Guild Wars 2

As topic says, how do You feel playing thief in pvp/wvw against ele?

4 me it is more terrible than cc warrior / pu mes / condi engi/necro

Do You have any “tips <lol>” to stay calm and not loosing a mind?

Dagger mainhand for good poison up-time. 30 tricks for boon theft and sleight of hand to strip stability and interrupt heal. Pistol offhand for blinds with shadow shot helps with their knockdowns - most D/D eles stick to a rotation of their skills so you can usually tell when it’s coming e.g Air 5 often after Air 4, Earth 4 inside Fire 4. Shadow shot is also a good gap closer because they will chill, cripple and try to fight just out of reach because their range is 300-400. Headshot, again, for interrupting their heal when they don’t have stability. With that, it’s constant pressure to out-damage their healing.

I don’t really know enough about Eles or their builds to give a fair assessment. They always struck me as a wildcard compared to all other classes and you could only really tell what build they were after engaging.

If I see a D/P Thief I know what to expect. If I see Hammer Warrior I know what to expect. If I see a PU Mesmer I walk away.

But with an Elementalist I don’t really know how tanky or how bursty they will be until I actually fight them. As such it’s really hard to formulate general tactics.

I play D/P and as such fight most classes the same way by trying to use the Blind spam to mitigate most of their damage while applying pressure to them. Sometimes it works, sometimes the builds are too tanky, sometimes they burst be down in a split-second.

That’s why I think Eles are a wildcard.

Impact.2780:

Dagger mainhand for good poison up-time. 30 tricks for boon theft and sleight of hand to strip stability and interrupt heal. Pistol offhand for blinds with shadow shot helps with their knockdowns – most D/D eles stick to a rotation of their skills so you can usually tell when it’s coming e.g Air 5 often after Air 4, Earth 4 inside Fire 4. Shadow shot is also a good gap closer because they will chill, cripple and try to fight just out of reach because their range is 300-400. Headshot, again, for interrupting their heal when they don’t have stability. With that, it’s constant pressure to out-damage their healing.

Um, that’s good in theory, but ineffective in practice.

@OP
You need to watch carefully what they’re doing.

If they are constantly switching attunements, it means they are stacking boons — and the best set of weapons against this is S/D + Bountiful Theft (BT) trait.

If they are using a lot of cantrips, you’re not going to beat them unless you are running a condition build using P/D, BT and Bewildering Ambush (BA) traits — this is to punish them for using their cantrips.

Keep in mind that Elementalist wear light armor, meaning they have to rely on their boons to survive — if you can deny them those boons, they’re easy picking. But you have to be mindful of your own survival since their spells can stack a lot of bleed and burning on you — but you’ll learn that given time.

matchup wise I’d say D/D celestial ele has significant matchup advantage vs typical 2/6/0/0/6 trickery thief of all variants. D/P, S/D, S/P.

The raw sustain combined with a multitude of gap closers makes this matchup very difficult, much like playing vs a Meditation DPS Guardian. (Medi DPS Guard is easier to win against.)

while definitely not impossible, I’d say its a pretty good 2-8 or even 1-9 matchup in favor of the D/D ele.

Talking with Denshee (one of the best Ele players,) he also agrees that this matchup is significantly in favor of the D/D ele. The recently popular 2/0/0/6/6 S/D build also has trouble vs a good D/D ele according to Denshee.

I can see P/D doing well against it due to the ability to just hit #3 when the ele gets close to continue kiting. However, I’m not sure it has the damage output necessary to be able to secure a kill, if the Ele just decides to turn around and leave, so at best this is a stalemate matchup.

with my d/d or d/p its hard but so easy with p/d (usually they run away after 1 combo)

I think the power of the Ele comes from swapping attunements a lot. As such I would think and have had luck with using some source of chill.

This slows down the rate at which they can switch attunements.

I haven’t face much eles, but eles are hard to use. There’s a lot of keys to press. It’s almost like a fighting game where they need to pull off a specific combo to get the most out of their skills.

I also know D/D ele has a limited range. They also have a pretty small health pool. If you start the fight with shortbow or P/D they only have so many options in terms of healing. Even if they’re a “bunker” build, which I think isn’t what D/D is about, they’re still susceptible to burst (you just have to make sure your burst isn’t reduced by the protection boon and evaded).

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Um, that’s good in theory, but ineffective in practice.

If I don’t make it clear that something I’m saying is theoretical or that I’m uncertain, then I either know it for a fact or it is coming from experience. In this particular case, it is experience from the perspective of both classes, since elementalist was my first character and main before my thief. I’m not going to argue for changing one’s entire build to handle one specific class and build that may pose a difficulty, and it’s most likely that the difficulty isn’t with p/d. So I spoke with regard to the most likely weapon combination, being d/p, careful to word it so that if I was wrong in my weapon combination assumption, that it would still read as a direct and helpful response to the question posed.

Hi,

I play a Dual dagger Elementalist as my main. I’m not trying to be mean, but I must say I’m extremely happy to see this thread topic. For my current build, I rely a lot on condition cleans and boon uptime. I run all cantrips, Signet of Restoration with the elite skill Summon Druid Spirit, Exotic+ cleric’s gear and power food.

With this build, I can maintain nearly 15+ stacks of might, permanent vigor, permanent swiftness, and permanent fury. My healing power is through the roof and if threatened, my cantrips can give me a lot of regeneration and I also have a lot of access to protection. What I’m saying is, it’s impossible to deny me my boons. Sure you might mitigate some of them, but I get so many that it’s just not going to happen.

I wouldn’t say I’m the best Ele ever, but I do definitely think I do pretty well. My build relies on a lot of actions per minute, due to my heal skill. So if you could keep me from using skills, you could keep me from healing as much. Due to soothing mist and regeneration, I do heal for a lot regardless, maybe about 400 health per second.

For the record, I would just like to say, that my setup has not changed at all from the April patch. I do not believe the patch has actually made my build any more effective than it previously was.

I like threads like these. Makes me happy to be an ele.

Well, I don’t know about P/D, but D/D is (virtually) impossible to engage a (competent) D/D ele with. D/P gives you a nice fighting chance as long as you try to keep them blind. 2/6/0/0/6 is a decent build as long as you save the steal (sleight of hand) for their heal. Most of them use the long channel one which has a very distinctive sound/animation, and try to cover it with stability. BT & SoH can interrupt that and give you a fighting chance. Also try to use their stolen skill right after they leave water attunement.

Maugetarr.6823:

Well, I don’t know about P/D, but D/D is (virtually) impossible to engage a (competent) D/D ele with. .

If you ever watched I am mugi play you would think otherwise.

2OP

Try to use 2/6/0/0/6 and SB, you can’t beat it with melee builds. But even then you will have too low toughness and hp, so it will not be easy. Yesterday we have some 1v1 pvp with d/d elem in wvw. I lost 2 fights (tried both condi p/d and classical d/p). But ranger and riffle warrior in their turn won all fights.

So you need to be tough and have strong range damage. It’s not about thief. Just accept it. A bit more patches and you won’t be able to beat just anyone.

vincecontix.1264:

Maugetarr.6823:

Well, I don’t know about P/D, but D/D is (virtually) impossible to engage a (competent) D/D ele with. .

If you ever watched I am mugi play you would think otherwise.

“Virtually impossible”. We can’t all be as good as mugi and decent eles I’ve fought tend to punish you for trying to CnD off of them.

What’s a good D/D Ele build that people have been using often?

ye a good d/d celestial ele is a pain in the kitten after they buff celestial stats with some ele ele buffs, best way to beat em is out play em using s/d swordplay with 30 trickery bountiful theft.

and when they switched to water attunement try to get close as possible and dont stop attacking melee dps!

All i do is Black powder heartseeker steal back stab, switch to short bow and stay out of his gap closers and melee range using 3 and repeat your combo until he’s low enough to spam 2 to kill.

A GOOD, and I mean GOOD, D/D ele will never lose to any thief spec besides S/D (and even then it would be extremely hard for the S/D to come on top of his opponent).

I didnt take PD into consideration, as I tend to avoid thinking about cheesy specs.

Thieves can’t win against bunker eles in any way

Yeah. I pretty much agree tht only thing you can offer to d/d ele is s/d with trickery build 2/6/0/0/6. Otherwise it comes to ele’s mistakes.

:o
I main Elementalist and I would’ve never guessed that a thread like this would appear in the thief thread
:o

So extremely suprised because for the elementalist I consider thieves to be our hard counter since we have the lowest hp and armor we are highly susceptible to high burst damage.

Don’t play D/D anymore though, Found a much more fun build to play around with

Honestly Thief shouldn’t have much trouble with a DD ele IF (and that can be a big if) they can get out of the first combo.

With the DD ele build I use if you don’t stun break my first knockdown you will be dead in about 3 seconds. Watch out for Ride the Lightning 2k-4k > Updraft > Burning Speed2 2k-4k > Flame Grab 7k-14k. If you make them blow Flame Grab your chances go up dramatically once that rotation is over the eles dps ability drops pretty dramatically. The only other thing to really watch for is Lightning Flash 2k-4k > Churning Earth 7k-16k.

This is the build I roll with.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAoYhUMac25wyBf0AEAC5qHjGMQBhlmA-T1CBwA10BowEEWlYAOBAeVagT9nsKDSpFgiSQk7Pw4BAQKgRVGB-w

fumcheg.1936:

2OP

Try to use 2/6/0/0/6 and SB, you can’t beat it with melee builds. But even then you will have too low toughness and hp, so it will not be easy. Yesterday we have some 1v1 pvp with d/d elem in wvw. I lost 2 fights (tried both condi p/d and classical d/p). But ranger and riffle warrior in their turn won all fights.

So you need to be tough and have strong range damage. It’s not about thief. Just accept it. A bit more patches and you won’t be able to beat just anyone.

Nope. Funny to read that as an ele player (also thief). Rangers and warriors (distance) are the easiest enemies for me. If you kill ele with shortbow as the thief, you know he was afking (crappy dmg, i can heal up way more). Ele got so many gap closers, that distance fight wont be as effective. Listen to guys who got both classes – like op said only way is to play p/d or s/d. If ele is playing with ether renewal you need to be traited to couter this when u play as an p/d thief (to interrupt, because with that heal im taking off 8 condis every 15 sec), when not just condispam to death. When i face dd thief he dies. When i face d/p thief he can only hide in stealth and run away (because of blind spam he wont die ;/). I switched class from thief to ele because of that – it is very predictable what thief will do, more it is boring as hell. When i learned how to play with ele i never wanted to go back to d/x thief, which can kill mostly only noobs. For now only the p/d thief is dangerous, ew s/d but this build isnt so much used (i would appriciate for build sharing for s/d roaming thief relying on stealth).

P.S. If someone really want to kill good ele with dagger mainhand, then watch really well on attunements – when he is air – don’t attack – i’ve killed so many thieves baiting them to make backstab on me and turn around in last second putting the shocking aura on myself, then updraft, combo – dead. Also u have to use stunbreaker when firstly cced – this combo kills thieves, but hard cc on ele got very long cooldown.

And noone of you even mentioned Air#3 , which is imho a much bigger problem than updraft or RTL….

The change to Lyssa also was freaking big nerf in Thief vs D/D or D/F matchup.

lvis.3824:

And noone of you even mentioned Air#3 , which is imho a much bigger problem than updraft or RTL….

The change to Lyssa also was freaking big nerf in Thief vs D/D or D/F matchup.

Did u read my post?……………. air 3 is an shocking aura which i mentioned as an counterplay.

I roam WvW using S/D + Shortbow, I can beat them if I keep ripping boons and interrupt them when they switch to water

Hello, I main ele. I mainly use D/D as well. The best way to kill them is to steal as many boons as possible, and use ranged weapons since D/Ds range is very short. I’ve dueled many thieves and I’d have to say the hardest thieves to beat are the ones with high dodge rate, many evasive maneuvers and ones that keep their distance and never stay close for too long.

I will teach you how to fight a d/d ele by telling you about their most effective dps. This is when you should avoid them. Its all about watching which attunement they’re in. There is an icon which indicates which one they are in.

Heres what you want to look out for

Burning Speed: When they are in fire, this is when they will burst. Burning speed which makes the ele dash forward has a dead give away in its animation. The Ele will turn to their side before rushing forward and then blast the area they stop at for major damage. This is their main burst method. If you get used to what burning speed looks like and just stay on the defensive side when they are in fire, you will live much longer. Eles who are a little more advanced know to use Burning speed with their lightning flash combo, this is a little harder to see coming because the only indication is the ele turning to their side(or hopping up in the air if asura) before teleporting to you with the blast of burning speed coming along with it. Burning speed has a range of 600 units, but can travel up to 900 units with lightning flash.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Burning_Speed
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lightning_Flash

Fire Grab: This is also part of the fire attunement, this may be followed up by burning speed, drakes breath, cleansing fire or a dodge roll on top of you while the Ele is in fire attunement (which will cause 6+ seconds of burning). Fire Grab hits much harder when you are set on fire, this means you want to clear burning as quickly as possible when you are set on fire and the elementalist is in fire attunement. Fire grab has a max range of 300 units.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fire_Grab
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cleansing_Fire
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Drake's_Breath

Ring of fire: This does moderate damage and wont hurt you while standing inside of it, but standing inside the ring of fire is a bad idea, the elementalist will use his blast finishers inside this ringe, one of them called Earthquake will knock you down( You can see earthquake coming by watching the elementalists feet come off the ground). Ring of fire will only burn you if you step onto the ring, so dodge or teleport through it to avoid burning. If you can daze the elementalist as ring of fire is present and stop them from casting spells, you will stop them from stacking might as well as preventing a little bit of healing if they have their healing signet equipped(It only works when casting spells). Ring of fire is a point blank aoe.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ring_of_Fire
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Earthquake
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Restoration

Lightning Whip: This is the auto attack that hurts the most from d/d ele, when they are in air attunement you are susceptible to a knock back while they stand close, its call updraft. While an ele is in air make sure you also watch out for their shocking aura, this will stun you if you attack them (Unless you are 300+ units away), allowing them to either get free lightning whips off or potentially swap to fire and get a burst off. The stun only last 1 second and can only affect you once per second. This skill has a max range of 300.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lightning_Whip
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shocking_Aura
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Updraft

Impact.2780:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Um, that’s good in theory, but ineffective in practice.

If I don’t make it clear that something I’m saying is theoretical or that I’m uncertain, then I either know it for a fact or it is coming from experience. In this particular case, it is experience from the perspective of both classes, since elementalist was my first character and main before my thief. I’m not going to argue for changing one’s entire build to handle one specific class and build that may pose a difficulty, and it’s most likely that the difficulty isn’t with p/d. So I spoke with regard to the most likely weapon combination, being d/p, careful to word it so that if I was wrong in my weapon combination assumption, that it would still read as a direct and helpful response to the question posed.

Applying pressure on an Elementalist using main hand dagger is not a fact, it’s theoretical assuming that the Elementalist won’t try to counter your advances and punish you for being too close. Boon steal via Bountiful Theft is only good every ~20s and that’s hardly applying any pressure since they can replace the stolen boon as soon as you stripped them. If you want to apply pressure you need to use either S/D or P/D since these weapon sets has a track record of applying reliable pressure — Dagger main hand against Elementalist do not.

Sure you can keep them blinded with offhand pistol, but what does that do? It will only prevent them from killing you but you’re not going to be killing them either. Very ineffective strategy and a waste of time.

Also not to mention their new super OP GM trait that they can never be crit while on Earth Att, so all they have to do to counter your backtab is to switch attunement, then you’re SoL.

I highly doubt that you have killed a highly competent D/D Elementalist using D/P, thus you’re post was theoretical, if not, outdated.

P/D helps alot against the Ele even in power build because you can range kite. Just be ready for the burning speed lightning flash combo. It’s not instant but quick.

Other then that S/D does well but D/D ele always did well against thief because of the AOE like Reikou said same concept with med guardians but it’s more AOE.

I play ele main and thief second so i think i can contribute a decent amount to the post. The general rotation for a D/D ele is air-fire-earth-water, they will use water for a chill so watch it. as for counters P/D you will never beat them 1 vs 1 the cleave in air will make the blind field useless, only if they are bad you might beat them. learn to play S/D for when the enemy has an ele then you have a chance 1 vs 1. If the ele is decent even then i think you would lose.

Things to look out for.

Fire magic – just avoid it, no blind fields or anything just dodge and get out of the burning fields.

(my favorite) arcane shield – look this up on the wiki and ask a friend to show it you in game, even without a fire grab the ele is guaranteed to win if this hits you. Use SB to destroy it and watch out for lightning flash when the last bubble is on them.

ride the lightning combined with static aura – a good tactic to force a stun on the enemy. Dodge it then their ride the lightning has a full 40s cd rather than a 20s. Another point here the stun only works in melee range so you can use your SB when this is on them, but again look out for a forced stun via lightning flash or ride the lightning.

updraft – this is the skill that knocks the ele backwards, always shadowstep away after this skill has been used, this skill puts the ele in the perfect position for a full fire magic rotation. I will stress again shadowstep away or you will be killed. i cannot stress this point enough. a clever ele (myself :p) will expect this and remain in air attunement so they can use ride the lightning to get back on top of you, dodge this then their cd on ride the lightning is much longer.

The ele has 3 stuns / knockdowns where the cooldowns complement each other well and where the fight will go on long enough for them to use each of them at least twice. So ensure you manage your stun breaker effectively, only use them if you absolutely must and do not use your shadowsteps too aggressively, use them defensively.

This build is rumoured to be the new meta and personally with all the might stacking builds out there it is very strong. —-> http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-cF3V;1Vw-_06-V-Fd0;9;49;0TT2;612746BINl3L;1H7W3H7W35H personally this is the only build i will have a tough time against on my ele.

A good tactic is to use a flanking strike at range to get larcenous strike ready then use larcenous strike with steal to land it and get 3 boons. After this use skill 2 for the immobilize and try and get a full chain of the auto attack for weakness.

Don’t complain about the steal skill, chill is the best counter to an ele. use it after they have left water attunement because then there is less chance of them cleansing it. chill affects their attunement recharge time. Applying this after water attunement means it could be 16 seconds or more before they can enter it again.

lastly make an ele and learn to play it. Its the best way to kill any class and build.

Sheppy.9306:

I play ele main and thief second so i think i can contribute a decent amount to the post. The general rotation for a D/D ele is air-fire-earth-water, they will use water for a chill so watch it. as for counters P/D you will never beat them 1 vs 1 the cleave in air will make the blind field useless, only if they are bad you might beat them. learn to play S/D for when the enemy has an ele then you have a chance 1 vs 1. If the ele is decent even then i think you would lose.

Things to look out for.

Fire magic – just avoid it, no blind fields or anything just dodge and get out of the burning fields.

(my favorite) arcane shield – look this up on the wiki and ask a friend to show it you in game, even without a fire grab the ele is guaranteed to win if this hits you. Use SB to destroy it and watch out for lightning flash when the last bubble is on them.

ride the lightning combined with static aura – a good tactic to force a stun on the enemy. Dodge it then their ride the lightning has a full 40s cd rather than a 20s. Another point here the stun only works in melee range so you can use your SB when this is on them, but again look out for a forced stun via lightning flash or ride the lightning.

updraft – this is the skill that knocks the ele backwards, always shadowstep away after this skill has been used, this skill puts the ele in the perfect position for a full fire magic rotation. I will stress again shadowstep away or you will be killed. i cannot stress this point enough. a clever ele (myself :p) will expect this and remain in air attunement so they can use ride the lightning to get back on top of you, dodge this then their cd on ride the lightning is much longer.

The ele has 3 stuns / knockdowns where the cooldowns complement each other well and where the fight will go on long enough for them to use each of them at least twice. So ensure you manage your stun breaker effectively, only use them if you absolutely must and do not use your shadowsteps too aggressively, use them defensively.

This build is rumoured to be the new meta and personally with all the might stacking builds out there it is very strong. —-> http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-cF3V;1Vw-_06-V-Fd0;9;49;0TT2;612746BINl3L;1H7W3H7W35H personally this is the only build i will have a tough time against on my ele.

A good tactic is to use a flanking strike at range to get larcenous strike ready then use larcenous strike with a infiltrators signet to land it and get 3 boons. After this use skill 2 for the immobilize and try and get a full chain of the auto attack for weakness.

Don’t complain about the steal skill, chill is the best counter to an ele. use it after they have left water attunement because then there is less chance of them cleansing it. chill affects their attunement recharge time. Applying this after water attunement means it could be 16 seconds or more before they can enter it again.

lastly make an ele and learn to play it. Its the best way to kill any class and build.

This is a very good advice. Right on. +1

>>as for counters P/D you will never beat them 1 vs 1 the cleave in air will make the blind field useless, only if they are bad you might beat them. learn to play S/D for when the enemy has an ele then you have a chance 1 vs 1

P/d does not rely on a blind field and I find it quite successful 1v1 against Eles. PD can inflict chill at range for up to 8 seconds and a sigil of hydromancy allows another 4 seconds if traited. With an Ice shard steal you have another source.

If you trait for max condition durations you can then have a total 1 at 20 secs one at 8 and one at 4 every 10 seconds. In essence permanent chill available to you.

Its a matter of timing to keep the ele on his toes but the IMMOB skill from p/d lasts as long and costs as much as the one from s/d. In essence you can use the same tactics and lack only for that boon rip from larcenous strike and of course the higher upfront damage. (it then a matter of can your bleeds do the damage needed) Shadowstrike is your equivalent of infiltrators strike and is actually costs less ini wise.

S/d has more cleanses available from conditions but I do not find that an issue against d/d ele’s

>>Actually i am pretty sure the conditions are the biggest problem you will face. every single duel i have won i ask the player to give me the top dps breakdown. Guess what is at the top? Burning, and i can assure you it is that that kills a thief when dueling an elementalist.

That would not be the case . P/d is a ranged weapon and drakes breath has less range then P/d. All of the fire skills on a Eles d/d build are low range. If you are fighting with s/d the only way you can lay damage on is at melee range which is in range of drakes breath.

>>And as for the chill sigils etc. To design a build around taking down one particular class is a poor decision i mean a hammer warrior has a 10 second condition invulnerability that means all your weapon sigils are completely useless

It does not mean that at all any more then “endure pain” means all your s/d skills are useless. A hammer warrior is not hard for a p/d thief to handle. Go look on the boards. They are always asking how to deal with p/d.

I have no real issues with hammer warriors unless I get in areas where space limited and they harder to kite.

There is nothing in my build “specific” to elementalists. Chill affects EVERYONE and one of the reasons the durations tend to be so low is it such a powerful skill. There is nothing “special” i have to trait for to get ice stab . That I am traited for 100 percent condition durations makes that last 20 seconds. This 100 percennt duration also works on my torments, my confusions, my weaknesses, my poisons and my bleeds none of which is specific to killing an elementalist.

Chill kills. The only class not overly affected by it is the thief.

>>S/D means you can get out of combat when the ele is in fire attunement without using a SB which gives the ele a free time to heal up

You do the same with P/d. The only time you are in range is when you use steal and shadowstrike away. Shadowstrike has zero cast time. He will never get his drakes breath off before you are gone. Steal in shadowstrike away.

>>I mean sigil of air is like a must for any dps build as it dishes out a tonne of damage and increases burst to ridiculous proportions which is what a thief is about.

I have a condition hybrid build. If a lay CHILL down on an elementalist just as example and slow his attunement to water and his conditions cleanses by 3 seconds then that is an extra 3 ticks of condition damage he takes. That is over 6k in extra damage, much more then I would garner from a sigil of air.

I really do not care “what your friends tell you”. I am giving the OP advice as to how I deal with d/d ele’s. It works for me. If it does not work for you or your friends that is not my issue.

babazhook.6805:

>>Actually i am pretty sure the conditions are the biggest problem you will face. every single duel i have won i ask the player to give me the top dps breakdown. Guess what is at the top? Burning, and i can assure you it is that that kills a thief when dueling an elementalist.

That would not be the case . P/d is a ranged weapon and drakes breath has less range then P/d. All of the fire skills on a Eles d/d build are low range. If you are fighting with s/d the only way you can lay damage on is at melee range which is in range of drakes breath.

>>And as for the chill sigils etc. To design a build around taking down one particular class is a poor decision i mean a hammer warrior has a 10 second condition invulnerability that means all your weapon sigils are completely useless

It does not mean that at all any more then “endure pain” means all your s/d skills are useless. A hammer warrior is not hard for a p/d thief to handle. Go look on the boards. They are always asking how to deal with p/d.

I have no real issues with hammer warriors unless I get in areas where space limited and they harder to kite.

There is nothing in my build “specific” to elementalists. Chill affects EVERYONE and one of the reasons the durations tend to be so low is it such a powerful skill. There is nothing “special” i have to trait for to get ice stab . That I am traited for 100 percent condition durations makes that last 20 seconds. This 100 percennt duration also works on my torments, my confusions, my weaknesses, my poisons and my bleeds none of which is specific to killing an elementalist.

Chill kills. The only class not overly affected by it is the thief.

>>S/D means you can get out of combat when the ele is in fire attunement without using a SB which gives the ele a free time to heal up

You do the same with P/d. The only time you are in range is when you use steal and shadowstrike away. Shadowstrike has zero cast time. He will never get his drakes breath off before you are gone. Steal in shadowstrike away.

>>I mean sigil of air is like a must for any dps build as it dishes out a tonne of damage and increases burst to ridiculous proportions which is what a thief is about.

I have a condition hybrid build. If a lay CHILL down on an elementalist just as example and slow his attunement to water and his conditions cleanses by 3 seconds then that is an extra 3 ticks of condition damage he takes. That is over 6k in extra damage, much more then I would garner from a sigil of air.

I really do not care “what your friends tell you”. I am giving the OP advice as to how I deal with d/d ele’s. It works for me. If it does not work for you or your friends that is not my issue.

Ahh my bad you are running Pistol/dagger, ok i got confused with all the abbreviations. I can see P/D being a pain for elementalists however i have only seen them run in WvW as dueling specs and never in a competetive tournament team. I get them in WvW and for casual play but i dont think they would ever bring anything more to a tournament team that a necro can do better. Each to their own though. Sorry i got confused and i get the chills now that makes sense i deleted my post.

>>Ahh my bad you are running Pistol/dagger, ok i got confused with all the abbreviations. I can see P/D being a pain for elementalists however i have only seen them run in WvW as dueling specs and never in a competetive tournament team. I get them in WvW and for casual play but i dont think they would ever bring anything more to a tournament team that a necro can do better. Each to their own though. Sorry i got confused and i get the chills now that makes sense i deleted my post.

No problem

I didn’t read all the posts, so this might’ve been mentioned, but try and steal as many boons as you can. A lot of eles, especially d/d eles, are dependent on their boons for their mobility, durability, healing, and damage, so taking away whatever you can makes you weaker and them stronger. A trait like bountiful theft would be quite helpful, and larcenous strike could also be put to good use. If you really wanted, you could even use sigils of nullification to get some extra boon stripping.

Also that stolen ice spike thing you get from eles can actually be quite debilitating, you just have to make sure to actually hit them with it since it’s melee range.

Other than that, you should just try and learn what their skills do, what the animations look like, and what the timings are (i.e. make a d/d ele and go fight people to see how they counter you).

Yamsandjams.3267:

I didn’t read all the posts, so this might’ve been mentioned…

Yup, 4th post from top.

This thread is a joke right? Please tell me this is a joke.

Ele’s have to push literally 3x more buttons and play like a pro to even stand a chance of beating a keyboard-turning Thief who keeps screwing up.
If you lose to an Ele you have done a million things wrong (or you were AFK). Putting aside the fact that thieves can never “lose” a fight since they can always stealth and run away if things go bad.

Signed,
An Ele player

Wintel.4873:

Signed,
A bad Ele player

Fixed it for you.
Learn your and the thief class before replying please.

I’m surprised to hear this having played both. While it’s not an easy matchup, I think the edge still goes to a trickery thief whether it’s S/D or D/P (S/D being the easier of the two). D/P requires more patience between burst with good SB play, but it seems if you are willing that you can win out.

Play both classes. I never have any problem with eles because I know the simple rotation and the skills well. I also main thief so I know what skills counter them, like said before the steal skill you get from the ele is single handedly the most broken thing against them, the chill just slaughters them since the attunements are slowed and ruins the eles rotation (bad or no rotation makes a dead ele).

Amonatory.2453:

Play both classes. I never have any problem with eles because I know the simple rotation and the skills well. I also main thief so I know what skills counter them, like said before the steal skill you get from the ele is single handedly the most broken thing against them, the chill just slaughters them since the attunements are slowed and ruins the eles rotation (bad or no rotation makes a dead ele).

Finally someone who gets it.

Lurock Turoth.9085:

Honestly Thief shouldn’t have much trouble with a DD ele IF (and that can be a big if) they can get out of the first combo.

With the DD ele build I use if you don’t stun break my first knockdown you will be dead in about 3 seconds. Watch out for Ride the Lightning 2k-4k > Updraft > Burning Speed2 2k-4k > Flame Grab 7k-14k. If you make them blow Flame Grab your chances go up dramatically once that rotation is over the eles dps ability drops pretty dramatically. The only other thing to really watch for is Lightning Flash 2k-4k > Churning Earth 7k-16k.

This is the build I roll with.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAoYhUMac25wyBf0AEAC5qHjGMQBhlmA-T1CBwA10BowEEWlYAOBAeVagT9nsKDSpFgiSQk7Pw4BAQKgRVGB-w

You have much to learn, eles these days who stuck around since beta don’t need a cc anymore to initiate.