Guild Wars 2

N3 is screaming “I’m a killer with class”

Right when the game launched Elementalists were deemed to be useless by the majority of players and I’ve been kicked by groups just because I was playing one (I mean as soon as they saw my class).

I got up to level 40 as Staff and Scepter and then I went D/D, I loved it, the play style was far from the classic mage, I felt more like an Arcane Trickster, half rogue half wizard, and it was mostly a support build: I buffed my group with might stacks, I cleansed conditions, shared auras and aoe heal them.

Back then I was one of the few people on my server to play an Elementalist, many gave up after a few level seeing how other professions streamrolled through the same content they were struggling on.
The number of D/D user was even lower, I think I had only one in a group in about 4 months and it was a blast.

I just came back to the game since I have a lot more free time now and all I read on the forum are complaints about the Elementalist being OP.

I was shocked tbh, I scrolled through patch notes searching for buffs and all I’ve found are nerfs.

Then I understood: all the fuss was about a very narrow portion of the Elementalist comunity being able to waste the time of groups of bad players who can’t use their cc. And I am sorry for the people who belive the contrary, but if one person keeps 5-10 people busy and does not die then it’s the 10 people’s fault.

I’ve seen the videos of those few players they are incredibly good, it can’t be denied, but it can’t be denied that the people they’re fighting are mostly upscaled and/or poorly equipped while the Elementalist is geared with endgame equipment often worth hundreds of golds (like the triforce pendant), buffed with food and consumable and using builds perfected by hours of theorycrafting… What would happen if said Elementalist were to face an opponent who put the same effort into his character?

I’ve also seen videos of other professions stomping said build, I’ve personaly seen other profession pull the same exact feat of the hated Elementalist: dive into an enemy zerg and get out alive. So it’s not just Elementalists, still they are the ones attracting the hate.

GW2 has been made by ANet, that’s a fact, they belive cantrip bunkers to be op, that’s ok I guess, as I said this is their game and I still think it’s better than the other since I came back to it instead of playing what the competition has to offer…

So they want to nerf cantrip bunkers, they remove the ability to heal and use utilities during mist form, which is a cantrip, and that’s ok.

Then what do they nerf in order to tune down cantrip bunkers? Do they reduce protection uptime? Since being a bunker means to reduce damage it would be an understandable move… No.
Do they reduce the amount of self heals? Being a bunker also means to outheal damage… No.
Do they truly reduce condition cleanse? Being a bunker means to remove hurtfull conditions… Nope, the internal cd applied to Cleansing Water is a joke, no one in their right mind will blow 3 very long cd utilities just to cleanse conditions. All this change does is nerf Staff supports which is one of the weapons ANet wanted to buff.

I am confused.

What they nerf is mobility, which is not related to being a bunker: what a bunker does is sit on the node and defend it untill his teammates move to said node and help him fending off opponents.

Correct me if I am wrong, I mean is it false that a bunker sits on the node he’s defending?

If I am not wrong then why nerf RtL if they wanted to balance bunkers.

RtL is part of the reason I stuck with the Elementalist at the beginning of the game, it’s so fun to zipp around maps (spvp, wvw, pve), but it’s not like Eles are the only able to move around that fast, I’ve heard other professions can be even faster and yet it’s the Elementalist who takes the nerfbat.

If it is because they can also be extremely hard(edit) to kill (bunkers) then I’d prefer if ANet worked on actualy nerfing sturdiness than mobility, give Elementalists other viable options than running 0/x/x/30/30 and they will diversify their builds.

A final thought, shortly before I took my break due to my job, I saw some videos about a guild(can’t remember the name, sorry) stacking heavy armored (wars and guardians) smashing through enemy zergs 4/5 larger than their group and actualy wiping them instead of wasting their time.

Is there realy a difference between 5 people killing 20-25 enemies and one single Elementalist mocking 5 players?

I personaly do not think so.

The true problem is people do not actualy know how an Elementalist works hence they can’t stop them. That’s laziness on their part.

P.S. I’ve been writing all this defending a profession I don’t even play anymore, I am levelling a Ranger(and from before the announced buffs to them, check my post history).

naphack.9346:

Anyone here ever considered the fact, the change to condition removal does NOTHING to break D/D in any way, while it completely DESTROYS any AoE regen builds?
Glad, I don’t play an ele.
Just look at it from this angle: You throw out a random AoE Regen boon.
It will remove 1 RANDOM condition from a RANDOM target out of the RANDOMLY selected 5 who get the regen. Then it will be on 5 seconds cooldown.

Hf, staff users, hf users of elemental attunement. You can no longer reliably take conditions off allies.

That’s exactly what I meant: the devs said they want to tone down a certain build and at the same time buff Staff and other weapon sets, but the changes they want to introduce have a bigger effect on Staff viability than anything else.

In my opinion this is a clear sign: they don’t understand how the profession they created truly works.

Overall this game is great, I mean it, but I think that putting only two people in charge of balancing all the professions in all the different aspects of the game (spvp, wvw, pve etc..) might not be enough. Sure they will see the big picture, but the details are lacking.
Also they can’t phisically have the time to play each profession enough to have a firm grasp of their mechanichs.

I wish both those devs (can’t remember their names) the best of luck, I do want to see them succeed at balancing this game even if I doubt they will

I don’t think the nerfs are realy as bad as many people seems to think, but I could be wrong, without a test server all we can do is speculate.

The only thing this patch is truly going to hurt is D/D WvW roaming, RtL was our best tool to disengage, the other changes seems to be small in comparison.

My biggest gripe with this patch is that the devs do not seem to understand how to make surgical, focused, changes to the Elementalist : each one of them has worse consequences on different aspect of the profession considering ANet’s stated goals.

The RtL nerf was aimed torward the daphoenix style of gameplay in WvW, an Elementalist will not be able to dance in and out of a fight keeping multiple opponents busy anymore, not with a 40s cd on rtl while disengaging.

There’s no other explanation, because afaik in sPvP Bunker Elementalists do not roam from point to point using rtl w/o a target, they use it only in combat against roamers. and in pve there will be enough critters/mobs to use as an “anchor” for rtl.

I guess it is better to kill a whole playstyle instead of letting people learn how to counter it.

The mist form change leaves me baffled: their stated goal is to nerf D/D cantrip bunkers and what they do is nerf a “base” utility, one of the few defensive mechanism available to offensive oriented builds.

I have to be honest here, if ANet was actualy trying to nerf only D/D cantrip bunkers then they are nerfing the wrong skills.

Kirbyprime.2645:

kostbabis.8791:

Their words were “when it hits something”..do you hit something when you do no damage nor apply any effect to it?

Someone in the video asked, at least the answer for Aegis was that it counted as still hitting them only that it was blocked… I assume that evade would work the same way, it “hit” but was evaded.

As I said I cant watch the video right now, I might as well wait untill I get home, thanks for pointing it out.

@spl. I am going to be a very sad panda (more mad tbh) if that happens in pvp.

Chaosky.5276:

Also, what happens if enemies dodge RtL? Do we still get the 40s cooldown?

This.

Also does RtL bug as often as it used to?

If it does then it wont only be a stun for 2 seconds, it will also trigger the full 40s cd.

I’m asking because i’ve been away from the game for a couple of months, in the past two weeks I’ve been levelling a Ranger, but the Elementalist is calling me :O

All right so they probably will be global.

Well I will wait untill the changes go live and then see how bad the situation will be

I can’t watch the video now, but I have a question: are the RtL and Mist Form nerfs supposed to affect only sPvP or are they “global”?

Glad I could help!

P.S. Check daphoenix’s guide on this forum, it’s basically an Elementalist’s encyclopedia.

Well this should be easy for you: both profession will be able to support your friend’s warrior very well, but they are like night and day.

A Guardian is GW2’s unmovable object, very resilient thanks to heavy armor, heals, regen, vigor, aegis etc… But it lacks mobility and a good way to deal ranged damage.

An Elementalist is, on the other hand, the unstoppable (well uncatchable) force: wielding a pair of daggers D/D I feel more “nimble” than a thief! There are so many ways to move around (ride the lightning, burning speed, magnetic grasp, lightning flash etc…) it’s almost ridiculous

If you don’t like D/D or prefer to stay at a safe range you can use a staff or a scepter and turn into a more traditional caster: long range damage and heals, lots of cc, buffs…

The downside is: they are very fragile, Elementalists have the lowest health pool paired with the lowest armor in the game. If something gets to you, you’re dead in two hits.

There’s another aspect which separates the two professions: complexity.

A Guardian is essential, absolutely not boring or dull, you have all the tools you need, but the way you will use them will have a huge impact on the results you will get.
The best example is aegis: let’s say you and your friend are in a dungeon, the boss is charging one of those slow oneshotting moves, but your friend has been knocked down; you hit F3, aegis pops on your friend and he’s alive. Had you wasted it on an easily avoidable hit, your friend would be dead now and you in a risky position while trying to revive him.

An Elementalist, instead, is very complex and unforgiving: you make a mistake and you are dead, even with a group of normal mobs. Which is good, belive me, learning how to effectively play an Ele will teach you more about this game than anything else and then you will be able to play other professions better than before.

That’s all I can think about Guardians and Elementalists which could help you in an objective way.

As a personal preference I like to play my Guardian in PvE and my Ele in WvW.
I’ve always been the “tank” guy, I love pulling a bunch of mobs in the same spot with my greatsword so my friends can blow them up, or knock back the mob beating on my little brother’s ranger with my hammer, or block a choke point with my staff, etc…
But in WvW there’s nothing more fun to me than my Elementalist: with a pair of daggers it’s so easy to move around the map; it’s fun to dive into an enemy zerg, pop mist form and see if I can make it out alive. Plus I feel I can actualy contribute in a siege thanks to all the aoe damage, support spells and healing I can provide with my staff.

Well that’s a lot of stuff, but I hope it will help you on your decision and if it does not it’s ok, at least I’ve spent my time while I get back home (and hopefully play some GW2) :P

BlackhawkSOM.6401:

Chopps.5047:

Leveling the ranger will basically be a breeze in open world. You won’t be able to PUG high up into fractals due to internal biases between professions, nor will you be able to convince people of your usefulness as a ranger in wvw. In sPvP the play is pretty decent. One sad thing about rangers is that one of the strongest builds for wvw is a regen/healing power build but you want apothecary trinkets for that. That kind of armor scales nicely for rangers because you and your pet can have a lot of regen boon uptime leading to a very powerful and hard hitting cat that isn’t a paper tiger. With 1611 healing power max buff last night, I was getting almost 600 HP per second with near permanent regen in combat.

The reason why it’s sad is due to the price of apothecary trinkets, few can afford to play this build. Early on in November, I had observed the value of sigils of generosity and passion flowers and I bought as many as I could. That money helped me afford the gear (plus I picked up Southsun Rose the other day). Right now, an appthecary trinket will run you about 50 gold.

Instead of getting exotics for apothecary you should aim for ascended gear as its much easier and more affordable imo. 20 fractal runs(which can get you around 20-50 gold depending how lucky you are) for the 2 rings , 35 laurels for amulet, and accessory u can use guild commendations if you got a decent guild but accessory you should probably buy the exotics.

As for healing/regen build being best in wvw, I say its more useful in spvp. WvW a good affordable build which you can tweak like I did and get 81% crit dmg, 40% crit chance with 3k toughness is this build http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdsmOmMwXCo.

Also I’d be carefull going a condi route in wvw as I heard its frustrating.

Now that’s what I’m looking for, I’ll definitely try this build asap on my ranger, thanks!

Yeah Ryu, I know a longbow is more of a WvW weapon because of it’s nice range, but I was surprised by how slow it felt fighting with it… Also I am not concerned with finding a GS, I still have other weapons to try and when I’m done with them I’ll probably head to the nearest TP to buy one

I only wish I had more time to play hahaha.

Don’t worry, I usualy dont listen to people complaining unless they provide solid reasoning or it’s an opinion shared by the vast majority of the player base (and even then I like to try things firsthand).

At the moment I don’t have a lot of freetime to play, but so far it’s been nice. Some of the weapons do not make much sense to me, like the longbow because it feels so slow compared to the shortbow, but maybe it gets better later on…
I like sword’s 2nd and 3rd skills, they are very good imho, but that autoattack animation lock is terrible, it’s messing a lot with my timing to evade attacks (both with dodge and skills).
I haven’t found a greatsword yet, I know I could just go to the mists, but since I took a long break from the game I am enjoying exploring, it’s one of GW2’s strongest points for me

No KensaiZen, I’m not looking for max damage at all costs, there has to be a balance between fun and performance for me to stick with a class.
So unless you guys are absolutely positive about Ranger’s damage being pathetic and not viable in any circumstance, I will prefer it over a Warrior if I find it’s more interesting

Sebrent.3625:

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My take on it

Human:

• Heal: Ranger has three great heals and I don’t think this would heal your pet too … though I could be wrong (never tested it).
• Condition Removal: Ranger can be lacking in this area so this is very nice
• Random boon/condition: I could see this in a condition build, maybe … I don’t have much experience with it.
• Grenth: this is an awesome elite that is great if you want to be a melee of any type. Ranger can be effective at short, medium, and long ranges so it boils down to how you would play your Ranger
• Avatar: this isn’t as good because you lose your pet when you change to a form.
• Hounds: always a welcome addition.

Asura

• Pain Inverter: There are some videos around (I think they are Xsorus’s) of using Pain Inverter as a Ranger to great success
• Technobabble: That same ranger has been playing around with this as well since the Ranger has access to several interrupts already
• Radiation Field: Ranger has plenty of access to poison and weakness, but another AOE is always welcome in a class that sometimes doesn’t have much for AOEs (Ranger does have some pets, traps, torch, and barrage)
• Bot elites are okay, but Ranger elites are nicer in my opinion. Personal preference here.

Charr

• Landmine, meh, we have traps
• Pistol, meh.
• Battle Roar you may get some mileage out of for more Might/Fury for you and your pet.
• Warband Support: I could see this being nice between the pet and warband on an enemy … somewhat like Human’s hounds.
• Bazooka, meh
• Artillery Barrage if it had range … but it doesn’t.

Norn

• Preface: my Ranger is a Norn for aethetic reasons.
• The utilities aren’t useful to me
• The elites aren’t useful except Snow Leopard
  • About to get swamped by an enemy zerg that has Warriors/Elementalists (they can catch even the most mobile Ranger), pop Snow Leopard and use #4 (LONG dash) and #5 (stealth) and you’re fine … just has a long cooldown.

Sylvari

• Healing Seed is nothing compared to Healing Spring. Done :-)
• Grasping Vines + Entangle Elite could be very mean
• Turret, meh … you’re not an engineer … Ranger is a mobile class
• Fern mastiff … don’t know much about it … never see it
• Spirit … same as mastiff to me
• Turrets … Ranger is a mobile class and I’ve killed every Ranger that’s used this against me 1v1 … on both my Mesmer and my Ranger.

Nice list Sebrent, thank you! I was still writing when you posted it so I missed it earlier, as I said I decided to roll a Norn and that’s because I want to play around morphs and pet combos

KensaiZen I am looking for a damage oriented build, I already have two tanky/healing characters: Guardian and Elementalist.
As I said it does not have to be the absolute best class/build combo, but it has to be at least fun, which is a subjective matter and only playing will help me decide on it.

I created this topic in order to gather some informations about the Ranger from people who play it and so far I think I have enough: I originally planned to roll a Ranger, but the lack of enthusiasm torward damage dealing builds made me consider the option to level up a Warrior too.

Of course any more tip you can share will be welcome!

I rolled a Norn Ranger, he is level 6, I know it’s way too early to elaborate any kind of judgement, but yesterday my bear soloed a veteran

I guess you all were right about how easy it is to level up, which is good.

And bad at the same time, don’t hate me, but I hope you guys are wrong about the healing build being the only viable pvp spec

Anyway, it should not take long to get to level 40/50, try some story mode dungeon and then switch to a Warrior for a comparison.

Thanks all for the insight you shared

HotHit.6783:

If you’re after a powerful race/ranger combo, then… I’m sorry to say but I can only give firsthand advice on Sylvari. The Sylvari get one of the better racial healing skills (which can be handy for thieves who otherwise have weaking healing skills), but it’s nothing compared to healing spring. Other Sylvari skills match up with rangers, to the point where you can consider them a minor version of actual ranger skills. It might be fun to be a nature crazy plant person, but it doesn’t provide any real benefit.

One thing I’ve found is rangers work great with environmental weapons, their stats are on par with other professions, but their weapons always feel a little on the weak side. Therefore, things like the Norn’s wereanimal forms can be handy. I tend to feel like my elite skills are underwhelming, so, say you were running a build with sun spirit? Hounds of Balthazar provide you with two additional allies proccing the burning effect, the humans get Avatar of Melandru too.

I’ve heard of a couple of rangers that use Asuran utilities because they think the ranger utilities are weak, so that might be worth looking into as well.

I already have two Sylvari, I like the racials and starting zones, but it’s enough for me

Also I think Asuras do not realy fit the idea of a Ranger in GW2: if I am not mistaken, being masters of their natural surrounding, Rangers tend to shun technology hence no pistols or shotguns

This leaves me with three options: Human, Charr and Norn.

[edit]:Yes haxi, as soon as I will be able to log into the game I’m going to roll a random level 1 and experiment a little.

I have to admit that reading your and Chopps’ posts made me reconsidere whether I should roll a Ranger or not: I already have two tank/support (Guardian and Ele) so what I’m looking for is a non-magical high damage dealer.

In most RPGs Rangers can deal high melee and ranged damage, but this might not be the case with GW2.
I am not obsessed with performance, I will stick to a character if I have fun with it even if it’s not the best at what it does. I played an Ele when everyone said they sucked because I had a lot of fun with it, but I’m starting to think that sticking with my Engineer or rolling a Warrior could suit my tastes better.

So I guess I will level both a War and a Ranger before I finaly decide which one I will get to level 80.

I want to tank all of you for helping

All right I’ll definitely check the thread, thanks Chopps:)

Chopps.5047:

Leveling the ranger will basically be a breeze in open world. You won’t be able to PUG high up into fractals due to internal biases between professions, nor will you be able to convince people of your usefulness as a ranger in wvw. In sPvP the play is pretty decent. One sad thing about rangers is that one of the strongest builds for wvw is a regen/healing power build but you want apothecary trinkets for that. That kind of armor scales nicely for rangers because you and your pet can have a lot of regen boon uptime leading to a very powerful and hard hitting cat that isn’t a paper tiger. With 1611 healing power max buff last night, I was getting almost 600 HP per second with near permanent regen in combat.

The reason why it’s sad is due to the price of apothecary trinkets, few can afford to play this build. Early on in November, I had observed the value of sigils of generosity and passion flowers and I bought as many as I could. That money helped me afford the gear (plus I picked up Southsun Rose the other day). Right now, an appthecary trinket will run you about 50 gold.

I am used to being frowned upon by others in dungeons, my first char was an Elementalists and back then some people would even kick me out of a group because of my profession choice.

At first I was bothered, but then I realized it’s some kind of natural selection: unless we’re talking about the most difficult content in the game, which does require a specific set of classes/builds, then only an extremely bad person (not the term I was thinking about tbh) would remove a player from a group before they even started the istance.

That’s not a problem.

The main reason I created this post is to know whether there are unconvetional, but still effective, skills/racial combination or not, something like the Hidden Pistol Charr skill which has a great toolbelt utility. I still enjoy my Asura engineer and by no means I would have rerolled, but knowing something like that before I created it could have been a deciding factor ^^

I came back to the game after 3 months and I would like to level up a Ranger, but before I start I’d like to know a little more about the profession.

Since I have an high level character for each race I am not inclined to a specific one, so a list of pros and cons could help me decide on it.

Good builds or guides for different playstiles: I would like to play my future character in as many ways as possible to find the one which suits me better.
[edit] Allright this will be covered by jubskie’s list

General tips are always welcome!

Thanks in advance for your help guys, I’m looking forward to read what you have to say

I’d love to see swords (and bows) being available to Elementalists and I hope ANet will introduce them in a future Expansion.

Edit: I just thought that I would be happy to see new weapons added to all professions, but I’d happier if ANer could fix and balance what’s already in game.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Very well written Symbolic.

Great write-up. Just so you guys know, we’re trying to bring down the cantrip Ele, while also being careful to let other Ele builds work. We don’t want to just take all Ele’s out of play, but we do need to bring a few things down (traits/skills) in efficacy.

I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes, the Elementalist profession is quite complicated to play correctly (relatively to others), I can’t imagine how hard it could be to balance it.

I realy hope you will take small steps and compensate by making other trait lines viable, you guys at ANet know other builds are not viable: you mess with this one, you butcher the whole profession.

That post is quite accurate Sebrent, but it’s lacking numbers: damage/heal values and cooldowns.

If you don’t factor actual numbers in, then the Elementalist is the most OP class ever designed in a MMORPG, I mean they have twice as many skills than other professions, all you have to do is cycle through them and you are twice as effective, right?
They can double on dps any warrior, burst down an enemy in half the time a thief would, they can replenish twice the health a guardian will…

Right?

I’d realy like to know why this forum is not swarmed by videos of Elementalists single-handedly butchering armies, I mean if it’s such a faceroll profession how comes I don’t see more and more popping out?

I want to see Avatar Sebrent smash those who oppose Ehmry Bay in his full berserker’s might, come on, don’t be shy! Let me see how you stop and kill a full party of level 80 in exotic gear

Actualy I’d like to see a video from each one of those who say Elementalists are easy and overpowered, well maybe not one made by Mackapacka, my poor brain wouldn’t stand up to that kind of magnificence.

On a serious note, Elementalists are complicated, it took months to figure how to make them work, it will take some time to adapt and learn how to counter them…

Granted that there’s the will to do it instead of complaining on the forum.

I think that there’s no indirect nerf to D/D: it’s not a mobile weapon set because of permanent swiftness, it is considered mobile because it gives access to 2,5 gap closers (going to count Burning Speed too, but the distance covered is limited) on a short cd.
Staff can achieve permanent swiftness too, but I have never heard people calling it a mobile weapon.

Arcane Abatement is a great addition and fills a gap in the Elementalist’s traits.

Bolt to the Heart change is a step in the right direction for a viable Elementalist burst build.

Trident skills changes will add some depth to underwater combat.

I am quite satisfied about this patch

Kardiamond.6952:

I wish my Ranger/Necro/Engineer had a build that could kill newbs in 1 vs 10.

since 50% of WvW population is newb, it would make wonders!

Tankcat build looks pretty solid to me

I think it depends on your playstile:

If you want to learn game mechanics fast and don’t mind the difficulty then go with Elementalist, you will have to use combos, boons and conditions to be effective.

If you want an easy toon then go warrior or ranger, they are almost mind numbing easy to play.

If you want something in the middle ground play a guardian, they are easy to learn and can combo quite well.

Whatever your choice be sure to read these wiki pages: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Boon

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition

Those three pages will teach you more about GW2 than anything else, but a lot of gameplay experience.

1. As others said Karma in WvW flows quickly, I have almost 200k and I am banking jugs.

2. ANet does not want people to comunicate from opposing factions, they even removed account name showing from report, so I do not think this will happen.

3. Agreed.

4. WvW is expensive because golds have a huge impact on war, upgrading towers has a cost, buying blueprints has a cost: i.e. if each attacker could use a golem any time they attack a tower it would be a disaster, doors would go down so fast none would be able to react in time.

If WvW had a separate currency system, I mean totaly different not a complementary one like badges, I would agree on getting more so those who don’t like to PvE wouldn’t feel at a disadvantage.

5. Would be nice to have some sort of daily with a WvW only reward: blueprints and/or badges.

6. 90s is not enough, I am sure you can understand why I am saying this if you think about it

7. Any profession has a ranged option and attacking a tower is a group effort, you should ask and get support from other profession via boons and water fields/blasts combos.

8. As long as they are aestethic I agree ^^

9. Experience gained in WvW depends on how many objectives you conquer, there are nights where I will gain 2/3 levels or even more and kills experience can be boosted up to +75% afaik, so I don’t realy think it would be necesary to increase it.

10. Agreed, Outmanned is useless in its current application.

11. Zero tolerance against cheaters is allways good

12. I am all up for a better balancing of population, but overflows are not the solution, if someone wants to play on a highly populated (thus advantaged) server then they should just sit in a queue and know that the only way to get instant access to WvW maps is to transfer to the underpopulated server.

13. You missed the biggest worse problem afflicting WvW: Player Culling.

I realy like playing GW2, I enjoy its professions, its combat system, dynamic events, map exploration etc… But culling is ruining WvW more than profession imbalance, more than population imbalance, more than anything else you listed in your topic OP.

Pendragon.8735:

Mik Hell.8206:

Pendragon.8735:

These professions account for some of the worst WvW players actually. They may be good for 1v1, but that doesn’t really contribute much to WvW, taking objectives or winning a match.

Other professions with group/team specs are often helping the objective of gamemode far more than many thieves, mesmers and tank eles, who just want to screw around looking for 1v1s.

I disagree, I think that any profession has its use in WvW: Thieves are great scouts and dolyaks killers, Mesmers have some of the best group utilities of the game (not only portal) and D/D Elementalists are great at “pushing” in an open field battle while still contributing to sieges thanks to staff and the use of a focus to defend friendly sieges.

It’s the person behind that character which makes the difference between being “useless” and contributing to your server’s victory.

I agree, I’m not saying its the professions themselves that are worth less, but only the players who play them with mindset to just be a roamer because they are good (or OP take your pick) in 1v1 engagements.

Not that sole players can’t have a purpose, killing Yaks, soloing camps, or scouting. I do these things as a Necro even, but for people who just wander around busy byways looking for duels, its not accomplishing much for the team. And they have a mode for that called sPvP.

I see, I misunderstood your previous post, I thought you mean the opposite

Dual.8953:

As a thief I’ve gotta disagree with this. Sure I can go around scouting out enemy zergs and other minor objectives. But for big things like seiges, my lack of ground targetted AoEs leaves me unable to make a noticable contribution of the fight.

Each profession has its use as I said earlier, some excel at open field warfare, some are walking siege engines and oter are best suited for behind the enemy lines attacks

No profession can excel at everything, they all have pros and cons.

DivineBeing.2086:

Mesmer is the anti-elementalist class, if they can play their class right. Here is a hint, it hurts to cause damage to ourselves.

I don’t want to turn this into a Mesmers vs Elementalists flame, but usualy D/D have a lot of condition removal, I fail to see how they could kill themselves because of confusion…

Pendragon.8735:

These professions account for some of the worst WvW players actually. They may be good for 1v1, but that doesn’t really contribute much to WvW, taking objectives or winning a match.

Other professions with group/team specs are often helping the objective of gamemode far more than many thieves, mesmers and tank eles, who just want to screw around looking for 1v1s.

I disagree, I think that any profession has its use in WvW: Thieves are great scouts and dolyaks killers, Mesmers have some of the best group utilities of the game (not only portal) and D/D Elementalists are great at “pushing” in an open field battle while still contributing to sieges thanks to staff and the use of a focus to defend friendly sieges.

It’s the person behind that character which makes the difference between being “useless” and contributing to your server’s victory.

SlimJim.3087:

Cause Churning earth is already very powerful and using it with LF makes it almost impossible to dodge.

It’s not impossible to dodge, if you can see the Elementalist channeling it it’s one of the easiest skills to dodge, even when used in conjunction with LF.

If you don’t see the Elementalist channeling it then it’s either your fault for not paying attention, the Elementalist being good at sneaking on you or wvw culling.

Spend some time in the mists practicing with it and I am sure you’ll find out a way to avoid it, if you don’t too bad for you as I am not going to tell what’s the trick to dodge it.

I just want to add that I have nothing personal against you, but it is realy super easy to dodge CE once you know how, I hope you will find out

Back on LF I would love if targetting circle became red when pointed torward a location you wont be able to port.

Right now I have a level 80 Mesmer, a level 80 Engineer and a level 80 Guardian alts.

I play my Guardian in PvE because she can carry bad groups like no other profession will ever do (and it’s fun to play to me as Hammer-Altuistic Healing).

My grenadier Engineer is a mobile WvW siege machine, whenever my home server is outmanned and on the defensive I log him, hop into EB, pop Elixir U/B and watch people blow up.

I love playing them both, not as much as my Elementalist, because they share some of the things I love about my main: one has powerfull group utilies, is very resilient and can produce a lot of combos (Guardian) while the other is incredibly fun to play due to it’s mechanics depth.

P.S. My Mesmer is shelved because it is a powerfull and fun profession but after getting him in full exotic gear and playing him in various aspects of the game I understood something: he’s not stronger, but quicker, easier and more seductive.

Elementalists have the highest difficulty cap and learning curve steepness.

Other professions may be hard to learn too, but not as difficult to master as the Elementalist imho.

Frost bow and sometimes Earth shield in WvW sieges to overcome D/D range limitation and pull down enemies from the walls.

Culling fix, it’s ruining the focal point WvW revolves: massive battles.

I want to see the 20/30/40/50 people I am going to face right when they are in my maximum sight range, I don’t care if my PC or bandwidth will be highly stressed, they are up to the task and if they were not I have job to pay for both a powerfull machine and fast line.

True strenght of a portal is to takes fully advantage of players culling.

Esoteric.5490:

My guild running with 25 people has wiped groups of 40-50 with a well-placed portal flank.

This is afine example, Esoteric I am sure you and your guild are all dedicated and skilled players, but can you in all honesty say that the enemy group did see you popping out of that portal the split second you used it?
Do you think that there’s a chance your group wasn’t rendered on your enemies screens thus making that assault a lot easier that it should have been?

I do not mean to say that you’d have been wiped by the enemy force, but I am sure that you would have experienced a lot of troubles if you guild were correctly and promptly reported by the server to enemies’ clients.

I do not know whether Esoteric’s group did benefit from culling or not, but I am sure I died too many times in WvW because of it: zergs popping out of nowhere, Thieves unloading their pistol on me while invisible and popping 2/3 seconds later etc…

Portals are not the problem, again culling is.

Well, most aoe abilities have a 5 person cap…

But that’d just destroy portals, I would prefer if ANet fixed culling to be honest.

Score evolution will talk for itself friday, it’s already evident who is taking advantage of night hours and who is not, but it will be undisputable once this week’s rotation is over

I prefer to play in a dynamic WvW, so I do not agree on rewarding more holding a point, that would make people sit inside a tower/keep and very few would attack objectives.

But I agree on rewarding more people escorting Dolyaks and doing repair runs, also I would like to see support being rewarded as now the only thing which will net our precious bag is damage.

I don’t think there’s an easy solution, because if you reward defense more then few/none attacks, if you reward attack more then very few/none defends. It’s already bad when the three servers cycle trough maps to conquer objects and never clash in a battle, granted that I haven’t seen it happen very often, but it still happened.

So the current balance of attack and defense rewards will have to do untill ANet realizes a brilliant way to dynamically scale it.

I’ve said this before, the fights should be the incentive. Why do people need incentive to PvP in a PvP function of the game?

Because this PvP mode has money sinks, so it needs to reward people for their succes, otherwise you’re forced to PvE too keep up with costs and that’s not an option for many.

crazy.9083:

It’s not portals that need fixing, it’s culling and door glitches.

Also, don’t spout such nonsense that numbers are dwindling because of portals – people get bored, the hop servers, they play other games, they pve. You have no facts to back up your suppositian.

My main is an ele, just in case you were wondering.

Elementalist here and I too agree with crazy.9082, ANet has to fix culling and door glitches, that would solve a lot more problems afflicting WvW than a nerf to portals.

No charging into that lone player only to find out there’s an invisible army behind him, no Thieves hitting people multiple times before they pop out of stealth, no portal bombs you can’t react to because you can’t see the enemy popping on top of you and the list goes on…

I am fully aware that culling is an engine issue which requires time to be fixed and so far I could bear with it, mostly because on my Elementalist I can run away from almost any group of pursuer, but it’s preventing me to enjoy other professions lacking escape moves thus making the game less varied and fun.

Overall I think ANet did a good job on WvW, I just wish they would take care of it a little more

STRanger.5120:

Are you aware that you got back only one of the 4 blast finishers it was originally intended to provide? And you are forced to be in earth attunement to have it (yes, the worst possible attunement we could have it in – due to eruption delay…)

Yes I am happy because this change brings back a mechanic which I found incredibly fun and I am sure you will find a nice way to use that blast finisher as a staff user

I am so kitten happy.

I don’t care if this topic will be deleted because I am not “contributing”, EA’ baslt finishers were a huge portion of the fun I had while playing my Elementalist and getting it back makes me happy

Charr Engineers could say something about toolbelt skills being useless :p

SkyChef.5432:

in my case, it doesn’t seem to work w/ Bloodlust & Hydromancy whether it’s off hand or main hand. You can try it & let’s us know here.

If it does not proc when switching Attunements then it’s a bug and must be reported, I’ll try myself as soon as I can log in.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

It has a 9second cool down though?
Or does that not affect attunement swapping?

It should have a 9s cooldown, just like Sigil of Battle, shared with other “on swap” sigils.

What made me think about it is we can use Frozen Burst too, so during a 45s long fight we can: Attunement swap 5 times for 15s of chilled, use Frozen Burst 3 times for a total of 24s of chilled and have Frost Aura up which would add at least 2s.

That’s an insane amount of chilled uptime and we all know how nasty of a condition it is.

Lately I’ve been thinking about an Hydromancy sigil, getting my enemy permanently chilled sounds nasty, I’ll have to give it a try and see how it turns out.

Ryuujin.8236:

Mik Hell.8206:

If I change my character’s gender I do not want to have a Hulk-sized male named Cherry

Why not? – It has potential

Hahah, I agree it has potential, but it does not fit my style, so it’s no for me ^^

If I change my character’s gender I do not want to have a Hulk-sized male named Cherry or a 20 years old girl named Carl.

My friends will learn my characters new name with time, all it takes is a little memory, but with no name change my character will be ridiculous forever

Will I be able to change my character’s name too?

Because having a 3×2 meters norn guardian named Cherry is not realy fitting

Can’t play my Elementalist in PvE anymore, it now feels dull and without the added mechanic of dodge/blasting fields I can’t find a reason to not play my Guardian instead: if I “have” to play an easy toon then it might also be the most effective one, support/tanky Guardian (Altruistic Healing-Hammer).
Survivability is incredible, I will die only if I fall asleep, line of warding spells provide an incredible CC, same goes for Wall of Reflection, multiple boons to buff my group with, group stability (this is huge) aegis, blast finisher every 4seconds, etc..

I do not mean to start a profession-war, that’s just my feeling about Elementalist’ pve fun which is totaly a personal preference.
I still enjoy grouping with other Eles (whatever the build/weapon used), I just retired mine to pvp only because thats the only scenario where I feel “challenged” now

P.S. I play(ed) mostly as D/D, so my effectiveness wasn’t hurt nearly as much as a staff user, but the fun I have has been almost halved.

Calcifire.1864:

Mik Hell.8206:

“Unintended feature”= exploit

You know how many great things were discovered by accident?

Like penicillin, champagne, post-its, cellophane, velcro, the whole American continent, dynamite (explosives are costantly used for building construction), teflon and countless of other great things which greatly help us today.

I am not saying Evasive Arcana is to be compared with so many great inventions, what I want to point out is some of the unintended features could actualy be good as in fun in a game.

in games development, it’s called “Emergent behavior”, tvtropes calls it a goodbad bug or an ascended glitch.

generally, if a bug is around that isn’t gamebreaking, but actually ADDS to the game, and is used often enough or is fun enough, it’s not only kept, but made official

look at the “basket on head” of skyrim, or reverse pickpocketing, that started out as a bug that people used to kill kids in fallout by planting live explosives in pockets, now it’s a full part of skyrim and fallout, with lore and skills based around it.

or hell, even the farlands in minecraft, notch said he liked the idea of a far off land where reality begins to break down. unfortuantely, with 1.8 he accidentally fixed it, what did he do? he made The End as a tribute to it, yes, it was a bug so loved that the developer actually spent an entire patch to add a reference to it, and write it into minecraft’s “lore”

what ANet has done here is the WORST possible thing to do, the standard thing for a dev to do would be to look at it, figure out why people like it, and then fix the bugged part whilst silmuntaneously adding in a feature similar to the old bug. in this case, it SHOULD have been to reduce the damage and cooldown of the old trait, but remove the non spell finishers, or even to remove the spells, damage and cooldown, and just give elementalists a trait that gave a blast on dodge.

oh, and one more example of emergent behavior:

the mechanic of space invaders where the invaders speed up where there were less of them? that was actually a hardware issue, when there were less invaders to draw, it took less time to draw the frame, giving the impression of the invaders speeding up and getting desperate. when they realized, they loved it so much they kept it, and started the trend of enemies “turning red” when near death. it’s funny to think that one bug has defined videogame enemies for generations.

Precisely what I meant, I still hope ANet will acnowledge the fun mechanic brought to the game by old Evasive Arcana and reintroduce it in a balanced form, but this silence is terrible.

It’s the same way I deal with my daughter when she cryes for sweets, I give her the “won’t happen look” untill she stops, the difference is: she is 3, I am 30. Heck that’s more communicative than what ANet is doing as they can’t use body language on a forum.

Edit: grammar, English is not my language