Guild Wars 2

I for one would read every word, even if the changes spanned
20 pages. Maybe its not realized that people will take the
time to study it all.

I guess I didnt look hard enough. To expound on my original post,
many times Im “in the game” but doing something else, either
reading online, on the phone, or maybe even work. Its allot more interesting
for me to hang my toon out here as opposed to outside the bank in
Lion’s Arch.

I know in the past two MMOs Ive played, when you were in
game but doing something else, it was cool to hang out in
Taverns. The background noise of clinking glasses and talking
people was always relaxing.

In fact, good taverns were always a key element in good fantasy.
Does GW2 even have one? Am I missing it?

Title says it all. Last few patches have had changes not
shown in the patch notes, and it seems to be a normal
occurrence.

Can we get every change detailed in the patch notes?

Allow me to help with 4 months of Ele staff experience.

Use a Fiery Greatsword for Elite and when you need to escape,
use it. It has 2 movement abilities like a warriors greatsword.

That combined with map awareness 100% is all you need. If you
are in the open and getting to zerg, use a dagger offhand for
Ride the Lightning so you are not caught in open.

Four hours playing tonight, zero deaths, 132 badges. Typical night
I may die 2 times max. Some might find that hard to beleive, but
map awareness 100% and knowing when to run and where NOT
to be.

From Wikki: Blasting Staff only affects the following skills:

Lava Font: 50%
Ice Spike :25%
Geyser: 50%
Frozen Ground: 25%
Lightning Surge: 100%
Static Field: 33%
Eruption: 25%

Im sure if you test the above you will see it works fine, and not
skills like Meteor Shower which it does not. When you test these
radius increases on target dummies in the mist, you will see that
its not an overwhelming difference. Lava Font and Static Field is nice,
but when they put a 5 target cap on AOE this trait should have
been across all staff AOE skills.

As a staff user, I think the trait is overrated compared to what you
could get in its place.

Two possible corrections:

1) You mention Flame Burst and a few other things that are
affected by Blasting Staff, but according to Wikki this is not
true:

Lava Font: 50%
Ice Spike :25%
Geyser: 50%
Frozen Ground: 25%
Lightning Surge: 100%
Static Field: 33%
Eruption: 25%

The above are the only things affected by that trait, and thats why
I am not sold on it compared to what else you can get.

2) You mention Ice Spike can be cancelled during the channel and it
will still do its damage. Wikki states the same thing. If you test this
on a dummy in the mist though, and cancel the channel, the Ice
Spike still shows as dropping but does zero damage.
————————————————————————————————————-

I believe that most Staff Ele players fail to reach their max
potential because they lack in “map awareness.” Knowing
where to be and where not to be is crucial in playing it because
you lack the mobility of d/d or s/d (ride the lightning).

I play mine almost like a Thief, in terms of my positioning and
timing of attacks. I always try to stay out of the spotlight, I carefully
plan when and where to attack, and I know when to flee the scene.

When Im respawning and making my way to the main party/zerg, I use
s/d and rely on Ride the Lightning to avoid any trouble along the way.

This week, I changed my GC staff build into an offensive/defensive
build. Im wearing soldier armor and berserker runes and traited a hybrid
of the d/d bunker trait build. My main skills are Lightning Flash and Mist Form
which allows me to escape trouble even more. For my Elite, Ive been using
Fiery Greatsword as a retreat mechanism because two of its abilities are gap
closers (I got that idea from playing a GS warrior and the seeing the usefullness
of the movement on it).

Here are a few things I think that should be changed:

1) Lightning Flash: Change it to 1200 or allow a trait to upgrade the range.
Staff Elementalist need it especially since they lack mobility, and it wouldnt
make it OP since the Mesmer has one longer than 900 range.

2) Make Conjure Fiery Greatsword like the other conjurers in where you can
cast it while running. The greatsword is the only conjurer spell that
requires you to stand still and channel it!

I have a much larger list in my head, but the above two I think are just over
sights on the developers part.

Kaleden.9386:

For the Fire > Earth cycle, you may want to add Burning Retreat (F4) + Eruption (E2) + Evasive Arcana earth dodge = 6 stacks of might.

Air 1 is also useful if there’s a mix of hidden and visible enemies because it’ll chain hit invisible folk, too.

The air auto attack will hit stealthed people off a bounce?

Daphoenix indeed I have seen over 6k crits on MS and Ice Spike.
Traited 30-30 in first 2 trait lines, and the last 10 anywhere you
want. Note: Ive tested Vital Striking in Water and it adds 10% to
damage, but only way you can stay undamaged is keep defense.

Full berserk gear with rubies, along with accessories and weapons.
Eat Minotaur Steaks! They lasts an hour, and give 60 precision
and 6% crit damage. My bonus to crit damage with that food is 102.

You can test this full GC build on the heavy target dummies in the
mist, but you wont see as high as numbers as in WvW since the
highest crit damage I get in mists is 58% but its 102% in WvW with my
gear. You will definitely see over 6k hits (but of course not commonly). This may
be due to GC builds in WvW, or just low level players, but you will still
see it. If I played around more on the gear available in the mists, Im sure
I could get closer to the stats I have outside of it, but dont bother. Ill try
to get screenshots tomorrow night in WvW if I run the staff build.

Also, compare it to Ice Spike, and you will see bigger crits with that
over MS. Even more so if you take Piercing shards.

Im still going back and forth on staff, d/d and s/d for WvW and I guess the
answer is mix them all in if anything. I really enjoyed GC staff with high
map awareness, but in large battles good thief will drop you every time.
D/D is fun but I dont prefer to be in melee all the time, and S/D is what Ive
been trying lately, but its damage options are minimal.

kythor.7650:

Hey guys, what do you think of a build like this? For WvW mostly.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmcbtx5gjDAEFm4y4RIeQSRxM7A

I kinda like the passive 25% running speed increase from Air Signet. Or is it not as good as I think it is?

What are the better options to run faster other than putting 10 points into Air? Or should I get used to normal speed and not spec so deep into Earth?

Thanks!

Personally, I would not trait the way you did. To answer your question about the
Signet of Air, I took a stopwatch in Lions Arch and timed my run between two
points under two scenarios 1) Signet of Air at 25% and 2) Swiftness buff at 33%.
The difference in speed is not discernible to the naked eye, and in terms of the
time between points it was very similar.

I tried something new last night with my staff build, and it was running with
Fiery Greatsword instead of the Glyph of Elementals as my elite. This was the
first time I ever looked at it, since it seemed better for bunker builds. I did
discover another use for it though, especially with staff build: More means of
escaping. The skills 4 and 5 are good escape tools, especially combined with
Lightning Flash.

All good points, and personally my view of a caster is a staff wielder. What I
found to be an important point of using a staff is dont get caught in the open
with it. When your making your way over to the zerg, wear a OH dagger
for RtL in case trouble happens.

One thing I found last night about s/d is the blast finisher. Throw down
Ring of Fire, cast Phoenix and than quickly cast Earthquake. Both give
Might stacks for 30 seconds as a Blast finisher (6 stacks total). That is
helpful in group play.

What I will probably do is continue using a mixture of weapons depending on the
situation. A staff is best on keep defense/offense I have found out because
when used in open field zerg battles there is so much movement going on
that normally when you cast your AOE the enemy is already in another place.

You have given me another idea, and thats run in zerker over
my bunker build gear.

In my opinion, the hardest spec to stay alive in is berserker staff,
since it doesnt have Ride the Lightning to get away. Despite that,
I always did very well on map awareness and would only die 2-3
times in a night (I did learn to run allot though too!). That
experience can only help with s/d since I would have RtL now along
with the range.

In fact, running soldier armor with berserker accessories is what I will
try since s/d is a range and melee spec, so a mixture of defense and
offense may be a good thing. I cant imagine running into enemies
to get off something like Earth 4 without having some type of defense.

Ultimately what I have to get used to is the lack of options in attacking. With
staff, there were so many different “combos” to get off.

After 1 month as a berserk staff ele, and 2 months as a bunker
d/d ele, I gave scepter/dagger a try over the past two nights.

Near the end of last night, I switched back to d/d to end the night
since I was using the same gear and traits anyhow (bunker).

The s/d is definitely missing on something, but I cant pinpoint it.
The only real AOE is in fire, and everything except Fire Grab is
low damage. I was hoping to try it and discover something new,
but in every battle it seemed I was still resorting to the dagger offhand skills.

I havnt been able to find any s/d guides, but is it even viable? What am
I missing? This isnt a troll post, I honestly need other views on it, because
it seemed extremely lackluster compared to the last two builds Ive been
running.

For the record, the ONLY thing I was impressed with was Earth 3. Assuming
you dont throw the rocks, you get +250 toughness for 30 seconds, and when
thats up, the CD is ready so you can keep it on at all times.

What race are you Coax? I know running that heavy zerker as a norn
is almost impossible since everyone targets “the big guy.”

Ascended gear hasnt impressed me so far. Since day 1, the way I
looked at it was “so Im going to grind dungeons to buy gear thats
designed to help me grind the dungeons even more…” Didnt make
much sense.

Unless Im missing something, the Ascended gear is not wvw orientated,
and the rewards in WvW are meaningless after you get the invader gear,
so doesnt matter to me if people get dungeon gear for time spent in WvW.
Most WvW players I know dont set foot into the dungeons anyhow.

I ran with full berserker gear and traits (30 to first 2 trait lines) as a Staff
and loved it. The absolute KEY is map awareness. Knowing where to be
and where not to be is essential in survival. The problem is, if there is a smart
thief, he will come to the back lines and drop you.

I have been toying with the same staff setup as Im trying now with a scepter/dagger,
and thats using the same gear and traits as my d/d bunker build. Its hard
giving up 6000 potential crits though on Meteor Shower and Ice Spike.

Few things I found out in a month of playing that build:

1) You highest potential aoe damage is Ice Spike, even more so if you take
the water trait Piercing Shards (20% more damage after the first one).
To clarify, it spikes higher damage than Meteor Shower on a target.

2) Lighting Flash is awesome when defending a keep. Cast Arcane Shield on
yourself, or Magnetic Aura, switch to fire and step up to ramparts and
start casting Meteor Shower. Immediately use Lightning Flash to get away
from the edge. This prevents anyone from pulling you down. Also, even if
you flash beyond your normal casting range, the MS will finish casting.

3) Chain Lightning auto attack was my most used ability, especially in zerg
fights where things die so fast. Automatically tag 3 targets, and it hits
for over 2k each strike when max zerker.

Stiv.1820:

Defiantly not intended. There is a cap on stealth so it’s not very practical normally but for hiding in an enemy keep to rez a dead Mesmer it’s pretty bad. That’s about it.

This. Ive seen Stonemist get lost this way, and it needs to be fixed ASAP.

Well at least admitted your reasoning. Trust me, the AOE on hammer
is nothing (check your combat logs). If anything they need to put
a movement ability on hammer (GS has two) and increase the AOE.

Are you being serious? Please elaborate on how the warrior hammer
needs a slight nerf. I must be missing something because the weapon
has low aoe, no movement abilities except the F1, and is rarely used.

Thanks Rampage, Ill give that a shot today and see what it
looks like.

Great thanks allot, Im hoping this one is easy to OC like the newer ones.

Ok that helps. Mine in dxdiag says i7 CPU 920 @2.67GHz
so it sounds like I have the oldest one.

Thats close enough to me Red, how is a typical Jormag
fight to use that as an example? The FPS drops to its lowest
and I get allot of delay/lag.

Just curious if upgrading cpu and motherboard will make
that big of a difference. Some people are telling me that
wont help FPS but I find that hard to beleive. I know the new
i7 has to be better than my 3r old one.

Just curious on other peoples FPS in GW2. For me,
its much less than every other MMO. I have a 3yr old
i7, a nvidia geoforce 670 and 6 gig of ram. I use cable
internet.

My FPS in Lions Arch goes between 25 and 50. The main
issue is choppy turning and slow loads. Ive never seen
these issues on this rig in any other past game.

Im debating getting a new i7 motherboard and CPU, but only
if it would improve this problem. Is it the design of the game
or my computer?

By the way, mass zerg WvW is even worse: 11 FPS normally. Any
advice would be great.

You know what changes battle outcomes more than AOE? Culling issues
after Mesmer bombing. Fix that, then worry about AOE.

Ive been playing a 100% Glass Cannon staff ele for the past month,
and let me share some insight into that:

1) Yes, I have seen 6k hits on Meteor Shower and Ice Spike, but against
most players, its not even doing half of that. Is Anet talking about AOE
being too powerful to undegeared players? If so, I could care less. This damage
is traded for NO DEFENSE. An Ele built like that has to watch out for the leaves
falling from trees. AOE is not like a Kill Shot, and even if it was, a Thief can
drop every Ele in the back line in under 30 seconds.

2) If a player is at least AVERAGE, they know to avoid AOE. For those of you
who raided in past MMOs, it was always amazing how many people stand
in AOE. Look at AOE against a geared and player who has SOME knowledge
of gaming, and dont make comparisons based on undergeared, low skilled
players who will complain that they died to any attack.

3) Many, many battles are zergfests outside of towers. They are static, moving
battles (many times going back and forth gaining ground). In light of this,
AOE is missing many times unless you plan ahead where the people are moving.
Even if you drop a good one, people are passing through it for a second or two
and not the full duration.

Exarthious.5792:

morrolan.9608:

On the face of it this proposed change is just utterly ridiculous especially for specs like staff eles that are nothing but aoe. Like the poster above me stated the effect on WvW will just be greater zerging, as it is the restriction of damage to only 5 people leads to more zerging this will just make it worst.

Anet if this is a change for sPVP please do it for sPVP only and I’d want to see iron clad justifications for making the change in PvE and WvW.

This isn’t true, and you know it. When my group kills 35-55 players, because we’re made up primarily of Area Effect builds, all wrapped up in a single group of five, there is an issue. We usually run Elementalist, Elementalist, Necromancer, Confusion AE Mesmer, and me Thief (my primary roll is to finish people off, and make sure they’re not rezzed), while adding Cluster Bomb damage. We slaughter countless groups much larger than us, thanks to the AE damage we can put out.

I will give you one thing though, if they lower the damage, they need to increase the number of targets hit.

Keep in mind most AE abilities do far, far more damage to a single target, than most single target abilities.

So let me make sure I understand this. IF it were true, its soley due to AOE?
Sorry, I dont buy it. Number 1, if you are a team of 5 killing 35 people in the same
battle, they are certainly not skilled people. No offense, but I dont beleive
the number.

Secondly, its their fault for standing in your AOE. I have zero sympathy for
people who take a shower in AOE than wonder how they die. There is a limit
of people on AOE and most battles are moving battles. Ive yet to see 5 targets
stand in my AOE for the duration unless at a gate.

I agree Thor. If they nerf it soley based on the dungeon situation,
I hope it doesnt effect WvW.

As I said before, profession AOE is not OP in WvW unless people
are stacking it, AND the enemy stands in it (which I have no sympathy
for someone taking a shower in it and not getting out).

I couldnt fathom it affecting hammers considering the AOE
damage on them is so minimal, but Ive been surprised before.

IMO they need to put a better movement skill or gap closer on
the hammer to make it more viable (meanwhile GS has 2) for
survival.

The more I think about this, the less it makes sense. For two reasons:

1) AOE deters zergs in WvW from clumping up, which happens allot

2) I run GC staff ele, and have around 10500 HP and I can honestly say
I dont think I have ever died to AOE damage, outside of siege. Which
says allot considering how squishy I am. How? Easy. Map awareness
and not standing in AOE.

If people dont have the sense to avoid or dodge out of AOE, that shouldnt
mean a nerf on AOE needs to happen. If anything, nerf the siege AOE not
the professions.

I found the part from a transcript:

AoE abilities balancing
One of the issues brought up a lot in WvW./sPvP is AoE (Area of Effect). We feel like they are too strong at the moment and a lot of people in WvW are gaming the system using AoEs.
For people that don’t know – max targets for siege weapons is 50 while max targets for AoE is 5.
Reducing AoE effectiveness to bring them in line with the single target damage skills.
Major update coming to all the AoE skills – make classes that are good at single target damage stand out a bit more.
Same thing with dungeons – right now if you have a lot of AoE you can past encounters by just spamming AoE which is not what we want.

No matter how you cut it, still clearly states “reducing the effectiveness.”
Considering that the cap is already 5, I can be certain the only other way
to nerf it is damage.

fellyn.5083:

For the most part they’ve been really lazy with changes they’ve made to the game so it will likely just be a blanket 20% reduction in aoe damage to all classes across the board.

I have felt the same way for a long time. People will defend this Im sure, but
compared to the last two MMOs Ive played, the input from them is VERY
minimal, let alone changes.

Where did you hear they may do this, or is it speculation?

This is unfortunate if true, I play a glass cannon staff ele and
the majority of times the enemy is on the move, and not
standing in your AOE. A nerf to it kinda surprises me, unless they
are doing this to nerf the power of 5 eles in WvW stacking.

Not much into speculation, its literally guessing.

You dont need to defend yourself Idarko, you added value to the
forums. Period.

Coming from someone who has vast WvW experience, Ive seen
disruption disorganize the enemy more than just damage countless
of times. In addition, most zergs turn and run the second things
start getting disrupted.

I researched the link you posted, and noticed it was page 4 of a post.
I went to page one, the OP, and I noticed he has a 10/0/30/10/20
hammer build. Oddly, doesnt use Merciless Hammer but I he seems
to make that build work as well (relies on shield).

Surviving goes hand in hand with shout heals though!

I enjoyed the video, one of the best hammer videos Ive seen.

As stated above, what build (traits and gear) are you running? It seems like you
can take allot of damage, so Im assuming invader armor?

Im thinking 0/0/20/30/20? That would allow Merciless Hammer, Vigorous
Shouts and Mobile Strikes. Not sure on the armor mix though.

I was accustomed to running a GS as the secondary since it had abilities
to either close the gap, or run away (Whirlwind Attack and Rush), but I do
like the sword/warhorn since it has Savage Leap and Charge.

Thought so, thanks. Was just seeing if a missed some information
about it.

EnRohbi.2187:

Thunderbrew.7034:

It amazes me that people are spending time on issues like
this when THE issue isnt fixed yet: Mesmer bombing taking advantage of culling
issues and you die to an enemy you never saw.

How in christ is that THE issue?

Portal bombs are one of the easiest tactics to counter.
I’ve seen far more of them fail than I have seen succeed.

If you’re losing to a portal bomb, you would have likely been beaten in head on battle too.

Wow relax a little bit. OK let me rephrase: “Mesmer bombing is certainly more
game breaking than vapor form.” Hows that?

First of all, our guild on SOR relies on the tactic, and if I think someone is doing to us, I run. In general, please explain to me how 20+ people not loading in to the enemy can be countered? Im assuming you know how the mesmer bomb works and how culling is a problem.

Sure “kill the mesmer running in.” In big keep battles, you will never see it coming
By “easily countered” Im assuming you mean kill the mesmer, right? Im talking about battles of 15+ each side, in where the mesmer stealths into you to begin with (thief help).

Wow really? Im not sure what WvW you are in, but Eles certainly
are not in mass packs where Im at. Even more so, Ive never in
4 months of playing WvW ever said "wow those eles are preventing
us from taking this keep.

And please stop using the term “game breaking” for things that MOST
certainly are not. Once again, culling issues is game breaking, not this
effect.

JemL.3501:

just because you couldnt finish an elem which dropped from walls and had to use vapor form or mist form to go back inside, doesnt mean it has to be removed.

besides this is like me complaining about i killed a thief then he used stealth when i was about to finish, and then some of his friends appeared, saved him and killed me…i mean totally unfair i killed him right?

this class is practically the most squishy in all aspects no matter what you say.

Agreed. I cant tell you how many times I “killed” someone, than the one of following
happened:

1) Got rallied

2) Speed rezzed

3) Stealth long enough for allies to assist

Whats the difference? It amazes me that people are spending time on issues like
this when THE issue isnt fixed yet: Mesmer bombing taking advantage of culling
issues and you die to an enemy you never saw.

As stated, Eles have the lowest HP pool and survivability of any of the classes
so having this vapor form portal problem is so minor. I know, people will
mention d/d eles and how good they are, but Im talking about all of the other
specs. Any other specced ele that gets pulled off a wall is dead, so the portal
thing is welcome.

I stand corrected than. I also have a 80 warrior as my main,
but this issue doesnt matter to me. Its the same thing as another
class escaping away from death (stealth, heartseek jumps, etc)
and just part of the mechanics.

The people complaining about this the most are probably the people
who can pull people off walls (thief and mesmer). If you want to stop
vapor form from going through portals, how about prevent pull downs
if we are trying to level the playing field for all classes.

Lets be fair, its only one build (d/d) that people say makes Ele
so hard to kill. What about every other possible combination?

Personally, Im a GC staff ele in WvW and I rely on map awareness
for my survivability. I stay with the zerg, and am always aware of
my surroundings for nearby enemies (and always have an escape route).

When traveling in the open world, I use the dagger for Ride the Lightning,
to stay ahead of nearby roamers.

How about fix the culling issues with mesmer bombing first?

True, I should have thought about that.

My suggestion would be to allow a player to use a normal
utility skill in the Elite skill slot. “Elite” seems to assume they
are more powerful or better than our other utility skills,
so why not let us replace them with a lower utility skill?

For the record, most of my time is spent on my Ele, and I
prefer many of the utility skills of the Elites.

From what I heard, Necros are the worse at getting badges compared to
any other class because they rely on dots not burst (many times players
survive by cleasing them off).

I highly doubt planting the banner in someone gives you a better chance. I have tracked many different methods, including high magic find. There is no
definite pattern from night to night (and I have earned over 5k badges).