Guild Wars 2

That was so sudden..Tbh honest thieves were seriously abusing that and mesm to an extent.Its fine when its on long cds but spammable? How do you expect warriors for example ever be viable in this environment.. But it was cool to watch!
Though its ironic that jumper feels bad he has to waste 5 precious sec moving to his opponent and that his shadow return jail free card might not work!Not to mention that this outrageous change caused his death in a 4 (3 allies +1 necro) vs 1.
Id say bring it back to its former state for utilities like shadowstep.It was too fun to watch it on tourneys

Its really more complicated than you think
Some people may classify very limited builds and 1 dimensional like a zerker warrior as hard cause they are suboptimal at this point in the meta.
Imo opinion you have to ask yourself.What am i supposed to do with the class and how hard that is?
For example a 3 cantrips ele or bunkers in general are as easy as kitten at staying alive 1vs1 except perhaps against some cond class builds.But is this what you are supposed to do with this build?
Or teldos build and how versatile it is.It can 1vs1 most current used builds and has a lot of options to handle situations.But are you satisfied by not playing akittens full potential when you know you can neutralise most points and break most bunkers??
My point is that there are a lot of ways a build can be hard and more options just happen to raise the amounts of things you can pull in this game thus potentially increasing the skill cap which is what separates the amazing players
In other words if Teldo was playing a warrior a lot less people would know how good player he is imo.

Turbo Whale.1738:

^ Giant cute asura? Sign me up!

Sign me too! After i experienced how kitten my cof armor asura almost as tall as char looked in sab im sold

I love how everybody is in terror for upcoming changes after the last balancing patch !!
I get its very hard to imagine that patches will bring anything other than game changing nerfs but..
Zephyrs boon is not even used in tpvp anymore cause d/d is overshadowd by s/d.Also it affcects 2 skills max on d/d besides combos and is definately not over the top.A good fury and swiftness uptime didnt hurt anybody and isnt that hard to achieve on a lot of classes.
Not to mention that moving this trait up and you destroy all aura share builds including those with the fire trait.
Dont think ele has to fear the nerf hammer for now..
They already gave like the worst possible nerf to rtl,nerfed auras,healing etc..It comes to a point where you cant nerf anymore.It makes you look stupid afterall

^it gives! At least the elite.
Its random

Omg A Hotpocket.7683:

I have a grenade engineer too, should I ask Anet to give each of the grenades a special throwing animation? Oh no, I have 6 grenade skills but they all look the same so I just can’t accept I have more than 1 grenade skill!

Oh how i wish anet did that..You know you only got 2 dodges and id rather know with big flashy effects when a bleed or chill grenade is coming in my way so i dont spam dodge while you use #1 or trying to figure out what the actual grenade looks like in the mess!
:P

Well not flashy effects now that i think of it cause you know gw2 is already full of particle effects..Maybe make you do a small specific dance based on each grenade would be more appropriate!

milo.6942:

ok you are getting close to being on-topic now
now you also see the problem with gw2. you mention warrior in gw2 and you help him remove blind. OK. except that this is the reason no one takes warrior. he needs support. other classes don’t have this problem as serious as warrior do — they are more independant. and devs say they will make warrior have better self-clean from condition… this is step in direction of less teamplay.
hope you better understand what discussion is about now.

I need to correct you on this one :P
Its not that other classes dont have this problem.Its more that their meta builds atm are really self involved…to the point that it doesnt make sence
For example you have ele getting regen on cantrips trait and then spending the rest of the match fighting alonside a ranger,guard or other ele with elem attunement !!
There is a huge variety of build combinationts that are deemed unviable and the basic reason of this seems to be low 1vs1 potential.I personally cant be sure if this is a flaw of the game or a flaw of the players.Bugged traits and skills dont help either
But we dont have to go as far as ask holy trinity gamplay..Not when theres all this unexplored options that gw2 can still offer with a few small changes/fixes!

I strongly believe that support and player interaction in gw2 has the potential to be much deeper ,intuitive and fun than any other mmo that i have played yet.
Just the lack of defined roles give many people the impression that there are no roles at all.Some people simple dont like making sence out of the chaos.They went everything defined and set in the most simple way possible.And thats fine!
I know that gw2 is over the top at the information someone needs to process during a simple small sale fight so that the team can function the best possible way.
But its still possible to make sence out of it.And when you manage to do you ll come to appreciate that the battle defining moment didnt came down to just filling up a health bar by your dedicated healer.
Spreadin a specific role to more than 1 player doesnt make team play less..It just makes it a lot harder to reach that optimal play.Do i heal now or do i use my aoe heal for me now after i reach my teammate.Do i use my boon now or near my allies.Do i use my ccs now or do i coordiante them with my team.All these choices wouldnt exist together if there was 1 guy healing, 1 dps etc!
Just think how hard is to reach lets say max healing on your team in gw2 in comparison to a game like wow !
Sometimes too much complexity makes people giving up making sence.Then they blame the problem, having no substance and no solution ,instead of their inability to work it outAnd thats my opinion :P

But there is teamwork in gw2..I see people healing allies all the time,peeling for them so they get out of focus fire,giving boons like prot ,stabiliy on purpose chaining cc to burst ..chaining blasts onto a combo field like smoke,using rezz abilities, using portal intelligently. I also see abilities and traits that are directly aimed to allies and not yourself.
Just cause you dont see the above into pug play doesnt mean they dont exist in the game!
I like it a lot this way tbh..I think the way you define teamwork doesnt apply to this game anymore.
You literally saying you want healers,tanks dps..just cause there the support is more defined.Thats all im reading in this topic and im sick of it.

DiogoSilva.7089:

It makes sense, because otherwise Elementalists would be highly resistant to chill’s recharge drawback. With so many skills to use, there’s rarely a time where chill hurts our skill usage, while for other classes, it can delay their key, low-cooldown skills for 1 or 2 seconds. We are always switching attunements and using new skills. So affecting attunements makes sense.

It does make sence but..Can you tell me how it will ever be possible a build without full arcana and water?
I mean if you get chilled 16 sec att recharge rate becomes 48 sec.Of course you wont be chilled for 48 sec but for every 3 sec you are under the condition your skills and att cd are going up for 2 sec.So 6 sec chill and your next water has a cd of 20 sec etc..
People are finding hard to play with 16 sec base att recharge..put a few periods of chill into the mix and lol..i dont think it will work!
I think they should make stop drop and roll an adept trait and possible make its icd count seperately for chill and burning.
Not many use this trait.But if we are gonna leave arcana and water lines ever we need some chill protection imo..
Its simply bad design balancing a class by thinking players will ALWAYS spend 50 out opf 70 points to the same traits every time to make up for the weaknesses you put there.

Chill against an ele is incredibly strong and has always been.Even back in the days of the immortal ele you could effectively take them down by chilling them after they leave water and cover it for the cantrip cleanses.
Tbh i dont know if it is unfair but its certainly another reason why ele will always be pigeonholed into the cond cleanse utilities and trait line.At least chill isnt that common.
Also notice how our cleanse on dodge trait removes burning and chill.One is the best and most easy applied dot ingame that can destroy your 13k hp alone and the other can completely shut down an ele even without the slow mnovement effect

If weakness gets indeed buffed then glyph of elemental power will become way to strong since it enables you ,especially in d/d, to mantain perma weakness on a target and pretty good aoe weakness uptime cause i think the icd of the glyph is per target.
That would make people turn towards the glyph traits and then glyph of renewal will seem a lot more viable choice..
We will see i guess!!

Guys.. my point was that scepter ranged damage alone is not “viable”..You cant kill someone with s/d by keeping him in range only.You need to go close and unleash some of the powerfull spells that /d offers and focus lacks thus droping incredibly your damage output and not being used..
And thats fine!! I personally never liked pure range classes and the game already is melee unfriendly enough to not need classes and builds that can work at max efficiency by being purely at range
(irrelevant but..i just noticed that d/f must have the best projectile defence in the entire game :P)

^but if the ranged damage of scepter is one of best ingame as in its all you need to do something more than tickle ,then why focus is bad?.It offers more defence when you consider that you are in range .
I always thought and feel when i play that s/f is unviable cause it heavily reduces your damage out of proportion for the survaivability it offers.But s/f damage is s/d ranged damage.So i guess the way people here define “viable range damage” makes scepter fall short..Without firegrab,ring of fire earthquake and id even bring ce into the mix i dont think you can consider yourself a serious dps threat.Phoenix requires close range aswell for max effectiveness!
I personally couldnt care less since im in love with d/d atm ! But im pretty sure that air 2 eath 2 and air autoaattack cant kill anything at all alone :P
edit:of course i mean the above combo in repeat ..i dont expect earth – air to even come remotely to 1 shotting people ..lol

luxen.8376:

Ultima.8673:

no ele in spvp uses it and water doesnt work properly it doesnt heal to 100% health.
make casttime 3 sec and it would be fine

There are some using it in spvp and making it effective actually. Like people mentioned you can precast (lets say you’re not using any voicecom, just look at health bars and you’ll know when to use it) and even if you don’t people will most likely be focusing the downed target while you can stay at 1200 range and ress that person.

It might be viable for some time cause people have no experience on how to counter.
But after a while people will know what it does and will try interrupt you.
Then it would become mandatory to run it with stability.And then people will adapt by not killing your target or stealing/removing your stability.Which is still good cause you buy your teammate time ?But then again you dont pressure them you just force them to change their target focus which could be achieved with so many other ways
I honestly dont know if it would become viable after the intitial wtf raction passes.
Cause its like almost 5 sec cast time and also seems buggy in a lot of attunement versions..
Ultimas team should try it so we get to see how it functions on high end tpvp!!

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

Glyph is much stronger then the other rez skills and therefore they have treated it as such.
You can pre cast it and always just cancel cast it.

Well then they should drop the seondarry effects.
I believe there is a reason everybody uses it..Certainly must be that is balanced compared to other rezzes :P
At the very least remove it from the game if you think ele doesnt deserve a functional rezz.This together with the conjures and some pure pve use glyphs like glyph of storm take way too much space on our utilities..Cantrips and arcanes can keep your attention for so long

No points to hold in wvw i guess,,Its only logical for the thief imbalances when it comes to stealth and escapes/mobility to come out.
Personally in spvp i had no porblem with d/p thief or s/d( though alot harder to deal with) but for my minimal experience in wvw id say ..dont even bother.We play games to have fun afterall

Stealth.9324:

Does Aura Frost works if a range attack strike you? I notices there is no frost condition on them when they attack at range. But I may be wrong or it been bug for me.

It works with all attacks and the range limit is pretty generous

Switch to earth use 3 and then 2 to block his projectiles.Activate 3 again switch to water and activate 4 then go in air.See no rtl ever used and you have that warrior locked for life
But sure if general opinion is that d/d is too kiteable (heard it from top players too) then plss you are allowed to buff it!!!I wont stop you :P

Ostricheggs.3742:

It’s very clear that we don’t see eye to eye and any further input would result in derailment.

It took me 10 games to become effective at using dragons tooth on my ele. It took me 5,000 games to become as good at landing nades as I am.

I continually see people claiming that HGH is a faceroll build for scrubs. I would truly like to see those who claim it to join the next big tournament on their HgH engi and show me how it’s done, because I clearly have much more trouble playing the build than you guys.

It really took you 5000 games to figure out that you need to aim in advance making up for the travelling time? What can i say..we do see things differently.It took me 10 games to figure that out..it helped though that i had experience with staff ele which is by far harder to land spells than nades.In fact too hard for its impact.
If you want my opinion your problem is actually 5000 games on engie!
Lack of in depth knowledge of other classes possibilities and a huge insight of engie gives you the impression that engie is only class with that depth, which is not true at all. But anyway ..offtopic!

Ostricheggs.3742:

uberkingkong.8041:

grenades hard to land? lol. try landing dragon tooth, you tell me which one requires more skill to land.

Thanks to zoose guide, well mainly his ‘combo’ techniques, s/d ele is very enjoyable to play. Most other guides don’t give you combo’s, like with hgh engy, ostrich eggs never gave a combo that he uses a lot. I don’t know of any Mesmer combos, all I know is to land mind rack as often as I can. Thief combo? Caed never told us one, all I know is that you never keep pressing one till there hp is half, so…. what skills do I use then??

Dragons tooth doesn’t take skill to land because you’re forced to chain hard (or soft, depending on spec) CC into the dragons tooth. Quite literally the only trick to landing dragons tooth is switching to fire quick enough after updraft.

To imply that’s harder than landing a ground targeted AoE on an actively moving target is incredibly asinine

Of course theres skill in landing dt you oblivious engie elitist.. :P
Actually turning it in gtaoe it would effectively make 10 times easier to use it now..So plsss dear engie give us the skill cap of your nades..cause now dt is way easy to use

The noob ele will think its either it hit or miss with dt..but the experienced ele will know that you can use it for zoning,ativate when enemy passes a combo field,use it without target onto a combo field like forstealth etc
Besides you can take elem surge and make arcane builds that are many times harder than your hgh only because now your fire burst is not so “activate and hope to god it hits” like you said..
Imo dps/burst ele is much harder to play than hgh and i think a lot of pople even at top teams would agree with me here.Besides if youd bother to make some calculations about what effecient ele play is you would see that it gets a lot more complicated thatn a simple rotation even on easier builds like d/d..
That of course if we are talking about MAX potential..which means you need to factor specific boons uptime,skill cds and cost of staying in current att,skills availability in next 10 sec if you leave, opening for burst and having the cc and their attunements ready to set them up etc..
In fact logic wise i can tell you i find it a lot harder to calculate the exact perfect play for a situation on ANY ele than your hgh engie..the only difference was and is still to a degree that you DONT need to play at max potential ele to be effective.To that i agree

Lastly is good to notice that engie requires a lot lower skill compared to any class when it comes to predicting or beng proactive.With engie you can pretty much react to situation .Doesnt matter that you miscalculated and are stuck on wrong kit..Just switch back!

Well dont be surprised if you see zephyrs boon becoming gm or master trait.. and getting some crap in its place !
You know thats an air line change too :P

^ which also means something else!!
If gw2 is ever gonna have other game modes than conquest more based on kills like dm they would literally have to delete the whole thief class.Cause really if you take out the “stealth doesnt cap” argument then the escapes,mobility,stealth intervals and burst this class has is just stupid.

^ it will never gonna happen.Thief sharing the stolen boons when stealing those is so easy and spamable will never happen.
Tbh a lot of things you said never happened.Like s/d thief never been used at top level while jumper yesterday was showing it in its full glory.Anyway this is pointless..

Asomal.6453:

What is really impressive is that some people think that stealing 20 stacks of might is OP while being able to maintain it for 40 seconds, therefore giving the thief enough time to steal it, is completly fine. This community…

No stealing 20 stack of might is not op.Being able to spam an ability that can steal 2 boon ,has evasion,cost only 4 ini ,is a gap closer,does good damage is the definition of something op..And people want this shared??! :S
This community..

Thing is that if we have to wait for warrior to get fixed before ele gets his own kitten fixed …we are in for a looooong wait :P
D/d for the win btw!!!!So much flashier.Anet needs to nerf scepter to the ground (shatterstone ,dustdevil too op) so we can experience the greatness of d/d elementalist

Bas.7406:

You have 3 possible but all of them take 30 in Arcana. Engineers have 2, Guardians 2, Rangers 2, Necros 1/2, Thieves 3, Mesmer’s 1 maybe 2, Warriors 0.

he is technically correct.

Oh i see what you did there!! :P
Technically removing 10 points and allocating somewhere else its not that much of a different build.Unless changing a sigil makes a different build etc.
A mesm can roll with staff or gs, s/p or s/f with similar trait setu.By that logic i alrady have 4 builds for mesm without counting his actually trait (and concept) builds like shatter ,phantasm,conf etc
Anyway objectively ele has one of the most rigid viable trait setup.You either go 30 arcana and at least 20 in water or you go home.

LordByron.8369:

in short you can’t chase most classes.

You can ’t even finish a fleeing foe because you are locked in short range with a low-average mobility.

I miss old rtl as much as the next ele :P but you just underestimate the tools d/d cantrips has to stuck with the target.
1)12 sec cd root that can be used as a good mobility skill on a 6 sec time window
2)blink
3)cripple..more than enough with evasive arcana in the mix
4)CHILL
A d/d ele with sigil of hydromancy and a few +duration or chill runes assuming that enemy lands a few hits on your frost aura has an amazing chill uptime even if he cleanses it acouple of times.Plus you get a quick cover with water auto,fire 2, earth 2,air 2 ..lol so many condies you can cover it with its not even fun.

Try this to see how powerfull chill is.Fight an ele 1vs1 and apply chill immediately after he leaves water.If he has cleanse cantrip on use frost aura.Also for max trolling use both water elem and blast through their ice fields as well as earth 3.
Then lay back and have the easiest duel of your life as his sustain is destroyed cause chill affects att cd :P

I was dissapointed as well.I expected losers being forced into a crying emote and winner into a /laughor something like that …Instead a useless shield pops up

milo.6942:

Neare.9703:

ANET doesn’t create builds, you do. Go play with traits and who knows what you might come up with. That’s how every single build prior has been created. Stop waiting for someone else to tell you how to play your class…

the only limit is your own imagination!!!
also: bugged traits

lmao

Well it was good while it lasted..:(

this needs to happen..i dont think that elites should be countered by a thief spamming 3

Brigg.6189:

or scale up asura height like SAB imo

Tbh that would be amazing..As i roll asuras for the sake of rolling asuras i loved that in SAB i could the details of my char and his weapons/armor

No staff is not viable in tpvp..I mean here in eu people are even debating wether d/d is viable compared to s/d and you think staff would have a chance?
Its too slow,too unreliable,has little damage.And also…its support is lackluster!!!
Yeah you heard that.Tell me how it can match the burst healing of s/d ,the lock down of target that d/d offers plus high chill uptime,the d/d aurashare ,the amazing mightstacking of s/d,the mobility of d/d s/d,
You keep saying staff is a support weapon and yet i find it 10 times more difficult to heal people with it.It has water fields but so is engie and ranger for example only those either have a crazy radius and faster by far casting time or they last ages on point for allies to utilise.
Only thing it has in spvp is range but when a thief can port to you from the other side of the map in a few seconds and take you down then that doesnt matter kitten!
I personally envisioned staff as the ultimate versatilty ele weapon..something like engies bomb builds for example.You have the team support and if you play extremely well you can manage 1vs1.Perhaps onjure weapons would help.
But atm its just too slow..

NevirSayDie.6235:

Tobey.4836:

I’ve heard that the immobilise from glue bomb lasts longer since the patch (around 2-3sec). Can anyone confirm that ?

I just tested glue bomb. The immobilize is the same duration, but it now pulses once per second (three times), so it can effectively immobilize everyone around you for about three seconds. It’s actually a pretty huge stealth buff.

Its actually 4 sec since the immob happens immediately at 0 pulse.
Tbh its as broken as it gets..4 sec immob AOE in a huge area that cant get normally cleansed cause it pulses with that low cd???Plus if you get the trait you can reach 25 vuln stacks on target just by using this bomb in a few sec..
Just saying..dont get too attached :P

Well yeah tried it myself ,its obviously broken :P

Linguistically Inept.6583:

kostbabis.8791:

Well d/d even has defence against projectiles (lol maybe i shouldnt tell this here but its not like any dev is reading the ele forum,right? )

coming here after reading the patch notes; this made me laugh

It still has!It just cant block treb shots now.

Linguistically Inept.6583:

kostbabis.8791:

BlackBeard.2873:

kostbabis, I am assuming they reduced air1’s angle significantly? The auto-attack was the only reason to switch to air previously as air 2 stinks and everything else is on unreasonably high cooldowns. Has the auto-attack been nerfed into oblivion as well?

Dude..Its the exact opposite.Now i spam 1 and i hit both dummis at once..Its ridiculous how broad angle it has now.To the point that it doesnt make sence cause the animation is really misplaced.Tbh it feels weird and i didnt have much trouble hitting things before.
But definately a buff.That and the fact that earth2 blocking projectiles now (probably) classified as no bug like we thought makes d/d really sexy

does it still have its ‘not quite melee’ range?

yeah.It is still double the melee range.

BlackBeard.2873:

kostbabis, I am assuming they reduced air1’s angle significantly? The auto-attack was the only reason to switch to air previously as air 2 stinks and everything else is on unreasonably high cooldowns. Has the auto-attack been nerfed into oblivion as well?

Dude..Its the exact opposite.Now i spam 1 and i hit both dummis at once..Its ridiculous how broad angle it has now.To the point that it doesnt make sence cause the animation is really misplaced.Tbh it feels weird and i didnt have much trouble hitting things before.
But definately a buff.That and the fact that earth2 blocking projectiles now (probably) classified as no bug like we thought makes d/d really sexy

Ring of earth still blocks projectiles so i guess we should all be happy and wait for the tool tip fix!!
Also dagger air 1 is stupid at what angle it hits now..I mean..God!!

DiogoSilva.7089:

I think Rind of Earth was a typo. They probably meant the focus air #4.

But ring of earth does block projectiles and has been for months

Interesting that they say “unblockable projectiles” in the ring of earth bug fix.
Is that a fancy way to say that it no longer destroys any projectiles at all like it never says on the tooltip..or they actually give it legit that effect but now in line with every other projectile destruction skill in game?? :P

sshhh..you want updraft nerfed or what?? :P

You want to reduce rng and then go and suggest making the most active and situational condition ,blind, to an rng nightmate.
Also this
“Modified all classes in order to bring each class to the same level of overall battle effectiveness.”
could never be a patch note :P
Lastly aoe is good.This isnt pick a target and spike him to zero.Position matters, melee should cleave,you should be punished for being out of position and you should be able to punish people that carelessly jump on you
Of course some toning down especially to the ranged aoe wouldnt hurt but whatever!

Whats up with the thief crying.. P/P iS kitten but so are many sets for all classes.
Should i make a topic about how anet is biased and wont make staff ele part of team comps or you would laugh at me cause ele sees big tourney play.
Point is that yesterday there were many thieves participating and zero warriors.
So..Wait for your turn!Besides devs said that every class regardless will get a lot of love next patches !!

Razor.6392:

d/d strong aspect was RtL, and now with RtL almost permanently down and with its range nerfed (“bug fix”) I find no reason to use an off hand dagger anymore.

Maybe the fact that the only alternative is focus should be enough to use dagger offhand
Focus completly kills your damage.The fire spells and water spells are so bad that imo wouldnt matter if earth 5 could make you invulnerable for 10000 years.
Thats for solo play .Of course you can find use for it in a team scenario but then people prefer s/d bursy and d/d aurashare more because they are not just situational good like is focus ele

No d/d is far from useless.It has the highest chill uptime,highest number off cc ,highest mobility,aura share whih is strong and the most controllable burst out of all weaponsets.IT HAS NO FILLER SPELLS!!!!!!
Its by far the most complete weaponset we have with only downside being the exclusive close range.
Well d/d even has defence against projectiles (lol maybe i shouldnt tell this here but its not like any dev is reading the ele forum,right? )

EvilSardine.9635:

Nah, I think it’s a good balance at the moment. I used to use this constantly and it was a bit too easy to just escape. Now I really need to think about how and when to use it.

Keep it the way it is.

My complaining is about its use as of an engage.You are supposed to get the benefit of 20 sec cd when using it to engage but thats not happening atm.
At the very least make blocks ,blinds ,invuln trigger the low cd.Which is actually what they said in the sotg..but apparently Jonathan and Karl werent 100% informed about it :P

Not to mention that the whole “use it to engage for the low cd” is crap.
Random dodges,aegis,invuln,blocks,blinds ,rtl bugging out,enemy moving away from 1200 range ,getting up on higher ground will guarantee that it will go to 40sec
For last kittening time…I am not outplayed when i engage from 1200 range and the opponent clicks a button to mess my disengage.
You cant control rtl.
You cant use any spells.
You cant cancel it.
You cant counterplay the enemy and force him to get hit especially when using rtl akittens intented range at 1200.
Pls tell me how d/d removes aegis off of guards with his amazing max 600 range spells before engaging from distance?
(yeah i know hit em with arcane blast,right? )
/rant off

pve wise you can use staff to reach periodically 25 bleed stack alone and perma burn with high uptime of poison(asura skill ,sigil of doom) with plenty of chill,vulnerability,cripple and hard cc.
And all that aoe.But just pve that is since eruption takes too long to go off making it unreliable vs human beings Plus you need to stay in earth to stack bleed which hinders your abiliy to apply aoe burning (still single target is possible) plus you miss tones of the on swap bnenefits of eart and water which essentially keep elementalist alive