All this talk about “countered” and “rock/paper/scissors” doesn’t mean a thing in large scale WvW. A FT Engi will just suicide in just a few seconds. FT spec is the closest thing we have to a heavy melee set and its completely useless in the situation that it was built for. Large groups is the only place the FT damage is even viable yet every large group in WvW has Retal.
Anyone that has used a flamethrower in WvW knows what I’m talking about. Flamethrower will take as much damage as it dishes out against someone with retaliation as its many small damage fast strikes.
Could we please get some kind of fix for this? It makes Flamethrower completely useless for WvW large group play and you’d think this weapon would be ideal for that given the traits for it.
We just kill ourselves on the retaliation which is very frustrating and doesn’t really make sense given its a flamethrower.
I see you still don’t get it, you’re telling me how things are now, not what we can make it. They’re not a support class RIGHT NOW, but I’m proposing that we use the support abilities that Anet have already half provided and make them viable instead of being the joke they are now.
Support by its very definition in the context of GW2 is increasing the power of your team by supplying increases to damage or survivability. The very nature of Venomous Aura is support, its an ability that doesn’t help the Thief at all directly, it empowers your team mates.
I’d like to see Thief be able to run support should they choose to, at least then they will have a place in WvW zergballs.
Thank you for stating what the thief is now, I think we all know this. Anet have put some support skills into the Thief trait lines but never really made them work properly. What I’m asking for is some changes to make Venomous Aura, Traps or other support builds viable.
@Messiah
Who said thieves aren’t meant to be a support class? You? In their current state they are not, but there is a foundation of some traits that if changed would make this a possibility.
@Daendur
And this is exactly why I’m posting this, there is NO reason to have a Thief in a large scale group whatsoever and as someone on Blackgate that plays a lot of zergball WvW I’d like to play my Thief in large scale WvW battles and be somewhat useful.
Perhaps I’m missing something, but I’m trying to build a support thief, I’ve messed about with various venom sharing builds and none of them seem to make sense. The idea behind Venomous Aura is great, but having it in Shadow Arts is just strange.
I understand having high toughness for that kind of build makes sense, but that line is mainly dedicated to stealth type abilities (2 of 3 minors plus most major traits) and if you go a support role you don’t really have room for anything stealthy.
I like the thought of coating my short bow arrows with with different poisons but could we please have a build that makes sense? I feel kinda useless in large scale WvW.
So many changes coming Dec 10, but this isn’t even mentioned and hasn’t been for a long time.
This is my take on the support Staff Ele. It is aimed at the newer player to Elementalists with all info from gear, traits, runes, sigils, spells, spell combinations and then a real battle example. Hope you like it!
Actually one thing I didn’t mention in the video is that you can easily swap your weapons to Dagger/Dagger and switch Traits around and have a completely viable build. This was a major drawcard for me with this build as sometimes I just love to throw on some different armor/weapons and play a whole other game.
Truthfully, I do switch between Berserker and Cleric accessories (always keep P/V/T armor though) depending on our group size. If we are in a larger group I tend to go with Clerics, but with smaller group I use Berserker.
You’re right, the damage is terrible, but I tend to focus more on enabling my guild mates to do damage than do it myself. Its just a playstyle choice really. I’m very defensive minded and am often commanding so doing damage isn’t something I concentrate on that much. Over the course of a night, the +healing on my regen and healing bursts can be quite significant even if the numbers appear low individually. I believe the math is +8 healing = +1 healing per second regen. For 800 healing power that’s 100hp per second on regen. Not insignificant I don’t think when you are spreading Regeneration around so liberally amongst 25-40 people.
I do really hope that Anet improves the scaling on healing for Elementalists and I’m fully expecting they will as Healing on a few classes is almost completely useless right now (Engi, Ele, Necro?). I think Ele had traditionally been ignored for healing as D/D was so powerful but now they’re nerfed I think its time to have another look.
Thanks for the feedback. I will check into the EA stuff and fix where necessary. I added that part as quite a few people don’t believe EA is very useful but I disagree.
That video wasn’t really to show much strategy, that will come with the next one where more advanced info will be shown. I couldn’t fit all that into a video and make it short enough to fit
You are most welcome, I know a fairly basic video like this is kind of late, but there are still new players coming into the game. Hopefully it will help someone!
It’s only ok when BG is ticking at 450+ during SEA while SoR is ticking at 50ppt.
Any other time BG isn’t ticking at highest ppt, it’s PvDoor.
I play SEA every day on my server and the ppt is never extremely unbalanced. At least not since we used to lead tier 1. Don’t try to defend what is obviously unbalanced.
That’s quite a statement considering what I stated happened today. SoR was ticking a 50 for quite a while, while BG was ticking over 400.
He’s correct, we often tick at 450+ in Oceanic, sometimes SEA, they are different timezones by 2-3 hours.
Nocturnal is a fully established guild on Blackgate, we are always looking for more casual-semihardcore 21+ Oceanic players (no hard cores). Many of us have families and businesses so RL > game, but we know how to have fun when we’re playing! We have 5-6 organised guild events a week ranging from SPVP to PVE to WvW (mostly WvW). Our events are loosely based around East Coast time (7:30pm AEST) but we have many people from WA and NZ also. We cater to all.
Nocturnal is a community focused guild. We are all about getting out together and having a good time. Laughter is essential.
I’m a long time Staff Ele, but looking for a change of pace for WvW roaming.
I’m looking at the Fresh Air specs (not sure which to choose) for WvW roaming but can’t find any information on gear setups that work. I like a bit of survivability so full Berserkers is out of the question. Any of the more experienced S/D Eles out there got some advice please?
I’m a huge fan of staff Ele, I play as a support character for my guild Nocturnal’s WvW team. This is my take on the support Staff Ele. It is aimed at the newer player to Elementalists with all info from gear, traits, runes, sigils, spells, spell combinations and then a real battle example. Hope you like it!
I’m really really enjoying the matchup this week, very close and good to see there are only a few idiots here that feel that troll-baiting is still warranted between our 3 servers.
Enjoyed making the vid and hope you all like to see it from our point of view!
Sounds like a plan! As long as your JQ zerg doesn’t beat me over a cliff edge, follow me down, and try to give me violent hugs which result in my death!
JQ hugs usually come in units of 40+ and require a lot of lubrication…
I hope BG isn’t burning themselves out this week to impress potential transfers
You guys may crash and burn next week if so!
SoS /cough/ I mean BG doesn’t want to go back to T2.
Are you really still kicking that dead horse? that joke was old about 5 minutes after people started it. Our server is made up of about 20% SoS transfers, if that.
JQ is made up of way more than 20% transfers from every other server, don’t see us crapping on again and again about it.
I mean, everyone else seems to understand the only thing keeping you guys in #1 is your SEA coverage where both SoR and BG have little to none. If it wasn’t for them, you’d be in third place and then shortly after imploded down to T3 or less.
Some KN guilds (3 to 5) gonna transfert over BG or SoR very soon :p
Good to hear! Our Oceanic/Sea coverage on SoR has been decreasing significantly lately. Burn out + same stale matches over and over leads to a decreased WvW population I suppose.
Actually, as a commander in Oceanic times, I’ve found this to be quite the opposite.
SoR have really been bringing it in Oceanic prime, its great to see. Haven’t seen that in a long time. Its pretty much been JQ vs BG since we solidified ourselves in T1.
Would make sense for KN to move to BG, they know us from our times fighting each other and know the truth about our skill and honour despite all the propaganda that gets spouted in this forum.
If they moved to SoR, I wouldn’t be disappointed really either, they’re a great adversary too.
I figured JQ WvWers thought more than one move ahead. Perhaps not. DB is slated for Tier 2 next week, against servers that trounced us on their way through T3. There will indeed be a challenge. Maybe not T1 skill-level challenge, but surely a numerical one.
Believe me, there is no more skill in T1, just numbers. Skill is much more apparent in T2 and T3 if you ask me.
[Thai] Pat Zero – So glad he’s back
[KnT] Riven – Great guy, great tactics
[NOC] Kaidengaran – No bias here, just simply never seen anyone take on WM face to face and roll twice our numbers multiple times.
[Res] Cade – happy to say we recruited him last week, but only followed him under the Res tag.
[MERC] Tarkus – different guild now I think?
Only really know ones that command in Oceanic/SEA times.
War Machine on Blackgate is actually a good option, it would give JQ something to think about (even though they’ll still outnumber us heavily) and give WM a good challenge.
SEA on Tier 1 is a joke, its just JQ PVDoor for FOO and co. I’m surprised they aren’t bored as batdroppings. There is no challenge for them when they outnumber everyone 5 to 1.
You mean that every EU player that had a CHOICE to play at reset or not. Where is that choice for the NA/SA player now? We have to be at work. We don’t have 7-9 hours after work to relax and decide if we want to play tonight. WE WILL BE AT WORK. That is a huge change and only impacts the NA/SA crowd. Give me a 2am reset any night tof the week, at least I have a CHOICE to play or not. I could take a nap and sleep beforehand and wake refreshed for reset. Now oh, that’s right, I AM AT WORK. Quit complaining you had to choose to stay up in the EU, you at least had a choice. The majority of the NA/SA players have no choice at all.
You have a choice…don’t work or get another job that fits in with your play time.
Oh hang on, that’s not convenient for you, just like changing our entire life schedule isn’t either. Not everyone is a single person that can just adjust their sleeping to fit in but given how self centered you are, you will never get that.
The change is great, 8am our time means we can log in for a couple of hours on a Saturday morning and have the rest of the day for our families.
Sucks for the poor EU players who have dealt with this for 8 months, we feel your pain brothers and sisters.
I think its hilarious how the US go up in arms over a 2 hour change when Oceanics have been dealing with MMO companies doing maintenance in our primetime for 20 years.
When all we get is “QQ MORE” responses every time we politely ask to be considered its very difficult for us to have any sympathy at all.
Can’t let this drop off, Engi downstate is the worst in the game by a large margin. Our current downstate 2 hardly ever works, everyone uses stability or stealth before stomping these days anyway.
Our 1 damage is a joke and 3 is on such a long timer we never get to use it.
So, I got my Predator legendary because it looks so kitten awesome but I have a problem. I can’t find a build that I can use in WvW that feels as good as P/P.
My favourite type of WvW is small group skirmishing (solo-10 players) and I feel the rifle is good for that, but not as a good as P/P. I’m hoping I’m missing some sweet build to use for this situation. Any ideas folks?
Help me sport my Predator and feel that the looks are worth wielding it.
On thinking about this a bit more, a targetted option would change the way the kit works quite dramatically for keep sieges, I like to bomb the walls where defenders are standing and making it targeted would completely change the way this works.
Perhaps rather than targetted, maybe keep the ground target but just have it spam wherever the ground target is.
Why should something more braindead (within the same class) do more damage?
As opposed to Heartseeker spamming thieves, Rifle/Longbow Warriors, Altrustic Guardians, Shortbow/Longbow Rangers and the other braindead builds that put out ridiculous damage/survivability?
People seemed to have taken this thread in a whole new direction.
All the OP is asking for us is a targetted autoattack on Grenade Kit 1, not 2-5 or anything else. The RSI I have from playing this kit for a while is telling me he’s 100% right.
The biggest problem in my opinion is the lack of education that non-Engis have. We are a complicated profession with a ton of options. People always fear what they don’t know.
I can tell you that whatever dungeon group I join, I contribute better in almost every way than just about any other player. Its just not noticed easily like things such as Aegis that Guardian provides or other abilities that are easy to recognise with big shiny fields or animations.
I run a bomb healing build in dungeons and its absolutely OP. I’m basically unkillable and face tank almost everything. The Elixir gun is awesome for dungeons too. I pass on so much survivability to my group they don’t even realise how much easier I’m making it until I leave. I can’t count how many whispers I’ve had after I left a group saying they want me back because as soon as I left they started to wipe. THey can’t explain why, they just know that now I’m gone things are a lot harder.
Take the time to educate your group with what you can do, the information will spread, it will just take time.
I didn’t expect this update to be the cure-all update, but one to spice up the WvW general life. Do we always need to have new shineys? Are we more like skritt or are we human / sylvari / asuran / charr / norn?
The fact is Anet is working on it – WvW is interesting with the new ranking – and the culling fix was a MAJOR fix. More / different siege , more / different maps , and bug fixes are going to be done eventually. With the rank system we effectively get a whole new seige experience – thats 1 thing which was addressed in this last update.
So you think that for 7 months of WvW this update is enough?
Been playing WvW since release (7 months) and I’m really wondering about the heralded “WvW update” on March 26…is that it?
If so, wow, disappointing. 7 months to fix a bug and introduce a rank system? I mean, I’m grateful culling is fixed and a rank system is kinda ok I guess but where are the shiny toys? the exploit bug fixes? The new content?
Please tell me more is coming in the next month, especially attention to the ridiculous ranking system that we’re using and the crazy imbalances in all Tiers.
This update has fallen so far short of expectation.
Maybe its time to implement the salvaging of your own siege for supply. Nothing is going to solve the problem of idiots like whoever keeps doing this to us all, but it will help.
