Guild Wars 2

looks good, but I like air/earth/water aura build more I think we’ll see how they work later

it doesn’t sound bad, but it would destroy the point of conjured elemental weapons, because they wouldn’t be elemental anymore if you change their skin… they are spells, so their look should stay as it is imo…

interesting ideas, fire aura definitely needs some defensive part… but I would give that defensive part into the fire trait line, we don’t want to give all eles more cleanses, we need to reduce the dependency on water line…

so how about this?

fire aura apply burn (2 sec to compensate ICD) to attacker and might (2 stacks) to you everytime you are hit (1sec ICD per attacker)

add an effect to One with fire trait, so fire aura now cleanse 1 condition everytime you are hit (1 sec ICD)

I don’t think precision is a problem, yes it scales a bit too much, but all procs are chance on crit, making it a double RNG… reducing crit chance would make these useless and I don’t mean just fire/air sigils, there are many other procs in game… I would be for crit reduction if all on crit procs would become chance on hit or 100% on crit

also ferocity isn’t such a big problem, as said, power builds have to invest to 3 stats to work, on the other hand, condition build needs mainly just condition dmg and maybe condition duration… that gives them a chance to be much more tanky compared to power builds…

but still, I would be for crit for condition, but it would require damage balancing… on the other hand, it would open more builds for condition specs and crit would also work well with procs for condi builds, it would also force them to choose between tanky condition dmg or more glassy condition dmg…

Knighthonor.4061:

is today the day of the reveal?

probably tomorrow according to the last week timing… Monday image, Thursday blog post

Gimli.9461:

Ranatoa.4869:

Show me an mmo that doesn’t use RNG then we’ll talk

The point is that there must be a non-RNG way to get end game stuff, and we all know if there’s also an RNG way to get those, ppl get kittened because their efforts look wasted when they see people who randomly got the item.

what end game stuff is dependent purely on RNG? serious question… I don’t remember anything except for some skins, where not all of them are RNG and those which are can be bought in auction most likely, so there is another way to get them… what else are you talking about?

PS: legendary weapons are getting fixed in HOT, so I don’t count that

+1

this skill deserves ground targeting

Duke Blackrose.4981:

The only exception really is the Engineer, which is so limited by its low base weapon pool that a new OH only accounts for one new set while a new MH only adds two.

So for every non-Engineer profession, MH/OH weapons give more mileage. Yes, they don’t have five new skills, but the potential for new builds increases more than with a two-handed weapon.

but engineers get 2 new skills instead of 1 for each new heal or utility skill that somehow compensate the weapon problem I think

btw do you think that engineers will get elite toolbelt slot for F5? ^^

to be honest, saying that something is coming based on this is a nonsense, not a matter of time… even if the skins could work on land, it’s still a lot of work to transfer them to land weapons… so until some official information I wouldn’t count with that…

Mem no Fushia.7604:

Will be next spec in the same way: core + change or next spec will be like: previous spec + change.

with next expansion, we will get just another elite specialization and the system will stay the same, so you will be able to choose one elite spec + 2 core specs or just 3 core specs… the only difference will be more elite specs to choose…

Knighthonor.4061:

they likely wont do this for the fact that water weapons are coming to land post HoT.

interesting, where did you hear that?

Guardians PvP title is already called Champion Paragon, so why couldn’t his elite spec be called Paragon even without spears?

Knighthonor.4061:

Tupi.2967:

Why are people assuming Tempest is ELementalist + Thief? I wonder the range of Sword for Tempest

because the skills leaked and Ele’s elite Spec is melee oriented.

source? I remember someone said that datamined sword had temporarily assigned dagger skills… do you have any other source of sword skills?

I’m thinking about something like this

Auramancer DD Ele

http://dulfy.net/2015/05/02/gw2-specialization-calculator-that_shaman/#profession=elementalist&traits=%22Air%20Magic%22,1,6,9-%22Earth%20Magic%22,3,5,7-%22Water%20Magic%22,1,4,8

it would be quite interesting to see how two opposite mechanics compete for a meta…

attunement dancing with arcane traits and other traits which benefit from it
versus
charging of power for F5 skill by staying in one attunement

it would be even more fun if this F5 skill had no cooldown, it would be just a zero base effect, so without charging it would be useless people would need to find a balance of how long to stay in an element to unleash a solid F5 effect but not too long so they don’t suffer from it…

at least this way it wouldn’t be a must have choice like mesmer elite spec is… I still kind of believe what they say about horizontal progression, but I already have some doubts that elite specs will be mandatory and almost pure upgrade and not a choice in fact…

BlackTruth.6813:

The thing about power builds right now is.. its just so much RNG now. At least the Quickness Meta required you to HIT your important things, but now its a matter of proc’ing fire/air. It’s literally hearthstone 2.0, specially on match ups much like Guardian vs. Guardian for example.

not really, sigil proc is 50% on crit, crit is usually over 50% in those builds, that’s 25%+ on hit… and those builds also tend to use some very fast attacks like ele scepter air autoattack or ranger rapid fire etc… so it’s usually more than 1 attack per second… so the average time to proc can be something around 2 sec max? usually less… it doesn’t seems too RNG, it’s guaranteed hit after 0-2 sec

but I agree, two sigils with the same type are a bit OP, this air+fire combo is so strong…

air ele can inflinct some weakness with lightning rod (4 sec when disabling enemy), with new traits, you can pick this together with tempest defense (shocking aura when disabled, it stuns when enemy hit you), plus when you play DD you have another shocking aura on main hand dagger and stun in earth and launch in air on offhand dagger, could also work with DF or maybe even staff, I’m planning to run this build when we get new traits, so we’ll see how it works

judging by the first example, I would say it’s a direct buff, mesmer haven’t lost anything except for one trait line which is a must choice if they want elite spec, there is no other cons (if you consider this even a cons)… but as said, mesmer isn’t in a very good spot now, so it can be the reason it’s a pretty sure choice… lets wait for guardian spec, he is pretty good right now, so the spec should look much more balanced compared to the current state, if not, we have the pattern

Clerical.3457:

https://twitter.com/GuildWars2/status/595256909587951616

Its gonna be Guard week

pretty obvious it will be guardian this week, just as the mesmer who came after his image on the social networks

no, those kits are just cosmetics, if you really want them, farm gold and buy them… no reason to give things like this in the pvp reward tracks, you can already make gold there…

if anything, I would rather like to see more unique armors like glorius for pvp reward tracks, but anyway in the end it’s just a matter of farm, nothing to do with skill…

style.6173:

bhagwad.4281:

Right now – good or bad – everyone wins ~50% of their matches (by definition) due to MMR matchups.

Not true for two reasons:

1. Premades have a good chance to beat pug teams. There are plenty of people out there with winning percentages which means there are plenty of people out there with losing records
2. People with high MMRs typically have gotten so much loot, it isn’t really a motivating factor for them anymore.

I don’t agree with both of your reasons, sorry…

main goal of matchmaking is everyone having 50% win ratio, that means they are in the spot they should be… so in the end everyone get the same reward no matter of skill…

1) premades are just exceptions and only valid when good premade with TS is against pug… maybe…

2) arguing with enough loot, well, why give loot to people in PvE? they already farmed enough, let’s remove loot from HOT… heh… there is a reason why people wanted better rewards for PvP and there is the same reason why high ranked players should be rewarded more… we already tried the “play PvP just for fun” and it didn’t work… now some play for reward, but it doesn’t motivate them to get better, it’s easier to lose enough games to drop down to low mmr and farm there without stress and with 50% win ratio to stay there… people who want to get better and work for it deserves better reward…

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I can’t imagine it will be more than $15-$20. The size of this “expansion” is in line with those launched for SWTOR, which have been $15-20. This expansion is no where near the size of a WoW expansion which retails for $30-50. I don’t think anyone would buy it if they released it for $50.

also WoW expansions include 1 month subscription if I remember right…

I hope not, ele is already quite spammy class and overwhelming for newbies, so I don’t want another F skill, I would rather see some change than addition… some alteratation than a must have choice…

let’s be honest, the only hope for a good elite skill which fits elementalists playstyle is Tempests new elite current elites are not worth elite slot and we all would rather pick 4. utility instead of any of our elites… that’s just sad

I think that staff + tempest defense + lightning rod + soothing ice could work quite well as a control build when new trait changes arrives, it doesn’t really need to be focused on auras, just those two defensive/control aura traits

Chris.5720:

While I do agree that 6 1/2 seconds of protection every 20 seconds may be a bit much, keep in mind that the protection is the only defensive mechansim an ele actually has.

6 1/5 sec every 20 sec? who seriously stay in one attunement for 10 sec? you know, we have 4, so in fact it can be up to 6 1/5 every 10 sec (without additional boon duration from other sources), after the trait revamp, attunement cooldown will be just 8.7 sec with arcane spec, indirectly buffing EAtt, but we don’t know what will happen with boon duration stat from arcane trait line, so maybe it will be 1 for 1, I don’t know…

also ele have more defenses than just EAtt (sadly almost all of them in water/arcane right now) and he will have even more defenses with trait revamp, thanks god even in other lines, so I don’t think arcane will be mandatory anymore

I think they could add this even for normal classes without elite specializations…

but I would prefer standard emotes at first, anytime I want to use some, it’s not in game… you know, sometimes you want just /hi someone, or /applaud or /congratulate to a drop, but emotes in this game are very limited or not intuitive…

meeflak.9714:

So we all agree its pick any of the three trait lines out of five, and 6 deep in all three. But my main question stands, us selecting three required, or are we still able to use the 5 trait line set up

I don’t know what you mean with 5 trait lines setup, but you wont be able to spread your traits across more lines, you will just pick 3 lines to spec and then choose the traits from them…

also it’s not 3 of 5, when the HOT arrives it will be 3 of 6 with future additions of more but to be exact, it will most likely be 3/5 or 2/5+1/X, because if you choose elite spec, you will probably be able to choose only one elite spec…

how about elemental in small scale fights? or fiery greatsword for enhanced mobility or as a long range weapon for D/D roamers? but other than this, all game modes suffer the same problem with elites

what does this have to do with matchmaking? it can’t solve the problem with some people being stupid and careless… the fact that someone don’t care about rank doesn’t mean he is low ranked…

isn’t phantasmal berserker the strongest skill of power based (usually zerker) mesmers? if this one shouldn’t one shot a turret, I’m not sure what would you like… how about builds which aren’t zerker? they should be killing a turret for 10 seconds? and how about other turrets? and the main target, engineer? even if turret die in 5 seconds, it’s 5 seconds when your enemy don’t attack you, that’s good imo, I would like my lesser elemental to be enough of a threat to be targeted before me and still survive for 5 seconds…

maybe they could increase range of some turret or something like that, but making them unkillable for lower damage builds and also able to kill a glassy player without an engineer even around is just stupid…

so you must choose, dead turrets or strategically positioned turrets with less pressure but alive… you were just abusing their survivability, I think turrets were never meant to be in the middle of the battle but on strategic spots out of combat field… but that’s just my opinion…

just a question…

aren’t turrets supposed to be on different places? and also out of fighting spot? so if all turrets will be on different place outside of point for example, enemies wont be able to nuke them down all at once (except for maybe ele meteor shower and other huge aoes), they will have to kill one by one or attack engi, that is how it should be or? it should require tactic and positioning…

but until now engineers were quite used to almost indestructible turrets even when they were in the middle of the fight, so I’m not surprised… I remember every turret engi staying in the middle of the point and all turrets just around him in a radius of small aoe skill…

oh god this **** again?

1) no HOT = no elite spec, it’s paid content (paid means NOT FOR GEMS), only difference is that AFTER YOU BUY HOT, you will have it unlocked directly in SPVP, but you will have to earn it in WvW and PvE
2) elite spec are not better than core spec, they are just another choice, they are elite because they are more than just a trait line, not because they are mandatory (but balance itself is a different story, at least at the beginning)

just accept it finally, it’s a fact, nothing to discuss about…

PistolWhip.2697:

WoW needs more Gemstore Hoodies. They are making a critical mistake by not adding such.

exactly man, you are completely right, if they would scrap the monthly subscription and added more Gemstore Hoodies, I would definitely play WoW much more

in theory, yes… but with a 0 base healing and such a small percentage converted to ferocity, you will get a very small amount of ferocity, not worth a trait imo… look at posts above, someone already calculated it

Gaaroth.2567:

If with the new system zerker amulet will be too squishy then….don’t wear it? on the other side said amulet will be stronger, so, your choice

that’s what I don’t like about it… it’s creating too big gaps between different specs because of predefined stats on amulets without many choices… I just hope it will be possible to compensate with traits, so I don’t need toughness when I have some cool defensive trait for example…

and now imagine how bad it looks from the SPvP perspective where you have only 1 item with stats, runes and sigils when I remove the stats from traits… I’m afraid of this, I don’t want to wear just a glass amulet without at least some toughness…

and that’s the point, two very strong core traits are always picked and almost forcing everyone to go arcane… that’s the reason why they moved it to GM, they want you to choose or pick another line if you think it’s not worth it anymore…

crying that it’s so important and strong just proves they did it right and the trait belongs to the GM tier…

looks interesting

you know what is funny? the irony that everyone uses elemental attunement because it’s such an important, awesome and strong trait, but everyone is so surprised when it gets moved to grandmaster… isn’t it where core strong traits belong? I remember it started as an adept trait and everyone was freaking out when they moved it up… it’s really kind of funny

it can be focused on new skills, on changed class mechanic or just on overall class things just like other trait lines… but as already said, if you don’t want to use it, you don’t have a reason to pick new line

Kushh.4895:

They said in the stream that they are going to change it from weapon skills to any aura you get (i.e combo finishers ect)

this would be awesome, so much power from support… but the radius increase would be great too

-1 for just one simple reason…

even SPvP with its 5v5 have queue time problems (sometimes even 5+ minutes), if someone really think that similar system with a 20v20 deathmatch could work, he is a dreamer…

but I wouldn’t be against an option to set the custom arena in SPvP to 20v20 so those people can do in-house battles in a private environment

tl/dr

but is it really such a big deal to lose those two points in chaos and gain 2 points in other 3 lines instead of it? I think it’s a good tradeoff

well, considering almost none is running offhand dagger now, it really should get some buff and the RTL seems like a good option

am I the only one who see even improvements and not just nerfs?

tempest defense on master is quite cool for scepter builds, gale combo is deadly with that trait, also shock aura is very good anti-nuke for all eles

third minor in earth is awesome as hell now, -20% dmg from enemies in 600 range? yes please! that’s -53% dmg with prot from elemental shielding (also tempest defense say hi!), also when we have 3 grandmaster traits, I think we could use even stone heart or diamond skin, because why not? earth eles will be quite durable

and water? soothing ice anyone? that regen + frost aura is quite awesome, another -10% dmg and chill the attacker, together with other traits it’s already how much? -63% dmg? quite a good defense against nuke

and blasting staff as default behavior is 1 free trait for all staff eles, more than just an average buff

arcane line just wont be mandatory anymore, will it still be worth investing? maybe, but there will be good options in another lines now…

I know I’m maybe overreacting, but people who say ele will be useless are overreacting too, in theory there are many good options and we should wait until we try them before we judge them…

I think air / earth / water could create cool aura build with a lot of boons… especially with new soothing ice trait… but it also depends what they did with air traits, it wouldn’t be so cool if you couldn’t pick tempest defense and zephyrs boon at the same time

Nike.2631:

So, the use of hexagons vs. squares is interesting.

Looks like the hexagons are (fixed) minor traits and the squares are the (selectable) major traits.

What’s super interesting is there are more than 3 squares between each hexagon. Might mean there are more than 3 choices despite the other image we’ve seeon OR it may be passive bonuses unlocked along the way – particularly as there are FIVE squares after the last hexagon…

Edit: nope looked at it more closely – 3 traits and a 4th box that looks like unique weapons skin, armor skin and I dunno what the two extra boxes are in the grand master tier.

if you have read the blog posts properly, they said they removed some traits and added them to the skill type unlock part, so when you unlock it with hero points, the functionality will become a default without a need for spending a trait on it… as an example, Necromancers wells will be ground targeted all the time when you unlock it

phys.7689:

MaXi.3642:

better smaller variation than imaginary variation… when you have 13 traits from which 5 is useless, 3 is good, but don’t fit any build and the rest is taken with very small differences, it’s not a real variation… I will rather have less but more impactful choices which are all useful for someone, just in different ways

removing options does not give you more impactful options, thats the big illogical jump people keep making.

say you have 10 dates to choose from
5 of them cancel

are the 5 left somehow better than before?

to fix your example, you need to add a fact that you want to find a date for a business meeting and those 5 days you cancel are weekend days… then yes, the remaining days are better, because you don’t want to work at weekend, you could, but why would you do that when there are better options?

mrstealth.6701:

MaXi.3642:

better smaller variation than imaginary variation… when you have 13 traits from which 5 is useless, 3 is good, but don’t fit any build and the rest is taken with very small differences, it’s not a real variation… I will rather have less but more impactful choices which are all useful for someone, just in different ways

I think a lot of players are quick to dismiss things as useless because they don’t fit their build choices or the current meta. Sure, there are traits that don’t have as much impact compared to others, or have limited usefulness. But that doesn’t mean those traits have no use, or that the trait with more impact has a use in the current build.

The way to improve the game, and build variety, is to adjust or rework the less used or more niche traits to be more generally useful. Removing the less often used traits is just a cheap and lazy solution.

yes we could just improve bad traits, but with limited skill slots and weapons you don’t have so many choices for trait ideas unless you want to make a trait for every single skill separately, which would be bad idea… and when you merge some traits, their numbers are getting thin, you consider some traits as necessary and you implement them as a default functionality, the number of remaining traits is even smaller now… and then what?

I have also said that it’s better to have smaller variation than imaginary variation, not that it is better to have smaller variation than bigger variation… you should read properly… because what we have now is just an imaginary variation, just look at used builds for some classes, I don’t know them all, but ele definitely don’t have many useful builds even when I consider non-meta builds…