Guild Wars 2

I’m playing a dagger/dagger W/E/T ele, so not the meta build. I guess I’ll start with a description of a game I felt I made a difference on and you tell me where I’m doing it right and where I need to improve?

I was playing on “Revenge of the Capricorn” this morning. I rushed the mid point and engaged the enemy there. When the bell rang and the 4th capture point appeared, I rushed it with my team and so did the enemy. My team lost badly and the enemy rang the bell.

When the next bell came around, I was engaged on the mid point in a 1v3. So rather than bring 3 enemy players to the party with me, I decided to stay mid and see if they’d continue trying to kill me. They did and my team rang the bell this time.

We ended up winning a close match with the enemy team well above 400 points. I only managed 2 kills, and 1 death, yet I topped damage and healing for my team with over 500k damage and nearly 400k healing.

My observations:

Great damage/healing numbers, but the damage was obviously ineffective at killing enemies and the healing was mostly just keeping myself alive against heavy sustained damage. I didn’t capture the point very often as I was pretty much always outnumbered. I did manage to pull off plenty of decaps for varying lengths of time, however.

You don’t need to be too intent on holding points. Rotations are role dependent and I’m not the best at it, but know that dying on a capped point stalling for 10 seconds is earned back by the enemy when they kill you for the same value, 5 points. Survive and rotate out.

Supposing you are acting like a D/F Mender Ele, you want outnumbered fights, which you did in that game. By getting outnumbered on your node, you ensure your team outnumbers the enemy elsewhere. 1v2 and hold a node you own as long as you can, but give up the cap if you need to kite, don’t die on it. Stall as much as you can while the 2 try to kill you.

You don’t want to actively go for decaps, as compared to many meta setups, you are slow, and your presence in a fight is more crucial. Go for it if you need to fall back after losing a teamfight (after the first Stomp by enemy) and you’re the only one able to do it, with the intention that you will get outnumbered soon. Otherwise, quick decaps should be left to other classes like Thief and Mes.

Your main role though is to support your team in big fights. It doesn’t mean rushing headlong into the fight and getting focused and blowing all your CDs. It means you try to heal your bruisers and DPSers, give them sustain by spamming your auras, setup CCs for them to kill focus targets, and try to survive so you can do the stomps.

Edit:

As you are basically a meta Ele with no Focus offhand, you won’t have the high projectile shutdown, ranged CC and your lifeline Obsidian Flesh. That means enemy can consider your clutch invuln always on CD and pressure you for free. Dragonhunters and LB Druid will be more dangerous since they can range you down, and you will have to worry about Daredevil with Pulmonary Impact spamming Headshot. However if you stick to small fights and use the burst from Dagger offhand to pressure people, it could probably work; just make sure you can land them in intense fights. You might have to build for Cantrips instead of Shouts for the breathing room so you can kite. Remember your Earth 2 is a short projectile block. If you aim well, Updraft into Magnetic Grasp can get you a clutch decap in 1v1. If you can manage the full channel, Overload Air is a great pressure tool. Since you lack the projectile block from Focus, you might have to LoS cast then Lighting Flash onto the point…

Thanks for the response!

So, keeping more than one enemy player tied up fighting me is useful, as long as I’m not giving easy points to the other team by dying in the process. In the above example I only died once, while distracting multiple opponents for most of the match. Success!

Perhaps I’m not using the term correctly, but when I referred to multiple “decaps” it was in the context of fighting outnumbered on the point, not running for uncovered points. So, for example, luring/knocking enemies off point to contest it and then trying to remain on the point to prevent a recap.

Where I am failing, it seems, is my primary role as team support. I’m simply not set up for it. Dagger off-hand is much more focused on mobility, CC, and offensive burst. So I compensate for the lost defense in my utilities, which sacrifices those handy shouts that make up the bulk of ele team support.

I’m not opposed to the meta, but I love dagger/dagger and fighting outnumbered with this setup. It’s a lot of fun and I feel (and your feedback confirms) that I can be useful doing so. But the meta is the meta for a reason. Am I hurting my team this way, assuming I don’t die and succeed at running distraction and preventing enemy points wherever I can? Is there room for d/d ele here?

This is the setup I currently run, so you can get an idea of where I differ from the D/F auramancer meta.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAoYnMMA9MgVOAOYCsSglNAz9u+XPsDNgAQBkYFkBGBA-TJxHABA8AAkvMA77Po8JAAA

Meta builds are run by top players in competitive teams. Commonly for us solo queuers you won’t be able to get the most out of these builds, especially support, because players tend to be rather selfish playing solo, understandably.

As a D/F Mender Ele, you will rarely kill anything on your own, and relying on your teammates is a huge gamble. I am a very ordinary player who solo queued as Power Reaper, and as a very support dependent DPSer, I am reminded of my blind run through Dark Souls. What that did do for me was improving my map awareness and approaching Necro as a class 80% dedicated to jump puzzles (I’m not joking).

What that terrible humour was supposed to mean is that, in a solo queue environment, building for self-reliance defensively and offensively is the best way to go (until the highest levels). You should also run something you’re good at unless it just doesn’t work. If you’re handling everything well using D/D and you have a majority of good matchups against what people commonly run, go for it! We have a Core Necro in Legendary, so anything is possible if you know what you’re doing.

D/D for me would fulfil a role very much like Mender Druid – you will want to play side nodes and attempt to bait 2v1s, acting as a support bruiser in teamfights briefly if need be (the counter to you is to ignore side node, in that case don’t try to full cap far with no one chasing you!!). If you’re doing it right, your team will have a fantastic time 4v3ing all over the map. When the enemy respawn tries to push you with a 3v1 or something, you can decide: kite it out like a god and waste 3 people’s time (I believe in you), or if you were paying attention to map, prep your escape.

Sometimes you get teammates that try to uh, “help”. Just tell them not to +1 you unless they are bringing the fight to your node (in that case spam your CCs & yell at them to spike as hard as they can).

What D/D Ele does very well is stack might. Land those tasty 8k Fire Grabs and you can control 2v1’s somewhat; unlike D/F you might even kill things. Be careful of Boon Corrupt and Steals because they do take a lot of your sustain away. Don’t be ashamed to LoS if 2+ are still chasing you and they are getting the cap – it’s fine, you’re still wasting a lot of their time and killing their momentum in the map.

This is fresh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKCJ6GqDSw0

Thanks again for the reply.

Fun video, too. I use a different build than the ele in the video, but the use of line of sight is one of my favorite tricks. Run behind an object, heal to full, re-engage on the point. Rinse and repeat! I think it puts enemy players in a tough spot because if they follow, I’ll just CC and neutralize the point again. If they don’t, I’m back in their faces a moment later with full health.

So basically, if I can draw 2 or more players into a fight I think I can sustain for awhile and escape from once the heat gets to be too much, that’s what I’m going for in terms of the d/d ele role in PvP.

That’s encouraging, because unless my team is getting totally steamrolled, that seems to be where I find myself most games – 1v2+ harassing the enemy team until they want blood so bad they’ll gladly lose the match trying to take it! All the better if the pressure becomes too great and I’m still able to walk away from it.

Don’t get me wrong. I love PvP healing. But I basically see it the same way you described it: If I’m solo queuing most of the time and I’m not at a high level of play, I’m better off being a bit more selfish. Who knows but you sacrifice yourself or your more effective team role to save some guy who proceeds to run around pushing 1 and dies repeatedly!

I will definitely pick up D/F auramancer if I get into more organized team play and D/D becomes lackluster. But for now, I’m having a blast and your post makes me feel a lot more optimistic about my ability to continue using the build I enjoy.