Guild Wars 2

Lenny.2460:

also, I noticed that thieves can use pistols (!) is this simply not as viable in PvP?

Pistol is definitely viable in PvP. I run Pistol / Dagger primarily, but this requires a different build that focuses mainly on Shadow Arts and Acrobatics. with condition damage It’s also not considered “bursty” in the least.

If you want full burst, take the advice up above. Just be warned that you have a lot less of a margin for error should you mess up your burst or start getting focused.

Prelude.3817:

Nice Explanation Archaon, but I’m talking about casual, hot join, sPvP. ^^
tPvP is totally different and much less accessible to a casual player unless you like being roflstomped by organized teams (blink matchmaking Anet please blink)

To fully appreciate Mozart’s music, you need some musical knowledge and, well…the taste for it.
Bieber’s just more accessible to the common people.
That’s sad (I’m a musician) but you can’t deny it.

In short, yes, casual players watch this kind of videos instead of your stream.

Heck, I remember Moldran, or Teldo’s youtube videos with lots of commentary, lots of explanation on what-to-do and not-to-do, their glory moments and their complete failures…I miss those guys.

All you can see on internet nowadays are guides made by beginners, or “epeen instagib clips with bad music and a link to the build”, and “endless tournament streams with half an hour afk’s in the Mists in between”.

So yeah this video is not that bad. But…

We can do better to promote casual sPvP.

I agree completely, but this guy’s attitude is not the way to do that IMO. This is the kind of stuff I personally would see if I didn’t own a game, and convince me to never own it.

On the positive side, what can we do to attract more players to sPvP? Make video guides for professions? Maybe get some video of more people who maybe aren’t tPvPer’s, but “pub stompers” or whatnot.

Tulisin.6945:

Jericho

Ranged thief is awesome … Pistol/Dagger

Does it really count as a ranged setup if your primary damage mechanism requires you to dip into melee to strike every 4/5 seconds? I guess this is the point at which we have to define range. S/D can do ranged damage about as well as P/D sans Sneak Attack (which is to say, very little at all).

reikken.4961:

Hm, I just checked with ranger and warrior. It looks like it’s normal for arcing projectile skills to have 300 more range than listed.

This is so you can use the arc to free-fire outside the locked tab-target range.

Well maybe it doesn’t count as true ranged, but still the build is effective. Plus, it’s easy enough to use CnD off of random mobs / clones / pets / minions and still stay at range, especially if you run plenty of CC. It’s not perma-long distance fighting, I guess it’s more medium range than anything.

“I want people to rage quit hurrrr!”
“My over-9000 le epic hundred swords!! XD!1”
“..I’m pretty proud of myself”
->Wearing a fedora

Well I raged, then I laughed… Any idea if this guy still plays? I’d love to duel him and record it.

Edit: Just watched another one. “If you wanna see the in-depth theorycrafting behind this amazing build…” OH BOY, LOL. I need to stop, I don’t think my blood pressure can take it anymore.

CachoDm.4639:

Well I don’t know I want to last a lot and also play in both pve and pvp I tried thief condition dmg but I could only take off Warriors and rangers then I tried glass cannon and it is too squishy then elementalist and i get targeted A LOT like they take me down in no time lol I like melee and rangered and no no pets Not going to play ranger even if they got better >.>

Someone already said it, but just play what you like. Every profession has a fighting chance these days, it’s just that some are more a bit more involved than others. If you’re brand new, I probably wouldn’t recommend Elementalist or Engineer for example because they tend to have a higher skill floor, making it harder to perform well when you have no clue about how the class works.

Warrior, guardian, ranger, and thief to an extent are somewhat easy to play when you’re brand new in PvP.

Human male, because I like being as generic and boring as possible apparently. But really, the armors look best on a human frame IMO.

Ranged thief is awesome. As faeyd says, Pistol/Dagger + condition focus is a good build. I find that people typically are surprised when dealing with a thief that doesn’t just charge them, but can kite instead.

The advantage with P/D is you can build for a lot more survivability via Shadow Arts and Acrobatics than you would with a glass cannon build. Low reliance on weapon skills means you’ll have plenty for CnD, and you’ll be a hard target to track as you’re constantly stealthing.

rchu.8945:

Jericho.4521:

Ele main here w/ Thief alt. Some tips:

1. It’s true, many of us run 3 stunbreaks via cantrips. The key to winning this fight is making us blow cantrips. Ele’s HATE being kited / unable to fight back, and will use up their utils to break free.

2. What makes us use these? Just about anything that limits our movement or actions. Immobilize, daze, stun, Bask venom, etc.

3. Although Ele’s have tons of condition removal, it doesn’t mean it isn’t effective in the long run. Average bleed times last around 9 – 10s. If you force them to use cantrips early, the only thing they’ve got is water attunement. The second they leave water, hit them with everything you’ve got. It will take at least 9s to swap back to water, which can be plenty of time to have lots of conditions ticking their full duration.

4. The most common ele build for D/D is 0/10/0/30/30. I was running with 17k health, decent heals and condi removal, but suprisingly low armor. About 2.1k I think. That means these builds WILL crumble under burst damage if they can’t avoid it. DON’T OPEN WITH YOUR BIGGEST BURST, this is where so many thieves go wrong. Draw out the fight a bit, then hit them hard and fast.

5. Stealth is still a royal pain in the rear to deal with, even when having lots of point blank AoE. Use cloak and dagger frequently if you have dagger offhand, and be somewhat unpredictable with it. Move around and dodge back, force Ele’s to use their gap closers and blow their CDs looking for you. Ele’s have 20 weapon skills, but they all have very long CD’s for the most part.

6. D/D thieves are incredibly predictable for Eles. Do something a little more unorthodox. Here’s a hint: D/D eles are forced to move to where you are, so get something with some range. I fought a P/D thief the other day and he was stacking venoms, bleeds, etc. on top of being constantly stealthed every few seconds and kiting me like crazy. He also used thieve’s guild which made the fight even more frustrating. D/D Ele’s have a lot of AoE, true, but most of it is PBAoE, or must be lined up properly, and stealth really messes with that.

7. If you see them start channeling Churning Earth, don’t panic, and don’t try to run out of the AoE. They will use Lightning Flash towards the end of the channel and teleport to you. Right at the 3s mark you just dodge and it doesn’t matter where they go, now they’ve just blown a big CD and one of their strongest skills. The best part? You can beat on them hard within that cast time once you get the timing down. Dodge again immediately after your first dodge if you think they’re going to use Earthquake (knockdown) right after.

Good luck thiefbros.

hello,

Im main thief and alt Ele, and definitely appreciate the info you shared with us here. I do have a question, in general, is D/D backstab thief build give you more problems or any sword / x build? How effective is flanking strike’s boon stripping mechanic helps against D/D ele?

A lot of people suggest boon stripping via flanking strike. I can tell you that is fairly ineffective, as the boons will be very quickly re-applied without the Ele even thinking about it.

As for D/D backstab…It’s hard to say. In theory, the full combo would drop me. In practice I really can’t recall the last time I’ve been killed by a backstab thief, but I’m willing to say that they probably were new / not very good. If you get the jump on them, then you might have a chance at pulling this off before they can react. Problem is, they can literally just hit Mist Form, lightning flash, or shocking aura and that will ruin your combo in one button press. Anytime I even suspect there’s a thief nearby, I’ll pop shocking aura, so if you’re going to do it be very sneaky or gank them in the middle of fighting someone else.

The hardest thief I’ve ever fought was running P/D, and just kited me as much as possible. He was smart enough not to get up in my face and stay there. If I got close, he’d get a quick CnD and then be back off to kiting. He also used Dev. venom to immobilize me frequently which caused me to waste cantrips. We didn’t get to finish the 1v1 unfortunately, but he definitely had the best shot at killing me out of all the thieves I’ve faced thus far.

I would imagine a P/P thief could be pretty tough with constant blind + daze too, but I honestly don’t think I’ve ever fought one.

As others have said, movement bonuses don’t stack. Also, 99% of D/D eles will be running perma-swiftness anyways thanks to having a pretty limited choice of trait options and natural synergy with boon duration. Personally, a 25% speed signet would never be factored into an Ele build of mine unless they completely murdered Arcana and boon duration.

Still, doesn’t belong on an Ele. Or really any other class IMO, I think thieves deserve it.

Ele main here w/ Thief alt. Some tips:

1. It’s true, many of us run 3 stunbreaks via cantrips. The key to winning this fight is making us blow cantrips. Ele’s HATE being kited / unable to fight back, and will use up their utils to break free.

2. What makes us use these? Just about anything that limits our movement or actions. Immobilize, daze, stun, Bask venom, etc.

3. Although Ele’s have tons of condition removal, it doesn’t mean it isn’t effective in the long run. Average bleed times last around 9 – 10s. If you force them to use cantrips early, the only thing they’ve got is water attunement. The second they leave water, hit them with everything you’ve got. It will take at least 9s to swap back to water, which can be plenty of time to have lots of conditions ticking their full duration.

4. The most common ele build for D/D is 0/10/0/30/30. I was running with 17k health, decent heals and condi removal, but suprisingly low armor. About 2.1k I think. That means these builds WILL crumble under burst damage if they can’t avoid it. DON’T OPEN WITH YOUR BIGGEST BURST, this is where so many thieves go wrong. Draw out the fight a bit, then hit them hard and fast.

5. Stealth is still a royal pain in the rear to deal with, even when having lots of point blank AoE. Use cloak and dagger frequently if you have dagger offhand, and be somewhat unpredictable with it. Move around and dodge back, force Ele’s to use their gap closers and blow their CDs looking for you. Ele’s have 20 weapon skills, but they all have very long CD’s for the most part.

6. D/D thieves are incredibly predictable for Eles. Do something a little more unorthodox. Here’s a hint: D/D eles are forced to move to where you are, so get something with some range. I fought a P/D thief the other day and he was stacking venoms, bleeds, etc. on top of being constantly stealthed every few seconds and kiting me like crazy. He also used thieve’s guild which made the fight even more frustrating. D/D Ele’s have a lot of AoE, true, but most of it is PBAoE, or must be lined up properly, and stealth really messes with that.

7. If you see them start channeling Churning Earth, don’t panic, and don’t try to run out of the AoE. They will use Lightning Flash towards the end of the channel and teleport to you. Right at the 3s mark you just dodge and it doesn’t matter where they go, now they’ve just blown a big CD and one of their strongest skills. The best part? You can beat on them hard within that cast time once you get the timing down. Dodge again immediately after your first dodge if you think they’re going to use Earthquake (knockdown) right after.

Good luck thiefbros.

1. All cantrips and some (all?) arcane utilities can be used while channeling a spell. That means if you’re channeling Drake’s Breath, you can use Cleansing Fire to remove conditions without stopping the channel.

2. Other spells can be used with Lightning Flash, not just Churning Earth. A favorite of mine is Earthquake, but you have to be a lot faster about it.

4. If an enemy is standing on a ledge above you, your auto attack, as well as a few other spells in Earth attunement will hit them, and they will have a hard time hitting you if you’re flush up against the wall. Great if you’re defending on Forest of Niflhel mid.

5. Auras can be activated while stunned, good for popping shocking aura if you just got jumped by a thief or warrior’s burst combo and have no stun breaks.

6. By deslecting “Autotarget nearest enemy” in the options, you can use Ride the Lightning to escape a dangerous situation if you have no target selected (click the middle of your screen.)

7. Many of your AoE’s still hit around hard cover, you can use this to LoS people. Very handy when outnumbered.

MarzAttakz.9608:

Welcome to the club!

DaPhoenix is handing out autographs in that corner over there, Arheundel is crusading for Elementalist Rights out back, Bit’s busy streaming some WvW action in the video lounge, LordByron and STRanger are headbutting a certain thief in the cage. Rainshine and MajorMelchett are enjoying retirement after maintaining our list of bugs broke them. I think Crunchy Gremlin, Aether McLoud, ThiBash, Cosmic Teapot and Creslin are in the tool shop sharpening their daggers.

PlasmaCutter is branding “ELE4LIFE” on our newer members as we speak, just make sure you don’t ask him to brand your forehead, he’s been drinking a little too much lately after whispered rumours of further “fixes” to the club!

This made me chuckle. Anyways, OP: Welcome to the club! I made the switch from necro a long time ago and never regretted it. Ele is just incredible once you have the hang of it, and just when you think you’ve got it and feel invincible, you realize there’s so much room to grow.

If you don’t know already which profession to play, that would be step 1. Once you have decided, get a feel for the class around the mists. Use all the different weapon sets and just test stuff out.

Next, I would go to your respective profession’s sub-forum and get some advice from people there. Not everyone PvPs there, but many do and some are even well known for being extremely good. They can give you more in-depth tips and advice, as well as a build which is really what you’ll need.

I play Elementalist on Tarnished Coast. If you’re thinking about learning Ele, I can probably help you out at least with getting started and some of the basics. Add me as a friend if you’re interested.

I vote for either seperate tabs, or 5v5 at the top. IMO, 5v5 feels like how pvp was meant to be played, and in general is just less of a zergy mess.

I love these kinds of fights! So far I’ve only managed to get one recorded with fraps. It wasn’t the greatest but here it is:

Also, Thieves and Mesmers (2 of the most common classes) cannot be invuln-stomped effectively due to their downed skills.

Edit: And Ele, woops.

Azunai.5974:

Azunai.1065:

Azunai.5974
Impersonator detected! ;D
Ele is my main! goway!

strange to have someone else playing the same class with the same account name

Im Asura and you? :P

I will find you, and I will kill you, because there can be only one.

Oh, and I’m human.

Someone cue “WE ARE THE PRINCES OF THE UNIVEEERRRSE!!!”

Anyways OP, you’re right. Ele is not hard to play, but it does have a higher learning curve than many other professions.

Considering you’ve played only 1 day of Ele, I’d say your analysis is spot on!

Semprenaviguare.2936:

Combo of 2 elementalist :

Bump of firsty elementalist and 4 fire .

second elementalist glass canon
teleporte + 5earth .

18K mesmer 16k voleur 14k guardien + 8 stack on condition on 8 secondes ( 5000 if not dispell ) . critique sur 5 earth on 3 player + 2 burst arcane .
brume on guardien , and finsih mesmer and thief with aoe and condition , not loose time for stomp .

10 secondes
2 elementaliste vs 3 player down en maxi 10 secondes . .

U wot m8?

Hey there OP, glad to see you doing some PvP!

Some tips I’d like to add:

1. If you don’t want to get blown up in about 2 seconds, don’t run the backstab thief build. Or really any glass cannon for that matter. Take the time to learn how balanced / tank builds work, they’ll teach you more about game mechanics simply by surviving longer.

2. Watch streams, youtube videos, etc. and get a feel for how some good players out there (and bad, for reference) like to play and how fast they react.

3. DON’T neglect your defensive utilities. Make sure you have at least one “Stun Break” utility. When using it, if you’re stunned or knocked-down, it will break you free.

4. Learn how to dodge appropriately. This comes with experience, but like stun breaks can save you from a world of hurt.

5. Take advice on playstyle and builds from your respective class’s sub forum. A lot of players there are pretty experienced, and getting a solid build from people who know what they’re talking about is step 1 to success.

Lastly, practice. Keep playing constantly. It’s the only way to truly get better. You’re going to die a lot, people will rage and trash talk you. Just ignore it and keep going. It wasn’t till around rank 20ish that I really started to improve by a lot, so keep that in mind.

Zunhar.4079:

possante.8310:

copy the link reaglass and d/d ele is the worse mesmer nightmare

I’ve gotta disagree with this. D/D ele is very strong in just about any 1v1 situation, but if the Mesmer I’m fighting knows his stuff, its going to be a very challenging fight.

Agreed. I’ve been organizing duels for quite a while now and nothing quite comes close to how much of a pain in the rear it is to fight a smart mesmer.

Pinder.5261:

By and large I have no reason to leave Fire attunement, except to hamstring my damage output for some single effect with a prohibitively large cool down.

Do you all stay in fire, barring necessary circumstance? Or do you pingpong between two of your favorite elements and somehow magically bring the non-fire ones up to par in terms of damage?

Elementalists are a bit different than other professions. Because of our lack of weapon swap, we are basically locked into one effective range. This is especially true for D/D eles.

So one factor in swapping attunements a lot is using your gap closers as necessary. An example: I start the fight with Ride the Lightning → Updraft. Now I’m sitting away from my target, he’s doing to get up and backpedal. Swap fire and use Burning Speed, now you’re in range. Oh target is now running away? Swap Earth → Magnetic Grasp → Earthquake. Not anymore!

Another factor would be swapping between damage, defense, heals, and control. There’s no good way to explain this, I think it comes with experience. You’ll have to learn how to swap to which attunement as necessary in general when the situation calls for it, based on what skills you NEED to use, not to just spam. Like you said, sometimes you swap but you don’t feel the need to. When you’re fighting either a tough boss, or in PvP, you’ll find that when you’re getting hit with a lot of various attacks, it’ll pop into your mind, “Oh, he’s healing! I can use RTL → Updraft to interrupt him, then he’ll try to kite me, so I’ll root him in earth, then swap water and chill to keep him close..” etc. Eles excel at controlling enemy movement and their own movement, if you don’t swap attunements, you aren’t putting enough pressure on enemies.

Two more things:

1. Ele’s get a lot of great boons from attunement swapping, as well as secondary effects like heals and condition removal when traited.

2. Ele’s tend not to hit as hard as other professions with less skill usage. This is compounded by the fact that we have some pretty insane cooldowns on most of our skills. By swapping and using more skills, you are throwing more damage and control out over time, and helping to avert the CD problem by using what’s available in a timely manner.

SlimJim.3087:

I posted this is the bug thread but ill add it here, Lightning Flash seems to be able to port you along with AoE spells mid cast, IE the big earth AoE that adds 9 stacks of bleed. An ele was porting to me today and having it follow him and cast on me. As they are 2 different spells I would think casting Lightning Flash would cancel the cast of the Earth AoE.

As others have said, Ele cantrips are meant to be able to be used mid-channel. It’s functioning even according to the description that the devs put in. As a general rule, if you see an ele begin to channel this, wait 2 seconds and dodge. Oh, and he’s almost completely helpless during this insane cast time, so wail on him for free and then dodge.

It is literally one of the most telegraphed attacks in the game.

Reaglass.9658:

The only way for new players to learn what they need to is to be given a tough time.. This is what makes experienced players.. Things are balanced in my opinion.. You need to expect everything your opponent throws out which takes research.. No not everyone wants to do this.. These are normally the people who complain of OP classes or just flat out never reach full potential. I have played less than 200 games of sPvP and only 14 tPvP.. The only imbalance I find is sPvP putting you 1v2 or 3v5. tPvP i have won almost half of the battles with complete pugs. 6 to be exact. If you go through the effort to communicate, research, and improve, then you will be a better player and will most likely look down on the biased “OP Classes” as if nothing more than another player kill.

Just would like to say that I agree with this post, as well as having the ability to duel people as a mini-game type thing where people can learn about other classes very quickly.

I was a newb once, and I got wrecked constantly by people who were more experienced. Then I got some more experience, and got wrecked less and less. Now, I’m excited if I get beat 1v1 in a fair fight, it means I’ve found a guy who has worked hard and tpyically knows both of our classes inside and out. I congratulate these guys, offer to re-duel and see if I can learn something.

Catering to people who don’t understand the mechanics yet is only going to fully break the mechanics. If people aren’t willing to learn, then PvP is probably not their cup of tea.

Finally, to answer the OP directly… the utopian idea of pure game balance will probably never happen, but I believe the devs still work for this as best they can. They may make mistakes sometimes, but in my opinion this game has some of the best balance I’ve seen from an MMO.

If they are full on shatter specced, it shouldn’t be too tough as you will hit them very hard. The harder ones run more defense and can take a beating as well as you can. These duels can last quite a while if the guy knows what he’s doing.

Bring stun breaks, preferably 3. You’ll end up needing them to avoid his burst combo.

Karl McLain.5604:

If it was Strife, that was me! :P

Oooo that’s you? I remember a couple of months ago I fought you on my Necro. I wish you guys would get on more, it’s always fun playing with ya

..Even if you do get singled out and picked on because of your tag. Sorry about that, lol.

Traxx.6358:

I play as a thief and I try other professions to know how to behave in certain situations and I just have no idea how to to deal with ele.

Well I think we’ve found the problem here. I encounter many people who have never fought decent D/D eles and have no clue what they can do, and they are almost always easy kills. The ones who have played Ele, or are just more experienced and know what the class is capable of can definitely give me a run for my money.

I’m not saying play it to counter it. I’m just saying: Know your enemy a bit better.

I’ll start with some tips I gave the thief subforum a long time ago:

1. Ele’s defenses are different from those of say, a tanky warrior. That is to say most of what makes us a pain to kill doesn’t come from stats directly, but rather our utilities, buffs, movement skills, control abilities, and big heals.

2. True “Bunker” eles are rarely a threat. The ones that fight back and can hit moderately hard are running the typical 0/10/0/30/30 build. That said, these builds ARE vulnerable to burst damage if we can’t avoid it, I only have 2.1k total armor (1200 toughness) and 17k health on my current build.

3. Your burst combo is more effective the longer you draw out the fight. Eles have long CD’s on all of their skills, even though they have double the amount. Softening them up first and playing a little more defensive than you usually would, THEN bursting is pretty effective. Try to make us blow our Cantrip utilties and water attunement so we can’t get out of the burst or heal up from it.

4. As super said, average backstab thieves are an easy kill for a balanced ele. The concept of root and spank at the very beginning of the fight doesn’t work as well because we typically have 3 cantrips, giving us 3 stunbreaks + easy access to vigor, and tons of condition removal.

5. Daze, Immobilize, Stun, or really any other conditions in large quantities will typically make us blow Cantrips, which is the KEY to winning this fight. Without cantrips we can’t get out of bad situations nearly as easily and continue fighting.
The toughest thieves I’ve ever fought on my Ele have been ones that pace themselves, dodge frequently, and make me cycle through skills and utils just so that I can keep moving. They were running fairly high toughness, had decent defenses and kept me guessing the entire fight.

I leveled D/D all the way to 80 easily, and I mostly use it in dungeons as well. It’s more versatile than most think, but it WILL be a little rough at the beginning because you won’t be able to stack both power and toughness in the same gear, so you may find yourself resetting traits a lot to make up for this.

Staff can be a good choice if you like to move with the group. S/D, D/D are better choices for lone-man skirmishing. Just keep in mind that staff is not really the ideal 1v1 weapon, and if you find yourself alone you could be in trouble.

Agreed! I leveled a necro to 80 for a while, and did a lot of sPvP, but even playing as good as I possibly could I can’t match how awesome my ele is.

Also, I started leveling a guardian and couldn’t seem to go back to not having 20 weapon skills to use, and it just felt so sluggish.

Otaur.9268:

This is not fun. One second you are holding someone or even 2 people at bay. Granted doing no damage because of the build we are forced into, just to get instantly downed without the chance to even use a skill. This is NOT fun.

Sorry you’re not having fun, but what makes you think Ele bunker is the only way to go? Balanced builds are a lot more fun for sPvP, since you’re still fairly tanky but actually have some bite to go with that bark.

rchu.8945:

Nanoha.3892:

I personally find ele easier than a mesmer :P so if that’s your criteria I wouldn’t pick an ele! Dagger/dagger is an absolute blast though, it’s very active and very strong, I guess it requires a fair bit of skill but once you have the basic cycles down its as easy as any class. Except when you go under water.. trying to use 20 skills that you rarely get to use can be tricky and will really take some getitng used to to combine and remember each time.

hello,

Im leveling up an ele alt, but mostly using staff. I want to switch to D/D, would you mind sharing some of the basic cycle combos? I know all fights could change in a heartbeat and might require change of routine on the fly, but I hope learning from the basic cycle would give me something to build on and start to tailor other skills once I get used to them.

Thanks.

One of the basic rotations I like with D/D:

Open in Air
Ride the Lightning → Updraft → Shocking Aura

Swap Fire
Burning Speed → Ring of Fire

Swap Earth
Earthquake → Churning Earth (+ Lightning Flash)

This is kind of a bare-bones rotation, you can simplify it a bit or make it as complicated as you wish. This isn’t one whole combo to kill someone (unless they are super squishy), it’s really just an opener. It generates 6 extra stacks of might via Earthquake + Churning Earth (both are blast finishers) when used in a fire field.

Sometimes mixing it up is best though. If I’m coming up onto a big team fight, I’ll start with Churning Earth + Lightning Flash into the mob and go from there. If I start with the rotation up top, I may then switch to water for cleanse + chill, or use Magnetic Grasp → Drake’s Breath → Fire Grab for a quick kill.

I’ve posted a few random PvP videos and rather entertaining duels to my channel on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/zer0din

If you like what you see, please subscribe! I will be adding videos frequently, including some dungeon runs with guildies.

OP, the build Intigo posted is quite strong for PvP. It works great with D/D, and with a bit of tweaking works well for other weapons.

For my build I swap out Armor of Earth for Cleansing Fire in the utilities, however. Though I guess if you’re running Ether Renewal, you may not need it. This comes down to preference though, but in general you can’t go wrong with any of the Cantrips.

As for how elementalists are overall? They are arguably one of the scariest professions to fight, especially one on one IF they have mastered their profession. Unlike some other professions, bad / new eles tend to get steamrolled easy and are little threat, but experienced / skilled ele’s are feared for a reason.

As others have said, the staff is not an ideal 1v1 weapon. If you’re level 18 and doing WvW, you really can’t expect to kill full on level 80’s consistently, the stat difference really can put you at a disadvantage.

Unless you are absolutely dead set on using a staff, experiment with other weapon sets! Try them out in sPvP (not wvw) for a while and get the hang of them. If this is your first character, understand the Ele is by far not the easiest profession to master. It’s going to take time, a lot of practice, and a lot of patience.

Ele was not even my first character and I struggled a lot in PvP at first, even though I understood the game mechanics just fine. Once you’ve learned the fundamentals of combat, you can focus on learning all of your skills and utilities in depth and comitting them to muscle memory. Once they are a matter of reflex, it’s a matter of learning basic opening rotations and when to use what.

OP, I’m also a D/D Ele. All I can tell you is that we are fairly evenly matched, so if you are of even skill level it’s going to be a very close fight. I can’t think of why any one class would have a leg up in this situation. It comes down to who is the better player overall, and who makes the fewest mistakes IMO.

This was a duel I had with a mesmer just for reference. Not the best gameplay, I made a lot of mistakes, but still it was a fun fight. Hope maybe that helps a bit.

No, they are strong duelists, but to more experienced players who know the tells and typical mesmer strategies they can be overcome.

I will say that they are typically many people’s worst 1v1 matchup, but it is definitely not an impossible fight on any profession.

Agreed. 5v5 is all I play anymore and it’s 1000x better than 8v8. I love the smaller scale encounters, it helps avoid being constantly zerged down.

Also agree that it should be at the top of the playlist.

I’d say it’s already perfect at its current CD. When traited, 4 conditions removed + stun break is nothing to sneeze at. I don’t even run cantrip mastery and it’s still up almost every time I need it. Plus that is not counting all the condi removal we have in water. If the Cd were lower I have a feeling it would make it almost impossible to lock down and kill a good ele with conditions.

Curring.9752:

The only thing I see “OP” is the amount of condi removal a D/D has, conditions should really be counter to the D/D builds as they pack a lot of healing and high defense however we have a crap ton of condi removal so even if we get rooted – a direct counter we’re out of it in a heartbeat.

Though D/D now outperforms the other two weapons sets but that is only due to the others being nerfed to a ridiculous point without any forms of buffs. D/D now supports better than the staff can and can dish out better burst than S/D. I hate the fact I am forced into D/D, I’m not the in your face kind of person, I like raining AoEs or being the support, I thought I’d get both with Staff but I got the support and some AoEs that thought they where damage. Now we need either a buff to the other two weapon sets in terms of damage or create a new weapon set that is 1200 ranged DPS so we don’t have to do D/D just to get a bit of DPS.

A lot of truth here. Honestly they probably don’t need to nerf D/D much as to me it seems quite balanced. As you said, most run it not because it’s “the OP” option, but because it’s almost our only option. In fact, nerfs at all are probably not needed. They could simply restore some of the other sets to even half of their former glory and they’d probably be on par.

Anyways, if they really worked hard on balance across all professions, and boosting many unused weapon sets, people wouldn’t have as much to complain about because there’d at least be more viable options to counter some of the current builds out there.

A couple questions question I have would be:

1. Are there any plans for a release of a beta-test server? Something that perhaps some of the more dedicated players could test out upcoming changes in mechanics, find bugs, and report on them before actual release?

2. When will we begin to see more communication from the devs related to class balancing and PvP? As it stands now, people are tired of the “Yeah yeah, we’re working on it.” canned responses over and over with no real answer to people’s questions, only to find out the following patch that they have done nothing to address many people’s concerns. At least a rough time table would be good.

3. Why is the PvP aspect of this game treated like the red-headed step child?

Have you tried 5v5? Or just low pop servers in general? I find it’s a much better experience personally. A lot less spam, and even some solid 1v1 or 1v2 fights.

I had an awesome duel with what I would consider a skilled mesmer today. Video below if you are interested:

Honestly, Eles and Mesmers are fairly closely matched, it ends up coming down to who makes the fewest mistakes. Make sure you bring stunbreaks, and use your defensive utilities wisely. You’ll notice I make several mistakes right off the bat by not using my stunbreak properly.

EDIT: Also forgot to add, that Mesmers tend to prove troublesome for new players because they have a hard time distinguishing clones. Once you gain some more experience, you’ll begin to notice the “tells,” and you’ll be able to stick to the real mesmer a lot easier. Here’s some hints: Clones don’t move much, they also don’t dodge, heal, or really move unpredictably at all.

There’s still plenty of thieves and mesmers, but I’ve found if you play 5v5 hotjoin you’ll see more balance across the teams.

Yeah EA got nerfed big time, and that did lower our effectiveness some. Other than 11/15, no we have not been nerfed as far as I can tell.

Agreed. I’ve tried several other professions, but mained a Necro for a long time. While I still have love for my roots as Necro, Ele has been the most fun and engaging one I’ve played.

Started as scepter dagger, moved to D/D and it’s super fun. Everytime I get a solid matchup in PvP it feels like an episode of DBZ. Flipping all over the place, dashing here, teleporting there, dodgeing, and just generally attacking at full on sanic speeds. it’s just so fast paced and I love it.

OP, if you are talking about PvE, yes you are going to be extremely squishy at the very beginning.

Trust me though, that changes once you get a little bit higher level and can start crafting armors that involve Vit, Toughness, and healing power along with your offensive stats.

In late game / PvP, Ele’s are one of the toughest professions to take down. Give it some time, and practice your skills. Ele’s are also not like some other professions where you can be almost brain dead and survive. You’ll need to practice hard for a while. Once your skills improve, and suddenly it all clicks you’ll feel like this:

Psi, glad I could help!

To respond to your post however, I’ll just say this: Most of what I was getting across in my original post is in an ideal 1v1 situation, which you are very correct happens rarely, or not for long.

However, you can take comfort in the fact that the Ele’s you guys are describing here are NOT bunker spec’d. That means they are not built for holding points, we are built for skirmishing.

We can’t take that much focused abuse AND stay on a point. Sooner or later, we need to either close the gap to you to do any damage, or flee + heal. Honestly, 50% of our skills are gap closers or involve some sort of large movement that forces us off a point anyways. If we stay on point, we will die to someone who can kite effectively. Use this knowledge to your benefit! You are the one in control of where the ele must go.

Keep in mind that although we are highly mobile, thieves still reign supreme in overall mobility. I would wager most of these ele’s you can draw off a point by pressuring with your bow, lead them around a corner or off the way a bit, stealth and then circle back and neutralize the cap (only takes a few seconds) by using your own mobility skills + teleports, especially if you lead them down a hill or over high terrain. We have a teleport too, but Lightning Flash does not let us port up hills or large cliffs like you can. Even still, that blows a cantrip that we’d rather use for a nasty Churning Earth surprise.

At this point you’ll at least be on even ground since really neither of you are going to be able to cap that point until one of you is dead. If by now you’re saying, “but I don’t want to just cap the point, I want to kill them!” well I say good luck. This requires that you are at least as good as they are, but it is far from a hopeless matchup. It sure beats the odds of trying to burst down an experienced bunker guardian, or use a LDB bleed build vs. a condition necro. THOSE are hopeless situations.

Good luck thiefbros!

No weapon swaps on Ele is intended, and quite frankly I’m glad it’s so. Now some will argue we should have a button to do this out of combat, and I’m not against that.

However, in combat, we could then potentially have access to 40 skills at once, and the combos that could be performed between 2 ele weapon sets could get out of control very quickly. I think that would end up being a nightmare to balance.

D/D Ele here. Alright, so most of what you guys have been saying is true. However, there’s some things you should know if you’ve never played Ele before:

1. Ele’s defenses are different from those of say, a tanky warrior. That is to say most of what makes us a pain to kill doesn’t come from stats directly, but rather our utilities, buffs, movement skills, control abilities, and big heals.

2. True “Bunker” eles are rarely a threat. The ones that fight back and can hit moderately hard are running the typical 0/10/0/30/30 build. That said, these builds ARE vulnerable to burst damage if we can’t avoid it, I only have 2.1k armor and 17k health on my current build.

3. Your burst combo is more effective the longer you draw out the fight. Eles have long CD’s on all of their skills, even though they have double the amount. Softening them up first and playing a little more defensive than you usually would, THEN bursting is pretty effective. Try to make us blow our Cantrip utilties and water attunement so we can’t get out of the burst or heal up from it.

4. As super said, average backstab thieves are an easy kill for a balanced ele. The concept of root and spank at the very beginning of the fight doesn’t work as well because we typically have 3 cantrips, giving us 3 stunbreaks + easy access to vigor, and tons of condition removal.

5. Daze, Immobilize, Stun, or really any other conditions in large quantities will typically make us blow Cantrips, which is the KEY to winning this fight. Without cantrips we can’t get out of bad situations nearly as easily and continue fighting.

The toughest thieves I’ve ever fought on my Ele have been ones that pace themselves, dodge frequently, and make me cycle through skills and utils just so that I can keep moving. They were running fairly high toughness, had decent defenses and kept me guessing the entire fight.

Sorry if that doesn’t help much. I’d be happy to help if you guys would like some 1v1 time in PvP, and we can practice together. PM me on my main if you’re interested, char name: Malach Galthena