Guild Wars 2

Just a few fights out of the many I’ve had since the Arena area in Obsidian Sanctum came out.

Constructive feedback on my play is very much appreciated as I want to become better, and I know I probably mess up quite a lot :p

i’d take ether renewal over signet – u have enough sustained heal from water attunment + dodge, and brust heal from ether renewal will help u more often (and is also life saver against condition heavy builds which are popular for 1v1 nowadays)

when u use ring of fire, u can start blasting with e4 and then immediatly lightning flash to the enemy, so u not only recive might from blasting but also kd enemy

it looks like you played pretty well the few things i would comment on are your burning speed + LF combos, you always seem to do it when you have a nice angle already for burning speed to hit, i usually save it for when ur farther away or they are right on top of you so they dont dodge because they dont think it will hit. also i almost never use chearning earth in duels unless im going against some1 super tanky to stack might. and signet heal is amazing with omnomberry pie and almost always use it against power classes, then switch to -% condi food and ether renewal against condi classes. n dat guard had a kitten load of immobalize wtf. good fights though

Why didn’t you include your losses if you want criticisms? That’s my biggest criticism is people not including defeats in their videos, not just you.

You did well in some of your fights, I like that you used SoR, not ether renewal. Ether Renewal is trash.

You did poorly against the guardian. That lockdown is easily dodged, and the whirling blades is easily interrupted/dodged.

Also, all your opponents fought without food, and the mesmer was bad.

Mbelch.9028:

Why didn’t you include your losses if you want criticisms? That’s my biggest criticism is people not including defeats in their videos, not just you.

Good shout, I guarantee you my next video of my elementalist will include defeats as well, heck might even make a video with only defeats, and hopefully I can get some constructive criticism on where I make mistakes.

Signet of Resto all day everyday! Anyone decent is going to interrupt you I run signet against Engis who use conditions. The only place I would recommend Ether is against a necro but even then if they are decent they will interrupt it. It doesn’t even take a second to go into deathshroud and doom you might as well consider the combo instant you can do it so fast.

Signet is doable against necros but ether makes the fight more even. Everyone else its always signet a dps guard will roast you if you run ether and they regen the whole fight constantly so you have to keep up.

Anyway I’ll watch the video now, apologies for the rant SOR is my favorite heal despite it’s weakness against condis.

Edit: Just watched the vid yea if you ran ether there the guardian probably would have gotten you or the fight would have never ended.

Mbelch.9028:

Why didn’t you include your losses if you want criticisms? That’s my biggest criticism is people not including defeats in their videos, not just you.

You did well in some of your fights, I like that you used SoR, not ether renewal. Ether Renewal is trash.

You did poorly against the guardian. That lockdown is easily dodged, and the whirling blades is easily interrupted/dodged.

Also, all your opponents fought without food, and the mesmer was bad.

Yes he made those mistakes, but against a melee heavy class you disengage with ether renewal and come back at full health. His healing power is not buffed up high enough for signet of restoration to make a difference

I wouldn’t take what Mbelch.9028said to harshly because you did say you were kind of new to ele and things he is talking about are advanced levels. Also @ Mbelch.9028 if you remove your head from your elitist behind you would notice his interrupts on air and earth were either on attunement cooldown or on a cooldown by themselves. A better way to phrase it is “use your interrupts more wisely”

The mesmer was horrible though, I’ll give you that. But calling ether renewal trash? Please… every 15 secs you pop a heal that heals back a good 1/2 of your health and removes conditions versus a heal where if you get in a pinch and your heal power is high enough, you are up the river without a paddle.

Good fights, but since you are on the offensive side of things I think that ether renewal will be much more useful for the burst heal, considering your heal power isn’t jacked with a touch of magi gear or celestial. If your heal power was higher I would most certainly tell you to go SoR way.

One thing you could do if you want a smidge of heal power is trade off your fury/swiftness on auras for soothing winds, because the fury is a little overkill because of your current crit rate. Not saying too much crit is bad, but I am saying that you would be able to heal more effectively with soothing winds and maybe some heal power+precision food. Im also not sure if you have looked into it but a few parts of celestial is awesome on ele. I run 2 ascended daggers(celestial) a celestial chest and ascended celestial amulet and it makes a huge difference in defense, especially the heal power and vitality without losing that much offense. If you don’t want to put in the time for celestial though magi is a nice alternative considering it boosts your hp up a little too.

On a strategy side, disengaging a fight is never a bad thing, if you need to hop away and pop some buffs and a cone of cold or something it is not a bad thing; but simple strategy that keeps your opponent from keeping constant pressure.

One last note, I’m not sure what tier of wvw you play in but I play in t1 so it is a little more challenging and you do have to spec a little in defense to live; which is not a bad idea to have defensive properties wherever you go because you have to be your own worst enemy so balancing your heal abilities with your offense is huge in a small group fight or even solo, because so much of the class requires knowing when to burst and when to feel your enemies’ burst coming. According to your play-style and how comfortable you are with your class of course.

Vylor.3276:

-snip-

Wow, that was a long reply, but a lot of good stuff I will definitly take into consideretaion. I really want a few pieces of celestial armor, but considering ascended armor is coming out in ten days time, I didn’t want to use 15-20g average on each recipe.

I’m working on getting ascended daggers, but I’m not a big fan of PvE and jumping from world boss to world boss.

I play on Gandara which is in Silver League, but I honestly don’t think on what tier you play comes much into play in duels, because in EU what tier a server is in depends highly on that servers population and night time coverage.

Vylor.3276:

snip

If I am correct looking at the video he has around 410 healing power which is plenty for SOR. As a comparison I have 518 healing power and it heals for 254 in the video he is healing for 243. Ether renewal takes the enemies heal skills, cooldowns, and basically reduces their recharge rate by 3.5 seconds. To each his own but personally I feel that if you are D/D SOR is the better heal there isn’t anything wrong with popping SOR in a pinch and using the active a ele can stall and heal back up for it to come off cooldown and it takes 50% of your healing power so it isn’t terrible. Most of the time when you are running around using ether you are taking damage anyway and not getting the full heal or you are blowing important cooldowns just to get it off.

SOR is better you just have to be careful and dodge important attacks. If he would have fought that guardian with ether renewal he would have lost or it would have been a tie because he couldn’t engage with good pressure and if he did engage he would have to back off and heal every 15 secs.

The guardian was dps but was also healing the entire fight passively, the guardian also had retal and SOR helps deal with retal look at his health every time he started to lightning whip the guardian. He just needed to abuse the lightning whip range better and not stay in the Symbol of Wrath which was when he started taking the most damage. I honestly just think he isn’t really familiar with guardians or dps type guardians like that one. They are starting to become more popular and I was surprised the first time I fought one but SOR is definitely the better heal against dps guards.

Anyone decent would have interrupted ether and if you notice that guardian was running Bane Signet! and would have easily interrupted his ether.

Vylor.3276:

snip

Yes, I’m an #ELEtist, but I also don’t think we have the luxury of coddling fellow eles here. I told him exactly what he did right, and what he did wrong.

SoR is the best heal there is, and it doesn’t change all too much the higher you reach on the healing power scale.

You may be right, his stuns/ints were on a cool down, but was his flame grab? Burning speed? They’re locked down there for a second waiting for your int/dps.

My suggestion would have been a dodge roll backwards, burning speed forwards.

Also, I’d love for you to stop the thought that resetting a fight will get anybody anywhere. It’s great if you need to run away against a 3-4v1 and want to escape, but with elementalist, your move skills are also key damaging skills, and you’ll throw yourself out of key rotations if you burn them in that fashion. Not to mention people in duels are considered dirty if they kite you for any period of time.

Last, ether renewal is most definitely trash. Yes, I use it occasionally against a perplexity person, and I use it well enough (with a lightning flash or something else) to avoid most interrupts. But guess what. When that 6k heal you rely on gets interrupted 1 second in, good luck continuing that fight.

Had some really great fights today with a necro, and the first couple of fights he would completely demolish me, but after asking him if he could give me some pointers on how to counter his play/build (staff, condi/fear spec) the fights became much more even. I started saving my stun breakers and blocks for when I was up close, changed to ether renewel and constantly moved to be behind him (he told me that was pretty much the most annoying thing for a necro) and the fights started swaying more heavily in my favor. Sadly I didn’t get the first couple of crushing defeats recorded like I wanted to.

I really wanna give that Necro a big shout out for sharing such (imo) vital information with me, because I don’t think many would do that and it completely changed my way of thinking prior to going up against a necro (with that kind of spec)

oZii.2864:

Vylor.3276:

snip

If I am correct looking at the video he has around 410 healing power which is plenty for SOR. As a comparison I have 518 healing power and it heals for 254 in the video he is healing for 243. Ether renewal takes the enemies heal skills, cooldowns, and basically reduces their recharge rate by 3.5 seconds. To each his own but personally I feel that if you are D/D SOR is the better heal there isn’t anything wrong with popping SOR in a pinch and using the active a ele can stall and heal back up for it to come off cooldown and it takes 50% of your healing power so it isn’t terrible. Most of the time when you are running around using ether you are taking damage anyway and not getting the full heal or you are blowing important cooldowns just to get it off.

SOR is better you just have to be careful and dodge important attacks. If he would have fought that guardian with ether renewal he would have lost or it would have been a tie because he couldn’t engage with good pressure and if he did engage he would have to back off and heal every 15 secs.

The guardian was dps but was also healing the entire fight passively, the guardian also had retal and SOR helps deal with retal look at his health every time he started to lightning whip the guardian. He just needed to abuse the lightning whip range better and not stay in the Symbol of Wrath which was when he started taking the most damage. I honestly just think he isn’t really familiar with guardians or dps type guardians like that one. They are starting to become more popular and I was surprised the first time I fought one but SOR is definitely the better heal against dps guards.

Anyone decent would have interrupted ether and if you notice that guardian was running Bane Signet! and would have easily interrupted his ether.

totally agree, signet is way better for fighting power classes and it lets you stay way more aggresive. Ether renewal is good for some things but i find really annoying to have to cover your heal everytime you want to use it

I think you guys are downing ether too much. It may not be the best heal for every situation, but it’s a good choice for when you don’t know what your next opponent will be. I roam with ether and it is a very good all purpose heal. I also duel with ether as I prefer to keep my duels as close to real fights as possible (unless it’s someone I can’t beat with my usual setup and really want to.

The interrupts really aren’t that bad except for a couple builds, and the massive amount of condi classes out there atm make the removal quite nice to have. Admittedly, it does seem there is currently a shift towards power builds again for roaming and I have been thinking about other options.

dreztina.4820:

I think you guys are downing ether too much. It may not be the best heal for every situation, but it’s a good choice for when you don’t know what your next opponent will be. I roam with ether and it is a very good all purpose heal. I also duel with ether as I prefer to keep my duels as close to real fights as possible (unless it’s someone I can’t beat with my usual setup and really want to.

The interrupts really aren’t that bad except for a couple builds, and the massive amount of condi classes out there atm make the removal quite nice to have. Admittedly, it does seem there is currently a shift towards power builds again for roaming and I have been thinking about other options.

Agree with this, in the end it is all personal preference. I roam with SOR the only time I ever pull ether out is against a necro in duels if I really am trying to win the duel other wise I don’t change the up stuff when I duel because it is what I usually run. I always run cleansing fire so most of the time when I duel I run cleansing fire even if I am fighting a Warrior with power build.

It is all personal preference though I don’t think ether renewal is a terrible heal it’s great for S/D fresh airs or S/F and staff. I always think as if I was fighting myself and I know I would interrupt my own ether renewal in a mirror match so I don’t run it. That’s just my logic.

Well in my experience as an Elementalist, in most cases the only time I die is when I get majorly locked down and bursted. Otherwise I’m usually at full health.
When I’m attacking from full health the signet is pretty wasted.
Thats why I take the Renewal; the burst healing is amazing and the 1-2 pulses I can get before getting interrupted is usually enough to last me through till the cooldown runs out again.
15 Seconds is an amazingly short cooldown.

The way I play, the only time I’m taking damage is when I’m about to die in which time the signet isn’t really helping me much.

I’m sure it is different from build to build though

Use ER in the middle of their Burst.
Use ER in the middle of their Heal.
Use ER while they Dodge.
Use ER they are running away.
Use ER while they’re chilled/crippled.
Use ER while they’re CC’d.
Use ER when you’re half way across the map.
Use ER after they’re dead.

All these are suitable times to use ER.

i use ER a ton and almost always when im roaming… still dont like it though… you have to set it up and take 3 seconds to go on the defensive and allow them to pretty much do anything they want … not saying its not good. those are just the reasons im not a fan of it. unfortunatley, i feel obligated to take it in so many situations now

Lahel.6381:

Had some really great fights today with a necro, and the first couple of fights he would completely demolish me, but after asking him if he could give me some pointers on how to counter his play/build (staff, condi/fear spec) the fights became much more even. I started saving my stun breakers and blocks for when I was up close, changed to ether renewel and constantly moved to be behind him (he told me that was pretty much the most annoying thing for a necro) and the fights started swaying more heavily in my favor. Sadly I didn’t get the first couple of crushing defeats recorded like I wanted to.

I really wanna give that Necro a big shout out for sharing such (imo) vital information with me, because I don’t think many would do that and it completely changed my way of thinking prior to going up against a necro (with that kind of spec)

His advice on staying behind a necro is sound it looks like this

This was a few days ago this necro is 30 points in curses for pretty much perma weakness so it was wrecking my dps. I have a necro also but most necros don’t run this build anymore he didn’t have 30 points in spite so he didn’t burn on crit but did transfer burns back to me when I put them on him. Necro was really good I think I went 5-3 against him. I don’t know his exact build but I assume X/30/20/X/X with greater marks. He was pretty tanky which is why I also run 20 in death magic because the typical 30/20/0/0/20 necro (the popular instagib condi spec) is really squishy.

You will notice that at one point I immobilze use cone of cold but don’t chill. Necro’s heal is increased for each condition on them. Which scales very very well it is 100% aka scales like cleansing wave and per condition scales like signet of restoration.

The big reason to kite behind them is that you can sometimes force important skills to go on full cooldown(bug). Necro’s don’t really have telegraphed moves outside of dark path which most necros’ wont use until after they hit you with doom.

I started to appreciate ER more once I started to get the hang of cancelling the channel when I no longer need the pulses. And using ER as a primary cleanse.

I personally prefer SoR. Especially in Duels. Since it has the offensive behaviour to keep up the pressure, instead of having to release to use ER.

FYI looks like your video got flagged for copyright infringement (music). Can’t watch it.

can’t watch the video cause of copyright problems

mind uploading another version with just the game music? (btw: personally I prefer that anyway )

You did ok. You will do better and better as you gain more experience within this setting specially as a solo roamer in wvw. Just know that no matter what build you run on any of the profession there will always be other profession builds or skillful players that can easily counter your build/playstyle.

uploading a version with no music in it now

version without music up now

ok nice, i got two things to say:
1. you can also switch attunements while channeling your skills (fire 3/5, water 2/5 or anything) that sometimes makes a nice difference…
and the second thing I forgot :P shame on me

You don’t play that bad. You just lack finesse. That will come from playing vs certain classes and builds. You are probably better than me at power builds atm lol.

In one of the duels you tried to kite the guardian, but you didn’t spam auto attack to get more heals.

Also note that confusion is going to hurt you a lot.

I would really like to see some duels where you lose and vs good condi-based players.