Guild Wars 2

saiyr.3071:

Furey.6734:

morrolan.9608:

IRSyKo.5843:

Hard to tell. Mag is fighting 2 servers that can’t put up a fight right now.

No they’re fighting 1 server that has been decimated by transfers and another that they have gone way past in terms of population.

IMHO Mag has a T2/upper T3 population this week (based on prior experience). Whether that will change we’ll see.

What sort of queues are you getting in NA/European/Oceanic?

That guy isn’t from Maguuma. I haven’t hopped borderlands much, but I haven’t seen a queue since reset night. I know Eternal has had one, and some of the borderlands have one when there’s something important, but it’s not frequent.

To be fair, you can’t expect us to populate WvW when (nearly) all territory is our territory. What would we do? Spend all our time kneeling in front of Flame Ram or something?

synk.6907:

To the OP: because naming a plant-based person after a plant is funny to some people, so they go with it, I assume. Same reason there are names like “Winston Charrchill” and “Charrizard”, etc.

I still think Charrman Meow is the best.

Mike.7320:

Most recent update..kinda boring out here.

Well.

I’m glad I’m not missing much while I’m busy reinstalling… I guess?

…I feel really bad for IoJ, though. :c

Alilinke.7690:

Staff Combo Fields are severely underrated by the ele community.
Putting static field around a enemies can stack vulnerability extremely easily (through whirl and projectile finishers), and will stun anyone trying to move out of the field.

Frozen ground can stacks an INSANE amount of chill on enemies (15 sec chill through the skill itself, plus another 1 sec(?) for anyone using whirl and projectile finishers, and if a blast finisher is added, area frost armour on everyone within the field, which adds more chill each time the enemy attacks. Not to mention the huge radius (with blasting staff) making it easy to keep enemies on the field.

Our 2 water fields are amazing (Geyser and Healing Rain). Geyser is small, but if you’re fighting a boss which doesn’t require you to move around much, you can put it under yourself or your team mates, and in some cases both and it heals for 808 + Healing Power * 0.25 every pulse (pulses 3 times). And since it’s a combo field, Blast and leap finishers can heal for 1320 + 0.2 * healing power and 1300 + 0.5 * healing power respectively. Projectile finishers also grant regeneration for 2 seconds. Then there’s healing rain, which can grant regen for 15 seconds, has a massive radius, lasts for 6 seconds, and also works as a combo field, which means even more regeneration and healing.

Also, we have access to many auras through our fields (although, due to our lack of a leap finisher, we can’t apply them onto ourselves.)

Staff Auras:
Magnetic Aura on demand
Frost Aura from blast finisher in ice field.
Fire Aura from Leap finisher in fire field.
Dazing strikes from Leap finisher in Lightning Field. (Similar to Shocking Aura, but applies daze instead of stun)

I’m a Dungeon Master myself, and staff is always my weapon of choice. The only time i switch to D/D or S/D is when i’m fighting an enemy that reflects projectiles.

Staff Eles don’t have leap finishers, I don’t think? (Never mind; I can’t read, haha.)

I do agree on Static Field being extremely good against bosses in dungeons, though. I always include Air in every other rotation specifically for that reason. (I have to wait out one rotation for it to come off cooldown. :c)

I also usually target Geyser under my enemy so all of my melee party members are healed and most of my ranged party members gain several stacks of regeneration.

Pinko.2076:

DanzigDevil.9725:

Wait a minute…I’m confused here…Was there a wealth of server transfers lately to Maguuma? It was not more than 3-4 weeks ago when they cut a side deal with Yak’s to get 2nd place when Ehmry Bay proved too much for them and they still lost…BAD!

Are you Jesse Cox? I bet your sources are as good.

I think he means the week where Maguuma had particularly low turnout and they both ganged up on us for “free” points, but we still managed to keep a narrow gap between us and EB.

IIRC, Staff Eles only have Magnetic Aura on demand and Area Frost Aura from their combos.

D/D Eles have Frost Aura and Shocking Aura on demand, and Fire Aura from Burning Speed or Ring of Fire + Magnetic Grasp.

I do really love Magnetic Aura, but D/D Eles still have more Auras overall, don’t they?

thetreebranch.4831:

As a Yaks player, it is disheartening to see us still play like we did a month or two into the game. Players still zerg at gates instead of building/protecting the catas behind them. Instead of building siege at the chokes of towers/keeps, we zerg outside, chase too far, and let groups of people slip behind us to take control of the tower.

We’ll have a group of players plop down siege at an easily defended supply camp (pangloss), fully knowing that the enemy zerg at orgath is going to stream right in and only get a handful back to defend it.

People constantly pick up supply at camps, but very few people plop down siege to use it. And when siege is put down, its a trial and a half to actually get people to build it.

I don’t know if our core WvW people are just taking a long break until the new patch or if we really just haven’t improved that much since the start.

To be fair, I’ve always found it really easy to pull five or six of my enemies and kite them around for a minute or two no matter their server.

Sometimes, I’ve pulled detachments attempting to capture our supply camps all the way back to where our zerg just wiped their zerg! They were summarily executed.

Sahfur.5612:

Yep, paid transfers won’t ruin wvw though, don’t worry.

Wvw ruined wvw long ago when it played like a pre-alpha.

Sorry for anyone who has to stick through it for world completion!

Their only reason to separate servers like this is wvw, a pre-alpha. We could have had better battles where you join a side that has storyline significance.. and we could have had more community. We also could have had the odds evened via temporary team changes (peek at how tribes does it) for balance so the game mode would have been more fun.

Nope, who needs storyline, community or meaningful battles?

Why is wvw great? Is it the spies? Maybe its the times they occupy your server with afk bots to gain a statistical advantage? The exploits? The culling? The fact they try to balance every other game mode around it and end up hurting the enjoyment of those?
Is it the maps? Is it the fact that its fun to explore three additional maps that are all the same where its evident you enjoyed pve.. after all you want map completion right? Hope your server is doing well and not outnumbered 24/7 or in a pact with the other server that you are against.

Couldn’t things have been better in some other way? A way where each game modes fans didn’t have their game mode stepped on by the other one?

I think it’s the flame rams.

…and giant enemy grubs.

dreztina.4820:

Giving this a bump as I just had to log off because I’m getting the bug where rtl/magnetic grasp shoot me way past the target every time again. Impossible to play like this.

I really just don’t understand why anet is doing absolutely nothing to fix the bugs. How many years is it going to take before they care enough about their game to fix gamebreaking bugs.

Maybe they’ll get around to it after they finish introducing new bu—I mean, content.

I’m sad to say it, but… your chances don’t look good.

Even if Ruins of Surmia manages to climb into Tier 8, I don’t think you’d have much better chances against Whiteside Ridge or Ring of Fire.

Roughneck.2509:

Holy kitten, they don’t censor dick

But that cuts down on my opportunities to see people tell each other “You’re a kitten.”

“All things have a right to grow … except the Nightmare Court.”
I thought of this almost immediately, too.

I see both the Dream and the Nightmare as forces for control and subjugation. Then again, I’m naturally Chaotic. (No one is quite sure on my Good-Evil alignment…)

Pinder.5261:

Oh certainly, there’s a whole host of reasons why people like greatswords: consistently great skill sets which often include mobility, a lack of competitive weapons, brilliant legendary design, high visibility compared to smaller weapons, and the awesome factor. I don’t blame anyone for choosing a great sword, per se. But it creates a suspicion that all players would default to them, if given the chance.

I (used to) run Staff + Sword/Sword on my Mesmer, but all of my Mesmer friends run Greatsword + Something.

I feel so alone…

You actually get a pretty hefty reward. Free siege, free supply, a free Champion NPC…

They practically hand you a free tower with full supply, unless a large chunk of your enemy’s entire server is specifically out to stop you.

salluks.6017:

I never understood " server pride". U do realise its only a name for a piece of hardware right?

To be fair, states are really only chunks of land which certain groups of people have claimed as their own through nothing more than brute force; furthermore, your homeland is determined mostly by chance, while your home server is entire up to you.

I’d say server pride makes a lot more sense than most of the pride people hold so close to their hearts. :x

That said… I don’t want to win, or even really to compete, but I want to be able to say “I did my best. I have no regrets.”

TBH, I enjoy sneaking into enemy keeps and kneeling before the Great Lord Flame Ram a lot more than actually fighting… usually. :x

Oh, and having emoticonversations with my opponents, hahaha.

Jurrzy.1594:

Why would you pay gold/gems, even a relatively small amount, to go to a losing server with a less active community?

Because ArenaNet wants you to buy gems.

Why are you being so selfish? They just want all of your money. Sheesh.

Actually, protip for D/D Eles in general: Do not use Churning Earth 1v1.

If your opponent is decent, they’ll punish you for it. If not, you won’t need it.

Churning Earth is best used against multiple opponents when one of them is downed and their allies are attempting to res them, and you still need to be mindful of their interrupts. (You can actually put Lightning Flash to great use here, by teleporting to their other side just as they use their interrupt.)

Conversely, if you’re up against a D/D Ele and you’re trying to revive your teammate, interrupt them if they try to use Churning Earth. You have ample opportunity, and you really don’t want your downed ally to take such a powerful strike.

(However, I tend to use Updraft → Burning Speed → Fire Grab on my downed opponents, if possible, and sometimes Earthquake → Evade → Burning Speed → Fire Grab if my Updraft is on cooldown. Churning Earth is definitely our most risky skill.)

Also, I’ve never won a fair (both at full health, all skills off cooldown at start) 1v1 playing my D/D Ele, and I’ve never held my own 1v2. My victories always come from stalling 1v1 until my allies arrive, or interrupting an enemy group so my allies can overwhelm them.

If your experience differs, you may have been facing Elementalists above your skill level. …Just a possibility.

jaegerx.1693:

Maguuma plays hard for the +20% artisan bonus. We are pro crafters

I have all eight crafts mastered on all eight professions!

You don’t like Tarnished Coast?

Stevefin.7251:

One thing they could do is remove the 5 man cap and add a new type of system. based on damage % per number of people hit. by what I mean is this.

1-3 targets in aoe does 100% damage
3-7 does 70%
7-10 does 50%
10+ does 30%

Don’t hold me to the numbers though, they are just an example, but it would be a compromise satisfying both sides, AOE eles can still PvE, and to where I expect they have gotten most of their data. WvW ele’s can still area deny.

They’re more concerned about AOEs being sort of almost one third as effective as single target attacks against single targets, and want single target attacks to “stand out more”. They do not seem to be as concerned about AOE actually being useful against large groups.

(In other words, they’re angry about AOE being able to kill them when they play their Thieves.)

Ross Biddle.2367:

Reviving is a part of the game and you just have to learn to factor it in. It’s one of my favourite mechanics for various reasons.

One such reason is this: Often you’ll have a zerg force outside a keep, or a zerg v zerg going at it. You get those D/D eles who love to think they’re the shizit by pushing the boundaries hard, messing up, and dropping. They have mist form as their get out of jail free card, flee from downed into the “safety” of their zerg, and get a res so they can do a rinse repeat of their ever used ginger bread man tactics. That’s where I come in.

I keep an eye on these players. When they go down I start a pursuit and chase after their mist form. When I get within range, right in the middle of their zerg, I spawn 3 clones, drop a TW, shatter for distortion, stomp, and blink/prestige back to the safety of my lines.

I can only imagine these players going “OMG, WTF!” every time

Love downed/res.

On the other hand, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve activated Mist Form at ~10% health just to have someone follow me into my zerg, probably thinking I was downed, and get focus fired down instantly.

In WvW, D/D Eles excel at disrupting their enemies. If you break formation, they’ve probably won.

Henrik.7560:

There is complaining about jumping puzzle that gives you siege to help your team in wvw but no complaining about those people who stand around merchants or crafting stations for hours? Wow.

Could be something to do with how I’ve never actually noticed anyone hanging out near the merchants, crafting stations, or even Mystic Forge on my server.

Then again, I’ve also never noticed very many people from our server in the jumping puzzles at any given time… except for when one of our commanders leads their zerg in to acquire mass siege blueprints, which usually takes them a few minutes at most.

Still, I agree they should put the jumping puzzles in a separate instance. In fact, I assumed they had until I first saw a Mesmer on map chat advertising JP portal services.

In fact, other players aside, I would feel better about spending my time in the JPs if I knew I wasn’t costing my server anything…

snacktime.1082:

Game designers always play all the different classes, as do the test teams. But you invariably miss things because that’s what maybe 5-10 people playing a specific class, against thousands of players.

The idea that game designers/dev’s don’t feel accountable, or don’t care, is absurd. Most of these people are hardcore gamers themselves, they take a lot of pride in the game they make and they absolutely do care. It’s just impossible to create a perfect balance in advance, a lot of game design is adjusting to things players find.

And unlike a player that just plays one class, they have to keep in mind every class with every change that’s made.

I’ve worked with a lot of top game designers and dev’s (most have worked on multiple games across multiple game companies). These are some of the smartest people you will ever meet.

Fortunately, they know that most players have no idea what goes into making a game and the kind of people behind it, so they dont’ get upset when they see ridiculous comments about them not caring, or not playing a class, or being stupid, or whatever.

Now give us one good reason we should believe you.

Pinder.5261:

Better to nerf something out of sync than to buff all other aspects of the game. It’s balance.

1 = 1
2 = 2
5 = 5
20 = 20

If aspects of your game are currently sitting around 20 and 30, how is buffing the first aspect by ten any less “balancing” than nerfing the last one?

That aside, at the moment, Elementalists are only really good at one thing: outlasting single opponents in 1v1. Warriors, Guardians, Mesmers, and Thieves are all greater in multiple roles than Elementalists are in their one role. People are just upset they can’t easily win 1v1 against an Ele, but you shouldn’t be able to easily win 1v1 against an opponent who built themselves for survival above all else.

On the other hand, Guardians can stand 1v2 or 1v3 if they have the same level of skill as our hypothetical Elementalist. Elementalists are only valued at all because Guardians are often too slow to intercept their enemies, while Elementalists are also quite speedy.

Also, literally anyone playing any class could disrupt four Elementalists for the one or two seconds their zerg would need to storm in and overwhelm them, so please don’t try to suggest they’re out of balance in WvW. (I’d even argue they would have effortlessly wiped out the entire opposing zerg if they had been Thieves instead.)

Well, I’m the only person in my guild.

Not that anyone here likely knows my guild, but still, you could identify me that way if you did.

saiyr.3071:

Parsee Komeiji.2049:

saiyr.3071:

Parsee Komeiji.2049:

wads.5730:

Pendragon.8735:

saiyr.3071:

You are stating things we all already know. The major guild transfers we got were not because of the scoreboard. Look at our match history.

Your server mate just the exact opposite above.

he was referring to the organized guilds that transferred, not the kittenty randoms that jumped ship from DR and BP. believe me, no one on mag who isn’t a new transfer wants this population. frankly, most will be glad once we get destroyed and people transfer off.

I like WäR, though…

They are an organized guild.

They’re also from BP!

They’re also not the “kittenty randoms” that joined from BP. Come on now.

I know. I said I like them, didn’t I? :c

saiyr.3071:

Parsee Komeiji.2049:

wads.5730:

Pendragon.8735:

saiyr.3071:

You are stating things we all already know. The major guild transfers we got were not because of the scoreboard. Look at our match history.

Your server mate just the exact opposite above.

he was referring to the organized guilds that transferred, not the kittenty randoms that jumped ship from DR and BP. believe me, no one on mag who isn’t a new transfer wants this population. frankly, most will be glad once we get destroyed and people transfer off.

I like WäR, though…

They are an organized guild.

They’re also from BP!

wads.5730:

Pendragon.8735:

saiyr.3071:

You are stating things we all already know. The major guild transfers we got were not because of the scoreboard. Look at our match history.

Your server mate just the exact opposite above.

he was referring to the organized guilds that transferred, not the kittenty randoms that jumped ship from DR and BP. believe me, no one on mag who isn’t a new transfer wants this population. frankly, most will be glad once we get destroyed and people transfer off.

I like WäR, though…

I think Lightning Whip and Auras look cool.

…

I’d rather have pistols as our single target option…

Maybe I’m the only one…

I’d give Ride the Lightning the current functionality of Lightning Flash, and change Lightning Flash to be a Light Field version of Thieves’ Pistol 5 (Black Powder).

We would have less mobility this way, which is a large part of what people dislike about us, as far as I know.

~

We also need to ditch this idea that elementalists must attunement dance, while allowing people to continue to use that play style if they so choose. As it is, Arcana will always be the best trait line because it rewards you for playing Elementalist literally the only way you can. This in mind…

I’d also make a new Grandmaster trait for our elemental lines, combining traits like “Internal Fire” and “Pyromancer’s Alacrity”, and add a halved attunement recharge rate effect specifically for that attunement. I’d put these in the current spots of Persisting Flames, Tempest Defense, Rock Solid, and Cleansing Water, and drop those traits down to Master level (possibly with slight nerfs).

No one really uses those traits as they stand, and these changes would encourage investment in specific trait lines to actually maximize the effectiveness of your preferred element(s).

In addition, I’d make our baseline attunement recharge equivalent to current rate at 15 Arcana, and make each point of Arcana half as effective.

I’d also remove Evasive Arcana and replace it with a somewhat improved version of Elemental Attunement, reducing healing while also requiring more investment to achieve our current levels of boon stacking, another large component of our Water-Arcana survivability.

~

However, in order to encourage us to move away from bunker builds, we’d also need to be more survivable. Water is our go-to choice for survivability at the moment, and this is primarily because it’s our only choice.

So, I’d improve Geomancer’s Freedom to a 50% reduction, and make it reduce the duration of our bleeds, burns, and poisons in addition to “soft” CC. Additionally, I’d move Stone Flesh up to our 25 point minor trait and have it grant us 2 points of Toughness per level in all attunements.

I’d change Tempest Defense to a Master trait, and make it stun our attacker and proc my new version of Lightning Flash when we’re hit with hard CC, on a 30 second cooldown. I’d also change Soothing Winds to our Air 25 point minor trait, and increase it to ~15-20% of our precision to healing.

I’d add a Fire Master trait which removes one condition whenever we burn our opponent with a skill (not via Flame Barrier), but can only proc once per skill. Additionally, I’d replace our Fire 25 point minor trait with a trait which boosts our Vitality by ~20% of our Power—call it “Vital Flame” or something. :p

As for Water, I’d simply improve our heals, but only on our allies. We would have the same self-healing we have now, but we’d still be able to support our groups very well.

Oh, and I’d change Arcane Fury to our Arcana 25 point Minor trait and increase its duration to 3-4 seconds, and make Arcane Precision our Arcana 5 point minor trait.

…and I’d implement my changes on a public testing server to tweak them according to players’ input and hard statistics before release!

Benjamin.7893:

Against a zerg you’re not going to do kitten with how the aoe currently is anyway, so why complain about a much needed change.

“AOE is too weak to be relevant as it is, so why do you care about them making it even weaker?”

Um…

I haven’t read the full thread, but I have one thing to say.

4v30?

D/D Ele, Ride the Lightning + Earthquake. Four defeated players. GG.

Any Thief, Shadowstep + Daggerstorm. Four defeated players. GG.

Any Mesmer, Mass Invisibility. Four defeated players. GG.

Etc.

AOE is not the problem in those videos.

jportell.2197:

Also D/D eles sorry but your guy’s damage is way bigger than a thieves… It is true. And it is more sustainable.

You should perform stand-up.

You can stop pretending you’re all pros who never have difficulty with anything now.

Why do people on the Internet always do that…?

Oglaf.1074:

Please don’t. They’re the only thing challenging in there. They give you a reason to use cc abilities over raw damage (which works against 99% of the other mobs); if you see someone pinned down, smack the Scavenger in the butt with any form off cc and it will be stunned an additional time because it was knocked out of “pinning down”-mode.

I’ve cursed their name on multiple occasions after a “cheap” death, but I still would be sad to see them go. The only thing I would love see getting removed is their ability to gobble up your Boons, but I’m pretty sure that isn’t happening, ever

A lot of CC doesn’t work. Someone filed a bug report on these forums which shows their AOE hitbox will teleport to you if you immobilize them before they attack. I suspect their ridiculously large hit range is caused by the same bug.

They’re not challenging; they’re broken. Literally.

Never mind donating—I’ve bought full sets of exotic armor for two players.

One of them I had never spoken to previously, but they mentioned how they were trying to save up for a certain armor set in Lion’s Arch map chat, and I had spare gold, so I bought it for them. The other was an in-game friend.

I only have 3g 14s 80c at the moment, and I still need two more exotic weapons to have a full exotic set of gear. (My more generous purchases were from before I was level 80, so I didn’t need my money to buy gear at the time.)

I don’t normally buy siege, but I do often buy upgrades for keeps and towers, and I use my drop-acquired siege liberally.

Now, I’m not saying everyone should be expected to donate their siege to their server’s cause, but your “you wouldn’t donate exotic armor!” argument falls pretty far short, at least for me.

FourTwenty.4268:

you must be new to MMOs. people ALWAYS complain about stealth classes. no matter if they’re top tier DPS or at the bottom of the barrel

learn to separate the legitimate complains from the crying QQ

If people always complain about stealth classes, then stealth classes are never fun.

If stealth classes are never fun, then they are bad game design.

Essentially, you’re arguing stealth should be removed from the game, full stop. I agree.

Contrary to the claims of stealth exploiters, there are viable Thief builds which don’t use stealth, so there’s no need to even rework the class—just a few skills and traits, which they do all the time anyway.

And no, stealth is not the “core mechanic” of the class. Initiative is the core mechanic. Stealth is a tacked on ability which has turned out to be a bad idea.

This would also instantaneously fix the OP burst builds, because thieves would actually have to worry about durability without the practical immortality granted by stealth. They would no longer have the option of going full glass with no consequences.

I don’t have much to add. I just want to second this.

Combining achievements for two completely different styles of play only makes the game less fun for players who clearly prefer one or the other.