After the patch...
Absolutely. Some of the following builds have potential:
D/D bruiser builds with stone heart and might stacking (maybe using celestial, valks, knights, or cavs)
Staff bunker builds with cleansing water (0/0/20/30/20)
Staff zerker buids with lightning rod (maybe even take earth shield for some more dps/survivability)
Perhaps some s/f side-point build with 30 earth or water (0/30/30/0/10 or 0/30/0/30/10)
Rune options and extra sigils will also affect builds significantly.
You don’t think they’ll just die and be liabilities like they are now in roaming and spvp?
The only time I’ve felt like a liability is in solo q. Thieves will still kill you easy. Engis will be possible to kill now with proper cc. Warriors will lose allot of dps. Necros lose burn. Is that enough? It will depend on how the new traits and sigil rune update changes the meta.
Bad Elementalist
You don’t think they’ll just die and be liabilities like they are now in roaming and spvp?
Hey there now. I win most of my 1v1 fights while roaming in wvw. only a few builds for certain classes offer trouble ( thief and warrior dps cheese). On pvp i cant say but with the upcoming buffs (especially for DD) i think ele will be in a much better place.
Guild Leader of Rebel Dps [ReD]
~Glitch
~Glitch
Yeah but when you roam it’s like 99% thieves with semi-cheese builds :P
If you want to fight thieves, stone-heart will give us a chance when combined with intelligent play in a d/d bruiser build, or maybe s/d. S/D has less of a chance, as it doesn’t have great damage without fresh air, although maybe sigil of air procs will make up for it.
Also, being viable in pvp isn’t all about being effective in 1v1’s – far from it. Ele is best when it has a combination of support/control or support/dps. Zerk staff ele can absolutely wreck a team when played well, and has some tricks for staying alive to get help about those thieves on your jock.
Stoneheart scales incredibely well against high presicion crit damage builds which are what thieves run.It would be like having protection on steroids on top of protection and perhaps weakness. I think it ll take a bit of learning process to learn when to go defensive ,how long and when to go offensive so you can actually put pressure.. but i think we ll be fine :P