Guild Wars 2

S/F fresh air build with mistform on the bar. Mist the first headshot, obsidian flesh if he makes it to the 2nd. Drop the FGS after the rush and pop swirling winds>lightning strike>ring of fire>dragon’s tooth>phoenix>fire grab>air>lightning>gale>etc.

TGSlasher.1458:

Btw 1x Trident does the same damage as 1x cone of cold (so cone of cold wins as you can get 2 off in the same time period).

Except that 2x cone takes 4sec longer to cast than 1x trident, preventing you from casting anything else. To get back to it fast enough it also requires 30 arcana, significantly limiting damage builds (and lowering it’s damage). It’s possible that it does more damage as a skill but lowers your dps, unless you only use it when everything is on cooldown.

There’s also the retaliation issue. Cone can hit multiple targets multiple times per cast, causing multiple ticks of retaliation damage, further reducing the effectiveness of the healing. (3 targets)x(4 ticks of retaliation damage)x(2 casts per 20 seconds) is far greater than 5 ticks of retaliation per 20 seconds maximum.

DevonCarver.5370:

ParaldaWind.4523:

DevonCarver.5370:

Are the orbs coming back? No. Are we bringing back the buff? Yes, although the way you get it and hold it is going to be drastically different. Are you going to see a major map change in concert with this? Yes. Is it coming soon? Most definitely.

If this orb replacement gives a stat bonus to the *zergiest server, I feel like a lot of guilds will quit.

Here’s the thing to remember, it may buff the *better servers for a time, but if it is relatively easy to take from a better server, it isn’t going to cause nearly the same problems that the original buff did. I will say that when this goes back into the game, we’ll continue to monitor the effects and make changes as necessary.

I know you’re relatively new to WvW, Mr. Carver, and since you have joined the team, I’ve mostly been glad to have you because of your level of dedication and enthusiasm for my favorite game mode. Perhaps you don’t remember, because you weren’t on the team yet, but the REASON players disliked the orbs was the BUFF THEY GAVE THE ALREADY WINNING SIDE.

I don’t usually type in caps like that, but I feel very strongly that this is a bad move.

If the purpose is to further unbalance WvW in an effort to make players who desire balanced combat to migrate to sPvP, it won’t work. That game mode is boring to many who like large scale combat. Fight over 3 little circles for 10-15 minutes? Heck no, I want a war game!

I don’t want to win by holding some stat advantage, and I don’t want to lose by my enemies having a stat advantage.

My guild enjoys taking on larger numbers. Sometimes we win, often we lose, it’s fun. That gets a lot less fun when one side or the other has a stat advantage. I’m not sure I’ll be able to find the motivation to play WvW much if the old orb style buffs return.

I remember the day the orbs were removed:
We (TC) had been fighting SoR and they had us pretty much spawncamped all week. It was all we could do to hold a tower or two most of the day and their night crew would take everything and hold all 3 orbs in t3 keeps on maps with siege set up at spawn. Hitting a wall of 80 players all buffed with +15% to all stats and t3 everything, even with our own 80 players, was basically suicide.
The day the orbs were removed we ticked at a higher PPT than SoR most of the day…..
Overnight coverage + orbs absolutely dominated in those days.

Bringing back the buffs, even if they are “easy” to retake, is just one more thing to do for the “morning crew” to struggle uphill against. Just another straw, poor poor camel, so sorry little camel…..

*The post quoted said “zergiest” not “best” and there is the disconnect. Read my above example of TCvSoR the day the orbs were removed for a prime example. Look at scores on reset nights, when all things are equal (all maps queued, nothing upgraded, only minimal supply available) and you’ll see the difference between best and zergiest….

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Thrashbarg.9820:

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Thrashbarg.9820:

I like it. Maybe I’m weird.

Can you explain what about it you like? I’m not looking to troll, I honestly want to know what good points you find in it that I might have overlooked.

It has a fairly short cast time, scales well with healing power, and fits the need of a single-cast burst heal in small group highly mobile combat.

Geyser heals better if you can stand in it for the full ticks AND have at least one blast finisher available (big IF there in a fast moving fight). Cone of cold hits multiple times so in practice I often find I take as much retaliation damage as I get healing.

When I use a scepter I generally run a burst build so my only healing power is from a few points in water, every single point there benefits a bit (1.0 scaling). Cone of cold only gets 1/3rd healing power (0.3 scaling) and requires 30 points in arcane to have access to it off cooldown (to make it’s healing match water trident, that is).

Shatterstone needs work, for sure, but I think water trident is in an alright place.

The cast time is about the only thing I will agree with you on. It does not, however, scale well with healing compared to virtually every other weapon based healing skill ele’s possess. I like the general idea behind it, cast at a ground target, damage and heal in the area, only the actual execution is weak. The damage is nearly non-existent, a single shard from the water scepter auto attack does more dmg most of the time, and the healing is weak too. Cleansing wave is higher healing, cures a condition, and has larger range, and as for geyser, while the scaling coefficient is lower, it has a duration and per tick heals for just about as much, so overall it heals for much more. Healing rain and cone of cold, yeah no need to go into those because again, both have durations and heal for far more (cone of cold damages for much more too). That along with the recharge on it and the lack of any other beneficial effects is why I don’t like this skill (in it’s current state). I would so love to see it reworked to be more viable because the skill itself, and it’s general idea, feel, and execution, are pretty fun. But, everyone is entitled to their own opinions so if you can make it work for you, more power to ya.

Numbers, not just opinion:
(from wiki)

Water Trident:
Cast a water trident that damages foes and heals allies.

Damage: 168 (0.50084)?
Healing: 1,448 (1.0)?*
Radius: 180
Range: 900
20 sec recharge, 0.5sec cast
*healing power scaling, this bears out with my testing at +200 healing power I get heals of 1,648

Cone of cold:
Spray an icy blast in a cone that damages foes and heals allies.

Damage: 168 (0.50084)?*
Healing: 740 (0.32)?
Range: 400
10 sec recharge, 2.25sec cast time
Notes:
The healing is separated into 4 small heals which added up to the amount stated in the tooltip.
*wiki doesn’t note but damage is also dealt over all 4 ticks to reach this total

With 1,000 healing power, trident outheals cone by ~16hp/sec (for example) and doesn’t require any investment in arcana to utilize it fully (cone needs 30 arcana or you lose healing/sec due to attunement cooldown exceeding skill cooldown).

According to the wiki, they have exactly the same damage. Feel free to verify in the mists.

Geyser is just a different animal, it does no damage, heals for more but requires standing still for a couple seconds, provides a water field, and scales terribly with healing power (0.25 scaling, meaning anything over 1,000 healing power will push trident to near or over it’s power and heal all at once, granted, damage is terrible with that much healing).

Scepter was the weapon of choice for point bunker elementalists back before they removed our profession from tPvP. Water trident is the reason (well, and rock barrier).

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Thrashbarg.9820:

I like it. Maybe I’m weird.

Can you explain what about it you like? I’m not looking to troll, I honestly want to know what good points you find in it that I might have overlooked.

It has a fairly short cast time, scales well with healing power, and fits the need of a single-cast burst heal in small group highly mobile combat.

Geyser heals better if you can stand in it for the full ticks AND have at least one blast finisher available (big IF there in a fast moving fight). Cone of cold hits multiple times so in practice I often find I take as much retaliation damage as I get healing.

When I use a scepter I generally run a burst build so my only healing power is from a few points in water, every single point there benefits a bit (1.0 scaling). Cone of cold only gets 1/3rd healing power (0.3 scaling) and requires 30 points in arcane to have access to it off cooldown (to make it’s healing match water trident, that is).

Shatterstone needs work, for sure, but I think water trident is in an alright place.

How to fix all escort events and still allow mobs to use aoe:

Give all escorted NPCs full damage immunity as long as there are non-downed players inside the event circle. Then go crazy buffing the mobs to make it challenging.

As long as:
1) NPCs are too stupid to move out of aoe, dodge, or heal themselves effectively
2) There are no effective targeted burst heals, and healing/cleansing aoe is capped at 5 targets prioritizing players (these are good things, for the love of whatever, please don’t change this)
3) CC (mostly) doesn’t interrupt aoe or condition damage
These escort events will continue to be plagued by these issues.

To fix them all, make them hard as hell if you want, but require a full wipe OF PLAYERS as the failure condition. Tying the success/failure of the event so heavily to the interaction between hostile and friendly NPCs leads to players feeling helpless and frustrated.

Somoe.3621:

Is your character running when you’re attempting to pick up an item? I remember a while ago picking up bundles would bug out and “fail” if you tried to do it while running. Maybe it’s a similar issue? Have you tried coming to a complete stop before hitting your interact key? :o

Just an idea to help you possibly manage.

I was thinking something similar. However, (being a WvW regular, I recognize the familiar feel) this seems to be related to “zerg lag”. When the server is getting crushed by trying to crunch numbers for 80 to the 80th power combat interactions per fraction of a second it starts to lag behind your client’s positional data. It sees you as still running because it hasn’t gotten the “stop moving at X position facing X direction” order yet, but your client knows you stopped and starts playing the “pick up” animation as per your orders, then the server sends an override “hey you can’t pick stuff up while moving” and the client kitten s around trying to figure out how to render this mess to you.

Basically try to do it between the zerg bosses down below….. They really blew it putting the gauntlet inside the pavillion. It didn’t need to be instanced, but it’s own map at least. Dealing with zerg induced server lag on top of crappy camera angles and twitchy boss mechanics prevents me from enjoying this nearly as much as it seems like I should.

I did it on my engineer (with a build with no stunbreaks or stability), but here’s how I would do it on elementalist. Use a x-x-20-x-x build with rock solid and armor of earth at 50% traits. Armor of earth, arcane shield, ice bow utilities. Go for as much damage gear and traits as you feel comfortable with. Tornado elite also.

Open with ice bow #5>4>3>(maybe 2)>drop>deal damage till first tornadoes hit. Keep her knocked down/stunned/dazed as long as possible while dealing damage. When you start needing stability, swap to earth swap to another attunement and use armor of earth, when it’s about to run out, swap back to earth. She should be dead or almost dead by now, if not, use tornado to finish her off, it’s pretty low damage but long duration stability and increases your HP.

I like it. Maybe I’m weird.

The advantage of sPvP is you don’t have to level up to roll alts. I usually don’t give this type of advice, and tend to deter others from it as well, but try some different professions. Elementalist is kinda bottom tier in sPvP at the moment, for a variety of reasons. Eventually the balancing pendulum will swing back though and we can dust off our elementalists. For now though, our burst build isn’t bursty enough and our bunker builds can’t take the condition/CC spam.

Focus if you want to be purely ranged. Dagger does more damage but it’s all melee (well, close range anyway, not technically melee). In this game, melee will generally outdamage ranged, it’s supposed to be a risk/reward trade. Even scepter will maximize it’s damage at closer range (to benefit from aoe might stacking you need to be standing in a fire field where your dragon’s tooth and phoenix land, for example).

No class in the game is designed to be pure range or pure melee. They all have sets for both and some high end content requires being able to play both styles effectively. Might as well start learning all right away and chuck out that idea of “ranged damage dealer” and go with “self sufficient hero” which is what all classes are meant to be.

In a game mode where it has to be “best or nothing” as far as builds, the class which is intended to be Jack of all trades is just going to suck. Anet either needs to ditch that idea altogether or just announce that elementalists aren’t intended for tPvP at all.

tPvP requires your point bunker to be the absolute best and most specialized bunker possible. See where that contradicts the “decent at everything, best at nothing” idea?

Tornado makes (theoretically, not in reality) the best point bunker elite, so if any get a buff it should be that one. Enabling attunement swapping and healing while in tornado form would probably be plenty, maybe a slight duration increase or cooldown decrease also.

Greatsword is actually good for point assault, as is the fire elemental. Of course, then you run into the issue of elementalists not being the best roamer/assaulter anyway…..

If your sole intent is to support by might stacking, I’d go with the might duration runes over water/monk anyway, since they add power instead of healing (more damage).

That said, I feel it’s better to spread blast finishers among party members builds if possible. A warrior with a horn and a banner can eliminate the need for you to run boon duration runes and waste damage skills such as churning earth just to provide might (or an engi with any number of builds, or a bow thief, or anyone that knows how to pick up a banner and press 5).

For PvE it really shouldn’t be an issue at all. The abundance of warriors and guardians in dungeon runs should allow for spamming “great justice”, empower, all manner of blasts, etc. There’s no reason you should be pigeonholed into an aurashare build focused on increasing other’s dps unless that’s the way you want to play.

For OP:
I wouldn’t replace the boon duration runes, they are good for some situations, get an entirely new armor set for a damage build. If cost is at all a concern, don’t bother with the high end runes. Ruby orbs offer nearly the same dps (more in reality due to time spent below 90% hp and limiting factors of condition damage in groups) and cost very little.

Generally I stop reading a thread when someone makes multiple posts in a row or replies to every single post in the thread. This one is no exception.

Just make your point and move on, maybe add a clarification or two, but arguing never convinced anyone (especially with all the bold and caps, if someone was yelling like that in real life I wouldn’t listen long, same thing here).

Nabrok.9023:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

That being said, having a well balanced character is pretty important; not just for Queen’s Gauntlet but in general. I keep the gear to swap playstyles on my character, and generally a respec is pretty cheap and easy even at 80.

Now, just think how much easier this would be if you could save builds!

Please, please, please, please, please.

I’d be happy if they just enabled the button that’s available in sPvP to reset trait points anywhere (out of combat). Automatically deduct the 3.50s from my shiny new wallet if it’s that important of a gold sink.

Zylonite.5913:

why is everyone against the idea/fact of farming CoF1 by other players? how does this affect you? if someone wants to run CoF p1 100 times a day then so what? It is their choice how they wanna play the game and not yours. I personally try to run CoF p1 once a day for the tokens for my future alts…but I really don’t understand all the hatred against CoF farmers…

A basic understanding of economics, specifically inflation, would help a lot.

There’s noting wrong with doing the runs. The thing that was wrong was specifically the amount of gold per minute injected into the economy due to boss coin drops and their scaling with +gold find food and infusion.

There’s a reason legendary weapons cost 4-5 times the price they were selling for a couple months after release. A big part of that reason is CoFp1 speedruns. How does it affect me? That’s how.

When I started playing, I felt like the OP and thought it should follow target. After getting used to it, I feel strongly that it should remain how it is. Being aware of the blast radius and range makes it so I can put the damage where I want it, instead of an arbitrary X-units in front of current target. I wish RtL functioned the same.

It’s like the difference between an automatic and manual transmission in a car. The learning curve is higher with the manual, but you have better overall control once you learn.

Fresh air builds can have a place in ZvZ (not as much when it gets over about 60v60, but then it’s more a battle of who can spam 1,1,1,1,1,1 the best anyway). In mid-size zerg fights, focusing on finishing downed enemies can have a huge impact. Definitely don’t run full glass, but don’t underestimate the power till you’ve tried it.

For a supporty D/D build for mid-size ZvZ I use 0-0-20-20-30 with rock solid trait, boon duration runes, etc. Stability is probably the most important boon in high tier zerg fights, much more important than fury and swiftness. Aura sharing is good also, I feel it’s okay to trade evasive arcana for it under some circumstances, depends on the composition of the groups you are encountering.

Vashoom.8512:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

There’s even a gambit system wherein you can increase the difficulty for a better reward.

It’s not quite like anything we’ve ever done before. I think some of you are really going to have fun with it.

erm.. fractals? :s

“Not quite like” = mobs have different names and appear in a new map.

Nothing against the new content, no doubt it will be fun. However, the idea that repeating the same 12 boss encounters at higher and higher difficulty* levels is new and different is a bit hard to swallow at this point.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not some delusional gamer who believes game companies should be able to create whole new exciting game types constantly. I’m quite impressed with the amount and quality of content being added in this game.

*=bigger HP pool, harder, more frequent attacks, more CC, more adds, soft “enrage” timers, etc.

Great fix to the inflation problem caused by CoFp1 spammers, without even killing that path’s spammability (so great for those who actually enjoy CoFp1 speedruns). Chances of rares increasing is far better than straight gold-drop for the economy. Farmers still “make” money without injecting as much raw gold into the system.

Will take time to see the effect, but I think this change will help the game over the long run.

All I have to say is “hahahahahahaha!”.

CoFp1 farming ruined the economy, that’s right, ruined. Maybe after a few months this change will bring it back into some semblance of balance.

Refund for something that helped break the economy? Refund for something that will now be working as intended? NOPE

Interesting build, glad it’s working for you. D/F always feels clunky to me, main damage up close, main defense geared toward ranged, but I’m always in favor of people playing what works for them (I play a gadget engineer at the moment…..).

The one thing I’d change is the weapon sigil set. The two sigils you have share a global cooldown, so only one will ever actually work. Swap one out for a sigil without a cooldown, such as force/accuracy/bloodlust/etc.

Basically a variant of the standard, 0-0-20-20-30 is what I find most useful for group WvW these days. I’d imagine it would be good in tPvP as well. Rock solid trait guarantees ether renewal heals, and with the meta being heavy on hard-CC and conditions it’s really necessary.

For small scale I like fresh air scepter builds. Get at least 2500 armor and 15k+ hp then put the rest into power/precision/crit-dmg. I’ve run successful variants with just about any point distribution between earth/water/arcane.

I tried that build for a bit after the change to glyph of elemental power, and liked it well enough.

I missed bolt to the heart and aeromancer’s alacrity too much though, so I went back to those after a bit. Without quick glyphs and inscription it didn’t feel as useful to take GoEP so I ended up dropping it entirely. It’s definitely useful with that build, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s our best active defense.

Lower map caps combined with an option to guest-WvW on outmanned worlds if all maps on your home world are queued (excluding worlds in the same matchup as home world) would solve many problems.

Larger and/or more complex maps would also help, but will take longer to develop.

Critical mass for zerg blobs seems to be around the 50-60 player range. This is where the massive skill lag kicks in and it becomes possible to crush any smaller force through revive-attrition. Setting the population cap at 50 per team per map would make it much less effective to blob, since it wouldn’t leave anyone to scout or buffer-defend/contest to buy the blob time to defend.

To large guilds this probably sounds horrible, but that’s why it needs the guest/overflow option as well. Casual players aren’t going to want to wait in queues, so they will just guest for their WvW fix. Guildies can queue up like usual to play together and maybe even have shorter queues. Only mega-guilds will be affected, and well, I don’t have a huge amount of sympathy for them since they are basically ruining the game for everyone else with their mega-blobs, but I can pretend to, oh yeah, it’ll be okay guys, just learn to blob more maps at once!!!!

halcyonzephyr.5628:

To those of you saying that I just want things handed to me because I am lazy and didn’t put in the work for the achievement don’t understand what happened. I finished the JP… I made it to the top. I am within feet of the kite. I put in the work but was denied my reward. How would you all feel if you worked for a week and then the company sent out the paycheck to the wrong address and refused to pay you?

It’s more like: The company you work for has a group of hired goons standing guard over the accounting office, and if you want your paycheck you need to fight/sneak past them to get paid. It’s your choice to work for such a company.

I don’t agree with people camping the puzzle, but I realize I can’t control the behavior of every player in a public game. The larger a server’s population, the larger it’s population of jerks, but overall I find TC to be a decent bunch.

The achievement is in no way required. I wanted to complete the Mad King’s Clocktower, for instance, but I was unable to, due to a combination of my hardware and the difficulty. Players being able to attack is part of the difficulty of this particular jumping puzzle, just as the timed jumps were part of the difficulty of Mad King’s Clocktower.

Just think of this puzzle as a difficult instance with varied AI and spawns. Bring a team. If you wouldn’t try to solo Arah or Fractals, don’t go solo into Obsidian Sanctum.

Aether McLoud.1975:

Maskaganda.2043:

Aether McLoud.1975:

I never understood why we aren’t allowed to have anything faster than swiftness (nothing stacks!) but engineers can have 200% runspeed for a short time with their superspeed boost.

thats just poor wording on the skill tooltip. it is only very slightly faster than swiftness. (140% instead of 133%)

Still faster than swiftness :P
AND they now have a much better RTL…

Which requires it’s own utility slot, the equivalent of giving up an entire attunement worth of skills for one (or 2 utility slots for the max range once every 35-45 sec with slick shoes). I’ve been using it on my engineer recently, but it definitely comes with it’s drawbacks. Apples and oranges again.

Aether McLoud.1975:

I never understood why we aren’t allowed to have anything faster than swiftness (nothing stacks!) but engineers can have 200% runspeed for a short time with their superspeed boost.

They can’t. Either the tooltip is wrong or the skill is bugged, it’s only slightly faster than swiftness. It also mitigates the fact that they only have one weapon based gap closer, a 700 range leap on a 20 second cooldown (which has such a long animation it only ends up adding about 200ish units over plain swiftness).

Comparing single class skills as if they exist in some sort of vacuum is problematic. It’s what lead the developers to make such a drastic change to RtL, for example.

Seen this mentioned elsewhere right after patch. Sounds like a glitch since it’s using the old cooldown. Looks like they need to update the trait action with the new cooldown.

It’s a bit profession/build dependent as well.

If playing thief, anywhere is fine. To some extent mesmer as well, although learning the terrain is more necessary for success.

If playing a profession with less escapes you’ll need good overall map awareness to avoid enemy zerg movements while accomplishing anything. That just takes time/experience. Build to run, no matter your profession, mobility and sustain are key to any good roaming build.

It’s also dependent on your home server and current matchup. Generally higher “tier” worlds will be zergier, but there are exceptions.

For me to care about GvG it would have to be objective based. That’s just a personal preference though, I understand there are plenty of deathmatch PvP enthusiasts. To me, non-objective based PvP limits build creativity, and lack of varied terrain limits strategy.

It needs it’s own arena, or sPvP maps caps raised to 20-30 (although many GvG guilds wouldn’t like that since it limits builds).

Too many times I’ve been on a queued map, fighting an 80 man zerg with 10-15 players, desperately trying to hold upgraded keeps that people have spent hours/days securing. When I ask where everyone is? GvGing or spectating.

Any smart enemy will roll out the 10 golem rush as soon as they see a prominent guild GvGing.

Johje Holan.4607:

Oh, and I would think the best place for it would be the vast wasted space in the NE and NW of the map.

Those spaces offer more varied terrain, but there are logistical issues. Lack of easy access routes for all teams and high-density mobs mostly. The space near the windmill is just the easiest to get to and about the only place without trash mobs for random rallies.

Was mentioned during beta as something they would like to include eventually. I have no idea whether that is still the case, or if the developer who said that even still works there.

Sure would be nice.

Gumby.1708:

Thrashbarg.9820:

Support roles get tons of loot, no idea what this nonsense is about. … There’s some myth about high dps getting more loot. It’s not true. … DPS means “damage per second”. Are you saying support roles cause NO damage? If you are ONLY using heal/boon skills you are playing wrong, and not fully supporting your team.

Either im expressing myself really bad or you are just ignorant. Of course support roles can do damage and tag enemies, NOBODY said something different. But in the time you are buffing and healing you CANNOT tag enemy players to get loot. Theres a system called CAST TIME its literally time you spend casting. For Example explain to me while using this combo with my elementalist to heal up the zerg, how do i get to tag the enemy?

Switch attunement earth => Cast Erruption (for blast finisher) => Switch attunement water => Cast healing rain => Cast Geyser = > Cast Arcane Wave => Dodgeroll Heal

This is just ONE of many examples. After that combo im free to cast my other spells and tag enemies and wait for my support skills cooldown, but in that time other players that focused on damaging/tagging the other raid have killed some players and got more loot.

Despite that AoE spells of the ele need cast time and time to activate and have a cap that can hit only 5 players at once. While the fight goes on the enemy Zerg probably scatters much more and the same Aoe doesnt tag as many different players as if you fought from the start.

And DONT focus on ONE class “the guardian blah blah….” there are several other classes. If you feel the need to disapprove something i would like to see an example that works for everybody

Yeah, I’m probably just ignorant. Especially about elementalists, I only have about 1700 hours on mine and only about 2/3rds of that in WvW. Personal insults are generally a good way to present an argument.

A better healing rotation is water>geyser OR healing rain>start dodge>swap earth>arcane wave. That will give you the same heal as your rotation and leave eruption off CD for damage (use 4 or 5 first to land it).

A cool trick is to drop your healing on downed enemies and let the team’s blast finishers finish enemies. Tagging and healing all in one, give it a try.

The other thing that doesn’t make sense to me is why you’re healing if you haven’t already tagged everything. Do you generally enter combat by spamming heals? What attunement are you in before you start your healing rotation, perhaps fire or air? Total cast time on your healing rotation should be around 4 seconds, if your team wipes everyone in that time consider farming in Orr or something, that means you vastly outnumber your opponents, and there’s better loot in PvE…..

Support roles get tons of loot, no idea what this nonsense is about. The first player to hit 250,000 WvW kills played a STAFF GUARDIAN.

Friggin spam #1. Geez.

There’s some myth about high dps getting more loot. It’s not true. There are plenty of myths about droprates, humans like to see patterns in randomness, it’s how our brains are built, pattern recognition machines.

DPS means “damage per second”. Are you saying support roles cause NO damage? If you are ONLY using heal/boon skills you are playing wrong, and not fully supporting your team.

If you’re switching characters 8 times a day and switching their builds several times each, you are working unnecessarily hard. That is entirely your choice, but no one said you have to play this game 12 hours a day and that you must win every possible engagement.

Terra Dactyl.2047:

ARM.3912:

0,25,0,15,30

ARM.3912:

the class is dead

I think I see a connection here.

Haha, yeah.

I’m of the opinion that the class still needs work, and some of the work already done should be slightly undone (RtL CD restored, please). The whole “sky is falling! omawgawd class is deaaaadddd!” rhetoric is not a good way to get any positive changes made and it’s an extreme exaggeration.

(Builds in this game are dependent on mode, and since there’s no mention of PvE/sPvP/WvW, I’ll just give my rambling take on WvW elementalists, since that’s mostly what I do)

Well, there’s a few reasons many prefer air to fire.

Both precision and critical damage increase you damage output. On the surface, power and condition duration appear to serve the same function. The problem with condition duration is without stacking more of it on gear and food buffs, there will be no tangible increase in damage. A 3sec burn or bleed will receive a 0.3sec increase from plus-10% condition duration, which will not result in an additional “tick” of damage. Unless you can reliably stack 10sec-plus burns already, 10% condition duration will do nothing for your dps, but if you could do that, you wouldn’t need plus-duration anyway.

Fury (and to a lesser extent, swiftness) is a very powerful boon, especially with aura-sharing. People tend to forget frost-aura from blasting frozen ground also shares any boons you trait for, so it’s not only D/D that benefits from this trait. If you slot arcane wave and evasive arcana you can blast 3 times in a row for a very long lasting chill aura that reduces damage by 10% and gives fury to 5 players. Fury also helps proc renewing stamina (vigor on crit) for more dodges (more blasts/heals with EA).

I find the 30 water/arcane build to have a limp noodle arm with S/D, but it works well for staff and D/D, especially in medium-large scale combat. For S/D, fresh air rules, and a 30 air build can be adapted to staff (tempest defense + bolt to the heart = a bunch of dead zerglings in a lava>meteor>static combo).

I like air as opposed to fire simply because crit damage is the hardest stat to stack. Other than upgrades to trinkets, traits have the best point-for-point stat tradeoff for crit damage. Air also comes with built in synergy between precision and crit damage (warriors, engineers, etc, don’t get this built in synergy, they get precision+condition damage).

Done with my lunch now, rambling off…..

edited because forum made every “+” symbol into an underlined section.

Leo Paul.1659:

Also, does the aoe limit apply to pve as well? I wonder why they don’t increase the limit for pve..

Because the server knows exactly where all the mobs are and what they are doing all the time.

In PvE there are 2 factors, your computer/connection and the server. In PvP the amount of information requiring processing is exponentially higher due to the server needing constant input about the positions and actions of each player character in relation to every other.

The AoE cap being raised would require a serious reworking of retaliation. Removing it entirely would probably result in Bright Wizards 2.0.

Depends what class/build you are fighting. If you know in advance it’s much better. S/x is tough against stealthy thieves since most of the skills require a target but great against mainly melee builds. Focus is a good choice when fighting someone who is primarily ranged.

For a guild tournament, I’d ban all bunker builds and phantasm mesmers, haha. Watching two bunkers fight is like watching paint dry, watching a bunker fight anything else is like someone slowly bash their head in against a brick wall. 1v1 phantasm mesmer is just OP as hell and getting killed by AI while your opponent rotates stealth/teleport/immunity is boring and frustrating.

Either that or bunker up with a 0-0-20-20-30 build, grab rock solid and ether renewal……

Raven.9603:

Thrashbarg.9820:

Paprikaspice.8462:

Not to mention taking 10 percent extrs damage in air with the master minor arcane trait means you get essentially flat 10 percent damage on any attunement with the constant air cycle.

Would be cool if it actually functioned that way. Basically lingering attunements only affects soothing mist.

Everyone who ever read the tooltip assumed it would work with those type of effects (earth adept minor, for example) but it is either bugged or poorly wordeed.

its neither. it used to work with all bonuses from all attunements. essentially, you could take the 20% dmg water trait and the 10% traits from other lines, swap twice and be doing 40% dmg. if you also had bolt to the heart, you could do +60% damage (and this isnt counting scholar, earth25 or water25) on low health targets. This doesnt sound that scary given that they only linger for 5 seconds, but when you fire off 2 arcane spells and lighting in that time… its scary.

they nerfed it so it now only effects minor traits (toughness, flame barrier, 10% run speed, soothing mist). soothing mist is the only one that puts an icon on the screen.

I’m too lazy to measure the run speed or flame barrier, but the toughness from Earth adept minor definitely disappears immediately upon switching out of Earth attunement.

Having played a thief, engineer and warrior extensively, I don’t believe it would be overpowered to have a build that could drop a low health target. Being the lowest health/defense class and NOT having the ability to burst like the other classes I mentioned doesn’t make sense. You already can line up all those damage traits except the +10% in fire and air, so at most it would be an additional +20% damage, and require a bit of a wonky build and blowing through 3 attunements without actually using them then blowing all/most utilities. My thief can hit 6-8k every 3-4 seconds and you have to guess where and when I am coming from, no combo to setup and only one trait required for the build (which is conveniently in a damage line anyway).

tl;dr Didn’t work in beta, doesn’t work now. Wouldn’t be OP if it did work anyway.

oZii.2864:

There is a thread running around I saw here asking for changes to skills that would give elementalist stealth through combo finishers o.O.

And why would that be a bad thing? (we already can underwater)

Mesmers and engineers can stealth, and they have higher base survival.

Not sure why a mobility spec warrior would need to spec high-sustain. The idea is to be able to reset combat at will and engage on your own terms, like a thief. People saying warriors have no sustain are not getting the whole idea behind high-mobility builds.

A thief spamming HS and steal/shadowstep like crazy might be able to catch a mobility warrior, but then they will be out of initiative (only able to autoattack, need utilities or heal just to stealth) and the warrior will still have most of his damaging attacks available.

GS rush, whirlwind and sword leap are basically unaffected by movement impairing skills in a high mobility build anyway. There are so many options to remove those conditions actively or passively through traits/gear/foods.

The problem with old RtL was it’s bugged range of 1500. All the other problems were with the x-x-x-30-30 cantrip build, most of which have been solved. The crazy “if it’kittens you get normal cooldown, otherwise double!” thing is just out of left field. Fixing the bugged range and the cantrip/water/arcane OP synergy were the only things necessary.

Warrior mobility doesn’t need a nerf, but this thread makes a valid point.

Paprikaspice.8462:

Not to mention taking 10 percent extrs damage in air with the master minor arcane trait means you get essentially flat 10 percent damage on any attunement with the constant air cycle.

Would be cool if it actually functioned that way. Basically lingering attunements only affects soothing mist.

Everyone who ever read the tooltip assumed it would work with those type of effects (earth adept minor, for example) but it is either bugged or poorly wordeed.

I wouldn’t say better or worse, they are just very different styles. Merely pointing out that bomb healer can put out comparable healing.

As far as “reactive” healing, the elementalist may come out slightly ahead, if you only count your own healing output. If you have a party capable of stacking and blast finishing, the engineer (not even necessarily bomb-heal spec) can provide much more healing than a D/D elementalist by dropping water fields (the largest ones in the game) every 10 sec. I see that as reactive healing, not sure if it meets your criteria though.

The elementalist definitely provides more boons. An engineer can’t give you stability or protection, and those are very powerful support (well, not reliably, stupid thrown elixer random buffs). On the other hand, and elementalist can’t drop a smoke field for group stealth or poison fields for aoe weakness. Engineers also start with higher defense and health, making it a bit easier to use healing power gear without sacrificing personal defense as much.

Again, I wouldn’t say one is better than the other, they just fulfill the role differently.

The OP was asking about a set for general open world PvE. He/she mentioned owning different sets for dungeons and WvW already. Ruby orbs are plenty for generic PvE. Maximizing dps when tagging mobs in events is not necessary at all, and in fact kinda screws over other players as stuff melts faster than many can channel skills.

There’s nothing wrong with the high-end runes, but they aren’t necessary in the OP’s case, and it’s unlikely they would notice any difference.

Throwing numbers around can be misleading as well. +30% boon duration from runes won’t take you from 12 stacks of might to 25 stacks, and it’s possible to hit more than 50% fury uptime without boon duration runes.

0-0-20-20-30 Earth’s embrace, rock solid, cantrip traits and or cleansing wave, elemental attunement and evasive arcana, blasting staff for staff or vigor on crit for other weapons.

Ether renewal, armor of earth, whatever other utilities you want but most run 2-3 cantrips.

Works with any weapon set.

Soldier’s/clerics mix for full bunker. Valkyrie’s/knight’s/cavalier’s mix for damage/hybrid.

CrimsonHandHiro.9574:

Thrashbarg.9820:

In today’s headlines, Magumma admits to needing sieged up spawncamping techniques to repel roamers. Shocking scandal ensues…..

Siege built to counter the siege Tarnished Coast needed while being under the coverage of Legendary Defenders.

Roamers built siege to sneak past? You even read the post I quoted?

Was a joke anyway, what do I care how your server spends it’s supply? ;p

It’s extremely hard for any class to beat a good thief 1v1. I’m a terrible thief player and it still takes at least 3 coordinated players working together to pin me down.

If you’re not running a very specific 1v1 build it’s even harder. Not sure what that would be for a guardian anyway, but it’s generally about stacking toughness and burst abilities with hard CC if possible, a tall order for most classes.

The best option, as crappy as it is, is to build as tanky as you can and try not to move around solo. Yup, fun, I know…..

My engineer deals with them pretty well, with toolkit and bombs and elixer gun. They generally either leave after the first pull>prybar>concussion bomb combo or HS spam themselves to death on confusion and gear shield. Just depends on their awareness and skill.

Evasion thieves are worse than stealth thieves, thank kittens that hasn’t become more mainstream.

Caffynated.5713:

Thief underwater is just as bad as perma stealth on land.

Evade
Evade
Evade
Evade
Evade
Evade
Evade
Evade
Evade

This. It’s just pressing 5,5,5,5,5 instead of 2,2,2,2,2 though, so pretty hard for a lot of thieves to master.

In today’s headlines, Magumma admits to needing sieged up spawncamping techniques to repel roamers. Shocking scandal ensues…..

Halo.8976:

Night Hawk Ix.7360:

Lol the thing that makes me laugh is the fact after all this time people still dont go AROUND spawn campers.

We’re spawn camping all the exits and zerg bust every thief who managed to pass it.

bobross.5034:

Again, I’m not really complaining either, we broke through the spawncamp just fine. I’m just pointing out that Mags are doing it in force.

With zerg of 30+
Which is fine. The point if spawn camping is to stop annoying roamers.

zoran.4826:

With summoned weapons and the right build we out damage wars now

Strangely, that build includes warriors on the team to keep you stacked with might and fury since you can’t weapon swap or use normal weapon skills.

Nice job on the dungeon solo.

Zelyhn.8069:

To this date I am yet to find a class that can reactively heal better than the elementalist.

A bomb healing engineer with healing turret and elixer gun can get pretty close. I haven’t run the exact numbers but it’s not a build you will see many running anyway. It would work best with a guardian and elementalist as well, for soothing mists and that virtue passive heal. Yay for team games.