Guild Wars 2

Folks, I know I’ve made several posts about classes but I apologize as I really don’t have a great deal of knowledge of “end-game” mechanics so I look to you all for advice.

I rolled my D/D Ele awhile back as it was suggested by a friend as fun, fast-paced style/class to play. I personally loved the class up to 80 and just started WvW before the RTL nerf hit. Now, I’m not sure if it’s worth playing anymore as I can’t really run away from much of anything. To fix this, I’ve changed up some of my traits so that I end up with a +35% movement speed. Still, I don’t feel like I’m much of a threat. For gear, I use the “Knight’s” set with Beserker weapons. My highest crit is about 3.4K. I do fairly well in PvE though my heart is more on WvW.

With all these changes, is it worth my time to continue working on this character and getting a full set of exotics? I have a level 31 Guardian and Thief which I considered going back to as I really enjoy roaming through WvW and looking for 1vX battles.

It took me a good bit of time to hit level 80 on this Ele and I had hoped to make it my main character. Now though, I’m not sure if we’re all that viable anymore and if I should just go back to the Thief or the Guardian.

What do you all think?

Oh, I forgot to mention that a backstab Thief took me down the other night in about 3 seconds. It was over before I even had a clue what happened.

The massive change in mobility does suck but honestly the class is fine. Anyone touting any different was probably just a fotm ele. 1v1 nothing has changed for me. 1vX the only changes really is I can’t be as aggressive and placement has become paramount as it always should have been. I can’t give you any feed back on large scale fights since I avoid them like the plague.

3k seems pretty low, I usually see 7k’s without food, stones or bloodlust and only a few stacks of might

Edit: before anyone asks my stats are the following

Attack 2850
Crit 30%
Crit damage 60%
Condition damage 0
Armor 2535
Health 15085
Healing power 350

I have recently came back to GW2 after a moderate break. I did couple of sPVP runs as well as some WvW as my D/D Cantrip Elem and it felt off. Maybe it’s the break, maybe it’s the nerfs, but it felt much slower and less fluid. Were Cantrips nerfed? Was Attunement Dance nerfed in any way (shorter boons from swaps)? Was any other movement nerfed besides the RtL?
My plan for close future is to pick up a Scepter, drop Cantrip build, rebalance my gear a bit and give that a go in WvW.

All the big changes happened in April. Check the patch notes.
Here’s a link for convience https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-April-30-2013

in WWW D/D don t have a role actually.
It could roam before, but without damage swap wasn t that good already…now it lost the only thing he could do.

You can t track an enemy fleeing nor you can flee yourself.

You can be the buffing bot people ask for with a staff anyway…if you enjoy it ….

Yes they trible nerfed RTL (less range and +250% CD) and nerfed (fixed) aura triggering boons…

They also nerfed focus and scepter ain t good either…..

You can still use an Arrow cart but we suspect next patch ele won t be able to use it because its OP and ele shouldn t be useful….

On the other hand they are building a thief www playground (JP on different map) and i m confident they will balance the profession giving them double wieldable arrocarts as weapons.

Mithfir.1038:

3k seems pretty low, I usually see 7k’s without food, stones or bloodlust and only a few stacks of might

May I ask what spec/gear you are running with? Granted, I have only 1 exotic item right now so that’s probably why my stats suck. Also, most of my items were when I was playing a bunker build so I’m sure that’s drawing down my damage a great deal too.

How do you deal with those pesky Teefs though? I always had the most trouble with them and the GS/SB Rangers. Again, I’m a brand spanking new 80 so it’s a HUGE change from PvE over to how things are done in WvW.

On the bright side, I did have a great duel with a Guardian that after several minutes, we just went our own ways as neither of us could kill the other.

LordByron.8369:

in WWW D/D don t have a role actually.
It could roam before, but without damage swap wasn t that good already…now it lost the only thing he could do.

You can t track an enemy fleeing nor you can flee yourself.

You can be the buffing bot people ask for with a staff anyway…if you enjoy it ….

Yes they trible nerfed RTL (less range and +250% CD) and nerfed (fixed) aura triggering boons…

They also nerfed focus and scepter ain t good either…..

You can still use an Arrow cart but we suspect next patch ele won t be able to use it because its OP and ele shouldn t be useful….

On the other hand they are building a thief www playground (JP on different map) and i m confident they will balance the profession giving them double wieldable arrocarts as weapons.

That’s funny I just spent my night chasing people down and running away from zergs. Only person to get away from me was a warrior and no one caught me once.
Hint: While it’s lackluster fgs will more than compensate for the mobility loss.

Mithfir, pardon my stupid question but what is “fgs?”

Fiery Greatsword – Your only useful elite in WvW (though an argument can be made for the elemental)

FinalPatriot.8034:

Mithfir.1038:

3k seems pretty low, I usually see 7k’s without food, stones or bloodlust and only a few stacks of might

May I ask what spec/gear you are running with? Granted, I have only 1 exotic item right now so that’s probably why my stats suck. Also, most of my items were when I was playing a bunker build so I’m sure that’s drawing down my damage a great deal too.

How do you deal with those pesky Teefs though? I always had the most trouble with them and the GS/SB Rangers. Again, I’m a brand spanking new 80 so it’s a HUGE change from PvE over to how things are done in WvW.

On the bright side, I did have a great duel with a Guardian that after several minutes, we just went our own ways as neither of us could kill the other.

Thiefs are easy I have a couple of ways I counter them. I’ll either use Air 3 to break up the initial damage. Or I’ll Lightning flash ontop of them and use Air 5 into Fire 3 and then Fire 5. Or if I need to be defensive I’ll Lightning Flash away and take advantage of the PBAoE (Point blank aoe).

Rangers are also easy. Drop snares where possible on the pet and the ranger. If the pet can’t catch you you’ve taken away half their damage. If you can’t snare it use your mobility to stay ahead of it.

I’m kind of hesitant to give out my exact combination, I’d suggest evaluating how you play and what you want to get out of the class and learning the hard way. That’s how in my opinion you get good. That said how ever I’m using bits and pieces of Knights, Berserker, Cavalier and Soldiers

Raif.9507:

Fiery Greatsword – Your only useful elite in WvW (though an argument can be made for the elemental)

Yeah I love the elemental but after the nerf the Fiery Greatsword gives
more flexibility. Which is my preferred play style.

Thanks folks, this helps a great deal. I loved the style of the D/D Ele and just hated the idea of dumping more time into finding another class to play now that I just hit 80. I suppose it’s like any MMO that once you hit “end-game,” you have a learning curve that must be overcome.

fiery greatsword is the ONLY mobility tool ele has left.

Now if you can lose precious seconds to cast it yourtarget already fleed away…and did u see it locks you away from 80% of your skills and is horribly bugged?

Also i can t get how 1 skillset from a SINGLE weapon of another profession….makes ele viable

better just take the other profession along with more armor/toughness and weapon swap….

Infact the “other class” is actually quite strong in www atm.

P.S. i short: if you can afford burning an elite + few utilities for a speed burst doesn t make your class viable.

It makes your opponent unexperienced.

FinalPatriot.8034:

Thanks folks, this helps a great deal. I loved the style of the D/D Ele and just hated the idea of dumping more time into finding another class to play now that I just hit 80. I suppose it’s like any MMO that once you hit “end-game,” you have a learning curve that must be overcome.

My pleasure, enjoy the class it is an amazing class despite what other people would have you believe.

LordByron.8369:

fiery greatsword is the ONLY mobility tool ele has left.

Now if you can lose precious seconds to cast it yourtarget already fleed away…and did u see it locks you away from 80% of your skills and is horribly bugged?

Also i can t get how 1 skillset from a SINGLE weapon of another profession….makes ele viable

better just take the other profession along with more armor/toughness and weapon swap….

Infact the “other class” is actually quite strong in www atm.

RTL, Blazing speed, FGS while that’s casting Lightning Flash, FGS 3 and I should be within striking distance. I do believe I said it was lackluster, but thats for a different thread. The ele is more than viable. If I wasn’t so critical of my own gameplay I’d upload some fights but sadly I’m my own worst critic so it will probably never happen.

Mithfir, being as you have an 80 in just about every class, from your perspective, is the D/D Ele a solid soloist? What I mean is that I really enjoy running around WvW with just myself or perhaps 1 other person. It was fun to just annoy the hell out of groups or taking down the few folks behind a zerg that can’t keep up with the group.

I roam solo with my DD Ele everyday, still just as fun and effective overall as it ever was.

Yes it is a viable solo’er. There is no reason it isn’t. I run around with my friend who uses a guardian or a mesmer or an engineer and we have a blast. Yes, the slightly lackluster movement currently due to the nerfs are a bit saddening and do affect chasing targets, however the class itself is very powerful with plenty of tools for soloing. I have a gear setup using the 0/10/0/30/30 that lets me have a really high amount of armor (2.8k) with 16.5k health and if I can get it to crit, my firegrab will hit for 6-7k depending on the target and how much might/bloodlust stacks I have on me. You have nothing to fear. The class is a little down in mobility at this time, but you can make do with rising to the challenge and getting better at the class.

Other classes will just be able to outrun you now, or escape from you if you aren’t on the top of your game. The only big changes are the mist form nerf/rtl nerf. Everything else was just chump change, and BOTH of those nerfs you can work with.

The RTL nerf I hope will be reversed as it wasn’t needed, but yes. You can still roam, still escape well enough to give you breathing room to heal and get away. And yes, you can still deal a good amount of damage and have good defense (all relative).

Edit – This is in no way me saying that I agree with the RTL nerf at all. I completely and utterly disagree with it, but that is a discussion for another thread.

FinalPatriot.8034:

Mithfir, being as you have an 80 in just about every class, from your perspective, is the D/D Ele a solid soloist? What I mean is that I really enjoy running around WvW with just myself or perhaps 1 other person. It was fun to just annoy the hell out of groups or taking down the few folks behind a zerg that can’t keep up with the group.

Yes and no. The ele has a great set of tools to facilitate its ability to 1v1 and 1vX. How ever I found that these tools were meaningless without the right gear set up.

I originally used Soldiers and Clerics, the typical bunker. But found that people stuck to me like glue and would constantly have me under pressure and anything more than 1 person and I’d have to run away unless they were horrible.

I then swapped to Soldiers and Knights after deciding that my tankyness was a liability.

The extra crit was nice however after a while I still felt like I was too tanky and it was a liability when I was fighting 2 or more people. So I then swapped to the set I use now. On the theory that I only needed enough armor and health to eat burst if I absolutely have to. The result is that I am able to pressure opponents now even when I’m kiting. My PB so far is a 1v6 where they all jumped me at the same time.

I quite honesty never use food or bloodlust stacks to make fights interesting. The other day I was goaded into using food, stones and bloodlust stacks to prove why I don’t use them. Within the first 10 seconds of the first fight I hit a 9k blazing speed on a 80 bunker guardian.

As far as duoing goes my roaming buddy is a mesmer and we have done a 2v11 before at their supply camp, so we also had to deal with NPC’s.

Probably got a little off track but I wanted to give some detailed feedback.

Mithfir.1038:

Probably got a little off track but I wanted to give some detailed feedback.

No, I greatly appreciate any detailed feedback you can provide. I typically only like to play 1 character though I’ll toy around with an alt or two. My perspective is that I try to learn everything I can about the class I’ve chosen so right now, I’m just trying to figure this out more.

On those Zerg runs where you’re defending a tower, wall, etc, do you all change over to the staff to provide more support and ranged attacks? I played around with the S/F and just didn’t care for it.

FinalPatriot.8034:

Mithfir.1038:

Probably got a little off track but I wanted to give some detailed feedback.

No, I greatly appreciate any detailed feedback you can provide. I typically only like to play 1 character though I’ll toy around with an alt or two. My perspective is that I try to learn everything I can about the class I’ve chosen so right now, I’m just trying to figure this out more.

On those Zerg runs where you’re defending a tower, wall, etc, do you all change over to the staff to provide more support and ranged attacks? I played around with the S/F and just didn’t care for it.

I change over to staff most times when in a group doing Wvw. The crowd control stuns, cripples, and freezes are just too powerful with the aoes and condition removals.

Mithfir.1038:

FinalPatriot.8034:

Mithfir, being as you have an 80 in just about every class, from your perspective, is the D/D Ele a solid soloist? What I mean is that I really enjoy running around WvW with just myself or perhaps 1 other person. It was fun to just annoy the hell out of groups or taking down the few folks behind a zerg that can’t keep up with the group.

Yes and no. The ele has a great set of tools to facilitate its ability to 1v1 and 1vX. How ever I found that these tools were meaningless without the right gear set up.

I originally used Soldiers and Clerics, the typical bunker. But found that people stuck to me like glue and would constantly have me under pressure and anything more than 1 person and I’d have to run away unless they were horrible.

I then swapped to Soldiers and Knights after deciding that my tankyness was a liability.

The extra crit was nice however after a while I still felt like I was too tanky and it was a liability when I was fighting 2 or more people. So I then swapped to the set I use now. On the theory that I only needed enough armor and health to eat burst if I absolutely have to. The result is that I am able to pressure opponents now even when I’m kiting. My PB so far is a 1v6 where they all jumped me at the same time.

I quite honesty never use food or bloodlust stacks to make fights interesting. The other day I was goaded into using food, stones and bloodlust stacks to prove why I don’t use them. Within the first 10 seconds of the first fight I hit a 9k blazing speed on a 80 bunker guardian.

As far as duoing goes my roaming buddy is a mesmer and we have done a 2v11 before at their supply camp, so we also had to deal with NPC’s.

Probably got a little off track but I wanted to give some detailed feedback.

9k on a bunker? id like to see that unless you are running a hell of a lot of crit damage and youre armor is around 2.2k and he had vuln (under the assumption you are running 0/20/0/20/30 or some variation)

even with the 70% crit damage i have my burning speed doesnt hit that hard on a bunker. and id have to have some 2.5k armor or lower.

ive run with HIRE quite a bit and have seen you around, so dont take this as an attack on your skill or anything, but i would love to talk shop with you in the SOR ts to see what you mean. maybe you meant firegrab? because that i can see. ive had firegrab hit for 10k on targets and can certainly see that. burning speed no. maybe a 6k on a GC.

as i said, id love to talk shop with you if you dont mind. im always up for theory crafting if youre up for it. im in the SOR ts quite a lot and will be there later tonight if you want.

Mithfir.1038:

Raif.9507:

Fiery Greatsword – Your only useful elite in WvW (though an argument can be made for the elemental)

Yeah I love the elemental but after the nerf the Fiery Greatsword gives
more flexibility. Which is my preferred play style.

Now just learn to use the greatsword offensively. Not even having to run because your enemies are dead is better than running. (for solo roaming maybe not so much, since soloing is mostly about 1vX and using your best escape tool to attack when you could be overwhelmed by numbers any time is dangerous)

It’s all about positioning, but firey greatsword can punch holes in zergs better than just about any other skill we have available. Just be careful not to die from retaliation.

LordByron.8369:

fiery greatsword is the ONLY mobility tool ele has left.

I don’t agree with the RtL nerf, but I also don’t agree that greatsword is our ONLY mobility option. Hyperbole isn’t going to help our cause.

Now if you can lose precious seconds to cast it yourtarget already fleed away…and did u see it locks you away from 80% of your skills and is horribly bugged?

If either I or my target is fleeing, I’ve probably burned most major weapon skill CDs already and having another set available with low cooldowns and high mobility is ideal in those situations.

Also i can t get how 1 skillset from a SINGLE weapon of another profession….makes ele viable

It’s not from another profession, although skills are similar, and there’s a lot more going on that makes elementalist viable than just greatsword. It helps, augments and supplements our skillsets.

better just take the other profession along with more armor/toughness and weapon swap….

Infact the “other class” is actually quite strong in www atm.

I have a warrior, they’ve always been strong in WvW when built and played right, but it’s never been as fun as my elementalist. Skill lag makes it more viable though, because 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1.

I was using my firey greatsword to burn down a gate once, and in mumble there was a warrior bragging about how much damage their 100 blades was adding to the rams and firey greatswords hitting the gate. I just smiled.

P.S. i short: if you can afford burning an elite + few utilities for a speed burst doesn t make your class viable.

It makes your opponent unexperienced.

FinalPatriot.8034:

Mithfir.1038:

Probably got a little off track but I wanted to give some detailed feedback.

No, I greatly appreciate any detailed feedback you can provide. I typically only like to play 1 character though I’ll toy around with an alt or two. My perspective is that I try to learn everything I can about the class I’ve chosen so right now, I’m just trying to figure this out more.

On those Zerg runs where you’re defending a tower, wall, etc, do you all change over to the staff to provide more support and ranged attacks? I played around with the S/F and just didn’t care for it.

If its a small group and I’m running with my partner we bust into the tail end and force them to into the door, either 1 of two things will happen we will mop up 5 or more and the rest will scatter or there will be too much pressure. If there’s to much pressure I sit behind the gate and drop Blazing Speed, Ring of Fire, ect.
If there is so many people that I wouldn’t consider running in I wont usually take part in it unless they need the extra bodies or I am the only defender and I need to stall/ring dive. In those cases I’ll use S/D.

Raif.9507:

Mithfir.1038:

FinalPatriot.8034:

Mithfir, being as you have an 80 in just about every class, from your perspective, is the D/D Ele a solid soloist? What I mean is that I really enjoy running around WvW with just myself or perhaps 1 other person. It was fun to just annoy the hell out of groups or taking down the few folks behind a zerg that can’t keep up with the group.

Yes and no. The ele has a great set of tools to facilitate its ability to 1v1 and 1vX. How ever I found that these tools were meaningless without the right gear set up.

I originally used Soldiers and Clerics, the typical bunker. But found that people stuck to me like glue and would constantly have me under pressure and anything more than 1 person and I’d have to run away unless they were horrible.

I then swapped to Soldiers and Knights after deciding that my tankyness was a liability.

The extra crit was nice however after a while I still felt like I was too tanky and it was a liability when I was fighting 2 or more people. So I then swapped to the set I use now. On the theory that I only needed enough armor and health to eat burst if I absolutely have to. The result is that I am able to pressure opponents now even when I’m kiting. My PB so far is a 1v6 where they all jumped me at the same time.

I quite honesty never use food or bloodlust stacks to make fights interesting. The other day I was goaded into using food, stones and bloodlust stacks to prove why I don’t use them. Within the first 10 seconds of the first fight I hit a 9k blazing speed on a 80 bunker guardian.

As far as duoing goes my roaming buddy is a mesmer and we have done a 2v11 before at their supply camp, so we also had to deal with NPC’s.

Probably got a little off track but I wanted to give some detailed feedback.

9k on a bunker? id like to see that unless you are running a hell of a lot of crit damage and youre armor is around 2.2k and he had vuln (under the assumption you are running 0/20/0/20/30 or some variation)

even with the 70% crit damage i have my burning speed doesnt hit that hard on a bunker. and id have to have some 2.5k armor or lower.

ive run with HIRE quite a bit and have seen you around, so dont take this as an attack on your skill or anything, but i would love to talk shop with you in the SOR ts to see what you mean. maybe you meant firegrab? because that i can see. ive had firegrab hit for 10k on targets and can certainly see that. burning speed no. maybe a 6k on a GC.

as i said, id love to talk shop with you if you dont mind. im always up for theory crafting if youre up for it. im in the SOR ts quite a lot and will be there later tonight if you want.

http://i.imgur.com/rP9K9uF.jpg
Nope was Burning Speed, I remember because I nearly fell off my chair.
Feel free to contact me if I’m on. I don’t usually jump in TS unless I have a reason to as its a love/hate relationship but if you get me in game I’ll jump on.