Guild Wars 2

I’ve played MMOs before but not for a couple years. For the last year and a half I’ve been playing MOBAs and needed a break from that style of PVP. Having loved original Guild Wars I decided to give GW2 a try.

So the point of this thread is to ask about Eles mainly in PvP and WvW, as well as leveling. Most of the information I can find on builds is from when Eles were getting nerfed every patch sometime around a year-year and a half ago. There’s current youtube videos available but those don’t come with the best discussion.

D/D Ele looks extraordinarily fun, but the only guide I can find is here. This is a glass cannon guide, but the only way I’ve seen D/D described was as a bunker which I understand is a tanky role to hold capture points. Is it viable to build D/D glass cannon or should I not bother?

What other Ele builds are strong in PvP and WvW? Judging by the current popular threads, they seem to be rather weak as a whole in everything but wvw zerg situations, but there are some posts claiming its just skill cap issues.

Thanks for the help!

Pvp meta: eles are bottom of the chain.
Learning rotations in pvp is crucial. Roles in meta are better down by other proffesions. If ur playing for fun i use s/d alot in pvp. Staff is okay and is good for holdin points. D/d will always be decent in any situation. The most common d/d build is 0/0/0/30/30 with 10 pts in x. Usually 10 in air or earth. If earth they usually take splinterd stones. If air usually thry take bolt to te heart. Im not saying eles are bad in pvp, there are other proffesions that do the roles better is all.

Wvw u can split in to smallgroup-roaming-zerginf. Most common in small group varies with group. Roaming ull usaully see d/d or s/d. Zerg, 90% of the time ull see staff.

Glass ele is not good as other glass proffesions. Imo i hate glass ele although a glass staff ele can hit 20k meteors with tornado which i think is getting nerfed soon.

Ele has a high skill cap just behind engi and right next to a GOOD non HS spamming thief. This is due because of the combos of the four attunements. If you learn to use a good rotation its hard to break away from it but not 1 rotation of attuenmets are good for all situations.

Common/ notable builds.
D/d:
0/0/10/30/30 evasive arcane varient
0/10/0/30/30 evasive arcane varient

S/d:
10/20/30/10 -burst
0/30/0/10/30 fr-esh air
0/10/10/20/30 vuln lightning hammer.

I dont play much staff so yea.. Gl

Also youll always see complaints that eles need buffs and in som degree i do agree but i understand that it is hard to buff a class that ha four different skill sets at one time. The best thig they could do is maybe reduce cds and make missing a move less punishing. Buffs and nerfs come and go good players either re roll warrior or adapt and over come

A lot of “pros” are going to tell you that the ele has not problems and they would be lying.
In high level PvP, ele are worthless, they get hardcountered by certain classes. In any case, there is currently no real reason to bring an ele to a team other than because you enjoy switching attunements. Everything the ele can do someone can do better.

silvermember.8941:

A lot of “pros” are going to tell you that the ele has not problems and they would be lying.

Yet the ele is working for them, so clearly they knowing something you don’t.

And since you’re calling other people liars, I presume you don’t mind me saying that you’re at a skill level you could improve by listening to them?

Ele is good at getting focused in PvP. That’s really why they are not that great in that setting. They are still fine in wvw only losing out to good players running cheese builds.

ThiBash.5634:

silvermember.8941:

A lot of “pros” are going to tell you that the ele has not problems and they would be lying.

Yet the ele is working for them, so clearly they knowing something you don’t.

“Working for them” in the sense that Ele’s are almost completely absent from most high-level tournament teams.

Skill level has nothing to do with it. Class flaws are class flaws.

Wintel.4873:

ThiBash.5634:

silvermember.8941:

A lot of “pros” are going to tell you that the ele has not problems and they would be lying.

Yet the ele is working for them, so clearly they knowing something you don’t.

“Working for them” in the sense that Ele’s are almost completely absent from most high-level tournament teams.

Skill level has nothing to do with it. Class flaws are class flaws.

Almost completely means there’s some out there. And if they can do it, it means it can be done. And if it can be done, then it’s very much an issue of player skill. Because there’s at least 1 guy that CAN do it.

If a 1000 people pvp as a warrior, and only 10 pvp as an elementalist, how likely is it that there’ll be more warriors at top level PvP? And how likely is it that people will start playing the ele in PvP if they rarely see them and have a rough start? Most will give up before they can truly get good with it.

You can’t all blame it on the profession. Social interaction and perception play a large role too.

ThiBash.5634:

If a 1000 people pvp as a warrior, and only 10 pvp as an elementalist, how likely is it that there’ll be more warriors at top level PvP? And how likely is it that people will start playing the ele in PvP if they rarely see them and have a rough start? Most will give up before they can truly get good with it.

Sounds like a huge balance issue and a badly designed class.

ThiBash.5634:

You can’t all blame it on the profession. Social interaction and perception play a large role too.

Alright then, I won’t blame it on the profession since 1% of players can clearly make it work. I will blame ArenaNet for having no concept for skill vs reward and for designing a class that is garbage in the hands of 99% of the playerbase.

Even ANet themselves admitted that Ele issues are valid, buffs are on the way (which IMO won’t be enough), so I don’t even know why we’re having this discussion.

Btw a huge chunk of pro Ele players (and high-level players in general) have already quit the game due to being extremely disappointed with ANet’s approach to balance & structure. That is the reality.

Ill argue and say more good eles are appearing than before. If you look on twitch the ele channels always have the most views. People like seeing us go at it.

If you’re playing for fun, or you’re the best, Ele is the way to go

ThiBash.5634:

Almost completely means there’s some out there. And if they can do it, it means it can be done. And if it can be done, then it’s very much an issue of player skill. Because there’s at least 1 guy that CAN do it.

No, that only means that those people are good enough… wait, no, their teams as whole are good enough (compared to other teams) to do something with ele. It doesn’t means that at some mystical skill level ele may ascend to meta heaven or that someone knows secret how to make ele viable. Ele sucks, dont hide it behind mythical “skill curve”.

But still it is really fun to play, especially d/d.

Arcturus.8109:

Ele sucks, dont hide it behind mythical “skill curve”.

Lately I’m starting to see that argument more and more with things that flat-out suck…not specific to GW2.

For example, in first person shooters where you’ll occasionally come across a terrible weapon (i.e. it’s stats are terrible, not up to opinion). At some point the “it just needs more skill, L2P lol” bandwagon comes through.
Then someone will bring up like 1 or 2 people who have forced themselves to use that weapon and get kills with it, which is apparently “proof that it’s fine”. They completely ignore the fact that if those people used superior weapons, they would do far better.

Though not as extreme, Ele is in a similar place. Sub-par and unused. The few pro Ele players would perform better if they played any other class.

All other classes bore me to death. Regardless of how “superior” they are to the Elementalist, I will always choose to play my Ele over my Thief, Guard, or Mesmer.

Purely due to that fact that it is so much more fun to play.

I also don’t feel like the full potential of the Ele has been unlocked, build wise. I experiment with new builds almost every day and still find new things.

For sPvP, the most appropriate role for ele would be a bursty roamer/minor support with heals and group protection/might stacking, although ele is the weakest class atm given thieves burst them down just as hard as mesmers (while not providing nearly as strong utilities like portal). They also get wreck by all the damage flying around. And condis destroy them. If you manage to deliver your damage without getting hit too much you can do really well, but unless you want to play seriously, you might wanna consider another class. Ele is by far the most fun and demanding class to play however. Ele burst in the strongest in pvp at the moment so that’s how you wanna build your ele.

For those reasons, you might want to play scepter for its excellent burst potential. Offhand is up to you, I personnally like dagger better for mobility, better damage and group heal/frost aura. You’re way more susceptible to any type damage however.
Build wise, 30 air 30 arcana (or 20 water 20 arcana) is a stapple, the last 10 points are up to you. I enjoy 10 fire for burning precision with glyph of power a lot.
Utility wise, blink and arcane shield are really good options. You pick whatever you like best as a third. Wave, blast, mist form, glyph of power are good options currently.

EDIT : I wanna point out one thing. Ele is one of the best designed classes I’ve seen, in any game. They aren’t optimal tho, because some other classes are completely, blantaly imbalanced. Ele doesn’t need buff, it needs the rest to get nerfed, for the good of the game.

I wouldn’t mind discussing the eles flaws and weaknesses if people would also be fair about it. Many of the posts regardling ele balances are exagerated, with the posters demanding extreme and over the top buffs to compensate not just for the balance flaws, but their lack of skill as well.

For example, it’s just funny that many people think a 15 second cooldown reduction on Armor of Earth isn’t gonna do anything. So instead of trying out said changes and see if combined with extra practice, thei can make it work, they instead go yell at ArenaNet being lousy and that no balance will fix this “fail”.

Wintel

Though not as extreme, Ele is in a similar place. Sub-par and unused. The few pro Ele players would perform better if they played any other class.

You’d probably make the effort to come to my house and uninstall the game for me if you ever saw me play my warrior…:)

Best part about ele is that it is hands down the most enjoyable class to play. If you’re used to other mmos where you manage 12+ cds and spells, and like options, than play ele (if you also don’t mind being considered one of the weakest classes out there).

My breakdown:
PVE: Easy in this game, play whatever is fun. Ele is fun, and also does incredibly well in pve, both world and dungeons.

SPVP: Currently faces some difficulties. Because pvp is not competitive in GW2 due to low population, slow updates, and a general lack of focus by Anet, this doesn’t matter too much if you enjoy the class. That being said, the problems with glass eles is generally a properly played thief is a hard counter, low health means you are susceptible to well, everything, but conditions (dots) in particular, and your burst recharges the slowest out of the high burst potential classes. That said, if you land most of it, stuff melts. If you don’t… back off, apply what little pressure you can before really going for it again.

WVW: I don’t enjoy wvw as much, so do this the least of the 2 game modes. (I spend most of my time in the mini-game mode “spvp”). I think we are mostly fine here, zerging is mindless, organized guild groups enjoy staff eles for their aoe and water fields, and there are builds that allow decent roaming. On the plus side, speed boosts are easy for eles, so at least you won’t be slow like a mesmer running around the map.