Showing Posts For Srondon.3642:
I’m also not entirely sure why people have such problems with Staff. I mostly “face-tank” mobs (multiple mobs) with no problem with a full damage specc. How is this possible? Because I kill them much faster than they can kill me.
I’ve learned that stacking Vitality or Toughness on an Elementalist does not help them live, it just delays their death. I find that Elementalist viability in PvE is mostly a DPS race. If you are not a full damage specc, you are not going to win that race. I use my utilities to survive and have done very well, all the way from 5-80. I agree that Sceptre/Dagger has some nice burst combos, but I, like the OP, hate the immense cooldowns that these abilities have. With Staff, I can pretty much chain mobs with no issues. The only time I have issues with dying is against certain mobs counter to my specc: namely Earth Elementals (I hate them!) and “Thief” style mobs that deal tons of damage upfront. Also underwater, but I’ll get to that in a moment.
I would also like to mention that Blasting Staff is not a required trait by any means. Blasting Staff is great for increasing your support in groups (mainly to make Healing Rain absolutely massive and Geyser a bit less useless for others), but your damage abilities are fine without it. In fact, Blasting Staff has the notable effect of basically weakening both Meteor Shower and Static Field. In summary, I feel Staff is great, because I do good single target damage, great AoE damage, and have enough utility to either kite difficult mobs or shift disadvantageous situations (like multiple mob adds) to a successful outcome.
Now I’m very surprised that only one (or was it two?) other posts touched on Elementalists’ Underwater combat. I mean, Elementalist survival against mobs either depends on a) kiting them or b) killing them way faster than they can kill you. Underwater, both of these things are almost impossible to do.
Trident Fire does very weak damage compared to other attunements (and especially compared to ANY land Fire Attunement!). I don’t understand the logic of this when Fire is such a strong damage specc on land. The only truly useful ability in Trident Fire is Lava Chains, and you would try to use that to get away.
Trident Water, ironically, does the most burst DPS of all the underwater attunements. Again, wtf? Why does our healing and support attunement deal the most damage underwater? That makes no sense. Also once you blow your cooldowns to burst your DPS, you’re better off switching to Air to deal damage.
Trident Air is.. okay. You only have Forked Lightning (your auto-attack) and Electrocute to deal any real damage, but that’s still much better than most of what is offered to Elementalists underwater. Forked Lightning deals good damage ONLY if the target is at point blank range (where all three bolts hit them), otherwise it deals crappy damage. It also has a single-target and AoE stun so that’s not too shabby.
Trident Earth is poor as well. Rock Blade deals laughable damage (partly because it’s so friggin’ spread out) and the only other ability that deals any good damage is Rock Spray. You’re better off switching to Earth, using Rock Spray and immediately switching out (Murky Water is okay too, but is on a 45s cooldown).
So basically if you want to deal single target damage underwater, you use Air (or Water) and if you want to deal any kind of real AoE damage, then you use Water. Fire and Earth being pathetic underwater is a bit frustrating and doesn’t have any real justification. Trident damage could use a serious boost.
I’m very confused in regards to some people’s feelings on Staff. In PvE I feel that staff is perfectly fine and fully functional. It could use some slight tweaks that I list below:
Lava Font – I honestly think this ability is fine as is. I think it could be made better by having the first tick happen instantly (instead of delayed) but it is fine otherwise.
Flame Burst – This skill isn’t absolutely zomg amazing, but I’m surprised to see people saying it’s “useless.” First of all, this ability launches instantly and burns in an AoE. It also has a relatively low cooldown (10s, 8s traited). Also, besides Burning Retreat, it’s the only burning Staff skill you have so it syncs up really well with your other abilities because they are direct damage (in a nutshell, you get the full burning duration easily instead of so much burn stacking that you lose damage). Flame Burst is a huge part of my damage when kiting groups of mobs, because of its ease of use.
Meteor Shower – I also don’t think this ability is too bad as is, it just needs a few tweaks. First of all, you’ll notice with this ability that the meteors fall on the edge of the area affected (basically never really hitting the center). I feel it would be better if the meteors fell evenly across the area. I agree that it would be good if the individual meteors either had a larger AoE or, preferably, if they fell in succession much faster.
Ice Spike – I think this is a more group-oriented ability (with its Vulnerability), but I agree that it should land much faster.
Geyser – I’m surprised no one has said anything about this ability (I assume people are talking almost exclusively from a solo perspective?). Solo this ability is okay, but it is very difficult to use in groups without Blasting Staff. I feel the default area of effect for this ability should be increased.
Chain Lightning – I feel like this should be made to be more of a single-target damage skill. While it does have some uses (hitting a group of mobs that are spread out), it’s damage is not very appreciable compared to our other options. I feel they should greatly increase the damage and instead have it deal significantly less damage each bounce.
Lightning Surge – This ability is okay, but the casting delay is immense. Reduce the casting delay significantly.
Gust – I think this ability is okay as is, but I find it strange to find a single target ability in Staff when basically every other ability is an AoE (or affects multiple targets). Seems inconsistent. I also HATE that it acts as a projectile and hits what is directly in front of you instead of your intended target.
Stoning – Weakness seems like an odd choice for a condition, especially when you consider that Staff Earth has two abilities which are seemingly designed to kite.
Eruption – There seems to be two camps on this ability. One wants to keep it as is because they use it as a Blast Finisher and others want to change it to make it more viable. I’m on the fence on this one, because I use Eruption as a Blast Finisher (usually with my Water fields) and it is very useful for this purpose, but the delay + 12s of Bleed is a bit long and cumbersome for the damage potential of Eruption. I would say put more of the Bleeding into the direct damage portion of the ability. The delay of Eruption is too useful as an additional Blast Finisher to give up (and before you say to use Arcane Wave, I actually use BOTH in dungeon groups [Eruption -> Healing Rain -> Arcane Wave = Almost full health for my entire group]).
Unsteady Ground – You know, to make this ability more useful, I would like to see it do a short knockdown (like 1s) to opponents when they cross through it. I think that would make it much better than it is now. As it stands now, I usually use Shockwave to immobilize the target and then position Unsteady Ground on them in such a way that they will walk through much of it on their path to me.
Overall though, I think Elementalist Staff is in much better shape compared to other builds (again talking strictly PvE).
2) There is no way you will run through a 30+ man zerg to your supply camp to get supplies. Sorry they will just kill you.
The reason I mentioned that strategy is because I have personally performed it and it works well. If you know how to play your class, set up your traits, and use your utilities, getting past a 30+ zerg is easily achieved.
Unfortunately, in my scenario, we lost our (not upgraded) tower because we only had three defenders against a huge zerg AND they were using three rams (which I destroyed with wall-targetted AoE). But we were able to delay them for a LONG time before they broke down our (not reinforced) gate.
Had I been in the situation that you were in (upgraded tower, ten defenders, siege setup) then I can pretty much guarantee that I could have done a supply run (probably just myself) repeatedly to repair the gate indefinitely. Don’t know if I can say that every class can do it. I’m a Norn Elementalist so I have walking invulnerability, stealth, and stun breakers. But I would be willing to bet that someone out of that ten was sufficiently skilled to have easily done it.
Sorry, but no. They just played smart.
What you should have done was have someone make runs to the nearest supply camp and run back to the base, repairing the gate. If they weren’t using rams like you said and were frequently interrupting their DPS to ress dead players then two (or possibly even one) person repairing the gate could have kept them at bay indefinitely.
Well I am admittedly a bit poor on the lore for GW2 and did not realize that Divinity’s Reach was supposed to be ethnically diverse. I was under the impression that it was supposed to simply be economically diverse.
Knowing that, I have to agree that it is a bit disappointing to see that influence or diversity (that according to lore, should be there) stripped from the world. However, when they allow us to explore Elona, I will be happy with that if it stays consistent from GW1 (i.e. it hasn’t started raining bleach recently).
Also I will note something interesting:
Obviously important characters do not change appearance, but I do not know who counts as important and who as unimportant (even named NPCs are apparently unimportant). The reason I mention this is because appearances seem to be randomly generated for NPCs across different servers (they will always look the same on the same server, but may change appearance when you go to a different server).
I noticed this most striking feature when I was in Lion’s Arch overflow one day. I was working on my Jewelcrafting and speaking to Isabel, the Master Jeweler. Well I got the option to travel to the main server, so I did. To my surprise, Isabel changed from a white woman with blonde hair to a black woman with black hair (and she is always black on my server, Gandara). So it makes me wonder how the RNG works for randomizing appearances and if, perhaps by chance, you just ended up in a very white version of Divinity’s Reach (and if there isn’t a more black or olive-skinned Divinity’s Reach somewhere).
The match-ups do not currently last two weeks, Eochaidh. While ANeT is working on balancing out WvW, they do matchups every few days.
I agree that since the majority of reports are gold selling spam, it would be nice if there was a simple single-click option (that also blocked them). Because it does get annoying to do a combination of reporting, selecting spam, send report, block player, rinse, repeat.
Well you can’t please them all I guess. Most of this is a matter of opinion and seems to just paint the game with a swath of negative colors while completely ignoring the beauty and vibrance that the game does have.
I don’t feel the personal stories are poor or bad. They’re not awesomely great or stellar, but certainly no where near to the extent of horrible that you seem to suggest. The cutscenes are not captivating like a movie and don’t use a lot of cinematic flair in them. The story itself, however, is not bad at all. The fact that you chose to skip all of the dialogue (and thus the story) is your own problem. That’s like opening a book, skipping around and reading the section headers, and then complaining that the book sucked.
While a LFG system would be nice, finding a group isn’t that hard. And if you still have that much trouble, then you may want to join a guild who does dungeon runs.
Some PvE being bugged is definitely troublesome, but it is, again, not that bad especially compared to how buggy endgame content has been in other MMOs. And they have been working on it. The only zone I’ve been in that has been brokenly bugged (as in clearly not tested enough to ensure that the zone didn’t melt into a pile of goo) was the Iron Marches. Every other zone has clearly been worked on. I mean this is a game launch. ALL game launches have bugs, ALL of them. And the game hasn’t been out for even a month yet. Seriously, if you wanted a bug-free game experience then the general rule of thumb is to wait three months after its release. No amount of time in beta or development eliminates all bugs; that is the nature of games in general.
Also on SPvP, the point is to be strategic without being overly complex. While I would like to see other game types (capture the flag?), I’m okay with the point capture of the maps. You also make no mention of WvW I noticed (which I would consider PvP). While it does suck that you can’t play casually with a friend, it would also suck to be solo and casually play normal games to only find that they are a bunch of pro premades that facestomp your pug. So.. it balances out.
As far as what to do at 80, I felt sort of similar to you at first. Once you get to 80, there is no more handholding on what you need to do. There is no “Well you can do these things here, but you’re required to stay on this gear treadmill to continue being viable.” Once you hit 80 and get your full set of Exotics (not a hard task mind you), then you’re left with a variety of options and goals that you have to set yourself. In most other games, your goals and next course of action are generally dictated to you (grind this dungeon, get this gear, etc.). In GW2 you can: Master crafting, complete the aesthetic look that you would like, begin working torwards crafting a legendary, get 100% world completion, begin involving yourself seriously in the WvW metagame, grind achievements, and/or begin exploring the full capability of your class in SPvP. Or.. you can do none of that and just reroll or leave the game. Your character will be just as viable in any case.
I was damage dealer in our guild group that flew you through the instance, you should be grateful for the quick xp instead of bashing my play style first in game and now on the forums.
Well he didn’t call you out… but instead you exposed yourself to criticism.
I am entirely geared for power, preci and critical damage
I am too minus the critical damage (vit and some toughness instead). In fact I also have 30 Fire and 20 Air too.
= damage dealer.
Yet this doesn’t define my role.. interesting.
For survival I’m using lightning flash
Unless it is paired with Soothing Disruption, Lightning Flash is basically an extra dodge and is not nearly as useful as either Mist Form or Armor of Earth.
burning retreat
… Really?
and signet of restoration
REALLY? The Glyph is far superior for reactive healing. The Signet of Restoration, ironically, doesn’t really give you that much support unless you have a great deal of +healing (or are in a DE where you rarely get hit). In all other situations, Glyph is superior.
and those are usually enough when I’m not getting one or two shotted by dungeon mobs. Prolly going a bit more survival oriented gear would be better for the overall damage output, but switching water with 0 healing or any other attunement is waste of time and damage.
The thing you seem to be missing is that when you’re dying all of the time and going into downed state, you’re not dealing DPS. On top of that, someone has to stop THEIR DPS to get you off of the ground.
I run an almost full damage set and traits (with some survival stats like vit) and switch attunements in dungeons all the time. In outdoors PvE, I hardly switch; I, like you, sit in Fire and DPS mobs down. But in dungeons, where not only do I need to survive, but so do my group members, I switch attunements frequently.
First of all, even with 0 healing (why are you running Signet again?), Healing Rain is nothing to be trifled with. Also, if you used combos effectively, you can start in Earth, use Eruption (which should deal appreciable damage with your gear and traits), quickly switch to Water and chain Geyser + Healing Rain together. Not only will you get healing from Rain and Geyser, but Eruption is a Blast finisher and also perform a very nice AoE heal for your group. Even with 0 healing, you’re looking at 60% health restoration AT LEAST for your GROUP that you just did (and don’t forget that HR removes conditions).
I also don’t see how you would never think to switch out of Fire to snare mobs, because Burning Retreat does not cut it in dungeons. If you are dying a great deal then you aren’t being an asset to your group.
Don’t be mad at the OP for being frustrating that someone was playing poorly and said person decided to call HIM the noob.
Most Elementalists I see on public discussion boards, and talk to directly, seem to suggest that Elementalists are grossly underpowered and a terrible choice for dungeons.
Well I tend to find that public discussion forums attract the whiners. Elementalist is definitely not the most powerful class, but grossly underpowered? I think not.
It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not or how much – the classism is still there
This is true and I would definitely concede that point. Classism in this game, however, is based almost entirely on ignorance. I honestly would not want to be grouped with such people, because they have adopted the type of mindset that will likely cause their failure (and, thusly, a waste of my time and patience).
and the composition of your group will still affect how easy or hard the dungeon is. (Plenty of people seem to think that you must have a Guardian, for example – not because it’s required, but because of how easy they make it)
And this is what drives me absolutely bonkers because it is the most annoying and incorrect mindset that players have adopted! Guardians DO NOT make dungeons particularly easier! People are so conditioned by other games where having a healer helps make content much easier. To those who believe this, please read: THAT IS NOT THE CASE IN GW2.
The mobs and bosses that are really hard in this game? They kill you in a few hits (including your precious Guardians!). It’s not healing, but dodging, stunning, and debuffs like blind and condition removals that save your behind. I have run dungeons with different types of guardians (I’ve even done runs with two). Even when they are “support” specced, they still don’t help much more than the DPS specced Thief. It all amounts to their skill. That’s why I implore you guys to stop it. The Guardian does NOT make content easier. Just stop. You’ve been brainwashed. Let it go. You know why this is even funnier to me? Besides their one elite, my burst healing with Elementalist Staff is far superior to any non-elite options that the Guardian can bring.
There’s also an entire thread in the Elementalist sub-forum right on these official forums of people sharing their experiences of being denied by groups entirely due to being Elementalist.
Good riddance. Those groups are the types of people who fail dungeons miserably. I have yet to participate in a group that has failed a dungeon run so far.
When it comes to dungeons I’ll tell you why Elementalist is a great choice: because we are extremely flexible. You’re right in saying that dungeons run better with certain class combinations (but in the hands of skilled players, it’s quite marginal really), but the best classes depend on the dungeon. And that’s because some dungeons require more single target DPS, others more AoE, others more healing/condition removal, and some others CC. You know the great thing about Elementalist? They can do all of these things WELL, most classes either can’t do some of them or do them poorly.
For example, AC is better run with high DPS (mostly single-target, but some AoE for Breeder adds) with CC and debuffers. Healing is not as useful as kiting and blinding. You have key targets that you need to kill and you need to kill fast.
In CM though, it was switched. In CM, AoE DPS and healing were more important that other abilities that were brought to the table. Fortunately, I was able to perform optimally in both groups, because I have good single target DPS, great AoE DPS, great healing, and good crowd control.
So.. yeah. If a group isn’t taking an Elementalist, that’s their loss for their own stupidity and that Elementalist just lucked out from being in a group with a bunch of morons.
Just like how their are Asura warriors and Charr mesmers…
I laughed when I read that… Is it bad that I have BOTH an Asura Warrior and a Charr Mesmer?
Let me say that I hate Orr. And I don’t hate Orr, because of poor design, I hate Orr, because it was designed exactly how it was envisioned. It is a dangerous, dead, dank land absolutely filled to the brim with Zhaitan’s undead minions. All bases are subject to attack and there is no true safety and no true refuge. Honestly, if you could imagine yourself in a situation like that and really LIKE it, then you’re a masochist.
That said, I love the execution of Orr and a lot of your complaints are really just unconstructive rants. In fact, out of your HUGE list of complaints:
Almost every Waypoint is contested. Combine this with the lack of Mounts, and getting from point A to point B in GW2 becomes a major hassle
Really only this one has any merit. I would prefer that there were more “neutral” location waypoints that aren’t associated with the security of a base or a location.
Also
Lots of bugged/broken events (dynamic or not, these are just a hassle when they can’t be finished)
Obviously an issue, but, unlike the above, is not intentionally part of the design and will be fixed.
From what I’m reading, it honestly seems like you want to be able to come into this zone and just trounce around with complete impunity. Sorry, not going to happen. This is Zhaitan’s territory and you’re in it. And then when you say things like this:
I think they made the zone to be underwater, then decided that since no one likes underwater content, they made it land level, and then wrote the lore around that
THEN you sound obstinent and like you just want to come here and complain. Orr, like every other zone in GW2, is very well-designed and the art team did a fantastic job at executing what is supposed to look like a dead and previously submerged island.
The OP is both very right and very, very wrong about a few things…
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-endgame-reimagined/
So, my response to this article will likely come to a surprise for people who (think) they’re familiar with my posting: There is no difficult endgame in GW2. Period.
I would agree with this on the PvE side of things. PvE at “end-game” as you call it (max level I assume you mean) is really not that much more difficult than the rest of the game (though the zones are MUCH more annoying to traverse due to a combination of mob density and environmental effects [my personal most hated being no health regen]). Although the WvW PvP metagame still leaves a great deal of challenge for “end-game.”
It’s what I was hoping Orr would be – but it turns out, from everybody I’ve talked to about Orr, (which is the best I’ve got to go on, unfortunately, though I’m close), that Orr is still mindless AoE-fests in zerging proportions.
Well Orr IS harder, just not so much harder to warrant a great deal of concern or to truly get that feeling of being “challenged.” There are still quite a few fights in Orr that aren’t “mindless AoE-fests” but, due to the amount of players, are still trivialized.
Yes yes, the dungeons can be fairly challenging, depending on group composition primarily (BIG disappointment there, btw, with how rampant classism already is)…
… and then you said this and I’m like “What in the WORLD is this guy TALKING ABOUT?!” And then you say later in the thread to “ask Elementalists about that.” I AM a max level Elementalist. An Elementalist is one the BEST classes to take into a dungeon (assuming the Elementalist isn’t a scrub, but that goes for all classes really), so I have no idea where that tripe came from. Unless, of course, you’re talking about PvP tourney groups…
In fact, the only thing I see sometimes is “LF Guardian preferably” and I always make a point to call those people out for their silliness. I mean, seriously, I laugh when I see that. Guys, let me tell you something, Guardians honestly are not the best class in a dungeon setting. They have one Elite Skill that is very powerful, but other than that they don’t add much else that others can’t provide in a group. Seriously, you HAVE to get out of this “need healz” mindset. Most of the dungeons actually complete better with debuffers and high DPS (not healz lulz). I find it especially funny, because, besides that one Elite, Guardians aren’t even the best healers! Just stop it.
I don’t care how often the fail rate is. I’m fine with DEs that fail 9 times out of 10.
You’ll love Grenth then! You have to protect an NPC who is particularly good about standing in devastating AoE (not saying that’s a good mechanic, but it certainly fails more than it succeeds as a result).
To be honest, it’s terribly difficult to fail events because even if a player dies, they can respawn at a waypoint and run back within a minute. So not only is there a huge throng of players, there is no reliable way for the boss to kill anyone off. The only way I could see a very challenging DE happening is if, a set time after the event happens, there is some sort of lockout which prevents players from entering (or re-entering) the event. This would mean that you have to ress players there or you wouldn’t have them to help. You CAN make mechanics that make ressing difficult and costly to a fight.
I think defensive stats should be more mildly scale down in side-kicking. It makes a lot of difference for a heavy armor class and a light armor class. A level 80 light armor class needs a level 10 heavy armor class help in a low level zone is sort of humiliating, because you can get killed easily if you get hits from a few mobs. After your effort to get to level 80, this is really a shame.
Uh well as a Level 80 Elementalist, I haven’t had that issue where I need a heavy armor class. It’s not like they can tank anyways… so I don’t know that I see your point.
I think the reason they don’t allow you to mail to your alts is so that you don’t 1) Have what amounts to basically a virtual bank that you can access anywhere outside of dungeons and 2) to prevent you from having ten extra inventory slots as provided by your mail for each alt (so 50 extra slots to start).
I understand that they only want you to use the Trading Post to make sure that all exchanges cause money to leave the economy (remember that they have to balance the game economy inflation by getting you to spend small amounts of money back into the game by doing simple things [waypoints, repairs, tools, trading etc.]). Since money is magically created in MMORPGs from quests and vendor sales, they have to find ways to take a good portion back out of player circulation.
I assume no /follow is to prevent some sort of botting or exploiting but… as others have said, I think it proves more of a hindrance to honest players than ones trying to perform exploitive activities.
1) Well my response is that if a group wants to steamroll areas and not have a challenge, let them. They’re ruining their own gameplay experience, not yours. I found the difficulty of soloing in this game to be fine (rather easy actually) for anything other than group events. In fact, this game is really good at weaving you in and out of group and solo play. I enjoy that.
Your idea of tagging mobs would be so easily exploited and a major annoyance. Imagine some jerk just comes by and shoots one arrow at this Veteran you’re fighting and then runs off. Now you have to fight a stronger version of an already strong mob because of that nonsense. Or how about he actually stays and fights but he turns out to be a total scrub and has no idea what he’s doing. He gets killed easily and in the process gets you killed easily. Sorry, but I like the current system as is. Grouping should be strongly encouraged.
2) Well you are usually just a tad stronger than the mobs when you scale down (assuming gear is up to date, and casual or not, the TP is so cheap you can easily buy a full upgrade for a few silver). Also you seem to be intertwining the terms casual and skill-less noob. My gameplay is casual, but I don’t need the game to be easy-mode to play it. The term casual refers more to time investments and “barrier-to-entry” that alot of other games have. The game allows you to easily jump into most activities at any level and allows you to progress rapidly, even when playing very little.
Also a big part of the reason for down-scaling is to prevent higher-level players from griefing content for lower level players. This game is heavily designed around anti-griefing, so don’t expect a dramatic change to the downscaling…. ever.
3) While crafting could be tweaked a bit (mostly that professions that use cloth or leather materials easily fall behind those that use metal and wood), I think it is quite well done. And while the discovery system initially would come off as intimidating for a casual, it’s actually quite easy and intuitive when you try it since you’re not allowed to make failures. I’ve also, personally, been able to craft level appropriate gear for myself from Jewelcrafting quite easily.
4) I agree that Event Notification is a little wonky at times and you make some excellent suggestions in this regard. I feel like there is a bit too much hand-holding with event revelation, but considering that the crux of top-level gameplay only utilizes events, it is important to be able to track them (rather than shouting out in map chat, though this does give an additional outlet for social interaction in this game).
5) I definitely agree that WvWvW has many nuances and tasks that need to be strategically understood. There should be a thorough, in-game manual or document that explains WvWvW in extensive detail. To be fair though, a casual player as you seem to be describing them would just follow the zerg wherever they are and proceed rushing around in that manner.
To be honest, I expected this to happen to many avid RPG players. Let’s face it, the type of horizontal progression that Guild Wars 2 offers simply isn’t going to appeal to everyone. You may hit 80 and decide that the game no longer interests you.
It’s okay. Seriously, that’s fine. You don’t pay a subscription fee for this game. You can put it down and come back to it later if it, perhaps, adds more content that you personally enjoy.
PvE longevity? No this game really doesn’t have it. But the only reason it doesn’t is because it doesn’t force you to do the same raid dungeons (requiring large amounts of people to coordinate their schedules) repeatedly to get the next piece of epic loot. And I am glad for it. I don’t want that in this game, because I’m not interested in a massive time sink like that. To be honest, let this serve as a demonstration of how truly shallow RPG progression is in today’s MMOs.
As for me, I enjoy both types of PvP this game offers. I enjoy exploring things just for fun and listening to storylines and dialogue. I enjoy rolling alts and playing different classes and experiencing other storylines. I enjoy running and playing with guildies who’re experiencing their first explorer mode dungeon. I enjoy tweaking my character’s appearance and getting just the right gear and palette to suit me. I enjoy slowly working towards having a Legendary that I can walk around with. That’s just me, though. Your mileage may vary.
Well you say you don’t care for cosmetic upgrades.. or PvP.. which does indeed leave you in a rut. Sorry, but this game simply doesn’t have a massive time sink of vertical progression content for you to climb. If you’re not interested in getting your Legendaries, fighting in PvP, helping mates with their content, or perfecting your aesthetics then yes, you’re right, this game doesn’t have anything left for you (besides rolling alts).
To be honest, what you’re suggesting is like myself going into a vegan restaurant, enjoying my first course of salad, and then being annoyed that I can’t have a steak for my main course. There really are things for you to do at 80, they’re just not the types of things you usually focus on compared to other MMOs (aesthetics vs gear treadmill).
I rather enjoy this aspect of the game. Also you do get quite a benefit from being a downleveled high-level player, just not one so massive that I can kill everything in the zone with the wave of my hand.
Hmm well I don’t think the Elementalist is nearly as bad as some of you seem to suggest.
I have my Elementalist at level 80 with relatively few problems. Yes, I would say Elementalist is a bit more involved than other classes (I consider this a good thing) for comparable results. I would say my biggest issue with Elementalist is that I deal similar damage to many other classes while being WAY squishier. I am going to guess that the intention behind this is that an Elementalist can kite (and has many abilities to do so) whereas other tougher classes cannot. I can pretty much take down any mob or group of mobs if they are melee. Only ranged abilities and mobs give me any real trouble (and that’s what you use utility skills for).
Elementalist advantages:
-My AoE ability is not only large and ranged, it is second to none. No other class deals as much AoE damage (and there are many, many mob groups in this game).
-My AoE kiting abilities are, also, second to none. While there are other classes who can kite a single mob much better, no class can kite an entire, large group better.
-Lots of utility survivability options and self-heal options (combine things like Water Adept Major Trait Soothing Disruption with Cantrips like Armor of Earth to gain a serious edge in survival).
-The most versatile of the classes with good damage, good healing, and great CC, almost all mostly accessible at will.
Elementalist Disadvantages:
-Single target damage output is either directly on par or less than other classes yet we are significantly more squishy (again I assume this is intended and based on our ability to kite or burst[with non-staff setups]).
-Doing significant single-target damage typically requires stacking everything you have onto that mob. (I assume this mechanic is based off of the fact that we have 25 abilities available to use in combat whereas most classes have 15)
-Underwater Elementalist is severely disadvantaged with poorer kiting options and reduced damage. Kiting underwater and still dealing viable damage is a near impossibility, but you still remain very squishy (also Water, our healing attunement, seems to deal the most damage underwater? Intentional?).
In fact, I would have to say with the exception of underwater gameplay (really dislike underwater Elementalist), the Elementalist is pretty solid and could probably use a few minor tweaks and buffs.
PvP, however, really is an entirely different story. I feel like in PvP you have to work twice as hard to be half as effective as many other classes. I don’t mind working harder, but I would like to be at similar strength to other classes and I do feel that the Elementalist is currently lacking in that respect.
My only complaints are as follows:
-In many of these cases, the bosses are way easier than the trash. The final bosses Colossus and Ghost Eater in Explorer were VERY easy (comparatively).
-Trash should be toned down JUST A BIT and easy bosses should be toned up.
-Possibly eliminate repairs or make damaged equipment more rare in dungeons (since you die dozens of times the first time you learn an encounter)
-Better rewards (but still non-unique, maybe something like a choice of rare crafting materials like Orichalcum, Ancient Wood or Ectoplasm upon completion. Or a Mystic Coin)
-Maybe make Story mode easier and allow Story mode repeats to give some tokens so that the people complaining about it being too hard can have a way to play the dungeons and get the tokens without trying to nerf the challenge for those of us who enjoy it
Basically to the sum it all up: many of us really enjoy the difficulty level of this content and, should it be nerfed, would have no meaningful and challenging PvE encounters to work through. Open content (yes even in Cursed Shore) is easy PvE. Dungeons are the difficult PvE option that many of us enjoy. If you don’t enjoy it then PLAY THE REST OF THE GAME THAT IS DESIGNED FOR YOU!
P.S. As for the person who said that you keep spawning and running into the event until it’s completed, I would partially agree that is true. You can do that throughout Story mode, but in Explorer you can’t beat Kholer without dodging and using skill and the ress and run trick does NOT work on the timed graveling events (which is probably what really makes them so hard).
P.P.S. As I have not tried many of the others yet; I cannot say if they are “too difficult,” but I can say that the difficulty of AC is fine and it only needs MINOR tweaks (difficulty increases in many places).
TL;DR: Some of us can do and enjoy the content at its current difficulty. The entire rest of the PvE in the game is easy or semi-challenging; play that if you can’t handle dungeons.
I’m sorry, but I completely disagree on nerfing the difficulty. The absolutely wonderful thing about this game is that it accommodates a variety of different playstyles. Everything from the most casual PvEer to the most hardcore PvPer is taken into account in this game. The only few notable exceptions that this game doesn’t really have is:
- FFA PvP
- Difficult Large, Organized Raid Content
- Strong Vertical Progression Motivator
Out of all of the things that are standard in MMOs today, those are the three things that GW2 lacks (and for two of those I say good riddance). While the game doesn’t have difficult huge raid content, it does have difficult small group content. Let’s face it, the open-world dynamic events and content is quite easy and doesn’t really require much effort. The PvE in this game is not hard at all (not necessarily too, too easy, but relatively easy). If you take away the difficulty in the dungeons then those people looking for meaningful, fun, and challenging PvE content will have absolutely nothing to pursue in this game. The difficulty of the dungeons is the only thing which really prevent the PvE from being tossed aside like an afterthought in this game.
Let me say that I’ve only done AC Story (twice) and two paths on AC. We successfully completed AC each time.
I was surprised how difficult Story mode was (I expected Explorer to be difficult) and was actually quite pleased by it. We did wipe many times, but we did eventually make it through it.
NOTE THERE MAY BE SPOILERS
Different group did Explorer (Colossus path). When we first fought Kholer we were like “wtf.” An AoE pull, followed by an AoE stun, followed by an AoE whirl (you die in less than two seconds). I was like.. “Wow okay, let me put on some stun breakers then for when he pulls in” [playing Elementalist btw so I used Mist Form and Cleansing Fire]. Next encounter he pulls me in and I successfully Mist Form away (with like 15% health). I notice when I pop out of Mist Form that his attack ALSO adds a few DoTs… so I die anyways. I was like," Wow.. seriously? That’s a bit.. extreme." (Note that I did manage to escape with my life once by popping BOTH Mist Form AND Cleansing Fire). So after that I became really confused on wth ANet wanted from us. I decided to take that time to actually pay attention. By using my eyes and brain, I saw that Kholer does an extremely noticeable wind-up before he uses his AoE harpoon pull (his freakin’ hand glows gold and he takes literally 4 seconds to wind it up). Wow! Easy. All I had to do was watch him the entire time. When I saw him doing his wind-up, I would prepare to dodge. Now note that I’m not the best player so I did miss a few dodges, but I dodged probably 85% of them after I started noticing the wind-up. Once you figure that out, Kholer becomes EASY and you wipe the floor with him.
Next!
Okay now this next part was the hardest part of the entire run. The guy sets up two collectors that you have to protect… except that the room is being overrun with gravelings who pop up from graveling burrows which pop up all over the room (you have to defend two sides with a group of 5). This was.. difficult.. to say the least. We wiped and wiped and.. wiped. After every wipe, however, the percentage collected would increase (we were.. you know.. getting better). I decided to switch from my Cleric healing gear to pure damage gear and DPS down all of the burrows as fast as possible. If I got attacked, I would kite the mobs (they’re all melee). I noticed that if you kill a burrow fast enough, the dangerous Graveling coming out of it won’t spawn (usually a Breeder or a Howler). When we went all out DPS and managed to survive, we successfully completed the event.
The rest of the dungeon (including the final boss) was actually quite easy in comparison.
The point of the text is that if you actually adapt a strategy instead of complaining how difficult it is, then you may actually beat the content. When I ran AC again (Ghost Eater path with a group that dominated Story mode with one death), it was way easier than the Colossus path yet this group was extremely vocal about their dislike of the difficulty (their first time doing explorer). We still managed to beat it, yet they were still unhappy with how hard it was (I still don’t understand this but whatever).