Guild Wars 2

are we already that forgotten, people just forgotten us? anet could delete our profession and nobody would notice

Yes, yes, poor Eles. We get it.

Fact is, elementalists are fine. It’s the player, not the class.

I actually met a glass cannon Ele the other day. Interesting kitten when you dont have a stun breaker with you, an Ele charges in and stun locks you and blows you up. First time I saw that actually. o.o

Eles don’t duel as well as other professions, and I think that leads to the opinion that they are lackluster. They need some changes, especially under dagger/dagger, but it’s not nearly as bad as it looks. They can absolutely excel in a 2v2 environment.

Ele are the 2nd best bunker prof in the game, imo.

Pair them with anyone else on a point and that point will NEVER be overturned unless the entire enemy team shows up (in which case they’ll lose the rest of the map).

Ayestes.1273:

Eles don’t duel as well as other professions, and I think that leads to the opinion that they are lackluster. They need some changes, especially under dagger/dagger, but it’s not nearly as bad as it looks. They can absolutely excel in a 2v2 environment.

D/D is incredible burst and mobility.

Fantom.9217:

Ele are the 2nd best bunker prof in the game, imo.

Pair them with anyone else on a point and that point will NEVER be overturned unless the entire enemy team shows up (in which case they’ll lose the rest of the map).

I’d actually argue they are the best bunker prof in the game. No other bunker offers the same supportive capabilities.

Irascible.8210:

Ayestes.1273:

Eles don’t duel as well as other professions, and I think that leads to the opinion that they are lackluster. They need some changes, especially under dagger/dagger, but it’s not nearly as bad as it looks. They can absolutely excel in a 2v2 environment.

D/D is incredible burst and mobility.

Also very very very very fragile unless built highly specifically. I’ve yet to find a d/d build I’ve been satisfied with. Especially against thieves.

Kalar Meadia.8439:

Irascible.8210:

Ayestes.1273:

Eles don’t duel as well as other professions, and I think that leads to the opinion that they are lackluster. They need some changes, especially under dagger/dagger, but it’s not nearly as bad as it looks. They can absolutely excel in a 2v2 environment.

D/D is incredible burst and mobility.

Also very very very very fragile unless built highly specifically. I’ve yet to find a d/d build I’ve been satisfied with. Especially against thieves.

Pretty much have to rely on the mobility and CC to stay alive.

“Also very very very very fragile unless built highly specifically. I’ve yet to find a d/d build I’ve been satisfied with. Especially against thieves.”

Try this build

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/cantrip-aura-cantrip-aura-7577.html
use 2 monk 2 water 2 earth for the extra boon duration

You have 0 toughness but you get 9 seconds of protection every time you go earth attune.

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

“Also very very very very fragile unless built highly specifically. I’ve yet to find a d/d build I’ve been satisfied with. Especially against thieves.”

Try this build

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/cantrip-aura-cantrip-aura-7577.html
use 2 monk 2 water 2 earth for the extra boon duration

You have 0 toughness but you get 9 seconds of protection every time you go earth attune.

This build is good but you sacrifice all damage.

Anyone saying “elementalist blows them up” is clearly not using a stun breaker, which is arguably a much larger mistake when faced with thieves and warriors. Our burst is not as high and not as spammable. That’s not conjecture, it’s fact. We can achieve high burst, but the required skills are very predictable, very easy to avoid and go on very long cooldowns.

And there in lies the quintessential problem with builds right now: In the current sPvP meta, elementalists are so dependent on survivability to become an impact that it subverts all offensive potential in the profession.

I’m thinking about taking this method and changing the approach to condition damage, as a lot of dagger skills provide burns and bleeds.

etherfreeze.6834:

This build is good but you sacrifice all damage.

How exactly do you get more damage though? Evasive arcana is 12 stacks of might + 9 from battle sigil + at least 1 from fire attune + 3 from churning earth blast finisisher=25 stacks. This is a chore to pull off, though with sigil of strength on offhand plus 2 hoelbrak runes for + 20 might duration(+80% total) 20 stacks should just happen naturally.

25 points in water gives +2 percent for each boon. This build gives 100% uptime on fury, might, swiftness, vigor, and regen for +10% damage increase.

If possible I’d like to see a variation of this build that does more damage without sacrificing so much survivability as to make it worthless versus other glass cannons.

Yeah i too feel this is an issue, i love the elementalist class, but its pigeoned into the bunker support role, it may just be the current meta or the fact that the game revolves around capturing and holding points, but i cant see elementalist builds changing any time soon w/o major changes to the way the class is built at the root statistics.

“elementalists are so dependent on survivability to become an impact that it subverts all offensive potential in the profession.”

I don’t agree with this statement at all. Elementalists have A LOT of utility, making good use of that is what separates a good player from a great player. When I play roaming ele, I only use a single stun breaker because that’s all I actually need. You can play aggresive and come out on top as long as you pick and choose your battles wisely (aka, don’t DG MH fire#3 into 3 enemies)

I do have to admit that even though eles possess this utility, they should be capable of providing a bit more burst (It should be on par with thief burst imo). As it takes 2 full combo rotations (Almost a minute with CDs?) to do what a theif can do it literally 20 seconds or less. Otherwise we could use a few more long ranged weapon sets.

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

If possible I’d like to see a variation of this build that does more damage without sacrificing so much survivability as to make it worthless versus other glass cannons.

Drop 10 points out of Arcane, put them into Air and get Bolt to the Heart. Also swap Final Shielding for Renewing Stamina.Swap Amulet for full Berzerkers. Swap that crappy sigil of superior accuracy for minor accuracy (+14% crit at max stacks, needs only 10 stacks (2 kills) to pretty much equal the superior version). Run Runes of the Fire instead of your mix/match versions for the free Fire Aura every 90s and free Might stacks when you get hit. (the boons don’t need to last forever, they just need to be up in combat).

Drop Cleansing Fire for Mist Form (more for flagging/ressing/ohshizzle moments). Swap Signet of Resto for Ether Renewal, which takes a bit of getting used to, but it’s basically 4 seconds of condition immunity if you do the full channel, and makes up for the loss of Cleansing Fire, plus the shorter cooldown results in more healing over time than the other options.

More crit and crit damage, much more base power, 25% more damage to people below 25% health (lol 7.2k churning earth finishers), at the cost of about 5k health and a bit lower boon duration (which the fire runes partially compensate for, and your killing speed partially compensates for).

To be fair, there’s probably not that much between the 2. I haven’t tested your multi-rune setup in place of my Fire runes, but I can survive most things reasonably well with 17k hp and proper cd management.

edit: Oh, and use the Glyph of Elementals instead of Tornado, because while a big bunch of stability is nice, it’s not worth the elite slot cost IMO. At least the elemental is going to supplement your damage and/or distract fire.

I took some of your advice and switched up my spec a little. I took 15 out of water though to put into air for bolt of heart.

I won’t really get into the specifics, but doing a lot more damage now. Thanks for the advice.