Guild Wars 2

Both are good choices. However, I’d go Celestial for a simple reason: Build flexibility. Celestial gear will do well with almost any engineer build; it will rarely be the ideal, but it will work. That is, after all, the point of celestial: balanced and diverse stats. If you’re wearing celestial gear and you feel like trying a new build, you have a set of gear that will more-or-less work for that build. Again, not ideal, but enough to try the new build and see if you like it.

In contrast, Berserker (or at least part-zerker) gear will be better for a power-based build (MOAR DAMAGE), but then you have to go get a whole new set of gear if you ever want to go for something condition-based, supportive, or tanky.

Dimes.6024:

:) i know how engi skills work, but to knockback someone he should be in front of you. why would thief stay in front of you, unless he is afk? so you can only hit him with mine and JS… and that wouldnt ever kill him.

about aoe pressure etc so funny. just stop playing calc and dreaming.

Big logical fallacy right here. You’re assuming that because he’s a thief and I’m an engi, I’m somehow just going to sit there and let him stand behind me. Which makes no sense. Positioning is a player skill issue. I’m plenty good at keeping thieves in front of me. If anything, with the knockbacks, immobilize, high dodge, and gap-openers, I’d say I’m better than most builds at keeping thieves off my back.

Dimes.6024:

I don’t see why you wouldn’t be pwned in 5 seconds if mesmer, ranger, thief or necro focuses you.

Too little defense and not too much offense. High risk low reward.

Okay, the only time I’ve ever been pwned in seconds is by two thieves, full burst, at the same time.

If they lock me down with CC, I get protection (-33% damage) and the CC is -25% as long. I can almost always survive the damage. It’s very, very rare for me to get bursted down without dropping out of stun. Note that I have an AoE blind usable while stunned, which can help mitigate the damage.

Once I pop out of stun, I can heal 11k in a matter of a few seconds (1k from leech, 5k from turret, 4k from blast finishers, 1k from regen). All of that is on a 20s cooldown.

Now, at this point, I can dodge 3-5 times in the first several seconds of the fight. Timed right, that can clearly mitigate a lot of damage.

I also have three knockbacks and a 2s immobilize, which can really lock them down. Since this is a hypothetical fight against a CC-lock burst player, let’s look at the damage I can do in just a few seconds:

This rotation: Mine → Leap → Blunderbuss → Overcharged Shot → Fire Blast (including Incendiary Ammo and sigil of leeching) will average something like 18k to an enemy with 2k armor. They’ll get up just as the Blunderbuss hits, but the moment that hits you fire OS (which is instant) and knock them over so they eat your Fire Blast.

Of course, they’ll probably have at least one stun break. But keep in mind that I have a third knockback and an immobilize to help control them. I just wanted to demonstrate that this build has a strong burst rotation of its own. It’s not burst-thief strong, of course, but it’s strong in its own right. Keep in mind that most of those skills are AoE. This build’s single-target damage is good but not incredible; it’s not just for single-target damage, it’s for AoE pressure, high mobility, and lots of control. Team up with a burst character, and my CC will let them get free, easy kills.

PS, if your build has decent crit, try omnomberry pie instead of mango pie. Heals for as much or more, and also does damage. I personally prefer it, although they definitely both have their merits.

They definitely stack. I ran a regen build for a while that relied on that. However, most of them won’t show up in the log.

You should be seeing loads of green numbers, though.

So here’s my current PvP build.

If you want to tweak it for celestial and the balance of direct damage and burn, it’d look more like this.

Honestly, though, having

I love, love, love this build. A few pros to the way I build it:

• Mine field. It removes retaliation, which is a huge counter to FT. It’s also great for removing stability, which leaves them open to this build’s copious CC. There are few things more entertaining than stripping stability off a lich form and knocking them back three times. Or running up to a Guardian casting empower, tossing mines down, and detonating the moment they finish.
• Rocket boots. The mobility from this skill is simply amazing. It doesn’t look like much, but it can take you 1/3 of the way to a point in an instant. If you knockback, turn, and rocket boots, you’re instantly past 1200 range, so it’s a great escape. It breaks immobilize, and turns Entangle (Ranger elite) into a complete joke. This is also a powerful way to close gaps on ranged players, which (as mentioned above) are a counter to this build. With a 16s CD, you can use it frequently.
• Rocket Kick. A 8.25s burn on a 15.5s cooldown, and it’s AoE with a small leap. It works perfectly with this build. Really helps you keep burn up on people.
• Throw Mine. Adds a third knockback (yet another way to counter Shadow Refuge). Really useful against ranged players. If you position the throw correctly, you can actually knock them towards you (keep in mind that you can detonate the mine mid-air – it doesn’t have to land first). Even if you just knock them sideways, the knockdown gives you time to get up.

Overall, this build has high mobility, lots of burn, and balanced damage. You get ridiculous self-healing (and good AoE) with the turret (I almost always manage three blast/leap finishers in the water field, so it heals for loads). It can actually dodge really often (up to 3 dodges per 10 seconds). You get loads of control with three knockbacks, each traited for -20% cooldown. Honestly, in general, you have loads of utility because all of your skills are on low cooldown (heal and elite being the only exceptions). It’s a flexible, fun-to-play build, and I love it.

Definitely going to give the burn version a more thorough try.

So I was thinking up different build ideas when I had a thought.

You know how Turret engis and minion necros (and to a lesser extent, spirit rangers) are just generally a giant pain? Especially if there’s two of them and they lurk on a point so you never get any attacks off?

How would pistols and a berserker build work as a counter to this kind of build?

The key would be the “Coated Bullets” trait. That makes pistol attacks pierce (which really only does anything for one and two). However, I realized what that might do to the autoattack, it blew my mind.

The pistol autoattack hits a target, bleeds them, and then explodes to do fairly wimpy AoE power damage. However, if you take Coated Bullets and shoot a tight concentration of three enemies at the right range, it will pierce through each enemy (bleeding them) and also trigger an AoE power explosion at each enemy. According to the wiki, it will also explode at the end of its path. That means that against three tightly-grouped enemies, they’d take 3-4 times the tooltip power damage, and a bleed each. This means that the pistol’s power damage would be something like 60% higher than the rifle tooltip, and it fires faster than the rifle as well.

Now, in sPvP (the only place where turret engis are even remotely effective), you’ll rarely find a nice, concentrated grouping of targets for this to pump out ridiculously OP damage. However, if a turret engi drops 4 turrets plus another 3 from supply drop, it seems like you have a nice lineup of tightly-packed targets to hit. It seems like the pistol should just absolutely shred through the turrets with its ridiculous DPS.

Problem is, I won’t be able to play the game for a week, so I can’t try this out. Itching to discuss it, though.

Has anyone tried pistol, piercing bullets, and a power build? How did it work as an AoE weapon?

Would someone try this idea out and see how it works? It would be nice to be able to demolish cheesy turret builds.

Nevermind. On further analysis, it looks like the numbers do add up. Thanks to Traeler on Reddit.

In this video I drop from 15k to 5k in under a second, and yet no damage shows up in the combat log.

This isn’t the only time I’ve suspected things are missing from the combat log, but it’s definitely a good example. And worth further testing.

I accidentally stumbled upon a way into one of the enemy bases in an sPvP map. Naturally, once the match was over I went to an empty server and tried to repeat it. Turns out it’s pretty repeatable with practice. Obviously, this could be used to seriously ruin the fun of a PvP match.

Rather than try to describe it, I have a short video (11s, 54mb) showing how to do it. But I don’t want to post it in a public because I don’t want people to start using the exploit.

Is there an address at Arena Net I can email it to? Or some other way to get it to you without everyone else being able to see it?

I’m using the Superior Sigil of Blood on my rifle right now. As far as I can tell, it appears to be functioning correctly. I certainly get healed by it periodically, and I usually see damage numbers at the same time that seem about right (although it’s hard to notice those in the chaos).

However, it doesn’t show anything in the combat log for when Sigil of Blood activates. In contrast, when Sigil of Leeching applies, it will show damage and healing for an effect called “leech”.

It’s not a game-breaking issue (the sigil works, after all), but I would really like to see it in the combat log. I want to know how often it actually goes off in a fight. The cooldown is 5s, but if it’s only activating every 10s on average in reality, that changes how I look at it.

I’m running into a consistent problem. I downloaded the latest version of Gw2Setup.exe from this page. I’ll run it, and it will download until it hits 11376kb, and then freeze. It takes up a ton of processing power, and I can’t close the program without ending the process, but nothing appears to be happening. I did a little investigation, and found that in a folder called “temp” in my AppData, it’s creating endless files named “gw2.001”, “gw2.002”, etc. I left this alone just assuming it would download, and came back when it was up to “gw2.317”.

I’ve tried running as an administrator, and that didn’t help.

cannons.8109:

Is this just theory, or can you post a video of this in action?

This is not just theory. I’ve actually done it, to great effect. My record for surviving (so far) has been something like 6 minutes in a zerg v zerg fight. You don’t really get many kills or much loot, but you’re making a big difference in the fight and it’s a lot of fun.

Sadly, no video because my home computer is broken.

KirinDave.6451:

Seems pretty fair. After all, this takes a lot of skill, amirite? And glass cannon thieves are squishy.

I’m not sure if this is sarcastic or not, so I’m going to assume that it is and address it as such.

Yes, this is pretty fair. It doesn’t take all that much skill, but it does take a lot of teamwork. If you get out of stealth for more than a second or two, you’re guaranteed to die in seconds. You’re putting your life in the hands of the other two Thieves you’re doing this with. If one of you screws up, the three of you are out of stealth and you all die.

Also, you should consider the fact that these Thieves won’t actually have much of an effect on their own. If they all use Dagger Storm, they’ll easily down five or six people. However, unless the rest of the zerg is stupid, they should only get one or two stomps off. Other than that, their only effect is to slow down and annoy. This can have a big effect on the battle if two zergs are fighting, but these thieves against a zerg won’t be getting any kills. Their effect (when not using their elite) is to make their allies stronger.

Any small group of players can have a large effect on the battlefield if they work together. If they have a plan beforehand, build specifically for that, and have tight cooperation and quick teamwork, they can make far more difference than three times their number in enemy zerglings.

Imagine a group of Guardians all using wards (Sanctuary, Ring of Warding, Line of Warding) in a coordinated manner. They could exert massive control over the enemy zerg. They could cut the zerg off at a choke point for quite a long time. Some enemies could get past with teleports or Stability, but a large number would be controlled. They could also provide permanent projectile deflection for an area.

Imagine Elementalists with Glyph of Storms and Blasting Staff. Individually, they can apply massive AoE damage to an area. Together, they could create such a storm as to kill anyone in it within mere seconds.

Imagine Mesmers with Time Warp. I don’t need to tell you how powerful that is.

Imagine Necromancers with Wells, Marks, or Epidemic. The conditions they could apply are mind-blowing.

Here’s something fun to do when you get bored.

First, get some Thief friends. You can barely manage it with one friend, two makes this easy, and more thieves just mean more fun. I’d also strongly recommend that you be in voice chat of some sort; it just makes it much easier to work as a team.

Next, have all of the thieves use this build. They should use their best Healing Power gear, and Condition Damage or Toughness are also priorities. The Runes and Sigil are nice, but certainly not required. Additionally, everyone should purchase and use Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew (+40% endurance regen, might on dodge). It’s pretty cheap and will really, really help you.

Now you’re ready to troll zergs. Here’s how it works: skills that do not apply direct damage do not break stealth, even if they apply damaging conditions. This means that you can use Choking Gas or Caltrops and stay in stealth.

Three thieves using this build can work together to keep themselves in stealth 100% of the time. While in stealth, you regenerate health (~350 hps), remove a condition every 3s (which is a lot), and move 33% faster.

Your goal is to cripple and debilitate a group of enemy players. Stay right in the middle of the zerg, and work together to stay in stealth. Spend all of your initiative on Choking Gas. It applies large stacks of poison to the enemy (7.5-9s every second). It also applies weakness (3.5s every second) to any enemies in the poison fields. Focus on spreading the poison fields apart so that as much of the battlefield as possible is covered constantly.

You should also be using Caltrops on cooldown, for AoE cripple and bleeding. You can dodge frequently (once every 5s), and every dodge drops calrops which cripple and bleed nearby enemies.

Additionally, all these things are healing you heavily with Signet of Malice. Without any healing power on your gear, the passive effect will heal for 115. This means that each Choking Gas or Caltrops can heal you for up to 575 per second. Add this to your stealth regen and condition removal and the fact that the enemy cannot see you, and you’ll probably survive for a really long term.

This is a really, really powerful tactic. A group of three or four thieves can maintain permanent Poison, Weakness, and Cripple on a large group of enemy players without dying. If there aren’t any allies nearby, this will make the zerg waste time trying in vain to kill you. If the zerg is fighting people on your server, they’ll have a massive disadvantage. If the numbers are even close to equal, your allies should win the battle handily.

Additionally, this is fun. It’s really, really entertaining to play a thief like this. You’re a ghost on the battlefield; no enemies can see you, and you (and your friends) sow chaos among the enemy. They’re getting crippled and debilitated by enemies they can’t see, and they’ll be obviously frustrated. It’s fun to laugh as they fail to kill you.

Finally, every 90s, you can turn into a whirlwind of death. A Thief using Dagger Storm and Signet of Malice in a group of enemies is nigh immortal. Three to five Thieves using Dagger Storm and Signet of Malice are immortal, and they will also kill literally everything around them. Some enemies will survive by thinking fast and using projectile-blocking or invulnerability abilities, but the rest will all be cut down by your massive AoE damage. Once Dagger Storm ends, you go into stealth, stomp the enemies, and resume sabotage for a minute and a half.

A couple Thieves using this build and strategy can turn the tide of a sixty-man fight. Whether it’s from crippling and debilitating the enemy or laying waste to all around you with Dagger Storm, you’ll have a large effect on the battlefield.

Here’s my build. Give that a read, it walks you through everything.

Can I make a suggestion here?

Put this guide on the wiki.

Check this out for how it might look. That is a guide to a Thief build that’s very similar to what you have. Mine isn’t quite as in-depth, but still.

As you can see, this puts the guide in a form that’s easier to read and navigate. Additionally, it lets you take advantages of all of the many tools the wiki has. I have all the icons for traits/skills/food/etc. Any time I talk about anything, I have a link to the wiki page for it. So if I’m talking about my trait choice, each trait listed will link to the wiki page for that trait, which has lots of detailed information about it.

You have a fantastic guide here, and putting it on the wiki would make it even better. Feel free to message me here or on the wiki if you’d like help with using the wiki or creating a userpage.

This used to kill me a lot. It still catches me in the middle of CnD, but it happens a lot less.

The key is to start actively anticipating this trait. Once I get low, I start paying really close attention to my health levels. Once I drop under 5k, I stop giving myself the revealed debuff. Once get near 4k, I stop attacking and just start moving erratically. The trait triggers at roughly 3.8k for me. I not only anticipate this trait, I actually depend on it for my survival.

If you start intentionally using it, it’s pretty useful. It still kills me when I forget about it, but it’s given me that crucial 4 seconds more (as well as 2 conditions removed and ~1.7k healing) that I need to survive more often.

That’s almost always long enough for Hide in Shadows, Blinding Powder, or Shadow Refuge to come up. If it’s my heal, then 6k from HiS plus another 3.4k from stealth regen is enough to bring me back up to near-full health. If it’s Blinding Powder, that’s usually enough to last until another stealth skill or heal comes up. Shadow Refuge will heal me for 7.2k with the skill’s healing and my stealth regen.

And, of course, I always have the option to swap to shortbow and disengage. You can shadowstep twice with 4s of stealth, so when you finally render you can be ~2,000" away.

Krathalos.3461:

There will always be a core problem with a bunker thief: low base stats without the heals Guardian can dish out and a reliance on Stealth. Maybe in a 2 man bunker, it could work, since Stealth would only remove you from the base. But as a solo bunker, stealth would completely ruin the entire reason you’re there, which is to stop the base from being taken over.

All I’m really saying is that there’s no reason to figure out a bunker build when it’s going to be inferior no matter what.

Well, this is just for fun. Something to do. I’m not necessarily going to use it, but it’s something interesting to try. Also, I’m aware that stealth would ruing the bunker. I mention that several times, and that’s why I’m trying to develop a build that uses no stealth.

Doomdesire.9365:

I’ve made an extreme self healing/vitality build in spvp. Everything was put into healing and vitality. It was somewhat sucessful. The people I played called me a pain in the kitten rogue(in a good way :P) but a pure thief tank isn’t that great. It was hard to take down, but simply can’t deliver any punches to knock out the enemy. A vitality/condition build is much more effective than a valtality/healing power build.

Please, do share this build. Just talking about it doesn’t really contribute, but I’d love to see what you’ve come up with.

I understand that a bunker won’t be able to “deliver any punches”. As a bunker, that wouldn’t be my job. A bunker is simply supposed to survive at whatever cost until reinforcements (the roamers) can arrive.

Stiv.1820:

This is the evade tank build I use in sPvP.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mckzzzz9MolbLMolvLMa9Mxxccsbckq8khf7khG7khf7khG7070z7kuB70z7kIN70z7kG270z

That… that actually looks fantastic. I love the idea of using D/D for both weapon sets so you can take advantage of Quick Pockets and Sigil of Energy. Near-permanent evade, combined with constant long-duration AoE bleeding? Yes please. It actually seems like you could down people in a long fight with that, thanks to all of the bleeding stacks.

Fascinating. I may have to try that out.

Adaneshade.2409:

I run a 10-0-30-30-0 build with S/D – SB; soldiers jewel, and dolyak runes, using signet of malice for heal. I can outright tank half the other team with little problem if i play full on defense, very solid build for bunkering.

So I’m curious; why the 30 points in Shadow Arts? I could see 20 points for Leeching Venoms, but 30 points is only good if you’re going for venomshare (which is unnecessary for a bunker).

I’m also wondering why you take S/D. That’s a great weapon set in situations where stealth is okay (it’s the one I use), but without stealth it’s pretty bad. Flanking Strike rates a “meh” at best (too hard to connect in PvP), and you cannot use CnD at all while bunkering. This means that you’re taking sword off-hand solely for Dancing Dagger, and I just don’t see that being worth it.

Uberlicious.3956:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAqYVlcmCO3cy9E95EB3Dj60m6p4rjtTxVjPA;TsAA2Cuo6y4lwLbQuukBtAZQxkAA

im trying this out in spvp and it seems to be working , pretty much hitting a CnD going into stealth unloading with that first skill outta stealth dodge roll twice then go back into stealth, while in stealth it heals my conditions and heals myself, and with signet of malice and that unload thing it gives me tons of hp back

Look, that’s nice, but read the OP. I’ll emphasize:

Builds that rely on stealth in any way are not okay here.

I’m trying to make a bunker build here. If you’re unfamiliar with the current sPvP meta, a “bunker” is a player with high defenses that sits on a node and defends it. Their job is to be able to soak up attacks from enemy players for as long as possible without giving up the node.

The problem with a stealth build in this situation is that while in stealth, you cannot contest a node. If you’re standing on a node and your enemy is standing on a node, it’s contested (meaning that it doesn’t change possession). However, if you go into stealth, then as far as the game is concerned the enemy is the only person on it. That means they can start capturing the node. It only takes 3 seconds to bring a node down to grey. That means that if you go into stealth for three seconds, you’ve let them neutralize the node and failed as a bunker. In a protracted fight where you’re forced to rely heavily on stealth to heal, it would be very feasible to see someone cap the node from underneath you without you dying or leaving the node.

That’s a great defensive build, but it is not a bunker.

I LOL’d. Hard. This:

Thom.1862:

I am not trying to be rude, just stating the obvious.

…was in the same thread as these:

Thom.1862:

Whomever is in charge of the Elementalist class you need to quit your job, your by far the worst Developer in this game.

Thom.1862:

If this was an effort on all the Developers part (the Elementalist class) then shame on you all.

Thom.1862:

I moreover just want to thank you for wasting 70 plus hours of my life leveling my Elementalist just to see it be a giant fail.

Thom.1862:

PS I figure that you will delete this post just because you can’t handle criticism about your job. I am sorry that you can’t do your job well.

Sparkling among the muck of this horrible post are some statements. If you squint your eyes really hard it almost looks like they could turn into coherent, worthwhile opinions with some polish. Polish, in this case, meaning some sort of reasoning to back up what you’re saying. As it stands, it appears that this post formed half-finished in the depths of OP’s subconscious and somehow managed to sneak onto the internet before the part of his brain responsible for “thinking” was able to get a hold of it.

Try harder. Say things, and back them up with reasoning. Until then, congratulations on your post. You’ve got me genuinely confused over whether you’re deliberately trolling or really ignorant enough to think that drivel constitutes an opinion.

Yeah, stealthing is great. I play an extremely versatile S/D Thief with lots of flexibility, dazing, mobility, and support. I rely on stealth for my defenses as well, and that’s really powerful. It’s too bad that it’s not effective in sPvP.

Edited title and OP to make it clear that I’m talking about sPvP.

DivineBeing.2086:

Wow, thanks OP. Now ele’s are being compared unfairly to thiefs.

This sure won’t draw irrational conclusions about this being a viable build. /rollseyes

This build requires the following:

- Full Glass Cannon = sneeze in this ele’s direction and watch him eat dirt.
- Blow ALL Utility Skills = Utility skills are our MAIN source of escape! That leaves us with one option = Ride the Lightning. And RTL is EASY to counter! Immbolize Ele = RTL is useless.
- Opponent has to be an idiot by not using any stun breakers, cc, or dodging of his own.

Elementalist’s power shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same vacinity as Thief’s power.

Have you played a thief? Everything you’re saying about glass cannon elementalist is true for the glass cannon instagib thief as well. The instagib thief that everyone QQs about requires two utility skills (24-30s and 60s cooldowns), a profession skill (45s cooldown), and an elite (45s cooldown) to pull off. That thief will also eat dirt if you can sneeze in their direction.

Stealth is just as easy to counter as RTL. If they want to stealth, they either have to hit you with a melee attack or they have a healing skill with a 1s cast time. Both have distinct animations, making them easy to dodge or interrupt (respectively). Additionally, stuns/dazes will prevent the thief from stealthing, and immobilize/chill prevents them from moving while stealthed. If you hit them with Signet of Earth, you immobilize them for their entire stealth. This leaves you free to smash them (they’re still there, even if you can’t see them) and it keeps them from escaping. The difference between stealth and RTL is that not as many players have figured out how to counter stealth. It can definitely be done, you just have to adapt your playstyle to the Thief.

Your opponent has to be an idiot to die to thief burst as well. One dodge/evasion/invuln/block/whatever will negate the entire burst. This leaves the thief with two utilities, their profession skill, and their elite wasted, and no initiative left (equivalent to having all your weapon skills on cooldown). At that point, the fight is tipped heavily in your favor. All it takes is one or two controls of any form to finish them. Hell, a good player with a non-glass build should be able to take a decent amount of their burst, heal it back, and crush them.

Also, notice that the damage done by this build is AoE. The equivalent thief burst is single-target. And you don’t need utility skills or long cooldowns to do a truckload of burst. In that video, I see:

• Burning Speed: 5,019
• Ring of Fire: 3,261
• Arcane Shield: 4,145
• Fire Grab: 9,221

So, that’s 8,280 damage, 5-target-AoE, using skills that have a 12s-15s cooldown (depending on build). That is nearly exactly the same damage as Backstab does without any utility skills. A Thief can Backstab every 4s at the most.

So, if let’s ignore utility skills for a moment. The thief and the elementalist can do roughly the same burst. The thief can do it to a single target every 4-5s. The elementalist can do it to up to five targets every 12-15s. That seems balanced.

We can use our other skills to get a 15% power boost for a few attacks (30s CD), a stun while we burst you (45s CD), an extra 4-5k hit (45s CD), and Haste (60s CD). You can use your other skills to get guaranteed crits for a few attacks (45s CD), an immobilize while you burst (30s CD), an extra 4-5k hit (20s CD), or an extra 6k+ AoE hit (30s CD). You also get Fire Grab if we’re using long-cooldown skills, which can easily push 8k (glass cannon).

That seems comparable to me. I just established that we get similar levels of burst. You can’t burst as often, but you can burst AoE. You can also burn cooldowns for a bigger burst than Thief will ever manage.

Thief gets stealth to escape, which is akin to an instant win escape against bad players but is countered by good players. Elementalist gets RTL which is a strong escape against bad players but countered by moderate and good players. You also get self-healing outside of #6 and control skills, which thieves lack.

To me, that seems different but acceptably equal.

Oh, and for the record:

DivineBeing.2086:

…draw irrational conclusions about this being a viable build…

In my eyes, glass cannon is never a viable build. It’s great for pugstomping, but against a competent player it should rarely (if ever) work. Glass cannon just does not have the tools that a successful, balanced build does.

Click here for the guide

The problem with most keybinds is key conflict. Let’s say you have [D] bound to “strafe right” and [F] bound to your healing skill. You’d hit both of them with your first finger. So what happens if you’re strafing right to circle-kite an enemy and you need to heal? You either stop strafing (allowing them to catch up to you) or you delay your heal (potentially causing you to die). Any keybind system using standard hardware (not a Naga or G15 or whatever) and WASD will run into skill conflict for almost any skill. If you have three fingers for movement, you’d have to hit every key with your pinky to avoid conflict.

My build absolutely removes any conflict. Movement does not conflict with weapon skills. Movement does not conflict with utility skills. Utility skills do not conflict with weapon skills. There is a little bit of conflict (weapon swap and weapon skills use the same finger), but it’s minimal and never causes me issues. It allows you to retain complete control over your movement while using any of your skills.

It’s a little bit different, but it gives you great performance.

I have an experiment I want to try. I want to see if it’s possible to play a Bunker Thief in sPvP. Every other class can Bunker somehow, but I’ve yet to see a Thief do so.

The problem is that our best defensive specs all rely on stealth. A good stealth spec, with regen and condition removal in stealth and frequent stealthing, can be nigh impossible to kill. However, in sPvP, stealth makes you incapable of defending a node. An sPvP bunker needs a non-stealth build.

I’ve come up with a life-leeching build. This means using Signet of Malice for constant, high self-healing. I’ve come up with several

In both of them, I focus on maintaining high hit volume for self-healing from Signet of Malice. I take Sword/Pistol because Pistol Whip gives an evade and a flurry of rapid hits. With this build, Pistol Whip will heal for up to 950 health per target it hits. S/P also gives a spammable stun break (which also removes a condition), a fantastic interrupt, and a blinding field. The autoattack is AoE (which is great, each hit counts for SoM) and applies cripple and weakness.

I take P/P as my secondary weapon. Most people look down on P/P as a poor weapon set, and I partially agree. However, for this type of bunker build it’s pretty powerful. Unload gives P/P the best hit volume of any Thief ranged weapon, and that’s what matters to me. You also get Black Powder to shoot through (for blinding) and a great interrupt. It won’t do much damage, but it gives me a ranged option that’s still defensive with this build.

Now, for the variants.

Venom Variant*

This variant focuses on healing from venom lifesteal. The Leeching Venoms heal is really powerful (325 base, 20% scaling), and I get 13 strikes of venom every 36s with this build. That ends up being something like 130 healing per second with the venoms, which is quite a lot. Additionally, I easily maintain permanant weakness against one target, and also get a 7.5s immobilize every 36s, which is huge. The venoms heal me and debuff my enemy. This build still has good healing from Signet of Malice, because it still has good hit volume.

Caltrops Variant*

This build focuses on maximizing healing from SoM. It has the caltrops utility skill, with caltrops on dodge (and frequent dodging). This allows you to cover a node with caltrops at pretty much all times. This will force enemies to either stay off the node or take constant cripple and bleeding while healing you. This build also gets a small but still sizeable heal from Assassin’s Reward (~70 healing every time you spend a point of initiative). I still take spider venom (100% poison uptime and 50% weakness uptime) and devourer venom (for a 5s immobilize every 36s), but they don’t heal me. This build can also dodge 50% more often than the venom variant. It has better initiative regen, which means more use of high hit-volume skills.

AoE Variant*

This variant aims for maximum godmode in an AoE fight. I swap out P/P for shortbow. This really limits me if I’m guarding a node that doesn’t see any action. If I’m being attacked by a single player who’s staying at range, I have to leave the node to fight them. Leaving the node is bad. However, it makes up for it by being epic in an AoE fight. With this build, shortbow becomes the world’s best AoE defense weapon.

Choking Gas becomes king. Choking gas triggers SoM’s heal, which means that each Choking Gas field will heal you for up to 530 per second (assuming it’s hitting five enemies). You could potentially get over 2k healing per Choking Gas. Additionally, it’s pulsing weakness constantly thanks to 15 points in Deadly Arts, which lowers the damage of everyone you fight. You’re also a great asset to your team by keeping the enemy constantly poisoned and weakened, no matter how much condition removal they have. That’s less damage, less healing, and less dodging.

I also tweak this build for lower trick cooldown (MOAR CALTROPS) and Roll For Initiative (stun-break, kiting tool, 1.5 choking gas worth of initiative). This will give more initiative for more spamming of Choking Gas. And of course, Dagger Storm is godmode as ever.

Conclusion

I’m very interested to try this out (at work right now). I’ve done the math, and it cannot match the EHP other bunkers can pull in small fights. However, our healing scales with the number of enemies we’re fighting. The bigger the fight, the more healing we get. I’m especially interested to try out the AoE variant in hotjoin; permanent poison/weakness/cripple/bleed on the enemy while I never die sounds really, really fun.

Let’s see some of your bunker builds. I’d love to see other variations on this one, or bunker builds that take a different tactic. Also, if you’ve played a Thief Bunker before, let us know how it went!

Oliin.9581:

Dacromir.6207:

Okay, check this video out

That burst had two components. The first part was 12k damage, and that can be done every 12s. The second part was the 9k hit, and that can be done every 36s. Additionally, he had other huge-hitting burst skills (arcane) that he could use, which would hit for well over 4k each. Arcane skills don’t interrupt your current cast and can be cast while you’re using other skills. He also would do bucketloads of damage with Drake’s Breath or even the fire autoattack, to finish off the people who survive the 12k hit.

Not only could he pull off 12k+ burst every 12s, that burst is a 5-target AoE. He could zoom into a group of 3 people and nearly kill them in seconds, and then absolutely wreck them if Fire Grab was available. Our burst is single-target.

Admittedly I did not spend a ton of time reading that thread, but in glancing at it I didn’t find a readily noticeable video link anywhere.

That aside, I don’t really play d/d on my elementalist but the only 12s recharge power I can recall off hand is magnetic grasp which isn’t AoE that I an recall. Were you talking about the 15 second recharge ride the lightning instead?

Wow, I feel stupid. I must have thought I’d copied the link to the video, but I guess I didn’t. The only thing I can think is that I had that link on my clipboard from earlier.

Edited that post, and this is the video I meant to post.

MrButtermancer.1624:

6: No weapon swap. Hear me out. Every other class can modify their effective range…

I’ll address this part.

You are completely correct. Every other profession can use weapon swapping to have multiple ranges at their disposal. They can take a melee weapon and a long-range weapon for flexibility. You cannot do that. This means that other professions have far more in-combat flexibility in terms of engagement range.

However, you get something to balance that off. At whatever range you choose, you have all the tools. No matter what your weapon set, attunements mean that you always have a large variety of tools at your disposal.

On professions, however, are limited in what tools they take. Each weapon will only fulfill a couple of roles. For example, let’s look at a Thief (the class I know best). Let’s stay you’re stereotypical, so you have dagger/dagger. As an offset, you want a ranged option, so you go for shortbow.

This means that they have engagement range flexibility. They can fight at 130 range (D/D) or 900 range (SB). However, their role flexibility is extremely limited.

Dagger/Dagger:

• 130": Strong single-target direct damage
• 450": Leap finisher, execution damage
• 600": AoE Cripple
• 300": AoE Bleeding
• 130": Stealth

Shortbow:

• 900"-1200": Strong AoE damage
• 900": Ranged AoE Poison (Poison field)
• 1200": Ranged Blast finishers
• 900": Ranged single-target Cripple
• 900": Shadowstep

Combine the two, and they get lots of melee/range flexibilty. They’ve got good single-target in melee and good AoE damage (meaning weak single-target) at range, with some utility from poison fields, blast finishers, stealth, and shadowstepping.

Let’s compare to a D/D Elementalist.

Fire:

• 400": Single-target damage
• 400": Strong Burning (cone AoE)
• 240": AoE burning and damage (Fire field) (x2)
• 600": Forward dash
• 400": Single-target burst

Water:

• 600": Weak single-target damage, vulnerability
• 0": Self-healing
• 240": AoE healing and condition removal
• 240": AoE Chill
• 0": Chill aura

Air:

• 300": Strong single-target damage
• 300": Weakenss (cone AoE)
• 0": Stun aura
• 1200": Forward dash
• 180": AoE knockback, self Swiftness

Earth:

• 300": Single-target bleeding
• 240": AoE bleeding
• 900": Self-pull, immobilize
• 240": AoE knockdown, Blast finisher
• 360": AoE massive burst, bleeding, cripple, Blast finisher

So, let’s compare the two. Thief gets one weapon for high single-target damage and stealth, with some moderate AoE bleeding. We get another weapon for high ranged AoE damage, from poison, bleeding, and direct damage, as well as utility from shadowsteps and a spammable (ish) blast finisher. However, the thief is lacking any form of control beyond cripple and has no self-healing. In addition, our AoE damage at melee range is very weak, and our single-target damage at long range is extremely lacking.

Contrast that with the elementalist. Other than a couple of skills used to close gaps, the majority of your damage is 300-400". You have no real options to do anything at range, other than get closer. You’re useless against anything on a wall. However, you have a wide variety of melee range tools. You get several hard controls (knockdown, knockback, stun aura). You get lots of chill application, as well as a ranged immobilize. You can do high AoE damage from both conditions and direct damage. You get high single-target damage from both conditions and direct damage, with great burst (on a long cooldown). You get two healing skills, one of which is AoE and removes conditions.

The thief is left with several gaps in their build (control, healing, condition removal), which they’ll have to fill with traits or slot skills. Your weapons give you all of the basic tools you need (single-target/AoE, direct/condition, control, healing, condition removal, gap closers) and you merely enhance whichever facets you want to focus on with traits.

…

I don’t think that your system is bad. It’s definitely different, but that’s okay. Classes are supposed to be different. You get pros (tons of flexibility within your chosen range) to match the cons (lack of range flexibility). I see that as an okay thing. Even though a D/D elementalist is useless at long range, they’re an absolute beast in melee.

katniss.6735:

Does sPVP damage really matter? Try using 30/30 in WvW. You’ll be naked in no time from all the deaths. The guy who mentioned thieves, 25k is less than what a thief does with less build-up involved. Especially vs glass cannons. Thieves are completely spoiled. Tired of hearing them defend the class, really.

You obviously haven’t played a Thief. You should give it a try sometime.

Here’s what you’ll experience. In sPvP hotjoin, you’ll be able to absolutely wreck a good portion of the population. You have craze burst damage, and they don’t know how to deal with you yet. After all, this is where you find people who are brand new to PvP.

However, you’ll run into some people that are different. These people survive your burst, and then all of the sudden you’re either dead or running for your life. You can find one person and attack them over and over throughout a match, but you never get a kill off. They avoid your burst, and with that gone your only option is to flee. Even then, your build has no stun breaks or condition removal, and they can lock you down and catch you pretty easily.

If you start running tournaments, you’ll suddenly find that these players make up the majority of the population. Sure, you’ll get a couple kills on bad players, people who weren’t paying attention, or people who were partially dead/out of cooldowns when you attacked. However, you’ll spend large parts of fights attacking and then immediately running away when you fail to get a kill.

You’ll start realizing that playing a pure glass cannon simply isn’t viable against competent players. You’ll start tweaking your build a little bit. You still want high damage, but maybe you sacrifice some burst for the ability to break stuns or remove conditions. Maybe you want some control or utility, maybe you want more mobility. You keep tweaking and changing your build until suddenly, you’re not a glass cannon. You may not be able to down a noob in three seconds, but you have an actual balanced build that can handle skillful enemies.

…

I’m defending thief class because that build is only effective among low-skill players. Among reasonably competent players, BS burst is worthless. It’s incredibly easy to counter (shocking aura: BS countered). Likewise, every class can pull off that kind of burst. Warriors can get massive (10k-15k hits) with killshot every 10s from 1,200 range. Necros can well-bomb for AoE carnage. Elementalists can do 12k damage each to five targets on a 12-15s cooldown.

The thing people seem to have a problem with is stealth. I’ll agree that stealth rendering can be bad in WvW, but that is no longer a thing in sPvP. Even still, I do not understand the problem with it. Stealth is our only survival tool. We cannot give ourselves protection. We have no self-healing (other than #6) unless heavily into defense. We have extremely poor condition removal. We have virtually no hard controls. We have low armor and low health. The only way a Thief survives is by not taking hits, and we do that with stealth and dodging.

Just like every other defensive tactic, stealth can be countered. I do really well against Thieves both on my thief and on my D/D elementalist. Hell, with an elementalist it’s almost easy. You have so many AoEs that it should never really be hard to kill someone who’s in stealth. I love chilling thieves and then kiting them around while they burn. Magnetic Grasp and Earthquake are fantastic anti-thief skills.

Otaur.9268:

Running a bunker spec ele, we can outlast some people for a good while. But the moment a glass cannon backstab thief comes into play, 7.5k backstab on a Bunker build, thats over half life. Add in another stealth, backstab, cloak dagger, heartseekers which hit 4k. This video shows an ele who maxed out 30 fire 30 air and probably 10 water for dmg to vulnerable targets. All this build shows is that we can kill an AFK target, who does nothing to fight back, by blowing ALL our cooldowns.

We cannot use fire grab 2x – 3x in a Row unlike backstab. So even if they managed to get this off, he is instantly dead by anyone around.

You can only Backstab once every 5s. So if you’re getting hit with backstab 3 times, you’ve been fighting for 12s+. That gives you plenty of time to react.

Likewise, a glass cannon thief is only good against vulnerable and bad targets. A bunker elementalist should be able to handle them just fine. They’re squishy as hell, have no stun breaks, and lack any significant condition removal, Once you survive the initial burst, a stun or two is all it takes to destroy them. I play a fairly defensive jack-of-all-trades, on both my Thief and my Elementalist, and the only times I’ve ever died to a glass cannon Thief are when I’ve been caught off-guard at half health or when I really screwed up my play. I’m okay with them killing me in those cases, because when I play right I can absolutely wreck them.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Now if only we could have near constant stealth

Constant stealth is nice, but all it does is turn you into a mild annoyance. By sitting in stealth, you’re not dying but you’re also not accomplishing anything. If you want to do anything more than a 2k hit every 4s (as a glass cannon), you cannot perma-stealth. Perma-stealth is also easy to counter for people that bother to learn. I’ll give you the quick-and-dirty.

There are two ways to perma stealth. One involves hitting the enemy with a melee attack every 4s, precisely. The Thief will hit you with a melee stealth attack the exact moment that stealth falls off; since they’re not doing damage while in stealth, they aren’t Revealed and they can immediately re-enter. The second involves laying down smoke fields and leaping through them, as Leap + Smoke = Stealth.

Melee stealth is countered by dodging, blocking, or using AoEs. They have to use precise timing while attacking, so you can time your dodge pretty easily. They also have to stay close to you, so you can just spam your many, powerful AoEs and kill them with ease. If they’re leaping through smoke, attack with AoEs and stand nearby. They’ll hit you with their leap, which will deal damage and Reveal them.

I also think you might be talking about using stealth as a glass cannon to escape fights. Yes, that’s true, a thief can escape. However, a thief with glass cannon burst and stealth to escape has no other utility. There is no room left in that build for a stun break, and they have zero to one condition removal (30s cooldown). You can lock them down with CC or immobilize/chill/cripple them, and there’s nothing they can do about it.

Additionally, as an elementalist, I don’t think you have much room to whine about that being OP. You can use Ride the Lightning and Lightning Flash and open a massive gap as well. You can also swap over to water and get powerful self-healing, which is something that Thieves lack. A glass cannon thief cannot give themselves swiftness, but a glass cannon D/D elementalist can give themselves 65% swiftness uptime with Updraft and your healing Glyph. So yes, thieves can escape fights. So can you.

I don’t really see the OP.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

…doing such easy DPS by smashing buttons randomly…

We all know that that’s literally false. However, I will readily agree with the fact the Elementalists require more skill to play than any of the other classes. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I like that now that I’ve mastered my thief, I have a much harder class to learn. In compensation for requiring more skill, Elementalists have far more tools. If a Thief builds for glass cannon, they have no control and their self-healing is limited to the #6 skill. You can still swap into earth/air for stuns, and you can swap into water for powerful self-healing. No matter what build an Elementalist takes, they will always have a multitude of damage abilities, self-healing, control, and movement. You require more skill, but with enough skill you can become a god.

However, in this specific case, I don’t think you can make an argument of skill. For a Thief to pull off their famed instagib burst, they have to:

1. Activate Basilisk Venom and Assassin’s Signet
2. Begin casting Cloak and Dagger
3. Cast Steal 0.4s through the animation
4. Move behind the enemy for Backstab
5. Backstab
6. Spam heartseeker until they’re dead

For an elementalist to pull off equivalent burst (as seen in this video), they had to:

1. Use Burning Speed from the correct distance
2. Use Ring of Fire
3. Turn to face the enemy
4. Use Fire Grab
5. Autoattack until dead

If you’re really trying to burst, you’d throw in an Arcane Power/Blast/Wave.

That’s not really all that skillfull. If you’re playing an Elementalist like this, you’re required to play with extreme skill to pull it off correctly. That player is keeping track of internal CDs, timing skills effectively, managing positioning, and targetting the correct enemies. Likewise, playing a balanced thief takes far more skill than a glass-cannon thief (although less than elementalist). However, playing a glass-cannon Elementalist like the video I linked is a matter of build, and then hitting a succession of abilities one after another for massive, rapid burst. It’s essentially the same as Thief.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

This will be used on rubbish players and they will moan on the forums and we will get nerfed even more.

Congratulations! You now know what being a Thief feels like!

Oliin.9581:

Huh, no points in arcane on that ele at all.

But yea, they can do that once every 45 seconds …

Okay, check this video out

That burst had two components. The first part was 12k damage, and that can be done every 12s. The second part was the 9k hit, and that can be done every 36s. Additionally, he had other huge-hitting burst skills (arcane) that he could use, which would hit for well over 4k each. Arcane skills don’t interrupt your current cast and can be cast while you’re using other skills. He also would do bucketloads of damage with Drake’s Breath or even the fire autoattack, to finish off the people who survive the 12k hit.

Not only could he pull off 12k+ burst every 12s, that burst is a 5-target AoE. He could zoom into a group of 3 people and nearly kill them in seconds, and then absolutely wreck them if Fire Grab was available. Our burst is single-target.

Compare this to our burst. We can pull off similar single-target numbers with CnD -> BS -> HS. Our burst can be used every 5s. To do our massive insta-kill burst combo, we require 36s cooldowns (steal, sigil, basilisk venom). This allows us to match his burst with Fire Grab, but we stun the enemy while doing it and pull off the burst in a mere second.

One thing people love to point out about us is that we can stealth to run away if the burst fails. That’s true, but a glass cannon D/D elementalist can swap into water for self-healing, earth for control, or air for Ride the Lightning (crazy powerful escape). They also get mist form and other cantrips. We both have good escape ability while glass cannon spec.

TL;DR: Thieves have two bursts. We do good single-target without cooldowns, and can pull it off every 5s. Elementalists can do similar burst every 12s, but it’s AoE. We can also use 36s-45s cooldowns to make our burst higher, nearly instant, and stun the enemy while doing it. Elementalists can use similar skill slot investment and cooldowns to do equivalent levels of burst, but AoE. Thieves get stealth while glass-cannon, elementalists get movement skills and powerful self-healing.

My Build

It’s a fantastic jack-of-all trades build. You lack burst damage, but you have everything else. No matter what tactic or build the enemy is using, you have a method of dealing with it. High mobility, lots of utility and flexibility, good support. Works great in both solo and group play, for WvW or PvE/Dungeons.

I got tired of typing out a description over and over in different threads, so I now have a detailed write-up on the wiki that I keep updated. It’s easier this way, and the ability to use icons and links in the wiki is fantastic. Now if I mention a trait and you want to know more about it, you can just click on the trait in the write-up and it takes you to the wiki page.

Here’s the thing:

You sound like a reasonably competent player.

That means that the majority of the forum QQ is irrelevant to you. As a reasonably competent player, you know how to figure out what the enemy is doing and adapt to it. When you first encountered stealth, you were a little nervous. However, you figured out how to counter it and started countering.

The people who QQ on the forums will almost always reveal one of three things on investigation:

1. They are underleveled and undergeared fighting lvl 80s in exotics.
2. They have a build specifically countered by the build they’re fighting.
3. They made no attempt to adapt and learn to fight the enemy.

Okuza.5210:

So, the tests lack rigour. Heh, I also checked the classic D/D mug/cnd/bs/hs spike. It’s impressive: ~15k in under 3s. My ability to start & stop the clock and work that chain with any accuracy is low, though — either the timing or the chain suffer.

Best way to test things like this with precision:

• Get some sort of video recording software (I use MSI Afterburner)
• Record video of whatever you want to time.
• Get some sort of video editing software (I use AVS, but I’m sure others would work fine)
• Slow the video down to 10%
• Measure time from start to finish, divide by 10

This gives you highly precise measurement without requiring you to hit start/stop on a stopwatch. It’s easily within a tenth of a second in accuracy, which is more than you can usually manage with a stopwatch under ideal conditions.

This build. That’s a complete and detailed write-up using all of the fantastic resources the wiki has to offer, so it would be pointless to copy it here.

It’s a fantastic WvW, PvE, and Dungeon build. It gives you great survivability, great support/utility/mobility, and great control. It also gives good sustained damage; your burst is nonexistent, but you get good sustained AoE damage. Most importantly, you have a tool for every situation. This build comes with excellent melee, ranged, AoE damage, gap closers, stun breakers, condition removal, interrupts/stuns, group stealth, self-healing, and boon removal.

I can’t stick with any other build because I’ve never found another that has all of the above. I’ll enjoy the new build until I run into a hammer warrior and start missing all my stun breaks, or run into a condition necro and start missing my gap closers and condition removal. At some point I always run into something that my S/D build could counter easily but my new build can’t handle.

The one thing this build isn’t fantastic for is sPvP. The recent patch hit this specific build really, really hard. I think I can still make it viable, but as it is my damage is too low and I’m working on a variation of the build for sPvP. You can still use this build very successfully in hotjoin, because it doesn’t take a perfect build to pugstomp. However, this is barely good enough for free tournaments and currently not good enough for paid tournaments.

sorrow.2364:

Exactly, where is the mobility on the warrior’s greatsword?
So you consider Rush or Whirlwind Attack better mobility skills compared to Steal, Infiltrator’s Arrow, Disabling Shot, Infiltrator’s Strike, Heartseeker, Death Blossom, Flanking Strike and Shadow Shot & Strike?
Better you reroll warrior then.

• Infiltrator’s Arrow, Disabling Shot (Shortbow)
• Infiltrator’s Strike (Sword/X)
• Heartseeker (Dagger/X)
• Death Blossom (Dagger/Dagger)
• Flanking Strike (Sword/Dagger)
• Shadow Shot (Dagger/Pistol)
• Shadow Strike (Pistol/Dagger)

Gotta love those five-weapon-set builds. They’re totally OP, but I just can’t keep myself from using them. They’re so fun!

oflow.2157:

Evie.2794:

More damage? Realy? Ele has by far the highest burst potential and wrecks everything that balls up. You gotta be kidding right?

Not really. Like the other poster said I was talking about PvE. Do what you did in the video and the elite then 1 hits you.

Well, then build a bunker. I guarantee you that a bunker D/D elementalist hits harder than defensive specs in other classes. You can still swap to fire for massive damage, or you can focus on water for the healing. Compare this video to this video. Both the Warrior and the Elementalist are surviving against far greater odds. However, the Warrior contributes virtually no damage; her teammates are the ones that do the killing. She’s pretty much pigeon-holed into spamming shouts and never dying. The Elementalist actually deals damage and gets kills off.

A few things to keep in mind.

Scepter air has its uses. For one thing, damage is balanced using Lightning Strike. For another, it’s a channeled skill. That means that it will continue to hit a thief if they go into stealth. It can be incredibly annoying to fight against. So yes, it’s a long channel and you can’t dodge without dropping your DPS, but it’s a strong counter against stealth. If you time it right, you can be hitting the thief for almost the entire time they’re in stealth, making stealth far less powerful.

Water is weak, yes. However, it does have a very high hit volume. This means that things with a chance to proc off of hits or crits will proc really often with scepter water attack. Also, remember that water is supposed to be fairly weak in damage. Scepter Water #1 could use a little bit of a buff, but I don’t think it’s that far off.

I’m a fan of the Valkyrie Amulet with a Rampager’s Jewel. High power, good healing and crit damage, some toughness and a little precision. A nice balance of offense and defense.

Celestial jewel is also fantastic for Elementalists. For most builds, that’s sub-par. If you’re direct damage, you have no use for condition damage. If you’re condition damage, you have no use for crit damage or power. If you’re an offensive spec, +healing is barely going to help. If you’re defensive, you probably want fewer points spent on damage.

However, Elementalists are the one class that will always have healing skills, direct damage skills, and condition damage skills. Our heals also scale really well with healing power. A Celestial Amulet combined with the right traits can make you a fantastic jack-of-all-trades, a player who is decent at everything. That’s how I like to play.

Give this a try (you’ll want Variant 2). It’s different from any keybind set I’ve seen, but it gives me fantastic performance.

The problem with most keybinds is finger conflict. If you use WASD and you have a skill bound to F, you have a conflict. If you end up needing to hit that skill while strafing right, you’re out of luck. You either have to delay the skill or stop strafing momentarily, and neither of those are ideal options.

I designed my keybinds such that there is minimum conflict. Skills will never conflict with movement. Attunement swapping will never conflict with movement. Attunement swapping will never conflict with skills. This gives you supreme movement and control at all times in combat.

That lack of conflict is the benefit of specialized gaming hardware. A mouse with thumb buttons allows you to put skills on an unused finger, which reduces conflict with WASD. This keybind setup gives you that performance, but without any fancy hardware. My mouse and keyboard were less than $30 combined.

Give it a whirl.

Femanon.4028:

Dacromir.6207:

condiments.8043:

Errr….that burst is insane? I even noticed your Arcane blast was on cooldown in the midst of that damage….wow.

I like my S/D valkyrie burst build…but that looks pretty tempting.

Elementalists have some issues, but viability? We’re doing just fine in sPvP with the right build. Look up the right build and keep playing bro. Eles is fine and incredibly fun to play.

Burning Speed -> Ring of Fire -> Fire Grab is equivalent to 2.5 thief Backstabs. Add Arcane Power, Blast, and Wave into the mix and you can get the equivalent of 5.6 (with base crit multiplier) to 7.5 (with 50% crit multiplier) Backstabs, and in the same amount of time.

Thief high hits come from bonuses to damage output. They get buffs like +10% damage with high initiative, +20% against enemies under 50%, or 5% damage and 7% crit while flanking. However, we can get +10% against burning enemies, +10% while in air or fire, +20% against enemies under 25%, and several guaranteed crits with Arcane Power. So we can match their damage bonuses, and we can pull off our burst faster. Thieves are limited to one Backstab every 4s.

People underestimate the burst a D/D glass cannon can pull off ^^

Not to mention +20% dmg to vulnerable targets while in Water attunement. Which can be used with Churning Earth since you can switch attunements mid-channel.

Oh, yes, that’s brilliant.

Also, you know what I want to see now? A hammer Warrior duo with an Elementalist that has Grounded. A D/D Elementalist doesn’t have all that many knockdowns and stuns, but a hammer and M/M Warrior can let loose stun after stun. So get a glass cannon elementalist and add that 20% bonus, and you get massive AoE destruction. The Warrior keeps everything locked down while the Elementalist blows it all up.

condiments.8043:

Errr….that burst is insane? I even noticed your Arcane blast was on cooldown in the midst of that damage….wow.

I like my S/D valkyrie burst build…but that looks pretty tempting.

Elementalists have some issues, but viability? We’re doing just fine in sPvP with the right build. Look up the right build and keep playing bro. Eles is fine and incredibly fun to play.

Burning Speed → Ring of Fire → Fire Grab is equivalent to 2.5 thief Backstabs. Add Arcane Power, Blast, and Wave into the mix and you can get the equivalent of 5.6 (with base crit multiplier) to 7.5 (with 50% crit multiplier) Backstabs, and in the same amount of time.

Thief high hits come from bonuses to damage output. They get buffs like +10% damage with high initiative, +20% against enemies under 50%, or 5% damage and 7% crit while flanking. However, we can get +10% against burning enemies, +10% while in air or fire, +20% against enemies under 25%, and several guaranteed crits with Arcane Power. So we can match their damage bonuses, and we can pull off our burst faster. Thieves are limited to one Backstab every 4s.

People underestimate the burst a D/D glass cannon can pull off ^^

Scepter is a very powerful skill in the right hands. You just have to adapt your play.

For example, take Dragon’s Tooth/Phoenix. Those skills are incredibly hard-hitting. They’re equivalent to two backstabs. However, they’re also slow.

What this means is that alone, they’ll rarely hit the enemy. However, if you pair them with an immobilize or stun/KD, then you can get a truly massive burst of damage on the enemy. Combine them with Signet of Earth and you’ll be very likely to get the hit, especially if you’ve fooled the enemy into burning their condition removals earlier on in the fight.

The scepter’s damage is slower, more deliberate, and tends to be more condition-focused. However, it definitely has its uses and works better than staff as ranged single-target.

Lordryux.9785:

yea i too find that even if u get knocked back out of shadow refuge u get revealed i find that kind of really stupid seeying as u already have the stealth buff on u say it charged up to atleast 6s? then u get knocked out of shadow refuge bam revealed totally gets me killed alot of times…

I’m okay with that. Shadow refuge is a huge stealth, and it would honestly be OP if there wasn’t a counter to it. Otherwise, you could shadow refuge and be guaranteed to escape (10s of stealth lets you get far, far away). This gives a counter to the skill, but only really good players will know to knockback when you pop refuge.

Creslin.1758:

Lightning touch also gives weakness, which while not cc, reduces damage an enemy deals by around 50%

I just wanted to point out that this isn’t how it works.

Weakness gives a 50% chance for hits to be glancing blows. Glancing blows do 50% damage. Critical hits cannot be glancing blows.

What this means is that weakness actually reduces enemy direct damage by 25% – (Crit%/4). Against an enemy with a 20% crit chance, weakness means they’ll do -20% direct damage.

Against builds with condition damage or a high crit chance, weakness is mostly an endurance debuff. Against builds with a power focus and low to moderate crit, weakness is a very powerful damage debuff as well.

This can also happen if you have the trait which gives you automatic stealth at low health. I’ve had that pop without me realizing it and give me revealed many a time. I’ve even had it pop in the middle of casting CnD, which is really annoying.