Guild Wars 2

What’s with all these NA eles thinking S/D dps is subpar? Sure it’s tougher to play than multiple cantrips but its still more than viable with the damage it does.

Mijo.3274:

After a good day of playing now i think i understand better this build, i actually owned really easily mesmers, necros, guardians, rangers and other eles in 1v1!
It may sound stupid, but i actually have problems with warrior and thief, having only 1 stunbreaker with 75s CD is deadly sometimes, i cant survive a 100B or backstab->spam2 while stunned, i suffer the burst more then the sustained dmg.

By the way i’m actually thinking about a change in the build, getting aquamancer alacrity instead of vital strike may be a good change, and ther’s 1 more thing did you guys tried the immobilize from signet of earth? i think it could be an awesome chain:
Updraft -> Signet of earth -> Dragon Tooth -> Fire Grab
gonna give this a try for sure…

My advice, coming from someone who has ran the S/D double arcane dps build for months now with success, is thakittens going to take time to get use to the build. It is very unforgiving especially if you are use to playing with multiple cantrip get out of jail free cards. Going double arcane is removing the training wheels. While its more difficult, you get rewarded with significantly higher damage potential than you could while running 2-3 cantrips, which is a game-changer for your team if you play right with the right composition.

My suggestions as far as your build goes compared to what I run:

1)Switch Arcane mastery for Renewing stamina.
-While this reduces the frequency of bursts, Eles have to build for sustain alongside dps so they can last in team fights. Renewing stamina gives you more chances to dodge enemy burst attempts, and works well with evasive arcana for extra heals. Very important trait for a dps ele.
-You could switch vital striking for Aquamancer’s Alacrity depending on how much sustain you think you need, so its a matter of choice.
2)I run Fire and Force sigil.
-While some of this is personal preference, fire sigil does enough damage to multiple targets that it makes air comparatively useless. Zoose uses geomancy for close range pummeling, but since much of my burst comes from air, I prefer air. Force is going to give you more burst potential with your arcane utilities than battle sigil and accuracy.
3)Runes are a matter of preference, but I run with Scholar’s for the damage. I’m not sure I could justify running slightly more critical chance over stacking power and modifiers. Being able to kill a squishy in nearly one burst combo coming onto a point is just awesome.
-Other options: Divinity and Ogre.

In terms of actual gameplay style advice? Your success is dependent on positioning, positioning, positioning! You need to leverage the hybrid style of the Scepter/Dagger if you plan to do well with this build. Its not as rigid and straightforward as Dagger/Dagger or as loose and situational like the staff. The main things to remember when using the set:
-You’ve got range, use it! This is the most important element that separates D/D builds from being less successful at being dps compared to S/D against competent opponents. You can apply significant pressure while out of melee range with your burst rotation, and even train a target with arc lightning and lightning strike will put pressure. Don’t be too timid either, knowing when to lay the fire attunement smack-down on point from close range is critical to winning fights. Just watch for players to go out of position and look for the right time.
-Don’t worry about dragon’s tooth that much. People get bent out of shape that this single spell won’t land, or try to change their to build to accommodate for its slow delivery. Its not worth it. Its best applies after you’ve downed a target and his teammates go to assist, or when your teammates are lining up lockdowns on a target. Other than that, phoenix, RoF and firegrab will more than do the job.
-Land those combos. Coordinate with teammates or bait defensive cooldowns so you can land your damage strings without trouble. This is integral to being a successful dps ele. My guardian bud and I coordinate our CCs so I can easily land bursts while he keeps them in target areas.
-Don’t get greedy. This build is squishy but at the same time its not. You can sustain yourself for long periods of time if you time your attunement swaps right and know when to disengage. If an enemy gets low, definitely think twice about pursuing into enemy lines, especially if water attunement is down alongside RtL and mist.

This is the most fun build I’ve played on my ele. Tough, but very rewarding to those willing commit to the learning curve.

Jackie.1829:

Yea… you can all blind yourself to the reality and fanboy all you want. Fact is that GW1 did it faster and more successfully than GW2 is doing it atm. And that in a day and age where e-sports and streaming wasnt even a thing. Now that they have the experience and infrastructure, they are actually failing more to provide us what we need. You do have to wonder why this is the case, and if it really is worth trusting in such a company.

Mind you, I also want GW2 to succeed, I waited for the game for like 3 years. But I am a bit confused as to how we are in the situation we are in atm.

But the problem is GW1 never really did achieve any relevance outside its monolithic elitist cave that eventually cannibalized its own community. Even with the quality of its PvP system(to date the best PvP, though we shall if GW2 evolves), which catered more to deckbuilders than actually providing a watchable platform for what we deign “E-Sports”.

GW2 has failed thus far because the infrastructure still is still barely passable. I seriously want to play this game casually, but with the terrible matchmaking its hard to play outside a full blown team(rank 223 atm). I just don’t have time for that crap. Like any MMO with multiple facets its going to take time before we see great pvp options, I’d predict around the first expansion is when everything will click. Whats there is really good though. Combat is fast paced and kinetic, but still too chaotic.

Its also hilarious those who cry to bring back monks into this game. Newsflash, you know why most watchable pvp doesn’t have crazy burst healing like most MMOs have? No one wants to watch 15-20 minute of target-swapping health bar whack-a-mole.

garethh.3518:

Awe.1096:

I much rather have a longer waiting times and meanwhile go zerg in hotjoin or just wait while doing something else rather than keep getting matches PUG vs. premade over and over and over again.

Because it is a bad idea.
Plain and simple.

Being a premade doesn’t give much of an advantage in this game.
At best it lets you group together individually strong players so you aren’t stuck with a few scrubs on your team, few people use Voip in this game to any advantage in combat, I mean more than what marking a target could do.

It is an issue that can generally be fixed with just basing matches on glory rank and a very rough MMR’esque factor.

If you don’t know why competent premades will stomp/overcome pugs within this gametype I don’t know what to tell you. Being an individually competent asset in team fighting is only half of what will win you games, the rest is being able to synchronize with your team as you dance between battles, rally after spawns, and force superior numbers. Individual skill will only get you so far against well oiled premade rotations that can put you at a numbers disadvantage every time unless you somehow intuitively gel together with your pug teammates, which almost never happens. Most of the time premades react better tactically with voice chat, move as a team better, and take advantage of rotational sloppiness that exists between players who don’t usually play together.

Back when I played more I carved my way up to leaderboard rank 112 with friends and other strong players I’ve teamed up with. It is just flipping awful now to be at that rank range and get put together with pugs that don’t check their map to move with their teammates, don’t read chat for instructions, etc. I feel bad for all these players that shackled with me as my friend and I take a beating simply because we had the audacity to queue up solo/duo with this current system at my current freaking rank.

Its not fun to push middle at the beginning only to get your backline bull rushed by the other team because your teammates ignored chat when you said to AVOID THE FOREST MONSTER AT THE START OF THE GAME and help in team fights. Its definitely not fun when your teammates don’t know how to gather after respawns which result in continuous beatdowns by some premade blob because everyone wants to solo hero to their points. I’ve been in great pugs that have beat premades before, but that certainly doesn’t necessitate commingling either group together is a good idea. Especially for new players who won’t understand why they’re constantly fighting higher odds, failing to get decent fights or learn anything. Good rotational strategy, and team movements is the difference in conquest between a close fight, a slightly close fight, and a curb stomp. There isn’t that huge of a grey area.

Even though it might hurt the game in the short run, this game deserves solo queue to create a hospitable environments for its new and casual players. I enjoy this game a lot, but why is it still so often a pain to play?

Even if you start to promote this game with tournaments, no one is going to aspire to be these players if the tournament system housed within the game is an arduous grind. I think, hey why not give GW2 a shot again after not playing for a month and see how things have improved. After contacting my bro and queuing up, we were excited to play the game after such a hiatus.

A couple games later after playing against full blown teams and pugs with teammates that lack the basic fundamentals of how to actually win we logged off pretty disappointed. Some examples involved teammates trying to kill the forest monster right at the start of the match leaving an uneven fight in any ensuing engagement or two separate matches that involved a mesmer trying to solo the mob only to die(!!!) to it while the rest of our team dies in outmatched fights. I don’t really see a reason to come back. I’m sick and tired of having to fight the game to have a good time simply because I want to log on and play with a friend or by myself after work.

The gameplay is still fun, and I would play far more if there were options for players like me not feel completely frustrated. Splitting queues will obviously impact wait times, but there won’t be room for this game to grow simply because players reach a point where the game simply throws them to the sharks.

So seriously, when are we getting solo queue?

Looks like Anet is keeping the trend of saying they want to maintain certain specs while bringing down dominant ones but end up nerfing all other options besides the “main” build. First its “we’re going to buff thief’s balanced options and reduce its burst” to “lets destroy offhand dagger, and mainhand sword in one swift blow, in case you were thinking of something other than burst. Sorry bro.” Now that DPS S/D ele has been stomped to the ground, that is two builds that Anet seems to have individually targeted for removal, despite saying they’ll do otherwise. :P

Will you guys please stop endlessly tinkering with baseline abilities and viable utility/traits and actually CHANGE something in the myriad of non viable traits, utilities, and weapons?

There are some other changes coming down the pipeline for other classes that look good, but since both the classes I like play still lack fun options I don’t think I’ll be coming back for a while.

Med.6150:

An elementalist with 13k HP, 2.5k+ armor, mist form, RTL, frost aura and/or AoE chill is currently stronger than any hybrid build of any other class and you see them running about on a daily basis. Now, even if we ignored the fact that Symbolic is proposing very small if any healing changes to such a build by lowering the healing contribution on water skills etc and increasing their base heal, these Valk elementalists with 13k HPs that you see running around rarely die to bursts, because they have the CC and mobility to reposition themselves and escape.

Asserting that Valkyrie eles don’t die to burst attempts is completely ridiculous if you’re playing with at least halfway competent players, especially if a player is running multiple arcane utilities to put out the kind of burst you’re suggesting. Maybe in a world where HGH engineers and trap/bm rangers don’t exist, but certainly not this one. You give up a lot of survive-ability to run the kind of build you’re suggesting with your only consistent mobility tool is RtL, unless you’re attunement swapping or blowing your integral 40 second updraft for swiftness. You’ve also got only 1 stun break on a 75 second cooldown, meaning if you blow it at the wrong time it can cost your team the fight.

DPS ele is stronger than people give it credit for(which is most people), but it doesn’t have the burst potential of thief and has a much smaller room for error than its bunker variants and folds under CC trains. Lower the healing potential without buffing other areas would make any ele with pretensions of building for damage to be food for anyone who can apply multiple conditions consistently, which is why many eles still build around water.

Also great analysis Symbolic, hope Anet puts this to good use for finally curbing how ridiculous the bunker ele is.

Its true they should have bumped something for warriors besides the useless fluff the had in the patch notes(basically no new options were added for any class at all), but it will hopefully be short term pain for long term gain.

The fact that professions would even consider themselves “useless” by the reduction of haste is more indicative of how Anet balanced themselves into a corner by making this utility too integral to their class function. How can you possibly balance base abilities when you have to consider the potentiality of haste increasing its deadliest twice-fold? How do you weigh other utility options to sheer breadth of game changing uses of haste? Quickness stomps, quickness res, quickness for increased dps, etc. Thieves who burst with haste don’t even properly render of stealth before the burst sequence ends! http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LbhdsF4oEI8

This was a good change just bad execution.

Mrbig.8019:

condiments.8043:

Thieves should definitely have gotten something in comparison alongside some bunker nerfs, but acting like haste was ok is absolutely ridiculous.

An instant gib combo that happens so fast the thief doesn’t register out of stealth? Removing this faceroll option allows Anet to lift up other options without wondering how they’ll synergize with haste for overpowered combinations. This will also help bring up other glassier builds for other classes that were getting straight hard countered by thief burst. Classes might be able to run just ‘stun breaks’ rather than in-vulnerability stun breakers to survive haste burst phases. We’ll probably see a rise of more engineers now that thieves don’t punish them so hard.

why running burst as an ele when you can move 10 points from water to air, bring 2 arcane utilities and burst for more than 10k AOE damage while giving buffs to all your team ?
all done with a tanky build, all thanks to a near 100% fury uptime.

burst is obsolete when you have so much sustain and when there’s nothing stopping you from stacking it.

DPS eles are no where near as strong as the bunker variations. They’re definitely good but can get downed quickly if they aren’t picking the correct times to commit to AOE on points. If you saw more DPS eles there most definitely would be a surge of HGH engineers which are incredibly strong against them(I wouldn’t say hard counter, but definitely a soft one).

Also the only way you’re getting full fury uptime is if you’re running Zephyr’s Boon on a dagger/dagger ele, which makes it incredibly dangerous to run two arcane utilities compared to cantrips. The damage is great but its still very vulnerable. Personally I prefer S/D for my DPS setup, which gives up control and constant boon uptime(no access to swiftness or fury outside a couple seconds from attunement swaps), for more burst potential, sustain, and better positioning. Neither build reaches the burst potential of thief though it is still pretty strong.

Thieves should definitely have gotten something in comparison alongside some bunker nerfs, but acting like haste was ok is absolutely ridiculous.

An instant gib combo that happens so fast the thief doesn’t register out of stealth? Removing this faceroll option allows Anet to lift up other options without wondering how they’ll synergize with haste for overpowered combinations. This will also help bring up other glassier builds for other classes that were getting straight hard countered by thief burst. Classes might be able to run just ‘stun breaks’ rather than in-vulnerability stun breakers to survive haste burst phases. We’ll probably see a rise of more engineers now that thieves don’t punish them so hard.

Xeph.4513:

Firstly I don’t even think we are playing the same game if you think most ele’s run D/D and staff over S/D.

I wouldn’t worry about what they’re saying Xeph. 95% of Eles in NA run D/D full cantrip sustain/aurashare/bunker builds and believe nothing else is remotely possible. That S/D isn’t viable because you “can’t reliably land dragon’s tooth and auto-attacks are weak”. Tell that to the thief I downed in 2 seconds.

I’ve run phanta’s new build since he created it and its completely viable. Its harder to play and much more open too punishment but you’re rewarded with crazy burst damage. You just can’t rely on 3 stun breaks/stability/constant protection/regen/teleport to keep you alive which is why most eles opt to the easier broken bunker playstyle.

But yeah, it didn’t really deserve a buff like that at this time. It changes really nothing and there is so much else to fix.

Ice elemental has its uses(dat heal, and knockback), but if I have fire elemental I can confidently 1v1 any profession in the game assuming all things equal. It drops off a little bit in big team fights because it can be burned down, but it does so much damage its kind of a tradeoff.

Fine as it is.

Finally some pvp revenue for Anet. If this take off we might actually get some support for PvP!

Also, yay custom arenas!

Mssg.7804:

This is kittening joke. Xeph are you kitten or are they paying to you for being so patient?
I will take WoW for example, there is new season every few months… when new season starts all the data is reseted and players start from 0, Blizzard is not hiding ratings for ferst week because they want more data, noo. Whats the point of this? On the SOTG they already told us that they are testing the system already… now we have to still wait. Not many people will play before they show up the ratings anyway…

Its hard to say yet but I expect some players to come back to see how the leaderboard things pan out so it likely be in fluctuating chaos the first week or so.

Only thing I’m worried about is solo queue basically becoming a non-option. I’m already at the point where if I try to play myself I’ll often go against other premades multiple times in a row. This is during a time when the incentive to run premade is to sort of practice with your team by stomping uncoordinated pugs with some small likelihood that you’ll face an even competitive team. What will happen when people are fighting for their actual visible rating? No one is gonna solo queue except in lower brackets. I’ve had fun with quite a few matches just duo queuing with friends, but I expect I’ll be forming groups to compete come the patch.

Its good to hear from Vain again! Hopefully Korea goes well for you.

Anyways, I think have right to be angry about the fact the game wasn’t feature ready upon release, and continues to persist in a half-finished state 7 months in. I mean, I thought I was realistic about the timetable of when features are coming to the game, but I keep having to readjust them every patch because nothing comes. I still have fun playing this game, I just wish they might have delayed launch for a little bit more to squeeze out those necessary features and balance(or basic infrastructure work, which tied them up for a while).

On the flipside, if you were ignore the marketing schlock about how this game was going to be E-Sport ready(no MMO has ever achieved E-sport potential), you have to be a bit cynical even regarding the substantiality of the pvp features that would even be seen at launch. Historically, PvE for MMOs comes first with PvP coming a far dead second(GW1 was not an MMO in a traditional sense). PvP features often come many months even years to reach any point of actual worthiness for competitive play. MMOs differ from games like LoL, DOTA, SC2 in that they are multi-faceted experiences where things like content generation, workload/resources balancing among teams is immensely difficult task that most companies fail to do(Most MMOs either fail entirely or move to more profitable exploitative models like F2P).

The big problem right now with PvP is that its the least profitable sector of GW2 right now for Anet. They got caught with their pants down at release and have failed to come with at least a rudimentary monetary structure(paid tournies…lol) that would justify the investment when they see far more returns creating content grinds for the PvE hordes who would throw real money away like crazy to grind for virtual skins. Why push money into PvP to please a shrinking contingent when you can keep building on the better infrastructure already in place and make the game live to its first expansion. They’ve basically just tasked a small team to basically grind away at the necessary features of the game over months, probably putting crazy hours in so they can get their part of the game up to par so they can get more support to start pushing it. I feel sorry for them really, they never had a chance. :P

Despite the naysayers I do think GW2 will eventually succeed on the basis that the “core”, the gameplay, is absolutely amazing and 95 percent of games fail to reach such a lofty goal. Unfortunately, the rest of everything is just going to take some time.

This was a pretty good analysis of the current situation SAtaarcoeny. Some would argue different spots for classes, but I think its a good overall estimate of whats going on. Warrior is in definite need of a buff there is no doubt about that, but that has more to do with their passive condition removal and defensive options than anything about their damage. They suffer worse especially now that everyone is running in pugs where “carrying” a class so they can perform their role is much harder. Also toning down some of their most significant competition(ranger,ele) would do them a benefit overall.

Thieves were strong, if not dominantly strong, within the roamer role for many months. Its just that the meta eventually shifted more towards sturdier/self-sufficient characters with the glassier builds were eventually weeded out by thief making their ability to shift battles with a gib significantly harder to pull off. Shortbow is still a godly weapon that nearly packs everything in one package, its just that none of the other weapon sets with the possible exception of D/P are nearly as well-rounded or integral to the role.

I am more optimistic after the last SoTG where they seemed to be finally admitting the lackluster design of the class as it is(mug does kitten damage, lack of sustain, etc.), and seem to be pushing the class away from their current all or nothing setup towards something less stealth reliant and more well rounded. Pushing boon hate/stripping is I think far more effective for thief being able to perform its “intended” role of taking down bunkers with spike, because right now they punish squishier builds far more than bunkers. Their ability to disengage so easily, blow people up from stealth with mug+backstab or put huge pressure on points with trick shot/choking gas if anything has pushed the meta where it is now(Besides tankele being dumb too). They still should be able to do high sustained damage, but not the amount of spike they do now.

Mesmers I think have suffered a similar situation in the meta shift but have made out far better with the team utility combined with damage they bring. The talk on SoTG of bringing down shatter damage for more boon hate should be good for the class overall.

As for eles, they just need to balance the tankele. Move around defensive options in higher tiers like Earth’s embrace, reduce protection/stability up-time(main source of their survival), and curb high end healing with diminishing returns and you’ve probably effectively balanced them. DPS ele is stronger that people give it credit for, but has been suffering nerfs alongside the tankele nerfs. What the class needs is the removal of arcana attunement cooldown reduction traiting bonus for a flat reduction of 9-11 seconds. Right now as an ele you can’t afford to not put points in Arcana(20 at least imo) because of how integral attunement swapping is to survival. They spoke briefly on this in the SoTG so I think they have the right idea.

They are moving the game in the right direction its just gonna take time because of how small their team is right now. Most fun recent MMO PvP+slow development time/no support=maximum frustration.

Yes.

Other objective based game modes could work but not TDM/arena. In most games I usually don’t prefer conquest, but it just really works for GW2. It has varying levels of player engagements all within the same match, allows the gameplay to retain its decisive distinctiveness(low ttk, fast paced battles) without cheapening the strategic aspect of the mode, and can potentially reward a variance of gameplay styles beyond damage or damage support(‘potential’ is the key word, not enough of it yet).

I certainly wouldn’t mind other modes but they’d have to be careful on its design.

Chaosky.5276:

Follidus.8027:

I don’t understand, scepter is a viable ranged weapon. =/

There’s ways to land dragon’s tooth, but there’s lots of other spells that are good too…

If I can’t effectively fight my enemy from a distance, it’s not a viable ranged weapon. As it is, Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix, Shatterstone, the lack of offense in the scepter’s earth attunement, and the weak autoattacks make it ineffective at ranged combat.
Scepter/Dagger’s good, but mainly when close to your target (Phoenix, offhand dagger skills), and I don’t want to be forced to adopt a support-oriented playstyle by taking the staff.

Scepter/dagger has effective range options for both sustaining damage and burst but the purpose of the set is to function like many of the dps range/melee sets that exist within the game. Its the jack of all trades of our weapon selection.

Like others have said, I doubt you’re going to see a really strong sole ranged dps option for elementalists especially with the significant AOE leanings of the staff. We have far too much sustain and mobility to be allowed such an option. Like others have said, Necros can deal much more damage purely from ranged but lack our versatility.

Jax.5261:

Updated the links that weren’t working!

Hey thanks for the builds. My brother is running the staff/hammer defensive build and loves it. I usually run with him on my ele and the CC options work great for setting up burst.

Any tips for him?

TwoBit.5903:

With warriors and thieves as dps oriented as they are, players of those professions will naturally follow what gives their class more dps. Boon hate and whatever else gives them the most dps will be a natural choice for them, and with trait lines taking only less than half of the available trait points they’ll surely have enough points to choose boon hate and optimize their general dps.

I’m not so optimistic about the mechanic being properly implemented. Right off the bat, all indications point to it being gimmicky band-aid mechanic. Instead rebalancing the boon granting/stripping dynamic and making it something deeper, it aims to solve the problem by simply scaling up damage. The last thing this game needs is for damage to be more relevant than skillful, strategic play.

I’d to see more boon stripping too, but you have to look at how it applies overall. Stripping by itself as a method to counter boon reliant characters would be strong as it would severely inhibit those who apply it less infrequently. A warriors who blows his clutch stability with balanced stance to mitigate an oncoming CC train to save his life will have it whisked away in an instant under the pressure of any boon stripper meant to break bunkers. It’d be another case of hurting more options to deal with dominant one.

Obviously since this is all hypothetical, if the implementation forces players making the builds to choose between going between being more efficient boon killers or straight damage it will be a good change. Depending how much you stack against boons, your damage will fluctuate depending on the opponent you face, say your standard 0/10/0/30/30 boon bunker cantrip D/D ele versus S/D 0/20/0/20/30 vital striking arcane utility dps. One is far less reliant on consistent boons for its play than the other resulting in less efficiency on the basis of how you fight. 3k less on a crit could easily be the difference between a win and a lose. Boon hate builds if anything will have to be selective of their targets.

Current utility implementations of thief and warriors aren’t that imaginative either, and focus almost entirely on stacking damage modifiers for maximum damage potential rather than focused role potential. I’m sure hybrid builds will exist, but that is three options ‘Straight dps, hybrid dps, boon hate’ that weren’t there before.

Follidus.8027:

There’s so many ways to chain CC in this game yet no one does it.

When I was running with my greatsword guardian bud he would binding blade pull people into dragon tooth’s blast radius as it came down. People expecting to just eat whirling wrath were immensely surprised. Now he just uses line and ring of warding for me to set up easy point blank phoenixes and firegrabs. Gotta luv that guardian CC!

The reason why we don’t see more chain CC I think its a whole lot of there being no competitive teams(no competitive features) working together and real lack of information flow within the community. There is no top players innovating so players just with some of the stuff see.

TwoBit.5903:

Boon stripping and corruption are fine as they are, in my opinion. The problem is that bunker professions can stack a variety of low cooldown boons in quick succession. The sheer variety and low cooldown to boon-granting abilities trivializes removal attempts. This is what the developers need to look at.

The addition of a mechanic through traits will only serve to further pigeonhole builds. When you have as much freedom over trait paths and utilities as players do in GW2, players will tends towards the traits that are useful most of the time rather than use builds that are truly specialized. As widespread as boons are, those with boon hate available will always pick it because it would offer the highest consistent dps boost.

Edit: Grammar. Hard to type while eating.

I don’t necessarily see how it will pigeonhole builds if the implementation is correct. Building your character for “boon hate” will probably entail investing heavily into trees and traits that define that role. To me, the majority of the time simply stacking straight damage modifiers against all opponents will be more consistently useful. It will probably be better in team play situations where someone can build themselves around countering specific opponents but still be strong in most situations(see bunker buster necros).

Its the best solution, because most other solutions have too many unintended side effects. Burst builds, the supposed natural counter to boon builds, really aren’t all that efficient at taking them down in team situations and are actually more effective at countering other burst builds. This is why we see “apex predator” burst builds with the theif and mesmer, as their available options and efficiency keep all other glass builds in check. Buffing something like vulnerability would also be adversely punishing to squishier builds with the chance of creating an opening for tankier builds.

“Boon hate” creates a natural counter to the boon factory builds without being too harsh to everything else which makes it the best solution. These will NOT make boon reliant characters useless. They will remain powerful long after this implementation except they’ll have to be more careful about their application, positioning relative to enemies and builds. Which is good for more balanced play.

Lazarast.6571:

I’m playing with a build I really have fun now. It’s similar to the bunker one but more dps orientated.

I play with valkyrie and 20 in air, 20 water and 30 arcane. I can still heal myself a lot and I’m a very good 1v1 build.

I play it in teamfights, I normally don’t invade. In fights I can dps a lot and don’t have to get much out of the fight, still doing really decent damage.

With next patch I’ll provably use same build but with scepter, maybe even more dps orientated.
It’s really hard to stand 1v2 good players.

I actually run this setup with scepter/dagger, air training in air, with arcane blast and wave instead of full cantrips(only mist). Its incredibly strong in both 1v1 and team battles with the safety of range allowed by the scepter and less telegraphed single target burst than D/D(Earth to Air with arcane utilities). It will only get stronger with the patch with the beaming being able to hit multiple players.

I love this build we run because its much less face roll and higher skill cap than bunker setups. Its much easier to get punished for being out of position or bursted down if you and your team are playing bad but its very rewarding for playing well. Nothings more satisfying than smacking a thief from 100>20 percent in a second and watching him spam disabling shot in a panic. The damage is also insane. I HIT, not crit, a ranger for 4k with my fire grab yesterday! My crits usually range from 5.5k-8k usually with some outliers close to 9k.

To those of you complaining about dragon’s tooth, its just icing on the cake and not worth building around. Sure it hits like a truck but its more for zoning and laying waste to points with AOE where players can’t easily decipher when to dodge. Point blank phoenix with arcane wave is more than enough to sate your AOE fancies.

A un-competitive game mode should hardly have any bearing on the balance of a competitive one(at least one that aspires to be like tPvP). Hotjoin is just for ‘supposed’ mindless fun and rewards zergers and deathmatchers far more than those who respect its win states and mechanics. Class balance is pretty awfully represented in such a mode.

Yeah I was solo queuing yesterday and went against premades with rank 5 and below players for some pretty hilarious results.

A new guardian player was holding close point and when I noticed it was contested I rotated back to help him. I saw him running AWAY from the point with his sword sheathed(he hadn’t even engaged in combat), with a ranger chasing him while pelting in the back for free bleed stacks. Apparently the guy was so frightened by this ranger killing 1v1 before the game, the thought of fighting him again was unthinkable. Another similar situation occurred where I was rotating back to close and saw the death icon on my mini map and assumed our close was going to be attacked. Nope, a player had simply died solo to the chieftain by attacking right out of the gate while the rest of our team was fighting over middle(a lot of pug teams just go after mob).

Its pretty frustrating right now to say the least because not only are you facing competent players with little to no support, but these poor guys have no idea what is going on and are getting owned.

TwoBit.5903:

A “boon hate” mechanic? The last thing this game needs are new mechanics to mitigate existing mechanics. How about addressing the problem with boons themselves by re-balancing them and the existing mechanics that are meant to deal with them?

The problem is boons have no natural counter besides some necro builds and absurd burst on the lower natural hp for the classes that utilize them more. Its either a niche role for one of the classes, or is a mechanic that also craps on all other classes as well(burst). With them taking the nerf bat to some of the burst mechanics in the game(mug was specifically mentioned as being looked at)Boon hate and stripping builds will have an adequate role within the current framework to bring down certain classes while the builds remain not too powerful themselves. Hypothetically of course, building more damage against boons means you’ll be building less straight damage against those who don’t.

Its a pretty cool addition I think for a part of the game that kind of went under-tuned at launch.

Down state is the only thing preventing this game from being a bad game for baddies(Hit team focus target=win).

Rally is entirely different issue. It makes for big plays and decisions, but I could see how it can frustrating by turning an otherwise even fight into a landslide.

Its actually a pretty good idea that further expands available roles and dynamics in the game beyond, “Dis guy has a lot of boons, we need lotz of dps reall fast to bring him downn” which fails horribly resulting in a tankele dominated meta.

While this does sort of scream hard counter aka. avoid this dude at all costs if you have boons, it just means you’ll have be more aware of your position relative to those you’re fighting and when you’re throwing up your boons. These builds might strong against boon builds but weaker against those who don’t(stacking more damage bonuses against boon stackers=weaker against regular opponents in comparison), so you’ll have to have a balanced team with roles that can neutralize their threat.

Its a good change to balance a lop sided part of the meta.

Team fight snowballs in conquest would never compare to the sheer kitten that would result from a true arena match. It would be fun just as a non competitive mode to blow off some steam but to balance around? No.

Shadow refuge cloaking an entire team for first strike advantage, time warp, aoe deadzones on corpses which would promote further rez signet play, and lets not forget the griefing that could result from multiple sustain bunker 2v2, 3v3 setups trolling people for minutes on end.

The devs are right, it would be a mess. I’d rather see other objective based modes or TDM with some side win conditions to force strategic play with respawn(‘one death and out’ wouldn’t work in this game).

Yeah pretty much the only thing holding offensive guards back right now is just how good their defensive builds are compared to all the other bunkers in the game. Most teams are going to want you to go defensive if you land a spot on a team and unless you run double guard which is much rarer for comps now.

Great build list btw.

The big issue I think the issue with balancing around 1v1 is that you into significant barriers.

1)Most classes can build themselves to be self-sufficient and 1v1 capable if they want to, its just that most optimal builds revolve around how they can contribute to the team as a whole rather than taking down players individually. Mesmer is a class that slowly shifted away from its duelist status to team fighter within the frame of the meta, sacrificing its utilities and elite to bring more team fight potential. Thieves have deadly 1v1 capable builds that can win most fights if played well, but these aren’t necessarily congruent with what a team needs which is strong single target burst and high sustained AOE dmg in teamfights. 1v1 balance can possible be done with a lot of tweaking(many months worth of balance), but is it optimal or necessary? I don’t think so.

2) You also run the risk of homogenizing your game to an extent that most professions will lose their flavor. If certain aspects of the game had be curbed(condition application, removal, dps, healing, etc.)so that any potentiality faced by any class can be countered assuming things equal, it removes a lot of the specialty and class specific knowledge that must applied while during gameplay. It then becomes use “Use ability A when class uses ability C or B when he uses A”, rather than knowing your class/build specific strengths and weaknesses and utilizes that to its fullest. A lot of “hard-countering” can be avoided simply by having a well balanced comp that covers your weaknesses. You lack mobility and can be trained easily? Communicate with your teammates to peel for you and watch your positioning relative to the enemy team. Squishy under burst and sustained damage? Let your heavies define the battle lines while you hover on the skirts looking for an opportunity.

Thus the idea of “team game” is born. Its not only what you bring as an individual but also a team to the fight. Figure out favorable pairs for striking points together in situations and don’t try to be “point hero” soloing an individual point if its not part of your strategy. Chances are, your teammates are dying and need your help somewhere else or a roamer’s blades will soon sate itself with your death.

There were perhaps a few god like gameplay moments that were facilitated by healers in my years of MMO pvp but such goodwill is out-weighed by all other times they’ve kitten me off to no end.

Seriously, pugging in games where healers make a huge difference is unbearable. A bunch of uncoordinated dps and some good healers makes for very long stagnant battles where barely anything happens. Or your side has “DPS” spec healers which results in your team getting annihilated.

I enjoy the game nearly as much as I did almost 7 months before but sPvP is not in a halfway functional state that would let mechanics shine like it should. I stopped playing after running into premades constantly making play sessions more frustrating than enjoyable like they should be. I’ll come back if an opportunity for me to have fun comes up again in the patches but I can’t be sure given the development progress.

Amazing game but still so lacking in a lot of ways. Its a shame.

Thanks for doing this again Grouch. Only thing I have to put forth at this point is that you’ve got two great players(Xeph, Zoose) that have a deep knowledge of the game and how to improve it. Allow them to have adequate time to ask the right questions. I think it would be better this time to push the devs on how they feel about the overall balance between classes is at the moment, even specifying further about certain problem areas.

Examples:
-Mesmer/Guardian still required. Why aren’t these integral roles that these classes have expanded to other classes? This is limiting an insane amount of build variety and comps right there!
-Elementalist bunkers. How have the changes affected the class in terms of balance and what else must be done.
-Thief damage and build versatility.
etc.

Tons of topics for sure so specifics might have to be avoided a little bit but I have full confidence you guys can pull it off.

gimmethegepgun.1284:

So you’re saying Burning Speed is easy to spot, and much harder to spot is Fire Scepter, which uses Dragon’s Tooth.
DT is so easy to dodge you don’t even need a dodge to get out of it.

No DT is mostly used for zoning or general application while point fighting. Landing it can be done through team-work(my guardian bud will often pull multiple people into the DT blast zone with his binding blade pull), or just luck. Its icing on the cake compared to your main area hitters phoenix, rof, arcane wave and fire grab. What I’m talking about applies to the burst phase I listed above in another post:

“Then proceed Hurl Rock Barrier-Switch Lightning Attunement for discharge-Hit lightning strike with auto-Arcane Blast. If possible follow up with RtL followed by Arcane wave for extra burst.”

Unless the enemy fighting on a point sees me coming from a distance(900 range) while I’m in earth attunement with rock barrier up he won’t avoid the burst unless he gets a lucky dodge. It happens incredibly fast and does significant single target damage even without having to switch to your fire line to apply more pressure.

DeusVolt.3298:

condiments.8043:

Too many D/D eles in this thread. S/D when built properly has reliable burst with arcane utilities that you can land from a safer distance than with D/D ele builds. It also has great self-sufficiency with the help of rock barrier, and good burst heal with water trident to help you or teammates. You just give up the control, team support with auras and constant swiftness provided by aura traits with D/D specs.

Best argument I’ve heard not to use scepter yet.

Depends on what your team needs really. While you can’t discount the utility of spreading buffs and auras to your teammates, you still have to operate around melee range to be effective making you more susceptible to AOE cleaves and burst attempts by the enemy team in larger team fights. This is why most D/D eles edge away from focusing more fully in damage traits and utilities as the danger of being locked down and killed is very possible. While some of the attacks in the scepter/dagger require you to be at close range like in the fire line the range of the other autos and skills allow you pick opportunities to engage fully with your damage abilities without putting yourself out of position.

Also for roaming dps S/D is much harder to spot if you’re trying to burst someone coming onto a point. Burning speed, while incredibly powerful, is pretty easy to spot and dodge. With S/D if you catch someone unawares fighting on a point you can easily shave off 1/2 to 3/4ths of their health before you even enter the point and lay the smack-down with your fire line.

So it comes to play-style and composition really.

My fellow bros let my enlighten you about S/D burst.

At least have 20 in air for bolt to the heart, electric discharge, and Air training. Grab Vital striking from water to also maximize the damage. Have utilities Arcane Blast and Arcane Wave.

Then proceed Hurl Rock Barrier-Switch Lightning Attunement for discharge-Hit lightning strike with auto-Arcane Blast. If possible follow up with RtL followed by Arcane wave for extra burst.

Mmmm, enjoy dat damage.

Too many D/D eles in this thread. S/D when built properly has reliable burst with arcane utilities that you can land from a safer distance than with D/D ele builds. It also has great self-sufficiency with the help of rock barrier, and good burst heal with water trident to help you or teammates. You just give up the control, team support with auras and constant swiftness provided by aura traits with D/D specs.

I’m more in favor of smaller tweaks to base weapon sets but there is no beating around the bush here, cantrips and high end heal stacking is too powerful. It makes the class way too face roll easy to be able to run three stun breakers, one giving a short term invulnerability, one a mid ranged teleport with multi-faceted uses, and another giving 7 3/4 seconds of stability and protection which are arguably the strongest boons in the entire game. This makes the ele too easy to lock down in addition to their natural skill sets with the weapons and if you diminish usefulness of the core abilities to much, you’re really only targeting builds that rely on them for survival(dps specs) over ones that stack defensive utilities. If you want to address the core of the problem of the elementalist, the nerf bat must come down on cantrips.

The elemental elite needs to be dealt with as well especially the fire/water elemental. Sustain/defensive eles shouldn’t be able to put out as much pressure as they do with that out. They either need a damage reduction or dramatic reduction in their overall health to make killing them an option. You could also do a bit of good reducing Earth’s Embrace activation to 25 percent to 10 percent activation or pushing it into tier 2 earth. As it is, its too strong to run with the other sustain traits. Armor of earth needs to give 5-6 seconds max of protection and stability(maybe even 3 seconds on stability) and shouldn’t be a stun break.

I ran the 0/10/10/30/20 D/D ele in september/october with full cantrips with earth runes for high protection uptime and it crazy powerful even back then when everyone thought the class was worthless. It was always strong, and will always be breaking balance as long as stacking cantrips give you too much survival.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

I just wanted to pop in once more and let you guys know that we are still watching this thread and evaluating our options. There is some good discussion here, and I do actually agree with the general consensus.

Despite all the ranting that goes on with a thread when Anet employee speaks, we appreciate you guys talking to us today. Keep it up.

It really wasn’t that you had 50 keys in WoW, builds/classes would still get severely hard countered depending on who they faced. Arenas mostly function in WoW because the lack of any build variance to expected in higher level games. Most classes had 1-2 viable specs often of such varying disposition(Ret vs. Holy paladin) that preventing getting “hard countered” was just a matter of copying one of the well rounded meta comps like RMP. Also characters were far sustained with omni-present aspect of healing in any competitive matches.

I just don’t think Arena really plays to the game’s strengths. They can certainly create a mode that focuses on killing, but have other conditions that must be met in order to win. Certain boosters that give more points for killing or temporary power boosts spread across a large map. Arena would just put too many constraints on a system that still needs room to grow out for class builds. Full fledged capture the flag or some variant mixture would be fun.

RTL should be half the distance and Lightning Flash should cause ‘Immune’ to pop up. Mist form is probably ok, if its still too much it should drop the orb.

Larynx.2453:

ensoriki.5789:

They said in the State of the Game January video why they’re only on Conquest.
Having pts around the map, makes people move around the map instead of staying in one spot to fight, and when they tried death match, people would wait to engage and hope to pop elites where there effect can be diminished by the Conquest format :o.

So instead of having a clusterkitten in midfield, we have two zergs picking off individuals. Great job.

As for TDM, that’s why you implement ARENA, not TDM. As in, 2v2, 3v3, etc. arena matches. TDM with 40 people really doesn’t work for MMOs.

It’s sad when a game like WoW has better PvP map design than a so called “Esports” game. Even WoW’s conquest is better. The maps in GW2 just plain suck, and I’m not alone in this opinion.

The reason why Arena isn’t in this game(other than the resource difficulty), is that it just wouldn’t work in this game or at least not be that fun. Too much of arena matches would boil down to comp stomps because you didn’t run a utility that could counter the opponents.

Like for example, imagine teams with thieves on them running shadow refuge out of the gate. They’ve got first strike advantage on their opponent and can position themselves however they want on their first priority target, whereas the other team has to run around like chickens so their invisibility runs out. What about things like time warp?

The game just lends itself to more objective based gameplay that creates focal points for battles and spread players out enough so it doesn’t become a cluster. They can definitely spread past the conquest mode they’ve implemented.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Oni.5429:

You have two separate tourny ques at this moment. One for 3 round and one for 1 round. In a blog post you guys said that they had separate matchmaking. Paid tournaments previously demonstrated that you guys have the ’’feature’’ in place to force someone to be 5 premade players to que in to the match. You also now have a ‘’join solo’’ button.

If you piece these pieces together you get:

1.Make one tournament que ‘’join solo’’ only, 1 round
2. Make the other que ‘’submit roster’’ with 5 only , 1 round

LE VOILA!
It’s okay, we can scrap the idea of duoq for now. Put that in your ’’soon’’ basket. You can do the same for the random map generator, just keep rotating maps manually the way you guys do every 2 days or something.

There. That is the solution that will allow solo players to play the game without getting stomped by teams.

So in this suggestion, people would only play as a team of 5 or by themselves. That would mean effectively disabling tournaments for people who want to play tournaments with a friend. Or two friends, or three friends, but don’t have a full team. I can’t imagine that would go over very well either.

While this is definitely true as I often play with friends but can’t gather full groups, I’ll concede the fact that solo queue is necessary for growing the community, as the majority of players who jump in don’t have friends to play with on a regular basis. Separating solo and team queues is necessary for providing a environment where new players don’t feel cheated regardless of how necessary it feels to join the queues now. More players will join in if they feel they have a chance.

When I ran with premades in PvP last month when it was full team only, the queue was very quick and the fights were always good. It won’t be bad as you guys think for splitting up the queues. Worry about adding duo queue later.

Also some of you other posters here need to chill out. The frustration is understandable but you aren’t anyone here favors pushing these devs from saying anything because the first time their open up your mouths you guys nerd rage. I realize people like Narcarsis, and Oni play on a consistent basis so its especially annoying, but your the main line to these kitten devs. Be cordial, and invite them to talk as individuals.

mjharrison.3209:

The <1% of the game still playing stPVP might be content (for today) but virtually none of the changes materially affect WVW, where the real PVP happens.

This patch does nothing to address the real issues the game faces which is an extreme lack of intra-class balance amongst weapons/skills/traits. If anything, thee changes will push more Eles towards tankish D/D, because any other spec is just objectively worse.

Wrong. The patch pretty much lowered the strength of all ele specs to be sure, but saying tanky D/D ele is the only viable spec is just not true at all. As it stands, S/D is still better on extreme ends of the spectrum for DPS and pure tanking power, while D/D provides good team support via Aura share with strong lockdowns and overall skillset. With the healing nerfs it might be a little dangerous to get too squishy with D/D builds, whereas with S/D dps you can burst from a safer distance.

leman.7682:

OP talked with the devs on Skype after Xeph wrote his wonderful (now deleted) topic.

The devs convinced OP to write this topic, hoping his position would calm the community.

The OP obliged.

Community is calm.

Mission accomplished.

Got any evidence to back up this claim? Even if this was true, I’d consider it a win that Xeph got to talk to the devs regarding his topic.

Phantaram.1265:

Razor I’m completely in tune with how every ele spec was affected. No specs were killed off whatsoever any ele spec that was viable before is still viable.

Yeah Phantaram knows his stuff. I was raging earlier too at the EA nerfs but it hasn’t hurt hybrid builds that much. Was running his dps build in solo queue earlier and I’m still wrecking everyone I come across including the aurashare D/D eles. The heal nerf does hurt sustain a little but the damage we have is still really strong. Still viable.

I wish there were more changes, especially allowing for more builds with other classes but the queue system, the removal of paids, and matchmaking are all great changes. I’ve had good luck solo and duo queuing all night with good close fights for each. They need to make ratings visible asap to keep this players coming into the game.

Just take a deep breath, see if you enjoy the game and make your decision there.

It hasn’t been that bad for me so far so I haven’t seen the big deal. Guess I’ll have to play more and see how my hidden rating will change that.

Fernling.1729:

playandchill.3908:

Gilgamesh.2561:

Godly Black Ownage.4902:

Oh, people still play this game?? You guys really believe that anet is capable of fixing the game?? The fact is they cant, its funny how history repeats itself….just look at Guild Wars 1.Nuff said…. Amen!!

Go back to WoW.

I did.

Bye

Funny enough, I did too. GW2 made me appreciate WoW pvp.

As bad as some of these patchnotes are….you actually LIKE getting CC’d/rooted/stunned every couple of seconds?

There goes quite a bit of my survivability with my burst S/D ele with this EA nerf. :/