Guild Wars 2

More maps, more game types, and SOME interaction between Wv3 and sPvP. They’re both pvp and it doesn’t make sense that the community has put pve and wv3 on the same “side.”

It is weak. Very weak.

Not to mention the fact that our highest damage potential comes from daggers, which require us, the squishiest profession in the game, to be in melee range.

Future Patch Notes:

All Dagger weapon skills ranges have been increased to 600

All Scepter weapon skills ranges have been increased to 1200

All Staff “1” Skills have had their animation speed increased 30%

Base Health Pool has been increased to 15000, up from 10000

This would help, doesn’t seem that complicated, please do it.

I never understood the point of separating Wv3 and sPvP, they’re both PvP.

At some point everyone started saying Pve and Wv3 were in the same vein, which makes no sense. Absolutely no part of Wv3 is connected to the PvE realm.

I think wv3 should provide much, much more xp than it does, and sPvP should provide a glory/xp trade on a 1:1 ratio.

[2cents]
Also wv3 gear should be purchaseable by glory and they should remove repair bills in wv3.
[/2cents]

The video does however happily demonstrate that HS damage above 50% is utterly appauling and that any complaints about it are made out of ignorance.

If thieves didn’t have a myriad of entry-level skills in order to get someone at that magic 49% mark, I don’t think it would be much of an issue. As it stands, you do.

At 49% and on, you get to spam that glorious 2 button until something goes down and stays down.

Hell, even a 1 second cd would help.

It’s not about the damage, it’s about how easy it is to attain.

Yea I hear that Golems have a magical effect on them that makes Heartseeker do less damage than Elementalist auto attack. Oh wait that’s not a magical effect, that’s how the game actually works.

Are raw numbers too complicated for you to work with? It seems to require significant effort for you to press a list of numbers in order so perhaps you actually do have difficulty understanding what i’m showing you. The Thief clip shows the Thief with optimal damage traits, that’s all i needed to show. The Elementalist is also of course running optimal damage traits, i don’t expect to have to convince you of that.

But you don’t personally run with a full glass cannon build that has no life? Yea no kitten. So why are you comparing your damage against people who are?

The difference is you posted a viable, very much used Thief build, then compared to an unused, downright stupid Ele build, and finally took it to the golem field to show the “hard numbers”. It was all done very poorly and your point was completely overshadowed by it.

I challenge you, go and make an elementalist. Go learn the ins and outs, how to swap, a proper build, etc. Go learn the strengths and glaring weaknesses of the Elementalist, and if you still aren’t convinced that thieves are easy mode, then you are a lost cause.

The levels of bullkitten in this thread are approaching critical mass so it’s time for some footage of the actual game.

Glass cannon zerker pendant Thief and Elementalist. Feel free to start crying about Elem 11111111 now instead of Thief 22222222.

Or you could realise that spamming either of them is just a stupid idea, and you were an idiot for suggesting that mashing Heartseeker from full life is effective at accomplishing anything at all.

Golems? Your entire point is drawn from Golems? I would tell you to go make actual combat footage, but you wouldn’t, because you don’t want to put the effort into learning the Elementalist profession.

You showed us the thief build, but not the Ele build.

No one uses a full glass cannon build on an ele in pvp.

That video was stupid and proved nothing, I’m sorry you wasted your time making it.

You don’t actually have the slightest clue how the class works or how much damage that ability does, do you. Not a clue.

Would it make you feel better if the thread was just called, “Thieves – Babbys 1st Profession?”

Let’s just clarify, Heartseeker is not the only problem with the Thief profession, its the consolidation of skill into a few key buttons that have unrivaled damage potential.

Effort: Low
Damage: Top Tier

Results: Angry non-thieves, and can you blame them?

I’m failing to see where this effort comes from. I suggest you move your argument away from the idea of performing a set sequence of abilities in GW2, because there is no scenario where i’m going to acknowledge that your rotation requires any effort worth mentioning.

19 button vs 5.

In the time it takes me to do one damage sequence, you can do it near 4 times as fast, and do more damage.

Is it clear now?

Execution refers to the difficulty of performing a particular action once you have made the decision that you want to perform it.

Then by your definition Execution is relative, not non existent.

GW2 has zero executional requirement

You’ve just shown how it does.

In any case, I hope another profession could weigh in with their damage rotations and the amount of effort it takes. If thieves are to remain as high-damaging as they are, they need to be more difficult to play, if not, nerf the damage output.

Your “damage rotation” is achieved by pressing numbers on the keyboard in a predefined sequence.

If you mean predetermined by me, then you are correct. You just put quotes around a phrase that has been around MMO’s for as long as I can remember, in some weird attempt at cutting them down.

Please explain why you believe the act of moving your fingers over several different buttons in a preset order requires some degree of skill that you should be praised for.

First, I never asked for praise, I don’t know where you got that from my post.

Second, it is not the substance of the rotation, nor was it some kitten wagging, it was simply to show how long my rotation takes in direct comparison to a Thief, and how I still achieve lesser results even. That would be effort vs reward.

GW2 has zero executional requirement

This is just wrong. I gather that every skill ever on every profession “just makes sense” to you, and thus you have some warped view that everyone views everything the same way you do, so all the most efficient rotations must scream out at you from the skillbar, and anything else is just l2p.

That means the choice of target, the decisions of how to move and when to dodge…

A Thief jumping you and mashing Heartseeker from full life is an example of a bad player who is not responding to the fight…

…An equally hilarious example would be an Elem walking up and performing your damage rotation, button by button, without responding to what their target was doing. Both of these examples are brainless and ineffective…

Agree on all those points.

The only difference is the Elem looks like he might be doing something clever and complicated, because his character is cycling through a varied sequence of different attacks, while the Thief is jumping at people repeatedly.

You’re hung up on the aesthetics of it all. I was only pointing out the effort vs reward, which is so skewed in favor of the Thief vs All the other professions. Yeah bad players are bad, but if you can’t see the joke of thief damage output for what it is, I can’t help you.

You complain that the ability should be changed because you don’t like the way the fight looks when playing against someone who has no idea what they are doing.

Again, who complains about the animation? I don’t care if the animation was the coolest in the history of gaming, its the sheer lack of effort needed on a thieves’ part to achieve fantastic damage output.

You have to be really close, but the whole point of the fire aura is that it procs the fury/swiftness from the Air trait line, as well as the protection granted by the Earth trait line.

Couple that with the fact that you have 2 signets to proc the fire aura, as well as the other 2 auras from the D/D skillset, it really makes a difference in combat.

If you’re going to trait/build around auras, the most efficient way is in D/D, because D/D has two out of the four auras in the skillset.

20 Points in fire for the fire shielf aura on signet activation, Signet of Healing/Earth to proc the fire shield, and at least 10 points into Air for Trait I (auras provide fury and swiftness), and 10 in Earth for 3 seconds of protection with Auras. Then the obligatory 10 in Arcane for attunement swap stuff, and 20 in water for healing. Or swap and do 20 Earth for Armor of Earth/Aura Protection and 10 in Water.

Constant Aura upkeep in combat with the right rotation makes you harder to kill while simultaneously upping your damage output.

Play a class that has to actually WORK for burst damage (Elementalist for example), and then play a Thief, you’ll see how stupid easy it is to burst as a thief. They don’t need a damage nerf, they need their playstyle difficulty increased.

Typical D/D Elementalist “damage rotation”
Start in Air
Ride the Lightning (4)
Updraft (5)
Signet of Earth (Util)
Shocking Aura (3)

Swap to Fire

Fire
Burning Speed (3)
Ring of fire (4)
Drake’s Breath (2)
Fire Grab (5)

Swap to Water

Water
Frost Aura (4)
Frozen Burst (3)
Cleansing Wave (5)
Cone of Cold (2)

Swap to Earth

Earth
Magnetic Grasp (Or Signet of Earth if its back up) (3)
Earthquake (4)
Armor of Earth (Util)
Churning Earth (5)

After that it takes an on-the-fly assessment on what to switch to next.

Thief
Assassin Signet
Steal
Haste
Heartseeker Heartseeker Heartseeker

I guarantee you just did more damage than my Elementalist.

Nerf the damage? Maybe its not neccessary, just nerf how kitten easy it is to achieve it.

To make up for the weaknesses of the thief

Stopped reading there. The thief is far from weak.

Look at the shortbow skill set. The only attack on there that does decent damage is the auto attack. The rest are just support skills.
2 spreads poison wooOOOoOOo
3 is nice for a quick speed buff,
4 cripples n bleeds
5 dazes/stuns

I almost never hit 2, and only hit 4 on fleeing enemies. But 3 and 5 are fantastic, 5 especially since you flank→5→pop quickness and back to auto attack for great damage.

you dont use gold in spvp so why earn it? and you jump to lvl 80 so why would you get xp?

Because a lot of us got the game to level soley from PvP.
Using Spvp as a supplement to Hearts/Dynamic Events/Dungeons would encourage more pvp, and would help us jump into wv3 a lot faster.

Not to mention it would be just plain fun.

Gold? Nah. We don’t need it to pvp.

Xp? I’m down with this. This would let us level alts and then take them in wv3.

I would like to add wv3 gear being obtainable by glory. Having to farm gold to obtain PvE AND PvP gear is just plain silly. Its strange to think that the “gear gap” that has plagued other games, and kept them from being great pvp games, is still present in this one.

Wv3 is pvp. There should be no reason you have to do PvE content, to get gold, to get pvp gear. This encourages the “gear gap” system that just makes the non-farmers hate it.

I keep hearing how Moa has a “long cooldown.”

Compared to other elites it has a pretty average cooldown.

Elites with a CD of 180;
Moa Morph
Tome of Courage
Tome of Wrath
Rampage
Supply Crate
Thieves Guild
Fiery Greatsword
Tornado
Lich Form (Moa negated)
Plague Form (Moa negated)

Ironically, if you made it so moa didn’t work on people in elite transforms…then any elite transform would nullify moa, which is an elite skill. Making it so most professions have the ability to nullify an elite skill.

Why not just make it so when you’re Moa’d your elite skill timer doesn’t tick down and you just return to your elite form when it wears off?

Except if you’re already moa’d, you can’t transform into a Lich. And even if you could, they’d fix THAT so it didn’t work either.

It’s an elite skill that has the POTENTIAL to cancel out another elite skill. What is the problem with that?

If it was a normal skill with a 30s CD that could cancel our your elite, then sure that’s an issue. But this is an elite, canceling another elite.

I would like to hear your justification for granting Mesmers the only Elite skill that cancels out another. Mesmers are the only profession currently that has that capability.

It doesn’t mitigate it, it doesn’t make it less useful in some way, it flat out nullifies that Elite skill. No profession should have that power.

True, so Tome of Courage is overpowered compared to damaging Elites.
(The logic, sense it makes none)

Tome of Courage heals and protects, it doesn’t rip a Necromancer out of his elite skill, it isn’t a catch-all counter.

Look, I’m not trying to get the skill nerfed into oblivion, but the fact that it takes a Necro out of Lich/Plague just irks the ever loving kitten out of me.

Fix that, just that.

I made this thread hoping others would see it and not ask everyone if they work or not. I’ve seen a lot of that lately.

Any Elite skill that utterly overwrites another is unacceptable.

Take advantage!

All other professions feel so much less involved I don’t want to play them. I love this profession, but all my love won’t fix what is broken (and some things are just plain broken).

Now that we’ve seen what an elite level Elementalist can do, which is simply hang with the rest of them, how can Anet go about balancing them on the low-skill side that doesn’t make the high-skill side just wreck people?

Idea’s? Thoughts?

I can tell that balancing our class is not going to be easy, but I admit i’m more than a little burned at today’s patch notes.

For sPvP i’ve had some success with this build

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fEAQJAoYhMmebyR4gjEAkCnEUIACjHhIyIlCzA;TsAg0Cno2xsjYH7Oudk7Mq4IyMDA

Kinda tanky, but still retains the great damage potential of D/D. I was tearing Thieves and warriors apart 1v1, but there is always the chance they were scrubs.

Raid on the Crapricorn, underwater, surrounded by people.

Eles time to shine, the one place we absolutely DOMINATE!

Most professions can just push in stats and do well

And there it is, couldn’t have said it better myself. How many different ways does a greatsword warrior play? A double dagger thief? A staff/sword pistol mesmer?

You will be hard pressed to find two staff Eles with the same build, or two S/D with the same playstyle. Finding a build that works properly with these weapons is justkittenHARD.

Leopold with MX Browns
Rat 7 Mouse

Attune swtiching from f1-f4 to shift+1-4.
Heal to E
Util 1 – Mouse 5
Util 2 – Shift+ Mouse 5
Util 3 – Shift + Middle Click

Loving the results

I have been playing an Elementalist since the beta weekends, and I knew I was dead set on the profession when the game finally launched. Once I learned how to twist properly, and got my playstyle/build down, I knew I was a force to be reckoned with.

Then we got nerfed, and the game launched.

Since then I have joined the many, many unsatisfied Elementalists who are gathered at the gates of Anet, demanding change. I raged on my guild’s ventrilo server every time I failed to kill someone because, let’s face it, our glass cannon build is nothing short of brittle. I was about to shelve my toon until Anet fixed my profession.

Then something changed. I tried picking up a staff, switching my build to earth/water/arcane, and gave support a try. I was impressed to say the least. Suddenly, I wasn’t dying nearly as much (if at all), I was earning more glory than before because I played defensively, and was almost always a point guard, I even topped the charts for several games in a row. I felt like I found my niche.

But this isn’t a niche class, I am a friggin’ Elementalist. I should be burning, freezing, shocking, and earthin’ my foes to smithereens. Never being one to give up, I decided to branch out and give the dagger/dagger tanky build a try. I was surprised by that too. Needless to say, my rage was subsiding, and I was finding less and less reasons to be mad at the profession. Oh I still have my quibbles, and will until Anet addresses the needs of the profession, but I am no longer raging.

I’m doing loads better than I used to, but something like that doesn’t happen overnight, so I started analyzing my playing time versus when other people would be on. I work full-time so I can only play morning spvp during the weekdays, could this be the reason I am doing so well? Am I just the early bird stomper? Or does the profession simply require a much higher skill to achieve maximum effectiveness?

If the former, hey, I’ll always have my morning domination.

If the latter, we need to be retuned.

I’d like other Elementalist’s opinion on this, now that the game has been out for a while, how is everyone doing? Are we still the weakest profession? Or have we simply not built up the skills needed to play our profession properly?

My rule of thumb is, I’d rather have the tick hit hard, than have a lot of ticks.

Condition removal in this game is pretty rampant, so keep that in mind.

As an elementalist, I run condition damage+power.

I think your missing the point, trade post and armorers having nothing to do with PvP. I’m pointing out the items that can be used in PvP should be all accessible through either the PvP stash or they should give you the option to get into your bank account to retrieve your PvP salvage kits. Giving you the reason for visiting the capital cities for just around 5 items that are not retrieveable through your PvP stash isn’t a good reason.

Sounds like they need to fix the PvP locker then.

What’s next, a trade post? An armorer? We need some reason to visit the capital cities.

I have never been attacked at a waypoint I went afk underneath.

I’m going to have to disagree with the above suggestion that the aoe’s should be larger untraited.

Traited, those aoe’s can almost cover entire points in spvp, it is a huge deal for a support ele to stand on the point, and literally drop all his aoe’s on top of himself, and it shouldn’t be untraited.

1) Reduced cooldowns between attunement swaps.

Reason: When we switch, the previous element is now on a 15 second cd. Other classes weapon swap timer is 10 seconds. “But you have 4 elements to choose from!” Indeed we do, but the way our class was designed has us twisting our attunements constantly, 15 seconds is far too long.

2) Faster animations on certain spells.

Spells: Dragon’s Tooth, Lava Font, Eruption, Shockwave, Ice Spike, Shatterstone, Churning Earth (at least a 1 second reduction in cast time). Just to name a few.

3)An obvious base hp increase.

Reason: we have the lowest, bar none, as well as some of the lowest damage output of any class, which makes our glass cannon build downright brittle.

4) Improved Elite Skills.

Reason: Our tornado skill is just not useful (a confusion debuff will downright kill us), our pets don’t last beyond a few hits, and the sword locks us out of our attunements.

5) Signet skill improvements.

Air: A Passive 10% non stacking speed increase? Our air tree is already full of non stacking speed buffs.

Fire: Needs a passive and active boost.

6) Glyphs.

Currently only 1 glyph is useful (storms) and I rarely find it useful outside of PvE, and even that is only during an invasion event.

Renewal is flat out broken, Elemental power is on too long a cd for a “chance” to inflict a condition, and lesser elementals suffer the same problems as the elite ones.

7) Its hard to ask for an across the board damage buff, but I’d love to see one. The amount of effort that goes into playing this class well leaves us still woefully underpowered by comparsion. The effort put in is not properly reflected by our results.

8) More synergistic traits.

I think we all know where the problems in our traits lie.

Fortunately for us, they act quickly. Rest assured this will be dealt with swiftly.

Quite honestly, ANet has already stated that they are looking for actual data from the community as a whole. This is really an idea to help get the community involved to speed up the idea. A good alternative to complaining here in the forums, don’t you think?
And my idea is just that, an idea. It isn’t perfect and needs work, but with the community that doesn’t have to be all that difficult.
When gathering data, if you collect from everyone’s input it is possible to create the necessary curve without anyone having to go through strenuous work. Stranger, or not, I’d rather fight for this profession than idly twiddling my thumbs.

Does anyone take into account the fact that the other professions are not denying anything we claim? They know we are the squishiest, lowest damage dealing profession in the game currently. The only thing we excel at is staff support, with an emphasis on high armor and so so condition damage.

And if we’re being honest, any game developers that ignores 90% of the playerbase saying we are underpowered, and doesn’t look into it, is ridiculous.

We are underpowered, the GW2 community knows it, and at this point if we aren’t fixed you will find the profession woefully underrepresented until it is.

Report him immediately, this is obviously a bug/exploit and needs to be reported. If you see someone doing something like that take a screenshot, and report the player.

I am snapping necks and cashing checks .

lost it right about there :P

Hammerheart, oh Hammerheart, you’re posting what has been posted long ago. And, while I would agree with you on some points, I must say that what you see as “fact” others can call “fiction.” Numbers, my friend, must be added to back up your claims.

The amount of hard numbers you’re asking for is unrealistic. You can’t reasonably expect a community of strangers to start putting their nose to the grindstone to come up with enough data to support your “idea.”

I’m positive Anet has seen where they fouled up with the Elementalist and is in the process of fixing us.

Fact: Attunement twisting CD’s are almost twice that of other classes weapon switching

Fact: Attunement twisting is a built in neccessity to obtain not laughable damage.

Fact: Our damage is easier to avoid. (looking at you dragon’s tooth)

Fact: Our glass cannon builds do not come close to the damage of other classes.

Fact: You can’t trust pvp videos.

Its always the simplest answer isnt it?

Well kitten me in the kitten.

Where did this kitten craze come from?

You must have been fighting ground or rock type creatures, therefore your move was super effective.

Grass → Rock/Ground

If you have the attitude that there is nothing to gain, you are already starting this game off on the wrong foot.

Go do tournament pvp matches with your guild, win, and then come back and tell me you aren’t having any fun.

The point of pvp in this game is not about “how can I impress people as an individual?”

It’s, “how can I best serve my team so we win?”

If you just log in and hit PLAY NOW of course you are going to get bored and see no inherent value (although the pure aesthetic armor appeals to me a great deal).

There is no silly arena rating here, no item values, no big banner that says “IM GREAT”, its all about your team.

I’m High Masters in Starcraft 2, and i’m 1400 ELO in League of Legends.

My point is, pvp has nothing to gain. It’s not FUN after 5 of the same games, smashing the same 6-7 keys each engagement. Idk wtf how you really think that’s fun.

If they maybe put a Talent Tree, it’d atleast have some Customization, and it’s be fun having a different spec than everyone else, rather then being able to change your skills whenever the hell you feel like it.

Would you mind telling us what profession you play? Your build? Are you in a guild?

I’m going to be honest this looks like a troll post.

Did you even play the first Guild Wars?

You could make a max level, pvp-only character right off the bat and take him straight into pvp.

Sounds like you pvp for the wrong reasons.

If you don’t take joy out of smashing another player, or having your team (pug or organized) come together and win, no amount of updates to this game will satisfy you.

The random server games are just practice for when you do tournaments, its an ideal place to flesh out trait/gear builds that best suit you before taking them into tournaments with your guild.