Guild Wars 2

found a bug:

ancient seeds doesn’t seem to work with spike trap.

Other than that, I quite like the Druid, it’s really fun! I wish the stuff would scale a bit more with healing power though.

can u tell me the druid-build which is so OP? I’ve tested various builds and so far am thoroughly underwhelmed….

still “match in progress”….. it has been like 5+ hours -.-°

zxstanyxz.8769:

PowerBottom.5796:

It’s a pretty bad mode right now, but it has potential.

Make it more focused on teamfights rather than running around and fighting NPC’s. Think about GvG in GW1: Main fight was the big teamfight in mid, but it was always possible to split off with a fewplayers and do sth. else (killing NPC’s or the flagrunner etc.)

Most important thing IMHO is to make a certain (fairly generous) number of archers+DB’s spawn automatically.

easiest way to do this would be to increase the match size for stronhold to 8v8 (easily doable now with the squad system coming with HoT) as it would allow you to have enough people in the team to peel a few off for side objectives whilst still pushing a decent team fight (and potentially a couple of those people rotating in or out of the team fight depending on how the side stuff is going)

Yes, that would also be an option, but I still think running around for supply is sth. no1 really enjoys to do. It’s like the Flagrunner in GW2; no1 wanted to do it. :P

I think it would be cool if you’re maybe still able to bolster up the amount of DB’s and Archers your team has by running supply, but it shouldn’t be absolutely necessary to move the game forward.

Diovid.9506:

I’m one of the people who is looking forward to playing an auramancing Tempest and this part of today’s update is a welcome and much needed change:

Powerful Aura: Increased the effective radius of this trait from 360 to 600.

However I believe this is a change is the wrong direction:

Frost Aura: This aura now replaces itself as other auras do instead of stacking duration.

For auramancers to have a place, auras need to stack, otherwise there is little point to it. And tempests have questionable benefits as it is.

I think it’s the right choice, since the much bigger radius makes auras much easier to use without good positioning, add stacking durations to that, and it simply becomes another spammable dumbed down AoE-skill.

Without stacking, it at least requires a bit of skill to keep your automatic procs in mind to not cast an aura when you would get one automatically. Also, it requires some communication when there are more than 1 ele with auras for other players.

me2…….. pretty annoying stuff.

It’s a pretty bad mode right now, but it has potential.

Make it more focused on teamfights rather than running around and fighting NPC’s. Think about GvG in GW1: Main fight was the big teamfight in mid, but it was always possible to split off with a fewplayers and do sth. else (killing NPC’s or the flagrunner etc.)

Most important thing IMHO is to make a certain (fairly generous) number of archers+DB’s spawn automatically.

D/D is still very strong in PvP….. -.-°

skoda.4619:

The way i feel about overloads is similar to churning earth on dagger offhand which is useless except in very small amount of situations, otherwise way too long of a cast time to actually go for what it offers as the reward….

Another reason why I think that the overloads (and tempest in general) fit D/D the best:

D/D’s weakest aspect in PvP is teamfights (still good in teamfights, but not absolute top-tier). D/D has a small range, not the best spiked DMG, only few conditions (that are crucial to his DMG-output) that can be cleansed easily, he has many skills that are easily interrupted etc.

What tempest offers are several very strong options for teamfighting, which all fit the D/D especially well, like:

- Element bastian and aurashare: 2 auras on weapon-set, which are also probably the strongest ones.
- Shouts: Adding the elite-shout alone already gives the D/D much stronger teamfight-potential. I think it’s possible to keep D/D as strong in 1v1’s, even when adding maybe another 1-2 shouts.
- Overloads: They are pretty huge in teamfights. Add element bastion, aurashare and unstable conduit (again all of them fit D/D very well, compared to other weapon-sets) and you have probably some of the best teamfight in the game.

Many of these things of course depend on whether or not the D/D can keep the strong 1v1-potential, but I’m pretty sure you can add a few of these things while still being absolute top-tier as a 1v1-roamer.

The other weapon-sets are already better in teamfights and for the Scepter, there is the initially described lack of synergy, which just makes you wonder why you should even take the tempest traitline.

I think the only good way for a scepter-based build is to go full-heal with clerics. If you take S/W, you have the most heal possible for ele’s that also benefits your team. I’d probably also go for shouts, since rune of the soldier works great with the miniscule health-pool. This is what I wanna try first this BWE:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJBLhdSfJ05AW4AYhJwhJWOBM3vaadtSMBCALgiSwA8DA-TJxHwAILDM4BAob/BAnAAA

quick explanation:

- No element bastion, since you don’t profit from it as much. I also like the new imbued melodies with added 20% boon duration and sand squall trigger at 90%. It fits the build pretty well.
- No unstable conduit: With such a low health-pool, having an additional stunbreak is crucial. Also, conduit is not that good without aurashare or element bastion.
- Why still cantrips and cantrip mastery? it fits together well with sand squall and high boon-uptime and I feel both cantrips will be necessary against focused DMG.

Well, it was still a very good patch for rangers: Next to condi-necros, they got the most useful buffs. Also, they were buffs that are decent for many different builds:

- We Heal as one, which was already pretty decent when traited, go a decent buff.
- Pet’s having condition-dmg is pretty huge as well!
- Quick draw is now much better bc it works as intended now and stacks duration-reduction.
- Warhorn got a decent buff.
- Some other minor things.

The “nerf” to taunt is IMHO totally fine, it now works the way it should work and taunt will still be extremely effective if you are a decent player that doesn’t just press it and hope for the best. It requires more skill, but if you have that skill, it’s almost as good as before.

whiners gonna whine…. Ele wasn’t THAT OP before the patch and now they are perfectly fine. Yes, it’s still very strong and one of the best roamers, but the strongest counter to them (necro), also got buffed pretty heavily in some aspects.

It’s very likely that we’ll see much more players taking earth over fire now, which will make the build pretty tanky, but one main problem was, that the D/D-ele had enough sustain AND damage, to eventually win almost any 1v1. Take enough dmg away, and you can add as much sustain as you will; the ele won’t simply win the 1v1’s anymore, but it will be a tie.

Exciton.8942:

PowerBottom.5796:

Exciton.8942:

Everyone and his daughter are playing super tanky builds. Tons of dd ele, bunker guard, mm necro, soldier engi, pu condie mesmer. Not fun at all.

none of those builds is “too much bunker”….. It was a bunker-meta when multiple players on a team ran a bunker-build, which couldn’t be killed for long times even with two ppl.

Nowadays, every build can be killed with 2 players. Worst case scenario is, that you maybe have to think about which builds you send to kill a “bunker”.

Didn’t ppl complain like 2 months ago that the whole meta was too squishy and everything dealt too much dmg? There’s no pleasing you guys. :P

Currently bunker are too effective. Even more so in relatively unorganized everyday queuing. It’s not rare to see 3-4 bunkers each team. To get a 2v1 kill is possible but usually not worth the time. You also still have dd ele that easily survive 2v1 and rotate to other points. Soldier engi, to a lesser degree, also does that.

As long as you can kill a bunker with 2 (semi-)DPS chars, bunkers aren’t too effective.

And guess what, you cannot balance a teamgame around random Q’s: Yes, even a semi-bunker is “too tanky” if ppl don’t at least focus it. Well, a total glasscannon is too tanky if no1 attacks it as well.

2v1 kills not worth the while? Well, if you atk a full-bunker with 2 low-dps chars that had to walk to the point very slowly and take 2 mins to kill it, then it isn’t worth it, for sure. That’s why there are specific characters for such “+1-situations” that deal heavy DMG and are very mobile, Thief or Mesmer for example. If you kill the target quickly and leave the right ppl at the right places to defend, a 2v1 kill is totally worth it.

Ppl need to begin to understand that there are very clearly defined roles and well though out team-compositions in this game. If you wanna run around in solo-Q’s, at least know what your character is good at and which situations you should search for and which ones to avoid.

literally 90% of the whine-threads on this board can be solved with very basic understanding of how such team-based games should be played: understanding roles, rotations and basic strategic movement on the map. This stuff isn’t rocket-science.

Godmoney.2048:

Mesmer kneecapped? Huh? What? I don’t even? Seriously? You can’t be serious? Huh?

The PU trait was grossly overbuffed in the specialty patch.

And many players have been using various other builds successfully, like Illusions or Inspiration instead PU….

Exciton.8942:

Everyone and his daughter are playing super tanky builds. Tons of dd ele, bunker guard, mm necro, soldier engi, pu condie mesmer. Not fun at all.

none of those builds is “too much bunker”….. It was a bunker-meta when multiple players on a team ran a bunker-build, which couldn’t be killed for long times even with two ppl.

Nowadays, every build can be killed with 2 players. Worst case scenario is, that you maybe have to think about which builds you send to kill a “bunker”.

Didn’t ppl complain like 2 months ago that the whole meta was too squishy and everything dealt too much dmg? There’s no pleasing you guys. :P

Ithilwen.1529:

What are you thinking anet? It’s back to the same thing as 3 years ago. Mesmers kneecapped to trash tier and rangers way overbuffed. I don’t honestly think you’re working from good data.

Rangers aren’t OP (but better, yes) and Mesmers are still very good. Ele’s are fine, guards are fine, Necro’s are fine; everything is fine – stop complaining! before yesterday, the balance was acceptable, now it’s probably the best we’ve ever had and that I’ve ever experienced in any similar game.

ppl will always find stuff to whine about….

patch was a step in the right direction in many ways and I think it’s a fine “preparation-patch” for HoT.

Ah, to be precise, I’m talking about sPvP mainly.

Hiho, I’ve played quite a bit of tempest and theorycrafted a lot about builds, but with a scepter-based build, I can’t seem to find anything that works. There is absolutely no synergy between scepter and tempest and certain things you’d need for scepter to work, can’t be replaced by tempest:

1) Scepter/X has the least auras of any of the possible weapon-combinations, so element bastion isn’t too good.
2) Cele-based scepter build need quite a bit of Might (IMHO) and often fury to really get decent dmg. Fire help in both areas, tempest doesn’t. Even if you go for the mightstacks on shouts, you’ll have to live with the fact that your overloads just get instantly interrupted.
3) Warhorn isn’t too great with Scepter either, because of the fire-field which has such a long CD that you can’t effectively stack might, which was one of the advantages S/D for example had over other Ele-builds (1 more blast finisher than D/D).
4) For Marauder-based S/X-builds, tempest offers too less as well: Overloading is gonna be a pain since you can easily just get spiked down or get forced to cancel it.
5) All the builds that I think could work, need either fire or air, so you would have to run without arcane or water. Both are essentially just better than tempest IMHO, so why run it?

solutions:

1) I guess we’ll have to live with less auras.
2) make 1 stack of stability baseline for tempest during overload – it’s just absolutely curcial. This would allow the Ele to go for the shouts. So why wouldn’t this be a buff to D/D? D/D is best in 1v1’s, tempest makes him less so, but better in teamfights. If he also goes for shouts, he’d be even weaker in 1v1’s and if you want a teamfight-ele, you’d probably go with staff, or scepter (if there are some buffs for scepter). Also, scepter needs an alternative for the cantrips when he doesn’t go for the water traitline. Using shouts would also kinda make up for the lack of auras.
3) pretty simple fix: make the fire field have shorter CD, but deal less DMG.
4) 1 stabiility baseline would help.
5) with the above fixes, it could be easier to not run water without just being a flatout worse build than without tempest. It would more likely be more team-oriented and have a slightly different role, but it wouldn’t be inherently worse, which is IMHO a thing the balance-team should aspire.

Weird, the cele Scepter build I use (which is much better than fresh air or any other marauder-based build, got buffed)

I don’t use any of the nerfed traits in fire anyways and in arcane neither. I got more than enough vigor and any scepter build with a bit of precision should definitely choose arcane precision anyways… -.-°

here’s my build btw, i’ve been using it for months now:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArYhcMozhFOwxB0RMIAYUXYJUFiAQB4AUbymYaA-TJBGwAh2fAwDA4wJAgZZAA

The tooth buff is pretty amazing, mightstacking is easier on scepter/dagger than on dagger/dagger, so I don’t mind the burning fire nerf as much.

Also, I kinda like the new shatterstone and I use it quite often to pressure a point now and force dodges.

Fire 1 can now sometimes be used while waiting for CD’s if you want to stay in fire a bit longer.

Also, because D/D got nerfed, other cele-builds like the scepter/dagger one I use might actually be played.

the build isn’t optimized very well, has some potential though, but you invest quite a bit into the heal as one-“gimmick” to get stuff that other classes have access to as well.

The best thing about heal as one is IMHO the long quickness uptime, which you don’t even use without the zephyr speed.

The other amazing thing is that it’s very strong in teamfights, cuz your pet will get boons from allies (and you as well), so you basically simply get all boons in double duration without investing anything into it.

And tbh, taunt is probably still better than zephyr speed. ^^’

The thing I don’t understand is that the skill really didn’t need a buff, but whatever, I’ll take it.

I can see some pretty strong interactions with zephyr speed, “guard!”, “strength of the pack.” etc., but so far, I don’t think it’s really OP.

What I do fear a bit is that in teamfights, it can get ridiculous: Imagine just an Ele and maybe a Guard together with the ranger; if you keep yourself and your pet kinda in range of the shouts and attunement-switch buffs etc., I guess you should be able to keep up almost any buff permanently…. ^^’

I’ll go with GS+Staff first with clerics AMU and beastmastery, Druid and Marksmanship, for crazy daze-durations, heal and mobility.

heal, daze, mobility

nope, they are not OP, just like almost nothing else is OP…. but please keep making threads like this, they perfectly show how most ppl in here lack a basic understanding of how this game works.

nerfs were appropriate; D/D will still be useful, but it should be more in line with other builds.

I also like that they’re going to buff scepter, cuz especially the mightstacking nerf will hurt certain Scepter-builds quite a bit.

not too happy with the Ring of Fire changes…. It really isn’t that hard to not just walk through it multiple times and ppl that do it should be severely punished.

Well, are they 5 D/D’s? Cuz if yes, just teamfight and go for a 2-point strat.

There are much better comps than just D/D-Ele’s for teamfighting with 3v3’s or more, at least on most maps (foefire is a bit different on mid).

Just pack good AoE and some decent CC and strong teamfight skills like rampage and it should be possible.

But yes, if you are not with a full team with a well thought out teamcomposition and communication to burst and CC-chain properly and stuff like that, it’s gonna be extremely hard to deal with for sure.

Loki.9412:

I’m a newish player, trying to find my feet with a couple of alt characters now iv hit 80 on my main. I quite like the hunter, good ranged burst, but why…WHY can’t I use pistols or a rifle, I mean seriously is this some kind of joke?

Yes, it’s an elaborate joke by ANet to upset you….

Srsly though: Rangers in GW aren’t too much into high-tech stuff like that. That’s just how it is.

If you want sth. similar to the ranger, but with guns and rifles, go for engi after the upcoming elite-specs: He’ll have sth. similar to pets with the Gyro’s and you can make all the pewpew you want with your beloved guns.

tons of not entirely realized potential

haha, I actually like playing stuff that is deemed bad and figure out ways to make it work as well. :P

Always played the so-called weakest race in SC2, WC3 and in several other games as well.

More to your point: First of all, there need to be positive changes AND they need to be too positive – that’s quite a stretch. Then, you’ll very likely still have some builds that are clearly not OP!

If all else fails, you can always say to yourself, that you’ve played the weakest class for so long, you have earned a few months of being OP.

I play multiple classes in PvP anyways, so it’s not a huge problem for me even though I really like playing ranger.

cya….

the balance is pretty good in this game and the whole D/D- (and mesmer-) thing gets blown way out of proportion; yes, they are strong, but both classes have certain disadvantages and many other builds are very close to their strength in a well put together team.

Also, there are more than 1 build to use on most classes on a high level, just look at the ESL tournaments:

- Warrior: tons of rampage and shoutwars (shoutwar has different variations; some with clerics and hammer, some with settlers and longbow)
- Mesmer: Condi-Mesmer is being played by helseth sometimes for example and different shatter-mesmers (some with PU, some with illusions for the blind+confusion). There are also a few ppl who run the Staff+GS mantra-mesmer with powerblock very successfully.
- Ele: D/D and Staff, variations with earth or fire.
- Engi: Marauder or soldier variants of chaith’s elixir-build.
- Guard: Shoutbunker- or burnguards mostly.
- Ranger: mostly the pewpew, but I’ve seen some condition/trappers…. quite a while ago though I must say.
- Nec: Mostly clerics with signets and strength-runes, but we als sometimes see a more condition-based variant with scepter instead of mainhand dagger.
- Thief: Probably the least variety here, mostly vanilla shadow arts D/P-thief, but sometimes we see critical strikes.

I think thats a pretty diverse meta…..

If you like durable builds, I recommend this one I’m currently using the most (it’s cele/condition)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAV8fjUqQ5KWyCusAVLGMEqfLu9avf3ToF4AY0L9CWdA-TpRFwAAeAAJOCADuAAKOIAp2f4ZZAA

I’ve got a few things to say to the build:
- Why sharpened edges and not trapper’s expertise? Sharpened edges gives you a lot more DMG, especially if your arrows hit multiple targets in teamfights, since the extra bleed from it has no internal CD. Also, I only have the one trap, which already has tons of bleeding cuz of the krait-rune (more duration than 10 isn’t necessary IMHO, it’ll very likely just get removed before it runs out). Also, the knockdown kinda makes the cripple a bit unnecessary and just for the lower CD for the one trap, it’s just not effective enough.

- Shared anguish: With only torch as offhand, the effectiveness of ambidexterity is greatly diminished. Also, negating 1 CC can really help you to stomp and/or rez in teamfights and make full use of your quickness for example.

- Pet’s: Pretty standard atm: The owl or the ravens have the highest single-target DPS by far and the CD coincides with taunt. The Wolf is just for the amazing fear. If your team doesn’t need much DMG and you really only want to teamfight with the build, I can also recommend the Krytan Drakehound with his AoE immobilize.

Playstyle is mostly teamfight-oriented, but it is very strong in 1v1’s as well. If you play it well and maybe can pre-cast a trap before the fight, it can even beat D/D-Ele’s (it’s a hard MU though and you need to know exactly what you’re dodging, interrupting, when to taunt with the pet and lay the trap, keep track of all the CD’s of the Ele etc.)

I play the build mostly on shortbow and I almost only switch to sword/torch for evades/dodges and against downed players or for a taunt+bonfire+trap+entangle AoE-combo.

I think choosing druid will simply replace your 2 pets with 1 oakheart.

The oakheart then has another F-skill (cuz no more switching) and maybe even an F5 skill.

no, burning is not OP…. It’s as simple as that.

here’s what I suspect:

If you choose Druid, your Pet gets replaced by one of those tree-thingies, they’ll get their own window for customizing like the normal pets. There’ll probably be 3+ trees to choose from.

Pet-swapping (F4) gets replaced by a powerful skill for the new pet.

They’ll be stronger than the normal pets, cuz there’s no more swapping. I guess there’ll be a healer tree, a power tree and a condition-tree or sth. like that.

Maybe there will also be an additional control-option, because rangers still have F5 unused. Could be an additional skill for the tree, or maybe a command to make them stay at a point – no leash range maybe? Maybe they even contest points now. Maybe there’s one tree with which you can swap places after a decent CD (90 seconds maybe).

It could be possible that the trees have stats depending on your own, so you can costumize the trees a bit more. I don’t think so though, cuz of balancing-concerns.

Staff could be similar to Necro-Staff: AoE ranged mixed Power/Condition DMG. Maybe some healing-spell with a water-field, probably some poison, bleed and stuff like that.

I don’t care about the balance when talking about the mallyx-elite. Purely in terms of skill ceiling, teamplay and fun, the old way the skill worked just made much more sense.

Vapour.7348:

warriors are not in a great spot atm.

maybe the reason the elixir elite cd is lower for engies is because we get tornado 7/10 times. at least that’s what it feels like.

Almost every team runs a Shoutbow and Rampage-Wars are still decently strong.

And for the elite elexir; it’s random, that’s why the CD is lower. I don’t like the RNG-aspect of it either, but it’s fair to have lower CD when you get tornado half the time, which is very situational at best.

Eagelseye.6312:

Thanks for the suggestions. Is the Revenant class also going to be a Tank as such?

I’ve played (during the beta-weekends) and theorycrafted tons of builds on rev and there might be a tanky support build, but it’s too soon to say.

Also, the more offensive builds look better atm.

Cynz.9437:

PowerBottom.5796:

Cynz.9437:

PowerBottom.5796:

I don’t like the current State of the Thief and here’s why:

- He has certain abilities that are so strong, that you need a Thief in almost every teamcomp, to be precise, an D/P-Thief. Of course I’m talking about stealth.

- Besides the Stealth, Thief is IMHO not too strong, or at least there would be better choices for a +1 roamer.

With new classes possibly getting decent stealth-uptimes for stealth-engages (engi with the stealth-gyro) and more classes with reveal (revenant for example. Also in recent times, engi got played more with reveal), I feel that Thief is gonna hurt pretty badly.

Just my 2 cents as sm1 who doesn’t play Thief at all. :P

mesmers have more stealth than thieves btw…. and arguably just as much moblity

To be clear; I’m talking about stealth for the team, and even if the mesmer takes the elite and Prismatic Understanding, the stealth from refuge and the smoke-field is way beyond that.

thief has no portal, no aoe invul

That’s exactly my point: Thief has sth. that is exclusive to him: enough stealth-uptime for the team to cross the map in stealth and do stealth-openers. Other than that, he’s not really top-tier, but that 1 fact makes him top-tier. That’s what I don’t like about the state of Thief, that’s not good balancing in my opinion.

Cynz.9437:

PowerBottom.5796:

I don’t like the current State of the Thief and here’s why:

- He has certain abilities that are so strong, that you need a Thief in almost every teamcomp, to be precise, an D/P-Thief. Of course I’m talking about stealth.

- Besides the Stealth, Thief is IMHO not too strong, or at least there would be better choices for a +1 roamer.

With new classes possibly getting decent stealth-uptimes for stealth-engages (engi with the stealth-gyro) and more classes with reveal (revenant for example. Also in recent times, engi got played more with reveal), I feel that Thief is gonna hurt pretty badly.

Just my 2 cents as sm1 who doesn’t play Thief at all. :P

mesmers have more stealth than thieves btw…. and arguably just as much moblity

To be clear; I’m talking about stealth for the team, and even if the mesmer takes the elite and Prismatic Understanding, the stealth from refuge and the smoke-field is way beyond that.

From the Art, it kinda looks like the Staff is gonna be a Melee-Weapon, which would totally suck IMHO….

plzplzplz don’t be Melee!

I don’t like the current State of the Thief and here’s why:

- He has certain abilities that are so strong, that you need a Thief in almost every teamcomp, to be precise, an D/P-Thief. Of course I’m talking about stealth.

- Besides the Stealth, Thief is IMHO not too strong, or at least there would be better choices for a +1 roamer.

With new classes possibly getting decent stealth-uptimes for stealth-engages (engi with the stealth-gyro) and more classes with reveal (revenant for example. Also in recent times, engi got played more with reveal), I feel that Thief is gonna hurt pretty badly.

Just my 2 cents as sm1 who doesn’t play Thief at all. :P

The role of tank in PvP has different roles to fullfill:

- Surviving on point to hold the node
- Teamsupport with healing and boons
- Rezzing (with rez-traits, quickness or secondary rezzes like the Battle Standard of the Warrior)
- high self-heal and/or other means of sustain in fights.

The downside is, that those classes don’t have very high DMG.

Most common Bunkers (Tanks), are Shoutwarrior and Shoutguard, both are found here (http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki) under “ranked pvp”.

Jekkt.6045:

problem with tempest on d/d is, overloads mess up the rotations. what i suggest would be removing the attunement cooldown penalty on use but keeping the overload cooldown the same.

if you want to go tempest with d/d you originally dropped fire because the overload did provide some okayish burning, but then they nerfed it

The longer CD’s are a noticeable noisance on all weapon-sets and most builds for PvP, but I feel D/D can be more freely with them, cuz DMG and support/heal is better spread out across the attunements and so are the combo-finishers than for example on the Staff.

On S/D it’s pretty devastating to be locked out of fire and air to be honest, since earth is total crap if you have to stay in it longer than a few seconds and water is not that much better either.

On Staff, I noticed the CD’s many times as well, but on D/D I felt I could use whichever overload I want pretty freely and suitable to the situation.

Yes, the DMG will of course be lower without fire, but other areas like teamfight will be better; maybe theres a place for that in the HoT-Meta.

Dirame.8521:

Jekkt.6045:

herald druid and reaper

that’s what it’s gonna be. now with druid it kinda depends on how it will work.. but apparently druids will have aspects instead of pets which makes the whole thing a bit more reliable. staff looks like a lot of cc for peel and most likely also a bit of heal. the only question is how it will turn out. oh and let’s not forget the scrapper, the so called close combat brawler.

tbh after more than 1 year and close to 3000 games on d/d ele i’m getting sick of it. people are frustrated to play against d/d eles and i’m sick of seeing so many d/d eles that can do well without having to master the class 100% just because they get carried by passives, bugs and burns.

for me they could delete d/d ele from the game if they finally make other builds viable. neither burst nor condi builds have ever been viable in the history of gw2, it has always been that tanky thing. in a perfect world ele would be hard to play and rewarding if you’re able to do it. in reality you can do whatever you want and still achieve above average results. but hey, #believeinkarl because tempest is gonna open up new playstyles, right?

Apparently Tempest is better with Staff. So maybe.

I think Tempest works really well with D/D:

1) D/D has the most Aura’s (1 on main- , 1 on offhand and the leap finisher), this works really well with element bastion.
2) Staff kinda needs certain rotations depending on the situation, to use the blast finishers on earth. Overloading complicates this a bit. It’s not a huge deal, but just a little annoyance when you wanna optimize every skill-usage.
3) D/D is pretty strong in almost every area, but if I’d have to point out one minor weakness, it’s teamfights: Sometimes being melee-only is pretty annoying when the opponent has strong AoE. LoS’ing while doing DMG/Healing also gets complicated by D/D being melee only. The Overload gives you a bit more teamfight-capabilities. Staff-Ele is already extremely good in teamfights – why does he need the overloads?

Jekkt.6045:

PowerBottom.5796:

Jekkt.6045:

PowerBottom.5796:

Jekkt.6045:

if you like s/d then play it but in my opinion there is simply better stuff

Problem is that your opinion clearly uninformed since you’ve obviously never played the build I posted.

i did, not with the same traits setup but with the same lines. it’s impossible to hold a node against a competent shoutbow or a rifle engi so why would i bother playing it when those are my main threats. scepter is also a lot weaker against stealth targets, that’s another downside of it.

Did you even read what I posted: It’s not a node-holder nor a 1v1-build. It’s a teamfight build with strong roaming-potential and some node-holding potential (better than non 1v1/bunker-builds, weaker than dedicated bunkers/1v1).

Or do you expect to hold a node against a Shoutbow or Engi with a thief or mesmer?

The build is best when it is in teamfights. Does your team run a 3-point strat with strong 1v1-builds and roamers? Well then this build won’t work as well and you shouldn’t play it.

Does your team play a 2-point strat with strong teamfight and the goal to dominate the points in head-on fights? (for example with bunker-guards, rampage-warriors, Elexir-Engis like chaith’s etc.) then this is where the build works very well.

It’s not supposed to be a replacement of a D/D-Ele at all, since they have very different roles. I don’t think I can make it any clearer than that.

did you not read what i wrote? there are better teamfighters or +1 builds than s/d ele.

meta is what’s best, not what could work. if it’s about winning then you need to run the best stuff.

Okay, let’s break down what’s important for teamfights and how the S/D-Ele build I posted does in them:

- On point pressure against bunkers is some of the highest, thanks to tooth, phoenix, perma-weakness.
- Burst is some of the highest, up there with thief and mesmer. Way higher than D/D.
- Defensive boons/skills and healing for teammates: Some of the highest. Better than D/D thanks to water trident, which is much more useful in teamfights than cone of cold.
- Offensive-boons for teammates/self: By far the highest in the game: perma-fury and in longer teamfights nearly full mightstacks for the whole team. Nothing comes even close.
- Survival/disengage: Some of the highest. Lower than D/D though.
- Stomping: above average thanks to stability and blinds.
- Rezzing: below average, no quickness, no good rez-traits, main weakness of the build in teamfights as a designated teamfighter.
downed-pressure: If you manage your CD’s right and can anticipate possible downed enemies well (which a good player should be able to), it’s some of the best downed-pressure in the game. I frequently burst down the downed target and some players rezzes even before the stomp goes through.
- Vertical mobility/range to catch stuff on highground: above average.
- CC: Below average.

Than, add to all that the fact that it’s a decent off-roamer that can hold points for quite some time. YES, not as well as other builds, but the build still has some options in that area.

Jekkt.6045:

PowerBottom.5796:

Jekkt.6045:

if you like s/d then play it but in my opinion there is simply better stuff

Problem is that your opinion clearly uninformed since you’ve obviously never played the build I posted.

i did, not with the same traits setup but with the same lines. it’s impossible to hold a node against a competent shoutbow or a rifle engi so why would i bother playing it when those are my main threats. scepter is also a lot weaker against stealth targets, that’s another downside of it.

Did you even read what I posted: It’s not a node-holder nor a 1v1-build. It’s a teamfight build with strong roaming-potential and some node-holding potential (better than non 1v1/bunker-builds, weaker than dedicated bunkers/1v1).

Or do you expect to hold a node against a Shoutbow or Engi with a thief or mesmer?

The build is best when it is in teamfights. Does your team run a 3-point strat with strong 1v1-builds and roamers? Well then this build won’t work as well and you shouldn’t play it.

Does your team play a 2-point strat with strong teamfight and the goal to dominate the points in head-on fights? (for example with bunker-guards, rampage-warriors, Elexir-Engis like chaith’s etc.) then this is where the build works very well.

It’s not supposed to be a replacement of a D/D-Ele at all, since they have very different roles. I don’t think I can make it any clearer than that.

Jekkt.6045:

if you like s/d then play it but in my opinion there is simply better stuff

Problem is that your opinion clearly uninformed since you’ve obviously never played the build I posted.

Jekkt.6045:

wat

1. why would anybody take s/d celes if it’s weaker than d/d…

2. dagger has way better mitigation in teamfights/1v1s compared to scepter

3. who needs phoenix if you have drake’s breath. dragon tooth is bad anyway.

4. fresh air is hands down the worst dps build in the game right now. if i play it it makes me wanna punch my screen and delete my meteorlogicus. you essentially go full damage with 3 arcanes to deal an acceptable amount of damage or you will deal less damage than a celestial build.

5. scepter skills are terrible. the auto attacks are slow, clunky and the damage is extremely low for a weapon that basically has 1 bugged “high” hitting skill shot that you could call burst if you wanted to. the utility it gives you.. oh no wait, the utility actually comes from focus, nvm. scepter without fresh air is unplayable.

nobody cares how well s/d with celestial or even s/f fresh air does against low mmr random players, the party’s at the top and that’s where it’s too weak.

1) It’s weaker in 1v1’s, but not by much. Not every build needs to be a 1v1 build. It’s much stronger in teamfights and as a +1.

2) D/D isn’t even top-5 in Teamfights in the current meta, for several reasons:
- Melee only, which means it’s harder to reach certain targets, you eat more AoE, get CC’d more often etc.
- The DPS is not very bursty and much of the DMG is fairly easily cleansed. Most teamfights get decided by quick burst and strong openings.
- Crucial Skills are extremely easy to interrupt, like Fire 2 and Water 2.
-> Teamfights are clearly where D/D is the worst, thats why he’s used as a 1v1 roamer. For the S/D, teamfights are his strength, so they are two different builds with different roles.

3) Phoenix might be one of the best skills in the game and dragon tooth hits for insane DPS with low CD and is a blast finisher.

4) okay

5) I have 7k+ games and I frequently play in teams with very experienced players. This build is not some brainfart, it’s is actually one of the best builds in the game. Don’t believe me? try it out…

Supreme.3164:

, ele scepter is exactly as it was 3 years ago

Absolutely not, Scepter got a huge buff with the recent big specialization-changes and quite frankly, it baffles me that we don’t see this build played more often because it’s IMHO one of the best builds in the game.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArYhcMozhFOwxB8RMQAYUW4IEFiCQAYAUXykYZA-TJBFwAl2fgwDAAaZAAnAAA

In certain 1v1’s, it’s not as good as D/D-Ele (probably in most 1v1’s), but it’s still good enough to be an off-roamer. In all other aspects, especially burst and teamfight, it’s mindblowingly good.

Why does Cele-Scepter work?

Simply because of the rewamped fire-trait-line and the ability to skill deep into it thanks to the new specializations. You get tons of mightstacks, perma fury for you and your team, more power and raw DMG in fire and shorter CD’s on the fire-skills. The last one is especially important since a vast majority of the DPS comes from bursts with fire 2-5.

I’ve been using this build a lot lately and each time I switch back to D/D, I just feel that the Scepter build is much stronger overall.

I hit for like 7k dragon tooths and with a tooth+phoenix+rnig of fire, I easily down quishy classes in ~a second. And I got big parts of this combo ready every ~10 seconds.

With the extremely low CD’s on fire, I can also prestack 30+ seconds of fury and 10+ stacks of might on the whole team before the fight.

Another big plus is the perma-weakness you put on a target thanks to easily spammable Air-1 (dmg isn’t too great, I give you that) and Arcane Precision. D/D-Eles can’t really make use of arcane precision as well as S/D, but on S/D, it’s an amazing trait.

Just because no1 plays Cele scepter, doesn’t mean it’s not good.

Besides Cele, Fresh Air is also pretty decent and IMHO even meta-worthy in some comps.