Guild Wars 2

Ok I have never played a Elemenalist. I play an lvl 80 Eng.

In sPVP our guild elementalist (lvl 80) was getting stomped by a thief. The Elementalist is speced in power and precision and uses a staff and is attuned to fire. I was reading the wiki to try and give her some general tips on how to stop the thief unloading then vanishing about every 3-4 secs until the caster is dead move, but I I did not notice to many stuns/hold/knockdowns ect..

So how would you take down in sPVP a tief that attacks from stealth vanishes, waits 3 secs and repeats? I know what I can and have done as an Eng but I have no clue how to help them with the elementalist because it does not appear to be a simple class, instead it seems to be a class full of subtlety.

Thanks

Could you get your Ele’s stats and specc by any chance?

….spvp guild….staff in power/prec….sits in fire…..mind….kittening….blown…..

If he want to try dps, it´s d/d or s/d.
He´s better off with bunkering though.

Against tieves, pop shock aura, arcane shield, mist form, ride the lightning away, knock back it, launch it, stun it, cc it, burning speed away, lightning flash away….just keep him disabled untill he´s blown most of the cooldowns and initiative and proceed with faceroll.

We don’t even know what weapon they are using. A staff ele can stay in place and kill a thief easy. A D/D ele would have to be constantly moving and spamming skills with a wide range and placing fire field down, etc. Also, tell him to spec in Crit Damage + Precision. Much more dps.

The best thing to ensure you win is having the Fire trait skill, Lava Font.

OddFinrir, he did say the Ele uses a Staff.

A staff elementalist in power/precision in sPvP? Huh… What?!

That particular combo will not have much of a chance against most of the lower echelon classes (even if well played), let alone thieves.

Sharpe.1485

A staff elementalist in power/precision in sPvP? Huh… What?!

That particular combo will not have much of a chance against most of the lower echelon classes (even if well played), let alone thieves.

I was thinking the exact same thing. I’m going to give the player the benefit of the doubt and say you are making her sound worse than she is because you don’t know ele’s very well.

first off tell her not to stay in 1 attunement

If her answer is “why?” “Really?” “but I like fire more!” or anything other than “Of course I don’t stay in fire only.” then you need to stop immediately and direct her to the ele boards.

secondly glass cannons get owned by glass cannons. that’s what they do. and thieves are the best glass cannons. So… yea… go figure. If she is running a glass cannon ele she will have a hard time with thieves period.

He could do the same thing every staff ele does to solve every problem. Throw lots of AoE at it.

It doesn’t really matter if someone is stealthed when all your skills are ground-target, and the target circle is the size of the moon.

First, a couple points regarding what OP said:

• Staff is only really good as a DPS weapon in WvW. In sPvP, Staff is good for a bunker build, but generally bad for a roaming/skirmishing build. Your friend should learn D/D or S/D or both.

• You said he’s fire attuned. If he’s playing an Ele, he should be everything attuned. If you’re only using one attunement, or even staying mostly in a single attunement, you’re definitely doing it wrong. She should be cycling through attunements on cooldown to maximize damage.

Some general suggestions for your friend:

• Don’t go glass cannon if you want to beat Thieves, or be able to 1v1 at all, really. At least to start, she should be using a Soldier’s Amulet so he has solid defense.

• Choose cantrips for utilities, because they keep you alive against burst dps. Mist Form, Armor of Earth, Lightning Flash, and Cleansing Fire are all good defensive utilities. Take traits in Water and Arcane to buff cantrips if you end up using 2 or 3 of them.

• Most importantly, when a Thief stealths, DO NOT stop DPSing. He’s still there, and he’ll still take damage if you hit him. Drop AoE like it’s going out of style. 9 times out of 10 when I down a Thief, I do it while he’s stealthed. Use as much AoE as you can, and make an educated guess on where he is for stuff that requires targeting like Blazing Speed, Phoenix, Fire Grab, etc. Chances are good he’s right near you, trying to get behind you for a Backstab.

• Also really important: don’t let him get the drop on you if you can avoid it. If you see a Thief coming, get some defensive cooldowns up in preparation. Frost Aura on Water dagger 4 is really good right off the bat. So is Rock Barrier on scepter Earth 2. If possible, try to anticipate the initial Steal and dodge it.

Lastly, if you have any Thieves in your guild, have your friend try to get into an empty game with her and duel about 100 times. Seriously, there’s no better way to learn to beat classes than to have a friend tell you how to counter what they’re doing to you.

Hope that helps.

Sadely no I do not have their stats because they were having an off night and you know how we all get in those moods where the world sucks.

It does seem you would have to change attunement to get the CC you need. I just wanted to make sure there was not a major flaw in designed that stated Thief always wins against elementalist because I know they mess me up from time to time.

I will have to get them to come here and ask and show you their build.

Thanks

Lokki.1092:

Sharpe.1485

A staff elementalist in power/precision in sPvP? Huh… What?!

That particular combo will not have much of a chance against most of the lower echelon classes (even if well played), let alone thieves.

I was thinking the exact same thing. I’m going to give the player the benefit of the doubt and say you are making her sound worse than she is because you don’t know ele’s very well.

first off tell her not to stay in 1 attunement

If her answer is “why?” “Really?” “but I like fire more!” or anything other than “Of course I don’t stay in fire only.” then you need to stop immediately and direct her to the ele boards.

secondly glass cannons get owned by glass cannons. that’s what they do. and thieves are the best glass cannons. So… yea… go figure. If she is running a glass cannon ele she will have a hard time with thieves period.

yeah I cannot say how bad it was as I was in another match and we were on voice so all I heard was the kittening in my ears on how BS the thiefs were.

Your friend needs to try a solid bunker/support build with Cleric gear. Their damage will be awful, but it’ll all be worth it the first time a thief jumps them and they don’t instantly die (and then heals back up to full!). Their job should really be to maintain buffs and heals on the party during fights, lay combo fields on top of the melee, keep enemies CCed as much as possible, and generally make your team a giant PITA to fight.

I’m not suggesting that bunker/healing builds are amazing. They’re not. They are very annoying to fight against, and the burst healing and AoE buffs available to your team will come in incredibly useful. I thought Elementalist was a broken class until I tried one. The extra durability gave me enough cushion to actually practice with all my abilities and get better at playing the class. I’m not a pvp pro now by any stretch, but I am far better than I was.

I’ve since ditched the bunker/healing build just because it got boring, but it’s a very good place to start.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/How-do-you-stop-perma-stealth-Thieves

I wrote a lengthy in depth analysis on how to kill a perma stealth ranged thief here, with some a video showing how to counter invisibility

MiniAchilles.4617:

OddFinrir, he did say the Ele uses a Staff.

This is what I get for skimming. ><

If she’s using staff, she can’t do anything about it.
Staff is NOT a roaming weapon and it is NOT a 1v1 weapon.
In sPvP, any ele using a staff should ALWAYS be accompanied by at least one teammate.
This is not to say that they are useless in sPvP. On the contrary, they can be a HUGE boon to a team if they know how to play. But they MUST be with other teammates.

I’ll help her out if possible. I’ll send ya a IM tonight ^_~