Guild Wars 2

I agree with the above that this build requires higher skill cap and precise dodge. Is there any tip for dodging in melee range? Do I stay really close to opponent before dodge? Do I always dodge behind the opponent?

I can dodge in mid range by reading the animation, but it seems this method does not work well in melee range, in which prediction is more important.

I want to learn about sword dagger thief (pvp), so I try the 2 0 0 6 6 build. I am confused about how to play this build. What are some important rotations and pvp tips for S/D thief?

When I check online guides, it seems there are two styles: one relies on auto chain for damage, for example they would do the stealth auto combo, the other one relies on LS, the play style is more like weaving in and out dodging and do various LS shadowstep combo. I tried both and could not get them to work well, even against the AI in mist. I can kill them, but in such a painful manner. If I try the first method, I will be heavily injured after kill the AI; if I try the second method, it takes a long time to kill them. I remember when I see other more skilled S/D thief fight the AI, they kill them so fast and lose almost no health because they constantly evading in and out. I just don’t get how they do it.

Ty

Alkaholic.3875:

Illusion.1807:

loseridoit.2756:

Illusion.1807:

Engineer also has other sources of mobility.

Please, elaborate. I really want to know because I like making fun builds with my engineer.

rifle number 4, 5, and easily perma swiftness and vigor through weapon swap without cool down. I know in pvp, engineer go condition build, but in pve you can have more mobility using rifle.

If u think Rifle 4 is a form of mobility, u have no idea what u’re doing. U sacrifice 20 trait points to have perma swiftness and vigor and it’s only achieved thru swapping kits constantly. As already stated, rocket boots is a utility.

Mobility is something that help you escape. So sometimes people say staff eles have mobility through CCs. rifle 4 can help escapes, that is what I thought. D/D Eles also sacrifice 20 trait points to have perma swiftness and vigor. Also, utility in general tends to have longer cd than a similar weapon skills.

By the way, I have learned some of the engineer stealth and heal combos by now, they work quite well.

loseridoit.2756:

Illusion.1807:

Thanks for your advice, I will learn more about engineer. My point is not about whether engineer is op, this post is really about my feeling of eles in the current states.

If you feel like the elementalist class is lacking, then you are probably not enjoying the complexity of the class.

I think you spend your time by trying to change skill combination rather than asking the benefits of kit vs attunement.

I do enjoy eles’ complexity. This is why I keep playing eles even I can do better with other classes. Eles’ attunement swap cannot be simply spammed, as you got to know your opponent and timing and positions are all important to eles. That being said, I think I am not the only eles who believe eles is lacking in the current state. In fact, it was completely absent in the recent two big tournaments. Will conjure weapons save the day for eles?

loseridoit.2756:

Illusion.1807:

What I feel is that even I just started engineer I feel I can already do more with it than my eles.

I currently use what I know from eles to play engineer. The smoke acid bomb combo can be done in a similar way for eles, but only under water. Engineer is indeed a hard class to master, but is it harder than eles? I currently think eles is still harder.

Now you why people like to play the engineer. I play the class on and off and I still having trouble wrapping my head around the build combinations. The most popular builds tends to be the easier one; however, the more difficult build such as Teldo are difficult to play.

Although the skill may seem effective, I found is that the numbers sometimes messes up the build. Even if player manages to make a decent build, Anet throws a misfit and nerf the number such as grenades #1 (I heard the story of an Anet employee got down by tower engineer throwing nades).

Errrr, I usually never like talking about Engineer balance because it kinda difficult to understand.

If you do not know these combinations, then you are missing the better parts of the engineer

Thanks for your advice, I will learn more about engineer. My point is not about whether engineer is op, this post is really about my feeling of eles in the current states.

loseridoit.2756:

Illusion.1807:

loseridoit.2756:

Illusion.1807:

Engineer also has other sources of mobility.

Please, elaborate. I really want to know because I like making fun builds with my engineer.

rifle number 4, 5, and easily perma swiftness and vigor through weapon swap without cool down. I know in pvp, engineer go condition build, but in pve you can have more mobility using rifle.

awww, i thought you will have an more interesting answer like comboing smoke bomb with acid bomb.

Engineer is one hard class to play and theory craft. I think players should have 300+ hr before they understand the class and 500+ hours before they are able to talk about balance.

Sorry, I just started an engineer and does not know all its tricks, and you can argue only experts are qualified to argue balance. But there are different types of balance. For example, in SC2 balance is considered for both high level and normal level of play. What I feel is that even I just started engineer I feel I can already do more with it than my eles.

I currently use what I know from eles to play engineer. The smoke acid bomb combo can be done in a similar way for eles, but only under water. Engineer is indeed a hard class to master, but is it harder than eles? I currently think eles is still harder.

loseridoit.2756:

Illusion.1807:

Engineer also has other sources of mobility.

Please, elaborate. I really want to know because I like making fun builds with my engineer.

rifle number 4, 5, and easily perma swiftness and vigor through weapon swap without cool down. I know in pvp, engineer go condition build, but in pve you can have more mobility using rifle.

I Bud.7593:

Illusion.1807:

I just created an engineer, which is one profession I haven’t played. I am amazed by the fact that engineers can have as many spells as eles, but kits swap have no cool down. Before I thought the advantages of d/d eles are attunement swap, and PbAOE. After playing engineer, I just realize eles aren’t even good at these. Also, rocket boots can jump across gap, travel longer by swiftness, cure immobilize, chilled and stagger, and only have 20s cool down, while RtL is nerfed into garbage. Both eles and engi are supposed to be “jack of all trade”, but we see such a huge difference in treatment.

Sorry, but I do feel this is so unfair.

Personally I play both Ele and Engi, and find the mechanics of both professions to be interesting and effective. When making a comparison like this though, keep in mind that Engineer only has access to 1 weapon combination, and relies upon kits for those extra skills, which also take up a utility slot which would otherwise be used on something else, while the Elementalist gains all 20 skills through a single weapon combination, leaving access to all 3 utilities. Honestly I think it’s pretty pointless comparing just the mechanics of any 2 professions, there is a lot more to consider than a simple recharge or number of skills usable.

RTL versus Rocket Boots is an easy one. RTL is a weapon skill, Rocket Boots is a utility skill, one is a more valuable slot than the other, hence why it can be warranted as being more powerful. Not that RTL is perfect or anything, I think it could do with a couple changes somewhere, but honestly, I’d rather not have our mobility totally rely upon RTL, and have it spread across more skills/traits

While tool kits occupy utility slots, engineer also has tool belt skills, which functions as the real utility skills. Engineer also can have more range flexibility than eles. Eles can only have one weapon set, staff is stucked on range, d/d is stucked on melee, engineer is just much more flexible.

Engineer also has other sources of mobility. Also, based on your reasoning, a utility spells should have shorter cool down than a weapon spell, if they do similar things. This is never the case for eles.

The reason this comparison is necessary is that eles is nerfed in the name of “jack of all trades”, but engineer do not get these treatment even though it is more jack of all trades than eles.

I do feel engineer can do more than eles. Maybe you disagree. But at least in pvp play, it seems engineer is currently doing better than eles.

I just created an engineer, which is one profession I haven’t played. I am amazed by the fact that engineers can have as many spells as eles, but kits swap have no cool down. Before I thought the advantages of d/d eles are attunement swap, and PbAOE. After playing engineer, I just realize eles aren’t even good at these. Also, rocket boots can jump across gap, travel longer by swiftness, cure immobilize, chilled and stagger, and only have 20s cool down, while RtL is nerfed into garbage. Both eles and engi are supposed to be “jack of all trade”, but we see such a huge difference in treatment.

Sorry, but I do feel this is so unfair.

zencow.3651:

Illusion.1807:

My superior sigil of battle does not work, instead of stacking might, it simply triggers ring of earth. Why is that?

You’re using Sigil of Geomancy?

Thanks, my fault. I did forget I temporarily change sigil of geomancy on my off hand dagger.

My superior sigil of battle does not work, instead of stacking might, it simply triggers ring of earth. Why is that?

I think the point is that every class is OP does not imply balance, in the sense of good design. For example, in SC2, suppose every race has to play cheese to win, then even if the races have similar win/loss ratio, it is still not balanced/well designed.

ensoriki.5789:

Illusion.1807:

Even though I agree eles is not doing well in pvp, I think eles may still be the best designed class in the game. This implies that other classes are not well designed. My reason is that most popular builds right now are about brainlessly spamming something: conditions, cc, stealth, evade, movement skills, minions, etc. The game allows these skills to be spammed without much consequences. Eles is well designed because brainlessly spamming skills will get punished much harder than other classes. Eles players need to consider timing, position, and counter play much more than other classes. I think this is good direction that other classes should move toward.

Lets not bring in talk of design, it is getting old between talks of “Warrior best design prof”…brb “omfg can’t dodge this god kitten untelegraphed skull crack”, “It’s sad that all thieves run daggers because sword thief was the way it was meant to be played with teleports” brb “Omfg I can’t hit this kitten, for the life of me, jesus christ Anet”, “I’d love to see Necros more they deserve it” brb “What the flying kitten is with these instant marks, instant doom, and this life shroud doesnt take no god kitten damage”

Forget design talk, 3 months later we’ll be screaming how horse kitten Elementalist air spikes are or that Mantra of Pain can’t be dodged or go back to talk about pointblank shatters having no animation time to dodge.

Let me rephrase what you just said: If we “forget design talk, 3 months later we’ll be screaming how horse kitten Elementalist air spikes are.”

To me what you said actually shows design talk is more important than merely balancing. As we can balance/buff a class by simply making some aspects of it to be op, but such things are not acceptable in a good design, which also takes skillful play into consideration. Therefore, it is important to understand design before talking about balancing.

As for fresh air burst, many eles including me don’t really like it, which is almost like a cheese, you either quickly kill or die, or do both.

Even though I agree eles is not doing well in pvp, I think eles may still be the best designed class in the game. This implies that other classes are not well designed. My reason is that most popular builds right now are about brainlessly spamming something: conditions, cc, stealth, evade, movement skills, minions, etc. The game allows these skills to be spammed without much consequences. Eles is well designed because brainlessly spamming skills will get punished much harder than other classes. Eles players need to consider timing, position, and counter play much more than other classes. I think this is good direction that other classes should move toward.

Zelyhn.8069:

I am actually planning to use regression analysis in order to accurately determine the “price” of all factors in terms of damage

Please help me settle this debate scientifically!

Just curious, what is the dependent variable in your regression? Sustained damage in a real fighting scenario? If that is what you want then you will need to model many factors (like mentioned before, toughness, survivability should also be considered as factors, as it does not matter how hard you can hit, if you cannot survive, your sustained damage will still be low).

A simpler way to model this is to evaluate a build’s sustained damage under certain situation instead of modeling specific factors such as damage coefficient of a skill and toughness. For example, you can compare S/D’s sustained damage in a boss fight, compared to a glass cannon warrior build. Of course group composition will also influence the sustained damage. You may need to take lots of samples and then do stats analysis.

If you want to do this using science, you have to consider the trade off between internal and external validity. You can design a very controlled study, but due to its highly controlled nature, it has little generalizability to real game play. Or you can design a more realistic study, but your ability to do causal inference may suffer.

In my own experience, eles can do great damage, but these builds are usually not very viable in the current pvp meta. As for pve, since it is not competitive, it really does not matter as much.

I would want: 1200 range, 20s cd, affected by swiftness, speed boost, chill and stagger, able to leap cross gap, able to cast instant spell during it. This way it works the same way as other movement skills, and it is still slightly worse than traited warrior rush.

I would also want to point out that it is illogical to make eles spells weaker and have longer cool down just because eles has more spells. Having more spells is eles’ unique strength, just like Mesmers can summon illusions. Mesmers do not get punished for summoning illusions as their illusion spells have short cool down, nice effects and can do good damage. But in contrast, eles is punished for its strength, which does not make sense. Also, the punishment is way too much: poorest health, light armor, have to invest 30 in arcana, mobility nerfed, healing nerfed, and slow casting, relatively weak, and long cool down spells.

That being said, I have a feeling the developers would rather buff some aspects of eles to be OP instead of admitting their mistakes of over nerfing eles. Hopefully, I am wrong.

This works like evolution. There are diversity within species. Under certain environment, certain organisms get selected/favoured. Idealists tend to make the mistake to try to eliminate variation in a species. In this case, it could mean hoping everyone has the same “integrity” value. This is highly unlikely. Then, as long as the current game environment favours cheese, those who won’t mind to use cheese to win will gain an advantage over those who value “integrity”. If it is unlikely to eliminate variation in human belief, then the only way to fix the problem is to change the game environment so that skill builds are favoured, which is developers’ responsibility.

By the way, I think it is a good thing that there are many players play the “cheese builds” because if majority don’t, there will still be some minority that do, and the developers probably won’t realize there is a balance problem, and the games won’t get fixed.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Illusion.1807:

By the way, WvW is players fight against players, instead of players fight against ai. So, please don’t play the trick on the PvE definition. The main point is that it can be a form of competitive play.

While I agree with you, Anet regards it as part of PvE (for reasons beyond me). So officialy, it is pve. But I agree that’s nonsense, wvw = pvp plain and simple.

Oh and one more thing, this graphic is only one and a half months old, not a year.

The “1 year old” referred to another poll posted before. Your graph is recent, but if I understand it correctly, it summarizes past 1 year’s stats, and is not specific to competitive play.

My point is that if we all like the eles class, we would hope it do well in competitive plays, even if not all of us will play it competitively. I just hope PvE players can understand that PvP players face different situations, and they currently have some very solid reasons to ask for balance. For example, the complete lack of eles in MLG is a fact, and it is not whining in theories.

This thread is about eles’ current status in competitive pvp, so please don’t post polls that are 1 years old and not specific to competitive pvp. For PvE eles or ZvZ staff eles who spam meteor or heal behind wall of tanks, please don’t suggest eles in fine in competitive pvp plays based only on your pve experience, which is very different from competitive pvp. No eles participated in MLG, and there is a good reason for it. If you truly love eles, you will see this as a great shame. So, please don’t make things worse by making suggestions on something you are not familiar with. Thanks.

By the way, WvW is players fight against players, instead of players fight against ai. So, please don’t play the trick on the PvE definition. The main point is that it can be a form of competitive play.

Mesmer is very good at soloing. During leveling, run a shatter/phantasm hybrid build. Use shatter build to kill regular mobs quickly (spam clones, use focus to pull mobs together, blurred frenzy and shatter, if still not dead, use phantasm, there are many variations of this combo). Switch to phantasm build to fight champ. The worst part of Mesmer is mobility. Without level 60 runes, Mesmers run very slowly compared to other classes.

Why? whenever I start playing a class, that class becomes underpowered! When I played eles because I heard eles was amazing, then eles got nerfed and eles forumers were crying. Then, I played rangers, but rangers got nerfed and rangers forumers were crying. Now, I started to play Mesmer because I heard Mesmer was one of the best, but now it seems Mesmer loses its former glory.

That being said, since I am not playing very well, there are lots of things I can learn. I still have fun playing all these classes.

mjharrison.3209:

TBH I would recommend just rolling a mesmer. The survivability is better, damage is better, the only thing that sucks is the relative lack of speed until you can slot 6-piece rune of centaur, then it’s 100% swiftness.

The only time I long for my Ele is in pitched zerg vs zerg confrontations… but only for a minute before I hurl 5 guys off a cliff to their death, stealth through the blob to portal my team into their squishies, melt people from 1200 range reliably, etc etc.

I am interested in start a Mesmer, can you explain how Mesmer has better survivability, and how can you melt people from 1200 range reliably. It seems you use greatsword?

When I leveled up my eles, I really enjoyed it. Here are some of my experiences:

1. Movement is the best defense against melee mobs. One advantage of D/D is that we can run at full speed and spam pbAOE without having to face the enemies. Weaving (keep running into and pass your enemies), circular kiting all work.

2. Environment is the best defense against ranged mobs. Another advantage of eles is that many of your spells can hit through walls/trees. When fighting ranged mobs, I usually find a building and run around it and spamming aoe. This way the ranged mobs are forced to move and they cannot hit me, while I can hit them. I use this method to solo many ranged Champion boss. Whenever I saw they are going to use their powerful ranged attack, I just hide behind a building. Sometimes, even dodging cannot save me from these attacks because they hit multiple times.
3. Attunement swap is really important. An ele who does not attunement swap is like a Mesmer who does not use illusion.
4. Learn to dodge. You can see some attacks coming and dodge them. But sometimes you have to predict when the mob is going to use what attack by count the timing. Most of the mobs are very predictable.
5. Lightning hammer is really effective and easy to use, but I personally don’t like to play such a passive style.
6. When I try to solo a Champ, I do not care if I down/escape in the first few attempts. The goal of the first couple attempts is to figure out what kind of attacks the boss has and the timing of these attacks. Also, to explore the area and find the terrain that can help me. Another thing is to remember that the seemingly most dangerous place can be the safest place. For example, the safest place to fight some champ boss is right in front of them or even right under them. Fighting really close to these boss will force the boss to use only melee attacks which are really easy to dodge.

AndrewSX.3794:

Illusion.1807:

Why not have more patience and read into them more?

I did. I understand the reasons, and sometimes i agree. I don’t think to be a better player.

The only thing i’m tired of is the attitude.

This is an interesting topic about complaining. I think it is common misconception to think complaining is not adapting. Complaining exists because it has some adaptive functions. If people always passively accept their environment as the way it is, then society will not progress like today. Also, don’t forget complaining about other’s complaining is still complaining. Yes, many complaining has no consequences and it is better to do something useful. But in many cases, complaining have consequences. Why did eles get nerfed? It is because other people complained. Then, why do you want to justify decision based on others’ complaining while ignore eles’ complaining?

I also agree sometimes people may overcomplain. But this is like variety among people, some complain, some not. It is very important to have this variety to keep evolution going.

I think over the past months, people have explained/discussed repeatedly in details the reasons they are complaining (i.e., mainly unnecessary mobility and cantrip nerf). If you know people are complaining, you probably have seen these threads. Why not have more patience and read into them more? unless you think you are more skilled than these WvWvW, pvp players. Then, it is better to post a guide/videos, and show the forumers how to play eles properly in WvWvW and PvP. By the way, most of the recent complaints come from D/D rather than staff, which most people already accept it as a support weapon only.

Thanks for doing this. There are also many interesting properties/tricks you can talk about for each skill. But I understand sometimes people don’t want to share these out of the fear of further nerfing.

The Goat.1940:

Anet has stated they want the Ele to be the “Jack of all Trades”, essentially means we can do everything other classes can do just not as good. So here is how we are not what Anet states they want us to be:

Thief can stealth – Anet must give the ele a stealth not as good as a thief but none the less we should have stealth

Ranger can trap and perma pet – Anet must give the ele traps, and perma pets

Mesmers can clone and portal – Anet must give the ele clones and portals

So Anet if you stand by your word and want the ele to be the “jack of all trades” give us the ability to do everything other classes can do.. just not as good.

Anyone else have additions to the list?

Elementalist can stealth underwater though (murky water + arcane wave/tidal wave).

To my current knowledge, elementalists don’t have aegis, quickness, torment, retaliation, siphon health and confusion.

Efaicia.3672:

In order to do this they would have to up the duration of some combo fields, I already have a hard time casting a field then switching elements to get to a finisher and having it go fast enough to finish the combo. Most of the time it is just too slow, the field is already gone.

Sounds cool though. I always had this type of thing in mind when I first read about GW2 and the combo system. It didn’t turn out as cool though.

For staff eles, we have eruption, arcane wave and earth evasive arcana as blast finisher. Eruption is very slow. Yes, it is difficult to lay down 2 fields and then cast eruption. However, you can cast eruption, then lay down two fields and arcane wave. This is very easy to do.

Aether McLoud.1975:

I never understood how we’re supposed to be kings of versatility, yet engineers are WAY more versatile than us. They have more unique combo fields, finishers, boons and conditions than us.

I agree, but somehow elementalist is still my favorite class. I played D/D before, but after all the nerfs, I decide to try staff (I don’t like S/D play style). I can still play D/D, but whenever I do, I feel crippled because of the RtL nerf. I understand staff is not a very competitive weapon, but I still have lots of fun with it. Before, I think staff is too slow, but now I realize many of these skills are meant for support. But eles really don’t have access to some of the most powerful boons. That is why I daydream about this idea.

Sorry, I like to daydream things that probably will never happen in real life (game). But I have this idea of combining different combo fields to form other combo field. For example, if we cast fire field on top of air field, we will get smoke field. In order for my idea to work, there need to be 4 types of basic elemental field: fire, water, lightning, and earth. For staff eles, we just need to turn unsteady ground into an earth field. Then, it will work as follow:

fire field + water field = ethereal field
fire field + lightning field = smoke field
fire field + earth field = dark field
water field + lightning field = frost field
water field + earth field = mud field? (I am thinking about muddy terrain)
lightning field + earth field = poison field

This way, staff eles can access all kinds of fields like a chemist combining different elements, and become truly “Jack of all trade”. Right now, I don’t think we can get boost from two fields by casting finisher on top of them, so this idea will not make ele weaker. Just put the idea here for fun.

I have an idea about weapon swap for eles. The first weapon set is responsible for fire and water, and the second weapon set is responsible for air and earth. We still press F1 to 4 for element swap. For example, if we have staff as the first weapon set and D/D as the second weapon set, then we will have staff’s fire and water, D/D’s air and earth. If we put both weapon sets as D/D, then we can play D/D like before. This way Eles will have more options (less restricted by range) without being “op”.

Do you think this idea is viable? Thanks.

(Another idea is to have 4 weapon sets, each weapon set for one elemental. But I am afraid this is too good to be true).

Dand.8231:

Aether McLoud.1975:

Eles have to build for mobility too. With traits and weapon choices, just like warriors.

So then what’s the problem? Without directly tackling the question of whether warriors can spec into mobility for better results than eles, lets first consider the following… and I mean this as a general statement, not directed only at Aether McLoud here.

1. Ele’s can spec into bunker/sustain for better results than warriors. Isn’t that just the same as your mobility complaint with the roles reversed? Don’t you agree then, if you’re going to adjust mobility of one or both of these classes, you should adjust the imbalanced sustain as well? IE: Eles gaining mobility but losing sustain, and warriors losing mobility but gaining sustain?

2. Thieves can get better mobility than either warriors or eles simply by spamming heartseeker. So, why are you singling out warriors for a nerf? If your goal is to see balance achieved by bringing down mobility, logically you should be targeting the #1 mobility class, not a runner up (hah). And if your goal is to bring up ele mobility, why would that involve nerfing warriors or anyone else?

I think the original intention of this thread is more about being sarcastic than really wanting to nerf warrior. As you mentioned, eles used to have sustain and mobility, but now both are nerfed. While most eles agree bunkers eles should be nerfed to some extent, they don’t want to lose mobility because it is also essential for aggressive eles builds and fun.

The point is of the thread is that the nerf on eles mobility is not necessary. Warrior is just a way to sarcastically illustrate the point.

I am probably better at playing chess than a top wrestler, and I am probably better at wrestling than a top chess player. Everyone can think this way, and feel pretty good even if he/she fails. Following this logic, we can say most if not all builds are going to be better at something that other is bad at. This is the mentality elementalists need to survive/“adapt” to the monthly update.

While I am ok with the way ele is right now, I think it would be cool if ele can have two weapon sets but each weapon set can only have two elements depend on the position. For example, if I have staff and D/D, then fire and water skills will be staff skills, air and earth skills will be dagger skills. If I have D/D and staff, it would be the other way around. This way, it is not op, and it creates more variations. Just a random thought.

I think the problem may be related to kiting and dodging. When they are done properly, most PvE melee mob cannot touch you. It does not matter whether you use melee or ranged weapon, kiting will always help. In practise, I can kite 2 or 3 melee mobs with only dagger 1 without taking any damage (some of these mobs can charge, so it is important to time the dodge). Of course, in real fight, you don’t want to use only attack 1. But the idea is that proper movement is the best defense against melee mobs, so it deserve some practise.

Vs ranged, D/D 3 and blind are very helpful. Combining with dodge, I can evade many attacks. It is hard to kill 2 or more ranged mobs without taking some damage, but properly timed evasive attacks and dodge will win the fight. If there is a tree, or building, you can hide behind it when the enemy is about to shoot you.

I use D/D, and P/P because I think they look good. This weapon set may not be the best for PvE, but I have no problem solo with it.

This is like playing any fighting game. An absolute beginner can only spam single moves. After playing it for a while, he learns some combo and begin to spam them regardless what the opponent is doing. But when he becomes more experienced he begins to adpat to the situation, or mixing up the combo to confuse the opponent.

In fact, in any decent fighting game, you will get killed really quickly (even against a computer sometimes), if you just spam a fixed long combo repeatedly.

Thanks, your explanation is very clear.

I want to start a ranger, but I have been reading some contradictory things about ranger, so I am a bit confused.

1. How good is ranger in PvP? In other forums (mesmer, thief, and elementalist), they all claim they can easily destroy a ranger. Thief and mesmer would say ranger has no chance because ranger has poor defense against condition and CC, and elementalist would say at least they can run away at will, so they will never be defeated by a ranger. But other would say, a skilled ranger almost never lose. So, which is correct?

2. Pet. I have heard people saying pet is useless in PvE even at early level (say level 25) because they die really fast. Is this true? My impression is bear is quite a tank.

3. AOE damage. Some people say ranger has horrible AOE damage. But it seems to me, trap ranger has pretty good AOE.

4. What would be a good PvE build? I feel I want to run a trap build. Does it work well in PvE?

Thanks for answering the questions

If you read the D/D guide, you probably know the essences of guide are creativity and efficiency. If you can kill early mobs quickly in one attunement, extra rotation is a waste. D/D is not about rigid rotation, but about adapting to the enemies and environment.

Methal.9045:

how did you stay alive long enough to win any fights? let alone the next one after having used all your CDs on the first fight?

D/D eles constantly move around and pbAOE, which can cripple, chill, knock down, knock back, escape, so most melee mobs/boss can never touch you. Even you don’t do rotation/combos, kiting with fire 1 or Earth 1 is good enough to skill most melee mobs because these two spells can hit any direction (fire 1 needs slightly more skill to hit backward) and you can kite with full speed (that being said, rotation is much better). I don’t even need to dodge as much vs melee. But Vs ranged I have to dodge, I also like to use blind from signet of air, so I can avoid at least three attacks. By this time if I still have not killed them, I can still go Water to chill them, or air to weaken or stun them, or things go really dangerous (surrounded by multiple ranged and melee mobs), I go Earth 4, 5, arcane shield, earth 2 (if condition allows cast fire 4 before this combo). If there is a tree, or some kinds building, then all you need to do is circle around the object and pbAOE. Ranged enemies cannot touch you at all.

For cool down, it is not a problem in general. In most situations, I reserve my long cool down spells like Earth 4, 5, fire 5, arcane shield, and air 5 for tough enemies. I know many people like to initial with air 4, 5, or go fire 3, 5. But it is really not needed vs normal melee mobs. I want to reserve air 5 and fire 5 for ranged enemies. Other spells have decent cool down. I feel I can rotate around without any intentional stopping.

Yes, ele has really poor defense, and D/D eles need to close in to do damage, which may sound risky at first. But this is where skills come in and consequently it is what makes D/D eles play more engaging and fun. After playing D/D ele, I found many other playstyles too passive in comparison. Like some rangers, they simply send out the bear to tank, and barrage or repeated shots. They don’t even need to move around.

I don’t understand how staff works. Here is my problems: when I use it, I always feel it is slow and passive. It works better if there are some people tank for me. But the idea of standing stationary in a long distance and drop some slow nukes do not seem very engaging. I can kite melee mobs with staff, but it seems much slower and rigid compared to D/D.

It would be cool if some experienced staff ele explain how it actually works.

I am relatively new to the game. I have red the D/D elementalist guide and really like some of the ideas. Most of them work well for me (use pbAOE los, environment, combo rotation etc.), but today I tried out the method of weaving, and the result is not as good as I expected. If I understand correctly, weaving is about disable the melee combat assist option so we can run through the enemy to its back and use pbAOE to attack from the back without turning. The idea is to constantly use this method to confuse the enemy who has to constantly turn around. It may work well in pvp but in pve it seems this method does not work too well for me. I have tried it on many types of ranged enemies (centaur archer, rifle, bandit archer rifle) using only earth 1 and 2 for experimental reason. This method seems to only work against rifle enemies because they are very slow. Against poisonous archer and longbow, I will lose about half of my health. The problem is even if the archer shoots in the opposite direction, it sometimes still hit me.

What is more frustrating is that I tried to attack a centaur archer without moving at all, and the resulting health is about the same. This is because my autoattack (earth 1) seems to interupt centaur archer’s attack and therefore reduce about two third of its attacking frequency.

I am curious to know how well this method works for other ele players. Maybe, I just need more practice to make it works. Thanks.