D/D nerf?
All because of PvP. Unless something changes in the devs mindset, GW2 will soon play like WoW. A new (not so new really) bunker in town results in cries of imbalance from some thief who failed to one-shot an ele. A truly revolutionary game would be one that finally separates PvE and PvP combat skills once and for all.
Tell me some downsides to running dagger/dagger. Something I can take advantage of.
Maguuma – [TriM][DERP]
Tell me some downsides to running dagger/dagger. Something I can take advantage of.
all abilities are melee.
all skills that do more damage than a stack of bleeding require a lot of setup.
the survival comes from boon stacking and mobility.
kill them with ranged, constant cripples/immobilization, combo-breaking, and/or boon stripping.
they’re low HP.. use a burning condie spec like crit/cond engineer and they melt.
Tell me some downsides to running dagger/dagger. Something I can take advantage of.
all abilities are melee.
all skills that do more damage than a stack of bleeding require a lot of setup.
the survival comes from boon stacking and mobility.
kill them with ranged, constant cripples/immobilization, combo-breaking, and/or boon stripping.
they’re low HP.. use a burning condie spec like crit/cond engineer and they melt.
So as a shatter build mesmer, my best bet is to try and force them to burst on clones and bind them in a null field?
Maguuma – [TriM][DERP]
Tell me some downsides to running dagger/dagger. Something I can take advantage of.
non existent damage……(this from a balanced build i don t want even to try a PVT)
short range with a light armor
all complaints are:
“I cannot kill this D/D, not that he can kill me….”
The problem is the bad system on capturing points….
Infact if stealth was able to capture, thieves would still be top dogs…
A PvE player is supposed to avoid a 1-2 second 1 shotting aoe.
A WWW player is considered uncapable of avoiding a 5,75 second aoe for half his health.
I’m talking in a WvW perspective, where I recently just faced 6 d/d Elementalists at the same time. One guild, roaming group. spiking down single targets at a time, while they themselves require a huge amount of effort to kill from the various invulnerables, and escape/gap closers.
I run around with a myself a mesmer, Guardian, Thief, Engineer, and a support ele or ranger.
Maguuma – [TriM][DERP]
Tell me some downsides to running dagger/dagger. Something I can take advantage of.
all abilities are melee.
all skills that do more damage than a stack of bleeding require a lot of setup.
the survival comes from boon stacking and mobility.
kill them with ranged, constant cripples/immobilization, combo-breaking, and/or boon stripping.
they’re low HP.. use a burning condie spec like crit/cond engineer and they melt.
So as a shatter build mesmer, my best bet is to try and force them to burst on clones and bind them in a null field?
or you could take that trait that causes your shatters to remove boons and not worry about all that. Add to that the cripple on death and it makes it very painful to exist as an elementalist.
In a skirmish situation I dunno. But honestly mesmers/theives/eles are all annoying stacked in numbers and can down a group fast. That said I disagree with the above wiping boons won’t work. Eles CONSTANTLY reapply boons. It will make a brief impact but won’t do much else. You’re best bet is high burst or confusion. If you aren’t incredibly bursty you can’t kill a decent ele in 1v1 unless you make him think he’s winning thus lowing his guard and being less concerned about health. Once he’s down halfway shatter. Mesmer is the best class 1v1 against an ele in my experience. Just my point of view.
(Quicknote) outside of confusion, conditions are useless against eles. So much cleanse it ain’t funny.
Leader of the 3 man Pop Up Pirates(POMF)
Pretty OK Elementalist
I’m talking in a WvW perspective, where I recently just faced 6 d/d Elementalists at the same time. One guild, roaming group. spiking down single targets at a time, while they themselves require a huge amount of effort to kill from the various invulnerables, and escape/gap closers.
I run around with a myself a mesmer, Guardian, Thief, Engineer, and a support ele or ranger.
Well, that’s something you can do with nearly any kind of group setup in a group of 6.
One funny story in WvW I experienced quite recently was one single thief getting on a whole zergs nerves just by following the zerg in stealth and picking out single targets, one hitting them…
The zerg has 2 options in this situation:
- Ignoring the thief and always having to pick up single victims to not lose menpower one by one (there are always randoms not keeping up). A very time consuming option that slows down the whole zerg on the way to any strategic point, because you have to wait up for everyone, or you will be reduced to a very small group.
- Trying to kill the thief. This can be successful or not, depending on how intelligent the thief is and if the culling is on the zerg’s side. To kill the thief a whole group of the zerg has to concentrate their dmg on the thief in the few seconds he leaves stealth… If this doesn’t work the first time and if the thief is intelligent and notices that he got the zerg’s attention, he will disappear for a few minutes just following without attacking and then continue the business. When you take into consideration the culling problem (yes, still existent), it can be very time consuming too, to kill the thief. It took us about half an hour, because we never saw the attacker due to culling (I guess because we where a too big zerg to render..?), even when he was out of stealth. And even if there was no culling problem: the annoyance a single thief can produce by using this strategy can’t be reproduced by any class…
Now to also come to the point – let’s try this as a single elementalist:
You can get close to the zerg, and could also escape, if you do this soon enough… But when it comes to attacking… You could never do anything but tickle your victim before eating the zerg’s immobilize, DoTs, or direct DMG… Thats actually also no fun with the lowest HP pool.
I don’t say that the elementalist doesn’t need slight adjustments. But there are other classes that have more need for nerfs at the moment. In case of e.g. the thief, the whole stealth ability needs to be reworked. I can’t remember playing any game, where permanent stealth without being touched by the enemy is possible… To have a very high DMG-output when attacking out of stealth is normal for Thiefs, even though the word “high” has been redefined by ANet in this case. To remove more then 2/3 of a classes HP pool with one hit, even without going glass cannon is a bit too much…
(edited by Rayti.6531)
I say lets wait wat the devs will do. If you look at older patch notes you see that some abilities are only nerfed in sPVP maybe they will do the same to D/D ele.
Also as mobility goes. A warrior is just as fast.
(Quicknote) outside of confusion, conditions are useless against eles. So much cleanse it ain’t funny.
To have this not so funny amount of cleanse you are talking about, an Elementalist is forced into exactly one build. That involves full Arcane and full Water (10 Points left for diversity… thumbs up) and maybe additionally Cleansing Fire as a Utility, leaving 2 slots…
I for my part also play D/D, but I use some different Traits and haven’t got the cleanse from Water XI. So when not taking Cleansing Fire with me (that would be 99% of the time, because I prefer other Utilities) my only cleanses are switching to water attunement and dodging in water attunement… And I’m quite sure I’m not the only one trading some cleanse for some (still minor) dmg or even direct dmg protection.
This one build mentioned above is extreme when it comes to cleanse (too extreme) and should be adjusted BUT this should be done without hurting other builds, what is very difficult. I think that all the trait lines need to be reorganized to build up more synergy for also other builds and weapon setups… I hope that ANet will find a solution for those problems.
(edited by Rayti.6531)
I’m talking in a WvW perspective, where I recently just faced 6 d/d Elementalists at the same time. One guild, roaming group. spiking down single targets at a time, while they themselves require a huge amount of effort to kill from the various invulnerables, and escape/gap closers.
I run around with a myself a mesmer, Guardian, Thief, Engineer, and a support ele or ranger.
We are all in the same WvW tier (I’m DB) and I can tell you that the group that you ran into was likely members of the all-ele guild on FA. The guy who started that guild is the guy who popularized the DD bunker build and has insane skills on that build. My guess is that the group you ran into is extremely organized with extremely good players.
The DD build can be very strong but being on both ends of things (currently my main is guard), it can be countered as people have mentioned above. Just remember that regardless of the class, my guess would be if those guys learned a class as well as they know ele and were as organized as I think they are, they would have the same effect
Watch their attunement, and immobilize+burst right after they switch out of water.
[KoM] Krewe of Misfits
[IB]Inglorious Basterdz
Tell me some downsides to running dagger/dagger. Something I can take advantage of.
Very dependant on mobility and melee range, If you can keep range and chill/imo/cripple they cant do anything
Lot os survival comes from constant healing with sigil passive and this requires casting fast and non-stop. Constant stacking confusion is a big problem. Just dont burst stack as they can cleanse often.
As said by others, watch the att. dance.
– after water – burst
– during air – imob/cripple
– during fire – block/dodge
– during earth – interrupt/blind
(Quicknote) outside of confusion, conditions are useless against eles. So much cleanse it ain’t funny.
To have this not so funny amount of cleanse you are talking about, an Elementalist is forced into exactly one build. That involves full Arcane and full Water (10 Points left for diversity… thumbs up) and maybe additionally Cleansing Fire as a Utility, leaving 2 slots…
I for my part also play D/D, but I use some different Traits and haven’t got the cleanse from Water XI. So when not taking Cleansing Fire with me (that would be 99% of the time, because I prefer other Utilities) my only cleanses are switching to water attunement and dodging in water attunement… And I’m quite sure I’m not the only one trading some cleanse for some (still minor) dmg or even direct dmg protection.
This one build mentioned above is extreme when it comes to cleanse (too extreme) and should be adjusted BUT this should be done without hurting other builds, what is very difficult. I think that all the trait lines need to be reorganized to build up more synergy for also other builds and weapon setups… I hope that ANet will find a solution for those problems.
You seem to be entirely forgetting ether renewal which is the best PvE heal skill by far and my personal favorite in WvW, though there are certainly flaws. It’s 8 cleanses every 15 seconds with the biggest burst heal of all the heal skills. Just as far as condition cleanse goes this is fantastic. Also I fail to see why you wouldn’t go 30 into water for a d/d build. You can get your damage from armor/weapons/trinkets. Just how much damage do you want to do? I can see glass working for staff in some situations but d/d glass is iffy. Also for high risk zerg walking/disruption in WvW I say you can never have too much cleanse but that’s just me.
Leader of the 3 man Pop Up Pirates(POMF)
Pretty OK Elementalist
(edited by Ralloff.7359)
That’s true, I forgot about Ether Renewal, because I rarely use it when using my daggers…. That’s my heal skill reserved for fights against condition builds, but even there I sometimes tend to rely on Cleansing Fire and use one of the other heal skills instead due to the interruption problem of Ether Renewal (also a way of countering an ele’s cleanses by the way). So countering me with a condition build could work pretty well.
I use ER a lot with Staff though, when I can keep my distance.
When it comes to my build and why I don’t use 30 in water… I use 20 in water and use the additional 10 points in earth. Mainly for Protection when having an aura up. I play a “glass healer” so my equip (not just runes, even the armor) is reserved for healing power and boon duration, no damage there. My DMG comes mainly from the trinkets so it is low if not even miserable. Still that was not the point of my post. Actually I mentioned DMG just as an example where lots of people tend to put their trait points instead of water and so they are far away from the “look at me I can cleanse everything away” ele pictured above.
What I mainly wanted to say with my post is, that there indeed is lots of cleanse (OP cleanse) for those using this one specific build + the given skills, BUT that there are also lots of us that don’t want to be forced into using this build and a Utility set limited to cantrips (that would be those being called a n00b by the eles just copying daphoenix’s build without even thinking about the mechanics behind it, not understanding why some would like to play another setup etc.).
The important thing about the nerfs cried for is, that by altering one little thing about the ele (that might change the bunker build to other classes’ satisfaction) could totally destroy the small amount of other playable ele builds into total uselessness.
So there certainly is a reason why balancing the ele takes a while and I hope it doesn’t result in lots of people rerolling.
(edited by Rayti.6531)
I don’t mind if they nerf D/D eles to be honest.
But I really hope they buff scepters or focus(some of the skills have way too much CD or just plain “clunky”) and the top 3 trait trees.
lv80 Necromancer, all professional skills unlocked, working on the final norn elite skills.
(edited by LieutenantGoogle.7326)
(Quicknote) outside of confusion, conditions are useless against eles. So much cleanse it ain’t funny.
Not completely true. Someone that knows what they are doing can keep conditions on us fairly well because they know how class works and exploit it.
(Quicknote) outside of confusion, conditions are useless against eles. So much cleanse it ain’t funny.
Not completely true. Someone that knows what they are doing can keep conditions on us fairly well because they know how class works and exploit it.
^This – there are some builds out there that can stack multiple conditions at a time, and if timed correctly, can be applied on eles faster than the removal believe it or not. A condi Engie or a venom p/d thief comes to mind, but those builds are so rare yet they are a direct counter to d/d eles.
As for the water/condi cleanse thing:
Not all of us run that exact spec and have that capability. My condi cleanse is ether renewal (my heal of choice in wuvwuv) and that’s pretty much it.
I prefer to run
0/20/15/15/20
d/d
I find it much more fun as a roamer (hate zerging) and much more involved a playstyle.
Yaks Bend
We are all in the same WvW tier (I’m DB) and I can tell you that the group that you ran into was likely members of the all-ele guild on FA. The guy who started that guild is the guy who popularized the DD bunker build and has insane skills on that build. My guess is that the group you ran into is extremely organized with extremely good players.
The DD build can be very strong but being on both ends of things (currently my main is guard), it can be countered as people have mentioned above. Just remember that regardless of the class, my guess would be if those guys learned a class as well as they know ele and were as organized as I think they are, they would have the same effect
It was members of [RET]. I’ll admit, myself nor my friends are amazing in the skill department. It’s just exceedingly difficult dealing with the wide number of invulnerabilities, escapes, and spike damage they could put out.
When the fight opened up, they jumped on me immediately. Unfortunately, I run Sword focus, and at the time my only invis was mass. Null field for the sake of my group etc.
It’s the moment I actually got my hands on one of them and blew half their health away.
Mistform
Ride the Lightning
Tons of boons
Back into the fight 10 seconds later.
Meanwhile, the other 4 or 5 are doing the same thing, juggling in and out or taking the brunt for the rest. I can tell you, not all of them were built as bunkers. So it wasn’t just an issue of us being unable to kill them, but they could kill us with enough focus fire, while they could run away the moment we downed them, and then get picked up by their team.
Maguuma – [TriM][DERP]
(edited by John Widdin.9618)
I love my Elementalist. but recognize that D/D is very powerful in sPvP. Many tournament teams pack 2 or 3 D/D. I would hate to see a proper nerf for sPvP hurt WvW and PvE though.
Currently the mobility, healing rate and condition removal are our strong points. (Not going to disagree that thieves have amazing mobality in WvW.) I think a nerf to RTL (longer recharge) or our water line would be appropriate. I do not have any suggestions but a passive nerf could take place by buffing other professions to more easily deal with D/D. (Movement restriction, daze, etc.)
The thing that has made me nervous is the impending D/D nerf along with a potential AoE nerf. My hope is that along with the nerfs focus and staff get a slight buff to their unused skills. (Scepter is actually not bad but could use few changes.)
Maybe it wouldn’t be as much an issue if invulnerability only applied to damage, and not CC in general. My Immobilize, and pull are both useless against an ele because of whatever shield it is, and Mist form. They have all the power to escape if I ever manage to hurt them.
Maguuma – [TriM][DERP]
(edited by John Widdin.9618)
First of all, I believe all the recent nerf talks are only for sPVP.
Second, I find it silly that WvW uses the same skillset as PVE, they should split those and have 3 separate skillsets. A good example is D/D Ele, but also BS Thieves, builds that are very good in WvW but are really terrible in Dungeons for example.
Third, D/D Elementalists require a rather big, if not very very big, buff to be viable in hard PVE, mostly in dungeons. They aren’t strong or powerful at all, and there is no way that any D/D nerf will ever affect Ele in PVE, sadly they cannot buff or nerf the D/D Eles (outside sPVP) because of the shared WvW/PVE skills… nerfing them will make them even more useless in PVE, buffing them will make them even stronger in WvW, both are bad.
Some people bring up some good points. Not everyone has a lot of condition cleanse on their build. But many eles do. And even if they don’t I’m sure most can argree Direct damage is more likely to kill you in a 1v1 situation. Conditions just don’t seem like the best way to kill an ele.
And to be a little kitten, I fail to see how having a high cleanse builds makes it a “noob” build. Condition cleanse is excellent when you want to dive into a zerg attacking your tower/keep. You can seriously disrupt things that way and a lot of condition cleanse makes sure you get back. Dead ele deals no damage after all.
Leader of the 3 man Pop Up Pirates(POMF)
Pretty OK Elementalist
Maybe it wouldn’t be as much an issue if invulnerability only applied to damage, and not CC in general. My Immobilize, and pull are both useless against an ele because of whatever shield it is, and Mist form. They have all the power to escape if I ever manage to hurt them.
First of all,
You fought 5-6 People coordinating most likely through voice chat.
Alone. Your Dead. No matter what class they are or what class you are.
And about invul skills. How is mistform any different from Endure Pain, or Shield Block, or Renewed Focus. Just because the Ele has one makes it “omg too many invuls cant dmg”. You know we can’t attack either? Makes Endure Pain look pretty nice imo.
Lvl 80 Sylvari Guardian – Tzenjin [GF]
Lvl 80 Human Elementalist – Tzenkai [GF]
Maybe it wouldn’t be as much an issue if invulnerability only applied to damage, and not CC in general. My Immobilize, and pull are both useless against an ele because of whatever shield it is, and Mist form. They have all the power to escape if I ever manage to hurt them.
First of all,
You fought 5-6 People coordinating most likely through voice chat.
Alone. Your Dead. No matter what class they are or what class you are.
And about invul skills. How is mistform any different from Endure Pain, or Shield Block, or Renewed Focus. Just because the Ele has one makes it “omg too many invuls cant dmg”. You know we can’t attack either? Makes Endure Pain look pretty nice imo.
Exactly. People are complaining about Elementalist because we spec pure tank and can win a 5 minute 1v1? lol.
Oh, also we can run away. Makes us op.
But I don’t see anyone talking about the fact that warriors have 3 forms of mobility. The difference is that elementalist save thier mobility spells to get way while warriors just faceroll their keyboards.
Also, Thieves have the ability to just roll around a battle field and go invis for what feels like three days. The condition thieves i’ve seen lately can’t even be touched. They rush into a group drop caltrops and then use their infinite amount of invis to pick off people in mass groups.
I know it has been said a lot in this thread, but watch the attunements. Its the same as any other class. Learn what you are playing against. If an ele gets low and pops into air, have that immoblize ready. Too many times I see people just throwing imoblize out at the start of fight and everytime off CD after that.
I’m sorry, but your lack of awareness is not a call to need to nerf a class.
It’s a much welcomed nerf and buff for us ele players. D/D needs a nerf and the staff/scepter/focus needs a buff. Right now the only way to be competitive is to use D/D and that’s just plain sad. Makes for a boring class.
I’m looking forward to this. Maybe I’ll actually use my elementalist again.
It’s a much welcomed nerf and buff for us ele players. D/D needs a nerf and the staff/scepter/focus needs a buff. Right now the only way to be competitive is to use D/D and that’s just plain sad. Makes for a boring class.
I’m looking forward to this. Maybe I’ll actually use my elementalist again.
You mean…:
1) They’ll reduce landing time of dragon’s tooth to 1s?
2) Increase speed of phoenix so that you don’t sit at mele range?
3) Increase dmg of shatterstone and allow me to use ice shards with it?
4) Completely rework how dust devil function?
5) Completely rework fire shield and flame wall?
6) Reduce CD of gale?
7) Buff freezing gust?
8) Increase stun duration of static field?
9) Make gust and shockwave on target skills?
10) Buff unsteady ground?
11) Add dmg to flame burst?
11) Increase dmg of auto-attack?
12) Buff fire and air trait line?
Nah bro…it’s Anet we’re talking about
It’s a much welcomed nerf and buff for us ele players. D/D needs a nerf and the staff/scepter/focus needs a buff. Right now the only way to be competitive is to use D/D and that’s just plain sad. Makes for a boring class.
I’m looking forward to this. Maybe I’ll actually use my elementalist again.
You mean…:
1) They’ll reduce landing time of dragon’s tooth to 3/4s?
2) Increase speed of phoenix so that you don’t sit at mele range?
3) Increase dmg of shatterstone and allow me to use ice shards with it?
4) Completely rework how dust devil function?
5) Completely rework fire shield and flame wall?
6) Reduce CD of gale?
7) Buff freezing gust?
8) Increase stun duration of static field?
9) Make gust and shockwave on target skills?
10) Buff unsteady ground?
11) Add dmg to flame burst?
11) Increase dmg of auto-attack?
12) Buff fire and air trait line?
Nah bro…it’s Anet we’re talking about, they are specialized in huge nerfs and completely oblivious to the rest
Can’t we make a merged thread on these “NERF ELE” topics? It’s getting out of hand IMO. Now, hotjoins are becoming more of d/d ele wars because of bandwagoners. Ugh -_-
later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”
Can’t we make a merged thread on these “NERF ELE” topics? It’s getting out of hand IMO. Now, hotjoins are becoming more of d/d ele wars because of bandwagoners. Ugh -_-
D/D Ele wars? XD
What do you mean? Most people are playing them now? (I don’t really sPvP, so I don’t know.)
Northern Shiverpeaks
Can’t we make a merged thread on these “NERF ELE” topics? It’s getting out of hand IMO. Now, hotjoins are becoming more of d/d ele wars because of bandwagoners. Ugh -_-
D/D Ele wars? XD
What do you mean? Most people are playing them now? (I don’t really sPvP, so I don’t know.)
You have no idea, man. The horrors. o___o
One time I entered using Staff, then one said: “Hey look, someone is still using the Staff! I thought those were extinct!”
These forum discussions bout how OP d/d ele is are causing such massive bandwagoners for the flavor of the month. Same thing happened to thieves with all those Heart Seeker OP QQs few months ago. It’s crazy. These forums need more moderation, IMO. They affect the game in more ways you can imagine. Mob mentality is stupidly powerful.
later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”
(edited by Gallrvaghn.4921)
Can’t we make a merged thread on these “NERF ELE” topics? It’s getting out of hand IMO. Now, hotjoins are becoming more of d/d ele wars because of bandwagoners. Ugh -_-
D/D Ele wars? XD
What do you mean? Most people are playing them now? (I don’t really sPvP, so I don’t know.)
You have no idea, man. The horrors. o___o
Lol, Everyone is a bunker Ele. Nobody dies. Ever.
That’s just what I’m imagining… XD
Northern Shiverpeaks
Can’t we make a merged thread on these “NERF ELE” topics? It’s getting out of hand IMO. Now, hotjoins are becoming more of d/d ele wars because of bandwagoners. Ugh -_-
D/D Ele wars? XD
What do you mean? Most people are playing them now? (I don’t really sPvP, so I don’t know.)
You have no idea, man. The horrors. o___o
Lol, Everyone is a bunker Ele. Nobody dies. Ever.
That’s just what I’m imagining… XD
All you’ll ever hear is the constant vsshshshshshshshshsh sound from the frost and air atunements with the occasional bang sound from earth
Fire is surprisingly the most quiet one.
lv80 Necromancer, all professional skills unlocked, working on the final norn elite skills.
If you want to beat a D/D Ele you need to know when their defensive cooldowns are up. A broad knowledge of what every Element is able to do is very much needed. When Elementalist switch their Attunement it sets their previous Attunement on a 15 s cooldown. The current Attunement is shown as a buff by an unique icon for every element which is very easy to keep track of if you have any sense of combat awareness.
I would suggest visiting the wiki pages of the Elementalist to help you improve your gameplay http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_elementalist_skills.
^Minimum like 11 seconds I think for 20 arcane. 9 seconds for 30. I’m sure a few eles run less than 20 in that line, but very few and it’s even less likely in WvW because people tend to want bigger aoe on staff. That said, he’s right other than the counter.
Leader of the 3 man Pop Up Pirates(POMF)
Pretty OK Elementalist