Guild Wars 2

Red Falcon.8257:

cero.1209:

So I have played my ele for over 300+hr to get to a level of skill that I am comfortable with. The elementalist is a class that you just dont walk into and are magically good. The thief was like that for me.

Funny, I found the Ele terribly easy to play and took me little to master it being that it’s a class based on rotations/fields, while I found a lot more depth in the Thief as the skill ceiling is your reaction/reflex ceiling, in that have you split the second to achieve perfection.

But hey, some people spam Heartseeker and think they can play the Thief so really.

You mean that “split” second that’s additionally mitigated by culling/rendering? So in fact you have WAY more time to keep DPSing your target because they can’t even see you. And what reflexes are required to press 3 buttons (Steal, C&D, BS) followed by 222222. Honestly thieves have more room for error than other professions and to claim it takes some degree of skill to slap on a full zerker set, and press no more than 5 buttons to be effective is borderline ludicrous.

I got chatting to a player yesterday who was bragging about his skill on thief, he was running your typical instagib build, was bragging about nuking players in seconds and he’d been playing a thief for…30 minutes :P Guess what his rotation was….(see above)

Oh look, another thinly veiled Ele Nerf thread, colour me surprised. Maybe you were one of the three god awful players I occupied for ages in a match earlier. Good luck on the continued and seemingly RELENTLESS escapade to get the final and only really viable Ele spec nerfed into the ground.

Slan.5496:

Your example has you dueling a thief—the most complained about class in the game. And after a little practice you start to beat him. I don’t see how this anecdote supports your point. Maybe your friend mains a thief and has a lot of time spent trying to master the playstyle. And then after a few matches you outclass him.

Show me something like this: you duel your GC engineer friend. And after getting wrecked a few times, he adapts his style of play and starts consistently winning against you. I very much doubt that will happen.

Anecdotes are like this aren’t at all useful to the discussion. First of all we don’t know the respective skill levels of you or your friend. Secondly, you’re dueling which is not relevant to how conquest mode works. In an actual match, the ele would be supporting teamates while tanking. And if things started to go south, the ele would just haul kitten out of there to reset the fight, which is one of the main complaints people have.

I’m level 10 and he is level 41, he is more experienced than myself in sPvP and tPvP. My point was, that I adjusted my playstyle and he did not. If he had adjusted his playstyle to counter me, he would have started winning again, which he did in our final duel and I am sure if we did not have to log off, he would have beaten me again.

I have no problem killing D/D Ele’s on either my Necro, Mesmer or Warrior. The rotations they do are all the same, they can easily be telegraphed and countered. It’s very rare that you come across a D/D Ele that does not do RTL->Updraft->Burning Speed etc…etc…Rinse & Repeat. When I am on my Ele and do the same rotations, rarely do people dodge me or use CC breakers to break the DPS chain. I still have people hitting me when Shocking Aura / Frost Aura is up, rarely people kite or use LOS. My point is, people STILL have not learned or can be bothered to learn how to counter the spec, the result is a load of Hyperbole all over the forums.

Just yesterday a Ranger was whispering me complaining about my Mesmer saying it was an “OP easy mode class”, I tried explaining to Mr. Ranger that he made no attempt to kite/dodge or use any kind of rotation against me, he basically ran around spamming 1 (Crossfire) and the end result was him face down in the dirt. It’s people like that calling for nerfs that Arena Net are seemingly listening too.

If aNet are so hell bent on nerfing Ele’s then they need to seriously look at and reduce the DPS and TTK of some professions. If you don’t go bunker (or semi bunker) on your Ele in sPvP then you are going to get nuked in 2-3 seconds by Thieves, Shatter Mesmers, 100b War’s etc…

Well according to most people on the forums, D/D Ele’s are overpowered and there is a nerf incoming. So brace yourself!! As others have said, read Daphoenix’s guide and then head to the mists and practice on the target dummies and the attackable NPC’s. This way you learn rotations, managing cooldowns and how the profession will play.

Just last night I was 1v1’ing a Thief (he was level 41) in hotjoin PvP (we were going to empty servers), he was playing S/D + D/D not sure of his gear but he was fairly tanky and certainly not a glass cannon. I was on my D/D Ele, running with 2 x Water, 2 x Monk, 2 x Divinity + Cleric’s Amulet and the usual 0/10/0/30/30 Build.

He won the first 3 duels quite easily by bursting me down insanely fast, did I complain…no. I got used to his tactics/rotations, I started trying to telegraph and predict his movement and started winning the duels, after winning my 5th duel in a row, he started complaining about D/D Ele’s being overpowered and that we deserved a nerf. THIS is the problem we have.

He went from soundly and easily beating me to NOT adapting his playstyle and losing a few duels in a row. The final duel we had he won because he changed his playstyle and managed to land over 15k on me in about 2-3 seconds, suddenly…Ele’s were no longer OP. I didn’t complain about his burst, nor that his Thief was not rendering fully so he was able to attack me whilst still hidden or that he would do Shadow Refuge and then reappear on full health whilst I was still trying to regen my health pool. I knew that his class even though being tanky could still burst down my entire health pool in seconds if I wasn’t constantly moving, dodging and if I had all my cantrips down, which I did :P

The moral of the story is, people on certain professions are not learning and adapting to playstyles, once you learn to counter D/D Ele’s they are easy enough to beat, I do this on my other characters. Instead they simply state that Ele’s are OP without trying to figure out how to counter or fight them.

This Ele Build is an attrition build, there is no “insane” burst, in the hands of a GOOD player they are nightmare to fight against and it seems overwhelming especially if someone use’s CC properly and effectively. However D/D Ele’s are not this godmode profession that everyone complains about, they can be easily countered, if people are willing to learn.

Nice video, enjoyed it overall. Obviously the quality of the people you were fighting could have been better but some really good examples of positional play and using terrain to your advantage. A Lot of players could benefit from simple things like blocking los and kiting up and around terrain.

If you don’t like WvW, not matter what people tell you it won’t matter. Don’t force yourself to do it otherwise you will just get frustrated. I personally like WvW and hotjoin PvP and never, ever do PvE :P

I primarily solo, I rarely join any of the zergs. I take supply camps, kill doly’s and if my other 3 friends are online, we ninja keeps :P I get my kicks out fighting larger groups, taking on 2-5 people and hopefully coming out on top, while at the same time crippling their supply line on some maps.

You may not think you are having an impact, but if an enemy keep/tower is not getting supplies, it makes it easier for our zerg to capture stuff.

I tried to like your video, but I find it hard to like a video where you can be effective with a profession by essentially pressing button 1 (auto-attacking) & button 2. With the occasional stealth thrown in. You can tell your a good player with your positioning etc… I just believe it takes little skill to be effective with a thief.

And I didn’t like the music :P (sorry)

If you are struggling to beat D/D Ele’s, make one. Take it through the starter area, goto the mists, equip 2 daggers and spec the most popular build. Cast the typical rotations, learn the animations, what they look like, the duration of those abilities etc… etc… Learn the attunements and what benefit/effect they have on the Ele. Always slot a CC breaker of your own, learn to time your dodges. If you dodge RTL, 90% of these Ele’s will not know what to do. (if someone used to dodge my RTL, I’d lightning flash into an updraft anyway and continue the rotation, or use magnetic grasp instead to really freak them out lol)

I used to main D/D Ele, it has been my spec since beta. I shelved it recently due to the fact the build is now FOTM and everyone is running around as a D/D Ele.

I have since switched to my old Mesmer I have not lost a 1v1 to a D/D Ele, because I know how to counter them and once you do it’s honestly easier to counter them than you think.

Adaneshade.2409:

I’ll tell you other thieves the same thing I tell to every other class that QQs about being bursted down….get some toughness, glass cannons have no meaningful place in PvP.

I keep seeing this ridiculous thing posted in a counter argument from Pro thieves. Are you guys so blinkered that you think EVERY player who makes a negative comment about thieves is glass canon? Absolutely ALL my characters that I do any meaningful PvP with are toughness geared…why? Thieves. Especially in WvW, I’m still amazed at how much damage they can pump out.

My tank / bunker Mesmer took 18k damage from a thief yesterday who did BS → HS spam in about the space of 4-5 seconds, balanced? “Well learn to dodge” you says, well I managed to doge one HS before he auto-homed back onto me with the final HS hitting for about 5.6k. Even managed to spike through the condition stacks I jammed on him. People are still complaining about thieves for a reason, honestly I would rather talk about another profession but when WvW / tPvP is riddled with thieves, it’s hard to avoid the topic.

I think the most annoying thing about thieves is how little amount of effort needs to be put into the profession to be decent enough at PvP to wreck a target in 5 seconds with 3-5 moves. I know the vast majority of thieves just mash the 2 button and think they are pro.

Nice, have gone from being able to get into borderlands with my small guild group whenever we want to a big juicy queue. 1hr 20 minutes in a Queue and counting!! So which bandwagon (zergy) guilds xferred here then?

I used to main D/D Ele before it became FOTM. I ran a build that specifically gave me the ability to cleanse and fairly regularly too as conditions is really an Ele’s Achilles heel. I only met one necro who beat me in a 1v1 Scenario, all the others I killed, primarily because they just weren’t very good. The one that beat me timed corrupt boon correctly (just after I had rolled twice and had vigor up) and used his CC very well, including good timing on Golem charge and keeping me slowed down as much as possible. D/D Ele’s rely on boons (especially vigor) and mobility to win.

If a D/D Ele manages to hit you with the RTL + Updraft combo, immediately switch to DS and fear them off, you can do that while face down on the ground. It will at least shake up their rotation which is normally RTL, Updraft, Burning Speed, Fire Grab Drakes, then Earth for CC. Also helps to learn the attunements and when / why they switch to them at certain times. If they average or even good, you should be able to kill them. If they are REALLY good your best hope is to make them think twice and try to get them to disengage.

Moogster.6207:

The real problem for me is the pistol thief. I really don’t know how to fight them.

Without a way of cleansing those bleeds, nope. My D/D Ele is built specifically to counter thieves, have not figured out a way to counter them yet on my Mesmer. In fact anything that can lay lot’s of conditions on you will be a threat.

I AM having fun though and getting better, it’s just not as easy as I thought and is going to take time / practice.

Osicat.4139:

Best tip I Go for fight D/D eles is from a skilled tPvP ele. Spam cripple, keep cripple and daze rolling on him, it forces him to use abilitys and stances he later will need as your cripple is on lower cd than hes clenses. Also ofc deliver dmg in bursts and when he do knockdown use immuns, if knocked staff 2.

Had some wery good ressult vs eles using this. Ofc if they want to run they can, but if they up for a fight I feel i have a good chance.

PS, latets movie post nerf :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhj3mH9En6E

/Osicat

Pretty solid advice, the best counter for a D/D Ele is hard CC or cripples/chills, since mobility is key for that spec.

Osi!! I’ve dusted off my Mesmer, don’t have the confidence to play full zerker yet as I am still getting the hang of the burst rotations, positioning etc… So I’m basically running around in Knights gear with knights accessories. Superior Signets of Air are expensive on my server, 24g for 6 so I’m not going to buy those yet. But my first run out last night was hard going, I found 4 people attacking a supply camp, managed to down all 4 one after the other then a thief came along and nuked me!! I seemed to struggle against thieves and I found it difficult to close in on players who knew how to kite me. Hopefully I will get better the more time I spend on my Mesmer.

One thing, I can’t seem to get the hang of the staff, not sure why. I have always preferred and seem to be better with GS….So would this build work with GS over staff?

@Osicat, thanks for taking the time to respond!! I’ve been watching your videos and I’m going to give it a go, wish me luck lol

Twinklefairy.6739:

@ Sandvich, what guild are you in?
@ Loco, that’s what most thieves do, the fact that you came on to these forums to complain about him /laugh -ing at you means he succeeded in trolling you good and proper.

Well yeah, it just get annoyed with cowardly players/tactics, should be used to it by now :p

Hi Osicat, Mesmer was my 1st character I got to level 80, but I couldn’t find a build that I felt comfortable with in WvW. I also have an 80 Necro and 80 Ele, I have been using my Ele as my main for a few months now running D/D 1vsMany. But I want to get back into my Mesmer.

I normally gear all my toons defensively for WvW, purely because the likely hood of a 1v1 becoming a 1vsMany happens so often, I find if I don’t spec and play defensively I get nuked down extremely quickly and I don’t like losing fights!!

I currently use, positioning, los, I time my abilities, know how to kite etc… However the skill cap for what you do looks really high, since you are effectively a glass cannon(ish).

So my question is, if I try out a shatter cat spec or hybrid spec, what kind of survivability would I expect from the dodges, clone spamming, blinks, pistol CC etc… I would imagine this isn’t very forgiving for mistakes as even know on some of my bunker type specs, if a thief or another high burst profession get’s on you, your toast.

I have to commend RG (Gandara), they just took Garrison in the Pikey’s Border and even with it being quite well defended, you made it look easy. Very organised, very difficult to counter, I think it’s going to be a tough week with you on the field.

Congratulations on taking stuff when the majority of the Piken WvW playerbase is on holiday…well done..for outnumbering people and zerging empty borders, you must be so proud.

thihihi.9451:

Yes piken, Gandarans plays on new year’s eve, qq.

Are you referring to the “PvP’ers” currently running around AR’s borders? Because you guys are pretty terrible lol

I got bored of mine, since D/D is the only really viable build, plus I was kind of finding things a bit…easy. So I’ve rolled a necro, spending all of my time on that toon at the mo, need a new challenge.

I’m a semi-bunker Ele, I duo WvW with a full glass canon thief, we combine my tanky-ness with extreme mobility and his quite frankly OP dps. We basically run around taking out larger groups, however any player who know’s his profession really well and know’s yours well enough to combo with you should be good enough. Except for Rangers, still free kills I’m afraid!

You won’t find any sympathy I’m afraid. aNet aren’t interested in talking about this broken profession (they know thieves are broken, but the can’t fix them) and thieves will just swarm in here and defend their OP profession to the death. Just do what everyone else is doing and roll a thief.

I do normally see us putting up an immense fight, but it just seems to have stopped. I can understand the downturn due to PvE, but honestly I never PvE, maybe that’s my problem!!!

I was asked to “edit” my post as to not give away “tips” to another server. I mean really? They aren’t “tips” it’s just using your brain, placing siege intelligently and thinking. And ER don’t need any “tips”, they are kicking our behinds without figuring out how 4 people took hills, twice.

God knows what’s happened to Piken since the reset, it’s like it’s a completely different server. There is no presence from any of the WvW guilds and we are outmatched in every single border. We can’t even muster up 10 people to get the NPC commander going. It’s like I’ve been ported to another server where everyone’s just decided to completely stop playing WvW.

Can we stop acting like this Daphoenix character is the best Ele in the world, all you are doing is feeding this guys ego. Any Ele player (or any player in fact) who know his profession, knows how to kite, know’s how to use CC, use LOS, when to use abilities, has built his character properly can do this kind of stuff. It’s not exclusive to Ele’s either, other professions can pull of similar feats.

Download currently broken, patch deployed after WvW reset when people are trying to upgrade/make ground, go go arena net!

Well it wouldn’t be arena net if it went smoothly, get ready for Lag Wars 2!!

Bsquared.3421:

Static.9841

Don’t agree with this at all, the second the Ele misses their opener (yeah some of us understand what dodging is), they’ll try churning earth, and when that fails, it’s run away time for the Ele until they can do it again. Ele’s are great at running away.

A good ele will not mindlessly go into Churning Earth simply because they missed their RTL opener (due to a dodge). Hell, a good ele might not even use RTL as the opener! I try to steer clear of Churning Earth when fighting a D/D thief cause it’s basically inviting a CnD/backstab combo (since i’m standing perfectly still for almost 4 seconds). ALthough sometimes it’s fun to bait them into that combo by starting the CE channel, then switching to air and putting up lightning shield. They’ll stun themselves on it and then be a sitting duck for my furied churning earth. This is a dangerous proposition however.

And they have tons of AOE to hit the theif when stealthed. I don’t have any trouble whatsoever with most thieves on my ele, save P/D thieves and those can be handled sometimes as well.

I never, ever use churning earth, time is better spent keeping pressure on your target and keeping the slowed/CC’d. D/D Ele’s try CE on me all the time I just dodge it and carry on killing em. Churning Earth is only good for nuking lowbies who have no idea it’s coming :P

I also open with Lighting Flash then Magnetic Grasp, just to mess with people lol

Old news I’m afraid. Was just watching / frapsing a thief that was only visible for maybe 1-2 seconds before “stealthing” again. Honestly it’s just broken and i’m pretty sick of watching this crap. It gives that player an advantage over others and arena net can’t fix it. Don’t expect it to get fixed any time soon.

Well if they nerf D/D Ele’s, they simply don’t understand their own game. The spec and playstyle requires skill and knowledge of the profession to be played well enough to make bad players cry and whinge all over the forums.

If aNet nerf it, they are simply showing that they don’t understand their own professions and game mechanics and are simply nerfing something because other players are too lazy to figure out how to counter it. Yes I play D/D Ele, I also play alt’s and guess what…on my Alt’s I kill D/D ele’s….because I know how to counter them.

KeyLimPi.9031:

Loco.4561:

Great explanation, thank you for posting this. Very good summary of how to counter this build. My only criticism is using WvW kills as a benchmark for skill, you can rack up a ton of WvW kills by just zerging around the map, it’s not a good indicator of profession knowledge.

Would it help if I said I belong to Gates of Madness? We’re incapable of zerging but I agree with your statement. The majority of my kills are from my friend and I roaming and taking out 1-4 at a time. I’ve studied this class to the point where I know all my faults and I can judge whether or not I can win a fight within the first 5 seconds of engagement. If someone ASKS for knowledge I’ll help them with everything I know. When someone whines and complains I’ll shove the knowledge down their throat because they don’t deserve civility lol.

Well I run solo since my guild disbanded and my thief buddy I used to duo with moved servers about 2 months ago :P I’m sitting on 9,441 kills in WvW, I literally don’t do anything else but WvW on my Ele, going to get to 10k kills then roll a ranger :P But I would never class myself as being exceptional, I do ok

Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou for the ALT+F4 change in WvW, multiple times last night people were doing the ALT+F4 trick on me to deny me a kill, very annoying. Looking forward to the changes.

Enjoy it while you can, if the whiners/complainers get their way, we are going to be nerfed tomorrow!!!! I’ve played D/D ele since early beta, it’s the only profession @ level 80 I PvP with, I love my Ele. However, with all the complaints from people who haven’t learned how to counter us yet, we are going to get nerfed. aNet themselves have implied this.

KeyLimPi.9031:

http://i.imgur.com/s6YLq.jpg

This is my elementalist, Pandora Hymn. This is the only character I play even though I have an 80 Ranger, Thief, Mesmer, Guardian, and a PvP necromancer (level doesn’t matter).

With 417 hours, knowledge on most classes, Running double dagger since BW1, and over 2,000 WvW kills I would like to think I’m informed enough about my favorite class to give a properly constructed breakdown of it.

Elementalist, while extremely flexible, is not as “OP” as you make it seem. What people seem to believe is because you can’t win a war of attrition with an elementalist it’s OP when in fact an D/D ele’s strength isn’t damage, or even conditional damage, it’s CONTROL.

This is the main problem I see with people I fight, they’re not informed enough about elementalist to duel them. These are the same people who made an ele then deleted it with disgust because we didn’t do 30k burst dmg in 1.5 seconds. Here we go then, this is how you break down an elementalist D/D.

Take
Away
It’s
Mobility

That’s it, and I’m dead serious about it. DDE’s biggest strength is their ability to control a fight by weaving in and out of combat. They need to pick and choose their timing due to cooldowns and relative squishiness. An ele will usually try to engage using

RLT, updraft then split into either
1) Burning Speed, RoF, Drake’s Breath, Firegrab
2) Earthquake, Churning Earth, Lightning Flash (if you try to get away)

Path 1 is the most used because there’s a fire field on the ground for might stacking when you attune to earth. If an ele engages with RTL you have 15 seconds in which their main mobility and escape tool are down. Pop a stun break right after updraft and notice if they’ve changes attunement to fire or earth.

If fire, back away about 400 range and they’ll have to use burning speed to get close to you or miss their entire combo. With this, you’ve already negated their escape, main DMG spell without burning on, and have severely hindered their damage.

If they’ve swapped instantly to earth and I cannot stress this enough, DO NOT TRY TO RUN. We’re elementalists, we WILL catch you, we WILL punish you and you’ll have wasted your dodges trying to get out of the churning earth circle. Instead, pop stability if you have access to it and DPS the kitten out of us during the Churning Earth channel, or cancel the channel. Using stability yourself is in case the ele is smart and has Stability/Shocking Aura during his channel, you will NOT stop him from using that skill. At the moment of cast, dodge.

At this point you’re passed the worst of it. The ele will have 2 options, lightning again or water.

Lightning-> They’re still playing aggressive but fear not, only the direct AA does any real damage. Even then it’s pretty negligible and a good ele should be trying to buy time for his DoT’s and Cooldowns to take effect.

Water-> They’re going defensive. Pending on how they built, this is when they’ll try to recover all the HP they lost on the burst/dmg attunements. DO NOT LET THEM. They’ll use Cleansing Wave followed by possibly Cone of Cold. They have a small radius AoE chilled as well. This will usually be the 4th attunement as a lot of elementalists are stupid and will reset to lightning and use Ride the Lightning to try and keep the offensive going instead of keeping RTL for an escape.

There’s your basic combo breakdown and everyway to stop it. You want to know how you can prevent all that damage instead of actually OUTPLAYING the ele? Stun, Immobilize, Daze, even Cripple. As I said all our power comes from mobility and being able to control the pace of a fight.

Also, any way to corrupt, remove, or otherwise prevent them buffing themselves helps immensely. Oh boo hoo they have damn near perma fury/regen/vigor? Buy a Superior Sigil of Nullification, 10 Second cooldown buff removal on crit.

God forbid people learn a class before they start complaining about it being OP. D/D ele’s are squishy at heart. Stop your complaints, learn the in and outs of the class, and enjoy stomping an ele’s face in.

Also this is for you guys complaining
“Nerf Rock, Paper is fine – sincerely Scissors”

Great explanation, thank you for posting this. Very good summary of how to counter this build. My only criticism is using WvW kills as a benchmark for skill, you can rack up a ton of WvW kills by just zerging around the map, it’s not a good indicator of profession knowledge.

I play a D/D Ele and have since early beta. I hope they don’t listen to the whining that’s starting to generate on the forums, as D/D Ele at least takes a degree of class skill and knowledge to play well.

I’d like to see a buff to rangers they really need it, slight buff to Engi’s, no nerf’s to thieves and bug fixes!!!

There are so many bad players out there, I just don’t know what to say sometimes. Ele’s are easy to counter if you understand the basics of what they are going to do and just learn to counter it. 90% of the time a D/D ele will open with RTL – Updraft, get ready to doge, teleport, go immune / whatever, just don’t stand there and eat it because it just opens up the other rotations. Don’t stand there and eat a full churning earth, dodge it (can be timed) use a movement ability, go immune, there are plenty of options. Stay mobile, time your dodges, use CC wisely, don’t, don’t just stand there and try and face tank us.

D/D Ele takes skill to play, a really good D/D ele will time abilities, change rotations, adapt to a situation. For example, I’ll switch to lighting for shocking aura when I know a thief is going to start HS spam, or if I know a warrior is going to try to 100b me. I save my cantrips for when a Mesmer does his blurred frenzy rotation.

CC + Burst is what can really hurt a D/D Ele, you lock me down I’m dead. I rely on my mobility and you lot being bad lol. Good players can kill me, a really good thief, really good Mesmer can take me down at a frightening speed, especially thieves. Just the other day, had an awesome 1v1 with a really good necro. He countered me, kited well, used CC well, it was a close fight and he eventually killed me, I didn’t head to the forums and cry about it.

Sometimes people just get beat by better players and a really good Ele player will make the profession look OP when it is not. Now in contrast, on my level 34 thief…I can go into WvW and take out Level 80’s and I can cause havoc in sPvP, even more so than I can on my Ele.

I would not say D/D Ele is complication, you do need to time your abilities, know your attunement, know when to switch, use your C/D’s properly, but it can be the most rewarding profession in the game you just have to work at it.

It took me a while to find a build + gear that felt right, now if I play any other profession, they just seem boring in comparison.

All I really do in GW2 is WvW, I get my kicks from solo roaming on my D/D Ele and finding 1v1’s or 1vs many fights. I fight a lot of different professions and have varying opinions on which professions provide me with the toughest fights. This is not a direct flame against the ranger community, but…are rangers either:

a) Woefully underpowered in the context of WvW.
or
b) Played by “bad” players.

Rangers in my opinion give me the least trouble to fight against. Now I have never played a ranger so I don’t understand what the problems might be. But coming from the perspective of someone who fights a lot of rangers, I think they need buffing or something. Not sure what it is, but they need fixing in some way shape or form. Now I’m not trying to sound arrogant, or saying i’m the best player in the world, I’m just coming from the perspective of someone who fights rangers and whishes’ that they were more of a challenge to fight against, basically I just feel they need a hell of a rework or buff, unless every ranger I fight against is just a bad player, which I honestly do not think is the case.

For me a fight against a GOOD PLAYER on their thief character is fun because it’s a challenge. I’m fighting against the player themselves and the skill they have with that profession (you can tell the skilled thieves a mile away) and I’m fighting against the culling giving them an advantage over me.

This makes it even sweeter, when I eventually down them

In the hands of a skilled player, a thief can be beastly. However they do have an advantage with the culling that pushes them into the realms of being OP and that is where the frustration comes from, if the culling was fixed that hopefully would reduce the complaints from players. If a thief killed me legitimately, I would not complain. If they killed me because I couldn’t see them for most of the fight, then yes I’ll complain.

I’ve been called OP by my own server when they’ve watched me on my D/D Ele, BUT I play solo mostly, have practised a hell of a lot and the majority of people I’m rolling over are either a) Low Level or b) Just plain bad. It’s not so much I’m awesome and more of a case that the majority of people I am fighting are casuals or just plain terrible.

Just tonight, someone on my side said in chat “D/D Ele’s need a nerf”, I assumed he just had his behind handed to him and replied “D/D Ele’s don’t need a nerf, you just have to learn how to play better”. He then followed that up with “lol, I just watched you fight 3 people with ease”.

The level of ignorance of other people astounds me sometimes. They see me fighting 3 players, 2 were low levels and one was an 80 guardian and they call for nerfs. Those 3 players were pretty bad and I’m actually pretty good at my Ele. If they had seen the 5v1 I had before that when I downed 3 before I eventually had to run away, then they might have cause to call for a nerf :p

I’ve played D/D Ele since beta, I can take on 2,3,4 players at once (sometimes more), if those players are bad, I’ll kill them. If just ONE of them knows what they are doing with their profession (apart from rangers) then I’m in for a fight. Some players are just so bad, it’s no challenge at all to kill them. I can tell you right now the good players I’ve fought against, 1 Warrior, 1 guardian, 1 Ele, 1 Mesmer. These were random 1v1’s where the opposition player was amazing at their profession, the Mesmer in particular I couldn’t kill and that’s in my entire time WvW’ing since the game launched.

I know my class inside and out, I know other professions inside and out, learned how to counter them, know when to use my abilities and time my attacks, I know how to escape when things go sour. I fight other Ele’s all the time and kill them, 99.9% of them are just horrible players, I’ve only ever come across one other Ele that seemed to be on the same skill level as me, the fight went on for ages, I eventually downed him and he logged off :P

Just because I’ve taken the time to practice and learn, does not automatically mean Ele’s are OP. Honestly, if arena net listen to the whiners who can’t play and can’t be bothered to learn to play and they nerf D/D Ele’s, I’ll be done with this game once and for all, I hope that doesn’t happen, since to play a D/D Ele well and take on multiple opponents you have to be good, that’s not the definition of an OP class.

You do know you can CC an Ele in mist form right? If you know they are going down, get ready to CC them (immobilise) when they go into mist or stack conditions, or knock/pull them away from the gate.

And the down state is not an issue, it’s fine.

Lordryux.9785:

i think Loic point is we really need some DEV feedback here its been kinda empty on these forums lately and that goes for alot of the class forums i think he is trying to ask anet are they even planning on fixing these certain bugs in a big patch or will we be kept in the dark constantly untill last notice.

We as a community need something to go off of or we all just freak out and just quit the class we are trying to bare with untill it is better. He is basically trying to say give us some HOPE that things will actually begin to change for elementalist cuz i too feel like sometimes we are forced to go into a certain build or into a certain weapon set to even be effective at certain aspecs of the game.

Well I must be the only player in the entire game who is happy with their Ele. Sure it would be nice to have some things fixed, but I don’t think the profession is anywhere near as broken as the entire community makes it out to be and it frustrates the crap out of me.

Congrats on finding an Ele who know’s how to play, 90% don’t :P Probably a D/D Aura Ele with 10 Air, 30 Water, 30 Arcana. Defo using healing power and cantrips for the regen.

I had a series of 1v1’s with an amazing Mesmer player, 2 of the fights lasting over 10 minutes. It is rare to find an opposition player who you can have a proper fight with. I get utterly despondent about how bad most players are and how easy it is to kill them, especially rangers and other Ele’s. The best fights I tend to have are against really good thieves or really good mesmers.

I’m going to stop reading the forums, there are just too many posts from people who just don’t get Elementalists or who want the profession to be completely changed so that it fit’s there image of what THEY think an Elementalist should be.

There needs to be LESS whining and more learning about the profession and game mechanics. Learning how to counter other professions and realising you cannot 1 button mash your way to victory to achieve this.

I play a D/D Ele I have different setups for sPvP and WvW.

And here’s the thing. I can beat anyone, ANYONE 1v1. The one profession that runs me closest to a defeat is a Mesmer who’s stacking heavy conditions and who uses Moa well (I’ve since changed my build a bit to try and counter these better). I used to struggle against well played thieves, I learned how to counter them and now I never, never die to a thief.

In WvW I can take on people 1v1, 2v1, 3v1 and even..4v1 (I have it on fraps). This profession is nowhere near as “broken” as people make it out it to be. Yes it requires work, you need to know your attunements, time your abilities, know rotations, know counters for other professions, know when to cleans, how to kite…the list goes on. And if you play correctly, you can absolutely devastating and if things go wrong with the right build, you can get out of pretty much any situation.

I kill other Ele’s all the time and I’m amazed at how bad some players are. Ele’s who use staff and just stand there pew pewing, no attempt to kite, no intelligent use of CC. Other Ele’s that don’t use rotations properly, even the basic one’s like RoF into a blast finisher to get some might. Or Ele’s that go GC in WvW and get melted in 2 hits or those that try churning earth on me and I just dodge it before it casts.

If you think winning is frustrating on this class or you complain that it’s not easy enough, then play something else. Stop filling the forums with junk about how aNet should change Ele’s so that they are more “mage” or “Wizard” like. Elementalists are what arena net WANTS THEM TO BE, not what you TELL them it should be. If you don’t like it play something else. There are plenty of people who do like the profession the way it is, players who like playing something that requires a bit more thought and those are the guys who are wrecking people in sPvP and WvW.

It doesn’t matter what people “want” from the profession, Ele’s are what Arena Net makes them, if people don’t like it I suggest they play something else.

Anyone else having problems logging on? Saying the log-in server is down…

TabMorte.5297:

Turrets & Speed are your friends.

My Engineer is only in the low 20s but I find her very competent 1v1 or 1v2 in WvW, more so than most classes I’ve played by far.

When I WvW I always keep 2 turrets (usually one is net) and 1 weapon kit. I also always keep the med kit handy.

On 1 v 1, you drop the heartier turret and use an immobilizer immediately after (the net f skill is nice especially if you have static discharge), roll to the side so you can get on the opposite side of the enemy, throw the net turret, roll back into range, if you do this right you should be able to keep the enemy pinned and either crippled or immobilized in a spot between the turrets. If they have ranged you’re still only going to have a short time. I like to BBQ them with a flame thrower about now, or what ever else you got, especially with the mesmer the flame thrower is nice cause you can torch them and their illusions at the same time.

If this fails, swap to med pack, hit 5 and book it while they’re slowed down by the turrets.

I’m sorry but if you tried this build on any competent player, they would eat you alive. You might be able to get away with it against a low level thief, but any player who knows their profession will just chew you up.

Khalic.3561:

mak.9027:

The problem is that I already stick with D/D, but it’s pointless when sieging or defending a tower or when fighting a larger zerg.

Loco.4561:

I play D/D, I know that I have no ranged abilities and therefore will not be very useful in keep offence/defence. That’s the price I pay for being mobile and semi-melee.

I really disagree here. When attacking a keep, there need to be people who aren’t zeroed in on the gate/siege, watching corners and stopping defenders from getting in. When defending, I can usually make some pretty effective sallies as a D/D ele. Whether that means downing and pushing back attackers, or getting up allies who didn’t quite make it in.

And that’s exactly what I do, I protect siege, rez people, stop enemy players getting in or scout to watch for enemy reinforcements. My point was, I don’t expect to be able to pew pew defenders on the walls, or bomb people when defending and that is what some people believe keep / tower offence/defence is.

I was meaning it in that context. Not the context of I just stand still and twiddle my thumbs :P