Guild Wars 2

I have recently came back to GW2 after a moderate break. I did couple of sPVP runs as well as some WvW as my D/D Cantrip Elem and it felt off. Maybe it’s the break, maybe it’s the nerfs, but it felt much slower and less fluid. Were Cantrips nerfed? Was Attunement Dance nerfed in any way (shorter boons from swaps)? Was any other movement nerfed besides the RtL?
My plan for close future is to pick up a Scepter, drop Cantrip build, rebalance my gear a bit and give that a go in WvW.

@Sakura&TheGuy
Thanks guys!

I am using the same face on all 5 of my characters and they ALL look like they should not be handling sharp objects.

Someone earlier mentioned that boon duration stacking was reduced as well. Could someone point me to the exact quote from the patch notes?

It’s ok! At least with the nerf of bunker builds we got a buff of… oh wait… never mind, we did not.

Oh and I literally laughed out loud at the Tornado change.

Looks fine to me. I guess it is just very subjective.

OP. This has been discussed to death. The issue is that everything you do on Ele you can do many times faster and easier on other profs.

Oh no! The sky is falling! I, for one, welcome this addition. Having a full exotic set the moment I was able to equip it was very anti-climatic. Looking forward to checking some of the new stuff out!

TC WvW lag is unacceptable. Started occurring again after this WvW reset. Please address.

@daphoenix, I was in neither. I think my scraps were earlier that night, but I distinctly remember your character and your playstyle. I was showing WvW to one of my noobie friends and was trying to explain to him that there must have been a skilled player behind this elementalist. On a side note, watching your vids has inspired me to put my staff away and take daggers for a spin. I was not disappointed.

I want some of what the advocates of such ridiculous damage are smoking.

Since we are on topic of staff skins – could anyone recommend a decent conservative metal-looking staff with not over-the-top staff head?

I agree with OP. I have said it several times here and on other forums – Elementalist is the only profession that is burdened by the unique profession mechanic, while in other cases unique profession mechanic complements the profession itself. One that comes even remotely close to this is Engineer, but it can be played completely fine without any kits whatsoever.

Hey Dagger/Dagger human female elementalist of GODS with 2 white ponytails, it was a blast

Defending EH was a blast last night. I managed to sit my lvl 10 behind on a cannon and just rained hell on the invaders.

It’s been fun fighting GODS zerg at the ruins last night.

Like someone said in one of the topics here: “Ele is the GW2 equivalent of an 80s training montage. Once you suffer through it then reapply what you learned to another class suddenly you’re Rocky Balboa.”

Glass cannon PvP experience has been extremely frustrating for me. Most of the damage came from positional or unreliable (I am looking at you, Fire Grab) abilities which required utilities to land most of the time. So point for point I felt that I was dealing less damage than other glass cannon builds while being squishier and giving up much more survivability.

So in my opinion – glass cannon build is not worth the effort for Elementalists the way they are now.

Very interesting build, I was actually thinking of trying something like that in WvW. I am currently running staff cantrip 10/0/10/30/20 and it is providing me with awesome survivability. I am not sure I will be able to face the zerg well in melee range chaining the fields. Have you had any experience with this? Was the Lightning Flash sufficient for escape?

As a catrip staff elementalist I decided to skip the Evasive arcana and pick up automatic Earth Armor at 50% hp for WvW instead. It has saved my butt so many times I could not even count. Plus it works well with my cantrip build.

I am very happy I have embraced the staff playstyle. Running 10/0/10/30/20 semi-offensive cantrip build, gearing Toughness/Power/Precision.

Where do all these “l2p” folks get this notion from that Elementalist is some kind of ELITE profession that not everyone should be able to play with? Why the hell not? Why are Mesmers allowed to perform well at average level then? They are just as “hard to master” as Elementalists are. Why shouldn’t an average player be able to pick it up and play it just like any other? Seriously. If you want some additional personal challenge – go PvP with no gear. Average players should not be subjected to per-determined dis-balance in gameplay.

“Clearly you did EVERYTHING wrong. I won’t bother specifying what exactly, since you know, you are BAD for not knowing it for yourself! My magical build with pr0 skills ensure this never happens to me which I can not prove with any video or anything like that. Trust me bro.”

Blackmetal.9751:

The way i look at it, elementalists can be great with comboing, but other than that, weak. If you arent being the one attacked you can do great damage to enemys but if your the one being attacked your screwed.

I would argue the “great damage” part as most of out damage comes from easily avoidable area attacks. To land anything meaningful you are relying on your opponent to be clueless of their surrounding environment or standing still. That is why I am mostly sticking to staff WvW where zerg tends to miss things

I am in a similar boat – hitting 80 very soon and trying to figure out my exotic set. I am doing some PvE with my friends but most of the time I end up staying in WvW. I play Staff with the following build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fEUQFAWhImibyx5gjDAkHn4CLhCKUeMzO2A Personally I am shooting for Power/Precision/Toughness as I will have sufficient amount of healing from comboing various abilities together to offset low VItality.

There are quite a few, let me dig up some galleries…

http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/9586/lightarmorwithnamesfina.jpg

Staff cantrip WvW build. Stuck between choosing 2 out of 3: Evasive Arcana (Arcane Power 30pt), Cleansing Water (Water Magic 30pt) or Earth’s Embrace (Earth Magic 10pt). The build itself is here: http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fEUQFAWhImibyx5gjDAEFn4SogClHzsjNA;TIAA1CtA

Thoughts?

I would love to see some PvP footage of this

Even though I rage almost every night at how much weaker my Elem is compared to other professions, I keep on playing. I am waiting for the day when the buffs drop and everyone will be just annihilated by properly balanced elementalists.

ITT: Some server-hopper talking trash while in perpetual queue for WvW.

OP, the opposite is true as well. Why do you think it’s OK for you to dominate WvW just because you are playing when everyone is asleep? Why do you think your timezone is more important? You are raggin’ on everyone who is calling for something to be done but you yourself are pursuing your own interests and goals. Oh the hypocrisy.

mcl.9240:

XodoK.8734:

mcl.9240:

You miss the point. Your response contains example after example of the opponents giving up. My entire response to you was full of items that amount to, “don’t give up”.

Losing when you give up is hardly news, or a bug, or a problem with game mechanics.

I am on a server that does not give up. We push back the night-boys of our opponents over the day, retake most of the territory and recover some orbs. Then most of us go to sleep. That is when the night-boys zerg and sweep everything we took right back. People lost gold/time/effort without being able to even do anything about it. And this circus repeats every day. Your solution?

Wait until the server rankings settle down and you’re matched against more reasonable opponents. Also, realize that siege weapons, improvements, and other money sinks in WvWvW are just that : money sinks. They’re supposed to be temporary, not permanent. If you don’t like losing money that way, don’t. Figure out some other source of funds for your server, or better timing for spending them.

None of this is a solution to the problem. What you are saying yourself is “roll over and take it”. You yourself are telling the server to give up until we are matched with similar time zone.

mcl.9240:

You miss the point. Your response contains example after example of the opponents giving up. My entire response to you was full of items that amount to, “don’t give up”.

Losing when you give up is hardly news, or a bug, or a problem with game mechanics.

I am on a server that does not give up. We push back the night-boys of our opponents over the day, retake most of the territory and recover some orbs. Then most of us go to sleep. That is when the night-boys zerg and sweep everything we took right back. People lost gold/time/effort without being able to even do anything about it. And this circus repeats every day. Your solution?

I laughed at 5). Happens to me everykittentime I am in WvW. All the pr0 100blades and heartseeker guys single me out and are willing to chase me half way across the map so all 5-6 of them can try and stomp me in the end.
As a staff elementalist I have to say one thing – I became quite good at running away from these chasing parties =)

Here’s my girl.

Corvindi.5734:

XodoK.8734:

OP, go do WvW jumping puzzle. In borderlands it’s easy. Usually takes 10-15 min if there are no griefers and it rewards you with 3 blue/green items, 4-5 WvW tokens and 2 random siege blueprints. My elementalist is packin’ insane amount of siege overall and 5 golems so far just from that. So – less QQ more SPACEBAR SPACEBAR (for jumping, you get it?)!

Please don’t do this when your server has a queue!

Why? Fighting off other servers’ players in the puzzle area is preventing them from obtaining more siege. Plus, in my opinion, getting 2 more BPs for your server is a bit more valuable than, say, a lvl 4 character following the zerg. But that’s just me

OP, go do WvW jumping puzzle. In borderlands it’s easy. Usually takes 10-15 min if there are no griefers and it rewards you with 3 blue/green items, 4-5 WvW tokens and 2 random siege blueprints. My elementalist is packin’ insane amount of siege overall and 5 golems so far just from that. So – less QQ more SPACEBAR SPACEBAR (for jumping, you get it?)!

Ursu.4163:

Truga.5897:

Why does it need to change? Why does every class have to play the same way?

nothing has to change.
but playing a certain class should not put you at a disadvantage. playing an elementalist now is like running a handicap race: everyone starts will all the goodies ahead of you and you need to play catch up blowing your keyboard out with attunement dancing and skills smashing while kissing a silver holy cross bought from Vatican hoping you won’t die before your cooldown on water is done.

Seriously laughed. Very good. +1
To answer your question – why it needs to change. I believe that all professions have to be on an even playing field from the get-go. Profession mechanics should be a tool for success, they should be a complement to the gameplay, not a handicap that players have to deal with simply because they chose this profession.

So in a nutshell – unique profession mechanic should be a complement to gameplay, not a handicap or restricting factor.

Lokki.1092:

Words

This sums it up well. This should be posted in every similar topic.
Can we do well? Sure. Can we, as players, do much better with less effort on other professions? Absolutely. That is what needs to change imo.

1. Throw Phoenix ahead of him. Do not bother with Tooth. I usually swap to air, unload first 3, hop into earth, stack up some bleeds, blind, water -> aoe ahead, heal up. Signet of Earth helps as well.
2. Fire grab is pretty kitteny atm. The cone could be wider.
3. Arcane wave is not the only option for utility. Look into some signets/cantrips. They are great tools.
4. Agree completely. Earth knockdown could use some help in either longer knockdown or ability to be cast on the move.
5. =)
6. Well they are a pet class after all.

Overall I agree, Rangers are a kitten to deal with. Especially when you are specced pretty soft. I think if you go Toughness primarily you should be able to last VS rangers. Swap Arcane utility for Signet of Earth and either Lightning Flash or Cleansing Fire.

Heartseeker got toned down. Rejoice, squishy Elementalists

I have read the whole thread. I won’t get into details, but I just want to remind something to our self-proclaimed pr0-Elems. The issue is “average elem vs average any other prof”, not “pr0 elem vs terrible any other prof”.

There is always an option of defensive/supportive staff, but I agree. If you build for damage you should be on par with other profs.