Guild Wars 2

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Allow pet F2 skills to activate automatically on cooldown.

Goal of Proposal
There are some attacks that are pretty much useful to activate the moment they’re available. In the heat of battle however, it’s easy to overlook them. Combined with the fact that the skill doesn’t always trigger when clicked, automating it would be very helpful.

Proposal Functionality
Basically, ctrl right click on it like an auto attack to toggle automation.

Associated Risks
None that I can see. Automation has pros and cons (the con being that it could be timed better if controlled manually). Could be tricky to program though.

Fury.6281:

After fighting off Scarlet’s minions for hours, with no end in sight and our forces dwindling,

What I’m curious about is why it’s only OUR forces dwindling. Oh right, Scarlet’s uber at everything…sorry, my bad.

Just love it how people here will tell you exactly how to play the game and why you’re an inferior lifeform if you don’t play exactly the way they do.

Of course you’re not gonna be fast at clicking if you’re used to hotkeys…biggest duh in the history of duhs. It’s the same vice versa. Adopting a new playing style will take time and practice.

Vash Past.4385:

Anyone who would argue this point should first accept an Auto-attack duel.

This is exactly why so many people have issues with the elementalist. You pick a single aspect you dislike, isolate it, and then dismiss anyone who disagrees as crazy or uninformed.

You cannot look at skills in a vaccuum, because they do not exist in a vaccuum. Any good ele will be spending most of his/her using all the other skills available. Auto attacks are only fillers or, in the case of Stoning, combo parts.

Elementalists aren’t like other professions. They are like thieves. The auto-attacks are filler skills, for when you have nothing else available. What I don’t understand however, is that people ‘get that’ for thieves but somehow cannot accept it for elementalists.

For future discussions, I’d really like to see people taking into account the context when discussing game balance. Because isolation, which may get you to appear very smart at first glance, ultimately doesn’t cut it in a game where skills are grouped up together.

Aidan Savage.2078:

As said above, this is a NAB feature. Elementalists cannot do weapon swaps, if they could, you would see a second place to equip weapons in the equipment window. Switching attunements is the equivalent of using the F1-F4 skills in other professions.

It’s a legitimate issue. All weapon swap effects apply to attunement swapping except this one. That’s inconsistent.

Ironically, the real bug might be other on-swap runes triggering when switching attunements.

Given how Izzy even promoted the use of on swap runes in his video guide on elementalists, I seriously doubt that.

At this point I really don’t care as long as it ends. The battle for Lion’s Arch just solidifies the ridiculous, over the top list of impossible feats that made Scarlet such a cringeworthy lorebreaking character to begin with.

So it’s normal that a skill that’s supposed to be all about party support also happens to be an instant kill? I’m not buying that.

As for the no melee bit, it’s hard to not melee when there’s npcs all over the place. It’s good advice though.

The silver portrait elite aetherblade mobs have a battle standard attack that deals 27k damage and is impossible to see coming in actual fights. Even just the mob is impossible to see until you get instantly downed by them.

And no, I’m not wearing full berserker gear.

Just got instantly downed by a Battle Standard attack from an Elite Aetherblade (silver portrait). I’m guessing this is either a bug, or part of a ‘warrior promotion campaign’?

I mean, it’d be ok if it was dodgable but in the thick if the fight, attacks like that are impossible to see.

You mean like:

Where does Scarlet get her troops?
Why does she always succeed?
Why is her background story so unbelievable?
Why did her allies follow her?
etc.
etc.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

With Staff being a RANGE weapon it doesnt really need to have 2 Water fields, so i would be more than happy if one got moved to D/D the weapon set that is 100% melee.

The idea behind combo fields is primarily to encourage teamplay. The staff ele is supposed to place the water field for the dagger ele to use and blast.

Combos are optional and should be rewarded based on extra effort/special builds/good positioning. They shouldn’t be given as basically free on a weapon that’s designed for standalone fighting. Staff’s a group weapon and that’s why it has so many combo fields. Just like how Healing Spring and Healing Turret are also group skills. The best combo fields go to the weapons designed for group support and that’s how it should be.

Columbo.5924:

You dont really have any “epic” spells underwater, they are all pretty lackluster.

What’s not epic about Ice Globe? It can oneshot if you time it right.

The reason I wanted to play GW2 was the lore, personal home instances and extended background story.

Most of that isn’t in the game, but fortunately they have an immensely fun combat system. And who knows? Once they’re done with the poor storyline of Scarlet, lore in this game may actually pickup again. At least the side characters are nice. Now all they need is a believable villain.

Farzo.8410:

Stone.6751:

She forged a large alliance, but who is to say that alliance is the most powerful force of evil that could be raised or that this is the most diabolical plan that could be hatched?

It’s not that the Alliances might be powerful, but SHE MANAGED to bring enemies together to form an Alliance. Enemies that would be hard to bring together.

Yes. And to make it even weirder, she then proceeded to bring the alliances together as well. Suddenly, you have krait fighting side by side with the dredge and no explanation for it whatsoever.

Oh, and then there’s the fact that she’s been throwing away her troops against us for months and still she has enough left to takeover Lion’s Arch. Even without the ‘players need numbers’ explanation it doesn’t make sense. I mean, the ones that joined her were splintr groups. How many dredge are there in the world if even a small fraction of them is enough to take over Lion’s Arch after months of suffering losses?!

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

As Ele, we suck under water.

Disagree. Water attunement is pretty powerful underwater. If you can time the Ice Globe and Ice Wall explosions well, they’ll take a huge chunk out of your target’s hp. If you can aim Tidal Wave well, you can instagib targets. Add to that the fact that eles have no less than 4(!) crowd control skills, you can actually do quite a bit underwater.

Earth however is fairly weak underwater. I’ll admit that. But water…even the auto attack from water attunement is strong underwater.

munkaybiznaz.8067:

In those situations I am indeed doing dps and healing at the same time. One meteor shower doesn’t resolve what I’m talking about with rewards. Especially when I’m talking about events with enough people there to put a map into overflow.

Then what kind of rewards are you talking about? Even if you go staff (or rather, especially when you go staff), you should get the event rewards easily. Mob rewards is a different story, but the extra mobs spawned by events usually don’t give loot anyway.

So what exactly is it that you cannot get with staff?

Spiuk.8421:

Clicking is the superior form of key input.

Never said that. Just saying you can get used to it. One of my guild plays with a touchpad…something I could never see myself doing.

Aerathnor.8305:

Got a Naga for WoW and use it in gw. Nothing is faster than having every ability at mercy of one thumb. XD

That must be one muscled thumb…

The trick is not to go support. As an ele, you’re supposed to dps and support at the same time with the same build.

And seriously, 1 well-placed Meteor Shower is enough to get the reward anyway.

WonderWoozeh.9352:

I use to play MMOs as a clicker (mainly vanilla WoW).
I don’t think I could ever go back to clicking abilities now, considering how easy and quickly you can react to things. Also it makes movement a lot easier.

I actually use my keyboard and mouse to move as well. But I tend to click my skills mainly because I need to actively place them with my mouse cursor anyway.

Of course, it did kinda force me to buy a good gaming mouse…

I think it’s more like making use of all the tools at his disposal. There’s nothing wrong with going down, as long as you’re not defeated.

If you want a set of gear that allows some room for recieving damage, I’d recommend a mix of Soldier’s and Berserker’s. That way, you’ll have a bit more hp (you may want to get at least 12k) and armor while still adding major power (the most important damage stat for staff eles). Something like soldiers armor and berserker trinkets should get you through the game just fine.

Use the dev tracker and you’ll find it quickly enough.

Eviscera.9703:

ThiBash.5634:

Then I guess I’m only facing poor players.

Yes.

Gotta give me the name of that program you used to hack my pc and watch my PvP matches. Because I’m sure your opinion isn’t mostly based on theory. As for my part, I can’t remember the last time I lost to a non-staff ele. So I’ll stick with my original premise: staff eles can beat non-staff eles just fine.

As far as I know, yes, npcs can crit. However, to be perfectly honest, I never sat down and checked. As for having any value, that depends on your normal regen uptime. Can you get perma regen without it?

Wyrden.4713:

u really should try playing without clicking

u r way too slow by casting spells, an ele who would be bashing the keyboard but knowing what he is doing could have get em

dont hate me, just my 2 cents

Guess that’s preference. I too activate most of my skills by clicking on them, but you’d be surprised how fast one can get at doing so.

As for the video…the background music prevented me from watching more than a few seconds. :S

I’m more upset with the fact one person cried about this and got an instant dev response than the actualy change. It feels so degrading to always be ignored when you present ele issues, whereas a single complaint from the recieving end gets adressed straight away…

Have you considered using Sigil of Doom instead of earth? It’d give you another condition that gets applied every 10 seconds, rather than more bleeds (which you get easily from earth scepter?)

Eviscera.9703:

A good ele using s/d or d/d will never lose to a staff ele, never.

Then I guess I’m only facing poor players.

There’s no such thing as a non-versatile elementalist build. Any build you make will perform at least average in any game mode because thanks to the attunements, ele will always have a little bit of everything.

phaeris.7604:

As predicted. It’s easy to follow a zerg with an ele. Every class is easy in a zerg and can do well.

I’d say most professions are ok in zerg and can do well. Ele however, with their staff, can perform exceptionally well thanks to their superb combo fields. There are no other professions that combine raw damage with AoE crowd control as well as a staff ele. At least, not in the same build.

It’s a good point. You can make use of combos to increase your effectiveness as an ele. It seems too few people do that, but the results canbe quite strong if you use them well. For example, you can effectively get a free Powerful Aura simply by using a blast finisher in an ice field. With a few traits, it can be a potent combo.

Actually, I did. On my first run, I went to get the drill PoI and the spinning water made me so sick I actually had to stop playing. Granted, I was a bit tired when I started but I’ve not felt like that in years. I’m avoiding the thing as much as I can now, and I’ve mostly limited my playing time in the area (there other reasons for that too though).

Nikkinella.8254:

They really should swap the ele healing signet and the warrior healing signet.

Keep in mind though that eles also have Soothing Mist and Regeneration, where warriors just have the signet. And eles can trait to also get the active. Combine those and it’s natural to make the ele version a bit weaker. Even if in practice it seems unfair.

I usually end up in melee tanking the enemies just to make sure they get fully hit by Meteor Shower. It takes an upscaled champion for my ele to truly be in danger of going down though. The trick is not to go 100% dps, but take a few pieces of defensive gear. Not too much though, as you’ll want good dps too.

Eviscera.9703:

Staff has never been good for PvP and probably never will. It’s to clunky and slow to play with. The only reason you want to go staff is for PvE and WvW. D/D, S/D or S/F is the way to go for PvP.

It depends on how you play it. Staff is obviously a group weapon, and I can tell from experience that in larger fights (2v2 or 3v3) the staff gets better. Especially if you’re fighting over control of a point, you get the room to support your allies through area control.

And on a sidenote, whenever I encounter a non-staff ele, I usually beat them 1v1 with my staff ele. Anecdotal maybe, but so are most posts.

Guess I must be doing something wrong then, because I can play my ele just fine.

It’s probably another exclusive interview on some obscure site that Anet couldn’t be bothered to link to from their own website.

To be fair, I really doubt that there’s anything left that can make Scarlet interesting or believable anymore. The ‘being controlled against their will’ bit is getting old too.

To be honest, I don’t really care. Hopefully this whole Scarlet nonsense will be over and we’ll get a villain that, when she’s drilling for something, it’ll actually be interesting rather than lorebreaking.

Sorry, already left through the exit. ^^

If they implemented this, it would mean we’d get instantly trumped by necros and engineers though.

It can’t be perfect because it has Scarlet.

Vol.7601:

If you think Scarlet alone is the reason behind the demise of LA, then you are mistaken.

Confirmed through spoiler reveals last week.

Yeah, I know, the ‘thing invading her mind’. Still not impressed. The GW1 charr were actually a powerful foe. Scarlame is an insult.

By having a believable backstory. You don’t need to be epic to be interesting.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Scarlet is not half as bad as you guys make her if you’ve followed her background story

I have followed it, with great attention, hoping for some scrap of good stuff. But it gets worse every release. To be blunt, Scarlet is the only thing about the Living Story I don’t like, but because she’s the main focal point, she ruins all of it.

Apart from the overly heroic stuff in her background (she ultimate smart and super charismatic and apparently, very powerful because her minions would rather die than face her), she yet again does something completely over the top and unbelievable that spits on everything lore that went before her: she takes over Lion’s Arch.

Yes, that’s right…she does what the Charr, White Mantle, Undead, Karka and the Elder Dragons could not.

For some odd reason, the devs think adding more impossible things to her resume is the answer to people complaining about her being too perfect and being able to do anything.

Then again, the lore writers are mostly too stuck up to take criticism. So instead of offering friendly advice, we’re lashing at them. Because they’re not listening anyway, so it doesn’t matter if we’re gentle to them.

So argue what you will, but don’t insult the naysayers by claiming they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Ryld.1340:

ThiBash.5634:

Where did you guys learn that warriors get a 5 second weapon swap? Is it due to a trait or just in general? And why 5 seconds, why not get rid of it entirely then?

It’s a trait that has been there forever. It’s only a 5 point trait too I think?

Really? I did not know that.

warbreaker.8154:

Next update is the last one, right?

Really? Thank god…finally we’re done with the worst villan in the history of power rangers…

Adhal.3187:

If things are so bad why do you keep playing, I am just curious?

Because other than the overthetopridiculous villan, I actually like the game. But for me, the fact that she succeeds attacking Lion’s Arch means I’ll be playing a lot less.

Just find it annoying that a power rangers bad guy can do what actual well written foes could not. Then again, it’s typical of the villan type…we all pretend they’re actually a threat while we wait for some better show to come up.

DiogoSilva.7089:

1. Warriors switch to Weaponset A, triggering 2 sigils and putting them under a 9s CD.
2. Warriors switch to Weaponset B 5 seconds after, triggering the remaining 2 sigils.
3. Warriors switch back to Weaponset A 5 seconds after. By this time, the two first sigils are fully recharged, and will trigger again. And so on.
4. Conclusion: 4 on-swap sigil warriors with a 5 second weapon swap will trigger sigils every 5 seconds, unlike any other profession. This gives them almost “twice” the sigil power.

Quoted for emphasis. This seems important! How will sigils on multi sets work? Will they share cooldown, or will some professions really get ‘4 sigils’?

Where did you guys learn that warriors get a 5 second weapon swap? Is it due to a trait or just in general? And why 5 seconds, why not get rid of it entirely then?

Even more unbelievable than the current story already is…so very plausible unfortunately.