Guild Wars 2

D/D has been popular since beta. Most tournament team run burst D/D ele. It is popular because it is easy to play. There are not much to aim as D/D just go in to range and cast. It has the lowest skill floor out of ele’s weapon set.
Recently there are a decline in popularity but i still see more D/D than S/D or x/F. Thou, there are always gonna be more Staff ele than D/D or S/D. Even if the weapon is not that strong it fits the image of a caster.

Vanillea.5764:

It is popular because it is easy to play. There are not much to aim as D/D just go in to range and cast. It has the lowest skill floor out of ele’s weapon set.

in PvE Staff or Zepter are by far easier to play than D/D. Also in WvW. It’s just PvP or soloing in WvW where D/D is the weapon of choice – just because the other weapons have mostly fail spell-mechanics for PvP. You’re confusing efficiency with difficulty.

Gorni.1764:

Vanillea.5764:

It is popular because it is easy to play. There are not much to aim as D/D just go in to range and cast. It has the lowest skill floor out of ele’s weapon set.

in PvE Staff or Zepter are by far easier to play than D/D. Also in WvW. It’s just PvP or soloing in WvW where D/D is the weapon of choice – just because the other weapons have mostly fail spell-mechanics for PvP. You’re confusing efficiency with difficulty.

So let me guess, you are a D/D’s fan. I don’t see how D/D is harder to play than Staff or S/D. It has no skill-shot. It is the least punishing to make mistake. All atunement can actually do AoE dmg in short CD. Do I think it is the most efficient weapon set? Nope. Do I think it is easy to play? Yes. I can be wrong but sure I am not confused.

I’m not a D/D fan in particular. I play S/D or sometimes staff in dungeons. Staff in WvW-zergs (sometimes even S/F, depending on the situation and group), and like stated D/D in PvP and whilst soloing in WvW (or PvE for farming).

I never said that D/D is harder to play than the rest – what I meant was: every weapon has it’s niche, but I think it’s wrong to say staff or scepter is harder to play than D/D just because its spells never hit in a 1v1 situation (I’m mainly adressing PvP/WvW here, because it seems to be the main issue in this thread). What are your arguments for saying D/D is easiest to play?
You can’t ever win a 1v1 with staff against any decent player – but that for sure is not because it’s more difficult to play – it’s because the weapon seems not to be designed for that purpose. You also can’t CC a large group of enemies as effectively with D/D as with staff or deal an equal amount of AoE-damage with D/D.
Playing dungeons with a Staff most of the time you can just relax and stand back at 1200 range in fire-attunement dealing the same overall-damage as a D/D that has to time all of his attunements perfectly to use the potential of that weapon-set. (I know staff can do much more through combo-fields in other attunements – but basically staying in fire would do the trick in most fights). How can that be more difficult than D/D?

To come back to D/D: it’s our melee-range-weapon-set. Guild wars seems to reward melee-range-spells with a higher amount of damage. That combined with it’s great mobility and best (small-range-scale-)CC makes it the ideal PvP-weapon-set – and sadly the only efficient PvP-Weapon-Set in my opinion (regarding 1v1 or maybe 1v2-situations). Therefore you can’t even really compare the weapon-sets with each other in every different aspect of the game, because they have different functions and potential depending on the situation.
It’s difficult to perfectly use and place combo-fields with staff to support your group in WvW or dungeones, also it’s difficult to find a good rotation for ideal support and damage playing S/D, same goes for duelling a single enemy in PvP with D/D.

Another factor might be that our traits are mainly crap and there is poor snyergy except for the popular D/D-aura-specc. The lack of efficient builds designed for other weapon-sets also makes D/D stronger than the rest – but easier to play? – no – only more efficient.

By the way

All atunement can actually do AoE dmg in short CD

same goes for staff. I’d also say that staff is way more efficient in dealing AoE-dmg on static targets than D/D is. And hitting mobile targets with D/D is nearly as difficult as with staff.

D/D was always popular from Beta, different people had different tastes, the prevalent sets were D/D, S/D and staff and people normally stuck to a main set.
S/D saw play because of its potential 3 burst heals, (from attuning to water, water trident and cleansing wave), with aoe potential, it was hard to take down. Staff got out of flavor from the patch.
However, the day D/D went mainstream, was when someone who played an effecient D/D build and actually showcased it on youtube (@dapheonix)
The combos were easier to pull of than S/D (because burning speed into flame grab was faster and hit off an updraft) with short cooldown aoes that are forgiving for slight angle adjustments, retaining survivability in the form of auras, giving more EH to cover up for scepters more constant heals. IMO a 0/10/20/30/10 build focused on auras is alot stronger in terms of survivability and deals just as much dmg than a 0/10/0/30/30 that most D/D are running

I can’t believe there are any reason other than daphenoix.

Honestly when a dude/girl post a bunch of video about himself/herself playing a certain class, goes on a murdererous rampage and decimate an entire platoon of people without dying, that class is going to become fotm for as long as they don’t nerf it to kansas.

haviz.1340:

Anet hasn’t changed staff at all, just EA.

EA was the bread and butter of the ungodly Staff bunker that was more OP than the current d/d. To think that the staff arsenal is loaded with a plethora of combo fields. (gasp) Instant blast finisher every dodge anyone?

Puandro.3245:

Many eles been running D/D since beta, me included. Its delusion to think a person made a spec popular by themselves. The Nov. 15th patch killed Staff bunker spec and people flocked the next bunker spec which was D/D. This is because Bunker is the only viable spec for eles at high level tPvP.

Sad but true.

showatt.9413:

I can’t believe there are any reason other than daphenoix.

Honestly when a dude/girl post a bunch of video about himself/herself playing a certain class, goes on a murdererous rampage and decimate an entire platoon of people without dying, that class is going to become fotm for as long as they don’t nerf it to kansas.

I Believe you are misunderstanding what D/D does, he doesnt go on a murderous rampage, D/D bunker build is to output consistent damage but have so much survivability, that you outlast an opponent. If you watch closely (well with what ive seen from my own D/D experience and Dapheonix gameplay), we dont get killing sprees in a “platoon of people”, its hard to actually kill someone that is above 50% health in a group, let alone a group of half decent players at full health

Look its popular but still I rarely see other DD players in dungeons. Half the time the ones I do see suck at it. We sometimes forget that outside Wv3 and Spvp we aren’t exactly the go to spec. Many players (as it has been pointed out to me now on a few occasions) do not like melee in this game. As popular as Dd sometimes it still feels like an anomaly outside Wv3.

I wont lie much credit to Daphoenix for this boom. I think we also need to remember that as popular as the build is we all tend to play it differently with different specs. 1 time so far i ran into a guy running the same exact spec as me but who knows about the gear.

As far as the hate goes. It has been mostly contained to spvp and I agree with the majority that DD is too strong there. They get caught up with the bs but fact is base healing not heal scaling is too high for that environment. Outside of that not too much has changed in PvE so far I have seen the build get stronger outside the mist.

It’s popular when you stop failing to use Evasive Arcana.

katniss.6735:

It’s popular when you stop failing to use Evasive Arcana.

I dont see how great Evasive Arcana is tbh :S.
And yes i play D/D Ele

Water and Earth are pretty much the only time you want to use it. I’m contemplating switching it to something more useful, though.

Winds.3087:

LordByron.8369:

Winds.3087:

LordByron.8369:

because you cannot change weapon in combat or traits on the fly……

What prohibits you from getting out of combat and then change?

the other weaponset maybe?

try jumping out of battle with your staff when opponnent reinforces arrives.

Not to mention in PvE where you have to almost change map to get ooc……

And battles are not so slow if you disengage to change weapon even with dagger you are just half efficient of some other class being able to weapon swap.

Considering recent nerfs and the overall stat of ele, having weaponswap could already be fair……

There’s reason why you can’t swap them in combat: another 4 bars full of skills for elementalist would be just plain wrong, so before you enter combat, think ahead and use whatever weaponset fits. I’m ok with idea of better ooc swap though.

i know what is the reason

But it seems they forget this detail while they “balance”……..
Its a HUGE drawback but we cannot get anything in Exchange it seems.

And again stop this nonesense of 4 skillbars.

Actually we have 10 appropriate skills for every situation and 10 subpar.
Attunements is another DRAWBACK….its not we have access to the best skill for any situation….we just have to adapt to cooldowns so often we will use a subpar skill.

not to mention autoattacks are so bad that forces us to rotate often.

COnsidering they recent balance guidelines giving us weaponswap would be completely fair..

Something i wouldn t have said some time ago.
Only OP thing would be having staff water on D/D ele but aside that…….

P.S. evasive arcana is good only in PvE on in www etc to cleanse conditions/heal a bit (see nerf).
Its not that you can toy around with fields against other players unless they are standing still for 10 seconds ._. in that case anything would work.

people play d/d because its not only the by far best option for eles, its also one of the best specs out of all classes (talking about the infamous bunker spec ofc). everyone knows it, everyone whined about it, we know the outcome (nerfs last patch).

now i dont play any of the other classes or specs that are deemed op atm, like thief or mesmer; my other 80s are warrior, necro and ranger. and you realise very fast how strong d/d ele is compared to those classes when u got experience on all of them. I’m talking in terms of pvp/www here. I would love to play my other toons more, but everytime i do i start to regret the decision 15 min later. thats how spoiled you get when you are used to playing d/d ele.

katniss.6735:

Water and Earth are pretty much the only time you want to use it. I’m contemplating switching it to something more useful, though.

Honestly they are all good if you can land them.

LordByron.8369:

i know what is the reason
But it seems they forget this detail while they “balance”……..
Its a HUGE drawback but we cannot get anything in Exchange it seems.
And again stop this nonesense of 4 skillbars.
Actually we have 10 appropriate skills for every situation and 10 subpar.
Attunements is another DRAWBACK….its not we have access to the best skill for any situation….we just have to adapt to cooldowns so often we will use a subpar skill.
not to mention autoattacks are so bad that forces us to rotate often.
COnsidering they recent balance guidelines giving us weaponswap would be completely fair..
Something i wouldn t have said some time ago.
Only OP thing would be having staff water on D/D ele but aside that…….

Nonsense? Subpar or not, those are still weapon skills. More, then other professions have. Eventually rough edges will be fixed, but I doubt they’ll ever allow elementalists to swap weapons in combat.

in EU/pve dd is not popular and never was. I play this game since betas, over 1000h by now, hundreds of dungs and fractals completed. I’ve meet other dd ele in dung only twice :D Is definitely the rarest build played in dungs and there is good reason for it – its extremely hard to play if speced other than full tank.
1 moth ago in similar topic I found other 4 pll who also play doungs as dd ele. Unfortunatelly 2 of them was NA server and the other 2 EU were ultra terrible. We could not complete fractal level 10 :D as 3 dd ele + 2 randoms. One of those “pro dd ele” wrote on forum that he is playing pure GC dd and has no problems at all… on that run he died before he finished burning speed :) and killed himself a fev times falling down because of bad skill usage (colosus fractal). The second ele dd was full pvt watter/arcane and did zero damage – in one word he was useless :) YES in pve dung dd ele tank is USELESS – remember this pls and dont play pvt watter/arcane in pve its nab and you do nothing compared to any other build that actualy is able to do some damage.

Compared to my thif, messmer, warrior and even staff or scepter/x ele, dd ele build is hardest to play and hardest to find in any pve dung. So pls stop spreading myths that he is popular.

Winds.3087:

Nonsense? Subpar or not, those are still weapon skills. More, then other professions have. Eventually rough edges will be fixed, but I doubt they’ll ever allow elementalists to swap weapons in combat.

Ele has the lowest damage autoattacks …as said by devs….

means you d avoid using autoattacks at all if you can (i do).
Those 20 becomes 16.

Then you can see that some of those remaining 16 have:

-double cooldown compared to other professions
-HALF duration for conditions etc.

That tells a lot ele 20 skills are infact a drawback not a perk.

@lavadiel
we may play together fotm
I play D/D mostly even if recently i m switching to S/F at some bosses….

LordByron.8369:

@lavadiel
we may play together fotm
I play D/D mostly even if recently i m switching to S/F at some bosses….

I will be very happy to play fotm with other decent dd ele – found none so far so you have the chance to be the frist one. I will talk to you in game. I am on fotm 20+ now and more and more feel the need to use scepter in some encounters. My build is http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/4343/gw013ei.jpg but after last nersf I spec more in tou and vit cuz is was unplayable unless I found very good DPS melee party. The problem is 80% parties are ranged nabs semi dps or even tanks…
Its also funny how easy this game is as ranged dps compared to melee gc. On scepter almost all the dd problems are gone…

Lavadiel.6231:

1 moth ago in similar topic I found other 4 pll who also play doungs as dd ele. Unfortunatelly 2 of them was NA server and the other 2 EU were ultra terrible. We could not complete fractal level 10 as 3 dd ele + 2 randoms. One of those “pro dd ele” wrote on forum that he is playing pure GC dd and has no problems at all… on that run he died before he finished burning speed and killed himself a fev times falling down because of bad skill usage (colosus fractal). The second ele dd was full pvt watter/arcane and did zero damage – in one word he was useless YES in pve dung dd ele tank is USELESS – remember this pls and dont play pvt watter/arcane in pve its nab and you do nothing compared to any other build that actualy is able to do some damage.

I was that ultra terrible ele and I told you that I was leaving because you can’t play with 10s delay. Check this topic to see the increase of network lags complains in february. But yes, I’m terrible, these days anyone soloes lupicus as ele in full zerker.

haviz.1340:

I was that ultra terrible ele …

Trully to say I forgot that bad ele name and even if I rembered it I would not post it on the forum. Back then I was absolutelly sure his “10s lag” was just an excuse for “pro playing”.
No problem, lets us play together anytime, now with LordByron as a bonus teammate. I am rally courious how you survive as pure GC dd in fractal 20 and above. I might lern something new.
Btw on the screenshot with lupi you have 2.5k hp more than full GC fire/air, and a focus + summon weapon. The trick for soloing lupi is to have enought evades/reflect projectiles/inv on his stage 2, its not as hard if you have them but indeed hard or not posible at all if you dont have them.

PvE heroes all up in dis thread.

Intigo.1653:

PvE heroes all up in dis thread.

actually there is a reason if many www and PvP heroes are utterly bad at pve.
possibly the same that get hit by churning earth in www.

@lavadiel
I use exatltly the same trinkets :o

(i m balanced not GC)

Despite i m recently changing towards the all stats one due to the boost they gave to them…

After all the more you go on with levels the less toughness and vit means anything.
I Always use mostly knight set with some balanced and some crit dmg. (and a couple of vit trinkets)

for the scepter thing i do not agree.
Scepter damage is horrible against any moving target.

But paired with focus… ._. you just become the ultimate tank.

Its the best weaponset for shaman elemental……

I have lot of issues with mossman….
Scepter focus are slow but best currently.
D/D is not viable (aginy oneshots you at higher levels)
staff is too slow :|

P.S. in fotm 30+ you use positioning and arcane shield to survive :|
Also air 5

I like some vitality/toughness just to avoid unreactable oneshots….but everything will 2 shots you anyway so no use using too much.

P.P.S. i play every evening at 19:00 gmt +1 (sometimes earlier and more on weekends) >.>/// i’ll send a friend req

Lavadiel.6231:

haviz.1340:

I was that ultra terrible ele …

Trully to say I forgot that bad ele name and even if I rembered it I would not post it on the forum. Back then I was absolutelly sure his “10s lag” was just an excuse for “pro playing”.
No problem, lets us play together anytime, now with LordByron as a bonus teammate. I am rally courious how you survive as pure GC dd in fractal 20 and above. I might lern something new.
Btw on the screenshot with lupi you have 2.5k hp more than full GC fire/air, and a focus + summon weapon. The trick for soloing lupi is to have enought evades/reflect projectiles/inv on his stage 2, its not as hard if you have them but indeed hard or not posible at all if you dont have them.

20 water (vi, ix) with vine of pale tree and bagh nakh, rest is from wvw bonus. Conjure weapon was for damage, not survivability and phase 2 is the most easy one, you don’t need any relfects (which won’t work reliably any way) because the amount of red circles depends on the party size.

Intigo.1653:

PvE heroes all up in dis thread.

whether it is to be an insult?
Dude I watched your wvw/duel movies and you dont know how to use shocking aura but other than that – its ok.
I played pvp too, got slayer achevement a fev weeks after the release and usually end up with score 300 and above and 20 or more kills and all that not as nab pvt tank.

http://imageshack.us/a/img62/7862/gw050e.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img835/5355/gw057k.jpg
as a bonus me as a pure gc thief after 2h of gameply as a thief
http://imageshack.us/a/img405/4112/gw078n.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img835/6066/gw074h.jpg

I stopped playing pvp some time ago cuz it became boring as hell.

ps.
Ofc we can duel if you want but I already know the resoult – after 15 min fight it will be draw because two tank cant kill each other in this game….

LordByron.8369:

Ele has the lowest damage autoattacks …as said by devs….
means you d avoid using autoattacks at all if you can (i do).
Those 20 becomes 16.
Then you can see that some of those remaining 16 have:
-double cooldown compared to other professions
-HALF duration for conditions etc.
That tells a lot ele 20 skills are infact a drawback not a perk.

As I already wrote, some skills have rough edges that will be eventually fixed and some issues you mentioned are actually subjective.
Using or not using autos is your own choice, double cooldown is exaggeration, they are mostly equal – the only drawback I see is cd reduce traits on attunements instead of weapons. And half duration for conditions? Examples, please.

Winds.3087:

LordByron.8369:

Ele has the lowest damage autoattacks …as said by devs….
means you d avoid using autoattacks at all if you can (i do).
Those 20 becomes 16.
Then you can see that some of those remaining 16 have:
-double cooldown compared to other professions
-HALF duration for conditions etc.
That tells a lot ele 20 skills are infact a drawback not a perk.

As I already wrote, some skills have rough edges that will be eventually fixed and some issues you mentioned are actually subjective.
Using or not using autos is your own choice, double cooldown is exaggeration, they are mostly equal – the only drawback I see is cd reduce traits on attunements instead of weapons. And half duration for conditions? Examples, please.

I already did that in the past:
Few fast eamples for CD….

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zealot%27s_Embrace

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shockwave

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Symbol_of_Swiftness

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Windborne_Speed

you can easily do that with any class you ll see half CD or double duration in almost any direct comparison.

And as said ele is one of the classes with the least dps ….while being the squishiest so there are lot of reason to not go GC

Playing balanced compare to being a GC in some other profession for survivability.
Your lack of HP means btw you can heal fast.

But most of all…..do you expect a deserved boost to dmg after last patch?
I think not…..

LordByron.8369:

I already did that in the past:
Few fast eamples for CD….
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zealot%27s_Embrace
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shockwave
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Symbol_of_Swiftness
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Windborne_Speed
you can easily do that with any class you ll see half CD or double duration in almost any direct comparison.

And as said ele is one of the classes with the least dps ….while being the squishiest so there are lot of reason to not go GC
Playing balanced compare to being a GC in some other profession for survivability.
Your lack of HP means btw you can heal fast.
But most of all…..do you expect a deserved boost to dmg after last patch?
I think not…..

Cooldowns look perfectly fine to me in these examples.
You are trying to compare skill that does only immobilize with skill that not only immobilizes but bleeds, acts as projectile finisher and has slightly increased effect radius(though that might be subjective, I don’t really like using hammer on guardian).
Second comparison is also strange. Windborne speed cures chill, cripple and immobilize and also stacks with swiftness from other sources.

As for going GC or not is personal choice only. I’ve seen pure GC eles in action and they were doing just fine. Knowledge of the class and encounters, that what makes GC efficient.

LordByron.8369:

P.S. in fotm 30+ you use positioning and arcane shield to survive :|
Also air 5

probably I play more of GC than you (but I am affraid this will change when I get to fotm30) so positioning is crucial for me even at 10.
Also I hate arcane shield, if it would have 20s cd – then I would consider using it on frac 20 but with 75s cd its waste of util slot. Its really bad I will have to rely on that kitteny long cd in the future :/

eh you need skills to survive…not stats….

Arcane shield is good because you can pop it put to absorb damage when you need it.

Its not a spammable defense, you just use it when you need it.
Or when you need to ress someone (ele is the best resser excluding banners etc)

I personally am forced to use that , mist form and armor of earth.

At 20 i change arcane shield and use arcane wave btw.
But its really awesome for when you need to survive.

i don t get whatequip do you use…
I use
Knight armor with runes of the pack (+power+precision)
Berserker weapons (strength and hydromancy sigils)
PVT backpack
*all stats trinkets mostly.

build varies from day to day.From the common to 10/10/0/20/30

>Its not a spammable defense, you just use it when you need it.

when you need it but not more often than 75s

>I personally am forced to use that , mist form and armor of earth.

I use lighting flash, before I used mist form and arcane shield but later on I found Lighting flash to do better than them in term of protection and overall to be more versatile skill cuz can be used as offensive or for example to solo enable switches where normally 2 players are need (veru usefull in ausra fractal in nab parites)
Ofc depending on fight/situation I end up with totaly different utils but my current “standard” is glyph of storms(v. nice in earth), arcane wave (3 mights, 100% aoe crit + bonuses/heal/vun on crit), Lighting flash (best ele util).

>i don t get whatequip do you use…

you can see my stats on one of the screenshots in my previous post.
Left side is rampager/berserker, right are balanced +all stats (they have v. high crit dmg bonus), wapons are berserker sigil might on crit + 3 might on swap.

Lavadiel.6231:

>Its not a spammable defense, you just use it when you need it.

when you need it but not more often than 75s

>I personally am forced to use that , mist form and armor of earth.

I use lighting flash, before I used mist form and arcane shield but later on I found Lighting flash to do better than them in term of protection and overall to be more versatile skill cuz can be used as offensive or for example to solo enable switches where normally 2 players are need (veru usefull in ausra fractal in nab parites)
Ofc depending on fight/situation I end up with totaly different utils but my current “standard” is glyph of storms(v. nice in earth), arcane wave (3 mights, 100% aoe crit + bonuses/heal/vun on crit), Lighting flash (best ele util).

>i don t get whatequip do you use…

you can see my stats on one of the screenshots in my previous post.
Left side is rampager/berserker, right are balanced +all stats (they have v. high crit dmg bonus), wapons are berserker sigil might on crit + 3 might on swap.

here we do not agree….

out of pvp/www ligthtning flash is meh.

You can stack might with your combos and a single sigil keep you at around 18-25 mights.

You cannot TP around and still do your combo while stacking might AND hitting mobs

So you basically can change might on swap with hydromancy that is really awesome.

At least that is my opinion…and the reason i use arcane shield instead of lightning flash in pve….(also mobs are stupid and do ot evade….positioning is the key…..you just have time to see if they are coming at you or not and pop the shield only when needed).

Mistform is mostly for ressing…..or when you are on full CD .-.

To tell the truth btw asura fractal just screams scepter focus…..rotating focus and right bar you just place in front of asura negating most of his bubbles…

it quite funny because I usually use mist form, arcane shield, armour of earth (one or max 2 of those at same time) in pvp/wvw and I also found hydromancy sigil usefull there … so exact oposite as you.

>screams scepter focus…..

so far I do all the pve content with dd, ofc I know it would be a lot easier if switched to ranged waepon set… still I have to do this only with very very bad (all ranged) parties where I am the only one who is close to mobs/bosses.

For me. D/D beta weekend 2 after the scepter nerf BW1. Tried out the scepter agian at release when I finally made my ele again (bout a few days in). Then went D/D with the 0/0/10/30/30 op Staff build (but with daggers and not staff)

As someone who’s pvp’d and WvW with a d/d ele for a long while; we’re a kitten plague, I’ve shelved my ele until we have more viable options than the absurdity that is D/D.

Most of us will defend the weapon set because we know how sweet we have it.

It has always felt like playing GW2 in easy mode.

Mobility? I don’t think I have enough sir. Wait, what, I can outrun anything? Fine, I’ll take it. Satisfaction guaranteed you say? Deal.
Survivability? Can I have more cantrips? Auras? No? Fine, I’ll make do with tanking a single zerg.
DPS? Kitten it, sure, I’ll have some that too.
Buffs? All of them? Well, why not. Does it come in strawberry flavor? No? Just tears. Fine, i’ll take it in tear flavour.

People complain about thieves, warriors etc; but they usually have an easy enough weakness to exploit. D/D eles? Lawl. how2weakness? Wait. Wait. Strip my boons? Pardon me, I’m late to polish my staff. /RtL

How about some of us eles hang out with the engineers, our silly amount of flexibility may just rub off. Please?

Minion of Vey.4398:

Funny thing is I just happened to select 0/10/0/30/30 like hours before visiting this forum and seeing the big d/d thread with everyone talking about it as the thing.

Was like “Okay I want 30 arcane cuz I definitely want the lowest attunement speed. Really like all the water traits and I can switch back and forth between the 30 one. Last 10 for air so I can be swift all the time, this looks really good”

Then I come to the forums almost immediately and see everyone talking about it as the big thing. Was funny at the time. Though I hadn’t decided on runes yet before visiting. Soon as I heard boon duration runes mentioned I didn’t need to hear any more discussion, it was obvious that was perfect.

Funny, this is exactly how it happened to me too! I was playing the D/D-Ele since Headstart (ofc I tried the other weapons too, but not for long), and I knew this build even before Headstart with the Skill Tools :P The only thing I learned from daphoenix was the boon duration Runes, made this build even more fun to play!

I don’t care how many of these Eles are out there, I love having them in my team ^^ I just hate it that they put +5sec CD on RTL, this really annoys me. Almost everytime I die in WvWvW it’s because these extra seconds :P

Lavadiel.6231:

i>screams scepter focus…..

so far I do all the pve content with dd, ofc I know it would be a lot easier if switched to ranged waepon set… still I have to do this only with very very bad (all ranged) parties where I am the only one who is close to mobs/bosses.

its not about range at all…
I know playing D/D makes feel pro because we are squishy….

But focus with the correct use of the right bar gives an incredible uptime of refection/absorb/invul skills

Its the only weapon with acceptable CD and skill duration for ele in a direct comparison with other classes……

You can stay melee with a focus in pve with no problem…..scepter add another nice defensive skill like earth2

You pay for it with lack of mobility and skills that hits only static targets…..that isn t an issue in pve.

Seems actually that most issues of elementalists comes from being fotm.
PvE is the actual proof of that….you see so many staff elementalist while in pve there are far superior weapons even without changing traits.

I was lazy and didn t try them….

I knew from wiki we had some defensive potential in scepter/focus and one day i was in a pug fractal lvl 34 with a terrible party stuck at lava shaman….

So i decided to give the weaponset a try…..was Crystal clear how strong those weapon are even after few minutes.

We still have issues with high dmage mobile targets….no weaponset is good against them…only D/D is fast enough but staying in melee may not be viable.

>So i decided to give the weaponset a try…..was Crystal clear how
>strong those weapon are even after few minutes.

I know how strong they are and for many ocasions they are a lot stronger than dd, sometimes even they are required – like you did need them in frac 34 lava shaman, haviz need them for soloing lupi etc.
In “High level fractal discussion threads” Krag wrote what weapon set he is using on hi level fractasl and it turned out that dd is effective (best choice) only for trash mobs. Scepter/x is the way to go for harder encounters. Imho same goes for pvp/wvw, dd is best choice vs trash players, you can not 1v1 kill any decent (or other tank) player as tank dd. Also best pvp elementalists I saw (chieftain ninjas) plays usually with scepter and berserker amul.

Musph.6109:

Mobility? I don’t think I have enough sir. Wait, what, I can outrun anything? Fine, I’ll take it. Satisfaction guaranteed you say? Deal.

…

How about some of us eles hang out with the engineers, our silly amount of flexibility may just rub off. Please?

You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about. Elementalist mobility is still good, but its nowhere NEAR the best in the game. Thief is obviously far superior and after that you most likely have GS, Sword / Warhorn Warrior. The RtL nerf and Magnetic Grasp change means Elementalists have a tough time getting away from most things now.

And you don’t seem to realize just how insanely good Engineers can be. Try fighting some Engineers that know what they are doing as opposed to people that are clueless about their class.

Intigo.1653:

You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about.
And you don’t seem to realize just how insanely good Engineers can be.

the problem is that from his point of view he know what he is talking about. He just never fouht against a good engi or other good player. He indeed is killing (or rather running/not dying from) average/small wvw zergs. Basically he is playing a different game than you play and totally different (because of teamply) game than for example chieftain ninjas play on tournaments.

You, Musph and Purie (chieftain ninjas best ele) will have 3 totally different opinions on how OP or UP dd ele is. It depents who, where, and agains who played it.

Intigo.1653:

Musph.6109:

Mobility? I don’t think I have enough sir. Wait, what, I can outrun anything? Fine, I’ll take it. Satisfaction guaranteed you say? Deal.

…

How about some of us eles hang out with the engineers, our silly amount of flexibility may just rub off. Please?

You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about. Elementalist mobility is still good, but its nowhere NEAR the best in the game. Thief is obviously far superior and after that you most likely have GS, Sword / Warhorn Warrior. The RtL nerf and Magnetic Grasp change means Elementalists have a tough time getting away from most things now.

And you don’t seem to realize just how insanely good Engineers can be. Try fighting some Engineers that know what they are doing as opposed to people that are clueless about their class.

check his posts…
report and go on….

try to not feed flames….

I was saying “give us weapon swap” before it was cool. Hipster Grevy
LordByron is right, listen to the dude…

Excuse me, I haven’t been around in a while now… What does GC mean?

Truga.5897:

Excuse me, I haven’t been around in a while now… What does GC mean?

both ele and warrior on this movie (0:27-0:38) are GC,
http://youtu.be/vQkhUOoltWA?t=27s

Graybes.8251:

I’ve had this game since(before) release day and I remember when I first started playing I tried out every single profession and tried most weapon combinations for the first couple of days. Nothing seemed to click with me until I tried out this “weird” dual dagger elementalist and absolutely loved it. Back then every elementalist you ran into used scepter or staff. I remember never seeing other elementalists with dual daggers.

After playing for a bit I took a long break from this game and just came back a few weeks ago. Now it seems like d/d elementalist is one of the most popular builds in the game. What happened when I was gone?!

I would say October (I believe, bad with time) when ANET announced that bunker eles were over preforming.

Intigo.1653:

You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about. Elementalist mobility is still good, but its nowhere NEAR the best in the game.

Contradicted by the devs in their recent interview…something about mobility and skirmishing is supposed to be best accomplished by theives, and currently eles far outshining them in this aspect.

Bombul.2506:

Intigo.1653:

You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about. Elementalist mobility is still good, but its nowhere NEAR the best in the game.

Contradicted by the devs in their recent interview…something about mobility and skirmishing is supposed to be best accomplished by theives, and currently eles far outshining them in this aspect.

If they honestly said that and you’re not paraphrasing badly then they are simply incompetent.

Intigo.1653:

Bombul.2506:

Intigo.1653:

You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about. Elementalist mobility is still good, but its nowhere NEAR the best in the game.

Contradicted by the devs in their recent interview…something about mobility and skirmishing is supposed to be best accomplished by theives, and currently eles far outshining them in this aspect.

If they honestly said that and you’re not paraphrasing badly then they are simply incompetent.

They said it, and it proves once again that as usual, devs know nothing about pvp…like in every game ever.

how many threads are we gonna have on “why is dnd popular”?