Guild Wars 2

The problem really isn’t the teaming up. I could care less about who wins at the end of the week, and I just enjoy the good fights (and we’ve been getting a ton of good fights).

The problem is, if you’re not winning in terms of score (or at least competing) puggies aren’t going to enter the battlegrounds and help out. Puggies only arrive when you don’t need them, because lets face it, most solo players aren’t interested in good fights and battles, they are interested in easy wins and free XP/karma handouts.

It’s this kind of slippery slope, combined with the insane orb mechanics that makes it very difficult for a server to compete once they lose a couple of battles. It’s a downward spiral. Once things start going downhill, it becomes very difficult to stop the process.

The key to having fun and performing well in WvW isn’t in what traits or even profession you use, but being part of an organized guild that works together to accomplish goals.

I just use a staff with a build that revolves around providing buffs to my allies, and generally fitting into a support role as I throw down tons of combo fields for people to take advantage of.

ThiBash.5634:

I like the elemental. I don’t bother with any of the other skills, because the elemental is so versatile.

If only it wasn’t made out of wet paper towels, both HP and damage dealing wise.

bartsimpsons.6135:

kill > area denial

WvW is a teambased game. There are lots of classes better at killing than an elementalist, but few classes can match our area denial potential.

D/D may be better if you’re zerging with a bunch of puggies, but if you’re in an organized guild, they’d prefer you to focus on doing the one thing Elementalists are really good at. Laying down lots of combo/control/area denial fields. And that means you’ll be using a staff.

Signet of Forums.4397:

I cannot help but notice how many of the comparisons are to warriors, and it makes me wonder why everyone then concludes that the elementalist is the class the needs changed.

Justified or not, it is, after all, a pretty common opinion that warriors are currently overpowered.

That’s not relevant to this discussion. Like I said in my post, I could’ve easily picked another profession and the point would still stand. Elementalist Minor Traits are lacking compared to all other professions.

MagnusLL.8473:

So what does this make you, losing to a tsunami of pugs?

Pretty much, jeah. But I hope that amidst your sudden outburst of pseudo-wit you managed to grasp the actual message.

The Thief thing is pretty much a rendering issue.

The rest of your post sounds like some pretty serious hacking is going on, with some stuff that even makes me suspect checks are being made clientside rather than serverside, which would be utter lunacy.

Other professions have Minor Traits that are useful all the time. The Elementalist’s Minor Traits only apply when they’re in specific attunements. The only exception is the Arcana trait line, which is also widely viewed as one of our best, if not the best Elementalist trait line

Not only does handicapping the Elementalist’s Minor Traits so severely makes an Elementalist caught outside his traited attunement tree weaker than he should be, it also means that it’s incredibly hard to make well synergized Elementalist builds, because it’s always IF/OR instead of AND.

E.g.

Elementalist Adept level Minor Traits:

• Flame Barrier – You have a 20% chance to cause burning whenever a foe attacks you in melee. Only triggers when attuned to fire.
• Zephyr’s Speed – Move 10% faster while attuned to air.
• Stone Flesh – Gain 1 toughness per level while attuned to earth.
• Soothing Mist – Regenerate health while attuned to water.
• Arcane Fury – Grant yourself fury for 2 seconds on attunement.

Warrior Adept level Minor Traits:

• Reckless Dodge – Damage foes at the end of a dodge roll.
• Precise Strikes – 33% chance to cause bleeding on critical hits.
• Thick Skin – Extra armor when health is above 90%.
• Determined Revival – Gain 5 extra toughness per level while reviving.
• Versatile Rage – Gain 5 strikes of adrenaline on weapon swap.

I’m not even cherrypicking here. I just took the warrior’s minor adept traits because that’s another profession I like to play. In truth, you can pick any other profession you want to compare. It’s the exact same story. The Elementalist is unfairly handicapped.

Try killing the defenders before killing the keep lord?

I don’t buy the ‘ego’ argument. It’s more of a trolling thing. Pure Jimmy Rustlin’.

Most of the good guilds fled Desolation. The last thing you want as an organised WvW guild is to have guildies face four hour queues before they can join your outfit. Desolation at the moment lacks organized guilds. Any group of players seeking to get organized will end up transfering elsewhere due to the queues making organized play impossible. So what you then have left is a tsunami of pug players who abuse the transfer system to join the ‘winning team’. Though without a backbone of organized guilds, the server will eventually fall apart as the server is no longer able to compete within its own bracket and the pugs flee to the next ‘winner’.

MajorKong.8095:

It’s okay if you guys feel the need to team up on us. It’s common knowledge that desolation players are on average as good as two, or even three Gunnar’s Hold/Augury Rock players, so at least this way we we’re getting a fair fight.

If you’d like to know more please visit http://www.majorkong.net for details.

I know you’re trolling, but come on, man. Let’s face the facts here.

First, Desolation is in the highest populated server top three.

Second, you utterly failed to compete with your matchup and got demoted. Forced to face off against smaller servers that excelled in their bracket and were promoted instead.

Third, I used to play on Desolation before the overpopulation forced my guild to transfer off. Yet here you are, suggesting Desolations supposedly faces greater numbers than they can muster. Last time I checked, Gunnar’s Hold was a medium population server.

In the end, a red name’s gonna be a red name. An alliance of any kind is at most going to revolve around not attacking eachother’s objectives. The game doesn’t actually support teaming up between enemies. My AoE spells aren’t going to magically avoid damaging our pretend allies.

Why on earth would anyone think this is an exploit?

What’s next, are people going to cry about teamspeak being an exploit?

Desolation doesn’t bring choppas. They bring rusty lawnmowers.

I wish we had server forums for this kind of stuff.

They need to open up free transfers, but only to specific low population servers.

That way people can’t abuse the system to “join the winning team”.

I imagine other classes can reach some pretty high combined damaged as well when using elite skill forms.

Don’t hype yourself on stuff the community says. Only believe things when hey come straight from a developer/CM. Otherwise you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment.

Why would I go out and play some football with my friends? WHERE IS MY REWARD?!

I play pretty much exclusively with the Staff.

In (solo) PvE, I feel stancedancing is just a matter of efficiency. I mostly stick to Fire attunement, because there’s no real rush. During tougher fights you have to stancedance, though. You need the heals and control that Fire doesn’t offer.

In WvW I mostly stick to air, in order to buff guildmates with speed (if you have Arcane Wave as a blast finisher, you have two AoE swiftness buffs, which is tremendously usefull). When we’re in actual combat, I rotate attunements to make sure all my big AoE spells are constantly on cooldown. I don’t really focus on damage dealing, but more on area denial and support. IMO, that’s currently what the Elementalists are really good at.

If anything, you guys win a Drama award.

But I agree, bugs/exploits do need fixing.

This is relevant to my interests.

I find that it travels rather slowly for a teleport.

Just keep in mind that respect is earned and not bought.

You say you have a guild backing you up. This is already a big advantage. I find that in WvW you need a group of at least somewhere around ten people in order to reliably accomplish tasks. As long as you have this group of people following your orders, you will find that your successes will lead to the size of your group increasing, as people will tend to flock to people who get **** done. Not to people who tell others to get **** done.

Lead by example.

Just make a character of both professions, take them to the mists and try a couple of builds against the stationary golems and the profession NPC’s. Then play whatever profession you enjoy most.

Dirt Attunement is easy as heck, albeit very slow.

Just don’t bathe for a couple of days, and you automatically start attuning to dirt.

Unfortunately you randomly start spawning dirt elementals during this attunement process. They have to be defeated by your summonable Dirt Vaccuum weapon. They give pretty good experience, but no loot.

A shortcut some people take is using a trait called “One With Mud”. It involves covering yourself with mud in order to attune to Dirt instantly. It also gives protection against Predators.

Element of Dirt/Mud just didn’t have that catchy ring to it.

The problem with the elementalist is IMO not his skillset, but lackluster, schizophrenic and situational traits when compared to other professions.

Grand Theft Golem

One sollution to at least lessen the annoyance factor of the queue could be to add extra maps that have zero objectives on it, and as such would merely be a large PvP map.

Take the Eternal Battlegrounds map, keep all the keeps and structures, but remove the gates and the NPC’s and the dynamic “ownership/capture” events. The three factions would roam the map looking for other people to kill. Holding up in keeps for protection, putting down siege to deal with zergs, etcetera etcetera. Mass PvP broken down to it’s simplest and most attractive factor.

And because there are no objectives or points to score, you can easily add multiple districts/‘overflow’ versions of this map, to accomodate for more people.

It doesn’t solve the queue problem, but it allows guilds and people to still participate in ‘on demand mass PvP’ while waiting for their spot(s) to open up.

Thoughts?

Have you considered that maybe the insults are a reaction to bad leadership?

I don’t wish to insinuate anything, but people randomly being verbally abusive over how you and your guild wish to spend their money seems unlikely, and it seems more plausible to me that you might be a bad commander who views the 100g icon as a license to yell at people.

Here’s some general tips regarding WvW commandeering. Leadership revolves around encouragement and focussing on the good things, even when the battle seems hopeless and lost. Complaining and blaming doesn’t make people want to try harder, it makes them want to leave. For every person that verbally abuses you, there are ten more that just log off and don’t bother coming back the next day.

Also, another good tip. Never pet a burning Charr.

Check your map and check it often.

Happens in one of the borderland keeps as well.

Free XP, IMO.

The Elementalist is not a broken class, though it feels kind of schizophrenic. As if a dozen developers all tried to create the profession and they all had a different vision of how the profession should work.

I think the skills can be dealt with. They’re mostly okay if you don’t count bugs and the sort.

The real problem I feel are the traitlines. We have so few good builds. Nothing really synergizes well. The minor traits are particularly terrible as they’re generally only effective about 25% of the time (considering you spend equal amounts of time in each attunement).

Most classes have recieved a traitline pass during the BWE events that streamlined their traits. Cut out or improved the bad ones, merged together a couple of meh ones to increase their appeal, etc etc. AFAIK this didn’t happen to the Elementalist. So we’re kinda due a traitline pass.

It’s a combo hit, just like hundred blades. Lot’s of small hits that get counted together into one big number.

edit: nevermind, didn’t look at the screenshot.

IMO, when a guild claims a keep and start upgrading it, the supply for that upgrade should be instantly moved to a “reserved stockpile”, where only the keep’s workers can use it.

My guild also claims keeps regularly, and it’s infuriating when you can’t upgrade them because random players keep emptying your supply stocks to repair gates that are under attack, plonk down arrowcarts in terrible positions and other blatant wastes of supply.

Noone would ever claim and upgrade a keep if it was going to be reset a couple of hours later anyway.

Are you part of an organized guild? Do you run around together in WvW while on teamspeak/ventrilo/mumble?

I ask this because I’m seriously getting fed up with all the crying babbies in this forum.

This is nothing personal, but if people are crying about losing in WvW when you’re running around solo, zergin’ like a clueless little zergling, you need to log out and find yourself something else to do, because you’re crying about losing when you’re not even trying to win. You’re just running around losing and crying about the enemy just blatantly being better than you.

The Ruinous guys are just trolling the crap out of you guys, and if they’re not, they should be. I know I would. I would laugh so hard at butthurt kids who run to the forums, crying of cheats, exploits and grasping at irrelevant little straws when anyone with the slightest bit of PvP experience can see that these are blatantly being outplayed, pounded into dust by an enemy collective that plays the game the way it was meant to be played.

Tl;dr – qq more, get good, l2p. Etc. Etc.

I prefer a “lack” of rewards, so the people who play WvW are the people who enjoy WvW, and not a bunch of farming randoms who clog up the queue for their rewards while alt-tabbing to the forums to complain about how unbalanced/terrible WvW is.

Cazio.2137:

So you play on Desolation right? One of the servers that have people on at all hours of the day. Then you come here to blame the lesser populated servers for not being organized? Really?

Snort plays on Gunnar’s Hold. Our guilds are in an alliance and regularly team up in WvW. We used to play on Desolation during the BWE events, but moved to Gunnar’s Hold when the game went retail, because we feared that due to Desolation’s overcrowdedness, not everyone from our guilds would be able to join.

The Unnamed guys know what they’re doing and Snort is pretty much right on the ball in this thread. If you are not organized, you’re just cannonfodder.

I’m pretty sure retaliation doesn’t proc retaliation. Condition ticks don’t proc retaliation either, I believe.

It bugs out sometimes. Not sure what causes it. Maybe the battle lasts too long and the game stop giving you experience ticks because it thinks you’re farming or something.

Puggies are useless on any server.

Well, not useless I guess. They make great cannonfodder, and an extra sword or gun on the battlefield is always welcome. In the grand scheme of things though they tend to have little impact. Puggies mostly tend to fight other puggies in a tug of war that lasts hours and has no real victor.

Occasionally you get the brave soul that manages to rally the puggies and turns them into a semi-organized zerg that stampedes over everything in their path, but overall they’re mostly just people who turn up when you’ve already won and who stay away when you need them the most.

I realize that might sound offensive to pug players, but it’s really true. The best advice I can give is to join a good WvW guild/alliance and experience WvW as it was meant to be experienced. I guarantee that in a week’s time you’ll be telling other people the same thing.

I think the reason they haven’t touched the classes at the lower end of the spectrum yet is because they need bigger tweaks than you can fit in an evening hotfix.

The one thing about the French that dissapointed me was that they didn’t use any Monthy Python taunts at all when we were attacking their keep.

Snort.3698:

Attack a wall rather than the door.

Hear, hear.

Adapt to the battlefield, rather than demanding that the battlefield be adapted to you.

What is it with people and their obsession with needing a reward for everything?

My guild plays WvW because it is fun. We do whatever is neccesary to win. If that means looking at hairy Dolyak butts, then so be it. When you win, the knowledge that your effort contributed to the victory is the reward.

If your perception of “fun” is based on the carrots being dangled in front of you, you’re really missing out, bro.

How the heck do you oneshot yourself with retaliation.

It’s funny how this happens in virtually every class based MMO ever.

Remember World of Roguecraft?

What would you want Anet to do?

They’ve already done what they could. They’ve provided free transfers so people can transfer to a lesser populated server, to reduce queues and make WvW more challenging.

Unfortunately, the community is terrible as usual, and instead of using transfers to get out, people use the transfers to get onto winning servers instead. Compounding the problems.

Don’t blame ANet for terrible people.

What exactly are they “spying” on? QQ Emotes?

Guilds like Ruin get what this game is all about. All out warfare, and the community drama that inevitably follows it.