Guild Wars 2

Leo G.4501:

Regarding the auras, it feels rather cheap they didn’t do something for Magnetic Aura since it’s also an aura. 2sec of stability upon taking damage? Probably not worth much but don’t just forget about the skill.

No need. It’s already pretty awesome all by itself.

VOLKON.1290:

What calculations? You threw out some random numbers comparing apples to grapes yet excluded any actual math behind it.

See my earlier post in this thread at this link:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Holy-kitten-Cleric-Ascended-Accessory/page/2#post1514781

The change to the earth projectile may have given the staff a small boost in 1v1. Just imagine combining it with Glyph of Elemental Power, and keep spamming cripples and weakness…

Khalic.3561:

The ranger could get another 1000 from sword 2, 600 from shortbow 3, and 600 from lightning reflexes.

The warrior can get another 450 from whirlwind, 600 from sword 2, 600 from bulls rush, 1200 from rampage 3, etc.

They have as much mobility if they choose to take it. I know, it’s a fairly minor nerf, just annoying.

But the D/D gets 3 mobility skills without having to resort to specific skill/weaponcombination choices. And there’s still plenty more available in utility should they feel they need more.

Never used food much anyway. ArenaNet may say that they assume people use food at all times, but to me, consumables just aren’t part of my game.

VOLKON.1290:

100 power is closer to 4.8% damage increase.

Even so, as long as there are traits that add +5% damage boosts, that’s significant.

VOLKON.1290:

The stat increases are marginal but exist

As my earlier calculations have shown, the stat increase is far from marginal.

And so it has begun…

Reminds me of Fleets in Star Trek Online…or guilds in World of Warcraft. Basically, the large guilds get all the members because the bonusses aren’t insignificant. And most of it could have been fixed by a cheaper cost for the first mission unlock. Pity.

MrInfinit.1864:

It gives a noticeable advantage, on paper.

Sure, the 20% added critical damage from my earlier example doesn’t change anything at all compared to exotic. Nor does the free 16% magic find. Or the like 100 stats (where 100 power would roughly equal a 7% damage increase).

No, it won’t do anything at all.

Khalic.3561:

every other long range charge still has a short CD (swoop at 12s, rush at 15s, etc).

But for other professions, that’s all they get. D/D also has Fiery Rush and Magnetic Grasp, as well as Lightning Flash and some charges in the conjure weapons should you choose to use them.

MrInfinit.1864:

It’s not a mandatory gear grind. It doesn’t give you any noticeable advantage over those who don’t have ascended.

Actually, it does give a noticable advantage. Take the ‘all stats’ rings for example. There are no ‘all stats’ exotic rings so those that want a mix of stats, are stuck using a mix of specialized items. Thus, when comparing a normal exotic ring (163+55 stat points) to an ascended ‘all stat’ ring (186+48 stat points), the difference is a whopping 16 stat points, 5% more critical damage AND 4% extra magic find, and an infusion slot for another upgrade. And do note that in this patch, the ‘all stats’ ascended items are buffed to provide an even greater advantage.

For 4 items, the added effect would be 64+ stat points, 20% extra critical damage and 16% magic find. You cannot say that that’s not a significant boost! Earrings have more stats than rings, and all 4 combined, provide a huge advantage over those that solely use exotics.

Note: To those thinking this is comparing apples to oranges, please take into account that apart from the Triforge Pendant, this option simply doesn’t exist for exotic users. That means that for balanced gear, this is actually a very valid comparison.

Neither the dungeon booster nor the PvP booster affect coin purchased influence. The main issue I’m discussing here is the gain per item, not influence in general.

I’m starting to wonder how much more it will take for me to quit the game. I mean, at the moment, I’ve just been informed that my options will be as follows:

a) Spend a bucketload of gold on guild influence to unlock the guild missions for my guild.
b)Spend a bucketload of gold on ectos to get the ascended gear that way.
c)Quit my guild and join a large farming guild.
d) Wait 4 weeks till my medium sized guild has gathered enough influence on their own.

Ascended Gear is like the EU: on paper it sounds like a good idea, but more and more nasty things keep popping up at increasingly faster rates. And those in charge purposefully ignore us.

I thought D/D eles were too tanky. So why did one of their auras get an additional 10% damage reduction ability?

As for the focus and staff’changes, those are pretty nice.

50,000 influence? Are they NUTS?

That means my 38-active members guild (not too small you could say) will take 4 weeks just to unlock the first 1!

I’ve heard that the first mission will require 30,000 points to unlock. With our 38-active members guild, that would take us around 4 weeks. Just to be able to play. Please tell me that I’ve heard it wrong…

What’s the point of influence boosters (other than giving large guilds an even greater advantage)?

For example, the dungeon influence bonus (+20%) costs 200 influence. A 5-man dungeon run earns a guild 100 influence. That means that, just to break even, a guild would need to run 10 dungeons with 5 guild members (0.2*100*10=200) within 24 hours, just to break even.

The +5% generic bonus on the other hand, costs only 100 influence. However, in order to earn back the cost of that, your guild will need to accrue a whopping 2000 influence just to pay back the cost of the item.

The PvP influence boost (100 points for 10%) requires 1000 PvP earned influence, which at 5 influence a win, would thus require 200 wins.

These numbers only seem doable with very large guilds, which are unlikely to even need the extra influence.

It doesn’t? Are you sure?

If so, then it should be added back to the game ASAP!

digiowl.9620:

That, and any healing that the group may give him/her.

Something ANet specifically designed the game against, thanks to no targeted healing spells.

No single target player skills maybe, but I can tell you from experience that the Elementalist’s healing skills (both PbAoE and ground target) are still very effective. And there’s also regeneration, which is often applied to nearby players as well.

It seems to me that lowering the number of stacks all skills do, while increasing the amount of damage per stack, seems like a good way to reduce the bandwith costs for Anet.

So why not implement? Rarely does lowering your costs increase customer happiness…;-)

Maybe reduce the effectiveness of healing power and add a little to the base health?

Would hit bunkers while buffing glass cannons…win/win for the ele I’d say.

I find the ‘all stats’ gear to be the best choice. Since the elementalist is basically doing all things with their build, they can benefit the most from having all stats. It has less diminishing returns, and the overall number of stats is higher too.

So what is the math on the all-stats items like Rune of Divinity and Triforge Pendant? Seeing as how the elementalist in many ways uses a mix of all playstyles (conditions, burst, dps over time, healing, etc.) you’d assume that going for a mix of all stats would limit the effects of inherent diminishing returns. Also, since the total amount of stats granted by those items is higher, that would be a double gain. Or not?

digiowl.9620:

I think some players claim that their least use skill on D/D builds are #1, meaning that they spend very little time purely attacking.

The first skill is often the auto-attack, which I can say at least for the Elementalist, is often the weakest attack. But not the only attack (though admitted, Elementalists have a fair amount of non-attack skills as well).

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

But, in a given theoretical group of players, when an enemy has singled out a player and has started attacking him, that players survivability is dependent on the total DPS of that group.

That, and any healing that the group may give him/her.

Robbyx.1284:

Also i have to laugh hysterically at your ridiculous statement that math is inferior to science….math is the basis for ALL science….honestly, what are they teaching kids in school nowadays.

Math is a language and a tool. Science is doing something with it. It’s like saying a hammer is inferior to a carpenter…they’re both needed to build a house, and they both have their own part to play.

It would be nice if it worked though. It might (emphasis on might) help players build without Arcana if they wanted to.

Strongly disagree.

The reason for that is that due to the way effects stack in Guild Wars 2, things can add up quickly. If you make the effects of combos too powerful, you may end up with a situation where making a combo is meaningless because the target already has a maximum effect. An example:

Take an Frozen Ground for example. Say you place it on the boss. It causes 10 seconds of chill. Your team, that uses projectile finishers as well as a melee player with a blast finisher. The projectiles each add another second, the blast finisher gives a Frost Aura that, when the affected players are hit, adds 2 more seconds per player per hit. This could easily turn into a chill duration fo 20 seconds or more. 20 seconds of chill from a single skill is huge.

The main issue with this is that combos quickly escalate into large numbers when the group and number of combos grows larger. In most dungeons I don’t even need to use burning because my Lava Font combined with the finishers creates a near-infinite amount of burning on the boss.

Combos shouldn’t be looked from a single player, single combo perspective. During group play, effects stack so greatly that increasing the duration of any of the effects would make most of them everlasting after 1 or 2 combos. For some combos, like the burning/fire field one, this is already the case.

This program has been running on my pc just now. It looks a lot like a trojan and it seems to be linked to Guild Wars 2. Has the downloader been compromised or something? Because I surely haven’t downloaded anything…

To be honest, while you do make some good points, the survivability you mention isn’t such a big issue to me. Between the water traits and the healing fields, it’s doable to stay alive.

The main thing that must be taken into account is that the staff isn’t a 1vs1 weapon. It’s a group weapon, and it should be used as such. Skills like Frozen Field may be weak on their own, but with a group spamming projectiles through it, it becomes insanely powerful. Also, if you use a skill like Glyph of Elemental Power, you’ll notice that your skills will become a lot better at hitting your targets. Keep them snared as best you can, and then subsequent fields will keep the snares going.

The trick with the casting times (both on the damage and the healing fields) is to plan ahead, and anticipate what your enemies (and your team) will likely do next. This is again where the teamplay aspect comes in again. It’s not about duelling and quick decisions. It’s about longtime strategies, planning ahead. Relatively speaking of course.

I also disagree with you wanting to make Meteor Shower castable on the move. It’s supposed to be an artillery style attack, and as such, you’ll have to expose yourself to danger for the massive damage to strike.

However, as far as the projectiles go, I agree. Speeding them up a little seems like a good thing to do.

OhhGasm.9604:

There have been times though when a staff ele has completely worn me down and taken me out 1 v 1.

I would love to learn that build.

Maybe it’s not so much their build. Maybe they were just better players.

Arheundel.6451:

Static Field
Before:
-Create a combo field which stun (3s) targets as they cross it-
An excellent way to create distance between you and your opponent, force him to go around it or directly stun him by placing the field at the right time

Now:
-Create a combo field which stun (2s) targets as they touch the borders, you can sit in the middle of static field and don’t get stun…how stupid seriously, it cannot be used as area negation and pale in comparison with chaos storm..as control skill the efficiency has been lowered by over 50%

That’s not stupid actually. Since you cannot dodge through the edges without getting the stun, static field does exactly what you want it to: lock an opponent in place. They can either sit there waiting for the field to disappear (which takes 2 seconds) or try to go through it and be stunned for 2 seconds.

Unsteady ground

Before:
-Create a wall rock that enemy cannot cross, thus allowing you to seal your escape route or stopping enemies from reaching your allies while they’re capping a point

Now:
-Enemies get…crippled for 2s, looking at the big picture what those 2s cripple will do?….absolutely nothing, you won’t stop pursuing enemies from reaching you and neither help your allies if they’re getting pressured.
This skill was both an excellent control & support skill…now it’s neither of those, a complete decision failure, this skill is garbage..100% garbage

Except if you time it correctly, or combine it with other snares like Glyph of Elemental Power, it starts to really shine. Like most staff skills, they’re not that good on their own but when stacked they start to shine.

Shatterstone

Before:
-The increased radius was enough to force an opponent to dodge or take the full dmg, furthermore the delay was slighty less

Now:
-Decreased radius ( by roughly 30%) which help the enemy in the sense that you can walk out of it without any need of wasting a dodge, the damage has been decreased along with the delay…why? is there any sense behind this decision?

Maybe the damage was too high for a water skill. Water isn’t supposed to be a primary damage attribute to begin with, and on the other hand, you should always be chilling or crippling your targets anyway.

Gale

Before:
-The 50s CD was justified by the fact that I was able to Kd a foe for 3s thus allowing me to combo burst him with dragons’tooth and phoenix effectively.

Now:
-The CD it’s the same but the kd effect has been recude by 1s making the CD completely unnecessary and unjustified, why we should have a multiple targets KD+ dmg at 45s(earthqauke) along with a 50s CD single target kd with no dmg…where is the logic behind it?

It’s not so much a snaring skill as it is a disruption skill. I’ll refer to Glyph of Elemental Power again for the neccesary snares, though your Earth and Ice Elementals can do so as well.

Leo G.4501:

I’m actually hoping they nerf cantrips.

Now I’ve always love cantrips but I’m not in love with them and have actually not been using many lately. Granted I’ll usually keep 1 in there, but IMO, there’s just too many positive things centered around them. Might, Vigor, Regen and they can recharge quickly. It’s not good enough that also our only stun breakers and most of them come with a high defensive effect? And they’re instant cast…

Defending Glyphs, because I’m a fan of air and that’s the only tree that has traits for glyphs, they pale in comparison. I actually don’t mind that glyphs don’t have many traits but offensively, they aren’t that much better and defensively they leave you vulnerable but at least they give you some nice boons. I’m not sure what they can give to Glyphs to make them more attractive, perhaps bigger and better offensive, better support (Would be awesome if GoEP granted boons to teammates or something awesome) or just make the elementals not suck (except earth elemental which is not bad).

Pretty much agree with this. Glyph of Elemental Power though, is still very powerful on the staff. Since it counts per enemy, and based on the attunement you’ve cast it in, you can literally make a cripple causing meteor shower with it. It’s actually very good. Glyph of Lesser Elements has its uses and while not great, it’s fairly decent especially with the lowered recharge.

Glyph of Storms though, isn’t a proper glyph. The fact that it lasts shorter in some elements than in others, and causes blindness in Earth but no conditions in other attunements makes it a very weak skill. If they wanted to make it a proper skill, the damage should be the same in each attunement, with a condition that varies per attunment. The way things are now, it’s just…well, way too weak.

Baladir.2736:

Well, that’s just not right. Someone should mention earth lol.

I have 15 in earth, and only 15 in earth, for Earthen Blast. A 3 second AOE cripple every 9 seconds for an easy attunement change. That just looked too good to me as a light armor wearing class. Couldn’t pass it up.

It’s good yes…but it’s also the same thing the Evasive Arcana earth dodge roll does, and that also causes bleeding and is a blast finisher.

Your momma’s IQ is so low, she thought adding Ascended Gear to the game was a good idea.

The main difference is that instead of researching for the sake of knowledge, they research for the sake of power. Which wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t disregard everything and everyone else. And they mess with forces worse than an atomic bomb.

The question is valid, since it has been confirmed by a Dev that the only ones who can state wheter something is against the rules are the guys at exploits@arena.net.

So unless they state it is allowed, the question remains.

That also means the User Agreement can be thrown in the thrash, but that’s a another matter…

It still happens. Sometimes it seems that just going over something with your mouse, without clicking on it, will still result in you selecting that target.

Thanks for your advice (bit late, I know). This is a serious issue though…why do the order weapons armor cost so much, and yet offer so little for it? They’re not exotic. They’re not account bound. They’re a pain to transfer? And why? Who would get hurt by the proces?

Sieran’s a leftover relic back from the day where Sylvari didn’t start out perfect, but actually had some difficulty understanding things like emotions, responsability and feelings.

Back when they were first introduced, they weren’t supposed to be the Mary Sues they are today.

Range and combo fields are the main thing the staff has as it’s advantage. Not considering them is like saying what advantages the daggers has besides mobility and higher damage. It’s the core of the weapon.

Lady Vireo.5189:

Ratphink.4751:

People really need to read some Edward Said’s work on Orientalism (and I mean an actual book/essay, not a Wikipedia Article) and realize that representing the East, especially from a Western point of view, is not easy and can be very problematic. Cantha is very much included in this, despite however much you guys want to think it is flawless.

I’m very familiar with Said and his theories of Orientalism. I have read a bit of his own work and definitely a lot of the literature to which his critique applies. (I’m a lit major and soon-to-be grad student. ;P) I agree it’s very important to bring this into the discussion.

So basically, you’re saying we cannot add it to the game because we don’t have a proper understanding of the Asian culture?

Did you ever check how Asians portray us? Even if you leave out the North Korean view of the western people, you can hardly state that they portray us in a proper, politically correct way.

And the same goes for the western cultures portrayed in Guild Wars 2. You can hardly state that it’s done properly.

And who cares? it’s NOT REAL.

To me, increasing base health while at the same time lowering the effectiveness of healing power seems like a good way to adress bunker builds without nerfing glass cannons. In fact, glass cannons would get a small boost, which is what they need currently to become truly playable.

Other than that, a fire trait that grants Vigor somehow would seem like a good idea to buff glass cannons.

The issue I think is that while it seems like a good way to allow every player to work on his gear in whatever way they please, in practice it feels like a chore that must be done daily for several weeks, just to get something that actually affects your gameplay.

Cantha and Guild Halls.

Since I obviously have an opinion on the matter (though I refrained from giving it for the sake of starting the discussion properly) I’ll give it here.

The main issue I have with the current mechanic is that instead of punishing the player who went down, it punishes the players that did NOT go down. For the remaining players, the fight just got 20% harder/longer while the defeated player can go afk to grab a hot chocolate, a cookie and when he gets back, the loot he didn’t have to do anything for.

Has anyone tried the ghost ‘boss’ that appears near the graveyard of Shaemoor?

Tachenon.5270:

Could this item be somehow related to the Scepter of Orr and Vizier Khilbron?

You know…there IS a boss at the top of the Vizier’s tower…

Thereon.3495:

Yet another ‘This game is a grind’ thread… I wouldnt mind if the mods started deleting these.

The game is not a grind if you play it how its been designed.

Really? Then explain to me why in order to get ascended drops from fractals, you have to first do the fractals 10 times.

Or why part of the possible dailies is a trip to the Laurel Vendor. For real?!

That’s not grinding?

Moderator.6837:

please keep in mind that only our customer support team can decide what is consider as an exploit.

That’s actually the reason why so many people keep second guessing everything they do. People are scared that they may get banned because something they did daily will suddenly become classified as an exploit. I too asked questions at the mentioned e-mail adress, and while they were friendly and helpful, they didn’t give me a decisive no.

Keep in mind, I understand that a solid yes or no is a dangerous thing to give, for it may be used against them later. But there are things that have me second guess myself, which I wouldn’t even consider in other games. Things ranging from buyinglow/sellinghigh at the Trading Post to making the Troll fight Kohler.

Bottom line is, I’m scared I may one day end up losing my account. Even such simple things like leaving my turrets underwater with no way to blow them up again when back on land, could get me banned. And quite frankly, I don’t want to get banned…

Factions was my favorite GW1 expansion. So it’s no wonder that it too, like the personal home instance, guild hall, no horizontal progression and other things I liked about Guild Wars 1, got put in the ‘maybe if we ever feel like it but don’t get your hopes up’ pile.

For what it’s worth, I constantly get the feeling that there are some higher up suits that don’t know much about gaming, but much more about supposed political correctness. They’ve turned Guild Wars 2 into a WoW clone (because that game makes a lot of money!) and shun away from anything that’s even remotely different, even if that’s the reason Guild Wars 1 became such a huge succes in the first place.

Newsflash to the suits: WoW also made an Asian expansion. Now, if I were Asian, I’d be more offended by a bamboo-stick-wielding beer-gut panda than the stuff ArenaNet made.

Viable and possible are the same thing in your question.

However, to answer your question, for PvE there’s a good variety of choices for your build. Most will suit you just fine in most areas of the game, including dungeons and the lower tiers of fractals.

PvP however, I’d say there’s pretty much 1 or 2 viable builds and those are the cookie cutter standards. The reason for that is that you pretty much need defense and stunbreakers as an elementalist, or get creamed. Because the best traits are also linked to the stunbreakers, that means there’s not much to choose. It’s either best traits and defense against stuns, or lesser traits and no defense against stuns. So the cantrips win every time.

Just think about it. Cantrips are good on their own. The water trait line makes them stack even more boons, and remove conditions. Now compare that to signets (which are slightly weaker, and get less powerful (but still adequate) traits. Arcane is next but with its most powerful trait bugged, and the other traits less powerful than cantrips’ versions, they lose out. Then compare it to glyphs that have only 2 traits. The line closes with weapon spells that get a whopping 1 trait in a fairly useless attribute.

No wonder cantrips win all the time.

The elementalist has unique quotes for swapping attunements, based on gender and race.

There are 2 traits that affect glyphs. That means they ALSO work on the elementals.

As for the utility, the elementals bring a lot of that. A small list:

Fire: AoE damage and might.
Ice: frozen and healing fields.
Air: swiftness, stuns, ranged attacks.
Earth: protection, weakness, crippling and pull aggro like nobody’s business.

The major selling point of the summons though, is that at any point, you can pick what you need most.

What would you say if our healing was reduced, but our hit points were increased to compensate?

That would actually buff glass cannon builds while making bunkers less unkillable…and to be honest, I don’t think unkillable stuff should be in the game to begin with. Even eles. And even players that have been playing for 1000+ hours. Tough yes. Unkillable no.