Guild Wars 2

I think the main issue really is that they tried to “balance” damage so all classes are very similar, but they didn’t try to do the same thing for defense. So you have high defense classes who put out as much damage as low defense classes. Add to that they can do the damage at range or melee and it becomes a problem.

My interest has gone done a fair amount. Not sure exactly what it is, I did enjoy the game very much but after lvling 2 characters to 80 and a handful of 30’s I just don’t feel the desire to log in and play. Might be cause other games I’ve been looking forward to came out (BL2/TL2) but when I get some time to play GW2 is usually last on my list of what I’m excited to play.

I don’t think you are going to see true healers because Anet has stated that they want the pvp to become an esport. Trying to balance true healing has always been a problem in MMOs with pvp and pve. I think at best all you will really ever see are “supports” who can give sustain but not constant healing.

Not sure if this has been mentioned before (forum search came up empty) but it would be great if we could get a hotkey for quick casting aoe. For me quick casting is really situational and the ability to use it at my discretion would be awesome.

On a side note, respecing your trait points is silly cheap. I think it is around 3s 80c at 80 so don’t be scared to mess around and try different things. It doesn’t get more expensive the more you respec it get more expensive as you level but caps at 3s 80c (which at 80 is about the price you pay to teleport anyway)

Kuroin.1703:

Blows everything else out of water? Son let me tell you of this game called Lineage 2… We would spend weeks and months leveling characters and using a whole clan to kill a raid to get ONE item for ONE character. This raid is a world raid you have to fight other clans over which only spawns once every 2 weeks and takes 2 hours to kill IF you win the PVP. Everyone also have to have an item they have to do quest for in order to enter the world boss. Well there are plenty of those items in the game and they arekittenneeded unlike the stuff in GW2 which is just there for the looks afaik.

/laughs
Yeah people really have forgotten what a “grind” really is.

Largely depends on your play style, honestly there is no “one right way” to build a toon in this game. But toughness in my experience will get you more mileage than vitality though some of both is good. When I was leveling I used my armor/rings for dps stats and used my ears and neck for defensive stats it worked out fairly well.

I buy them from the tp, farm yellows sell the ectos. I mean I usually get three ectos pretty often when I salvage so really faster to farm gold then to farm items.

I personally don’t find MF to be that important, I crafted my full exotic set of armor within three days of hitting 80. I finished off my jewels with in a week after that, currently I’m almost done crafting a berserker set of armor for some builds that I want to try. Only mf source I ever used was mf food, and I had a luck weapon. I also never traded gems for gold.

I run a condition build 30 Fire/30 Earth/10 Arcane and have never gotten less than gold unless I showed up right at the event was about to end. I have full exotic Carrion set for armor and berserker jewels. I run scepter/dagger mostly, use staff in explorable. If you plan to do condition build you need to build for it, won’t work using a mf set.

I think ele really needs to be looked at. I have an 80 ele with full exotic gear carrion gear and while I can solo pretty much anything it requires way more effort than my thief who is also 80 but is in a mix of rare and green gear. It is true that the game after level 70 becomes much more demanding. In orr kiting will likely kill you just as much as keep you alive. The zone is just that densely packed with mobs the more you kite the more you pull and the respawn rate is very quick.

At this point after playing with MANY builds it seems that condition build is pretty much the only option as you need a lot of toughness unless you want to find yourself sent to a way point often. This of course is much less of an issue in any sort of public grouping but if you want to solo farm you need to be able to take a hit.

Dungeons it’s pretty much staff and that’s that, you try and go into melee range on an ele in 80 explorer mode dungeons with a pug and you will be dead 80% of the time. It might work out much better in a dedicated group that has planned out tactics but in a random it is a terrible idea.

As an ele you can do what everyone else can do, you just have to build pretty much one way and you will do it slower and with more effort. This to me isn’t balanced, if nothing else just get rid of the slow missile speed and all the delayed effects of out abilities and that itself would make a massive difference.

ckooken.8190:

Yes I understand what you are trying to say, and dagger dagger is pretty decent dps. Especially with stacking condition damage. My point is, going duel daggers in a Dungeon is going to offer you nothing but a quick death. Especially in explorable mode. Trust me, Ive tried it…For me, scepter, offhand dagger or Staffs with stacking crit damage and precision offers me the most DPS while staying alive. Sure duel daggers with condition damage might offer the highest amount of dps, but when you are dying in every pull its not worth it.

I have to fully agree with this, while dual dagger is my favorite weapon combo to play, at 80 in dungeons it is just a quick trip to downed state even with a full “tanky” build.

Personally I don’t think Ele dmg in pve is low, the problem is it is hard to achieve. And the effort that is spent to achieve it really only puts you on par with other classes. With scepter/dagger you can get silly fire burst dmg but it is connected to the fire ring. On top of the burst combo you also end up with 14 stacks of might for when you switch to you next element. But for the burst combo you need to have the mobs inside of of the circle. This obviously takes a lot of practice and some luck.

Also you have to constantly switch between all elements, know the cool downs for all the spells and know how to maximize their effectiveness. And for all of this you simply get the same amount of dmg as the other classes. You are also way squishier, so you need to be able to do this and really not get hit. I really like that the class is complicated, I just wish that it gave some level of pay off if you play it correctly and not just make you on par with everyone else.

I’m a lvl 80 ele and run scepter/dagger. I can run around Orr (high lvl zone packed full of mobs) with little problem solo. My build is 30/20/20 fire, water, arcane…the trick is, at least for scepter/dagger build, make sure you are using your combos. Run into a group of mobs drop your tooth, then fire circle, then arcane wave, then phoenix, the fire grab…everything in that circle should be dead or almost dead by now.

If you still need to kill thing, switch to lightening and use the 5 skill (forget what it is called) to knock them back then you can switch to water to heal up a bit…then earth. When you hit earth knock then down with 4, then blind with 3 then channel 5….need to knock down first then blind to make sure you get 5 off.

If things are still up hit water again, then back to fire and repeat…also make good use of the blind from lightening as well. This is just kinda a base example obviously depending on the situation it will require some adjustment but this has seen much success for me.

I personally choose water over earth for condition removal on switch to water and I prefer sustain over reduced dmg…and extra healing power is nice for your heal per cast signet.