Guild Wars 2

Gibson.4036:

1. Both characters feel powerful in small encounters, but in massive zergs on my Mesmer I feel like I’m always struggling to make a meaningful contribution. Things die so fast I can’t keep clones up, which leaves my usefulness to a few awesome, but often unnecessary, utility abilities. On an Ele I simply switch to staff and feel like I am still contributing.

Really now? They are very rarely unnecessary and if you feel you aren’t contributing that much then simply use the overpowered Glamour / Confusion build with Null Field.

Ninjutsu is one of the worst Eles to make videos and Taugrim is average at best.

“destroyed staff”

You write some truly silly things, LordByron.

ladyfabulous.1403:

You guys must have no idea what GvG was like to think that whatever you are doing is GvG….

Yeah, how dare guilds that fight against other guilds call that Guild vs Guild or GvG?

Those guys, their gall! Clearly they should show more respect to Guild Wars 1 GvG, how dare they have fun in a game!

Stop being baited by trolls.

My tl;dr on Mesmer vs Elementalist in WvW.

Solo or small scale WvW:

• Scepter and Focus has some viability, but our traits are almost entirely locked in place with only minor variations (ie. 15 Air vs 10 Air). Staff can work well in chokes and for zerg-busting, but is rarely worth it in very small engagements. Our mobility gives us a small edge over Mesmers, but don’t underestimate how powerful Blink (reduced CD) + Mass Invis is for getting away. Elementalist mobility was also recently nerfed, ranking us far behind Thieves now in that regard.
• Mesmers have a large range of builds that all do very well. I am extremely envious of the fact that they have such a wide variety of things they can play while we have little to no viability outside of Water / Arcana.

Group (15-20+) WvW:

• Elementalists can play 2 quite distinct roles, but with very similar builds (since we are always pigeonholed into the standard Water/Arcana builds). There’s a big difference between playing D/D and Staff roles and they are both very viable and fun.
• Mesmer is forced into playing one broken Confusion build. Other than that, they are primarily a very Support-heavy class which is used mostly because of some key utility skills (Veil, Feedback, Time Warp, Null Field, Portal).

tagnut.8621:

(weaker competetion)

This is the first time I’ve seen you post something that’s actually fairly true.

Of course, you misspelled it, but still.

Cyril.1486:

Wolbryne.4037:

nice blob there RG, rnv and many other guilds. we couldn’t even swap weapons or even dodge. we had 12 people in our zerg vs your 90+ people. gg

If numbers are the issue GvG lets go, what you waiting for. Let’s do this allready. 25 vs. 25 the offer is there. There is no hiding and no excuse then about numbers either side.

This is a good post.

How can you have such terrible FPS during 30v30 battles with a PC like that? What are your graphic settings?

Saying there is little to no skill in GW 2 shows how little you know and why you will never improve. Sorry.

Precision improves crit chance, yes.

Don’t use any Cleric gear.

Use Exquisite Ruby Jewels (Power/Prec/Crit Damage) in your Trinket upgrade slots. Crit damage is very good there because it only uses 5 stat points for 1 crit damage (15 -> 3%).

You can replace the Runes in your armor, yes. Don’t put Toughness there. Scholar is a good choice for damage ( http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_Scholar ), Divinity is a good choice for overall stats ( http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_Divinity ), Ruby Orbs are another great choice for damage ( http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ruby_Orb ). Take your pick.

As for Sigil on your Staff, it would be a good idea to get 2 and use a Bloodlust Sigil to 25 stacks and then swap to the Staff with Battle Sigil for overall damage. If you find yourself at 25 stacks of Might too much then you can swap to a Fire Sigil or similar.

You were wrong about the class back then. If you were not good enough to play it then, you will not be good enough to play it now.

We have not been buffed, but Elementalists are worth playing.

Condition Damage is not a very good idea. You’re better off using Berserker or similar with your Staff.

Rabble, rabble.

Are there any good solo players / duelers on Deso who would like some fun fights?

Haven’t had any good duels since I fought Itkoviana (and Drakeco) and now I roam with him instead.

LordSlack.4685:

So is it possible to have signet of air 25%, Air attune 10%, one with air 25%, and windborne dagger 15% for a total of 75% passive speed boost?

Did you try reading the rest of the thread?

No, it’s not possible. Passive bonuses do not stack, you cannot go above Swiftness (33% by default) except for a few very specific abilities (Engineer has something, IIRC).

Arkedi.5934:

Odaman.8359:

Glad it’s character bound. When nerfs/buffs come the rerolls should be forced to put some effort in other than dumping a bit of gold for insta 80.

I wonder why you assume that all the people who have alts leveled them in the matter of a few hours by crafting and such? I have 4 level 80 fully-geared WvW-ready characters and I have put nearly equal amount of effort and time in every one of them. In a few hours of playing in WvW on one character the gameplay gets repetitive and less fascinating. Moreover, different periods of playing in WvW require from you to fulfill different roles: supporting your group in combat, solo scouting, guarding the towers, etc. Why should I abandon 3 of my characters, limit my playstyle options and lower the amount of help I can offer to my group/server in favor of just one character to get this so-called WvW progression? Is being versatile punishable now? Thus, account-bound progression is clearly a better idea.

He assumes that because he has no actual argument – much like covenn earlier.

And it’s silly that you have to abandon 3 of your characters if you would like to focus on the WvW progression that they are introducing in March.

I feel bad for the people in my guild who play various classes depending on what the raid needs. This is honestly one of the worst decisions in regards to keeping the game fresh and interesting for people who enjoy multiple characters.

titanlectro.5029:

What I’m hearing in this thread, is that we wanted option 3. Most people are sad because they don’t want option 2. However, I think it is far more likely that option 1 is the case. If it is indeed option 1, then making WvW progress account bound will not solve the problem.

If it’s option 1, then the system itself is a failure no matter which way we turn it. A long and meaningful progression which rewards you along the way is far more interesting than a short and character-bound progression which you’ve finished in less than a few months as a hardcore WvW’er.

Realm Ranks (not Realm Abilities, which may have been too strong, but were interesting) in DAoC were excellent. It took a long time to get to RR11 or similar, but it was very neat to constantly go up in rank as you racked up kills.

The way I see it, option #3 is the only good option, which is why I’m very worried about the direction ArenaNet is taking. Hell, #1 is even worse than #2 as there will be no actual progression if it’s so short that it’s over in a heartbeat.

Mank.2183:

Ignore the whine and don’t try to please everybody ArenaNet, it’s your game, you’re the designers and programmers, you have the stats and logs, you have a vision for this game, and no matter what you do people will sook.

Stick to your guns.

What a truly dreadful argument. People are offering their own experience and worries about the system that is coming, this is not something ANet can gather off ‘logs’ or ‘stats’.

Fact of the matter is that sPvP ranks are entirely account bound and a system which rewards only on a per-character basis is detrimental to the game as a whole. It means people who care about this progression may end up playing only one character, lessening the fun they have in the game and burn out faster.

It’s incredibly simple.

And before you use a tired argument like “but then just don’t, don’t do things that aren’t fun just for X, Y, Z”, please think. People will always strive to be as efficient as possible and they enjoy earning new things in MMO’s.

Making World XP (and by extension, titles / ranks) character bound over account bound is a horrible mistake.

When my Badges starting taking up more space than 1 bank tab (7500 Badges), I just started building Omega Golems with the leftovers.

And yeah, we’ll get more stuff to buy in the next patch. Hopefully it will not be disappointing.

When they finally get around to introducing Ascended Gear in WvW is anyone’s guess.

Yeah, the passive bonuses are a complete mess. You should really only rely on active Swiftness for your speed needs since Signet of Air is rarely worth a spot with all the Swiftness we have.

Just because you have formatting options doesn’t mean you have to use them all the time.

It’s quite overwhelming how high the support for World XP and Titles / Ranks being account bound while keeping the abilities themselves character bound is at the moment. Hopefully ArenaNet will consider it.

It seems like we’ll have another week of fighting versus Desolation since Jade Sea is pushing so hard on Elona’s Reach. Yay for JS, keeping the T1 matchup even more awesome.

Did you fight IRON and GH in a GvG setting already, Fanfaron? How’d it go?

SoPP.7034:

Running with it equipped it feels slow, like it’s 10%. Having said that I run around on a rather large Norn so it may distort my perception.
I guess I’m just arguing are we sure it’s 25%. I know it’s supposed to be but has someone actually tested for it.

It’s 25%.

Hence why I said “the week before” :p It was always going to happen, if we hadn’t moved up it would have been terrible T2 fights this week.

oruma.4092:

shame sfr went up t1 again, t2 was awesome befor piken massexodus fun fights skilled players

T2 wasn’t very fun the week before moving up. Jade Sea didn’t put up a fight and Piken was reorganizing.

So, no, it’s not a shame.

This Turk guy sure is affected. Such hilarious claims.

Lifewaster.5912:

I dont think its a big deal, probably wont take all that long to unlock the most vital abilities onto seperate chars anyway.

Sorry, but what? It’s a WvW progress system meant to keep (among others) all the very active WvW’ers happy and the abilities are something they’ll continue to build on in the future. How can you possibly think that it won’t take very long to unlock on separate characters?

Not to mention that Titles will most likely go very far and even they are character bound right now.

It seems odd to me that Glory (sPvP ranks) is account bound, but World XP / WvW ranks are not?

Many suggestions have already been made to have the abilities (passive or otherwise) be character-bound, while the ranks and the World XP itself is account bound. Why do you not take that approach?

Dolyak Runes are horrendous, but feel free to continue living in denial.

…you don’t even mention what for. PvE/WvW?

For me (also, I would not suggest double tap to dodge, but if it works for you, go for it):

WASD – Movement

1 through 5 – Weapon Skills

< (to the left of Z) – Heal
Q – Utility 1
Z – Utility 2
X – Utility 3
E – Class #1
R – Class #2
F – Class #3
C – Class #4
V – Dodge
G – Interact / Stomp

Side Mouse Button 1 – Toggle Run
Side Mouse Button 2 – Elite

T – Take Target
Alt-T – Call Target (only really used on WvW leader at the time)
Alt-Q – About Face (handy for Updraft/Burning Retreat and a number of other skills)
Left Shift – Look Behind
Left Ctrl – Push To Talk

Deniara Devious.3948:

I used to have very high respect towards Red Guard [RG], when I was on Blacktide. Now seeing them play exactly like French PUGs against us with [VG] and using cheap professions like thief, mesmer etc. and getting beaten by just a dozen Desolation guys. I was like what had happened to RG style. It looked now like VS style!! Well, lots of loot bags for us. Finally endless SFR zergs got us while I was salvaging my full bags from loot.

My 4-year-old son, who was watching me play WvWvW, commented:
“Daddy died because there was too many enemies”

Kids know the truth. SFR and VS can only win with superior numbers. No hard feelings, because the game is built like that. The only big problem with the huge numbers is that annoying lag.

Oh and real players play warriors or engineers in WvWvW.

Nice fighting against a lone engineer from VS at SFR BL this evening. He wasn’t killing any of us though and hiding in a tower. But engineers are so rare, that I always compliment that some others also play them! VS fights have now been much more fun, so my hats are today off for the VS guys.

You could always set up an engagement with equal numbers when we have time, if you want.

The condition damage is not very high and can be cleansed. In a situation like group WvW for an Elementalist, high burst damage is far more important than having DoTs that tick for a bit higher damage since people die very quickly in big WvW fights.

Take a look at Burning Speed and Ring of Fire – both of them may apply Burning, but the majority of your damage comes from landing the spell itself. Then you also have Fire Grab which has no condition damage component at all.

Ring of Earth and Churning Earth? Both of them have a bleed component, but it’s either a fairly weak stack or 8 stacks which can all be cleansed at the same time and the direct damage is already significant.

To truly excel with condition damage you want to be able to apply a large number of conditions to effectively minimize the chance of your Burning / Bleed being cleansed when spells are used for that purpose. Some of the best Engineer builds use this concept too, which makes it harder to cleanse the Confusion stacks they are dishing out.

Condition Damage as a stat is not bad, just as Healing Power is not bad, but there are better options for most situations.

And in PvE you run into the obvious problems that all condition damage suffers from which is the 25 stack cap etc.

Yassa.2193:

So, gear and cosmetics in WvW. Possibly a really bad idea.

If the cost is very high (say 1k badges for one item) it will probably reward true WvWers and discourage PVE players. If the cost is low and the new items are shiny enough the PVE mob will come to WvW maps. You know what that means

So, hopefully Anet will either discard WvW gear introduction or the price will be very high (that is, the effort/reward ratio in PVE should remain much more attractive).

Cheers!

There is nothing wrong with attracting PvE players to do WvW. And no, queues are not a good excuse for trying to make people not play WvW. For ArenaNet, they want everyone to do everything.

Cosmetics in WvW are a great idea. GW has always been about cosmetics and being able to get good ones in WvW should always be a thing.

It’s silly how shafted WvW players have been in regards to gear / cosmetics / use of Badges.

Would be interesting to know and it’s always worth discussing what people think would be the right choice for ArenaNet in this regard.

If you are unsure what progression I am talking about, please read this:

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/7169/Guild-Wars-2-What-Marchs-WvW-Patch-Will-Bring.html

On the topic of Scepter: It’s still a decent weapon in small scale encounters, but in bigger group encounters the slow projectiles and unreliable damage of Scepter makes it a very bad choice.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

If I don’t bring a focus in my offhand I’m unable to take supply camps solo

That’s perfectly doable with any weapon combo. I made a video using D/D since it’s what I use most of the time.

Frenk, heh, cute post.

On a slightly more positive note, I made a video of our GvG fights vs Za Drots before we came to Seafarer’s Rest. Hope some of you will enjoy it! They are still the strongest guild we’ve fought in a GvG setting to date and I am confident they’ll show Desolation and Vizunah Square guilds why when the GvG’s start rolling.

Why is it always American players that complain about portal bombs? On EU they are a pretty much a non-factor. In fact, it’s a bad idea to try and portal bomb because it’s so incredibly easy to counter.

At that level it’s more important to be able to dodge and position yourself correctly than any trait build. That said, you’d want 10 in Air for Zephyr’s Boon if you play D/D and the IV trait in Water is a terrible idea, get something else. You need to grab points in Arcana fairly soon, the V trait being a good place to start.

Staff usually has an easy time kiting everything. D/D less so, but it deals great damage if you land Burning Speed. D/D relies much more on dodging and weaving in and out of melee range to be efficient.

Troma.3250:

imagine Fifilepetitguerrier with his lvl 1 ranger fighting an angry RG with a 10meters swords and skulls attached to his belt?

:D

I love you, Troma.

brickforlife.1364:

You don’t see it in videos because no one likes watching videos of pov getting owned. I would sit at the back with a staff and nuke people with my aoes. d/d is really for roaming play and it doesn’t quite work in zergs.

So very wrong.

Krosan.2890:

So basically Deso and Sfr are holding hands again? And proceed to troll on these forums since they got a bunch of bandwagoners again and are trying to erase the last failure Sfr had?
Its funny how every server gets a huge arrogance boost everytime they make it back to T1 with the prime example being SFR.

A few people cata’ing a wall together does not an alliance make. During the entirety of Saturday we fought Desolation tons of times in Seafarer’s Rest Borderlands, losing and retaking Hills a number of times during the day/night. They wiped us a fair number of times as well, much unlike the French.

There is very little, if any, “hand-holding” and a ton of fighting. Some of the most insane action we’ve seen in a while.

People should really get a grip. There is no need to cry about scores or ‘lack of skill’ when the fights are this crazy. If anything, you should devote your attention to ArenaNet so they might spend a little more time worrying about skill delay and rubber-banding.

Watch some videos! There’s tons of Elementalists on YouTube which will give you a good idea of the most basic combos and approaches to most fights.

It’s too late to start celebrating since we all started yesterday, when this interview was released and first discussed.

Farout.8207:

I believe the point of the post is that they are releasing new WvW achievements this month but the developers have said that they will not be retroactive. So the OP basically has over 1000 hours of playtime and those accomplishments mean absolutely nothing. A player jumping into WvW for the first time has the same achievement level as someone who has played WvW exclusively. The only difference is the first timer has better gear. It is pretty disheartening to me as well. WvW’ers get screwed again…

What are you talking about? They are introducing the title system and some passive bonuses for WvW + a few other new things in the March update.

They have never mentioned that they are taking away achievements and it would frankly be INSANE to do so. They are not resetting your current achievement total, it will just not count towards the World XP that you will earn post-update. World XP is earned just like normal XP from doing things in WvW.

Please stop spreading misinformation.

Anadora.1893:

And GvG in d4 is funny as hell ? 160k HK, how many in D1 buddy ?

/cheers

What? Could you repeat this in English?

They are not completely invincible against an organized group.

5 man WvW is fine and supply camps can be solo’d. The buff is 5m long, stop crying about it?

Neandramathal.9536:

Kill count is largely dependant on tier though, due to population within the maps. Lot less time between fights, and fights are quicker due to more dmg thrown about.

And whether you’re running with competent people!

Magnet → Pry Bar is one of the strongest combos you have versus players that do not recognize the animation.

Unfortunately, Magnet becomes quite easy to dodge when you’re used to it.