Guild Wars 2

Well I have a video, was a first attempt and it took 50sec, but I did it half assed using a non optimized DPS chain, no pet, no food, and with 2 adds.

Just to show you dont have to be awesome or maxed out or lucky to do it.

I was trying to get one using a good chain and without adds, but people kept running by and attacking it 8-/

Going to try again tonight when there are fewer people on.

@Sharpe

One of the Elementalists are fine people.

Look at the board I post often, and am one of the very first to say Elementalist are UP and VERY far from fine.

You’re crazy if you think we are anything but lowest tier

Sigh Whatever I’ll time it and try to get a fraps video…when I get home today. Never posted a youtube video or recorded a fraps video, so no promises.

So maybe it took 25-30 seconds again I am just rough estimating, but no way it took 2 mins.

It is a difficult fight to parse due to getting trained by people running through and also by the fact the giant I was fighting pathed through a crap ton of adds.

Am I not killing the right thing? Cursed Shore, Giant Vet and throws grubs?

@Seraskus and Pinkerton

I do well with my Elementalist, and enjoy it.

However the current state of the class puts it behind the majority of the others in nearly every category.

People are upset, and have a legit complaint, and yes they could enjoy the class more if they could master it….

But the point is you are either delusional or you dont understand that even when mastered it is lacking in many areas vs other classes.

Also one of the biggest complaints is that in order to do DPS you have to go D/D melee otherwise your damage is laughable…

And an Elementalist in melee is a backwards concept by design, we have the lowest HP/Armor, our escapes are subpar, and we have little in the way of mitigation.

In fact out of ALL the classes an Elementalist is the least survivable in a melee combat role.

And by class description, and perception the class is a wizard. You can argue semantics all you want, but people signed up for a Ranged DPS class, not a melee wizard.

And in every game that ever allowed you to be a melee wizard there is always that group that wants to do it, and it causes the majority of players to roll their eyes and it is never as effective….until now in GW2, and it isnt that it is viable, or can be done without ridicule…it is better.

And not just a little better, but a lot better.

Finally had a chance to play today (Hanging with the GF)

Took a few to find them as I didnt have the map finished.

But they were not very hard killed two, one with pet one without.

With pet was really easy, and without I ended up having to kill a couple adds on top of it but in the end only the adds made it any kind of challenge.

Should have timed it but took like 15-20 seconds I’d guess?

I dont have any issues solo’ing any Vets so not surprised.

Have a WP they are near? I assume you mean Cursed Shore?

Of course I am serious, if a build with less DPS and better survivability can outdps one that has more DPS, I would love to see it and then talk shop after.

Challenge accepted, name the time and place

Boon = Might, Fury, Regen and so forth.

Fireball’s projectile doesnt pass through targets and has small AE damage where it lands.

I have 48% Crit chance, and 86% Crit Dam, but I use the Sigil that stacks prec, so at 25 stacks I have 60% crit., 80% with furry.

The burn is short and reapplied if they walk through the ring.

Its basically an Auramancer build. It has a name so it must be somewhat popular right?

I had one in my group, the DPS seemed to suffer, and he was asking for feedback and received very little…ended up with a we didnt really notice. (The Auras)

I personally was interested in this build at a time so was closely watching, and it honestly didnt seem worth the DPS loss.

But so long as you run it for you and not your party, that should be your goal.

Because I doubt you are going to hear, oh wow those auras are awesome keep using that spec!!!

Well, I do run dungeons with D/D including Arah, there are a couple fights that I have to switch to staff tho…

It requires a great amount of skill, and you die quite a bit, maybe 20% more than with staff, and the risk isnt worth the reward.

It is much more fun honestly, but requires an unrealistic amount of devotion. ( I play 10-16hrs per day )

Your point is valid however, the amount of risk is insane.

Well they have to take the most damage because of their dps they get agro and they have more risk being in melee.

And I mean everyone makes a big warrior so they are a larger more easily clickable target.

So they should be able to do more damage because if you are big you are stronger.

Its quite simple really.

And it wouldnt be fair to force them into melee in order to do great DPS so they give them a rifle.

And its a gun and guns do alot of damage right?

And besides warriors are cool so they should be the best at everything.

This is the basic logic of most game companies.

Again the 20 arcana isnt critical. And as for switching for CC, check the cooldowns on those. Are they greater than 15 seconds? Yes. Therefore 10 or 15 second switch is irrelevant.

You can kite anything without CC, this isnt much of a root n nuke kind of game as it is a circle strafe, run n gun.

But honestly staff is for when you cant use your D/D so normally is some situations in Dungeons. But if you are doing solo PvE D/D is better faster.

If you want the truth…start with a set of rares to save some cash.

Full Power, Prec, Crit Jewelry with same slots.

Then get a full set of Berzerker’s armor, slot with Divinity.

Yes you are going to be squishy, but test it out for a couple days, then start replacing the armor with Tough/Vit armor as needed (If you HAVE to use 100 toughness/70Vit food).
14k HP should get you by if you have a high skill level, but you can sacrifice more damage for more defense if you have too much trouble.

30/20/10/10/0

Mist Form, Cleansing Fire, Arcane Wave. Tailor to the occasion but thats your default.

You gain a max from 15 to 10 sec change with 30 arcane. You dont need to switch attunments every 3 seconds, switching and dropping everything then switching again doesnt maximize your dps.

Fire is your DPS
Lightning is your travel or combo starter (RTL/Updraft)
Earth is your Root someone running away/fire is down and there is a large group of whatever.
Water is your max range/Healing/Chilling.

@Mathiuzz crit will never be best form of dps ,not for ele

Say what?

This has nothing to do with any other game, it has to do with math.

The BASE crit damage is 150%, so if your tooltip says 0% crit damage, you have 150%.

And you can get to 80% and not go full glass which is +230% crit damage.

Some games have high crit chance, some dont but this one has a silly high crit chance.

With a 50%+ all the time crit chance, that can boost +12% with the sigil, and +20% more with furry…

What kind of data parse or build do you have in your head that will out dps a 50-65% crit chance at +230% damage?

I’m not aware that you can get those #s and not have power on the items to match you there is no way that anything but a crit chance build is going to be top DPS.

Please god tell me you dont think a Condition build is better??

Go do math.
Understand 15 stacks of bleed = 1 condition, and is EASY to remove.
Understand Bleed caps at 25 Stacks, on Vets, Champs whatever it doesnt mater if they are your bleeds or someone else’s, it caps at 25 so you will be lucky to have 3-4 of your bleeds going on any boss in a Dynamic Event.
Understand Burns dont stack.
Look at the condition damage you do with full condition gear and without, even a strong set of condition gear you bump from like 55-80, which is…pointless.

The point of a damage buff is that it allows us to focus more on defense.

Like you know when you are a thief and you drop a guy from 100% HP to dead in under a second? When that happens and you think you could maybe go for more survivability that is an option.

When you think I do fairly good damage IF 3-5 skills ALL hit and you had good luck with crits and you are practically a glass cannon, you dont really have any choice but to die constantly, just assist and do what you can, or roll over and go straight 100% support.

Now if they gave us some better escapes, or more defense overall then yeah we wouldnt need the extra damage. But 10% HP and 5% armor isnt exactly huge and thats why I said a 10% damage boost as well. I mean seriously a1k hit is now, 1.1k, and a massive 10k crit gains 1k damage, which is like what 1/12th to 1/20th or so of someone’s HP in that extreme situation?

Guardians = Same HP, More Armor, WAY more mitigation, WAY more survival mechanics.

Trying getting camped in PvP and having some jerk guardian stand with 2-3 people straight unloading on him while he just laughs because they cant get him under 85% life.

And then realize it isnt 3 people, its just you, and he gets to attack you back.

It can be more than a little disheartening.

IF every bug was fixed and the Elems had a +10% HP buff and 5% armor and a +10% Damage, and their downed state was made to be something other than humiliating, and reworked traits so that it wasnt set up to be mostly stats with 1-3 sorta neat tricks, and did something with our Elites so that it wasnt Elemental or nothing…

Then at that point we would probably have enough going on to break into the middle tier of classes.

And that of course is assuming we are HIGHLY experienced, have a great bind setup, reflexes like a ninja, knowledge of other class’s attacks and playstyles, and the ability to use the right skill at the exact right time and have great gear and a great setup with your gear.

vs the certain other classes coming to the table with…I like pie…and the number 2.

It is just a universal fact people are going to be ticked if the risk isnt worth the reward, and asking extreme skill and knowledge and the reward ranging from lol owned, to meh ok I guess….is dumb.

Stacking condition damage is pointless, 12 stacks of bleed is still just one condition and can be easily removed.

And giving up the extra crit damage isnt anywhere close to being worth it.

As an Elementalist if you plan on killing anyone with reasonable success you have to use burst damage, and stacking condition to make 55 damage bleeds turn into 75 damage bleeds isnt going to do as much for you vs turning a 2.5k hit into a 3.5k hit.

But honestly with burns not stacking, and bleeds being all removed with a single condition removal AND the damage increase from heavy stacking being so poor….

Condition = not worth it, as you are better off killing someone in the same time it takes you to otherwise get them down to 70% life.

@SiNiquity Are you trolling?

Anet doesnt owe us, its paying cutomers, anything?

What planet do you live on?

Why is it we have to stop and say oh yeah that is right, we are paying customers, we do deserve something for the money and support we give.

Razer Naga + Logitech G13 Gamepad ( Not keyboard, gamepad )

This will OWN…ANY game. However it barely keeps up with the Elementalist.

I had to rebind mouse scroll up and down to keys on the G13, and use the Mouse Scroll Up and Down ( And Shift+Scroll up and down) to Element switching.

My requirement is, I need to be able to move at all times, dodge at all times, jump at all times, and cast any spell at all times, switch attunments at all times, with never moving my fingers off a key, save for my thumb on the mouse an index on the mouse ( For scroll wheel )

So I can fully move, cast, switch, dodge and jump without dancing around with my fingers and not running into things like I cant move this way and do that at the same time.

Here is what we need to take away from this.

Dear Anet if you are going to fix a bug on Elems, thanks but IF you fix one that reduces us, fix one that is broken that increases us as well.

So far we are very far ahead in the weakest class polls and out of 3, maybe 4 patch notes that fixed classes, Elems received 1 positive fix ( Quick Glyphs works with Elementals ) which didnt really work as the timer resets randomly and sometimes when the Elemental dies.

And we have received like 4-5 fixes that were negative… they needed to be done so I dont love the using the word negative, but you understand what I mean.

Where for the other classes it seems like mostly an even mix, I think you might find a small case of one getting more negative than positive but not by a 5 to 1 ratio (IF you can class it 1 as it isnt 100% fixed)

Seriously Anet show us a little love. Just a little.

I’m from DB, if something is going on it isnt being made public, that said the cheater should be perma banned.

I have seen several instances with orbs turning into who has it, where is it at? Why is there an orb on the map ( I mean like middle of nowhere ) and when you get there, there is nothing…

There could be some funky glitches with it, or some hacks causing some residual funkyness.

But either way the only thing I have seen concrete with my own eyes was a guy speed hack, I chased after him and was within 1200 range as I could hit him, and he jumped in the water, and I immediately after ( The big lake in the middle ) I tookk one stroke forward and stopped as he was moving so fast he was nearly to the middle and then an instance later out of sight.

So there definite are some hacks going on although rare and I would hope Anet would have fixing/banning as a top priority.

Cant say I am surprised to see posts like this from JQ.

Out of every server I have played against they were the ones with by far the least honor and sportsmanship.

They seemed to roll you 8 v 1 and then laugh and jump on your corpse, like they accomplished some major thing.

They never were outside of a group or multiple groups, they would use every dirty trick in the book even tho it was a 8 v 1 situation. ( Really? )

They seem to have a large number of children that jumped ship so they could feel awesome running over a group with 40 people while playing the OP class spamming 1 button.

@wdspeck Yes if people exploit and generate infinite money like they did for the karma thing, Anet stepped in VERY quickly and dropped the ban hammer.

Why because it single handedly could ruin the economy if left alone.

This isnt complaining that some random skill point in some random zone is broken, this is asking about what is for many people the end game of GW2.

And we are just asking for 5mins of someones time to throw up a things we’re working on list.

Then a link to a couple should be no issue.

And I am meaning a state of the game this is our thoughts and what we are working on.

Not a dev tracker, bug report it and we’ll look into it. Or we are aware that is happening and are thinking about it.

Not even looking for a in the future we plan on doing something more with rewards, which is obvious but what is on the table and what is off?

Well there are several issues at the moment, and Anet tends to be quite a silent company.

I would rather silence to say Blizzard’s BS patronizing PR.

However there are a few things that could be addressed and fixed, and a small hey we are working on these things list would go a long way.

Things like, do you really feel it is ok for one team to be invulnerable or have invulnerable siege while they attack a fort?

Do you intend people to attack through solid objects like doors, with abilities and catapults?

Will you allow us more control over commander such as ability to turn it on, off change the color of the icon, show only to group/guild and so forth?

The reward for PvP is currently badges, and Realm Bonuses, with the only real reward being “I enjoyed the experience”.

Since the armor is really just a skin ( Not a great one even ) and the bonuses will be there if you go PvP or not, do you have plans for a system to keep players coming back after their 5,000th kill?

DaoC and Warhammer Online both had realm ranks, which gave skill points to be used for new abilities. Even if you just gave additional trait points that would be something. Maybe even better titles, for 100-500-1000-2000-5000-10k kills and so on?

I know you want balance so you dont want to give too much of an edge for WvW rewards, but some extra trait points isnt THAT major of a thing.

But I agree some kind of answer/update would be great.

Seems very situational, focus is just very lacking if you are trying to do burst, just go with the immobilize sigil and scepter/dagger.

Or even D/D which is the most burst we can do and the least situational

Agree with ZaneStriker, you can switch around Arcane Wave a bit depending on solo, group ect.

Also 10 trait in earth gets you armor of earth auto at 50% health, hate me for it but I think traiting heavy arcane is overated, if you have to switch THAT much your DPS probably is what you should be looking at…

Use Divinity, this coming from a guy that has everything setup in a spreadsheet.

You just cant beat 240 stat points +12% crit damage.

21 prec = 1% crit chance.

1% crit chance = 1% crit damage assuming base statistical probability and barring extremes such kitten crit chance or 90% crit chance.

That said I would go full Berzerkers, which is power, prec, crit damage. Slot divinity because it is the best value on points and 60 power/prec + 12% crit dam is hard to beat the vit and tough are a great bonus.

But after you get that setup going, play with it and decide how to slot your jewlery/what jewlery to get.

Just ask, do I have enough DPS? Is my survivability too low? And adjust as needed.

Realize skill and a good keybind/good trait setup can maintain very high DPS stats and you still can do well.

Personaly I have like 13kish HP, but have 51% crit chance and 80% crit damage, I am always welcomed in groups, and if I ever mention my HP, I am met with a shocked, wow and you seem to do so well, how do you do it?

Condition damage is pointless unless you are focusing on a 100% condition build, and even then the result is very lackluster.

Mist Form, Cleansing fire with regen/vigor on cantrips can help out a great deal with survival with a low cost on trait points, as for the last spot I like Arcane Bast for PvE as I feel you cant not have something to use with all your combo fields, PvP varies based on circumstance.

Lava Font + Arcane Blast = 3 stacks of might AE
Static Field + Arcane Blast = AE swiftness
Cant think of the name but the Water Chilling Field = AE Healing.

You can still roll 30 points in fire, 10 in earth for Armor of Earth, 10 in water and 20 in air and survive just fine in PvE, in PvP you can as well but you might need to bring up your toughness and HP a bit, or stay away from daggers.

I think most Elems are upset about being UP because they are outclassed on nearly every aspect except support, and as was said the class is NOT advertised as such.

In the game there arent supposed to be support classes, just support roles that the class can CHOOSE.

Where as the Elem is FORCED into either a support role, a DPS/Support, where just another class as DPS would be better, or some Melee DPS thing, that is insanely frustrating as they have NO business in melee range by design.

It is also draining that the class is designed around the older ideals of you can have your cake but not eat it.

In other words, if you do something cool or useful there is always some counterbalance to it.

I can Meteor !! But I have to stand still and get focused….I can do burst DPS with S/D! But the enemy has to stand still….I can use this neat skill…but it has almost a minute CD….
I get a knockback…but it is only single target, doesnt knockback far, and only hits sometime…maybe.

Other classes tend to get more, I can do this awesome thing…but…but what? I can do this awesome thing!

@Efaicia

So again I ask, what are the areas in which we excel?

So far every poll I have seen on this and any other site has us ranked in the bottom tier if not just the bottom spot.

Ranged DPS – Medium
Mid Range DPS – Good is stationary, medium if not
Melee – Good overall, although the consistency of abilities landing is lacking.
Downed State – Worthless. ( Comparison: I solo’d a lv 8 on my lv 4 Mesmer in my downed state )
Elites – Underwater the only one we get is nice. Otherwise pets are ok, everything else is blah.
CC – Depending on Weapons, Element, we do have a fair set of CC, however CC isnt exactly huge in this game by design, and they give you a fairly reasonable way to counter it.
Healing – We gain the ability to heal others at the cost of less efficiently healing ourselves. And the healing we do to others is low unless spec’d heavily reducing us to a crappy off-healer.

Is THAT enough guesses?

@ Efaicia

Areas we were built to excel in? Please dont say healing and CC.

I keep hearing this CC thing like people think we are Enchanters from EQ or something, and somehow seem to think…

I annoyed that guy by CC’ing him and then he killed me, is somehow equal to…

I just annoyed those two guys by…well by just killing them.

Death is the best CC.

I would believe it does, however note that vulnerability is a stackable debuff = Target takes +1% damage per stack. So unless it drops like 5-10 stacks per signet it is, like most Elementalist traits, worthless.

Power/Prec/Crit Damage.

You will find condition damage is very lackluster, and boosting it takes a lot of focus and the reward is blah.

Also you will find that the damage with a Staff is…well low.

So if you try anything but a near-glass build you will find your DPS to range from garbage to sigh.

You can get away with a 80-90% offense 20-10% defense build and use your skill to make up for the rest, along with defensive abilities like Mist forum and such.

But as it stands Staff is the lowest DPS, Scepter/Dagger is ok if the enemy stands still, and Dagger/Dagger is not too bad even if they move.

Of course you have the lowest HP/Armor/Survivability in the game…so yeah.

But going fire/staff I assume you want DPS and thus have focused information on that.

You might be one of the…its cool if I do 1/4th the damage as long as I occasionally make the enemy walk slower, and I dont know, give half the party crap regen, and heal 1-2 people, maybe for 5-10% of their life bar, a couple times a minute…type of guy.

In which case ignore everything I said.

Think about it.

Change the staff to Bo Staff, the Daggers to Kunai, the Elements to Ninja Arts.

Change the theme some, so like when you dodge you disappear into a puff of smoke and reappear at the end of the roll.

As it stands there are basically 3 groups arguing on this board.

1) – Informed enough to make a discussion but they dont care, they want a class only 30% of players can find success comparable to other classes, and even a smaller number that can master it.

You won! You are the best most Elite Player EVER!
You Lost. Oh well I’m awesome that other guy is just a noob pressing 2.

2) – Not informed and likes the class but really doesnt have a broad perspective, or plays the game in a very narrow way against the general design, but has fun doing their own thing.

My Staff DPS is good in WvW, I mean its not like Melee classes can outclass my ranged damage.
Do I WvW? No I ignore what my realm is doing and just look for random 1v1 fights with guys getting attacked by wolves, I never die and am a boss. I always win because I never fight unless I have a stacked advantage.

And finally the guys that just want some bug fixes, a relook at traits and abilities that are 95% worthless, and maybe combining a few blah lame abilities and traits together to make someone think about maybe using it.

We dont want an overhaul, or reduced to 1-3 button pressing, just some positive tweaking. You know tweak the yeah I could use this vs the other one, but at a VERY minor situational advantage with 90% loss of dps…but I wont stuff.

BUT!

If you just renamed the class to Ninja..

People wouldnt be confused into thinking they were some kind of Wizard/Mage/Sorcerer.

No one we be confused into thinking this was a ranged DPS class, because they are a Ninja, obviously a melee.

They wouldnt be upset or surprised they do lawl damage at long range, do good damage at medium range…if their target stands still, and around 2 to 8 times the damage in melee vs anything else.

They wouldnt be upset they were asked to know every ability and use it without hesitation at exactly the right time with the slightest mistake resulting in death, and dodge around like a monkey…because they are a Ninja its what they do.

*And on a plus side you could redesign the armor to look cool, vs the fashion line we currently are wearing which was obviously designed by a collaboration between Elton John and Lady Gaga.

@Amnon

Thanks for insulting people stating their opinion. Also thanks for adding nothing.

You will never loose 1v1 ?

I think most all of the posts on this board talking about PvP would beg to differ.

What is your build/gear since you have it all figured out?

Anyways back to reality…he said the thief was too squishy for him, and the Elem isnt any better.

And if you think Elem DPS is amazing, its a comparison, how hard do we have to work for what result vs other classes.

Answer is twice as much for almost as much as some

If you have the right build gear and so forth, the DPS is ok, if you dont it kinda sucks.

But condition builds generally arent that good for PvE, and unless you think its a better playstyle to let the enemy hit you more while it lives longer, vs just killing it quickly…

You will find the class is too squishy or too low DPS, and the sweet spot is about 80-90% offense.

But expect battles to take forever, or to die often, until you get good gear at a high level.

To each their own, but I personally think its fine.

The game has a map that shows fighting, so you know where action is, there is of course a global channel so it isnt like people cant communicate with the whole map.

If the changes you suggest happened, everyone would hop in a PvP map, join the Zerg group and then just follow around the zerg. And if you havent noticed most of the time sides chicken out on facing each other unless they have an advantage.

Sometimes 4 to 1 is required to instill bravery.

So it would end up, "Oh Zerg A is bigger than us by 15% so we should just sit in our start zones.

As it is now, there are individuals running around, small groups, guild groups, and small guild armies.

There is little point in trying to WvW as an individual or even in a group or two, if the different realms are always in a massive 40-80 person zerg.

I dont think forcing everyone into a default zerg is a good idea, as it is now you can enjoy solo hunting, or duo. (Please lets not argue semantics, the choice of by yourself in the dark, while everyone else is on the same page lumped together isnt much of a choice when your opponent is the same)

You can also make specialized guild groups and hunt as an elite team.

And having 30 guilds auto organized into a pile doesnt shout Guild Wars, makes it seem more like Realm Wars.

But the experience is for the players to create, so you might find fighting top servers is like fighting a highly organized army, or you may find the fights against other servers with smaller highly experienced groups using guerrilla tactics. Or you may see a ragtag scatter of people running around in a loose horde from fight to fight.