Guild Wars 2

Anierna.6918:

No. PvE is always zerk/assasins. Particularly in dungeons. No exceptions. Doesn’t matter what you think about survivability, what build you “like” to play, any of that; in PvE, DIRECT dmg is king (no condi-builds, things die too fast for condis to matter), and that means zerk.

It only works if you’re skilled enough to stay alive and your team is skilled enough to stay alive. My setup is pretty offense orientated as well, but I have enough defense to pick up the slack if things go wrong.

Funny to read this, because I have the exact opposite feeling when playing my engineer. Whatever I’ve tried, I always seem to end up dealing less damage AND being less survivable.

Xillllix.3485:

The reason why Anet decided that the ele is too good to deserve a weapon swap is beyond my understanding… (Why do I have the feeling I have said that before?.. like 1 year ago)

There have been many arguments against this, but the most important one is that ArenaNet’s design policy is specifically to limit the number of practical skill combinations. Guild Wars 1 had way to many combinations and as such was nearly impossible to balance. That’s why there are so many restrictions on skill selection in GW2.

MarzAttakz.9608:

We’re seeing a renewed interest in condition builds (many would laugh at this but in theory they appear to be extremely powerful)

Those theories have been going on for a long time, there’s not much news in this respect. Ele condition builds have always been powerful in theory.

From a weapon perspective we’re generally polarised into the following:

Staff being least reliant on water & arcana

Dagger/Dagger most reliant on water & arcana

Scepter/Dagger less reliant on water & arcana

What do you base this one?

There are definitely some interesting build options being thrown around at the moment however due to our poor survivability there is still a strong bias towards building defensively.

Who knows what the future will hold for our class?

Agreeing with you there.

If you are saying that people are trying new things, then I’m sure we can all agree. Wheter or not those new things will actually become popular wih the masses is another matter. Personally though, my biggest argument with your post is your presentation. You could have presented it in a way that doesn’t scream “you’re dumb and I’m not”. Calling Zelyhn out for a supposedly emotional reaction adds arrogance to the insult. But that’s just me I suppose, maybe I’m misreading things.

GuildWarsPlayer.5608:

Kalarchis.8635:

Ele has been my main since BWE1 (since GW1 launch really.) I love him to death. I’ve got a warrior and ranger at 80 and I play them occasionally, but it’s like staying over at a friends house; after a night or two I really just want to get home to my ele. The other classes just don’t resonate with me in the same way.

Also, we’ve got enough mesmer, guardian, warrior, and necro mains. Every time I see the Bifrost I get excited and then sigh because it’s a guardian. I’ve seen maybe three eles besides myself with ascended weapons, and twelve thousand warriors/guards with asc. greatswords. We need more ele mains.

Yeah, same here. None of the other professions hold me like the Elementalist. I guess the challenge of the profession is what does it for me, plus their really good for group play. A staff Elementalist is an asset to any group IMO.

Second that, though it seems BiFrost wielding casters are everywhere…and they all wear T3 human, so at least they look like elementalists.

Glyphs may have only 2 traits, but they’re very good traits.

In Anet’s defense, this is the first MMO in a while where money was actually worth something.

Really liked the NPC dialogues.

Also REALLY like the added NPC dialogues in the rest of the zone. Made it feel like something had actually happened.

Keep up these dialogues and lore bits, because THAT’S what makes a story!

I think Kiel, having seen the Consortium’s methods up close, knows that they’re not always doing nice things. However, they’ve dug themselves in legally so she cannot touch them as a Lionguard. Being a politician however means she has more room to poke around stuff she couldn’t before. She’s using her new influence to get justice where she couldn’t as a Lion Guard. What that may lead to, could be interesting…

Think Anet deserves their break. Because despite my complaining, I think they’re overall doing a good job.

A small thing I really liked is how this last release had a lot of NPC chatter, including random npcs in other parts of Kessex Hills (like Fort Salma) talking about the recent event.

And Kiel and Gnashblade had some small dialogue about previous events. Stuff like this I’d like to see more, as it is starting to feel a lot more like a story.

There simply aren’t that many alternatives for 5 (8 when traited) seconds of protection every 10 or so seconds. Not even on other professions.

You can’t really go wrong with a set of soldier’s armor. It may not always be optimal, but it gives you decent attack and decent survivability. When you start gathering ascended trinkets, you could then add some berserker or clerics there, based on wheter you want more offense or defense.

Note: berserker items (or rather: critical damage) varies in power per equipment slot. In general, it’s better to get soldier’s on armor and berserker on trinkets, than vice versa.

Makes you wonder why the ‘look for old posts first’-rule doesn’t apply to this section of the forum…

Elemental Attunement is the one elementalist trait I just cannot leave out (and trust me, I’ve tried). As much as I like Evasive Arcana, even that would go before the huge protection uptime.

Now, here’s to hoping that won’t get nerfed with nothing in return for it…

Belial.1605:

for me and my experience (5 months only ele) this class is the worst of the game in most of the situations.

How do you know other professions are bettert if you’ve only played ele the past 5 months?

Not trying to be the overoptimistic fanboy here…seriously, trying not to.

But I have to disagree. I know it’s anectdotal, but I’ve had 2 days of very good sPvP matches behind me. Even with my build pretty much the same as before the patch, I can now go toe to toe with most professions I had trouble with before the patch. The ele changes may not have been too positive for us, but the nerfs to other professions are seemingly working to our advantage.

That’s a staff ele duelling 1v1…maybe it’s me, maybe it’s my opponents…but I feel like I can take a lot more hits now, and still deal plenty of damage.

Omg Im Target.3095:

Andele.1306:

nahh, its just annoying… and tedious… and buggy with hitboxes, Clocktower still no1.

Sometimes i wish i could dislike stupid comments like this

Why? Because someone complains about bugs you were lucky enough NOT to experience?

I’ve had the same issue, once when jumping into the final box. However, there was no problem with either health or the mingame timer.

What happened with the second part of the Winter Wonderland puzzle? Either I’m really unlucky, or my skills have melted since the recent Halloweend because whenever I get to the second part, I seem to end up with one of the following bugs every run:

-Random reset back to start.
-Giant snowballs hitting way outside their animation.
-Skritt snowballs hitting outside their circles.
-Blowing snowman and rolling snowball not lining up properly, meaning I either have to wait and run out of time, or run and get caught by the impossibly large snowball hit box.
-Gifts blowing all up a second after they all spawned.

I must be really sucky for being the only one who cannot make it, but with all this randomness, it’s really taken the fun out for me.

DiogoSilva.7089:

There’s a lot of flexibility from the last changes. Some players just can’t see them yet, because they’re stuck to the old builds, and are unwilling to try something new.

There is a lot of flexibility, true, but there’s also a matter of playing preference. Some skills just don’t click, and some traits do. Arcana is what makes the elementalist stand out among the other professions. Evasive Arcana and combos with staff is a whole playstyle in itself. If you enjoy that, then it can be hard to give that up for a fireball spamming build.

Thought a lot about arcane builds, but I realized I couldn’t make it work and still bring the basic protection uptime I don’t want to give up. So I ended up shifting some stuff around and now I have pretty much the same build I had before the patch. With more water, not less.

juno.1840:

Not sure what game you’ve been playing ThiBash, but GW2 is full of rock-paper-scissors (and so was GW1, even more so).

As you can probably tell, I’m not a fan of that and would prefer less of it, not more.

You cannot make a singular build that will beat every other build merely on skill — nor should you be able to as skill/trait selection should have meaning.

There’s a difference between ‘beat’ and ‘have a fair fighting chance’. Don’t put words in my mouth.

Things like that are awesome!

juno.1840:

Is this the same fun as dying from low-effort condition spam? Maybe that comes down to what skills/traits someone else is using?

So the answer is to add specific counters rather than fix the issue?

It’s always a build-vs-build game when players are on equal skill footing. That being said there is some skill to maintaining your HP above 90% with this trait so it’s not brainless.

Disagree. There’s no such thing as being equally skilled. At some point one of the players will make a mistake and the duel will be decided. Diamond Skin is a rock-paper-scissors trait, which only won’t make you win against it’s designed counter if the player doesn’t know how to play it properly (i.e. not knowing how scissors looks).

You’d think after this having happened several times before (like thrown versions of turret skills not being updated) you’d think Anet would double check things like this…

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

Not sure where the fun comes in with traits like these that shut down a certain playstyle. Instead of being the better player, it now comes down to what trait you happen to be using. I’d rather have the old cleansing wave back. That at least allowed us to make average builds, which we then had to play properly in order to win or not. Diamond Skin however turns it into a build vs. build game.

Like the skill, but the main issue I have with it is that any traits for it are in the Arcana line. This means for my staff build, the traits have to compete with Blasting Staff and Elemental Attunement. Try as I might, I have yet to find a way to get decent protection uptime without the latter. Blasting Staff may not be a must have, but it’s pretty good right now. So that basically leaves me no room to take the -20% recharge. Kinda bummer.

The best general purpose elite is probably Glyph of Elemental. It lets you choose from 4 different summons, that each have their strengths and purpose and it’s hard to find a situation where you can’t use it. Especially the earth elemental, which is such a good tank it makes PvE simple.

kokuou.9537:

You didn’t get silver because you missed three achievements.
You got the silver finisher because your server finished first in the silver league.

So being first place in the silver league is actually second place overall? Who knew…I sure didn’t, given the fact that the tooltip stated ‘second place finisher’.

People on our server didn’t get a silver Dolyak finisher, even though it clearly states ‘second place’ in the tooltip. If the tooltip is bugged rather than the reward, this is a major letdown…

EDIT: just read that they’re limited finishers. Guess I won’t miss them then. Don’t like limited stuff, I end up saving them for special occasions that never come up.

It could happen. Let’s wait and see.

Donari.5237:

I’d sure like some new stuff woven in with the old, though you don’t get an ongoing tradition if you don’t repeat core things.

But OP, I can’t see that you’ve been ripped off. You’ve had use of the minis for a whole year thanks to gem-buying them. This is hardly like someone who spent cash on something and the next day ArenaNet said “oh hey, you can get that for killing twenty harpies starting in two days.”

Would you complain that you bought a top of the line video card and look, it’s nearly free a year later and something better is available? That’s just how it works.

I think the issue is that he was made to believe they wouldn’t ever return, and now they do. Maybe he only bought them because he thought it was his only chance. I can see how that can upset him a bit.

Another solution could be to lower the base health differences. Instead of 10k/15k/20k, the values could be 12,500/15,000/17,500. In addition to giving eles a little more room to go on the offensive, it would also allow for better dungeon designs. At the moment, whatever’s threatening to the ele (say a 7k hit) is hardly felt by a warrior (7k is hardly a third of their health bar). This naturally leads to warriors using zerker gear because there’s simply no real threats for them (apart from the 1-shot kills that are the same to any profession/build). The change suggestion makes that gap a little smaller.

Xillllix.3485:

The only good thing it has going for it is the fact it is a blast finisher

That’s not true. It can also be traited to give AoE blind, regenerate endurance, cause vulnerability or increase your critical damage. It’s also always a crit when activated, triggering any ‘on crit’ effects as well. Dodging and blinding is doable but still very hard because of the fast casting time. How many healing skills can do that?

The Game Slayer.7632:

Assuming this is how it is going to be upon release, i sincerely hope that the skill doesnt rely on actually hitting your targets.

Like RTL.

Yes, while an ele is healing, simply dodge to negate his boost cause he didnt “hit” you.

Things like this need to be thought out, not shoved out due to deadlines. (just like RTL was NOT thought out. Dodge the rtl and it goes on 40s cd).
Poor design on devs part. Please reconsider this entire skill.

You need to look beyond the first appearance. This skill is meant to be combined with traits and a field. It’s also got near instant activation, which is pretty strong in PvP. The ‘heal on hit’ is just a small part of what this skill can do.

To be honest I don’t really understand the complaints. Arcane Brilliance is obviously aimed at staff eles, for which the blast finisher is a huge factor. It’ll combine well with the water fields obviously, but for defensive needs it can also double with static field for swiftness or frozen ground for armor of frost. It can also be traited with Elemental Surge to cause massive chill or AoE blindness on demand.

It’s not as straightforward as the other healing skills, but I think it has potential. As for Arcane Wave, it’s obviously changed in favor of staff eles (who will love a ranged AoE immobilize). Anet wants us to try new things and I think that, for me at least, this will accomplish that.

That condition problem might be solved the 10th, when we’ll get a Fire trait that counters conditions.

Elestian.6134:

An arcane healing skill, eh? That could make for some interesting new options…

Was thinking the same thing. I’ve been trying to make an arcane build work for some time now…this new skill could finally get me out of Evasive Arcana (even though it’s so much fun).

It’s been datamined on Reddit. From the looks of it, it will be like Arcane Wave only it’ll also heal.

I’d say it’s…interesting. I’ve been meaning to try a full arcane build for a while. Maybe this healing skill will make that possible.

EDIT: make that a ground targetted Arcane Wave. Very interesting…just imagine activating it where your meteor shower is, and giving all targets immobilize…

Mochann.5298:

In certain situations they are ok, but the time delay makes their DPS much lower than they ought to be.

I’m not quite sure I follow. They take a while to land, sure, but it’s not like you can’t do anything in the meantime?

Personally, I like to think of staff like this: in my balanced build I regularly get large AoE crits of 3-4k (every other attack on average) while still having decent heals and some boon/condition support for my team. May not be great, but it’s decent enough.

Note that that is without any party or consumable buffs.

Kain Francois.4328:

HoHo Tron. I like it!

Me too.

Until then, knocking het down with Oil Slick in the fractals is pretty sweet. Totally destroys her ‘air’ when she gets knocked on her tushy during her stupid speech.

Vissarion.6509:

And don’t start the “we have 20 skills”, thats bullkittens, when most of them are not even worth using them.

They’re not that bad, especially in PvE. The staff #2 skills for example actually deal quite a bit of damage and most of them have an effect to boot.

Zelyhn.8069:

Well ThiBash the truth is staff really is bad :/
It does depend on the playstyle of course but if you stick to a weapon that has weak potential then you will never improve I’m afraid.

Gotta disagree with you there. As for your second comment, I’ll kindly refer you to my signature.

Mochann.5298:

How do we deal 10k without glass cannon? I have to go full glass to achieve those numbers.

Multiple hits. I get 2k non-crit per meteor and I’m not even in berserker gear. Hitting with 5 meteors is relatively easy, even on single targets like bosses.

One trick I like to use is go around to the side of the enemy zerg, and unleash my Meteor Shower and control skills somewhere in the center. You’d be surprised how often a zerg is focused on their front, completely ignoring the lonely ele that wrecks havoc on their sides.

Master of Timespace.2548:

My friend just discovered a trick to 2 man fractals. Basically you pug up with a friend, then at the last fractal, boot up the pugs. Then you sell the fractal. Is this legit? Because if it is, it could be pretty good way to make money.

ps. I know its already done en masse, but I don’t wanna do myself before I know it’s legit.

Sarcasm?

It would be cool if it wrote:

“The sign said do not touch…NOT: donuts!”

But I suppose kittenzard has a copyright on that.

Hylek, since I’ve already made some contact with them during my personal story.

Arosche.7438:

I wish people would stop with the “Arena net doesn’t care” when they want to complain about something. By all means I critique, but when you cry “Mummy doesn’t care about me” it’s hard to not just look at this as a giant wall of complaining.

But you can’t deny that it’s hard not say such a thing when Anet’s solution to the people saying there were too many trash mobs in the Dredge fractal was to add more trash mobs in the Dredge fractal.

Makes you think collaborative development is just candy to keep us quiet.