Guild Wars 2

As everyone else said, what other class could do that….(well maybe a bunker healing elementalist or a bunker guardian could)..which is exactly why people complain about them.

As I play a bunker/healing Elementalist, I can pretty much promise you that we could not outheal 4 players beating on us if they had even half a brain. I don’t claim to be the best Ele ever, but from my perspective regen doesn’t tick fast/high enough to outheal that amount of damage (remember, regen stacks in duration, not intensity, even permaregen can’t outheal 4 players damage), and one only has so many dodgerolls and cantrips before we run out of endurance and can’t combo our water fields anymore. One could last a good amount of time in a 4v1, but you WILL drop eventually and you won’t make it 3 minutes if even 2 of the other 4 players realize they have interrupts on their bar. If all 4 remember they have interrupts, god help you…

I can’t speak for guardian builds, I haven’t played them.

If you use Vapur Form while you are both downed, the Engineer will simply heal, while you will exit Vapour closer to death.

If you’re both at 10% hp, he can’t heal fast enough in the 3 seconds of mist form to get to 40ish % hp like you can from resetting the downed state. You’ll still win.

vapor form does not reduce your returning health any longer in spvp

I’m about 100% certain it still does, that it’s intended, and that the wiki is not wrong.

I’ll test this in the mists later if I can, it’s hard to test it in live sPvP cause you get stomped so fast usually I rarely get to even USE vapor form, so yah…

you do certainly not the class of the Elementalist to say that.

“Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?”

Sorry, I couldn’t resist

TheWarKeeper.5374:

Lol, i still find it funny how ppl say elementalist is not a mage, elementalist is indeed a mage, even in gw1 it has been a mage and in gw2 description it is also a mage, but because it sucks in gw2 it suddenly is not a mage, Shurr thang bros!

It still falls within the “mage archetype” as we’re using the elements of fire/wind/water, etc. to do damage, but we’re not necessarily a “mage” in the traditional sense of being locked into ranged combat and having indisputable top damage while being indisputably squishy. And we don’t “suck in gw2,” we’re pretty good actually even if we aren’t top dog. Fixing the plethora of class bugs would go a long way to making us a fairly powerful class imo.

You’re either unbelievably bad at elementalist, or your exaggerating.

I thought about posting this same response at first, but figured I’d try the “helpful” route in my response post to see if the original poster was willing to take advice or not.

Edited to add: Now that I see that Nearo is posting this exact same post in every Elementalist thread, however, I’m not so certain he’s looking for advice and is more likely trolling or nearing a “rage quit” moment…

Monkeymoo.6091:

I’ve been back through my video and you’re right I don’t combo as much as I can.
I’ll work on this, I am aware of making combos but it’s not fluid at the moment. I’ve only just recently found out that Evasive Arcana procs off Combo field so I’m actively trying to use this too for combos. It could also be partly down to the auto attack? I’ll turn it off and see what happens.

Self-combo’ing your fields as Scep/D (and D/D) is very hard with Evasive Arcana as you basically only have ONE combo field, that is ring of fire in Fire (obviously). Evasive Arcana rolling to it only yields 3 might stacks, so it’s not particularly game changing (although it helps). Basically, drop the fire field (ring), then move a bit, and dodge roll back into the middle. This will get you 3 stacks and burn the enemy a bit longer due to the flame burst from evasive arcana. Again, good but not game changing, don’t put yourself into a dangerous position JUST to get those 3 stacks of might.

Along these lines, I think DrGenocide referencing “Combo” was targeting the fact that you didn’t use, for example, the ubiquitous RTL into updraft, swap to fire, and drop ring/dragon’s tooth/pheonix all at once to get 7 stacks of might (1 from fire attune, 3 from DT blast, 3 from Pheonix blast) and HUGE damage. Be sure to target pheonix just behind them so it hits 3 times, once going out, one blast, and once returning to you.

You can also use Ring of Fire/Dragon’s tooth at close range, and if you’re quick (and they’re not) swap to earth for magnetic grasp (immobilizing them for DT to hit) and giving you a fire aura as Mag. Grasp is a “leap finisher” (as well as 3 might stacks from using DT in the ring). You have to be fairly close for this to work though, cause grasp is slow. This is another good combo to use when you’re already in fire and can’t swap to air to start with RTL/updraft (cause it’ll put fire on cooldown so you can’t go back).

Finally, I suggest you DO NOT take your #1 skills off of auto-attack. There will still be times you find yourself repositioning, moving, dodging, etc., and NOT using your big cooldown skills. Why wouldn’t you want the free damage from the auto-attacks, leave them ON. Although I personally set lightning strike, #2 in air, to auto if I run a scepter cause it’s a great instant hit on a short cooldown of 5 seconds, so I want it going off every 5 seconds reliably without having to hit the key. the #1 skill (arc lightning) is a 3 second channel anyway that announces to the world “Elementalist over here, COME KILL ME,” so I prefer to hit that one myself

Yeah they do work together.

No, the Sigil of Superior energy and Sigil of Battle do not work together, you can only have 1 weapon swap sigil active at a time. I use Energy (for endurance gain on swap) and either Accuracy or Force (+5% crit or +5% dmg).

- you dont make full use of your attunement skill sets
(sometimes casting Arc Lightning without Lightning Strike, beeing on Earth and not
casting Rock Barrier or Dust Devil)

This is something I see A LOT when watching Ele videos and that comes with practice. I’ll admit however, than when playing, I’m often guilty of the same thing. We all are on occasion, no ones perfect. It’s far easier to watch a video and call people out on this than it is to play yourself and remember to do so.

Currently you have probably high defense (which in fact you cant make use of right now) + incredible low damage + lacking support.

= your sPvP team carries you in the 8v8 zerg

while Evie could make better use of the defensive nature of this build (i.e., by switching to water more often when getting beat on, pop a regen, and then back to earth for the protection bonus making the regen more net effective) he didn’t play THAT bad. I wouldn’t say he was getting carried.

I run a similar build (I use D/D and put 10 trait points into earth, not fire, for earth’s embrace, and I often wear Dolyak, so I have 20k hp and almost 3k armor) making me VERY tanky. I do incredibly low damage as well, but my bleeds/burns DO add up and I have enough burst to put a good dent into people (it takes forever to kill folks solo, but I often do as they rarely kill me). If I have 3 enemies beating on me thinking “Ele, free kill!” it frees up my teammates to beat on THEM, unhindered. Sure, my allies pump out more damage then me, but I keep the bad guys off of them and soak up all of their big damage. Some might say I’m getting carried, but hey, if the bad guys drop and we’re all still standing, a wins a win

Ive been playing a mage and only a mage in all mmorpg’s

to be fair, you’ve played a mage in OTHER games, but not this one as there isn’t a mage class in GW2…

All those diffrent spells that you have to remeber to switch between instead of making them all at a single push of a button is Insane stupid makes people think you made it like that just so u can say look we’ve inovated the wizard and made them all brand new.your idea failed in playability.

playability is awesome, Ele is the most fun class to play imo (I can’t bring myself to level all the alts I’ve made cause they’re just SO BORING). And it’s 20 skills, that’s not too much to remember, many are on long cooldowns anyway so fire and forget. And do you really want to be able to push a single button and kill stuff? If so, warrior or ranger sounds like the PvE class for you (no class, save backstab theives, is a “single button” class in PvP, and if a backstab thief’s combo fails he better know how to push more…).

She hasnt even spent her trait points! OR skill points! were same exact lvl…She can beat me 1 on 1 everytime 10 out of 10 .Ive prooven the mechanic’s of your game for the elementalist vs a ranger to be absolutlely flawed.

Wow, that sounds like a problem, I take down rangers quite easily (as D/D, I’ve found it harder as staff cause getting into a ranged-spam-fest with a ranger is a bad idea. Even so, magnetic shield ftw). Rangers are not really a huge problem class for us. And you’ve proven nothing about game mechanics, just that you haven’t figured out how to beat rangers yet. Keep practicing (honestly, keep practicing, i’m not trolling here).

I have spent nearly two weeks reading on strategies/combo’s/cantrips/stacking/land elevation damage stacking..im always good at pvp, ive never been bad at pvp EVER.

But you self-admit that you can’t even beat your wife’s ranger with NO trait/skill points spent and her just mashing the keyboard. Call me crazy, but it sounds like you’re not very good at PvP in this game (this game requires most active combat, e.g., dodge-rolling, active CC, etc., it plays somewhat differently than a lot of other MMO’s so being good in them does not necessarily translate to this game). I’ve you’ve been good in other games, then you have potential, try to learn more strategies/combo’s and be sure to master the art of condition clearing, healing when needed, recognizing their big attacks and dodging them, etc.

I have prooved your game, favor’s the ranger or it’s mechanic’s are just completly flawed.there is no sensible other explanation.

Rangers are one of the weaker classes in the game PvP wise, you hardly EVER see them in tPvP. They’re not necessarily weak, per se, but they’re in the bottom half for sure. Wait till you come up against that skilled glass-cannon (backstab or PW, take your pick) thief, or a good mesmer or engineer. Best of luck…

PLEASE FIX THIS GAME dont let it go to waste it could be so awesome

This game’s PvP needs tweaks, to be sure, but not of the kind you seem to be espousing in your post.

If you provided more info regarding how you approach combat against your wife’s ranger, we could help more. For example, are you using staff or D/D. If using D/D (or S/D), I find that the best strategy for taking out a ranger is to get on top of them quickly and stay there. Use RTL or magnetic grasp to get close and unleash hell (the RTL into updraft into Burning speed/ring/fire grab combo works great here). If possible, stack bleeds in earth or burns in fire as rangers don’t have a lot of condition clears when compared to some other classes. If they get poison on you, remember to use cleansing wave in water (or a utility skill to clear them, e.g., cleansing fire) asap. DODGE ROLL!!

I don’t play staff as much in PvP, so I don’t have as much experience there, but I imagine the fight would be won/lost on who uses LOS to their advantage more effectively. If you can get them to burn/bleed (#3 fire, #2/5 earth, although landing #2 isn’t easy) you can use pillars/trees to negate their damage while theirs whittles away. Magnetic Shield (Earth #3) is going to be your best friend, save it for when they use a big dmg attack and reflect it back at them. That’s all I got

Playing without traits would be absolute suicide for just about any class, but especially the elementalist.

Hell, just skipping 10 pts in arcane to get elemental attunement (and reduced cooldown on attunement swaps) would be more than enough to completely neuter ANY elementalist build in PvP. It might work ok in WvW as you could still sit back and drop meteor showers and lava fonts on people’s heads, but in s/t PvP, you’d die fast and often without killing a single soul…

Curring.9752:

Really depends how you build, I mean my tanky set has 3k toughness, 14k HP, 1.1k Healing and 950 condition damage. I use the signet too as I’ve taken 30 in earth can use the signet and still get it’s passive and with dwayna I get another AoE condi removal through applying regen.

3k toughness?!? How did you get that high? Or is that your armor value?

I can only get to 2.3k when wearing Dolyak (and w/ 30 pts in earth), let alone wearing Dwayna with the Shaman’s Amulet and Jewel.

Signet of Earth only adds 90 toughness I believe, so I don’t use it (I also normally only spec 10 into earth, I like 30 arcane for evasive arcana).

If the Doly set stacked with healing power then it would definatly be worth it, however 30 per tick barely mitigates 1 stack of bleed. :L

Agreed, and it’s good to know the condition clears stack, I assumed they did but haven’t tested it.

Because 2m game sales x $60 wasn’t enough?

3m x $60 = $180m

Gems for server pale in comparison.

You can’t take $60 x # of sales and proclaim it all profit, business 101. That money fills the hole in Anet’s pocket from salary already paid when developing the game, it pays for marketing, it pays for boxing/distribution, as well as many other things. Its not as if each game nets them $60 in pure profit.

Gems and revenue from server rentals, on the other hand, ARE 100% pure profit…

vitigis.4160:

@BSsquared.

I didn’t say I didn’t use auto attack, I said I don’t have it bound. Why would I lead with the worst attack we have? And yes, they pretty much all suck.

Fair enough, but I disagree that “pretty much” all of the auto-attack skills suck and regarding your statement that they’re the “worst attack we have,” they’re not supposed to be as powerful as the rest of the skills, hence why they do not have cooldowns!

PvEwise one should almost never start a fight with a #1 skill, on that we agree. PvPwise, I see no harm in it and do so on occasion. Sometimes the enemy isn’t in a position that makes using more powerful, cooldown based skills worthwhile. So fire off a few auto’s and save the big ticket items for when they’ll hit.

Seriously, the auto-attacks are not that bad. Tweaks to things like the whip not hitting, and the “obstructed” fireball issue mentioned by the OP need fixing, I agree, but that is a far cry from stating they suck.

As soon as that timer comes up voila I’m back to “just dead” health, in a less convenient location for them and all their efforts for naught.

just to clarify for everyone, using vapor form does NOT return you to “just dead” health after you return to the downed state.
For example, on the 1st down you have 50% health in the bar. If no one attacks you, and you use vapor form, when you return to downed you’ll only have roughly 40% hp (I don’t know the exact amount). Thus, the skill actually HURTS you (this is a consequence of it counting as a 2nd downed state).

Note, this can be harmful or beneficial depending upon how you use it.

Case 1: You’re downed, and no one is attacking you. You channel ability #4 increasing your health from 50% to 75%, but then someone comes along to stomp you forcing you to use vapor form. 3 seconds later, viola, back to 40% hp. This is BAD.
Case 2: You’re downed along with a bad guy. You’re both spamming your #1 attacks into each other. You get down to 10% hp as does your foe, you pop vapor form and upon returning to the downed state have 40% hp (compared to his 10%). You resume spam #1, kill him and rally. This is GOOD.

Curring.9752:

Yeah they stack but trust me I was sorely disappointing, I was running the Signet, in water and dolyak hoping that the dol regen was affected by healing power so that I could get some awesome passive healing, but no it heals a flat 30 HP/s and as Wild said it is not worth the 6th rune.
Dwayna is a good set to choose, especially if you’re running a support build (Take the trait that removes condition when you apply regeneration) as when you use your heal you’re granting AoE regen which will remove conditions.

Yeah, the hp regen on Dolyak is disappointing, which is unfortunate cause I really like stacking the toughness/vitality it provides.
Dwayana is also good for the 6 piece bonus, but I hate that it provides no toughness and only healing power. Healing power is too expensive a stat, and it doesn’t add a lot to regen ticks.
I’ve basically taken to using Dolyak with Signet of Restoration when running D/D (the healing on casts from Signet adds up with D/D cause you cast a lot, and quickly) and using Dwayana for the staff healing build (with Glyph of elemental harmony). This does leave me feeling a bit squishy though cause I don’t have as much HP or toughness (thankfully, you can heal it up quickly).

That leads me to a question however (caues I haven’t tested it). When you use glyph of harmony with Dwayana and in water attunement, you should get 10s of regen (5 from glyph, 5 from runes). Does this also provide 2 condition clears since it’s technically 2 regen procs? I assumed it does, but haven’t tested it.

Again, for the millionth time, no, just NO!!

How would weapon swap out of combat make us op?

As a quality of life issue, I could see them adding a weapon swap capability out of combat only. But not for like a year, there are far more important things for Anet to be working on (basically, what Inconceivable said).

I don’t even have the Ele #1 bound to a key….that’s how bad it is with every weapon and every attunement (except scepter/earth for the bleeds..that’s the ONLY decent one)

That’s pretty much BS.

With D/D, all four of the auto-attacks are good. Whip does good dmg (although it still misses a lot), Impale stacks bleeds pretty quickly, and vapor blade isn’t bad if it hits twice (it also stacks vulnerability).

With staff, fireball is great provided you’re getting a chance to throw a couple (AOE dmg from 1,200 range) and chain lightning is good too.

Finally, w/ scepter, both stone shards and flamestrike are pretty good, w/ shards being the clear winner.

Perhaps many Ele’s are struggling because they think like this, and neglect to use a good chunk of their damage. Seriously, NOTHING is lost by having #1 on auto-attack (although if using a scepter, i put #2 on auto for Air), if you’re not using another skill at that instant it’s FREE DAMAGE.

WTF?!?

BishopX.6453:

its a PVP GAME…… the problem with the game NOW is that with all the players from WoW comming here and playing with us pvpers, you guys are AVOIDING COMBAT to score “points”

I cant tell you how many times I am at a node and someone runs up, sees me and runs away. or me and a team mate will walk up, see 2 other enemy and my team mate runs.

how many times have you been in a game and you take base A and the enemy takes base C, most people just go the back way to base A from C and its a constant swapping of bases with no combat.

its a pvp game, lets encourage MORE pvp.

To be fair, a K/D ratio will mostly only encourage the type of gameplay you despise (and I despise as well). Your teammate will run, or disengage at low health, rather than fight to the bitter end for that node, just to pad his K/D stat.

I watched it nonstop in my Modern Warfare days. Folks would strap on a sniper rifle and camp, completely ignoring map objectives and “winning” just to keep their K/D ratio high. So frustrating, it’s a video game, who cares how much you die!

In order to get to the top, you have to constantly challenge yourself, and one of the best ways to improve is to seek situations that you may very well lose in. If focus is put on KDR, then you are seeking situations which you have a high percentage of winning.

^this so much. D’you want to see even more backstab noob thieves in sPvP? Then add a K/D ratio stat and watch as everyone rolls a thief to they can stealth/runaway if you mess their combo up to protect their K/D stat…

Baladir.2736:

Weapon changing sigils working with attunement swapping is a nice discovery. I’ll have to do some testing lol. So, now I can poison and life steal? I hope life steal comes with a graphic. That would be freaky. Probably have an identity crisis.

Only 1 of the weapon swapping sigils applies.

I use superior energy, cause you get a free dodge roll (50% endurance) with every attunement swap on a 9second cooldown. Coupled with Evasive Arcana, this provides a lot of extra survivability (more dodges) AND free damage/conditions to boot.

For example, if you’re in earth, you can dodge roll to set off churning earth (a weaker version, not full power), swap to fire (viola, you’re back at 100% endurance), and dodge roll again for a free flame blast. Awesomeness…

1.) I think the finisher applies to all, but don’t quote me on that. I vaguely remember at one point placing a lava front, then switching to water and dropping a geyser, then dodge rolling (evasive arcana) into them and getting BOTH the might and area-healing. But I also don’t watch my combat log like a hawk, so I could be wrong. Perhaps someone else can answer better.
2.) Unsure, this could be tested easily in the mists.
3.) Different skills have different timings. For example, I believe that Dragon’s tooth finisher applies the instant you cast it, and at YOUR location (not where the tooth lands) whereas Churning Earth’s finisher applies at the end of the channel (but I think it accounts for fields that were present when you started casting).
4.) Unsure
5.) Pretty much that’s it. I wish they would make Flame Blast (skill #3) a blast finisher as well (I mean the skill name has “blast” right in it), but alas, such is not the case. This is why many staff builds use evasive arcana (30 pt arcane trait) to provide tons of extra blast finishers with every dodge roll (note, the blast finisher applies even if the skill associated with it is on the 10 second internal cooldown).
6/7.) No idea actually, these are great questions. I await answers from others

Note: I am by no means an expert here, all my answers are simply based on anecdotal observations. There are likely others lurking these forums that are far more reliable than I

Daharahj.1325:

Its uses are limited I agree, it could use a buff imo, the damage feels lackluster for being a channeled skill with such range.

On the plus side, it’s cooldown is extremely short. I often find myself getting an opportunity to use it more than once while in fire attunement, i.e., I don’t blindly use the RTL/updraft/burning speed/ring/Fire grab combo and immediately switch out. Sure I use that combo a lot, but only when I need it.

Battery.5930:

What bothers me about this skill is how it neglects the fast playstyle of a D/D elementalist and locks me into casting this one spell for what feels like a long time until i can move on and do other awesome stuff to kill whatever is infront of me.

I believe that if you cast something else (say Fire Grab) it cancels the Drake’s breath and fires the next spell. So as others have mentioned, hit it, let it tick once to start burning, nuke with fire grab.

Also, since Drake’s breath is kinda long range I will often spray it over an entire group of enemies to hit as many as possible (fire it off, and while it’s channeling move/spin to face as many enemies as you can, hitting them all).

I play in such a way that i “deplete” whatever a certain attunement has to offer then move on to the next one for more high cooldown whoppass skills. I feel that Drake´s Breath breaks that appart and locks me into fire for far too long.

I really don’t like this playstyle as it doesn’t fit with situational awareness. You may need those other cooldowns shortly thereafter, and by mindlessly switching attunements and blowing all the cooldowns you may find yourself without the one you need at the right time.

In 1v1, sometimes it feels like it’s best to blow every cooldown as quickly as possible, but generally I find that sometimes its OK to sit in a single attunement for a few extra seconds and let an auto attack or two fire off so you can, for example, switch to earth attunement for the protection boon a couple seconds later as they fire up their big damage item…

BishopX.6453:

KITTEN “team play” and “POINTZ”
thats for wow children

I come from NWN UO DAoC and WARHAMMER. nothing but a pvp background. the ONLY stat that ever matters is me killing you and me not dying. any zerg scrub can dive bomb in and kill someone and die… pop quickness charge adn hundred bladez… then die after getting your kill.

you can be jerome bettis and be bad for a very long time and compile a boat load of lifetime yards and lifetime touchdowns. but everyone knows Barry sanders was the best, he had the most yards per game and most yards per run. dont be jerome.. be barry.

KDR is the only thing that matters to REAL pvp’ers
emphasis on REAL.

This is BS imo. Real PvPer’s care about winning, K/D ratio matters to the Modern Warfare FPS crowd. For some reason, in every game I’ve ever played that tracked K/D ratio, it becomes the sole statistical focus and leads to selfish, anti-team play.

Guarding nodes and playing support roles are already undervalued in the glory system, add K/D ratio and watch these classes disappear from sPvP (which is a far more important bellwether for a PvP games health than tPvP is because far more people participate in it).

Are we all on the same page? Everyone realizes this is not visible to other players right?

you’ll still find elitist scrubs requesting “proof” of someones “good” K/D ratio to join tournament teams.

I agree, K/D ratio is a bad stat. For some reason, people focus on this one stat as if it’s proof of skill when in reality it only shows how good a person is at avoiding objectives, not aiding the team, and running from combat when outnumbered.

K/D ratio belongs in FPS games (and even there, it completely kittenizes objective based gameplay), not MMO’s…

Q: What exactly constitutes a Glass Cannon?

A: the person who thinks he’ll out dps everyone, but typically dies the fastest making his dps zero.

TL;DR: I wonder if health pools are a little low (across the board for all classes) because SPvP team fights seem to be over in a flash.
…
However, like in tournys when my buddy buffs my warrior I can crit for like 10k with my burst skill… and my ele only has an HP pool of like 14k. No wonder fights are over so fast.

14k HP pool?!? There’s the problem. My Ele has 20k hp, stacks toughness, runs 3 cantrips, and has armor of earth and arcane shield auto-proc at 50% and 25% hp, respectively. It’s PvP, I learned long ago to run as much defense as possible, with condition dmg and sustained output, I kill plenty of folks.

I can eat 10k warrior crits and keep moving without breaking a sweat. sPvP fights are over in a flash cause too many people spec glass cannon and then wonder why they die fast. You can’t dps when you’re dead…

Niptease.8971:

I’ve got the name, just didn’t deposit my mats before I deleted the original. I don’t think you can have two characters with the same name, at the same time.

Ahh, I thought you missed out on the name. You had 21 lvls of collectibles in your inventory?!? Click the gear, “deposit all collectibles.” I do this after like every 3rd node I’m so anal-retentive

Detahmaio.2014:

Also that means you got lucky. My necro with 2k toughness got hit for with 2k steal 3k cloak and dagger 15k backstab.

I’ve never personally seen a backstab that high hit my character. But i’m fully toughness/vit specced (I don’t know my toughness # off the top of my head) with earth’s embrace (armor of earth at 50% hp) and final shielding (arcane shield at 25% hp) traits. I’m pretty certain I’ve NEVER been downed by the dreaded 3 hit backstab combo from full HP (20k hp) but I’ve come close. Thankfully, when that does happen, due to my traiting I get 8s of stability, 8 seconds of protection (33% dmg reduction) and absorb 3 full hits due to the shield giving me time to heal up.

I don’t think Necro’s can trait like that (I admittedly don’t know a lot about the class) so I don’t know how you could survive it

in fact, i dont even have a problem. i can faceroll on my guardian main all day. just sharing my observations and concerns.

I do pretty well on my Elementalist as well, and as I’m bunker specced, I don’t die to the dreaded backstab combo that often.

That being said, the TRUE problem with 50% of every kitten match being theives these days is just that it’s making sPvP predictable, lame, and downright unfun.

Find a group of 5 people and don’t base your forum pvp experiences solely around hotjoin. Hotjoin is a mess simply because of the numbers.

While this is true, does this not present a huge, HUGE problem. sPvP is the bread and butter of the PvP in this game, far more people participate in it than tPvP (I’m not getting into WvW here).
When the day comes that sPvP matches consist entirely of thieves and mesmers, you’re typical player will just quit and uninstall, as the game will have become stale.

This post, coupled with your account name, makes me laugh…

Sorry for your naming misfortune. Can you not recreate another character with the same name? I was unaware that you couldn’t, that sucks if it’s the case.

Teulux.6732:

PuB = “pick-up badies”

:)

Just sayin!

I suppose if the name fits

Although, to be fair, I’ve encountered some very good players in pug/pub sPvP matches on occasion. But when I get into a match thats 50-60% thieves (and mesmers, typically) I just roll me eyes, dust off my cantrip mousekeys and prepare to get jumped nonstop. I think something about playing an Elementalist makes thief opponents eyes light up, like they think I’m some sort of free kill (cause of my class).

Then they unleash their backstab combo, take 50% of my health, trigger my armor of earth (thanks for the stability buddy!), then I switch to water and heal myself to full almost as fast as they took it away. This is often when they choose to run away….

Edited to add: Oh, and if I see the thief coming, I like to put up shocking aura before they engage (I run D/D). Most noob thieves then proceed to waste their combo and stun themselves in the process. It’s the good ones that know to back off at that point that scare me…

Teulux.6732:

On topic high level play the backstab build on the thief is trash and no competitive player would ever use it over pistol whip.

What you are seeing in this thread is people playing 8s and crying about the balance of the game when it is not really balanced for that type of play.

Any thief that goes that much into glass cannon is gonna get destroyed by a decent player that knows what the kitten he is doing. It is easy to predict/counter/avoid. The ONLY time you see that build is when people go pub stomping in 8s.

I pretty much agree with all of this, and again, I never cried for backstab to be nerfed.

Just pointing out that its a lame, cheesy spec played by people who wish to substitute class mechanics for skill (and it only works so far).

I’d far prefer if Anet would tone down the backstab combo (so sPvP matches wouldn’t be full of noobs trying to “1shot/global/1round” people, failing more often than not) and then buff the thief in terms of group utility, sustained damage, etc.

There is a reason why thieves are freaking EVERYWHERE in sPvP but rarely spotted in tPvP…

There is a reason it is called pub stomping and there is a reason you are raging on a pub stomping build (you are the pub being stomped)

to be fair, it think it’s PUGstomping, as in “pick-up group,” since everyone seems to be arguing semantics…

Zachariel.5463:

You really need to learn the definition of what “One Shot” is.

Means you die in one shot. The thief does not One Shot someone.

Well then, it’s a good thing I didn’t mention the phrase “one shot” a single time in either of my two posts. I did mention “3 hits” however, so….

And to point out..I was talking about the thief being glass cannon not the player that died to him. Learn reading comprehension please.

Fair enough, but in your next sentence you said “he was just outplayed,” and I assumed those two consecutive sentences were connected and talking about the same player. My bad.

Also to point out…he obviously wasn’t watching his HUD or he would have seen his health drop from the initial steal or he would have known to dodge

I spec 0/0/10/30/30 on my ele, meaning the 3 hits (e.g., Steal/C&D/BS) don’t kill typically. I also carry 3 cantrips, so I almost always have at least one stunbreaker off cooldown.
That being said, I HAVE been hit with this combo in sPvP occasionally and you really don’t have a lot of time to react if it’s a good thief pulling it off (to be fair, most thieves running this spec are horrible, which is why they rely on this gimmick as a crutch to farm kills. This is also why they panic and try to run away a lot when the combo DOESN’T kill me as an Ele, they expected a free kill). More often than not, all 3 hits will land without the thief becoming visible at all (due to the lag in rendering when coming out of stealth) and will land in a second or two tops. No matter how good one is at PvP, you’ll get hit with this combo every now and again, the trick is speccing to survive it’s full force. And if you blow it up, even better.

You also have to take into account how difficult that combo is to pull off consistently in high skill level play against a moving target.

Again, the backstab combo is seriously not that hard to pull off. It might be one of the easiest combo’s in the game next to Bull Rush/100B (but that one is so much easier to dodge because you can SEE the warrior, 100B is fine). If you want to talk difficult combo’s, roll an Elementalist.
I rerolled a thief after playing Ele and seeing 50% of sPvP matches being thief/mesmer just to see the other side, and yeah, it’s laughable. The backstab spec sucks and good players will either eat it, or dodge it, and then blow you up. But let’s not pretend it’s a hard combo to land somewhat consistently…

Edited to add: After reading all of your responses Zachariel, it’s becoming clear that YOU likely play a thief with this spec, which is why you defend these cheese mechanics so blindly. If this is the case, grats on substituting class mechanics for any semblance of skill…

Bond.4813:

Tensei.9748:

Agreed dodging is great for kiting, but when there’s too many mobs.. We kite so much that they reset.

Tbh reset was never a problem for me. Id just dodge over it and kite the other way.

^this. Kite smarter, not farther…

being engaged with another enemey is NO EXCUSE for lacking area awareness

Oh ok. I guess anyone not fully stacking toughness/vitality is supposed to fight every class OTHER than a thief without using any stunbreakers, because they need to save it just in case that backstab thief pops up.

This argument is BS. One can be extremely aware of everything going on around them, not “tunnel” at all, and still be jumped by another player character (of any class).

And again, i’m not really “crying” for a thief nerf, but agreeing that the backstab build is a BS, fotm, cheesy, gimmick build played by unskilled players. As soon as you blow up their combo (if you can see it coming), 90% of them panic and try to run away, they’re cowards and a scourge on the PvP landscape.

Yuri.5368:

How can you miss this vital feature?

Uh, the feature is not vital, in fact it’s a scourge on the MMO landscape.

Ask in chat, join a guild, be social. You may not get to do them at the exact instant you wish, but keep your ear to the ground and you’ll find a group.

Raf.1078:

So…a month into the game and most of us only have a few gold between us. Lets talk about this next year about this time and see how everyone is doing.

Seems to be a distinct lack of patience by some around here.

Sorry you can’t get rich quick.

^this. Why do people feel that if they’re not max level, and geared full of exotics/legendaries within a month or so of release, that the game is too hard?

If you’re max level and can’t afford your legendary weapon yet, keep savin’. You can do just about everything in the game without one, so keep savin’.

Congrats. you died from a very difficult combo to pull off.

difficult to pull off?!? Seriously, it’s not that hard. You want a difficult combo, try RTL/updraft/ring of fire/Awave/Tooth/Pheonix/Firegrab, and that combo is harder to land, requires 2-3x the button presses, and inflicts only a fraction of the damage.

Also, this player specced strictly for Glass cannon.

Obi has already stated he was NOT specced as a glass cannon, although he was not fully specced into toughness (as an ele, if you spec all the way into toughness/vitality you do ZERO damage and can barely kill anyone, I know cause I run that spec.)

He was just out played. It happens. Get over it and move on and work with your team as well…a team.

How is one “outplayed” when they’re killed in 3 hits they can’t even see cause the thief doesn’t render until after the combo is finished?

This combo takes advantage of a player not being aware of their surroundings and naivety into thinking they are safe when you are NEVER safe when in PVP.

What if one is VERY aware, but otherwise engaged with another enemy? Anytime a player rolling a thief with this spec tells others “L2P, this is fine” they always assume the victim was just twiddling their thumbs on a capture point with 3 utility stunbreaks all off cooldown.

Seriously. The backstab combo is super-cheap. 1v1 it can be often avoided through clever movement/dodging/stunbreak, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s the cheesiest combo currently in the game. I’m not even calling for it to be nerfed (I rarely die to this as I’m fully tank/support specced on my Ele), but I suspect it eventually will be cause it’s a lame, gimmicky, one-trick pony spec and doesn’t belong. Only thieves using the spec seem to disagree.

I find it annoying that tounament teams dont want and elementalist

Really? I thought some of the world’s best teams carried an Ele on their roster because the class is so powerful (granted, this is as a bunker/support build). Silly me.

Also, enjoy your infraction for this post for calling out Anet…

The minipets are just for vanity, they won’t fight for you. The ranger class has pets(like bears, wolves,etc.) as does the necromancer that will fight for them, but elementalists don’t get a pet like that.

We can summon elementals with a utility skill an one of our elite skills, however these pets are not permenant.

Regarding the lvl40 skill book, you just gotta save up enough dough. The best way to make/save money is to not buy stuff from the trading post, collect crafting materials (ore, wood, etc.) and sell it, and sell blue/green gear to the vendor. DON’T salvage gear you find, sell it.

Hope this helps, best of luck.

Morguean.6041:

ive been enjoying tailoring, paired it with Artificer but while my tailoring is almost maxed, my artificing isnt..lol

I’ve been finding artificing quite a pain to level mostly due to the sheer # of logs needed to discover everything. I do staff last cause it takes 6 planks to make the shaft, ridiculous!

Basically, i’m thinking of dumping artificer for tailor because it’s a pain to level and I prefer D/D over staff for PvE, so I’d rather be able to make all the endgame armor (6 pieces) over crafting a single staff. I still like jeweler however as you wear 5 pieces from it (2 rings, 2 accessories, and an amulet) and being to craft those instead of buying them will be nice.

Hi all,
just trying to gauge the communities thoughts on what the best crafting professions for the Elementalist are. Currently I am a jeweler and artificer, however I’m concerned that I won’t be able to craft legendary/exotic armor at max level (yes I know you can level more than 2 profs, but that’s expensive and time consuming).

Just thought I’d start a conversation about this to hear the communities thoughts. Thanks.

OMG Bsquared, made my head hurt. 0_o

whoosh!

This thread = win simply because of two replies. The rest I didn’t even read.

You’re welcome

They’re currently ranked 5 and 6. The difference between being in the top 3 to fighting 4-6 is huge.

Well yah, cause everyone who was serious about WvW transferred to the top 2-3 servers. Now they outnumber and faceroll everyone else unless they play each other.

These people have no one to blame but themselves…

Also, the way I’ve been trying to gain more EXP without blowing through 100’s of mats (e.g., silver ore and soft wood logs) is to do as much refinement as possible after discovering every recipe.

For example, I discovered the amethyst silver band (using an amethyst nugget). Now, I use all my nuggets to refine them into “amethyst lumps” basically in anticipation of making amethyst gold rings. The problem is that this isn’t getting me to lvl 150, so I can’t even refine the gold ore into ingots yet.

Mario Lemieux.9107:

I stopped reading after the first paragraph (forgive me) but I noticed you didn’t mention anywhere that you’re using the Discovery tab…

When you make a certain type of item (ex: Helmet), make sure you use the Discovery tab to “discover” the other related items as well (Chest, legs, shoulders, etc)…

You can pretty much level up exclusively using the Discovery feature.

Read up more about it on the gw2 Wiki.

It sounds like this is what he is doing. I’m having a similar experience as the OP. I do jewelcrafting, for example, and in each tier I make one earring, one amulet, and one ring for each gem type (discovering each along the way). I also make one of each craftable jewels (using the filigree) and this STILL does not take you to the next tier. Also, I did all of my refining first (silver ingots, for example) to milk as much experience as I could before moving on to the discovery phase.

For example, I’m lvl 60 but only have lvl 135 or so Jeweler and I’ve already discovered every single recipe I can possibly make in that tier (I craft with the wiki page open making every possible item variation). In order to go the rest of the way to 150 to qualify to make Gold stuff, I will need to make a crap ton of silver stuff getting virtually no experience for it because I’ve already “discovered” that recipe.

Same with artificer. I’ve already discovered all 7 of the softwood recipes for staff, trident, focus, and scepter, plus numerous lvl 125ish potions (I didn’t have the raw mats to make ALL the potions, but I did about half). Now i’m stuck around lvl 130 and can’t get to seasoned wood until I lvl to 150, which will take forever and a load of mats to do (since I don’t get much experience anymore when making an already discovered recipe).

It’s very frustrating.

Immo.9217:

If every person could 1v2 every other person has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

You’ve got to be kidding me. I’ve been further even more decided to use even go need to do look more as anyone can. Can you really be far even as decided half as much to use go wish for that? My guess is that when one really been far even as decided once to use even go want, it is then that he has really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like. It’s just common sense.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/has-anyone-really-been-far-even-as-decided-to-use-even-go-want-to-do-look-more-like

I would like to see my ability casted anyway even though I click too far, and I then teleport as far as my skill allows.

This I agree with 100%. Just click off in the distance and viola, you teleport to max range.

Lightning Flash is pretty good now – what they should do is remove the damage component and reduce the cooldown to match that of the Mesmer Blink.

The damage is pitiful right now and I would much rather have the reduced cooldown like the Mesmer one.

I somewhat agree, however they might be worried about an ele being able to spec 30 into water (taking Cantrips mastery, cantrips grant regen/vigor, and regen clears conditions) and basically being able to use Lightning flash every 24 seconds to clear conditions and grant regen/vigor (assuming a base cooldown of 30 seconds, like mesmer blink) on top of all the other regens and boons the Ele can put up. Could be OP basically.

I know mesmers can trait to reduce the cooldown on blink, but I don’t think they can get regen/vigor/boons from it (nor does the blink spell do any damage to targets).

Stopped watching 3 minutes in, I have one piece of advice for you..

Fast Cast!!!!!! (In options called fast cast ground targeting, the spell casts where your mouse is instantly when you hit the skill) Why oh why don’t you use it, especially being S/D those milliseconds or even a second when casting dragons tooth could mean the difference between hitting or missing.

I HATE fast cast. Nothing like wasting your lightning flash cooldown because you clicked at 950 range instead of 900 and couldn’t see the target reticle.
You can simply double click the key associated with the skill and it’ll go off 90% as fast as with fast casting, but you can at least get a glimpse of the targetting reticle before wasting a skill.

so many noobs standing in earth 5 its not funny. Wow, easiest ability to avoid/interrupt and you are slamming them with it. I need to fight dumber enemies lol. Nice placements of the gtaoe spells too.

You’d be surprised how many people stand in it in sPvP. I love it

Battery.5930:

Who the kitten are you and why are you speaking to me? …

To be fair, what he said, that is:

anecdotal evidence by level 30 players demonstrates nothing on actual balance…

is 100% true (and what LordByron said).

That being said, to the OP, I don’t think the Ele sucks, they’re just a little lackluster compared so some other classes. PvE wise they’re pretty fine when specced/geared/played properly but still struggle in relation to a few other classes.
PvP wise, they can be very strong as a bunker/healing build, but they’re pretty much pigeonholed into this support role as going glass cannon in PvP is suicide (WvW wise, glass cannon works because you can get the drop on people in a numbers game).

I think just fixing the plethora of bugs the class has, as well as tweaking the downed state, would be enough to make the class more competitive and “fix” it for the most part (I’d also wish for a few reduced cooldowns, like say 30s instead of 45s for firegrab, but that’s probably just wishful thinking).

@Arheundel.
You almost died in 1vs1 with noob thief. Why noob? Because HS spam for all initiative points when you in mist form. Ele is fine against noobs. But you shown us, even against noobs ele is hard to play. And you fight against dps build for 1:30-1:40 with your funny damage.

^this.
Arhuendel is always in these threads telling anyone and everyone complaining about the state of the Ele to “L2P” and that the class is awesome, he can 1v1 any other class.

Generally I agree with him that the Ele is mostly fine, I’d like to see our bugs fixed and perhaps a tweak to our downed state and we’d be more than fine, but he always comes across as a total elitist in all his posts, so when he presented these two videos, I watched them like a hawk. Needless to say, not impressed.

If his intent with those two videos was to show how powerful the Ele was, he failed miserably. Both of those “duels” were horribly played. He barely took down a ridiculously noob thief in 1v1 when said thief spammed all his initiative away into his MIST FORM (it’s not hard to see mist form). First, the thief spams into his reflective shield, then he spams into mist form. Never once does Arheundel put up rock barrier or use dust devil to blind. He doesn’t use lightning strike (instant while channeling/moving) a couple times during air attunement. He doesn’t put up fire shield when he first moves to fire to use the DT combo. He DOES use water trident to heal himself (good move) but neglects to use freezing gust or comet while he’s in there. And finally stomps the thief while the noob neglects to shadow escape or smoke bomb. Yeah, leet skills.

The fight with the ranger is almost as bad. He uses blinding flash while swirling winds is still up (projectiles are destroyed, why blind? save it), moves to earth and again neglects to put up rock barrier or use dust devil when his magnetic wave ends. Moves back to air (again doesn’t use blinding flash, the instant blind on the 10s cooldown) then whiffs on a DT combo cause he mindless spams the button presses without making sure gale actually hit. Then he pops “mist form” as an “oh kitten” cause the DT combo failed. At least he uses fire shield this time. Moves back to earth (no barrier, no dust devil) but cause his auto attack isn’t turned on only gets off two stone shards in about 8 seconds. That ranger was awful, not as bad as the thief, but not very good to say the least.

Again, needless to say I will not be hunting down his guild to get leet tips from him, I might have played better as a level 1 rabbit. Man, if this is the level of competition in tPvP (I’ve neglected tournaments so far cause I wanted to hone my skills first) kitten I needs to sign me up for some tournies and rolfstomp some noobs. But alas, these are probably isolated incidents…