Guild Wars 2

Well it`s been made more then clear since the game came out that that “we don`t whack a mole” is a load of crap.

EA got removed, then weeks/ months later it got returned (partially..).
Staff Ele` got almost flat out shafted with the nerf bat.
Scepter, well let`s face it, D`Tooth that is next to pointless most of the time, Phoenix fails still when you dodge, Air 1 that keeps firing on corpses unless you stow weapons, is stupid because by then, someone/thing else is already eating your face.
So that left D/D which they rolled the one sided dice & said “Well, let`s shaft them too”.

Synergy was one of their quotes about Ele`, yet to really get that you had to go into arcana because the silly standard attunement cd is too long tbh, but since the constant RTL (& other) nerfs, where is that synergy?

As for RTL being our best escape, it was my only “Oh crap someone is hitting me from range” button, because we don`t have range & melee like every other profession.

But now that it is 40sec cd when someone blocks, insta-stealths, dodges by time we get to them (because RTL is a huge telegraph…) or even just hit a kittening piece of a pebble on the ground that doubles our cd, well then we`re probably still out of range.

Oh sure, we have the latest earth3 cast/joke, but swapping attunements just to catch up…?

The crap about “Elementalist does huge damage” joke…
That happened in beta, got nerfed in no time at all, (yet thieves can still do this…)

I assumed at first the RTL was a spvp “fix” but to put it into WvWs & PvE too?
Dumb, just dumb.

So true… I made a necro (My main, played 600+ hours on it) and i go the forums to see "NECRO SUCKSSSS!! All over. I made my own build, and i never/almost never lose a single 1v1 or 2v1 in WvW… I also survive alot.

Same goes with ele. Tried making a warrior, but on the forums they all complain about the quickness nerf… How come all classes are underpowered? Doesnt that make them even?

Look heres the sad truth. In most cases in PvE it is still better to bring an ele over a warrior. In terms of support Guardian does more and has better base survivablity and sustained dps. In wvW teir 3 or lower it might make sense to roam on a ele any higher than that than no it doesn’t. You will roam better on a melee ranger, warrior, almost any thief build and some mesmer builds. Ele is OK in sige but staff is inderpoweed vs solo combatants. DD I Ok in PvE S/D is better in terms of DPS and group support not to mention range.

I have been of the opinion that the more classes you level the more you see the gaps. No class i play heals as well as ele none. That being said Warrior has much better base survivability (not sustained) and does significantly more DPS. Thief has much better mobility and burst but is not as useful in PvE but there are some things I can solo thief that i cannot ele. Ranger is a better bunker overall in terms of DPS to survivability and complexity. Mesmer has better burst and in someways better survivability.

IMHO ele isn’t under powered but just isn’t that useful. Group support is one of those things that is nice to have but usually unnecessary and that is the truth. People will complain because they like the class but I can not argue from emotion alone. Logically the class is hodge podge if good ideas that work in some ways but not in others. Among all the classes I play the one that interest me the least is ele.

My hope is that in the future a few things are done.

First revert rtl’s cool down it was silly to do what they did in the first pace. Second, lower base healing and increase the healing power scaling. Third, improve auto attack DPS across all weapon sets save Air 1 scepter. Fourth, do a completely overhaul of lines 1 and 2 in traits.

I will let you get back to your arguing etc.

Homonavn.6348:

So true… I made a necro (My main, played 600+ hours on it) and i go the forums to see "NECRO SUCKSSSS!! All over. I made my own build, and i never/almost never lose a single 1v1 or 2v1 in WvW… I also survive alot.

Same goes with ele. Tried making a warrior, but on the forums they all complain about the quickness nerf… How come all classes are underpowered? Doesnt that make them even?

Well truth is all classes have one or 2 good builds. I got flamed once for saying that I could beat a DD ele in WvW on my warrior. The thing about warrior is the second best roaming build can come out of that class. In terms of speed warrior is fast but the problem is this. From the perspective of many in the warrior community warrior should be a one shot class. If I catch you its over for you and if you avoid it its over for me. The problem is that sometimes you catch them and its not over for them but it is for you. That really only applies to glass cannon players.

Truth is warrior can be good in the front line good at roaming and good in a siege. The real skill cap for warrior is high. If you do the basic you will have some success if you play smart you could be a troll of epic proportions or one the hardest players to beat out there.

Now in spvp the story changes and due to the way stats work there warrior is woefully under powered in terms of sustained healing, condition management, and group support (tpvp).

Every class is under powered here and there.

Also I should say this no matter how good of necro you are the class has some serious trait bugs and that is a real issue.

PistolWhip.2697:

But of course, our population of Ele’s seem to think they are the only one with issues.

Yeah, just about everyone thinks their profession is the least powerful and the most buggy.

Sorry for quoting a small excerpt, but the original post was rather large.

TheGuy.3568:

First revert rtl’s cool down it was silly to do what they did in the first pace. Second, lower base healing and increase the healing power scaling. Third, improve auto attack DPS across all weapon sets save Air 1 scepter. Fourth, do a completely overhaul of lines 1 and 2 in traits.

I agree with this… RTL nerf does nothing to balance D/D bunker. IMHO, the real problem with D/D bunker is the healing. You can pop back up in health rather quickly when cycling through water. I think ANet should have focused on the healing aspect instead.

Your idea about lowering base healing and increasing the effects of healing power is interesting. It would force bunkers into the healing stat if they want to have the same healing as before — resulting in lower DPS (from loss of another stat).

Another possibility is change Dagger-2 so it doesn’t not self heal, instead just healing players in the AoE cone. Also the water 15pt trait could be changed to something other than a heal. There are more changes around water and healing that could be examined as well.

I remember when forums were all about 1-3 classes being OP. (Here is a hint, most of the time it was right) Now all classes are UP according to forums.

What happened to the gaming community lol? We went from pursuing competitiveness to trying to overpower ourselves so we can prove our “leet skillz”. Just sad.

Actually ya know what, it’s not all gaming forums, it’s just these forums. WTH lol, WTH.

@juno

Funniest post so far….

juno.1840:

Sorry for quoting a small excerpt, but the original post was rather large.

TheGuy.3568:

First revert rtl’s cool down it was silly to do what they did in the first pace. Second, lower base healing and increase the healing power scaling. Third, improve auto attack DPS across all weapon sets save Air 1 scepter. Fourth, do a completely overhaul of lines 1 and 2 in traits.

I agree with this… RTL nerf does nothing to balance D/D bunker. IMHO, the real problem with D/D bunker is the healing. You can pop back up in health rather quickly when cycling through water. I think ANet should have focused on the healing aspect instead.

Your idea about lowering base healing and increasing the effects of healing power is interesting. It would force bunkers into the healing stat if they want to have the same healing as before — resulting in lower DPS (from loss of another stat).

Another possibility is change Dagger-2 so it doesn’t not self heal, instead just healing players in the AoE cone. Also the water 15pt trait could be changed to something other than a heal. There are more changes around water and healing that could be examined as well.

From my understanding don’t many of the elementalist healing abilities scale pretty well with healing power? Regen doesn’t scale great with healing power but that is for all classes.

Blaine Tog.8304:

PistolWhip.2697:

But of course, our population of Ele’s seem to think they are the only one with issues.

Yeah, just about everyone thinks their profession is the least powerful and the most buggy.

When everyone’s whining about their class you know balance has been achieved. As soon as a class is “just right” by anyone’s standard, you know it’s OP, because they’re winning too often. :P

Truga.5897:

Blaine Tog.8304:

PistolWhip.2697:

But of course, our population of Ele’s seem to think they are the only one with issues.

Yeah, just about everyone thinks their profession is the least powerful and the most buggy.

When everyone’s whining about their class you know balance has been achieved. As soon as a class is “just right” by anyone’s standard, you know it’s OP, because they’re winning too often. :P

WvW makes this even worse.

Picture it. You’ve opimized your build for 7 months, collected the perfect gear setup, carefully chosen the optimal consumable buffs to run, took the time to farm mobs to get 20-25 Bloodlust stacks, and even bought a few consumable karma items to give you that extra edge. You run across 3-5 people. They are a random collection of total strangers. They aren’t grouped up, but just travelling together. They aren’t talking or chatting with each other. 2 of them aren’t 80 yet. 2 of them are in their PvE, super squishy gear/builds. 1 of them is in his zerg-farming, keep-siege build that’s amazing as long as he can get to an arrowcart. You destroy them all.

You think they’re pathetic. They think you’re OP, and they all go to the forums and whine about it. It doesn’t even matter what class you’re playing, because you’d probably win that fight on any class.

oZii.2864:

juno.1840:

Sorry for quoting a small excerpt, but the original post was rather large.

TheGuy.3568:

First revert rtl’s cool down it was silly to do what they did in the first pace. Second, lower base healing and increase the healing power scaling. Third, improve auto attack DPS across all weapon sets save Air 1 scepter. Fourth, do a completely overhaul of lines 1 and 2 in traits.

I agree with this… RTL nerf does nothing to balance D/D bunker. IMHO, the real problem with D/D bunker is the healing. You can pop back up in health rather quickly when cycling through water. I think ANet should have focused on the healing aspect instead.

Your idea about lowering base healing and increasing the effects of healing power is interesting. It would force bunkers into the healing stat if they want to have the same healing as before — resulting in lower DPS (from loss of another stat).

Another possibility is change Dagger-2 so it doesn’t not self heal, instead just healing players in the AoE cone. Also the water 15pt trait could be changed to something other than a heal. There are more changes around water and healing that could be examined as well.

From my understanding don’t many of the elementalist healing abilities scale pretty well with healing power? Regen doesn’t scale great with healing power but that is for all classes.

They do but base healing is high as it is. You could go full pvt with very little healing power do good dps and heal well. Healing power while scaling well is one of the worst stats in the game because it is independent. It does not work heavily in conjunction with another stat (to be completely technically fair it supports toughness). So many people simply don’t carry it. I you lower base healing but increase healing power coefficients you can have bunkers achieve the same level of healing for the healing power your invested in without letting valk and cav bunkers get the same.

Of courser if you did this fire and air would have to be completely reworked as well as auto attack so thakitten does more damage. There is not point discussing a nerf if they wont put the buff in place to counter it.

PinCushion.7390:

Truga.5897:

Blaine Tog.8304:

PistolWhip.2697:

But of course, our population of Ele’s seem to think they are the only one with issues.

Yeah, just about everyone thinks their profession is the least powerful and the most buggy.

When everyone’s whining about their class you know balance has been achieved. As soon as a class is “just right” by anyone’s standard, you know it’s OP, because they’re winning too often. :P

WvW makes this even worse.

Picture it. You’ve opimized your build for 7 months, collected the perfect gear setup, carefully chosen the optimal consumable buffs to run, took the time to farm mobs to get 20-25 Bloodlust stacks, and even bought a few consumable karma items to give you that extra edge. You run across 3-5 people. They are a random collection of total strangers. They aren’t grouped up, but just travelling together. They aren’t talking or chatting with each other. 2 of them aren’t 80 yet. 2 of them are in their PvE, super squishy gear/builds. 1 of them is in his zerg-farming, keep-siege build that’s amazing as long as he can get to an arrowcart. You destroy them all.

You think they’re pathetic. They think you’re OP, and they all go to the forums and whine about it. It doesn’t even matter what class you’re playing, because you’d probably win that fight on any class.

I don’t necessarily disagree with this. The problem is that there are OP mechanics in the game. The way I judge most fight is how my warrior responds to a build. Save heavy condtion damge in most fights in WvW on my warrior I should be able to do 2 things. First is win. I do not mean to sound kitteny or anything like. However, when I encounter most non heavy condition damage specs I should be winning or holding my own. The second is run. If its 1v1 fighting anything other than a thief I should be able to run. That being said if I get beat and I couldn’t do either I analyze the combat log and this is the important part. I look to see what I did wrong first. If you do not do this there is is no point in coming to the forums. After that I analyze the build I was fighting (usually I take a guess after looking at he damage and skills). If I feel its OP I ask how first do other people beakitten . Then after playing it in spvp or just leveling the class I get a good Idea of whats OP

As of this moment in WvW DP and thief in general is OP but not by a huge margin. Ele isn’t OP atm. HGH might be OP but haven’t played it enough. to say its OP. Rangers might be a little OP in water. Everything else in my opinion has its pros and cons pretty sorted out even mesmer.

TheGuy.3568:

I don’t necessarily disagree with this. The problem is that there are OP mechanics in the game. The way I judge most fight is how my warrior responds to a build. Save heavy condtion damge in most fights in WvW on my warrior I should be able to do 2 things. First is win. I do not mean to sound kitteny or anything like. However, when I encounter most non heavy condition damage specs I should be winning or holding my own. The second is run. If its 1v1 fighting anything other than a thief I should be able to run. That being said if I get beat and I couldn’t do either I analyze the combat log and this is the important part. I look to see what I did wrong first. If you do not do this there is is no point in coming to the forums. After that I analyze the build I was fighting (usually I take a guess after looking at he damage and skills). If I feel its OP I ask how first do other people beat it. Then after playing it in spvp or just leveling the class I get a good Idea of whats OP

As of this moment in WvW DP and thief in general is OP but not by a huge margin. Ele isn’t OP atm. HGH might be OP but haven’t played it enough. to say its OP. Rangers might be a little OP in water. Everything else in my opinion has its pros and cons pretty sorted out even mesmer.

What you’re talking about is unusual behavior. Most people do not study combat logs, optimize and tweak builds to death, or analyze combat encounters in minute detail until they know both what they did wrong and what their opponent did right. Most people do not level up an alt for the sole purpose of learning how the class ticks so they can know how to beat them in PvP. What you’re talking about requires time and mental energy that most people have dedicated elsewhere.

Also, I think the classes are generally balanced. However, and this has been a topic of conversation since release, some of the classes are remarkably easier to play at a mediocre level. I think all classes have a relatively high skill-ceiling, but I think a chosen few classes have a low skill floor that makes them seem a bit OP when two players of average skill confront each other and one wipes the floor with the other. I bring this up because it’s far more interesting than whining about which class is OP and needs adjusting. Elementalist was considered an incredibly complex class until daphoenix (and others) started churning out D/D guides and videos. It turns out almost anyone can be taught, and the complex part was fitting it all together in the first place.

PinCushion.7390:

What you’re talking about is unusual behavior. Most people do not study combat logs, optimize and tweak builds to death, or analyze combat encounters in minute detail until they know both what they did wrong and what their opponent did right. Most people do not level up an alt for the sole purpose of learning how the class ticks so they can know how to beat them in PvP. What you’re talking about requires time and mental energy that most people have dedicated elsewhere.

Also, I think the classes are generally balanced. However, and this has been a topic of conversation since release, some of the classes are remarkably easier to play at a mediocre level. I think all classes have a relatively high skill-ceiling, but I think a chosen few classes have a low skill floor that makes them seem a bit OP when two players of average skill confront each other and one wipes the floor with the other. I bring this up because it’s far more interesting than whining about which class is OP and needs adjusting. Elementalist was considered an incredibly complex class until daphoenix (and others) started churning out D/D guides and videos. It turns out almost anyone can be taught, and the complex part was fitting it all together in the first place.

I never look at combat logs really unless I get killshot or I want to see what damage I did. I feel like there is a skill cap difference between classes but I also think there is a component of conventional vs unconventional for some classes that give the appearance that one class is easier than another.

Conventional would be Warrior as an example on the surface its pretty straight forward.

Unconventional would be thief, elementalist, mesmer (usually the most complained about classes)

The other classes I havent played to see how "straight forward’ they are in terms of conventional MMO style play for their profession archetype. My experience in game is I will study another class when trial and error doesn’t seem to work or I can’t get by on that alone. Mesmer and thief are the 2 classes I would say where most people may have to seek outside sources on help defeating because on the surface they can seem unbeatable because they capitalize heavily on the enemy being confused.

I remember when d/d bunker eles first popped up in WvW against my server and I was in Team Speak. People from my guild where talking about 2 elementalist hacking because they had every boon in the game etc. I had never seen one so I went to take a look and their I saw elementalist fighting about 8-9 people. I didnt think hax my GL linked daphoenix’s Excala episode 3 I believe and I did some reading on them. Eventually more people learned how to fight d/d elementalist those that still complained are the ones that will chase a elementalist half way across the map.
I don’t know my point here just adding to the thread

LordByron.8369:

pistolwhip could you please stop your l2p and QQmore posts?

people gave reasons, analyzed skills, and stuff

You just reply discussing people instead.
Thank you……

You never see 250% nerfs in games….what would happen if they did it to stealth?

They have nerfed stealth before.

Then I kindly request you stop accusing anyone with a different opinion to yours of being a secret spy for another profession.

Thank you

oZii.2864:

PinCushion.7390:

What you’re talking about is unusual behavior. Most people do not study combat logs, optimize and tweak builds to death, or analyze combat encounters in minute detail until they know both what they did wrong and what their opponent did right. Most people do not level up an alt for the sole purpose of learning how the class ticks so they can know how to beat them in PvP. What you’re talking about requires time and mental energy that most people have dedicated elsewhere.

Also, I think the classes are generally balanced. However, and this has been a topic of conversation since release, some of the classes are remarkably easier to play at a mediocre level. I think all classes have a relatively high skill-ceiling, but I think a chosen few classes have a low skill floor that makes them seem a bit OP when two players of average skill confront each other and one wipes the floor with the other. I bring this up because it’s far more interesting than whining about which class is OP and needs adjusting. Elementalist was considered an incredibly complex class until daphoenix (and others) started churning out D/D guides and videos. It turns out almost anyone can be taught, and the complex part was fitting it all together in the first place.

I never look at combat logs really unless I get killshot or I want to see what damage I did. I feel like there is a skill cap difference between classes but I also think there is a component of conventional vs unconventional for some classes that give the appearance that one class is easier than another.

Conventional would be Warrior as an example on the surface its pretty straight forward.

Unconventional would be thief, elementalist, mesmer (usually the most complained about classes)

The other classes I havent played to see how "straight forward’ they are in terms of conventional MMO style play for their profession archetype. My experience in game is I will study another class when trial and error doesn’t seem to work or I can’t get by on that alone. Mesmer and thief are the 2 classes I would say where most people may have to seek outside sources on help defeating because on the surface they can seem unbeatable because they capitalize heavily on the enemy being confused.

I remember when d/d bunker eles first popped up in WvW against my server and I was in Team Speak. People from my guild where talking about 2 elementalist hacking because they had every boon in the game etc. I had never seen one so I went to take a look and their I saw elementalist fighting about 8-9 people. I didnt think hax my GL linked daphoenix’s Excala episode 3 I believe and I did some reading on them. Eventually more people learned how to fight d/d elementalist those that still complained are the ones that will chase a elementalist half way across the map.
I don’t know my point here just adding to the thread

Very detailed post. Lol as someone put it, “it takes more skill to beat a mesmer than play one”.

But I actually was curious about what everyone’s perception of skill cap was?

To me, skill cap on a profession is potential. As in, each class has a certain skill cap of which a player can keep getting better at the profession, becoming more skillful in their use to the point it caps, or has a boundary that due to class mechanics they cannot surpass. So, in words a barrier of potential.

If this is the case, then wouldn’t the best form of balance be making sure that every class has the same level of skill capping? Just a thought, I find this notion interesting.

PistolWhip.2697:

If this is the case, then wouldn’t the best form of balance be making sure that every class has the same level of skill capping? Just a thought, I find this notion interesting.

Impossible.

Case in point, I was watching the SOAC tournaments on YouTube, specifically the Guardians Vs. Mesmers.

Everyone agrees more or less that Mesmers are exceptionally strong bordering on OP. The Guardians roflstomped the Mesmers repeatedly, with an entire match seeing only one Guardian get downed, but not stomped, even when three Mesmers were working together.

Commentators agreed on a few points, that the Guardian team was experienced, and had a great plan, whereas the Mesmers had not really worked together before and their “coach” gave quite poor build advice prior to the match.

But watching that video, if you ignore the comments and were just looking at it as a spectator and possibly being a dev with an eye to balance, would probably conclude that Mesmers are extremely underpowered and need a significant buff to bring them in line with even just Rangers.

And that’s the problem with the game, the balance devs, the players (especially the ones on these forums) and the class design. A class that is technically OP can still be crushed by skilled players, whereas underpowered classes can still be used to dominate if played by skilled players, and the problem is that the aforementioned groups can’t tell the difference. To people who’ve been schooled by an Ele, ALL Ele players are daphoenix. To people that have been roflstomped by Mesmers, ALL Mesmer players are osianic. They take one experience due in large part to their own inadequacy, proceed to rationalize it to protect their fragile ego, illogically conclude that the class that beat them couldn’t have done so because the player was better, it HAD to be an OP class, then come to the forums to complain about it until something is done.

The best form of balance is to get a 20 or so group of devs or interns, make their job nothing but playing all professions equally, then report back. Playtesting and balance should have been hashed out prior to release, not still being ham-fisted whack a mole patch releases coming up on a year later. That the playerbase hasn’t abandoned the game entirely due to such a debacle is a testament to the loyalty of the players, not ANet’s game design.

Kaleban.9834:

PistolWhip.2697:

If this is the case, then wouldn’t the best form of balance be making sure that every class has the same level of skill capping? Just a thought, I find this notion interesting.

Impossible.

Case in point, I was watching the SOAC tournaments on YouTube, specifically the Guardians Vs. Mesmers.

Everyone agrees more or less that Mesmers are exceptionally strong bordering on OP. The Guardians roflstomped the Mesmers repeatedly, with an entire match seeing only one Guardian get downed, but not stomped, even when three Mesmers were working together.

Commentators agreed on a few points, that the Guardian team was experienced, and had a great plan, whereas the Mesmers had not really worked together before and their “coach” gave quite poor build advice prior to the match.

But watching that video, if you ignore the comments and were just looking at it as a spectator and possibly being a dev with an eye to balance, would probably conclude that Mesmers are extremely underpowered and need a significant buff to bring them in line with even just Rangers.

And that’s the problem with the game, the balance devs, the players (especially the ones on these forums) and the class design. A class that is technically OP can still be crushed by skilled players, whereas underpowered classes can still be used to dominate if played by skilled players, and the problem is that the aforementioned groups can’t tell the difference. To people who’ve been schooled by an Ele, ALL Ele players are daphoenix. To people that have been roflstomped by Mesmers, ALL Mesmer players are osianic. They take one experience due in large part to their own inadequacy, proceed to rationalize it to protect their fragile ego, illogically conclude that the class that beat them couldn’t have done so because the player was better, it HAD to be an OP class, then come to the forums to complain about it until something is done.

The best form of balance is to get a 20 or so group of devs or interns, make their job nothing but playing all professions equally, then report back. Playtesting and balance should have been hashed out prior to release, not still being ham-fisted whack a mole patch releases coming up on a year later. That the playerbase hasn’t abandoned the game entirely due to such a debacle is a testament to the loyalty of the players, not ANet’s game design.

You make a good point but then, wouldn’t the subjectivity of every experience make it biased and unfair?

I mean, to people who have been decimated by a warrior (and there are some), ALL warriors are Avlis or Sanny.

Same applies to thieves and Yishis.

How would one sufficiently even take any point of personal views due to their personal biases. Wouldn’t this all mean that each and every post is too swayed in own perceptions to even be taken into account? This whole thing can become even more complicated by the fact that not everyone has the same perception of what a good Ele or Mesmer is. To keep it relative, some Ele’s I’ve talked to have watched Daphoenix and often said “He’s just kiting around for ages, hes not that amazing of an Ele.”, “He’s alright I guess.”. Though I don’t share those opinions, my point is that, bearing in mind not everyone finds 1 style or form of play to be good on a profession, how can we accurately even take an account of what is OP and just lackluster player performance. This is where this stuff gets fairly mind-numbingly tedious though, so to spare you and I headaches I’ll just end here. xD

Also, I don’t see why that wouldn’t work. For the example you applied, to bring a Warrior to the level of say an Ele or a Mesmer in Spvp, couldn’t devs aim to make it so that a player on a Warrior had potential to bring their profession of to the other two’s level in terms of mastery? I know this might be confusing, but this sort of topic is somewhat hard to describe :X

I’m not disagreeing with you, I merely think if we bring it all down to subjectivity being the issue, nothing is going to be valid and fair, because everyone could be accused of having a bias, or a distorted view of something, no matter how valid a point might be.

Still, regardless of whats been said, I personally think aside from minor tweaks, I’am personally happy with balance thus far, not thakittens great, but I’ve never personally wanted to stop playing because of a change, though it can be annoying at times.

PinCushion.7390:

WvW makes this even worse.

Picture it. You’ve opimized your build for 7 months, collected the perfect gear setup, carefully chosen the optimal consumable buffs to run, took the time to farm mobs to get 20-25 Bloodlust stacks, and even bought a few consumable karma items to give you that extra edge. You run across 3-5 people. They are a random collection of total strangers. They aren’t grouped up, but just travelling together. They aren’t talking or chatting with each other. 2 of them aren’t 80 yet. 2 of them are in their PvE, super squishy gear/builds. 1 of them is in his zerg-farming, keep-siege build that’s amazing as long as he can get to an arrowcart. You destroy them all.

You think they’re pathetic. They think you’re OP, and they all go to the forums and whine about it. It doesn’t even matter what class you’re playing, because you’d probably win that fight on any class.

Nice logical fallacy:

This sometimes happens, therefore this must be how it usually happens. Buttressed by a completely unsupported assertion.

I do however like the last several posts. Those look at things in depth and honestly. I have a few issues with things being rather unfun to play against and/or having lose or draw gameplay in WvW, but otherwise balance is pretty good overall.

WWW is not balanced unless you think that sice everybody can use an AC then it is….

WWW is just little less unbalanced that PvE.

PvP is almost balanced maybe and the price for that was destroying other 2 game modes…..
Its clear in any interview that ele NEVER was a WWW issue after release except maybe focus 4….

Aside interview saying that, you can also see strong NERFS in PvE that clearly weren t needed.

I know on this forum people needs to read a thing from 100 players then it becomes the truth….

But as i predicted most things happened (see ranger state, confusion nerf and stuffs like those) a lot before…..now ele is becoming every day less accepted in organized WWW.

Even with that boring buffbot build……(dps is not welcome any more it seems).

Oh well we still can kill AC behind walls with scepter DT ….until next patch

LordByron.8369:

WWW is not balanced unless you think that sice everybody can use an AC then it is….

WWW is just little less unbalanced that PvE.

PvP is almost balanced maybe and the price for that was destroying other 2 game modes…..
Its clear in any interview that ele NEVER was a WWW issue after release except maybe focus 4….

Aside interview saying that, you can also see strong NERFS in PvE that clearly weren t needed.

I know on this forum people needs to read a thing from 100 players then it becomes the truth….

But as i predicted most things happened (see ranger state, confusion nerf and stuffs like those) a lot before…..now ele is becoming every day less accepted in organized WWW.

Even with that boring buffbot build……(dps is not welcome any more it seems).

Oh well we still can kill AC behind walls with scepter DT ….until next patch

Hyperbole as if any class isn’t accepted in WvW.

Guardian isn’t uber moble if it is this “Organized” WvW as you put it then class deficiencies are covered up by the group and accounted for. Whatever you feel a ele doesn’t bring in this “organized” WvW those people you play with should get “organized”

PinCushion.7390:

What you’re talking about is unusual behavior. Most people do not study combat logs, optimize and tweak builds to death, or analyze combat encounters in minute detail until they know both what they did wrong and what their opponent did right. Most people do not level up an alt for the sole purpose of learning how the class ticks so they can know how to beat them in PvP. What you’re talking about requires time and mental energy that most people have dedicated elsewhere.

Also, I think the classes are generally balanced. However, and this has been a topic of conversation since release, some of the classes are remarkably easier to play at a mediocre level. I think all classes have a relatively high skill-ceiling, but I think a chosen few classes have a low skill floor that makes them seem a bit OP when two players of average skill confront each other and one wipes the floor with the other. I bring this up because it’s far more interesting than whining about which class is OP and needs adjusting. Elementalist was considered an incredibly complex class until daphoenix (and others) started churning out D/D guides and videos. It turns out almost anyone can be taught, and the complex part was fitting it all together in the first place.

If you can spend 30 minutes posting and complaining about a build you can spend 30 minutes over 5 days each day learning a how a class ticks. There is no room for complaint if you aren’t willing to learn about other classes. If a player devotes themselves to be better than other despite other responsibilities they put the work in. If it paid off and they start beating folks left and right the average skilled players should accept the defeat. PvP is inherently just that player vs player it is competition. If one player refuses to put the time in to get better there is no possible way for them to justify their complaints as both players are paying customers.

It should also be noted among Spvp and pvp players this is conventional thinking and the norm amonf serouus plyaers and while I will never take it to the extreme some of them do analysis is key. Most players run a set pattern. Kind of like basic game theory is you know how they react to your action you cna always stay a step ahead.

Also to note I did crafting leveling for most classes and only played the last few levels my logic is simple leveling is a waist of time. If I want to know I class I spvp it. If i like it I level it and dive into the minute mechanics. This is the main reason I beat thieves on warrior and beat the last 3 mesmers I fought on my warrior. After I leveled mesmer it was like “Ohh that how it works.” Once you can see that you can see the gaps. 3 is to small a sample but I remember running often from mesmers and not so much anymore. If you watch a match in spvp inspect a players gear and build an see how they apply skills you could achieve the same level of knowledge without ever leveling the class.

Now to the other topic you brought up. The classes aren’t balanced not even close but its about as close as it is going to get so meh. As far as DD and complexity. I do not say this for shock value or anything but 4 months ago I started falling asleep while playing DD. It seems despite the 20 skills because the class runs a rotation most of them time it was making me bored. when I play warrior while having far fewer skills because I do not run a rotation is easy for me to play for long periods of time without getting bored.

TheGuy.3568:

If you can spend 30 minutes posting and complaining about a build you can spend 30 minutes over 5 days each day learning a how a class ticks. There is no room for complaint if you aren’t willing to learn about other classes. If a player devotes themselves to be better than other despite other responsibilities they put the work in. If it paid off and they start beating folks left and right the average skilled players should accept the defeat. PvP is inherently just that player vs player it is competition. If one player refuses to put the time in to get better there is no possible way for them to justify their complaints as both players are paying customers.

It should also be noted among Spvp and pvp players this is conventional thinking and the norm amonf serouus plyaers and while I will never take it to the extreme some of them do analysis is key. Most players run a set pattern. Kind of like basic game theory is you know how they react to your action you cna always stay a step ahead.

Also to note I did crafting leveling for most classes and only played the last few levels my logic is simple leveling is a waist of time. If I want to know I class I spvp it. If i like it I level it and dive into the minute mechanics. This is the main reason I beat thieves on warrior and beat the last 3 mesmers I fought on my warrior. After I leveled mesmer it was like “Ohh that how it works.” Once you can see that you can see the gaps. 3 is to small a sample but I remember running often from mesmers and not so much anymore. If you watch a match in spvp inspect a players gear and build an see how they apply skills you could achieve the same level of knowledge without ever leveling the class.

Now to the other topic you brought up. The classes aren’t balanced not even close but its about as close as it is going to get so meh. As far as DD and complexity. I do not say this for shock value or anything but 4 months ago I started falling asleep while playing DD. It seems despite the 20 skills because the class runs a rotation most of them time it was making me bored. when I play warrior while having far fewer skills because I do not run a rotation is easy for me to play for long periods of time without getting bored.

I agree with everything you say here. But I think you underestimate the number of people that do not care about sPvP, don’t know anything about classes that they don’t main, don’t test builds extensively, don’t read what their skills actually do, and don’t really care all that much about the underlying combat mechanics.

Players that sPvP a lot are a self-selecting population that is biased to really care about game mechanics. These players are also a minority of the overall population. It’s too bad, as sPvP is a place where not caring about combat mechanics results in a very unpleasant experience. I find hot joins to be a great place to test builds, get a feel for how a build works in actual combat, get a pulse on what the most popular builds are for classes that I don’t actively play (need more character slots), and develop a thicker skin when it comes to getting absolutely destroyed by coordinated teams that know their stuff. Nerd rage turns very quickly into respect for a clever build, or admiration at skillful execution.

Full disclosure, I don’t sPvP a lot. I sPvP enough to keep a feel for how it works, and test builds for WvW. I do use spectator a good bit, though. It’s helpful for keeping my finger on the pulse of the meta (or what little there is of it). Something interesting that’s been happening more and more the last few months is people running builds in WvW that would be impossible in sPvP, so that makes things a bit more challenging. Still, paying attention to what consumable icons people run with helps (especially if they totally dominate me).

And I swapped back from D/D to Staff because D/D was just too repetitive. Everything casts so fast (besides Churning Earth), and all the utilities are instant cast. You kind of develop this set of rotations that you use for every situation, and it becomes like Ranger S/D + GS only with 5 times the keystrokes. Staff is much harder to play. Sure, zerg-farming with it is easy. But actually playing Staff in a 1v1 or 2v1 is incredibly challenging. I’m still piecing it together, and am still pretty terrible. There’s almost nobody good running Staff Ele in sPvP that I can find since D/D is just more effective at most things. It keeps things interesting though, so I keep at it.

Honorable mention of the Stoneline Staff thread on this forum that gave me some good ideas.

FinalPatriot.8034:

When I created this thread I suppose I didn’t fully understand how much change had been brought upon the class and with that limited knowledge, it was still fun to play. I have to admit now, that my once favorite character is only used now as a crafting/bank alt and that’s about it. I can deal with most of the nerf’s but the RTL just kills the class for me.

I’ve now gone back and started toying around my with Thief and Mesmer alt but I’m not honestly sure where to go from here. The D/D Ele was WHY I played GW2 as I just loved the quick mobility of the class. Without it, I now understand where you all come from.

I got tired of another MMO and was pondering about returning back to GW2 (I was in since open beta).
I left GW2 because the one class I wanted to play, Ele, left a lukewarm feeling. “Not too bad but not what I wanted”. So low damage and health, it looked like it was this MMO “predetestined prey” of everyone else. I have played mages since a many years (including WoW and Warhammer, someone mentioned it, I played and still play Sorceress), they usually come in a “glass cannon” spec that is really a cannon and with a “tanky” spec with lots of crowd control.
Now in GW2 forget the glass cannon, even going all out fire, other classes still outmatch you. The alternative is bunker but it’s not an interesting defensive spec with lots of tricks, it’s just an outlasting, self healing brick.

Now I came back to see if ANET did something to make the gameplay more interesting, and I read of this.

Sod off, I will keep playing another MMO, even if it’s sub based.

oZii.2864:

Hyperbole as if any class isn’t accepted in WvW.

its how works on eu high tiers.

WWW servers have roles/build required to join organized groups…

D/D is not wellcome…
And recently same for everything except bunker staff buffbots…..

The builds are written in guilds/servers forums….

Want into an organized WvW group. Roll a D/D build that is best in 1v1 or 1v2 situations in sPvP, worthless in a real siege or even a 15v15 fight for a camp. Get denied. Whine on forams.

Seriously, staff is the only thing you should be using in WvW outside graveyard shift, it’s so awesome it’s not even funny. Other classes can only dream of the things you can do with it.

It’s not that D/D is so bad, per se. It’s actually good in small skirmishes, very good in fact. But WvW isn’t a dungeon or sPvP, small skirmishes aren’t the norm, and while D/D stays just as good as ever, staff scales. The more people, the more power the staff has.

Lemme guess another thief player?

Bingo!!!

Truga.5897:

while D/D stays just as good as ever, staff scales. The more people, the more power the staff has.

Doesn’t the AoE Cap make this impossible. I run a staff in WvW, mostly because I use staff everywhere. It’s nice, but it isn’t amazing. I often miss the damage and mobility of D/D. Most of reason staff is awesome in WvW is just the flashy animations. You drop a Meteor Shower in front of a zerg and most of them stop. Now, there’s no real reason they should stop. It’ll only hit a few of them, and it won’t kill any of them. But it’s big, flashy, and loud. So a lot of them try to dodge out of it on instinct.

Now 10 AoEs going off at the same time is another story, and staff Ele stacks very well with other AoE casters. But I’ve personally “stopped a zerg in their tracks” with my staff Ele just because everyone in the zerg was scared to take 2k damage from a Meteor.

Vaerah.4907:

FinalPatriot.8034:

When I created this thread I suppose I didn’t fully understand how much change had been brought upon the class and with that limited knowledge, it was still fun to play. I have to admit now, that my once favorite character is only used now as a crafting/bank alt and that’s about it. I can deal with most of the nerf’s but the RTL just kills the class for me.

I’ve now gone back and started toying around my with Thief and Mesmer alt but I’m not honestly sure where to go from here. The D/D Ele was WHY I played GW2 as I just loved the quick mobility of the class. Without it, I now understand where you all come from.

I got tired of another MMO and was pondering about returning back to GW2 (I was in since open beta).
I left GW2 because the one class I wanted to play, Ele, left a lukewarm feeling. “Not too bad but not what I wanted”. So low damage and health, it looked like it was this MMO “predetestined prey” of everyone else. I have played mages since a many years (including WoW and Warhammer, someone mentioned it, I played and still play Sorceress), they usually come in a “glass cannon” spec that is really a cannon and with a “tanky” spec with lots of crowd control.
Now in GW2 forget the glass cannon, even going all out fire, other classes still outmatch you. The alternative is bunker but it’s not an interesting defensive spec with lots of tricks, it’s just an outlasting, self healing brick.

Now I came back to see if ANET did something to make the gameplay more interesting, and I read of this.

Sod off, I will keep playing another MMO, even if it’s sub based.

It’s sad because I spent a good bit of time making my Ele the exact way I wanted the character to include the fine details of her appearance. Now, she’s just standing around LA doing little more than making crap to sell. W/O the mobitilty, the class isn’t fun to play anymore.

So now I run around WvW on my equally geared Thief looking for those slow moving D/D Ele’s to take down as I know they have no chance to get away from me.

PinCushion.7390:

Doesn’t the AoE Cap make this impossible.

Most of the Staff’s big AoEs have multiple ticks so the cap doesn’t really effect them most of the time. Chances are good there are only going to be no more than 5 in an AoE at any given time anyway.

AoE cap does little to your main damage source, the meteor storm, which should be critting enemies for at 3k/hit with no might stacks. More if you trait fire+air. Stack some might and it becomes very dangerous. Drop it onto people and if they don’t move they will get downed. Blasting staff also seems to make it rain more fire.

I run a permanent 0/10/0/30/30 build (it just works with every weapon), and use soldier’s jewellery with berserker armour and 40% boon duration runes (2x superior water/monk, 2x major water). Also, omnomberry chocolate cream. This gives a total of 90% boon duration increase. The boon duration increase allows me to stack might and fury for long periods of time, giving a fairly large boost to damage output of everyone around me.

Casting healing rain over your team gives everyone 12345 seconds of regeneration as long as they keep shooting at something, while also removing tons of conditions. Since the AoE is gigantic, you can often get 30+ people into it or shooting through it.

Then there’s the really juicy stuff. Static field stuns everyone walking through it for 2 seconds. No 5 target limit. Drop it onto a bridge or into a valley/some other chokepoint when a zerg is passing and they’ll eat your meteor storm and any arrow carts you might have prepared. Instant death to everyone in there.

Frozen ground behind your meteor storm so that people who retreat out of it get frozen. Stack unsteady ground on top of it. A cripple or chill you can’t dodge out of because you just dodged the meteor storm usually means death in wvw. Also, projectiles over frozen ground stack chill. Cast it between two zergs and laugh as your zerg stacks literally hundreds of chills on the enemy with piercing/bouncing projectile attacks like trick shot.

Then there’s magnetic aura. Run into range of the enemy, wait a couple seconds for the enemy zerg to notice, pop it, laugh at them while they kill themselves, all while casting your meteor storm and frozen ground onto them, then lightning flash back out of range. Or, hop on the cannon and share it with the dude that’s using a cannon, laugh at the idiots trying to hit him/cannon as they kill themselves, while you press F while laughing manically.

Also, as you already said, meteor storm is useful for area denial. This is huge in itself, as this is generally what the arrow cart does, and that thing costs 30 supply and can’t move. We were nerfed by proxy a bit in this area since the buff to arrow carts, but when you’re in a freshly taken tower this is still great to have. Meteor storm + lava font + static field + ice spike + eruption the door and everyone either jumps out or gets downed, instead of build/use rams.

LordByron.8369:

Lemme guess another thief player?

Bingo!!!

I got my thief to level 4 before I got bored with her. Sorry to disappoint you, but I play elementalist pretty much full time.

Truga.5897:

AoE cap does little to your main damage source, the meteor storm, which should be critting enemies for at 3k/hit with no might stacks. More if you trait fire+air. Stack some might and it becomes very dangerous. Drop it onto people and if they don’t move they will get downed. Blasting staff also seems to make it rain more fire.

I run a permanent 0/10/0/30/30 build (it just works with every weapon), and use soldier’s jewellery with berserker armour and 40% boon duration runes (2x superior water/monk, 2x major water). Also, omnomberry chocolate cream. This gives a total of 90% boon duration increase. The boon duration increase allows me to stack might and fury for long periods of time, giving a fairly large boost to damage output of everyone around me.

Casting healing rain over your team gives everyone 12345 seconds of regeneration as long as they keep shooting at something, while also removing tons of conditions. Since the AoE is gigantic, you can often get 30+ people into it or shooting through it.

Then there’s the really juicy stuff. Static field stuns everyone walking through it for 2 seconds. No 5 target limit. Drop it onto a bridge or into a valley/some other chokepoint when a zerg is passing and they’ll eat your meteor storm and any arrow carts you might have prepared. Instant death to everyone in there.

Frozen ground behind your meteor storm so that people who retreat out of it get frozen. Stack unsteady ground on top of it. A cripple or chill you can’t dodge out of because you just dodged the meteor storm usually means death in wvw. Also, projectiles over frozen ground stack chill. Cast it between two zergs and laugh as your zerg stacks literally hundreds of chills on the enemy with piercing/bouncing projectile attacks like trick shot.

Then there’s magnetic aura. Run into range of the enemy, wait a couple seconds for the enemy zerg to notice, pop it, laugh at them while they kill themselves, all while casting your meteor storm and frozen ground onto them, then lightning flash back out of range. Or, hop on the cannon and share it with the dude that’s using a cannon, laugh at the idiots trying to hit him/cannon as they kill themselves, while you press F while laughing manically.

Also, as you already said, meteor storm is useful for area denial. This is huge in itself, as this is generally what the arrow cart does, and that thing costs 30 supply and can’t move. We were nerfed by proxy a bit in this area since the buff to arrow carts, but when you’re in a freshly taken tower this is still great to have. Meteor storm + lava font + static field + ice spike + eruption the door and everyone either jumps out or gets downed, instead of build/use rams.

LordByron.8369:

Lemme guess another thief player?

Bingo!!!

I got my thief to level 4 before I got bored with her. Sorry to disappoint you, but I play elementalist pretty much full time.

I’m right there with you. I find Staff amazingly fun to play in all game modes, even sPvP. I’d never saddle a tPvP team with a Staff Ele, since they’re so fragile. I tend to favor either Cleric’s or Carrion gear, depending on what I’m doing. I hate Berzerker’s on Ele, since it makes us die to a stiff breeze. When I ran it in WvW I got tons of kills, but I died a lot more as well.

That said, while I find staff personally entertaining, I don’t find it all that good. Sure, you bring loads of AoE. That’s amazing in zergy WvW. But it isn’t all that great anywhere else. The trick would be buffing Staff in such a way that it doesn’t make it completely obnoxious in WvW, where it already excels. But, honestly, I doubt ANet will buff Staff at all.

Well, to be honest, I didn’t like berserker, but since I bought a full set of power+toughness+vitality jewellery, I’ve been using berserker armour almost everywhere. The accessories give me enough hp+tough to survive in WvW. I also have a cleric’s and a shaman’s set, though I haven’t used shaman’s in a while.

I really loved my full carrion armour+jewellery set, but a friend of mine runs a condition necro, and I was literally losing 10s of bleed stacks to 25 stack cap, so I swapped to power now.

Now it’s basically either berserker in a zerg or cleric when in a smaller group or when using D/D, with full time soldier’s jewellery.

FWIW, blasting staff does NOT increase the hits from Meteor Storm. Also, the maximum number of hits possible from any of our AoEs is 25. 5 targets every second, over 5 seconds. Nothing at all can increase that.

It’s why grouping up in the red circle is the safest way to mitigate damage for a whole zerg faced with AoE spammers. Put 100 people into a field that can hit, absolute maximum, 25 targets. Odds are nobody is going to trigger it more than once, and most people won’t trigger it at all.

EDIT: Meteor storm actually bypasses the limit, making it possible to hit more – it has 5 people per meteor, in a small radius. You still won’t kill somebody with it, but you will get enough tags in to get decent bag return.

If you’re aiming for bags, that’s great, and it works. If you’re aiming to change the flow of battle, you’re better off running something other than staff.

Blaine Tog.8304:

PinCushion.7390:

Doesn’t the AoE Cap make this impossible.

Most of the Staff’s big AoEs have multiple ticks so the cap doesn’t really effect them most of the time. Chances are good there are only going to be no more than 5 in an AoE at any given time anyway.

and that is when you see a thief video walking in meteor shower area without taking a single hit ……

it happens so often.

For the rest….
There are a suspect number of players maining elementalist and sub thieves….attacking elementalist and defending stealth in most posts…

Now considering a lot of trolls we had here for long from thief sections due to them is really hard to believe its not a biased comment…

statistically seems a pattern happening too often expecially when thief is commonly seen as king of www and ele a subpar class

And its not “me” to tell that.

stale.9785:

FWIW, blasting staff does NOT increase the hits from Meteor Storm.

You’re right. Somehow I remembered this wrong.

If you’re aiming for bags, that’s great, and it works. If you’re aiming to change the flow of battle, you’re better off running something other than staff.

The only other useful weapon in siege is scepter because dragon tooth doesn’t require line of sight…

stale.9785:

FWIW, blasting staff does NOT increase the hits from Meteor Storm. Also, the maximum number of hits possible from any of our AoEs is 25. 5 targets every second, over 5 seconds. Nothing at all can increase that.

It’s why grouping up in the red circle is the safest way to mitigate damage for a whole zerg faced with AoE spammers. Put 100 people into a field that can hit, absolute maximum, 25 targets. Odds are nobody is going to trigger it more than once, and most people won’t trigger it at all.

EDIT: Meteor storm actually bypasses the limit, making it possible to hit more – it has 5 people per meteor, in a small radius. You still won’t kill somebody with it, but you will get enough tags in to get decent bag return.

If you’re aiming for bags, that’s great, and it works. If you’re aiming to change the flow of battle, you’re better off running something other than staff.

You say that, but if allowed to free cast I can quite literally down entire zergs of people. Meteor Storm, Glyph of Storms, Fire Burst, Ice Bow (same story as meteor storm only far more concentrated, eruption, ice spike. If I cast this on a zerg, people go down. I’ve done it time and time and time again.

It isn’t a question, it isn’t a guess, it’s a certainty that a single ele can wreck an immobile zerg even if they heal. The damage output in an aoe is really high and when you end in water you not only continue to regen the hp of people around you but you throw 3k ice spikes on their head every few seconds.

Ralathar.7236:

You say that, but if allowed to free cast I can quite literally down entire zergs of people. Meteor Storm, Glyph of Storms, Fire Burst, Ice Bow (same story as meteor storm only far more concentrated, eruption, ice spike. If I cast this on a zerg, people go down. I’ve done it time and time and time again.

It isn’t a question, it isn’t a guess, it’s a certainty that a single ele can wreck an immobile zerg even if they heal. The damage output in an aoe is really high and when you end in water you not only continue to regen the hp of people around you but you throw 3k ice spikes on their head every few seconds.

That is a wonderful summation of what’s great and what’s awful about staff.

It works wonders if your opponents are dumb cattle that let you nuke them to death.

It doesn’t work so well when your opponents are organized and know not to stand in the red circles.

Ralathar.7236:

You say that, but if allowed to free cast I can quite literally down entire zergs of people. Meteor Storm, Glyph of Storms, Fire Burst, Ice Bow (same story as meteor storm only far more concentrated, eruption, ice spike. If I cast this on a zerg, people go down. I’ve done it time and time and time again.

It isn’t a question, it isn’t a guess, it’s a certainty that a single ele can wreck an immobile zerg even if they heal. The damage output in an aoe is really high and when you end in water you not only continue to regen the hp of people around you but you throw 3k ice spikes on their head every few seconds.

Its funny. I read this and think “must be lower tier WvWvW, for surely no one is dumb enough to sit in the same spot for 30 or more seconds to let this ‘burst’ damage occur.”

Which leads to the inevitable conclusion, that the Ele is a profession that is absolutely unforgiving and completely depends on player skill. Unlike certain other professions, such as Guardian or Warrior, which many have said can win with auto-attack, the Ele will not play well unless the player plays the profession to the hilt.

Makes a lot of sense. And then it brings me to the balancing arguments in the first place, the idea that Thieves troll the Ele boards for more nerfs and easier kills, that Eles are OP in some fashion, etc. The majority of Ele nerfs have their origins in PvP gameplay, and these nerfs carry over to PvE, which in many respects might as well be two different games, given the differences of human ingenuity as compared to somewhat weak AI.

So using one player’s WvWvW experience on a lower tier server has about as much bearing on tier 1 play as PvP experience has on PvE play. And this is something the community needs to get its head around, and stop making false assertions, comments based on zero evidence, hyperbolic arguments designed to draw heated debate over non-issues, etc.

Personal experience and bias cannot be the yardstick of balance, every time I see a thread whining about ANY profession being OP, it makes me gnash my teeth a bit, precisely because 100% of those threads have nothing more substantive than “Profession A ganked me, I am teh awesome, must be A is OP, NERF NAOW!!1”

Coming up on a year, every profession has major bugs STILL, professions like the Ele and Engy have been hit hard by the nerfbat with no rhyme or reason, and rather than focus on balance to make the game both enjoyable and e-sport capable, we see more BLTC items, more stuff added to RNG boxes, and stuff like Canach’s lair which honestly was completely underwhelming. If this game is going to survive in the MMO arena, ANet needs to get its act together and fix the foundation before adding more fluff.

Kaleban.9834:

“snip”
If this game is going to survive in the MMO arena, ANet needs to get its act together and fix the foundation before adding more fluff.

Never forget that fluff pays for everything else.

If this game was in the same sorry state of balance that it was in beta, and all they had added were a few PvE fixes to keep all the events running, they could still be making boatloads of money just releasing a different color cat mini every month or so.

Fluff and RNG slot-machines exist to make the bottom line look nice. PvP Balance exists because the people who make this game believe in it. But never think that anything as high-minded and abstract as “Balanced PvP Mechanics” will ever outweigh getting the next Infinite Gathering Tool out there for all the collecters to plunk down their $10 on.

PinCushion.7390:

Kaleban.9834:

“snip”
If this game is going to survive in the MMO arena, ANet needs to get its act together and fix the foundation before adding more fluff.

Never forget that fluff pays for everything else.

If this game was in the same sorry state of balance that it was in beta, and all they had added were a few PvE fixes to keep all the events running, they could still be making boatloads of money just releasing a different color cat mini every month or so.

Fluff and RNG slot-machines exist to make the bottom line look nice. PvP Balance exists because the people who make this game believe in it. But never think that anything as high-minded and abstract as “Balanced PvP Mechanics” will ever outweigh getting the next Infinite Gathering Tool out there for all the collecters to plunk down their $10 on.

Your statement has alot of weight but at the same time the guy that designed and drew the concept art for the Infinite Gathering tool is probably not the same guy who coded it. Just like the people that work on balance issues more than likely aren’t the same people that created the plush quaggan backpack.

PinCushion.7390:

That is a wonderful summation of what’s great and what’s awful about staff.

It works wonders if your opponents are dumb cattle that let you nuke them to death.

It doesn’t work so well when your opponents are organized and know not to stand in the red circles.

Don’t underestimate zone control. This game isn’t solely about DPS. If you can decide where your enemies can and cannot stand, you’re already most of the way towards winning.

Kaleban.9834:

Which leads to the inevitable conclusion, that the Ele is a profession that is absolutely unforgiving and completely depends on player skill. Unlike certain other professions, such as Guardian or Warrior, which many have said can win with auto-attack, the Ele will not play well unless the player plays the profession to the hilt.

This this 100 times this. How much AOE you land depends entirely on how good your placement and prediction is. As well it requires you to intertwine your CC skills and/or work well with others to reach your full potential. All of this while avoiding a particularly nasty death because you were not quick enough to avoid the significant amounts of damaged aimed squarely at your head.

When you get to the level I am, where you can be on the run from multiple melee, possibly even a thief or two and still lay down CC and damage because you understand that meteor storm is both great and extremely limiting….then you get to the big leagues.

I am not some fantastic player. I’m good, but there are people that would eat me for lunch with their skill level. Luckily what I lack in physical coordination and dexterity I make up for with being able to read and predict a battle, discerning next moves, tactics, pushes, and retreats on the fly, all while staying one step ahead of certain death.

If I was a bit worse of a player my effectiveness would likely drop 30% or possibly more in some situations. It really is a razor thin line if you are built glass cannon and without a decade plus of experience I’d likely be sunk.

The big difference between me and alot of the people here sunk though. When I’m sunk I consider it a challenge. When I hear a class is underpowered I consider it a challenge. Rather than mope and whine over perceptions I push myself to break as many perceptions as possible and it has made me a far better player for it.

So people may laugh when I roll out into WvW with my Turret Engie. But they laugh a little less when the guy running the arrow cart they can barely AOE gets destroyed by my 3 turrets I threw on top of the wall, and then the supply crate when he attempted to jump off and run. Is it the most effective engie build ever? Nope. Is it pretty good when used right? Yes. Did I learn alot playing it? Definitely.

I roll alot of such alts. I play around with all the skills and try to break their capabilities. If there is one thing I have reinforced it’s that the vast majority of people on these forums only understand a fragment of the capabilities of their class and have wildly inaccurate ideas about them.

• Staff Ele needs a buff. D/D Damage should be toned down, but be made more sustained. Scepter needs a slight buff, and Focus could use a slight buff.

• P/P, S/P, and P/D Thieves need a buff, Heartseeker must be removed as a leap finisher, Condition cleansing in Stealth should be toned down, healing in stealth should be toned down.

• Warrior needs buffs in general.

• Necromancer needs buffs in general/Fixes.

• Guardian is fine.

• Scepter Mesmer needs a buff, Phantasmal duelist damage needs to be nerfed, Phantasmal duelist should not combo finish, Blurred Frenzy needs to be nerfed, Mind wrack needs to be nerfed.

• HGH Engineer needs a nerf, Turrets need a buff, self-ressing needs to be removed.

• Ranger Longbow needs a buff, pets need a nerf, Downstate 3 needs to be nerfed, Underwater capability needs to be nerfed, Troll Ungent needs to be nerfed, Spirit Elite needs to be nerfed (Self ressing removed), Pet commands need to be restricted in down state.

and yet another great example of pvp players selfishness…

They are the 1% and the want 100%…..

Dear Altroll
PvE and www players are seriously fed up from suggestions that doesn t take in account the most played parts of the game….and can really ruin an already ridicously unbalance situation.

So At least make an effort to think “this game is not only pvp…pvp is the least played game mode….”

Because for how is the game now would have more sense to halve warrior damage while doubling ele’s and reverting all nerfs it ever seen.

PvE needs MORE attention than PvP……or this game will completely die withhis e-sport dream.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Don’t underestimate zone control. This game isn’t solely about DPS. If you can decide where your enemies can and cannot stand, you’re already most of the way towards winning.

This this this this this. I keep saying this but people just dismiss it and keep on going about damage and kills and badges and thieves.

Zone control is often more important than damage. Do arrow carts do damage? Sure, about as much as my meteor storm. Do they make people not use rams? Yes, yes they do. And people not using rams are the people who aren’t taking your castle today.

The same stands for staff AoEs. I don’t even get that many badges, unless I play against complete scrubs who just stand in AoEs. But I dare you to use that ram while I’m inside the tower. Even with 30 people under the wall, meteor shower + lava + ice spike + eruption is going to hurt bad if they don’t move. And if they do move, they’re not using rams.

Not to mention having 2 or 3 eles makes building siege outside walls worthless. They’ll just suicide cast ice bow+meteor+lava font on your siege in 3 seconds and you can go back to camp for supplies. They don’t need to survive, two of them just need to get their three spells off, which isn’t really a problem with the confusion of 30+ people running about. Ever had to defend against an enemy zerg that outnumbers you 4:1 (late at night, your zerg elsewhere or whatever other reason) attack a tower with catas/trebs? No problem, go in with mist form, cast your aoes, die, laugh as you see them pack up because they’re outta supplies and 10 catapult/treb/arrow cart blueprints.

Ralathar.7236:

stale.9785:

FWIW, blasting staff does NOT increase the hits from Meteor Storm. Also, the maximum number of hits possible from any of our AoEs is 25. 5 targets every second, over 5 seconds. Nothing at all can increase that.

It’s why grouping up in the red circle is the safest way to mitigate damage for a whole zerg faced with AoE spammers. Put 100 people into a field that can hit, absolute maximum, 25 targets. Odds are nobody is going to trigger it more than once, and most people won’t trigger it at all.

EDIT: Meteor storm actually bypasses the limit, making it possible to hit more – it has 5 people per meteor, in a small radius. You still won’t kill somebody with it, but you will get enough tags in to get decent bag return.

If you’re aiming for bags, that’s great, and it works. If you’re aiming to change the flow of battle, you’re better off running something other than staff.

You say that, but if allowed to free cast I can quite literally down entire zergs of people. Meteor Storm, Glyph of Storms, Fire Burst, Ice Bow (same story as meteor storm only far more concentrated, eruption, ice spike. If I cast this on a zerg, people go down. I’ve done it time and time and time again.

It isn’t a question, it isn’t a guess, it’s a certainty that a single ele can wreck an immobile zerg even if they heal. The damage output in an aoe is really high and when you end in water you not only continue to regen the hp of people around you but you throw 3k ice spikes on their head every few seconds.

Dude – what server do you play on? I want to play somewhere where people will stand still for 5-10 minutes to let an ele down them with AoE.

Seriously, if they keep moving, there’s no reason for anyone to take more than 1 hit from any spell, meaning you’re doing (absolute best case with gear and food and luck on the crit) 4k damage to someone, once.

I say this because I regularly play with 15 people. Our approach is to bunch up as close as possible and keep moving. You don’t even have to pay attention to the red circles, because most of the time you won’t be touched by whatever spell is causing them, and if you do they’re going to be such pitiful damage it doesn’t matter. One shout from a guard to clean conditions and you’re laughing.

Truga.5897:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Don’t underestimate zone control. This game isn’t solely about DPS. If you can decide where your enemies can and cannot stand, you’re already most of the way towards winning.

This this this this this. I keep saying this but people just dismiss it and keep on going about damage and kills and badges and thieves.

Zone control is often more important than damage. Do arrow carts do damage? Sure, about as much as my meteor storm. Do they make people not use rams? Yes, yes they do. And people not using rams are the people who aren’t taking your castle today.

The same stands for staff AoEs. I don’t even get that many badges, unless I play against complete scrubs who just stand in AoEs. But I dare you to use that ram while I’m inside the tower. Even with 30 people under the wall, meteor shower + lava + ice spike + eruption is going to hurt bad if they don’t move. And if they do move, they’re not using rams.

Not to mention having 2 or 3 eles makes building siege outside walls worthless. They’ll just suicide cast ice bow+meteor+lava font on your siege in 3 seconds and you can go back to camp for supplies. They don’t need to survive, two of them just need to get their three spells off, which isn’t really a problem with the confusion of 30+ people running about. Ever had to defend against an enemy zerg that outnumbers you 4:1 (late at night, your zerg elsewhere or whatever other reason) attack a tower with catas/trebs? No problem, go in with mist form, cast your aoes, die, laugh as you see them pack up because they’re outta supplies and 10 catapult/treb/arrow cart blueprints.

So basically we should have a weapon suitable for a single situation only out of thousand?
We may as well make an entire profession and call it “Defender”, give it the ele staff and you’re good to go

stale.9785:

Ralathar.7236:

stale.9785:

FWIW, blasting staff does NOT increase the hits from Meteor Storm. Also, the maximum number of hits possible from any of our AoEs is 25. 5 targets every second, over 5 seconds. Nothing at all can increase that.

It’s why grouping up in the red circle is the safest way to mitigate damage for a whole zerg faced with AoE spammers. Put 100 people into a field that can hit, absolute maximum, 25 targets. Odds are nobody is going to trigger it more than once, and most people won’t trigger it at all.

EDIT: Meteor storm actually bypasses the limit, making it possible to hit more – it has 5 people per meteor, in a small radius. You still won’t kill somebody with it, but you will get enough tags in to get decent bag return.

If you’re aiming for bags, that’s great, and it works. If you’re aiming to change the flow of battle, you’re better off running something other than staff.

You say that, but if allowed to free cast I can quite literally down entire zergs of people. Meteor Storm, Glyph of Storms, Fire Burst, Ice Bow (same story as meteor storm only far more concentrated, eruption, ice spike. If I cast this on a zerg, people go down. I’ve done it time and time and time again.

It isn’t a question, it isn’t a guess, it’s a certainty that a single ele can wreck an immobile zerg even if they heal. The damage output in an aoe is really high and when you end in water you not only continue to regen the hp of people around you but you throw 3k ice spikes on their head every few seconds.

Dude – what server do you play on? I want to play somewhere where people will stand still for 5-10 minutes to let an ele down them with AoE.

Seriously, if they keep moving, there’s no reason for anyone to take more than 1 hit from any spell, meaning you’re doing (absolute best case with gear and food and luck on the crit) 4k damage to someone, once.

I say this because I regularly play with 15 people. Our approach is to bunch up as close as possible and keep moving. You don’t even have to pay attention to the red circles, because most of the time you won’t be touched by whatever spell is causing them, and if you do they’re going to be such pitiful damage it doesn’t matter. One shout from a guard to clean conditions and you’re laughing.

You didn’t pay much attention to context did you? The damage vs an immobile zerg was in response to the initial quotes claiming that bunching up made you safe because of the AOE cap.

I direct response to you however: yes you can avoid AOE’s, but how much you can avoid is entirely dependent on the skill of the ele’s and the presence or lack of a front line for the ele’s team. With proper CC mixed in an ele should be able to consistently hit a moving group. With a good front line group’s disruption an ele should be able to consistently hit a moving group. With both together an ele can reliably land a large amount of AOE’s on even good players.

I regularly play with anywhere from 5 to 50 people. AOE’s don’t hit/hurt people if you are a bad player vs a good group. AOE’s don’t wreck good groups without teamwork. Conversely a good player will constantly be AOEing even a good group and a good player with good teamwork from other good players will wreck your fricken day with AOE.

There are multiple levels of this and the individual skill of the ele and the teamwork of his group increase his effectiveness alot. I can see how average or worse players running with pugs would have issues landing their AOE’s. But that doesn’t mean AOE’s are broken.

LordByron.8369:

and yet another great example of pvp players selfishness…

They are the 1% and the want 100%…..

Dear Altroll
PvE and www players are seriously fed up from suggestions that doesn t take in account the most played parts of the game….and can really ruin an already ridicously unbalance situation.

So At least make an effort to think “this game is not only pvp…pvp is the least played game mode….”

Because for how is the game now would have more sense to halve warrior damage while doubling ele’s and reverting all nerfs it ever seen.

PvE needs MORE attention than PvP……or this game will completely die withhis e-sport dream.

Aren’t you high and mighty? Well allow me to be elitist myself for a moment with facts that happen to apply to most MMOs, including GW2.

Most PvP players are superior to PvE/WvW players as there is a higher skillcap. Most PvE players do not actually know how to use their own class to it’s fullest effectiveness. Many PvE Rangers/Elementalists/Thieves whine about how their classes are underpowered, when I have seen PvP players play high level Fractals and still manage to avoid all of the things PvE players complain about, such as keeping pets alive. Most of the issues with your classes in PvE are l2p issues. PvE does not require precision builds/skill, it is significantly easier outside of level 40+ fractals, which are also in the minority.

Also, to declare that PvE needs more attention when it already gets 80% of the attention is nothing short of pure bias.

Oh, and yes, I play PvE myself too, it’s how I’m forced to make my money since I don’t make anything from PvP aside from selling dyes I randomly acquire or teaching PvE players how to move while attacking.

Arheundel.6451:

So basically we should have a weapon suitable for a single situation only out of thousand?
We may as well make an entire profession and call it “Defender”, give it the ele staff and you’re good to go

I think you’re going to have to explain your reasoning here. It’s really unclear what you’re trying to say.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Arheundel.6451:

So basically we should have a weapon suitable for a single situation only out of thousand?
We may as well make an entire profession and call it “Defender”, give it the ele staff and you’re good to go

I think you’re going to have to explain your reasoning here. It’s really unclear what you’re trying to say.

He’s saying that staff is too focused on a niche use. He wants it to be more versatile, I’d gather.