Guild Wars 2

Though this was in spvp..

daydream.2938:

Raptured.9307:

Why does everyone put thief on the bad tier?

I just rolled a thief AFTER the nerf and to me it seems like the most op thing ever, given that you can be skilled enough to use it.
From what I see in sPvP/tPVP and from dueling bunkers, I would rate

A:
Thief
Elementalist
Mesmer
B:
Engineer/Guardian (Tentative, post patch)
Necro/Ranger
D:
Warrior

Do you hotjoin or do tournies?

Both.

Why does everyone put thief on the bad tier?

I just rolled a thief AFTER the nerf and to me it seems like the most op thing ever, given that you can be skilled enough to use it.
From what I see in sPvP/tPVP and from dueling bunkers, I would rate

A:
Thief
Elementalist
Mesmer
B:
Engineer/Guardian (Tentative, post patch)
Necro/Ranger
D:
Warrior

Take out the war. Maybe take an engie. Or multiple engies.

I just starting rolling a thief in spvp/ tpvp yesterday and am rolling quite hard without dying (not full gc). There’s something to be said about the state of thief in spvp even after the slight nerf. On the pve end, yes, they do need some help. Just like how warriors need some help in spvp.

knyy.6427:

rerolled thief until warrior gets some pvp love.

Hah same. Absolutely loving how easily i destroy everything quickly and get away with it.

Caffynated.5713:

vorpal.1497:

Endure pain is not invuln. Incoming physical damage is reduced to zero, but every other source of damage / cc / whatever gets through.

Yes, but most of the damage you take in PvP is direct damage and that’s generally what I want to prevent when I pop an invuln. I would +1 changing it to make you immune to condis, but it’s not the difference between OP must have and abysmal. Mist form is an objectively better purely defensive skill, but I don’t think it’s better or worse as a total skill. The ability to use all of your weapon powers while immune to direct damage is very strong.

Insightful. Would rather have mist form on war though – imo, it’s more useful for them. Nice variation.

Fooled around with 6 classes in spvp for a while now (rank 32), warriors were the worst and now it’s even worse. I now main pve warrior, spvp thief.

On the other hand, i saw a spvp warrior with banners, kick, and rampage equipped. He got 1st place multiple times. Lol.

warriors and thieves have the exact opposite problems, lol

No as the thief is still the best duelist in spvp

Rolling d/p in spvp right now, didn’t roll thief before patch. Still destroying everything and i see many other thieves. believe it or not, thief is still the most op class in spvp if you use it right

Just for cof runs, so force it is?

I’d say:
Permastealth thief #1
Mesmer (bunker/glass) #2 tied with necro
D/D ele, Guardian, Ranger #3
Engie #4
Warrior #6
Agreed, empathetic fighter

To maximize dps on greatsword? I’m pretty much considering air, strength, and force at this point – any tips?

Haven’t watched the discussion, but 25 stacks of confusion screams op.

yes but what runes/ jewels should i put on it

So for my war I have a knight’s set along with my zerker set. I have 6 soldier runes on it, and emerald jewels on the trinkets but lately i feel like that’s not the way to go – I’d like to put some runes/ upgrades that i can exchange pieces/ w my zerker set to fit different situations, and particularly to fit harder dungeons that require more survivability like fotm or arah. What should I do? Are runes of the soldier that worth it for the condition cleansing? Also, what are your thoughts on the warhorn condition cleansing trait?

The nerf would only really hurt if you do perma stealth… Which IMO is not efficient at all anyway,except for some really annoying attrition thief builds which I am more than happy to destroy

It is a step in the right direction. This is an effective anti meta that would be both helping thieves out in Pve and change up their annoying pvp play.

Time is the best healer. gg scrubs

Sorry but dude, mind your grammar/punctuation. It’s pretty darn hard to read/take seriously, especially when you’re ranting.
As others said, rangers are actually quite tanky.

+1’d everything. Great summary! Keep it up!

^However, mesmers are often targeted first
1. They’re more hated
2. BELIEVED to have stronger burst power, and weaker survivability
3. Eles can heal a lot better and have boons like protection and stability, most are bunkers, so can’t be cc’d well and bursted like mesmers

If you’re going to play in a team, you’re probably going to have a harder time as a mesmer due to this bias just to start it off.

Man this forum is so depressing lol

Stance corrected: you can be very heavy support in tPvP with glass canon staff build, provided it’s the rest of the team that’s fighting in the circle and you keep yourself well out of harm’s way. But yes expect 100% death in 1v1 situations.

The number of “viable builds” in spvp is rather limited for people to fight on par with one another in small scale fights, so once you do play enough duels/ skirmishes, yes you get to predict what they can and will do based on what weapons they have. Other builds usually simply don’t work.

TwoBit.5903:

maddoctor.2738:

Raptured.9307:

Calae.1738:

We’re the only class with at least 3 useful utilities and the rest are aweful.

We’re the only class where all our elites are terrible.

The devs spend more time nerfing and taking things away then adding and modifying. Probably because it’s quicker and cheaper. Designing a new ability and balancing it requires a lot of testing; which Arena net doesn’t like to do.

Not really, a good number of utilities are very useful compared to those of the necro or say warrior. As for elites, our tornado is very useful against classes with little cc protection. Just not against guardians.. Don’t use it against guardians please…

Tornado is bad and nearly useless, at least most other Professions have one or two useful elites… Eles have zero. Warrior utilities are far superior than most Elementalist utilities in lots of different situations (banners/shouts beat anything the Eles have as party support).

Oh right you are talking only about PVP here… apparently it’s the only game mode that needs “Dev attention”.

The best Ele utilities are based around self-preservation. Eles have support built into their weapons that balances them out a bit.

Tornado makes turns you into a big target. Useful when you want to get yourself killed in PvP.

Try playing in a team sometime, or capping pts in tpvp against classes with no stability.

Dolan.3071:

gek.6041:

Fishbait.6723:

I go roaming. Bag/weapon swapping is a waste of time

Yeah I just realized that you cant weapon swap with eles anyway isnt this class squishy to be roaming alone? or did you mean by group?

Thanks for the input btw

I’ve only just started doing this, and it seems to be going pretty well. I role D/D with condition damage/healing power/toughness. It’s not big on damage but it can endure anything. So far it takes a minimum 3 v 1 to beat it, even then I still win my fair share. Ive yet to lose a 1v1, even beefed up Guardians will eventually cave in. When they start to to run you’re in the clear, few players can outrun a D/D Elementalist. And really, the build speaks for itself because I am really not that good at Ele…

I think you mean to catch an ele – it doesn’t take more than a 2v1 to beat down an ele who stays in battle, but catching one can be hard work

Yeah I don’t see an experienced ele being able to simultaneously take two experienced gc thieves without eventually running away.

Mikemad.2495:

Gaudrath.6725:

Don’t be. He assumes the warrior will not use one of their many gap closers and CC abilities and not use ranged weapons, for some reason.

Once an ele pops their mistform, usually they have lightning flash for extra stun breaker and mobility but that’s it.

So basically you’d want to force them to pop mistform early on, then proceed to apply as much DPS as you can. Now, they can run away with RTL, but that either removes them from the fight or puts them just nicely in range of your rifle if they start legging it back towards you. You would have to watch for projectile reflection/absorption though.

I think warriors get a bad rap because there’s so many 100B users out there… people even forget that warriors have some really nice single target DPS on rifle. You can’t really kite a warrior, you just turn it into a ranged fight.

Yea its not so much that I have a huge amount of trouble with eles, Im just really sick of going on the mesmer/ele forums and seeing all the “lol warriors are no threat”.

They generally do pose no threat to eles because we have earth armor/ cond removals/ tankiness/ so much survivability when u go bunker in spvp; and in 1v1, bunker beats glass. Defensive wars rely more on cc, but once again we have good mechanics against that. Mesmers can easily teleport/ stealth away out of anything, and thieves as well (however mes/thiefs are much weaker against cc wars).

@Gaudrath, he wanted a quick summary/ quickstart guide, i gave one to him. Simple as that, based on battle trends. Ofc your personal experience comes into play, but that gets a lot more subjective and it can drag on for very long which I didn’t plan on getting into. Essentially, what you ARE doing is basically rotations as a d/d ele and in many battles where YOU are the one to engage, it is pretty repetitive.
Ex: dual axe warrior, useless. skill 5. Retal kills them on guard/mesmer. for us, just knock them down or stay away. Rifle, dodge or hide behind a wall to avoid skill 3/ f1, quick switch to water, then back to air to catch up and knock them down. as for guard, it’s easy : just note when he has retaliation / aegis up, as i said (keep an eye on his boons?) killing them is another matter, and it’s just better not to engage a point defend/ bunker. Against a gc it’ s much like any other fight. You were making pretty aimed comments even though you said “this isn’t aimed at any one’s particular post.”

“Of course, as you learn quickly (and especially in WvW), it doesn’t work at least 60% of the time. People just dodge you, because they can time your Updraft from the sound of your RTL, nevermind visuals.” – you just walk and follow them for 1-2 seconds then hit 5… just thought this was an irrelevant detail

So THIS is what guardians complain about…

I be OP and wipe everyone 1v1 in spvp

isn’t that fun because I find that i can’t really move all that well as a necro

Replace downed skill 3 with zombie transform. Become a random risen, from risen chicken to abomination. Works like vengence.

i can see necros having a bit of trouble with mesmers. Then again, what class doesn’t (besides gc thieves on gc mesmers). And yes, i can phase retreat to a higher ledge, go invisible to drop another clone there, and blink to another higher ledge now with 2 more staff clones attacking you and end up on a place that you can’t reach in 10+ seconds or can’t reach at all. All done in half a second and usually discourages anyone from fighting me.

Azadoras.2790:

Why don’t you just swap to staff, put in the arcane trait for large staff attacks and rain Hell on them from the walls? :P

^what i do. it’s fun

I simply do not think staff is viable in spvp unless you roll with a 3+ man zerg at all times.

in sPvP, i’d go mesmer.
PVE, go ele unless cofp1e/cofp3
wvw – either

gandlethorpe.2641:

The ele is almost the same as it was when you left, with a few nerfs to the 5 usable traits, and (gasp!) some underwater fields/finishers.

Eles can “manage”, but so can every profession. We have a lot of useful base skills, and are welcome on a team by virtue of having lots of fields and AoE. Unfortunately, what you can do at level 80 is little different from what you can do at level 30 (or even 20, since our elites are mostly fluff). We have an appalling selection of traits, with many being so inconsequential it has to be a joke. Only a few do anything to affect playstyle.

I don’t know when you left, but if everyone back then used D/D, cantrips, and only put heavy points into Water and Arcana, nothing has changed except that those are a little bit weaker. Still no reason to use glyphs or conjures in any serious build, or signets (apart from a convoluted aura spamming gimmick). Still no reason to use scepter or focus. Still no reason to use staff when circumstances don’t force you into long range.

Dude i love my 80 ele. He could do so much more at 80 than at 30. Are you gearing properly? I love bringing in my ele for those harder dungeons/ dungeons where my team have a bit of trouble surviving, like arah exp. Works wonders compared to my warrior for that purpose.

vmj.4170:

PinCushion.7390:

haviz.1340:

Rolling a bunker doesn’t solve issues with crap damage.

Crap damage?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D0X7FAxuHY

This is a way more better video and he is fighting lvl 80s

Guy had 20 stacks of what, bloodlust? lol.
Damage aint complete crap, but aint the best. what is amazing is how ele can survive so well while doing moderate damage.

Calae.1738:

We’re the only class with at least 3 useful utilities and the rest are aweful.

We’re the only class where all our elites are terrible.

The devs spend more time nerfing and taking things away then adding and modifying. Probably because it’s quicker and cheaper. Designing a new ability and balancing it requires a lot of testing; which Arena net doesn’t like to do.

Not really, a good number of utilities are very useful compared to those of the necro or say warrior. As for elites, our tornado is very useful against classes with little cc protection. Just not against guardians.. Don’t use it against guardians please…

Uhh thieves still hurt quite a bit.

Thief: GC thieves… if you see them first, once again start off iwth the rush and knockdown. They stealth. knockdown. put armor of earth on and summon ur elementals.. They are probably going to backstab you soon. Should they do that, once again either knockdown or switch to water, skill 3, 4 and keep rolling until they run out of initiatives and backstabs. then do whatever you want to them (unless they stealth and run away – you can do a bit of guessing/ aoe knockdowns again). If they spot you first well… ur going to end up as a stone for a bit and a sankitten so put up armor of earth when you can and get ur kitten out of there if you’re still alive. THEN come back and try to kill him. Hopefully you have enough toughness/vit! If the thief is condition/bunker based, stealths a lot, and spams conditions on you… kitten them. Just run away and hopefully the thief goes away. really little you can do to them aside from knockdowns and immobilize/freeze them if they’re good.

Rangers. Just watch out for trap build rangers. go for the main ranger always and freeze / slow down their pets. watch out for entangle – you can hit the roots but i prefer lightning flashing my way out (which gives vigor and regen too).Keep your eye on the bleeds and don’t walk into their traps. They’re both bunker builds but it is possible for you to win (they won’t periodically heal to full like some guards and mesmers and thieves), but it will take while.

Necromancer: can be a huge pain. Condition necro: watch for corrupt boon, keep dodging when they put marks on you, and you should be fine. Power necro: Fight them as you would GC guard. Watch out for plague -only immobilize and chill really works against these guys, and conditions but well you’re not so great for that. Not too much you can do at close range until it’s done. Minion necros: your pbaoes are aweosme against them. Just don’t get kitten by the flesh golem charge and minion explosions.

Engineer – get rid of any turrets that may possibly appear as you dodge. That’s about it. Watch out for them using Elixer s – they’re temporarily invincible.

Eles – If staff, engage and kill them, easy battle. s/d and d/d may VERY WELL END UP HAVING NOTHING HAPPEN BESIDES ONCE AGAIN BEING A WASTE OF TIME, so watch out.
Did I miss any class?

Alright since i play as d/d ele:

Many fights are really similar to ur pve rotations… just keep in mind, not worth it to fight other bunkers, fight gcs. if the gc seems mobile, put immobilizes, freezes, cripples, and knockdowns.

Warrior: just laugh at how he can’t do anything against you. laugh. Zerker wars – pop stability or tele away when he bull rushes you and tries to 100b you, dodge their kill shots. You got this in the bag. Save a rtl + knockdown in case they decide to run away with sword/ greatsword. CC/defensive wars – they actually know what they’re doing if you see them in team battles. Thankfully, you have stability utilities. Use them. Try to knock them down instead, and keep immobilizes and such on them. Warriors are generally weak to conditions. And their attacks are straightforward

Guardian: Can be a very long and stupid fight. High chance that you won’t be able to kill each other / u end up running. Generally not worth it unless they’re GCing, even then they’re pretty survivable. First things first – note what boons he has on. Remove aegis with rtl, 5 to knockdown if he has stability. Otherwise, 2 first then 5 for a dodge+ swiftness. Put on shock aura with good timing so u can get the most stuns out of it. Switch to fire, and just spam the skills except auto attack and 4 (be sure to land ur fire grab when he has burning condition), then land 4 when he’s in the circle. Switch to Earth, 4 for knockdown, walk back a bit and roll forward for might, and 3 -> 3 for fire aura for extra mights. Switch to water / air as u please and start fighting again. Watch out for his burns – they hurt. Blasting earth imo is generally not as great of an idea unless u know they’re out of movement/aegis options AND you have lightning flash (imo this skill is a bit of a waste as you need to use armor of earth AND lightning flash to work this effectively in any battle) and it’s hard to hit in 1v1 situations. In 1v1 situations i generally just don’t go after them because they are not worth it, but if they’re gcing in a team situation i could go for him first because he is likely to have less knockdowns. Watch out for when he uses his elites – tome of courage and such – and use knockdowns to prevent him from finishing the spells.

Mesmers: Royal pain in butts. If they’re glass cannon (Greatsword wielding), good for you – always find the real one and take him down ASAP. rtl 4+5 knockdowns, immobilizes, and such cc skills (tornado) are great against them. Try to dodge their shatters and attacks which summon clones and phantasms. Stability will help in this fight as well. If they choose to go invisible go to that area asap and do an aoe knockdown. If you immobilized them just before this happens the mesmer is probably still there or teleported to another place WHILE visible for a brief second. AOE knockdowns are your friends. Then Switch to air 1 and try to find them. Prepare for sudden appearances of clones and shatters, though. If the mesmer wields a staff and has relatively high hp from what you can tell, probably a bunker build. Not worth it, very hard to fight as an ele, find another opponent.

There are specific “antibuilds” so that one player would nearly always beat another. However, 2v1 and 3v1s are impossible to win if all the players are competent. With glass thieves, the only way this can happen at all is if they’re all really bad, or if they all blow their basilisk venom loaded steal, AND use frenzy and use all their heartseeker on an ele that is in mist form (This doens’t happen and would have nothing to do with your build). Even if so, VERY VERY VERY unlikely chance you can win, unless winning = running away.
As for guardian, i can see him being able to tank 2 very bad glass thieves at the same time, if they haste + dagger storm next to him when he has a reflection shield/other stuff like that + retaliation and protection on himself…

http://i.imgur.com/9WWFqyk.jpg

Me on mesmer, 2nd day of trying the class in spvp. How? Greatsword, sigil of fire, null field, skill 4, 2, dodge, f1, autoattack, 3. totally safe and huge numbers happen.

Don’t know about wvw, but in tPvP/spvp 1v1 warriors are not viable unless you’re goign up against a class without any stunbreaks.

I just posted here not because it was an apparently absurd/attention grabbing title and there were people arguing in it, lol. Give it a rest. Really isn’t because of the name and I’m far from white knighting

Calae.1738:

Raptured.9307:

You know the “balancing” that this game is largely driven by on sPvP more than anything else (with some WvW changes and bug fixes here and there) right? Though the state of sPvP right now is rather sad… could use some new modes, ranking systems, connects to pve/wvw, etcetc.

I want them to continue to balance the game and make abilities worth taking despite the existance of SPVP.

Wether we like it or not SPVP is always going to be unpopular. The reason this game is never going to be an esport is because it’s too basic. There’s no depth in the combat system. The Elementalist is the only class that has any depth to it.

Look at the Warrior for comparison. The Warrior is too easy to play and too easy to be affective with. The skill ceiling is so low that you could train a chimpanzee to be a pro.

I suggest you look into tPVP. There are no warriors in tPVP for a reason. Strategy AND personal skill are both essential to winning.

As someone who currently mains warriors, I appreciate the heals a lot. Personally i prefer 3war1mes1ele, 3wars1mes1guard groups especially now for that huge increase in survivability instead of living/fighting on the edge, especially for that acolyte part in cof runs.