Guild Wars 2

I can tag fine as D/D. You have so many aoes at your disposal that it’s really quite easy once you have an idea of where the mobs spawn. Fire 2, 3, 4, ice 2, 3, earth 2, 4, and 5. For now, focus more on memorizing spawn locations and then just wait and be ready to dump your aoes.

Kuthos.9623:

While I’d love to have some more boon duration, Runes of Earth are a lifesaver. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been under 20% health and escaped because of it. Highly reccomend it.

While you can’t get away with full glass cannon d/d build, I dont believe you have to go full on tankiness build like he does either.

I run about 17.5k health and do well enough. It’s offensive enough that I feel I can burst people down, but defensive enough that I can get away from a lot of things.

While he probably has a better time in 1v2 and 1v3, with a little more offense build you can turn the tide of group fights by teleporting into the middle of them and letting loose a whole bunch of aoes, then zipping out.

The water elemental heals for that much? I may have to test it again. Or maybe I’m just not close enough to it. Seemed like it never healed me at all so I went back to using the fire elemental.

Anyways, good video

I think you’re right. I actually went ahead and respecced my traits to Puandro’s build and tried again, and it was just stupid. I didn’t change my gear at all; was still a full suit of berserker’s armor with fairly offensive jewelry. I went from having extreme trouble 1v1 to winning every single 1v1, most 1v2s, and even a 1v3 vs some low levels. And that’s still being a half way geared fresh 80.

I ended up going 2 Hoelbrak, 2 Dwayna, and 2 Water for runes. I think the Earth set is probably better, but all six of those cost me about as much as one Earth rune. After I finish getting my gear and start getting spare cash, I’ll go for the Earth set.

I think that with the defensive runes, the pow/tough/vit daggers I’m farming in AC, and balanced jewelry, I should be pretty well off.

The idea behind making hot join 8v8 instead of 5v5 was to lessen the impact of the individual, creating an easier environment for new players to learn in. In other words, Arenanet wanted hot join to be friendly to new players and casuals. Which isn’t a bad idea. If you want a pvp game to be successful, it needs to be accessible to more than just the highest tier players.

Unfortunately, Anet then made the colossally stupid mistake of making hot join solo only. You know how many new and casual players are going to go into spvp solo and stick with it more than a few games? If you don’t, port over to the mists on your server and count them; it won’t take you long.

For all the things WoW did wrong, and all the reasons I despise it for corrupting the MMO genre, one thing WoW did incredibly well was provide easy and enjoyable casual pvp. Get your friends in a group, queue up for a battleground, and screw around for a while and have a good time. Spvp would be 10x more popular if Anet had just carbon copied WoW’s battlegrounds and then added arenas for more competitive play before people jumped up to tournaments.

Well, I tried going into wvw again. I’m only half geared, but it still gave me a pretty good idea of what to expect. Basically, the reasoning I used in this build doesn’t pan out in actual pvp in this game. My main thinking was bursting someone down before help would arrive. Unfortunately, everything is so close together that there’s ALWAYS help on the way and fights never stay 1v1.

My other thought was using permanent vigor and dodges to avoid damage rather than absorbing it. Sadly, that doesn’t work either. For one thing, RTL bugs out almost every time I use it, and I sit there unable to do anything with my glass cannon build while the enemy just bursts me down without me being able to react. At least a third of my deaths tonight have been from RTL serving me up as a free kill with more powerful cc than anything the enemy could have done themselves.

Also, the dodging really isn’t coming into play the way I’d hoped. It kind of works in 1v1, but you can’t reliably dodge two people, and a single cc I can’t purge is death. Pets are also doing a real number on me as I don’t have enough dodges for both them and the owner, and the kitten things do almost as much damage as I do.

The other problem is just that the glass cannon ele straight up sucks. My full combo takes someone to half, and then they turn around and kill me instantly. The damage just isn’t great, and if any part of the combo goes wrong for any reason, it’s just terrible.

So ya, I’m going to be rethinking my build and probably copying a lot of things from yours. I already have the full set of berserker’s armor, but I’m going to go super heavy vit/toughness on everything else now to try to make up for it.

I don’t think elementalists have any trouble with survivability.

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

Although it’s not listed in the tooltip, magnetic grasp (dagger 3) is a leap finisher. If you’re specced into zephyr’s boon or elemental shielding this is a good way to maintain your fury/swiftness/protection boons.

This I did not know. Thanks for the tip.

D/D is amazing for combos. Ring of fire is your field, earth 4 and 5 are your finishers, and depending on spec, you can also use Arcane Wave as an additional finisher as well as your fire and earth dodge rolls if you spec into evasive arcana.

Puandro.3245

Elementalist is about outlasting your opponent so you need to survive burst from multiple classes. You can mess with different gear for sure but there are many times where i soak the hits to get the kill and i have 2-3K left of my 23K HP.

I watched the video and checked out your build/spec, and I think you favor soaking damage whereas I prefer trying to avoid it. I’m interested to see if that is just play style (iirc you played pally, reaver, then vw in DAoC), or if once I do more real pvp I’ll find that running that level of damage soak is just the better way to build.

For now, I’m going to go with my original plan (gotta justify that 400 tailoring somehow) and then swap in more defensive pieces until I find the sweet spot for me.

Quick question, I’ve noticed in both your videos you almost always use the water elemental for your elite. I’ve never really tested them much, but have generally gone for fire for damage or lightning for stuns. Is the heal from the water elemental that good? About the only time I’ve ever used it is when I was accidentally on water when I cast the skill.

Overall though video was really good. Only things I noticed were I wasn’t a fan of the death metal, and also, this might be personal preference, I think the water fights in this game are unbelievably abysmal and wouldn’t mind not seeing them in videos. Otherwise, really good.

I did watch it, was some good fights. Do you find that much tankiness is really necessary? I’d been thinking of running a setup with berserker type stats on the armor and then a bit of vit/toughness on the jewelry so it wasn’t full glass cannon.

Currently I’m running high crit with the Renewing Stamina trait in arcane for permanent vigor and using the extra dodge rolls for my defense combined with Evasive Arcana. It seems to be working, but I’ve only pve’ed since hitting 80 so I don’t know what it’s like fully geared up.

Cool. Don’t think we ever fought much if at all, but I remember enjoying your vids. I’ve been roaming wvw on my D/D ele (first char), been fun but things are definitely different when you’re boosted with bad gear. Just hit 80 and am working on gear now though, so it’s nice to see you’ve had a lot of success doing what I hope to do.

Is this the Puandro from DAoC?

Looks interesting. I think I’ll have to give S/D a try. I always thought scepter was pretty bad in pvp due to the delays on your primary abilities, but it looks like you’re making it work.

It kind of looked like the build was only really effective when you were being aggressed upon. Do you have trouble going on the offensive and running people down?

I would really love it if you could somehow make this map avoidable. I mean it’s great that you are trying to balance underwater combat, but a lot of people, myself included, just think it is generally awful and want nothing to do with it. I’m not taking a shot at your implementation; I just don’t think water combat has any place in MMOs.

Thanks for the tips. Ended up doing CM/AC and getting most of the runs done. Wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. Bit of karma/money as well as progress on the monthly. Might even pick up an exotic from the tokens.

One question though – is it normal for people to die? I’m used to games where dying is generally a sign of you doing something wrong, but during these dungeon runs, it didn’t seem like anyone cared. Even when a group wiped, no one got angry or anything, just rezzed up and went back at it. Seems like people really handle dying well in this game.

At level 40, I left the pve zones and never went back. The only dungeon I’ve ever done was a single run in CM. I don’t know where any of the other dungeons are or how to do them.

So, what would be the best way for me to get these dungeons over as quickly and painlessly as possible?

Does anyone know the details of the dungeon part of the monthly? Do they have to be a certain level? Do they have to be unique dungeons? Could I just do the lowest level dungeon repeatedly to get the achievement? I have zero desire to run dungeons, but 10 jugs of karma goes a long way.

I did 40-80 in wvw on my elementalist and have just started a guardian whom I intend to spend even more time in wvw with. That doesn’t mean just killing players, but rather taking advantage of everything the wvw zones have to offer. Gather every node and use the mats for crafting for xp, kill out of the way mobs/packs that have max xp bonus because no one kills them, do the veteran mini events, do as many point captures, camp takes, and supply dolyaks as you can. Also get in on as many larger objectives as well. And of course, go for every player kill you think you have a shot at.

If you try to level off just pvp, it’s going to be extremely slow, but if you do everything there is to do in the wvw zones, you can level up at a pretty quick pace while completely ignoring the pve zones and getting some good fights in to break up the monotony of leveling.

Came to the forum to post about this very issue. I play with the game sound muted, but every once in a while an ultra loud sound will play. I don’t know what it is, but it’s really driving me nuts.

Edit: The ‘fix’ I’m going to try is telling the game to use an audio device which doesn’t exist. Hopefully that will be enough to stop it.

Thanks for the tip on Plinx. That’s certainly better than sitting at the waypoint, although it’s still not particularly thrilling.

I just hit 80 on my first character, but I did it all in wvw zones since lvl 40, so I’m a bit out of the loop on the pve side of the map. Now I want to get exotic gear, and I have heard people talking about Cursed Shore, so I ran there, but I’m not really sure what to do.

I looked on youtube, but the videos showed a lot more than seemed to be actually happening in game. All I saw was a bunch of people (half of whom I’m fairly certain were bots) sitting at the middle way point of the three in the loop, killing the mobs that spawned and doing the event when it popped. And that was it. There was no roaming, no protecting the caravan to get the lower camp back, nothing but sitting there.

Is that really the best way to farm in this game? Just sitting there half afk doing an event every 15-20 minutes? Or is there something I’m missing?

I’ve done a huge amount of leveling in WvW and I’ve come out golds ahead (although it’s like three gold). What I’ve found is that if I just go out and fight, I’ll be lucky to break even, but if I take a camp, maybe kill a sentry, take out a pack of mobs, gather, it really adds up. Not a great solution for if you want to fight and nothing else, but if you can stomach taking a detour here and there, you’ll come out ahead.

This is definitely the least enjoyable matchup I’ve been in so far. Aspenwood is just a hardcore zerg server, even down to individuals. Almost never alone, and when they are, they’ll immediately run to a keep or to help as soon as they see you. Dragonbrand is much better, but any time I see one of them, they get zerged by a group of Aspenwood. before I can get to them.

Definitely looking forward to a new rotation.

Not worth it. Just pissed about dying yet again because this stupid skill is so incredibly bugged out that using it gets you killed as many times as it helps you live. I really don’t know why anet is taking so kitten long to do anything.

I think people are really blowing this out of proportion. It’s strong, but it’s really not super op or anything close. Mist form is a short duration and you can see exactly where the ele is going and stomp them immediately. That’s a lot better than mesmers and thieves. I can finish off an ele a lot faster than either of those and with far less frustration.

The only potential complaint I could see about it is that it is infact top tier now, and if anet wants that to be the level of power in downed state, the other classes are going to need to be buffed up to that level, which might not be a good thing for the game.

For various reasons, I’m considering a switch to Linux. However, I will only do it if I can continue to play the games I like. I realize that it won’t run directly and that you have to use some kind of program to make it possible to play games made to play on Windows on Linux, but afaik it doesn’t always work.

So, do the programs that let you run games on Linux work for GW2? Also, my computer is kind of just barely getting the job done; do these programs require a lot of system resources? Is there anything else I should know about gaming on Linux?

Thanks for any answers.

This has been happening to me for a long time now. I’ll just be going along, minding my own business, and then all of a sudden lightning shoots down and hits me for about half my health.

Does God hate me or something?

The play now button should be removed. All it does is put you in games with 2-4 people dueling, generally in Raid of the Capricorn. Do manual joins and you will immediately enjoy the game more.

I may not have said it the same way, but I agree that GW2 has very little potential as an esport. For all the proof you need, head over to twitch.tv and spend 30 minutes watching one of the tournament streams. Odds are you’ll find it boring as hell. There’s too much downtime between playing, bunker builds are a total bore to watch, and the effects aren’t clear at all. I’ve been playing a couple weeks now, rank 10 in spvp, have played almost every class at least a little bit, and I still don’t know what’s going on half the time I’m watching a stream. People who aren’t familiar with the game won’t have any clue at all.

Being an esport isn’t about having the best pros or being the most competitive game; it’s about being entertaining to the viewers. That’s where the money comes from which makes esports possible. Quite frankly, GW2 is not interesting enough to watch to be an esport. All the proof I need to support that statement is that GW2 rarely even makes it on the first page on games on twitch.

Anet may have talked a lot about being an esport, but that doesn’t mean anything. These days, every pvp game wants to be an esport and will talk about it a lot during development. Really, go to any pvp game currently being developed and you will find talk about esport aspirations. Just because the devs want it to happen doesn’t mean the game actually has the potential for it, and sadly, GW2 does not have what it takes to break into the scene.

Could anyone explain to me how you do the might building? I’m pretty new to the game and don’t know everything about combos and fields and such. I tried porting to the mists last night and experimenting based on what people were talking about in this thread but didn’t get anywhere.

Getting the feeling there are a lot of zergers on this forum. Hopefully someone from anet at least recognizes how much of a problem this is for roamers.

Yea, I’ve seen this abused a bunch. I’d rather have something like a proximity disable than a timer. If you’re within x—say 1500—range of an enemy you can’t port. But you would have to do the same for logging out since its used just as often to escape. But then again some people just really have to go and it might not be fair to make it so difficult to leave wvw.

I’m abusing the hell out of it myself. Being unkillable is just too good not to use when the option is there. The proximity thing would work as well. Fixing the logging out thing would be simple. Just make it so you have to be standing still, out of combat, and give it a 20 second countdown before you actually logged. No problem for people who have to go, but impossible to use it as an escape.

Right now, if you see a threat that you don’t think you can survive, all you have to do is port away and you’re perfectly fine. This really hurts roaming as, unless you get the drop on someone and keep them in combat permanently, they can get away quite easily.

It wouldn’t work to disable the waypoints altogether, but there should at least be like a two minute combat timer for porting when in a wvw zone. Yes, it would be slightly inconvenient, but right now it’s just silly how easy it is to escape when it’s already so difficult to get a kill before the person gets to safety.

No, nothing like that. It just happens randomly, lasts a little while, then goes away eventually. I can log off the game because I’m lagging too badly to play and immediately go watch a hi def stream with no problems at all.

I really don’t know what is going on; I’ve never had this problem with any other game. For some reason, every once in a while the game will just become unplayably laggy. Not fps lag, internet lag. I’ll start getting delay, rubberbanding, and eventually disconnect. Outside of the game, the internet is working fine. I can load pages, watch videos, etc. while disconnecting from the game. If there is anything to do about this I’d love to know because it’s really starting to bug me.

The reason this worked in DAoC but wouldn’t work for GW2 is because of recognition. In DAoC, you could tell each realm apart visually at clip range because every realm had different races and classes. In GW2, every world has the same races and classes, so there’s no way to visually differentiate friend from foe at a glance except for the forced colors.

It’s called kit refinement, lvl 10 trait in the tool line. Gives each of your kits an ability when you activate it. I run med kit, tool kit, and grenade kit. Med kit gives you a small pbaoe boom, tool kit is the ‘2’ skill, and grenade kit sends out a ton of grenades around you that do a lot of damage. The med kit ability is mediocre, but the other two are extremely nice.

It isn’t worth going pistol/shield unless your build is meant for it. I run rifle but use the toolkit for one of my utilities. Gives me cripple field on activation, a second cripple field on the bar, and a 2 second block everything shield ability, as well as one of the best tool belt abilities.

Thieves are not easy to kill, and anyone who tells you they are is greatly exaggerating their prowess. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t put up a good fight. There have been a number of strategies posted, but really, build doesn’t matter as much as play. If you can survive their burst and avoid as much of the damage as possible, you have a good shot at winning.

Avoiding the initiation is difficult but possible if you see them coming. Try to always be aware of your surroundings. Pan your camera constantly when roaming, and as much as possible during fights. This will give you a good shot at seeing the thief stealth, and when you do, it’s time to dump your defensive abilities. Lay down cripples, use shield abilities, move around unpredictably, and if the thief does manage to backstab you, blow your elixir S before you take too much damage.

If you manage to counter the thief’s initiation, you have a very good shot in the ensuing fight. That doesn’t mean you’ll kill him since thieves are stupid and have so many escape abilities it’s impossible for them to die unless they mess up, but at least you won’t die either.

Another ‘the game is balanced around tournament pvp, so if you don’t play that, sucks for you’ post. People like you, and I’ve seen this justification in every online game I’ve played, will never learn that a miniscule, absolutely miniscule, portion of the population plays pvp at the highest level, so trying to use that type of play as a basis for balance does not work. You don’t alienate 99% of players for the sake of the top 1%.

Hi, I’m pretty new and have a couple questions. I’ve mostly just stuck to spvp, but when I do pve, I’m always underleveled on every character I try. I do every heart, every event I come across, story quests, skill quests, some crafting, and occasional random mobs, yet I’m perpetually underleveled. I really don’t get this. I don’t particularly want to have to port over to multiple starting zones just to stay at an appropriate level. Surely, doing all of that, I shouldn’t be having trouble? It is really getting frustrating for me.

The other question is that I have a lot of trouble with lag and disconnecting. I’m on high speed cable, I live in California, the internet works fine otherwise (checked by using it while in the process of dc’ing in game). Is there anything I can do to make this stop? I’m pretty sure it’s not my internet having trouble since it works perfectly fine except with this game.

Thanks for any help.

Grenades. There are a lot of things I love about the engineer, but when I come up on a few enemies trying to stomp one of my friendlies and I just rain fire on them and kill them before they even know where I am. That feeling. Just yes.

So the only people allowed to enjoy pvp are the ones running a regular five man premade with voice comms in tournament play?

See how long that attitude keeps a playerbase around.

I just tried some matches with the best build I could come up with, and while extremely enjoyable, it didn’t seem particularly viable. It was 0/10/0/30/30 with elixir/boon traits in alchemy and toolkit/endurance traits in tools. Used runes of the wurm for a bit of tankiness while keeping damage. Rifle on switch for a bit of utility. Medkit, toolkit, elixir S and elixir B for utilities.

I found that, while I had pretty good single target damage and a ridiculous amount of cripple, I just melted stupidly fast even with 28k hp. Also, I had no way to deal with multiple targets/clones because of almost exclusively single target damage.

But, I’ve only been playing like three days, so maybe someone who isn’t bad has had some better luck with the toolkit. If so, I’d love to know how to make it work as it was quite enjoyably silly smacking people with a wrench for big crits.