Guild Wars 2

you can get stability actually used to use it . basilisk venom+runes of lyssa, gives you “cure all conditions grant all boons for 5sec” when use use basilisk venom, effect has a passive cooldown of 45sec, not bad…. not to mention it also gives alot precision and a random boon on heal.

wvw ftw. he already named a server.. no way hes talking spvp, i agree the crit dmg theives are annoying in wvw but this is the wrong forum bro

personally i find that yes warriors and guardians can be tough for d/d thiefs but running a pistol.dagger condition build warriors are free cake, guardians take longer because of the condition removal, but still die. mesmers can be a pain depending on how good they are, 2 options, maul the clones and everything with shortbow. or skillfully ignore all the clones focusing sneak atks on the main, mesmers are very squishy if you can follow them.

the rendering is only usually an issue in wvw.. you need to realise its not as easy as you think to play thief…. wvw is great and all but interms of learning about balanced pvp its no use really..

if you think some guy is overpowered.. go try out his build.. or.. check how well he is actually doing kill/pointwise.. most the time glass cannons do crap.. because they are too reliant on simple tactics too be adaptable. anyone who goes for a 100b,bullscharge,haste build is gonna be 100% obvious unless hes legitimately skilled at baiting dodges etc..

as someone who plays thief aswell as ele,engi,necro i would say that the steal/cnd/backstab/heartseek burst is op, and it was nerfed in a pointless way, personally i feel what needs to be done, is steal mechanic needs fixing abit, so cnd cant be cast during for a teleport stealth. generally i think the thiefs profession mechanic just needs a relook. i mean come on.. hit f1 every 45 seconds is the worst profession mechanic in the game.. it just feels ill thought out. that being said some builds on thiefs should be encouraged, some of the dual skills need sorting out, because yeah d/d glass cannons are boring to fight against even when on alot of classes they arent really much of threat and they easy to kill, they are boring lets face it. that being said i do enjoy playing pistol/dagger and i personally thing there should be abit more condition dmg weapon options, atm i find myself relying on venoms/pistol auto atk and sneak shot, and cluster bomb. now if trick shot applyed bleeding but slightly less base dmg that would be nice :P

that being said the cooldown does need to be fixed on “steal failed” with only 1 possible ability every 45 sec or whatever, i kinda feel like i barely have a class mechanic on thief.

d/d elementals most common “useful” builds is boon stacking at least 20% boonduration from arcana, aswell as runes if they choose to use them auras grant fury/swift and maybe protection depending on the build, infinite vigor is easy as well can get 30% chance to gain it on crit, also cantrips granting regen/vigor and might (if you spec for it) id say considering our base stats.. the boons are really essential.. and we already got a big nerf last patch so just leave it ye :P.

p.s bunker ele isnt anything compared to guardian anymore since the loss of EA trait.

retaliation is not that substantial unless your stupid enough to constantly attack someone with it for like 20 seconds. personally i feel the only change that needs to be made is more obvious dmg received notification after retaliation also dmg from conditions should be present in the battle log. if people knew more about its actual dmg overtime and how it scales with power then maybe people wouldnt be so angry at it

sPvP is when a mummy and a daddy love each other very much. they hug in a special kind of way.

similar build but i went 10-10-0-30-20 now for the cantrips, basically in a 2 vs 1 if you have sustained fire, your only option is too escape, so if you was vs say a ranger and a necro and they are both keeping sustained dmg and conditions from afar, your only options are too escape, find a line of sight, surprise them with bursts and evasions or try to stall for time, or all of the above, if im against a bad situation like that i do an opening spike with classic fire combos, burning speed-ring of fire-fire grab, now you have 2 options, if your still kiting, drakes breath-cone of cold can be nice, if you need more control switch either air for updraft or earth for earthquake, you can always try to put some distance charge churning earth then teleport into them for massive dmg, or just use cantrips for escapes,

with a good team you can definately win things like 2vs3 or 3vs4 because you can keep up the point blank aoes, without getting targetted too heavily. this is just knowing how to dodge, and keep distance, spacing is super important in spvp much more so in gw2 then any other mmo i played

if you have a 2vs 1 with melees, use your speed as an advantage, short range dagger kiting one of them works well with earth auto, and you can get your aoe combos when they off cooldown, and aslong as you know what animations look like, guardians and warriors are pretty simple to dodge for the most part. that being said, actually winning a straight 2 vs 1 against equally skilled players is basically impossible since theres no way to kill one without the other just ressing him (most the time) you can always try to separate or wait for backup.

i have a few vids of me playing a similar cantrip build to you and i go at least 1/2 my games with 0 deaths heres an example. (its cos im awesome at being cowardly!)

p.s too the guy talking about firegrab earlier, i crit 5.7k on one guy here.. and im not even glass cannon (might stacking ftw)

yeah basically same as before but either put that 10 you had for ea in either armour of earth or might on cantrips your choice, personally i use the might because my build is plenty survivable alredy and i prefer active skills then passive defence

dont worry though, because next patch im sure they will give warriors a staff so yeah.. itll be fine..

he means you can stomp people whilst in mist form.. you shouldnt say that kinda thing on the forum, or the nerf hammer will come out :P

Elementalist

All weapons on Elementalist’s have been replaced by spoons
Cantrips no longer have unintended usefulness
All weapon animations have been altered to give elementalist a puzzled expression while attacking
Elementalist will no longer be playable in spvp instead it has been reassigned to clerical duties filling out warrior related paperwork

have a lovely day,

anet

personally i think the timers are fine, its just 20 secs is too long, i had nothing against the wave respawn particularly either. personally i think spvp action should be fairly fast paced and for a new player spending half of his time dead isnt very fun. people saying yay this encourages survivability thats good!! but actually glass cannons are part of the game, bunkers are part of the game, implementations which favour one or the other are only gonna stifle creativity and diversity i love playing matches where everyone is different classes and builds.. nothing more boring when you random get a game fullof thiefs and mesmers lol

yep im sure s/f is absolutely fine everywhere – spvp, in spvp mobility is one of our greatest weapon, so that dagger offhand is super seriarrrr

kitten happens.. didnt realise it was entirely last hit though.

saw the new spvp lvl for the first time today, happened to be playing on my condition thief (havent played him for weeks so missed him abit :P) somehow went 15-0 despite my lack of practise and never seen the level before and my clearly how should we say…. “not knowing what im doing” so i figured id post it for lols enjoy :P

agree 100% have enjoyed spvp alot and even tourneys in the early days when my clan bothered doing them, now im just fighting randoms on random lvls, 2 of which are lame, on the same mode over and over, would like to see some capture the flag, or straight team death match, would knock people off bunker builds and make it more fun..

also yeah rankings.. thats something this game 100% needs atm its like how many points you got!! yay i got lvl 36!! that means i played more than you !! wooooo. we need rankings based on win rate (not that relyable but its a start) kill:death ratio, average points per game, average kills/revives you know… meaningful stats, stats where u can see your improvement.. instead of the “totals” which are meaningless in isolation.. id also like to see what my different stats are for each profession i play. at the moment gw2 spvp doesnt seem serious it just seems like pvp kiddy mode.. i go at least 1/2 my spvp matches about 15-0 i.e facerolling the enemys and not dying once.. (unless my team are getting handed it) this isnt because im some guild wars god.. its just that im better then most the guys who have barely any spvp experience. who seem to be everywhere.

hey i just played the new map for first time, was messing around on my condition thief at the time somehow went 15-0 dispite having no idea where i was going :P so posted it for lols,

p.s i am legitimately quite good at other classes :P

given a general power build with minimal condition dmg this is the stats on auto atks (dagger and sceptre)

Auto atks

Sceptre

flamestrike 101, 656 burning , total 757, DPS 605.6
Ice shards 180 DPS 240
Arc lightning 3x 30 3x 60 4x 91, total 634 DPS 211.33
Stone Shards 150, bleeding 765 total 915, DPS 610

Dagger

Dragons claw 126×3 DPS 756 (all 3 hit)
Vapor Blade 111×2 DPS 444 + 4x vulnerability(return strike also hits)
Lightning whip 235 DPS 470
Impale 168+ 340 bleed DPS 677.33

as you can see the strongest hits are dagger fire assuming all 3 hits, which is pretty short range, if not the best is the dagger earth auto, which on first glance appears worse than the sceptre as its only 1 stack of bleed, it is however 1/2 the casting time and 2 seconds longer bleed, coupled with the higher normal dmg its a better option, however as you can see the sceptres earth auto atk is nothing to laugh at, its decent dmg and at range, keeping you safer! that being said, the lightning (although looking cool) is completely lackluster dealing pityful dmg, even at the end of the channel. the water also being terrible. if your going condition dmg build then the fire/earth on sceptre are great, but the other attunement are not so good. used only for the offhand dagger utilitys and the crappy placeable heal, which is just worse than the daggers cone of cold. sceptre is just awful, it used to be better, now its pointlessly crap. dont get me wrong its still useable, but it pigeon holes you, and feels slower then the dagger which is more dynamic and intresting even without ea

most tpvp d/d eles will be cantrip users, so unless you have consistent condition pressure your really not gonna catch us in bursts like that.. doesnt mean you shouldnt try. but unfortunately for you a power/tough/vit cantrips build ele is probably your natural enemy, resistant to conditions, and not easy to take down. really the only thiefs that cause problems are pistol dagger condition builds, or if your taken by surprise out of cooldowns by some glass cannon but that almost never happens.

its worth checking whether the ele is a glass cannon or just a tank with might stacking, in the glass cannon case.. you could probably finish the ele pretty quick if you evade the main dmg bursts, look out for burning speed/ring of fire/fire grab opener. else watch out for churning earth/teleport combo as that often causes huge unexpected dmg. i suggest asking a decent d/d ele for some vs go find an empty spvp room

im not sure where you got “7 stacks” from. id say 10 stacks even is significant as that amounts too 350 power and condition dmg, 20 stacks is 700 and 700 which is huge, considering in battle you can see i generally have between 13-25 and the longer the battle the better.. its clearly significant, just not as good as evasive arcana was, but since thats no long an option. and well. tbh at least 50% of my spvp games, i dont die a single time, so you cant really argue that my survivbility is an issue, specially not with this build.

as you can see though, i dont really waste the cantrips, apart from lightning flash which i combo, im not saying its as good as before with the evasive arcana, but with each of my might lasting 35sec, you can keep up 9 stacks from just attunement swaps in battle, since u can do that every9 secs, really not hard to keep at least 15 up at all times, personally i never been a fan on the “on crit” ones because i dont have a high base crit rate and actually 3 stacks of might guaranteed every 9 sec (if timed well) is pretty useful. also some of the cantrips dont really have a long cooldown when used with the -20% trait.

p.s i sometimes swap out my “sigil of minor accuracy” after it hits 25 too something like might on crit, or flat 5% dmg

might stacking still totally viable d/d just need to use other means, sorry to repost as i already have a topic with this but here my post nerf might stack build in action

might from = 3x stack on cantrip,3x on weapon swap (counts on attunement) also u get an extra 1 from attuning fire, and theres still burning speed/flame ring, into churning/earthquake combos i find just puting down fire fields sometimes allys will also give u might due to the fact its area might, if you have alot of boon duration that will help i personally have 30% boon duration 10% from rune, 20% from arcana, and 40% might duration from runes.

its not as easy to stack or as fun anymore, but most of the fights i have between 13-20 stacks and sometimes 25

the tooltip doesnt state but the earth no3 on mainhand dagger is a leap finisher, assuming you connect with a target

Grief!!

1. SHOCK & DENIAL

Omg what have they done to evasive arcana… no … no surely this must also be a bug!! i cant belive they intented too remove all blasts??

2. PAIN & GUILT
well.. maybe it was my fault.. if i hadnt use evasive arcana maybe it wouldnt have been nerfed… my life!! is over!!!!
3. ANGER & BARGAINING
look seriously anet!! you will put the blasts back in!! orrr orrrr.. i tell you want anet.. i will send you a nice cake (the cake is a lie).if you put the blasts back please!!… you know what dont bother AHRHRHRHRHR.
4. DEPRESSION, REFLECTION, LONELINESS

sigh… you know what i dont think anet like elementalists very much.. all the other classes get attention.. guess ill go play warrior….

5. THE UPWARD TURN

you know what!! screw that.. warriors are boring.. i want my ele back. even if im now crap!! ill make it work!!! FOR THE KIDS!!!!!

6. RECONSTRUCTION & WORKING THROUGH

say… i guess instead of EA i could use might on cantrips? or maybe armour of earth!! hmm that could work! still suxs about ea though and the random boon duration nerf.. nevermind.. ill find a way around it

7. ACCEPTANCE & HOPE

you know what.. maybe this is just something i should have expected.. us elementalists need to be more resilient.. even if we get tampered with.. we are not forgotten about.. naturally as a class that requires more skill than others (generalisation) we will have more balance issues.. but its cool we can deal with them as they come!!

.. so yeah 1 day after “the event” i was just in consolable.. but ive moved on too anger now and decided to do some anger management spvp first game in . i joined abit late but got a nice 19-0 enjoy

personally i find it more beneficial to build around certain skill usage rather then elements, lets assume your gonna use all elements pretty much equally. you default air for speed boosts, generally combo fire/earth for blasts, stay in earth abit, the switch 2 water for a bit of group heals, or slows or in my case an extra aura, then switch back and rotate to what is situationally neccessary.

there are plenty of traits which are not things such as +10% dmg to fire etc, try building around a utility set such as signets, cantrips or arcane. personally i like cantrips and use regen,vigor on cantrip as well as 3 stacks might, and also regens grant cure. investing at least 15 into arcana is always worth while, and personally i think 20 is, if your staff, larger areas. if your sceptre or daggers, vigor on crit is amazing, you can easyily keep up vigor indefinately, specially when used with cantrips and fury builds.

anyways my experience is focusing heavyily on 1 element just dont work, as elementalists our skills are not that great singularly but as a whole they are very versatile when used correctly. i think for that same reason conjured weapons will always be a joke, as you give up everything that an elementalist is, for a weapon with no combo opportunitys.. they normally have finishers or fields but not both which would be fine if evasive arcana wasnt removed.

personally conjurers should just be another mage class.. it shouldnt be tied into ele’s because it just doesnt synergise.. unless they were like kits.

absolutely nothing op with spvp elementalists, pretty underwhelming now tbh, what your talking about is wvw and pve.. what they really need to do is just cap crit dmg, since people always abuse that for massive spike builds. but i dunno. its wvw.. so who really cares about balance.

ill be honest when i red that earlier a loled my kitten off.. i considered making a pvp video exclusively using the lighning hammer with “hammer time” playing the background, but then thought actually they might use that as evidence!

to be honest until they sort it out, ill be boycotting ele.. shame cos its fun but they need to realise its not cool.. to shamelessly ruin a class on a whim.. considering the amount of time and effort alot of people put into it.. feel the same for necros who lost blast dodges aswell.. and its not like they could even get vigor.

gone but not forgotten

or just go play warrior and spam auto atk.. in all seriousness personally i put the 10 points into 3 might stack on cantrips, and changed my boon duration runes to migth duration.. still i feel needlessly underwhelming now i cant keep my boons up.. considering how poor ele is in other ways.. boons where really all we had..

funectomy if its not a word. it is now

yeah just went spvp everything just seems slow now still did ok, but feel like ive been punched in the fun

in most mmos alot of the more talented players go “elementalist style classes” ones with high skill cap and constantly developing metagame.. i cant say if thats exactly the case on gw2 but i guess people think. because most elementalist players are resilient and adaptable it doesnt matter if they ruin us completely because we can bounce back, however if a guardian or warrior or something is QQing that he cant auto atk me 2 death in 2 seconds even though hes a heavy armour guy.. you can be sure that he will be buffed! lets say for a second that the top 10% of gw2 players suddently decide hey! lets play ranger! you can be kitten sure that ranger tactics and metagame will improve and people will start QQing not cos of the profession but the people who play it.. unfortunately massive nerfs of a single player force the people who want to stay viable in professional standard play to constantly class switch, which can be frustrating…. my 2 cents..

yeah i was actually agreeing with you, the fact you could do more than 1 per 10sec on same attunement by simply spamming rolls was clearly broken. but being able to get a blast finisher everytime the spell legitimately activates really isnt that bad, or yeah 10 sec global cooldown would be acceptable or just blast on fire/earth or something

i will agree 100% that it was broken, since the 10sec cooldown didnt work, but actually removing it completely seems harsh, even if it was just 1 per 10 second only in earth since churning is supposed to be a finisher.. still i dont see how they can say " oh they were unintentional.." would have thought it would be difficult to make the same mistake for every attunement

well.. too keep my build somewhat viable i took 20 arcana and took the 3x might on cantrips, but boon duration also nerfed on runes, now i have to go heavily into might duration managed too still get 25 stack in a horrifically long switching between weapons and wasting cantrips kinda way but lost all my boons duration from before on my furys/protection/regens and vigors.. although to be fair i still get minutes worth of vigor so i dont care about that 1! and yeah evasive arcana now a pointless trait.. i think if it had a 10 sec global cooldown it would be useable or if the dodge spell did more than like 300 dmg.. i mean it says churning earth but its more like churning pebble. eles need these boon duration builds to make up for terrible stats, i still enjoy my ele, and i hope i can still make it viable.. but i certainly smell a class switch..

i think they are just trying to turn elementalists into a lovehate drama beta= ele is powahhh, opening =ele is nerff, major patch = ele down skill fixed and from a big community of eles meta game improves, major patch = nerf everything.. enjoy!!!

theres me thinking that guild wars 2 might actually promote people playing different classes.. seems to me they just want everyone to play warrior and everyone to just use power build and hit eachother until 1 dies. some of the nerfs just made me lol.. i mean come on arcana and water are the only decent skill trees.. thanks for kittening me like a kitten

wvw has its own problems, most of them are down too how high crit dmg can be stacked

id say it was trolling because i was doing it in a really obvious way waiting for them 2 try to dodge then teleporting directly on top of them. actually doing it from a distance and teleporting is a legit strat however!

+1 for xpadder really good for controller-keybindings

as a lefty im fcuked, on some games i just use 2 hands on keyboard, but where positional spacing is stupidly important in gw2 i have to keep 1 hand on mouse at all times, basically i use arrow keys, ctrl,shirt,del,end,pagedown,0,1,2 as alot of bindings such as jump,dudge,action,autoatk,heal,voice com,call target, and i made myself a 4 button footswitch, which i can use for 2,3,4,5 or f1 f2 f3 f4. next on the list is gaming mouse.. then i is sorted

yeah water and arcana is pretty much standard stuff these days as very little useful in fire/air, and its better to focus on ele recharge rather then a single attunement. if you wanna play support however staff is good, the water auto atk on staff will heal about 350-400 aoe which is epic if theres a group fight aswell as having nice aoe heals.. i feel however stating heavily into healing power isnt worthwhile as gains are minimal. only regens seem to benefit alot. that being said a little healing is no harm done, generally ur better going power/tough/vit id say. or cond/tough/crit for a condition build (personal opinion, aslong as your build fits your style its all good!)

haha!! what about if i add a sexy delay on it next time :P

basically this was a little gameplay of me playing whilst drunk trying to troll people with churning earth, i did some amazing ones that werent recorded like teleporting too the treb at battle of kyhlo but heres a little vid of a game yesterday, hope you enjoy, and comments and critics are welcome as i really dont take myself too seriar

also please post if you know any good teleporting spots, i found a few “hide around corner spots” also the treb and across the clocktower on battle of khylo

i posted the link on vid descript but its here

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.1.1.0.13.0.17.0.34.0.2.9.8.10.24.8.7.6.0.0.0.16.0.0.0.0.0.48.54.56.65.66.71.0.10.0.30.30

runes i use are 2x boon duration and 1x might duration for a total of 30% extra boon duration 20% might duration and 30% boon duration from arcana good times

hey ive started recording my games, i leave them unedited but speed up boring bits, i dont see the point of just showing my highlights as its funny when i do stupid thing too :P i really enjoy making these videos, and i know im not super pro but for spvp most of my games finish about 15 kill 0-2 deaths with id say about 1/3 games i never die :P pro natural coward!

so far ive done d/d and staff elementalist with cantrip power/tough/vit builds if any of you got some builds you think i should try and record please reply because i love trying out new playstyles or builds, any char not just ele