Guild Wars 2

Lysico.4906:

If you can’t get burst out of your s/d you are doing it wrong. And 900 range is more then enough for all but keep defense (and everyone should have staff anyway).

I am not the only one running it and doing very well wpvp. Just check the first page here. There are posts, videos etc of other players rocking it.

If YOU can’t handle the spec, that is fine. But the tools are there.

Im not saying it doesnt work, it does, I have gotten my fair amount of kills to some extend ……. in hot-joined… like everyone else that you see playing that weapon set. Face it, the amount of work and risk vs reward is not there. Right now you have to blow the entire weapon set and utilities to get someone low, and even then they will bounce back and kill you for the most part. Im sorry but unless you give me some prove other than “it exists” it remains void. The burden of prove is on you, you have no evidence to back it up nor argument, you will have to use a little more that “just use S/D” or “l2p” to convince me and everyone else who plays eles.

I will even dare to say that you have not read completely most of the answers so far. Please explain a little better your reasoning and/or build.

if Im not mistaken there are only 2 devs on balancing, whether we want it or not they will have some bias, with that aside (and lets say miraculously they are perfect uman beings without any bias) I highly doubt any red will come to the forums and post anything related to a profession.

As for other people, I think by now everyone agrees staff is bad, those who keep insisting it is ok are probably thinking about the CC (which i admit, is good, but can only be used to run away in small skirmishes scenario) or are D/D eles, or ultimately, some people from other professions who have come to complain about D/D.

Heck, I have yet to see any enemy EVER complaining about staff ele, I have even heard people complain about engineers, but for the 700+ hours I have been playing staff ele I have yet to see anyone complaining about them, if anything they say something like; “lol, i know you are an easy target, next time I will go for you first” …. and all it takes is a sneeze to downs us.

“but eles dont die!!” Sure, PVT ones dont, the rest….go down faster than my bank account balance.

Lysico.4906:

s/d has no issues with burst and have range.

There ya go.

wrong, ever tried landing a dragons? exactly, you need to root them, but once every 40 seconds is not ok, and even when landing it doesnt do as much for all the sacrifices made. It has absolutely no defense and most of its damage is , guess wht, easy to avoid ground targeted with DELAY and DoT (yep, autoattacks except lighting, which stuns you for a few seconds and does laughable damage)

Let me present to you a good comparison:

A mesmer, one weapon set; GS: does the same as air#1, but higher damage. Has some nice buffs and a pretty sick debuff if you can land it, the #4 is INCREDIBLY strong, does 2-3k EACH hit and usually hits 2-3 times, 4 times if you manage to pin them agasint a wall, then #5 a nice way to take the darn melees off you, reacts quickly and effectively. Thats only ONE weapon set, then you can pick another one fore more damage, or defense (staff) There, one class which is supposed to have less versatility than ele just beat the whole 4 elements of that ele with only GS…..

Quick Mouse.7635:

Not entirely sure I agree. I’ve played staff ele since beta, some 1200hours. It used to be top of the game in spvp until they nerfed evasive arcana.
The only 2 skills that root you in place are meteor shower and healing rain, and for good reason.
The only thing i think could be improved is the after-cast delay. A little too long imo

most of evasive arcana’s benefices are for melee;
fire: a blast (better than nothing)
water: healing (got nerfed, half healing in SpvP now)
air: blind (short AoE, but right now the stronger tbh)
earth: blast similar to D#5 but considerably reduced damage and DoT.

As you can see it is mostly melee and does help when people reach you in melee, but add absolutely nothing to burst.

Let me pu it this way;
Only way you can do a burst, and, in case people dont know what burst exatly mean, let me explain a bit, there seems to be some confusion about it: “Burst; the capability to do a great amount of damage in a short amount of time, usually given little window for reaction and out damaging most ways of healing”. Usually it is accompanied by the caster being extremely squishy (say 13k hp for ele), wich is called a glass cannon.

Now lets analyze our options for RANGED burst:

Auto attacks, hey literaly take 3/4 of a second to cast, have the slowest projectile motion of the game, an effective 1 3/4 to 2 full seconds before one actually lands, you have to be bad, REALLY bad to not dodge one of those, and guess what, outside fire, none of them hurt….at all…not even the crits in lighting… and even with two bounces the damage is ridicously low for such handicaps.
Then are the easily-avoidable, delayed-ground-casted AoE which, the only one you could “relay” on would be fire #2, and it takes a casting time of 3/4 seconds, activation time of another 1/2 second, thats a whole second and more, that even with arcana trait VIII which increases the radius, people can literaly walk out of it, it does no more damage than an autoattack and for the most part you can only get one IF ANYTHING.

For earth…well, i dont think #2 should even be considered part of a burst since 3 seconds explosion AND 3/4 casting, for almost 4 seconds before you see anything happening….and by then you walked out of it….twice….without dodging.
Air #2…casting time, not doing nothing….for a mere attack that does “decent” damage and blinds….still 1 1/2 second casting….. So for ranged e got nothing that could be used at a moments notice, all can be easily avoided, walked out of, or simply ignored. Yes CC is there but….whats the point of CC if you can only use it to run away?

Then he utility, the only redeemable thing about staff is that you can use that arcana projectile to do some damage, that with the lighting you get from switching to air, the chances for lighting with 30% in weapon with a crit and Air runes…..even when all those proc at the same time…..you wont be doing more than 30% to any non-squishy noob in the game (and thats a lot, considering that in order for the Air rune to proc you need to be attacked and has a VERY low chance, and the weapon one is based upon chance as well, more reliable though)

As you can see, for a class that cant pick their cards (weapons, almost anyone else but engi can say “ok, this set for group, this one for those oh SHlT moments, after all, in a five tourny you can go from one to the other in a moment”) we lack variety that were promised by Anet with elementalists. Sure, play D/D in tournament, but that would gut one of the most beautiful classes when it comes to lore/gameplay potential. D/D bunker is the way to go and for that I resent the team that balances the game.

We lack RELIABLE RANGED BURST, period, the CC does not justify the low stats when all you can do with it is RUN AWAY since you cant do anything else for your team but to be a poor man’s guardian when it comes to supporting.

Im getting very frustrated how elementalists lack the option to go burst ranged, specially staff. Right now it is very unreliable and even when landing everything Im getting outbursted by mesmes, warriors, thieves, even a necro was able to do it, he blew quickly to my team but the fact that he still made me go from 100 to 0 tells you how bad it is.

DO NOT GIVE ME THE D/D ARGUMENT! Im sick and tired of it, I didnt pick up this class to play a thief without stealth, I wanted a mage class, able to justify their poor health by the amount of damage they could put, right now its taking everything I have and a very specific set of runes, trait, skill order and utility skills to achive getting an opponent to HALF health, all that while tryng to deal with long-casting-and-also-activating-skills-and-a-few-more-that-root-you-in-place-making-you-an-even-easier-target-than-you-already-are.

I have over 700 hours played on ele, main since beta, I know what Im doing, I have tried everything, I have even given positive feedback, and all I get are some minor buf fixes. Please devs, HIRE MORE PEOLE, only 2 in charge of balance result in this! I dont care how beast ele staff is at ravaging enemy walls on sieges at WvW, the fact that thats the only moment they actually shine makes this NOT justificable. Im doing twice, TWICE the damage i do with my mesmer and thief with barely any gear nor knowledge of them than my ele which I will dare to say im playing to 85-90% MAXIMUN POSSIBLE POTENTIAL!

This many people cant be wrong, it is a fact, ele staff are an easy kill, they contribute barely anything in 5 tournaments since you have to usually go in pairs or alone, right now they are underwhelming and their CC does not justify their lack of damage.

I dont want a trade, i dont want you to take away CC in order to give damage, i want a straight up buff! Right now we offer nothing in 5-T and our casting times and delayed skill makes us have a bad time on battles constantly moving, leaving us with PvE and and sieges, which guess what, it takes forever to kill a mob, and usually i cannot take more than 2, while my mesmer and thief can do that, more and beyond.

“Dont play the class, move on not your thing”
“Why are you even playing this class? Stop playing it if it is so bad”
No, just NO. Im sorry but YOU WOULD NOT throw away your kid if he suddenly is doing bad at school or gets bullied a lot, you would try to see and do anythign within your power to fix the issue! I like the mage class, I want to play a bender of elements, all I ask is some reliability on our skills and CAPABILITY of burst…..like any other profession.

Yes, im frustrated, Im ranting but it has been near 9 months since release and I have yet to see a good buff to staff ele other than “decreasing activation time from Meteor Shower” (which barely made a difference, still makes you a sitting duck and activation time does not justify it) I mean, even staff guardian can now cast #5 without self rooting and needlessly sacrificing himself.

Until this happens you will keep seeing D/D (mages in melee and dagger….?!), either give us weapon swap or give us a good element to shake off all those melee classes which take little to no effort to get to us and stick to us for the 4 secs that we last.

[/rant, for now]

Kromsin.6359:

Why would you pigeon hole yourself into one weapon? Run scepter/dagger and switch to staff in certain situations. Elementalist is one of the best in wvwvw. Grass isn’t that much greener on the other classes lol.

“yah, i can see that thief running at me, here, let me open my bag, look for the dagger….where did I put it?! AHH, i remembered, i conveniently put it on the bottom left, here let me equip it before this giant screen overpowers my entire view (which already does) and finally be able to take on this thief 1v1 since no matter what in small plays they ALWAYS get to the back line…

OH OOPS, cant change weapons mid fight, like every class, because each class is different and we have access to 4 sets instead of 2, bummer, well, at least 1 out of 4 should be good enough to defend myself in a 1v1 situation, I mean, thats the whole point of versatility, right? Nope, im wearing a staff, one gap closer ends the fight agaisnt me so might as well just bend over or blow all 3 cantrips for 5 seconds added survavility until their next gap closer refreshes in 2 seconds while my cantrips go into 90secs."

Face it, all other classes have the option to go full support or part support and part “oh kitten” weapon when omeone jumps on them, WE LACK THAT. Anyone can change weapon out of combat, and every ele does that already, so dont feel so smart about it. All Im asking is to either make staff truly versatile as in able to take ANY situation or give me a weapon that allows me to switch weapons (like a macro) out of combat, that way if i manage to create enough distance in a fight and get myself through skills out of combat to switch to the weapons of my convinience without having a giant UI blocking my entire view while trying to find the weapons i need. Get real.

thanks

MANDATORY MESSAGE BECAUSE BODY LENGTH MUST BE AT LEAST 15 CHARACTER

Im relatively new to English, could somebody please tell me in a simplified, dumbed down, easily broken English what does it mean? I depend a lot on evading and I want to know exactly what does this have to do with evading. Thanks in advanced!!

Redscope.6215:

Panacea.4927:

Knowledge of the thief provides you with enough “counterplay”. Stealth isnt a invul skill, nor does it suddenly teleport the thief away.

No stealth doesn’t teleport the thief away, he’s got teleport skills for that. IA in stealth and cya later.

Panacea.4927:

They are still at the place where they stealthed and will either try to go for you or run away.

Only fools stay in one spot when stealthed. The “noobs” are the ones that stealth and keep running in the same direction at the same speed. These changes won’t effect them since they’re probably already having a hard time figuring out how to confuse people.

Panacea.4927:

With abit of knowledge about the movement speed of a class, you can easily hit the thief before he can backstab you.

Hitting the thief doesn’t break stealth. If you hit them, they can still backstab you.

Panacea.4927:

I play a thief myself and CnD on alot of stealthed thieves already.

Thats because you don’t have to face the target to land CnD. Haven’t you noticed?

Panacea.4927:

The only real issue with thieves is and always was culling. Besides that you can try to avoid the CnD of the thief on you. Either blind them, get aegis, CC them or dodge. As thief I tend to kill thieves with S/D. I infiltration strike to them, immobilize them for 1 sec, CnD and daze them, do some autoattacks, scorpion wire them, CnD them again, daze them again and switch to D/D for some final burst.

Most people who know how OP thieves are play other classes. I’m not sure what your arguement here is about countering a thief with a thief. Yes an OP class CAN counter an OP class.

Panacea.4927:

Thieves itself arent overpowered, it are the players they fight against who are underpowered (and I dont mean the class here)

Right here man. About midway down the page:
Habib Loew – “Thieves are still going to be useful – still going to deadly; mesmers are still going to be useful – still going to deadly, but hopefully not overpowered any more”

Devs thought stealth was OP. How come you don’t?

pretty much this ^

Dasorine.1964:

the issue is still really the enemy not the thief, this is prevalent in every game that has stealth in it, stealth works best on new players who don’t know any better, this is why spys in TF2 can own entire servers of new people or why in starcraft 2 dark templars can win so many bronze level matches.

However as soon as you go against people who have learnt how it works it becomes almost a penalty because so much of that character is based around that one mechanic as soon as people learn it they can counter it with no danger hence spies in TF2 can barely get a kill or sap off in high level play, why dark templars are almost never used beyond silver league and why thieves aren’t that prevalent in “high level” play.

And you know what? They always nerf stealth repeatedly as well to appease the new players even if it makes the stealth classes totally impotent against people who actually know about it.

The options really come down to leaving stealth and allowing those that use it to be powerful against new players or remove stealth all together and remake the class as something else.

Because no matter what you do in between them it will always be either too potent against new players or totally impotent against everything else.

unfortunately only a small, very small, VERY VERY small part of the whle emtire total community plays high lvl sPvP organized tournament, so small that it is not worth punish everyone else for it, I do admit that i have a edge on thieves and mesmer because I have played them beyond imaginary boundaries, but I also admit those two classes are very strong agaisnt people with the same skill lvl due to their upper hadn, hence why I enjoyed playing them so much and erroneously thought of me as a skilled player.

By shifting the power from stealth to utility we solve the “newbie” issue and we get some power that does not relies on being permastealth and having the enemy panicking and wasting CDs. We are both saying the same thing, just you dont realize it. Right now stealth is OP, (notice how 70% of the sPvP population is either thief or mesmer), a small amount of players will not do for Anet, Im sorry to break it down to you, Anet is a MMO company, the more players, the better, the only way to not hurt the player base and still keep thieves viable is simply shifting their power from stealth to utility and some dungeon utility too, not liking how people go all like “a thief? why if a mesmer do the same, survive longer and give us more!”, heck, even I say the same……

Heck, name a thing thieves can do in a dungeon better than a mesmer can….

or ask which classes are the most hated in hot-joined sPvP?(hint, mesmer and thieves)
Or see how many thieves are in tournament? (none to few, lots of mesmers and D/D eles, which is understandable)

Dasorine.1964:

Fortus.6175:

(1v1 and small skirmishes, we all know thieves need some help in WvW-long-range-AoE)

(thats sort of the point we can be very good at the few situations we excel at but in others we are far outclassed, just like every kitten class in the game, yet we get stuck with nerf after nerf because people refuse to accept things aren’t quite as powerful as it actually seems)

(there is a fine line between too strong and strong, right now we are too strong) Tone down the damage a bit, increase utility, add some counterplay other than running away or wasting CDs trying to guess where the thief is without any actual reward if you do manage to hit him. I love the class and I love killing enemies but I also know that when Im going on a kill streak of 9 without any death or down then something is wrong, VERY wrong.

Panacea.4927:

Knowledge of the thief provides you with enough “counterplay”. Stealth isnt a invul skill, nor does it suddenly teleport the thief away. They are still at the place where they stealthed and will either try to go for you or run away. With abit of knowledge about the movement speed of a class, you can easily hit the thief before he can backstab you. I play a thief myself and CnD on alot of stealthed thieves already.

The only real issue with thieves is and always was culling. Besides that you can try to avoid the CnD of the thief on you. Either blind them, get aegis, CC them or dodge. As thief I tend to kill thieves with S/D. I infiltration strike to them, immobilize them for 1 sec, CnD and daze them, do some autoattacks, scorpion wire them, CnD them again, daze them again and switch to D/D for some final burst.

Thieves itself arent overpowered, it are the players they fight against who are underpowered (and I dont mean the class here)

haha, I used to think like you. I used to think people around me were bad, how could they NOT see my damage coming? How could they be so bad that they couldnt escape a simple damage skill? Then I started playing ranger, ele, a little mesmer, and I began to understand, that all those mechanics above mentioned are actually pretty big freaking deal, not so easily avoidable even when THROUGHLY knowing the class and its mechanics.

Face it, approach it without any bias, disinfect yourself like I did, I have a roll-time with thieves, and when things get awry bam stealth away, if I can finish them then backstab HS HS and tomp, if I cant finish them then just walk away…. I’ve never had an easier time killing people (even in relatively big groups) than I have with thieves, they do their job to darn well, especially with culling) for how little risk its posed agaisnt them.

Though I dont expect anyone coming to this forum to agree with me, after all, I picked the worst forum to post this, here people who love thieves will come here, therefore there will be LOT of bias, but for a class that does mostly damage , compared o an ele (which is supposed to fill the same roll) they outperform, hands down (1v1 and small skirmishes, we all know thieves need some help in WvW-long-range-AoE)

Swiftwynd.1685:

I think its best that the auto’s be retooled to really fit with what ever the main theme of the attunement’s kit, and that they should always be a good source of damage, regardless of their secondary functions. Ideally, you should want to use them because they contribute meaningful damage AND provide a secondary function, like most if not ALL other autoattacks in the game.

This is because even if I’m a full damage traited and geared berserker style staff user, I never have a reason to use Water Blast. Sure, its an ok skill if you specialize in healing power, but for the very least an auto-attack should be universally “ok” for any spec.

With the highest damage build possible in the entire game (my build focusing on damage amplification of potentially over 110%), its hard to get water blast to crit for more than 1k, while the auto-attacks on the first two swings of conjured lightning are hitting for 6 to 7k in similar situations, with the final being able to hit for 11k+ depending on vulnerability stacks. Very different weapons, but the sheer distance between them is just terrible.

If fireball is considered our “base line” auto damage, then the other abilities with a bit more utility (water blast + stoning) should be about 80% of FB’s damage, and the easier to land, more aoe focused or potentially higher dps option if 2 opponents next to each other should be Chain Lighting at maybe 60 to 70% of FB’s damage.

Currently, spamming fireball with lavafount is actually one of the highest damage ranged weapon combos in the entire game for sheer dps, so no help is needed there really, its a niche weapon set that rewards locking down a foes mobility or denying a location with LF. Add in Meteor Shower and this only gets better.

The problem is the other 3 attunements dont just do “less” damage, they do practically no damage compared to Fire. Ice Spike is nice, for sure, but Lightning Surge and Eruption’s direct damage reeaaaally could use some scaling buffs, particularly for how big their cast times are.

Eruption is already perfect for Condi builds, and its my favorite skill in the game for that, but a bit of direct damage option would be nice too, as it would reward swapping attunements while still able to deal some raw damage (less than fire but not abysmal) while applying control skills and Weakness for a while.

Basically what im getting at is that the damage options on the staff need to be present on each weapon set if you truly want “raw damage” elementalists to feel like they have true flexibility with the staff. If water blast did 80% of fireballs dps, then i could justify using it to help heal my allies slightly while i continue to deal damage, but it wouldnt aoe foes, which is fireball’s biggest selling point. If stoning did reasonable damage, i also could see myself stacking a bit of weakness on a boss for a bit while i wait for Fire attunement to come back up, particularly if a boss is landing consistant heavy hits on the group like Lupus does at times.

Currently, its a losing battle for me to swap and stay in any other attunement that ISNT fire on a berserker elementalist. Instead I only cherry pick a few utilitarian and control skills from each attunement then rush back to fire as quickly as possible.

dude….THIS ^
Unlike ALL profession we dont have the chance to “switch” from group to 1v1 at moment’s need!

also, how the heck do you get 6k-7k with lighting?! I can never get past 1.5-2k with full zerker set(exotic) and all accesorys zerker (ascended and exotic) and 5 stacks of mights and a couple of vulnerability!

this might seem nuts, but you have to decide, PVT or zerker, playing with boths give you nothing of each, unfortunately we dont scale well from PVT unless you are D/D bunker and as a dagger you cant really go full zerker.

Go staff zerker with some vit for the casual thief that makes it to the back and dungeons, if dagger then go full PVT, you wont even notice the difference with the right traits.

I understand the frustration that will ensue the changes but lets face it, thieves are above the top in PvP, being perma stealth and having the best burst and scaling in the game on 1v1 (I would dare to say even to zerker warrior) and having the best escape mechanism, (rivalin if not surpasing the elementalist themselves)

For a class this safe damage has to go with its risk, right now a thief has very little risk for the amount of rewards it gets in a small skirmish scenario. I know I know, “in zergs” blah blah blah, but cmon, in zergs even the most skilled player will get killed, even though I find it hilarious to go perma stealth and finishing people without them even knowing I was there.

But one solution I could see to stop everyone complaining about this class is; any that interacts with enemy player (finishing) reveals them after a small daley (room for counterplay?) or after certain damage threshold we get out of stealth, that way we have some “counterplay” mechanics to this overly (and I admit it, it is, because when I stealth it is FUN, but when play against it I cringe to the point I wonder how did I even enjoyed doing that to other people)

Thief is a revolutionary profession in the sense that you can finish off people without knowing you were even there, so I wouldnt remove that, leaving with the damage threshold, I would say 10% or maybe 15% hp without conditions, or 20% including conditions, that way we force bad players out of using a mechanics that rewards bad plays and reward good players who smartly set up DoT and damage fields thinking ahead. We would finally see the bad thieves quit the class leaving the good thieves with rolls that remove chilled/burning and using the heal that removes bleeds as well.

Overall I think that the real reason thieves are “OP” is the stealth mechanic which currently I admit (and if you dont you are very biased, play another class that is not mesmer for a while in sPvP and yuo will understand like we have all) is OP has no real counterplay other than RUNNING AWAY at all speed, which is hilarious, because it leaves their back open for extra damage, backstab and easy to land HS.

Overall, keep the damage, nerf Stealth, give a little more AoE for WvW and add some team utility for dungeons.

any major buff is because they excel at WvW. Sadly they are a victim of their own strength, if there was a way to give it power without gutting their WvW potential then we would finally see fulfilled the long-range mage-archetype nuker……. at last.

From shooting pea in sPvP to an actual glass cannon, like they were intended to be.

My suggestion: Make AoE damage divide among targets, the more people the less damage, consequently, in a 1v1 or 2v2 scenery the damage is INCREDIBLY increased (to the point it is actually worth going 30/30/0//0/10)

Or

Make Fire and Air traits just as good as water/arcana, there is no real reason to go any other way when these two make up for the low hit points and armor and actually have good synergy/good traits.

Baladir.2736:

Correct me if i am wrong, but this is just another thread complaining about Pvp dps shortcomings. Well written to be sure and quite a bit of time and thought too, but still looking at the class thru one facet of the game, dps. You run in a group yet I did not see anything about group synergies, but then Pvp players rarely if ever do. It’s all 1v1, I can’t hit anything.

In other words, if we took out everything in the thread that dealt with Pvp dps oriented material, there would not be much left. There’s nothing wrong with that. Don’t get me wrong. I just wish perhaps that was in the title so I didn’t have to read the whole thing to find that out.

I should have realized at the second paragraph, “This thread is mode only and SOLELY for contructive criticism.” My Bad. It’s not really about the class taken as a whole and an even handed discussion of the positives and negatives, just the shortcomings. I have to ask, why to you play the ele at all?

you are certainly correct and I didnt notice at all, but you also have to understand, that this is not only about damage, it is also about boons and support, especially the risk and rewards, as well as casting times and detonation times, which are arguably as important as damage and i definitely covered, but yeah, this is indee mostly about damage and about team utility, that other than a couple of buffs from switching elements which require you to be close to melee range (agaisnt their purpose), the other option is to combo Earth 2 with any field, but we all know thats is really hard to do in a constantly moving field, specially since it tkaes THREE whole seconds, by the time it explodes the buffs are probably not needed or people have moved away. Lastly all they have left is the combo field, which, once again are the only redeeming quality about them, and it is not enough, the CDs are TOOO long, 40 secs on both Air #5 and water #4, even traited its 36 secs and I would not have a 5 team spot taken by an ele who can only do that.

Why I play ele? Simple , i want a hard hitting nuker as promised, right now rather than glass cannon Im a shooting pea, also i want a team to say: “an ele? great, finally we get some nasty support and damage!!” just like they say when a Guardian or Mesmer joins. I gave plenty of suggestion on how to fix this and I wont go over it again, there is no way around it, Staff ele needs help, period.

Part VI

Overall I want to see some viability into staff other than “run around with PvT set being unkillable but useless”. Those suggestions might help, maybe they would amke OP the ele, but what I wont accept is a trade, a trade would mean they are balanced and therefore would only shift its power to other places, they are NOT ok, or at least not reliable enough. I surpased the learning curve, i know how to play them, i know their ins and out, lots of experience since Beta, I want to have the same reward I have playing mesmer, ranger and thief ranged for the risks Im tanking.

tl;dr If you cant read that then its better than you move along, this is not the thread for you, this is to make staff eles acceptable to play at competitive level, not to whine about UP, balanced or OP.

Part V

I understand they are supposed to fill in the spot for the lack of weapons, but for being “team utility” skills with long CD, let me put it into perspective, certain mesmer skill has 45 secs CD and removes all boons from enemies and conditions from allies (all!) for 7 seconds (7), 45 secs CD (45), teamwide, meanwhile, frost bow on the same tier has 60 secs CD, only affect one other person and it has seirous draw backs that make them less than desirable except for AC. I want to be able to cast it and see people fighting over who gets it! Not saying “did you just waste a utility slot for that?”. Right now it is only used in towns for fun.

Elites are out of place and except for the elemental in PvE they do nothing special for you, twister makes you a live punching bag, swords takes you into melee range, and who focuses an elemental? Unlike AoE stealths, or AoE 100% heals with knock backs and AoE burns.

Overall there is a reason why people dont ask for eles in tournaments outside of D/D, it is because D/D is the only thing that can actually hold its ground, because of it people think eles are strong and are afraid to ask for buffs, im sorry, but the reason im playing ele is to fulfill that staff-mage fantasy, not to run around like a thief without stealth. Scepter has it issues too and so does focus, but unfortunatley i dont like neither of their playstyles so I wouldnt be the best one to start describing its problems, thought Dragon Tooth…..ughh, can you make a skill harder to land? Cant aim, long casting time and animation and detonation……

Part IV

Earth: Im sorry, but this element is a joke in staff, i mean, have you actually tried hitting #2 in a fight? 3 seconds detonation, 3/4 activation, if you dont get away from it, you are bad, VERY bad, I dont use for anything other than combos and even then, 3 seconds to explode, most fields are gone by the time i can set it up. Suggestion, rethink the whole thing, what do you want from the skill, the damage or the blast? If it is the damge, make it explode instantly or a short delay, increase CD and decrease damage, if it is the blast, make it explode instantly, no other way! decrease damage by a lot and make the CD the same. The crippling part is underwhelming, make it so that it also blocks projectiles via traits (like mesmer) or reflect them. The root……same treatment as the air one.

Now, im NOT asking for all this changes to be considered, but some must happen, right now it has to or otherwise there is not real reason to pick an ele over guadian for support or a mesmer for utility AND damage.
Which brings me to my last point:

Utility:

Cantrips, perfect, marvelous, the only thing saving this class from not being played, would not change a thing, except the little part where they are the ONLY options yo have, except for the occasional 25% increase in movement for WvW. Have you seen the weapons? I will start with the bow and wont go into details with the rest:
It gives healing and condition damage, but lets analize it a bit more

1. healing AA, great if you have an ally in between you and the enemy, not homing, slow moving, I dont think it has damage (not that i have seen anyways….), it require you to get out of position to heal an ally, but for minuscule healing that cant be spammed is it worth it to get killed, for 300 healing? i think not. make it worth it
2. its ok, i guess thats the only skill thats supposed to do damage, it fulfill what the AA does not, but that weapon is not about damage, i think…. Increase activation.
3. great at taking down Burrows in AC explorable, and WvW…minus the 900 rnage part….where if you get nearby a zerg with that bow, 900 range and self-stunned…hmm, yeah…. suggestion Increase range.
4. Casting time, travel time, easily avoidable, not even homing……… Please remove one of the handicaps, for a skill that is #5 for a class with access to ONLY one weapon this skill surely falls short, 3 handicaps and regular reward is NOT ok.

Part III

Weapon(remember, this is all about staff):

Fire is relatively ok, the strongest attunement and has clear strenghts and disadvantages, though making #2 hit on cast wouldnt hurt, for how small it is, even with Arcana VIII which increases radius you ca literaly walk out of it wihthout using a single dodge before it does the first tick.

Water: We removed the casting time for Guardians #% staff, it is time we do the same for eles #5, it is pointless and more often that not the benefices are too small to have the ele rooted for such long time, this game is about mobility, self stuns only make things worse to us.

Air: this is whats wrong with this weapon, “high single target damage and control”, right now the #1 bounces 3 times, but subpar damage when it is one target (single target, remember) good vs mesmers but bad everywhere else, my suggestion, given the casting time make it so that the first attack hurts, like eles #1, successive attacks have decreased damage, say 50% of previous attack and have it have another bounce (last attack would have 12.5% damage of the first attack) that way it rewards hitting your primary target, does whats supposed to do (single target) and still fulfill the AoE philosophy of staves. The comes #3: Is that even supposed to hit anything but an AFK player on the verge of a cliff in WvW? Right now it sure does, casting time, slow motion…and wait, the hit-box of a strike zone in baseball. Either casting time goes away and increase speed or increase hitbox and make it AoE and non-blockeable. There is not reason why this skill remains so hard to aim, can be blocked and it is single target. Finally #5, good for control, except that you dont really control, given the casting time and animation topped with Arcana AoE increase, it is near impossible to land, and even if the target moves, the AOE field is too big and people can just run around, stand without any consequence, my suggestion: AoE stun if you stay for longer than a second, inflict damage in the meanwhile, applies Fumble. It has a 40 secs CD, it should AT LEAST make thm burn one dodge or eat the stun, i mean, thats our only real AoE CC outside water #4.

Part II:

I got sad, VERY sad, i felt like I had just WASTED months, MONTHS playing a class which thought was high risk high rewardsm but in reality was merely high risk…..subpar-regular rewards.
But now you say, “just bashing the profession, where is the CONSTRUCTIVE criticism?”
Well, let me start by saying that I knew staff was supposed to be long range support, so I played both PVT and zerker for boons and damage respectively.
Here is the issue, thought PVT (im going to be using this a lot, so I might as well tell you what it means in case you dont know: Power, Vitality, Toughness) increases survavility, the mayority of your supportive skills requires absolutely no survival nor get better with said stats, so a zerker ele has the same utility as a soldier one, therefore you are ony left with going full damage in order to be able to be more than a punching bag. The support we ive is great, AoE debuffs and control but ong CDs, understandable on WvW, but NOT on sPvP. So lets begin with the uggestions:

Traits: For a class locked in one weapon set, with several attunements to make up for this, the reward for staying in one element are bad, the traits would say you HAVE to stay in one element to reap all the benefices of said traits, but reality is; you need to constantly change attunements and therefore you lose all benefices, unless you go 20 or 30 arcana, therefore all decent builds will have to have arcane, limiting your options. My solution, introduce traits for other elements into the element traits, example Fire: “after changing to another attunement, you retain the benefices of fire for 5 seconds and your next attack in:
Water: Small AoE blast heal on target
Earth: Small AoE Blast that cripples on target hit
Air: Small AoE Stun”

That way you removed the need to go 20 into arcane to get the 5 seconds trait and yu reward careful switching of elements. As it is now you do know whether to stay in one element and be “decent” or get out of it and become a running chicken for the next 9-12 second swaiting for the element to come back up while you waste all other skills including utilities trying to just survive until then.

Part I:

Hello there, my gamertag is Fortus, I have been playing since Beta, I come from a wide array of online games and MMOs including WoW were I reached 2k arena rating with a great team of friends, Rohan, Aion and other smaller MMO not very widely known. My friends and I moved to this game shortly after we heard GW2 was being launched, we kept out team and decided to move in into the game.
Each picked a different profession, me, coming from mostly healers and long-distance nukers I decided to pick the profession that seemed to fit this scheme; Elementalists. Ever since then I have been exclusively playing elementalists, only creating other classes to see their different skills and how they worked, all in the purpose of understanding their mechanics and beat them.

This thread is mode only and SOLELY for contructive criticism, I will ask to please refrain from posting here if your comments include comments like: “Eles OP” or “Eles sucks” or “you suck, eles are ok” without REASONS as to what makes you say that. I would also appreciate if it gets stickied to the top of the forum page for Elementalist as I think it would serve as a great place to gather all the frustration and suggestions for the profession.

Now that introduction and background is set, I would like to address some of the core problems that, in my humble opinion, set the elementalist back. Before I start, let me say that I have tried a WIDE variety of builds, self-created and copied from other sources, different weapons and about every single armor specc that seemed to fit eles. So far, gameplay-wise, Staff is my to-go weapon and the real reason why I picked a “mage” character.

My opinion on Staff Elementalists: UnderPowered.

Now, here is my constructive criticism;

•By now we all know that staff was meant to be a method of AoE control and damage, designed mostly for WvWvW and as a sPvP supportive character. Right now staff is the weapon you want to go if you desire to stay out of range of the enemy and use if someone gets to you by using the wider array of scape mechanisms that the weapon contains……except for one detail, neither of these things are accomplished….at all.
> Let me begin by saying this, trust me, i HATE comparing things but given that this is a team-oriented game where there are 7 other profession you HAVE to compare as to have a point of reference. A few weeks ago I decided to start a mesmer alt to be able to do Bosses chests (which unfortunately got removed) and start doing dungeons to farm enough badges to buy Staves and use them for the precursor to Bifrost, I decided to go to sPvP and give it a go with GS and staff. I searched some online guide and followed it to the letter, went inside a game and before 5 minutes passsed I had already killed 2 people (with barely any knowledge of skills) and was holding my ground in teamfights. It came to my surprise that I had 20.1k hp with the same Beserker set I had been using on my ele, which had 13.2k hp, all that while doing considerably more damage and escaping just as good (if not better) than my PVT ele.

Also while we are at it, another bug:

Mesmer: Traits Dueling, X “creates a clone at dodges”

That clone randomly attacks the closest target instead of the current target, which kind of defeats the purpose of clones in the first. Please look into it as well.

Hello,

The Mesmer is having a pretty serious bug with traits:

Traits: Illusion, number VII “bouncing attacks have one additional bounce”

The staff works perfectly, i confirmed it does the 3 bounces, but this do NOT apply with the clones, clone still have the 2 bouncing (enemy and back to me or ally)

It could be that it is working as intended but if it isnt then the mesmer has some serious handicap, im heavily invested in bouncing (staff is my favorite weapon) and I noticed only now that it doesnt work.

Please let me know about the progress of this or whether it is working as intended, thanks in advanced,

Fortus

AC wasnt easy before, but was doable, now its near impossible to accomplish unless you are on teamspeak and have full gear at lvl 80.

Im sorry but not everyone have teamspeak, a full premade and lvl 80 exotic gear, (almost nobody), but it seems that now thats what its required, even if it isnt it is kitten near impossible….

I understand that many people complained that it was too easy, I myself never believed so, always had a relatively hard time but had fun. I said: “its new, probably thats why im having issues” , but after a while I realized that it wasnt the case. Dont fix whats not broken!!!!

yes yes, i know, “less QQ and more suggestions on how to fix the issue” , well i dont really have a suggestion other than revert the changes (some of them) but here is what i have found so far:

-Spider: double wipe!!!???!!?! never had i wiped before in there, now EVERY run is a guaranteed first-try-wipe

-Kohler: as hard as ever, have you ever wondered why people STILL skip him?!

-p1 burrows: we were using AoEs, im an ele so my frostbow #4 take the things down, which is good, we coordinated the whole team (guild on teamspeak) to take them in order, we had someone guarding the guy….: knock down, knock down, knock kittencing down, knock down, guess what, i swang a swo…..errgh, knocked down, dead. We could bear with that, we brought a guardian and gave is stability, i got my own stability too, oh look, the dude is dead, cuz it doesnt matter that you attack the mobs, they will attack him, it doesnt matter you destroy the burros, they still persist, it doesnt matter you have perma swiftness, they mobs will catch you up, knock you down 2-3 times in a row, play baseball with you and then kill you. We actually got past that part, but guess what; we didnt have fun, we were coordinated, we got over the obstacle, but it only made us NOT want to do it, instead of feel accomplished we actually did it.

Im sorry, but dungeons are supposed to be FUN, rewarding, i mean, they take time , you NEED to farm them for gear and gold because thats pretty much the only reliable way to get gold in the game. " Dont play it then, simple….. -__- " That is the WRONG answer, then you would have another dead dungeon because people are too afraid to even try it on solo queue. Make dungeons solo friendly, dont force people have to get on teamspeak with a whole guild who wont give up after the 5th try because they actually care for each others.

Yes im kind of sad and mad, overall most (all except p2 CoF) changes to dngeons lately have made my experience slightly less enjoyable. Make content that rewards not skipping it, *cough*Kohler*cough , content that rewards ACTAULLY DOING IT *cough*dead dungeons*cough*, Im doing AC for the stats, but i dont want to HAVE to play one path only a day to be able to get a full set (had to do it with old CoF cuz p2) which takes AGES.

[/rant]

and mesmers? It is almost as if they were balanced.

Yes im actually kind of sad and mad, these two classes have been repeatedly put on the scope of the community because they are alittle bit too much on sPvP.

“But they are easy to deal with, you n00b”. <—— that is a lie, and dirty lie you tell yourtself to not feel guilty about playing them. I have played them and I know what it is like critting someone life before they even see me, and if they do I disappear to do it again. Clones doing 5-6k damage in a go and one of the best healing skills in the game and a couple of stealths for when things dont go well (AKA 3 enemies).

Balance here is null, bunkers/Tanky DPS do the same if not more damage (sustained and even raw) than a pure glass cannon, that at this game standards is more like a glass than a cannon. I cant run a full DPS ele without being blown by a PVT guardian as if i was nothing.
3 of my friends gave up on sPvP, they consider it a joke, merely use it at most for trying out builds. There is no balance in sPvP and there wont be until each class can stand on their own and full glass cannon are as effective as a thief with the same stats is, some guideline as of why they completely gave up on sPvP (as do I):

-Lack of duels
-70% sPvP population are either thieves or mesmers
-lack of balance
-lack of rewards
-Bunkers/ Tanky DPS actualy outDPS’ing a full glass cannon that isnt thief or mesmer (AKA eles which by definition thats their sole job)

/Rant

oh hey we are on the same guild! [Fortus Phoenix btw] i wanted to get out on that hot :/ , anyways, good luck with it.

Also while we are at: there is a rather funny bug; flying mobs everywhere, on all maps, but on the behemont there were a bunch of dead shadows over the map, mobs disappear all the time as well, not game breaking bug but worth looking into after you get done with the real bugs.

Thanks Devs for your hard work btw, never really have the chance to say it so might as well do it now.

I just got two daily chests, and still ahvent finished it, bug?

Kaimick.5109:

I love how people blindly come on to the forums with little to no research involved and then complain and expect Arena Net to take them seriously. Why should Arena Net take anything you suggest seriously when your not willing to take 5 minutes and research.

If you did the research you would have found out that Guild Halls are being introduced sometime ( this year ) hopefully in the next month or so.
Secondly they have already stated they are adding a dueling measure that will allow people to duel other players in a private room that you control.

Seriously people do 5 minutes of research before you post on the forums if you truly want to have your idea be taken seriously. This suggestion has been made probably over 30 times and in at least 7 of those threads it has been stated that Arena Net is doing a dueling system. Maybe if more people spent more time thinking instead of blindly posting we could get some real suggestion on the forums.

I did my research, and yes, i know about all that, im asking about PvE Dueling, random people, you know, there are skills which can ONLY be used on PvE and WVW, right?

Also the gear……… dunno if you knew, but sPvP has standarize gear and stats……..

I thought this was about General topics, but why do moderators move threads about General stuff to a less populated forum sometimes?

This is not a suggestion ANet, i asked a very specific question on this thread; https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Duel-tittle-too-short/first#post1286856 and it got moved to a “suggestion” subforum where I would be lucky to get two answers…….

Please define “General” so I can put my threads on the right forum, or should I assume you want to hide the “duel” function we have all been asking for so long?

ANd yes, this is a General thread, i cant possible think this would fit anywhere else. Almost all the threads (all) i make get moved….. Lets try to UNIFY the forums instead of having 100 partitions where for the most part most topics arent really “defined”.

Inb4 deleted, and yes ANet, im a little angry and indignated, I work at customer service and this would be the equivalent of somebody coming to ask me something and me sending them to a dark, isolated room where they will get no real solution until i feel like it.

Great, this was moved to suggestion, now i would be lucky to get 2 posts….Good job ANet, you have successfully and quite “subtly” killed the thread, I dont know why the secrecy.

Doggie.3184:

Cuz people are bad sports. Also, there’d be too much property damage.

To add dueling we’d need Guild halls implemented.

wait what?

you realize Im just asking /duel for the sake of testing/ competing with people i know, you DONT HAVE TO accept every duel, we can have “duel flags” , that we turn on if we want to duel, and appears like the “searching for party” signal.

I dont know nor care about this so called “Guild Halls” you speak of. Bad sport are everywhere, your point is? You can always fight who you want to, not whoever wants to. Property damage, wut?

Fastbucks.5073:

Why would we add this basic function? You can easily join WvW and get your fill of slaying the enemy players. /duel would just lead to inner-server stupidness.

Wow has /duel… you could go there if you so desire :/

wow, no offense but this has to be the most idiotic post i have seen in my entire life regarding a game. I know this might seen like a personal attack but your post is bad, your reasoning behind it is bad and your solution is even more horrific.

I have friends playing this game on my same server, we all want to test combos, builds, weapons, our PvP capabilities. I cant ask some random person in WvW who i cant even communicate with (unless i invite him to party, which he might or might not accept) nor i can guarantee he wont have any support behind him. I cant just say “stand there while I bash you to death just to test my build” or " lets 1v1, dont kill me, whoever downs first loses".

I played WoW, im playing GW2, why would I have to go to another game to play my profession?! Its like saying " you want to eat pizza? well you can always go to a BBQ restaurant and get some meat" .

I would appreciate a serious answer with a serious solution, because right now sPvP is the only way i can get to PvP, but i cant test my gear correctly nor ALL my skills nor guarantee somebody else will join.

Why dont we have this basic function and when can we expect to finally have it?

though I disagree with some stuff you said, im with your in almost all;

drops are really bad, i ran fractals a couple of times yesterday, got one, ONE yellow , and bunch of blues and green i couldnt use.
The dungeon finder needs to also happen, i have been playing since release and i foudn out about that website about 2 weeks ago, but like me most of the population of the game doesnt even know of its existance, because why would you go outside a game to do something inside the game?!

Also about basic stuff; HOW THE HECK DO WE NOT HAVE DUELS?! Is it so hard to implement?! I mean thats like the very basic of PvP, dueling, i understand that some classes are all about teamfights, but sometimes i wanna test something out with somebody and I have to go to sPvP server where one random person can join and screw all, or if i want to test of of the skills only usable in PvE and WvW I cant do it properly.

Also, I dont really like farming or buying power, but end game gear should have a little better stats than other items; Legendaries.

though I disagree with some stuff you said, im with your in almost all;

drops are really bad, i ran fractals a couple of times yesterday, got one, ONE yellow , and bunch of blues and green i couldnt use.
The dungeon finder needs to also happen, i have been playing since release and i foudn out about that website about 2 weeks ago, but like me most of the population of the game doesnt even know of its existance, because why would you go outside a game to do something inside the game?!

Also about basic stuff; HOW THE HECK DO WE NOT HAVE DUELS?! Is it so hard to implement?! I mean thats like the very basic of PvP, dueling, i understand that some classes are all about teamfights, but sometimes i wanna test something out with somebody and I have to go to sPvP server where one random person can join and screw all, or if i want to test of of the skills only usable in PvE and WvW I cant do it properly.

Also, I dont really like farming or buying power, but end game gear should have a little better stats than other items; Legendaries.

though I disagree with some stuff you said, im with your in almost all;

drops are really bad, i ran fractals a couple of times yesterday, got one, ONE yellow , and bunch of blues and green i couldnt use.
The dungeon finder needs to also happen, i have been playing since release and i foudn out about that website about 2 weeks ago, but like me most of the population of the game doesnt even know of its existance, because why would you go outside a game to do something inside the game?!

Also about basic stuff; HOW THE HECK DO WE NOT HAVE DUELS?! Is it so hard to implement?! I mean thats like the very basic of PvP, dueling, i understand that some classes are all about teamfights, but sometimes i wanna test something out with somebody and I have to go to sPvP server where one random person can join and screw all, or if i want to test of of the skills only usable in PvE and WvW I cant do it properly.

Also, I dont really like farming or buying power, but end game gear should have a little better stats than other items; Legendaries.

I have a REALLY hard time making money in this game, I do some TP but the gains are marginals and take TIME, most of the money I make is usually in the range of 1s-3s at most, and thats after selling a lot of stuff. I dont mind walking everywhere sometimes, but when I only have 2-3 hours of gamplay I want to travel around the map looking for fun events. I understand we need goldsinks, but as a poor, casual player they are too rough.

If anything make them scale based on total amount of gold you own overall (including bank) up to acap, that way poor people dont suffer that much and Anet gets to decrease inflation a bit on overly rich people.

Please mods, dont move this thread to a dead forum, leave it here where it has a chance of being seen.

Im talking about how I usually lose money wanting to participate in that event across the map where the cost of traveling is almost twice the reward of said event.

I would have no problems if the maybe there was some good loot but ever since release I have noticed how it gets harder and harder to get good items or even coins, to the point where I would dare to say 3/10 times they dont even drop anything, and usually 2/10 I get a useful drop that isnt a “junk”.

I thought this game wasnt about grinding, but Im starting to feel like I need to grind just as much (if not more for certain items and mats) to get to something.

I work part-time and study full time so I dont have lot of free time, Im kinda broke which is why I cant afford to expend a lot of cash, but how I see it now I wouldnt even risk cash on a game when I see that it is a necessity in order to get boosters and that even then I dont get too far with it.

Anet please could you please decrease the cost of WP or increase a little the rewards of events and/or drops before you move this thread to a dead forum where it will never see the light of posters ever again?

my goodness that animation is BEAUTIFUL , i want it so badly, im all into animations, thats why i play casters and why not :/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT9uNtw9uGc

Here is the link that Im talking about. Also, what is tht awesome animation that she does before the actual skill, was it removed or is it from female women when attuning to fire?

I was very happily working my way to Bifrost since i thought it could be worn by both my main; Elementalist and my alt Guardian.

Why wouldnt you make it Account bound?! I cant think of making two of them since just making one is making me already have a hard time. Is there any specific reason which i have missed that requires the ultimate weapon from being worn on multiples after all the effort that should at least reward you with that much?

well thanks, now they are aware of it and it shall be nerfed soon :/

Dreamslayer.7659:

Then you would have people with Juggernaut daggers and Sunrise scepters and whatnot.

If any class could get any legendary skin on any weapon, it would just become a “style”, not a unique item.

and thats bad how?

Getting said…“style” is still hard to do, making it quite unique, you will be spending just as much effort,heck, you might even see more people actually fighting for said resources, Anet could get some extra boost ($$). The way I see it, everyone win…..its like not implementing dueling; its optional and it does more good than wrong, more like i cant even see the wrong anywhere.

I know it has been said before but I cant find it where. I like Bifrost, dont get my wrong, I like rainbows and colors overall, but I play Sylvari, thematically speaking, I feel like plants go better with my character than a rainbow would. I also know Legendaries are only skins which add nothing to the game other than an Aura and Steps (with some skill changes)

Why cant we be able to apply said skin; the Step and aura to all weapons? I want to be able to have a staff and walk like some Life Wizard where when I step plants grow instead of rainbows.

I find it weird that you havent implemented this, after all this is just visuals, no balance behind it. I know from a designer point of view there is more (coding and such) but Im pretty sure it cant be THAT hard, heck if I have to pay some SMALL fee for it ($$) I would do it!

I dont want to play a ranger for that awesome skin, I like Elementalists and REFUSE to play anything else. Please ArenaNet.

THATS GENIUS !

Is this a bug? .

Thank you Aoshi, I did google and thats why I came here, I couldt find helpful information about fractals there, I know the receipt, thats not the issue, the issue I have its getting the stuff, and I want to find out how so many people have them already; how to get it the soonest as possible.

Hello, my name is Fortus, Im fairly “new” since I bought the game before release but didnt get into it until now, so i lvl 35 still.

Before I start, I would like to know if there is a ACTIVE and POBLATED PvE Guild who focuses on Dungeons and WvW on the Gate of Madness Server.

I have been doing a lot of research but I’ve become even more confused; I want to get a Legendary weapon, not any weapons, but the staff (because Elementalists is my profession) and the Sword. First http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Eternity, does the footstep thing is a bug or actually meant to be this way?

Secondly, I heard that before getting there I needed to farm A LOT and get Skill points, which are given after lvl 80 after “leveling-up”, now, im having issues just getting to lvl 80 myself, so im guessing getting at least 200 skills points will takeme an ETERNITY, so I do not understand how so people already have those legendaries. I asked a question to someone but they told me you can do “Fractals” . I made my research and didnt find anything helpful about fractals, here is one of the many places i looked into: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractals_of_the_Mists

Am I missing something? If there is people with those weapons and people selling them already, how did they do it? How can I get one? I dont mind expending a lot of effort, but I dont wanna be farming for an entire year to get one, only to find out there was an easier way to do it. I dont wanna hae the weapon the hard way by the time that everyone else have it as well without any effort. Please someone enlight me in how to get one the most effective way as possible.