Guild Wars 2

Creslin.1758:

Do you know if they changed Magnetic Grasp so that it gives you your aura perks again when you get fire aura from it BSquared?

Not sure, last I heard it was still “bugged” and didn’t grant fury/prot/swiftness, but I haven’t tested it myself to know if it’s been fixed. My understanding was that it was supposed to work with zerphyr’s boon, etc., and that it’s a bug that it is not. Hopefully this is the case.

I’m hoping they fix it, cause the Leap into ring is super helpful for maintaining perma-fury if you’re only running 10 pts in arcane like I am

cznrhubarb.5946:

So after reading this excellent analysis of the Elementalist’s traits, I’m thinking about completely overhauling my build.

New question:
Do auras applied from things like Superior Rune of Fire’s 6 ability (Gain a Fire Aura for 5s when you fall below 80% health.) or leap finishers (When Magnetic Grasp’s leap finisher works) proc traits like Zephyr’s Boon, Elemental Shielding, or Powerful Auras?

YOU will get those aura’s and the boons associated with it (e.g., fury, swiftness, and protection if properly traited) but these aura’s WILL NOT be shared amongst the group (via powerful aura). At least that is my current understanding (and magnetic leap not applying the fire aura properly is a bug).

The difference is in semantics. As a D/D Ele, using air skill #3 and water skill #4 applies an aura (and is thus shared). Runes, and blast finishers (such as magnetic leap into ring of fire) grant aura’s. Granted aura’s are not shared, only applied ones.

MajorMelchett.6042:

Wait, does this mean the new transform trait issue (the one that drops health etc) will likely not be fixed until around the same time?.

In this thread (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/December-03-12-12-Update/first#post921708) they claim the RTL bug will be fixed in a hotfix, so you likely won’t have to wait until 12/14 for that one.

As an aside, it’s nice to see all the red text boxes and Dev’s floating around the last few days. Keep up the good work guys, and I’m sorry for yelling about the EA nerf a couple weeks back

Mesmer portals are fine, L2P…

Oh wait, this isn’t a nerf thread, kudos to you OP. Carry on

NUMBER 1 tip. Always have a staff in the bag. Get used to opening your inventory (or Hero panel) and swap to it when entering a keep to defend (usually when traveling up to the walls).

I LOVE D/D, love it. But having a staff handy is priceless

Good start to this thread Cres…

Blaine Tog.8304:

The last enemy out was running from a whole bunch of my allies, so I swapped to Earth and fired off #5. Needless to say, the foe died that day.

D’you know what’s even MORE fun? If you’re D/D, use RTL to quickly catch up to them, move in front of them and updraft (knocking them back TOWARDS your rampaging zerg).

Then just /laugh as the zerg takes em out. Good times, good times…

Redscope.6215:

How about this:

• Downed State remains in sPvP and WvW
• In sPvP, only the closest ATTACKING player is rallied from an enemy’s defeat.
• In WvW, a maximum of 3-5 (depending on balance changes or whatever) are rallied from an enemy’s defeat.

Somewhat this. Downed state isn’t the problem, it’s an entire team rallying at once due to one stomp that’s a problem.

Make stomping someone rally only ONE teammates (either the nearest target, or more likely, the target that has been downed the longest within range). Then it’s a 1-to-1 swap and benefits teams that can coordinate stomps.

Watching 3 enemies your team downed rally because only ONE of your teammates gets killed is just heart breaking…

{Oh, and make it so that killing critters in WvW doesn’t rally. People killing rabbits and moa’s to avoid dying it stupid.}

mak.9027:

Fine, thanks for clarification. Sorry for the rant.

No problem. Don’t wanna offend, glad I could clarify

Creslin.1758:

Well to be fair, there WERE a lot of people here that didn’t understand what the OP was about. There were a bunch that thought I was talking about mist form, the utility skill, and railing against a nerf for it. When in reality, I’m talking about vapor form, the downed skill…which I thought the topic title would have made clear, but not clear enough apparently.

And for clarification, THOSE are the ONLY people I was referring to when I said they did “not understand.”

mak.9027:

There is surely some good argument in the thread, what is bad is phrases like “You aren’t going to convince anyone”, “so far you’ve barely been able to get people to simply UNDERSTAND what you’re talking about” and so on. That the OP agreed with.
If you have to “convince” someone, then it’s not even a discussion, you think you are right and that’s it. Sorry this made me quite upset.

I still think this is not OP at all, if they fix it I don’t care, it’s a minor thing in the whole bugged elementalist picture.

I’ll take credit for this one, as Mak is referring to my post.

1.) Regarding “you aren’t going to convince anyone,” isn’t that like the #1 rule of internet chat forums? Everyone has their opinion and are rarely swayed.

2.) Regarding “so far you’ve barely been able to get people to simply UNDERSTAND what you’re talking about” is referencing the plethora of folks who came into this thread and said stuff like “just root the Ele, L2P, it’s fine,” without READING the particular scenario Creslin was positing. Many of us have already covered why “rooting the Ele” does not work, in great detail, yet these people keep rearing their heads (these are the people I was referring to as “not understanding”). That’s not to say they’re incapable of understanding the issue, just that they haven’t read closely enough to follow the almost 5 pages of discussion (I can’t say that I blame them, if I stumbled across this thread today I wouldn’t read 5 pages either).

Lastly, you shouldn’t get so upset about this topic or my post in particular. It wasn’t meant as an insult towards anyone. And from my perspective, i’m not at all trying to “Convince” folks that the “vapor-form 100% escape technique” discussed in this forum needs nerfing at all, just trying to get people to understand exactly what the technique is and let them decide if it warrants a nerf. If they disagree, fine, that’s well within their right and they are not wrong. Ultimately it’s not up to us, it’s ANet’s job to decide what they consider fairplay.

Kardiamond.6952:

Oh I thought it was 12 sec, that what I had in mind, My bad my mistake! And I also thought I saw it pop in the video? Would have to check it again later.

It may have, maybe he’s running 0/10/10/20/30 these days (so he doesn’t get condition clears on regen).

Sadly, Corrupt boon isn’t as effective as people seems to think. I used it a lot with a DD Elem I was fighting, it only slowed him down a bit, not like when I cast it on a guardian and he has to retreat.

Each time I cast it on a DD Elem, they cast their boon right up after. And the conditions.. well like somoene said you don’t kill a DD elem with conditions.

Yeah, you’ll never strip all the boons off an Ele. We get one just for switching attunements, which with daphoenix’s build happens every 10 seconds or so, maximum. But it can help

D/D Ele’s are very tough to kill solo (just like stealth spamming thieves) because of their mobility. It’s why we all play D/D now since staff and scepter are so lackluster in comparison. I hope we don’t get a 2nd round of nerfing, but I’m bracing for it anyway (I don’t wanna get trucked like with the EA nerf, which I never imagined they’d remove all the blast finishers entirely. I thought we’d keep the 1 in earth, c’est la vie).

Creslin.1758:

Haha yeah man, I basically agree with everything you say. I know this issue isn’t a gamebreaker or anything, it’s really just a small annoyance that should probably be fixed.

And it probably will be in time, like a year from now (at current ANet “bug-fixing-pace.”)
{to the moderator: This is a joke.}

That said, I was honestly amused by how up in arms some people here got about a potential nerf to their class, regardless of how small. So my constant arguing here, is less about the issue, and more about the arguing.

We’re Ele’s, we’re sensitive about the nerfbat, especially after the EA nerf debacle, which I railed against at the time, but completely understand why it was necessary (I just wish they had added some offensive staff buffs to compensate).

:D

Kardiamond.6952:

You might think it’s only because he has such good movement, but don’t forget something :

The entire fight, he had swiftness and vigor up. That’s really big to dodge and move around. Most class don’t have perma swiftness, as well as perma vigor. Actually he has 5 buff up 100% of the time.

Not even counting the 12 sec stability he get at 50% hp.

Just think about target attack. IT’s hard in a high pace fight to land everything. Now with a swiftness/endurance/blinking elemn that heal overtime, it’s a whole other level.

That’s a good point, the perma swiftness plays into his escapability and general shiftiness

Also, clerical correction, but I don’t think dapheonix gets armor of earth at 50% hp (which only carries 8s of stability, and a 90s cooldown) as he has his 10 pts in air for fury/swiftness on aura’s. I believe he’s 0/10/0/30/30 (he definitely has evasive arcana). He’s switched his build up numerous times (especially after the EA nerf) but in the video I posted he has 30 arcane for sure.

Regarding the sheer number of boons that Ele’s have typically (e.g., might, regen, swiftness, vigor, fury, protection, should almost all be up near 100% of the time) that’s a perk of the class. Without those boons our survivability drops substantially (HINT HINT, I’m looking at YOU Necro’s and any other class with boon wipes or conversions).

XD

Creslin.1758:

{everything you said in this thread, all 4 pages of it}

Creslin, I think it’s time to just let it go man You aren’t going to convince anyone here that it warrants a nerf, hell so far you’ve barely been able to get people to simply UNDERSTAND what you’re talking about (for example, many still say “just snare the Ele, vapor form doesn’t wipe conditions,” without realizing that going DOWN wipes them FOR YOU).

I, and others, agree with you that using vapor form to reenter the keep is a near-borderline exploit (imo, and your’s as well apparently) but in the grand scheme of the game it’s small potatoes and isn’t something that Anet should be concerning themselves with at this juncture. It only effects one class (Ele), in a marginally effective way (suicide runs will not stop a keep siege, only slow it down), in one particular endeavor (keep defense), in one third of the game content (WvW only). Yes, it can be used in tPvP on foefire I suppose, but hiding behind the base walls in the downed state ressing yourself is of arguable benefit to your tPvP team…

Rest assured, this post reached 4 pages which is about 4 pages more than most other threads in the Elementalist forums (aside from the one announcing the EA nerf) so Anet has more than likely noticed and this issue has been brought to their attention. If they feel it warrants an immediate nerf, they will do so and many of us here will not be shocked (I won’t, you won’t be either, although I will miss it). Others can commence with the teeth gnashing if they didn’t see it coming.

Cheers mate

Klassic.8057:

who is daphoenix? never seen him in tpvp :|

He’s primarily a WvW player, and one of the best D/D I have ever seen. He’s basically impossible to kill whether the enemies are upleveled or not, even 10 on 1 (here, check out his video below). He’s 0/10/0/30/30 specced without powerful aura (as far as I can tell), meaning he’s got mad condition removal (cause cantrips grant regen, and regen clears conditions) and good healing power. He’s a beast. He’s what players think of when they say D/D Ele’s are overpowered, nevermind that he could probably pick up any class and roflstomp pwn folks…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2_GXr9o-Us&feature=plcp

Arheundel.6451:

But if we take all the weapon sets as they stand without any trait , just counting skill 1 to 5; we’ll see that d/d got a single condition removal!

So when talking about “huge condition removal” you should refer to the build itself no the weapon set, on its own d/d got far less condition removal than s/f isn’t that right?

D/D as a weapon set doesn’t have a ton of condition removal, but almost every D/D build (bunker or auramancer) will have 30 pts in water and will run triple cantrips. As i’m sure you’re aware (but outside non-Ele players might not be), it’s the water trait line and cantrips that give us such amazing condition removal. You can make a staff build thats EVEN BETTER than D/D for condition removal (because of healing rain) but you won’t be as mobile and won’t burst as well as D/D. Focus doesn’t have a lot of condition removal (none, it’s worse than dagger) but has more projectile shields and an invulnerability (which I don’t believe strips already applied conditions, ala mist form).

I would have thought people would have learned by now, you won’t kill a PvP specced Ele with purely conditions. You kill them with burst and immobilize/chill (but you must COVER your immobilize with other conditions, e.g., bleed, burn, poision, weakness, vulnerability, etc., to prevent chill/immobilize from being immediately wiped).

Also, I think the mobility of D/D ele’s messes with people (especially melee) and makes them THINK we’re tougher than we are. If you watch Dapheonix’s video’s, he’ll stand in a group of enemies for seconds at a time and take little to no damage, cause they’re facing the wrong way and he’s a constantly moving target. He also hides behind walls/boxes/tree a lot to negate line of sight and avoid hits. They see this as “he’s too mobile, I can’t hit him, the class is OP, nerf!” when in reality if THEY could turn their camera, hide behind obstacles, and generally react as fast as HE does, they’d hit him just fine. The issue is that he’s a superior player (far superior), and he could probably circle-kite them as a greatsword warrior…

Kardiamond.6952:

Oh a Prediction : don’t underestimate the players. People hate to be killed, but they hate even more not being able to kill somoene. And if a good DD Elem don’t want to die, he won’t die. So you’ll see the wave of crying popping on the forums. Just give it some time.

Arheundel know too it’s coming, that’s why he is doing this post.

Elem, Brace yourself! Hope that they buff your other spec and not nerf your only viable one!

I hate that first sentiment you discuss, because a D/D ele built in such a way so that he/she can always escape will ALSO have some difficulty killing other players. For example, the 0/10/0/30/30 spec used by dapheonix is tremendously difficult to kill, but it also doesn’t kill others in seconds and dapheonix might be the best Ele in the game. When people whine, “but he got away,” I always retort, “but you’re only whining about that cause he couldn’t kill you either!” (this is not to say D/D Ele’s can’t kill people quickly, cause they can, especially the Aura build varieties.)

And yeah, i’m bracing for the D/D nerf (which is hilarious, cause they just buffed it the patch before last) if only because everyone and their brother is rolling it these days and other players find the spec to be a nuisance, so it’ll get nerfed eventually. Even though it takes a high skill level to play well, and even when done so it can’t kill players as fast as a thief, it’ll get the nerf bat. Of course, they likely won’t address the root cause of the issue, that is we’re ALL D/D cause staff and scepter blow. Staff was only used for because of the EA blast finisher, they should have never taken that away without providing increased offensive power to make up for the loss in healing/survivability.

mouse.1689:

Marginally more effective takes two months.

I’ll admit, I laughed at this, mostly because of it’s kinda true. Good one mouse

keytoeverything.1765:

Funny you mention that, I was having a hard time playing other classes after my Mesmer hit 80, till I rolled my beautiful D/D Ele :P

Everyone’s rolling Ele now, not sure if it’s because the community feels they’re overpowered (they are likely not, except for in the hands of a highly skilled player), or because it’s so fun to play when compared with other stale “auto-attack mobs to death” classes.

Either way, they’re all rolling D/D cause staff and scepter just kitten at this point. I liked it better back at the beginning of the game when the community thought the class was crap and those of us playing it were special little snowflakes

Otaur.9268:

Been noticing a lot of Auramancer’s popping up, i think Elementalist is becoming the new Flavor of the Month.

All I see anymore are D/D aura ele’s and/or some variant of that spec in sPvP and WvW, and the occassional staff holdover in WvW.

It’s a sad commentary on the state of the class. Basically, since the EA nerf D/D is easily the most viable weapon set (since staff AOE isn’t SO impressive, no more blast finishers mean no more might stacking and uberhealing/support, and the scepter just kittens), so we all run it.

Based on recent experience, this means D/D is in line for a nerf (and a reasonable argument could be made that it’s on the overpowered end of the spectrum when used by highly skilled players), but they won’t buff staff or scepter to compensate and make some of us switch out of D/D.

Kardiamond.6952:

You have to use it right. You keep your dodge for vapor form. As soon as you go down, you pop it and dodge 2 time right away. At most, during half a second people will be able to immobilize you, maximum. That’s a really low risk, nearly 0 chance.

Do you even HAVE to dodge? I was under the impression that once you mist/vapor form, you immune to all new attacks basically. Can you be snared/chilled while in mist/vapor form? I don’t always “dodge” back to the gate and still never get hung up provided you popped vapor form the instant you’re downed (preventing them from snaring you BEFORE you pop it, which DOES persist through vapor/mist form).

iCryptik.1496:

I still think it’s fine the way it is.

I agree, it’s powerful but not gamebreaking per se.

It’s really a 50/50 shot to even make it back through the gate. Most zergs beating on the door are ready to immobilize or snare anything coming off the walls.

By down #3, you’re dead, there is no coming back.

Provided you pace your suicide runs such that you don’t hit downed 5 times in 60s (which is really easy to do), it’s a 100% chance of making it back through the gate provided a guardian doesn’t put up line of warding or another “You shall not pass” skill.

Sekacnap.3984:

Next patch notes:

Removed “unintended” boons due to other traits from Powerful Aura when an aura is applied to allies.

I can see that, and I would be downright pissed off if that happened. I’ve already re-geared and traited out of a staff support build after the EA nerf, nerfing shared aura’s would be just as bad.

and grabbing the free shocking aura at air 30. i know this aura gives me the buffs, but does anyone know if the 30 pt air aura gets shared?

I would assume not. Aura’s you get from blast finishers, runes, and traits are “granted,” the ones you cast (via signets and weapon skills) are “applied.” Only those that are “applied” get shared with teammates. At least that is how I understood it, I could be wrong

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Well, the biggest problem is that you don’t have a lot of other options for getting materials for lvl80 crafting from the other areas… There are only two other areas that have some of the T6 materials. So, you’re virtually forced to go to Orr unless you want to farm for the gold so you can buy that stuff on the TP. And that would be a sad state…

Frostgorge sound has Orchichalcum nodes (sic?) and Ancient trees, and NONE of the densely packed risen mob problems. Farm there if you want to run from node-to-node uncontested.

Also, while Orr can be painful, it’s not THAT bad. You just have to actually, you know, KILL MOBS now and again on your way to nodes and events. Huh, imagine that!

The only Orr zone I dislike is Straits of Devastation because the zone itself I feel is designed very poorly.

Too much water in Straits. I hate that zone too, Cursed Shore is MUCH better imo.

Kardiamond.6952:

The jump and AoE tactic is really efficient, and if you can avoid most of the risk, it’s even better.

And that’s the OP’s point. With vapor form, as far as an Ele is concerned there is NO risk…

But still, not something Anet should be spending time on at this point. Bug fixes, content patches, and general PvP stuff first. Vapor form, while powerful when used in this manner, is not game-breaking (even though I completely agree with the OP that it’s VERY powerful).

Waking.6052:

Is anyone opposed to this?

I don’t think so, which is why I hope it is implemented someday. Just autoloot everything not from PvE mobs in WvW (e.g., random basilik’s and moa’s, and whatnot).

zastari.1730:

How about doubling the limit to 10 in WvW maps only?

This has always been my idea, somewhat.

Something along the lines of, “First 5 targets take full damage, next 5 take 40% damage, ALL the rest take 10% damage”. You’d need 10+ Ele’s all nuking the exact same spot to take down a 50 man zerg so it wouldn’t be crazy overpowered (like completely removing the cap would be), but it would make turtling/clumping just a bit more dangerous because you’d still be taking splash damage if you weren’t one of the chosen 5…

And no AOE limit on siege other than arrow carts (which would work on the system described above). Turtling to completely negate AOE damage is NOT true tactics (just clever use of game mechanics) and although it shouldn’t be punished with near instant death, it should be discouraged in some manner unless you bring enough defensive talents to keep a protective shield up (ala the phalanx from history).

well played OP, well played

Zenyatoo.4059:

vapor form doesnt prevent conditions from hitting you does it?

Use a pull skill when he hops down (and yes, you should really have one on your bar for keep siege). He downs far from the gate. Cripple, freeze, or hell immobilize him. Lol at the now dead ele.

end of story.

Oh and that’s if his vapor form doesnt bug out. Sometimes it just simply wont let you through the gate while it’s active. It happens rarely, but if he’s spamming it constantly, well, it’ll happen eventually and he’ll be boned.

Is it pretty cheesy? Yes.
Is it unbeatable? Hell no. Not by a kittening longshot. It’s countered by snares, which every WvW’er should knows all of his classes by now, as snares are really kittening good in WvW. And pull skills, which admittedly are more niche, but oh hey look, said niche is the same one where the ele will be doing this!

I don’t think you can apply NEW snares while in vapor/mist form, but old ones won’t be removed (this is the same as conditions such as bleed. Old bleeds keep ticking, new ones miss). Maybe you can (I suppose I could be wrong about this), but if so, for some reason the other teams I’m fighting when in WvW never seem to think to CC me in vapor form cause I do what the OP is describing all the time.

Because entering the downed state clears all conditions, and vapor form can be popped instantly, if you just spam #2 when you’re about to go down you’ll be in vapor form before your kitten even hits the ground with no conditions on you. Then you simply run through the gate and heal yourself with skill #4.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Really? i have used it gone right back down again and its had like 6dseconds left on its cool down. Maybe make it so that if you are in combat then the Cool down is longer? Or maybe even make it so that the more its used the longer the cool down becomes and it resets after say 1minute or something?

For Example:

1st Use 20Second Cool down
2nd Use 25second cool down
3rd Use 30second cool down

If Anet considers this to be a problem, this idea won’t fix it. I’m not sure everyone in here understands what’s going on here?!?

You jump down, AOE like crazy, and the instant you’re downed spam #2. You’ll vapor form, un CC’d (cause you hit it instantly upon going down) and now you have 2-3 seconds to get inside the keep. Easy Peasy, it is almost entirely unstoppable. I do this ALL THE TIME. I think a line of warding right in front of the gate is the ONLY thing that can stop it.

I consider it a perk of the class (since we can’t weapon swap, it gives us D/D’s something to do when we can’t get outta combat to staff swap); I don’t think it needs a serious nerf.

A good compromise “nerf” if they felt it was warranted, would be to give vapor form a 1-2 second delay upon entering downed state. This way it could still be used to avoid an immediate stomp, but would give the opposing side a small window of opportunity to immobilize the downed player before he/she can pop vapor form. But all-in-all, this is fairly small potatoes and shouldn’t warrant attention until far more bug fixes and content patches are implemented…

The thing is, you can’t repeat this over and over again.

Why? Vapor form does have a cool down, so thinking you can just vapor run in, run back out, get downed, and run back in again more than likely won’t work.
…
Secondly, you can be immobilized, stunned, and crippled while in vapor form.

That’s not what the OP is referring to.

Scenario: I’m a D/D standing on the keep walls. I wait for the opportune time, jump down, AOE like all hell (burning speed, ring, drake’s breath, earthquake, churning if I can pull it off, frozen blast, cone of cold, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum). I just need to make sure I stay close to the gate. As soon as I am downed, all conditions are cleared and I immediately spam #2 to pop vapor form (it’s instant, so they basically can’t get a fresh immobilize/bleed/chill, etc., on you). Viola, I am free to reenter the keep gate.

Once on the other side, I’ll be in the downed state again, but no one can hit me. So I res using skill #4 (or via teammates), rally, then heal up while running back to the top of the keep walls. By the time I get to the top, basically all my skills are off of cooldown again, so I jump down and repeat. By the time I go down again, vapor form is more than ready, so I can easily escape once again.

Wash, rinse, repeat. You can do this over, and over, and over again untouched basically. I do it all the time. Line of warding might be the only skill that can stop this (by placing it directly in front of the gate as soon as I go down), but I don’t know since I haven’t encountered anyone smart enough to try it…

Edited to add: Although I agree with the OP about it’s power, I don’t think it warrants a significant nerf at this time.

Creslin.1758:

Are you sure that roots will affect vapor form (downed state 2)? I have done vapor form many, many times and NEVER been CC’d in it. I’ve also attempted to root other ele’s in vapor form with magnetic grasp, but it never worked.

You have to root them BEFORE they go into vapor form. Vapor form won’t break an immobilize on the player.

Not possible, downed clears all conditions, vapor form can be triggered immediately on downed.

This here is the crux. I tend to agree somewhat with the OP, it’s basically impossible to stop and D/D ele’s can jump down, AOE like mad, and then escape death with an almost 100% certainty (thanks to vapor form). I use it all the time.

That being said, I don’t think it should be nerfed cause it’s not that game breaking. Really, how many enemies in the zerg can you down in 5 seconds anyway? And chances are they’ll get revived too. It also gives D/D ele’s not manning siege (or running supply) something to do when standing on keep walls. I’ll often do this when first pushed up onto the walls, then after I revive myself inside the gate take a moment to switch to staff and get back up there to AOE.

boozer.7815:

I see your point. I have tried and tested the 20 fire build for the fire aura and it provides you with a lot of extra flexibility in your aura build for staff. I think its probably best to use for a heavy staff focused build because you only have access to one aura on a 30s CD without it. With this trait you have the potential to pop aura’s like a jack rabbit. It has like a 3s CD between signets. Given that through your Air and Earth aura traits you gain protection, fury, and swiftness every time you pop an Aura, that can add up significantly if your popping signets every time they come off CD. It really does make a difference.

If you’re running a staff aura build, I could see using signets and 20 in fire. You’re not taking Powerful Aura either, so it’s self-buff only. But as D/D there just aren’t enough points to go around, i’ll make a sad face now…

:(

spif.7580:

As a WvW thief with over 19k kills, D/D elementalists are some of the hardest guys in the game to kill.

We’re the lizard to your spock…

As a fellow D/D elementalist running Aura-share in WvW, i’d say Jericho’s post is the best in this thread and the “solution” to beating us as a thief.

In addition, i’d like to add that Ele’s are awesome against conditions (the 0/10/0/30/30 build usually clears 2 conds on water swap, 1 clear on dodge roll in water, each cantrips gives a clear and regen, our healing skill gives a clear, etc.). If you’re a bleed spec, time them for AFTER we get outta water cause it’ll be awhile until we can get back in. But all-in-all, burst will get us easily when compared to condition builds.

The more you know…

Nonlinear.9823:

Yeah, 20 in Fire for Fire’s Embrace for auramancer is kind of a trap imo. You can’t take 30 Earth for Written in Stone so whenever you pop a signet you’ll lose the passive effect. With D/D your best auras are weapon skills and the points in arcane will not only let you swap faster but every ten points adds 10% boon duration.

If they could just swap it with Spellslinger

I don’t even care about losing the passives on the signets. The heal-per-cast on restoration signet is nice, but i can live without it for awhile, and the extra toughness on earth is inconsequential honestly, i would bring it JUST for the immobilize and for the chance to proc fire shield (and fury, swiftness, and prot for the group).

It’s really the 10 pts in arcane that I can’t do without. Elemental Attunement and the slight reduction on attunement swaps from 10 pts in arcane is just THAT good, it really isn’t worth swapping it out for anything for the most part.

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

EDIT: getting too off topic.

I agree with op that bunker guardians should be toned down.

You edited right before i replied to your last post. You said that Cleansing wave is a 40s cooldown weapon skill, so getting access to it with a 10s cooldown via EA is overpowered. But you’re neglecting that you’re getting that 10s heal at the expense of 30 trait points and 50% of your endurance bar. And you have to be in water to use it, you won’t always be there everytime the cooldown is up.

And yeah, compared to Elemental Surge, Evasive Arcana is STILL the clear winner (even after the blast finisher nerf). But that’s not because EA is overpowered, it’s because Elemental Surge is such a kitteny waste of 30 trait points. Take away EA heal, and there would effectively BE NO Grandmaster Arcane trait worth taking, period.

Back on topic, with regard to bunkers I suppose I could stand to see them nerfed a bit further/harder but only if glass cannons ALSO got nerfed further/harder. Not everybody loves a “3 second time-to-kill” dps-spamfest, nor is that style of gameplay one where talent prevails. In the end, if you nerf high-defense and nerf high-offense, you’re just slowing everything down yet the game meta remains the same. Learn to deal with the classes as they are, rather than reimagining their archetypes on the fly…

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

Also remove the heal from evasive arcana (it would still have a condition removal).

Do that, and you may as well cap the arcane tree at 20 pts. Many Ele’s dropped EA already after the blast finisher nerf (harsh, but somewhat warranted), take away the heal and it’s a complete waste of 30 pts. 30 pts to remove ONE condition at the cost of 50 endurance? yeah right…

And bunker Ele’s seem to be more susceptible to burst than guardians, but better against conditions. Oh, and immobilize/stun rocks them, hard.

I love the powerful Aura skill. I was trying to come up with a viable wvw build that uses 20/10/10/30/0 to get fire shield aura on signet activation (and then run signet of resto, and signet of earth, as well as two cantrips for regen/vigor) but I just feel naked and useless without at least 10 pts in arcane for elemental attunement and shorter cooldowns on attunement swaps.

I suppose I could build it without the 10 pts in earth as the protection buff is a short duration, but it’s a short duration cause prot kicks kitten as a boon, it’s difficult to let go. You’re also very squishy without it.

Sion.1653:

Not a 100% Explorer, but honestly your best bet would be to transfer. There’s not a whole lot of other options if your world truly won’t get those points for a while or ever.

Don’t do this, you may not be able to transfer back, and how do you know if the realm you transfer to has the point you want.

Your best bet is to just be patient. Your realm’s location on the map rotates every so often (weekly, i think, but don’t quote me on that) and the borderlands you’re assigned to cycles as well. This is how I was able to get every point in every borderland (just wait for the map I need points in to be my realms map, then I can near freely explore). I have one vista left in the lower left hand side keep of EB, just waiting for my realm’s turn to get that side and I’ll grab it.

Patience is basically the key….

mouse.1689:

Bsquared.3421:

However, playing a glass-cannon Elementalist like the video I linked is a matter of build, and then hitting a succession of abilities one after another for massive, rapid burst. It’s essentially the same as Thief.

you linked a video of WvW play…
I’d like to see this mythical Burning Speed/Ring/FireGrab (target likely not burning, does 50% dmg) combo that does 20k damage in sPvP…

21k damage using Burning Speed/Ring/FireGrab in sPvP:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTyehv-2uEw

You’re welcome.

That wasn’t just bs/ring/grab. The 4k hit was from arcane shield blowing up. He could hit 25k if wave were off of cool down…

And we was fortunate that his target crossed the ring to start burning. Else the fire grab would have hit for 5k not 9. He may also have had 3 might from the shield blowing up, amping the dmg of grab even more.

I’m not trying to say ele’s can’t pump out serious dmg, cause we can, but 20k in only 3 hits doesn’t happen very often outside some extreme circumstances (e.g., in wvw with up leveled folks, etc.).

Coma is correct, he beat me to it.

However, playing a glass-cannon Elementalist like the video I linked is a matter of build, and then hitting a succession of abilities one after another for massive, rapid burst. It’s essentially the same as Thief.

you linked a video of WvW play…
I’d like to see this mythical Burning Speed/Ring/FireGrab (target likely not burning, does 50% dmg) combo that does 20k damage in sPvP…
the combo linked by the OP DOES do 20k+ dmg, but uses two 45s cooldown weapon skills and all three utility skills to pull it off. They’re also toast after doing this.

ryston.7640:

When anybody can ruin the day of a balanced build by rolling trash like this, the pub meta gets reduced to trash like this vs bunkers.

Are there better more balanced solutions? Yea, i only ever lost to IWAY once, but it still got ran a kitten ton in tombs because it was easy to get wins with.

Cheese like this should be nerfed out of the game

You are taking this way to seriously. The Ele build presented in this thread is for all intents, and purposes, a joke build designed for lulz to instanuke bad opponents. It is NOT viable for higher end sPvP (does that even exist), tPvP, and especially in tournaments. You will die if someone sneezes in your direction. Unlike thieves, Ele cannot become untargettable after this burst (this build has no room for Mist form on the bar).

This build is for the lulz, and in no way is it ruining “meta” or reducing tPvP to builds like this and bunkers. You will NEVER see a build like this in tournies, and if you do, you’ll die once and then go, “Kitten, watch out for that Ele,” and proceed to counter him and kill him easily whenever he engages.

Zenith.7301:

So, you sacrifice a 50 sec cd stunbreaker and condition removal for a burst sequence that an opponent can foil with a single stunbreak and dodge.

What will you do then waiting 30+ seconds for arcane wave and fire grab cooldown?

This gib setup is a sham given its reliance on finding newer PuG players. The cooldowns are too long com[ared to other classes.

I think the OP knows that, he admits this is a gimmick spec designed to do one thing, that is hit a massive nuke (on a bad opponent) once every 45 seconds at a minimum.

The OP admits this is NOT a serious build, it’s called having fun. Some people are taking this WAY to seriously…

boozer.7815:

Solori.6025:

Ima leave this here

http://youtu.be/8BDQGDELcUk

ele hitting firegrab for 13k

That was classic. Ive never seen damage on it for more than 8k. That Ele’s build must be very high crit.

He’s getting 20% extra damage on knockdowned foes (and a 10% increase cause his hp is greater than 90%).

If I were to run this in sPvP for fun, i’d run S/D (rather than D/D, you use no mainhand dagger skills in the combo) and follow up the flame grab with a quick ring of fire, then air attunement swap (electric discharge), lightning strike, blinding flash. You can then RTL—> updraft if they’re not dead and keep attacking, or turn and RTL away as an escape route.

That adds like 5k+ extra damage that’s all instant and gives a 2nd knockdown or escape route. I might have to try this sometime just for the lulz, we all know it’s not really viable outside of sPvP zergfests, but it could be very fun to mess around with occassionally

Geewoody.2017:

Or you could just type henge, keep, or mine followed by help or fine. Just sayin’.

or they could just let us ping the map (as two posts below you said).

You could up the damage potential of this combo even more by running Scepter/Dagger (rather than D/D, you don’t use any mainhand D skills in combo), and throwing in air attunement swap (electric discharge), lightning strike, blinding flash, RTL in at the end. All instant cast, so you can probably hit it before they get up (for the 20% dmg bonus), put an extra 5k out easily, and blind them to boot. Then updraft to knock them down again and probably water attunement (cause it’s all you have left off cooldown) for shatterstone, trident, ice shards.

If you’re looking for the most LOLwtfbbq damage possible, you could also stick a ring of fire and possibly a pheonix (dragon’s tooth is a no, it takes way too long) in there before going to air (after flamegrab).

Sure, you’d be a complete and total 1 trick pony with a 30+k damage combo on a 45 second cooldown and you’ll die if someone looks at you funny, but it might be entertaining

Good post cosmic, completely non-viable for real PvP but fun as hell I bet for “lol sPvP gankfest-ing.”

Arheundel.6451:

Griffon.4716:

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

Before the last patch bugged out the leap finisher on magnetic grasp is was pretty easy to get 30 seconds of protection. Even now just cycling cooldowns in the mist I can maintain 100% protection duration. That’s just using earth attune, shock and frost aura, and armor of earth.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Leap_Finisher

Please show which of those fields gives protection?

At maximum by using rune of earth and elemental shielding trait along with 30 Arcana you still reach max 22s protection by using all your high CD skills; but pls tell me how is unfair to other professions to reach 22s protection after using a : 25-45-90s CD skills.

To have 100% protection unpkeep is a pure lie, even with 30 Arcane the attunement swap is at 9.5s min and earth attunement protection boon last 4s max treated, the above mentioned skills have long CD so where you’re getting your 100% protection upkeep is unclear

I have to go with Arhuendel on this one.

Getting 20+ seconds of protection is VERY hard and requires speccing into it, blowing almost all your cooldowns (some as high as 90s), and cycling attunements JUST to obtain high protection duration, i.e., they’re neglecting doing ANYTHING else in the fight quite simply to stack prot.

Not something folks should be worried about.

Swiftness, on the other hand, can be stacked indefinitely to an infinite amount (I ALWAYS travel with full swiftness uptime) and doesn’t require anything special. Again, though, you’ll be blowing cooldowns and cycling attunements to do this, so it’s not practical when in combat.

Cogbyrn.7283:

A timer that starts when a player first goes down sounds good on paper, but doesn’t that give an additional unfair advantage to those classes that have much better initial stomp avoidance than others? Effective Res Timers for the various classes may need to be looked at more closely in a system like this, which is of course not necessarily a bad thing (even if they remain unbalanced it isn’t necessarily bad, just a consideration).

That’s a good point as well, but it could be mitigated fairly easily. In my original suggestion thread I left an out for the developers to tweak the system.

Something like, “the res timer doesn’t start decreasing until the player has been downed for 4 seconds,” would remedy that problem as only thieves can delay a stomp for longer than that (and by only a second or two).

The other option is to have the timer decrease non-linearly, i.e., the first 5 seconds of downed only reduce the res timer by 1 second, the next 5 seconds of downed decreases timer by 3 seconds, the next 5 downed seconds decreases res timer by SIX (6) seconds, etc.

Basically i’m trying to help them build a system that encourages fast/efficient stomping, cause seriously, it’s PvP, you’re supposed to KILL your enemy faster than they kill you. Not sit around and bleed them to death slowly to maximize your teams advantage. It should always be preferable to take them out of the fight completely (e.g., stomping) rather than letting them flounder on the ground. Static times only encourage NOT stomping and bleeding downed folks out, which is a bad system imo.

Syeria.4812:

Two ideas I’ve seen tossed about on here that I want to repeat.

I like the idea of a 20 second timer that starts when the player is first downed but with a minimum (maybe like 7 seconds?)

Hey! You’re stealing my idea I think people would like it, however my suggestion post seems to have been buried quickly.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Suggestion-Decreasing-Res-Timers/first#post814057

See, even noobs like myself can have a good one now and again

Basically the idea is that even a 15s static timer is going to encourage folks to keep enemies in the downed state. If you can keep them “downed” for 15s plus the 15s static timer you’ve taken them out of the fight for effectively 30 seconds. Still rewarding teams that can’t/don’t/won’t “finish” their enemies.

A decreasing timer is THE solution to any perceived problem. It’s the most “e-sportish” solution, giving the highest reward to teams that coordinate quick stomps and finish their opponents without mercy. A 15s timer does the opposite.

gwawer.9805:

Yes the rez timer starts as soon as a player is downed. That seems like a better idea

Seether.7285:

I really think something like this is as ideal as it gets. It stops the “strategic dying” of the spawn wave system and provides a disincentive for letting someone bleed out as long as possible.

See, an army of converts Thanks for the support guys!