Guild Wars 2

i wish what OP says is true. if every profession has an OP build – then isnt that balance already??

obviously not for eles while useful, not even slightly close to OP.

you should google for the video on how a warrior takes down the entire wvw camp, elites and all, within a 3-5 second sequence.

that’s what i call burst.

I play staff ele since launch, and have been sticking to my guns and adapting irregardless how bad it turns out, here is my take:

even with LTP points below on tpvp, i still hope staff ele gets more buffs, but seems challenging by design – perhaps add free roots/ cripples in regular attacks?

1. approach = requiring a party is a must – not because its so weak that any other class works with a party – but think of how artillery works behind front lines. and only zerker works for staff ele to reliably get many kills.
2. wish = buffing traits simply makes more people stick to DD, not staff. so i hope buffs add to staff eles specifically.
3. range = fighting at max range is incredibly advantageous. if opposing team doesnt get off point and ignores your zerker meteor storm your team will likely get a chain easy stomps.
4. flee = how i play (and successful zerker eles) is to be as timid as possible. flee when anyone attempts to approach you.. i flee when any opponent is within 800 radius. if you want to get to melee range, dont play a staff ele. accept the fact that staff ele cannot beat ANY profession reliably at melee range.
5. survive = almost every button i mash is used for getting away/ staying alive. even water/ earth #1. always be prepared for stealthed opponents, as you will surely be top of their hit list. dont stand still – instintively move away if you ‘feel’ you are going to get backstabbed.
6. killing = to kill stuff, only zerker on fire element is reliable. fight at max range. just staying on fire element should outdps someone at 1200 range. ele is the only class that fully stays at max range for full dps. if possible find a good vantage point where opponents cannot easily reach you or notice you.

the above has ensured me top points and turn the tables – as long as my team is not steamrolled, but usually also ensures the entire opposing team has me as top of hit list. if nobody cares to protect you, prepare to die a lot.

Anymras.5729:

Jason.9643:

the thumper stun breaker. did you notice that it has enough stability.. just to be immune from your own rifle #4 overcharge shot’s knockback?

also, turret build is really strong. i havent lost a single 1v1. i think we will get a nerf. which will be sad.

If they nerf Turrets because of how they perform in one-on-one situations, they’re stupid – it’s an MMO with all of, what, one duel mode?

i sure hope they think that way!

the thumper stun breaker. did you notice that it has enough stability.. just to be immune from your own rifle #4 overcharge shot’s knockback?

also, turret build is really strong. i havent lost a single 1v1. i think we will get a nerf. which will be sad.

Erebus.7568:

zoran.4826:

The reduction on fire spells makes a near constant fire field that does equal damage and hits at same moment as fire auto attack. 5700 each for 11400 dps plus burning at 25 stacks of might. Pair with a LH ele every 3rd swing is blast finnisher and blind. LH ele if speced will easily maintain 25 stacks of might and minutes of fury with just auto hammer

-.- this is an extremely unrealistic combat scenario on pvp or even pve, the dmg numbers as well is out of wack compared to any “effective” staff build (you hit for around 3k in orr on a crit, if you are maxed out dps wise you can push that to 3,7+- for a 100% hp mob) this gives you 6- 7,4k dmg at BEST kittening far from your 11k even in pve(orr testing) -.- ,
even worse for pvp especially you get NO WHERE near 11k, not even near 6k dmg in an auto attack and 1 tick of lava font(assumes this is the spell you mean) even if both crits the target and you are in zerk gear+full dps…
you should play a staff ele in pvp for just 20 fights or so, same in dungeon runs, then do the same with a necro or worriar cookie cutter build and then come back and try to defend the staffs effectiveness.

pve wise if the situation is set up correctly and you got other people to take the beating. the staff is ON PAR with other classes weapons but your survive is rediculessly low though and pure support is a complete wasted since other classes outshine you by far both dps and support wise there :/

it needs alot of help and the main issue with the staff(from the dps pov) is the cast time delay to hit time :/ these makes the dps extremely low if not set up perfectly where you can keep the mob in the aoe’s for the full duration without them beating the kitten out of you :P
ofc the survivability is always terrible in dps mode and the dps could easily get the increase the lower cst and delay would add to it without making it imba due to the extreme low survive

i agree – these numbers are pretty much correct. ele staff dps is very low, even with gear/ traits that aim to max out that dmg. these numbers are much worse if you actualy go for bunker build and heal/survival gear.

i got another idea.

simply raise the animation higher than the camera of the oponent. at least only himself isnt able to see whats coming, have to rely on really good skill or chance to duck out of harms way.

similar to DR/ Queen’s Guantlet – Liadri’s fight. with the lame shadowfall attacks that you can see only if you are spectating the fight, but if you are in the fight yourself – the effects are above your camera, making it hard to predict when the attack will hit.

style.6173:

Nikkinella.8254:

What I don’t get is why they don’t just keep the nerfs to spvp only. That is the only area in the game where ele was ever a problem. It has always been incredibly underpowered in PvE and WvW. It could bunker decently in WvW, but so can EVERY other class if they spec for it. Why was ele singled out and nerfed into oblivion when they already had the lowest health, armor, and damage to begin with? And we just keep getting weaker with every patch. Keep the nerfs just to spvp and stop destroying the class in other parts of the game for those of us who never bother with spvp anyway.

Lolol. Underpowered in WvW? It was the MOST OP class for a long time there.

how is ele OP?

Maybe good at aoe tagging and providing water/ lightning fields – but i dont see how that is OP.

how good is ele imo:
survivability = medium (only beating mesmer imo)
dps = low (i cant think of a lower dps profession)
1v1 = low (has some good control with d/d, but thats it – staff, etc doesnt work)
wvw = medium (nice fields, and good long range tagging, dont expect to kill anything)

most of my hours spent on ele – sure, i can win 1v1 if opponent is very trashy and doesnt flee on low hp. but mostly its easy to beat ele. it is pretty much impossible to kill a good guardian/ warrior/ thief/ ranger in any build of ele – unless i push them off a cliff with tornado maybe, but a good opponent wont stick around for that…

i seriously played staff full time and try to make it work in spvp/ wvw – pve is fine, no dps meters means no stress anyway, but its often clear im lowest dps as staff. in spvp/ wvw, staff ele can only operate in zerg (who cant?) or vs poor players (again, who cant?).

then i rolled necro – to realize it melts everyone’s faces. beating >1 opponent (1v2) in spvp/ wvw is very common – yesterday as necro, i simultaneously did 1v2 nonstop for at least 3 rounds without a chance to heal (6 counts of kill), on land, and later in water – the win sure feels good.

i alternate around my lv80s – and in order of preference/ fun factor – here is my ranking now –
1. necro > melt faces, while tanky as hell.
2. eng > fun as hell with guns, bombs, rockets..
3. ele > effects look great, cant deny that – maybe that’s anet’s way of ‘balancing’ population.
4. guardian > impossible to kill. one of best contributors to parties.
5. mesmer > very nice tricks and totally new gameplay, and best troller in pvp
6. thkittentealth is fun, but not my style i suppose..
7. war > strong but, way too common/ cheesy for my taste.
8. ranger > fun with pets, but i need more pretty animations in a fantasy mmo. best but cheesy autoattack lol.

if i reccomend a change – i would suggest to double ele staff dps. that would work fine.

why is arkham so obsessed with ‘F# keys’ and ‘primary mechanic’ and ‘passive trait buffs’? to each of the 3 items – so what if its like that?

while its good to have basic rules like traits and leveling – devs would want as much variation/ orthogonality in their design as much as possible to keep things interesting? even if it means varying from ‘F# key’ and ‘primary mechanic’ and ‘passive trait buffs’ – which isnt a big deal to me to hang on to really.

other than that, i think you are just not used to the class. many people (look at profession distribution) got the hang of it and have a blast, and successful in spvp/ pve/ wvw – at least i know i had good fun.

just saying that engineers doesnt isnt the same as other professions in a specific ways doesnt clearly explains why its a bad design during gameplay.

i havent seen this before!! gona try it out indeed – most people focus on pvp.
was looking for a big numbers pve build for screenshots n giggles. thanks hamartia.

MIrra.3604:

Frostedblaze.9017:

Sometimes, I love solo roaming on my Ele. I enjoy taking supply camps, setting up an arrow cart, and messing with the zerg when they try to come by. However, I really struggle with thieves, and I don’t know what to do about it. They come in and harass me 1v1, and if it looks like I’m about to kill them, they stealth and run away. No matter how much control, aoe, etc I put down on where they stealth, they still manage to get away. Then, when they’re healed up, they come back and do it all again.

I really need general tips on how to kill thieves.

Not sure what this kittening is about. I mean, on my thief, I can get the majority of eles to run and when I’m about to catch up and finish him/her off I see fiery greatsword and 3 then 4 all the way to spawn point.

Thief can get away and ele can get away. Some players are just better at doing it. No reason to make a post about it.

wow – check out how inherently biased this post is. thf is meant to hunt eles – eles better run and eles might manage to flee if hes got firey gs. no reason to make a post about it.

Sunflowers.1729:

Jason.9643:

just checked, here are the ways that thf remove conditions, very limited:

THF needs sword/dagger spec for infiltrator strike (3 ini) > shadow return in 15s (2 ini) removes a condition.
shadow step slot skill > shadow return in 10s – break stun + 3 conditions (50s cd)
Shadow’s Embrace (shadow4 trait) Remove one condition every 3 seconds while in stealth.

hence if you keep burning ticks on him and run around a tree, you may just win

not sure if shadow embrace proc again if you stealth twice in quick succession. e.g. black powder > hs hs hs.. – another tip, black powder is smoke aoe, usualy against pve mobs that wont move, so for pvp, just move away from it immediately.

Thieves have amazing condition removal

-Shadow’s Embrace actually removes a condition immediately upon entering stealth, and another one every 3 seconds (so that’s two conditions)
-Hide in Shadows removes burning, poison, and bleeding. It even removes poison before healing you, so you get the full heal. (Works with above trait too)
-Shadow Return – Cures 1 condition
-Shadowstep return – Cures 3 conditions

I won’t include the ranger’s stolen skill, or any possible runes/sigils.

That’s actually quite a lot of condition removal – when I play my Thief, condition builds are the easiest to beat. Not only can they not burst me down, the conditions just fall off when I enter stealth.

Edit: You cannot catch a Thief in WvW. It’s not possible, unless he is terrible.

omg thf. u cant kill it with fire. more slippery than roaches. quick – nerfbat it!

you are forgetting something very important, irregardless of profession.

situation awareness -

- nobody is intended to survive 1 vs many. zoom out, scan the situation. if you die, look around see understand why – it is easy to tunnel vision during 1v1, and not notice other players in the fight till its too late. a warrior can charge a sniping shot from max distance for 25k dmg if you didnt notice him.

- many players spec for burst damage, accept that. it means the 1st thing to do if you get jumped on is to retreat/ dodge/ cantrip out of the burst dps. many professions can burst you easily – rangers, thiefs, warriors, guardians, etc. if you survive the first 3 seconds – you likely survive the next 10 seconds.

- since you’re D/D, you have tonnes of offensive/ defensive auras – e.g. air aura alone can stun attackers in 240 range. use auras early!

great guide! just like to add some points:

regarding evasive arcana (EA), eles should dodge with a purpose whenever possible –
e.g. weave in water3+earth EA = dodge attack + counter attack + proc combo heal

EA is 10s cd for each attunement. means you can cast at least 2 EA in quick succession, 3 with sigil of energy (gives 1 free dodge per attunement swap). hence – during this short ‘bullet time’ – you can dance in mesmer shatters, thief black powder, warriors hundred blades while healing and poking back at them.

arcane 6 – havent seen anyone use that for vigor – quite a waste for trait choice (since you can only choose 3).

perma fury – another key reason why this works is 30% boon duration increase with 30 pts in arcane and runes.

actually, you may realize effective attunement/ combos after hours of gameplay – but watching videos taught me a great deal of things i never tried and brings the game to the next level. it is easiest to find ideas in tpvp or daphoenix videos – many ideas helpful even in pve, such as exploiting corners, ‘look backwards’ key, use of tornado, racial elites, etc, etc.

PinCushion.7390:

eldain stenlund.4306:

Your talking Dagger elemental.

If your staff and stumble upon a thief. just drop the keyboard, go get a drink, and resurrect at closest waypoint. you cant do anything.

I’ve found that bad thieves, which counts for a lot of them, don’t run much condi cleansing. I know they have a trait that cleanses on stealth, but for some reason the guys in our newest WvW matchup don’t often take it.

Let me just say that it’s hard to reset a fight when you have 30+ seconds of burning on you.

I don’t know what’s going on, honestly. With the WvW change I went from being on a winning server and getting schooled by thieves constantly to being on a losing server and absolutely wrecking thieves on a regular basis. Either I got a lot better over the weekend or they got a lot worse. The first time I beat a thief 1v1 I thought he must have been upleveled. Turned out he just didn’t cleanse anything. It was the strangest thing.

just checked, here are the ways that thf remove conditions, very limited:

THF needs sword/dagger spec for infiltrator strike (3 ini) > shadow return in 15s (2 ini) removes a condition.
shadow step slot skill > shadow return in 10s – break stun + 3 conditions (50s cd)
Shadow’s Embrace (shadow4 trait) Remove one condition every 3 seconds while in stealth.

hence if you keep burning ticks on him and run around a tree, you may just win

not sure if shadow embrace proc again if you stealth twice in quick succession. e.g. black powder > hs hs hs.. – another tip, black powder is smoke aoe, usualy against pve mobs that wont move, so for pvp, just move away from it immediately.

to OP – why not both?

assuming getting splattered is the issue…

you might want to use air1 trait which works nicely w earth shield and arcane fury (2s fury). i havent seen anyone use air2 though -

you may wish to use arcane5 trait for 5 diff bonuses instead of arcane shield which sometimes doesnt proc if you go down too fast.

eles have so much swiftness, you might wish to dump signet of air for anything else
with more leverage – lightning flash? or glyph of ele?

if you use many glyphs, consider air3 trait? i find ice storm very good for slowing mobs/bosses.

also, go shop for other runes! if you must have magic find, pirate set is nice, comes wif ‘yarr!’ and a parrot that hits for 1k dmg – enough to take out a regular mob without you doing anything. else if you like cc, rune of elementalist is nice. lots to choose.

kishter.9578:

Jason.9643:

if ele can win thf easily, players would consider the game broken like scissors cutting stone.

if you meet a thf in the open, 1v1 situation.. with cantrips, you should be able to survive 1st assualt and figure out how good he is.

vs an average thf – prepare to stun/ burst him down w zerkers gear. if you have low dps gear, forget it.. he can easily flee and you cant do anything about it.

vs a good thf – flee to friends/ nearest camp and let loose your CCs from your behind.

A few more notes –
- thf is very susceptable to debuffs,
- chills does little to thfs once they reached you – skill recharge does not work on initiative and crippled does little to heartseeker (reduces range from 450 to ard 200)
- do not stand still. do not stay in the open. much easier to kite and throw spells while he chases you – unlikely he will stealth like that.
- learn to use ‘look behind’ command and ambush. e.g. if thf is chasing you, throw earth2, ice4, air5, anything around the corner and run thru it. yes, use corners. aoe can hit him, melee has to chase you down.

all this is for? to get him 50% desepear and OOC reset fight? or just to survive for 2min because you cant even outrun a thief, no matter what i use they always HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS HS all the kittening way

if anet dont make something about this broken mechanic, maybe one internal CD to stealth or some debuff to prevent permanent stealth i will kitten iy up this game.

while the above are workarounds – i surely agreed to nerfbat thf!

exactly how OP is stealth? – stealth does not break on missed/ blocked/ indirect (gas, traps, etc) attacks. does not break when thf is damaged/ cc’d!

but guess what, they can also shadow return – break stun + flee 1200 + lose 3 conditions. you can get them to 10hp, stunned, poisoned, on fire – and they can still flee.
(but this is a sword spec. probably less dangerous than dagger/pistol ones)

hence the only way is to burst him so fast, that he dies while busy trying to execute his 3-5 second combo. ele can only burst decently w glass cannon/ cantrip build, tanky builds dont stand a chance to bag an average thf.

if ele can win thf easily, players would consider the game broken like scissors cutting stone.

if you meet a thf in the open, 1v1 situation.. with cantrips, you should be able to survive 1st assualt and figure out how good he is.

vs an average thf – prepare to stun/ burst him down w zerkers gear. if you have low dps gear, forget it.. he can easily flee and you cant do anything about it.

vs a good thf – flee to friends/ nearest camp and let loose your CCs from your behind.

A few more notes –
- thf is very susceptable to debuffs,
- chills does little to thfs once they reached you – skill recharge does not work on initiative and crippled does little to heartseeker (reduces range from 450 to ard 200)
- do not stand still. do not stay in the open. much easier to kite and throw spells while he chases you – unlikely he will stealth like that.
- learn to use ‘look behind’ command and ambush. e.g. if thf is chasing you, throw earth2, ice4, air5, anything around the corner and run thru it. yes, use corners. aoe can hit him, melee has to chase you down.

it is worth mentioning the mechanics of how it works for some of the spells mentioned

glyph of storms –
- sandstorm does not cause blindness every second. i think it is once per 3 seconds, up to 5 targets.
- i personally prefer ice storm, chilled for 2-3s per hit, duration stacks.

glyph of elemental power -
- 25% chance, 5s CD. for water, its 2s of chill, which is great, but i felt air/weakness 6s and earth/crippled5s is more powerful in both pve/ pvp. i feel air is especially understated – considering dodges are key in pvp, and glancing blows is great in pve.

cleansing water – if you play spvp, this is nerfed to 5s CD, which makes it pretty useless – i also play a mesmer, which does amazing stun breaks and condition removals that makes my ele laughable now. ele was so godly in removing conditions that i almost never needed stun breakers to flee from zerg. pro tip: if you have cast time to spare, using air/inscriptions trait and casting any glyph also removes conditions in water attune

for gear in PVE – i’m amazed that PVT gear protects much better than zerker – if you make mistakes in PVE, you will down often no matter what gear you have. i find lightning flash is my best life saver – the only cantrip that instantly break stuns AND recovers from blowouts. in pve, you should never try to tank = i.e. prioritize casting a spell (small dent to enemy hp bars) over getting hit really hard. spend more time dps + dodging, and less time from trying to be a hero/ recovering from down state.

also if you like big numbers, you really need constant fury + crit damage – hence berzerkers is just beautiful, esp for videos/ screenshots

hope the above helps.

to OP – thanks for sharing your great videos.

To all – if there already are more awesome staff pvp videos, please share;
i think this is OP’s video link = http://www.youtube.com/user/daphoenix555

(sorry for bumping old topic, somehow google/youtube led me here and i thought this is great)

how i kill with staff -

for 1v1, if opponent is not a bunker and dumb enough to slug it out with me without fleeing, he most likely die to my 3 pets (2 pet rocks and 1 parrot).

for wvw zergs, aoe snares works incredibly well in chasing down fleeing cowards for bags.

edit: i do not know of any other class that can do a massively large AOE snare like frozen ground (water4) at 1200 range. that is just sweet in wvw

yes those 2 earth shields are seperate CD and timers will stack. enjoy the awesomeness

Vaugh.7193:

Chaosky.5276:

Vaugh.7193:

Galrond.5972:

Are we playing the same game? Or do you have a more deadly lava?

Im sure we play the same game. It is a deadly combo to immobilze oppenent, put lava under his feets, makeing him burn then fire fireballs. The opponent has to have condition remover and a heal ready to survive that kind of nuke, even with cleric set.

No, we’re definitely talking about different games. You’d get, what, maybe 5k damage out of that?

Haha hell no, I get 5k dmg of the fireballs alone. Then add all ticks of lava damage. Then add the burning damage. Outcome is a nearly downed player.

firstly, afaik – lava font is not condition damage or burn. and you will not get 5k dmg with 1 fireball unless your oponent is a critter (you should get it in 5-7 hits though). while lava font is one of our best dps spells, but it is actually quite weak. by the time you manage to cast your snare, lava font has almost fizzled out. not to mention you have limited instant snares and using earth/air snare spells would be too slow to respond.

how i wish my autocast fireballs hit for 5k. that would be soo nice.

again, i think this misses an important point.

we have 4 attunements. the CD only affects your LAST attunement. for example -

you start with fire.
you change to water.
immediately, fire attunement has 10s cd (for 30 arcane), and earth/air has 1-2s cd.

you can change to earth/air almost immediately!

while i understand the benefits of swapping back – allowing better combos, especially earth. e.g. water > earth > fire > earth on staff ele works wonders. this 10s cd force eles to plan out their actions more carefully for more strategic gameplay.

again, comparing with ENG – while this is slower than engineer kits (no cd on kit swapping) – Ele’s don’t sacrifice a skill slot for that, and it is immensely confusing to effectively use more than 2 kits at a time for engineers.

Because attunement CD only affect last element rather than all 4, the Ele can still swap around 4 elements very often if he notice timers carefully. except that he cannot revert to previous element immediately.

for example -

start with fire –
2-3 s later swap water
2-3 s later swap earth (still waiting on fire..)
2-3 s later swap air
back to fire because 10s CD is over.. and so on..

i’ve been playing ele since launch and i actually agree to the nerf.

RTL 1200 range is a fix from hidden 1500 – i don’t see why 1500 is ever intended for a gap closer/ fleeing mechanism; 1500 in 1 cast is higher than everything else

RTL 1200, 40s cd makes this on par with similar skills – guardian’s JI is 1200, 45s cd; – JI requires a target.

in addition to RTL, Ele can cast with lightning flash 900, 45s – which is comparable to mesmer blink 900, 30s – sure cd is slower, but we have 2 options, which adds up to 2100 distance.

imo, the lack of target requirements and superb range still makes it the #1 fleeing/ gap closer.

also i dont know why everyone says THF has better mobility than ELE –
Thief’s shortbow is 900 range, can cast 2-3 times in succession. and thieves only have 25% move speed with shadows signet – that is similar to Ele’s air signet
Ele has perma swiftness (33%), which thief doesnt. lastly Ele shed conditions easily, Thf’s condition removal is laughable.

all in all, it is a massive challenge for thief to catch a ele.

sure it is a big painful nerf that takes away the king of hill mobility but i’m still happy with RTL :P

i’ve been playing this build since launch, tried many builds, but optimized, improved this to the best i can, and loving it all the way – the BUFF machine build:

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.1.7.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.2.19.16.17.24.1.3.15.0.0.0.18.23.0.0.0.0.46.50.0.65.68.71.0.20.0.20.30

key highlights –
- i actually use rune of pirate – better loot and i love the pet bird (decent dmg)
- 3 pets (2 pet rock golems + bird) – which probably do more dps than me as staff user, all i do is cc and los/ troll to win pvp
- staff has crazy amounts of CC/ aoe – pretty easy to flee or snare, and 1v1, the massively large aoe is hard to avoid, even if they do, they die to 3 pets and cc.
- with inscription and elemental attunement – this is key to being a buff machine. 1 glyph of heal gives u 24+ seconds of swiftness, more than cd of that glyph. or unlimited regen with each use of glyph under ice attunement. or super long protection buff – about 3-4s per glyph, excluding attuning to earth and heal glyph in earth.
- 20 water still means lots of cleansing, water5 drops conditions like flies under huge aoe – incredibly powerful in pvp/wvw.

they key weakness to this build is very high dps. using rune of grenth will help with massive amt of chills/ snares – but i prefer to keep my bird. plus i have little problem surviving with so much protection, chills, CCs, and annoying pets.

just going on a slightly different tune here -
i’m just so kitten happy with staff ele:

this works well for 1v1 – i like to troll players with…
1. 3 pets = 2 elementals and a parrot doing a tonne of additional dmg (i likem ice golems)
2. tonnes of cc at crazy range = from frost/earth/air
3. wide range of combos = with 2 earth finishers (roll/eruption) – love frost armor + bleeds
4. unlimited fun with cookie cutter build = 30arc,30wat,10air
5. no debuffs really stick to me with 30 water – making me very slippery, for LoS, etc.

edit: kitten… very funny anet, very funny.
edit2: while i hit for just 2k crits now, if you go 30fire,30air,10water = you can crit for 5-8k on meteor storm, but dont let anyone catch you pants down, simply dont stand a chance of running away.

I read at least 50% of this thread, the risks mentioned doesn’t seem mitigated whether it is a free market or not – gold traders can trade gold now as it is, probably more profitable now, considering depreciation of gold is buffered by the current system.

In my opinion, it should not be the role of the gem auction to regulate/ force out illegal gold traders – even though they can screw traders badly by spiking the prices when gold trading is on the rise. It makes more sense to use other specific techniques to detect and curb illegal gold trading.

I think the gem auction is doing great now, just need to fix performance/ bugs. it is a –
> gold sink with taxes
> avenue for paying customers to get gold by trading gems
> avenue for customers to get gem items by trading in their gold

and anet probably knows this – the only way to encourage trade is great content perhaps via events, selling non-permanent, long duration items? e.g. a hot bikini for summer month.. or a sexy outfit for halloween. I expect great things for coming halloween event profit generation will then become periodic huge spikes of entertainment, which i surely agree and support

EDIT:
i missed the key question – i dont think it matters if its controlled by market or anet. it just needs to be fair and transparent.

do u rally if rabbit dies?

adding to the quality of the mmo and updates we’re getting
its pretty amazing that this has no subscription fee..

ideas are like cream, good ones rise to the top – heard bazzilion times when tailoring in lion arch.. im terribly sick of it.

also.. as ele, my aoe swiftness make everyone around me exclaim with joy… drives me nuts too.. i think the swiftness exclamation should only happen when self-buff.. not party buffed..