Guild Wars 2

I agree that the OP has some very valid points.

I think the reason for all the time gated updates and being forced into playing before a certain time is simply the fact that Anet found that more updates means more buzz means more players. While the original plan was to release them over longer time periods, around a month, they changed it to release more content faster, but all these events meant that they needed to get rid of the ones before. I suppose rather than having all these events building up, they just make them time out, forcing you to play, which is good for business.

This article explains http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/08/28/guild-wars-2s-first-birthday-by-the-numbers/.

I have been thinking of buying something that will make playing GW2 a little easier on my fingers, and will hopefully improve my play, and am trying to decide between a multibutton MMO mouse, such as a Razer Naga, and a gaming keypad, such as the Belkin n52te. I only want to buy one or the other, I don’t play enough to feel like I can justify buying both.

Many people seem to think that they are both great additions, but if you could only have one which do you think would be better?

Thanks in advance.

Amplifier.1704:

5 has way too high cast time compared to the damage. Yes it is a blast finisher, but your own fire aura have ended before you finish casting it.

You have missed the fact that it doesn’t matter if the fire field from ring of fire has gone before you finish casting it. The blast finisher will apply and give you your stacks of might after the cast providing that you started the cast while the ring of fire is up. I assume here by fire aura you meant the fire combo field from ring of fire. Sorry and correct me there if I am wrong.

Morthur.3894:

nealpatel.3406:

Usually you will use earth before fire, air before earth, and water when you need it but try not to break the synergy between fire and earth.

Generally I agree with your post but the quoted text is either incorrect or I’m totally misunderstanding something:

Earth before Fire? Air before Earth?? Normally you’d want to go [Air -> ] Fire -> Earth to trigger a ton of might stacks from your fire field(s) with all those sweet finishers in the earth attunement. Don’t know why you’d go from Air to Earth to Fire. Water when you need it is OK but the other three seem strange to me.

Was that just a mistake or typo or do you want to explain the strange order of attunements?

Cheers
Morthur

Sorry, that was a typo, the synergy between fire and earth that I talk about is the blast finishers earth provides. The correct rotation is air —> fire —> earth. Thank you very much for noticing and letting me know!

Hi all, this is more directed at players new to the d/d ele, but more advanced players may learn something too. Before anyone mentions this I know that a fixed rotation isn’t really optimal because you need to react to any given situation. This rotation is not fixed, many skills are in brackets, it is the order of skills which is generally optimal in PvE. I have created this by looking at every rotation I could find online and a lot of theorycrafting and then finally, testing. Funnily enough, no one had hit this exact rotation although many people had similar ones some of which had the rotation for 1 attunement perfect but the rest slightly off. IMO this rotation means you will keep boons for the longest time, apply conditions for the longest times and generally provide the most solid DPS.

If anyone has any feedback to improve this or why something else is better please let me know. The rotation is below.

Air: 4|5,(2),(3)
Fire: (3),(25),4
Earth:4,(33),5,(2)
Water:3,(5),2,4 against melee, use 4,(5),2,3 against ranged

KEY
Brackets – when the situation allows for it, these skills dont always need to be used, you usually will if you can but generally it won’t matter too much. Eg. the (3) in fire can be used as a gap closer to a melee enemy or just to hit them, but dont use it if it will create distance from a ranged enemy.
4|5 – either order, usually 4,5 would be an opener or gap closer, whereas if you are already in melee range 5|4 is better.

Usually you will use fire before earth, air before fire, and water when you need it but try not to break the synergy between fire and earth.

NOTE. I havent added to the rotation utilities such as lightning flash, arcane wave, or rolls with evasive arcana. These skills are very situational so cant really be set in a rotation, but its usually obvious, anything with a blast finisher, eg roll under earth attunement with evasive arcana should be set off if there is a fire field down.

Excellent guide, thanks very much, I am pretty new to ele but still found it really useful and this guide is especially great as an addition to Daphoenix’s guide. I would recommend both to any new or experienced ele, and feel that my PvE and PvP play has improved a lot as a result.

I am just wondering whether this build is currently still optimal. I haven’t been following patches particularly closely but have found out about the nerfs to RtL, Soothing Disruption and Zephyrs Boon. Are there any changes that should be made to the build?

On a side note thank you very much for the unbelievable guide that makes the learning curve with a new toon a lot less steep. I am sure a large chunk of the elementalist community owes you a lot.

Decided to level an ele to 80 seeing as I have grown a little bored of my mesmer. Reminds me of my mesmer in that I struggled until I used a far better build and became fluent with it, after which solo pve levelling became a breeze.

Please can someone link me to a very good solo pve build that I can use to level to 80. I am thinking of going d/d as it seems to offer a lot of mobility and will undoubtedly be what I use at 80, but I will look at anything you guys suggest.

Thanks very much in advance.

You have already mentioned what I was going to suggest which would be to get a controller that is more friendly to your hands and remap any controls you struggle with to it. It will take some tweaking but I am sure you will find a way that works. I know of the razer naga gaming mouse which may help aswell, look it up, it is pricey but it should help a LOT if you are willing to spend the money.

Good luck!

I currently have a level 80 mesmer (which I love) but it’s getting kind of stale. I’ll be doing a fair bit of pvp on it so I would like an alt which is very good at spvp/WvWvW, but still reasonable for endgame solo PvE. A bonus if its good at just farming because mesmer sucks… Also I don’t particularly care if it is easy or difficult to level, mesmer is meant to be difficult and I didn’t mind the challenge, but sometimes yes it would have been nice if it was easier.

Currently I’m deciding between warrior, guardian, ranger, thief, elementalist, but really can’t decide…

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.