Guild Wars 2

Ascended gear destroys horizontal (stat) progression.

Not many care about it now, because zerker is the only stat set you need. But the day other stat sets become equally desired, and content becomes better for it, ascended gear will become the number one complain.

I agree it should allow us to swap stats. Or, perhaps, have ascended stats for each equipment type to be unlockable in a wardrobe.

• Base Survival.

Elementalists do have good survival with the right trait investment, due to having strong defense traits and because many of their defensive skills scale very well with defensive stats. In turn, non-defensive eles have abysmal defense.

• Auto-attacks.

Many of our auto-attacks are underwhelming, which takes away from our natural advantage of having 20 skills.

• Several weak skills and minor traits.

Even as we get better major traits for our more underwhelming lines, it’s always sad to have to sacrifice excellent minors for something like fire #5 and air #5, which effectively do nothing. Likewise, because we have so many skills, some of them are usually weak and under-used. But it’s worth noting that we have some stronger-than-normal skills that compensate for the others.

Doggie.3184:

Yeah, females always get more customization and privileges in vidya games. Maybe he’s addressing that there’s a buncha revealing stuff for any male character no matter the class, and the armor isn’t vastly different in appearance between genders. Some armor here is outstandingly different between genders to the point of being an entirely new concept. Like the Witch/Hexed outfit is one of the worst offenders imo. I wanted a mage hat or a chinese hat too. They’re two entirely different outfits between genders.

It’s kind of like Phoenix gemstore armor (out of many, many other examples). The female set is kasmeer’s, which is beautiful, majetic and truly reminds me of a phoenix. The male set is… a rehash of an existing and bland model, with a few new straps. Yeah…

This is very consistent with light armor in general.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Embroidered_armor
The female version is quite beautiful and worthy of end-game armor (even though we’re talking about low-level gear). The male set is somewhat bland, something there is “lacking” that would have made it truly epic. But this is not one of the worst offenders. It is, after all, low-level gear, and the male set is actually one of my favourite low-level sets in this game. Still, the female set is gorgeous.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Masquerade_armor
Another example where the female variant is gorgeous and end-game worthy, while the male variant is lacking. I actually like the concept art for the male variant (not as much as the female one, but I do enjoy it), but it seems like its style was lost when translated to the in-game model. The stylish cloth edges and pointy-ends in the artwork lost all their coolness in the game model, where they look exaggerated and goofy instead.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Winged_armor
This one is quite striking. The female version is gorgeous and beautifully detailed, while the male variant is the opposite, with really cheap, poorly-made and cartoon-ish details. Why is there such a difference in quality between both models in the first place? The concept art for the male version is actually quite cool, so it was not the artist’s fault.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Feathered_armor
Yet another in the never-ending list for female>>>>male light armor sets. There’s so much beauty in the female set, where everything seems to be at the perfect size, at the perfect ratio, with the perfect edges and curves, which makes it quite elegant. The male version is a chaotic mess that makes the guy look like a total clown.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Exalted_armor
Not so stricking here, but the female version is simply efficient: all the details add up to make it appealing. The male set has those ugly metallic accessories for no apparent reason, and they take away what could have been a fine set otherwise.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Nightmare_Court_armor_%28light%29
Another male version that could have been as good as the female variant if it didn’t fail terribly at a few spots. The artwork makes both look really awesome:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/7/78/Light_armor_05_concept_art.jpg
But again, only the female version is well translated into the game. Why? Why? Why?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phoenix_armor
Look at the effort done to the female set, especially for the floating feathers. Then look at the male version. Look at its boots. Look at its “attempt” to resemble a phoenix. Interestingly enough, the upper part isn’t even that bad (it can look great with the correct colors, and all the tiny details enhance it instead of taking it down), but overall, there’s a clear difference between both.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sorcerer's_armor
Female = Tiny details that are beautiful to state at. Male = Oversized shoulders, and staps, a lot of straps. Look at how much effort was put into the woman’s skirt to make it unique and distinctive, and then look at the guy’s skirt and tell me if it isn’t yet another lazy and boring rehash.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stately_armor
The male version would have been almost there, if the proportions weren’t off. But they’re always off.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Priory's_Historical_armor_%28light%29
I dislike either, but the proportions for the male version are always off. Fat chest and oversized shoulders, again, for no apparent reason.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Conjurer_armor
Remember this beatiful, flowing dancer-ish look from elementalist’s marketing trailers? Say hello to the male counterpart, ever-king of oversized shoulders, bland chest armor and goofy I-have-no-idea-why’s-that-there fur.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Conjurer_armor
Such a beautiful mesmer armor from GW1. The male variant looks good too, except that anet put in the wrong proportions (surprise!) which makes males look fatter than they should.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Profane_Light_Armor_Skin
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Incarnate_Light_Armor_Skin
I find all those ugly, but I just want you to see the shoulders, guys. The shoulders. Anet’s modelers love massive shoulders on male light armor, and they don’t even try to be subtle about it.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aurora_armor
I just wanted to post this as an exception. One of the very few cases where the female version looks crap compared to the male set.

I think weapon traits are a lot more interesting when they have creative effects. It reminds me of guardian’s boring shield trait, and how anet has listened to the fan’s suggestion to add aegis to it.

Here’s my suggestions for mesmer’s sword trait (to be coupled alongside the 20% CDR):
1. Sword’s skills apply twice the amount of vulnerability (affects clones).
2. Sword’s leap range is increased.
3. Sword’s leap applies quickness.
4. Combine the trait with that other one that gives reflection to blurred frenzy.

Azure.8670:

Youre announcing the expansion after LS2 right?

I’m absolutely sure that the community as a whole is expecting something big at the end of the LS2, that anet desires it, that it’s an excellent opportunity to do it, and finally that, if nothing happens, there’ll be a lot of tears. :P

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Bitoku Kishi.8346:

I’m guessing they might be able to be slotted into any Legend, which could be pretty convenient to replace some of the less useful Legend skills…

The problem is that they are balanced around having 1 skill bar and not 2 for the right half of your bar. They are also not made with energy in mind and would need to be changed to work with revenant, but would muddy the purity of each legends skill set playstyle. I thought I had mentioned it before on one of the initial streams, but racial skills won’t be usable on revenant.

Roy,

Ask someone at Anet to make Mistfire wolf a minipet and give it to all those who bought the heroic edition.

This way, people won’t feel like they’ve wasted their money when they decide to upgrade it for the wolf and learn the hard way that they won’t be able to use it on their revenant.

GW1 pvp eles relied on timing their skills right and on kiting so much as this games’ eles, actually. With or without dodge button/ attunement swapping.

That being said, speccing in water and arcane is not = to learning to play.

Actually, now that we’re at it, why must glass cannon elementalist players (aka, NO points in water/ arcane traits) learn to play, and glass cannon thieves not?

“Lol, a noob killed you. Learn to play, noob, or else you can’t kill noobs like you.”

I also think that, although the fights should be strategically harder, enemies should have generally lower HP and/ or, maybe, better rewards.

For a simple reason: fighting challenging battles is fun, having every single enemy of the 1000th foes you’ll have to defeat taking too long to beat is not, unless there’s a proper reward. The alternative is really lower HP.

Let the battles be harder but faster, requiring higher skill but rewarding you with faster battles. This should make any fuure harder pve experience more fluid. And I doubt slightly faster battles = easier battles, unless th HP is so low that you can burst and kill every single time before even getting hit.

A single trait was the reason a few people picked a class. A single trait revamped entire playstyles. A single trait helped establish world peace and fought against world’s decrimination. It was the death of a single trait – nay, of a true hero.

Why make weak skills stronger, if no one uses them because they’re weak? :P

3s should actually make it viable in pvp at the very least.

Disruptor’s Sustainment is a trait designed to improve a playstyle that does not exist in this class: on-demand healing.

Outside of regen (passive, over time heal) and the default heal skill (which does not scale much based on healing power), what do mesmers have to create some healing bursts? Water fields? Blast finishers? Healing weapon skills? Is mesmer an elementalist? No? Healing light fields? Is mesmer a guardian too?

Ultimately, it’s hard to shake the feeling that traits like those were created without much consideration or knowledge about what the mesmer is and isn’t.

Pittcrew.6592:

The issue that they have is that they have made some super exclusive/valuable items that people only want to have to get one of, and in order to give us a lot of shared inventory space, they would need to make exceptions to these items, which would just be complicated. I would like it if they added like a 20-bag slot for equipment, crafting stuff, keys, loot bags, consumables, etc. and keep these 5-10 individual purchased slots for the super valuable stuff like infinite-use items.

And that is the biggest problem.

This feature is balanced around super exclusive/ valuable items, like permanent bank tabs. For all other players that would love to get some shared slots to put half a dozen of keys, this is not for them.

In other words, anet’s implementation of shared slots is elitist and is not properly fine-tuned to all those that want it.

A possible solution would be to have different slot tiers. Tier 1 slots would be relatively cheap (say, ~50/ 100 gems for each) and then players could spend more gems to upgrade those slots to be able to put in super-expensive stuff.

Before defending the elementalist, people should understand it first.

Yes, elementalists are meant to be glass cannons. MH Daggers, OH Daggers and Scepters are filled with skills that exist for the purpose of damage-over-time, bursting or setting up bursts. Even if you go into a more defensive route with the Focus, you’ll still have to burst with your MH Weapons. Only the Staff falls into a more support role, where your squishiness is compensated by the support you can bring and by the large distance you can keep from your foe.

I’m not sure either if the devs wanted all elementalist players to be forced to trait into earth/ water lines, or bring defensive equipment. Nor does toughness and vitality automatically mean it’s the only way you can fend off yourself: all professions should have means to be self-responsible even when they’re specced into damage builds. That’s why dodge is universal to all professions, that’s why a strong self-heal is universal to all professions, that’s why each profession can choice at their will their utilities and have means to defend from attacks. Even an Elementalist with dual daggers has its own share of support and control skills. If that, by itself, is not enough, then surely something is wrong.

The problem with the zerker meta, is that zerkers have too much survival. There’s no need for support or control builds to exist to mitigate damage. There’s no need for defensive stats to mitigate damage. And condition damage gets indirectly useless this way, because zerkers never have to spend time kiting, escaping, weakened, blocked, etc.

To fix this problem, PvE needs to learn a bit from PvP:

• Enemies need to have auto-attacks.
• Enemies need to apply more boons and more conditions on a regular basis.
• Enemies need to have some sort of self-defense skills.

Proposal Overview
Multi-targettable body parts, each with its own condition stacking, defiance, etc.

Goal of Proposal
GW2’s combat works better in small skirmishes. Ex. 2v2 or 3v3 pvp encounters. Any larger pve encounter is handicapped by condition stack capping, defiance, melee stacking and other mechanics that take away from combat’s depth.

What is the difference between PvP and PvE? Opponent’s intelligence, plurality and encounter improvization. If, for the first and the third points, we can demand better AI and roaming monsters, what about the second? Should Anet’s developers be forced to take the “GW1’s route”, and have each encounter simulate a pvp match? That wouldn’t be an elegant solution, because it would greatly restrict them from designing one-boss encounters.

Thus, my proposal was born. Design boss encounters where one entity (the boss) can simulate several entities (each body part = each other opposing player in a pvp match).

Proposal Functionality

1. All boss encounters would have multi-targettable body parts.
2. The Health value would be shared across all parts, but not the other stats.
3. Each body part would have its own defiant stacks and condition stacks.
4. Each body part would have its own skillset, and skills would occur simultaneously. For the purpose of interruption, each part would count individually. Ex. Interrupting an arm’s punch won’t interrupt any leg’s stomp that would occur at the same time.
5. Some body parts would only be targettable by ranged attacks, based on situational mechanics. Ex. Arms while elevated into the air, head is the foe is not knocked down, etc;

Example:

Let’s imagine a 5-part boss: the legs, the chest, the head, the left arm and the right arm. Add or take away some, based on each encounter. For example, a dragon can have a targettable tail and neck, but no arms.

Now imagine a raiding scenario that consists of: 10 players, 15 players and 20. Different players would be assigned to focus on different body parts.

10 / 5 = 2 players assigned to each body part.
15 / 5 = 3.
20 / 5 = 4.

This makes it incredibly harder to hit the condition cap for each individual part, or to “perma-stun” a boss without defiance, when parties are not any bigger than 10-15 players. In a 20-player scenario, the problem comes back, but never to the extent of the current 5-man dungeon scenario vs 1 boss. Always an improvement.

Of course, things become increasingly complex when we take into account AoE skills. But, there’s always secondary objectives to make players spread further. Or even solutions as simple as 2-boss encounters.

Associated Risks
?

All cantrips breaking stun was always a bit too much.

I think what Xhaiden meant, and I agree with him here, is that the elementalist has plenty of “filler” skills. We are a combo class, and that’s fun, but when our combos translate to skill a: deal 100 damage -> skill b: deal 100 damage -> skill c: deal 100 damage, and then we see another profession click a single skill and deal 400 damage, then I question, what’s the point?

So far, our “combo style” is a novelty. It’s a really interesting playstyle, but the elementalists are full of boring or same-y skills. Elementalists are (are they?) supposed to chain skills in unpredictable ways, but in reality, you have one or two optimal means to burst, and several defensive skills you use whe you need to use them. That’s it.

A mesmer is more of chaining unpredictable skills at this moment, because you never know how they’ll shatter their clones. An elementalist with low HP will go to water, and you know they’re going to heal themselves while chilling you out for a while. And you know they’ll go to water, when their HP starts to get down enough. An elementalist will disable you out for a couple of seconds, and you know they’re going to take advantage of the moment to chain a very predictable burst.

Elementalist is an interesting profession in theory, but in practise it’s all about playing keyboard piano to time out defensive skills to survive, while trying to milk out a little bit of damage inbetween.

When we look at other professions, all their weapon skills feel so tight. They all feel important, and there’s a degree of strategy behind each of them. Although it’s easy to understand why elementalists’ skills are simpler, they also have several uninspired, more-of-the-same or even poor skills at their disposal. It’s kinda messy.

Lambent.6375:

Smells like Maplestory’s skill system.

:(

/shrug.

Smells like GW1’s elite skill hunting or Final Fantasy’s blue magic hunting.

Adjusting rewards won’t make matches less unfun.

It doesn’t matters if you are “rewarded fairly” for being farmed by premades. If the game is unable to create engaging and fun matches, then players will get frustrated and leave. Simple.

“Here’s a better reward for having wasted your time” is not what people want out of a pvp game.

Also, people very quickly trash the holy trinity as if it was the worst thing ever. Well, it might not be the best thing ever, but a MMO being stuck to three well-defined roles is far more appealing than a MMO being stuck to a single DPS role.

Not only does the holy trinity offer more build diversity than what we currently have, it also promotes better and deeper teamplaying.

No, GW2 doesn’t needs the trinity. But if teamwork is ever to be taken seriously, then roles must exist in one form or another. And they are meant to exist. GW2 has its own trinity: damage/ support/ control, which in theory is a more sophisticated, broader version of the holy dps-tank-heal trinity.

Tell me how can a game promote team playing without roles. Better yet, tell me how can a game promote an excellent level of team playing between random pugs, without roles.

Ahlen.7591

To turn that around in your face, what you’re asking for is the game to be broken for others so you can play it how YOU want.

You’re jumping to false conclusions.

Besides, if you are the kind of player that loves to stick to a single main character, you don’t deserve your pvp legendary, because

Brainstorming some sub-class ideas for the guardian, just for the fun of it:

Guardian

• Knight/ Paladin – Staying close to allies and covering them. Hammer, Mace, Shield. Defensive symbol support. Stronger hammer and shield spirit weapons.
• General – Focused on team mobility and team playing. Staff and something else. Stronger shouts. Stronger virtue’s actives. Stronger shield and bow spirit weapons.
• Smiter/ Punisher/ Judgemaster – Punishing gameplay with retaliation and strong damage support. Greatsword, Scepter + Torch, retaliation buffs, burning.
• Spiritmancer – Uses all spirit weapons. Spirit weapons are tied to virtues. Passive effects that only end when the active effect is triggered.

Ya, I know, most of them can already be acchieved with the correct trait combos…

Which raises a few questions: what can subclasses offer that traits already don’t? Or would they replace them? If so, would people accept possibly more “build restriction” for the sake of flavored subclasses?

EDIT: What if subclasses had their own individual trait trees, even if at a smaller scale?

I don’t understand why Anet removed Tequatl from the game and replaced it with a new boss (even if with the same name, the same skin, and in the same location).

Irony aside, Anet’s intention is probably to remove content that people don’t play much and replace it with something (that they plan/ hope to be) much better. So instead of adding new content alongside old, average content, they hope to replace anything less-than-great with something better. This way, the game’s quality is going up, and new content is being made, without splitting the userbase too much, nor without forcing new players to play through content that the community learned to ignore for a reason.

Of course, reality isn’t as simple as that, but I believe that’s the logic behind content replacement.

oxtred.7658:

“My idea is so dumb I’m saying in advance to not comment it, and I’m obsessed with something like a mad man; what do you think of the worst balance idea in the world?”

Don’t mind me, I’m the translator.

His “dumb” idea is actually quite smart: link stats to active actions instead of passive effects. It only makes sense in GW2’s combat, and even GW1 did it.

I won’t give number scores.

Changes to fractals

• So far I’m enjoying them. Still haven’t done the story mode. Only new fractal I’ve tried yet was the aetherblade boss (Mai Trin). That one was a very interesting fight. Getting better rewards at the end was also satisfying. I also like what the mistlock instabilities are in theory, but being at level 7, it’s going to take me forever until I get them, unfortunately. Conclusion: I’m intrigued, will play fractals some more, but I’m not sure if I have the patience to grind 20+ fractal levels to get my first taste on mistlock instabilities.

New Gem Skins

• Uninspired, lazy, cheap. Cliché flaming particle effects randomply placed on existing skins. There’s some interesting gem armor, but sometimes Anet seems to go the easy way out and spam them with christmas trees effects. More money to Anet, less world immersion to the game. Tyria felt like a world in GW1, and it feels like an (experimental) commercial product in GW2. Using T3 skins was also disrespectful to the fans and the game itself. There’s no ethical nor artistic integrity behind those changes. Makes the game feel less like a game and more like a scam at times. Anet seriously needs to improve on this.

Scarlet

• This almighty powerful being who came out of nowhere also happens to be everywhere and behind everything. With some “mwhaha I’m not a good girl” dialogue inbetween. Long lost is the lore of the guild wars universe. The interesting and complex interaction between different factions with different political or magical backgrounds. The mystery and majesty of the mursaat, the abandonement of the human gods, the ancient dragons awakening, the ironic destiny of dredges who were once saved from enslavement by humans and are now fighting them. Everything. Everything that is/ was interesting in Tyria is being forgotten or ignored. The entire world now revolves around the writers’ new favourite and adourable pet, and in turn it doesn’t feels like a world anymore. Tyria is being re-shaped around a character that the playerbase can’t even like. Classic example where it seems like the writers are treating their favourite characters like their own kids, spoilering them by re-shaping the entire content around those characters, at the cost of everything else.

This is a pvp or balance oriented interview, right?

My main question is:
- GW1 had a very fun, simple and streamlined character building system with a lot of depth behind. But for GW2, experimentation requires a small fee or loading times to teleport into the mists, a lot of dedication to get the right exotic/ ascended level of stats, involves several different mechanics (utility skills, traits) and even lacks a fun skill-hunting system. Is there any plans to improve, expand or streamline the current systems?

Secondary questions:
- Are there any plans to customize the weapon’s skill selection, or would that be troublesome for balancing?
- Any plans to change how elite skills work, how they are obtained, or even the possibility to swap them forother utility skills?
- Does the existence of conjure weapons for the elementalist means that they won’t ever get a greatsword, axe, etc weapon?
- What are your goals with conjure weapons?

Mikuchan.7261:

Completely agree with OP.
This isn’t ok.
The sprockets may not be worth much, but this mining tool gives a clear advantage over everyone else.
Advantage in acquiring value.
Not much, but it is an advantage in acquiring value.
Thus it is pay 2 win.

Where is the advantage of spending 1000 gems to very slowly gain a few sprockets?

You are greatly losing money out of this, and the only way to get any value is through very high dedication. Which is the opposite of P2W (get things by paying for them instead of working for them).

In an hour or two, some people will start playing the new dungeon, others will experiment with custom arenas and spectator mode, and some others are going to take the forums by storm because their favourite profession was “forever ruined”. :P

xiv.7136:

It’s obvious RTL range is being decreased to 600 and only works on target so it’s not an issue

This would completely ruin the skill, you know.

The problem with support playing in this game, is that it is completely unreliable.

Do I use Water Trident on my or on my ally? I’ll use it on my ally. Oh, he just moved out of the way to evade an attack, and my heal missed!

Someone’s bursting me? Let me switch to earth attunement to gain protection. Oh, an ally popped up close to me out-of-nowhere and has also gotten protection!

The concept of a more chaotic combat system, that requires more improvization and less defined roles, is a good concept. But for that level of improvization to exist, you need time and clarity. You need to clearly watch the consequences of an action, and then have time to react and take advantage of those consequences.

GW2’s combat does not gives you time nor clarity to favor its chaotic nature. Inbetween the spamming of everything, the extreme bursts, the screen cluttering, and the huge amount of info-dump, hidden or not, makes the combat a big chaotic mess at times, and rewards players for putting all their skills on cooldown. Do as much as you can, as fast as possible, before you get killed out of nowhere.

Vinceman.4572:

And a big NO to making raids easy! They are good as they are and many decent players have been successful in there. We don’t need the last percent of content to be like the other 99% cakewalk.

I’m not saying that raids should be easy. I’m saying that the story-driven experience that raids offer should also be available to players that enjoy story-driven content but not hardcore, organized raiding. All Anet needs to do is add an optional story mode. It’s quite simple. If their content appeals to two distinct audiences, then it should be accessible to both audiences.

This is generally a good change, because it priotizes personal rewarding over trading post tactics. The advantages are worthier than the disadvantages.

I also wouldn’t mind if this affected even lv80 characters. It would bring something a bit more unique to playing with alts, and if you don’t like it, you always have the trading post to rely for and make your trades.

The higher the number of skills, the harder it is to focus on designing each of them the best you can. That’s why a game like GW1 has thousands of skills, but more than half of them are useless or boring, and GW2 has fewer (weapon) skills, but each of them plays a very important role.

I think elementalists are suffering from this, much in the same way that utility skills (across all/ most professions) are suffering from this. There’s several skills that definitely got plenty of attention by the devs, and several others that feel like they exist for the sake of filling in the remaining slots, and should only get truly fleshed out in the future.

For now, the elementalist is an example of quantity over quality. Instead of the more minimalistic, clean skillset of other professions, we wished for a more ornamented skillset, but got a bloated one instead.

Laraley.7695:

I love the artwork and animations, really, but it seems like ANet is only good at that now and forgot how to design a class. :/

I’d say the revenant is better designed than most other classes, it just needs more polish.

GW1 had healer, support, damage and control.

GW2 wanted to be like that, with less healing and more support, but it ultimately ended with DPS-zerking or hybrid. :P

Shatters are not an optional set of utilities, but the main mesmer’s mechanic. It is to be expected that are go against builds that benefit from you for not using shatters.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

It kinda feels like they are dumbing things down once again to cater to the lowest denominator.

They are making the UI and mechanics simpler, cleaner and more elegant, which is great for newcomers and casuals, but they are doing it by stripping away illusion of choice and troublesome features, and by making options more impactful and meaningful, and balancing easier.

Good game design is a lot more than an unreasonable number of filler options.

Cleansing Fire IS going to be taken, regardless of it being a stun breaker, because not every ele has 30 points in water, nor ether renewal equipped, nor every ele is using a s/f combo with good condition removal.

And cantrips are some of the best utilities in this game, both because of the effects and the trait synergy. Being overloaded with stun breakers only made them absolutely necessary for every or almost every build.

Yukishiro.8792:

See posts like this are what I’m talking about. These are both just plain silly. Might isn’t a dramatic dps boost. 18 stacks of might is about a 25% bonus. It does not even begin to make shatter mesmers good at sustained damage. 25% more staff auto attack damage is not good sustained damage.

For the same reason it would be really pretty dumb even if you are going to run signet of inspiration to use it how you describe. Wasting two shatters just to set up a ~20% damage bonus for your group for a few seconds is just bad play most of the itme.

Wait, what? A 25% damage boost is bad for sustained damage, and using a SINGLE utilility to give to your entire party 6-18+ stacks of might is bad play?

You’re not even “wasting” shatters. You’re playing normally.

nerva.7940:

unfortunately JSharp has informed us that we have to put up with this silliness for an undisclosed period of time while they “watch it very closely”. /end thread.

It also means they’re pretty much well aware of it. :P Jon did say the build was way strong.

ANET: Take this opportunity to get the healing skill without having to spend 25 skill points! You must do it now, or you’ll lose this chance once living world moves on!

Players: But, ANET, spending 25 skill points is actually the best way to do it…

That moment where you realize that the shortcut, the “opportunity”, is actually worse than the normal way.

Ladies and Gentlement, :P

Elemental Attunement as a whole is not a staple to elementalists. The protection on Elemental Attunement is.

EA is a good party support skill. EA is versatile. EA has good synergy with the water traitline, which happens to be one of our best traitlines. But although all of those characteristics help making EA a strong trait, none of them make it a staple.

5 (8) seconds of protection under a 10-ish second cooldown is what makes all elementalists require it to survive.

EA is as much as a “staple” to the class as Renewing Stamina. Who cares about the 1 stack of might? Who cares about 6s of swiftness? They’re all okay-ish, but that’s not why all eles absolutely want to have it.

So, again, one of the core flaws of our profession is the survival. And this is something that must surely be addressed someday.

When people suggest an HP increase, they are just suggesting the easiest solution. I understand when Anet says that all classes should be balanced around its own unique base stat values. But, I wonder, wouldn’t it make it more sense for the Mesmer to have the low HP value and for the Elementalist to have the mid HP value? The Mesmers have clones, stealth, and stronger active defenses than ourselves.

Because the root of all this is the original design behind the elementalist. Anet has said, before the launch of the game, the following: to compensate for the low passive defense, we would have stronger active defenses.

That’s all fine in theory. But those “stronger active defenses” weren’t given to us. They were given to the mesmer.

It’s the mesmer that has easier access to blocks and invulnerability and teleporting and stealth and clones and confusion and torment and interrupts.

And us elementalists have gotten auras, which require us to get hit before doing anything, and so they’re most useful when we have stronger passive defense. And us elementalists have been given plenty of healing skills, which are the most useful when we have, again, stronger passive defense (toughness & healing). And we elementalists have been given slow-to-cast blinds or slow-to-cast defensive skills (most staff’s defenses). Which are more useful when we have – guess what? Stronger passive defense. Only our stuns/ KDs seem to be neutral enough, to be equally powerful regardless of our builds.

THIS is the problem with the elementalist’s survival. We were mechanically designed to depend more on active defenses, but those active defenses were given to the Mesmer. We need active defenses that don’t depend on stats. We need more blocks, more evades, more blinds, more of that stuff, and less auras and less healing. But those blocks, those evades, those blinds, and stealth, and confusion, and torment, and clones – all of them made more sense for the duelist/ trickster flavor of the mesmer profession, and so anet gave them the best and the most neutral active defenses.

So the solution can be simply enough:
- Swap the base health of the elementalist with the base health of the mesmer.

Or it can be a hard and time-consuming solution:
- Improve most of our active defenses across all our weapon skills to be more neutral. but then, won’t that make us way too similar to mesmers? Would that be a good solution?

Anet wanted a spellcasting profession with low passive defense and high active defense. That’s all lovely. They choose the elementalist for that role. Sure. But mechanically, that profession was the mesmer all along. Not the elementalist, unlike what Anet originally intended. And this is unfair to us.

Good work Anet.

There was a distinct disparity between what the community desired (colors as a core functionality) and what you were offering (colors as prestige cosmetics behind gold sinks).

The updated feature should now acchieve its intended (and desired) purpose: that of strategy and organization.

No, I am right. Note what I’ve said:

GW2 is balanced around pvp. Even though the balancing team tries to not hurt pve much, they do not directly focus on it either.

They are splitting skills so that their pvp changes do not hurt pve much. However, they are NOT directly focusing on pve, few exceptions aside, and this is as clear as day.

Since the game is out, we have seen all or almost all meta pvp builds nerfed, and a massive attempt at making all classes viable in pvp. But we have yet to see the same effort being done for pve.

Anet has a pvp balancing team that cares about not hurting pve (much). They do not have, however, a dedicated pve balancing team.

Peter Buch.8071:

Nothing truly needed for the elementalist, but tons of buffs for necromancers (YES, necromancer, a class that currenlty is broken in pvp), 3 sec stun for mesmers (sec… WHAT?), warrior getting buffed hard allthough he wrecks up the entire PvE world already, ranger buffed with 3 sec of stealth now allthough stealth was already just true kitten for spvp… Now we have perma stealth mesmers, thieves AND rangers.
Even guardian getting buffed, allthough they were actually rather balanced. Now they have even MORE sustain and heal…

2 things become obvious:
Anet does give a kitten about PvE.
Anet does give a kitten about elementalists.

Yes, because buffs to underpowered skills (which we’re not even sure if they’re still worth using or not, and if they are, they’ll take the place of other key skills) is ground breaking. And I didn’t know that a single stealth skill is now suddenly going to make Ranger a “perma stealth” profession.

Let’s not forget that necromancers were nerfed today, or that rangers and mesmers were nerfed last patch while elementalists have gotten many, many buffs there.

But hey, it’s easier to play the victim card. Oh noes, they don’t care about us! Oh noes! Remember those popular pvp heartseeker thief builds that could burst someone in 2 seconds out of nowhere? Fresh Air elementalists can now do the same while being at range and offering superior aoe damage and party support. Oh noes, we’re so weak!

Hey all,

Am I the only one that dislikes having the ground animation on upkeep skills all the time? I understand the intention (it visually tells you how many upkeeps you have), and its pretty by itself, but it gets annoying to watch all the time when you’re outside of combat and simply want your swiftness buff. It clashes with the legendary’s footstep effects, and you’re pretty much stuck to having it glued to your character while roaming. And roaming is something that you’re going to do for the entire game.

My suggestion to Anet is to make it pop up/ fade in only while in combat.

Great news. Playing WvW for fun is one thing, playing it for map completion was a nightmare. I’ll finally have a stronger incentive to explore the world with my alt characters, knowing they won’t have to go through the dreaded WvW nightmare.

Ayrilana.1396:

And then people would be posting how they needed to be refunded for all of the excess gathering tools.

Obviously they would ask for that, but this change would still be for the best of the game.

Of course, what is best for the game and what is needed to keep anet’s income to pay their developers are not always in harmony with each other, thus why some QoL changes need to be sacrificed and others need to be a luxury (shared slots).

Unpredictable and lovely. If necros are mad at the chronomancer, rangers will get mad at dragonhunters.

I think it’s clear to everyone except to several thieves that this profession is poorly balanced at the moment.

This is especially clear when all that can be said to defend the thief is “lol l2p”. I’d have to ask: why should I need to “l2p” after months mastering my elementalist, playing piano with my keyboard to be able to use all my 20 skills, trying to hit with my slow and predictable burst, when a random thief does not needs to “l2p” to do a lot more with a lot less button presses, while he is stealthed to boot?

The backstab/ heartseeker thief is, at the moment, the noob profession – with due respect to the thief pros. It’s extremely easy to get any results with it, and your opponent must play really well to stand a chance. It’s contraditory to demand your opponents to “l2p” when you’re using a cheap build that rarely puts you in such a situation where you must play as well as others to kill anything.

Urthona.3198:

The best part of GW2 is that it isn’t designed to force player cooperation. This is also the worst part of GW2. For better or for worse, it’s the design choice that sets the game apart. I try to appreciate it for what it is.

Yes, yes, very much yes! Good thing someone mentioned the other side of the coin.

There’s no adventure to do with your friends in GW2, unless you enjoy dungeons. There’s no story missions like GW1. There’s no party-driven content outside of dungeons or pvp. There’s no means to stick with a friend and both follow a story or explore the world in a way that does not waste our time.

There’s no obstacles to overcome with a cooperative group through general pve, outside of a few scattered champions.

By giving you the option of playing solo, GW2 takes from you the option of doing party content. At first, GW2’s general pve seems to appeal to both types of players, but in the end, it handles everything to solo players and forgets players who love parties.

I feel forced to NOT joining a party because doing somebody else’s story instance won’t advance mine’s, because exploring the world with other players is a mess, as they have done different hearts than me, and because it’s not even needed, so most players will simply ignore their party – if they even join in one – if they ever get an invite.