Guild Wars 2

I think eles are just the only mobile, tanky dps in the game. I wish other professions could build like that.

Edit: scratch that—the only tanky dps in the game. Having great mobility is just an extra.

Arheundel.6451:

I don’t think you should play a MMO with different professions then, with 8 professions you’re bound to have differencies between them, if profession A can access X resources 60 times then profession B will access the same resource 80 times.
But you’re not happy with that even if they’d lower the access of profession to say 70, you’d still complain that profession B “seems” stronger than profession A.

So all professions should have the same amount of blast finisher or whatever? What would be the point of having 8 professions then? Different skins?

Well, that is your interpretation of my words, but it isn’t what I am saying. I am merely saying, that in the current state I think ele have too much/can do too many things too well. Of course it is subjective … as it is, when I feel 25k insta-dmg from a thief is OTT … that is basically also subjective. I can list the reason again for why I feel so, but I doubt it helps you understand my point.
I find it strange, that you say I am complaining … I am merely seeing things from both sides. Call that complaining … well, then I could call you biased … easy isn’t it? Couldn’t we please move beyond that?
Almost forgot: Do you really kill ppl slowly compared to other non-GC builds? Any non-GC build doesn’t really kill things faster … that is at least how I experience it.

Quote: Elementalist was considered to be the strongest class by a-net.

@Humposaurus: Your posts make no sense for me. Quoting good players says pretty much. Because on top-pvp you can see the full potential of an ele.
By the way: tell me the weakness of an ele in a 1v1 situation?
Ye right there is no weakness.

@Poxxia: kitten D bunker ele you need ages to kill. But compared to other bunkers his dmg is insane, you’re right.

Somoe.3621:

In my experience
- Bunker Ele’s are roughly as tanky as Bunker Guards
- Bunker Ele’s have MUCH more mobility, AoE, and burst than Bunker Guards
- Bunker Ele’s have MUCH more condition damage (which ignores Toughness, so it’s good against other bunkers) than Bunker Guards
- Bunker Ele’s have arguably more CC and condition removal than Bunker Guards

The only thing Bunker Guards seem to have over Bunker Ele’s currently is superior area control (knock-backs and Wards).

This sums up my entire opinion on the matter. Ele’s need a nerf bad.

as long as memsmers and thiefs stay unnerfed, eles should too.

how much ever u whine about it, those 2 classes are still stronger on an overall point of view.

why do i always get the feeling, when ele whining is involved, its mostly coming from thieves who cant comprehend why they just cant kill them as fas as most other classes …

Well the point is thieves can’t kill them at all
But you’re right. As I saw a-net will take a closer look at the portal-mechanic, there will be some fixes or extensions for other classes.

What is wrong with having good mobility, when eles have low base health and armor? Not like eles can turn invisble and strike at you. You always see it coming.

Bunker (insert any class) do pitiful damage. Eles are no different. If you die, you are making loads of mistakes.

Good players are always hard to beat, no matter the profession. Currently eles are damage lackluster (ever since the huge damage nerf in late beta), so one needs to specialize defensive/survival (which lowers the already doubtful damage output even more), in order to not be facerolled by two button spamming people that wants everything, but gives nothing.

Live with it, or get better!?

@Malcatus: I really have no issue with ele’s dmg looked at isolated. I DO have an issue with their/our constant cleansing … fields+finishers are on the top end as well. I have an issue with their/our healing. And yeah .. their/our mobility+CC is really good. In that context, their/our dmg is suddenly not moderate anymore. Did I mention, that most of it is AoE, so you can tear apart more people in the process. I rarely feel like I am living on the edge as ele; really good ele’s are, but that is because they are pushing their limits. You don’t really have to.

Just for a second compare D/D with an engineer and you will notice the difference.

Final note: Don’t get me wrong .. I would love if we had a dmg-buff or didn’t feel we were giving up way to much to not go x/x/x/30/30.

Radamanth.9048:

as long as memsmers and thiefs stay unnerfed, eles should too.

how much ever u whine about it, those 2 classes are still stronger on an overall point of view.

why do i always get the feeling, when ele whining is involved, its mostly coming from thieves who cant comprehend why they just cant kill them as fas as most other classes …

Thiefs are not stronger in an overall point of view. Not even close. Ele is stronger in 1on1 by a mile than a thief or a mesmer. Also as good or better in teamfights, (except mesmer timewarp). Only thing mes/thief have is great insta gib burst, but good players focus fire and bring things down quickly.

Most top players will tell you ele is the strongest class in game, and you wont see paid teams running without . Even mesmers are somtimes forgone in paids. Yet you see teams bring 2 elementalists frequently.

@ malatcus , of course good players are hard to beat no matter the class. But if a thief and ele are fighting and player skill is equal , the ele should win maybe 18/20 times. Unlss you happen to catch him w some lucky burst crits.

People who dont ever do paids and get to see top ele players just dont understand how good this class gets in the hands of a strong player.

And again: A-net on their own considered elementalist to be the best class. Saying mesmer and thieves are better shows only you’re lack of tactic and of synergy in the team.

Points where Ele is better then mesmer/thief:
-Heal
-Team-support
-surviving
-overtime-dmg output
-1v1 overall
-knockback
-Point holding

Point where mesmer/thief is better:
-burst
-boss-stealing (nice joke)

+1 for daydream

Just last night I was 1v1’ing a Thief (he was level 41) in hotjoin PvP (we were going to empty servers), he was playing S/D + D/D not sure of his gear but he was fairly tanky and certainly not a glass cannon. I was on my D/D Ele, running with 2 x Water, 2 x Monk, 2 x Divinity + Cleric’s Amulet and the usual 0/10/0/30/30 Build.

He won the first 3 duels quite easily by bursting me down insanely fast, did I complain…no. I got used to his tactics/rotations, I started trying to telegraph and predict his movement and started winning the duels, after winning my 5th duel in a row, he started complaining about D/D Ele’s being overpowered and that we deserved a nerf. THIS is the problem we have.

He went from soundly and easily beating me to NOT adapting his playstyle and losing a few duels in a row. The final duel we had he won because he changed his playstyle and managed to land over 15k on me in about 2-3 seconds, suddenly…Ele’s were no longer OP. I didn’t complain about his burst, nor that his Thief was not rendering fully so he was able to attack me whilst still hidden or that he would do Shadow Refuge and then reappear on full health whilst I was still trying to regen my health pool. I knew that his class even though being tanky could still burst down my entire health pool in seconds if I wasn’t constantly moving, dodging and if I had all my cantrips down, which I did :P

The moral of the story is, people on certain professions are not learning and adapting to playstyles, once you learn to counter D/D Ele’s they are easy enough to beat, I do this on my other characters. Instead they simply state that Ele’s are OP without trying to figure out how to counter or fight them.

This Ele Build is an attrition build, there is no “insane” burst, in the hands of a GOOD player they are nightmare to fight against and it seems overwhelming especially if someone use’s CC properly and effectively. However D/D Ele’s are not this godmode profession that everyone complains about, they can be easily countered, if people are willing to learn.

You can counter a good D/D ele with 2 persons at least. In a 1v1 he shouldn’t die.
If you have problems with burst and reacting time to press mist form or w/e you wanna use to take out his 45 sec recast burst, mabye u should try soldiers amulet. with 19k life so you can’t die instant
(No insult at all)

I like that you learn from these 1v1 because as an ele that’s the situation for you. If you feel pretty stabile in 1v1 you should move to 2v1. GL

Basically it goes like this:

1) Staff ele- “OMG it’s god mode, nerf it pls”
- Static field nerfed- eruption nerfed -lava font nerfed-healing rain nerfed- frozen ground nerfed- all earth skills nerfed, lightning surge nerfed
-People learn what a red circle is :" Oh so I need to dodge"
-Staff become useless in sPvP , left for wvwvw only where you can sit on the tower

2) Scepter/dagger – “OMG it’s god mode, nerf it pls”
-phoenix nerfed- arcane skills both nerfed, hurl nerfed – sand devil nerfed
-People learn what dodge and stunbreaker are :“Oh so I need to use those”
-Scepter/dagger burst become very easy to dodge and people now use it only to go bunker, apparently was too hard to dodge a 4s activation skill and 3s slow moving projectile..so people were crying “nerf nerf”

3) Dagger/dagger- “OMG it’s god mode, nerf it pls”
-It will be nerfed to the ground like the other two weapon set
-Ele will finally become a free kill and only few people will keep playing it in WvWvW and PvE
-Most ele players will change profession( personally going guardian or mesmer)
-The profession will be then buffed at the next expansion
-The nerf crowd jump at the next profession

Radamanth.9048:

as long as memsmers and thiefs stay unnerfed, eles should too.

how much ever u whine about it, those 2 classes are still stronger on an overall point of view.

why do i always get the feeling, when ele whining is involved, its mostly coming from thieves who cant comprehend why they just cant kill them as fas as most other classes …

Yeah that’s correct, when ele whining is involved it’s mostly coming from thieves

Loco.4561:

The moral of the story is, people on certain professions are not learning and adapting to playstyles, once you learn to counter D/D Ele’s they are easy enough to beat, I do this on my other characters. Instead they simply state that Ele’s are OP without trying to figure out how to counter or fight them.

This Ele Build is an attrition build, there is no “insane” burst, in the hands of a GOOD player they are nightmare to fight against and it seems overwhelming especially if someone use’s CC properly and effectively. However D/D Ele’s are not this godmode profession that everyone complains about, they can be easily countered, if people are willing to learn.

Your example has you dueling a thief—the most complained about class in the game. And after a little practice you start to beat him. I don’t see how this anecdote supports your point. Maybe your friend mains a thief and has a lot of time spent trying to master the playstyle. And then after a few matches you outclass him.

Show me something like this: you duel your GC engineer friend. And after getting wrecked a few times, he adapts his style of play and starts consistently winning against you. I very much doubt that will happen.

Anecdotes are like this aren’t at all useful to the discussion. First of all we don’t know the respective skill levels of you or your friend. Secondly, you’re dueling which is not relevant to how conquest mode works. In an actual match, the ele would be supporting teamates while tanking. And if things started to go south, the ele would just haul kitten out of there to reset the fight, which is one of the main complaints people have.

I don’t really want ele to get nerfed.

What should be done – Warrior, Ranger, Necro and probably Engineer should be brought to the level of Elementalist, Mesmer and Guardian viability/strength/diversity.

Solves the problem, ele’s players stop crying.

Arheundel.6451:

Daishi.6027:

A-net stated since beta that a survivablity/bunker build should not indefinetly outlast a full damage build... Which is what we have here.

Yes if you are dumb and don’t switch at the right time will die. And if your not good enough to live for 9 seconds you will die…

I don’t think it takes much skill or much brain power to realize when to switch and heal.

And yes bad eles will not switch and die, but if we’re balancing for people to make moves they are supposed to, then this is clearly going to outlast most builds, while doing pretty good damage, having great mobility, and nice team utility.

Sorry but something is a little wrong here. I do however think D/D will be fine post update. Their metric system may even say “ele’s are Ok. Once all weapon skills aren’t crapping out”. But as it is now bugs included, this build stands out among most.

What about this?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m3d45T4FZw&list=PLBF2912D72F052EC7&index=30

or this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua2d-BO3QIk&list=PLBF2912D72F052EC7

Go on and tell me the reason behind these videos is because " lol they’re playing against baddies"

Again…and again…and again..WvsW is NOT spvp…WvsW uses pve skills, pve gears, pve levels, pve gold and so on, spvp it’s a totally different world it’s not just going full exotic crap and roflstomp random ppl while zerging like chickens…..so…go wvsw forum if you want to talk about it. Period

Slan.5496:

Your example has you dueling a thief—the most complained about class in the game. And after a little practice you start to beat him. I don’t see how this anecdote supports your point. Maybe your friend mains a thief and has a lot of time spent trying to master the playstyle. And then after a few matches you outclass him.

Show me something like this: you duel your GC engineer friend. And after getting wrecked a few times, he adapts his style of play and starts consistently winning against you. I very much doubt that will happen.

Anecdotes are like this aren’t at all useful to the discussion. First of all we don’t know the respective skill levels of you or your friend. Secondly, you’re dueling which is not relevant to how conquest mode works. In an actual match, the ele would be supporting teamates while tanking. And if things started to go south, the ele would just haul kitten out of there to reset the fight, which is one of the main complaints people have.

I’m level 10 and he is level 41, he is more experienced than myself in sPvP and tPvP. My point was, that I adjusted my playstyle and he did not. If he had adjusted his playstyle to counter me, he would have started winning again, which he did in our final duel and I am sure if we did not have to log off, he would have beaten me again.

I have no problem killing D/D Ele’s on either my Necro, Mesmer or Warrior. The rotations they do are all the same, they can easily be telegraphed and countered. It’s very rare that you come across a D/D Ele that does not do RTL->Updraft->Burning Speed etc…etc…Rinse & Repeat. When I am on my Ele and do the same rotations, rarely do people dodge me or use CC breakers to break the DPS chain. I still have people hitting me when Shocking Aura / Frost Aura is up, rarely people kite or use LOS. My point is, people STILL have not learned or can be bothered to learn how to counter the spec, the result is a load of Hyperbole all over the forums.

Just yesterday a Ranger was whispering me complaining about my Mesmer saying it was an “OP easy mode class”, I tried explaining to Mr. Ranger that he made no attempt to kite/dodge or use any kind of rotation against me, he basically ran around spamming 1 (Crossfire) and the end result was him face down in the dirt. It’s people like that calling for nerfs that Arena Net are seemingly listening too.

If aNet are so hell bent on nerfing Ele’s then they need to seriously look at and reduce the DPS and TTK of some professions. If you don’t go bunker (or semi bunker) on your Ele in sPvP then you are going to get nuked in 2-3 seconds by Thieves, Shatter Mesmers, 100b War’s etc…

Maybe bunker ele is strong (still im not sure if its op, f.e. i dont see bunker eles rampaging other bunker clases in spvp). But just show me other build where an ele IS balanced in pvp and is not destroyed 1v1 easily by a good player.
I don’t like a nerf that ruins the only way you have to play your class. I really hope A-Net powers up other builds or makes the nerf really really carefully. Im not a hardcore pvp fan but i like to play it a little.

Archaon.6245:

Again…and again…and again..WvsW is NOT spvp…WvsW uses pve skills, pve gears, pve levels, pve gold and so on, spvp it’s a totally different world it’s not just going full exotic crap and roflstomp random ppl while zerging like chickens…..so…go wvsw forum if you want to talk about it. Period

Really?

This is a CLASS forum and the topic affects those of us who don’t enjoy playing in a controlled environment. If you think WvW is only about zerging then you need to get with the program and stop insulting the THOUSANDS of players who do what you sPVP pro’s consider to be only PVE.

I still find it funny that this was considered the worst class in the game a few months ago when nothing has really changed for it up until now.

Daishi.6027:

Not long ago it was stated they were taking a look at bunker ele.

Unfortunately along with that they are also taking a look at AoE’s and attempting to balance them… So ele will be hit hard but I have to ask What exactly is really wrong with ele? A friend of mine doing more tPvP than me (haven’t done TPvP since November) claims its how fast they can regen in water.

If this is the case rangers regen is almost on par if not better, countered really only by thief and maybe 100b (which isn’t hard to get out of)

So why is ele potentially getting the nerf bat and rangers not?

(This is all assuming I was not mislead by my friends words.)

Because the combination and amount of healing, CC, mobility, cleansing and boons a bunker ele has, gives it the best ‘sustain’ in the game.

So there are now teams running double Ele, even some running triple ele.

Sylosi.6503:

Daishi.6027:

Not long ago it was stated they were taking a look at bunker ele.

Unfortunately along with that they are also taking a look at AoE’s and attempting to balance them… So ele will be hit hard but I have to ask What exactly is really wrong with ele? A friend of mine doing more tPvP than me (haven’t done TPvP since November) claims its how fast they can regen in water.

If this is the case rangers regen is almost on par if not better, countered really only by thief and maybe 100b (which isn’t hard to get out of)

So why is ele potentially getting the nerf bat and rangers not?

(This is all assuming I was not mislead by my friends words.)

Because the combination and amount of healing, CC, mobility, cleansing and boons a bunker ele has, gives it the best ‘sustain’ in the game.

So there are now teams running double Ele, even some running triple ele.

And how would you balance an ele compared to warrior seen as the latter got 44% more HP and 22% more armor?

What should we give to the ele to balance the difference?

Just want to point this out to the calls to heal nerfs. Healing à la water attunement is our class mechanic. In game, the tooltip even says “Attune to water, gaining superior support and healing abilities” so it’s only natural water traits enhance this further. If water didn’t grant condition removal (cleansing), there would be even more healing traits. If these traits didn’t grant healing abilities, there would be absolutely no reason whatsoever to even take these traits when you could take other traits for damage.

We don’t get any other way to mitigate damage other than healing, cantrips with long cds, and straight up tanking the damage with toughness and protection. The nerf crowd (who have either never played an ele or never played one that wasn’t a bunker) never considers builds that don’t build on healing power and the fact they have no way to avoid damage other than with the required stun breakers that all classes have in some form.

With the way healing power scales, you already sacrifice a lot to go with healing power. Sorry to disappoint most of you but you can’t easily nerf healing without making the entire stat useless.

As an ele main myself and having used the bunker build a lot, I also believe the bunker build is a bit over the top. I only build this way to avoid nasty burst that I would have no other way of countering. There’s no easy solution and I’ll bet 10g we won’t be seeing changes any time soon. Nerfing healing is akin to nerfing stealth and blocking. You can’t nerf it without gimping the rest of the entire class, which is why they haven’t done so yet despite all the whine threads.

You can take away the “burst” (lol) by moving zephyr’s boon (air I) into the grandmaster traits as previously suggested. The damage of this build itself is no higher than what other classes can dish out with the same stat distribution so removing perma fury will bring it down in line. But even then, someone somewhere will find something to whine about because they couldn’t 22222222 (by this I mean any burst of course), and then stuck around to die.

KieronWolf.5108:

I still find it funny that this was considered the worst class in the game a few months ago when nothing has really changed for it up until now.

What this guy says.

I know there is mostly sPvP superpros that discuss here. But a Elementalist attacks are by far the easiest attacks to spot in the entire game. The abilities that hits anything close to hard in a bunker build either have a 4 seconds cast time with a red cirlce or a projection path that 1 000 000 out of 1 000 000 times will go straight forward for 10 units!

And when all the qqers have gotten their way, they will just scratch it of the list and move on to the next class/build on the list. As I understand Staff Ele was your last target?

Knowing Anet and their Elementalist history since beta weekends I am pretty sure you all will have it your way very soon. Anet have this idea in their head that any class that can switch attunement or kits are immensely overpowered due to fact that they can have 20 skills. So this is just how the fate for the elementalist and engineer will continue to evolve.

I am glad I have a alt warrior, cause ele will be nerfed by Anet and it will effect more than just the spvp kindergarden!!

Sorry but anyone arguing that the current meta D/D ele is anything short of over powered (to say the least) is dreaming.

No class should have the damage, survivablitiy, the healing, the mobility, the boon stacking and condition removal they have.

Period

This is why we cant have nice things.
People will complain just about anything over uniqueness thus making GW2 a generic MMO that isn’t fun…

Just wish the population of gw2 would learn things rather than having stuff handed to them on a plate.

Learn how to counter.

I had to learn to counter you class, learn how to counter my class.

Infectious.4836:

Sorry but anyone arguing that the current meta D/D ele is anything short of over powered (to say the least) is dreaming.

No class should have the damage, survivablitiy, the healing, the mobility, the boon stacking and condition removal they have.

Period

No class has damage, survivability, mobility, boon stacking and condition removal at the same time.

There are only good players timing their skills and baddies spamming buttons with an open mouth

I’ve been playing a bunker S/D ele for about 3 days. I played all the ‘lackluster’ professions that the forums talk about (engy, necro, ranger) for about 300 hours each in both sPvP, tPvP and WvW. They are nowhere near being underpowered. People running glass cannon builds expect bunker eles to die in 3 heartseekers.

Ele’s damage can be mitigated really easily, very obvious animations and long cast times, easy to interrupt. I really don’t see a problem with bunker eles, as they can be countered quite easily by thinking for 10 minutes and creating a counter build.

People really don’t want to use their brains when they come to games.

Infectious.4836:

Sorry but anyone arguing that the current meta D/D ele is anything short of over powered (to say the least) is dreaming.

No class should have the damage, survivablitiy, the healing, the mobility, the boon stacking and condition removal they have.

Period

Try using other skills than heartseeker. Or autoattack.

KieronWolf.5108:

I still find it funny that this was considered the worst class in the game a few months ago when nothing has really changed for it up until now.

This is becouse after the game started most average players tried to play elementalists as archetyped in other similar games. Mage, glass cannon yadda yadda. Not all of them but “average player” is what constitutes the majority.

And such eles are honestly a bit weak, I myself considered eles to be weak becouse they were very squishy and their damage was easily dodged. However since the D/D bunker ele meta got more popular (I cant really say when this happened) eles suddenly became the worst nightmare for me in PvP. Since they are FotM spec now, you get tons of eles in games. And like 90% of them are bunker D/D. I agree that their damage is not amazing. But honestly, trying to kill one is as hard as trying to kill bunker guard. Except bunker guard does even less damage so you can actually outlast him when playing safe. Trying to outlast an elem? No kitty way. I long abandonded hopes to go 1v1 vs an ele. If I see one around the node and no one around to help me, I just go somewhere else. Guardian warding the node? I still go for it. Couple that with amazing mobility, group buffs and decent damage. They can easily escape a fight if overwhelmed which makes attempts to fight them in the open field a pointless waste of time.

I can agree that this whole situation may be caused by only one game type available. Maybe in some other game types it would be different. But then again, what game types? For instance I can imagine in CTF play D/D bunker elem would again be the best pick.

I also agree that eles require more skill to play well than say thief or warrior. But IMO this does not mean that higher skill ceiling should mean better overall result. In a single player game or some casual party game, yes. But this is not how a competetive game should be designed.

This is the most elitist sounding topic I’ve ever read. I’m tired of listening to children discuss the ONLY viable build the ele has and tearing it up because they want to use their cookie cutter strategies against the elementalist. Everyone against the ele tells their story which nearly always involves them playing some glass cannon build (not an ele) and dying slowly. Everyone for the ele actually plays the elementalist and backs their information up with statistics or factual information.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

This is the most elitist sounding topic I’ve ever read. I’m tired of listening to children discuss the ONLY viable build the ele has and tearing it up because they want to use their cookie cutter strategies against the elementalist. Everyone against the ele tells their story which nearly always involves them playing some glass cannon build (not an ele) and dying slowly. Everyone for the ele actually plays the elementalist and backs their information up with statistics or factual information.

So what is the hard counter to elementalist D/D bunker? Please teach me becouse if there is one, I will gladly reroll it instantly to fight with all those elems running rampant now in PvP. Even if it means being weaker in other aspects of the game.

Awe.1096:

KieronWolf.5108:

I still find it funny that this was considered the worst class in the game a few months ago when nothing has really changed for it up until now.

This is becouse after the game started most average players tried to play elementalists as archetyped in other similar games. Mage, glass cannon yadda yadda. Not all of them but “average player” is what constitutes the majority.

And such eles are honestly a bit weak, I myself considered eles to be weak becouse they were very squishy and their damage was easily dodged. However since the D/D bunker ele meta got more popular (I cant really say when this happened) eles suddenly became the worst nightmare for me in PvP. Since they are FotM spec now, you get tons of eles in games. And like 90% of them are bunker D/D. I agree that their damage is not amazing. But honestly, trying to kill one is as hard as trying to kill bunker guard. Except bunker guard does even less damage so you can actually outlast him when playing safe. Trying to outlast an elem? No kitty way. I long abandonded hopes to go 1v1 vs an ele. If I see one around the node and no one around to help me, I just go somewhere else. Guardian warding the node? I still go for it. Couple that with amazing mobility, group buffs and decent damage. They can easily escape a fight if overwhelmed which makes attempts to fight them in the open field a pointless waste of time.

I can agree that this whole situation may be caused by only one game type available. Maybe in some other game types it would be different. But then again, what game types? For instance I can imagine in CTF play D/D bunker elem would again be the best pick.

I also agree that eles require more skill to play well than say thief or warrior. But IMO this does not mean that higher skill ceiling should mean better overall result. In a single player game or some casual party game, yes. But this is not how a competetive game should be designed.

From a thief player who play an ele also

@Gisei 5749
Only read OP.

First, there are not that many D/D Eles. Thieves easily outnumber them 4 to 1, if not more. Whenever I face a Zerg of 30 or so, there is normally 1-2 D/D Eles in it, but easily 6-8 thieves bouncing around. Actually, as of late, I have been seeing a larger variety of professions, as well a some very skilled Engis, Warriors, and Mesmers.

Second, there is a very clear distinction between a Good D/D Ele and a Bad D/D Ele. A good one will run circles around a zerg. It doesn’t matter how many hit him, he will always get away. The bad ones are barely capable of pestering a single player. The D/D Ele has a high skill cap, which allows those with the skill to rise up and shine.

Third, the only reason D/D Eles are considered OP is because of their mobility and CC. Another potential reason is because most players don’t have a D/D Ele, and do not recognize skill tells and patterns, and they have a lot of skills. I fought 2 D/D Eles yesterday alone, and I had little problem, on my thief by the way. I even managed to kill one of them before the rest of their group caught up. I was only able to do this because I have a D/D Ele that I have played extensively, and those Eles, though pretty skilled, were predictable with their combos. They switched to Earth, I backed up which lured an Earth 3-4-5 combo. They switch to fire, expected Fire 3 followed by 2 and 5. When they go to Air, expect 3 and 5, or if you are running, a 4-5 combo. Hold back your cooldowns while fighting them, until after they leave water attunement, then burst burst burst and be prepare to snare before they Air 3. That’s exactly how I killed the Ele above. I kept 8-9 bleed on her. When she healed up and left water, I hit her with 20+ bleed. She melted away helplessly. (Note: If you can’t identify all the skills these numbers refer to off the top of you head, you have no right to complain.)

Fourth, compared to other classes, D/D Ele has very mediocre DPS. It may seem different if you don’t have one, but we focused on keeping you in control, unable to do anything while we whittle you down. We have two decent spikes though. Two very easily avoided spikes. Fire 5 misses most of the time anyways, and Earth 5 has an insane channel.

Awe.1096:

DaedalusDragon.3754:

This is the most elitist sounding topic I’ve ever read. I’m tired of listening to children discuss the ONLY viable build the ele has and tearing it up because they want to use their cookie cutter strategies against the elementalist. Everyone against the ele tells their story which nearly always involves them playing some glass cannon build (not an ele) and dying slowly. Everyone for the ele actually plays the elementalist and backs their information up with statistics or factual information.

So what is the hard counter to elementalist D/D bunker? Please teach me becouse if there is one, I will gladly reroll it instantly to fight with all those elems running rampant now in PvP. Even if it means being weaker in other aspects of the game.

Make one and learn the skill animations, GW2 was always advertised as a very intesive visual game if you can’t dodge ele attack, you lack skills big time and need to improve, plian and simple.

Over 3/4 of ele skills got a 2s casting time with skill like churning earht reaching 4.5s casting, mroe help than this I dunno

P.S pls read the post above ( one of the many many many answers given by good players to those who aren’t)

You want to counter a DD Ele? Focus your CC and interupts when he switches to water! Keep him out of water and you will wear him down!

The attunements even have all the purrrrty colorz so you can see it.

Stop stacking conditions when the elementalist havent been in water for 8 seconds. He will soon be and remove your conditions.

Dodge roll. There is no other thing in the game besides 100 blades that is easier to dodge roll than a DD elementalist.

Stop using your cookie cutter backstab playstyle when elementalist is in Air Attunement. You can bet your kitten on that the only thing you will hit is a stun shield and a follow up knockback.

Now I wont give you more tips since I still play my DD ele

leman.7682:

I don’t really want ele to get nerfed.

What should be done – Warrior, Ranger, Necro and probably Engineer should be brought to the level of Elementalist, Mesmer and Guardian viability/strength/diversity.

Solves the problem, ele’s players stop crying.

I agree with this very much. (Although I’d argue that eles don’t really have much diversity.)

Arheundel.6451:

No class has damage, survivability, mobility, boon stacking and condition removal at the same time.

There are only good players timing their skills and baddies spamming buttons with an open mouth

I really suggest you go have a look at s/tPvP D/D elementist without any biased views of them.

kuora.5402:

Try using other skills than heartseeker. Or autoattack.

Failing to see what you’re getting at, or refuting any part of the point I made.
If anything, glass cannon thief is probably the “best” match up against a D/D elementist.

Nice try insulting me though. Try being objective some time and removing your head from your kitten

I’m not arguing that the ele needs a nerf, I’m arguing compared to everything else, they are better.

Infectious.4836:

Arheundel.6451:

No class has damage, survivability, mobility, boon stacking and condition removal at the same time.

There are only good players timing their skills and baddies spamming buttons with an open mouth

I really suggest you go have a look at s/tPvP D/D elementist without any biased views of them.

kuora.5402:

Try using other skills than heartseeker. Or autoattack.

Failing to see what you’re getting at, or refuting any part of the point I made.
If anything, glass cannon thief is probably the “best” match up against a D/D elementist.

Nice try insulting me though. Try being objective some time and removing your head from your kitten

I’m not arguing that the ele needs a nerf, I’m arguing compared to everything else, they are better.

You keep talking about an ele with full survival build as we get all this fresh out of the box, why don’t you go and play a 30/30/10/0/0 build and see where you can arrive?

Or you play full defensive or you better kittening hope you’ve got 5-6 people defending you with their life because you’ll go down if somebody sneeze at you…and still only able to deal 2/4 of the thief dmg…that’s ele for you, it seems as you’re the one with a biased opinion

Forzani.2584:

Daishi.6027:

Not long ago it was stated they were taking a look at bunker ele.

Unfortunately along with that they are also taking a look at AoE’s and attempting to balance them… So ele will be hit hard but I have to ask What exactly is really wrong with ele? A friend of mine doing more tPvP than me (haven’t done TPvP since November) claims its how fast they can regen in water.

If this is the case rangers regen is almost on par if not better, countered really only by thief and maybe 100b (which isn’t hard to get out of)

So why is ele potentially getting the nerf bat and rangers not?

(This is all assuming I was not mislead by my friends words.)

Solid.

Hearsay is information gathered by one person from another person concerning some event, condition, or thing of which the first person had no direct experience

I didnt know that the witness was testifying your honour :P

Arheundel.6451:

Infectious.4836:

Arheundel.6451:

No class has damage, survivability, mobility, boon stacking and condition removal at the same time.

There are only good players timing their skills and baddies spamming buttons with an open mouth

I really suggest you go have a look at s/tPvP D/D elementist without any biased views of them.

kuora.5402:

Try using other skills than heartseeker. Or autoattack.

Failing to see what you’re getting at, or refuting any part of the point I made.
If anything, glass cannon thief is probably the “best” match up against a D/D elementist.

Nice try insulting me though. Try being objective some time and removing your head from your kitten

I’m not arguing that the ele needs a nerf, I’m arguing compared to everything else, they are better.

You keep talking about an ele with full survival build as we get all this fresh out of the box, why don’t you go and play a 30/30/10/0/0 build and see where you can arrive?

Or you play full defensive or you better kittening hope you’ve got 5-6 people defending you with their life because you’ll go down if somebody sneeze at you…and still only able to deal 2/4 of the thief dmg…that’s ele for you, it seems as you’re the one with a biased opinion

No I’m talking about the current meta D/D build.

I am aware you can run sub par builds.
If you play to “have fun” and don’t give a kitten what build you run fine, go hard.
The rest of us would like a balanced game.

Well, the one and only problem in GW2 are thieves imo. Not only are they broken themselves (I seriously can not comprehend how anyone can complain about ANY other class in this game as long as there is that class that can kill people without even being visible [culling issue or not, as a matter of fact, that’s how it is] and can easily afford to run full beserker gear in a melee setup while still being next to impossible to kill, again due to stealth abuse and spammable shadowstepping).

On top of that, thief players are the FIRST to scream for nerfs on other classes, whenever they are not able to instagib someone running whatever class. And sooner or later, A-Net will have to give in to them, because they’re such a large crowd.

Because the situation is as follows: Quite a lot of the complaining comes from WvW. Now take a look at the average WvW player. Let’s call him Timmy.
Timmy wants to pick up WvW, so obviously he rolls a thief. He then roams around the borderlands, spamming heartseeker like a boss. And stuff dies. On his way he encounters countless D/D elementalists (used as a placeholder, might use any other class here) who haven’t put a lot of time and effort into figuring out how to play their character (more than Timmy still, but whatever) and they drop like flies. He doesn’t even realise they’re D/D eles.
Then one day, he runs into another type of D/D ele: full exotics, cookie cutter build, and a player that already forgot more about his class than Timmy will ever learn. Timmy starts spamming heartseeker like a boss (as he always does), but what’s that? This guy puts up protection, evades, survives long enough for Timmy to run out of initiative and then fights back?! WHAT MADNESS IS THIS?! ISNT MY THIEF SUPPOSED TO INSTAGIB ANYONE?!
Now what’s the reaction and thought process of Timmy? Since we’re in the Ele forum, you might think it’s something along the lines of: “Holy kitten, that guy is good! Truely mastered his class. And used sooo many skills! Maybe I should start enhancing my play as well, and not just spam heartseeker like a boss!”.
Let me assure you, that’s not what he thinks. It’s more along the lines of: “ROFL WTF THAT GUY IS UNKILLABLE! D/D OP, NERF PLOX!”.

Now think about the WvW population. There’s quite alot of Timmys. Sooner or later, A-Net will have to please them. So they nerf D/D eles.

Then Timmy runs into a Guardian…

RaynStargaze.6510:

Im saying ELE can do EVERYTHING – no class can do EVERYTHING this is not a matter of weapon swapping but as i can see you either dont want to understand and just troll or youre really just plain dumb

Ele cannot do everything either. DD ele doesnt have range damage. Bunker DD ele deals mediocre damage compared to other professions (due to full PVT, 30 water/ 30 arcana). Glass cannon ele is squishy as hell. And while having a wide range of different skills, those skills are on a much higher cooldown than other professions skills.

KieronWolf.5108:

I still find it funny that this was considered the worst class in the game a few months ago when nothing has really changed for it up until now.

Exactly. People started learning to play them, and got the hang of making better builds, which focus on survival.

Personally, I find engineers to be one of the worst opponents I can have, haha. Their ability to constantly pull and push you back, leaving you on the ground for an absurdly long time is wild. I haven’t complained in their forum, however. Not all engineers are a pain in the butt, so it is the build I suppose. Just like the annoying D/D 0/10/0/30/30 build, which often leads to 10+ minutes duels.

People want everything nerfed on the ele, or have other classes brought up to par with them in everything they do, even though they are supposed to be masters of diversity.

If others are given the exact same means of movement, healing, condition removal and whatever you might cry all night about, YOU WILL ALSO gain our low base health, low base armor and low base damage, with loooong drawn out animations etc.. (and classes with invisibility should have it removed).

Currenly I find that you can’t make a really solid build without 30 water and cantrips. You simply can’t. Otherwise you die way too fast and then you see how the ele suddenly is. Puny, frail, easy to shove around. Just like 3 or so months back, and noone complained when they were the easiest targets around.

kuora.5402:

People really don’t want to use their brains when they come to games.

That’s the main issue unfortunately.

Infectious.4836:

Sorry but anyone arguing that the current meta D/D ele is anything short of over powered (to say the least) is dreaming.

No class should have the damage, survivablitiy, the healing, the mobility, the boon stacking and condition removal they have.

Period

No class has the crummy damage we have. That is the problem. Hence the survival/attrition builds you hate so much.

I am pretty sure that guardians have better/or on par healing, and better boon stacking. Because of the low base health, duh. You want them removed too? It is like removing invisibility from thieves and clones/phantasms from the mesmer.

In the end you hate the most defensive builds we can access. Ever played against an ele WITHOUT cantrips and 30 water? You would think that it was fair then, because it takes us back to square one. Barely no means of survivability (and losing three stunbreakers is not in the cards) and meh damage, in combination with the lowest health and armor. We can’t put out enough damage fast enough, so healing for a prolonged battle is necessary.

Anet needs to buff the damage, perhaps add a few more single target skills and change Evasive Arcana to do damage + vulnerability, instead of healing + condition removal. Redoing traits and traitlines will be needed, I wager.

Reading some posts here, I feel sad that people want to nerf a class that already has a few viable options to play with. I think it’s been stated enough that Eles has a ridiculous low damage out put compared to their defense when you compare to some other classes. One big problem is that we are almost forced to go 20-30 points in Arcana to get faster attunement swapping (since we don’t have weapon swap and instead much longer cd on attunement swap than the weapon swap has for other classes).

A lot of people complain about how warrior, thief and mesmers are op with their insane burst and how they easily can kill you. Sometimes I wonder if it’s not those same people who play “op theives/mesmer/warriors” that are suddenly feeling kitten since they can’t kill an d/d ele. Nevertheless I can understand why bunker ele may seem op, but my concern is that people want a nerf for a class with few viable options, which in such case would lead to basically none viable options at all. I frankly would want a boost for Eles (and I don’t mean bunker elese), not a nerf. I really hope that, if Anet will come up with some balance for eles in the future, that they do it so we can benefit from other builds as well.

Also, D/D eles (I’m playing 0/10/0/30/30) do not have insane damage. I use soldier’s amulet in sPvp and mind you, anyone can play with that. Those whom I usually deal most damage to are those who play glasscanon builds. Otherwise it’s just slow but safe kill.

Malcastus.6240

No class has the crummy damage we have. That is the problem. Hence the survival/attrition builds you hate so much.

I am pretty sure that guardians have better/or on par healing, and better boon stacking. Because of the low base health, duh. You want them removed too? It is like removing invisibility from thieves and clones/phantasms from the mesmer.

In the end you hate the most defensive builds we can access. Ever played against an ele WITHOUT cantrips and 30 water? You would think that it was fair then, because it takes us back to square one. Barely no means of survivability (and losing three stunbreakers is not in the cards) and meh damage, in combination with the lowest health and armor. We can’t put out enough damage fast enough, so healing for a prolonged battle is necessary.

Anet needs to buff the damage, perhaps add a few more single target skills and change Evasive Arcana to do damage + vulnerability, instead of healing + condition removal. Redoing traits and traitlines will be needed, I wager.

Again, running an ele WITHOUT cantrips is running a SUB PAR build.
They either need to be toned down, or everything else needs to be raised to the same level.

I would rather a combination of the 2 TBH.

I just don’t get how anyone can defend the current meta D/D build.

Infectious.4836:

I just don’t get how anyone can defend the current meta D/D build.

It is defended because we don’t have much options to play around with at the end. Take that away as well and you’ll have no eles playing GW2 anymore. At least nothing viable.

paleeshi.1924:

Infectious.4836:

I just don’t get how anyone can defend the current meta D/D build.

It is defended because we don’t have much options to play around with at the end. Take that away as well and you’ll have no eles playing GW2 anymore. At least nothing viable.

Yep that’s the main problem. The current meta D/D build is the only build that is on par with other meta builds, nerf that and you will see no more eles in PVP anymore.