Guild Wars 2

Recently I got my Guardian to level 80, making it my second to hit 80. I was wondering which character to next (all but ele and guard left) and friend suggested necro. Considering Necro was almost my main character instead of Ele, I decided to look into further. He gave me his trait build, which not too far from my old build I made months back.

Anyway, I am wondering what armor, weapons, and trinkets you’d suggest for a necro. I plan to use Staff as main with Scepter/Dagger as swap. I want my utility to focus on minions. I was planning to do 20 Spite (I/IX), 30 Death Magic (II/X/XI), and 20 Blood Magic (II/VII). My friend suggested 30 Death Magic (III/V/X), 30 Blood Magic (IV/VII/XI), and 10 Soul Reaping (VI). While I have yet to decide which build I am going for, it will probably be one of those or somewhere between there (majors likely to be changed around in both).

So instead of focusing on trait build (although feel free to make suggestions) I want to see what armor you’d suggest. I want to try to go for something with Toughness and Condition Damage as focus. I don’t think I will be using Critical much on this character, so I think I would prefer skip Precision and Critical Damage. So any one have any suggestions on what gear to go for? I prefer having all of armor one type and all of jewelry one type (e.g. knights armor with X rune and soldier’s jewelry with ruby jewels).

The main issue is there aren’t many sets that have the stats I am looking for. Apothecary has Toughness and Condition as minors, but majors in Healing (which I am not too excited about for a necro). Rabid has Condition Main and Toughness minor but Precision is other minor, which I feel is wasted more than Healing. And then there is good old Soldier’s, which I am fine with using some of but, considering that both my other character use it, I’d prefer not be the only gear. Shaman’s doesn’t have Toughness, but it does have Vitality main and Condition minor (with Healing minor, but I can live with that).

So what stats would you suggest? Do you think I shouldn’t focus on condition damage as much? Also, just to mention, this character will probably be more casual with no plans to be big in dungeons or such. If you want any information on what I am looking for, just ask.

I’ve been running my Ele as my main character since pre-launch and I often use it in dungeons. I personally go with the more offensive style myself. Originally, I got full berserker gear (power main, prec/crit minor). I also worked on soldier’s armor (power main, tough/vit minor) as a swap (planned jewelry but never got). Nowadays, I run full Soldier’s Armor (mix of rare and exotic and poorly runed) with Berserker Trinkets (still soldier back slot, rest berserker). I found that stat combination is amazing for me.
I use a 20/20/10/10/10 trait build (fyi, probably not the best build, but it works for me) and a berserker staff. I get around 35% critical chance and it is the same power either way since both full berserker and soldier/berserker major in power. I found the difference in critical between the two armors is rather minor; at least compared to the vitality and toughness boost. I still keep my berserker set with me in invy incase I want to swap out (e.g. for running around easy areas or dungeons). [Side Note: If I do decide to use full ruby orbs instead of rune of the balefire on berserker set the critical chance will become much better than soldier’s. but the same goes for soldier’s defensive if I use crest of the soldier on it.]

Either way, you will be squishy. The trick is knowing how to deal with that more than traiting and gearing (although I hear bunkers are really hard to kill, but never played one). For example, many times my ele was the last one alive in the dungeon team when we almost got wiped. Why? One of two reasons: 1- I was far casting so I was able to run when things went things were beyond hope of winning (although that is rare, I like to fight to the end XD); 2- Vapor Form, being able to slide away while downed has saved me more times than I can count. In one dungeon recently I used it to get out of the bosses aggro and heal while rest of team died so I could go back and help them without resetting boss.
I really depends on your preference. I also got a level 80 guardian. He can just tank without breaking a sweat. Although no matter what profession I play I miss the versatility of the elementalist. Mainly the swap to water to heal conditions, the chills and cripples, and the far casting and aoe (e.g. when doing AC vs mounds, guardian isn’t nearly as good as ele who has frost bow, lava font, etc).

So if you do want to keep going with ele, it can work well in dungeons. TBH, I could probably run most dungeons in full berserker; but I like my soldiers/berserker to have a bit more safety. Once you learn the dungeon, the weapon, and the profession it gets a lot easier. As a staff ele, I find the key is to try to stay far away when possible and know when I should just stay in fire for damage and when I need to rotate my attunements to help team and hinder foes.
Sorry if this seems a bit overly long and repetitive in some points =P

I am no expert on the subject, but I would suggest having an armor or jewelry swap to something more hardy. Magi’s has same healing power, but vitality and precision as minors. The precision may not be useful, but a few of them for the vitality may be useful. Shaman’s is another good one, vitality main with healing power and condition damage minor. And you already know Soldier’s.
Personally, I’d suggest to look into adding in some more Soldier’s. There are Ascended Rings, Amulets, and Back slot for Soldiers, while there is none for Clerics. So maybe adding in some Soldier’s Jewelry would be a good place to start. I am not saying to replace all the Trinkets either, maybe just a few more for some vitality. You could still keep the Sapphire Jewelry and swap as needed even.

Fire. I love Fire. I even traited my build for reduced fire cooldown and increased damage since I am on it the most. I just like the AoE of it and the high spike (staff player). Non-stop Lava Font is amazing. Meteor Shower can be a bit weak, but against some things it just murders.
Earth has to be my least favorite. The condition and slows are cool, I just wish it was more defensive. Currently I see it more of an odd mix of the other three than one unique onto itself (aoe of fire, conditions of fire, cc of air, slowing of water). Still useful to have but I probably don’t attune to it much.
Air and water are both cool though. I like Air on staff, but I don’t use it as much. On Daggers, Air is amazing though. And I love Water for Chill more than anything else. The heals are nice too, but I usually only use them when I am too late to save (e.g. 2k life left and no heal).

Although the thing I love the most is how the 4 attunements work together. I usually just stay on fire unless something challenging comes along (e.g. Fractal Boss). But when it does, I will use all 4 attunements (probably air least. Staff Air is a bit lacking in those situation). In PvE, they work amazingly for me and I find it more fun to play on ele than any other class. While player other characters, I am always missing one attunement or another (e.g. no water to attune to remove conditions =\). And I have found teams ele heavy to be some of the best and most efficient in dungeons (e.g. 3 eles in AC Path 3….all those frost bows!).

I’ve been playing Ele as my main character since pre-launch. I got two sets of armor and two sets of jewelry on it and I use a build much alike what you’re going for. I play with staff since I have yet to get hang of daggers.

I got a full set of CoF Exotic Berserker Armor and Ruby Ori Berserker Jewelry with Ascended Rings (working on back). I also got a set of Soldier’s Armor (which is name of the Power Main, Toughness and Vitality Minor stat combo) which is a mix of HotW Exotic and Rare (there is tradable Rare version). I also have a set of Emerald Jewelry, but I rarely use it unless I really need extra toughness (I planned to get Soldier’s trinkets but never did yet; going to decide if I still want after redoing math).
90% of the time I use my Soldier’s Armor with Ruby/Berserker Trinkets (with Berserker Staff). Berserker and Soldier both major in power, so the Power doesn’t drop between the two set (it does for me a bit since I still got a few parts rare of soldiers). The difference in Critical is surprising low. With full Berserker I get about 45% Chance compared to 35% of Soldier’s. The Damage does drop 12% though, but I am more concerned with triggering Criticals for Sigil (of Fire) than anything else. I still use Berserker when I don’t need to worry, but I find the Toughness and Vitality of the Soldier armor to be better in most situation. Just to note, I still haven’t decided on final mods for the armor (Berserker has Runes of Balefire still and Soldiers has the runes HotW comes with and Crest of the Soldier on Rare parts). I was planning to use full Ruby Orbs on Berserker, which would further up crit, and full Crest of the Soldier on Soldier, which would up vitality and toughness more.

As for my Traits, I use a very odd build. I run 20/20/10/10/10. It may not be the best, but it works for me. The main reason for the spread is because I like the boosts to all attunements while still having a focus on high damage. For Fire, I use Internal Fire and Pyromancer’s Alacrity since I use Fire the most and love to spam Lava Font and spike with Fireball. I do switch, but only if it is required (e.g. need heal or fighting a hard boss). For just running around orr or whatnot, pure Fire works for me.
For Air, I use Quick Glyphs and Inscription. This is because my Heal, 1 Utility (Glyph of Storms for extra AoE), and Elite are Glyphs. I use to run more, but the quicker heal is big thing I like. If you prefer signet, you may want earth for the Signet cooldown reducer instead.
For Earth, I use Earth’s Embrace. For Water, I use Cleansing Wave. For Arcana I use Elemental Attunement. So pretty Standard for those 3. I tried Blasting Staff before, but I found it lacking and would rather have 20 in Air.

So that is how I have my Ele set. It may not be the most pro set up, but I find it works great for me so I haven’t messed around with it much for now. I would suggest Soldier’s Armor for pretty much any kind of Elementalist (or Jewelry if you’d rather). It pairs great with Berserker Jewelry for damage and I bet it would pair as well with other combinations. If you do want to go full Berserker, you can always have two sets of armor like I do. Although, while I don’t WvW often, I have played there enough to know that you still want Toughness and Vitality there. Even trying to hide up on towers and Meteor Shower foes I still get hit far more often than I like.
I did once see a glass cannon build for WvW with daggers that could own people quickly by comboing instant cast skills. They also used a norn for Snow Leopard Form to stealth and quickly rush foe. I forget the exacts, but I’d expect they used full berserker armor and trinkets with 30/30/?/?/? trait build. But traits are easy to redo, the armor is the costly part. If you wanted to go for Full Berserker, I’d say go for it. You can always get a Soldier’s Armor set later and try Soldiers Armor and Berserker Trinkets like I have later.

Well for now I am sticking to my original build plan of 0/0/20/30/20 [20 in Valor with Purity (V) and Strength in Numbers (IV). 30 in Honor with Writ of Exaltation (III), Writ of the Merciful (X), and Battle Presence (XII). 20 in Virtues with Vengeful (II) and Absolute Resolution (IX).] Once I hit Level 80, I will see how I use my Guardian and go from there. I got the Armor figured out now and I just got done reviewing Weapon’s Sigil and Stats.

The main thing I need to see first is if I do play my Guardian in a team a lot or only occasionally. While the above build is meant for a team, I can modify it easily enough to be for solo. I don’t feel like a 0/0/30/20/20 build would work as well for solo, although I will certainly consider trying it. It is a bit annoying that I will have to lose Battle Presence or Absolute Resolution to get AH; since both combo together so my build feels lacking without either.
Still, traits are far easier to play around with than armor and weapons. Mainly due to the 20 gold difference to redo >.>

Since my post, I’ve been crunching some numbers and here is what I found. The build you linked has the following stats (excluding weapons and traits):
719 Power, 593 Toughness, 322 Precision (15%), 313 Vitality, 60 Healing Power, 60 Condition Damage, 27% Critical Damage

Now if I were to do the far simpler Knight’s Armor of Divinity with Soldier’s Trinkets, I’d have the following:
792 Power, 721 Toughness, 406 Vitality, 284 Precision (13%), 60 Healing Power, 60 Condition Damage, 12% Critical Damage

The drop is Precision is rather minor in my opinion. The Critical Damage does go down a good bit, but the Power, Toughness, and Vitality all have notable increase. I can always increase the Precision and Critical Damage by using Ruby Jewels on my Soldier’s Trinkets, especially Earring since there is no full Soldier’s Ascended of them yet. [If I did use all Ruby Jewels on the Soldier’s Trinkets, it would lose 60 Toughness and Vitality and gain 60 Precision and 18% Critical Damage.]

While I may have messed up in the math somewhere, I think I am satisfied with that build. I will plan to get Knight’s Armor and Soldier’s Trinkets for my Guardian. If I ever want to make it more Healing focused, I can always get a new set of armor to help there. So for now I think the best thing to do is work on the traits.

Thanks for the reply. It wasn’t quite the reply I was looking for, but helpful none the less. I prefer keep my armor or trinkets to a single stat theme rather than mix them up. Might not be the most effective, but it works for my needs. I don’t want to go for Berserkers on my Guardian though. It is good, but I have many other characters that are going with the offensive berserker style and I would rather my guardian be more of a tank. I personally feel Knights and Soldiers is good enough for offensive.
As for AH, I will certainly make a note to consider it further. I really don’t want to drop my Virtues line by 10 to get it though; the buff to my passive heal is great. I think I’d rather cut Honor instead. Either way, those are the three lines I will focus on; I can always work out the details later.
I am currently thinking that Divinity may be a good choice over Crest of the Soldier for the Soldier/Knight armor. I may later go for a Cleric/Magi set just for the Runes of Dwayna/Boon Duration runes though. I think I’ll just skip the Healing Jewelry for now; maybe I’ll get it later if I feel like it.

I am currently leaning towards Knight’s Armor with Soldier’s Trinkets. That way I can easily get Ascended when the time comes while having high power and good toughness and vitality. The Critical Chance is lacking, but if I do go with Runes of Divinity, that would be fixed. Magi pairs weird with Soldier’s JEwerly, so I think I’d rather Clerics if I did get a set of Healing Armor. It loses Precision, but that build would only be for all out healing anyway (still boasting the highest powerful and respectable toughness too).

It isn’t a symbol? Yah, it really should be a symbol then >.< The suggestion sounds good enough for me.

My Guardian is getting closer to 80 and I wanted to reexamine the gear I planned to get him. Originally, I was going to get him 2 sets of armor (Soldier’s with Crest of the Soldier and Magi with Rune of Dwayna) and 2 sets of jewelry/trinkets (Sapphire and Emerald). However, now I am a bit more uncertain and wanted to double check. Unfortunatly, it isn’t being easy.

The original plan was to have the armor give Vitality and the trinkets give Toughness. The Soldiers and Emerald was meant to be an offensive set while the Magi and Sapphire was meant to be a healing set; both focused on tanking and produced a lot of combinations when mixed.
I am not sure if I still want to do it exactly the same. However, I do want to focus on Tanking with all sets with an offensive and healing sets and I do want at least one to offer a good vitality boost.

My planned trait build was 0/0/20/30/20. It was focused around team healing with alternatives for solo. I considered making a more aggressive alternative build with more precision and offensive, but I have yet to do that. Either way, I want my gear to work well in either build (although the healing power gear would be more useful in the first of course).
As for weapons, I will probably get Soldiers or Knights for the offensive ones (greatsword/staff/scepter/shield) and Clerics or Magi for the healing ones (mace/shield).

Well, here are the stat combinations of Knights/Emerald, Soldiers, Clerics/Sapphire, and Magi. It lists all possible combinations of the 4, with the first name being the armor. I did not figure in Runes or such for the armor and I did figure in back slots; even though some didn’t have it.

Knights+Emerald- 763 Toughness, 630 Precision (30%), 570 Power
Knights+Soldiers- 732 Power, 661 Toughness, 346 Vitality, 224 Precision (10%)
Knights+Sapphire- 661 Toughness, 570 Power, 508 Healing Power, 224 Precision (10%)
Knights+Magi- 570 Precision (27%), 508 Healing Power, 346 Vitality, 315 Toughness, 224 Power
Soldiers+Emerald- 672 Toughness, 661 Power, 406 Precision (19%), 224 Vitality
Soldiers+Soldiers- 823 Power, 570 Toughness, 570 Vitality
Soldiers+Sapphire- 661 Power, 570 Toughness, 508 Healing Power, 224 Vitality
Soldiers+Magi- 570 Vitality, 508 Healing Power, 346 Precision (16%), 315 Power, 224 Toughness
Clerics+Emerald- 672 Toughness, 570 Power, 406 Precision (19%), 315 Healing Power
Clerics+Soldiers- 732 Power, 570 Toughness, 346 Vitality, 315 Healing Power
Clerics+Sapphire- 823 Healing Power, 570 Toughness, 570 Power
Clerics+Magi- 823 Healing Power, 346 Precision (16%), 346 Vitality, 224 Toughness, 224 Power
Magi+Emerald- 630 Precision (30%), 448 Toughness, 346 Power, 315 Healing Power, 224 Vitality
Magi+Soldiers- 570 Vitality, 508 Power, 346 Toughness, 315 Healing Power, 224 Precision (10%)
Magi+Sapphire- 823 Healing Power, 346 Toughness, 346 Power, 224 Precision (10%), 224 Vitality
Magi+Magi- 823 Healing Power, 570 Precision (27%), 570 Vitality

I considered other sets, but I haven’t found any that look as nice as these are. Also, I do want to have decent precision, at least in the offensive build. This is because my Valor line will give me 20% Critical Damage, which is rather useless without a decent critical chance. I don’t care as much about this for the healing sets.
I am looking for 3 sets of armor or trinkets for now with a 4th to go after later. By that, I mean 1 armor and 2 trinkets (with another armor later) or 2 armor and 1 trinket (with another trinket later).

So which would you suggest?

Personally, I think the Health should stay as it is. But overall, our defensive ability in most build is weak. I’d rather see more useful traits and improvement to skills, defensive or offensive, than just upping our Health to 13K like a Mesmer. I mean, there will always be a “weakest” profession Health and Armor wise. And personally, I have no problem with it being Ele. However, I do think that in PvP, Ele could use some improvements (which should also affect PvE of course).

My Ele was my main Character in GW1 and now in GW2. They are different in a lot of ways, that’s for sure. I never delved into all the builds and tricks, but Ele did have a lot of powerful builds. One thing I did learn was the hard mode Tolani Academy Solo with earth skills. First time I tried it I was pretty amazed to see how well it worked.

However, I will say that I like the GW2 ele more than the GW1. When I first got GW1 I picked ele and failed at it. My favorite thing was spamming Flare, which wasn’t too effective. I wasn’t as good with the sit back and wait nuke style, I liked to be non-stop casting. I did eventually get the hang of it in GW1; but GW2 is far more my style for the ele. Half the time I can just stay attuned to Staff Fire and never run into trouble; the style of it is just suited for me. I even did decently in PvP with it (at least no worse than my Thief or Warrior. I’m not that good with PvP).

But anyway, while I like Ele more in GW2, it isn’t nearly as strong as GW1 Ele. Even with nuking, I feel like I am lacking options compared to the old (3 skills with 2 on long recharge). I guess I should be thankful that I can still go nuking, unlike the people who wanted to blind or super tank (well, the latter is still around, but I don’t think it is like before with the earth skills..).

I haven’t figured out my 2nd Dagger Sigil yet, but one is Sigil of Battle. Trick here is making sure the sigils stack well. But it also depends a lot on tactics. For example, if you use a lot of Fire with daggers, the 10% burning may be a good choice for you. If you go other way with critical, maybe something that triggers on crits like Fire would be good.

That being said, I use Sigil of Fire on my staff; I nuke a lot and tend to hover on fire so it helps a lot (usually 35-45% crit damage). Sigil of Battle is also good for staff; I eventually plan to put it on a Soldier’s Staff when I get it (since it has no crit in stats so I wouldn’t use if it were critting).

Bloodlust is a good choice if you don’t die a lot. I may use it on dagger if I get the hang of the better and live most fights. Hydromancer is another good one I think, the chill one; but I don’t think it stacks well with Battle.
Personally, I’d suggest Fire on Staff (Battle if you don’t crit) and Battle+Bloodlust on daggers (assuming you don’t die too often). If you wanted to swap out the Bloodlust dagger after you get to 25; I got no idea what to suggest. Maybe even a Sigil of Force.

Coo, Foostivoo makes Bio sad =[
On a more serious note, I really would like that mini, but it just isn’t worth it. I got 1.8k gems spare, but from what I hear that won’t even get me close (probably). I don’t have $50 to spend on a mini; I rarely use minis. Personally, I’d like to see anything that makes this mini easier to get, especially after event ends.

I kinda already gave up on JP. Personally, I wish they wouldn’t make double timed jumping puzzles. By that I mean puzzle runs of a timer and it lasts for a limited amount of time. Apparently, I suck at all timed puzzles, even if it is just two jumps XD Although this one seems far more sane than MK, but I just hate how slow it is to retry; waiting 1 min after a mistake really ruins it for me… Still, I can live with being 1 achievement short of all.

I tried 4 times (12 tonic) and gave up. I got the frames and can always buy more stuffing/glue later (although prices will surly spike). TBH, I think I’d rather just buy Toymaker’s Tonic.

I got to say, the video sure did look impressive. But without the element of surprise, I doubt many people will die. I bet if I tried it, beside managing to RTL off a cliff or something silly, I’d probably rush at a thief who would just steal and walk to the side as I swing at air. Still, it is cool to see that I “can” work. And it certainly makes me want a Norn ele if I make a second ele XD

Thanks for the comments. I thought 6% was trash compared to the other boosts I can achieve; but I am not that knowledge on those exact calculations where it could have greatly added to the normal boon boosters. Maybe there is some combination where boost boons another 6% is actually worth it, but I don’t think I will be doing anything that complex.
At the moment I don’t use any Boon Boosting Runes, so I’d need a new set of armor to add them. I would probably go for the 2 Monk/2Water with either 2 Minor Monk or 2 Dwayna. Although the 2 Monk/Water and 4 Altruism looks pretty decent too.
I guess I will just be waiting until I decide to get Cleric or another new set catches my eye.

I currently have 3 sets of armor for my ele (berserker, soldier, and MF). I considered getting Cleric before, but I never liked playing the big healer role. Then I saw the new Giver’s set. It looks really nice, majoring in toughness with minor in Healing Power and Boon Duration. However, then I saw that each part only gives 1% boon duration.

So my question is this. Do you think it is worth going for a Giver’s set to play a more support based role? Or is the 6% boon duration not worth it compared to the 224 attributes of another set?

I have 2 sets of armor and 2 sets of jewelry for my Staff Ele (my main character). I love the staff and I’ve found that staff ele is my fav character to play in dungeons. I usually run full berserker (berserker armor, ruby jewelry). I like dealing high damage and in dungeons I usually have a team to help keep mobs away. As long as you can stay in the background and nuke, you should do well, even if you are a glass cannon. In fact, in my glass cannon gear, I have been only one to survive an encounter gone back in dungeons before, usually because I am further away from monster and can back away slowly. Although I have held off mobs before too.

Cleric is an option, but I personally don’t use it. I have considered it, but I like to support by fields and such more than healing and boons (cleric with boon/regen durations runes is usually how it is done). My other set is Soldiers armor and Emerald Jewelry. With both on I am much more tanky with still enough precision to land criticals for bonuses there.

I did look into a condition damage set (meant for dagger/dagger or scepter/dagger swaps) but I decided that Solider’s is good enough for those weapons.

So it really comes down to play style. If you like being a healer, cleric and the whole healing support theme may be for you. If you like to tank or just want a nice all around strong but survivable set of gear that works well with all weapons, Soldiers is a great choice. If you want to go all out in damage, Berserker is the way to go. If you want some middle ground between all out criticals and tank, maybe Knights?

The only thing you can “screw up” on would be remember to save for elite skills. At 30 you get to buy them (10 skill points) so it helps to start saving around level 20.
In the long run you can unlock all the skills. Unless you want to speed towards a legendary weapon, you spend your skill points as often as you want (but remember elites =p).
And as mentioned above, you can reset traits later on. At level 80, it costs about 4 silver to reset all 70 points, which is very little.

A bit of advice:
Elementalist should learn to play all their attunements on their weapon of choice (well all weapons really, but I still only know how to play my staff well XD). However, there is usually one attunement that a player prefer. Mine is fire, I love to nuke with the staff and lava font. So in my traits, I have more gear towards fire attunement (10% more damage and 20% quicker recharge traits).
Each trait line does 3 things: gives attributes, has traits that help an attunement (arcana helps swapping), has traits that help utility skill. Fire does Power and Condition Duration with Fire Attunement and has one for Conjured Weapon Utility Skills (although I think it is a waste to get that one). Air does Precision (Critical Chance) and Critical Damage Attributes with Air Attunement and Glyphs Utility Skills. Earth does Toughness (Armor) and Condition Damage Attributes with Earth Attunement and Signet Utility Skills. Water does Vitality (Life) and Healing Attributes with Water Attunement and Cantrip Utility Skills. Arcana does Attunement Recharge Rate (Unique, only from this line) and Boon Duration Attributes with Attunement Swapping Effects and Arcana Utility Skills.

Personally, I like to do a bit of every. I use a 20/20/10/10/10 build. I get a bit of everything with a focus on Fire and Air. I use fire for the damage and the traits mentions above (damage and recharge on fire). I use air for critical and for glyph traits, since I use glyph heal, glyph of storms, and my elite is a glyph. Earth is for the toughness boost on attuning to earth and the armor of earth at 50% life. Water is for passive regen on water and removing condition on attuning to water. And Arcana is to help with swapping and for boons on swapping.

At your level, I’d pick one line and get it to 10 (by level 20). Then put 10 in another, then 10 in another. By then you’ll be 40 and can buy book to reset and allows you to get traits up to 20 per line. Then by 60 you can have 2 to 20 and 1 to 10 and then reset to get to 30 in a line. So you should pick which you prefer. The lower levels are easy so you may want to focus more on damage traits. But elementalist are also very weak (lowest armor class and lowest base health) so if you have trouble surviving, you may want to go with a defensive line. Or you may just want to ignore attributes and go for traits that help skills you use.

Personally I never liked the original Guild Wars that much shrugs Although I think people are more upset that they promised one thing and did something that contradicts that statement than expecting it to be like the original. Personally, I am disappointed they did contradict themselves like that, since it just puts a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. I came from another mmorpg where the company turned their back on their beliefs that made me support the game, I don’t want to see that happen here. Although for me, it hasn’t yet, but I am more worried about game’s future than before.
So if someone is upset about this change because it destroyed their trust in the company and changed the game to much for them, they have the right to be upset and complain. You either quit the game and stopping complaining about it here or you stay and learn to deal with it. When my previous mmorpg upset me, within 3 days of update I quit game for good, only posting my thoughts once on forums and never going back.

Well that is just my take on it. The game I came from had far more of a gear grind than GW2. While it is a bit disappointing to have more work to do, I can take it easily enough =P

I am curious to the answer as well. Does this mean legendary weapons will be stuck with sigils they are made with if they don’t let use modify runes/sigils? If they do keep upgrade slot for weapons and armor, ascended will have lower that’s than currently expected though. One of reasons ascended gear is notably better is because the built in upgrade slots are scaled up too. E.g. the berserker ring part of the ascended equivalent is only a couple more, but the exquisite ruby jewelry equivalent in the built in upgrade slot is add another good bit onto the ring. Then you got stats from the infusion too. On the other hand it is kinda nice for some, like soldiers. Currently you can get soldier jewelry in exotic, but there is no exotic soldiers upgrade so you need to use rare, making full soldiers exotic jewelry weaker than other exotic soldiers jewelry. Ascended kinda fixed that.
I guess we’ll just need to wait and see how the runes/sigils work. Hopefully we won’t have to wait long.

Ascended Gear Part 2
My last thoughts on ascended are kinda mixed. First, I think agony will appear in more areas than just Fractals in the future. Why? I assume future batches of ascended gear will come from other place than fractals, although I may be wrong, so if it gives ascended, it may feature agony at some point. Personally, I hope Anet tells us more to quell or confirm our fears. Are they considering changing how ascended works based on feedback (aka lowering stats)? How will ascended work for other items? Personally, I am a bit worried about legendaries myself. If I got The Biforst and transmuted it’s look to the stats of my Berserker Exotic staff, what happens then when Ascended weapons come out? Would I get a Ascended Berserker Stat staff? Would it revert to Soldier stats? Or would I be left with an Exotic Berserker staff? What about the sigil? Will the crappy sigils legendaries are made with become stuck to them now? Will it still upgrade to ascended stats if you swapped sigil? If you swapped sigil and it does upgrade, does that mean anyone can swap sigils after upgrading or will only those who changed before the upgrade get different sigils? How will runes work with ascended armor?
As you see, there are a lot of questions left unanswered. Hopefully they will be cleared up soon enough so we can stop speculating as much and know instead so we can plan better. I doubt exotics will be obsolete by ascended though. You can easily change you upgrades on exotics where you can’t on ascended. They are also far easier to get and I doubt the different between full ascended and full exotics will be that noticeable outside of agony resistance.

Well thanks to anyone who read my very long post. Hopefully Anet gets my feedback, as along with everyone else posting feedback on this topic or elsewhere. If you disagree with my thoughts, you can post it if you want, but I don’t plan to debate on opinions. If you want to share your own opinions on the update and things that weren’t on the survey, feel free to use this topics to do some.

Ascended Gear
I saved this for last. I mentioned it a bit in last section, but it needs its own section. Now I’m not pro-ascended or anti-ascended, I am more in the middle. I know it is here to stay and won’t suggest it to leave, but I am all for changing it to be less impacting. I am probably one of players ascended was targeted at. My Elementalist (my main character, only level 80) beat the game. He has map completion, story done, lots of achievements, and full exotics with some awesome skins. It really felt like there was nothing left for me to go after on there that wasn’t cosmetic, which I didn’t mind really. I was starting to work at a legendary, but I know I won’t get it for a long time.
I am not too upset with a new tier of gear being added, because there is a big gap between 2g per exotic and 500g per legendary. However, if they decided to add another new tier between ascended and legendary in the future, then I will be disappointed. It is a bit annoying because I just felt like I was done with my elementalist so I could start working on a new character. Now after seeing how hard ascended is, I know my elementalist can get it, but I doubt I will ever get it on all 8 of my characters =\ There are a few things that annoy me about that I hope they change. First is how it is currently only from Fractals. You can’t trade it and you need a non-tradable drop from fractals to make back slot and you get rings by being lucky in latter floors. Exotics were more of a save up and buy, whether I saved dungeon tokens or coins, but ascended seem to be far more luck driven. I don’t mind it being luck based, if it wasn’t the best gear in game
The stats are my next complain. I am not against ascneded being better, but they seem to be way better than exotic. The base stats of the item seem to be 2 more to primary and 1 more to secondary. No big deal there really. The problem is the built in upgrade slot. If I remember right, on berserker, the upgrade slot gave like 5 more power, 2 more precision, and 1% more critical, on top of the 2 power, 1 precision, and 1% critical from the main part of the item. Then on top of that, you can get +5 from the infusion, and these are only fine rarity. If exotic or ascended rarity infusions ever come out, that may go up. My point here is it seems ascended are much better than exotics, not a little better. We won’t know for sure until more parts come out though. Exotics are 20% more than Rares, it seems Ascended are 20%, or maybe even more, over Exotics.
Personally, I think the full Ascended item with infusion should only be 5-10% better. However, I am not sure if 20% even matters that much. I have full exotic berserker, but when I got soldier, I could only buy the rare version. So my helm, shoulders, boots, and gloves are all rare. Personally, I find it works just as good as my exotics. It gives different stats, true, but I didn’t notice a huge different in anything. In fact, I think I prefer the stats my soldier set, with some rares, over my berserker set, with pure exotics. So while Ascended will be better, I doubt you will ever suffer because you only had exotics. You can only use them in WvW, Dungeons, and PvE. From what I’ve seen, Ascended has no dedicated Magic Find set (5% per ring at best), so exotic (7% per ring) will still be best there. Exploring the world, ascended may be life or death in some situations, but if everyone can currently explore the map and do things with exotics, I doubt ascended will change it. In dungeons ascended may give you a bit of an edge, but your working together as a team, so if someone has ascended and you don’t, it only helps you. Lastly, in WvW I rarely encounter a 1v1 or any small teams. It is usually mob vs. mob, and in a mob, 1 person in ascended over exotic won’t change much. Even in 1v1, I doubt it will change much. In PvP it seems to be far more tactics than gear.

Southsun Cove
This won’t be as long as last section. I did mention this in survey, but I also want to mention it here with a bit more detail. I am very disappointed in this map. It is very hard to solo but offers near no rewards. I am all for hard new level 80 maps, but this just fails. It is a beautiful area with one fun and one hard (but welcome) jump puzzle. One thing I hate is that it doesn’t count to world completion and it doesn’t even have its own map completion. It feels odd for it not to count; it makes it feel like a fake map because of it, like Hall of Monuments with its one non-counting Point of Interest. Also, it has 6 waypoints and 5 points of interests. I am shocked there are no Vistas, because as I said, it is a beautiful area and isn’t that what vistas are suppose to show you? Skill Challenges aren’t needed as much at level 80 I suppose, but it wouldn’t have hurt to have a couple. I really hope that this map gets more map completion things like Vistas in the future. Personally, I hope it gets its own map completion with reward in the future even if it doesn’t count to world completion.
Back to the whole difficulty and drop issue. I am not a big Orr farmer, in fact I just recently got a MF set and learned to farm one chain in Orr. But even just having learned to farm Orr, I did much better than I did in Southsun. The only monsters I could solo with any ease where the Skalk, which had a bit of profit, but not much. The Drakes and Riders are so deadly that I wouldn’t dare tackle one without a team. Young Karka aren’t too hard, although they are a challenge (biggest problem is dodging into a second group), but they also have no drops. I killed many and barely got a single drop, and when I did, it wasn’t that good. Veterans have the same drop problem but are much harder to solo. So I’d look at the drops and see if they could be tweaked to be more rewarding. If they were, the zone would seem more worth it.

Consortium Chests
Odd thing to mention, but I am actually happy over this. Why? The decryption: "Filled with interesting items found by the Consortium along the Lost Shores. Commonly containing breathing masks or shoulder skins, these chests also have a rare chance to contain unique weapon skins, and even more rarely, new mini pets. No key required!". My biggest complain about the Black Lion Chest for Halloween was the rarity. They advertised new skins, but they never said how elusive they were. This time, that isn’t an excuse. They say right there what is common, what is rare, and what is very rare. Also, it seems that these chests are here to stay and not temporary (I may be wrong). Still, I think all future chased based promotions should work like this. They clearly say what the odds are in the gem store, so you should fully know what you’re paying for.

Fractal of the Mists
This place is awesome. I love how it works, although it does feel a bit repetitive. I haven’t made it too far in (finished 4, unlocked 5), but I’ve heard about later rewards. I like the tactics used in the Fractals and how there is a bonus level with a daily reward chest. Also, from what I hear, agony only kicks in at level 10 and even then it is seems pretty easy to reduce with a single Ascended. So thanks for not making this dungeon only for elite who can afford ascended. I think level 9 should be hard and rewarding enough to repeat if you don’t want to get ascended gear. I myself was lucky enough to get a vial of mist on level 3 and am saving for a nice ascended back slot.
This is a bit off topic, but thanks for adding new stat drops. For anyone who hasn’t noticed, Fractals introduced 5 new drops in Masterwork, Rare, and (I think) Account Bound Exotic. They come in all parts (weapon, armor, jewelry, and even back) in all rarities. The first three are Soldier, Magi, and Rabid, which were previously only from Dungeons and Temple/God Karma Armor. The other two are Wayfarer and Cavalier, two brand new stat combinations (although not to useful imo). I was now able to buy my missing Soldier Armor in rare to fill out my set while I work at the exotics. Also, before now, the only Soldier jewelry was from WvW, which cost a ton to get. I’d rather get rare set for 3G and lose some stats that get 2.5K badges of honor! Also, by Account Bound Exotic, I do mean the exotics are not tradable. Instead, they seem to be Account Bound and Soulbound on Use. I like this mechanic. It means you have to play fractals to get some of this gear (like exotic soldier jewelry) and if you get some you don’t want, you can always save for new characters (or salvage, I assume). I may be wrong about exotics, since I only got 1 part myself, but I assume there is a full set.

I did the Lost Shores event Survey, but I felt it didn’t cover enough. I excepted a spot at end to write in more comments, but instead it finished without even giving me a chance to review and add more. So instead, I am posting my feedback on the entire update here. This isn’t about ascended gear, one time events, or the new map, it is about all of that and more. If anyone else has things they didn’t get to add in the survey, feel free to post them on this topic.

One Time Events
This was one thing I answer poorly due to the format. I wanted a spot to write in about this to explain myself, but there was none so this feedback wasn’t in the survey at all. I like the idea of one time events and how the impact the world. I like how rewarding the event was. However, I do think there is room for improvement.
The first one time event was for h’ween, also on Sunday. This was a huge letdown. I waited around a crowded city just to see a cutscene, the same thing that ended up on youtube. In fact, the youtube version is better because I didn’t hear any audio on my end for it (probably from lag). I noticed no reward for being there either. This was a bad one time event.
The first one time event this weekend was the Karka attack on Lion’s Arch. This event was very laggy. I barely saw allies and foes for the event. I think I even disconnected once or twice. My friend (who I referred to the game with the special offer) and I started in the same world, by soon after we got sent to different overflows (due to disconnects) and despite trying, we never made it back to the same overflows. The event was also confusing. I know we killed the veterans by use of conditions (I assume), but they instantly respawned it seemed. After what felt like an hour of laggy combat with little to no drops off the monsters, the event ended with Event Failed. Only a little bit of exp, karma, and coin. If there was a chest, I missed it in all the chaos due to how packed the place was. This was a bad one time event.
The only other one I really count as a one time event was the end fight against the Ancient Karka (although I did do it twice by hopping to a new overflow after mine finished in hope of more rewards, which didn’t happen). This was made up of 3 long events, which is a bit misleading. It is bad because some players may have planned to be on at start, only to find that they had to leave before event was over. It could also be good for anyone who showed up late. Personally, I felt it should have been broken into more events than just three, because all of them were very long and only the last one was rewarding. At the end of the event, a cutscenes played a chest spawned. The chest had 2 rares, 2 exotics (some got legendary precursors even, not me though), and a special chest. When opened the chest gave you an Ancient Karka Shell Box (20 slot bag) and an Ancient Karka Shell (Exotic Level 80 Celestial/Triforge Earring Accessory). This was a better one time event.
However, there are thing I would suggest to be changed. It was rewarding enough of a final event, but I will say it was too rewarding. To get that earring, currently only like it in game, you need to trade 1000 Karka Shells to NPC, which cost over 12G last I saw. That is also how much a 20 slot bag costs. So while non-sellable, the rewards saved you 24G or more just by being at event. This is a bit unfair considering some players just couldn’t make it. Does this mean events shouldn’t be rewarding because not everyone can make it? No, not at all, they just shouldn’t reward so exclusively.
Here is what I would have done instead. After the Ancient Karka dies and chest spawns, players who were at event can loot it for 2 exotics and 2 rare items. Those along would make it worth the time. Then later after the event is over (in all worlds) EVERYONE who participated at any point in the event would be mailed a thank you with the Earring and the 20 Slot Bag. By "participated at any point" I mean having been at opening battle in LA, having done the scavenger hunt, having done the missions in Southsun Cove, or having battle the Ancient Karka.
Maybe 24G worth of stuff is a bit too much to give away to everyone, but my point is that the one time event should have gave good reward, but not unique rewards, while everyone who participated in the special event weekend should have earned something unique, if something unique was given at all. I also think the initial battle should have given a chest that awarded everyone something, or a guaranteed rare. For events like the mad king, maybe give everyone some personalized trick or treat bags for attending cutscenes, like 10+ (heard rumors they did, but never noticed).

Yah, this need some tweaking. I am fine with the no repair stand/way point of traditional dungeon. But currently you only get respawn option in a team wipe (same as personal story). The concept isn’t bad, the problem is if you die where team can’t res you. I feel and died in one of maps during jumping part. Thankfully I landed in spot team was able to return to rez.
Since (some) maps are small I can understand that they don’t want the “die and rush right back in” thing like in some other bosses/challenges and that they want your team to have to rez you, but there needs to be a safety in case they can’t rez…
Or maybe if team reaches the next checkpoint it spawns you there even?

I tried it earlier. We did the Blizzard Map, Underwater Map, and the Unknown Map (abandon asura lab). It wasn’t hard, then again I was difficulty 1, but it was rather unique. The puzzles were cool. My favorite was Unknown for sure. Starts like a jumping puzzle with few foes along the way. Then there was the room where you had to dodge the waves of light by sidestepping to reach top [Hint: I cheated it. They count as projectiles so as an elementalist I ran up, used Magnetic Aura when one got close, then Lightning Flashed further up, then Mist Form to end =P].
One guy left and we 4 manned the last one (unknown). I like the idea of 3 short mini-dungeons with a chest at the end of each over the other style. Nice change. I even got a back slot drop (only a green one, but still…).

I didn’t find it to be a waste of money. I tried with some level 80 fine items (warhorns I think it was). According to my math, it cost about 3S and I got 8 in return, which is about 37.5 each (let’s say 38).
For Black Lion Key, it is 19S for 20 Gems when I checked. A Key is 125 from Gem Store (if you were to purchase a single key), which would mean 118S. I forget how much the commendation keys are, but I did math earlier and remember it was around 106S worth of commendations. So for a single key, it is a bit cheaper, but a lot more work. IF you were to buy 5 keys, it isn’t as good of a value. Still, some people may not have enough to buy 5 (although if you didn’t, I don’t know why you’d buy 1…).
For the rest, it does cost a bit more than the shop, but the version you get are higher stacks. I get 100 Ori picks from merchant for 4S or 250 for 12.3S worth of Commendations. It does cost 2.3S more than 250 picks would cost from merchant, but it also takes up less invy space. Same thing for the fancy named basic salvage kits.

So I wouldn’t say it is a total waste. I plan to get more for salvage kits later on. May go for a 250 use ori sickle too.

I agree it is kinda odd. I considered getting myself a full magic find set, but I have since decided it wasn’t worth the money/bank space for me and just use omnom bars instead. I wouldn’t mind if it were removed from armor. It is annoying that all 8 of my characters should get a MF set of armor, jewelry, and weapons (with MF runes and sigils) if they really want to farm….That and the fact that even a high MF boost may not improve loot that much….

Personally, I like the whole exploration and such. Doing dungeons is fun for me. So are solving jumping puzzles and mini-dungeons, even if I need to get a guide to finish =P Did you try sPvP or WvW? I’m not a big WvW fan, but it is growing on me…If not, always the 15th.

I see race changes coming before class changes. If you want to play another class, just make a new toon =P While possible, it would be tricky with skill points/traits (just reset?). Races really only impact story until level 30 though, besides minor race arc later. Maybe they will let you change races once you completed whole story? So they could offer profession changes, I just don’t see why anyone would want to pay to change their level 80 to a completely different profession. You learn a profession by leveling it, if you jumped right to level 80 in a profession you may regret it after seeing how it plays at 80. And profession changes would have no effect in sPvP, since you could just buy a new slot, make a new character, and go to mists…

GW2 feels like a Chore and RuneScape doesn’t? well, I am more of a completionist and I found doing stuff in RS far more of a chore than GW2. The game has bored me a bit recently though. First when I hit level 80, then I lost all interest in mapping. Then when I beat story, but I got into dungeons. When I got a full set of exotics from dungeons, I got kinda bored with them (even though I still needed more parts since I was mix matching 2 sets). I did go back and finish world completion, which left me with less to go do. More recently I’ve been working at achievement and alternate characters. I also meet a few people so I now have some contacts in game to do stuff with. Personally I like doing mini-dungeons and jump puzzles with friends (although some are annoying).

I guess I don’t know what to tell you though. I am one of those people who likes to complete things for the sake of completing things. I love dungeons, although after a bit it feels like more of a grind. You didn’t mention sPvP or WvW, maybe one of those? Or try some of other things again. Maybe you’ll like certain jump puzzles better than other? Keg brawl even?

Look on the bright side. At least you don’t have to pay a monthly fee to pop on and try something =P And I am sure they will add more things in future. And hopefully new PvP maps will come soon, I got sick of conquest too (reaper’s rumble was ftw).

I have 8 characters, all male (although different races). I just prefer to play as a male avatar if given the choice. I guess it is because I relate better to character of my gender (even if of a different race). The further an avatar is from how I really am, the less it feels like I am playing “me” and more like I am playing some fictional character. I’m fine with both, I just never got into playing a different gender.

Currently I am pretty much full berserker gear (staff, all armor, all jewelry) with 20 in Air Traits. I can’t get ingame atm to check exact numbers, but I think I was around 50% chance with over 50% more damage, I think my critical hit closer to 2.2x but I may be mistaken.
The only on critical effect I have is my Superior Sigil of Fire. However I could pick up Burning Precision (30% chance to cause burning for 1 second on a critical hit) and get air to 25/30 for Weak Spot (60% chance to cause 1 stack vulnerability for 5 seconds on critical hits). Although I do like having 10 earth and 10 water, so I am not eager to do either but would be willing to try. Personally, I don’t see either being to useful due to short durations.

Edit: forgot to mention one thing. Reason I don’t have Power Tank higher up on list is because it loses 100+ power to give me toughness. Although I doubt I will get full soldier anytime soon because of how rare jewelry is so Power Tank will be my most defensive build until then.
Also, I do like crit on staff. I mostly fight npcs in dungeons and such and they tend to stay in mobs. So a meteor shower and lava font can tear them apart with criticals. In WvW, nukes are more to keep people away than to hurt them, but a meteor spiking 3k is always nice to see. Also, Lava Font is great on downed players.
I have considered a healing power set but I’ve always been against it. I guess I should stop being so anti-healing though. I planned for my guardian to do the whole healing power/team support build since I think he can actually pull it off. I know ele can too, I just didn’t want to go in that direction. I like ele for killing, not healing. And I prefer to team support with fields than directly to healing. Still, I will give more consideration to a Healing Power armor set with boon duration runes for a healing/might stacking build.
Personally, I dislike water line. I never can find any traits I like to use and I don’t feel like wasting traits for the attribute boosts alone. I know Arcana is a great line, I just never got hang of the grandmaster dodge trait. Also, I found blasting staff to be unnecessary and preferred 20 air over 20 aracana. Still, Arcana is one I’d look more into if I did go for support builds.
Thanks for advice here. I think I will drop carrion armor from my wishlist. Soldier seems better for scepter/dagger or dagger/dagger.
What can I say? I like being squishy I guess XD In PvE I may get downed, but as long as they still die (from nukes I left) before I die, I rally and all is good. In dungeons I got teams to distract foes and I like playing as guy way in back dropping nukes =P In WvW…well, 1v1 with or without defense I’ll probably get owned. Either I got a huge team with me and no one notices the weakittentle ele (at least before I slink away and heal up) or we get swarmed and all killed. When fighting mobs of players I don’t see an extra 700 toughness being the life saving faction considering how outnumbered and laggy I can get. Although I do like 10 earth and 10 water in traits =P

While this is more of a suggestion, I felt it would be best to post here first to see what everyone thought. If it feels out of place, please move it to suggestions.

Tornado was an elite I looked forward to. Now I’d regret it if it didn’t also give me whirlpool. So I got thinking on what to make it better, and I came up with this idea.

First, remove the knockback and weapon skills. The weapon skills are decent, but I thought of a better way to go about it. And instead of knockback/launch, the tornado should pull. Why? Well, isn’t that what tornados do? Pull things in? not throw things out… also, because the tornado is slow to move, to it makes more sense to pull foe to you than throw them away.

Next, increase the range. Maybe make the torando a 360 radius, same as meteor shower. However, the damage would be weaker towards the far edges and higher up close. So within 120 radius you would be hit for, lets say 300. Then in 240 raduis it would be 200, and then 360 would be 100. The exact numbers from the damage may be different, but that is just an example of what I mean.

Lastly, I think the effects of the tornado should depend on your attunement. Yes, glyphs already do this, but I am suggesting that the tornado should change as you change. So if you cast it in fire, it has the fire effect. But then you can change to water and it gains water effect. The base of the tornado would be the same for all, but each would offer a special effect to make it more versatile.
Fire- When attuned to fire, the tornado would visually change to show flames through it. Foes hit by the tornado would be burned (the closer to the center, the longer the duration).
Water- When attuned to water, the tornado would visually change to a water cyclone with ice in it. Foes hit by the tornado would be chilled (the closer to the center, the longer the duration). A possible alternative would be healing nearby allies.
Air- When attuned to air, the tornado would like it does now, maybe with some lightning in it. Air would make the tornado launch or knockback foes like it currently does (so it would push away, and then pull it).
Earth- When attuned to earth, the tornado would visually change to a brownish color full of sand and dirt. Foes hit by the tornado would be blinded (the closer to the center, the longer the duration).

It is also possible that each attunement could change how the attributes are modified (fire=more power, water=more vitality, air=more precision, earth=more toughness). I am a bit unsure if the attributes themselves would need to be changed.
Also, I am not sure if you can use 6-0 skills while in tornado (been a while since I used skill and wiki doesn’t mention). But if you can’t, I’d suggest that be changed so you can. I know you can’t in whirlpool, which really sucks since I can’t throw up arcane shield or heal.

So do you think this idea would improve tornado? Or would it just make it a wannabe glyph? Personally I think the pulling and changing effect on attunement would make the skill far more useable and fitting to the elementalist.

I mostly agree. I don’t feel all classes should be as hard as ele, but I do feel there are some balance issues that are more other class are too simple/strong than ele is to weak. Although, I do feel eles could be improved in some areas, but it would be insane to try and boost us to some of other professions.
And I do like eles being squishy, I just feel their offense doesn’t make up for it. You can be a tank and pile conditions, cc, or team support if you want. Or you can be a critical nuker than the even the rabbit can 1 hit (sure makes things more interesting =p). In PvE I go all out Berserker and I don’t feel like I am dying a ton because of it tbh. Although if my warrior did same thing, he’d tank better, but he is suppose to.
Personally I think ele is one of best to play because it has so much going on. I like having 20 weapon skills and combing them and buffing teams in dungeons. I wouldn’t mind being more of a dps guy if they tweaked it though.

So yah, other professions may need more nerfs than eles needs buffs. But I have a feeling ele will always be one of most challenging to play greatly.

Yah, I planned armors so I could swap one to buff my critical build without losing too much of chance. Like soldiers gear with ruby jewelry or berserker gear with emerald. So I take it your saying that we only stack bleed/burn if we spam 1 skill on scepter which is a bad idea so condition focus isn’t worth getting a Carrion set for? On Dagger they are a bit more frequent, at least on fire, but I find the damage is still high enough to crit without a huge concern.
Personally, I go for 30-40% critical chance in most builds. If it goes under 25% I consider it too rare. I run Sigil of Fire on my staff since it is a nuking weapon mainly. I like to cast a bunch of AoE so criticals go off pretty often, even at 30% =P
I am not a big fan of the whole “All of defence” trait set up, but I don’t mind soldier armor due to power. I plan to keep 20/20/10/10/10 for a while since it gives me what I need. I could do 30/30/0/0/10, but I don’t find the grandmaster traits worth it and it never hurts to have a little def.

Good to know. Would you even bother with a Carrion set for Dagger/Dagger or Scepter/Dagger builds? Or would you suggest to just use Soldier for those builds instead?

All but sPvP, since I can easily change gears there. Like I said, these gears are meant to be used for everything (where I can take my real gear). I don’t PvE around world as much since I got map completion, but I probably will be karma farming at some point. I do plan to get back into dungeons and I have been heading to WvW a good bit (although I lag in big mobs so soldier or berserker, it really doesn’t make a huge difference). As I said before, these combinations are pretty much meant to try and cover all weapon/trait builds in any situation (dungeon, wvw, etc) I take them to. There may be better one for a certain thing, but I am trying to not have too many sets of gear.

Sorry. I did briefly mention Staff and how I still haven’t learn Scepter/Daggers. Really, it is for all builds though. My primary is a 20/20/10/10/10 Staff build. I don’t plan to change traits often, since that build should work well with daggers, even Aura Daggers. The Carrion set was added with Daggers and Scepter in mind though, since those are far more condition focused than Staff, at least damage wise.
So it is more about the Gear itself though than my weapon/traits, since the gear is meant to support all my builds.

I hope they change it so it no longer builds downed penalty. I did this for as long as I can remember (since launch). Now it is even worse though. Why? I hit 2 for lava font as I down and it triggers mist form. Now I am sitting there as mist when I expected to be nuking them, wracking up my downed penalty. This has even killed me before!
However, I will say vapor form is the most useful downed skill I have ever seen. The ability to escape the foe is so nice and I feel lost without it when downed on other characters. Still, thieves can teleport without building up downed penalty, isn’t this the same thing really?

Welcome. I spent a lot of time toying with possible armors and and jewelry sets for my Ele. I have finally decided on them, but before I fully commit (already got some), I wanted to see what everyone thought. I will first list sets with the total stats they give, then I will list the combinations in a spoiler box since it is quite large.

Armor:
Berserker Armor with Ruby Orb (Stats-315+120 Power, 224+84 Precision, 16%+12% Critical Damage)
Soldier Armor with Crest of the Soldier (Stats-315+120 Power, 224+84 Toughness, 224+84 Vitality)
Carrion Armor with Rune of Divinity (Stats-375 Condition Damage, 284 Power, 284 Vitality, 12% Critical Damage, 60 Healing Power, 60 Precision, 60 Toughness)
Jewelry:
Ruby/Berserker Jewelry (Stats-463 Power, 315 Precision, 32% Critical Damage)
Emerald/Knight Jewelry (Stats-411 Toughness, 365 Precision, 315 Power)
Invader/Soldier Jewelry (Stats-436 Power, 310 Toughness, 310 Vitality)[Note: this has lower stats since it does not have a matching jewel and needs Crest of the Soldier instead]

I currently have Full Berserker Armor, Body and Legs of Soldier, and Ruby and Emerald Jewelry Sets. While I do want the Invader/Soldier Jewelry set, it is very hard to get and I doubt I will have it for a long time (Emerald Pendant and WvW Jewelry are only ones with stats currently).
The Carrion was the latest addition, mainly because I felt it would be good to have a set with Rune of Divinity and Condition Damage was only thing I didn’t focus on (Berserker is Crit and Soldier is Tank). No big rush on this one either, but it is more meant for Dagger and Scepter builds if I ever get hang of it. All my weapons have stats relating to their skill sets (staff is Berserker, etc), so I won’t list them all.

Also, I may be changing the upgrades to runes later. For the moment, I like Orbs and Crests for the raw stats and because they are cheap. My Berserker set actually has 4 runes of the balefire and 2 ruby orbs. Also, I don’t like to mix and match sets, aka soldier body/legs and berserker gloves/boots/helm/shoulders. I prefer to just swap all my jewelry or all my armor (both if I really need to change it up).

To wrap this up, below is the full list of combinations, in order of my preference. I included my personal notes and calculated critical chance. All stats exclude weapon(s) and back slot items. So now I want to hear your comments. Think I have too many armor sets? Think I should consider a different one, possible even replace one? I would prefer not hear suggestions for Runes though, I already got a lot of notes on ones to consider =P

Edit: I had to split post. My favored 2 combinations are in this spoiler tag while the rest are in the next.

“For pow/prec based damage, there might be a point to using Orbs or Crests, but it’s not like you can apply Orbs to armor, so there goes a huge chunk of % crit damage.”
You can apply orbs to armor. I got Ruby orbs on my berserker currently. You cannot apply orbs in the filigree though, then they are considered jewels and only can be added to accessories.

I did look more into runes. Rune of the Pack is sweet. I am highly considering it. However, for my Ele I think the 12% critical damage may be better. Although I never looked into how power and critical damage rival (aka is 45 power better than 12% critical damage? I doubt it but there has to be a tipping point somewhere). It does seem that runes are better for builds with a clear focus. Aka, if you are dealing lots of burning, you’d want a burn duration rune probably.
I guess that is another downside of an elementalist, the 4 attunements make it hard for me to focus on just one thing. And I side more to criticals over conditions/boons anywhere. When it comes to criticals, I think orbs may beat the others since very few give critical based effects that make up for loss of damage/chance.

Seems they are. I checked youtube and found a video where someone made gift of metal. It said account bound when he moused over. Good to know.

I will probably spend more. I feel I spent too much on h’ween, but my birthday was in Oct so I had some $ to splurge. Hopefully anet will be smart enough to leave Xmas gem store items in until early Jan so people have time to deposit gift money in bank and buy.
That said, I will probably buy more. I am one of those people to hate to miss out on things. So even if I don’t want a costume I may hate to miss chance to get it, although most will probably be back next year. I do love the witch’s costume though. My asura thief has it one with the phantom hood. It is so funny to see a little asura zoom by on broom at 25% passive move speed XD
I only got h’ween minis because I decided why not. I even got chainsaw. Only one I really liked was the ghost. I also did get mad king outfit since that looked pretty nice. And of course devil horns =P I didn’t bother with finisher or tonics since I rarely use that stuff.

Now the Black Lion Chest is the big iffy one. This is where I feel I spent too much. Over the course of the event, I opened about….40? Maybe more. Some keys were from drops/mad king dungeon chest/personal story though. I didn’t do it solely for skins though. In early oct I got some in hopes of permanent bank access and such.
However, I am disappointed with how they did skins. They never even hinted at rarity that I saw. I expected them to be 1 in 5-10 and account bound. That way there were a cosmetic and not an uber costly prestige item. I did get 4 skins, 1 was from mad king chest, so I guess I was just lucky. Still, if I traded gems for gold I may have made more money, depends how skins rise. And since I turned most of my boosters and tonics into mad king chests, I didn’t have many other rewards left.

So for Xmas, or whatever other promotions they do, I will probably buy costumes and minis again. Although they really need a costume storage in collectibles… As for black lion chest, I plan to save all keys I get for next special occasion now. I may buy more if I feel I can waste the $, but as long as the special items are buyable with gold I don’t see why I should gamble.

Yah, I gave up. Part of frustration and part because of little reward. When I heard clocktower didn’t count towards title and that you couldn’t even salvage slippers for ectos/rune, it kinda killed it for me. Seems I made right call since come the next special event the h’ween achievement will be removed (titles and points stay though), so there will be no empty achievement to haunt me =P
I did read how they don’t plan to make anything that hard for a temp event again….good to know. Now the only question is if the clocktower will ever return…

I’ve been wondering this for a while and I have yet to find any comment on it anywhere. The two gifts for each legendary that require 400 crafting are the ones I am referring to. The ones you buy recipes of for 10G.
Are these Soulbound or Account Bound?

I am slowly working towards a legendary, probably Bifrost, but I have the 8 crafting divided among 4 characters. So my Elementalist, one I’d want staff for, doesn’t have either of the two gift disciplines. Yet my necromancer has both. So pretty much I want to know if my necro can make the gifts or if my ele also needs to get 400 to make gifts.