Guild Wars 2

Rerroll.9083:

Who wins? (use popular builds)

Ele vs ele: =
Ele vs guardian: -
Ele vs ranger: -
Ele vs necro: -
Ele vs thief: -
Ele vs engineer: -
Ele vs mesmer: =
Ele vs warrior: +

Ele’s teamfight potential right now is weak due to the condi meta. The ele’s biggest contribution to teamfights is actually the high AOE protection uptime that ele gives to teammtes via Arcana5, and protection is largely worthless in the condi-heavy meta. (Also, spirit ranger does it better). Ele’s also relied on this protection to be less squishy. But if teams move away from condi spam, then ele might have a bigger place in teamfights again.

Outside of the teamfight context, ele seems to be in a good spot vs some builds and outmatched vs others. I guess that’s what balance is supposed to feel like. I think we’re closely matched in a 1v1 against most power-based builds, except CC warrs and phantasm mesmers. Most power-based builds right now are either CC warrs, phantasm mesmers, or thieves. As for condi builds, we lack the DPS and condi cleanse to take out the more popular condi-based builds without dying first, unless we completely outplay the opponent — and this holds true even if we take a lot of condi removal.

It would probably be OP to have one ele build shine at both teamfights and offensive roaming, but right now the ele doesn’t seem to shine in either situation.

For example, if I want to roam, I might as well just run a valk CC/100b warrior. The CC warrior is tankier due to doly sig, heal sig, cleansing ire, mace+shield blocks, and whirlwind/rush juking. The CC warr is also more mobile, because rush + whirlwind moves you farther than RtL and has less than 1/2 the cooldown. And the CC warrior puts out far more offensive pressure due to all the CC spam forcing your opponent to burn his dodges and stunbreakers. It only takes 1 unmitigated skullcrack-100B combo to win the fight, and you can try the combo every 7-8 seconds. Ele’s burst combos have 40+s CDs to do about the same damage. The ele’s passive damage may be higher, but this difference is made up for by the fact that the CC warr doesn’t have to stop to heal (yay healing signet).

As stated previously, our current design forces attunement swapping almost mindlessly, destroying any actual versatility the class has. We essentailly have 3 attunements that are different flavors of the same in one rotation+water for heals. After thinking this issue over, here is one proposed solution that could fix it without too much work (example for DD).

Fix auto-attacks such that they are appropriate and strong enough that spamming skills (even wrong skills) isn’t an optimal strategy. How would this be done.

1. Switch lightning whip and Dragon’s Claw:
a. Fire is supposed to be AOE damage, all they need to do is modify the color and it is a fire whip doing decent aoe damage. JUST RIGHT
b . Air is supposed to be single-target damage, it could have an animation like a slimmer dragon’s claw that is colored purple/white for lightning. Call if something like “lightning blast”. Raise the damage a lot, decrease the cone angle/range a little bit, and have the skill slightly track with a target. Alteneratively, they could animate with just a quick lunge outward with a lightning strike at the end toward an enemy in about 400 range. It should be better to stay in lightning and AA for single-target damage than swap to fire over the long-haul.
2. Decrease the cast-time on impale to 0.5s. Add another bleed stack, decrease the bleed duration to 4s. You should be able to stack up a lot of bleeds here.
3. Water is fine, it doesn’t need to do damage as it is mostly for healing anyway.

This wouldn’t actually change ele team-fight capability, but would make us more viable vs. individuals. It also raises the skill-ceiling more as attunements can be used strategically rather than spammed. It also makes us more balanced in individual performance vs. team performance. If you spam attunements to buff your allies, you decrease your own effectiveness.

Additional balancing can then follow.

TGSlasher.1458:

pmnt.4067:

TGSlasher.1458:

OP -> worst in game (via general opinion) -> OP -> worst in game (via general opinion)

The funny thing is only 2 things happened between worst and OP:

1. Eles built bunker as a reaction of the glass canon meta
2. self-stuns on dagger (magnetic grasp and rtl) have been fixed.

It was more:
OP (beta damage) -> OP (even after beta nerf) Staff builds -> UP super staff nerf (healing coeficents on staff heals, blast finishers on EA, condition internal cd on cleansing water)-> OP D/D Bunker (S/D was better) -> Subpar what we have now.

I wouldn’t go as far to say that we are underpowed, but defiantly feels like we are subpar. If the OP builds (Walker the Texas ranger, necros) were brought into line we would be in a much better place.

What?
Subpar=underpowered.

Iksargo.2640:

Greetings,

I was hoping to finish my guide before posting here, but this thread seems to have spiraled out of control today.

To start: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k33;0J0BJ-U0v4-N-Z0;9;5JJ-T;159-57;245A5w0;3F-03F-036BS

I will touch on a few things that have been incorrectly assumed.

1) This is a DPS build. 2k power, 22% crit with 25 crit damage, high fury uptime between arcana 5 and pack runes. Damage bonuses from earth VI, air VI and X.

2) Taking soldier amulet over valkyrie makes the loss of water heals largely unnoticeable to my own survivability. Obviously there is a small loss in party heals, but Rock Solid is on a completely different level power-wise. Note that you can still heal teammates with EA and dagger skills; the loss of water traits is less noticeable than you would think given how everyone thinks they are an absolute requirement to play ele (I also thought this for a long time).

3) The sustained damage that is done by Lightning Whip is absurd. I know the world has been caught up with scepter burst the last few months and has gotten used to terrible autoattacks, but if you move back to D/D perhaps it will brick back glorious memories. In addition to Lightning Whip, you have access to a reasonable burst combo between Burning Speed, Arcane Wave, Lightning Flash, and Firegrab.

4) Rock Solid is insane. Everyone sees the obvious synergy with Ether Renewal, but that is merely a bonus in this condi meta. If I have the opportunity to run signet heal in the future, there is no doubt in my mind that I will continue to run Rock Solid. This is an AOE 2.6s stability on a 10 second cooldown. A few of the many things opened up by this trait:

• Stomp everything. Soldier amulet with protection makes this build hard to bring down while stomping. Even if you are under pressure, you can give a teammate stability while they get the stomp.
• Rezzing in teamfights. When someone drops and 2-3 people go in for the rez, everyone has stability. No spectral wall/reaper’s mark/etc is going to stop this.
• Waltzing through area denial and allowing teammates to do so as well.

I will expand a lot more in my guide which should be up in the next day or two, and probably put up a forum post for it. Certainly any questions/comments are welcome here in the meantime.

EDIT: In regards to viability. Myself, Edge, and two other guys played together yesterday and today picking up whoever was available for a 5th. Comp that we have been trying is ele ele ranger engi X. We have been very successful against mid-tier opponents, and have found some difficulty with higher level teams. There have been some blowouts, but we have also had some close games. At this point it’s hard to say if it is due to the comp or our inexperience playing with each other, probably a bit of both. That being said I believe that this build is quite good, but it may not have a place in the meta given the level that other professions are at right now.

I’ve made my own version and tbh the build works quite well.

If anet balances properly I could see this build working quite well

It’s not that I don’t think we’re viable, I just don’t think there’s any reason to have an Ele on your team in the current meta. Why bring an Ele when an S/D thief, a Necro, or a Spirit Ranger, (I guess now a Warrior even) would be a better option? We don’t bring anything to the table that those classes can’t bring a better form of.

You mean other than the strongest AoE blasts and AoE KD/Launch and AoE heals? The eles got nothing going for them?

Seriously what other class that you mentioned above can do that?

You mean other than the strongest AoE blasts and AoE KD/Launch and AoE heals? The eles got nothing going for them?

Seriously what other class that you mentioned above can do that?

Guardian has a lot stronger heal and arguably same amount of AoE power. Nekros, Rangers, Warriors and Engineers have more AoE Power (and especially conditions). No idea what you mean with AoE KD. If you are talking about AoE CC, guardians are stronger, warriors are stronger, rangers don’t have hard ccs but a lot of soft ccs, nekro has fear and engineer has extremly strong cc.

Peter Buch.8071:

You mean other than the strongest AoE blasts and AoE KD/Launch and AoE heals? The eles got nothing going for them?

Seriously what other class that you mentioned above can do that?

Guardian has a lot stronger heal and arguably same amount of AoE power. Nekros, Rangers, Warriors and Engineers have more AoE Power (and especially conditions). No idea what you mean with AoE KD. If you are talking about AoE CC, guardians are stronger, warriors are stronger, rangers don’t have hard ccs but a lot of soft ccs, nekro has fear and engineer has extremly strong cc.

Guardians and hammer warriors can’t dump 20k AoE damage from rotating through 34 skills in the space of 4 seconds (counting the attunement themselves and boon/damage they provide plus the elite conjure/whirlwind). Hello…

Not to mention guardians are slow turtles, while eles can travel half a map in seconds and come back for more mayhem.

But yes rangers are over the top, that doesn’t give excuse for Eles to top them up. I think everyone practically agrees the rangers need adjustments. No class, ele included should be balanced against that, or we’d be introducing endless power creep.

Guardians and hammer warriors can’t dump 20k AoE damage from rotating through 34 skills in the space of 4 seconds (counting the attunement themselves and boon/damage they provide plus the elite conjure/whirlwind). Hello…

Elementalists can’t either. Beside that, elites on ele are crap. Stop trashtalk.

Not to mention guardians are slow turtles, while eles can travel half a map in seconds and come back for more mayhem.

Again, stop trashtalking. Elementalist mobility got nerfed extremly hard. Even guards can catch up now.

But yes rangers are over the top, that doesn’t give excuse for Eles to top them up. I think everyone practically agrees the rangers need adjustments. No class, ele included should be balanced against that, or we’d be introducing endless power creep.

I hate people that are just writing to have something written. You probably didn’t even read one single post in this thread, so seriously, what are you doing here beside of flaming?
It’s not about buffing the elementalist on stupid ranger, thief or nekro lvl (but yes, he desperatly needs some buffs in his current state – he was far too overnerfed), it’s about that he has major design flaws consiting since beta, tons of bugs, has suffered from stupid and hilarious balance changes and is pushed towards a bad-at-everything-role where it becomes a disadvantage for every team to have an elementalist.

Peter Buch.8071:

Guardians and hammer warriors can’t dump 20k AoE damage from rotating through 34 skills in the space of 4 seconds (counting the attunement themselves and boon/damage they provide plus the elite conjure/whirlwind). Hello…

Elementalists can’t either. Beside that, elites on ele are crap. Stop trashtalk.

Not to mention guardians are slow turtles, while eles can travel half a map in seconds and come back for more mayhem.

Again, stop trashtalking. Elementalist mobility got nerfed extremly hard. Even guards can catch up now.

But yes rangers are over the top, that doesn’t give excuse for Eles to top them up. I think everyone practically agrees the rangers need adjustments. No class, ele included should be balanced against that, or we’d be introducing endless power creep.

I hate people that are just writing to have something written. You probably didn’t even read one single post in this thread, so seriously, what are you doing here beside of flaming?
It’s not about buffing the elementalist on stupid ranger, thief or nekro lvl (but yes, he desperatly needs some buffs in his current state – he was far too overnerfed), it’s about that he has major design flaws consiting since beta, tons of bugs, has suffered from stupid and hilarious balance changes and is pushed towards a bad-at-everything-role where it becomes a disadvantage for every team to have an elementalist.

Lol what guardians can catch up to an ele? U mad, bro?

When I play ele, not even thieves can catch me. If they can about keep up – I don’t know why coz they don’t have as much access to swiftess, they’d be wasting a lot of value able time better used for assisting/ capping other points.

I WvW instead of sPvP, but I’ve found it really strange how I see Elementalist played in the format, which is why I’m commenting here.

From my experience, the class is now only good at ganging up on people and forcing uneven team fights (3v2, 4v3). Wherever you see a fair fight, your job is to sneak up [as unexpected as is possible doing this in plain sight] and burst a vulnerable target while throwing around some spot heals and condition removals on your offensive carrying class. Sure, my Thief is better at sneaking up on people (1v1, 2v1, 2v2) and destroying them out of stealth, but Thieves blow up fast when they find themselves caught in an AoE pile of Engineer and Necro garbage spam. Thieves also lack the team support to win difficult endurance fights. My Thief just map roams due to not having the sustain to stay on a congested spot.

But whenever I see a stream, I often see Elementalists sitting on a point solo and allowing some better 1v1 class to come to them and totally wreck them. I’ve even seen a few [laughably] stay on a point and think they could hold off 2 people, which is exactly what I use my 80 Guardian for, on top of having amazing leaps and pushbacks for protecting teammates. It’s so strange to see playstyle like this on a class that requires high mobility (i.e. leaving point) to survive. People should be thinking about whether they are really occupying someone properly by dying in 5 seconds, and whether they are being smart about using the base rez to return from far point. I could really only suggest doing something like that if people in sPvP were foolish enough to chase you miles away from objectives like they do in WvW.

So basically, what I’m saying is that the class is weak in every situation that reliably matters in a close 5v5 capture points format (given the more recent nerfs/buffs); and that’s why I just run/protect WvW Dolyaks on mine while I level up and practice better specialization on other class 80s. Inventory swapping is magnitudes more necessary on Elementalist than any other. If you want to be a jack-of-all-trades right: dual-main or tri-main like all the professional gamers do. I’ve studied to be a jack-of-all-trades (polymath) in real life, and this is an intentionally flawed design, due to how overpowered poly-expertise would be in an RPG. Hence, why I recommend having multiple mains. Alternately, any flavor-of-the-months you reroll are putting pressure on those classes to get needed tweaks.

I can’t imagine anyone calling an Elementalist a solo main right now. I can only see people playing nothing but Guardian, nothing but Engineer, and having success with it. ‘Jack-of-all-trades’ really doesn’t mean good at everything; it means good against everything. Ele is really something you just pull out when you are certain your opponent will overspec against you. For the moment, I’m playing Thief to try to enhance my Elementalist combat approach and aggressiveness strategy, up until I can make a more final decision about what my new primary main will become.

QtVain.5803:

Inb4 I get cussed out for not “sharing” what my build is. Here you go:

-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.

And Vain’s alive! Good to see you back again And on EU to boot!
S/D Fresh Air is fun, and the pressure it applies is huge. The weird thing is, that you don’t get targetted too much as ele, which makes it viable.

I switched from Ogre to Lyssa’s today. I like it! thanks for the tip!

@Nuithari.3728

Appreciate it, brother! I’ve been randomly testing builds for the past couple weeks, and this is just the most fun for me. I know ele glyph seems like its on a long CD, but it always seem to work out where it comes up in huge teamfights or when I need it the most!

Rerroll.9083:

Who wins? (use popular builds)

Ele vs ele: – Ele
Ele vs guardian: – dunno, non around to beat lol
Ele vs ranger: – Ranger
Ele vs necro: – Ele
Ele vs thief: – 50/50 (ele if the thief doesn’t have sword / dagger)
Ele vs engineer: – infinite
Ele vs mesmer: – Mesmer (can be a close fight if shatter)
Ele vs warrior: – Ele (some silly builds will win / cause infinite)

I don’t use a popular ele build, I try to adapt to the meta with craziness.

Bud.5617:

Peter Buch.8071:

You mean other than the strongest AoE blasts and AoE KD/Launch and AoE heals? The eles got nothing going for them?

Seriously what other class that you mentioned above can do that?

Guardian has a lot stronger heal and arguably same amount of AoE power. Nekros, Rangers, Warriors and Engineers have more AoE Power (and especially conditions). No idea what you mean with AoE KD. If you are talking about AoE CC, guardians are stronger, warriors are stronger, rangers don’t have hard ccs but a lot of soft ccs, nekro has fear and engineer has extremly strong cc.

Guardians and hammer warriors can’t dump 20k AoE damage from rotating through 34 skills in the space of 4 seconds (counting the attunement themselves and boon/damage they provide plus the elite conjure/whirlwind). Hello…

Not to mention guardians are slow turtles, while eles can travel half a map in seconds and come back for more mayhem.

But yes rangers are over the top, that doesn’t give excuse for Eles to top them up. I think everyone practically agrees the rangers need adjustments. No class, ele included should be balanced against that, or we’d be introducing endless power creep.

Don’t talk more. Everyone’s laughing at you now

TGSlasher.1458:

Rerroll.9083:

Who wins? (use popular builds)

Ele vs ele: – Ele
Ele vs guardian: – dunno, non around to beat lol
Ele vs ranger: – Ranger
Ele vs necro: – Ele
Ele vs thief: – 50/50 (ele if the thief doesn’t have sword / dagger)
Ele vs engineer: – infinite
Ele vs mesmer: – Mesmer (can be a close fight if shatter)
Ele vs warrior: – Ele (some silly builds will win / cause infinite)

I don’t use a popular ele build, I try to adapt to the meta with craziness.

infinite vs engi¿?

share
your
build
naow

Rerroll.9083:

TGSlasher.1458:

Rerroll.9083:

Who wins? (use popular builds)

Ele vs ele: – Ele
Ele vs guardian: – dunno, non around to beat lol
Ele vs ranger: – Ranger
Ele vs necro: – Ele
Ele vs thief: – 50/50 (ele if the thief doesn’t have sword / dagger)
Ele vs engineer: – infinite
Ele vs mesmer: – Mesmer (can be a close fight if shatter)
Ele vs warrior: – Ele (some silly builds will win / cause infinite)

I don’t use a popular ele build, I try to adapt to the meta with craziness.

infinite vs engi¿?

share
your
build
naow

He just needs a focus and a fresh air build to easily beat the engi.Engis are the ones that get spiked the easiest from what ive noticed so far.Necros,engis,and thieves are just heaps harder to kill imo

Avead.5760:

Rerroll.9083:

TGSlasher.1458:

Rerroll.9083:

Who wins? (use popular builds)

Ele vs ele: – Ele
Ele vs guardian: – dunno, non around to beat lol
Ele vs ranger: – Ranger
Ele vs necro: – Ele
Ele vs thief: – 50/50 (ele if the thief doesn’t have sword / dagger)
Ele vs engineer: – infinite
Ele vs mesmer: – Mesmer (can be a close fight if shatter)
Ele vs warrior: – Ele (some silly builds will win / cause infinite)

I don’t use a popular ele build, I try to adapt to the meta with craziness.

infinite vs engi¿?

share
your
build
naow

He just needs a focus and a fresh air build to easily beat the engi.Engis are the ones that get spiked the easiest from what ive noticed so far.Necros,engis,and thieves are just heaps harder to kill imo

dont drink and post X)

Rerroll.9083:

Avead.5760:

Rerroll.9083:

TGSlasher.1458:

Rerroll.9083:

Who wins? (use popular builds)

Ele vs ele: – Ele
Ele vs guardian: – dunno, non around to beat lol
Ele vs ranger: – Ranger
Ele vs necro: – Ele
Ele vs thief: – 50/50 (ele if the thief doesn’t have sword / dagger)
Ele vs engineer: – infinite
Ele vs mesmer: – Mesmer (can be a close fight if shatter)
Ele vs warrior: – Ele (some silly builds will win / cause infinite)

I don’t use a popular ele build, I try to adapt to the meta with craziness.

infinite vs engi¿?

share
your
build
naow

He just needs a focus and a fresh air build to easily beat the engi.Engis are the ones that get spiked the easiest from what ive noticed so far.Necros,engis,and thieves are just heaps harder to kill imo

dont drink and post X)

No im serious !Try it.Fresh air double arcane ,zerkers
Now do air 5 phoenix ,air 2 the 2 arcanes ..Boom engis life in teldos build at 30% if most of them crit(they will crit).Then use air 4 to avoid his range damage while you kite him.Go into water to interrupt or slow him down or whatever..from there its easy peasy.
Now if you cant land a gale on an engi without stunbreaker i dont know what to say :P

Btw how do you know im drunk ??

Avead.5760:

Rerroll.9083:

Avead.5760:

Rerroll.9083:

TGSlasher.1458:

Rerroll.9083:

Who wins? (use popular builds)

Ele vs ele: – Ele
Ele vs guardian: – dunno, non around to beat lol
Ele vs ranger: – Ranger
Ele vs necro: – Ele
Ele vs thief: – 50/50 (ele if the thief doesn’t have sword / dagger)
Ele vs engineer: – infinite
Ele vs mesmer: – Mesmer (can be a close fight if shatter)
Ele vs warrior: – Ele (some silly builds will win / cause infinite)

I don’t use a popular ele build, I try to adapt to the meta with craziness.

infinite vs engi¿?

share
your
build
naow

He just needs a focus and a fresh air build to easily beat the engi.Engis are the ones that get spiked the easiest from what ive noticed so far.Necros,engis,and thieves are just heaps harder to kill imo

dont drink and post X)

No im serious !Try it.Fresh air double arcane ,zerkers
Now do air 5 phoenix ,air 2 the 2 arcanes ..Boom engis life in teldos build at 30% if most of them crit(they will crit).Then use air 4 to avoid his range damage while you kite him.Go into water to interrupt or slow him down or whatever..from there its easy peasy.
Now if you cant land a gale on an engi without stunbreaker i dont know what to say :P

Btw how do you know im drunk ??

you’ll see tomorrow

Avead.5760:

Rerroll.9083:

Avead.5760:

Rerroll.9083:

TGSlasher.1458:

Rerroll.9083:

Who wins? (use popular builds)

Ele vs ele: – Ele
Ele vs guardian: – dunno, non around to beat lol
Ele vs ranger: – Ranger
Ele vs necro: – Ele
Ele vs thief: – 50/50 (ele if the thief doesn’t have sword / dagger)
Ele vs engineer: – infinite
Ele vs mesmer: – Mesmer (can be a close fight if shatter)
Ele vs warrior: – Ele (some silly builds will win / cause infinite)

I don’t use a popular ele build, I try to adapt to the meta with craziness.

infinite vs engi¿?

share
your
build
naow

He just needs a focus and a fresh air build to easily beat the engi.Engis are the ones that get spiked the easiest from what ive noticed so far.Necros,engis,and thieves are just heaps harder to kill imo

dont drink and post X)

No im serious !Try it.Fresh air double arcane ,zerkers
Now do air 5 phoenix ,air 2 the 2 arcanes ..Boom engis life in teldos build at 30% if most of them crit(they will crit).Then use air 4 to avoid his range damage while you kite him.Go into water to interrupt or slow him down or whatever..from there its easy peasy.
Now if you cant land a gale on an engi without stunbreaker i dont know what to say :P

Btw how do you know im drunk ??

S/F only has 2 interrupts (water 5 and Air 5) with the long cds an engie will have invulnerability or stun break always available when you go to setup this attack (unless he runs with less stun breakage)

My current in testing build is already on the forums:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/S-F-Selfish-Aura-of-Protection-Build/first#post2609491

Must be played skill fully or you die.
With this build me and an kit condition engie were in battle for a good 3-5 mins before we both gave up. Personally I like this build, but find it too balanced to beat someone in a straight fight (without landing Dragons Tooth).

It goes into an infinant fight against Engineers and Warriors (banner regen + soldiers, not a top build, but notable).

S/F has “more” interrupts than S/d cuase water 5 is on 25 sec cd.
Look..its not my fault he cant see that the weapon hard counters engis.I mean it doesnt take a genius to figure out that you can have 13 sec of immunity against anything they do plus you got your blinds ..Now pair that with the high single target dps fresh air provids you and their low natural survivability(phoenix is unblockable btw) ..
And NO engi runs with stunbreaker.If they do they ll lose a lot of dps or control,and of course no selfrezz..

I checked your build.The only problem i have is that with focus i feel i do no damage unless i build very offencively and go for fresh air plus protection is kind of worthless in this current meta.So far only power spec i faced is S/D thieves and you dont want to have long protection on you cause they will steal it.But it might work in a non cond meta

I remember the days when people scream D/D Ele being OP.
Now that necro and thieves are buffed to this extent…I wish Ele wasn’t nerfed.

As a necro main, I am confident while my skills have not progressed that much, my scores and kills against eles have absolutely increased.

I would actually support bringing elementalist to its old OP D/D state, just to see if this can bring the class back to competitive PvP. Currently, there’s just too many thieves spamming around

@ Cmc
Personally, my only concern is that D/D forces you to play into the cleave. For example, spirit rangers have a heavy amount of burst once the active is pressed. Once you cleave those spirits down (and you will with D/D) it becomes another liability that you will be within range of the spirit burst again. It’s not as simple as saying “dodge roll after burning speed” because you still have to final out with the animation, essentially forcing you to eat the damage. Any spirit ranger who has time behind the class understands that an ele using burning speed is easy access for burst. So, essentially if he uses his actives, then you kill those spirits, it will act as a double proc.

As for S/D thieves, the only true defense you have against them is shocking aura. Again, a seasoned thief knows that when you pop shocking, it’s time for him to reset and wait it out. The boons you have are now literally being granted to that thief for free. He will simply steal all the boons you got and keep up tons of pressure on you. You have approx 1/4 second after Flanking Strike to finish it’s animation to attack that thief. And, from my experience with D/D you can’t put out enough pressure to scare that thief off. Unless you run around attempting to Lightning Whip him, your only opportunity is to attempt to kite.

And finally, necros… It seems that you have attempted to create a build that essentially harasses and counters necros, and D/D is the perfect weapon set for that task. BUT, here is the problem… Necros crumble from continuous pressure, and as a matter of fact, the playstyle of a necro is to kite, and find openings. The huge issue I see with the build is Ether Renewal. While it is a fantastic heal, the channel and length of it ends up turning your pressure around on you. It gives necros free openings because of the lack of dodging, or mitigating you can actively do. Instead, it forces you to run around kitten ing and asking to be eaten alive. Along with that, Ether Renewals biggest counter is power damage. If you start running against any player with spike, it becomes an issue.

D/D is fun, it truly is. I played it for MONTHS and I do believe I contributed to it becoming popular. But as for now, you aren’t capable of running it. In a condi cleave meta, where ele’s are being eaten alive, you begin to suffer from being within that cleave. Running Soldiers gives you some room for error, but eles primarily benefit from TOUGHNESS because of the heals we have at our disposal. Counting on Ether Renewal to get the job done is too much of a liability.

Unfortunately, ele’s are pigeon-holed into running spike builds that focus on putting out so much pressure, that the other player can’t do anything at all. We fill one role, defensive roamer. And to be quite frank, other classes fill that role better as of right now. If you spec condi clear, you begin to lose too much damage sadly.

Imo, just man-mode on Berserker Ammy for awhile. If you can start learning to survive, as well as put damage out, you start to learn how to play ele at the next level. Your personal situational awareness, map awareness, team fight presence, and general mechanics jump up ten fold.

This wasn’t meant to take a dump on your build, more-so about pointing out some apparent flaws.

QtVain.5803:

@ Cmc

I agree with a lot of what you said here. I hope I didn’t come across as saying “THIS IS THE PERFECT ELE BUILD NEW META!!!” I was hoping to provide something that I have had success with recently in solo and team queues to show that ele is not completely useless. I do agree that ele is outclassed in whatever roles we can fill, but someone who is a strong ele player and has less experience on other classes would probably have more success playing ele in the short run.

As for the flaws you pointed out:
Spirit Ranger is definitely a menace, and I don’t really have a good plan against them (obviously not ideal in this meta). It’s so difficult to fight them in melee range without something like berserker stance, so I will almost never engage a spirit ranger one on one.

S/D thief is always going to be a tough fight for D/D ele, but it’s certainly not unwinnable. It seems like a fairly skill-intensive matchup that is heavily favored for the other side.

Finally as you say Ether Renewal gives necros a nice window without any pressure on them, but I found Cleansing Fire+water cleanses not being enough condi removal. If I get melted by their condis I apply even less pressure as I lay on the ground.

On amulet choice: I have tried berserker amulet with D/D many times, but it’s extremely difficult to mitigate anything on top of the natural cleave damage taken in melee range. It does seem very good for S/D. Looking at valkyrie amulet next, the combination of toughness and healing power is great, but it doesn’t help our tiny health pool and is highly vulnerable to all of the condis. In the current meta I have found soldier amulet necessary to feel comfortable while keeping high power. There is a slight damage loss compared to valkyrie (~3-4%), but the extra 5.7k health is a huge boon.

I appreciate the input. There are certainly some flaws, but I think that the build is “viable” in the sense that you can win with it even though it may be outclassed on all fronts.

Lot of feedback here, i hope someone in anet reads it

Rerroll.9083:

Lot of feedback here, i hope someone in anet reads it

And do what??It took warriors a whole year to go out of the kitten hole..Why do you think anet will be any faster with ele
And unfortunately this time it doesnt seem like an l2p issue like it was at launch when general opinion was that ele was weak but in reality it was strong as kitten with a specific trait setup.This time things are on a whole new power level..

I like the zerker gear still. Can’t go wrong with jumping in, cycling through 20 skills and getting out.

I didn’t find the other gears effective at all. Too little damage and I felt like I wasn’t contributing.

Anyone picking anything other than zerker is just gimping themselves. Eles don’t have a lot of sustain (low armor and long recharge time). Your best bet is to hit and run. So you wanna make sure you hit as hard as you can when you do. When you run, you won’t get plinked, so all those points in defense will just be wasted.

I also find air is the trait to max out these days. Make sure you’re fluent with your KD + AOE combos. I find that I can simultaneously drop the squishier professions (thiefs, eles, mes) in one bombing run, if they’re caught in the KD, AoE chains. Just be sure to show up late and leave early (who doesn’t like that).

I think the class is working as intended. You think you’re good? Put your money where your mouth is and run all zerkers. If your reflexes are good, you’ll contribute much and stay alive. If you suck, roll spirit rangers :P

Bud.5617:

I like the zerker gear still. Can’t go wrong with jumping in, cycling through 20 skills and getting out.

…I think the class is working as intended. You think you’re good? Put your money where your mouth is and run all zerkers. If your reflexes are good, you’ll contribute much and stay alive. If you suck, roll spirit rangers :P

But if your role it to only hit and run, you might as well just play thief, who can do it way better and more reliably. If you can’t have any survivability, what good is our “versatility”?

The design is just messed up right now. Ele has poor innate toughness/health, and low damage on the whole. The only thing going for it right now are chained instant-cast skills, which are pretty gimmicky. We either need real versatility (being forced to constantly cycle to keep up with other classes’s regular output just kills that), or skills that are more effective for their cooldowns.

Rerroll.9083:

Who wins? (use popular builds)

Ele vs ele: ELE
Ele vs guardian: NONE (cant be killed by ele)
Ele vs ranger: RANGER (cant be killed by ele)
Ele vs necro: NECRO (ele dies like a fly)
Ele vs thief: 50/50 (vigor gg) thief could always disengage
Ele vs engineer: ENGI (cant clean through condis, killing takes very long)
Ele vs mesmer: 50/50
Ele vs warrior: Warrior (cant kill warrior)

BlackBeard.2873:

Bud.5617:

I like the zerker gear still. Can’t go wrong with jumping in, cycling through 20 skills and getting out.

…I think the class is working as intended. You think you’re good? Put your money where your mouth is and run all zerkers. If your reflexes are good, you’ll contribute much and stay alive. If you suck, roll spirit rangers :P

But if your role it to only hit and run, you might as well just play thief, who can do it way better and more reliably. If you can’t have any survivability, what good is our “versatility”?

The design is just messed up right now. Ele has poor innate toughness/health, and low damage on the whole. The only thing going for it right now are chained instant-cast skills, which are pretty gimmicky. We either need real versatility (being forced to constantly cycle to keep up with other classes’s regular output just kills that), or skills that are more effective for their cooldowns.

I don’t think thief does it any better. Mist form is a much more reliable getaway skill than shadow refuge. And especially when your health bar is low. Running away as a thief is always a 50/50 affair.

Ele is also much better able to recoup any health loss than a thief can. I play both so I know. The healing helps you to survive while escaping.

Ele also has access to permanent swiftness, thieves don’t. Again much more mobility, a lot more capable of escaping.

Thief has very poor CC, Eles are so much better at it and its AoE to boot.

Switching attune is actually part of the fun. Having low health/armor is also part of the fun. Between the 2 I have to say the thief is far squishier than the ele and is less able to escape when the going gets rough. The best time for a thief to escape is when health is greater than 50%. Beyond that their chance of survival goes down exponentially, no small thanks to a buggy trait that puts revealed debuff when they reach 25%. An ele however can keep going to the last 10% and still escape relatively unharmed and heal up to 100% in just seconds.

Bud, i really wonder if we play the same game. A thief just presses no.2 and teleports out of line of sight while stunned. Every dodgeroll grants swiftnes while he can teleport without cooldown on shortbow 5. Thiefs have higher swiftness uptime then eles and can spam evades like mad. They have way more surviveability than ele, while being able to fight in the enemy backline, preventing save stomps with shadowrefuge and have an instant heal that also evades and procs lyssa very frequently.

Ele is not dead. It is in face still a very strong class. The problem is that too many people joined the ele bandwagon when it was completely OP and now do not know how to adapt.

I saw the topic of this and no you sir is just wrong… Especially in team fights who doesn’t want an elementalist on their team for those area combo fields. First tip for you: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo
please take the time to learn this! not to mention that my cleric elementalist can gain full health in 2seconds. Why must so many of you focus on seeing big numbers then complain when you die cause another class does big numbers?

style.6173:

Ele is not dead. It is in face still a very strong class. The problem is that too many people joined the ele bandwagon when it was completely OP and now do not know how to adapt.

Reminds me of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-NFg8_irL4

Skip to 5 mins to get the point after seeing the guy whine about being nerfed

lol just remembered part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq_yr1YLNlU

I dont get it..Dont they have testers to give them feedback on ele?
So im at backline trying to dish damage,being usefull without melting and that necro decides to fear mark me and then chill with mark and ds 2 proccing burn,bleeds,torment and all that kitten.And god the chill… It kittening slows down attunement recharge so no water for me which means i cant remove any of these kitten..
So there i am sitting like a duck while watching my life going from almost full to zero..longest 5 seec of my life And then our guard is like "stop dying noob ele " :O
You go valks and necros,sp rangers kitten on you,you go zerkers and thieves farm you(although if i play extremely well i think i have a good chance against them in theory..)..You go double arcanes?? Gj you might instagib one..But they ll rezz him and one of your teammates will go down.Good luck trying you to rezz him !
Did i mention how updraft wont stop the spirit rezz?? kitten ..

ps: Dont bring an ele in the <200lb…For your own sanity more so than pleasing your future teammates who logically want to win. You might kill the 10 min necro or thief if you los like a kitten and play perfectly but that wont be the case when you face serious players. Its sad

Short story : Pls Anet theres something really really off with ele atm.I dont know if the numbers show it but the feel of the class is crap…definately feels like big pile of kitten

DiogoSilva.7089:

Design flop? I’d say that the elementalist is one of the most well designed classes in this game

agree 100%.

The problem is that v. simple to play 2-3 button classes/builds are so effective right now. On the OP builds you dont care agains who you play or what your enemy do - you just do your "ultimate strategy" and win or draw. Ofc your opponent knows your strategy, REACTS to it 100% correctly and still have 0 chances to win - THIS IS THE PROBLEM. Making ele another brain dead 2 button "I dont care agains who I play" profesion will ruin the game more.