Guild Wars 2

I have an Elementalist that I use mainly for PvE and WvW, and I’m having a hard time in sPvP.

I’m using a build of 0/20/0/20/10 + 20 with Zephyr’s Boon, Aeromancer’s Alacrity, Hydromancer Alacrity, Cantrip Mastery, Elemental Attunement. Dagger/Dagger, Valkyrie/Soldier Amulet with Berserker Gem, Divinity Runes.
I don’t like Evasive Arcana builds at all, as I don’t enjoy the bunker playstyle.

Group Fights

I don’t know what happens, but it feels like I’m being targeted by the entire enemy team as soon as I engage in combat. With 14k~ health with the Valkyrie Amulet, I go die INSTANTLY if I don’t immediately LFlash away or Mist Form.

My damage doesn’t seem to be ground-breaking either, there’s little skills that deal good damage besides Burning Speed -> Fire Grab or Ring of Fire, and this doesn’t feel enough to pressure opponents to their defensive state. They just keep attacking me, and my health always go down faster than their, forcing me to Water really fast, where after the 2 heals and I switch to something else I go down still the same or even faster (when they burst), and I’m out of CDs/heals.

1v1s

Against melee professions, I always lose the damage/defense ratio, meaning my health always go down faster than theirs.
Warriors and Guardians are somewhat manageable, if I keep avoiding their dangerous skills and healing up, I’ll eventually outlast them, but it takes forever to do so.

Thieves are impossible for me, after their opener and a few hits, their Heartseeker spam is pressure enough that even using all defensive CDs, dodges, and heals, they’re still spamming Heartseeker and I’m out of options (and I don’t get damage done when I’m trying to avoid them).
I try to save Updraft/Earthquake for this, but even still this only buys me a second or so, and their first Heartseeker catches up to me if I don’t RTL away from them.
I’d like to win against them once.

Mesmers are another beast of a fight. Even though I know they lack heals, I can only withstand their pressure if I’m playing bunker. My PbAoE isn’t enough to kill Phantasms with one only, only clones, and they keep kiting me at around 600~900 range setting up clones faster than I can kill them.
It’s usually just a matter of time until I’m out of CDs (LFlash being at 36 sec) and they Immobilize + Frenzy / Shatterburst.

Rangers also feels impossible when they turn on their “I’m evading all your attacks” mode. Pets hitting me for 6~7k doesn’t help either (it was 2 skills).
Their positioning is also annoying and some of my attacks are eaten by the pet, which is REALLY frustrating.

Anyway, this is a short summary of the trouble I’m getting with my Ele in sPvP, do you have any tips on how can I improve, that doesn’t involve going 0/10/0/30/30 full bunker and trying to outlast others?

I think we’ve all been in that boat when we first start sPvP. It takes a while to get used to your abilities and cooldowns. You’re just really going to take it up the a— by everyone until all your skills become second nature. I found reading Dark Phoenix’s guide very helpful. If nothing else I learned about combos I never considered.

I have to say last night I respeced from 0/10/0/25/30 to 0/0/20/20/30. I used Celestial trinket with berserker rune. For armor I used two monk, two water, and two melandru. OMG it was God mode!!! Damage was a little weak but you really do outlast everyone. skills I used mistform, lighting blast, and armor of earth with glyph of elementals.

Edit
This is what I used:
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=Vl33;0J0BJVV0-5sM-Z0;9;6JJT;428-28-45ASN0;0o0-qNnCrsW60BW

think you’ll have to copy/paste the link to get it to work.

I am confused, as you only have 50 trait points allocated, or was the +20 supposed to be maxing out arcana.

Also, taking evasive arcana/ vigorous renewal doesn’t have to be bunkering, it is more just surviving. EA is almost required for a D/D ele as if you aren’t healing, you are dying. By going 30 in arcana with evasive arcana and the vigor, you more or less have an extra heal on a 10s cooldown. Offensively, the flameblast is nice in fire, while the mini-churning earth is AWESOME in earth (plus its a blast finisher). Also, taking aquamancer’s alacrity doesn’t make much sense, as it really only effects your cleansing wave. If you want more access to that, take evasive arcana. I would suggest the condition removal skill (Water V I believe) – this is to get out of cc as much as to strip dps conditions.

Simply put, you can’t effectively run a glass-cannon d/d spec, so you have bunker up quite a bit. Before RTL and mistform nerf it was more viable, but that was killed with the last balance patch. The reason why D/D goes bunker is because our skills simply don’t do enough damage to burst down somebody quickly enough. If you want to go more offensively, I would suggest going S/D as you can have much more burst. The last SOAC cast had this guy Zoose on explaining S/D a bit and he is really good with it. I am not going to pretend to be an expert on S/D.

All you need to know is that bunker builds still are the best for spvp/tpvp. Burst builds are more like average dps glass cannon type builds = useless. This feature is completely broken and that’s why you don’t see many true pvpers (other than those that enjoy annoying another player/s with being bunker) participating in spvp/tpvp. You will only find really good players with various type of builds per profession if you roam in wvw.

LightningBlaze.4913:

All you need to know is that bunker builds still are the best for spvp/tpvp. Burst builds are more like average dps glass cannon type builds = useless. This feature is completely broken and that’s why you don’t see many true pvpers (other than those that enjoy annoying another player/s with being bunker) participating in spvp/tpvp. You will only find really good players with various type of builds per profession if you roam in wvw.

I’m sorry but statement is completely false. There’s plenty of skilled players running damage builds in tPvP. Elementalists can land a 10k fire grab with the right 0/20/0/20/30 s/d build.

Frostedblaze.9017:

LightningBlaze.4913:

All you need to know is that bunker builds still are the best for spvp/tpvp. Burst builds are more like average dps glass cannon type builds = useless. This feature is completely broken and that’s why you don’t see many true pvpers (other than those that enjoy annoying another player/s with being bunker) participating in spvp/tpvp. You will only find really good players with various type of builds per profession if you roam in wvw.

I’m sorry but statement is completely false. There’s plenty of skilled players running damage builds in tPvP. Elementalists can land a 10k fire grab with the right 0/20/0/20/30 s/d build.

I just saw a video of a necromancer doing 27000 damage in the Arah dungeon.

D/D eles so played out.. I ‘ve been using S/F since march and spank D/D eles all the time unless they run away which I don’t bother chasing. The combos are easily predictable. There’s much more outside of just D/D ele, and thats for both pvp and pve..