Returning Player
What interesting timing.
Currently, pure support isn’t well-valued in dungeons, regardless of profession. Most groups prefer you gear towards damage and consider support as secondary. In other words, we want the support provided by the skillset of a staff elementalist, but we prefer if you help us kill this boss faster.
Interestingly in a week or so, ArenaNet has already announced plans to buff the support capabilities of every profession. You can read more about it here. The part pertaining to Elementalist is as follows:
Elementalist
We’re working on the staff in an effort to make it a stronger support weapon, and we also improved the conjure weapons so that they’re stronger for support. You’ll see improvements to all 4 of the conjure weapons to make them stronger and better for support.We also increased the healing on Water Blast, the radius on Geyser and we reworked
Unsteady Ground to make it function more like line of warding.
As Ojimaru said, the meta right now is all damage. It’s either go big or go home. Support comes in the way of random aegis/regen from guardians, and giving damage boons like might stacks and fury.
After you left, eles took a hit in spvp. You rarely see them anymore. They are still valuable in wvw for CC and group swiftness, along with wall fights. I think they are about mid-tier in dungeons.
Lightning hammer eles are the new thing in dungeons. The one downside is if somebody steals your lightning hammer off the ground, you’re out 50%-ish of your DPS. The fiery great sword is also great when you have stuff stacked up against a wall. You can #3 into the wall for a lot of damage, and you can un-target and #4 into the wall, for an insane amount of damage. Pretty sure it’s a bug, but we’ll see when Anet gets around to it.
RIP in peace Robert
Thank you both for your replies I did a couple dungeons last night and noticed the wall stacking you where speaking of and to be honest it really took the fun out of the dungeon and IMO unless my few groups sucked the wall stacking is an excuse for less skilled players to avoid party wipes which is where all the challenge comes from I do hope to see the staff support buffed as it was by far the most enjoyable for me to play kitten . again thank you for the replies.
Thank you both for your replies I did a couple dungeons last night and noticed the wall stacking you where speaking of and to be honest it really took the fun out of the dungeon and IMO unless my few groups sucked the wall stacking is an excuse for less skilled players to avoid party wipes which is where all the challenge comes from I do hope to see the staff support buffed as it was by far the most enjoyable for me to play kitten . again thank you for the replies.
I disagree with your assessment. “Wall stacking” is simply a method to efficiently deal the most DPS to a group of trash mobs using melee cleave attacks and AoE. It has nothing to do with skill.
Thank you both for your replies I did a couple dungeons last night and noticed the wall stacking you where speaking of and to be honest it really took the fun out of the dungeon and IMO unless my few groups sucked the wall stacking is an excuse for less skilled players to avoid party wipes which is where all the challenge comes from I do hope to see the staff support buffed as it was by far the most enjoyable for me to play kitten . again thank you for the replies.
I disagree with your assessment. “Wall stacking” is simply a method to efficiently deal the most DPS to a group of trash mobs using melee cleave attacks and AoE. It has nothing to do with skill.
hmm I may have misunderstood stacking what I was talking about was when everyone finds a spot and clumps up. there’s absolutely no challenge in that at all if I wanted something easy to do id stay out of dungeons, they are easy enough as it is. and the two groups in question when they weren’t standing in one spot clumped in a corner all they did was die. it was as if they had no clue how to actually fight so they took an easy and far less satisfying route.
Thank you both for your replies I did a couple dungeons last night and noticed the wall stacking you where speaking of and to be honest it really took the fun out of the dungeon and IMO unless my few groups sucked the wall stacking is an excuse for less skilled players to avoid party wipes which is where all the challenge comes from I do hope to see the staff support buffed as it was by far the most enjoyable for me to play kitten . again thank you for the replies.
I disagree with your assessment. “Wall stacking” is simply a method to efficiently deal the most DPS to a group of trash mobs using melee cleave attacks and AoE. It has nothing to do with skill.
hmm I may have misunderstood stacking what I was talking about was when everyone finds a spot and clumps up. there’s absolutely no challenge in that at all if I wanted something easy to do id stay out of dungeons, they are easy enough as it is. and the two groups in question when they weren’t standing in one spot clumped in a corner all they did was die. it was as if they had no clue how to actually fight so they took an easy and far less satisfying route.
Yes, that describes what we mean by “stacking”. Well, minus the dying bit. You’re not supposed to die.
What stacking does is to exploit the weakness of the AI, as we have for years, drawing them around dark corners like little children chasing the elusive ice cream truck. When they turn the corner, down comes the wrathful vengeance of our heroes. If anything, this tactic does test the aptitude of said heroes, challenging them to understand when to use what skills, and most importantly, when to disengage.
For example, in the first encounter of Crucible of Eternity, consisting of an Icebrood Colossus and two Icebrood Elementals. Clumping them up is arguably much more dangerous here because the Elementals have an AOE attack (V-shaped ice attack) that deals significant amounts of damage and knocks you back. While dangerous alone, two will easily wipe the entire party within two seconds. This then challenges the players to understand two very crucial things:
1. The aforementioned ice attack can be reflected or blocked as projectiles. Successfully reflecting the attack will deal over 60% of the enemies’ HP in damage.
2. You have to recognise an obvious danger on the ground and dodge. Yes! Dodge.
The same concepts are applies with the next fight with the Icebrood Wolves, Golems guarding the Golemetric Waypoint, etc.
Yes, stacking is a tactic that can be used by anybody. But like a hammer, simply knowing that it can somehow put a nail into something doesn’t mean you can do it without broken thumbs.
Thank you both for your replies I did a couple dungeons last night and noticed the wall stacking you where speaking of and to be honest it really took the fun out of the dungeon and IMO unless my few groups sucked the wall stacking is an excuse for less skilled players to avoid party wipes which is where all the challenge comes from I do hope to see the staff support buffed as it was by far the most enjoyable for me to play kitten . again thank you for the replies.
I disagree with your assessment. “Wall stacking” is simply a method to efficiently deal the most DPS to a group of trash mobs using melee cleave attacks and AoE. It has nothing to do with skill.
hmm I may have misunderstood stacking what I was talking about was when everyone finds a spot and clumps up. there’s absolutely no challenge in that at all if I wanted something easy to do id stay out of dungeons, they are easy enough as it is. and the two groups in question when they weren’t standing in one spot clumped in a corner all they did was die. it was as if they had no clue how to actually fight so they took an easy and far less satisfying route.
Yes, that describes what we mean by “stacking”. Well, minus the dying bit. You’re not supposed to die.
What stacking does is to exploit the weakness of the AI, as we have for years, drawing them around dark corners like little children chasing the elusive ice cream truck. When they turn the corner, down comes the wrathful vengeance of our heroes. If anything, this tactic does test the aptitude of said heroes, challenging them to understand when to use what skills, and most importantly, when to disengage.
For example, in the first encounter of Crucible of Eternity, consisting of an Icebrood Colossus and two Icebrood Elementals. Clumping them up is arguably much more dangerous here because the Elementals have an AOE attack (V-shaped ice attack) that deals significant amounts of damage and knocks you back. While dangerous alone, two will easily wipe the entire party within two seconds. This then challenges the players to understand two very crucial things:
1. The aforementioned ice attack can be reflected or blocked as projectiles. Successfully reflecting the attack will deal over 60% of the enemies’ HP in damage.
2. You have to recognise an obvious danger on the ground and dodge. Yes! Dodge.
The same concepts are applies with the next fight with the Icebrood Wolves, Golems guarding the Golemetric Waypoint, etc.
Yes, stacking is a tactic that can be used by anybody. But like a hammer, simply knowing that it can somehow put a nail into something doesn’t mean you can do it without broken thumbs.
I guess I can see your point I just always enjoyed dungeons more when they where played the way they where meant to be played and not by everyone standing in a corner lol
You can’t say that as you don’t really know how things were meant to be played. Anet has already stated that LOSing/Stacking and skipping trash is perfectly acceptable.
If you don’t find stacking fun, fine, that’s understandable. But don’t look down upon groups that like to stack.
It’s the most efficient method in the majority of encounters. This ensures the group gets all of buffs, melee burst can go over succesfully without the mob moving, and you can easily res up the dead in a time-efficient manner.
As opposed to everybody spread out, ranging (which does less damage), where you hvae to wait 10 sec to get ressed if anybody notices, and you don’t get nearly all the group buffs/boons.
If you don’t want to stack, that’s fine, but then you should start your own group and say “No stacking strategy” or something along the lines. As the majority of PUGs will expect you to know when and where to stack.
RIP in peace Robert
You can’t say that as you don’t really know how things were meant to be played. Anet has already stated that LOSing/Stacking and skipping trash is perfectly acceptable.
If you don’t find stacking fun, fine, that’s understandable. But don’t look down upon groups that like to stack.
It’s the most efficient method in the majority of encounters. This ensures the group gets all of buffs, melee burst can go over succesfully without the mob moving, and you can easily res up the dead in a time-efficient manner.
As opposed to everybody spread out, ranging (which does less damage), where you hvae to wait 10 sec to get ressed if anybody notices, and you don’t get nearly all the group buffs/boons.
If you don’t want to stack, that’s fine, but then you should start your own group and say “No stacking strategy” or something along the lines. As the majority of PUGs will expect you to know when and where to stack.
so your telling me when Anet designed this game and its dungeons they designed it with stacking in mind?