Guild Wars 2

Before you start saying L2P. Let me preface this. I’ve played the game since launch. I started with Ele as my main character. I leveled Ele to 80 first. I’ve tried every build out there from bunker to glass cannon, DD, SD, Staff, you name it. Even tried a couple of build that I’ve made up. I’m current level 36 in SPvP and 124 WvW. /age Says I’ve played the character 814 hours. I have leveled all other class now at 80 except necro. Total hours played 1822.

I have to say Ele is the weakest of all the characters. Their damage is mediocre, survivability is low, most high damaging abilities take way to long to cast and are easily telegraphed. Even when played at their best your lucky to bring down a medium skilled character of any other class.

The first problem is survivability. Because of low health, Eles are almost forced to go bunker to have any survivability while other classes can easily go with more aggressive offensive builds. I’ve literally been 2-shoted by thieves while being in a more offensive build with an ele. This isn’t the case at all with my mesmer, thief or any other class for that matter.

The second issue low damage. Even in an offensive build, ele damage is at best just ok. Having to spec bunker further complicates the problem. The easily telegraphed skills even further adds to the frustration. Fire Grab hits for 5K, that’s if it hits, but it’s nothing to see a thief backstab for 6k with autocrit from stealth, and they can do that over and over again while Fire Grab has a 45 sec cool down. Every class out there I can name abilities that do more damage, some way more damage, than similar ele abilities. Churning Earth is laughable. I’m serious. When I play other classes and see a ele start to cast CE. I laugh. I’m thinking thanks for the 2.5 seconds of free damage I get to do to you. While I easily move out of range and dps from afar. Even if it does hit me, I’m like .. whatever with its measly 2k to 4K damage and a bleed that can easily be removed. Heh. My mesmer autoattack can do 2K in 1/3 the time. Heck I’ve had theifs that could dps me down before it even cast. Really though Churning Earth should hit for something like 7K to 10K damage with a 4k bleed

This brings into light another frustration of eles. Eles are forced to melee combat or ranged combat but can’t do both. Every other class can do both. This means every class has an instant advantage over an ele by simply moving to the damage type that eles are not using.

Of course with the long cast times and telegraphed moves eles are forced to do tricks just to get some spells to land. Locking people in place and hoping they don’t have a teleport, use a stability or just cleanse the condition. Using cantrips like Lightning Flash just to land a spell like churning earth is really a joke when other classes don’t have to go through that trouble.

And can anyone for the love of all that is holy, please explain to me why eles are punished when Ride the Lightning misses but when Heatsearker, Leap of Faith, Swoop, Rush, Whirlwind Attack and every other gap closing damage ability in the game by any other class is not penalized when they miss? Heck of seen warriors out run whole mobs of people just using their weapon skills. I’m sure that’s not what those abilities were designed for or…. where they? Be fair here, if your going to do it to RoL, do it to all of them or remove it from RoL.

I love ele but playing mine makes me want to bang my head on my keyboard. Please fix them. And don’t say there is nothing wrong with them. When I switched to mesmer I went from not being able to kill hardly anyone and dieing over and over again to being able to take on 2 sometimes 3 people at once and having people whisper me and say that I’m too good.

My suggestion is give them a little more health, lower the cast time or up the damage of some of the more telegraphed abilities or you could make all their abilities cause conditions. That would be interesting. And for the love of all that is holy in MMOs, remove the penalty from RoL.

I also want to throw out a challenge. I dare all the devs to play Ele solely for one month.

I have leveled all classes to 80, and I have over 2000 hours on Ele.

The Ele is immensely powerful.
-Its potential for damage AND might stacking in PvE is amazing, and unmatched when they call upon Conjures.
-The unique support it can give in PvP (Water Attunement Cleansing/Healing + Elemental Attunement boons) is fantastically powerful.
-Its access to two Water fields and high amounts of damage and CC on Staff makes it an integral support class in WvW, and Cleric’s Bunker Staff is one of the strongest builds in an organized team in sPvP.
-Fresh Air burst Ele is one of the strongest roaming burst specs in the game.
-DPS Staff Ele has the strongest AoE damage in the game.

The Elementalist’s main weakness is its low base stats. Even with a defensive spec, it still needs to keep moving and healing if it wants to survive. As a glass spec, it dies easily to burst damage. It has this weakness to balance out the sheer potential of the class.

Consider that most PvE speedclear teams run at least double Ele for dungeons if going for a record.
Consider that in the winning teams for both the NA and EU Tournament of Legends, both teams ran Eles and did very well.

Simply put, the Elementalist is very strong. It’s just hard to use for players that can’t properly utilize its active defenses or multitude of skills.

If you have this much trouble with the Elementalist, you probably just need to come to terms with the fact that it may not be the class for you. That’s ok. Many of us love to play it, and see how effective it is across the whole game. Maybe Mesmer just fits your playstyle better, which is fine! But just because a class doesn’t seem strong to you when you use it, doesn’t mean the entire class is bad. It’s probably just not for you. That’s why I encourage players to try out all the classes in the mists before settling on one. For myself, I’m a terrible Mesmer in PvP, but I’m impressed by the people that can play it well!

PvE eles are used for a FGS exploit. You fix FGS, ele becomes irrelevant. Warrior alone can might stack and without bugging out/exploiting skills can put similar numbers.

Zenith.7301:

PvE eles are used for a FGS exploit. You fix FGS, ele becomes irrelevant. Warrior alone can might stack and without bugging out/exploiting skills can put similar numbers.

Eles have higher damage with Fire staff and can might stack without hurting their own DPS. Eles are still very strong even without FGS/Ice Bow cheese.

Zenith.7301:

PvE eles are used for a FGS exploit. You fix FGS, ele becomes irrelevant. Warrior alone can might stack and without bugging out/exploiting skills can put similar numbers.

Are you playing the same game as I am? Because last time I checked absurd dps, permafury, 18+ stacks of might, and aoe projectile destruction are the furthest thing from irrelevant. PS warrior hits like a wet noodle by the way is made obsolete by any half-decent ele.

You’re doing it wrong… Ele is hard to play, you have to be very quick and understand exactly what you’re doing. To survive I rely on dodging, lightning flash and our multiple heals via our main heal and evasive arcana healing. I use a lot of might stacking, and whatever I can to regain vigor / energy. Also to make it work I use a mouse where I can access all skills so my left hand can concentrate on movement. You have to become very fluent and understand your build.

I agree we are at a bit of a disadvantage with our stats and have to work harder to get results, but it is very rewarding and so much more fun than some of the other classes.

Zenith.7301:

PvE eles are used for a FGS exploit. You fix FGS, ele becomes irrelevant. Warrior alone can might stack and without bugging out/exploiting skills can put similar numbers.

BWUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA

You’re hilarious.

I definitely think Ele could use some shorter cool downs, and perhaps a slight tweaking of the base stats, but in general Ele is fine. I respect that you’ve played it a lot, but perhaps you haven’t learned as much as you should have from others. I’d suggest checking out all sorts of YouTube videos and guides for Ele.

As for bursting, in my experience I’ve been able to burst harder than any thief even without being too glassy. You just have to have the right build and know what you are doing.

I seriously came in here expecting a rant on just how overpowered and easymode elementalist is these days. Goes to show just how far you’re off. D/D is straight up overpowered in WvW roaming right now. It’s absolutely alpha. More than half the population in os these days is running D/D, and even though they just picked it up they’re beating some very experienced players with it. The experienced D/Ds lose to noone. Noone. No not even perplexity condi thief. Meanwhile in smallscale roaming, try arguing with a 5 man 7k churning + 1k bleed ticks, on a balanced spec.

You’re doing something wrong. I’m guessing it’s might stacking or buildcrafting.

I can’t agree with the damage part at all. I came from a ranger and I can say that the damage is anything but low. You name single abilities but the way I see it ele uses a huge combination of its abilities to do huge damage. Ele has theoretically the highest possible burst damage.

Get your keybinds and combos sorted and everything works out fine. I struggled playing ele for a while until I rebound my attunements.

Sigmoid.7082:

I can’t agree with the damage part at all. I came from a ranger and I can say that the damage is anything but low. You name single abilities but the way I see it ele uses a huge combination of its abilities to do huge damage. Ele has theoretically the highest possible burst damage.

Get your keybinds and combos sorted and everything works out fine. I struggled playing ele for a while until I rebound my attunements.

Tbh, even on single targets eles have stupid high damage. Lava font is silly, and the bigger the target the sillier meteor shower becomes.

The added massive aoe capabilities is just another cake entirely.

cry for joy I hope.

I also main elementalist, champion magus at that (have been working kitten the achievement today only to find out I already had it).

2400 hours over all, play all 7 professions except mesmer. All at lvl 80 with 1400+ hours on elementalist.
I’m hanging out around the 95-96% of tpvp fooling around with random builds across all classes (except mesmer).

Here’s my gripe:
Doesn’t matter what profession I play if there’s one good thief in the game I’m bound to die whenever he shows up. In fact 90% of my deaths are either by being outnumbered 1v2+ or because a decent thief showed up.
The remaining 10% are just really good players.

What I want to say with that is that thief are not just the bane to elementalists but to all professions. If any profession goes slightly offensive they’re gonna feel more hurt by these thieves. THIS is also why I think ya shouldn’t compare our dagger fire #5 skill with the backstab… Instead think of #3 on the dagger in fire. Its an evade, (jump finisher… I wish) with good damage and a burn + a firefield for mightstacking (possible fury). Please point out any skill that compares to the usefullness of this one skill. I can’t think of any.

Next; your sad about Dagger fire no. 5 and air no. 4 but only when they miss….
Sometimes skills miss, they can be evaded, blind, blocked, invulnerability etc. This is not just something the elementalist has to deal with but all professions have to deal with it…. and you’ve only complained about dagger off-hand, why not try focus off-hand? Takes some getting used to but it’ll benefit you greatly in the end.

Message has gotten quite long… sorry… But honestly ya don’t need to worry. Elementalist is now fun AND rewarding to play, ever since that april 15 patch. Before then… well lets say it gave me enough reason to try out the other professions which are now all lvl 80. Elementalist was nerfed too much; WAY too much. I just hope this upcoming patch doesn’t ruïn the sweet balance the elementalist now has.

The first issue is you are still a beginner to even judge the profession fully. Only rank 36 in spvp and 124 rank in wvw – Even if you obtained 124 rank by solo roaming you are still a “noob” with the profession. It takes a lot more practice to master this profession even with just one type of build.

Once you really master the profession you can defeat all other professions and players., foam equally skilled to higher skilled opponents. It has been proven that the ele has the highest burst in the game.

You want to start as bunker. It is the easiest type to perform well due to its high survivability and forgiveness to recover from multiple mistakes you will make as a beginner. The ele can absolutely go with more aggressive build and perform extremely well.

The second issue is you are stating damage coming from a bunker low dps built ele.
This might bring a light into your frustration, Scepter and dagger is played well by being both melee and ranged. In and out like a boxing match.

The next paragraph can be compressed as “I want to land all the skills easily without any thinking, skill or effort”. RTl suffered a major nerf due to its abuse stage of being able to engage and disengage at will with this skill.

I won’t disagree that the ele takes a lot more time to start performing well compared to other professions but that’s part of the fun. Any skilled ele player will tell you the amount of failure, defeat, frustration and possibly humiliation they went through before becoming good. Don’t dare the devs to play in just one month. In one month they will more likely be just like you that fail to realize the true potential of this profession and end up over buffing the class.

Thanks for the responses. I haven’t played ele since the April patch and found a celestial build that I’m currently doing better with.

@Neko – Thanks for your advise. I understand about the keep moving and healing. Your probably right about just sticking to Mesmer. I guess my point is if you take the moving and dodging skills you have to learn just to survive as Ele and apply that to any other class you can easily shine. For example I play a pitiful Warrior but because I’ve learned to constant move and heal, I can play War and still survive 60% of battles not knowing a thing about what I’m doing. And in Mesmer, I’ve yet to fight an Ele that could beat me 1vs1. Partly because I know all the ele moves and second because I can range them down with GS.

I agree that staff ele in WvW is a wonderful asset if you want to play utility but don’t get caught alone as a staff Ele. You can’t beat anyone. Well I take that back. I’ve won a few with staff against some really bad players after fighting for 10 minutes and praying that no one else comes along (thank you for standing in meteor shower and lava font trying to dps me down). I did get in a fight with another staff ele once .. We fought for something like 15 minutes and finally decided to give up.

@LightningBlaze A beginner at 800 hours? I don’t know whether to say thank you for proving my point or just laugh. If at 800 hours your still a newb to the class, if you need special keyboard setups, macros, or game controllers just to play the class at a descent level, if….. any way.

As far as landing skills easy. I don’t’ expect that at all. I know good players will dodge, block, go invis and make themselves invulnerable. But could you imagine the outcry if good second before you got backstabbed a huge symbol appeared above your head allowing you to easily dodge. And I understand other classes have easily telegraphed big hitting abilities as well. The difference is usually they get some damage in while the opponent is making their defensive counter. Many of the eles moves can be totally avoided by dodging or merely running out of the area before the move executes.

In response to RTL being used to engage and disengage. Are you telling me Warrior’s Rush, Theif’s Heartseeker and Ranger’s Hornet Sting are never used to disengage? I’ve seen Wars, Thieves, Rangers, Guardians all use combat abilities to disengage. Just go on YouTube and watch WvW roaming videos of those classes.

I think I’ve road this dead horse into the ground. I guess I just wanted to play ele because I’ve always played wizard classes, all the way back to old EQ. I’ll painfully finish my PvP wins achievement and go play my Mesmer.

Best of luck out there!

I remember I used to play Mages in other MMOs and then was disappointed with the Ele.

Now I find Mages in other MMOs to be super disappointing compared to the Ele. :P

Sometimes I just have to remind myself and others that there are plenty of playstyles out there, and that there’s 8 professions in GW2. Just because one may not like one or two of those particular profession’s playstyles (or even 7 of them!), as long as one of the 8 is enjoyable, a player should just play that instead. The Elementalist is a very unique take on the Mage/Sorcerer/Evocation Wizard, but it’s become my personal favorite take on the idea.

Also, if you’re dueling people, I’m pretty sure Staff is a bad choice. Dagger or Scepter (especially the overpowered Double Dagger Celestial Water/Arcana build) is stronger for “dueling” players.

when i want hardcore gamestyle i use my s/d fresh ele, when i am lazy i take my PU mesmer
thats the only different between ele’s and other classes ;-)

but indeed fire grab and chunning earth… that need better cuz i play s/d good but the 2 spells fails too much ;-)
but when they hit… they hit hard

I disagree: they hit for almost nothing in proportion to the trouble it is to cast them!

Baest.4061:

when i want hardcore gamestyle i use my s/d fresh ele, when i am lazy i take my PU mesmer
thats the only different between ele’s and other classes ;-)

but indeed fire grab and chunning earth… that need better cuz i play s/d good but the 2 spells fails too much ;-)
but when they hit… they hit hard

I personally prefer S/F for pvp bursting so I don’t have to be in someones face to deal damage, and the focus gives me a tad bit more insurance against thieves. Still, I feel like DT only hits bad players, so I just use it to pressure them while doing the real bursting with earth 2/air swapping.

I would find my d/d ele worthy of evaluation for nerfs if fire grab and lightning touch were easier to, my burst wasn’t based off burning speed + lightning flash, my non-air autoattacks were decent, RTL didn’t have a stupid cooldown, and churning earth had the ability to work effectively.

I don’t think eles are weak or op. I think they are doing ok. Maybe a little squishy compare to other classes. King of aoe. I asure you, eles do not need to go bunker to have some surviability. It depends where. In pve, wvw, pvp (which I rarely do), I play 6/0/0/4/4 most of the time. Only ever rarely in pvp or in wvw I will switch to x/x/x/6/6. In wvw, we either are out numbered, I will switch. In pvp, if the group really need a bunker. If you get 2 shotted by a theif in bunker, then maybe ele is not the class for you. Churning earth is good, if you know how to knock down the opponent first. I think the hardest part about the ele is knowing when to use which skills, set your own combo and I think you will have an easier time.

Tell me one thing: If ele’s are so powerfull how do you beat a D/P & S/D thief (in wvw) as an ele? The thief uses ‘blind on cloack trait’, for even further damage reduction on you. You are smashed with blinds all over the place, he easely lands cloacks, and even If i dodge backstab, he just does it again. I’m convinced Ele has no counter to this. Even lightning aura, just delays a thief, he can still land backstab, and then just recover. Scepter, or D/D it bought got countered by the blinds mostly, and evade spam on sword. This is the weakness of ele. Thief has best burst in game, and one of the best survival mechanics, an ele is to weak to get true that because of the low armor/hp + not so good damage combo. The only reason ele is strong is combo’s. and they either require ele to be weaker then other profs, but fully focus on might stacking to make the others stronger. Or they require other profs, to fill in gaps, and blast your amazing fire/water fields. But alone, ele strong? rarely. In pvp maybe, but that’s just cause celestial is in good spot now. All i see is ele evade spamming (sigil of energy + the vigor trait). Cause without it, they die. Not really impressive imo. All aoe’s have delay wich means moving, counters it completely. Thief used the 15 sec cd heal btw, wich is INCREDIBLE good. It removes nasty conditions (impairing ones), dodges (safes you from about any skill) and repositions the thief, heals very much for a 15 sec cd heal (4600). To counter the super heal, back stab dps, cloacking as survival + blind and evade on top of it, i think it’s almost impossible.

Tell me something, how to you equalize Axe dps of warrior, has an ele? (without other player support)? I think you can’t. Wich shows a big hole in ele.

Before ‘l2p’ (what’s coming is not bragging, just facts), 6k hours, 1300 on ele, rank 57, wvw rank 1315. Having played all professions, I think ele is great in groups, but mediocre to bad in solo situations.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Thief has best burst in game, and one of the best survival mechanics, an ele is to weak to get true that because of the low armor/hp + not so good damage combo.

Actually you’re wrong about thief having the best burst in the game. Yishkis (spelling?) calculated thief and ele burst and found that ele burst came out superior to thief burst by about 10K damage I think. As for the difficulty of use of this burst, and the lack of survivability scepter builds can have, that is a more valid point.

I’ve been playing fresh air ele S/F in spvp for short while, and yeah D/P thieves are the toughest thing for me to fight, and I’d say that meditation guardians are the second hardest for me to fight. But thats not to say that these matchups are impossible, since you can still blow them up some of the time if you get the jump on them, and if you bait them out with arcane shield and obsidian flesh on focus or CC from OH dagger if you use that instead (which I typically don’t due to its cooldowns and lightning flash dependency) you can do enough damage to kill them if they don’t blind you or disengage. At least with that I can beat most of the lower quality thieves. The better ones are harder simply because they play mind games with you and bait out your defenses.

Anyway those are just my observations, and while I’m not the best player, I love fresh air scepter builds, and I’m dedicated to practicing and improving myself against percieved hard counters before I fall into a give up mentality. And in solo Q, almost all of the teams of fought on or against have at least a thief (but usually two) so rest assured I’m getting plenty of practice against them, and making new friends as I discuss ways I can improve with those that beat me.

The calculation that Yishkis (spelling?) had done was correct in mathematical terms, but useless. You can not draw any conclusions from it

Ele’s are great but mistakes and lag can still kill you in wvw, less in spvp. I have 2246 hours as a DD ele alone and 4248 hours across my account. I only play guild wars 2 part time and have 40hr+ work week and I’m not younger like the games majority.
You win some you lose some, when you have stacks in wvw it’s helpful but thieves do tend to reset often. It’s based on skill, build, and scenario. In spvp D/D eles have a higher chance to win vs thieves in theory. In wvw it’s based on foods, oils, stacks wvw buffs vs terrain. The larger the open area and lease desperate the thief is the more he or she will gain the upper hand. Closed areas like 1v1s in wvw fights or an area with a wall you have a higher chance. Again don’t get greedy and make a mistake cause the thief is waiting for that. And time is only in it’s favor. In spvp I rarely get an issue since its capture the flag base fights and your pretty much force the thief to get aoe when he wants your point. It’s those bunker engis with their elites that force you off points. lol

So just have fun take your time and learn. Also it’s easier to learn to fight well in lower silver servers since you always fight 1v2 1v3 1v5 and flee from 40+!

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

The calculation that Yishkis (spelling?) had done was correct in mathematical terms, but useless. You can not draw any conclusions from it

Is that simply because of the impracticality of landing a dragons tooth, hurl, phoenix, EQ, and an air burst all in the span of a second? Or was it for might/vuln reasons? It was a while ago so I kind of forgot lol.

nearlight.3064:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

The calculation that Yishkis (spelling?) had done was correct in mathematical terms, but useless. You can not draw any conclusions from it

Is that simply because of the impracticality of landing a dragons tooth, hurl, phoenix, EQ, and an air burst all in the span of a second? Or was it for might/vuln reasons? It was a while ago so I kind of forgot lol.

If I remember correctly it was because of both, as well as a number of other assumptions: like pre-casted spells, unrealistic builds, and rng manipulation

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

nearlight.3064:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

The calculation that Yishkis (spelling?) had done was correct in mathematical terms, but useless. You can not draw any conclusions from it

Is that simply because of the impracticality of landing a dragons tooth, hurl, phoenix, EQ, and an air burst all in the span of a second? Or was it for might/vuln reasons? It was a while ago so I kind of forgot lol.

If I remember correctly it was because of both, as well as a number of other assumptions: like pre-casted spells, unrealistic builds, and rng manipulation

Oh yeah, wasn’t some crazy build with 25 in earth for the damage modifiers? And no fresh air? Lol I love scepter builds but in order for them to work, some raw damage has to be sacrificed for the utility that enables that damage to happen.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Tell me one thing: If ele’s are so powerfull how do you beat a D/P & S/D thief (in wvw) as an ele? The thief uses ‘blind on cloack trait’, for even further damage reduction on you. You are smashed with blinds all over the place, he easely lands cloacks, and even If i dodge backstab, he just does it again. I’m convinced Ele has no counter to this. Even lightning aura, just delays a thief, he can still land backstab, and then just recover. Scepter, or D/D it bought got countered by the blinds mostly, and evade spam on sword. This is the weakness of ele. Thief has best burst in game, and one of the best survival mechanics, an ele is to weak to get true that because of the low armor/hp + not so good damage combo. The only reason ele is strong is combo’s. and they either require ele to be weaker then other profs, but fully focus on might stacking to make the others stronger. Or they require other profs, to fill in gaps, and blast your amazing fire/water fields. But alone, ele strong? rarely. In pvp maybe, but that’s just cause celestial is in good spot now. All i see is ele evade spamming (sigil of energy + the vigor trait). Cause without it, they die. Not really impressive imo. All aoe’s have delay wich means moving, counters it completely. Thief used the 15 sec cd heal btw, wich is INCREDIBLE good. It removes nasty conditions (impairing ones), dodges (safes you from about any skill) and repositions the thief, heals very much for a 15 sec cd heal (4600). To counter the super heal, back stab dps, cloacking as survival + blind and evade on top of it, i think it’s almost impossible.

Tell me something, how to you equalize Axe dps of warrior, has an ele? (without other player support)? I think you can’t. Wich shows a big hole in ele.

Before ‘l2p’ (what’s coming is not bragging, just facts), 6k hours, 1300 on ele, rank 57, wvw rank 1315. Having played all professions, I think ele is great in groups, but mediocre to bad in solo situations.

If you’re on EU, I’d gladly demonstrate how ele is:

- Top tier in 1v1 (WvW)

- Absolutely destroys D/X thief

- Has a 50% chance vs S/D

I don’t want to have to say L2P, but really, the only other thing I can do is show you. I’m serious, hit me up.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Thief has best burst in game.

Fresh air eles, Power necros hell even warriors can burst for more than a thief.

Well yes if we speak, that every skill concerning the comby may be used once, Ele is better then thief in burst. But once your firegrab and alike are on cd, thief can IMMEDIATELY output another backstab, (in wvw easely 7k even against pvt), wich imo makes thief better. And I agree i got a lot to learn. But there’s certain (hardcore) thiefs, that are so good, that I doubt best ele’s can beat them. In 5 secs, i got backstabbed 7k (yes i dodged 1 sec after he cloacked), he immobalized me, he evaded my stun (air 5 dagger), he cleansed immobalize, he instantly went back to cloacking, i used shocking aura, his backstab still landed, and the stun didnt slow him at all. He then spammed blinds on me (smoke field), i stepped out, but the blind was still on me, so my burnign speed to evade him/land on him, missed, and he could straight away Cnd again to backstab. I then survived 3 more backstabs, but he got me cornered (low hp, hard to survive, skills on cd), and then he got the best of me.

I’m not saying i’m qualified to beat them, but still i kill my share of thiefs in wvw, who spam evade, and the likes, but for instance die to a well timed rapid fire. This thief, everything i trew at him (ele, ranger, warrior), he just avoided/outsmarted. He would be a challenge for a lot of people. What really made me wonder was his ini regen. The quickness in wich he spammed 6 ini skills (CnD and smoke field), was amazing, much faster then it is on my thief, wich has 2 traits giving ini. well 3 if you count steal.

I logged to ele again today, and I admit i forgot some of the amazing stuff they can do. But they also have limits for sure. Having seen a ‘celestia ele’ in action in wvw, i think that build (wich i don’t have) is the best to counter thiefs.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

The quickness in wich he spammed 6 ini skills (CnD and smoke field), was amazing, much faster then it is on my thief, wich has 2 traits giving ini. well 3 if you count steal

Look its WvW dont take it to serious, if something feels wrong look through your combat log. You find some really weird exploiters in that mode i fought my share of eles that use dagger/focus offhand skills in the same fight or warriors that can spam hammerstuns without cooldown over the years. Just report them and move on.