Guild Wars 2

Colt.9051:

Funny enough I’ve been actively thinking of a build similar to yours, however mine is more on the offensive side. Your thought of build seems like it would have craaaazy amount of endurance regen, but to me it kinda focuses on it a tiny too much.

Air: Zephyr’s Focus usually lasts long enough to nearly refill 50% of your endurance with Air 1 in scepter or an Ether Renewal cast (Assuming you use that heal). If you go 30 in Air for the Fresh Air trait than restoring your endurance via Air 1 should be a non-issue.

Arcana: Vigorous Scepter doesn’t really help with endurance regen very much to make a big difference over other choices (20% faster endurance regen IIRC basically getting 1 dodge per 8s instead of 10s)… With an energy sigil too and burst endurance regen with arcane skills and vigor procs, that trait will likely get outshined by all that. With the Arcana line in general it’s a tiny unnecessary to me to have it for the attune CD since the Foci skills generally have high CDs (cept for the water ones) that you’ll likely see 2 or 3 attune swaps to that element before the Foci skills become available again. Still, Evasive Arcana could see a good use with a build like this though. Still, it’s up to you, this does seem solid tho xD

I’m gonna from here on out offer some other options that might help:

Earth: In conjunction with Zephyr’s Focus, try out Obsidian Focus, for an extra 170 toughness while channeling a skill. If going further down the earth tree you could look at either 1 or 2 traits: Geomancer’s Alacrity to reduce Earth skill CD so you can pop invulnerability every 40s instead of every 50s. There’s also Rock Solid for 2s of stability on earth swap, for ensuring you get most of your Ether Renewal heal in.

Air: If sticking with the Arcane skills, Arcane Lightning would be a nice damage boost for you to use, otherwise Bolt to the Heart is a nice skill to pick up.

Water: 15 points in this gives you a good heal when swapping to water. Furthermore you could trait to remove a condition on water attune swap or (as you probably already did) use the Soothing Disruption trait for regen and vigor on cantrip use. If you decide to stray from the Arcana line, going into at least 20 is nice for cantrip CD as well.

Finally I’ll share the build I was thinking of using myself and am currently building (Albiet it’s costly…)

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.1|b.1g.h1j.d.1g.h8.0.0.0|0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0|1j.71j.1j.71j.1j.71j.1j.71j.1j.71j.1j.71j|4t.d1g.3v.d17.2t.d14.2v.d14.3v.d17.3v.d17|0.u26c.k1a.k39.0|55.7|1l.24.1v.1t.28|e

You COULD get traveler runes instead and switch out Air Signet for Armor of Earth as well with this.

After testing out vigorous scepter a bit more, I think you’re right. I’ll drop it for evasive arcana, and drop arcane blast for air signet for the extra stunbreaker, as it’s needed.

Also, if vigorous scepter is not being used, then I think dagger would be better for mainhand; access to weakness and air 3 are valuable.

I’ve looked into Arcane Lightning for the build that I normally use in sPvP (this one’s kind of a joke), and after many tests I found that the extra crit damage is actually 5% and not 10% like the trait says, which makes it a bit less appealing..

The reason why I want to invest into air other than zephyr’s focus is for the crit rate necessary to make renewing stamina worth bringing to the table.

With that said, I think I’ll go 0/15/10/15/30. Zephyr’s focus and obsidian focus still work well with mainhand dagger due to the water/fire 2; crit chance isn’t absurdly low and I still manage to grab the heal on swap to water along with having evasive arcana.

I’ve just been thinking about this in the last few minutes so it’s not final, and I was wondering if someone would theorycraft/add some suggestions.

The basic concept is that you’re running a sigil of energy, scepter/focus, with 30 in Arcana. Renewing Stamina, Vigorous Scepter, and Arcane Energy are the central traits.

Arcane wave, blast, and shield as utilities; each one recovers 25% endurance on use. High vigor uptime from renewing stamina and phoenix. Obsidian flesh as an invuln along with arcane shield when needed. Earth 4 and air 4 to deal with projectiles. Two blinds via air 3 and earth 3.

After testing this on NPCs, the amount of endurance you regen overall is pretty insane. However, I’m not sure where to invest the last 40 points. Without dodge roll in water, I feel like the healing power isn’t as necessary, yet the vitality would help.

Edit: Ironically it would seem that 0/30/0/10/30 would be the best for this build; 30 in air for the extra precision needed to crit for the vigor uptime from renewing stamina, along with zephyr’s focus and tempest defense. I guess I’d go with Dolyak for the runes..

For those of you talking about killing iDuelists, the spec the OP is referring to probably isn’t using offhand pistol as commonly as offhand torch with sword mainhand and staff. Extremely high chaos armor uptime via combos from torch 4, sword 3, and staff 4. High stealth uptime from torch 4 and decoy util + mass invis, and add prismatic understanding to that for ridiculous aegis/regen/protection uptime. Two instacast teleports if using blink.

It’s a pain to deal with considering the conditions, and these mesmers aren’t easy to burst down even on the odd chance that you’re finally able to pin them down for a little while (which doesn’t happen often).

zencow.3651:

Zeon.8239:

All you really need is mainhand scepter/well timed dodges to avoid their stuns, setup for a burst so that they waste their defensive resources, and then stay well aware of your cooldowns while surviving long enough to be able to setup your burst again.

I agree, burst ele is the only way to go in this meta.

You still don’t want to get caught 1v1ing tho. At best, if you land Dragon’s Tooth -> Phoenix and Air Spike+double arcane it only takes of 75% of their health (borderline OP for ganking). You have to then survive for the next 20 seconds to spike the remaining 50% after Heal Signet gets the warrior back up and there’s just so much room for error.

There’s a burst build that enables you to do 90-100% of the typical warrior’s HP with the DT + Phoenix + air spike + double Arcane combo, but that build has even less survivability than the standard 0/30/0/10/30 burst spec, so if they use any stunbreak or endure pain then you’re practically dead. Not really efficient for 1v1, although it’s really fun sometimes in teamfights with good positioning and well-timed bursts (tPvP).

I feel like the standard S/D burst spec is very strong in 1v1 against warriors however; with a bit of practice and luck/timing you should be able to pull it off. I’m not sure about D/D, though.

sorrychief.2563:

Has anyone tried sigil of doom instead of energy/battle?

I’ve tried it out on duel servers for testing, and honestly the uptime of the poison is too small to really make a difference. Combine that with the fact that energy is so much more useful in 90% of the other situations, and with the fact that it’s very nice to have extra endurance in case you used your blind on the wrong attack; I would say doom is subpar in comparison.

All you really need is mainhand scepter/well timed dodges to avoid their stuns, setup for a burst so that they waste their defensive resources, and then stay well aware of your cooldowns while surviving long enough to be able to setup your burst again.

"glass cannon ele is noob, tanky ranger has to survive and its harder to play"

...

Fisher Price Warrior #92018274658: I take pride in not having lost any 1v1s on my warrior in..what, a month?
*1v1s his warrior and wins*
Fisher Price Warrior #92018274658: You’re dead, b----. You and your guild are just a bunch of failhards.

But watching better Eles fight other classes will. We could make like.. An Elementalist PvP guild.

Not sure what the possible names would be..

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_reward

If you’ve played offhand dagger before, you’ve probably gotten the glitch where you firegrab and the animation from it (your character’s hands flaming, not the puff of fire) remains afterwards. Then you feel super cool as you run around with flame trailing behind you.

After discussing briefly with a guildmate, I think it’d be pretty cool if they were to upgrade the animations around your hands when you’re in each attunement to be a bit more flashy. Currently you can hardly notice them without max zoom in on your character. (They only appear in combat.)

Of course, this is insignificant in comparison to the plethora of other changes that Ele could use, but it’s something a bit more fun to think about.

*raises hand* S/D here. Been using an extreme burst build for tPvP recently (20/30/10/0/10), but still messing around with others in hotjoins.

ghaleon.2861:

Arachnid.4062:

Did I say anything about nerfing?

I think that guardian’s support is ok, I just also think that other classes should be able to give out the same type of support, and right now the only one that comes close is spirit ranger lol

Lol, spirit rangers give a lot of support, they can rez a full down team, and they do a crap load of dmg. They have perma burning and evades. If you ask me that kitten is more op than a guardian. Because the guardian can’t kill you, all he can do is survive, support teammates with boons and condi clears. He can still be shut down by necros, S/D thiefs etc..

I think you’re missing the point. The OP wasn’t complaining about Guardians and how OP they are (or how they need to be nerfed), but he was stating that it’d be nice if there were more class options that filled support/bunker roles like Guardian so that a bit more creativity in compositions (regarding class variety) would be prevalent.

Why do the letters “S” and “T” together result in kitten? The text censorship on this forum is terrible.

Any GC with a few stuns and maybe an invuln.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Fortus.6175:

Thats because since then there hasnt been major balancing changes for ALL classes, not just your golden warrior. Seriously people, do you REALL want to go down that path in this thread?! Last warning!

silvermember.8941:

Just give up you have no argument.

Seazen.7415:

Eurantien.4632 is one of those uninformed people that just hops on the complain train. This is what annoys me the most about people playing this FREE game.

If you don’t like playing this game, just quit

I’m also speechless. Eura plays a glass cannon ranger at the top of the leaderboards for crying out loud—why shout him down?

He merely said it’s unreasonable to believe that devs have a bias toward warriors because warriors haven’t been buffed in months. Then someone told him that warriors were buffed two and a half months ago, as if that proved him wrong somehow. Two and a half months = more than one month, i.e. “months,” plural. What is going on? The original post claimed that warriors were given top priority, so it wasn’t even off topic.

Eles are getting multiple buffs with zero downsides in the mid-October patch. Maybe we should see how those play out before going all lynch-mob on talented, reasonable players for suggesting that eles might just be viable. Or maybe I’m just dreaming.

The only downside is that these changes are coming to conjures and staff, both of which are hardly used (and will most likely continue to be hardly used) in sPvP, regardless of whether it’s team queue, solo queue, or hotjoin.

I think that Anet should drastically nerf the amount that Cleansing Wave scales with healing power. However, give it back the three condition removal it used to have.

Make Cleansing Wave cause a 2-3 second water field of 240-360 radius (although not the evasive arcana one). This way every elementalist build outside of focus, which already has solid defensive options, has some access to burst healing (which imo is what our defensive mechanic should be) and support, but it’s not too OP on the bunker builds. I believe that the current cooldown on it is long enough to justify this.

Give us back our stunbreak on Lightning Flash.

Give Cleansing Fire a buff so that it cleanses ALL conditions on you, that way it’s a utility that’s actually worth being used and the cooldown is more reasonable.

Drop the cooldown on Glyph of Renewal to 90 seconds. 165 is absolutely ridiculous considering that you want Elementalists to be able to support well.

I think that our elite skills either need to be reworked or that we need a new one, because in their current state a lot of us would rather take Reaper of Grenth as an elite for PvP than use what we have.

As for focus and fire traits, I believe that Lord Earle has made excellent suggestions for both.

Focus: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Brainstorm-Session-for-Focus-Changes

Fire + other traits (although I believe the fire traits are most needy in terms of change): https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/The-Diversification-of-Elementalist-Builds

Our burst capability doesn’t need to be touched, in my opinion. Currently Elementalist has access to extremely high burst potential with the right builds, but the problem is that it takes so many resources that we’re practically sitting ducks (from both a defensive and offensive perspective) for too large a period of time afterward.

To try to be on the positive side, I noticed that the tooltip for arcane blast now says 1500 range instead of 1200. But based on the ridiculous ranges it could hit from before, it may just be a tooltip fix.

Edit: This skill’s range is now about 2000.. Just used it from its max range (not based on the red bar underneath the skill because that’s inaccurate, but based on repeated usage and moving back), used RtL from that range, took one step back and couldn’t hit a lightning strike.

And this was all done on pretty level ground.

Mrbig.8019:

Avead.5760:

Mrbig.8019:

Here we go, there was a reason why people used to run D/D sometime ago.

The point is that as soon as you try to build glass, traits start to make no sense ( electric discharge for example, simply due to best damage being in fire LIKE IT SHOULD), damage is hard to land when compared to S/D and is not even THAT higher, especially fire ( dragon’s tooth+ phoenix damage is RIDICOLOUS).

Imho scepter should be the bunker weapon and Dagger the damage weapon, the point is that D/D damage is TOO HARD to land, and not rewarding enough.

Imho they should rearrange tons of ele skills between sets like they did in beta, and scepter burst should disappear totally, it’s bad for the game.

( dagger should have more mobility, more gap closers and stronger damage dealers both in fire and air, and rearrange scepter skills in order to be more bunkerish; staff skills should have faster casting-aftercasts and the set overall needs more defense, not only BUFF HEALZ.)

Imho they should give eles more builds to play with, but it’s currently impossible when it’s all put into scepter while dagger MH, altough having good sustained, it’s so easy to kite it’s not even fun, especially in a condi meta where people keep on spamming from range.

Dude you are wrong when you say scepters damage is easier to land than d/d.
D/d burst has always been better in the sense that its more controllable,you have more ways to set it up and has lower cd.Thats why between ele duels d/d always will win. Also d/d has WAY more sustain damage.Like way way way way more sustain.Phoenix might hit for like 7k if you aim it properly(mind you we talk about glass builds against squishes) but it has 20 sec cd and autos are way stronger in d/
The matter is simple.
1)Scepters sustain damage is crap and phoenix is hard to land with no cc / blink combo, has big cd and dragons tooth ios impossible to land with no help or blowing cooldowns —>you cant trust them in unless unless its for downed damages or you can back them with something which enemies can also blow immun..so they simply cant make up like 80% of your damage or even more which they would if air spells didnt exist
2)Fresh air is an amazing trait in the sense that it enables eles move a bit away of the spammy nature and play more intelligently.Since air is up most of the time you can do many more combos and use air skills at the right time.
If you touch the 1 (nerf air and arcanes damage ) then s/d ele wont be able to kill in full gc build while still drop like a fly
If you touch the 2 then you just take away my fun and you ll have to do with me :P

Insta 900 range burst says the opposite.

S/D damage is in air, not in fire.

Fire damage is for team fights, for downed bodies, for when you land your CCs.

To land D/D damage you need to be in your opponent’s kitten in order to do damage.

Lightning whip damage angle is pitiful, you need to be inside your opponent hoping he won’t move ( and anyway, dragon’s claws hit even harder if all of 3 land and crit).

S/D offers more reliability, range and tons of blinds ( also for the stomp), something D/D can do only by having evasive arcana and switching to air.

I mean, wut.

It really seems eles don’t even know their class sometimes.

If you think you can land D/D damage, i would really like to see how you fare against a necro at 900 range which will perma fear you as soon as you get around 200 range.

There’s a reason why S/D is better than D/D, and it’s RANGE, and the capability to burst hard even from 900 ( arcane blast+ air burst by themself deal a good 7-8k damage on squishies, about 5-6 k damage on necros/engies).

Pretty sure lightning whip is the best auto on any melee weapon in the game with regards to range.

Scepter does have higher burst potential in fire, and it does have the advantage of range. But main hand dagger has access to good sustain damage via lightning whip/fire 2/water 2, more CC options via earth 3/air 3/water 3, and a 6 second weakness on an 8 second cooldown (10 if not traited) via air 2.

Oh, and honestly, while I have to agree that instaburst isn’t healthy for the game.. Using arcane wave+blast is only really helpful when you’re playing a burst build (wave is good by itself in non-burst specs for the blast finisher but not so much for damage), and considering that most eles using double arcanes are also running lightning flash (sometimes arcane shield), it’s not that bad. Sure, we can do a lot of damage quickly, but having 0 stunbreaks while being the lowest survivability profession in the game using a burst build balances it out pretty well.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Stealth-fix-for-Arcane-utils/first

…I’m not even sure what to say. I hope this is a joke or a mistake.

But what would happen to Fresh Air?

Erebus.7568:

elithrar.7143:

Azunai.5974:

elithrar.7143:

If “idea posts” are the tens (hundreds, if you include other class forums) of DOA ideas that Daecollo posts on a monthly basis, then I don’t want them.

Otherwise, there are certainly some solid idea posts (e.g. the Focus thread on the first page).

G-give the rifle thread a read if you havn’t yet.

I’ve read it, and believe it to be orthogonal to what the class needs. Our existing mechanics and weapons are mostly fine. We need some sensible fixes; we don’t need to spread ourselves thin with a weapon that doesn’t fit the class thematically (I’d rather MH sword in that case).

orthogonal ?? othogonal is normally a geometric term so makes little sense in this context. assume you mean something else.

as mentioned once before in this thread. there is actually quite a few good suggestions, both on weapon changes, traits changes even full revamps. just go search for them and comment on them to keep those threads alive.

Just because it’s normally a geometric term doesn’t mean that it’s always and only a geometric term.

If you know what the definition means in reference to geometry, then it’s a rather simple task to infer what he meant in the context of his post.

/derail

*cough*
In before one month later Frost Bow is a common utility in PvP because people will realize that with a 1.5 second channel time on Deep Freeze, updraft into summon ice bow and then deep freeze will be a legitimate combo when the enemy is out of stunbreaks..

I will never understand why the leaderboard is based off of the win-loss ratio of individuals when this is a team game where wins and losses are decided by the performance of the team.

But that’s a separate problem.

I agree with both the thief and warrior suggestions. In regards to missing attacks still consuming resources, I believe this should apply to the Engineer as well. If they use supply kit while blinded or if it hits nothing, then the box should magically be empty. 8D

Oh, and, in addition to making it so that players are revealed when they miss attacks during stealth, I think they should be removed from stealth if they are hit during it.

Leaving that suggestion as it is would make thieves a bit too weak, imo, so I also suggest that every time someone enters stealth, they gain a buff (that lasts 2 seconds or so; 3 seems a bit much) that prevents them from being removed from stealth if they’re hit while the buff is up. That way you don’t get autodragged out of stealth right after casting it.

ResJudicator.7916:

BurrTheKing.8571:

apt.9184:

BurrTheKing.8571:

waka.9826:

Warrior is the answer? Warrior is the meta.

Then why do we see so few in high level play? Most of the Warriors you see in SoloQ are new to the class and aren’t good at it yet/aren’t built right. As for hotjoin, nothing there matters.

Dude get it out of your head warrior is not hard to play.... I see so many warriors now in high tier tourneys that perform near my level (been playing warrior since the start). Your suggesting what is already in the meta... Although pretty much all classes in meta are not to hard to play. The reason people are complaining is because low tier players can compete with higher tier players because of cheese specs carrying them.

We’ve had this argument before, no class in this game is that hard to play. Every build tends to have some sort of gimmick behind it. Even Engis and Eles have very clear combos that you aim to pull off the only initial challenge is the sheer amount of skills and that doesn’t take long to get over. I still maintain that Warriors are heavily dependent on managing their utilities and long cooldown skills effectively, one misuse of a key skill and you’ll find yourself in a bad spot. This is especially true with the condition removal/mitigation skills. Other classes have this as well but with Warriors being melee with no access to stealth or some of the mechanics Guardian has makes it have bit of a learning curve.

What class/build would you claim requires a lot of skill to play? I used to think Engi nades was hard to use but after a while I found that it wasn’t that bad once you get used to the travel time, and in the end all your doing is pointing and clicking. This game isn’t Counter Strike or any other game considered to have a high skill ceiling. At the end of the game this is 2rd person MMO combat, it can be fun but it it’s more about teamwork than it is about the difficulty of playing your class.

Maybe "high skill" isn’t the right phrase for it, but the risk-to-reward ratio is certainly not even between builds. I think that is what people mean when they say that some builds are "hard" or "easy."

In other words, a build seems "easier" to play when you can mess up a good amount and still beat your opponent, who made far fewer mistakes.

For example, if you want to play a burst ele (and put out about as much pressure as a valk CC warrior), you are so squishy that you will die in a few hits. With a zerker jewel, a backstab + autoattack chain from a thief will kill you. A s/d thief will kill you with a few autoattacks or larcenous strikes. A shatter mesmer’s GS phantasm will take you down below half health in pass. This makes the class risky, or skill-intensive, to play. You need to always be aware of your surroundings (including the possibility of stealthed mesmers/thieves) and think ahead. You also need to be very, very fast on hitting your lightning flash (or arcane shield if you run with that as well). If you mess up, you will almost certainly die.

If you play the current valk amulet + unsuspecting foe CC build, you can afford to make many more mistakes. A backstab from a thief will take off about 20%-25% of your health. While you should obviously still pay attention and react quickly, failing to do so won’t guarantee your death.

Conversely, missing an updraft/earhquake on an ele puts the skill on a 40s cooldown. Missing a gale (focus air5) on an ele puts the skill on a 50s cooldown. Missing a skullcrack on a warrior means you have to wait 8s to try again. This, combined with the survivability issues discussed above, means you can miss more skullcracks as a warrior than you can miss earthquakes/updrafts/gales as an ele.

The complaint about this meta is that these "low risk" (i.e. "easy to play") builds seem to be more rewarding than the "high risk" (i.e. "hard to play") builds. Necros, spirit rangers, and phantasm mesmers in particular come across as being particularly low risk, high reward. While current CC warriors may counter necros and spirit rangers, they only exacerbate the whole "low risk, high reward" problem that people have.

What I would personally prefer is to give warriors, rangers, necros, and mesmers high-risk builds that outperform their low-risk builds when played competently. This gives players something to strive for and incentive to improve.

Anyway, those are my 2 cents. Thanks for considering these thoughts.

*slow clap*

sorrychief.2563:

Someone suggested me a super bursty type spec that is 30/30/10/0/0 with earth signet to setup your kills. It’s really challenging to play without any points into arcana or water like most ele players do.

I currently play a 30/30/0/0/10 spec with LF + double arcanes, and it’s honestly super fun.

Maybe I’ll try 30/30/10 for a little while.

milo.6942:

also for make god balance u should say to anet to put voice over of asra when he do skill. like he do atoatak and he say “i am ato attack!!!” or he do stelth he say “i do stelth!”! so we can kno wat he doin

They should do this for the ranger shortbow 1, longbow 1, and longbow 2.

Every time they use 1 make them say, “one” in a really flat, monotone voice. And for the 2 it would be “two” of course, except faster. 8D

I think before they rebalance the skills we already have, they should give us an elite that’s a bit more useful for sPvP than the ones we have.

When running both arcanes + LF as utils, I use the Arcane Lightning trait, so I gain 10% more crit damage for the churning earth in addition to adding another chunk of AoE damage to anyone around me.

That combined with the fury for switching attunements putting me at 69% crit rate is pretty deadly.

Brought an entire zerg in sPvP to an end, pretty much instantly, with a lightning flash arcane wave + churning earth in the clocktower at Khylo.

But I like being able to hit people through walls or other obstructing obstacles with dragon’s tooth..

Although it would be funny to updraft an S/D thief, then dragon’s tooth on top of myself as a read to their shadow step.

sorrow.2364:

Zenith.7301:

Laserbolt.6731:

There is a lot of thought behind why some professions have higher heath pools. This is a complex system. Some professions need higher health pools because they have less defense naturally and cannot build it as high with traits and gear.

This is a load of crap.

Ele and guardian HAVE to build bunker because if they don’t have the points in the defensive/boon spam lines they get 2-shot by warriors, mesmers, and thieves.

A guardian or ele has 12k base hp in berserkers. A single eviscerate crit can bring you to 20% hp and a single hundred blades after a skull crack will kill you.

Nope.

As an Elementalist or a Guardian, you have plenty of ways to replenish your health bar and mitigate damage. Giving them 15k base HP would make them insanely OP.

It’s well known that the two professions with the highest health pool are horrible bunkers and go down under bursts without problems.

I agree that giving more HP is not a good idea to compensate the lack of defensive capabilities, but it is because of Warriors and Necromancers being too weak defensive-wise, not Guardians and Elementalists.

You think Necros are horrible bunkers? Lmao.

I use X/X/X/X/10, and it’s honestly not THAT bad..

BlackBeard.2873:

Zeon: Ether renewal is unusable on eles unless you bring earth 20, as every class will easily CC you, and necros can even corrupt boon you while using it. Alternatively, you can work your way and try to LOS your opponent, but that isn’t always available, and by the time you LOS you are probably dead. Most of the time, ether renewal is a death sentence against good players.

Also, cleansing flame is currently pretty bad. It is nice to try and clear condis, but as you said the long CD really hurts. Also, it lacks a stunbreak (unlike most other classes condi clears), making it useless against non-condi classes. Most of the time, mist-form is a better option for the stomp + res potential. Further, you usually take an arcane over cleansing flame in pvp b/c all that ele can do is try to go ultra-glass cannon and insta-gib someone. The only build that works doesn’t have enough sustain to make the tradeoff of damage vs. cleanse worthwhile, so you might as well go all-in.

More accurate list of condi clear:
- Cleansing wave (on water attunement swap): once every 10s
- EA dodge roll in water: once every 10s
- Cleansing wave (the skill): once every 40s

Our other cleanse isn’t viable.

I completely agree with you. Ether Renewal isn’t worth it; Cleansing Flame isn’t worth it either. I personally made an ultra glass cannon Ele with 10 in arcana, arcane wave+blast, and lightning flash. Primarily because it’s more fun/risky to me in comparison to a higher survivability burst Ele and because a higher survivability Ele is still extremely vulnerable to condi burst, but also because tank condi/tank regen builds are so common nowadays that oftentimes 1v1s last until other teammates jump in. I guess it’s individual preference, but that doesn’t appeal to me at all.

Gunlaugr.2716:

teonimesic.1403:

The ele meta has changed a lot. With new fresh air an less healing, eles are supposed to go more offensive than defensive. You may or may not like it, but thats how they decided to ‘balance’ the class. Burst elementalists are very decent, and do very well against most classes.

Eles are also a very powerful counter to necros and every other condition class. Their ability to cleanse conditions on very low cooldowns, while having a lot a of burst damage makes then very powerful. And if everything goes bad, an ele can usually outrun a necro, meaning he shouldnt ever lose an 1v1, and should still be powerful on a 1v2.

Also, eles do have a decent amount of team support with group healing and cleansing, aoe swiftness, protection, regen and so on. While a necro delivers a lot of offensive power, its team support pales in comparison.

The fact tha playing as a certain class will hurt more than help is unfortenetely how this game has been from the start. It usually was necros, warriors and rangers, and now its more towards mesmers and eles (and maybe warriorstill).

Even when next patch comes, i doubt that every class will be balanced with every build. So either adapt your build to try getting the most of it (while still being supbar), reroll, or rage quit. I am pretty kitten ed with the whole PAX thing, but unfortenely i cant do anything about it, and i still enjoy the game enough to keep playing.

Cleanse conditions on a very low cooldown. You must clarify this statement. If you spec for fresh air, 10 pts water and 30 pts arcane, you can at BEST cleanse 2 conditions every 10 seconds. This is by no means enough to outlast a single necro. If you go for this build, you don’t get a heal when you swap to water attunement, which is also by far the largest source of group healing provided by an elementalist.

Thus, this disproves your next statement: That ele’s have team support through group healing; No, not if you want fresh air and decent burst to match that of a condi necro. You can’t get fresh air, decent condi cleanse AND group healing.

With 10 in water and 30 arcana as offhand dagger you have access to:

Evasive Arcana in water: 1 condi
Cleansing Wave: 1 condi
Switching to water attunement: 1-2 condis depending on how often you switch to it
Cleansing Flame: 3 condis, 40 second CD though
Ether Renewal: 7 condis, 15 second CD

If you’re on an Ele that’s specced in a way that provides a bit of sustainability, using all of those makes Condimancers a lot easier. The first problem is that Cleansing Flame’s cooldown is rather long. The second is that Ether Renewal’s massive condi removal isn’t necessary in a fight against anything BUT a Condimancer, and that outside of that fight it’s pretty bad in comparison to the others.

Just a little science with warrior/guardian reflecting the third hit of scepter Mesmer auto.

Ignore the title, it was a joke.

The Boz.2038:

I am still puzzled by the “by the time you use all your dodges, cleanses, blocks, etc., you are restacked with conditions” argument. What is it you do in the meantime? Just stand there and cleansing conditions? Meditate on your mortality?
I don’t get it.

You attack the necro, and because their condition build also enables them to retain a large amount of survivability, you probably die far before they do, in a lot of cases.

And explain to me how a melee class is supposed to dodge a necro’s condi circles when they’re either spawned on top of the melee, or spawned around the necro? Run around them while getting attacked from range, or run through them anyway just to get some damage in? Both get you killed.

That metaphor isn’t really accurate because there’s no sacrifice implemented.

The statement’s more like, brick houses are better than straw houses because they don’t get wrecked by the smallest disturbances, but they both get the job done in terms of shelter.

Honestly, condition damage would not be a problem if condition builds had to sacrifice the amount of defense that burst builds do. Necromancers literally can be up to 2-3 times tankier than a burst build light armor class, but still burst for approximately the same or more DPS with conditions, while extremely limiting your mobility via chill and fear chains. It just doesn’t make sense.

jportell.2197:

-Mesmers are the only class that doesn’t get a guaranteed wipe of conditions with either a heal skill or slot skill. (Each one is number limited or requires you to stand inside a bubble)

What? Where’s ele’s guaranteed wipe of conditions, excluding the rare staff ele’s water 5?