Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, Im new to the ele in pvp. Ive been researching what to play and everything is pointing to this build. Can anyone help me out with how to play it efficiently and a good rotation?

using the maneuverability of the spells to dip in and out of battles as required is key along with reacting to your opponent rather than blindly casting on cool down (I often fail at this!). You need to bear in mind ele is not in a good place for solo play at present so your real goal is to rotate to where other team members are fighting, and knowing when to run from a fight to recover. Avoid glass cannon builds, they are not powerful enough to 1 shot due to mitigation and you melt when focused and/or playing a good player which is really bad for the team.

You can’t teach ele. Practice and get a feel for it. Half of it is muscle memory the other half is knowing how to avoid damage.

If you’re a beginner, I recommend running Rune of Water and Magi Amulet with Sigil of Renewal and Sigil of Water. I personally prefer warhorn over focus because of more heals and protection uptime, as well as a CC in air that grants swiftness to allies it passes through AND can cleave multiple targets AND doesn’t require a target. Although cast times are longer, the skill use is balanced in a way that won’t leave you without being able to use anything for wasting skills so quickly, which many D/F users have an issue with. They waste their skills too quickly. Warhorn automatically times this for you because of the cast times. Another cool thing about warhorn is that there are lots of “filler” skills such as Dust Storm, Lightning Orb, Heat Sync, and Wildfire. All these skills may prompt thieves to headshot you and waste initiative for no reason, and then you can finally use heals properly without interrupts. Try to be in teamfights – you’re the heart of the team.

When using warhorn, it’s extremely important to strafe using right-click (that is if your right-click is able to turn the screen, and use W or forward to instantly go a 180 etc ). This “jukes” your skills, making enemies not know if you will really cast the skills over points. Speaking of points, warhorn has a bunch of fields that can be placed over points such as Wildfire and Dust Storm. Everything about warhorn is just amazing to me, even after playing 400+ games of ranked this season.

Thanks guys, I figured its just feeling it out and muscle memory. Im gonna go try warhorn out now

Be sure to take Aquamancer’s Training in the water trait, and Diamond Skin in the earth trait. Diamond Skin cleans condis off when you are struck above 75% of hp which is easy to do given all the heals you have. Aquamancer’s Training lets you do more heals in water.

If you wants to play competive dont take warhorn pls. Its facetank as it best and offers not enough defense. The heal on warhorn doesnt negate any damage if targeted. Focus brings condi-cleanse, projectile-hate and 4 seconds invuln., its actually one of the best skills on a weapon.

As tempest the problem for pvp is your influence on rotations. You cant dictate them well or opening duels (you cant anyways, no damage) because high risk your team die`s and you not doing your job as expected. If your teams cant kill anything the only thing you can do is stalement or just add some more time for a journey to spawn.

So as an ele today you are only so good like your team is. Your rotations have allways to follow the teamfight (3v3,4v4) and lesser the 1v1 or 2v2. Dont afk on nodes, dont try to be a season 1 or 2 bunker. You are not anymore a bunker.

Matchups as ele on menders:

Rev>Ele (His autoattacks kills you, you can hold it for some time, but at end the rev will do, decap or dead ele)

Thief>Ele (same, you can stalement but the thief will only w8 for your earth overload to steal, after RIP.He will 100% interr. wateroverload and wash your pain away, after you die)

Ele>Guard (pay attention, his onpoint pressure isnt tht bad, overload earth and try to lure his cc out, pay attention to his shield 5 knockback and lb 3, both knocks you off and can end in decap, overall you win the duell if you gets your air overload working)

Ele=Engi ( He cant kill you, only a problem for you if he is using rampage or tornado, he will decap, earthoverload for stab and dodges)

Ele=Ele (HAHA)

Ele=Druid (Nothing Special, he wont win or decap, if longbow pay attention to knockback and root, they sometimes just try to decap, reflect and earthoverload keyskills )

Necro>ELe (If the necro is condis and he knows wht hes doing you hve a tough matchup and you hve to pay alot attention to his shroud, but you rly cant outkite it on a point, so you only can cleanse it. So if you stay, you die)

Condiwarr>Ele (same, mace f1 just wins over you with stunchain, you can hold it long, but you will lose it)

At end there is a story about ele cant die, tht is true. If you leave a cap and starts to recover while your enemy is capping no one will. There are alot of more matchups, no one is rly important at end because you have not to be in 1v1 but its just a startup information to get a feeling. Dont risk a downstate, just kite, thts most important.

The heals do negate damage. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Obsidian Flesh is an invuln every 50 seconds. That’s great… for you. For teammates it does nothing. Focus struggles to keep YOU alive but in sacrificing team utility. Magnetic Wave is also self-casting. Sand Squall gives protection to everyone.

The CD on the water skills is 28. The water field can be coupled with water 3 and earth 4 for extra group heals. It has permanent protection uptime while healing allies and giving extra protection to allies as well.

It’s rare to die to warriors playing warhorn. I rarely have an issue. Tidal Wave heals, CCs, and gives regeneration to allies. I’ve played both warhorn and focus and warhorn blows it out of the water team support / self-sustain wise.

Abelisk.4527:

The heals do negate damage. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Obsidian Flesh is an invuln every 50 seconds. That’s great… for you. For teammates it does nothing. Focus struggles to keep YOU alive but in sacrificing team utility. Magnetic Wave is also self-casting. Sand Squall gives protection to everyone.

The CD on the water skills is 28. The water field can be coupled with water 3 and earth 4 for extra group heals. It has permanent protection uptime while healing allies and giving extra protection to allies as well.

It’s rare to die to warriors playing warhorn. I rarely have an issue. Tidal Wave heals, CCs, and gives regeneration to allies. I’ve played both warhorn and focus and warhorn blows it out of the water team support / self-sustain wise.

It rly doesnt matter how much you heal yourself if focussed, it isnt usefull for your party if you only carry yourself and its useless at this point. 3 Autoattacks more and you die.

Also the obsidian flesh, its nothing to discuss, its a invuln. for 4 seconds on weapon on top to 50 seconds cd. Some classes whould say this is more an elite. Also it helps if rez is needed, your horn wont heal you in this moment, this skill let you stay alife in different situations. Same with safe-stomp, horn doesnt support this.

The only thing warhorn does is well supporting if no one knows how to do damage, its same reason why staff isnt viable as support, you just have no freecard. Dont wants to see any warhorn ele if a teamfight is close and the moment you cant heal yourself and yes…you die.

The only moment you are not focussed is maybe because an necro is in your team and no one in bronze is getting the fact the ele warhorn and can be killed in under 10 seconds. There isnt anything new about, in most games its allways the “first target the healer” rule, you provide only because of necros problem, no real hard migration.

You simply starts to be the same, a necro.

Once your invuln ends you’re pretty much dead… that’s the problem I’ve always had with focus. A lot of people are just naturally slow with warhorn but that’s because they don’t play it right. Everyone’s used to running focus not warhorn, which is why they hate it.

Abelisk.4527:

Once your invuln ends you’re pretty much dead… that’s the problem I’ve always had with focus. A lot of people are just naturally slow with warhorn but that’s because they don’t play it right. Everyone’s used to running focus not warhorn, which is why they hate it.

Not really, its just that ele is so vulnerable to burst done right, and warhorn gives you no way to survive a burst. The skills are slow, meaning ez to interrupt, and you have no way to get out of focus fire.

With focus you get:
- Large area party projectile block (swirling winds), projectile reflect + 3 condi clear on 20s cd (earth 4), invuln for 4s (40s cd b/c you trait earth cd reduction), an unblockable, long-range interrupt (critical vs. mesmers, DHs, and warriors in a teamfight), another quick long-range interrupt (comet) to interrupt opposing necro or eles, and an instant aura in fire for some free healing.

With warhorn you get a bunch of slow skills that add offense, but not much defense, no range capability, very little team support, and enemy cc that has short range.

The biggest thing is that without the 4s invuln, you are even more susceptible to focus fire due to lack of stunbreaks. With the invuln, you should be able to get out of trouble and kite until your heals are good or team-mates drop the damage. Further, the invuln lets you secure stomps and sometimes resses, which is crucial in a teamfight. Good luck stomping with warhorh’s no invuln in the middle of everyone throwing garbage on point.

In the end, play warhorn if you enjoy it, but I hate when I have a d/wh ele on my team, b/c it means if the enemy is smart with their focus, they just have to bait out lightning flash, then you are free kill.

People mostly here speak about build mechanics so i will add something about rotations.

Ranked is not ESL so basically your job is

a.) help those who can’t sustain well on their own mostly NECRO and rev (against condi)
b.) help with heals those who can sustain WELL so you both contest fight on node being outnumbered like 2v3.

General rule is that you should never be anywhere alone. Some times you will have to take 1v1 but mind that healbot d/f has no real burst damage so mostly you always have to tank. By tanking i mean that you are not facetanking (so forget about warhorn already ok?) everything opponent does but avoiding damage and kiteing. 1v1 that generally should be safe to you (from meta perspective) should scrappers, druid and ele. Rest are dangerous if you don’t pay attention to things like moa. Rev, war and thief should be avoided depending on your placement. Most war and thief after sliver can easily force you to use obsidian flesh but rev from bronze to gold are complete joke.

If you are below platinum avoid playing solo because most people you should support can’t do what their class/build should do. How many times I puked tons of heals on necro/rev that didn’t do any damage to opponents team and just run hopelessly around the node? So find your own good necro/rev and go duo. Rev friend should be your best buddy – he gives fury that menders amulet NEEDS to make some damage.

That’s all and good luck.

@Abelisk

Players run focus because top players run it, and top players run it because it’s better than warhorn at the top level. Plenty of top players experiment with different weapons all the time. By now, we would’ve seen a change to warhorn if it was better. Players like Nos tried out a power Reaper spec and now it’s meta. Things change when top players make those changes, and focus has yet to be changed to warhorn, so my reasoning is that focus is better at top end play, but warhorn works anywhere below high plat.

So, play warhorn if you like it and it works and you win games with it, but don’t be afraid to go back to focus if you find more and more players are focusing you and you need that invuln and projectile hate.

The general gist of the focus-warhorn argument is that focus provides better sustain, allowing for more team support.

I’ll try it again and get used to the rotations and come back with results—it’s been quite a while since I touched that weapon.

Hello, d/f main here but recently playing condi war cheese (currently gold 3).
If I ever see an opponent ele with warhorn, I know its an instant win. You will get interrupted so many times and you won’t be able to survive a single burst. Focus 5 really is a life savior and, as others have said, you can also use it for a safe stomp/res. I don’t even know why there is a debate, you just cannot survive with warhorn, experienced players will instantly target you and you will die in nanoseconds. There is no “group support” if you cannot stay alive, it is just so simple. Now if you are a pro (or just over your league) player, you can make warhorn work, hell you can even make staff work. But if you skill is equal with that of your opponents, you will have a hard time.
We don’t have the freaking sustain for anything else. We are at a bad spot, forced to use the same build for so many months.

now, as for rotations, I don’t really think there are any. You must adapt to the situation. I usually start fights (be ALWAYS with your group, that’s the primal rule) with fire 3 then water 3 for the group might. You can also start with OL air but I use it at the beginning for group speed. I try to stay a little back from the group just in range for the shouts. If we have a necro on team, they will go for him. Try to keep a look on his health bar to keep him alive, provide protection through shouts etc. If you get focused, your allies are shocking aura (air 3) and earth attunement. If you have a shout ready use it, it will give you the much needed protection, use focus 5 only if you are sure you are going down, then you can safely cast your heal. If healing is on cd, DISENGAGE. Just leave the heat of the battle, you will probably make 1-2 of them chase you down, great news for your team. Learn when to use Lightning flash and where to point it. I still suck at it, panicking to use it when invul to get away…

just my two cents, I am sure there are people way more experienced than me to guide you better! and sorry for bad english

Lots of explanation has been given and good ones.
My opinion:
PvP is not 5 man team anymore. You solo or duo.
Damage and mobility becomes much more valuable in that scenario. The pure support ele is in a bad spot for that. Also points often become kittencluster or trapbombs …
In that scenario i find the decision to use scepter over dagger pays off. I use scepter/focus. So i have range to fight and can kite and support offpoint. I better kill and cap then die on point …
Focus: Obsidian flesh is great but i won´t miss it :-). I use it mostly for savestomping while the whole point explodes … Or disable multiple DH traps .. Sometimes to disengage.
Much more valuable is magnetic wave for me. It´s hell of a good skill. For me the best ele has. Reflect, cleanse, damage, blast finisher all as instant. Absolute bow bane total fun to see the ranger fly back or rip half his life with hasted rapid shot ….
And i use a wiered non meta build adaped to my playstyle. It evolved from the need to survive against thiefs in WvW and after i can play it they actually die.
My build is fire/earth/tempest. S/F sage amulet and soldier rune. My teamsupport is still very noticeable but in addition i do a lot more damage due to condi actually killing thiefs and revenants quite reliable. Only against mesmes my survival seems to be worse. I am condi and power burst resistant and actually do damage. Only chained CC or a necro + focus kills me fast.
It´s funny that this thief hate build performs so well … Killed two daredevils yesterday in an 1:2 even after the DH tried to save them … OK he got me after blowing all CD´s to kill the second thief. (of course thiefs were dump not to recognize i use a hardcounter and run).
My main advantage is that my build seems outstanding in killing three classes.
DH, Thief, Revenant. The others are usually very long fights with necro being my bane unless i can pressure him in 1:1. Then its 50:50. Also war is a bad matchup for me. Can´t kill a well played one and he will slowly wear me down. I can only hope for a +1.
And mesmer …. I need to catch him close up after his sword2 evade frame or loose horribly …
So i have the following matrix (of course skill and build matters but basically it goes that way)
DH, Thief, Reve – I win
Ele, scrapper, druid – Draw (or at least very long which i considder draw)
Necro, war, mes — I loose (not fast but i have the bad end) Necro is a bit of special. In 1:1 i might win in a teamfight if not focused down it´s game over and this can be fast …
I avoid engaging warriors knowing it´s not worth the time and i lose after 1-2 minutes annyway.
Since DH and thiefs are extrealmy common i am in a good spot.

I can’t play D/F anymore… D/Wh has spoiled me x_x

I’ve used it so much that, with my experience, it’s simply a viable asset to the team. With warhorn I always feel like I’m giving allies boons, heals, and random stuff that is essential but with focus I rely on overloads and utilities which just feels like a HUGE discrepancy. Focus is more enemy-oriented while warhorn is more team oriented nuff’ said.

Sorry guys, I just can’t play focus anymore lol…

I would love seeing a condi warr 1v1 me with the build. <3