Showing Posts For Jakal.9582:
I like having the attunement swap the way it is now. Maybe have a slightly lower global cool down on attunement swap, but not any lower than 3 seconds. The way it is now requires forethought and planning rather than just knee jerk reactions. Once I got a bit more of a feeling for playing Weaver I didn’t have too much of a problem and I was playing more aggressively. There was always something that I could do. I think a lot of elementalists are too reliant on obsidian flesh for their defense rather than all of the other skills that are available.
I preferred to use dagger in my offhand as I felt that there was more I could do with any given offhand attunement. I never even used focus for my offhand as it feels too narrow in its game play, though focus does help a lot with projectile hate and any ranged burst.
^ This
I went into the beta with a certain build in mind. Because Unravel Hexes was different than what I thought I needed to make a work around build to deal with conditions. Which works, but it is not as nice as having the Unravel Hexes cleanse apply to all conditions.
This is the biggest change I would make coming out of beta weekend. I would rather have Unravel Hexes be able to cleanse any or all conditions, even if the cleanse rate was slower.
I forgot to mention this. The build editor is not yet updated to the recent patch. I took the signet trait to improve and preserve my signet passives through shroud. I’ve always wanted signet of vampirism passive to heal through shroud, now it can. I also took the locust signet for a couple of reasons. It provides a movement bonus that cannot be stripped or corrupted, with the trait this signet also provides some healing power which is a nice bonus, also when I am being focused the locust signet active can be a good heal. If there is five enemies around, the locust signet active will heal me for around 10k.
This build could work fine with a ranged weapon set. I usually run with dagger/warhorn and axe/focus. I chose the greatsword this time for damage and some aoe effects. Also, I have more of a tendency to fight in melee, it’s just my play style.
Soul Reaping has always been a go to for me. However, the trait changes kind of dulled the superiority of Soul Reaping enough that I thought that I would try out a different kind of build. I will miss the shroud recharge though. I get spiked through shroud too much for the VP change to bother me too much.
I hate the idea of removing more build diversity simply because you don’t know how to deal with it. If you are having a difficult time with a particular build, then learn to fight it, create a new build to counter act it, do something. Don’t come onto the forums and complain, saying that a build needs to be taken out completely. All that does is destroy build diversity, which lessens the game experience for everyone. I can’t believe that someone would advocate the removal of an entire build.
I like to experiment with different builds. I know that there are more powerful builds out there. This build is just a fun build, but I think it is pretty cool.
More for solo play:
“http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhF6kGRodTscTwyGgeTsgLYQXtAwCQqH012XxVxuYYE-TJhIABXs/AAnCg3LD4/TAAA”
This version is based on the same idea, but has a little more team synergy:
“http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhF6kGRodTscTwyGgeTsgLYQXtAwCYqIU2WCxVxuYYE-TJhIABAcKA8/JA8x+DvXGAA”
Discuss. Let me know what you think.
Okay, thanks. Still, having a barrier up to half your health pool is pretty nice. Most of my characters have a health pool anywhere between 16k – 24k. So that would be a max barrier of 8-12k.
I didn’t know that there was a cap on barrier. Do you know what the cap is?
I just used a five man team of Scourge as an example. The point that I was trying to make is that the Scourge will be able to apply barrier very easily, Sand Cascade only has an eight second cooldown. When there are multiple Scourge, that barrier access and application only increases.
Some classes are very stackable in PvP, DH being a prime example. With some classes you only want one maybe two, Thief for this category. Scourge will definitely put necromancer in the stackable category.
Also, I tend to die most from melting from conditions than from power damage. Seeing an additional mechanic that will help mitigate condi damage is pretty cool.
For years the primary defensive mechanic of the necromancer has been shroud. Shroud is useful in many ways from dealing damage to soaking up damage. Now the Scourge will not have shroud. The defensive mechanic for the Scourge will be barrier.
If you look at it, a single Scourge can apply a base barrier of 2.4k on themselves and those around them or their sand shades. Now think about if you have two or more Scourge on a team. If they used Sand Cascade (apply barrier) at the same time each Scourge could end up with huge barriers. In the case of five Scourge on a team, each could have about 12k barrier. That’s just a barrier spike instance. With proper rotations between different Scourge on the same team, this amounts to a lot of sustained defensive capability.
On a side note, I love the idea of barrier as a defensive mechanic. Blocks, evades, invulns work great for preventing direct damage and applications of new conditions, but do not prevent damage ticks from current conditions. Conditions will tick on Barrier before getting to your health pool. I think that this alone will help to balance power and condition damage. Granted, we will find out when we get to play around with PoF.
Anyway, tell me your thoughts.
I actually like the added complexity. If something doesn’t work out the way I was planning, it kind of spurs me to work towards getting better. If I land a great combo, or reaction, I feel pretty cool. I like having playing a class that is a little bit more difficult. That is my personal opinion.
As far as thieves go. When has there been a time when you didn’t need to work around and anticipate other classes and players? Even if I am killed immediately, I just feel that I need to get better. Either in proper use of skills, or in anticipation and prediction.
Exactly. The fact that in HoT we got an elite specialization with warrior that could run Berserker amulet and still be able to face tank both direct and condition damage says something about the risk/reward balance of the HoT specializations. It’s also considered meta enough that most people can pick it up without too much problem. Because the risk/reward is out of whack is also how we get condi daredevil cheese. Low risk, high reward.
I just want this expansion to have a suitable balance of risk to reward. I think that weaver currently has a good risk to reward balance. At least it seems that way from just looking at the design. We will see when we get to actually play it. I was just disappointed that after the announcement, the forum was filled with several things about how to “fix” the weaver. As it is now the weaver will require some serious critical thinking in analyzing and anticipating an opponents moves. Which I think will make the gameplay much more interesting. This didn’t really happen for a lot of specializations in HoT. The HoT specializations didn’t require as high of a level of critical thinking in order to play well.
The Weaver is HIGH RISK, HIGH REWARD.
The original theme and flavor of the elementalist was for high risk, high reward. High risk, high reward gameplay is also high skill gameplay. We need our specializations and builds to have inherent risk in order to promote skill. This was lost in Heart of Thorns. In HoT, we were given too much damage and defense without really any drawbacks. Low risk, High reward. This is how we ended up with facerolling builds with such low skill floors. You know what builds I’m talking about.
I know that some people are worried about access to defensive 4 and 5 skills. That is not a design flaw, it is not an oversight, it is part of the tradeoff of choosing to play weaver. That is what it means to have high risk, high reward. For weaver, you give up near instant access to any given 4/5 skill of any given attunement in order to gain more skills and skill combinations. It defeats the purpose of the weaver if people keep trying to add various skills, buttons or mechanics to completely attune to an element without any sort of drawback. So, please stop.
If you are really worried about getting access to defensive 6/5 skills, there are a variety of ways to work around this. First off there is the utility skill ‘Unravel’ which allows you to fully attune to any attunement within five seconds. If you choose focus for your offhand, then you have a couple of big defensive skills on two attunements, air and earth. Unravel has 2 charges with a charge renewal of about 25 seconds. If you can’t use your defensive skills with Unravel, then you have bigger problems. If you don’t like the idea of putting your Unravel on your utility bar, then that is simply part of the tradeoff. You can also use Mistform. Mistform makes you invulnerable and you can also swap attunements while in mistform. Not to mention mistform being extremely powerful by itself. Also, there are several defensive skills included in the set of Dual Attacks.
If after all of this you still feel that it is too risky, I have a very simple solution for you. DON’T PLAY WEAVER.
P.S. Sorry if I seem a little salty. I am really excited for the Weaver specialization, but it seems that everyone keeps trying to compare the weaver to past gameplay. The weaver specialization will require a different kind of play style, something that I look forward to, but a lot of people don’t seem to want to let go of the past play style. I think that the weaver will bring back some of the original style and flavor of the elementalist, that is of fast attunement swapping and quick tempo. The tempest slowed down the Elementalist gameplay a lot.
I find that the mace 3 skill is not hard to land if you know what you combo it with. If you notice, the axe 4 skill, frigid blitz, places you behind the target and facing them. Use axe 4 and then use mace 3. This will allow you to easily land your mace 3 skill. Both mace 3 and axe 4 have similar cooldowns, only 2 seconds difference. Additionally, axe 4 is unblockable. This means that you can get around direction oriented blocks such as the DH virtue shield and land mace 3 from behind.
As it is, I am fine with mace 3.
Hey guys, I wanted make this thread for a couple of reasons. I am first and foremost a theory crafter. I love to look at different and sometimes wonky builds to see if something can work. I have played gw2 for a couple of years now with pvp being my main game mode for about half of that time. I wanted to show my guardian build. I have used this build for a while now with minimal changes. I actually haven’t touched the traits for this build since HoT launch. While I consider myself a decent pvp player, I realize I am not the best. That being said, I have had good success with this build.
My build is more of a hybrid damage build, although it is most similar to a burn guard as far as traits go. I wanted hybrid damage so that people would not get an easy pass on my damage if someone was blocking, cleansing conditions or had resistance. Many burn guards try to cover up their burning with sigil of geomancy, earth, torment, etc. I prefer to just deal a different type of damage.
Here is a link to my build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAR8en8cClDhdDBOCB8DhlEiKb/+vB8aZDgEQu6b+rH-TZhAQBwY/hS+AA2wRAQilBAwFBAA
For a more direct damage oriented version simply swap out Runes of Balthazar for Runes of the Flame Legion and have one of you sigils be a Sigil of Opportunity.
If you can manage your blocks and heals well and you want a glassier version, than swap out Sage’s Amulet for Viper’s.
Reasons for utilities, traitlines, weapons:
Weapons: The greatsword and sword have great potential for direct damage. I also like the leap and the teleport that these weapons provide. In addition I prefer the flow and rhythm of these faster paced weapons. For my off hand I have swapped back and forth between shield and focus, though lately I have stuck with shield. This set up is lacking a little in ranged attacks, however I never liked the feel of DH longbow. The scepter is alright, but not my favorite. I usually do alright between all of the leaps and teleports.
Traitlines:
• Dragon Hunter for the improvements to my virtues, especially justice.
• Valor was chosen for the meditation traits for improved survivability.
• Virtues was chosen for a combination of utility, survivability, and damage via Permeating Wrath. I know that many people would choose radiance instead for all of the extra burning damage. However I believe that there comes a certain point where you have a choice between extra damage or more utility/survivability. I don’t want to have great damage but be dead and waiting to respawn most of the time. I more often than not get top damage dealt anyway.
Heal: Purification – Reliable healing for melee.
Utilities: Judge’s Intervention – stun break, gap closer, good burning damage.
Contemplation Of Purity – stun break, mass condition cleanse.
Signet of Judgement – stun break, damage and condition damage reduction, extra burning damage.
—I’ve always liked Signet of Judgement for the damage reduction and for the stun break. With the recent patch it is even better with condition damage reduction as well. Although I think that I would have preferred to keep the weakness instead of the burning.
Elite: Renewed Focus — . . . . . . obvious.
Amulet: Sage’s Amulet – extreme synergy with any or all of my skills.
Sigils: Sigil of Smoldering – increase burning uptime.
Sigil of Doom – this is good for sword as sword is largely a single target weapon. This helps to mitigate enemy healing after initial burst on greatsword.
Please let me know what you think. Constructive criticism and questions are appreciated. Though please no moaning over nerfs or who got what buff. If I wanted to get depressed and listen to ranting, I would talk to people about politics.
Arcane Fury: Traits that proc on swapping to the attunement of the spec they’re in is amplified. Healing Ripple: Healing is changed from 1302 to 2100, radius is increased to 360. Electric Discharge: Damage increased from 249 (without power) to 426. Sunspot: Damage increased from 178 to 426, applies 1 burn for 2 seconds (without expertise), and radius is increased to 360. Earthern Blast: Damage increased from 80 to 426, cripple increased to 5 seconds, applies 2 bleed for 5 seconds.
Arcane Precision: change the burn from 1 to 2 seconds, and make the chance on critical hit 50%
Elemental Contengency: Increase the retaliation to 5 seconds, increase the vigor to 5 seconds, increase the protection to 4 seconds, reduce the cooldown to 7 seconds.
Elemental Enchantment: Increase the duration added to boons to 20%.
Final Shielding: Arcane Shield’s cooldown decreased to 60, to match the utility skill.
Evasive arcana: Flame Burst’s damage is increased from 27 to 210. Cleansing Wave’s condition cleanse is increased to 2 to match the skill in dagger offhand. Shock wave’s damage is increased to 256, the cripple is increased to 5 seconds. The radius of all of these is increased to 360.
Elemental surge: Whole under the effects of Arcane Lightning, you ignore weakness.
I wouldn’t mind these changes. Some of them were along the lines of what I was thinking to improve the Arcane line anyway. I would also like to see the ICD of Evasive Arcana reduced to 8 seconds to fit with the atunement swap reduction that already occurs automatically with the Arcane line.
In addition as this would be a change for the Arcane line this would be more of a buff for core elementalist. The majority of Tempest builds that I know of don’t use the Arcane line.