Guild Wars 2

I just made a Charr ele after this outfit patch, since I can finally make a Charr Ele who looks good but I want to pvp eventually, and my past level 1 practice spvp eles were disasters. I honestly hate the idea of dual wielding daggers, but I don’t mind so much Scepter/Dagger, Dagger/Focus, Staff, or Scepter Focus (just thematically I guess). My question is, is D/D the only viable pvp? 99.9% of Ele’s seem to run with that, and i’d like to bring my fat beastman magicman into PvP, but all my friends say expecting to PvP on an elementalist is a huge mistake i’m going to regret (at least coming from an engineer, where pvp is just me killing large masses by myself).

Anyway, the weaponskills thus far are so random and jumbled to me. It seems that staff is designed for AOE, and thats easy to tell.. but everything else is odd. Daggers you might consider close range, but have lots of support.. and same with focus and scepter.. Its just a big jumble of all sorts of ranges and damage ranges. What is it that makes D/D the be all end all for everybody? I don’t get it.

Currently i play S/d fresh air in pvp (mostly) and some others build .I can say alot of players roll ele cuz of d/d . D/d looking cool and fun more than stand in place drop aoe by staff like a true spellcaster . Btw ,just play what you enjoy most .

D/D is the most fun i’ve ever had in any MMORPG. So i’m glad it became viable again. S/D is just as viable, but you get melted vs thiefs.

D/D is certainly not the only viable to play ele in pvp, and I don’t even think its the best necessarily (I would still argue that s/d trumps it most of the time because it can contribute more to teamfights). It is a very fun play-style that many enjoy, however, so that is why it is played.

In pvp, you can actually use any weapon-combo for eles except d/f really (there just isn’t any damage outside of air autos, so you will get killed by mostly everything before you kill them). You can run s/d with fresh air (0/6/0/2/6), s/d with clerics, valks, or maybe celstial (0/2/0/6/6 or 0/0/2/6/6), staff bunker with clerics or valks/celestial if you want more dps for less survivability (0/0/2/6/6 or 0/0/4/6/4), staff zerker (2/6/0/0/6 is one of a few options), and s/f fresh-air (0/6/0/2/6).

D/D has some other builds, like 0/0/6/2/6 with celstial to use stone heart, but that is a d/d build.

What weapon-set you use really depends on what kind of playstyle you want.

D/D generally builds more tanky b/c it is a brawler spec for close-range combat. S/D and S/F can build more for bursty b/c it can use range and positioning to mitigate damage, or more selfish survival if you want to push far and survive solo. Staff can focus on either heavy support by building tanky with its aoe water fields and finishers, or heavy aoe damage/control with its as it can stay at-range.

Note vis-a-vis thieves and s/d: S/d got a some more burst damage after this last patch, so the fight vs. thieves is a bit more even. If you predict their burst or have a quick stun-break you can counter-burst them and kill them while revealed if you are fast. Previously, you could only do that if you had more of your cooldowns ready. It’s still a tough fight, but its less overwhelmingly in their favor.

Agree with blackbeard 100%. Play what you like I enjoy S/D and Staff also thought I play mostly D/D both have pro’s and cons which he outlined well.

Play whatever you want. As long as you’re a Charr ele, you’re invincibleeeee.

BlackBeard.2873:

In pvp, you can actually use any weapon-combo for eles except d/f really (there just isn’t any damage outside of air autos, so you will get killed by mostly everything before you kill them).

Objection, d/f is a beast (especially in duels) and arguably better than OH dagger.
And Arcana really isn’t all that great, i do well with 0 points in it. (Just a thing I wanted to say for a long time :P)

well I certainly find d/d to be the most fun, but thats not to say i dont play others from time to time.
Practice with the weaponset you want and learn when to use the skills.. dont blow cooldowns for the sake of it.
Start with a nice hybrid bunker with celestial

D/d is really fun and fast paced—which is a huge change for the normal “spellcaster” kind of build. It all really depends on your style and how you like to play—in reality you can do whatever you want, and as long as you build your traits right and play to your strengths, you’ll do great.

Personally, I swap out a lot depending on what I’m doing for versatility. I use Staff whenever I’m running with a large group of 5 or more and want to be able to really affect the overall tide of the battle, and be the Queen of combo fields. I don’t think any other profession can outclass Eles there. It’s still my favorite weapon by far, and can do so much. The only downside is it’s possibly the slowest weapon style in the game, which is a big disadvantage in dueling and fighting small numbers where you’ll get singled out fast and can be quickly thrown into the defensive right away.

Daggers are awesome for duels as they’re so fast that I’d say only thieves with their initiative can really outdo the relentless onslaught a D/d ele can produce, and even then, thieves still have to use cloaking or other techniques to take a break and let their initiative restore before they can keep going, whereas we could basically keep the pressure up indefinitely, as long as you’re not put onto the defensive.

Scepters and Focuses are both more of a middle ground to me, kind of a best of both worlds. Focuses have a bit of that Staff feel of being able to control the battle, and Scepters have some range to them but not so slow that range becomes something you’ll really have to depend on… which ends up making both weapons much more versatile, but not with the range or large aoes of a Staff and not with the ridiculously fast playstyle of daggers. Not to make either sound like a “Jack of all trades & Master of none” because really, versatility is one of our biggest assets. A warrior comes running at you with a sword, or a thief comes running at you with a pair of daggers, and you have a rough idea of what they’re going to do and what their basic gameplan is… what their favorable positions are, where they want to be, and where they want me. But as I come running towards them with a scepter and focus (or any combination of our one handed weapons) and their first mistake they can make is thinking they know my next move.

In any case, just buy a cheap set of each and try it all out, and you’ll figure out what you prefer.

Also, I have to agree that the Arcana line tends to be a bit of a letdown… Compared to Fresh Air builds, there’s really no need for the couple of seconds that the Arcana line saves. It’s fun to use—but personally I think most situations can benefit more from investing your preciously few points elsewhere. (Yes they’re precious— I wish I could have all the traits!).

D/D is a all rounded weapon set that have both strong offense and defense skills. It is very fun to play d/d. However, if you are like me that still find weird for a mage to be equipped with double daggers (in a mmorpg) and want more of a challenge to perform awesome try the other weapon sets (though i always recommend to start with d/d and with the build daphoenix made popular to newcomers).

LightningBlaze.4913:

Though i always recommend to start with d/d and with the build daphoenix made popular to newcomers.

Ah yes, daphoenix’s build was where I started and how I learned! He helped promote and make ele popular!

D/D is just the best designed ele weapon combo. It’s the only weapon without really easily avoided bread and butter attacks, like dragon’s tooth, lava font and eruption. The other weapons need strong snares, which they don’t really have, to hit with those types of skills. Focus has some of the weakest weapon skills in the whole game. Scepter is usually only good for bursting, and its burst can be unreliable without fresh air. Staff is just for groups, point bunkering or laying down damage and fields from off the point.

Dual dagger is the most self-sufficient weapon set, and it’s pretty much never going to be a terrible choice for a situation. Comparatively, any other weapon set is unwieldy.

Cen.8653:

since I can finally make a Charr Ele who looks good

prove it

In my opinion there is a more simple reason. I play dd expecially in pvp becouse it is simpler to use than staff or scepter /x .With DD you have air aura, 1 block skill every 15 seconds and 2 chill skill in water. It is much more simple to “control” a match . With scepter or staff if your opponent arrive to melee you it is not so simple to play. For pvp it is simple

I use S/F – 0/6/6/0/2 – Fresh air + Lightning Flash + arcane skills. Huge burst. Requires knowledge of positioning and timing. Ranged to avoid being focused. No daggers required.

For PvE, I am using D/F, Fresh Air build. Lots of burns, criticals, fury and might. It works great on mobs, as their behavior is scripted and their defenses and offenses are known. This won’t work on WvW or sPvP.

I am inclined to Staff, Aquatic Benevolence for full healing in the sPvP and WvW matches, but that require a lot of play skill and an organized team. This healing build is not usefull for PvE, as large groups smacking a boss can maintain theirselves, but it might work great in the hardest dungeons, as a support role, for it has great boon generation and decent condition maintainance.

D/D, S/D, and D/F and staff all seem viable now.

Everyone is D/D because its the most fun.
Simple as that…
Its not even stronger than other weapons.

Cen.8653:

I just made a Charr ele after this outfit patch, since I can finally make a Charr Ele who looks good but I want to pvp eventually, and my past level 1 practice spvp eles were disasters. I honestly hate the idea of dual wielding daggers, but I don’t mind so much Scepter/Dagger, Dagger/Focus, Staff, or Scepter Focus (just thematically I guess). My question is, is D/D the only viable pvp? 99.9% of Ele’s seem to run with that, and i’d like to bring my fat beastman magicman into PvP, but all my friends say expecting to PvP on an elementalist is a huge mistake i’m going to regret (at least coming from an engineer, where pvp is just me killing large masses by myself).

Anyway, the weaponskills thus far are so random and jumbled to me. It seems that staff is designed for AOE, and thats easy to tell.. but everything else is odd. Daggers you might consider close range, but have lots of support.. and same with focus and scepter.. Its just a big jumble of all sorts of ranges and damage ranges. What is it that makes D/D the be all end all for everybody? I don’t get it.

All weapon sets have become viable as in it used to be only the D/D.
D/D was then nerfed to the ground to the point that even if it was fun you would die if you played D/D unless you went full bunker. That has changed and D/D is now somewhat viable again so alot of people that used to be D/D returned to going D/D.

D/D is the easiest weapon set for the Elementalist and honestly one of the easiest weapon sets in the entire game. It carries itself and has a sort of fluid pattern. Even when it wasn’t viable for an entire year, people still played it simply because it’s easy to learn and to play.

Everyone is not in d/d, not even close.

I made my ele as an alternative to my mesmer and I must say that I enjoy it a whole lot more recently (but I wont get into why; guess you can say mesmer isn’t what it used to be for me).

As for dual daggers, I just like the playstyle more I guess. It’s closeranged, fast paced and fun to play. Lots of combo field combos, good support when it’s needed and pretty good survivability. I never got to play ele first hand back when they could handle zergs by themselves but, even now I would say they are pretty kitten good.

I have however run into some really good staff eles who were surprisingly hard to kill (for me at least, when I was running a power necro build once) so I wouldn’t say they are unviable in small group fights. I would imagine you’d just have to time crowd control skills and aoe very well. I have not been brave enough to run staff or the other weapon sets yet myself (though I have tried them all in wvw before) but I would say they are just as good. It just depends on your playstyle I guess. I’ve always liked building for survivability above all, and I like close range combat so D/D just makes sense for me. I was pretty ecstatic when I realized that elementalists could have a brawler type playstyle way back during beta.

So I would say just play what you want to play. If you enjoy it then you’ll master it and maybe even surprise people with it.