Guild Wars 2

Rerroll.9083:

Since we are in a condition meta, i would play without the protection-on-aura trait

Id put the 10 points in earth somewhere else: arcana, water or air

Yea, but I don’t have too much trouble dealing with conditions. Only condition build that takes me down is Mesmer Condition (a niche build) and Ranger Spirits (broken). I have trouble with the Mace to your Face builds, that hardly scratch the armour here

Raif.9507:

Yes the title and accompanying Jew comments were truly necessary to get youre quite excellent points across.

Don’t worry, I was thinking it too.

Gallrvaghn.4921:

As for spirit rangers, the spirits usually whittle down on all the AOEs going about in team fights. Sun Spirit is priority spirit to kill since burn is just a pain in the kitten and it basically let’s enemies with this spirit buff to proc burn on hit with 35% chance traited IIRC.

You recall incorrectly. It’s 35% default + 35% with trait. 70% total chance on hit to apply 3 second burning with only god knows what little cd. Also, the pet, and if using ogres, rock dog also have this chance to inflict burning (not to mention allies around, probably cap of 5)

I was expecting a “I heard Spirit Ranger and Terror Necro is OP so I rerolled” thread.

Beating Necros:
Control and Burst, get the upper hand before they do.

Beating Spirit Rangers:
I’ll tell you when I have beaten one myself :/

Derps.7421:

Daecollo.9578:

Who.4651:

So, when are Asuras getting a 50% height/size increase in PVP ?

And an animation change in pvp.

If they do that, that means we will no longer have the fun and exciting game know as guess what weapon the asura is wielding now.

I loled

Lopez.7369:

Asura have an unfair advantage, but you should probably get your eyes checked if you can’t tell what weapon an Asura is using.

I did, Myopia with Stigmatism, irreversible. Funny though, considering I had Hyperopia as a kid. I can’t tell the difference between a mace and a hammer on an Asura unless up close (like point blank close).

Avead.5760:

Rerroll.9083:

Avead.5760:

Rerroll.9083:

TGSlasher.1458:

Rerroll.9083:

Who wins? (use popular builds)

Ele vs ele: – Ele
Ele vs guardian: – dunno, non around to beat lol
Ele vs ranger: – Ranger
Ele vs necro: – Ele
Ele vs thief: – 50/50 (ele if the thief doesn’t have sword / dagger)
Ele vs engineer: – infinite
Ele vs mesmer: – Mesmer (can be a close fight if shatter)
Ele vs warrior: – Ele (some silly builds will win / cause infinite)

I don’t use a popular ele build, I try to adapt to the meta with craziness.

infinite vs engi¿?

share
your
build
naow

He just needs a focus and a fresh air build to easily beat the engi.Engis are the ones that get spiked the easiest from what ive noticed so far.Necros,engis,and thieves are just heaps harder to kill imo

dont drink and post X)

No im serious !Try it.Fresh air double arcane ,zerkers
Now do air 5 phoenix ,air 2 the 2 arcanes ..Boom engis life in teldos build at 30% if most of them crit(they will crit).Then use air 4 to avoid his range damage while you kite him.Go into water to interrupt or slow him down or whatever..from there its easy peasy.
Now if you cant land a gale on an engi without stunbreaker i dont know what to say :P

Btw how do you know im drunk ??

S/F only has 2 interrupts (water 5 and Air 5) with the long cds an engie will have invulnerability or stun break always available when you go to setup this attack (unless he runs with less stun breakage)

My current in testing build is already on the forums:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/S-F-Selfish-Aura-of-Protection-Build/first#post2609491

Must be played skill fully or you die.
With this build me and an kit condition engie were in battle for a good 3-5 mins before we both gave up. Personally I like this build, but find it too balanced to beat someone in a straight fight (without landing Dragons Tooth).

It goes into an infinant fight against Engineers and Warriors (banner regen + soldiers, not a top build, but notable).

If your heart is set on signets, I will suggest signet of air. The passive is pretty meh for a d/d but it offers an instant blind (good for downing foes) and a stun break.

I run a S/F build:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/S-F-Selfish-Aura-sPvP-build/first#post2287598

That is my usual build at the moment I’m playing around with a derivative of the way anet wants us to play. It has 100% protection uptime (by 100% I mean 12-20 seconds at any one time). It really has less prot uptime, but uses the Earth rune x4 set to boost the prot (prot on hit) a bit further. The first linked build can sustain almost 100% prot when using the auras off cd (can end badly). For those moments when your prot is down it offers invulnerability, reflect and the standard 2 interrupts.

Good to see another fellow running an aura build. Not many of us.

Razor.6392:

I just can’t picture ever being afraid of engaging a condi ele. It’s not a powerful build.

Facing a mesmer, a skilled thief or an engi in wvw? It can be quite tricky. But to say “lol today I lost to a condition ele, that build is just too much”… haha, not in a million years.

I fail to see how it even works. My ether renewal cleanses all your conditions, my anti projectile prevents you from reapplying them, and I can lightning flash out of any immobilize combo if all my other condi removals are down.

Today I lost to a Focus ele. First loss to an ele in a long time

BlackBeard.2873:

TGSlasher.1458:

Yea, I currently have a sore wrist from duelling last night. Go through all my skills, apply damage most efficiently, land a perfect crit dragons tooth … hardly and damage and it was regened within seconds. Finally beaten by a 7 second cd stun that stuns for 3-5 seconds not to mention the following brutal damage (from a soldiers rune warrior … what?).

I do agree with you, but the warrior build you were trying to fight is unkill-able by an ele, unless you take sigil of doom and maintain high poison uptime. That issue is more that warriors were given WAY TOO MUCH healing right now, and the only counter to the signet is poison. A power ele has 0% chance to take it down, and a condition ele lacks access to poison. That warrior build is a hard-counter for us, but what isn’t a tough fight nowadays anyway?

Putting a little more dps on our auto-attack would actually allow us to deal constant pressure, such that they are not literally outhealing out attacks while we auto without even mitigating damage in any way.

Funny story. I have been using Sigil of Doom for 3 months. Finally swapped it out for energy the other day lol.

I would like the ele signet heals to go up again, it is so low now.

The only warriors I have a problem with are the ones the wear Soldiers with Healing Signet and some other crap to make them take no damage.

I have fought other warriors with healing signet and they are fine.

I remember GW1, running my Warrior, popping frenzy then going oh crap need to heal … dead. (2x damage for using frenzy, -40% armour for using healing signet is instant death).

Sami.7923:

No daecollo after huge complaints about the BM ranger we lost “gain quickness on pet swap” and recieved the kittentiest MANDATORY trait in the game “your pet gains quickness for 5 sec when you are down” We cant pick up anything in the BM line without first picking up this crap. Many ppl including me have abandoned the BM line completely. I have yet to see any other class have to take such an unneeded/useless trait for their class mechanic.

Try playing an Ele (arcane line).
Arcane Fury = fury for 2 seconds on swap (good)

Lingering Elements …. useless (and this is out 15 point one, it doesn’t actually do anything other then grant a small regen if you have 5 points in water as well)

Arcane Precision: Skills have a 10% chance to apply condition on critical hits (why? 25 points)

Instinctual Bond used to be good, gain quickness for 2-4? seconds on pet swap.

As to the worst mandatory trait in the game, That goes to Lingering Elements or Arcane Precision (they cost more and do nothing).

Razor.6392:

I agree armor of earth does not work like a proper stun breaker.

Pre-change lightning flash would instantly help me recover when I was knocked down, but if I use armor of earth while knocked down? it does nothing, I’m still knocked down.

Launched or kded?

I’m playing Ele, and on the ele forum and have beaten most necros who have tried to fight me. Infact there was a fool in a 1v1 server who started attacking me while I was no paying attention, go me down to 75% or 50% before I opened up on him and kicked his kiten into the ground.

A build does not make a player good. Copying your build of the next is only good if the build requires little skill (see spirit rangers).

Thrashbarg.9820:

TGSlasher.1458:

Btw 1x Trident does the same damage as 1x cone of cold (so cone of cold wins as you can get 2 off in the same time period).

Except that 2x cone takes 4sec longer to cast than 1x trident, preventing you from casting anything else. To get back to it fast enough it also requires 30 arcana, significantly limiting damage builds (and lowering it’s damage). It’s possible that it does more damage as a skill but lowers your dps, unless you only use it when everything is on cooldown.

There’s also the retaliation issue. Cone can hit multiple targets multiple times per cast, causing multiple ticks of retaliation damage, further reducing the effectiveness of the healing. (3 targets)x(4 ticks of retaliation damage)x(2 casts per 20 seconds) is far greater than 5 ticks of retaliation per 20 seconds maximum.

True, and as I mentioned it is a channel, thus going on full cd if interrupted, unlike trident’s 5 second interrupt cd.

I much prefer trident to all other heals. Currently running S/F with my only heals being Trident or Trident and Healing Ripple.

Kodiak.3281:

I’m still angry they nerfed magnetic wave!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111

I’m not, didn’t even know it went through block. All those times vs guard / war with no heal and block up, sitting in earth waiting for fire’s phoenix

hrkljus.1243:

On the topic of that, the pop-up should make a loud sound the first time it pops and you should be able to hear it while alt-tabbed, just like Dota 2 does it.

It would probably reduce the number of 4v5s by quite a few since a part of them are probably people missing the queue pop.

Yes, WoW also has this feature for when you Arena / Battleground starts

Corian.4068:

There are people I’ve fought against that I have no idea how to combat. Fighting thieves, rangers, and mesmers feels more like I’m fighting against the game’s interface than another player. I don’t even have a chance to figure out what to do, I spend half the fight trying to target them and keep up with where they are and which is the player. I never get the impression in these fights that I’m too weak to combat them, but rather that my UI is wrong or something because I can’t ever seem to even keep them targeted. I’m okay with great mobility in fights, I understand the need for some classes to have it, but why doesn’t the game allow me to just keep a person targeted? I must be doing something wrong but I don’t even know what.

Mesmers and Thieves:
The mechanics of Mesmers and Thieves are to be horrid. In games like wow, incombat stealth is limited to 1 or 2 skills (at most). In guildwars 2 there is a reveal debuff (looks like an eye in a target) once that is gone (3-4 seconds) the thief or Mesmer can stealth again. To add to that, the game promised short stealth duration, however thieves can stack stealth to get their “short duration” up to 16-20 seconds. While they are stealthed the can cleanse conditions, heal up and spam as many attacks that don’t hit you as they want.

Say for example, you skilfully blinded a thief as he went invisible. If he didn’t remove the condition in the first place, you think you would be safe from his back stab … no. His first hit misses and he stays in stealth to presto you in the back with his second attempt at the attack. There are times when thieves stealth away and I pop invulnerability to prevent their damage. They just sit there pressing 1 until my invunerabilty goes away (50 second cd vs there unlimited supply of stealth, seems legit and fair .. sarcasm).

Mesmers are as much of a pain as thieves. They will stealth to remove target, then summon their pets to kill you while there run around being a pansy.

Here are a few tips:
1. A target in stealth will still take damage. Aoes or manually pressing auto attack (on a melee weapon) will still hit a thief if he hasn’t moved off.

2. The real Mesmer is usually easy to find. If they have a weapon and an offhand, the one with both is real (clones don’t have offhands). The real one will move not in a direct line of you, and a real one will dodge / do other moves then the auto attack.

3. If a thief uses thieves guild (2 thief summons will appear) sometimes it will be better to kill them quickly first, as they have less hp then the thief, wont heal and sometimes do more damage then the thief (why? that’s bogus).

With more experience you will learn to beat / be on par with them.

For spirit Rangers, good luck, they are “the” build atm. Hint, target the spirits first, start with the sun spirit, but remember the ranger will be able to summon them pretty much as soon as they are dead (if he has them out before you engage him).

Finally, go to the Ranger, Mesmer and Thief forums, create a Ranger / Mesmer / Thief and play the current OP builds (usually listed on said forums) till you understand the class a bit more.

Macro to say MooooOOOOooOoOOOOoOOooaOaofsDJGPJSAGIPHS (mad cow disease)

Rerroll.9083:

Who wins? (use popular builds)

Ele vs ele: – Ele
Ele vs guardian: – dunno, non around to beat lol
Ele vs ranger: – Ranger
Ele vs necro: – Ele
Ele vs thief: – 50/50 (ele if the thief doesn’t have sword / dagger)
Ele vs engineer: – infinite
Ele vs mesmer: – Mesmer (can be a close fight if shatter)
Ele vs warrior: – Ele (some silly builds will win / cause infinite)

I don’t use a popular ele build, I try to adapt to the meta with craziness.

They also need to promote any new content that they add. Having a Queens Dubalee Ball post for the PvE is fine for PvE, but I don’t recall a PvP announcement for SoloQ, or the other stuff they added. Generally the PvP update is crammed into the bottom of the PvE update, which goes nowhere to promote the PvP of this game.

Currently there are 3 Banners on the homepage of GW2 and addition promotion where its done (facebook and twitter etc). There should be 4:

1: Queens Dubilee
Queen Jenna is getting old (don’t tell Logan), and there is a celebration
[Learn More] <- link to PvE updates and event info

2: Solo or Team, its your choice. Rule the Leader Boards and Claim the Glory
New Solo and Team Que, head to pvp from anywhere, but remember, being disloyal to your team will punish you
[Learn More] <- link to PvP updates and new features info

3: Best of 2012
As is

4: Sea of Sorrows Book
Follow the journey of the guy that found out that there are giant crabs that do the Tera spider dance in this thrilling tale from the world of Tyria
[Learn More] <- as is

Having a Queen Dubilee, Blipp the Christmas Santa, or The Mad King event with information for PvP players hidden within is just a little silly. I come to the website to see what the 2week update brings. Queen Jenna is being molested by her robot guards (because that was a good idea), sounds interesting but I really wanted to kill things this week, guess I’ll wait 2 weeks for the next update (mean while back at the ranch, the Queen Jenna Robot Catastrophe update contains the info of the pvp update and I missed it or couldn’t’ be bothered to read a PvE update to find the infos I want and didn’t come back to the game).

Infact there should be 3 Posts per update:

PvE, Logan, with your help (funny that), Kills the Crazed Robots before they deflower his woman, find out more about this event / story

PvP, Solo Q and Team Arena have been announced, Several changes to the Meta and Who won the $10k PAX?

WvW, well I don’t think this gets updated (big updates) … but would be nice to know who’s on top of the ladder this reset

Need Dhuum to rock up and kick their kitten buts into full dishonourable.

Ele vs Ele, D/D Bunker (pre nerf) vs D/D (cannon pre nerf)

I would love less AI. After all this is pvp not pve. You have necro minons. Mesmer clones, ranger spirits pet and rock dog, warrior and engineer rock dogs (and torrents from engies), Elementalist elementals, thieves guild and trap, guardian spirits (and rock dog), in anyone time there is more npc on the screen then there are players (and I’m talking about 1v1s here).

I know that a lot of this is class design and skills, but seriously? So much AI. At least let me target nearest player, and to kitten of those mesmers with delusions standing, ignore all pests including clones (to compensate give mesmers 1/2 second stealth on every clone summon).

Remove rock dog and attack bird.

This list is pretty cool. Good thing I don’t run Burst S/D elementalist. Means that I can beat all of those builds except Thief (boon rip), Mesmer (condition, burst is ok when not spamming stealth) and Ranger (spirit). And I can’t find any Guardians to 1v1 so they don’t exist.

Zelyhn.8069:

This is neat and well rounded discussion gentlemen. I think we are being quite objective and constructive, I hope Anet can hear us.

I would just like to add that this overall problem you are talking about leads to a frustrating feeling of having to do a lot of effort just to do anything close to a decent output. I am totally in favor of the “high risk high reward” philosophy, but apart from in PvE I fail to see how we are rewarded for having to do so much.

Yea, I currently have a sore wrist from duelling last night. Go through all my skills, apply damage most efficiently, land a perfect crit dragons tooth … hardly and damage and it was regened within seconds. Finally beaten by a 7 second cd stun that stuns for 3-5 seconds not to mention the following brutal damage (from a soldiers rune warrior … what?).

BlackBeard.2873:

Niebelheim.6041:

Our attacks hit less because we have 20 skills to pick from, we are supposed to attunement swap like crazy to make up for this.

See, the issue with the line of reasoning used to make our auto-attacks worthless is that it COMPLETELY destroys our flexibility. You can’t use the right attunement at the right time, because you have to constantly cycle through them all to output damage that is even on par with others. This means that it is not ready when you need it. Sitting in the proper attunement that best fits the situation should be optimal over going to a sub-optimal attunement to use the 2-5 skills that shouldn’t apply to the situation.

In other words, Fire #1 should have better aoe dps than the other attunements, and you should only switch to earth if you need some control/defense or air if you need to try and burst a single-target. Instead, as soon as fire 2-5 are used (sometimes you save fire 5), it is mandatory to switch or else you kitten your effectiveness as your dps completely falls off.

Having a bigger amount of skills means nothing if you can’t use them when you need them, and as normal attacking someone feels like a waste of time (unless in air), you end up spamming whatever is off cooldown.

Niebelheim.6041:

When i saw videos about this class i saw that each attunement had it role, i would switch into it depending on who i was facing/what i needed to do. I didnt know that Anet would want me to buttonsmash everything and make pretty much the same rotation regardless of who im facing.

I somewhat agree with this. Every other class can choose 2 weapons for any situation. A warrior, for example, can bring to the table a Sword and Shield and a Bow as the secondary weapon. Now if I apply pressure and his bow is out, he can choose to change to sword & board a put up his shield, conversely if I run away he can swap to bow to apply ranged pressure.

The elementalist is funnelled into 1 weapon set (by design) with some other options open such as conjure weapons. In exchange, the elementalist has access to 20 skills divided into 4 attunements. The problem is everyone else has 10 skills, so they have to balance the Elementalist’s potential power. They have done this in 3 ways though, 1 by putting a huge default cooldown on attunment swap, 2 by putting large cooldowns on the skills themselves and 3 by toning down the effectiveness of the skills themselves (less damage mainly).

The 3 things that bring our class into line force many elementalist players to spec for builds that move away from the traditional “I have the right tools at any 1 time” methodology. That move sees many builds trying to overcome the 15 second cooldown on attunement swap with 30 points onto arcane. They over come the damage short comings by the “dance of the Elementalist”, rapidly swapping attunements once all skills there are blown. And the long cool downs on the skills themselves can’t be over come, forcing the player to choose wether to use it this “dance” or two dances later.

My personal opinion is that each point down the Arcane tree should work the elementalist towards becoming a Major Master of all the elements. Each point into a specific tree works the Elementalist towards being a Grand Master of that element.

So the elementalist starts as a Minor of each tree, each point spent in the specific element tree builds the elementalists powers with that tree, decreasing the cool down of that tree (or opening up traits like fresh air as a given, not a choice). Each point spent in arcane builds the elementalists power over all trees and ability to enter each attunement faster.

But that’s enough dreaming for one day

Josh Mitchell.1596:

Arcane Power — Function Issue/Tooltip Issue
Uses more than one charge for skills that inflict conditions or damage over time (Noticeable with Burning Speed and Churning Earth). Intended?

While I like to keep cool things to myself, here is a bug I have noticed (in interest of fair game).

When using Arcane Power with frost bow 3, it will work for all 7 charges.
This is notable by using Arcane Power with the trait: Elemental Surge. When using frost bow 3 in fire with Arcane Power activated it will apply 7×5 seconds of burning, instead of 5×5 as it should.

Not sure if intended.

Zelyhn.8069:

cheshirefox.7026:

elementalist lacks synergy
synergy noun 1. the interaction of elements that when combined produce a total effect that is greater than the sum of the individual elements, contributions, etc.; synergism.

this is not only an issue with our attunements, but also our traits
one aspect of elementalist fails to compliment another and our traits are simply too bland or they hype ‘something’
elementalist then becomes a one trick pony in a marathon of race horses
then they decide to take our trick away

Exactly this.
Only very few traits have synergy, the others are just useless. That’s why I advocate a natural lingering element mechanic.

I also brought this up, the cantrips have great synergy, but the other skills seem to lack synergy. Signets traits are spread all over, almost all of the Arcane traits are Arcane + Signets but then there are ones that are just Arcane making a Arcane / Signet build an oddity.

Play Style (refers to the linked build with no changes)
Defensive, wait for an opening, hit hard and fast with DT, Phoenix and air burst. That’s the basics.

Defensive
The defensive ability of this setup is very high. You have 100% protection duration, or protection on demand if you don’t like spamming the skills through. You have Invulnerability and 3 cleansing in earth and an additional 1 in water if needed. You have a reasonable amount of projectile destruction Magnetic Wave and Swirling Winds. And you have access to 3 blinds, 2 or which are instant cast.

All these abilities can keep your foe locked down with soft cc and projectile destroy for a good while. When they do get through, you have protection and usually a fire shield to punish them for attacking (not much of a punish with low condition damage).

Downing Enemies
In a team fight, this build excels in enemy downs. You have Swirling Winds for warriors hammer and stones and to reduce the thieves downed damage as well as Magnetic Wave so those thieves down themselves. You have 2 instant blinds, to blind a foe through his interrupt and invulnerability for those times when you are up **** creek and need to down that foe.

Setups:
Gale or Signet of Earth into Dragons tooth. Gale holds them just long enough to land your Dragons tooth (unless you lag as bad as I do). Signet of earth with the 20% condition durations from Fire line is also enough to hold your foe in place for a DT. To do this efficiently you will need to wait till your enemy is out of condition cleanse and stun breaks (the later is harder in a 1v1 as there is only 2 stuns on this weapon set).

Your Gale and signet of earth can also get you out of trouble by allowing you to get off your heal while the foe lays there thinking about it. Signet of fire can help put on some condition pressure when the foe has used all his removals and can be used in any atonement, this is mainly here for a short cd signet. With 20% reduction in sig cd Water signet would also be a good choice.

Aegis, the condition and boon
Blind is referred to as the Aegis condition, and Aegis blocks your first attack (not good if you are wanting to hit with gale or sig of earth). What can be done about that? Well, glad you asked. Air and Earth have instant skills that can be blown to remove aegis and blind. Earth you have Hurl (this should be up most of the time) and air has Electric Discharge (switch to air), Lightning Strike and Blinding Flash (if desperate to waist a good defensive skill). Starting a gale or sig of earth, if you notice a single block skill, aegis or that you are blinded, pop one of the before mentioned skills and you will be clear to land the gale / sig of earth.

Elite Use
I don’t really use the elite that much, I took the Elemental because it is better then the other 2 in this build. Tornado might add some help with bunkering and FGS is good to get that initial speed boost for roaming or hitting the far point early.

Customisation
Like the build? Think it could be improved? Go ahead, I won’t stop you. If you can move the traits around (take 10 out of arcane) then you can put 10 into earth for 20% cd on signets making the signet heal more viable (though a silly choice with conditions left right and center).

Another good change would be to switch elemental attunement to renewing stamina for added vigor to the build, reducing the need for sigil of energy.

Feel as though I left something out or skipped over something too quickly? Well I have an almost full page to add or change things as needed.

Like videos? Well so do I, I just don’t have the time to make and upload them (esp on crappy net). Sorry, but for now but I won’t be doing a video.

Thanks for your time.
Slasher

Conditions Meta
There is no doubt that this is a conditions meta, makes the build more difficult to play that is for sure (makes a lot of builds more difficult to play). Carrying the Focus gives you a free (and better) Cleansing Fire, the water V trait helps to remove conditions further and the heal removes a crap tonne of conditions every 15 seconds. Condition Pressure is still hard to deal with, the Zerker Amulet brings our hp to 15k keeps you alive that little bit longer. When the condition Meta resides, taking the signet of restoration will boost this builds power, and require a trait rework (20 in earth for 20% cd on signets).

Testing
With all the builds I run I test in 1v1 situations then work my way into 5v5s and the new solo que.

Testing: 1v1
-In a 1v1 situation, the build is strong against Warriors and Thieves (several builds tested against, including the stealth P/D ele killer)
-The build can hold its own against: Necros and the only 1 engineer I could find. Have versed a second Engineer build (conditions) and was a draw
-The build is not effective vs: Mesmer (condition and burst) and Rangers (spirit, other builds well you can’t find anyone not running spirits in 1v1)
-Not tested vs Guardian, none found in 1v1 duelling servers

Testing: 5v5
Counter intuitively I found I was using this build to roam with (quite silly with /F). Taking a /D for a roamer position is something that I will have to look into (but in the end wont due to the skills failing with my level of lag). The build holds its own in 2v2 situations and provides enough burst to make one of the enemies think. The build primarily provides focus damage vs 1 foe, with lucky hits from DT and Phoenix being the main AoE source.

Previous Build: S/F Selfish Aura sPvP

So I have been engineering a build since before the RTL nerf that uses the focus, signets and most importantly Protection.

With the diversity patch my previously linked build took a hit to its protection uptime. It is quite easy to fix (and I currently run the fixed version when not testing this) to have its former glory of 100% protection uptime.

Foreword aside, its time for the build:
20 15 10 15 10

Traits
Fire:
10: Embers Might (Optional): Nothing too exciting here, could also go with 10% more damage infire

20: Fire’s Embrace (Required Trait): Gain a fire aura when activating a signet. The build has 3 signets and the primary generation of protection is through auras with other traits.

Air:
10: Zephyr’s Boon (Recommended): Swiftness is the best mobility that S/F gets, so not going to say no to this one (no to mention buffing crit chance to around 50%)

15: Electric Discharge (Optional): I like good old Electric Discharge, an extra 5 points for 1k more damage, a quick way to rid aegis or free yourself from blind.

Earth:
10: Elemental Shielding (Required): The heart of the build. This provides protection every time you use an aura (sig of earth, sig of fire and sig of air with the Fire’s Embrace trait provide auras). If using /Dagger instead then this will provide a 40% damage reduction as /D has frosty aura, recently buffed to reduce damage by 10%

Water:
10: Cleansing Wave (Recommended): Condition removal is very nice, but this is more a filler trait

15: Healing Ripple (Highly Recommended): With my previous build I found that healing was on the low side (only signet heal and water trident). Healing ripple really picks up the slack here

Arcane:
10: Elemental Attunement (Highly Recommended): Provides buffs on weapon swap, the 2 we are after are swiftness (as focus has no movement skills) and extra protection to take us to 100%

Gear Choices
Previously I like to run with Zerker Amulet to make up the stats for my damage component of the build, not really a big fan of conditions. The gear I have chosen helps to boost the Protection duration.

The set I like is: 4x Earth, 2x Monk for 15% protection duration + protection chance on
hit to help fill the gaps or just boost the protection duration further as well as 10% towards other boons (swiftness and fury). That is 35% total increase (10% from 10 arcane). That’s 4.05 per signet, with 20-30 second cd and there are 3. That’s 12.15 seconds + 4.05 from focus fire 5 and 6 from earth attunement and 5.4 from Rune set. Total Protection from burst use = 27.6 seconds. Longest cd skill is 50 (why does fire aura have 50?) followed by 30s and 1, 20.

I also considered 4x Earth 2x Grove (15+15+10 = 40%)
4.2 x3 + 4.2 + 7 + 5.6 = 29.25 seconds of protection, a reasonable increase for only 5% more protection duration. This also lowers your other boons durations.

It is also possible to go with 2x Earth 2x Grove and 2x Monk for 30% protection duration, 10% boon duration. This setup will boost your protection by a total of 50% (additional 10% from 10 points in arcane) which is no laughing matter. 4.5 × 3 + 4.5 + 7.5. Total Protection from burst use = 25.5 seconds.

Sigils:
Sigil of Superiour Energy is a god send. I also use Sigil of Superiour Doom from time to time (open with your burst, switch for poison and catch the foe when he heals from the initial burst if you are unable to interrupt it)
Sigil of Bloodlust – no brainer

Staff is a harder spec to play in PvP (infact the devs may have mentioned their lack of interest in it being a strong pvp weapon).

I would suggest and have seen work well, Clerics. I guessing the build is along the lines of x x x 15+ 30. If that is the case then clerics will be a good choice for healing. You have blast finisher in earth and earth dodge, you should also think about taking arcane wave.

Unfortunately the build (0 0 10 30 30 to be precise, my friends support build) is more a support then pure bunker. You are the backup for the mid point defender while adding some pressure with point aoe and aoe control.

Good luck on your journey young Padawan, you will need it.

Starscream.6498:

9/10. Sounds like trouble :x

Mine is Kuddu. Nothing original, I know, he even looks like him. 1/10 it if you want, I just wanted to participate :P.

1/10 :p
Nah, its more racial then my 2, 7/10

Sophea Fleshrender
Sophea Shadowheart

Ryld.1340:

Should I be aiming for as a pure defensive bunker ele? I play solo a good anoint of the time, sadly. I’m currently running cleric, but should I go shaman? Soldier lacks healing power, but has both vit and toughness.

Oh why isn’t there a good bunker stat group like how there’s the perfect offensive one (zerker)?

D/D?
Clerics is nice or was, before the Signet of Restoration got nerfed by a lot in pvp. Still nice with EA, healing ripple, cleansing wave and cone of cold heals.

A few also run with Valkryie. It has High Power, Mid toughness, High crit damage and low healing power. Though your crit chance will be low (31% ish with fury) to take full advantage of that crit damage. Pop in a zerker jewel will only buff you to 35%.

Just remember that Healing Power scales well with higher toughness and lower health (though with this condition meta low health and high toughness can be bad).

Mbelch.9028:

<snipped> I think dragons tooth is pointless. </snipped>

I don’t. I think it is bugged. While I would like a skill that I could ground target, the problem is that /its damage would be lowered. Dragons tooth is also good for area denial and also bugs on Line of Site (not that I abuse that fact too much, just every now and then when someone is laughing at me for not getting up to a certain point in pvp, so half health him with DT).

I think signet of earth could use a imob increase by 1/4 sec so that it would defaultly hold an enemy long enough for a DT.

Stun break on GOEP was an oddity, and lack of stun break on Earth Shield was also strange.

TGSlasher.1458:

So, I want to make a push on the focus to make it a better bunker weapon. Currently the offhand dagger is the main bunker weapon. Why is that?

Lets look at the skills:
Ride the Lightning: An escape, or a gap closer, when things don’t go your way you can flee
Updraft: A blowout ability, usefull for keeping your foe on the ground while you heal up, or proceed to mole station
Earthquake: A second interrupt ability, again, stick you foe in the ground and do as you wish
Cleansing Wave: No good bunker goes out without his heal.

The offhand dagger has many good options to open it as a bunker weapon. The problem here is that the skills get nerfed, making other uses (S/D damage for example) suffer as well. While Ride the Lightning makes a good escape skill, having it combined with these other bunker type skills means that glass cannons trying to get away before their imminent death can no longer do that as often (due to the 40 sec nerf). Cleansing Wave also saw a nerf in its time, I think (if I recall correctly it had its healing coefficient toned down).

The Diversity patch was a step in the right direction. Now we see S/D Fresh Air builds as well as some of the vets sticking to the D/D build. I currently run a S/F build myself. The focus however, doesn’t have all that much love, or use within our Elemenalist brethren. It lacks movement, it lacks damage, its only advantage are the defensive skills.

Skill Breakdown:
Flamewall: A nice fire field, though not as coverage as our other weapon fields.
Fire Aura: Grant a fire aura (way to long cd on this guys)
Gust: A ranged chill and some damage, short enough cd
Comet: A predictive interrupt (don’t use in an emergency), give a 2 sec aoe daze
Swirling Winds: Projectile destroy, this skill is situational, not everyone takes projectiles with them
Gale: One of our best KDs, not much of a “tell” on this skill
Magnetic Wave: Reflect, condition removal and a blast finisher. What more could you want, while the reflect is situation, the rest of the skill can be used when not fighting projectile enemies, overall, my favourite ele skill.
Obsidian Flesh: Invulnerability, situational in pvp (don’t want people to cap the points on you, do you?).

The focus has some nice defences build in (more on the anti projectile side) but to really draw the crowds as a bunker weapon it needs something more. I have mentioned several times that if you were to move Cleansing Wave from the /D and stick it on the focus you would have a good bunker weapon.

How would this change work?
Step 1: Remove Cleansing Wave from Dagger and replace it with Gust (chill 3 sec 20 cd)
Step 2: Put Cleansing Wave as focus water 5 and move Comet to water 4
Step 3: Revert changes to Ride the Lightning, remake it a 20 cd skill but 1200 range

This allows the /D to maintain its damage and movement, whilst moving bunker to the Focus (the eles defensive weapon). Originally I thought of taking cleansing wave away from the /D and replacing it with a lesser heal. Today I thought of swapping with Comet, but that would give /D 3x interrupts and leave the focus with none. So unless creating some new skill, looks like Gust is up to the challenge.

Old quotes from trying to push the same idea

hide spoiler

TGSlasher.1458:

Why don’t we just move some bunker abilities to the focus (cleansing wave mainly) and make the off dagger better for dps (adding some kind of other heal to water 5 dagger that is not a 2.5k heal)? Then bunker eles will use the focus which has 0 movement skills but good bunker skills and the off dagger is now a movement weapon with good damage skills

^https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Elementalist-Balance/first#post1470819

TGSlasher.1458:

Rework the weapons so that focus is bunker and off dagger is damage? Because bunker + movement is a bit silly

^https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Balancing-Ele-s-From-an-Ele/first#post1464569

TGSlasher.1458:

Take cleansing wave, put it on the focus. Take Comet, put it on the /Dagger. Revert RTL, bunker and movement issue solved.

^https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/RTL-can-t-be-how-it-was-but/first#post2380136

Feel free to discuss these proposed changes, or ideas of your own to push some love into the Focus.

TL;DR
How would this change work?
Step 1: Remove Cleansing Wave from Dagger and replace it with Gust (chill 3 sec 20 cd)
Step 2: Put Cleansing Wave as Focus Water 5 and move Comet to Water 4
Step 3: Revert changes to Ride the Lightning, remake it a 20 or 25 cd skill but 1200 range

This allows the /D to maintain its damage and movement, whilst moving bunker to the Focus (the eles defensive weapon).

Original Topic: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Focus-rework-the-new-bunker-weapon/first#post2380780

pmnt.4067:

2 Questions:

1. Why is there no Fresh Earth?
2. What does Fresh Arcane do?
3. Bonus Question: What does the new Fresh Air do?

Bonus Answer, it freshens your breath.

Tobbygnome.6793:

First Rule of WoW PvP, always turn on class colored nameplates \o/

Fist rule of WoW pvp, download and install Tidy Plates plugin, turn off pets, totems and allies, turn on class colour and turn on nameplate casting bars (buggy).

That also hides Miror Images clones, hunter pets, warlock pets, every other pet and totems from the nameplates.

pmnt.4067:

TGSlasher.1458:

OP -> worst in game (via general opinion) -> OP -> worst in game (via general opinion)

The funny thing is only 2 things happened between worst and OP:

1. Eles built bunker as a reaction of the glass canon meta
2. self-stuns on dagger (magnetic grasp and rtl) have been fixed.

It was more:
OP (beta damage) → OP (even after beta nerf) Staff builds → UP super staff nerf (healing coeficents on staff heals, blast finishers on EA, condition internal cd on cleansing water)→ OP D/D Bunker (S/D was better) → Subpar what we have now.

I wouldn’t go as far to say that we are underpowed, but defiantly feels like we are subpar. If the OP builds (Walker the Texas ranger, necros) were brought into line we would be in a much better place.

“this is a bad idea, it lowers skill ceiling"
My poor Mesmer…. blah blah
/sarcasm

I like this idea a lot, but Mesmers would still be annoying (4 Mesmer icons in your fight)

CowAbductionInc.9687:

I’m always an advocate to actually trying to complete match, as opposed to giving up…

However, when you get someone who is for whatever reason is no longer a viable player (AFK, D/C, troll…), I definitely agree that a /resign would be a great option. I think the main concern with this is that it gives people a way out of not having the exact team composition that they want; resigning gives people a way to not have to try.

So the questions include – if /resign is added, do you no longer have to play the remainder of the match? How many have to resign to have a game end? Does this affect your rating? If so, does it count as severely as a loss? Should there be a point when it becomes too late in a game to /resign?

This feature was great in GW1. My only concern is this becoming a gateway for people to get out of matches simply because they don’t feel like trying, as opposed to an opportunity for a legitimate way of moving on to another match.

"
Your team is down 1 member, the game will play as a 4v5, no additional members will be allotted to your team.
-Would you like to continue out numbered for the honour?
-Or resign your team for an even fight?
"
Only comes up when your team loses a member and at less then 100 points (so early in the game).

google.3709:

Stealth needs 2 simple changes in my opinion

1. Give reveal debuff if the attack is blocked/blinded/dodged
2. Show damage numbers(at least direct numbers) to reward and kinda give the other play an idea of where the stealthed player might be

two simple changes that don’t buff /nerf anyone, but simply allow for counter plays.

I agree with this and was going to add #1 to my post, but that was kind of off topic for the weapon skills hitting the ground.

The amount of times I sit still, waiting for water to come of cd (for shatterstone) and see “Invulnerable” 6 times above my head makes me think, why is that class so mindless. If the foe is invulnerable that is something that you need to account for, not just spam backstab till it hits. It should unstealth you. While daggers this kind of makes sense (being silent and all) shooting someone from stealth and not unstealthing, is very stealthy :p

uberkingkong.8041:

Ele went from OP to worst class in game, and some people considered necro or ranger worst class and guess what they now best class.

It actually went:
OP → worst in game (via general opinion) → OP → worst in game (via general opinion).

But that general opinion is supported by people who can’t make their own builds, can’t form their own styles, they just go to the forum, copy paste the latest OP build and force the class to be nerfed. Imagine if no one played the ele when D/D was one of its better builds (S/D was still a better bunker IMO), no one would have complained on the forum and the build would still be viable. Atm everyone plays Necros, so it won’t be long till its nerfed and everyone plays something else.

What was annoying about the D/D nerfs was that they affected a lot of builds, not just the root of the problem which was /Ds ability to do everything.

They only nerfs that Anet needed were:
1: Move Dagger Water 5 to Focus Water 5 (make focus the bunker weapon and dagger the Damage / Control / Roamer)
2: Move around the stun breaks (buff to a lot of builds, but upset a few)

I still play. Request solo que, join other 5v5 match, enter solo que when it pops. The only thing that has really peved me off it so far is the people that leave. We had a guardian who seemed to just troll the game. Rocked up, someone asked for a strat, he said join the other team the went offline. We could have won with him (500 – 360ish) with 1 man down isn’t too bad if you ask me and we had a good lead at the start.

Stealth is a Mechanic in this game, currently Thieves, Mesmers, Rangers and Engineers (50% of the professions) can utilise this mechanic in their favour. While less extreme on the Latter 3 professions listed, stealth can really mess up your day.

The professions have skills to fight of stealth, and generally laying down AOE or Auto Attacking with your weapons will still hit a thief if they would hit him when not invis. Some weapon sets, however, have a much harder time dealing with classes that stealth. Now before you say weapon swap I’ll point out that I am an Elementalist, there is no weapon swap. Taking the Elementalist as an example, inparticular Secpter Main Hand. The skills this weapon has have long CDs or an extra component to reduce that cd, but make the skill harder to land. For example, Dragons Tooth: This ability has nice damage output, but can’t hit an invisible thief. Contrary there is Pheonix, a nice ability, reasonable damage but has a 40 sec cd making it a 1 timer when its not already on cd.

Now you may be thinking, just auto attack. While auto attack works well on some weapons (D/D ele, Melee weapons on most classes) it does not work at all well with ranged weapons. From my time playing Elementalist, Ranger and Warrior, the ranged weapons in this game go downwards by default, requiring a camera angle change to get the skills to go forward. In addition there are some skills that do not work at all without a target, these include beam type skills and effect on target type skill. Beam: Elementalist Scepter Air auto attack, Mesmer Great Sword auto attack. Effect on Target: Elementalist Scepter Fire auto attack. This makes it auto attacking hard and in some cases impossible.

Personally I believe each weapon set should have similar tools to deal with stealth. I would like to see an increase in the default projectile height so that when using a projectile weapon it will go forward its full distance, not forward and down into the ground. I would also like to request so work done on beam type skills so that they can also work without a target. This would make fighting stealthing classes easier to fight when not using melee weapons, especially to the classes that do not have weapon swap build in (mainly Elementalists and Engineers). Currently sustain thieves can stealth off, heal to full and come back. They only way to fight off this kind of thief is to apply pressure out of stealth and when they do stealth. Not being able to hit as stealthed foe (due to not having the capability that you would have on a melee set) is very annoying, punishes ranged players and is not fun for anyone except the stealth abusers.

Feel free to further discuss ideas around this topic,
Slasher

From what I can tell, we have 20 skills, so our skills are half the power / support / control of other classes, unless they have a big startup or hard to hit mechanic. Such as Dragons Tooth and Churning Earth, they have decent damage but are harder to land in compensation.

pmnt.4067:

Ele is in GW2 is in the same spot as in GW1: It has nice spike-options for PvP, subpar and generally overrated damage options in PvE, but is actually one of the best supporters. How comes that you don’t like that in GW2?

Probably the same reason as to why I dislike Ranger. I dislike the Ranger because I can’t play the way I want to play. In Guild Wars 1 I could be a trap setting robin hood, or an interrupter pain in the but … with NO pet. Now you are forced to take a Pet.

Being able to Play the way you want is a big part of wanting to play a profession.

Naab.4301:

LordByron.8369:

pantsforbirds.9032:

There is a lot of miss information in your post, and its fairly easy to tell you are biased.

said the guy with 90% posts in thief forum….

Well, if it makes you happy, I have no posts in the Thief forum and I completely agree with him….

I also agree, however I see Assassin Signet from 150% down to 15% for kittens as a buff, not a nerf (nerf to 1 shot damage, but when the change came out you could do more damage with the revised Signet)

Elementalist has had a hits to its healing sustain, at the same time thief took hits to its damage.

The thief is a very fun pvp character, I have only played 5 matches with one, but enjoyed the time I played it. I main an elementalist in PvE and PvP (though I do much more of the latter). I enjoy the Elementalist in PvP, however the thief I find much easier to play (considering the build I run doesn’t use stealth much at all, about once every 20 seconds).

Nay of the Ether.8913:

The cast time is about the only thing I will agree with you on. It does not, however, scale well with healing compared to virtually every other weapon based healing skill ele’s possess. I like the general idea behind it, cast at a ground target, damage and heal in the area, only the actual execution is weak. The damage is nearly non-existent, a single shard from the water scepter auto attack does more dmg most of the time, and the healing is weak too. Cleansing wave is higher healing, cures a condition, and has larger range, and as for geyser, while the scaling coefficient is lower, it has a duration and per tick heals for just about as much, so overall it heals for much more. Healing rain and cone of cold, yeah no need to go into those because again, both have durations and heal for far more (cone of cold damages for much more too). That along with the recharge on it and the lack of any other beneficial effects is why I don’t like this skill (in it’s current state). I would so love to see it reworked to be more viable because the skill itself, and it’s general idea, feel, and execution, are pretty fun. But, everyone is entitled to their own opinions so if you can make it work for you, more power to ya.

Cleansing Wave does not heal more then water trident.

Cleansing Wave:
Heal yourself and nearby allies, curing a condition.
Healing: 1,302 (1.0)?
Radius: 240

Water Trident
Low Damage
Healing: 1,448 (1.0)?
Radius: 180
Range: 900

So with no CDs, water trident can heal for 220% more then Cleansing Wave, but does not remove a condition. For additional comparison, it heals 97% as much as 2x cone of cold but scales much much better.

This skills is not meant to be used as an offensive ability (despite the damage on it). The damage is a little bonus for when people get too close while you heal yourself. Btw 1x Trident does the same damage as 1x cone of cold (so cone of cold wins as you can get 2 off in the same time period).

I much prefer Trident to Cone of Cold and Cleansing Wave. The only other pro I will throw to Cone of Cold is that it can still heal you for a bit if is interrupted (depending on when) and its shorter cd can change the tide of a fight. The shorter cd is more worked toward D/D builds that invest heavy into arcane, as without a 9 second cd for water that 10 sec cd would go to waist. The 20 / 16 cd of Trident I find suits Scepter builds more as you don’t need to invest heavy into Arcane (esp with the new Fresh Air trait). With that said, the Scepter heal is a nice burst heal, if you don’t get interrupted you know it will give you quite a bit of health back, it also doesn’t suffer from a term I call “Channel Interrupt”. Channel Interrupt is when a channel skill is interrupted, it goes on full cd (as the skill has been considered to have taken effect) not interrupt cd (5 seconds).

As to staff, Geyser has a pretty low heal with even lower scaling. To best use geyser is when it is utilised with blast finisher. The same can be said for healing rain, as it applies its healing in regen from (healing rain does not provide an actual heal unless used with finishers). Staff Eles used to be God Mode OP, however, as many eles influxed when D/D was popular there are few that remember the super staff bunker builds that got super nerfed to the point that many would argue that Staff is useless in PvP.

uberkingkong.8041:

But as far as burst, ele has the best burst in the game, they can take a treb down in 5 seconds, they can take people down as well in 5 seconds.

Did my eyes just deceive me?
Eles could take down door and treb in a few seconds with certain skills that have since be made so they can’t do that anymore (unless you know how to take down the door in 2 seconds like me).

Ele bursting someone in 5 seconds is not even close to thieves bursting people in 1 or warriors sniping people in 2.