Guild Wars 2

Hi fellow wielders of the elements
I main ele for two years now (my first toon) and I have no problems in PVE. Last year I started doing PVP (metabattle auramancer standard build) and managed diamond rank two times. After that I started playing warrior having a blast in PVP (gold 3 currently). Sadly, whenever I have to swap (cause team lacks support) to my ele, I am getting stomped. Perhaps I forgot how to play, I find it very difficult to survive. I am even losing 1 vs 1 when I am on point from revs/thieves/power war/guardians and their mothers. I use earth focus 5 very fast cause my health bar seems to vaporize in seconds (l2dodge issue I guess, dunno). I almost always have protection from auras, how the hell am I receiving so much damage?

I know my role is to provide support to group fights, but whenever I get focused, oh man, sometimes I don’t even manage to swap to earth for the invul.
Is there a combo I am missing? I understand I have too many questions so let me break them for better reference

1) I am on point and a “insert random class” comes. I am supposed to be one of the best bunkers in the game, correct? yet certain classes (power) destroy me, what do I miss for self sustain? Surely I am making many things wrong cause I have witnessed immortal eles on gold fighting against duos ON POINT (not using LOS) and surviving long enough.
2) I am getting focused on mid fight (or whatever fight). They stun me and the damage is so burst-y I don’t even have time to use focus earth 5 (git gud). Are there certain boons I miss while going on mid fight? Should I enter fight overloading earth?
3) Are there any combos/skills I am missing? I use earth 4 for the reflection against DH and afterwards OL earth for the same reason. I use fire 3 for the evade and blast the field with water 3 to provide might (and chill opponents).

many questions I know, trying to git gud again (or I was never really good at it, probably carried by the pro-nerfed class). Thanks in advance!

Hmm. Mybe you should go back playing ele more :-). Feels like a reflex thing.

First protection is mandatory to survive. But that you know.

Mid fight. Most of the time i set up swirling winds first, blow air instants (but i am scepter) and swap fire. I don´t play dagger so it might be a bit diffrent. A firefield on point is not bad annyways. If you have so much trouble to stand power builds use stone heart. It buys you time, but especially with dagger your damage is lost in earth.
Also while not meta and loosing regeneration on aura you might trait tempestious aria. It can mitigate your problem. You use feel the burn immidiately weakening oponents which can make the diffrence from splat to swap earth and survive. But we go in a diffrent direction also traiting gale song and move away from a full auramancer.
You loose healing and condi removal but mitigate power damage and the first stun better.
Earth ovelaod is a good friend. But i rarely enter a fight doing it. Starting in earth can mean you are stuck there not to die. If you overload and/or swap out you can´t go back if attacked. It feels better to let this swap open for the moment you need it and train to use it on demand. If you cant´s swap and hit 4 or 5 as needed before you die then it´s a training issue. At that point we definitly come to using a gaming mouse ;-).

1. You think you are tank
-Ele is no longer considered a tank and is support for team fights

2. You don’t know what builds are meta
-You can get shut down by power zerker
-You can get shut down by condi mesmer
-You can get shut down by a good boon corrupt
-You can get shut down by thief

3. You may fail to recognize that staying alive is more important than staying on point
-You sit in DH traps
-You fail to properly kite a power zerker
-You allow a necro to free cast and destroy your boons.

4. Your build doesnt fit your style
-I use magi for extra vitality and max out condi cleanse

Excelvior.8520:

Hi fellow wielders of the elements
I main ele for two years now (my first toon) and I have no problems in PVE. Last year I started doing PVP (metabattle auramancer standard build) and managed diamond rank two times. After that I started playing warrior having a blast in PVP (gold 3 currently). Sadly, whenever I have to swap (cause team lacks support) to my ele, I am getting stomped. Perhaps I forgot how to play, I find it very difficult to survive. I am even losing 1 vs 1 when I am on point from revs/thieves/power war/guardians and their mothers. I use earth focus 5 very fast cause my health bar seems to vaporize in seconds (l2dodge issue I guess, dunno). I almost always have protection from auras, how the hell am I receiving so much damage?

I know my role is to provide support to group fights, but whenever I get focused, oh man, sometimes I don’t even manage to swap to earth for the invul.
Is there a combo I am missing? I understand I have too many questions so let me break them for better reference

1) I am on point and a “insert random class” comes. I am supposed to be one of the best bunkers in the game, correct? yet certain classes (power) destroy me, what do I miss for self sustain? Surely I am making many things wrong cause I have witnessed immortal eles on gold fighting against duos ON POINT (not using LOS) and surviving long enough.
2) I am getting focused on mid fight (or whatever fight). They stun me and the damage is so burst-y I don’t even have time to use focus earth 5 (git gud). Are there certain boons I miss while going on mid fight? Should I enter fight overloading earth?
3) Are there any combos/skills I am missing? I use earth 4 for the reflection against DH and afterwards OL earth for the same reason. I use fire 3 for the evade and blast the field with water 3 to provide might (and chill opponents).

many questions I know, trying to git gud again (or I was never really good at it, probably carried by the pro-nerfed class). Thanks in advance!

we are no longer bunker after the last set of changes, its all about running away from danger then recycling back into the action. The real skill is reading what your opponent is doing and reacting to that, which is a big difference from having control as a bunker class. Ele does well in a team that knows how to support the ele in times of danger – that often does not happen in a pug. Hopefully, eventually Anet will get it that having to be in close range to do your best damage means you must have sustained mitigation, either that or high damage at range but fragile.

Thank you for your answers guys, I really appreciate it. Seems I lost touch with the class. So, to sum it up for auramancer, judging by the answers

1) we are not tanks, we must stand back and spam auras/heals for the dps classes. If, by any chance, we are alone at point, we stand no chance of holding it unless the opponent is also auramancer.
2) if you are in a pug, you are 90% dead at mid fight cause no one gives a skritt for you

man, I love my warrior right now <3

its not quiete that bad, I die on avg about 1.5 times per fight, but having to run away when under pressure is poor game design for sure

As others have said:

1. You aren’t really a tank anymore, although you can hold the point extremely long vs. almost any build (long enough for help to come and not get decapped). In fact, even a few 2v1’s are good for you (any combination of ele, druid, scrapper, DH if they aren’t great at dealing damage) to hold a decap for quite a while, being careful to save enough CD’s to still get away when they eventually cap and 1 leaves (if they stay to stupidly 2v1 and you can survive, go ahead and let them lose the game for their team).

In soloQ, currently, I almost always take Stone Heart over diamond skin, as I feel even condi build quite easily get you below that 75% mark, and proper usage of cleanses (I.e. not cleansing single bleed stacks, but big stacks instead) is still good enough. Stone heart makes you a MILLION times tankier, esp. vs. thieves and warriors. Without stone heart, a thief can kill you pretty quickly, even in 1v1. With stone heart, you can survive almost indefinitely (certainly way too long for him to get value of 1v1ing you). This also cuts power warrior damage by a LOT.

A special note on thieves: the proper way to fight them is to not use any skills (not even autoattacks or overloads, besides overload earth), and instead focus on keeping prot up, kiting or covering your heal (heal after using obsidian flesh or earth 4 to prevent headshot interrupting). If you have stone heart, camp earth for most of the fight except when you will need heals from water. You can cover the time inbetween with shocking aura and some kiting.

Also, another note that many players ignore. Lightning touch (air 2) is AMAZING for cutting dps of burst builds (power warrs, DH, and thieves esp, who rely on crits). Weakness is one of the most powerful defensive conditions in the game.

2. Practice kiting. Lighting flash can get you out of most situations, and smart use of terrain can take a LOT of pressure off you. You don’t need to stand on the point, its ok if they get a few ticks or even cap it. Look up some vids on good kiting locations for each point. You don’t even need to right on top of your team-mates to heal them, auras you apply to yourself heal with 360 range (about the size of the point), so use LOS off point and let your heals cover the distance.

3. Don’t worry about might, it doesn’t really matter. You are better off using fire wall, then leap finishing it with earth 3 to get a fire aura (more heals and cleanse) than trying to do damage. Paying attention to your team-mates fields matters too. See a druid use the vine wall, or engie drop his turret? Go water or earth and blast them if he is being pressured. Same with smoke fields that thieves sometimes drop at the start of the match.

4. Besides support, you also provide some very useful CC/condis. Weakness from air 2, interrupt from shocking aura (esp if you are keeping necro up, shocking aura then follow him around to give a peel), chill from water 3 and 4, long-range interrupts with water 5 (amazing for interrupting resses b/c its aoe interrupt) and unblockable interrupt from air 5. Don’t waste air 5, esp if they have a warrior or mesmer – interrupt their shield block and they melt. Finally, when in a fight where each team has an ele on point: pay attention to their ele. Save shocking aura for when he overloads air, then when he leaves air you can overload yourself to give lots of dps (if you get to overload air and he doesn’t and they stand in it, that is a HUGE dps swing, and shocking aura is the easiest way to interrupt overload air). Be ready to interrupt water overload when he camps water for a while (water 5 is amazing for this as it is ranged and also ignores LOS). These two things will seriously pressure him (as you deprive him of air for 20s with no benefit, and most eles use water overload as a last-ditch, but good ones will LOS first). Of course, balance this with healing your team-mates, but if you interrupt his healing like this and get off your own, you are way ahead.

I almost NEVER bother with overload fire (except for downed cleave). The range is too low, and the quicker access to the aura on 5 and evade on 3 is more valuable than an overload that is more likely than not going to get randomly interrupted.

Solid advice BlackBeard, thank you! I ’ll play some unranked to test these!