Guild Wars 2

I see a lot of people going with Earth/Water with Arcana/Fire/Air/Tempest being the optional lines for PvP/WvW. Most likely Fire/Air/Water for PvE DPS depending on what the Tempest lines bring DPS wise.

Real question is does Aquatic Benevolence make up for the loss of Healing power gained from specing Water (300) and if so does that mean Healing can be skipped on gear? Lotta gearing questions that will be interesting to see how they play out with how much we’re getting. Stat lines used to give a lot of benefits like boon duration, condi duration, condi damage and condi healing that aren’t included in base stats (power, prec, vit, etc) that the +74 won’t cover.

I also agree that Water is without a doubt the best line. It has offensive and defensive traits in it that simply make it superior to other options. The Air/Fire lines are like the worst options for DPS except for every other line we currently have. Which is sad, they’re just badly designed. Just awful lines that aren’t consistent with anything they showcased (crit focused ability in Power line? No DPS trait in Air minor? What?).

Oh dude I know 100%. Like most modern day companies I imagine they use metrics where they analyze the usage and go from there. They see the exact numbers of people who are using what abilities, how often they’re equipped, how often they’re used, what traits are taken and what gear is used. People can make impassioned pleas on the forums as much as they want about Elemental Attunement, Conjures or anything else and the simple truth of the matter is that the only thing Anet is going to really watch and “listen to” is what players actually do with the new system. If they play another class, that will be measured. If they play through it anyways, that will also be measured. If they really over nerf things and a huge chunk of people stop playing the Elementalist that’s pretty much the only thing that’s going to really get their attention.

I can claim all day long that Conjures will never get used after this change, but the truth is I can’t tell the future and could be 100% wrong. Metrics of how often they’re getting used post nerf will tell them if they went too far or not cause simply put: Players lie and exaggerate. That said sometimes still fun to have an idea and put it out on the forums even if you know it won’t go anywhere

Also I wouldn’t be too harsh on Engineers. Truth is they’ve been the red headed step children of this game for a long time until recently in PvP with turret spec (which is being nerfed, too).

Conjures are problematic by design but they simply have no good routes to fix them.

They either last too long and become weapon replacements or they last too short and become throw away weapons for their moves. Right now they last too short and are used mostly as throw away weapons (except in the rarer organized group where LH can be used for S/F players without randoms picking up the LH) based on that design.

If they nerf the current uses for the weapons, there’s pretty much no functional reason to use them. No one uses Ice Bow for anything other than Ice Bow 4/5 because there’s no use for the rest of the abilities that you can’t get on your base weapon(s). Even Fiery Great Sword is basically used as a mobility move and is the default Elite for most of PvP/WvW simply to spam mobility and then throw it away.

Really what they need to do is while they are in the design phase is completely redesign Conjured Weapons entirely. If they don’t do this now, they’re just going to have a whole set of abilities that don’t see any kind of mainstream usage.

Personally I think they need to take a page out of their own book and bring back Weapons from GW1’s Ritualist. The base idea would be that they are now GTAE’s that affect up to X targets (so X-1 other targets as it’d always hit Elementalist) that give a Conjured Weapon buff to the people they hit within target cap. These buffs would be one per Utility slot. Ideally they wouldn’t do the standard (and boring) option of just adding a condition/boon per hit but instead add unique effects.

Conjure Fire Weapon – 60s duration – 3 charges – 10s icd – Next hit deals X amount of Area damage.
Conjure Air Weapons – 60s duration – 3 charges – 10s icd – Next hit causes a minor gale to hit the target knocking them back 50 (mostly a small interrupt)
Conjure Water Weapons – 60s duration – 3 charges – 10s icd – Next hit causes a 120 water field under the target.
Conjure Earth Weapons – 60s duration – 3 charges – 10s icd – Next hit on a target within 600 will pull you towards the target hit.
(E) Conjure Arcane Weapons – 60s duration – 3 charges – 20s icd – Next hit causes blast of Arcane damage in a 300 radius. Blast finisher. Damage triggers Arcane abilities from Arcane Spec.

Something cool like that. Maintains the group functionality of everyone gaining something and offers some really competitive advantages for group play. Could always be tweaked to something else as well, just kinda a rough idea to start with and would actually compete for one of our utility slots. The ICD would control the proc rate and limited procs means you can burn them fast but may still have some duration left on to allow for transition to another encounter. Only one conjure on a person every 60s.

Honestly I’ve found in nearly every game I’ve ever played those kinds of descriptions are often times romanticized, exaggerated and misleading. They’re designed to get you hyped up to play the class and should never be taken on face value. For all you know they saw Dragon Tooth and were like, “Oh! Oh! Massive damage in a single attack!” and then you get your hands on it and it’s like, “Oh…well that isn’t bad I guess.”

That said, if you go back through all the nerfs, the biggest hits have been to our survivability and not our damage. The conjure nerfs coming up are just one of a very few damage nerfs we’ve gotten over the years and honestly they ain’t wrong. They’re cheezy, lame all around and used as throw away weapons where you do 1-2 abilities then ditch them, use them as auto attack, or just for mobility. Really they should all be scrapped and redesigned entirely.

Honestly I see the Ele getting a lot more survivability over all and a hit to it’s damage lines.

Fire line has weak Adept choices for an offensive line. Fire Aura on attune seems pretty random at 20%. 30% chance on a crit for a 1s Burn with a 2s ICD is pretty lackluster. They should replace the Fire Aura minor and replace with 30% chance to burn with any attacks which would carry over with Lingering Elements. It’s also a crit based trait in a supposedly Power focused line so it just doesn’t make sense in that context. Add in a new power/damage focused Adept to replace. In Master Burning Fire is alright but most Cantrips are defensive and you wouldn’t be spamming them for Might stacks meaning you’ll probably stick to the standard Fire dmg/cd. GM Traits really didn’t change much beyond extra duration from Might.

Air’s line is disjointed at best. Zephyr’s Speed is a wholly worthless minor and is either outdone by constant swiftness we can have access to or simply throwing on Signet of Air. None of the Major traits have anything to do with Precision or Crits. Adept tier is pretty bad as even Ferocious winds flies in the face how few people actually gear for healing intentionally. Neither of the other two options are ones I’d ever take, maybe Zephyr’s if I was doing an Aura Share (but if I was doing Aura Share I’d be doing Fire instead of Air). Rather see Bolt to the Heart move back to Tier 1, changed to 20% more crit damage under 33%, and the Grandmaster trait replaced with something like Crits reduce cool downs of skills by X%. Inscription is also pretty lackluster for a Major and should pretty much be rolled into base line and replaced with something else as well.

Earth and Water pretty amazing all around for it’s survivability and traits. Arcane is debatable with the EA and “boon on attune” both now GM traits but honestly that just means Elemental Contigency doesn’t have to compete with EA. If the ICD is per attunement that isn’t bad.

If Tempest is a good offensive line I see a lot of people playing Tempest/Earth/Water so long as Tempest doesn’t mechanically screw over those lines.

Velimere.7685:

I don’t know much about WvW, but aren’t zergfests rather tight confrontations? I can’t see how having Geomancer’s Defense over Evasive Arcana wouldn’t keep you alive longer in one.

In a zergfest it won’t be that useful. Most of the time as Staff Ele you want to avoid being in melee range of those who are doing damage. Even then the biggest threats are Necro Well spike and people trying to focus you down from range like Mesmers or Rangers. Essentially no one who will be within 600m of you. Maybe if you get separated out from the group and a pick team is on you or something otherwise not as useful as access to the other Major Traits we would get.

Nikkinella.8254:

well this is coming from the perspective of a wvw player who hates spvp and never touches it. it is a massive nerf to ele in wvw.

Roaming WvW. I’m excited as hell for these changes on large scale

Laraley.7695:

Saying ele is getting another full tree is invalid as all other classes are getting that + they got major buffs.

I don’t compare other classes because I have no criteria to measure it. Personally if I thought another class was really all that much more OP I’d just go play it since I have each class at 80 already. Only other class that I even saw that interested me was the Mortar on Engineer (since it does similar to the Ele’s ranged AOE/Fields which we still get).

Even then really looking forward to a Air/Earth/Water build for WvW!

I always lose it at bind #1 to Toaster.

As they said the main way to look as this is you’re also gaining effectively gaining 4 more traits to spend.

Assuming a xxx66 build currently, you’re losing either Elemental Attunement or Evasive Arcana. These are pretty big changes. However you also have to consider the fact that instead of 2 fire, 2 air or 2 earth (usually air or earth) you’re now getting 6 in these lines. 6 Earth is pretty kitten ed powerful in terms of survivability and getting full Air not only still potentially gives you Bolt to the Heart still but many other benefits as well now that we lacked before (such as Tempest Defense Major!)

I think the real question is going to be how they handle stats. Sure everyone is getting 1000 base stats from 926 but 00266 D/D Cele Ele relied a bit on 300 extra Healing/Vit and that 30% boon up time. Even with a flat bump to stats on Cele amulet there’s really no way to mix-match stats to get the same results since amulets simply are. We’ll have to wait and see what they do with stats on equipment (such as Amulets) to really see what’s going to go down there.

Could be traps similar to Wells. Inscribe various elemental traps into the ground with various effects.

BlackBeard.2873:

This sounds phenomenal, although this makes me think they are going to be changing elemental attunement in some way. Hopefully they make it partially inherent in the class so that every ele isn’t pidgeon-holed (for pvp) into water/arcana/X.

Should be interesting to see what they do with the Arcane line in general. With stats no longer tied to attunement lines and instead to gear it means gear setup will play a greater focus on what your stats are. You can no longer have full offensive gear and still rely on 6 points in water to add 300 vitality and healing. But what does this mean for stats like boon duration that was also part of Arcane?

Regardless it should be some pretty interesting shifts all over.

Given that it’s called “Soothing Ice” I imagine it’s just a typo and means we gain that when get Critically Hit rather than when we Critically hit. Not sure why we’d gain Frost Aura and Regeneration when we critically hit others. Either scenario it’s a great survivability tool

Master Traits are about the same choices from what I already choose when I go 4+ Water.

As for Shard of Ice that was removed, they mentioned adding some old traits to the Core unlock sections. Maybe Shard of Ice was added to Signets or Arcane automatically?

For the lazy:

1. Each profession now will pick 3 lines. So for an Elementalist you could pick Air, Water, Arcane. In current terms this means you would be 06066. What you can no longer do is hybridize builds. So you couldn’t be 06242 if you wanted to. This means in the end you will get 9 Minor and 9 Major traits.

2. The specialization is just one of your lines. So same example I could take Water, Arcane, <New Spec> as an Elementalist.

3. Stats are removed from trait lines. Stats will be increased to 1000 base, and gear will gain more stats to it. So gear will matter even more.

4. Passive stats are added to their respective lines. For example selecting Arcane specialization automatically reduces Attunement swap timers.

5. Traits are condensed down to 3 choices of major traits per tier. So there’s only 3 Adept, 3 Master and 3 Major trait choices possible with 3 Minors as you go.

6. Core skills (weapon, utilities, elites) are unlocked down with “Hero Points.” Hero Points are doing activities on the game map.

7. As Utility sets unlock some previous Major traits will automatically apply to them. Example they used was as you unlock Wells utilities on a Necro, Wells will automatically gain Ground Targeting instead of having to specialize into it.

8. Skill Points will become crafting materials. Unclear what or how.

9. Specializations will add 1 weapon, 1 heal, 4 utilities, and 1 elite.

10. They trying to reuse utility types. Examples used was Traps and Shouts for two specializations so Runes will affect them.

11. New runes/sigils/armor/weapon for each specialization as part of the specialization reward track.

12. Specializations identifiable in UI, will have unique Icon if spec’d a certain way.

Cherry picking a quote that objectively describes the views on max DPS builds does not conflict with a personal view that min-maxing is pointless. I couldn’t objectively discuss something if I don’t understand it, and stating it shows an understanding of the principles behind max DPS builds.

Not fully reading your post and claiming something was in there was simple ignorance that was fixed with a single quote.

You have yet to logically or factually prove you think in any other perspective than that of a speed runner because you’ve repeatedly fail to show what else offensive gear or build provides other than speed.

Gamers always invariably end up with groups with values similar to their own. It’s not a stretch when you describe your guild leader with the qualities of an elitist to assume that you also have similar qualities. The fact you later recant these descriptions as “misunderstandings” is inconsequential to the fact it’s not an irrational assumption.

Stating that you hardly do PvE anymore implies there is something you dislike about it (bad) and therefore don’t find it worth doing. Especially when you go on to describe the bad part (it’s too static). These are simply descriptors of what you’re saying and is perfectly rational even if you dislike it.

Again feel free to link your post. Unwillingness to back up your claims with facts and proof is not rational.

When you’ve admit verly clearly in one post above in answer to the fact you don’t recommend alternative gear builds to people, “And the answer has always been that I don’t.” it seems rather hypocritical of you to now claim that you wrote an entire post on the topic.

When you claim that there’s only one most efficient route to reach those goals even if those goals aren’t to do dungeons fast you are factually wrong because you have yet to prove that offensive builds and offensive gear provide any benefit beyond speed. If speed is not a goal then any advantages are irrelevant.

Stating something is best generically when you can only prove it’s best at a particular aspect of game play is disingenuous at best and flat out lying at worst. However most important is that you can make your point that something is the best without also trashing something as inferior. It is very easy to make a case where X is the best at Y without directly comparing it to other options even if it’s implied.

Saying you’re not biased towards a spec because you give a token foot note to something is disingenuous. In the forum post stickied up top there are 573 words in the Gearing section only 103 of which are dedicated to PVT gear. The ratios are even worse in the Dulfy guide. Pretending a 2 sentence blurb is equivalent to full spec advice other offensive options get is ridiculous.

The only point I’ve gotten is before I call you out on something I should probably make sure it is there first. That’s it. So now? I read it all. I read your full posts. If I say it isn’t there, it’s either really squirreled away or you somehow think a random sentence you throw out is supposed to mean something the words don’t but I just don’t “understand” it (hahaha).

I’ve sufficiently proved your bias against me that it’s perfectly in the realm of reason to think you’re capable of pre-judging anything that comes from me. You’re simply incapable of being objective when it’s anything I’m talking about.

Okay so you state that offensive gear teaches you the right input compared to defensive gear. What exactly do stats teach you? Rather than use vague terms like “teaches you the right input” please detail exactly what power/precision/ferocity exactly teaches you that you can’t learn in power/toughness/vitality.

That’s a pretty bold claim regarding AC1. Why don’t you post a video to prove that statement ( )? Also what freedom do you think I don’t have in Soldier gear? I can also do dungeons in any way I want with any weapon I want. As a hybrid I keep pace with high DPS groups and I can help drag other groups through. Not sure if you got some impression it takes hours to do dungeons but it’s really not that bad. What’s alien to me is that you really think there’s more to achieve beyond doing dungeons faster.

Not sure why you think repeatedly saying I don’t understand makes it any more true but it doesn’t. I understood everything just fine. You and I also both know that the actual numbers you could show are so small they are inconsequential to actual game play. Kinda funny how a person who claims they have the right to criticize anything you seem pretty salty that other people criticized the hell out of your post. Seems like you were discouraged by a bunch of people swooping in and nit picking and trashing your post unnecessarily

I’ve shown using comparative examples I do understand and you’re simply wrong. As I already mentioned, talking about the soft CC that we get (chill, cripple, immobilize, blind) and the hard CC we get (frost bow 5, gale, etc) are not unique aspects to our class. Every class has varying levels of these soft and hard CCs and the concept of using them to avoid taking damage are things any class could and should learn as part of their character. Then again it’s a lot easier to sit back and claim I don’t understand than have to explain something that doesn’t exist.

Your “contributions” towards speed running was the entire point, you are wholly dedicated to it regardless if you play it or not. You promote something you don’t like. That would be like me arguing against full Berserker gear and yet playing with them in game. Maybe with time you will even relax a bit and come to realize that just because there are faster ways to do things it doesn’t make them the fun way to do things (and what is the point of a game if not fun?).

Ranged area damage.

I mean if I had to distill it down to one single fact, there it is. No other class has access to our level of ranged AOE. Revenant seems like it’s going to be coming close and I’m eager to look into it but hard to really compete with the Elementalist’s ranged potential. There’s a lot of other classes I really, really enjoy playing but in the end I always come back to the Elementalist cause of that ranged AOE.

To objectively talk about efficiently you’ll have to answer what you’re being more efficient at. Now below you say it’s more efficient at getting more output and that helps you achieve being better at the content. Ok. So I have a few questions on this. How does getting more output help you be better at the content? Define better. I can overcome an encounter by countering all the different encounter mechanics with many different gear sets and many different builds. Since all these allow me to complete the encounter my individual skill has peaked for that encounter so what does this particular more efficient set of gear and build do better?

Since you’re going to invariably just deny, deflect and claim I don’t understand the words you choose to use I’m going to just say it and everything you’re talking about is Speed Running dungeons. The “more” you achieve? That’s doing dungeons faster. The more rewards you get? That’s clearing dungeons faster so you can do more dungeons in the same amount of time. Every single amount of advice you give seems to be to further the Speed Clearing Berserker dungeon culture that you claim you’re not a fan of. Every player reaches a point where they know the content well enough that there’s not much more skill to be gained, only new habits that as you put it “like a monkey who has been taught a few tricks and the only test is just to reproduce what you learned by heart.”

You can counter and claim you’re talking about skill but what skill are you teaching? Stack together, Ice Bow 5, blitz boss down and bypass as much of it’s mechanics as you can by killing it faster than it can do it’s abilities. Do you think stacking in a corner on Aetherblade Fractal’s boss teaches you more than having to have situational awareness and kite around the room? Do you really think anyone learns anything when a boss dies in 10 seconds or are they just monkies who came and read what to spec on the forums and found a group and now they’re repeating the same tricks over and over again?

PS: I love that our walls of text now each span across two replies

The context has always been I’ve never seen you recommend alternative gear builds for people. Every time you reply that you do all the time. I ask for proof, you say check your guides, and sure enough out of your two guides you have one tiny blurb on the topic and in the other don’t mention it at all. I don’t care if you wanna pretend that giving a token link to a defensive build with a two line summary amongst an ocean of words on offense is fair billing but don’t lie and say something is there that it isn’t.

Yes, it is wrong. A truly objective person could answer any argument of them and not pre-label or pre-judge an argument as good or bad.

Your argument also makes no sense. For one you say that an offense build will help you learn the right input but on the other hand you also clearly recommend people play defensive builds while learning the game because it will teach them better than defensive gear would. This is a contradiction. Either an offensive build helps teach them the right input to get the maximum output or playing a defensive build with Berserker gear will teach them better. Which is true?

In addition, everything you said you gain more of is speculation and you can’t back it up with facts or proof. If we both do AC path 1 we get the same rewards regardless of gear/build. We also get the same amount of experience. I can help friends and even random PUGs I run into regardless of their skill level just as much regardless of gear/build. How does even quantify fun? Is it really your argument that factually speaking one build is more fun another? All this very much seems like opinion territory and not rooted in facts. So what factually do you achieve more of?

Actually I clearly state that you should give actual numbers with Build Analysis, with Protection just being an example. Numbers are all about perspective. Telling me something is 5% better is incredibly overgeneralized and vague. It’s basic math. 5% of a huge number, thousands or millions, is vastly important than 5% of a very small number like 10 or 100. Telling people they have 10% more EHP is neat, but what does that actually mean for game play purposes? Does that mean they can take 10 extra hits? 3 extra hits? 1 extra hit? 0 extra hits? Again, I wanted more information: You either were incapable or unwilling to provide it because your bias took it as criticism.

Hey bro you’re the one trying to make it sound like the Elementalist has super cool unique defensive tools like “dodging” and “moving.” I tell you if those other classes ever get ahold of those…look out SPvP, that’s the end of the D/D Cele Ele! Again, don’t blame me for your words.

Again you can claim that’s false all you want but lets look at the facts. Each of your guides go on for ages on maximum offensive builds with maximum offensive gear. Each give minor space or talk about anything remotely defensive. When you direct people to a guide, that’s what they walk away with. Even in the Dulfy guide clearly states at the top it’s from a dungeon speed clearing guild. You can claim whatever you want now, but the truth of the matter is shown everywhere else.

I’m perfectly rational. The part you dislike is that I’m a rational individual who disagrees with you. I rationally ask you to factually prove what you’re saying and you can’t. You can speculate and provide, as you admit, only poor metrics to attempt to back up your claims. You claim to provide facts, you provide opinion. I tell you I miss the old Zelyhn who would mathematically drop numbers down from the sky proving or disproving everything. Haha maybe the real Zelyhn got banned, never came back and you’re just an imposter!

Great insights as always Neko.

Completely agree with you regarding PUGing. It’s just how it is and how it will always be. As a person who runs PUGs pretty much exclusively it’s really formed most of my opinions. The varying levels of skill have always been par the course for PUGing and I run into it all. One group is amazing, the next group 1-2 guys are practically perma dead.

The key point to criticism is all about gravitas. You never see crazy scenarios where anyone is ever advocating playing in full Nomads on a 00266 spec in Water all the time. More importantly, no one suggesting any kind of defensive or hybrid build ever would state something along the lines that it’s the fastest at clearing content. In fact many cases it’s specific scenarios where the person either 1) Can’t complete the content in Berserker (always dying, etc) or 2) They know about Berserker builds and are uninterested and looking for alternatives. In one case such advice may serve as a temporary crutch and in the other exactly what they’re looking for. Generally speaking, these aren’t the kind of people worrying about doing harder instanced content.

Personally I’m in the hybrid camp based on the fact I PUG so many groups. The combination of decent offense (2000+ power, 45%+ crit, 200%ish crit dmg) and decent defense (2400+ armor, 15000+ HP) gives me the range to get through any scenario I run into. If a group is more DPS oriented I fit in just fine. If a group is more new and kiting and running around and I have to sustain my way through a longer fight I have the ability to do that. If this works well for me, it stands to reason that it will work well for someone else and that’s why I give this advice to people who aren’t looking for a Zerker build or struggling with one.

When you look at that complete picture that’s why it’s baffling to me. Why treat moderate advice as if you are recommending the other extreme? Why pretend that a Knight/Zerker mix (or similar) is the same as full Nomads or that the same Knight/Zerker mix (or similar) is really that far stats wise from full Zerker?

Yea I feel ya just having a bit of fun with the response.

Really tough to make a point if people aren’t willing to work with you to a certain extent. Even if you show video proof how good something else it’s very easy to downplay any successes like you implied with “Well that wasn’t a real game.” or “Your opponents are just so bad.” Incredibly easy to nit pick anything when you get right down to it.

Jerus.4350:

So, 24 inventory slots are taken up for your 3 different gear sets? That doesn’t include alternate weaponry.

Sure, that’s just as flexible as the click a button to change trait system…;)

Out of my 160 slots 4 are used for weapons (D, D, S, F), 6 are used for jewelry, 6 are used for armor, 4 are used for ‘Misc’ (bank access, quartz gems, birthday blaster, etc), 10 are used for potions (flame legion, nightmare, inquest, undead, outlaw, ice brood, dredge, elemental, destroyer and svanir), 4 are used on foods and sharpening stones, another 6 on misc again (green/blue luck stacks, superior arrow carts, etc). That leaves the other 120 slots only with a Copper Fed Salvagomatic and a Silver Fed Salvagomatic.

This is nothing though now that I trimmed it to 2 sets. I used to run with 4 suits and alternative weapons (Soldier+Boon, Soldier+Divinity, Berserker, Condition). Used to have to do three invisible bags to cover everything!

Sure seems to be pretty flexible when I swap gear around. Super tanky → super squishy → hybrid of both! → super tanky!

Gokil.2543:

It’s really tempting, but I wouldn’t want a Kodiak vs Zelyhn 2.0 so we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I’ll likely put up a video sooner or later to back up my opinions on fresh air in tPvP. See you then.

I was having a good read here too

Unfortunately Neko that just doesn’t work. If you saw the last PM’s we exchange it basically a Bugs vs Daffy sketch without Elmer Fudd. As I said repeatedly (and in those PMs) I just wish he’d end this obsession with me.

That’s perfectly true Thaddeus for other classes. Yet you read some of the “defensive” advice of players and it’s like swapping in Arcane Shield is suddenly a ground breaking ultra defensive move. I’m looking at 00266 builds tank their way through crazy spike damage and it’s like “Oh sure…Arcane Shield…super defensive.” To be honest there’s lots of ways to do variations of the same thing and honestly what does it matter if someone does things a little faster or a little slower? What’s the compelling reason to trash another way to do that content? Why do people care if it’s a little bit slower if the person isn’t lying and saying it’s the fastest? These are the real questions.

Rotten how is scaling back gear any different than scaling back traits? As Zelyhn’s own Build Advice posted you can equivocate those traits to EHP, no different than you can equip Toughness and Vitality and also increase your EHP. And just like as you get comfortable and don’t find you need as many defensive traits you can also scale back on your armor and slowly get to a stage where you’re entirely Berserker. Again the end destination is the same, the route in which you get there (EHP from traits vs EHP from gear) is simply different.

While unrealistic that they’d add it, we’ll see what they actually do. Beyond Phallanx Strength and Guardians it’s pretty Zerk heavy.

rotten.9753:

I can’t agree with that. If we’re talking about new players that don’t even know the content, it’s much beneficial in the long term to teach them a content first. And the best way to learn a content is through practice. Practising with all the tools you have on your disposal will make a new player much better at adapting in the a content. What I’m trying to say is that for me, a new player that knows his entire profession because he used most of his tools to overcome initial challenges should present a higher degree of personal growth than the one who focuses on passives to beat them.

Except in the end of the current Berserker meta, that’s exactly what they are doing. They’re ignoring any defensive traits they have in favor of kicking out the most amount of damage. When I play 06044 Fresh Air, switching to Water is a great refreshing healing me, cleansing condi, adding soothing mist, and even adding regen boon. How does knowing that help me at all when I’m on a 66200? Where is the benefit in knowledge that you can’t functionally use?

rotten.9753:

Let’s say we miraculously get a brand new challenging content with HoT. Are you going to swap your gear when presented with the vision of team wipes instead of changing your build through traits, utility skills and maybe weapon sets (for other professions mostly)?

Personally? I’ll adapt however I need to overcome content if I want the rewards. Whether that means gear, spec or both so be it. If they suddenly shift full 180 and do constant unavoidable damage and the only way to get past it is to rock defensive gear with a defensive build I got no qualms with that. Hell I do that already. Playing in a PUG doing fractals and people got no clue how to do Mai Trin I swap in the defensive gear and weapon setup and brute force my way through that encounter.

I am glad though they recognize the problem with the current encounter designs and will be addressing it. Should shake things up quite a bit I think. Personally I’m thinking they’re going to look at dungeon paths you don’t see people taking, like COF P3, and probably steal ideas from there as well as come up with a few others haha. Should be super interesting and I can’t wait (except for the 4 Revenant parties, not looking forward to that haha).

rotten.9753:

If you had post it on other forum you would have been reprimanded in seconds that there’s no such thing as a Berserker’s build because it’s a gear set. A gear set that only reinforces your playstyle but doesn’t rule over it.

That’s fair enough. When I say “Beserker build” I mean 66xxx typically also with full Berserker gear. Essentially all your points in Power/Precision lines and then the last 2 wherever. Losing access to defensive traits does very much rule over your play style however as it forces you to play either very conservatively or very aggressively.

Calling trashing other people’s advice as something else doesn’t make it any less trashing their advice. Not a hard concept but one I think you have difficulty with. See it’s all about intent. If you see an ugly person on the street, do you have to walk up to them and say, “Man, you’re ugly!” It’s all about tact and being respectful of others. If someone is making wild claims like “I do the most DPS with Scepter!” or “I speed run dungeons the fastest with 00266!” it’s pretty understandable to question it. However if someone is saying, “I have no problems beating game content with Scepter.” there’s absolutely no need for you to jump on in there and poop all over that point of view.

Obviously your bias is towards Berserker. Which spec? Hah. Also defensive gear does make the content easier. If you’re capable of taking more hits and eating more encounter mechanics it allows you to rely on higher EHP to brute force your way through content as you learn to avoid it entirely. While learning you likely aren’t going to play perfectly and defensive gear raising their EHP in some ways gives you training wheels so you don’t just immediately tip over if you lose your balance. If we only had a Build Analysis thread that measured EHP and EHP Healed/sec to compare armor vs spec and compare it to damage we see in various dungeon encounters to determine the most optimal amount of stats for a lazy defensive route….

I suggested you re-clarify your vocabulary to include the “What.” Most efficient…at what? Most optimal…at what? Achieve more…at what? Right now you have a lot of adjectives with no nouns to apply them to which turns them into blanket statements that there are far too many scenarios that can show where they are wrong.

I can only go off what you say about PvE. Again, your words :|

Once more into the circle ’round and ’round we go! So you say defensive armor is less efficient. The compared alternative, offensive gear, is considered more efficient at letting you put more into it and thus receive more output to achieve more…what? This can reverse back down into you saying defensive armor is less efficient at achieving…what?

I’ve clearly been talking about gear. I mention gear before the part you quote a reply on. I mention your blurb in your stickied post and it’s non existence in your guide. This is just another example of cherry picking where I’m clearly talking about one thing and you misquote me and put it out of context.

And again you establish impossible criteria for discussion. Unless you deem a person of having a good argument then you dismiss them out of hand. That’s very convenient from a discussion standpoint. “I don’t like your ideas, therefore I am going to ignore them.” Why not just stick your fingers in your ears and hum as loudly as you can cause the bad man is saying things?

It’s a simple question. You say Berserker gear helps by giving you a higher skill cap (input) to get more output so you can achieve more. What more are you achieving? I want you to clarify exactly what it is you’re going to achieve more of with that increased output. You made a statement, now elaborate. Teach us Zelyhn, what more are we going to accomplish with a Berserker build. We get the idea. Higher skill cap lets you put more into it and get more out of it to achieve more. We don’t get dungeon rewards. We don’t get more XP. So what is this “more” we are going to be achieving? Or are you refusing to answer because you can’t answer and are just making things up? I honestly don’t know what more there to achieve please explain it!

Ya different damage values. I understood your equations just perfectly fine, I just wanted you to apply them to actual numbers. Furthermore if you want to be objective you should look at it on it’s own merits rather than trying to lash out at me or what I’ve done. Again I wanted more information and more actual numbers you can apply to in game beyond over generalized “If you spec more points into Health/Healing you’ll have more Health/Healing.”

Do you live in a bubble when it comes to other classes? Are you really so ignorant of them that you don’t realize they have similar (if not exact copies) of active skills? Just because I don’t have Chill on my Mesmer doesn’t mean I lack methods to slow down encounters (Cripple). Glyph of Storms? Hello, Mr Well of Darkness is calling. The concept of using your class’ soft and hard CC is not new or unique to the Elementalist. Maybe you need a break from the Elementalist for a bit and see what other classes have access to before you talk about what’s exclusive to the Elementalist?

This whole “defense” thing is just you being stubborn. Rather than be a reasonable individual who simply states, “Well Kodiak our goal is to speed run dungeons because I feel that’s the most optimal way to do the dungeon content. This means I need a full Berserker build and that means I can’t trait any of the defenses an Elementalist gets. Since this leaves me with base defenses, which are the worst, I have to rely on the base game mechanics to do this successfully.” you gotta fight me on every turn.

While I’m sure you believe you’re a stoic pillar of objectivity you’re simply not. You’ve already admitted that you will post replies in anger or frustration at me. You said you were done with this thread multiple times now, yet here you still are unable to walk away from a discussion you know won’t change anything. You state that I offer nothing to the community what so ever. You say I never make good arguments. Except a person who truly believed these things wouldn’t waste time arguing with a person like that. The fact you continue speaks far louder than any wall of text you or I have ever posted or any personal attack you hurl. The bias is as clear as day and your own actions speak far louder than any words you have on the topic.

Rotten there are lots of gear alternatives. All of them work and allow you to complete dungeon content. Giving someone who can’t handle Berserker because they haven’t mastered the active combat yet or are simply an entirely lazy player and want to simply smash their way their content is poor advice. If someone is working their way up to using Berserker you shouldn’t give them added tools like extra Condition management, boons or heals that they ultimately won’t have access to. All you’re doing is teaching them how to overcome encounters with these defensive tools and not how to handle the encounters without access to them which is where they eventually need to be. Defensive armor can teach them how to play the character on their spec while being a bit forgiving and allowing them to eat some hits while they learn.

Every class fundamentally has some abilities to avoid damage. However pointing to a 75s cool down skill like Arcane Shield and making the argument, “See! See! We’re not designed to take hits!” seems awfully ignorant of the rest of the class and how it’s designed.

Thaddeus I’m 100% about him having his guide be whatever he wants it to be but him claiming it’s one thing when it clearly isn’t seems rather false. Don’t tell me there’s a whole section on defense when it’s literally a 3 line blurb on a defensive build and only a sentence on how Berserker gear is the best. It’s entirely misleading.

See I’m actually pretty objective about the whole thing and recognize there’s positives and negatives to both advice. My advice has the advantage of learning how to play the character without relying on defensive trait crutches that will teach you bad habits but has the disadvantage of requiring multiple suits of gear. Defensive trait build advice has the advantage of only needing one suit of gear but the downside of teaching you bad habits like getting used to extra condi cleanse, boons, healing and other defensive aspects the Elementalist is built with but forgoes with a full Berserker build. Ultimately it’s up to the user to decide what works best for them.

See I don’t care what advice Zelyhn gives. At all. In fact I wouldn’t have ever even looked at his guide if he hadn’t literally posted go read his guide like 20 times where he swore up and down such and such was posted there. I’m1000% with you that it’s up to the player to determine if that advice is going to work for them. However this needs to go both ways.

Jerus I’m the laziest kitten you never done met. Think all my characters have at least 2500 armor, 16000 hp and the rest in power/crit/crit dmg haha

rotten.9753:

A dodge is a generic defensive tool. His point was that with berserker’s gear alone you won’t have access to boons, heals and condition management that would have with a different trait spread.

That’s right you won’t have access to the majority of the sustain (defensive) tools that the Elementalist has built into the character. Instead you’re substituting access to those defensive tools from your build in favor of stacking defensive stats (toughness, vitality) in order to carry you through instead.

The reason is because when you use defensive traits for sustainability you form habits by having access to them. For example as Thaddeus brings up always having access to Vigor from crits with Renewing Stamina. If you’re always used to having that much Endurance regen, you learn to dodge based on that increased Stamina. Now if you switch to a 66200 build and lose that you have to form a new habit on how much to dodge. This extends to all aspects. For example I’m particularly fond of at least 4 in water because I’m used to getting Soothing Mist, Healing Ripple and a Condi cleanse all happening just for switching to water. That’s a habit I’ve built from playing 20 (4) Water for years now. When I do play 66002 I habitually switch to water because I’m used to those traits firing off and it’s like, “Oh, yea.” There are other important lessons to learn before using a Berserker spec like what conditions really need to be cleansed or not. Eating 5 bleeds may not be end of the world on a spec with more healing but on a Berserker build you can see that oh wow anything over 5 bleeds has to be cleansed ASAP.

What it comes down to is both routes have merits

Oh no my Rapid Fire hits for like 14k at 80 on higher level mobs it still gibs the crap out of things and that’s in Knights gear haha

Just generally you’re doing things that have vastly greater Hit Points (Champs, etc) and that’s less of a problem. While leveling in PvE you’re mostly fighting regular mobs that have little to no HP.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Yeah it’s not really a counter. I never said that warriors are made to sustain hits. Yet they are relatively better at this. I agree that the ele has the tools in order to recover from hits taken. But my point is that the ele has even better tools that allow us to not take hits.

But we don’t. The tools you bring up and talk about are generic tools that literally all classes have. Any class can dodge. Any class can stay at maximum melee range. Any class can use Soft/hard CC’s to control the mobs. The Elementalist defensive tools are boons, heals and condition management. A class like a Thief doesn’t have copious access to boons, heals or condition management and instead relies on mobility and stealth to avoid taking hits entirely.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

and to be completely honest I was mad at you because of your arrogance and your irrationality. But what I said is entirely true and objective. If someone would comment on my play-style objectively then I would be glad because it would help me improve. I would never dare to publish a video where my performance is below average though, but that’s just my personal preference. Second, I did talk about alternatives. Third, do read 100%. Only if you read all of what I write without interpreting then we can overcome the communications problems that we seem to have, furthermore you will see that I did talk about alternatives (succinctly, I admit, but like I said they were better builds posted exactly on the same week), and you will see that I did objectively criticise your build.

Btw, does it not shock you that you repeatedly claimed I did not criticise your build and that I did not mention alternatives while you had only read 70% of my post? You know, I can’t help but thinking that you do that for all my posts and that is why it is impossible to have a constructive debate with you.

What shocks me is you completely, repeatedly show and finally admit your bias against me but somehow think you can remain objective and factual. There is literally never going to be any point ever where any criticism you levy out will ever not be seen as a personal grudge against me just like anything I ever reply, critique or otherwise towards you will be seen the same. This is why there can never be a constructive conversation, there is no respect on any level to have a reasonable dialogue.

Do you really think I want to read a post that is 70% nit picking a candid video made to show off how survivable that spec was? “Hurr durr you’re standing in AOE in a video with Survivability literally in a titlte!”_ News flash: If you get petty and nit pick people aren’t going to continue reading something clearly coming from a biased view point. Even you admit that you would never release a video that wasn’t perfect because you know people would rip it to shreds and nit pick every tiny error you make Monday morning quarterback style. Bit hypocritical but that’s just me.

If you want me to actually read what you write, stay objective and don’t let your bias get the better of you. I’m not sure if you think repeating over and over, loudly that you’re objective makes you objective but that’s not how it works.

PS: The part where you say check out other builds. Couldn’t find it. I guess I’m just blind, could you be a dear and quote that here? Thaaaaaaaaaaaanks.

rotten.9753:

This thread is all nice, especially that vivid discussion but I have to agree with Zelyhn that defensive utilites+traits+berserker’s gear is much better training wheel than some mix of soldier’s or knight’s because gear is not easily replaceable.

Okay so the gear argument. There’s stupid different routes to get gear in this game.

Level in EOTM. By the time you’re 80 you’ll easily have 1000-2000 WvW Badges and can easily buy a full set of exotics at 80. They many, many stat types. This works great as a temporary set of gear cause you can’t break it down to get the upgrades.

Buy gear from Karma Vendors. I get a lot of various accessory types this way such as Soldier or Cavalier but admittedly not always the best selection. Again temporary set because can’t break down the gear.

Alternatively buy lower level gear and mystic forge + break it down and turn your karma into a load of money to either get mats or straight up buy the gear. Dem linen sales! A lot of Berserker weapons or other stats are available for relatively cheap on the AH because they’re some undesirable skin that’s common in Champ Bags. Use the profits to craft up a set for pretty cheap.

Win trade in SPvP for reward tracks. Tons of free weapons and gear here for your choosing. Bit longish though cause it takes 3 full tracks to complete a suit, can make it go way faster if you actually just SPvP in Unranked or Ranked instead.

Dungeon tokens straight up give gear. It’s very easy to do runs for either PVT gear (Ascalon catacombs) or Berserker gear (COF) at the same pace. Knight is arguably the toughest set as it’s Arah/SE which can drag on a bit (I usually just craft Knight gear).

Once you have even a basic suit, you can easily start farming Ascended items from fractals. Invest in a WvW Ascended Neck for your intial item for a mere 25 laurels (3 weeks of logging in). Day one you run 2 Fractals level 6-9 (68 relics). Day two you run a 6-9 fractal and then buy an Agony resistance and slot it in neck and then run a level 11 Fractal. Then repeat this for another 20 days and you should have enough Fractal Relics for Back piece and at least 4 different rings (possibly more with dailies) or use the extra Pristines and shorten that time down even further. Any decent guild will get you enough Guild commendations to buy Earrings to your heart’s content.

Gearing up in this game is far from hard and there’s so many different avenues to gear up it’s pretty hard to make gearing a reason not to play with passive defensive stats but on your build you want to play. This will teach you good habits and not to expect tools that you won’t have access to when you are full Berserker.

Okay, that’s really fascinating about alternative builds. Now like I was saying in the rest of the part you don’t quote please feel free to show the section in the Dulfy guide where you discuss alternative gear. You have a paragraph on it in the forum post stickied here, that’s it. I’m happy to have you prove me wrong again and show me the section where you talk about alternative gear sets

Claiming that theory crafters would be calling you out on something is a false cause. It’s the equivalent of saying if I was wrong God would strike me dead where I stand and then showing you not dying as proof as being right. That doesn’t answer the point but rather establishes impossible criteria so that you could never be wrong because even if people did disagree with you (which they do quite often) you wouldn’t consider them theory crafters and thus not meet the standards you and you alone established.

We are getting to the core of the issue! Except we’re still overgeneralizing too many things. When you say something like “it enables you to achieve more” what are you talking about achieving? What metric are we measuring that one build is more or less efficient? What is it that a lesser skilled or lazy player on a more defensive build can’t do that a more experienced and motivated player could do on an offensive build? What does increasing their output they get from increasing their input yield?

I really actually did read the whole thread. The whole thing. All 3 posts. All the replies. It all amounted to having 4 points in Water and 4 points in Arcane is slightly (10%) more EHP and marginally (1.6?%) more EHP healed over 2 points in water and 6 points in Arcane. You put all the skills, traits, etc and broke them out in mathematical numbers and showed that putting more points in our HP/Healing tree yielded more HP/Healing. :| MY view, as seen clearly in that post, while super cool to break out the math numbers small percentages I think it would have been more useful if you showed actual numbers. Like 10% more up time on Protection would mitigate % of X/Y/Z (light, medium, heavy attacks) resulting in an increase of A/B/C more EHP (depending on attack). This way we can make better determinations because if 10% more up time on protection only amounts to 50 damage mitigated in a game where you can take thousands of damage that’s functionally useless. I wanted more details!

I recently (last month) rolled up a Ranger I can see/feel while you’re having these problems. Ranger single target damage is pretty insane all around and can really drop targets fast and repeatedly. I use my Ranger primarily for world boss/silverwaste farm cause it’s so lazy mode easy.

Where the Elementalist really picks up is in it’s huge amount of AOE that it gets which is really great for farming multiple mobs in an encounter. For example if an event fires up, you can AOE things down with multiple abilities where often times Rangers use Longbow/Greatsword and really have 1 ranged AOE and then have to switch to melee to keep going. They can also pierce as well, which on some encounters works great, but many times it does not.

Personally I find two moves do the bulk of my work on Staff. If it’s a single target then something like getting quick in Lava Font is instantaneous damage. However if the target is running around constantly (like Centaurs) and/or targets are spread out so a single Lava Font won’t hit them then I like to use the bouncing auto attack from Air. This can help get hits on targets where the Ranger has to manually target each one or go to a lower DPS weapon like axe. Fire auto attacks are generally super slow and usually have put 2 arrows into something before an Elementalist gets off a single Fireball attack.

Dagger arguably provides faster attacks, but you don’t like being in melee. Most conjures are slow attacks, melee, have long cool downs, get stolen, have low auto attacks, and other various issues.

Scepter works as well, but if things are dying fast enough that you are struggling to get hits on targets you’re likely not going to have the time to pull off the Scepter combos to really make it shine. Focus is often talked about because people like the larger amount of survivability that comes with Focus and it’s ranged options compared to OH Dagger which is very melee heavy and has fewer defensive skills. Both are viable options but both are different play styles. Given that you dislike melee, I imagine Focus would probably work out better for you.

The main support you provide is fields. Elementalist is the #1 field generator. For example if you use Ring of Fire that’s a burning field, and his auto attack can combo to add burning onto the target. Staff has the most fields, so when you do Lava Font under a target you are hitting it for damage and your Ranger buddy is procing Burning as well. You can do a variety of fields that can help such as using Static Field to further stack Vulnerability on a target with his Rapid Fire on tougher (Veteran+) opponents. S/F doesn’t have many fields and can’t bring that much support as a result.

I stopped playing my Engie cause Grenades hurts my hands X_X

Interesting to see how many people responding why they play classes though.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Your scrutiny has shown only one thing: your point of view changes like the wind.

I don’t put down other people’s advice. I only talk about efficiency, which is objective: it means “you get more for the right input”.

If you have anything to say about that then do it. Be constructive.

My view has never changed. You should not do comparative analysis of people’s posts and dispariage, trash, judge or dismiss other people’s advice on this forum. Just like your view has never changed, you feel you are providing objective input and everyone has the right to know what you see as facts regarding their advice. What changes is the arguments regarding these views.

You claim your criticism is objective. I don’t see objectivity, but rather I see your constant bias towards a particular spec. You in turn see this as my own bias against that spec. I show that in all your guides you always give full billing to your bias but anything else you give token comments on and don’t elaborate. A truly objective person would not only provide the criticism to a build (it completes content slower) but also talk up the merits of the build (it makes content much easier). You don’t answer this, you just keep stating you are objective.

You claim Berserker gear is the only efficient and optimal way to play, but you also admit that it doesn’t work for all people. I say that whatever gear players are capable using is their most efficient gear because if they just die over and over in Berserker that isn’t helping anyone. To use your words: “you get more for the right input” except there are people who can’t provide that right input and therefore won’t get the most out of that build and therefore it’s not the most efficient for them. You still don’t answer this and just keep claiming Berserker gear is the most optimal regardless of what you’re doing or who’s using it, but people are free to use whatever inefficient gear they can use and that’s perfectly OK.

You claim everyone wants to improve their game play and strive to be better and Berserker is the only suit of gear that lets you achieve maximum skill. I counter claim with that not everyone cares about being best in a game with terrible PvE and most of us just want the reward and the end and move on. While you agree PvE is bad and hardly worth doing anymore, you also agree that different players have different reasons for playing the game and doing PvE, and you agree that there are different tools that are right for different people you still think it’s right to swoop in and say alternative advice is inefficient and bad even if it works for the person.

We could also go on about the personal attacks (on both sides) but I’m hoping we’re largely done with those but it’s hard to tell!

This entire thread is still about whether or not it’s right to critique advice others give. The point hasn’t changed even if the arguments for or against such activities has changed

Except all the advice you’ve ever given in your post history is to follow you Berserker guide on the top of the forums where you clearly state Berserker is the best option with a tiny, inaccurate paragraph on how to gear defensively and the Dulfy guide where you don’t cover alternative gear at all. You say you give alternative advice, prove it. You’re making a claim, back it up with proof.

The funny part is people like you bash on that build despite giving the advice elsewhere apparently. Is that dated advice that’s no longer applicable or do you just have a personal grudge against me when I give that same advice?

You can keep claiming it’s the most efficient like a broken record but until you can prove it’s the most efficient it’s all just words. You admit different players do better with different builds and give the advice that works best for them. It’s logical to assume they will perform the most efficient in a build that works best for them. How do you reconcile that principle with a blanket statement that Berserker is the most efficient? To me it seems pretty clear that if a person can’t complete content (because it’s not right for them) in Berserker that’s not very efficient.

You say toxic and hates medocrity. I think elitism. Elitism is a view in which there are good players and bad players which is a very black and white view of things. These are merely logical conclusions from the words you use. If you say that conclusion is wrong, I’m just as content to believe that as again I don’t know the person.

The analysis of survivability was pointless because it amounted to, “Specing into water gives you slightly more survivability than specing into Arcane.” Which honestly with the fact that the Water line gives Vit/Healing as base stats should kinda be obvious. For my part, I didn’t trash it, in fact I praised it but said it needed the correct gravitas. Your numbers were literally 1.19 vs 1.09 and 6.17 vs 6.06 which are trivial enough numbers that it’s not like it couldn’t be explained away with the difference of a 00044 vs 00026.

For a person who seemingly claims they talk a lot about the active defense tools of an Elementalist you also seem to claim a lot that an Elementalist wasn’t made to sustain hits. Those active defenses our class was made with (boons, heals, condi management) makes us very much able to sustain those hits. If your argument is still that we have the lowest armor/hit points and therefore weren’t designed to sustain hits I’d counter argue that is irrelevant because any class, even warrior, if they ignore their defensive utilities, skills are unable to sustain through hits.

I’ll admit I didn’t make it down that far cause I read 70% of the post as personal attacks I just stop reading and will admit the assertions never talking about the build itself was wrong. I will however maintain you still don’t attempt to provide a useful alternative and you don’t link or talk about any kind of alternatives.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being biased, but if you’re biased then you can’t be objective. An objective person can see the weaknesses but also the strengths and an objective viewpoint doesn’t discuss one without the other. You continuously claim that what you provide is objective criticism but it is in fact biased towards what you feel are good choices.

Actually everything I just said regarding your views was directly taken from your “1.2” section on Survivability from your Dulfy guide. Furthermore in section three you quite state that people should only use Berserker gear. You don’t discuss alternatives nor do you suggest different routes but simply double down (something which multiple people don’t respond to well down in the comments section of the Dulfy guide). I did however find it hilarious you link a 06044 build that I run complete with Cleansing wave!

The problem isn’t the build advice, if you remember, but the context in the way you put it. You will never see me recommend 06044 S/D with Soldier/Zerker mix and state that it’s going to the best at speed runs. What’s not needed is for you to come in after the fact and state it’s a bad build, bad idea or bad advice. You’re just as capable of making an argument to the OP of that (imaginary) topic to keep working on Berserker because <insert merits why>. The point here is you can make your argument without tearing down or disparaging on any advice that isn’t what you’d recommend. This fictional OP can now read all the advice and make their own decision of what tool will work best for them based on their goals. It’s really not a difficult concept.

When you use language to convey something those words have definitions. When you choose to use words like “toxic” and “hates mediocrity” all those words have definitions. Blaming me for your choice of words is pretty much a perfect analogy for this discussion as any I suppose.

That is literally what you did and do. You do it in your 1.2 section of your guide. You did in that post. You keep doing it in your responses. You say, “Look at our health and armor it’s so bad we can’t take hits!” which is only part of the character. This isn’t an impression, this is what you’re doing. Is this more language barrier issues? Do you understand that armor and hit points are only some aspects of a character and there is more to a character than that?

Except you never did say anything about it. You spent literally your entire time talking about my game play in a video that was made in response to someone who said that build would have zero survivability. It’s all there documented. Also you downplay everything. You can’t even admit that Elementalists have sustainability even when the proof is being thrown into your face. You do nothing but try to dismiss or ignore any kind of question that directly challenges what you’re saying and often claim you “already answered that” but never actually do. Even here you’re not even answering the fact you’re clearly shown speaking in a derogitory manner (let alone quote that part) but rather trying to spin it around to me. Why don’t you answer why you make posts like that instead?

Except as we’ve discussed numerous times it’s not less efficient because saying something is less efficient without context is factually incorrect. Could you say it’s less efficient at speed running a dungeon? Sure. Could you say it’s less efficient for lazy progressing through a dungeon and completing content? Nope. Maybe you should be less offended that not everyone wants to speed run dungeons all the time and just want a nice easy spec to run dungeons at their own pace and alternative builds are more efficient at that?

I am far from the only person who has a problem with what you do but I’m kinda the only one willing to put up with the fact, despite claims to the contrary, you aren’t the kind of person who changes their views. This is why we can’t have a constructive conversation because you clearly don’t respect people or their viewpoints and I will return that same level of disrespect in kind. You don’t even have to go three pages into your post history to see you disrespecting other people beyond me.

You can understand my point entirely (you shouldn’t put down other people’s advice), but even if you think you answered it (you think it’s your right to put down whatever you want) you certainly never changed my opinion on the matter because every argument you’ve ever made in favor of it doesn’t hold up. You can talk about being objective, efficiency, optimal, princples, or misunderstand what’s in your own guide but none of it stands up under scrutiny.

The problem with you divulging information is you are not objective in how you divulge information. You have an extreme bias towards what you feel is the most efficient and/or optimal route and purposely only frame arguments from that perspective.

A great example of this is this whole survivability discussion. You continue to maintain Elementalists aren’t made to sustain hits but this is done entirely from a biased viewpoint of only looking at armor and hit points. Even in your Dulfy guide you maintain this but only talk about general mechanics that literally every class has access to (dodging, movement, and distance control). This isn’t even an examination of the class but rather simple game mechanics all the while ignoring the actual sustainability we do have access to.

As I have told you numerous times it’s easily possible to make your arguments for a build without comparative analysis. For example clarifying and putting your claims into context such as Berserker gear is the most efficient/optimal gear for speed clearing a dungeon. It all comes down to showing respect for your fellow community goer and recognize we’re all here trying to help people and give them the benefit of our different experiences.

If you want people to have different impressions maybe you should use different words? Again, toxic and hates mediocrity doesn’t leave much to the imagination. Your words, not mine. If you say they’re not like that then okay just as well. I’ve never met or talked to them so I couldn’t really say I have an opinion one way or another.

Yea except no: you’re still wrong in either scenario because you aren’t looking at the class objectively to make that claim. Cherry picking two elements from us as a class and claiming that’s all there is to us is being willfully ignorant of the rest of our class. You’re making a decision to do more damage (in order to complete a speed run faster) and ignoring our built in sustainability and instead rely on base game mechanics (dodging, movement and distance control) instead. Instead of simply backing down or reclarifying that you mean when spec’d for offense you double down and pretend the only metrics that matter are armor and hit points (newsflash: even a full berserker warrior is paper and dies super easy without defensive gear/utility/traits!).

You post a lot of things in your stickied thread and your guide on Dulfy but you seem to forget them a lot and argue the points with me. I am never sure why, I assume it’s because it’s me and/or you forget them and when your point doesn’t stick you fall back on a more reasonable tone and advice.

Quoting a post is all about context. For example you bring up that old Condi build in an attempt to shame me because you feel it’s so bad. You see this in other threads as well where you attempt to bring it up as if you’re ‘dealing’ with an undesirable. While you think it’s a personal attack, I often times look at it as rather shameful for you where not only did your posts repeatedly get deleted (to the point you replied annoyed at the Moderator) but ultimately the OP in that thread got what they wanted, appreciated it, and we all moved on while you kept up the personal attacks. If you don’t want to be seen in that light, by all means discuss the points on topic and not make it personal. If you’re capable.

For a person who likes to reference themselves a lot and say things I’m saying are already in your guide you sure seem to disagree with what I have to say. So if every player has different goals, and every goal is various optimal routes to get there, how can you correctly critique someone else’s advice for a build if you are unaware of their goals or what will work best for them? How can you say for sure you are doing them a service by pooping all over my more defensive advice when that may be the best advice for them?

PS: On your whole “Build Analysis” post not only did I say I appreciate the numbers I merely wanted them put into context of actual numbers. Paraphrasing from my reply there, theory crafting the difference between 6 damage taken and 10 damage taken seems rather insignificant. This was the same as others were saying, the math is fun and we like the math (especially back when no one was doing math), but what actual significance does any of it have?

I’m actually super interested to see how the Specialization will work because if it’s another melee weapon but they’re changing up traits, utilities, etc does that mean we’d also maybe get larger HP pool or how will they address our sustainability?

Can’t wait till they give us some details

Principles, another vague term. Do you mean principles in your build? Principles in your advice? Principles of how you give advice or feel the need to bash other people’s advice? Are you even aware what the word principle actually means and how immutable it is? How does one answer such a vague concept when you can’t properly define what you’re actually talking about?

I actually don’t care what advice you give people. Berserker. Celestial. Soldier. Condi. It’s all good long as it’s the advice the person is looking for. You don’t see me going to threads no one responds to and no one is helping in and suggesting an alternative route when they ask for Berserker do you? Instead you see me going to Berserker threads where they can’t pull it off and being the odd man out. Instead of telling them that dying is normal and to get used to it or the other myriad advice you see in those threads but rather to try a different route.

What gets me is when people are incapable of making an argument for their advice without disparaging others’ advice. If the merits of playing Berserker are so obvious and so widely accepted there should be no problems making a strong enough argument why they should be used without having to put down the rest. You can claim you are doing this for the public good, but I will always see it as insecurity.

People do state their perspective and what they want and what they are having troubles with. Again I totally stay clear of any thread that’s talking about wanting Berserker because I don’t have any kind of advice for those people. When people talk about switching in Defensive gear or having trouble with content I give them the benefit of my experience playing with that play style.

You can clarify what you want about your guild leader but the words you choose to use form impressions. You tell me someone is toxic and hates mediocrity I immediately think of an elitist by definition.

Don’t make me laugh about your guide and it’s advice on defensive gear. It’s literally a paragraph amongst an essay on why Berserker, Assassins, etc is the greatest. It doesn’t talk at all about the upsides of using defensive gear or the advantages it has but simply if you’re going to do it this is the way you should do it. Except even that is largely is inaccurate but I’m not surprised out of someone who admittedly lacks an interest in discussing gear alternatives.

Is the Elementalist made with traits? Is it made with utilities? Is the Elementalist made with heals, boons, and lots of condi cleansing? Do we have any other kind of mechanics to avoid sustaining hits like a thief’s Stealth or a Mesmer’s clones? When you make an argument like a class isn’t made to sustain hits it generally implies they have alternative methods to avoid getting hit entirely. The Elementalist has very few of these (like most classes) and instead relies on heals, boons and condi cleanse to sustain through hits. If you choose to ignore all these in favor of damage that’s a choice, but it’s a choice with consequences as you’re actively ignoring the tools the Elementalist was made with to sustain damage. Why you’re even arguing this is beyond me as it’s as obvious as the sky is blue.

You ignore most of my points in favor of changing the discussion or narrow in on one part of the discussion. For example in this thread we’re talking about how the builds matter. We finally get around to the fact it’s not the builds that matter, builds are just tools, but it’s the players that matter. From there you immediately switch it up to trying to attack me personally and bring up posts from years ago. Then when you’re called on that you finally accept that different builds are going to work better for different players but now refuse to see that different players have different goals and there’s more efficient and optimal ways to reach those different goals. Why are we even rehashing talking about criticizing other builds when you already know it’s not the build but the player that matters?

You can keep saying this is personal, but you’re the one who replies to me. I didn’t find something you said in a thread and make a reply, you did. In every thread you and I have ever discussed in it’s because you started the discussion, not me. It’s very, very clear you have a personal issue here and frankly I’d be tickled pink if you’d just ignore every post I make. That’s an idiom btw, I wouldn’t literally be tickled into a pink color.

I had an idea how you made your calculations years ago, on the spreadsheet you kept trying to show me. My argument is the same argument as then, it’s entirely dependant on encounter mechanics. A D/F won’t have the same DPS as staff on COF path 1 where you rescue the captive and have to kill the acolytes and has to waste time running back in. The calculations only make sense if the encounter supports it.

I’m just pointing out sometimes you use words incorrectly. I’m sorry you feel this is pathetic. I understand it must be pretty frustrating to try to convey ideas that don’t make sense because you aren’t using the right words. I’m trying to be sympathetic to your problem.

Yet, in my reply to Thaddeus, when did I ever specify that stipulation? I stated saying the Elementalist wasn’t made to sustain hits was false. I never said in the context of armor and hit points but rather the entire class. You immediately launched into a view of what you say. Furthermore, for someone who prides themselves on objectivity you seem to ignore the principle of objectivity. All sides must be considered. I hope you understand this example, but your argument was like saying when you only consider your legs and feet Humans are pretty bad at picking up objects. Why would you make such an oddly specific argument while ignoring the obvious picking up capability of arms and hands? Your argument is a narrow view of only the facts that support your viewpoint rather than the entire view of all the facts.

You say you’ve proven me wrong, but the only time I ever remember you actually proving me wrong was when I was mistaken about diminishing returns on stats a few years ago. I mean I’m sure you’re convinced you’ve proved me wrong multiple times but often times you simply change topics or cherry pick another quote and move the conversion in another direction. In fact there are still numerous questions and points brought up in the original discussion here that went unanswered. Saying things like you could answer them but don’t feel like it, I just assume you can’t answer them and are using that as an excuse

Actually people like Neko understand there are multiple ways to play and that people have different goals and priorities. There’s actually very small group of people who are concerned with the advice others give.

Using stickies is a poor metric. Some forums have no stickies despite there being very common ways to play their characters (Warrior, Engie, Thief, Ranger, etc). Other classes have multiple guides and posts stickied up top (Mesmer, Guardian). I know because your post is stickied you again take it as a feather in your cap but when you objectively compare it to all the other examples you can clearly see it seems rather arbitrary whether a post does or does not get stickied in a forum when a majority of classes have nothing at all.

Often times you say “such and such” build is inefficient or not optimal. The problem is again you leave out the context in which they are inefficient or not optimal because you leave out the goal in which the terms they’re being used in. One of two scenarios exist. One, you think the builds are not efficient or optimal at completing content the fastest (which your goal there being is doing content the fastest). Two, you think the builds are not efficient/optimal in the game period which is wrong because if it’s my goal to lazymode my way through the game giving me a Berserker build will cause me to die and I won’t get anything done which is horrendously inefficient and not optimal. You know, the same points I’ve been saying repeatedly over and over again that you commented on me saying over and over yet you are incapable of answering

While I know you’d love to just focus on the “toxic” part I was actually referring to not only the low tact you say he has but more importantly hating mediocrity. Hating mediocrity implies a certain level of feeling there are some people who are lesser than yourself (they are medicore). That’s pretty much the definition of elitism. Language barrier again, I guess.

Went to the thread: Didn’t see a single thing you linked. I did read how the OP was happy to get a response and enjoyed the response despite all the arguing going on so there’s that Maybe it was in your posts that were deleted in moderation

Actually you couldn’t prove a thing except in Spreadsheet form which is still useless because it’s unrealistic to encounter mechanics. It wasn’t until damage meters came out that you could really prove anything you were saying. Talking about a concept (min-maxing) doesn’t mean you accept that as a way to play. This again is why you are always confused because you read what I write but clearly don’t understand the meaning behind it. Language barriers I really wish there were Euro forums

Most of your points weren’t critiques of the build but rather how I was playing when showing off the survivability of the build and doing things like running into damage to show that it had enough toughness/health to survive WvW Spike. In turn you complained about things like auto attacking doors when there were 3 superior rams on a reinforced door as if any kind of auto attack really matters at that stage (and even then it was just until FGS came up to use FGS #4 back when that worked). Again, there’s that personal bias unable to stay objective about a topic and only dish out criticism.

Eight times I answered the question and eight times you ignored the answer. I can lead a horse to water, I can’t make it drink. It’s not my fault you made such a poor argument that the Elementalist wasn’t made to sustain hits. Maybe you shouldn’t use such generic language using words like “made” because they are pretty open to interpretation whether or not you consider traits, utilities and skills part of how the character was made. Again, probably another language barrier issue where you meant something else but just weren’t able to convey it properly.

A rant? Were my two sentences a rant? Again with that language barrier.

Honestly man it is pretty obvious regardless of what nationality you are there are problems with communication. I’d prefer to leave a simple sarcastic or hyperbolic statement in a few lines (or as you call it a “rant”) but past discussions has proven this is problematic and you seem to take this stuff pretty literally. Only way I can be sure I’m being clear is giving long, detailed posts clearly stating my points. Unfortunately I think this has a side effect you only skim my posts, find a sentence you disagree with, quote it and then take it as an entire summary of my viewpoint. I wish it were some lame excuse, but then I remember you seriously thought I was advocating people should run around waving their arms pretending to do things and it’s pretty clear it’s not.

Yet other theorycrafters also don’t argue against other builds and simply let their builds and arguments stand on their own. You don’t see Neko swooping in and bashing non-meta builds. This is because he’s confident in his build advice and that the person will make up their own mind what will work the best for them.

You really seem to take the Dulfy thing as a feather in you cap and good for you! However, objectively, still doesn’t make you any more qualified to talk about “community” or “majority” in any sense of what those terms actually define and mean. You can make an assumption that you’re speaking for these things but without hard data to back up your claims it’s still all just an assumption.

The problem with your “objective” criticism is that it’s not objective. At all. Objective is just another generic term like “efficient” or “optimal” you use often and many times incorrectly. Objective viewpoint would look at not only the downsides to a build but also the merits and advantages to a build. Yet your criticism is lacking the other side of the coin and never includes the advantages to those builds. This is because you’re mostly biased towards a Berserker viewpoint and can only put your criticism in context of a Berserker build and how you view it’ll be more “efficient” or “optimal.”

This is a direct quote from you regarding your leader:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

But the best was yet to come: I was soon contacted by Haviz, co-leader of rT, and he told me that he likes the way I am thinking and that I should join his fotm80 team. For those of you who don’t know Haviz is nicknamed the Dark Lord because he is incredibly skilled, he is probably the most “toxic” player out there, and he hates mediocrity

“Toxic,” “hates mediocrity” or “elitist”…kinda all the same thing ain’kitten

You provided no alternatives in that thread on my build only personal attacks that got repeatedly removed until a Mod told you that need to find alternative ways to provide criticisms that didn’t involve personally attacking me until they had to lock the thread because you were unable to control yourself. So no, you didn’t provide any alternatives at all despite what you imagine happened.

I’m not the one finding new threads and posting replies to you bud. You can try to shift blame to me, but you’re the one initiating the discussion. I’m more than content to be corrected when someone shows me a good correction. In fact I was having a great conversation the other day with some people on my server about builds and they showed me an even better way to play a lazy build that I now use and am regearing for with even more offense and more defense. They could actually prove that and provide an actual working alternative. By comparison you seem to have nothing but generic terms used incorrectly with imagined level of significance that just doesn’t sway me in the slightest and so the discussion rages on!

spoj.9672:

Sounds like a grudge because you didnt like the reality of his critism. If there arent any reasonable alternatives to give thats not the critics fault.

It’s actually a reverse scenario and it’s pretty ironic because the hypocrisy in many of his replies knows no bounds.

See back in the day I made Zelyhn mad because I said there was no way he could prove one class or one build was doing more DPS than another. This was back before there were DPS meter addons and all people had was spreadsheets which are largely inferior because they don’t account for total time you’re actually able to do DPS (such as due to encounter and/or build mechanics). That culminated in my hyperbolic statement that I could “wave my arms around and look busy” and no one could prove I was more or less DPS something still to this day he seems to think is legitimate “advice” for other people.

Ever since Zelyhn has been, unfortunately, rather pugnacious when it comes to my posts. When I posted an initial stab at a Condi build I made a year or so back he tried to pick it apart nit picking every tiny detail yet provided no alternatives (a thread that got locked cause his posts got reported so many times). There was no reason for him to reply in this thread to an off the cuff remark and here we are. In another thread he “called me out” then ignored my answer 8 times as if suddenly that would change it. The list in between goes on.

Why is he choosing to do this? I don’t know. He is in your guild, maybe he can answer you why he’s won’t let his grudge go. Maybe it’s because, as he said, he doesn’t want things to get boring around here and just wants to troll me to get an argument going on? I can really only guess at this point and keep responding with my own points that seem to largely go over his head (or he simply has no response).

Such a shame too. This could be such a great forum full of great discussion going on.

You’re welcome! Happy to dole out and dish out walls of text as much as you desire and crave. Here’s another for ya!

It is actually quite possible to make such an argument but I think the real issue is not that it’s impossible to create an argument of why to use your build on the merits of the build itself. I think the issue is that the reasons to use the build are not strong enough when compared to any other viewpoint and thus the only recourse is to belittle, bash or downplay other builds in an effort to keep itself known as “the best.” This also comes back to the different viewpoints where you feel people are converts and that by giving people advice you’re “converting” them to a viewpoint where as I merely want to give the best possible advice for that individual.

Talking in vague terms like “majority” and “community” and other such terms is dangerous because you have nothing to back them up. For all you know the actual majority of people who mainly play their Elementalist couldn’t care anything of the sort. In fact a general glance at the North American LFG lists shows Berserker groups are typically in the minority over all to just regular, non-specified groups. However this can also vary by region and could be more common on the Euro servers which means community for one doesn’t reflect the community for others.

So really it’s you’re the one who doesn’t want to discuss things and you want to shut down discussion on other play styles and topics by swooping in and letting everyone know if they aren’t playing your way they are playing the wrong way? Is this what you’re saying? Not a few posts above you seemed to imply shutting down discussion was a bad thing but you seem to want to do this why is that?

I actually don’t view you as a good or bad or neutral or anything kind of guy. I don’t really know who you are or what you’re about. If anything I assume you’re trying to come from a good place where you think you are doing what you perceive is the community a service. You’ve charged yourself with the righteous task of defending the people and making sure they know the right way to play the Elementalist and protect them from advice you feel isn’t good or right. You do this because you want to be helpful and make sure people always have access to the information you feel is the right information. Unfortunately I think you stumble a bit in your crusade and misunderstand a few things which cause you to not really get what people like me are saying or make you act overzealous when approaching a topic. This is likely a result of the gaming environment you’re in where you admitted yourself your current guild leader is a bit of an elitist when it comes to things and there’s really only black and white (or “good” and “bad”) rather than the various shades of grey in between which makes these misunderstandings go even further.

The problem with your critique of my Condition build was that you provided no alternatives for the same play style. This is generally true of most of your criticisms where you simply throw out generic terms like “optimal” “inefficient” etc without providing alternatives. For example criticism for a more casual Elementalist build. I don’t see your, or anyone else’s stab at it, but rather you simply say it’s a bad implementation of the idea. Since you, as you admit, have no interest or desire to play these kinds of play styles you don’t take the time to come up with a working, testing and viable version of these builds but rather simply state people should play another way instead because it’s “optimal” or “efficient.”

As I’ve said and will keep saying…the posts are entirely on you. I’m content to leave you be. If you aren’t content to leave me be then we’ll be having this same discussion for days, weeks, and years to come

Unfortunately the language barrier prevents me from using idioms, sarcasm, hyperbole and other methods of keeping things short because they are taken literally.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

If I was to correct everything he misinterprets then I would have to give birth to yet an other wall of text, but I really don’t see the point since he makes no new points.

Well, you say that, but I don’t really believe you can. Typically what you do when you don’t seem to either understand what I’m saying or don’t have an answer is drive the discussion in another direction. When all that fails you start to try to dig up past posts taken out of context or are completely dated and launch into ad hominem attacks.

Once again, efficiency is measured entirely by what your goal is. If it’s my goal to pay half attention while watching Netflix and easymode my way through game content then a defensive build/gear is going to be the most efficient route towards that goal. A Berserker build/gear would leave me dead a lot in that situation which is incredibly inefficient as things gets.

Since you seem to have trouble understanding a very simple concept (that language barrier) I will try to simplify it further. When someone asks a question, don’t respond to the other answers but rather only respond to the question being asked. Make your advice entirely exclusive to what other people are writing and give your own advice with your own arguments and explain why your route is the best route without comparing it to anything else. Think of it as you saying, “Berserker is so great because…yadayadayada” and not “Berserker is so great because <insert other advice> is so bad and awful!”

Now there’s nothing that’s going to stop you from doing that, unfortunately, but that’s how you end this. You end this. This is entirely on you. I don’t seek out your posts. I don’t critique the advice you give. For all intents and purposes if you just wouldn’t bash on what I have to say you’d probably never argue with me ever again. I know that might seem a bit “boring” but entirely up to you if you want to give up your crusade to censor anything you deem and judge bad or unhelpful.

Actually there’s plenty to discuss on all fronts but only once you accept there’s more than one route. The optimal DPS route is done and over with and has been for quite some time. Staff = S/F+LH (depending on War/group) > D/F etc. What is really left to discuss there that isn’t rehashing each other’s words over and over? But what about the most optimal lazy route? What hybrid build mixing defenses but also still capable of good offense can you come up with? Lazy people love being told what works best for their lazy game play. They don’t want to do math or spend hours tweaking gear in gw2skills to find the perfect mix of armor/hp/power/crit/crit dmg. You once critiqued my Condition build not as a bad idea but a bad implementation of that idea, what is the good implementation of that idea?

Rather than argue the same points over and over (you aren’t exactly Nelson Mandela with your arguments either) we accept people have different goals within the game and discuss various ways to help all of them?

Da Beetus.1275:

So, basically you are saying the only groups that will notice an under-performing player are the ones that have skilled players in them. I mean, a player that is capable of running zerker gear and an offensive (direct damage) spec with the awareness to detect another player’s performance is always welcome in my group.

I know I am paraphrasing here, but this seems like exactly the kind of group that I would love to join; one with skilled players.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say that those groups are the only groups that have skilled players but rather they’re the only ones with a vested interest in actually making sure their group goes at a good pace and completes the content quickly. A normal PUG group could have skilled players in it but have no interest or care if players are under performing or not if the content gets done.

Regardless, there’s groups for that kind of play so you should be set!

Also, I love this game. I always come back to it in between other distractions. I don’t always like these forums because there’s too many people who don’t want things to be “boring” and want to argue all the time and sometimes I take a break from them.

This argument will never end because you and others always want to misrepresent the scenario at hand. As mentioned before, throwing around words like “optimal” and “efficient” simply are too generic and only half the story. There’s also zero reason to run around judging or commenting on other people’s builds unless they ask for it. You do this, as you’ve admitted, out of some misguided sense of duty but the truth of the matter is you don’t have to at all. You could just as easily make your point by making your own post and saying that the build you talk about is the most “optimally” “efficient” at clearing content the fastest and if they are looking for that they should use your build.

You know, actually let them decide rather than decide for them what is and isn’t good by what you think? If not well see you next thread!