Guild Wars 2

Always felt like it has more than 1200 range in PvP/WvW but I thought that’s just the animation. I think you should post this in the bug forum.

P.S. How do I enable that range indicator?

Tried it a long time ago and it didn’t work.

Here’s the problem:

- You deal a lot of damage with your staff attacks
→ you’re too squishy to be in melee range
→ you can’t use LH
→ you should pick a different utility skill which works at range or improves your defence

I would love to use LH in PvP myself but the problem is we lack the base stats (mainly HP) to make it work. You either deal no damage or you’re too squishy.

unlucky.9285:

since running away is not a counter to litch then neither is it an acceptable counter to stances/ immunity’s that do not lower damage/block you from heals/or take away utilities and/or skills.

so to be fair please give stances/ immune skills with 0 drawbacks a 1 second cast time with a big glowing animation so we at least have some counter play to them thank you.

alternatively make them reduce damage/condi duration by a % maybe it increases as your health gets lower so you can’t die with it on but you cant literally stop people being able to do anything while its up

that or at least give litch its 30 second duration for gods sake…. it has been over nerfed

That’s all I could understand. Not trying to be mean or anything but what are you trying to tell me?

The last sentence says you want Lich Form to be buffed so I guess you think it will be UP after the nerf.

What I think the rest of your post means:

- you can’t use utility skills while in Lich Form
-> give Lich Form some utility skills with a 1 sec CT and an obvious animation
-> alternatively reduced damage + condition duration which gets better the lower your health is

I hope that’s what you’re saying.

Here are my thoughts about Lich Form:

- it has too much burst potential atm
-> nerf the damage (which they will do in the next patch)
- I don’t understand why they nerf the 30 sec duration either since most necros don’t stay in Lich Form until it ends
-> completely agree with you here

:)

Daniel Handler.4816:

It is pretty clear that rather than waiting for direct feedback to a proposed game change, the devs are responding to hype on the forums. This has lead to a number of unfortunate changes to all classes, that are pretty unnecessary. Recently Shiguru Miyamoto of Nintendo has discussed the relief he feels now that he can move his company away from casual gamers and back to the core. I hope that at some point Arena Net can do the same. Dumbing down the game is what is leading to the slow death of WoW (think pandas), hopefully guild wars will try to remove itself from the primadonnas that post on these forums and wait until patches have actually happened to then make declensions on balance.
Edit: This is not to say that bugs should not be reported. This is to say that the hardcore quality of the game is being damaged by people who don’t want to work for anything.

No idea what those “hardcore qualities” are tbh, the game was more or less designed for casuals right from the start (or is there anything “hardcore” other than goals set by the players themselfs) and that hasn’t changed since then. That’s why you get those short LS parts every few weeks, that’s why LS is repeatable now, etc. Yes, some parts are more difficult than others but I can’t think of anything hardcore.

Honestly, even though I would love some “hardcore” content myself I know that’s not how you make money nowadays. Hardcore gamers are a small minority, casuals spend the huge amounts of cash and that’s why every single game has an ingame shop now.

About the feedback before the patch is even released, I think the only reason why this happens is because the balances patches are coming really slowly. It usually takes months until something is changed again -> players want to give feedback before the patch is being released. And yes, that feedback contains the thoughts of casuals but they can voice their opinion too.

Once the casuals are gone the game is going to die and would much rather play a game with casuals than not playing at all.

1. New maps/modes for PvP.
This is honestly the easiest way to add endgame to GW2 without the need for something new every few weeks (except for the balance patches ofc).

2. More weapons for every profession.
This would make every part of the game more interesting but also balancing the game more difficult.

3. Hard mode for dungeons with new/exclusive rewards.
Relatively easy change which would make dungeons interesting again. Also reward players if they’re able to finish the dungeon solo as a bonus.

Besides that small improvements like templates, account-wide recipes, dyeable weapons, etc.

That’s why I would love if they improved PvP more.

In GW1 I could spend a few hours every single day for years without ever being bored because they had all those great modes/skills/maps. It’s different every single time since your opponents are other players and not bots. The rewards were pretty meh which they could improve in GW2.

It’s probably the best way to create endless endgame content without the need to release something new every few weeks (except for balance patches ofc).

If you start at 0 gold I would suggest starting with regular farm runs (not gonna tell you which one here since that would ruin the run, just use google) until you have ~100g. After that start flipping since you can buy larger amounts of items which makes flipping worth the time. Sadly there’s no easy/best way for flipping, otherwise every player would do it. Just try it and get a feel for it. Then keep on flipping until you have your legendary.

That’s how I’ve done it multiple times now. Sadly I spend all my gold on the Mystic Forge rather than skins or a legendary. Currently at ~4k gold spend and I only got 1 precursor so far (surprisingly right after release and I only spend like 2g on rares).^^

Anyway, the best advice I can give is don’t give up. It takes a long time to get all the gold. Also don’t start gambling.

BLK farming is not worth it if you know the “good” farm runs.

The problem is the best farm runs only work well in a group imo, this one can be done solo/duo. That’s why the good runs usually only happen during the primetime (unless you have a guild/group for that) while the key runs work 24/7.

The reason why they nerf it is not the ridiculous amount of gold you can make but rather the fact that it makes buying keys in the gem store obsolete. Why spend gold/real money on gems to buy them when you can farm them in less than 20mins?

I hope this helps.

Charr because there are already enough female humans with the black sideboob armor. Yeah, I know it looks nice but I don’t want my char to look like everyone else.^^

The male Charr voice sounds awesome too.

Leveled my necro/thief in LA too, got about 10 levels/3h.

Only go to the events with a lot of enemies, AoE everything and don’t forget to use Food, Sharpening stones and Exp boosters. It’s really easy and fast imo (and basically free since I got the exp boosters from chests a long time ago).

Hope this helps.

I agree with everything except for this:

“however, “good” warriors are generally at a disadvantage versus equally skilled players on other classes, and this is a point that’s rarely addressed.”

You still see warriors at the highest level of tPvP (where the “good” warriors are) and I can tell you they’re still pretty dominant. The gap isn’t as big but they’re definitely not at a disadvantage.

I’ve talked to a lot of good players/watched their streams and all of them agreed that warriors are still too strong, even at their level of play which basically means there is no disadvantage.

A lower skill ceiling doesn’t necessarily mean you’re at a disadvantage, only that it takes less skill to play the profession at the highest level.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the next patch and hope they nerf the right things and/or increase the skill ceiling.

It’s sad that WvW balance is basically non-existent but rewarding players for abusing this is even worse.

Please separate the rewards from server placement and make them based on our personal participation.

Good/active players will get their rewards that way while bandwagoning won’t be as effective.

I like some of the ideas but the rework should be balanced for PvP too.

A few of your suggestions are ridiculously overpowered (e.g. “Moment of Clarity – Gain 5 attacks of opportunity” = multiple extremely high bursts with barely any CD).

Anyway, it’s good to see people making more suggestion. Just keep in mind it should be balanced, not over the top.

Using the forum for a poll is a pretty bad idea. People can vote multiple times or 3 times for 1 profession. Gl excluding those players from the poll, it’s going to be a lot of work.

1. Elementalist
2. Ranger
3. Mesmer (mainly bug fix)

If you implement the red circle you should think about compensation as well.

Whether it’s only a bug or not doesn’t really matter, it’s a huge nerf for staff eles in WvW and further encourages people to join the melee train (which is already the majority of players). MS is one of the few skills which is decent against those warrior/guardian groups and that shouldn’t change.

By compensation I don’t mean something like 5% damage increase. More damage doesn’t help since MS won’t hit anyway. The compensation should help the ele to hit the targets reliably without making it overpowered.

Please keep that in mind before nerfing eles again.

Eles were nerfed way too much. This is how I would have buffed/nerfed them (in this case D/D bunker eles):

• RTL
  15 sec CD -> 25 sec CD (no half CD if it hits an enemy) + 1550 range -> 1200 range
  A 15 sec CD was too low, 40 sec (if you don’t hit your opponent/disengage which every profession needs to do sometimes) is way too high. 25 sec CD is higher than equal skills since RTL is slightly stronger imo.

• Signet of Restoration
  Remove nerf
  Nerf should be removed to make it somewhat viable again. Still feels really weak after the nerf + bug fix.

• Lightning Flash
  Stun break + no damage + 30 sec CD
  Equal to Blink (Mesmer). Reduces the high burst potential of Fresh Air builds but increases their survivability.

• Mist Form
  Only locks skills 1-5 -> also locks heal, utility, and elite skills
  Nerf is ok since similar skills were nerfed too.

• Zephyr’s Boon
  Shocking Aura aura bug fix -> only 5 sec boons instead of 10 sec
  Bug fix (= nerf) which is ok.

• Bountiful Power
  2% damage -> 1% damage
  Nerf is ok. Similar traits only increase the damage by 1% as well.

• Cleansing Water
  5 sec ICD -> no ICD
  The ICD was a huge nerf and should be reverted.

• Evasive Arcana
  4 blast finishers -> 1 blast finisher + Cleansing Wave reduced by 50%
  2 nerfs which are huge but I think they were necessary. Back then EA was too strong. (Maybe only reduced by 25%)

• Armor of Earth
  90 sec CD -> 60 sec CD
  75 sec CD is still too high. Similar skills (slightly weaker) have ~50% CD. 60 sec CD sounds fair to me since it synergizes well with multiple traits.

• Burning Speed
  No evade -> evade
  Nice buff. Not really needed imo but I like the idea of having active defense.

• Frozen Burst
  No blast finisher -> blast finisher
  Decent buff.

I’m not sure if my suggestions would make eles viable again (probably not) but it’s a step in the right direction. The buffs which were announced so far simply aren’t enough.

First of all the upcoming buffs for eles are a joke. They won’t change anything.

A short explanation why:

Let’s compare D/D eles right now/after the patch to the ones after release. They’re a good example of ele balancing. Here are the important nerfs and buffs since release:

• RTL
  15 sec CD -> 20 sec CD -> 40 sec CD + 1550 range -> 1200 range
  3 nerfs (1 nerf = bug fix).

• Signet of Restoration
  healing reduced by 18% (HS only 8% + active buff?) -> nerf removed
  0 nerf

• Lightning Flash
  stun break -> no stun break + no damage -> some damage + 45 sec CD -> 40 sec CD
  ~0 nerf (the buffs are nothing compared to the nerf imo but I want to be fair here)

• Mist Form
  only locks skills 1-5 -> also locks heal, utility, and elite skills
  1 nerf

• Zephyr’s Boon
  Shocking Aura aura bug fix -> only 5 sec boons instead of 10 sec
  1 nerf (= bug fix)

• Bountiful Power
  2% damage -> 1% damage
  1 nerf

• Cleansing Water
  0 sec ICD -> 5 sec ICD
  1 nerf

• Evasive Arcana
  4 blast finishers -> 1 blast finisher + Cleansing Wave reduced by 50%
  2 nerfs

• Armor of Earth
  90 sec CD -> 75 sec CD
  1 buff

• Burning Speed
  no evade -> evade
  1 buff

• Frozen Burst
  no blast finisher -> blast finisher
  1 buff (~0,5 of the EA nerf)

In total 9 nerfs (7 if you exclude the bug fixes) and 3 buffs.

The evade on Burning Speed is nice, the blast finisher on Frozen Burst makes up for 1 Evasive Arcana blast finisher (only ~0,5 nerf). The CD reduction for Armor of Earth is ok but the CD is still pretty high.

To sum it up:

9 nerfs since release and 3 (actually 2,5) buffs. It’s hilarious that some people think eles could be viable again after the patch. They’re weaker compared to release and since then other professions were buffed which makes the balance gap even bigger. Unless there’re some huge buffs in the future nothing will change.

I think it’s pretty obvious that there’s something wrong with the balancing if every single part of the game is dominated by 1 profession. You don’t need to be a genius to see that.

Nice videos.

Any chance we will see an ele video soon™?

Hey,

I played a decent amount of FotM (~lvl 65 pre-patch, back at 50 now). Here is the build I use for random FotM groups:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhImmb6R5wjEAEFucS4xAMUgogFlC7A-jwBBYfBhEJIZmFRjt4qIas6aYKXER12bFRrWKgIWGB-e

If you play with your guild and they know how FotM works you can go full damage (30-30-0-0-10) but for randoms you need some defense (mainly for rezzing) imo.

Besides that you should have a Berserker’s focus, scepter and 2 daggers and 1 full Soldier’s armor (PVT) with you all the time. Sometimes s/f (scepter/focus) is a better choice, e.g. against the final boss in the Volcanic fractal. Don’t forget to change the traits if you change your weapon set. The 2nd armor is for difficult fractals in higher levels.

You also need to change the Slot skills depending on the fractal. Buff food and other Consumables can help too.

The most important thing:

Learn how the fractals work and when to dodge.

If you don’t dodge properly you will die all the time.

I personally think that it’s too easy for warriors to get all those benefits.

You only need 1 healing skill and 20 trait points (!) to get this:

• High HP
• High toughness
• High sustain (with barely any healing power)
• Decent condition removal

After that you just pick the gear of your choice and you get this:

• Decent damage
• Lots of CC
• Combo finishers + field
• (Mobility)

In the end you pick your utility skills and use the last trait points and you get this:

• Several seconds of immunity
• Stability
• Stun breakers
• Lower weapon swap CD
• …

All those things are combined in 1, I repeat 1(!) build.

I remember when D/D eles were considered OP. Back then Anet said they don’t want a single build to offer all those things which is reasonable imo. Seems like they changed their mind…

One huge problem if they nerf eles:

There’s absolutely no reason to play them anymore.

PvP:
Nobody plays them anyway except for fun or because they like the challenge. Even the fresh air builds are pretty terrible imo since you just die instandly against any decent thief.

WvW:
AoEs + water fields are the only reasons why staff eles are good in WvW. Even the CC is pretty useless nowadays since the majority of a zerg are either warriors or guardians.

PvE:
Only viable because you can exploit flawed game design. If they fix those things eles won’t be played in PvE anymore.

There’re so many things they should have nerfed right after the release but that’s too late now. Eles simply don’t work without exploiting flawed game design and those “OP” skills/traits. A lot of terrible traits and skills and the lowest base stats in the game just make it impossible.

selan.8354:

Vuh.1328:

Ugh yeah you guys are right, i just have to change my mindset and never touch warrior again.

Guess i should really give WvWvW a shot

erm on your mes? well u know if u like being a utilitybot then yeah thats what u are in wvw. and nothing else. veil veil veil veil and then tw. thats it. in roaming u might gonna find some fun fights though.

Don’t forget portal.

Like Me Games Ma.8426 and Curunen.8729 said, conditions are really good against most Mesmer builds. My favorite professions for that are Necro and Engi. Since Engi is your main you only need to look for a decent condition build unless you already did that.

2 ideas which came to my mind:

• Last Refuge moved to 10 points and a weaker 10 point trait moved to 5 points.
  Players are still able to use Last Refuge if they want to while having a decent 5 point trait.

• Remove Last Refuge completely and add a new trait. Something like “Heal for X the next time you enter stealth when your health reaches Y threshold (ICD)” would fit the trait line.
  The new trait improves the sustain without being overpowered. Keep in mind it’s only a 5 point trait.

All the current alternatives are just as bad when it comes to PvP (which is pretty sad now that I’m thinking about it) so all I can say is this:

Play for fun.

If it’s not fun anymore try a different game for some time and eventually a better game will be released.

Since the PvE meta won’t change after the patch berserker is still the best option. WvW is a different story.

There’s a thread in my signature which includes most of your ideas (if not more). It’s ~8 months old and some ideas actually made it into the game.

I don’t think they will buff/change the staff soon. Back then the staff was considered weak and it took months until they finally fixed some problems.

Elemental Surge has one big problem:

The trait is designed for condition builds while Arcane skills synergize with high crit damage. It can be used effectively (certain combos are really strong) but for the most part it’s only an ok choice. Once hybrid builds are viable Elemental Surge is a really good choice but that won’t happen any time soon.

A proof that a mediocre warrior > a mediocre thief… Man, I really needed a video to know that.

But seriously, every single player knows that warriors are too strong right now and the upcoming “nerfs” won’t change anything. Beating a thief as an engi should be pretty easy as well (too much condition spam), ranger could be interesting.

Would be nice to see you playing an ele after that.

There might be some buffs coming since they only announced the big changes, not all of them.

The nerfs are questionable but I don’t think they will destroy the Mesmer like some people do. You will still be able to use the same builds and some of them will be weaker.

Giving Mesmers more ooc mobility would be nice (although that’s a big change which would have been announced). Your idea seems to be too strong though. 25% speed boost + a random boon is better than any other speed boost signet in the game.

Xillllix.3485:

Yuk, these are really the “I don’t wanna die and I don’t care about damage” builds. There is zero offensive stats in there at all.

0/30/0/20/20 for staff with 3 cantrips, air VI, IX, XII, water III, IX
0/20/0/20/30 for daggers with 2 cantrips and arcane blast finisher

With these stats and maxed out gear I get 7-10K+ meteors with some might stacks while having over 22k hp with stacks of guards defense and food.

“I’m relatively inexperienced” => a full DPS build is probably a bad choice for him.

And no damage? 3.3k+ attack (including food + stacks), 58% crit chance (including fury) and 84% crit damage are definitely more than no damage. You also have increased condition damage => more damage.

The best thing about the build is you basically never die (cantrips + perma regen + perma condition removal + lots of vigor and protection) and you can support the zerg/group extremely well. AoE might and heals, lots of condition removal and so on.

I would say try to start with a more defensive build and if you feel safe enough you can go for more damage. Nothing is more annoying than another rallybot in your zerg who just wants to see those big numbers.

Use this one:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhImmbwR5QlDAkHucCLjChUeszM2A-j0BBYjBhEJIJqFRjtqpIasqaER1qkYmzFRrWKgHGGB-w

It’s really flexible and strong in any situation.

Twinny.9304:

I can only speak of EU Guilds, and now that VoTF have disbanded I probably have to say Red Guard. I’ve clashed with both, Red Guard of old, and VoTF of recent and old, and no Guild I have ever faced have impressed me and hit me as hard as the recent VoTF. Red Guard are and always have been awesome but since their small break, VoTF raised that bar to a whole new lvl, and then unfortunately left it there as a marker for all to compete to. Red Guard were and always will be my favorite, but in my eyes the recent VoTF were better.

I’m slightly disappointed by Red Guard tbh. My server plays against them right now and while they’re able to handle most blobs they seem to struggle against other guilds. Yes, they still win a lot of fights but I remember them being more dominant. Maybe they still need to recover from the break.

reikken.4961:

disagree with a lot of this
like I’d give Electric Discharge a 5. It’s seriously like a 10-15% damage boost in a fresh air build
and some of your 2s and 3s would be 1s, and so on

I couldn’t really decide whether it’s a 3 or 4 since it really depends on the build. For Fresh Air builds it’s basically a must-have, for other builds it’s just meh. 5 seems a little too high for me. Evasive Arcana or Cleansing Water (currently 5) are better choices compared to Electric Discharge for most builds. You’re right though, it’s probably a 4 instead of a 3.

Feel free to let me know about the other traits you’re talking about.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Rating-Elementalist-traits

Just updated it.

Flame Barrier and One with Fire should be reworked just like every other trait with a 1 or 2 rating.

Hello everyone,

I just updated the guide. I know it’s been a while since the last update but I simply didn’t have the time or motivation.

Anyway, feel free to leave a comment to let me know what you think.

There’s no build which is great for both 1v1 and ZvZ, it’s always a tradeoff for every single profession. You can create some kind of hybrid but those builds usually aren’t optimal for any part of the game.

A few months ago I was about to quit GW2 because my main was simply boring to play. Tried every build, seen everything so what am I supposed to do now? The answer is simple:

Try playing a different profession for some time, it really helps.

You will come back to your Mesmer eventually and have fun playing it again.

If you want single target burst eles can easily do that. I might release a guide in February (too much RL stuff going on right now) about a burst build which deals ~18-20k damage against most non bunker builds in less than 1 sec. The problem with GC eles is they basically have no defense which means you will die just as fast.

Tbh there is no way keep a thief from escaping. If he really wants to he can just use stealth and teleport away. There’s nothing you can do about it.

We have done all those things on Riverside (although I only heared about “The Clone Army”, I didn’t play a Mesmer back then). Some of them still happen although it feels like there are usually not enough Mesmers in our zergs anymore. Most of them switch to either Warrior or Guardian while playing in a zerg or reroll if a commander asks for more Mesmers.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Not really. Some of the stuff is for WvW, some for PvE some PvP and some just grneral Mesmer. Now that I think about it I spent most 2012 in PvE, and 2013 in PvP.. Time for a stronger WvW initiative this year… If my comp can handle it. X.x

Time to upgrade your PC then.

I would love to see some video guides (especially for WvW) or even only gameplay.

Glad to see you guys are back. Too bad some of you had to leave my server for that though. Greetings from Riverside!

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

Morderger.6298:

30 in earth is bad. Diamond skin is only good against pure condi builds. Which hardly anyone plays anymore. Probably should go Divinity Runes. You probably wont even notice the +boon duration you have now.
Can try
0-10-10-30-20
0-20-20-10-20
0-0-20-30-20 bunker
0-0-20-20-30 bunker

Amulet and Utility choices for those builds would help. Though I suspect the second answer would be “cantrips, cantrips and more cantrips”.

Amulet depends on whether you want a DPS or bunker build. And yes, it’s only cantrips. Arcane skills can be good in burst builds but most ele Utility skills are garbage.

2 other things which come to my mind:

- people used to run full Boon Duration (45% runes + 30% 30 Arcana + sometimes even buff food)
- Shocking Aura + Zephyr’s Boon used to give 10 sec boons instead of 5 secs which was fixed a few months ago

Other than that I’m not sure what could cause a 30 sec Swiftness cap.

LordByron.8369:

try this…
Equip staff…stack 1 min+ swiftness and use Glyph of elemental armony while in air.

Equip D/D, reach your beloved 30 sec swiftness or just use the guardian swiftness to reach 1 min…

Use glyph of elemental harmony….

Second case you won t get any swiftness added.

Try to reach swiftness cap with D/D combos and staff combos by yourself….see the difference.

I still have to test it properly but i m quite convinced they overdo with D/D swiftness stack..

(i play ele since release and i admit in the past was able to stack up to 30 min swiftness, then drop to 30, then reverted to 2 mins, then back to 30….none of that was EVER mentioned in patchnotes….i have yet to test after last patch, but Yesterday i noticed glyph wasn t giving me any swiftness when i had 50 sec obtained by a guard with D/D equipped, while i usually get past 1 min with staff).

Here’s a short explanation:

D/D eles stack Swiftness with short durations and Guardians do exactly the same. The problem is you can only stack Swiftness up to 9 times.

“Boons are limited to a maximum of 9 stacks, with the exceptions of Retaliation and Stability. The intensity (duration) of each stack is irrelevant.”

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Effect_stacking

Staff eles on the other hand stack Swiftness with long durations (10 secs and more). That’s why you can get more than 1 min of Swiftness.

I hope this helps.

You should try the 3 basic PU builds everyone runs right now:

• Condition PU
• Hybrid PU (not sure if popular but a few friends use and like it)
• Power PU

They’re all pretty solid and you can change them to fit your playstyle afterwards.

P.S. Yeah, I know PU is not a build but it’s the easiest way to explain them.

I was “glitching” into our towers, walls, doors and even stairs by accident 4 times over the last 3 days. Tried to reproduce it afterwards and I can tell you a few things:

• if it happens by accident it’s really annoying since you’re stuck until your teleport skills are ready again
• you can glitch into any building on any map (didn’t figure out all of them yet since I only try it while we own that building)
• you can’t be killed while you’re stuck in a wall or stairs
• you can be killed while stuck in a door
• it works with any teleport skill, sometimes even other skills like RTL

I will try to reproduce more of those glitches and send a report then.

Mesmer is definitely more difficult to play than most professions in the game. Not all of them but most.

The build you played in particular usually tends to be easier to play than the average Mesmer build (by average I mean difficulty).

Here is a little secret though:
Every profession in the game has those “easy mode” builds.

Believe it or not, even eles have those builds. I use one of them myself right now to get back into PvP and I can tell you one thing: It usually crushes most condition spam builds.

The next time you play something new please don’t make such a statement before having more experience.

I’m not sure what’s more pathetic, the suggestions by this guy or posting the same crap in a profession forum.

Yes, that guy has no idea what he’s talking about but posting it here only makes look like a kitten. I hope you feel better about yourself now.