Guild Wars 2

So I posted this in a couple other threads regarding the 20 second res timer, but it seems to have gone unnoticed. Therefore, I wanted to create a new thread wherein I post my suggestion to both get feedback from the community and to possibly bring it to Anet’s attention.

Caveat #1: I have never partaken in a paid tournament, I have no QP’s, so my opinion will likely not be respected and will be discounted by a couple leet pro’s out there. Alas, such is life.

Suggestion: A personal decreasing resurrection timer. When a player enters the downed state, their personal res timer starts (at say, 23s). If they’re immediately stomped (3s to stomp) they will be defeated and have a res timer of 20s. If they are downed for 10 seconds, and then stomped, they will have a res timer of 10s. If they’re downed for longer than 23 seconds, they will have an instant respawn timer. Thus, the action of greatest personal benefit to the team doing the stomping will be to instantly stomp their enemies if possible (because a defeated player waiting on a res timer is less of a threat than even a weaksauce downed opponent). This is PVP kitten , the goal should be killing your enemy swiftly and without mercy!

The basis of this suggestion is that I don’t think it’s true “strategy” or “skill” to time your stomps based on pulsing res timers (as it was done before the patch). Yes it takes strategy and skill, but in the grand scheme of things it’s nothing more than a gimmick. Nor is it a good idea to implement a static 20s personal timer. The new timer setup will result in teams putting 1 bleed stack up on downed enemies so that they take 20+ seconds to become defeated, thereby effectively taking them out of the fight for much much longer.

A team should not be “rewarded” for taking longer to kill downed foes. They should be rewarded for smiting them as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Caveat #2: The #’s I used in my post are for example only, Anet could decide 30s is more appropriate, or have the timer decrease non-linearly, etc.

The bottomline is that doing everything you can to keep your opponent in the downed state longer rather than just mashing them asap should NOT be the preferred route and the accepted meta. Again, just my opinion. Flame away…

I mentioned this in another thread, I would prefer a respawn timer starting at 20s and decreasing the longer the player is in the downed state.

I didn’t like timer watching, and I don’t like a 20s static timer. Both of these options encourage one to keep the opposition alive and in the downed state for as long as possible (not 100% true with timer watching, but often it behooved one to wait on stomping for the timer to reset).

Players should ALWAYS be encouraged to stomp as soon as possible. It’s PvP, the object should be TO KILL your enemy and KILL THEM QUICKLY. Period. A decreasing timer would encourage this as even a downed player is more dangerous than a defeated one waiting on a respawn timer.

I like personalized timers, but think they should start at 20 seconds and then DECREASE (maybe even to an instant respawn) the longer that person is downed.

There should be NO benefit to keeping your opponent alive. Players should be encouraged to stomp their opposition as soon as possible. With a decreasing timer the longer you’re downed, one would ALWAYS want to stomp quickly (to force the largest respawn timer possible) cause even a downed player is more dangerous than a defeated one waiting on a timer…

Just my opinion, i just think it’s bad form to make the preferred strategy be keeping your enemy alive longer…

Jason Segel.2908:

I wasn’t aware you added the ability for mist form to let the elementalist come up from being downed to full health?

It doesn’t.

15 char.

kaplis.7195:

imo they should add a fifth skill which let’s you die immediately

^this. It should be in your teams best interest to stomp people quickly to take them out of the fight. As it is, taking you sweet kitten time to stomp people is the preferred route cause it takes the downed player out of the fight longer cause they sit in downed forever and then have a long timer to boot. It shouldn’t help your team to NOT stomp folks, period.

By adding a “suicide” option (skill #5) people could defeat themselves when downed while solo to get to respawning faster, but choose to wait/fight if teammates are nearby that might possibly res them. Sitting in downed for 15+s is penalty enough.

DivineBeing.2086:

As a player who only plays a D/D elementalist (2h staff against walls), I would rather take on ANY class (and can!) than a thief. Can I kill a thief? Yes, but it’s almost as comparable as fighting 3 warriors.

D/D doesn’t have a whole lot of AOE. Does it have some aoe? Yes, the cone of affect can still land pretty well, but it’s hard to land a hit when you’re just spinning in air firing at nothing the entire time while the thief is perma stealthed and healing.

I’d rather fight almost any other class simply because I can SEE them and SEE their damage incoming.

Also, regarding the AOE of the D/D setup (what I use mostly as well), spinning around with Drake’s breath and Cone of cold WOULD be great for hitting stealthed thieves, except they basically only “MISS” when you’re moving…

/sigh

Spartyr.6795:

I think the issue is compounded by the fact that the bags aren’t auto-loot.

^this. bags in WvW need to be made auto-loot for other players (note, I’m fine with having to pick up the bag for PvE mobs).

When killing a player, any loot including badges should simply be immediately placed in your inventory, period. If you have no space, default to mail. If mailbox is full, bag drops (it’s your fault if you can’t keep your mailbox and inventory empty enough to accept loot). Nothing is worse than killing a bunch of folks, seeing 5+ bags around you, and then getting downed/defeated and getting NO LOOT. Stupid stupid stupid!!

Mobott.5908:

I was nearly at the verge of crying today. I’m on my lvl 22 Elementalist, and I was trying to do a dynamic event. I was having so much trouble and kept downing and dieing. I call for help in chat, AND A FREAKING WARRIOR COMES AND BASICALLY SOLOS THE THING.

I don’t want to reroll to Warrior. I already tried a Warrior before and I didn’t enjoy it. I’ve tried most of the classes, and Ele is the only that I’m really having fun as. The game shouldn’t be forcing me to play a class I don’t want to play. I though ArenaNet made this game so you could choose to play so that you have fun. Doesn’t seem that way right now.

Now, is there anything I can do to fix this? I’m attempting to use dagger/dagger. Most of my armor is lvl 20, and I don’t know which trait tree is best to spend points in…most things I’ve been seeing say to invest 10 points in Air first for a speed buff, and I did.

It gets better as you unlock more skills and learn more about the class. Don’t fret. Equally geared warriors may always be able to take down dumb kitten mobs faster than you, but thankfully the game isn’t only about solo’ing PvE mobs. Ele’s are great.

Also, investing your 1st 10 pts in air is probably a waste. I recommend the first 10 go into arcane for elemental attunement and the buffs it provides. You can get your swiftness buff (for travel) by attuning to air, protection from going into earth (great for when face-tanking mobs), heals in water, and might in fire. Very good use of your first 10 points.

Others say put 10 pts in fire for the +100 power it provides (which is HUGE at low levels). This is also very good advice.

Basically, 10 in arcane for survivability, or 10 in fire for nuking power. 10 in air is a waste though, it barely boosts your damage and only marginally cuts down travel time.

{edited to add: I think when dapheonix says “put your first 10 pts in air” he’s assuming you’re crafting a lvl 80 build, he says “put the next 30 in water,” etc. His tanky D/D build isn’t really a leveling guide as far as I know.}

I would like to see the addition of new game modes in hotjoin sPvP. Probably not for tPvP and tournies however, just because it could mess with balance issues.

Regarding new game modes, CTF would be fun. I don’t see the fact that the game does not have healers causing a problem because that just means the flag captures will occur faster. Nothing was more boring than an endless flag sitting match in Warsong gulch cause neither side could take down the other’s flag carrier.

I also liked one of the battleground modes in Warhammer (I forget the map name) that had two nodes, and when one team captured both for 10 seconds a bell would ring, a huge bomb would go off nuking the other team in the area near the nodes, and the capturing team would get points for it. Not a tremendously balanced gameplay, but kitten tons of fun…

Edited to add: An interesting “tournament” format could be made if you had 3 game modes (e.g., conquest, ctf, and the two-node-bomb mentioned above). Two teams would be matched head-to-head, and would play each other on all 3 game types. Classes and spec’s would be locked for all 3, and the team with the most cumulative points at the end would win the “tournament.” Locking class/specs would make it so that teams would have think about which archetypes would be most valuable on all 3 maps, so it wouldn’t favor solely bunkering (as conquest does). Obviously, a matchmaking system would have to be implemented to match two nearly equivalent teams, etc. Just a thought…

I hope the fire shield you get from using magnetic grasp in a fire field NOT procc’ing auro traits (e.g., fury, swiftness, protection) is a bug and they get around to fixing it before next year.

If it’s an intended change, than that blows….

I’ve had RTL bug out once or twice since the patch, but it does work far better than before. I’ve found that when it does bug out, it’s because i’m traversing difficult terrain.

Magnetic Grasp on the other hand (aside from the leap finisher bug, and it not procc’ing aura traits {which I HOPE is a bug}) still works rather poorly for me. I actually stunned myself for a couple seconds of travel the other day when I used it point-blank on a stationary PvE mob while trying to proc the fire aura… so yeah…

It still needs a lot of work.

NullMad.4370:

Actually Splitrr you can’t get exotic weapons that ares Power/Toughness/Vitality with badges or karma.

^this is wrong. You can get P/V/T gear for badges from WvW vendors. Exotics for badges, rares for karma.

Also, why are people here arguing about where one can obtain “Exotics” as the best gear in the game. Did you guys miss the massive patch we had 3 days ago releasing “Ascended” gear that is dungeon-obtainable only and has substantial stat improvements over Exotics? Did you miss the part where they said they’ll be releasing additional ascended gear slots in the future?
Hello?

DiogoSilva.7089:

EDIT: But if you dislike nerfs, stay away from Thief/ Guardian/ Mesmer. They’re the top priority targets to take down. Have you seen how much Mesmers were nerfed last patch? :P You would come at the forums stating the future isn’t bright for those.

^this. I am now tempted to spend more time working on my guardian alt. But they already bunkered as well as (if not better than Ele’s) and they didn’t get crushed by the nerf-bat, so I HAVE to assume their bunker builds are next in line to get eviscerated…

zombyturtle.5980:

Honestly…the blast finisher wasn’t OP. It was the chaining of blasts that made the skill unbalanced. Small steps in nerfing are needed not huge ones that dismiss entire builds.

^this. So many times this…

Is there anyway to remove runes from gear short of salvaging it and thus destroying the item?

I don’t think so, but I wasted roughly 50s PER RUNE buying a Dwayna set for my healing/support WvW build (which was my favorite thing to do in the game) and will now be re-gearing and re-runing in light of the recent patch changes. Stacking +healing was worth it when I could pump out a lot of heals, but since that’s been removed from the table (my +healing stat doesn’t benefit the heals generated by other players blast finishers, and regen has a very poor healing coefficient) I see no reason to kitten myself so harshly in other areas.

Along these lines, anyone have any suggestions for a new rune/build setup for primarily WvW and solo PvE? I will likely run D/D in PvE (to keep the playstyle interesting), but losing out on the long range AOE of a staff in WvW is gonna hurt (I already switched to D/D when roaming and small-group hunting in WvW, but always used a staff for keep sieging/defense). Thoughts are appreciated.

If you’re a staff Ele that doesn’t play s/tPvP, welcome to the stand/nuke playstyle of the ranger class.

I hope you like Daggers…

And I didn’t have the heart to be in tough staff fights without strong self-healing.

So I didn’t bother playing tonight.

^this too. I won’t even step foot in Orr holding a staff anymore.

Evasive Arcana works best with D/D now, due to its limited range. Honestly, there’s no master earth trait that’s better.

Correction, Evasive Arcana ONLY works for D/D and S/D now. They need it for the marginal heal and faster attunement swaps basically.

But why on earth would a staff user want to dodge roll INTO their opponent wasting their endurance and putting themselves in melee range for a measly single bleed stack or a few seconds of burning?!?

Arc.9374:

It just needs to work as the tooltip describes. If it actually cast a proper Churning Earth, instead of the pathetic mini-shockwave, that alone would almost qualify it for being stupidly good again.

If the tooltip is to be believed, CE is the only dodge that should ever have procced a finisher.

I think it’s a shame that when they were ‘fixing’ it, they didn’t fix it all the way, and instead left it half finished, and almost universally garbage, but it definitely comes as absolutely no surprise that it lost the finishers it was never supposed to have in the first place.

This I would agree with. If they want to give me a full Churning earth (including the 7 stacks of bleed and the full direct damage coefficient) I could respec from healing/support and go more glass cannony to use EA offensively. I wouldn’t like it (cause I prefer to heal/support) but I could live with it.

As it is, EA is now a wasteful trait for any staff user. D/D and S/D users might still grab it as that setup requires faster attunement swaps and benefits greatly from the marginal heal attached to the dodge-roll in water…

Yes, and complaints about bunkers aside, it’s not as if they were all that difficult to counter. Snares, weakness and immobilizes all worked great. And you could see them coming from a mile away too: if an ele put down a geyser, then you knew what was coming next.

This is the other part I don’t understand. Was the full staff-bunker Ele overpowered? Probably. Especially considering they nerfed burst from others classes (e.g., thieves). But we weren’t even the best bunker out there, guardians did it better. They get the predictable block bugfix, and a few minor tweaks here and there. We get a 50% healing nerf and a near complete class redesign. Guardians are going to be EVERYWHERE in tPvP now, they will be nigh-unkillable. Burst was nerfed, and the best bunker stayed the same. Good freakin’ luck! I for one welcome our new guardian bunker overlords.

/sigh

Malcastus.6240:

Use Arcane Wave if you want a blast finisher?

Many already did, but even that isn’t a great option because of the long cooldown (30s) it carries.

The only readily available blast finisher for Staff Ele’s now is eruption, which outside of a super-easy tank/spank PvE fight is difficult to time and pull off (especially if you want to hit anyone other than yourself with it). Oh, and it’s totally awesome to have to put two attunements (and half your weapon skills) on cooldown all the time just to get ONE blast finished AOE heal that has also seen a healing coefficient nerf…

morrolan.9608:

After the latest nerfs to Elementalist you really need to communicate with us about where you’re going with the class because right now its becoming worthless.

I don;t really care that they were technically bug fixes why not change the description for evasive arcana so it does produce blast finishers?

^this. A response from a developer would be greatly appreciated. I’m not normally one to QQ on the forums (you can look up my post history, I have NEVER cried that Ele’s were underpowered and needed major buffs) but right now this morning I feel like I got throat punched and stabbed in the back (I never cried about BS thiefs for that matter either).

My entire spec, and the sole reason I rolled this class, has been gutted/destroyed/removed from the game. I love clothy, mobile, support healers (played a Disc priest in “that other game” for years, I loved it) and now this class will only marginally be able to accomplish that role. I have no desire to even log on and check out the new Lost Shores content because I have to reassess my entire class decision and if I decide to continue playing it (rather than leveling my gaurdian alt) I will have to regear, re-rune, and re-trait it entirely. Probably switch to D/D and put my exotic staff in the bag. All the gold I wasted on the TP buying dwayna runes (some of which came from gem purchases after unlocking more bank slots, I won’t be making THAT mistake again) to make me a group healer was wasted cause strangers blast finishing my water fields doesn’t benefit from my healing power stat and trying to use eruption/geyser on anything but a stationary target (which doesn’t happen in this game) is a near-impossibility. Healing rain only grants regen which barely benefits from +healing power, so why stack a stat I get merely marginal benefit from anymore. I wasn’t stacking it for self-healing, i was stacking it for GROUP HEALING!!

I didn’t even play paid tournaments, only dabbled in tPvP lightly, and when I did so I usually ran D/D (the playstyle is just MORE FUN for PvP) not the impossible to kill staff bunker Ele. But I loved staff support/healing in PvE (a lot of solo’ing Orr) and in WvW, and now that playstyle is dead because the meta in tPvP relies heavily on bunkers. Back to stand/nuke mechanics I suppose, like every other boring class. YES Ele’s were TOO GOOD as that role in tPvP, but so were Guardians and they avoided the nerf-bat.

I suppose it’s time to break out the infamous line, “I for one welcome our new Guardian bunker overlords…”

For staff Ele’s, evasive arcana is now a complete waste of 10 point in arcane and a trait slot. It’s even a nerf for D/D and S/D users (cause they can’t might stack with it, and the healing component has been reduced) but they’ll still have to take it as it’s a significant chunk of their self-healing and they need faster attunement rotations.

I fully expected them to take away the blast finishers when the skills themselves weren’t activated (i.e., but blasts on the 10s cooldown)…

I never expected this.

I loved my healing/support staff build for solo PvE and WvW, I specifically played the class to fulfill that role, now it looks like all those folks I kept up with my healing are on their own. If there were going to take away 50% of our healing potential, they could have at least buffed some of our damage skills to make up for it. It’s not as if Ele’s were tearing up the world exactly. As it is, the class is now merely a subpar bunker (guardians and Engi’s will do it WAY better, hell Guardians already did BEFORE the nerf and they didn’t see the nerf bat at all, save fixing the block bug which was obviously necessary) and our glass cannon builds can’t hold a candle to thieves and mesmers (even AFTER the thief nerfs). What exactly are we good at now? The class as D/D will still make a decent roamer I suppose… /sigh

I’m simultaneously disgusted, distraught, and tempted to go do research on the Elder Scrolls online all at the same time. I’m not sure I have the stomach right now to work on my guardian alt… thanks for nothing.

Nope, no boredom setting in for me. I enjoy the act of killing the enemy and sieging their territory.

Badges, $$, and more powerful gear are a distant second on my priority list.

5 highly skilled players, pick any class with no more than 2 of any one class.

There’s your 5 man killer roaming combo…

Jacobin.8509:

In other words people who have points, but haven’t played in a while won’t show up and probably never will if they have left the game.

Exactly, and why this thread (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Requesting-new-rules-for-sPvP-to-reduce-spam/first#post671727)
is a complete and total joke.

That wasn’t the question. I never stated QPs were a rating or ladder system. I asked why he thought gaining QPs is simply a matter of time.

Because to some extent, they show merely HOW MANY paid tournaments a person has participated in, rather than HOW WELL they play.

It’s a good start for Anet, and I commend them for trying, but frankly, paid tournaments just aren’t that popular yet and so these rankings don’t mean a lot. A couple of months from now however, it’ll be a different story most likely.

samo.1054:

I wonder what you would say if the player that has 65 QP told you to kitten because you know nothing about the game? Would you go like: “Yes sir, I am sorry Sir, I will remove myself from this forum Sir!”

you mean like the 1st response in THIS thread (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Leaderboards-QQ-topic/first#post671078)

where the #1 rated EU player (with 65 QP) says, and I quote:

I’m rank1 on the EU, and i think that they should’ve not made this ladder, it’s a bad joke, as you can see only few teams are playing PT, casual teams have almost 0 chances to win.

By the way, the OP here has a QP rating of 10. Last I checked, 65 >> 10…

Aveneo.2068:

The arrow is basically a ‘gank me’ indicator and should be removed in my humble opinion. Too many enemy players focus on such players because of the potential ‘easy win’.

I actually agree with removing it because it causes people to pick and choose their battles too easily.

Encounter a 1v1 at a random supply camp? {checks enemy for green arrow, yes}
/charge!!!!

Encounter a 1v1 at a random supply camp? {checks for green arrow, none}
/ponder…

Reikou.7068:

so again, everyone not in the top 100 leaderboards prove themselves incompetent by not discussing the actual topic at hand, but instead try to attack the individual that posted the thread. Amazing.

Are you suggesting that I’m incompetent? Cause my account isn’t linked to the top 100 QP point board? Seriously? Nevermind that I’ve never competed in paid tournaments cause I don’t care about them, so it’s kinda hard to be on the leaderboard (nevermind that this is the “sPvP discussion forum,” not the “top 100 QP paid tournaments” discussion forum)…

And you’re getting attacked because it’s a bad idea, a very bad one at that.

Why? Homeless people don’t exactly get invited to Davos, and dropouts aren’t consulted when it comes to discussing quantum physics, and for good reason. Or do you complain about those being “elitist” as well? In order to make this board something worth reading instead of wading through piles of kitten, those who obviously don’t know what they’re talking about (those not in the top 100 leaderboards) should be prevented from posting on this board.

To be fair, there is a big difference between Davos, quantum physics, AND A VIDEO GAME DISCUSSION FORUM (shocking, I know).

And seriously, how on earth could you think it a good idea to cut off more than 99% of your gaming population from posting on the OFFICIAL VIDEO GAME DISCUSSION FORUM?!?

Wow… just wow… moving on… (my head hurts)….

plays a thief, a mesmer, and a guardian. /facepalm

^this. If your sig said you played a Ranger, you’d get a better reception to your suggestion. As it is, prepare to be flamed.

Oh, and this is a bad suggestion.

Things like the gaurdian block bug should have been well discussed here or countering/ how to make a build, or in depth metagame discussion. Instead this forum has a really high concentration of tears.

If you want high-level discussion, go create a well thought out, discussion invoking thread. There are plenty of them on these boards, some with several 100 replies. Sure, there are more whine/qq threads, but those can be easily ignored.
Cutting off the vast portion of your player base from the official game forums is not good business.

If the player is lvl 80 in the PvE world, they will not have an arrow.

If they are lower than lvl 80 (like you at lvl 56), they are buffed up to lvl 80 in the WvW world and will have a green up arrow next to their name.

Since you are not lvl 80, you will have a green arrow next to your name when enemies target you. The arrow denotes upscaling in the WvW world basically.

{As an aside, good job downing a natural lvl 80 necro with a lvl 56 toon. They must be severely undergeared for their lvl and or play very poorly. Grats.}

Great idea OP, I would love to see this implemented. New armor and weapon SKINS could also be added with each title earned, just to make your character look more badkitten too.
It would give good incentive to stay and work withing the server you’re currently on, without completely cutting off access to other servers if one really needs to change (to be with guildies, RL friends, etc.)

this…
is…
awesome…

well played Sir.

As long as orb-hacking is prevalent, I don’t miss the orbs.

If they can ever get that fixed, I’d like to see them return, but rather than providing stat buffs (to the already winning team, solidifying their lead even more) I’d prefer if they came up with alternate buffs. Examples might include, you can carry 2 more supply for every orb your team has, 5-10% gold price cut on keep upgrades for each orb, etc. The team could build/upgrade faster, but wouldn’t become nigh unkillable players (like when they had 3 orbs before).

Latinkuro.9420:

no you don’t !
I’ve seen it happen many times already.
no loot no kill towards WvW achievement.
no armor damage taken from that death.

armor takes damage, i’m fairly certain. Just last night I fell off a cliff and died in WvW without any enemy even on that side of the map (I was jumping for a vista and missed). I’m pretty sure I had to repair…

Edited to add: Others say you save the repair, not sure about that but I’d have to “test” it Regardless, you definitely get loot and exp.

Latinkuro.9420:

Here’s why:
1 – he only dived to avoid the death penalty and save money.
2 – he is trying to cheat the system and deny you your loot.
3 – he is also denying you of you monthly WvW achievement this way.

None of this is true:

1.) Dying from cliff falling still causes gear damage. He will NOT save money this way.
2.) He doesn’t deny you loot, check at your feet at the top of the cliff. A lootbag might be there.
3.) You get credit for the kill if you tagged him.

Note, lootbags don’t always spawn for every kill, sometimes you kill someone and no loot. RNG and all that. Don’t mistake this as an indication that you didn’t get kill credit.

Curring.9752:

Just fix Evasive Arcana so the blast finisher is on a 10 second C/D as it should be and maybe reduce the healing a tad on the water evasive.

I wouldn’t even want that. If you reduce the healing from cleansing wave on evasive, you’re screwing D/D and S/D ele’s because that’s their only real healing capability aside from the regular, 45 second cleansing wave on the skill bar.

And putting the blast finisher on the 10s cooldown (so that it matches the 10s cooldown of the evasive wave) would hurt support/healing Ele’s a lot in things such as WvW. Don’t add the 10s cooldown on blasts, just make it so that you can ONLY evasive blast any given field ONCE.

For example, right now you can get 2, sometimes even 3 (with rune of superior energy) blasts out of healing rain. Just make it so that ONLY the first blast sets off the AOE healing. That way if I wanna cast rain, roll into it (AOE heal), then follow with geyser and roll into that (AOE heal) to keep my WvW team up (which I do all the time), I can still do it, and pull it off inside of 10seconds. I mean, if you want to blow your entire endurance bar and put your only 2 major healing skills on cooldown (45s and 20s, respectively), you should be able to. Just make it so you can’t blast rain multiple times and it would be much improved.

blackgoat.5172:

RawkFist.1935:

Where are people getting the notion the devs are going to nerf the bunker build?

I’d like the answer to this as well

The developers have stated that they are looking into it, sorry I don’t have a link.

{Aside, sorry mods, my bad}

Just to make it clear mouse.1689, I’m not arguing here with you, I tend to agree with most everything you’re saying. My point regarding Anet needing to buff damage if they nerf bunker Ele’s is essentially targeted at staff Ele’s only, as they don’t bring much else to the table in tPvP outside of the occasional AOE (WvW is a whole ’nother story). D/D and S/D roamer builds are perfectly viable, but not as popular at the staff bunker.

And regarding your list of the 3 fixes, I actually would prefer it if they went option #2 (but made point neutralization slightly slower when the controlling team is still on it), as that would essentially make full bunker builds somewhat obsolete (and shift them out of the meta). If two people could neutralize a point without actually killing the bunker, it would mean that the bunker couldn’t do the intended job as well, and you’d see more folks shifting to moderate-bunkerish-builds for point holding but with viable damage to ensure they could drop someone when help arrived.

This way if someone wants to go “you can’t kill me, but I can’t kill anything” spec, they still can, but it wouldn’t help the team as much as someone speccing for “I’m tough to kill, and you better look out when help arrives…”

{for the record: I love playing support/healer/bunker build. I played Disc Priest back in my WoW days, and specifically rolled an Elementalist to fulfill this role. I’d hate to see it nerfed, but I understand why they’re considering it. In addition, I think another good “fix” for overbunkering would be to add game modes to PvP, bunkers aren’t particularly useful in capture the flag, or at least far less so than in conquest, and would force meta to adapt.}

Fixeon.5076:

Ok I don’t have any good ideas as most of my good ideas wile realistic would just be too OP for a games balance. So I give you my joke idea instead.

A giant wooden dolyak. Yep… thats right Because they always let dolyaks in.

LOL, yeah, this too

{Also, i like the barbed wire idea.}

iHaukka.2815:

Ladders
Then you can say “I used the ladders” when someone calls you exploiter.

That would actually be kinda cool. Perhaps too useful in ninja’ing undefended keeps/towers however, but a good idea.

mouse.1689:

Bunker Ele is slightly too strong and needs a mild nerf. Same goes for Guardian bunkers, and to a lesser extent Necro and Engi bunkers. Key word: mild. In Ele’s case, Evasive Arcana’s water effect is probably a bit too strong and is likely to be toned down a bit at some point.

As for glass cannon theives, don’t worry; they’ll keep getting nerfed. I almost feel kind of sorry for them at this point.

Bunkers, specifically the Ele bunker, should ONLY be nerfed if Anet is willing to provide increased damage output as compensation. People spec guardian bunker because the game is conquest. People spec Ele bunker because we fail at being a long-ranged damage dealer and we’re left without an option. Ask 10 Ele’s if they’d prefer to be able to nuke like a thief in exchange for an awesome bunker spec and I bet you get 9 of them saying “Yes Please!” (strangely, i’m not one of them, i rolled Ele specifically to heal/support. I like that class type).

And regarding feeling bad for thieves, I don’t feel bad for them. They ruined it themselves when everyone and their brother rolled fotm backstabbin’ thieves for sPvP and causing the PvP forum boards to light up with “nerf please” threads.

Weapon X.5163:

Umm….ok. The OP is using D/D. So tell me how he would drop a water field again?
Hinse my question.
…
I’m tired of bads that cant read giving advise.

You don’t need a water field to get healing from evasive arcana…

irony?

Just out of curiosity, why use evasive arcana with D/D? You only have a fire field, i know everyone praises up and down about that skill, but to me its only effective if you use Staff.

I use it for added damage (I can dodge roll A LOT with rune of superior energy), and most importantly, to heal/clear with a cleansing wave dodge roll. It’s added healing power basically.

Arheundel.6451:

After the nerf on condition removals,

What nerf?

I was thinking the same thing actually

JAX.8347:

I lovedmy Ele and played it to 80 all exotics.

After weeks of WvW I have given up on it and have a 70 Mesmer that has been much more enjoyable because I am not constantly dead.

I have defensive outs and put out as much damage (not AOE) I wish they gave Ele a chance in WvW way to squishy with crappy DPS overall unless your in a zerg AOeing walls.

Ele’s do great in WvW in all roles, the only real problem is that one must decide beforehand which role they wish to fulfill and spec appropriately. This can be somewhat limiting at times (e.g., sieging a keep with D/D in your hands, or caught roaming at a supply camp holding a staff).

Personally, I specced to be reasonably effective with both weapon sets (0/0/10/30/30), semi-tankish, and carry both weapon sets in my bag. I swap them often when I can depending on the objective I’m currently working on. Solo’ing in WvW is a bad idea to begin with, so probably 90% of the time I’m holding a staff.

All this video shows is that a thief can’t kill a highly skilled Elementalist when only spamming auto-attack, not utilizing weapon swap, and standing in AOE fields.

GOOD, IT SHOULD BE THIS WAY!!

Nothing to see here folks, move along….

What..? Can you read..seriously. I made this thread to question why eles are considered weak by their players. I never said they were OP…

most good players DON’T consider Ele’s to be very weak, they just spec bunker and live forever. Players complain about the Ele because many rolled the class to be long range damage dealers as the class description implies, and the class is quite ineffective at that role, hence the QQ’s.

Ele bunker spec is great, no one disputes that.

DanH.5879:

no, how about i receive PM that “hahaha you can’t kill me 1 vs 1, never !”
and i fail to capture the point because of that (because when he stands on point i cant capture), and my team looses ??
IS THAT FAIR ?
…i thought skill matters, but the is NOT the case…

Bunkers are rough to kill 1v1, it’s what the class archetype is DESIGNED for. They shouldn’t be able to kill you either. And this is a conquest game, learn to adapt. Next time bring a friend without the same spec as you (and one that the bunker counters).

And to be sure, skill still matters very much. But it doesn’t sound like the skill was evenly balanced in this case…

1. we were 2x condition thieves, and NO, we dont have stuns.

So you got countered by a condition removal build, tough cookies. Another class specced almost exclusively to counter the build you’re both using together. Sounds quite inflexible to me (as bluewanders so eloquently stated), yet here you are crying for a nerf…

2.we cond builds should have NO chance to take a bunker down ???

No, condition builds can take down a guardian bunker just fine. Ele’s specialize in condition removal, imagine how that Necromancer feels when facing us. Next time have one of your thieves spec for burst dmg and watch that Ele drop pronto.

also our burst was nerfed to the ground, so, ALSO bunkers should be nerfed to compensate !

LOL, that’s a good one. Thief burst was in no way “nerfed to the ground,” that’s so much hyperbole it’s laughable. You lost the ability to stack 50% dmg with backstab, but gained 15% more damage on FOUR OTHER ATTACKS in your cycle. There were thieves (well, good ones anyway) claiming the change to Assassin’s signet was a BUFF!!

DanH.5879:

Hi all. We were 2 vs 1 elementalist bunker, and we coudn’t kill it. even 3 vs 1 was really hard. please understand it shoudn’t be supposed to be like this !
courtesy of the thieves guild and all the nerfs we took so far.

Killing a bunker ele isn’t that hard if you know what you’re doing. As a 2v1, you should DEFINITELY be able to take it down.

Protips: Don’t rely on condition damage if possible, healing Ele’s have a crapton of condition removal (possibly the best in the game). Conditions are fine against them, but burst is better.

Wait for them to use their heals, THEN burst, healing Ele’s get lots of regen but it stacks in duration (not intensity) and is therefore susceptible to burst.

Try to get them to waste their dodge rolls (weakness is great against them), without dodging they can’t combo their water fields or get the cleansing wave heal from evasive arcana. Also, geyser (the most oft used water field for combo’ing) is only up for 2 seconds on a 20second cooldown, try to CC/snare/knockdown once they cast it. Even if they use a stunbreaker to break your CC, they’ll STILL likely miss the evasive arcana roll into geyser simply because the skill doesn’t last very long.

Sugram.3106:

i suggest this build http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhMmebzxzgjDAkHnYCLjHhwxHlCzA

gear shod be with con, cause power gives ferry little to earth ele, con gives more, so u can be support to sometimes with heal & do a lot of dam, it works fine for me

Honestly, that build has almost NO synergy. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, but if it works for you, great.

You have 30 in earth (and two signets) on the bar, but DON’T take “written in stone” to gain the passive effect when on cooldown. That’s a no-no.

You have 30 in water (very smart) and have all the appropriate traits that grant regen/vigor/condition clearing on cantrips, but you only have ONE cantrip on the bar. This is a near waste of 30 points.

Take out 10 from earth, put them in arcane (and pick up final shielding, so you get arcane shield for FREE), and then add a cantrip utility skills (mist form or cleansing fire, or double up armor of earth, it’s on a separate cooldown from Earth’s embrace) to get more access to regen/vigor/clears from your 30 points in water. Since you can’t take “written in stone” anymore (w/o 30 in earth), change up the signet of restoration to glyph of elemental harmony because when used in water it grants regen, which is more condition clearing (due to water traiting). You can also use the glyph in fire to boost your damage (through might) or grant more protection in earth.

And you severely underestimate the usefulness of arcane traiting. Not only do you get faster attunment swapping, but longer boon duration, AND final sheilding (or vigorous scepter if you want more endurance regen for dodge rolls) AND evasive arcana (for more combo blasting, healing in water, and conditions in fire/earth).

TheGuy.3568:

Honestly it doesn’t even matter. None of the racials really shine neither do out ele class elites. Play whatever looks good to you. Sorry, but that’s all there really is to it.

^this is pretty much spot on, you should listen to the man Helos.

The Elemental Elite is probably the best one we have for sPvP and tPvP, every class has access to it. Tornado pretty much sucks (no pun intended), but I have taken to using it on occasion in PvP (if you’re going to use it, the trick is to cast it, and then immediately cancel it. You’re only using it for the 15 seconds of stability, that’s it. DO NOT stay in the animation unless you wish to die quickly). Elemental is also best for PvE content (imo) because you can summon the Earth Elemental and have it tank for you. Very good.

As far as racial elites go, each race has a somewhat useful one, they are as follows:

The Asuran golem is very good, but is basically another form of the Elemental.

For Humans, Hounds of Balthazaar are also good, but again, just another summon.

Norns have snow leopard form, this is pretty good in WvW cause you gain access to dash and prowl (which gives stealth). Not a great racial elite, but situationally useful. Norns are probably the worst racial elite Elementalist, but thats just my opinion.

Charr have Artillery Barrage and Charzooka (note, I have never used a Charr racial elite, so i’m not an expert here). I would imagine artillery barrage would be useful in WvW for clearing walls when Meteor shower is on cooldown, and while Charzooka is great for wall nuking, it replaces your weapon skill bar (like an engineer kit), so it has it drawbacks. War party might also be good, as it’s more summons.

For Sylvari (my Ele race), take root is awesome in WvW because it grants 10 seconds of immunity and the turrets it spawns do good damage. It’s great for avoiding enemy AOE nukes when taking keeps, etc. The other two racials are just more summons, basically more Elementals.

There ya go, my 2 copper…

You are either the worst Pvp’er in gw2 or just plain stupid =) Sorry but it’s true..

The OP is NOT the author of this video, and it’s a joke video from way back at launch.

And yeah, claiming you own thieves on your mesmer and likening it to owning them on an Ele (just because they both wear light armor) is laughable.