Guild Wars 2

I play my elementalist almost exclusively in WvW and I’ve tried a number of different strategies. I’m wondering if I should just go all out glass canon.

I tried dual dagger but I just don’t like the play style. I really like hanging back and clearing off walls or defending from the tops of walls. I do a lot of supply runs, upgrades, siege building, etc.

Once in a while I’ll run with a zerg and don’t mind hanging at the back of the pack. My server isn’t doing too well due to a lot of different issues, so there’s isn’t much coordination or synergy between the different people in the zerg. I hardly see more than 3 of the same guild in a group.

Also, I’m not a PvPer, and I doubt I’m going to gain the skills to make the quick decisions on the fly, know what to hit, have the reflexes to hit it, etc. I also almost never come across a 1v1 situation. Mostly it’s 3+v1 and in those situations I just run away if I can. I doubt that I’m ever going to get to the point where I could take a 1v1, 2v1, or 3v1 situation. (I’m not saying someone else with this profession can’t, just that I can’t).

Given my play style as outlined above, shouldn’t I just go for max damage? I know I’ll go down quickly when hit more than a few times, but I can live with that. I can also live with not doing the largest burst damage of all professions. But I’m think I should just trait everything for power, precision and crit in traits, gear, weapon, etc.

I’ve found that with the range on staff I can usually keep away from most aoe that’s around me and not die too often.

But before I drop a bunch of coin on exotics I was wondering if anyone else has gone this route, specifically in WvW. If so, if you hang back, do you feel you do enough damage to justify the quick deaths?

Yes, you can go full glass cannon if you want. Yes, you’ll hit harder that way. And yes, you’ll die if anyone sneezes in your direction.

My advice is to try out different itemization and trait builds for free in sPvP to decide what you like before you invest all your gold. Alternatively, buy a rare (yellow) set on the cheap to make sure you like the build in WvWvW before you upgrade it to exotics.

Also keep in mind that you’ll probably want your set to be versatile enough to get you through some dungeon runs (at least until you can afford two sets). Full glass cannon will make it harder for you to not die a lot on your average dungeon run.

Running Citadel of Flames and Arah can get you berserker equivalent exotic gear (Power, Precision, Crit %) which is essentially what you want in a glass cannon.

Saves you from buying ectos and gossamer/leather if you do choose to try glass cannon.

Glass cannon is great for defending forts with staff, as eles already are kitten near the best castle defenders. Glass cannon will give you a lot of extra oomph if you can learn to avoid aoe and cleanse.

For open pvp glass cannon will most likely get you killed if you aren’t running in a pack or you get the jump on your opponent.

I personally run a 20e/20w/30a defensive d/d build, it gets me through dungeons and helps me kill siege while being hard to catch. (d/d is awesome for mobility).

Its all really up to how you want to play.

i run 30/30/10/0/0 on full berserker ruby set.
XD full glass cannon is hell on dungeon runs. but i wouldnt switch my ele to any other build, and it will be my definite go to for WvW. if u pay enough attention even on full glass cannon u can live for a while.
on staff ull basically be permanently in fire for the entire time, switching to air when u know ull be running for a good 10sec or so without serious fighting and earth->air->water when chasing/trapping enemy runners.

i am sure i dont have anywhere close to the highest dmg dealt even just for ele but meteor shower will consistently hit for over 5k+ on crits on the build my personal highest is just 7.5k with self might stack from fire trait and 1 orb buff. fireball usually ends up 2k-3k crits 1-1.5k norm. if u want to have some ability on solo fighting, i would suggest to make sure arcane blast is 1 of ur slot skills and use sigil of air or sigil of fire for additional burst dmg potential.

>.> i hate having to switch to water for heals so i usually use the food has chance to steal life on crit along with the signet of restoration. usually its enough to heal up the few hit u take here and there. if ur getting burst u are either downed or have block/evade most of them actually casting heal in time is..iffy

Indeed, why not? As someone who plays almost exclusively glass cannon in PvE and WvW, folks seriously overestimate the “squishiness” factor, as if cantrips and a veritable army of bodies between you and your enemies never existed. Pretty much everything the previous poster said is true – depending on your opponent, your damage varies from “formidable” to “unstoppable”.

Any downside a glass cannon elementalist has is easily mitigated by, well, playing well. The more experienced you are, the more leeway you have to sacrifice defense in favour of offense. Knowing when to pull forward, when to retreat, how to deal with certain classes, all that jazz will stop you from folding like paper. Yes, even dagger/dagger can work – you just can’t go diving into zergs willy-nilly.

One thing that may really help you – swap out some Berserker gear in exchange for Valkyrie gear. Precision isn’t that important a statistic when you have multiple forms of Fury available, and the extra vitality makes a huge difference. I run a Valkyrie amulet, two valkyrie earrings and two berserker rings as accessories.

I’m running 20/10/0/10/30 at the moment. But after some experimentation in sPvP, I’m seriously questioning the usefulness of many Fire traits.

Why not? Because most Fire traits are useless, most Air traits are useless – you will be considerably kittening yourself by going anything but bunker build as an ele at the moment, and that has been one of the major concerns of this class since release.

Like Furienify said, full glass cannon can still work provided you stay OUT of any real fighting like small group WvW action and tPvP – you will have to blend in with the crowd and never be targetted – which to me is a workaround to a flaw rather than a gameplay feature.
You will still do less damage than many other classes specced for DPS and have about half their survivability – if you’re D/D or S/D and you get caught on a simple 1v1 or 1v2 with proper players, your only solution is to mistform or RTL out of there, if those fail due to CD or bugs – there is nothing you can do.
Which is where the ele fails – regardless of spec, you should have a fighting chance, and you simply don’t as a glass cannon ele against 1 or 2 decent players (they dont even have to be good)

I spent a considerable amount of time yesterday, going round the WvW borders with my thief friend. He is a full exotic berserker thief, I am running full Exotic Knights gear, stacking power, precision toughness with the emphasis on toughness. I only use D/D and spec for 10 Air, 10 Earth, 20 Water and 30 Arcana and I run 3 cantrips, Mist, Lightning Flash and Cleansing Fire.

We were taking on much larger groups than ourselves and winning the fights, the DPS he can put out is astronomical, it then dawned on me. He has the same amount of survivability as myself through his class mechanic yet he is a full berserker thief. In comparison, I am a sem-bunker build, can’t do a quarter of his DPS and have to work my behind off just too keep up.

If I specced for a full glass cannon build, I would literally melt as soon as anything looked in my direction, purely because Ele’s do not have the base survivability/toughness or class mechanic that negates our squishiness, and I would still not be able to get anywhere near to the amount of damage my thief buddy throws out there, he can down players in under 2 seconds.

The thief is probably an extreme example, he freely admits that thieves are OP at the moment, but my point is…some professions are more suited for glass cannon specs than others, I think the Ele is not one of those classes, we shine in support/bunker roles, maybe that was anet’s intention for the profession from the get go.

you’ll die just from splatter fire of seige and AEs. The only way full burst can work is if you stick with the zerg all the time.
I like to roam and to roam you need to be tough enough not insta melt.

XD i dunno about u guys, but i am full glass cannon and i have zero trouble roaming around solo or in small squads of 2-4. i feel like people are too used to being actually able to take multiple hits and survive and the potential of dying in 3 hit is just 2 big a draw back. its not truely squishy until more then 50% of the things out there is a 1-2shot. of course me going solo really means i am not doing what i am suppose 2. with me and a partner we can roll a supply camp. with me solo, best i can do is just a few guards T_T

i am sure it might be a little different on higher tier server for WvW, but people i usually end up facing just arent good enough on closing the gap of 1.3k->atk range fast enough before they lose 2 much hp. i can usually burst down a targets hp from 100% to under 50% before they enter melee range of me. its almost like they dont expect 10k dmg within 2 sec from fireball->lavafont->flame burst->arcane blast (sigil of fire trigger by now). i have even outright slaughtered squishies from 100% to down when my team actually have orb buffs and they didnt>.>

i am still of the opinion that ele should be full or near full glass cannon. maybe not for spvp or pve, but definitely for WvW. on staff in fire we are THE king of aoe. no other class can beat us on raw aoe potential while we are using staff especially when u combine it with the dmg we can spew out. maybe our single target burst potential is severely lacking compared to class like thiefs but no one else will win compare to an ele’s aoe barrage.

As some of the posts have mentioned, going glass cannon for wvwvw (staff specifically ) works well because of the sheer power of aoe in defending and attacking key points, as well as controlling large groups of enemies. I only suggest putting in a few Valkyrie gear pieces for vitality since stacking too much precision isn’t useful when you have a 45%+ crit rate.

Effective positioning comes from experience, and you’ll find you will rarely be a focus if you place yourself well with your allies. If you get snuck up on, you’d be surpised how the use of cantrips (mist form, fire cleanse, armor of the earth), disables, and water heals can do for ele survivability. Avoiding 1v1s (you will only escape, rarely will you win) and avoiding getting zerg focused is key to enjoying your glass cannon ele. Not to mention eles murder siege weaponry

Edit: I pretty much repeated what Furienify said – I completely agree with all the justifications.

I run 30/30/0/10/0 in full Berserker gear with Ruby gems in each slot (except Sigils) and the most dangerous thing I run into is retaliation. I currently sit at 60% crit and 99% crit damage.

Damage wise I destroy most people. I like to roam in Air and Blinding Flash can crit up to 6k alone to say nothing of the Auto Attack bouncing around critting for 2-4k. As Sui said swapping to Fire and dropping a Fireball + Lavafont + Flame Burst is also devastating. Once in a great while you’ll attack someone and not see big numbers but that’s ultimately pretty rare and usually is some sort of bunker style character.

Usually someone will try to focus on you and it’s pretty easy to survive with tools like Mist Form (and double Mist Form at that if they down you), your heal, and a swap to Water for a quick Geyser+Healing Rain. The more experienced you get the easier it is to survive. Reading the battle is important as well and knowing when to fall back (not retreat) is pretty clutch.

I’m usually at the point where unless I encounter some solo Thief when doing supply runs (who’d probably kill me anyways regardless of spec) or I get completely run over by the enemy I rarely die in WvW. Even Retaliation is mostly just a time out where I’ve been doing too much damage and need to calm it down for a sec.

I should also mention I always play in the Tier 1 bracket as well.

A couple of other points.

I have a level 80 guardian that I also use for WvW when I want to be front line or roaming around and not die too quickly. Obviously there’s a huge difference in the two professions, so when I want a very different play style for WvW I’ll log on with my guardian.

I have full sets of Berserkers (rare), Valkyrie (rare) and Invaders (blue). Although these aren’t exotics I picked them up a while ago to try out various combinations. I seem to take the same number of deaths no matter what I’m wearing, mostly due to the fact that if I die, I’m running into packs of 3+. With the Valkyrie set I last a little longer, but it’s not the difference between living and dying.

I’ve done a ton of WvW since the first beta weekend, so I understand what’s going on, what the enemy usually does, how to maximize my staying alive chances, etc. At this point I’m comfortable with the play style I want for my elementatlist. I may switch it up in the future, but for now I’m going to go with the max damage I can get out of the profession. I just wanted to hear if anyone else thought the same thing and experienced about the same thing in WvW (i.e. you either end up in a big group or are in a small group and get steam rolled by a much bigger group) and therefore you are going to die no matter what your stats or gear is (and again, I’m not looking for the max survival play style of DD).

I kinda split the difference. I run 30 fire, 10 Air, 30 Water and I am geared to have over 20k hp, which on an ele is quite a feat. I found that after I equipped my ele with full exotic P/T/V gear with full dolyaks rune set, a P/V/T staff and equivalent trinkets that I enjoyed my ele MUCH more. I basically defend and clear walls though and have to play my kitten off in zerg situations, which, as an ele, is a given anyways. I don’t have much trouble with the dungeons I have done so far but as far as I am concerned all dungeon get super easy once you learn them.

I know I am not full glass cannon but, the traits in the water line are just to good for survivability for me to not use them.

Running a glass cannon build in t1 is asking to be faceplanted constantly. The only time i’ve not found the experience an exercise in frustration is camping keep walls and destroying rams and golems.

Even then, a single well-placed arrow cart is > your glass cannon Ele.

I would love to spec something other than water/earth/arcane + cantrips, but it’s the only viable spec in WVW as far as i am concerned.