Guild Wars 2

Engi I don’t fight too many Engis in general so really good players on Engi tend to scare me the most since I don’t know how to counter or play against them well enough due to the lack of experience playing Engi or fighting against them.

noobgood.8762:

CuRtoKy.8576:

If you don’t like skipping and stacking look at the Aetherblade Path of TA. Check out how often that is done (includes everything people ever wanted)

Skipping and stacking in TA Aether don’t exist.

- Skipping the blossoms at the start (stealth)
- Skipping all the mobs to run to the end of the room, stacking behind a mushroom to LoS
- Skipping mobs after the ooze puzzle to stack behind a rock
- Stacking on Slikk after Sparki dies
- Skipping all mobs (stealth) to go straight to the generator, stacking behind it to kill holos
- Running to the next room > stacking behind a generator again > stacking behind the next one
- When the 3rd generator is destroyed, stealthing immediately to skip the next group of mobs
- Stacking behind a pipe to FGS kill Foreman Spur
- Stacking behind another pipe to kill the veterans
- Stacking in a corner to kill mobs after the electric floor puzzle
- Stacking on platforms in the 8 generator room
- Stacking behind a destroyed generator to LoS the endboss.

You’re welcome.

Edit: Typos.

What are melees suppose to do? Melee dps at 900? lol what

If you are saying staying near a boss is stacking then iono what to say. What’d you expect to do just like range face roll keyboard at 1200 range :/

Remind me again how skipping blossoms is skipping as defined by most people who are against skipping here. Remind me again how it is skipping when you have to kill mobs anyways. TA Aether vs say AC p1-3 skips.

What are people suppose to do with holos. 1200 range and hope it hits the generator lol.

Tell me then why the path isn’t done much?

As for FGS I’m sure most pugs don’t even have the skill or builds to do that. Also, have you seen pug thieves, like asking them to stealth is like asking them to run dps and know how to dodge.

I think I have the best suggestion. Everyone should run LB+SB ranger or LB+Rifle warrior cause man if you stand next to a boss to dps with axe that is stacking (omg exploit?).

You’d think after many months people would know PTV suck in dungeons but I guess people like to roll on their keyboard

If you don’t like skipping and stacking look at the Aetherblade Path of TA. Check out how often that is done (includes everything people ever wanted)

Aden Celeste.3650:

1) snip

You are absolutely wrong. Actually stacking is intended with limited range support skills (boons, fields that you have to blast, etc). Even when you aren’t stacking in a corner you are still stacking close to your teammates. Look at WvW where they go in and out and then stack up for water fields and boons. In dungeons you still have to time your dodges against bosses along with things like aegis, blinds, and reflects. So it is still action based but not what you expected like an arcade action game.

3) snip

Completely untrue. In fact “play how you want” mentality is the cause. If you run PTV you are less likely to die. And if you don’t time a dodge, aegis, or any other critical skill correctly then you will still survive since you have high toughness and HP. People running zerker would have to time their defensive abilities correctly otherwise their hp will drop significantly or they will go into down state (one shotted). Don’t believe me run a 5 man zerk group stacked in a corner and the rule is nobody can dodge or use any defensive/utility based abilities (no whirls, no aegis, no protection, no condi removals). Simply just stack a corner and dps in every dungeon from AC to Arah. You won’t last very long the fact of the matter is that it is not simply stacking. The problem is that people running PTV never learn to play better (hence reducing the skill level) because you aren’t force to learn or get timings down. If you know you’ll get one shotted on your thief you will over time learn to dodge better because if you don’t you will die. Versus PTV if you miss a dodge you will still have a lot of HP and heal up.

4) snip

People asking for a stack are being team players. Stacking effectively puts people near you so you can accomplish things.

1. Boons and other support/defensive skills (aegis, reflects) work best stacked do to limited range. If someone is far away and a guard drops a reflect it may not cover this person. On top of the fact that if this non stacked person moves then it may move the boss away from the reflect. This affects the entire team due to the fact that someone wanted to not play as a team aka “play how you want”.

2. Aggro mechanics. It isn’t guaranteed 100% that a boss or mob will act in predictable ways. I had a boss turn to burst me on a full zerk thief before even though someone in the group had more defensive stats. Stacking makes it more predictable because if everyone is in the same spot then the boss will move in predictable ways. If someone moves away from the stack and the boss is aggroed on them then it moves the boss away from the group and what they were trying to accomplish. Hence working against the team.

3. Reviving. If someone is nearby it is easier to revive without wasting time. On top of the fact that you don’t run the risk of aggroing the boss away and you can put aegis and reflects to get the revive.

Note: This refers to your normal dungeon runs and not Fractals

4. Boss mechanics. If you know a boss will do a strong attack if certain conditions are met will you meet those conditions? Of course not that is silly. It is like playing an RPG game like FF and fighting a boss with a mechanic (if your party has shell active then the boss will remove it and gain triple damage). You would never do that. So in GW2 if you know Lupi/Spider Queen have stronger attacks when you aren’t stack why would you not stack. If you want a challenge sure. Do it on your own time and with guildies or something. But don’t waste other people’s time just because you want to “play how you want” aka being greedy aka not being a team player.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Slippery slope fallacy says that restraint is possible. The question isn’t whether or not something is possible but whether or not it is likely from past experience.

Plenty of players have weapon master and slayer done not to mention the AP from the mini-games.

You are saying if X happens then something similar Y would happen as well based on no logical reasoning except the fact that if they do X then something similar can happen as well.

My friends is in the top 5 for NA AP ladder and some of them haven’t completed all of their mini-games and weapon mastery/slayer (example Giant slayer). So I think I know exactly what I’m talking about.

It seems like you are trying to argue something for the sake of arguing which is pointless cause it has been stated countless times why this change should occur

Celtic Lady.3729:

How do we know that this AP cap won’t eventually be translated to other caps to “equalize” us all? There could be a cap someday on dungeon chests or champ bags, etc. You can earn x number of dungeon chests then no matter how many dungeons you run in the future you won’t get a chest because you’ve reached the cap. To help keep all players at an even number of gold or some such idiocy. I really don’t see how caps on rewards and activities is a good idea in a game.

Slippery slope fallacy. Sigh.

Seriously, that is like saying omg they cap AP now they will cap my hours of play so that it will equalize everyone. That is just plain silly and makes no logical sense at all.

I don’t get how this even cap rewards. Your assumption is that a person has every achievement in the game completed (impossible) and that dailies are the only way to get additional AP. Secondly, you assume that ANet won’t have additional ways to get AP in the future. Yes the cap on dailies will make it harder to get the next tier reward if you are maxed since you will have to get AP from the harder achievements (long term WvW, PvP, and activities [keg brawl for example]).

I really don’t get how this cap activities. In fact it does quite the opposite. Now people won’t focus all of their time and efforts on dailies (solo queue pvp is a perfect example). Instead they can spend some time on daily and their other time in a game mode they really enjoy to complete a long term achievement (PvE → slayer/weapon master, Activities → Keg Brawl/Southsun Survival, PvP, or WvW)

Celtic Lady.3729:

I’m sorry, but if players don’t enjoy the dailies now, why are they doing them and why should someone that enjoys doing them receive less rewards?

Because AP rank currently is based on how many daily achievements you do. If you miss say a PvP daily or something then you are behind compared to other people. So if you want to keep your AP rank and be competitive then you have to do all your dailies (PvE and PvP) all day every day. And PvP dailies take a while (them solo queues) depending on who you get queued with.

The cap allows people to play in different ways (long term achievements: PvP, WvW, Slayer/Weapon Master, Activities, new ones Anet will eventually introduce) without worrying too much about dailies once they hit the cap or at least know that they will eventually hit the cap if they play long enough. It is a good change.

It will happen once the living story or whatever they want to call it now kicks off again

No you can’t:

For the Wardrobe, we’ve changed skins to an account-wide unlock system. Skins can be unlocked by using consumables, equipping items, salvaging equipment, or right-clicking on equipment and account-binding it. Items that you acquire that are already bound to your account automatically unlock their skin when they go into your inventory.

Wethospu.6437:

If you want to range you can also safespot and go eat biscuits.

While watching an episode of Game of Thrones

But most people hop into dungeons with weird/subpar builds to begin with anyhow :/

1. 95% of pug rangers play really bad
2. Calling people who ask for dos as elitist is saying people who “play how they want” regardless of their team are elitist
3. Rangers get hate because a bunch of pugs with LB think they are doing massive dos
4. I instantly kick rangers with bad builds/weapon sets because usually if I tell them to play as a team (e.g. stack, pet management) and it usually leads to me being kick so I rather not deal with that
5. Rangers with a bad build are like dead weight I rather 4 man a dungeon than have a ranger

Dean Calaway.9718:

NoTrigger.8396:

it will be the other way around. more gearchecks. more players will be kicked for not using berserker. more cryhards when they realise this patch did absolutely nothing and made it even worse.

also, as long as the active combat system exists, there will be no reason to use defensive gear (when you are good enough).

I beg to differ, as is most zerkers aren’t nearly as good as they think they are, they get away with it because damage was OP.
Now you’ll get failed runs and people pointing fingers wondering who’s not in zerker not realizing that they are all in zerker and the problem is they can’t survive, while a party with someone defensive to pick zerkers from the floor is actually gonna be able to finish.

If I had a gold for every time I rezed someone with the twilight I could afford the stupid thing and never use it.

Uhhhh what?!?! That is like saying players who face tank using PTV are good just because they don’t go down. Doesn’t make sense

Damage isn’t OP the reason why you run zerker is because most of the other stats in a PvE dungeon aren’t that useful. On top of that good zerker players can use zerker stat well because they actually know the mechanics and the game itself. Even without full might stack a lot of the dungeon strats can be done with a full zerker party if people just know when and how to dodge and what the boss mechanics are.

I rather have a player with zerker willing to learn and go down rather than someone with PTV. I mean how does a PTV player in dungeons learn to player better? They don’t really. While a full zerker player has to play better because if they miss a dodge or miss a feedback or aegis they literally die.

Zerk will still be the best, nothing will change.

I’m glad they did something at least instead of letting us wait forever for changes.

Except you forget that a Defense Banner adds like nothing. The extra toughness isn’t going to provide anything if you compared two different situations (1 with def banner, 1 without). The reality is that the same outcome will occur.

Now if the person is running PTV/PTH then that is a WHOLE different story. Then again I question that since why are people running this. High level fractals at the current scale are pretty easy to be honest. And I’m sure most people playing on 40s-50 have money or multiple level 80s outfitted with enough AR.

Most people aren’t willing to be a team player. If I was playing on my warrior and I see that my party has 2+ warrior I would switch to something more useful.

Lindbur.2537:

Play.
How.
You.
Want.

“Elitists” actually follow this mantra better than those who chant it. :>

More like be a team player. And I’m sure these “Elitist” you call actually run more team friendly builds than say your typical healing power guardians.

Nice solo run there

Cormac.3871:

If players in general wanted dungeons to be challenging content that required communication they wouldn’t be so fussy about who they accepted into a group. At least that’s what I assume looking at most lfg’s.

That doesn’t make easy content hard o.o . People ask for certain things so they can get speed through things for max g/hr rewards. Plus, people who have subpar builds or just do things slow will just make it boring I mean like most bosses in most dungeons are extremely easy. Taking a few extra minutes to just bash an easy boss’ hp isn’t what I would see as challenging, hard, or interesting.

Honestly when I see EXP it doesn’t mean anything.

Like an example recently is this arah post: “P3 Experienced DPS only. At lupi. noob-boot”

Summary of that group run:

- People didn’t dodge grub
- Warrior (who made group) got down on phase 1 by lupi kick
- Phase 2 not enough dps from 2x warrior + 1 thief to get to 3rd phase after Mesmer feedback (2 grub stack, 0 sigil stack since Mesmer join at lupi)
- Warrior demanded range for some reason because when this warrior + two other friends couldn’t deal enough dps (note group asked for dps)
- Phase 3 Warrior (instance owner) demanded everyone range
- Same person causes Lupi to bubble team and then this person proceeded to kick people due to death even though the warrior was the worst player in the group

Experience can mean simply knowing what is going on. It is very subjective. Then there are post like this Arah p3 post where it is obvious that the people who made the group do not have what they are asking for. I find that most post with “exp lvl 80” are fine but when you start adding things like dps, ping gear, or something along those lines I find that they are filled with toxic players and players who think they are “good” when they aren’t. To contrast this run, I puged with DnT with someone who was completely new to arah and we cleared the path significantly better than this group who posted this p3 run.

Point: Don’t trust postings most people exaggerate their own skills.

GW2 is an MMO and most content is geared around group play so there really isn’t a “play how you want” since you are playing with other people and it is expected that you contribute in a significant way. Healing 10% when your party takes 80% damage per hit isn’t contributing nor are you contributing if you play condi necro when there are like 2 condis on your team since you will hit the cap. Simply put the biggest complaint about dungeons, wvw, and pvp solo queue are pugs who don’t listen, have odd builds, or they don’t contribute much to the success of the team (rallying people in WvW, 3 people on one point in pvp as examples).

People are barking up the wrong tree with this “play how you want” mentality. It should always be that everyone should be a team player even if that means you stack up at the corner 4 of your other teammates want you to or swapping professions and/or builds when you don’t really want to. It is a team game.

Instead of blaming the so called “meta”, a subset of the dungeon community as elitist, or blaming the zerk/speed runs you see from like rT or DnT everyone should focus their attention on ArenaNet and how dungeons for the most part have not changed for over a year (outside of TA Aetherblade, some Fractal changes, and AC rework).

So stop pitting zerk players versus non zerk and stack versus non stack. It should all of these groups coming together and demand ArenaNet to make better dungeon content. Bring viability to different play styles. Make solo instance content kinda like queen gauntlet so people can test their skills and since people aren’t in a group they can build/play however they want since they don’t affect other people. Make guild/mass raid type content like Wurm instead of the current system where it is hard to organize since you have to use OF and hope you don’t get a lot of randoms.

I see p1, p2, p3 groups non sell every day. You just have to wait. More importantly you should learn melee mechanics for arah.

Shockwave.1230:

@OP’s calculation

Something people may have looked over is that critical damage builds usually spec into traits to get an extra 30% crit damage, it’s unclear whether ANet was taking that into account when they said berserker builds would have a 10% over dps nerf. If they did then it will a 10% nerf like they said, if they didn’t then the overall dps impact will be a bit less than 10%. The calculations will be slightly different when taking into account ferocity from runes and traits.

Highly doubt it because trait setups would vary. I believe they meant that if you run full berserker now (weapons, armor, and trinkets) then post patch you would have a 10% dps nerf.

Well everyone knows that it isn’t finalized yet. What we are trying to get as is if there aren’t any changes it seems like Celestial gear will be bad post patch. This is the place to discuss what we think is good or isn’t so yeah not sure what that was all about.

2,500-2,600 armor value is typically what I aim for on my Ele. I feel that it gives me enough survivability for the cost. I tried to go higher than that ages ago and I felt that I lost too much power for very little damage mitigation

Taldren.7523:

That’s under the assumption that they maintain the pattern of Celestial gear of all stats being equal. There is nothing from stopping them from putting more Ferocity on Celestial armor to maintain its only edge over Berserker.

If they just want to reduce it by 10% as they claim then …

Celestial ARMOR currently grants 19% which if reduced 10% reduces it to 17%.
If 12 = 1% that would be 204 Ferocity.
If 16 = 1% that would be 272 Ferocity.

Berserker ARMOR currently grants 16% and reduced by 10% that would be 14%
If 12 = 1% that would be 168 Ferocity.
If 16 = 1% that would be 224 Ferocity.

Pending changes. They said yesterday on stream that the new critical damage stat will be a minor stat for non-celestial stat sets. So say ascended berserker chest is 106 power and 76 precision. The new critical damage stat for this piece would be 76 ferocity instead of 5% critical damage it currently has. For Celestial it is equal to one of the stats. So for chest piece, currently ascended Celestial is 47×6 stats. Post patch it will just be 47×7 (ferocity now being a stat) instead of 47×6 + 6% critical damage.

10% reduction refers to if you use full berserker (zerk everything). Then overall your damage is reduced by 10% post patch. How individual pieces will differ post and pre patch will vary.

They could do say 47×6 + 90 Ferocity but that will be kind of odd. The best bet is for them to add something on top say +% boon duration, +% condi duration, or -% condi duration. Another way is for them to increase Celestial to say 50×7 post patch to compensate.

Either way without any word or information it seems like Celestial will feel nerfed post patch if Ferocity on Celestial is equal to all the other stats.

Taldren.7523:

I keep seeing everyone mash Armor + Trinkets + Weapons together … but the weapons/trinkets are just as easy to obtain as the berserker. The armor, on the other hand, is significantly harder to obtain and actually granted MORE crit damage than berserker.

Celestial: ( Exotic Armor | Ascended )

• Power: 140 | 147
• Precision: 140 | 147
• Toughness: 140 | 147
• Vitality: 140 | 147
• Condition Damage: 140 | 147
• Healing Power: 140 | 147
• Crit Damage: 19% | 19%

Berserker: ( Exotic Armor | Ascended )

• Power: 315 | 329
• Precision: 224 | 235
• Crit Damage: 16% | 17%

My concern is the month I invested into creating my account bound Celestial armor set (since you can only create one freaking charged crystal a day). Is this now going to be inferior to Berserker in Ferocity as well?!?

I think the point is that everything will be hit hard. Trinkets maybe less so for various reasons. But for Armors and weapons will lose a bunch of crit dmg

Right now Celestial Armor and Weapons either give equal or more Crit dmg compared to stat sets like Berserker. Post patch Celestial will be hands down worse than Berserker.

Armor Only
—————————

Celestial: 146 new crit dmg
Berserker: 235 new crit dmg

==
Celestial Old: 19% crit dmg
Berserker Old: 17% crit dmg
==
Assume 12 Furocity = 1%

Celestial => 12% crit dmg
Berserker => 19% crit dmg

Assume 16 Furocity = 1%

Celestial => 9% crit dmg
Berserker => 14% crit dmg

My response to another thread about this:

After the change Celestial isn’t worth it as a distribution stat and it will only be for niched cases if they don’t do something to it.

Here is the math:

Post patch (full Celestial vs full Berserker/critical damage)
Celestial => 468 Furocity/New Crit Dmg Stat
Berserker => 745 Furocity

Celestial is 60-64% compared to any critical damage stat set like Berserker or Valk.

Lets assume 12 Furocity = 1% critical dmg (it doesn’t really matter what the conversion rate is)

Celestial => 39% Crit Dmg
Berserker => 62% Crit Dmg

==
Pre Patch (Currently – full Celestial vs full Berserker/critical damage)

Celestial => 62%
Berserker => 71%

As you can see the difference for the proposed changes are HUGE compared to what they are now. This will have a significant impact and unless ArenaNet adds something to the Celestial Stat set. In fact some people use like say Chest piece or something to gain extra critical damage. Post patch with the proposed changes you will not have this extra critical damage since it is based on Furocity now.

Here is the math:

Post patch (full Celestial vs full Berserker/critical damage)
Celestial => 468 Furocity/New Crit Dmg Stat
Berserker => 745 Furocity

Celestial is 60-64% compared to any critical damage stat set like Berserker or Valk.

Lets assume 12 Furocity = 1% critical dmg (it doesn’t really matter what the conversion rate is)

Celestial => 39% Crit Dmg
Berserker => 62% Crit Dmg

======
Pre Patch (Currently – full Celestial vs full Berserker/critical damage)

Celestial => 62%
Berserker => 71%

As you can see the difference for the proposed changes are HUGE compared to what they are now. This will have a significant impact and unless ArenaNet adds something to the Celestial Stat set. In fact some people use like say Chest piece or something to gain extra critical damage. Post patch with the proposed changes you will not have this extra critical damage since it is based on Furocity now.

After the change Celestial isn’t worth it as a distribution stat and it will only be for niched cases if they don’t do something to it.

Here is the math:

Post patch (full Celestial vs full Berserker/critical damage)
Celestial => 468 Furocity/New Crit Dmg Stat
Berserker => 745 Furocity

Celestial is 60-64% compared to any critical damage stat set like Berserker or Valk.

Lets assume 12 Furocity = 1% critical dmg (it doesn’t really matter what the conversion rate is)

Celestial => 39% Crit Dmg
Berserker => 62% Crit Dmg

======
Pre Patch (Currently – full Celestial vs full Berserker/critical damage)

Celestial => 62%
Berserker => 71%

As you can see the difference for the proposed changes are HUGE compared to what they are now. This will have a significant impact and unless ArenaNet adds something to the Celestial Stat set. In fact some people use like say Chest piece or something to gain extra critical damage. Post patch with the proposed changes you will not have this extra critical damage since it is based on Furocity now.

Flissy.4093:

Grats! This sure is going to make me pick up Clerics, Soldiers and Magi! Good job ArenaNet, diversity has been promoted!

/endsarcasm.

Actually less diverse now, professions that used parts of Assassin over Berserker, such as Guardian, Warrior & Ele, to min/max are now just going to sit in full Berserker.

But even as a whole, this is a fair change for regular dungeons, maybe players will have to take note of mechanics of bosses now, because as it was the “risk” by dropping the defensive stats was nowhere near the reward obtained from the offensive stats.

This little change could be enough alteration to burst damage of groups that, for example, they now need to acknowledge Kholer’s spin, and may have to find a source of vigor/extra dodge for Subject Alpha.

Nothing will change really. Most meta PvE builds already take vigor and dodges into consideration. On top of that people who use these builds and play really well would not waste dodges, invuls, blocks, and aegis so it will not really have an effect on them. Pretty much people who use these builds already know what they need to do to negate damage from a specific boss. Sure ArenaNet reducing critical damage will increase the run times slightly but honestly if say Subject Alpha gets an extra hit in it will not make a difference for coordinated/guild groups. They will get through it easily. I think the changes has an effect more on PuGs and average players with odd group comps or builds.

Jeff.4680:

PLEASE START WORKING ON AN EXPANSION. If you already are, ANNOUNCE IT. The Living World is only good as long as there’s an expansion that players are waiting for. It’s been said thousands of times, but its the truth.

I heard something about someone datamining something about a “VIP membership” that would basically be an optional subscription fee. Are you serious Anet?!?!?!? This game doesn’t need a subscription fee, it needs an expansion.

The Living World/Story has dramatically improved since it’s debut. Regardless, it is overall boring and predictable. This game needs some real direction.

For the love of god…MAKE AN EXPANSION

/rage

Expansion is a marketing term. What you want is a LARGE content update with a lot of things added at one time which can include things like new zones. That can be a typical “expansion” or it just simply be a large content update to gw2 in the summer for example. Please stop using the term “expansion” and instead focus on what type of gameplay you want added. Expansions and dlcs mean nothing they are just content updates wrapped into marketing terms for different journalistic/media outlets like mmorpg.

Ele all the way

You can also use reflects like Wall of Reflection and Feedback on the boss to reflect the attacks. Save some crystal charges plus it goes a bit faster

Actually it doesn’t really matter. There is no real way to know based on LFG that you will get good people. Low or High AP doesn’t really since someone could have started the game late but they focus a lot of their time learning and mastering dungeons.

Like even today I saw an LFG post for CoE and it stated dps + experience. However, when I join it was far from that. The group was part premade and those players didn’t know what they were doing and such.

It just shows that you really can’t trust the descriptions for LFG most of the time you see listings asking for high AP, experience, and even things like speed run and some times they aren’t like that some times they are. Usually it is pretty random if you’ll get a good group or not.

Honestly the best way is to just find a guild that has the dungeon style you want (experience speed runs for example) or making friends from some of the good players you see in your PUG runs.

oZii.2864:

Sounds like really low power.

Celestial gear is a complex issue. It is probably the most talked about armor on Reddit. Alot of math and analysis has been brought up on it. People are curious about it but it is really hard to put your finger on it. This is how I personally view the following gear excluding condition damage gear.

Soldier = Defensive
Sentinel = Defensive
Cleric = Defensive
Cavalier = Defensive

Berserker = Offensive
Knights = Offensive
Valkyrie = Offensive
Assassin = Offensive

Magi = Odd combo I never used
Celestial = Want something but don’t want full offense or full defense.

Celestial does give lower power than soldier or knights but it gives you higher critical damage. If you consider only 6x in armor.

So there is a relationship between power, critical chance, and critical damage that you have to keep in mind. This will affect how you distribute your stats around for your play style. Too much critical damage but little power isn’t good but so is the reverse and then there is critical chance one has to consider to see how often you will get a critical hit.

For Celestial versus Knights you trade toughness for vitality. The value of these is based on your play style. I have seen people with high armor but low hp and vice versa.

I think most people will agree that Celestial should be considered when you are building but how much of a specific stat set you need depends on what you are trying to achieve stat wise and your play style.

Retsuko.2035:

Of course you can’t make use of it 100% of the time, because that would be really OP. If you run with enough HP/armor I think it’s quite possibly a viable trait in WvW. Only tried it out this evening though (changed to pvt build for this), still need to run with it more often, but so far it’s quite nice. One fight i rushed into an enemy zerg, saw many wells etc. But came out of it with full health. I wonder why :P

Take in mind, you’re only immune to conditions, so control effects like stun, daze and pull still work on you with this trait.

I don’t expect it to be up 100% of the time. But you have to see if a trait is useful for a good chunk of situations you would be in. For example, Elemental attunement is great for D/D because they swap a lot between attunements so you will proc this trait a lot. Whereas S/D may not need Elemental attunement a lot because a dps s/d build may try to stay in 1-2 attunements for most of the fight rather than the swapping out as soon as possible like a D/D ele. Fresh Air is the same way. There is some downtime but if your critical chance is low the value/usefulness of that trait is low as well because you will proc it less often.

Diamond Skin feels this way. There are situations like any other trait where this will be extremely useful like against full condition damage necro or against RRR condi Ranger or against specific group comps (like 10 full condi necro in a 20 group force for example). It is like the signet mastery trait where it is useful for the Ele’s heal signet however you cannot make full use of the trait because there aren’t any signets that people would take over cantrips to maximize the use of the trait.

All in all Eles have to play the same way. Diamond skin allows them a tiny bit of condition immunity but they still have to evade or positions themselves away from direct damage since it puts them under 90%. And if you disregard DS for a sustain build like 20 water then you will still need to make sure you don’t take a lot of damage so your sustain can keep you in good shape. If you spec for more hp/armor to keep DS up then your dps will be lacking and if you try to spec for high dps then it is much easier for other people to keep you under 90% so that you will not have DS.

Coldtart.4785:

Stat total means nothing. Using the same circumstances as the OP I get the following:

Effective power Celestial (fury)
1767.63 (2072.66)
Effective power Soldier (fury)
2028.78 (2227.68)

Effective HP Celestial
19222.87
Effective HP Soldier
25399.05

Lack of other numbers such as defensive values. Total stats does matter if it doesn’t then Ascended stats wouldn’t matter. Celestial is a good stat distribution if you need a bunch of stat outside of healing power and condition damage.

Ascended Celestial Helm: 10.333 stat points per 1% critical damage
Ascended Berserker Helm: 17 stat points per 1% critical damage

Ascended Celestial Shoulder: 10.5 stat points per 1% critical damage
Ascended Berserker Shoulder: 12.5 stat points per 1% critical damage

Ascended Celestial Shoulder Stats: 16×6 +2% critical damage = 96 total stats
Ascended Soldier Shoulder Stats: +35 Major +25 Minor x2 = 85 total stats

Ascended Celestial Shoulder gives 11 total stat points and 2% critical damage over Soldiers stat. If healing power and condition damage sucks for you then you lose 32 (16×2) stat points from Celestial. But since you gain 11 total free then you are really losing 21 stat points over soldiers in turn for gaining 2% critical damage. Whereas Berserker you lose 25 stat points over soldiers for the same amount of critical damage.

Now if your baseline is say 2.6k armor and 15k hp and you achieve that with only 3 pieces of Celestial Armor then why put another 3 since the critical damage is worse for you since you don’t need the other stats anymore beyond your comfortable baseline and all you want after that is damage stats. Meaning instead of 21 stats it is now 37 stat points lost. Instead you would be better off with Berserker for the last 3 pieces.

Shockwave.1230:

It looks like people are already protesting. I haven’t seen many good elementalists in PvP recently.

The level that an Ele has to play in PvP to be decent is really high compared to other professions. And at that high skill level you might be better off playing another profession that would do much better at a higher skill level. As a result, some people who are average on Ele may decide to play something easier and more rewarding profession for PvP.

PSX.9250:

I tried it out in WvW and to me it was not worth it. Perhaps it has a use in PvE or sPvP?

PvE nope because a dps spec is still better for pve group plays. As for s/tPvP it is even worse than WvW. You can go tanky like 0/0/30/20/20 to keep DS up or some trait variation with like soldier/zerk jewel amulet combo. The thing is that with this you don’t do enough damage to certain classes like Warrior and you can countered by bunker burst builds. Outside of that you can bunker a point down but beyond that you can’t do much. If you trait for more dps like 0/30/30/0/10 then you lack enough sustain/hp to keep DS up which means it will be useless to you most of the time. After playing matches in spvp since patch using d/d, s/d, s/f I find that DS isn’t worth it.

WvW has its uses and it depends on the situation. It works a bit better in WvW than s/tPvP for sure.

Scholar Runes for sure

You have a chance at Cavalier’s Intricate Gossamer Insignia when you salvage an exotic with cavalier stats.

Only knockdown and stun from shocking aura grants the extra damage (for ele skills).

BaconCatTheGreasy.9542:

Anen.1742:

Don’t get a patch => people complain the game is bugged.
Get a patch to fix said bugs => people complain for having a patch.

What else?

It shouldn’t need a patch to fix bugs less than 24 hours after a release. They should test the bloody thing first.

You can’t test everything. Even if you increase the QA team by 100% it doesn’t mean they’ll catch everything. Live has significantly more players doing things than a QA team will ever have. Like bugs can be anything and the Live configuration may be different than the Dev configuration which affects what bugs may or may not show up. It is impossible for a QA team to catch everything image if they tested every hardware that anyone would run for GW2 then add the different settings (low to high) and all the various other settings. Then to top it off test that for every content from WvW to sPvP to Living Story. It isn’t possible to catch every bug. Be thankful they fix critical ones quickly.

FatDragon.1752:

I second the skill thing. I was so excited, and the skills seem really interesting. Then I see it has a 25 skill point cost and I just deflate since I only have low level characters at the moment. A cost of 5 or so skill points or lower would be appreciated.

The skills are out forever so you will have time to unlock them it is simple level progression.

Delvoire.8930:

I’m confused by this. Are they getting rid of the Pristine Relics? Do you not need these any longer for the Ascended pieces?

Some people have a bunch of these pristine relics and they do not need anymore rings like myself. So ArenaNet is giving the option to these players to convert it to something else

Because they wanted to make it different from Arcane brilliance which works the same way except it does less damage and heals.

Arcane Blast is different to the heal skill than Arcane Wave. Plus Arcane Blast is like 1500 range.

So is renewing stamina like II now since VI is windborne dagger?

Adept line for water sucks now it is like either go min 15/20 or it isn’t worth it except maybe like PvE

I saw that too and I was like well time to zoom zoom away from them zergs :P