Guild Wars 2

Hey all,

This is for a standard Condition Pressure/Toughness Scepter/Staff Necro. Interestingly as a power/well necro with Dagger and Axe or Staff these match ups are not as much an issue, but still a challenge.

I’m hoping to hear peoples tactics vs these types of classes. In general vs good mesmer Glass Cannon Builds (particularly the blurred Frenzy builds)I just don’t seem to be able to win in a 1v1 most of the time. What tactics can help us overcome this?

In general I can eat most thief’s for breakfast and lunch, but lately I’ve met a few invis thiefs that really took me for an kitten whooping. What tactics do people use in this match up?

And last, the D/D Ele’s that seem to be the new Fotm really seem to be a counter to condition builds in general with every time they spec to water and or a use a cantrip they cleanse 1-2 conditions each time. Seems like a loosing battle, but what advice do people have?

For Mesmers and Thieves I try to keep them on the defensive with staff marks and weakness from OH Dagger. AoE is the key here, providing pressure while they are stealthed. Maintain poison on them and wait for knockdown/immobilize cooldowns to drop some DPS. If you can maintain your health and get lucky with enough cc, you’ll be able to get them down, otherwise just try to maintain the fight until someone else arrives.

Currently have no strat for 1v1 dd Ele’s aside from trying to chain cc (fear/knockdown) when they are in fire/lightning attunement to run their defensive boons down. Fortunately, success in that build requires quite a decent amount of skill which means there aren’t too many players that are capable of pulling it off properly and everyone knows how bad unskilled Ele’s are.

The 50% more damage when down is wonderbar against Mesmer. For some reason it’s the single most damaging spell we have against them where they can’t really do anything except flee and let you rally.

The trick, of course, is to know when to down yourself. When I feel I’m ready, I turn my back to his clones, I bask in their shatter combo and finally my true potential can be brought to light.

Good luck for the timing!

Panhauramix.2784:

The 50% more damage when down is wonderbar against Mesmer. For some reason it’s the single most damaging spell we have against them where they can’t really do anything except flee and let you rally.

The trick, of course, is to know when to down yourself. When I feel I’m ready, I turn my back to his clones, I bask in their shatter combo and finally my true potential can be brought to light.

Good luck for the timing!

erm… no if you do that they will just release a couple mesmers on you that will solo kill you

Sprawl.3891:

Panhauramix.2784:

The 50% more damage when down is wonderbar against Mesmer. For some reason it’s the single most damaging spell we have against them where they can’t really do anything except flee and let you rally.

The trick, of course, is to know when to down yourself. When I feel I’m ready, I turn my back to his clones, I bask in their shatter combo and finally my true potential can be brought to light.

Good luck for the timing!

erm… no if you do that they will just release a couple mesmers on you that will solo kill you

Yeah any Mesmer who is not completely ignorant will just summon a few clones on you and then break LOS enough to heal up or w/e.

Thieves – If you have LF at the start of the fight, the odds are in your favor. If not, life will get hard real fast. drop marks at your feet since he’ll port over anything in between you both. wells reveal them from stealth. use DS to absorb burst and #3 fear to interrupt burst cycle. aoe bomb shadow refuge – this is actually an easy chance to kill them as they’re stationary trying to get as much stealth stacked up as possible. save a stun break for the fear steal or at the least pop DS and save your #3 until they’re actually about to hit you. it typically comes late and will turn the fight for them if you’re not prepared.

mesmers – conditions are their soft spot. mark the real mesmer immediately and start harassing them with bleeds and chills keeping an eye out for the incoming CC (stun immobilize – both come from sword/pistol) and shatters. avoiding the first two shatters is key. dodge through the clones, use fear mark when endurance is exhausted. lead with aoe to remove clones and then go to work on the real mesmer with single target dmg. the trick is to keep them from just being able to sit back and chuck ai and shatters while being mindful of the potential burst from shatters and blurred frenzy.

D/D Ele – stay on the move. their leaps only travel in a straight line. side stepping Ride the Lightning into Updraft and Burning Speed are crucial. save putrid mark for after their churning earth and throw all the conditions back on them. remove/corrupt boons after they pop into water attunement. they’re running on fumes at this point.

with any fight though the key is to understand the class and build you’re up against and the key skills within it. being able to identify where they are with their CDs, dodges, stun breaks, etc. is key to reacting appropriately in every fight.

Good point about having LF or not verse a theif or any of these matchups. The question is about not having life force, since having half or so makes a world of difference. I’ll try the dropping at my feet, but I’m not sure it would of made a difference against this one guy (of course I ended up having 7 out of 8 fears not work on the guy, and he didn’t have stability).

Ya just learned to dodge into the shatter, not away and its helping.

D/D I don’t have a Corrupt Boon, but your strategy is sound (close to what I’ve been trying to execute, but it doesn’t always seem like I can side step RtL and have to dodge and are you saying to eat the churning earth to then send it back at them? I always get out of the circle.

Getting out of the circle won’t work against a competent ele who actually wants to land his churning earth. Nuking his face for 3 seconds while he casts it, then dodge rolling works. Or if he is quite low, do like hackks said and putrid mark the 8 bleeds back onto him. I’ve been doing this less and less though, eles just have too much condition removal to make standing in the ~3k aoe worth it.

BTW when he is casting churning earth is a good chance to build some life force by landing staff 1 a couple times. I wouldn’t say that’s a strong play, I just enjoy the novelty of landing staff 1.

Mammoth.1975:

BTW when he is casting churning earth is a good chance to build some life force by landing staff 1 a couple times. I wouldn’t say that’s a strong play, I just enjoy the novelty of landing staff 1.

It’s also a good time to pop DS and fear him. If I remember right from playing my ele, churning earth being interrupted puts it on full CD.

Zenyoga.6910:

Good point about having LF or not verse a theif or any of these matchups. The question is about not having life force, since having half or so makes a world of difference. I’ll try the dropping at my feet, but I’m not sure it would of made a difference against this one guy (of course I ended up having 7 out of 8 fears not work on the guy, and he didn’t have stability).

Ya just learned to dodge into the shatter, not away and its helping.

D/D I don’t have a Corrupt Boon, but your strategy is sound (close to what I’ve been trying to execute, but it doesn’t always seem like I can side step RtL and have to dodge and are you saying to eat the churning earth to then send it back at them? I always get out of the circle.

by the time they’ve dropped the churning earth they’ve pretty much dumped everything they have on you. if I can’t get outside the range, or simply time the dodge to evade, I’ll pop into DS and let that eat the physical damage, then pop back out and drop the putrid mark to send all bleeds, burns, chills, etc., right back to them. that forces them into water attunement to attempt to cleanse. Here I’ll swap to dagger/focus and rip the regen/protection/vigor off of them. Once they’ve gone through all 4 attunements they’re basically making it up as they go and are far less potent than at the start of the fight.

I usually run with staff and d/focus. corrupt boon, spectral grasp, and spectral armor. elite lich. I mostly use the tactics above but I didn’t think of interrupting earth churn great idea.

Guys pretty good, maybe you can take something from it. If you go to his channel he has several necro videos, some are definitely worth the watch.

As an Axe/ Warhorn full PPC Necro i have never had an issue with a glass cannon Thief, eve., Unlike other classes we have an instant minimum 22k HP shield (assuming you keep LF 100% all the time) shield that can be cast through CCs.

Any type of CC and my instant reaction is F1 > 3.

Mesmer’s i would say its about 50/50 depending on there skills with shattering and D/D Eles i switch in Corrupt Boon and Master of Corruption and proceed with the rofling.

Mesmers and theives aren’t really problems when you learn how to beat them.
When it comes to good D/D ele’s it comes down to putting enough pressure on them to retreat.

They are just too mobile and can clean and stack boons to quickly to be able to pressure out that quickly.

Its even worse that I’ve been running the power+condition AOE bomber recently. The loss of toughness really hurts in that matchup.
AOE bomber is cake vs mesmers as you can drop clones and illusions before they become a threat.