Guild Wars 2

So lately I’ve been working on deciding on a build (and ofcourse stats) I want to go for in PvE, and trying out different things before I started farming an exotic dungeon set with specific stats. I finally went full Power / Toughness / Vitality, with Power / Toughness / Healing Power jewelry, because I liked the doube dagger playstyle and it really needs the toughness. My build is 0/10/10/30/20, so with most of the points in water, also for survivability.

Playing sPvP and WvW a lot (as well as dungeons actually, but I won’t talk about PvE), I have noticed that elementalist has a lot of disadvantages in PvP, at least when it comes to defense. Ofcourse compared to medium and heavy armor, we have a disadvantage. But compared to the other light armor classes, we also have disadvantages. Necromancers have ridiculously high base health (including their F1 which is basically an extra health pool), and mesmers have a great single target 1200 range build (greatsword), along with their illusions to control people and keep from getting hit (along with dazes and such, you know what I’m talking about).

This isn’t a problem for staff DPS, or even scepter mainhand, because with a bit of skill you can manage to keep at range and kite and what have you. But as a D/D elementalist you are forced to go in melee range of classes that almost always have more base defensive stats than you. The result is that I had to invest a lot of points in defensive traits and gear to be able to survive as D/D. Taking points in water and earth gives us lacking bonus defense, but it really kittens our damage. I for one am not going glass cannon in PvP because that’s just ridiculous, but putting so many points in defense just to be able to survive is ridiculous. Again, staff and scepter builds are okay with this because they don’t require melee range, but D/D does require you to go melee.

So, what my real suggestion is (will also be mentioned in the TL:DR, I just wanted to sketch where I was coming from): change the windborne daggers trait to something more defensive. No one cares about run speed increase anyway because you can keep up perma swiftness, and D/D really needs some more defense because it forces you to go melee. This would open up some points that we now have to put into defense, and we could put those in offense. I’m not sure what would be best, I was thinking of something with +% toughness while using dagger as a mainhand weapon, but I’m not a game developer and I don’t know that much about balancing. Again, this would only change D/D to increase their defense, giving them a fighting chance in melee range. Scepter and staff would remain unchanged, so no balance issues there. It just makes no sense that the class with the least defense has a build which requires them to go into melee range (and I personally think D/D is the most fun).

So, to conclude (I did go a bit more in depth than I was planning to, just wanted to make it clear), here is a much needed:

TL:DR : Double dagger elementalist needs more defense, at the moment we have to put too many points in earth and/or water to be viable, so change the windborne dagger trait in arcana (nobody cares about movement speed) to something that gives a defense bonus while using dagger main hand. I would say extra toughness, but not sure what would be best.

Just wanted to see what you guys think of this, and if possible, get the developers to read this (even if only the TL:DR), because I think D/D is a really fun build, but at the moment it requires too many points in defense, and you need those points in defense because you are in melee range and otherwise you get two shot. Let me know what you think!

I feel that a trait with retaliation on auras would be perfect.

Ele suffers from lack of defense in general. It doesn’t matter what weapon you use. Our lack of hp and defense often requires us to spec into builds that give us more hp and defense (aside from good old glasscannon). Just because SD and Staff is long ranged doesnt mean you dont fight in melee range A LOT.

Plus, DD is the best weapon set right now imo. Best survavibility besides bunker specs.

Elementalists are not meant to be a tank. The survivability boils down to manily using ALL 4 ELEMENTS.

Why do players want an elementalist to be like a warrior – i.e. every element to be high DPS and good defense.

Seriously…

I have 18k HP and AoE attacks in Dungeons kill me instantly, while the Warriors stand in the blow and only loose 2/3 of their HP. Happened yesterday in fractals, Dredge dungeon.

And even with a staff you need to go close to support cause your Auras and heals and… and and… have a low range.

So even as a support you die, not only with a dagger.

Viator.9801:

I have 18k HP and AoE attacks in Dungeons kill me instantly, while the Warriors stand in the blow and only loose 2/3 of their HP. Happened yesterday in fractals, Dredge dungeon.

And even with a staff you need to go close to support cause your Auras and heals and… and and… have a low range.

So even as a support you die, not only with a dagger.

Do you stand there in one spot constantly?

Do you use support elementals to draw enemies attention to them?

Do you use all of the elements?

Dredge are slow mobs. Some can dig underground so just dodge. Slow them down, freeze them and/or stun them. What wepons you use?

if they bumpped it to 25% id take it. but as is… 5 points in air gives almost the same effect.
i dont think i have ever taken winborn dagger. it has no sexy as all.

Death Reincarnated.3570:

Do you stand there in one spot constantly?

Do you use support elementals to draw enemies attention to them?

Do you use all of the elements?

Dredge are slow mobs. Some can dig underground so just dodge. Slow them down, freeze them and/or stun them. What wepons you use?

In Fractal the Boss (at the dredge with the spawning mobs) does an attack where an “earthquake” runs through the ground. When you cast AoE’s you cant see it’s coming especially when their are 10-15 Mobs spawning in the room at that location.

I stand behind with my staff healing and laying fields for the group, occasionly jumping in with 30 points in arcane.

This attack hit me while full HP and I got killed instantly. Btw I juggle atunements and support as well as I can. And this was only fractals 4. We helped pushing some up, in the guild as often ^^

The same attack only reduced the Warrior HP (we had two in the group) to 1/3 of their own HP. They have no extra vitality and no toghness…

Sounds unfair to my ears.

No pls..the amount of QQ regarding the ele survivability just keep increasing every day – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/elementarists/first#post875531
last we need is even more defensive tools

Well I wanted to avoid talking about PvE and dungeons because that is another thing.

In PvP I am now using a cantrip/aura build (and I’m a halfway decent player, I’ve spent a lot of time getting to know the class, perfecting my build en routine, so I know what I’m doing). I get toughness on every single item in my gear, I use three defensive utility spells (mist form, earth shield and lightning flas/cleansing fire). Next to that I have 30 points in water with three defensive talents, and still other classes are able to outlast and outdps me.

I just think because D/D forces us to go melee, it should provide some extra incentive to do so, after all in PvP going melee with a warrior or a thief could mean suicide as things are now. And I’m not going ‘lolol nerf other classes’, just give us some extra defense for making up for having to go melee ^^

While I understand your concern and agree that we are very squishy, you have to adapt to the mindset that the defence of an elementalist is active and not passive, like a warrior. Our defence is primarily based on:

a) Movement and crowd control; and

b) healing and boons, such as regeneration and protection.

Add c) utilities, such as cantrips.

I agree, and I do use all those things, got my healing power way up, and lots of boons in water & boon duration gear. But don’t you agree we have to go through a lot of trouble to do what other classes do easily? It takes part of the fun out for me, having to work that hard to survive, while other classes just faceroll through life. Same goes for our offense by the way, which is why I would like a bit more defense to start with, to be able to focus more on offense. No?

Viator.9801:

I have 18k HP and AoE attacks in Dungeons kill me instantly, while the Warriors stand in the blow and only loose 2/3 of their HP. Happened yesterday in fractals, Dredge dungeon.

And even with a staff you need to go close to support cause your Auras and heals and… and and… have a low range.

So even as a support you die, not only with a dagger.

Ele’s defenses mainly come from their buffs, active skills, and cantrips. I don’t have nearly as high armor or HP as my necro did, but I can actually survive much longer in just about any format (PvE, dungeons, PvP).

We can stack up Vigor, Regen, and Protection, and with vigor dodge more often negating more big damage. Also, high healing power goes a long way to making our class incredibly resilient when doing any form of healing. We also have Auras, which can completely shut down melee enemies in some cases. Running full cantrips means you have 3 stun breaks, plenty of condition removal, and you’re a very hard target to lock down and keep down.

We aren’t like warriors who just naturally have high HP and armor, our defenses don’t come from our hard number stats. But I would still argue we are far more defensive than they could hope to be, even with just a balanced build when played well.

As a WvW thief with over 19k kills, D/D elementalists are some of the hardest guys in the game to kill.

spif.7580:

As a WvW thief with over 19k kills, D/D elementalists are some of the hardest guys in the game to kill.

You haven’t seen my D/D elementalist then

spif.7580:

As a WvW thief with over 19k kills, D/D elementalists are some of the hardest guys in the game to kill.

We’re the lizard to your spock…

I may have expressed myself wrong, elementalists can be very hard to kill, but we have to put almost all of our traits into it, and pick defensive utility skills, at a cost of our damage. I would like to see a bit more survivability for double dagger, so we can use part of our traits and utility skills for damage. I can survive in pvp just fine, but killing someone before they finally kill me is a real challenge. But I may be doing something wrong since no one seems to agree ^^

I’d prefer if Windborne Daggers gave an attack speed boost (nothing ridiculous, maybe 15-20%). It’d still fit with the whole “daggers are fast” thing that the trait is going for for while not being completely redundant like more run speed when Elementalists already have a ton of methods to increase that. Attack speed would be something that Elementalists otherwise have no access to.

I don’t nessicarily disagree with the idea that D/D could use some more inherent defense without a full-on defensive build, but at the same time adding more defense would be a problem when combined with said defensive trait builds. Its a problem of improving those pure tank builds, and there’s really no way to boost less defensive builds without buffing the tanks at the same time. So I think its more an issue of “It’d be nice, but its not really feasible”.

D/D in wvwvw is a suicide bomber. You go in, you unleash hell, you leave a corpse behind.

Eximus.9054:

I may have expressed myself wrong, elementalists can be very hard to kill, but we have to put almost all of our traits into it, and pick defensive utility skills, at a cost of our damage. I would like to see a bit more survivability for double dagger, so we can use part of our traits and utility skills for damage. I can survive in pvp just fine, but killing someone before they finally kill me is a real challenge. But I may be doing something wrong since no one seems to agree ^^

First, you do not have to be COMPLETELY defensive to have strong survivability. I have all DPS jewelry, and all survivability gear (cleric’s), with the more or less standard 0/10/10/30/20 D/D spec. I am extremely surivable with that spec/gear, and I still do fairly decent damage.

Any class that specs into damage primarily is going to have low survivability. I cut through glass cannon thieves like paper mache, and warriors aren’t much better. The elementalist is no exception to this rule…if you spec damage, you will have low survivability, if you spec defense, you will have high survivability…if you spec balanced, you will be somewhere in the middle.

I don’t see what is broken about this. No one is “forcing” you to take survivability traits. There are some D/D Ele’s that go full glass cannon and do fairly well with that…fire grab alone can do over 9K damage. But you definitely CANNOT be running into zergs with a GC spec and hope to live without something like mistform on deck.

Personally, I love defensive D/D because it really lets me exploit all my crowd control, and buffing capabilities while I outheal the enemy’s damage.

Kilger.5490:

D/D in wvwvw is a suicide bomber. You go in, you unleash hell, you leave a corpse behind.

Not that I would recommend this…but you could just mistform → ether renewal → lightning flash away → RTL when mistform ends, and then repeat once it’s done.

Not-so-suicide bomber. But I think that wouldn’t be the best build because you would be extremely dependent on CD’s for survival.

Wrong tab, sry.

D/D Cantrip builds have great survivability and have very decent dmg thanks to Might stacking. If you experience a “feeling of squishiness” in dungeons with this build then that’s normal, because melees have a hard time in dungeons in this game.

Creslin.1758:

Kilger.5490:

D/D in wvwvw is a suicide bomber. You go in, you unleash hell, you leave a corpse behind.

Not that I would recommend this…but you could just mistform -> ether renewal -> lightning flash away -> RTL when mistform ends, and then repeat once it’s done.

Not-so-suicide bomber. But I think that wouldn’t be the best build because you would be extremely dependent on CD’s for survival.

i do this in wvw often enough.
go through a whole d/d opener and vapor from back to the line if needed.
i had no real trouble with survival in wvw. this was at level 40 with 13k hp as well.
not to mention cruddy equipment. was using AC dungeon armor.

really ignore baseless posts about nerfs.

People really don t know anything about ele…

I was in fractal yesterday and i ended up in am elitist self calling pro team….

They shouted at me because i was using daggers (note i didn t tdie ONCE if not when all team was wiped…but that due to AR not to class XD) and i should use the staff that is OP and deals 10.000 dmg per hit -______-

This are the pros of this game….lol

If the build with rune of the monk is toopowerful just nerf the rune that would be reasonable….

DD in www is good for:
- small skirmish as 1VS1 specialist (considering most class in www are set up for long range fights you just counter their build also u are useless until gates are open not being able to kill siege weapons or hit opponents on the walls).
- aoe suicide stun to gain few (note FEW) meters between 2 balanced zergs, then he is either dead or out of fight for a couple of minutes (same as dead but without repair….).

Mistforming into safety is bad for the friendly zerg for one reason:
You are useless for a couple minutes the same
War tactics irl always favoured injuring enemies instead of killing them because they become a burden -.- if you gain few meters and then you need 4 people to ress you, you got nothing….

LordByron.8369:

really ignore baseless posts about nerfs.

People really don t know anything about ele…

I was in fractal yesterday and i ended up in am elitist self calling pro team….

They shouted at me because i was using daggers (note i didn t tdie ONCE if not when all team was wiped…but that due to AR not to class XD) and i should use the staff that is OP and deals 10.000 dmg per hit -______-

This are the pros of this game….lol

If the build with rune of the monk is toopowerful just nerf the rune that would be reasonable….

DD in www is good for:
- small skirmish as 1VS1 specialist (considering most class in www are set up for long range fights you just counter their build also u are useless until gates are open not being able to kill siege weapons or hit opponents on the walls).
- aoe suicide stun to gain few (note FEW) meters between 2 balanced zergs, then he is either dead or out of fight for a couple of minutes (same as dead but without repair….).

Mistforming into safety is bad for the friendly zerg for one reason:
You are useless for a couple minutes the same
War tactics irl always favoured injuring enemies instead of killing them because they become a burden -.- if you gain few meters and then you need 4 people to ress you, you got nothing….

Some more things D/D Ele is good for in WvW groups:

1. Extremely powerful CC. One root, two AoE knockdowns, and an AoE chill. Combine this CC with some high spike damage classes, like thief, and you can just melt and enemy group. Hard to escape a spike when an Ele keeps knocking you down.

2. Good AoE condition removal. Every time you attune to water or use cleansing wave, you remove one or two conditions from your group…not bad at all.

3. Great AoE buffs. Tons of might from combo fields, perma-fury and swiftness from powerful auras, prot from attuning to earth and auras, regen from water attune.

4. Powerful aura. Sharing shocking aura and frost aura is powerful enough to deserve its own list item.

5. Decent AoE DPS – We don’t spike like a thief, but our fire combo does pretty good AoE damage. Probably around 8-10K if you throw arcane wave in there. Then if you land churning earth, that is a lot as well.

I find the 18k HP comment weird.
I have 23k HP as a Mesmer, gear is Power / Toughness / Vitality (which is pretty good gear for general WvW and Dungeons, really), and the most damage I’ve taken from a single blow is ~10k.

What as given me the most success is gearsets. The gearset I wear is based on the competency of the group with a goal of wearing as much Berserker/Ruby as possible. In a stellar group, exotic Berserker armor w/dps runes and Exotic Ruby jewelry. For the average group Berserker armor and Exotic Toughess jewelry. Finally for hard encounters or terrible groups exotic Valk/Knight armor (with Rune of Earth set bonus) with exotic Toughness rings.

Obviously this takes a lot of effort to gather all this gear but imho is the best way to be flexable based on what is needed and in the end I end up surviving as well as anyone else.

Eximus.9054:

So lately I’ve been working on deciding on a build (and ofcourse stats) I want to go for in PvE, and trying out different things before I started farming an exotic dungeon set with specific stats. I finally went full Power / Toughness / Vitality, with Power / Toughness / Healing Power jewelry, because I liked the doube dagger playstyle and it really needs the toughness. My build is 0/10/10/30/20, so with most of the points in water, also for survivability.

Playing sPvP and WvW a lot (as well as dungeons actually, but I won’t talk about PvE), I have noticed that elementalist has a lot of disadvantages in PvP, at least when it comes to defense. Ofcourse compared to medium and heavy armor, we have a disadvantage. But compared to the other light armor classes, we also have disadvantages. Necromancers have ridiculously high base health (including their F1 which is basically an extra health pool), and mesmers have a great single target 1200 range build (greatsword), along with their illusions to control people and keep from getting hit (along with dazes and such, you know what I’m talking about).

This isn’t a problem for staff DPS, or even scepter mainhand, because with a bit of skill you can manage to keep at range and kite and what have you. But as a D/D elementalist you are forced to go in melee range of classes that almost always have more base defensive stats than you. The result is that I had to invest a lot of points in defensive traits and gear to be able to survive as D/D. Taking points in water and earth gives us lacking bonus defense, but it really kittens our damage. I for one am not going glass cannon in PvP because that’s just ridiculous, but putting so many points in defense just to be able to survive is ridiculous. Again, staff and scepter builds are okay with this because they don’t require melee range, but D/D does require you to go melee.

So, what my real suggestion is (will also be mentioned in the TL:DR, I just wanted to sketch where I was coming from): change the windborne daggers trait to something more defensive. No one cares about run speed increase anyway because you can keep up perma swiftness, and D/D really needs some more defense because it forces you to go melee. This would open up some points that we now have to put into defense, and we could put those in offense. I’m not sure what would be best, I was thinking of something with +% toughness while using dagger as a mainhand weapon, but I’m not a game developer and I don’t know that much about balancing. Again, this would only change D/D to increase their defense, giving them a fighting chance in melee range. Scepter and staff would remain unchanged, so no balance issues there. It just makes no sense that the class with the least defense has a build which requires them to go into melee range (and I personally think D/D is the most fun).

So, to conclude (I did go a bit more in depth than I was planning to, just wanted to make it clear), here is a much needed:

TL:DR : Double dagger elementalist needs more defense, at the moment we have to put too many points in earth and/or water to be viable, so change the windborne dagger trait in arcana (nobody cares about movement speed) to something that gives a defense bonus while using dagger main hand. I would say extra toughness, but not sure what would be best.

Just wanted to see what you guys think of this, and if possible, get the developers to read this (even if only the TL:DR), because I think D/D is a really fun build, but at the moment it requires too many points in defense, and you need those points in defense because you are in melee range and otherwise you get two shot. Let me know what you think!

I have 10 points in water and 10 points in arcane. I almost never die in sPvP, nor in PvE.
On my warrior I die constantly, because I have to be in melee. I never have the protection nor the regeneration boons. Warriors have no escape mechanisms for bad situations.
I have not played a profession with the same awesome survivability as D/D elementalists. We certainly don’t need better defences. If something should be improved, it’s our offence and the conjured weapons.

D/D Elementalist is probably the best tank in the game atm, even more-so then even guardian.

Daecollo.9578:

D/D Elementalist is probably the best tank in the game atm, even more-so then even guardian.

It really depends on the gear and the build, but I tank for all of my groups. Not sure how, but I pull agro over everyone and their dps builds.

Power/Toughness/Vitality gear in every slot. 22,000+ health, 2900+ armor.

Build is 0-10-20-30-10

As for suicide bombing in WvW, this is my favorite aspect of playing an Elementalist. When fighting an open battle, you RTL in, throw up a shocking aura, updraft, Earth Armor Cantrip > Fire Attunement, Burning Speed, Ring of Fire, Fire Grab >Earth Attunement, Earthquake, Churning Earth, Ring of Earth > Water attunement, Frost Aura, dance around as long as possible then Vapor, Ether Renewal, Flash to safety.

I do a similar move when defending a keep by jumping down and forcing 20+ players to chase me. Not sure why, but people always chase way too far and then leave too few on the keep.

Albane.8367:

Daecollo.9578:

D/D Elementalist is probably the best tank in the game atm, even more-so then even guardian.

It really depends on the gear and the build, but I tank for all of my groups. Not sure how, but I pull agro over everyone and their dps builds.

Power/Toughness/Vitality gear in every slot. 22,000+ health, 2900+ armor.

Build is 0-10-20-30-10

As for suicide bombing in WvW, this is my favorite aspect of playing an Elementalist. When fighting an open battle, you RTL in, throw up a shocking aura, updraft, Earth Armor Cantrip > Fire Attunement, Burning Speed, Ring of Fire, Fire Grab >Earth Attunement, Earthquake, Churning Earth, Ring of Earth > Water attunement, Frost Aura, dance around as long as possible then Vapor, Ether Renewal, Flash to safety.

I do a similar move when defending a keep by jumping down and forcing 20+ players to chase me. Not sure why, but people always chase way too far and then leave too few on the keep.

Would you mind posting your complete gear? I have all exotic gear: a mix of P/T/V and P/T/Precision gear and I am hovering around 15,500 hp. I am trying to grind out some AC runs to get more Vitality, but even if I swap one of the PTP for another PTV I only gain a couple hundred health. How in the world are you getting 22000?

I have all of the Power/Toughness/Vitality orange gear from AC and my jewelry/trinkets are all of the Power/Toughness/Vitality yellow gear, something like knight’s with the gem that gives the same stats.

Rune of the Forge for my 6 piece bonus and the Sigil that gives 5% damage and the Sigil that gives 3 stacks of might when you attune.

I am at work right now and I never check the forums from home, so I know I won’t get back to you with the exact name of everything, sorry.

If you are only at 15500, you probably have no vitality on your 6 pieces of Jewelry, which should put you above 4500+ health combined.

That could well be. I’ve focused on armor/weapons pretty much. It may be that my jewelry is lacking. I’ll check that out, thanks!

AHAHAHAAH this thread…

I play a lot of wvw, and dd ele is by far one of the most survivable classes out there. Our survivability comes from how we can move around in the battle, apply cc, and good use of cantrips. The strategy is avoidance. Similar to a thief in concept, we just use different tools.

Half the time I’m running around in mostly berserkers, sometimes I’ll switch to healing gear. Depends on whether I’m fighting large zergs or doing 5 man roaming stuff.

I’m not really a fan of high vitality/toughness gear for a dd ele (outside of a few pieces, just not full sets). That’s not the base of our survivability, and by going that route you give up a lot of dps or healing.