Guild Wars 2

But we don’t have them so much. Organized groups are really scarce on my server.
On Gandara we have server TS and there is one very good commander but he has such British accent that I really can’t understand him

@SirDrygan.1823
Yes and no sir. Staff ele is a joke in any PvP. Casts are really slow and to make it up you have to use high damage equipment that would instant kill you in PvP unless you are healer. I personally use staff ele for PvE and I am always last to die in bad party or usually the one that rez others. Playing PvE with ele is really good if you like PvE.

As for D/D ele, yes, it is hard and and seems like ANet wants to remove ranged combat for eles. It is hard enough to swap elements and damage output is still lower than with other professions.

Yesterday I played some FotM with PUG and my staff was good as always. In Urban Battlegrounds Fractal when breached into city I pulled aggro by accident and as it was my mistake I wanted to sort it out. Others thought I will run back but no, I stayed to fight and I soloed mobs while others were in chat “oh gawd let fool die”. I survived. Then when we had to fight Captain Ashym they were complaining he was too hard and I was the one to die the last. Still kiting enough to make others who wanted to get up to do so or rezing them in my Mist Form…

After that I went into WvW with my friend as D/D. It was interesting at first and then turned boring. Reducing mage like class to just another melee is a turn down to play as I really don’t see how ele could play WvW or SPvP as staff ele. So I logged out to play Civilization 5 GAK and had more fun in single player game – lol.

My personal opinion is that main goal of ANet is to make GW2 an esport game trough SPvP mainly. I can’t resist to this idea as too many times they have stated (video/blog/community sites…) they want that. Recent change to make tournament in SPvP without requiring 8 teams is to encourage/promote SPvP and tournament “euphoria”.

Why I am telling this as it is off topic? No, it isn’t. They are nerfing other parts of game so that player be indirectly forced to SPvP so they could make they dream coe true – and eSport. Probably you are aware of AoE nerf as well. Most classes that use AoE in PvE and sometimes in WvW do not use it in SPvP. It is just my opinion…

Regardless of that, I got my Risen Baltasar mini from the second bag I got in Orr. Yey – until I realized mats I desperately need (like Powerful Blood, Ancient Bone…) are nowhere to be found.

Kodiak.3281:

4. Nope. Just about any Ele build is weak in WvW compared to a mesmer due to a lack of active defenses. A class like a mesmer can dodge/avoid large groups of players focusing on them due to their ability to break target. Ele kinda has to take the brunt of it which isn’t always possible with 4-5 guys focusing you.

Aha….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OT6zqMMBko&list=PLqbVYxfA89UMUuKnY3E_uAq2VmBY95uBH&index=14
Watch more from that list…

And this list got his track since the game launched and here are not duels:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3esNaZZiTE&list=PLqbVYxfA89UMv5OSa94FHbA2raTSkQIig

This is another guy…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rHXZ2VjKBs

Intigo.1653:

Having perma-Fury (and Swiftness, but less significant in the fight itself) from both your Auras is far more valuable than an uncontrolled 50% Armor of Earth buff. You likely already have perma-Vigor and perma-Regen (for the duration of the fight) due to other traits, so the only thing it gives you is a tiny boost to Protection & Stability (which you do not control and do not need). The 5pt Earth trait also does not seem to work with Lingering Elements from Arcana, unless they fixed it (but Air 5pt is worthless too, so it doesn’t matter as much).

I personally find Renewing Stamina superior to Final Shielding, but that’s more of a taste thing, I’ll admit. In that build it makes some sense with the high amount of Vigor you would get from Cantrips (I prefer having perma-Vigor even without my Cantrips so I know I have it for a sustained period of time even when Cantrips aren’t up).

Dolyak Runes are weak because the 6th bonus is bad (30hp/s) and the bonuses it gives overall are somewhat lackluster. Using the 4/6 Boon Duration (Sup Water + Monk) and 2/6 Divinity mix or simply 6/6 Divinity is overall far better for any Elementalist. If you want to get some of the lost Toughness back then slot some more Knight’s gear.

Now that is more like it. I like that and yes it has perfect sense. I was refering to the OP as he asks “Should I play and elementalist?”, and it gave me strong impression he haven’t done so far. so ele is new to him so I was guessing more survivability. That 50% Armor is also cantrip that do extra heal up. Handling elements like experienced ele is way different than someone who is new to the class. So that is why I suggested that build.

Knox.3748:

well, the build is bad. Dont take it so personally, its just a bad build

I am not taking personal “Hey your build is bad” line itself, but I take it if you don’t say what is bad and why is bad and what is your proposal, why is your better proposal and so on. Right now it looks like trolling and then I do take it personal.

Good example is Jornophelanthas.1475 and I respect that he gave his idea of good build.

Intigo.1653:

Dolyak Runes are terrible and your build has 10 Earth over 10 Air which is also terrible. The “standard” D/D build has always been 10 Air. The Fury & Swiftness from Aura use is incredible, only people with no clue use 10 Earth over it (see: Bit).

Yes you are right. I gave him deliberatly totally wrong and terrible build that he won’t be use for anything, hell he won’t be able even to move his character and it is so terrible that everybody will kill him instantly as soon he is rendered on their screens.

Sanel.5603:

Had 5 ele party few days ago, all d/d experianced players. I never passed dungeon so fast and with soo much fun! Thank you all my dear fellow elementals

I don’t understand why ppl think lots of eles in party is “death fest”. I had couple a weeks ago 4 ele party (3 staff, 1 scepter) and we cleared dung pretty quick. Few days ago I had party 3 eles (staff, scepter, D/D) and again it was quick run. Synergy between eles in party is great.

Even one D/D ele in party with focus on auras is huge boon to the party (noone dies + makes nice damage) not having 5 is really something.

JayMack.8295:

January’s monthly doesn’t give you Laurels. Laurels will be granted with monthly achievements starting with February onwards.

OK, thanks. From now on, I will call it “L’Oreal Paris – because we deserve it”!

I just hastily finished Monthly Achievement and upon doing so, didn’t received Laurels for it. I thought I should get 10 for monthly PvE. I received karma and 50 silver and MF coins but no Laurels.

LordByron.8369:

well you would ve died so many times in that vid at any consistent fotm difficulty….
that is enough to say its not a good vid.

at fotm 4 people just can ignore most fractal mechanics and kill things at sight that is exactly what you did…..

You should just look some fotm guides and you’d see.

I was reckless I admit, but still having that small amount of health I’d say I handled situation well. Usually don’t die but it happens. Not that big deal.

LordByron.8369:

@inkubus….
Trust me remove that vid at once before its too late >.<
It contains things that will only get you bad answers….

Possibly wasn t a good run for you…..but using it to prove something is not the best idea….

Really? I don’t care. I really don’t. I was experimenting with arcanist build and it was pretty good for me. If someone can have better play of ele with staff let him contact me as I am open to learn new things.

Love playing mages. Staff has long range, love playing glass canon (and survive more than others in party ofc) and cool effects (not just visual).
First played in BWE3 and really got in love with Air spells. Later I realized I need to swap elements and I really liked. Ofc, it is all rounder class and can fit in any role so many people hate it (seems even ANet hate him).

pdboddy.4162:

What would help survivability for levels 20 – 40? I’m at level 23 now, and mobs are able to 1 – 2 hit my poor ele. My armor is all at or near my level. At the moment, I have 10 in fire, and the rest in arcane. Should I switch 10 points into something else (water)?

Dodge and dodge a lot. Tricks also help a lot but it is hard to master them.
Use Cripple from earth, stun from Air and Freeze from Water – yes this means you have to rotate your elements often.

Asmodal.6489:

its Hard to give advice on a Build in your lvl Range. A Lot of stuff is just tough as ele in low levels. So here are some pointers on Utility skills

Solo Target Utilities
Signet of Fire: activate as an opener. Counts for almost all damage over Time.

Glyph of Storm:
Activate while in Earth for multiple blinds

Arcane Wave: Great damage and a blast finisher

AoE-ing helps a lot. Kitind mob in Lava Font, immobilizing and setting eruption also eradicate mobs quickly.

This still works: (notice they are 4 lvls stronger than my ele)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V90Z1XhA8zA

Really? don’t know what server you are but I got opposite situation. People were saying like “Don’t care for the 5th member as long as we have ele”. what server are you?

http://youtu.be/5SdCnbUmwvM
This is my downgrade and testing might stacking berserker build.

1. More than that
2. I say it is high, regarding your #4, you need to master swapping elements quite often. I suggest you to get some mouse with more buttons to make things very easy. But this is not something that “YOU MUST”

3. Because of your #4, I suggest standard D/D ele. Otherwise, staff to learn all those evading skills better than all other professions.

4. Standard D/D build for any PvP is
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcszz9Mz0MbvTmMbm0o9MaxxccsqmVq

For armor use the one with Toughness as main stat + vitality + power (can be aquired in HotW dungeon or AC). Superior dolyak runes on armor.
It is longer explanation why this build is extremely good, but selected traits boost each other so well that gives you a lot of survivability. Nothing invested in power but dagger skills have short CD so you make it up by often spamming of abilities.

You can use same traits to be healer and turn tides of WvW battles in favor of your server if you use staff and these traits

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcsc9cz0MbvTmMbm0o9MaxxcczqmRq
Use crafted or AC armor with lot’s of healing. AC Armor comes already with superior Monk runes that boos your healing even further.

NOTE: Linked website doesn’t calculate crit chance properly.

yurtshone.7325:

I have stopped playing now for weeks. I came back for the patch and ended up logging off after only an hour. I cant think of a single reason I want to log in for again. Maybe I am burned out on MMOs but maybe I am burned out on gaming companies failing so hard all the time.
This game is a grindfest and a treadmill. Not what I wanted or was told I was going to get. The years I waited for this game too /shakes head.

Really? Try non MMO game. Even of some other genre.

I haven’t had chance to do any dungeons with this new patch, but I am dungeon lower.

Known issue is that most people go to guilds and using it as a chat hub instead providing healthy base of likeminded players. I have changed several guilds and always had to do dungeons (from AC to FotM) with PUGs. In my opinion, this is not the point of the guild and I think if ANet didn’t overlook this issue but put it deliberately, is to encourage more of guild unity. I am not sure this is the right way…

One thing is sure – http://gw2lfg.com/ is full of LF1M

Regarding OP
1 – very serious issue
2 – serious issue
I think ANet is trying to encourage more guild teamplay. Must say, for this, I had to change several guilds and for every dungeon I was going PUG. In every guild I was, the guild fell apart or at least half of members represent some other guild. Representing itself is not a big issue if we could have healthy player base, but we don’t. Good guilds are rare and PUGs are often.

3 – not issue at all! For everything in the game there should be more than one way to do it. There are many players doing WvW and WvW takes a lot of time. this means, they have no time for FotM. If ascended items are for FotM only, WvW players would never ever get ascended items that are better for a fact.

4 – fractals are for people who like dungeons and challenge with higher difficulty. Also, it is advisable to have same team of people to do so same as for having SPvP team.

5 – Personal taste.
6 – I don’t get it, what is the problem here? Seems like appendix to 5 or what?
7 – an issue. Making combos are really hard to do for some professions. I don’t know if arena net encourage players to do different things. For now, you can easily make combos daily if you are in party for dungeon with elementalist or necromancer.
8 – bots – says more than 1000 words. As a temporary solution, you can make dedicated channels for chat. party + whisper channel and guild + whisper channel helps a lot.
9 – that is the exactly the reason why they implemented it.

Noone forces you to do anything. The only real good issues you mentioned are 1 and 2. The diversity is something that is encouraged but not forced.

As long as I flame on ANet regarding scheduled AoE nerf, I think this patch is very good, except for that possibility mentioned in 1 and 2. I haven’t had time to try new FotM, but I did daily.

Dodging for me is quite natural. I am doing it since BWE3.

Personally I am crafter but didn’t had in daily to craft anything. I don’t know what crafting requires for daily, if it require special tier or something, but if it is something generic to craft then it is good thing. This way, you can do your daily by crafting lowest tier. It is quick and easy and above all, you help repopulating noob zones as crafting materials are easier to find there.

FacesOfMu.3561:

I agree with the OP. If I ever become a dev, I think I’ll learn to avoid general forums other than the bugs forum after a new patch.
The problems people see seem to blind them from the strengths the game has.

I am developer, but I make financial software, analysis and organization tools – business applications. Regarding forums(AKA feedback) trust me, you want it. Worse thing is when you make something and there is no feedback. Without feedback, you don’t know if your program works or not, are there bugs and so on.

Another thing that you want it is gathering information. The more information you gather, the bigger base resource you have. On big resources, you apply proper analysis and statistics. The second one, statistics can be a big trap if you make it wrong or someone want to cheat but proper statistic is good. With it, you can keep tracking of trends, find proper moment to act on the market, acquire customers easier, track your own employees and their working habits… Possibilities are endless.

When you don’t have feedback, your program can have bugs, loosing data, crashing etc. This can nail you as worst programmer, loosing money and generally, make you worthless.

Regarding forums: you can distinct various types of posts depending what you want to know. You can make mechanics to distinct trolls from others, flamers from supporters and so on. If someone making a lot of posts on a forum with tons of suggestions and getting too little pluses from other players, within statistics you can flag such user with “spamming boring ideas”. After you can see the ones that had few good ideas, those that had many good ideas and focus on them. Compare responses to their threads and keep track where trend is going, compare with your capabilities, compare with present ingame content and possible conflicts, plan for long run content…

Basically, feedback in any form (forum or other) is free research ground for the developers/company that you can turn into a profit.

Works fine for me.

I was keep telling ppl to lvl up as ele with staff – seems like ppl who did have benefit from this achievement. It is easy to achieve, especially channeled attacks.

fellyn.5083:

It just means ele’s need work.

And that is concern regarding AoE nerf. Well, update is not up yet and we shall see how it goes. I hope they will boost a little basic attack on staff but I doubt it.

ATMAvatar.5749:

While technically correct, I think his point is that it roots the ele casting the skill for the full duration. The cripple is just a (not so effective) means of keeping enemies in the circle for that cast time.

Rooting ele during long cast – yes. I though he refers to rooting enemy. Yes, skills like those (Meteor shower, Healing Rain, Earthquake and mentioned Churning Earth) are big problem to use due to mentioned root, yet give quite good effects. Important to say, all of them are AoE and we are talking about nerfing AoE so if their effectiveness is lesser than it is now and still require rooting – usage will be quite questionable.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

I appreciate your response and since the ele is my main source of info (tied with guardian) I would have to say that the warrior is OP, at least compared to most other classes. Hundred blades drawbacks are all very similar to D/D Churning earth. Churning earth roots you for 3.25 seconds but you see none of that damage until the end. Churning earth also has a 30 second cooldown where as hundred blades has an 8 second cast time… And even when specced full glass cannon I can’t even match the damage of my friends lvl 80 warrior with hundred blades when he is running a mostly support build. AND my survivability is STILL lower than his while he is doing more damage than me. The only positive for churning earth is that you can teleport to the enemies vicinity using lightning flash, but that forces you to use up a utility slot just so you can make your strongest skill practicalish.

Small correction, Churning Earth doesn’t root enemy, it cripple enemy. So, using Hundred blades still can be effective if not too far from ele. Having in mind Churning Earth is PBAoE, enemy it is near ele.

critickitten.1498:

Probably more than that. I’m not entirely confident they’ll roll the patch overnight. More likely they roll it early morning or in the afternoon, around the time that dailies typically reset anyways.

Oh I remember starting days where they had situations like “New patch available! Reset in 2 minutes!” and game had name Build Wars and Login Wars.
In any way, I expect update will be done at noon or late hours on 28th PST which means in Europe we will get this update 29th.

PS: It is 28th 7:24 CET in the morning – no update yet. Time to go to work – yawn.

Dingle.2743:

@Inkubus: Thanks for all the advice. I’ll see if I can put it to good use, though I might not fully commit to learning the rotation until I see what changes, if any, the update will have for Elementalists.

To whoever sent me a particularly eloquent mail in-game: For whatever reason, when I try to reply, I get an error message stating that the mail system is “Unable to find recipient.” PM me, perhaps?

Regarding upcoming update, that is the reason I made so hasty my “mighty berserker build” when stacking might. I expect they won’t mess with fireball and as such when stacking might I will have huge damage per one target. If they don’t remove splash effect from Fireball, it would be good to hit close surrounding targets as well.

As for the mail, if it is from the gold seller, ANet probably removed their account. I was receiving those in game in the beginning quite often. I was surprised I received recently here as well. Just report them and ignore them.

Leamas.5803:

If they wanted a warrior-only game, which seems to be the direction, as warriors are already vastly stronger against single enemies, they should not have created caster classes.

So it seems. Look ele – most of players (almost all) consider D/D ele build in PvP. When you think about it, you transform mage like class into a melee class with it.

It is well known we can’t go with staff in front lines, and if they reduce our AoE, there is no point having one.

Cempa.5619:

@ Inkubus: I don\t play Ele, wanted to but after what you wrote I’m like WHAT DA, all that to kill one flipping mob!!!!

No, this is fun play for annihilating mobs in dungeons. For one mob you stay in fire.

There is also boring play that I tested and decided this weekend I will go with it if they nerf AoE badly. I call this build Mighty Berserker and unlike previous post, you stay only in fire.

Key with this build is to constantly cast fire spells avoiding Meteor Shower. While doing that, you will stack might because of fire Trait XII. All you have to do is get your berserker armor and some earrings and amulet (all exotic). Armor is easy – you can find it from CoF dungeon or CoE dungeon tokens. But the key is in runes.
I updated build link, click on Equipement when you open the link and look at the runes
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcsc9cz0mbmTMMbmToxG9MGokbMoVR8070V7kGI70z7kGD70z7kGo70z

They will give you extra 60% might duration and Arcana another 20%. This will make you stack 15+ might on just constantly casting first 3 fire spells from staff! It makes HUGE damage.

NOTE: Max might stack is 25 but I haven’t achieved it yet. My record is 19 in CoF Explorable. I was dealing up to 3K on Fireball on regular mobs. 25 stacks of might give 875 Power!
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Might

Downside of this is – this build is boring as hell. You stay only in one element :-/
Good side is : you hit real hard. The more you cast fire spells, the harder you hit.

Berserker gear should give you 60% crit chance, Rampager staff included. Even more with Red ring of Death from FotM. But do know, even though more crit chance is good, your main goal is to stack more might.

This will be long, but I advise you read it all.

I leveled my ele to 80 using staff only. I would recommend you do the same. The reason for that is to learn superb evasive skills. Once learned on ele who has lowest health of all professions, you will be able to apply that knowledge to any other profession you role and get benefit from it.
A side from that, staff has great range and once you unlock all your staff abilities, fun just begins.

I leveled without any tutorials by investing everything in Air and Fire, but now with this knowledge, I would do otherwise. So for leveling, I would recommend this build

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcsc9cz0mbmTMMbmToxG9MGokbMoVR

The key is to rotate your elements and this is the key rotation in my opinion to master as it will be extremely handy in dungeons (unless announced nerf become severe).

Start in water:
WATER:

1. Frozen Ground to slow them – ranged players apply extra Freeze conditions
2. predict movement of enemy and cast Ice Spike to weaken enemy (low damage)
   - swap -
   AIR:
3. Static Field if enemy moves – put in front to walk trough, otherwise place it around enemy so ranged unis apply more weakness
4. channel Lightning Surge but do know you can move while channeling (HIGH DAMAGE)
   - swap -
   EARTH (if Static field is still up your own earth basic attack has chance to apply woulnerability, bows, pistols and rifles always apply)
5. Unsteady Ground to slow enemy and apply small damage (cripple)
6. Eruption channel spell (can move while channel) does nice direct damage and huge condition bleeding
   (OPTIONAL) #5 Shockwave if enemy avoid Eruption, cast to immobilize and apply condition (even if enemy is immune to immobilize – make condition damage)
   - swap -
   FIRE
7. Flame Burst – does AoE Damage around target and leave condition burning
8. Lava Font – good damage if enemy stay on it, ranged players apply extra burning
9. Meteor Shower – massive damage can hit 1-5 times one target. MUST REMAIN STILL WHILE CHANNELING THIS!
10. Fireball – cast few of those until #3 and #2 are off cooldown
    (optional) #4 Burning Retreat – if enemy comes too close to you or even turn back to him and then cast to make him follow you all the way trough this AoE
    - swap -
    WATER
11. Geyser – if you or one party member need it but in DPS build is low heal
12. Healing Rain – large AoE same usage as #3
    - repeat rotation from start.

Don’t let this scare you. Most of the time you won’t be able to finish rotation and mobs will be dead. More often, they will be dead in just mere seconds, al you have to do is to be creative and combine what you have. But keep always in your mind – ele is weak and often must evade and use tricks to escape. Example of escaping from bunch of mobs that can one hit kill you:

Run away from them and in front of you cast these
Static Field -> Windborne Speed -> Unsteady Ground -> Frozen Ground

Conditions are by far your worst nightmare with this build and that is why I recommend Cleansing Flame and Ether Renewal.
If you got conditions on you – cast Cleansing Fire (removes 3 + AoE burn). If you got conditions and less than 70% health – Ether Renewal (you can runaway while healing yourself!).

Direct hits can be always avoided – and I mean ALWAYS. At first use mentioned ruining away technique if you got room, or Dodge or use Burning Retreat (you are invulnerable while dodging and BR is also 1 extra dodging). If all fails – Mist Form (it makes you invulnerable + breaks stun) that can help you even to rez player (start rezing and when mob approach go mist form and rezing continues). If you channel let say Meteor Shower and mob approaches – pop Arcane Shield (it does’t interrupt channeling and can pop it always).

What about other utilities? Why sacrifice for some defensive stuff? You are squishy and you make lots of damage with it. Numbers are not the biggest you will see (scepter has bigger on fire #2 but it is hard for beginners) but they are often. You quickly swap into another element and unload everything you got and swap, unload, swap, unload… You will enjoy to manipulate mobs at distance or kite them in lava font for more damage – your choice.

Xenon.4537:

Last night I saw first hand the crazy power of AoE that Anet seems to be worried about. We (Dragonbrand) were attacking Anz tower in EBG and they (Maguuma) seemed to have maybe 4-5 people only inside defending. When we breached the wall and got to the stairs, we were hit by a massive surprise attack. The stairs were a choke point and they were simply painted with a blur of particle effects. There must have been a good 50 of us in the zerg and most of us were killed right there in the opening seconds. The rest were scattered, fleeing off the walls and back through the wall opening. Maguuma had held their 50+ zerg at the top of the tower and waited to dump 50+ AoE’s on our heads at the choke. I’m not sure how I feel about this. It seems like a legit strategy, but realistically how do attackers have a hope of dealing with it?

Anet’s problem seems to come from the scaling of the zerg. Individual performance is laughable sometimes (Rangers and necros lol) but added together it just becomes a kittenstorm.

As others mentioned, stealth units, invulnerability and such are solution. Mindless zerg should always fail.

I might add, any player AoE at present pre nerf state can hit up to 5 targets only. Meaning – they can’t annihilate 50 people so quickly (or ever with their abilities). On the other hand, siege weapons in their AoE can hit 50 players at once. And I saw this a lot in WvW when forces keep siege weapons behind certain walls. Once enemy breach the wall, few players at those weapons are good enough to kill everybody. Seems like good anti zerg strategy.

Wrapping up: this is not the AoE nerf we are talking about. Siege weapon AoE prolly won’t be nerfed at all as it is not class/profession based and any player has access to it.

ScribeTheMad.7614:

That leaves me with:
Fireball
Burning Retreat (wait, that might be out too)
Water Blast (hmmmm, has a blast radius, the nit-picky might consider that an AoE in basic terms)
Chain Lightning
Lightning Surge (blinds in AoE around target, could be out as well)
Gust
Windborne Speed (uh oh, also Effects the Area around you)
Stoning
Magnetic Aura

Am I just supposed to stand there and hit them with Fireball and hope they die first?
Or am I supposed to swap to my daggers…
Oh, oh wait…..

A small correction if you will, Fireball on staff also does small AoE. If enemies are close enough it makes splash damage around main target. That leaves Stoning and Magnetic Aura (untraited) as true single target abilities. That’s it! 4 elements, 5 abilities per element gives 18 AoE abilities and 2 single target abilities. If traited, magnetic aura as any other aura with trait Water XII Powerful Aura can be applied to party members and then it becomes AoE also.

Now ANet says “we don’t want AoE to be used on single taget enemies”… OKAAAAAY and did everybody forgot mobs reaction to AoE in BWE3? For those who didn’t had a opportunity to try BWE3, mobs were running away from AoE. Everytime I was putting some Lava Font, mob would runaway from it. Now, every mob ignores it. Whey feel Lava Font as spa or something. ANet says they also want to encourage other builds. Well I was playing with Air attunement in BWE3 all the way. When game realised and Lava Font or Eruption became mob’s spa, there was no point to stick to Air only. I just realized I can load them with everything I have and I have AoE only and now it is a problem? You people are just cynical!

Instead of nerfing all this, why don’t you just upgrade part of code that you already had!? Right now, your mobs are stupid! Very very stupid! Some mobs are scripted to do certain things at certain events (usually their health percentage) and that’s it!

MAIN PROBLEM IN GW2 COMBAT
Right now, all mobs do is gathering info to calculate aggro and find shortest route towards player that is close enough to spam their abilities. Instead, you could make mobs smarter, give them more abilities. Let me put an AoE in front of them and let they jump on me at the same time avoiding AoE. Let they combine forces, let they make combos like players do.

Why? Because combat as it is is boring! And we want our AoEs to get rid of boredom as quickly as possible. If in party and we don’t kill enemies by ourselves, we weaken them enough so party members finish them off quickly so we could move on! Nerfing AoE won’t solve this boredom. It will make things tougher and more boring than it is already.

covenn.7165:

I can see a glass cannon thief perhaps one shot killing a glass cannon elementalist due to the light armor and being in the lowest health pool. A full exotic/80 glass cannon ele has around 14k health.

How wrong you are! This is me in LA

http://i.imgur.com/2oIZFOZ.jpg

I am wearing berserker gear transmuted into that costume (power main + precision + critical damage)
I have staff from AC with rampager stats (precision main + power + condition dmg)
I am missing last two runes of Lyssa
I have 2 Ruby Orichalcum Earrings (power main + precision + critical damage)
I have 2 Coral Orichalcum Rings and Coral Orichalcum Amulet (precision main + power + condition dmg)
Traits 30 Fire, 20 Air, 20 Arcana

That is example of glass canon and it is 10805 Health, Outside LA goes up to 11,4K but that’s it! Ele can only dream about being glass canon with 14K health

No I don’t die often due to a fact I use AoEs properly and I hit in PvE with this real hard. I like that idea – play properly or die. That is so satisfying being glass canon. You have awesome AoE spells but if someone sneeze at you – you die.

There are other glass canon builds for ele and all those builds have same health like I do.

ThiBash.5634:

To be honest, I think I would like it if the ele staff were changed to be more like the ranger longbow. As in, some single target burst skills, and some larger aoe skills.

That is why I proposed new weapon for ele and a like that will be long range weapon with mostly or all single target abilities (BUT VERY INTERESTING TO USE) with one or none AoE.

Grevender.9235:

did you even wonder why a bomb makes more damage than a gun shot? because drumrolls …. it’s a bomb! ( = meant to deal massive AoE damage).
So, just for basic logic, AoE are truly meant to be devastating; anything less than that, and we have a faulty mechanic.

Seems logic to me. Guess they are anti AoE mentality after all.

OK then we will just stand there and exchange punches using single target abilities, die and pretend it is fun.

Namu.5712:

You do realize Anet was mainly speaking about pve and not pvp…. so skills on short cd like dragons tooth that do considerable AOE damage….. multiply that by 4 other aoe’s from your group and mobs drop fast…. but thats the point I thought.

Otherwise get rid of all the mobs in encounters….. dredge in fractals for example… always like 10 or more of them on your group for most of that fractal…. the shaman fractal at the start theres groups spawning non stop for the first few minutes…. then the flame shaman boss that spawn lava worms….pretty sure this game is built around aoes…. and if not why make all the encounters and areas require aoes, and make single target skills kitten weak?

Ya sure lets nerf AOE’s because thats not how we intended content to be done…. yet we added 5-10 mob spawns all over the place where the only effective way to pass is to aoe lol….. some pretty fail kitten logic on anets part if you ask me.

Scroll down to Q: Elaborate your plans for changing AoEs
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/16rsh9/jan_17_dev_livestream_summary/

Seems like both PvE and PvP will be affected. But dragon tooth even dough it does a lot of damage he has very slow fall and mobs easily avoid it.

I think ANet doing things upside down. On some other page I found they claim they want to make single target profession stand out. If so, why they don’t make our single target abilities more interesting (not more powerful) so players would want on their own to use them more and not so many go for AoE.

I am going back into this video
http://www.twitch.tv/mmorpgcom/b/358339359

If we have situation where all professions are equally present in the game, it means players do not have problem with balance. Clear sign of:
- lack of ideas
- die hard anti AoE mentality

Aza.2105:

My friends,

Anet is suggesting we bring single target builds to a aoe fight. Instead of doing what is right and using aoe skills to kill groups of monsters. But there is a problem…..most encounters in gw2 are with groups of monsters fighting you. Single mob fights are quite rare, I’d say 85% of fights consist of groups of mobs attacking you….while the other 15% is a single target fight.

A aoe change would make the game worse, due to the fact that CC is quite weak. Typically in many mmos, to assist single target damage dealers you use CC to immobilize, sleep etc the mobs. But in gw2, things like immobilize last 2 secs, blind is only on next hit and so forth. So there is no time to CC and single target dps a mob then move to the next one.

GW2 is a aoe game, so its natural for everyone to use aoe skills over single target ones. In fact, I wondered why single target skills even existed in the game, thinking that maybe it was a mistake. If Anet wants single target skills to become stronger all they have to do is simple increase the amount of single mob encounters.

That I agree and add:
Arena net said they didn’t intended those AoEs to be used as player use it now. In other words it is ANet’s caprice and not real balancing as there is no need for balancing. AoEs have good restrictions, procs and cooldowns as well as channeling conditions. Good example is AoE that freaks out all non ele players – Meteor Shower. It looks devastating, does huge damage and so on but people forget facts:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Meteor_Shower

So ele must stand still for 4,25 seconds and channel spell – do not ever forget how ele vulnerable is and this can be easily intrupted
meteors doesn’t always hit target(s) – you can cast it on one target and it might happen it has been hit only once or up to 5 times, my personal record is 3
Once casted, spell is on very long cooldown on 30 seconds.

In other words, ele can NOT spam this spell. This spell can NOT be main source of ele’s damage. What people usually don’t see is ele swap attunements and use other staff spells that are also AoE and most of them are not noticable as Meteor Shower. Everybody will say now “See ele just spam it”. Well don’t forget IT IS difficult to constantly swap attunements, it is difficult to manage attunements cooldowns (you didn’t know attunements have cooldowns just like spells?) at the same time keeping everything at the distance (do not ever forget how ele fragile is).

Also, other AoE spells are not easy catchable by the enemy. Take eruption as example:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Eruption

Most people don’t see this at all and numerous times our enemy was kicked out of AoE by knockback (usually by melee classes).
What is the issue here – this spell has channel of 1,75 second but once casted it doesn’t do damage – it waits for 3 seconds and mobs or people can easily move away from AoE.

Another example Static Field
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Static_Field_

This is almost instant cast but huge cooldown and more over, it is possible will not do any damage on enemy.

Another
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ice_Spike

It has slow drop and just as Eruption, enemy can move away.

So what we have? Lava font and flame burst that also can’t be spammed. Nerf? Seriously? These are the current state facts. And it is not balancing issue – it is ANet’s desire not to use AoE, simply as that.

P.S: I am quite sure it is the same/similar with other classes. Even though Necro has shorter cooldowns, his staff AoEs are all visible and all are traps so they can be avoided with ease. Nerfing is also not an option for necro.

DanH.5879:

nice movie, really
i also solo fractals, but i don’t brag and make videos of how i cheat…

p.s. i would had preferred the full 7 min duration, and not the fast forward

And how do you solo jungle fractal with wisps?

evolverzilla.2359:

The problem of soloing champions is not the loot. Is the LOW population that most maps has today. In most of the low and mid level maps I can play for more than half an hour without seeing NOBODY and NOBODY talking on map. And even if you call for help on map chat you can have NO answer.

The best way to solve this problem is UNDERFLOW SERVERS. When a map is below a population point you can choose to stay on this map or be redirected for a underflow, just like LA overflow. They can even use the overflow servers to do this, the overflow servers have a very low population on theri PvE content.

Edit: complementing the idea. If you have more population on those maps, you will have more chances to have more people killing the champ for fun or for chance of rewards (I really wanna see those people playing ragnarok online… 0,01% of chance to get a equip from a monster that spawn once a day)

Agree with this. This is MMO and I should bump often to other players. Right now it looking more and more to single player experience. I might return to Skyrim or something.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I like to solo things but not all the time. Even when I do, I like to see some players doing something else on the map. Or to read on map chat some of their ideas and conversations – might be useful or planing some dungeon…

Still, I think increasing rewards from champs could make players want to stick to certain maps. It doesn’t have to be something you will have as a gear, but to be valuable. Like rare materials and bunch of junk you can sell to NPC for more money. Right now, we can spend a lot of time fighting a champ and earn like 2 silver. If we spend 30 minutes fighting champ, we should get 30 silver at least. That champ can have long cooldown so players go somewhere else for other things or other champs. This might be as a pilgrimage route but is is still better than what we have now.

Sirendor.1394:

My thought Inkubus, is that mounts are totally unneccesary:
-> Waypoints
-> Swiftness
What else would you want? Mounts won’t prove a huge addition to the game, just something we don’t really need, but that came anyways.

Player Housing and additionally Guild Towns on the other hand do improve the game. The whole game is about Guilds and yet we don’t seem to have any special Guild features… which is quite lame imo. There should be some kind of incentive why you would actually want to be in a guild, e.g. cause you can ‘live’ (as far as it’s possible in a game) in a town with mates, cause you can play events in that town etc.

No, no, I repeat, I am not found of mounts and with waypoints I think mounts are not needed in this game. I just point out that many players asked for it and that ANet is depicted mounted riders with upcoming release. I really doubt there will ever be any mounts in GW2 but I really think it is a sarcasm from ANets side if they depict upcoming update without mounts.

There I drag parallel with housing – players ask for it. Also, guild halls have been asked. Like, we could have it in the capital cities (except LA) and make those places long forgotten live again. We could organize duels in houses and guild halls as well GvG fights. And I really doubt any of it will happen. ANet think they solve everything with 5v5 SPvP fights and renting servers from them.

SquallofBalamb.8973:

Inkubus.7529:

Let me mess it up.
So today ANet changed website and announced upcoming update for 28th January.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/january-2013/

The horses are in the focal plan of illustrated graphics. I know many players asked for mounts. We shall see if they will bring any and make what players wished so much. If no, well save your time by refraining of typing “we want houses” (also it will reduce erase of letters on keys). Majority of new MMOs have houses. Capital cities in GW2 can be great place to have them as instances.

They have already said they won’t be bringing mounts in this update. Also, please stay on topic, I really don’t care for or want mounts.

I know. Don’t you think it is sarcastic to post in first plan mounted motif on upcoming update for a game without mounts? ANet is detached a lot. I am personally not eager to get mount. Not my thing. But so many players do want it. My point it, mount wishes have been so numerous on these forums and they are not happening. Now, many people asking for housing. What makes you think they will listen to anybody and make housing?

@Kraggy.4169 giving some nice rewards for effort is not turning GW2 into WoW or LOTRO. Right now, people won’t do anything after they got from their desired dungeons. Newcomers have hard time to find party for story mode. Hell, I play this from BWE3 and I didn’t do story mode on all my 80 toons of which, 2 toons have no story mode on any dungeon. Why? The same reason others don’t do it – not rewarding. Downside is – people help newcomers only if they are bored to death.

@hithlain.4385 Seems like most people find defeating champions not rewarding. Mature karka roam and roam while players avoid using tricks to evade their attacks. Have in mind this game is MMO and first M is very important. Right now, masses don’t like reward system when compared to effort invested.

Xomic.5792:

Sometimes, I feels like Anet builds up strawman-style problems within their game, then forgets they’re strawmen and tries to tackle them as if they’re real problems.

There’s so many problems within this game, like condition damage, one has to wonder why they think a non-problem like AoE is a problem at all.

They said already “we didn’t intended to be used like that” whatever that means. If so, why all staff spells on ele and necro are AoE?

Zanaraxtarus.3954:

…. then the game will be forever lowered to “something to do when you’re bored” instead of a main-game…

Oh the irony… I kinda feel like that… I might try single target build I dig at YouTube but I doubt party members will be fond of me and my ele as they used to be.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Wasn’t expecting a reasonable response, tbh.

Well, on Desolation, the lower levels are quite populated and chatty, LA is always overflow and WvW always needs queues.

We personally don’t have issues getting groups for everyones favourite runs (AC and CoF) or Fractals.

Could be everyones trying to bandwagon jump to the higher WvW servers before free transfers are over?

If that’s the case, lower population servers could be merged. But from my view,if all higher population servers are like Desolation (oh, the irony), then they’re ok.

It might be the case. I don’t know, but what I do know is that my latest toon is asura and zone is quite empty.

It was hard to get party for frac but last 3 days I waited quite some time to get party members.

EDIT: according to this site, we are average at WvW
http://mos.millenium.org/matchups

Also, trend is to have bad guilds. They get formed, start good and people represent someone else. Get new guild – same story. As if people search for better guild and hope “In next guild will be good population and organization”.

TheDaiBish.9735:

I’m a fanboy for pointing the flaws in your argument?

Out of curiosity, what server are you on?

Also:

• WvW
• Fractals
• People being in other areas

Can explain why you don’t see other people.

EDIT: Here’s the livestream with MMORPG.com where he says that they raise server caps.

http://www.twitch.tv/mmorpgcom/b/358339359

I can’t play WvW due to culling and FPS drops but for fractals – it is really hard to find party. There are no so much of those LFG in LA. In front of the fractals gate are almost no people. I am on Gandara and that place was crowded! Now it is way different.

NickDollahZ.5348:

Guild Wars 2 encourages grouping up. I think adding that kind of mechanic would be going against that philosophy. As it stands now grouping up with players doesn’t negatively effect you.

If so, then there wouldn’t be any mature karka in Southsun Cove. Instead, everybody avoid them and I can’t think anything other about mature karka than boring moving nuisance. Even in group, they give stupid drop making noone wants to invest effort killing them. Only one mature karka is killed from time to time due to rich orri node, but most of the time is avoided and kited.

Let me mess it up.
So today ANet changed website and announced upcoming update for 28th January.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/january-2013/

The horses are in the focal plan of illustrated graphics. I know many players asked for mounts. We shall see if they will bring any and make what players wished so much. If no, well save your time by refraining of typing “we want houses” (also it will reduce erase of letters on keys). Majority of new MMOs have houses. Capital cities in GW2 can be great place to have them as instances.

Gorni.1764:

since it’s our only way to play it’s also our dominate way … what now Anet?

how could they even nerf AoE in general?

just compare ele staff 2 with warrior 2h-sword 2:
- both spells have nearly same CD
- warrior doing 10-20k+ per target; ele doing 3? ~1500-hits per target dealing about 5k dmg in total per target
- warrior with haste deploys this load of damage within about 1-2 seconds while the ele-spell doesn’t even do any damage before 1-2 seconds when it’s already on the ground -> can be easily avoided thus usually will do max. 1 tick of damage (one could also choose to just keep standing in it, since its damage is so low)
- only advantage of ele-spell is that it can be cast at 1200 range (but what’s the use of this, if it doesn’t do any dmg)

how is this fair? (and please spare me with your “ele got 20 spells”-argument)

Ye it is fair in multiple levels. They ruin some profession or something that is important to certain group of players so those players leave. Player base drops, reducing the lag so new players purchase the game with reduced lag in comparison to what would be if all those players stayed in game. So it is fair new player get same or less amount of lag and Arena Net don’t worry too much to expand servers.

After some time can propose expansion with some new profession or weapon that will get attention of players and raise popularity, nerf it and story repeats. Also, this expansion is billable so it is fair again Arena net earns money.

Who cares about AoE?

Arheundel.6451:

Someone pls show me a single video of a d/d ele doing this kind of dmg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL9mN67DwmU&feature=player_embedded#!

ANet will ignore you. Will simply state
“It is not our intention to use AoE damage against single targets” adding “so that single target professions can stand out.”. Your video partially disprove them. Yet they stick with this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-919RMwyfnk

My biggest issue with this is nerfing in PvE. For PvP most ele players choose D/D and AoE of that is not big deal as with staff.

Here is a hint what ANet thinks about staff AoE professions like necromancer in the video and elementalist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6Q0wFpVZA2s
Why all the sudden “trolling” comes to my mind?

And what it think about melee classes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plCpEbV158k
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZzaoAtW7r0
And all the sudden “awesome” comes to my mind…

True, GS has AoE yet it is nothing comparing to ele and necro AoE in terms of AoE skill. This doesn’t mean, GS player is unable to kill staff AoE ele or necro. Quite opposite! It has quite big chances.
I wouldn’t be surprised if GS are nerfed very little or left untouched at all.

But let us face it – no matter how much we plea about it, ANet decided and won’t change their mind no matter what. The difference is, I won’t play expansion(s) on useless staff ele and necro. In fact, will not play at all.

Caffynated.5713:

You give them way too much credit.

What did they “bring up” when they neutered Evasive Arcana?
What did they “bring up” when they nerfed the damage on grenade kit by 30%?

ANet has long since taken all of the good will people had for them, wadded it up, set it on fire and thrown it off a cliff.

Nerfing AoE (not just on the ele), shows a clear disconnect in how the game plays and how the devs see things. Their disconnect with reality is doubled down when they talk about AoEing downed players as a problem. If a bunch of horribles want to run up and try to revive people under heavy AoE , that is a massive L2P issue, not a game balance issue. Use a rez signet like a halfway intelligent person. Push enemies back or suppress them with counter fire before you attempt to revive.

It’s not just their conclusion that is terrible, it’s the incredibly ignorant and nonsensical logic that they use to validated it. ANet has shown repeatedly that they don’t understand how to balance the game. When they come out and say that they plan to make a shockingly bad gameplay adjustment like this, everyone should be up in arms. They’re clearly not going to reach a good decision on their own.

I agree with you.

To me, it looks like ANet prefer simple brawl as a fight – a punch exchange. If you land AoE – it is unfair to punch exchange and we intended game to be punch exchange. Maybe next step is removal.. oops sorry I mend nerf of dodge?

If those people go blindly into AoE it is serious L2P issue (I can’t believe I am typing L2P). Even when I go in PvE I put some of my protective utilities to rez someone not to mention it would be advisable in PvP always to do so. Besides, protection is good. But no, people want all their offensive utilities slotted and march like Lancelot into AoE death claiming heroic victory.

My question is – did any of these plea to ANet not to go down hill had any effect on ANet? Ever?

Probably – a yes. I still think it would be nice try.
Anyway it is already decided by ANet. Pointless to talk about it.
http://www.gamebreaker.tv/mmorpg/guild-wars-2-expansion-predicted/

this map is fitting too perfectly
http://i.imgur.com/WZeaQ.jpg

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dominion_of_Winds