Guild Wars 2

Bsquared.3421:

mouse.1689:

Bsquared.3421:

However, playing a glass-cannon Elementalist like the video I linked is a matter of build, and then hitting a succession of abilities one after another for massive, rapid burst. It’s essentially the same as Thief.

you linked a video of WvW play…
I’d like to see this mythical Burning Speed/Ring/FireGrab (target likely not burning, does 50% dmg) combo that does 20k damage in sPvP…

21k damage using Burning Speed/Ring/FireGrab in sPvP:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTyehv-2uEw

You’re welcome.

That wasn’t just bs/ring/grab. The 4k hit was from arcane shield blowing up. He could hit 25k if wave were off of cool down…

And we was fortunate that his target crossed the ring to start burning. Else the fire grab would have hit for 5k not 9. He may also have had 3 might from the shield blowing up, amping the dmg of grab even more.

I’m not trying to say ele’s can’t pump out serious dmg, cause we can, but 20k in only 3 hits doesn’t happen very often outside some extreme circumstances (e.g., in wvw with up leveled folks, etc.).

I’ll grant you the Arcane Shield, but the RoF wasn’t luck. He dropped it right on the guy, which isn’t at all hard to do once you get used to it. Even failing that, it’s not hard to channel Drake’s Breath for a second to get the burning you need for Fire Grab.

Just to be clear, I posted the link because you asked for an Ele doing 20k damage using those 3 abilities in sPvP, and that Ele is doing almost exactly that.

I am not at all suggesting that this is proof that Ele damage is OP, because pure glass cannon Ele’s are pretty much awful for anything other than pretending you’re a Thief who can’t stealth for a few games before going back to a real build.

At the same time, I think people underestimate how much burst a glass cannon Ele can actually put out, hence the video link. If that Ele were in WvW, he’d have about 20% more crit damage and the numbers would have been much higher than they were.

Bsquared.3421:

However, playing a glass-cannon Elementalist like the video I linked is a matter of build, and then hitting a succession of abilities one after another for massive, rapid burst. It’s essentially the same as Thief.

you linked a video of WvW play…
I’d like to see this mythical Burning Speed/Ring/FireGrab (target likely not burning, does 50% dmg) combo that does 20k damage in sPvP…

21k damage using Burning Speed/Ring/FireGrab in sPvP:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTyehv-2uEw

You’re welcome.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I run with the 30% chance on crit to chill target and 30% on crit to give Might on My daggers – run a high Crit Chance damage build without boons i have about 53% crit chance, Auras give another 20% for 5seconds, use Arcane Power for 5 crit hits as well.

Crit hits also have a chance for Burning and Vul from traits

Just so you’re aware, chance on crit Sigils don’t stack. If you have two equipped, only one of them will actually work. Same goes for weapon swapping Sigils.

And as far as Sigils are concerned, attunement swap does equal a weapon swap. Weapon swap sigils have a 9 second internal cooldown.

During development, the Devs tested various game types, including CTF, Escort, Deathmatch, and yes, even MOBA style lanes gameplay. In the end, they felt the systems they’d designed worked best with Conquer gameplay, which is why they focused on it at launch.

A lot of the devs are also MOBA players, though, so they understand what makes that style of game appealing. I think they’ll eventually add more gameplay types, and given that they’ve actually tested MOBA style gameplay for GW2 in the past, it’s not out of the question that they might revisit it.

boozer.7815:

mouse.1689:

Ele’s can do massive damage if they actually spec glass cannon, which they almost never do. The survivability is bad, but the damage is easily on par with other professions’ glass cannon builds, if that’s what you’re going for.

This is correct. I bolded the most important line. This happens I think mostly due to the sheeple mindset and ignorance of the class overall.

I think that most people don’t do it because (in sPvP at least) glass cannon Ele’s are incredibly fragile. Sure, it’s fun as hell to blow people up, but the defensive builds have more going for them, imo:

• Survivability. The difference between a glass cannon spec and a more balanced spec is HUGE.

• The ability to fight multiple opponents without dying, which is good for distraction and point defense.

• 1v1. Speaking from personal experience, having played both specs a great deal, I can say that I am MUCH more confident going 1v1 against pretty much any class using a more defensive build. It takes longer to win, but it happens much more consistently.

• The ability to survive burst from other glass cannons. As a glass cannon, an Ele that gets opened on by a Thief will die about 9 times out of 10. With a more defensive build, those numbers are reversed.

• Group buffs. In tPvP, Powerful Auras is the strongest ability D/D Ele’s have.

Thieves and Mesmers can get away with playing glass cannon builds competitively because they have stealth and evasion mechanics that mitigate their fragility almost completely. A glass cannon Ele has… Mist Form.

Long story short, if you want to see huge numbers and make people explode, Ele can totally do it, but there are a whole lot of really valid reasons why the more defensive builds are more popular.

besbin.6302:

The thing I hate most is binding roots – the ranger elite. Get caught with that against the zerg and its game over if cantrips are down. I don’t think condition removal gets rid of this one.

Mistform does.

Jericho.4521:

3. Churning Earth: Bad ele’s channel this next to you in plenty of time for you to escape. Good Ele’s will typically begin the channel away from you right after a knockdown like Updraft, wait for you to dodge, and then Lightning Flash to you mid channel. Anticipate that they will do this and dodge right before the spell goes off even if you think you are out of range.

I often don’t run with Lightning Flash at all, but Churning Earth is still useful. Sometimes I’ll use it after a knockdown to bait a dodge.

Alternately, a lot of people will not run away from Churning Earth, but will instead try to knock you down or interrupt you mid-cast. Against these people, I’ll knockdown, channel, then pop Armor of Earth right before they hit me with their knockdown, forcing them to eat the full damage.

funkin.3814:

Excellent tips. Thank you both.

Regarding Zephyr’s Boon, I have to admit I always found the wording a little confusing. Let’s say some guy finishes off one of my fields (I’m thinking fire aura since it happens so often). Did I apply it? In other words, who gets the swiftness and fury: me, him, or neither since it’s only for those auras that I apply to myself?

You only get it off Auras you apply to yourself. Water Dagger 4 and Air Dagger 3 give you auras which let you keep up Fury and Swiftness pretty much perpetually if you run Monk’s/Water Runes for boon duration.

You’re also supposed to be able to get an Aura proc using Earth Dagger 3 combo with RoF, but it’s been bugged since last patch.

As D/D for WvW and PvE, I run full Soldiers/Invaders (Power/Toughness/Vitality) Armor, Backpiece and Weapons, with full Knights (Power/Precision/Toughness) Jewelry. This gives you very good Power, about 29% crit, ~19.5k health, and ~1650 Toughness.

Can’t give exact numbers as I’m not at home at the moment, but it gives a really solid balance of survivability and damage for WvW. Aslo, Signet of Battle is a must on one of your weapons.

The only downside to this setup is that you can’t craft Power/Precision/Toughness gear, so you’ll have to run AC every day for a couple weeks if you want to go that route. It’s worth it, imo. AC is easy with a competent group and you save yourself a ton of money that way.

Facepunch.5710:

Vissarion.6509:

Make Attunements Swap 10 seconds (from 15), eles fixed, thx.

erm, i dont get it. i regularly swap attunements every couple of seconds. even if you don’t add points to arcana, the cd is not 15 seconds.

The cooldown to switch back to the same attunement is 15 seconds. I.e., if you leave Air, Air is on CD for 15 seconds. You can switch to the other attunements every couple seconds, but if you do, they’re all going to be on CD once you’ve cycled through all 4.

The upshot is that to be playing the class to its fullest potential, you really need to spec into Arcane to get your attunement CDs down to around 10 seconds, which pigeonholes pretty much every Ele build to put 15-30 points into Arcane.

Best suggest I’ve heard is to make the base CD 12 seconds, and cut the CD reduction from the Arcane line in half, so a full 30 points in Arcane still gets you to 9 seconds. This makes Arcane very useful, but not completely mandatory.

Fiery Lily.8046:

Sorry but i have to disagree about the “ele is fine” argument completely. Damage is awful compared to other professions. Just plain awful. 1hb wars can do 17k on glass cannon, backstab thieves around the same depending on cds. To do my burst (which cant even remotely compete with that) i have to (i use daggers, scepter 2 is avoidable even with updraft): air 4-5, fire 3-4-2 (this passage is optional)-5. Notice 5 has a 45 sec cd. 45 secs for a spell that doesn’t do 8k but if we are lucky 5k.

You are actually doing it wrong. If you’re going to compare a full glass cannon Warrior, then you have to compare it to a full glass cannon Ele.

In the video below, you’ll see an Ele doing over 21k damage in under 2 seconds with only 3 abilities (Burning Speed, Ring of Fire, Flame Grab.)

Ele’s can do massive damage if they actually spec glass cannon, which they almost never do. The survivability is bad, but the damage is easily on par with other professions’ glass cannon builds, if that’s what you’re going for.

I could spend 0 Trait points and do fine in sPvP. Technically, no points are required at all. But if you’re going to spend points, and you don’t put at least 15 of them in Arcane, you’re playing a non-optimal build.

If a thief gets the drop and gets some lucky crits they can blow up a D/D Ele before they can react. A well played Necro who knows how to strip boons can be very difficult to beat. Shortbow Rangers who know how to kite and use their pets for CC can be difficult to beat. A well played Pistol/Pistol Engi can be very difficult to beat as well.

Generally, the hardest classes to beat as D/D Eles are the ones that can kite effectively, can keep the Ele from running away, and have physical projectiles or boon stripping.

It’s also important to realize that most D/D builds are extremely defensive; they’re not really kicking out a huge amount of damage. They may be very difficult to kill, but they’ll also take a long time to kill you if you’re not a glass cannon and you know how to dodge key abilities.

Caffeine.6724:

I guess my biggest issue lately is trying to find where i will fit into a real spvp/tpvp guild or group. As i seem to constantly be pugging, im never sure if i should master a bunker ele, or a more roaming/dps ele. Dosent help either that regardless of my build i seem to be doing something wrong, as thieves nearly insta kill me.. Any advice? i really dont wanna try D/D at all, but am open to some sort of suggestions towards staff.

Are you set on a bunker build because you think it’s the only viable role an Ele has in tPvP, or because it’s what you want to play? If it’s the former, you’re mistaken. Team Paradigm’s Ele play’s Scepter/Dagger and his roles is group support + AoE damage. S/D in general is more useful when you have a group helping lock down targets with CC so you can land your high damage attacks, and to help peel off you when you get focused.

If you’re interested, you can check out his stream (with links to his builds) at http://www.twitch.tv/phantaram

On a different note, if you’re having trouble with Thieves, D/D is actually by far and away the strongest weapon set against them. Shocking Aura (Dagger Air 3) is just incredible for fighting them. Just throwing that out there.

OneManArmy.5617:

When I play tPvP, I see elementalists rush to the trebuche and they somehow teleport from the ground through the wall,all the way up to the trebuche area (bug abuse?)

Not a bug. They’re using Lightning Flash. Thieves can do the same thing with Infiltrator’s Arrow.

I’d take daphoenix’s D/D build, swap out Zephyr’s Boon, and pretty much call it good. Something like:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhImkbwx4gjDAkHn4CLjChUeMDO2A;TsAA1Cto6y4lwL7Nuuk3ME5IyECA
(copy/paste url)

hackks.3687:

Noctred.6732:

hackks.3687:

Earth traits III (free armor of earth) and V (protection on aura use)

D/D eles typically run aura share and there’s no room for more than 10 points in earth since you need zephyr’s boon, powerful auras, and at least 20 in arcane to make shares worthwhile. The most common builds are probably 0/10/0/30/30 and 0/20/0/30/20, neither of which has anything in earth.

If you’re not running aura share, you might as well run s/d or staff imo.

this is just supposition and conjecture. whether the Ele runs aura share or not would have more to do with his given role in the group rather than just merely being in a group. Ele already shares a good amount of boons just from 15pts in Arcane, whether aura share is there or not. It is not required nor do I see it being used regularly. I do however see lots of protection and Armor of Earth procs. I main a Necro these days and pack a good deal of corruption when fighting Eles because it’s a kitten to kill them without it.

Pretty sure Noctred is speaking from a tPvP perspective. Aura sharing is the strongest thing D/D Ele can bring to the table in 5v5 team play. If you’re not aura sharing, S/D is arguably better because it provides more burst/AoE damage in a group scenario, plus it brings respectable group might stacking to the table.

In sPvP, where most people are rolling around solo, no one runs aura sharing because they’re not really concerned with team play. If you’ve got 30 points in Water as D/D in sPvP, you’re probably going to be running Cleansing Water over Powerful Auras. And D/D is arguably better than S/D in sPvP because you don’t have teammates helping you CC people to land your big damage abilities.

1) Dagger OH
2) Dagger MH
3) Scepter
4) Staff
5) Trident
6) Focus

imo. D/D is the strongest weapon set right now, but Scepter can be very strong when played correctly as well. The main thing is that you have to play it like a melee class, just like D/D. Hitting with Phoenix is easy if you’re right on top of your opponent. Hitting with Dragon’s Tooth is doable as well if you use it immediately after Updraft or Earthquake.

S/D has stronger AoE and significantly more burst damage than D/D, it just requires more setup, and connects less consistently. In a group skirmishing scenario where you can rely on teammates to help apply cc, Scepter is arguably a better choice. For hotjoin and WvW, D/D is better because it’s more self reliant and has greater survivability.

What would you guys think about a new trait that just gives back the blast finisher mechanic to dodge rolls? Say, for example, a trait in tier 1 or 2 Fire that reads:

• While attuned to fire, your dodge rolls are blast finishers.

Would return the tactical gameplay that people liked so much about EA, would make Fire a more attractive tree in general, and wouldn’t create an overly powerful interaction like Cleansing Wave + Healing Rain did.

It’s a phenomenal post, but what specifically would he (or others) suggest to fix it? What actions would you have the devs take to start fixing these problems? Ideally the answer wouldn’t involve a massive overhaul to the entire system, because I don’t think that’s a realistic expectation.

Wolfheart.1938:

Because not everyone who plays PvP completely disregards any other content. Very sorry that you do, but you’ll have to live with that announcement for a few days.

Why on earth does this seem like an acceptable answer to you, when it should be ridiculously easy for ANet to allow you to close the message and/or automatically disable it in the Mists? It’s not rocket surgery.

ThiBash.5634:

It helps of course that every newbie plays a warrior, but only the most skilled players can stick with the elementalist for any length of time.

It sure doesn’t hurt, but it’s also worth noting that Warrior just has a way lower skill ceiling than Ele. There’s only so much mileage an amazing player can get out of a Warrior.

Ele and Warrior are about even in terms of objective power level. Warrior is better raw offense, but Ele is far better group utility, mobility, and 1v1 capability. Guardian is significantly stronger than both of them, as are Thief and Mesmer.

Minor buffs to Warrior are no big deal at all.

Rangers have some pretty legitimate complaints in sPvP, but in PvE they’re not bad, aside from their pets being almost entirely useless.

Ember.4326:

Aoe blind on dodge is useful to an extent, but it’s not like you’re gonna be like “OH I’M GONNA DODGE BLIND THAT DUDE” because dodging takes so much time you probably gonna miss your target with it. It’s not nearly as useful as some signet activates or scepter 3. As I said, it just happens on the side.

I respectfully disagree. I mean usually, particularly if you’re using Staff, the time you want a blind or an AoE snare the most is when one or more people are in melee range, directly on top of you. Hitting someone that’s trying to stay on top of you with a dodge roll isn’t particularly difficult, and it’s incredibly useful as a kiting tool.

Listen, I’m not trying to suggest that this wasn’t a big nerf for Staff users. It obviously was. And at least with respect to the Healing Rain / Cleansing Wave combo, I think it was warranted. I think the inability to use EA to stack might is an unfortunate side effect of the nerf, but again, this was foreseeable, since EA was never intended to create blast finishers in the first place.

This last patch was tough, because with very few exceptions, it was nerfs across the board for almost every class. Looking at it in a vacuum, members of every class are kind of pissed off right now, because their class got nerfed. Except they’re not accounting for the fact that most other classes also got nerfed (Ranger being the exception, and rightly so.)

Any time you roll out this many nerfs, people are going to be upset. I think it’s a safe bet that the next patch will see fixes and buffs to most classes to compensate for the changes in this last patch. I think they’re actually doing the right thing by waiting to do so, however, because they need time to see how this most recent round of changes affects the metagame.

Bottom line, I think all classes will see buffs next patch, and in the meanwhile, Ele is really not in as bad a place as people seem to think. It’s my main, and I love it. I play Staff, D/D, and S/D, and I still feel like all of them are viable since patch. Yes, Staff is weaker, but it still fulfills a role and does it well.

That Cleansing Wave proc is still amazing. And suggesting that an AoE blind on dodge isn’t useful is just silly, imo. Also, while the damage on the earth proc is weak, the AoE cripple can be very nice.

If you don’t like it, spec out of it, but it’s still a very strong trait.

Ember.4326:

Also don’t get what you mean with abusing a bug while in water element? Evasive Arcana had nothing to do with being in water element, blast finishers fired off every dodge, you didn’t need to be in water to detonate water fields. Sigh, another counter complainer who doesn’t even have a clue about things.

The reason Bunker Eles were so strong is because they used Evasive Arcana’s blast finishers with their own Healing Rain’s combo field to produce massive healing that even multiple enemies had difficulty overcoming. This was having a negative impact on competitive tournament play. Long story short, he knows what he’s talking about.

Evasive Arcana’s blast finishers were a bug and always have been. The trait is incredibly strong even without them. The nerf was warranted and highly predictable.

They already do this. For example, Guardians’ Save Yourselves ability is 10 seconds in PvE and 5 seconds in sPvP. Some of the changes they made in yesterday’s patch were the same way. Some Thief abilities were nerfed in sPvP but not in PvE, etc.

The only thing I think is wrong with their current implementation of this concept is that they treat WvW as PvE, which seems totally contrary to common sense, since it is, by definition, PvP. I understand this is a limitation caused by WvW maps being considered PvE maps by the engine, but I hope ANet will find a workaround, because it’s not very intuitive.

Melchior.2135:

mouse.1689:

In this patch they fixed some of the worst Ele bugs and nerfed only what was actually a problem.

Haha, yeah! Tornado was OP as heck! I’d pretty much toggle it and the whole rest of the zone would surrender and start mailing me money to make me turn it off early.

Granted, I ignored that change since it’s a nerf to something no one used in the first place.

MasterDeere.3417:

Aoe dammage build rely on allies when downed(cause they get downed fast and easy). Downed hp reduce by 75% in this patch therefore nerfed.

Downed state health was reduced by 25%, not 75%. The exact wording was: “PvP downed health is now 75% of what it was.”

This is actually a buff to AoE builds, because one of the builds’ strengths is the ability to finish enemies by AoEing them (and the people trying to rally them) by just dropping massive AoE on them instead of trying to manually stomp.

MasterDeere.3417:

Aura sharing builds are also bunker based build therefore nerfed by rippling wave nerf and EA nerf.

Healing Ripple is a nerf, but not a terrible one. The Evasive Arcana nerf barely affects D/D Eles. The reason it was busted for Staff Eles was because it combo’d so well with the water field on Healing Rain. D/D Ele’s rarely if ever drop a Ring of Fire, switch to water, and start spamming dodge rolls for the combo finisher.

Aether McLoud.1975:

You cannot completely gut the only viable build a class has in a patch and not give them a single buff to compensate.

Complete hyperbole:

• Bunker is weakened but still viable.

• Bunker is not even remotely the only viable build. Scepter/Dagger AoE damage builds are viable. Team Paradigm’s Ele uses one. Dagger/Dagger Aura sharing builds are viable. Many competitive teams run one or even two of them.

People have been claiming that Staff Bunker is the only viable build for weeks and it’s just not true. It was certainly the most overpowered build, but it was relying on a bug (Evasive Arcana was never intended to give blast finishers) and now it’s fixed.

thetreebranch.4831:

mouse.1689:

Bunker Ele needed nerfs and Ride the Lightning/Magnetic Grasp needed fixes. Both things happened. Good patch for Elementalists, imo.

Ele also desperately needed buffs in a few trait lines (fire and air).

All classes need improvements to their trait lines. They’ll happen eventually. In this patch they fixed some of the worst Ele bugs and nerfed only what was actually a problem. The changes aren’t particularly interesting, but they were right on target, imo.

Bunker Ele needed nerfs and Ride the Lightning/Magnetic Grasp needed fixes. Both things happened. Good patch for Elementalists, imo.

Zenyatoo.4059

Mist Form: This skill now works with the Water Magic trait Cantrip Mastery.

Why is this listed in the Bad category?

zombyturtle.5980:

Would you be able to explain how you manage to drop mobs faster than a warrior in Orr? I play D/D and find I am killing very slowly. Im a new level 80 and advice would be great.

Go Scepter/Dagger. If you have gear worth socketing, socket for Might duration. (2x Hoelbrak, 2x Strength, 2x Fire). Get a Sigil of Battle on one of your weapons.

Generally, a rotation will go something like so: Target a group of mobs -> Ride the Lightning -> Updraft -> Switch to Fire -> Ring of Fire -> Phoenix -> Dragon’s Tooth -> Fire Grab -> Arcane Wave -> Switch to Earth -> Earthquake -> Churning Earth.

At this point a couple things will have happened:

• All the mobs you’re fighting will be at about 20% health.
• You will have ~16 stacks of Might with a ~30 second duration, because Ring of Fire is a combo field, and Phoenix, DT, Arcane Wave, Earthquake, and Churning Earth are all blast finishers that give you stacks of Might.

Now you’ll kite around for a few seconds while you wait for your cooldowns. Switch to water and use 3 and 5 to heal up a bit, and 4 to chill mobs that are attacking you, then switch back to Air and start again.

If you’re finding you’re taking a lot of damage during your rotation because your gear isn’t great, you can use Arcane Shield or Armor of Earth to protect yourself while you do it.

Basically, the build does massive AoE damage, has a ton of control, and has 22-25 stacks of Might up at all times during combat. It’s great for dungeons too, because you share your Might stacks with allies.

Second the Elementalist. D/D and S/D are both great anti-Thief builds.

I like D/D for PvP, Staff for WvW, and S/D for PvE.

Scepter/Dagger is amazing for PvE because it has huge AoE damage from abilities like Phoenix and Dragon’s Tooth. In PvP these abilities are very hard to land on players, but in PvE mobs are stupid and take the whole thing.

Also, in a group scenario, S/D provides really nice group buffs in the form of Might stacking. For example, the combo of: Select a group of Mobs > Ride the Lightning > Updraft > Switch to Fire > Ring of Fire > Phoenix > Dragon’s Tooth > Arcane Wave > Switch to Earth> Earthquake > Chruning Earth will result in 10 stacks of Might for you and any allies standing near you, all while doing a ridiculous amount of CC and AoE damage.

The class is in a really really good spot. It needs a lot of bug fixes, but that’s true for every class. It could use some tweaks to certain weapon abilities, but nothing major. It has 3 extremely viable weapon sets, and a wide range of useful Utilities.

It’s harder to play than most other classes (by a wide margin) which is why a lot of people think it’s bad. Personally, I think it’s the perfect baseline for balance. Classes which are significantly stronger than Ele should be toned down (Guardian, Mesmer, Thief) and classes which are significantly weaker should be brought up (Ranger).

I can see you’re passionate on this issue and that’s fine. I simply suggested Daggers because it actually does a lot of what the OP said he wanted. He said he tried them and he didn’t like them. That’s exactly how I felt about them after playing Staff for a long time. It took hours of play to get accustomed to them, but once I did I really liked them.

The very first line of the OP’s post says he has NO IDEA what he wants to do with the class. I was simply encouraging him not to give up on D/D right away, because with some practice he might find it provides a lot of what he’s looking for.

My post was not intended to disparage Staff; I’ve played with it extensively and it’s a very good weapon, in certain scenarios. Personally, I find it to be best either with a total bunker build in sPvP (which has virtually no damage, so not what the OP wants) or when you’re defending keep walls or fighting from a mostly stationary position, (in which case high movement speed is a rather low priority.)

I get your frustration, and you can keep being aggro at me for it, I really don’t mind. I just want the OP to have as many options and ideas presented to him as possible.

Agree wholeheartedly. The game will be MUCH more inviting to newer players if they:

• Make at least half the Hotjoin servers 5v5.
• Add in matchmaking for Free Tournaments, where pugs are fighting pugs and teams are fighting teams.
• Add a ladder for Paid Tournaments so lower skill players aren’t paying cash money to get stomped by pros.

nurt.5401:

Uh. this is a myth. You probably don’t notice TPvP specific complaints about the thief because there’s nothing really tournament specific about the problems.

I don’t think you’ll find a single top level player who will agree with you. Thieves are actually getting edged out of the metagame in tPvP right now. Sure, they can gib people once in awhile, but that’s not translating to games being won, at least at top levels of play.

People don’t complain about Thieves in tPvP because it’s a totally different game. A lot of the prevalent tactics in tPvP right now are marginalizing the role that Thief excels at, which is roaming.

Roamers aren’t very good when a Mesmer using Portal can prevent back caps much more efficiently, and where bunkers and AoE define the meta. Thief has difficulty finding a niche in this environment, and so people don’t complain.

In sPvP, Thieves have ridiculously high damage and require very little skill to pull it off. ANet has acknowledged this, and it’s safe to expect nerfs to high damage builds in the near future.

TWMagimay.9057:

Oh, my bad, I thought this topic was about what Siliconhobbit likes. You know, the guy form OP who not only said he likes staff, but made it pretty clear that he doesn’t enjoy daggers. I guess I should’ve been more blunt about it instead of going for sarcasm, but, meh, thought it was obvious enough.

He said he likes swiftness. D/D provides permanent swiftness. The playstyle differences between the various weapon sets are immense. When you’re used to playing staff, switching to D/D or S/D can feel completely crappy until you’ve had plenty of time to get acclimated to it. I was pointing out the benefits of the weapon set, since they actually provide a lot of the things the OP said he wanted.

And, yes, I know it’s a trend for everybody to push their build at every topic, but, c’mon.

I primarily run Scepter/Dagger with Arcane utilities, actually. The build I posted was a fairly close approximation of Daphoenix’s tanky D/D build. I posted it not for self-aggrandizement, but because it fulfills a lot of the OP’s requests, namely: high swiftness uptime, extreme survivability, and solid damage output.

Necromancer is a very strong class as well. It just happens to be amazing at team support and point control in tPvP and not so good at 1v1 and sPvP. The problem is they can’t really buff the latter without making it insanely OP in the former.

All of the classes have at least 60 or more bugs that need fixing. Necro, Ele, and Engi all have strong roles in competitive tPvP. Of all the classes being discussed, Ranger is by far the worst off. It’s virtually absent from competitive play.

Save all your glory for rank 20. Buy a bunch of Gold Dolyak loot chests. Salvage them all. You should get enough Slivers to make a full set.

On a side note, the set’s shoulder graphics are actually attached to the helm. You can wear any shoulders you want and the helm graphic will cover them up completely. You can save yourself a Sliver that way, if you’re so inclined.

Also, in PvE/WvW, the identical looking set is called Shadow and it’s level 20. You can buy a whole set of it for like 3 silver off the trading post and transmute it onto your level 80 gear, if you care at all about that side of the game. Enjoy!

Aethersong.5189:

From the research ive seen, the ranger longbow rapid fire does about the same damage as auto-attacking with the short bow not including condition damage…

^ Fact.

/fifteencharacters

Division.9618:

Well… i know the perfect rune for my shortbow hunter.

Weapons use Sigils. Sigil of Air is Fine. It’s the Rune of Air proc that’s over the top. I don’t think there’s any doubt it will get nerfed eventually.

TWMagimay.9057:

Or you can, you know, take One with Air, have 25% perma movespeed and be free to choose your weapon and runes based on what you like instead of speccing everything towards ms.

Sure, if you like staying in air attunement for 50 seconds. Which I don’t. D/D’s perma-swiftness is up at all times, even while you’re attunement swapping during combat.

As for choosing weapons and runes based on what I like, I like increasing the duration of my fury, might, swiftness, regeneration, and protection by 40%. It’s pretty great.

Rainshine.5493:

If you’re playing staff, I highly highly recommend 30 in Arcane for Evasive Arcana. Dodgerolling in your own fields causes blast finishers, and each attunement has a separate 10-second cooldown. (Right now you’re getting more blast finishers than you should — IE, every time you dodgeroll — but imo, don’t get used to relying on a bug).

Wouldn’t be surprised if this got fixed in the upcoming patch, so yeah, definitely don’t get reliant on it.

severe weather warning

drifter.8453:

Bottom line is Ele’s are broken and need a fix. 1v1 they most of the time do come out alive, barely, but more then that you will fold after three hits, and burn all your cooldowns, leaving you to run for your life constantly or spend coin on death repairs constanly.

False. Ride the Lightning is broken and needs a fix. Aside from that, the class is very good when properly specced/played.