Guild Wars 2

Nikkinella.8254:

cheshirefox.7026:

i like how on the gameplay previews meteor shower knocks down foes.. >_> hilarious

I miss that so much. This is the only game i’ve ever played where the beta was actually better than the finished product. How i miss those beta weekends of playing my ele.

You’ve just expressed exactly my feelings m8. Those were great times, really. I was actually excited before every beta weekend like never before. Now I fear every patch coming…..

I’m not getting it.
Reason: “unintentional” changes to my class which already made 3 sets of my equipment redundant and useless, I won’t grind anything which can be destroyed by one patch.

To all the guys defending A. Wave change:

I’m giving up in this case, just don’t cry when Anet unintentionally do some more “unintentional” changes like they do all the time, without even writing them to patch notes etc.
I’m curious about your reaction when something crazy like changing lava font to be targetted directly on target (like DT is) or anything similar to that happen….

If you don’t understand, this is more about trying to prevent unannounced/unintentional changes to happen, not a fight over a single skill mechanic, got it?

Elfis.9102:

Really, I love the constant wall of tears on this forum most of the time because it helps shield me from nerfs… but when they buff us by giving a power range without any added drawback and then you guys cry to have it nerfed back, I gotta protest. Spell is still instant cast; please learn to mouse target faster rather than trying to take away my new candy.

Candy?
Well, show me the person which suggested this change here. Nobody?

Not surprising, it hasn’t came to anybodys mind that arcane wave should be ground-targetted, ever.
Suddenly, Anet make this change (while the ground-targetting was originally announced for the new heal skill), and every one of the players who never used wave/never really cared about D/D are fighting the ppl who actually used the skill since the beta. Am I the only one who find this weird?
I play staff Ele btw and even I understand that Arcane wave is better without targetting, this class is about timing and every targetting skill = losing time.

J Night.3468:

you guys…. you realize you can just work on another build and change your playstyle a bit, right? anet moving a trait or two around isn’t the end of the world. if you really enjoy ele, you can do anything.

I’m not bothered by the trait movement so much, but what really irritates me is the Arcane wave change, that was totally unwanted, uncalled for and it pretty much destroyed quite a lot of combos/playstyles. And I don’t even play D/D at the moment, but still can imagine the pain inflicted on those who have D/D as their favorite weapon set….

Morsus.5106:

STRanger.5120:

7 things: Warrior, Mesmer, Elementalist, Ranger, Necromancer, Thief, Engineer.

Here you go

Watcha got against Guardians?

Well, Guardians seems quite fine now, also I was allowed to write just 7 things, if I could write 8, I would involve Guardians too….

Edit: To prevent some misunderstanding, I meant it like this: Guardian seems like the most balanced class in-game now, at least to me.

I’ll just leave this here: note

7 things: Warrior, Mesmer, Elementalist, Ranger, Necromancer, Thief, Engineer.

Here you go

Well, if I abaddon my Ele, I will abaddon the whole game, because there will be nothing which will hold me there to be honest. I returned to game after 6 months because of the Elementalist, so that’s it. However I would like to find a way which will make Anet adress our core issues, but there is none I guess…
But I’m expecting removal of Meteor Shower from the game, I’m killing too much ppl with it, so it’s only a matter of time before this patch comes.
/badjoke

Mbelch.9028:

STRanger and Alienmuppet, I’m lvling an engineer too, but it isn’t like that character could take on 2-4 people at once like my mesmer can. Ah well. I’ve got an abandoned guardian, mesmer, warrior, thief and soon to be elementalist.

Yeah there’s zero realistic consequences in this game. Zergs move around with ease (No spacial limit on players, IE They can’t bump into each other) small groups are destroyed by big groups with lesser tactics, heavy armor classes do everything a light armor class could do and more.

Saddness has hit me again. Seems it does every time an imbalance patch comes around.

I have mesmer on lvl 57, but the Engi is somewhat much more fun to me, so that’s why I decided to level him up first

Alienmuppet.1942:

It is very frustrating. I love playing ele, and I’ve played the same character for over a year now and I think I’ve got pretty good at is. I bought a many-button mouse especially to play ele properly. I had high hopes for this patch, but now I’m seriously thinking of switching to another high-skill character (spam-1/2 characters bore me). The only one that comes to mind is Engineer.
I do like the idea of ranger, but I think I may get bored of that fairly quick.

You somehow wrote what I’m thinking of, already have my Engi on lvl 78 and it’s really fun so far, however it’s not Ele, so I guess I’ll never leave my main abandonded, like I did with the warrior shortly after got to lvl 80 and to my Thief which I mained a while actually.

Bsgapollo.5364:

paleeshi.1924:

They buffed every single class but they didn’t give Ele anything to counter those changes. They just made it even harder to play Ele than it was before.

Pretty much this, 30 arcana is still a must if you wanna have any survivability what so ever and they nerfed water by removing our only condi removal to the master tier. In the end you could say we got a nerf while other classes got buffed.

Well, don’t forget the destruction of our mobility, nerf of our heals in PvP (and some general heal nerfs also) and Evasive arcana nerf on top of that.

Have you checked the combat log as well?
Because I noticed that sometimes the damage number is not visible, but you’ll se it in combat log and it was actually done.

Simply said, because the class has mechanics which you have to learn how to use. The same applies to the Engi also. The rest are just “take and pwn” type of class which I’m not interested in…

Well, when reading the OP, I guess it’s working as intended after all

You know the rock, paper, scissors, right?

I haven’t notice this exact bug (Don’t play scepter now), but I guess it’s similar to swiftness stacking with staff for example, I cannot go with the duration over a minute myself, because the stacks done by a certain combo/skill (static blasting, windborne speed etc.) blocks another stacks from the same ability/combo when the CD runs off. Quite nice huh?

Azreell.1568:

Go warrior or mesmer and stop playing inferior classes.

Imho, it’s better to play inferior class which is fun for you, than become an inferior player which is bored to death, just sayin’….

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

I really don’t like the elementalist (haven’t played the engineer), but simply love the ranger. (and the only thing I learned from playing the elementalist is being annoyed at everything I do…)

The only thing I’m being annoyed connected to the Elementalist class is the constant rain of nerfs on our head. Everything else is great, basic idea of the class is excellent, the complexity of the mechanic is perfect for ppl who don’t want to just faceroll everything with minimum effort (yeah, I have a warrior and had a ranger too, until I deleted it to make room for my Engineer).
The game is about challenge to me, if I want to faceroll for some reason, I can always log on my Warrior (haven’t happened quite a while) or just play BF3, take an M16A3 and pwn some other ppl, easy

ThiBash.5634:

This is a tricky balance change…D/D loved the melee version, staff’ll love the ranged version. So which one to listen to?

What about both?

Old arcane wave + targetted arcane heal = problem solved.

Well, my main is Elementalist btw. Just have to add that to my opinion above…

Also my favourite class was Hunter in another game (you know which). However, Ranger doesn’t even touches Hunter in complexity, class mechanics, which is the equivalent for fun to me.

Well, imho Ranger kinda sux in this game, nothing to look forward with that proffesion.

Engineer on the other side, totally fits my “explorer” vision, just like Elementalist does. You learn new things every day playing those two

Zerking the kitten outta zerg still works the same as it was pre-patch

To be honest guys, as a Ele/Engi player, I feel the pain of kitswitch perma-vigor gone, and yeah, it sucks. However I totally agree that Ele would become unplayable without that trait (for 10 points) and can’t understand why much tougher classes like Mesmer and Guardian have it for 5 points, that simply doesn’t make sense to me.

Lighter.5631:

STRanger.5120:

Lighter.5631:

i have a war and a ele
let’s say RTL can not be affected by conditions, while rush move like a snail with condition on, like 300~ range with chill and cripple if my memory is correct.

according to devs, ele used to rtl away and water heal up and quick engage again. they made it so that you can quick engage and disengage, but wont be able to quick engage again after it.

again if you are comparing about pure range, game is not balanced on how far you can run off fight in open world…

and for everyone saying that rush bc sword2 out run anyone, i have a thief too, i must say no one..no one can out run a thief in terms of off fight map running..just…too.. fast

According to what I’ve heard and tried with my Warrior and Thief (yeah I have those characters also, strange, right? ) Thief is faster on shorter distances (his speed is more bursty because no CD on #5 shortbow), but Warrior is faster on longer distances, quite a bit…
And Ele is screwed in both scenarios, period.

idk but my thief ran way faster then warrior when opening maps. i think it was sword, signet of shadowstep and endurance, withdraw, sb, initiative on signet use and shadowstep, remember to use steal too ofc

sword2 and signet can both be used on monsters of any range(thats two sb5 with close to no ini use), signet also grants initiative on use so more sb5, dodge swiftness and stuff

Well, If you burn all things that can move (even the utilities), I guess it’s possible, especially when the basic ini regen was boosted yesterday. That kinda invalidates my opinion about mobility of the warrior, but Warr is still the second best in the mobility terms, which is sick…

Eternal.9148:

glass cannon + zerg = faceroll.

You got hit by Ice Spike? Well, a nice joke attempt m8

DiogoSilva.7089:

STRanger.5120:

Maybe it’s time for you to read the weakness description again…. 3k crit glancing will be 1500 dmg, not 750….

Glancing hits can’t critical.

Heh, you’re right, the description is kinda weird though (Wiki). Not saying anything about the weakness then

But still relying on getting hit with a class like Ele is doesn’t seem like a good idea to me, even by a weakened opponent. Still 50% RNG based, remember

Lighter.5631:

i have a war and a ele
let’s say RTL can not be affected by conditions, while rush move like a snail with condition on, like 300~ range with chill and cripple if my memory is correct.

according to devs, ele used to rtl away and water heal up and quick engage again. they made it so that you can quick engage and disengage, but wont be able to quick engage again after it.

again if you are comparing about pure range, game is not balanced on how far you can run off fight in open world…

and for everyone saying that rush bc sword2 out run anyone, i have a thief too, i must say no one..no one can out run a thief in terms of off fight map running..just…too.. fast

According to what I’ve heard and tried with my Warrior and Thief (yeah I have those characters also, strange, right? ) Thief is faster on shorter distances (his speed is more bursty because no CD on #5 shortbow), but Warrior is faster on longer distances, quite a bit…
And Ele is screwed in both scenarios, period.

DiogoSilva.7089:

About the near immortal comment, think about it. :P Weakness is a very strong condition now. It can reduce the damage from critical hits to 1/4 of their original value. A 3k critical hit has a 50% chance to only deal around 750 damage while under weakness.

Maybe it’s time for you to read the weakness description again…. 3k crit glancing will be 1500 dmg, not 750….

Also relying on getting hit is still bad decision, you can do that with Warrior, but not with Elementalist…

Also, I’m not a fan of RNG, but 50% glancing chance is stinking of it heavily….

Xernth.8561:

DiogoSilva.7089:

STRanger.5120:

Hmm, I still don’t get how 3s regen helps me if I need to get critted for it, let’s say an average crit of 3K dmg…..

..which would make you near immortal versus direct damage classes…
Another possibility I can see with it, is in an aura build. Because aura builds will want to be hit (for tempest defense, frost aura and shocking aura), assuming a balanced build with good points in toughness, vitality and healing power while still being strong at dealing damage (example: valkyrie amulet with berserker jewel, 10 earth for elemental shielding, 30 water for powerful auras, 30 air for zephyr’s boon and tempest defense, runes of divinity), you’ll want to make sure that being hit by your opponents is as least risky as possible. The new soothing wave does that, by giving you regen to offset the damage you receive, which also happens to scale well with your healing power investment.

LOL! Nearly immortal, love it.

The new Soothing Wave is a decent trait, taking the sting out of getting hit, but is slightly shy of immortality. Sadly, they are moving Cleansing Wave out of Adept though; it is actually good.

To me, any trait/skill which requires to be hit or worse (critted) is bad design, unless it’s a supertanky class trait/ability.
However I don’t see how 10805hp and light armor can be considered supertanky….

LordByron.8369:

well sorta…referring to old staff gameplay, getting again blast finishers and glyph of renewal (another great double standard compared to warriors).

I would like to see the original Lava font version (well, all AOE with the same mechanic), because I still remember what an instant first tick feels like, I’ll never forget this….

Hmm, I still don’t get how 3s regen helps me if I need to get critted for it, let’s say an average crit of 3K dmg…..

Guys, I got oneshotted by an enemy zerg with my Zerker staff Ele, that’s OP, nerf it. Thanks

LordByron.8369:

Nikkinella.8254:

I’d really like to get a dev response on this. When can we expect a revert on RTL? Admit you made a mistake and fix it already!

When staff will be OP (=barely viable for anet) the cycle of nerfs/buffs will restart.

Staff was once nerfed to get where it is now and ddagger was buffed…..Now is getting some nerfs reverted and some buffs….

Well, to be honest, I don’t see any staff nerfs reverted so far….

Kincaidia.3192:

I want to take my thief and drop a shadow refuge with 4 warriors with berserker rifle warriors in it.

Dodging is not always a valid response.

Well, just do it, nobody stands in your way At least someone who is thinking here, this is pretty smart usage of this, however I wouldn’t be happy to stand in the refuge when half of the zerg nearby focuses their AOE on it

blutstein.2468:

basically to prevent that an ele could escape every fight they don’t want. no big deal for most players that don’t jump on every bandwagon they come across.

Well, there are still at least two more classes that can easily do that, and only we were hit by the nerf-bat.

Sounds fair, really….

Edit: I understand now, we were hit by the nerf-bat three times, so the two other classes should thank us for taking a bullet for them…

Zarenda Mal.1364:

I have noticed for a few months now that when I am in a large group (30+) either in WvW or PvE, if I drop Healing Rain and then go into it and fire Arcane Wave, nothing happens. No AOE heal, it just sort of fizzles, the skill goes on normal cooldown, and I get nothing for it. I have also seen the effect in Geyser.

At first I thought it was some sort of weird skill lag, because I noticed that although I pushed the usual key combination, the water field was not appearing before the arcane wave was fired (although it was pressed afterwards), so I very carefully started watching for the appearance of the field before firing Arcane Wave and it definitely is simply not causing a blast finisher. It never happens in small groups (like a dungeon run).

A separate issue is that sometimes skills do not fire at all, which definitely messes up play as elementalist, since a lot of what you do is lay down fields and blast them.

In a crowded scenario, there’s usually another field under you, the one which is cast first counts, so your field has no effect there, except that it’s the only one placed.
But I often encounter a situation where the combo finisher message (for example: “Area Retaliation”) doesn’t appear at all, which seems weird at least….

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

STRanger.5120:

Dee Jay.2460:

I don’t necessarily think Killshot as an ability is OP.

But those damage numbers are just insane, there’s no way around it. I don’t see why in the world a Warrior has to deal so much more damage than any other class.

If any other class had such a strong ability dealing 10.000 damage over 1200 range we’d all be agreeing it is ridiculous. But because we’re talking about Warriors this is somehow ok?

Come on…

So, a full zerker Ele is OP by your definition, right? Because I can do much more damage than rifle warrior can, and to a lot more ppl at once, using only two abilities at a time.
And you know why I can do it? Because ppl cannot dodge, that’s all, if they can, I would be screwed.
And for clarification, I haven’t been hit by a killshot yet, weird? Maybe I just position myself better, dunno. But a rifle warrior never killed me, or even downed me.

Yeah rifle warriors are pretty rare in WvW, and good ones are even rarer. It’s definitely not a dueling spec. I’ve beaten people in duels, but it wasn’t because of my spec, weapons, or utilities. It was because they let me do things that are easy to counter. Like channeling a killshot on a thief, he stealths, then thinks he is going to be immune to my channeled killshot. Or a guardian who doesn’t know what signet of might is, I pop killshot, he pops shelter, I pop signet of might and punch through it. He could have dodged with his perma vigor, but his lack of knowledge about my abilities gave me an easy kill. I really like when I encounter enemy rifle warriors in a zerg fight, because I know how easy of a kill they are (funny aint it?) The level of situational awareness required when playing glass cannon rifle war in large fights is pretty darn high. One little mistake and you’re done.

Agreed, this x2 for a zerker Ele, we go down in a heartbeat when focused, but on the other side we also can unleash quite a destruction if the enemy let us. I vote balanced
Warrior have much more OP things than a rifle one-trick pony build.

zanil.1072:

Hi,

So I play a guardian and I use a friends warrior often. Love the guardian, + buffs inc :-).
Anyway I decided to lvl an ele because I enjoyed playing it back when the game launched before taking a break.

Could someone point me to the dev post explaining the nerfs to RTL?

The cool down mechanic is weird. I can Rush on the warrior every 20 seconds regardless of connecting with something (dodge omg). The distance on RTL also got reduce? I can tele(sword 2,10sec cd) then JI further on my guardian than I can RTL then flash on an ele?

I really can’t find logic in it so I’m hoping long time ele’s could enlighten me.

Just a note.
As a long time competitive WOW pvper I have to say that gw2 does a decent job of balancing in comparison to most MMO’s. MMO’s are tough to balance because of the emotional involvement those that balance the game naturally develop with classes. After all MMO’s are built to do just that and no matter how subjective one tries to be emotion will always come into play.

Well, there’s really no logic to be found on the RTL nerf, only thing that comes to my mind is that someone don’t want Eles to have anything nice/working good, so basically everything good which Eles had is nerfed for some time.
I guess Ele players were too skilled for PvP so we are buried deep for this purpose now.

Dee Jay.2460:

I don’t necessarily think Killshot as an ability is OP.

But those damage numbers are just insane, there’s no way around it. I don’t see why in the world a Warrior has to deal so much more damage than any other class.

If any other class had such a strong ability dealing 10.000 damage over 1200 range we’d all be agreeing it is ridiculous. But because we’re talking about Warriors this is somehow ok?

Come on…

So, a full zerker Ele is OP by your definition, right? Because I can do much more damage than rifle warrior can, and to a lot more ppl at once, using only two abilities at a time.
And you know why I can do it? Because ppl cannot dodge, that’s all, if they can, I would be screwed.
And for clarification, I haven’t been hit by a killshot yet, weird? Maybe I just position myself better, dunno. But a rifle warrior never killed me, or even downed me.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

STRanger.5120:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

cheshirefox.7026:

it’s not a l2p issue

Evidently it is, because I’m doing perfectly fine with my eles.

Or you’re just extremely lucky to have less skilled opponents than yourself, what about precursors, are those dropping to you often?

I doubt I’ve been lucky for 2500 hours straight.

Well, I don’t. Otherwise you’d see that Ele has some serious design/balance issues at the moment you had seen our traits for the first time (assuming that you saw at least some traits of the other classes.), period.

Raven.9603:

the grenade case is a bit different, as projectiles can travel farther than listed range, so rangers are still “masters” of the range. ele staff auto attacks fall into that category too, so having 1500 range would put them above rangers (especially considering Air1 is a homing missile and fire 1 has splash dmg).

the meteor shower dmg i am mentioning is just meteor+tornado in either of the gear sets i mentioned. with that combo you dont need might stacks or vulnerability to hit between 7-10k. guilds (at least in my bracket) have been stacking staff eles and having them drop this combo in order to insta melt other zergs.

Air 1 is maybe homing, but not when the target is farther than the range, fact #1
As was already mentioned, our projectiles are slow as hell (I have to admint that Engi nades are even slower, I’m always like “OMG” when trying to hit moving target on maximum range with him, but at least Engi can lead the target, Ele AA does that automatically and totally wrong.)

About that Meteor + Tornado dmg, if you don’t need might stacks/vulnerability/bloodlust, you’re hitting uplevelled players, sorry. I know it because I play full zerker Ele in WvW and the combo hits for 5-7K (5 to heavy armor, 7 to light) and that’s with some might stacks (sigil of bloodlust, pyromancer’s puissance). So just like that

Ele (main): I just love the class, it’s not easy to play, that’s maybe the reason.

Engi(Alt lvl 70): It’s fun throwing nades here and there, pop, putting bombs here and there, pop, burning the hell outta enemies, you get the idea Another difficult to play proffesion.

I have two other 80s, but I don’t play them, easy = boring for me….

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

cheshirefox.7026:

it’s not a l2p issue

Evidently it is, because I’m doing perfectly fine with my eles.

Or you’re just extremely lucky to have less skilled opponents than yourself, what about precursors, are those dropping to you often?

Raven.9603:

STRanger.5120:

Raven.9603:

MarzAttakz.9608:

I agree with STRanger, really wish we had a 1500 range trait for staff.

right after rangers can pop an elite that makes their meteor shower hit for 7-10k per meteor.

I would change the tornado “glitch” boost for better range any time, I hate this kind of “mechanics” in-game, which are present just because someone don’t want to/can’t fix them (the same with the FGS – you know what I’m talking about)

Also, if you got hit for 10k by a meteor, you deserved it, everyone with more braincells than teeth would be out of the meteor shower area by the time an Ele triggers the Tornado. And Ele capable of such damage is killed in a heartbeat, so it’s basically risk-reward kind of thing – also the only one of this type Eles have….

I play mostly ranger ele and thief (wvw), but i have a lot of time on every class but warrior.

i run either valk/soldiers/zerk or celestial on my ele, and either set can hit for 7-10k with the meteor+tornado combo (about 65-85% crit dmg).

while obviously 1500 range is desirable, the point is to make staff good without taking away something that makes another class unique. Rangers are not really in a good place for group-based wvw. most serious wvw guilds flat out dont allow people to play them. take away the uniqueness of 1500 range and give it to a class thats already highly valued in group play in all aspects of the game, not a good move.

staff can be improved in ways that arent detrimental to the roles of other classes. eg, single target damage, damage mitagation abilities, etc.

Yeah, you’re right about this, staff can be improved in many aspects of gameplay. However regarding that dmg you listed, the fact it “can” doesn’t equal it “will”, for that damage, there’s quite a lot conditions to be met – might stacking, bloodlust stacked, dumb enemies who will stand in the shower or just don’t notice it etc. etc.

Also, Ranger is not the only class with 1500 range, remember, some ppl are so strong they can throw grenades on the same range that a longbow can shoot, what a feat!!! :-)
/joke

Raven.9603:

MarzAttakz.9608:

I agree with STRanger, really wish we had a 1500 range trait for staff.

right after rangers can pop an elite that makes their meteor shower hit for 7-10k per meteor.

I would change the tornado “glitch” boost for better range any time, I hate this kind of “mechanics” in-game, which are present just because someone don’t want to/can’t fix them (the same with the FGS – you know what I’m talking about)

Also, if you got hit for 10k by a meteor, you deserved it, everyone with more braincells than teeth would be out of the meteor shower area by the time an Ele triggers the Tornado. And Ele capable of such damage is killed in a heartbeat, so it’s basically risk-reward kind of thing – also the only one of this type Eles have….

elprimo.4398:

Staff ele is the new longbow ranger. Prepare to see nothing but staff buffs.

Well, longbow is still in advantage, it is able to shoot 1500 range and it’s projectiles are way faster than staffs, so just like that….

I vote for range trait for staff, we deserve it with our poor survivability…. Maybe an alteration for blasting staff? Everybody gets more than just one enhancement on the traits like this, so why not Elementalists? It’s the same like the weapon skills CD reduction traits…

Vissarion.6509:

STRanger.5120:

Xillllix.3485:

Fishbones.6914:

you guys should totally change ride the lightning to a 20 second cooldown! none of that 40 seconds if you miss nonsense

How about 16 seconds, like it was in the good old days? This would make people a lot more happy than moving traits around the tree for the sake of “build variety”.

It was 15 secs during the old days….
16 secs is the nerfed 20 secs CD with the trait to reduce it. (20% from 20s is 4s = 16s CD)

I remember RTL being a 12sec CD skill at first.

Really? Well, I guess my memory needs improvement then I’ve been playing since beta, but it’s possible that I just don’t remember the CD from early phase of it. However 12secs would be definitely overpowered, I think we all agree on that

Vissarion.6509:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Arcane_Brilliance

Radius: 240

3/4 s casting time kind of destroys the skill…. All arcane skills are instant, guess why? Because that makes them useful, so I most probably skip this one, before it get dodged….

LordByron.8369:

Op as hell more than “nice”.
Second mistform?
Could be as broken as if warrior got an endure pain that could heal him….

Oh….

Bullseye m8

Taldren.7523:

Phoenix Down (Cantrip): Instantly incinerate your corpse into a pile of ash and fly as a phoenix to a ground targeted location where you are reborn, healing yourself and any allies you touch along the way.

Cooldown: 30 seconds.
Range: 1,200
Movement Speed: +100%
Self Heal: X
Heal Allies: Y

While flying you are immune to damage and conditions.

Actually, this sounds like a really nice ability, but you know, we can’t have anything nice, so probably won’t happen