Guild Wars 2

BrunoBRS.5178:

that’s the problem, they’re kitten. we’re complaining precisely that we can’t play viable venoms or traps, or condi outside P/D, or anything tied to P/P, and this patch we’re still not getting anything that will solve those problems, but at the same time our strong points keep getting nerfed.

we’re forced into zerker only because we don’t have anything else. it’s not as simple as “we don’t want to spec into it”.

I understand that. With my elementalist I really, really wanted to use the conjures effectively but that’s not an option. Ranger traps are good but still not good enough to be competitive in high end play.

I was just wondering why so many in this thread want to remove the traps entirely and replace them with more single target assassination skills. It seems counter productive to the goal of branching out into new styles of play.

Lavafrost of Maguuma.6807:

I just had a Guardian repeatedly exploit the glass near one of the points for the entire match, just knocking people into them and breaking them. Heck, I even died WITHOUT falling on top of unshattered glass! Worst part is, they had the audacity to say GG.

Remove the glass, laser cannon and jump pads, and put barriers around the edges. Then Skyhammer will be a map that doesn’t invoke extreme rage.

I like the jumpads. It adds an extra dimension to the game. It’s also part of what makes Skyhammer one of the rare maps where not playing full melee gives a considerable enough advantage to compensate for the naturally lower damage.

Ostricheggs.3742:

To play the devils advocate, protect me lasts 33% longer than endure pain (untraited, that is)

I would warn against overbuffing rangers to warrior levels when they’re already nerfing warriors in the first place….

True, but then unless you’re only getting hit by a a single opponent that pet isn’t likely to survive the full Protect Me duration anyway. It’s basically useless if the pet you have out is a bird or something else that’s squishy and you absolutely NEED that damage reduction immediately.

It’s much more situational and a much weaker effect. Of course ranger shouts in general need a bit more love. I ran them for a while with a BM build, but having the only stunbreaker on my bar kill my main form of damage was so counterproductive I had to switch to something else.

I’m kind of curious. I see thieves complain about only being viable using beserker gear because the class is built around super fast assassination gameplay. If you want more build diversity why not work your less used utilities, like traps, into a state where you think they’d make other playstyles viable?

Other professions can change their gear and get a fairly large variety of different playstyles ranging from tanky bunker builds to quick killing zerkers. I don’t see why traps couldn’t be made to work in a way that’d make a tankier condi thief viable as well. You’re thieves after all, not assassins. Setting up traps for an ambush and mugging people definitely makes sense thematically.

I’ve always felt that traps should be a ranger’s best defensive options. Thematically speaking traps are something I’ve felt should best work with a bunker sort of playstyle. Setting traps down on a point and severely punishing anyone who triggers them to the point that they are an easy kill. Unfortunately without stunbreakers traps just don’t offer the survival you need to last in a 2v1 encounter, which is what you need to be able to do as a bunker.

So traps are in a weird place. They need to be set up before an enemy arrives to be used to their best ability, but in practice your role will usually involve running around the map, which means you won’t be placing them before you engage but rather during.

Some of the trap traits should just be a natural part of traps. The range and damage of the traps in particular. I’m not a fan of traits that just improve skills to a usable level. Any ranger should be able to take a trap and make use of it. I also like the way Trapper’s Defense works where a trap is placed when reviving an ally. Expand on that a bit so you can drop smaller traps on dodge roll that apply cripple and bleeding. It’d let trap rangers keep up the pressure between trap bursts and make sure that the enemy doesn’t want to stand anywhere near the ranger in question, making it better at point defense.

I really like the idea of Flame Trap also causing blindness per tick. Reminds me a bit of Glyph of Elemental Storm for elementalist. If you used it while in Earth attunement anyone who walked in would basically be perma blinded for it’s duration, so fighting inside it was a big defensive advantage. Flame Trap working similarly would be a big survival boost to the whole build.

DanSH.6143:

Honestly i don’t think crossbow is as easy to use as you think. Aiming requires a lot of practice, even rifles aren’t easy to use irl. And I can tell since it was part of ny military training.

It takes years to become accurate with a bow and arrow. It’s a very long, difficult process. That is the entire reason why muskets replaced the longbow in warfare. Muskets load slower and aren’t as accurate as a bow in a master’s hands, but only take a few months to become proficient in it’s use. When one needs soldiers they need them quickly, and the few months to become an expert marksman with a musket or rifle is nothing compared to the few years it takes to reach the same level of precision with a bow.

manveruppd.7601:

What I don’t understand is why they made ascended mats (as well as weapons and armour) account bound! I don’t have the slightest interest in crafting, I don’t have much time to play and I spend it in pvp and wvw, and that means I can NEVER get ascended weapons and armour unless I get EXTREMELY lucky with a drop. Meanwhile every pve player is scrabbling for more ascended mats to craft their armour with and mine are piling up so I can’t even make a bit of money from them!

This is becoming an issue for me as well. I don’t craft, and the ascended mats are using up more and more bank space. I live on a budget and can’t readily purchase gems to upgrade my bank slots and don’t want to spend hours every day farming gold to buy them, not to mention wanting to spend the gems I do get on things that will actually make the game more enjoyable. Since I can’t sell them I’m going to have to start deleting them soon because there’s just no way to store them and they aren’t going anywhere.

Considering that Protect Me isn’t a true invulnerability skill I don’t understand why it prevents capture. The damage doesn’t go away, it’s just redirected to the pet. Given that said pet makes up 30% of a ranger’s damage output and is an integral part of the ranger downed state you generally want to avoid letting your pet die regardless of what kind of build you’re running.

The skill is already a bit of a double edged sword in that regard. Endure Pain flat out prevents incoming damage for it’s duration by sacrificing only a utility cooldown while Protect Me sacrifices your pet, which will increase the pet swap cooldown and limit your ability to gain access to certain pet skills you might need and risk losing a large chunk of your DPS, as well as a utility skill cooldown.

It just doesn’t make sense. Especially when rangers are all around squishier than warriors.

DaveGan.8065:

It’s because Skyhammer (and leaderboards to a lesser extent) is viewed so negatively that people are willing to accept losses in a rated match when they see it. Your teammates knew fully well what they were doing, and accepted the consequences of doing so.

The alternative is for them to put in 1% effort while pretending to be new, or spam suicide pretending they have lag or are bad at dodging.

The alternative was to suck it up and play anyway. The consequences for their actions didn’t just hurt their own ranking, it hurt the ranking of the few teammates they had that actually cared about the match, as well as ruined the enjoyment of said players within the game. It was childish and selfish.

This is awful behavior and should be discouraged.

One of the things I enjoy most about the Guild Wars world is the strange wildlife. Kind of sad we can’t get access to more of it.

Behemoths, basilisks, raptors, griffins, minotaurs, skales, skelks, and trolls would be pretty awesome to have at my side.

Maybe add a Grandmaster trait in the Beastmastery line that lets you tame “legendary” pets while also improving pets in general in some way. I wouldn’t want the legendary pets to be inherently stronger than normal pets for those of us who want to use normal animals, but it’d be a pretty cool to be able to show off your mastery with a unique pet type.

The original poster isn’t asking for elementalists to not get this buff, guys. He’s using it as a reason why rangers should get more control over their pet. Elementalists are already the most complex profession to play, and yet they are getting an extra button to push. The excuse that an extra button would somehow baffle and confound new ranger players is just insulting at this point.

I see absolutely no reason that rangers shouldn’t have more control over their profession’s core mechanic. Even just the ability to control when the pet uses their secondary special ability would be a huge buff to pet usability and dramatically increase the ranger’s viability in literally every ranger build there is.

Being able to control when drakes use their blast finisher or when moas use their heal would be a HUGE boost to ranger support builds so they can contribute to group fights without relying entirely on spirits, which many on this forum condemn as “passive play” and a cheese build.

The ability to command canines and porcines to do their knockdown would greatly improve the ranger’s ability to control, which would make their long ranged builds more usable as well as improve the effectiveness of their offensive melee builds. Birds also wouldn’t auto-cast Swiftness before attacking, which would improve their usefulness as a burst pet.

Then you have devourers and bears who suddenly have their defensive skills in the player’s control so they can be used at the right time instead of at random, thus making them useful in general. Controlling when the spider lays down the poison field could also be useful for group content so the spider doesn’t drop poison fields over fire fields mid-battle ruining everyone’s day.

Just a little more control of the pet would improve the effectiveness of the ranger profession, turning the pet from a 30% damage drain to a valuable utility skill that any build could make use of. It’d promote build diversity, which is a goal we can all agree on.

shinigamith.7120:

To end with this (sorry i can’t answer big slab like these everyday)

-I consider being followed by someone is a bug that need a fix
-I have no problem with the new spells that are added to counter stealth

So if you want to counter stealth (which is funny since thieves that fight thieves do not have problem to achieve this => l2p issue) simply use these new skills or the old #1+AoE spam wich actually works pretty well

That is the silliest argument I’ve seen someone make for stealth counter-play being a L2P issue. Of course thieves don’t have a problem countering stealth without the tools the other professions need for it. Other thieves ALSO have stealth. That’s like a swordsman complaining about the gunmen having guns and the gunmen agree that since they, with their guns, can counter other gun users that the swordsman is just a bad fighter.

AdziH.2360:

Apparition.1576:

Brace yourself this may originally sound a little weird.

But I dont think crossbows fit the ranger class at all. Crossbows were originally designed to replace archers as essentially anybody can shoot a crossbow but only skilled persons are able to wield a bow.

Crossbows are heavy and slow (reload speed). Rangers are light armored and swift. I am not intending on shooting down your idea but I just don’t think that it fits the class lore. =(

yep, i second this. Crossbow would suit warrior or engineer more than Ranger.

Third. The only advantage crossbows have over normal bows in our world is that they are much, much easier to aim and use and so required next to no training. As has been said crossbows are loaded far slower than normal bows and don’t have the same range as a longbow. Historically speaking, crossbows are for new recruits who didn’t have the time to learn the craft of archery. Rangers are suppose to be highly skilled and trained survivalists.

I am not opposed to a new weapon though. As has been suggested a staff to let us play a more druidic role and explore the mystical side of the profession would be spectacular. Especially if it focuses more on the beast skills we see in attacks like Maul and Swoop and has some strong support options. I want to see some sort of turtle defense that gives us a blocking shield! Maybe it grants us and nearby allies Protection or Retaliation when destroyed. Or a move that grants nearby allies regeneration and cures conditions, and can double as a blast finisher as we leap up and crash down with a watery splash with all the power of a mighty salmon or whale. Or a swiftness granting move ala moa! Lots and lots of options.

If Anet is willing to let us use underwater weapons on land eventually with new land skills (Short of the harpoon gun which makes no sense on land). Spear I think could make a good melee/ranged hybrid weapon option. Make it a power burst weapon, which is something we’re largely lacking. Let us use it in melee with 1-3 skills and throw it like a javelin or hunting spear with 4 and 5, maybe with a bit of stealth on it too so the ranger has a chance to disengage, making melee zerker more viable. I imagine moving in, hitting the enemy with a 900 range burst with 5 that impairs movement in some way, tapping 5 again for a second phase of the attack where you lunge at the pinned opponent to retrieve the spear and engaging in melee combat. Blowing a few more shorter cooldowns to tear the enemy’s health down. Maybe switching to greatsword for a little defense when needed or using the spear’s stealth to disappear, get some distance, and popping out with a longbow for a point blank shot and some ranged damage to finish the enemy off.

I know we don’t currently have access to a trident, but since we’re brainstorming… giving us a trident and letting us use it as a melee crowd control weapon would be awesome. Tridents could have a high cripple up time combined with trips to keep the enemy in place. Maybe have 4 let us throw a net over the enemy for a short immobilize to represent how tridents tended to be used historically for combat by fishermen and gladiators. 5 could have us throw the trident, hook in to the enemy, and pull them to us. It’d be amazing for a trapper ranger.

Ithilwen.1529:

All of you missed the point. The major defense of the Mesmer is to confuse the enemy. Ranger pets destroy that because they are never confused. All the Ranger needs to do is launch the pet in the right general direction.. and everyone in the area knows who is the real Mesmer. Kiss your defense goodbye.

I suppose all the invisibility, teleportation, evades, blocks, interrupts, stuns, and the condition that punishes the other player for playing the game don’t count as defense?

The clones are more of a mild inconvenience for most players. I’m not all that great and even I can usually find the real mesmer after a couple seconds of looking around for which mesmer is moving out of sync with the others. The pet just saves me an extra second.

If it’s really that big of a problem for you, you could always kill the pet and leave the ranger blind. A common counter to mesmers is to waste time killing the clones with AoE first to prevent a shatter. I don’t see why you can’t employ the same anti-AI tactic against these ranger pets that are apparently the sole reason you can’t keep yourself alive.

Domino.1359:

Ehecatl.9172:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Rangers have nothing to do with archery other than being able to do it.

The term “Ranger” does not imply a ranged specialist, neither in GW2 nor in tradition. It refers to a character who is an experienced survivalist and who is attuned to nature.

And they can perform that role just as well with a sword as they can with a bow.

Adding on to this, thematically speaking carrying two bows and switching between them mid-combat seems extremely impractical. The fact that the two bows don’t compliment each other very well makes complete sense. Even as a hunter you’d likely not keep a longbow and a shortbow strapped to your back and use them interchangeably. You’d also make yourself very vulnerable to surprise attacks by not carrying a melee side-arm, which would be the main weakness of this build as well.

Wow, lol at all the hate to a different style of a Ranger. I’m sure most here are relatively competent if not pro’s at Ranger pvp, I’m sure as heck not pro. We all understand a Ranger is not “supposed” to stick to bows – we’ve heard this for many months. This doesn’t mean one can stop there and drop the bows. I love bows. Period. OP seems to as well. Let’s help him with that, shall we?

Saying that, Bow/Bow has many advantages, including pushbacks, stuns, evades, stealth, and a high powered attack. Switching between the two allows you to add more survivability to a high powered zerker ranger, coupled with 2 dodges and lightening reflex – not counting if you trait to survivability-condi removal/dodge roll removes blind. There’s a lot of hate towards LB in spvp and it’s completely justified but can be competent with the right strategy and in good hands.

On the other hand, switching to GS allows block, a stun and an escape, comparable to SB evades minus the escape. Very well to that. Sword/D has 2-3 evades. Very well. I can see the argument of a melee side arm for a surprise attack, but I fail to see how bow/bow cannot deal with the same surprise attack equally. You cannot block your way prematurely from a surprise attack.

Two bows can compliment each other, meta? No way. In competent hands? Sure.

If you’d read my post again I was speaking from a thematic perspective. Historically speaking, people didn’t carry around two sets of bows and forgo having a melee side-arm.

Two comments pointing out the flavor and themes of the ranger profession doesn’t quite constitute “all the hate” either. Especially when neither of us were saying anything negative about the build presented specifically.

Prysin.8542:

xev.9476:

Ithilwen.1529:

Ranger pets ignore Mesmer invisibility and clones. So, they always point out the Mesmer. They also have really excessive damage and will follow you across a pvp map… Wow I wish my clones tracked half that well.
INSTANT NERF TIME.

Rofl, thanks for the chuckle! You’re like the mesmer version of Daecollo!

If glassy mesmer vs bm pet/bird with might, it will not be unreasonable to expect hits over 5k on f2 use, and 2-3k aa’s

As someone who’s been playing Beastmaster in SPVP for a while now, I can attest to this. I’ve even seen my bird burst a poor glassy fellow for up to 8K before, after popping Sick ’Em, Rampage as One, and using the F2.

Though to be fair, Original Poster, I made this build because I was tired of my target constantly disappearing on me mid-battle and making me try to target the real opponent through all their clones/extra thieves/other players/other players pets.

As someone said above, it’s called counter-play.

I still enjoy Skyhammer. Probably my favorite map. I love the complexity of the jump pads and the multi-tiered design, and the fourth control point you need to focus on.

There are only a few key things that I feel need to be changed for it to be viable in a competative scenario. Mainly changes to remove the stealth pull and fear instant deaths, as that is the main problem people have with Skyhammer. The one sided nature of fights with builds that have access to these strategies.

1. Walking over glass panels won’t cause them to break if you are in stealth. Conceptually this makes sense as you’d be stepping lighter as you sneak around, and mechanically this would stop players from standing on the glass while invisible to break them to set up a stealth pull without the intended victim noticing it in team fights. Lets be honest here, almost no one can hear the glass break if you’re fighting with all those animations and sound effects ringing.

2. Make the glass panels take a few more seconds before they break. This will stop fear from ensuring an instant victory on points A and C, and will be a bit more lenient with dodge mistakes. It won’t remove the possibility of a fall death of course, but it’ll make it harder to set up. Either the glass has to have been broken previously or the player who intends to use that tactic will have to break the glass panels mid-battle by standing on them, which would be an obvious telegraph of their intent and be quite risky. The only other way to ensure a fall kill would be to first crowd control an enemy player onto the glass panel and then hit said player with a couple stuns or an immobilize, which itself is a pretty big use of resources and offers multiple chances to ruin the whole plot with a stunbreaker.

3. Make it so fall damage doesn’t count as a kill on the scoreboard. Tactics like this are valid forms of dispatching an opponent, but it’s not a clean kill and should be more of a way of avoiding a long, drawn out battle rather than a quick victory and free points. A backstab thief, upon approaching an elementalist, should weigh in which method would be preferable. If the thief feels they can quickly take down the ele with their normal tactics that should absolutely be preferable from pulling a “Cheap” win to save time and remove risk of a counter attack.

With these changes the instant kill fall damage wins will be much harder to pull off and less rewarding overall, making them less prominent on the map overall and most importantly, more easily countered.

The rest of the complaints are geared toward the Skyhammer. Personally, I like the Skyhammer as is. My main issue with Skyhammer is how easy it is to defend with only a single player in the room, but the bulk of this issue is brought down by the above fixes as a lone terrormancer won’t be able to effectively exploit the glass panels for easy wins anymore. Not to mention that unless you bring an extra bunker to the map you’re either leaving a point undefended that you’d usually want to protect or you control the Skyhammer, not both. Personally, I’ve been in games where the team controlling the Skyhammer lost because they invested too much in it’s defense. It’s a game of choices, and forces players to rethink their strategy.

Shanks.2907:

And some classes hit WAY to hard while down.

While I am in favor of keeping the downed state as is, I have to agree with this. There have been occasions where I can be standing there at half, or sometimes even full, health and move in for a stomp just to get shredded by a downed enemy’s attacks. Playing a zerker staff ele is tough enough in PVP, I can’t afford to save one of my utilities to ensure I don’t get taken down by an opponent who’s on his back bleeding out.

Then as another above mentioned, some professions just can’t beat others when downed. When I play my ranger if a necromancer fears my pet I’m pretty much dead. There’s no way to come back from that. Which means that even if I get him downed first and he downs me through his downed attack, he has won the fight even if I should still have the advantage.

I like the downed state, I just feel like it could be balanced better. Theoretically it should be the easiest thing in the game to balance, since there’s only a few attacks for each profession.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Rangers have nothing to do with archery other than being able to do it.

The term “Ranger” does not imply a ranged specialist, neither in GW2 nor in tradition. It refers to a character who is an experienced survivalist and who is attuned to nature.

And they can perform that role just as well with a sword as they can with a bow.

Adding on to this, thematically speaking carrying two bows and switching between them mid-combat seems extremely impractical. The fact that the two bows don’t compliment each other very well makes complete sense. Even as a hunter you’d likely not keep a longbow and a shortbow strapped to your back and use them interchangeably. You’d also make yourself very vulnerable to surprise attacks by not carrying a melee side-arm, which would be the main weakness of this build as well.

Skyhammer is my favorite map.

Saying absolutely everyone hates it is incorrect.

Just going to throw this out there. I use to run AC with a bunker elementalist, a bursty grenade engineer, a condi bunker engineer, and myself who was a damage oriented staff elementalist in mostly knights. We did this every night for a few weeks, and we usually finished the dungeon run between a half hour to an hour’s time, and that was with us mostly goofing off.

You do not NEED a full team of zerkers to finish a dungeon. You never have and probably never will. A zerker team will finish it the quickest and most efficiently, but that does not mean no other team composition will be able to complete a dungeon otherwise.

I was using this trait today in spvp and absolutely loved it. I play a zerker staff elementalist, and as you can imagine by biggest issue was that the second I was focused on or a thief jumped out to kill me I’d be down in an instant. I needed incredible timing, placement, and a fair bit of luck to get my bursts off.

With Stoneheart however, I have an option that will actually let me survive long enough in a team fight to eventually get my burst off. Shoot, I’ve been able to drop Meteor Shower two or three times in different, prolonged team fights because while in Earth Attunement I’m actually decently tanky. I can survive two or three people focusing me for a good ten to fifteen seconds in most of the encounters so far, which is usually just along enough for a teammate to stip enemy focus away or for me to retreat enough for them to target a more pressing threat.

Dropping Lava Font and Meteor Shower on a point is great AoE damage that can absolutely turn the tide of any team fight, and with Stoneheart it seems I can reasonably administer it without being immediately shut down. I’m still vulnerable when I’m using fire, water, or air, certainly, but that’s all part of the counterplay to the trait.

It’s like a snapping turtle. You lash out and chomp down on your enemy with fire, then when you get someone’s attention you switch to Earth and hide in your thick shell. Then you wait it out with your heal skill and cantrips until you don’t have as much focus on you, then pop back into fire and start snapping again.

Erebos.6741:

Ehecatl.9172:

So long as that burst exists we need the downed state.

Now whether or not we should remove the extreme burst as an option is an entirely different debate.

It’s absolutely relevant as you clearly noted a relationship between burst and down state.

It seems you’re saying we “need” down state because burst exceeds normal human reaction time, so I’m asking you: do you think that’s a rational approach to game design which also aims to distinguish players based on their knowledge and adroitness (skill)?

This thread is not about burst damage, it’s about whether or not the game needs the downed state. Unless the developers completely redesign every profession in the game or alter the core mechanics that govern damage and survivability, we do in fact need downed state. Simply removing it will not solve anything.

Apparition.1576:

I can respect any opinion that takes all variables into account to make a informed decision. But any fighter can tell you exactly that.

There are a multitude of variables that come to play when you are talking about a full on fight. This aint no kitten arm wrestling contest.

This is a battle of strength, wit, agility, tenacity, and lastly the invidual. Shaq vs Jordan in their primes who wins? On paper you would think it would be Shaq.. but we all know better. Jordan’s heart, determination, and history of banging on bigger opponents…

Not the best analogy, but I have used several through these posts. Yet, here we are. Still talking the same facts with the fanboy’s refusing to consider the alternative. That the same probability that they are right, is also the same probability of being wrong.

Any fighter will tell you that size and strength are very large factors in who wins a fight. The larger and stronger your opponent is than you are the more skilled you have to be to overcome him. In this scenario we’re assuming two average members of either race, which would imply they have about the same degree of skill and experience fighting. What is the difference between the two? The norn has a tremendous advantage in physical strength, while the charr’s advantage is in the claws, teeth, and horns. The deciding factor here is that the norn can ALSO obtain claws and teeth, and become much larger when they transform. Where does that leave the charr? Fighting a larger, stronger creature with greater natural bulk. A mountain lion is not killing a grizzly bear in a direct encounter. It’s not much different than this.

What variables do you think people aren’t taking into consideration, exactly?

Erebos.6741:

So you agree down state obligates extreme burst, which subsequently demands extreme defense.

Would you agree burst beyond sensible human reaction time is irrational for a game that hopes to distinguish players based on skill?

I see where you’re trying to go with this, but removing down state is the exact opposite of how you should go about making the change you want to see made. You can’t remove downed state, which gives players a chance to get back up from an obscene burst, first. So long as that burst exists we need the downed state.

Now whether or not we should remove the extreme burst as an option is an entirely different debate. Right now, in this discussion, removing downed state would be disastrous to the health of the game.

Erebos.6741:

Ehecatl.9172:

Once more, without down state a thief jumping me from nowhere would just kill me. There’s no counter play to that. The downed state counterbalances extreme burst so there’s at least a CHANCE to get back up, rather than being immediately shut down by someone you didn’t even know was there until you were on the ground.

So down state is an enabler for over-the-top burst?

Down state is the counter to over the top burst. If you massively reduced the damage someone can do in a short time frame so that bursting someone to nothing isn’t an option then sure, remove down state. But I have a feeling the people who actually enjoy that playstyle won’t be too happy about it.

Then of course you’d have to look at bunkers who would then be immortal. So you gotta nerf that to keep it in line with reduced damage. I’m sure they won’t be super happy about being nerfed either.

Basically you’d have to completely overhaul the entire game if you removed the down state.

Those are my two favorite maps, and I don’t even play a profession with a lot of knockbacks.

Skyhammer is refreshing in how it’s laid out with a lot of high rises, jump pads, and sniping positions that give ranged players a chance to use their ranged to full advantage, something the rest of the game just doesn’t. The extra element of the death beam adds a new dimension and a King of the Hill style gameplay, but it also forces people to use more strategy. If you can’t hold down the beam with one person you risk weakening your overall team in the field by being outnumbered. The control room is also the only place the Tornado elite is remotely useful to me. Since I learned how to fight on the map I almost never get knocked off anymore. It’s just a matter of positioning.

I’m not really sure why people have an issue with Spirit Watch. The orb isn’t any more annoying than having to kill the random world bosses on that one norn themed map. At least with the orb you don’t have to worry about someone coming in and getting the last hit to get the points you worked hard for.

Down state very much encourages skilled team play.

There are many times that I’ve been downed and, due to my teammates overlooking my broken, bleeding body in favor of tunnel visioning some bunker, that I’ve been killed before I was able to contribute to the group. In the same breath if that bunker does go down I will almost assuredly die in the next few seconds because I was neglected, giving the bunker a second wind. My teammates were bad and because of that they missed out on my damage and boons and the bunker was able to get back up and keep fighting.

On the other hand there have been many times where I get downed during a team fight and, rather than focusing the enemy, my teammates turn to me and rez me. I get back up, unload my damage rotation, and completely turn the tide of the fight because my teammates were aware enough to make sure I was on my feet.

But on the third hand there have been times where both myself and an enemy are downed, and my teammates try to rez me rather than stomping the enemy, which resulted in the enemy getting rezzed before me and proceeding to knock back my saviors and stomping me. Or an enemy stomps me before my allies can rez me resulting in the downed enemy getting back up.

It’s a much more complicated system than people give it credit for, and observing the situation and making the right call can make or break a team fight.

Once more, without down state a thief jumping me from nowhere would just kill me. There’s no counter play to that. The downed state counterbalances extreme burst so there’s at least a CHANCE to get back up, rather than being immediately shut down by someone you didn’t even know was there until you were on the ground.

I’ve noticed a considerable improvement in my damage output as a zerker staff ele in spvp. Very few things can stand in a full damage rotation now, and my meteor shower has decimated opponents left and right. With Stoneheart worked into my build I have a place to go if I’m being focused, and it has definitely given me the breathing room I need to survive until help arrives or long enough for focus to be pulled off me so I can go back to fire and drop another damage rotation.

I actually survived a backstab thief’s initial burst because I was in Earth Attunement when he jumped me. While I might not be able to kill a thief without some luck from meteor shower hitting him in stealth, the ability to last more than a second is a massive improvement.

bullyrook.2165:

A want of ancestral land is hardly a tactical excuse. From a military standpoint, they would have been well served to crush the Norn, use the resources, and encompass their enemy. Instead they chose to back-down and keep fighting a war they were making zero progress with until the Searing – and that required the aid of a human god to pull off.

What new resources? It’s a frozen mountain range that even the norn themselves struggle to thrive in. There was no value in wasting a fourth of their military power and taking on massive losses in pursuit of land they can’t even effectively farm on.

Instead they continued to marshal their forces in preparation for their assault on Ascalon and in defense of the territories they did have. Given their entire culture of war was built around the pursuit of their ancient home land, yes, that took priority. This is also back when they were rules by religious fanatics, and a far cry from the tactically focused charr we know of today.

Also, the Searing was not caused by a human god. It was caused by the power of a Titan. Abeddon might have been pulling the strings, but it was not Abeddon’s power that created the Searing.

A final point. I am pretty sure there were skirmishes between the norn and the charr after the Searing as well. I know this because I saw it in Eye of the North when a Flame Legion warband invaded a norn homestead and the heroes had to drive the charr off.

bullyrook.2165:

Ehecatl.9172:

bullyrook.2165:

arthurobenzi.2619:

bullyrook.2165:

Reconnaissance is usually followed by some manner of assault.

Yes but here they don’t, because charr saw than send a few warband is not sufficient to invade the norn . They stopped the invasion because they knew that norn was not going to be invaded by a few warband, because norn have their surnatural strenght.

A tactical and ruthless race like the Charr would admit defeat because they are scared of a little brawn?

The charr were still in a state of civil war against the Flame Legion, and had to deal with the forces of Ebonhawke on the side. The tactical and ruthless race decided to use the tactical half and, rather than send a third of their forces to take some frozen mountain range with no strategic value to their efforts elsewhere, call off a full scale invasion of the norn in favor on focusing on domestic threats.

I believe that this happened before the charr civil war. "In fact, during the Searing, the Norn allowed the Charr armies passage through the northern pass from Ascalon into Kryta, setting the stage for the Charr invasion of the central human lands. Although this was not a sign of any alliance, it set the stage for the two races to live within a watchful peace. "

If what you’re describing did happen before the charr civil war against the Flame Legion then they were in a full scale war against the might of Ascalon and at their weakest point in history.

Either way, the charr had pressing issues that required their resources far more than a full scale invasion of the norn. It was a tactical choice to focus their attention on Ascalon, who at the time had control of the charr’s ancestral lands that they desperately wanted back.

bullyrook.2165:

arthurobenzi.2619:

bullyrook.2165:

Reconnaissance is usually followed by some manner of assault.

Yes but here they don’t, because charr saw than send a few warband is not sufficient to invade the norn . They stopped the invasion because they knew that norn was not going to be invaded by a few warband, because norn have their surnatural strenght.

A tactical and ruthless race like the Charr would admit defeat because they are scared of a little brawn?

The charr were still in a state of civil war against the Flame Legion, and had to deal with the forces of Ebonhawke on the side. The tactical and ruthless race decided to use the tactical half and, rather than send a third of their forces to take some frozen mountain range with no strategic value to their efforts elsewhere, call off a full scale invasion of the norn in favor on focusing on domestic threats.

As a staff using elementalist who’s entire build revolves around Persisting Flames I pretty much can only benefit from my build when I am able to blast specifically my own fire field. For me this would be a major quality of life improvement.

If for other builds it doesn’t work, I don’t see why it can’t be a gameplay option in the options menu.

Killface.1896:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

It is NOT overpowered. Its in a attunement that is NO threat. So you can’t crit them. You can continue to attack them and have no fear of anything because Earth attunement is simply no threat to anyone.

You just keep attacking them, force them out of earth to try and put you on the defensive at which point you can burst them. They could heal in Earth but Earth itself is no threat.

They just wait in earth for there cooldowns and then burst + heal up and go back to earth it will be crazy OP mate

Given the ridiculous lengths of elementalist cooldowns I think something to use waiting for the recharge is perfectly acceptable. Elementalists really needed something to help them stay on their feet for longer fights that wasn’t entirely dependent on the healing power stat or the water trait line.

On top of all the other issues with being a ranged fighter in this game that have already been mentioned, I think the biggest imbalance is the conquest type of spvp.

Ranged fighters are forced to fight on point or they lose the point. This means that, no matter what your build, you’re going to have to fight in melee in order to not give the enemy team an advantage. I mainly play a staff elementalist, and while I can do a great deal of damage by standing off point in team fights my limitations are always thrown in my face when it comes time to capture a point.

I see that warrior on the point about to capture it. I know that if I try to stop him from capturing the point I’ll have to fight him in his preferred range. The value of having a ranged weapon is completely negated by the fact I have to run into the warrior’s range in order to stop him from capturing the point both our teams need. At the same time my damage and passive defenses are significantly less than the warrior simply because I have the option to attack from a distance, even if that choice is being punished by game design.

So I do less damage overall, less passive defenses, and cannot kite unless I want to give up the point. Where is the advantage I get from choosing a ranged weapon again?

Torches for Elementalists is something I’ve wanted for a long time. I really, really want to be able to equip Rodgort on my fire-themed charr elementalist.

Rraze Heartsmolder and Torrik Heartbreaker of the Heart Warband. Blood Legion.

Wryog.5073:

Am I the only person that thinks that Burning Precision really needs a giant buff?

I’d prefer to see it stay as is, but replace Flame Barrier as our minor Adept trait.

More burning means more damage regardless of build, making it valuable to burst elementalists and condimentalists. And it’s one less trait condition builds have to pick up, leaving room for a new condi related perk. Perhaps something similar to Tormenting Flame, which could apply Torment when the elementalist gets a critical hit on a burning foe.

This would allow an elementalist invested in fire to maintain burning more easily and have access to a third damaging condition, Torment, fairly regularly so long as they keep the enemy on fire. Add in Bleeds from Earth and suddenly the elementalist can be fairly dangerous when geared for conditions.

I feel we should have the option to auto attack for a few seconds without taking a massive damage loss so we have enough breathing room to make the tactical decisions necessary to use our skills to their full potential. If we’re just cycling through attunements constantly and blowing cooldowns left and right to maintain respectable damage/pressure, then we can’t pick and choose what spells we use at any given time to match the situation. Especially for a weapon like staff which relies very heavily on timing crowd controls with our AoEs to force enemies to eat the otherwise very avoidable damage.

Making our auto attacks more reliable would go a very long way to making staff more effective in every aspect of the game.

I’m unsure how I feel about a trait that triggers when my enemy does something to me. But then burning does seem to be tossed around a lot, so it could prove a valuable defense to condi bombing.

I’ve been asking for elementalist rifles for a while now. I feel people are limiting their view of this setting far too much.

Tyria isn’t a standard fantasy setting. Like it or not, it has some heavy steampunk elements added to it. Even some magiteck sci fi elements. And there are two races that I guarantee would have developed magic-based rifle combat. Charr and asura.

Recall if you will that all asuran technology is heavily magic based. All those laser guns and energy cannons? That isn’t technology, it’s magic. There are already magical firearms in the game. And the charr are pure pragmatists. Why arm a soldier with a staff when they can be armed with a rifle and get similar results? As a charr elementalist I’m not just a wizard, I’m a soldier who happens to use magic in the field.

Rifle can easily exist as a magical weapon in lore, and in fact does exist. We just don’t have access to a magical firearm outside the mesmer’s pistol.

I always felt the elementalist rifle should be a mixed bag of two animations though. Shooting animations for the single target shot spells and the auto attacks, but also able to be waved in the air the way the staff is to bring down ground targeted spells and AoEs.

If you can channel magic through a stick, why not a stick that shoots hot lead from one end?

As I’ve said before, there are two weapons I feel the elementalist should be able to use, and one I’d love to see them use.

Sword for the main hand focusing around melee attacks and movement abilities, and a torch for an offhand with some strong AoE damage attacks. Possibly focused around the caster to literally form a swirling vortex of elements around you for melee, or with a 1,200 range so it’s a straight up nuking weapon that gives our sword wielder a bit of area denial and range to work with, since we don’t have weapon swap.

And rifle as a max range high damage weapon as others have said. It’d be very much unique among the other casters and give the elementalist a fresh new look.

Torch and Rifle would also give me a legendary worth working toward. Don’t care for the dagger animations (Though I love the design) and the staff doesn’t fit my red, fire themed charr at all.

The Talcmaster.7391:

When my charr wears the light heritage armor, there’s actually a spot where the pants clip through the back of the jacket. And that’s the same set…

The horns disappearing makes even less sense than the Asura ears

I use the same set more or less. It only clips in that way on my max height charr, but my medium height charr has no visual clipping issues unless you look straight up his crotch at where the bottom of his tail connects.

I feel fire would be a much stronger attunement if Flame Barrier was removed completely and replaced with Burning Precision. Burning Precision is a bit of a lackluster major trait, but would be pretty nice for a level 5 minor trait. This would outright increase our damage output just for dipping into fire, and make the whole trait line even more appealing for a condition build.

Then some traits that give us access to new conditions. Noxious Fumes as one person suggested that’d give us a chance to cause Poison on fire attunement crits. Or something like Tormenting Flame that’d allow us to apply Torment when striking a Burning foe with fire spells. It’d give us an interesting basis to build a condimentalist that’s a serious threat.

And a couple traits that give significant damage increases. Burning Rage should be a 10% damage boost to burning foes, not 5%. Or Blazing Impact that’d increase our damage by 10-20% when at 900+ range. Or Fire and Frost which would give us a 20-33% boost on Fire spell damage against Chilled foes.

And defensive traits. One with Fire could be changed to make standing in or blasting our fire fields also heal us, giving us more heal options to compensate for lack of points in water. Burning Ramparts as a trait that makes our fire fields destroy projectiles (Minus Lava Font for obvious reasons) would give us a huge defensive advantage for negating ranged damage dealers from picking us off. D/D Eles can throw down Ring of Fire for six seconds to recover from being kited around by ranged, focus eles can strategically place Firewall to protect themselves and allies. Staff eles have it harder, but they can Burning Retreat then duck behind the fire wall created for a quick breather. New dynamics with our skills all around!

One shot mechanics are kind of terrible. I enjoyed most of the gauntlet, but I feel the fight I’m stuck on sums up everything wrong with the Gauntlet.

Salazan. The fire ring asuran guy.

So we start this fight. He’s in the center of the small arena and I’m up against a wall. Fight begins, he summons his fire ring and I’m expected to avoid his attacks. But I can’t see his attacks. Why? Because I play a charr, and the camera angle makes it almost impossible to see his fireballs coming or where the ground AoE is. This is exactly as much of a test of skill as Troll’s End is. I can’t react accordingly if I can only see half the screen.

His fire ring ends. Finally! I can move again. Circling him constantly, staying alert and dodging every so often to avoid damage. I get him to about 50% health and suddenly I go down. What hit me? None of his attacks were anywhere near me. It’s only then that I see what happened as his second fire ring appears on my screen.

I keep getting downed by an instant kill skill I can’t see coming because I don’t live in an area that has access to broadband internet. I play with a latency, which has always meant I had to try just a little bit harder than everyone else to play decently well. But I was always able to compensate. In spvp I use a staff on my elementalist. Sure as Hell isn’t optimal, but it’s AoE damage and team support makes me pretty strong at mid and in 3vs3 and above fights, and doesn’t require me to have pin point timing with every attack. In WvW I run with a zerg or a larger group. In dungeons I of course have a team to fall back on. And in all of these game modes it’s rare to run across something that kills me so fast I don’t have time to do a dodge roll and negate MOST of the damage so I can use my fine healing skills to get back in the game.

But here I am getting killed instantaneously. I do not have time to react, I can’t use my skills intelligently to compensate for poor twitch reflexes, and I am getting so frustrated constantly trying in hopes that I’ll get lucky or see some way I can work around the problem. But I can’t because you cannot counter something that kills you before it happens.

Same reason they gave mesmers clones and the whole shatter thing. To add more variety and interesting mechanics to the game.

Drakkon.4782:

Magic and technology are the same thing. Magitech and cybertech and mechanotech and anyothertech are all interchangeable. They’re just new ways of doing the same thing. It seems clear that if the Asura can’t figure out how the Charr tech works, then it’s a completely radical form of technology, but that doesn’t mean it’s inherently superior.

To the asura they are the same thing. It’s a cultural viewpoint. To the charr they are inherantly different. The Legion’s technological advancement is because they took a step away from magic and had to make do in other ways. Humans also share the distinction between magic and technology, though they have recently married the two with the watchknights. Then you have the Dredge and Flame Legion. Fused weapons are a marriage of magic and technology. Tyria considers magic and technology intrinsically separate forces, with the asura being the only race that don’t see it that way, and that is because they’ve never tried to build something without using magic as a shortcut.

Essentially, magic is using the metaphysical laws of Tyria to one’s advantage and technology is using the physical laws of Tyria. My argument isn’t that charr technology is superior to asuran magitech, it’s that because asurans use magic shortcuts in their technology, it’s not truly technology alone. The asurans aren’t capable of building without magic.

dunnberry.2964:

Maybe I am underestimating humanity a bit, not so much Jennah and anises powers but the average human, you may also be underestimating stategy and tactics as well as brilliant asuran intellect. The arcane eye is also the elite special forces type of the Asura so similar to shining blade, but more sneaky sneaky like(there base out in garrehoff)

An elite special forces with nearly no experience dealing with foreign forces. I’d be inclined to go with the special ops organization with centuries of experience to fall back on.

Also, asurans aren’t that smart. There, I said it. They are very well educated in all forms of science and magic, but they don’t really seem to be inherently more intelligent than any other race when it comes to military strategy or indeed common sense. Asura are just as capable of being dumb as anyone else, and seem to make more than their fair share of mistakes and blunders.

yski.7642:

Interestingly enough, most of the war technology used by Pact against Zhaitan (and the mist war golems for that matter) seem to be asuran technology rather than charr made. Just saying

Begone from here short one. Your inferior technology is not welcome.

But yes, charr are the most technologically advanced race. Asura don’t technically use science, they use magic. In everything. They’ve never attempted to build or invent something without magic. So everything they have is magitech, but not true technology.

In fact there are asuran NPCs in Black Citadel that flat out can’t understand how charr technology even works without magic. That should be pretty telling right there.

I am rather curious why Ring of Fire covers a much larger radius, deals 13 times as much damage (My fire ring does 1,000 and firewall does 73), and applies six seconds of burns instead of 1, AND has a five second shorter cooldown. In exchange for all of that, Firewall lasts 2 seconds longer. Both skills is are fire 4 serving the same role.

Seriously Anet. I try to keep my posts as constructive as I can, but holy biscuits this was a terribly designed skill.

Also Firesheild is so weak it’s not even worth my time to get it from combo finishers or the signet trait in fire, much less a 40 second cooldown.