dmg to force him in using defenses skills and bust when he leaves water …simple
7) Eles can have more than one build…time to learn ele skills and traits ( like I did for all other professions)
D/D ele’s are still susceptible to burst if you time it when they’re most vulnerable – the key is to be patient. Kite them or wear them down depending on your build, and pay close attention to cantrips used (mist form, lightning flash, armor of the earth). Try to draw these out as they’re get-out-of-jail-free cards. Eles would always try to cleanse threatening conditions like immobilize, chill, and cripple. They feel uncomfortable when hp drops to 50-60%, so they will likely heal in water attunement or use ether renewal (<<<—-YOU MUST interrupt this). After their burst heal is a great time to do some damage.
In a good fight, you will draw their cantrips out. Burst specs only have to wait until the ele’s hp is around 75%. Having the lowest hp/armor in the game, they can’t reach any more than 21.5k hp in sPvP even with all the vitality they can get. A good burst spec can easily clear 16-17k damage with their combo on ~2500 armor (eg. C&D —> steal —> backstab: 5k + 5k + 7k). Time burst when given the opportunity, and the ele is dead.
I know this has been said a 1,000,000 times, but the best way to learn to counter a profession build is to play it. Once you play them, you feel the strong and weak points, and learn how you can exploit the weak points (or take note of what others did when you’ve been defeated).
1on1 with an ele (unless you are an ele or ranger) is basically try to bait the ele into making a mistake.
played perfectly, or even well, the ele will almost always win. You have to surprise em with your burst usually when they under 70% and intreupts are super paramount.
If you have gone into structured PvP in the past few weeks, then you have seen them. From what I gather, it is the only viable spec for an Elementalist to run at this time, but it is extremely annoying.
They come in your typical class varieties, ranging from glass cannon to bunker, but they have an inordinate amount of bulk compared to other classes. They are virtually unkillable in a 1v1 situation, and even 2v1 they can hold their own. They cannot be bursted down, as they merely pop mist form and wait the burst out, and they cannot be piled with conditions either, as they typically have Ether Renewal which cures conditions on each pulse, and they always almost have condition removal talents from the Water tree or even the fire cantrip. Even steady, constant damage isn’t of much use because they have two forms of regeneration up and protection. Even if you somehow manage to get their health down to dangerously low levels, they’ll just run away by using ride the lightning. They are like kittenroaches; extremely difficult to get rid of. On top of their extraordinary resilience, they also kick out quite a bit of damage, and have good CC to top it all off.
My question is, how can someone actually kill one of them? Ether Renewal has a very short cooldown, and having their Water Attunement regeneration + regular regeneration means they have a constant source of healing. I just don’t see how someone can kill one of them, short of getting some friends and piling them into oblivion. Does anyone have any tips?
brotherman, nothing will serve you better than just creating one for yourself and experiencing first hand what their weaknesses are.
Hackkz/Riggamaroll
I’ve stayed at this party entirely too long
I’ve stayed at this party entirely too long
They are even worse in WvW.
By far the most overpowered thing I’ve seen in this game.
Thieves are annoying…..but Elementalists are just godmode.
The key is burst, but patience with burst. Force the ele into a situation where they must mist form prematurely. Then burst.
Feels like a trolling thread… OP basically adds no context like what class he plays or anything in particular he is having problems with.
The key is burst, but patience with burst. Force the ele into a situation where they must mist form prematurely. Then burst.
that first vid is a S/D not D/D. just saying because a D/D is the problem S/D are much less of a problem.
put spikes on their keyboard so it hurts their face when they roll it across!
there!
d/d countered!
Here use this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqUb23XCTCY
And against 2-3 bunker eles team, use this other one:
I fought a d/d ele in WvW with my ranger. I think the main thing is to save your burst until you know you will down him. In the mean time keep up.the pressure and force him to use his cooldowns. Play defensively and have multiple ranged snares to prevent him from running.
put spikes on their keyboard so it hurts their face when they roll it across!
there!
d/d countered!
This made me lol.
The key is burst, but patience with burst. Force the ele into a situation where they must mist form prematurely. Then burst.
While I agree with your point, those videos don’t really show that :P The elementalists activated mist form for no good reason. That was really just them making a mistake rather than the warrior playing very well.
First video demonstrates the combos and patience with burst (versus the best Ele in the competitive scene, no doubt). That immobilize lasts 5 seconds, so he had to mist form it or else he’d eat an entire non-quickness Hundred Blades. Forcing Eles into situations like that is key.
The most important things about killing D/D Eles are burst, and patience. Don’t send a damage-over-time class to fight an Ele. Don’t send a tanky guy, either. It would be like watching a bunker guardian try to kill another bunker guardian 1v1. No. It needs to be a high burst class, with a player that understands how to weave through an enemy Ele’s defensive cooldowns.
The same principle applies vs any highly sustainable class. In this video, the Warrior fights many classes 1v1, such as Rangers (they may have 5 evasions, plus multiple ways of avoiding or cleansing CC, plus a strong heal over time) and even Guardians (highly sustainable, especially with the Meditations build in the video) and beats them with the same principles of burst with patience.
(edited by zone.1073)
Leaving him alone and going for another point is the fastest way usually…or just gank his kitten 3vs1 and then jump repeatedly on his dead body…
xD
That’s very interesting Zone, I’ll have to look into delayed burst builds. Typically I charge in, guns blazing, and burst immediately. Now, I feel as though that’s highly predictable.
I don’t see how you’ll ever manage to burst down a 3 cantrip Ele, which is basically what every single bunker build is about, no matter what you run, best advice I’d give you if you’re alone is to just ignore him and focus on higher priority targets/objectives. Just remember that most if not all of their damage is AoE.
If you’re in a premade you can easily shut them down with a bit of coordination and focus fire.
btw, the ele in the first vid isn’t d/d, and the second one wasn’t fighting back. And none of them are bunkers.
(edited by Daharahj.1325)
About the 3 cantrips, as an ele myself, I can say that Lightning Flash can be key to hit with churning earth or to go back to a point instantly. Find a way to push us back from the point, use some crowd control, and chances are, we’ll have to use lightning flash to prevent you from neutralizing that point. That leaves us with 2 cantrips, one of them that might or not be a condition removal (especially when not using ether renewal), and both Mist Form and Stone Armor have pretty high recharge.
I’ve also noticed that some necromancers are excellent at taking us down over time, with condition overloading, covered poison and some boon removal (?). But then again, boon removal and poison is always excellent against us, because we rely a lot on boons and healing/ regeneration. Unless we’re using Ether Renewal, which should be rupted somehow with anything to screw us up. But yeah, poison (spammable, or covered with lots of conditions) and strong boon removal are strong counters, but not a viable option to all professions.
Bursting eles requires the right timing and opportunity. Make some spammable bursts when you catch them to make them waste their cantrips, make sure D/D eles are not in the air attunement because of their stun aura (a good time is to strike them right after they left air), and then go crazy with your crowd control and bursting. What makes fighting them so tough, is that they have so many options, and the opposing player kinda must know how to counter them individually.
-D/D eles in fire can only damage you. Outside of cantrips, they’re very vulnerable in fire;
-D/D eles in water can only heal themselves back to life and chill you. That means they want to prevent taking damage here too. Find a way to counter chill/ movement here, find a way to prevent them from dodging (which also heals them), and with a timely burst you can negate their healing or even kill them before they heal. Any of those outcomes is a pretty big blow against them. But careful with setting up conditions, some ele bunkers can remove tons of them while in water;
-D/D eles in air might put vulnerability on you and instant-cast their stun aura. Your best time to threaten them with bursts, but the worst time to attempt a serious all-or-nothing burst;
-D/D eles in earth will cripple and immobilize you, and be them in either earth or air, they’ll have the launch/ KD skills. That’s where they’ll annoy/ rupt you the most. Thankfully, the later two skills have high cooldowns, so you can have some relief once they are used.
The thing with eles, is that whenever they adapt their attunements to answer you, they’ll also change their own vulnerable spots, so you must adapt too.
(edited by DiogoSilva.7089)
Stack conditions on us immediately after water attunement and watch us melt, or stack confusion on us and watch us blow ourselves up, or wait till we get low health, interrupt heal, then burst. (if we are low health and our heal gets interrupted, we will flee or die, so try throwing immob on us after a heal interrupt).
^^^These are the top 3 reasons I die.
Chipsu – Elementalist
Maguuma [SWäG]
Original [OG] (good times)
Maguuma [SWäG]
Original [OG] (good times)
Yeah, if you’re going against an Ele as a Necro you better pray that Ele doesn’t have Ether Renewal. Immune to conditions = no damage from necros. You can cancel the first one with fear, but ER has 15s cooldown compared to the 20s of Doom.
Unless you use staff as OH which gets rarer each day. And still not reliable.
Most of the suggestions people are giving is capitalizing on the Ele’s mistakes, even if it’s a good tip, you can’t guarentee it’ll happen.
(edited by Daharahj.1325)
Rupting ER once can be a pretty big deal, though. It not only gives them about 1/3 or more of their health, it removes their conditions completely. Can an ele, stacked with conditions left and right, survive for 15 seconds after ER is rupted once? Especially if you have poison and other conditions (including lots of bleeding) ready to go right after. With low HP, and with most of the healing options weakened by rupting or because of poison, their stuns, their mist forms, their dodges and their protections won’t help them.
But I’m not a necro, so I’m not aware of how good they might or not be at rupting and at having lots of conditions always available (cooldown-wise).
(edited by DiogoSilva.7089)
We get more condition removal than ER though, ER is just overkill.
In the worst case scenario there’s nothing stoping you from RtL’ing away until it’s back up.
I know the stigma but….try a S/D thief?
Pair it with a warrior and just have them bunker burst?
alt+f4 is the best counter tho.
The great forum duppy.
(edited by ensoriki.5789)
Yeah, if you’re going against an Ele as a Necro you better pray that Ele doesn’t have Ether Renewal. Immune to conditions = no damage from necros. You can cancel the first one with fear, but ER has 15s cooldown compared to the 20s of Doom.
Unless you use staff as OH which gets rarer each day. And still not reliable.
Most of the suggestions people are giving is capitalizing on the Ele’s mistakes, even if it’s a good tip, you can’t guarentee it’ll happen.
Of course you first load the ele with conditions, the moment he tries to use ER, you fear him and use chill well on top of it, the plague signet normally does the trick, when used at the right time it’s devastating.
I can beat a d/d ele with a staff ele, the trick is to force them into walking in the wells/aoe and tire them down, then use plague+fear to finish them off…not hard
How do you fear an Ele in mist form/earth armor?
Bad Eles try to heal out of the blue without some sort of coverage.
How do you fear an Ele in mist form/earth armor?
Bad Eles try to heal out of the blue without some sort of coverage.
Sorry didn’t know that with some people I had to spell every letter of the alphabet starting from letter A, would I be talking to a PvPer I know he would have understood the meaning of my sentences…my apologies…
If you’re unable to time fear at the right time on an ele…it means you’re another of those who go in sPvP and spamm buttons just to watch the red bar go lower and lower, gj bro!
(edited by Arheundel.6451)
Oh the irony.
Well sure, you can just go and try to cc an ele who wants to get rid of your conditions without interruption.
I can’t really counter a GOOD D/D ele, but I can survive long enough for my team to get there and back me up usually. It’s kind of a staring contest with them so only suggestion I have is outlive them or if you are fighting in the middle of nowhere, flee to a capture point. and let them waste time looking for you.
“I’m waiting for the staff to get off their lunch
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”
They are even worse in WvW.
By far the most overpowered thing I’ve seen in this game.
Thieves are annoying…..but Elementalists are just godmode.
yeah coz the constant ability to use the games ineffective mechanics (stealth) and being able to attack people and stay in stealth isnt god mode. They are far from Godmode. Though i expect D/D ele to get a huge nerf and make the class unplayable thanks to all the people moaning.
In my opinion – even if they dont like it most ele are FORCED into a D/D spec thanks to the fact that all other specs are just god awful and dont come anywhere near D/D. If D/D gets nerfed then other weapons will need a buff.
They are even worse in WvW.
By far the most overpowered thing I’ve seen in this game.
Thieves are annoying…..but Elementalists are just godmode.
yeah coz the constant ability to use the games ineffective mechanics (stealth) and being able to attack people and stay in stealth isnt god mode. They are far from Godmode. Though i expect D/D ele to get a huge nerf and make the class unplayable thanks to all the people moaning.
In my opinion – even if they dont like it most ele are FORCED into a D/D spec thanks to the fact that all other specs are just god awful and dont come anywhere near D/D. If D/D gets nerfed then other weapons will need a buff.
Nothing will change really, the dagger/dagger set is for close combat and it will remain as such, ele players are more than capable of dealing with long CD and that’s all that may happen on d/d, said so the other sets are not far behind, with a staff I can deal with thieves/warrior/mesmer just fine, sit on your aoe and watch them squirm; ranged problems? go s/f .
So don’t worry that much
I dont play agaisnt the top players, but during my fights agaisnt eles, my problems with them is the excessive condition removal and the mobility. E.g, I try to stack the bleed after the water attunement or the heal (when they’re using the condition removal heal), but since they have a constant access to both them its kinda effectiveless. And about the mobility, i mean that for some good times i almost killed the ele, but the guy just go away and i cant catch him. I dont blame him, he supposed to do it, but since the times i reach him is less by far than the times he successfully escapes, something might be wrong.
And sorry for the english, its not my main language.
how to counter it? send it to me 1v1
Hmm so DD ele still hasnt been fixed then over the last six weeks… when is the big PvP update supposed to come? Feb? Maybe things will change then.
The key is burst, but patience with burst. Force the ele into a situation where they must mist form prematurely. Then burst.
First vid it looks like you lived, or at least killed him at that point because of a bug that should have been fixed a long time ago; at your level i am sure you are fully aware of it.
Second vid is cool.
But you cant deny warriors need work.
it’s hard to kill d/d same as bunker guardian in 1v1, difference is that guardian can hold the point, while ele can’t hold it forever. if you can’t kill ele just try to neutralize point and leave – you did the job.
necro… apply conditions when ele switch from water to other attunement. wait for right moment to remove boons. don’t remove boons unless you see 5-6 of them on ele.
thief.. if you forced ele to go mist form with combo – leave, you did the job.
-do not fight if you can’t win!
-in team fights always focus fire
-wait for right moment with stun/knockdown/fear/daze – those will force ele to use cantrips
-dodge twice if ele switch to fire.
-long fights benefits ele. if you can’t kill ele fast enough don’t engage
(edited by bashoo.6854)
I dont play agaisnt the top players, but during my fights agaisnt eles, my problems with them is the excessive condition removal and the mobility. E.g, I try to stack the bleed after the water attunement or the heal (when they’re using the condition removal heal), but since they have a constant access to both them its kinda effectiveless. And about the mobility, i mean that for some good times i almost killed the ele, but the guy just go away and i cant catch him. I dont blame him, he supposed to do it, but since the times i reach him is less by far than the times he successfully escapes, something might be wrong.
And sorry for the english, its not my main language.
If an ele runs off a point then you can neutralize or even capture it.If you can force a bunker off a point then there is a high chance he won’t be able to take it back solo.
I don’t get all the complaining about eles running.Crying about an ele running is like crying that a thief or mesmer using stealth to run from a fight they know they can’t win.
I dont play agaisnt the top players, but during my fights agaisnt eles, my problems with them is the excessive condition removal and the mobility. E.g, I try to stack the bleed after the water attunement or the heal (when they’re using the condition removal heal), but since they have a constant access to both them its kinda effectiveless. And about the mobility, i mean that for some good times i almost killed the ele, but the guy just go away and i cant catch him. I dont blame him, he supposed to do it, but since the times i reach him is less by far than the times he successfully escapes, something might be wrong.
And sorry for the english, its not my main language.If an ele runs off a point then you can neutralize or even capture it.If you can force a bunker off a point then there is a high chance he won’t be able to take it back solo.
I don’t get all the complaining about eles running.Crying about an ele running is like crying that a thief or mesmer using stealth to run from a fight they know they can’t win.
Probably because it isnt supposed to be this way, lol. Mesmer has stealth in 3 skills, 1 that its rarely used (Torch Skill), 1 from utility that its just some 3 seconds with 45 sec that doesnt improve his mobility and elite with 90 sec. The Stealth from Thief in my opinion need to be fixed, but it isnt the appopriate thread to talk about it. The difference is, besides both them access stealth they still take some time to take distance and get out the combat, and in some cases they have some cripple or chill, what difficults the escape.
Ele can just go away and try again, without some real risk. This is the problem.
What is wrong with somone having a way leave a fight if they realize they’re going to lose?
If an elemetalist has to run away it’s going to be awhile before he can have a real shot at taking a point back.If you’ve forced an elemetalist to run then you’ve probably forced 3 cantrips,his elite and all of his 40 second off hand skills.If you’ve done all that the elementalist is not to going to be able to take the point by himself for at least a 30-40 seconds.
At that point the elementalist has to let you capture/neutralize the point or wait for a team member to help him recap.Meanwhile your team is 2-3 capping his team and winning them game.
I don’t understand why you complaining about not being able to finish a 1v1 when capping/nutralizing a point is your main objective.
with a necro. 30/10/0/0/30 5 second DS. SoU
Use DS at max range to tank there Knockdowns.
Stay in DS spaming lifeblast gaining might.
as DS ends use fear(+80%) folowed by Ghastly Claws then back into DS on life blast again.
Now heres the hard part. once DS ends you hit them with Corrupt boon > Wail of Doom > Ghastly Claws.
If that dont kill them or chase them off you need to be looking for an exit if your hp aint so good.
What is wrong with somone having a way leave a fight if they realize they’re going to lose?
If an elemetalist has to run away it’s going to be awhile before he can have a real shot at taking a point back.If you’ve forced an elemetalist to run then you’ve probably forced 3 cantrips,his elite and all of his 40 second off hand skills.If you’ve done all that the elementalist is not to going to be able to take the point by himself for at least a 30-40 seconds.
At that point the elementalist has to let you capture/neutralize the point or wait for a team member to help him recap.Meanwhile your team is 2-3 capping his team and winning them game.
I don’t understand why you complaining about not being able to finish a 1v1 when capping/nutralizing a point is your main objective.
Everyone seems to just focus on 1 aspect of Eles, when in reality the reason why everybody and their mother seem to be running double Ele comps in paids now are that they are good at almost EVERYTHING. Mobility, damage, sustainability, 1v1, team support and team fight, roamer, far point harass.
Now obviously that is supposed to be the Eles calling card with respect to their class mechanic, but IMO they seem to be a bit much at the moment. I definitely don’t think they need huge nerfs or anything though.
But the situation your describe is actually more like Ele is far point harassing, forces defender off point long enough to neutralize, depending on the defender Ele either kills the defender or it becomes a stalemate, assistance must come to get Ele off your point and Ele just RTLs to safety and will have a numbers advantage as now 2 players must rotate back. That is the far more common scenario because while 1v1 an Ele isn’t guaranteed to kill certain classes, those classes certainly can’t kill an Ele if the Ele unless the Ele doesn’t know what they are doing.
There is nothing hard about beating most d/d eles — the vast majorities aren’t built for burst in any way.
The problem is finishing them once you get ahead on them, as they have a million ways to get away from you, heal up, and then re-engage.