Guild Wars 2

So far, I’m going to have to call “FOUL” on this. Pumpkin Carving is under Special Event Achievements and it clearly suggests that completed it is a requirement towards “Emissary of the Mad King”, but it looks like it doesn’t count towards anything other than it’s own title, “Master Carver”. If this is not supposed to go towards Emissary, then at least put a disclaimer somewhere, like:

This Achievement doesn’t count towards Emissary of the Mad King

I’ve completed 3 Halloween Achievements, the latest one was Pumpkin Carving. Yet, when I finished the achievement and carved 150 Pumpkins, I did get the title but it didn’t count as a Halloween Achievement towards the “Emissary of the Mad King” title.

Is this intended? If so, I feel like I just wasted my time entirely doing pointless busywork.

I’m currently trying to find a good server to transfer to. I really spend most of my time in sPVP and because paid tournies are coming —- I’m really looking to find a server where I can find some good people to team up with. The problem I keep running into is that there just isn’t enough people playing sPVP, and those who do either have no idea how to work together as a team (and don’t want to learn), or they are either super elitist and want an exact class with an exact build, period, for their party.

Any recommendations for a server with a diverse and healthy sPVP population?

Ask for a refund in the form of Gems, you may get a better result.

If you guys are curious how the process went, it was simple but extremely time consuming.

To my benefit, I had paid real money to purchase Gems in the past. These Gems went into Gold, and this Gold was used on failed transactions.

I recommended to the Support person emailing me that instead of trying to recover my lost gold or items from the Black Lion Trading Post, simply either refund me Gems or Real Money. They opted to just refund me the Gems which was equal to the amount of gold I had lost. That was perfectly acceptable to me.

After 20 emails, mainly back and forth from ANet and me getting switched to several departments. I finally got refunded my gold for the lost transaction. It took nearly a month, but I am content.

Fozee.1083:

I still don’t understand why we’re making this out to be a MASSIVE issue. It happens in every new MMO, and it isn’t happening with greater frequency than usual.

People are making a huge deal out of it, to the point of writing articles already, but they haven’t even remotely given ANet the time they need to correct the issue. We’re a month in, report them and hope they complete the countermeasures soon. There’s absolutely no sense in writing entire articles to spread around and make it seem like our game is worse than it is.

On the contrary, there is every reason. As you started, it’s happening with greater frequency than usual. ArenaNet may have planned for “usual frequency”, but the bots are coming down upon Guild Wars 2 like a plague of locusts. There is cause for alarm, and there is need to write about it and share it with the public. Public attention drives action, and there needs to be some action very, very soon.

Blacklight.2871:

It’s pretty naive to assume the plague of bots we’re seeing, is as a result of the instability of the BLTP. You only need half a clue to realize that we have bots because botters are able to get away with it. There is no other reason because no other reason is necessary. We’d be seeing exactly the same problems now, had the Trading Post been running smooth as silk since head start.

All of which doesn’t absolve ANet of it’s frustrating lack of response.

I never suggested that the bots are a result of the instability. Because there is no way to prove it, I’m actually subtly suggested the opposite —- the botters may be the ones causing the instability. They certainly are mucking up the prices of items for starters, and during times of instability may be inadvertently be responsible for people wanting to buy during those periods of time. Notice, I myself tried to buy 264 Large Claws for 1 silver — even though I lost all my money in the attempt, I never saw those Large Claws delivered.

Thank you all for the feedback so far. While you may not see any adjustments done to this article posted here, understand I cannot edit it anymore on this forum. The final product due for release soon will have those adjustments added.

Once it is released, I really hope you all direct people’s attention to those articles and get the mill churning. While some may not notice the problem, understand that there are many servers and perhaps botters may be more active on certain servers rather than others. While zones in your server may not be totaly overrun, at this rate it is only a matter of time before the problem spreads and expands.

Durzlla.6295:

I didn’t read the article, however i do really think that Anet are just preparing to destroy a large amount of them all at the same time to just completely cripple the companies, to me that’d be better then just throwing a handful of them at a time, not to mention it’d get the point across really really well…

I strongly recommend not assuming ArenaNet will do something about it until they say something.

Vicidious.8210:

Nice article and spot on…just a note on the TP tax…it’s 5% to list and an additional 10% on the sale for a total of 15% http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trading_Post#Fees

And yes…I have seen the adverts saying “10G for 11.6 USD” which is more than you can get with gems.

Cheers

Thanks I’ll make that adjustment.

Oh and I recommended using the approach SquareEnix did.

Lysico.4906:

You can buy gems and/or gold. There zero need to buy gold from farmers..

They just need to nail the few idiots that actually buy gold. And I suggested taking on the SquareEnix route of fixing the problem.

Go after the johns not the prostitutes so to speak and you will do better…

The whole post … Waste..

Wow, there are folks that bot or farm gold in MMO?! Amazing. Thanks for 500 pages to tell us what everyone knows and offer ZERO new ideas how to fit it.

Did I mention that Gold Sellers are selling gold WELL below ArenaNet’s asking price for Gems?

I went ahead and posted the article in General Discussion already, Bots Overrun Guild Wars 2. Of course the article will be released in mass tomorrow, you can preview it there to get an idea on what was said on this subject.

We can only hope it catches flame. Right now it is a big problem, and this weekend alone Youtube saw a massive influx of Guild Wars 2 players putting up videos of botters in action. The material is there for anyone to watch and there is a bountiful amount of it too. Watching it does make you feel discouraged of course, but what’s even more discouraging is going back to low level zones in the game to see most of the events camped by these army of bots.

It saddens me, not even Final Fantasy XI was this bad.

Conclusion

Clearly botting is just too easy in Guild Wars 2 and the only people it is hurting are the legit players who will quickly begin to lose interest in the game if ArenaNet does nothing to acknowledge this problem in a bigger, more aggressive way. What is even more discouraging is that any thread posts made on the official forum are locked and deleted when any videos and bots have been mentioned. They simply say, “We proceed to close the thread since the forums are not the best place for this kind of reports. However, we would like to thank the OP for the efforts put into the issue; I will forward this to the team.”

The problem of course is that there is no “best place” to report bots and provide videos of them either. ArenaNet has not made any action towards current bots in the system and doesn’t provide any details on whether or not we will see any action done soon.

They simply have stated they are “Aware of the problem” but that is all they’ve said at the time being. With the growing amount of bots increasing each day since this past weekend, by the end of late September just about every event in the game should be under control by some form of bot. Guild Wars 2 fans and players can only endure so much without word from ArenaNet, and as the economy begins to tank as a result of this influx of over-farmed items players start to wonder if there are any better games to play until ArenaNet gets its act together.

An Army of Robotic Players

One of the biggest problems right now within Guild Wars 2 is that new players will now find just about every 15 minute event camped by a small army of bots. These bots will quickly smash the event to pieces in a flurry of attacks so fast the players barely have any time to register the event or even have a chance to enjoy it. They’ve become just an endless cycle of NPCs come and to feed other NPCs loot which feeds the economy more and more and more items to devalue them even further as the supply keeps growing and growing.

To a Gold Farmer lack of value means nothing, for they will always have the surplus and be able to profit regardless. They often are in command of five bots or more, multiplying their income rates beyond the margin of profit and loss. Most game economies are based on the idea of one person getting a certain average ratio of loot and that average ratio of loot will equal an average amount of money. But by giving one player 5+ accounts doing the exact same thing, then the average ratio of money they have at once time also increases as well. Simple math suggests that gold is extremely easy to acquire if you have 5 or more accounts. Why? Well most items on the Black Lion Trading Post are 20 copper.

For one player that’s 20 copper, but for a farmer that’s at least 1 silver as they have 5 times the loot of the average player. Let’s also not forget that bots never tire of an event and can go on robotically for hours and hours and hours. While people have to sleep, eat, and get bored of repeating a task… Robots do not. Furthermore, it has been clearly seen that these bots know how to write and send mail. They’ve been sending in-game ads for gold constantly for weeks now. So likely they also know how to manage loot, pack it, and mail it off to a safety account in case the botting accounts are banned. Sort of like sending money to Switzerland, its neutral territory and ArenaNet can’t really do anything about it.

Players have been constantly reporting bots non-stop for weeks, but regardless the same bots are still farming the exact same events day in and day out for weeks now without any action from ArenaNet. Already these bots have had a profound impact on the economy no matter how you look at it. To help counter these bots, many players have even taken to posting these bots on YouTube in hopes to show ArenaNet just how bad this problem is getting. For many believe that ArenaNet doesn’t quite “get it” that these aren’t just a handful of people doing a repetitive task, but a horde of them taking control over entire portions of the game — even World vs World!

Videos of Botters Reported this Weekend Alone!

1. Several Bots Farming Sons of Svanir
2. Several Bots Farming more Sons of Svanir
3. Several Bots Farming Elementals
4. Several Bots Farming Centaur
5. Several Bots Farming Events
6. Teleport Hack Bots Farming
7. Teleport Hack Bots Farming
8. Teleport Hack Bots Farming
9. Teleport Hack Bots Farming
10. Teleport Hack Bots Farming
11. World vs World Borderland Bot Army

A Farmer’s Market

Throughout the past week the Black Ligon Trading Post has begun to show signs of a Gold Farmer’s Market. What is a Gold Farmer’s Market? It is a market that subtly drives players to value gold and at the same time find it impossible to acquire or extremely difficult to acquire by their own means and at the same time find that the Gold Seller’s prices to be reasonable. The key is to make the player feel that the idea of buying gold from an outside source is reasonable in the first place, and the first step to do this is to over-inflate the prices of highly desirable items to insane degrees. The second step is to make whatever the player may commonly have on them to be utterly worthless, ensuring that the only way a player can even get enough money to afford the rare items is to purchase from the Gold Seller in the first place.

It’s a system that has proven effective in every game Gold Sellers have been a part of. It’s a predictable system and has reared its head many, many times in several MMORPGs. While many players will tell you that it’s inevitable, normal, and just part of MMORPGs — the reality is that it’s not. While SquareEnix was lazy and ignored the problem for three years, they managed to spend a year harshly cracking down on botters and gold farmers by erecting a brand new in-game police division with the sole purpose of quickly and effectively crushing bots. Furthermore, SquareEnix stepped in and purposely bought and sold items in the economy for several months to normalize prices to a place they felt was more manageable for players. Since NPC venders in the game never offered anything of value to players for trading, the Auction House was the only way to run the economy.

After about two years botters and gold farmers abandoned Final Fantasy XI and sought other games for their riches. But even to this day Final Fantasy XI still openly advertises and displays to all players the number of botters and gold farmers they have successfully removed from the game every single week. That sort of public assurance helps to make a happy and healthy player base and an economy. ArenaNet seriously needs to consider adopting a system like this and quickly, as botting and gold farming has become a very advanced business these days and is much more aggressive than ever before. This really needs to become priority one for ArenaNet and quickly as it’s causing a lot of players to become upset.

The evidence that Guild Wars 2 is suffering from a Farmer’s Market is clear on the Black Lion Trading Post’s very own listing history. Countless items that began to find reasonable value for players and were effective enough to farm and sell on a casual basis, have all now bottomed out in price to become next to worthless in value. A clear pattern emerged in all of these items, no matter what the previous value of the item was, someone injected upwards of 2000+ items at the low, low, low price of 1 silver. This created a barrier which drove the rest of the market in an unstoppable direction.

Price Spikes

The Black Lion Trading Post is a world-wide economy. Not a single-server auction house. The system takes into account all servers. So if a choice handful of Gold Farms create a barrier by placing several thousand items at exactly 1 silver, the rest of the world-wide economy will have little choice but to follow suit and place items at that price. Most people sell rather blindly without searching, so once a sizable enough barrier has been put in place the item will often remain low in price as long as the barrier remains firm enough to overrun the demand of the item. With botters constantly farming and injecting items into the market at 1 silver, the barrier will likely outmatch the demand of any item at any time because bots can farm non-stop while a market can only consume so much at a time.

Meanwhile, rare items are seeing outrageous hikes in price towards 100+ gold, which for many players is not exactly reasonable in price at all. Quickly the economy is starting to become controlled by a small minority of gamers who are exploiting ArenaNet’s lack of ability to stop them from overrunning the system. The engines driving this economic machine are the bots and the countless accounts at the disposal of these Gold Farmers. For many Gold Farmers this is a real life business which is often their one and only income, so they take is business very seriously. They take it far more seriously than most gamers do Guild Wars 2, to the point that if a player stumbles upon a horde of bots in an event — this will likely just encourage the player to stop playing the game because they cannot enjoy the game they’ve purchased the way they intended to.

And it’s GONE! Items and Currency Vanish, Please Step Aside!

Not familiar with South Park’s spoof of the failing economy? Here is a clip from Margaritaville aired during Season 13, which can properly illustrate some the feelings that many players are experiencing when dealing with the Black Lion Trading Post. The official response from ArenaNet has been next to nothing about this current problem and commonly the only responses most people get in return are “We do not have the tools to compensate you for any items or currency lost due a bug”. While a bulk of the population may not encounter problems, those who are unfortunate enough to use the Black Lion Trading Post when it occasionally becomes slow and unstable are forced to face the harsh reality of their items and currency just vanishing. Despite the game showing records of transactions being made on the system, players often never receive either the currency or the items from those transactions.

For many players, this has led to a fear of the Black Lion Trading Post. Some players now insist to trade manually or just independently farm all of their materials and ignore the market entirely. At this point it doesn’t matter as the vast majority of items available on the Black Lion Trading Post lack value. As a matter of fact, most items available on the market are worth below the vendor price. Which ArenaNet consistently insists is just a bug, but they fail to address that many players are putting items onto the market for 1 copper above the stock vendor price. Yet the cost to list the item is often far more than 1 copper not to mention a 5% tax deduction once the sale has finished. Players will find selling to vendors to be a much more profitable enterprise, if not safer because there is no risk in losing money from an NPC transaction.

Bots Overrun Guild Wars 2

This article is due for release September 26th. To be fair, I felt I’d like to post it here first just to see what everyone thinks. Before it is released to several gaming websites and reddit.

Now officially a month old, ArenaNet’s Guild Wars 2 has made positive impressions on the MMO market. Good reviews and a healthy player base suggests that Guild Wars 2 may have a good future to look forward to, but just as rapid as its success — Guild Wars 2 now faces a serious threat to that future. Many players who have been a part of the game may be able to tell you about the Black Lion Trading Post, which is the massive and complex auction house and trading system which allows players to drive the economy.

Not even 24 hours after launch the Black Lion Trading Post encountered massive problems and was forced to be shut down for nearly two whole weeks. Players were unable to generate solid forms of income and were forced to utilize other means of money making, which also led to abusive behavior because people had no other way to make money at the time. But once the Trading Post returned, people began to inject items onto the market steadily for about a whole week in hopes to find equilibrium. But even though it was up and running, the Black Lion Trading Post was still unstable and occasionally crashed with violent results to several users of the interface.

Far more sinister things linger now in the game and it’s all because of the Black Lion Trading Post and ArenaNet’s lack of acknowledgement or inability to do anything to stop what is quickly taking Guild Wars 2 down a very dark and very unhealthy road. Far more than just terms of ‘Pay to Win’, players of Guild Wars 2 now have to deal with a sudden spike of hundreds of bots taking over every event in the game one zone at a time. Coming in behind the wave of players who are now progressing to other zones in the game, they may not notice the horde of automated, teleporting, mindless players in their wake who never tire of endless farming.

We look now at the Black Lion Trading Post, which hasn’t even been in full use for three weeks, now drives the game towards a rapidly approaching economic crash. The trends of the game’s current economy follows in the footsteps of Final Fantasy XI, which ignored botters and gold farmers running its economy for nearly three years until SquareEnix finally decided it was time to clean up the system. The biggest concern with Guild Wars 2 players is the lack of official acknowledgement from ArenaNet that the Black Lion Trading Post is not only broken by inexplicably consuming player’s hard earned currency and items without reason or compensation, but that their game is overrun by botters who are quickly gaining full control over the economy.

The internet will be booming with this information soon. MMORPG.com already has an article about it coming out this Wednesday, should be interesting to see if it spreads to other sites spreading the word.

Okay guys and gals, the brief article has been written up and will be posted on MMORPG.com shortly. I will link you guys as soon as it’s on the front page!

Officially, it’ll be posted up tomorrow.

When the game first released, it was a 50% chance to get a Key. Clearly that has been reduced a great deal, probably to 5% now in order to increase Gem Store and Key Sales.

Because of this, I do longer care to open chests and consider them useless junk. Regardless of having perma items, the fact they now rarely offer keys makes me want to just ignore them even more.

Just informing everyone that I’m currently producing an article describing the swift crash of the Guild Wars 2 economy. Driven by a mass, and I mean MASS influx in bot activity… The game’s many events are now under the control of bots. Normal gamers can’t even enjoy these events any longer as an army of bots camp the location and teleport around earning rewards.

Single players are injecting 1000s of items into the economy, far more that the customer base can actually consume. Seriously, 2000 items being listed by ONE seller is a pretty big clue.

Rare items have seen a MASSIVE price hike and common items are now so cheap they are BELOW vendor value.

Furthermore, many innocent players are finding that the Black Lion Trading Post is not giving them items they’ve purchased and constantly taking more money than they intend. Many players have been robbed of their hard earned in-game currency and the only response from ArenaNet has been “We do not have the tools to replace lost items and gold.”

So with no real word from ArenaNET, it’s time that the article finally be released describing the troublesome Black Lion Trading Post and how it has become the Achilles’ heel of Guild Wars 2.

I will post a link to the finished product late today or tomorrow after I’m done editing and drawing out the graphs and screenshots.

I’ve lost a lot of money and items from the Trading Pose as it stands, and I no longer want to even buy Gems from ArenaNet. My trust in this system is injured to the degree that I’m actually authoring a front-page article for release on MMORPG.com. So far the biggest issue with Guild Wars 2 is the trading post, and people really need to be warned how broken this system is and how ArenaNet isn’t acknowledging it.

I still see no screenshots.

Builds = Effective combinations of Weapons, Utility, and Traits. Currently there really only one good build, two if you’re the tanky sort.

How do I embed video on these forums so I can show these botters?

http://youtu.be/0mHjmD3ASH8

I don’t grade Elementalists on 1v1 encounters, as I normally can outperform most people 1v1 as an Ele, but in the game itself I can never actually gain points or do anything functional for the team. I recommend you just stick to my challenge, put your money where your mouth is and show me a screenshot of your Elementalist with 385 or better.

This has been a big problem since Beta. Pisses me off too and I scream when I kite a monster and nearly kill it only to have it reset after all my hard work was ruined. I doubt it’ll ever get fixed and we’ll just have to live with it and adjust.

I want to prove a point. So far, I could never achieve 380+ score in Structured PVP with an Elementalist. I hereby propose a challenge in hopes of proving that Elementalists are sub-par. I want people to post screenshots of a score beating 385 in a structured PVP game.

As a Ranger, I can achieve this a lot —- very easily in fact, and have done so many times. Is it just as easy as an Elementalist? Come and show me.

Rules & Restrictions:

• Must be solo in SPVP, no organized teams feeding you points.
• Must in Standard SPVP, no tournaments.
• Must be at or better than 385 to qualify.
• Must be your achievement, not a friend’s screenshot.

Post a screenshot of your winnings in your post. I will begin by showing my 385 score as a Ranger, I dare you to beat it!

Not only that, please share with us your experiences on either trying & failing to do so, or finally succeeding and what it too to get there.

ravinhood.3981:

So they are just basically attacking at nothing? Randomly? So if they are attacking nothing how is that hurting anyone?

When the Event begins, they will all be attacking the NPCs which run into the very location in which they are Auto-Attacking.

But the Bots I’ve recorded are much more superior in their activity.

How does it hurt anyone?

They are making money and getting item drops. They will then be re-injecting these items and money back into the economy. In short, Gold Farming. These effect everyone, including you as the market is World-Wide.

Okay video captured, but it takes a long time for me to render it and upload it. I have a poor connection. :/

Will take a lot of work on my part, but yes I can. That doesn’t make me feel very good though, knowing I have to work hard to report someone when they can still cash-in in the end.

Amnon.4769:

Ooo, I also have screenshots!

Oh, would you look at that, looks like Elementalist can also be the top-scoring player!

Come back when you hit 380 or better. Then I might be impressed.

I’ve spotted a Gold Farmer with what appears to be 4 accounts and a scripted Bot program.

They are farming the Heart of the Bear heart quest & event by auto-attacking anything that moves in a radius, doing AoE abilities and then returning back to a fixed position when done.

All of them have the same guild icon, [work] which is bloody obvious too that they are all bound to a bot.

They are all in key positions to auto-attack nearby creatures and also to spam AoE for the occasional event that produces mass Sons of Svanir that all drop bags.

They were spotted on server: Eredon Terrace

I’ve played Elementalist since BWE #1, there is a lot about them I love. But I just can’t fool myself anymore, as much as I love what they have —- it’s just not good enough to compete. I never see Elementalists in a Structured PVP Tournament, and for a very good reason. Now that I’m Ranger I’m able to actually WIN Tournaments. It has nothing to do with my skill with the class, I just realize that after doing all the math —- they just don’t measure up!

The problem is that people are buying and selling items and not getting the gold for items sold or getting the items for gold spent.

Oh no, I’m an extremely good Elementalist. Their Traits, Base Stats, and Utility Skills all just suck. Even worse, they can’t switch weapons so are trapped at a certain Range.

After playing every other class, I just can’t help but conclude that Elementalist is just too poorly designed.

I’ve applied the logic of an Elementalist to the Ranger. No only can I endure Thieves though, as a Ranger I’m actively hunting them down and killing them. Something I have a very hard time doing as an Elementalist. Now that I can kill thieves and burst them down just as fast as they can burst me down, I have no fear of them at all.

Elementalist, in hind sight, have absolutely no burst potential.

Elementalist Burst?: And no, Blowback + Signet of Earth + Dragon Tooth + Pheonix + Fire Grab + Churning Earth = A LOT OF WORK!!

Ranger Burst: Auto Attack + Quickness + Bleed + 20% Crit Increase Elite = Easy Mode Dead Target.

This is more evidence on why I’ve officially quit playing Elementalist until they fix them. With all the tactics and skills I’ve put together, busting my butt over-working to make a meager point in PVP as a weak Elementalist —- I rolled a Ranger and Day-One I was landing 380s in sPVP! I NEVER made anywhere near 150+ points as an Elementalist, and suddenly I’m ROLLING in high scores as a Ranger.

Yes I am Zhaiya Of The Hunt.

Still missing 200+ Large Claws I bought 3 days ago, now I have no Large Claws and no gold.

I did some record digging and I found out where all my gold went to! Indeed, my orders for Large Claws DID go through. They are clearly listed in mass under “Items I’ve Bought” —- however, they have YET to delivered to me!

Well, the BLTC has been having a lot of issues this past week. Several days ago it went up and then went down only moments later. During that time I submitted at massive order for Large Claws for roughly 2.5 Gold. Personally I had 3.8 Gold on one of my characters which I withdrew from my bank just to make that transaction.

Low and behold, nothing happened. But my Gold remained on the character and the BLTC went down. I figured no harm done and I went on my marry way and decided to play some SPVP for several days.

Now I return and ALL my gold is gone. There is no remainder!! I normally keep an average of 50+ silver on my characters, but ALL of that is gone too! All I have left is mere pennies, just 80c and 22s on my most recent character which normally held 80s. All traces of Gold and Silver on my other characters have been removed entirely and I’m flat broke.

All I can say is.. Where the heck did my 3.8 gold go? Where did my 50s caches on my characters go!? I’m confident my account wasn’t hacked because I didn’t lost any items, bags, or anything like that. Just my bank is empty and my characters have nothing.

I really hate working hard to sustain myself and my characters only to have that effort just vanish into thin air.

Please, please, please help me.

Well, the BLTC has been having a lot of issues this past week. Several days ago it went up and then went down only moments later. During that time I submitted at massive order for Large Claws for roughly 2.5 Gold. Personally I had 3.8 Gold on one of my characters which I withdrew from my bank just to make that transaction.

Low and behold, nothing happened. But my Gold remained on the character and the BLTC went down. I figured no harm done and I went on my marry way and decided to play some SPVP for several days.

Now I return and ALL my gold is gone. There is no remainder!! I normally keep an average of 50+ silver on my characters, but ALL of that is gone too! All I have left is mere pennies, just 80c and 22s on my most recent character which normally held 80s. All traces of Gold and Silver on my other characters have been removed entirely and I’m flat broke.

All I can say is.. Where the heck did my 3.8 gold go? Where did my 50s caches on my characters go!? I’m confident my account wasn’t hacked because I didn’t lost any items, bags, or anything like that. Just my bank is empty and my characters have nothing.

I really hate working hard to sustain myself and my characters only to have that effort just vanish into thin air.

Please, please, please help me.

I really can’t take this anymore. ArenaNet doesn’t seem to want to discuss the balance of Elementalists. They seem to feel they are just fine I guess.

I’m done with this game now. I really love the elementalist, I really do. But I can’t stand how every other class just does what they can do, but do it better.

Good job ArenaNet, I’ll play again when you finally make Elementalists viable beyond two builds and make the vast majority of their tool kits viable for MORE than just 5v5 Structured PVP.

Right now they feel like they are just purely balanced for 5v5, but you know —- a vast portion of this game is 8v8 and WvW. Guess what? Elementalist sucks in this game modes, so I’m done. I just can’t stand feeling constantly subpar to every other class.

Jumped to 6 minutes because you spent the majority of the time blabber about nothing and showing off, then I saw your build being pure DPS with Scepter and turned off the video. Come back when you bring something else to the table.

I like them, but they just don’t have any Traits which make them do any additional damage or utility. All they have is just an additional 10 Charges, and for some reason that is a Master Trait.

I really do like the idea of Conjure Weapons, but after days and days of trying to make a viable build with them, I found them impossible to work with in a realistic competitive game.

Having played an Elementalist since BWE #1, I find them to be one of my favorite professions. There is a feel and a handling to them that just feels good and enjoyable to play. While the feeling and enjoyment is there, I cannot shake the feeling that something is very wrong with them and it’s difficult to put my finger on it exactly. This is why I feel that there are so many conflicting reports of Elementalists being Underpowered and at the same time, Overpowered —- and it’s much more than just purely situational.

I’ve played ever class in this game, and while I still feel Elementalist is my favorite —- I just know they are not properly designed in the Traits department. This is the where the Elementalist is weakest of all, aside from a few other things. Having played hours and hours and hours of PVE, Structured PVP, and World vs World I now believe I have a solid idea on what is wrong with this profession.

Don’t Judge based on 1v1 Encounters

Note, that in a purely 1 versus 1 situation, there is a good chance that if I build my Elementalist on the tanky side, I’ll likely hold my own or come out as the victor. But that doesn’t mean anything, as 1v1 battles are rare in this game! Commonly counters are 2v1, 2v2, or 2+ on the battlefield. By trying to judge the strength of an Elemenatlist purely on 1v1 —- you’ll likely be misled every time.

For instance, I can defeat a single Warrior with ease if he doesn’t adjust mid-game by changing his weapons, tactics, and amulet in sPVP or change his gear in WvW. Most Warriors just 100 Blades after casting their Signet so I just look for the Signet and pop Invulnerability. But you see, that’s one shield for one move —- diversity doesn’t exist due to a lack of good synergy in Traits.

Several other classes have traits when compound upon one another nicely and have Grand Master traits which have a solid impact. Yet many of the choice skills that Elementalist does: Cantrips, Conjure Weapons, Auras, Glyphs, Signets, Arcane —- don’t have enough synergy.

Example, Conjure Weapons only have one Trait. One, and it only increases their charges.

Auras can compound with other traits, but some solid combinations feel just out of reach by 10 or 20 points. Not to mention, Auras feel better as a defensive trait yet they mostly have traits in Fire and Air —- which are largely offensive.

Cantrips have extremely high recharge time and are good for 1v1 combos. Their utility falls apart because they beyond being traited to have Might, Regeneration, Vigor, and the ability to remove Conditions —- their boons don’t last long enough and leave a lot to be desired.

You can’t mix Cantrips and Signets to produce an Aura / Cantrip combo build to stack with boons from attunement switching use of activated utility either. You try to do this and you’re lacking in what feels like should be a possible build.

Several Grand Master traits are subpar, such as “30% Longer Fire Fields.” Firefields do little in PVP and are easily avoidable, even with Ring of Fire as the biggest field.

I have several more examples, but I just feel that this is really where Elementalists are truly the weakest. There is just so many possibilities, but their arrangement is nothing like other great, high DPS classes like Thief who compound extremely well in their trait lines.

One of the biggest problem is not merely that items are 1c above the Vender price, is that most items beyond a certain level cost upwards of 2c – 10c to post on the Trading Post. People still list them at 1c above Vender, but don’t add the Posting Fee —- ultimately making it so that they are getting LESS than Vender Price, often DRAMATICALLY so.

Please fix this!!