Guild Wars 2

There is no counterplay, and yes you CAN target the ele and get him under 90% health but in the meantime the rest of the time kills you. What a nice play!
Make it reduce the condition duration a 100% as long as your life is over 70% health maybe so you can still fear and do little dmg. And do the same with berserker stance!!! In a direct duel, you can’t get a soldiers ele with Diamond Skin under 90% health even if you have GOLEM, Deathshroud auto AND a well that does dmg, you can’t have more direct dmg on condi necro? PLS HOTFIX THIS TRAIT AND DON’T WAIT TILL MARCH OR MAYBE EVEN MORE!!!
That’s just ridicilous!!
And nobody wanted the trait implemented. So much about listening to the community. Maybe to the wrong players. Not even eles wanted that trait. Give Ele maybe some health or smth but not an immunity.
———-We faced a team with 2 warriors with zerker stance, 1 AR decap engi, 1 Diamond Skin Ele———-
We had: spirit ranger and necro, no chance with all the immunity in this game. NO CHANCE!! Tell me how to counterplay that. Trait > Skill

/agree

imo condition immunity should be changed (it shouldn’t be in the game at first place, but let’s try to get a solution) to:

“you are immune to condition damage, condition duration is reduced by 95%”

with this change a skilled fear or blind could actually amount to something to at least survive while he is immune.

This probably only goes for berserker stance.. traits which make you immune 100% of the time shouldn’t be in the game, but i doubt they will be removed. sadly

This trait is garbage, and any build taking it is generally bad, but it is still terrible design. I main an ele and won’t play with the trait.

However, in the mean-time, have you tried playing carrion as opposed to rabid? It should you help you out getting him under 90% very easily. From that point, you just do your thing. If you have corrupt boon (which I would recommend if they are giving you that much trouble), just wait until they start to heal (even covered by stab) and proceed to destroy them.

Necro can pretty easily build to hard-counter eles, should they want to. Sure, its not as effective as the usual tanky-condi rabid necro, but they already do really well against eles w/o D. Skin.

Elementalists are bad enough and terribad players still wants elementalists to be nerfed.

I made a video the day it came out. All top players told Anet BEFORE this change not to do it. Even elementalists said don’t make this change. Anet really need to not be so arrogant to think they know better than top players with respect to pvp balance.

http://www.twitch.tv/lhob9944/b/486397926

I made this video the day it came out this patch.

Diamond skin is a terrible trait. But Diamond skin isn’t the reason why you probably lost to an elementalist. This screams like a learn to play issue.

Getting the ele down to 90% is easier than blinking.

silvermember.8941:

Diamond skin is a terrible trait. But Diamond skin isn’t the reason why you probably lost to an elementalist. This screams like a learn to play issue.

Getting the ele down to 90% is easier than blinking.

Diamond-Skin is a hard-counter and game-breaking, doesn’t matter if it’s a l2p issue or not (which is here definitely NOT the case, as ventari is one of the best necros, when not the best nowadays)

no no no dont write something against ele in this forum, because its so weak and it needs so much buff
to survive vs a condi profession with diamond skin need so much skill and timing,
you cant faceroll your keybord and still win, no thats not possible

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

silvermember.8941:

Diamond skin is a terrible trait. But Diamond skin isn’t the reason why you probably lost to an elementalist. This screams like a learn to play issue.

Getting the ele down to 90% is easier than blinking.

Diamond-Skin is a hard-counter and game-breaking, doesn’t matter if it’s a l2p issue or not (which is here definitely NOT the case, as ventari is one of the best necros, when not the best nowadays)

OH thank you for stating the obvious.

Diamond skin is a terrible trait

I guess that statement just flew right by your did it? Also I don’t really care who he is. if he couldn’t hurt the ele, it probably mean he was playing one of those cheap condition spam builds, so essentially OP is mad that his cheap tactics did not beat a cheap trait.

lets say that an ele has 20k hp (which is reeeeaaaally generous for an ele)
10% is only 2000,

what the hell are you doing if you can’t even manage 2k damage…
throw a fire sigil in to your set or something.

even bunkers can do 2k damage.

Any decent ele can heal or pop into water and get that 2k right back. Once he’s back over 90% he becomes immune again. So you really need to do a lot more than 2k damage to keep the conditions sticking.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Any decent ele can heal or pop into water and get that 2k right back. Once he’s back over 90% he becomes immune again. So you really need to do a lot more than 2k damage to keep the conditions sticking.

True, but at least the necromancer needs to do more work than simply mindlessly spam easy conditions to win.

Phoenixlin.8624:

Elementalists are bad enough and terribad players still wants elementalists to be nerfed.

Whining is not the way to make a class better. Just an fyi. Propose the changes you think should be made.

I like this thread.

So much ppl flaming about ele … its a weak class actually.

I play ele in the great team which beaten MTC aka Ventari, empa, oidmetala
everyone is whining about the cond meta so what to do???
Yea play an ele with diamond skin.

Btw: their mesmer do easily 6k+ dmg on me

And the post from ventari is wrong because we faced them with a dps guard/war/ele/necro … vs … necro/mesmer/war/ranger

So we dont play meta (we never did)

So far.

Qouve from I Love Lunch [BoX]

MTC.9536:

---

We faced a team with 2 warriors with zerker stance, 1 AR decap engi, 1 Diamond Skin Ele———-
We had: spirit ranger and necro, no chance with all the immunity in this game. NO CHANCE!! Tell me how to counterplay that. Trait > Skill

We had guard / dps guard / d-skin ele / war / necro. Of course we are the ones who play cheesy, of course you outplay us hard but still lose three times and adapting to the oposing setup is a lame strategy, that nobody should ever use right?

Meh, I agree on Diamond Skin being stupid but the timing of this post is just… get off your high horse srsly.

hardcounters are very good for the game

Qeve.5743:

I like this thread.

So much ppl flaming about ele … its a weak class actually.

I play ele in the great team which beaten MTC aka Ventari, empa, oidmetala
everyone is whining about the cond meta so what to do???
Yea play an ele with diamond skin.

Btw: their mesmer do easily 6k+ dmg on me

And the post from ventari is wrong because we faced them with a dps guard/war/ele/necro … vs … necro/mesmer/war/ranger

So we dont play meta (we never did)

So far.

Qouve from I Love Lunch [BoX]

It’s still is a hard-counter and not in every single PvP-Game a positive thing. Same with AR and decap engi or berzerker-stance. Abuse it is your right, every team does that. But this doesn’t mean it’s a good mechanic for the game itself.

Kewl thing to hear that there is a way to play a viable ele in Tournaments, and it seems to be so strong that ppl crying about it, NICE.
omw to the retraitor !

Tom

Its funny because necro will complain that diamond-skin and automated response need to change (they do), but isn’t fair enough to point out that necros hard-counter engies (and other condi-specs) unless they have immunity.

All the hard-counters need an adjustment to be more even, not just the one that hard-counters your profession.

Fun fact: Pure Cond Damage Necros stand more chance against a D-Skin Ele then an Ele did before the patch against Necros.

Empa pretty much hits the nail on the head. It doesn’t matter if this trait is useless against certain classes/builds. The idea behind the skill is horrible and its implementation explains all this kitten we have going on right now, which is no decent skill ceiling. Those hard counters are a brilliant game mechanic indeed. At the time it was implemented you could foreshadow that this game will not get more competitive. And guess what? There’s zero competition anymore. I wonder why.

The broader picture here is that the necromancer is the main reason for condition immunities to exist in the first place.

That said, immunities like Berzerker’s Stance are fine, whereas Automated Response and Diamond Skin are not, since they have no duration. Once the necromancer is brought down, these immunities should be adjusted accordingly.

Qeve.5743:

I like this thread.

So much ppl flaming about ele … its a weak class actually.

I play ele in the great team which beaten MTC aka Ventari, empa, oidmetala
everyone is whining about the cond meta so what to do???
Yea play an ele with diamond skin.

Btw: their mesmer do easily 6k+ dmg on me

And the post from ventari is wrong because we faced them with a dps guard/war/ele/necro … vs … necro/mesmer/war/ranger

So we dont play meta (we never did)

So far.

Qouve from I Love Lunch [BoX]

Exept 55hp and CM there is 2 teams playing with necro and most of the time ranger , BooN and us ESL and u are proud to beat that team only because you are playing a total counter for necros and rangers even if ele is bad.

Without your ele or without at least necro u are no chance coz u only can win becoz of this hard counter and u know it ?

U don’t agree with that ? Let’s try some match without DS ele , I know u can play war , let’s see if u even reach 100 pts :P

Suprah.5076:

Qeve.5743:

I like this thread.

So much ppl flaming about ele … its a weak class actually.

I play ele in the great team which beaten MTC aka Ventari, empa, oidmetala
everyone is whining about the cond meta so what to do???
Yea play an ele with diamond skin.

Btw: their mesmer do easily 6k+ dmg on me

And the post from ventari is wrong because we faced them with a dps guard/war/ele/necro … vs … necro/mesmer/war/ranger

So we dont play meta (we never did)

So far.

Qouve from I Love Lunch [BoX]

Exept 55hp and CM there is 2 teams playing with necro and most of the time ranger , BooN and us ESL and u are proud to beat that team only because you are playing a total counter for necros and rangers even if ele is bad.

Without your ele or without at least necro u are no chance coz u only can win becoz of this hard counter and u know it ?

U don’t agree with that ? Let’s try some match without DS ele , I know u can play war , let’s see if u even reach 100 pts :P

Let me remind you of that match where you rerolled Warrior and Qouve was on his usual Ele build without Diamond Skin. If you can’t: We won.

You guys REALLY need to get off your high horse.

EDIT: I’m not saying we would be better than you or anything but this arrogance is pretty annoying and we definetly showed that we CAN beat you without Diamond Skin Ele.

Suprah.5076:

U don’t agree with that ? Let’s try some match without DS ele , I know u can play war , let’s see if u even reach 100 pts :P

Today Ele carries 400 Points in a Game and yesterday we was out of meta, did i miss a patch?

Keksmuffin.1450:

Suprah.5076:

Qeve.5743:

I like this thread.

So much ppl flaming about ele … its a weak class actually.

I play ele in the great team which beaten MTC aka Ventari, empa, oidmetala
everyone is whining about the cond meta so what to do???
Yea play an ele with diamond skin.

Btw: their mesmer do easily 6k+ dmg on me

And the post from ventari is wrong because we faced them with a dps guard/war/ele/necro … vs … necro/mesmer/war/ranger

So we dont play meta (we never did)

So far.

Qouve from I Love Lunch [BoX]

Exept 55hp and CM there is 2 teams playing with necro and most of the time ranger , BooN and us ESL and u are proud to beat that team only because you are playing a total counter for necros and rangers even if ele is bad.

Without your ele or without at least necro u are no chance coz u only can win becoz of this hard counter and u know it ?

U don’t agree with that ? Let’s try some match without DS ele , I know u can play war , let’s see if u even reach 100 pts :P

Let me remind you of that match where you rerolled Warrior and Qouve was on his usual Ele build without Diamond Skin. If you can’t: We won.

You guys REALLY need to get off your high horse.

EDIT: I’m not saying we would be better than you or anything but this arrogance is pretty annoying and we definetly showed that we CAN beat you without Diamond Skin Ele.

Maybe coz when I play war my team is like 4v5 ?

Don’t even say the word “arrogance” when your ele is trying to show how is d—k is big with this outplay because once again , without it , u can’t win :P

I mean I don’t care if u play with DS ele , it’s your right it’s just show how this game is unbalanced and it’s only the fault of ANET , but when we see Qeve starting to think that he is good only because of this I just want to say LOL

Phoenixlin.8624:

Elementalists are bad enough and terribad players still wants elementalists to be nerfed.

Poor balance and issues in the rest of the game or the rest of a class isn’t a reason to support or keep obviously broken and terrible design decision in the game. Simple as that.

If a little Ele beats the mighty Ventari (maybe the best necro in the world if I may you remind) then something is really wrong.

So many broken things in this meta. Hope you all survive the aftermath.

Skullduggery.2054:

Suprah.5076:

U don’t agree with that ? Let’s try some match without DS ele , I know u can play war , let’s see if u even reach 100 pts :P

Today Ele carries 400 Points in a Game and yesterday we was out of meta, did i miss a patch?

Totally made my day.^^

@Suprah: Cmon, even PvE players can master a warrior in less than 65 games tho.

A lot of name and shame going on here. I really have to agree with Keksmuffin. It doesn’t even matter which team is the better one, the only person who is allowed to be arrogant is helseth.

BTT: I really like the fact you’re whining about eles which you can’t get below 90% hp (i totally agree those traits are stupid tho, should be hotfixed instantly) but a engineer is literally in the same position towards necromancers. If you’re not running any stupid-kittened-broken kitten, a decent necromancer will roll over your face within seconds. But that’s fine, right? (Same goes for condition war tho)

Mouby.7096:

Skullduggery.2054:

Suprah.5076:

U don’t agree with that ? Let’s try some match without DS ele , I know u can play war , let’s see if u even reach 100 pts :P

Today Ele carries 400 Points in a Game and yesterday we was out of meta, did i miss a patch?

Totally made my day.^^

BTT: I really like the fact you’re whining about eles which you can’t get below 90% hp (i totally agree those traits are stupid tho, should be hotfixed instantly) but a engineer is literally in the same position towards necromancers. If you’re not running any stupid-kittened-broken kitten, a decent necromancer will roll over your face within seconds. But that’s fine, right? (Same goes for condition war tho)

Totally false against ingi if u keep some cd’s up u do a condi burst + ds fear and u have a chance to beat. It’s a small chance but you are physically able to kill him.
Against DS ele U HAVE ABSOLUTELY 0.00 % chance to win in 1v1 as necro or ranger.

Finally some beef. #lmfao

Keksmuffin.1450:

MTC.9536:

---

We faced a team with 2 warriors with zerker stance, 1 AR decap engi, 1 Diamond Skin Ele———-
We had: spirit ranger and necro, no chance with all the immunity in this game. NO CHANCE!! Tell me how to counterplay that. Trait > Skill

We had guard / dps guard / d-skin ele / war / necro. Of course we are the ones who play cheesy, of course you outplay us hard but still lose three times and adapting to the oposing setup is a lame strategy, that nobody should ever use right?

Meh, I agree on Diamond Skin being stupid but the timing of this post is just… get off your high horse srsly.

bluuuuuet why so many words?

Suprah.5076:

Totally false against ingi if u keep some cd’s up u do a condi burst + ds fear and u have a chance to beat. It’s a small chance but you are physically able to kill him.

I didn’t quite understand what you’re trying to tell me (#tired). I guess you mean a necromancer can beat a engineer with AR. That’s actually true. Due to the fact a engineer doesn’t have neither much condi-remove nor many stunbreakers it’s more than likely to kill an engineer if you’re playing necromancer. If you’re trying to say it’s possible to kill a necromancer if you’re running an engineer (i doubt you did want to say this), it has to be a pretty bad necromancer tho.

Against DS ele U HAVE ABSOLUTELY 0.00 % chance to win in 1v1 as necro or ranger.

You’re probably right with that. I also agree such traits are really stupid and should be removed from the game, but you can’t expect to get a perfect meta for your team. MTC (aka Ventari i guess) is whining about every single specc which is countering his necromancer. I know, pistolwhip as well as the traits mentioned above is really stupid, but honestly…i doubt it’s a good idea to see necromancers without any counters.

It’s not like this ele-trait makes him invincible. Thiefs, mesmers and warriors can still counter this kind of stuff pretty easily. The other team made sure to counter your setup, that’s actually smart of them. I doubt your team is running a less meta-orientated setup. So it’s not necessary to blame them.

TL;TR: The traits are imbalanced and kittened (and should be removed), but you’re most likely whining about this trait because it counters YOUR Team (or any team with a lack of direct dmg tho) and you’re mad because you lost due to this fact (i don’t want to offend anyone of you, but your “we are the the better players/team” confirms this tho).

Diamond Skin is broken in 1v1, but pretty meh in team fights, unless the opposing team leans more to condition builds.

I think if it would simply add -30% condi duration permanently, it would be much better for team-play, and less such a mega-tryhard counter-build.

maybe even adding it +30% condi duration for more soft cc (chill, blindness) and it might make condi ele more apealing (<—- probably not)

Mouby.7096:

Suprah.5076:

Totally false against ingi if u keep some cd’s up u do a condi burst + ds fear and u have a chance to beat. It’s a small chance but you are physically able to kill him.

I didn’t quite understand what you’re trying to tell me (#tired)

MTC (aka Ventari i guess) is whining about every single specc which is countering his necromancer. I know, pistolwhip as well as the traits mentioned above is really stupid, but honestly…i doubt it’s a good idea to see necromancers without any counters.

So it’s not necessary to blame them.

1 / Basically i’m saying that u have a chance to beat 1 bunker ingi coz before the condi imun u can do smth but for the diamond skin u can’t , it’s OVER 90% life this is why.

2 / Maybe because Ventari is playing a class who is not overpowered but not weak , also u need some skills and hard work to master necromancer, u have to know your cd’s pretty well , how to use some skills , when to use it or not etc … So I understand him when he see 1 kittening newb thief spamming 3 or 1 kittening newb hambow litterally facerolling his keyboard to nearly win or 1 kittening newb diamond skin ele also able to faceroll coz of perma imun I won’t blame him for whining a bit :S

3/ I don’t blame them , as I said this is ANET who created this type of unbalanced traits they are the first to blames , not the players who use it. I’m blaming this guy because he think he is good coz he is able to beat teams who are clearly above him when it’s just a total counter.

Suprah.5076:

1 / Basically i’m saying that u have a chance to beat 1 bunker ingi coz before the condi imun u can do smth but for the diamond skin u can’t , it’s OVER 90% life this is why.

2 / Maybe because Ventari is playing a class who is not overpowered but not weak , also u need some skills and hard work to master necromancer, u have to know your cd’s pretty well , how to use some skills , when to use it or not etc … So I understand him when he see 1 kittening newb thief spamming 3 or 1 kittening newb hambow litterally facerolling his keyboard to nearly win or 1 kittening newb diamond skin ele also able to faceroll coz of perma imun I won’t blame him for whining a bit :S

3/ I don’t blame them , as I said this is ANET who created this type of unbalanced traits they are the first to blames , not the players who use it. I’m blaming this guy because he think he is good coz he is able to beat teams who are clearly above him when it’s just a total counter.

1. Ye, so i did understand you correctly. I can fully agree with you tho.

2. Due to the fact i can’t do kitten against a condi warrior (or necros if they’re decent players) if i’m running engineer i actually understand his whining. I had a 1vs1 vs a rank 25 warrior running the bow / mace+sword condi-build and i literally couldn’t do anything. He can basically reflect everything, has his berserker stance, can remove up to 3 conditions every 5 seconds (+Lyssa rune #lol), has cc and an immense amount of healing due to the signet. So i lost, went mad and he didn’t realise it’s just because of the build and was really thinking he’s a good player tho. (same scenario if i’m facing a necromancer, which is kinda the natural counter of engineer i guess). And this actually should not be possible. A high skilled player should be able to kill a bad player at any time.

Even tho necromancer pretty hard-counters engineer i’m actually fine with that. I think it’s okay if there’s at least one profession which can counter your own profession relatively easily. But it’s not only the necromancer which is countering engineer. You basically can’t beat a condition warrior 1 vs 1. Even against (solid) hambows you have a pretty tough time without any stunbreakers. Literally every single team is running with either warrior(s) and/or necromancers. A ranger (as well as a good mesmers) can be a really tough matchup as well tho. Engineer is in a really tough Position nowadays tho (remember, i’m not talking about cancer-aids-decap-engis).

This beeing sad i’m actually in the same spot as Ventari (probably worse, necromancers are still pretty viable as opposed to engineers, at least if you want to run anything besides decap, which i refuse to), so i can understand his whining in some way tho.

3. As i mentioned above i know these kind of players which are actually not even close to yourself, but thinking pretty high of themselves, because they’re stomping you due to their profession/setup advantage. Regarding your enemy team i actually can’t state if they’re bad or anything because i don’t really know them and i don’t want to judge them either tho.

#talking/whining too much about engineers tho

Yes, please change it to something useful instead of a trait that is only good for dueling a few classes in dire gear or extremely specific team situations. Though to be honest relying on a group where 100% of your dps comes from conditions seems WAY more cheesy than relying on a group based around an ele that can be immune to those conditions at full hp.

silvermember.8941:

Diamond skin is a terrible trait. But Diamond skin isn’t the reason why you probably lost to an elementalist. This screams like a learn to play issue.

Getting the ele down to 90% is easier than blinking.

Dude it definitely is not. I play a necro too, and DS eles aren’t much of a problem for me because I use carrion gear and flesh golem. But for a necro using rabid and plague, DS is pretty much a hard counter. I know I’m not nearly as good as the OP, cause I fought him about 12 hours ago (god knows why since I’m nowhere near him in the rankings!) and his team wiped the floor with us, so I can tell you firsthand it’s not a l2p or skill issue.

I absolutely agree that eles need some serious loving, but a blunt hard counter tool like DS is not the way to do it – it’s crap balancing (makes them invulnerable to a small subset of builds and just as easy to kill for everyone else), and terrible game design.

Well , i was testing this trait again in some 1v1 and :
May work with condi engin and some condi warr ( using staff bunker healing )necro condi sometimes ,but no longer work when they turn in 2nd life ( auto atk dear big dmg ,or that guy play hybird ) .No longer work with condi minions master necro ,backstab venom thief ,only mesmer im not testing yet ,but i think will not work again lookdown mesmer if u dont bring our stability,they can spam some cond if interrupted ,and mainly still confusion.
PS : No longer work at team fight.
PS : Asking myself if im not running bunker staff ,does it worked ?

hmm. If you can’t get an ele past 90% HP, then I think the problem is something deeper and more concerning.

MailMail.6534:

hmm. If you can’t get an ele past 90% HP, then I think the problem is something deeper and more concerning.

Try to do that on rabid engi and while you’re at it try to apply enough conditions before the ele heals the 10% back just by attuning back to water.

Getting them under 90% isn’t the most difficult part, the most difficult part is to keep them under 90% for long enough to blast them with enough damaging conditions. So far necromancers are a good candidate for this with signet of spite but that trait certainly does completely hard counters condi engineer. The time frame between the under 90% hp and the time it takes them to heal back is very low and trying to hit them with enough bomb or nades during that time frame is an exercise in frustration.

No matter how you slice it, there shouldn’t be anything like a trait that gives complete immunity to anything. What’s next, a trait that gives you immunity to CC if you’re not under 90% HP? A trait that gives you immunity to direct damage if you’re not under 90% HP? Why not? after all even a direct damage build should be able to apply some condition amiright.

This is completely idiotic and not the way to go to give any viability to a class that has none. Just because ele is in a very sorry state doesn’t justify the existence of such a trait. That kind of reasoning is why warrior became like this in the first place. From a class no one wanted to bring in a tpvp match, to a class that is seen as almost necessary to bring to ANY team. Diamond skin is just the first step of balancing ele toward more idiotic builds and if anet keeps catering to this crowd they will become the second wave of Hambow. The warrior abomination wasn’t given birth to in a single patch. It took more than one. DS is the first step toward turning ele into the next abomination.

The issue should be nipped in the bud before it turns into an even bigger one after more patches to buff the various ele builds without paying attention to how things might synergize with traits like these. Almost no one would’ve predicted, at launch, that warrior would become what it currently is now and I wager that ele is slowly going into that direction. They also want to remove the previous nerf to the ele healing signet, right? have fun with that if you keep DS.

There are Ele’s who use Diamond Skin?

edit: Let me rephrase that, there are Ele’s in PvP?

Wintel.4873:

There are Ele’s who use Diamond Skin?

edit: Let me rephrase that, there are Ele’s in PvP?

I saw one yesterday. he was playing all day. oh, wait… that was me.

ds only vs full condi necro 1v1. useless in teamfights, useless other classes. what class can’t bring 2k dmg? even if ele heals it, he will lose them again, because DS not removing any of existing condi.

change your gear, stop mindlessly spam condi’s.

OneManArmy.9732:

ds only vs full condi necro 1v1. useless in teamfights, useless other classes. what class can’t bring 2k dmg? even if ele heals it, he will lose them again, because DS not removing any of existing condi.

change your gear, stop mindlessly spam condi’s.

You’re kinda right. They could change their setup a bit and it wouldn’t be much of a problem to face a ds ele again. But nonetheless, ds and similar traits are the most kitten traits in this game which doesn’t support a high amount of skill but rather the opposite.

Speaking of mindlessly such traits don’t really prevent this kind of gameplay. A-nets promotion of these kind of traits and the way to play the game in general at the moment leads towards a really noob-friendly and casual state of pvp tho.

They need to make sure to remove the traits mentioned above and in addition try to prevent mindlessly spamming builds as well. This kind of attitude shouldn’t be rewarding at all.

The thing with that trait is that you need to invest 30 in earth.Then if you need a tiny bit of survivability against direct damage you need at least 20 in arcana for elem attunement.
After all that you are forced to pretty much run either a full bunker selfish build (just take decap engi at that point) or a kind of bunkerish build that will fail against all other non pure condi builds out there either by being unable to kill them due to low damage output or by actually dying too fast to them.
I remember people being afraid of zerker fresh air/DS ele like its gonna be the next broken thing which seemed absurd knowing the tradeoffs for going that far into air and earth at same time.And thats pretty much what happened since noone is or will run something like that.
So now..if you want a selfish bunker that doesnt bring the full cc capability of decap engi nor does it bring the full ele heal/cleanse/buff packet then whatever..your choice i guess. I d still go for cleansing water.
The trait and the builds it creates are bad in every sense of the word..imho . I couldnt care less if it was pretty much removed from the game today.In fact many changes proposed by people against the trait would actually buff it in many ways rather than nerf it!

How can you be top 50 and complaining if you don t even kno how to build wars?
pvp nowadays…. with no active pvp scene rly better to farm some gold in ascalon

manveruppd.7601:

silvermember.8941:

Diamond skin is a terrible trait. But Diamond skin isn’t the reason why you probably lost to an elementalist. This screams like a learn to play issue.

Getting the ele down to 90% is easier than blinking.

Dude it definitely is not. I play a necro too, and DS eles aren’t much of a problem for me because I use carrion gear and flesh golem. But for a necro using rabid and plague, DS is pretty much a hard counter. I know I’m not nearly as good as the OP, cause I fought him about 12 hours ago (god knows why since I’m nowhere near him in the rankings!) and his team wiped the floor with us, so I can tell you firsthand it’s not a l2p or skill issue.

I absolutely agree that eles need some serious loving, but a blunt hard counter tool like DS is not the way to do it – it’s crap balancing (makes them invulnerable to a small subset of builds and just as easy to kill for everyone else), and terrible game design.

DS is a hard counter for 1v1 fights but in a group fight where guild wars 2 was supposedly designed around, it goes down extremely fast. The trait is so worthless due to sacrifice that ele have to make that effective very few of the few that are stupid enough to PvP using the elementalist use it.

I might not like it DS, but given the how worthlessly cheap conditions are I think all classes should get a skill like DS and or conditions be redesign. The former is easier for Anet. DS is as far as conditions are in this game.

I can just ppl whinning about probally 1 or 2 ele’s who play this build. It is a good conter but ask the eles about 1v1 warriors (who are meta at every team) they will lose.

Hambow still OP and I know ppl complain like u cant win as necro against a war but there are still necros in the spvp who won a lot 1v1s against warrior.

Gimmicky hard counters need to go. Diamond skin is terrible design as it is and I say this as an Ele. It’s not nearly as bad as Automated Response imo, but that doesn’t excuse anything and they both need a complete rework. At the very least conditions still need to apply a reduced duration so that soft cc still works somewhat instead of just making the fight completely 1 sided.

So most of you says that diamond skin is a hard counter? right?
If I don’t run with Diamond Skin, Necromancer is a hard counter for ele!

But anyway…
lets look at the leaderboards
Let me count the eles in the top 100

Atax from No Life
Betarage from LOVE
more?i dont think
and me

so we have 3 eles in top 100
by an average on 8 classes would be 12.5 on 100 so ele is a just a “bit” lower

If we just count wars now… hmm no i dont want there are to much.

So why you whining about ele? Cause i try to play it viable?
Such ppl will never get my respect

LOVE and No Life have both my respect because they are playing with an ele

and

for every one who never played a ele : Ele is worst class in pvp