Cleansing Flame is good enough to carry a cantrip build that doesn’t go 30 into water. It’s really that good if you save it for when you most need it. Burning huge stacks of bleed, poison and immobilize at the same time is so satisfying.
One of the best parts regardless of skin is that the Chilling Whirl does more damage than what the Red Jellyfish’s f2 does, so you can get double usage of the best underwater f2. Jellies are just great underwater pets on top of that, so you can’t go wrong.
The ease with which some professions gain the protection boon on a frequent basis needs to be toned down, but the buff itself seems pretty sound to me.
I run Empathic Bond and Signet of Renewal at the same time on my ranger. It takes a buttload of conditions to completely overwhelm me, and most single characters are not capable of that if I also focus my efforts on avoiding the skills that apply the bulk of their conditions.
Edit: I do understand that this should not be necessary; burning a grandmaster trait and a utility just to get condition removal that is still not as good as most of the other professions. However, I can definitely attest to the power of the combination if you play well and control the amount of incoming conditions to the best of your ability.
@Leuca “You don’t need a ranged weapon to kite HB warriors.”
Please sir and/or madam, how do you kite something with a Melee weapon? Because last I checked that’s just called running away…
Dodges, strafing, etc. Ever dodged into a warrior as he started HB instead of away? You end up behind him and free to attack. If you are avoiding his attacks while still performing your own, this can be considered kiting.
That is not kiting. Don’t redefine words at your own leisure.
@Leuca “You don’t need a ranged weapon to kite HB warriors.”
Please sir and/or madam, how do you kite something with a Melee weapon? Because last I checked that’s just called running away…
Dodges, strafing, etc. Ever dodged into a warrior as he started HB instead of away? You end up behind him and free to attack. If you are avoiding his attacks while still performing your own, this can be considered kiting.
Durzlla, other melee classes will butcher you in melee. This is not an opinion, this is a fact.
The only class that I have issue going toe to toe with in Melee is a hundred blades warrior because they can stun me more then once so I get forced into eating hundred blades which is about the equivalent of eating a drake breathe attack… I can usually survive the first one or two of them, but the third one will get me every time… Then again that’s why I bring ranged weapons too so I can kite the silly pure Melee people like hundred blades warriors…
You don’t need a ranged weapon to kite HB warriors.
I have a few questions for you before I post a counter for some of your claims.
1) you have stated that “this is not a problem with the community understanding mesmers”.
Do you think that the mental confusion brought on by clones is not a problem to the non understanding player? If not why? If yes how much of a problem do you think it is?
2) you said " There are quite a few setups that are just too easy to use that dish out loads of damage".
What are those set ups you are mentioning in terms of damage?
3) you said that “There are quite a few setups that are just too easy to use that dish out loads of damage while maintaining decent survivability”.
When you said survivability what were you mentioning? What skills gives the mesmer that suvivabilty that you claim the mesmer has?
In my opinion. This is a matter of understanding the class. I have played every single class in gw2 to the point close to mastery. And from that expirience. as well as the experience from watching other players. I have noticed that they will most of the time only have a understanding of their own class, and not very meny others. This will of course result in that player only knowing what he is doing specifically, and not what his opponent is doing specifically. now i am not saying that the player will not know when to dodge at all. but he will have a disadvantage in being able to perceive what his opponent is doing, and from there the most effective way to counter it. Now this is not much of a problem with most opponents. But some classes will punish players for their ignorance more than others. The mesmer class is at the top of punishing ignorant players in that regard.
So really the statement that “This has nothing to do with the community understanding how mesmers work” is idiotic.(no offense)
I’m going to answer your questions with a single question. What weapon sets would you choose if your mesmer had a Rabid Amulet equipped? Please do not tell me it is up to preference; there is a clear winner among mesmer weapons with this basic guideline.
Acording to ANet my favorite skill is just 111111111111111111111111.
But GS has some great animations indeed, just sad its a wet towel.
It’s not a wet towel persay; it has some really great attributes that make it quite strong from a mechanics perspective; but it needs to have higher damage to reward the risk factor of taking a medium armor profession without many OSHI utilities into extended close-quarters combat. The recharges feel quite fluid, at least to me, but I always end up switching when I want a true burst.
Lol risk factor? We evade every 3rd attack and have a good 3 second or so block… Idk about you, but when I want to not die I just grab my greatsword and swoop into a mob of enemies… However a damage buff would make me happy =D
PS: I just remembered Hunters Call when used on oak hearts, lol nothing says awesome like summoning the eagles from Lord of the Rings to descend upon an Enemy and rip them to shreds!!
There is always a higher risk factor entering melee combat on a medium/light armor profession than on a heavy armor profession. In addition, you must actually land the first two attacks in order to get the evade on third; this requires time spent in melee range, not evading, in order to get the evade on attack that you want.
Or do you mean to tell me that you’re perfectly comfortable using your greatsword against anybody without ever weapon swapping, and never feel pressured to use dodges when you could have been attacking to earn your evade?
Acording to ANet my favorite skill is just 111111111111111111111111.
But GS has some great animations indeed, just sad its a wet towel.
It’s not a wet towel persay; it has some really great attributes that make it quite strong from a mechanics perspective; but it needs to have higher damage to reward the risk factor of taking a medium armor profession without many OSHI utilities into extended close-quarters combat. The recharges feel quite fluid, at least to me, but I always end up switching when I want a true burst.
First, it would only cause yourself frustration if you compare skills across professions. It simply will not make sense.
Glyph of Restoration is the healing skill of choice, sadly. Signet of Restoration is only worthwhile if you spec 30 into Earth Magic for the grandmaster signet trait AND use daggers to trigger the passive more frequently.
Most high tier d/d eles would disagree with you. Signet of restoration is perfectly viable when left on passive when you have a strong healing rotation on the side.
Before all else, I’d like to mention that skill >= build. A good tell of whether the opponent is good is how efficiently he uses dodge. Second, I don’t think mesmers as a whole is OP – I think once the majority of the community begins to understand a bit more about how mesmers work, then mesmers will be easier to take on.
It is probably a better mentality to assume that we are not playing the guardian and ranger to its potential, rather than coming to the conclusion that the mesmer is OP. This way, we open ourselves to see avenues for self-improvement!
I don’t play Ranger, but I do play guardian and mesmer. Everytime I switch to the other, it takes a while for me to readjust, because the playstyle is just so different.
I guess you can take it from here.
There are quite a few setups that are just too easy to use that dish out loads of damage while maintaining decent survivability. This has nothing to do with the community “understanding how mesmers work”; some of their mechanics are simply overpowered when compared to those of other professions.
Facing the mesmer is not simply a mindgame. Players who are experts at picking out the real mesmer still don’t have a really good chance when bugged phantasms are stacking 20+ confusion on a build that hardly shatters. Signet of Ilusions probably has the strongest passive of all signets in the game because illusions gain pretty much all of your stats except vitality, making them unrealistic targets, especially when you are facing a phantasm mesmer. Nevermind the fact that a mesmer stacking toughness/healing/precision condition damage can stack almost constant regeneration/protection through nothing but passive effects gained through traits via illusions that are not realistic targets during a fight if he has specced the right way.
High crit chance+toughness mesmers have such a ridiculous advantage over most professions that it’s really laughable, especially since illusions do not have a chance to bleed on crit when you invest in Dueling; they automatically bleed. There’s so much that mesmers have become accustomed to that any nerfs will send them into ragefits for weeks at a time.
There’s more to the mesmer that’s broken than this, but I figured you might want an example.
You “forgot” to mention all the bugs that are actually a handicap for mesmers, if those are fixed, we can talk about balancing.
Mesmers have more trait synergy and less hugely detrimental bugs than most professions.
You are getting the maximum benefit from conditions with a longer duration, and the ability to increase their duration is not limited to investing in a traitline. A scepter/dagger ele can stack 25 might without touching fire magic, and a dagger/dagger can get more than 10-12, so I don’t see why wasting time with might on cantrip could be seen as more beneficial than playing with a more universally effective line. Eles also have plenty of unconditional burning application, which stacks in duration, not intensity, making 30% chance to burn on crit a fairly useless trait, especially because it’s the weakest damage condition when it comes to numbers/side effects.
The fact is that there’s nothing the fire line can achieve that can’t be done more efficiently via equipment/other lines.
If you compare single builds then yes, I’d agree. However, if we take a staff bunker/cantrip build, they cannot stack might. So for them, it would be beneficial. Likewise, a precision build could use the trait to increase both their base damage and add a little extra to their spikes.
Basically, what you’re saying is that when it comes down to focused builds, the traits won’t add something worthwhile and I agree. However, for balanced builds, they can sometimes add something that they don’t have normally have acces to. And for that I’d say it can be worth investing a few points.
Even staff eles can stack might with combo fields/sigil of battle. Cantrips are too important to be burned just to gain might stacks when you lack the CC to lock somebody in your aoe fields. Sure it looks good on paper, but you can’t guarantee that you’re going to use the stunbreak at a time when you will actually benefit from the might stacks you gain. A staff ele wouldn’t benefit nearly as much as a d/d or s/d ele and neither of those weapon setups should be using that spec anyway; the point is pretty much moot. This would have more practical application in PvE if you can guarantee that you won’t need to use your cantrips for what they were originally intended to do.
Empathic Removal (Wilderness Survival Grandmaster) is probably one of our strongest traits; it’s actually one of the best Grandmaster traits in the game right now. I never leave home without it anymore.
Lets see, empathic bond is one condition removed every 10 seconds.. So I have to ask, does Healing spring remove a condition on every tick (application of regeneration)? because I’ve been favoring Healing spring for condition removal.
Empathic Bond is ALL conditions removed every 10 seconds.
but healing spring requires you to stay in the spring. while it provides a water combo field, it doesn’t really help put conditions on people considering crossfire requires a flanking for full damage.
not moving is generally death, for my playstyle. which relies on dodge to avoid damage, and troll ungent/fern hound for about 10k hp regen over 8 sec.
I don’t know what you’ve been feeding that hound, but my fern hound does not generate enough regeneration to heal 2k hp in 8 seconds. I only get about 120 hp per second from my fern hound’s regen.
It’s 130, the base level of regeneration. Pets do not properly receive your healing modifiers, or any stat modifier for that matter. The only way to increase their stats (which for some reason doesn’t affect healing power either) is to increase beast mastery/use the master’s bond trait. It’s unfortunate; my hound would give me an extra 2k+health per howl and my unguent already does 950 per tick.
What’s stupid is that the F2 pet skill is the only skill in the game that would cancel if you press it more than once. Why did they do this?
It is an easy way to cancel an action rather than having to bind it to another one when the action is performed by AI and not you. If responsiveness of your first f2 press was improved, this would probably not be an issue.
Ironically, mashing the button makes the problem worse. If you hit f2 as your pet is queuing it up, it essentially orders your pet to cancel the action. What you need to do is learn the range/activation time of your pet’s f2 vs its attack animations/current position.
Does this make pet AI suddenly acceptable? No, but understanding how the AI is currently functioning will allow you to utilize it more effectively for the time being. For instance, there is a period of about 1-2 seconds after swapping where your pet will instantly use its f2 if ordered because it literally has no other actions queued up. As an example, say you are running from a warrior and you know he is swapping to greatsword to charge you down, and your wolf is waiting to be swapped into play. You can swap and immediately hit f2, and your wolf will unleash a quickness enhanced (traits providing) howl that will send the warrior running away from you. If you miss this window, the pet’s movement will override the f2 function because it has not locked onto the warrior as a target yet. This particular part of pet AI can be a hindrance however, like in the case of birds (raven, eagle, etc), where they will use their f2 on nothing even if you are attacking a target, because they have not locked onto it yet and just think they’re supposed to attack the space in front of their current position.
Empathic Removal (Wilderness Survival Grandmaster) is probably one of our strongest traits; it’s actually one of the best Grandmaster traits in the game right now. I never leave home without it anymore.
How about the +3 might when using a cantrip or the 30% chance to cause burning on crit?
And condition duration increase is useful for more than just bleeding&burning you know…
You are getting the maximum benefit from conditions with a longer duration, and the ability to increase their duration is not limited to investing in a traitline. A scepter/dagger ele can stack 25 might without touching fire magic, and a dagger/dagger can get more than 10-12, so I don’t see why wasting time with might on cantrip could be seen as more beneficial than playing with a more universally effective line. Eles also have plenty of unconditional burning application, which stacks in duration, not intensity, making 30% chance to burn on crit a fairly useless trait, especially because it’s the weakest damage condition when it comes to numbers/side effects.
The fact is that there’s nothing the fire line can achieve that can’t be done more efficiently via equipment/other lines.
..After you leap away first. Would be logical to leap to the target, then leap away.
Why on earth would that make more sense? There is way too much strategic value in a mid-battle evade to reverse the chain effect. It’s the difference between a free evade and having to use two skills to do the same thing. Rangers have plenty of snaring/gap closing ability as it is anyway. What they need to do is give us a much longer window in which to use the second part of the chain, to increase that strategic value and play more mindgames with your opponents. They also need to slightly buff its damage and increase sword’s synchronization with pets. Most weapons don’t really have linked pet effects, which really add to the flavor of weapons.
Just don’t shift-right click; you wouldn’t want to do this on a weapon that attacks so quickly and follows your target anyway, regardless of the “root” that it applies. 1H sword is simply one of the best weapons rangers have.
More than 5 times in a half hour of playing is absolutely unacceptable. With the sheer number of people who are buying this game and purchasing additional services, there should be more attention to details like skill balancing and proper loading, and a little less on trying to put new content out when the old content is not properly functioning.
When you activate a signet, you gain the most useless aura in an elementalist’s arsenal. The only use this has is for triggering Zephyr’s Boon and Elemental shielding, which you can already do with most weapon sets fairly reliably. In fact, all weapon sets have access to at least 1 aura, with S/D being the only one limited to this number.
them being relatively short is all the more reason to make them longer. Turn that 3 sec immobilize into a more usable 3.6. gives me more time to do whatever. And add an extra second to my weakness duration. And so on. Elementalist applies so many varied conditions that condition duration is a great stat. And there’s no reason I can’t use that in addition to runes/sigils.
And again, there is only one major trait that has any possibility of being mediocre at all in this case, since the other one is core to your build
So. extra power? great! + extra condition duration? great! + trait I need? great! + trait that’s ok but not great = kittening my build? Ok. I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree
What trait do you “need” from fire magic on a condition build that is not out-performed by another traitline altogether when numbers are crunched? What trait do you “need” that is worth sacrificing your healing rotation to gain? The fact is that the elementalist’s weakest traits are in fire magic; the only redeeming factor for the line is the inherent stat increase, but any line gives you an inherent increase when you spec into it; it is the combination of stat increase and minor/major trait combinations that make a line viable for mid to top-tier play.
I also disagree with a lot of your points here. You’re underselling these other classes and bolstering the mesmer. If that’s your opinion, then fine. You find the mesmer OP. For anyone else…
Facing a Mesmer is a mind game and the fact that you can’t simply rely on your auto target to follow them throws many players off. Like when a thief stealths and you have to think about where it’s going to hit you from, you have to watch a mesmer in order to discover which is the real one. Unlike a thief, you can see the mesmer (for the majority of the fight at least :P) so you have an easier time figuring them out. A mesmer is only OP if you’re letting them mess with your head.
As for the viable builds, just no!. Like every class, our abilities need to have another look all the bugs. A condition-mancer is not the only build for a necromancer. It is a powerful build until you meet anything with mass condition removal but it’s not all the class has. A warrior does not have to be the 100blades/frenzy setup to succeed and a skilled warrior (probably best not to use this setup though) can do just as well against a larger group as a mesmer.
We are a class in which all 3 elites can be useful to different users, but other classes have good elites too. Thieves have dagger storm and thieves guild, engineers get supply drop (2 second stun is fantastic!), Necromancers have Plague Cloud and Lich Form…I think this makes my point.
Also, your later snipe at taking a guardian over a warrior for anything but burst? I normally run wvwvw with a Greatsword/shout warrior and I’d take him into an outnumbered fight over a bunker guardian any day. Not only will he terrify them by not using a frenzied 100 blades, he’ll be buffing me as I mess with their head.
The mesmer is not really being bolstered; it’s one of the most universally viable professions in the game right now.
Facing the mesmer is not simply a mindgame. Players who are experts at picking out the real mesmer still don’t have a really good chance when bugged phantasms are stacking 20+ confusion on a build that hardly shatters. Signet of Ilusions probably has the strongest passive of all signets in the game because illusions gain pretty much all of your stats except vitality, making them unrealistic targets, especially when you are facing a phantasm mesmer. Nevermind the fact that a mesmer stacking toughness/healing/precision condition damage can stack almost constant regeneration/protection through nothing but passive effects gained through traits via illusions that are not realistic targets during a fight if he has specced the right way.
High crit chance+toughness mesmers have such a ridiculous advantage over most professions that it’s really laughable, especially since illusions do not have a chance to bleed on crit when you invest in Dueling; they automatically bleed. There’s so much that mesmers have become accustomed to that any nerfs will send them into ragefits for weeks at a time.
There’s more to the mesmer that’s broken than this, but I figured you might want an example.
If you can not completely shut down and destroy a phantasm build mesmer you are simply not a good player in pvp.
Phantasms are summoned with easily seen “tell” animations and there are multiple ways, once a mesmer starts summoning a phantasm, to deny them that summon and put that skill on cooldown. If the mesmer does somehow manage to summon a phantasm, you can still dodge the phantasms attack as well.
In it’s current state, a phantasm mesmer build is one of the easiest builds in the game of any class to completely shut down.
The fact is that most mesmers are simply not good players; the profession doesn’t really encourage skillful play when half of the stuff is given to you. Those that have uncovered the truly powerful specs are not going to be easily denied, which leads me to believe that you just haven’t faced a really good player yet.
Not sure why anybody would hate on a Valkyrie amulet. Trait 20 into air while using it with a D/D build and perma fury with really nice heals+vigor on crit. Only thing you really have to watch out for is spike damage, but preemptive shock aura can stop that most of the time.
Not hate; I admitted a lack of understanding as to when it’s useful and asked. You’re helping me reconsider it. This forum has enough Ele hate; I’m glad this thread has been constructive.
If we could pick stats freely in sPvP, I’d think that even at 50% crit chance you’d still want more crit chance over crit damage especially if you include procs, but I haven’t done the math, . However, as I review the amulets out there, I see that Valkyrie is similar to Cleric’s, but with +284x2 moved from Healing Power to Power and Crit Damage. These are the only two choices that have power, toughness, and healing power and none of them add precision but Valkyrie does add crit damage. So… I now see that Valkyrie is a good choice if you want to focus less on healing and more on offense… It sure makes me wish there were more amulet stat combos, like Valkyrie’s with the Crit Damage changed to Precision.
Side question: what’s required to hit perma fury? 30 Arcana, +20% boons on runes, 20% air CD reduction?
The only thing I’m not using on your list is the runes; I use divinity. However, with two auras and additional fury on attunement swap; I pretty much almost always have fury up during a fight. By the time Shocking Aura has recharged, I’ve probably done a complete cycle through my elements, adding another 8-9 seconds of fury, and possibly activated Frost Aura. With 20 into Air and near-constant if not perma fury, your crit chance is effectively more than 40% while in combat.
The power and the condition duration. Condition duration is kind of awesome.
12 seconds of burning off of Drake’s Breath is plenty for me.
If all it did was give you an extra tick of burning, indeed it wouldn’t be that awesome, but condition duration also affects chill, immobilize, cripple, etc.
The only other condition that it will significantly improve is bleeding, since the others have such a short duration that a decent investment into fire magic will not be worth it, given the mediocre major traits. Somebody who really wants conditions to last longer without kittening their build should invest in runes/sigils.
Not sure why anybody would hate on a Valkyrie amulet. Trait 20 into air while using it with a D/D build and perma fury with really nice heals+vigor on crit. Only thing you really have to watch out for is spike damage, but preemptive shock aura can stop that most of the time.
I guess I was lucky because I’ve been playing d/d since beta, so I can still stack a reasonable amount of might even without evasive. I still use it for the conditions/extra heal though, but I’ve definitely changed up my approach a bit.
When fighting an opposing player 1v1 in the center of Legacy of the Foefire, attacks that bounce (at least Ricochet does this) will launch off of players to hit what appears to be the little symbol that floats above the cap point. This will only happen if the point belongs to the opposing team.
I am unsure if this happens at all cap points, but I know that it doesn’t work on the Kyhlo map; ironically the bounce effect attempts to hit something unseen and fails.
I dunno why everybody hates on 30 BM builds. I run mine with a lot of success. It does take a bit of work with the current state of pet AI, but it’s definitely got potential.
Evasive arcana definitely turned into a unique playstyle, but completely removing blast finishers was not the solution. When you make the requirement for the finisher the same as the actual spell effects, you get multiple drawbacks that an ele has to take into account before utilizing the finisher, while still giving him/her a very clear choice based on these drawbacks. The ele can sacrifice an attunement swap and endurance to get multiple finishers, or he can use only one, just sacrificing endurance. As it currently is, the only way you can get a blast finisher within the staff set off of multiple skills is by starting with eruption first; EA gave us different attunement cycling options for comboing with ourselves. We assumed this was a reward for unlocking the grandmaster level of Arcana, but apparently not.
I understand they only have two people working on these changes, but it honestly wouldn’t hurt them to actually check with the community for constructive feedback rather than treating these balancing changes as “spoilers.”
For the most part, I think “on dodge” trait effects should be completely reworked. They should reward successful evasion instead of just using up endurance, and have their successful evasion effects buffed.
Arcana is inherently flawed because it’s required for us to be viable at a top-tier level.
Rather than affecting our elemental recharges, which should have a set rate (I would say around 9-10 seconds), Arcana could instead affect how strong our unique elemental boons are. A person who traits into Arcana might find more viability with staying in one element longer than 2-3 seconds because the passives from each element are stronger due to his investment.
This is just an example, but Arcana is not acceptable as is.
There is a serious disconnect between Anet and the professions they’ve created. Please for instance, explain how longbow is viable? Anybody? Is its damage comparable to anybody without making yourself a subpar glass cannon? Does it have debilitating conditions? Reliable snares? Are its recharges balanced accordingly to make these skills viable?
The answer to all of these questions is no. It doesn’t even have enough synchronization with utilities, pets or elites to make it semi-viable. The best excuse it has is for stacking might with rampage as one.
If there is something I am obviously missing, Jon, please tell me. If there is some kind of rebuttal to the community’s complaints that NOBODY has thought of yet, please shine some light on it so that we may realize the viability of our profession. I’m not even being sarcastic; I really want a reason to have more faith in the ranger’s progress so far, and to come.
You guys are all a bunch of whiners. I play ranger as my main and yes I was hoping for the changes we all were hoping for too. But you all are acting like a bunch of babies.
They probably didn’t have enough time to properly test the changes so they were left out of the build. It isn’t lack of listening on their part.
I mean, pre-launch Rangers were pretty nice then like a week before they broke them. They have had 2 1/2 months.
Maybe they should consider what other companies do. Open up a public test server and also allow the player base to test out changes. That’s the one and only way to get real test out of changes.
What they should do is let the players who are better at this game than they are make the balancing changes.
Correct duration my foot. They also nerfed Tornado even more. Armor of Earth didn’t even get a slight decrease in recharge to compensate for it being one of our only sources of stability.
“One problem with rangers is the lack of build diversity created by a number of sub par utility skills.”
Only spirits got a buff, and a minor one at that.
“Many signets, a shout or two..”
Nothing happened.
“Second is trying to improve the feel/ pacing on some weapons.”
One skill on GS, one skill on WH, one skill on torch. The rest was for underwater where we did not need it. There are so few combo fields underwater that the update barely did anything to them anyway.
We have been more than patient; this didn’t help us at all. I have a feeling Lost Shores took up more time than anything else, which is unfortunate.
Those 16K hitting warriors are the ones I am constantly scraping off the sidewalk and piecing back together. Role I’ve picked up for WvW, buffing the team and scraping dumb kitten GCs. People are only as useful as people allow their builds to be. Currently (And I mean CURRENTLY) our spike build doesn’t compete, smart thing to do would be to switch to something that does. Not march it onto the field of battle over and over and over and fricken over to get plastered. You have to adapt to overcome.
Like I said, if ANET really wants people to stop OMGing over numbers, support needs to be rewarded more in the magical gauge of how much people contribute to pvp and events.
Hit somebody 3-5 times while they are downed? 5 points, sometimes 10 skirmisher points if you are lucky. Hold three people at their own Lord base for five minutes while your team caps everything? The only points you get are possibly for kills, which is unlikely if you are holding them and trying to survive.
I faced a GS ranger the other day with S/D; it was pretty amusing to eat up his 4 block with Sword 2, fly back before he could kick me, then fly back in for a cripple.
Backstab isn’t fine. Neither is stealth. Both skills need to be nerfed to the ground.
What profession you play?
Elem
Scepter/Dagger, Dagger/Dagger has just as much burst, if not more than a backstab thief. If you are roaming around with a staff, your own fault. The fact you can’t see them is the issue, there damage is ON PAR with other classes burst specs.
D/D: Ride the Lightning->Updraft->Burning Speed
S/D: Dragon tooth->Phoenix->Fire Grab. 3 Moves, just as there combo, will do the same if not more damage, only difference is you’re visable. Thus stealth is the kitten puppy hampster chupacabra issue!
You’re completely and utterly clueless. If I go burst spec I’ll be dead before I can hit mist form if a thief attacks me. My only option is to go full bunker if I want to be able to compete against a thief.
Hybrid eles work relatively well. I run a berserker amulet with Water/Arcana and an Earth trait and I do really well against thieves, but that’s come more with practice. Protection on aura usage and constant vigor certainly help.
Turn Tornado into a targeted ground effect that lasts for 10 seconds, does a lot of damage, destroys projectiles, blows people away, and grants swiftness+fury per pulse.
I played mesmer for 10 minutes in SPvP and facerolled everybody in my path. There is not a large amount of skill required for the profession to be strong with certain setups.
