Guild Wars 2

Basically my bunker build (PowVitTough-gear + healing/condition trinkets, spec 0/10/30/30/0 (dagger/dagger) 17.5k HP/2800armor) doesnt deliver the defense to survive burst long enough. It definitely did pre-patch, even a little too well, so a slight nerf was warranted. But now things have gotten a lot harder. I feel I am not doing enough damage in the time I have before I die. And, mostly against glass cannons, the self-healing doesn’t cut it. So I ain’t killing em quick enough.

So the question is : get berserker trinkets to up my dps or even some berserker gear to end the fight faster? Forget about a 0/10/30/30/0 spec altogether? Or the other way around : get more healing gear?

Any suggestions would be cool.

I know some disagree with this, but I really feel like I have to have 20ish points in arcane just for the attunement cooldown reduction.

Everytime you switch to water, that is two conditions removed and a decent heal, and everytime you switch to earth you get prot. So I mean, the lower attunement recharge gives you decent defenses in and of itself. I don’t like sPvP, but I survive fine against pure glass cannon thieves in WvW.

I never thought high DPS was the way to deal with glass cannons, because they can’t take damage anyway, and usually have fairly poor healing. In all of my fights vs. glass cannons, if I survive their initial burst, they are screwed.

Can’t speak for WvW, as I haven’t done anything PvE/WvW related with Ele yet, but for sPvP glass cannons seem to be kitten near down to skill and timing on skills with a bit of luck. But that’s ONLY for me, I’m not saying it is with you.

I’m running 0/20/10/20/20 and just started using D/D instead of S/D last night and can tell a definite difference in damage output. I’m assuming since you are bunker, you went staff yes? I personally, when I hit 80, will probably go near pure berserker gear for WvW. I mean if you look at how many people there are in WvW and how little need there is for Ele to be right up in the fray, the range on staff skills, and how squishy a lot of people are—it just doesn’t seem worth it to invest into bunker.

Now in sPvP, as I’ve already listed my setup, I have around 1.7k (1.8k in Earth?) toughness and 19k HP with over 3k power (3.2k+ if I get 25 Bloodlust) not counting any might stacks I pick up. With 34% crit chance with Fury running, my Firegrab crits for around 5k+ and autoattacks hit for around 800+. With all that info out there, it really comes down to, as Creslin said, surviving that initial burst.

Thieves are so much easier to deal with now than they were on my Ranger, even condition Thieves if I’m smart about my skill usage (I don’t blow my Elemental elite unless they blow their elite). The professions I’m having trouble with now, though, are the Shantasm Mesmer builds (if they’re good) and a couple Guardian builds which tend to outlast me if I’m not comboing and interrupting when I should.

That being said, with my setup, I’ve come close to winning A LOT of 2v1’s and can tank 3v1’s for about 30-40s before I go down if I have my CD’s up. The only reason I haven’t won any 2v1’s yet is because sPvP is a zergfest anyway, so yeah I may down the two but by then their teammate zerg has fell upon me before I can finish them and I have no CD’s left to use.

@Chesire, no, they said they are D/D.

Can I ask why you have 30 in earth?

I run a 0/0/30/30/10 bunker staff build and can tank the burst just as well as before, i’d suggest at least taking 10 points from either water or earth and putting 10 into arcana. Also most burst can be stopped with static shield, there shouldn’t really be any reason why you can’t outlast their initial burst or even stop it.
If the other player knows an Ele and their skills you need to step out of the “Everyday” combos, for example most players updraft after a RTL and a good player will just dodge after the RTL hits to stop the KD, they will make you waste your control skills so they can safley get their burst off. This means you might have to be a little creative with your combos, this will make it harder for them to get their burst off because they’re waiting for an opening.