Also, Addledbrains is not in the Mists. He’s still in AC.
Legendary weapons in GW2 aren’t like the ones on other MMOs. They’re not super powerful weapons with interesting effects and higher stats. Sure, you can change their stats, but in terms of mechanics, they’re the same as ascended with fancy animations and looks.
If anything, the update is fixing Legendaries and adding personal prestige to them. What makes these weapons unique (well one thing) is the LEGEND. In history, named weapons like Excalibur were well known because of the story behind them and the hero that wielded them. In fact RP-wise, any weapon could have a legend behind it. It might not look fancy-schmancy, but it’ll still be legen….
wait for it…
wait for iiiiiit…
dary.
The problem is that they have to completely rebuild various fights and battles to work for one person. It’d be the equivalent of remaking another season. It’s not like the personal story fixes which were already designed for one person.
Also, remember that EVERY Precursor (or almost every since the Hunter is an exception to current Precursor designs by having a unique model) will have to have THREE new models. As will subsequent precursors + legendaries. That’s a HUGE amount of work for the art team.
we got like what? 20 legendaries total? and we’ll get another 20 “eventually”. so 40 total. times 3 for the similarly themed precursors. that’s 160 (adding the precursors and the legendaries themselves) skins, in 40 thematically connected sets of four (not even gonna take out the legendaries that are already in game).
you’re right, OMG how are they gonna pull that massive feat of art i wonder. guys i don’t think we’ll be seeing this expansion before 2018. we’re talking about 160 skins here. the number, it’s just huge. i think wow has like 3 new skins in every expansion.
all fun and giggles aside though, if they can pull skins every now and then to put into the gem store, they can easily craft 160 skins and more. the -only- problem here is that they started working on the expansion late (that’s why it’s so bloody small), they announced way to early cause they probably were bleeding out people who got tired of the silence (loosing money of course), and now they’re being cautious as they strongly suspect that there’s not enough time (folks won’t wait for ever for an expansion, this isn’t wow) to put everything in the actual expansion and they leave stuff they deem not essential “for later”. and that’s about it.
and the op is right in not cutting them any slack, nobody should but i get it, white knighting is a thing in mmos these days. somehow folks don’t see them as products but as something very near and dear to their hearts.
I’m not white-knighting. I’m exposing a logical fallacy that you also intend to partake in. My entire point was that the blog post was about game mechanics and systems and NOT art assets (which Legendaries visually fall under for I’d hope are various obvious reasons).
These are two different teams working on the same system; however, mechanics can be objectively judged as to how long they take to complete and figure out when it is a good time to announce while art assets have some subjectivity in them.
The reason for the blog leaving the amount of legendaries vague is exactly what’s been said in this chat. If they say that every weapon type gets a new legendary and something comes up where one’s not ready for release, players will undoubtedly don the behind-hat and spew from it. If they say only a handful will be ready for release and end up actually getting them all done, then it looks better. And if they can’t, oh well…they didn’t promise they could.
I’d rather have the company continue to be realistic and honest with its goal rather than announce a crapton of content and end up pulling back on half of it because it wasn’t feasible.
Read my first post again. Especially the little bit in the quotation area. I’m not a time traveller, I just read what Anet wrote. The blog clearly states that we won’t even be getting all the new legendaries with the expansion. Which is where the “lie” bit comes in. Taking apart a post sentence by sentence is fine and dandy, but please read it first.
You do realize that Legendaries are for the most part just art assets, right? The people who are programming the system to make all the new stuff with the Precursor crafting AND the map bonuses have barely anything to do the actual design of the animation.
That blog was a GAME MECHANICS update. The reason they said a handful is because there are people that would throw hissy fits if the art team was unable to get all the new legendaries out by launch.
Also, remember that EVERY Precursor (or almost every since the Hunter is an exception to current Precursor designs by having a unique model) will have to have THREE new models. As will subsequent precursors + legendaries. That’s a HUGE amount of work for the art team.
Its not. But i dont always have time or the will to do a full fractal run. Sometimes i want to do a single path of a dungeon. Something which takes 15 minutes maximum. Sometimes i want my challenging content in bitesize slices. A fractal run takes between 20 minutes (extremely good rng and smooth run) and an hour. This is also something many casual players complain about. They cant do fractals because they dont have the time. This is a casual game after all.
An hour is very short for an RPG dungeon at level. Call the game casual or whatever, if you don’t massively outgear or outlevel a dungeon, twenty minutes to an hour seems very reasonable. ((Considering I’ve spent two to three hours in a few WoW dungeons while levelling…))
If you want challenging content in bite-size chunks with small groups in instances, then GW2 is really not the game you should be looking towards. ((Honestly, I doubt most MMOs could hold that up for extended lengths of time.)) The only reason new dungeons are challenging is because you don’t have experience with them. To fulfill your desires, they’d have to continually add dungeons, which is clearly something they have yet to express a desire to do.
I don’t think what you’re asking is completely unreasonable, but do keep in mind where you’re asking it. Could it be done? Yes. However, that kind of content is very niche. And it’s not a niche that Guild Wars really fulfills.
Not only what Krall said, but also the amount of resources dedicated to it in the coming years. Ideally, dungeons need to be updated so that as new things are added for players to use that they won’t break the dungeons (remember the old CoF2 skip trick with lightning hammer?) and that the dungeons themselves won’t break.
A personal story instance? It just has to remain playable (for the most part). Also, if players now have difficulty doing an achievement, that’s MUCH, MUCH easier to debug than an entire dungeon path.
(The following commentary does NOT apply to Fractals and LS S2 replays for Achievements)
What’s the point in adding more dungeons? Levels aren’t going to increase. Gear isn’t getting more tiers. Armor skins can be added to the open world with a casual version and more hardcore version. Extra cosmetics and harder pieces to get (such as Legendaries) already encourage dungeon exploration. With everyone able to reasonably get at least one version of every legendary in HoT, dungeons could see a large influx of players.
But, again, I ask. Why do we need more? I’m not saying that adding more is a bad things. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t like more dungeons (because I would). But what purpose would a new dungeon add? Armor skins and weapon skins? Another currency to use? More shinies to equip?
Berserker is the best gear stat for dungeons…and I don’t see that changing. Unless the new dungeons are even faster, CoF1 will still be one of the go-to daily dungeons for grinding gold.
Dungeons are probably the most expensive form of content in GW2. You’ve got to have writers making the story, multiple artists create the environment, create the mobs, and add in animations for bosses, developers to program the bosses, and after all that, it’s more bloat to the dungeon team who has to make sure players don’t exploit the system and break the dungeons.
At the end of the day, new dungeons (IMO) shouldn’t be added at this point. The dungeon team should focus on improving the ones we have. The speedrunning “meta” (I don’t like calling it meta because speedrunning dungeons is always going to be niche) isn’t going away. I say instead of a new dungeon, why not add a dungeon timer with rewards for getting it done fast!? You can get your shinies, your titles and everything to make you stand out in a crowd while asking something that’s more reasonable for the devs AND supports and enhances the current dungeon meta.
If we compared the LS group to DE at the same time (roughly two years into their group), they share the same importance. At the start Logan was just a scout, Rytlok was a soldier, Eir was a Norn (Norn have NO leaders), and Snaff and Zojja were just golemancers. The only one who could claim a position of importance was Caithe really.
They were highly skilled because they had YEARS of training, save for Zojja. That’s probably why Zojja let Taimi go along with us so much. Five years ago, she was WORSE than Taimi (in terms of experience and attitude). Logan, and Rytlok were both soldiers in armies in the middle of a war.
Think of it this way: How many times do you hear the Living Story guild bicker due solely to race? How many times have you heard Taimi call another member a bookah? This group is the evolution of Destiny’s Edge. That group came together despite the racial tensions of the day to prove that a united Tyria is a stronger Tyria. The Living Story group is the player character keeping that legacy alive. They could have only existed because Destiny’s Edge laid the path for them.
Now, I’m not saying you can subjectively like one more than the other. You don’t even have to like all of them (or any of them). But Destiny’s Edge was fully developed by the time we started playing. We just brought about the turning point and resolution to their story.
Okay, so, I’ll explain why you need to change things rather than just point you to a website and tell you to mindlessly follow a build.
For one, healing power is crap. Even on an Ele who can get the most out of healing, in PvE and dungeons, it’s not anywhere near as good as damage. The majority of the time your healing ability and dodging will be good enough. The only times that I have to focus on healing are: the endless mob room in CoF2 and various fractal bosses at 20+. (AKA, situations where burst damage really isn’t as important as surviving).
Secondly, toughness is one of the three factors that increases your threat generation. It’s only use is reducing damage; however, with healing and dodges, you shouldn’t need this in a typical dungeon run. Vitality is a bit more useful, but you really shouldn’t stack it. I do use Valkyrie armor with Berserker weapons and trinkets. Sure I lose a bit of crit, but that tiny HP boost has kept me alive more times than I can count.
Next is weapon set up. While scepter is great at might-stacking, it can only do good damage when given a lightning hammer to augment it. I used to play a Fresh Air Scepter/Dagger build with no LH, so I say this from experience. It’s fun and cool, but you’re nowhere near as powerful as a Staff and Dagger.
Honestly, starting out, I would recommend a Staff build. The one on dulfy.net or the meta-battle one are both very good (though I recommend reading the elementalist class guide on Dulfy’s site as it goes into a LOT more detail). While you’re best damage will be in melee, you won’t be unable to fight at range. It’s a bit boring in terms of rotation, but you can focus on the fight more.
And for the utilities. Ethereal Renewal has its uses (bomb run and lava run in CoF2, Legendary Grawl Shaman in Fractals), but most of them that I use it for pertains to really non-combat situations. Cantrips again have similar uses, but for the most part, very niche in typical dungeons.
Overall, I don’t recommend the meta-battle build as it lacks any stun-break and relies on an organized team-comp that’s focused on the meta. My go-to build for when I don’t really want to put any effort in is this: 64220 with (VI, VII, XI) in fire, (VI, VII) in air, (VI) in water and earth with Arcane Brilliance, Arcane Shield, Arcane Wave, Signet of Fire, and the Elite Glyph. Keep Lava Font under your target and keep the Arcane Lightning buff up by cycling between Brilliance and Wave (though don’t be afraid to do the former sooner to stay alive. Dead DPS is NO DPS). Use Meteor Shower on CD.
While you won’t get as much support doing this, you’ll be able to keep a constant fire field down that supplies both might AND fury as well as bring plenty of damage. So I recommend Valk armor, zerk staff and zerk trinkets. You’ll have the same power and ferocity as a typical zerk build, but a smidge more HP.
For future classes you run, always try to run Berserker armor and weapons in a dungeon group. Your ability to support comes from utilities and traits rather than armor.
Honestly, I like being around the B-team more than Destiny’s Edge. You’re not just another hero of the group. You’re both the leader and the mentor. Of course they’re going to be annoying at times, but so were Destiny’s Edge with all their in-fighting. Right now, the player character has the most important job in every fantasy setting: passing on the torch to the next generation.
Also, unlike DE, this is a team that came together through some pretty messed-up situations, not because a few of them were jailed and made to fight in an arena. And it should be EXTREMELY difficult to judge the second team in the HoT story…since all the majority of the playerbase has seen is a chapter taken out of context.
A dungeon is just a name of a specific content (instanced for pre-organised groups), dungeons in gw2 aren’t exactly dungeons. There has to be a content for people who want small scale combat with their friends.
Oh yeah, I’m more addressing the OP as well as the concept of MMORPG dungeon that mostly comes from WoW and why it doesn’t really work well in GW2. For the content that you’re discussing, rotten, I think Fractals fill that particular niche better than a traditional can due to the varying degrees of difficulty. While I’ve yet to go above level 29 in Fractals (though I have the appropriate AR for it), most of the people I know don’t even do them as regularly as I do. So I could go with them at their level and get some reward without being unable to get my reward for something on my level.
In terms of money, value is ALWAYS subjective. There are various algorithms and equations to determine which will be the most profitable. However, in game design, it’s less accurate. Especially for Anet who pays attention to the actual metrics and not the forums. Forum goers are almost always a vocal minority in a game. Say a new world boss costs the same in development as a new dungeon, the decision between implementing one or the other (assuming that you must choose one) will be based on which content is relevant and will keep people playing longer. They both have daily rewards, so how often people play them isn’t as relevant as who plays them more.
Also, art assets are a COMPLETELY different thing to game assets. If they sell a new eyepatch model on the gemstore, it doesn’t mean that they took people away from the dungeon team to work on the eyepatch. Especially since someone who doesn’t do art wouldn’t know how to design art assets as well.
The problem is that they added 2 new dungeons and a new dungeon path. These functioned more like traditional MMO dungeons than the rest of the dungeons in GW2. (Save for Fractals which have gotten quite a few updates since launch, and a couple since Fractured)
However, they’ve turned out to be not as popular and/or as profitable as regular dungeons (profitable meaning in terms of how many people play them). Now, the argument can be made that the last dungeon added (namely the Aetherblade path of TA) wasn’t a very good dungeon. If the PvE team can’t design a very good dungeon, then why focus on it? Why waste resources?
Besides, until Eye of the North (and even beyond then), the most challenging group content of GW1 was the Domain of Anguish. For those of you that don’t know, that’s not a dungeon. It’s a large explorable zone. (Granted back then explorable zones were limited to eight players)
However, since the last dungeon was added we’ve had the Lion’s Arch trilogy, Dry Top, Silverwastes, and the various achievements added in LS2. IMO, those have been good examples of testing out challenging group content. The guardians and Scarlet of Lion’s Arch had various mechanics that a group had to work around. Dry Top has dual mode mechanic with one mode being about preparing for the second one. And Silverwastes is a great example of taking what we wanted in Orr and the great PvE things of WvW and combining them into a mechanic that works as a constant battle for control of a zone.
Combine these three with the vertical aspect from the Tower of Nightmares (another good example of challenging group content) and that’s the kind of PvE experience Anet is trying to build in HoT. On top of new world bosses.
Why in the Eternal Alchemy do we want traditional MMO dungeons, heroic dungeons and raids in GW2? They’re boring as the Underworld. They’re limited and small in scope compared to the boss fights here. Tyria is a dangerous world…and the danger should be in it, not a small corner of a deep dark dungeon.
The easiest thing to do is just do map completions. Since you can’t out level a zone, there’s no need to really head into new areas before completing your current one.
Every 10 levels or so, it’s advised to make sure all of your gear is pretty up to date. It won’t make a huge difference, but you’ll start to feel it once you get 15 levels above your gear. I recommend starting this at level 21 and buying a set of strong armor and a weapon. (Strong is Power and Precision) It’s cheapest to buy blue armor and weapons like this. As for trinkets, they won’t make an impact until level 80. (besides extra stats) Once you hit level 61 either get Berserker (Power, Precision, Ferocity) or Knights (Toughness, Power, Precision) depending if you feel comfortable doing more damage or being a bit tankier.
I don’t really recommend dungeons before level 80 if you haven’t done them. At least, not trying to find your own group. If you’ve got some friends willing to help you through them, that’s great! However, unlike other MMOs and RPGs, dungeons don’t drop good loot (usually). You mostly do those for currencies.
The next thing I’d recommend is swapping out that healing skill for either the Glyph or Ethereal Renewal. (I say the Glyph is better for levelling) If you want to stick with a staff. The Signet heal is based on how many spells are cast and is only really useful if you’re taking constant damage and having faster spells. It works well with a dagger main hand as you’ll pretty much be able to deal out lots of different abilities.
Some people will recommend going Dagger+Dagger Ele for levelling, but I’d only recommend that if you’ve played the game before. Staff is very good, but just a bit slower. Ideally, you’ll want to spend most of the time in fire as it has the most damaging spells for that weapon. (Where as D/D is a lot of attunement swapping once you get all 4) Also staff is not as reliant on traits.
In terms of skills you should look to get the following ASAP: Armor of Earth, Cleansing Fire, Signet of Air, and Signet of Fire. While you can only use three, these ones give you something for every scenario. Armor of Earth gives you a stun-breaker. (If you feel like you need it) Cleansing Fire removes conditions. Signet of Air increases your base movement speed passively (HIGHLY recommend this while levelling). Signet of Fire increases your crit chance. There are some other skills and you can experiment with setups, but a combination of three of these will get you to level 80.
In terms of the Elite Skill, they’re all kinda…okay. The Elemental Glyph will probably be your best bet outside of the Norn Racial transformations. Tornado is kinda cool, but ultimately kinda eh while levelling. Fiery Greatsword is not as useful as it was. It can be used to move around quickly, but I’d still recommend being able to summon another body over it.
As for traits, if you want to stick with staff, I recommend putting 2 points into Arcana ASAP. (These unlock at a level 40) And getting the Blasting Staff major trait. (You’ll have to unlock major traits). It’ll increase the area of your Staff attacks. Which makes them easier to land and hit multiple targets. From there, put 2 points into Fire. (Getting Internal Fire) then 2 points in Air (getting Bolt to the Heart). Once you get the next tier opened at level 60, I’d recommend another 2 points into fire and getting Pyromancer’s Alacrity and then 2 points in Earth to get Stone Splinters.
Once you hit level 80, you’ll have access to the full traitlines and skills (make sure to spend skill points to pick up all non-racial skills besides Anti-toxin Spray). From there, I’d recommend reading a few Elementalist class guides that go more in-depth with the abilities, traits and builds. Ele has the lowest HP and lowest armor so at level 80, we’ve got a higher skill floor to just stay alive in content (plus attunement swapping and what not).
Hope this…info-dump…helps you out a bit!
Okay….programming info-dump time.
When using floating point numbers (AKA decimals), depending on the value there will always be slight inconsistencies with the decimal to binary transformation. Less of these exist when you are using larger data types for floating points (such as double and long double), but they exist regardless.
While MATHEMATICALLY you are correct, our decimal based mathematics does not always translate into binary-based mathematics. The reason that percentages were additive in some games was for two reasons: 1) Adding is cheaper than multiplying (any number). 2) Adding is more precise than multiplying decimals (aka, floating point numbers).
Now that’s only taking into account the damage modifiers. The damage of every attack in an RPG is based on a pseudo-random number generator. Taking into account both the randomness of the amount of the attacks and the inconsistency inherit to the system, it is now more difficult to balance encounters for both players and mobs.
By using an additive percentage system, you can more easily balance because the damage multiplication will be significantly more consistent and precise. ((I only mentioned cheaper because older games have less hardware to work with so that’s not relevant in this day and ages))
I’d assume that Anet either has the inconsistencies that WILL occur in this translation accounted for and put into an error range or the calculations are all done in binary before the numbers are reported on our skills.
The point of all that above is this. In a perfect world where we can translate every real decimal number into a real binary number, multiplication using floating point numbers would work exactly like it does for the decimal world of mathematics. But it doesn’t. We don’t exist in that world. So some broken math has to be implemented in order to get the code to work in more consistent and measurable fashion.
Rotten, that’s EXACTLY what I’ve been saying. they are MULTIPLICATIVE for guild wars 2.
however, there have been MMO’s and RPGs in the past where they add all the percentages and then multiply at the end so you don’t have these strange cases where the true damage modifier is really weird.
I’m not arguing that Guild Wars 2 is additive. Period. You’re right for Guild Wars 2. However, not every game does that and not every theorycrafter started with such requirements. 10% is not ALWAYS 10% like you’ve said. It’s true in GW2. It’s not true in other games. We’re making the distinction that GW2 is multiplicative rather than additive. A few of the people (myself included) that you’ve quoted have said the EXACT thing. You’re arguing with people you agree with.
10%^3 is .1%
What we mean by that the percentages are multiplicative is that say an ability does 100 damage and you have 2 10% modifiers. First it increases the damage by 10% to 110 damage. Then it increases that damage by 10% to 121 for a total of 21%.
But let’s take the preferred 64220 staff build attacking a target with >33% HP, in fire attunement, at a range less than 600, that’s burning, while we’re above 90% HP and wearing scholar runes.
Assume (for the sake of easiness) that Fireball does 100 damage. And we take the 20% from condition 1, 10% from condition 2, 10% from condition 3, 10% from condition 4, 10% from condition 5, and 10% from condition 6.
Now if the percentages were additive, then it’d be 170 damage from fireball under those conditions. However, since it’s multiplicative, first step gets us to 120. Second 132. Third is 145.2. Fourth is 159.72. Fifth is 175.692. And last is 193.2612. The difference is about 23 so in the end it does end up being a much higher damage boost. (By 23% of the original damage)
Though, that is a hypothetical using a glass cannon staff build.
10% = .1, so 4*.1 is .4…which is 40%
Now, if you start doing the correct order of operation which is x+x*.1 (alternatively x*1.1) and repeat that as necessary, then yes, you are correct.
Math is simple. Using incorrect terminology and rhetoric is makes it not so simple!
I believe damage modifiers are multiplicative rather than additive in this game. So that 10% more damage (which is always active on a Dagger) is a bigger increase overall.
In reality, for a Dagger use, perma-vigor would be better in most situations outside of hardcore speedruns. (You also have a bit more breathing room for fury upkeep as well).
I do have to disagree about traits not mattering. When you play with a dagger and go 66XXX, that 2 seconds on burning rush fire field duration + having the reduced cooldowns so its CD is done before or around the same time as fire attunement gives a much smoother playstyle as opposed to not putting 6 points into fire. Also, Fire Staff (in dungeons) is only so good because traits let you kit out damage to a ludicrous degree with a constant upkeep of Lava Font + hard hitting fireballs.
http://dulfy.net/2014/07/11/gw2-elementalist-pve-class-guide-by-haviz-and-zelyhn/
I’d recommend giving that a read. Staff builds are usually 64220 or 62222. You don’t need 6 points in Air for staff (you could argue 5 to help vuln stacking, but eh…up to you).
Gear is Zerker with either scholar or strength runes (depending on preferences). However, I run with Valk armor and Zerk everything else. That extra bit of HP has kept me alive just long enough to keep doing damage. (Rule 1 of DPS, dead DPS = no DPS).
Scepter is good for bursts fights, but is usually used to stack a ton of might and conjure weapons (which I find boring). D/F is fun (I also recommend searching on youtube for Zelhyn’s video for the rotation) if the rest of your group can keep bosses from eating your face. Otherwise, stick to Staff to learn the ropes. (Boring, but effective)
Is there an alternate setup (using the 66002 D/F) build you would recommend for pugging dungeons and Fractals? When I try to use D/F, the mobs are always focused on me and most of the groups lack the basic stuff like stability, reflects, etc. Usually I give up and go back to boring old Staff because hey I live.
I don’t run full zerker (use Valk armor for that tiny bit of HP that’s saved my rear more times than I can count). I really started having fun with the build, but it’s a hassle to play it in a PuG environment. I tried going 06044, but I don’t like how that variant plays (in terms of lining things up since I only have time for one blast finisher in Water and just barely). I’m not looking for a speedrun “meta”, just something viable that I can actually enjoy playing.
Offhand axe is viable. It’s just not optimal.
Axe/Mace is the optimal choice. Dual wielding will get a nice boost next patch. Longbow is a good second weapon.
(NSFW…but you know what they say about cannons…)
The problem is Neko that there are certain members of the forums that can be very…aggressive if a build is posted that is not the optimal spec. I’ve considered a few times posting a build I’ve used for S/D Ele for casual-midcore runs…though sadly I haven’t been through every dungeon and every path with it.
Most of my CoF1 runs take between 10-15 mins ((and the rock part slows me down if we have no Mesmer in the group)) and I used a similar build in level 28 and below Fractals. ((Moved 20 points from Fire into Arcana to keep Elemental Attunement and grab EA while I was at it)).
I also don’t run with Lightning Hammer…so…I could post the alternative build up if I could get an actual casual-midcore discussion going…
Well…that means it might do more than just 11. The firestorm just does pure AE damage in that area. Sandstorm does blinds and bleeds.
Honestly, the only reason you use that glyph is for Sandstorm for blind during the duration
Glyph of storms is like that because Sandstorm is a swirling thing on the ground so they have to note how often it does damage. Firestorm rains fire from the sky…the animation is obvious that you will know how often it does damage.
Rock Barrier…really use it for the buff. Each stone gives +50 toughness at 80 (for a total of 250)…for PvE this bit of bonus doesn’t really matter since Scepter usually kills mobs in a few hits if Dragon’s Tooth and Phoenix land properly
I’d have to agree with the Signet of Fire if not running full Zerker’s. I run a mix of Valk armor and Zerk everything else. I can’t tell you how many times that extra ~2k HP has saved me. I also run a Fresh Air/Evasive Arcana S/D build since the last patch and I do enjoy it.
If you’re stuck on doing D/F Ele, I would recommend Divinity or Traveller’s Runes over Scholar ((or the 2 Trav/2 Monk/2 water combo if you want the 75% boon duration with 30 points in Arcana)), just because being in melee means you have less of a chance of benefiting from 90+% HP damage boost.
To answer your questions: Gear choice is up to you. Is it worth it? It can be. You’ll be playing a much more rounded character than a focused one. For traits, I say EA is very worth it in the midcore range of content. I can finish most CoF1 runs with any group in 10-15 mins depending on if we have a Mesmer for the rocks. I’ve done up to Fractal level 28 with this setup…and really have no need or desire to go into the 30+ range right now. It’s a personal preference thing…and those can change too.
I actually prefer skills being tied to weapons. It makes skills easier to balance and gives the weapons some identity. And animations easier to program…which saves an absolute TON of resources.
Honestly, I prefer the GW2 style of fewer but better balanced builds over the GW1 style of nearly infinite builds…but only a select few work, and even fewer are viable. Yes, there are some builds that flat out don’t work in GW2…but they are significantly fewer. And most of the time, you can get those builds to work if you tweak a few traits and pieces of gear.
That said…I think the main point of Diversity from Ele should come from traits…and Anet knows that. However, balancing isn’t as easy as people think when they want to add new traits. Yes there are obvious improvements that could be made, but we’re only basing that on past knowledge and have no clue what Anet is planning.
Fresh Air is a very good example of a trait that completely changes your playstyle. It allows you to in a way focus on being an Air Magic based Elementalist…but you have to swap to other attunements to get the full benefit. I think we’ll be starting to see more traits that begin to bridge the gaps of the attunements. They won’t be all at once and probably spread out over the year.
Just my two copper anyway…
I’d have to say Mochann’s assessment is very accurate. Though, I disagree that it takes more than a month+ to learn a build. All it really takes is a few days spending some time in the Mists just practicing your rotation.
That’s what I think the strength of the Ele profession is. It isn’t something that you can pick up and learn how to easily play for the most part. ((Fire Staff is…and is a very viable spec.)) It also means buffs are much slower to occur because they have to be tested on a much more complex playing field…so Ele’s generally have a smaller drawing to them.
Despite having the four attunements, we really do have the least amount of weapon variety…and the lack of weapon swap during combat outside of conjures add to that. Engies get kits…which is much more similar to a weapon swap + a utility with the toolbelt.
I think just by design Eles will lack the build variety of other professions…but make up for that by having more variety in combat.
I’ve also noticed there has been a lot more…push…from Ele subforum members to only play ze optimal builds und you should only play…ze optimal builds! So, we’re in sort of a build drought right now. Hopefully people will remember that playing fun viable builds is just as helpful to a group as playing ze optimal build!
If you’re going for a Dagger build, I’d suggest shorter air cooldowns…especially with focus, over more damage in air.
I would also suggest Cleansing Fire over Mist Form so you have a cleanse (since D/F has none innately).
For PvE, I always find Staff builds to be much slower and duller even though some theorize that it can pump out the most damage. Scepter would work better for you if you need range because it’s pretty good at almost any range…though excels in melee with all the blast finishers.
I agree, but not Ele alone. The difference between top tier HP and bottom tier HP is over 7k…which means that Necromancers and Warriors get about 700 “vitality” extra. I understand the reason why each class is in their tier and I agree with them. However, I disagree with how far the tiers are apart.
The lowest tier should have its HP raised to the current medium tier. And the medium tier somewhere around the 16-17k border. It would cause a lot of chaos for a few weeks as builds rise and fall, but it would be easier to balance in the long run. When you think about it…the base defensive difference between a Warrior and Elementalist is around 1000 “vitality” + “toughness” ((For base HP and armor)). That’s a pretty severe handicap given to the class that has lost a lot of condition cleanses and stunbreakers.
For levelling up, I recommend the (0/10/0/30/30…or 0/10/10/20/30) D/D builds. Scepter is really good in dungeons and can be good in open world with groups, but dagger (and staff) are better when solo’ing. I’d say dagger over staff just because it does kill a bit faster and has better mobility…plus a cleave (Lightning Whip).
Now the scepter build you linked seems to be focused a lot on boon support, which is very good since Scepter can have a lot of blast finishers. Fresh Air builds focus on lots of crits and damage. Both can work very well in a casual to midcore situations. While 30 in fire and air both work well, that does mean you’d go full glass cannon (especially in zerker armor).
If you want 30 in fire for Persisting Flames, I’d recommend (30/0/0/10/30) with boon duration runes (2 superior monk, 2 superior water, [2 superior traveler or 2 major water]). That’d give you 70% boon duration which pretty much puts permafury and lots of might stacks on the group. You do lose damage…but the group gets more from you.
I play Fresh Air…really because I like the build. I usually don’t play the meta or optimal builds because every patch they could change. I prefer to find one build I like and stick with it. I use the focus for utility more than on a regular basis. This is what someone else wrote in another forum post about this…
CoE 4-turret golem. Prevents them from rebuffing.
TA U/U all spider mobs.
TA U/U Malrona before she does the AoE instakill technique
AC all paths against spiders.
Fractal Mai Trin – Prevents her from using the pistol-teleport technique, which as an ele allows you to solo her. Makes the other classes go wuttt and other elementalists wonder why they can’t seem to match you.
Uncat fractal harpy Launch lightning balls.
Uncat fractal Old Tom poison nova.
Uncat fractal… I think it was Professor Mew.
Dredge fractal – nullify the dredge ranged attacks when on the switch. Then use Earth 4 and reflect the next set. Then use Earth 5 and invuln the next set. Then Water 3-selfheal or Arcane Shield or whatnot.
Volcanic fractal, when the boss uses its multihit agony projectile series after its shield breaks. It also nullifies all the lava elementals’ attacks as a bonus.
TA F/F runs, nullify archer shots on the way.
SE, stacking situations with multiple elite bombers.
When multiple mobs are doing rapid-fire pistol shots. Like for instance, taking a camp in WvW.
CoE story mode – KuduThere are more. Basically when your entire party except you is wiping from a projectile based attack, use it there next time.
And it’s not true that only Air 4 and Earth 4/5 are worth using. Learn to use Air 5 and Water 5 strategically to Interrupt important attacks, they’re your ONLY CC skills, generally speaking. Water 4 is important in chilling Defiant bosses and certain mobs like the Assassins in CoFP2.
Fire 4 is also essential to the mightstack start.
However, Fire 5 is pretty much useless.
Nice little outline of when Focus can be used.
For armor, if you want something more defensive, Valkyrie will be better than Soldier. Same Power and Vitality, but with crit damage instead of toughness. Toughness isn’t that great for Eles in dungeons because it increases chance of getting aggro. So while you can take more hits…you have a higher chance of getting hit more. And pretty much with either build…you can easily heal up to full from nearly dead.
I think the two things you need to change about the build (for sure) are your heal and elite. Signet is best used with dagger since you’ll be casting the most with that weapon. For scepter, glyph and renewal are about equal. I prefer glyph since it is a nice bit of burst healing with more boons for me to choose from…though Ethereal Renewal is a stronger heal with really good condition removal…but you can’t do anything for three seconds.
For elites, generally Fiery Greatsword is the one you want. Especially now that you can cast it while you move. Once you learn how to use it, it is an EXTREMELY powerful elite.
I have to disagree with the points above. After playing hundreds of hours on my Ele, I feel that a Non-LH can contribute a lot to a party…if you really don’t care about “Speed running” or “playing the meta.” It is a very viable way to play…maybe not optimal, but certainly viable.
This is what I generally use for most Fractals and dungeons. I can easily keep 20 stacks of might on me and provide lots of healing, cleansing and boon sharing with the group. There are times where you definitely want a Focus (Grawl Fractal and Dredge Fractal off the top of my head) for Swirling Winds….
Just change a trait around for it to have a higher upkeep on SW if you’re the only one providing the projectile destruction/deflection. I also prefer to run Valk armor over Zerk. That extra HP has saved me more times than I’d ever like to admit. And having a base of 51% crit on a Fresh Air build is plenty since you attack a lot and combo skills together.
I am still experimenting with my build…I used to run 20/30/0/10/10. But I like having Elemental Attunement over an extra bit of damage. The on-demand regen and protection are too good to pass up for pugs.
Hope this helps.
Well the main issue is people confusing damage and DPS. They see big numbers and think bigger numbers = higher DPS. Ele usually focuses around continuous attacks around the same damage. Honestly, if you enjoy playing Ele, stick with it. My ele is my newest 80 and has double the play time of any of my other class. As well as the only one to almost have full Ascended (just missing offhand wep). It’s a very viable class, but not the optimal class in most situations.
@Olba and Player Character.
Okay…let me break it down. The 30/0/0/10/30 has to use both weapon spots in a rotation in order to perform the same damage as the 30/25/0/0/15 does. However…the latter build only uses the greatsword to get roughly the same numbers.
The choice is the first spec is better in groups (as said before, due to might stacks), but has a more difficult rotation that takes up both your weapon slots to utilize to full effect. The second spec is better in solo since you can just stay in greatsword and use the second weapon slot for a Longbow or rifle since swapping out means you lose might stacks.
I’d still choose the second since the DPS is going to be in the very, very low percentile in terms of difference. But then again…the first could also be used for an axe based build instead…so…pick your poison.
I did some Indestructible Golem testing last night. 30/0/0/10/30 does around the same kind of damage, at much lower might stacks. But…it also has a 2 weapon slot rotation where the latter you only focus on one weapon…so you have a slot free.
Actually…it’s 24% of the fight above 90%. I only run Scholars on my Ele since I can be at most ranges…warrior is just rubies.
No fight will EVER require you not to drop a field. That’s counter-intuitive to game design and how Anet makes bosses. Sure…some bosses are harder than others to drop fields on…but none punish you for dropping one. Maybe in the wrong place at the wrong time…but that’s your own fault
If lightning whip did more damage than other abilities on a single target…why would anyone use anything else? Players will always take the easiest path to the greatest damage. Look at Guardian Sword. BOOOOOOORING. I quit playing Guardian because it felt so dull. That’s why I love elementalist…I have to plan out my attacks or I could end up dying.
And that’s the problem with fix #1. If anything Anet wants us to switch more…not less. And I agree with them. I do know there are some incredibly stupid traits that give you certain boosts for being in them longer. (though…arguably…the Air movement one is fine since that could be used for moving around the world and adept air traits are kinda meh to begin with.)
Unlike every other MMO, the Elementalists of GW2 are masters of ALL elements, not just one. This always confused me with the “mages” of other games boasting to be master of all elements but you would only ever use one. Look at Fresh Air…yes…you specialize in Air magic to get it…but it promotes frequent swapping of attunements more than any other trait.
I think they need to add more traits like this to benefit from attunement swapping and not hinder us for wanting to do so.
198 badges of honor and a couple gold
1. Attunement Swap is 15 seconds untraited. Weapon swap is 10 seconds untraited. We have 2 attunements to swap to besides the one that is on CD and the current one we are in right after a swap. Other classes are stuck with their weapons for another 10 seconds after swapping. With 30 Arcana, our attunement swap is down to under 10 seconds. Warriors are the only other class that can trait for a faster swap (to 5 seconds). With 30 in Air and Fresh Air, our Air attunement is now down to 5 seconds like a warrior with 15 in Discipline. Not only that but with 10 in Arcana and with the Elemental Attunement trait, swapping attunements grants us a few seconds of Fury and a boon for our entire party based on attunement. No other class (on weapon swap) gives a party-wide boon on swap. And there are a lot of things to take into account that would be lost or nerfed if swap had a lower CD.
2. Okay…this exists for the same reason as global CD’s do. It’s compensation for people lower end computers and/or on weaker connections. If the global CD didn’t exist, computer and internet speed would be much more important than they are right now. Because no matter how you spec, swapping to an attunement always does something. (unless you put 4 points into every tree and stop there)
Elementalists shouldn’t rely on autoattacks for damage. Lightning Whip is also instant cast, cleave and generally has 2 attacks in the time frame of 1.
I’ll be looking into swapping traits (and sigil of perception) once I get more berserker gear. Right now I’m running Valk armor, zerker weapons, and mostly Cavalier exotics with Valk gems (yellow ones). Necklace is Celestial and one earring…thing…is zerker. Eventually going to be full zerker trinks.
For my current setup, I don’t reliably crit enough (or attune when the ICD is almost up) that I can switch to air all the time before DT and Phoenix hit…so I just take the safe route and stay in fire until they both hit…then switch. I actually haven’t been 80 on my ele for that long (just a couple weeks now…or maybe a month). That said…it’s been a blast so far so definitely sticking to it.
I do know that a S/D ele benefits from being in under 600 range (so would a S/F but not as much). Stability would definitely help for some bosses (CoF1 end boss). I have played around with specs fighting that stupid Norn and his dog (beat it with a 0/30/0/30/10 build). So…those tidbits do work for Scepter overall…just not my current gear setup XD
I typically use increased damage in Fire Attunement and shorter Fire spells CDs. I don’t know how this would work for Dagger…but for Scepter with 10 points in Arcana Dragon’s Tooth and Phoenix are either off CD or a couple seconds as soon as I hop into fire. Using a Jade Maw tentacle as a metric, that burst (with just the blast AE from Phoenix) crits for around 10k in my old setup. I just got full scholar last night…so…huge damage increase while in Fire and Air and above 90% HP.
I’m talking about the Focus Air and Earth spells. I usually run S/D.
D/F, no sane person uses S/F in pve.
He’s right. I’m completely and totally mental.
S/F has its uses as a utility…so don’t count it out because it’s not the best. An average player will use a cookie cutter spec and only what is in that spec. A good player will use everything available to him/her.
I actually run 20/30/0/10/10. And yes, I know a 0/30/0/10/30 (not 10 in earth…10 in water is waaaay better) is not a high damage build, but it’s good enough to get you to Fractal level 10 or higher without being a full glass cannon.
People have it set in their minds that the highest theoretical DPS is the highest practical/empirical DPS. Even if you’re builds do more DPS on paper, they might not do more in-game because they might not be comfortable with the build…or even enjoy it.
Also, a 30 fire build provides better fury upkeep if everyone is standing in your fire fields when you do blast finishers. That’s not something that you can guarantee. (Only staff has access to Magnetic Aura btw…D/D doesn’t.) If you run a D/D Aura build, you’ll have access to 3 Auras, so you’ll have a better chance of sharing them
An attunement is not the same as a weapon (well, it is mechanically, but not in practice), especially in a Fresh Air build. Now, granted I prefer my build with the scepter, but the same applies to dagger.
FA does make us focus on air magic which is our single target damage attunement (by design); however it does not lock us into only using air. In truth, it actually encourages you to use the other three attunements as a compliment to air. This is how Anet (imo) wants us to use a mono-attunement build. All of our strength is in that attunement, but we don’t just stay in it and ignore the others. The only way to use FA and the 15 point minor air trait is to swap attunements frequently.
Now, going into an EA version actually eliminates the choice of which attunement to go to by allowing more of them to be open when you can swap out. I run a different build than this one, but I do only have 10 points in Arcana. Today I tried a 0/30/0/10/30 after being 20/30/0/10/10 and found that I wasn’t thinking about which attunements to use when I could swap. Obviously, I would always hit fire since when that was off CD my two main burst damage abilities (DT and Phoenix) were both off CD too…but choosing when to go to Earth and when to go to Water takes more thought really. I might need a bit of healing and cleansing later in the fight…so I should save water and constantly switch between Fire and Earth. (As in Fire>Air>earth>air>fire, etc.) Or I might need more CC so I would use Fire and Water. when I had 30 in Arcana I could usually rely on all of them being up whenever I needed. (also doing much less damage and both my fire burst not lining up with Fire Attunement CD so it messed me up)
Hope that helps
Subject 7 was laughably easy for me. Lesser and regular Fire Ele + lightning hammer spamming the Autoattack.
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