Guild Wars 2

So I was kittening around in hot-join with some friends with this build, abusing Arcane Resurrection’s lack of internal cool-down with Rune of Mercy to maintain a high upkeep with Shocking Aura to win zerg v zerg.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmmbyxzgjDAkHnYSJiHPMhElCyA-ToAgzCtIOSdk7IzRyjsHN+YiA

Then I realise it could be really strong in WvW.
In the simplest case, shocking aura + auramancer with in a mix of 4 or 5 D/D and D/F eles can up keep shocking aura permanently and be very devastating especially with abusing sigil of paralyzation. However, simply stacking 5 eles with the same build might be strong, but won’t be very efficient, e.g.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmmbyx4gjDAkHm4SJiHPYhElC5A-jkCBofBkWGgQAM9RZNLSQssuIasqaRWXDT7KpaYAA-w

My proposed setup:
Two D/F Eles: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAodhEmgbyx3gjDAkHnYSJCFP0QRhMzA-jkCBYgBk+AgQAM7RQM9RZtOqIas6aYaXJVDDQFLyA-w
Traited efficiently for lower CD on swirling winds and shock aura. Obby Flesh allows them to be most suited for reviving. Magnetic Wave replaces need for Cleansing Fire, Lightning Flash not needed since they don’t have to CE so they are better given Sig of Earth to catch fleeing targets. Not as much heal power pumped since lack of healing wave and evasive arcana.

Two D/D Eles:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmibyx5gjDAkHnYSJjCiUeMTO2A-j0CB4hBkWGgQAM5RZNLSQsMMIVXht8KaqaLqWXDTDDAA-w
Built for high endurance and party protection through auras + boon duration and evasive arcana.

S/D Fresh Air Ele:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhEmIblxzgjFIkCoQowBMK0BiHWgDwhlCxAA-jECB0ygkFAJPKrZPCiFXFRjVXDT7aR1aYAA-w
Traited with steroids to finish off targets before they can flee since eles can’t chase nobody.

If you had 5 eles at your disposal, how would you build them?

Pro tip: Frost aura stacks duration.

1. 5 Ele’s : 1 D/D bunker to aggro, 4 Fresh Air Bursts
2. What’s the difference between having 5 Hammer, M/S warriors?

Anytime you’ll have players with high coordination, you’ll have a significant advantage.

Put those 5 ele’s vs 5 warrs/guadians, yeah good luck, D/D dps is kitten.

EchenSketch.9142:

1. 5 Ele’s : 1 D/D bunker to aggro, 4 Fresh Air Bursts
2. What’s the difference between having 5 Hammer, M/S warriors?

Anytime you’ll have players with high coordination, you’ll have a significant advantage.

Put those 5 ele’s vs 5 warrs/guadians, yeah good luck, D/D dps is kitten.

Once you get enough dps to get past heal sig you should be able to get warriors down eventually. If 5v5 eles vs warr, War-banner chaining would probably destroy the Fresh Air bursts eles. M/S is also pretty weak outside anything bigger than X v 3 but an optimal 5 warriors roaming build would be another topic.

Ele stacking is pretty strong since theres others to actually trigger the might stacks vs solo ele. I think with my build the eles should be able to outlast 5 warriors and win eventually through dodging into each other and the Shocking Aura/Frost Aura chains denying adrenaline/stun chaining that’s integral to warrior damage, but the warriors could always run away whenever they want. With guardians however, stability chaining too op.

Stop, they’re going to just nerf it instead of buffing Ele’s like they should by adding a cooldown on aura’s you can receive or something.

Shh.

zencow.3651
I agreed with you halfway in another thread. You lost my support here. The elementalists’ conditions would not last full duration, and the elementalists would die before seeing the conditions complete even if the warriors did not cleanse. All melee is short-range ae. Two highly skilled warriors could take out all five eles.

Lightning Whip’s range is 300, warriors melee range is 130. Abusing this range by strafing (and not back-pedalling) is the key to fighting wariors.

In sPvP you are constrained by not being able leave the capture point and your kiting is extremely limited to eating pretty much every stun and the limit in damage from stats prevent you from doing more damage than Heal Signet while going zerker’s gives you damage to dent through their hp but not enough to survive. In WvW however neither is a problem, you can kite freely and you can pump stats effectively; eles gain alot from extra stats than other classes especially toughness. Extra toughness in particular drops off for warriors while eles gain alot more from pumping toughness. Heal sig also scales very poorly with heal power so you could easily overcome ~500 hp/s while being tanky enough to survive 2 warriors even.

If you try hard enough and opponent doesn’t run away, you CAN kill a warrior given enough time/you don’t make too many mistakes so I find your claim of 2 warriors wiping 5 eles highly doubtful, unless they are using zerker’s and zerk stance then that’s the eles fault for being bad for dying. Between 4 D/D eles I’d also like to think you’d have enough burning rotation to overcome the cleanses. I’d also say the trickle of cripple and chills are extremely annoying for warriors especially when you slap them with it after they cleanse but Dogged March (+Melandru’s Runes) is kittening stupid.
tldr; D/D Eles are still the best at sustain/outlasting the opponent with heavy water/arcana despite taking much much longer to kill things.

Earthshaker is the only real threat since the other warrior stuns are all single target. If they all chase one ele, they will be much more balled than you have to be and you will have the aoe advantage.

The biggest problem would be un-coordination with the eles not staggering their attunes and all screaming “Water!” at the same time, 5 warriors are much more easy to coordinate since all you need to do really is call your Earthshaker. If the 5 warriors are all heal shout/cleric scum though then yes a stalemate is all you could hope for.

Knote.2904:

Stop, they’re going to just nerf it instead of buffing Ele’s like they should by adding a cooldown on aura’s you can receive or something.

Shh.

They’re always very eager to immediately nerf, I mean fix these kinds of stuff.

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Knote.2904:

Stop, they’re going to just nerf it instead of buffing Ele’s like they should by adding a cooldown on aura’s you can receive or something.

Shh.

They’re always very eager to immediately nerf, I mean fix these kinds of stuff.

I miss the days when auras could be extended by boon duration and when shocking aura applied boon-on-aura-traits twice. But rather than realising these broken stuff was some of the factors that made D/D strong, they mercilessly nerfed it without compensating.

Eles underpowered, better buff conjures!

zencow.3651
What game are you playing? When is the last time you logged in? This thread is about Guild Wars 2, September, 2013.

ImProVocateur.5189:

What is the deal with “on swap” sigils in builds people have been posting? Was there a patch that made “on swap” useful for Eles in some patch when I was not playing?

No, we are obviously not playing the same game.

zencow.3651
… so you looked for a post to quote, saw that, and decided to quote in this thread because you thought it might make it look like I do not know enough. Above that you respond to my serious question with a non-answer that makes it sound like the answer is privy to only players as knowledgable as you. Did I sum your post up right? You can do that, or you could have given a real answer in the thread where that post was (for relevance) to be helpful to the community. Right now, you’re just looking like a troll.

Troll quote for a troll question. But since I’ll oblige you with an answer even though it may not be deserved.

Eles are underpowered but not to the point of free bags as people like to exaggerate. x/x/x/30/30 or x/x/x/20/30 or x/x/x/30/20 based builds are still very strong sustain-wise. The rune of the Traveler update also allows us to upkeep 10 stacks of might permanently.

Theres plenty of people who whine about how their class is the most underpowered ever. It’s true ele takes more effort than it’s worth but it’s still playable except against broken builds S/D thieves and spirit or trap rangers which aren’t even used in WvW.

But here is my limited anecdotal experience given people don’t tend to roam solo as much at higher world tiers (I’m from Sea of Sorrows):

Given that I’ve killed 3/3 other D/D eles in the past 4 days, one of whom was running Runes of Perplexity. Given the assumption that only the few experienced players still roam with ele, I’m inclined to believe most players are really bad. The only real issue is not being able to chase people you outsustain/outplay. I have never caught an engineer or warrior and 9/10 times thieves get away. I used to find necroes hard before I learnt how to dodge marks/scepter aoes and they are the only class that I could still outrun with blink+RtL.

Even the more experienced eles build wrongly sometimes, and Anet themselves are clueless on how to build eles.

In my point of view, eles are still more playable as nerfed as they are now, compared to when warriors and necroes before they received their buffs.

tl;dr Eles are underpowered but if you get fully wrecked by anyone and especially if you’re outnumbering anyone, your skill as a player becomes questionable and it invalidates any complaints you may have about the ele and Anet will never take you seriously. With all the doom and gloom, Anet perceives us as a bunch of terrible players who can’t play ele rather than getting the message that eles are, indeed underpowered. This is why I try to be as honest as I can about my opinions.

zencow.3651:

So I was kittening around in hot-join with some friends with this build, abusing Arcane Resurrection’s lack of internal cool-down with Rune of Mercy to maintain a high upkeep with Shocking Aura to win zerg v zerg.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmmbyxzgjDAkHnYSJiHPMhElCyA-ToAgzCtIOSdk7IzRyjsHN+YiA

Then I realise it could be really strong in WvW.
In the simplest case, shocking aura + auramancer with in a mix of 4 or 5 D/D and D/F eles can up keep shocking aura permanently and be very devastating especially with abusing sigil of paralyzation. However, simply stacking 5 eles with the same build might be strong, but won’t be very efficient, e.g.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmmbyx4gjDAkHm4SJiHPYhElC5A-jkCBofBkWGgQAM9RZNLSQssuIasqaRWXDT7KpaYAA-w

My proposed setup:
Two D/F Eles: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAodhEmgbyx3gjDAkHnYSJCFP0QRhMzA-jkCBYgBk+AgQAM7RQM9RZtOqIas6aYaXJVDDQFLyA-w
Traited efficiently for lower CD on swirling winds and shock aura. Obby Flesh allows them to be most suited for reviving. Magnetic Wave replaces need for Cleansing Fire, Lightning Flash not needed since they don’t have to CE so they are better given Sig of Earth to catch fleeing targets. Not as much heal power pumped since lack of healing wave and evasive arcana.

Two D/D Eles:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmibyx5gjDAkHnYSJjCiUeMTO2A-j0CB4hBkWGgQAM5RZNLSQsMMIVXht8KaqaLqWXDTDDAA-w
Built for high endurance and party protection through auras + boon duration and evasive arcana.

S/D Fresh Air Ele:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhEmIblxzgjFIkCoQowBMK0BiHWgDwhlCxAA-jECB0ygkFAJPKrZPCiFXFRjVXDT7aR1aYAA-w
Traited with steroids to finish off targets before they can flee since eles can’t chase nobody.

If you had 5 eles at your disposal, how would you build them?

Dude, I’m starting to love auras now. you could go 3 d/f ele and 2 staff eles or 2 d/d. at least I never saw an actual auramancer ele build, but with fire’s embrace + powerful aura, arcane resurrection, shock aura, fire shield/flame aura, frost aura, magnetic aura all at your disposal and zephyrs boon/elemental shielding and rock solid, you really could do perma aura…though you’d have to slightly adjust so every1 can be able to support and survive. I wonder if you can have 2 auras up at the same time…i dont think u can, can u? that’d be OP cuz ur attackers would get stunned, burned, chilled, reflected projectile while you gain might, swiftness, fury, protection for each aura. :P obviously auras aren’t boons so they cant be removed. That’s a pretty big + to me. If manage to upkeep shock aura and frost aura, that’s pretty much a perma non-boon stability and a slightly moderate protection buff lulz imagine u were roaming in wvw and u saw a massive zerg, like any other zerg u see. But suddenly you notice everyone there now has a fire shield! It then looks like a giant orange fiery blob of zerg madness XD you see a constant rotation between zerging fire shield and magnetic aura ftw.