Guild Wars 2

Young Somalia.1706:

Why? Why not just optimize yourself? Many feel pigeonholed into a singular build, but… I look at it like this: there will always be the most powerful. Nerf the highest, and the second highest takes it’s place. When hierarchies exist this is simply undebatable. These power hierarchies may pigeonhole you into power-based builds but it’s almost a contradictory philosophy.

The issue isn’t that berserker is best, the issue is that it is best by such a large margin that it effectively negates the use of any other gear. Even if power is the way to go, there should be at least a use for alternatives. There should be some advantage or reason to take condtions/control/defense. Currently there is none.

Take Magic: The Gathering for example. There’s no ‘best’ option, and even the strongest deck has its weaknesses. There is no ‘one answer to everything’ and that should be the same for Guild Wars 2. However, power trumps all other stats by about 2:1 (in case of dps, it is literally twice as good as precision or condition damage). If the difference were to be reduced, people wouldn’t feel so hurt by not taking the most damaging stat. The gaps between ultimate tank and ultimate attacker shouldn’t be so large.

The harpies in the Rata Sum Fractal have some serious issues. The blowout-orbs that they fire constantly cause instant defeats (rather than downed), they go invulnerable midfight for no apparent reason and they keep attacking you after you’ve been defeated (from their bugged blowouts), thus keeping a party in combat indefinitely (and their orbs seem to be having unlimited range too, especially in the second part).

This issue isn’t a new one, in fact, I’ve been reporting it for over 10 months now. What I’d really like to know however is why this problem, that can potentially force a party to abandon the fractal and start over again, hasn’t been adressed yet.

In ten frikkin months…a gamebreaking issue…

Or is it so rare that only I exprience it every single time I enter said fractal?

zencow.3651:

At the simplest measure, for each profession, give a 1 to 10 rating to these two:
- Percieved effectiveness = (Potential Effectiveness + Rumored Effectiveness)
- Easiness to play

And add them up. And there you go. Higher score = more players play it.

Fixed it.

ImProVocateur.5189:

If EA water proc was an ice combo field that crippled, meaning it didn’t heal, then you would not see the demand for 30 Arcana. In fact, the devs would be fixing everything in Arcana to get people into it.

If it did that, I’d spec 60 points in Arcana for it.

ImProVocateur.5189:

Someone smart in this forum said that class viability is shown by the prominence of play. You do not have to over-think this. Less Ele hours played = less viability. Less staff played = less viability.

By that logic, McDonalds sells the best food in the world because everyone goes there. And quantum mechanics is useless because only a small fraction of the world population fully understands it.

For my staff elementalist:
a) Evasive Arcana (most active, varied and fun gameplay I’ve ever had with a MMO spellcaster)
b) Blasting Staff
c) Elemental Attunement
d) +30% Boon Duration
e) Arcane Fury

To be honest, the attunement cooldown is probably the last reason. Second to last after Lingering Elements/Soothing Mist combo maybe.

elikal.7356:

I am not standing still. But the Ele is over the top dependent on constant running around. Other classes need to dodge now and then! But with Ele I need to be lolcoptering the enemy all the time, and thats just plain silly.

Then maybe the profession simply isn’t your thing. Personally, I don’t have the issues you complain about. Between the staff’s control skills, the Earth Elemental and the perma protection/heals I don’t have much more trouble staying upright than warriors do in PvE. When things get to extreme though, I move, but that’s also how things were in the other games you mentioned (even if they were much less mobile). I’d say percentagewise, the Mage and Warrior in WoW move as much relatively as the Warrior and Elementalist do in GW2.

Don’t play a light armor profession if you can’t handle avoiding damage otherwise.

Lavadiel.6231:

sharing auras via combos (leap through fire field) did not work back then and I doubt it works now.

It should probably be fixed then.

Derom.1205:

Again nothing about her is overpowered if she is beaten every time.

But that’s the thing, we’re not beating her. Anything we do to her is either part of her plans, or inconsequential. It’s like we’re not even there. That’s what makes her a mary sue most of all. She never suffers any meaningful setback.

Scepter at least has another source of vigor through Phoenix.

Yes. Why don’t they just move it to fire or something? That way you’d at least get variation between healing/toughness bunker or dodgy glass cannon.

Machupo.1095:

Sure that ele is active combat but we don’t have the tools to balance the fact that we are weak, we don’t DPS, we don’t support a lot. We are just trying to DPS a bit without beeing OS. We are in paper and Anet tells us that perma vigor is just a too big advantage?

That’s all true, but the OP’s complaints weren’t about that. He claimed he couldn’t defeat PvE foes and keep them at distance while standing still. I merely told him that if he moves while fighting, he will have enough survivability to at least be able to complete PvE stuff.

Lavadiel.6231:

In pvp/wvw builds I tried to go as low as possible in water and arcana, In most of the builds I pick only 10 in both – for watter 5 and arcane 6 traits. After the patch it will be 20 watter and 20 arcana

This pretty much sums things up for me as well. The traits are needed, not optional. Making them harder to get doesn’t make people forget about them all of a sudden.

Lavadiel.6231:

In pvp/wvw builds I tried to go as low as possible in water and arcana, In most of the builds I pick only 10 in both – for watter 5 and arcane 6 traits. After the patch it will be 20 watter and 20 arcana

This sums it up for me as well.

Question: with all the stacking up people do in dungeons, wouldn’t Glyph of Lesser Elementals and Glyph of Elementals be a staple choice? Because not only do Fire Elementals add extra dps, they also buff everyone around them with might stacks (on average about 5 per fire elemental?)…aren’t they a good choice for a damage build?

Jeydra.4386:

If the update goes through every Ele basically gets free points into Arcana, and you’re calling it a nerf? Sure, the hit to Elemental Attunement and the Water line would bite a bit, but did you not see the buffs to the other attributes?

We’re taking another hit to our survivability and we’re the leats survivable of all professions already. They can implement the variety without the nerf to our basic survival needs.

Just think of it: Mesmers get clones, Necros get high health…we have to spend trait points to get our healing up just to match their survivability, and now that is taken from us as well.

It’s not a powerful trait on its own, but when combined with the other aura boosting traits, it becomes quite powerful. You can essensitally give a whole team perma-fury, swiftness and protection through the constant cycling of auras from both weapons and combos.

It hurts staff more than D/D though…

Taldren.7523:

Why exatly? Mesmer’s and Guardians trigger any time. Its the exact same trait and its 5 point minor on both classes.

Because apparently, ArenaNet feels it’s too powerful on eles atm. They don’t like it when we combine it with Elemental Attunement already. With the ‘air only’ limitation, it would work best for Fresh Air eles and decent for anyone else.

Just trying to compromise here.

elikal.7356:

Other wizards I played, like in WOW, EQ2 or WAR had ways to keep the enemy away, eithe by slowing them or freezing them, by tank pets or whatevs. But the GW2-Ele has… nothing.

Staff has: Burning Retreat, Frozen Ground, Gust, Static Field, Unstead Ground and Shockwave. Also, we have Glyph of Lesser Elementals and Glyph of Elementals, with the Earth elemental version being about the best tank in the game both in terms of aggro and survival.

It’s just not possible to play and mostly stand there, what I imagine with a “mage”: a mostly stationary character who destroys his enemies from afar. Here, health just goes down like WHOOPSY DAISY.

You’re not supposed to stand still. When it comes to staff, you have 1 skill that requires you to stand still. Everything else allows you to move while casting.

Guild Wars 2 elementalist is an active combat game, not a passive sit back and press 1 game. You’re just misinformed and inexperienced, sorry.

Walhalla.5473:

She isn’t toying with us because of her fighting skill. She toyed with us because she has gadgets to keep her safe. Take away her gadgets and we would curb stomp her even if she would try to fight seriously.

Wheter she’s immune to defeat because of her gadgets or because of her own power, she’s still immune to defeat. The same would count for any character: take away their weapon and they’re useless…

The pairings come across as some poorly written ‘what if’ fanfics that get more rediculous every time a new one is released.

And like those fanfics, they have no regard for lore or realism.

Derom.1205:

She tried to kill us 3 times with different gadgets and was easly beaten every time.
She even pretty much said that we ruined her “fun”.

She didn’t even try. She was just toying with us. We came at her, all serious with all our might, and she just toyed a bit with us and then ran off, like a thief in WvW that you can never catch because of stealth.

Exatly, and Scarlet is doing something similair. She didn’t attack Lions Arch or Devinitys Reach all alone. She too has allies. And like the player, she is making alliances between different factions (player = the orders, Scarlet = evil factions)

It’s just the more i think about it the more it becomes obvious that she is the evil version of the player.

She uses allies because she can, and to keep us busy, not because she needs them. Every time we face her, we only beat her because she ‘lets us’, and we never truly beat her, she never seems hindered by anything we do.

And as for your final statement, maybe you’re RPing your character to be perfect, but not all players do. My character has a lot of flaws and I certainly don’t run around claiming to be smarter and more skilled than the Sylvari, Norn, Charr and Asura combined.

Derom.1205:

Thats actually not true. If her Playhouse is any indication, she is just a Genius with almost unlimited Resources but no fighting skills. The player is the expert fighter.

I mean I don’t want to say Scarlet is a good it’s just that i don’t think generalisation is the way to go to critize her.

Funny. To me she came across as not even trying, just mocking us for our weak attempt at fighting us. Could have something to do with the voice acting, but I don’t feel like she made any serious attempt at fighting us. Which was then further enforced by the fact that even if we ‘beat’ her, she just appears again with full health and another goofy weapon or plan.

It’s called ‘playhouse’ for a reason after all.

ThiBash.5634:

Nope, my main is a Necro and still i feel like godmode in the open world most of the time

Can imagine that, with the equivalent of 40k base health. That’s 4 times what eles start with you know? :-)

Lorewise, our characters aren’t mary sues. They didn’t beat the undead when Claw Island was invaded. They didn’t go toe-to-toe with an Elder Dragon on their own. They had a difficult moment when they were the cause of someone’s death and they took it hard (or as hard as the ingame emotes allow them too).

Meanwhile, Scarlet faces a horde of players and then mocks them after she feigns being beaten by them.

To me, 15 points Water with Cleansing Wave is a staple for my builds…it’s just, you know, neccesary. With the change, I’ll just shift my gear around a bit and go 20 points into water instead. Not much will change for me overall, damage or otherwise, but I still feel it’ll be a rather poor decision.

Instead of being able to take our bare minimum defense and play an offensive build otherwise, we’ll now be forced a bunker build just to get our vital defense traits. I don’t see how that’s an improvement.

The new earth trait sounds nice, but with Eruption being the way it is now, going into the condition line isn’t really an option for staff eles.

Taldren.7523:

It should replace Zephyr’s Speed as Air’s 5 point Minor … afterall, ANet gave this exact same ability to Mesmer’s and Guardian’s as a 5 point Minor.

Yeah. Make it only trigger while in Air attunement if needed.

GuildWarsPlayer.5608:

Well that’s good to know. You said it’s good in 1 v 1 dueling so I’m assuming you come across this in wvw. This is perfect for me since all I play basically is pve and wvw when soloing.

Thanks again for this.

You’re welcome. I’d like to state though, for the record, that staff is not good for 1v1 duelling…I just said that I use it for that too. If you want to have an easier time duelling other players, I’d recommend using another weapon. But you can duel with staff should you really want/need to.

Neko.9021:

Please change Vigor on Crit for the Elementalist to an Air trait. You could literally put it anywhere short of being a Major Grandmaster Trait and it’d be fine.

How about making the Air 5pts minor trait into:
“Gain vigor on critical hit while attuned to Air. (5 sec cooldown)”

It may be worth noting that going into earth isn’t viable for staff eles because their most powerful condition damage skill, Eruption, is so hard to hit with. By allowing the staff ele to cause bleeding more reliably, you could make earth a lot more viable for them.

Also, I don’t understand why Elementalists (and Engineers) have to invest heavily into trait points to get Vigor on critical hits, when Mesmers and Guardians get them for only 5 points as a minor traits. Elementalists are the squishiest profession of all and being able to dodge well fits the glass cannon principle that they seem to be built around.

Why not change vigor on crit into a fire or air trait for the elementalist? It’d be a great change for Zephyr’s Speed and if you’re worried it’d be too powerful, just make it trigger while attuned to air only. Bam, glass cannon offensive builds are much more viable all of a sudden.

JonPeters.5630:

Elementalist:

• Water V – Cleansing Wave. Moved to Master tier.

This is a very, very bad idea.

Where warriors have armor and high base health, the elementalist relies on its heals and regeneration to stay upright. Cleansing Wave is the most important skill of the set and currently, going 15 points in water allows the elementalist some basic defense to keep up with the basic defenses of other classes. Because it’s such a low investment, it’s a key component for offensive builds that without this bare minimum defense simply wouldn’t be viable. If you make this change without compensation, all you will accomplish is that players will flee back into the bunker builds because we need at least this to survive. By keeping it as an adept trait however, players will be able to go for damage and still take the neccesary traits for the basic survival.

Simply put, we need 10 points + cleansing wave in water because they’re the bare bones of our survival. We don’t have the armor, aegis or higher health to make do without it.

Especially if you also take away Elemental Attunement and Renewing Stamina combination. Either change the arcana traits or cleansing wave, but not both.

Derom.1205:

Similar to Superman’s and Lex Luther’s relationship. Both are extremly powerful, but in their own way.

Both are boring when compared to characters with more depth like Batman or (old-school) Spider Man. However, even in your example, Lex Luthor has his flaws. He’s not all powerful like Superman, and at the same time, Superman cannot do everything. Well designed characters are often either strong fighters, smart brainiacs or charismatic personalities. Scarlet is all three at once, outclassing everyone in everything. She could have been what she is now if she was slightly dumber than the Asura (the smartest race in the game) but she had to be smarter than all Asura combined.

My character isn’t a half-god. She has her strengths and her weaknesses. I’m guessing it must feel differently when you play a warrior though.

titanlectro.5029:

Truth be told, I’m pretty good at my staff ele, and I see that downed bar all the time. Vapor form gives us options no other class has.

I have often turned the tide in WvW by meteoring the enemies siege, then mist form + vapor form to a tower or zerg so I can be picked back up.

That is true, Vapor Form is more than just a downed skill, it’s a powerful tool and a skilled elementalist can make great use of it. Especially if you have some more AoE’s going, you can extend your defeat long enough to be able to rally again. The way you describe using it, I can’t help but wonder wheter Lava Tomb is useful for you.

However, in my earlier reply I assumed that the person to whom I replied was implying that the staff elementalist was worthless, and thus spends most of their time on the floor. That is something I just don’t agree with. :-)

It’s very much possible, in fact, I do just about everything on my staff ele including 1v1 duelling.

As for the tips for rookies, you can’t really go wrong with using an elite Earth Elemental for the tough bits. Not only does it attract aggro like a champ, but it can take a beating that would make other players jealous. That’ll give you the time to either cap skill points or beat enemies.

Another trick I personally use a lot, is run into a group of enemies with Armor of Earth and Magnetic Aura active, and cast Meteor Shower at my own location. Especially when followed by some other AoE skills, you can quickly clear out a group of foes without taking too much damage yourself. If you swap attunements while performing this trick, you will also get extra might from Sigil of Battle and fury from Arcane Fury, which will further empower your meteor shower.

The common belief that staff is rubbish is false, though it’s not always easy to play. But there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to do well with it in PvE. It’s main issues lie in PvP after all.

The new achievements aren’t too lengthy though, which makes it less of a grind. If it can be finsihed in a day, it’s good enough for something that should take 2 weeks to finish.

Siphaed.9235:

Lord Kuru.3685:

So Marjory is now an expert in poisons. You think Anet’s slowling going to make her into a Mary Sue to counter Scarlet’s Villain Sue?

And I think that everyone who makes a “Mary Sue” thread is a Mary Sue. Really ridiculous…..

She’s a professional detective and a Necromancer. The former makes her an expert in detecting things, and the latter makes her an expert in undead necromancy and poisons (both common Necromancer abilities).

Logic trumps stereotyping every time.

Agreed. It fits her profile, and besides, she’s not neccesarily the one developing a cure, she’s just part of the team that does.

1 month, mainly so I don’t have to feel so rushed to complete everything on day 1 just in case I end up not having enough time.

While I was enjoying the Mad King’s jokes yesterday evening I realized there was something missing, and I finally figured out what it was:

It didn’t feel like the Mad King was actually there, because the NPCs pretty much ignored him. They were unaffected by Mad King says, the little children didn’t adore/got scared by him. Nothing. It was as if he was isolated from the rest of the world.

There are other examples, like during the clockwork invasions when the Seraph Champions didn’t help us against Scarlet. And more recently, the centaur war in Kessex hills is still going on even though the change in landscape, the new foes and the HUGE tower should be enough to give them pause at least. And worst of all, the npc on the grand plaza of Lion’s Arch saying: “you should see it during a festival” at the height of Halloween.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I understand that it’s a massive design challenge to make everything interact with eachother. I realize that removing the heart quests in Kessex Hills isn’t an option. But I’d like to mention that the more fun things in the game insofar Dynamic Events go, was that the caravan I was escorting through Lornar’s Pass told me I needed to fix the bridge (event) first before they could continue. It meant that things happening in one part of the world affected other things in the world. Queensdale is another good example of that,with the townsfolk getting sick if you don’t stop the bandits. What you do actually matters.

So how do you easily implement it? My suggestion would be: npc dialogues. A way to implement things like this would be in-town rumors. Rather than the heralds we have now, the (town) npcs could randomly speak to eachother about past Living Story events. Something along the line of: “Did you see that charr with the baby devourer coming through town the other day?” “Yes, I heard she recently went to the Splintered Coast to face an undead dragon!”

The second suggestion would be to update the dialogues of zones affected by the Living Story to make the npcs take notice of current events. The commander of Fort Salma shouldn’t just be focusing on centaurs, there’s a frikkin’ huge tower in the lake! It should be the talk of the town! And not just during the actual story, but also when the story has progressed (“do you remember when that big tower was there? Boy, am I glad it’s gone now.”)

Thirdly, nocs and enemy mobs that have a good reason to fight, should actually fight. The centaurs should be attacking the plants just as much as we do. Maybe they’ll still attack us, but they shouldn’t ignore the big tower and the creeps coming out of it. And the seraph champions should have helped us save the world. After all, the clockwork creatures were a direct danger to their home town.

@cheshirefox: I recommend you study this thread carefully, because if you see that image a lot on your staff ele, then you have room for improvement.

Given that Melandru also combats stuns (and reduces the duration by more in total), I’d not pick Anti-Toxin over it. The might is nice, but if you really want might, there are much better options out there.

To me, it just combines stuff I’d not combine in my builds. But then again, that’s just me.

ImProVocateur.5189:

I do not like the hidden slavery message in the elemental mechanic. Direct control of the elemental would make that message stronger.

I didn’t really see the summoned ones as sentient, but rather as the elements temporarily given a shape. The ‘wild’ elementals however, I’m not so sure about. An Asura could probably answer that question.

As for making them controllable, there are 3 basic problems: they’d make the true pet professions less different (if anyone can control their pets, why does the ranger need the F2 skill?), they have more than 1 skill each (which one to pick for the trigger) and finally, every other summon skill would need to get that ability too (including warbands, thieves, golems, etc.).

Sir Morgan Malory.2069:

Probably get the most use on the elementalist as it has terrible heals, which is why every elementalist you see is a human.

You’re joking right? Why on earth would you use Prayer to Dwayna when Glyph of Elemental Harmony can give you nearly the same heal, plus protection or regeneration, at 2/3s of the cooldown?

Buffing the staff doesn’t count. No one cares about the staff.

I care about the staff, as there are few things I do without. Including sPvP.

No grind, that’d be great.

Seras.5702:

Seems like half the people who hate Scarlet do so because Anet poorly introduced her. She appeared suddenly, we had no previous knowledge of her, and we had to hunt online for her backstory. That’s not a flaw of the character, but of the devs for bad storytelling.

It’s a flaw in the character, created by the devs through bad storytelling.

Wouldn’t that make the game susceptible to the same issue World of Kittencraft had? As in, bring a shaman because they have Time Warp that nobody else has?

Then again, I do like the idea of turning them into Soothing Mist-like buffs so they stay around for a few more seconds.

Kaleban.9834:

Consistency in game design is crucial because players expect it. If you have a class called a Warrior, no one expects it to start teleporting around the battlefield and calling down meteors from space.

And that was my point: you demand consistency for the sake of consistency. Guild Wars 2 is a game in its own style. In most games, warriors don’t have ranged attacks either but the Guild Wars 2 warrior can be made into a ranged character if you want to. So why is it so hard to accept that magical thieves might be better at teleporting magic?

Funny how a side character is much better written than the main villan Scarlet…

The self-root is one of the things they should have changed when they changed the conjures.

But, given the fact that, when in the past they changed the turrets, they only changed the ones that were cast untraited (as in: the ones that aren’t thrown to a location of choice but at the player’s feet), it is not much of a surprise this blatantly obvious fix wasn’t implemented.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

Hi Erick,

The wiki is a collaborative site that we host but the Guild Wars 2 community updates. You can learn about this on this page from the wiki:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2_Wiki:How_to_help

It’s very easy to update the page by yourself. If you do it without an account, your IP address will be logged as your “account name”, but I’d advise creating an account, it takes less than a minute to do so. If you don’t do it, I’m sure one of the editors could update the page but (as lordkrall mentions) it’s unlikely that they will do it, at least without a solid quote and phrasing this update without ambiguity. The articles of the wiki always try to emphasize accuracy and the need to provide source/evidence for information.

It’s actually one of the cool and often overlooked part of the wikis, where players get to discuss updating articles. They usually follow some basic rules (called “policies” and players get to decide them in the first place, you can read more about that here) and sometimes get to create new ones whenever appropriate.

There’s a big community of wiki editors that’s super friendly and helpful. Some editors even get to become “administrators” (sysops and bureaucrats) to help manage the wiki itself. Contrarily to popular belief, the wiki relies on a fairly big group of players, most of them doing small and occasional updates to various articles. The wiki is the sum of these numerous small updates with a fewer number of editors doing more frequent and in-depth updates.

Hope this helps!

I guess I misunderstood the OP because I thought it was another player sarcastically expressing his issue with the gear treadmill, not a person asking for wiki advice. My mistake…

It would be great if there were more ‘story’ in the game. More dialogues, more cutscenes, more readable books, more discoverable secrets and an easy to find list of official lore stories on the site.

At the moment, I try to keep up with both the game, the official site. the forums AND twitch tv and I still feel like I’m missing out on everything. But currently, there’s no real way of knowing where all the lore is because what little there is seems to be immensely scattered.

If you take anything from my post though, please let it be this:
If you post any ingame information on a another site, please post a link on the official site to that site. That includes reddit and twitchtv. Thank you.