Guild Wars 2

voidwater.2064:

Kodiak.3281:

You have no way to prove swapping attunements will yield higher DPS. In the same light, I have no way of ever proving that staying in Fire full time to DPS will out perform swapping attunements.

Well, since the damage formula, skill damage numbers, skill and attunement swap cooldowns, etc. are known, you could calculate DPS for various sequences of actions…

Yeah, he could, but he won’t. And I don’t have time. What can you do.

Kodiak.3281:

As others have echo’d there are many cases where sticking to Fire is superior to swapping attunements. Am I to believe them because they say it in the same light as I’m to believe you because you say it? I believe none of it because no one has proven any of it.

So what’s your purpose in this thread? You might as well have said that this entire thread is nonsense to you and moved on already.

Personally, if I’m fighting single PvE mobs, I do use fire most of the time since they go relatively fast. If I want to be flashy, I burst them down using rapid rotation and hard hitting spells from all four elements, usually killing them faster than just with fire. However, it requires more work and for easy stuff it usually is enough to just use fire #3, #2, #1 #1 #1 – until dead.

For PvE groups of mobs, I use all elements, usually chilling them and stunning them to get more time (when with staff), though when I solo groups of mobs I usually go with a D/D setup which has much higher DPS and burst with my build.

I always bind my keys to arrows and numerical keyboard… the keys are not as close to each other, but they’re harder to miss too.
Right now it’s arrow keys for movement, left and right for strafing, Num 0 is Fire, Num Del is Air, End is Water, Page Down is Earth, keys Num1-Num5 are skills, with Num7-Num9 for utilities. Delete is Healing and Num+ is Elite.

Works fine for me.

Kodiak.3281:

You have it backwards. If it was so great a difference it’d be trivial and easy to prove because it is so self-evident. How easy is it to show that a thousand is greater than 10? This is just a cop-out because you know you can’t actually prove your point so you say you shouldn’t have to.

That’s the entire reason I said you were trolling. Despite what you’re claiming, the difference IS that huge and it is that obvious to anyone who bothers to play the game.

The proof is right there. Play the game, see for yourself. I noticed, by the way, that you conveniently keep sidestepping my invitations to prove me wrong by simply playing the game for ten minutes as a fire mage and showing us all how awesome and equally powerful that is compared with using all four elements.

Also, it doesn’t matter if you believe if I can do the stuff I mentioned. There are plenty of gameplay videos from other players showing how to solo supply camps, PvE champs and win duels or even 1vsX fights, and all of them use every skill at their disposal. I do hope video evidence is enough for you and you won’t ask for written and signed testimonials valid in court as well!

I mean, I could play the game as a fire mage and fraps it, but it would only show me failing miserably because I would have no access to any kind of CC and healing, which is what I’m saying in the first place. In order to avoid any doubts that I’m “rigging up data”, you have to find or produce yourself evidence that my claims are incorrect. So far all available data shows they are not.

This is all a bit ridiculous, but there you have it, if you want to be all proper about it.

xiv.7136:

mega.7816:

Everyone throwing in pretty numbers. I am not even looking at the math because my jaw is on the ground.

No one here that is saying to change RtL is giving anything that will compensate for our loss. Think about this. How long will it take for people to get use to cripple/immobilize/chill the ele before an RtL? Do you honestly think we can go toe to toe with others.

WTF ARE YOU NOT TALKING ABOUT OUR HEALING!!!! WHY RtL.

This post seems like a bunch of warriors who just want to smash something. The people who grew up thinking magic is for wimps. There daddy was a warrior in ultima online, and they are carring on the torch.

Please think about what you are saying. You are going to kill the class. We already have bad damage compared to others. We have low hp and armor. And now you taking away our ability to escape every now and again for free kills. IS THAT REALLY FUN FOR YOU? I bet there are some twisted people here that just want mages to que up then do nothing but yell in chat free kills free kills while dancing and harlem shake videos playing on their 2nd monitor and bacon in their mouth.

Get real. If you can’t compensate for a significant loss as your guys are asking, then cut the kitten and ask for arenanet to just remove ele all together.

Calm down man.

Ele’s are overpowered right now.

Until you realise this, you aren’t really going to be able to make sound balance decisions.

No one here is able to make balance decisions anyway. The only thing people have to realize is that ANet is not listening to anything they say balance wise, so be nice to each other because no ones opinion really matters.

No, I claim that those are facts based on empirical evidence. Again, we have access to empirical data from simply playing the game. Furthermore, if what we were arguing were minor discrepancies, then I’d see the need to employ math because we would be arguing over something that requires precision to confirm or deny.

But we’re not. The difference in efficiency and even base playability between a player who uses all four elements and one who does not is so great, wasting time on crunching numbers would be like crunching numbers to show which one is faster at top speed, a motorcyle or a bycicle. It’s pointless. Some things are self-evident.

Again I invite you or anyone else to demonstrate or find an example that they can perform just as well using only fire as a player who uses the full potential of the class. It’s easy. Fire up the game and play it. Solo a champ using only fire, or try to solo players in sPvP and WvW using only fire. These things are definitely possible for elementalists, regardless of weapon sets. Let us see if they are possible for “fire mages”.

Hope you brought your flame ret*rdant suit!

Kodiak.3281:

Adastra.9821:

I’ll admit I only skimmed over most of your posts on the first page because none of it had any content that offers any good explanations or evidence, or provided something I didn’t already know. You have anecdotes, but not much evidence. Some of it was wrong and/or grossly exaggerated. It was mostly “I casted skill A and this also generated effect B”, and then a weak attempt at how A and B is better than C while the effectiveness of A and B is exaggerated. There is so much more to it but you don’t consider any of the “howevers”, and you’re already preaching one playstyle which is misleading.

I acknowledge that is one way to play, and it is efficient in may aspects. This is one of the ways I’ve played since launch, with every weapon except focus, and in all game modes. I played like that before the bible was written (1 month B.C.?? B.D??). But what I’m not saying is that it is always the way to play (how many times do we have to repeat this?), which is what you’re saying. I’m also saying there are ways to play that are perfectly acceptable in different situations, some that are more effective than the rapid attunement swapping.

This is why I don’t bring up my spec or how I play. Gauddy has no proof so instead he turns it around and attacks your spec, play style and other points. It’s the classic, “If you don’t like the conversation then change the topic” tactic. He can argue against a spec or play style, what he can’t do is back up his claims.

I figure it’s only a matter of time before he stops replying all together in frustration of not being able to back up his claims or he’ll continue to try to change the conversation. However in no scenario will he actually be able to prove anything he says which is why we just keep asking for it. You can’t prove peanut butter is better than peanuts.

So basically, you’re trolling. You refuse to specify what you think is an inefficient way to play an elementalist, instead focusing on repeating your mantra that nothing can be proven.

Furthermore, I offered proof more than once. Not the mathematical kind you seem to insist on (probably because you know I won’t dedicate the kind of time necessary to come up with one), but empirical proof. I have experiences I already mentioned, soloing champions, supply camps, winning duels with staff, bursting down PvE and WvW enemies with staff etc. and doing those things only because I used every single possible advantage I had. I invite you to replicate any of those using only fire. I for sure cannot even come close to that, but hey, maybe I’m just a terrible player, who knows.

But, I don’t know of any one player who can, actually. So based on the empirical data we have, which is that if you don’t use all four elements you are incapable of achieving things those who do use them can, we can safely assume that not using your class mechanic is a good way to tear a big chunk out of your overall effectiveness.

Now you have two choices:

1. You can behave like creationists in an evolution debate and insist it is only a theory while refusing to even approach anything resembling a discussion, in which case I have really nothing more to say to you.

2. You can discuss this empirical data, and possibly counter it by adding your own. Do you know of any single elementalist who can achieve any of the above mentioned things by staying in fire only? Can you? Do share.

Adastra.9821:

Why else is daphoenix’s guide considered the holy bunker D/D ele bible? He doesn’t offer hard crunched numbers, but he does offer plenty of anecdotal evidence that doesn’t just amount to “I can solo a supply camp” and win duels.

I guess you haven’t read through the entire discussion. I already mentioned, anecdotally to boot, how using all 4 elements in staff can result in wiping out groups on walls during siege, something impossible to achieve with fire only.

The question arises, if you accept Daphoenix’s guide and experience, why are you arguing with me? I’m saying literally the same things he is. If you want to be efficient, you will be using all skills at your disposal. Simple as that.

Adastra.9821:

This attitude easily invalidates any credibility you do have. We’re not saying staying in fire is better than constant swapping. Read what kodiak is actually saying? “roflstomping” staff eles with a certain overpowered D/D build is hardly anything to brag about.

Oh no, I’ll roflstomp any of you fire mages with staff if you like. You use fire only? Well, I’ll chill you, stun you, blind you, burn you, knock you down, immobilize you and bleed you to death while you play with your fireballs.

Emperor.1360:

Gaudrath apparently could use some reading comprehension skills.

Over this entire dumb debate, Kodiak’s point has simply been that Gaudrath CANNOT PROVE ANY OF HIS CLAIMS with EVIDENCE.

Kodiak is NOT claiming that “all fire” is better than anything else. He’s simply stating that Gaudrath cannot prove his point, which, frankly, he cannot. There are no real, scientific tools in the game to measure and evaluate any of these claims; there are simply “supposed appearances” which are in no way scientific or accurate.

So basically I am supposed to do an in-depth statistical and mathematical analysis, waste I don’t know how many hours just so that I can prove an obvious point to a couple of forum goers who like to ignore obvious things for the sake of being obtuse? No thanks.

This discussion is about opinions on what is an efficient and what is an inefficient use of the class. The simple fact that not using all your skills results in lower efficiency doesn’t need to be proved. Facts, in case you have forgotten how the scientific process goes, never need to be proven. They’re facts.

What Kodiak is doing is making as much sense as asking for proof that a horse can outrun a one legged man.

The only problem I see, even though I’d love to be able to Meteor Shower the excreta from a big zerg, is that a big zerg will have a ton of elementalists and necros in it and they could potentially create instagib death zones. Forget about even getting near a door then, rams would be completely useless.

It could create interesting gameplay, but in my opinion if ANet was to lift AoE cap, they would have to introduce some sort of AoE protection as well, something which requires a bit of coordination but which can protect areas from massive AoE spam that would ensue. Something along the lines of bubble shields that work on stuff like Meteor Shower, or ground “anti-AoE” spells that nullify necro wells, fire fields etc.

The best thing would be a sort of counter gameplay… light fields cancel out with dark fields, water fields cancel out with fire fields etc. So you could cast a water field and actually literally put out that fire field a warrior placed on your allies. Or a necro could cast a dark field and have it cancel out with that Symbol of Protection a Guardian placed.

Might be interesting. Doubt any of that will ever happen.

Why don’t you actually read the discussion then? I was referring to Kodiak who flat out claims that you can stay in fire 99% of time and do better than the guy who uses all four elements.

But hey, I can see you guys are absolutely in love with fire, and that there is no real reasoning to be had with you in this thread. Play as you like. If we happen to meet in WvW on opposing sides, I’ll roflstomp you into the ground, take your badge, and move on. You won’t be the first noob “fire mage” I saw out there, nor the last.

For any wondering eles reading this thread, keep that in mind. You can afford to do whatever you want in PvE because it’s dead easy, but if you want to survive in sPvP and WvW, nevermind actually consistently be any good with the class, you won’t be listening to these guys.
Use all four elements, use combos and squeeze every advantage you can. A brain dead NPC boss will stand like a log in the middle of your Lava Font or Meteor Shower, but players, you will want to cripple them, chill them, bleed them and burn them, knock them down, weaken them and heal yourself a lot and whenever you can. You do 0 DPS when you’re dead.

Adastra.9821:

Gaudrath.6725:

Wrong? This is a game. There is no wrong way to play a game. Inefficient? Yes. Sometimes I strip all my armor when going underwater because I can’t roleplay I can swim wrapped in a ton of soaked fur. And hey, you know what, I don’t die and can kill stuff.

Doesn’t mean that I do it better than the guy who kept his armor on, and I wouldn’t go on the forums claiming as such, which is what you do.

You just completely contradicted yourself here.

Learn the difference between “wrong” and “inefficient”. There is no contradiction. I will not tell people how to play the game because it’s a game and I have better uses for my time.

But if we’re discussing efficiency, then there are more and less efficient ways to play the class. You can drive your car in second gear all the way to work and get there just fine… you won’t be wrong, just inefficient.

Btw, no, there is never a good reason to stay just in fire with staff. Even if you want to do DPS, you can achieve better results with combos and using high damage spells on cooldown form all 4 elements than just spamming fire skills.

I again invite everyone who thinks they are playing World of Warcraft instead of Guild Wars 2 to visit gw2buildcraft.com and spend some time alone with the calculator. Come back here with a definitive proof that you can outDPS an equally geared build by just using fire and then we can talk.

Once again. I am not arguing your personal preferences. For all I care you can spend your playtime spamming water autoattack at stuff because you’re roleplaying a river nymph or something. As I said, I do silly stuff too. But let’s not come here and pretend that what we do out of personal preference or for fun has anything to do with optimal gameplay, because it doesn’t.

The original question if this thread is what do we consider to be a “wrong” way to play an ele, which I interpret in what do we consider to be an inefficient and subpar way to play the class.

My answer is anything that doesn’t use 100% of our potential. Which means anything that doesn’t use all of our elements and abilities. Your DPS is lower, your burst potential is lower, your survivability is lower and your utility is lower.

Why? Because you’re not using the kitten skills.

But hey – let’s just assume that your DPS is actually better by staying in fire only. Your playstyle is still subpar, because everything else suffers.

As I said – I can solo champions, supply camps in WvW and actually win a duel. You can’t do any of those, not even close, by staying in fire only. The only way you are even able to stay in fire only in dungeons is because other players take on the attention of mobs and leave you free to just spam autoattack and an occasional meteor shower/lava font.

Of course, they get squat back from you… you just do DPS. Never mind AoE Might or AoE Heals you could be throwing at them, both of which are more useful than the kind of DPS we can put out even when specced for damage.

Personally, I’d take a ‘zerker warrior over a “fire mage” any day. They’ll die harder and do way more damage.

No, you seem to insist that a six is an orange and a two is an apple. Look, I think I’m done running in circles with this discussion.

I could go to gw2buildcraft.com and spend an hour cranking out numbers to bury your little theory, but you would probably just say that it’s a thrid party website or something, and I don’t have time to do that anyway. If you want to have fun, knock yourself out, have two identically geared builds, one 30/0/0/20/30 and the other 0/0/30/20/30, whip out a calculator, set a time window of 100 seconds and go to town.

Your playstyle, which ignores our main class mechanic and limits you to only 25% of our abilities is not optimal nor even close to being equal in both utility and DPS. End of story and end of discussion as far as I am concerned.

Kodiak.3281:

InFluEnZa.6908:

There is nothing to prove; using meteor shower in conjunction with cc abilities will keep your opponents stuck in the aoe longer so they take more damage.

But is it more damage than had you just stayed in Fire and continued to do more Fire based skills? That’s the part you need to prove. You made a claim, now back it up with numbers.

If you don’t have numbers, then it’s just you think it does more damage but you can’t say for sure.

Gaudrath.6725:

Wrong? This is a game. There is no wrong way to play a game. Inefficient? Yes. Sometimes I strip all my armor when going underwater because I can’t roleplay I can swim wrapped in a ton of soaked fur. And hey, you know what, I don’t die and can kill stuff.

Doesn’t mean that I do it better than the guy who kept his armor on, and I wouldn’t go on the forums claiming as such, which is what you do.

And yet…

Gaudrath.6725:

Staying in one attunement 99% of the time is pretty much the only wrong way to play an ele, regardless of your build and trait lines. Players who do that ignore our main class mechanic and do not take advantage of it in any way. End of discussion.

What I am doing is asking you to prove that one is more efficient than the other. You’re making a claim that one is more efficient, better, right, or what other semantic variation you prefer and asking you to prove that it is inefficient, worse, wrong, etc.

I don’t have to prove it. Do you ask people to prove six is greater than two?

Kodiak.3281:

Gaudrath.6725:

Kodiak, the reason you’re the last one to die is because those guys take the brunt of enemy fire and us elementalists usually stick to the back or sides and often get neglected in the commotion.

Try rolling as a frontliner in ’zerker gear, let me know how it handles.

As for rifle warriors, they can oneshot a glass cannon ele, the only problem is that they have to stand still and their target has to remain unobstructed and in range while the shot is priming, which often doesn’t happen.

Anyway, try small group action or 1vs1. I bet you can’t even solo a supply camp if you don’t use all the elements. There’s your empirical data.

I’m glad you’re finally starting to see my point that playing a particular way isn’t wrong and like most things it’s all based on not only how you play but the situations you put yourself in.

Wrong? This is a game. There is no wrong way to play a game. Inefficient? Yes. Sometimes I strip all my armor when going underwater because I can’t roleplay I can swim wrapped in a ton of soaked fur. And hey, you know what, I don’t die and can kill stuff.

Doesn’t mean that I do it better than the guy who kept his armor on, and I wouldn’t go on the forums claiming as such, which is what you do.

Kodiak, the reason you’re the last one to die is because those guys take the brunt of enemy fire and us elementalists usually stick to the back or sides and often get neglected in the commotion.

Try rolling as a frontliner in ’zerker gear, let me know how it handles.

As for rifle warriors, they can oneshot a glass cannon ele, the only problem is that they have to stand still and their target has to remain unobstructed and in range while the shot is priming, which often doesn’t happen.

Anyway, try small group action or 1vs1. I bet you can’t even solo a supply camp if you don’t use all the elements. There’s your empirical data.

MRA.4758:

Also, you have a strange way of counting. In the screenshot you provided I count about 30+ players. In the other screenshots in this thread (not necessarily depicting Riverside players) I count up to 60+ fighters per party. I was not able to play at prime time since the no-culling patch, but I would be delighted to actually SEE a 100+ zerg someday.

~MRA

Well I can confirm that there really was a RS megablob at AR borderlands tonight, got run over by a sea of red personally. It was like being eaten alive by a horde of fire ants. Wouldn’t be surprised if there were 100 or so players in there.

Guys basically ran around the map capping things, of course everyone tried to stop them and some (relatively) good (as in profitable lag fests) fights were had, but the way the game works you can’t really stop a zerg that size without an equal or greater one.

Remove. The. AoE. Cap. ANET!

Pikeners are not crying, these are just legitimate complaints about megablobbing.

Personally I don’t care, since the only two things such a huge group is good at is chewing through doors and filling my loot bags. :p

I would definitely hate to see this become a new trend though, simply because it introduces horrendous skill lag and it really is much less fun than smaller group fighting.

Xillllix.3485:

The problems with the skills is that it automatically targets the nearest rabbit instead of going straight when nothing is selected.

Turn off autotargetting in options and you won’t have that problem.

Not sure I understand the “religious” policy if it is indeed such… judging by the number of times the word “hell” is used in NPC conversations one would think ANet wouldn’t actually punish players for using that word in their names.

Also, “karma” is religious as well. And that’s all over the game.

Kodiak, I have given you a number of solid examples and situations supporting my claims. So far your response has been to the tune of “lalalalala you can’t prove it, you can’t prove it!”

That’s no way to lead a discussion. If you want to discuss this seriously, please address my arguments. Provide examples. Do some math. Counter-arguments. Whatever. Otherwise this is pointless.

Kodiak.3281:

I’m going to say that the guys in PVT gear died because they failed to out damage the enemy. They lost because they didn’t deal enough DPS and had they been wearing full Berserker gear they would have won. Prove me wrong.

The game proves you wrong every day. The reason why front-line zergers all go for high HP and toughness is because your DPS is 0 when you’re dead, and glass cannons die real quick when hit by a zerg. You probably don’t even render for them before they’re already scooping up the bag you leave behind.

If a glass cannon zerg hits a PVT zerg head on, PVT would and does win every time. You can pretend to be wiser than every single experienced WvW player out there, but that doesn’t mean anything.

Warriors and Thieves do more DPS? Prove me wrong.

Again, the game proves you wrong every day. Now, if you think you can outDPS a thief, go ahead and arrange a duel with one. You both have to stand still and use the skills you have at your disposal with you staying in fire only. Pure DPS race.

You will be dead before you get your second fireball off.

I contend that I can stay in Fire all day and perform better than any elementalist in the world who swaps attunements. Disagree with me? Prove me wrong.

Instead of saying that the game proves you wrong again, I will remind you of a simple rule in a logical debate that the burden of proof is on the one who makes the claim. So no, you prove it.

Or else I can claim that I am a god… prove me wrong. See?

You talk a lot about good and bad but you got ZERO facts to back up what you’re saying. You have a lot of assumption and absolutely no proof to anything you say. The only difference between your argument and the people who argue that they can stay in Fire all day is that in general more people agree with the former instead of the later. Neither argument has any more truth behind it and quite frankly people need to stop saying what’s “right” and “wrong” when they have no factual basis for their claims.

On the contrary, the only one without any factual basis for your claims is you. I have plenty of empirical proof available to anyone actually bothering to come up with an optimal build for their class. You just like fire a lot and try to justify your gameplay with unsubstantiated claims.

Why don’t you just say “I like fire” and be done with it? I certainly won’t hold it against you (unless you drop the ball in WvW and I get stomped because you refused to CC the enemy and even then – it’s just a game). Don’t claim it’s an optimal way to play because it is not. It’s your preference and as such you are entitled to it. There is no need to justify it and certainly no need to mislead new elementalists.

Kodiak.3281:

Gaudrath.6725:

And if you try ignoring your class mechanics in WvW, well, prepare to be farmed for badges. If WvW’ers give you lip about you staying only in fire and not dropping Static Fields (if you run staff) and Frozen Ground in front of enemy zergs, you deserve it.

I honestly never get any feedback on game play in WvW because there’s so much going on no one can really pay attention to what people are or aren’t doing. I also don’t get farmed for badges and survive in many cases in Berserker gear where I see people I know who are in PVT gear go down.

However, in the interest of being objective (gasp), that doesn’t necessarily mean their specs or gear choices are any worse than mine. There are any number of factors that could have contributed to that person dying and me living (being focused, less player skill and countless other factors).

In the end you just said a lot of stuff that COULD happen, but again nothing that actually happens to everyone (because none of it’s ever happened to me).

You should google “statistics” and especially the deviation part of it. Just because you manage to stay alive in zerg fights doesn’t mean everyone will and certainly doesn’t mean you’re doing a good job as an elementalist – those guys you see in PVT gear dropping like flies? In part because a certain fire mage in the back failed to CC the enemy zerg and they got mowed down.

This is not a theory. Staying in any single element 99% of time in WvW, regardless of weapon set, is a recipe for being a free badge or pretty much useless to the group you’re running with. That’s a fact. If you want to DPS so much, roll a thief or a warrior, they’re better at it.

There simply is no argument here. GW2 elementalists are designed to use all 4 elements. Our individual skills are weaker because of that. They’re meant to be used in conjunction with each other.

And given equal skill level, a player who uses all four elements will outperform the player who doesn’t in everything, sPvP, WvW and PvE. That’s a guarantee.

Or kick you from groups doing high level fractals and dungeon romping for being inefficient. Not that I agree with that sort of behavior because I’m not a min/maxer, but it will happen.

And if you try ignoring your class mechanics in WvW, well, prepare to be farmed for badges. If WvW’ers give you lip about you staying only in fire and not dropping Static Fields (if you run staff) and Frozen Ground in front of enemy zergs, you deserve it.

If you happen to be solo roaming with D/D, nobody will give you lip about staying in one element only, you’ll just die a lot.

Gorni.1764:

Gaudrath.6725:

Gorni.1764:

Andovar Edoras.2143:

Ill start: i have a friend who i play with, we both have ele alts, i like scepter focus and he likes staff. What makes me cringe though is the fact that he uses fire 99,99% of the time…. Just spamming fire 1 and sometimes fire 2 and 3. He only switches to air only while travelling for the speed buff.

depending on the group and the eles build, this may be the most effective way to play staff-ele

No, no and no. ONE Earth #1 and you just applied 3s of weakness. This means every non-critical hit is a glancing blow which only does 50% damage. Now do you think an overall 50% damage reduction is something to be neglected in favor of a little more DPS?

What about chill? What about AoE healing and condition removal? What about stacking vulnerability on bosses?

Staying in one attunement 99% of the time is pretty much the only wrong way to play an ele, regardless of your build and trait lines. Players who do that ignore our main class mechanic and do not take advantage of it in any way. End of discussion.

I never said you should avoid using other attunements at all costs. But for pure DPS staying only in fire is the best way (like said, depending on group and build). For example applying vulnerability might be good for the whole group but your DPS is so low in water that the overall-dmg of the group will be lowered. Of course switching to earth/air when you have to kite or to water when you have to heal is necessary. But a standard-rotation with staff isn’t the right way to do DPS in my opinion.

I don’t know who came up with “for pure DPS stay in fire” idea, but it’s simply not true. I can outDPS any “fire mage” all the time by rapidly cycling attunements and using my most damaging spells from all elements + dropping Static Field in a ranged group will quickly max the vulnerability stack which means 25% more damage for the group.

Depending what weapon you’re using, attunement rotation speed and sequences can be different, but if you’re saying that only using fire on staff can outDPS every big hitter from all the other elements which can be lined up much more quickly than waiting on cooldowns in fire, you’re wrong. While you’re flinging fire autoattacks, I have landed several combos, big damage spells (try using Ice Spike once, or shoot Stoning and Shockwave through a fire field and let me know if the damage is low) and returned to Fire to recast spells which have just left their cooldown.

The only reason people can get away with ignoring our class mechanic in PvE is because PvE is so dead easy.

purpleskies.3274:

I disagree that the only things an ele has to survive is mobility, we have healing, one of the best access to protect, mist form, amazing cures for conditions, lots of CC ect. But mobility is a big part of the classes defense I agree. And I am not saying to take away the eles escape cards, it would break the class if they did that. I also did not mention any of the other escape skills like the short charge on fire, the access to swiftness, the great mobility that you have with FGS and teleport. I also did not say remove RtL or reduce it’s distance or recast. All I said was it should be like other classes charge skills and subject to cripple and chill, if you are going to have the upside of not requiring a target.

That way other classes have a way to counter it, make it so a good opponent can make escaping hard, so you have to pay attention to your conditions before you ride the lightening. Would it be so wrong to hit ether renewal before RtL?

A good opponent can make escaping hard. I’ve been countered with immobilize for my RtL more than once and promptly killed. People do manage to chase me down when I use RtL to escape, because we’re not the only class with high mobility.

Poor opponents? No. They deserve to be left in the dust.

Also, not everyone should be forced to slot Ether Renewal in order to be able to survive. We have enough issues with that sort of thing already, what with Arcane tree being almost mandatory.

Have you ever tried to escape pursuit as an ele using Burning Speed or Lightning Flash? Those are useless as escape skills. You’re confusing evasion and escape. Evasion is something you use to evade a few attacks, confuse the enemy and continue the fight. Escapes you use when you want to disengage. Any half competent player won’t be deterred in their pursuit by a few short range evasions or teleports or else nobody would ever be able to catch mesmers.

Again, if you think RtL should be like other classes charge abilities, then elementalists should also get abilities those other classes have, primarily much greater base HP and better damage per skill so we can kill faster and survive better. Then you would remove the need to have a solid retreat and disengage option – we could stay in the fight longer and survive greater punishment.

You cannot balance stuff by changing things on one end only. There is a reason why RtL is the way it is.

purpleskies

I only did the same thing the first poster did when he was defending RTL, compare it to every other movement skill that doesn’t require targeting. The poster said RTL was balanced against Rush. I just brought up an imbalance between those two skills and every other charge attack.
If I am wrong about this please explain why the ele should be the exception, rather than giving a sarcastic response please. When every single charge from every class is affected by crippled, what about eles necessitates they have one ability that isn’t?

The ability isn’t overpowered, people simply don’t know how to counter it, which is pretty easy, actually. Just pop immobilize on the ele when they switch to air when low on HP (and likely to run). They’ll try to RtL and just sit there in one place, rooted and incapable of doing anything. Still sounds imbalanced?

Furthermore, when I fight someone in WvW and their buddies show up, I have means to escape even as a Guardian. I can target a rabbit, for example, and teleport for 1200 instantly and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Your “balance” would change nothing in that regard. Plus I have tons of HP, stun breakers and mitigations so I can often just walk away with people shooting me in the back.

And that finally brings me to the big point – that eles need their escape cards. We have the lowest base HP and lowest armor in the game. If thieves can pop stealth and escape any time they like and they argue this is because they’re the squishiest of medium armor classes, then the same logic should apply to elementalists, the squishiest of light classes. Even more so.

So if you would like “balanced” RtL, then you would need to balance our base HP and damage so that we don’t need to run away as often and are not so easily overwhelmed. There was nothing sarcastic in my post.

purpleskies.3274:

The charge attacks (not ground target teleports) that don’t require a target are the ones that are affected by chill/cripple/swiftness. Personally I believe that if it does not require a target RTL should have this same weakness, just to be fair and to give people a chance to prevent out escape, if they know how to time their attacks.

If it requires a target then I am fine with the current state of ignoring movement effects.

Excellent, then up our base HP 200% and throw some damage buffs on as well and we will be happy to stay put for you to hit with your sword while we burn your eyebrows off.

You’re comparing similar abilities from very different classes and talking about balance. Come on.

Mogar.9216:

Staff is good for 1 thing and 1 thing only that is zerg. Range and AE that do not require target makes staff good in zerg v zerg. When you lag to 1 frame per second you can just spam your ground target ae and hit all the poor kittens who can’t even move out of it due to lag. In every other situation x/d is better. As long as the zerg isn’t big enough to lag your pc out you can go in and out of a zerg fight a cause a lot of problem as x/d ele. That being said you can always play x/d spec and switch to staff when you zerg. The difference between a pure staff trait ele vs a x/d ele who uses a staff is minimal .

I would add that the main use for staff in zerg fights are AoE CC’s spells. A well placed Static Field will wreck a zerg charge. That together with AoE Chill and Cripple will totally destroy their cohesion as many commanders like to have their zergball punch through an enemy zerg and out the other side, swing around and come back for more.

Once the two zergs are fighting in one place, our AoE damage from staff cannot be matched by any other weapon set we have, especially if you have Blasting Staff traited.

chronometria.3708:

That’s a perfectly acceptable way of playing staff ele, mainly because the earth damage is so low that its weakness becomes pointless. You are better off sticking with fire and getting a quick kill.

Try shooting Earth #1 and #5 through a fire field and see how’s the damage then. Plus, Earth #2 is a really nice damage+bleed AoE and it is our only blast finisher on the staff, so basically if you only use fire not only you’re not utilizing all the advantages of other elements, but you’re not doing any comboing like:

-AoE Might
-AoE Heal
-AoE Swiftness
-AoE Frost Aura

And that’s just from our combo fields. You’re also missing out on creating AoE Retaliation, AoE invisibility, AoE blindness, AoE Weakness and AoE Chaos Armor from combo fields put down by other professions.

Furthermore, when it comes to pure DPS, I can guarantee you that you will be killing stuff faster if you rapidly cycle through your attunements and drop all the most damaging spells on your target. In WvW I would never be able to down and kill opponents on walls if I only used fire. But if I use Earth #2, Water #2 and #4, Fire #2 and #5, I often manage to down a few and often kill them.

In PvE, try killing a single target before they get to you without moving. With fire – no chance. With all four elements – a walk in the park. So there really is no real reason to not go for attunement switching.

Which is also the reason why people don’t spec heavily into fire – more interesting traits are only useful if you stick in the fire attunement, which makes you kitten yourself for everything else. If you need extra power, use food or just make a power heavy build using gear/weapons.

icebreaker.9352:

Asura , I thought it would be harder to target me in WvW ..

And now you’re just small with funny ears.

Gorni.1764:

Andovar Edoras.2143:

Ill start: i have a friend who i play with, we both have ele alts, i like scepter focus and he likes staff. What makes me cringe though is the fact that he uses fire 99,99% of the time…. Just spamming fire 1 and sometimes fire 2 and 3. He only switches to air only while travelling for the speed buff.

depending on the group and the eles build, this may be the most effective way to play staff-ele

No, no and no. ONE Earth #1 and you just applied 3s of weakness. This means every non-critical hit is a glancing blow which only does 50% damage. Now do you think an overall 50% damage reduction is something to be neglected in favor of a little more DPS?

What about chill? What about AoE healing and condition removal? What about stacking vulnerability on bosses?

Staying in one attunement 99% of the time is pretty much the only wrong way to play an ele, regardless of your build and trait lines. Players who do that ignore our main class mechanic and do not take advantage of it in any way. End of discussion.

Rottaran Owain.6789:

exos.6831:

by “effectively” i basically meant make them more part of an elementalist… maybe even extend the duration or uses.

Number of uses isn’t so much the problem as much as the cooldowns on the skills are. You end up either prematurely dropping the weapon every time, or waiting on 20 second cooldowns, which no elementalist has the time for in combat.

True, which is why conjured weapons are to be treated as utility spells and nothing more. I often pop greatsword when attacking keep doors, because the damage just can’t be matched by anything else. Ice Bow is also good for clearing walls… #5 hurts… a lot. I’ve been on the receiving end of it as a Guardian a couple of times and I had to move or get downed.

ToFa.4816:

Magnetron.5823:

~ No more skill lag
~ No more culling
~ New maps

All i want

I agree and would add:

~ No more finishing in stealth.

Really, this is frustrating. You can’t interrupt the player because you can’t target him.

Yes you can. For example, Binding Blades will target stealthed characters, then you can pull them → interrupt. Or Earthquake, will knock them down even in stealth → interrupt.

I haven’t yet had a chance to test if you can connect any of the knockdown/launch weapon skills without targeting, but it should be possible, you just have to guesstimate where they are.

Double tap is the way to go in my opinion. Much greater control over timing and direction.

1. Word +4 digit number + different word = good, easy to memorize password that is resistant to dictionary attack

2. 36 character randomized string + password vault = all the security you need, and you dont have to memorize anything

Regarding the Dragon Tooth “exploit” – as others have said, it’s not an exploit. I’m on Piken and I’ve used it like that plenty of times. It’s just the way the spell works. Pretty much every ele worth their salt will use DT like that if the opportunity presents itself.

Nothing dishonorable in using your skills to their full effect. Next someone will say Churning Earth + Lightning Flash is an exploit.

SolarNova.1052:

There’s only 1 type of LAG. Thats the type caused by high network latency which in turn can be caused by the servers or by somthing else between ur computer and the servers.

This whole notion of LAG = Low FPS has come up from those who have mistakenly called it LAG, and there have been so many people do it, that alot of people actually think its called LAG. I guess u cant really complain, new terms come along all the time, but in this case it just down to too many online players ,who are ignorant of even basic computer terms and knowledge, talking online in games and forums using the term incorrectly and others have just followed suit.
People will disagree with this, thats fine, but for me, som1 who has been around gaming long before the majority of current online gamers who started playing in the 00’s, LAG never reffered to frame rates.

Technically you are correct, but these days as networks have steadily improved from the days when network lag was the usual problem, people have started using the term FPS lag more often and now it’s pretty much established that there are two types of lag, both describing the delay between user input and software reaction.

As for spell effects and such, tbh that isnt a problem, just turn the settings down, get a better graphics card, go SLI/xfire. The problem is CPU bottlenecking in MMO’s ..u cant xfire or SLI CPU’s ..not gaming grade ones anyway, and u can only OC so far. And u cant turn the things that are causing said bottlenck down.
The stuff being processed causing the issue is a core part to the games in question. The work around for GW2 is culling. .Make it so said ‘core component’ (the players) dont get processed till they r within X distance of ur character, and set a limit to how many u can process. Thats cutting out stuff ..not turning it down, and it impacts on gameplay.

Only GW2 doesn’t allow you to turn down the effects. Go ahead and try. There is no way to use simplified particle effects or turn them off. And the stuff being processed as far as characters go isn’t the problem as far as FPS drop spikes are concerned. Most of the data processing happens on the server anyway, with the client only responsible for sending out user input data and applying feedback data it receives from the server.

As for what is causing the issues when it comes to FPS drops, I do game asset production professionally, and as I said, modern graphic cards can handle high polygon scenery very well, but when it comes to particle effects, party because some of that stuff is delegated to CPU’s (for example particle calculations), the strain on the system is higher.

Furthermore, not everyone can afford a high end graphics card. Some of those cost as much as a completely new machine.

The best solution would be for ANet to give users more options, especially the option to disable or simplify particle effects. Make the software more flexible instead of expecting people to upgrade their machines just so that they could play their game.

Just to make thing more clear, there are two types of lag. One is network lag, where there is an issue with either client-server connection (which is constant and doesn’t depend on where the player is in the game, for example oceanic players have that problem because of distance) or with server overload where the client data (like the fact that you just activated #1 skill) just isn’t processed fast enough because the server is overwhelmed.

The other is FPS lag, where the client itself has overloaded the user’s computer.

If your framerate is fine, but your skills won’t activate, then you have network lag. If your framerate is dead, then you have FPS lag

Culling actually doesn’t have anything to do with performance as far as FPS (frames per second) lag is concerned, due to the way the game engine handles culled characters.

These days, 3D models are not much a problem for modern hardware to handle. You can easily have plenty of high polygon models on screen and not suffer performance issues.

What causes the greatest performance hit are in fact – particle systems and postprocessing. In other words, special effects for skills, environment (for example, fog, godrays, HDR) and such. Notice that FPS lags usually hit when there is a massive outburst of people using their skills, usually in WvW when two zergs (even culled ones) hit each other or in PvE during boss events when lots of people start firing off their abilities. This is because the game engine will attempt to render particle effects even for characters that have been culled. GW2 has pretty lush particle effects and when that is multiplied by several dozen players spamming skills, inevitably the game slows down to a crawl on all but the best gaming systems.

The issue is compounded with the fact that network lag (server being overwhelmed with the sudden influx of client data and the need to process it and report back to the client) also hits at the exact same time. So the two can and usually do happen simultaneously, but their causes are fundamentally different and require different solutions, as the devs have stated themselves.

And no, there aren’t any games that do not have this problem. You have plenty of games which display hundreds or even thousands of 3D models on screen (for example Total War series), but just take a look what happens if you go overboard with particles (like Empire Total War did with gunpowder smoke). An so far no MMO in history of gaming has ever been able to provide lag free gameplay where even a few dozen players are involved in a big fight.

The closest I’ve seen is EvE Online, which can support several dozen players duking it out without lag, but that game is almost all spreadsheets and math, is hosted on server cluster rated as a supercomputer, your target usually looks like a tiny red cross on the screen and even with that if you want to be able to do anything you have to tune the particle effects all the way down anyway.

So when TESO devs said their characters are designed for up to 200 of them to be rendered on screen, I believed them. They just haven’t mentioned what will happen on an average computer when those 200 players start firing off flashy spells and skills at the same time. The same thing that happens in GW2. Lag.

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

Well, i guess we’ll see. about TESO.

p.s. oh i had a lot of fun too, until the 4th month, completed my target (the pics you can see on signature) i just got bored of bugged content kept released more and more bugged and this culling stupid thing, even on festivities and great events (karka big event), and well… nothing else to do than grind mats and gamble. Time to leave. Look around you, who is left keep posting the same. I just log to check if i sold something else, and if my guild officer’s tasks are needed and logoff. At best when in the mood a quick daily ( i did 2 dailies on feb, 3 on this month)

Well, my goal is to have fun, so I guess we’re just different. And I play WvW mostly, which never gets stale due to its sandboxy nature. When that gets a bit old, I do a few PvE stints for a change of pace or just take a break.

And plenty of people on my server. Maybe it’s just your server that has low population.

Well I don’t agree with you! Don’t remember the last time I had so much fun in a game.

And if you think TESO will magically make it possible to see a 100+ characters on screen without a high end computer (the part devs never mention), you’re mistaken. There’s only so much you can do with current hardware limitations.

Hmm… you mention you understand Staff is supposed to be a support weapon, yet seem to point out its weaknesses when facing single targets, which only happens when:

a) you are soloing people
b) you are ganking people

In case of a), you shouldn’t be using staff for general roaming. D/D is better for that in all aspects. In fact, D/D is the optimal weapon set for anything not involving keep siege and defense and zerg fights.

In case of b), staff can be a decent “catch ’em” tool, if used properly. For example, Earth #2 has a long casting time, but not so long if you hit them with #5 (immobilize, 2s) and #4 (cripple) prior to that. If they break off, you can use Static Field and Frozen Ground, and the only way they can get through all that is by popping stability AND condition removal. At the very least you will force them to use their stun breakers and/or condition removal and most likely stall them enough for the rest of your team to catch up and down them.

The weapon set that has real issues is Scepter, due to the slowness and predictability of most damaging attacks. This might change slightly if the Arc Lightning gets the same buff Mesmer GS beam attack will get. We’ll see.

Staff, however, is mostly fine. It is a emphasized support weapon, meaning you don’t want to be caught alone out in the open with it, or even in small groups where your chances of getting focused are much higher.

OP, you are mistaken, network culling as used in this game is not the same as occlusion culling. That’s an entirely separate process which is of course used and will continue to be used as it is an essential part of any 3D engine.

The culling system ANet used was a process where the server would decide how many characters it would report to the client, in order to save on bandwidth and/or server performance. It had nothing to do with occlusion.

Occlusion culling is part of a rendering process. Network culling is part of the networking process. They’re based in entirely separate areas of the engine. Occlusion culling happens entirely on the client. Network culling happens on the server.

No, this patch will not increase performance, unless they tie up effect rendering with how the WvW characters are displayed (for example if they turn off effect rendering for characters which are displayed as nametags only, which will be one of the options). In that case, players who experience framerate drop spikes and associated skill lag will see a marked improvement.

Otherwise FPS should remain pretty much the same, or slightly worse depending on what option you choose.

The point is, they never were working on improving engine performance. Network culling has nothing to do with that, but I agree they should have been clearer about what it means, as it can be confusing.

Dog.1472:

Losing is realizing you can’t win, or defeat your opponent. It’s called a forfeit and it’s a loss.

If you die when getting focused for a couple of seconds, you aren’t timing your dodges very well.

Of course, you can dodge indefinitely, right? Even with Vigor you get two consecutive dodges, after that if you’re being focused dodging with not help you. Or otherwise we’d all just roll out like ninjas.

Each class has something to either get them out of a pickle or make it harder to get into one in the first place. Some classes get better mitigation, like Guardians. Some have really fat HP buffers like Warriors. Others, like Thief and Mesmer get stealth. And elementalists get RtL.

Dog.1472:

I thought you meant immobilize the Ele and was about to say how pointless that is, then I realized you meant thief. Yeah, thieves have garbage condition removal. That would end any of their mobility quite easily.

And no, stealth isn’t as good as you pretend it is if you know how it works.

As an Ele, I solo roam WvW and get in plenty of 1v1, 2v1, 3v1, or even zergv1 and I have NEVER been killed. Sure, I have lost plenty of fights, but I can ALWAYS run away. It was fun at first, but it’s pretty obviously unbalanced.

If you lose, people should be able to kill you.

Losing means getting downed. Everything else is tactical withdrawal. Some classes are better at it than others. Then again, some classes don’t tend to die if focused for more than a couple of seconds.

Norn, because I get to look like this (and Snow Leopard is awesome in WvW):