Guild Wars 2

PistolWhip.2697:

oh Elixir S? That’s getting the same nerf on Engi.

Still has shorter cooldown.

Since when you can see enemies names in wvw in combat log?

More like 3s or 3.75s with 25 in deadly arts.

It’s made from joint clips.

darkace.8925:

Zenith.7301:

I’m using a berserker lightning hammer build.

I found your problem, and I didn’t even have to read past the first sentence to find it.

If you’re profession has both the lowest armor and the lowest health pool in the game and you’re going to make a build around conjuring melee weapons, wouldn’t you be better served investing in some knight’s or soldier’s gear?

To the larger point, not all skill-types are useful in all situations. Turrets, for example, make for poor choices for roaming engineers.

How’s that different from a thief spamming black powder?

Geomancer’s freedom trait should be adept now since warriors are getting even more powerful adept version of it.

Hopefully, it means less fotm players playing faceroll spec.

Doesn’t need buff, maybe active part do.

PistolWhip.2697:

Plus, Ele’s are still the kings of combo fields. Those fields will proc a lot with a good team.

The almighty staff elementalist.

This patch will essentially remove s/d arcane roamer because now you’re forced to take lightning flash for maps like khylo and when you have 2 cantrips you ought to trait them.

An even better way is to grab tons of projectiles reflects/absorption.

Bunker = ele

/thread

Ralathar.7236:

Additionally most fields outside of the Asura racial are extremely short lived. by the time you cast say flame wall or ring of fire, switch attunements, and cast rock barrier you’ve exhausted half the fields life cycle. This means to gain the finishers you must start in earth, THEN cast rock barrier, THEN switch out, THEN lay down the field when you are in fire (within 30 seconds!!), THEN switch back and hurl.

Very cumbersome for a marginal gain.

You should have rock barrier at the start of the battle.

Ice shard doesn’t give vulnerability unless you have 25 air minor trait or 25 arcana minor trait.

As for Hurl, it’s a 100% 5 combo finishers, sometime it finds its usage justified.

Most often the thing that kills you is burning, especially with semi-glass build. So either grab cleansing flame or stop drop and roll.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

The stat-boosting ones don’t seem to be affected. Hard to say for Signet of Judgment.

I’ve done few tests and haven’t seen it working, unlike in hotm where it was granting ~15% damage reduction.

Perfect inscriptions trait doesn’t seem to work in pve.

Nikaido.3457:

How did you manage to find people who aren’t abusing this Khyber ?

I can tell you how I do it.

It’s simple, you just kick everyone who goes near it. I recommend you have at least one friend with you.

My friend has seen 14k backstab with a survivable thief. Too stronk.

Anchor guardian is simply risen putrifier, he wields an anchor.

Rahar.9872:

Insulting my playstyle doesn’t make me wrong. Yes, I play balanced Thief, because the current meta is one-shot burst tactics, and I dislike that. But that’s not my point.

Haven’t done that unless you’re really touchy on the subject of your playstyle.

The point is that eles can do everything a Thief can, and more – High damage, higher mobility, and much, much greater sustain.

Another one playing 30/30/30/30/30.

Not to mention the most commonly QQ’d about part of a Thief (CnD + mug + backstab with Basilisk venom) has a 45s cooldown too.

Most commonly used thief in tpvp is d/p and please don’t compare fire grab to basilisk venom. One is highly predictable and easily dodgeable.

Everyone else on this thread seems to think they aren’t.

Only you and pvd players.

Yep, nerf d/d eles (except in pve!). Might sway more people to even more unkillable s/d spec.

Elemental surge with arcane power?

You can do that with pretty much every build.

Karolis.4261:

I do. And pretty much every non glass thief does.

Exactly. Thief is picked for burst. You can be extravagant and play something different, doesn’t mean it’s optimal.

iNaddict.8021:

that is plenty viable.. what on earth makes you think its not.

Viable as staff ele and warrior. You don’t pick shadow arts because pvp is about capping points and you can’t cap while being invisible. You can’t defend node and you will have trouble killing bunkers.

Rahar.9872:

Bunker ele’s don’t hit as hard as a wet noodle, especially if you’re on a Thief. Everyone seems to believe this, but 5k fire grab and 7k churning earth crits is not hitting like a wet noodle. I usually play a pretty balanced Thief in sPvP and tPvP, and they’re still incredibly hard to deal with, especially in team fights, where they deal their attacks in a rather large PBAoE. The fact of the matter is that they have too much survivability for the damage, and vice versa.

45s cooldown with 24% crit chance. Why do you play balanced thief? In its current state thief is picked only for burst.

In regards to the Thief mobility – Ele has that, and his other tricks.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lightning_Flash

45(36)s and you just wasted one of your stun breakers while thief has to wait 8s to replenish wasted initiative.

That’s why there’s no Thieves in high end tPvP.

There are.

Travlane.5948:

its a dagger/pistol build that runs decent dmg but not super high and runs traits in crit…shadow arts…and acrobatics. theres plenty of it you can read. if he was going in and out like you say they he was a hacker. you cfan only go back invis AFTER 4 seconds of being visible…..this being called the revealed debuff (you only get this if u leave the full duration of invisbility early…aka ATTACK) so the trick is….in any pvp…BRING CC SKILLS mesmer phantasm build can beat d/p too. just make sure you time your dodges about 2.5 secs after they go invis. you will get used to when they attack and where they like to go. it usually the same with most thieves.

No one sane runs shadow arts and acrobatics in pvp.

Nikaido.3457:

Not going to happen anytime soon. They buffed the banners, you’re citing 10% crit damage ? probably didn’t hear that in one of the recent patches, it has been buffed to 15% crit damage. Anet is more likely to try to bring the other classes to the level of the warrior than to nerf something they recently buffed.

It was buffed but anet could have made a mistake and might revert the change to 10%. Why? Because:
a) there are no patch notes about that
b) boon duration is still at 10%
c) during sotg they explicitly said they won’t buff crit dmg and boon duration because it’s already good enough

Also, banners change were mostly due to their horrible state in pvp, no one complained about them in pve.

We should perform dps test with 25 stacks of might/vuln and with perma fury for warriors/guardians/mesmers and unbuffed/undebuffed for rest classes. Sounds logical.

Isslair.4908:

It’s the NPCs who do the most damage there. Hence mesmer with TW makes whole fight a lot easier. Warbanner is always a plus – but its warrior’s utility, not dps that matters there.

TW affects only 5 allies and it prioritizes players rather than npcs. So you’d have to place it either non centrically or start to range him if you really want npcs to get quickness.

Why? You can be in melee range while protected by WoR and feedback. Without them you need perfect reflexes to dodge lupi aoe projectiles in melee.

Precisely why it’s ironic. But you’re contradicting yourself. If you need perfect reflex, how can you place trust in some guy who is supposed to use a skill so your whole party won’t wipe instead of taking care of yourself?

People want projectiles reflections because they want to finish fight fast and have few attacks from lupi’s arsenal became trivial (which is why projectiles reflections needs to be nerfed) or they simply suck and can’t anticipate skill with 1s long wind-up.

Isslair.4908:

But since we don’t have a hard DPS-races in GW2 it doesn’t matter all that much.

We might not have hard dps races but if I’m not mistaken if you burn down captain ashym fast enough he won’t grab fiery greatsword which arguably is the most powerful of his weapons.

What I do see is groups refusing to start fractal run without a couple of guardians or meleeing lupi without guard+mesmer combo.

Rather ironic you need projectile reflections for melee combat.

It has piles!

of vile essence.

Rahar.9872:

While the above is true, you seem to assume that there’s only one problem with ele’s. There’s far more than just cantrips.

They also do as much damage as a balanced Thief as a bunker spec (AoE, too!), tank as well as the best bunker guardians thanks to constant protection, and have outright the best mobility in the game, even surpassing that of the Thief, who is supposed to be filling that role.

That’s the problem with D/D Elementalists.

Right, I left elemental attunement. Earth part of that trait should be nerfed to 3s, so it works rather like on-demand protection than perma protection.

Bunker ele hit as hard as wet noodle. He can’t kill you 1v1 unless you either suck terrible, are afk or you fight him for 5 minutes. Why would you fight a bunker 1v1 for 5 minutes? He’ll kill you mostly with burning.

Mobility? One skill every 20s while thief has on demand 900 range teleportation which allows for so many shortcuts on maps like khylo and nilfhel.

Anet wants elementalist to be good at everything but excel at nothing. That’s the whole premise of that class and its attunement mechanics. Bunkering (cantrips and elemental attunement, though not healing) needs adjustment but mobility after rtl nerf is in right state.

And why everyone seems so glued to d/d ele? There is something called scepter which a lot of people are using. Unless you’re coming straigth from pvd where meta is like 5 months late and isn’t even supposed to be balanced in its current state.

Another question then, why do you use spectral wall?

Rising Dusk.2408:

While this is true, the percent increase a player sees from a flat increase of 875 power is actually dependent on what their current stats are. A condition damage Necro has only 900 or so Power normally, so a boost of 875 is nearly a 100% increase in their power-based damage output (which is surprisingly plentiful for necros even when using condition builds) while they can take advantage of their other benefits, and that’s just one example. That said, I agree that a Berserker, while getting less % bonus damage, still benefits ‘equally’.

Berserker has crit dmg which sees increasement from might stacks as well.

Lafiel.9372:

Only if you think in terms of numbers only….which it obviously is not what this game is only about…

There are so many others factors to consider besides from just numbers.. for one, the aggro system in gw2 is highly prejudice against players with high toughness (making you ideal for putting pressure off your berserker friends). A lot of the time, the 10-20 % less damage you take is all it means to be able to take a potentially 1-shot hit (and heal back up) or not.

For example, one of the bosses I most commonly face tank almost 100 % of the time is mossman, if I wasn’t able to hold aggro and tank every one of his big hits, my team mates would have a lot more trouble and dps would suffer because of it. There are also traited abilities which are beneficial to your chosen defensive stats which are game changing as well.

He meant 10-20x times damage reduction, not 10-20%. And you can’t tank mossman at higher levels.

You completely missed the point.

Last time I had a ranger in arah, his pet was healing lupi while only me and that ranger was left alive. It was impossible to deal enough damage to make lupi permanently stay in phase 3. Conclusion? Pets have negative dps.

A thief is a great addition to a party unable to skip properly.

hrkljus.1243:

dPvP/dt needs some love

Yep, the slope is almost flat ;<

So which skill beside tornado and fgs has whirl finisher? And which skill has water field during the match?

I’m spiking down opponents faster due to the other traits indirectly

and

constant sustain

Maybe this will shed some light.

On topic: problem with ele isn’t mobility (one skill every 20s and possibly one utility). It’s the fact that all cantrips are stun breakers and there are 4 traits that affect in some way (to the level considered too powerful) how they work. Another problem is that group of eles will be much stronger than just one ele.

You moved from “doing far more damage” to “constant sustain”.

How is this not similiar to when you’re playing with pro zerker warriors? They do same thing.

You will do 10.6% more damage with soldier’s+cleric without fury and 9.8% more damage with perma fury.

It has less power.

Which is not possible. Please, stop that. Bunker ele does very little damage and can’t kill anyone unless you’re facing terrible opponent. Unless we’re talking about pvd where miracles happens thanks to the high skill level of the participants.

You said you were using my fully bunker build dealing far more damage.

You’re doing more damage with Clerics+valk (694 Power/0 Precision/5% crit dmg) than with soldiers+zerk (923 Power/75 Precision/5% crit dmg)? Sounds realistic.

Full bunker is 0/0/10/30/30 with s/d.

Soldier’s + zerker is bunker now?

How can he do more damage in pvd as a bunker when bunkers do not invest in critical damage and even if they do, they won’t invest more than in pvp.

Bunker guardian are using shaman’s ammy and bunker ele clerics+valkyrie.

0/20/0/20/30 with 2 arcanes roamer, no cantrips traits.

Lucky crit 5.6k against full glass thief, most likely with soldier’s amulet plus zerker jewel. Bunker indeed.

And what has crit damage being capped in pvp anything to do with bunkers?