Guild Wars 2

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. :’S

Ahahaa didn’t expect that

I’m with ya brother! My Elementalist just got to 80 about half an hour ago.

I’m loving the party support and damage burst S/D build I’m using. Practically 100% uptime on 25 might stacks (Lol HGH), a nice burst to healing when I switch to water, frost aura melee kiting, triple condition removals with Evasive Arcana.

My Elementalist is level 43.

I made it on day one.

Just saying.

Yeah… my ele is only level 10 and I don’t have the energy to play it.

rofl. Well with all the nurfs, at least we get posts like this <3

I mained an Elementalist in GW1 so it’s nothing against the aesthetic of the class. I just find constantly swapping attunements very clunky.

Kit swapping just feels more fluid to me. Water-spec Elementalists with all their Cleansing Waves is very nice, though.

One thing you are wrong about

“…and get this. Instead of a measly super elixir when switching to elixir gun, when I switch to water, I heal myself, give myself regeneration, give myself regenerate health (it’s like a second regeneration) and I cure a condition!!! All from pressing one button!”

If you are traited into common D/D ele build then you are not removing 1 condition on switching to water but 2. 1 from cleansing wave and another from combination of regeneration and cleansing Waters trait.

Don’t forget that your Elite Turret Elemental can move! and is tanky af and deal good damage!

That was absolutely hilarious, nice twist. I never saw it coming. I’m also playing better after the patch, but only because I finally had to switch to the good build.

Don’t forget that an elementalist made a youtube video with exactly the same premise several months ago, only he talked about how much better he got after switching to thief. No one considers eles underpowered now, so perhaps in time we’ll get there, too.

Sadly, this is me. Only difference, I made the switch a long time ago. I keep coming back, hoping that my heal power engineer will become useful again, but no dice.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Don’t forget that an elementalist made a youtube video with exactly the same premise several months ago, only he talked about how much better he got after switching to thief. No one considers eles underpowered now, so perhaps in time we’ll get there, too.

ANet obviously had a pretty good idea of where they wanted to go with the Ele and took it there relatively quickly, while the Engineer changes have been all over the place and more often than not contradictory.

Sure, they’ll probably get there eventually. I wouldn’t bet a Dime on that happening anytime soon though.

lolololol +1’d

Rolled an Ele shortly after the Doomsday Patch, also…

Engi will be great one day, one day.

Hey the res elixir is pretty great, you can use it to res yourself if you throw it before you go down.

Oh and the turret elemental (air) is not tanky XD

It’s a shame about losing the free superelixir though, it was nice to have a condition removal like the ele one.

Cool story.

Leave the Engy for those of us who hate playing gimmicky, cheese-smothered-static skill-rotation-every-3-minute-burst builds. It really is a class designed around reaction and improvisation, imo. If you need that MASHONETWOSIXFIVEthenOMGEIGHT combo that does 15k damage in just over a second there are clearly plenty of other options..

GG ANET. IMO.

Dodge roll w/ Evasive Arcana + Confusion = Happy engineer.

notanewmethod.8267:

Dodge roll w/ Evasive Arcana + Confusion = Happy engineer.

Dodge roll w/ 5 point minor Explosive trait + confusion = Dead Engineer

emikochan.8504:

Engi will be great one day, one day.

Hey the res elixir is pretty great, you can use it to res yourself if you throw it before you go down.

Oh and the turret elemental (air) is not tanky XD

It’s a shame about losing the free superelixir though, it was nice to have a condition removal like the ele one.

there are 4 elementals you know… and i thought it would be pretty obvious i was talking about the earth elemental… smh

I have both level 80 elementalist and engineer. Everytime I play my D/D elementalist it feels like a faceroll. Elementalist players saying that is difficult to play an elementalist, but really what is difficult about it? It is beyond belief that Arenanet hasn’t nerfed elementalist, because at the moment D/D ele is by far the best build in the game. Lots of condition removal and healing, can keep up boons more or less permanently, high mobility and good damage and amazing escape options with ride the lightning, vapor and mist form.

Kit refinement is a very weak copy of elementalist’s elemental attunement (both adept level traits). Engi KR effects are weaker and last just 2 seconds. Elementalist boons last much longer, are more useful and there is no internal 20 s cooldown.

Almost none of the skill balance updates Anet has made in past 6 months have made sense. The skill updates lack coherence, they appear more or less like small random refinements and then some really strange changes (like the KR rework).

But on the positive note, finally they fixed culling and it is tons better now. I am also happy that they nerfed quickness, which should have been 50% to begin with.

ROFLMAO – didn’t expect that.

blurps.2340:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Don’t forget that an elementalist made a youtube video with exactly the same premise several months ago, only he talked about how much better he got after switching to thief. No one considers eles underpowered now, so perhaps in time we’ll get there, too.

ANet obviously had a pretty good idea of where they wanted to go with the Ele and took it there relatively quickly, while the Engineer changes have been all over the place and more often than not contradictory.

Sure, they’ll probably get there eventually. I wouldn’t bet a Dime on that happening anytime soon though.

I lost faith in Anet long before this. (Lost Shores, WvW, Events bugged for days and days…)

I suspected it was just “growing pains” and wait out a few months as they learn from mistakes and get better.

But they keep biting off more than they can chew. With how everything is going, I just view it has they will always have this as their standard—high intentions, low quality executions.

KR took away the fun for my Engineer, but ultimately is no big deal. I mean, yes, it killed my build, and I don’t want to make a new build. But the rest of the game is still there.

And that’s the problem. The rest of the game is still there. To play my alts, I need to get new laurels and such to gear up again…. it’s just too much stale repetition. The whole time, I’ll be thinking about how I already had a character higher up on the gear treadmill. It would be a psychological thing to be reminded that I’m having to do something all over again, and that distracts from the “fun” that should be had.

Plus, playing an Ele or Guardian just reminds me I’m doing the same thing in a new way (and better way). Only reason I favored the Eng over them was because Guardian lacks range, and Ele swapping attunements is slower (but more powerful) than Eng swapping kits. I took a hit to power in favor of the instant gratification, which was yanked away….

I’m just seeing how this plays out for the first year. If Anet takes that long and still is kinda all over the place with quality content (for every 5 good things, we still have 4 bad), then I’m not going to have patience anymore. That other MMO out there took years to bring up, and then back down, their classes. I’m not going to be a a repeat of that where X and Y are flavors of the year, while A and Z are just going to be weak until the next expansion….

Deniara Devious.3948:

But on the positive note, finally they fixed culling and it is tons better now. I am also happy that they nerfed quickness, which should have been 50% to begin with.

To me…. that’s a negative note since it took that long for anyone on the team to realize it needed to be changed…

That’s a bad sign.

They need to hire a mathematician to help them in data pursing maybe. Programers use math, but don’t need to understand it. It just seems odd, big picture, the mistakes in balance. Something isn’t right, be it not enough employees, or not qualified enough in the right department.

Or, the vast majority of players are suffering due to balancing the extreme top % of sPvP. I know a few top-rated sPvP players and how they complain about WAY different skills/issues than the rest of the playerbase.

But I never paid attention to whether those changes that hit us players, are because of how a small % can min/max the usefulness. I should maybe go back and look lol.

Well Ladies (and Gents) that’s nice but when I find an Ele in WvW on my Pistol and Pots Engi all it means is a long fight before I get to stomp em. To be fair I lose to them about 1 time in 4 so they are pretty strong. (And to be extra fair that’s Small vs Small. They beat the pants off us for zerg support.)

There was more to the Engi before the KR change than KR.

Hsinimod.5784:

Deniara Devious.3948:

But on the positive note, finally they fixed culling and it is tons better now. I am also happy that they nerfed quickness, which should have been 50% to begin with.

To me…. that’s a negative note since it took that long for anyone on the team to realize it needed to be changed…

That’s a bad sign.

They need to hire a mathematician to help them in data pursing maybe. Programers use math, but don’t need to understand it. It just seems odd, big picture, the mistakes in balance. Something isn’t right, be it not enough employees, or not qualified enough in the right department.

Well, that is obvious as well. Coherent skill balancing is way above what Anet developers can do. The weapon damage is pretty okay balanced if you just use a calculator and compare the dps numbers with equal amount of points spent in power etc. BUT if game design would be that easy, they could hire just 1st year math students. In reality game balancing is much more complex issue.

From the very beginning this game has broken many golden rules of game design:
1. Abilities should have equal power/advantage for same amount of points
(e.g. engineer’s adrenal implant needs 30 points, while ranger’s natural vigor requires only 10 points, and yet they have exactly the same effect!)
2. Every powerful game mechanism needs a hard counter or should be made extremely scarce (yet stealth and teleportation have no hard counters: this game has no see invisibility or anti-teleportation skill/trait)
3. Attacks, which do huge damage should be telegraphed and be slower than those doing less damage (yet, backstab does more damage than a slow hammer blow or hit from a ballista or catapult)
4. Ability to avoid damage and get away is generally more valuable than ability do lots of dps
(mesmers and thieves excel in this area: stealth, evade, teleport, elementalists are also good in this)

I get the impression that many of the Anet developers are quite young and the game design they do appears pretty childish and full of beginner mistakes. I am over 40 myself. I teach game design, by the way.

Deniara Devious.3948:

I have both level 80 elementalist and engineer. Everytime I play my D/D elementalist it feels like a faceroll. Elementalist players saying that is difficult to play an elementalist, but really what is difficult about it? It is beyond belief that Arenanet hasn’t nerfed elementalist, because at the moment D/D ele is by far the best build in the game. Lots of condition removal and healing, can keep up boons more or less permanently, high mobility and good damage and amazing escape options with ride the lightning, vapor and mist form.

Different strokes for different folks, as they say. I also have 80 elementalist and engineer (and guardian, mesmer, and ranger), and in my experience even with the KR nerf I find the engineer more survivable and satisfying than the elementalist. Maybe it’s just that I gel better with the engineer style shrug, but while I do think KR was nerfed harder than it deserved, I don’t think it’s the end of the world for the engineer.

Deniara Devious.3948:

2. Every powerful game mechanism needs a hard counter or should be made extremely scarce (yet stealth and teleportation have no hard counters: this game has no see invisibility or anti-teleportation skill/trait)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Life_Transfer or even Flamethrower does the job. But of course if u see the players/mobs and activate the skill in the general area before they are stealthed.

haha i started playing my elementalist finally too. She had been sitting at lvl 3 since launch, because i fell in love with my engineer. The ele is only lvl 17 now and I can’t say i’m quite as excited about her (or GW2 in general, since my engi was really the only reason i kept playing) but maybe fire attunement will help heal the pain. just maybe.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Hsinimod.5784:

Deniara Devious.3948:

But on the positive note, finally they fixed culling and it is tons better now. I am also happy that they nerfed quickness, which should have been 50% to begin with.

To me…. that’s a negative note since it took that long for anyone on the team to realize it needed to be changed…

That’s a bad sign.

They need to hire a mathematician to help them in data pursing maybe. Programers use math, but don’t need to understand it. It just seems odd, big picture, the mistakes in balance. Something isn’t right, be it not enough employees, or not qualified enough in the right department.

Well, that is obvious as well. Coherent skill balancing is way above what Anet developers can do. The weapon damage is pretty okay balanced if you just use a calculator and compare the dps numbers with equal amount of points spent in power etc. BUT if game design would be that easy, they could hire just 1st year math students. In reality game balancing is much more complex issue.

From the very beginning this game has broken many golden rules of game design:
1. Abilities should have equal power/advantage for same amount of points
(e.g. engineer’s adrenal implant needs 30 points, while ranger’s natural vigor requires only 10 points, and yet they have exactly the same effect!)
2. Every powerful game mechanism needs a hard counter or should be made extremely scarce (yet stealth and teleportation have no hard counters: this game has no see invisibility or anti-teleportation skill/trait)
3. Attacks, which do huge damage should be telegraphed and be slower than those doing less damage (yet, backstab does more damage than a slow hammer blow or hit from a ballista or catapult)
4. Ability to avoid damage and get away is generally more valuable than ability do lots of dps
(mesmers and thieves excel in this area: stealth, evade, teleport, elementalists are also good in this)

I get the impression that many of the Anet developers are quite young and the game design they do appears pretty childish and full of beginner mistakes. I am over 40 myself. I teach game design, by the way.

Evidence that the saying: “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, TEACH.” has some bite to it.

Also telling as to why we see so many horrible EQ/WoW clones hit the market and flop.

If all games should follow such a predictable, mindless set of design principles, why do %99 of games fail badly? Because the minds behind them didn’t take your class at ITT??

…..

(Yes, I realize that this has to be a troll…)

Lanny.6987:

Well Ladies (and Gents) that’s nice but when I find an Ele in WvW on my Pistol and Pots Engi all it means is a long fight before I get to stomp em. To be fair I lose to them about 1 time in 4 so they are pretty strong. (And to be extra fair that’s Small vs Small. They beat the pants off us for zerg support.)

There was more to the Engi before the KR change than KR.

The fact that WvW pvp is usually of the lowest quality aside, this guy knows what he’s talking about.

I lick my chops at any and all chances to fight Ele’s on my Engy.

Condition damage destroys Eles.. just keep the poison up.

Hsinimod.5784:

Deniara Devious.3948:

But on the positive note, finally they fixed culling and it is tons better now. I am also happy that they nerfed quickness, which should have been 50% to begin with.

To me…. that’s a negative note since it took that long for anyone on the team to realize it needed to be changed…

That’s a bad sign.

They need to hire a mathematician to help them in data pursing maybe. Programers use math, but don’t need to understand it. It just seems odd, big picture, the mistakes in balance. Something isn’t right, be it not enough employees, or not qualified enough in the right department.

Or, the vast majority of players are suffering due to balancing the extreme top % of sPvP. I know a few top-rated sPvP players and how they complain about WAY different skills/issues than the rest of the playerbase.

But I never paid attention to whether those changes that hit us players, are because of how a small % can min/max the usefulness. I should maybe go back and look lol.

Believe it or not, working on a complex piece of software means wading through a list of backlogged work items hundreds or thousands of items long and trying to prioritize things intelligently (‘intelligence’ in the case of MMO’s says catering to the pvp crowd is not the way to bring in the $$).

The project I work on, we’ve got a thousand items, and only the most critical get implemented in less than a few months. Also, pick a ‘bucket’ and talk to a few users from the affected demographics, and within each you will find individuals that will swear on the souls of their children that THEIR big fix is obviously the most business-critical. Kinda like what we see on this mess of a forum.

pre-patch I was keeping up with elementalists and also kicking them around in wvwvwv as en engineer, like I always said, all you people just didn’t want to put the extra effort into becoming GOOD. Shame on you.

After the nerf to elixir gun though I’m not much of a healer anymore. I’d like to point out though that backpack regenerator gives the same effect as being attuned to water, constant regeneration, and yes, 100% scaling with healing power.

Oxstar.7643:

pre-patch I was keeping up with elementalists and also kicking them around in wvwvwv as en engineer, like I always said, all you people just didn’t want to put the extra effort into becoming GOOD. Shame on you.

After the nerf to elixir gun though I’m not much of a healer anymore. I’d like to point out though that backpack regenerator gives the same effect as being attuned to water, constant regeneration, and yes, 100% scaling with healing power.

um, backpack re generator is a fixed 125 hp per second trait and does not scale with healing power at all. And it isn’t a regen boon.

edit: How do you talk about other engineers not putting in the work to be “good” when you yourself don’t even know how engineer traits work lol.

Ezeriel.9574:

I can do much more damage when attuned to fire.

Jumpshot, blunderbuss, prybar, throw wrench, static discharges. What’cha got? Oh and mega stacks of confusion.

Ezeriel.9574:

When I attune to earth, I give my group protection, weaken, roots, bleeds, reflection. When I attune to air, I can give group swiftness (twice), and a lightning combo field (who else can do that?)

I could give my team and me those buffs and more with elixirs actually… As for the combo field, can you deploy a field that heals removes 3 conditions aoe and acts as a condition remove and retaliation combo field in one?

Ezeriel.9574:

…and get this. Instead of a measly super elixir when switching to elixir gun, when I switch to water, I heal myself, give myself regeneration, give myself regenerate health (it’s like a second regeneration) and I cure a condition!!! All from pressing one button!

Measly eh? I think we’ve established already that EG works great to remove coniditons. And with backpack regenerator it’s the same regen effect.

Ezeriel.9574:

…and check this out, if I dodge roll I heal myself again, and cure another condition!!!

Yeah, and I can drop three healing units one condition remove unit and one fury+swiftness unit from one skill without any traits.

Ezeriel.9574:

And when I cast my #1 water skill, I heal the melee guys for like 3-4 times more than I could do with those healing bombs.. gawd. how lame was that? I can do this from range!

Yes but your damage will suck pretty dang hardcore until the 25 or so seconds that you need to attune back are up.

Ezeriel.9574:

…and I have these things called signets. Every time I cast a spell, one of them heals me! And I don’t even have to deploy it, or worry about range, this thing just goes with me where ever I go. …and I have another one, and every ten seconds, it cures a condition!

Pretty small healing I have to say, with ONE kit I can set up a fire combo field, knockback a horde of foes, blind the same horde, do some great aoe damage, and set more people on fire faster than you can.

Ezeriel.9574:

Ha-hahah… things are just so much better now. I’m like a new man!!!

Yes, a new man who couldn’t do it. Congratulations on trying, congratulations on not being a successful engineer, it’s a hard class to master indeed, and those of us who do kick a lot of butt.

Khal Drogo.9631:

Deniara Devious.3948:

2. Every powerful game mechanism needs a hard counter or should be made extremely scarce (yet stealth and teleportation have no hard counters: this game has no see invisibility or anti-teleportation skill/trait)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Life_Transfer or even Flamethrower does the job. But of course if u see the players/mobs and activate the skill in the general area before they are stealthed.

Every channeled chain attack skill seems to do that, if you manage to activate them before the target was stealthed e.g. warrior’s volley and ranger’s rapid fire do the job as well. But I still would not call them as hard counters.

Punkins.2087:

Evidence that the saying: “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, TEACH.” has some bite to it.

Also telling as to why we see so many horrible EQ/WoW clones hit the market and flop.

If all games should follow such a predictable, mindless set of design principles, why do %99 of games fail badly? Because the minds behind them didn’t take your class at ITT??

I won’t comment the personal attack against me, but it is really silly to blame me or any other individual for all the failed MMORPGs. Game design is difficult. And balancing is among the most difficult things in game design. Anet did many things well in this game (pve is very accessible for beginningers and some races, like the Asura, offer a fresh fun start), but balance is unfortunately not one of those things.

In my home country the game industry is booming, number of jobs and revenue has been more than doubling in just 2 years.

Happy Easter!

PS. Now please stick to the topic. Talk about the engineer and game balance in general.

Punkins.2087:

.

Condition damage destroys Eles.. just keep the poison up.

Wut? You do realize that D/D ele removes conditions better than just about anything short of a guardian, right?

There are some misunderstandings about some of the things that eles are capable of in the post below. I’m no expert, but I’ll attempt to clarify:

Oxstar.7643:

Ezeriel.9574:

…and check this out, if I dodge roll I heal myself again, and cure another condition!!!

Yeah, and I can drop three healing units one condition remove unit and one fury+swiftness unit from one skill without any traits.

The healing units and other stuff require many keystrokes and can easily be missed in the mess of combat, while the ele dodge roll is a single keypress that doesn’t require targetting, and also evades due to the dodge roll.

Oxstar.7643:

Ezeriel.9574:

And when I cast my #1 water skill, I heal the melee guys for like 3-4 times more than I could do with those healing bombs.. gawd. how lame was that? I can do this from range!

Yes but your damage will suck pretty dang hardcore until the 25 or so seconds that you need to attune back are up.

Not really. Attunement cooldown is pretty kitten low, and there are 4 elements each on their own CD. Any ele that just sits in a single attunement instead of constantly swapping is doing it wrong. That’s not the fault of the class. Actual damage comparisons between bombs and various other ele weapons is beyond the scope of the discussion, however.

Oxstar.7643:

Ezeriel.9574:

…and I have these things called signets. Every time I cast a spell, one of them heals me! And I don’t even have to deploy it, or worry about range, this thing just goes with me where ever I go. …and I have another one, and every ten seconds, it cures a condition!

Pretty small healing I have to say, with ONE kit I can set up a fire combo field, knockback a horde of foes, blind the same horde, do some great aoe damage, and set more people on fire faster than you can.

Again, the ele does it automatically, in the course of normal play. Also, despite being individually small heals, the heal procs many many times. Often the ele is getting a ‘cast’ several times per second due to the nature of the timing on some abilities and passive trait combos.

The rest of your comparison was apples to oranges. I’m not sure what your point was there…..

Oxstar.7643:

Ezeriel.9574:

Ha-hahah… things are just so much better now. I’m like a new man!!!

Yes, a new man who couldn’t do it. Congratulations on trying, congratulations on not being a successful engineer, it’s a hard class to master indeed, and those of us who do kick a lot of butt.

The same can easily be said of any class. I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss a player simply because he left a class he was bad at for a class that ended up working much better for him.

Both engi and ele are extremely versitile classes. Ele has attunements for various situations, and provides many useful buffs to themselves and their group. Engi has kits for various situations, and provides many useful buffs to themselves and their group. The ele is a bit more effective in a more focused scope, while the engi definitely has the edge in versatility.

I doubt anyone could make an effective argument for either class being better than the other outside of extremely limited situations that favor one or the other.

I wish they would nerf eles already. I’m tempted to make one but I need to buy another character slot. =(

Oxstar.7643:

Jumpshot, blunderbuss, prybar, throw wrench, static discharges. What’cha got? Oh and mega stacks of confusion.

Reliable accesss to the deadliest condition in the game. Blunderbuss is laughably bad with it’s condition damage. (short dur. 3 stacks, you may as well keep auto attacking) I’m not sure what ‘throw wrench’ has to offer aside from the low CD SD burst and ability to hit everything in it’s path. (Scepter air) Unless you happen to use turrets or something.

Oxstar.7643:

I could give my team and me those buffs and more with elixirs actually… As for the combo field, can you deploy a field that heals removes 3 conditions aoe and acts as a condition remove and retaliation combo field in one?

Nah. Not at all. Instead I can quadruple aoe condition remove (traited water attunement, cleansing wave, 2x traited cleansing wave dodges). Or, I can choose to lay down a nice water field to team up with a blast finisher partner for some nice bursts to healing. (Not that Ele’s are completely lacking in blasts) It’s much easier to condition cleanse people at point blank than trying to hit with an elixir and hoping they’re near you as well if you need it.

Oxstar.7643:

Measly eh? I think we’ve established already that EG works great to remove coniditons. And with backpack regenerator it’s the same regen effect.

I will bow to the EG’s cone condition removal spray. It essentially equals brief condition immunity only for your party in range. Soothing Mist is applied to nearby players as a second regeneration, versus Kit Regeneration only affecting you.

I might add, I find it amusing that Engineer must now either trait into Cleansing Formula 409 or have Elixir C take up a precious utility slot now, to consistently remove conditions, whereas a class intended to be weak to conditions has better access to condition removals. (Warrior)

Oxstar.7643:

Yes but your damage will suck pretty dang hardcore until the 25 or so seconds that you need to attune back are up.

Twent.. fi- what? Attunement is 15 seconds maximum. Can get it down to 9 seconds. While in water, you have access to some of the best healing abilities in the game, and can often help stack vulnerability and more importantly, chill. I might add, any damage with 25 might stacks hurts like hell.

Twent.. fi- what? Attunement is 15 seconds maximum. Can get it down to 9 seconds. While in water, you have access to some of the best healing abilities in the game, and can often help stack vulnerability and more importantly, chill. I might add, any damage with 25 might stacks hurts like hell.

Pretty small healing I have to say, with ONE kit I can set up a fire combo field, knockback a horde of foes, blind the same horde, do some great aoe damage, and set more people on fire faster than you can.

Ele has access to three fire fields, one of which has an incredibly long duration. People underestimate our ability to set single targets on fire for large amounts of time.

Oxstar.7643:

Yes, a new man who couldn’t do it. Congratulations on trying, congratulations on not being a successful engineer, it’s a hard class to master indeed, and those of us who do kick a lot of butt.

You wanna promote engineer, promote the things the class can uniquely do well. (Knockbacks, bunker, stealth access) Oh, and can’t forget, one of the best downed skills in the game. /sarcasm. When I go down as engineer, I instinctively look for the nearest waypoint. Granted, I didn’t go down often as engineer.

Eliteseraph.4970:

Punkins.2087:

.

Condition damage destroys Eles.. just keep the poison up.

Wut? You do realize that D/D ele removes conditions better than just about anything short of a guardian, …..

Wut? You do realize that the reason their clenses pwn is that everyone and their mother stacks duration …

And that ele toughness and healing renders direct damage ineffective…

And that ele “burst defense” renders burst damage ineffective..

If you like log on to your ele tonight and lets duel. I’d be happy to substantiate what I’m saying.

Ah, I see what you meant: stacking condition damage instead of duration on your gear is the most effective way of fighting elems. I interpreted your post to mean that damage from conditions ‘destroys’ them in general. Which didn’t make sense given how much condition remove elems have.

Also, very likely you would wreck me in a duel. I generally play in a guild group in WvW. I’m of the mind that WvW is not about 1v1 fights, and build accordingly. My tactics for a 1v1 fight include running, or more often baiting them back to my group and destroying them.

I’m still a little skeptical, but not unconvinced. Can you elaborate on the strategy a little more? I know that engis can apply quite a lot of different conditions in various ways. “Just keep the poison up” seems a little vague. How would you go about it? I’m genuinely interested.

Eliteseraph.4970:

Ah, I see what you meant: stacking condition damage instead of duration on your gear is the most effective way of fighting elems. I interpreted your post to mean that damage from conditions ‘destroys’ them in general. Which didn’t make sense given how much condition remove elems have.

Also, very likely you would wreck me in a duel. I generally play in a guild group in WvW. I’m of the mind that WvW is not about 1v1 fights, and build accordingly. My tactics for a 1v1 fight include running, or more often baiting them back to my group and destroying them.

I’m still a little skeptical, but not unconvinced. Can you elaborate on the strategy a little more? I know that engis can apply quite a lot of different conditions in various ways. “Just keep the poison up” seems a little vague. How would you go about it? I’m genuinely interested.

See, now: you respond like an intelligent adult on this forum and I’m completely taken aback, and don’t know how to respond.. :P

I’m not a big theorycrafter, but play a condition damage (HGH/pistols/Flamethrower/Rabid) focused engy, and find Eles/Guardians/bunker-y classes in general to be the least of my worries.

I’ve found that ‘juking’ Ele’s into burning their cleanses with my smaller conditions, then applying the big ones, along with syncing my 10-second refresh poison with their inevitable heal cycle is extremely effective.

Signet of water is nullified by my big ticks.. you might wipe out ticks altogether, but the ones that hit in the 10 second window hurt.

Again, I’m no god.. just fight people every chance I can and report what I find.

Some really nasty elementalist will respond to my challenge and pwn me.. has happened before. I do believe that in general it’s a good approach to fighting t he class…

I guess I’m just wondering how you’re going to keep up conditions when faced with the DaPhoenix D/D elem build which is so popular these days. Condition removal in so many forms.

When attuning to water(10 second cooldown)
When dodge rolling in water attunement(10 second cooldown)
Skill 5 when in water(40second cooldown)
Whenever the elem gains regen, which means….
Whenever the elem uses a cantrip(mistform/lightning flash 45 and 75 second cooldown respectively)
A second condition when attuning to water.

Which doesn’t even take into consideration the actual heal skill the elem chooses, which if it’s ether renewal is another several conditions, and is only a 15 second cooldown.

If the elem plays even halfway smart and uses escape manouvers to stay away from you or block LoS til cooldowns reset, a majority of your condition damage is going to be mitigated.

Which is not to say that you won’t hurt the elem. But at the same time the elem is mitigating your condition damage, he’s also hitting you right back.

Halcyon.7352:

Nah. Not at all. Instead I can quadruple aoe condition remove (traited water attunement, cleansing wave, 2x traited cleansing wave dodges). Or, I can choose to lay down a nice water field to team up with a blast finisher partner for some nice bursts to healing. (Not that Ele’s are completely lacking in blasts) It’s much easier to condition cleanse people at point blank than trying to hit with an elixir and hoping they’re near you as well if you need it.

Actually, if you don’t count the repetition of turret detonation and standards, elementalists have the widest range of blast finishers – it’s just that apart from Arcane Wave and might stacking with fire sceptre, the devs deliberately made it difficult to self-combo with an elementalist.

draxynnic.3719:

Halcyon.7352:

Nah. Not at all. Instead I can quadruple aoe condition remove (traited water attunement, cleansing wave, 2x traited cleansing wave dodges). Or, I can choose to lay down a nice water field to team up with a blast finisher partner for some nice bursts to healing. (Not that Ele’s are completely lacking in blasts) It’s much easier to condition cleanse people at point blank than trying to hit with an elixir and hoping they’re near you as well if you need it.

Actually, if you don’t count the repetition of turret detonation and standards, elementalists have the widest range of blast finishers – it’s just that apart from Arcane Wave and might stacking with fire sceptre, the devs deliberately made it difficult to self-combo with an elementalist.

Yep! And I just learned that you can use ‘targeted’ abilities on things such as unlooted corpses. Allows me to plop down dragon’s tooth blasts without having to worry about a target moving around all over the place.

What I more meant though, was another player/party member having an unused array of finishers, ala thief shortbow for Area Healing spam.

U made me sad, but its true

Deniara Devious.3948:

Hsinimod.5784:

Deniara Devious.3948:

But on the positive note, finally they fixed culling and it is tons better now. I am also happy that they nerfed quickness, which should have been 50% to begin with.

To me…. that’s a negative note since it took that long for anyone on the team to realize it needed to be changed…

That’s a bad sign.

They need to hire a mathematician to help them in data pursing maybe. Programers use math, but don’t need to understand it. It just seems odd, big picture, the mistakes in balance. Something isn’t right, be it not enough employees, or not qualified enough in the right department.

Well, that is obvious as well. Coherent skill balancing is way above what Anet developers can do. The weapon damage is pretty okay balanced if you just use a calculator and compare the dps numbers with equal amount of points spent in power etc. BUT if game design would be that easy, they could hire just 1st year math students. In reality game balancing is much more complex issue.

From the very beginning this game has broken many golden rules of game design:
1. Abilities should have equal power/advantage for same amount of points
(e.g. engineer’s adrenal implant needs 30 points, while ranger’s natural vigor requires only 10 points, and yet they have exactly the same effect!)
2. Every powerful game mechanism needs a hard counter or should be made extremely scarce (yet stealth and teleportation have no hard counters: this game has no see invisibility or anti-teleportation skill/trait)
3. Attacks, which do huge damage should be telegraphed and be slower than those doing less damage (yet, backstab does more damage than a slow hammer blow or hit from a ballista or catapult)
4. Ability to avoid damage and get away is generally more valuable than ability do lots of dps
(mesmers and thieves excel in this area: stealth, evade, teleport, elementalists are also good in this)

I get the impression that many of the Anet developers are quite young and the game design they do appears pretty childish and full of beginner mistakes. I am over 40 myself. I teach game design, by the way.

You guys act like its so easy to balance an MMO

Guess what it’s not I don’t think I’ve seen any MMO perfect the balance of their classes. Takes a long time to perfect it. This game hasn’t been out that long.

“Human-kind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost.” – first rule of alchemy

Oxstar.7643:

Ezeriel.9574:

I can do much more damage when attuned to fire.

Jumpshot, blunderbuss, prybar, throw wrench, static discharges. What’cha got? Oh and mega stacks of confusion.

Ezeriel.9574:

When I attune to earth, I give my group protection, weaken, roots, bleeds, reflection. When I attune to air, I can give group swiftness (twice), and a lightning combo field (who else can do that?)

I could give my team and me those buffs and more with elixirs actually… As for the combo field, can you deploy a field that heals removes 3 conditions aoe and acts as a condition remove and retaliation combo field in one?

Ezeriel.9574:

…and get this. Instead of a measly super elixir when switching to elixir gun, when I switch to water, I heal myself, give myself regeneration, give myself regenerate health (it’s like a second regeneration) and I cure a condition!!! All from pressing one button!

Measly eh? I think we’ve established already that EG works great to remove coniditons. And with backpack regenerator it’s the same regen effect.

Ezeriel.9574:

…and check this out, if I dodge roll I heal myself again, and cure another condition!!!

Yeah, and I can drop three healing units one condition remove unit and one fury+swiftness unit from one skill without any traits.

Ezeriel.9574:

And when I cast my #1 water skill, I heal the melee guys for like 3-4 times more than I could do with those healing bombs.. gawd. how lame was that? I can do this from range!

Yes but your damage will suck pretty dang hardcore until the 25 or so seconds that you need to attune back are up.

Ezeriel.9574:

…and I have these things called signets. Every time I cast a spell, one of them heals me! And I don’t even have to deploy it, or worry about range, this thing just goes with me where ever I go. …and I have another one, and every ten seconds, it cures a condition!

Pretty small healing I have to say, with ONE kit I can set up a fire combo field, knockback a horde of foes, blind the same horde, do some great aoe damage, and set more people on fire faster than you can.

Ezeriel.9574:

Ha-hahah… things are just so much better now. I’m like a new man!!!

Yes, a new man who couldn’t do it. Congratulations on trying, congratulations on not being a successful engineer, it’s a hard class to master indeed, and those of us who do kick a lot of butt.

This guy has clearly never played a d/d ele lol