Guild Wars 2

This is why I have zero faith in the devs. It took 12 minutes for an elementalist who had never even known of this bug to acknowledge it, meanwhile the devs still probably don’t even know their improperly tested bug fix created more bugs.

It says it’s activating and you get the animation, but you never get the actual fire aura icon or the associated boons.

Since the last patch the leap finisher on this skill only activates about 5% of the time.

So I did some testing on the aoe target golems with 42% crit with +20% from fury. First one was 4 out of 5 crits, second one was 2 out of 5, third one was 5 out of 5, fourth one was 4 out of 5.

The odds of getting 5 out of 5 crits with only 42% crit rate are pretty low. To me it looks like it is definitely counting the boosted crit rate.

The leap finisher on magnetic grasp only works about 5% of the time now.

I was testing in the mists. I said 40-50% crit cause I change my build occasionally. The 12% crit comes from sigil of minor accuracy after getting 5 kills. Burning speed is D/D ele’s 3rd hardest hitting ability so I do pay attention to how often it crits and It seems to accurately reflect my boosted crit rate.

I play with a base crit of 40-50% and with fury + stacking sigil’s 32% bonus crit I would say I notice the higher crit rate on burning speed.

I agree they should revert the magnetic grasp changes. They’ll probably just remove the leap finisher and act like it was never intended though.

Arc.9374:

It’s listed as a leap finisher in the various wiki’s because it was operating as a leap finisher up until the patch, but that’s not to say it was intended.

It is still working as a leap finisher and it it still proccing elemental shielding and zephyr’s boon. The problem is that it is ridiculously buggy. It took me about 20 tries to get it to fully activate.

Here’s a screen shot showing magnetic grasp operating as a leap finisher after the recent patch. It also activated about 3 seconds later than it was suppose to.

It is a bug. Sometimes it triggers the aura and sometimes the aura is able to trigger the aura traits. Hopefully it will be fixed because this ruined my aura build.

Willybear.4927:

For some odd reason the result of the Magnetic Grasp leap finisher seems very delayed and unreliable now. For instance, when I use it through Static Field (Lightning Field), the daze effect is delayed. Also, when I use it through Ring of Fire (Fire Field), the Fire Aura message appears but only sometimes (less than half of the time) does the icon actually appear and grant the boons (if traited). Also, the few times the Fire Aura does proc properly, it is delayed as well by 1-2 secs. This really hurts as a Aura D/D ele.

I can confirm this. At first I thought this may have been a nerf, but it clearly is bugged. This is hurting my D/D aura build and I hope it gets fixed asap.

I don’t miss the dodge spamming playstyle but I am missing the damage from might stacks. If you effectively used evasive arcana it was an easy 12 stacks of might, and now it’s gone.

Just tested fire field + lightning leap (conjure skill) gives fire aura and the protection boon. Also fire aura from arcane resurrection is giving more than double the protection duration it use to.

At this point, intended or unintended I guess we just have to deal with this kitten cause I highly doubt it will ever be dealt with in a timely manor or even acknowledged.

If you use arcane resurrection + elemental shielding it gives you and the person you rez a protection boon of base duration 8 seconds and about 13 seconds with 2x monk,water, earth runes.

Before the recent patch it was a base duration of 3 seconds, 5 with +boon.

Just throwing this out there. I personally don’t use this trait.

Frost aura has always had a 5 second base and shocking aura a 10 second base. Don’t wrack your brain over why it’s this way, the devs just threw a bunch of kitten on a wall and this is how it happened to stick.

Well for me they are all bugged.

Use to be 4 8 16 20

now its 5 10 20 25 with or without the trait

Grenade cooldowns are no longer being reduced by the short fuse trait. Fix this please.

Evil Kyo.2078:

I’ve noted this too with my D/D and i’ve done a bit of testing. Comboing fire ring and magnetic grasp to trigger fire shield doesn’t work. It shows the message of fire shield but there’s no icon and no boons. What i have seen is that comboing with a staff to get frost armor triggers elemental shielding an zephyr’s boon. Looks like the problem is with magnetic grasp.

You’re right, my bad.

I still think this was an intended nerf. It may have been warranted I just wish they were a little more transparent.

-Auras gained from combo fields no longer work with Elemental Shielding or Zephyr’s boon

Well there goes my 100% protection uptime ele build.

EDIT: This only effects fire auras not frost, my bad.

Zosk.5609:

Any ability that makes you watch your UI and not the fight is poor design, IMO. Not sure why games are still putting in abilities like this… they don’t really add much as far as strategy but cause all sorts of weird stuff.

“Characters suffering from confusion can be identified by twirling, purple tinted spiral over their heads. Additionally, the same effect will appear alongside damage dealt by confusion when using a skill. "

-GW2 Wiki

Anyone else think evasive arcana triggering cleansing wave, a 40 second cooldown, about every 12 seconds is overpowered? I think the heal should at the very least be made non scalable to tone down bunker builds without affecting low healing power builds.

I also think the amount of blast finishers should be toned down to only when the spells trigger or even when only fire/earth spells trigger. I thought it was originally intended this way as you would only get the visual combo cue when triggering a fire or earth spell. Although now you get the visual cue on all dodges in fields.

Even with these “nerfs” I would still consider evasive arcana mandatory. It would just seem more balanced to me.

Also I only play ele. I care more about game balance than exploiting broken builds/mechanics.

Although it’s not listed in the tooltip, magnetic grasp (dagger 3) is a leap finisher. If you’re specced into zephyr’s boon or elemental shielding this is a good way to maintain your fury/swiftness/protection boons.

+ 1 on OP greatly undervaluing boon duration. Berserker’s amulet or cleric’s amulet I’m running 100% uptime on protection(sometimes only 70%), fury, vigor, swiftness, and maintaining 16+ stacks of might.

Also using evasive arcana builds I can crit for over 10k with fire grab and churning earth. I’m not really even trying to prove a point with that I was just messing around and felt like posting these screenshots.

Inval.3248:

and I’m happy to see that there are other’s running successful roaming builds as an ele
but so for what I have noticed is that they are all extremely low hp. even the build I run is low hp. and I know this is due to the low base hp of an ele. 13k hp however is pretty low and I have to ask myself if having 500 more armor = to 4k more health. still not sure at the moment.

to mouse – I watched quite a bit of Phanta’s streaming and did enjoy his valkyries S/D build. however I couldn’t help but notice the several times that Phanta gets instagibbed despite him being a very player.

all in all I think this game is still new and builds have not yet been maximized to their fullest potential but, I am again glad to see working builds :p

Here’s my answer to the low hp problem. (copy past link)

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k33;2B2-V0z4sMFZ0;9;5E9ET;10;04;04;045ASJ;4rRYCqcW58BE

-20735 hp with 100% uptime on protection for 27.6k effective health (protection counts as roughly 900 toughness but achieving that much toughness results in majorly kittened damage output)
-100% uptime on fury for 67% crit rate with + 20% crit damage.
-Possible 100% uptime on 25 stacks of might, though 16 is more realistic for an average encounter
-100% uptime on vigor and swiftness
-good cond removal and decent heals

I use many variations on this build but I believe this one to have a very ideal balance between survivability and damage.

Revelstoke.8924:

And THAT…is just ridiculous…btw. You effectively have better protection than a tank, higher crit than a thief, and (im assuming) neigh infinite survivability by way of water.

Should have rolled an ele…good lord.

Just make an ele, I just made a fresh one this morning took 15 min.

Here’s my D/D build, standard evasive arcana build. If you want 100% percent protection uptime just take prot on auras, use auras when off cd, and make sure to use fire ring + magnetic grasp combo.

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/aura-cantrip-aura-cantrip-7804.html

This thread has some good info

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/35556-weaponskill-damage-formula/page__hl__damage%20equation

“My conclusions:

adding 916 power through traits/runes/amulet will double the damage done.
adding ~1835 toughness will reduce all damage taken by 50%.
adding 916 toughness will reduce all damage taken by 33%.

constant protection boon equals 916 toughness.

Quite imbalanced isn’t it? "

-Enfanger Guild Wars 2 Guru Forum

That’s the closest thing I’ve found to an answer.

As an ele I personally prefer the protection boon over toughness for non-bunker builds. I can maintain 70-100% protection uptime (depending on build) while still having a 67% crit rate. Just messing around on a target golem I was able to achieve 30 seconds of protection using only auras and earth attune swapping. I’ve gotten 1 minute duration before but it might be capped as I couldn’t get any higher.

Thanks for vapor form on demand as soon as I’m downed. Now I’d like to be able to use it without it preventing me from seeing my death breakdown like every other class in the game.

I made a necromancer with +100 percent frozen duration and it did in fact increase a 5 second duration to 10 seconds.

Rank 80 requires a cumulative 7,500,000 glory. This is a non issue.

“A healing D/D Auramancer build packs plenty of potential punch (5k average Fire Grab crits), tons of AoE damage, AoE regen, condition removal, protection, and has some staying power with high uptime on protection, the passive condition removal on Water attune, and your healing skills. You also have 100% fury and swiftness uptime if you so choose, and plenty of map mobility with RTL + Swiftness.”

As always Animosity knows what’s up. It is beyond me how people don’t realize the effectiveness of D/D support build. To explain the effectiveness I’ll give an example of how I would support someone as D/D if I show up to a 1v1 where my teammate is losing

-Dodge roll on top of my team mate while hitting water attunement mid dodge roll
5k heal +3.8k hot over 8 seconds + 1-3 conditions removed. The range on cleansing wave (evasive arcana blast finisher) is 240 units. The range on healing ripple is also incredible small. The most effective way to land both it is to dodge roll on top of your teammate while swapping to water attune.

-Share frost aura which gives (8 seconds of fury + 8 seconds of swiftness), use cleansing wave if off cd for anther 2.5k heal + cond removal.

-Swap to earth attune to give 8 seconds of protection.

-Swap to air (8 seconds of swiftness) share shocking aura (gives 16 seconds of fury + 16 seconds of swiftness), EDIT: would actually start in air attune first, rtl in updraft if necessary

-Swap to fire to set up some fire fields to stack might (which last 32 seconds).

At this point water attune would be off cooldown and I could start the process over if needed. Keep in mind this is just an example, realistically I’d be using offensive abilities as well.

Meanwhile the staff ele is wasting his time in water attune setting up water fields + blast finishers for weak heals around 1.1k. Spending more than 3-5 seconds in water attune is just needlessly increasing the cooldown of your most effective heal (water attune swapping+dodge roll). If cleansing wave + frost aura were on cd I would literally be in water attunement for no longer than the 1.5 second attunement gcd and this would still give me time to cast frozen burst.

On top of this you have the increased damage output that Animosity explained.

No thanks

I’ll keep my 8 seconds of protection every 10.5 seconds

I’ll keep my 3k heal + regen and 3 condition removals every 10.5 seconds (5k in heals for bunker build, though 1 less condition removal)

Earth and Water attune are more valuable as a cooldowns themselves rather than an actual attunement you use. I actually swap to these attunes mid dodge roll so I can get the evasive arcana blast asap and swap back out. If the situation dictates I’ll stay in them for maybe 5-8 seconds tops though.

Also the boon duration is vital for me to be able to achieve 100% uptime on fury, vigor, swiftness, regen (for bunker build), and might (25 stacks is easy with evasive arcana).

Technically, you already can enter the mists at level 1.

If you just ignore the guild invite it will pop up everytime you login. You have to open up the guild panel and decline the invite.

Guiltylemon.8674:

@Evie

Any chance you could provide an example D/D build?

Thanks

Probably something like this

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/aura-cantrip-aura-cantrip-7804.html

Selix.5670:

You can’t stack 25 stacks of might as a D/D ele in combat. You dont have enough blast finishers. Unless you are cheesing earthquake and churning into other peoples finishers…in which case you arent doing anything in terms of damage or control.

Evasive arcana makes your dodge rolls blast finishers. Below are some screenshots of me maintaining a constant 25 stacks of might for several minutes This is using only battle sigil and my own blast finshers.

edit: Furthermore I took off my battle sigil, disabled elemental attunement, and was able to get 25 stacks of might using nothing but dodge rolls as blast finishers.

Close but no cigar.

I agree

/15char

Thanks, I’ll have to try those out.

Probably not an exploit.

Here’s my contribution for hard to reach areas. Not that difficult, but ride the lightning is the only way to get there.

I was able to get 852 per tick with 25 stacks of might.

Use it without a target when you want to travel 1200 units in a specific direction, otherwise use it at your own peril.

An easy fix would be giving it a detonate option to end the ability.

To the above poster. That’s why you take evasive arcana, 4 blast finishers on a 10 second cooldown each.

Turbo Whale.1738:

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

Suppose they did this and made a condition damage weapon. What conditions would you apply in water or air attunement?

Chill/vulnerability; weakness/daze/stun? Not all of the skills have to do condition DAMAGE. In fact, a large part of many condition builds is the actual application of conditions.

That’s exactly how it is now, which was the point I was trying to make. Anyway, this isn’t worth arguing over.

Suppose they did this and made a condition damage weapon. What conditions would you apply in water or air attunement?

I took off my sigil of strength and battle to show you how many stacks I could get just using fire fields + blast finishers (also 1 for each fire attune swap).

I do buring speed then roll backwards over it, cast ring of fire while strafing to the side a little, then go earth dodge roll in the ring + earthquake + churning earth. The stacks last 36 seconds so I can do this multiple times before the initial stacks wear off.

If I had a sigil of superior strength + battle on I could get 25 stacks easily.

edit: also I can get 25 stacks of might in 16 seconds with might on cantrips or 23 seconds without might on cantrips. Although I am heavily invested into boon duration and cantrips, I still find might on cantrips to be a worthless skill. The stacks don’t have 100% uptime as the cooldowns are considerably longer than the might duration they give.

Shocking aura actually gives 10 seconds of fury and swiftness before boon duration is factored in (all other auras only give 5 though).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zephyr%27s_Boon

The skill evasive arcana makes fire and earth dodge rolls blast finishers.

2 fire rolls + 2 earth rolls + churning earth + earthquake = 18 stacks

Add in the stacks from sigil of superior battle and you can maintain 25 easily.

I also use sigil of superior strength. With 60 percent crit (with fury), I can get about 12 stacks from this sigil alone on the aoe target golems.

I always use + 60% boon duration. Occasionally I’ll use + 20 might or protection duration, but 60% for all boons is generally good enough.

The might duration benefits from +boon. Full arcana + 2 monk + 2 water + 2 hoelbrak runes = +80 percent might duration. The stacks now last 36 seconds. This way you can have 6 stacks for 27 seconds, 9 stacks for 18 seconds, 12 stacks for 9 seconds, and possibly 15 stacks for 1 second if you’re lucky. You should be able to maintain 9-12 stacks pretty consistently.

I’d take 10 points out of earth and put it into evasive arcana. The water dodge roll is a 2.6k heal (with cleric’s) and a condition removal. The fire and earth dodge rolls are blast finishers and the lightning dodge roll is an aoe blind. Then I’d use 2 monk runes, 2 water runes and 2 earth runes for + 30 boon duration for 60% total(80 for protection). That way shocking aura will give 16 seconds of fury+swift and frost will give 8 seconds(even to allies). The 3 seconds of protection on a 25 second cooldown and 40 second cooldown is nothing compared to the 9 seconds of protection you can put out every time you go earth attunement (theoretically every 10.5 but realistically 12 at best).