Guild Wars 2

0/30/0/20/20

it’s like my dreams have come true there are so many new options for ranged combat

So if I want to use a ranged build I’ve still gotta go Fresh Air, but I can drop ten points in Arcana to put in Water if I feel like it.

Are eles ever gonna get a ranged option that doesn’t require squishiness?

Scarlet is a terrible character. She’s better than anyone else at everything, and is responsible for everything. Even if they killed her off now, her mere existence would leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Maybe if they explained her as being some kinda prototype sylvari that possessed far more knowledge upon “birth” than normal…

That’d be kinda neat, actually – it’d help to explain her personality and could create tension between the Sylvari and the other races due to fear of their potential, resulting in some interesting politics.

There’s a choice I made early on when I just started playing that really bugs me now that I know more about the lore, so this’d be nice.

Also that golem drop mission in Orr is something I could replay over and over.

…And I’m back because I’m too darn attached to this game, I’ll justify it by going with the “guardian magic is easier to use” thing.

I’m just going to slip out the back door before you start laughing.

Guys, what happened is that I’d grown really upset with the state and direction of the game to the point that I wasn’t willing to put up with the little things, and I wanted to know why I couldn’t wear heavy armor. I’d always figured it was a somatic thing, but I couldn’t actually find a reason, so I asked/vented here.

See, I like the setting enough that I’d like to keep playing and hope for a better future, but if my character concept doesn’t really work it’s just not worth it for me.

I got my answer, I’m gone, let the thread die unless you have information to add.

Professions in GW2 are restricted to one armor class for no reason other than game balance, which is stupid and limits roleplaying, etc.

That said, is there any reason the scholar classes can’t wear armor? Can elementalists not train to be greatsword-wielding, armor-clad battlemages because the devs didn’t want to bother implementing the option, or is it because armor limits spellcasting somehow?

In a number of settings, spellcasters (those that cast spells without help from a god or something, anyway) are punished for wearing armor by making it harder to cast spells, the reasoning being that armor is heavy and restricts movement, making it difficult/impossible to meet the somatic requirements for spellcasting. Even so, these penalties can usually be mitigated/negated through training.

So, let’s think about this:

Q: Does armor create some kind of anti-magic field that prevents spellcasting?
A: No, otherwise just about any non-elemental spells would be useless, as armor would negate them. Also, guardians don’t have trouble with armor.

Q: Assuming spells have somatic components, does armor restrict movement too much to allow effective spellcasting?
A: Guardians aren’t divine spellcasters or anything, so even if it is an issue, it can apparently be overcome with training.

Q: Are the scholar classes restricted to light armor because wizards traditionally wear robes and stuff and the devs didn’t feel like providing more options?
A: Prolly.

I’d love it if someone could show me that there is a reason for scholar classes being restricted to light armor in the lore, but I don’t see one.

RavenRecoil.6103:

I love these forums but peoples attitudes and complaints have made the forums unreadable for me. Like your mother used to tell you. If you dont have anything nice to say then dont say anything.

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The class subforums would pretty barren without complaints.

The tooltips have always been wonky for the Arcanes, I don’t think anything actually changed.

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I’m the kinda guy who takes my melee out when I see my opponent do so in TF2, and uses my fists in Dark Souls if I see someone else using their fists.

If winning is so important to you that you’re gonna take your rawket lawnchair back out, or swap to a rapier and do a Hornet Ring roll backstab, that’s fine – I shouldn’t expect that others adhere to my unspoken rules of combat.
When I encounter someone who pays along, though, it’s a lot more fun for me than winning could ever be.

I can’t stop laughing my lungs are trying to escape through my mouth help

Yes. Weak Spot works well for that, too.

Jayne.9251:

Cc and aoe the crap out of them. Use freeze/slow, thieves have few counters for that. Get a couple pieces of pvt gear to prevent insta gank. Set up duels where typically you only fight till downed, so you can test builds and tricks. Seek out every thief you can find till you learn to counter. so many face plants vs thieves for me, but eventually I found out what works for me.

Chaosky.5276:

all I ever encounter are gangs of thieves.

>Implying 3 or more thieves

They die fine on their own because they apparently have absolutely no defense.

It’s great, but the fact that it’s linked to Attunement swapping makes it difficult to get Stability when I actually want it.

15char

Go into WvW.

Run around.

Die immediately because I’m a burst ele in rares and all I ever encounter are gangs of thieves.

why do I still see stat buffs I should not be seeing stat buffs

Conjures will never be viable in PvP until they’re changed to function like engi kits.

“FROST BOW I CHOOSE YOU WAIT I HAVE TO HEAL OH WELL BYE FROST BOW SEE YOU IN 60 SECONDS”

15char

Clown inc, divebomb the belugas ASAP.

CMstorm.8679:

You really, really can’t run a support weapon in a 1v1. It doesn’t work like that. It’s called support for a reason.

My point was that I still don’t have a proper ranged option for solo PvP without Fresh Air and a scepter, and I don’t like burst builds.

If you’re mostly interested in PvE, or maybe a support role in WvW, you’ll probably continue to enjoy the class. Just beware of solo PvP.

Larynx.2453:

Warriors have some of the most choreographed and easiest to predict abilities in the game.

I think you meant to say “telegraphed”.

Larynx.2453:

But nevermind that. The class mechanics of ele have not changed much since they were disgustingly overpowered. Why does all of this apply now, and not then?

Defense and mobility have been greatly reduced, and eles were powerful due to possessing both. Damage oriented builds (defined by gear more than traits, of course) were decent, but not particularly remarkable. S/D in particular suffered without teammates to help set up burst combos.

Is the staff viable in 1v1s? Does the scepter have a sustained damage option without going Fresh Air squishy super burst?

No?

Rats.

I want a single-target oriented long range weapon. Longbow, dual torches, I don’t care, just make it happen.

A lot of people here seem to like their gear advantages. I’ve never understood how an unlevel playing field is fun in a PvP setting.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if there were light, medium, and heavy archetypes for every class? Like, light gets you low armor and health but a ton of mobility, medium is balanced, and heavy is ultraslow tank.

Yeah, that’d make a whole lot more sense than the arbitrarily selected base stats classes have now. Too bad it could never happen.

kingcragus.6810:

WvW is a solid mix of both. Are you saying that you have never took a sentry/camp/tower/keep/castle in WvW? Hate to break it to you but it is pve.

NPCs really only serve as timers to prevent captures when Righteous Indignation is up, and I guess they prevent hiding thieves from capping Stonemist and stuff.
Guards are a joke – even a fully upgraded camp can be captured solo.

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Frankly, I’m against all WXP upgrades. WvW is PvP, not PvE.

The “on hit” mechanic of RtL is so stupid I’d almost rather it were a flat 40 second cooldown.

In PvP you need your other skills for defense, so conjures act as 1 or 2 skills on 60 second cooldowns, which makes them borderline useless. I don’t see them ever being worthwhile in PvP as long as there’s a cooldown on conjuring the weapon.

A shame, because I freaking love using a lightning hammer, and PvE interests me about as much as bashing my head against a wall.

A fully offensive staff ele’s Meteor Shower can be pretty scary, but be aware that you’ll be a free kill without teammates.

FrownyClown.8402:

hey buddy for your second build I would recommend getting rid of about 10% crit chance (its at 50% with fury that way) and add to some toughness. I would recommend something more like this. You get good toughness and vitality (though you have low healing power and condition removal) and you still hit very hard.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|b.1c.h1h.8.1c.h1.0.0.0|0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0|1n.a7.1g.a7.1c.a7.1g.a7.1c.a7.1g.a7|1c.67.1c.67.1c.67.1n.67.1n.67.1c.67|0.u000.0.a0.u000|0.0|0.0.0.0.0|e

Alrighty, thanks for the tip.

I went broke from buying a ton of different gear, so I wanna get it right this time. I’m basically looking for a balanced S/D build for WvW, kinda like Valkyrie’s Amulet + Berserker’s Jewel in SPvP. I know it’s probably not as good as a heavy focus on burst, but I don’t like that kind of playstyle.

Something like this would be great (though I’d be willing to lower the Vitality for more damage), but I suppose I could settle for something like this.

Are these any good? Anyone got anything better (nothing higher than Exotic)?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztVMib1T4T4

Apart from flavor, there’s pretty much no reason for you to not play a warrior.

It sure is fun stomping another group of players just ‘cause you’ve got Superior Borderlands Bloodlust, is it not?

Make me farm dungeons, Anet, I want moar grinding in my PvP.

what has this thread become

NevirSayDie.6235:

Chaosky.5276:

The thing about defensive boons is that I need to stop doing damage and switch to Earth or Water to get them, and due to attunement cooldowns, that means I could very well not have access to a key CC, heal, or condition removal skill when I need it.
Simply swapping to Water to get Regeneration would mean burning a heal and a condition removal or two, which could easily mean death if my opponent has access to a skill that can immobilize me.

Right, it’s not like free benefits with zero downsides. I thought we wanted risk/reward gameplay?

You don’t see a problem in taking such risks to obtain a baseline level of defense that most other classes have passively?

Kharr.5746:

It’s best to think of hp pools with respect to disengage skills, ability to heal, ability to apply boons like protection and vigor, and ability to cleanse conditions. Ele can do all of these. Until the string of nerfs to eles, they were near-unkillable death machines. They could use some love now, but until recently they were #1 in sPVP and WvW.

Indeed, the low HP made sense for the old 0/0/10/30/30 and 0/10/0/30/30 S/D or D/D triple Cantrip bunkers, but that’s ALL it made sense for.

NevirSayDie.6235:

I’m not saying eles are in a great place right now (because if I said that, I’d get death threats again) but eles do have some defensive advantages. 10 in Arcana gets you a lot of protection and regen, just as one example.

The thing about defensive boons is that I need to stop doing damage and switch to Earth or Water to get them, and due to attunement cooldowns, that means I could very well not have access to a key CC, heal, or condition removal skill when I need it.
Simply swapping to Water to get Regeneration would mean burning a heal and a condition removal or two, which could easily mean death if my opponent has access to a skill that can immobilize me.

I’d mostly like to know why eles have such low health. Like, seriously, not even whining, I just wanna know.

Lowest base health, lowest base armor, no defensive mechanism aside from healing (the class’s low base armor makes doesn’t mesh well with healing, and investment in Healing Power is required for it to be effective, as well), and unremarkable base damage (most autoattacks have absymally low damage coefficients, as well).

Not much point as long as attunement cooldowns make condition application extremely clumsy and inefficient. The low defense doesn’t help, either.

Poison could be useful depending on how it’s implemented, but it’d probably be something like an Earth grandmaster trait that has a chance to apply Poison on a crit. You wouldn’t get much use out of that without a condition build, so please refer to my first paragraph.

make conjures engi kits plz kthx

oZii.2864:

…when you pick D/D you do so because you don’t want ranged combat. At least I do.

Heh, the main reason I was interested in GW2 in the first place was that it allowed me to have both.

ThiBash.5634:

Chaosky.5276:

I’m referring to the ability to swap between a ranged and melee weapon set.

And I’m telling you we don’t need that. We have other ways to cope with that. Wheter those ways are up to the task is another discussion.

Vapor Blade doesn’t grant you a ranged playstyle, no more than Evasive Arcana grants a staff user a melee playstyle. That’s a big deal because melee to ranged offers versatility, and ranged to melee offers damage and/or reliability.

If you had been talking about conjures, I’d agree that the potential is there and leave it at that, but you weren’t.

MyPuppy.8970:

Wiz.1543:

What I am getting from this is the Elementalist is going the be more capable in healing and CC. Personally I like that direction. What are your thoughts?

I think I’m not a monk and I don’t want to be one

Basically this. I’m interested in more solo options.

ThiBash.5634:

Chaosky.5276:

What’s the point of the equivalent of 2 extra weapon swaps when we give up health, armor, and variable range for them? Not to mention that many ele skills simply aren’t as good as those of other professions.

D/D has variable range, just not of the ‘sit back and spam auto attack’ variation. Staff has Evasive Arcana for melee.

I’m referring to the ability to swap between a ranged and melee weapon set.

ensoriki.5789:

Duran.3196:

Still, for the elementalist to require a full skilled trait line in order to archieve the same swap time that other classes have as base CD.

Why say that in a negative tone.
For an Ele to have the same Weapon swap between two elements yes it’s a full 30. However there are four.

What’s the point of the equivalent of 2 extra weapon swaps when we give up health, armor, and variable range for them? Not to mention that many ele skills simply aren’t as good as those of other professions.

Tei.1704:

Will some of you people just switch professions already and stop filling up a forum with your drivel?

I was under the impression that every class was supposed to be able to fill every role, so I chose the class with the theme I liked. I have no desire to play any other class for roleplaying reasons.

I’ll keep whining unless the devs explicitly say the Elementalist is a support class, in which case I’ll just quit the game.