Guild Wars 2

I take it, people are so busy whining and flaming that the few good willed guys like Kesil, who want to share their videos are quickly dismissed and burned on a stake.

So we won’t get any examples any more and we can spend all the day crying on each other shoulder. Happy now?

Fozzik

I’m having an absolute blast in the game, and I’m slowly working off 10 years of pent-up frustration over developers never catering to players like me in their design.

You could have played EvE Online and avoided the 10 years of frustration.
If you only wanted the “sword and board” genre, you could have played Istaria and avoided the same.

@Above.

“I am Elementalist”. That’s why.

Elementalists were not made with such low DPS that mobs repop in their face, but then they got nerfed with a nuclear bomb.

If you did the same content with any other class you’d not have this issue.
I certainly don’t have it when I play my warrior or ranger (and necro, figures!).

“What are you, then? A sheep for accepting whatever is put on your plate?”

For sure I am a “what” who have more fun than you do.

Also, I am playing sandbox MMORPGs since the early 2000, I accept whatever I put on my plate and love games that have mechanics that let me do so.
In WoW it’s just impossible not to need to “grind to powerup” because whatever you do, you just won’t have the same chances (be it being unable to clear raid content because “pre-requisite gear with enough stats and health” is required or because grinder PvPers have way better armor than casual PvPers coming from battlegrounds).

In GW2 these grind based discriminations don’t apply, people win or lose because they are good or bad not because they had 1000 hours on their hands.

The game that shall not be named requires people to stick for years paying a sub. No surprise they subliminally brainwash a “worker” mentality and make grinding for the sake of grinding something good.
Luckily enough there are other games that don’t do that, players who come from other gaming venues don’t have the blinders, don’t feel like “working for a goal” (smells so much of American work class theories anyway) is an asset or a value.

GW2 has a smart business model, those who want to grind for goals can pay today, get the goals and return to wherever they came from (and ANet still keeps their already paid money). Those who want to play for fun just stay and have fun. All are happy, except the grind-grind-grind people who love to pay to be punished with more grinding. Those will find their happiness only back to their slaver previous games, let them go.

“What drives you to login?”

The fun of playing the game.
I am 80 since a while but there’s still so much to do, it’ll take months. And then there’s the PvP, which does never get old.

Greyfeld.7104:

Vaerah.4907:

GW2 gave you options.
You can play like an hermit or you can join a medium (150 people) guild like I did and have a blast together.

Just because you were given the choice to solo does not mean the game does not provide ways to multi-play.

But this is true of every single MMORPG in existence. It’s not unique to GW2 in the slightest, and the mechanics that Anet worked into their game don’t actually encourage socializing. Which is sort of the point, I think.

I take it, you are one of those players that would not even breath if the game wouldn’t “encourage” you to and possibly stick a carrot for pushing you to do it.

I have always been part of “public in game chats” and similar that foster a community even just talking about random things. I don’t get a “reward” nor the game “encourages” that stuff, but I take initiative and play an active role.
If people prefer to be passive guinea pigs pushing the red button only because there’s food at the end of it, it’s not my – or the developers – fault.

Greyfeld.7104:

But there was one thing that, to this day, still sticks out to me: Kingdom Quests.

Kingdom Quests were instanced quests that were recruited for, once every two hours. So, every two hours, you check a board in town, and queue up for this quest, and once the instance you’ve queued up for is full, you’re whisked away into the instance itself, with a group of other people who also queued for the same instance.

The beauty of these quests is that they’re hard. They’re limited to a specific number of players, so they don’t have to be scaled up or down for some random number of people, which allows the developers to micro-tune it perfectly. It forces the players to not only work together as a unit, but also to manually form groups for quest credit, discuss strategy with other players, and take the time to teach new players the basics of the more difficult fights.

It looks quite alike to GW2 PvE 5 men instances. They are hard for most, are limited to a specific number of players and force (how I hate that word, in a game, another sign of accepting to be treated like labor animals) to discuss strategy etc.

Never the less, people manage to whine against this content as well.

“WHAAAA THERE’S NO REWARD WHAAAA!”

The reward is in managing to finish them, getting a decent amount of gold (I have made 1.5G in one run, lost 6s for 3 repairs…) and eventually a fashion set of choice.
Isn’t it enough?

What’s enough? A purple pony, “autopwnsauce” daggers to 1 shot people in arena and a dedicated achievement: “today you breathed 2500 times, you are PRO!” for the epic effort of killing lolPvE?

Hidon

I think that GW2 is the first MMO in a while that emphasizes the journey more than the destination.

EvE Online is quite current and it does that.

In a certain, sick sense (the game’s broken in many ways), Warhammer Online too does the same.
You take a year+ to get to RR100 and then the game “ends” and all you can still grind for will be visual gear set (in a future expansion).

Just look at how much “monkey trainer” traditional games affect mindsets. I wrote “all you can still grind for…”.
Why people would even want to “grind for”, since they have already a miserable real life where to do such despised, repeating activities?

Daniel

Not once did I feel it necessary to group with someone or even talk with someone in this game from 1-80.

GW2 gave you options.
You can play like an hermit or you can join a medium (150 people) guild like I did and have a blast together.

Just because you were given the choice to solo does not mean the game does not provide ways to multi-play.

knightblaster

because increasingly this is how people have used the internet and how most people find more convenient to play

I call this “fragmentation of playerbase”.
The first MMOs were hardcore, close knit communities of very dedicated, often young-ish players.

Today the same players aged, formed families, can’t be online for the umpteenth big guild operation, they turned into “casuals”.
It’s why my first WoW guild had 120 members (I was guild leader) to safely cover two x 40 men raids, while my last had like 30 members.

You just won’t find people for the old times epic operations any more.

Ceallach

In GW2, I like just randomly helping people, knowing I can’t “kill steal”.

I love this feature. In WoW you’d see a guy ninjaing a mineral node under your nose while you aggroed the usual nearby mob. Then 5 minutes later you see him swarmed by mobs trying to dig another node and the first reaction is to laugh to his face and let him die.
In GW2 I have saved (and have been saved) dozens and dozens of time and then proceeded going on and killing stuff together with the random guy for 15 minutes and then ended doing an event before parting ways.

Anishor

GW2 is moving back toward a virtual world rather than a themepark. Yes there’s direction but it still acts more like a Virtual world than a progression themepark ( ala SWTOR and WoW ).

Yes, those who played EvE Online and similar find themselves well in GW2.
They are accustomed at creating their own story and placing their own objectives.

I love NOT having a canned “future” planned for me but to be able and log in 5 minutes and do whatever I care to do.

Yep. So many people wailing at ANET when they are the first to buy gold, to “install just this innocent macro because <place pathetic excuse here>” and so on.

Finding the bots won’t do anything but cosmetic results, they have to find the bot “minds”, not the disposable “street pushers” exactly like in RL you find the heads of the criminals not just the street villains they command. CCP did that for EvE.

Sheen.8196:

All I know is, the old MMORPGs gave you months of content at launch, even if you were playing 24-7… gw2 is innovative with the whole “done in 3 days” design.

Yes they were sub based so they had to keep you hooked for months. Welcome to forming 40 men raids, taking 4 hours (before farm mode) to clear “trash” so you could kill the 2-3 bosses worth doing in the whole instance.

The “bad side” of being a non sub based game where the designers tried to reduce necessary grinding (I don’t consider “farming good looks” as necessary for character advancement) is that as of now it’s impossible to create enough non grindy content. They just cannot create in 200 people or whatever they are, content quicker than 2M of dedicated no lifers can consume.

People forget how the business model of this MMO does not involve tying the players into paying a subscription for years and years.
They are meant to play a (quite large) number of features and have fun and then:

- choose to stay and go ahead with an open ended system (those who play EvE know about sandbox and how YOU make your destiny not the developer).

- quit and eventually buy the next expansion and have another 100 or so hours of fun. Like a single player game but multiplayer and with a double lifetime for the same money.

That’s it.

If you don’t like the grind you can PvP with insta-80 and ZERO grind at all.
If you don’t like the grind you can buy crafted gear that is competitive vs the top of the top.
If you don’t like the grind you can do events and slowly build up Karma. “Slowly” as in, I got 125k karma by playing in level 80 areas for 2 weeks. It means 2 months tops even as super casual and you can have a legendary. I play a tank specced elementalist so don’t come tell me I rolled a quick grind class.

Yes, it’d have been awesome if they implemented more PvE stuff, “raids” or whatever but who played other PvP games knows they tend to have 5-6 men instances only (Warhammer dropped the “raid” content after the first expansion) and those games are subs based, that is they want you to keep playing. GW2 does not need you keep playing.

“Farming fast”, “grinding”, “buying gold to get first” has no sense in GW2 beyond some personal ego satisfaction. You have just to chip in the game when you want and you’ll eventually get everywhere, for no sub.

Different business model and for people who can set their own timing and objectives. The others are supported up to a point, but I suppose they are too brainwashed into perma-grind mode “for reward” exactly by their old MMO, a measure to make them dependent on it and returning to it.

My best suggestion to everybody is to play EvE Online for 2-3 months, you’ll suddenly understand how GW2 works and how it’s TP works.

Not ninja, but Ele in GW2 looks like what in other games is the Monk class. Lots of gymn and martial arts, lots of CC to balance the low (bare hands) damage. If you do the RTL combo it even looks more Monk-ish style.

CdrRogdan

I think you mean, adapt and thrive or ‘stop playing the game’ since characters are immune to death. That isn’t exactly the most sound business strategy to allow such an occurance, unless Arena net is hoping to discourage people from playing long term so they don’t have to pay server maintenance fees…

Trading is an (almost, minus fees) zero sum game.

While GW2 is a theme park “mild” game, trading is not. Trading is like playing EvE Online or trading in RL: you win or lose and when you lose you feel it hard. In GW2 the worst a PvPer experiences is a number saying he lost. In other games he actually loses his possessions.
The huge majority of GW2 players will never “feel” they are winning or losing. They dump the 10 drops they got in the past hour and are actually happy to have an “infinite trash can” where to dump their drops, even if at lower prices.

Those who are in the trading game are those who have to adapt or “die”.
Those who are in the trading game (for real) are a minority and they are ready to risk.

Which of the two categories you are, I don’t know. But I know that you’ll face people determined to strip your wallet clean and no posting on the forums will save you.

Mackodlak

So for now I’m only watching what is going on and buying low selling high. I do keep some stash of few thousand of the items in case prices do go up, but again, calculating that I don’t lose on them (much) if price goes further down.

This is exactly the example I was talking about in my reply above. The “buy and hold”.

It’s usually a “shareholder” mentality, which is often wrong for commodities trading. Because once the market moved away, there’s no way to know IF and when it’ll come back and make your stock profitable again.

If you prefer the more tactic, more long term trading game and not the twitch “orders flipping” (aka station trading in EvE) I suggest you to switch to swing trading, expecially with the aid of the website linked in previous posts.
That’s a demanding trading style however, swing trading is simple but is not easy.

Mackodlak.7961:

I honestly thought that the prices would normalize on their own in a few days once he/they are finished, but he put’s a block every 5-10c – now I might not be clear so let me explain. A “block” is what I call when he puts like 1.5 – 2k small claws up for like 65c. Then even if people raise the price back to 65c, they have to buy 1.5k of small claws (that he got for less than 40c) at 65c before the price can go higher, but there is another “block” of 2k at 70c (he probably bought them at 50-55c anyways, and he doesn’t care even if they do) and then at 80c and 86c and 93c an 99c etc. So while he is offline it is very unlikely price will return to normal, it will be a bit higher, but when it comes near a “block” people will not wait in line for 2000 of small claws to sell for 70c before it’s their turn for their items to sell, they will most likely undercut him for 1c etc. so it take like 8-12h for the prices to go up 20c and then he is back online and is pushing prices down even more.

I’ve been a witness to this for the last 10(ish) days and I’ve yet to see what he/they are planing to do, but as far as I can see, there are more and more economy manipulators out there, people who probably later sent their bots to LA to spamm “I sell gold”, while the rest of us are helpless and can only watch as prices of items we make money on go down, and Anet just stands there and watches – 15% selling fee is not enough. And they manipulate the prices of items they know will sell in huge amounts very fast – whoever is leveling any crafting profession will probably need like 30 of every tier 1 to tier 5 rare crafting materials, so manipulating their prices and the price of normal crafting materials is the easiest way to make a profit.

That’s how large cash station traders work in EvE. In fact they are called “blocking orders” and don’t even need to be real.
A guy can put an huge order just to scare people off.

Orders create thresolds of so called “support and resistance”.
Go read my blogs on vahrokh.com or my “RL analysis” threads on the EvE forums to see the full mechanics.

It’s harsh, but that’s how real markets work.
There will be big players everywhere, from RL to video games and you either:

- play with them (i.e. you follow their moves).
- outplay and crush them.

or you’ll be a small fish.

You can still make a nice profit as small fish but that requires smarts. Not many got smarts.

Even the “average, self believe advanced” players believe they can act with primitive buy and hold strategies and similar and compete.
No, they don’t and in about 1 year there will be deeply established basically unbeatable monopolists, market manipulators and so on.

Adapt and thrive or die.

CdrRogdan.8907:

I disagree that there isn’t profit to be made on the trading post – there are tons of opportunities, it’s just that some are glaringly better than others.

As it should be in a free market. The partecipants each plan their trades, some win, some lose, some win little.

CdrRogdan.8907:

This mini-game, that affects everything a player does, is very penalizing to casual players and I see no reason why tools (a price listing range, among other things) shouldn’t be given to them to make playing the game casually more entertaining and less of a time sink.

I am very casual but when I log in I always get to take golds ready to take away.
Am I magic?

No. I am teaching my guildies how to search for opportunities, yesterday we had some “incursions” on certain jewelry that netted 27 to 30s a piece despite being lowly tier stuff assembled from our banks “scraps”.

igneous.8153:

Elementalists were perfectly fine until they were nerfed shortly before the release. And the reason they were nerfed is because warriors were whining about us doing too much damage.

Name me a MMO where warriors (and rogues) are not horribly OP, easy to play, super-mega popular played classes and don’t constantly whine about them being still too hard to play and too low damage and anybody else must be perma-nerfed.

Hippocampus.8470:

Vesuvias.9326:

However we all know that “winning” in the market has an huge impact on how you can play the rest of the game.

Yes, but would changing the ask/bid asymmetry actually change the fact that people who don’t understand economics can’t make lots of money through the BLTC?

No, markets and wealth are one of the many “85%-15%” things that show a majority consistently losing over time and a minority slowly accruing immense riches and power. Altering some parameter might delay this situation a bit, but that’s it.

Well I keep getting it and I have gone to Frostgorge Sound, then the area east if it then to Sparkly Fen.

Also, I noticed I get absolutely no drops at all from mobs that used to drop plenty?
What gives? I am killing 5-6 not 50000. How am I supposed to get those 8 crafting materials per each inscription etc I have to create to level up my crafting?

What’s that message about exactly?

I get it popping up after I kill 1-2 mobs.
I get it after the first or so wave of enemy mobs in every dynamic event (expecially “defend the base” events).

Is it the “anti farm code” in action?

Because I can’t justify a 20 minutes defend the base event (Sparkly Fen) if after the first 5-6 mobs (not 50-60 or 500-600, just 5-6) I start getting spammed this message.

Or is it a bug?

@John Smith
It’s lovely to talk about markets. We who also play EvE Online have a forum (Market Discussion) devoted to that. I post in there as Vaerah Vahrokha. Both in my posts and my blog I often talk about the many parallels between the (properly implemented) game markets and the real life markets.
I have the highest admiration for GW2 markets, they are really shaping up nicely!

Devildoc

It makes me a little bit sad that John Smith pretty much confirmed crafting is not intended to be profittable.

Sure it’s profitable, you just have to craft stuff that is worth in the eyes of the buyers.
I make a decent profit by crafting items, I just study markets demand instead of complaining on a forum.

Illconceived Was Na

Hippocampus

Yes, there are opportunities for arbitrage, just like in the real economy. But also just like in the real economy, they don’t tend to last for a very long time because wildly incorrect pricing is a problem that gets corrected by the very people trying to take advantage of it.

Exactly what I was trying to say (only phrased more succinctly).

It’s the self optimizing nature of the markets.

Markets per se exist to provide the best possible price at a given moment, so it’s really working as intended.
Only when a new market equilibrium has to be found, markets “trend” and move and spreads rise, but that’s temporary.

Hippocampus

And now I’m giggling at the idea of a starship made entirely of strung-together long bows

Liberally add rust and duct tape and then it’s probably the Minmatar Tempest battleship.

Spurnshadow

Re: seperate TPs for each server.

I’m just a lyamen, so I don’t really know, but wouldn’t limiting the amount of supply of people, and therefore stuff, just drive prices so high, no one would be able to afford them because gold drop rates would be the same (i feel like i’m missing some higher end economic concept here though)?

Separate TPs would be terrible.

- Extremely lower market liquidity means spreads would rise and thus the market would not be as optimizing any more. Less efficient markets is bad since markets’ job is to provide the best price at a given point in time.
- Harder to find those rarer items at all. As of now there is plenty of items there’s only 1-2 sell orders for and this is with all the servers participating.
- Lower liquidity would easily cause far less velocity. I.e. you setup your order and wait for many days to get it filled. Say goodbye levelling a profession by putting up an order and going to take the stuff in 30 minutes tops. It’d take days and then you’d have already had to self grind it or you’d have vastly outlevelled that content.

Only real improvement I can see for this TP is to introduce fixed listing fees for commodities (i.e. ingots, planks) plus free relisting of the same. It’d be akin to a regular futures commodities market.
But then, GW2 is not a “my little banker” game, it’s hard to make people understand the current TP as is, adding another fee structure on top of the existing auction model would just make it too difficult.

Glad today’s patch further improved Thieves and somewhat nerfed Elementalists. It was really something in dire need.

Also, a really striking issue: for some reason I can still post in here.

But I tried going in my account settings to disable it (I can’t play since I don’t get any email) and it also asks me to click the email in there.

So, I can’t even contact the support because I am totally cut off everything in this game.

Finally, is here a way to have this email re-sent?

I can’t believe I am just locked out of my game, exactly when you will reset the bugged skill points and I can get my 100% completion

I am not getting any email so I can’t log in.
I checked the trash email folder and no email in there either.

How do I play now?

Not only I have the same issue, but I also don’t get ANY email to validate my log in!

Yes I checked the spam folder and blah blah.

Anlyon.8375:

@Vaerah, I most certainly can.

Thank you!

Because the tutorial seems to imply it lands related to the caster while I noticed the behavior is at least dual: if the targetted “thing” is sitting still and I cast dragon tooth, it lands right on his head as long as he’s in range (else it lands midway in the vector connecting me and the target).
It’s the “other” facet you describe that got my curiosity.

Anlyon.8375:

And thanks everyone for the support hehe.

Its not all doom and gloom as an ele!

Well tbh yesterday I did an instance in story mode for the first time in my life (the one with the Mass Effect alike robot boss at the end) with a PUG and no voice comm.
I was more than godlike, I died all of 3 times (1 stupidly, I could easily have avoided that) despite the mass + wrong pulls etc.
The other guys probably paid 2g+ each in repairs, I spent 5s
The guildie that came with me died half of their times (even if he’s a warrior) because I (also) kept healing around him on cooldown.
Even 2 elite mobs hitting me would not kill me, nor the insane “lava firing” golem at the last but one boss.

Could you please explain the Dragon Tooth more in detail? In particular that thing about where it lands.

Amnon.4769:

I’m here because I like this class the way it is, and I don’t want crybaby voices being the only ones ANet sees if they look over the forums.

I don’t want to be dragged into a 1-up contest with you, because I’m not here to embarrass you. I’m here to make my voice heard that Elementalist is fine the way it was designed, by this game’s excellent designers.

Even a developer admitted there are shortcomings in i.e. how the condition gear is designed (i.e. it’s available with mixed stats that don’t benefit it at best).

I am glad you happened to find the class exactly as you want.
I also do just fine in my build, even if they implemented more DPS in fire/air I would not switch to it. But it’d be good if the option to be very competitive for any choice was actually here.
I am also fine with the micro-management, but being difficult <> being slow and I find ele to be the slowest of the classes I play (even when not using earth / water). Even slower than my condition – survivalist build necro.
In about 2 seconds I have used all the cooldowns of a given attunement (even if usually I leave the 5th skill unused and ready for burst / finisher).
What then? Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooring and (most attunements) ineffective auto attack, while both CDs and attunments slowly recycle. Actually I went earth spec exactly because the autoattack allows for an awesome kiting while stacking massive bleeds so it’s boring but effective.

Amnon.4769:

Vaerah, you know what, I don’t care any more. Whine all you want, cry to change the class for whatever arbitrary reasons. I’m enjoying it. People who are actually playing the game – are enjoying it. Perhaps I will record a video of me singing the L2P song.

And seriously, you think I’m somehow impressed by the fact you made PvP videos in other games!? Dear lord, I’m soooooooo intimidated. I could 1-up that in a heartbeat, but that’s not the kind of person I am.

Whine all you want my *.

It’s not whining saying elementalist is a RANGED class while you say it does not. PERIOD.

Sarelm.8317:

Vaerah.4907:

In the mean time you can view my PvP videos I made for my past MMOs, I suppose you are going to post your own PvP videos for everyone else to worship your unsurpassable capability.

Because skill in past MMOs makes you good at this one. Just like being good at Poker makes you awesome at Chess.

Well I can prove I was “good enough” in past games while he has yet to prove anything in here beyond he’s a troll.

marianitten.1247:

“Story mode PvE instances”

Are you talking about dungeons .. right? Because the personal history is soloable

Yes. Already done the personal story and I liked the most parts of it.

I know this sounds like counter-sensical but please follow my train of thought.

1) I feel story mode is where the player should enjoy a well written plot, with NPCs talking and interacting and basically providing lore.

As of now it’s impossible to enjoy that. Even those still bothering to play story mode (less and less) demand everyone in the group to rush it.
They want to finish it ASAP so they can go and “grind the real instance for <place here tokens / rewards etc.>”

Therefore they won’t let you read the various screens, let the NPCs talk and so on. It’s skip skip skip. Not fun at all.

Don’t like to skip? Though luck, in no time you get screamed at or at least “kindly asked to join the others” (guild runs).

2) Only few instances are popular. I really really want to play them all but it’s just impossible to find a group (be in guild – and I have 150 people! or pick up group).
Many instances are not “high level enough”, don’t “provide good gear”, “drops suck”, “are a pain in the ****, not worth it”.
Therefore all what’s left is a CoF run and little else “spam”, the other instances are as good as non existing.

To add insult to injury, basically every group I have been demand to “skip” the hugest majority of the content and straight go for the bosses. They go stealth, create portals, whatever and so we (group) end up skipping 80% of the content. In the end if I wanted to actually explore the whole place… though luck.

3) This is an unavoidable issue: once the first big rush is over, all those left to play story mode are alts and relatively few really new players.
So if I want to experience story mode I just won’t find anybody to do them with.

So, could you please add a “solo story mode” where I can finally read all the dialogs at leisure, go in every instance and do it fully?
I really don’t care if this solo story mode does not give any reward, just make it possible for less min max farmers to enjoy your (ArenaNet) outstanding work to the full extent!

Erebus.7568:

i would like the ability to switch class in endgame.
like in gw1 they allowed you the oppotunity to switch class at any time to enjoy that gameplay while not having the harsh lvling grind there.

Elementalist player spotted!

If you want to have the “though guy” way up, starting from the bottom of the barrel, if you want hard mode then Elementalist is for you.

If you prefer to start with a baseline stronger class but with more annoying bugs then you should play necro.

Sheen.8196:

Every single experienced MMORPG player I know, ran out of stuff to do in GW2 in a matter of days… and while the majority of players aren’t that hardcore or experienced with all of the big mmorpgs, they will eventually reach that point as well, it just takes them a little more playtime.

Every single experienced MMORPG player I know, came to GW2 for the same reason they came for DAoC and Warhammer Online: PvP.
You can’t run out of “stuff to do” while melting faces.

Even EvE Online / Warhammer etc. have PvE content but in the end they are PvP centric game and players are given so many PvP features exactly for that: to PvP.

@OP

Upgrade to another class and your issues get immediately sorted.
Even playing my necro (arguably not the most OP class) it’s 3 times as easy to deal with mobs and PvE in general than with elementalist.

This does not mean you can’t solo everything on the Ele. I have soloed my way up to 80 including vets and some champs, so it’s doable. It just requires 3 times as much effort (not saying 3 x time) than playing basically any other class.

Amnon.4769:

@Vaerah.4907
Well tell you what, you stand your ground that Ele is a ranged class and get slaughtered, while I’ll treat it like a melee class and have fun with it.

In the meanwhile, I wrote you a song – it’s to the tune of the Beatles’ “Let it be”, starting with the chorus:

L 2 P, L 2 P, L 2 P, ohhhh L 2 P.
There will be an answer: L 2 P.
L 2 P, L 2 P… L 2 P-eeeeeehhhhh, L 2 P.
Whisper words of wisdom: L 2 P.

1) You never seen me play so keep your conjectures for yourself.
2) Where did I mention I get slaugthered? Right, nowhere!
3) I am going to treat elementalist as melee class the day they lose ability to use scepter and staff.
In the mean time you can view my PvP videos I made for my past MMOs, I suppose you are going to post your own PvP videos for everyone else to worship your unsurpassable capability.

Amnon.4769:

@Vaerah
Elementalist is not a “Mage”. Heck, it’s more a Melee class than ranged anyway.
You want a “Mage” get a Necro.

I play: Ele, necro, warrior, ranger.

Of those, warrior certainly is not a ranged class (I still shoot stuff with gun and bow to death just fine including champs).
Ranger, well the name kinda gives it out. Yet it’s quite durable melee speaking.
My necro is S/D condition build. Lots of health, sensible damage (well, for a GW2 ranged class that is), got some nice abilities, can actually kill stuff by facetanking it.
Elementalist: S/D I have gear for both condition and DD spec. Less health, “like a mage would have”, ability do use staff and scepter “like a mage would do”, use of elements (including fire, frost and arcane, like WoW mages do), strong CC like suitably specced mages usually come with. Absence of persistent pets, like mages do.
I mean, I played Mage since D&D, Baldur’s Gate, WoW, Warhammer Online and others and Elementalist certainly looks like a mage.
One element every previous mage I played had, was the strong (to insane, for the Sorceress) amound of DPS capabilities to pay off for the lowest health pool and armor.

Now, even going suicidal D/D, GW2 elementalist is still NOT a DPS powerhouse. If it was a melee class like you say, his range would be identical to my warrior and his DPS would be comparable. Neither of the two applies.

So I stand to my opinion that elementalist is a ranged class. It’s main curse is they made it an “utility class” and utility classes are often the joke of a MMO (Warhammer engineer / Magus come to mind). Why? Because the other classes all bring in some of their utility, a group of 3-4 other classes will collectively provide an equivalent amount of utility while not giving up on raw damage.

I am sorry, Ele needs an high DPS build, even if true glass cannon. The most flexible class with the most options has to have… well… options.

Nelona

Honestly, it takes from me about 5 seconds to bring someone from 100% to 0% with STAFF build with correct traits and slot skills, how is that a bad thing?

Did you get a lucky string of crits once in your life => “Elementalist takes 5 seconds to bring someone 100% to 0%” is it repeatable and demonstrable?
If so I’d like to know the build and gear that accomplish such feat.

Amnon

Serious question: if other classes are “blowing you away”, and you feel this class is weak, then why are you playing an Elementalist?

Imagine this incredible scenario: someone bought a game with the intention to play a “mage”.
Absurdly enough, they want to play it even if it blows and don’t immediately reroll the FOTM. Rare sight these day? Maybe. But there are some players made like that.

The menu on top of the page shows the other items too.

Now, the next step is to make those graphs into proper OHLC charts.

I wish they added an API to export the market data. I like to number crunch and make data sheets

I follow economy both on EvE, GW2 and RL (I am a RL securities trader).

GW2 markets are very good, in some details they are healthier than EvE’s (expecially the liquidity, the velocity and the granularity for the top traded items).

GW2 markets have no breaking issue, if anything is too much supplied the recipe is to nerf the relevant item faucet or add more of that item sinks (see those temporary recipes they recently implemented).
Demand and supply equilibrium is something tied but separate from how this game trading system works, and it works very well.

The only changes I’d implement:

- More transparent feedback about what’s going to be the seller’s revenue net of “taxes”.

- Ways to export the market data. I’d LOVE to be able and create GW2 market charts like the ones I create for EvE Online.

An example of what I have created for EvE by a simple CSV game data export is shown in the attachment.

Real markets don’t use LIFO, for obvious reasons. The same reasons why GW2 TP should not use LIFO either.

ExcretusMaximus

20% is a bit much, unless you make it a tier three trait (even then, that’s a lot of damage), which would mean you could only get two of the four. I like the idea, but as you said, the numbers would need some tweaking

My warrior did > 3k crits at level 29.
How can you say 20% of the most kittened damage in game be “bit much” is beyond me. We’d still deal less than what other classes do with 1 keypress and in abilities they are not even specced for.

Nekrothaft.6390:

TemperHoof.6438:

But I can’t stand how every other class just does what they can do, but do it better.

Hi, I’m a necromancer and you sir, disgust me.

My 2nd main is a (condition specced) necro. It’s possibly the least powerful class… except for Elementalist.
I am sorry but by playing both extensively, necros still are better – or at least it’s easier to bring their “potential” out than doing the same for an elementalist.

Also, necros cantrips etc can’t even be compared with the bland garbage elementalists got.

Of course both don’t hold a candle to my ranger or warrior. I was not shameful enough to roll a thief though so I can’t talk about them.

GankSinatra.2653:

Wrong, Warlocks where just simply kitten. Cant bekittento write an essay on why, if you played one during Vanilla you’d know. Where do people get this idea that if your class is hard to play it cant be underpowered?

Played warlock and druid in vanilla WoW, both classes blew very very hard.
Then they made warlocks very strong, druids kept sucking for some more years till they made them a bland shadow of themselves. Stronger but plain and boring. Exactly what I’d hate to see in GW2.

80, Elementalist, 7/10

-1 because of the worst downed abilities
-1 because of the worst elite skills
-1 because in order to survive we are pushed into speccing into unfun tank spec.

It’d be 8/10 if the classes were balanced. Elementalists and necros (and maybe engies) imo are the only correctly balanced classes in this game. It’s really OK to only deal 2-3k damage (10-15% of average player health pool) because the game becomes tactic and skillful.
It’s wrong to have classes 2 shotting the others, because the game becomes just another pathetic World of Roguecraft or Lolhammer Online, with no skill involved: wins who mashes the one I-Win button first.

Amnon.4769:

Sharpe.1485:

This is what you people fail to understand, there is NOTHING to take away from you – once classes are balanced, it is purely your skill against other players skill – that is what balance is!
Wanting a whole class to remain underpowered just so you can “rofl I’m playing this POS and can still beat you!” is not a reasonable argument to alienate every person that enjoys the elementalist playstyle.

I don’t want the class to stay as it is so I can “rofl” at someone; I want the class because I truly enjoy the challenge of playing it. Why, why, why must I keep saying it? I’m not being selfish, I just want my darn difficult game.

I’m sick and tired of 3-button rotations.
I’m sick and tired of standing in place mashing the keyboard.
I’m sick and tired of not having to use a single brain cell, and rather use muscle memory, to play my class.

This is why I left WoW.

Elementalists will be fine when they’ll nerf the other classes down to their DPS level.
BAD games are those where a spam-1-I-Win-Button classes exist and don’t get brutally nerfed.
In GW2 we actually have at least 3 of such classes, they have to go, else GW2 will be just a farce.

Ele is not really “wrong”, a game where people have 15-20k HP and get hit for 3-4k (like eles can do with effort) is perfect. It’s wrong when there are I Win one shot wonders.

So, eles should not be really buffed, just their bugged things fixed.

The other classes, on the other hand, they are the wrong ones and should be brought down in line, not eles buffed to become garbage 1 button crit like the others.

TheOOB.7428:

Anyways, I was just looking for any beginners advice people have. What stats should I build for, what early skills are good, what professions are good, hints tips and the like. I was kind of thinking going Water/Earth(I like support and buffs/debuffs and stuff), but I’m not sure what’s good.

Beginner advice: eles in GW2 are not the same eles of GW1.

You really really need to have some incredible masochism to roll an elementalist now. You’d better finishing levelling up the mesmer then check if ANet did something to save elementalists from the current path of disgrace.

If you still want to make one, you sort of have to spec all defensive just to survive 2 hits (1 in case of thief).
Damage? Forget it, for some reason elementalists are not meant to deal damage, but to stay on the backlines and spam some unskillful AoE.

Very nice editing.
Very nice skills.