Guild Wars 2

Am I the only one that finds the elementalist skill response way to slow for the gameplay speed WvW requires?

It seems every key you press has an inherent 300ms lag (on top of the main game lag) and there is also a limit to the amount of keys you can press in a second, and then when you chain them up very quickly the game reacts like 2 seconds later. Some keys have to be pressed a few times just to respond. Staff first attacks are so slow to hit a target, it literally takes 2-3 seconds from the moment you pressed the key if you add the game lag on top of it.

Then when you play as fast as the class permits you find yourself skill locked, waiting for attunements to recharge. You are forced to place all your skills into Arcana else the class is basically unplayable otherwise if you’re a fast attunement-swapping player.

Because the elementalist class has to press a million keys just to get anything done and stay alive I think it needs a buff to the speed casting time to be enjoyable. Specially since the critical damage nerfed ruinned our best trait line. Now everything is slow AND does way less damage then before.

I understand that is how the elementalist class was first imagined, but things didn’t feel this laggy in GW1.

Also, please fix lightning flash and gust, those 2 skills are totally broken.

I am a little confused.
Do you mean that the skills are actually unresponsive or that they are simply slow (in casting time, aftercast, profectile speed etc.)?

Muchacho.2390:

I am a little confused.
Do you mean that the skills are actually unresponsive or that they are simply slow (in casting time, aftercast, profectile speed etc.)?

All of it with staff mostly:
Casting times are too long
Speed of projectiles is too slow

And everything feels unresponsive when you try to chain them up really fast:
For example: often I will cast Air 3 (gust) – 5 (static field) then attune to water to cast a water field
Even through I pressed F3 (air) – 3 – 5 (static field) – F2 – 5 (healing rain) the static field will fail to register , it will not cast if I go too quickly (it will be interrupted).

It also happens with different combo. It may be a lag issue in WvW, but still, other classes I play do not have this problem because their skills are much more responsive.

This also happens on eng. I’ve just learned to work around it and time my skills to it. It’s not ghosting for me or anything (mechanical keyboard), but if you learn to time your skills so they go off and are still having this problem it might be that.

Xillllix.3485:

And everything feels unresponsive when you try to chain them up really fast:
For example: often I will cast Air 3 (gust) – 5 (static field) then attune to water to cast a water field
Even through I pressed F3 (air) – 3 – 5 (static field) – F2 – 5 (healing rain) the static field will fail to register , it will not cast if I go too quickly (it will be interrupted).

That’s because like that really big MMO no one wants to talk about, GW2 only queues a single ability. So if you have one casting, one queued and you press another, you actually swap the queued skill.

staff skills are slow and not very responsive, yes.

another thing i’ve noticed playing from australia the game isn’t very well-tuned for higher latency connections compared to other games.

i’m well-used to the game’s sluggish controls by now but it’s a major turnoff/disadvantage for any kind of competitive play.

scerevisiae.1972:

staff skills are slow and not very responsive, yes.

another thing i’ve noticed playing from australia the game isn’t very well-tuned for higher latency connections compared to other games.

i’m well-used to the game’s sluggish controls by now but it’s a major turnoff/disadvantage for any kind of competitive play.

I don’t seem to have a problem with latency. I must be one of those rare aussies that doesn’t have lag issues.

Think it happens on every class, although can see why with ele or engi it would be more noticeable – I’ve had some horrible skill delay on mesmer which neuters any sort of decent play.

Eh, that would be a little OP to speed up cast times on staff, honestly. Most skills are quick enough as it is that the cast time is negligible. Projectiles can be dodged or sidestepped, yes, but that’s true for any class with slow projectiles. Casted skills can be used while moving, other than Meteor Shower, which is strong enough that it really doesn’t need to be casted faster.

A lot of what you’re describing sounds more like latency lag, in which case it’s not a fault of the game or class design, except for the occasional EBG lag when too many zergs are in one place – which is a fault of the game.

The Primary.6371:

scerevisiae.1972:

staff skills are slow and not very responsive, yes.

another thing i’ve noticed playing from australia the game isn’t very well-tuned for higher latency connections compared to other games.

i’m well-used to the game’s sluggish controls by now but it’s a major turnoff/disadvantage for any kind of competitive play.

I don’t seem to have a problem with latency. I must be one of those rare aussies that doesn’t have lag issues.

the worst offender is Ride The Lightning — this skills actually hits its target less than 1 in ten times, with most uses drastically overshooting the target to the point that an immediate Updraft will almost always miss. It’s so bad I stopped playing D/D because of it (that is, it uses to work perfectly at release, then they patched it and the post-patch version almost always misses).

I submitted a bug for RtL, and others have even posted videos showing the overshoot, but of course, a year later now and nothing has been done about it.