Guild Wars 2

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

When I have staff and am in a 1 on 1 I run while casting snares and aoe’s behind me…
It keeps ’m busy…

I do this too, but Thieves just teleport through them and chill doesn’t do anything to initiative regen.

Mostly, I just try to bait them into wasting a bunch of initiative on my Mist Form and attempt to run toward the nearest keep. I’ve never actually killed a Thief 1v1 on any character, no matter the build. They either kill me or they run away. One of these days I’m going to have to make a Thief and find out what it’s like to only lose 1v1s if I feel like over committing.

Jester.1546:

Mikemad: I wont link it again, but the build I linked to at the top of this thread is exactly intended for that playstyle. It is designed with the inetion of staying “on the tag” of your commander or group leader or who ever it is you want to follow. If all of your armor is PVT you can do what ever you want with the accessories, though PVT is a good starting point. (As I mention in the post, I am also building towards full all stat acended and already use cav and knights). If you notice, I discuss the particular utilities I chose as being strong damage and control support.

I tend to move to more and more PVT as the zerg gets larger and more dps accessories as the group size comes down since you are dealing with less and less blind aoe damage and more singletarget which you can actively counter.

Of course over extension is a concern, but that is not about gear. I have found that as long as I stay right with the core of my team’s mele, I never get heavily singled and am able to sustain through the fight and keep up even with the hardest to kill members so that I am still around for the final pushes that can really decide a fight and determine who gets their loot bags.

If you like the build give me your feed back on its thread please!!!

Vaugh: Remember that earth 5 is also an imobilize, if you wanna free up the utility slot (though the toughtnessf roms ignet of earth is nice).

I swapped a few things in my build around, and largely inspired by your post, tried out 30 Earth, 20 Water, 20 Arcane. It’s working far better. I don’t do very good damage, but that’s not really my goal. My goal is to do mediocre AoE damage, max out my survivability, and provide decent healing to everyone around me. It works surprisingly well. I still die to glass-cannon thieves if they single me out, but I don’t think that’s going to change as long as I’m using staff. They ignore most of my CC, and dodge most of my (bad) damage. That’s just the breaks.

On the bright side, it does take them far longer to kill me, which usually guarantees that they die to my teammates soon after.

Beyond that, I don’t really have problems stonewalling any other class. Thief burst is so high, and so difficult for my eyes to predict and dodge, that it overwhelms my high healing and toughness.

And if I want to do damage in WvW I just hop on siege.

This stuff is why I avoided D/D as much as possible. I leveled with staff at release because I liked it. I still use staff as much as possible in as many different builds as possible. It’s because I tried D/D, saw that it was overwhelmingly awesome in almost every way, and figured that it’d be nerfed into the ground eventually. When it became The One True Build for ele I knew it was only a matter of time.

Staff has been fairly bad since late beta (other than one OP build that was nerfed shortly after release), but it’s been consistently bad. I haven’t had to relearn how to play the class from the ground up every 2 months.

Jester.1546:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/WVW-Stoneline-Staff-Build/first#post1997811

This build makes cc on you pretty meaningless while giving you access to plenty of swiftness and snares to at least stand a chance at heading for safety. Staff is always gonna be kinda slow though.

This is pretty close to what I’m looking for. It’ll take a bit of regearing. I notice you use PVT gear. Would this build function at all with Cleric’s? I’ve grown accustomed to the increased healing and regen, and PVT gear is a bit of a hassle to get.

I play a Staff Ele in WvW. It is amazing at keep sieges, and pretty good in slightly zergy battles. I currently use full Cleric’s, because I like the big green numbers. It also helps a lot for surviving Arrowcart and AoE spam. Where I have the most problems is in open-field encounters. It’s inevitable that when a supply camp capture turns into a battle I’ll be jumped by a couple of roamers as soon as I pop off the first AoE.

Most recently it’s been a Thief & D/D Ele duo (at least 2 or 3 different duos).

I’ll die very fast, get stunned/KD/Dazed out of any healing skill, and get chain CCed if I try to run away (plus obligatory Heart Seeker spam).

I know that running Staff is the equivalent of carrying a giant “Kill Me Please” sign in WvW, and I’m not suggesting that I realistically be able to win any of these encounters. What I would like, though, is advice for getting away. Roaming builds are likely supposed to hard-counter AoE pressure/support builds, so it doesn’t bother me that I can’t function normally once I get noticed. I’m just curious if running away is an option, or am I meant to just die as soon as someone decides to gap-close me?

I’ve tried using my AoE CC to build space, but the gap-closers and constant cleansing make this pretty useless. Has anyone developed any decent tactics for surviving while using a Staff? I didn’t really have this problem with D/D or S/D because Ride the Lightning and triple Cantrips make it moot.

LordByron.8369:

What’s your choice when you are playing an ele in www now? be the staff healbot or finding an Arrow cart?

I tried this. The heals are nice, but nothing amazing. Arrowcarts are pretty cool though.

So, I guess the only viable build left for Ele is Arrowcart?

Seriously, D/D is still pretty strong. They kick my tail constantly, but I’m using a staff so I’m basically a free kill to whoever comes along. You learn to live with it.

I like this thread, so I’ll just leave this comment.

Staff plays very much like it was designed to force people to choose whether to eat damage or dodge. The skills are all very telegraphed, and have a lot of delayed effect. They also cast slow.

If that’s the intention of the weapon, then it should hit harder but keep the delay. Make the choice to eat my staff damage matter. If the damage isn’t going to change then they should reduce the delay, because it serves no purpose other than crippling a fairly interesting weapon set.

Fjandi.2516:

Still the same. Still terrible, sadly.
Basically you can form a small group and roam around, this is fun (sometimes) but be ready to run away from the zerg cos your small party will have no chance. Maybe you can down someone, but you won’t stomp the player, you will simply be submerged by aoe spam. That’s basically what wvw is…aoe spam. Bigger fights are pure lol. There are so many effects around you can barely understand what’s happening.
Rarely you might be lucky and find another small group of players (who most likely will try to run away and hide into the zerg). Good luck.

I wouldn’t call that “terrible.” I’ve played far worse in an MMO.

There’s the alternative way to WvW.

Build siege and shoot it at the enemy’s siege. First side to run out of supply loses.

emikochan.8504:

I’m clerics because I like healing people.

This, pretty much. I run full Cleric’s, with Dwayna’s runes and staff. It’s a newbie build, but I don’t really care. I swap into Water a lot, and throw Regen on as many people as I can. Seeing green numbers all over the place makes me happy. I know there’s no “Healer” class in GW2, but it seems to help a lot in WvW.

It’s not OP, and if I wanted to solo roam I’d definitely not use this build or this gear. I don’t really like that playstyle, so I don’t bother. I just like that I can effectively negate 1-2 Arrowcarts worth of damage at a siege, and still have all the other staff AoE tools as well. And since I can always just build siege myself if I need to do more damage, then I don’t see much point to dumping lots of stats into DPS.

TL -> DR Version: Cleric’s is good for zerging and bad for roaming, but I like sieges so I use it.

People come to the forums to gripe.

It’s been that way since there were forums.

Metamega.9025:

I log on, do stuff for hours and leave going, we’ll I didn’t do what I wanted to do, I got side tracked but I had fun.

This basically sums up GW2’s intended audience. This is the only game that actually got more fun once I finished map completion. Now I don’t have to care where the next renown heart is. I just pick a zone to complete my daily, or just a zone I kind of like the aesthetics of, and roam around doing DEs, gathering, and exploring. If I get bored I change zones. If I get bored of PvE, I queue up for WvW and bust some heads. If I don’t feel like playing today I just log off, and there’s nothing really lost.

GW2 seems to get more fun if you allow yourself to become distracted. This trait is hugely frowned upon in most of adult life, so it’s nice to have a place to go where it’s actually encouraged and rewarded.

Zenith.7301:

Tobias.8632:

Zenith.7301:

You can never afford to use axe and dagger at the same time because you need aoe damage and control, and staff is your only source of it besides axe #3.

And death shroud 4, and well of suffering, and epidemic, and plague.

LOL, one is a channel that doesn’t last at all in pvp under pressure, well of suffering is on a 40 sec cd, and both epidemic and plague are condition build weapons — they do jackkitten for power builds.

Locust Swarm is both damage and control at the same time. And it works in power builds. And it boosts Life Force while providing swiftness, so there’s some support too. And it procs on-crit effects very reliably.

No real point here. Just saying Locust Swarm is pretty awesome.

I disagree that Evasive Arcana is too good. It’s just good. Let’s have a look at our options.

Fire:
Persisting Flames
Pyromancer’s Puissance

- These are “nice.” Not great. Not even good. Nice.

Air:
Tempest Defense ( 90 second cooldown?!? )
Grounded (Hyper situational, cumbersome burst)

Earth:
Rock Solid
Written in Stone
– Again. Nice. One trait that requires we save Earth attunement to counter CC if we see it. Another trait that only works if we’re running a signet build.

Water:
Cleansing Water (Build Neutral. Even with the 5s cooldown it’s still an awesome trait)
Powerful Aura (Aura share builds are very good in a support role)

Arcane:
Evasive Arcana (Not Conditional. Not chained to one build.)
Elemental Surge (Pretty bad.)

So, unless you’re running a signet or aura sharing build, you really don’t have a lot of options for GM traits. The Fire traits are pretty bland, though can be handy at times. The Air traits have either a very long CD or are just a royal pain to actually use. The Earth traits are not terrible. The Water traits are incredible. And the other Arcane GM trait is garbage. So, what else would you take?

I play both. First, when people think Necro they always think Condition Necro. That’s just because their condition build is pretty good, so lots of people use it. Second, when people think Ele they always think D/D Ele. That’s just because their D/D Bunker build is pretty good, so lots of people use it.

In neither case are those your only options, and honestly I don’t think they’re even the best options. They’re just the easiest.

The take-away is that both of these classes can be built to do almost anything very well, so no matter what you choose there will be a way to build your character to perform well in any area of the game.

That said, Ele is more popular in groups because people think Necros are bad. They aren’t, but once an idea gets traction and becomes a widespread belief it’s difficult to change.

A few core differences to the classes.

Elementalists bring a lot of AoE, no matter which build they use. Some of that AoE is damage, some is healing, some is crowd control. Elementalist damage is somewhat anemic on single-targets unless you specifically build for that (Lightning Hammer is a great way to add a bit of single-target damage on demand). Also, it’s difficult to build an Elementalist without a lot of mobility already baked into the weapon skills. Only Focus and Scepter lack a solid mobility skill, but they have other control/buff effects to compensate.

Necromancers are tough to kill. They bring control effects and debuffs on every weapon set, have a surprising number of condition clears, and have permanent access to Fear in Death Shroud (which also functions as a bucket of extra hitpoints). Their AoE is rather spotty, but they can build around that with Wells if needed. They are usually pretty slow, and only have a few Utility skills that improve their basic mobility. Dark Path (a Death Shroud skill) is a short range teleport, but it needs to hit an enemy to work so it’s far better at chasing/closing than escaping.

Most common complaint of each class, beyond “I don’t do enough damage” is…

Elementalist – “I’m too squishy. I get one-shot.”

Necromancer – “I’m too slow. People just run away from me if they start losing.”

I hope this write-up has been helpful. The two classes can accomplish most of the same things, but have wildly different playstyles. I actually enjoy swapping between them just for a change of pace.

I think Elementalists are not given enough incentive to put points into Fire/Air/Earth. Look at all the value you get for putting points into 30 Water and 30 Arcane. Stacking AoE Cleanses and Heals/Blast Finishers that proc off dodges. Those are both incredibly good deals that change the way the class functions.

Can you say there’s anything remotely as rewarding at 30 Fire/Air/Earth?

Also, you’re correct that Water/Arcane has a lot of build synergy with Cantrips (which are already strong). Cantrips grant Regen + Regen cleanses is just crazy good. Is there anything that has a much synergy for Glyphs? Conjures?

It’s an easy answer. No.

Water/Arcane is effective, but that isn’t why everyone uses it. Everyone uses it because the other trait lines need something that would be missed if we didn’t put points in it.

I actually love this skill, and use it quite frequently in WvW. The range issue is based on attunement. Water and Earth are 900 radius. The Water attunement effect is currently bugged and does nothing other than rally the person, but if fixed it will be very impressive. The Earth attunement is also impressive, but the slow cast time makes it incredibly situational. Even so, the long cast time gives you a chance to start the cast and then swap to Air or Fire. Both of these have a 1200 range. Air teleports whoever you rez to you. This is very handy in WvW where people can get downed by arrowcarts but not be in immediate danger of getting stomped (but you still need to get them out of the red circles). Fire gives you a 15s buff that automatically rallies you if you get downed. This is the one use that I’d consider “nice,” but not amazing. It’s never saved me, but it’s a decent safety net if I don’t need the other attunement effects. If the Water attunement effect gets fixed then that will be my go-to for short-range rezzing.

And most of the time it rezzes people faster than it would if I tried to rally them with the F key. I’ve actually yanked several people out from under a stomp with the Air rez, since it pairs well with Air 3 on Staff (the knockback). I probably wouldn’t ever slot this without the Glyph CD reduction trait, but I use that anyway for my heal, glyph of storms, and my elite pet.

Aeonblade.8709:

Jski.6180:

Lets take this one at a time.

@Caliban.3176
So the idea of when things become harder for zerg makes things harder for small group is true to a point but when you have small group you can hit more then one places at a time. Where a zerg can only hit one target at a time. In effect its how you want to brake down you power do you want to put it into one push on one target or do you want to put it on more then one target knowing that you will fail on a few of them but you still can make ground on the others. This chose should be in the game and this chose is also related to defining too.

@Kript.3291
So “Lord Room of Hills, SMC, or garrison” should not be easy targets to take if the other team brings a full zerg on you then you will need one too if its just a small group trying to hid behind there lords its more on the attkers who are failing to take out the real targets (the players) if they cant take the room. These things should not be flipped with a pure PvD and just as fast. These are major points for both sides of the fights because its not just a 10 point lost its a 20 point changes and that IS what wvw is about the points. No one is going to hold any thing forever and things are planed out that way but at the same time there is no reason to hold something for less then 5 mins.

Major point i need to add in not related to the post i am responding to. WvW in GW2 is not purely about on the ground fights they are fun but they do nothing to win or lose a week its about WvW weapons and supple movement. Like in real war if you can cut supplies you can win a war. This is not PvP this is WvW nearly a war simulator. If your looking for on the ground fights your in the wrong places.

Let’s see if I can do this without upsetting the kids this time. So we have people that want PvP in WvW and then we have people that want to stand there in one spot shooting at a door/wall/what have you all day.
I don’t really see how this is even a decision.

Basically this, only without the biting sarcasm and condescending attitude.

When ANet puts a Team Deathmatch mode into sPvP a lot of the complaints here will go away. Many have already said plainly that they’d be fine if all siege were removed from WvW because they find open field battles fun and protracted siege fights boring. Unfortunately, GW2 doesn’t have a game mode to really cater to these people right now. It’s either Defend the Keep/Camp in WvW or Defend the Node in sPvP.

Grind? Really? This game has no grind. None.

Do DEs and Hearts to 80 (or Gather/Craft if you feel like it). That’s not grind. If you hate DEs then you bought the wrong MMO.

By 80 you’ll probably have enough gold to buy a full exotic set of armor/jewelry/weapons. Go buy the stats you want.

The End.

Where’s the grind? You’re 80 now. You have almost max stats. You can do whatever you want. If you want to WvW go do it. If you want to run dungeons you can do that. If you want to redo some of the DEs, or explore stuff you haven’t seen before, you can. If you dig Fractals then do Fractals.

Oh, but what about my Legendary?

What about it? Look at the requirements. Legendaries are for people that have extensive experience in all facets of the game world. That’s why there’s WvW and dungeon tokens in it. That’s why there’s a crafting requirement. You’re not supposed to farm for it. You’re supposed to play the game for a really long time (because you like it!) and do a variety of things (because you think they’re fun!), and then you’ll have most of the stuff for your Legendary. Why would anyone grind out their Legendary? That’s insane. You don’t have to. You don’t need it to do anything. Nobody’s going to lock you out of an encounter because you don’t have it. It’s just an arguably pretty weapon skin.

Perhaps it’s a tier thing, as I’m on the bottom tier. But I don’t see how people are dying so badly to ACs that weren’t dying to them before the patch. If I’m at a siege, and I see the red circle, I know I’m going to get hit with at least 3-5 AC barrages. I dodge. I preemptively cast my heal. I wait for the cripple so I can cleanse it instantly. I use Swiftness abilities to counter the Cripple if my Cleanse is down and run out of the AoE. I live (usually).

I did this before the patch. I do this after the patch. I almost never die to AC fire.

On the other hand, when I’m manning siege I noticed lots of people just stand there and take it. Ballista bolts to the face. AC barrages without dodging at all. Catapult stones dropping on their heads. They die really fast, and they’re usually chasing people when it happens. I rack up loads of kills from these guys and I have no idea why.

I’m not saying L2Dodge, because I honestly don’t know if that’s the issue. I’m asking what the issue is where I get loads of kills every time I use siege, but almost never die to it. Is it lag? Are people playing on really old/bad computers unable to see the circles or respond quickly enough? Is it a problem with the new WvW graphics options?

naphack.9346:

1 treb could kill all of these within 4-5 minutes, then you’d be starved of supplies while your opponents build arrowcarts to prevent you from entering/leaving the tower while their treb kills the walls.

(Siege wars 2)

Wait a second. Are you suggesting that battles in WvW ought to revolve around access and use of Supply? That can’t be right…

MRA.4758:

Reslinal.2359:

The arguments here really demonstrate the difference between two play styles in wvw. People who prefer proper siege warfare like the change and people who like open field fights and only use objectives as focal points to find action hate this change.

It’s hard to fill the desire of both groups at once, maybe instead of complaining about the change, the second group should encourage ANET to tweak the mechanisms to encourage more open field battles? I think this change is good for the siege warfare aspect of WvW (the range of AC needs some tweaking) and who knows it may actually create more opportunities for open field battles as well (like more open field siege battles, and more efforts at blocking reinforcements etc).

A reasonable line of thought, though I don’t think your premise is completely correct. Players who prefer the open field battles are actually quite unaffected by the arrow cart buff, since you do not usually find that many arrow carts in the open field.

From my perspective this case more demonstrates the difference between the “extended siege warfare play style” crowd and the “but i want my loot/karma/wxp/whatever now, instantly, without having to earn it or to change anything in the current way i optimized my play style” crowd. A shift in the meta forces the latter group out of their comfort zone, and hence the 18+ pages mega thread. Filling the desire of these two groups at once is just as much a dilemma as the one you illustrated.

Having said that, I am all for giving the “open field battle play style” crowd something they like. Maybe an additional map with non-fortified capture objectives only that contribute to the PPT? This would allow for a very different type of skirmish WvW side by side with the existing siege warfare WvW. (Just an idea, who knows if this would work.)

~MRA

This pretty much sums up the thread.

Aneu.1748:

TacoJoe.6083:

Ariames.5108:

Nice way of killing the game for the people who only play WvW :/ going to check out some other game to play :S

LoL is a good place to start if you want balanced PvP and a game where the Devs play the game instead of try to apease the QQers on the forums with little to no idea what their “fix” will break. I say the new game meta should be ACs surrounding spawns to farm them bags…get it coordinated on all maps and like a 5 man team to take the rest of the map…lol.

We’re actually considering doing this in VoTF. Camping the EB spawn on reset, AC’s on all 3 exits, lets see them tears!

If you do this please link the YouTubes. I could use a great laugh.

Lepew.7890:

Why can’t that zerg build catapults out of AC range and pound the wall down? Is it the single neuron used by the entire zerg has been already burned in to stack on the door and build rams in AC fire?

Short Answer = Yes.

Long Answer = It’s harder, doesn’t always work, can be countered, takes longer, and doesn’t make for Epic PVP moments (which bores lots of people, apparently).

I absolutely hate it when people bring up DAoC on these forums. I really do. It’s a different game from a different time and has little relation to GW2 other than having a large-scale PvP zone. Even so, does no other old-timer remember why everyone zerged around Emain every day?

It was because taking keeps was a royal pain in the neck that took a long time and gave an overwhelming advantage to the defender, unless your side was very fast at getting the doors down or highly organized with siege and tactics.

So, where’s the new Emain going to be? EB seems like a bad place for it, as it’s too congested with structures.

krippler.9826:

Torqky.3682:

It will land in high levels of tpvp because good necros know when to use it after dodges, etc. Try landing a good epidemic in wvw in the top tiers against an organized guild and get back to me with your results. When two organized, top tier guilds/zergs/blobs collide, take a guess at all the aoe condition removal that goes off in that 1 second cast time. This doesn’t even account for all the dodge rolling, los issues, and all the guardian walls/static fields/earthshakers dropped everywhere to stun and interrupt our cast (We have no stability)… Its getting old seeing the same few posters come in and talk about skills when they have no clue how they work at higher level WvW.. And before you come in saying you have played wvw, i will be the first to tell you i have played tpvp. I can run an axe/dagger 15/15/15/15/10 build and stomp people in hotjoins and soloque but that doesn’t make it viable in high level tpvp… I still have yet to see a necro running epi in GvG videos or WvW zergs landing these nasty epidemics against top tier guilds/zergs.. There is a reason for this and its because the aoe condition removal and long cast time make the opportunity cost too high.

I think you are on the money here. I WvW in Jade Quarry (T1), and when I am with a zerg, the amount of condition removal is absolutely ridiculous. I generally can’t keep a condition applied more than a couple seconds (meaning I can’t stack and then epidemic). And on some players, I can apply condition after condition after condition and nothing stays applied for even a full second. I think some of the people that think condition removal is not a problem simply don’t play on higher tiered servers. The occassion where I am able to get off a really decent epidemic on a non-downed player is very very rare since the March patch. It really is a skill you use on downed players or NPCs now.

This is the primary reason I stopped using a Condition build. Too much AoE Cleanse for WvW. Too easy to hit the Bleed cap in PvE. I don’t think those are things that need to be changed about the game, as they’re just inherent problems with a Condition heavy build that I don’t particularly like.

arctic.8350:

Tolmos.8395:

My elixir gives a a 5600 HP heal on a 25 seconds cooldown (20 with traits) and 10 seconds of regen

My turret gives a 2600 HP heal on a 20 second cooldown (15 if I drop it and insta-pickup) and 3 seconds of regen.

I just can’t see why I would pick the turret…

Here’s how the turret works:

1)Press (6), turret goes down, 2600 HP healed.

2) Press (6) again, turret is overcharged, two conditions are healed, 2600 HP again.

Total heal 5200 HP, but the overcharge takes up to 2 seconds after being queued to actually work.

The overcharge affects allies too. Helps in dungeons as long as the boss isn’t targeting the turret. Offers more team heals, but less self heal (unless you pick up the turret and use the drop+overcharge in succession for the “full” self heal.

Don’t forget that you can follow up the Overcharge (which makes a Water field) with:

3) Press F1 to explode turret and combo finish your Water field for a 1200 (I think?) AoE Heal.

It takes a bit to get the new timing down, but I find it much better when grouped with even 1 other person than the pre-patch turret.

Silver.9084:

PinCushion.7390:

MethaneGas.8357:

People don’t realise that the enemy won’t be the only one using arrow carts. Some posts I read make me facepalm a million times over and over and over again. As if you won’t be the one that will ALSO have an arrow cart by your side.

And what’s even funnier is that people complain about zergs. Now something comes that will clear out zergs, and people complain about it.

Grow up and develop new strategies, it’s not the end of the world.

Basically this.

What you don’t understand is that PROMOTES zerging. Since there is no way you’re gonna take a keep with 20-30 people! You NEED the zerg’s supplies to “TRY” and take a keep…..

That’s basically an army. I have no problem with huge numbers of people taking keeps. I have a problem with huge numbers of people taking keeps easily but banging on the door for a few seconds. Taking a keep with defenders should be really hard, unless the defenders are completely inept.

Heck, taking an undefended keep just got easier! 30 seconds of uninterrupted wailing on the door as of today! ANet has spoken pretty loud and clear. Defend your keeps or you’re going to lose them.

MethaneGas.8357:

People don’t realise that the enemy won’t be the only one using arrow carts. Some posts I read make me facepalm a million times over and over and over again. As if you won’t be the one that will ALSO have an arrow cart by your side.

And what’s even funnier is that people complain about zergs. Now something comes that will clear out zergs, and people complain about it.

Grow up and develop new strategies, it’s not the end of the world.

Basically this. The biggest problem I see is that it’s easier to place arrowcarts in places where they are effectively invulnerable, but there’s gotta be some kind of advantage to having high-ground and walls.

Lance.5892:

PinCushion.7390:

Kebab.4013:

Arrowcarts were so good before we actually considered using them in skirmish combat. And now… woaw.

How are you going to take hills? Arrowcards all around on the walls. So can’t be catapulted. So we are now sitting here fighting against hills which we cannot get into 3000 range of. So now we sit here forced to treb. Maybe we even have to starve 1000 supplies out if it is tier 3. So…. Three somewhat reasonable places can be treb hills. All of them can be countertrebbed, and countertrebbing cannot be outskilled. So we are now in trebwars2. Finding ourselves spending hours trying to kill each other’s trebs since anything near the walls are a killingfield. Also think about inner bay… inner garrison… Not possible to build catapults…. I am… I don’t… what a bored piece of….

Nevermind Neverwinter got released tonight. I guess the best message to send to Anet is to stop playing, cu around!

What did you expect?

Siege – noun, the act or process of surrounding and attacking a fortified place in such a way as to isolate it from help and supplies, for the purpose of lessening the resistance of the defenders and thereby making capture possible.

bore·dom [bawr-duhm, bohr-] Show IPA
noun
the state of being bored; tedium; ennui.

game1 [geym] Show IPA noun, adjective, gam·er, gam·est, verb, gamed, gam·ing.
noun
1.
an amusement or pastime: children’s games.
2.
the material or equipment used in playing certain games: a store selling toys and games.
3.
a competitive activity involving skill, chance, or endurance on the part of two or more persons who play according to a set of rules, usually for their own amusement or for that of spectators.
4.
a single occasion of such an activity, or a definite portion of one: the final game of the season; a rubber of three games at bridge.
5.
the number of points required to win a game.

Ah, I understand. The problem is that I don’t find the siege/attrition game boring. I think it’s fun. Thus we will have to agree to disagree.

Quenta.2978:

ANet should take copy a play from the playbook of DAoC:

Let the players determine the outcome of a battle, not your silly siege.

Limit the siege in game to only rams, catas, trebs and ballistas.

Siege was very important in DAoC, and very effective when used properly.

Kebab.4013:

Arrowcarts were so good before we actually considered using them in skirmish combat. And now… woaw.

How are you going to take hills? Arrowcards all around on the walls. So can’t be catapulted. So we are now sitting here fighting against hills which we cannot get into 3000 range of. So now we sit here forced to treb. Maybe we even have to starve 1000 supplies out if it is tier 3. So…. Three somewhat reasonable places can be treb hills. All of them can be countertrebbed, and countertrebbing cannot be outskilled. So we are now in trebwars2. Finding ourselves spending hours trying to kill each other’s trebs since anything near the walls are a killingfield. Also think about inner bay… inner garrison… Not possible to build catapults…. I am… I don’t… what a bored piece of….

Nevermind Neverwinter got released tonight. I guess the best message to send to Anet is to stop playing, cu around!

What did you expect?

Siege – noun, the act or process of surrounding and attacking a fortified place in such a way as to isolate it from help and supplies, for the purpose of lessening the resistance of the defenders and thereby making capture possible.

Ruprect.7260:

Technically a necro could fear someone for at least 6 seconds by using 2 skills. How is that any different that confusion.

You can’t burst yourself to death in 5 seconds because someone Feared you.

I dunno, I thought it was a strange change too. Confusion builds were really interesting, but I guess there was too much QQ about them.

They probably didn’t like it that Engineers still hate turrets after multiple huge buffs, so no Confusion spike for them now! Bad Engineers! Hit with Nerf Paddle!

Kreen.3925:

I find the attitude of some folks in this thread from guilds I respected very dissapointing, so much elitist rubbish disparging others and insulting other players.

Saying that, this change does seem far too much. I don’t understand why an arrow cart has been given a 80% dmg buff. I could just about understand if they had buffed it by 25% like cannons and ballista but 80% is far too much.

As with all changes I will adapt, if it turns out to be a failure then Anet will change it.

They buffed AC damage because getting hit by siege weapons is supposed to HURT. Pre-Patch, it didn’t. Like, at all. Like, most professions can have passive regen that would outheal 1 arrowcart. 2 arrowcarts was tricky, and I might have to use my active heal or actually dodge (unless I had Mango Pie on me). 3 Arrowcarts and I might have to heal and dodge, unless it was a Leg Specialist setup which means I’d have to cleanse + dodge and hope I didn’t get immobilized again.

It’s pretty sad when the biggest threat a piece of siege can offer is that it procs some minor trait CC from one class.

Serophous.9085:

People complain about nothing but zergs
Anet changes something to help fight zergs
Other People complain about not being able to zerg

facepalm

Fixed that for you.

I have avoided WvW lately because it was such a silly, zergy mess. The addition of WvW Ranks, and the buffs to siege weapons should help this quite a bit.

Axe Training and Closer to Death both effect Life Blast damage. Axe is actually not so bad, and I prefer it so I don’t have to run up someone’s nose to hit them. Most of my damage comes from Life Blast, though. I just use Axe/Focus for Life Force and Vuln Stacking.

vicious.5683:

just take a look at patch notes. they don’t put too much effort on our profession as they do on others

Patch Notes Excerpt:

Elementalist
Mist Form skill: Activation now locks heal, utility, and elite skills.

Ride the Lightning skill:
Increased recharge increased 20 seconds to 40 seconds.
Recharge is now halved if the player strikes a foe.
Reduced the range to 1200 from the previous (hidden) 1550.

Signet of Restoration skill: Reduced the passive healing by 18% in PvP.

Cleansing Water trait: Can now trigger only once every 5 seconds (only in PvP).

Swirling Winds skill: No longer destroys unblockable missiles.

Engineer:

Incendiary Powder trait:
Increased burning duration from 2 seconds to 4 seconds.
Increased internal cooldown from 3 seconds to 10 seconds.
Increased activation chance from 33% to 100%.

Cloaking Device trait: Increased cloaking duration from 2 seconds to 5 seconds. Added internal cooldown of 25 seconds.

Low Health Response System trait: Now has a 10-second recharge.

Toss Elixikittenll: No longer destroys unblockable missiles.

Guardian:

Sanctuary skill: No longer destroys unblockable missiles.
Shield of Absorption skill: No longer destroys unblockable missiles.

Warrior:

Leg Specialist trait: No longer functions when controlling turrets such as the WvW Arrow Cart.

World vs. World:
Updated confusion and retaliation effects to do the same damage as they do in sPvP

….That’s an awful lot of nerfing in one patch, even if some of them were relatively mild. And you’re mad that ANet ignores our preferred profession? I’m absolutely ecstatic! Yes! Please keep ignoring Necro! I don’t want to have to relearn how to play it every 2 months!

Daddy.1825:

necros should get a condition thats like bleed but better

So, Burning?

Otaking.4675:

Meh.

Flesh wurm, who cares…

A buff to our shortest cooldown stun breaker? I care!

Krebgoth.4603:

They can nerf cof as soon as they make everything bought on TP account bound.

Right now those who farm TP make at least ten times more gold and they are the one ruining economy for those that play the game the way it is supposed to be played, not those farming cof and no one gives a crap about that.

If it turns such a great profit I wonder why everyone doesn’t do it?

Oh, right. You stand to lose a lot more at TP trading if you’re bad at it than you’ll ever spend on armor repairs from a failed dungeon run.

SundayTrash.9562:

Are people having fun or is the majority of Tyria living in poverty.

This is an MMO. Most people don’t play it for fun. They play it because they need the next dopamine hit of that sweet, sweet loot-drop. It’s why the Legendary Weapon system is so ingenious. One giant hit that you get by farming lots of little hits over and over. It’s insidious!

kitanas.3596:

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Tiger Ashante.1792:

How is a person who’s never done this b4 supposed to actually do it?

I’d probably start by reading the wiki entry and then maybe some other walkthroughs.

Then I’d organize a party and make sure everyone understands the key mechanics to each encounter, and plan the party build around that.

who wrote the wiki? unless it’s the game developers, then someone had to have figured out the boss without guides to help them. and if they can do it, you can to.

If you haven’t played since release, then you don’t remember how long a typical dungeon run took when the game first came out and there were no wikis or youtube videos telling you how to beat each dungeon.

There are still reddit posts you can dig up from around that time screaming about how hard dungeons were. Now people complain that they’re too easy.

OP, please do yourself and your friend a favor and go search for some YouTube videos that explain how to beat Arah. Sure, you can not do that and stubbornly figure it all out on your own. But, just know you’re signing up for a very large time commitment that is completely unnecessary since other people that came before you have left detailed instructions. Add to that, Arah is still pretty difficult even if you know how to beat everything.

I think CoF is broken and needs fixing. I don’t think this because of the amount of gold it rewards players with. I think this because it’s poorly designed and not fun. The boss fights are brain-dead easy and players routinely skip half the dungeon because they can.

This is actually a problem with most of the dungeons in the game, it’s just that CoF is the worst. offender. Content that is so irritating to actually complete, and so unrewarding that it’s a waste of time, begs the playerbase to skip it.

What would a CoF run look like if you could no longer skip anything, but if the trash mobs dropped enough silver/junk to make it a decent payout (along with the rest of the dungeons)? Sure, it’d probably take a lot longer because players would kill every single creature in the dungeon. But then it’d be actual content, rather than a footrace to the boss.

So, the easy fix to CoF (and all dungeons, really) is to make the bosses drop far less cash and make the trash drop a lot more.

DS5 Idea – I remember something similar being in GW1 but the name escapes me.

Single-Target, Long Duration Condition that does 1 Bleed worth of damage and a small nuke that can crit (for on-crit effects).

At expiration (or cleanse) it hits the target with an AoE Nuke (non-crit, like Retal damage) + Bleed + Cripple (like Grasping Dead).

Condimancers get some back-loaded bleed DPS and CC in PvE.
Powermancers get some back-loaded Direct DPS and CC in PvE.
All Necros get a cover condition that makes cleansing an actual choice, instead of just mindless spam.
Epidemic becomes useful for Powermancers because they can spread this to other targets for loads of anti-zerg AoE spike.

So, what’s the counter?

Make it so the damage is higher the more time is left on the condition. If it’s cleansed instantly it’ll HURT a lot. If it expires it’ll still hurt a tiny bit (so it won’t be totally useless in PvE).

Maybe OP, but I’d prefer a mechanic to make cleansing an actual decision rather than just something you do because there’s red icons on the screen.

Chaosky.5276:

PinCushion.7390:

Ptolomy.6984:

I still don’t get why they don’t realise that they are making critical hits on the non bunkerish eles every patch thus kinda force us more into bunkering…
They just take and take and don’t give anything in return…
Or am I seeing this wrong

You’re seeing it wrong. The goal is to take the Cantrip Ele build down a notch while also buffing other builds.

Yet they’re nerfing offensive builds more than defensive builds. They’re giving eles fewer options to recuperate in combat, thus providing even more incentive to take more Cantrips and Healing Power.

Their goal is to knock Cantrip Eles down, so they say. Their changes make sense from that point of view except for one thing.

D/D Cantrips is an incredibly strong build.

The other fairly strong builds on Ele are….

Well, there’s….

Oh, yeah! There’s…No, wait….

Yeah…

So, they’re nerfing an OP build and buffing very little. D/D Cantrips needs to be nerfed. It’s obvious to nearly everyone. But the fact that there’s really nothing else that Ele excels at is one reason I quit playing it months ago. I tried the Cantrips build, found out it was amazing, realized that there weren’t any other great builds that I liked, and rolled a Necro and Guardian.

Ptolomy.6984:

I still don’t get why they don’t realise that they are making critical hits on the non bunkerish eles every patch thus kinda force us more into bunkering…
They just take and take and don’t give anything in return…
Or am I seeing this wrong

You’re seeing it wrong. The goal is to take the Cantrip Ele build down a notch while also buffing other builds. They mentioned buffing Staff, but none of the interviewers were very interested in that so ANet didn’t talk about it much.

Dredlord.8076:

Bhawb.7408:

More HP will still good, we’ve been asking for more survivability and HP will do that. If you don’t like minions don’t use them.

upon further consideration I think this is a bad idea.

The pets don’t need more HP, they need more toughness.

The last thing I need is my effective healing to be reduced on my pets.

HP pool on them right now seems about right compared to the healing I can give them in my MM build they just need to be tougher against DD aoe.

They’re buffing HP on ALL minions/pets (Necro, Ranger, and Engi) so they’ll be more viable in dungeons, fractals, and WvW. It’s so they’ll survive AoE a bit better, and I think they’re changing more than just raw HP totals. Hitpoints was all I could remember from the interview.

Kiriakulos.1690:

Interviewers suggest and borderline beg for at least 4 buffs besides questioning the fact that dodge denies marks, still question the choice of no swap in DS.
Devs – Eh… we dunno, Necros might become too strong or something I guess…

I’m still convinced that the Devs are slightly clueless about Necros.

That 5th DS skill better blow me away.

I LOLed at that part.

Paraphrased-

Interviewer:
“So, is it fair that a Necro can set all his marks out and I can just dodge through them all and destroy them with nothing bad happening to me?”

ANet Dev:
“Well, why wouldn’t you spread them out more and put the shorter CD ones in the front”

Or perhaps…

Interviewer:
“Have you considered making Greater Marks come stock with staff, since nobody uses staff without it?”

ANet Dev:
“Are you trying to say that staff stinks without the trait?”

Interviewer:
“….yes.”

ANet Dev:
“mutter..mutter…looking into it…”

Bellocchi.4593:

PinCushion.7390:

I’m pretty excited about it

lol come on

Hey, it doesn’t take much at my age.

krippler.9826:

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/396007412

Thanks!

I just heard this on the SOTG. I’m pretty excited about it, even if they couldn’t say what it was or what it did. They did use the phrase, “down the pipe.” I take that to mean, “Sometime this summer, but not next patch.” Also, our minions will be getting extra HP. I’m working, so I couldn’t pay super close attention to it. Anyone else hear anything good I might have missed?

Also…poor D/D Ele. Getting the Nerf Hammer dropped on them pretty hard it seems.

:’(