Guild Wars 2

I personally think the only thing holding S/F eles back is there lack of boon strip, and their inability to keep up with thieves mobility. They are also very suceptible to focus fire due to their lack of disengage, but if played correctly with LOS and kiting you can work around this. (Especially since I run one with air). I honestly think giving them some sort of boon strip would once again make them viable; giving them more mobility is a really tough subject because I have no idea how you would make that fair. I’m going to go ahead and list Pros and Cons of the class. I also want to hear y’alls opinion on the viability of S/F Eles, please don’t cause problems, I just want to discuss.
Pros:
- Can go head to head with cele rifle engis
- Can pretty effectively shut down a necro
- Provides stomp and pretty good cleave
- Can 1 shot someone out of nowhere instantly turning the tides of a fight.
- Can 1v1 almost any class except for Cele D/D
- Very good sustain for a zerker
- Amount of blinds

Cons:
- Very susceptible to focus fire due to their lack of a disengage.(Can be avoided)
- Lack of mobility
- Lack of boon strip
- Having to go 6 points into air as a requirement only leaves you 8 points to spend, and 4 of those HAVE to go into Arcane because you need the boons when attuning to your various attunements. (Mostly for protection in earth) So that leaves you with 4 points that inevitably have to go into water.
- How hard we get countered by D/D eles in this meta is bad

• So, just one suggestion other than the ones I said above. I know they moved Elemental Attunment to a master tier in a previous patch awhile ago but now that that’s been done it just removes the possibility for build variety. Those are 4 crucial points that we HAVE to put into arcane and I think builds would be a lot more flexible if it was an adept trait. It’s not like that would make D/D any stronger too, all D/D eles go 30 into arcane anyway it would just potentially allow other builds to possibly make root. I don’t really remember the reasoning behind moving that to a Master trait.

• I don’t think D/D ele’s need any boon strip, so to avoid them being able to take this as well how about we make some sort of boon strip take the place of the 5 minor slot in Air. Having a minor trait being boon strip does sound kind of OP but the 5 minor trait is just so useless haha.

• Giving them more mobility is probably not the best idea.

There was a suggestion in this forum about buffing the current boon strip sigil (to not require a crit, and to prioritize certain buffs like might).

Even though D/D eles (and every class/spec) would have access to it, they would have to give up their current Battle, Doom, or Energy sigil to get it. That feels like a fair trade-off.

In my experience, what you’ve described is an excellent dueling and ganking build. In fact, you’ve described what I solo roam with on my elementalist in WubWub.

However, PvP is only loosely about getting ganks, the primary focus is point control, which is why Celestial D/D eles have an advantage over you. I’ve fought a fair number of cele eles while roaming and all i can really say is that there’s a big difference when there’s no point to stand on. For the same reasons hambow is not really in the the wvw roaming meta.

FGS should give you what you need in terms of mobility to GTFO. I’m not really sure what else you would want or need to make it a viable DPS and gank in PVP

Increse a little the cooldown of focus fire 4 and make it “burn” (=remove) some boom from who cross it
Make focus water 4 work like burning retreat leaving an ice field instead a fire field
Rework focus fire 5 for do something… Now its only a istant 300hp. “Burn” a boon every sec for each attacker could be too much strong?
Totaly rework water scepter 2… It is the most useless skill in game
Then decrase the duration on obsidian flesh to 3 or 2 second

Or at least increase the “One with air” trait duration so we can lose some damge from “bolt to the earth” to have more mobility

Bitty.1409:

I just want to discuss.
Pros:
- Can 1v1 almost any class except for Cele D/D

Do you think this is what pvp needs? A class that destroy everything in 1vs1?
A d/d cele ele can 1v1 almost any class. So why do we need a second build doing this?

Lupanic.6502:

Do you think this is what pvp needs? A class that destroy everything in 1vs1?
A d/d cele ele can 1v1 almost any class. So why do we need a second build doing this?

When I say that I can 1v1 any class, it doesn’t mean I have the advantage. I just have the potential too through outplaying mechanisms. That’s my main attraction to Fresh air is that I have so many option for combos that it can really show off your knowledge and skill of the class.

Hamster.4861:

However, PvP is only loosely about getting ganks, the primary focus is point control, which is why Celestial D/D eles have an advantage over you. I’ve fought a fair number of cele eles while roaming and all i can really say is that there’s a big difference when there’s no point to stand on. For the same reasons hambow is not really in the the wvw roaming meta.

FGS should give you what you need in terms of mobility to GTFO. I’m not really sure what else you would want or need to make it a viable DPS and gank in PVP

The reason why S/F ele isn’t viable is because thieves and Mesmers just do a much better job in that place. Thieves have more roam ability offering fast +1’s while having boon strip and high burst, while mesmers have a crazy amount of boon strip and potential burst with some good mobility. All that S/F has is really high burst dmg, and decent mobility, with no boon strip (Boon strip imo is really important in this meta for the zerkers to have).

So use a Sigil of Nullification. There’s opportunity costs to all builds.

Eles don’t need boon strips because Scepter builds.

Ugh, Sigil of nullification is horrid lol. I should have said that in my post i guess.

Doesn’t matter. You already have the choice to have a boonstrip or not, and the thief boonstrip is not the best boon strip in the world. Two boons stripped every 21.5 seconds provided someone doesn’t random dodge your steal. Only thing that makes it better than sigil of nullification is you rip stab and one more boon.

The game shouldn’t be balanced for roaming builds or one shot builds. Scepter eles already have the highest burst or close to it in the game. Buffing them higher is just lol.

Focus fire 5 could use some rework, maybe add a boon stripping skill (ele is the jack of all trades according to anet, so ele should get a boon stripping skill right? right? right?). I don’t think s/f ele needs more mobility, since they already have quite amt of cc and defensive skills, unless ofc you want this class to be broken.

if you want S/F do be on pair with thief and mesmer in turns of roamer

1st, you need to shave its damage
2nd, shave utility for boon removal.

Simon.3794:

if you want S/F do be on pair with thief and mesmer in turns of roamer

1st, you need to shave its damage
2nd, shave utility for boon removal.

OK remove some damage from dragon thoot and take my arcane blast. But give me some mobility OR a boon removal

Obviously I don’t want it to be OP, and I do agree with some of the changes that I offered damage shaving would be required. Don’t I’m doing all this to make it OP, I’m simply saying what adjustments i’d like to see. I realize that if I am given two choco chip cookies, I will have to offer up some of my oreos.

lucadiro.4519:

Simon.3794:

if you want S/F do be on pair with thief and mesmer in turns of roamer

1st, you need to shave its damage
2nd, shave utility for boon removal.

OK remove some damage from dragon thoot and take my arcane blast. But give me some mobility OR a boon removal

you miss read, it’s utility+damage nerf for boon rip.

but no mobility because mobility belongs to S/D

I can take thieves just fine

I’m not asking for better dueling mechanics against other zerkers

Bitty.1409:

I can take thieves just fine

Thats because you’re fighting trash thieves. There’s a reason why zoose stopped using S/F.

No, I don’t fight trash thieves lol. Ask any thief if they have trouble killing me