Guild Wars 2

I have been playing with the meta build off and on for a couple of months now. I understand the rotations, the need to break rotations, interrupts, cleansing w/ cantrips/water attunement, how to stack might, etc. – but I cannot kill anything. All the studying in the world isn’t helping because of how long it takes for me to get set up. These are usually the scenarios that happen to me when I’m in a 1v1 encounter:

- It’s a burst class, and I’m killed before I can get through any part of my rotation. Can’t get might stacks, can’t do damage, and breaking my rotation to play dynamically just causes even more problem. This is especially true vs lb ranger & s/d thief.

- It’s a bunker build, and I can’t damage him. I get might stacks up, position correctly, but nothing does enough damage to burn him down.

It seems the only place I’m able to have any success is in a 2v2 situation because I cause so much chaos. However, I usually get cc’d in that scenario (even after I cleanse out of it) and beaten down. All the wins I’ve seen in videos make sense until I try those strategies myself and fall on my face. I’m really frustrated. I keep hearing how powerful this build is, andI like the jack of all trades aspect of this class so much, but I feel like I shine in no situation. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!

PS – Here is the build I’ve been using: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_Dagger/Dagger

This is exactly the same problem I have when I try to play my D/D Ele. This ele was one of my first characters and I used him for sPvP, WvW, and PvE alike. He was a ton of fun!

Now, I can’t seem to get him to do much of anything other than die. I’ve seen some D/D ele’s that appear almost immortal but it just takes me so much to get so little in response. I have to go through this rotation/setup just to do the same basic level of damage that another class does.

I picked the D/D ele at first because it was fun to play and something that very few folks ever selected. I keep hearing that they are the most wanted in any sPvP team but I just don’t see why.

When I change over to my burst condi thief, they die in seconds.

I actually feel that the Elementalist is excellent in sPvP. Particularly in a 1v1 situation that goes un-interrupted. Having said that, I can understand having trouble because some fights are really long. It DOES take a while to kill enemies. Builds that I cannot beat when played by a decent player: turret engi and the hard hitting hammer warrior spec.

Following is just my opinion. I don’t know a lot of the ability names (I know them by their space on the hotbar)

Some general rules of thumb that helped me win a ton of fights:
1) In general, you want to stay out of AOE. Skirt the edges and watch your opponents throw crap in the middle and blow their cooldowns. Then jump in and strike quick and back out. I usually have to allow a decap to ensure I will win the fight. Lightning whip is stronger now, many times you can hit them with that. Their health starts to drop and forces them to blow something else.
2) Keep your regen via cantrips up nearly 100%
3) Dont randomly dodge. Make the attempt to dodge a hit. Don’t run into your opponent rolling for no reason.
4) Use terrain to break LOS if you have to hit cleansing water or water breath (lol)

LB: If you are engaging him, 90% of the time they open with their knockback. Begin the fight with armor of earth, always unless you know it’s down. If he gets a knockback, TP into him. You want the gap closed the entire time. His GS attacks are easy to dodge. If he does get a knockback, switch earth, use terrain, roll toward him, siwtch to water for heal and stay on him. Updraft and the #4 earth interupts his #5 aoe bow thing. This should allow you to win most fights. If he unloads on you first and you enter the fight at less then 50% health then you gotta be real careful… your already at a disadvantage.

Thief: They hit hard. The key is to not give you back up. Strafe facing him always. When they go stealth… they typically stay in stealth close to the end. Anticipate the end of their 3-4 second stealth and either tp away, switch to earth, dodge roll etc. I’m having more and more success this way. My win rate 1v1 v a sd thief is prob 75%. Some destroy me still, but usually this happens when I start bad. If you can get them rooted, knocked down, updrafted—- especially all chained causing them to blow their stealth and bombing them with #3 fire + teleport it is too much for them to handle.

Bunker builds played by excellent players… if it’s a guardian I no one wins. Warrior, they usually win. D/D elly, a tie. But a nice drawn out fight, chained cc, and #3fire+TP, fire field with root leap, blasting fields and LOTS of lightning whips and you can outlast a ton of people. Chain cc them, stay out of aoes, lightning whips, stack might when you can usually will wear them down.

Using those strategies above I actually believe I have a lot of success. I always enter a battle confident, I strike as hard as I can quickly (while also trying to stack might) and I chain cc’s. Throw in a 2nd person and I feel invincible in my fights (yes I lose sometimes, but I am not expecting to).

you can win but it requires time. It is a strong build in 1 vs 1 … but , in my opinion , it gives the best in teamfight . If you want to kill fast go S/F freshair , a little more difficult to play .. more risky but much more fun to play

Ok here your problems as i see, with Cele D/D ele, against any Zerker you should win, you should just out sustain them. You lost half of your health RTL+LF hell out of there heal to full and return to fight.

You see a bunker on a node for 1vs1, go away and do something more useful, you can’t kill him, he can’t kill you, at somewhere else your team is either 4v4 4vs3 support them, you are terrific on supporting them stay out of AOEs, give them tons of boons, cleanse, heals and burn every enemy in the area, if enemy bunker joins to team fight rotate to its node you are the most mobile bunker in the game.

Those my friend and knowing other classes make Cele D/D Ele perfect.

As people already said, D/D Meta Celestial Elementalist is a tank build, focusing in corrosion fights, where you try and starve your opponent by outhealing them, oftentimes 1v1’s lasting for minutes.

You run 6 healing and 6 arcana, with cantrips, what did you expect?

Generally elementalist has low-to-mediocre damage in sPvP, we just have more healing than others at the moment, and thats how we win.

But against full kitten zerker builds, our healing isn’t worth a kitten because we will get bursted way too fast, and we don’t deal nearly enough damage to come out on top.

As for full tank builds, we are considered tanky, but i wouldn’t go to say that we are actually a LEGIT TANK, because we aren’t, we are squishy, but we just stack armor and heals, thats it.

A real tank is a warrior or guardian built under the same pretext as D/D Cele ele, you can’t even scratch their HP, and they will still do enough damage to kill you, faster than you would kill anyone else.

is it just me or anyone else think it’s just a L2P issue? because PvP isn’t just about build and know what to do, you need the right positioning, you need fast reflexes, you need some luck… I don’t say you are bad, but if you say you are doing everything right from the theoretic perspective, all that remains is just you

MaXi.3642:

is it just me or anyone else think it’s just a L2P issue? because PvP isn’t just about build and know what to do, you need the right positioning, you need fast reflexes, you need some luck… I don’t say you are bad, but if you say you are doing everything right from the theoretic perspective, all that remains is just you

If he doesn’t know the other classes skills/animations he has too few chance to be successful in GW2 PVP.

In GW2 PVP winning or losing most of the time comes to knowing which attack to dodge or not.

Weird thread. I heard that D/D ele is easy class. You just need to push some buttons random order and you always win.

Junkpile.7439:

Weird thread. I heard that D/D ele is easy class. You just need to push some buttons random order and you always win.

That’s hambow warrior, wrong thread

The main strength of D/D bunker ele is to hold/contest points. If you manage to kill other players while doing this, it’s an added bonus.

A lot of PvP is understanding what is actually going on and why things are happening the way that they are. Even in unranked, I catch a lot of people who are extremely stationary at all times and stand in powerful AOE’s that they should never be hit with.

A lot of Ele’s survivability is understanding your cool downs and when to use them and when to simply walk away. I usually rock a S/D Fresh Air build (06044) and the main reason I stay /D over /F is the colossal number of defenses I have with /D that I like.

With these Water heavy builds, going into Water attunement is a huge defensive cooldown. You heal, you cleanse conditions, you gain regen, you gain a side regen and in the case of /D you also get some huge defensive cool downs with Frost Aura and another heal/cleanse. Most players you face know this and they try to push you down low enough fast (with burst) to force you to blow that cool down. Typically I don’t like to go into Water unless I know I got Frost Aura to help transition out of Water when they start wanting to burst me down.

There’s a lot of other cool downs as well, from Earthquake to Updraft to passives like Evasive Arcana. Knowing when to use these and when not to use these is ultimately what gets you killed.

Doesn’t mean you’re not going to face hard teams from time to time, good teams are going to prod/poke you and see what kinda Ele you are. If you are very survivable and use everything right I find most teams will do their best to ignore you cause they know you know what’s up. However if you don’t and you just fall over dead then a lot of teams will continue to focus you in any kind of engagement. All about learning how to survive and then figuring out how to do DPS afterwords.

Kodiak.3281:

A lot of PvP is understanding what is actually going on and why things are happening the way that they are. Even in unranked, I catch a lot of people who are extremely stationary at all times and stand in powerful AOE’s that they should never be hit with.

A lot of Ele’s survivability is understanding your cool downs and when to use them and when to simply walk away. I usually rock a S/D Fresh Air build (06044) and the main reason I stay /D over /F is the colossal number of defenses I have with /D that I like.

With these Water heavy builds, going into Water attunement is a huge defensive cooldown. You heal, you cleanse conditions, you gain regen, you gain a side regen and in the case of /D you also get some huge defensive cool downs with Frost Aura and another heal/cleanse. Most players you face know this and they try to push you down low enough fast (with burst) to force you to blow that cool down. Typically I don’t like to go into Water unless I know I got Frost Aura to help transition out of Water when they start wanting to burst me down.

There’s a lot of other cool downs as well, from Earthquake to Updraft to passives like Evasive Arcana. Knowing when to use these and when not to use these is ultimately what gets you killed.

Doesn’t mean you’re not going to face hard teams from time to time, good teams are going to prod/poke you and see what kinda Ele you are. If you are very survivable and use everything right I find most teams will do their best to ignore you cause they know you know what’s up. However if you don’t and you just fall over dead then a lot of teams will continue to focus you in any kind of engagement. All about learning how to survive and then figuring out how to do DPS afterwords.

just a curiosity for learning : which are the defensive skill of /D ? i can think air 4,5 for evasion and water 5 or earth 4 … but you don’t have any defense againt projectiles … i play s/f but with s/d it seems to me much harder to survive … and i am just curious to learn

PierPiero.9142:

just a curiosity for learning : which are the defensive skill of /D ? i can think air 4,5 for evasion and water 5 or earth 4 … but you don’t have any defense againt projectiles … i play s/f but with s/d it seems to me much harder to survive … and i am just curious to learn

Projectiles are definitely tricky as you don’t have a hard counter as S/D. Some of the tougher opponents I face are definitely Longbow rangers as a result as they can really pelt you hard and use their knockback to keep you out of melee range to stop moves like Air 5 or Earth 4 forcing you to use Air 4 to close the gap (only to make yourself vulnerable to the Wolf fear haha).

The rest you pretty much covered. It all comes down to a comfort thing. I really am used to the /D water and /D Air more than anything in terms of mobility and defense. Especially Air 4. A lot of PvP fights (be it in WvW or SPvP) come down to the start of an engagement. Who gets the jump on whom, what terrain, what openers, what cool downs used, etc. By using RTL to “reset” the fight and walk away and come back a few seconds later it can dramatically alter the outcome of a battle. S/F on the other hand is more committed. You’re there and there’s really no escape outside of Lightning Flash cantrip.

MaXi.3642:

is it just me or anyone else think it’s just a L2P issue? because PvP isn’t just about build and know what to do, you need the right positioning, you need fast reflexes, you need some luck… I don’t say you are bad, but if you say you are doing everything right from the theoretic perspective, all that remains is just you

It is, to an extent, but against some builds you just cant win, if you are fighting with a equally skilled player.

But as i said, Ele D/D cele meta isn’t about winning 1v1’s or even 2v1’s, its about surviving long enough to hold a point or be annoying to peel their attention for long enough for your team to make something out of it.

Lawful.5314:

MaXi.3642:

is it just me or anyone else think it’s just a L2P issue? because PvP isn’t just about build and know what to do, you need the right positioning, you need fast reflexes, you need some luck… I don’t say you are bad, but if you say you are doing everything right from the theoretic perspective, all that remains is just you

It is, to an extent, but against some builds you just cant win, if you are fighting with a equally skilled player.

But as i said, Ele D/D cele meta isn’t about winning 1v1’s or even 2v1’s, its about surviving long enough to hold a point or be annoying to peel their attention for long enough for your team to make something out of it.

While cele ele is about outsustaining your enemies, it should be able to beat any other spec in the meta in a 1v1 (except shoutbow, that’s a draw).

In a duel between equally skilled players, the DD wins.

No offense but just because you can’t play DD doesn’t mean the spec is bad. Maybe it’s not your playstyle and that’s why you can’t get into it and there’s nothing wrong with that, but you should still acknowledge its strength.

i main ele and have around 1k games on ranked/unranked and over 3k hours in total (pve and wvw), against burst classes , especialy thief and mesmer you should not have problems as long as you avoid their heavy hitters

i think your main problem is not knowig all skils , builds and traits of all classes , so you know what to dodge and when to attack, if you play on EU , we can have some sparring or i can watch you on some hotjoin matches and i can tell you where you should improve

i am by no means a pro ele like phantaram or other top players, but i do think ele is one of the best 1vs1 classes and there is a reason why ppl are screming for a celestial nerf

remember to stack might, your damage come from there . in a fight usually you don’t have to do all the chain like a robot … but for example , if you have fire and earth ready ….remember fire 4, fire 3 earth dodge in and earth 3 twice … and if you have you can add an earthquake …. when your stacks of might raise up … your direct and condi damage raise up … I avoid to stack might with water 3 becouse i usually tend to preserve water for healing but it is only a matter of taste and if you fight against ranged prof rememeber that earth 2 block projectils

Go 4 in air magic for bolt to the heart and Zephyr’s boon. So 4 air, 4 water and 6 Arcana. More dps, still good cleanse and healing, but a wee bit less defence. Put a strength sigil on one of your daggers for more damage.

witcher.3197:

In a duel between equally skilled players, the DD wins.

No offense but just because you can’t play DD doesn’t mean the spec is bad. Maybe it’s not your playstyle and that’s why you can’t get into it and there’s nothing wrong with that, but you should still acknowledge its strength.

I did, its survivability is top notch, that is all there is to it, and thats it, there is nothing else to it, the damage is weak and a competent player won’t let you just keep on slowly trying to kill him, as he sees that he cant get enough damage in.

A smart player will just leave the elementalist alone and focus someone else, or go capture another point, not wasting time there.
D/D elementalist takes WAAAAY too long to kill anyone, thats not called strong, its just called being annoying.
And anyone trying to kill a target that he sees he can’t damage, while dying in the process…is not a good player, lol

Something tells me you don’t know how to land your stronger moves; you should practice that. For starters, Burning Speed + Lightning Flash will hit anything hard, so try practicing that and DO NOT stop pressuring. Lightning Whip has good reach and decent damage, there’s no reason to give them breathing room since you can heal very fast AND Might stack at the same time. You should not lose because of a lack of damage even with Celestial gear, you’re definitely doing something wrong.
The only builds I can think of that you will not kill, can’t kill you back, outside of a Condi PU Mesmer or maybe a Thief(S/D maybe) that’s very good. Everything else should be fair game.

The meta is the safest build possible made for holding points for ppt.

Yes with sustained pressure and 20-25 stacks of might you’ll eventually burn people out in 1v1 by doing a good rotation when their heals are on cooldowns, but don’t expect to burst anyone with that build.

A good ele can survive without cleansing water and/or evasive arcana, just like a good thief knows when to disengage. That’s 4 points to redistribute,

If you are imaginative with sigil you can discover some insane good burst builds with d/d ele. But to run these build with success all your skills have to land properly and be used at the most proper moment. It’s not like a ranger where you can face-roll at 1500 distance and do 10k damage.

Malchior.5732:

Something tells me you don’t know how to land your stronger moves; you should practice that. For starters, Burning Speed + Lightning Flash will hit anything hard, so try practicing that and DO NOT stop pressuring. Lightning Whip has good reach and decent damage, there’s no reason to give them breathing room since you can heal very fast AND Might stack at the same time. You should not lose because of a lack of damage even with Celestial gear, you’re definitely doing something wrong.
The only builds I can think of that you will not kill, can’t kill you back, outside of a Condi PU Mesmer or maybe a Thief(S/D maybe) that’s very good. Everything else should be fair game.

Are you being real right now?

Burning speed and firegrab are the most damage skills we have, and they are both super easy to land, but they don’t do nearly enough damage to be considered burst.
Wait, what? You really think that 4k crit on grab and 2.5k crit on burning speed is burst? lel
Do remember fire grab is 40s cd and the speed is 15s, once per rotation, rest of the kit doesn’t deal almost any damage, except for churning earth.
And with the meta build you have like only 50% crit with fury, 30% without fury, criticals aren’t exactly overflowing either.

Well, whenever I play WvW or PvP, damage is almost never a problem, so yea, im very real.
Sure, I can’t burst someone down in 3 seconds, but I can kill them much faster than you claim to be able to. Some specs take longer, no doubt.

Also, the word “burst” was nowhere in my post.

Malchior.5732:

Well, whenever I play WvW or PvP, damage is almost never a problem, so yea, im very real.
Sure, I can’t burst someone down in 3 seconds, but I can kill them much faster than you claim to be able to. Some specs take longer, no doubt.

Also, the word “burst” was nowhere in my post.

Exactly that is the problem, yes you can kill someone, but most often than not, it takes a good 60 seconds to do that, sometimes less if they are a squishy zerker and don’t dodge/sustain properly, but in most cases it takes forever to kill anyone and good players will just run if they see that they can’t kill you.
But i already said that, yet you are trying to “teach” me how to play, while supporting my point of view, lel.

Lawful.5314:

Malchior.5732:

Well, whenever I play WvW or PvP, damage is almost never a problem, so yea, im very real.
Sure, I can’t burst someone down in 3 seconds, but I can kill them much faster than you claim to be able to. Some specs take longer, no doubt.

Also, the word “burst” was nowhere in my post.

Exactly that is the problem, yes you can kill someone, but most often than not, it takes a good 60 seconds to do that, sometimes less if they are a squishy zerker and don’t dodge/sustain properly, but in most cases it takes forever to kill anyone and good players will just run if they see that they can’t kill you.
But i already said that, yet you are trying to “teach” me how to play, while supporting my point of view, lel.

A good ~60 seconds just sounds like a fair fight to me. If you want burst, you obviously cannot run Cele D/D and expect to kill THAT fast(as in 10 seconds). Cele D/D’s time-to-kill is very acceptable and doesn’t stop it from being a great build for both holding points and winning 1v1s. It just seems like you don’t know how to properly pressure an opponent though, when you complain about D/D’s damage output, so, naturally, I assumed you weren’t landing a key skill and/or not using Lightning Whip properly.
Go try S/F if you want fast kill times, but D/D does not lack damage.

These forums never cease to amaze me, really. One month people are complaining about Ele being unstoppable and murdering everyone in return and the next month the same build has a lack of damage and can only function as a bunker.

Malchior.5732:

These forums never cease to amaze me, really. One month people are complaining about Ele being unstoppable and murdering everyone in return and the next month the same build has a lack of damage and can only function as a bunker.

Some people on these forums

Malchior.5732:

These forums never cease to amaze me, really. One month people are complaining about Ele being unstoppable and murdering everyone in return and the next month the same build has a lack of damage and can only function as a bunker.

People are just preparing for future nerfs.

Malchior.5732:

A good ~60 seconds just sounds like a fair fight to me.

These forums never cease to amaze me, really. One month people are complaining about Ele being unstoppable and murdering everyone in return and the next month the same build has a lack of damage and can only function as a bunker.

Well, here is an example of damage.
My hybrid warrior can oneshot someone, now thats damage, with pressing 3 buttons, while still having 30k hp.

I was never of the opinion that elementalist has damage, unless you build him as zerker, which is paper build.
You have to realize that people that claim that elementalist is “Op” are the 99% of the player base that are not that good.
Same principle as league of legends divisions, the silvers are crying when they get rolled by that 1% diamond player.

I ran cele meta ele build and i met some warriors , guardians and mesmers that were just as good as that 1% , and guess what, no sustain in the world, will keep you alive against them, was frustratingly annoying how all the correct rotations in the world, couldn’t help me.
In rest, i can probably win 60% of my pvp games as cele ele meta, because yeah its that easy to survive against people who are average.

Lawful.5314:

Malchior.5732:

A good ~60 seconds just sounds like a fair fight to me.

These forums never cease to amaze me, really. One month people are complaining about Ele being unstoppable and murdering everyone in return and the next month the same build has a lack of damage and can only function as a bunker.

Well, here is an example of damage.
My hybrid warrior can oneshot someone, now thats damage, with pressing 3 buttons, while still having 30k hp.

I was never of the opinion that elementalist has damage, unless you build him as zerker, which is paper build.
You have to realize that people that claim that elementalist is “Op” are the 99% of the player base that are not that good.
Same principle as league of legends divisions, the silvers are crying when they get rolled by that 1% diamond player.

I ran cele meta ele build and i met some warriors , guardians and mesmers that were just as good as that 1% , and guess what, no sustain in the world, will keep you alive against them, was frustratingly annoying how all the correct rotations in the world, couldn’t help me.
In rest, i can probably win 60% of my pvp games as cele ele meta, because yeah its that easy to survive against people who are average.

Sweet, you have a strong Warrior build. I hope it doesn’t rely on your opponent lagging to land those moves, though, or having every buff imaginable against someone who’s in full white armor.

Now, I don’t know where you’re going with this, because I never said Cele D/D had great damage, just acceptable levels, which a lot of people seem to accept. You definitely don’t have the firepower to kill everything, but you shouldn’t be taking an obscene amount of time killing something unless they’re like a full tank Guardian or something, in which case, you have good mobility too(while they most likely don’t), so go do something else.

About the “99% being bad” thing, I’ve seen the same thing happen in Starcraft, and Gw2, and Dark Souls, and Civilization, and every game that has ever had any form of Player vs Player. Thing is, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change the fact that the Ele was, alongside the Engineer, dominating and showing results.
There were threads upon threads of people complaining about how OP these classes were(and there still are!) and how they could deal so much damage while surviving through a fight with full health. We can ignore a couple threads, but it was/is an epidemic; how much people hate the damage these classes can do with the amount of sustain they have. You could argue that their time-to-kill is high, but it seems like that’s perfectly fine especially since you can survive another player’s burst and kill them back before you die and you can out-sustain pretty much everything(which is what caused the pages full of whining) well under a minute, depending on your opponent’s spec and each of the player’s skill levels.

Speaking of skill, it doesn’t matter if that 1% can murder you, there will always be that one person who you just can’t beat. Either they’re just much better than you(everyone has met those) or they’re running a build that has an advantage against yours(and this game definitely embraces counter builds).
That 1% is irrelevant to this discussion though; what I care about is the 99% that should not be giving the OP(or most D/D Eles) the trouble that they give.
One final thing, the 60% win rate in PvP games is irrelevant. We’re talking about 1v1 scenarios, as the OP stated he was having trouble with.

Malchior.5732:

wall of text

Aight, we’re going over the same stuff over and over now, while having slight differences in opinion but overall thoughts being the same.

Lawful.5314:

Malchior.5732:

wall of text

Aight, we’re going over the same stuff over and over now, while having slight differences in opinion but overall thoughts being the same.

Glad you realized it.

I think that celestial amulet should give at least 1k more power when D/D ele use it because fire grab and burning speed are so weak burst skills.

Junkpile.7439:

I think that celestial amulet should give at least 1k more power when D/D ele use it because fire grab and burning speed are so weak burst skills.

I think it should also give 1k more Vitality because Ele has the lowest health.

Personally i think the overall damage is okay, sure there needs to be some tweaking here and there, but the lack of vitality for elementaist is mostly the problem, because even mesmer while wearing cloth, still has way more base hp.
I mean, why does mesmer have 21k in zerker gear and elementalist 14k, while both wearing cloth? Yeah, thats food for thought.

And some ele weapons are a bit too weak, specifically staff, i wish they would make it a proper 2h weapon, with high burst damage and aoe, like a 2handed weapon is supposed to be, but the staff wishes are just purely my own little dream, which will probably never happen, lol.

Lawful.5314:

Personally i think the overall damage is okay, sure there needs to be some tweaking here and there, but the lack of vitality for elementaist is mostly the problem, because even mesmer while wearing cloth, still has way more base hp.
I mean, why does mesmer have 21k in zerker gear and elementalist 14k, while both wearing cloth? Yeah, thats food for thought.
If they bump up elementalist HP up to 21k in zerker, then the class will be way better.

Mesmer has higher base vitality, thats for sure, about necro not sure.
And they both wear cloth.

And some ele weapons are a bit too weak, specifically staff, i wish they would make it a proper 2h weapon, with high burst damage and aoe, like a 2handed weapon is supposed to be.

I always found it weird that D/D Ele is designed to be in-your-face, but has such low health, while Mesmers have clones and some stealth/blinks to cover themselves. I guess Eles do have insane healing and better mobility, but still.

Also, I would love it if we got a strong 2H option. Staff can be fun since you really have to plan out what you do, but it’s so hard so win a 1v1 that it makes me not want to play it. That’s what I would want, just a solid 2H weapon.

Malchior.5732:

Lawful.5314:

Personally i think the overall damage is okay, sure there needs to be some tweaking here and there, but the lack of vitality for elementaist is mostly the problem, because even mesmer while wearing cloth, still has way more base hp.
I mean, why does mesmer have 21k in zerker gear and elementalist 14k, while both wearing cloth? Yeah, thats food for thought.
If they bump up elementalist HP up to 21k in zerker, then the class will be way better.

Mesmer has higher base vitality, thats for sure, about necro not sure.
And they both wear cloth.

And some ele weapons are a bit too weak, specifically staff, i wish they would make it a proper 2h weapon, with high burst damage and aoe, like a 2handed weapon is supposed to be.

I always found it weird that D/D Ele is designed to be in-your-face, but has such low health, while Mesmers have clones and some stealth/blinks to cover themselves. I guess Eles do have insane healing and better mobility, but still.

Also, I would love it if we got a strong 2H option. Staff can be fun since you really have to plan out what you do, but it’s so hard so win a 1v1 that it makes me not want to play it. That’s what I would want, just a solid 2H weapon.

Exactly what i wanted to say just now, our D/D builds which is the strongest is designed to be almost in MELEE range, but we have the LOWEST HP pool of all classes in the game, even from cloth classes, Necro has like 19k in zerker and mesmer has like 21k, but we have 14k, while WE are the melee focused class, which makes no sense.

Sometimes i feel like anet either is really incompetent in balancing or just hates elementalists so bad.

EDIT: Inb4 some knight comes around running trying to defend anet saying that D/D Cele meta build is one of the strongest builds in the game atm.
Well, true, but its a gimmicky build that relies on cele entirely and running 6 water for overhealing,, if that gets nerfed, any part of it, then the class is back where it was a year ago, being the worst in PvP.
So yeah, that can change at any moment.

Lawful.5314:

Malchior.5732:

Lawful.5314:

Personally i think the overall damage is okay, sure there needs to be some tweaking here and there, but the lack of vitality for elementaist is mostly the problem, because even mesmer while wearing cloth, still has way more base hp.
I mean, why does mesmer have 21k in zerker gear and elementalist 14k, while both wearing cloth? Yeah, thats food for thought.
If they bump up elementalist HP up to 21k in zerker, then the class will be way better.

Mesmer has higher base vitality, thats for sure, about necro not sure.
And they both wear cloth.

And some ele weapons are a bit too weak, specifically staff, i wish they would make it a proper 2h weapon, with high burst damage and aoe, like a 2handed weapon is supposed to be.

I always found it weird that D/D Ele is designed to be in-your-face, but has such low health, while Mesmers have clones and some stealth/blinks to cover themselves. I guess Eles do have insane healing and better mobility, but still.

Also, I would love it if we got a strong 2H option. Staff can be fun since you really have to plan out what you do, but it’s so hard so win a 1v1 that it makes me not want to play it. That’s what I would want, just a solid 2H weapon.

Exactly what i wanted to say just now, our D/D builds which is the strongest is designed to be almost in MELEE range, but we have the LOWEST HP pool of all classes in the game, even from cloth classes, Necro has like 19k in zerker and mesmer has like 21k, but we have 14k, while WE are the melee focused class, which makes no sense.

Sometimes i feel like anet either is really incompetent in balancing or just hates elementalists so bad.

Eh, I think they hate every class in some way. Necros got crap they didn’t want and then got nerfed for it, Rangers have pets, Mesmers have pets, Warriors were trash in the beginning, Guards barely change, Eles have been through a roller coaster ride, Thieves keep getting nerfed all the time, and Engineers are kinda just there.

Malchior.5732:

Eh, I think they hate every class in some way. Necros got crap they didn’t want and then got nerfed for it, Rangers have pets, Mesmers have pets, Warriors were trash in the beginning, Guards barely change, Eles have been through a roller coaster ride, Thieves keep getting nerfed all the time, and Engineers are kinda just there.

Yeah but amongst all that, Elementalist was always the worst class in PvP, up until April 2014.
Where we finally got one viable build for god knows how long, until Anet decides its too good for us.

Also about Thieves, i was surprised how bad the class became prior to over a year ago, used to roll faces with it, now it feels even worse than Elementalist was back in the day.

After scrubs have been whining around about how op D/D celestial ele is, people finally seem to understand the truth: It can be countered very easily because the attunement rotation makes it very predictable. On my S/D thief I beat the crap out of every D/D ele in spvp because I’ve played it myself for a long time. It doesn’t need a buff by any means, but there are other things that need to be put in place. Engi is utterly op imho. Condition builds are way too strong for how easy to play they are. If I was in the balance team, the first thing I would do is nerf confusion damage by 50%. Well, lets get back to topic.

The problem of many (new) d/d celestial ele players is that they are so busy keeping their rotation up that they actually lose focus on AIMING their skills. They throw everything out whats on cooldown but if you miss your burning speed/drake’s breath/fire grab/magnetic grasp (these skills are the most important to land), the damage output will be neglectible because the only thing among all other skills that do decent damage is earth #2 and lighting #1.

Here is what you should do: Take lightning flash and use it to safely land burning speed on the opponent. Dont use burning speed and ring of fire at the same time (do it only if you ambush someone). Make yourself a little bit more unpredictable.

- If lightning flash is ready, attune to fire and immediately land your burst so your opponent doesn’t have time to react

- If lightning flash is not ready, use drake’s breath after attuning to fire. The opponent can either stay in the fire and take heavy condition damage or dodge away. If he dodges away from you, he will do you a great favor: He will make it much easier to land your burning speed. If he doesn’t dodge away, land fire grab.

In general, save your fire grab for the SECOND time you attune to fire because then you will have a decent might stack. Use drake’s breath, wait for the opponent’s reaction, run towards him if he dodges -> fire grab.

Always remember: The only thing that makes a d/d ele actually dangerous is the fire attunement. Without those skills, you are just a punching ball with good healing. So make sure they land.

Edit: I just checked out the build on metabattle. Elemental shielding is total crap compared to zephyrs boon. That’s why you lack damage. And strength runes > hoelbrak.

cursE.1794:

Always remember: The only thing that makes a d/d ele actually dangerous is the fire attunement. Without those skills, you are just a punching ball with good healing. So make sure they land.

Edit: I just checked out the build on metabattle. Elemental shielding is total crap compared to zephyrs boon. That’s why you lack damage. And strength runes > hoelbrak.

This pretty much sums up the damage options Elementalists have in D/D cele meta, if you avoid their burning speed, fire grab and drake , or just the first two, then elementalist will d little to no damage to you.

What is also true tho, is that a good elementalist will ride the lightning to you, then knock you down with air 5, after which he will instantly fire 3 into you, so you can’t dodge or avoid it.
Then again, what is also true, is that A5 has a long cooldown, so you will probably be able to use that once per fight, and it won’t deal enough damage to kill anyone or surprise burst them from 100>0.

You’re right I forgot about updraft. So there are three ways of landing your burst: #1 lightning flash #2 updraft #3 play around with drake’s breath. I would do it in that order.

Pretty much all the elementalists I encounter do RtL – Updraft – BS … Whyyyyyyy? It’s the most predictable move ever! It’s super easy to counter or dodge, and in addition wasting updraft for this is terrible. There are so many better ways to land BS, and you should always keep updraft for when it is actually needed.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Pretty much all the elementalists I encounter do RtL – Updraft – BS … Whyyyyyyy? It’s the most predictable move ever! It’s super easy to counter or dodge, and in addition wasting updraft for this is terrible. There are so many better ways to land BS, and you should always keep updraft for when it is actually needed.

Cause its just a no brainer and people keep advertising it in their youtube build video rotations.
Personally i don’t think burning speed is that hard to land, but i do updraft on cooldown because its just a bit of burst with air5>fire3>5 and then you can do whatever else you want.

It’s funny, because a friend of mine actually thought RtL did the knockback(he’s only played Mesmer and a bit of Ranger) since almost every Ele ever always starts off with RtL → Updraft.
I try to mix it up and hold off on Updraft to then land Burning Speed or to stop a Heal, or when they’ve wasted their rolls, then I sometimes use RtL → Updraft.

Lawful.5314:

Yeah but amongst all that, Elementalist was always the worst class in PvP, up until April 2014.

That’s just wrong. Ele was strong for almost a year after release, then there was almost a year when it was indeed garbage, but now it’s god tier since 2014 April if my memory serves me well.

witcher.3197:

Lawful.5314:

Yeah but amongst all that, Elementalist was always the worst class in PvP, up until April 2014.

That’s just wrong. Ele was strong for almost a year after release, then there was almost a year when it was indeed garbage, but now it’s god tier since 2014 April if my memory serves me well.

As far as i remember, elementalist was pretty poor even from the start, people kept crying that he dies to thieves and any other class all the time way too easily, compared to what he can dish out in return.

I remember that pretty clearly because of this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh5zjK7ITpQ

This was dating back to september 12th, and the game was released in August , so i would say yeah, elementalist was on the weaker side since the start.

Kodiak.3281:

A lot of PvP is understanding what is actually going on and why things are happening the way that they are. Even in unranked, I catch a lot of people who are extremely stationary at all times and stand in powerful AOE’s that they should never be hit with.

A lot of Ele’s survivability is understanding your cool downs and when to use them and when to simply walk away. I usually rock a S/D Fresh Air build (06044) and the main reason I stay /D over /F is the colossal number of defenses I have with /D that I like.

With these Water heavy builds, going into Water attunement is a huge defensive cooldown. You heal, you cleanse conditions, you gain regen, you gain a side regen and in the case of /D you also get some huge defensive cool downs with Frost Aura and another heal/cleanse. Most players you face know this and they try to push you down low enough fast (with burst) to force you to blow that cool down. Typically I don’t like to go into Water unless I know I got Frost Aura to help transition out of Water when they start wanting to burst me down.

There’s a lot of other cool downs as well, from Earthquake to Updraft to passives like Evasive Arcana. Knowing when to use these and when not to use these is ultimately what gets you killed.

Doesn’t mean you’re not going to face hard teams from time to time, good teams are going to prod/poke you and see what kinda Ele you are. If you are very survivable and use everything right I find most teams will do their best to ignore you cause they know you know what’s up. However if you don’t and you just fall over dead then a lot of teams will continue to focus you in any kind of engagement. All about learning how to survive and then figuring out how to do DPS afterwords.

I’m “maining” S/F fresh air ele but every now and then i would use d/d in spvp and i can completely relate to OP, it felt really weak in terms of damage, not the best bunker either, just felt very “meh” in general, now i knew that the class/spec wasnt bad but me being a fresh level 80 player (hit that 2 weeks ago) i couldnt figure out why s/f fresh air was working so much better for me than d/d. Now after reading this post i can totally say that in my case this guy is completely right, im one of the people who are stationary and try to do the same rotation like a robot every time they get into combat as d/d ele but after reading this post i tried adjusting and guess what … it worked. Now dont get me wrong in terms of damage its still not great but it isnt weak either and the havoc you create with d/d is just amazing.

Lawful.5314:

I mean, why does mesmer have 21k in zerker gear and elementalist 14k, while both wearing cloth? Yeah, thats food for thought.

Because the mesmer doesn’t have the elementalist’s healing ability.

Lawful.5314:

witcher.3197:

Lawful.5314:

Yeah but amongst all that, Elementalist was always the worst class in PvP, up until April 2014.

That’s just wrong. Ele was strong for almost a year after release, then there was almost a year when it was indeed garbage, but now it’s god tier since 2014 April if my memory serves me well.

As far as i remember, elementalist was pretty poor even from the start, people kept crying that he dies to thieves and any other class all the time way too easily, compared to what he can dish out in return.

I remember that pretty clearly because of this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh5zjK7ITpQ

This was dating back to september 12th, and the game was released in August , so i would say yeah, elementalist was on the weaker side since the start.

Yes, 2 weeks after release (sept 12) people thought warrior was OP because of the frenzy + 100blades combo.. but as people got better at the game and Anet did a bit of balancing ele was in a great spot until ~2013 summer when anet overnerfed them. After a hiatus, they became kings of PvP after the 2014 april patch.