Guild Wars 2

I just wanted to say I’ve seen an influx of eles in obsidian sanctum and in WvW as roamers. Glad to see this.

I think it in part is due to the ability to be beast mode when played right.

So kudos peeps for stickin’ with ele.

I think its because of the rumors of upcoming nerfs.

Eles are getting buffed. People are predicting a new FOTM. But everyone in my guild who suddenly wanted to play ele has not stuck with it for more than a week.

I’ve already got my macro set up for ‘I played ele before it was cool.’

Its ele, it wont be that much of a buff anyway. It might just mean we survive a few seconds longer or that we dont get nuked down in a split second by BS thieves that just spam HS, HS, HS until we die.

Resto Signet buff is a minor survivability increase, but only if you are actively engaging in a fight and constantly mashing spells. It’s really not going to stop Ele’s from getting insta-gibbed during a CC or if they try to run away.

The rest of the buffs are purely for D/D, and really I didn’t pick an Ele to play a half-baked melee build with pathetic survivability and sub-par mobility.

Not much will change.

Talking about WvW, Wintel. PvP is a waste of developer time if ya ask me. I do partake in it from time to time to keep current on the state of the game there and duel server mates.

I don’t know if it’s about the buffs. I feel like they won’t be huge or anything game breaking.

I need that macro lol. I started playing ele literally right after anet shot the plane out of the sky. Every consecutive patch was a nerf.

Shelved eles are finally seeing light. WvW isn’t so lonely :p. Just thought it was nice.

Also— Ash why is it I can’t post anything positive about eles without that response? It’s completely false. If you get 2’d to death, we need to train you on how to not have that happen.

Mbelch.9028:

Also— Ash why is it I can’t post anything positive about eles without that response? It’s completely false. If you get 2’d to death, we need to train you on how to not have that happen.

When you have 1,600Toughness 18k health and STILL get hit for 16k damage in ONE hit from a class you dont see coming and from an attack you dont know is going to happen then you may understand. Sure the “buffs” are decent, several are rather pointless take Blast Finisher on Frozen Blast, like D/D needs MORE Might stacking. Until D/D gets more more useable fields the blasts are rather wasted.

They want ele to have more sustain, yet these are the “buffs” we get to help us with that…

Yea full zerk thief damage is insane but they die just as easily as they can kill you if only you counter or avoid the follow up hit. When fighting these type of thieves players it is all about how fast your reaction is after you get hit once. If your reaction is a bit too slow you will suffer defeat but if your reflexes are fast enough you will gain an easy victory. Of course you need to burst just as fast as well.

LightningBlaze.4913:

Yea full zerk thief damage is insane but they die just as easily as they can kill you if only you counter or avoid the follow up hit. When fighting these type of thieves players it is all about how fast your reaction is after you get hit once. If your reaction is a bit too slow you will suffer defeat but if your reflexes are fast enough you will gain an easy victory. Of course you need to burst just as fast as well.

Thing is though, Thieves typically open the fight so in order to survive you end up blowing cooldowns – the moment you attack back, they’ll either spam evades or stealth + re-open withstun.
Any thief that knows what they are doing should never lose to a glass/zerk Ele.

The there’s the issue of class difficulty…the skill and timing required to play Ele effectively is just on another level. A thief doesn’t need anywhere near that much skill and has plenty of room for mistakes.

LightningBlaze.4913:

Yea full zerk thief damage is insane but they die just as easily as they can kill you if only you counter or avoid the follow up hit. When fighting these type of thieves players it is all about how fast your reaction is after you get hit once. If your reaction is a bit too slow you will suffer defeat but if your reflexes are fast enough you will gain an easy victory. Of course you need to burst just as fast as well.

Great, now if anet can just work out a way for everyone who doesn’t play burst scepter to beat thieves we’d be all set.

Wintel.4873:

LightningBlaze.4913:

Yea full zerk thief damage is insane but they die just as easily as they can kill you if only you counter or avoid the follow up hit. When fighting these type of thieves players it is all about how fast your reaction is after you get hit once. If your reaction is a bit too slow you will suffer defeat but if your reflexes are fast enough you will gain an easy victory. Of course you need to burst just as fast as well.

Thing is though, Thieves typically open the fight so in order to survive you end up blowing cooldowns – the moment you attack back, they’ll either spam evades or stealth + re-open withstun.
Any thief that knows what they are doing should never lose to a glass/zerk Ele.

The there’s the issue of class difficulty…the skill and timing required to play Ele effectively is just on another level. A thief doesn’t need anywhere near that much skill and has plenty of room for mistakes.

A glass Ele will get downed at the first successful hit from a glass thief in WvW. A burst non glass Ele like myself can last at least 2 hits from a full burst buffed glass thief. That second hit resistance is all that is necessary to recover, counter and bring down these thieves even if they evade or try to stealth as soon as they hit you once. Of course this is only my experience against skillful known thief players in WvW tier 1 trying different tests in duels…..:..so just take it with a grain of salt.

From an engi main ele twink point of view: Ele isn’t is bad as many seem to think (at least in WvW). There were gross over-nerfs (RTL, which made ele unappealing for roaming) but e.g. some of the first drastic sustain nerfs (SoR, Cleansing Wave/Evasive arcana) didn’t even apply to WvW. Also, so far eles were able to evade the overall vigor nerf, so I’d count that as an indirect buff. The arcane change did make 30 points in the traitline a little less mandatory. I’m glad ANet is careful with buffs, but they are changing the wrong things imo. They need some capability against initial burst, and a re-adjustment to their mobility, their recovery options/active defenses are already pretty good. I dislike that “evade while you are executing a strong attack so your opponent has less counterplay options” approach.

A thief should never, ever lose to an ele. If you beat a thief, it’s beacuse the thief is terrible.

Problem with ele’s is they are in a bad position againd direct damage, and a worse one against condition as they have such low hps.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Its ele, it wont be that much of a buff anyway. It might just mean we survive a few seconds longer or that we dont get nuked down in a split second by BS thieves that just spam HS, HS, HS until we die.

If you get nuked down by a HS, HS, HS thief, then the problem is you.

style.6173:

If you get nuked down by a HS, HS, HS thief, then the problem is you.

And not the fact that with 1,600 toughness you are still taking 16,000 damage in ONE hit. Yeah sure, what ever you say. You can stop the HS spamming by going Vapor or using Arcane Shield – then what? From the VERY first hit you are at a huge disadvantage.

Being that you will now have very little health left they will have stealth back up very soon and will be able to repeat the same thing over and over again until you finally die. Sure you might make a couple run away as the second attempt you will know they are there but i see plenty of Thieves save Bask Venom knowing that it isn’t needed on the first try, they will ALWAYS hit the BS first time around if you have no idea they are there.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

style.6173:

If you get nuked down by a HS, HS, HS thief, then the problem is you.

And not the fact that with 1,600 toughness you are still taking 16,000 damage in ONE hit. Yeah sure, what ever you say. You can stop the HS spamming by going Vapor or using Arcane Shield – then what? From the VERY first hit you are at a huge disadvantage.

Being that you will now have very little health left they will have stealth back up very soon and will be able to repeat the same thing over and over again until you finally die. Sure you might make a couple run away as the second attempt you will know they are there but i see plenty of Thieves save Bask Venom knowing that it isn’t needed on the first try, they will ALWAYS hit the BS first time around if you have no idea they are there.

Hate to be “that” guy, but I think this is either l2p issue, or you got beat by a thief in one incident and came to the forums to QQ. If they land a 16k bs, grats to them, but you have heals and utilities, use them. After that initial opener they shouldn’t land another backstab. I counter thieves all the time as d/d.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

style.6173:

If you get nuked down by a HS, HS, HS thief, then the problem is you.

And not the fact that with 1,600 toughness you are still taking 16,000 damage in ONE hit. Yeah sure, what ever you say. You can stop the HS spamming by going Vapor or using Arcane Shield – then what? From the VERY first hit you are at a huge disadvantage.

Being that you will now have very little health left they will have stealth back up very soon and will be able to repeat the same thing over and over again until you finally die. Sure you might make a couple run away as the second attempt you will know they are there but i see plenty of Thieves save Bask Venom knowing that it isn’t needed on the first try, they will ALWAYS hit the BS first time around if you have no idea they are there.

Show me this 16k/hit thief please. You’re blowing smoke out your rear end.

I guarantee you’ve been hit this hard. I also guarantee you were standing still, or you are counting a combo as one skill.

All of which equate to: do something to stop the thief.

I got hit that hard when I used to run 2500ish armor by a single backstab yet still come out victorious. Of course I have always been and will always be the burst non-glass type even when i started with d/d. Maybe because of that reason thieves were always the easiest to defeat on 1v1. You should all know by now that without burst direct damage or burst condition damage you won’t defeat a good thief player. Only average to low skilled thief will die to anything less than burst.

Correcto.

The way to win is to make sure you pack a punch. Make anybody play defensively and they should lose.

Remember that while ele will get a buff as a class, a “general” nerf seems directed to the profession……

-Mixed equipment based on critical nerfed (celestial above all but valkyrie etc will get a hit)
-boon duration rune nerf (direct nerf to DD)

and i expect more….
Chill on swap will be possibly meta in www with the new 2 hand double sigil and be a further annoyance to ele that is extremely vulnerable to chill.

And obviously wich profession needs those the most?

I honestly don’t know who all these thieves are you chaps are talking about, but i’ve never lost to an ele ever on my thief. As soon as you blew through the mist form, and shield there’s just nothing you can do. I’m hitting for 2-4k a hit and you have about 15khps or less, it’s not going to take me that long.

You can’t cc a thief, i’m invisible for 4/5 of the fight. As I stated, either i’m incredibly good on my thief (i’m not), or i’ve somehow only ever encountered the worse ele’s in the game.

Btw, my initial combo lands for a total of 19k sometimes on some eles. 1.5k mug, 5k c+d, 13k backstab + fire rune. There’s no way to outplay that, it’s just pure numbers.

Mbelch.9028:

Show me this 16k/hit thief please. You’re blowing smoke out your rear end.

I guarantee you’ve been hit this hard. I also guarantee you were standing still, or you are counting a combo as one skill.

All of which equate to: do something to stop the thief.

Check the WvW forum, there have been PLENTY of topics about it with pictures proving both the Toughness of the player and the damage dealt. Next time it happens, i will screenshot it and show you. Because it has happened and it DOES happen.

phaeris.7604:

I honestly don’t know who all these thieves are you chaps are talking about, but i’ve never lost to an ele ever on my thief. As soon as you blew through the mist form, and shield there’s just nothing you can do. I’m hitting for 2-4k a hit and you have about 15khps or less, it’s not going to take me that long.

You can’t cc a thief, i’m invisible for 4/5 of the fight. As I stated, either i’m incredibly good on my thief (i’m not), or i’ve somehow only ever encountered the worse ele’s in the game.

Btw, my initial combo lands for a total of 19k sometimes on some eles. 1.5k mug, 5k c+d, 13k backstab + fire rune. There’s no way to outplay that, it’s just pure numbers.

The problem is, most of these people either face TERRIBLE Thieves and thus think it will be like that all the time or they got lucky. I have made plenty a thief run 1 Vs 1. The problem is you have to have the right weapon set and be in the right attunement, i find Shocking Aura to be the best way to start a fight with a Thief once you get Bask Vemon-ed.

The problem is, not being in that attunement or not having that skill off cool most of the time means you are dead.

Sure you have skills like Arcane Shield and Mist form, but as you say, then what? you go Mist form it means they they are free to do what every they want and just around the time Mist Form ends they can jmp right back into stealth and go for another BS. Sure this time you will know about them but you will also have at least 1 defense on a very long cool down.

As you say, Taking so much damage in such a short space of time, you can’t as an ele come back from that. Sure you might have the slim chance that its a terrible Thief, but even a semi-decent one will still either win the fight or retreat.

I’ve definitely taken 16k backstabs before heh, although that isn’t the norm.

The problem is (as a D/D ele), fighting a d/p thief is a no win scenario. They have too many ways to avoid damage for you to 100-0 them, and when they get low, they stealth until they’re back to full health. There’s no way to get them down, all you can do is stalemate until you get bored and leave, or until you make a mistake and can’t recover since you don’t have one of the most broken mechanics that has ever existed in an mmo.

You can beat bad thieves. You can even beat good thieves who choose not to cheese. But you will never beat a good thief who abuses stealth. Fixing thieves isn’t even a matter of nerfs, it’s about fixing a horrendously broken mechanic.

That’s true. If they want, they don’t have to lose. But if D/P thieves want to try to win, they lose, because they don’t have the sustain, and they’ll typically over extend.

The trick is not busting any major skills while they’re in refuge unless you’re bumping them out with updraft.

As a D/D ele relying on boons, it can be pretty hard to fight a thief compared to a bursty Scepter Ele. You can’t burst thieves if they initiate on you as a D/D but you can burst them if you’re on scepter and get lucky to crit Air Attunement Swap, Lightning Strike, and an offensive arcane skill.

It gets a lot harder when you’re fighting against a thief who’s good with shadow stepping and knows when to stealth. A D/D ele can be easily get kited for days with the correct skill/stealth rotation from a thief but if you’re on scepter you can at least retaliate by swapping into air attunement and landing lightning strike and your blind. Of course you need to avoid getting instagibbed first so put in a decent amount of toughness and vitality and learn when pop your defensive utilities and blinds (if you’re on scepter).

I’m not good ele, I have a very hard time fighting thieves on D/D but I can at least give them a run for their money with scepter. A Dire Perplexity Condi D/P Thief in WvW is a different story though. They’re just really cheesy and it’s really hard to kill them.

Here’s a random tip I’ve found somewhat effective: If you know a thief is coming for you for a backstab initiation from stealth, try counting 3-4 seconds from when they went into stealth and dodge roll. If you’re on scepter, you can try dropping Phoenix point blank on your location before dodge rolling. Worked wonders for me.