Guild Wars 2

As a necro, how do you deal with double dagger elementalists?

I consider myself a decent necromancer who have relative success against all professions except for mesmers and d/d elementalists.
With elementalists, it seems like no matter what I do, I always end up being stomped (either they stomp me immediately or continuously reset the fight until I eventually slip up my timing).

I’ve tried various builds around but I feel that the conditionmancer is the most viable.
I’m currently running scepter/focus and staff with full rabid weapons/armor/jewelery and 0/30/10/10/20 trait distribution. I have sigil of corruption on my scepter and sigil of earth on my staff/focus.

My approach is to set up as many conditions as possible (with corrupt boon, staff 4, scepter 1&2 and high condition duration) whilst removing as many boons as possible (with corrupt boon and focus 5). My survivability comes from a high toughness and precise use of fear and death shroud to interrupt their rotation and adsorb bursts.

But with elemetalists, it seems that no matter how much condition i put on, he/she will easily cleanse the conditions and return to full hp after 1 or 2 dodge rolls plus water breath/puddle.
I can never maintain enough conditions to do serious damage (even when corrupting 5 boons, the ele will usually remove at least 3 conditions and have 3-4 boons up again after 2 seconds). At the same time he/she is bursting me with immobalise/knockdown + churning earth and flashing attacks.

If I’m able to survive the burst and drain up all their countless condition removals, he/she will usually ride the lighting away to reset the fight.

corupt boon, turn to DS >fear and chill. Quit DS then use staff fear and evrything you got. After that if all of your skill land effectively you should have take the lead on the fight.
(work very good with damage on fear trait and 2 second fear)

Fear will prevent condition removing to fast, and chill will prevent them to run away and spam skill to fast.

You kill a D/d elementalist with a pure power build and lots of CC

Seems like necromancers will allways have troubles with those elementalists.

As the OP mentioned, it’s those bloody Boons. Had a scrap (WvW)with a D/D last night, Corrupt Boon’d his behind. Fragger cleaned that out in ~2 sec. My issue was that I was only packing C.B. I’m willing to bet if I were running C.B./Well of Corruption, I could’ve taken him out. But just one boon-rip is not even close to enough. As is, I only whacked the guy with help from a Guardian.

On the other hand, I have minimal problem with Mesmers. I’m running a modified
Condition build (Rampager in lieu of Rabid, Sig of Earth on Scepter/Staff). I can keep
bleeds stacked for aeons on Mesmers. And that’s before Plague of Darkness gets pulled out the bag. Although, I should admit that I main a Mes, and know their
dirty little tricks.

Just rip off their boons.

Alternately, wait for the next patch. Yes, my main is an Ele. No, I’m not bitter. What makes you say that?

The main danger is in letting them do their routine uninterrupted, this is what nets them the high damage due to the many synergies of the class. Good ele’s have it worked out to be very painful and allow a minimum of room to recover for their advesary.

Nothing worse on a dd elementalist that being immoblized. CC is very hard on them because of the rotations they need to follow for maximum impact and the muscle memory to do them. Throw out immobs, fears and chills and they will be really off their game. Strip their might every once in a while as it can stack fast and is a good chunk of their damage.

Always dodge “ride the lighting” to get things going on the right foot.

I’ve done the best 1v1 against them with 2 builds. My d/d-d/f chill build and my tankiest marks, wells, healing build. Not that I can kill them but I hold my own and they eventually get bored and run away. I play an ele too and getting constantly chilled as one is as bad as it gets.

Conditions are fine against ele’s, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Power builds may have it easier, but I don’t find them to be a problem with conditions. If you are running corruption boon, you just need to time it properly to make sure it gets maximum effectivness (wait for a big stack of buffs and might up around 6+).

But the best advice is to familiarize yourself with what heal the ele is using and making sure you save your fear for when they are using that or use it immediately after they switch to water, watching for the splash. As others have said, if you get ahead, and keep the pressure on by interrupting a clear and/or a heal you should be able to wear them down.

Most DD eles are very low damage because they have some amount of PVT gear on so you have little to worry about in the way of getting bursted down yourself.

If they run their PULSE heal, and you don’t interrupt it, a D/D ele is very hard for a necro. Learn the animations for heals and you are better off no matter what.

And as far as dodging ride the lightning, be aware that RTL doesn’t actually do the stun, and they can just wait a second after RTL and THEN cast updraft. Smart eles don’t always blow the stun after RTL if they know you have the timing down.

Worm port helps a lot too if you happen to have worm on your bar. They do pretty much zero damage outside of 600 yards.

My bunker MM build wrecks ele’s pretty hard. The key for me is using focus to strip boons, and then either the minion’s strip boons as well (keeping them devoid of all their defensive boons, which completely wrecks them), or poison fields, which slowly wear them down because it really kills the healing. Once stability is off, you can use one of your CCs, and once you lock them down once you keep going: axe cripple, flesh golem charge, bone fiend immobilize, dagger 3, warhorn 4, warhorn 5. If you can get even most of that chain, they are stuck in one spot for a very long time, and any time you are standing still against minions is a death warrant.

terror!

(89012345)

Pound them down till they run like cowards. Then Wright ‘U MAD?’

IMO you can’t do anything against an D/D elementalist with a proper build as a conditionmancer. He has too many condition removals and self heal. His main heal which has 15 sec cd, can removes 8 conditions alone and he can have have Vigor, Regeneration and Swiftness up all the time. When he changes to Water, he removes 1 condition and when he dodges in water he removes another. Also the damage he can dish out is pretty decent.

Btw i’m talking about in WvW.

Rennoko.5731:

And as far as dodging ride the lightning, be aware that RTL doesn’t actually do the stun, and they can just wait a second after RTL and THEN cast updraft. Smart eles don’t always blow the stun after RTL if they know you have the timing down.

Usually you can dodge both. RTL packs a punch by itself, and 9/10 of ele’s will just automatically hammer updraft as RTL ends, not expecting the dodge. I know I never did in wvwvw, and never had to either. Bad players make you lazy.

Those are the 2 professions i have trouble with as well, although mesmer is much worse to face imo. Switch ur ultilities around to best deal with the situation. If i see a guard or ele i switch bip for corrupt boon. It has worked very well for me. CC them as much as u can too.

The only issue I’ve ever had with a D/D ele is trying to make them not run away. I’m a power/conditionmancer. I usually run with a focus and corrupt boon. The biggest thing is don’t stop hitting them with conditions, and save your dodges for RTL and burning speed. Staff 4 them if you get chilled so you can keep your distance.

Bhawb.7408:

My bunker MM build wrecks ele’s pretty hard. The key for me is using focus to strip boons, and then either the minion’s strip boons as well (keeping them devoid of all their defensive boons, which completely wrecks them), or poison fields, which slowly wear them down because it really kills the healing. Once stability is off, you can use one of your CCs, and once you lock them down once you keep going: axe cripple, flesh golem charge, bone fiend immobilize, dagger 3, warhorn 4, warhorn 5. If you can get even most of that chain, they are stuck in one spot for a very long time, and any time you are standing still against minions is a death warrant.

Interesting, can you post your build here? I’ve always avoided minion as the AI feels unreliable at best.

Corrupt Boon when they turn to Water Attunement and just be heavy on the Chill (Staff 3, Deathshroud 2) to mess with there skill cooldowns, D/D Elementalists have a very strict skill cycle.

Corrupt Boon is borderline worthless…

Assuming his main heal is on cooldown (why would an ele ever need to use his main heal against a necro?)

..and assuming he’s on the verge of death, you can pop corrupt boon, and try to burst him down.

But in the real world (WvW), even if you did catch him totally off guard, and did happen to have the most useless skill in the game on your hotbar (corrupt boon), he’d still just Ride the Lightning to a safe distance, heal to full, and then come back for more.

D/D ele’s fight people 3-5 at a time, and win.

If you see one in pvp, and you aren’t in a group, and you don’t have a root skill that you can use to hold him down long enough for your group to kill him…. RUN!

Kite, kite, kite, kite…. get your kitten back in the tower, and don’t look back. You can’t win this fight.