Guild Wars 2

“I Channel the Flame!”
“Ferocious Fire!”
“Fire Consumes at my Will”
“I Channel Rock, and Soil!”
“Earth and Stone conform to my will!”
“I Channel the Wind!”
“Glorious Air”
“I am River and Ocean!”
“Powerful Water!”
“Currents Flow by my Will!”

My roommate and I trust one another to mail things back and forth at will. We give each other a lot of crafting materials and such, but when we run out of bag space during a night of farming, we often mail to one another and then hit the “Send Back” button, returning the 5 items to their/my inbox. He often runs out of space, but I use it because when he sends it back, that mail becomes accessible to my Alts. The downside is that he has to be online for me to do this. I wouldn’t trust many others to do this.

Fidjit was onto something about Elementalists.
I’m definitely driven insane by the relentless low frequency ‘womps’ my channeled earth spells make. It’s played every time a rock is thrown, and 4 rocks are thrown per cast. Not only that, but since a good rotation requires you to use all four elements, hearing
“I Channel the Flame!”
“Ferocious Fire!”
“Fire Consumes at my Will”
“I Channel Rock, and Soil!”
“Earth and Stone conform to my will!”
“I Channel the Wind!”
“Glorious Air”
“I am River and Ocean!”
“Powerful Water!”
“Currents Flow by my Will!”

every single one of these lines, at least once per fight, gets tedious. Can’t there be some sort of mechanism other than “random” to generate these effects? Like, maybe my toon will only shout “Ferocious Fire!” when i’m with a combo field, or in a group with another elementalist, and we say it together.

Even just an increase in rarity would be nice. I really do here all of these per boss fight, at least once. But this is a perfect opportunity to have the sound effect be an indication that casting in that particular element will have a greater effect. Like, “Ferocious Fire!” plays only when I have stacks of Might when I’m attuning.

So far, I’m sitting at 60 chests opened, using 40$ CAN and 25g converted to gems. have yet to see a ticket.

Never been so disappointed in a game before. Unknown statistics aside, this is a crash course in “loss aversion” and “perfect information” —economics 101. I’m just really insulted that ANET has forced me to concede defeat in a game I paid for, and continue to throw money at for an arbitrary trinket. A trinket which would generate more income if it was just on the gem store at a common DLC cost.
I’m definitely frustrated by this process.

First off, let me express my understanding. I understand that unlike other ‘unnamed’ MMORPGs, GW2 doesn’t charge a monthly service fee and yet still puts out new content. It has to pay employees to develop new game play for us to enjoy, and ANet needs a source to generate income from. I suspect when they’re not making enough money they release these deceptive cash cows in an attempt to generate a quick surplus off of their real fans—the ones who spend enough time playing the game to actually see the reward of spending actual currency on the game.

Here’s the issue—short term gains. You’ve done your market research, your consulting psychologist has proven that myself, and other supporters of the game have a bias to disassociate loss aversion principles when it comes to valuation of arbitrary currencies (further increased by the intermediary step of “gems.”) And you must be kitten proud of yourself for knowing you’re not going to lose any noticeable amount of business from this repeatable process.

But why in gods name would you make the drop rate so stupidly low? I’m not buying the kitten skin because no one else will have it! I’m buying it because I enjoy playing a game based around esthetics and personal appearance (even if your design team isn’t very creative, and the selection pool is so limited, it took me less than an hour to research the perfect outfit for me, and 2 days to farm the outfit itself)

I’m so frustrated beyond belief that if it weren’t for having a group of close personal friends in my guild of 5 people, who relied on me to do the research, and challenge them to play the end-game content, I’d have deleted my game and started demanding my money refunded for the gems I’ve wasted.

This is unbelievable Anet. If you’re struggling, and this is your solution, you’ve dug a hole money won’t get you out of. And if you’re doing fine, and the motivation wasn’t to generate income… than you need to fire the project manager who lead this “fused” customer experience fiasco. You won’t see another dime from me, and you won’t have my business for future games. You are EA, and you turned Maxis into a cash cow at the expense of it’s loyal customers.

So far, I’m sitting at 60 chests opened, using 40$ CAN and 25g converted to gems. I have yet to see a ticket.

Really disappointed in ANET

background: PvE

I’ve been raiding the end-game content for a few weeks, and I’m noticing an issue with survivability. At first glance it would be the obvious lack of toughness and vitality. But after a little research through the forums, I’ve noticed my stats aren’t really that different, or (imo) worse than anyone elses. In fact, some of the recommended builds feature useless additions for PVP I’m not interested in.

I’ve raided some of the most challenging endgame content in WoW, playing and downing (if some know the content) Hardmode Lich King before cataclysm, and even achieving server-firsts downing new content. Raiding, group play, and theorycrafting is not new to me. I know my way around “dodge” at this point.

I’ve attached a calculator of my build, and an image of my stat allocation. As follows is my logic:

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mVsMz9Mz0oaTnkoaTnkxax9MocbMmka8kiH7kiO7070V7kIv

My rotation, is almost a dump from Earth, to Fire, Ice Bow, and repeat.
keeping Signet of fire up at all times (as it adds 5% dmg via Burning Rage, and accounts for my Longest, hardest burn at 6,500 dmg over 12s)

I use Ice Bow to account for the loss of rotation time due to the low skill recharge rate. It adds vulnerability to the next cycle, and offers a wide range of spell types, from AOE, no splash, and CC, and improves condition duration to help retain bleed/burn as a shift from different skills.

All gear is “Rampager” (Pwr/Prec/Con dmg)
All armor and accessories contain “Crest of the Rabid” (Con dmg/Prec/Tough)
*Chest has fully activated “Rune of the Elementalist” as seen below.
Weapons contain “Sup Sigil of Bloodlust/Corruption” (10 Pwr/10 Con dmg stack per kill)
3 Ascended pieces contain +5 agony rating.

The damage is fantastic, controllable burst damage thru fire on weaker mobs, but the bulk of my DPS is in long term controlled bleed/burns. My average bleed is approx 104-108 per tick, at 20 stacks accounts for nearly 2000 dps.

My issue is survivability. My toughness seems to be fine, but I notice that if I miss a single dodge on a 2-5minute fight, I’m often one-shot by boss moves. With no control, or understanding of boss aggro tables, I struggle to understand the haphazard targeting system for advanced mobs. It leaves me vulnerable. I don’t like to idea of watching heavy class professions get pounded on by dragons, when I can barely sustain mobs for a moment.

So I’m looking for advice. The dodging isn’t enough to guarantee great dps.

As my old raid leaders used to say “Doesn’t matter how much damage you do, if you’re dead, you’re doing zero. Your best stat—is breathing.”