Guild Wars 2

Mesmers decoy ability, which works similar to this, got placed at a threshold of 50%. They should increase this to 50% too, then if you do knock the stealth off and get a revealed debuff you still have enough hp to disengage.

I don’t think it that it will be used exclusively for condition elementalists though. It could be used as a nice damage mitigation bonus for hybrid/zerker builds. I mean having one blind (from air evasive arcana) proves supremely effective when dueling. So to dish it out on critical hits or when you are struck with a fire aura (and fire auras will be easier to gain) could prove an essential survival trait for a lot of ele builds. Against sluggish builds like hammer warriors the 3s-ish cd would reeeeeeally slow them down.

Ultimately though i can’t really tell how eles will play out compared to the other classes. The 20% dps reduction and up-time on auras could be awesome yet moving elemental attunement up to grandmaster and at the same time taking the 30% boon duration off the line might hurt too much. Could go either way considering changes to other classes.

I kinda agree too, the term ‘elite’ should make you scream down ts “OMG NOOOOOOOOOOOO he used his elite”. Or at least make you think up a tactic to counter it. Eles dont do either.

On the other hand i tend to drop my fiery greatsword the moment i know i will be involved in an outmanned fight. You can still swap attunements and dodge heal as well as kiting and keeping the pressure up. Not to mention the chaos it does when you run fresh air alongside it :p

but ye a little buff to each wouldn’t hurt that much.

You are taking 6 points in arcana and 6 points in water on a dd ele build and think healing power is a waste?

your healing power dictates the amount of your signet passive, your soothing mist passive and your regeneration healing. On top of that your healing when going into water and dodging in water.

On that dd build i wouldn’t consider going much less than 600 healing power.

Its also my personal opinion that celestial is better than any other stat combo for a dd ele in wvw. You get more stats on celestial armour than other armours and you use all the stats in one way or another.

i also find with full celestial you tend to do better in an out-manned fight due to the extra condi pressure and extra sustain, also you will buff allies more too.

Now ideally all of these modes would be in separate queues but they are not which is annoying but i can completely see your reasoning as to why you will place them in the same queue. This means however we have to either endure through deathmatch with a conquest build (or vice versa), or quickly attempt to swap a build or swap a character.

So seriously Anet we have all endured through that crap as well as swapping trait points in PvE and across WvW but now you are going to add a 3rd game mode in sPvP with no mention of being able to save multiple builds on a character.

This is no longer just a case of some players wanting a slightly easier playing experience. By adding a 3rd game mode in sPvP you are making this a necessity, a necessity that we do not have in the game as yet. Otherwise the only other option is for a player to have 3 characters built ready for the 3 different game modes.

You could give players the first trait tab (purchasable with skill points on reaching level 80 or something) then to get more on a character you could place something on the gem store so players can get 3-4. I genuinely believe this will be a bigger gold sink than the mystic forge.

I suppose this could present problems in WvW with whole zergs being able to swap builds on the fly but maybe just deactivate this for WvW in some way.

Just think about this, please.

I agree with celestial definitely. It gives you the most flexibility in builds ( support dagger right through to solo staff).

Celestial also has like 30% more stats than any other stat combo so you also get better value for money :p

Why is this guy crying about necros? Dude you play a warrior and i assume you run the standard endure pain, berserkers stance and balanced stance.

Erm… … why dont you pop berserkers stance for 10 seconds to proc the passives? Then maybe use your 10 second stability so for a whole 20 seconds the necro cannot push you off him!!! kitten thats some OP build there and just to LOL in his face maybe use endure pain to break that one fear he might get through when all of that is over. Anyone mention to you also that your PASSIVE yes PASSIVE heals heal more than when a necros poison is on you? I mean the ele is a healing king but they still have to spam skills for their heals.

If you got a problem with passives drop the warrior dude.

Well if you still haven’t made up your mind i strongly recommend a elementalist. In most dungeons an elementalist is capable of dishing out up to twice the dps of any other class thanks to their fiery greatsword (they even do more dps than a warrior who has the fiery greatsword) and after that they can use their lightning hammer which about matches a warriors output dps, not to mention the constant blast finishers that come from this.

In terms of spvp someone said that a few nerfs have made them weak, however these nerfs have been reverted and they are now considered one of the stronger professions in pvp. With a skilled ele (running current meta build) you can take a skilled warrior (also running meta) however you have to work hard for it. However due to the warriors heavy armour and large hp you realise that 2 warriors are better than 2 eles. But thats a discussion about a tpvp setup.

lastly the learning curve for a elementalist is one of the hardest and the warrior is one of the easiest, that said though you should still pick an elementalist as if you grasp the game mechanics as an elementalist you will have very little trouble playing any other class as a secondary class.

Smitty.9432:

Stop being kittens. Long story short d/d celestial eles are good all around. Their biggest points are that they focus on heal over time with the the signet heal and have burst healing and cc cleansing from water skills and dodge rolling. They also have pretty good DPS burst with the standard fire > earth combo.

This is true and to place a number on that i worked out that my ele with celestial and 30 points in water magic trait line has the potential of over 600hp regeneration a second when using signet or restoration with regeneration up and soothing mist up. Thats not even covering their direct healing skills.

Another general rule is not to get greedy (by that i mean trying to down them fast when you see them low on health). They can go from 1k hp up to 10k hp in a few seconds and there is no way of you stopping them doing this. So dont start throwing yourself at them madly trying to get that last 1k off them and have a quick end to the fight, i assure you that you will come off it worse if you do.

Just take your time and eventually they will get to a point where all their skills are ‘exhausted’ i.e. their rotation is buggered, the boons stop coming as quickly and efficiently as they have been forced into water attunement a few too many times.

Basically at the start of any fight against any class you play cautiously, slowly wearing the target down. Then when you are winning you push harder and harder as the hp difference between you and the enemy increases, with an ele try and treat the whole fight like you do at first contact. Don’t get greedy, always assume they are full of health and eventually you will learn when you are truly winning

This is copied and pasted from a thief forum i posted in and explains how a thief should deal with them, there will be some relevance to you though whichever class you run.

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

Things to look out for.

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

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

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

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

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

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

A good tactic is to use a flanking strike at range to get larcenous strike ready then use larcenous strike with steal to land it and get 3 boons. After this use skill 2 for the immobilize and try and get a full chain of the auto attack for weakness.
Don’t complain about the steal skill, chill is the best counter to an ele. use it after they have left water attunement because then there is less chance of them cleansing it. chill affects their attunement recharge time. Applying this after water attunement means it could be 16 seconds or more before they can enter it again.

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

All my gold was spent on the hat so no gold at the end of this rainbow.

Lettuce.2945:

Sheppy.9306:

So you would rather run into a zerker with access to stability passive heal and all amounts of invulnerabilities, blocks and dodges that runs strength runes and sigil of intelligence (amounting to a 200% increase to dps on weapon swap on 3 attacks) compared to classes with conditions that run no stun breakers, no stability, and no passive heals? Don’t make me lol hard please. I didn’t think anybody considered condition classes to be along the meta anymore.

Are you a PvEr? It’s starting to show through a lot. You seem to think that necros are the only condition spammers lol. No passive heals? Oh, so there’s no condition warriors either? There’s a lot of cheese condi builds across all classes (not ele in spvp, rare to see a condi ele) especially engi, warriors, mesmer, guards, necros, etc. And most of them have a lot of stun breakers, stability….Are you just trolling for the sake of trolling? I would rather run into a wall of zerkers. I main an ele. I have a lot of cleanse but all the cleanse in the world can’t save me against a wall of condis. Only thing I can do is run.

As I already mentioned before and you seemed to tip toe around that. A zerker build misses his burst, it’s a problem. A condi misses his condi skill, it’s not a problem. He has more up his sleeves. Thusly answering the question, which is more skilled and which is cheese.

In my experience i find conditions on an ele exceptionally easy to take and there’s rarely a condition build that can counter you well. If i miss my fire grab i don’t care, if i miss my updraft its not a biggy, burning speed, well its only a 15s cd so i can use it next time.

Necro, signet of spite, if i miss that i die, the fight may go on some time but i will lose every single time provided the player is as competent with their class as i am.

Mesmers, miss that 5 stacks of torment and you are dead. Necro and engi are the main condition classes in my opinion and both have to use their utility slots extensively to deal heavy damage and provide uses to their team mates. I don’t think there is a single dps class out there that needs to do this. like covered above dps classes are free to have these slots free for whatever escapes they care for.

I am done now as i have expressed my view on the strength runes and attempted to convince you why i feel they are overpowered in pvp but these posts have really strayed away from that. Post patch power>condition and pre patch its power>>>>>condition.

So you would rather run into a zerker with access to stability passive heal and all amounts of invulnerabilities, blocks and dodges that runs strength runes and sigil of intelligence (amounting to a 200% increase to dps on weapon swap on 3 attacks) compared to classes with conditions that run no stun breakers, no stability, and no passive heals? Don’t make me lol hard please. I didn’t think anybody considered condition classes to be along the meta anymore.

Lettuce.2945:

Sheppy.9306:

Lettuce.2945:

Rofl, this is probably posted by a condi scrub. I’m tired of those guys trying to cry nerf rune of strength because DPS builds can actually fight back against condi spamming face roll classes. I’m not even kidding, lately in spvp and tpvp…I’m seeing a TON of condi spec classes just slapping like 40-50 conditions on a target in like 20 seconds or less. It’s not even funny. Nerf condis before you even consider nerfing strength runes. And I kitten you not (i typed kitten manually), a few solo queue matches in a row…I pvped a whole team of condis. Not kidding at all. We won because our team was more balanced but still…Cleansing all of those conditions were a pain and it’s not even fun when you run into a condi wall zerg.

News flash, if you play condition build, you are NOT SKILLED. Get it? NOT SKILLED. Go kitten yourselves if you think you are. It’s to compensate for your lack of skills. -_-

What the hell? Condi build not skilled? Tis a bit of a exaggeration to state that, and by your opinionated response and hate for conditions would i be correct in assuming you are a warrior? And to state that condi “spammers” are not skilled is a sad thing indeed as i assure you there is a very big difference between a spamming necro and a skilled one. Theres personally nothing wrong with condis, as every condi class is easily countered and very squishy, check out the necro forums. And there is a serious problem with strength runes considering that it is exceptionally easy for say a warrior to get full might stacks and hit as much as they could before the patch but now they aren’t running berserker. No they are running soldiers amulet with a sigil of intelligence. In fact i have a sneaky suspicion that 25 stacks of might with a soldiers amulet would actually hit harder than a full berserker before the patch. Before you used to go berserkers for the 50% extra dps on crit, now you go rune of strength to get a permanent 50% extra dps + 150% dps on a crit. Its completely stupid and only reinforced this ridiculously boring bunker meta. Not only that i can tell you that if you do run the strength runes you are just as guilty of condition “spamming” as any condition based class as at 25 stacks of might your conditions do about 80% of the damage of a dedicated condition class.

The reality is in this cc spamming bunker meta, conditions are currently the worst off due to their (generally) lower health pools and lack of stability (necro, engi). yet conversely due to this might stacking soldiers bunker crap, conditions are the only real counter to eat through that 25k HP with near 3K armour.

Finally power builds have always been able to fight back against condis i really don’t know where you are coming from with that statement, i mean a necros strongest counter is a bloody zerker thief and in no way at all are engineers considered meta.

But i stray from the point, i agree strength runes are supremely overpowered and simply have not balanced this game but rather unbalanced it in the completely wrong direction. if it wasn’t for the lack of any other game with a combat system like this i would have abandoned this game months ago. Oh and one more thing if you guys are over rank 300 or so try something more interesting please instead of this crappy meta. Man i am sick to death of hitting this bunker crap at these high ranks.

just like to get that off my chest ty :p

You just proved you don’t know much about the meta and ironically enough, you must be a necro and like the poster who replied to you…It’s funny that you think necros have the lowest hp pool. They have one of the largest and that’s not even including death shroud lol. I rather run into a team of full zerkers than a team of full condi spams that just slap 50+ condis on you within 10 seconds and you are just left to die while trying your hardest to fight back. Condis are NOT skilled. Everyone knows that. Only condi users would argue otherwise because they want to defend their cheese mechanisms. But I’m willing to bet good money that you fail on any build that’s not condi related. DPS builds are about timing your bursts precisely while condis just spams condi’s. That does not require skills. If a dps misses their burst, it’s a problem. If a condi misses their condi’s, oh well, they have more. eyeroll

Actually if you must know i run , ele or thief and only go necro if i meet the bunker wall.

yes i believe that to be true too then you have to work to remain top rank not just play a few games and sit there. i always thought it was due to the fact that other players would occasionally overtake you in the rankings pushing you down and since you are not active you cannot go up.

Ye take an ele they are the best all-rounders and i say to everyone that it is possible for anyone in this game to find an ele build that they enjoy due to their diversity. You mentioned jumping puzzles, just been finally getting round to completing them all and i can say the ride the lightning skill is amazing for them. just jump RTL and smash into the wall on the other side skipping the difficult jump. LOVE IT

not to mention with a staff you can do the ranged then take a conjured weapon such as the lightning hammer to deal as much dps as any other melee class. Then take the firey greatsword for seriously fast dungeon runs.

Make an ele you wont regret it.

nah not happening you will have to work out what kitten means. i meant heavy damage on my ele.

OMG that didn’t work either. kitten

Also why does the phrase kitten translate to kitten… .. ? Ohi get it as in… yeh. always wondered what kitten meant in posts and now i know. :p

The focus on a guardian is generally strong with scepter, i would consider speccing dps then use your focus 5 wait, then blink on to her unleash damage then kite some more never stopping spamming scepter skill one. Wait for your cd’s dont be afraid to pop your elite as invulnerability to the aoe (maybe you can get a few bombs to run into you while using the elite not sure if that will work or not) also taking a weapon with a natural evade in it should be good, e.g. my burning speed on ele is now an evade. Also take heal on dodge roll perhaps and get as much vigour as you can.

I would go in kitten my ele until i was low on health then use my signet of restoration to help me get back up with hp then go in again few hits then get away from bombs. So i suggest going in exceptionally hard at the start of the second phase when there are not many bombs, dodge the aoe keep the dps going then simply walk out of aoe waiting for cd’s. the greatsword grab skill might be good to pull her away from bombs put not sure if the projectiles will get the bombs too.

Can’t really help a lot other than just to say good luck.

I don’t know the specifics of the leaderboard however i do know a couple of things.

firstly the percentage refers to what percentage of players you are higher rank than. So at 62% you are “better” or higher rank say than 62% of all the players that have ever played pvp. Thus there are 38% of players a higher rank than you. When you hit greater than 97%, i think it is now, you get a number (which i can only assume based on my experience in this starts at 1000) and this number then tells you your specific rank i.e 1 is top rank and 1000 lowest. Basically higher percentages is better.

In terms of how it increases or decreases this is based on the leaderboard rankings of your opponents, this i can only assume is based on the average rank of the 5 members in the opposing team.

So using your rank of 62%;

- Beating a team of rank greater than 62% you go up the leaderboards a lot (system thinks you are a higher rank than you currently are).

- Beating a team of lower rank you go up a tiny amount (you need to be rewarded for the play however beating a team of lower rank says nothing about how far up the leaderboards you deserve to go).

- Losing to a team of lower rank you drop a large amount amount (as the system assumes you have no place this high up).

- Losing to a team of higher rank you drop a small amount (system says “well it happens, what did you expect? you are a lower rank and thus can’t go up or down”)

Now this is the bit i am slightly unsure about, i was playing at around the rank 350 mark and my friend was down in the percentages. Before the reset (the leaderboards “refresh” every hour) we had only played together in the same party with no differences in the team. we won the majority of games in the hour and i went up about 50 places to around 300 rank. Now my friend at like 95% he went up to 250 rank all of a sudden overtaking me.

Thus based on this i can only assume that, as i have phrased it, going up/down a lot/little is also based on the magnitude of the difference of ranks between your team and of your opponents.

this has also happened to me in the soloQ, generally i do not play it but once in a while I do a game, and I jumped from 86% once to rank 63 after one game. so if someone can verify this last remark that would be appreciated.

Note when i say “rank” i always mean leaderboard ranking and not in-game rank. Think of in-game rank as stating how much time the player has placed into pvp.

First what class are you? I may be able to help with a build if your class is one i run. But also the bombs can still be destroyed in the aoe light thing on the floor so when there starts to be a few too many spawn destroy them in there while maybe swapping to a ranged weapon to keep the dps up.

I did it on a DD ele using the standard cantrip spvp build :p lightning flash, arcane shield and mist form on full zerker just in case you are an ele. even full zerker i had like 5-10 seconds left.

Lettuce.2945:

Rofl, this is probably posted by a condi scrub. I’m tired of those guys trying to cry nerf rune of strength because DPS builds can actually fight back against condi spamming face roll classes. I’m not even kidding, lately in spvp and tpvp…I’m seeing a TON of condi spec classes just slapping like 40-50 conditions on a target in like 20 seconds or less. It’s not even funny. Nerf condis before you even consider nerfing strength runes. And I kitten you not (i typed kitten manually), a few solo queue matches in a row…I pvped a whole team of condis. Not kidding at all. We won because our team was more balanced but still…Cleansing all of those conditions were a pain and it’s not even fun when you run into a condi wall zerg.

News flash, if you play condition build, you are NOT SKILLED. Get it? NOT SKILLED. Go kitten yourselves if you think you are. It’s to compensate for your lack of skills. -_-

What the hell? Condi build not skilled? Tis a bit of a exaggeration to state that, and by your opinionated response and hate for conditions would i be correct in assuming you are a warrior? And to state that condi “spammers” are not skilled is a sad thing indeed as i assure you there is a very big difference between a spamming necro and a skilled one. Theres personally nothing wrong with condis, as every condi class is easily countered and very squishy, check out the necro forums. And there is a serious problem with strength runes considering that it is exceptionally easy for say a warrior to get full might stacks and hit as much as they could before the patch but now they aren’t running berserker. No they are running soldiers amulet with a sigil of intelligence. In fact i have a sneaky suspicion that 25 stacks of might with a soldiers amulet would actually hit harder than a full berserker before the patch. Before you used to go berserkers for the 50% extra dps on crit, now you go rune of strength to get a permanent 50% extra dps + 150% dps on a crit. Its completely stupid and only reinforced this ridiculously boring bunker meta. Not only that i can tell you that if you do run the strength runes you are just as guilty of condition “spamming” as any condition based class as at 25 stacks of might your conditions do about 80% of the damage of a dedicated condition class.

The reality is in this cc spamming bunker meta, conditions are currently the worst off due to their (generally) lower health pools and lack of stability (necro, engi). yet conversely due to this might stacking soldiers bunker crap, conditions are the only real counter to eat through that 25k HP with near 3K armour.

Finally power builds have always been able to fight back against condis i really don’t know where you are coming from with that statement, i mean a necros strongest counter is a bloody zerker thief and in no way at all are engineers considered meta.

But i stray from the point, i agree strength runes are supremely overpowered and simply have not balanced this game but rather unbalanced it in the completely wrong direction. if it wasn’t for the lack of any other game with a combat system like this i would have abandoned this game months ago. Oh and one more thing if you guys are over rank 300 or so try something more interesting please instead of this crappy meta. Man i am sick to death of hitting this bunker crap at these high ranks.

just like to get that off my chest ty :p

I wouldn’t change zephyrs boon, to say that you have perma fury with 2.75sx4 on an 11 second cd is ridiculous. I personally am not in the habit of swapping attunements as soon as the next one is off cd and considering if you are sometimes forced to stand in air attunement waiting for stability to drop off the enemy you want your skill one to crit often especially when running full celestial.

Secondly vigour is pointless? what the hell man perma vigour is the only way you get max use out of evasive arcana. he is a roamer so he needs vigour a lot. I am assuming you are simply standing in a zerg spamming skill one to justify your remarks.

In spvp especially that is the best build you can go for, however in spvp drop the cleansing fire for either mist form (safe stomps) or arcane shield (dps and survivability), drop the sigil of bloodlust for either sigil of air or sigil or doom and finally drop the traveler runes for strength runes. In fact if you can afford these for wvw your build will become hellish stronger.

Hi,

Firstly this is kind of in the wrong place as the best place for a discussion on elementalists is in the elementalist forums despite you being an asura. Basically the only difference in the races is a few utility and elite skills however these are really weak in comparison to the class utility skills otherwise we would have everybody running one race only.

If you are new i am assuming you are leveling and when it comes to gear there isn’t really anything you should buy. Basically only use the gear you loot and salvage all your other items you gain. If you want to learn a crafting profession or two then you should find a guide online as this gives you the cheapest way of gaining your desired profession. Also in crafting only aim for a crafting level of 400 as it easily costs over 100g from 400-500 (can’t remember exactly) and the items you get cost a considerable amount more than this, (full ascended gear costs around 500g to make depending on the profession).

By ‘grade’ i can only assume you mean the rarity of armour/weapons, check this link out http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Item

As for weapons themselves for an elementalist i would take double dagger for leveling. This is by far the easiest weapon set to master the dps with, do not even consider a healer spec elementalist as gw2 doesn’t deal in healers or tanks, only dps. Although as an elementalist in pvp you could do all of these things.

When it comes to dungeon running you will often find people looking for an elementalist in the dungeon group. This is for one thing only, your DPS. Basically as your first elite skill purchase the fiery greatsword and search online for something like ‘gw2 fiery greatsword exploit’ you will probably find it or either ask in map chat for someone to explain it and show you. Also buy the lightning hammer and frost bow utilities too.

The lightning hammer is good for leveling and dungeons for many reasons, but i will explain leveling. basically on every 3rd strike of the first skill it blinds the target so you can stand there attacking a veteran even at low levels and take only half to none of its hits.

Also with the game check out combo fields here http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo
elementalist basically deal in fire fields and hence dungeon parties blast them for might stacks.

At level 80 look to get full berserker (power, precision, ferocity) exotic gear and trinkets.

when in a dungeon tell the people you are new but not stupid and ask them to tell you when to drop fire fields/conjured weapons.

Lastly the wiki site is your best friend so use it. Any more questions i run an elementalist main in pvp and pve so feel free to ask me any questions in game.

I recommend this, i have been using it when i have been dpoing my world completion and it is based around perma swiftness. basically take those tyraits in the link and the rest is up to you. The heal skill alone gives perma swiftness pretty much.

Use the lightnning hammer for when there are a number of enemies as it cleaves, has high damage and applies a aoe blind on the 3rd attack.

You can go higher into water attunement for more condi removal or higher into othe rtrait lines for dps is really depends which map you are on.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k33;2R0F5-y4wMkY0;9;5J-J;207;209L

This game has got so lame, i mean the 2-0-0-6-6 build is sound but that really shows you where this game is going. The class that is supposed to be about insane burst damage now has to go into the acrobatics trait line rather than the critical strikes traitline. Even thieves are on their way to becoming partial bunkers along with the other 4 metas in the group. Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo BORING to play as and against. My team has pretty much decided to stop playing this game and look for another one as when we hit around the rank 300 mark we hit this constant bunker meta.

I highly recommend sticking to the D/P 2-6-0-0-6 build its way more fun.

Man i am so fed up with people complaining about thieves. They are perfectly balanced, i bet half the people that complain about them can’t last 10 seconds as a thief in a fight where the thief should be able to down the opponent in 20.

Perma stealth a problem/broken?? If yuo die to anybody perma stealthing then you are not a very good player. As a thiefs dps comes from using initiative and perma stealth saps it all, not to mention the thief is giving you free cooldowns in the meantime wheras the thief practically has no cooldowns so who really is worse off?

Play a thief and you will realise the dps trade-off for survivability is acceptable, also you ever considered that a thief may be a hard counter to the class/build you run? man the thief class is supposed to have ridiculous damage, not to mention in spvp they cannot even defend a point. Eles are generally a decent counter to thieves too, you looked in the thief forums? Half of them have no idea how to counter the elementalists. Boon steal or no.

Actually there is another reason why the need for stability is a case i guess. The only really useful heal that a necro has (albeit it is very powerful) has a really obvious emote and is very easy to interrupt, as a thief i will lie in wait for this heal and interrupt it meaning the necro is a guaranteed kill in a few more seconds regardless of who he has to hide behind. Stability would help this.

However you really do have to think about the current zerker necros running around before asking for too much. whilst they might not be meta they are certainly very powerful, i mean lich form can literally 3 vs 1 anything it encounters and finish them off without even the need to stomp them. I even downed a thief in a single hit from lich form no joke, as chill of death trait procced with sigil of air and sigil of fire. I lolled at the time but seriously this class is no fun to encounter at all. giving them stability could be a massive problem.

MercilessLemurs.7459:

@sheppy HP gives wiggle room when you get stun locked. And yes, warriors do have that, but look at other classes. Guards have lots of stability but low HP. Eles have lots of escapes but low HP. Ranger has mid HP and some stability. Mesmers, mid HP but with lots of escapes, at the cost of no movement speed. Engineer, mid HP and has escapes. If you look at these classes, the necro seems pretty ok now doesn’kitten

No i stand by my point. For some ridiculous reason you are saying that the amount of stability one gets is directly proportional to HP. No i am pretty sure stability is the lowest factor on the list that determines a classes HP, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 has pointed out exactly why classes get the HP they deserve. If Anet took your point to heart in the next patch necromancers would get twice the base health that they have now + their DS on top.

I realise that a class that is supposed to be CC heavy is supposed to be vulnerable to the exact same thing and i am happy to accept that and am happy for a necro to have no stability at all. The problem is not stability on a necro its the fact that the last patch broke them. It broke them as warriors and elementalists can stack 25 stacks of might and do aoe burning for 500 damage a tick. Who needs a squishy class with tiny aoe conditions, no safe stomps and no “get out of dangers” (which is what the initial poster addresses), like every other class in the game when you can have classes that deal 5k+ on attacks that take half a second to cast and deal insane condition damage.

The reason a necro is in a bad spot with conditions is probably due to the might stacking. A warrior or elementalist with 25 stacks of might hit 500 dps with their burning. Who needs a condition class when a full zerker can deal more damage overall than a dedicated condition class?

MercilessLemurs.7459:

Necros easily get enough HP not to need more stability. And honestly, this post boils down to you not liking the strengths and weaknesses of necros. Play guard if you need more stability.

How the hell can you justify the lack of stability by HP? A warrior has the same base HP pool (not mentioning deathshroud) as a necro and is a heavily armoured class with around the same amount of condition cleanses as a necro if traited and they can get immense amounts of stability. I do not want to get into a debate about warriors as generally i think they are relatively balanced since the patch. But yes i have been stun locked as a necro and its just so depressing having literally nothing to fall back on, especially if the person stunning you is immune to blinds and fears.

I think a little more access to vigor though is needed not stability. However that would present a problem in that berserker necros are ridiculously overpowered dps wise and giving them access to vigor would only increase this. The only reason i can consider for necros being OP zerker wise is due to them being a condition class so the damage modifiers on their skills are larger than most classes. And don’t come back at me with thieves, believe it or not thieves have to work hard to deal decent damage without being killed, the bad ones deal decent damage but die.

however tweaking these damage coefficients ever so slightly and giving about a 30-40% up-time on vigor for about 2 trait points (either on being hit or doing a hit gives 4s vigor with a cd of 10 seconds maybe, or even entering DS will grant a 5-6 second vigor maybe), i see no reason for not being able to do that.

then both condition necros and berserker necros have something to fall back on, Zerker necros are in an even worse spot than condition when you think about it as they have less fears, thus currently they rely on out dpsing the target making them a rather dull build.

Earth magic:

- diamond skin- If this type of trait is to remain in the game (as with engineers) then i personally think with the elementalists low health pool this needs to be active much longer. Maybe a 85% health cap first to test the water.

-Serrated stones – Regardless of the weapons elementalists do not cause bleeding enough to consider this trait to be effective. Might i suggest replacing with a 10% increased condition duration to all conditions? Or even replacing with a 100% chance to apply X stacks of bleeding when blinding a foe to provide blinding ashes slightly more incentive to be used?

Water magic:

- Aquatic benevolence – When it was first mentioned it was said that this wasn’t meant to be a selfish trait and indeed it is not but i would think it would be nice to have a selfish grandmaster trait in this line as elementalists cannot help but be generous with boons and healings. Due to survivability issues a support elementalist would consider far more traits over this one and i personally think that extending this trait further by placing a new part to it that would give 5% of direct (not regeneration) heals recieved by allies back to the elementalist. When you think about it this would balance well as the benefit would only work with allies around you and would encourage support play further as the more heals that affect allies the more heals you get. And i think this slight increase in this trait would finally make a contender to the bunker guardian in spvp.

-shard of ice- increase vulnerability stacks from 3 stacks to 5 stacks.

Arcana:

-Lingering elements AND arcane fury- i mentioned lingering elements above but to add another note these should swap places (as the first one point traits all are affected by lingering elements thus it makes sense to be able to get lingering elements with one trait point) as a result increase arcane fury from 2 seconds of fury to 3 seconds of fury as it now costs 3 trait points.

Ok so that is all i would like to hear from other players about your thoughts. Like i said i do not wish to create an overpowered elementalist hence why some changes are very conservative some you may think overpowered, please explain why you think they are good/bad and add any thinks you would like to see.

Also when commenting please do consider ALL aspects of the game ( WvW, PvE and sPvP) not just the part you play. As well as considering ease of understanding to new players.

Finally i do not necessarily recommend all of these changes to occur all at once, please consider them as a change to that individual trait with no changes to any other trait.

Firstly i am relatively new to forums and have been known to accidentally place things in the wrong place so please forgive me if i do that again :p.

I am making the post as a constructive feedback post shall i say, not a rant about wanting more power for my elementalist as personally i think since the last balance patch elementalists are in a decent position in all aspects of the game.

I will only mention the traits i have a problem with and what i (personally) think will be an improvement. Any traits that are not mentioned you may assume that i personally feel that it is an acceptable trait for the number of trait points spent in that field.

Overall improvements:

- Lingering elements: been mentioned a few times about changes to it however i personally like this ability. However i think a better description is needed on the skills and traits that are affected by it. For example: Flame barrier- should have a note at the bottom of the trait saying that it affected by lingering elements. This trait is exceptionally confusing for new players.

- Traits that reduce the CD on spells: If that doesnt make sense i mean for example pyromancers alacrity in fire trait line (20% reduced CD on fire spells) and the equivalent in the other 3 trait lines.

Regardless of the build you run whether its support or burst each attunement is as vital as the next and by reducing 20% cooldown in one attunement it is not the same as a 20% reduced cooldown in your build. It is a 20% reduced CD in a quarter of your build thus a 5% cd overall. These traits cannot be merged together and thus i propose that on top of a reduced CD on skills, that the specific attunement recharge rate is reduced by X amount of seconds (probably one second). This X amount of seconds change should not be affected by the arcana trait line. Thus arcane attunement recharge rate (in arcana) should only apply the percentage to the maximum attunement recharge rate and not the new one this change would create.

This would mean that an elementalist that wants to make more use of a certain attunement can really make use of it. I do not believe that a 1 second less CD in any 1, 2 or even 3 trait lines would produce OP elementalists. As to get reduced CD’s on 2-3 attunements you sacrifice far more powerful traits.

Fire magic: generally ok.

Air magic:

lightning rod- A little weak for a grandmaster trait as elementalists do not have many interrupts and the little they have are on large cooldowns. The only reason i can see for it being this high in the trait line is due to tempest defense. Maybe merge the two together and increase the CD of the tempest defense part to 45 seconds. As a result reduce the damage done to stunned foes to 10%.

-One with air – Personally i think this should be removed entirely. Considering this costs the same amount of trait points as some of the most powerful traits to an elementalist it is no suprise that i have never seen this used. However that is me.

-Zephyr’s speed – I do not believe that the speed buff is considerably noticable and that a person building an elementalist with 1 point left to spend would place it in here. Elementalists have a decent up-time on swiftness and any that do trait for swiftness have to pick up this trait that becomes useless when they do have swiftness. However i am at a loss as to what could replace this. Maybe an increased duration of swiftness at around 15-20% increased duration? This would apply to the elementalist only but would affect swiftness from other sources that are applied to the elementalist.

Aedrion.6483:

I think the point is to design a hilarious OP class?

“The Divine Crusader”

Uses only one weapon, a weapon unique to the class, the poleaxe!
The Divine crusader has 5 stances similar to the elementalists attunements.

- Deadly Stance: You gain +500 power and all your abilities in this stance inflict cripple.
- Defensive Stance: You gain +500 toughness and all your abilities in this stance grant you and nearby allies protection for 3 secs.
-Berserker Stance: You gain +500 precision and every critical strike grants you might for 10 seconds. You also look angry.
Healing Stance: You gain +500 healing and all your attacks are water fields and blast finishers
- Necromancer Stance: You gain +500 condition damage and all your skills apply Torment, burn, bleed and chill.

Healing skill:

Shelter Signet, Passive, you heal for 450 for each attack you land on a target, active, you block all attacks for 5 seconds and heal for 80% Of your total HP. 20 secs cooldown

Utilities:

Engineer’s Fury: A kit that when equipped changes your weapon to a pistol and turns all your attunments into the various kits an engineer can use. No cooldown.

Signet Of Spitefull rage: Passive, grants you a random boon every 1 second for 10 seconds, active, grant yourself might fury and swiftness and inflict all conditions in the game on an opponent for 25 seconds and turn them into a moa.

The Banhammer: Summon a spetral hammer that bans people from the game, upon hit, disconnect the enemy player, upon use, disconnect all enemy players in an area.

Elite skill:

Tome of Divinty

- Heal all allies for 2500 and deal 2500 damage to all enemies in an area.
- Send forth a cone of judgement, dazing all enemies for 5 seconds and granting allies quickness, fury and might for 5 seconds.
- Summon Commander Siegerazor and an Arrow Cart
- Banish your foe the The Ascalonian Catacombs with a group full of new players.
- Heal all allies back to full and kill are nearby enemies.

Class starts at level 55 and has unique appearances, they can also use any armour type.
Every dodge roll, makes you yell yarr and summons a Tropical bird.

The Banhammer: Summon a spetral hammer that bans people from the game, upon hit, disconnect the enemy player, upon use, disconnect all enemy players in an area.

Man i laughed at that i love the idea.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I actually got a couple of compliments if winning and not using my Thief;

“whoa. you’re a very good ranger. what are you running?”
“nice guardian build”

but when I own them on my Thief;

“permastealth is for noobs”
“kittening blind bot”

Oh well, life goes on.

Sooooooo true, some classes get more praise than others, for example in a tournament on my ele i have had " your ele carried you".

but on a thief when a warrior ran away with 25-30% hp ye i spammed HS at 25% hp its highest dps and a gap closer. only to recieve the reply " HS spamming noob". to which i replied “YEYA” and spammed HS to finish him rather than stomp him :p such lols

Slugonaut.9841:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Traxal.2745:

Thanks for the replies. Sizer is good for sure, and could make sword/no OH look good. I’m trying to make sense of it for the common thief like me.

So if boon steal is that effective, does 3 skill get the most use? For the evade and boon steal?

No, you only need LS and Steal, but need to trait for Bountiful Theft.

Let’s say I saw a Guardian with 12 stacks of Might running with his Warrior buddy with also 12 stacks of Might. What I do is, use Flanking Strike out somewhere — no target is preferred.

Then I pre-cast Larcenous Strike -> Steal from the Guardian -> Switch target to Warrior -> Flanking Strike -> Larcenous Strike -> dodge roll = Easy 25 stacks of Might.

EDIT:
Minor clarification. Bountiful Theft will steal Aegis from the Guardian first, so that you can steal the Might stacks with Larcenous Strike.

I run S/D & SB in WVW quite regularly and not the popular Sizer build variant. I’m pretty sure when we rip, lets say Might from a target, we don’t get their stacks. For example, if a Guard has 10 stacks of might and no other boons up, Larcenous Strike will pull that 10 stacks off him but give me only 1 stack. For as far as I can tell, boon ripping still doesn’t reward the opponents stacks to the thief.

You definitely get all the stacks mate. I have dueled a hambow friend many times. Such lols :p unless there is a wvw/spvp difference to the way this mechanic works. but you definitely get them all in spvp.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

It’s all because of the Might stacking lately. I personally cannot resist not stealing them — my palm itches when I see a Guardian or Warrior running around with 10+ stacks of might.

WvW is just rich with buffs ripe for a picking.

This is exactly it however i come from a spvp perspective not a WvW one. might stacking is the done thing for any dps build. You guys seen what a hambow can do with 25 stacks of might? if you get caught in stun lock as a thief you die in like 3 hits especially if they run sigil of intelligence, if you stand in the fire field you get burning for 500+ a tick. The might stacks are better on you rather than the enemy Traxal.2745, and besides with 20+ stacks of might with a 7% increase to dps with might on you (rune of strength) you wont be complaining about any lack of dps when you steal all the might of an opponent.

Was getting rather long that post so i decided to split it.

when it comes to combo fields and finishers i will take the time to explain what to look for on skills etc if you know this already i am sorry but nobody explained this to me when i started the game so for several months i never fully understood it.

On a skill at the bottom it may say something like “combo field: fire” this means that this is a field that is placed on the floor which can either appear as a line ( so a rectangular field) or a circle ( so a spherical field) depending on the skill used. If you look at the table on the wiki posted above you will see what the “combo finishers” will achieve on top of this field. As an elementalist you have only one physical projectile which is magnetic grasp and one “leap finisher” magnetic leap, this combo should be utilized as often as possible as with the leap you gain a fire aura which means you get fury or protection from it depending on how you trait.

The next set of combo finishers an elementalist has is all blast finishers, this is where a large portion of your dps comes from stacking might. A blast finisher on a fire field gives 3 stacks of might as the table shows. So check the rotation posted and learn which ones gives a finisher and which don’t, also at the start of a fight on switching to earth its a good idea to dodge roll in the field ( if evasive arcana is equipped) to get another might stack, you must be in combat for this one to work though. but generally save your evasive arcana for a heal until you understand that mechanic better and get used to subconsciously counting the CD for it.

overall its purely a matter of experience, i mean i have played about 1000+ hours on an ele and still find new rotations for different classes. feel free to message me ingame if there anything you need.

If you go on the GW2 wiki there will be a list of the combos and what they achieve, posted below.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo

It shows you all the fields that an elementalist is capable of (only if specced correctly) not sure about the smoke one myself, though perhaps thats from a conjured weapon i have never donated time into.

DD is probably the most viable build right now and i advice using it if you are even semi new to elementalist as staff is like learning an entirely new profession over again and only really viable in the right team but never the less very effective at times and in these teams. (i have been kited for like 5 minutes by one before and he would occassionally stop to drop his meteor shower).

You have 2 basic builds to consider without considering all of the viable builds out there. These are;

celestial with 2 points in air;

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k33;2B2-V0y47NkY0;9;59-TT;10;328A57ASB0;3H7W3H7W30X

Berserker with 2 points in earth;

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k33;2B2-V0y47NkY0;9;69TT;44;028A57ASB0;3H7W3H7W30L

Basically if you are going more physical dps and burst berserker is good however i feel you need the protection up-time to really last in a group fight.

If you are going celestial you are already a solid survivalist without the protection hence why going into air will give perma fury for the increased dps.

Both are feasible and berserker is better at the start of a fight as the increased power is certainly better for initial burst and might stacks scale this massively, however celestial will get much stronger as a fight drags out due to increased sustain and the might stacks increasing your dps to that of a berserker stat. Personally i find the celestial one stronger overall and is the one i currently use. (theres no reason other than survival why you cant take perma fury with berserker either)

The rotation that KrazyFlyinChicken.5936 mentioned is the general opening rotation to any fight, if the target is low on health and you want to burst them down fly through that rotation with as much speed as possible otherwise if the target is full health fly through air magic fast and fire magic up until where chicken guy mentioned fire hands then slow it down and use a few more skill one attacks and dragons breath (do not underestimate this skill at all as burning with 20+ stacks of might will deal 500+ damage per second) basically in a long fight you dont want to go into water attunement just because thats the only attunement on CD you want to save it for condition cleanses and heals.

Anhomedog.7968:

I do agree with the points into air, and I choose to be more defensive in tourney play…thats just me, but in my video I do point out that you can swap those 2 points into air if that is the way you wanna play. My question is, why would a sigil of doom be better than maybe a strength, or some other sigil. I can see the good of what an air or fire can do with damage, but just in my opinion, I would think maybe the extra 6 or so stacks of might (210 Power, 210 Condi Dmg), would be more of use. I say this because something like a sigil of fire is a proc type of thing, at 50%, and Sigil of strength is at 60% I believe with a 1 SECOND CD. Why even have a CD when it’s one second? I just believe in the fact that, the percent is higher, the damage (Imo) is higher, and the CD is smaller, makes the sigil of strength a more viable choice than something along the lines of a sigil of air/fire. Once again this is my personal preference, yet I may look into the usage of the Sigil of Doom later on this week when I get the chance to play

because the sigil of doom and sigil of air still applies a beneficial effect at 25 stacks of might. If you have 25 stacks of might then your sigils only use is to refresh the boons not increase the dps output. With 2 points in fire and making sure you blast your fire field at least once every time you use it as well as popping a flame aura up once in a while will ensure decent might stacks. But like i said i run strength runes and have not really tested anything without them. but if you hit max might without the sigil of strength then the sigil is a waste. If you understand where i am coming from.

And a sigil of doom can certainly compete against 6 stacks of might. (I am basing this on condition damage as the equations are easier) but get this, at 25 might stacks you will get approximately 1309 condition damage (with might stacks (25) and amulet (celestial)). At 1309 condition damage burning is doing 655 damage per second (dps), and considering you have 25% crit chance this is where the largest portion of your dps is coming from, conditions.

Now consider you sacrifice 6 stacks of might, as you say, for a sigil of doom this is 1309 condition damage minus 210 condition damage = 1099. Burning now hits at 603 dps + poison at 194 dps and they have a 33% reduction to heals. Not only do you deal more passive damage the sort that a necro has to work very hard to maintain but you place a condition on the enemy that they simply have to control. They cannot leave it on themselves before they proc a heal. Find me the thief, warrior or indeed any other class that can deal with a permanent onslaught of poison and burning. I do realise the poison is ot permanent but about 60% up-time so don’t pull me up on that please, but then again so is burning and direct damage.

Also after a fight more often than not with sigil of doom you will see a icon where your boons lie saying that the next attack poisons a foe. Thus sigil of dooms application is immediate whereas strengths takes a series of attacks to build up the might.

Direct damage is only good when you are hitting the opponent, condition damage still ticks away when they kite you, this is why condition damage will always be the most powerful mechanic in pvp. But like you say its personal preference.

Caom.9251:

Ahh okay I can see where you are coming from but I think they should at least make it affected by swiftness to increase it’s effectiveness.

Really bad idea man as if it is affected by swiftness it is affected by chill and cripple too. Would be less beneficial overall i think.

babazhook.6805:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anomaly.7612:

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

Sheppy.9306:

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

Sheppy.9306:

Anomaly.7612:

renss.5764:

As a thief stealth player and a d/d elementalist i have to say this is so true
when running the perma prot spec u can barely be harmed, there are too many random aoe attacks going on that hurt the thief alot. I have had so much trouble killing d/d eles on my thief in wvw duels but the other way around, it was easy.

What is this perma prot spec? It sounds delightful.

For perma protection or nearly perma protection simply take 2 points in earth for protection on auras and take elemental attunement. This is using D/D btw and basically make sure that fire skill 4 is followed by earth skill 3 for the leap finisher. (every 15 seconds this is possible, and this is the reason i say nearly as failing this you miss out, this tactic will give you 20+ stacks of might quite easily though combined with other blast finiher etc) use armour of earth to top yourself up :p

so that’s what, 4 seconds of protection every 15 seconds and you have to have a target and a set cycle to go through. and armor of earth 7 seconds of protection every 60ish seconds. two other auras also on high cooldowns also 4 seconds of protection. So that’s about a 60% up time of protection. Nowhere near permanent. Perma stealth however is quite possible for the thief is it not?

And do elementalists have a 13k damage dealer with no cooldown? I don’t think so.

DD ele goes completely bunker spec, thief goes full berserk and now we are finnaly somewhat of a nuisance for them.

Ye i realise what you are saying with the fire aura however i did say nearly perma protection and besides you are forgetting elemental attunement. If you go and test this you will be able to get a 90% up time on protection if protection is the key boon you are going for. ( thats with me taking 6 points in arcana) but also before any other boon duration buffs.

He asked for it and i gave it to him.

Hey I went and tried to get permanent protection in the heart of the mists with a new build I’m working on. Got it to work quite easily actually then when I went to the mists to try it out I got killed by thieves 8 times in a row and I didn’t even phase them…

Were you getting bleeds and burning on them? If they get some condis on them, they’ll fall over. Turn it into a battle of attrition.

Haha i never once mentioned this was effective against thieves. Personally i always find with this game to match dps with dps. the only class that can tank a thief is a guardian due to the blocks. We have none so we must let our dps scare them away. I run this build in tournaments and am currently fluctuating at around the 350 rank mark in team leaderboards.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k33;2B2-V0y47N-Z0;9;59-TT;10;328A17ASs0;3H7W3H7W30n

You may wonder why so far in both water and arcana but i find that gives me the best all-round counter play to most classes. With this build i can honestly say i have never lost a 1 vs 1 with any thief currently. However i do play thief second and have spent 25% of my game time on a thief where 50% is on an elementalist therefore i may have some advantage. also with this build it means i can 1 vs 1 any minion master or spirit ranger easily (not fast as they are a dedicated bunker) but i will win the point if they don’t cry for help elite or no elite for both parties i will tend to win. (hence the 6 points in water and arcana)

I also placed a post in the thief forums describing the best build to counter eles and how to go about it. Maybe take a look at it, it is aimed at thiefs however i do cover a few useful tricks that an elementalist can do to give yourself an edge.

Also in the build swap the elite depending on the map (kyhlo go fire gs for treb control) and sigil of doom is up to you. If they have 2 or more warriors i say its a must. otherwise sigil of air is fine.

mist form i use due to my party tends to lack in safe stomps (we have currently been going 2 thiefs, 1 ele, 1 mesmer and a guardian so you can see where i am coming from) otherwise arcane shield or any other arcane skill will help greatly against a thief or indeed any class.

last point when taking a thief do not underestimate drakes breath. especially if they are a S/D evade build. Use drakes breath when they are evading and at least half of it will hit. Burning kills them eventually even if you don’t hit your most powerful attacks.

I notice a lot of elementalists running into fire magic for the cantrip might stacks however i really don’t think it is necessary with 6 points in arcana as the earth dodge roll gives a blast finisher and the sigil of battle gives you a considerable amount too. However i do run runes of strength.

Also i really think that a celestial amulet does mean you have to take 2 points in air for the perma fury otherwise your dps with auto attack is just way too weak even with the amount of might stacked.

with the might stacking capabilities of your build though Anhomedog.7968 i would highly recommend getting rid of sigil of strength for a sigil of doom or sigil of air/fire. the latter is better with 2 points in air.

Lettuce.2945:

I’m telling you.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQJAoYhMMKcW5wzBrEBWACxYhG9QUgyH3FE-TJRGwAAeAADOBAg2fYZZAA

This build is awesome. Let me explain why I use Sigil of Intelligence. It’s perfect if you guys think about it. On weapon swap, or rather, attunement swapping, your next 3 hits will 100% crit. Right? So how do I make sure fire grab crits for sure? I generally do it like this.

RTL > Updraft > (swap to fire = 3 crit proc’ed) > burning speed THEN fire grab and ring of fire > earth > earth 4 > 2. Insane burst damage already right there. Obviously don’t do it when they have stab up from the start.

Another cool combo is pop armor of earth, start channeling churning earth on the corner of the fight…While you are channeling, start aiming where you want lightning flash to be, follow the enemy group as they move around the cap point then when churning is at like 90% channeling time…Pop LF. It’s usually never dodged if you are in group fights. Obviously don’t use it when 1 v 1’ing. That’s stupid.

Or you can do lighting flash then updraft and do that fire grab crit combo I mentioned.

Ye i love the idea of an inteligence sigil in there though however in an extended fight do you not find that it gets lost and un-used in all the attunement swaps? Wouldn’t a sigil of air be more rewarding in that it can proc even when a water skill one hits for example. Also i think the sigil of strength is a waste, i run a tournament spec of 0-2-0-6-6 with no traits for stacking might and i have perma 20+ stacks of might in every fight.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

Sheppy.9306:

Anomaly.7612:

renss.5764:

As a thief stealth player and a d/d elementalist i have to say this is so true
when running the perma prot spec u can barely be harmed, there are too many random aoe attacks going on that hurt the thief alot. I have had so much trouble killing d/d eles on my thief in wvw duels but the other way around, it was easy.

What is this perma prot spec? It sounds delightful.

For perma protection or nearly perma protection simply take 2 points in earth for protection on auras and take elemental attunement. This is using D/D btw and basically make sure that fire skill 4 is followed by earth skill 3 for the leap finisher. (every 15 seconds this is possible, and this is the reason i say nearly as failing this you miss out, this tactic will give you 20+ stacks of might quite easily though combined with other blast finiher etc) use armour of earth to top yourself up :p

so that’s what, 4 seconds of protection every 15 seconds and you have to have a target and a set cycle to go through. and armor of earth 7 seconds of protection every 60ish seconds. two other auras also on high cooldowns also 4 seconds of protection. So that’s about a 60% up time of protection. Nowhere near permanent. Perma stealth however is quite possible for the thief is it not?

And do elementalists have a 13k damage dealer with no cooldown? I don’t think so.

DD ele goes completely bunker spec, thief goes full berserk and now we are finnaly somewhat of a nuisance for them.

Ye i realise what you are saying with the fire aura however i did say nearly perma protection and besides you are forgetting elemental attunement. If you go and test this you will be able to get a 90% up time on protection if protection is the key boon you are going for. ( thats with me taking 6 points in arcana) but also before any other boon duration buffs.

He asked for it and i gave it to him.

also the healing signet works on spells even if they dont hit so spam skill one endlessly.

soothing mist is the first minor trait in water attunement. if you sit in water and curse over the soothing mist buff on you you will see it continually refresh. When you switch out of water it will stop refreshing. if you switch out of water attunement with lingering elements traited (arcana 3 points) you will see it refresh up to 10 seconds until lingering elements is finished hence why i said pretty much permanent.

the numbers are the amount of hp you receive at 600 healing power. So its up to you if ypu want to substitute some dps for survivability with healing power rather than vitality/toughness. like i said taking the 10% extra dps in air could minimise the dps reduction.