Dagger does not need more buffs right now. Other weapons need to be looked at instead. Staff is getting there but has a way to go yet, and scepter is still too slow or weak outside of air. Dagger is already mandatory with most specs across the game, so buffing it will only make a mandatory weapon more mandatory.
Yeah, I guess you’re right. But honestly, the abilities I listed for mainhand dagger are complete garbage with the exception of earth 3, which is almost painful to use because although the effects are quite useful the leap animation is so ridiculously slow.
The other abilities listed aren’t mainhand dagger. Fire grab is off-hand dagger, which tons of ele mains show love for, but isn’t meta for anything. Again, fire grab deals great damage, but the cone/range is so narrow you basically only hit with it if you’re standing right on top of a stationary target. Strafing targets are just way too difficult to land this against and missing it greatly reduces the burst potential of off-hand dagger in PvP.
Unfortunately, not having HoT (and the associated elite specialization for the class you choose) is a major problem in PvP. A quick glance at metabattle indicates that only ranger and mesmer have somewhat competitive builds that don’t feature the elite specialization (and they still aren’t rated top tier). Metabattle isn’t the ultimate authority on builds, but I think it’s safe to say you’re going to feel the lack of HoT when competing in PvP.
Necro is highly recommended for new players as it’s a pretty straightforward class with lots of health, access to minions, and death shroud. All of this makes them very forgiving to play even if you’re new to the mechanics of the game.
Ranger is another class that comes highly recommended for new players as their pets are very effective at distracting enemies.
Elementalist and engineer are fun, but both have very complex mechanics. You might enjoy them anyway, but many new players have trouble fully utilizing these classes.
You’re trying to advocate being [expletive deleted] for no reason other than you don’t have complete control over others.
And you’re testing builds wrong. You dont test by fighting a champ, you test by playing a session.
You can’t have it both ways. If the OP is wrong to think that they get to control what other people do in the open world, then how is it okay for you to tell them how to test their build?
It’s not up to you to decide how other people test their builds or whether they should refer to it as “practicing.”
I belIeve the point is that the expectation that others should recognize your claim to an enemy kill runs counter to the game’s design. Of course anyone is welcome to test a build by attempting to solo a champion. However, getting upset and insulting other players when they don’t do what you want when what you want is not consistent with the design and resulting etiquette is poor form.
I apologize for not being clear enough. I thought about a selfish auramancer build. With aura heal on self, vigor, regen, fury, swiftness and might on auras.
Its basically more focussed on self sustain and dmg.
Gametype is open PvE and WvW roaming.I cant find useful gear that includes vitality, concentration for a good power spec.
I wouldn’t bother with concentration, honestly. You’re giving up a lot to get those boons already. Why double down and make it worse? If all you want is full uptime on swiftness, fury, renew, and vigor you can do that perfectly well with a pretty standard fire/air/tempest build. Personally, I’d just drop the renew and vigor for stability on overload +10% damage following it. I only take invigorating torrents to pair with cleanse on renew in water (not usually necessary in open world outside of soloing condi-heavy champions).
Between aura on overload, weapon skill auras, a utility aura or two, and a passive aura from traits you should have full uptime on fury and swiftness and, as we discussed earlier, plenty of might from blasting fire fields. I really think focusing on boons from auras is unnecessary and will produce a less effective build overall.
If it’s an issue of feeling too squishy for solo open world, just use marauder. Renew/vigor are unlikely to make that much of a difference, especially when you’re getting knocked out of overloads due to lacking stability, thus missing out on the aura that follows it and all of the damage and effects of the overload.
Going for anything tankier than marauder, you might as well just go ahead and trait water so you can survive anything and spread boons via auras all over the place. Fire/water/tempest for better might stacking to compensate somewhat for the damage lost, and you can share boons/auras all day in groups. If the going gets too tough (soloing a particularly tough champ) drop back to the PvP-style survival build water/earth/tempest for near-invincibility.
None of the posters here even see a problem with coming upon a player that has obviously taken a champ down to the last hit before death by themselves, and they would take that one shot before that player if they can, every time and then go “oh, were you trying to kill that?”
I don’t have a problem with it, because no one owns a champ. If you want to really practice, solo a dungeon. That will give you real practice. and no one can interfere.
I don’t either. That was not a complaint. I was simply trying to see if anyone else sees the difference between cooperative PvE and forced or required cooperative PvE. I’m not saying forced cooperative PvE is bad at all, just that it could be interesting to play in a game environment that required someone to group up before joining in a fight, or getting some form of acceptance before a reward can be earned, or even some system that awarded loot fairly but based on damage done or time spent or heals done or any number of entitling actions.
Clearly not the way the thread went, once more info was added.
Plenty of games work like that, including World of Warcraft. It’s far from a new or innovative concept. However, GW2 decided to go a different way to encourage cooperative gameplay. Thus players who are used to GW2 see little reason not to jump right in when they encounter other players in combat.
Of course some players may prefer it one way or another, but ultimately we are where we find ourselves. This is GW2, not WoW or any other game. So here the etiquette is to jump right in. There’s little reason not to. And that’s by design.
Has anyone made an offensive Fire/Air/Tempest Auramancer build after the fire aura trait buff?
I’m not sure how you can technically be an “auramancer” without taking water for powerful auras. You apply few auras to nearby players this way while being forced to use up all of your utilities on shouts for little gain. The area heals are negligible without taking water and you’ll get much better might application simply by blasting fire fields.
If you just want to share tons of might with a fire/air/tempest build, you might try something like this utilizing scepter/warhorn:
Fire 5-3-2, overload fire, heat sync, swap to earth and cast sand squall.
That’s 6 stacks from the 2 blasts in fire 3 and 2, 10 stacks from the overload, 3 stacks from heat sync (now sharing 19 stacks), blasting the field with sand squall adds another 3.
If you take Imbued Melodies in the tempest line you will cast another sand squall if you take basically any damage at all during this process for another 3 stacks. But you can also add utility blasts to further supplement your might stacking (arcane wave, arcane brilliance, and/or Aftershock!).
As you can see, it’s very easy to stack 25 might without really going out of your way with traits like One with Fire.
Asking for 3 mins of testing is now ‘monopolizing’. I’m asking for a favor, not demanding copyright. Get over yourself dude.
I said it took 3 hours to get even 3 mins of someone not interrupting after repeatedly asking the specific people. I even helped countless people clear the champ then asked to be to myself to test, in which people ignored and continued to bother me, even after they cleared the champ, which i know they did, because i helped them to do it.
Quite franky you don’t read. And quite frankly it’s people like you i respect the least in this game. I asked for a courtesy. It’s a kitten move to continue to purposely interrupt after I’ve already helped them clear the champ.
Hell I’ve even had people follow me around the map, which is annoying because its hard to find taxi’s to other servers when someone is being a ass in the middle of the night which is OPPOSITE prime time. Quite frankly its unscientific to use one situation to determine if a build is good or not. So expecting for test on literally the easiest mobs in the game (that includes dungeon trash) is quite lacking. But that says more about the people who think that’s more than enough, than it does me.
You’ve been told before, but “testing a build” doesn’t require you to solo the champion arrowhead from 100%-0%. Like virtually all open world bosses, this boss has only a couple of moves that are repetitive and predictable. If you can survive it solo for a minute you can survive it solo for the entire kill.
I also enjoy soloing champions, but I’m not about to ask other players to back off while I solo an enemy they have just as much claim to as I do. It proves nothing and getting upset with them for refusing just shows them how fragile your ego is – not something a sensitive person such as yourself should reveal on the internet (See Donald Trump)!
None of the posters here even see a problem with coming upon a player that has obviously taken a champ down to the last hit before death by themselves, and they would take that one shot before that player if they can, every time and then go “oh, were you trying to kill that?”
Should we see a problem? This is gw2. This “problem” you speak of is completely foreign to players in this game. You don’t own that champion and there is no reason other players should be thinking along those lines when they approach the enemy you’re fighting.
If i want to quickly test something i dont do that fuzz. I look for a lonely corner to try it on some trash. Even then i had it that 3 (!!!) players were ganging up on “my” wasp (not even veteran or such). Like it was a champion dropping some exotics.
Its the psychology behind it. Why should you do that at all? Like there were dozend other wasps around me. Why “mine”????
That’s one way of looking at it. Another perspective is that the game is designed in such a way that “stealing” kills isn’t an issue. Thus players will at the very least throw a ranged attack or two at an enemy that is engaged with another player, even if they’re just passing through. Why not? You get loot for it (auto loot from virtually any distance is a thing, by the way!) and you aren’t stepping on the other player’s toes in the process.
Nobody but you is thinking “That’s MY wasp!” because that isn’t how this game is designed (as opposed to a game like WoW, where tagging and stealing kills is a thing). Nobody is thinking about testing builds on trash enemies because that’s a useless way of testing. What are you going to learn from testing against an enemy that has no health? Why you think anyone should have guessed what you were doing is beyond me.
If you find it fun then please, by all means. But like you said, different people tend to like different things.
As I recall, one of us suggested that their preferred way of playing the class is the “proper” way. And it wasn’t me. So I’m glad you allow for the rest of us to do things our own way.
Ele can do this stuff solo with the right build!
Of course but… why? It’s group content, you most likely will have other players doing the stuff anyway.
It’s a mystery, Feanor. How could anyone possibly enjoy anything that you don’t personally find worthwhile?
D/D ele is still not viable in spvp by seeing that current meta can’t stand on point with dodges and kitting 1v1. With cele in pre seasons introduction, I can still 1v2 on point win or lose I still occupy them for 1 minute. Pre Hot it’s like I can 1v3 and flip kite no issues same with being a celestial rifle engineer. The cd reduction on Renewing Stamina makes a big diff…. used to be 5 secs and it has been changed to 10 secs. It’s very game changing and the gutting or elemental rotation times.
All and all core ele’s arcane trait line was trashed in order to sell Tempest traitline in HOT. If anet would have left arcane trait line as guild wars 2 core elite traitline I’m sure the game would be great and nerfs would never happened. Anet botch that up since they won’t be able to sell as much HOT and that’s why you see the lack of core prof. But wait expansion coming up means that the next elite trait may cover the lack luster of burst dps and or condi (why would you need to buff condi ) but they will.
I’ve been enjoying d/d in PvP so far, but this is my first season (placed gold and currently still in gold). Tell me, what do you think of this setup?
I seem to be able to hold my own when outnumbered, escape and heal, then zip back into the fight to prevent a full cap long enough until teammates show up. And then I can provide some pretty surprising burst damage in those team fights. But no idea how this would hold up in higher tier play.
I have an idea! Why don’t you (fashion.6712), Feanor and I get together some time and run around the HoT maps? We can do events, take turns soloing champions, etc. You can see what full glass can do and at the same time see what a wildly un-meta playstyle like mine can do. If nothing else it will demonstrate the versatility of the class and probably give you some ideas you can use to adapt elementalist to your playstyle.
In the mean time, I advise trying different weapon sets and traits. Staff can deal great damage, but it’s not as bursty as scepter or dagger. Also, much of your damage is locked into ground-targeted area effects and you will often have to negate your range advantage in order to get the most out of these attacks in solo play. Also applicable to solo play, dagger and scepter have much better access to blasts for stacking might.
As for traits, you’re almost certainly going to want to keep tempest in whatever build you play. Overloads are just that good and the other traits/utilities you get are highly useful as well. However, you can still drastically alter the feel of the class by swapping the core trait lines.
Fire and air are a potent damage-dealing combination. But if you’re dying too much, try swapping out one or both trait lines for water and/or earth. Water will greatly increase your healing and condition cleansing potential while earth will take the bite out of incoming damage. I like arcane, but I have a hard time choosing it over the other core trait lines. It would have been easier to take it paired with any of the other two, but tempest is too hard to pass up.
I’ll offer two example builds that I actually use in open world. The first is the “multi-purpose” hybrid build. It features great survivability and retains solid (but not raid-worthy AMAZING!) damage. The second is full on tanky you-can-survive-ANYTHING even if you want to facetank champions. I choose dagger/dagger for my builds because it’s my favorite set, but feel free to look at these as templates you can adapt to whatever you like.
Don’t get too hung up on the stat sets either. Crafting celestial is expensive and there are cheaper ways you can go if you want extra survivability. This is just something I personally use for fun in solo play and if you want a tanky ele that can take on almost anything solo, it’s good for that. Examples of “anything”: all of the HoT hero challenges (except broodmother because you’d want more damage and probably range to overcome her self-healing), all of the bandit champions, the legendary executioner, chak crown, assault on SCAR camp event. Ele can do this stuff solo with the right build!
I think most classes have a legitimate role in every game mode. However, they tend to get pigeon-holed into playing a certain way. For instance, I like ele. But if I’m going to raid it’s expected that I fill the damage role. However, in PvP/WvW I’m expected to be a support healer.
In solo play I tend to prefer a tanky might-stacking hybrid build that isn’t too slow but can take out pretty much any champion I come across without getting squished! I also like to use my favorite weapon set (d/d) regardless of what would strictly be “the best” for a particular encounter. Why not? Solo PvE is where I get to break free from doing what the group needs me to do!
So my advice? Play what you enjoy. You’ll have plenty of time to play what the group needs you to play regardless.
I’ve been so impressed with the endless combinations for mixing and matching skins in this game. Over and over again I’ve found skins that are perfect for a look I’m working on, even though I had no intention of using that skin when I unlocked it! So I’ve learned never to write off even the ugliest/silliest skin, because I just never know what is going to work.
Who knows? Maybe a silly hat is just what I need as an excuse to break out Quip again!
It needs to be actual DUELING arena. Not the spamfest that it currently is. Still, much better the current arena that nothing.
Perhaps they could add something to the current functionality that allows a group the option of only being flagged hostile within their own group? That way you could keep the free for all, but also allow duels.
was fighting a ele the other day, he literally doesn’t drop below 100% health. I’m using condis as a necro. I can get in a lucky melee hit and he takes some dmg, and apply about 5 condis, but then he cleanses them all before they tick once, and he’s back at 100% health. But. He can still stunlock me and press 2 buttons to deal 20k dmg. This is absolutely horrible balancing. What the kitten is anet thinking?? NO class should be immune to an entire damage type. I don’t care that he has to use all his sigil slots and and about 2 traits to do that, it’s just not fair to not be able to deal ANY DAMAGE AT ALL while he can still kill me in three seconds.
I’m quitting this game until this bullkitten is fixed. Being immune to half the world’s damage and still being able to kill everyone who plays the game is just dumb.
Wow! I play ele! You gotta get me the name of this absolute GOD of PvP so I can learn all their secrets!
Well my poor wee DH is getting stomped by Fire Eles doing 30k damage (100% crits) plus 50% heal inside 5 seconds. Seen this over a dozen times, huge burn, huge crits and a tidy heal. Only draw back seems to be a 4 secs cast time, negated by tag teaming with invis profession. Max target 3. Overload Fire can do 10 times it’s base damage, 2 to 3K per person hits 10 times (for one button press) – to 3 people max inside 5 secs -with 7K follow up. (two buttons)
Press one button and chase….absolute joke in a game this old.
Sure it hoovers up lowbies and kills pvp for many newbies and is a build that wouldn’t fair too well at non-lowbie levels but who at Anet thought this was a good idea!
I can accept thieves having high burst damage because they can be weak in other aspects and there are counters that force them to have care, but here we have a build which can easily wipe 3 players out with ONE button press! Way to go Anet. Ho Ho Ho.
Yeah! It’s a good thing for the ele those enemy players are forced to stand in place doing nothing for 4 seconds!
Warrior are indirectly tanky, by a big healthpool and good mobility.
Necromancers have a second healthbar.I know eles are like skritts when it comes to being tanky, toughness builds with earthen cantrip and any class can still tick of half your health with a single autoattack.
That’s incorrect. Water/Earth/Tempest with a tanky stat set (e.g. celestial) can face tank champions all day long and solo just about anything.
Maybe in pve, but the sturdyness of the ele is practically nonexistant in pvp
The OP specifically asked about open world PvE, but this is also incorrect. It would be more accurate to say that the meta for ele is not all that sturdy (which is also true in PvE). However, if you drop the team support and focus on self-preservation with your build, ele is very tanky in PvP as well. It’s perhaps the most versatile class, so you can play it many different ways.
Not that I’m recommending ele. The OP seemed to indicate a less complicated class to play. So ele probably wouldn’t be a good fit. But it has the tankiness covered, if that’s how you want to build.
Hi! I really love dagger as a weapon set for ele, but a few of the skills seem like they could be better.
Lightning Touch (dagger 2, air) – I don’t find this skill very useful. I think it would be a lot better if it were either instant or activated in a radius.
Magnetic Grasp/Leap (dagger earth 3) – Ranged immobilize + leap? Fantastic! Unfortunately, the leap animation is so slow, by the time you reach the target they’re already moving away again. Further, if you do it on an incline, it over/under shoots the target! How about changing this to either a pull or a teleport? Or even a double pull – like magnets coming together, both the caster and the target move toward eachother at high speed? Bonus points if you can trigger it while charging up Churning Earth (dagger earth 5)!
Cone of Cold (dagger water 2) – This skill is just sort of slow and weak. Any chance it could be improved by adding chill the way Drake’s Breath (dagger fire 2) applies burning?
Fire Grab (dagger fire 5) – It’s a powerful ability, but I feel like the cone is too narrow. It misses a lot, even when targets appear to be in range. It almost forces you to run directly at your target to land it. Any chance we could make it a little wider?
That’s all I have for weapon skills. On to utilities!
Aftershock! – Amazingly useful skill! It’s powerful both offensively and defensively. If I had one complaint, it’s the 45 second cooldown. I realize it’s a powerful effect, but this seems a bit long even so. Any chance we could get a reduction? It made a huge difference for arcane shield, which is now another of my favorite utilities.
Rebound! – Another strong skill, albeit situationally. However, I find this ability to be a little too niche. Could we spice it up a bit by making it instant (in fact, apply that to all shouts – they should all be instant) and perhaps applying the aura on the front end regardless of whether it saves the player from death? This would give it more purpose outside of trying to guess when you’re about to die (and failing to land it because of the cast time!).
Tornado – The only use I’ve found for this skill is knocking enemies off of points in PvP. It’s too slow, low damage, and leaves you pretty vulnerable. I have no suggestion for how to change it at this time, but I would like to see this skill become something more generally usable.
Warrior are indirectly tanky, by a big healthpool and good mobility.
Necromancers have a second healthbar.I know eles are like skritts when it comes to being tanky, toughness builds with earthen cantrip and any class can still tick of half your health with a single autoattack.
That’s incorrect. Water/Earth/Tempest with a tanky stat set (e.g. celestial) can face tank champions all day long and solo just about anything.
Staff + p/p is a strong open world combination, although I would suggest carrying a shortbow most of the time simply for the mobility. Staff will end up being your go-to weapon with the pistols more or less reserved for kiting tough single targets you don’t want to get close to.
For an open world build I like dd/cs/acro. It sort of covers all of the defensive bases with tons of evasion, great condi cleanse and heals, and still retains strong burst for taking down enemies quickly. Run it with marauder and even strong enemies and large groups will have a tough time taking you down.
If you prefer stronger damage and feel comfortable with it, ditch marauder and acro and pick up berserker and deadly arts or trickery.
I just wanted to say great job on the new PvP lobby. I am especially enjoying the free-for-all arena, which I don’t recall being a thing in the old PvP lobby (then again, I haven’t been doing PvP for very long so maybe I missed it?). Anyway, if it is a new feature it’s a really nice one to have!
I’ve been spending more time than I should playing around there. Not only do I get to practice my skills against players well above my tier, but after an epic round in the arena many players like to talk shop, share insights, etc.
In ranked play it’s usually silent. You don’t usually get any feedback (unless you really mess up!). But in this format, we’re all just having fun, trying out builds, etc. So it’s all friendly and most players I’ve talked to there so far are glad to give/receive feedback. Good stuff!
I’ve only done PvP dailies twice since the change, but both times I knocked out all 3 in a single match. This compared to having to win a match on a class that I don’t play and being forced to go do a PvE daily instead. I like the changes here.
does nobody see issue that there are 4+ dragon hunters every game lmao
Admittedly, I haven’t played many games yet this season, but I can’t recall being on a team with more than one guardian in ranked play. I have seen some guardians that were either tough to kill or seemed to lay down serious burst either from traps or burns. But I’m new to PvP and I really don’t know guardian even from a PvE perspective. I have a feeling my habit of using ride the lightning (I play d/d ele) in a straight line at my enemies to close distance is a shortcoming in this matchup!
I sparred in that free-for-all arena in the new PvP arena yesterday. There was a DH there that seemed to know what he was doing with traps and a longbow. I was having a heck of a time finding an opening without having to disengage and heal. We traded blows off and on for a good long while (each killing plenty of other players in the process!) before I snuck in behind him while he was fending off a mesmer and took him down. Maybe I suck, but that guy seemed good!
Still, I’d say I rarely encounter his caliber of guardian and I expect if I were more experienced and on his level of play, I would be able to more effectively pressure him. I was certainly surviving, albeit by disengaging, healing to full, and returning to the fray repeatedly. Cowardly tactics! But then, I am d/d ele. I have the mobility to get out of (and back into!) trouble with ease! Might as well make use of it when I eat a trap bomb to the face and find myself at half health with a stack of condi and an angry guardian in my face!
What tier are you in? Maybe its like the way I seem to do fairly well so far using non-meta d/d ele? I seriously doubt it’s because I’m starting a trend! More likely I can get away with it because I’m middle of the pack on the rankings rather than near the top tier and sometimes playing off meta surprises people and they don’t know how to handle it. And if I can noob it up against a player who is nearly on the top 250 leaderboard, wouldn’t that suggest that guardian isn’t OP at all?
Guardian was underrepresented in the last tournament as I recall too, wasn’t it?
A single sparring match in a chaotic free-for-all arena is not exactly conclusive evidence, but putting it all together I just don’t see a problem here.
It may have been your opinion you were trying to express but it came across as fact.
Which is irrelevant. In a debate you argue on the merits of your opponent’s statements, regardless of whether those statements are a opinion, statistical fact, or a vociferous diatribe. Squabbling over whether a statement is a opinion or fact is the argument of a plebian incapable of mounting intelligent discourse.
I grow tired of how many threads get derailed by petty arguments over trivialities.
It is anything but irrelevant because you just more or less repeated what I said. It doesn’t matter if he thought he was delivering an opinion, it came across as a fact. In other words, the merit of his actual statement. Also, debate is oral and even there inflection and voice tone play a part.
And you grow tired of it but it didn’t stop you from adding to the derailment. Because honestly, what did YOU add to the OP’s topic?
Oh really? So you and Djinn took the OP’s statement “This is ANet’s understanding of game” as an indication of his mystical mind-reading powers? Truly?
I mean, I’m not the brightest bulb but it seems to me the post was easily understood and required no clarification: The OP is salty he lost in PvP and then got his butt kicked in PvE, too. Now he’s on the forums complaining about it.
Was that so hard to understand? kitten .
I think it’s useful to note that not all PvE encounters are the same, so it very much matters how “solo” you really are.
When some players talk about solo, they simply mean that they aren’t technically playing in a group. In other words, they zone in to a map, find an event, and start playing. Other players show up and they are no longer solo. If a challenge is too difficult for their build to handle alone and no other players are present, they simply move on to greener pastures. If this sounds like you, then you’ll probably want to prioritize damage. In most situations that are clearly “solo” content, high burst will kill trash enemies before they have a chance to do much damage to you in return.
Other players literally mean SOLO. They may not be opposed to cooperation, but their biggest concern is not feeling locked into playing in a group to get anything done. These types of players generally want a tankier build as it’s more important that they be able to take on tougher challenges by themselves than it is to take down trash enemies quickly.
I think if you fit the first description, daredevil is a good choice. It’s a great class for open world. Very strong burst damage, superior evasion, extreme mobility, and you have the option for strong heals on offense and condition cleansing.
If the latter, I think elementalist is your best bet (although several other classes are great options as well). Ele has a reputation for being squishy, but if you’re willing to give up some damage output they can be very tanky with excellent damage mitigation, healing, and cleansing. They can take down most champions with ease this way, and still beat the timers (where applicable). And if the reduced damage output is an issue when you don’t need the tankiness, just swap your traits and perhaps some gear and you’re suddenly a burst damage machine. It’s an extremely versatile class.
You just have to find what works for you. On some of my characters I use both melee and ranged so that I have an answer to any situation.
However, on my ele I don’t have a weapon swap and use daggers. For ele this produces a long melee range to allow better kiting, but you’re still more vulnerable than range.
Despite that I do my best solo work on my ele. She can solo all sorts of challenges including all of the bandit champions, the legendary executioner, and all of the HoT champion HPs.
I don’t know mesmer well, but you should pay close attention to the skills that allow you to evade attacks, stealth, and utilize your clones. Avoiding damage is key.
Oh shoot bunji has a rly good point with glyph of storms. It’s exactly like warhorn Earth 5 so it gives you another big AOE blind if you need it. With all the bleeds in earth you could always camp earth on big mobs and just spam blind after blind. I do it alot when my gf and I duo dungeons. I’ll blind everything while she zerk staff. Then we both dps when adds are clear
Sounds like fun!
I think my favorite thing about elementalist (and why I’m having trouble picking up other classes!) is just how versatile the toolkit is. And you don’t have to lock yourself into a one-size-fits-all build. You can (and should!) adapt your build to the situation.
I did my first solo legendary bandit executioner kill on my ele last night. I won’t rule out that some insanely good player out there could pull it off on a full glass ele, but I’m not that good. So I came up with a tanky build that gave me enough room to make a mistake here and there without getting 1-shot by her whirlwind or killed by the monster bleed + stun that follows it.
When I’m not trying to solo bosses that routinely wipe out groups of players, I use a much more offensive build. “Squishy” only applies to full glass. Ele can be whatever you want it to be. And that’s why it’s such a great class!
Ele or mesmer? Tough call. They’re both relatively complex classes. Getting the most out of them could be an issue if she’s not too quick on this active combat stuff. On the other hand, mesmer has easy access to plenty of distracting illusions that make PvE a lot easier and ele, while having a reputation for being squishy, can actually be among the tankiest classes in the game.
Just an example: A full glass ele can be killed in a single hit if they fail to dodge the champion arrowhead’s frontal wave attack. But a full celestial water/earth/tempest ele can eat that hit and take as little as 20% of their health (provided they have protection up, which is a safe bet with a tempest build and a few auras on your bar), which they don’t even need to bother healing because between the healing signet, renew uptime, soothing mist, and aura heals they’re already at 90%+ health a moment later.
So she could probably go ele and use a PvP-style build – auramancer healing/support. Her damage wouldn’t be great, but if you’re comfortable with it you could go with a more aggressive build yourself and count on her heals to carry you through and your damage would get enemies out of the way quickly. It could be a perfect matchup!
But you’re just going to have to try things out and see what works, I expect.
Please remove champions from HP missions
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: AliamRationem.5172
If you say you can’t do it, don’t do it, but that’s not a game problem. Those points get done every day multiple times a day and probably multiple times an hour. They’re not impossible and most of them aren’t hard, and several of the champs are soloable.
If you can’t do it, and you won’t do an HP train and you won’t ask in map chat, and you won’t have a friend join you, I find myself wondering why that’s the game’s problem.
It’s a problem for the game because the people who are complaining want game play to be convenient. It’s not about doable v. not-doable, it’s about convenient versus inconvenient. If you think convenience is not a major factor in how players view games, you have not been paying attention.
I did HoT hero challenges something like two months ago on my warr and had exactly zero problems finding a few guys for each of the champ HPs. If using LFG or asking in map chat is viewed as too difficult, than that’s a confession of failure for the community.
Is that a failure for the community, or is it an artifact of MMO’s trying to expand their customer base by attracting players who don’t want the same things as many of the original MMO playerbase does?
It seems like ANet is trying to please as many people as possible to keep them around. Once you start thinking that way, the question becomes, “What is gained versus what is lost?” As I see it, no one who really likes what HoT offers is going to leave the game if a few Champion HC’s that they’ve undoubtedly done many times are down-graded to vets as long as ANet continues to add engaging content going forward. Compare that to the numbers who’ve posted (which usually means there are many more who don’t post) who think that HoT was a rip-off which they find annoying and inconvenient.
Players who dislike HoT aren’t going to suddenly enjoy it because a few hero challenges were downgraded to veterans. However, players like myself who love HoT and routinely go back to these maps just to run around doing events and hero challenges (the champions give loot chests daily) would likely consider it a much bigger deal. Believe it or not, I have my favorites and I go back to them again and again (and help others defeat them in the process!).
As has been rehashed many times before, there are plenty of hero challenges available to unlock the elite spec without having to deal with the tougher champion hero challenges (e.g. mushroom queen, balthazar, broodmother). Downgrading only some of them is unlikely to have a great impact on players who dislike champion hero challenges because their issue is not being unable to unlock the elite, but rather being unable to map complete without assistance and unable to unlock the elite without practically exploring the whole jungle looking for the low-hanging fruit hero challenges.
In short, I think this is a suggestion that is a well-intentioned compromise, but ultimately would produce little benefit at some cost to the players who genuinely love HoT.
See, I think there would be a lot more benefit with little loss. However, another alternative would be that the Champion HC’s could offer two options — one would be a commune, the other would proc the Champion. Doubtless there will be objections to that, too. I suppose it would be instructive, though. Just how many would take the path of least resistance and how many want to fight the champ.
If you provided proper incentives based on the concept of effort vs. reward, who cares? Of course, some players would then insist that they are being forced to solo champions in order to receive the reward (duh?). What can you do?
I will still be able to go back to the other story line missions if I skip ahead to HoT?
Yes. You can pick up any storyline at any time as long as you have it unlocked. So working on the HoT storyline won’t prevent you from going back and working on earlier storylines.
The only down side to doing them out of order is that you won’t have any idea what’s going on. How much that matters is up to you. I decided not to wait and went straight for the jungle. It’s a pretty awesome place, and I was fine with going back and catching up on the parts I missed later. But do it your way.
matchmaking is a joke this season. Not sure what changes Anet made, but seriously laughable. I was in gold and got teammates who were obviously in bronze, didn’t know rotations, or their class.
I’ve been asking questions about my class role and proper rotation here on the forums to try and learn the ropes. Yet I placed in gold my first attempt at ranked PvP. I don’t think you need to be an experienced PvPer to reach that tier. I’m probably pretty good for a newb, but I definitely don’t understand all of the nuances of my class role or rotations. Maybe I will end up in bronze? But for now, I’m gold.
Please remove champions from HP missions
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: AliamRationem.5172
If you say you can’t do it, don’t do it, but that’s not a game problem. Those points get done every day multiple times a day and probably multiple times an hour. They’re not impossible and most of them aren’t hard, and several of the champs are soloable.
If you can’t do it, and you won’t do an HP train and you won’t ask in map chat, and you won’t have a friend join you, I find myself wondering why that’s the game’s problem.
It’s a problem for the game because the people who are complaining want game play to be convenient. It’s not about doable v. not-doable, it’s about convenient versus inconvenient. If you think convenience is not a major factor in how players view games, you have not been paying attention.
I did HoT hero challenges something like two months ago on my warr and had exactly zero problems finding a few guys for each of the champ HPs. If using LFG or asking in map chat is viewed as too difficult, than that’s a confession of failure for the community.
Is that a failure for the community, or is it an artifact of MMO’s trying to expand their customer base by attracting players who don’t want the same things as many of the original MMO playerbase does?
It seems like ANet is trying to please as many people as possible to keep them around. Once you start thinking that way, the question becomes, “What is gained versus what is lost?” As I see it, no one who really likes what HoT offers is going to leave the game if a few Champion HC’s that they’ve undoubtedly done many times are down-graded to vets as long as ANet continues to add engaging content going forward. Compare that to the numbers who’ve posted (which usually means there are many more who don’t post) who think that HoT was a rip-off which they find annoying and inconvenient.
Players who dislike HoT aren’t going to suddenly enjoy it because a few hero challenges were downgraded to veterans. However, players like myself who love HoT and routinely go back to these maps just to run around doing events and hero challenges (the champions give loot chests daily) would likely consider it a much bigger deal. Believe it or not, I have my favorites and I go back to them again and again (and help others defeat them in the process!).
As has been rehashed many times before, there are plenty of hero challenges available to unlock the elite spec without having to deal with the tougher champion hero challenges (e.g. mushroom queen, balthazar, broodmother). Downgrading only some of them is unlikely to have a great impact on players who dislike champion hero challenges because their issue is not being unable to unlock the elite, but rather being unable to map complete without assistance and unable to unlock the elite without practically exploring the whole jungle looking for the low-hanging fruit hero challenges.
In short, I think this is a suggestion that is a well-intentioned compromise, but ultimately would produce little benefit at some cost to the players who genuinely love HoT.
Worst maps? Any map from Dry Top on into HoT. They are the intrusion of the jumping puzzle into the core game, something Anet said would never happen. The new maps are nothing but advancing the core game through platforming. The context of the maps is also problematic, i.e., you do your platforming with annoying mobs densely populated…everywhere.
I think we’re using a pretty loose interpretation of the terms “platforming” and “jumping puzzle” here. Jumping off a ledge and deploying a glider or bouncing off of a mushroom that automatically sends you to the same location every time (minus some wonnkiness every now and then) doesn’t strike me as “jump puzzle” or “platforming” material. But I suppose you’re welcome to your own interpretation.
Well, I might as well show some love for maps that aren’t universally loved!
Top 5 favorite maps:
1. Tangled Depths
2. Verdant Brink
3. Auric Basin
4. Bloodstone Fen
5. Hello Kitty Island Adventure
1. Tangled
MessDepths – Confusing to navigate and explore. Lack of waypoints makes it difficult to reach some events during meta
I get that not everyone is going to enjoy a map like Tangled Depths. However, I’m noticing a trend here. Many of the complaints come with huge misconceptions about the map layout.
Lack of waypoints and contested waypoints? There is no map in the game that requires the use of waypoints less than Tangled Depths! Seriously, just LOOK at the map! I know you believe it’s useless, but at least pay attention to the wallows!
See that wallow just south of the first waypoint? That takes you northeast to the undergrowth connector. See the wallow right next to that one? It takes you straight to Teku Nuhoch waypoint (which is never contested, but reaching the waypoint literally takes less than a minute if you don’t have it yet).
Teku Nuhoch waypoint is a wallow hub. Take the wallow to confluence passage, skip across Rata Novus lane to the wallow there and in literally <30 seconds you have reached Rata Novus waypoint.
You mention the meta. LOOK at the map! SEE the wallows! All four lanes have wallows located right next to their respective waypoints and none of those waypoints will ever be contested during the meta. How did you not see this?
It isn’t your style of map. I get it. But what you’re really telling us with this is that you never gave it a chance, because you should have at least seen those wallows and understood their significance. But instead you’re complaint is about waypoints…which are barely necessary in TD.
You can literally hit all available waypoints from scratch in less than 10 minutes on this map (Did it in <7 minutes on my thief!). Use the wallows. It will make the map much more enjoyable than waiting around for waypoints to become uncontested or trying to navigate through convoluted areas you haven’t learned yet.
I’d pick 5 core maps to top my list of “worst” maps, but I’m having a hard time differentiating between them. They look beautiful as all maps do in this game, but for me they simply lack personality. There are lots of them and none of them stand out to me in any way.
By comparison, the HoT maps all feel unique to me, despite sharing the same jungle setting. The only one I don’t really like is DS, but I still appreciate the unique meta there (it just isn’t my thing).
I think you’re forgetting what it was like to encounter these enemies unprepared. It isn’t just the shadowleapers, although they are probably the best example: highly mobile, evasive enemies with potent ranged offensive capabilities. There are many enemies in HoT that are simply more dangerous than what you encounter in Orr.
I didn’t start playing GW2 until after HoT released, and I remember doing quite well in Orr with my first 80 (a dagger/pistol thief running a shadow arts build). I also remember entering the jungle for the first time and falling flat on my face.
Don’t get me wrong. I love HoT. If I had to list my top three favorite maps in the game there’s no question: 1. TD, 2. VB, 3. AB. I can’t get enough of maps like this! But it’s precisely because of those complex, layered maps and challenging combat that these maps are my favorites.
What does that say for people who dislike the combat and the layouts? Are they wrong? I’m not sure there’s much to be gained from trying to convince people that this is simply a natural progression as if it invalidates their preferences. It doesn’t. They like what they like just as I like what I like.
Well said, but I don’t have problems with the combat of HoT, my main issue is the platforming collection of Mastery points. I hate that we totally disagree on map design, where I can’t stand a map that I can’t see pass ugly green trees. The kind of map I prefer is gorgeous landscaped maps like a view that you would get looking down the Washington Mall from Lincoln’s Memorial. You have been the voice of reason constantly, and again I will state that my fervent hope for the next expac is for a design built for us all in mind.
Wow! That’s high praise! Thanks!
Support ele is still very strong. If you play support ele and can’t win matches, try something easier.
Any other ele puts your team at a disadvantage. If you play non-support ele, switch to any build that is appropriate for the meta.
If you’re losing matches with p/p thief, it’s because you’re playing a garbage p/p thief. Switch to something better.
The thing is, I’ve mained ele since launch. Ele was my baby, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong anymore.
Hi! I’m new to PvP and just did my first ranked placement with an ele (d/d, W/E/T, non-auramancer). I won 6/10 of my placement matches and was placed into gold 1. I’m not sure how good/bad that is, but I’m hearing that’s pretty average? I guess I can’t complain about that for a first attempt.
Just a thought. If you can’t rely on your team, maybe you’d be better off playing something off-meta with better personal survival and a bit of offense to apply some pressure yourself without having to rely on teammates as much?
Auras are great team support and healing, but if you’re just by yourself in outnumbered fights because your teammates can’t stay alive even with support, why not drop some auras and beef up your defenses with more selfish utilities? You could perhaps make it easier on your team if you’re able to tie up 2 or more enemy players for a time without dying. It works for me…sometimes!
So if I’m reading you right, you want to be able to CC people more easily and prevent them from pulling any tricks out of their bag that might prevent you from unloading a massive burst of damage?
Does this look more like what you want?
I guess thats how you would describe it in laymen’s terms and considering the loss of translation, yes.
I’m talking about invulnerability not just preventing damage of all kinds and magnitudes but also allowing the user to do things while invulnerability. Endure Pain reduces things to direct damage to 0 but allows Condition Damage to work like normal. Blocks are the same thing, but are also susceptible to Daze and Conditions.
Invulnerability is IMMUNE TO ALL!!! Please tell me, you know this. If I’m wrong, kindly tell me otherwise, I’d like to hear about it and actually counter invulnerability.
Is there a counter to Invulnerability? If not, why isn’t there one, in the balance of things?
Apologies. I was only joking (and looking for an opportunity to use that meme, because it makes me laugh!). As I understand it, the only “counter” to invulnerability is condition damage. I don’t necessarily have a problem with it as it only lasts a few seconds and tends to have a fairly lengthy cooldown, but I agree that you probably shouldn’t be allowed to stomp or revive while invuln.
Then again, I’m new to PvP so I may not fully understand the implications of such a change. So take that for what it’s worth.
So if I’m reading you right, you want to be able to CC people more easily and prevent them from pulling any tricks out of their bag that might prevent you from unloading a massive burst of damage?
Does this look more like what you want?
Thanks again for the reply.
Fun video, too. I use a different build than the ele in the video, but the use of line of sight is one of my favorite tricks. Run behind an object, heal to full, re-engage on the point. Rinse and repeat! I think it puts enemy players in a tough spot because if they follow, I’ll just CC and neutralize the point again. If they don’t, I’m back in their faces a moment later with full health.
So basically, if I can draw 2 or more players into a fight I think I can sustain for awhile and escape from once the heat gets to be too much, that’s what I’m going for in terms of the d/d ele role in PvP.
That’s encouraging, because unless my team is getting totally steamrolled, that seems to be where I find myself most games – 1v2+ harassing the enemy team until they want blood so bad they’ll gladly lose the match trying to take it! All the better if the pressure becomes too great and I’m still able to walk away from it.
Don’t get me wrong. I love PvP healing. But I basically see it the same way you described it: If I’m solo queuing most of the time and I’m not at a high level of play, I’m better off being a bit more selfish. Who knows but you sacrifice yourself or your more effective team role to save some guy who proceeds to run around pushing 1 and dies repeatedly!
I will definitely pick up D/F auramancer if I get into more organized team play and D/D becomes lackluster. But for now, I’m having a blast and your post makes me feel a lot more optimistic about my ability to continue using the build I enjoy.
I think you’re forgetting what it was like to encounter these enemies unprepared. It isn’t just the shadowleapers, although they are probably the best example: highly mobile, evasive enemies with potent ranged offensive capabilities. There are many enemies in HoT that are simply more dangerous than what you encounter in Orr.
I didn’t start playing GW2 until after HoT released, and I remember doing quite well in Orr with my first 80 (a dagger/pistol thief running a shadow arts build). I also remember entering the jungle for the first time and falling flat on my face.
Don’t get me wrong. I love HoT. If I had to list my top three favorite maps in the game there’s no question: 1. TD, 2. VB, 3. AB. I can’t get enough of maps like this! But it’s precisely because of those complex, layered maps and challenging combat that these maps are my favorites.
What does that say for people who dislike the combat and the layouts? Are they wrong? I’m not sure there’s much to be gained from trying to convince people that this is simply a natural progression as if it invalidates their preferences. It doesn’t. They like what they like just as I like what I like.
Thanks for the response!
So, keeping more than one enemy player tied up fighting me is useful, as long as I’m not giving easy points to the other team by dying in the process. In the above example I only died once, while distracting multiple opponents for most of the match. Success!
Perhaps I’m not using the term correctly, but when I referred to multiple “decaps” it was in the context of fighting outnumbered on the point, not running for uncovered points. So, for example, luring/knocking enemies off point to contest it and then trying to remain on the point to prevent a recap.
Where I am failing, it seems, is my primary role as team support. I’m simply not set up for it. Dagger off-hand is much more focused on mobility, CC, and offensive burst. So I compensate for the lost defense in my utilities, which sacrifices those handy shouts that make up the bulk of ele team support.
I’m not opposed to the meta, but I love dagger/dagger and fighting outnumbered with this setup. It’s a lot of fun and I feel (and your feedback confirms) that I can be useful doing so. But the meta is the meta for a reason. Am I hurting my team this way, assuming I don’t die and succeed at running distraction and preventing enemy points wherever I can? Is there room for d/d ele here?
This is the setup I currently run, so you can get an idea of where I differ from the D/F auramancer meta.
I’m playing a dagger/dagger W/E/T ele, so not the meta build. I guess I’ll start with a description of a game I felt I made a difference on and you tell me where I’m doing it right and where I need to improve?
I was playing on “Revenge of the Capricorn” this morning. I rushed the mid point and engaged the enemy there. When the bell rang and the 4th capture point appeared, I rushed it with my team and so did the enemy. My team lost badly and the enemy rang the bell.
When the next bell came around, I was engaged on the mid point in a 1v3. So rather than bring 3 enemy players to the party with me, I decided to stay mid and see if they’d continue trying to kill me. They did and my team rang the bell this time.
We ended up winning a close match with the enemy team well above 400 points. I only managed 2 kills, and 1 death, yet I topped damage and healing for my team with over 500k damage and nearly 400k healing.
My observations:
Great damage/healing numbers, but the damage was obviously ineffective at killing enemies and the healing was mostly just keeping myself alive against heavy sustained damage. I didn’t capture the point very often as I was pretty much always outnumbered. I did manage to pull off plenty of decaps for varying lengths of time, however.
I’m not really sure where you’re going with this one, Vayne. If HoT is no different than core, why do we love it so much? Isn’t it the challenging combat and huge, multi-layered maps? And is that not also what many other players hate about HoT? Are you going to tell them that they’re wrong for having their own opinions?
I know you’ve opened the eyes of many players to the joys of HoT (and so have I), but that just isn’t going to work on everyone. Some players just aren’t into that kind of gameplay and nothing you say or do is going to change that.
This ideea is one of the worst cases of “cutting the arm to remove a bruised finger” that I have seen in a good long while…
How is removing something that is not necessary “cutting off the arm”? No one has yet given a reason why pets need to be able to attack independently of player action.
How is it not? You aren’t thinking this through. Passive attacking is a basic feature of pets. I’m not familiar enough with pets in this game to recall exactly how they work, but in other games I’ve played ranger pets have behavior settings such as “passive”, “aggressive”, and “defend”. These setting make playing pet classes far less annoying. Your proposal would be a huge QoL downgrade.
How about just removing credit for passively killed targets? If the pet does 100% of the work, it gets a treat. But you? You didn’t do anything. No soup for you!
“Passive attacking” isn’t a thing. In a game where you can set a pet to “passive”, the pet doesn’t attack at all, even if attacked.
What I’m talking about is pets acting without the player acting. This is the basic problem that allows AFK farming. If you are Away From Keyboard, your pet can attack in your absence. My question is why this is necessary in normal gameplay (I understand why it is necessary for farming ;P ) In normal gameplay, if you are attacked you either respond (and the pet responds with you), or you direct the pet to respond. No automated pet response is required.
I’m pretty sure if you managed to read the word “passive” and understand its meaning in this context, then you were also able to read the words “aggressive” and “defend” and discern their meanings.
A better question than why these settings are useful outside of AFK farming is why you feel it’s a better solution to remove them than to directly address the issue by simply removing the loot from passively killed targets? What’s your compelling argument for removing them beyond AFK farming?