Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, I’m playing a staff nuker ele full glass inWvW, and enjoying it a lot. I eventually want to go commander to support my server as we tend to have staffing issues. I can change to an alt for this, but would like to keep playing my ele if possible.

What builds and styles do you ele commanders use when commanding? I need to learn tactics and strategies for this. I figure if glass cannon doesn’t work it’s simple to re trait and swap to spare armor to do it, but I have no idea what Ele commanders do ad offer on the battlefield as I’ve only been watching guardians and warriors command so far.

I don’t really get why commander should be bound to certain classes or builds. Only thing you need is tactical understanding. Since you’re running around in a zerg a single person/specc won’t make that much difference. I wouldn’t run GC though because it’s bad when the commander is always dead/downed first and you’re often at the front, leading your zerg and therefore the first to engage a fight.

The only time my friend goes full glass ele when he commands is when he brings 15 other glass staff eles. It largely depends on the comp that is being run. If you wanted to do a frontline hammer train type of thing, d/d 0 0 20 20 30 with full soldiers or sentinel would work. Its not impossible to command as a staff ele though.

I used to run healing bunker D/D ele and it worked out pretty well. You have fire fields for might and a good chunk of blast finishers.

If you are going to pop a tag, you better build pretty bunker-ish and not worry about damage. I would suggest 0/0/20/20/30 in soldiers/knights/cav gear mostly. The nice thing about ele commander is you can drop your own fields and only call them out when you can’t. Also, taking rock solid allows you to give group stab. Group cleansing and boons are also nice.

D/D brawler could work pretty well too.

You just normally see the heavy classes command b/c they can survive SO MUCH BETTER under focus-fire, which you are likely to see as a commander. If you are going to be an ele commander, prepare to survive as long as you can. One benefit is you can always vapor-form back to your group if you get focused and killed.

Elementalists are not suitable to be Commanders in the way WvW uses them. The Elementalist is, at best, a Destroyer type of character if running with the frontline. They cannot be Frontline themselves, their abilities just don’t lend themselves to that.

This isn’t to say Eles can’t be leaders in other ways, but they can’t be the guy that Warriors and Guardians stack on to become a Hammer Train. That’s just the cold hard truth of the matter.

An Elementalist should either be a Backline character with Staff or a Destroyer character with D/D (or S/D possibly, in GvG). They were intentionally designed such that they could not run with the front line and endure all the focus fire that the frontline have to be able to endure.

Completely disagree with what Neko said. I play my staff ele when I command and I love it. Because I’m in front of the zerg I can place static fields to maximum effect. I get fire fields exactly when I want them, and I can drop and call water fields exactly when they go down.
However as mentioned above you do want to be very tanky as a commander since you will be the first person to run into battle. I suggest either 0/10/0/30/30 or 0/0/10/30/30 with full soldier’s gear. Nice thing about 0/10/0/30/30 is you dont need to change your traits when you switch tag on/off, just your gear.

i would go scepter/dagger or scepter/focus and go full water full arcance with what ever 10 pts you want.

this will give you close range utility, peals, healing and control, you will be able to take a few hits depending on your gear choice.

commanding organized guild or TS groups you can run whatever really, but for pug zergs close/mid will serve you well.

I will command on my ele and im staff 0/30/0/20/20, but i hit and run and jump all over the map and with a couple people in TS i get everyone to stack and blast the static fields so i have everyone running with crazy uptime on swiftness. I also spend alot of time directing in /s or /map to keep the horde focused and moving, allows me to hang back and Nuke and Support.

Valinor.9647:

I will command on my ele and im staff 0/30/0/20/20, but i hit and run and jump all over the map and with a couple people in TS i get everyone to stack and blast the static fields so i have everyone running with crazy uptime on swiftness. I also spend alot of time directing in /s or /map to keep the horde focused and moving, allows me to hang back and Nuke and Support.

The problem with hit and run is that a commander is supposed to lead the frontline in pushes. If you are constantly fleeing, it will confuse the frontline (especially if you have greens following you not on TS). I have yet to see a backline commander be anywhere near as effective against a coordinated team as a frontline commander because of this.

Only way to successfully command as ele is bunker D/D because you can stay with the frontline for most of the pushes. I’d probably consider speccing 0/0/20/30/20 because having Stability on demand with Rock Solid will be FAR more beneficial to your team than Evasive Arcana.

You’re not gonna really be combat-commanding effectively. For that you need a guardian or warrior who can lead the heavy train and stand in the spot where all the dps needs to be focused on. Even with full bunker PVT D/D you’re not gonna be tanking near the amount of damage that a guardian can tank.

You can probably run ele if you’re just leading pugs who aren’t gonna stay on you or focus damage on you anyway. But for an organized group with an actual heavy train, a tanky class is a far better option.

Thank you Mash Hog, Quick Mouse and Valinor for relying. I’m more interested in hearing from actual Ele Commanders who have done it and have had successes and failures as an Ele Commander.

I’m interested to hear details about how you command and how the battles usually go. Do you do big Zerg vs. Zerg smashes, or do you do hit and run skirmishes? Do you go in then dive to the back of your Zerg, or do you just stay in the heat of it!

And I’d still like to hear if anyone had the balls to be a glass cannon commander.

No problem. Dead commanders can’t command, so must people run really tanky builds as commanders
As far as zerg fights go, there are several threads outlining effective strategies in zerg fights. If you’re wiping them and not taking much damage (usually happens when they don’t see you coming), you don’t need to peel off. However if you are taking heavy damage you’ll want to peel off, drop water fields and your feet and call for regroup and blast finishers.
You will basically be part of the frontline, which means pushing into the weakest part of the enemy zerg – the tail, mostly composed of squishy targets. You want to direct your melee where to land stuns and ranged where to drop aoes, but you also need to keep your melee away from their aoes and protect your squishies. It’s a complicated endeavour, but one that becomes easier with practice
Cheers and happy hunting

Hmm, I guess that the problem is that “my squishies” here includes me, myself! Gah well might as well buy another tanky set of armor I suppose. I got tons of badges to do it with (or Ascalon Tears, for that matter). I have enough gold to buy a commander badge right now, maybe I’ll try it later when the friendly experienced commanders turn in for the night and the server is left with no one to lead.

If the glass cannon approach doesn’t fly (and I doubt it will) I will go get me some bunker spec armor.

Thanks for the advice.

I’ve commanded when I was running a glassy spec.
It is more fun and makes you more aggressive which is usually a good thing when commanding.

That’s very encouraging, for sure!

How do you avoid dying? I am pretty good at surviving as an Ele Glass Cannon, but I usually hang out at the back of the zerg when the two zergs collide. After the intial collision I then pick my spots, drop bombs and flit out with Fire 4 or dodging as needed, and I am usually the last to die in the zerg — usually only die when the rest of the zerg has fallen, or when I do something reckless and stupid. But when I play smart I usually never die until everyone else has, or I make a quick getaway.

But if I am the commander I’d imagine I wouldn’t have the luxury of sneaking off to the rear at the start of the fight. Or would my zerg rush into the enemy zerg if I stop in my tracks and backpedal? Especially a PUG zerg… if it’s an organized zerg I can probably instruct them on my tendencies and have them work accordingly.

The ONLY commanding I do is with my guild; all organized on Teamspeak. The kind of fighting we do is focused on stealth attacks and flanking; if I do my job right the other zerg is downed before they can do anything.

My heavies know when to charge in front of me and from behind them I am better able to direct them where to go.

The reason I run my zerker ele is because it allows me to have a nice chunk of downed bodies right at the beginning which is a little crucial to our strategy.

I see. Well the role I intend to fulfill will be a bit different then, as I only intend to lead random PUGs during off hours when the need arises. For now anyway. I guess there’s nothing like diving in and trying it out! I’ll just go ahead and experiment, what the hell. Hahahaha!

I will be sure to post my results here, perish or prosper. Will probably try a run tomorrow as I am still at work and only now about to go home. sigh

Gorni.1764:

I don’t really get why commander should be bound to certain classes or builds. Only thing you need is tactical understanding. Since you’re running around in a zerg a single person/specc won’t make that much difference. I wouldn’t run GC though because it’s bad when the commander is always dead/downed first and you’re often at the front, leading your zerg and therefore the first to engage a fight.

This exactly; A dead commander is not a good commander – Any build you run that you like & you feel comfortable with; is the build for you.
Like gorni said: “only this you need is tactical understanding”

Chasind.3128:

Gorni.1764:

I don’t really get why commander should be bound to certain classes or builds. Only thing you need is tactical understanding. Since you’re running around in a zerg a single person/specc won’t make that much difference. I wouldn’t run GC though because it’s bad when the commander is always dead/downed first and you’re often at the front, leading your zerg and therefore the first to engage a fight.

This exactly; A dead commander is not a good commander – Any build you run that you like & you feel comfortable with; is the build for you.
Like gorni said: “only this you need is tactical understanding”

I slightly disagree with you, but I understand where your coming from. A commander needs imo 3 things.
a: be able to hide in the zerg
b: be able to stay alive longer then (most off) the zerg/not the first to die
c: have an easy to use build with lots of protection.

Just feeling comfortable in normal WvW isn’t enough. You are imo excused to be a lousy player as logn as you stay alive, be a good leader and know what your doing. Often a commander needs to type more. A good commander hides in the zerg and isnt busy with the dealing the best DPS, portalling the zerg, stealthing and stuff like that, he does his best to stay alive, and command. the zerg :P. So what works for you in normal WvW doesnt work well when your commanding.

Having said that, an ele can be a very good commander if build and traited well for protection. The speedboosts are very nice to not fall behind on your own zerg.

I finished the obsidian jumping puzzle (ugh) then tried out the commander tag on my current GC Ele just now. Spent thirty minutes only as I need to go to work now.

It was an interesting experience. We had about ten people on. I took a supply camp at BL, then moved to EB as keep was the only thing left to capture on Bl. On EB we took a supply camp, tried a tower and failed due to being outnumbered.

Moved down to -another word’s tower, smashed some rams in, the defenders bunched into the lord’s room after we broke the gate. We fried them, I fell for a bit despite hiding in the back, that commander tag sure attracts attention from enemy archers. But my meteors got him so I rallied. The proceeded to fire storm the rest to oblivion, we took the tower and won.

Yay, first tower capture.

We then went to resupply and got creamed by the larger Zerg as we weren’t moving together. As an untested, inexperienced GC commander clearly I do not yet inspire the confidence of leadership to bring the players together. That will change with time.

Overall it worked out better than I expected, I was expecting to get clobbered all over the place. Fortunately we did capture a few points so it wasn’t a total failure. We did get wiped twice but that’s fine.

Will continue to practice and work with the GC build first. I have enough resources to get bunker style armor so I’ll prepare that as well to experiment with later.

Hey dude,

If you’re interested in commanding, you should join your server’s comms, and try and seek guidance from the guilds on your servers. They’ll be better able to tell you what to do than the Profession Forums.

http://eredonterrace.enjin.com/

I suggest finding their teamspeak server and getting in there as well.

And sorry if you’ve already done this all, I’m just trying to point you in the right direction to find guidance. Generally, when trying to learn to command, you should look to your server community and its WvW guilds.

Yup I’m on the forum and in the Teamspeak already. Still learning, there’s a lot to do.

Mochann.5298:

Hey guys, I’m playing a staff nuker ele full glass inWvW, and enjoying it a lot. I eventually want to go commander to support my server as we tend to have staffing issues.

Nobody else laughed? I did. I like puns.

Glad someone picked up on it! Because I didn’t!

Had my second run earlier tonight as commander. Raided my home borderlands with four people, until nothing was left to raid. The broke off to GoM BL and took 3 supply camps, two towers and one keep. Then the GoM float team probably decided enough was enough and came back, I knew as soon as the Outnumbered icon came up I was in for a fight. By this time my war band had grown to ten people, but my scout just informed me there were 30-40 of them. This was gonna be a blood bath.

We retreated to the keep we took and fortified up, ran for additional supplies, but when they came in they just demolished us. Haha. Well surprisingly, I didn’t die once. Even when the keep fell I was able to mistform away and even revived two of my fallen band to escape to safety.

So much for Glass Cannon Ele commanders sucking and not being able to stay alive! Throughout the major Zerg battle at the end and the skirmishes we had taking all the points, I never died once and even rezzed my team. It was great! Pretty happy with how tonight went. I’ll be back tomorrow again, naturally.

Being a good commander is not limited by its profession. I am commanding in WvW as an Elementalist as well.
The limitations I see are the situations where you command stuff like “focus on my icon” on TS (e.g. Treb fire or AC fields of arrows). As a staff Ele I usually don’t want to be at that spot, but a little further away from it kiting to avoid damage. A heavy armour profession has some advantage over the Ele on that fields. On the other hand, I have a better tactical view when I am a few steps away from the main mess (compared to e.g a hammer Warrior commander in the middle of the balled up combatants )