Guild Wars 2

Some people told me last night that there
are new items that will be available for badges come
February. I had to log off last night during WvW,
and was not able to hear more about it.

Has anyone heard the same thing, or know where
this information was posted?

Ive had nights where I got 70, and others I got 5 for the same amount
played.

Ive played since day 1 of the game, and I can definitely tell you
some nights its bone dry, and others its OK. Sounds less like RNG to
me and more like some other broken system being used for drops.

I posted about this over a month ago. As a staff ele, I need to switch
out to dagger when Im getting to the main zerg in WvW (for Ride the
Lightning). Its a pain opening the inventory and swapping weapons.

When you switch back to your first weapon, the current weapon than goes back
to the first slot in your bags (near the trash drops). That than requires dragging
it back down to the bottom of bags near my other weapons.

Weapon sets would make it so much cleaner.

Ive been starting to look for setups for Gust, and I had some
awesome events last night with it. We were attacking the garrison
via siege to the west (near the cliffs edge). When the enemy
came out to destroy the siege (15+), I waited in the back lines until
some of them got near the siege, and I used Gust at 1200 range to
knock a few of them over the edge.

In certain situations, you can also knock people off some of the towers.
On the ones where you can get on the side of the tower, when the
enemy steps up to the lip to cast (which you have to on allot of the
AOE spells), Gust them off.

As exclusively a staff ele in WvW, I chose to do the Ruby Orbs in all
of my gear (GC). The scholar runes are what, 25g for the set? Not worth
it in my opinion.

Is a d/d ele good at surviving and running away? Yes.
Can they go into a group and disrupt them? Yes.
Can they nuke people before they know what going on? No

I am a GC cannon staff ele and I cant tell you how many times
a d/d ele tried killing me before I ran into a keep, and its yet to happen.
One was even on me for 20 seconds at least (of course I was using spells
along the way but a warrior or thief would have dropped me).

Now, if you should showed me MAX bunker with d/d combined with
a MAX dps build, than yea that would be a problem, but you are always
trading one for the other.

You will see over 3k if you are specced max into glass cannon (Im at 3441 power,
58% crit and 109 to crit damage).

And yes, 1v1 is very hard with the spec against good players. I avoid 1v1 and
stick with groups.

So what would make you not bored with it? Dying 10 times more?
If if your bored because its so tanky, than wear berserker gear which
would require more skill to stay alive, right?

I question the intent of this post.

covenn.7165:

Thunderbrew.7034:

What
most people do not do, is QUICKLY fire off a 3-4 rotation combo in a group of people.
Example: Meteor Storm > Eruption > Shockwave > Ice Spike > Chain Lightning Spam.

You can get much better effect doing that differently. Just sayin.

Was cited as merely an example, but theres always a better way depending
on the situation. Based on the last two nights, the order becomes less of an
issue because the enemy balls up into one stack (a tactic which I have never seen
work).

I am around the same age as the OP, and I came into GW2 with 7 yrs of WOW
and 2 years of RIFT experience. Allow me to make the following points:

1) Yes, I did like end game raiding, but it consumed my life. I had to walk away
because I have a wife and two kids, and anyone who has experienced hardcore
raiding will attest to the negative impact on real life. This I do not miss, BUT
I did like the group effort experience.

2) A main point people are missing is this: Look at any popular game people play
like COD or LOL. The point is to sit down for a few hours, play and have fun,
than attend to real life. I think some people almost sadistically want a game
that will consume even more hours in day (and for many it becomes a full
time job).

3) The gear grind in past games I do not miss. I cant tell you how many countless
hours I spent in arena and raiding just to get “the best” gear. It seemed like as
soon as I got it, the new gear was already coming out. I enjoy the fact that GW2
is not gear focused.

4) WvW is the “end game” for me. Thats me though. I enjoy the entire feeling of
it, and it allows me to log on and play for a night and really have fun. What is
not so fun is credit card commanders who everyone follows mindlessly, mesmer
bombing which exploits culling issues and wins battles, and the lack of any true
award for winning in a weeks battle (they need to have more options for badges,
and provide some type of karma or badge bonus for actual winners).

With those point aside, I do agree about the guild comments in GW2. This is
compounded by the fact that you can be in more than one guild at once. They
are nothing more than social circles for chatting sometimes it seems.

I look back on the friends I have to this day from past games, and that relationship
was formed by raiding or grouping together. That element may exist in GW2, but
it takes much longer to establish do to the lack of unity for events.

With all of that aside, I do enjoy the game, but I also supplement it with LOL when
those friends are on. I do not think there is a “catch all” game for anyone. Some parts
you will like, others you will be indifferent to.

I started a post on this a few days ago
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Utility-skills-discussion

My idea was to instead of having 4 different skills for the Conjurer weapons,
reduce it to one skill and the weapon you get is based on the attunement you
cast it from. In other words, it would work the same as the Glyphs. Its nonsense
that they spread those out over 4 skills.

Your idea is just as good. Anything compared to the way they have it now.

You know what else just hit me after playing WvW all night? When the second
weapon drops when you conjure them two things happen:

1) The ele wanted the weapon for when his first one runs out BUT someone else
grabs it

OR

2) The ele has no problem with someone taking the second weapon BUT no one
does because what they have is better.

That is a glaring problem with the conjure weapons in regards to dropping a second
one. The more I think about this, the more I would like to see the Conjurer Spells
change to see them more in practice.

SuiRyuJin.4615:

for killshot from warrior, theres a pretty hefty cost and cast time for that. in small squad/1v1 fights ur suppose to be able to easily dodge/reflect it consider its considerable and obvious cast time/animation. in WvW downing 1 person is…annoying but usually theres enough people in the zerg to res the downed right back up unless u can follow up. which from 1.5k range is.. difficult

what kind of dmg are u looking for in the “traditional mage feel”? on high dmg build with staff u regularly score crits of 5k+ on multiple people at once in an enemy group without setup. staff ele isnt the high single target dmg, its high aoe dmg. staff ele has the highest aoe dmg of all class/builds. only churning earth from d/d does more dmg in 1 go, except d/d isnt able to follow it up with anything else unlike a staff

Totally agree on KS. Ive been downed many times by it while in a zerg and it doesnt
matter because I get rezzed. If its a smaller scale battle, especially 1v1, anyone should
be able to see it coming and dodge it.

As far as the AOE damage as a glass cannon staff ele, I have zero complaints. What
most people do not do, is QUICKLY fire off a 3-4 rotation combo in a group of people.
Example: Meteor Storm > Eruption > Shockwave > Ice Spike > Chain Lightning Spam.
In large zergs at chokes, its amazing how many people will not move out of that because of all the action going on and the “mob metality.” That chain alone can
over 15k damage followed by Chain Lightning spam for 2-3k over its targets.

The point of the OP was not about the damage, but about the feel of the class
in general. The more I think about it, it makes more sense to look at an Elementalist
as a subclass of the mages we are accustomed to in past games.

With that aside, I still think the utility skills need some work, for reasons posted in
other posts.

No doubt it can be useful, but Im surprised thats an option over the
other skills.

As far as the range mentioned above, Ive said since day 1 I think a
staff on an ele should have better range (considering a ranger 1500),
but Im thinking they would not do that because the AOE would go
to far into enemy keeps.

WvW is the “end game” for me, and I enjoy it every night.

With that said, more communication from Anet through the forums
would probably go a long way to keeping people appeased. Weeks go
by without even a tease of things being worked on or improved. I think
allot more work has to go into the class spells/utility skills before new
content gets pushed out.

-More incentives for weekly winners in WvW. Perhaps a bonus for 1st and
second place in Karma or Badges
-Auto loot badges from enemies killed
-Something else we can do with badges. Once the armor is attained there
is no further reward (unless you want some for a toon or the mystic forge).
-The Outmanned buff should give SOME type of stat bonus to the under dogs.
Its silly being outmanned but the buff you get is for Karma and XP which will
be very limited since you are not winning battles or capturing points

-The NUMBER ONE thing: Fix culling issues..period. It ruins the experience in WvW.

That beam idea reminds me of Diablo 3, and I like it. Even though I will
never touch that game again (for reasons we all know).

Several other people, including myself, were talking about this same thing
under different posts, and I agree completely.

Personally, I enjoy the staff and have been doing very well with it. What I dont
like is the fact that invisibilty went to mesmers and “mage-like” spells similiar
to mirror image (clones) went to mesmers. Those were always traditional
mage abilities. Its like Mesmers were made into an Illusionist mage sub class,
but some of the main mage-like spells were not given to the Elementalist.

To make matters worse, the bunker d/d ele is very effective but its not my
vision of a mage in the traditional sense. I never would have believed that
a caster class would be a better bunker than a warrior in WvW until I played
both.

Too much attention was given on Conjured Items (which take up 4 skill options) when all four of those should have been 1 skill (and the effect is based on the attunement you are in). Hundreds of hours in WvW and Ive yet to see someone use the Conjured Earth Shield.

Dont get me wrong though, I enjoy playing my Ele very much, but I would like
to see some improvements (and hopefully its not a year to see any).

Flame Pillar would be awesome. Makes me think of the pen and paper
games with the classic mage spells. Pillar of Flame, Wall of Stone/Ice,
Mass Invisibility, etc.

I liked Block of Ice (whatever name was) from the mages in WOW, in where they froze themselves and I think regenerated. Speaking of that, those fire and ice mages really
felt like you were playing a specced mage!

ThiBash.5634:

Most of the ideas mentioned here are too complex to be implemented. Why not try working with what’s already out there?

Like maybe, an elite version of the Ice Bow? Or a controllable elemental á la the powersuit (only playable)?

Probably true, but I think some changes can be made to utility skills without too
hassle (mainly to the 4 conjurer skills which I talk about in another post). I just want
to see more VIABLE options as opposed to using the same core utility skills all of
the time. That could probably be said for other classes as well.

Agreed Benjamim. I think its stilly that the most popular
and one of the most effective builds is a “melee” caster (d/d)
as opposed to a spell caster wizard/mage.

Whats even worse, a good one can survive longer in a group
of enemies than a warrior.

A Warrior is my other level 80, and I decided to run a Rifle build
with him, because if I wanted to really feel like a bunker I would
resort to a d/d ele

There is allot that could be added, that would have a more “mage feel” to
it than currently. For instance, when I think of invisibility and mirror images,
I think of a Mage, but those skills went to a Mesmer. Maybe its my fault
in considering an Ele a typical mage.

Mesmers seem more like an Illusionist, while the Ele seems to be the wizards
or mages prototypes, and yet there are many traditional mage concepts that
they dont have.

Conjure: My biggest issue. Make the current ones like the Glyph of Elementals, in
where what you get is what attunement you cast it from. The GoE didnt
break each elemental down into four seperate skills, so why do it on this?
Combine the current 4 into one skill, which gives you the item based on
your current attunement.
The main problem would be coming up with 3 other Conjure spells, and
heres a few ideas:

1) Conjure Wall: Wall based on attunement (Fire, Ice, Stone, Air)
2) Conjure Imp (or some other creature)
3) Conjure Food/Food Table: Food last until dying or zoning, or has
an expiration. Make it non tradeable once acquiring. This is my
least favorite option, Im just brainstorming.

Signets: Out of all of them, I think Signet of Water needs changed, both the
passive and the active. Make the passive a small regen, and the active
the removal of 1 or 2 conditions. As it stands now, the passive is
lackluster.

Elites: As we all know, Glyph of Elementals is heaviliy favored. In terms of what
to do about the other two, thats open to discussion (someone also started
a post on Elites today).

Ive noticed in the other class forums, Anet started topics on feedback and Ive yet
to see one for Elementals, so my intent is to get some ideas going to provide them
with more ideas on what people think about the current skills and there usage.

After allot of hours spent on an Elementalist, here are some of my
thoughts on the Utility skills. Hopefully more posts come up like
this to provide Anet with more insight from the player base. If nothing
else, to come up with new ideas.

Utility Skills:

Arcane: No proposals

Cantrips: The only one I think that needs to be changed is Cleansing Fire. It has
a long CD with a burning effect. The effect assumes you would be at
melee, and if you are, you are probably a d/d ele anyhow, and have no
problems with dropping conditions to begin with.
Considering how all of the other cantrips are defensive in nature, replace
the burning effect with something else, like a boost in xxx stat for xxx
seconds (or a regen).

It amazes me there wasnt one decent thief in that group with the sense
to get back to your lines and start dropping you. At the very least, all they
needed to do was bum rush you.

I propose a change to a current Elite: Make the elemental
permanent until dismissed or destroyed (like a Hunters Pet).

I do agree about the other 2 Elites being lackluster, and will have
to give some more thought into that.

Why would I? Your the one starting off name calling.

Spend your attention on what ThatOneArtist is saying, as
opposed to attacking people who have a different opinion than
you.

Genius? Not really, but I have a better command of the English language
it seems.

Maybe Im wrong about it. If people find damage results on target dummies or solo
trash mobs useful, Ive done allot of tests on that as a GC ele and Ill post some numbers up.

“Best DPS to what?” A solo target standing there doing nothing? You say you
are interested in hearing other opinions but refuse to take a second look at
what your saying.

At least in WvW, staying in fire and autoattacking contributes zero to
large scale battles. Its rediculous not to use all of the other AOE and control
abilities. Saying that “auto attacking with fire” offers the best single target
DPS means absolutely nothing in contributing to mid to large size battles.

At least preface your argument by saying “versus single targets I can do the most
by …..” but dont take a strong stand on speaking in general use (WvW).

Considering most fights have multiple targets, as a glass cannon
staff ele, I can assure you I do more damage with Chain Lightning.
Dont beleive it? Look at the damage with CL as a GC ele over 2-3 targets.

If I was forced to not change attunements (which I never would), I would
be spamming that all day.

Laceration.4290:

. Screw kiting with a ranged weapon, charge in an melee the enemy to death!

Sounds good on paper until you go zerg vs zerg in WvW, in where you will want
your Rifle.

Why would you NOT rely on the other attunement spells
while your main fire spells are on CD.

By the way, its WITH not “whit” in your grammar.

Stacking I could care less about.

Its the following that I do:

1) Credit card commanders who have no idea how to lead, but people
zerg follow them

2) Mesmer bombing is an exploit until they fix culling, and the fights
it wins has nothing to do with skill

MarzAttakz.9608:

Plenty of them since the D/D uprising, not that many good ones though.

Lol so true. I would say 80% of the wannabe d/d ele bunkers think they are gods
and run into 30 people thinking they will survive, and they dont. The good ones
know what to do and when to do it. Too many players think that the build makes
the player, and its not true.

It seems to be working for me, and Im glad you reminded me
about the immobilized. I tried using it when a ranger rooted me
and was confused on why mist form didnt work.

Heres the catch 22: It would seem that the fast respawn would encourage
farming mobs, but if you do, you will either get trash drops for a few hours,
or be labeled a bot and banned. Either way its a lose – lose.

Roughneck.2509:

Don’t mean to offend OP, but you are a walking badge with your hp total. You seem cool, what with coming here to ask a question and then using the information instead of complaining and asking for a nerf, so I’m assuming you will utilize any good advice. So, hopefully, you’ll get that number up.

Go to the Ele forums, Im a glass cannon staff user and its the only way I play. Most
people cannot handle that playstlye since they have zero map awareness. I have
a leveled warrior, Ele and soon to be thief, but the Staff Ele is what I enjoy the
most because there are so FEW good ones.

Thiefs I have very little defense against, when they cactch me off guard.but they normally dont ever catch me in open since I switch out to dagger for Ride the Lightning when traveling. I have zero problem getting toasted by a thief even when they do 9k backstabs. I have no extra toughness and its expected.

If it wasnt for mesmer portaling and culling issues, I could handle the attacks
many of the times. This is the one main issue (as you all know) that I hope gets
fixed, but Im not holding my breath.

Once you see what a GC staff AOE rotation of 3-4 skills do on a group of people, you can never go back, lol.

True enough, but if you are focusing on AOE, that will still do more
damage to multiple enemies.

No real rules other then the general honor amongst thieves?

I always thought the saying was “there is no honor amongst thieves….”

Thanks for the explanation, I feel better now and Im fine with dying. Just
wanted to make sure this guy wasnt doing any funny business!

Here you go, thanks. It SEEMED like 5 seconds, hard to say. I just
want to confirm it was possible.

This is not a flame post, I just need to understand how this happened
and how I can better counter it.

I was running in WvW as a Staff Ele and was jumped by a Thief. I saw
him go stealth, but never saw him come out of it during the assault.
After getting burned down, I checked the combat log, and I was hit
4 times in a row with Cloak and Dagger. I took a screen shot if anyone
wants to inform me how to post it.

How did he get 4 off with the cost of that ability, and never left stealth?

Sigil of Fire (on weapon) is a decent range. Test it on target dummies
in Mist.

ThiBash.5634:

Maybe he combined the signet with a massive amount of healing power, and maybe a dolyak signet added to that.

With the proper setup, he could basically get 4 types of ‘permanent regeneration’. They would be normal regeneration, the passive from the signet, the passive from water attunement (which can be made permanent with the arcana major trait) and the passive regeneration from the dolyak’s rune.

Combine that with toughness…

What Arcana trait makes the regen from water passive trait permanent? Im missing
something.

I only wish one thing regards to this: make switching weapons while
OUT OF COMBAT much easier. As a staff ele, I switch to S/D for ride
the lightning when getting to the main WvW zerg. I switch a bit on
my warrior too, depending on the upcoming situation.

As it stands now, opening your inventory and clicking items is cumbersome.
Worse yet, when you switch back to your original weapon, it places the
items in the beginning of your inventory mixed in with the trash drops.

If anything, have a weapon set button that is only usable out of combat.

Upcoming nerf? No proof of that yet, but I would imagine the people
complaining about a d/d bunker build want one.

I did in fact switch to the Sigil of Fire last night, and I am pleased with the
results. In extensive testing, it does a less than lightning, but it is hitting
multiple targets (up to 5 in radius). This compliments my chains of AOE.

Something else worth mentioning after playing all night: One of the benefits
of a GC staff ele is the lack of reaction time defenders get when you are
assaulting a keep. As you know, players step up to the ramparts, drop a skill,
than back off, with little time to drop them (unless a mesmer or thief pulls
them off). I cast Ice Spike, quickly switch to Fire and use the Signet of Earth.
Than cast lava font > fireblast > Arcane Blast. If that doesnt kill them, the massive
Ice spike does (one hit for over 8k last night, Im sure a lowbie but still).

In addition, defenders know Meteor Storm is a threat, but many times their
plans are to step into it long enough to get a skill off. What they are not ready
for is 2-3 hits of max damage.

When I am the defending player, I switch out Signet of Earth with Arcane Shield.
This allows me to pop it, step up to the ramparts, and drop a few key spells. If I am
pulled off (happens allot), I immediately pop Mist Form and get back into the
keep. As simple as it sounds, Im always 100% sure of where I am in relation to the
portal to insure that I get back in. Normally, I will not step up to the line of fire
unless Mist Form is up for this reason.

I did fall prey to Theives 5-6 times last night, who are specfically stealthing
into groups to drop people like me. My reaction time is improving on this,
and I was able to stop several attempts last night by immediately hitting
Mist Form, and when that ends, Lava Font and/or Static Field on me. Anything
to buy time for their stealth to fade. If I still dont see them, it has alerted the
people around me, and I follow up with everything I can AOE related.

That is about the only thing that I really have to watch out for with proper
positioning and map awareness. Even when I do get ganked, its still worth
the tradeoff to me compared to the kills I do vs the enemy.

By the way, I just noticed the power of Static Field last night versus a keep lord.
You dump it on the target, and everyone utilizing the combo field stacks
vulnerability on the target. In a zerg of 20+, it literally only took 3 seconds to
get 25 stacks (the max) of vulnerability on the keep lord.

Doesnt work nearly as well on camp bosses who have the buff on, since the stacks
are falling off as fast as they are applied.

True enough Sui, and that is the key to playing a GC staff Ele (stay in the
crowd and have map awareness). Its so much burst, even tanky enemies
are not prepared for a AOE cycle.

I suspect that you would still get the 10% bonus because all of the skills
Ive seen seem to only check the attunement when the spell goes off. In other
words, once its cast, its counted as being in the fire attunement.

I havent seen it on Fireball yet, but have seen it on many other spells.
I used an Arcane Blast 5 feet away from a target today on even ground,
and it sayed “obstructed.”

Buggy targeting design Im sure.