Guild Wars 2

dadamowsky.4692:

@Scrambles
“Carebear?” Haha, thank you for providing the great examples for “why not”. That’s the exact reason why people would like to avoid the duels even as an option – the attitude of the duelists. Whole the spamming, whoring around and crowding the gates. Just like it was stated (and ignored by you) in this and every single thread of such sort. Yes, it is an issue, just like any irritating little things, no matter if it is a duelists spam or gold sellers spam.

I agree that carebear is an inflammatory term, and i should avoid using it to upset you carebears (haha j/k).

But really, avoiding introducing new content because it would upset the zen-nature of the perfect community is totally carebear rhetoric. You’re afraid of change and competition. It’s the same mentality of the people that won’t be bothered to allow DPS meters because they think it’ll throw the community into some gear-score hellhole.

If you want another example, i’ll use SAB. Personally i couldn’t be bothered with it. It wasn’t interesting and it wasn’t for me. Would i argue to deny it to people that enjoy that type of content? Of course not. I’ll play my way you play yours. The impact of our two worlds colliding is negligible, but is negatively exaggerated by carebear rhetoric, and fear of returning to the “dark ages of WoW”

IndigoSundown.5419:

Open PvP requires factions to make sense. There is no faction war by design. Thus, there is no open PvP by design. Dueling is another matter. I have no problem with dueling if:

• There is an auto-decline duels option
• There is an unlimited ignore list just in case I get a lot of tools whispering me, “Why you no duel me, you afraid?”
• The duels can only take place in certain areas, so duelers cannot use dueling to annoy people crafting, at the TP, at the bank, who want to RP or whatever else. As long as I can go places duelers cannot duel if I want to, it would be OK with me.

i think this would be the best way to go about it. I would change “duels can only take place in certain areas” to “duels CANT take place in certain areas, such as TP, the bank, etc.”

dadamowsky.4692:

Ah yes, duels topic. I alway wonder about one thing about this duel “problem”… what for? All this ruckus just to keep some people busy while waiting for the last party member? I’d say it’s far than not enough if we take all the downsides of dueling present (as mentioned above and in all threads of this sort).

The only downside i’ve heard is people don’t like declining duels for whatever reason. If you want to argue that it fosters a poor community, i would say there is no empirical backing of this mentality and it’s all just carebear hyperbole.

I mean, if you don’t like dueling, don’t do it. I don’t see why it’s such a big deal that you feel the need to deny content to people if its content you don’t plan on using it.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Scrambles.2604:

i put it in my first post here. If i’m about to run a dungeon with 4/5 people and were waiting for the last person to finish up selling in LA or whatever, it would be nice to casually duel while waiting for the last player.

If you need to port to another arena/instance, it just wouldn’t be the same. Too much effort/loading. That’s one of the reasons WoW was so much better than SWTOR.

WoW = open world, not many loading screens
SWTOR = mostly instanced zones, tons of loading screens.

edit; It would also be nice to battle 1v1 in all the cool terrain Anet has put so much work into. I could think of some good places to have 1v1s in the open world.

See, in your scenario I have less of an issue with. That type of thing doesn’t bother me as much, honestly. Although it is still my ‘preference’ that all pvp be in the mists or at least separate from pve as it was in gw1.

However, your scenario is not the most common one. You’re going to see a lot more of the crap you get in Goldshire, than the way you envision it. People standing around not playing the game. People harassing others that simply don’t want to duel. People talking kitten because now not only are they not the right class, or have the right armor (or weapon or wtfe), but because they won’t duel either.

I can see loading being an issue for some. Especially if you have to go do the mists, and then to the arena. Maybe a middle ground could be found.

I definitely spent more than enough time in WoW, but i dont get this “Goldshire” problem. First of all, if you were looking specifically to duel, you would go to the gates right outside ironforge or orgrimmar. That is where people would sit and duel all day.

You were in Goldshire for…like 10 levels at the max? But it was such a nuisance that people in one area, for a brief period of time, during that one instance you were playing, spammed the duel prompt, so that no other game should have dueling be allowed?

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Scrambles.2604:

another point i missed. There is this idea that people only want to duel “to show how leet they are.” Maybe people want to duel for fun? The fun in competition doesn’t come from rubbing someones face in the dirt.

There are plenty of reasons to duel and to think its just to further ones “e-fallace” is a narrowminded view of a gameplay style you don’t prefer.

And if that’s simply the case, then where’s the issue with relegating it to an arena? If you’re just doing it for fun, not to ‘show off’ why do you care if you have an audience?

i put it in my first post here. If i’m about to run a dungeon with 4/5 people and were waiting for the last person to finish up selling in LA or whatever, it would be nice to casually duel while waiting for the last player.

If you need to port to another arena/instance, it just wouldn’t be the same. Too much effort/loading. That’s one of the reasons WoW was so much better than SWTOR.

WoW = open world, not many loading screens
SWTOR = mostly instanced zones, tons of loading screens.

edit; It would also be nice to battle 1v1 in all the cool terrain Anet has put so much work into. I could think of some good places to have 1v1s in the open world.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Scrambles.2604:

that sure was a lot of words. Simply giving the option to request/decline a duel would have no negative impact on the community. I mean, really? i’ve been playing MMOs since vanilla WoW and if your biggest problem is getting “duel spammed” then that’s pretty sweet living if you ask me.

In my experience, the nicest people in GW2 have been people i’ve met in WvW and sPvP. Win or lose, they just enjoy the game. The bad-apples tend to favor PvE content and cuss me out in dungeons for not trying to exploit.

If you’re worried about the effects dueling would have in terms of fostering a bad community, let me tell you that part of the community already exists and you seem to be dealing with it ok.

Perhaps a little long, but simply trying to address both sides of the line.

While yes, the childish attitude/mentality currently exists in the game, do we want to foster more of it? We already have segregation issues, build issues, armor issues, weapon issues, and I could keep going, but we want to add more fuel to that fire? I don’t particularly. I don’t want to foster more addle-brained children that need to feel 1337 by duel spamming people.

I too played WoW, and while I met some really nice people during my stay, most of the worst ones were in pvp and open world ‘duelists.’

I can deal with turning off the duel option, but my ignore list has a max number of allowable people, and hunting the kitten down to crush their hands and yank their wagging tongues out of their heads to alleviate my frustration with them just isn’t socially acceptable.

another point i missed. There is this idea that people only want to duel “to show how leet they are.” Maybe people want to duel for fun? The fun in competition doesn’t come from rubbing someones face in the dirt.

There are plenty of reasons to duel and to think its just to further ones “e-fallace” is a narrowminded view of a gameplay style you don’t prefer.

Vayne.8563:

Every hear of Goldshire? The defense rests.

haha. So because there are (allegedly) lots of duel requests in a starting zone in a completely different game, with a completely different community, this game should not have open world duels?

Even though there are people that would like more options for pvp, you would be willing to deny them that because you can’t be bothered to click “decline?”

Imbune.5497:

Scrambles.2604:

Cruserd.9230:

Hello guys

Gw2 should have casual pvp system in pve , I like the spvp but it isnt the same ( More competitive ) because I work hard to get my stuffs in pve and sometimes I dont feel to play WvW all the time and I like to roam through the map and at least do some friendly duels like other games. I think in every MMO should have a casual pvp for stimulate the gear we get through the game instead of only the gear benefit for WvW. At least a dueling mode.

Thanks guys for listening.

Dueling would be awesome, and heck, if they could implement contested zones for world pvp, that would be sick. But conventional wisdom on the forums and the direction of this game screams carebear, so i’m not holding my breath or anything.

I dunno where you kids get the idea that the reason for dueling is to “generate more e-fallace.” Maybe 4/5 of my party is waiting at the instance, and we have 5 minutes to kill before the last member shows up. I would love to be able to duel right outside the instance, assuming it is consensual with my duel partner.

‘Kids’…cute. Well there’s the obligatory ‘insult/demean anyone who doesn’t share your opinion in an attempt to render their opinion null and void and yours valid’-which ironically proves quite nicely the type of players who want this feature and consequently the very reason the majority says ‘keep that thing out of our game’

Well done

i didn’t mean to offend you. Feel free to disregard that one word in my post and add something relevant to the discussion.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Imbune.5497:

‘Kids’…cute. Well there’s the obligatory ‘insult/demean anyone who doesn’t share your opinion in an attempt to render their opinion null and void and yours valid’-which ironically proves quite nicely the type of players who want this feature and consequently the very reason the majority says ‘keep that thing out of our game’

Well done

Here here. So tired of that attitude.

@OP:

While many people have no issue with dueling, in and of itself, the general consensus, as another has said, is that we would prefer to keep it out of open world PvE. Not because it can’t be implemented, it could probably easily be so. Not because we wouldn’t be able to shut it off, or not be able to decline, but more because of the attitude and mentality that open world dueling fosters.

While it is true that not all open world duelers are kitten, from personal experience (and from the sounds of things, a lot of other people’s experience as well) most of them are.

They spam the hell out of the duel invite, and if you decline and/or have it shut off completely they start harrassing you in wsper instead. When you block them, they resort to open world taunting. ‘Oh you suck’ ‘Oh you’re such a pve noob’ ‘Haha scared of a little duel’ etc and so on. We simply don’t want to deal with kitten like this. We don’t want to foster this type of community/attitude in game.

In addition to this, open world dueling does not fit with the ‘original’ guild wars form. All pvp was in its own instance, outside of the pve. Many, including myself, feel that pvp related things should be segregated from pve, and remain in the mists, or at the very least, in their own arenas. Beyond that, we have no issue with having duels, but have them in their own arena.

Some people have gone so far as to complain that if dueling is relegated to an arena, it would have to use pvp armor/weapons, which is also not necessarily so. I don’t think it would be overly hard to implement the option to enter a 1v1 arena in pve or pvp armor. Leave the choice to the person entering.

An arena would also give you the option of fighting a random opponent (someone who’s just jumped in the queue) or against someone specific (join together option). All of this could be accommodated.

Others have stated that they want the open world duels because when they are just standing around waiting they having nothing else to do. They don’t want to have to go to a separate area to duel while they wait. While it is true that ‘going elsewhere’ to duel could be an inconvenience, its so easy to get around the world that there’s really no excuse except laziness to feel ‘hindered’ by needing to map out and back in.

So, while there are a lot of valid arguments, both in favor and against, for open world dueling, I think what it really boils down to for a lot of people is whether or not it will have a negative impact on the community attitude overall. Not whether or not its acceptable or viable.

that sure was a lot of words. Simply giving the option to request/decline a duel would have no negative impact on the community. I mean, really? i’ve been playing MMOs since vanilla WoW and if your biggest problem is getting “duel spammed” then that’s pretty sweet living if you ask me.

In my experience, the nicest people in GW2 have been people i’ve met in WvW and sPvP. Win or lose, they just enjoy the game. The bad-apples tend to favor PvE content and cuss me out in dungeons for not trying to exploit.

If you’re worried about the effects dueling would have in terms of fostering a bad community, let me tell you that part of the community already exists and you seem to be dealing with it ok.

Cruserd.9230:

Hello guys

Gw2 should have casual pvp system in pve , I like the spvp but it isnt the same ( More competitive ) because I work hard to get my stuffs in pve and sometimes I dont feel to play WvW all the time and I like to roam through the map and at least do some friendly duels like other games. I think in every MMO should have a casual pvp for stimulate the gear we get through the game instead of only the gear benefit for WvW. At least a dueling mode.

Thanks guys for listening.

Dueling would be awesome, and heck, if they could implement contested zones for world pvp, that would be sick. But conventional wisdom on the forums and the direction of this game screams carebear, so i’m not holding my breath or anything.

I dunno where you kids get the idea that the reason for dueling is to “generate more e-fallace.” Maybe 4/5 of my party is waiting at the instance, and we have 5 minutes to kill before the last member shows up. I would love to be able to duel right outside the instance, assuming it is consensual with my duel partner.

Hickeroar.9734:

Suralin.3947:

BlackBeard.2873:

I would gladly exchange a the ability swap weapons in combat for a nerf on mist-form. As it is, your most effective role as an ele is to run to the back of the keep, wait about 20s to leave combat, then equip a staff. If I could switch to staff quicker, you wouldn’t see these kamikaze eles that drop down, do about 10 damage, and retreat inside. I know some people do it, but it is simply not effective to do anyway.

Are you really complaining about 1-2 bags/day, anyway? If you remove the portal ability of mistform, then no ele downed ability has any use at all, anywhere.

Eles have 4 sets of weapon utilities for each weaponset. There is a very good reason why they cannot swap weapons easily.

Yeah, they effectively carry 4 weapons around while everyone else gets 2. :-P

not quite the same. My thief has d/p and shortbow, so i can fight close range and long range.

my staff ele has 20 long range skills, and my d/d ele has 20 short range skills.

DanH.5879:

piffdaddy.8014:

Another QQ thread….why don’t we just remove eles from the game? Seems all the baddies would be happy.

A “QQ thread” in the discussion forums of MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, is where a user starts a discussion thread which is basically a complaint, whine or whinge about something in the game they are not happy with.

QQ itself is meant to symbolise someone crying; the Qs looking like eyes with tears streaming from them.
“This isn’t a QQ thread, but please nerf class X as they beat me in combat and thus must be overpowered and imbalanced!”

i actually have a point here in my posts
the eles are cheating getting out of door, spamming aoes, getting downed then immediately vapor and get to safety….isn’t this cheating ?

It would only be cheating if it was effective. As an Ele that vape forms back in to the tower given the chance, i can assure you this only served to draw out my death and the eventual capture of a tower just a little longer.

Serophous.9085:

LordByron.8369:

this thread is about WWW

Last patch nerfed Eles to a new level….

250% RTL CD in 2 Patches
15% range reduction

This on theyr key spell
Then also mistform nerf (TIP: MISTFORM =/= VAPOR FORM)
VAPOR FORM bug/ninja nerf (when you use mistform, vaporform goes on cd)
and swirling winds.

I ve read a rumor next patch they will finish the job with
Elementalist can no more use Arrow carts to promote more build diversities….

If this game was about www they could have even deleted the class….

Tell me:
Did you ever seen a similar nerf in ANY game?
i didn t.
And that when they didn t say ele was OP in www but only in PvP.

So please stop complaining about a class you will possibly see disappear from www aside few hipsters with silly builds.

Yes, feral druids, back in TBC. Course, that was only one of the biggest nerfs in the WoW universe…

completley off topic, but i grinded a restor druid through pvp to field marshal and finished about 3 weeks before BC was released. In BC, i switched to feral, and all of my FM gear was still viable and awesome lvls 60-70. TOTALLY made up for the year i spent as an innervate druid I think i stopped playing before they nerfed feral druids.

Veldan.4637:

DanH.5879:

yeah, these forms shouldn’t be able to activate any kind of portals either and get out of jail free card (mesmer portal/gate portal)

keep vapor form at 2, but remove the easymode-escape-through-portal part

or you could give other classes with mobility-downed-skills the ability to go through portals. Instead of taking away abilities (nerfs) they should add things. I’ve mained Ele since i started playing and i’ve seen the class only get nerfed. I don’t even carry a focus in my bag anymore.

Veldan.4637:

Vapor form was designed as a nr 3 ability, which it originally was, and it was fine as such. The problem was that elementalists were the only class without an instantly available stomp interrupt, and then some dev had the bright idea to switch their 2 and 3 around.

What they should have done, and can still implement, is keep vapor form at 3, and give eles some sort of interrupt skill at 2 instead of Grasping Earth. Then it would be fair for all classes, and elementalists wouldn’t be the only class that doesn’t care about getting downed in WvW anymore.

If you just give ele’s an interrupt instead of vapor form, you’re just pushing the homogenization of all the classes. Not having an interupt, but an escape instead, makes Eles unique. And the only time “you don’t have to worry about being downed” is if your in front of a tower or are able to get back to your zerg.

But if you get dropped in the first place (considering all the tools you have for survivability) you’re going to need a lot more than just vapor form to stay alive.

as an Ele who primarily WvWs, i agree that vaper forming back into the tower is a cheap tactic. Not that that’s ever stopped me from doing it But i do feel dirty.

I’ve never been in a situation where my ability to vape form has changed the tide of the battle though. It’s arrow carts in the tower that are going to save the tower— not a single, or even handful of eles constantly getting downed and rezing in the tower.

if they made it so you couldn’t vape form into a tower, i wouldn’t consider it a nerf. Though i am getting bummed that my Ele is progressively getting less options/niches in WvW. Swirling winds was essentially a non-issue ablity, didn’t make or break anything, but now that’s just one less thing i can bring to WvW.

edit; also, if my theif cant jump through a portal when hes downed, my ele shouldn’t be able to either. Though, i’d rather they just change it so both my ele and thief can use the portal when downed.

skinnyb.5920:

Scrambles.2604:

Dano.2408:

@Scrambles I do WvW the most, and enjoy DD, can you post your build plz?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmmblR4wjDAkHmcCLhCKUeMDO2A

Here ya go. I didn’t fill out the armor, but I use mostly PVT gear (stuff from AC) mixed with some cof gear. I have 2 sup rune of monk, for +15% boon duration, and 4 sup rune of the ogre, because rock dog is awesome

10 in fire is vastly inferior to 10 in air.

how do you figure?

I’m built PVT, so i’ll take power over precision…i have tons of swiftness already, and i usually have at least 2 cantrips on my bar, so i get a lot of use out of the +3 might stacks.

The only thing i can see worth taking is +20% against enemies with 1/3 health, but i don’t feel “vastly inferior” by not taking it.

edit; I did some research and i can see the benefit of getting fury from auras with 10 in air. I’m going to switch around my traits and test it out. It really comes down to whether or not i can get 25 stacks of might without the +6 i get from my two cantrips, which i’d like to think is doable

Ghanto.9784:

DevonCarver.5370:

It is, essentially, another WvW map. You can still fight each other, it will behave exactly like the JP used to, except you will be removed from EB so someone who wants to come in to fight for objectives will not be kept from playing by someone running the JP.

Devon, can you clarify? Will people still access the JP through EB, or will there be an entirely separate portal for the JP outside of JP? Because if the former, you’re still going to be holding up queues for EB on reset night, even if not as long. Since no one has any idea how exactly the queues work, who gets in first and in what order – because you guys refuse to tell us – I imagine this “fix” could still leave many waiting for a long time on reset nights to get into EB, if they’re not able to get in right away – just as it is now.

EDIT: Okay, in the time it took me to write this, I see that Devon answered the question – and unfortunately I don;t think the answer is what most of us wanted to here. Sigh. Why does AN always take the easiest path to “fix” things instead of taking a little longer and doing it right?

Eh, i’m still just as confused. It sounds like you still have to queue for EB to get into JP, which is still going to take spots away from people queuing for WvW. And if getting into JP frees up a WvW spot, what happens when you leave JP? Do you reenter the WvW queue or port back to LA? I’m so confused…

DevonCarver.5370:

It is, essentially, another WvW map. You can still fight each other, it will behave exactly like the JP used to, except you will be removed from EB so someone who wants to come in to fight for objectives will not be kept from playing by someone running the JP.

Interesting. Is it enough of “another WvW map” that it will have control points or anything that it will effect your server’s score?

edit; or is it just a portal within EB that takes you out of EB and into JP?

i tend to only play WvW, and i have never done the jump puzzle, so i guess this changes nothing for me…except maybe i might notice more people in the zerg, and less “is there a mes in jp?” chat spam, haha.

SmudgerUK.4715:

Yes, let’s all watch youtube so we can learn how to do dungeons properly and not waste the valuable time of others.
Do you have any other ideas on how to suck the enjoyment out of this game?
My tip for newbies would be not to join you in a dungeon.

the bolded part made me lol.

For newbies, I would first recommend using gw2lfg. Though there are a lot of posts with people looking for exactly what they want in a group, i’ve found that generic “LFG” posts or “all classes welcome” tend to contain players that are willing to help, or don’t mind wiping once or twice.

I would still like to see open dueling. Who is it a compromise for? People who can’t be bothered to select “decline” on the dueling prompt?

In the past (WoW) most of my dueling occured when 4/5 of my party members were at the instance waiting for the last member. It would be nice to be able to pass downtime by dueling, instead of having to port into a completely different part of the game.

hey Blackhat,

these are some fair, reasonable suggestions, so i would be delighted to poke holes in them

Fire 4 Burning Retreat – IMO, it’s fine the way it is. The fire field is awesome! fire 4 > switch to earth > dodge roll foward back into the fire > EA blast might. I also run Arcane Wave most of the time, so fire 4 > Arcane Wave = blast might.
Also, you can use it effectively, you just have to be creative—i was chasing an enemy in WvW, i used lightening flash to get infront of him, immediately followed by burning retreat, so he was stuck in my fire AoE.

I do like the Earth 2 – eruption trigger idea, as long as it functions the same if you don’t trigger it. The only issue i can see is this may clash with my button mashing tendencies.

Water 1 – i think it’s fine the way it is, but i’ve always thought it would be awesome if you could target teammates/other players instead of enemies, and just cast it as a (very small) heal everytime the projectile hits them.

Air 3 – i would like a change that would make it easier to hit enemies, especially at close range (like an AoE cone).

Otherwise, i think staff is fine the way it is. The biggest changes staff needs are increased projectile speed, especially for air 1, and instant ticks on AoEs.

Arheundel.6451:

I’m trying to figure it out why : Fire Grab , require the player to fulfill several conditions in order to land it…and still have a huge CD.
The skill itself is useful only to the most glass cannon build out there , having less than 50% Crit dmg will result in a Fire Grab hitting the enemy for little more than 2K dmg while the user possess over 2.1k Power and the target possess 1.4K toughness or less.

But if the ele uses a glass cannon build, he’ll still have to deal with the short CD defensive skills of the enemy or lucky dodge and all this because of the aoe component?!

I’m sure I’ll get people telling me :" but hey I can crit for 5k dmg most times!"
Well maybe, but other professions can have the same dmg for less crit dmg ,power for like 1/4 of the time you’ll be able to use Fire Grab, on top of this their dmg is way easier to land

My opinion?
Fire grab should have 15s less CD, right now churning earth is easier to land and deal way more damage overall, its base dmg is higher than Fire Grab so that even non glass cannon eles will benefit from its use.

Time to change something maybe?

The only issue i have with Fire Grab is that I never seem to hit anything with it. However, this issue might be less with the skill itself and more with just general targeting issues in gw2.

edit; i have the same issue with the dagger air 2 skill, but the difference is that i never use dagger air 2, haha.

Dano.2408:

@Scrambles I do WvW the most, and enjoy DD, can you post your build plz?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhMmmblR4wjDAkHmcCLhCKUeMDO2A

Here ya go. I didn’t fill out the armor, but I use mostly PVT gear (stuff from AC) mixed with some cof gear. I have 2 sup rune of monk, for +15% boon duration, and 4 sup rune of the ogre, because rock dog is awesome

Tirshek.9563:

Thanks a lot, what about at level 80? What should i get?

i would recommend searching these Ele forums or the guild wars 2 subreddit (reddit.com/r/guildwars2) for specific build info. It all varies depending on your playstyle and what you’re trying to accomplish.

The cookie cutter, as far as i know, still seems to be the D/D bunker build -30 trait points in water and arcana with a lot of condition removal, and power/vita/toughness armor. This is the build i use with a couple personal tweaks..but i spend most of my time in WvW where survivability is king

Skills – at level 20 just go with what you think you need. At lower levels, i found i was dying a lot so i started using more defensive utility skills and traits.

Weapons – acquire and try to familiarize yourself with all of them. For leveling you might have the most luck with scepter/dagger.

Armor – not really important until you max level, since you’re going to be upgrading constantly. But the same idea applies as with skills- what do you feel you need? If your dying a lot, get more toughness/vitality. If you’re survivability is fine, get more power/crit gear.
If the choice is between toughness/vitality, i think Eles benefit more from vita. With all the access to regen and heals you have, you definitely benefit from a large health pool.

The hardest part for me learning an Ele was just overcoming the massive amount of abilities you have access to. Putting trait points in Arcana will lower the cooldown time on switching attunements, giving you more flexibility to jump between attunements and learn more of your skills.

covenn.7165:

Scrambles.2604:

I know this may not be a popular opinion, but i miss Swirling Winds

Someone actually requested that Ele’s equip focues to protect our siege from trebs, until that person was quickly reminded it doesn’t work anymore. There was an audible, collective “sigh” in Teamspeak.

As an ele I like that it got nerfed It means I was finally able to salvage that useless focus of mine and no longer have to waste time baby sitting siege. I am far better suited to killing anyway.

“patch notes [fixed]:

Swirling Winds no longer effects unblockable projectiles
Increased Elementalists bag space by (1) slot"

I know this may not be a popular opinion, but i miss Swirling Winds

Someone actually requested that Ele’s equip focues to protect our siege from trebs, until that person was quickly reminded it doesn’t work anymore. There was an audible, collective “sigh” in Teamspeak.

DPS meters are only for players with an exclusionary and elitest mindset. Of course this type of player doesn’t exist already in game and will only emerge with the implementation of tools like dps meters.

We should also get rid of in-game chat. That only facilitates rudeness and discrimination among players, and serves no other productive purpose.

I dunno, some of the most epic video game experiences i’ve ever had were in the old 40 man raids of vanilla WoW. I think raid content would be cool, if properly done. The only thing my guild gets organized for is WvW.

If we had a reason to get together one night a week to try to tackle difficult raid content over the course of a few months, that would be welcome in my opinion.

pulsecodesgnl.3470:

Okaishi.8320:

Well, I’ve often been in the situation where my zerg is half of the size of the enemies,’ and taking out the trebs with a rush simply isn’t an option (especially when they are placed in easily defended locations). Taking it out with a counter treb won’t work either, because they have more elementalists with them which means more swirling winds uptime. This resulting often in a few of our elementalists standing on top of the wall blocking as many shots as they can, until that wall finally drops.

I think it’s also a mechanic that rewards the larger zerg, again something that isn’t needed in my opinion.

Three elementalists with a focus can keep SW up enough to negate 2-3 trebs. That kind of invalidates larger zerg at that point, doesn’t it? Unless you need 100% uptime, then you need 5. But really, 5 isn’t much from a zerg.

This actually rewards smaller groups with specific compositions, I don’t mind that. The same thing is also rewarded with a bunch of golems and mesmers and I don’t want that removed from the game.

also, i’m pretty sure guardians can block trebs. Actually, guardians can’t block trebs, i just see them throw bubbles up all the time for no reason, lol. But thieves can, depending on the angle.

Okaishi.8320:

Scrambles.2604:

I think the only thing more boring than blocking trebs is operating trebs and never getting any shots to land because they’re being blocked

I see where you coming from but i actually enjoy trying to coordinate with others to block trebs. It would help if they gave you WXP or something for your efforts.

It’s like scouting – very important but boring and not rewarding. There’s not much you could do to make it less boring, but if it was more rewarding it would provide more incentive for others to join in and help so you’re not always doing it on your own.

I think trebbing for long periods of times with little results (shots getting blocked) is as boring as being the one blocking them, which shows it’s a boring mechanic for both sides. There’s a lot of stuff you can coordinate with others that are waaaay more fun than blocking incoming treb shots, and I think it’s better to remove the mechanic than rewarding it, because most people play WvW for fun and not the rewards.

I’m not going to argue it isn’t boring. But i’ll compare it to scouting again:

Is scouting completely necessary? No, not at all, the zerg will continue to roll on with or without you. But does scouting make it easier for the entire server? Yes, and it increases your odds of winning.

Same thing can be applied to blocking trebs. However, blocking trebs is like plugging a hole in a dam— someone should be trying to remedy the source of the problem while you apply a bandaid fix…or rather your server should be trying to knock out the trebs so your not blocking forever.

Okaishi.8320:

I agree they should remove the swirling winds absorbing siege shots mechanic. It’s a boring thing, elementalists are being forced to stand at trebs/walls for long periods of time, making sieges drag on longer than they should while forcing a class into a very dull task.

The only way trebs could be nerfed in my opinion is their range, the passive trebbing on EB for example is terrible, every outer tower being in range of Stonemist. It’s not exactly fun gameplay. Other than that I don’t really think trebs need a nerf, and I actually would prefer for the maps to be slightly redesigned to fix the trebbing from one tower/keep to another rather than any direct nerfs to trebs.

I think the only thing more boring than blocking trebs is operating trebs and never getting any shots to land because they’re being blocked

I see where you coming from but i actually enjoy trying to coordinate with others to block trebs. It would help if they gave you WXP or something for your efforts.

It’s like scouting – very important but boring and not rewarding. There’s not much you could do to make it less boring, but if it was more rewarding it would provide more incentive for others to join in and help so you’re not always doing it on your own.

Here’s the build i’m running:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQBYAg84ETYJUQhyjZwxGA

I think the typical bunker build uses 10 in earth (0/0/10/30/30), but i prefer 10 in fire (10/0/0/30/30).

what really stands out in the bunker build is the regen, vigor, and conditional removals. Especially the condition removals, those are huge. I remove conditions without even thinking about it (literally). You also get evasive arcana from 30 in arcana, which is crucial, and you get an extra heal in water.

I also like that i can build this heavily into defense without feeling hindered offensively.

In order to “change attunement when needed” you need to increase the likelyhood they wont be on cooldown when theyre needed :P If it doesn’t effect you, then more power to you, but i switch attunements at least every 10 secs.

Otherwise, I’m able to get 25 stacks of might with just 10 points in fire. So you don’t necessarily need 30 points in fire to get all that might. You’re also going to have a hard time maintaining might stacks if you’re using earth finishers to proc might, since you’ll have to wait a while to jump back into fire. If you’re able to get enough might stacks without leaving fire then go for it.

IMO, D/D eles are at a disadvantage from the get-go: We are the squishiest class already, and with D/D the only way to do damage is putting yourself right up in the danger. This is why you see so many d/d bunker builds, it’s the only way to mitigate the inherent danger of being a light, melee class.

Well with no points in arcana, you’re going to be hindered when it comes to jumping around attunements. You’re definitely going to feel that if you’re using D/D.

Also, the best thing about investing in the water trait line is the condition removal it offers.

You’re going to need to elaborate on the purpose of this build. It looks like your going for close range dmg/all around build, but you going to have trouble being effective if you’re stuck in fire the majority of the time.

Why is focus so ignored?

As far as i know, dagger offhand does much of what focus does, but better.

The only time i use focus is either in WvW for swirling winds, or if for whatever reason i’m getting dropped really quickly and i need that few seconds of earth invincibility.

The only other thing i can think of that stands out is that the water 5 is a blast finisher. I’ve never really utilized it but i’d be interested to hear from someone that has, haha.

bhagwad.4281:

Azure Prower.8701:

ARM.3912:

Red is dead. End of discussion.

You’re not the boss of me!

If I’m running pass you and not attacking you. I’m doing you a favour. Attack me and you’re dead.

Just because its red. Doesn’t mean you should. Only that you can. Freedom of choice.

^^This. You don’t have to fight anyone. You can. There’s a difference.

Yeah, you dont HAVE to. But if you don’t you might as well join the other server, traitor.

Cost.6917:

D/P + Shortbow,
+2 ini on stealth, +2ini/10s, SR, SS, SoS(traveling)/RfI/Smoke Screen

Use shortbow to have fast excess to cliffs and to overall fast traveling.
Use D/P 5-2-2-2 through the same smoke field with auto-targeting turned off. Refill your ini with SR, SmScr(+2+2+2) or Rfl than your are low on it.
You are in perma-stealth scouting there.
You can be spotted by seeing your smoke fields, but you can easily go away.
No actual gear is needed, coz thief’s survivability mostly is not gear-dependent.
GL&HF scouting.

BTW you _should_care about killing people, coz some of them will annoy you, while you are scouting for income and can’t leave your position. This is where you need gear.

With this same set-up, you can blast your smoke field with your shortbow (d/p 5 > sb 2). You can get 3 stealth blast finishers out of it.

The only problem is you have to stay out of combat. But if you chain it you can keep Dolyaks stealthed forever

edit; the guy above me said the same thing but more detailed.

here is a build calculator http://www.gw2builds.org/

since your not 80 yet, i would say:

1) put all your traits into arcana. The best way to get familiar with all your abilities and jumping around attunements is getting your attunment cooldown as low as possible.

2) since your not 80 yet, i wouldn’t invest too much in gear. If you find you’re dying a lot, get vita/toughness gear. If you have no problem with dying, get power/crit.

For a lvl 80, the cookie cutter right now seems to be bunker builds 0/0/10/30/30, with power/vita/toughness gear. 30 in arcana for evasive arcana and lower attunement cd, and 30 in water for vita/healing/condition removal. This build is nice because it makes you very hard to bring down and gives you a lot of wiggle room while your still learning how to optimize your offensive abilities.

You might want to search through the ele forum archives. I’m pretty sure there are a good amount of builds listed.

One thing WoW definitely did right is embrace crowd-sourcing and community support in the form of mods and add-ons. Not enough games do this in my opinion. It fosters a better, more involved community, while saving devs the hassle of small things like UI fixes.

With that said, i would kill for a damage meter/some sort of combat metrics. I’m tired of guessing, i want to see some elitest jerk level theory crafting applied to GW2 beyond “zerk gear > everything else”

i’m not sure if that’s what you were asking for OP, your post did come off very rambly, so i just followed your last paragraph.

ARM.3912:

Red is dead. End of discussion.

CallousEye.5018:

It’s good because offhand dagger is good.

Scepter on it’s own isn’t compelling.

With scepter you get:

2 more blast finishers (fire 2 & 3)
2 blinds (earth 3 air 3)
1 defensive sklll (earth 2)
1 vulnerability debuffer (water 2,—4 stacks for each hit)

Personally, i think scepter has a lot to offer as a middle-grounds weapon. It doesn’t have the group support that staff does, but it has more support skills than d/d. It works great offensively when paired with dagger, not quite the offensive power of d/d, but where it lacks in offense it makes it up in defensive utility.

eldain stenlund.4306:

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

I am a lvl 80 elementalist and I got all weapons and gear. Basically you need to prepare for any type of battle you’re gonna expect. In some dungeon instances the scepter-focus is the best choice, in keep battles its the staff. For wvw roaming its D/D and for general PvE content the S/D would probably be the best choice.
As for the stats/gear you choose should depend on your teammates. I often go full support D/D with 1k healing power when I team up with a team of glass cannons and I gear to rampager with S/F for dungeons where we have attleast one support oriented ally already. In WvW when I want to burst people down quickly without any regards to my life I go S/D full berserker with arcana slot-skills.

Learn to play and adapt, think outside the box before you start bickering about whats in the box.

So, you are saying: i need to do this in a dungeon.. or pvp. or wvw.

“STOP, i need to change everything before we go into the next room,
I have my support stuff on me, i need my dps now…
*room 1 cleared…

STOP, i need to change everything again. i need to get my AoE kit.(weapon,traits,gear)
*room 2 cleared…

STOP, i need to change everthing again…

by the 3:d stop.. you get kicked from the group.

Now, i could probably do all this in a dungeon.
(but it whould be stupid, and tiresome).

And in a pvp surronding. Your enemy is there to kill you.
You dont go boxing rounds, so you can not change gear mid fight because its going down wards.. you cant even change weapon.

Engineers have this working ALOT better with kits.
i can jump in and out of flamethrower for close range.. and elixir for long – close. and i can also turn them off for rifle or P/P or P/S… IN combat i can react and adapt.

Elementals are just fecked from start.
As i have said before… The class looks and sounds super awesome on paper,
But in game… its awhole other story.

This class is obviously badly implemented.

There are a ton of ideas on this forum, and hopefully also A-net have a few.
If they can fix it… lets look at the upcoming patch and see whats happpening.

no what he’s saying is L2P. You’re exaggerating the effort it takes to switch weapons.

Numlock>H>double-click desired weapon – takes like 2 seconds.

If it would be easier i can just sit back and watch while you hate hate hate away at a class that you obviously don’t like playing.

xbaunx.6438:

Now that I got that off my chest, there is absolutely no weapon, from a PVE and WvW standpoint, that outclasses every other in EVERY situation. Just carry all your weapons on you, shell out some extra gold to have a staff, scepter, two daggers, and a focus, and just use the right tool for the right job.

I agree that this is our best approach at the moment. However, each weapon represents a different combat style, range and skill set.

We’re asking Ele’s to gather all weapon sets, master 60 skills, learn 60 cooldown timings, master 3 play styles, 3 types of range (and maneuverability best suited for each range), and develop a trait scheme that lends itself a little bit to all 3 play styles but commits to none. Ele must do this just to be on par with the other classes when discussing a variety of situations. A class that boasts versatility shouldn’t have to improvise pre-combat, irreversible weapon selections just to break free of it’s inability to react to changes during combat.

I love that we’re expected to master so many facets of combat but it’s a little disappointing when your result is not something to be admired. Maybe I’m doing it wrong, but it seems a little clunky to have to swap in the desired weapon set before opening combat and then be locked-out from swapping again. Our attunements should be making up for this, but they aren’t able to because attunement swap cooldowns prevent us from adapting to reactive combat.

It’s the nature on the class. If you want low-input/high-output roll a warrior/guardian.

I disagree about the end result, though. Elementalists are the only class on the forums that people simultaneously cry for nerfs and buffs. You get out of it what you put in, with a high skill ceiling.

You can get by sufficiently just playing one weapon set. But if you really want to shine, you gotta put in 110% effort, learn all the weapon sets, and anticipate what kind of scenarios you’ll likely find yourself in.

I dunno how others feel about this, but i’d love to see an endgame similar to WoW raids.

Just make dungeons like they have now, but instead of 5 man make it 40 man. You can forgo the gear treadmill and just add epic looking gear.

Just something that requires a coordinated effort on a large scale with bang-your-head-against-the-wall difficulty.

I like s/d because you can maintain 25 stacks of might and dps from the safety of mid range. You also get good defensive options with earth 2 armor, as well as 2 blinds (air 3 and earth 3). However, i only really use it in PvE, since your biggest hitting moves are the hardest to get off on a moving target.

You also get 2 heals (water 3 and 5), so if you run a bunker build like me you get lots of damage, plus you almost never die.

Finally, water 2 has a very short cd, so when you’re not stacking might you can build up vulnerability stacks on your enemy (4 per hit – max at 16 stacks i think).

Snow White.9680:

jayb.1329:

Snow White.9680:

Look at the majority of the posts from people who are for dueling. That’s the mindset I was talking about. I hate that.

" Shut up! You irritate me!!! You’re selfish!!!" All because those of us against dueling are expressing our opinions and concerns.

lol the irony.

there are extremely annoying people who are in favor of dueling but that doesn’t even begin to take away from our stance

im completely open to hearing any concerns with dueling that don’t fall into the “i don’t want to see it” or the “i don’t want to be spammed with requests” categories.

i’m completely open to hearing any logical reasons people have to oppose dueling

The same reason why people don’t want dps meters and mods like that. It caters to a certain type a player that festers in the community like a slow cancer.

I’m having flashbacks to SWTOR now. The only people that “abuse” dps meters and duels are just the loudest. They definitely aren’t the majority.

As someone who loves minmaxing/improving my gameplay with metric feedback, as well as friendly, competitive duels, i don’t like the idea that i am a cancer on the community.

You want to talk about cancer, you should complain about the small percentage of players that wont let you run cof with them because your not a zerker war/mes.

Skigit.3715:

I just have to put in my two cents. I love dueling…No I don’t /duel spam everyone i see in other games. I love WvW but hate Spvp.

Reasons Spvp dueling Doesn’t work.
1. It’s not even the same character as the one you’ve worked up in pve.

2. PVP and WvW follow different rulesets (try testing out a confusion built character in pvp then wvw)

3. A lot of stats can’t be replicated. (full berserkers in pvp gives vitality lol wut? etc)

4. People ALWAYS join my games when i find an empty server to duel in. they then run around either capping points making us map switch more frequently or attack while im dueling someone.

5. Spvp games are not long enough for some fights. Try dueling a guardian as a
guardian and the fights can last 20+ minutes while a game can only go 15

6. No consumables. Sometimes consumables are as much a part of your build as the traits/stats yet cannot be used in spvp.

7. Tons of loading screens!!! Lets say you want to try 2 different builds. you zone to the mists, spec, find a game. tell your friend which game is empty. zone in. fight once. zone back to the mists. respec. find another empty game join it and fight again.

I would love to see dueling implemented. I hate how almost all of the pvp in wvw is zerg vs zerg the most fun ive had in gw2 pvp are small skirmishes at the EB JP.

It always makes me sad when im dueling in wvw that I can’t duel the people from my server. I want to see who would win in a wvw pvp setting me or my friend but its not worth switching servers for and Spvp isnt even close to wvw pvp.

Only question I have for the anti dueling people is why?

If you are worried about immersion Isn’t costume brawl even more immersion breaking?

If you are worried about getting dueled Anet has shown that they are very anti greifing and would probably put an auto decline.

If you are worried about class imbalance being highlighted… There are plenty of places people already 1v1 and having dueling won’t cause more complaints imo. it might actually cause less complaints since some classes that seem overpowered are easier to beat once you understand them such as Mesmer and Theif.

QFT.

Best be careful though, that sort of insightful reasoning is not tolerated ’round these parts.