Guild Wars 2

I prefer elites to be stronger than utility skills, and many of them (not all!) aren’t. I personally liked the way gw1 did elites as well. Rather than being a “run away from him for x seconds” type skills, they either had cooldowns similar to other skills, so they’d either be used often or have an effect that could be kept up the majority of the time. This meant elites were much more significant to your play style/build and had an active presence, instead of only mattering for a few seconds.

As for the fiery greatsword mentioned earlier. It’s not really much of a damage buff if you’re already playing d/d, it just locks you on less skills so it’s not that great imo. I guess it could be ok as a way to switch to damage using staff in exchange for dropping your support abilities for a period. Imo, the best part about it is just giving it to someone else :p

edit: In the end though, I think the most basic way of deciding if an elite is good enough is asking yourself “Would you rather have another utility slot?”, if yes, then that elite probably needs tweaking.

When you reduce damage for faster cast time you also have to consider the aftercast delays, so it may not be as much of a buff as intended.

Not having to visit the trainer to respec and having build templates again would both be nice.
and if you use the adept manual to respec, aren’t you stuck at adept level traits?

Well if engis are added to the OP list, then half the classes are OP, so it’s kind of okay? XD
At this rate, all the classes will be up there, so, it’s getting better.
And boon hate would apply all eles, not just certain builds, so weakness to boon hate can go very wrong imo.

How does the name Gasmask violate terms of service? o.O

I think an aoe limit is reasonable and a positive element, but it’d nice to see different limits on different skills to add more variety. Like you’d think something with 360 radius would have a higher cap than something with a 120 radius.

Removing the cap could devastate zergs. One or two glas eles and you wipe out all players in a 360 radius. (Though I guess it would teach people to spread out?), which would be devastating because of choke points like doors. While that could make things more interesting/fun in some instances 3 people should be able to destroy 50+ in an instant with a surprise attack.

Healix.5819:

You can also invite people to a guild when they’re offline, allowing you to see other information such as what server they’re on. (the friends list only shows what zone they’re in)

Honestly, I think this is ok. The online/offline thing is the same as the friends list (and can be fixed the same way), and just knowing what server someone is on won’t really let them do much, but is very useful for the guild because of the system this game uses.

So like others said above, log in offline and only confirmed/mutual friends being able to see your info should go a long way for easier first steps.

TGSlasher.1458:

How to use churning earth effectively.

Step 1
Arcane 30: XII elemental Surge

Step 2
Take arcane bolt or wave and lightning flash

Step 3
Start casting churning earth, then teleport at you foe and use your instant bolt or wave to imob them before they can dodge it.

Step 4
Profit.

You could also use earthquake and pop arcane wave just before they get back up, although this needs some condition duration as well.

I personally miss how over half the story line in gw1 has max level content. Rather than better equipment, I wouldn’t mind cosmetic upgrades and more zones intended for max level.
oh, and I guess we could always bring back the pve title progressions like in gw1.

0 10 10 30 20
More protection for allies when using aura share

This strongly depends on your other water traits.

P.S. I normally use soothing disruption + cantrip mastery + cleansing water
or cleansing wave + cantrip mastery + powerful aura

So… anyone find a stealth change yet? XD

Change the WvW character limit and WvW character quality to reduce your lag a bit.

gimmethegepgun.1284:

If it was 8v1 the GW1 players MIGHT stand a chance, but they still probably wouldn’t put out enough damage to be able to overcome the GW2 player’s heal.

The heal could be interrupted pretty easily. It’s just passive healing that isn’t regeneration boon that would be a problem.

well if conditions=degen, then that bleeding would just be reapplied instead of stacking. Anyway, since gw2 characters have such bigger numbers, the only way for the gw1 character to win would be using protective spirit. And since boons= enchant, any necro enchant removal will own said gw1 character.

I personally don’t like celestial gear because vitality is so important to eles due to our low hp pool, so I feel like a significant amount of it is needed. The major power from soldier’s gear also gives similar damage output, so I ended up going the more defensive route with decent damage, like many other people do. If I need more damage, I just mix in berserker’s gear in instead.

For elites as a whole
Tornado should suck in, not out. Cantrip.
Fiery Greatsword needs a small defensive buff for the ele. Maybe add toughness/vitality to the attribute bonuses as well?
Allow special abilities of elementals listed in the glyph description to be used on demand like minion skills. (May be too strong for pvp, but seems reasonable for pve)
-Fire’s aoe fields
-Water’s aoe heal
-earth’s aoe protection
-Air’s stun
and/or possibly increase the survivability of air/fire elemental slightly.

Or allow a utility to be used in that elite slot as mentioned above.

I like the idea of progress just carrying over to the next day if you miss the deadline. Sure, you still miss out on a day’s rewards, but at least what you did still counts towards something.

Geikamir.6329:

Or would you just kind of flail around helplessly when on land?

Karp! Karp! Magikarp!
I think that’d be a great idea.

Depends on whose condition system you use. If you gw2’s, then the gw2 character would would it with bleed stacks. If you go gw1 or each it’s respective on self, then it’ll probably just never end if the gw2 character has some sort of passive healing. And of course if enchantments=boons, then a necro would wipe them easily

How about giving outmanned a buff that scales with population difference bewteen you and the biggest server?
Ex. 100 v 50 v 25
Server 1 gets no bonuses
Server 2 gets some bonuses like 5% stat increase
Server 3 gets even more bonuses like 10~20% stat increase
Of course the numbers themselves need more thought, but it’s the concept I’m putting forth. I’m sure plenty of people have suggested it by now.

The buff would have to be reapplied periodically though, instead of just happening on respawn/map entry as it does now.

The buff would also have to be kept on the smaller side so that additional players would always be significantly more useful than the buff.
So maybe just reintroduce the orbs as a buff to outmanned server/.

Behellagh.1468:

Obligatory xkcd comic.

For the record, you definitely would not use this method alone, since it would fall quickly to a dictionary based method. You still have to mix it with some other methods like substituting letters and random punctuation. Just throwing that out there.

The way I see it, trinity in the traditional mmo sense is like specific roles where you put all into one category. But in guild wars 2, all builds need at least 2 to be good, and most builds use a decent mixture of all 3. So yes, you describe 3 big aspects to combat, but you don’t have each member of a party handing one and only one role. Instead they have to be flexible and handle all of them to an extent, except for bunkers, which forgo all damage, but that only works in control point pvp.

As for personal preference in viewing this, I consider control it’s own category and utility under support, or maybe just 4 categories (but then it wouldn’t be a beloved trinity :p)

Eh, I’d just prefer is they didn’t have those area specific ones, but other than that it doesn’t seem bad.

Eh, that’s basically just an aoe knockback every 240 sec. That’s still pretty weak and low impact imo. Still weak damage/offensive abilty, just some defensive abilities for a short period on an large cooldown.

I’d say just make it suck in instead of out. Then tweek from there.

Sad truth, even if staff ele runs at first initiation of combat =/

Torqky.3682:

Razor.6392:

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Because cleansing slows with one of your many condition clears before using RTL wouldnt be fair? Classes with a lot less condition removal (warrior) have to.

IMO, it’d be slightly unfair because other classes don’t have their skill bars locked while using their movement skills, so they could pop an instant use skill in conjunction with it if they get crippled or chilled or something else happens, whereas eles are locked into that decision; we can’t even cancel the skill to stop.

Oxstar.7643:

maybe because most of them overestimate their stealth damage and try to win against impossible odds?

Honestly, this is probably it. Most people figure they’re thieves, so why should they be able to catch them? They’re can go invisible after all, and have as much mobility. Plus they always get away from crowds in movies :p. They’re also the fact that most thieves run glass, or at least on the more offensive end, whilst most pvp eles are bunkers. So a thief may feel less slippery because when he’s hit once or twice, it’ll have more of an effect. Oh, and many slippery escape or condition removal oriented traits are also in shadow arts, a defensive line. Now if that were a tank thief, that’d probably be much different.^
So I’d probably attribute it to people naturally assuming thieves to be extremely good at get aways and to their offense oriented builds.

^but tank thieves are kind of useless atm, so I guess it doesn’t really help them out much?

Dog.1472:

Why shouldn’t a Thief be hard to catch? Are you saying you want a mage to be more mobile than a thief, which is by definition fast and sneaky?

thief= dagger user in light leather armor , sneaky
ele= dagger user with even lighter cloth armor, has magic. <— Why wouldn’t air/lightning magic be highly mobile? It’s lightning! Are you saying sneaking should be more mobile than lightning? :p

Hey, skipped most of the reading, starting playing gw1 factions when nightfall came out.

The thing I liked most about guildwars 1 is that you hit that low max level really early, like 30% of the way through the storyline in factions and nightfall or 50% in prophecies. From there on the enemies kept getting stronger, but my level and gear stayed the same strength. I felt that this system made people actually have to learn how to play their characters and use theirs skills. In gw2, I feel as though you’ll be fine as long as you’re high enough of a level for the area.

Second, areas with increased difficulty here just directly pump up the damage done so it’s 1 or 2 hits. In gw1, it wasn’t so much about one mistake and it’s over, but it was still hard in a different way. They actually got different skills or environmental mechanics, so a player had to understand more about what was happening during combat and there was more strategizing, which also leads more to the next thing; teamwork.
At this point I’m mainly just pointing out a major difference. Gw1 forced you to be in parties to play nearly any area in the game (except farming). As a result, players actually focused on teamwork and helping each other during battles. They adjusted their builds to work together with their teammates and had skills solely for helping them out. In gw2, working as a team is certainly possible, but I feel like the majority of the players either don’t know how to or just don’t. You get a pug and everyone just tries to do their own thing with a smaller amount of communication.

Of course the course the game and players are still new compared to gw1 so this is just the comparison at the moment.

Leo G.4501:

Navzar.2938:

People can just turn around so they’re not hit from behind, and they’ll be just as strong. A boon character can’t just rip off his boons and be just as good. And when that boon is from an the auto attacks, or on a majority of the skills, then they don’t have much of a choice, the enemy is just buffed against them.

It’s all relative to the situation and weighed accordingly. Yeah you can turn around to not be hit from behind, but your behind always exists and is an opportunity to take advantage of. The amount of danger you’re in vs a boon hater is proportional to how long you sit under the influence of a row of boons and how big that row is.

And who said the boon-hate would be on auto attacks or even the majority of skills? There could be many variables like a chance on a critical strike, or on specific utilities or on profession mechanics.

I still say it’s not debuffing yourself to boon haters (you still have the boon’s effects!), it’s just giving an opportunity to boon haters to score more damage just like a backstab thief, and having a behind to backstab isn’t a debuff.

And still still, I don’t really care for the concept of boon hate as described in the video. Seem like a boring afterthought mechanic that doesn’t really add more strategy to the game. I doubt people are going to go out of their way to go hunt people with lots of boons on…said characters will continue to regenerate health, take less damage, dodge all over the place and run around the map at a swift clip. Do people go out of their way to bust characters like this? Doing extra damage to such characters won’t negate any of the above.

I didn’t say when the boon hate is on auto attack; I said when the boon is on auto attack. As in, most of my skills and auto attacking gives me boons, so now that boon hater will always have his advantage on me. Some classes don’t really have the option of playing well without boons, so unless it’s done carefully, it could practically end up being a nerf against those classes.

That’s why I’d prefer things more along the lines of boon stealing or normal removal. That way the class isn’t being punished for having a boon on him or spreading to his allies. There will still be a window of vulnerability, but it won’t completely screw over boon rich classes.
And taking more damage unarguably falls under a debuff category. That’s exactly what vulnerability or frenzy(effect) is, but at different levels. Having buffs doesn’t negate the debuffs. It just means the skill is giving both buffs and debuffs.

Vanillea.5764:

Our core is 0/10/0/15/10. The rest is personal preference. You don’t need 30 in water or Arcane. Since attunement dance is a popular play style, many builds have 30 arcane in it. I personally pick 30 in arcane because I like the Grandmaster traits. 30 in airs works. 10 in Fire or Earth works. Most people don’t go deep into Air, Fire or Earth probably because the Grandmaster traits in those lines are situational.

If they put Zephyr’s Boon into a Grandmaster trait, we will see a lot of 30 Air builds.

We’d probably just never see zephyr’s boon again :p
Unless it got a big buff going to grandmaster anyway.

I’d trade the ability to go through doors for it not reapplying downed penalty.

I remember hearing a comment about them having considered it, but there was nothing to indicate they’re actually planning to do so. I guess I’d say it’s just a possibility for the distant future.

Leo G.4501:

Sokar Rostau.7316:

I note that a lot of people supportive of this possible change play Thieves and/or Warriors.

As a Guardian, if I use a Mace, Greatsword or Hammer, my auto-attack will essentially give you Regen, Might or Protection, or give you a damage boost. A lot of my other attacks, and most of my utilities, will do the same, some more than others. Essentially all of my buffs, which are the centrepiece of the Class, will be giving me a debuff and/or giving you a buff. And you wonder why Guardians are concerned?

Nah, I think you guys are just viewing the change out of perspective.

Consider a Thief. They can do more damage to a target from behind. Since people have a behind, that isn’t a debuff, that’s just a momentary opportunity to attack. You can still dodge or position yourself so not to be hit from behind.

Someone that gains an opportunity to attack a target with many boons, you still have all the advantages of all those boons and you can simply dodge/block a boon-hate attack as well.

Basically, stacking a line of boons and not preparing to block/dodge a boon-hater is like watching a thief stealth and standing still.

People can just turn around so they’re not hit from behind, and they’ll be just as strong. A boon character can’t just rip off his boons and be just as good. And when that boon is from an the auto attacks, or on a majority of the skills, then they don’t have much of a choice, the enemy is just buffed against them.

Of course, if anti boon skills are slightly weaker than normal skills and increase intensity with the number of boons on an enemy, then its not too much of a problem for classes that usually have boons. That way they’re only really dangerous if a person stacks a large amount, which is what bothers people, so it will help lower boon bunkers without hurting others too badly… well except maybe eles, even glass and other non boon eles get 2 or so boons just from swapping attunements…

I personally like this change in terms of stealth. It should never have been an ability that could be reapplied 1 sec after it ended. But I also feel thieves will need some overall buffs as well.

edit: Why is auto reveal after stealth going too far? It just means you can’t use it consecutively for long periods of not being able to be targeted. And it only lasts 3 seconds anyway…
P.P.S. I wonder if stealth stacking would get around this?

Seeing as your lvl 14, that means you can get a full set of mastercraft gear, which would help quite a bit until you can grasp the class.
As far as I remember, my low level ele days were basically just a ton of kiting and ranged attacks :p

^I used to run something very similar to that glyph build early on, but I could never really get the hang of 1v1ing on staff. Could you give me some more specific 1v1 tips? I’m getting pretty bored of d/d tbh, and new characters take a while to get to max lvl in this game, so I might try going staff again.

If you blow your burst, and they’re instantly up to full hp again, then you chose a bad time to use your burst.

As far as nerfing eles go, I think a good way would be to spread decent boon removal utilities to other classes. And the last patch did nerf eles a bit, so it’s clear anet is working on, they just didn’t want to hammer it to nothing while there are no other viable builds available.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

LordByron.8369:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

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…

Instead of correct ppl about grammar, you should learn the class. Sorry but you have absolutely no clue how to play a proper ele. Mabye you go 30 on fire and 0 on aracana, now come on forums and complain about cd and low hp/armor.

While what you’re saying isn’t wrong, I feel that the idea that an ele can’t play well with 30 in fire and 0 in arcana does show a problem with the elementalist class. I guess it’s because they forgot to buff the fire trait line when they nerfed the base skill damages.

What I mean to say is, it’d be nice if our trait lines were a bit more even in strength/usefulness.

Once again, I think the current types of anti boon skills we have should just be expanded to other classes. Basically just some new utilities for classes who don’t have it, and maybe some slight buffs to weaker boon removal skills (I’m thinking flanking strike). I think most of us agree passive anti boon measures aren’t the way to go, so I don’t think anet would go that way.

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Yes there are existing skills and traits that allow for boon removal (Thieves, Necros, Mesmers) but right now, other options for these classes far outshine the build that specializes in boon-removal (burst shatter mes, BS thieves)…

I actually think it’s fine that those build outshine boon removal ones. A build specialized in boon removal is specifically geared towards a certain situation, so it’s only natural it’d be weaker overall. Of course, it should also be strong when that situation arises.
The reason I think it should be done through utility skills is so they can be mixed in with other builds, rather than having to specialize in a build. That way it’d still be a dent in enchant happy builds without trading away everything for that ability.

And please remove the 1 second self stun on current if it hasn’t been already.

Is this something that’s coming?
I personally don’t like it seeing as there are already anti boon skills on other classes, and I’d rather have more single use boon punishment expanded on than continued use since you don’t have the option of tearing down your own boons to react to such abilities.

It’d also be nice if we had some more options for non boon builds before something like that would be suggested.

Doggie.3184:

I think what he’s trying to say is that Elementalist should have 16 downed skills instead of 4.

That’s actually be pretty interesting if the attunement was locked on down. I guess it’d lead to more strategic dying?

Honestly, that’s what I thought revealed should have worked like to begin with. Soon as stealth runs out, you’re “revealed”, so you should get it, and that prevents spamming stealth. Of course I do understand that thieves are balanced around strong stealth and hopefully they’ll get some decent buffs in other areas to make up for it.

Um, can you even use both sharpening stone and food? Each one gives nourishment, so you should only be able to use one. Also, if you use 5% of toughness to power, you can only count 5% from the extra power you’re receiving, because you’d be getting 5% on the first 2200 regardless of whether or not you use food. So you’re total would be 336power and 70 vitality if you can use both, or just 210 if you can use one.

Anyway, yes, that’s a significant amount, but the thing is it’s easily available to players. Even the more expensive foods cost around 5s and last half an hour, which is easily made back up seeing as it doesn’t expire on death. So it’s not really a gate stopping the poor or anything. It’s just another part of your build like skills, equipment and traits.

I run aura share with elemental shielding, so if I’m traveling I’ll just pop whatever the auras that aren’t on cd and water/earth attunement and move on.

I think the fact that a well put together guide specifically for D/D elementalist play is the large factor, since it allowed people to skip a fair chunk of the learning curve.

I personally go 2 sup water, 2 sup monk, 2 sup earth for PVT ele.
Divinity is pretty good all round, but for a specific builds there’s always a rune set or two that’s better. So I’d only suggest using divinity runes if you switch you’re builds often in pve.

Skimmed a lot, skipped most of 2nd page. I’m an ele.

I agree with vapor form not being able to enter a keep/tower because it is a strong situational advantage because it partially eliminates the disadvantages of leaving the keep’s shelter and fixing this.
However, it should still be able to jump off cliffs and such. If it could only move, then it’s practically just a slow teleport. Plus you have to remember that it applies more downed penalty when you use it, so it’s like being downed twice, and that skill 3 kind of sucks as well (takes too long to activate for the immobilization to be useful in most situations).

If it stacks additively, then it’d be 40% (probably this one imo), if it stacked multiplicatively, it’d be 37%. Not sure how it could be 43% though.
I’m an idiot at this time of night.