Guild Wars 2

LordByron.8369:

No i use that build because i don t want to play the dumbed down version of the ele i consider being the conjured elementalist…..

You’re not alone. Most people have difficulty providing notable DPS if they’re not willing to run a DPS build.

I run D/F 30/30/0/0/10 with Scholar’s runes and zerker trinkets, as seen and explained in this video. It does excellent damage, and the offhand focus provides a lot of utility.

Pvt Frosty.6973:

Even in a power build with no focus on pet damage, sick em works amazingly well against thieves. Because it is so underused thieves are always used to their standard cool downs on revealed

As someone who has played a great deal of Thief, I would supplement this by saying pay attention to the weaponset the Thief is running. “Sic ’Em” is often a waste against sword builds, because they do not need to use stealth as the prerequisite for their main source of damage.

Edit: A typo was driving me crazy, so I fixed it.

kyubi.3620:

Snake actualy is a good idea but the snake needs to actualy be large enought to be worthwhile. + the fact they so far have no actual snake model in the game save for critter you cant interact with doesnt help but hey lets see.

They used to have snake critters—I remember seeing them in the Queensdale swamp. I have no idea why or when they were removed, though.

Ezekiel.1985:

The voice acting in this game is good in some place, but sadly for a lot of the actors…their voice director appeared to be sub-par, because while they’ve shown great talent in other games, in this one, sometimes they’re a bit lackluster. Sadly, human female, I feel, is one of the worst examples.

Which is sad, because she does great in other work. She does a number of voices on South Park, SWTOR, Empress in Dishonored, the antagonist in inFAMOUS 2: Festival of Blood, voices the female Dragonborn in Skyrim (while there’s not a lot there, she did well on it)… she has some good credits. This, sadly, was just not one of them (imo) and wasn’t really her fault either (again, imo). cause she’s not the only one that this shows for.

Nolan North—the quintessential voice of Deadpool—plays the Human male, and I didn’t know that until I decided to look up the voice credits one day. He also plays the voice of Nathan Drake in Uncharted, David in The Last of Us, and a whole bunch of other really awesome voices that should have made it easy for me to identify him.

ronpierce.2760:

In Options – > Graphics -> Interface size, you can change the size of all your elements (at once).

That is helpful, and I have mine set to small, but there are items in my UI that I’d like to be able to put at varying sizes.

Edit: For example, with small-scaled UI, the typeface in the Trading Post is very, very difficult for me to read, and some of it I can’t read at all. If I know I’m going to be in the TP for a while, then I have to readjust my UI size so that I can actually see what I’m doing, and that’s terribly clunky.

Well, I feel stupid now, because I tried forever to get that to work and it never did, so I assumed it wasn’t a present feature.

I’ll update my request. Thank you!

As someone who played the original Guild Wars, I would sacrifice my pancreas for the ability to adjust my user interface in GW2.

My ideal situation would be complete UI customization options like in Guild Wars, where you were able to adjust the size and placement of every fathomable notification on your screen. However, I’d love to be able to simple adjust the size of my target’s status bar, since the health bars of Champions seems to obscure the top fifth of my screen, and can make targeting ground-based skills a challenge.

ArenaNet, if you do this for me I will throw a pizza party in your honor. With balloons. And you can sell my pancreas on the black market for a fat stack of cash.

Edit: Originally, I had asked primarily for the ability to switch the current events with the minimap, but it turns out you can actually do that. Because, you know, I haven’t been playing GW2 since betas or anything like that. /facedesk

pza.8024:

• a really well visible animation, like fiery aura or confusion, for stability. i would wish the same for blindness and retaliation too, but that’s a different topic. you wouldnt need to stare at the status bar, which arenanet doesnt want anyway and hinders you from seeing the enemie’s animation.

I agree with this part of your statement in particular. If ArenaNet doesn’t want us to stare at our enemy’s status bar, then they need to give stability a very evident visual cue.

Or they could give me a potion to let me grow a third eye out of my forehead to watch that status bar, while my left eye watches the enemy’s animations and my right eye looks at the minimap.

pierwola.9602:

torment would be much better with bigger difference between normal dmg and dmg while moving and with much shorter duration

stay still for 2-3 sec or “die” from condi dmg

Then it might as well be an immobilize, since there are limited ways to cleanse it.

Shockwave.1230:

A change like that would only be a nerf if you couldn’t queue up the evading flurry if you didn’t connect with the pistol whip.

That is my major concern. If you have to proc the stun in order to get the flurry, the skill would lose a lot of it’s value as a clutch evade.

After the addition of a cast time to the second sword skill, I found that it was next to impossible to creatively combo the teleport with other skills, and that was a large part of my fun in S/D. So now, after playing S/D since betas, I’ve finally tried switching to S/P. Any more hits to the ingenuity of sword mainhand will probably result in me rerolling classes.

The lack of torment removal on Thief has irritated me ever since they added it into the game, since the heal skills are very particular with condition removal. And since Torment is a DoT that does greater damage if you’re moving (thereby discouraging movement), I think it would fit within the realm of either Hide in Shadows or Withdraw.

Aveneo.2068:

Imagi.4561:

Actually, my original post was providing a counterpoint to all of the “mortar is pointless and useless” posts in this thread. I didn’t think I would have to provide an exposé of the issue/match in question in order to make that point clear, but I suppose some people require additional explanation so that they don’t make unwarranted inferences about me—that I was “whining,” for instance.

Most people who want to “get to the truth” just ask.

No, your original post made it sound as if you were whining about permastability and mortar being annoying because you were not used to it but didn’t bother to do something about it. As such I made a mild jab in order to get you to clarify. Nowhere in your post did I get the impression that you were actually in favor of seeing mortar be made into a more useful elite; just that you found it annoying and complained about permastability.

Please learn to read instead of immediately being on the defensive and lashing out by calling them condescending when they provide an opinion.

Now I was also complaining about permastability? That’s interesting.

I’m actually quite neutral on the mortar; I provided an anecdote to contradict the overarching tone of this thread that no one uses the mortar as it is. If you inferred something else from my post, I apologize, but that was your inference and not my mindset.

Sasajoe.1509:

Imagi.4561:

Shadowfall.6543:

More 2 cents.

Many of the stealth supporters here seem to postulate that perma stealth is not a huge advantage that can be countered easily once people learn to play.

On a separate note, I think most people will agree that Rangers could use a little love in some other build diversity.

I am not going to agree or disagree only postulate this:

I think we should give rangers access to perma stealth. It seems fair right? It’s not that big of an advantage once one learns to play, it also makes sense for a scout to disappear into the wilderness. They already have some stealth with hunters shot.

Would anyone change their opinions of perma-stealth if rangers had access to it?

If stealth and evasion were the only viable survival mechanisms for Rangers, then no, I would not. Just be sure to remove their spirits, any and all damage/CC transference to pets, and any passive health regeneration outside of stealth. Oh, and be sure to limit their CC/condition output by making their traps identical to Thief traps.

It seems fair right?

Yeah & give the damage output & mobility of a thief to the ranger too

Please do, and then we can bump them down to the lowest health tier as well.

RyuDragnier.9476:

I had a thought that could fix the main problem with stealth (not seeing your opponent), while at the same time keeping the power of thieves and everything intact. When we hit something in stealth, SHOW US NUMBERS. That way we know the general location they’re at, and it can also help give the players against stealth more of a head’s up on where the person in stealth is at. Conditions would especially work for this. Before I see thieves complaining that it will completely destroy the idea of stealth due to conditions doing constant numbers, let me remind you…Shadow’s Embrace.

Shadow’s Embrace only removes one condition every 3 seconds. Almost every class can apply conditions faster than that, and there are a variety of methods of condition application that don’t need a target (see: wells, grenades, bombs, traps).

Shadowfall.6543:

More 2 cents.

Many of the stealth supporters here seem to postulate that perma stealth is not a huge advantage that can be countered easily once people learn to play.

On a separate note, I think most people will agree that Rangers could use a little love in some other build diversity.

I am not going to agree or disagree only postulate this:

I think we should give rangers access to perma stealth. It seems fair right? It’s not that big of an advantage once one learns to play, it also makes sense for a scout to disappear into the wilderness. They already have some stealth with hunters shot.

Would anyone change their opinions of perma-stealth if rangers had access to it?

If stealth and evasion were the only viable survival mechanisms for Rangers, then no, I would not. Just be sure to remove their spirits, any and all damage/CC transference to pets, and any passive health regeneration outside of stealth. Oh, and be sure to limit their CC/condition output by making their traps identical to Thief traps.

It seems fair right?

Aveneo.2068:

Imagi.4561:

Aveneo.2068:

Imagi.4561:

I saw mortar for the first time in PvP not too long ago, actually. The Engineer parked themselves on a ledge and mortared away with the help of permastability. They actually made it very annoying/difficult to contest and cap the mid point, especially if you were fighting other players in addition to the mortar pressure.

Did anyone have the idea to simply take out the engineer on the ledge? As I recall you have equal numbers on both sides in PvP and a mortar is meant to apply pressure and it sounds to me that the opponents were simply not used to anyone using that particular Elite and got ‘annoyed’ because it forced them to change their tactics.

Yes, upon finding out that my ranged attacks were doing nil damage, I attempted to reach the ledge. I tried it once, failed, and then decided my time would be better spent helping at the other two points because even if I did get to that ledge—and did enough damage to kill them or force them down—I would have to rinse and repeat the process throughout the match. The other people on my team reached the same conclusion.

Thanks for the condescension, though.

As I recall, the Mortar has a rather low amount of ‘health’ so I find it odd that you were not able to remove it with ranged attacks. In WvW a few stray hits were often enough to destroy it and force me to run for my life. I assume the ledge itself wasn’t bugged or something? Because if it is, you might wish to talk to ANet about it.

However, it is good to hear you actually made a tactical decision to continue pressing the point and just accepted the risk of mortar fire.

Truthfully, to me your first post sounded more like general whining because someone used a previously unused skill and you were not accustomed to it. If my response forced you to clarify, I’m happy I was condescending enough in order to get to the truth. As such it is good to hear that it actually caused you and your team to discuss strategy in either going after the mortar or taking the fire while trying to focus on the center point.

After all, better to experience something new once in a while than to just do the same-old like a bunch of zombies every single match right?

Actually, my original post was providing a counterpoint to all of the “mortar is pointless and useless” posts in this thread. I didn’t think I would have to provide an exposé of the issue/match in question in order to make that point clear, but I suppose some people require additional explanation so that they don’t make unwarranted inferences about me—that I was “whining,” for instance.

Most people who want to “get to the truth” just ask.

Pink, since blue is the stereotypical Guardian color.

Aveneo.2068:

Imagi.4561:

I saw mortar for the first time in PvP not too long ago, actually. The Engineer parked themselves on a ledge and mortared away with the help of permastability. They actually made it very annoying/difficult to contest and cap the mid point, especially if you were fighting other players in addition to the mortar pressure.

Did anyone have the idea to simply take out the engineer on the ledge? As I recall you have equal numbers on both sides in PvP and a mortar is meant to apply pressure and it sounds to me that the opponents were simply not used to anyone using that particular Elite and got ‘annoyed’ because it forced them to change their tactics.

Yes, upon finding out that my ranged attacks were doing nil damage, I attempted to reach the ledge. I tried it once, failed, and then decided my time would be better spent helping at the other two points because even if I did get to that ledge—and did enough damage to kill them or force them down—I would have to rinse and repeat the process throughout the match. The other people on my team reached the same conclusion.

Thanks for the condescension, though.

I saw mortar for the first time in PvP not too long ago, actually. The Engineer parked themselves on a ledge and mortared away with the help of permastability. They actually made it very annoying/difficult to contest and cap the mid point, especially if you were fighting other players in addition to the mortar pressure.

Morrigan.2809:

Reganov.3569:

How do you get this to happen? I have the same face and I’ve never seen it

It happens if you adjust the iris size – not always- but enough for me never to mess with Sylvari irises

My Engineer’s eyes are doing this now, and I’ve used makeover kits but never touched the iris size. Fun times.

Luto.1938:

Imagi.4561:

Luto.1938:

Stooperdale.3560:

For anyone who’s ever picked up a sword, a dagger/sword combination would seem ludicrous. In fact the off hand sword is a nice fantasy idea but it doesn’t suit a nimble balanced thief at all since you need to sacrifice balance to get the power through the body into the off hand. I personally hope they add torches, maces, and even two handed swords before they give thieves heavy off hand weapons.

A thief with a two handed sword… really? How does that suit a “nimble balanced thief”?

As much as I love the look of a two handed sword it just wouldn’t fit with the thief archetype. There are many MMOs, and books where a thief type character dual wields swords. It’s the nimble master swordsman that wears light leather armor and is quick to evade/parry attacks. I would imagine that this weaponset would have high evade, parry, and bleeds to offset the survivability it would lose from not having stealth.

Whenever someone makes a suggestion about offhand sword, one of the first arguments is that it doesn’t “fit the class.”

First of all, an offhand sword does not have to be heavy .

Second, how is it odd for a Thief to use an offhand sword, when cloth-wearing casters like Mesmers can? How does it suit a “nimble” scout class like a Ranger to use a greatsword, but not a Thief? Just because GW2 is a fantasy game doesn’t mean it has to adhere to all of the traditional archetypes.

There is a reason why traditional archetypes need to be at least loosely followed. If not then we would have plate wearing Elementalists in Ham/Bow spec, permastealthing around, blowing up zergs with aoe bomb kits, and summoning dead minions.

Well maybe it wouldn’t get that bad but, without some guidelines of traditional archetypes to follow we will begin to see homogenization among all the classes. I don’t want to wield a GS as a thief for the same reasons I don’t want to wear plate, and use engi kits. Each class needs abilities that it can not access and weapon sets that it can not use.

Actually, there is precedent for that kind of freedom with the original Guild Wars, where you could use any weapon you pleased on your character. Assassins could use spear/shield, and Rangers could use hammer.

In this game it doesn’t work quite like that, of course, but that doesn’t mean the game can’t provide the players with greater variety. Thief using offhand sword or greatsword is hardly equivalent to kits or heavy armor, especially given the current weapon options available to other classes.

Luto.1938:

Stooperdale.3560:

For anyone who’s ever picked up a sword, a dagger/sword combination would seem ludicrous. In fact the off hand sword is a nice fantasy idea but it doesn’t suit a nimble balanced thief at all since you need to sacrifice balance to get the power through the body into the off hand. I personally hope they add torches, maces, and even two handed swords before they give thieves heavy off hand weapons.

A thief with a two handed sword… really? How does that suit a “nimble balanced thief”?

As much as I love the look of a two handed sword it just wouldn’t fit with the thief archetype. There are many MMOs, and books where a thief type character dual wields swords. It’s the nimble master swordsman that wears light leather armor and is quick to evade/parry attacks. I would imagine that this weaponset would have high evade, parry, and bleeds to offset the survivability it would lose from not having stealth.

Whenever someone makes a suggestion about offhand sword, one of the first arguments is that it doesn’t “fit the class.”

First of all, an offhand sword does not have to be heavy .

Second, how is it odd for a Thief to use an offhand sword, when cloth-wearing casters like Mesmers can? How does it suit a “nimble” scout class like a Ranger to use a greatsword, but not a Thief? Just because GW2 is a fantasy game doesn’t mean it has to adhere to all of the traditional archetypes.

Aza.2105:

Imagi.4561:

Aza.2105:

Imagi.4561:

How is it a “soft counter” to KB a Thief out of Shadow Refuge, to dodge a Cloak and Dagger, or to interrupt a Black Powder/Heartseeker combination? Those counters are just as “hard” any other counterplay in PvP.

That isn’t hard counter play, knockbacks and dodges work on all classes. Again, this is like saying that the way to counter protection boon is to do 33% more damage.

With the exception of “possibly” knocking a thief out of shadow refuge.

Knockbacks and dodges do indeed work on all classes, but in what way does that disqualify them as being a form of counterplay?

Also, with correct positioning I find that a Thief can always be forced out of SR via push or pull.

Aza.2105:

The other skills you named have little room for error to be interrupted. When you look at fears, stuns, knockbacks, knockdowns and so forth. Most of them have longer casting times than clock and dagger or black power/heart seeker combo. Making a reliable interruption close to impossible.

Unfortunately, whether or not countering is “easy” and the ratio of power-to-cast time are not the topics of discussion. We are talking about whether counterplay is a possibility, since it has been stated several times that countering stealth is impossible—which, clearly, it is not.

It was made it a part of the discussion when you brought up how those skills can be interrupted. I showed you why in most cases they can’t. Outside of sic em and stealth trap there is no stealth counter play. Even Anet themselves said that, which is why they wanted to start to introduce counter play when they changed sic em.

“Sick ‘Em will now apply ‘Revealed” to enemies they target. We want to introduce some counter play to Stealth (players have asked for that for a while), so we thought a pet “catching your scent” might be a cool way to insinuate some anti-stealth into the game.”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview/first

Those skills can be interrupted. How easy it is for you, personally, to accomplish this is another discussion entirely.

Anti-stealth/stealth lockout is a type of counterplay. Although this seems to be the only kind of counter that anyone is interested in—likely because it requires the least amount of effort—that doesn’t make it the only kind available. Other potential counterplay has been discussed at length, both in this thread and on the forums in general. If none of our suggestions here were helpful to you, I would suggest going to your specific profession thread and asking there.

Only 3 for Warrior? That’s interesting.

Also, if we’re going to talk about builds that play themselves, we might want to discuss the prevalence of AI-based builds, since I find those much more aggravating than passive traits.

Aza.2105:

Imagi.4561:

How is it a “soft counter” to KB a Thief out of Shadow Refuge, to dodge a Cloak and Dagger, or to interrupt a Black Powder/Heartseeker combination? Those counters are just as “hard” any other counterplay in PvP.

That isn’t hard counter play, knockbacks and dodges work on all classes. Again, this is like saying that the way to counter protection boon is to do 33% more damage.

With the exception of “possibly” knocking a thief out of shadow refuge.

Knockbacks and dodges do indeed work on all classes, but in what way does that disqualify them as being a form of counterplay?

Also, with correct positioning I find that a Thief can always be forced out of SR via push or pull.

Aza.2105:

The other skills you named have little room for error to be interrupted. When you look at fears, stuns, knockbacks, knockdowns and so forth. Most of them have longer casting times than clock and dagger or black power/heart seeker combo. Making a reliable interruption close to impossible.

Unfortunately, whether or not countering is “easy” and the ratio of power-to-cast time are not the topics of discussion. We are talking about whether counterplay is a possibility, since it has been stated several times that countering stealth is impossible—which, clearly, it is not.

Stillshade.7634:

Stx.4857:

Stillshade.7634:

Stx.4857:

MonMalthias.4763:

Thief just isn’t fun to play against; and the first step to make it so is to make Stealth interact more with the other classes.

Okay, but see this is just an opinion. I personally think thieves are fun to play against, because they are so kitten squishy. Yes it sucks when they escape, but that is part of their class… they are shady kittens.

Every class has mechanics that are not fun to fight against. I find it very unfun that Guardians can chain aegis with immunities, blinds, dodges, and negate tons of my attacks. I find it very unfun that Warriors can stun and knock me down every few seconds. I find it very unfun that Engineers can fart out bombs and grenades every few seconds and kill me without even targetting me as long as I try to contest a point.

Except all those mechanics can be countered and played against. Stealth cannot be countered which is the topic of this post and that stands true.

Blatantly false statement. You can counter Shadow Refuge, you can counter cloak and dagger, you can counter black powder>Heartseeker spam.

The only ways a thief can stealth with no way to stop him is with blinding powder(40 sec cd), or with a trait that auto stealths. If you are referring to these methods as having no counters, then I would also argue that many other professions have no counters to their defense mechanisms because you cannot prevent them from casting them.

Sometimes you just cant stop a thief from stealthing, sometimes you just cant stop a Guardian from healing to full, life sucks.

This has been discussed and those are only soft counters. There is nothing that truly works against stealth except mindless aoe which is unreliable.

How is it a “soft counter” to KB a Thief out of Shadow Refuge, to dodge a Cloak and Dagger, or to interrupt a Black Powder/Heartseeker combination? Those counters are just as “hard” any other counterplay in PvP.

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

ensoriki.5789:

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

Mash Hog.5672:

vanensang.1389:

Inconsequent classdesign is the biggest weakness of the elementalist.

There is absolutely nothing which balances the lack of survivability, low health pool, low damage, too situational weaponskills and the weakness of several weapons (focus having too big cooldowns, is not direct enough; staff – WAY too slow or too little damage).

There must be something which balances weakness in general. I just see one thing which “kinda” tries to balance the whole situation as far as I understood ArenaNet by reading patch after patch: 4 elements instead of 2 weaponsets.

Sadly all of those elements are just weaker than usual weaponskills of other professions.

Those are all covered in the main post.
Which mechanic do you think Elementalists should capitalize on as their main “source” of survivability?

IMHO auras should be rebalanced to function as true active defenses for elementalists. Shocking Aura already does that for melee attackers, the problem is conditions and ranged attackers coupled with the fact that the only anti-range aura is staff exclusive.

I don’t understand why we have no glyph that simply gives us an aura depending on attunement, opening up all auras for all weapon choices.

Focus contains two skills for projectile defense an invulnerability and a ranged knocked down. The only way to actually have no projectile defense is to play /D.

Equip focus. Lose 50% of your damage. Also suddenly melee attackers kitten you.

Focus is a utility weapon, not damage. I’ve run D/F for quite a while now, and I’ve found that any problems I experience with melee opponents are more tied to the class in general or my mistakes than they are to my weaponset.

Is stealth seriously still a topic of debate? I suppose people will only stop complaining when Thieves are only given one skill on their bar, and it immediately kills them on use.

Thieves do not have access to block or invulnerability. They have no way of mitigating damage except to avoid it—which, in the way this game is designed, is done with either stealth or evasion. To provide a hard counter to stealth is to counter the entire Shadow Arts traitline, and the benefits therein. This has been discussed ad nauseum.

You can counter stealth indirectly by using active defense and proactive play, as has been the case since betas: with traps, wells, and other ground-based effects; aoe damage; blocking; invulnerability; channeled skills (which continue to hit after they have stealthed, revealing their position); condition damage; immobilize; daze; stun (or stunbreaks, as the case may be); and dodging. All of these can prevent a Thief from entering stealth, down a Thief during stealth, and/or prevent a stealth spike.

Protip: if you’re swinging your weapon at the empty space where you think a Thief could be, and your autoattack chain procs to the next skill, you’ve found them. Keep swinging.

Kibazuka.1390:

I would want bears, brown bears to be specific.
Like really, why are there no brown bears

Is that sarcasm?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Juvenile_Brown_Bear

mahariel.4981:

“mindless dps”? Does rolling PVT and camping bow make someone the next einstein or something?

Since you clearly don’t roll in organised groups, I can’t imagine you’d understand how rolling meta builds is actually far more challenging and complex than your average pug group, I mean what pug is going to maintain optimal dps rotations, cast skills at appropriate times, have appropriate skills on their tab in the first place and know to mitigate damage through dodging and use of the correct weapon in a fight?

With respect to Jon Peters’s comment, I’ll try not to argue, but I will respond.

You made quite a lot of accusations on very limited information. Your Sherlockian deductive powers are almost commendable. However, I do not use PVT nor do I “camp a bow,” and I usually do “roll in organized groups” with my guildmates—which, in most dungeons, means going from boss to boss, stacking in a corner, and spamming DPS until the boss is dead. There is no strategy involved beyond “stack here,” and making sure everyone stacks in said location.

Rolling meta builds and having “optimal DPS rotations” is not a particularly excellent showcase of individual talent. While it is true that some people are more gifted at playing popular builds than others, builds usually become popular by offering the greatest payoff for the least amount of work, and playing with a meta build only requires you to copy it from someone else running the exact same thing.

Having and using the appropriate skills, using the appropriate weapon, and dodging might be challenging for some players, especially inexperienced ones, and if you find those concepts difficult that is understandable. But after familiarizing yourself with the game content, most of those concepts become a habit. In some situations, they could even be considered common sense. I’ve had random players perform all of those functions admirably on multiple occasions—partly because, due to the DPS meta, the gap between having “an optimized group” and playing with pick-ups is not so large as it could be.

D/F is my preferred weaponset in PvE. It’s a quirky set, but it’s a lot of fun to play and can support a variety of playstyles.

As I’ve said in a previous post about this issue, the cooldowns on focus feel ludicrously out of proportion to the benefits of the skills. These skills in particular need to be addressed (and I think sorrow’s proposals are excellent): Flamewall, which has a too-narrow area and underwhelming damage; Fire Shield, which stacks Might slowly and is counterproductive to surviving or sustaining in a fight; Freezing Gust, which applies only 3 second of Chill on a 25-second cooldown (compare this to Winter’s Bite, Chillblains, or Spinal Shivers, all of which have lower cooldowns and additional effects); and Gale, which has a 50-second cooldown for a 2s KD (compare this to Backbreaker, Tremor, Line of Warding, and Ring of Warding, all of which have lower cooldowns and additional effects).

observer z.6725:

Ele already has great survivability without having to build tanky at all due to trait bonuses and perma regen, protection, stability, and blinks. And you want to buff them more? Insane.

Let’s talk about things the ele is completely OP at. They are the only ranged class in this game that can instanteously burst down a target from ranged offering no counterplay since all the skills at instant cast, while still retaining the evasiveness and survivability due to can trips, blinks, and mobility skills.

Obviously you have a video to support these claims, and I would really appreciate if you could post it. I’d like to see an Elementalist instaneously burst down a target from range with instant cast skills, all while running 3 cantrips. It sounds like a build I need to learn.

The crux of my issue with the Elementalist is on dagger mainhand, particularly in PvP, you are putting yourself at a very vulnerable distance from your target and it feels like you have neither the damage output nor the healing capacity to compensate for the risk.

If it stays the way it is, I would like them to drop the initiative cost back down to compensate. Especially since most S/D Thieves I know—including me—now use this skill chain less for the lackluster boon stealing and more for the evade/gap closing ability of the first skill.

Please change this skill. As of right now, I only use it on accident.

DallasisaLeo.1584:

Imagi.4561:

How can noseless Sylvari speak with the same voice as other Sylvari characers when they have no nose or sinuses to create the same resonance?

The same way that all male sylvari have exactly the same voice, somehow: suspension of disbelief. It’s a fantasy game, after all. Surely you’re used to doing this.
::edit:: after holding my nose and talking to myself like a dork, I have concluded that I can make myself sound almost identical with enough practice. And the Sylvari aren’t speaking English, anyway. They’re presumably speaking New Krytan and what we’re seeing is, in theory, only an English dub. So it makes sense that the voice would go unchanged if you desperately need an explanation.

As amusing as I find it that you experimented with holding your nose until you could get your voice to sound the same, I don’t “desperately need an explanation.” The vocal resonance is one of several small issues I have with the noseless faces—besides the fact I think they look like the aliens from Independence Day—that prevent me from liking them.

Edit: To clarify, my opinion on the appearance of the noseless faces is largely in regard to the pine cone ones. I’ve come to like the Voldemort face. While a Sylvari with it would still have to chew all their food with their mouth open, I think it has more character to it than just existing to be cutesy and different.

My Engineer’s face had this bug for a little while today, but it disappeared on it’s own when I finally decided I should take a screenshot. It seemed to just appear and disappear randomly, since I’ve used several total makeover kits on him now and never had this problem.

Seras.5702:

Portal Gun Kit – I’ve posted this idea so many times…

I think a “portal gun” kit would be sickeningly fun.

I’d like to see a kit with no hobosack.

Morrigan.2809:

if you pinch your nose your voice does not sound the same to you because of the resonance in the sinus cavities. it still sounds the same to other people ;p also why do.you think Sylavari’s need to breathe?,they might look like humans and have functional funny bits but thier biology is.not based on a mammal

Sylvari wear respirators underwater and their chests rise and fall with a breathing animation, so logic would dictate they need to breathe.

Also, what? The fact that your voice uses your nose and sinuses for resonance is not something that other people are immune to hearing. I can tell when someone speaking to me has a stuffy nose because their voice sounds different.

Electro.4173:

I don’t I agree with the “they’re plants so they don’t need noses” thing.

Normal plants don’t have noses, but Sylvari aren’t just normal plants. They’re plant beings created in a human image. If they have stuff like eyes, mouths, and ears (which regular plants also have no need for) and even human-esque reproductive organs (even though they can’t reproduce) because they’re made in a human image, then having a working nose certainly doesn’t seem out of the question. Which means the faces that don’t have noses at all would be at a disadvantage.

But that’s just my take on it. I’m glad other people like the noseless faces, but I’ll always consider them impractical, personally.

Another note about impracticality: if you pinch your nose with your fingers, your voice doesn’t sound the same. How can noseless Sylvari speak with the same voice as other Sylvari characers when they have no nose or sinuses to create the same resonance?

Also, they’d have to chew with their mouth open all the time. Yuck.

I’ve wanted this mask skin ever since I first saw it appear in the PvP skins locker. I assumed it would be a gemstore item, since there haven’t been any new skins added to the game aside from ascended and holiday in quite some time—which is disappointing, but understandable. I was fully prepared to buy it.

However, considering it’s a single skin that isn’t terribly extravagant, I feel like 500 gems is ridiculously overpriced. I would have bought it in a heartbeat for 200 or 300 gems, but 500? I could get a full set of armor skins for less than the price of 2 masks, and that statement sounds like a sad joke.

Dwaynas Avatar.1562:

I would say, the game relies too much on farming, but maybe thats just me…

Seconded. In my opinion it’s very hard to make money in this game unless you farm regularly or flip the TP, the latter option often requiring a significant investment of money in order to churn a decent profit.

I really enjoy the Sylvari. Their design is beautiful, their culture is interesting, and their lore is poignant.

Also, creating them is really, really fun.

You might want to look at S/D or S/P. I think S/D is more fun, but I also use a build that is heavy in Acrobatics. S/P is better in terms of survivability tools, especially if you’re running straight glass. If you absolutely adore dagger mainhand, then running 15 in Acrobatics as suggested above will help you immensely.

Shortbow is great for mobility, or when range is necessary for survival (ahem Volcanic fractal, Molten bosses). It’s also great for might stacking, and therefore combos well with longbow Warriors and/or Eles. However, I agree with Auesis; avoiding melee is not recommended. More often than not it will cripple your DPS, and since most of PvE is a DPS race that isn’t helpful to your party.

This isn’t particularly related to your post, but your guild has a fantastic name/tag and my life is better for knowing that it exists.

I have been having the exact problem you describe, and you have no idea how much it relieves me to find someone else with the same complaint. No one else on Sea of Sorrows seems to know what I’m talking about when I try to explain it.

My skills will queue but never activate and I won’t be able to interact with NPCs or bundles, but my character can move normally and the chatbox merrily updates as usual. I’ve repeatedly checked my ping and Internet connection during these lagouts, but I always seem to be getting 30-50 fps and as soon as I relog or finally disconnect/reconnect, it’s fixed.

I’m inclined to blame the December 10th patch, as I never had this type of lag problem before then.

I’ve deleted my previous post in order to reflect some changes, since I’ve recently redone 2 of my Sylvari. I now use…

Female: 9 and 10
Male: 1

In the Ele v. Ele duels I’ve done I had fun, but they take so long oh my God.

Burnfall, maybe you should change your signature to “For the Economy”.

Lock the door. And hope they don’t have blasters.