Guild Wars 2

Stats-wise, we are the squishiest class in the game. So where are our active defense skills?

Elementalists, with the least health and armor in the game, are expected to play with nearly 0 active mitigation. Sure you can take focus, but that only buys you 3 seconds against a melee attacker, and comes at the cost of the mobility to actually get close to a good kiting ranged attacker.

Think about it like this. What can you even do with D/D to prevent yourself from taking damage? Dodge, dodge, attempt to disengage, soak damage and heal. Every other non-heavy melee set in the game avoids damage better.

Ranger sword/dagger? Evades (that also damage) under 10s cd. Mesmer? Built in distortion, sword distortion (also does damage), focus provides ranged protection AND vast gap closing capability. Thieves? lolstealth, no cd evasion skills that also do damage.

It used to be that dagger offhand could at least disengage with RTL, but now that arenanet has decided RTL needs to be in line with other professions’ mobility skills (even though they have other options besides just mobility), we’re bum out of luck in that department too.

So how am I supposed to do anything BUT build bunker stats and remain comparable?Why would I invest into any trees BUT water/arcane, if my only options against incoming damage are healing and boon uptime? Why am I, the lowest base stat profession, forced to soak damage if I want to melee? Is there some sort of alternative trait setup that I’m not seeing? Some way of playing a melee elementalist that doesn’t involve just healing through all the hits you have to take?

Anet broke the class completly today. There is no way you survive a stun warrior + some condition build anymore. I’m away here. Cya in the mesmer forums.

Ohh ofcourse, we got a buff in staff. That is super useful (if you have an entire zerg around you to remove direct focus, ofcourse).

The active defense was healing and tons of boons… people complained, so it got nerfed to the ground quite a while ago.

Last I checked, Eles have two invulnerability skills, extremely high protection uptime, frequent condition cleanses, and frequent healing, none of which got removed in this patch. All that happened to the popular D/D build was that it lost some stunbreakers.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Last I checked, Eles have two invulnerability skills, extremely high protection uptime, frequent condition cleanses, and frequent healing, none of which got removed in this patch. All that happened to the popular D/D build was that it lost some stunbreakers.

I am talking about previous patches.

Here is a pic of a mediocre Guardian with all of the above, but higher base stats in almost every regard.

Avatar Yirachi.7162:

Anet broke the class completly today. There is no way you survive a stun warrior + some condition build anymore. I’m away here. Cya in the mesmer forums.

Enjoy the class that probably got the biggest nerfs next to rangers cya later!!

Ele went from 4 stun breakers to 5 I dont see how they killed the class. Im running arcane shield now instead of mist form and I love it

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Last I checked, Eles have two invulnerability skills, extremely high protection uptime, frequent condition cleanses, and frequent healing, none of which got removed in this patch. All that happened to the popular D/D build was that it lost some stunbreakers.

I think what OP is expressing the fact that in order to get the above benefits ie. survival necessities, we have to trait heavily into arcane and water.

This limits our builds considerably if we are playing small group or solo roaming. Almost all our hard hitting skills have ridiculous cast times which often requires cc to make them hit in a reliable fashion….with cc skills going on cooldown for long periods after.

We’ll just have to see what these “buffs” to staff and traits do in real time combat as to many changes are occurring within a single patch to determine the “balancing effectiveness” between classes.

Avatar Yirachi.7162:

Anet broke the class completly today. There is no way you survive a stun warrior + some condition build anymore. I’m away here. Cya in the mesmer forums.

QFT, Elementalist class is completely dead now.

Next up, my theif, then after that my warrior, and by then maybe by the time that nerf bat hits someone with a clue with have created a decent mmo to replace this.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Last I checked, Eles have two invulnerability skills, extremely high protection uptime, frequent condition cleanses, and frequent healing, none of which got removed in this patch. All that happened to the popular D/D build was that it lost some stunbreakers.

The point is that normal damage output doesn’t really kill an ele unless you’re either stunned, imobilized, frozen or crippled. Then I do not understand why I’m not allowed to counter that.

(We can still counter it, ofcourse.. with the most USELESS skills an ele has)

As I said on some other post before our active defense are actually auras. But they’re not as ready available as thief stealth or mesmer clones. Also it’s quite hard or almost impossible to get all auras in 1 build. I hope anet makes auras more accessible so that we at least can use our supposed active defense more

Weeeel, we actually got better against hard cc. Between having 2 percent health stunbreaks, arcane shield now stunbreaking, and Rock Solid being moved to tier2, Eles would probs actually be my choice against a hard cc opponent.

That really doesn’t have anything to do with our combat effectiveness tho. How are heals/boons active defense? Those are the most passive possible defenses. Arenanet themselves admit that healing is a passive form of support, and that was one of the reasons they wouldn’t have dedicated healers in this game. But right now, melee elementalists essentially have to be dedicated to healing themselves. Regarding boons, are those interesting/active in any way? You get forced to take a Elemental Attunement and 30 Arcane so you can keep up regen/protection, then you just hit those cooldowns to keep them up.

Also note that the OP was made before the patch. This is a complain about general trends, not the specific changes in this patch. Arcane shield bufkittend of helps this problem, but only a teensy bit, and really not even close to changes the situation.

Mist form and focus! But i guess no one wants to build for something or use any thing but all in dmg AND have the ability to take hits like an all in def build for any other class in the game right?

I actually like focus. But there’s something wrong if a full-defensive weapon offers 5 sec invuln every 50 seconds, when another class has 2 second invuln + damage on a 10 sec cooldown on an offensive weapon. Even spamming Mist Form + Obsidian Flesh on cooldown offers a worse invuln uptime than Blurred Frenzy alone.

We have so many defensive skills and utilites, even more than any of the other professions.

“Where is our active defense?” Are you flippin’ serious?
Some people shouldn’t be playing this game . . .

Ugh shocking aura now breaks blurred frenzy, frost aura grants an additional 10% damage reduction, updraft is a dodge usable while immobed, ring of earth cripples, earth quake knocks people down, lightning touch gives weakness which is now amazing, Frozen burst snares people and Magnetic grasp immobs people. To add to this every skill has a 300 range on it. Which puts you out of range for melee and able to negate other classes defensive abilties like black powerder.

So many USEFUL abilities that people go and use just because they can with little thought about how they could use it to benefit them. D/D is an amazing weapon set if you’re having a hard time defending yourself with it you’re doing something wrong.

Are you people replying even playing WvW as D/D? Because none of those things matter anymore.

The buffs that the other classes received over-ride the lack of buffs that D/D got. Staff is moderately better when played, and amazingly better on paper. Condition builds are still horrible.

katniss.6735:

Are you people replying even playing WvW as D/D? Because none of those things matter anymore.

The buffs that the other classes received over-ride the lack of buffs that D/D got. Staff is moderately better when played, and amazingly better on paper. Condition builds are still horrible.

Yeah sure am and I’m still able to 1v2 without even thinking about it. Funny thing is I’m still using LF, CF and MF because nothing else appeals to me all that much.

katniss.6735:

Are you people replying even playing WvW as D/D? Because none of those things matter anymore.

The buffs that the other classes received over-ride the lack of buffs that D/D got. Staff is moderately better when played, and amazingly better on paper. Condition builds are still horrible.

Active defense for ele is burst healing, the aura’s, endurance regen traits, cone of cold (hey dude Im attacking you and healing at the same time). Hey dude I just techinically swapped weapons to water I haz regen 2 types if I traited.

Oh your hitting me let me pop armor of earth or arcane shield.

What other defense do you want? The buffs to thieves is that better than what d/d eles got? I don’t now about that S/D can no longer use infiltrators strike as a stun break they can’t even shadow return when stunned but my ele can still lightning flash away while stunned. The daze from sword got nerfed and larcenous strike costs more ini. Death blossom with its built in evade costs 4 ini now. A burst thief running skale venom for its new torment is gimping himself when he could use signets of power since that got buffed. You know every thief has to run shadow refuge and shadow step.

Don’t know much about rangers but everyone said they got nerfed more than buffed.

Dont know much about necro’s

Mesmers nerfed phantasm starting hp, hp with signet of illusions and with trait, illusionist celerity which was the #1 trait that every mesmer build had is now 25 point in illusions meaning if they want illusions doing +30% more damage and illusion summoning skills recharge 20% faster like they could have pre path they have to commit 60 trait points to do so now. Pre patch they only needed to commit 40 skill points. Blurred frenzy is now evade instead of invuln and now is a 12 sec recharge.

Also the move of illusionist celerity to grandmaster minor directly affects 15 skills for mesmers.

Warriors are better imo now than before but they needed the buffs but 2 very very popular adept traits got moved to grandmaster. So they got buffed to deal with conditions but lost damage.

that are only PvE nerfs and shatter build was untouched….

That means they only removed diversity leaving the untouched some builds and deleting completely Others just putting phantasm traits in a shatter traitline…

LordByron.8369:

that are only PvE nerfs and shatter build was untouched….

That means they only removed diversity leaving the untouched some builds and deleting completely Others just putting phantasm traits in a shatter traitline…

I agree but it is still a net nerf and far more harsh than what Elementalist received. Thats basically nerfing in a sense attunement recharge rate if you wanted to make any kind of comparison.

The HP change to phantasm was buffed in PvE

Prior to the patch
Normal phantasm base hp: 2080
With trait + SoIll: 6656
Defender base hp: 5400
With trait + SoIll: 17280

Changes in PvE (assuming increasing by 270% equates to a modifier of x3.7)
Base hp: 7696
With trait + SoIll: 13083
Defender base: 19980
With trait +SoIll: 33900

Changes in PvP and WvW (assuming increasing by 55% equates to a modifier of 1.55)
Base hp: 3224
With trait + SoIll: 5480
Defender base: 8370
With trait + SoIll: 14229

That 5 point trait was taken in almost every build and if you didn’t take it you kitten yourself. Now it requires a 25 point investment. True it doesn’t affect shatter mesmers though. Since they go for illusionary persona anyway.

Blinds got a LOT more powerful, so your air dodge-roll with evasive arcana actually mitigates a decent amount of damage now. Also, the signet of air is an instant-cast, 30s recharg, stun-break that does aoe-blinds, which also mitigates a good deal of damage. Freezing people with water 3 or when the attack while you have the water aura, as well as the stun from the air aura, are also very good active defenses. Finally, we have heals, boons (protection and stability can be had rather easily now), and mistform/arcane shield. All of these things give us some pretty rocking defenses.

Our class has the most survivability in the game, and paired with a good build it can be deadly. Make a build that works for you, and learn the class a bit better. If that doesn’t help, elementalist is not for you.

I do not have a L2P problem with elementalists. I play a roaming full berserker D/D elementalist in WvW, going 25/20/0/15/10, and eat thieves alive. I solo points and dive zergs for kills. Back when I played PvE I took the same build up through FotM 30s. Don’t come here and try and tell me I don’t understand the class, especially when you’re telling me things like “blinds got way more powerful” and “frozen burst snares”. Lol.

Also, why would an "all in damage* elementalist be a problem? Is there something inherently wrong with this playstyle? If we want to play melee, we should all be forced into healing boon builds, why? I thought the idea here was to have options. Right now, if we play the option that involves melee and burst damage, we have significantly less to rely on for damage mitigation than other, less squishy classes.

Back to reasonable discussion please.

There are two common misconceptions here.

1: Healing/Boon Upkeep constitutes active defense. Arenanet’s blog (which I would link, but can’t find anymore) specifically had an article addressing how passive healing was as a defensive mechanism, and why they didn’t want it to be the primary method of damage mitigation. Why? Because you have to take the hits anyway. It is reactive, and not strategic. You reach a health threshold, and you press a button to see the health go back up. There is no way that you can improve the usage of your healing by skill. You can not cast healing ripple and get it to mitigate more damage because you were good.

Boons have the same problem when used like the elementalist uses them. Sure, we have a few powerful short duration boons, like Rock Solid being great anticipatory gameplay against heavy control build, but really, when people suggest boons as damage mitigation they mean stacking regen and protection whenever they’re off cooldown. This has the same problem as healing – It requires you to take the hits, forcing you to build defensive stats, and isn’t affected by how you use it past a very minimal degree (watching for poison, overhealing, failing to sustain boons are really the only things you can do wrong).

And thats why this is a problem. I’m not here to tell you bunker is evil and zerker-way-only-way. But we need damage mitigation that DOESN’T depend on having defensive stats in order for any stat builds besides bunker to truly be competitive. To have comparable damage mitigation as an elementalist currently, you MUST take healing ripple, you MUST have some degree of vitality to tide you through burst, and you MUST have high boon duration. This is holding back build variability for melee elementalists.

2. “Elementalists have more active defense than any other class.” I really don’t understand where people are getting this sentiment. Its kind of what you might expect out of class balance, but really, its not even close to true. Guardianslol. But let me take a closer look here, just to actually, you know, back up my point. I’m not going to compare us against Warriors, because the base stat differential makes it kind of apples to oranges. Nor am I going to bother with Engineers, because they don’t actually have a melee weapon set. For these other comparisons, I’m only going to have the time to look at one of their weapons. Keep in mind that these classes can swap weapons, and the weapons I go over will probably be the optimal choice for an offensive melee option.

Mesmers- Mist Form and Obsidian Flesh combined are beat out by invulnerability uptime from just sword 2, which also provides damage and is up more often. “But they can’t stomp like mist form can”, or can they? With Distortion, that grants, you guessed it, 3 seconds of invulnerability on a 60 second cooldown, and doesn’t lock any of their skills? Toss in clones, stealth capability on offhand, and confusion as a defense that actually makes you want to stop hitting them. We get permavigor for 10 trait points? They get it for 5.

Thieves- No cooldown evasion makes it impossible to compare uptime. Triple dodges and permavigor options. Endurance refills. Stealth just pushes it over the top.

Rangers- Better evasion uptime from sword/dagger than, again, mist form and obsidian flesh combined. They also have their utility skill parallel to mist form which doesn’t lock any of their weapon skills. RaO is the #1 stability skill in the game, also tossing in might/fury for good measure. Pet CC means they don’t have to give up any cooldowns for engages or disables. If they choose to take greatsword on the swap, they’re probably the best direct comparison as a melee limited set with no stealth/clones to fall back on. Greatsword, in addition to the evasion and combat mobility of sword/dagger, which already beats out elementalist options, grants them a gap closer that beats rtl/burning speed combined, a 25% uptime block on 12 second cooldown that also interrupts in melee range, and a combination of hard cc and pet burst. Then remember that they have both more health and more armor, for free.

Elementalists- Mist form and Obi flesh which, as already shown, are outclassed by other professions. Arcane shield, against anybody who’s watching for it, is either an excuse to send out an autoattack chain, and eat the wave, which does pitiful damage thanks to your healing and boon investment, or a simple disengage for 5 seconds, which you can’t chase down thanks focus offhand. Obi flesh demands focus offhand, which nullifys updraft evade, and is the single, count’em, single skill on focus that will defend you in melee. If we count gale’s 2 second knockdown on 50 second cooldown, do we even want to compare against mesmer diversion, ranger pet fears, thieves with basilisk/tactical strike? Chills and Cripples? What, are you trying to kite them with the 120 range differential you have on some of your skills? Comet will never hit anybody looking for it. Swirling and Mag projectile hate are nullified by the other classes’ options to simply swap to non projectile weapons.

How again do we have more active defense than any other class? Please, try to actually look at the facts, instead of your mental impression.

I totally agree. The only other viable option we have now is bursting them very hard with scepter dagger and hope they can’t hit back.

Linnael.1069:

Thieves- No cooldown evasion makes it impossible to compare uptime.

You could use the initiative regen as effective coodown. Base regen is 1 initiative per 1.33s, so you multiply the initiative cost by 4/3 to get the cooldown. That cooldown is the absolute maximum cd, since there are many initiative regenerating skills and traits.

Here a list of initiative regeneration with additional initiative every 10 seconds:

• 10/(10*3/4 + 0) = 1.33 (base regen, no additional initiative)
• 10/(10*3/4 + 1) = 1.17 (Infiltrator’s Signet)
• 10/(10*3/4 + 2) = 1.05 (Quick Recovery = 20% cooldown reduction on all weapon skills)
• 10/(10*3/4 + 3) = 0.95 (Infiltrator’s Signet + Quick Recovery)
• 10/(10*3/4 + 4) = 0.87 (4 crits every 10 seconds … sounds reasonable)
• 10/(10*3/4 + 5) = 0.80 (still easily archieved with skills and traits)
• 10/(10*3/4 + 6) = 0.74 (cd changed from 4s per 3 initiative cost to to 3s/4init)
• 10/(10*3/4 + 7.5) = 2/3 (magic point where cooldowns are halved)

pmnt.4067:

Linnael.1069:

Thieves- No cooldown evasion makes it impossible to compare uptime.

You could use the initiative regen as effective coodown. Base regen is 1 initiative per 1.33s, so you multiply the initiative cost by 4/3 to get the cooldown. That cooldown is the absolute maximum cd, since there are many initiative regenerating skills and traits.

Here a list of initiative regeneration with additional initiative every 10 seconds:

• 10/(10*3/4 + 0) = 1.33 (base regen, no additional initiative)
• 10/(10*3/4 + 1) = 1.17 (Infiltrator’s Signet)
• 10/(10*3/4 + 2) = 1.05 (Quick Recovery = 20% cooldown reduction on all weapon skills)
• 10/(10*3/4 + 3) = 0.95 (Infiltrator’s Signet + Quick Recovery)
• 10/(10*3/4 + 4) = 0.87 (4 crits every 10 seconds … sounds reasonable)
• 10/(10*3/4 + 5) = 0.80 (still easily archieved with skills and traits)
• 10/(10*3/4 + 6) = 0.74 (cd changed from 4s per 3 initiative cost to to 3s/4init)
• 10/(10*3/4 + 7.5) = 2/3 (magic point where cooldowns are halved)

Thanks for these numbers. They’re pretty cool for theorycrafting thief encounters actually.

I’m not really confident they actually represent the usability of the skills in question tho. Most of the time thieves have a set engagement pattern that burns some of their initiative load, which combined with the fact that evasive and offensive skills share initiative, and the numerous initiative regeneration mechanisms you mention, mean that I can’t really feel confident using duration/cooldown uptime like I would be for other professions where skill cooldowns are essentially unaffected by other skills. Combine this with the flexibility to cast multiple times in a row and pay off the deficit later, and initiative is just too wonky to really work with.

Bahaha you’re using full berserker gear with a trait set up to match with a melee weapon set, you’re delusional. Any melee class rolling berserker gets stomped on by anyone with a clue.

If you’re willing to completely kitten you’re self that’s your issue not the classes. I have hit as high as a 12k burning speed on a bunker guardian and I still have 2.5k armor with 15k health.

You’re knowledge on other classes is so far off it’s not even remotely funny to the point where I can’t even be bothered it would take me so long to correct you.

I’m sorry but it is a L2P issue nothing more nothing less (I wasn’t going to say it but you bought it up).

Mithfir.1038:

My burning speed hakitten for 12k on a bunker guardian and I still have 2.5k armor with 15k health.

lol.

Also: YOUR

12k burning speed on a bunker guardian. E-stats.

Mithfir.1038:

Bahaha you’re using full berserker gear with a trait set up to match with a melee weapon set, you’re delusional. Any melee class rolling berserker gets stomped on by anyone with a clue.

If you’re willing to completely kitten you’re self that’s your issue not the classes. I have hit as high as a 12k burning speed on a bunker guardian and I still have 2.5k armor with 15k health.

You’re knowledge on other classes is so far off it’s not even remotely funny to the point where I can’t even be bothered it would take me so long to correct you.

I’m sorry but it is a L2P issue nothing more nothing less (I wasn’t going to say it but you bought it up).

you are really missing his point. the reason that damage-heavy d/d is non viable is because there is a lack of any defense without going water or arcane and our class has terrible starting stats. there needs to be some good, solid, defensive traits in fire and air, similar to final shielding and automatic-armor-of-earth.

and you’re flat out wrong about other classes. there are plenty of successful high power/crit damage thieves (active defense: stealth), rangers (active defense: evasion), warriors (passive defense: armor and health), guardians (passive and active defense: armor, aegis, huge base heals), mesmers (active defense: clones, stealth), and as of the latest patch, necros (passive and active defense: health, deathshroud).

Ele’s can get an active defense by using evasive arcana and 15 into water, but that pretty much rules out being able to do comparable dps. add onto this the lowest hp/armor, and we have to give up more damage than other classes just to gear our survivability (armor/health) to a level they achieve for free.

Mithfir.1038:

Bahaha you’re using full berserker gear with a trait set up to match with a melee weapon set, you’re delusional. Any melee class rolling berserker gets stomped on by anyone with a clue.

If you’re willing to completely kitten you’re self that’s your issue not the classes. I have hit as high as a 12k burning speed on a bunker guardian and I still have 2.5k armor with 15k health.

You’re knowledge on other classes is so far off it’s not even remotely funny to the point where I can’t even be bothered it would take me so long to correct you.

I’m sorry but it is a L2P issue nothing more nothing less (I wasn’t going to say it but you bought it up).

Here’s the difference between you and I. You think Berserker D/D is so impossible that it must be making me fail. I am good enough to play it well and recognize problematic trends.

I really try to avoid doing this, but you irk me so what the hell. Message Cuffs and ask him about the elementalist he dueled on SBI the day before yesterday. I have a feeling the thief ranked 286th in NA has a clue.

The limited options I talk about in those reasoned posts that you haven’t bothered to refute are a maximum capacity limitation. Berserker D/D plays well up to 1v2 situations. The problem, and the reason the playstyle doesn’t match up in a balanced way, is because the build breaks down once your opponents have too much outgoing damage relative to the incoming damage as a whole that their entire group takes. Playing in a 5-man roaming party and running into another 5-man rapidly shows the problems here, as all our defense options require survivability stat investment, and without them are only small patches on a gaping wound. Compare this to the myriad of other melee berserker builds out there for other classes, that have active defense independent of stat investment, and thus fare much better in 1vX / XvX situations.

In summary, you seem to be under the impression that I’m complaining about the class not being good enough. What I’m actually doing is pointing out that a certain playstyle, following the example set by other professions, has every right to be viable up to a much higher level than it is currently, but is limited by a set of passive defenses rely more on statistics than skillful gameplay.

I’m laughing my cheeks off at 12k btw. Dem bunker guardians these days.

Raven.9603:

you are really missing his point. the reason that damage-heavy d/d is non viable is because there is a lack of any defense without going water or arcane and our class has terrible starting stats. there needs to be some good, solid, defensive traits in fire and air, similar to final shielding and automatic-armor-of-earth.

and you’re flat out wrong about other classes. there are plenty of successful high power/crit damage thieves (active defense: stealth), rangers (active defense: evasion), warriors (passive defense: armor and health), guardians (passive and active defense: armor, aegis, huge base heals), mesmers (active defense: clones, stealth), and as of the latest patch, necros (passive and active defense: health, deathshroud).

Ele’s can get an active defense by using evasive arcana and 15 into water, but that pretty much rules out being able to do comparable dps. add onto this the lowest hp/armor, and we have to give up more damage than other classes just to gear our survivability (armor/health) to a level they achieve for free.

I’ll break down each class that you mentioned individually and how I would go about countering them with just the skills on the D/D weapon set. Though I have limited time at the moment so I will try to get through what I can. Note I always engage in Air.

Thief: Shocking Aura then Updraft if he used Basilisk otherwise just Updraft. Swap to fire when he is on the ground, at this point he is most likely expecting to cop a Blazing Speed so he will Shadow Step so fake him out by using Drake’s Breath. Now he has most likely used Steal to engage you and Shadow Step to get out of your Updraft assuming he is D/D he is going to be running at you to try and stealth again this is when you use Burning Speed to keep distance on him to prevent this follow up with a ring of fire. Swap to earth depending on how close he is I would probably go for Magnetic Grasp first and get a few auto attacks off. At this point he is most likely going to try and throw down a refuge so I would quickly chain into a Earth Quake followed with a Ring of Earth. At this point they are usually dead or close to so if I need to I will follow up by swapping to Water and using Cone of Cold.

If he is running D/P you can use the same sort of tactic but attack around his black power since he will be leaping through it for the stealth.

Warrior: First thing I do is kitten what their opening weapon is. If its a Rifle I RTL in and throw up Shocking Aura expecting them to Rifle Butt me. If their opening weapon is Great Sword, Hammer, Axe I keep my distance and wait for 1 of 3 things, 1. Bolas 2. Bulls Charge or 3. Which now brings both scenarios together. If they hit you while you have Shocking Aura up and stability pops up you have a couple of options depending how they engaged you. If you are stuck in Bola’s I would Updraft towards the end of the chain to mitigate the final parts of the chain or if I wakitten with bulls I would go to Water and throw up Frost Aura. If you’re lucky to live through it my next move would be to use Frozen Burst to keep them snared. Then switch to Earth and use Magnetic Grasp followed by Ring of Earth while keeping the gap open. Essentially the rest of the fight would go like this keeping distance while looking for stability to make sure you don’t burn skills in vein.

As I said to a Mesmer friend of mine who was kittening about condi’s. Identify your builds weakness and try to mitigate it as best you can. My builds weakness? Stuns and Daze. How do I mitigate it? Intelligent use of terrain to mitigate damage when I am unable to defend myself.

Linnael.1069:

Mithfir.1038:

Bahaha you’re using full berserker gear with a trait set up to match with a melee weapon set, you’re delusional. Any melee class rolling berserker gets stomped on by anyone with a clue.

If you’re willing to completely kitten you’re self that’s your issue not the classes. I have hit as high as a 12k burning speed on a bunker guardian and I still have 2.5k armor with 15k health.

You’re knowledge on other classes is so far off it’s not even remotely funny to the point where I can’t even be bothered it would take me so long to correct you.

I’m sorry but it is a L2P issue nothing more nothing less (I wasn’t going to say it but you bought it up).

Here’s the difference between you and I. You think Berserker D/D is so impossible that it must be making me fail. I am good enough to play it well and recognize problematic trends.

I really try to avoid doing this, but you irk me so what the hell. Message Cuffs and ask him about the elementalist he dueled on SBI the day before yesterday. I have a feeling the thief ranked 286th in NA has a clue.

The limited options I talk about in those reasoned posts that you haven’t bothered to refute are a maximum capacity limitation. Berserker D/D plays well up to 1v2 situations. The problem, and the reason the playstyle doesn’t match up in a balanced way, is because the build breaks down once your opponents have too much outgoing damage relative to the incoming damage as a whole that their entire group takes. Playing in a 5-man roaming party and running into another 5-man rapidly shows the problems here, as all our defense options require survivability stat investment, and without them are only small patches on a gaping wound. Compare this to the myriad of other melee berserker builds out there for other classes, that have active defense independent of stat investment, and thus fare much better in 1vX / XvX situations.

In summary, you seem to be under the impression that I’m complaining about the class not being good enough. What I’m actually doing is pointing out that a certain playstyle, following the example set by other professions, has every right to be viable up to a much higher level than it is currently, but is limited by a set of passive defenses rely more on statistics than skillful gameplay.

I’m laughing my cheeks off at 12k btw. Dem bunker guardians these days.

Any class running zerker gets melted its not an ele issue its the way the game is. Zerker Thiefs have nothing if their burst fails, Warriors have nothing once their combo fails, Mesmers are highly susceptible to condis once their burst fails, Zerker Guardians are highly susceptible to being kited see the pattern?

I don’t think it is an impossible play style but instead of looking at your build objectively and saying what are my weakness’s you’re looking to classes who you feel are better which is insignificant because believe it or not their zerker builds have their own weakness’s.

Look at your own build objectively and identify where its weak and work with it instead of looking and comparing to other classes because believe me they all have their own weakness’s.

Nobody here has personal problems playing. Nobody is saying “waaah, teach me how to build” We are past that level already. We are expressing opinions about class imbalances that lead to option limitation. If you would kindly reexamine the OP, there’s quite a hefty section about the objective weaknesses of the elementalist as a whole. And then, precisely because there are other classes whose weaknesses we must compare our own to, there a comparison to those other classes. It quite nicely refutes your opinion that “Thieves have nothing if their burst fails” (lolsrsly), or that mesmers somehow get trashed by condition damage when they use zerker. Glass warriors, btw, don’t have a set combo. They have 3-5 hard CCs that they can play any way they want to lock you down and just DPS you to death. And seriously, of all the classes, you think guardian is most vulnerable to ranged kiting? 1200 range snare, 2 leaps, teleport, pull, built in projectile denial?

According to the QQ, our OP active defense is getting downed in range of portal/door in W3 so we can Vapour Form to safety which just happens to be ALL W3 is about apparently =="

Fine with the way things are since it ‘forces’ you to become a better player not relying on readily available buttons to defend yourself which is why we’re considered OP all the time. We have to put in a lot of effort (and dodging) to survive and people don’t like that

Edit: in other words, we have a lot of passive and player active defense and not many ‘press a single a button’ actives so that’s where our strength lies.

Our active defense is being able to heal a lot, and having decent amounts of control skills (chill, cripple.etc).

Stop comparing us to Mesmers or Thieves – they are bad game design. A class whose survivability is intrinsically built in to such a high degree (invulnerability, clones, stealth, super high mobility, no-CD teleports.etc) is really hard to balance because it leaves them free to build glassy while maintaining survivability.

How many glass Mesmers/Thieves do you see? Most of them invest heavily into offensive stats (maybe not completely glass) because they can.

On the other hand, a glass cannon Warrior/Guardian requires significant trade-offs because to deal such high damage they actually need to be less survivable by a noticeable amount (traits, gear.etc). This is good design. High risk, high reward.

Personally I think we are in a good spot right now – bunker builds scale well, and glass cannon S/D burst needs backing from traits+gear to actually burst someone, as well as sacrificing utility slots, which means that it dies fast.

Disclaimer: I’m not saying that there is no loss of survivability when a Mesmer/Thief builds glassy, but just less.

And yes, I have them both at lv 80 with full exotics. The Mesmer has at least one weakness in their natural lack of condition removal. The Thief? Only reason I don’t play it 24/7 is that it will inevitably get nerfed. (Also D/P 5-2-1 is really boring and OP)

Sunflowers.1729:

Our active defense is being able to heal a lot, and having decent amounts of control skills (chill, cripple.etc).

Stop comparing us to Mesmers or Thieves – they are bad game design. A class whose survivability is intrinsically built in to such a high degree (invulnerability, clones, stealth, super high mobility, no-CD teleports.etc) is really hard to balance because it leaves them free to build glassy while maintaining survivability.

How many glass Mesmers/Thieves do you see? Most of them invest heavily into offensive stats (maybe not completely glass) because they can.

On the other hand, a glass cannon Warrior/Guardian requires significant trade-offs because to deal such high damage they actually need to be less survivable by a noticeable amount (traits, gear.etc). This is good design. High risk, high reward.

Personally I think we are in a good spot right now – bunker builds scale well, and glass cannon S/D burst needs backing from traits+gear to actually burst someone, as well as sacrificing utility slots, which means that it dies fast.

Disclaimer: I’m not saying that there is no loss of survivability when a Mesmer/Thief builds glassy, but just less.

And yes, I have them both at lv 80 with full exotics. The Mesmer has at least one weakness in their natural lack of condition removal. The Thief? Only reason I don’t play it 24/7 is that it will inevitably get nerfed. (Also D/P 5-2-1 is really boring and OP)

Class balance is impossible if we just ignore other classes because they have problems too. This is the state of the game, and this is the environment that we have to play in. And really, rangers/guardians play melee glass very well too. Its not just thieves and mesmers we’re talking about here. Those are just the closest in terms of base stats and thus the closest balance comparison.

I don’t feel like its a problems that these other professions can build full glass.

Does it invalidate other builds? Are zerg support mesmers any less effective because they could be bursting really hard if they picked a different setup? No. It leaves a wide range of build options open. You see a lot of them play glass because a lot of people like things to die fast. Its a player preference choice. The player is being given that option, and a lot of them take it because they want to, not because they need to

Does the elementalist’s reliance on passively soaking damage invalidate other builds? Is berserker melee elementalist widely considered a terrible idea? Yes. It limits builds to one end of the spectrum, the invest in survivability stats side. It is a mechanic limited choice. Most players must take this one option because they need to