Guild Wars 2

I’ve seen lots of mediocre elementalists… lots. To zerg in wvwvw you can take the easy road and just staff aoe everything, which is what most ele’s seem to do.

Every once in a while I meet one that makes me fear my class being nerfed however.

But there are exceptional players in pretty much every class that makes me wonder how they heck they pulled that off. Like a necro the other day that had like 10 of us beating on him for a while and downing people. Conventional tactics for beating necros did nothing… very strange.

quercus.9261:

last match we were playing FA and a DD ele was getting his friend to announce in zone chat (Yak) which camps he would be hitting. Sure enough he would show up, run a zerg around the map, down a couple of lowbies and generally cause a ruckus.

While he was no doubt a master of his class I can’t think of any other game that lets people get away with this kind of stuff.

So a class with high mobility (and there are several others, like thief and GS warrior) leads a zerg of complete idiots in a circle and this is game breaking?

Heck if we’re gonna adapt the game to stupidity, why don’t we just add auto dodge for any dangerous attack, that way people don’t have to deal with the inconvenience of paying attention to animations either.

“So a class with high mobility (and there are several others, like thief and GS warrior) leads a zerg of complete idiots in a circle and this is game breaking?”

I can kind of see this. The distribution of idiocy doesn’t seem entirely random however. It appears that anyone not playing a thief or a DD ele is an idiot

Morthis.3968:

quercus.9261:

last match we were playing FA and a DD ele was getting his friend to announce in zone chat (Yak) which camps he would be hitting. Sure enough he would show up, run a zerg around the map, down a couple of lowbies and generally cause a ruckus.

While he was no doubt a master of his class I can’t think of any other game that lets people get away with this kind of stuff.

So a class with high mobility (and there are several others, like thief and GS warrior) leads a zerg of complete idiots in a circle and this is game breaking?

Heck if we’re gonna adapt the game to stupidity, why don’t we just add auto dodge for any dangerous attack, that way people don’t have to deal with the inconvenience of paying attention to animations either.

^This. Zergs are great for up-leveled or new wvwvw players to understand the game mode better, as well as gathering decent exp & karma from capping.

However to many of these players, they have never seen an ele dance around with d/d and have no idea how to take one down. Hence you get situations like this.

I’ve had my fair share of trolling zergs (any d/d ele who says otherwise is lying! :p) but I’ve also been melted in seconds by a well organized trio who timed their skills strategically.

Once more people understand this ele build, the cry for nerfs will die down, like the 100b warriors and bs thieves.

quercus.9261:

“So a class with high mobility (and there are several others, like thief and GS warrior) leads a zerg of complete idiots in a circle and this is game breaking?”

I can kind of see this. The distribution of idiocy doesn’t seem entirely random however. It appears that anyone not playing a thief or a DD ele is an idiot

No, anyone in a zerg thats chasing one guy is an idiot is what he means. Been this way since daoc, keep your eyes on the prize and dont go chasing everything that moves. You have more brain power than a house cat, use it.

quercus.9261:

last match we were playing FA and a DD ele was getting his friend to announce in zone chat (Yak) which camps he would be hitting. Sure enough he would show up, run a zerg around the map, down a couple of lowbies and generally cause a ruckus.

While he was no doubt a master of his class I can’t think of any other game that lets people get away with this kind of stuff.

That was most likely Dapheonix on Excala. He’s on FA, and he’s generally considered one of the most talented D/D elementalists out there. He’s the guy who has all those videos of him taking on 6-8 people and living for quite a while. He’s the author of the guide in this very forum that quite a lot of people use.

The Guy how made the video says :
Veröffentlicht am 12.12.2012

1 second dead. You decide?
1653 - Toughness
2572 - Armor

So you cant proof if he is lying or not but it doesnt look unfamiliar.

Ele needs alot of buffs and some nerfs at the same time..
But i will gladly laugh when stomping the fotm eles that heard the class is strong.
Cause really this one will never become op for the class jumper since IMO
It requires much more than a couple of hours of playitime to with it to become remotely effective and thats why i have sticked with it since launch.
I just hope whatever Anet changes it wont ever take away the complexity and fun from our gameplay and style ..

Compared to other classes i found Ele to be just painful in PvE to play i deleted every ele i have ever played because it has very little solo ability at low levels and this swapping attunement to get anything out of it, is just annoying, fiddly and frustration all rolled into one package…

I have had zero issues with any other class in the game except Ele, i have 5 lv 80 characters and now leveling Mesmer and Necro, with zero issues i had with Elementalist..the class needs fixes whether some people like it or not..

Dante.1508:

Compared to other classes i found Ele to be just painful in PvE to play i deleted every ele i have ever played because it has very little solo ability at low levels and this swapping attunement to get anything out of it, is just annoying, fiddly and frustration all rolled into one package…

I have had zero issues with any other class in the game except Ele, i have 5 lv 80 characters and now leveling Mesmer and Necro, with zero issues i had with Elementalist..the class needs fixes whether some people like it or not..

thats irrelevant to whether its op or not in pvp..but thanks for letting us know that you dont like the class i guess.What you say as fixes is probably dumping down so that you dont find it frustratin..

kostbabis.8791:

Dante.1508:

Compared to other classes i found Ele to be just painful in PvE to play i deleted every ele i have ever played because it has very little solo ability at low levels and this swapping attunement to get anything out of it, is just annoying, fiddly and frustration all rolled into one package…

I have had zero issues with any other class in the game except Ele, i have 5 lv 80 characters and now leveling Mesmer and Necro, with zero issues i had with Elementalist..the class needs fixes whether some people like it or not..

thats irrelevant to whether its op or not in pvp..but thanks for letting us know that you dont like the class i guess.What you say as fixes is probably dumping down so that you dont find it frustratin..

Nothing in the title or OP thread states its PVP, i was sharing my opinion, and i believe many others agree and have stated the same, the Builds and Defense of ele is just terrible. And the Attunement swapping is just frustration.. and if making it play like every other class is dumbing it down then yes i’d like it dumbed down…

Dante.1508:

kostbabis.8791:

Dante.1508:

Compared to other classes i found Ele to be just painful in PvE to play i deleted every ele i have ever played because it has very little solo ability at low levels and this swapping attunement to get anything out of it, is just annoying, fiddly and frustration all rolled into one package…

I have had zero issues with any other class in the game except Ele, i have 5 lv 80 characters and now leveling Mesmer and Necro, with zero issues i had with Elementalist..the class needs fixes whether some people like it or not..

thats irrelevant to whether its op or not in pvp..but thanks for letting us know that you dont like the class i guess.What you say as fixes is probably dumping down so that you dont find it frustratin..

Nothing in the title or OP thread states its PVP, i was sharing my opinion, and i believe many others agree and have stated the same, the Builds and Defense of ele is just terrible. And the Attunement swapping is just frustration.. and if making it play like every other class is dumbing it down then yes i’d like it dumbed down…

It could possibly need some low-level love, but at 80 I will be furious if the class is dumbed down in any way.

Vayra.3290:

Nothing in the title or OP thread states its PVP, i was sharing my opinion, and i believe many others agree and have stated the same, the Builds and Defense of ele is just terrible. And the Attunement swapping is just frustration.. and if making it play like every other class is dumbing it down then yes i’d like it dumbed down…

It could possibly need some low-level love, but at 80 I will be furious if the class is dumbed down in any way.[/quote]
Seriously. This game is so incredibly simplistic in terms of mechanics, that if they made the ele as boring as the other classes, I wouldn’t be able to play the game anymore. Almost every facet of this game caters to the lowest denominator, and it would be a damned shame if anet removed one of the few things that actually required skill.

quercus.9261:

last match we were playing FA and a DD ele was getting his friend to announce in zone chat (Yak) which camps he would be hitting. Sure enough he would show up, run a zerg around the map, down a couple of lowbies and generally cause a ruckus.

While he was no doubt a master of his class I can’t think of any other game that lets people get away with this kind of stuff.

I can’t think of any other game where a profession can one-shot others by simply pressing the same button over and over again, go almost perma-invisible, and use a teleport skill which can be used everywhere ..not like other teleport skills..

Hey check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2rkN8jZBFA&feature=player_embedded..a profession killing 4-5 people one after the other…lol

That scatman guy won’t be doing that to my ele. Just saying. But backstab is definitely OP. Thief is a very skill-less class in comparison to the muscle memory required to play ele efficiently. It is not easy to be a pro ele. For a thief you just need the gear/spec and done. That guy wasn’t even a good thief at all. A good one would not have died.

I didn’t even think that I will alive day that ppls will scream on forum that ele is op xD

Dynia.9574:

I didn’t even think that I will alive day that ppls will scream on forum that ele is op xD

lol if ele becomes the fotm at least the rerollers will learn to play properly and actually skill up a bit :P
These are good days my friends

Arheundel.6451:

muscarine.5136:

I understand man you already talked about temporizing, as i said it comes with two issues, the more you delay, the closer he comes to refresh his rotation, and second, your own rotation doesn’t refresh near as fast as theirs.

And that is pressure, of course you don’t hit for 8k crit, that’s not the problem.

This is either due to too strong defensive abilities OR too fast cooldowns.

This is field experience, i’m sorry i don’t bring paper numbers along with my words but you have to trust me a bit, i’ve done my share of spvp (2077 games / 1372 wins / 1736 top stat – r42).

And as i said first good d/d eles are a minority to actually really use their build to full potential, many of them arent an issue at all since they are clueless, soon as their RTL misses they switch to water.

I don’t want good players to be punished.
But i find that it becomes too powerful within their hands, not like every class becomes great within good hands, of course. Every once in a while i get pm’d or /map hated for nerf although i’m rolling freaking dual pistols.
In this particular case we go a bit too much over the top.

And that’s the main reason why people go for d/d set, it’s the weapon set which has allowed people to get close to the mage archetype somehow.
The class has always been advertised as a versatile and strong profession, but this cannot be seen in scepter/staff/focus, where you get “punished” for leaving one attunement, with less dmg, less defense and more.

Why should we be forced to wait 50s+ to do anything worth notice while still having lowest HP and armour in game?

What you’re suggesting is that the ele should have the lowest armour, lowest health, lowest survivability and with the longest CD skills in the game

Pls list me the “defensive” abilities of a d/d ele:
1) Frost Aura? 40s CD – 7s duration
2) Shocking Aura? 25s CD – 4s duration
3) Updraft? 40s CD
4) Earthquake? 45s CD

I don’t see any short CD defensive skills, the rest come from mobility and therefore is related to the skill level of the user and what’s wrong that?
Anet has already stated that they will never nerf a profession which become effective through the use of active dodging and timing, Anet nerf things which allow the user to stand there and spamm the same button over and over….and that’s not the d/d ele case.

I believe that mobility is a necessity for a light armour profession using close range skills, but above all why don’t you explain us what ele players should use if not d/d?
Scepter?
1) Dragons’tooth= 3s activation+ red circle + enemy who stand still
2) Phoenix= 3-4s to land hit + red circle + require mele range to hit at all
3) Arc lightning = 125 pts max base dmg at 1500 Power
4) Lightning Strike = 700 dmg at 1500 power

Staff?
1) Lava font= 2s activation + red circle + enemy who stand still for 5s
2) Flamestrike = 5s burning….10s CD+ poor dmg
3) Ice spike= 3s activation + red circle+enemy who stand still
4) Lightning surge = 2s activation + LoS
5) Eruption = 3s activation+ rec circle + enemy who stand still

Still wondering why people go for d/d?

This times 193740147

This classes survivability comes from mobility. UNLIKE thieves who have Stealth, and mobility. We have 10k health and light armor. If you take away our mobility we are a free kill. Trolls are coming to the forums with no real facts and screaming nerf. You can either A) Bunker and do kitten damage, or Go GC and get wrecked as a melee toon that’s squishier than thieves. It’s one or the the other not both.

I have played the elementalist since release much like these other ele players, I know the class inside and out, and I know for 100% that while bunkering, I am going to be using all my strongest spells like fire grab (45 second cool down) which hits anywhere from 800 (yes 800 damage 45 sec cd) to 2k Damage max, I have 4% Crit chance as a bunker. My churning earth usually hits for 1.5k- 2k damage with the bleeds that get cleansed immediately. No one is going to tell me different that a bunker can put out dps, considering I have 4 months experience as a bunker. My auto attack in fire hits for 350-400 damage (lol).

So please instead of wasting your time calling for nerfs to a classes one survivability method with no facts or information, to waste your efforts somewhere else. You play a thief lets talk about needing stealth, wait that’s your form of survivability??

http://i.imgur.com/s6YLq.jpg

This is my elementalist, Pandora Hymn. This is the only character I play even though I have an 80 Ranger, Thief, Mesmer, Guardian, and a PvP necromancer (level doesn’t matter).

With 417 hours, knowledge on most classes, Running double dagger since BW1, and over 2,000 WvW kills I would like to think I’m informed enough about my favorite class to give a properly constructed breakdown of it.

Elementalist, while extremely flexible, is not as “OP” as you make it seem. What people seem to believe is because you can’t win a war of attrition with an elementalist it’s OP when in fact an D/D ele’s strength isn’t damage, or even conditional damage, it’s CONTROL.

This is the main problem I see with people I fight, they’re not informed enough about elementalist to duel them. These are the same people who made an ele then deleted it with disgust because we didn’t do 30k burst dmg in 1.5 seconds. Here we go then, this is how you break down an elementalist D/D.

Take
Away
It’s
Mobility

That’s it, and I’m dead serious about it. DDE’s biggest strength is their ability to control a fight by weaving in and out of combat. They need to pick and choose their timing due to cooldowns and relative squishiness. An ele will usually try to engage using

RLT, updraft then split into either
1) Burning Speed, RoF, Drake’s Breath, Firegrab
2) Earthquake, Churning Earth, Lightning Flash (if you try to get away)

Path 1 is the most used because there’s a fire field on the ground for might stacking when you attune to earth. If an ele engages with RTL you have 15 seconds in which their main mobility and escape tool are down. Pop a stun break right after updraft and notice if they’ve changes attunement to fire or earth.

If fire, back away about 400 range and they’ll have to use burning speed to get close to you or miss their entire combo. With this, you’ve already negated their escape, main DMG spell without burning on, and have severely hindered their damage.

If they’ve swapped instantly to earth and I cannot stress this enough, DO NOT TRY TO RUN. We’re elementalists, we WILL catch you, we WILL punish you and you’ll have wasted your dodges trying to get out of the churning earth circle. Instead, pop stability if you have access to it and DPS the kitten out of us during the Churning Earth channel, or cancel the channel. Using stability yourself is in case the ele is smart and has Stability/Shocking Aura during his channel, you will NOT stop him from using that skill. At the moment of cast, dodge.

At this point you’re passed the worst of it. The ele will have 2 options, lightning again or water.

Lightning→ They’re still playing aggressive but fear not, only the direct AA does any real damage. Even then it’s pretty negligible and a good ele should be trying to buy time for his DoT’s and Cooldowns to take effect.

Water→ They’re going defensive. Pending on how they built, this is when they’ll try to recover all the HP they lost on the burst/dmg attunements. DO NOT LET THEM. They’ll use Cleansing Wave followed by possibly Cone of Cold. They have a small radius AoE chilled as well. This will usually be the 4th attunement as a lot of elementalists are stupid and will reset to lightning and use Ride the Lightning to try and keep the offensive going instead of keeping RTL for an escape.

There’s your basic combo breakdown and everyway to stop it. You want to know how you can prevent all that damage instead of actually OUTPLAYING the ele? Stun, Immobilize, Daze, even Cripple. As I said all our power comes from mobility and being able to control the pace of a fight.

Also, any way to corrupt, remove, or otherwise prevent them buffing themselves helps immensely. Oh boo hoo they have damn near perma fury/regen/vigor? Buy a Superior Sigil of Nullification, 10 Second cooldown buff removal on crit.

God forbid people learn a class before they start complaining about it being OP. D/D ele’s are squishy at heart. Stop your complaints, learn the in and outs of the class, and enjoy stomping an ele’s face in.

Also this is for you guys complaining
“Nerf Rock, Paper is fine – sincerely Scissors”

You guys are really right about taking away the mobility to kill an ele. The thing I fear more than any other is immobilization. If I can’t move, I die, 100%.

I hope we wont get nerfed to hell tomorrow lol.

KeyLimPi.9031:

http://i.imgur.com/s6YLq.jpg

This is my elementalist, Pandora Hymn. This is the only character I play even though I have an 80 Ranger, Thief, Mesmer, Guardian, and a PvP necromancer (level doesn’t matter).

With 417 hours, knowledge on most classes, Running double dagger since BW1, and over 2,000 WvW kills I would like to think I’m informed enough about my favorite class to give a properly constructed breakdown of it.

Elementalist, while extremely flexible, is not as “OP” as you make it seem. What people seem to believe is because you can’t win a war of attrition with an elementalist it’s OP when in fact an D/D ele’s strength isn’t damage, or even conditional damage, it’s CONTROL.

This is the main problem I see with people I fight, they’re not informed enough about elementalist to duel them. These are the same people who made an ele then deleted it with disgust because we didn’t do 30k burst dmg in 1.5 seconds. Here we go then, this is how you break down an elementalist D/D.

Take
Away
It’s
Mobility

That’s it, and I’m dead serious about it. DDE’s biggest strength is their ability to control a fight by weaving in and out of combat. They need to pick and choose their timing due to cooldowns and relative squishiness. An ele will usually try to engage using

RLT, updraft then split into either
1) Burning Speed, RoF, Drake’s Breath, Firegrab
2) Earthquake, Churning Earth, Lightning Flash (if you try to get away)

Path 1 is the most used because there’s a fire field on the ground for might stacking when you attune to earth. If an ele engages with RTL you have 15 seconds in which their main mobility and escape tool are down. Pop a stun break right after updraft and notice if they’ve changes attunement to fire or earth.

If fire, back away about 400 range and they’ll have to use burning speed to get close to you or miss their entire combo. With this, you’ve already negated their escape, main DMG spell without burning on, and have severely hindered their damage.

If they’ve swapped instantly to earth and I cannot stress this enough, DO NOT TRY TO RUN. We’re elementalists, we WILL catch you, we WILL punish you and you’ll have wasted your dodges trying to get out of the churning earth circle. Instead, pop stability if you have access to it and DPS the kitten out of us during the Churning Earth channel, or cancel the channel. Using stability yourself is in case the ele is smart and has Stability/Shocking Aura during his channel, you will NOT stop him from using that skill. At the moment of cast, dodge.

At this point you’re passed the worst of it. The ele will have 2 options, lightning again or water.

Lightning-> They’re still playing aggressive but fear not, only the direct AA does any real damage. Even then it’s pretty negligible and a good ele should be trying to buy time for his DoT’s and Cooldowns to take effect.

Water-> They’re going defensive. Pending on how they built, this is when they’ll try to recover all the HP they lost on the burst/dmg attunements. DO NOT LET THEM. They’ll use Cleansing Wave followed by possibly Cone of Cold. They have a small radius AoE chilled as well. This will usually be the 4th attunement as a lot of elementalists are stupid and will reset to lightning and use Ride the Lightning to try and keep the offensive going instead of keeping RTL for an escape.

There’s your basic combo breakdown and everyway to stop it. You want to know how you can prevent all that damage instead of actually OUTPLAYING the ele? Stun, Immobilize, Daze, even Cripple. As I said all our power comes from mobility and being able to control the pace of a fight.

Also, any way to corrupt, remove, or otherwise prevent them buffing themselves helps immensely. Oh boo hoo they have damn near perma fury/regen/vigor? Buy a Superior Sigil of Nullification, 10 Second cooldown buff removal on crit.

God forbid people learn a class before they start complaining about it being OP. D/D ele’s are squishy at heart. Stop your complaints, learn the in and outs of the class, and enjoy stomping an ele’s face in.

Also this is for you guys complaining
“Nerf Rock, Paper is fine – sincerely Scissors”

Great explanation, thank you for posting this. Very good summary of how to counter this build. My only criticism is using WvW kills as a benchmark for skill, you can rack up a ton of WvW kills by just zerging around the map, it’s not a good indicator of profession knowledge.

Loco.4561:

Great explanation, thank you for posting this. Very good summary of how to counter this build. My only criticism is using WvW kills as a benchmark for skill, you can rack up a ton of WvW kills by just zerging around the map, it’s not a good indicator of profession knowledge.

Would it help if I said I belong to Gates of Madness? We’re incapable of zerging but I agree with your statement. The majority of my kills are from my friend and I roaming and taking out 1-4 at a time. I’ve studied this class to the point where I know all my faults and I can judge whether or not I can win a fight within the first 5 seconds of engagement. If someone ASKS for knowledge I’ll help them with everything I know. When someone whines and complains I’ll shove the knowledge down their throat because they don’t deserve civility lol.

KeyLimPi.9031:

Loco.4561:

Great explanation, thank you for posting this. Very good summary of how to counter this build. My only criticism is using WvW kills as a benchmark for skill, you can rack up a ton of WvW kills by just zerging around the map, it’s not a good indicator of profession knowledge.

Would it help if I said I belong to Gates of Madness? We’re incapable of zerging but I agree with your statement. The majority of my kills are from my friend and I roaming and taking out 1-4 at a time. I’ve studied this class to the point where I know all my faults and I can judge whether or not I can win a fight within the first 5 seconds of engagement. If someone ASKS for knowledge I’ll help them with everything I know. When someone whines and complains I’ll shove the knowledge down their throat because they don’t deserve civility lol.

Well I run solo since my guild disbanded and my thief buddy I used to duo with moved servers about 2 months ago :P I’m sitting on 9,441 kills in WvW, I literally don’t do anything else but WvW on my Ele, going to get to 10k kills then roll a ranger :P But I would never class myself as being exceptional, I do ok

Raif.9507:

quercus.9261:

last match we were playing FA and a DD ele was getting his friend to announce in zone chat (Yak) which camps he would be hitting. Sure enough he would show up, run a zerg around the map, down a couple of lowbies and generally cause a ruckus.

While he was no doubt a master of his class I can’t think of any other game that lets people get away with this kind of stuff.

That was most likely Dapheonix on Excala. He’s on FA, and he’s generally considered one of the most talented D/D elementalists out there. He’s the guy who has all those videos of him taking on 6-8 people and living for quite a while. He’s the author of the guide in this very forum that quite a lot of people use.

:D that was me, lol. I have so much more fun in wv3 when I tell my enemies where I’m going =P.

daphoenix.4283:

Raif.9507:

quercus.9261:

last match we were playing FA and a DD ele was getting his friend to announce in zone chat (Yak) which camps he would be hitting. Sure enough he would show up, run a zerg around the map, down a couple of lowbies and generally cause a ruckus.

While he was no doubt a master of his class I can’t think of any other game that lets people get away with this kind of stuff.

That was most likely Dapheonix on Excala. He’s on FA, and he’s generally considered one of the most talented D/D elementalists out there. He’s the guy who has all those videos of him taking on 6-8 people and living for quite a while. He’s the author of the guide in this very forum that quite a lot of people use.

:D that was me, lol. I have so much more fun in wv3 when I tell my enemies where I’m going =P.

I hate you then…next time disguise yourself as a warrior before doing these things.

miklo.3610:

I hope we wont get nerfed to hell tomorrow lol.

We probably wont and if we do it will likely only apply to spvp.

To the person who said ANet doesn’t go around nerfing because of forum tears, let’s look at mesmers. Thier primary resource mechanic and all their group utility and defense comes from illusions and particularly phantasms. People whined and whined because they couldn’t be bothered to sneeze aoe in the general direction of these flimsy things. A couple patches later, mesmer PET SUMMONS can now fail on dodge, denying them not just one move, but their passive group buffs, their utilities, their defensive cooldowns (this works on phantasmal DEFENDER), and their next shatter.

People whined, and ANet buffed blind into a special “mesmer only” interrupt that persists through 3 spells.

So yeah, I wouldn’t have so much faith in ANet, I’m crining and waiting for the nerf bat on D/D, after which I will probably quit the game.

“As for the frost aura it comes from unload i believe”

Stop unloading during the few seconds frost aura is up?

Eles are supposed to be your counter-class. If you are calling eles op because you get chill stacked to high heaven while standing there unloading on a shielded ele, then you have a problem here.

“please remove the requirement that I have to think before fighting an ele” is the paraphrasing i’m seeing.

It’s like demanding mesmers have no clones because it’s just too hard to look for the star or use ctrl+t