Guild Wars 2

@ Korrigan,
The post you quoted has nothing to do with WoW at all. Zeldain basically just said there that the devs should flesh out the systems, which is pretty much the same as saying that the quality should be higher. That’s it. Nothing to do with WoW, unless you think that only WoW deserves to be a fleshed-out (= high quality) MMO game?

Creating a game is not all about originality. There are plenty of original kitten in the market. They are original, but that didn’t prevent them from sucking.

All original, new things are naturally not fleshed well enough, exactly because they are new. Meanwhile, old mechanics are usually improved title upon title. WoW (and Blizzard in general) is (or was) excellent at taking mechanics from other games and improving them.

Anet has created new but rough mechanics, and now they should improve them right within the same game.

It has nothing to do with gear grinding.

Yukishiro.8792:

See posts like this are what I’m talking about. These are both just plain silly. Might isn’t a dramatic dps boost. 18 stacks of might is about a 25% bonus. It does not even begin to make shatter mesmers good at sustained damage. 25% more staff auto attack damage is not good sustained damage.

For the same reason it would be really pretty dumb even if you are going to run signet of inspiration to use it how you describe. Wasting two shatters just to set up a ~20% damage bonus for your group for a few seconds is just bad play most of the itme.

Wait, what? A 25% damage boost is bad for sustained damage, and using a SINGLE utilility to give to your entire party 6-18+ stacks of might is bad play?

You’re not even “wasting” shatters. You’re playing normally.

nerva.7940:

unfortunately JSharp has informed us that we have to put up with this silliness for an undisclosed period of time while they “watch it very closely”. /end thread.

It also means they’re pretty much well aware of it. :P Jon did say the build was way strong.

Fuz.5621:

I don’t agree with massively article at all.

This game has problems. But none of them is among the ones mentioned by them.

Do you seriously think that everything about the story and the “progression” of this game is fine?

I agree with most of his points, and I’d say this thread has been having some rabid fanboys who, not being able to (or not wanting to) undertand the criticism, cheaply accuse the author of WoW fanboyism.

If I could sum the entire article in a few words, it would be the following: GW2 has great ideas, but some of them were not as well executed as they could have been.

There. When the author mentions the lack of clarity behind roles, I do not interpret that as a wish to go back to the trinity, or the desire to have someone hold his hands, but more an observation about the shallow party building this game suffers from. After all, GW2’s builds, although being a jack-of-all-trades, can focus on defense, crowd control, single target disruption, burst damage, sustained damage, offensive party support, etc. But all those roles are unclear to most casual players, and this blurs the fun out of making a strong party build. This becomes especially worse – and now I’m adding my own opinions, when most of those roles are absolutely useless outside of dungeons.

Another thing the author mentioned very well is the structure of the game, the progression through the game, which is vague and bland. Having a stronger progression structure does not means the game is telling players where to go – afterall, you still have the option to follow it or not. The story progression, in general, is poor in GW2. It jumps from place to place, it forces you to pay for teleporting whenever you need to backtrack, it is gated by levels, and there’s no story quests inbetween. This breaks up the narrative flow.

Not all players enjoy being at the middle of a huge world and having, as the only meaningful option, the choice to grind for map completion. There ARE more choices, like the story instances, and the dungeons later on, but both of those feel like side mechanics, that you see every once and then at a corner in the map, while the bread of the pve game is about playing solo – and thus restricting most of your build options – against enemies with mindless AI, while doing repetitive heart tasks, and participating in some events inbetween, sometimes interesting, sometimes mindless zergfests.

It’s not about World of Warcraft, in the sense that GW2 should be like it. But WoW executes and fleshes out some of its ideas better than GW2, and this is something that this game should be improved on, and this is something that has nothing to do with copying WoW, because it doesn’t needs it.

And finally, the devs in this game need to design a more solid structure for progression. Especially for the story, but also for a more exciting character building system. The game suffers from a lack of progression, and devs made the mistake to interpret out of that a need for more gear-grinding. GW2 needs more progression, but it has not much to do with gear. It’s deeply related to how you enjoy the game – or better, to prevent the game from becoming a repetitive grind for map exploration after some time.

Some mesmer players will always be in denial: this happens with every profession in this game. Ele players are in denial that their bunker builds are too good, thief players are in denial that their backstab builds are too good, etc. And then all of them talk about this myth called the HB Warrior, based on their experience from the meta a few months ago, when people still didn’t know how to play this game and HB could actually kill something.

HB Warriors have excellent burst, but they can’t hit anyone by themselves, and they can’t offer much more than a burst. Shatter mesmers and Backstab thieves contribute a lot more to the match.

But it’s clear that SS is extremely strong. It not only directly buffs an overpowered mesmer’s burst build, it also offers more versatility.

Shatter Mesmer builds have been overpowered because they are excellent at bursting, CC and have great survival for a glass cannon build. The new Shattered Strength does not only buffs them, it makes them much better at three distinct areas:

• Even stronger bursting: SS works with any of your four shatters, so you can, say, use your Cry of Frustration beforehand to prepare for a huge Mind Wrack burst with 3-9 extra might.
• Excellent sustained damage: Burst builds are usually poor at sustained damage, and vice-versa. For a reason. Now, Mesmers can get 3-9 stacks of might after bursting, up to 6-18 stacks of might by simply using two shatters, giving them excellent means to deal excellent damage even after their bursts are under a cooldown.
• Excellent party support: With their 6-18 stacks of might – a little more than that with an extra sigil and/ or rune, they can use a signet to spread all that to the party around them, transforming your team into a burst/ damage machine. Add in the quickness elite for a free win.

So that’s a direct improment in power AND more versatility, to a build that was already a bit too good at both.

I agree that there’s a lot of uninteresting traits. I always wonder: why get a +5% damage boost trait or a +5% precision boost trait, if attributes tied to trait lines exist exactly for that purpose? If you want more power, don’t you add points into the first traitline? If you want more precision, don’t you add points into the second traitline?

Let me add and/ or rephrase what some people have said:

- Want to enjoy the story, the characters and the world of GW2?

• The story is poor at developing characters and at developing the world, and is further crippled by a barebones narrative structure from the game.
• GW1 offered you story quests inbetween missions to keep the narrative flow, GW2 not only lacks that, but you are gated by level and must pay to teleport every time the story demands you to backtrack. GW1 allowed you to interact with the characters of the story through the henchmen/ hero systems, GW2 does not. GW1’s story opened new areas of the map, which gave a sense of progression that did not rely on grinding, GW2’s story is tacked on the maps while the developers focus their efforts of progression on ascended gear. GW1’s story structure/ story progression is FAR.MORE.SOPHISTICATED and ahead of its time than GW2’s vague, generic MMO-ish, bare-bones story progression.

- Want to explore the world of Tyria?

• The best thing that general PvE is good at. But, after some time, the very uninspired heart tasks and the very uninspired monster AI start becoming repetitive and grindy, and you find out that exploring new areas in Tyria feels exactly the same as exploring the previous areas.

- Want to have the option between doing everything solo or playing in a party?

• You don’t. In general PvE (and thus I’m not talking about dungeons) you are almost always forced to go solo.
• The devs have focused so much on giving us the “freedom” to be able to do things alone, that they have completely forgotten about adding gameplay mechancis to incentivate party playing.
• GW2’s general PvE is anti-party: the story structure is solo and very player-dependent, map exploration is a list of non-linear repetitive simple tasks, pve combat is shallow, events are easily completed with mindless zergs and party searching is a barebones mechanic.

- Want to pick the builds you enjoy the most?

• You can´t.
• Seriously, what are you going to pick? Condition builds? Why, if you can kill monsters faster by going glass cannon? Party-support builds? Why, if there’s no party for you to support, and you don’t even get credit in events by spamming your support abilities on the mindless zerg? CC-driven builds to indirectly support your party? Why snare your foe or interrupt whatever to help anyone, if there isn’t anyone to help? You’ll use CC for your own survival, and that’s it. Magic Find builds to grind, grind, grind? Oh yeah, GW2 is actually good here, and anyone knows I’m NOT beign sarcastic.
• Finally, build making is clumsy because devs decided to throw a money sink in there. GW1’s build making felt simpler but more sophisticated, and it also had the party support to give a lot of build diversity. GW2’s build making, outside of already being crippled by how you are forced to go solo most of the time, requires you to get specific pieces of equipment for EACH build, AND you still need to pay to respec your traits. There’s not even a proper system for cheap maxed armor versus costly cosmetic armor: You MUST get an entire exotic set, and in the future an entire ascended gear set, for EACH build.

I think in the future, they should ditch hearts completely (if they haven’t already), and substitute them for tasks at a bigger scale, with a lot of diverse accomplishments, that go from exploring to doing events to doing silly tasks, so you can complete said tasks.

Also, lots and lots of tight, story-driven quests. Have event chains tell stories from a global prespective AND require party-coordination to go anywhere, and have party instances unlocked at the end of those event chains to flesh out and conclude the story archs at a more personal level. I’m not talking about the main story, but many narrative sequences spread through the game that makes us care for those areas, that makes us care for the characters of those areas, that makes us seriously interact with the players exploring those areas, and that offers us a more diversified, creative gameplay content especifically designed to enhance the storytelling.

Also far rewards at the end that can only be obtained once (every week or so), so that players will want to do them all, without having to grind any of them several times.

Have those mechanics be required for map completion, and if the playerbase becomes a problem, there’s always solutions: extra incentives, an entire redesign of the server system, or even heroes/ henchmen.

I think the game actually lacks a sense of progression, nd I’m not talking about gear-grinding. I’m talking about existing a point to keep us going forward.

GW1 was excellent at this through its story structure: be it either from campaigns or from GW: Beyond free content, GW1 had a tight story structure where the more you advanced through the story, the more the world opened up; and there was always story quests inbetween missions and cutscenes to not break the storytelling flow, and you could interact with story characters through gameplay anytime with the hero/ henchmen system. Not only that, but the missions were hard (at the time they were released) and party-driven, which created an excellent sense of community and a secondary “point” to playing the game (overcoming your obstacles through social interaction, skill building and strategy). Finally, the storyline in GW1 was better at making you feel the world and the lore, so each time you went into a new area, you could feel its ambience and backstory not only visually or through gameplay, but also thanks to the story.

GW2’s story structure is barebones. There’s no social interaction, there’s no story quests inbetween each instance, and whenever you need to backtrack, you need to pay for teleportation, which not eveyone will want to do so right at that moment, further breaking the story flow. The story itself takes us to places, but does not cares about them, so we end up not caring about them neither. I remember going into Mount Maelstrom through the story, excited about what kind of place that would be, but the only thing the story cared about, was introducing a new character to ditch it a few levels later, as it always does through the entire game. Those characters are then forgotten, and the lore of the places we visit is left to other sources: and they’re not many nor very expressive and/ or that interesting at telling us about the world.

So with weaker storytelling and weaker story structure, what are we left with (outside of dungeons)? The devs tell us the game is about exploring the world the way we want to. But why? What’s the point? For fun, they say. And surely, if we enjoy GW2, we find it fun, but then new problems start to become clear: General pve enemies are extremely easy and mindless to kill. Map completion is very mathematical and, after a few full completions, starts to become very repetitive. Social interaction is almost non-existant, outside of events which are completed through zergs instead of minimal party coordenation. And the entire pve experience falls into this: grind for hearts and other kinds of map completion, while grinding enemies inbetween to complete those tasks. Repeat and repeat. All solo, with no meaningful reason to interact with other players you see.

This leads to a very soulless experience overtime. With no meaningful social interaction, no meaningful storytelling progression, no meaningful obstacles other than your patience to complete a map, it all turns into a huge and mindless horizontal map grind, instead of the traditional vertical gear-grind (which this game has too, at a lesser extent).

I think GW2 has a solid dev team and solid concepts, but still needs to be polished. I can certainly see that the monthly updates improve upon a few of those areas, especially at creative quests/ instances and at social interaction.

But generally, the whole game suffers from a very lack of progressive/ meaningful direction. You’re basically thrown into the world, and you have the “freedom” to explore the world, but that essencially means the freedom to pick which heart you want to do first, which usually does not matters much, because they’re almost always the same, and you have to do both anyways. You don’t interact with the players of the world because there’s almost no party-driven content and mechanics. You don’t feel the dangers of the world because everything is so easy and mindless, and that also makes most areas play the same. In fact, even when battles are hard, it’s only because foes hit hard. That’s it, for most of the time you spent exploring. And you explore a beautiful landscape, until starts feeling like a grind when you realize how repetitive the hearts are. And there’s an entire lore that is underdelivered, an entire story that fails to deliver the lore of the world or the development of characters, and a barebones story structure that further cripples it out.

I would personally like to read the dev’s thoughts on this matter, if they ever read this thread.

Next major patch should be mid-January, I would bet. They’ve been doing this once each month.

Levetty.1279:

Seriously guys if you want people to believe your false arguments you need to stop including blatantly false stuff like this.

You’re the one trying to convince us that the mesmer is fine under the assumption that the entire tournament playerbase doens’t knows how to play this game.

Irrelevant. Illusions are more or less fine as they currently are, and they only had a bad moment due to recent bugs.

Levetty.1279:

How is any might stacking not broken then? Funny how nobody complained about Might stacking builds till Mesmer could get one.

Mesmers didn’t get a new might-stacking build. They got a might-stacking trait that made their previously strongest build (shattering) even stronger.

It is lucky that the stack is actually 9-18 and you can kill his resources before he turns them into might. Time it right and you can kill his illusions after he has used his shatters for extra annoyance to the mesmer.

Now let’s make a comparison with the recently buffed might grandmaster trait for the elementalist!

It is lucky that the stack from that trait goes anything beyond 5. And because fire-traited eles attuned to fire are as frail as assassins without stealth or mesmers without stealth and without illusions, you can simply, you know, hit the elementalist, and they’ll be forced to get out of fire attunement, for extra annoyance of the elementalist.

(It also happens that eles can’t burst without might, and have been sucking all this time when they’re not bunker eles.)

Guess which trait completely trumps over the other.

Confusion requires timing in pve for foes to attack once and make the effect activate. For a shatter like Cry of Frustration, which I think is the biggest problem here, it ends up dealing about as much damage as Mind Wrack (or a little less) for twice the recharge.

You can make a confusion build, but CoF will still lack against MW in a burst build.

I would have CoF apply two stacks of confusion with the first clone (much like how the first clone in MW makes a bigger difference), and increase that duration to 1 second. For both pve and pvp. Considering it’s a a 30s shatter, it wouldn’t seem broken to me.

Didin’t the Fire Aura worked something like the Arcane Shield in the beta? I think it was clear it was supposed to be some kind of defensive skill, but at the moment, it’s nothing but a tool for aura traits, and not even the best one. Its functionality reminds me of the retaliation boon, and its nice for eles to not rely on a boon every once and then, but the effects are so lacking compared to retaliation, it’s really bad. I like the idea of a defensive skill that punishes foes with offensive power – it’s fitting for the fire line of a defensive off-hand, but even if I doubled the burn duration and halved the cooldown, it wouldn’t be a worthy 5th skill, IMO.

innocent ouarior.1954:

- Magnetic Wave is very good. Refect, cure condition and actually does a good chunk of damage. I wouldnt trade Earthquake for it tho, AoE KD + Blast finisher is that good.

Magnetic Wave IS a blast finisher too. So it’s basically an Arcane Wave + Cleasing Flame + Magnetic Aura skill all rolled into one. Magnetic Wave might possibly be our strongest skill at the moment. It’s so good that I would put it above Obsidian Flesh. I don’t even know what the devs were thinking about it, when they make most of the ele’s skills simplistic, and create this one that can do four things at the same time (reflect projectiles, blast finisher, damage, condition removal).

I would probably nerf it by taking away something from it (condition removal?) and put it somewhere else in the focus. And then I would make firewall work like mesmer’s wall field, where the opponent would only need to touch it once to get the full (burning) effect. I would make fire shield remove conditions myself – maybe 1 every second, or icnrease its duration to 5/ 7 and have it remove 3 conditions after that time (so it wouldn’t work with the signet trait – which would still only last for 3s). And in addition to that, I would make the burning last 2s instead of 1s.

Still, having the entire focus fire line about stacking burning does not seems that appealing. Maybe increase firewall’s non-burning damage, duration and size, put it into the 5th slot, and make it the “ultimate” focus fire spell. Or maybe give it a low recharge, low enough to allow us to be able to put two into the same field for the fun of it. Or have it create a massive cross in the field, heavily restricting the area where the opponent could freely walk without going away.

The focus needs an updated fire line, maybe at the cost of a slightly nerf to earth. Everytime I use /F, I feel like I’m wasting my time with fire.

I’m not sure if this is on-topic or off-topic, but I believe it is time for the community to create a PvX build wiki for GW2. It’s usually pretty decent at giving us an idea of how many viable builds exist for each profession, and help a lot of playings judging the current state of meta builds.

Levetty.1279:

Any other classes might stacking build doesn’t require a different trait or playstyle. You choose the one that gives it to you and then you go use it.

I don’t know how many might-stacking builds exist in this game, but for the elementalist, you need specific weapon sets, 2-3 specific traits and 3 utility of a specific type to stack might to high numbers.

One of those traits is in the major grandmaster tier, and it’s about 2/3s as effective at might-stacking than Shattered Strength. SS gives you as much as 9 stacks per shatter, so overtime you easily get up to 18+ with two or three shatters. The ele’s grandmaster trait gives you 1 stack per skill while in fire attunement, which translates to about 4-6 stacks when and only when you’re in one of the four attunements, 8-12 when you come back to that attunement.

So in addition to giving less, you must restrict your playstyle if you want to benefit from it. And it’s a decent 30 points trait.

I’m going to try a D/D build now. Here’s my sketch for it:

+20/ +20/ +20% might duration from three different runes.
Sigil of Battle and Sigil of Bloodlust.
Berzerker Amulet.
30/20/0/10/10
Spellslinger, PP, Zephyr’s Boon, Bolt to the Heart, Soothing Disruption, Renewing Stamina.

What do people recommend for fire’s major trait? I always have trouble with that one. EDIT: Maybe I should take out the points in water for something else?

Still, 2 stacks per illusion would probably be more balanced, considering that this trait works for EACH illusion and with FOUR skills. You can create between 1 and 3 illusions, use a shatter, create between 1 to 3 more, use another shatter. This will give you between 6 and 18 stacks with only two shatters. If it had been 4 to 12, it would have been more balanced, because it would have still be a high number, but also a fair number due to the practicality of shattering, and even then I wonder if it wouldn’t be a little bit too cheap.

Someone mentioned Elementalist’s recently buffed trait. That one gives 1 stack of might whenever you use a skill from the fire attunement. Although auto-attacking with it might give you the idea that it’s broken, ele’s auto-attacks are usually weaker than normal by nature, and sticking to 1/4th of your attunements for a long time is a complete suicide. In practise, you’ll usually get 5 stacks of might before switching to other attunement, probably a bit more so if the situation allows for it. And it’s been revealing to be a pretty decent trait at the moment, because if you want to get 10+ stacks with it, you must give away your survival and your short term burst.

This mesmer’s trait gives 3 stacks of might per illusion shattered, so it rewards mesmers for doing what they already must do: use their main mechanic. It does not makes them give away anything. You don’t have to be stuck to specific skills. You don’t have to invest valuable time for a stronger burst later on. You don’t give away anything extra for an easy 6-12-18 stacks of might by simply using two shatters.

It might have the slowest auto-attack, but S/D has by far the best combo to get stacks of might through your Ring of Fire + 4 blast finishers. If you’re going to use this trait and make the best possible build with it, chances are, you’ll want to use runes that improve might duration or make you stronger while you have might. This will allow you to easily acchieve the 25 stacks cap, and S/D is also a good burst weapon to make use of that.

But if you want to go in a different direction, the DD or Staff will probably be better.

Can you post your build in more detail? It would be interesting for me to check it too.

My build with berzerk amulet would be – I think – crazy powerful in offense, but the defense is needed if you want to do anything more than burst and die right after. I’m still thinking about using Cleric over Soldier, to take advantage of all the regeneration and still have decent passive defense.

There’s a large difference between an entire build dedicated to might-stacking, and a single trait that can maintain 9-18 stacks of might by itself and simply by using the class’s mechanic.

You people are talking about other classes who can stack might to max. Let’s use the elementalist as an example, because I am one. In order to get 25 stacks of might as an elementalist, you’ll need: one adept trait that grants 3 stacks for an utility type, fill your utility slots with that utility type, one grandmaster trait that gives 1 stack each time you use any skill from one and only one attunement (in practise, that means between 3 and 5 stacks during that period of time), specific weapon combinations and, giving the example of scepter/ dagger, a fire field, followed by two spells that are easy to dodge – one of them specially slow and requiring the opponent to be inside that field to activate the combo blast, and two more spells from a different attunement, which are only effective if the opponent is still within that field. Is it still a good might-stacking build? Yes, it is. But half of the build is dedicated to just that.

It’s lovely that Mesmers are getting might-stacking builds, and that they can spread large stacks of might to their allies. It’s overpowered, however, how little you have to give away to acchieve 9-18 stacks compared to other professions: a single trait, and shattering – which is your class mechanic.

This single trait is so powerful that it could turn a weak burst class into a viable burst class. So, yes, it is overpowered for the mesmer. Mesmers are already strong at bursting with shatters. You’re going to see, and it’s starting to happen, shatter-burst mesmers with 20+ stacks of might, while spreading them to their entire team. It’s too much.

You can cry all you want, the mesmer has been one of the strongest professions in pvp since the release of the game, and giving them overpowered traits on top of that is not “putting them on par to other classes”. There’s a reason for why Mesmers, alongside bunker eles, guardians and thieves have been the most nerfed classes since the game is out, and it’s certainly not because they were underpowered like the old rangers/ necros.

Mesmers have gotten a trait that gives them 20+ stacks of might easily, and Elementalists have gotten a new bug that allows them to give 30 seconds or more of protection/ swiftness/ fury to themselves and the party. Yeah.

FuVirus.6398:

What are you guys talking about???? mesmer’s get counterd sooo hard by assult guardians/trap rangers/necromancer pretty much every condition. kitten when will you people learn how to play your damn classes……. In P-TPvP mesmers are balanced now! finally! and btw our illusions are naked and just stand there in turnies.

Are you trying to imply that mesmers have been the poor, underused profession until now, and that an overpowered trait is what is needed for them to see play?

You can get 9 stacks of might even by using something like Distortion, create a few more more clones, burst with Mind Wrack and end with 18 stacks, and finally spread those 18 stacks of might to your party. It’s an interesting build, certainly, but it’s still too much for a single trait.

Khalic.3561:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Because it’s strong.

The warrior trait is a 10 pointer, and it’s an AoE knockback with no internal CD. Ours is more versatile maybe, but no stronger.

More versatile does makes it stronger. The warrior’s trait is pretty much an alternative version to the fall earthquake, but we still have the option to create fire or lightning fields, or even heal, which makes our trait more useful at more occasions.

Mesmers have always been good at bursting in spvp, giving them suddenly 9 stacks of might for 10s is crazy. Especially considering how fast some of them can spam clones, and considering that there exist 4 shatter skills. You can pretty much gain 10-20 stacks with a good boon build thanks to a single trait.

Eles are hard to play and have mediocre burst builds. So most people hit the elementalists first under the assumption that they’re stricking the equivalent of thieves without stealth, which is usually true.

That being said, bunker eles are very strong, and targetting and trying to kill defensive fortresses while their frail backstab partners are free to do what they want is a terrible idea.

So if you’re a bunker ele, be happy that people go for you first: it means they are wasting their time trying to kill you while they’re being bursted by your party members.

If you are a burst ele, well, good luck. Your best bet is to appear at the middle of a zerg, and spam some aoes while the opponents can’t notice you in the middle of the confusion. You don’t have stealth and illusions, so you can’t do much.

I believe it’s a bug. A trait that gives 9 stacks of might is ridiculous when compared to everything else. The devs probably only wanted to tive it 3 stacks, as it’s the normal amount to be expect from those kind of traits, but at the moment it gives 3 stacks per illusion.

Bolt to the Heart: Increased health percent from 25 to 33.
Pyromancer’s Puissance: Increased might duration to 10 seconds.

So, I’ve made this Scepter/ Dagger might build, with three different +20% might duration stacking runes, and the sigil of battle and bloodlust. With the healing glyph, the elemental attunement trait, the traits mentioned above, the spellslinger fire trait for 3 stacks of might per cantrip, the regen/ vigor water cantrip traits and the earth’s armor of earth trait. Fire’s major trait is the one that increases damage by 10%. That makes it a 30/10/10/10/10 setup. Soldier’s amulet.

Two things I’ve noticed immediatly:
- Omg 25 stacks of might all the time during battle, without even taking advantage of the full fire field combo! (I might have too much might, so I wonder what can be removed for more defense).
- This build bursts very hard. Very hard. And it’s AoE. I get some 12-13 stacks of might before I even blow out my first Fire Grab (6 from combos, 3 from attunement swap, 3-4 from the new fire’s trait), and at least 9 more by the time Churning Earth hits (6 from combos again, 3 from Lightning Flash). This number only gets bigger as I use more cantrips or swap attunements again, and by the time I use my second Ring of Fire, I still have 18+ stacks left. It’s very easy to hit between 2k and 4k without critical, especially 4k+ with Bolt to the Heart.
- I usually down 2 or 3 enemies at the same at the middle of a zerg, and in few seconds. I feel like I’m 2-3 thieves in one body, each hitting a different target.

Now for the downsides, which are the same as they have always been:
- I have no stealth and/ or illusions. Anything can kill me. I have cantrips, regen, vigor, and an amulet that gives nice vitality and toughness, which allows me to do my burst before I get downed, so it’s all about dowing them first before they down me.
- Dragon’s Tooth. It works in zergs, but it doesn’t works against strong foes in duels.

My solution for 1v1:
- Fiery Great Sword. Although the Glyph might be excellent for some extra burst damage, and might be worth it more (haven’t tried it in this build yet), the FGS is good. First, it’s decent damage by itself, with some nice boosts. Second, it’s affected by your fire traits if you’re in fire, so I deal an extra +10% damage and gain might every time I use a skill (that means up to 15 stacks if you can use it the whole time). Your whirl is your evade, your firestorm and your 2nd skill will bring you sustained damage, while your rush and auto-attack will be spammed. The opponents’ HP go down fast, and by 33% and less, you’re dealing 30% more damage.
- It’s usually better to spend most of your time alongside with people of your team, because their CC, stuns, etc, will all indirectly protect you, make sure you hit your targets, and you’ll have somebody to spread might to (and more combo sources too), so if you make sure you’re not alone often, the FGS’s recharge is not too bad, and you can still put a fight without it.

It’s certainly satisfying, but it’s still a rough attempt at building around this. I wonder how much damage this build would do with high precision (berzerker amulet, 0 arcane for 20 air), surely you would hit for 5k+? And I wonder if I can not take one or two sources of might for more defense, like the healing glyph for ether renewal, maybe, and/ or 0 arcana for more points in earth or water? Or even cleric’s amulet for stronger regeneration, and only slightly less power.

I understand why the more competitive tpvp players don’t care about it, but balancing is not only about tpvp, even if that’s where it matters the most, and the underwater fixes were not only needed but will go a long way into making underwater content deeper and funnier for the majority of people that need to do it every once and then because of fractals dungeon/ pve exploration/ story progressing.

I’d say there’s a lot of goodies in this patch for tpvp, especially the downed state HP changes and the removal of build switching mid-battles, and of course, new traits to play with and see where they might go.

I agree. Less clunky menu navigation/ mouse clicking, deeper pre-match build-making.

They’ve said they are adding all of those features, jsut that they won’t suddenly come out of nowhere of course. We’ve got a date for some of them: january or february. We all knew this was mostly going to be a balancing patch. And it was a GOOD balancing patch (downed state HP, new traits to play with, more incentives to better build-making, etc).

I’m sure Anet realizes this, or else they would have added the underwater map to tpvp long time ago.

Also, skill buffs to underwater combat does not means “OMG tpvp will get water maps!!!11” It very simply means that the game, as a whole (exploration, dungeons, wvw maybe, spvp hotjoin) needed those changes, and they’ll probably keep improving it in the future, I hope.

They have played the game for years, while testing and programming it. I’m sure their time is better spent designing and coding the new pvp stuff we’ll get january or february, in order to, you know, make the game less boring long-term.

Not only is going into a menu and swapping weapons clunky and annoying (they’ve programmed a weapon swap system for a reason, after all), it surely does not leads to more interesting play/ watching. People don’t want to be watching menus between fights after all, right?

This is an excellent step into better build making. The most extreme builds will now have the drawbacks they deserve. Before, the extreme builds were running wild because you could adapt them to something else (ex. bunkers to roamers to bunkers again). Now you’ll need to play with your weaknesses, and think deeply about the strong points and drawbacks of your build choices.

The new change will incentivate more skillful play and less boring and simple “go to a menu and gain advantages that your build shouldn’t have” play. The most extreme builds will be unadaptable and lead to a snowball effect, which will make people go for more and interesting balanced builds.

Because it’s strong.

Clark Skinner.4902:

Hate to rain on the parade, but have you seen the updates to other classes? Increased damage and combos all around.

By comparison, our few improvements have left us pretty weak.

And that part about thieves being frail but in return they get the highest burst damage. Hello! Elementalists have the same HP but with Light Armor! We’re more frail, and have worse DPS. If AoE is our strength, we’re useless in PvP duels, and considering they’re going to reduce AoE further in PvP, it doesn’t look good.

We’re supposed to be great at control, party support and aoe. Which is true. Tell me of a thief that can do these three things better than us in a single build (aka, not even close).

So, what cool stuff can be done underwater now? We have a leap finisher and a blast finisher in water. Fire with field and better auto-attack, earth with smoke field and a better auto-attack can counts as projectile finisher.

Fire -> Water = Area Might, Fire Aura (yay auramancers).
Fire -> Earth = Burning sometimes.
Earth -> Water = Area Stealth, Self Stealth (woot, elementalists can cover themselves in water! Makes perfect sense too).
Earth Self-Combo = Blindness sometimes.

So, what cool stuff can be done underwater now? We have a leap finisher and a blast finisher in water. Fire with field and better auto-attack, earth with smoke field and a better auto-attack can counts as projectile finisher.

Fire → Water = Area Might, Fire Aura (yay auramancers).
Fire → Earth = Burning sometimes.
Earth → Water = Area Stealth, Self Stealth (woot, elementalists can cover themselves in water! Makes perfect sense too).
Earth Self-Combo = Blindness sometimes.

Soothing Wave: Still unsure about this trait, seems to be unfocused, even more so now. A buff nonetheless.
Arcane Abatement: A Fire Field, a aoe heal that removes conditions, A Lightning Field that negates movement and an area KD. Now, isn’t that an awesome fall damage trait? Glad to see we’re getting attunement-dancing traits outside of arcana too.
Arcane Resurrection: I use this one in my Auramancer, the revive speed is a nice bonus, but I wonder how relevant it might be.
Stone Splinters: Good for Scepter/ Dagger now.
Bolt to the Heart: More reliable bursting.
Pyromancer’s Puissance: Use some auto-attacks to get ~5 stacks this way, and blow your burst. Is it good enough? Nonetheless, wwice as strong is twice as strong.

Signet of Air: Great alternative to swiftness builds, but might not find a room yet. Convenient for pve/ wvw.

Having more options does not means requiring more skill, sometimes it’s the opposite. For example, in this case, it adds complexity to build making, because you must now make more choices, instead of having a very clunky third weapon swap to all your needs.

Rookni.2469:

The devs did see past the hundur bladez and the ermagard backstaaarb 100k damaaarge hype. They will understand this is nothing else than what the dev himself stated as “noobs that basicly, I hate to say it, have to learn to play”.

Well.. Here´s for hoping atleast.

The chances of backstab or backstab builds getting a further nerf in the future is decent. The devs have pretty much stated that they might tone down the initial burst damage and compensate it for higher sustained damage.

There’s a large difference between Backstab and Hundred Blades. Almost everything you can do can counter an Hundred Blades. It’s in no way comparable to a stealthed burst.

EDIT: And everyone knows EA is a little too strong. :P But I would personally make it a master trait, instead of nerfing it.

Better have realistic expectations. Devs haven’t mentioned Scepter/ Focus changes, so I’m not sure if they’ll get meaningful changes today.

What will possibly happen:
- Downed State/ Vapor Form toned down (was a topic of discussion in the state of pvp video).
- Boon stacking toned down (number one complain about bunker eles).
- A few changes to fire/ air traits (we know traits ar ebeing changed this patch, and we know eles are lacking at fire/ air traits, so…).
- Some bug fixes.

What is confirmed to happen:
- Signet of Air will get its movement speed buffed.
- Icy Mist’s effect will be fused with the mist form/ signet of water/ frost bow trait. In its place, we will (finally) get a fall damage trait.

Of course, there’s usually always a surprise or two, like the conjurer’s buffs last time. And knowing that this is supposed to be mostly a balancing patch, I’m hoping for more unexpected changes.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Mostly more reliable swiftness.

This made my day.

Passives stack with swiftness – 25%+33%=58%, mesmers are left behind! Let’s make swiftness more reliable, let’s buff focus (note, that nobody uses in combat)!

The passive effect does not stack with swiftness. So it’ll be 25%+33%=33%

Swiftness is superior to passive +25%, except it can be stripped. And, well, it has a duration, but then again, the passive effects do not work once the signets are activated, so they either take the entire place of an utility, or they’re unavailable for as much as 25-30s straight.

More reliable swiftness is a good buff.

Carighan.6758:

Am I the only one who doesn’t see the point giving everyone more and more passive runspeed?

Why not just… you know… increase base runspeed?

Why should burst builds exist? Let’s all add more base damage to all builds! And Bunkers? Nah, let’s all add more base defense to all builds.

Roamer builds are one of the current valid archetype builds for pvp. It makes sense that, just like all other builds, the strategic advantage of more speed is compensated with a loss somewhere else.

Swiftness has a duration, can be stripped, and can be traited for higher boon duration. Other classes’ signets will lose their effect for a long duration if the signets are used, do not add as much as swiftness when it comes to catching/ kiting, and take an utility slow.

In theory, seems fine. In practise, let’s test it first and see the strong points and the drawbacks of the changes.

Alex.9268:

More reliable swiftness would be great, if it were not for rangers, elementalists and necros getting free 25% passive movement. Even if we get better swiftness uptime we will still be falling behind, because everybody else moves even faster now.

Please consider giving us a passive movement increase tied to a mantra or signet. 20% or even 10% would be more than welcome and very needed.

Swiftness increases 33%, and both effects do not stack, so having swiftness on you would make a passive +25% increase useless. For example, current meta elementalists won’t need the changes to the signet because they have good means to apply swiftness, although other builds will sure enjoy it. So a Mesmer with good means to get swiftness wouldn’t “fall behind”.

That’s really nice, I always felt the 10% movement increase to be very lacking. :P

Same for Signet of Air? :P