Guild Wars 2

Basically everything PaZZo said. Also, in order to develop an eSport you would first need a substantial playerbase for PvP.

As it stands now, too few people are interested in this side of the game. Most of the servers remain empty, and it seems fewer and fewer play every day.

One could speculate on how to attract more people, but until they make it more appealing and somewhat rewarding for the people that don’t care solely about improving their own skills, it doesn’t stand a chance even if the actual structure is there. There is really no hype around the PvP anymore.

PvP still needs some serious attention and it’s very troubling to me that the devs are too caught up in things like ascended gear and coming out with the next event and cash shop item. The combat in this game is excellent, and I think they could seriously capitalize on that by turning their full attention to PvP for a while.

Maybe 1v1 isn’t the most balanced format in the world, but then again I wouldn’t consider 50 man zergs a “balanced” format either. 5v5 games are great, no denying that.

But I have had the most fun recently by just jumping in low pop sPvP and dueling for fun. Almost everybody has a good time, people communicate and laugh and share ideas…It’s really something to behold if you have never tried it.

I do think ANet is missing a prime opportunity to make sPvP a bit more social by not adding a /duel option, especially in the Mists. I think it would provide for some pretty nice entertainment and knowledge sharing.

I agree with Thi.

Also, Scepter could use some love. It just feels….slow. I would like to see Ele’s actually using this weapon set, but as you stated people have begun to figure out that spike damage means nothing if you are struggling to even hit an enemy with it.

That’s why D/D shines so much. Every attack is somewhat hard to predict and fairly easy to land, and they come out fast and hard. The obvious downside is you must put yourself into harms way to do it, but skilled players who know how to dodge means this isn’t too much of a downside, even in dungeons.

Viator.9801:

I have 18k HP and AoE attacks in Dungeons kill me instantly, while the Warriors stand in the blow and only loose 2/3 of their HP. Happened yesterday in fractals, Dredge dungeon.

And even with a staff you need to go close to support cause your Auras and heals and… and and… have a low range.

So even as a support you die, not only with a dagger.

Ele’s defenses mainly come from their buffs, active skills, and cantrips. I don’t have nearly as high armor or HP as my necro did, but I can actually survive much longer in just about any format (PvE, dungeons, PvP).

We can stack up Vigor, Regen, and Protection, and with vigor dodge more often negating more big damage. Also, high healing power goes a long way to making our class incredibly resilient when doing any form of healing. We also have Auras, which can completely shut down melee enemies in some cases. Running full cantrips means you have 3 stun breaks, plenty of condition removal, and you’re a very hard target to lock down and keep down.

We aren’t like warriors who just naturally have high HP and armor, our defenses don’t come from our hard number stats. But I would still argue we are far more defensive than they could hope to be, even with just a balanced build when played well.

Yeah, it’s always been a blast finisher as far as I know. Also, I’m not sure what you mean by your second sentence, I see “Area Might” pop up right as I begin channeling in a fire field.

If you truly only get it at the end…that really sucks. I’ll have to test it out tonight.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Jericho.4521:

4. EDIT: Almost forgot Shocking Aura. If the Ele gets a glowing shock bubble around him, when you attack you’ll get stunned for a brief period. I believe stability can counter this.

The bubble doesnt always appear i have used it many times and had the bubble not appear and people still get stunned from attacking

That is very true, unfortunately. It does still make a sound like flies buzzing around, but in a heated battle that could be hard to notice.

No matter what, if the guy is somewhat skilled it will likely be a tough fight. As others have already stated, to D/D Eles, movement is everything. Try to stagger your hard and soft CCs to force them to blow through Cantrips and CD’s to remove it (we HATE chill, immob, stun, etc).

On the defensive side, kiting can be effective but make sure YOU are dodging as well. D/D has short range, but a ton of gap closers and movement control that lets them get up in your face. Don’t let them!

Common things to watch out for:
1. Ride the Lightning -> Updraft (1200 range rush + knockdown). Ele’s love opening with this. If they land this because you failed the dodge, use a stun break and GET OUT. You’re gonna get hurt pretty bad if you just sit there.

2. Magnetic Grasp + Earthquake. Immobilize and gap closer + Knockdown.

3. Churning Earth: Bad ele’s channel this next to you in plenty of time for you to escape. Good Ele’s will typically begin the channel away from you right after a knockdown like Updraft, wait for you to dodge, and then Lightning Flash to you mid channel. Anticipate that they will do this and dodge right before the spell goes off even if you think you are out of range.

4. EDIT: Almost forgot Shocking Aura. If the Ele gets a glowing shock bubble around him, when you attack you’ll get stunned for a brief period. I believe stability can counter this.

Was going to add my thoughts to this, but Creslin already said everything I was thinking.

Maybe it is a personal problem for me, but anything less than 20 in arcane is kittening yourself IMO.

Thom.1862:

Any class that can’t hit for high burst damage and wears the worst armor in the game can’t succeed in PvP.

But I succeed just fine, in fact much better than what I could ever manage to do on my necro in PvP. I don’t want to brag, really, but I have to point out that most burst classes are absolute fodder for a well played Ele, especially in a 1v1 situation.

It is true that currently we are limited in builds, and we have a somewhat higher learning curve on top of that. We need some love, but to say the class as a whole is borked is a big overstatement.

Pyrial.2917:

Has anyone seen how much damage EA does? Yeah, neither have I. There really isn’t any reason to take the trait any longer when your rolls are producing 200-300 damage for a 30point investment.

Yeah, I’ve never even noticed damage from this thing at all. The only reason I take it is because I personally still can’t live without full attunement swap reduction. They really hit us hard on this one and I doubt anything will be done about it

Also, I think I fought you today in PvP, Pyrial. Remember another D/D Ele named Malach? You were quite good, we should set up a duel sometime! Mirror matches are a blast.

As cosmic already said, I think there are better ways to actually make a burst ele if that is what you are after, however those damage numbers are pretty impressive considering you rarely see that coming from anyone but thieves or warriors.

I really hope that the devs take into account that this build would make Ele’s incredibly squishy and don’t nerf our offense into oblivion once again because of a gimmick build.

Honestly Fortus, it sounds like what you want is not the Ele. Nothing wrong with that, but Ele in its current form doesn’t fit that description IMO. Your old build seems fine, it’s similar to what I’m running now.

Staff unfortunately took a big hit with the EA nerf, but i think it’s still viable. If you want to stick it out with staff, hopefully someone else can come and shed some light on this as I myself typically only use D/D.

All I can say is if Ele really is your love, try something else if you haven’t and come back. I basically was frustrated with my Necro, found Ele and now i’m as happy as can be.

P.S.: Have you tried playing Engie? Long range, plenty of utility, not as squishy if building for power/ etc.

Gotta give zallis an 8, sounds good and original. Bonus points to you if you chose the “street rat” storyline!

I have two chars right now: Malach Galthena (Elementalist), Jericho Durai (Necro)
Both are a tribute to FFT, my all time favorite game

Heavy rework? Ele might be the red-headed step child of the cast when it comes to getting “buffs,” but honestly I don’t feel we need them. Bug fixes yes, but what class doesn’t?

It’s true other professions take less effort to get a kill, but what you’re not seeing is how nobody really matches up to Ele in terms of utility. The exception might be Engies, but they aren’t exactly “Hurr I press buttan!!1” class either.

I went back and played some of my previous professions and noticed: “Hmm..If only I could swap to this, and do this.” Everything felt so limiting now after having accesss to so many skills and tools for just about any situation. And on top of that, Ele has been the first profession I’ve played to where I can consistently win when I’m outnumbered.

Any chance you can post your last build? Maybe we can help, after all, without a solid build your skills may not count for much.

Thieves complaining about Rangers being OP “against them.” Oh boy, now I’ve seen it all.

I rather like that the Elementalist is at least more complex to play than most other professions, and may be the most complex, it’s hard for me to say as I am quite biased.

Ele has a fairly high skill floor IMO, I came to it after Necro and I must say I got owned hard for the first week or so of playing in PvP, and almost gave up I was so frustrated. Once I found my rhythm though and really got the hang of it, I can now handle almost any 1v1, and even quite a few 1v2s and 1v3s. I never could do that on my Necro, as 1v2 usually meant death.

So in answer to OP, yes make one if you haven’t. They are a blast and still quite viable.

If you’re playing sPvP, chances are at least half of the population still struggles with finding the real mesmer and they will get wrecked. Occasionally you’ll find someone more experienced who knows the “tells” and will stick to you like glue.

I wouldn’t say they’re OP, just that somewhat like thieves, they tend to stomp baddies for not understanding the game mechanics.

I play D/D primarily, so these will be tips for that:

1. Similar to what Gaudrath said, combining burning speed / ring of fire with Earthquake + Churning Earth stacks might using D/D.

2. You can teleport with lightning flash in the middle of a channeled spell. This is most commonly used with churning earth.

3. If you have Evasive Arcana, you can heal yourself with a dodge roll every 10s in water attunement.

4. Deselect “Automatically target nearest enemy” in the options. This allows you to deselect a target and use Ride the Lightning to escape.

5. Magnetic Grasp is a leap finisher (at least it used to be? Still procs for me a lot), which if used in one of your fire fields generates a Fire Aura.

6. Mist Form can be used to invuln-stomp enemies. Incredibly useful when outnumbered. You must start the stomp animation first, then use mist form and nothing can stop you. Make sure the class you’re doing this on can’t move though, (Ele, Thief, Mesmer).

7. Mist form can also be used to invuln-revive a teammate if you’re being focus fired. Same thing, start the animation first before using MF.

8. You can summon an elemental and use your heal skill while in MF, use this to recover and stall if you need to.

9. Shocking Aura makes Backstab thieves cry.

Hi OP, I’m also an Ele. I don’t run full bunker, more or less just tanky. Anyways, we have plenty of tools to ruin a BS theif’s day: Mist form, cleansing fire, lightning flash all break stun which will get you out of the combo, shocking aura also completely disrupts this combo. These should give you plenty of breathing room and just a bit of time to turn the tables which is all you need. I realize by now you’re saying “But, but, 1 SEC!!!! How can I react?” All I can say is practice your reflexes and keep your finger on a stun break if you are approaching enemies.

Once you have distrupted, swap to water for a quick heal + chill them, then CC them yourself and you’ll watch them melt. If they are stupid enough to stick around, they will die. Smart(er) thieves will try to run and re-engage.

Latsch.6874:

its not easy to land:
1. Steal
2. CnD
3. Backstab
4. Deatblossom
5+6. Heart Seeker

To get an opponent Down, 6 Skills to use without getting interrupted, routed, knocked down, imobilized, stunned, dazed …

Wow, sure looks complicated. You should try an average ele rotation sometime, it’ll blow your mind.

Oh boy, I really hope ANet doesn’t see this thread and think Ele’s need some MOAR NERFZ. Not to be a pain, but Ele’s almost depend on their boons to do any real damage and have some survivability, and we’ve already taken a hard kick in the teeth with the EA nerf from the last patch.

Also, most ele’s have boosts to boon duration because of our Arcana tree. Most builds require at least 20 points in Arcana because a 15s cooldown on attunement swap is brutal, and we need this just to keep up. It just so happens it increases boon duration as well.

I appreciate the feedback everyone! Last night I had a successful 2v1 encounter, although they probably weren’t the best players in the world but still, it was a rush.

I’ve taken everyone’s advice into account, but I think the most important tip for me was “be aggressive.” The quicker I can turn those situations into a 1v1 the better off I am. I just pick what I believe is the squishiest target and go to town.

I’m all for players being proactive, but I’m not sure exactly what the devs want from us here. If there’s something we can do, I will by all means try to help the devs.

The simple fact is that PvP is losing players over time due to staleness, lack of basic PvP features, and poor class balancing / bug fixes that leave many people disillusioned of the whole thing.

I’ve said it before, but it would be great to have some open DIALOGUE with the devs much more often, not just a “We’re working on it, dun worry guys, k?” Maybe if we can get some serious questions answered, people we retain some hope of the future of PvP in this game. I want it to succeed, I really like this game!

Thanks for the advice guys, I’ll definitely try to focus one guy down faster and be more offensive.

Another quick question, do you guys like to try to perform your rotation so that you stack might ie: fire → earth whenever possible? Or do you just play it by ear and open with whatever you can land?

I’m aware of the fire field combo with earthquake + churning earth, but the problem is so many people will dodge straight after the knockdown especially if they know a big telegraphed CE is coming their way..Not sure if it’s worth it.

I also think dueling would add a great social layer that is lacking in PvP. I imagine a group of people all gathered around a couple of skilled people dueling and chatting it up in the mists. Maybe sharing builds, people getting ideas for their own, inspiring others to roll a certain profession, who knows.

The game doesn’t need to be balanced around 1v1’s for it to be viewed as a fun mini-game to pass the time and meet some talented people to bounce ideas off of.

I play a D/D ele running primarily power / toughness / vit build, 0/10/0/30/30 at the moment with full cantrips as utils. Might change it up a bit, as I’m still in what I would consider my learning phase.

I feel confident with my 1v1 skills now, but 2v1’s in sPvP I’m finding myself dead frequently. Anyone out there with a similar build, how do you typically handle this?

As others have said, having a good blend of Vitality, Healing Power, and Toughness generally helps. Also, I’d drop a lot of those signets for cantrips in your utilities and learn to use them effectively, they are get out of jail free cards.

If you are specced heavy into earth, consider speccing into water instead.

He got killed 1v1 against a staff ele….He should be embarrassed. But seriously, bad thieves like this give the whole profession a bad name. I 1v1’d a thief the other day and we had a great fight, lasted the entire match and we never scored a kill, very intense. Unfortunately these guys are few and far between the HS and BS spammers.

Haven’t really had any trouble with RTL since the patch, which is great. Magnetic grasp is still bugged though. I have noticed that it only self-cc’s when you cast it on a target in close range though, mid-range and beyond it does seem to work, but it was always that way for me. So I’m really not sure what they mean when they said they “fixed” it.

As others have said, Ele can still be quite shockingly (see what I did there) powerful. A lot of people are upset at the EA nerf, but meh, the class as a whole is still solid.

IMO, it’s still the choice for those who are looking to challenge themselves, it just seems to take a little more brain power to do well with and D/D is fast paced, dynamic, and fairly fluid.

Shademare.8369:

Milennin.4825:

I also loved it with daggers. But it was even better with staff.
I don’t get it. Games are supposed to be fun. Elementalists were fun with the trait (fun, not overpowered). Now they’re less fun.

Bad devs are bad.

NO! Flopmentalist were never intended to be FUN! Flopmentalist were suppose to flop all day!

Oh wow, that made me laugh too hard. I just imagined the elementalist icon replaced with a little Goldeen.

I still slot it simply because there’s no other truly applicable choice for me, and I feel like not having the full 60% attunement swap buff is just too much to live without. I’m not particularly happy that it was nerfed this hard though.

I would have been happy with:

A.) No more blast finishers, but the effects from EA are increased (Churning Earth stacks 3 bleeds instead of 1…etc)

B.) One blast finisher every 10 seconds, even if it was only for Earth / Fire and nothing else.

C.) Completely Neutered like it is now, but global cooldowns on attunement swap is lowered OR we have some other worthless major traits get a slight boost.

mak.9027:

I was using it with daggers, this is not just the staff-wielding community afaik. I just would like a single finisher per field or a single finisher every X seconds. That would at least bring back the fun.

This exactly. Everyone knew it was eventually going to get nerfed, but I don’t think anyone predicted that they’d remove the finishers completely. Especially without compensating with any sort of buff to make other choices viable, just some minor bug fixes and tooltip updates.

Shouldn’t have brought it up Ascii, don’t you know that a necro doing direct damage is a no no? Think of the people who have mastered deathshroud already!

Anyways, I’m sure it’ll be nerfed shortly, and all the tooltips will be updated.

It really concerns me that nothing has been addressed about build viability.

I fully believe the only reason “bunker” builds existed on the Elementalist is not because it’s everyone’s first choice but because it’s kind of our last option.

Played it this morning and I was also pleasantly surprised by how smooth it is, and how fun it is. Also love the new 5v5 hot join!

Overall I’m somewhat happy with the (very minor) bug fixes and slight changes with the exception of the elementalist being neutered yet AGAIN. I’m truly scared to see what they’ll find overpowered about ele’s next patch. Ugh.

It seems people are mostly up in arms about is the lack of some major bug fixes for professions like the Necromancer. Some things that would seem obvious like making completely non-functioning traits actually work. I understand they have limited time, and I am not a game designer.

I AM a programmer however (not for video games), and I understand what it’s like to work with a team on an incredibly complicated project that takes years. I sympathize with them on this, however, it seems that the designers could at least either:

A.) Deliver on some promises made (specifically to the poor Rangers, good lord I feel bad for them).

B.) Explain why these “promises” are not possible / not feasible

C.) Communicate with the community more and actually attempt to implement some of their suggestions. Major class overhaul is silly of course, but minor things like: Elementalists have been saying for a LONG time that build diversity is extremely low due to being forced to trait into Arcana. an easy solution would be a small global CD reduction on Attunement swaps (only a few seconds could shave off 10 points that could go into another tree).

In closing, I feel that the majority of people here are upset not because “I DIDN’T GET 100% DMG BOOST WTF,” but because they’re afraid. They’re scared of what they’re going to get smacked with a week from now, two weeks from now. They have every right to be afraid, because short of tooltip fixes and minor bug fixes, the changes that are implemented are extremely unpredictable.

What I and many others would love to see is MUCH more communication with the community. We are here and listening, and a lot of us live from red post to red post hoping things improve for the PvP aspect of this game. Not because we hate it, but because we want to see it succeed.

Yay 5v5 hot join!

I like your style, as it’s very similar to my own. Video had good gameplay, but I would suggest not including the homemade quake sound effects as it was a bit cheesy.

I would say go for it. I started at release with a necro and it’s still my main. Love it for PvE, and PvP. We have a lot of bugs, but there are still solid builds out there. I recommend looking up a conditionmancer build, good for both PvE and PvP.

If minions are more of your thing, then go ahead and try it, I think some pretty major bug fixes and some restructuring are on their way soon.

I think this is a cool idea, but I’m sure it would be pretty difficult to actutally implement and balance a brand new condition.

It is kind of annoying how we were told that we would at least have a unique CC (fear), but we didn’t and to rub salt in the wound, we don’t even do it best.

sorrow.2364:

Guys, come on. The fact that you consider Epidemic as a must and a great spell means so much.

Yes, Necromancers need a buff to many other skills and build, but this doesn’t mean that Epidemic at that cooldown isn’t too effective. Just couple it with a profession which spams condition very quicky and at high duration like Thief’s Death Blossom or Warrior’s Sword and with just one Epidemic you have all this amout of condition spread around all the enemies in an huge area. Necromancer right now is only that skill and this isn’t the profession I want to play. I want that all skills are equally effective, useful and strong.

Don’t let your point of view to get biased and watch the things objectively.

Necromancers aren’t all using Epidemic, as it’s simply not a must. In tournament play I’ve seen plenty of necros run well of power instead to have more team support than just be a condition cannon.

If they buffed a lot of the other utilities / builds I can pretty much guarantee you people will be hesitant to run it unless they are specifically a conditionmancer build.

It is almost useless in a one on one fight, and if you’re getting ganged up on it won’t help much if you can’t actually get enough time to focus conditions on an individual target. I personally can say I’ve never had Epidemic save me in a defensive fight.

It really only shines in group battles where your team can either protect you and / or help stack conditions on a given target assuming you can get the cast off without being interrupted or the target dies first. All too often you still need to choose exactly when to use it, and missing it or using it incorrectly after burning through cooldowns designed to pump out bleeds will leave you sitting spamming #1.

For this reason, I feel like the skill is very good, but not an “I win” button. At best, it’s an excellent utility in somewhat niche scenarios.

@Niim

I agree for the most part, I think good players represent the professions well. I’m just saying for the most part other professions have already seen a wide array of nerfs and are still alive and well just like you said, so thieves shouldn’t worry too much about what they’ll do with backstab.

One of the devs also said that they’d be buffing other areas to make up for it, so I’m actually pretty excited to see what new tactics thieves will come up with.

@JonathanSharp -

I really like this philosophy, but as others have said, in actual practice the mobile classes (not just thief), can rather easily escape a necro. Our easy access to chills is one way to help remedy this, and does a fairly good job.

However, Dark Path and Spectral Grasp are almost out-runnable if the target is using any sort of mobility skills. I understand that Dark path may not be able to have a projectile speed boost since it tracks and is available to all necros, but spectral grasp is still very hard to land given the current speed and terrain collision issues.

Also, I dare say that thieves are much harder to escape from as well given their easy access to gap closers and teleports.

I don’t like to gloat, but this nerf should have been seen a mile away by everyone. I’d also like to point out that there are plenty of other professions that were already pretty much bottom tier and received nerfs anyways going into release (cough necro, ele, ranger), so I really don’t think this will kill thieves to have to seek some new builds and slightly more complicated combos.

I agree with almost everything except for Epidemic and Plague. Epidemic is one of the corruption necro’s best skills, true (and probably the only notable one out of the bunch). It has already been “fixed” (nerfed), and I really don’t think it’s a big issue on a 12s CD traited considering how prevalent condition removal is in PvP, and it takes a good 1 – 1.5s to cast which can be interrupted. It’s only truly fearsome when working with another condition build teammate in a large group fight, or if you’ve already spent a good 7 – 10s building conditions on an enemy while praying they don’t remove it and you don’t get ganked in the process.

With regards to Plague, I’ve killed a number of people by spamming bleeds instead of blind. The key to using it offensively like this though is stacking bleed / condition duration. Maybe if they had a small CD in between blind spam it would balance out.

However, it’s not like you’re untouchable while spamming blinds. Most people just hang off for a bit and spam conditions / ranged attacks and you’ll go down quick. If the necro chases, he loses the point. If he stays, he dies faster than any other bunker would.

OP, I can tell you as a condition necro, one of my worst matchups is a hammer warrior who has some condition removal and plays calmly. I say calmly, because a lot of people burn through condition removal at the first sign of bleed, but if you let just about any condition build stack up conditions for just a bit, then remove the whole stack, they are going to have a harder time getting all the way back up since they’ve burned through their Cd’s / Init.

Hammer warriors, at least on necros, can stun us to no end and we have almost no access to stability, and few run more than one stun breaker. The more time condition builds spend without conditions on you, the more dangerous the fight becomes for them.

If you know you’re fighting a condition necro, the best way to actually kill them is straight up damage. Don’t put conditions on them, they’ll transfer it back to you. Don’t use tons of boons at one time, they’ll corrupt them. Keep them knocked down / stunned and only use condition removal after they’ve blown a lot of CD’s.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Knote.2904:

That was all we needed Jon, just so you know.

Just something to show us we’re not invisible. Lol.

Na, it’s ok. From your point of view, it makes sense: you feel like no one is responding to threads, which must mean we’re not listening or that we do not care.

But as I’ve said before, we read the forums, takes, run to meetings, etc. We’re here, and we’re listening.

I understand your position and it makes sense. I just wanna let you know that we’re here and we are working hard. We just have our heads down as we fix bugs and put new things into the game.

Thanks for the post Jon, good to know you guys are on top of this stuff and hopefully we can see some changes soon.

P.S.: Enjoy your cakes!

Ideally for me, it would be bug fixes ASAP, “balance” changes slow and steady just like they are doing. I think going easy on the nerf bat is the best approach and I applaud them for this.

It’d be great to see a rush on major bugs that are holding some classes way back along with that however.

Signed, an empty minor trait is simply a better choice at this point.

:(