Guild Wars 2

In my opinion, this was the only thing that bothered me about the megaservers. In a PvE point of view— the megaservers are great. When you’re playing a mass multiplayer online role playing game, the more, the merrier. But things are a little awkward when you also have servers pitted against servers, and obviously those of us who are fans of WvW have a huge amount of server pride.

I’d say the best solution to this problem would be a server wide chat. Sort of like a map chat but on a server wide level. And yes, it would probably get turned off by some, making a call to arms arguably inefficient. A server wide chat would be useful for other things too, and I think it would be used by others… so heck, why not add that anyways.

The other thing that would be cool to have, is a “call to arms” option for commanders to alert their server that they need assistance in a particular borderland or EB. To prevent abuse of such an option, it could be a generic message like “Defensive Call to Arms in Home Borderland” etc. It would also be really useful to have so we didn’t have to send messengers hoping around to each borderland to send word— we would be given the ability to coordinate our server to where we needed them, when we needed them.

Blinding Ashes does seem like an interesting trait to me, and I’ve been wanting to experiment with the trait, haven’t gotten to yet. And I use Vampire Runes a lot too when I’m experimenting with builds xD I just kinda wish the “turn into the mists” counted as actual Mist Form to receive Cantrip bonuses from traits…

Anyways— A couple suggestions if I may. Since you’re running a signet build, and we’re all about lighting people on fire, I’d swap out Signet of Air for Signet of Fire, for two reasons— One, you’re technically not losing the blind-on-demand of the Signet of Air, and two, you’re only at 8% crit chance, which other than the Sigil’s effect, you’re not going to see crits that often, I assume. And yea, that’s a loss of 25% running… but honestly, it’s not going to give you as much of an advantage in the heat of battle as the Signet of Fire will.
Secondly, I’d trade out Burning Fire for Fire’s Embrace. I am a huge fan of Cantrips, and Cleansing Fire does synergize nicely with this build since it burns, but since we’re running a signet build and fighting at close quarters, getting 3 seconds of Fire Shield every time we use a Signet is a pretty awesome deal, since it gives might and burns our foe when we get hit.
Also, its more of a personal preference, but I would prefer Soothing Wave if you stayed with keeping some points in the water trait, since that would give an extra bit of heals, and its only losing 8 seconds off of Cleansing Fire. If survival is still an issue, you could also drop Elemental Shielding, allowing for a 3 second Protection buff on demand, rather than Earth’s Embrace on the random moment of hitting 50%…. and with two Auras on weapons and three Auras from Signets, that’s 15 seconds of Protection…. Not bad. Maybe even add Signet Mastery… of course, that would put a 10% dip in your damage.
Lastly, while like I said, I’m a fan of the Vamp Runes, and cheap is nice, if you decide to invest further into this build, obviously the Rune of Fire or Rune of Flame Legion would synergize nicely with this build.

Anyways, just a couple of thoughts~ Happy Building~

What was your build before?

D/d is really fun and fast paced—which is a huge change for the normal “spellcaster” kind of build. It all really depends on your style and how you like to play—in reality you can do whatever you want, and as long as you build your traits right and play to your strengths, you’ll do great.

Personally, I swap out a lot depending on what I’m doing for versatility. I use Staff whenever I’m running with a large group of 5 or more and want to be able to really affect the overall tide of the battle, and be the Queen of combo fields. I don’t think any other profession can outclass Eles there. It’s still my favorite weapon by far, and can do so much. The only downside is it’s possibly the slowest weapon style in the game, which is a big disadvantage in dueling and fighting small numbers where you’ll get singled out fast and can be quickly thrown into the defensive right away.

Daggers are awesome for duels as they’re so fast that I’d say only thieves with their initiative can really outdo the relentless onslaught a D/d ele can produce, and even then, thieves still have to use cloaking or other techniques to take a break and let their initiative restore before they can keep going, whereas we could basically keep the pressure up indefinitely, as long as you’re not put onto the defensive.

Scepters and Focuses are both more of a middle ground to me, kind of a best of both worlds. Focuses have a bit of that Staff feel of being able to control the battle, and Scepters have some range to them but not so slow that range becomes something you’ll really have to depend on… which ends up making both weapons much more versatile, but not with the range or large aoes of a Staff and not with the ridiculously fast playstyle of daggers. Not to make either sound like a “Jack of all trades & Master of none” because really, versatility is one of our biggest assets. A warrior comes running at you with a sword, or a thief comes running at you with a pair of daggers, and you have a rough idea of what they’re going to do and what their basic gameplan is… what their favorable positions are, where they want to be, and where they want me. But as I come running towards them with a scepter and focus (or any combination of our one handed weapons) and their first mistake they can make is thinking they know my next move.

In any case, just buy a cheap set of each and try it all out, and you’ll figure out what you prefer.

Also, I have to agree that the Arcana line tends to be a bit of a letdown… Compared to Fresh Air builds, there’s really no need for the couple of seconds that the Arcana line saves. It’s fun to use—but personally I think most situations can benefit more from investing your preciously few points elsewhere. (Yes they’re precious— I wish I could have all the traits!).

Having the same issue, started in the Grove as well when i relogged. now i cant talk in any map.