Guild Wars 2

Was it 8v8 not 10v10? lol but either way, that’s just disappointing to hear. It was always fun to me having large fights in the middle of Foefire, Temple, and Nifhel maps. I mean, is 5v5 in one spot “zerging”? Because some players always split from the “zerg” to actually get objectives, and the group will break up to defend or invade another spot. Even if all 8 clash and I don’t enjoy it atm, I head off to get another objective. Was still a team game, not a deathmatch.

Speaking as a staff ele who likes to switch builds a lot and go zerkers for funsies, now I’m forced to deal with 1v1 and skirmishes instead of relying on and supporting a group. I did a few matches earlier, and the maps seem too large now. I was a much more visible and vulnerable target, so I had to build more tanky by default. Plus when someone leaves or it’s not filled on the next round, it’s suddenly much more lopsided as 4v5.

Haven’t played for a year+ but is nobody playing 10v10 spvp (or was it 8v8) anymore? I only see 5v5 rooms and looks like Anet is focusing on 5v5 tournies. 10v10 was my favorite thing to do to just relax and dik around, where nobody bats an eye if you did terrible. Got excited by the new trait system but now I have no inclination on doing 5v5 as it has more of a ranked/competitive atmosphere and just becomes more stressful to do well individually. I dislike WvW as well. If I wanted to do serious 5v5 I’d play LoL…

I’m just returning to GW2 after playing regularly around a year ago, and looking to return casually and join an active guild (hopefully, with a good crowd early AM after my night shift). Expectedly, my old guild either isn’t around anymore or removed me for inactivity since then, and I forgot its name. If you have room, I’d love to check out your guild – my ingame name is Taera Locke.

Thanks all. I’ll be treading through prior patch notes when I have some time, but these help a lot.

Last I played was shortly after Fractals was introduced. I never grinded those for the fractal legendaries, but are my other then-legendaries now worthless or sub-par? Are we still farming fractals or other dungeons for gear? I read some time ago of some new stat being added? What’s everybody doing currently – some new Living Story or other content? Any permanent changes to the world since fractals? Any other things I should know about?

If mesmers were really that hot irl..

FWIW, of all my time in hotjoins the only classes that really smash me 1v1 are condition necros with Signet of Spite, good Mesmers with greatsword, good thieves, and rangers that kite. Anything else I can put up a fight and if I end up losing I can usually just run away and heal up.

Remember staff is a support weapon, and you’ll have issues finishing/killing anyone even as full zerker (hell, you risk getting downed if you try stomping since you’re so squishy in all zerker gear). So you do best by staying in a group. You can really screw up an opponent by way of CC’s and fields, and don’t underestimate how frightening it is to nubs to lay down all your AOE’s lol.

I’d drop 10 points from Earth for Evasive Arcana, or keep 20 in earth and get Rock Solid. Forget about condition damage with staff.
My “balanced” build is http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWnEE1cYwBWGQlYAgowFTCKIwgyjdmxGA-TkAAyCsIQShkDJDSSksIN+A

Saporian.7193:

Just stating the facts. I see that the community is still hostile and as fragile as glass.

Speak for yourself? Your “facts” are merely opinion as I don’t recall the game being anywhere near “dead” or brainless as you call it. And you ignored the helpful post above the one you responded to. So you come here badmouthing the game including the community you’re posting to? Really, what do you expect?

You have twice the # of weapon skills with higher cd’s so you’ll have to better judge when they’re off cd when you switch back to the attunement. On top of that you have 4 attunements, or “weapon sets” each with cd’s just like with weapon swapping.

Then you’ll need to chain off different skills in different attunements for max affect, keeping cd’s in mind (you shouldn’t be spamming all 5 skills in each attunement every time). Sure, there are rotations for burst damage and stuff, but what you do inbetween those is what is difficult.

On top of all this, you have one of the lowest hp/armor classes with the only class mechanic that LIMITS you.

I haven’t touched pve and dungeons in over half a year, and only dabbled in wvw a few times, but I’ve read a couple posts saying how pve is all about maximizing damage. What about “balanced builds” like 20/0/0/20/30 with staff? Is pve really turning into these speed runs with ppl running min-max builds without a second’s pause? Would I be better off with zerker or soldiers gear, or clerics for healing/support? I’d like one gear set to work for both dungeons and wvw.

Is tpvp that much worse than hotjoin? I like to play however I feel like on my ele and avoid the boring ‘full bunker’ or dps so I stick with hotjoins, but I’ve only seen 1 or 2 people who were annoying there.

I imagine tournaments will have competitive players who want to win so expect some trashtalk if you’re new. Also, sometimes ppl are just being sarcastic and difficult to read in chat so don’t take everything too seriously. Really, I’d say assume each person’s being sarcastic, and if they say something bad a 2nd time then you can er on them being block-worthy. The one who said “then you are useless” is one example. I’ve seen some in hotjoins who initially sounded like tools like that but turns out they’re just diking around and having fun from subsequent lighthearted chats. Hence my personal 2-3 strike rule.

Look forward to the new vid. Still can’t bring myself to lose Blasting Staff. Would like to see how you handle guardians – their blocks seem to block everything when I go zerker and they just burn me down fast, especially with sword then GS.

Upon death, any ele will auto-balance to the other team to counter-act the lop-sideness he’s caused. Even if over 8 players. This is to prevent any team with more ele’s from being stacked.

style.6173:

… highest sustained burst in the game … virtually unkillable

BAHHAHAHA you have no friggin clue… About the unkillable part, any other class can be just as unkillable if you also account for escape-ability, including thieves.

Liza.2758:

Biomanz.9302:

Times when it’s just annoying and not fun for me:

Match starts with uneven teams.
Necros autoattacking in Lich Form for 3.5k+
Eng’s CC’ing your kitten in a node, or spamming nades
3 or more of either mesmers/mm necros/spirit rangers on one team

Don’t tell me there are counters – there might be. But going against those just ruins the fun for me.

Sound like you should try “pvp” in wvw instead ?

all those 3 are not that good except Mesmer which you can run away from them easily.

Again, annoying, not about able to counter/play around it.
Don’t like to run around so much in wvw.

Dragon’s Tooth can hurt like hell and is AOE so it can’t be instant. I’m guessing not being ground target-able was purposefully done. Anyone who sees it over their head will dodge, so you can actually use it defensively to get someoen to back away.

Times when it’s just annoying and not fun for me:

Match starts with uneven teams.
Necros autoattacking in Lich Form for 3.5k+
Eng’s CC’ing your kitten in a node, or spamming nades
3 or more of either mesmers/mm necros/spirit rangers on one team

Don’t tell me there are counters – there might be. But going against those just ruins the fun for me.

I tried zerker/tanky builds with staff with 10-20 pts in arcane and always go back to 30… For a balanced/bunker build Evasive Arcana is simply too versatile for me – a decent burn, heal/cleanse, and cripple/blast finisher on-demand is orgasmic. Although I do run 20/0/0/20/30 with Burning Fire which is somewhat useful.

Crujiente.8612:

SO many people didn’t get the joke.

Ele’s are NOT a joke.

Arcturus.8109:

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Guys, if you will joke so much A-net with it legendary balance awareness may decide to nerf ele for real. I don’t know if its possible, however.

ANet is atually afraid to nerf ele for fear of retribution by fire.

Last “balance” patch actually broke some ele’s builds, and the ele forum has been theorycrafting alternative builds that Anet hopes for us to do. So more people have been testing other builds, and recently there were some threads of staff builds. Consider this our desperation at finding a new meta build that actually works.

Anet had to buff Healing Signet and Necro’s to counter us Ele’s.

It is still not enough…

Stand The Wall.6987:

Out of all the other class forums, this one seems to be teh best in terms of positive attitude and general shennaniganry.

Heh. LET’S CHANGE THAT

-A fellow Elementalist

Far from a great idea. All they need are a few healing/damage adjustments and once they are implemented, your idea will break warriors on nodes. Plus this doesn’t change anything on fights outside a node.

For pvp don’t even think about it. You’ll be a liability in teams and be frustrated sticking to 1 or 2 attunements.

Why not staff/scepter? Why so prejudiced?

2 Asura Necro’s with minions + 2 spirit rangers. Good kitten luck targetting the asuras rolling around.

Cleansing Wave + Cleansing Water is OP, should move Wave to Grandmaster trait.

Monkeymonger.9235:

I do agree that some condition applying attacks need more counterplay and that passive procs are a bad idea,

That’s what I was trying to pinpoint but guess my wording wasn’t clear. I’m not complaining about the damage but the hard-to-counter applications of conditions.

When I get doused with conditions that my hp nearly goes empty in 10 sec with very little input from the necro and little I can do about it to stop it, I consider that somewhat bursty, yes.

Funny I haven’t seen any input from a dev regarding this issue that suggests they somehow don’t take these discussions seriously. Don’t trivialize these discussions by guessing devs or players don’t take these seriously especially when conditions are a hot topic these days.

Lopez.7369:

Right. That’s why the conditions applied by Signet of Spite should be halved in duration in PvP. I’m only disputing someone’s claim that it’s possible to burst with it.

Condition builds would be literally ruined by a selective cleansing system or even a system that prioritized the most recently applied condition. Either option means bleed stacks would go first every single time.

I meant “burst” to mean I was downed or near dead in about 10 sec after I was spited and unloaded with all the conditions which is an extremely short duration. The 6 conditions on top of whatever I had serve as good protection against cleansing the really damaging bleeds + poison/chill that really cripples any recovery. Tack on a fear and you’re pretty much screwed. All the while he’s continuing stacking conditions on you..

Reducing the power of auto attacks is tricky considering some classes rely on them for damage like the ranger whose abilities are probably centered more on utility than damage. I think Power skills are fine for the most part. It’s the condition spamming with little to no counter-play that’s more of a problem.

As for a counter on crit, I’d disagree on adding it. Not only will it add clutter to the field to watch for a counter on top of attacks and signets/aoe etc, but it won’t actually do anything. If on the 3rd crit a condition is added, then it’s gonna happen on the 3rd crit either way – you’re not going to dodge to avoid that little condition, and even if you do, the 3rd crit is coming your way soon.

Adjusting condition damage, cast/animation times, and traits are much more important imo.

Poplolita.2638:

Biomanz.9302:

I met some staff necro who just bursted me down with conditions yesterday with Signet of Spite. That’s right – BURSTED. To a semi-bunker 30/30 water/arcane spec staff ele with close to 20k hp, dead or almost dead at 10 sec. The initial water +healing rain cleanse/heals didn’t do much and he just reapplied conditions afterwards and the neverending freeze prevented me from going to water again. So I was crawling watching my hp go down insanely quick.

This happened multiple times and I was forced to flee after the few seconds it took to spam me with conditions. Sure if I pay close attention to that 1/2 second cast window I can dodge Signet of Spite but I have a hard time identifying the dam icon in the first place too. Not to mention the other aoe’s applications are barely avoidable.

He doesn’t even need the signet. We 1v1’ed and he walked into all my CC’s like a nitwit running into my node while pretty much all my aoe’s landed. All while he spammed conditions on the go. And it was still an even match. Hell, he didn’t even go into Death Shroud. I pity any other foo who goes against him and if the necro actually tried.

Admittedly, he sucked in groups and he drops at the ball of a hat and I just had to flee for like 10 sec after he doused me with conditions but that’s just that. 2-4 sec of him casting took me out of the battle while he could continue working at other’s. Reminds me of WoW when necros just pewpew’ed DoT’s and kited watching them bleed to certain death.

You meant affliction warlock? Yeah, I remember that too. Dot dot and watch them die pretty much come from aff lock. They were so kitten strong at doing it for 11 seasons straight!, that we had to wait until mist of pandaria to finally nerf dot changing dispel mechanic. That’s pretty much what is happening with necro right now. Anet are not nerfing necro, but buffing the mechanic of other class.

Yep, and I was a mage which made it 2x more frustrating. God forbid ANet introduces an anti-cleanse mechanic warlocks had like dealing XXX damage on condition removal lol. Or a resilience-like stat to reduce critical and condition damage which I’m actually worried about since this is similar to what happened in WoW with the power-creeping.

I met some staff necro who just bursted me down with conditions yesterday with Signet of Spite. That’s right – BURSTED. To a semi-bunker 30/30 water/arcane spec staff ele with close to 20k hp, dead or almost dead at 10 sec. The initial water +healing rain cleanse/heals didn’t do much and he just reapplied conditions afterwards and the neverending freeze prevented me from going to water again. So I was crawling watching my hp go down insanely quick.

This happened multiple times and I was forced to flee after the few seconds it took to spam me with conditions. Sure if I pay close attention to that 1/2 second cast window I can dodge Signet of Spite but I have a hard time identifying the dam icon in the first place too. Not to mention the other aoe’s applications are barely avoidable.

He doesn’t even need the signet. We 1v1’ed and he walked into all my CC’s like a nitwit running into my node while pretty much all my aoe’s landed. All while he spammed conditions on the go. And it was still an even match. Hell, he didn’t even go into Death Shroud. I pity any other foo who goes against him and if the necro actually tried.

Admittedly, he sucked in groups and he drops at the ball of a hat and I just had to flee for like 10 sec after he doused me with conditions but that’s just that. 2-4 sec of him casting took me out of the battle while he could continue working at other’s. Reminds me of WoW when necros just pewpew’ed DoT’s and kited watching them bleed to certain death.

Durzlla.6295:

They’re strong, and there’s certainly a noticeable difference between utilizing them and not, also idk why you’d lead off with might, that won’t help much at the start of the match, swiftness however will.

I still apply swiftness. The might lasts for 20 sec, enough time in some maps for ppl to engage.

Do other teammates even care to take advantage of your fields? Me as an ele, in hotjoins at least, I always start with 4 stacks of might out the gate. But hardly anyone steps into the field or blasts it. Seems like all these finishers just happen randomly. Also consider ele’s with staff provide arguably the most usable fields and can blast them by himself, yet aren’t viable in higher-tier tournaments.

I suggest buffing blast finishers for Retaliation, Chaos and Frost Armor to 5 sec.
I’m not sure of the others but Whirl and Projectile finishers don’t seem to do all that much.

Only a zerker ele will dish out those numbers and anyone, and I mean anyone even a bunker will chase or kill him. I played as one in hotjoins and even there a thief or someone else will quickly ID me and give me a new @$$hole. And don’t say cantrips cuz they’re virtually useless and only prolong a certain death except MAYBE lightning flash.

cheese.4739:

Biomanz.9302:

If your water roll EA is on cooldown and need another heal, can still switch to Earth and roll within a geyser for a water blast while staying inside it. Of course, will need blasting staff.

Actually, a dodge from one edge of an untraited Geyser’s field (along its diameter) will stay within it. Dodges are 300 units* and the diameter of Geyser is 360 units.
I’ve not been running blasting staff in a while, mostly so I can play with the Arcane blasts Brilliance and Wave on shorter cooldowns – enjoying it so far!

*this is what wiki says, and I just tested to make sure – it’s definitely completely possible to dodge within a Geyser field and get the full benefit of its own heals, without blasting staff.

Slightly related: you can Burning Retreat from one edge of the Graveyard capture point in Foefire, and still stay within the point – just make sure you’re facing outwards, perpendicular to the tangent of the circle. Great distance from a foe, and you can get off a couple of CC skills or a heal before they close the gap.

Ah, probably remembered wrong then. I’ve gotten addicted to Blasting Staff

If your water roll EA is on cooldown and need another heal, can still switch to Earth and roll within a geyser for a water blast while staying inside it. Of course, will need blasting staff.

Yea I’ve seen some staffers burning retreat to chase some people but I usually reserve it for defense since it seems much more valuable that way. But I sometimes use it both defensive and offensive as I’m running from someone and they’re literally just running through the fire then Earth 2, 4 to stop them, then Fire 2 →go to town on him. Over half the time they run away and I end up chasing lol.

Immobilized and can’t get away? Burning retreat or with axe will save you most of the burst. Also don’t forget Air 4 to escape cripple and chilled too. Can potentially save your teammates around you as well. I’ve never seen a staffer use these defenses which is kinda puzzling.

It’s working properly…just do it at melee range or when someone’s running straight at you.

Feels lonely…Why so serious?

Really, it used to be ppl just diking around and taking lighthearted jabs at others. Now it’s only the occasional whine and l2p nub nonsense. I was afk in windowed mode and checked back in 5 hours and only a few lines of /m chat. I have a feeling ‘serious’ tpvp’ers are switching to hotjoins..

Air 1 just needs projectile speed to be 50% faster (same with Earth 1) and its damage boosted a little. Air 2 also should do a little more damage OR have a shorter cast and that’s it. Don’t discount it’s small AOE damage and blind. Air 3 you have to be at melee range but in PVE where mobs are standing still or coming straight at you, aiming shouldn’t be a problem.

Air 4 and 5 is where it shines.

Next: Dodging recovers HP.

Instead of Earthquake, Wind up Deep Freeze, Lightning Flash to his face.

Ele’s burst skills are hilariously obvious. Scepter is usually a huge Dragon’s Tooth above your head followed by Pheonix -> Air Attunement + Electric Discharge -> Ride the Lightning -> Arcane Wave/Blast. All that within 0.5 sec but guess what, 1 dodge and all that’s bye-bye.

Dagger is similar except instead of Dragon’s Tooth it’s Burning Speed with a Flame Burst to follow shortly. Again, dodge the burning speed = no burst.

Don’t get me started the number of times Mesmers instagibbed me when I’m in zerkers and the amount of tricks they have…

Games have actually been improving quite a bit for me. Much less stacked teams and always ending with a decent fight, like 300-500 and up. With people actually ditching nodes to leave just 1 guy there and playing for caps, calling out zergs, bunkering, etc.

When it does get stacked, just go to another game, switch teams, or just spectate and join again after the match. I find spectating to be a bit hilarious sometimes.

Umm it’s the same across MMO’s like WoW. People come to kill kittens, experiment with builds, or just go kitten all for a game or 2. You want teamwork, do tpvp.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWnEE1ZY6B+GQlgAhUIDDPCAEoAGF6giCc4GA-TcAg0EipEzJmRMpYWxA

Cast Eruption on unsuspecting foe from high ground.
Drop on him for Earthquake. Stand in melee range.
Ice Bow -> Deep Freeze -> Ice Storm -> Shockwave -> Lava Font -> Flame Burst -> Signet of Earth and grow more power with Fire Shield -> Arcane Brilliance for might -> Arcane Shield + Meteor

If still alive, pop Tornado.

Haven’t tried it yet. Don’t hate myself that much.

It’s great for pve. Just don’t be surprised you won’t do as well in pvp