Guild Wars 2

CoaxialMazer.9140:

As a warrior, I believe no matter your set, you will almost always need to swap weapons. Its what warriors excel at (strangely enough, we only get like 3 traits that specialize in that). I think Axe-Axe works well with Sword-(shield/warhorn/mace) for mobility or utility when axe skills are on cooldown. Even a GS might go well with Axe-Axe. Its really up to you, but again, as a warrior, you should try to maximize your cooldowns on both weapons, (most of the times).

If you have traited and geared heavily for one weapon, swapping may be a drop in dps so it may not be as simple as always swapping to maximise cool down usage.

Sigh…. ok I’ll make one attempt at getting this back to something that resembles a constructive conversation after your idiotic derailment.

Oglaf.1074:

Arcing Slice should have it’s animation replaced for an actual uppercut and have an knockback/blow-out that scales with Adernaline.

“Swiiiing!”

1) Fixing the animation is a waste of time and effort, just fix the tooltip description instead.

2) A knockback. Could be useful, but you need to actually explain why. Simply stating “add XXXXX effect” with no reasoning or context is worthless input.

Any reasonable buff is pointless on it own. Berserkers Power and Heightened Focus needs to be reviewed otherwise you won’t use it anyway since you screw your HB dps

I never understood why HB was not in the actual Burst skill slot. That would seem logical.

Visible despawn timer on seige

DarnDevil IV.2143:

You do realize how big change this would be to the game? All the dungeons ( and mobs in the game ) should be re-worked …..

Forget about PvE, I was talking PvP/WvW. Sorry if I wasnt explicit in my OP.

runeblade.7514:

Not very big change.

Anti-crit is niche. No one would bother bringing these traits.

(Almost?) every Burst damage build is about Crit and Crit Damage. Its not niche, its a logical counter, but the mechanic simply doesnt exist in GW2 in any meaningful way.

Khristophoros.7194:

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I just want a solid reason to spec in the defensive traits like… take less damage. :|

Crit builds are getting double damage and near 100% crit rates. Having traits around Enemy Crits could obviously make you take less damage.

DarnDevil IV.2143:

Go for Furious Reaction and Spiked Armor? Those traits should help you punish those heartseeker spammers and Endure Pain works like a dream, it just needs to have its cd dropped by about 25 % or 20%

Making too much of that " Anti-Crit " mechanism will just break the game as protection and retaliation works together like a beast ( or high thoughness and retaliation)

Those traits are a good example of the concept. But Furious Reaction is just too weak. And Spiked Armour could do with either more a powerful Retaliation (special stacking effect maybe?) to make it a real deterance or add in Protection as well.

There’s no point being an “aggressive tank” if the damage is still less than special and mobility is bad. Agree that a life-leech trait best fits the concept, but that really has Necromancer flavour all over it.

Possibly for Warr, more and/or improved Retaliation could be an option?

So basically TS, you’re saying the problem is noobs bringing PvE builds to WvW and then complaining on forums? Nah I think you’re wrong.

A “Critical Weakness” condition could be the answer. And yeah normal Weakness does little to nothing against a high crit build, so its a weak condition.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think there is a profession that has any significant anti-crit mechanics (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical_hit). Seeing this hole, and in the interests of toughening up a Bunker/Defence Warr, I thought they might be the ideal class for such a mechanic.

I see “anti-crit” as perfect for a Warr. By ANets own admission, Warrs are intended to be weak against Conditions. So in contrast we should be tougher against Direct Damage or Burst, the biggest source being Crits.

So not only does an Anti-Crit Warr become a Burst/Crit Builds hard counter, but it makes Condition Damage builds more attractive as a counter to the Anti-Crit Warr.

To demonstrate with examples, a few ways to do it:

1) Add Traits like “When you suffer a critical hit, you gain <insert effect here>”
2) Traited Toughness reduces enemies Crit Chance. This does also nerf “on crit” effects of sigils etc as well
3) Traited Toughness reduces enemies Crit Damage.

Just examples, there would be plenty more ways to do it.

Now I will add, that having played a Rogue and Mage in WoW I loathed the Resilience stat, but that was more annoying because it spanned all classes in PvP. I admit too my current main is a Warr. But the difference here is it doesn’t completely screw over all Crit Builds because they still all the other Professions and GC Warrs to be effective against. I would still loathe an Item based stat, Crits builds do need to exist and be awesome.

Something is definitely off. I was 1v1ing a Thief in WvW EB with my exotics Knights/Toughness/Shield Warr. Got him down to 1/4 health, myself was at about 6K. He stealths, I’m like ok, he’ll be back get ready and I’m spamming Axe1 while I wait. Was only a few seconds later, he appears and downs me in 1 hit (I think it was a Backstab + Sigil of Fire proc) so that was pretty bad. There really was zero time to react. Now I’m cranking 3400+ armour so that a bit rich. But here’s the kicker – he was at full health when he came out of stealth?? so he was able to stealth, setup his next burst and full heal all at the same time, wtf? At that point I just shrugged, I didn’t feel like I was outplayed, the class is just uber at the moment.

I like the overall idea. The two Stamina blocks replace dodge (easiest to balance), or the stamina drain model (more distinct playstyle) could both work.

But sadly, I think its too big a change and will never happen, especially with ANets approach of making small incremental buffs/nerfs. This idea is really something that would have been great to have in beta, where it could be tested, broken builds/traits exposed and tweaked.

Spiked Armour – make it grant retaliation and protection for 5 sec, now we’ve got something. Perhaps needs a cooldown increase to 20 sec.

Defy Pain – make it activate Endure Pain at 25% and 75%, and we are ready to rock as anti-burst.

DuhGeneral.8940:

This would be amazing right here i never undetstood why it did the wrong animation…

Just fix the tooltip instead, problem solved.

Any chance for a buff to Mobile Strikes? eg something like:

Movement skills break immobilize and ignore slowing effects

Really sux to have cripple on ya, you go for a Shield Charge or Evis, and you leap through the air at a pathetically slow pace.

Otaur.9268:

No buffs to staff or scepter. A lot of trait stuff going on. And underwater stuff…

Yeah. I was hoping to see some Staff projectile speed increases. Ah well.

As the title suggests, how would the dynamics of wvw change, if you could see allies and enemies on the map? The only exception would be invisible or stealthed enemies.

Pros and cons?

The biggest pro is obviously more awareness to all players of whats going on. But you could argue thats a con. Would it reduce zerging and commander sheep? I could actually see this creating a wide active “front line”.

Hypothetical, so forget any technical difficulties.

Potential strategies or issues it may open up?

Add in some simple ideas, like you don’t appear on the enemy map up to X seconds after leaving stealth or invis and don’t enter combat…

Or perhaps you don’t appear on enemy map while inside keeps/towers/etc (with a certain upgrade?)

I reckon removing/fixing the LOS issue for defenders on the wall but leaving it there for attackers below, that would be a reasonable method of giving the defenders an advantage.

Yeah its a little hard to tell, but its a 1 sec stun, Evis is 0.75 cast time. It seems to combo just quick enough, tested on dummy and enemies alike. But yeah you wanna be clicking F1 repeatedly straight away when the shield stun attack animation starts. You could use +15% stun duration sigils for some extra margin of error/delay or to counter enemies with cond duration reduction.

I’m having some success with a Shield. Trait in +50% crit on stun, and you can Shield 4 Stun into F1 Axe Eviscerate for some nice reliable burst, and trait in reflecting shield on block to make Shield 5 more useful and fun, like LameFox said above.

And both those traits are 10 pointers I think so pretty flexible to work into a build of your own liking

My experience using shields is limited, but instead of changing the active skills, why not simply have a passive x% chance to block 1 attack. This could be standard for any class that wields a shield, not just warrior.

Yep, OP is correct. Air Staff needs to be tweaked for more single target dps.
And Earth Staff #1 is a candidate for worst attack ever

Staff Air => improve it so its our true single-target DPS attunement

Staff Air => improve it so its our true single-target DPS attunement.

Whilst the other attunements in Staff could use some tweaks, I could live with them not changing much if Air was improved.

The problem right now with Mesmer Portal is its the WvW Zerg equivalent of a one-shot instagib from a BS Thief on a Glass Cannon in sPvP. There is little/nothing that can be done to counter it, and its basically no fun. Unlike a Glass Cannon in sPvP, you can’t respec a Zerg or fix rendering issues.

It will get a nerf of some sort.

You could try to improve the defensive side some more, given a Condition build needs to outlast the enemy….

Drop Arcane down to 10, and bump that into 30 Water to get Soothing Disruption and Cleansing Water. Then take 3 Cantrips for your Utils. Now anytime you’re popping a Cantrip to escape a Stun or CC, you’ll also be cleansing off the pesky bleeds the thief just loaded on you and regenerating health.

As for Earth, Strength of Stone (+10% damage when in Earth) I dont think that affects Bleed damage, if that was your intention? Serrated Stones for +20% Bleed Duration is very good obviously, thus keep that and you free up the 30 trait for Written in Stone; now Signet Of Restoration is worth slotting, you’ve got Healing power basically to max with Shamans Amulet and 30 in Water so every attack gives a nice heal, and you can actively cast the Heal without losing the Passive effect.

Your Sigils, I’d probably look at ones that increase burn or bleed duration. The only problem with Burning I found was a lot of attacks had only short duration Burning and thus it takes heaps of extra +Duration just get the 1 extra Tick of damage.

Anyways, I played around with various Condition builds and generally found them just a little too slow to kill ppl overall – usually backup arrives for either side, thus trivializing your well orchestrated death by 1000 cuts . There is some workable builds in there though.

Honestly, just go ahead and roll up your 8th Alt right now. Come back to Ele when its got some decent buffs.

hmmm, pretty sure when I last tested it, the +30% Fire Field duration gives you 1 extra tick of damage for Lava Font.

Rack, I get your idea and tend to agree. Though my thoughts on this ages ago was an even simpler approach. Only allow a choice of 2 or 3 attunements, the other/s being locked out completely. Then the devs can improve all attunements and be less worried about Ele being OP because they are suddenly great in all areas at the same time.

But short of a revamp that will never happen, I’d be happy if they just made Air match its description and be our true single target damage attunement.

Bountiful Power Its not a terrible idea but totally misplaced at Water 25. If you’re that far into Water your probably not rocking a big DPS build. Honestly, this belongs at Fire or Air 5.

Flame Barrier terrible. just terrible.

Lingering Attunements and Arcane Fury: Swap them around, and buff Arcane Fury to 5 seconds, now its looking a little better.

The Rest… the majority are weak and crappy

Churning Earth – if it is indeed being Channeled and not just a long cast time, then it should have some effect during the Channeling phase like AoE Cripple to offset the full cooldown on interrupt.

And no I dont consider a power good when you have to use a Util Slot Cantrip to make the thing work. As fun as that is, its a stop-gap measure for an otherwise less than stellar power.

If you add in the Cripple during Channel, it at least forces an opponent to use a Dodge to escape. At the moment they just curtsey or bow, say “Good day sir”, and stroll out of the area whistling a cheerful tune and a jump-click of the heels, without a care in the world.

Air in general lacks the Direct Damage punch that its suppose to have according to its description.

Air Staff 1 We’ve already got Fire for AoE, why is this lightning bouncing around targets for crappy damage when this is my Direct Damage attunement? Drop the AoE/chaining effect (as cool as it looks), double the damage, and speed up the animation as its too slow. Now we got something worthy. Add a Trait to Air to enable the chaining effect for those who still want it, but it might do say 3/4 damage with every bounce (ie it gets less and less each bounce).

Air Staff 2 Yeah, too slow to cast, and we all know its rubbish now the infinite range bug is gone. From reading the description: how about we make it into a 1st click-Charge, 2nd click Release power. The longer it charges the more damage it does, obviously with a max limit/full charge, and a quick double-click makes it instant for quick dps. Perhaps it can be charged up out of combat for some opening/sudden DPS spike when needed? Alternatively but similiar “charging concept” following the theme of its description – this power is always on cooldown when you first swap to Air. Once the cooldown is up, its “charged”, and can be released for a worthwhile damage spike. If its not released (ie not on cooldown), it could even have some other passive benefit – perhaps something defensive to make the decision to fire it meaningful.

Air Scepter 1 & 2 Ok so 2 just does damage and its on a very low cooldown, and doesnt interrupt 1’s channelling. So basically, its really just boils down to Ele having to click an extra button for their standard auto attack dps? What we aren’t clicking enough already? Throw away 2 entirely and replace it with something better. If the replacement power for 2 does no damage, consider rolling the old 2’s damage into 1.

Air Scepter 3 the blind alone is rubbish. Add some damage to it or maybe add Confusion? it needs something extra

Air Scepter 1, 2 and 3 – make them combo better Put a short duration Vulnerability effect at the end of 1, then 2 & 3 get bonus damage/effect if the target has Vulnerability – yay for synergy!

Meh, dont really give a kitten how Glass Cannon that Warrior was, Kill Shot is OP and needs a nerf. In WvW I was hit for 15K on my 80 Ele wearing Cleric gear (has toughness). And the attack has 1500 range. Why does anyone think this is balanced? Or for others complaining their non-Glass Cannon Warrior “only” hits for 10K. Yeah, Kill Shot is fine lol.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

Ele is a junk class…….

Yes, this is true.

I was selling some stuff to a Merchant last night, and I accidentally clicked the “Sell Junk” button. Next thing I know, I’m at the Character Select screen and my lvl 80 Elem has been deleted…..

Fiery Greatsword
1. Looks cool
2. Fast travel, just spam 3 and 4 repeatedly

I’m yet to see any use of Conjured Weapons beyond the lol-factor

If you’re after Protection via these Aura’s, you’ll want 10 Earth for “Elemental Shielding”. But at most you can only access 2 auras at any one time as they are split across different weapons.

So that’s when you add in 20 Fire for “Fire’s Embrace”, and now any Signet will activate a Fire Shield Aura. This mean you can potentially pop Protection up to 4 more times if you slot all your utility skills with Signets.

Finally, 10 Air for “Zephyrs Boon” and now your Auras will give you Fury and Swiftness.

Thus any time you activate a Signet or an Aura, you gain Protection, Fury, Swiftness.

This is the basic foundation of a so called “Signet Build”. Of course, if you are slotting so many Signets, it then often makes sense to go 30 Earth for “Written in Stone” and “Signet Mastery”. So that’s 20 Fire, 10 Air, 30 Earth, leaving a miserly 10 extra to spend on something else.

Trump.9803:

Evasive Arcana Bug – The tooltip says an Earth Dodge will cast Churning Earth, but it instead casts Shockwave despite the animation looking like a Churning Earth. This Shockwave does about 10% of the direct damage of Churning Earth and has no Bleed damage either, so it basically sux.

MajorMelchett,
please add this bug to the list in the OP.

I wasn’t in the betas. What exactly was changed for Ele after BWE2?

Evasive Arcana Bug – The tooltip says an Earth Dodge will cast Churning Earth, but it instead casts Shockwave despite the animation looking like a Churning Earth. This Shockwave does about 10% of the direct damage of Churning Earth and has no Bleed damage either, so it basically sux.