Guild Wars 2

You need the same on swap sigil on both weapons right? Seems a waste.

Bhima.9518:

ImProVocateur.5189:

… You need to go all in on dps to get the result the game is balanced for …

Running glass in WvW is asking to be rally bait. Please don’t listen to this one, unless you are uber and run with a very experienced team.

True, and true. You do need to go all in on dps if you want to make an impact as an Ele, but that is not the path recommended. I agree with the people that say a dead Ele is not helping. I urge players to think about playing something else. If you are not going to figure out how to do full dps, and you don’t have the skills to bunker roam, then the only advice everyone gets is to play buff bot spec. I would rather support you in trying the challenge of full dps.

Thrashbarg.9820,
I agree with you about Rampager being risky. Even though the ChillyChinaman.6057 liked your response, you did not give the whole story. Most of my success with d/d was due to Rabid gear. The problem with Rabid is that it did not put out the impressive single hit numbers. Rampager has less condition damage than Rabid. We both agree that condition damage is not the big thing for Ele. Rampager is like Assassin, too, but without the critical damage bonus. Depending on the traits bought, Rampager could be very good for decent crits and decent condition damage. Together the Rampager gear will make big trouble for the enemy. The question comes down to survivability. No matter how you look at it Ele is the lowest on the totem pole for that. He can pull off Rampager, and he will probably like it more when he figures out how to survive with it.

If you want to be in the zerg and you do not care about being the nuker, then build for full survivability with Blasting Staff. As long as you drop those large air and water combo fields people have learned to accept that as the best an Ele can provide. That’s it – two buttons in two attunements. If you are really good, then you might learn to spam fire2. Think of everything else as suppression abilities, and have fun with your buff bot build!

From a game engine efficiency view, the number of calculations per hit is enormous using any of the equation presented in this thread. It would seem more likely that a large data file has arranged arrays of hard numbers to facilitate the construction of an equation that has, at most, two multiply/divide operations. What are people basing these equations on? Did the devs disclose the actual equation used? Additionally, was that equation confirmed to be implemented, as opposed to a simple data set that works like a decipher array to generate the equation values?

Stun breaker? Lol. Do those exist for the Ele still? You are the chosen sacrifice my friend. Do us all proud and die with honor.

If you watch a YouTube video (of recent Ele only), then you will see how the Ele is constantly scrambling for health. The best players are able to time heal cycles into their rotations and evade enough to make it worthwhile. Anything under 15k Health is probably a sure death for you. Don’t cry about how that limits your damage, either, because no one at ANet is listening. It will be night and day for you to go from an overpowered class to the most underpowered class. In WvW, few moments of triumph with feel smote by the repetitive run-for-your-life. Hide to cast safely. Leach by piggy-backing your dps on others’ greatness. Make yourself small. Listen to Kyskythyn.6471. The other small man an Ele is good with is a Guardian and Ranger.

The war experience has changed a lot for the Ele. I used to run with PTV + Rabid. It was great for d/d, and the staff damage was not aweful. Staff is the most important weapon for the Ele in WvW. You will use it more than you like, even if you despise being a staff caster. I was eventually in conflict with that fact. YouTube videos showed me what damage I should be getting on the staff to be useful. I switched to Berserk + Rabid, but that still was not enough. You need to go all in on dps to get the result the game is balanced for. Either go max Power and Condition Damage with reliance on traits, skills and morphs to max dps, or push Power, Precision and Critical Damage. The second option is probably the best right now. The only offensive counter to loads of conditions is loads of unmitigable instant damage. Invulnerability will defeat you still.

I think any maximization of dps is your best choice. Truth be told I do not possess the skill (or cheats) to successfully pull off the current d/d build in the current meta. I was almost unstoppable back when full Berserker or full PTV was the rage (soon after release), and not just versus uplevels. My ability was directly tied to everything that got nerfed. Now, the most common activity for any Ele in WvW, who actually plays a long time on Ele, is to stay in fairly protected areas (with the zerg or defending). That means you should concentrate on what you can do in those situations – dps.

OP,
The problem with Ele is that it works against all odds, seriously. It makes sense to give bonus survivability stats to classes that are only melee (as dubious as that is), but all the classes in GW2 have ranged weapons. All the other classes have skills that close a distance gap (except engineer). Other classes have access to damage avoidance more than the Ele, which is also a way to balance ranged classes with non-ranged classes. The sum of all these design choices is that Ele has no mechanic to make up for its designed weakness. The only thing an Ele can do best is lay down a combo field. The current design concept for the Ele is literally a buff bot. Enjoy.

That trait was awesome before Ele was epic nerfed. My game release build was d/d with 30 arcane and 30 air. I started and finished fights in air. I would aggressively pursue anyone straying from a zerg or roaming. That extra speed was incredible at the beginning of fight. It often delayed the enemy while they oriented to me, during which I blew RtL, Blink and Mist Form to keep them confused. I stayed in air until I started taking big damage.

OP,
I have never talked to someone or read on forums that players like this, but GW2 strongest PvE play is to coordinate abilities while remaining is the smallest circle possible. Have a banner warrior and an ele to maintain combos and boons. You literally stack for every fight, and just take turns using finishers to face-tank as a group. It’s horrible. To compensate for this they had to make the mobs over-the-top powerful, which pushes players to use such a boring tactic.

I quit playing dungeons after they revised CM when they didn’t like all the profit players made from it. My Ele was getting one shot with nowhere to hide, too, but I refuse to play like a bot. I want to use the fun movement skills. That is not what the PvE design supports, though. I quit not long after that CM revision. I didn’t do another dungeon, except FotM for like 8+ months. I have no care to anymore. If you want d/d, then level up and play FotM all day, every day. It good for dps + healing in close quarters without static play.

OP,
I think Gs is fine as is. I would prefer a trade-off of fewer base weapons, yet all non-base weapons as a conjure. There are plenty of special skills worthy of the trash bin.

If you want diverse play, casting, and a class that will sit good in any meta, then go Gaurdian. I know, it probably sounds like a boring choice, but it is what you make it. Scepter and staff are both very useful in Pvx. Hammer has great gank potential in PvP or against stragglers in WvW. Mace and shield/torch with Gs are terrific for a frontline cleric. The drawback is health. If you are worried about health more, then necromancer or warrior are both the most versatile classes. Last thought, if warrior can’t do it better, then it soon will.

Gabriel.6957,
no. That will fuel the eternal fire here in the Ele thread.

Frye.4608,
the nerf was from more than that.

Blink was nerfed for two reasons: 1) combo with x/d earth5, 2) it allowed quick disengage or escape. Basically, Blink was nerfed because it did what it was designed to do.

Lingering Attunement was disabled, yet not replaced, because it allowed 100% uptime for attunement activation buffs when a player swapped attunements quickly as a style of play. Basically, Lingering Attunement was nerfed because it did what it was designed to do.

RtL allowed an Ele to track a target at rapid speed to engage, or to disengage to approach another target with the quickness. It also allowed the Ele to avoid damage because of the speed factor. Basically, RtL was nerfed because it did what it was designed to do.

MF … same basic story, and the list can go on and on. Get it?

OP,
LOL, dude, ANet only reads the Ele thread during secret drinking parties at the offices. You shun people who talk about things straight. Get off the koolaid man. Open your eyes. Plato wrote a story about people stuck in a cave who stared at a wall of images for their whole life, and were convinced their experience was the universal truth. Dude, go outside and listen to others’ stories. It might blow your mind. Have pride in yourself for your virtue, but do not be proud in things that are not yours or that have no virtue.

Just to let you know, Lingering Elements is not bugged. It was disabled in a patch soon after release, along with attunement delays being made longer. Apparently, though the trait was made to support constant attunement rotation play style (at the short attunement delay timings back then), the “new” dev command decided it did not want that play style to be viable. They admitted to breaking the trait, and vowed to replace it in the future. We’re still waiting a year later for that replacement.

Totally unnecessary change. Armor of Earth could have a cooldown of 2m and still be fine. It is enough that it procs. See, here is an example that there will always be someone who supports the wrong side of the argument, and is serious about it. The problem is that ele is so broken at the moment that every sensible change is, by some perspective, senseless.

Am I the only one that wonders why the Ele’s mechanics and abilities have been systematically wrecked since release? Doesn’t it seem like it has more to do with bad relationships in ANet politics than professional design?

Sabull.5670,
I would like to, but two things:
1. I did not make video of the tests.
2. I trashed or traded all of the Ele gear after the testing.

I can also tell you that the hidden math was adjusted favorably for the Ele a month later, but the Ele still was not getting the proper amount of damage mitigation. If you want to test after this last patch, then load up on a combo of Knight’s and Cavalier’s gear, max Earth attunement, and pick the traits that increase toughness. Then, untrait your melee classes, and swap armor sets to get an objective set of data. You will need to devote a weekend to this. Remember to use a variety of NPCs and vPlayer classes, and make sure the same abilities are being compared (that have identical buffs).

… and this is why some Ele players have complained about the combos from the beginning. They nerf because of combos. They flat out disable mechanics to break or degrade combos. Combos add hidden time to effectively use a skill. Combo abilities limit build options by taking up slots and force 1-trick-pony play.

“Hey guys, why do I keep seeing tornados that run away or sit behind walls?”
“Oh, that’s what makes Eles hit hard.”
“Yeah man. Eles are OP damage.”
“True that. They need to nerf them more.”
“Kitten straight!”
“Reported Ele dps as a bug.”
“LOL, now they get that nerf.”
“’Kitten ’em.”
“Yeah. Who cares about Eles anyways. Moar warrior sauce plz.”
“Cherry or strawberry?”
“What?”
“You asked for warrior sauce. I’m asking what flavor.”
“Kitten flavor because that’s the taste I leave in their mouth.”
“LOL, reported for being a kitten.”

OP,
I have enough characters to do damage testing between classes. A couple of months ago it felt like the ele was taking far too much damage for 3.2k armor, which was my spec at the time. I did damage testing in PvP practice area, WvW and PvE. I can tell you with conclusive evidence that there is secret code that manages damage, and that, at least for the ele, armor does not mitigate like it should. That sucks because ele already has the worst survivability.

Oh, btw, my untraited guardian base armor (2.2k if I remember right) had the best damage mitigation efficiency. It worked better than my ele at 3.2k. I was shocked and disappointed, but I was glad my earlier impression was validated.

DrTenma.7249,
Call it a conspiracy, but I think the military minds that try to engineer our society get involved in popular games. Consider the quarterbacking sports style of gameplay these changes are leading to, supposedly antithetic to the original design.

Lavadiel.6231,
These days I often play like a drunkard. On a rare moment the excellence will happen. I am not one to rage at a game, but I do lose that fun feeling when a game appears to be too rigged. It depresses me when a moment of greatness happens, while I am feeling like a master of the art of avatar war, when it seems the mechanics cannot keep up with me, and the enemy is doing well, but not at my level, yet the enemy insta-100% heals twice, and goes invulnerable, and stuns me, and dazes me, and cripples me, and knocks me, and drops me. Then the ele downs, and I look at an opponent at 90% hp. They /em laugh. I go to LA to sulk.

This seems like a great way for ANet to cut labor cost while increasing labor output. Don’t you think it would be another step in the right direction to release dev kits for a nominal price (say $50), so programming savvy customers (who are also stakeholders who are time and financially invested) can expediently provide solutions? I personally would not do so without recognition and compensation, but there definitely are stakeholders willing to increase the value they perceive. Again, that would lead to more labor savings at the ANet offices while increasing labor output.

Gallrvaghn,
It’s PvE. Just run full power and crit. Why do people worry about PvE survival, as if dying in PvE happens? Seriously, if someone is worried about dying in PvE, then they are with the wrong group.

Jacks.5357,
I was one of the pioneer players you could say. I tried running a champ train shortly after game release. I ran dual daggers with ultimate speed before that nerf. I ran full Arcane when few would bother with a no-stat line because everyone was berserker for staff and fgs. Back then Lingering Attunement turned me into an incredible player. Really, my skillz was tied to that. It allowed 100% uptime for all attunement bonuses for capable players. I started showing people. It became a buzz. ANet nerfed it on the next patch. That was the start of the “kill ele” campaign.

When Ultima had rampant God-Mode PKers I chose not to subscribe passed trial.

When DAoC pushed crowd-control I hated it. When DAoC pushed standard soldier classes through the roof I quit.

When Warhammer Online pushed standard soldier classes to AFK-mode-wins I quit.

Do you see the pattern? It might have something to do with product life cycle and the type of support and players an older game gets.

OP,
OK, good. I thought I was the only one that realized that. Started thinking I was the only one with eyes that could see and a mind that thinks.

Holy smokies. As a long time ele player, I was shocked to see what an Engi could do, and how similar the class concept was. Then I finished finding the best stats mix. Then I sat dumbfounded for 5m. Not only did my new Engi have double (literally double) the health, the armor was higher, and the power peaked higher. On top of that the Engi has incredi-mode option if using only last 3 trait lines. Still damage reduction + healing is enough using partial toughness/vitality lines that full power or crit is a real option. Heck even a smidgeon of both.

tldr – put down your manic ele gameplay for a year and pick up the real deal – Engi.

Zelyhn.8069,
Are you sure about that? I run d/d ele always on the Shaman. Sometimes I see random single digit damage. Usually I see zeroes. Twice I have found a spot the allowed partial damage through. One step to the left or right and it would be zeroes again. I have not paid attention to whether vulnerability stacked during the bubble. I zone-out and let water #1 auto the Shaman to death while enjoying watching the antics of the other four team members scurrying about for survival.

I waiting for the revised patchnotes that will be sure to come hours after the patch that says something to the effect that conjure weapon changes were rolled back due to unforeseen spamming of upgraded damage, not just by the ele, but by anyone standing nearby as well, double the expected dps in a concentrated area. Along with rescinding the conjure buff, the extra weapon conjured will be permanently removed.

OP forgot the caption that read “This message brought to you by ANet Positivity Team.” RavenRecoil.6103, delete the ele before you commit fully, and roll a guardian, necro, or engi, depending on what gameplay you want.

Let me tell you my first time-to-quit-gw2 experience. So we’re getting pushed out of Eternal Battlegrounds. We made a desperate push to retake our keep. The enemy had all three orbs. We were valiant underdogs. I moved to the corner to force a gathering group off a cliff by the keep wall. At first the group retreated, all except one – one amazing Guardian. I was sure in the eles OPness. I wrecked. Until he appeared. Today I do not know whether it was a real Gaurdian or a superhero in disguise. With only a staff in hand he took my entire rotation (all four elements). At first he was shy, dodging and healing. After a few rotations he boldly laughed and danced while absorbing the best rotation I had ever thrown. He dropped 45%. I /emoted cry as a Norn. It was epic. I know everyone around was as shocked as I was, since everyone in view was standing looking at the two of us. Uber Guardian crouched for might as I shamefully casted a quick set of dps to no avail. He used two staff abilities and killed me in six hits, through my combo healing.

If you stay with ele, then I wish you luck to compensate.

Are you sure you want to talk about these kind of facts here? You all are finding proof that will just make you mad in the end. It is sort of like learning about combo fields. If a player does not know much, but does what someone tells them to do to take advantage of finishers, then that player thinks its fun. If a team really figures out what combo fields favor, then they end up hating the gameplay. They stack one click behind the proc healer. They line up the edge of the water field on their party, and the condition field on the mob(s). They don’t move. It’s the most static boring combat ever. Everyone feels like a robot taking turns dropping fields, finisher, and slamming a banner. The game is ruined for them because they wanted to figure out how to maximize their strength.

Just let it go. Only trolls contend that the ele is not broken. Don’t feed the trolls.

Isn’t everyone playing ele just to cast for graphic effects? I know I am. The best thing they could do is make all our skill one-quarter as effective as all other classes and give us weapon swap, so we have access to 40 fx. Sweeeeeet!

Conjured weapons allow us to:

1. Change our weapon stat bonuses in combat.

2. Forget about wasting time and $ on legendaries. If I like my static weapon too much, then it will conflict with my need to conjure.

3. Troll with multiple OP skills in one fight.

4. Be the most popular at magical weapons parties.

5. Forget about attunement finger pretzel nervosa (AFPN).

Feel free to add whatever.

I was once great. Then nerfs upon nerfs sealed my fate. My pro-ness was all class OP-ness. Not finesse, but pure aggressiveness, dps-ness. Now I achieve less. Now good eles drop me like a novice, and average other classes roll me as the softest.

Epic, there is a way today to make you feel ele’s domination like back in the day, but you cannot feel it without giving your soul away in order to stay on top of the fray. How? I will let others say. It’s their play, their fun, their disarray. To me its … okay, but not my cup of tea.

Let’s say the next patch adds a playable turtle class that has one skill. A cannon that does 50k damage is mounted on its back. The only downside is that every other class can one-shot the turtle, and the turtle moves at turtle speed. Now, if we do a dps comparison, then are we having the right conversation?

tldr – Look! I can make hand puppets!

You could always lower your personal status to the rank of group buff bot by using a LH and wasting a trait to increase your combo field radius.

I do not dungeon, but I do FotM. My ele uses staff and d/d. You just need to dps close or at range (kite potential). Use whatever is most fun for you. I d/d as much as possible. Also, most melee do not mind being the damage dealers. You can support their ego with mh dagger 1 auto-attack. You might want to spec. heal power for that.

Oh wth, I’ll even post again to throw this random dubstep plug in. Make sure you agree with me that this music is on topic. We all need to support each other.

YouTube vid

OP (Divinity.8041) is correct. Non-participation is the #1 rebellion, same in the economy as it is in GW2. Authority, those who assume the role of authoring our experience, get the message when we don’t participate in the plan.

I totally agree that ele play should be avoided in all high profile play. Here’s the expection: Make sure to WvW with ele, only employing the most egregious damage combos possible. For clarity, do not accept the role of buff bot, and definitely do not be suckered into thinking you have figured out a niche by doing so. Looking at you LH <pinky to corner of mouth>.

Fists up!

Believe me when I say that I like watching videos of highly skilled players dominating with the Elementalist, but there is a thought I try to ignore that stays in mind. It is one thing to show select times of domination, <cough> especially against <cough> low tier nobodies. There is an underlying lack of credibility to every ele vid I have watched. I want to see awesome ele vids of WvW action against tier 1 servers, and not against an off group of uplevels on those servers. Does anyone have October, 2013, video of ele domination against reputable guilds in WvW Tier 1 servers? Anyone? Beuller?

There are abilities that cause ten stacks. Are any of those abilities going to be cut down because of this?

People who defend the current ele state are correct. It is viable the way they play it. People who hate the current ele state are correct also. Everything other than the limited vision of the ele is fluff. We’re all right. Now, do you see the point?

Have a looks at the traits. There are combinations of damage bonuses that benefits one element over another. Fire is an obvious one because of the might stacking at 30. Air is a little strange because it is not so much single line as favored line. Water was ripped to shreds, so that would be odd to stay in apart from d/d PvE support. Earth is better than it used to be. In fact, it might even rival full fire, dubiously.

What you need to remember is that the combat system is heavily rigged. The reason most good players go survival trait lines is because the ele (by dmg adjustments and global dmg nerfs) has been tweaked to the point that full offense is not an vast improvement. So, your choice is a big dps increase (on paper) that (in real time) is maybe 20% better, or a real 50-100% increase in survivability.

Use this generic scenario. An ele can cast 10 times to kill while having the lowest survival, or an ele can cast 12 times to kill while having a high survival chance. Focusing on one line when the options are limited is of little value to the entire conversation. Can you do it? Yes. Is it important? No.

OP (Silentshoes.1805),
There is nothing wrong with building yourself up. You are obviously proud of what you achieve in GW2. I am happy for you. In truth the PvP players tend to fail in WvW. There is more to deal with in WvW. Dedicated PvP players are the type that get overly agitated when enemy numbers push the <convoluted> balance envelope, or when lag interferes with the <so-called> twitch response or rotation. PvP players usually experience psychological regression in the WvW environment, and the PvP arena feels like a safer place to them. It is more predictable. It is easier to analyze. It is consistent. The mindset that PvP gameplay syncs with best is in-the-box thinking. Playing WvW requires a mind that accommodates change, and is highly creative when problem solving; therefore, roamers in WvW will tend to be strong in those regards.

I stopped playing PvP early on mainly because it was too easy. Recently I have been posting about how ele has become a weak class. Just to make sure it wasn’t my skills that fell off a cliff I created a new warrior for hotjoin. There was a warrior that people were saying always dominated. I wrecked him without feeling a bit a difficulty. I didn’t die once in three matches. It certainly was not me and my paltry WvW skill level.

I gave this thread time to allow players to submit their video. I announced a contest proposal in the PvP discussion area. I had hoped that twenty elementalist competitors would post a video. That did not happen. There can be no contest without enough competitors; therefore, there is no reason to continue this thread further. You would think that with 300k elementalists made that twenty who could complete the initial challenge would be easy to find. Maybe the skill curve is higher than people think.

Thank you to all who showed interest, especially to those who posted personal video links. Lunarain.8430 and KazNaka.4718, I was most impressed by your last links. You are two incredibly talented players. We can all hope to reach the level where success in PvP and WvW feels worth the effort, so the ele becomes more valuable than a finger-tangling-combo-fields-for-might spammer in PvE dungeons.

Lunarain.8430,
Dude you ended close to full health. I’m totally looking forward to your roam vid.

KazNaka.4718,
That was probably the best conjured weapon example anyone could give. You know what part I liked best? The static spin – damage accumulated, 13k.

To both of you, I commend you on your use of the rock cliff and your knowledge of this AI to make Svanir look silly. Loved the vids!

This might sound harsh, but I will say it straight. GW2 is a business product. ANet and NCSoft get a lot of free advice from real customers. That is a sweet deal. If someone had the answer to making GW2 sPvP a raging success, then that knowledge would be worth millions, literally. It would probably cause noticeable worldwide economic growth in the esport emerging market, too, so there is more value in it than what ANet or NCSoft would get. I know key information about what prevents GW2 sPvP from becoming a major part of esport growth, and how to correct the deficiencies. What I know is enough to result considerable earnings for shareholders effected by the current value of GW2 sPvP. You will not see me write that information here, nor by any other means without a lucrative contract.

tldr – people know what to do, but it will not get done

An action bar as a resource that challenges players to self-balance offensive versus defensive abilities has been a strength in MMORPGs. What might not be obvious in some of my helpful posts is that I believe GW2 is the best of the genre. It has achieved a level of overall quality that I feel like I have waited to see. I think the original devs that made this amazing world were fantastic. I like that they took a risk with some design decisions. Some things I do not agree with, but I appreciate their try. Some things probably should not have been changed from standard implementation. An action bar is one standard of the genre that exists because it solves a slew of problems. Not only that, but an action bar allows for more character customization options, as has been mentioned already.

The best rpg experience I have is from DAoC before one infamous patch. In that patch, bow use was altered and nerfed ( my favorite part of the game ), cc was astronomically increased ( my hated part of the game ), shaman buffs ( my only strength as a noob ) became short range pbaoe (to s’port the stack). You should have seen the anger from the customers. The changes catered to a small group of wrong thinking PvPers. Many quit. I wanted to, but I was too new to give up so soon. I gave it a chance. The game still had life after those changes, but the damage to the community was felt.

In GW2 I play Ele mostly, so player proficiency with cc hurts. Stability means little because of low survivability. Ele cannot shake off damage fields, or sustain enough dodges to float through ZvZ dances. That is not the worst part. With such low survivability the Ele must overcome enemy invulnerability (a combat design side-effect of too much cc). My ranger has 12s of invulnerability, plus a pet that will take damage after that is gone. It is not just cc, but what becomes of a game that uses it.

OP,
The change you want is a small matter. Why not make dagger fire 4 ground targeted? I would want that first. However, tactical changes like these change the dynamic of the weapon set. They could possibly become game changers. I do not think changing Dragon’s Tooth to ground targeting would be a game changer, but it would cause mixed effects. I would support a trait that allows all fire spells to be ground targeted.

I do not have a problem seeing Ice Spike or Dragon’s Tooth. The bottom of the image renders at the top of my frustrum when using an angled up or angled down view, which I always do.