Guild Wars 2

Didn’t mean to taunt, but obviously it’s insanely annoying to see all those Elementalist running with EXACTLY the same bunker/heal D/D OP build. Guys, seriously, aren’t you bored to play this way? (Never crosses an Elementalist with Staff, or maybe 1 – 2 times..)
Everytime I cross an Elementalist in WvW it’s the freaking same thing : Tanking 10 of us & then running away while killing 2 – 3 of us (full exotic, good players, not casual afk players looking at the birds).
Even with CC (so that Elementakitten D/D can’t move, his weakness for this build), poison (so that they won’t heal as much), insane burst & so on.. Those freaking Elementalist just won’t die. Why? Because they got SO MUCH condition removal, so much heal (they obviously out heal themselves), so much stun breaks you just CAN’T do something.

I ALREADY KNOW there are a lot of posts running through this forum, but please, Anet do something. Or maybe you want all the players to reroll Elementalist D/D so that there’ll be only this kind of class fighting in sPvP / WvW? Players like the easy way, they got something with the Elementalist D/D.
I may add that I played Lv 80 Elementalist D/D in WvW, I know what I’m talking about. There’s something wrong with this class & it’s need to be fix as soon as possible.

Thank you for reading this post, I really appreciate it.

hehe i’d agree but its the same issue with alot of classes. Once something has proven to be useful it get flocked on.

What about all of the staff eles in wvw who are fighting with the main group, providing big water fields, and big AoE damage??

I’m a D/D ele myself. Tried the S/D build and didn’t like it and my staff build doesn’t do well when roaming alone or trying to catch up with the main group. I also switch to staff when we’re taking keeps (and sometimes towers) to provide a good deal of AoE damage and heals.

D/D eles are annoying, yeh, but definitely beatable. The only thing annoying about the elementalist is when in downed state, he can mist form to safety if he’s in range of a tower or keep. Other than that, they’re not as OP as you’d think, but very fun to play nonetheless, especially when rotating between all four attunements.

you just got bad luck.
I’m a 100% ele player. And in wvw I love to nuke people down with my staff…or maybe i’m the forever alone staff user :-/

But I agree with Chaotic Storm, it’s like other classes, once you see a viable build to survive against the legion of lag and enemy (on youtube, self improvised, etc) you probably will skip the rest of the builds.
And luckily for us, we’ve some OP ele users who showed us on youtube.

1) ele staff is one of the most hardest weapon to master (in my opinion)
2) i hate s/d ,not cool
3) d/d ele look cool ,and not so hard to master it (in my opinion)

because all other builds are vastly inferior?

D/D isn’t even OP……. it’s inferior to S/D in every way except aurashare, and aurashare is easy to kill

Totaly agree OP. I’ve only just started giving D/D a go but that’s because I know another nerf is inevitable and probably sooner rather than later and wanted to give it a go first.

I have to agree with liquid storm mostly but running D/D has been much easier in WvW especially on your own. Im waiting for an influx of D/F players and all the complaining about focus being op.

HuntsForge.3260:

Totaly agree OP. I’ve only just started giving D/D a go but that’s because I know another nerf is inevitable and probably sooner rather than later and wanted to give it a go first.

I have to agree with liquid storm mostly but running D/D has been much easier in WvW especially on your own. Im waiting for an influx of D/F players and all the complaining about focus being op.

I played with every spec Ele has to offer, including weapon sets. Focus is extremely strong against ranged dps and can be allot of fun running in big groups(20-30). But at the end of the day D/D is overall a better weapon set.

@OP: I don’t even care if they fix/nerf the standard 0/10/0/30/30 build.
As long as they fix the other traitlines INCLUDING the Arcana tree and the effect it has on attunement recharge rate.

It is getting extremely dull playing the same spec for months because it is the only good spec we got.

If you’re 10v1ing an ele and he ends up killing some of you and getting away, that’s your issue. NO ele should be able to 10v1 or even 5v1 against competent players.
You say you’ve played the class and know what you’re talking about. That means you obviously know to burst them the second they’re out of water attunement, right?

d/d is fun but i prefer mid to long range. it might be stronger well the advantage of melee. but we could use a powerful or better s/d to compete d/d’s mobility and defensive capabilities. anyway, it might be too much with considering mobility as defensive skill also.

Hyo Jin.5630:

Tanking 10 of us & then running away while killing 2 – 3 of us (full exotic, good players, not casual afk players looking at the birds).

l2p.

So now we have players that complain of WWW D/D ele….

I mean….considering organized WWW guilds accept ONLY staff eles, this thread doesn t make sense aside showing the usual bandwagoner complainers….

Aside the slowpoke thread (current PvP fotm is SCEPTER/dagger cantrip ele), some players should start to understand the differences between WWW and PvP.

In WWW tanks are BAD, you need to kill your target FAST…you don t get point standing alive in a square.

P.S. A couple of www vids…..
Feel free to count D/D eles….its not hard they are either really few or dead.

The problem isn’t any of the dagger skills, it’s the cantrip skills. Try making any elementalist build without a suite of cantrip skills, it’s laughable. And it just so happens that daggers+cantrips make an insanely good combo for bunkering. However it’s also Eles ONLY good combination of skills for PvP, so you can’t blame every Ele for using it.

Hyo Jin.5630:

Didn’t mean to taunt, but obviously it’s insanely annoying to see all those Elementalist running with EXACTLY the same bunker/heal D/D OP build. Guys, seriously, aren’t you bored to play this way? (Never crosses an Elementalist with Staff, or maybe 1 – 2 times..)
Everytime I cross an Elementalist in WvW it’s the freaking same thing : Tanking 10 of us & then running away while killing 2 – 3 of us (full exotic, good players, not casual afk players looking at the birds).
Even with CC (so that Elementakitten D/D can’t move, his weakness for this build), poison (so that they won’t heal as much), insane burst & so on.. Those freaking Elementalist just won’t die. Why? Because they got SO MUCH condition removal, so much heal (they obviously out heal themselves), so much stun breaks you just CAN’T do something.

I ALREADY KNOW there are a lot of posts running through this forum, but please, Anet do something. Or maybe you want all the players to reroll Elementalist D/D so that there’ll be only this kind of class fighting in sPvP / WvW? Players like the easy way, they got something with the Elementalist D/D.
I may add that I played Lv 80 Elementalist D/D in WvW, I know what I’m talking about. There’s something wrong with this class & it’s need to be fix as soon as possible.

Thank you for reading this post, I really appreciate it.

I’ll admit I’m not much of an ele myself either, I’m mostly a thief. On that note coming to the ele forum to rage at ele’s for being good at killing you in PvP is kind of out of line (the thief forum gets that often, but less than most of the thieves on there believe), in PvP expect every class to try to kill you from the other team. Balance issues belong in either the Bug or Suggestions forums. Perhaps you meant to rephrase your question into the same one I came here to ask…

d/d eles, I’m a thief and I want to kill you, how do you suggest I go about this?

I run the build and assure you its quite beatable. I don’t get how 10 of you didn’t take the guy down, much less let 2 or 3 of yours go down.

Hyo Jin.5630:

Didn’t mean to taunt, but obviously it’s insanely annoying to see all those Elementalist running with EXACTLY the same bunker/heal D/D OP build. Guys, seriously, aren’t you bored to play this way? (Never crosses an Elementalist with Staff, or maybe 1 – 2 times..)
Everytime I cross an Elementalist in WvW it’s the freaking same thing : Tanking 10 of us & then running away while killing 2 – 3 of us (full exotic, good players, not casual afk players looking at the birds).

First, if you are going to grossly exaggerate in a post, then I am going to give you a similar response. If 10 people cannot kill a single elementalist before he kills 2-3 of you (not to mention you standing there and letting him finish off downed players) …then there is no amount of complaining on the forums that will fix the particular problem you have. In fact no two competent players should ever lose to an equally competent ele 2v1…. let alone a 10v1. Your issue is 100% a learn to play issue. Maybe solitaire would be a better choice, or perhaps a trivia game.

Now on to the reality based portion of your post….

The reason why you see so many d/d eles running around in those situation is because staff is a godawful roaming weapon. Your 1v1 ability is horrible as is your ability to move across the map when compared to running daggers. You might see an occasional s/d instead roaming around of a d/d, but those are only the ele’s that are delusional into thinking that is an equally viable weapon choice. (it needs improvement as does focus).

draner.5213:

d/d eles, I’m a thief and I want to kill you, how do you suggest I go about this?

If we are specced and geared decently for 1v1 fights, you really can’t. It might be frustrating for you that an ele gets away from you or forces you to run away from him, but I can tell you without a doubt that it is equally frustrating for us…. you attack us at a time and place of your choosing, and if things go badly you can get away the vast majority of the time with no consequences due to stealth. Instead of stressing about it, it is just easier to accept it for what it is and then take joy on the few times someone sticks around to fight when they start to lose.

@Draner.5213 (one or another reason, I can’t quote)
When I fight a thief, the biggest flaw they do is, they think we’re squichy and will die after 2hit:
yes you’re right, we get killed in 2 hit, that’s why we also prepared our skills to prefent your 2nd hit.

I’d say, play smart, let us use our cantrip and survivaly skills (most of them got 20-40sec CD) then start hit hard.

And that’s not only for thieves, all class can kill us like this. Especially guardian, and warrior with their overpowred cc’s.

covenn.7165:

draner.5213:

d/d eles, I’m a thief and I want to kill you, how do you suggest I go about this?

If we are specced and geared decently for 1v1 fights, you really can’t. It might be frustrating for you that an ele gets away from you or forces you to run away from him, but I can tell you without a doubt that it is equally frustrating for us…. you attack us at a time and place of your choosing, and if things go badly you can get away the vast majority of the time with no consequences due to stealth. Instead of stressing about it, it is just easier to accept it for what it is and then take joy on the few times someone sticks around to fight when they start to lose.

Yea, that`s kind of my current tactic, shadowstep in, get a taste, and see if I should scram, the high mobility of the d/d ele is mostly the problem I run into. I’ll stealth and book it, but if I come out of stealth visible to them at all I better hope safety is nearby, cause their chase is a force to be reckoned with.

Op….it’s quite easy…

1. if a ele is running solo or trying to catch up to the zerg, D/D is the best way to go. Lots of mobility vs. other weapon choices.
2. in the zerg, staff is best (as far as being most usuable from a support standpoint)….then again, D/D is the second choice to be a “zerg buster”.
3. scept/focus is used at times…but right now, most of the skills are slow and easy for the other side to evade……fun to run in zergs as a change up.
4. you will see focus used mostly by elem folks to “swirl” to block incoming siege shots….and this gets old just standing there swirling when it is up.

So THAT is why you see D/D more on the battlefield than any other.

Not to mention, DaPhoenix was “kind” enough to write an exhaustive D/D guide that makes any bad playing drooler look like a mega-god on the battlefield. (I still blame him for all of it! hahaha)

The other weapons are sub par that’s why. I would rather be a ranged caster too but have you looked at the Staff abilities? Ground targeting anything no matter how powerful is easily avoided by a moderately competent player.

Staff is extremely weak.

d/d eles, I’m a thief and I want to kill you, how do you suggest I go about this?

As d/d, I find it extremely annoying dealing with d/p thieves because of blinding powder negating my pbaoes. I run away against that weapon set most of the time because the blind just completely shuts me down.

As for the original poster, a d/d ele tanking 10 and killing 3 of you… were you all level 1s with one attack? When I use d/d, I find it easy to pick on groups of inexperienced/up leveled players, but when I run into even 2-3 experienced players I often find myself forced to run away. Even one shatter mesmer or condition engineer make me run away; just have to know which fights to pick and which ones to avoid. Simply put, d/d has great mobility which contributes to a lot of players playing the spec.

The reason everyone runs that spec is because most of our other traits suck. Ele needs some serious work to make other builds as viable. I just hope they buff our other stuff before nerfing the only thing that actually works and allows us to survive in extended fights. D/D spec is great for survival but has no killing power. They really need to work on our damage. I’d gladly take a hit to our already abysmal survival abilities if they bumped up our damage alot. The only way we can survive and not get 1 shotted by other classes is with the bunker spec. But our damage is pitiful in exchange for that. They need to completely rework all of ele’s traits.

Calae.1738:

The other weapons are sub par that’s why. I would rather be a ranged caster too but have you looked at the Staff abilities? Ground targeting anything no matter how powerful is easily avoided by a moderately competent player.

Staff is extremely weak. 1v1

Fixed it for you by adding clarification. There is nothing wrong with staff in big fights… in fact, it is the go to weapon of choice in that situation.

I have a D/D Ele, used to play staff & despite getting some kills & freaky escapes, tbh it isn`t worth the hassle.
I`ve tried S/D & Dragons Tooth is next to useless, Air 1 carries on casting after enemy is dead, so wastes time getting onto the next pest to smite.
D/D is just so much better then the other weapon sets, not because it is OP, but because they are just plain bad.

I agree, but how else to survive. I use staff in WvW with groups and D/D when alone. Its unbelievable the amount of power or abilities a mesmer (addtional 3 spawns), necros with a swarm of pets coming at you (crap) and including a thief (vanishing act). Don’t get me wrong I have taken some down. The elementalist needs fixing. I love playing this class. please Anet, revise the Ele

I love elementalists, half the other classes complain about how OP we are and half of the elementalists complain about how weak we are. Even if it is exaggerated due to how the class plays and learning curve, to me this is a sign of balance.

The funny thing is, of you look back at the history of d/d builds on this forum, it originated due to the need to defend against back stab thieves. So really, for the thieves on here asking for nerfs, this is all your fault.

Part of it is wrong, I’m a s/d and d/d (h8 staff for both pve and pvp) and I always have all those d/d bunker/healer/mediocre dmg dealers on their defensive constantly healing in order to survive long enough until I finally burst them down.

It’s, in my opinion, the only real effective weapon set. I use staff for zergs myself but D/D is great for roaming, CC and generally staying alive. I don’t think we need nerfs personally. While survivability may be high with D/D bunker, the damage is pretty bad and generally nothing to snuff at.

I honestly hardly ever land kills with the bunker set up. Those Ele aren’t killing 2-3 guys in a group of 10. The reality is more like the Ele is tickling your group then scurrying away.

They’re honestly easy kills for confusion using classes since they loooove to spam their skills. I think all the thief HS spammers went ele. *puts on helmet

While there might be a lot of them running around the majority of them don’t seem to have more than a basic understanding on how to play one correctly so they are easy kills…even as another D/D elementalist.

See them everywhere in WvWvW.
The funny thing is they didn’t even use or rely on Omnomberry Pie and that was the only thing other classes got to be on-par.

draner.5213:

covenn.7165:

draner.5213:

d/d eles, I’m a thief and I want to kill you, how do you suggest I go about this?

If we are specced and geared decently for 1v1 fights, you really can’t. It might be frustrating for you that an ele gets away from you or forces you to run away from him, but I can tell you without a doubt that it is equally frustrating for us…. you attack us at a time and place of your choosing, and if things go badly you can get away the vast majority of the time with no consequences due to stealth. Instead of stressing about it, it is just easier to accept it for what it is and then take joy on the few times someone sticks around to fight when they start to lose.

Yea, that`s kind of my current tactic, shadowstep in, get a taste, and see if I should scram, the high mobility of the d/d ele is mostly the problem I run into. I’ll stealth and book it, but if I come out of stealth visible to them at all I better hope safety is nearby, cause their chase is a force to be reckoned with.

Not that I should be helping a thief to kill us easier, but hey, maybe it will help steer more away from the bunker spec in the long run ;p

Don’t waste your shadowstep to get in if you can avoid it. That’s mistake #1. When fighting anyone who isn’t just going to die to 2 hits, save your cooldowns, make them burn their’s early if you can.

D/D bunker ele beats D/D glass burst thief. Like a rock beats scissors. Switch weapon sets and specs. Blinding powder is pretty much a hard counter to D/D, can’t hit anything in melee range with that dang smoke field always up. The blind on stealth trait is OP as hell also.

Don’t burn all your initiative. Ever. A little part of me cheers any time a thief uses HS to gap close on me when I’m at full HP, that’s a pretty good sign I’ve already won.

Sword is a good weapon to sort of anti-troll the troll spec bunker elementalist. Spamming #2 for juking is annoying, you probably won’t kill them this way, but you can tie them up as long as they would have you. Pistol whip can be brutal if you can force their cantrips and water swaps before using it much.

As was mentioned, D/D elementalists are “everywhere” for a few reasons, but in WvW many of them are staff eles just trying to get to the zerg…..

Daecollo.9578:

See them everywhere in WvWvW.
The funny thing is they didn’t even use or rely on Omnomberry Pie and that was the only thing other classes got to be on-par.

I used the pie, back in the day.

eyes get misty….

anyway, what’s with all the guardians, necros and mesmers in WvW these days? I see them everywhere! They’re so OP!!!!

knight.8926:

They’re honestly easy kills for confusion using classes since they loooove to spam their skills. I think all the thief HS spammers went ele. *puts on helmet

The reason is that we get fked over more by confusion than other classes. Attunement swap = skill, dodge = skill, evasive arcana = skill. This all adds up to some hefty damage that we take in literally 1 second just because we have these traits/class mechanics.

On the other hand, I haven’t been owned by confusion thus far. I mostly just do nothing or do Mist Form.

Oh, and I don’t notice that many actually. I have fought far more of any other class than eles, except engineers. And the other eles mostly use staff.

I find the OP humorist at best. As many have pointed out that D/D weapon set with around 0/10/0/30/30 or 0/20/0/30/20(I use) spec to be the most versatile and viable for an Ele.
OP complains now, should of seen it few months ago before a couple of nerfs. I was one of those that took advantage of the food pies. Think of Perma combat fiery at 82% crit + 66% Heal on Crit = 54% hits will return health. Used to dual Zerg bust with a Guardian Friend.

madatom.5218:

because all other builds are vastly inferior?

This^.

There are not many people out there that are going to try lots of specs and settle on the worst one. So of course the best is going to be the most common.

I rolled the ele with the intention of running D/D.

I hated it.

I’m currently running a S/D burst build. Its not quite as effective, but more entertaining to blow someone up before they even know whats going on.

Seeing as how scepter and focus are looked down upon, there’s mostly just 2 combinations you’ll see…staff and D/D. And most people only use staff in zergs and dungeons…so that should explain it.

same spec means the only one thing… almost all other specs are useless in PVE and WVW its a bit more different because range is more important there

and in case of weapons, staff is too slow to hit something in 1v1, skills have too long cast times and AOEs (especially ones with DOT effect) dont have enough dmg to compensate the amount of skill needed to hit them… scepters fire (nuke) skills are too easy to avoid compared to daggers… and focus as offhand is just poor compared to dagger…

thats the reason why almost all eles use the same build and the same weapons

I’ve been playing the D/D Elementalist since beta, and still do, because it’s simply the most fun thing to play.

It’s simple – D/D is the only truly effective spec we have if we want to be more than a free kill.

A staff ele in W3 is either a) full support and providing nothing of use for his team (an AH guardian, necro, or even a freaking ranger tossing healing spring and muddy terrain all offer better support), or b) running full glass, and at the WP every few seconds, whenever someone sneezes at him. Also, full glass on staff does less damage than any of the classes except for ranger.

a S/D ele in W3 isn’t hitting anything, regardless of build, so there’s no point.

D/D offers mobility and survivability, at the expense of DPS. That’s why anyone who’s not utterly kitten runs it.

I truly wish this wasn’t so – I’ve advocated for staff buffs, but as it is, the ele is joining my ranger on the shelf, till Anet pays attention to making the staff viable.

Note: none of what I wrote applies to the organised PvP. If I wanted to play that way, I’d play call of teabag, not guildwars.

^^

S/D offers more survivability and its quite viable in WWW as an alternative to staff.*
Its great in WWW offering best things of range and evasiveness….
Is just a little less effective in 1VS1 but still really strong.
(in pve you can get more from other weaponsets but its the best PvP weaponsets around)

D/D offers more dps at the cost of being useless in zergs because of marks/Wells/glamour fields

Staff is the other way to mitigate the issue…..also spamming AIR1 is the best way to tag for eles

exactly the opposite you said…

*earth2-3, water 3, air 3, fire 3
Also is considered OP in PvP see the current fotm cantrip build that is not D/D but S/D.

D/D is the offensive version….

Byron, let’s be honest – if you’re playing S/D in W3, and you manage to connect with any of the hard hitting skills, you’re either in a zergball (where what you personally are doing doesn’t matter one bit) or your opponent is AFK. Hard hitting would be Fire 2, 3, or 5 on a burning target. earth 5. Of those, the only one’s that should connect are fire 5. Whoohoo. Anything else can be walked away from, even if you’re crippled. If you’ve got an immobilise on someone, you can hope to connect with 1 of them. That’s not “a little less effective”, it’s embarrassing.

If you’re using staff, you’ll tag people, sure, and get credit. You’re doing virtually no damage, mind you, but you will tag people.

CC, with a 5 person cap, and the way our fields pulse, is almost not worth using against a zerg – the guardian’s consecrations, and the mesemer’s glamours are better. Muddy terrain, with it’s duration, is better. Stopping 5-10 people out of 200 is, technically, helpful. So’s bailing a sinking ship with a teaspoon.

There is no way you’ll outperform a D/D bunker in the context of W3 with the other weapon sets. Hence it’s popularity.

I’m unconcerned with what’s considered OP in PvP, since it generally boils down to “Someone slightly better than me beat me! Nerf them into the ground plz!” I’ve heard people complaining that rangers (arguably the worst of class in the whole game) are OP in PvP. Being good, or even viable, in one truly minute cross section of the available content, isn’t a selling point.

of course i m in a zerg….

If you are not you are probably on a low tier server…

Its not you actually have a choice.
Why do you think players are complaining about confusion and mesmers?

But since S/D became fotm in PvP, people started to try it in WWW.
And it works….

Try it and you’ll see why.
In www it outperform D/D in most situations.

Staff AIR1 is the best tagging tools while air 5 is uncapped as most crossing skills.

Thrashbarg.9820:

Don’t waste your shadowstep to get in if you can avoid it. That’s mistake #1. When fighting anyone who isn’t just going to die to 2 hits, save your cooldowns, make them burn their’s early if you can.

D/D bunker ele beats D/D glass burst thief. Like a rock beats scissors. Switch weapon sets and specs. Blinding powder is pretty much a hard counter to D/D, can’t hit anything in melee range with that dang smoke field always up. The blind on stealth trait is OP as hell also.

Don’t burn all your initiative. Ever. A little part of me cheers any time a thief uses HS to gap close on me when I’m at full HP, that’s a pretty good sign I’ve already won.

Sword is a good weapon to sort of anti-troll the troll spec bunker elementalist. Spamming #2 for juking is annoying, you probably won’t kill them this way, but you can tie them up as long as they would have you. Pistol whip can be brutal if you can force their cantrips and water swaps before using it much.

As was mentioned, D/D elementalists are “everywhere” for a few reasons, but in WvW many of them are staff eles just trying to get to the zerg…..

Sorry, by shadowstep I meant either use steal or shadowshot generally, not the shadowshot skill itself (I hold onto that one for the escape). I also don’t run the glass thief, it can be great when you have the advantage… but every other time you get face rolled

Mist form is imo main problem with eles.
I don’t have problem with getting them down. All those bunker d/d eles have quite low damage. They need to stay close to me and in this scenario i can just use sword as mesmer.
In group fights I still tend to ignore elems.
Why?
Because you really can’t killed them. Not because of heal, toughness or whatever. Because of mist form. One in utility, second in down state. Every elem will just mist to his mates, they will res him and it start all over. That’s why his friends need to be killed first.
Still most ppl on wvwvw have problem with tactical thinking and they just love to chase misted elem all over the place.