Guild Wars 2

This post is being written after I have played the game from the beginning of the headstart weekend launch to the current date, with no prior Beta GW2 play nor any GW1 background. With a MMO background spanning over 15 years in MMO play in various games (EQ, DAoC, Matrix Online, CoH, SWG, Rift, & Wow) & roles (from healer, to support, to tank), I am not new to MMO play.

The below will organized based upon the character I played, how it has been played, and the things I have observed during the time. NOTE: All play thus far has been in PVE only.

1. Sylvari, Elementalist, Staff. Character usually played in a group with 3 friends: 1 Sylvari Bow/Dual Pistol Thief, 1 Sylvari Engineer (varied weapons/kits), and 1 Norn Longbow/Greatsword Warrior. Currently level 47.

This character was specifically built as my main for the primary purpose of “support”, both in PvP and PvE as my group of friends and I played. As such, the initial build was going to focus more on buffing the party and light dmg instead of dmg. The problem is that during events, the dmg you do to the mob is what mostly determines your medal reward for the event. And, with events & hearts being how one gains experience (with events being centered on hearts), event rewards were always lower. On the other hand, experience gain soared (and continues to) compared to my group as I do a little dmg to all mobs no matter what. This has led the build to be directed toward a Precision, always crit, use %’s to put conditions on all mobs build. This way, dmg will hopefully be higher on the boss mob & all mobs for gold credit.

From observation, the engineer & thief players in our group have had a difficult time even getting hits on regular mobs when compared to the warrior and myself. By the time I get a single auto attack or first AoE off, the warrior has charged ahead with greatsword in hand, pulling all mobs to them (proximity), and… via hundred blades… slaughters them all. A single hit via thief/bow auto-attack will hit 3 mobs, and the engineer may get a single hit.

Elementalist bugs/suggestions:

a. Meteor Shower will frequently not even hit a stationary mob when the spell is cast directly over it.
b. Healing Rain does not last for 9 seconds.
c. The Water line of spells cannot be used in most circumstances due to the lack of dmg on 3 of 5 of them, and the other 2 have too long before they do their actual dmg effect.
d. Static Field, when cast on top of a stationary mob, does not actually do any dmg to the mob since it has not been agro’ed yet. Therefore, it cannot be used as an “initial stun” for solo play.
e. Windborne Speed needs it radius looked at. It is probably not effecting people in a 240 radius.
f. Lightning Surge still has a longer range than 1200. (It was infinite, but a recent patch fixed/reduced it… some.)
g. Chain Lightning is the only auto-attack ability in the Elementalist arsenal that can be used to get kills on regular mobs. With its ability to “smart” hit numerous mobs and quick “cast to actual effect” time, it works where others don’t.
h. Shockwave frequently doesn’t hit a mob if a direct straight line of pathing is not available between the player and the mob.
i. Unsteady Ground’s cast time, when combined with its short (2 second) Cripple, makes the ability useless to use unless you are preparing for a pull (or see a group of mobs coming to you and place it relatively close). Otherwise, you are better off (to survive) to switch to fire and hope for the best.
j. I have repeatedly been shot by npc arrows with Magnetic Aura active. I no longer even bother casting the ability.

k. Eruption, with its long “cast to dmg time”, when combined with its high Bleeding dmg, is relatively balanced. The problem is that mobs (and, I expect players in pvp), simply take several steps to get out of its range. Suggestion: Lower the bleeding dmg, make it actually have an effect sooner.
l. In our party play, veteran level world mobs are killed with Stoning instead of Air: Lightning Surge. This is due to the Weakness condition it applies (which helps the Warrior player). The problem, as with Water and Fire auto-attacks, is the time from cast to dmg applied. Test the following: Have another character pull a mob with a projectile shot. The elemantalist casts Stoning at the same time. (This was testing with same real room play.) The Stoning will not be able to hit the mob until it is in front of the player that initially did the pull, relatively not moving, and cast when they are there. (Which leads us back to the Lighting Surge “only good auto attack” issue.)
m. Arcane Fury should either be affected by Lingering Elements, or the wording changed to note that it will not be.
n. Blasting Staff: The ground target circles frequently do not show the enlarged area of the spells. This makes “precision AoEs to avoid neutral mobs (Mosshearts, in our play)” difficult.
o. Why do most Elementalist Adept level Minor abilities state “when attuned to this element?” If a player wants to play a “well rounded” Elementalist, they are forced to pick and choose their elements to use based on this. Suggestion: If is a balancing issue, change these to half their current values and make them be applied all the time.

General Overall: The Elementalist simply feels like it didn’t get the polish that other classes did for play simply because it had options available to it. Furthermore, the class plays simply as follows: “If you get the first hit, you will most likely kill the single or group of mobs before they get to you. If you didn’t, you will most likely have very little hp or be dead.” No survivability in non-prepared pulls (when compared to other classes), even if traited and equipped for it.

2. Sylvari, Thief, Bow/Dual Pistol. Solo play to level 15 before stopped.

This character was enjoyable much like the Elementalist, in the fact that prepared pulls are easily dealt with. Choking Gas, Cluster Bomb, … then either Trick Shot or (switch weapons), Unload. I decided to stop playing this character during the personal story “The Heart of Nightmare.” (SPOILER ALERT) After spending minutes reverse circular kiting the named mob, using all provided “ground weapons” to their best effect, and hoping to have enough initiative left over to deal with packs of mobs when the named spawned them… (the friendly npc with me long mauled to death), I decided the build would never work in long term play as a solo character.

In short, a ranged focused Thief build does not have the same capability to survive as other classes. It beats the Elementalist in surprise situations, but that isn’t saying much.

3. Norn, Warrior, Rifle/Dual Axe. Duo play with a Short Bow – Ranger until level 8. (All weapons were unlocked and played with on various enemies.) Duo rerolled to group 4, below.

The above play led to my picking of the Warrior class for duo play. Rifle for dealing with veteran & event mobs, with dual axes for AoE. It worked as intended during the low levels, and I may return to it someday. (Characters were changed due to racial pick & desire for testing.)

4. Human, Thief, Bow/Dual Pistol. Duo play with a Axe/Short Bow Ranger. Presently level 12.

Attempt 2 with the ranged build, this time with a duo partner played ranger. After it took the two of us (both) kiting / pulling a Veteran world mob from each other over 5 minutes, it showed me that the build is probably not duo worthy either.

5. Sylvari, Necro, Staff/Axe-Dagger. Duo play with a Dual Sword/Greatsword Warrior. Presently level 19.

The above led to the following duo being played and well enjoyed, a duo capable of actually surviving a hit or two and doing dmg. My duo partner coming from the ranged only thief in the group of 4, and my group character being the Elementalist, we were looking for class/builds that could survive and do dmg well. From my Wow background, I chose to test the Necro with a “Deathknight” like playstyle. Lots of conditions being placed on all mobs in the area, draining health from all mobs to “tank,” and similar. The build works well. (And, I am not having to deal with the broken pet issues that other necro players are dealing with right now.) As for my duo partner, they are enjoying the capability of actually feeling “useful”… by actually doing significant dmg.

All of the issues I have experienced with the Necro have already been reported in the mass “Necro bug” thread.

As stated in the Title & Preface, this is simply this player’s perspective on certain class’s balancing from the perspective of particular builds and playstyles. (I will be making a post in the Elementalist bug thread with a link to it so the original author can pull bugs for that post from it, if desired.)

Overall: Thank you for being more responsive than “other MMO running companies” have been in regard to fixing issues, especially during the first month of game launch. (The servers were actually up and running most of the time, that was an accomplishment in itself.)

About your elementalist and your “If you get the first hit, you will most likely kill the single or group of mobs before they get to you. If you didn’t, you will most likely have very little hp or be dead.”, that is half true at level 80 which is when all of our damage has finally finished dropping off. The true part, as you probably already guessed, is that even with the first attack you will NEVER kill a single mob without using all of your skills and kiting for about 2 minutes much less any more. In fact I’d probably go so far as to say once you have 3 mobs on you, you will either die or almost die once per enemy.

I also disagree with you on your last “overall” but only that we have had NO word on the elementalist yet and that does not constitute responsiveness.

On a much lighter note I think this is great what you have done here.