Guild Wars 2

I dont think i could disagree with you more on this topic. We are a complicated class but i dont feel we need anything given to us to make us viable. We have answers to everything another class can do to us and the utilities to recover from mistakes. I feel we are one of the best 1v1 classes in the game. There is a fine line between spec and gearing that can make you feel to squishy. Dapheonix has a great guide on the D/D build that may answer your questions and help you feel more confident in the class. Feel free to PM me and i can tell you my spec if you would like also. Good luck i hope you can find more enjoyment in the class as I love it!!!

Wat Magdelene said we are probably the most versatile in pvp and WvW if u ever meet a Good D/D ele then ull understand tbh when im in spvp i use the build 0/10/0/30/30 yea i know its a bunker build but i also use 6x dolyaks and a zerker amulet your going to say well arnt u goona get killed alot? i Rarely ever.. die but just choose ur battles wisely fighting 5v1 with a zerker amulet on yea not the best idea but u can easily take on 3v1 without a problem Just watch your surroundings and watch out for backstab thiefs and HB warriors and ur pretty much fine.

D/D ele isnt that complicated as it seems it took me about 100 games to fully not master it but get good enough to stop dieying and bring on the hurt to my enemies and after a month later this is like the best class ive ever seen im glad i got it to 80 cuz im having the time of my life right now lol.

Eles do have higher learning curve which I guess you could call complicated but to say it’s not rewarding is what I don’t agree with. You probably just haven’t learned enough about the class yet. Keep trying and playing, try out new builds / weapons, once you find the playstyle that works for you it will be a whole lot more enjoyable to play.

Running ele burst requires you to play more as an opportunist. Hang around and wait for a good shot to get in and get out. When I ran burst I could drop people in seconds with the amount of damage a d/d ele could dish out. 20k+ in less then 10 seconds. I was 30/20/0/10/10. This biggest problem though was people were doing more damage to me while I tried to finish them then the actual fight.

I have now switched to 0/10/10/30/20 for a nice d/d bunker build with lots of condition removal. I find the damage to be decent. But I can tank 2-3 people for a good while. The Ele I believe is in a fine state with any build you go. If you are not attunement swapping on the regular you are doing it wrong. Use your auras for swiftness and fury. Use the cripples and chills to keep enemies far enough away to not get hit. The Ele is a master at controlling a fight with all the cc it has.

OP is so very, very wrong. D/D needs nothing, other builds need a few things in order to be put on par with D/D.

I would not say D/D Ele is complication, you do need to time your abilities, know your attunement, know when to switch, use your C/D’s properly, but it can be the most rewarding profession in the game you just have to work at it.

It took me a while to find a build + gear that felt right, now if I play any other profession, they just seem boring in comparison.

I hit this stage in the learning curve too.

its understandable. if you can stick it out keep pushing.
good luck. once i got passed this stage i did not look back.

Water attunement non-heal abilities need damage buffs, cantrips/stunbreaks need some cooldown reductions (my mesmer’s stunbreaks are on 30-36 sec cd’s, why are my cantrips as a class with about 5k less hp longer cd than a mesmer or a warrior?).

And we need better elite options, alongside buffing conjures and Glyph of Storm.

Other than that I like my ele. Glyph of elementals, both elite and normal, could use an increase in HP for the elementals or give aoe damage reduction to pets ala WoW so they don’t die in 3 seconds during dungeons.

Agree with OP.
After playing a bit of all other classes, i finally created an ele. D/D was so popular in sPvP I had to try it myself.
After an intensive week figuring out traits, runes, sigils, getting used to attunement switch, etc, my conclusion is:

- It’s soooooo much fun to play: it’s really an explosion of particle effects on your screen, and once you manage your attunement switches, it feels very rewarding to use the right skill at the right moment.

However:
– It’s soooooo sub-par damage/burst-wise compared to other melee classes (thief, warrior, even guardian), and so much harder to pull.

And more importantly.
It’s soooooo hard to stay alive when you have few armor, a small hp pool, poor avoidance, just control, but not that much either.
At some point you realize the only way to remain in a fight long enough is to trait in full def. Or you just reset the fight every time you’re in trouble (Ride the lightning ftw :p)
Heck, when you see how glass canon mesmers or thieves manage to survive so much more easily while dealing way more damage, you just…sigh…

Makes me wonder why Anet gave so few melee damage capability to the most fragile class in the game. Please i want Bwe1 elem damage back T.T

Lol i find warriors to be the easiest class to beat, the guardian would be in the middle id say but still pretty handleable

Ele has great utility in his weapon set and after long practise you will see how you are supposed to make up for your lack of stats.

Lol i find warriors to be the easiest class to beat, the guardian would be in the middle id say but still pretty handleable

True..I hope they buff warrior a bit(not in the form of numbers buff ..dont jump on me :P ) cause i have friends that want to play them in tpvp and theres no spot in party everytime cause of the eles,guardians engies ,mesmers ,thiefs and necros that are preffered

Here’s my take on things as person who played D/D ele since he got the game and has several other 80 toons.

D/D ele is weak, you are right…I have played around with several builds in sPvP that I did just fine with, but clearly not as rewarding as the effort I put in compared to my thief/warrior/guardian. The thing is though, I played around with a more offensive build with mainly earth, mixing it up with fire/air/water….

Then as the serge of D/D ele’s started, I finally gave in and player the typical D/D ele which has at least 20 points in each arcane and water, and the 10 in air…with the last 20 points being optional, and that build is strong and well balanced all around. Nothing weak about it.

See D/D ele is really only good if you go with this bunker build or go semi bunker build. It actually can get OP if you go full bunker and be unkillable in sPvP, but same applies to guardian and engi’s, hell the whole concept of an unkillable build that can’t kill anything but can hold points indefinitely in sPvP is stupid, but that’s a different topic, and ele’s are not the best at it anyway compared to guards/engis..I dont think those super bunker builds should exist. Sadly a nerf would ruin the D/D ele because it will also hurt us semi-bunker.

The problem with the Ele is he has too low of base survivability that all traits have to be invested defensively, yet our DPS isn’t that high to make up for it so we need a lot of damage on our gear. This really limits D/D ele’s to going water and arcana….and if, like me, that’s not the build you always go for you’ll see the weakness in it. But if you play that build and you are complaining then you should just play a class that’s more suitable for you. It’s not the easiest build to master but not the hardest either, I think it’s fairly balanced (again, unless you go super bunker, but staff is more effective for that, and you’ll be useless outside of sPvP).

What i found sad was when I went 30 fire 30 air 10 water (just for a bit of fun) in sPvP. Came up versus a Ranger who just ran in circles as I pounded on him. He just laughed and pops Regen and heals faster than I can damage him. On another note, Lightning Whip is about as useless as ever, if the target moves it misses, or even swinging at the Windows in Kylo it misses, point blank.

When I spec bunker, I still get hit like a truck, when other classes spec bunker, they become ultimate regen tanks, even thieves can do this!

We do require more skill than other classes, but I believe the OP is trying to say, why are we not Rewarded for having to balance skills / timing things and not spamming 2 – 3 buttons like other professions.

Intigo.1653:

OP is so very, very wrong. D/D needs nothing, other builds need a few things in order to be put on par with D/D.

This. You’re doing it wrong. The funny thing is the other thread is whining about d/d ele’s being overpowered.

The people who say D/D is fine are with 100% certainty bunker elems (30 water/30 arcane). They are also for the most part fighting noobs. I’ll challenge anyone in this thread to go a glass cannon build and try to beat my warrior. I will murder you a hundred times out of a hundred.

hellfish.6740:

The people who say D/D is fine are with 100% certainty bunker elems (30 water/30 arcane). They are also for the most part fighting noobs. I’ll challenge anyone in this thread to go a glass cannon build and try to beat my warrior. I will murder you a hundred times out of a hundred.

is your warrior also going to be glass canon?

Wut D/D is fun as kitten to play.
Only Frost aura as far as anyone I’ve spoken to, is underwelming as all hell.

hellfish.6740:

The people who say D/D is fine are with 100% certainty bunker elems (30 water/30 arcane). They are also for the most part fighting noobs. I’ll challenge anyone in this thread to go a glass cannon build and try to beat my warrior. I will murder you a hundred times out of a hundred.

I challenge anyone to use a subpar spec for D/D ele against my 3 button warrior and you will lose!111!!!

Tell us something we don’t know. As for fighting noobs, if you are skilled at D/D ele, you will very rarely if ever lose a 1v1 fight. Warriors are one my favorite to fight because of how easy to kite they are.

People here must not have come across any good GS damage warriors, they can be the scariest thing to face if they play well, the key to knowing if they are good or not is seeing if they blow frenzy right away or work down your endurance and utilities before unleashing the burst, its quite an adrenaline rush.

D/D is op that’s it 1vs1 or 1vs2 doesnt really matter in most cases 1vs3 you can even get away. Everything another class throws at you is gone in a second and you won’t die if you know how it works. CC/Movement/Damage/Conditions/Survival everything is covered in D/D… The only counter is another D/D ele it seems. Insanely op and just a waste of time to challange one. No QQ just my 2 cents here

Warrior, guardian, necro and engineer are the 4 easiest class to fight against when you play as a dual dagger. But that doesn’t mean that it’s really a lot harder to fight against the others class.

sjatzkov braskav.3689:

Everything another class throws at you is gone in a second and you won’t die if you know how it works.

You know this can be said about D/D ele too

sjatzkov braskav.3689:

D/D is op that’s it 1vs1 or 1vs2 doesnt really matter in most cases 1vs3 you can even get away. Everything another class throws at you is gone in a second and you won’t die if you know how it works. CC/Movement/Damage/Conditions/Survival everything is covered in D/D… The only counter is another D/D ele it seems. Insanely op and just a waste of time to challange one. No QQ just my 2 cents here

Sigh……..Rifle warrior or rifle engi time your immobilize and likely you’ll drop the ele. Guardians are basically a tie no matter the build. No ele can’t survive 2 back stab thieves if they are doing it right.

No one mentions this but its super obvious. D/D is technically melee if your smart you can range one down worst case the ele run. Most fools chase but realize its not like hes going to actually burst you down of your paying attention. Its like fighting P/D thief if you chose to stick around you may just get owned.

D/D is not OP for what we sacrifice in burst we get in survival we have no stealth and limited access to block and stability. Anyone who plays a D/D ele will likely beat a D/D ele on an alt.

Compared to the 4 (warrior guardian thief and memser) worst we can do is run or survive.

MindlessRuff.1948:

People here must not have come across any good GS damage warriors, they can be the scariest thing to face if they play well, the key to knowing if they are good or not is seeing if they blow frenzy right away or work down your endurance and utilities before unleashing the burst, its quite an adrenaline rush.

is this.. youre not serious right? Any warrior using a greatsword for pvp/wvw is an easy kill for a d/d ele. it has one powerful attack. one. not only is it stationary and have an (I believe) 8 second cool down, it takes seconds for it to do full damage. So they knock you down by using bullrush. only knocks you down if you are moving. Lets just say you, strangely, somehow, get knocked down by one of these GS warriors… you know exactly whats coming. quickness, 100b. Guess what? when youre knocked down you can teleport behind them or use mist form and they lost quickness and 100b. They have nothing left but auto attack or to switch weapons, which by now you should have already started your onslaught of knockdowns and condition damage.

If you are losing to a GS warrior as a d/d ele 1 on 1 than you seriously need to consider playing another class. Now an axe or mace using warrior with rifle alt… thats a little more dangerous, but still extremely easy.

Real challenge is tank necros that rely on poison and berserker guards with high healing

With that said, in regards to the OP… I couldnt disagree more. Ele in both pvp and wvw is beast mode. Im extremely happy so many people think the ele sucks and is underpowered that way Anet wont nerf them and less people will use em. out of my 4 level 80s, my ele is the only one that can solo vet karka and non group event champions. My ele is my only toon that can fight 2, or 3 on 1 in wvw and win or survive.. Actually thief can survive as well. My guardian can fight 2 on 1 but hes more set for 1 on 1 battles, I need to do something about that eventually. PVP we got weakened but can still roll with the big boys no problem. Ele is weak with our best builds when it comes to pure damage, but thats not what ele is built for. We are like welterweights, we hit hard and fast but not with knockout power against buff builds. Save for engi/guard tank builds, we have no equal on the food chain…. except BS thieves, they are too powerful to not be given credit. sorry for bad grammar half asleep

Otaur.9268:

What i found sad was when I went 30 fire 30 air 10 water (just for a bit of fun) in sPvP. Came up versus a Ranger who just ran in circles as I pounded on him. He just laughed and pops Regen and heals faster than I can damage him. On another note, Lightning Whip is about as useless as ever, if the target moves it misses, or even swinging at the Windows in Kylo it misses, point blank.

Hahaha.ROTFL

what’s wrong about being complicated? Ele is like playing McGyver on steroids. I agree we still lack a proper reward, but all the recent bugfixes have greatly improved our virtual lives, so I think we are headed toward the right path.

Eles are currently good in one or two builds, but I know the class needs some stuff fixed. A lot of classes need their bunker builds toned down and at the same time need other builds to be made more viable.

Bunkers should be defensive, but not capable of holding a node for such a long time against things like 1v3 odds while they simply call for backup. Ele, Guardian and Necro bunkers should not be this strong, but many players feel forced into the role because they can’t find enough to do outside of those builds. When it’s gotten to the point that most players don’t bother fighting Eles because they already know there is a 95% chance it’s a D/D bunker that they can’t kill 1v1, something is wrong.

As a Mesmer, I just ignore you guys, it is a cold day in hell when I can actually kill a bunker Ele by myself. But you don’t do enough damage to even really bug me while I run away and if I stay and fight it will last probably a good 5 minutes, so what’s the point? The problem that arises with this is that people running bunker builds can guarantee themselves a a captured or contested node, either people say “This is pointless, I should just go to another fight” or they sit there fighting a brick wall for nothing.

This isn’t to say bunkers are overpowered , per se. But 3 bunker teams are becoming the norm in tournaments and that indicates something is off with the game’s balance. Anytime anything is “the norm” in a game like this, the balance needs to be looked at.

Kuthos.9623:

I challenge anyone to use a subpar spec for D/D ele against my 3 button warrior and you will lose!111!!!

Tell us something we don’t know. As for fighting noobs, if you are skilled at D/D ele, you will very rarely if ever lose a 1v1 fight. Warriors are one my favorite to fight because of how easy to kite they are.

So D/D elementalists should be pidgeon holed into a bunker spec while other classes can enjoy a variety of play styles? Why do we even have fire and air traits then? You make no sense.

A lot of the vocal people on this forum are just trying to stroke their egos. If they say eles are fine that must mean they have l33t skillz compared to those saying eles are not. At least that’s the logic in their teen angst ridden heads.

And there’s more to the game than sPvP or wvw. PvE has little use for bunker specs, since mobs can outlive you and outdamage your survival in higher fractals better than players ever could.

You need killing power, but running a berserker geared glass cannon d/d ele on explorables and higher level fractals is plain massochism when you’ll be losing half your HP bar in a second or two all the time.

The issue is that such low HP levels and the very high cooldowns of our defensive skills make every d/d ele have to stack defensive traits and skills, whereas a warrior with 8k more hp and higher armor gets enough leeway from that advantage to be able to run any build they please without survival concerns.

It’s why in PvE you only really see warriors and guardians melee for any extended period of time. Because they bring in much higher built in survival — warriors through hp and armor advantage, guardians through healing, prtection, high armor, and aegis uptime.

I don’t know OP, when I play my D/D ele
I can rush head on into a group of 4 and still come out alive while screwing around for 15 seconds

D/D is OP in a decent players hands, if you struggle with D/D you just are bad.

Well damage is crap if you wanna survive and if you actually wanna do damage (get loot bags) you are dead after first burning speed. Of course i mean real fight where zergs meet, not some silly 1 vs 1 fights.

hellfish.6740:

Kuthos.9623:

I challenge anyone to use a subpar spec for D/D ele against my 3 button warrior and you will lose!111!!!

Tell us something we don’t know. As for fighting noobs, if you are skilled at D/D ele, you will very rarely if ever lose a 1v1 fight. Warriors are one my favorite to fight because of how easy to kite they are.

So D/D elementalists should be pidgeon holed into a bunker spec while other classes can enjoy a variety of play styles? Why do we even have fire and air traits then? You make no sense.

A lot of the vocal people on this forum are just trying to stroke their egos. If they say eles are fine that must mean they have l33t skillz compared to those saying eles are not. At least that’s the logic in their teen angst ridden heads.

Different argument that doesn’t really tie into the OP’s post.

No I dont think D/D’s should be forced into going bunker. This isn’t about which is the best spec or that there’s only one viable spec.

“In pvp i find that DD ele is the most complicated class to play”,

So you chose the most complex profession in the game, and are not saying it’s too complicated. Check.

“I constantly find myself losing to other level 80 well geared guardians/warriors. Which every time makes me sit there and feel like my DD ele is just an inferior guardian/warrior while still it remains our most viable pvp route”

When using a spec that has proven not to very good. Check.

“I feel very wronged by this because in any given fight im pressing over 20 buttons while it seems other classes just have it so much easier and when they can beat me in a 1v1 without to much trouble (mesmers,guardians,warriors mostly) i feel like re-rolling because why play a more complicated profession when it’s simply not that good?”

So you want a 3 button class like warrior? Check.

“We are the only melee build that is required to kite our enemy in order to survive while at the same time keeping ourselves for at least 90% of the fight within close range of our target so we can dish out the hurt. The other 10% or around there it is required to get distance to get heals/regens going and to try to line up a combo but our heals/regen are not that great, and you can try a head-on approach in combat but you will more than likely die quickly if you aren’t moving.”

So you dislike the whole entire playstyle of D/D ele and want ANET to completely remake it just for you? Check.

“If you trait properly, going water every 10 seconds heals for about 1k and removes a condition and applies regeneration, you also have the 40 sec cd 1k heal that also removes a condition. But if you are not kiting your foe effectively, while attuning to water and using the heal you are basically sitting there taking a pounding equal to the amount you just healed which is 2k and a regen applied which is often life saving while running away but its effectiveness is very limited if the timing is not absolutely right.”

Why in the world would you “take a pounding” just for switching to water? You don’t sit in water attunement like an idiot, you use the heals then switch to something else. Using the class wrong and then complaining about it. Check.

Guardian has no where close to the ability of what a properly specc’d and geared elementalist can pull off.

And if you think elementalists are the only ones forced to go into certain specs to do well, then you’re naive. Other classes have the same problem as well.

So basically we have a guy who doesn’t like complicated classes, doesn’t like kiting, and wants to go full glass cannon.

Why would you EVER choose D/D ele if that’s the case?

It’s amazing to me that there are still so many people who don’t understand how powerful elementalists can be. When I first started playing, I barely ever saw anything but staff eles, and even those weren’t common. Now, I constantly bump into d/d and s/d eles in wvw.

A ton of people have figured it out, but it seems there are still a lot behind the curve.

To be truthful, I just changed to S/D because it was getting too easy to fight 2v1’s on pvp. Work that build up bro.

I love how people say “omgzzz DD is OP, eles are fine they like live for ever1!1!” but don’t realise DD is not a spec or a build… its a weapon. The problem with elementalists is that we are not viable glass canons. We only have support/bunker.

The damage is there but we lack delivery. Our skills cooldowns are too big and require ridiculous and complicated things to happen so we can do the damage of one heartseeker. The other thing being we lack natural survability for our glass canon specs. Not familiar with other classes but both thief and mesmer can survive so much in glass canon it makes it worth it, personaly i think this stems from bad traits in fire/air trees that don’t give any ofensive defense traits (only give flat %dmg so we can be on par with thiefs/mesmers) or the fact our skills were design overly simplistic to “balance” our ability to use 20 of them. Seriously all our skills are very shalow and 1 dimensional yet read mesmers skills, most of them have rich tooltips.

This game favors bunkers too much… We need more traits or better ones. All classes do.

NdranC.5107:

I love how people say “omgzzz DD is OP, eles are fine they like live for ever1!1!” but don’t realise DD is not a spec or a build… its a weapon. The problem with elementalists is that we are not viable glass canons. We only have support/bunker.

The damage is there but we lack delivery. Our skills cooldowns are too big and require ridiculous and complicated things to happen so we can do the damage of one heartseeker. The other thing being we lack natural survability for our glass canon specs. Not familiar with other classes but both thief and mesmer can survive so much in glass canon it makes it worth it, personaly i think this stems from bad traits in fire/air trees that don’t give any ofensive defense traits (only give flat %dmg so we can be on par with thiefs/mesmers) or the fact our skills were design overly simplistic to “balance” our ability to use 20 of them. Seriously all our skills are very shalow and 1 dimensional yet read mesmers skills, most of them have rich tooltips.

This game favors bunkers too much… We need more traits or better ones. All classes do.

Thief and mesmer are both exceptions to the general rule that speccing glass cannon in this game will mean many deaths and an inability to do any decent dungeoneering/zerg v zerg.

Mesmers pay for this survivability with severely nerfed direct, player-sourced damage, and even more annoying “setup” and “planets and stars aligning” than eles could ever deal with, including 3 separate chances for people to dodge and nullify their main attacks.

Thieves… they need to be looked at.. they get their cake and eat it too with glass cannon.

plasmacutter.2709:

NdranC.5107:

I love how people say “omgzzz DD is OP, eles are fine they like live for ever1!1!” but don’t realise DD is not a spec or a build… its a weapon. The problem with elementalists is that we are not viable glass canons. We only have support/bunker.

The damage is there but we lack delivery. Our skills cooldowns are too big and require ridiculous and complicated things to happen so we can do the damage of one heartseeker. The other thing being we lack natural survability for our glass canon specs. Not familiar with other classes but both thief and mesmer can survive so much in glass canon it makes it worth it, personaly i think this stems from bad traits in fire/air trees that don’t give any ofensive defense traits (only give flat %dmg so we can be on par with thiefs/mesmers) or the fact our skills were design overly simplistic to “balance” our ability to use 20 of them. Seriously all our skills are very shalow and 1 dimensional yet read mesmers skills, most of them have rich tooltips.

This game favors bunkers too much… We need more traits or better ones. All classes do.

Thief and mesmer are both exceptions to the general rule that speccing glass cannon in this game will mean many deaths and an inability to do any decent dungeoneering/zerg v zerg.

Mesmers pay for this survivability with severely nerfed direct, player-sourced damage, and even more annoying “setup” and “planets and stars aligning” than eles could ever deal with, including 3 separate chances for people to dodge and nullify their main attacks.

Thieves… they need to be looked at.. they get their cake and eat it too with glass cannon.

Mirror Images + Sword 3 twice + Sword 2 + Shatter doesn’t even tickle the brain of an experienced elementalist. All of this on a 15 sec cooldown because i can replace mirror images with a dodge clone and decoy for the second time..

Regarding the thief thing… i personaly would prefer if we all get scaled to their level. Might not be possible though.

Mirror Images + Sword 3 twice + Sword 2 + Shatter doesn’t even tickle the brain of an experienced elementalist.

Anyone who dies to this combo must be the worst noob on the planet.

it can be avoided by:

0 – noticing the chain of events and dodging the second sword 3

1 – casting any PBAOE

2 – cleansing conditions and outrunning the illusions.

3 – cleansing condition, dodging once… then running

4 – dazing the mesmer while he’s trying to set up.

5 – using any decent cooldown available to your profession.

once the two rounds you’re talking about are up.. they’re out of endurance and out of clones… ctrl+t and burst them the heck down.

plasmacutter.2709:

Mirror Images + Sword 3 twice + Sword 2 + Shatter doesn’t even tickle the brain of an experienced elementalist.

Anyone who dies to this combo must be the worst noob on the planet.

it can be avoided by:

0 – noticing the chain of events and dodging the second sword 3

1 – casting any PBAOE

2 – cleansing conditions and outrunning the illusions.

3 – cleansing condition, dodging once… then running

4 – dazing the mesmer while he’s trying to set up.

5 – using any decent cooldown available to your profession.

once the two rounds you’re talking about are up.. they’re out of endurance and out of clones… ctrl+t and burst them the heck down.

The same way the churning earth + lightning flash combo can be countered by a dodge, but still works… All combos (for the most part) have a counter that requires skill and inteligence/knowledge to perform. This combo is not the last ace up a mesmer’s sleeve, the same way churning earth is not the eles last one either. PvP is about out smarting your oponent (ideally) so you need to be good enough to counter his attacks then surprise with something else.

I liked this reply, you actually raised a good thoughful point.

NdranC.5107:

plasmacutter.2709:

Mirror Images + Sword 3 twice + Sword 2 + Shatter doesn’t even tickle the brain of an experienced elementalist.

Anyone who dies to this combo must be the worst noob on the planet.

it can be avoided by:

0 – noticing the chain of events and dodging the second sword 3

1 – casting any PBAOE

2 – cleansing conditions and outrunning the illusions.

3 – cleansing condition, dodging once… then running

4 – dazing the mesmer while he’s trying to set up.

5 – using any decent cooldown available to your profession.

once the two rounds you’re talking about are up.. they’re out of endurance and out of clones… ctrl+t and burst them the heck down.

The same way the churning earth + lightning flash combo can be countered by a dodge, but still works… All combos (for the most part) have a counter that requires skill and inteligence/knowledge to perform. This combo is not the last ace up a mesmer’s sleeve, the same way churning earth is not the eles last one either. PvP is about out smarting your oponent (ideally) so you need to be good enough to counter his attacks then surprise with something else.

I liked this reply, you actually raised a good thoughful point.

Yes. Alot is happening in a short amout of time. The characters are moving in all kinds of directions, camera view points are getting turned around, and players must not take their eyes off the screen for a second to find a hot key or use the mouse pointer to select a skill or they will miss a tell-tale sign of what is about to happen. Of course to know that tell-tale sign they have to have to seen if often enough to react accordingly within time measured in split seconds.

In a slow motion world or one where we get “do-overs” lol, sure this is all easy to see. In reality, many players are succeptable.

So, no, the ele is not underpowered if played at the top of the game and to do so the player must:
1. Be able to find all the hot keys for all the skills, target marking, attunement switching, etc. without looking
2. Know intimately each and every skill and what hot key it is without looking.
3. Keep a good measure of our own conditions and the oppenents condtions, as in buffs, boons, bleeds, burns, dazes, chills etc.
4. Be able to view the battleground and at the same time not lose sight of the targets. In other words keep the view screen pointed in the direction it needs to be pointed in.
5. Finally a player is best having knowledge of what the opponent is about to do next, what his move will be after that, best strats on the best counter, and react on the fly. Certainly players who are best recognize the moves as they are made on screen. Virtually every move has a counter, one just has to see it, recognize it for what is is, know what to do next, be able to execute those skills in a short time, and know where to go from there.

It’s not so easy for many of us because we don’t have the time that is needed to get this all down so that the reactions are, just that, learned reactions. That takes many many hours. This knowledge curve is the same no matter what profession is being played. What you players who are struggling a bit might keep in mind is that the players who are at the top of the food chain have spent hundreds of hours playing the Ele and all the other professions too to get there.

My coping, lol, mechanism is to roll with it. When I am doing well I think to myself that other player has a ways to go. When I am getting my kitten kicked, I think to myself how far I have to go.

JaNordy.6149:

D/D is OP in a decent players hands, if you struggle with D/D you just are bad.

lol what an kitten stroking knob you are for saying that.

Now if you said if you struggle with d/d after playing a long time you are bad. You might have a point. But you didnt. It takes a while to learn the many combos to use in any given situation to survive. Remember the elementalist is a fairly unforgiving class if you mess up.

Coming from a Ranger main where our most effective strategy is to auto-attack, this extremely active and “complicated” D/D Ele playstyle is exactly what I’ve been craving. It’s hugely satisfying to be rewarded for skillful play.