Guild Wars 2

With my Necro, I haven’t had problems beating Elementalists and Mesmers in sPvp.

Generally, Necros have the initiative when fighting any class (if you use marks).

Shocking Aura = 5 sec. If you hit him in melee, then it stuns you for 1 sec every time. It’s an instant spell, so it can be casted any time that he is attuned to Air. (When I play D/D, I usually have a trait to reduce its recharge time down to 20 sec. from 25 sec.)

The simple answer is that you either take “Balanced Stance” as a warrior if you’re going full melee, or take advantage of your range weapons (i.e., rifle or longbow), because shocking aura doesn’t impact long-ranged attacks. (Note: if he has a certain build, you will never actually be able to kill him but you can make him run, because he’ll be able to get away every time he feels threatened due to the elementalists’ high mobility and utility skills for getting out of CCs).

If you get satisfaction from kills, then the thief seems to be the best for that (Note: only class I’ve never played is Engineer and Mesmer). The reason this is so, is because you have to work for it (since the thief is squishy and can’t exactly just go head on without worry against other classes).

I find the easiest class to play and win would be the Guardian, since the Guardian excels in melee. With several blocks and blinds and boons, the Guardian can generally go into the fray with little worry. But I also find it one of the most boring to play.

I’ve played the Elementalist the most in sPvp compared to the other classes, because there were just a lot of builds that came to my mind that I wanted to try out with the Elementalist. My Elementalist is set up with high mobility, support capability, and good damage to beat non-bunker builds. The Ele can’t kill strong bunkers, because they lack poison,weakness, chill and boon removal. Anyways, one point I want to make is that you have to realize that certain classes excel at certain things. If you’re looking for classes that can apparently kill any other class/build, then you need to look at the thief, necromancer, or mesmer.

I don’t like Sigil of Doom or Sigil of Bloodlust (this is the one that steals life right?) or other similar sigils that apply an effect on hit, because many of the elementalist’s attacks will remove the effect before you’re able to apply it. For example, some attacks like burning speed will remove the “effect” at the beginning. Switching attunements (because it apparently counts as an attack) will remove the effect. Many AOE attack will also only remove the effect and not apply it.

That said, for D/D, I like Sigil of Geomancy currently (Note: it does direct damage + 3 stacks of bleeds). If you’re fast enough, even after updraft, if you swap right away, it’ll still hit the target.

@hackks: That’s what I heard too. I haven’t tried it recently, but I think it still holds.

I don’t play a mesmer, but I think the Mesmer clones have the same AI issues, because I’ve seen the clones just standing still or moving awkwardly and do nothing, which have confused me into thinking it was the player many times.

However, I’ve never seen this problem with my Ranger’s pet. The conjured elementals of the Elementalist never seem to have this problem either.

As far as how the A.I. is implemented… obviously, only the programmers at Anet would possibly know.

I think the Necro is quite straight-forward and boring when it comes to PvE (since the NPC A.I. is so predictable too). I only have 1 character that I’ve really played PvE with, and it’s the Necro; currently, lv. 80 (my next highest is a lv.9 Ranger). I only play PvE with my brother though, so it wasn’t bad (I enjoy exploring and looking for those hidden dungeons—not the long instanced ones). But mostly what I did was either use staff + wells or dagger + wells (and I use minions too). I just do what I think is most effective/efficient, and it’s all quite very straight-forward and repetitive (although I don’t think it’s much different for other classes?). Unless there’s something I’m not seeing…

@DoctorWhy: Then that just comes to opinions then, because some people claim “epidemic” is absolutely wonderful.

I don’t use epidemic, but I think the necromancer is quite wonderful with how “well-rounded” it is—that is, the capability to spec to have a lot of effective AOE skills (from range), but still be able to go 1 v 1 against other classes well too. And when minion AI work, they can deal very high damage quickly.

@DoctorWhy:

Well, it’s all based on anecdotal evidence though.

I’ve played on sPvp hot-join (currently rank 34). With my Necro, I’ve never lost to any thief 1v1 (or any other classes 1v1 except when Moa’d by a Mesmer). On my Thief, I’ve never lost to any Necro 1 v 1. On my Elementalist D/D build, I’ve never lost to any Necro or Thief 1v1. That says a lot about the build and play-ability of most people IMO. (Remark: I’ve never met a backstab thief that plays like those videos I saw where people die in a sec. I think it’s OPed or at least would be a very unenjoyable experience. But lets just ignore that one because I don’t think it’s intentional by design.)

I just think it’s frustrating to see people complain that Necro loses to all classes and have these people ignore the advice that others give (or maybe they can’t use the advice to its potential?). And if these people claim to be a master of the Necro, then they should be able to come up with an opponent’s build that will beat any Necro build.

For those of you claiming that the Necro is severely underpowered, why don’t you come up with a build (with a different class) that will always beat any Necro build all the time? (I’m referring more to 1 v 1, rather than being able to stack the most conditions or deal the most direct damage—it’s clear that some classes excel at certain things than others, such as the Necro being able to apply the most chill, or re-direct conditions to opponents or remove boons better than many other classes).

P.S. – not saying Necro doesn’t need some fixes (e.g., minion AI), but it’s not as severe as what people make it out to be (mainly referring to those who say Necros can’t beat other classes).

P.S.2 – yeah, I know I’m off-topic from the OP.

You know what would be the simplest solution? Just put a max damage cap on the corresponding skills (before applying armor/damage reduction). For example, if the developers decide backstab should only ever do 10k damage, then they should just apply that limitation so that whenever the formula computation comes to over 10k it’s automatically reduced to 10k.

Removing might stacking from thieves alone won’t necessarily solve the problem and it may instead remove some other viable builds, since teammates can give might to each other.

Shatterstone does so little damage. I think it really should be instant like the lightning 2 skill.

kiting or staying alive problem? put some points into water and get cantrip utility skills (e.g., armor of earth, lightning flash, etc.). Cantrips can allow elementalists to survive better than many other classes (imo, actually more than any other class).

I don’t have a Pve Elementalist (only PvP), but I assume this is your problem?

I run a similar build, but I go 0/20/10/30/10 (for sPvp)

(This is what I take that’s different from you)
Air: reduce air skills recharge by 20%
Arcane: elemental attunement only

For sigils I take the 60% chance to remove conditions (because conditions can get real nasty) and +5% crit chance

For runes I take rune of the ogre.

Soldier’s Amulet w/ Berserker’s jewel

Heal = Glyph (so that I can get permanent swiftness if I want or whatever else)

Instead of Armor of Earth I take Mist Form.

Thoughts:

I really don’t think the damage is that bad. I do over 1k damage with each hit of lightning whip when it crits.

As for aiding teammates. It seems that I have to be really close to them for the auras to proc. However, I really do think it helps them a lot from my experience (even if they don’t notice it). Note: I don’t play tournaments (because I don’t really like the super serious atmosphere and rather just play around), so I don’t know how it fares there.

From the perspective of Pvp…

On one hand, before the patch, it was like literally a “must-have”, because it breaks stun and removes condition, so it saves you from nasty spikes. But it was also amazing in that it could also punish condition builds by transferring your conditions to them.

On the other hand, Necros really should be given a skill that can get them out of nasty spikes (e.g., invul or remove conditions + stun break), since every class has at least one skill that does that unconditionally.

Back to the topic, I’m not sure if it’s a bug or not, since it’s not listed in the patch notes.

@Wulfrim

I wrote a long response on your Necromancer thread (but looks like it was removed while I was typing). Anyways I’ll skip all the stuff I wrote about the classes I’ve played and get to what I think is the heart of the issue. One of my biggest problem with this game is that I don’t feel very unique (with any class) because it doesn’t feel like there’s very many viable builds. Most set of skills are predetermined for us (e.g., weapons) which we use most of the time or otherwise, the viable skills are quite limited. Even with the Ranger, there’s a very few # of pets that are actually worthwhile to use. As a result, I’m not very attached to any of my characters (because of the lack of uniqueness).

Since you’re mainly referring to Pve, I think part of your problem (or at least my problem) is that this game is missing the fun aspect of fleshing out your character (to be unique) through leveling up.

Note: I still find it fun to try out new builds in sPvp when I think of one. But it still doesn’t feel very unique. And I hardly ever play with the exact same build over and over.

Vaerah.4907:

Stormy O

However, the elementalist do have strengths. They definitely can heal more than other classes (e.g., compare with thief)

This reminds me SO MUCH vanilla WoW, when playing a druid was like playing ele now.

Back then there were two officially, devastatingly UP classes, one was warlock and the other druid.

The most heard excuse for sooking so much was: “hey but you can HEAL and FLEE”.

Imagine that, the others could spam 2 buttons and bathe in kills without any need to flee, but hey we were balanced because we could flee…

Same thing for skill cap and everything. Intricate, less effective classes always get flagged as “high skill cap”, because hey, mr. genius, if you have a very high skill, then they look good.

Well, it’s complicated, because elementalists have AOE healing/support, which means balance (for team battles) can be broken if elementalists were to be strong soloists as well (which seems to be what your gripe is about?); by “strong”, I just mean fast at killing (e.g., compare thief/warrior/ranger versus say guardian). It’s probably possible to make it so that elementalists have the option to be a better soloist, but I think it would require quite a bit of rework for the traits and the weapon skills.

And fleeing is a valid tactic; it doesn’t mean run away completely. My dagger/dagger elementalist wasn’t able to take on a guardian in a direct head on battle. What I did was whittle down his health, and ran (Note: he can’t chase me and he heals slower than me). So I just healed myself back to full health while still in combat mode. Then I came back and beat him (and took the control point). If I distanced and paced myself better instead of just trying to go in and attacking, then maybe I wouldn’t have needed to run far away.

Basically, in a way, elementalists are very much like Necromancers in terms of playing a battle of attrition, whereas Necromancers rely on a large health pool, elementalists rely on healing (along with mobility, dodging, and defensive boons/auras/skills).

Fire Shield actually burns enemies for 1 sec. each time they attack you. Doesn’t matter if they touch it. It’s sort of like the Retaliation boon in a sense.

Swirling Winds actually reflects projectiles (unless a recent patch changed it). But as far as I remember (from a couple weeks back) it has always reflected projectiles even though the description doesn’t say so. (Even if it didn’t I think swirling winds is strong enough as is though; unless you want to increase the duration a tad bit and increase its cool-down correspondingly).

Btw, I think your suggestions sounds fair.

@Galdethriel, “difficult” is an opinion (and it can differ from build to build). Either way, each class clearly needs to be played differently and some builds require more reflexes and good connections in order to be effective.

@(this thread)

I think the focus off-hand is less desirable than dagger as well.

However, the elementalist do have strengths. They definitely can heal more than other classes (e.g., compare with thief), because of traits and water attunement skills. Often time I can heal back to max life (or close to it) in the midst of combat. All the while I can provide support to the team via boons, AOE healing, and auras (if traited). In other words, the elementalist class is pushed a bit towards defense and support.

The only way Anet would boost the elementalist’s other capabilities is if the support capability of the elementalist is reduced or if it is made more difficult to obtain than the current state (or alternatively increase the difficulty to obtain the other desirable capabilities) IMO, since there are so many traits (and weapon skills) that provide support and are easy to obtain.

@Dagins

Oh my bad; I don’t remember the player character name, but my elementalist’s in-game name is Stormy O. I could have sworn there was a pistol thief NPC and melee (dagger?) thief NPC each time. I should probably try that trap out.

Edit: just tried it out. Yeah, it does summon different thief NPCs (1 pistol) and (1 dagger) when triggered twice (via 2 traps non-simultaneously).

Bug/Exploit:

Saw a thief use Thieves Guild twice within a few seconds of each-other in sPvp. I used an elementalist and conjured elemental (i.e., the elementalist elite skill that lasts 60 seconds). I attacked the thief, and he used thieves guild to summon the 2 helper thieves (Note: my memory is a bit fuzzy, where he may have used it right before he entered combat mode with me). Then, I killed the NPCs (with my AOE). My elemental pet is still alive at that moment. The player thief uses thieves guild again.

The player does this in multiple fights within the sPvp match.

I don’t know exactly how he does it. I wonder if it’s an exploit related to swapping out skills when not in combat mode (e.g., Necros can use spectral walk when not in combat-mode and then swap the skill so that there’s no cool-down in order to gain a long duration of swiftness) or if there’s some other way he’s cheating.

Look, if you refuse to believe conditions can last more than 1 second, then it’s maybe time you try a different class/build that don’t use conditions. Several people have managed to be successful with conditions.

It seems you’re unaware of +condition durations, which I did mention in my above post. My blood marks causes bleed for 13 seconds.

There are several runes to increase the bleed duration. There’s a trait to increase bleed duration. And the power line increases condition duration.

Add the direct damage from blood mark too (albeit it’s not much) and it’s not difficult to get the damage to be over 4k.

HiSaZuL.2843:

@Stormy O… i read up to 4k bleed part. Then I realized you never touched a necro in your life.
I’ve yet to see even a terrible player take half of BPs damage. They either die long before it runs its duration or in case of decent players gets removed as soon as you slap enough bleeds that they become a problem.
And bah I wont even bother arguing with anything or reading. Necros are broken its a fact and they aren’t fun because they aren’t even sub-par unless you spec just for that 1 specific thing that still sucks in everything other then pvp. Bleh.

I don’t think you’re using the necro effectively if all you’re stacking is bleeds. With the staff alone, necros can deal bleed, poison, chill, weakness and fear. They also have access to cripple and blind. Many classes can’t remove all conditions at once; many can only remove 3 at one time with a long recharge. And if you understand the way the removal of conditions work (i.e., the ordering), then you should have no problem keeping bleeds on or having them last their entire duration.

yes, it’s a bug.

It’s similar with any class. If you don’t play to their strengths (i.e., find and use the strong builds), then you’re not going to be very effective.

For example, look at the elementalist forum. Yet, in sPvP my dagger/dagger support build is often top (except on the Capricorn map, because I tend to defend points on this map). My elementalist does well because I build it to make use of its strengths (i.e., strong healing, strong support, strong ability to escape, strong mobility, CC + burst).

I find that the Necro is very strong with conditions (e.g., blood mark does close to 4k damage over time if you have high enough condition damage/duration). I don’t believe Necros benefit much with precision though. Hence, I use Carrion’s Amulet. I also find that I die easily to range if I don’t have minions. Hence, I use minions (mainly Flesh Golem and Shadow Fiend) to take projectile hits for me. Yes, minion AI needs to be fixed, but when minions work, they’re very strong. In any case, I find that my Necro can quickly dispatch any target (thanks to the combination of conditions + direct damage when minions work) and I think that’s quite satisfying. The multiple interrupts makes me feel like I have quite a bit of control of the battles too (i.e., 2 fears, flesh golem knockdown, and warhorn daze).

sometimes a ~20 second fear is triggered. Clearly a bug. It happened to me today when I tried to finish a downed Necro. He used his fear (and I think I may have stepped on a fear mark too?). Anyways, the fear duration was extremely long.

I remember some time ago someone claiming that my Necro did it too (although that person was claiming that I was using some hack). During that time, as I remember, the person received fear from my mark and deathshroud fear almost simultaneously.

stealth doesn’t make you invulnerable.

Use AOE fields to get him or spam attacks (when he stealths).

To prevent much of the stealth in the first place, dodge whenever he gets close to melee range of you (because “Cloak and Dagger” is the melee skill that stealths him).

oh.

Ok, I just did it without detonating and have attached a screenshot (Note: terribly unlucky with crits). My damage still doesn’t reach the numbers that you speak of.

I agree that the damage is good (when it crits), but I’m not sure if it warrants debuffing based on the results I’m getting. Although, making it cost 4 init at start wouldn’t particularly bother me (since I’ve usually denotated them).

The main reason I say this is because it looks like the Engineer can achieve a similar effect with grenades (Note: consider the chance for 2 sec. burn effect on crits with Engi traits too). See video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEKcnaF_PY8 .

I experienced this in sPvP multiple times (enough to frustrate me, but not all the time). You can consider this a “bug” perhaps? Stealth is broken when they attack. But your computer doesn’t always render the thief right away (that is, it can take a couple of seconds before the thief is shown). It’s just how it currently is…

Frankly, I’m skeptical on the numbers you described (unless your character was extremely buffed up with boons).

Why don’t you give a detailed showing of your build and take a screenshot of some numbers in the combat log.

I tried cluster bomb in the game (heart of the mist) and I get no where near the numbers you described. A screenshot is attached, showing the damage numbers for the detonated cluster bombs. At best, if all 3 bombs get crits on the light armor, then it’s ~3k damage (+ bleed damage = 4k total at tops). Note that the #s in the combat log at the end can be high only because of the trait where I get +20% dmg when they’re below 50% hp.

I’m using berserker’s amulet. For traits, I have 25 in the power line and 30 in the critcal line. However, I’m using Runes of Lyssa.

sPvP: Elementalist (but I’m bored of Elementalist at the moment, since I’ve played it most. Currently into Ranger; Necromancer second).

tPvP: N/A (don’t play)

WvWvW: Necromancer (because it’s my main PvE character; played for about 1 hour but found WvWvW to be boring)

I play the necromancer because I like the concept that came into my mind when reading the necromancer’s description. Well, of course, the result isn’t quite near it—but I like to pretend it is.

I think the necromancer has great condition damage, but its direct damage is extremely poor. Right before the release I had hope because the direct damage was actually pretty good, but they nerfed it upon release, which I had no idea before-hand. Anyways, I’ve changed my play-style to incorporate conditions as the main part of my damage, and additionally I increase my power to do some direct damage.

My Play-style Snippet:
- Flesh Golem & Shadow Fiend minions to take projectile hits for me (which helps survivability a lot)… Warning: on rare occasions the minions are especially stupid, where they stay far away from combat and the control point. In which case, they don’t do anything but look pretty if anyone manages to walk by them.
- Send conditions back to opponent’s team to punish condition builds with putrid mark and plague signet
- Multiple interrupts to finish off opponents (i.e., fear from mark, fear from deathshroud, daze from warhorn, and knockdown from Flesh Golem elite)

Use the wolf/dog pet, they have AOE cc abilities. There’s a wolf that applies fear for 2s in a 500 distance radius. And there’s a dog that applies immobilize in a 500 distance radius. Additionally if you have “Protect Me” and the condition removal signet, then you’re set to beat any thief 1v1.

I disagree with the Ranger being boring. My favorite classes at the moment are Necromancer, Ranger and Elementalist (Note: I haven’t played Engineer or Mesmer yet). I think it’s interesting to use the dog or wolf pets to apply control effects on opponents.

The Ranger, Thief and Warrior are great for burst (and a scepter/dagger Elementalist can burst too).

The Necro is bad for burst because their direct damage is very weak. In the case of a necro vs. a ranger specced for full offensive, the necro will do about less than half the damage a ranger can do (and the range on the Ranger is much further than that of the necro’s when comparing the Necro’s axe versus the Ranger’s longbow).

I haven’t seen any Mesmer that can burst quickly either. But the Mesmer currently has tons of damage through the Phantasms & Clones, and they do good damage themselves.

I usually bring utilities to get out of such situations. So if I see them coming it’s fine (since I have the reflexes to get out of them).

However, invisibility is a problem. Sometimes I don’t see them show up visibly until 2-3 seconds after they’re supposed to reveal themselves. That is, they’re usually on their 2nd or 3rd chain of pistol whip before they actually show up on my screen (so I don’t know where the damage is coming from in a chaotic situation until it’s too late).