Guild Wars 2

I am just knocked down by an Ele even I attacked him first. With one skill shot my HP was reduced from 16,000 to 6000. But most serious thing is my damage on him. My CD and heart seaker made just damages about 600. How can you depeat such ele??

I’m using D/D, short bow and valkyrie set.

It really depends what kind of ele we’re talking about here. If an ele is bursting you that much, I’m guessing they’re fresh air S/F or S/D. The key to fighting an ele is knowing when to put pressure and when to be a little more careful. After they’ve attuned to water, you want to apply the chill you get from stealing to them as this will really mess them up. Just takes practice, and lots of it!

Heartseeker is a move that is based on the target’s health – above 50% it’s weak, 25-50% it’s strong, and below 25% it’s amazing. You really only use it for two situations: Closing the gap and killing blows. Early spam wastes the initiative that you could use for CnD + Backstab and Dagger 4 to cripple. You may also want to consider D/P. Pistol offhand offers a blind field for stunning, stealth without needing a target (P5 > D2), and an Interrupt if you notice they’re casting heal or a big move. D/P 3 is also a blinding gap closer that you should use over HS (so HS is used just to stealth and deliver a killing blow). D/P makes it more Initiative intensive slower to stealth than D/D, but the utility gained is more than worth it. The damage nerf CnD took in PvP pretty much sealed the fate on the combo.

As to why you see such small damage numbers, it’s mainly due to boons. Boons are 50% (if not more) of the Elementalist’s survivability. They have protection, which shaves off 33% of damage and is a huge hit against burst builds, vigor, and regeneration. And as they’re good at Might stacking, they often forgo glass and use Celestial to gain more survivability without completely forgoing DPS.

D/D ele is a super tough fight for D/D or D/P thieves – if you don’t get them down with an initial surprise burst, you’re not going to get them down at all (unless they are terrabad). Also be wary of their Shocking Aura – better to hold off for a few seconds than it is to get stunned and let them land a BS > FG combo on you. The situation you described was getting hit by Updraft. Updraft has a tell, so it’s best to dodge it entirely, but if you’re caught, Shadow Step to get away from the follow and break the knockdown. Updraft has a long cooldown, so you should have either killed the ele, or ran away before they’re ready to use it again.

Due to Eles and other boon heavy classes, boon removal is a MUST in PvP. Ready to burst that ele? You need to strip protection first. Thief has two major avenues of boon removal: S/D 3 and Bountiful Theft. S/D is a tougher class to play as it gives up a lot of its bursting power for much higher survivability and takes intelligent play to gain that survivability, but is a great counter to boon heavy classes. Bountiful Theft, though, is a trait – and one that you should take.

A D/P 5 (Black Powder) > D/P 2 (Heart Seeker) > Steal (with Mug trait) > D/P 1 (Backstab) is an amazing opener (try and land BS behind the target), and against a squishy target, can easily put them in range to be mopped up with HS. Having Steal traited with Bountiful Theft means that you should strip Protection to allow the combo to do full damage. Sadly as you get into higher level PvP people will be ready for the burst combo (especially if alone capping a point with everything off cooldown) so you’ll often find yourself whiffing the backstab. Luckily it doesn’t unstealth you if you miss, so if you’re quick, you can still get it off.

http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki is a great resource. It often contains suggestions about how to play the builds provided, and while it certainly isn’t the only way or even necessarily the best way to play/build classes, it definitely is a great place to start.