Guild Wars 2

“statistically speaking this is rather rare” couldn’t have said it better myself

Elementalists are the best in their role. Bugs and all, they can roam and support and sustain dps better and longer than any other class. The problem is to do this, you basically need to go 30 arcane/30 water. Fire traitline is a joke, earth is good defensive, but not for what we do.

Evie is mostly true, we can do a lot of dps over time and we have all of these utilities and ability to roam/escape 2-4v1s, but we can by no means instagib a class. We can delay 2 people fairly well, sometimes even kill them, but we are stuck on that role.

Anet already said they are looking into the survivability of eles as a possible nerf, which I could kind of see coming as we sustain great dps but have 3 stunbreakers etc. I can only hope when they do this they fix some of the other traitlines and throw us something to fill that gap.

Marz pretty much sums it up. Eles are fun, and extremely effective in the right hands, and they bring a lot to the table. My D/D Ele build has 4 CCs, the ability to crit for 3-6k on Fire Grab, and Churning Earth, brings perma-swiftness/fury, AoE condition removal/regen/protection, has 80% personal uptime on protection, and excellent map-mobility. Oh and I can consistently maintain 10 stacks of might, some of it AoE.

The spike is unreliable, though, because Fire Grab is buggy, and Churning Earth has a 4-second, rooted channel. It excels in teamfights where I can jump in and burst down a number of the enemy team, while applying AoE might, condition removal, and regen, then get out. With 13k worth of heals and 2500 armor it’s pretty sturdy, and very slippery. The only place we’re really lacking is burst. We can achieve some 13k burst with proper comboing, but it takes 6~ seconds, and 11 key presses. And you know what? I’m fine with that, as long as it’s reliable – which it isn’t. If we could do damage like Thieves and Warriors, a good Ele would be unstoppable.

TL;DR: Eles are amazing, we lack burst reliability, and we can’t burst like a Thief or Warrior can. Not a big deal given how much a single build can bring to the table.

Good summation Animosity, though I am worried about when they nerf our 1 only good spec.

Yeah, ANet is targeting the tank/heal build, I think, but there’s no real way to nerf it without hurting every spec. That tank/heal isn’t reliant on any one weapon – it’s effective with S/D and staff, and can be modified for and offensive role with D/D. No way to hit that without hurting every other spec.

Cool, now we know that the two top players in the world can compete with the others.

Therefore the only change elementalists need is a deep nerf to survivability. I take it.

Does anyone find it ironic that in the second video, one of the people that got owned was an Ele?

Evie.1758:

madatom.5218:

Arheundel.6451:

Right now ele is….

1)best roamer
2)best assaulter
3)best supporter

Who can’t recognize this simply need to …l2p

what evidence do you have to show this?

Lets take my Dagger/Dagger Roamer as an example:

- perma swiftness
- perma vigor (sometimes stacked up to 1-2 mins)
- perma fury
- perma regeneration
- on demand protection
- higher mobility than perma switftness thief/HB warrior
- high aoe damage instagibs Mesmers
- decent self heals (on top of perma regeneration)
- highest roamer survivabillity of all classes
- can win every single 1on1
- has no hardcounter
- the only class that can stack itself in the middle of a fight up to 25 stacks of might
and maintain them for 15-20 seconds ( tho only class to my knowing ably to reach 4k
attack in every single engagement in sPvP)
- can instagib a whole group at a node
- Fire Elemental provides 4-5k Aoe every 10 seonds
- Ele wont die to even 4 enemies aslong as he has 1 cooldown left, and will most likely
get away and shift numbers elsewhere

Ok, I highlighted some stuff in your text that you cannot possibly achieve as a D/D ele all at the same time. Sure, you can do some of it at once, but not altogether.

1. Perma Buffs – Generally speaking you can maintain at least 9-15 stacks of might permanently (Using S/D) by simply using fire fields and blast finishers every chance they are up while running. Since you can cancel the OH dagger finishers, you dont have to put them on CD; however, since you are using D/D, you dont have enough finishers to maintain anything.
You can maintain perma swiftness and perma regen, but not outside combat so easily, and perma regen as a zerker amulet is kinda weak anyway.

2. Higher mobility then a thief is false. Sorry. It’s close, but they can leap up walls which means they dont have to run around objects, they just go over them.

3. Aoe damage instagibs mesmers – pretty hard to do that when they hit you with 3 dazes and a stun, and then explode your face with a shatter, buuuut, yes, you can beat mesmers. It’s an almost even battle (favoring them).

4. You dont have decent regen with a zerkers amulet. It is good with clerics though. The heals arent too great without healing power honestly.

5. This is debatable, but roamer eles do have reasonably decent survivability given all CDs, and assuming they dont get cheesed with multiple CCs back to back.

6. You wont win every single 1v1 if your utilities are on CD. You will get some, and when your stunbreaks are on CD, you’ll get popped by a backstab thief like your sisters pimple when shes on a roll.

7. Ofc it has a counter, backstab thieves can kill you before you even know they are there. Since you have no toughness, you will get popped by a 3k cloak, 4k mug, and 15k backstab. Thats more HP then you can have running glass cannon.

8. You can’t stack 25 stacks of might as a D/D ele in combat. You dont have enough blast finishers. Unless you are cheesing earthquake and churning into other peoples finishers…in which case you arent doing anything in terms of damage or control.

9. What kind of baddies do you play, that you can instagib more then 1 person? Any decent duo will spread out to mitigate your damage, and then CC you to death.

10. Fire elemental does NOT provide 4-5k aoe damage every 10 seconds lol. Try 2-3k.

11. Again, what baddies do you play that cant kill you 1v4? Sure, I run all the time from PuGs with no coordination; but you certainly cant even run from 2 coordinated players (assuming one of them is mobile), let alone 4. They will just chain cc you into oblivion every time you remove immobilize and stun.

So while I appreciate ele, I love it, and I wish more people saw our value as a roamer, you certainly aren’t helping. The class is amazing, well balanced, maybe even slightly OP, but its not a bursting godmode machine.

@Vaerah: Man that made me smile
@Chris: I always feel guilty killing another Ele but such is life…

well said selix, i was amazed at how much exagiration he managed to put in there. For me elementalist is great apart from some bugy skills and downed state i wouldnt change much about it, well ok i would also change a few of the kitten traits and skills to give us abit more variety in builds but u could say that about every class i think. Its probably a bit harder to play than some other clases but thats exactly what makes it more fun to me, for those who dont like that just dont play it go play a thief or something, simple as that.

Selix.5670:

You can’t stack 25 stacks of might as a D/D ele in combat. You dont have enough blast finishers. Unless you are cheesing earthquake and churning into other peoples finishers…in which case you arent doing anything in terms of damage or control.

Evasive arcana makes your dodge rolls blast finishers. Below are some screenshots of me maintaining a constant 25 stacks of might for several minutes This is using only battle sigil and my own blast finshers.

edit: Furthermore I took off my battle sigil, disabled elemental attunement, and was able to get 25 stacks of might using nothing but dodge rolls as blast finishers.

Yea Ele can be insane with the right build. I am not the greatest player but I have faced a few Eles that have been able to keep up some mad regen, speed and might buffs all at the same timr on themselves almost indefinitely while putting out great dps. I don’t have any boon removals so all I can do is just die basically because I either A I can’t catch them or B I can’t out burst their hps on this particular build i’ve seen being run a few times.

I have had elementalists do some surprising burst to me before, dropping me to 1/4th health… but never enough to insta gib me.

I do wonder what this magically unkillable, ungodly dps build is :/

Selix.5670:

1. Perma Buffs – Generally speaking you can maintain at least 9-15 stacks of might permanently (Using S/D) by simply using fire fields and blast finishers every chance they are up while running. Since you can cancel the OH dagger finishers, you dont have to put them on CD; however, since you are using D/D, you dont have enough finishers to maintain anything.
You can maintain perma swiftness and perma regen, but not outside combat so easily, and perma regen as a zerker amulet is kinda weak anyway.

2. Higher mobility then a thief is false. Sorry. It’s close, but they can leap up walls which means they dont have to run around objects, they just go over them.

3. Aoe damage instagibs mesmers – pretty hard to do that when they hit you with 3 dazes and a stun, and then explode your face with a shatter, buuuut, yes, you can beat mesmers. It’s an almost even battle (favoring them).

4. You dont have decent regen with a zerkers amulet. It is good with clerics though. The heals arent too great without healing power honestly.

5. This is debatable, but roamer eles do have reasonably decent survivability given all CDs, and assuming they dont get cheesed with multiple CCs back to back.

6. You wont win every single 1v1 if your utilities are on CD. You will get some, and when your stunbreaks are on CD, you’ll get popped by a backstab thief like your sisters pimple when shes on a roll.

7. Ofc it has a counter, backstab thieves can kill you before you even know they are there. Since you have no toughness, you will get popped by a 3k cloak, 4k mug, and 15k backstab. Thats more HP then you can have running glass cannon.

8. You can’t stack 25 stacks of might as a D/D ele in combat. You dont have enough blast finishers. Unless you are cheesing earthquake and churning into other peoples finishers…in which case you arent doing anything in terms of damage or control.

Selix, most of these things are attainable quite easily. I assume you are not specced 30 water 30 arcane, so you might know about these methods, but perma buffs are very easy to get.

1. Perma swiftness is attainable by staff swapping/air swapping/aura spamming. I get 15 seconds of swiftness on aura use, shocking is on a 24 second CD and frost on a 40. There is your perma swiftness.

Perma Vigor/Regen is attainable by speccing into water and getting the cantrips grant regen/vigor. I assume you can figure the rest out from there.

Perma fury comes from swapping attunements again, so that anytime you need to actually hit something you will have fury (as your combo requires swapping attunements).

It has already been shown that you can get 25 stacks of might quite easily using evasive arcana and superior battle.

2. Higher mobility than a thief is questionable, but if you think about it we should have more mobility. Perma swiftness, and ride the lightning matches their uptime and bow shots. As for going up and over things, have you heard of lightning flash? It isnt as often, but we can go up/over anywhere a thief can.

3. No one can instagib someone else in its true form of definition, perhaps he means since we can aoe their clones so easily they are rendered useless.

4. The heals in this spec are amazing, since you have protection/regen/swiftness constantly you are kiting very effectively and always healing and taking 33% less damage. Furthermore, you can swap water, which heals, cleansing wave, and dodge roll cleansing wave and you just healed yourself 7-10k hp.

5. Multiple CC’s are easily counterable since this build allows you to bring 3 stun breakers, the only thing that throws you off is moa or 3+ people. Usually you can handle 2 for a while. All about cooldown management, popping the ice ele and using water/earth to survive until help comes.

6. You can win pretty much every 1v1 with this spec, I have yet to find someone, besides a moa mesmer that could kill me effectively or within 10 seconds. Thieves are probably the hardest, but if you can dodge roll their BS or shocking aura and kite you have a chance.

7. Most I have been hit by a backstab thief in this spec is 8k, which would leave me at 12k hp. Those thieves are often times full dps specced, so once they pop the bs you basically win if you get 1 cc on them. The only way a thief can reliably beat you is thieves guild, which basically allows them to 1v1 anyone.

8. See above.

9-11. Subject to testing, I have been able to last fairly well against guild teams, definitely 2v1s until help comes etc. Again, 3 stunbreakers, protection uptime/swiftness/perma regen helps immensely.

It isn’t a godmode burst class, its sustained dps and outlast. If you face another bunker build 1v1 prepare for a 10 minute fight to win, because you won’t be able to dps if they are good, but you will last until you outnumber or vice versa.

@ Selix

1. You can just maintain 10-16 stacks by normal Ele combat behavior with Sigil of Superior Battle. Dagger/Dagger provides 1 fire field and Evasive Arcana turns every dodge roll into 1 blastfinisher (10sec internal cd per attunement) + Arcane Wave + Earthquake thats about 12 stacks of might.
With Glyph of Harmony i can give myself 15 sec of swiftness/ 7sec when i switch to air + 15 sec when i cast Shock-Aura + 8 secs Frost-Aura (Zeyphyrs Boon)
enough for perma swiftness.
On my spec Regeneration ticks for 169 + 96 Soothing mist every second = 265 hp every second = 2650 more damage you have to pump into my ele for every 10 seconds.

Better to have some regeneration than having none.

2. Lighting Flash provides the same teleport, you wont need it more often.
Jump+ Rtl is your friend. You can travel from Clocktower to the other nodes with
just 1 single RTL. You can fly from the treb instantely on to the wall and even
behind it and land 20-30 meters next to your close point or the enemy one.

Just an example on a map where Thiefs mobility seemed to be better.

3. Or i could Lighting Flash right into their face + instant updraft + drop 15k burst in
less than 2 secs leavin them with no phantasm and illusions and see them running
for their lives while a 15 sec burning ticks on them and a mad ele chasing them witch
Cone of Cold.

I love theory crafting.

4. Already talked about (see 1.)

6. a) See the Backstab. Be prepared to get backstabbed. Press mistform when he
disappears. Nuke him.
b) Switch to earth for protection + Earthquake (if he doesnt have Basiliks Venom).
Nuke him.
c) When you see him go earth for protection switch to air for Shock-Aura ->
stunned Thief -> updraft him -> Nuke him.
d) Just updraft him and Nuke him.
e) Dont care about it because Assasins Signet will get nerved next patch.

7. see 6.

8. Other forum user already proved you wrong on this witch screenshot. Furthermore I
already explained it ( see 1. )

9. http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/593/eleburst1.jpg/
Do you see the radius? Spread out more please and your node will be neutralized.

10. Fire Elemental Damage: ( without the 3-4 hits for 300-500 he drops right before he
nukes for 4- 5k) http://imageshack.us/f/837/fireelemental.jpg/

11. Ele is quite slippery.

Edit: Quite late, as Griffon already explained most things.

I don’t know why, but I can’t get my fire ele to hit that hard. He crits for around 2.5-3k I would say. Does he feed off your boons?

I also can only obtain around a 10k burst with berserker amulet on, critting most of the attacks, no arcane and around 10-13 stacks of might. What are you doing to get 15k?

i love the way Evie say to everyone “l2p” like a sir.
forum needs more users like you.

I’d say the better player would win.
But still. Since you need to use kittenload of spells, time everything perfectly and may die if you make one single mistake. Wasting a cd, popping cantrip too late etc..
That makes elementalist an unbalanced class in my opinion.

Griffon.4716:

I don’t know why, but I can’t get my fire ele to hit that hard. He crits for around 2.5-3k I would say. Does he feed off your boons?

I also can only obtain around a 10k burst with berserker amulet on, critting most of the attacks, no arcane and around 10-13 stacks of might. What are you doing to get 15k?

I guess he does, but i dont have much might stacked in the screeny. He happens to hit quite hard lately. Ive seen 4k+2k Aoe dropped after 3-4 smaller fireballs for 400-500dmg.

Lets say i crit everything which is quite possible with 67% crit and Mesmers tend to be squishy

(optional: Churning Earth + Flash for 6-8k +1-2k lightning strike triggerd when switching to air)

+2-3k Rtl + Updraft + 4.5k-5.8k Burning Speed + Arcane Wave for 2-3k + hopefully trigger Flame Blast for 1.5k + 2-3k Ring of Fire + 4.8-7k Firegrab

Dragons Breath ticks for 1k on crit + burning
Cone of Cold is between 3-4.8k when all ticks crit.
Ring of Earth is 2-3k on crit.
Lightning Whip goes up to 3.6k on squishys when bot hits crit with 10+ stacks of might.

Obviously i will not crit everything everytime but i crit fairly often. Atleast 2-3 Skills will crit per burst.

@Evie

Any chance you could provide an example D/D build?

Thanks

@Selix

Wrong. Zephyr’s Boon = permaswiftness and fury with the fury on attunement swapping. Rotate Shocking Aura, Frost Aura, and Air attunment. Easily done. RTL and Lightning Flash both provide easy map travel. Lightning Flash can also go up obstacles.

I don’t know about 25 stacks of might, but I know I can achieve 18. It doesn’t last long, 3-4 seconds, and requires a pretty precise combo with Evasive Arcana, but nonethless 15+ is entirely achievable and maintainable.

I run Valk’s amulet with perma regen. And who cares about regen outside of combat, exactly?

Agreed on Mesmers. You can watch Aky vs. Tsunky on the Guru Ele forum. Fun video. Some Mesmers go down easier than others, and I have spiked some very hard, but no where near instagibbing.

A cantrip build brings 3 stun breaks. Even if you do get cheesed with back-to-back CC, these with Shocking Aura and RTL can make you hard to pin down. Shocking Aura buys time for the CC to wear off.

Yes, Backstab thieves instagib people. News at 11. Can’t win 1v1s without every CD? Laughable. You don’t need every CD available to win 1v1s at all. And everything but Mist Form and your elite tends to have a short enough CD that’ll be up at some point during the next fight.

Again, Backstab instagibs people. News at 11. I run 2500 armor 15k HP and I still get gibbed if I don’t see it coming. But it’s debatable whether this is a hard counter.

Not everyone sees you coming. If you run into a teamfight and Fire Grab a burning Glass cannon, you can knock 7k crits. Churning Earth > Lightning Flash > Fire combo can down a bunch of people at once. I agree, it doesn’t happen often, and if they have any HP/toughness you won’t be doing that.

Agreed. We are valuable roamers, but our burst isn’t up there with some other classes. We can do 13k~ in like 4-6 seconds with 11 button presses, but that’s nothing compared to Backstab or Frenzied 100B.

Guiltylemon.8674:

@Evie

Any chance you could provide an example D/D build?

Thanks

Probably something like this

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/aura-cantrip-aura-cantrip-7804.html

I prefer dealing no damage. But anyways, I usually play this build in tournaments, being the point defender, holding it from 2-3 people until our warrior swoops in and kills them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y19FzOIABVY