Guild Wars 2

OKAY
so why is everyone complaining that ele in pvp is a HANDICAP? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
So story time
i queued for unranked w/ 3 guildies for a mission, and we got spirit watch
OFF THE BAT 1 of my teammates and 2 others laughed at us for having an ele calling it a handicap
final result? 24 kills, 4 spirits ascended, and a 504 to 185 win.
at least 3 of the other team where diamonds
and 2 had dragon finishers so they werent a bad team? (i guess?)

I was running a TESTING build had never used it. Balthazar Runes w/ a merc ammy and a staff w/ smoldering and fire sigils. It worked PRETTY WELL no?

also did 3 straight conquest wins afterwards 2 on forest 1 on temple

So back to the hate. I am an alt-a-holic i have 6 eles alone, and at least 2 of every other class

I have yet to see a situation where i said to myself If only i was on my (other class)

Burn staff zerker staff marauder s/f paladins d/w crusaders d/d etc. has ALWAYS done the job for me

While were at it, diamond skin? really? that broke us? i never even used diamond skin.
maybe we arent as invincible as we used to be but kitten do we still do work.
Please get off my class if you cant ADAPT as an ELE
We change our attunement based on what we need water for healing, earth for protection etc.
Try doing that with your weapons and builds based on your team comp and the map
We can be selfish anymore to win everything, its time to remember how to be a team player.

+1.
the only thing i dislike is the aura duration nerf (expecially fire aura …. please buff it). The rest was fine. I have fun with my ele. I constantly try to improve my build and tired diffrent amu setups. It doesn´t feel like a huge change. Indeed i see more build variants. Its just not the all in one defence we had with cele and DS, which i did´t used annyway exept for a bit testing.

I don’t like how DS ended up but I wouldn’t call Tempest a handicap. Though I will say you can’t change build and weapons to compliment your team if you have to go random as you never know what team you’ll get

Yeah, in all honesty Tempest is far from being a handicap. Several things led people to thinking this :

- Many players think they have ESL level (which they are far from having) and that ele is suboptimal in high tier PvP (compared to Druid for instance). So to them suboptimal = trash.

- Many players relied too heavily on cele amu instead of working on their personal skill level and understanding of the class. So when meta changes, they’re lost and can’t adapt (yeah it’s not elementalist class that relied on cele but players, that’s what I’m saying). But those statements apply to any other class anyway…

All this to say that ele is in a ok spot right now, not too good (we still don’t have any viable hard hitting DPS build aka fresh air s*cks in any team comp) but not too bad either (one of the best class in terms of condi cleanse and healing).

It is all fine and dandy but I like to hear your stories about when a Necro and Thief sits you during a whole match.

Even a max condi cleans Ele does not.have enough condi cleans/healing power to recover against Necro condi burst and loading a Necro with burning is not a good idea anyway.

To make the things more fun when a thief opens on you when you are %50 HP.

I remember the days before the buff to celestial how Phantaram cried from frustration from this combo.

Only the removal of Cele can be managed but buffing Thief and Necro is death sentence for Ele, for the PVP ing I did for last 3 weeks I saw so few Ele and they were not relevant for the outcome of a match.

posthumecaver.6473:

It is all fine and dandy but I like to hear your stories about when a Necro and Thief sits you during a whole match.

Even a max condi cleans Ele does not.have enough condi cleans/healing power to recover against Necro condi burst and loading a Necro with burning is not a good idea anyway.

To make the things more fun when a thief opens on you when you are %50 HP.

I remember the days before the buff to celestial how Phantaram cried from frustration from this combo.

Only the removal of Cele can be managed but buffing Thief and Necro is death sentence for Ele, for the PVP ing I did for last 3 weeks I saw so few Ele and they were not relevant for the outcome of a match.

Timing your condi cleanses and pondering when it’s worth to cleanse over just withstanding it with current applied regen is the key… can effectively solo a necro with my ele … getting better at it every day… … kinda have to see the battle as a boss battle with 3 stages …. 1st: deal as much damage as you can until he goes in reaper mode … …2: in reaper mode he is resistant to hard cc … so, best way is to soft cc (blinds, slows, weakness) and kite until srhoud wears of… stage 3: as soon as he leaves shroud …use your cc chains…and spike … don’t let it recover or you’ll have to go back to stage 2.

Edit: Thieves are the easiest classes to beat with power ele as they are so squishy…. just don’t try to outsustain their damage… you probably won’t unless you’ve got stoneheart.

Necros are very dangerous, but i can beat them in 1:1 guess its a 50:50. I run soldiers 4 shouts and cleansing flame + focus traited geomancers. This helps a lot…..
Using stone heart in this setup also beats thief …. Its very hard to bring down a good thief. He disengages and decides to come back or leave. But i see it as victory when he can´t kill me. It depends a bit on luck too. Which skills are up and which condies do his cleanse hit. If the thief is unlucky not to cleanse burn he often dies because 5+ stacks is common when my flame is up.
CC chains + focus fire is the killer for me unless earth OL is ready. I play with 13k HP but it works well.
I have more problems with a well played scrapper or revenant or even warrior. But beat dragon hunters and druids quite easy.
So for my build and playstyle its more like this:
Bad matchups: Scrapper, Revenant
50:50 : Reaper, Warrior, Thief (stalemate)
Good Matches: Dragon hunter, Druid (As long as both are Longbow. Rangers without LB are hard)

So overall this seems to fit. General i can say i beat full glass builds which was intended when i did the first versions last summer.

The problem is the chill, a good Necro always times it applications the moment you cleans the previous one, you get the next one, you are forced to burn your CDs and problem is not damage part of the chill but cd increase for Ele, we can’t beat any body with 20 s attunement cd or 30s utility CDs. And geomency is not enough necros with wandersers have 5 s chill duration %33 reduction will bring to 3 s when you are perms chilled that doesn’t help that much.

And regeneration compensate for condi damage,, regeneration ticks for 130 for no healing power how much chill ticks for Necro 600 or more?

And considering a good Thief only search +1 ’s and not 1vs1 when Thief engages you already burned some of your CDs so if you are not extremely lucky, like earth attunement is not on CD or fire aura is available, it is gg to thief.

So yes, condi tempest can beat baddies, but it has near 0 chance against a good player, specially if he is not surprised that an Ele plays condi build

The last words are important. Not surprised :-).
And for thiefs yes i need something ready. Fire aura or earth are the most important as you mentioned. If the thief catches me out of earth and i can´t swap or pop aura i am dead. Also good thiefs just +1 and of course this is dangerous. But very often they engage me when i dodge out of the fight after being hit hard. And this does not work. I often survive or beat the thief when he thinks he can finish the wounded ele disengaging.
The reapers: I think i loose more to good reapers that i win. But i thought they will tear me apart evry time and that didn´t happen. I have more then my cleanses and try to kite the reaper. It might depend on the reaper build too. Carrion reapers or wanderer should destroy me. I hold for 10-20 seconds then it goes quick…. I dont know how many reapers use mercenary now. Should work very well on them.
already thought of doing a sanvir rune build with sage. Not shure it its a good idea. Droping soldiers feels like no way …

posthumecaver.6473:

The problem is the chill, a good Necro always times it applications the moment you cleans the previous one, you get the next one, you are forced to burn your CDs and problem is not damage part of the chill but cd increase for Ele, we can’t beat any body with 20 s attunement cd or 30s utility CDs. And geomency is not enough necros with wandersers have 5 s chill duration %33 reduction will bring to 3 s when you are perms chilled that doesn’t help that much.

And regeneration compensate for condi damage,, regeneration ticks for 130 for no healing power how much chill ticks for Necro 600 or more?

And considering a good Thief only search +1 ’s and not 1vs1 when Thief engages you already burned some of your CDs so if you are not extremely lucky, like earth attunement is not on CD or fire aura is available, it is gg to thief.

So yes, condi tempest can beat baddies, but it has near 0 chance against a good player, specially if he is not surprised that an Ele plays condi build

I think the key is in taking “Stop, Drop and Roll” over “Soothing Ice”, while the cd is 10, fills gaps between the shouts cd and water overload.

Edit:
… as of thief, yeah… on team battles strategy differs, kinda have to focuss thief first… you will probably be first pick for them so dodges, obsidian if available, blinds, magnetic auras, etc come handy to deny some of the thief damage while teammates (or you if instacast scepter) deal with it and force them to retreat.

Personally don’t like condi ele, everyone is kinda forced to build thinking about dealing with conditions, and using a single condition for damage (burning) can be tricky unless you time them well, on group battles much harder.

I did it because i like it diffrent :-). It is a build i did to counter zerker meta last year and it evolved. Burn is only a part of the damage. I am not capitalizing the full power of scepter burst but there is power damage due to constant criticals. Then its filled up by sustained condi damage and a lot hindering condies. I am definitly far off any meta build and that is what works. I don´t say it´s the best build it works for me.

yeah, thing is that condi ele is more like a mixed ele, even better now with the new amulet, works well with scepter as the power damage alone is spiky and the cooldown low. Lot’s of practice to land that dragon tooth, but not as hard on some modes/maps that require attuning for instance… or while people try to rez.. .. or againist silly DH that likes to stand on top of their traps :P … I wonder if some still think it will be a surprise to find a trap under them when someone tries to engage in close combat… who would be the silliest in that situation? … (the one without stability/damage mitigation :P)

Oh yes DH are my prey ^^. And i thought DT won´t hit so much but beside of 1:1 it works out great.

You had 1 good game as an ele, and that automatically makes eles OP. Its not that your opponents were bad, they had no team coordination, that your team-mates outplayed them, or heck even that you outplayed them… Nope, its the eles, they are 100% OP right now.

….Yes that makes lots of sense…

specially for someone so PRO with so many chars! Its so kittening obvious that ALL the people that complain are wrong and you are right that my mind is just elevating itself by this incredible revelation that you give us, people that "should not play """"""YOUR"""""" class".

PS: Eles are not as bad as most people think (maybe yes for the melee builds), but the self- entitlement of the OP just brought all my irony to the surface.

Ele has been my main since the guild wars 1 beta so idk what your talking ab out Naurgalen
Ive literally always been an ele..
Second the aura duration nerf wasnt even that bad, w/ overloads and shouts you can have an aura up permanently
Third i dont use the burn build vs teams with a necro, that would just be a bad.. i use d/w or d/f vs teams with a necro/thief
thiefs are good spike classes and as a power ele its going to be tough, but not impossible between reflects blocks and overloads to protect you, plus stoneheart if you use earth thief is low on my priority list.

ele is dead, face it already. it is bad when it comes to dps builds and it is bad when it comes to support builds.

it might work in wood division but in no way you will survive against competitive teams with 13k hp and 2900 armor / 18k hp and 1800 armor.

Aeon.6397:

Ele has been my main since the guild wars 1 beta so idk what your talking ab out Naurgalen
Ive literally always been an ele..
Second the aura duration nerf wasnt even that bad, w/ overloads and shouts you can have an aura up permanently
Third i dont use the burn build vs teams with a necro, that would just be a bad.. i use d/w or d/f vs teams with a necro/thief
thiefs are good spike classes and as a power ele its going to be tough, but not impossible between reflects blocks and overloads to protect you, plus stoneheart if you use earth thief is low on my priority list.

I have been watching your post lately about elementalist and it is great to see others who are out of the old meta-build boxes. So many just do not try out different builds. It can not be a better time to be an elementalist in guild wars 2 right now. Before we only had fire attunement or nothing, and it was D/D or nothing, but with the changes, weapons and attunements have diversity that has been much needed for the profession. Metabattle has so many blinded as what is possible with professions that they are not willing to test other possibilities on their own. Ele is so diverse having multiple skills and utilities that can be used to do similar things but in different attunements, really allowing us more freedom now like other professions to customize their build. Elementalist can be used even without Tempest and is still very viable. In fact I prefer if I am playing D/D to trait Arcane, Water, and Fire. I will mix it with different variation of condition, and power and those who feel necro’s are an problem, that particular traiting along with torment sigil here and a endurance sigil there, mixed with rune of the revenant will make just about any necro blush.

While I don’t agree that eles aren’t viable any more, what exactly are you trying to prove with an unranked match (putting the fact aside that there is no actual proof) and the cringeworthy talking about dragon finishers?

3 of them were diamonds from ranked regardless the point is eles are still viable
and with no season what are you gunna play? hot joins?

why does this game suffer from tunnel vision so much?
METABATTLE ISNT THE ONLY WAY

Rank means nothing.
Division means nothing.

> Doesn’t mean they were skilled.

So what does it prove? Can ele work against bad people? Sure. Can ele be decent when season starts? Perhaps. Can it be competitive? Who knows.

I don’t get these threads. If I rekt some team in unranked on turret engi, does it mean it’s insane? No, it means my opponents were bad. We have to wait and see to figure out what will happen with ele.

kuritsutian.2987:

posthumecaver.6473:

It is all fine and dandy but I like to hear your stories about when a Necro and Thief sits you during a whole match.

Even a max condi cleans Ele does not.have enough condi cleans/healing power to recover against Necro condi burst and loading a Necro with burning is not a good idea anyway.

To make the things more fun when a thief opens on you when you are %50 HP.

I remember the days before the buff to celestial how Phantaram cried from frustration from this combo.

Only the removal of Cele can be managed but buffing Thief and Necro is death sentence for Ele, for the PVP ing I did for last 3 weeks I saw so few Ele and they were not relevant for the outcome of a match.

Timing your condi cleanses and pondering when it’s worth to cleanse over just withstanding it with current applied regen is the key… can effectively solo a necro with my ele … getting better at it every day… … kinda have to see the battle as a boss battle with 3 stages …. 1st: deal as much damage as you can until he goes in reaper mode … …2: in reaper mode he is resistant to hard cc … so, best way is to soft cc (blinds, slows, weakness) and kite until srhoud wears of… stage 3: as soon as he leaves shroud …use your cc chains…and spike … don’t let it recover or you’ll have to go back to stage 2.

Edit: Thieves are the easiest classes to beat with power ele as they are so squishy…. just don’t try to outsustain their damage… you probably won’t unless you’ve got stoneheart.

Loved the description! Very well explained. Could I bother you to elaborate on downing thieves? There the only class I’m still struggling against. Current solution is stone heart and fiery GS but fgs has a beefy CD and it’s supposed to be my mobility for finishing or just moving around quick of I need it