Guild Wars 2

although i agree PvP is a little more rubber on the road you can not do a dungeon with bad gear without feeling that pain. nor can you take on much higher level mobs with bad gear.

AND in PvP you have a whole other issue of a fair fight. WvW is supposed to be unfair. SPvP will make me feel like my character is terrible when im fighting in a PUG and the other side has a guild mates with voice chat.

It very difficult to judge that kind of thing.
I know between arcane shield and obsidian skin i can stay alive for a long time but i havent figured out how to really hurt people yet.

elchulo.3148:

Too bad they don’t have parsers or it would show that staying in fire with staff would way outperform all of your unneeded attunement swapping just for fun. If you are in a good dungeon group your biggest asset would be dps and with your “support” builds many of you probably aren’t providing much. If you aren’t good enough to stay alive in just fire then you probably need to swap attunements often to make up for your mistakes. Sure it is boring sitting in one attunement, but it is the most effective dps (for staff).

Side note: I think the lack of parsers are why so many of these people like eles. They are probably the people that were never competitive for top dps in raids, etc in other mmos. Without parsing, they are happy to be oblivious to the fact that eles are inferior to the other classes and are simply mesmerized by our pretty spell effects.

staff is great as long as you dont pull agro from more than one mob.
occasionally switching over to healing is good but the rest of the support in staff is not that useful in group combat.

Now switch over over to something else like dagger/focus or my favorite scepter focus and things change.
Now i can blind mobs and knock them down and burst damage from fire.
I can also protect myself when things get dicey or i need to go do a combat res.
but im only 36 on my ele so what do i know. I only have one or two good ac exp runs done. I still feel a little unsure of what to use best where.
its a complicated class. but i feel pretty strongly that defense and utility is better than DPS in most every situation in the game. Not to down play DPS that much as its still important. But if im not down or dead im still doing DPS and in 8 secs an ele can do a lot of damage and take none while under attack by multiple enemies.

I have a 72 warrior which i did most of my gw2 learning on.
When i started with my warrior i was going for DPS but when i started doing dungeons i went mace/shield and generally more defensive and i got way better at overland content. DPS was not as effective as defense.

with my ele i went strait for defense with scepter/focus and went straight for higher level content. at 10-12 i could do L15+ mobs. not two at once but i could hold my own in events and could solo single mobs.

My first run through ac story at level 30 i died… once.
My ele is 36 and has done ac on exp as well. In pugs thats always pretty hit or miss but i can tell that the content gets easier when I am using my ele well even at level 30 and thats just going to get better as i understand the class more.

is my warrior easier to play… hell yes. My warrior can not be killed by single mobs 1 or 2 levels higher then it. his health regens faster than they do damage.
so stand there and auto attack works. not my style though. Ill take on higher level veteran mobs and their normal minions solo. Dragon Slayer!

trait for speed increase with daggers?

frost aura so control their speed while chasing? does that work with ranged attacks?

shouts should work while in RTL so maybe updraft would help?

is ride the lightning not working or is it the 15 secs after that you can not close?
ride the lightning is obviously better than magnetic grasp but between the two of them it would seem you should be able to keep them close no?

i dont use dagger dagger but i want to know your experiences with why those dont work.

I use dodge too but i dont depend or spec for it.
Their are traits based around dodge that i try to actively avoid in favor of other skills that improve my strong points.

in eve i learned a lot about ship building. Still have some PvE hurricanes in the top 10 on battle clinic.

I see some of those concepts apply here. the difference being that PvE content is a lot easier here outside of dungeons.

tank types.
Speed/movement: Dodge. teleport. evades
range/kiting: whatever keeps me range.
active: push a button for damage reduction\prevention\recovery.
passive: its always on. HPs and toughness\regen

Some of these cross over but focusing on one is important when putting a ship together.

My warrior uses active and passive.
with regen and toughness one or two at level mobs simply pose no threat at all. when things get real i use mace and shield for an active tank. sometimes simply going for shield block just to let the regen give back a few HP’s.

My ele appears to have no passive tank ability so i use active and range mostly. When things get real here i cycle through the 6 or 7 defensive abilities in utility and weapons skills to prevent damage. Otherwise just staying at range works well enough.

I think its important to identify my characters tank when working on a build so i dont generalize my skills and traits making me strong in no category.

Ele Focus earth 5 is one of the best defensive skills in the game that i have seen.
“Envelop yourself in stony armor, making yourself invulnerable.
Duration: 4 s”

Disclaimer: this is just my observation… I do not claim to be an expert at this.

traits alone do not make a glass cannon build.

My warrior is full power with some toughness.
But what really makes a difference is using mace/shield.
doesnt matter how much toughness I have if I take no damage.

my ele uses scepter/focus and generally only dies when the party wipes.

staff has the fewest defensive skills of those available.
scepter/focus the most and easiest
dagger/focus has the same number but dagger defensive skills are harder to use.

For really hard stuff the shout combat invulnerability on focus is unmatched.

I like using focus for my tank.

my big draw to focus is the shout based 4 sec combat damage immunity where i can still cast and move. also the 2 blinds and the knockdown not knock back or launch.

Those are straight forward defensive skills that do not take a lot of skill to use. soooo its a good noob tank training tool.

you must understand your characters tank.

This is what i gots at level 35…
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/elementalist#6|17|2771|3986|100|2481|4480|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|10|1649|0|0|5|0|0|0|10|2250|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

i have been forcing myself to use the frost bow in some AC runs and i am starting to warm up to it.

The ice block thing on 5 is very powerful but it gets blocked by other players and mobs i think which sucks a great deal but it does freeze some bosses for like 3 seconds i think which is like the longest stun in the game isnt it? Often times when i use it i see “obstructed” come up… the other abilities do not seem to have the same issue.

the heal effect on 1 heals twice on each attack… I am not sure why that is. maybe because its firing two arrows at ones?

so for borrows i use the stackable fire scepter skills and while those are resolving i switch to the bow and start the ice storm and that isnt too bad.

sometimes i get stuck in the bow though meaning i forget i have it out and am not using my skills or it disappears and burn one of my higher cooldown skills.

I see that the passive effects of attuenments still work when switching. i am wondering if the weapon sigils also work when switching attunements when the bow is out.

rare weapons on the market are pretty cheap… just saying.
also 1 at level dungeon EXP run can get you 2 pieces of rare armor.

it is strange that most of the dungeon drops are pretty bad but then again i do occasionally get a rare when my +magic is up. I use food for +magic.
I havent found much that i can use but some of them sell for a fair amount. I sold some AC daggers for 5sp or more.

They also have the 30 token at level rare stuff which is cool. I did not see that until recently or it didnt make sense to me until now.
i have about 300 tears and realized i am too high for the 35 gear and too low for the 80 gear.

then i saw that each dungeon is has rare gear for its level.

This is nice as rare gear on the market is not cheap and 60 tokens will buy up to 2 pieces of the rare gear.
So i bought a full set of rare gear for my ele which was 36. worked out nice. but there are no weapons for at level tokens…

doesn’t the 100% rally from vengeance trait do exactly what you want?

I soloed mostly to 30+ using scepter/focus. i only use staff when im in a group where I am not going to get near a mob and thats just so i can feel supporty and lazy.
AC was great with scepter/focus. got complimented on my healing which was done primarily comboing off of other fields.
I dont use dagger much as its too close up for comfort and the invulnerability in focus is a nice get out of jail card along with the other control effects.

between the blinds, knockdowns, invulnerability, and arcane shield i can kill mobs without taking a point of damage and without running around like a headless chicken.

tell him to fight level 25 content. learn by fire.
And do AC at 30.
course… thats also a recipe for rage quit.

I like to dungeon, and solo hard content.
Scepter/focus is good for medium range kiting\circle strafing, defense and combo healing. Its fast. keeps me at range has some decent bursty DPS and control effects.

4 seconds of invulnerability while still being able to cast is powerful stuff. I used this combo in WvW sometimes too but i will fall back to the staff for siege stuff.

Staff is good when im in a strong group and i fall back to a more relaxed supportive role.

I like this combo but i am noob at the ele so…. Although i made it through AC story using this setup with 1 death in a pug at L30.

I sort of feel this way too but about a 5th of the ele utility skills are weapons conjures. There enough L2P concepts in this game to make me have to believe that these weapons not seeming useful is because its not obvious how to use them. They must have a learning curve steeper then normal. this makes sense to me as the ele itself has a pretty steep learning curve.

so… how do people use them?
go into combat with them cast?
use 2 skills and ditch them?

talking technical details does fast ground targetting make it easier to use these weapons?

It feels like im losing a good deal of the weapons fire power when i swap it away before i have used it all up.

I like to use scepter focus to play a little more defensive than dagger or staff. Ill work a little harder on the ice bow to see how i can make it useful.

Can you guys give an example of how to use the summoned weapons both in PVE and WvW? my ele is a little under 40 now. I don’t want a rant on underpowered ele kitten fluff. I want some info on how to use these weapons. Surely someone has worked out the skilled to use them.

I picked up the ice bow utility but it seems to be not as useful as my regular skills. I assume im not supposed to keep using it for a full fight or it has some situational use.
The iceblock is very powerful but the damage output doesnt seem to be up to par with the rest of my skills.

I try to solo fight pve content that is at about 5 levels higher than i am when i can and the ice bow just doesnt compare to normal weapons. I also try to pug dungeons when i can.

yeah with my nostromo all the basic functions fit on the keypad in fairly accessible places.
so i guess i can see it when on the keyboard not all the keys are nearby your fingers.

It is near uncanny how all the GW2 attacks and f1-4 abilities all fit nicely onto the nostromo.

Oh but to be clear i do not want to have to remap the keys for each character.
so as long as i can keep my setup then im all for your setup.

i dont think the market is doing its job.

can you give an example?

I much prefer it where i dont have to remap all my new characters for my mouse and nostromo.

Yes i agree this makes the market weird and should be addressed.
I end up breaking down items for parts rather than selling them at a loss.

i guess im not being clear.

The text box grabs all keyboard input. even keys that dont print anything.

Say i am tyring to quickittenype “TROLL!” when a cave troll has spawned and it looks like no one but me has seen it and its coming for me.
So instead of “troll” i turn on the runlock open the trade window and whatever else typing troll will do when the chat window doesnt have focus.
AND since i hit enter at the end of troll the chat now has the focus and none of the keyboard does anything but type in chat. 11122211!

I use a nostromo to play with so i dont use the keyboard to do anything but type in chat.

if the chat window did not take the focus from all keys then i map all the commands to keys that arent used in chat.
Then i can always type troll never having to worry about losing control of my character except that i cant because the keyboard is no longer useable to control my character if the chat has focus.

This issue is most prominent in high stress encounters where I am trying to type fast. Like “INC!”

SWTOR did not steal the ability to use the function keys when chat was active. all of the default mapping for combat stuff were on the function keys.
so going into chat did not rob me of the control of character in that game

if you press enter in chat you lose function keys and ctl/alt combinations.
they get sucked to chat even though they dont actually type anything.

its not impossible SWOTR did not steal the function keys when using chat.

please improve the chat window.

currently it prevents any keystrokes from being used once chat has focus. even keys that have no output in chat. making the game unplayable while the chat window is engaged.

if this was not the case i could rebind keys so that i could leave the chat window always focused and never get stuck typing in chat trying to fight something.

11112222333111111111 arg!!!

The communication in the game is a problem.
It is not right to have a multiplayer game where the characters cannot communicate and play the game at the same time. It literally cannot be played while typing in chat. chat sucks up the keyboard focus.

some games make it so that only alpha numeric keys got to chat which is a step in the right direction. but here even function keys which have no output in chat get sucked into chat.

Its a big problem that games just dont seem to get right.
how much more deep would this game be if meaningful quick in character communication could take place. at the very least pugs would get to a much more equal footing.

No tokens for story please. not unless those tokens can be used to create random rare or masterwork at level items. Then yes please.
I spent around 1 gold or more upgrading my level 60 to rare items from the TP which would take 10-20 ac story runs to work up to. which is basically what i did.

The previous reward for story was way too good for me. there was no point in going anywhere else to level.

on the other hand now i can do level 40 content and solo a champion ettin and his two veteran body guards at the same time.

Bad for you? i suppose it is. dangerous? maybe to some. help out some kids who are suffering and or dying?
Completely worth it IMHO.

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I think this would be useful too.

Well then if you enjoy doing that kind of thing you will like the dungeons. I enjoy AC story most every time i do it.

the scaling system works well enough.
higher level people will still be more powerful but effectively level 30.
you might want to advise them to use a good suit of level 35 armor so they dont spend all their winnings on repairs.
You will likely die a lot.
Nothing you have done in game so far has prepared you for what you will fight unless you routinely seek out higher level content.

Yeah soloing the higher level content is mostly about survivability training.
How not to get hit. How circle strafing is not the end all be all of defense.
How to use control effects.
attack interrupts and blindness.
none of this stuff is needed in the at level content.

Genius is making complex things simple! What a great idea. Ill look into this tonight.

Fight higher level content.
if you are 50 fight level 60 content. In your group.
get good as a group.
learn how to use eachothers combos.
how not to get hit.
Cover each other.
control mobs.

Its good training. you will get better and PvE and PvP.

These weapons really concern me as many of my utility choices are weapons that i do not see being more useful then their difficulty to use.

Currently i will lose to content using these weapons that i can beat pretty soundly without them. So I am doing it wrong, likely, or there is no right way.

how about the ice bow. how is that used well?

If you want to get good at dungeons then try fighting tougher overland content first.
its hard as the scaling system is against you.
But dont fight your own level.
you’re 45 then fight content that is at about 50.
in a group fight stuff that is much higher.
5-10 levels higher.

IMHO that is what is wrong with the dungeons.
The overland content is so easy that people learn terrible fighting and grouping habits.
Spend 30 levels breezing through content thinking they are good and then get their kitten cut off.

I missed a whole lot of fascinating conversation.
yeah knowing how it all works is different than actually doing it.

Would it not be fun to watch or be in a group that has learned well how to work together go into one of the dungeons for the first time.

this one in focus i use a lot.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Obsidian_Flesh

4 seconds of invulnerability but the blindness in the air and earth are pretty effective too.
I don’t think i would run a dungeon without it really.

what dungeon are you taking about?
I am playing the ele now and find their livability pretty good.
Scepter/focus has some good defensive and control effects.

I had an @level ac story pug last night where i died once due to a cave troll that spawned behind us. I kited it for awhile while the others were working on some trash mobs. I typed in “troll!” in the chat window but it took a while for them to see it. The in game communication is the standard poor.
granted it was likely the best pug i had ever been in.
I even got complimented for Ele healing.
A group of folks that knows how to work their class and group should never die in AC story.

no one using scepter/focus?
Lots of defense. several second damage immunity AE anti projectile and whatnot.
but… i havent used dagger a whole lot. ill experiment with it more tonight.

i like harder content and focus has some pretty good defensive abilities.

There is a situation where if i want harder content then i need to do dungeons or go to higher level areas.

When i outlevel the content i lose my player driven hardmode.

ability to set it so that i get down leveled more.

Maybe at character creation i have a “hard mode” option where i get autoleveled down more.
Benefits… XP bonus? magic bonus? account achievements?
Maybe the mode has to be bought via gem store.

you know what i like this…
Like this. make it harder.
each time the story line is completed the autoleveler gets tweaked so that i am increasingly at a disadvantage. maybe just for trees that i have not already done.

OK thanks for the explanation. I was totally missing your point.
Have you filed a bug on it?

i don’t understand why you would consider doing story mode again. Your problem doesn’t make sense to me.
Sounds like you were understandably exploiting the dungeon by only doing part of it over and over and now you can not get credit for completing it?

I guess i would agree that the approach they take here invites some hostility however I think they sort of banked on that. They expect the dungeons to frustrate typical play styles. Whatever that is worth.
They are more likely to make them harder then to make them easier. Smarter mobs and such.
They are trying to kill you in there. actively trying to kill your character. not just present a challenge.