Guild Wars 2

What is an Elementalist supposed to do in solo queue (ranked).

We can’t hold points. We can’t get bunkers off points.
Spirit ranger: WTF. This is the cheesiest kitten ever.
Necro + anything else: Time to run away.

I’m full bunker, d/d, 0/0/10/30/30. Earth runes, restoration/energy sigils. PVT ammy/jewel. I spend most of the time dodge rolling in water to clear all the conditions.

WTF are we supposed to do in this game? It’s so hard to get wins. I’m the focus a lot because of my easy-kill class. I do not want to play some easier-to-die s/d spec, nor a slow-kitten staff spec that pretty much just does cc. I do not want to play support. Why is spvp such a hunk of dog dung compared to WvW for eles? I solo with the utmost ease in WvW. In spvp, I’m like the noob that picked the wrong class that was nerfed beyond all enjoyment.

UMAD BRO? Yes. This is stupid.

2 (more like 4) options.
1. Reroll and take almost any class.

OR

2. Don’t PvP until Arenanet decides that all weapons should be viable and fix all the issues with the class (highly unlikely) but don’t have to worry about meta.

3. We quit and form a super studio.

4. Pray to god and have them fire the balance dev. Too many jons in a group is bad for balance.

Ele is the new hard mode, loving it.

(Playing ele glass – not your plight OP)

I just gave up PvPing with ele after realizing im giving too much effort to stay alive and cant manage it.

-Fresh-air build:
30 Air: VI, X, XII
10 Water: V
30 Arcana: VI, V, XI
-Amulet: Berserker
-Superior Force on scepter, Superior Energy on dagger
-Utilities: Sig heal, Arcane Shield, Mist Form, Port cantrip, Glyph of Ele
-And the SUPER secret: Runes of Lyssa.
Playstyle:
-One role to fill: Defensively roam between the nodes that you do have, or the nodes your TEAM is engaging.
-Do not attempt to 1v1 spirits, you will lose.
-When using your earth gib combo on a necro, remember to arcane shield when you knock him down to prevent his fear.
-Lyssa runes are an “OH SNAP” button, I recommend baiting Signet of Spite out of necros with it.
-You have a very aggressive appearance in team fights due to the two stun breaks and defensive utilities. This build isn’t meant to global people, but put tons of pressure on the team.
-Remember to pre-cast Air 1 when swapping attunements. It will automatically activate fresh-air due to the fury + high crit chance the build already has.
-If you can’t stand berserkers, or you just don’t want to run it, then use valks w/ zerker ammy.
Notes: I would say I am a very seasoned ele. This build MAY NOT work for you, and it isn’t some godly build that defeats everything. Your biggest fear is d/p thieves, but they are beatable. S/D thieves are extremely easy to kill with this build, and it is very forgiving. Just simply run from spirit rangers, simple as that. NO, I do not have a video for it, and NO I will not make one. I’m not sharing this because I feel the need to be some ele superhero. I’m sharing this because I love the class, and I want to fill people in on what I’m using that works for me.
The end.

That is a re-post I did, mainly too lazy to type it again. So if some stuff doesnt play in context, you’ll understand.

We fill one roll, defensive roamer. Just roam between the points you have, or are attacking. Try to place yourself so you’re not primary focus and/or first person to initiate a fight (although that always isn’t possible).

Running zerker truly keeps you on your toes, but it’s super rewarding to me. And if you don’t feel like running Lyssa, then don’t. I just like it for an “oh-kitten” button, I understand it’s on a 120s cd. IDGAF.

I’m ready to re-code my copy of the game so that it doesn’t show spvp icons anywhere to join.

I’m trying it out. I like having at least a chance vs necros now.
If someone dies leaving me alone with more than 1 target I have to leave.

First match I was pwning people, and I even forgot to put the last 10 points in water for the entirety of the match. I still had armor of earth on instead of arcane shield. Block is pretty nice, and I never thought of it as the way you described.

Also, I don’t know what Earth gib combo is.

Earth gib combo:
-Bring up your rock barrier (Earth 2)
-Begin casting Earth 2 at your target + begin earthquake
-While you’re in mid animation of earthquake, use port cantrip on top of the target your focusing on.
-Swap to air attunement and press 2

All the damage adds up and it puts a ton of pressure on targets. What I personally like to do is do that combo, and then updraft into a Dragons Tooth. But if it’s a fresh fight, you can generally expect them to have a stun break up.

Just remember to play right next to your target when you use arcane shield, it will add some pretty nice additional damage to the target.

As ridiculous as this might sound, imagine as if you were a boxer. Float in and do damage, then float out and range your target. And neeeeever play node unless you have to! It’s a super fun build, imo. And it’ll take some getting used to, but once you get it down you will definitely trash teams if they don’t focus you.

Oh and last tip, don’t be afraid to exit a fight altogether if you being to get focused. You have 2-3 defensives that will allow you to get out. You can easily get right back in the fight after healing up a tad bit.

Glad you’re enjoying it!

At this point if they bring back the old RTL, it would be fair.

RTL wasn’t even the problem, it was the fact that having three stun breaks (much like triple stance + healing signet Warrior, only easy mode because of NOT LIMITING STUN BREAKS that should be used aggressively but can be used defensively which is just too forgiving) on top of heavy sustain making it hard to focus fire making them soak cool downs gimping the enemy team if they focus to no avail vs. the old triple cantrips.

I can’t totally agree with the RTL thing. I remember being able to get out of EVERY fight and not die because of the cd, and length of the old RTL. I think the real problem is condi removal for us.

Eles do have access to condi removal, unlike mesmers. But, we have to sacrifice sooo much to pick up the condi removal. We begin to suffer in other areas such as sustained damage, and spike damage. I won’t even bring up condi damage, because that is a massive joke for eles.

If you’re running a burst build with arcanes, you can even more reliably land CE if you are willing to use elemental surge over evasive arcana. Earthquake→CE, pop arcane blast for the last second of the channel to immobilize them. They’ll have about a half a second to move around after they get up from the KD. A good player can anticipate a LF and still dodge, but with this method they can’t dodge or move out.

Just thought I’d share that alternate method, since I haven’t really seen many eles utilizing it.

Yah, i used ele surge a crap ton back in the day. I was a huge advocate of it. But, the glory of fresh air is that you aren’t really pigeon-holed into opening with that earth combo. I usually push out some damage on them then do it mid fight, or when ive already forced a few dodge rolls out. I guess it’s kinda the same mechanic as the old shatter mesmer build. Once you play it more and more you begin to land it more reptitively.

I tested the Sc/F arcane build and it’s pretty effective in soloQ. We are very squishy if we want to have some damages and with this weapon set we can always stay at range, have great ranged CC abilities and more condi removal and invul.

Honestly, build doesn’t matter all that much in solo queue. I’ve played it for a couple days using only glass d/d ele and am currently a little over rank 200. I know you’ve always been D/D Leafy, try going glass and see how it works out. I’m not saying it’s stronger than bunker, but it’s a lot more fun.

Been practicing in quick join. Pretty fun. Still hate rangers.

@Katniss

I’ve been dueling random spirit rangers. The biggest tip i can tell you, is if you are absolutely forced to fight a spirit ranger, you need to play at max range and focus the sun spirit down.

If you eat alot of damage before you get it down then reset fight a bit and come back in. I think my W/L against average rangers now is about 50/50.

I honestly try to avoid rangers like the plague.

It’s fine for solo queue, but for team, it’s all try-hard guardian/warbanner/nukes in there. I hate anet right now.

QtVain.5803:

I think my W/L against average rangers now is about 50/50.

AMAZING. I can’t believe it at all…

btw I’m almost giving up to play Elementalist on solo que lol

amyzzz.2395:

QtVain.5803:

I think my W/L against average rangers now is about 50/50.

AMAZING. I can’t believe it at all…

btw I’m almost giving up to play Elementalist on solo que lol

Amyyyyzz! <3
Btw, that fight consists of me reseting and having full cd’s. lol

This is not a critique but just my observation from doing arenas. I feel no map presence with eles. If an ele is on my team, I can’t rely on them to finish downed people like before, or stick on targets, or offer me support, because they are so busy trying to keep themselves alive all the time now. I always see eles struggling against the onslaught of conditions put out by necros and rangers that I feel like they aren’t doing much for me when they’re on my team.

If I see an ele on the enemy team, I know that I can pressure the ele easily now, so I always focus the ele and stick on him until he’s forced to leave the team fight. It has become a routine now. Ele in sight? Mark him. Stick on him until he’s dead – rest of the enemy team crumbles due to numbers advantage. These are just my personal observations from arenas so far.

zone.1073:

This is not a critique but just my observation from doing arenas. I feel no map presence with eles. If an ele is on my team, I can’t rely on them to finish downed people like before, or stick on targets, or offer me support, because they are so busy trying to keep themselves alive all the time now. I always see eles struggling against the onslaught of conditions put out by necros and rangers that I feel like they aren’t doing much for me when they’re on my team.

If I see an ele on the enemy team, I know that I can pressure the ele easily now, so I always focus the ele and stick on him until he’s forced to leave the team fight. It has become a routine now. Ele in sight? Mark him. Stick on him until he’s dead – rest of the enemy team crumbles. These are just my personal observations from arenas so far.

@Zone
I definitely agree with you. I think this thread is more about how the OP enjoys playing ele, and we’re just dishing out ideas to him. Truly, anything an ele can do right now can be done better by any other class. I absolutely agree with the comment you made about putting pressure on an ele. I do find myself having to reset fight alot and pole hump like this is WoW arena. I haven’t had too many issues with stomping, due to the 2 defensives, but rezzing is a whole different beast. No updraft or mist, I can’t even attempt rezzing.

Hawatak.8049:

I tested the Sc/F arcane build and it’s pretty effective in soloQ. We are very squishy if we want to have some damages and with this weapon set we can always stay at range, have great ranged CC abilities and more condi removal and invul.

I like to run Sc/F. I want to run D/F but Sc/F is just so much stronger Imo out of the two focus options. Though Tbh outside of being fun to play I haven’t really felt there was a real role it fell into. Outside of Swirling Winds I don’t feel like it brought much to the team itself and due to invul mechanics my Obsidian flesh can let me get neutted on as an individual. Lack of damage also makes assaulting somewhat problematic. That being said It’s a good time. Was considering taking the Res trait (serious) because With Obsidian Flesh and Mistform there isn’t a personal threat to trying to res a body. Be interested if you have any more observations on the combo you’d like to share.

zone.1073:

This is not a critique but just my observation from doing arenas. I feel no map presence with eles. If an ele is on my team, I can’t rely on them to finish downed people like before, or stick on targets, or offer me support, because they are so busy trying to keep themselves alive all the time now. I always see eles struggling against the onslaught of conditions put out by necros and rangers that I feel like they aren’t doing much for me when they’re on my team.

If I see an ele on the enemy team, I know that I can pressure the ele easily now, so I always focus the ele and stick on him until he’s forced to leave the team fight. It has become a routine now. Ele in sight? Mark him. Stick on him until he’s dead – rest of the enemy team crumbles due to numbers advantage. These are just my personal observations from arenas so far.

I wish I could say this wasn’t true, but it is. It’s still entirely possible to win in solo queue, but it really comes down to trying to outmaneuver the enemy team rather than beat them straight up. If I end up against a skilled tanky dps, I lose every time. What I try to do is look for the weak point of a team, and exploit it. If there’s a squishy on their team, I stick on them the whole game. If someone isn’t quite up to par, they’re my target every time. Playing ele definitely makes you work on things besides the usual combat skills just because you have to find an advantage to have a chance.

You kill

http://i.imgur.com/PGflVZp.jpg

@OP. seriously? Eles are one of the hardest classes to kill if played right. The problem with eles is that they were so OP for so long that a lot of people complain now that they are balanced again

style.6173:

@OP. seriously? Eles are one of the hardest classes to kill if played right. The problem with eles is that they were so OP for so long that a lot of people complain now that they are balanced again

This could be true. Maybe I was so used to the hyper performance that Eles had a few months ago that my standards for them are a bit unrealistic. In any other meta, they do extremely well, even now. It’s just the way that rangers and necros are dominating the scene with condition spam that is where eles are weak in.

Ele is dead at the moment….even wir Fresh-Air build it is very hard to be a positive factor in your team. Thats why nearlly every guild playing without ele.

I went back to d/d because you die in 5s vs every class as s/d with zerker and 10 water.
Playing full burst and still doing crap damage.
Or play bunker, and run around trying to cure conditions, while your team still loses anyway.
Or don’t play at all.

It’s not a skill issue, it’s a horribly atrocious game issue.

Much love to the eles, I know most of your builds are difficult to manage right now. I find myself catching eles out and dropping them quite fast these days.

But as someone who has been playing a glass warrior from the start: HOW’S IT TASTE MOTHA-

Okay, but seriously, eles are ready for some love. I think the upcoming meta shift will do them some good. Necros, spirit rangers, and condi engis will be much more scarce in a couple weeks.

Jackalrat.5493:

Much love to the eles, I know most of your builds are difficult to manage right now. I find myself catching eles out and dropping them quite fast these days.

But as someone who has been playing a glass warrior from the start: HOW’S IT TASTE MOTHA-

Okay, but seriously, eles are ready for some love. I think the upcoming meta shift will do them some good. Necros, spirit rangers, and condi engis will be much more scarce in a couple weeks.

That might help, but we still stand little chance against warriors. Signet heal is a hard-counter to ele damage, b/c while we can build to kamikaze burst, we hit like a wet noodle afterwards.

I think I’m 0/100 in skyhammer.

katniss.6735:

I think I’m 0/100 in skyhammer.

Lightning hammer and tornado help a little bit, just hope that thieves/warriors/necros/mesmers don’t show up (about 80% of the meta – not so much the mesmers) and you are cooking with gas!