Guild Wars 2

wtf is torment…

I doubt and hope that these are true. It would be a really LAZY approach to dealing with ele’s issues.

1. Bunkers barely touched, again.

2. Scepter burst becoming even more ridiculously overpowered, nerfs will follow.

3. Inconsistency and lazy design for the new and old stun breakers.
-Lightning flash was a stun breaker just like blink and shadowstep, it should remain as one.
-Glyph of elemental power is an ability that must be used at the right time, in the right attunement. It’s not supposed to be a panic button.

4. Lots of channeling times decreased, not so much about actual cooldowns (Fire aura, gale, freezing gust still have way too high cooldowns, and many other spells)

5. Lol at electrocute (underwater air #2) getting a 12 sec cooldown up from 5. Vulnerability or not, it’s a #2 spell, it should have a moderately low cooldown.

6. Glass d/d is still trash and no sign of compensation buffs in sight. I guess dagger main hand is simply supposed to play as a bunker, no other choice.

While some things look interesting, sadly it’s just a mess of poor balancing and kneejerk reactions, again.

I hope it’s not true, and I also wish I could say that I would expect better from ANet, but I just can’t. These notes really seem like something they would come up with lmao.

zephyr’s boon 24/7

The better question is… why does Focus Air 5 (Gale) have a 50 seconds cooldown?

It should either:
-Do damage if it wants to keep that cooldown
-Have a 40 seconds cooldown
or
-Be an instant cast (it’s a 0.75 second cast, like lightning touch)

Conncept.7638:

The ideal way to to design the class, in my opinion, is so that if one chooses to build for a single attunement you will rely on that attunement for damage, but still need (and be able) to rely on the utility of the remaining three.

So if I spec earth for example, the traits should make my damage in earth high enough to make up the majority of my DPS. But, if I need to apply frost I can switch in to water and use it, then switch back, without my DPS going down like the Hindenburg.

The biggest hurdle to overcome in order to make this work is allowing people to switch out of an attunement without being forced to stay out of it for such a ridiculously large amount of time. And the easiest solution would be to make traits that lower the cooldown of specific attunements.

But your DPS would be going down. You are basically doing 0 damage all the time that you aren’t in earth.

10+ seconds you’re doing 0 damage.

PinCushion.7390:

TGSlasher.1458:

I tried to play my ele again the other day, in PvE … They ruinzed it. Poor Gollum.

Loving that a 20 lower lvl warrior can kill things faster then me (mind you I was lower in stats due to de-levelling/scaling), not take any damage and generally troll 10 mobs, while I have troubles trolling more then 3 at a time. He gets hit by a champion and only takes about 24% damage, instead of almost insti death and then proceed to solo that same champion, while I basically sit back and watch for fear of imminent death.

Which champion? Some of them are super easy.

Which are some difficult champions to solo? (Excluding Orr’s)

Hardest for me was the flame legion shaman at the top left of iron marches. I did it with pre-nerf RtL… I don’t think I would be able to do it now.

I have 2 different main daggers: Sigil of the night (ascalonian wep) and 5% damage.
Off hand: sigil of battle always.

Staff: sigil of fire.

Armor: full berserker. If I had to choose a “tanky” spec though, at most I would get cavalier’s and maybe 1 or 2 soldiers (azurite trinket), but that will never happen.

I also have a scepter (bloodlust sigil), an extra staff (magic find sigil), another scepter (magic find again) and another trident (magic find, main one has sigil of battle again).

utilities: Used to be arcane shield / wave + mist form. But now I use lightning flash, armor of earth and arcane wave.

traits: 0/20/0/20/30 24/7.

I doubt that any of this will suit your playstyle for now… maybe in the future. Playing berserker is the way to go for high end pve, and it’s a ton of fun in pvp.

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama.9586:

Quick Mouse.7635:

NeXeD.3042:

Do not use earth dagger 5 in pvp ever unless your holding a point or you like dying, everytime I see a ele use it pvp I nuke them with everything I got.

I have gotten the best results in 1v1s using berserker armor divinity runes and clerics accessories.

I think Pvt is almost always a mistake.

earth dagger 5 is huge damage; it’s super effective! Use it out of range then lightning flash in. Best comboed by swapping to air and popping shocking aura for the fury and the stun if ppl try to attack u.

What do you do about ranged people with a KD?
(Engie rifle #4)

armor of earth, or wait til you blow your KD

not that I still run d/d, it’s trash.

Higher base damage (power coefficients) on our autoattacks.

Revert renewing stamina trait back to how it used to work.

I don’t get it, wasn’kittens cd always 25s?

Scepter’s autoattacks are terrible. Air the most decent in terms of DPS but if by any chance your opponent gets behind you in the 3+ seconds of channelling, your damage is negated.

Skill

I have a hard time thinking of how a full bunker build can even die 1v1.

Loco.4561:

Well I hope you like respawning a lot, because if you run full zerker D/D build in WvW, your going to die very fast.

Would be better to look at S/D Burst builds, at least you have some range to help you

Where do people get this from? I have excellent survivability even while spec’d as glass cannon.

1. Stop drop and roll is worthless, go VI or IX (vital striking / cantrip mastery)
2. Same thing about Geomancer’s freedom, I’d much rather get elemental shielding
3. I prefer battle over hydromancy, but both are decent.
4. arcane wave is better than blast, because it’s a combo finisher (blast).
5. cleansing flame seems to be overkill, I’d take lightning flash instead.
6. I would never have 0 points in the air trait line

basically what’s your goal with this build? tanky damage dealer? undying ele? focusing on survivability over damage?

with your current build, you neglect might stacks BIG time, while having extremely low crit chance and damage. bunker eles can at least pull off some numbers because they have like 10+ might stacks up at all times.

I would be surprised if your lightning whip hits more than 800 (400 x2) damage each cast…

I usually outlive my team in full berserker’s as well, it has little to do with how you build.

No class can aoe damage from afar like Staff eles, you guys want staff eles to be everything at once, from long range aoe powerhouses to 1v1 killing machines, and that just won’t happen.

Learn to see the pros that each weapon set can provide. Range isn’t something to be ignored.

Blaine Tog.8304:

I guess I don’t see why it’s such a big deal. It’s high burst and it happens very quickly, sure, but a decent roaming thief could do pretty much the same thing, except you wouldn’t even be able to see them coming at all and they would have an even easier time escaping afterwards..

except I don’t have issues with thieves’ burst being unpredictable. 1-2 seconds reaction time is enough for me to do something about it. This specific case however… it happens in less than 0.5 seconds.

some theorycraft I’ve made.

0/30/0/30/10, or even 0 points in arcana is a possibility (the guy said he doesn’t need might or fury, and barely switches attunements)

vital striking, air +10% damage, scholar runes, air sigil + accuracy sigil, once accuracy sigil is fully stacked he switches to +5% damage or +5% crit chance.

1 or 2 valkyrie & cavalier armor / weps, rest berserker’s.

100 prec 10% crit chance / 5% power to vit, 3% toughness to vit foods.

Gotta burst him down, that’s the only way. And that will only work if the thief is average. A good thief is unbelievably hard to fight.

And as a sad PVT hurr durr ele you won’t even dream of killing a thief.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Razor.6392:

I’d say it’s overpowered, even. It barely has counterplay other than “pray that you dodge roll whenever the guy switches to air and rolls face on keyboard”

The counterplay is to have even a little bit of toughness or vitality in your build and then press 6. Now you’re safe and he’ll die to pretty much anything you throw at him.

Or, alternately, to have even one other person with you. Because while that burst was flashy, he can’t do it again for 45 seconds and he’ll die way before he gets that chance, rallying you.

My burning speed can do 5300 damage to him, so he’s not that tanky (probably lying).

But still, to pin down an elementalist… it’s not easy.

He uses ether renewal, lightning flash, arcane blast and mist form. And fiery greatsword for an elite (spams 3 and 4 to get away from everything).

His burst has a downtime of 12ish seconds in the best case scenario, and even if it fails Air #1 still does ridic damage (6000 damage for the entire channel, on average)

And no… he doesn’t use arcane power, like I said, he uses Lightning flash, mist form and arcane blast. Also uses crit chance stackable sigil. I’m sure the guy has like 30 points in air, scholar runes or some kitten.

remember to set the aoes predicting where monsters are going to move, not exactly on top of them.

LightningBlaze.4913:

I know many great players that like me don’t care about recognition,

Lol’d.

Abusing a broken build hardly makes you a “great player”, judging from ANet design philosophy (or any competitive game worth a kitten ), an unpredictable, instagibbing ranged burst cannot possibly be balanced.

use all attunements lol

lure like 5 monsters, CC them with water 4 or air 5 or earth 4 (or all of those), then drop the rest of the aoes.

its really easy

I use 6x divinity.

CuRtoKy.8576:

Zenith.7301:

LightningBlaze.4913:

Of course all those ppl that don’t know the potential of a burst build and how to survive with it will only speak nonsense.

Yeah, that’s why you remained vague about said build.

This LightningBlaze dude posting in elementalist threads claiming this godly glass/dmg build he uses. Yet he has no videos or anything to show proof of it. Every top level (spvp and WvW) ele has a guide, build, or videos to prove their skills.

On top of that the math doesn’t work out. 1.2 ratio on Air #2 + 2400 power (food + high power glass build with some knight pieces) + high end weapon damage (1009) + 2.75 crit damage = 3k damage on 2.6k armor targets (which is like what most damage based bunker eles run). Bit from FA runs a ~74% crit damage with 2.7k armor with 16-17k hp build. 0.4 ratio on both arcane skills and 0.7 on switching to air attune. At most you’ll get like 7-8k damage on a 2.6k armor bunker target which is like 50% of their hp. And this is the high end range of that damage. At the same time, you have to waste 2 utilities for this which leaves you with one for a stun break or condition removal. Anyone who is skilled will tell you that there is a disadvantage with having these utilities.

As for the OP, the only time you would take like 10k+ damage and die from air attunement + arcane spells is if you are built glass with base/low hp + armor/toughness.

I have 14k HP. a 11k damage burst doesn’t kill me, but when combined with a pre-casted instant spell like earthquake, it comes kitten close.

Even if that doesn’t happen, in a 1v1 situation I won’t sit at full hp the entire fight, as soon as I drop to 80% ish HP im done for.

oZii.2864:

TL/DR you aren’t holding on to some great secret sorry. Some simple testing can reveal how to get access to that damage if it is possible like the op said. Hey at least you can tell your friends I was running this before everyone else was and be cool to them

It is very well possible. I’ll post a screenshot whenever I get instagibbed again.

Wiz.1543:

xiv.7136:

Wiz.1543:

Razor.6392:

Wiz.1543:

Gear is soldiers everything

Stopped skip-reading there.

If you read somewhat further you’ll understand why I use PTV gear. Its because of the channeling time + you have to stay still for casting the AOE.

for PVE, don’t need PVT at all – if you’re getting downed a lot in dungeons/fractals, you gotta rethink what you’re doing

for WvW, half PVT as staff is fine, if you’re not a total baddie you can add in some other stuff

there’s only 2 things you need to stand still for: meteor shower (just time it carefully) and water 5 (it’s short cast), rest is all on the move anyway

you don’t need full PVT gear

I have to agree in general PvE content you dont need as much PTV if you can dodge and position. Except higher level Fractals and Arah

I have to disagree on the frostbow´s AOE have to stand still.

What gear would you suggest for this build, and why?

Actually you don’t need pvt in fractals either. All the high level fractals want berserker’s so you actually do damage to the monsters.

Thief burst is melee, this burst is ranged.

I’m talking about instant 11k+ damage in less than a second from 900 range.

Zenith.7301:

It’s basically a wannabe thief build.

That burst rotation has very high cd, and is pretty telegraphed. Unlike the thief, that ele has no staying power — his escape is crappy and people can focus him down regardless of what he wants to do.

People ran this build in the betas. It’s what got the ele nerfed so much prior to release. Then people realized that a thief can pretty much 3-shot you and so can a mesmer, so they sent the mesmer to dispose of this kind of ele.

How is it telegraphed? I do not know when the guy will decide to switch to air.

I can expect it, but I won’t know for sure. It doesn’t help that it’s instant.

I’d say it’s overpowered, even. It barely has counterplay other than “pray that you dodge roll whenever the guy switches to air and rolls face on keyboard”

Wiz.1543:

Gear is soldiers everything

Stopped skip-reading there.

obviously it was a critical strike, he’s pretty much running in 100% crit chance.

about might, he has 0 stacks because he rarely switches attunements, just sits in earth and then surprise! 12k damage.

I wonder what kind of build some wvw ele could be using.

Somehow his Scepter Air #2 hits me for 5000 damage without fail, basically an instagib combo when he switches to air (air attunement + air #2 + air sigil + arcane blast for a total of 11k+ damage)

How to make it so air #2 can crit for 5000-5500 damage? doesn’t it have like 1200 base damage?

oZii.2864:

Razor.6392:

d/d elementalist is a squishy low range class.

his bunkering, glass or any d/d build available remained powerful because of its mobility (RtL).

take the mobility away, what do you have left?

inb4 “RtL is still good”

Bunkering is not powerful because of mobility rofl. If that was the case then thieves would be the best bunkers in the game and guardians would be one of the worst.

Unkillable + getting away with ease (as opposed to guardians) was one huge reason why it was nerfed.

Also I love how you address the part of d/d glass eles getting butchered.

How can people say that eles have multiple builds?

Every possible ele build spins around 20+ in both arcana and water. There is no way to avoid that.

Or you can just play a necromancer?

Why do people want to destroy uniqueness at the expense of “more viability”?

AFAIK warriors don’t have aoe slows, aoe stuns, aoe immobilizes, aoe blinds or aoe cripple.

even with 0 power and precision, those spells still stun, slow, immobilize, etc, respectively.

just run up to them after using earth 3

the follow up jump is buggy and useless.

Maybe ele is just not a class for you…

So basically you wanna heal a lot while being tanky, while also dealing significant aoe damage?

Or you want to deal massive aoe damage, while being tanky as hell?

It’s one or the other. These are called tradeoffs, remember that word. Thief has many (maybe too many) tools available to do their single-target assassin job, but that’s all they can do.

A thief (or any class) only wishes to be able to pull off such huge aoe numbers on their own. Or to aoe heal, or to aoe CC.

So basically every class has their ups and downs. A staff ele excels in wvw for aoe damage and control, while thief excels at being slippery and a ridiculous single target damage dealer. Which one is more infuriating to face? and which one has a bigger impact in large scale fights? The answer is obvious, and that’s why you seem to hate thieves.

I dislike them too, because they’re cheap, but that’s about it.

Well, 2x fotm 32s and got only one rare, when back then even at fotm 15ish I would get 2 or more…

Inc nerfs .

I think that happens when you lag. Be it FPS lag or internet lag.

I like using burning speed + flash but sometimes I end up being right where I started…

This probably isn’t recent, I haven’t played a lot of gw2 lately (pve at least).

I remember getting 2-4 rares everytime from fotm 12ish to 26 or so (thats when I took a break)… now I’m lucky if I get ONE rare at fotm 32.

Another stealth change? I’ve usually rolled my eyes whenever people posted conspiracy theories about slight drop changes… but this one is rather noticeable.

Those fights are infuriating. It doesn’t matter if you make the thief run for his life at 1% hp everytime, because the guy will just reset the fight and come back again, hoping that this time his 8k damage backstabs will get the job done.

d/d elementalist is a squishy low range class.

his bunkering, glass or any d/d build available remained powerful because of its mobility (RtL).

take the mobility away, what do you have left?

inb4 “RtL is still good”

welp keep using your useless D/D I guess.

D/D was only viable because of RtL

go PVT if you want to be useless.

Lighter.5631:

can every other jobs ooc and get a third weapon swap please oh wait even 3 skills set is not enough to compare with 8 skills set, better give a fourth weapon swap when ooc

I don’t think you’re trolling, and that’s sad.

needs baffszzzzzz

Miiro.3124:

if you cant win without rtl then you dont deserve the win in the first place.

Running away = winning now?

old RtL didn’t help me winning any straightforward duel at all. Perhaps you mean escaping?

Miiro.3124:

if you cant escape without rtl then you dont deserve the escape in the first place.

okay… that still doesn’t make sense.

…

halp

Super Riceman.8702:

I think the Gale cooldown should be 20 seconds if it stays single target. Single target + the cooldown it has seems weak
But there are other problems with offhand dagger vs focus.

Flamewall sucks in comparison to ring of fire which scales better and is larger. It could block movement for summoned units that way it has some use over ring.
Fire Shield would be good if it reflected projectiles.

Freezing Gust seems very weak for a single target skill. If they keep it single target it should be like Deep Freeze but only 1 sec

Flamewall should have a faster cast time and be more useful, freezing gust could have base damage added to it and a longer chill duration… but that’s another subject.

Btw I find fire shield to be perfectly fine.