Guild Wars 2

Gandalf. Not Gandolf. This thread is full of blasphemy!

Read up on other class forums. Same complaints, different names. People complain about anything. I run a ‘zerker build and do just fine in WvW. Yes, I get instagibbed by glass cannon thieves, but that’s what they do. I can run with daggers in the middle of a zerg, throw a tornado on and toss people around, and get out alive. So no, you don’t have to run a bunker build to survive. Just know what you can do and when you can do it.

As for devs… trust me, if devs listened to players’ opinions on class balance, every class would be OP and we would be oneshotting each other from half a map away.
There is a reason they don’t listen to player opinion.
Because it isn’t enough data, even when it is a trend (in ele case, bunker builds are a bad trend) and because it isn’t objective.

And every MMO is a business, including GW2. They have tools to keep that business running. Every MMO has developer tools and metrics. You can’t run a MMO without those. Period.

Kodiak.3281:

Gaudrath.6725:

I am still amused when I realize people actually think devs base their balance decisions on forum whining and bragging.

They base their balance decisions on a great deal of factors, one of which is partly public perception and the effect it has on game play.

Public perception drives game play decisions of what is and isn’t acceptable. If every time someone comes to the forums asking how to play and every time the same responses are repeated (d/d, bunker build, arcane spec, etc) then most likely said players will also play that way. This helps drives the data they then see in game in regards to how players spec and play the game.

If someone comes up with an alternative build (or different way to play the character) and it’s viewed as “stupid” or “laughable” because again the other build is simply “better” (or rather is publicly accepted as better) in every way, shape and form then clearly there’s a problem there. The problem isn’t that they came up with a bad idea, it’s that there’s another build that’s so strong that not playing that way is considered bad.

If you want to be ignorant of that fact, by all means, but don’t be surprised when you see certain builds get nerfed as a result.

You mean useless builds? The only reason why this topic exists is because ele bunker build is too tough in sPvP. The only thing that build is good for there is for capping points or preventing their capture, whatever.

In WvW it is useless. Worse than useless actually, since harassing doesn’t mean much if you can’t kill something, and in zerg vs zerg if all you can do is run away efficiently, you might as well not be there.

Devs base their decisions on metrics. You know, the data those handy developer tools collect throughout the game? They do not base it on “public perception”… if they were in the business of changing their game based on what a vocal micro-minority of their playerbase whines about on the forums, it would quickly turn into a total mess.

If you want real data, you check out metrics. You check out how many players have high level elementalist characters and the WvW/PvE/sPvP play time ratios. You check out the damage averages, you check out kill/death ratios etc. A hundred different things. And then you do the math.

You don’t go to the forums and read what Billy the Thief has to say about a class he never played, or allow a biased opinion of a handful of players to influence decisions which impact hundreds of thousands. No MMO company in history ever listened to what players have to say about class balance on forums, and for a good reason. ANet is no different.

Kodiak.3281:

covenn.7165:

I find that most people that get laughed off the forums is due to how they play rather than how they spec. For example, those that say they don’t switch attunements and think it is awesome, then refuse to listen to reason.

Actually you’d be surprised. When you actually review most topics if you don’t express the opinion:

1. Spec Arcane
2. Play D/D Bunker
3. Staff is only Support

You tend to get discounted as a crazy person with no merit. Ultimately it’s a rather sad affair because people are so busy puking up garbage nonsense and then lapping it up to puke it out themselves there’s little room for originality. Then someone comes along and tries to offer an alternative to the same vomit and you all act incredulous at the idea of something different.

Well guess what. Check time. You all stuck to your guns so strongly and convinced everyone, including the Devs, that your way of playing the game is the only way to play the Elementalist to the determent of any other play style to the point (in the devs words) it’s become an “apex predator” build where no other builds can shine. So when it gets nerfed (as Evasive Arcana did) remember you brought it upon yourselves.

I am still amused when I realize people actually think devs base their balance decisions on forum whining and bragging.

I would either like a long-range single target weapon, maybe a longbow, that could be used for sniping stuff.

Or a short-range but more active defense set like gauntlets. Sort of like D/D only made for better dueling, with evasion options and single target damage.

I would NOT like pistols. Too steampunk for me and don’t really fit the elementalist theme.

Although… the fact that most ele’s run a bunker build is also problematic. I hope ANet will buff other options as they nerf what makes the bunker so effective, because overall it makes bunker eles less than useful in WvW.

I mean sure, you can survive a lot, but you can’t really kill much, which makes you good only as a distraction in WvW and we already got thieves covering that area plus they can actually kill a target.

We need more damage oriented ele builds, the kind of crazy, eyebrows-gone pyromaniacs who can effectively shatter zergs by carelessly headbutting them while juggling great balls of fire. Too many opt for mega survival vs. turning into a tornado and just tossing people around like ragdolls.

Well, I tried D/D i keep defense, everything from Churning behind gates to wall-bombing with Arcane Abatement / Evasive Arcana / “suicide” attacks and then Mistforming into keep to get back up…

But in my experience nothing beats the Blasting Staff / Eruption→Ice Spike→Frozen Ground→Lava Font→Meteor Shower combo on gates. That stuff just kills. I’ve had zergs back off gates entirely with that and I was the only one in there.

Some tools are better for certain jobs than others. For example, nothing beats focus for trolling enemy trebs, but for everything else in WvW focus pretty much comes last, sadly.

Well yeah, except when you get oneshotted by some bosses and then you do nothing. Sure, some dungeons D/D can be good with aura sharing, and personally I love the set and use it all the time for WvW, but I find that keeping at range alone increases my survivability (semi-glassy build here). With our low HP we’re not really meant to hang around within range of the kind of heavy hits some bosses dish out in melee.

But seriously, I don’t usually lecture on optimum this, optimum that… if you’re good with D/D, use that. I tend to switch weapon sets often depending on the situation, keeps skills sharp.

My personal experience is that staff is best for general dungeon crawling, S/F is for tougher situations, especially when the entire group could use some ranged protection, and D/D only if I want to focus more on damage. I guess if you build for sharing auras then you’d want to keep close to melee, so there’s that, otherwise keeping at range is simply a better option for us most of the time.

But the unfortunate facts like the one that S/F is much worse in WvW than D/D remain. And I think most of the time you hear reprimands, it will be about using inappropriate weapons in certain situations, like staff for solo roaming or D/D during keep defense.

LordByron.8369:

@gaudrath: maybe because a zerker ele have a different role in a party rather than a balanced or a tanky one….

Acting as a CPR dummy for revivals daily? :p

You guys should try S/F for some dungeons – you can practically shut down some bosses completely, plus you got tons of defense and the damage is also nice vs NPC’s who don’t know how to sidestep giant flaming teeth falling from the sky.

I almost never play D/D in dungeons, because I feel we can bring more to the table than pure damage and staff offers more on the support side of things.

So basically you say that:

1. Every class in the game can and should do everything at their disposal, which includes both damage and support
2. Only damage should be recognized by the system.

Yes, I can see the logic there.

By the way, current system is poorly made.
I just hope they will add some kind of a fair and accurate tally of your exploits in WvW, perhaps with that new ranking system I heard mention of. Badges are terrible, not only because you have to actually loot them, which distracts from the task at hand which is fighting for your team, but they drop too rarely as well.

Shimond.2478:

Red Falcon.8257:

In the current broken state there is little you can do vs D/D Ele.
It’s not really just the damage/control which you can negate, you can match their speed with the proper tools, and you can even plow through Protection and shields.
But it’s the fact they can heal massive amounts and self-rally during mist that will simply have them out-last you unless you can too heal up a whole healthbar in seconds or rally on your own.
Just wait until next patch lands, Anet is aware of this hole and will fix it.

er, what?

Just peeps crying about classes they never bother to understand how to counter.

Again, can you stop a good thief who is determined to escape?

I auto-facepalmed the other night when the commander asked for a cata and I dropped a treb instead… and everyone went hammering away. XD

In my defence, it was 3AM…

You could also drop Static Field after you use Gust, that way they will run straight into it and stun themselves, giving you a bit extra time. Try to place the field so that they immediately stun themselves after getting back up.

Then you could use that time to switch to water, cast Frozen Ground to chill them and really slow them down, followed immediately by Ice Spike, switch to Earth, Unsteady Ground + Shockwave to immobilize followed by Eruption. Always cast Eruption a bit closer to you than Unsteady Ground so that as they approach you they walk right on top of it when it goes off.

After that switch to fire and cast Lava Font on top of Eruption for extra AoE Might – if they are still alive after all that.

Against single mobs the above usually means they will not even touch you, you don’t have to even move if you time things right. Against multiple ones you might want to evade a bit, maybe use Burning retreat after casting Lava Font then follow with a couple of fireballs. You can always switch back to Water and use the two heals you got there, saving your main heal for when you need it. Plus another Ice Spike, it does nice damage.

And of course, you can always drop Meteor Shower on top of yourself.

Switching back to Air and casting Chain Lightning is also a good way to deal with multiple opponents. Chain Lightning does less damage than Fireball against single targets, but if you for example have two targets, one of them will get hit twice.

Another nice trick is to Drop Static Field, the follow up by Earth->Shockwave for vulnerability stacking, immobilize and bleeds + Stoning for Weakness (non critical hits are only 50% damage, essentially when you weaken your target you just placed a 50% damage reduction “shield” on yourself) and more Vulnerability stacks.

Another nice trick, although this works best against bosses in dungeons, is to cast Lava Font on their feet when they’re not moving much and follow up with Shockwave and Stoning for extra burning damage.

So there’s a lot of choices and ways you can do things, just experiment, try using all skills you have and different combinations and see what works best for you.

Tosha Daydreamer.9251:

Except air as a staff ele. Haven’t figured out a good use for air yet.

Vulnerability stacking via #5 combo field, personal defense via #3, and #1 is nice when targeting several opponents, especially when there are only two near each other since no.1 will get hit twice.

Windborne speed is also a CC breaker in addition to giving a speed buff, so that can be useful.

I’ve also seen people use Earth #2 + Air #5 for AoE speed buffing in WvW.

Kodiak.3281:

Gaudrath.6725:

Look, it is simple. There is no way an ele who stays in one attunement can top the damage output of an ele who uses all four. Not to mention that you might as well take another warrior then if you are looking for that sort of thing. If you want a force multiplier for your party, then take an ele who knows what they are doing and is using all the tools at their disposal.

The only simple part of this whole conversation is none of you seem to want to provide the context of what you’re doing, what you’re playing or any actual details about what it is you’re talking about. That makes largely what you’re talking about to be completely irrelevant because it all applies to a specific scenario that you won’t state. If you really think your advice applies in all scenarios you’re wrong.

For example, I can tell everything you’ve posted in this thread you’re a D/D Ele. Virtually nothing of what you’ve said applies to a staff ele or S/D Ele. Trying to apply your advice to a Staff just creates useless and largely shoddy game play that people have come to expect out of Elementalists. In fact I’d easily argue that while playing staff I do far better when sticking to Fire both defensively (burning retreat counts as a 3rd dodge) and offensively (Puissance’s might stacks are tough to beat).

Actually I use all weapon sets equally since I don’t believe pigeonholing oneself is what playing an elementalist is all about.
The advice I provided can be applied to staff even more so than D/D. As I mentioned earlier, I routinely melt wall defenders with staff by piling AoE on them through rapid attunement rotation. You sitting in Fire just makes for a good laugh.
When was the last time you downed/killed a non-afk wall defender just with fire?

I beat your Puissance Might stacks with Sigils of Battle and Might self-combos, we have plenty of those. Your “3rd dodge” in Fire, well, I got perma vigor and Evasive Arcana, beat that with one extra dodge on a 20 second cooldown.
And hey, I got Burning Retreat just like you do, on top of everything else.

Look, it is not a matter of being innovative with the class. Ignoring the main class mechanic is not innovative, it is nonsense. What would you say to the Thief who refuses to use Stealth or to the warrior who refuses to use Adrenaline?

Kodiak.3281:

They didn’t want pure support characters in this game by design. I highly doubt they will reward the game play even if people have figured out ways to create pure support builds and play styles.

Support is something certain classes like the elementalist can do very well, and can and do influence the course of a fight.

Right now the game rewards only pure damage dealers. It doesn’t reward anything but frenetic AoE spammage in huge zergfests. It doesn’t differentiate between players who just spam whatever they can whenever they can and players who take the effort to setup tactical combo fields, clear conditions and apply boons on top of the damage they deal anyway.

If that’s by design, then it’s a poor design and should be changed.

Actually if the effect was something like the one you get from the legendary hammer, only darker, then it would be cool. What we have literally feels like a placeholder, I do graphics professionally, I should know.

I actually thought it was a bug when I first saw it.

Kodiak.3281:

Wasn’t trolling at all. I was trying to show there are reasons why people do what they do and generally aren’t just completely random.

kostbabis.8791:

To be honest i dont know with what i d laugh at more..An elementalist staying in 1 attunement doing pitiful damage and dying over and over again ?..
Or an ele in a dungeon spazzing through attunements putting water in cd when nobody needs it,cutting his dps in fire at half,capping the bleed stacks with his pitiful 0 condition damage or using air cc in a boss with infinite defiant stacks ? :P

So. Freaking. This.

I see this all the time out of other Elementalists when I run dungeons who generally spout the same garbage advice about swapping around as the original poster. You see them drop just random things or swap to random attunements and you have to wonder if they really think randomly swapping around doing a bunch of weak crap they aren’t spec’d/geared for is going to help anyone. I do crazy fast COF runs on my Mesmer with Warriors and no one ever cares about support or condition removal. Just more damage. We’ll never be able to come close because you have this self perpetuating sterotype of what the Ele is and should be without ever being able to look at what it could be.

Well if you are looking for brainless skill spammage then I suppose there are better classes to take than elementalists. What has that got to do with playing an elementalist properly?

I also suppose your “more damage” doesn’t include Might and Vulnerability stacking, right? Or if it does, the ele has to cycle through 3 out of 4 attunements. Or he can stay in Fire spamming #1 and #2 and be generally useless.

Look, it is simple. There is no way an ele who stays in one attunement can top the damage output of an ele who uses all four. Not to mention that you might as well take another warrior then if you are looking for that sort of thing. If you want a force multiplier for your party, then take an ele who knows what they are doing and is using all the tools at their disposal.

What effect? Gray shader is not an effect. :p

Galrukh.6532:

Ian Kennedy.4563:

I agree with you Kirby. And, really LT. Google? are you really complaining about our ability to RUN AWAY? Why would anyone complain about someone running away, to me, it sounds like you’re just upset that there is finally something/someone that you can’t kill easily.

Or how about kill at all ?
Elementalists only die if they decide to let you kill them, its impossible to catch an elementalist that has any grasp of his class at all and it sucks not being able to close a fight. I dont mind dying but I want a chance of winning as well and not just a choice of losing vs draw.

So ever tried killing a thief who is determined to escape?

Yes, and the problem OP points out is that right now the game ONLY rewards damage. Playing for the team, laying down combo fields, Might stacks, Auras etc doesn’t do anything for you badge-wise.

If you wanted to max out your badge drops, you want to max out your damage. That runs contrary to what elementalists and as you said, all classes should do, which is do everything they are capable of. Including support (which doesn’t mean healing, it means acting like a force multiplier with well placed combo fields, Might stacking, condition removals etc.).

Support needs to be recognized by the game and rewarded as such. Right now only aggression is.

Yeah, looks like a placeholder, they seriously need to update it.

Ok Galum, so I guess there is no real reason for me to drop Static Field then, since it does no damage, on my own I will inflict minimal vulnerability and it costs me time I could be spending doing actual damage.

Or cripple, chill, stuns and such. Useless. MOAR damage! Right?

THE DOCTOR.3510:

I have a question, why is this in the Elementalist forum?

Because we elemenalists are nice people who like to aid our friends while also burning people alive.

We would like to be recognized for the support part.

damny.9342:

Gaudrath.6725:

To all posters wondering why this vitriolic hate towards mounts, duels etc. from some people – it is because they passionately hate WoW and mistakenly liken all those things to that game.

I barely played WoW. I hate mounts because people AFK on them on top of NPCs I need to talk to.

Oh yes, every game is plagued by that. Why, if they added mounts, every NPC in Tyria would have a giant elephant sitting on top of them! /sarcasm

Does this mean you can’t find TP NPC’s with all those Norn standing on top of them?
Same thing. If that’s your only reason, that’s no reason at all.

skinnyb.5920:

Gaudrath.6725:

skinnyb.5920:

Gaudrath.6725:

So reviving allies, X amount healed, Y number of boons provided or conditions removed should have a chance to automatically award a badge just like doing damage. It is NOT hard to program such a system.

This would never work. Baddies would just hang around spawn reviving each other and spreading boons.

Easily fixed – you only get badges for support if your allies are in actual combat at the time. Just spreading boons or suicide jumping/rezzing wouldn’t work…

Hmm alright then. But how would you get the badge if you have no bags to loot? Just throwing one into your inventory for standing around spreading boons while others had to go out and fight for them hardly seems fair.

EDIT: I spread boons and kill at the same time so that means I and certain classes like guardians would get double the badges. That also seems unfair to classes like Rangers who hardly ever spread boons.

This is balanced behind the scenes by the system. For example, boon effects on targets attacking enemies could be treated the same as landing conditions directly on targets.
Or since boons might be easier to apply than actually going to the front and fighting, you get fewer badges for them or get badges more rarely.

Point is, support roles are already recognized in many games, WAR was one such example, you would get points for healing as well as for doing damage. There is no reason why such a system couldn’t be implemented in GW2.

The reason I mentioned no bags to loot is because badges of honor should be like “points” recognizing your skill in battle, whether attacking or supporting team mates.

Badges should NOT recognize your skill in battle and looting. I have no idea how many bags I failed to loot because I was busy actually fighting.

Leo G.4501:

Gaudrath.6725:

So what I am saying is that while there are situations where you might want to cycle faster or more slowly through attunements, there are NO real situations where you don’t want to cycle at all. Ignoring the main class mechanic leads only to gimping yourself and there is nothing anyone can argue about that.

This I know, but by the way you describe swapping attunements in your previous post (“rapidly cycling attunements” and “There is no good reason to stick in one attunement at any time”) you make it sound like there is no useful effect in the attunement itself but rather the boons you get for swapping and the on-crit effects outweight them.

I think a funny example was in the Ascalon fractal I was just in, while the glass warriors were picking themselves back up, I just sat in water, granting my regen to the NPCs, using my healing skills and spamming the auto-attack heal (staff) so that someone, besides myself or the warriors were getting the last boss’s attention.

I’ve often sat in earth, using the cripple + immobilize combo when it was up and spammed the auto-attack to keep Weakness on the boss as well as blasting combos off of a mesmer’s fields. I could imagine cycling through all the attunements to get fury or to put up fields for combos, but much of it is superfluous. I’ll keep vigor up when I’m actually using lots of dodges, I can bring fury when I’m aiming for the highest damage output, but the majority of the times, I’m in a supportive role (yeah with my berserker/valkyrie mixed gear) using the attunements to bend the situation in a more favorable direction for our group. Even on Scepter/Dagger, I wouldn’t really need to chase fury as that is only for myself and doesn’t actually help my side as much. I’d rather chase might (via blasting fields) as that does help the team.

The thing is, I can do pretty much everything you described + land chills, bleeds, CC, weakness, interrupts, burning, associated combo fields and extra damage on top of that by NOT sitting in just one attunement and all in the same amount of time.

In other words, there is no need to focus only on one aspect of what you can do when you can focus on them all at the same time. Skilled elementalists are always in a controlled frenzy when they are dishing out their best.

Think of it this way – your most effective and impactful skills in each element have a cooldown. By cycling through attunements not only do you grant yourself and your group boons and landing conditions and damage on enemies, you are also using much more powerful spells from other elements while others are cooling off. By the time you swing around through your rotation, your most powerful spells are again ready for use.

Or you can just sit in one element and use autoattack while waiting for other skills to come out of cooldown.

Elementalist is designed for attunement cycling. There is no argument about that. Class traits are geared towards that, individual skills are designed with that in mind, everything about the class revolves around the idea that you will switch attunements often.

Leo G.4501:

Gaudrath.6725:

kostbabis.8791:

To be honest i dont know with what i d laugh at more..An elementalist staying in 1 attunement doing pitiful damage and dying over and over again ?..
Or an ele in a dungeon spazzing through attunements putting water in cd when nobody needs it,cutting his dps in fire at half,capping the bleed stacks with his pitiful 0 condition damage or using air cc in a boss with infinite defiant stacks ? :P

You do know that the interrupt component kicks in separately from hard CC such as knockdowns?

And again… you swap attunements for combos as well. You get attunement bonuses when traited for it. I get “perma” fury and vigor by rapidly cycling attunements.

So no. There is no good reason to stick in one attunement at any time except when spamming at Orr events. People who advocate anything like that for other 99% of the game need to learn to play.

Hmm, I’d rather have Static Field or Updraft ready right there waiting form me when I know I’m about to need it vs possibly having air on 1.5sec of cooldown at the exact moment I need it. Yes, 20% crit chance is great, but is it going anywhere? Do you get a medal for keeping it going all the time? Is it not worth using at opportune times like in conjunction with your bigger bursts?

I’m still curious about this stance-dancing perma-fury mentality…what happens when a Warrior with FGJ is around? Do you adapt your play to compensate? Or is it really just a habit?

Depends what situation we are talking about. In PvP, yes, you are tactical with attunements so that you got your heals, escapes and CC ready when you need them.

But even then it depends. As I mentioned earlier, I can melt wall defenders in a couple seconds by syncing staff Earth #5, Fire #2, #5 and Water #2, using Fury and rapidly cycling through attunements. Especially when they zerg up since then players have a difficult time spotting what is going on.

In PvE, usually there is no situation where I just must use that heal or disaster follows, so I usually just keep cycling through attunements to keep Fury up – because there is actually a big difference between 50% crit chance and 70%. Fury builds also get a lot more from crit hits than raw damage, you get all sorts of extra effects, from perma vigor to extra conditions and it all adds up to something much more effective that what you would get from trying to optimize Fire, for example.

I tried Fire 30 build with Pyromancer Puissance, and while it sounds good in theory, in practice you can get a much better damage output with 0 in Fire, and focus on high crit chance Fury build with gear to compensate for Might stacking (Superior Sigil of Battle comes in handy).

So what I am saying is that while there are situations where you might want to cycle faster or more slowly through attunements, there are NO real situations where you don’t want to cycle at all. Ignoring the main class mechanic leads only to gimping yourself and there is nothing anyone can argue about that.

kostbabis.8791:

To be honest i dont know with what i d laugh at more..An elementalist staying in 1 attunement doing pitiful damage and dying over and over again ?..
Or an ele in a dungeon spazzing through attunements putting water in cd when nobody needs it,cutting his dps in fire at half,capping the bleed stacks with his pitiful 0 condition damage or using air cc in a boss with infinite defiant stacks ? :P

You do know that the interrupt component kicks in separately from hard CC such as knockdowns?

And again… you swap attunements for combos as well. You get attunement bonuses when traited for it. I get “perma” fury and vigor by rapidly cycling attunements.

So no. There is no good reason to stick in one attunement at any time except when spamming at Orr events. People who advocate anything like that for other 99% of the game need to learn to play.

Pixel Seven.5472:

A dolyak mount for my huge norn would be amazing.

No. Battle bears.

Battle bears with lasers attached to their heads. Only way to ride.

If they wanted to balance the class, any of the following would do:

1. Nerf heal effectiveness, buff base HP
2. Nerf defense, buff offense

I actually wouldn’t mind if they nerfed bunker since I don’t use that build anyway, but I sure think in that case we could use more punch in return, considering how low our HP is. We’re almost a glass class by default.

MOAR damage, ANet!

Air. Love the lightning spells.

skinnyb.5920:

Gaudrath.6725:

So reviving allies, X amount healed, Y number of boons provided or conditions removed should have a chance to automatically award a badge just like doing damage. It is NOT hard to program such a system.

This would never work. Baddies would just hang around spawn reviving each other and spreading boons.

Easily fixed – you only get badges for support if your allies are in actual combat at the time. Just spreading boons or suicide jumping/rezzing wouldn’t work…

maddoctor.2738:

Red Falcon.8257:

I hope Anet understands that D/D Ele is overpowered not due to damage/control/mobility, but due to the OP healing (can get from 20% to full in seconds) and ability to self-rally through downed mist form.

There is no self rally in mist form…

And as OP as going from 20% to 100% in seconds, the opposite is equally OP from 100% to 0% in even less seconds, that’s insanely more OP

Pretty much this. Anyone not liking that we can heal to full in a flash should consider the fact that some classes can strip our entire health bar in, well actually, a much shorter amount of time.

I’d be happy if they nerfed heal effectiveness and buffed our base HP to be on par with other scholar professions.

I’d even say endgame would be far worse than early levels. Attunement swapping is our class mechanic. It would be the same as engineers sticking to a flamethrower no matter what or thieves not using stealth…

They should also change the system so that badges are awarded as a currency, not items because having to look for bags on the ground in the heat of battle is counter productive and distracts.

So reviving allies, X amount healed, Y number of boons provided or conditions removed should have a chance to automatically award a badge just like doing damage. It is NOT hard to program such a system.

Kodiak, I think the problem arises from people confusing burst damage and sustained damage.

For example, in PvE I often use Fire/Air #1 for the sustained damage they provide. But I have downed/killed more than a few players in WvW with staff by casting Fire #5 and #2, then rapidly switching through Water #2 and Earth #2,#4 – that puts some serious pain on whoever isn’t quick enough to get out of the AoE. Something you would never be able to do with just staying in Fire/Air.

Another BIG reason why elementalists should never stick to just one or two attunements is because if you wanted raw damage, you should have rolled a thief or a 100B warrior. Damage is NOT what we are all about. Especially so in PvE.

So focusing purely on damage as an elementalist may make sense only in one area of the game, tagging mobs for loot drops during those annoying bugged events in Orr.

For everything else, switch attunements. We have very useful CC’s, debuffs and buffs to provide to ourselves and our teammates. Ignoring those just to get a bit more damage out is literally gimping yourself.

Also, Superior Sigil of Battle. 3 might stacks on attunement switch every 9 seconds. Use that with Might combos, and we have plenty of those, and running out of Might stacks is not an issue. Use S/F or S/D if you want to max Might stacking, I frequently get up 10-12 stacks without breaking a sweat.

Then I want to dual wield Sword/Staff. :p

Well, you can’t have high DPS and high survivability, so you are going for a balanced build?

Personally I am running a semi-glassy crit build, traits are 10/20/0/20/20, full Knight for armor to get some toughness in the mix, berserker trinkets for extra power and crit chance/damage.
Weapons are also power/precision.

For traits I take:

Fire: Burning Precision (30% chance to cause burning on crit)
Air: Zephyr’s Boon for extra crit chance (Fury) and Bolt to the Heart at the moment
Water: Soothing Disruption for regen and vigor on cantrips + Cantrip Mastery for quicker cantrips
Arcane: Renewing Stamina and Elemental Attunement

For utility I use all cantrips, Mist Form and Lightning Flash for mobility and defense, Armor of Earth when I have to get away or strafe zergs with D/D. I swap Armor of Earth for signets when appropriate, usually Signet of Air for extra speed or Signet of Earth for catching runners.

Overall I am satisfied with the build, if you use food buffs / Master Sharpening stones you do crazy damage, I frequently do ~2000 damage just on my Air #1 with D/D. Low HP (~13 000) is a problem in some situations, though not too often. You can die to glass thieves if they’re specced for their insane burst damage, but otherwise I get enough defense from Mist Form and Armor of Earth + healing not to have to worry about it too much.

For weapon sets, I use everything. D/D for general roaming and small group action, S/D when trailing a zerg because you can drop the Tooth and Phoenix easily in the middle of the enemy zerg without anyone noticing and walking away. Staff of course when defending/assaulting keeps.
On weapons I run Sigils of Battle for might stacking + Sigils of Accuracy for crit chance.
Runes, right now playing with a full set of Runes of Rage for extra fury duration and crit damage boost.

Hope this helped!

Why buy rings with laurels when you can get them in a fraction of time required doing Fractals (and get more loot on top of that)?

paleeshi.1924:

It’s not the most effective. It can easily be interrupted and the cool down will go off since it’s a 3 1/2 sec channeling skill. Not to mention that during those 4 sec you cannot use any other skills.

In theory and maybe against a very attentive opponent. I mainly WvW and there you can get a ton of conditions on you real quick – this spell eats them up which is much better than what others do.
I also can’t remember being interrupted once. If there is a danger of that, just combine with Mist Form.

Short cooldown also means you can use it early and often, with Glyph you have to wait for your health to get lower and are in danger of wasting it if you misjudge timing, so Renewal is more forgiving in that regard. Plus, to get the full effect of the Glyph, you have to switch to water, which may not always be advisable. And of course you have to dedicate a trait to make the cooldown optimal, which is still longer than Renewal’s.

With Renewal you can use it early, then use water heals to keep your HP up, then Renewal is coming again out of cooldown, so it works nicely with our other heals.

Glyph seems good only if you have high healing power, so you can afford to let your HP drop low before using it. If you want to have some actual kick to your playstyle, then you have to go for a heal which allows for more frequent usage / doesn’t require traits dedicated to healing.

Honestly, I love chasing people down in water since we have so many hard CC spells it’s not even funny. I think there’d be a lot more crying on the forums if they copied that on land.

Even though it’s be awesome. And yes, I agree that active evasion/CC is better than just good healing, since it is useful for both offense and defense, while healing is only useful for defense.

Maybe then we would be able to actually shut down and kill them pesky thieves before they stealth and run away. :p

OR, you don’t use the signet and the glyph and you actually use our most effective and useful heal, Ether Renewal.

proxy.7963:

Gaudrath.6725:

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

There is no problem with wanting mounts. I’m glad that you want mounts. I want things to but I don’t keep making thread after thread after thread. It’s annoying. There is a “M word” thread in the Suggestion part of the forum… post there.

You and other want mounts… me and others do not. You’re saying that your want is more important than our want just because YOU want it. So what kind of “extremism” are you exhibiting? Debate tactics like that don’t help either.

The difference is that he wants extra features in the game and you, for some reason, want less, even though the option simply not to use mounts is always there (we do have those speed skills for a reason).

Extra features > fewer features. Simple.

I doubt it’s about ‘wanting fewer features’, it’s about differentiating the game from its peers/competitors, preferring something novel over the expected route and perhaps mindful that developer/art team time may well be better spent elsewhere.

Well I could see that if GW2 did something novel in that area, but honestly, waypoints and quick travel have been around for almost as long as running. People like to have an option of getting around fast and teleportation is nothing new.
In fact I wish they added a bit of a flair to GW2 teleportation. Right now it just feels bland. Not to mention abuses in WvW. Add casting times and animations, something to make it fit better with the game world instead of just “poof, gone”.

This game already has quick travel enabling players to skip content, and it already has speed skills which serve as a replacement for traditional mounts. Adding actual mounts to the game with non-cumulative bonuses and appropriate restrictions would only add to the game experience.

My that’s a lot of kittens there. I for one have no problem with ascended gear… in fact I think it is quite fun to bring over a little gear optimization into WvW.

As long as it doesn’t go into extremes, where you HAVE to have the absolute best to have a chance in WvW, it’s ok in my book.

One Prarie Outpost.4860:

Winfernal.9208:

Using debate tactics like that wont help.

What is the problem with us wanting mounts?

I’d like to see my noble guardian on his horse with 1h and shield equiped. What if i wanted it for RP reasons? What if i wanted it for the visual?

There’s no problem in us wanting mounts. But for some, it is a problem. Some even say that they will uninstall the game if they add mount. What the actual f. What kind of extremism is that?

I have to tell them why it’s not. And how Anet is reaching out to a wide playerbase with different wishes.

There is no problem with wanting mounts. I’m glad that you want mounts. I want things to but I don’t keep making thread after thread after thread. It’s annoying. There is a “M word” thread in the Suggestion part of the forum… post there.

You and other want mounts… me and others do not. You’re saying that your want is more important than our want just because YOU want it. So what kind of “extremism” are you exhibiting? Debate tactics like that don’t help either.

The difference is that he wants extra features in the game and you, for some reason, want less, even though the option simply not to use mounts is always there (we do have those speed skills for a reason).

Extra features > fewer features. Simple.

To all posters wondering why this vitriolic hate towards mounts, duels etc. from some people – it is because they passionately hate WoW and mistakenly liken all those things to that game.

Newsflash. Mounts, duels, and yes, sitting in chairs was present a LONG time before WoW came to the MMO scene. If done right, they only add to the game experience and are in no way detrimental to it.