Elementalist Roaming Match-Ups help

[SlitheSlivier.1908]

Can anyone provide input as far as good elementalist roaming builds (any spec) and what other builds they have a natural advantage or disadvantage against? Also which weaver roaming builds do you think have the best overall matchups,  against equally skilled players?

I was playing FA scepter/focus recently and it feels like it has a lot of bad matchups....but i suck at it still so not sure. 

[AliamRationem.5172]

Scepter FA is difficult to learn on because it has very little defense outside of mobility and pressure.  And that pressure relies largely on setting up opponents for bursts, which can be tough to manage when you're new.

 

Celestial sword/focus is a more forgiving option.  It is very hard for most builds to kill 1v1, but it has poor mobility and range and its damage is heavily reliant on condition damage which can be cleansed.

 

There aren't a lot of hard counters to cele sword in 1v1 though.  Immob rangers, condi mirage, and maybe deadeye do well against it but I still wouldn't call these hard counters.

 

Winning outnumbered on cele sword is tough though since its harder to stay on offense and down enemies due to poor mobility and opponents kiting and cleansing.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Look at videos of Solemn https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmSUdkcYgz6ZafJKqzsAQvQ

He tries differents builds arround weaver; air-arcane fire-arcane etc, mostly melee, and explains them.

 

Personnaly my main build is this one. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAgilZwkYQYmYybl9SB-zVZYVRDyXMM3gCOjMlAlqAU8ss1MA-w

I have now legandary gear, runes and sigils so I change a lot; more marauder, more celestial, runes of rage etc. Plus I keep my secrets.

D/D because more range, more cc, more "big hits", 360 radius, compared to sword. Sword is better in PvP because of polaric leap and people standing close, or for duels, but to roam  - kite or chase, outnumbered ...- D/D + unravel is huge benefit.

Unravel : because I'm very familiar with this skill. Quick access to healing/cleanse weapon skills, to shocking aura; allows to chain leaps etc. Good skill with dagger main hand, almost useless with sword; very situational with scepter or staff.

A lot of condicleanse (just spam everything with swiftness or regen f2-f3, dual attacks, etc) weakness application; you can manage to have perma fury. You need to know combos and rotation to earn mights (mostlty if you want to build with more celestial, otherwise you'll lack input)

 

Overall I have better succes with this build than sword or fresh-air.

The main counters are good range players; like soulbeasts with hard melee pressure + stealth/smokescale + LB; like deadeyes, but also fresh-air weaver / tempest because of a lot of CC and superspeed. But also good Warriord/Spb; because they have almost better everything than me  at melee, more cc, more sustain, more armor, more stab/BS, more burst etc;  they can remove my protection -fury/might and chain with 10k burst.

Edited September 2, 2021 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[AliamRationem.5172]

2 hours ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

Look at videos of Solemn https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmSUdkcYgz6ZafJKqzsAQvQ

He tries differents builds arround weaver; air-arcane fire-arcane etc, mostly melee, and explains them.

 

Personnaly my main build is this one. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAgilZwkYQYmYybl9SB-zVZYVRDyXMM3gCOjMlAlqAU8ss1MA-w

I have now legandary gear, runes and sigils so I change a lot; more marauder, more celestial, runes of rage etc. Plus I keep my secrets.

D/D because more range, more cc, more "big hits", 360 radius, compared to sword. Sword is better in PvP because of polaric leap and people standing close, or for duels, but to roam  - kite or chase, outnumbered ...- D/D + unravel is huge benefit.

Unravel : because I'm very familiar with this skill. Quick access to healing/cleanse weapon skills, to shocking aura; allows to chain leaps etc. Good skill with dagger main hand, almost useless with sword; very situational with scepter or staff.

A lot of condicleanse (just spam everything with swiftness or regen f2-f3, dual attacks, etc) weakness application; you can manage to have perma fury. You need to know combos and rotation to earn mights (mostlty if you want to build with more celestial, otherwise you'll lack input)

 

Overall I have better succes with this build than sword or fresh-air.

The main counters are good range players; like soulbeasts with hard melee pressure + stealth/smokescale + LB; like deadeyes, but also fresh-air weaver / tempest because of a lot of CC and superspeed. But also good Warriord/Spb; because they have almost better everything than me  at melee, more cc, more sustain, more armor, more stab/BS, more burst etc;  they can remove my protection -fury/might and chain with 10k burst.

 

It's great that so many builds can work for such a "disadvantaged" class!  The interesting part for me is where you list your counters.  Even in the same class, the ability to take different traits, stats, and weapons completely alters the landscape for matchups.  For instance, you list longbow soulbeast as a counter for d/d weaver, while sw/f is pretty close to a hard counter for that build.

[Jski.6180]

FA is the only ele 1v1 build the other ele builds your more or less using a group build for 1v1. What is the point of having 5 target aoe dmg or support effects when you only have 1 target?

[fuzzyp.6295]

I basically spend all my time playing as a roamer/duelist in WvW and AB testing out different builds for Elementalist. There are a lot of niche builds out there that are very interesting, but generally speaking there are two builds that just about every Weaver in WvW runs:

Fresh Air Scepter is a very strong dueling build with great potential to gank players. I find its best used when I'm trying to pick off players who are out of position in zerg because of its one shot potential. It's really fun to use on EBG if you have a small group of gankers with you because you can basically bring most playerss HP bar from 100 down to about 40-30 in one burst, letting your friends finish them off. It's also a fantastic dueling build because of its crazy burst, but since the damage nerf back in Feb 2020 you have to play more carefully than ever, using your blinds, CC and dodges effectively to avoid damage and burst your opponent down usually when they're at a disadvantage state (cc'd, just used a dodge, weakened).

Fresh Air is really strong against power builds because of its burst potential. What makes it so dangerous is also its range. Usually Deadeyes and LB Soulbeasts are hard counters to an Ele, but on Fresh Air you actually have an even match up. Keep in mind though that you need to keep your distance with kiting though, if they're in your face, you're gonna eat it. Normal Thieves with their stealth are hard to deal with because of this, best advice is to use your AoEs on the ground when you can't see them to keep them at bay. If you're struggling against power builds, consider switching a few more defensive utilities, Stone Resonance, Arcane Shielding or even Signet of Air to help. Fresh Air also struggled against basically condition builds, its still very powerful and can burst them down, but the longer the fight lasts the hard it becomes for the Fresh Air Elementalist. When it comes to roaming in general, Fresh Air is not the best spec. You can win a 1v2 or even 1v3 if you're really good at it, but the build is just not meant for out numbered fighting. If you roam with this build and encountered an outnumbered fight, you need to make sure you target the squishiest player first and will probably need to pop FGS to finish the fight.

TL;DR: Fresh Air Scepter is a 1v1 spec that also excels in ganking out of positioning players, strong against power, weak against condi, don't roam with this build if you want a good time.

Sword Fire Weaver is probably the most common roaming build for Elementalist at the moment. It usually comes in two varieties, full condition (running either trailblazer, apothecary, marshals or some hybrid of that) or the Celestial Varient with full celestial armor. You may run into a few mad lads with Viper/Grieving armor (I had a build like that and it was fun) but since the buff to Celestial Armor a few patches ago most players stick with that since its all around better. This build is much better against out numbered fights, but only just. Its incredibly easy to take 2 players in a fight, but 3 or more it'll depend on their skill level. On both Condi and Celestial this build offers great burning potentional, high sustain through barrier, tons of evades through sword giving it a lot of self sustain. The main difference is Condi focused builds then to be more tanky and hit hard with their burns, while Celestial have better overall sustain. Usually if a Condi Sword can't beat you quick, they will lose due to lack of sustain, where as Celestial Weaver is kinda like... well I mean they can just be unkillable regardless.

This build is a fine dueling spec and can be used to roam. Its strong agaisnt other melee power oriented builds. Theives, Holosmiths (non-grenade), Dragonhunters, Warriors, Mesmers (power) Soulbeasts, Revs (power focused) are all matches up either in your favor or at least balanced depending on skill level. But keep in mind, even though you have a lot of sustain with this build, you are still weak to burst damage. Glass Reapers for example can easily shread through you if you get chill chained and Gernade Holosmiths can easily one shot you if you're not paying attention. These classes can be countered by kiting and smart playing, so they're not necessarily 'counters.'  When it comes to condi based classes, you are usually alright, there is a lot of condi cleanse built into this class and with barrier and your decent HP pool, you should be able to push through most condi battles. This includes Condi Revs, Thieves, Warriors, Guardians, and certain Mesmer builds.

This build has two main counters though: 1) Range/Control. Sword Weaver (any build) lacks mobility, its a very melee oriented build. If your opponent out ranges you or can keep you at a distance, you're not gonna do well. Deadeyes can be near unbeatable in some cases and Druids that focus on immoblizing you can keep you locked down with nothing you can do to respond. Another thing this build struggles against is 2) Other Celestial/Sustain Builds. Even the most Condi focused of this build still struggle to break through a Core Necro or Celestial  Condi Mesmer who are built for sustain. You just don't have the damage out put to counter their own sustain, basically. If you're fighting against a build like that, youre best best is to just leave, because you're not winning.

TL;DR: Sword Weaver is a better roaming/outnumbered build and can win you some out numbered fights. It shines against other melee oriented power builds but struggles with high burst, has terrible range and can be 'out sustained' by other classes.

 

There are other niche builds that players run. I've seen Tempest Fresh Air, Tempest Lightening Rod, Scepter Weaver Lightening Rod, Dagger Lightening Rod, good ol' Core D/D. But these builds are often very personalized and usually only the person who made the build really excels with them, whether it be just general practice, keeping their armor/skill spread a secret (very common among Ele players) or just its too weird for most players to really get into the feel of it. It'd be hard to cover all of them and its usually better for the player who made them to discuss their pros and cons.

I hope this helps in some way.

[SlitheSlivier.1908]

1 hour ago, fuzzyp.6295 said:

I basically spend all my time playing as a roamer/duelist in WvW and AB testing out different builds for Elementalist. There are a lot of niche builds out there that are very interesting, but generally speaking there are two builds that just about every Weaver in WvW runs:

Fresh Air Scepter is a very strong dueling build with great potential to gank players. I find its best used when I'm trying to pick off players who are out of position in zerg because of its one shot potential. It's really fun to use on EBG if you have a small group of gankers with you because you can basically bring most playerss HP bar from 100 down to about 40-30 in one burst, letting your friends finish them off. It's also a fantastic dueling build because of its crazy burst, but since the damage nerf back in Feb 2020 you have to play more carefully than ever, using your blinds, CC and dodges effectively to avoid damage and burst your opponent down usually when they're at a disadvantage state (cc'd, just used a dodge, weakened).

Fresh Air is really strong against power builds because of its burst potential. What makes it so dangerous is also its range. Usually Deadeyes and LB Soulbeasts are hard counters to an Ele, but on Fresh Air you actually have an even match up. Keep in mind though that you need to keep your distance with kiting though, if they're in your face, you're gonna eat it. Normal Thieves with their stealth are hard to deal with because of this, best advice is to use your AoEs on the ground when you can't see them to keep them at bay. If you're struggling against power builds, consider switching a few more defensive utilities, Stone Resonance, Arcane Shielding or even Signet of Air to help. Fresh Air also struggled against basically condition builds, its still very powerful and can burst them down, but the longer the fight lasts the hard it becomes for the Fresh Air Elementalist. When it comes to roaming in general, Fresh Air is not the best spec. You can win a 1v2 or even 1v3 if you're really good at it, but the build is just not meant for out numbered fighting. If you roam with this build and encountered an outnumbered fight, you need to make sure you target the squishiest player first and will probably need to pop FGS to finish the fight.

TL;DR: Fresh Air Scepter is a 1v1 spec that also excels in ganking out of positioning players, strong against power, weak against condi, don't roam with this build if you want a good time.

Sword Fire Weaver is probably the most common roaming build for Elementalist at the moment. It usually comes in two varieties, full condition (running either trailblazer, apothecary, marshals or some hybrid of that) or the Celestial Varient with full celestial armor. You may run into a few mad lads with Viper/Grieving armor (I had a build like that and it was fun) but since the buff to Celestial Armor a few patches ago most players stick with that since its all around better. This build is much better against out numbered fights, but only just. Its incredibly easy to take 2 players in a fight, but 3 or more it'll depend on their skill level. On both Condi and Celestial this build offers great burning potentional, high sustain through barrier, tons of evades through sword giving it a lot of self sustain. The main difference is Condi focused builds then to be more tanky and hit hard with their burns, while Celestial have better overall sustain. Usually if a Condi Sword can't beat you quick, they will lose due to lack of sustain, where as Celestial Weaver is kinda like... well I mean they can just be unkillable regardless.

This build is a fine dueling spec and can be used to roam. Its strong agaisnt other melee power oriented builds. Theives, Holosmiths (non-grenade), Dragonhunters, Warriors, Mesmers (power) Soulbeasts, Revs (power focused) are all matches up either in your favor or at least balanced depending on skill level. But keep in mind, even though you have a lot of sustain with this build, you are still weak to burst damage. Glass Reapers for example can easily shread through you if you get chill chained and Gernade Holosmiths can easily one shot you if you're not paying attention. These classes can be countered by kiting and smart playing, so they're not necessarily 'counters.'  When it comes to condi based classes, you are usually alright, there is a lot of condi cleanse built into this class and with barrier and your decent HP pool, you should be able to push through most condi battles. This includes Condi Revs, Thieves, Warriors, Guardians, and certain Mesmer builds.

This build has two main counters though: 1) Range/Control. Sword Weaver (any build) lacks mobility, its a very melee oriented build. If your opponent out ranges you or can keep you at a distance, you're not gonna do well. Deadeyes can be near unbeatable in some cases and Druids that focus on immoblizing you can keep you locked down with nothing you can do to respond. Another thing this build struggles against is 2) Other Celestial/Sustain Builds. Even the most Condi focused of this build still struggle to break through a Core Necro or Celestial  Condi Mesmer who are built for sustain. You just don't have the damage out put to counter their own sustain, basically. If you're fighting against a build like that, youre best best is to just leave, because you're not winning.

TL;DR: Sword Weaver is a better roaming/outnumbered build and can win you some out numbered fights. It shines against other melee oriented power builds but struggles with high burst, has terrible range and can be 'out sustained' by other classes.

 

There are other niche builds that players run. I've seen Tempest Fresh Air, Tempest Lightening Rod, Scepter Weaver Lightening Rod, Dagger Lightening Rod, good ol' Core D/D. But these builds are often very personalized and usually only the person who made the build really excels with them, whether it be just general practice, keeping their armor/skill spread a secret (very common among Ele players) or just its too weird for most players to really get into the feel of it. It'd be hard to cover all of them and its usually better for the player who made them to discuss their pros and cons.

I hope this helps in some way.

So FA is better in 1v1 scenarios with the most neutral-to-advantageous matchups and Sword Fire is better for small groups?

 

Roaming can be done solo or in small groups and generally 1vX where X is 2 or greater can generally only be accomplished vs noobs or builds your build hard counters. 

[fuzzyp.6295]

21 minutes ago, SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

So FA is better in 1v1 scenarios with the most neutral-to-advantageous matchups and Sword Fire is better for small groups?

 

Roaming can be done solo or in small groups and generally 1vX where X is 2 or greater can generally only be accomplished vs noobs or builds your build hard counters. 

Both Fresh Air and Sword Weaver can be effective 1v1 builds, but Sword Weaver is much more effective if you're fighting outnumbered where as Fresh Air kinda sucks. If you're looking at a complete match up list, both struggle in different ways. Fresh Air may on paper have better match ups because Sword Weaver is easily countered by range, CC and sustain, but its not like Fresh Air is a walk in the park. It is still weak agaisnt hyper aggressive in your face power builds and a lot of condi builds. The difference is, if you take the time to master Fresh Air, it can be a very powerful dueling spec and take on these classes. I've killed Condi Druids in 1v1s with Fresh Air and taken out Thieves in 1v1s on fresh air too, but its not easy and takes a lot of time and frustration. Compare this to Sword Weaver, no matter how good you are at Sword Weaver, a (good) Deadeye is still going to be the one setting the pace for the fight and can just straight up shut you down.

Sword Weaver may have more direct counters on paper, but it is a lot more forgiving with a much lower skill cap than Fresh Air. If we're going to be completely honest here, most players who use Fresh Air don't use it because its 'better', they use it for style and because its a very challenging spec to pull off well. And when you pull it off, it feels incredible and you can truly be unstoppable. But if you were to ask me which of the two builds is overall better, Sword Weaver is probably the stronger overall build with more flexibility in how you play it, even with it having more 'hard' counters.

Generally, if I'm roaming solo, I run Sword Weaver. If I'm running in a group, I'll run either Sword Weaver or Fresh Air depending on what we're doing. Sword Weaver is a safer bet for more intense fights (like 5v5 or 5v10). Fresh Air I use for when we're picking off players in zergs or trying to burst certain targets down fast. If I'm dueling 1v1, I'll use Sword Weaver or Fresh Air depending on how I'm feeling.

And yes, if you're fighting outnumbered, you are usually not going to win fights with 3 or more players on any Elementalist class unless they aren't skilled. But ANet has been pushing for this to be the norm with nerfs across the board, they don't want a single class to be able to 1v5 anymore... ideally.... open discussion on whether or not they are succeeding in that objective.

Edited September 2, 2021 by fuzzyp.6295

[Exzen.2976]

I agree with a lot of what is being said on here, although I disagree with the comments about Fresh Air being bad at fighting outnumbered. Once you get the hang of it, I'd argue it's much better at solo roaming/outnumbered due to its superior mobility and burst than fire Weaver. Both builds can handle multiple players at once depending on skill levels and classes of the players involved.

 

 

[FrownyClown.8402]

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAgilFwaYesO2JWST2tNA-z1YYhwgBd0jGEeZkZC0bBY3sw/ZE-w

 

FA tempest is fun. The idea of this build is to outrun everyone and passivly heal. You get over 500hp/s (with regen) running this with respectable damage. Ether renewal is just for condi clear. 

 

Things to keep in mind when playing. Trading blows with air overload will always result in you losing. Its better to cancel it if being pressured. You want to be around 200-300 units away so you hit them but they cant hit you. Channeling it and canceling it can force dodge rolls allowing you to set up some burst. 

 

A full overload into a burning speed and fire grab combo can result in someone dying.

 

Another combo is air overload into earth 4 then back into air with air 2 and air autos. Or you can try hitting earth 5.

 

Rotate into water every so often to get soothing mist proc and overload water sparingly. 

 

Vs ranged you want to overload earth for reflect and use your earth shout as well. If both are on cd you should LoS or run.

 

Play around with it. I know vallun runs an antitoxin variant of this. 

 

Tl&dr

FA tempest is the most fun for me mechanically and decent all around for 1v1 and 1vx.

[fuzzyp.6295]

3 hours ago, Exzen.2976 said:

I agree with a lot of what is being said on here, although I disagree with the comments about Fresh Air being bad at fighting outnumbered. Once you get the hang of it, I'd argue it's much better at solo roaming/outnumbered due to its superior mobility and burst than fire Weaver. Both builds can handle multiple players at once depending on skill levels and classes of the players involved.

 

 

Yeah, you are not wrong and I apologize if it came across like I was saying outnumbered fighting on Fresh Air was impossible. It's doable and if you put FA Weaver and Fire Sword Weaver side by side, I think FA Weaver ultimately has the overall greater potential to be stronger all around than Sword Weaver, which does have some reasonably hard counters. (opinion)That said,  I think the biggest issue with Fresh Air isn't really its match up potential, it's that the skill required to play at those levels is so often so comically disproportionate when compared to what Sword Weaver can do for roughly the same outcome. For most Elementalist, that alone often makes mastering it almost not worth it. Like, I don't think its a stretch to say that its not enough just to be a good Fresh Air Weaver, you really need to be a great Fresh Air Weaver to see the best results. (/opinion)

I also should acknowledge, I don't particularly enjoy the Fresh Air game play as much as Sword (which i dont enjoy either.. miss good ol D/D) so my bias might have been showing there. Whoops. 😄

Edited September 3, 2021 by fuzzyp.6295
typo

[SlitheSlivier.1908]

Lots of good discussion here! Much appreciated! 

 

I may try to get good at FA weaver. So far i suck haha...but i have a lot to learn.  I'd say I'm an expert at DE thief (make whatever remarks about thief you want but i def play that build at a wayyyyyy higher level than any other DE I've come across and play it cuz i love the gameplay) and want to learn something new.  Additionally because i like playing staff weaver in zergs but want to be able to roam on my ele in the mean time (i have legendary armor so i can swap stats). 

 

I really like the idea of a sword ele battle-mage, but also like rabged classes typically and i don't have cele trinkets (yet) so maybe ill keep trying scepter/focus FA. Def trying to learn as much about the matchups and what to expect as possible and this discussion is insightful, so thanks! Keep it coming!

[Exzen.2976]

5 hours ago, fuzzyp.6295 said:

Yeah, you are not wrong and I apologize if it came across like I was saying outnumbered fighting on Fresh Air was impossible. It's doable and if you put FA Weaver and Fire Sword Weaver side by side, I think FA Weaver ultimately has the overall greater potential to be stronger all around than Sword Weaver, which does have some reasonably hard counters. (opinion)That said,  I think the biggest issue with Fresh Air isn't really its match up potential, it's that the skill required to play at those levels is so often so comically disproportionate when compared to what Sword Weaver can do for roughly the same outcome. For most Elementalist, that alone often makes mastering it almost not worth it. Like, I don't think its a stretch to say that its not enough just to be a good Fresh Air Weaver, you really need to be a great Fresh Air Weaver to see the best results. (/opinion)

I also should acknowledge, I don't particularly enjoy the Fresh Air game play as much as Sword (which i dont enjoy either.. miss good ol D/D) so my bias might have been showing there. Whoops. 😄

Yeah, very this. ^

 

I think FA Weaver has a steeper learning curve but  a higher skill ceilings than fire sword Weaver. Really depends on how much time you want to spend learning it. As long as the OP is aware that there are plenty of other classes/builds that will be more effective with a much lower skill requirement. It's a LOT of fun to play though.

[SlitheSlivier.1908]

7 hours ago, Exzen.2976 said:

Yeah, very this. ^

 

I think FA Weaver has a steeper learning curve but  a higher skill ceilings than fire sword Weaver. Really depends on how much time you want to spend learning it. As long as the OP is aware that there are plenty of other classes/builds that will be more effective with a much lower skill requirement. It's a LOT of fun to play though.

I'm aware of this, thanks!!

Do you prefer sc/f or sc/d? I know you use both (per vids)

[Exzen.2976]

I find Dagger more fun (more dmg = more better), but it's not as good and I wouldn't recommend it - at least while you are learning. It has way worse matchups in general since you have no projectile denial.

 

Focus gives you the important defensive skills you need to survive, so I would definitely suggest running that.