Guild Wars 2

I mean the dragon rank mainly as a way to weed out seriously terrible beginner players who you really can’t expect them to consistently beat anything, therefore you can’t use examples of “oh hey I dd ele’d and beat thiefs all the time” but you’re really only beating people who barely know how to play the class…

and that’s not necessarily true about dragon rank – it’s not that hard to get to but it does require a player to have pvped consistently for quite a while – not always true for new players (who are primarily the ones getting destroyed by classes they’re not familiar with).

but you know what, there’s no point to these forums, I remember why I never read these things now

Oh, and anyone who still think ele’s are insanely op and/or doesn’t require any skills to play, go roll an Ele. Especially if you’re already got high MMR and/or Dragon rank which matches you up with people who are already at your level when you’re not playing Ele (ie weed out n00b thiefs and other classes who don’t yet know how to use their class).

Come back and let us know your experience.

As an dd ele main, with the current situation post patch, Ele is strong but I honestly don’t think it’s as godly as it used to be. Many many classes can out damage the healing on ele now, and most of the burn on ele isn’t nearly as scary compared to full condi builds like burn guards or condi engi (provided you’re not stupid enough to keep walking through ring of fire).

Here are some tips to beating dd ele.

Burn guards – burn stacks from a Carrion amulet carrying burn specced guard can deal up to 5k dmg PER TICK which is nothing compared to the short duration burn on ele (exception being ring of fire, that does hurt a bit)).

Thiefs – Eles are supposed to counter Thief right now but DD eles get destroyed the same you destroy a necro – cc the kitten out of us. This is why hammer warrior has always been a problem, since the only source of stability is armor of earth and that’s on a 65s cd. With Panic Strike, daze on steal, and two tics of bassi, it’s really not that hard to kill a dd ele. With stealth, it’s pretty easy to wait for shocking aura to disappear, and guys, thiefs, use your steal skill against ele!!! the increased cd and movement when chilled destroys ele like holy crap. You can argue that steal, stealth, bassi etc., are all on cd but guys, my armor of earth cd is waaaaaaaaaaaay longer…and if you chill me, that’s even worse. just saying. And from experience, it appears Cleansing Flame AND Armor of Earth does not break Bassi stone (I guess it’s not considered a stun or a clearable condi?) so the most I can do pop armor of earth to reduce burst dmg ASSUMING IT’S OFF CD.

Warriors – Zerk warrior gs/hammer+rampage is great against ele – cc chain with hammer and they also do a ton of dmg, gs does a ton of dmg and RAMPAGE. Just…pop it and we’re dead, especially with all the ranged cc’s to keep us from running away. the only way I managed to seriously get away is 1) warrior was stupid enough to stay on point to try to cap, so I wait for rampage to end and I go back or 2) I somehow miraculously had both ride the lightning and lightning flash off cd. Arguing that dd ele outputs dps the way zerk classes do is a joke – I’ve seen how mesmers destroy zerk warrior. and I’ve seen how long it takes dd ele to take down a zerk warrior. NOT equivalent.

Mesmers – still destroys every class straight out stealth.

Necro – Cele Signet passes condis back to me so fast even traiting auto cleansing fire on 3 condi AND cleansing with cleansing flame, I’m still getting destroyed. plus, access to chill. Also Minion Master – built like a tank and has cc’s via the minions. DD ele’s even with burn generally can’t deal enough dmg to take down a MM easily.

Engi – condi engi – see burn guard and cele signet necro

DD ele counters – bad thiefs, rangers in range and if I’m not getting 2v1’d, dps medi guards, bunker guards after wasting several minutes and only if we don’t get +1’d, kind of condi rangers mainly because they’re generally not specced to hit as hard with the condi? at least so far I haven’t any trouble with them though that taunt…

DD ele got great sustain but it’s not nearly as good as Bunker guard – we can really only tank up to 2 non-dps based classes (or 1v1 something that deals higher dmg). 3 is impossible. I’ve seen bunker guards manage to tanka 3v1.

I completely agree burn dmg should be nerfed. condi is kind of insane right now and not very many classes can cleanse 6 condis (that’s one thing ele does have, theoretically I THINK I can cleanse 11 condi at around the same time but that requires me to blow ALL my cd’s and that’s assuming there’s no icd for popping cantrips and abusing the cleansing water gm trait). If anet’s going to let condi be this strong, then they need to make it so that not just ele’s can cleanse more than one at a time!

I didn’t play as much as I would’ve liked but I was okay with the overall mobs, EXCEPT the sniper/arrow ones in the story chapter. There were usually 2 (I was on Tempest, I think I was even on cele gear?) typically sniping at me with a skill similar to Ranger’s RF constantly. Even on Cele gear I was dying super fast (to dodge all hits from RF you have to double dodge, so when they chain their RF? uh, yeah). It appears the AI is pretty smart and specifically focus target on PLAYERS as opposed to any npc, but when you have ranged enemies that hit hard, two of them focusing you at the same time, and uses skills like RF, meanwhile you’re also kiting 3 or 4 other melee range enemies with aoe attacks… maybe it’s not as bad if I went in with a team of 5, but since this was a story instance.

I think it might be worth just toning down a LITTLE bit on the ranged hard hitters that are basically like multiple rangers going at you in pvp (not fun). I was okay with the mordrem vines that spit poison – those are slower and you can see aoe circles so you can dodge or navigate as necessary – thus counterable as long as you’re paying attention. Everything else was basically fine as well. just…those stupid ranger-like mordrem things… x___x

altho as a side note, it’s possible the problems I had (and the original poster) was due to playing a build/class/weapons skills that we are not used to. I prob should’ve tried again with dd ele (my usual main) and see if it was dramatically easier. I’d actually prefer making the mobs a bit harder going into HoT at launch, and see what people think with their main/classes that they know how to play well before start nerfing the mobs.

Agreed that Rebound is terrible, Chronomancers let them use a skill, then completely reset and use it again. Rebound only give a 25% cd reduction on the next skill used. It’s not even as good as the Aeormancer/Pyromancer/whatever Training trait which gives 33% cd reduction on ALL skills of that attunement. I kind of don’t understand how this is an Elite?

Ele’s has never had a fantastic elite, but this Rebound will never make it to my elite bar at the rate it’s going. :\