Guild Wars 2

Quote from: http://www.arena.net/blog/the-golden-rules-of-guild-wars-2#more-8680

We respect you—as a player, as a human being. This game we’re making may end up competing with your real life. It might fight for your free time alongside your friends, your family, your work, and whatever else you might be doing. Because of that, we want to give you a meaningful experience, not one that is a vapid waste of your time. Whatever your reasons for spending time in Tyria, we don’t want to waste it by doing stuff that isn’t fun.

Also, there may be a limit to the maximum intelligence level they can reach. Like supercomputers, data processing is essentially limited by the speed at which the data can travel. At some point, the maximum number of ‘transactions per second’ is reached at which point the Skritt cannot get smarter for single, large problems. Handling multiple smaller problems is still fine though.

Getting experience from crafting makes sense actually. And it’s a great way to level alts, something which would (and still does) take a lot of time for me.

supergica.8652:

I love this type of threads. I camp regularly in the EB JP, and every time i see QQ-ing it brings me so much joy knowing that the noobs suffer so much. My server (Seafarer’s Rest) has some dedicated players, myself included, that lock that place down during prime time.

I’m disgusted that we’re on the same server. That you camp for badges or just because you can is one thing, but to actually gloat over the fact that you’re griefing other people…

Maybe the fashion style changed before Ascalon fell. In the fractals, the defenders are also wearing that clothing style…

For soloing, get the elemental summons and quick glyphs. The earth variants are awesome tanks, and they generate aggro like nobody’s business.

The mesmer may have clones, but they can neither take damage nor generate aggro as well as Ol’ Mr. Stoney.

Antrasith.2187:

Is there a possibility to get more than 40 seconds of Swiftness without using a signet?

Elemental Attunement would add a bit as well, and so would Glyph of Elemental Harmony. Add Arcane, 2 Runes of Superior Water and 2 Runes of the Monk into the mix and you’ll have swiftness like nobody’s business.

However, would you really need that much more? You’re already well past the cooldown so you can just keep piling on to get permanent swiftness.

What am I missing? This is still a long way from the 25 might I hear people can pull off.

Well, from the top of my head, the first thing you should add is a Sigil of Battle. It works on our attunement swaps and since you’ll be swapping a lot, it’ll add 6 stacks of might constantly.

Also, many players use boon duration extensions like runes and Arcana. For might, this adds quite a lot since the duration is already pretty long to begin with. With the aforementioned sigil, the difference would be another 3 stacks. The same would go for all your other comboes and skills.

Also, Evasive Arcana would grant you another blast finisher to use, and then there’s of course Glyph of Elemental Harmony again…

Those are just the things I can think of from the top of my head.

My main tactic is to swim in circles while autoattacking my target. So far, it has worked for 99% of the underwater enemies I’ve faced, including the fractal jellyfish boss (which I could probably solo if only it didn’t take so long…).

Gord.8654:

I have actually done the JP with opposing server players before. It happens. I’m not trying to muddy this up or start a 10 page debate but here are the facts:

1) My server owned the area
2) I was by myself
3) I took no aggressive stance when I saw the enemy
4) I was knocked back before I was even in range to attack
5) There were 30 people directly below where I got knocked off
6) They attacked me as soon as I hit the water… ALL 30 OF THEM
7) I was dead in no time
8) I was not a threat, they had the numbers
9) The JP does NOT contribute to the WvW score or give any tactical advantage on the battlefield

It’s greifing, plain and simple.

Described like that it sounds like they may have been bots.

Think of it this way…

-The guy that spend a lot of gold getting armor with good stats does more work.
-The guy who got a cheap set of magic find armor off the TP gets more drops.

That’s totally in line with Anet’s ‘playing with others should reward all players equally’ policy. Totally.

Even something like Ice Spike deals more damage than the Fire auto attack anyway…so swap attunement, cast the biggest damage skill, and move on…by the time you did all that, you’re back to fire again.

Yeah, it would be fun to be able to wear glasses under normal armor too. Good thing I play an ele so I can always pretend she uses magic to enhance her vision in battle.

Agreed, but they will do so anyway. Just like how, 90% of the players didn’t want a gear treadmill and they still added it.

Svarty.8019:

• Being unable to do anything is bad game design.
• Reducing someone’s effectiveness in a way they can counter is good game design.

After posting I saw a thread about the Moa Morph from the Mesmer, and I think that’s actually a well designed skill. Sure, you’re WAY less effective, but at least you can still do something. More cc skills should be like that.

The thing is, I know of stunbreakers, I know of stability and I still use them. Armor of Earth is actually a staple on my skill bar.

However, that’s not the point of this post. My point is that, one-on-one, the stuns are fine. You either dodge them tactically, or pay for not dodging. I’m cool with that.

What I’m not cool with, is the fact that when enemies group up, these seemingly harmless 2-second stuns turn into a long spamfest of stuns which, unless you have 15 seconds of stability on a 20 second cooldown, are impossible to handle. And by that I mean, I can still beat them fairly easily, but it takes 10 seconds longer because I have to out-wait the stuns.

Also, it could just be me, but it feels like, when the player gets knocked down, it takes a lot longer to get up then when the NPC gets knocked down. Worst of all, many npcs are immune to our CCs yet happily spam their own.

Like MilitiaMasterV said, it’s just a speedbump. A boring, and annoying speedbump. And I would really appreciate it if the next batch of foes has some other difficulty mechanic for a change.

As stated above, there are plenty of ways to get permanent swiftness. Personally, my current way is using +boon duration runes in combination with Glyph of Elemental Harmony (in Air), and then either the staff or the dagger’s swiftness skill. Of course, i also get it from swapping attunements and if really needed, I can also combo the staff’s eruption with static field for a partywide speed boost.

But that’s just one of the many possiblities, and you probably already get the tools to do so without specifically speccing for it.

If possible, it would be nice if you’d move away a bit from the perma-stun->kill mechanic for a while.

It’s not fun with the Karka (the jump actually stuns you even if you dodge it with the champion) and it’s not fun now with Toy Golems.

To be honest, a lot of utility skills are left untouched because I’m forced to bring stunbreakers for anything worth fighting.

It’s no fun to have to sit behind your pc, waiting until you can finally move again, and it’s not fun to get killed instantly if you fail to dodge a singel stun attack (or as with the champion karka, still get stunned even if you did dodge the attack).

So please, be creative and find a different method of implementing difficulty for a change.

Does it proc off of the signet passive as well?

Staff AoE skills start damaging at the end of the first second of their animation instead of right from the start. NPC fields start working right away, so this is probably a bug.

Really now? I did not know that. It’s an interesting thought…would ‘fixing’ that issue bring the staff up to speed?

Imagine the sigil transferring a stack of 25 bleed to your opponent. That’s what it would be good for.

pyronix.4081:

Garenthal.1480:

Didn’t Arena Net claim they wanted to distance themselves from allowing lore to be driven by references to popular culture?

When did they say this? I’ve been playing this game for more than a month and I always thought the races to be strongly tied or influenced by pop culture races (real and mythical)/demographics, or certain time periods in human history similar to how races are in WoW.

What they meant is that they didn’t want the standard: humans/elves/dwarves/orcs/etc. setup that WoW, LotR and so many other fantasy stories use. That’s likely one of the reasons they ended the Dwarven storyline.

And to be honest, yes, there are some stereotypes to many of the races but no, they’re not carbon copies. The Norn are more than just Vikings, the Asura aren’t like WoW’s gnomes, and the Charr are definitely not orcs.

Overall, you make a solid case. Some of your statements sound a bit like you’re a car salesman though:

Air 5 : Single target knockback. Not terrible, not great. It will save you many times over.

It’s either a great skill that will save you many times over, or an ok skill that you will use sometimes when it’s convenient. But not both. :-)

STRanger.5120:

That’s the right question
I would like if they keep their word, however if it cannot be done (that sux, but happens), I would like them to tell the community what they are working to, in a concrete way, so ppl know what they can expect (are the working on the scepter/staff now, so those will be viable in the future? What changes are they planning to release? etc…). The Ele mechanic is greatly designed, however it has it’s problems (no weapon swap – which is understandable of course. But being forced to melee with a caster class, when you look at the weak sides – low armor and HP, doesn’t seem so fair). Of course it is an option, but ppl want other options too —-> long range play. Every class has it, so why Ele doesn’t?

You have some valid points, and it would be nice to be able to get some insights on what Anet has in store for us.

The problem with ‘rebalancing’ the staff as I see it, is that it’s pretty hard to determine how big the power gap between it and daggers truly is. Daggers are more powerful currently, I don’t deny that, but they’re also more popular. I’ve read on these very forums about some people (who are better players than me) getting pretty good results with the staff, even in sPvP. So it’ll be tough to separate the facts from the theory/popularity votes if you know what I mean. In principle (not saying it is), it could be that the staff is actually perfectly balanced compared to the daggers. But there’s arguably more information and discussions going on about highend dagger builds than there is about the staff. And then there’s the combo fields, that obviously get stronger the more players you have near you. So how does one go about balancing that?

But I agree with you, I do sometimes feel ‘forced’ to go melee. The daggers has so many flashy, but also useful tools. Almost everything it has is viable, and the different roles (fire damage, water healing, air speed/stun and earth bleeding) are lot better represented. Even when it’s just the auto attacks, none of the feels truly useless. With the staff…not so much, even though it’s still (in theory) a cool weapon.

Maybe if the staff was ‘increased in speed’ a bit, it would be more playable. Like for example, if all skills would activate 10% faster, projectiles fly 10% faster, eruption’d actiavte 10% faster, etc.

Don’t all sigils share their cooldowns if they have any? Like, say Sigil of Battle and Sigil of Air…if the first’s on cooldown, the second won’t proc either?

Not all duration boosts are listed in the skill descriptions, but they do work. Superior Rune of the Earth for example, increases protection duration. Armor of Earth’s description remains the same, but the stability ends before the protection does.

KirinDave.6451:

I’m always confused why staff casters don’t seem to recommend Zephyr’s Focus from the Air tree. Don’t a lot of the staff abilities have channels? Is it because the skill is bugged or is it because it’s easier to just get vigor from other skils?

I double checked, and according to the wiki, only the dagger and scepter have channeled skills. But assuming Meteor Shower falls under it too, I still feel it’s not that great. You need your endurance when you’re under attack kiting stuff, not when you’re safe enough to stand still and cast stuff. But I suppose that it would go well with Ether Renewal.

Atomic Sharks.7250:

you’d be surprised how much condition staff ele can dish out.

Sounds interesting. Personally, I’ve always felt that Eruption was to easily dodged, and burning was more often applied through Lava Font by my teammates (using their condition damage instead). What kind of build do you run otherwise?

Arheundel.6451:

I have already stated that you won’t beat ever a decent player with a staff, no decent player will ever walk over ‘eruption’ ( no churning earth which is dagger OH earth 5).

And that’s exactly how you should use it. When I’m in trouble, I cast an eruption at my feet. The melee that are hacking at me, often kite away…which means eruption just prevented some damage. Add a geyser on top of it, and it suddenly became a major heal. So what if it didn’t deal damage? It just saved my life.

Against a r40+ warrior/guardian/mesmer/thief for example you won’t survive long enough to cast another frozen ground, they can flipping teleport/leap at you every 10s or so and burst you down in a fraction of that time

That’s an oversimplified assumption. A good defensive staff build can hold out through a burst. They were made for long fights, not bursts. You should be able to survive for at least 40 seconds unless you’re fighting 2v1 or worse (and even then, some of the better staff players do not seem to have trouble with that).

You don’t have to hit with each spell, you just gotta make sure you’re not going down and hit every so often, and eventually you’ll win through outhealing your opponent. That’s the staff’s strategy. It may not be perfect for 1v1, but there’s an area between ‘sucks totally’ and ‘is balanced’. Personally, I feel you sell the staff short by claiming it’s rubbish. However, I do agree it could use a small boost in overall power.

Voxel.6473:

Elementalist are not the kings of versatility. They can not weapon swap during combat…what this means, is that all classes except the ele can be strong range and melee at the same time.

To be honest, Í don’t agree with this. The dagger has so many gap closers its melee range doesn’t matter except in jumping puzzles. The staff and scepter on the other hand, don’t become any weaker when used in melee compared to how they’re used at range.

To me, the difference between the weapons isn’t the range. that’s just another number for the elementalist. It may matter to other professions, but it doesn’t for the elementalist.

STRanger.5120:

It seems like Anet recognized that they can’t fulfill the original description, so they changed it now, which doesn’t seem fair to the players imho…

What would you rather have, Anet trying to fulfill something they cannot do, or change philosophy so the game will be fun to play? I’m leaning towards the latter to be honest.

I usually die if there is more than 1 enemy, making it next to impossible to enjoy the game.

Try the earth elemental summons, they tank quite well and gather a lot of aggro by themselves. With Quick Glyphs, you can have them up almost all the time.

I hate asking for help with every little thing that I do, and I do not want to have to play that way.
I have spent fortune on armor repairs, and I can’t afford to keep it up.

How can I play this class effectively, and survive mobs of 2 or 3?
What weapons do I use? How to I effectively “trait” this class?

The thing is, the elementalist does take a lot of time, training and skill to become ‘fun’ to play. I remember my first Crucible of Eternity runs, I had no vitality and would die several times on each boss. It wasn’t fun and those that could hear me would wonder what was wrong. :-) Slowly however, I learned how the fights worked and upgraded my gear, and now I have little trouble with it.

But it took me quite some time to learn how.

The elementalist isn’t a class you can pick up easily and play well in a short amount of time. As for your questions, while there’s no easy way with the elementalist, there are some things that will help you out.
First of all, get toughness/vitality gear if you can. This will matter a lot. Don’t go glass cannon, at least not until you feel comfortable with the class.
Second, use some water traits that heal you and/or remove a condition. 15 points or so at least will turn each time you swap to water into a healing skill, which helps a lot while levelling.
Finally, learn to switch elements. This is the heart of the class and while there are some niche builds that can do without swapping, overall the elementalist will do a lot better if you switch frequently. We weren’t meant to be pyromancers or healers. We’re meant to be all of them.

Most skill points, I have to get help with.
Healing is the worst of all the classes I think.
My staff sucks. Most importantly, I can’t even weapon swap.

If you het better, there’s hardly anything you’ll need help with. Our healing is actually among the best of all classes (how many classes have 2 healing skills on their weapon and still the ability to go full damage if they want to) and as for your staff sucking, well, in general the staff does not suck in PvE. Try a different staff.

Miss Pink Floyd.9730:

I have played every single class in the game to at least level 31, but out of them all, I hate playing the elementalist.

Then don’t play it. Don’t mean that as trolling, honestly. It’s a game. You do it to have fun. If you’re not having fun, go do something else. :-) It’s the reason I don’t play warrior.

SecondtoNone.7549:

That’s because I do know it’s op. That’s why my suggestions all involve ways to limit it so it wouldn’t be. I like the idea of weapon swap and would like theory craft whether I’d be possible to implement in a toned down version for the ele. People just kind of ignored my long second post where I make points and asked questions and instead went on to yell in caps and in strings of exclamation points of how op it is.

Well, to be honest, I don’t feel your proposed restriction is anything of a restriction. It also doesn’t take into account if similar purpose skills are on different slots (Cone of Cold is in slot 2 and Geyser in slot 3, for example, so they could still be used after oneanother in your proposal).

If they ever do plan to implement an in combat weapon mechanic for the elementalist, then you cannot do it half-baked. It shouldn’t be an optimal combat strategy in any way, similar to the racial skills. So maybe if all the weapon’s skills went on cooldown equal to their own cooldown, then maybe it would be acceptable.

The thing with the staff is that while individually the skills are subpar, combined they actually become quite decent. The skills are meant to be combined with either other players or yourself. That’s why the initial cast of fields is weak. An arrow shot through a fire field causes 320 or so extra damage, or chill with ice fields, or regen with healing fields.

And yes, they have long cooldowns. But if you swap attunements often enough, you’ll find they’re done with the cooldown by the time you get back to them.

I know this isn’t news to most people who post here. Yet reading some of the posts here, I feel like it is. What helped for me personally though, was Glyph of Elemental Power. Used in earth or water, it gives all your spells a chance to snare, which makes it easier to hit targets, which in turn have another chance to become snared. Walking through a churning earth just turned 2 seconds cripple into a 7 seconds cripple. Try it sometimes, and I think you’ll find it enchances the staff’s playstyle immensely.

JuniorSB.7089:

Ok, I took out the Blasting staff tip.

It doesn’t need to be removed entirely, but maybe you can reword it a bit so it’s less of a must-have and more of a these-are-the-reasons-to-bring-it.

Because in all honesty, it’s a decent trait. It’s not strictly neccesary, true, but if you don’t know what you’re up against, or new to the staff ele, then it can help you aim.

To be honest, that goes for a lot of caster weapons. There aree all kinds of fiery, lightning or other sweet swords…and then there are staves, which if you’re lucky have some mediocore effect that you hardly notice.

Compare a Fiery Dragon Sword to Melandru’s Staff for example…and then to the old GW1 Celestial Staff. I’m still hoping they’ll reïntroduce that one.

Glyph of Elemental Power cast in water or earth makes the staff a lot more viable 1v1. Imagine a meteor shower that snares…or snaring the enemy with any random hit…while your ice elemental rushes in…and causes another snare…works pretty well.

Galrond.5972:

Maybe increase the durration of all fields. That could be usefull.

That would surely get my attention as a staff wielder.

Cleric gear, 2 Superior Runes of the Monk, 2 Superior Runes of Water.

At least 10 points in water with Cleansing Wave/Waters…the skill that removes conditions on attunement swapping.

30 points in arcane with at least Elemental Attunement as a trait, and you have a good basis for a support build, with plenty of room for your own ideas.

Hope that helps. :-)

SecondtoNone.7549:

It’s a discussion, sir. Not an argument. I’m not sure why you keep trying to turn it into one. Relax.

To be honest, I’m not sure why you think I’m arguing rather than discussing, but I’ll apologize nonetheless for the confusion.

The main reason I made the post because I don’t understand why you were suddenly convinced when someone repeated the same argument for the umpteenth time.

Also, I meant to add another example situation to the table through the Ride the Lightning issue. It shows what happens when elementalists are given acces to more skills during combat, and as such could be seen as an example why weapon swapping in combat shouldn’t be added.

But I meant no personal disrespect to you.

SecondtoNone.7549:

Warkupo.1025:

Having 40 different abilities to respond to a situation is so far above and beyond what anyone else is capable it should be obvious without having to sit here listing the dozens of specific combinations I can use to kill someone. When you have 40 different abilities to choose from you don’t blindly apply a combo. You just decimate.

When you can DO everything, always, whenever, you can’t be anything BUT overpowered.

Good response.

Indeed a good response. It’s also pretty much the same answer everyone else has given you.

Look at the Ride the Lightning issue that got fixed today. The net result of that is virtually the same as adding a second weapon set to the ele: more acces to more skills. Now, you could argue that it was due to specific skills you could acces, but other weapons have skills like that as well.

Ride the Lightning was quickly found as overpowered, and Anet responded almost as quickly by applying a hotfix. The elementalist got a taste of what it would be like to have acces to twice the amount of skills. And it was shown to be too powerful.

Convinced now?

It’s a good idea. Sadly, I have nothing to add here since I pretty much decided on my build the day before the update.

I run less water/arcane than standard, but even so, I find Evasive Arcana to be too much fun to ditch it. The fire traits however do seem…interesting…now.

Is it ok to state that I’d rather pay a fixed amount for something than to have to only have the option for random items?

Is that ok? Or is that also ‘complaining for the sake of complaining’ and thus prone to deletion?

No, I am asking how I could do so in a constructive manner, on specific things. I’m not criticizing anything at the moment. Or if I seem to do so, then I apologize because I do not intend to do so with this thread.

The quaggan mini is so ubercool that I’d do almost anything to get it. However, among the things I would not do is paying for a random chance.

Seriously, I’d have paid like $20 for it. But those random boxes, it’s just not the way for me. Legalized theft in many ways. And for what reason? Dropping it twice as often wouldn’t cost Anet a penny…

I still would have liked to see the ‘random drop minis’ to appear as buyable minis. I got a few boxes, opened them only to be remined why I so utterly despise them.

So I guess no Quaggan for me. Even though it’s the coolest mini I can imagine to ever be in the game, I’m just not gonna put up with the moronic system that is random buyable boxes.

As long as they don’t cause some form of perma stun, then I’m ok with whatever damage they do.

…giving feed back on things like droprates? Often threads like these are ‘deleted because you’re not allowed to complain for the sake of complaining’. However, if one would still like to give their feedback on things like how hard it is to get certain items, how would one do it without the post in question being removed?

It’s a salty sea, connected to an ocean, in a tropical climate…why do you THINK it’s not frozen?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the whole point of changing underused trait lines to make them viable for use? And if so, doesn’t that use also per definition include WvW and PvP?

Now, if you were aiming to discuss wheter this change makes Fire a viable alternative, then we’d have something to talk about. But dismissing a trait that just got buffed because nobody uses it simply because nobody uses it is fairly thickheaded.

An increased projectile speed on the auto attacks would be useful, but I fail to see what casting times (or in fact the ranger comment) have to do with anything.

boozer.7815:

In short, I disagree with most of the OP’s points

Care to elaborate?

Thevoidiscold.4910:

I don’t mind. I want my chick to be sexy. I highly doubt most of you given the option would make your chick ‘thick’. Hourglass figure works fine for me. But I do agree though, how the somewhat heavier chicks have smaller breast. That is quite bizarre. If you want big girls, make a norn.

How about the inbetween ‘normal’ option. Not every woman in real life’s a supermodel you know…

Bearhugger.4326:

You don’t really have fat builds in Guild Wars 2. It seems the art team has idealistic views of characters, making everyone look young, fit and heroic.

You can’t really run around the world all day, and not stay at least somewhat in shape. The only exceptions being the Norn, because they drink so much and their bodies are more adapted to colder climates.