Guild Wars 2

Aeosoth.2461:

sanestar.8731:

Elementalist isn’t quite your ‘pick up and play’ class like ranger or warrior might be. I consider it to be one of the harder classes to learn since you have so many skills to track and it feels like you’re typing an essay in combat.

The best way I’d say is to play core ele using Fresh Air with either dagger/x or scepter/x (many people like focus for the utility and sustain. I prefer offhand dagger for the much higher damage. All personal preference). With Fresh Air you’ll be constantly switching out of air, hit a crit, switch back, repeat.

I’d say learn d/d since weaver will be a frontliner, and d/d is the closest we have currently. It will help you learn rotations and how to survive better in the thick of things. It’s really just a matter of practice and getting used to everything. Weaver will be taking it to a whole new level with more skills (though maybe not as much swapping in a short amount of time with the whole universal CD on attunements increase). Hope this helps a little. Cheers~

Thanks for the response! I know it’s a difficult class to learn, which is probably why I’ve been afraid to touch it up until this point. But on the other hand, it’ll be all the more rewarding when I do learn to play it properly.

When you say core ele, do you mean without Tempest tree? If so, what build would you recommend for d/d? Seeing as I’ll probably do sword/dagger, this feels like a good place to start.

And FWIW, I’m only interested in the PvE side of things, PvP has never really interested me

Hey! Sorry for the late reply, work has kept me very busy these past few weeks. Being an adult sucks. Anyway…

Yes, when people say ‘core’ they mean without elite specializations (i.e. tempest, weaver, ect.) I personally find core ele far stronger than tempest. But that’s just my play style. PvE is the easier thing since in open world you can use pretty much anything. I play PvE and WvW so I generally make builds in terms of WvW moreso. They work great in both. Recently, I’ve been playing a bit glassier and it’s been fun! Below is a build I threw together that gives high damage with a bit of sustain. If you’re having a hard time try celestial trinkets. Don’t need to play meta to be effective (and the main thing is to have fun!)

Below: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAoYhMMozhFOwsB8RM0AYSBIA8BpjwM4HUZhb4UA-TByHAB9o8TP1VaSJ4eqUk/DAAgTAQ47P4leAA-e
(Sigils can be changed since I know they are a little pricey for some people.)

My main build is a high boon build (maxes out at 93% boon duration) but it’s pretty expensive (less so if you convert ascended armour). The link to that one is below. This one is amazing. I use it with celestial trinkets in WvW roaming and large scale. It’s great in PvE as well as it provides a solid mix of offensive and defensive stats. If you have any more questions feel free to ask!

(boon build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArYhMMozhFOwsB8RM0AYVW4GOFkAZA4DSHhZwPA-TBCXABQoEk3TAAp7PcrKFwquS0PAAAU+FieAA-e)

Elementalist isn’t quite your ‘pick up and play’ class like ranger or warrior might be. I consider it to be one of the harder classes to learn since you have so many skills to track and it feels like you’re typing an essay in combat.

The best way I’d say is to play core ele using Fresh Air with either dagger/x or scepter/x (many people like focus for the utility and sustain. I prefer offhand dagger for the much higher damage. All personal preference). With Fresh Air you’ll be constantly switching out of air, hit a crit, switch back, repeat.

I’d say learn d/d since weaver will be a frontliner, and d/d is the closest we have currently. It will help you learn rotations and how to survive better in the thick of things. It’s really just a matter of practice and getting used to everything. Weaver will be taking it to a whole new level with more skills (though maybe not as much swapping in a short amount of time with the whole universal CD on attunements increase). Hope this helps a little. Cheers~

Based on the ‘gameplay’ that WoodenPotatoes showed doing the post show of yesterday’s stream, all traits and skills that are based on your current attunement is the one that you most recently switched to.

Example: You are in Earth/Air with the Stone Heart trait. That trait is active. Now you switch to Air, making you Air/Earth. Stone Heart comes off and Air traits are now active.

Same for glyphs. You most recent attunement will be the determining factor. In short, whatever attunement your auto-attack is will be what you benefit from for traits and glyphs. Hope this clarified things! Cheers~

I certainly agree with you. Gold should be really hard. But I’ve spent at least an hour on the Fallen Masks one now and still can only get to 19 max. I just think they need to be better balanced. They need to factor in the animation times a little more, but I donno, I’m prolly just super frustrated right now with them, lol. Cheers.

I donno if there’s already a thread about this or not, the search function seemed to fail me. So, I’ve started doing as many adventures as I can for the exp and MPs, but some of them seem next to impossible for gold.

Example: Fallen Masks (In Auric Basin). Bronze: 10, easy enough, Silver: 15, again, not too bad, Gold: 25…I can’t even get 20 in the 3 min it gives you let alone 5 more than that. The main issue with this one is that the bouncing mushroom animation is so long, on top of the randomness of your target (which isn’t that big of a deal) it can make for a very frustrating experience. If it was 20 for gold that’d make sense. I’ve barely gotten 19 once, and I can get 18 consistently.

Now, before you say “you must be doing it wrong” (who knows, maybe I am) I’ve gotten gold in all but two I’ve done thus far. The Shooting Range (in VB) and Fallen Masks (as stated above). Anyone else struggling with these two or others? Just seems like no matter how hard I try I can’t even come close to getting gold. Heck, can’t even seem to get silver on the shooting range, but haven’t tried as much there.

I’d like to hear other people’s experiences with adventures, pros and cons. Cheers.

That’s right. I found the chickens. ‘Corse, they’re hiding in a wall, but you can still see their names. Anyone else find them yet?

First and foremost, I’d like to thank ANet for all the work they are putting into the game as a whole. It’s really nice to see a game company interact with its community so much.

Now to get down to business; the Druid. Do I like it? Yes, I’ve been loving it. Are there issues with it? Of course there are. It’s basically brand new. I’m going to go through each aspect (traits, weapon, celestial form, utilities, pets) and give my personal feedback and potential changes for them. I’ve played the Druid in pve and pvp, thus my thoughts will be of both aspects of the game.

Traits

Overall, I find the traits quite nice. At first glance they may seem a tad lacking, but using them in combat makes you realize their value. Despite my liking of them, I’d like to see some small changes to them.

Celestial Being (Adept minor) – I’d say increase the amount of Astral Force (AF) from damage to at least .5%. It’s almost impossible to gain it from damage enough to make it worthwhile. On the other hand I’d lower the AF gain from healing. You can almost have it up 100% with a staff and a zerg. Perhaps drop it down to 2%.

Cultivated Synergy (Middle adept) – I really like this trait. Works with ANY heal skill. However, I think the scaling needs to be improved. Full clerics in pvp puts it from 1k to 1,240 with 1200 healing (clerics amulet in pvp). I’d say it should scale to perhaps 2k max with full clerics (pve), making pvp get to a potential 1.5k or so.

Primal Echos (Bottom adept) – I like the idea, but I feel it should become on ANY weapon slot rather than just for staff. Keep the 20% CD reduction for staff. This will give it more synergy with other weapons.

Verdant Etching (Middle master) – Interesting idea. One idea is that the Seed of Life could happen on dodge roll. (Other changes see Seed of Life below)

Grace of the Land (Top grandmaster) – I don’t know about this one. I don’t really see myself taking it over the other GM traits. Maybe add an extra little thing, or increase the radius to say 360-400.

Ancient Seeds (Bottom grandmaster) – Increase the CD to 15s. Great otherwise imo.

Staff skills

I like staff a lot. Pretty neat skills. However, the idle animation just begs to be that of a caster rather than a melee (hammer) idle. Think ANet got a little too much into their new animations. Funny enough the animation bugs me the most about it! Just looks so awkward.

Solar Beam – The damage and healing aspects could be increases quite a bit. Not asking for LB damage, but I want to hit harder than a wet piece of bread.

Astral Wisp – Love this skill. Looks awesome for one, and the damage isn’t too bad. However, it’s very slow moving, thus I’d like to see maybe a 50% increase in speed as well as making it unblockable. You want reliable support, so making it unblockable would help with that. Perhaps increase scaling with the heal as well here.

Ancestral Grace – Fix the bug of not going the full distance. Also makes you go into the full channel if you aim close to you. Make it cure one condition per affected target.

Vine Surge – Increase the damage on it. Haven’t tested but does it cure immobilize from yourself? If not, would like to see that. Increase the width of the effect.

Sublime Conversion – This skill feels…out of place a bit on the staff. The projectiles lose their momentum upon entry of the field, and the heal is so weak. Increase healing on it.

Celestial Form

I really like the form. In pvp I’ve been running an LB/GS marauder spec and having the backup heals for either you or your party is great. Certainly can make more of an impact in a team fight.

Cosmic Ray – I think it’s fine as is. Perhaps make it 180 radius. 120 is really small to hit a moving target.

Seed of Life – Nice concept, but it takes forever for it to explode. The radius is also way too small. Suggest 240 radius at the very least. Suffers from the same thing kittenterstone for ele, near impossible hitting anyone with it.

Lunar Impact – Reduce daze duration to 2s. Increase CD to 6s.

Tidal Surge – Make it also cure one condition per pulse.

Natural Convergence – Nice damage on the skill, but it roots you. Make it so you can move during the cast, otherwise the skill is great.

Utilities

I don’t have any ideas on how to change these other than to make them targetable. The staff is 1200 range, every glyph is 300 range, conflicting ranges. Make the radius 300 and the targetable area 1200 range. Would solve a lot of the issues with these.

Pets

I love the new pets. Just fantastic. The tiger is great for a high dps pet that gives aoe fury. The Smokescale is by far my favorite. A pet that doesn’t instantly die in aoes! The damage is decent on him, too. I will say I dislike the wyverns. Just not my thing I guess. Their damage seems low and slow (similar to moas). The Bristleback is amazing for a condi build. I’ve stacked up to 40 bleed stacks with him and a shortbow! (pve of course)

In closing, I can’t wait to have my regular character be a Druid. I main ranger and love to play healing specs in games, but Druid allows to be both a healer and full dps (if traited well). Needs some work, but it’s very solid thus far. Cheers~

Hey guys, I had some interesting thoughts on how to make signets a bit more viable, but also trying to make them balanced. Signet builds are pretty interesting to me, but they just lack too many things to really make them stand out. These are my personal ideas to make signets, overall, better.

Signet of Restoration:
Passive: I’d keep this the same
Active: Healing: Keep the same
Clear a condition based on how many signets you have equipped. (Defaults to 1 having this one equipped. So max of 4)

Signet of Fire:
Passive: Keep the same
Active: Damage: Keep the same
Burn your target and adjacent foes for 6s(?)
Radius: 240(?)

Signet of Water
Passive: Cure a condition every 8s (Make this for every similar skill, not just eles. I still find 10s to be a bit too long.)
Active: Damage: Keep the same
Chill target and nearby foes for 4s
Radius: 240(?)

Signet of Earth
Passive: Keep the same
Active: Damage: Keep the same
Immobilize your target and bleed nearby foes. (4s tacks of bleed rather than 5) (Only the bleed is aoe, immob remains single target, which is better than if it were an aoe cripple imo)
Radius: 240(?)

Signet of Air I’d keep the same. I think it’s good as it is. All of these changes are just ideas to try and make signets a bit more appealing. I’d be interested to see what you all have to say! Cheers~

I feel that the changes to ele could be a lot better. I just wanted to give my own input on ways to make the changes better suit the ele. It seems that many other classes got entirely new traits, but ele just gets the same old kitten, just moved around. I do like some of the changes, don’t get me wrong, but many feel lackluster.

If you make comments please keep them civil and on topic.

Arcana line:
Let’s just say no one will ever take Arcane Energy over perma vigor. I suggest merging that into Elemental Surge. This way if you want to spec into arcane skills it’s just 1 GM trait that you’d take over Evasive Arcana. I could see it making arcane skills, at least to me, much more worth taking.

The GM minor trait is…worthless. It’s not a crit line, so why have a crit proc that’s only 10%(Really?) in this line? Take it out comepletly and place Elemental Attunement in it’s place. Why? This trait line is all about boons, and this would still make eles take this line to get those boons. I don’t think it should be baseline for the class, but baseline for the traitline.

As for the new GM trait maybe make something do to with auras? Like a secondary effect on them perhaps? You’d be taking this in an aura build over Evasive Arcana, but I think it could work quite well given the other aura traits, and the fact it’ll be ALL auras, not just weapon skill ones from Powerful Aura.

Earth line:
I still feel like earth GM traits are kinda lackluster. Staying above 90% hp on the class with the lowest hp pool isn’t that possible when there’s so much burst flying around. I suggest giving it a secondary effect and/or making it to 80-85% hp.

For Written in Stone I suggest pulling that down a tier and making Rock Solid a GM trait. Why? ‘cause it’s a very strong trait. Maybe make it last 3s base as a result.

Stone Heart I don’t think ever will see play as it is now. I suggest to make it affect allies within 600(?) range while attuned to earth. I think that would be very cool in a support type build while still being defensive as is earth magic.

Air line:
The adept minor isn’t that good. I’d say make this just the flat 25% speed in place of Windborne Dagger, that way any weapon type could have that boost. This also means glassy builds will have more mobility for better survival.

Inscription I doubt will ever be taken still. Reason? Glyphs just aren’t that good. I suggest just making this baseline for glyphs and adjusting the CDs as well (baseline). From this, you could make a new glyph trait that makes them a lot stronger than they are now. I have no idea what though.

Bolt to the Heart I feel should be at 50% hp for the threashhold for being a GM trait. The other GM traits I think are good.

Fire line:
Conjurer I don’t think should be solely fire auras. I suggest making it to give an aura based on the weapon type. (e.g. Frost Bow give frost aura, Earth Shield gives magnectic aura, etc.) This would open up some interesting play as an auramancer and give them access to even more than they may normally.

One with fire I think should be dropped completely. Make a new on to replace it. I’ll come back to an affect it has later. Not much to say here right now.

Water line:
For Soothing Ice I suggest the following: Frost Aura duration be 2s, and in doing so keep the ICD low like 15s or so. This will still give you reliable regen AND would give a nice constant aura share for an auramancer. An auramancer would bring a lot more control to the entire fight and make it feel very supporty.

Piercing Shards I think should just be a flat rate of damage increase no matter the attunement you’re in. Why? Water spells don’t do that much damage. I’d say maybe 10% increase? This would be much more worth taking than as it is now. Keep the vuln duration increase affect.

Bountiful Power will become very much worth taking if the changes to the Arcana line I suggest happen. These are some great choices for GM traits.

Powerful Aura I feel should have the 33% longer auras added to it (The affect from One With Fire). I feel this would make an auramancer very viable as long as it isn’t constrained to only weapon skills.

That’s about all I have right now. There’s time and room for changes to happen, and I really hope some of these ones do. Many classes got major buffs to already strong traits, and I feel ele lost more than it gained. These suggest ideas is to give back some of those things that was lost, while still keeping true to the ele and the current builds out there.

Cheers~

Alright, I’ll start out by saying…wow. The look of the beta was stunning. Better yet, my fps seemed solid throughout the entire 2 hours. Max graphics and GemFX mixed for a great looking experience. But as we all know, looks aint everything.

The Story Instance:

I loved all of the voice acting here. Not much text to read. Just sit back and let things play out in fully voiced conversations. Having the player character have a voice was a nice touch, even though I knew it was coming (as WoodenPotatos mentioned such prior). I know people might say “But that’s not what I envisioned my character to sound like.” True, for those that RP (and I do RP) you have a voice in your head fro your character, but come on, it’s the game’s story, not yours.

I wanted to take the option that was locked out, but I’ll be able to come release, no sense in bashing it ‘cause not everything I want is there. The fights weren’t at all that hard until the boss guy summoned his dogs. Man those things are annoying. Overall, not super hard (at least for me) but was a nice fight. Not much more to say about the story part.

Map Section:

Small portion of the map that was open to us didn’t have that much in it. But when I zoomed out on the map and saw just how big the map really is I was excited. I can’t wait to have free reign to explore and soar. And also considering we’ll have three levels to traverse just makes it that much bigger.

The mobs were the same old same old, but it’s just a demo. Further into the jungle we go the more we’ll see.
Now, the wyvern was just awesome. That’s the kind of boss fight I’ve been waiting for.
Will I fall off or can I hang on? This fight makes you need to position yourself to not die instantly or fall off the edge. The damage you take (though based on gear) wasn’t too much nor too little. Overall was a really fun fight. Hope to see more engaging fights like this one.
On a side note: +1 to the breakbar mechanic, I really liked that.

The Revenant:

Now I know things are likely to change, but I would like to voice my concerns with the class as I played it today.

The weapons are pretty cool. Hammer was interesting as a ranged weapon. Drop the Hammer seemed a little slow to cast, and in pvp if you didn’t see it coming you’re either blind or new (or both). I’d think it’d be a little too easy to dodge. Haven’t seen the effects of Skill #4 (Sorry I don’t know the exact names of the skills) since nothing really used projectiles. I didn’t like how long Skill #3 kept you in place. I know some skills do (e.g. Meteor Shower or Barrage) but this skill just didn’t feel fluid like others do. Needless to say, I didn’t use it much. Skill #2 was really spammable, but I can’t say if that’s good or bad considering the gear I was in. The auto seemed to be solid. One thing I noted was that it is 100% projectile finisher and attacks at the same speed as many other classes’ autos (e.g Necro staff auto). Will those skills be tweaked as well?

Mace/ax felt…underwhelming to me. I actually really liked the ax offhand, but mace…blah. The skills seemed a little too spammable and the auto just seemed weak. I know there’s more weapons to come for the Rev, but I didn’t feel I had any sort of burst damage there. I tried the wyvern fight with both setups, I liked hammer the best overall. Mace Skill #2 needs to tell you it’s a fire field as it doesn’t currently. Skill #3 was nice, but seemed weak. Ax #4 seemed really good, wouldn’t change anything with that one as of now. Ax #5 didn’t see much action so I can’t say one way or another.

The Legends:

First thing to note is that you basically have access to two heal skills if both are off cd. That just seems a little unfair. The CD on legends is only 10s, seems a little too short to me.

The dwarf skills are pretty nice. The heal is effective and clears condis (has good synergy with the Mallyx skill to pull condis to you. Skill #7 I think). The Stab field…oh boy. At wyvern I just spammed the skill. I could maintain 5 stacks no problem. Longer CD for that one is needed imo. Skill #8 and #9 I think are nice and I can’t say one way or the other at this time. The elite’s cast time seemed a bit long. I’d shorten the cast time but maybe add on a cooldown to it.

Mallyx skills are really cool. I like the effects they have. The heal is effective and I can’t really see it being too strong. Skill #7 is really strong with the new boon, Resistance. Skill #8 I can’t say yet, mobs normally don’t have boons to strip. Skill #9 is awesome. It’s like an instant knockback but not exactly CC. I can see it being fun in pvp/wvw. The elite I didn’t even touch. Why? Just didn’t see the use of it during the beta.

Overall good, but there’s some work to be done. I know what we’re seeing is far from the finished product, but just wanted to share my thoughts about it all. I look forward to the release of HoT though. Can’t wait to explore the new areas with my own characters. Cheers~

Ah, woops. I’ll post it there then, thanks, mate.

Took 53 screenshots during it all. Here’s a link:

http://s292.photobucket.com/user/sanestar/library/

Alright, I’ll start out by saying…wow. The look of the beta was stunning. Better yet, my fps seemed solid throughout the entire 2 hours. Max graphics and GemFX mixed for a great looking experience. But as we all know, looks aint everything.

The Story Instance:

I loved all of the voice acting here. Not much text to read. Just sit back and let things play out in fully voiced conversations. Having the player character have a voice was a nice touch, even though I knew it was coming (as WoodenPotatos mentioned such prior). I know people might say “But that’s not what I envisioned my character to sound like.” True, for those that RP (and I do RP) you have a voice in your head fro your character, but come on, it’s the game’s story, not yours.

I wanted to take the option that was locked out, but I’ll be able to come release, no sense in bashing it ‘cause not everything I want is there. The fights weren’t at all that hard until the boss guy summoned his dogs. Man those things are annoying. Overall, not super hard (at least for me) but was a nice fight. Not much more to say about the story part.

Map Section:
Small portion of the map that was open to us didn’t have that much in it. But when I zoomed out on the map and saw just how big the map really is I was excited. I can’t wait to have free reign to explore and soar. And also considering we’ll have three levels to traverse just makes it that much bigger.
The mobs were the same old same old, but it’s just a demo. Further into the jungle we go the more we’ll see.

Now, the wyvern was just awesome. That’s the kind of boss fight I’ve been waiting for.
Will I fall off or can I hang on? This fight makes you need to position yourself to not die instantly or fall off the edge. The damage you take (though based on gear) wasn’t too much nor too little. Overall was a really fun fight. Hope to see more engaging fights like this one.
On a side note: +1 to the breakbar mechanic, I really liked that.

The Revenant:
Now I know things are likely to change, but I would like to voice my concerns with the class as I played it today.

The weapons are pretty cool. Hammer was interesting as a ranged weapon. Drop the Hammer seemed a little slow to cast, and in pvp if you didn’t see it coming you’re either blind or new (or both). I’d think it’d be a little too easy to dodge. Haven’t seen the effects of Skill #4 (Sorry I don’t know the exact names of the skills) since nothing really used projectiles. I didn’t like how long Skill #3 kept you in place. I know some skills do (e.g. Meteor Shower or Barrage) but this skill just didn’t feel fluid like others do. Needless to say, I didn’t use it much. Skill #2 was really spammable, but I can’t say if that’s good or bad considering the gear I was in. The auto seemed to be solid. One thing I noted was that it is 100% projectile finisher and attacks at the same speed as many other classes’ autos (e.g Necro staff auto). Will those skills be tweaked as well?

Mace/ax felt…underwhelming to me. I actually really liked the ax offhand, but mace…blah. The skills seemed a little too spammable and the auto just seemed weak. I know there’s more weapons to come for the Rev, but I didn’t feel I had any sort of burst damage there. I tried the wyvern fight with both setups, I liked hammer the best overall. Mace Skill #2 needs to tell you it’s a fire field as it doesn’t currently. Skill #3 was nice, but seemed weak. Ax #4 seemed really good, wouldn’t change anything with that one as of now. Ax #5 didn’t see much action so I can’t say one way or another.

The Legends:
First thing to note is that you basically have access to two heal skills if both are off cd. That just seems a little unfair. The CD on legends is only 10s, seems a little too short to me.
The dwarf skills are pretty nice. The heal is effective and clears condis (has good synergy with the Mallyx skill to pull condis to you. Skill #7 I think). The Stab field…oh boy. At wyvern I just spammed the skill. I could maintain 5 stacks no problem. Longer CD for that one is needed imo. Skill #8 and #9 I think are nice and I can’t say one way or the other at this time. The elite’s cast time seemed a bit long. I’d shorten the cast time but maybe add on a cooldown to it.

Mallyx skills are really cool. I like the effects they have. The heal is effective and I can’t really see it being too strong. Skill #7 is really strong with the new boon, Resistance. Skill #8 I can’t say yet, mobs normally don’t have boons to strip. Skill #9 is awesome. It’s like an instant knockback but not exactly CC. I can see it being fun in pvp/wvw. The elite I didn’t even touch. Why? Just didn’t see the use of it during the beta.

Overall good, but there’s some work to be done. I know what we’re seeing is far from the finished product, but just wanted to share my thoughts about it all. I look forward to the release of HoT though. Can’t wait to explore the new areas with my own characters. Cheers~

After messing around on guardian a little bit I noticed a bug with the minor trait Selfless Daring. With 150 healing power it only heals for 204 on dodge roll. Pretty sure it was much higher before the patch. I mean, 204 healing isn’t even worth your time, let alone to waste a dodge for.

So with the introduction of the new runeset, Rune of Radiance, we have a new aura: Light Aura. The more interesting thing about the runset, in my opinion, is the full 6 bonus: The duration of auras you apply are increased by 33%.

Now I’ve been playing around with this idea and an interesting though popped up. I wouldn’t say that this idea would be the best thing ever, but it would, however, give eles a new way to play.

The grandmaster water trait Powerful Aura only works with auras on weapon skills. My idea would be to change this trait to work with ALL auras that you apply to yourself. However, I do understand that this could cause some major imbalance with boon stacking, so I though of a solution, though maybe not the best. Add a 10s ICD to the trait (this could be more or less depending on what could be deemed as ‘balanced’).

What would this change do? Well it would allow an ele access to up to four different auras (of course with the correct build/runes/weapons). This would, in turn, allow the ele to buff their party/mates with those four auras as well as give swiftness, fury, and protection, giving a true meaning to auramancer.

How viable would this be? No clue to be honest. Without being about to test it this is merely theory. The build I though of would be 4/2/2/6/0. Not the most ideal setup, but if played well with a group I think it would be rather decent.

What do you all think? Would you like to see this change to the trait? Would you play an auramancer if they changed the trait? I’d certainly like to hear your thoughts! Cheers~

Don’t hold right click when you want to stomp (which kinda sucks), but you’ll get the option then. You can then hold right click ~after~ you started the animation. It’s a rather annoying bug atm, we’ll just need to deal with it until they figure out what code is messin’ it up. Cheers~

8.5/10. I like the chest skin and how well it blends with your skin colour and overall colour scheme.

Raer Amae has changed much over the past two years, but the top is my favorite outfit I’ve made so far. 2nd one is my attempt at an ‘avatar of dwayna’ look from dervishes elite skin in gw1 (it’s also my healing set). Cheers~

They didn’t make it a head piece so it could be used with one (for those that want to). I love the idea, but it wasn’t well thought out. I’ll check it out with DS for you, nekretaal real fast, but I assume that’ll be okay, but who knows.

Edit: Checked Death Shroud and it works just fine!

Oh wow, I didn’t know that for mesmers. That would be a very big issue on the wvw front. Let’s hope all these issues get resolved, especially those that give a small bonus to other players, ‘cause that’s just unfair. Cheers~

Here’s my lovely ele made at launch. Cheers~

Shield would be a pretty interesting weapon for us. I know a lot of people want greatsword, but I’d rather something a little more out-of-the-ordinary. Shield on a caster would be just that.

I got the halo today, and I’m super happy with it. However, using ANY kind of transformation (Mist Form, Tornado, or the kodan hammer transformation in eotm) will remove the halo upon leaving the transformation. I don’t know if this is intended, but it’s really annoying to say the least.

Anyone else have similar happenings? I understand you need to reapply it on a map change, but every time I use mist form? sigh

Edit: also just getting downed removes the effect.

I have two issues with condi’s at this point:

1)Too many condi’s flying around everywhere. Seems like most skills apply some kind of condi.

2)The priority of condi cleanse.

I can’t tell you how many times immobilize is the last condi to clear. And also chill. Why? Who knows. I can tell you those are the two condi’s that kill me the most, not bleed and burning.

I don’t so much mind bleeding burning and such, but I hate immobilize. The fact it can stack to 6 or even 10s is just stupid. You can’t dodge, some times you can’t even use skills. How is that even fair? It’s basically gg at that point. That’s not to mention how much immobilize is in the game. There’s literally no condi that can’t be spammed these days. Either that, or make all movement skills break it. Why are warriors the only class that can do this?

Make movement hindering condi’s more of a priority and I’d have less of an issue. Sure I can trait it so the duration is reduced by 33%, but no thanks. I have better traits to use. It’s clear condi’s are out of control, especially with them adding in yet another one: torment. I’m not saying there needs to be an overhaul on them, but something done so that it’s not ‘condi or nothing’. Cheers~

I personally take Windborne Dagger over this (Though I play in wvw almost exclusively and mostly roam). I run Sigil of Energy which keeps me dodging away pretty well. However, I trait cantrips to give vigor and regen with Soothing Disruption, but that only gives me about 8s of each and it’s not like I can spam the cantrips.

At launch, when I was totally noob, I thought vigor to be a petty boon, but now I find it crazy good. More dodging is just amazing, especially with Evasive Arcana.

I have a feeling ours will get nerfed shortly after the mesmer’s, if not at the same time. Remember, they only mention a few of the changes in the ’ feature patch previews’. Guess we’ll just need to wait and see. Cheers~

If this is true here’s what I think would be balanced:

Quickness duration: 1.5s
ICD: 10s
Cooldown of active: 90s
Cast time: 1s

I’d love to see a CD of 60s, but even at 90 it would be better than 180+ that we have now. The active would be for clutch plays for sure, and I could see myself using it to get that extra heal of by switching into water after I just switched out (along with the condi clear)

The 10s icd would more or less match sigils that work well with swaps (my personal favorite being Energy) and it’s not too long to be able to track mentally.

1s cast time is long enough to have a chance to interrupt it, but short enough to make it worth your while.

1.5s of quickness. I’m split between 1.5s and 2s here. 2s would be great, but I think with it proc’ing so often 1.5s would be a bit more fair. I can see an argument for both however.

These are my thoughts, if you agree cool, if not then cool. Cheers.

This is a very interesting idea for sure. I’m not sure I’d make base attunement CDs to 10s and remove that fact to the arcana trait line. I think the recent change is good enough as it is. I trait 30 into arcana myself for Evasive Arcana, not for the lower CDs.

The idea of having a 2nd activation on your F skills while in the attunement is a fantastic idea. It would give a bit more unpredictability to the ele. One change to make it a bit more balanced is that they all share a CD of say 30s that way you can’t just spam them all (since I said the Arcana line is fine as is imo). That way you don’t know which spell to expect as the ele dances through all of the attunements.

Not quite sure about the spells, but I like how they scale based on your traits. Would open at least a little more build diversity and force the player to make more critical choices in terms of traits.

Would certainly increase the learning curve, but that’s not always a bad thing. I see a lot of people wanting to play ele but don’t want to take the time to learn it. I view ele as the hardest class to truly learn in GW2 (and I have 1 of every class at lvl 80-never again e.e). They all have their quirks, but ele has the most once you learn them all.

I main ele (more than 1.5k hours on it) and I think this would be an interesting change. Will it happen? Prolly not. But still good to have good ideas about. Cheers~

Dalo.3941:

PS: New Elite: Gain all auras for 8 seconds. All aura related traits effect the Elite.

Or, rather than having all auras it could be on a short, say 60s cd, and give an aura based on your current attunment. That way we’d have access to all auras on any build but it wouldn’t be too overpowered. Though your idea would be interesting, just doesn’t seem realistic since you could have a few auramancers in a group all use this for an instant perma fury and swiftness along with the aura’s effects. In wvw that’d be way too good.

The main problem with it being a stun break is that you’re more than likely going to use it ~before~ you get stunned since you want the effect of it in a fight. If it gave a chance to gain an aura based on attunement rather than a condition…I’d totally use this when on my auramancer build, though that may be too good then since you can trait auras to give you a ton of stuff. Interesting idea though, as I too feel that the skill now being a stun break doesn’t justify its use.

This is a glitch, and I ran into it today myself. The ‘buff’ you gain to maintain the passive effect is still set to the old timer. They missed a step when changing the CD. Hope we see a fix for this soon as it’s pretty annoying if you plan to use signets.

Some pretty nice changes that I like are the new “Fresh Air” trait and the fact you can get 2s of stability when switching to earth for only 20 points rather than 30. Fresh Air makes burst build actually viable and very deadly, and you give up the defense by going 30 into air which I believe makes it balanced. The stability change is really great, and it opens up a few more possibilities for builds.

As of now, however, I feel that the ele is just lack luster. I play some pve, a lot of wvw, and a fair amount of spvp (though more so recently). In terms of all three the ele I’d say is decent in pve and spvp, but just horrid in wvw as it currently stands. In wvw I like to roam with a buddy of mine, but I just can’t seem to come up with a good roaming build, since you need mobility to do so.

I’ve even started looking at crazy build ideas (i.e. conjure weapons or glyphs and signets), though sadly cantrips still tend to win me over. Conjure weapons are a load of crap x2 in the pvp/wvw world. I’ll mess with them in pve since that’s the only place they can be used decently.

I’ve also have been trying focus, which I actually really like when in water and earth. However, fire and air (mostly air #5) are practically worthless to use. The small fire field ( from fire #4) that can be easily avoided and hard to land blast finishers on is just to laugh at. Fire #5 is just a a crappy aura that doesn’t really help all that much. At best you can gain 5 stacks of might in a 1v1 situation, but for that to happen you NEED to take damage. No thanks. My problem with air #5 is the ridiculous CD of 50s for only 2s of knockdown. And overall the ele has the worst cool downs of any class, which I can understand why, but 40 or 50s on a weapon skill is just…too long in my opinion. The only one it makes sense for is focus earth #5 where you gain 4s of invulnerability (love that skill).

I hope to see some good changes come our way in terms of the above things. It’s not that everything is crap on ele, but many traits need work and we need a bit more than protection and healing, which we have plenty of, to stay alive. We could also use a better elite skill. Read a post and someone’s idea was make an elite be a weapon swap for us, which I thought would fit the ele really well. 180s CD on it? I’m cool with that, makes the ele that much harder to play.

These are my thoughts on the current ele, but I’d like to hear your opinions as well since it might help me see a different way on things. I’m not raging here, just having a hard time believing that all these nerfs are making us balanced. Cheers~

Let me start out by saying I’ve been playing ele since BWE 1, and I fell in love at first play. Though recently, there have been some very hard changes to the class that has me just not feeling it anymore, and I’ll explain the good and the bad changes.

The two hardest nerfs the ele has faced recently are the following:
1) RTL has 40s if you didn’t hit something and went from 1500 range to 1200
2) Can no longer use heal/utilities while in Mist Form (MF)

These two changes have, in my opinion, hindered the ele greatly in terms of their survivability. The class is already low tier in that respect in terms of math (i.e. lowest hp and armour). And it’s not really that fact that I dislike, it makes the ele more challenging to play, which I love. But there needs to be some kind of logical defense. I do not see how healing in MF was overpowered at all. In fact, you could only do it every 75s (60s if traited). By then a fight could be over. Comparing to other classes:

-Guardian has a heal the blocks all incoming attacks for a short while (really annoying >_<)
-Necro can’t really do much in that respect, but can clear ALL conditions when healing and has a 2nd hp bar
-Mesmer can gain distortion every 60s, and even less if traited and can heal during that time (plus they don’t give up a utility slot for it)
-Rangers, well, I kinda feel sorry for rangers sometimes
-Thieves can heal while in stealth, and have a trait to regen in stealth. My biggest problem with stealth is that you lose your target, meaning they can dmg you, but if you need a target for your skills your SOL.
-Sadly engis can’t heal while using Elixir S, which I think they should be able to like ele with MF
-Warrior can use Endure Pain, though will still be affected by conditions

So all in all healing in MF would be rather normal compared to other classes, since many classes have similar utilities and skills to do so. In fact, Anet fixed it so we could change attunements while in MF so we could then use glyphs properly, yet they took that away from us now too. I’d very much like to see eles and engis get the option to heal during these skills again as I don’t believe it would be overpowered with how the meta game is.

Moving onto the RTL change….oh boy where to start. Was it really 1500 range? Yes, yes it was, and it was amazing. I can understand making it down to 1200 range, but then again even then it’s effective range is actually about 1000 range (yes I tested it). You fall just short of that 1200 range. Then add on the ridiculous CD it has on it now and that just took the mobility away from eles. I understand if they don’t want ele to be in and out all the time, ’cause yeah, when it was 15s CD and 1500 it was a tad lawls-y. My suggestion to this is to do one of the following:

1) Make it 1500 range again on a 25 CD OR
2) Make it 1200 range on a 20s CD

I don’t think that would be too much to ask. Thieves would still excel in mobility, along with warriors, but would at least give eles some of theirs back.

Another change that I don’t think is good or bad, but is just awkward is the stun break remove on Lightning Flash (LF). I think this was a bad idea personally since many other teleport skills break stun. But, the increase in damage is ‘okay’ I guess. There are two options I thought of for this skill to be more on par with other classes:

1) Make LF 1200 range with its now current 40s CD OR
2) Put it back to it’s original state: 900 range with stun break

1. would help bring some mobility back to the ele, whereas #2 would bring back that great ‘utility’ feel to it.

I really like a lot of these ideas, and many provide, imo, a viable use of them.

One thing I thought of was if the weapon replaced it’s respective attunement (big fan of this btw) then you could just condense the skills into one. Call it like “Elemental Conjuration” or something, and its effect is “Summons an elemental weapon based on attunement: Air-Lightning Hammer, Fire-Firey Ax, Water-Frost Bow, Earth-Earth Shield Lasts 60s”

What do you all think about this idea? I can see how the argument could work to keep the skills individual, but I think grouping it like this that it would make them much more worth it having another 20 skills within one button push but can only have 5 new skills at a time. Cheers~

Funny, this is more or less my build with a few trait and 1 skill change. Loved the hammer since day 1 of warrior, so strong in the wvw setting. Horn is a great offhand, hard not to use it.

I like to use “Fear Me” over “On My Mark” personally, as it can help res people or get that finish. Longer CD at 64s, but still a very strong utility. For traits I’ve been using Last Stand instead of Merciless Hammer and went 0/0/20/30/20 and picked up Inspiring Shouts in the Discipline line, not needed really, but it helps especially for the burst heal on Healing Surge.

It’s a great build, with great survivability and support/damage. I highly recommend it to people that really like warrior and that likes to roam either solo or with a group. Cheers~

The OP has videos that are terrible. In the “small gap jump before RTL” videos he jumps first in the success one then doesn’t in the failure one. Well no crap it wont work if you don’t jump. Really, if you’re going to make a video make it constant. Bad videos are bad.

I very much agree that ele elites are rather useless, and even more so after playing 100+ hours on a warrior. I more or less live in wvw since I love that style of gameplay so much so having a useful 10th skill would be amazing.

When playing my 2 characters here’s what happens:

Ele: I forget I even have an elite. I just don’t really see a use in most situations. I normally roam with a couple friends (both play thieves now) and they pop their elite very often. I might use mine once a night if at all.

War: I use the Signet of Rage. Traited for a 48s CD and the boons last 39s. That means 9s CD for the boons and I ALWAYS pop it on CD.

Now I donno if it’s just me or what but there’s a clear difference in elites between classes. All of the mesmer elites are amazing; thieves get some great ones; warrior is a no brainer and is used right on CD; ranger’s could be better but at least they offer some utility to them; necro can blind spam in a fairly large aoe (god that’s annoying xD); Engineer’s supply crate is pretty nice (has a stun too!) though not the best; and guardian’s are a tad weak but if done well can give heals and invulnerability.

I would take any other class’s elites over the ele ones in a heart beat. We get a crap (though epic looking) GS and loose are normal skills which are better anyway; A golem that lasts 60s and really doesn’t do too much in wvw for having a 180s CD (though this is the best elite we get IMO); And the all but useless Tornado…..wow how bad that is in almost every situation. Our class is amazing but it really feels like our elites were just thrown in last minute.

This is my opinion after playing 700 hours on ele alone since launch and even more so in the betas. Our opinions may vary. Cheers~

I’ll 2nd some of the OP’s points. Mist Form is indeed still a 75s CD in WvW/PvE. Magnetic Grasp is still crap when the enemy is moving. Sadly, the ‘fix’ bugs but cripple us more each time. Sad to see really.

Using the Cantrip Mastery trait and Mist Form still has the normal 75s CD even though the tooltip says 60s. So the patch did NOT fix it. Please, you if write in the patch notes it fixes something I’d like it to actually be fixed.

The day the patch came was awesome. The skill seemed to work flawlessly. But, recently with all of these new builds and patches the skill has become really buggy again. Just wondering if anyone else is having this issue. Has only started up again since a day or so ago. Cheers~

I fully agree with this. Having 20 other people, half of them charr/norn, is just a bad design. And if they do keep it like it is, then they need to make it so you can’t use skills before the cut scene. Warriors think swiftness from banners is a good idea…when they clearly make it so you can’t use speed buffs. Even Air Signet, if equipped, doesn’t show up on the buff list. Cheers~

This thought never even crossed my mind. But the OP makes a valid point. This JP takes a lot higher level of reflexes than any of the other ones (except the on in Lornar’s Pass). I have pretty good reflexes but this still took me 1-1.5 hours to complete (partly due to my lack of knowing where to go).

I really hope that anyone with this issue or similar one is able to do it at some point. The OP is right, holidays should be joy, not 7 hours of going crazy. I wish everyone a happy Halloween ^+^

Human
Elementalist-level 80
No speed boost
Completed 2 times

And warriors, please, for the love of Dwyana, do not use your stupid banners for swiftness. It really doesn’t help. All jump puzzles are possible WITHOUT swiftness. They lock our skills out for a reason, would be nice if you respected that.

Grats to all who’s made it! Cheers~

Huh, guess I never noticed this (and I have a star D=) Would be nice to have that fixed.

So, I’ve done these puzzles since the betas and it doesn’t take long to do them. Got the two key parts and went to the vault. But, the vault just doesn’t seem to open. I talked to someone else who had the same issue with all three of them. Only seen it happen since the Oct. 7th patch. Not a huge deal, but I want my loots >_<

Anyone else having this issue?

You sure know how to use scepter better than me, lol. I use D/D myself. Good luck with that title, gonna take some time to get!

I love Ether Renewal. I think it’s the best ele heal there is, but the glyph is a close 2nd. The fact you can cure up to like 13 conditions over the cast time (I think it’s 13. Read that somewhere and it doesn’t seem too wrong). The glyph on the other hand gives you a boon, which can be very helpful, but I find the 25s CD rather too long in a fight (more so in spvp than elsewhere). I even used it when it rooted you (in the betas) in spvp. May have been seen as troll, but I won more fights than when I had the glyph.

The short 15s CD is really where it shines though. The cast is long, meaning you’re not doing dmg during that time, but that’s to offset the clear power the heal has. Several people made good points about it: Low CD, can partially cast, very effective with mist form. Give it a good try, you might just be surprised =D

lol at OP. Forced to use staff? Since when? I’ve been using D/D since the first BWE and I love it. Mind you, I do carry a staff and scepter in case I need range/better support or aoe skills, but that’s pretty rare.

Arah with D/D? Np, did that. In fact, I’m normally the one in my groups in any dungeon to die the least. And in many cases I’m the one tanking mobs/bosses.

WvW? Unless I’m defending a keep or tower I’m D/D. 1v1 and you run like a chicken? You must not know the power the ele has already. Of course we are lacking compared to some classes and have bugs up the wazoo, but that doesn’t mean we’re weak by any means.

I play pve, wvw, and spvp and use D/D at least 90% of the time in all of them. If you’re using class cannon, then no wonder you’re dying. D/D isn’t really meant for a class cannon build.

Overall, there is a L2P factor as I think ele is an extremely hard class to learn. But, there are several bugs with skills and traits which limit us a lot. If you’re having a hard time with D/D then maybe it doesn’t fit your play style. Each weapon has it’s place, and each player plays differently. The different weapons warrant different play styles.

The game is designed with casual players in mind. I think it’s wrong to need an organized group (with a voice chat system) to do something in any game. To me, that’s just not how the game was intended to be. Say what you will.

Really the biggest thing for me was the torches. I think 10s window is better than 5s since the time it takes to even light it is so long. The other parts I could say are due to inexperience, which we all laughed at really. But them torches…just…gah =.=

No, you get about kitten window for everyone to hit that F at the same time. Either ours was just glitched, or we missed something. But having to kill mobs AND have a perfect sync for the torches is a tad too much, imo.

Okay. So I wanted to do a CoF run, nothing big right? Was thinkin’ maybe a 1-2 hour max run. Well, turns out the first part took 2 hours just to light 5 torches. Not only that, but we needed to get on skype just to coordinate our timing perfectly. And when I saw perfectly, I mean it. If you’re even 1s off you fail. Not only do you need the torches, but th mobs are each hit for a good 2k per normal hit. 3*2k=6k in 1 attack of the mobs. Now, the ooze mobs aren’t too bad, but the imps are just stupidly op.

So once you get past the torches, if you even can do it, you get to enjoy some lovely red circle making flame turrets. And not only those, but 2 mobs that are more or less walking flame throwers. Get past them and you get to the next major part-one of those stay in the circle area. Now, most of them I encountered weren’t too bad. But this one, for the love of Lyssa, is just terrible. If your team dies, it resets the WHOLE thing. All waves; all of it. Now, it wouldn’t be too bad if there was time between the waves, but no, before the mobs from the wave are killed the next wave spawns. So you have absolutely no recovery time. Don’t die =D

If you don’t rage quit by now then you get one of the worst parts in all this. You need to run past 1-shot kill glowing orbs up a two-part hallway. And, there’s little to no room for error. Also, you can exactly time something you can’t see. I got it my first try-pure luck, ‘cause the next two times was a very quick death. I saw my teammates die a good 30 times? Now once you get through that you’re still not even safe. At the top there are 3 flame turrets that make a good dozen red circles. Since you more than likely used your dodges to not blow up, you’re rather out of luck. The only safe part is right against the wall. There are also two mobs on the right side of the room-more walking flamethrowers. Try fighting two of those with 3 flame turrets raining more fire down. Not fun. Once those were dead then I thought “I’ll go up and kill those turrets”. Bad idea, there’s a boss there. That’s right. You have absolutely no time to clean up those turrets. So, being an ele, I put on a staff and had to aoe them down while I waited for my teammates to run through the bomb hallway again.

Once the turrets were down the boss was easy. But we still weren’t done,after the ~4 hours we put in. Luckily, the last boss wasn’t too hard. I actually really liked the last boss. Though, there is a small exploit. If you stand on the bridge and fight him when he goes to do his knockback aoe he runs back to the center of the area. Kill him and you’re done.

Now, our group also did the other 2 paths, each taking no more than 45min. So I ask, why is this one path so much harder to do? I understand wanting to make them fun and challenging, but this was just too much. Of of the guys is making a video of our run, I’ll add the link once I get it. I really think this path needs some review. So please, for the love of the six gods, Anet, don’t troll us like this. It’s not fun spending 5 hours on 1 path of 1 dungeon >_<

Interesting and similar ideas to mine here. My idea may not be the most balanced idea, but it could be made to be balanced over time, or with other ideas along with it.

So here it is: There’s been a lot of complaints and talk about an ele weapon swap, and I’d like one as well. Being a dagger/dagger (d/d) ele not having range is pretty awful since every other class can go from melee to range with the swap. I love the idea of the ice bow (so I could have range with d/d). The main issue with the ice bow is the damage, or rather the lack there of. Sure you can set the first skill to auto-attack, but when you crit for 300 damage it’s pointless. Really, a waste of a utility skill.

First part: There are 4 utility skills (Fiery Axe, Ice Bow, Lightning Hammer, and Earth Shield), 1 for each element, which can be mixed in with the ele’s mechanic. So rather than having a weapon swap to a normal weapon, make it a swap to the ‘conjured’ weapons based on attunement. Along with this, if you’re in fire and you weapon swap then you get the fire axe and it’s skills (no charges). Then if you switch attunements, say to water, then you’d have the ice bow. You only would have access to your normal weapon skills upon another weapon swap.

Second part: Okay, so if this were to happen what happens to those utility skills? Well, there are a few options: 1) Remove them completely. To be honest, I don’t think they’re that used anyway. 2) Replace them with new skills. 3) Something else I’m not thing of atm.

Balance: Some say this would the ele too OP, so let’s talk about balancing this idea. There are two range (fiery axe ice bow) and 2 melee (lightning hammer and earth shield) weapons meaning, no matter what normal weapon you’re using you have all ranges to play with, similar to other classes. That portion, imo, is fair.

Next part of balance is the number of skills. To be honest, the ele needs all the base 20 skills to be on par with other classes anyway as that’s their whole mechanic. But having the ‘conjured’ weapons only out once you weapon swap ( so no normal weapon skills) would help balance and control the power the ele can pump out. This way, it’s almost like having a normal weapon swap, but with different range options.

Another issues isn’t so much with balancing but with complexity. 40 unique skills to learn would be actually quite challenging, even to some of those ‘pro’ players. Because once you switch then you need to know the exact skills you have and the range of all the new weapons. Perhaps to make it a bit easier have the swap unlock at lvl 20-30 or even as high as 40. That way you have time to learn your normal weapon skills first.

Normal weapon swap is ~10s for every other class (except engineer, as they don’t have weapon swap) but this swap for ele would be longer, say at least 30s (or 45s), to be much more balanced. This way you need to think: “Do I really want to swap?”

Some ideas here are very similar to this, but mine is a little more of a change on the class’ mechanic. I think that this idea would be really cool, though hard to play, would give the ele a way to weapon swap to give yourself the range you want.

Give me some feed back on the ups and downs of this idea. Might not be the best option to solve this issue, but I think it could be the foundation for a final decision. Cheers~