Guild Wars 2

rjnemer.7816:

Why would they be empty? They should be filled with AR.

AR for what? PvE? Endless dungeon grind? lol

AR does nothing for WvW.

Player Character.9467:

covenn.7165:

Player Character.9467:

But at the same time, servers would intentionally not sweep for mesmers in SMC and other keeps at the end of matches and SMC alone would flip 10 times an hour.

SMC is the only keep that gives a reasonable amount of dragonite currently. Your response makes no sense to me. Please clarify…

If you made the keeps worth considerably more people would organize between the servers to flip them as frequently as possible (letting mesmers stay in inner to port in) and farm crazy amounts of dragonite from killing a lord, standing in the circle, and moving on to the next lord.

They could …anything could happen. The reality is that it won’t otherwise it would already be going on with SMC.

titanlectro.5029:

Are you kidding? You can escape anything with swiftness + FGS, if you can survive standing still to cast it. My escape plan is always: 1) use CCs/cantrips to gain a little breathing room, 2) FGS

The life of a staff ele is summed up nicely here.

Use cantrips and your elites to get away from classes you have no hope of killing that are not using either

The best bet is still not to ever be caught away from your zerg with a staff out.

Player Character.9467:

But at the same time, servers would intentionally not sweep for mesmers in SMC and other keeps at the end of matches and SMC alone would flip 10 times an hour.

SMC is the only keep that gives a reasonable amount of dragonite currently. Your response makes no sense to me. Please clarify…

skullmount.1758:

Well I must not be that good of a staff ele, cause I’m pretty much always caught. I think I’ve gotten away maybe ~10% of the time.

Lightning flash, mist form, and staff cc will only get you so far. As long as that distance is behind a keep or back to spawn, or lets you break combat to port… then you are fine. You can try running FGS and using 3 and 4 to help you some, though even that wont get you away from the more mobile thieves/warriors/rangers/etc. but it will help you a lot.

The better option is to never have a staff out when away from the zerg or the safety of a structure

Nanyetah Elohi.4852:

I use staff and am getting more kills than getting killed. None of the commanders have ever suggested I use anything but staff, either. In fact, some of the skills the commanders constantly ask for from ele’s are only available on staff (static field, water fields).

Did you read any of the responses? Yes, that is the situation where staff excels…. zerging.

On that note, reading through this thread… there are a whole lot of people that need to learn the game mechanics a little better before posting. Wow.

kuora.5402:

Or you can carry condition removals

Ehh…. I see both side of this coin. I have a class that is condition based and a class that excels at removing them. There isn’t any amount of condition removal in this game that can strip them faster than I can apply them with my necro.

Cynz.9437:

covenn.7165:

There is one place staff is useful on an ele… and that is fighting zergs. Everywhere else, ele’s are absolutely free points. Stop whining about nothing.

everywhere else maybe… but we talk about wvw here

Catch a staff ele solo = free points.

Catch a staff running havoc = free points.

Catch a staff ele on the edge of a zerg = free points.

Catch a staff ele in a zerg away from a structure that doesn’t have people willing to kill you off of them = free points.

Catch a staff ele pretty much anywhere away from a door they can’t port through or a wall to hide behind = free points.

Honestly, there isn’t a worse class/weapon combination in the game than a staff ele away from a zerg or a structure they can hide behind. Even other ele’s running different weapon sets look at staff eles as free points.

I am not complaining about it, it is just the way it is. The weapon set excels in zerg fights and around structures. There is nothing to complain or whine about here. Besides dragon tooth is scepter… all the staff abilities are line of site or ground target.

The only ability that doesnt require line of site is dragon tooth. There are other classes with other abilities that can do this as well.

sostronk.8167:

If you run havoc in a BL you can farm ~80 EMP fragments an hour. If your not experienced in WvW you might need to roll with someone who is though.

Emp frags are at least comparable to PvE. Now if they would make the keeps worth 25 dragonite each. Taking a T3, sieged up hills that is being defended by 80 angry players is far more effort than spending 20 minutes mindlessly doing melandru for the 50th time. Getting 3 dragonite for taking that keep is a slap in the face tbh.

Tom Gore.4035:

I don’t have a problem with dragonite. One night doing boss events / temples nets you 200 ore or more. The Empyreal Fragments are more painful for me, since I’m not a very avid dungeon/fractal runner.

Yeah… well you are a PvE person. Nothing wrong with that, but it isn’t for me. I don’t play any game the requires PvE because it bores me to tears. There is nothing exciting or engaging about it.

I just want equal opportunity to obtain things in WvW. I have no problem putting in the time or the efforts as long as the time/risk/reward are comparable. Unfortunately, it is not even remotely close.

Honestly I would be happy if WvW was even remotely close to being comparable to PvE in regards to dragonite. The discrepancy is pretty freaking huge.

Only true if you play one character Veltoss. I will still be another 6 months or so before I will have ascended accessories for my small man / solo gear set. Then I can start working on other toons.

This game is getting really stale for me.

Unless the entire mechanics behind how the conjures work is changed, they will never be viable in WvW outside of a few distinct circumstance. Why? An ele has to give up everything when they summon a weapon.

My hopes for geyser is double the duration as well as radii to match other AoEs. So far, so good with the change being made.

Changing unsteady ground to working like line of warding is pretty huge, but it is not going to stop staff ele’s from being free points to pretty much anything but uplevelled players if they are caught alone. I do really like this change though….

There is one place staff is useful on an ele… and that is fighting zergs. Everywhere else, ele’s are absolutely free points. Stop whining about nothing.

This is absolutely horrible for a member of ANET staff to behave like this. I suggest that people involved put in support tickets to make an ‘official’ complaint. I also suggest that this ‘finds its way’ to some reputable gaming sites….. would make an interesting article for someone to write with some exposure.

I like that the ranks are character bound. Getting rewarded for playing a character instead of jumping to whatever the next flavor of the month is is better …..

Stealth was just poorly designed and even worse in implementation. The unfortunate truth is that it won’t be changed because it is far too late for that to occur. Any significant change to it now will drive all the thieves away from the game and ANET can hardly afford that.

750 badges of honor is like 2-3 days of casual WvW… so no.

I think 2-4k is far, depending on if it is a 1 or 2h weapon. In addition, we still need ascended back pieces on the WvW merchants.

Vapor form? Count to three while following vapor, start stomp again. GG

Static field switch from daze to stun next patch by the way.

Rackhir Tanelorn.9123:

So the current implementation is a way for Roamers and Havoc Teams to contribute to the score without making the Zerg even more powerful.

Actually, I think the exact opposite is true given the current implementation. It is a heck of a lot easier for 30 people to get stomps of when fighting 10 than it is for 10 people to get stomps off when fighting 30.

Littlefeather.8623:

covenn.7165:

Is this buff only to promote silly finishers for a downed state mechanic most of us despise anyways? I just don’t get it.

Why not simply make it on kill instead of forcing people to use finishers when the buff is active?

L2P?

Yeah, because stomping is most definitely a L2P issue. /sarcasm

I disagree that it rewards small groups, especially when fighting out numbered …unless the people you are fighting are bad.

I am no longer able to play this game in WvW due to the blinking pattern of the bloodlust buff setting off my epilepsy. Can you please fix this for those of us this effects?

Thanks

Is this buff only to promote silly finishers for a downed state mechanic most of us despise anyways? I just don’t get it.

Why not simply make it on kill instead of forcing people to use finishers when the buff is active?

Everyone IN T1 hates it too…. not sure why you think otherwise.

Behellagh.1468:

They price items based on cash never the Gold to Gem rate. A single MF is $1.88, five pack is $1.38 each.

No real value there. Why spend money to only augment a small fraction of monthly play time? I would rather pay a subscription fee and get real value from a game company actually making improvements to the portion of the game I like to play.

Titan.3472:

Hey guys L2P I aoe zerg with retal but I never die of it BECAUSE I KNOW HOW TO AVOID IT : and btw watch your ennemy buff before casting anything helps also.

Hey how about you L2P and stop being so condescending …I don’t die to retal either because I save mist form for it and maximize my defense. Good luck picking out retal buffs on a 50 person blob and deciding if enough people have the buff to kill you when you meteor shower triggers 40 ticks in a single second.

Perfectly balanced. Hit a few people for a very manageable 2-3k …take 20k damage in return instantly. We need more counters to blobbing, not less…. perhaps l2p and you would realize that?

Aberrant.6749:

I think that 10 times per 10s is a bit weak tbh… like… I’m not even asking for that much. 10 times per 2s would be a VAST improvement.

Hell, 10x per SECOND would be a huge improvement. I think I would be ok even with 20 ticks per second, because at least then it wouldn’t eat through my entire health pool instantly.

A ‘tanky’ ele (tanky is laughable in its own right with all nerfs since release :p ) will max out at about 24k health with stacks… roughly. Remember, lowest health pool and armor combination in the entire game…..

One meteor shower against a coordinated enemy blob that is keeping retal may result in the entire health pool of that ‘tanky’ ele going from 24k health to 0 in a second or 2. The only recourse being to keep from getting downed by using a single AoE ability designed for that EXACT purpose is to mist form, because you cant stop the meteors…

Yeah sure, run 20 necros to strip the retal that is being put back up right away anyways by a coordinated blob…. blah blah blah, whatever. Garbage responses, all of them. Every bit of coordination a good team uses is also going to be used by good opponents they fight.

No need to nerf retal damage…. no need to take away abilities that give it. Simply cap the amount of ticks you can take to it per second to something reasonable and balanced.

Is that number 1 per second? No. WAY too low.

Is that number unlimited per second? WAY to freaking high.

How about 10 ticks per second? 15? Is that reasonable?

dwahvel.7356:

What I got from this post is…….“I run glass ele and I died because I didn’t watch my health bar” “I know nothing about guardians but staff 1 must be overpowered”.

What I get from your post is that you didnt read or pay attention to the other posts before spouting off.

Full soldiers gear at the tradeoff of hitting like a wet noodle and still go from full health to dead/spamming mist form in a second or 2 on an ability we can’t stop once its started.

Skyllar.3562:

My guildies used to run zerker ele’s, (bad word filter block)hitting for 7-8k per meteor, and somehow managed to survive.

Math doesn’t support you. You will not see 7-8k meteor showers reliably consistently or ever unless hitting uplevelled. There is a way to make it happen now more frequently on people in zerker gear / light armor …but the stars till have to align to allow the ele to get their damage bonuses (bolt/tempest defense/etc.).

DevonCarver.5370:

Doing so would invalidate the time people spend acquiring that gear. I think the heart of your post is in the right place, but what we would rather do is make possible for people to get the gear by playing WvW with a sprinkling of PvE, rather than the other way around.

Is that ever going to happen? The rewards for WvW are grossly understated compared to PvE. Each and every house I WvW, someone spending the same time in PvE is getting 5x or more than me. Not only that, they are doing it by tackling mindkitten ring, and repetitive content.

Simply put, you are blowing smoke up our respective kittens once again.

Also, you made the discrepancy vastly worse when you added ascended gear. You could have at least normalized the rewards for that from the get go. You chose not to and the fact remains that I can get vastly more of the materials I need through PvE in the same amount of time…. as in not even close.

DevonCarver.5370:

Shiren.9532:

I primarily PvE but I still don’t see the actions over the last year as reasonable attempts to make ascended items fairly available to WvW players. I don’t care what you’d like to do, I only care about what you actually do.

Speaking as someone who has only gotten Ascended gear via WvW vendors, I’d say that’s nonsense. Speaking as a developer, we are continuing to make this better, which is not to say perfect. There will be more ways to acquire the ascended mats as part of the season and we will look into adding yet additional ways after that.

So you got an ascended back piece from WvW?

I didn’t think so.

Months have gone by and still no back piece…

I have no problem paying subscription fees if the game is worth it. I would also, likewise, have no problem buying gems with my money if there was real value there. I would spend money for salvage kits, boosters, etc. if the price was reasonable. Unfortunately there just isn’t enough value there to justify it.

Why spend a monthly subscription fee’s (from other games) worth of money to only augment my game play for a couple of hours. No real value there.

urieldhynne.2743:

Dont go glasscanon to wvw.

I guess you didnt read and/or don’t realize that in full PTV gear some classes, due to the very mechanics of playing their class, can get kitten near close to isnta gibbed by retaliation by simply playing the class the way it was designed for the situation at hand.

Judging by your response, that has to be the case right? Just a lack of understanding.

Thrumdi.9216:

AoE sure does encourage faceroll zergballs. Heard of the 5-man AoE limit?

Get in a group of 6 or larger, and play the odds.

You got that a little wrong… it isn’t the AoE promoting it. It is the limit cap on most AoE abilities. If most AoE wasn’t target limited, people would be spreading out really quickly, heh.

Condition damage. Toughness is worth zero.

Niim.9260:

Nothing in his posts indicates he is fighting even numbers to the point that DPS wouldn’t matter. We fight 5 vs 25 all the time, DPS matters.

Retal implementation is just another zerg friendly, no coordination required, face-roll play style that makes this game the boring PVT hammer train that it is.

Agreed on the last part.

Regarding the first part, I don’t do havoc much any more and generally don’t run staff when I do because i find it isn’t optimal for me. Regardless, you are still 100% correct.

King Amadaeus.8619:

Not saying that using your skills is bad in large fights at all, just saying that if you are weighing your options on if your team needs 1500 or 3500 from you in a large scale fight, you might want to re-think that.

I mean don’t get me wrong we all love seeing those crazy large numbers, but it is just fluff in a 25v25 fight. Personally I and most people I fight with want our eles on CC duty and waterfield duty first and foremost.

Going to comment on at least on this part :

Understand first how the ele class has to be played. When my support abilities and/or attunements are on cool down, the only thing I can do is damage. You seem to be not connecting that very well with what I am trying to tell you.

So yeah, its an easy thing to ‘say’ you want ele’s on water field duty and cc duty first and foremost when you clearly don’t understand the class. Simple example, an ele can’t simply sit in water to wait for a water field call nor can an ele simply avoid switching to water in order to keep it off of cool down because we might need to cleanse or heal ourselves to stay alive.

Hey, did you know I can spam weakness, cripple, or chill on a blob (my choice on onset) with things like meteor shower? Did you know my one viable water field is on a really long cool down (the other is tiny and really short, useable but not nearly as viable)? Really, I think this is a pointless discussion because you really don’t know the finer points of the class.

Anyways, i have mist form to counter.

King Amadaeus.8619:

Probably a moot point to someone like you, but you realize in the large-scale type fights you seem to be referencing that DPS is not that useful?

What do you mean ‘someone like you’ ? You have a problem with asuras?

Jokes aside, you need a finer understanding of how the elementalist class is/has to be played. I am not trying to be disrespectful by telling you that, but you are way off base with some of your responses.

Anyways, we are constantly fighting 20ish vs massive blob as a guild. In order for us to win in those situations (which we actively seek out), each and every one of us has to play effectively. My CC has to be on point, my damage focused, and water fields timely. DPS is vastly more useful in this situation than you are making it out to be.

Anyways… add in how my class mechanics and abilities demand that it be played… then and only then can you understand what I am saying to you. There seems to be a rather large disconnect here.

I am open to one of the following:

1. Add about 9k health to my pool to put me on par with necros.

2. Cap the amount of retal pulses you can take per second to 5.

3. Redesign my class.

:)

King Amadaeus.8619:

Also there is something to be said about the fact that if you personally cast a skill on a large group, while knowing full well it will ignore the AoE-cap….Well I guess it should be a gamble for you if you live or die. You think it would be balanced if you could just sit behind walls all day and spam said skills with no chance of penalty?

I don’t sit behind walls, sorry. If that is your style of game play, more power to you. I won’t hold it against you.

You are absolutely right though, I shouldn’t use the abilities I have in the situation they are designed for in favor of doing….. ? That still leaves the other abilities and the inherent danger they cause from retal by how they work. Should I not use those either?

Sarcasm aside, I do have a counter. It is mist form. The other counter is to not use my staff effectively in the exact situation it was designed for. Sorry, but I simply won’t do that.

Rednik.3809:

while skilled “killers of spammers” want to stay behind in safety, roll their faces on 1-2-3-4-5 and don’t care about stupid things like non-zerk gear, boon stripping
and backlash from retal? Oh, i see now.

Hey now! The eles out there do this….

(well function keys default for attune swap.. but mine is alt)
Alt1 – 1-2-3-4-5
Alt2 – 1-2-3-4-5
Alt3 – 1-2-3-4-5
Alt4 – 1-2-3-4-5

Let me give a little reality…. we hit a blob.

Air 5 – Alt 1 – Fire 2 – (Fire 1 auto) – Fire 5

My opening CC and best way to guarantee I can maximize damage / damage procs as I have them frozen in the circles. I can’t stop lava font pulses after I drop it or meteor shower after the channel starts (can shorten it some though).

Here is what happens if they have retal. My health bar goes from 20-24k down to 3k in the time it takes me to both see the eleventybillion retal pulses and react by pressing the ‘R’ button (my bind for mist form). Why does this happen? A combination of my abilities landing close to the same time and abilities hitting far more than 5 targets each. Heh

I mean sure, I suppose I could open up with static, switch over to earth, drop #2 and watch as they come out of static and move away before eruption fires an eternity later. Maybe I could just stay in air and hit 3 targets for 800-1500 damage every second (depending if I crit or not), stay in fire and auto attack for 1500 on 5 targets, or better …switch to water and spam #1 and hit one person for 300 since I am in PTV. :p Oh I guess I can just cycle through all of my CC in each attune and spam that on them all at once :p

King Amadaeus.8619:

Just think of it as penance for all the free kills/xp/loots you have been getting from all that AoE tagging, while the rest of us are well-behind you in all of the above due to limited AoE and mainly single target attacks.

:P

Nothing I get is ‘free’. If I wanted free kills, I would play my thief and gank people or my necro if I wanted to tag spam. Unfortunately both those classes (and my guardian) bore me to death.

King Amadaeus.8619:

If retaliation is killing you with a 5-man AoE cap then…its a build/gear/l2p

I am sorry, not even saying that as a cop-out either…There have been times when it’kitten me really kitten a mesmer or engi, but never died from it.

Sorry, but you do not seem to have an understanding of some of the game mechanics and how different abilities work on different classes.

1. Not all abilities are AoE capped.

2. Some abilities pulse damage or channel multiple ticks FnF.

3. Some abilities have lead time.

Add in all the above on a few classes that have no choice but to use those sort of abilities, and you quickly get into situations where people in full PTV can literally kill themselves on retail in a second or two because they are getting hit with dozens of ticks per second.

Anyways, enough of that. Mist form is my counter to being able to try and deblob a zerg stacking retaliation nonstop and it works for the most part. It is just kind of silly.

Niim.9260:

This. The issue is how it scales in my opinion. I have no issues with retal itself, I just think there should be a cap on how many times you can hit by retal per second.

Agreed and a reasonable solution.

Honestly, I would be ok with being hit by it 3-5x per second, because at least it is manageable. What I can’t manage is having a channel AoE like meteor shower ticking, lava font ticking, and fireball or something hitting all at the same time causing me to take, literally no joke, like 30+ ticks in a second.