S/D is my favorite set on my ranger right now. I have people asking me what I’m running all the time in SPvP.
Once you stack might your air attunement will tear people up when using scepter, but until then you have to updraft into tooth and phoenix to get considerable damage.
I’m going to have to disagree with you here as well Wildclaw; he should be learning to avoid damage instead of attempting to absorb it. Water/Arcana lines have been serving me more than well enough
…
I suggested that he place points in Fire and Earth for Power and Condition Damage early on to absolutely maximize his damage while relying on avoidance to survive. (he also gets Toughness as a nice bonus)
You are the one recommending Water/Arcana that is pretty much only for survivability.
I’m going to disagree, 10 points in arcane is a HUGE boost for new eles, for elemntal attunements, this provides eles with consistent protection and regens through the test of their leveling experience.
Elemental Attunement is great, but it simply isn’t worth giving up Power+Condition Damage early on. The breakpoint is probably around level 35, especially if you get some rare gear at that level.
^this. Your first 10 points, for ANY elementalist, should be in arcane to get Elemental Attunement.
And by doing so you are giving up the massive damage boost that you would have gotten from going Fire. 100 points of stats is a massive boost early on.
You don’t want to waste early trait points on stuff like boon duration, attunement recharge or crit damage that doesn’t scale up in power as you go down the levels.
He can stack plenty of damage with the right equipment, but equipment does not generate the survivability you want until much later in the game. The boons/element recharge he will get early on the game are more than invaluable, and the fact is that attunement swapping helps you avoid more damage by having better access to the many mobility/control skills you have. Water magic will help him absorb the damage he’s taking if he’s unable to avoid it because vitality pays off more than toughness when it comes to damage absorption for eles.
Yes you can swap faster. Wont help you much when it does not decrease recharge on skill cool downs. Swapping back to water, for example, is nice for the regen and such, but when all your heal skills are still on CD it will be of little use. Individual attunement bonuses remain on swap (precision, crit damage, etc.) so that is independant of that and other than that, the traits you spec for make much more of a difference than the ability to rapid fire swap. The Auramancer/Sigil setup in particular has little need for Arcana or low cd on attunement swaps. I think if you build for Sigil or Glyph or Cantrips then your need to a 6s swap while nice, is really minimal in truth. I get by just find and dandy with a 15s CD and my skill CD’s seem to synergize with it a bit better anyway.
Not saying in any way that Arcana builds are not really nice, because indeed they are (I have tried and tested BOTH quite extensively), but there are many other builds where attunement swapping is really not that big of a deal, and the bonuses from speccing high in Arcana are really not necessary nor even needed to achieve better performance overall.
When you are removing two conditions, applying regeneration, and healing for almost 4k on water attunement+dodge with a signet as your heal skill, arcana shines more than any other traitline but the water itself. Extending your boon duration by 30% with a minor trait that gives +2% damage per boon? Stacking might and various other boons just on attunement swap? You are vastly underestimating the staying power/dot that an arcana specced ele is capable of. The unfortunate thing is that there are very few other builds that are viable in high-level pvp, but arcana is easily our best and most versatile traitline right now.
You can probably get away with a low/no arcana spec against mediocre players, but the healing rotation generated from a signet passive with high arcana/water is invaluable to an ele that wants to be able to be as multifaceted as possible; ie damage, support, mobility and control. I can take on 2-3 people without even activating my healing signet because the passive is so strong with the number of skills i’m activating per minute/high water magic.
From a mechanics perspective, it’s just superior. Can you kill 2-3 people with high self-healing, mass condition removal and a more than respectable critical damage rate without a good spec into arcana/water? I’d like to see this.
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You only need to be successful for the main part of your spike. Having damage utilities leaves you in a worse position if your spike fails than if you have evasive and escape utilities. The damage sacrifice is not that bad if you have a slightly different major trait setup. The large bulk of your damage is still there and is more than enough to make somebody blow their stun break.
After that, you can simply switch to shortbow. You will still do decent damage with it.
You don’t even need to consume your bar with damage utilities. The backstab combo does absurd damage with just basilisk venom+the right traits. The problem with haste is that endurance regeneration is not required in the least for a thief to exit combat almost as quickly as he/she enters it.
Let’s put it this way. You trigger basilisk venom and haste as you begin the combo, but for some reason your spike fails. The target was expecting it and popped protection, a stunbreaker, stunned you, whatever. You need to get out? Roll for initiative and/or shadowstep, then swap to shortbow and hit 5. Either of those utilities will remove a stun, and get you out of their range even if you are immobilized, and SB5 is so strong for combat exiting that it should be consuming a utility slot just for existing on your bar.
^Lynx has an advantage in that it stacks multiple bleeds on two different attacks on its skillset; when they fix pet condition damage increases it will definitely be more than formidable. Raven f2 hits harder for immediate damage atm. Crits for 2.8k twice on medium armor golem while lynx crits for 1.4k twice and hits with 4 bleed stacks.
Edit: I’m pretty sure I just saw my raven crit for 3.6k twice on medium armor golem with its f2 with signet of the wild active. Will have to try again.
Edit#2: Yup. It crit for 3.6k twice with signet of the wild on medium armor and 3.4k on heavy armor.
(edited by Leuca.5732)
Feline pets with 30 BM can hit on their most powerful skills for more than 4k before increase in critical damage or signet buffs. I just watched my jaguar hit a medium armor test golem with a 2 hit attack that did 1.3k and 3.2k with each respective damage packet.
Edit: Pet just crit for 3k+packet of more than 1k on heavy armor with only 5 stacks of vulnerability from opening strikes.
Edit #2: Lynx crit for 2.8k on f2 then about 4k, and also stacked a ton of bleeding in a short time.
(edited by Moderator)
I’m going to have to disagree with you here as well Wildclaw; he should be learning to avoid damage instead of attempting to absorb it. Water/Arcana lines have been serving me more than well enough since I started my ele, and she’s now almost level 50. Sigil of battle is more than enough might, adding your self combos only makes you stronger. Getting that fury from 5 in arcana asap is extremely beneficial to your damage, since you can simply attunement swap before a big hit to increase your crit chance even at a low level.
With d/d you can afford to be brave if you are watching the field and dodging appropriately.
Earth 5 with a lightning flash before the end into a mob, followed by earth 4 and 3. Swap to air and 4-3-5, before swapping to fire and 3-4-5-2; get as many fire spells off as you safely can before swapping to water, hitting 3-4 and dodging away from the mob. With this combo you have applied many stacks of bleed, knocked them down twice, applied stacks of burning and finished with big damage+a chill to keep them from attacking you as you retreat. Putting 10 into Water magic and having your cantrips give you regeneration/vigor will assist your dodging immensely; the duration of the boons per cantrip is generous even without boon increases.
On staff I like to open with 3, quickly followed by 4 just in front of the mob, then swap to fire for 2-5-3. Make sure your meteor shower allows for the forward movement your enemies will take, though a preemptive earth 4 will have them crippled. You can swap to water and hit 2 and 4 for extra damage/snaring as well. You can also put Air 5 in the middle of your meteor shower for stuns, since it’s effectively a snare in this situation. Eventually these combinations will become instinctive and you will switch up your usage as appropriate.
As a quick FYI, I highly recommend a sigil of energy on a staff elementalist; you will need the extra evasion and your combos will up your power more than enough to excuse not bringing a sigil of battle.
Fire/Air lines need help. Don’t even get me started on when I invested in the Grounded GM trait and didn’t get any increase off of Updraft.
Earth comes in second place to Water/Arcana lines. It’s decent, but needs a bit of help as well.
There is a lack of complexity to individual skills that makes an individual element useless if you use it exclusively for more than 5-6 seconds in a fight. The cooldowns also leave you at a ridiculous disadvantage that no other professions suffer from when they do not swap.
There is also a lack of synergy between skills on some weapon sets/specific elements within those sets. Quite a few of our utilities are also lackluster, and even though our cantrips are quite good compared to the rest of our utility skills, they pale in comparison to the best utilities on stronger professions.
new to the game lvl 24 elementalist..how to use my skill points
in Elementalist
Posted by: Leuca.5732
If you are using d/d and staff you do not need to invest in fire magic. You can get plenty of power by using combo fields and putting a sigil of battle on one of your daggers. Water and arcana are your best friends early on; once you get 15 in water your attunement cycling will become an important part of your healing rotation. Even at level 20 you can put 10 into water for a free condition removal on attunement, or get regeneration/vigor whenever you use a cantrip, which happen to be some of your strongest utilities, even the first tier ones.
You should not be worrying about toughness; get used to avoiding damage and you won’t even need it. There are some encounters that will require staff usage no matter how much toughness you have, so you should also get used to analyzing enemies before you go in.
TL;DR- Water and arcana are superior lines everywhere in the game right now. Make up for power with sigils and combos with yourself.
Aigoo – R36 – Elementalist S/D – Tournament – PvP Gameplay Video
in Elementalist
Posted by: Leuca.5732
I actually have tested this with another player. We actually tried on each other to make sure we were not lagging.
Aigoo – R36 – Elementalist S/D – Tournament – PvP Gameplay Video
in Elementalist
Posted by: Leuca.5732
No, it’s definitely avoidable after updraft; you can test this by using it on the running golem tester in heart of the mists. It will begin running the moment before tooth lands. You must be facing people who do not know this, are out of endurance, or both.
(edited by Leuca.5732)
Aigoo – R36 – Elementalist S/D – Tournament – PvP Gameplay Video
in Elementalist
Posted by: Leuca.5732
Why do scepter eles get away with so much Tooth/Phoenix off of updraft when it is possible to dodge out of the combo? Not to mention it’s so easy to see it coming.. You didn’t even use immobilize on them.
lightning field gives a stun on leap attacks.
ele has at least 3 leaps.
And two of them are linked to conjures. The third, earth 3, is unreliable at best because of its slow projectile requiring a hit to even get the leap finish.
On another note, I love casting earth 2 into air 5 with air 4 and getting mass aoe swiftness at the beginning of a pvp match; it really helps my team get to points quickly and often lasts into their first fights.
Besides the 10% speed boost being worthless I think the other signets are fine. Granted spirits suck and shouts suck.
Warrior’s elite signet has a 60 second CD and has superior function without a stupid maxed out traitline requirement. How is that fine?
Thieves are given the same amount of utilities as any classes. There are different sets of utilities that only fit the gamestyle of different types of thieves. This runs in all professions as well.
Quickness is balance. A ranger cannot heal but he’s in a safe distance with his skills ready to go and his pet with him. A warrior takes double the damage but he naturally has more HP and wears heavy armor. This never ending argument of why thieves will forever be OP always connects to the fact that thieves can teleport and stealth.
Regarding underwater battles, thieves are okay. Not underpowered but certainly not overpowered. #5 skills will always use up 5 initiatives (which is A lot). The playing field becomes even and they lose a lot of mobility along with their Burst damage. If you wanna bash underwater fighting, i recommend the mesmer section.
And you’re wrong, a dodge thief is much better and gets my respect any day. I would know because I’m one of them. Every thief has their own preference of survivability. Stealth is an introduction to thieves and is considered ez mode in my book (in terms of survivability). Teleportation and dodge gameplay is much more rewarding and displays more skills, knowledge, and quick thinking.
I’m not talking about the number of individual utilities. In GW1, we had a commonly used term among PvPers called bar compression. This referred to how many different functions you could pack into a single 8-skill bar. Can you succeed at two things with one skill instead of taking two individual ones for the same purpose? There are some thief utilities that are absolute garbage, but their good ones are so good that it puts the other professions to shame.
Let’s break it down (I will be considering heal skills utilities in this case):
Hide in Shadows- Heals, places regen, removes all degen conditions, stealths (allowing you to backstab again off of your heal if you move correctly), can be traited to give initiative from two traits.
Withdraw- Evades (a very considerable distance) without using endurance, removes all snaring conditions (without a trait) which ensures full evade distance, heals, can be traited to restore initiative.
Roll for Initiative- Stunbreaks, evades like Withdraw, restores initiative, removes all snaring conditions (without a trait) which ensures that your evade will give its full distance.
Shadow Step: Has all the offensive/defensive properties of a single use teleport, but has a return function with a very long timer in between compared to other chained movement skills, stunbreaks on both parts of the chain, removes 3 unspecified conditions, superior range to other teleports without being traited.
Haste: Removes endurance and stops it from regenerating, but you don’t need that in the slightest if you are using the rest of your utilities properly and need to exit the fight. Chances are you’ve done so much damage that your target (assuming you can play properly) is not as concerned with spiking you down as they are with staying alive for the next few seconds. I almost forgot this also stunbreaks. A warrior’s quickness also stunbreaks, but engineers and rangers do not on their quickness skills. I do however think that they need to fix the endurance bug that exists right now; putting any profession into negative endurance is not ok. However, this really doesn’t seem to hurt the good thieves when they want to get out of a fight, and it’s not something I hear people complaining about a lot anyway. A person who uses their dodges well is clearly a superior player, but this doesn’t detract from the aforementioned point; a thief needs their dodges less than any other profession if he wants to escape combat/avoid damage.
Caltrops- I say FU if you are standing on my cap point and do not have a plethora of condition removal or regeneration on your build. I also spam Death Blossom to annoy the crap out of you. (I honestly think a 10-12 second duration would be fine)
Assassin’s Signet- Do I keep it passive for power… or activate it for more power? Decisions.. decisions…
Signet of Shadows- wat is swifness (swap this in in-between battles to say FU to even needing a particular boon)
I don’t want thieves to not have movement, or to not be able to get away, or hide, or heal, or remove conditions, or do damage. But why compacting all these functions into a few superior skills makes sense is beyond me. I have a problem with the fact that these utilities are just so good that they leave the others in the dust. I have a problem with the fact that they leave other professions’ utilities in the dust. I have a problem with the fact that these same utilities are pretty much going to be superior no matter what build you are using; you are probably going to use a utility set that is composed mostly of these.
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Water is a pretty solid attunement underwater, but the other elements just lack any oomph. If Water 5 got a slight increase in damage, and it healing applied to you as well, I think that would wrap up one element and free the way to improve the others. None of the auto attacks are on par with the other professions for damage except maybe Air 1, which requires you to get ridiculously close on a ranged weapon. Fire 1’s speed and explosion delay make it useless; if the aoe was improved considerably (and I mean like 600m sphere areas), I could maybe excuse its other pathetic qualities. Fire 2 looks great on paper, but again, has a very small hit range for its damage. Fire 3? Garbage; mesmers have a superior skill underwater. Fire 4 is alright, but again, has no damage for the CD cost. Fire 5 is only good for the self-vigor and possibly burning a melee-range foe.
I’m not even going to go into the other elements. It’s just ridiculous that I can burn half my CD and do almost nothing as a net result and a warrior can spin around, home in on me and wreck my health bar if I don’t pop mist form, because even dodging doesn’t avoid the majority of the hits.
If a coordinated team is using immobilizes timed with the use of Dragon’s Tooth and Phoenix, I can see why the scepter would be preferred in higher level pvp, however, I don’t see the big threat from a weapon whose highest damage is easily avoidable aoe, since neither OH dagger or focus have the CC required to make those skills land, forcing the ele to burn valuable cantrip/spike slots on Signet of Earth, etc.
I recently saw a very interesting dagger/focus auramancer bunker. He/she didn’t really do that much damage, but held up to a large, uncoordinated barrage of attacks from 2-3 people fairly well.
You are probably better off running a condition build with S/F, since this can tie into your defense fairly well. Earth 1 provides a nice amount of bleeding if you can sit in the element, and the flame shield will add some dps against melee attackers. I fought a S/F bunker ele once though on my ranger, and the ele didn’t do enough damage for me to worry about using my heal skill for more than 2 minutes of fighting. My passives just ate up his damage.
Some mesmer builds have no learning curve to operate at a relatively functional level. Maybe coming from somebody who plays ele a lot, but I find the mesmer extremely easy to operate. I mean, all that operative ability on 1-2 weapon sets with nothing else but f1-f4 to worry about is just a breeze.
There is also a difference between being tricky/controlling and being tricky/controlling with loliblowupurface damage along with it.
I never said I was getting owned by anybody Babel. I’ve gotten fairly proficient with my favored professions and do not die very easily. I do not expect thieves to stand still while I hit them, and I do not want them nerfed into oblivion, but a thief getting through 5 CCs in a row and then spamming 5 til I leave the point because all my CC is on CD when fighting at ruins is not a L2P issue. I don’t have this problem always, but when you can have that much damage without sacrificing your utility and mobility, I see a slight problem. I don’t mind having to get creative or improvise; there’s something satisfying about landing a magnetic grasp on a thief in a shadow refuge, since I know he’s probably going to be stuck there for me to blow up, but there are a few specs/abilities that just put a big middle finger up to every profession in the game.
One of my biggest problems with the thief is that there are a few weapon sets that aren’t even viable because the d/d shortbow is just superior in damage/mobility and utility.
I really don’t think we need to remove their ability to escape combat when they are cannons, but their utility slots do not really punish them at all for speccing this way. Other professions cannot say the same thing by a long shot. I suppose this might be the hallmark of a thief.
Artemis: Actually, the thief had shadow step active when he was hit with immobilize; he returned to location, breaking it; and swapped to shortbow to turn to face me and the warrior I was teamed with. I shot magnetic grasp, hit him just after he used disabling shot, which immobilized him again. He used what I think was roll for initiative because it did not have any blue animation. I then activated signet of earth, which he did not remove persay but proceeded to shoot up to a ledge. Immobilize wore off and he was gone with another shot. So he removed two immobilizes and rendered the third wasted. Is the ability to remove that much snaring uncommon? Not necessarily, but compressing that much utility into a certain skill/set seems unnecessary at times. If other professions were brought up to par with thief, and the thief had its less useful weapons brought up as well, I would have less problem; but buffing everything that isn’t as comparatively good just leads to power creep, which was a huge problem in GW1 that I’d rather not see repeated.
Even with the signets the build doesn’t have quite enough damage to instantly kill anybody, but the removal of signets doesn’t sacrifice enough damage to warrant taking them if you really know what you’re doing; the base damage is already high enough; you are already plenty of a threat, in fact probably more so because you keep your mobility, allowing you to get out of melee range where you are weakest defensively. Not to mention that you can get 2-3+stacks of might without the signet/signet trait while you are spiking through other traits.
You make it sound like one stunbreaker=win game. The initial spike is the strongest, yes, but this does not remove the capability of the profession, and your stunbreaker won’t make much of a difference if it does not involve movement or you are not immediately following with burst/disabling of your own in the following half-second.
I will agree that most burst thieves are very easy to counter, but the ones who aren’t take advantage of the class’ insane movement. I can follow them only so much, and immobilize is not always on hand. The ability to do that much damage and then be gone if your goal is not met is very strong, and if the thief comes in while you are fighting somebody else, or he pops into a brawl for 2 seconds to backstab then pops out, he’s done a lot while not exposing himself to a lot of danger.
I don’t want the thief spike to stop being viable, but it needs to take more effort to do it than hitting 3-4 keys. I’ve tried thief enough to see the lack of a huge difference when utilities are consumed by venoms, etc.
Babel: Proper rendering does not really help you defend from the thief, it helps you chase him after you beat him down. The spike everybody runs is so fast that thieves will only have to adjust their tactics slightly when on the offensive, assuming rendering is fixed.
AoE does not fix halfway across the map.
In this game, mobility is survivability, unless you are a guardian/bunker ele.
The fact that you said you use it to stack might before you said you use it to dodge doesn’t really help your argument. A thief does not need dodge to exit a battle with relative ease. I can hit a thief with 3 different immobilizes, and he can remove them all while moving great distances at the same time. This is not a L2P issue; I beat most of the thieves I face in S/TPvP; this has only come with practice, especially when my main is quite fragile when caught off guard (non-bunker ele) but it takes an immense amount of effort against the good ones and an unnecessary amount of effort against the bad ones. There are those who I cannot kill simply because they’ve gotten so accustomed to their skills that hardly anybody can touch them unless they are spiked by multiple people. I’ll get some good damage in, but they’ll leave if they know they’re gonna die and I can’t afford to blow all my CD catching them.
I can put up an ice wall to chill a thief, smack him with a float, a stun, a sink, and a cripple, and he will still get to ruins before i can cap it if he’s got the right setup. Heaven forbid I’m trying to backcap it from him, because then I’m definitely screwed. You also can’t “tactics” somebody when the only tactic you have is to keep him from getting to the point to begin with and he’s already there.
Panacea: A thief can launch a super powerful spike while using his utilities for mobility/escape. If you haven’t seen/realized that, then I don’t know why you’re even in a thief forum. As for your second point, see above. It’s just icing on the really big cake when you happen to be running s/p.
One utility for a quickness that barely hinders your ability to escape when that is what its drawback was supposed to limit. You have two utilities left to get out of combat and that is more than enough for a skilled thief.
Thieves don’t have everything; but they’re closer than most professions to it.
(edited by Leuca.5732)
Bladie: No profession packs as much utility into their utilities as a thief does. When the skills you are using because of their extremely powerful mobility (without even consuming endurance, you can move around the battle field and outmaneuver anybody 1v1) also remove high numbers of the conditions that most hinder your performance, when you would probably be fine without it, there is something wrong.
Your quickness is not balanced because the side effect puts very little risk factor into your playstyle. A ranger cannot heal; a warrior takes double damage. These are much greater risk factors than losing your endurance when you don’t even need it to escape a battle/evade most damage. If they fixed your damage, that would at least make up for the bulk of it, but the thief population won’t stand for not having insane burst with mobility/survivability at the same time.
Underwater? Nobody is going to attack a thief underwater if they have any common sense. Using targeted sinks eats up time you could spend doing damage, which makes you lose either way. The #5 skill doesn’t consume enough initiative for the thief to use it sparingly. I have watched a full cannon thief avoid all damage for 15+ seconds while attacking things outside of melee range the entire time, just by spamming shadow assault. The difference is when you have somebody assisting you (assuming one of you has multiple sinking skills), or he finally runs out of initiative, but you’ll be pressed to finish him on your own.
The thing about thief dodges is that if you need them, you’re doing it wrong.
All I can say is that my third time playing a mesmer in PvP, I made my own “cannon” build with a GS, and proceeded to decimate people; often in 2v1. The burst is stupid high; and half of the time people can’t lock on to you because you’re removing target or not in LoS. I killed a siege without having to even look at the person who was trying to defend it by using GS4 and crapping out dodge clones. It was extremely easy work; even if not quite as fast as a staff ele raining MS down. I actually felt a little bad; the poor guy had no idea I was just sitting in a corner spamming some stupid crap. I almost killed him in the process I think, what with the AoE from GS4 and shatters.
I agree with you about earth fields, and I think that some more of the elementalist’s fields could use some improvement. Fire dagger 4 should pulse small damage or burning within its circle. We could stand in this case to make the circle just slightly smaller. If not that, then make it apply burning on cast as well. Fix water staff 5 to proper duration. Air staff 5 should stun whenever you run into its border, not just the first time.
That said, this is just a small part of the improvements ele could use.
They will FIX this rendering issue and all you exploiters will QQ like little school girls yet it will not be a nerf but a much needed FIX.
I think if they fix that rendering issue Thieves will be fine
Thieves also probably have the best set of utilities in the game, so no cigar unless the other professions are brought up the same level.
Fix post-stealth rendering, and make stealth end on attempted targeted skill, not landed. After that I could care less what they do to stealth in its current form. There’s no punishment for a bad thief that completely misses his backstab because I timed my dodge well; he’s still in stealth and can try again
I really don’t think thieves need a nerf again. They’re pretty balanced as is.
What is balanced about thieves right now? Let’s talk about the backstab meta. The risk factor for this build, if you play it right, is extremely slim. Spike didn’t finish him off and you think you’re gonna die? Halfway across the pvp map in 3 seconds. Nevermind the fact that 2 of 3 thief heals remove conditions, multiple utilities remove multiple conditions; you even have a weapon skill on a different weapon set that has condition removal. Add all of that mobility and utility to your shortbow?
Even your quickness is broken. The only thing thieves use dodge for is to spread caltrops repeatedly. They don’t need endurance to get out of a battle.
Oh, I forgot that you can hit 5555555555555555 underwater to free cap ruins as a glass cannon, because there is no window in between attacks for anybody to land anything besides a targeted sink/float skill.
The thief population’s idea of balance is what’s keeping this game broken.
(edited by Leuca.5732)
I want it to be the same cast time as Call of the Wild, and not go on full recharge if interrupted, because it does nothing but the animation if you cancel as it is.
For PvE, I prefer to enter combat (while using staff) attuned to Earth. I use 2, 4, swap to fire, 2, 5 (they will be crippled, letting MS hit for some damage), 3, 4 to leap back without wasting dodge and placing another fire field, then water for 4 and 2, then to air for 5 and 4 for speed to help me kite.
I recommend a sigil of energy while on staff for extra lulzy amounts of dodging into your own fields once you get Evasive Arcana.
The secret to guardians is to NOT charge them head on. They will beat you everytime if you do not learn to recognize their combos and avoid their damage. Make sure you are paying attention to when they have stability and when they don’t, and they really just become fair game that takes longer to kill, since their main heal skills have long recharges. You should really be avoiding a head on fight with anything that has substantial amounts of stability, though I’ve been considering bringing the boon removing sigil on one of my daggers.
The people who are really into ele do not think it is an inherently terrible profession. Rather, we are irritated that the amount of effort we put into our gameplay doesn’t pay off the way it does with other professions. The amount of technicality that goes into playing an elementalist far outclasses everybody else. We are irritated that two out of our five traitlines are close to useless, since your survivability will be garbage if you try to specialize in them, being that the elementalist has pretty much the lowest base defense/vitality in the game, yet doesn’t have the sheer power to even get close to making up for it.
The fact that many of our skills and traits malfunction only makes us more frustrated that we are forced into certain builds, of which there are not many. Your build (judging just by traits) is really not that far from an optimal setup in the current ele iteration, but I’m assuming (based on your post) that this had more to do with what you happened to be aiming for with your build, and not with noticing what’s wrong with elementalist traitlines.
IMO churning earth should just be instant cast. the 3 second cast time just feels wrong.
I would argue a 1.5 second cast. It does not need to be isntant, but it needs to be fluid in combat.
The problem is the fact that when you are in combat and hitting a target with swords auto attack you cant strafe around to flank, or move to dodge attacks you have to wait till the animations are over. That is the problem with 1h sword.
Then I would propose having movement commands cancel animation, while lack of movement input allows the skill to operate as is.
I don’t really understand how the different professions ended up being so vastly different in quality. The one profession has really powerful synergetic traits, utilities and weapon skills, while another profession doesn’t have a single remotely viable weapon or build. The one profession does massive damage with high survivability, while another profession doesn’t even do enough to level solo, with very low survivability on top.
Were different professions designed by different people, without any kind of interaction or teamwork between them to line up the professions with eachother?
I also think that a dueling option will go a long way to help reveal balance issues, on top of offering a lot of fun gameplay. Right now it’s impossible to fight one vs one, outside of the odd wvw encounter. Dueling is just fun, I don’t understand why they didn’t implement this pretty much mandatory mmo option. It is much easier to practice your pvp skill then, where as now you usually just end up dying in a zerg without knowing what hit you.
They wanted to make pvp based on skill rather than gear, but then didn’t implement one of the most important pvp options, where skill matters the most. I don’t think the fear of balance issues being revealed should be a reason to deny players fun with dueling, the issues will get revealed sooner or later anyway.
Jon Peters has stated that dueling will eventually be implemented. It just wasn’t upon release.
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All these people QQing about the 1-handed sword’s #1 need to stop relying on it with shift right-click. It honestly makes me think that the only weapon you guys play is shortbow. The way it affects your character’s movement is critical to snaring moving targets, which was clearly an intention when they gave the second part of the chain a semi-leap and a cripple. It needs to have a slight increase in damage to make up for the fact that melee rangers take an inherent risk by being that close, being that they lack heavy armor.
On to other things rangers (in my opinion) need:
1)As gimmicky as it is, the shortbow needs at least a partial revert.
2)On dagger: Stalker’s Strike needs a slight initial damage increase; Crippling Talon needs improved targeting or responsiveness to increase its usage against distanced fleeing targets.
3)Greatsword needs a damage buff. No decent player has any reason to fear a GS ranger.
4)Warhorn #4 needs to have its skill canceling improved. You can cancel after doing no damage and it will go on full recharge just because a stupid bird appeared. Either that or speed up its activation to make it more fluid in combat.
5)We all can agree that Longbow is beyond subpar in SPvP and TPvP. It needs a rework desperately.
6)MH Axe could use auto attack damage increase, and OH needs a complete overhaul as it’s useless the way it is currently.
7)Signet actives need to inherently affect both the ranger and their pet (sans Renewal), have their recharges reduced slightly, and not be so extreme when activated. Signet of Renewal needs to draw all conditions from you regardless of range (or have that range increased), and then have your pet draw conditions from nearby allies. Signet of the Hunt should affect more than one attack and have the damage increase toned down. Signet of Stone should apply protection and stability, not make you immune to damage. In response, Signet of Renewal should have something that better suits its name, instead of increasing damage and granting stability. A regeneration/vigor buff would be a start.
8)Shouts need improved base function and responsiveness. Protect Me should teleport your pet to you if it is going to require your pet to be at a certain range. If pets are not going to receive a defensive improvement in the future, it also needs to apply protection to one or both of you, to mitigate your pet dying so easily. Guard needs a complete rework; it is absolute garbage with the current pet AI status. Search and Rescue needs to be an instant res when your pet reaches its target, or it has no use since your pet cannot preemptively go to a target that is about to be downed. Sick Em should keep the damage increase, but apply swiftness and/or fury as well.
9)Survival skills, especially Sharpening Stone and Lightning Reflexes, need a slight improvement. There is also the option of making the Wilderness Knowledge trait improve functionality. SS just lacks the ability to put out damage, and doesn’t warrant a valuable utility slot, and Reflexes does not remove any conditions, not even the snaring ones, making you blow two stun breakers if you need to escape a spike while immobilized, crippled or chilled. Muddy Terrain needs to have its ongoing effect improved to reward the ranger using it for good positioning, or have its area increased.
10)Spirits should not die so easily. That’s a simple enough task.
11)Frost trap should have an initial damage packet.
12)There’s a lot of traits that need improvement
13) Aside from Pet AI fixes, there needs to be an improvement on how your own stat increases transfer to them. For example, pets that have any sort of healing/regeneration ability do not receive any healing power increase from the BM traitline or your own healing power increases via traits/equipment.
I could go on about traits, underwater combat, etc. Basically there’s a ton that needs improvement if we are to have more than 2-3 viable builds.
Sword auto attack needs a slight damage increase; removing the positioning aspect would ruin its ability to snare running targets, which is exceedingly useful in almost any situation. The chain for #2 needs to give you more time before the timer expires, to give it actual tactical usage rather than just assuming you want to fly back in right away or lose the chain.
I use sigil of life on my mainhand and sigil of battle on my off, though since they are not really affecting their weapons specifically it doesn’t make a difference.
To be honest though, the air and fire traitlines are subpar when you look at the actual named traits you get. You can build enough critical damage with berserker stats with divinity runes. (Finances allowing in PvE and WvW)
The ele’s current balance makes it better for overtime skirmish damage and healing, which you are not taking advantage of.
ok this is a REALLY quick clip, Ive only been playing it for 30 minutes or so but this is what the numbers look like with the setup. I wanted to get the clip of where i 14k bursted on a poor unsuspecting Asura.
http://youtu.be/SKqQxYCzx0obut i spent too much time on the ground. this is very glass cannon, not sure if it would work at range since range abilities dont hit for as much, but KILL THEM BEFORE THEY KILL YOU, is pretty doable
That’s one of the worst gameplay videos I’ve ever seen. You click your skills?
I use a mixture of clicking and keys. The problem arises when you don’t have the mouse coordination, or are relying completely on it.
The problem is that you are still a subpar glass cannon. You are efficient in a very niche setting against people who have absolutely no balance in their build.
S/P did not get crushed. Your pistol whip got a slight damage reduction and now you can’t hit for 15k+ with backstab. Your damage is still more than respectable.
I don’t understand why everybody thinks D/D doesn’t benefit from Arcana spec. A balanced build with about 30-35% chance to crit can gain unlimited vigor, letting you dodge a lot more than people are expecting from an ele. As a rule I have 20 in Arcana at all times in PvP. I don’t really find that Evasive Arcana benefits me enough to lose the Earth/Water traits.
Might be true since tooltip gives zero info about it… But ive had people dodge out of it with me spamming DT. As for phoenix, its pretty much short range cast if you want any chance for it to hit. Will check combos again later.
Unless you have quickness or immobilize, any person can dodge out of DT before you land it after Updraft. There is a split second that allows this if the person is spamming their dodge button.
If eles are to be required to use attunement swapping to be successful, then there needs to be an inherent reward for using any given attunement, or on swap. This reward cannot have a trait requirement. An ele without at least 15 or so in Arcana is completely kittened in SPvP and TPvP, simply because of the lack of attunement passives and attunement recharges.
Our individual skills have such simple effects that the use of one by itself leaves you wondering if you did anything, which only compounds with the need to swap in order to function at a baseline level of efficacy. The justification for this is of course the fact that we have 16 skills on a weapon set.
I suggest looking at this topic, there’s a lot of ideas thrown around on this subject and how to break away from the reliance on Arcana. They’re all “full overhaul”-level ideas, but it’s some food for thought.
I don’t think a full overhaul is necessary; there just needs to be a system that rewards proper mechanic usage, instead of simply enabling survival.
I think the importance of attunement swapping is a bit overstated, at least for staff. In regards to killing things I seem to get better results by staying in fire as much as possible. Pretty much the only reason I’d swap at this point is for survival cooldown, and when I do I feel especially weak until I can get back into fire.
Actually, the number of combos an ele can perform is enhanced dramatically by weapon swapping. There are myriad buffs and support skills an ele can trigger just by using combos with itself, which can only be achieved in such a number while using a staff. Aoe healing, might, swiftness and frost armor can all be applied by a staff ele without the help of another profession, and this number of self combos is only achievable on a staff. As you already know, it is also only possible when using your attunement swapping efficiently.
(edited by Leuca.5732)
If eles are to be required to use attunement swapping to be successful, then there needs to be an inherent reward for using any given attunement, or on swap. This reward cannot have a trait requirement. An ele without at least 15 or so in Arcana is completely kittened in SPvP and TPvP, simply because of the lack of attunement passives and attunement recharges.
Our individual skills have such simple effects that the use of one by itself leaves you wondering if you did anything, which only compounds with the need to swap in order to function at a baseline level of efficacy. The justification for this is of course the fact that we have 16 skills on a weapon set. This justification fails for multiple reasons:
1. We are locked into a given range, which inherently limits our versatility right after the 16 skills tried (being the operative word here) to give it to us.
2. We are required to blow an abhorrent number of cooldowns to even attempt to replicate what almost any other profession can do, and we more often than not fail, even if only slightly, the only exception being immediate healing. Example: You are attuned to water and entering combat from behind your target, (running D/D) hoping to catch him off guard. You swap to Air (1 cd) and use RtL (2cd) and chain into 5, using 3 right before you swap to Fire. (3 more cd, bringing you to 5 cd) You follow with Fire’s 3, 4 and 5, before swapping to Earth to use 4 and 2. In this chain, you only manage to kill your target if they are a glass cannon (assuming you have decent damage)and if you successfully land a few key crits. You also blew more than 10 cooldowns, leaving yourself in a position where you must start auto attacking and dodging until you gain attunements/cds back. This is if you are lucky, and your target does not have a stunbreaker handy, because you are relying on your first CC (air 5) to hold your target long enough for you to get the rest of the combo in, which will only happen if your combo is totally fluid and your target does not stunbreak.
3. We have a large number of traits that do not function with the entirety of our profession’s core mechanic. Aside from Elemental Attunement, you must trait into an element that you want any immediate/passive/continuing effect from, not including skills 1-5 changing. This would be more acceptable if attunements had some kind of base reward for their usage.
Now I won’t lie, I’m relatively successful on a D/D ele and have defintely gotten used to the state of things; I’ve played the bulk of my PvP matches on ele, the rest on ranger, and am almost R32. My problem is just that I pull out the stops to kill some people that I wouldn’t have much problem with on a stronger profession. Am I effective? Yes. Am I on par with other professions on an objective level? No. As another example, I can tell you that when I was still in the R20 range, I tried mesmer for the first time. I put together a build that looked ok, and hit Play Game. I can only assume that at least some of the people I played were within my rank range, but I facerolled people, for lack of a better term, often in 2v1 situations where I would have lost. I held points without trying to be a bunker, and killed people without really trying to be a skirmisher. The discrepancy should not be this obvious, and it really bugs me that there are so many problems with a profession that I genuinely enjoy playing.
(edited by Leuca.5732)
I don’t think you should keep the video up personally, but I’ve already tried this before seeing the video. What they could do is lock the recharges in place when outside of combat.
I find the dagger more than suitable for most situations. With a sword in particular you get access to almost 3 full seconds of attack evasion if you follow Serpent’s Strike with Stalker’s Strike or vice versa, allowing you to save your energy for actual dodges. The snare doesn’t home in like MH Axe’s Winter’s Bite, which makes it weak for long range snaring, but if you use it on a nearby person it does a decent amount of damage with the snare and bleed to make it worthwhile. I think the non-condition damage could be buffed a little bit and the movement range on Stalker’s Strike could be increased slightly, but it’s actually become one of my favorite offhands recently. I usually open with axe/horn and switch to sword/dagger when I can’t safely kite anymore.
I have a base crit chance of about 35 on dagger/dagger before element swap fury kicks in, giving me a 55% chance to crit on my spike chains. I use Berserker’s Amulet with a Valkyrie Jewel. I have about 16k health and absorb damage fairly well considering I’m a light armor class in melee. Learning how to approach each profession and their specific weapon sets will also help you benefit from your close range weapons.
I think dagger/dagger could use a few damage increase tweeks on a few skills and a casting time decrease on Churning, but it’s much more solid than people give it credit for. Pop Shocking Aura and watch melee characters cry while they kill their own spikes and lock themselves for you to RtL Updraft.
I have to say that I’ve never really had that much trouble underwater as an elementalist. A lot of the skills involve some sort of condition or movement control anyway. Ever put up an ice wall then detonate it as you use tidal wave? In SPvP that combo can take out more than half a heavy armor’s health bar easily.