Guild Wars 2

i believe the only problem with the Staff ele at this point is mediocre/just plain bad 1 attacks. You could talk about speeding them up, or increasing targeting, but really, i think replacing a couple of them in way would be much better. They would fit the staff play-style much better if they were really AoE blasts(not finishers, I saw that somewhere else, and that would be OP).

Imagine F1 and W1 were self-cast-only AoEs, good damage, and faster casting (1/2-3/4 sec). Remember GW1 Flame Burst, Flame Djinn, Inferno, Frozen Burst, etc. Then think about combat with Staff Ele currently.

When things get really heavy anyway, a player does end up in close combat situations, especially near the close of combat. You obviously don’t finish stabbing someone from range 1200! This makes that high risk/high reward mechanic available in any Staff ele fight, for the fighter or the fightee.

Ele vs War/thief/guards/melee fighters as example: We all know zerk War/thief can smash a zerk ele to death quickly, literally in 1.5-2 seconds sometimes. This would not prevent them from doing this, but it would ensure they time their attacks to some degree (They still have higher health and toughness naturally) but let the ele fight back or potentially win an encounter(or at least land a hit during it). Fights with these characters will be melee/dodge/ reflex battles to the death, with eles ready for close but still trying to keep their distance really. = Fun for everyone
Ele vs. Ranged characters; ranger, bow thieves, bow war etc = battles of positioning and careful/patient timing of trap bursts, with Ele trying to close distance sometimes. = Fun for everyone.
Eles Vs. Necros/MMs: Glorious fun for all. High risk, High Reward.
Eles Vs. Mesmers – I can’t say actually. I seem to have a videogame weakness/blindspot for shadowclone attack. =( I kick butt in LoL all the time until Shaco shows up. =( I kill invisible thieves all the time, but can never figure out where the real player is =(. Someone else genius this part up.

Sooooooo self cast AoE F and W attacks FTW!

Satire? On a serious note though, you’re not glued to the point. You can’t leave it, murder someone, and go right back with little harm usually.

Simple way to enhance targeting:
Options menu checkmark box for:
Target closest/next/previous buttons only target players.
This way you could still target cycle when a million minions were around, and it’s still easy to target any specific/said minions with the mouse as usual because they aren’t as squirrely as humans.

I think the fights people complain about with MMs are only super difficult because targeting the player when you need to in that bunch is really hard sometimes.

I would be happy if rally were gone, but that would never happen. I would also however be happy with OP suggestion and/or downed players way less powerful.

and I’ve been an angry poster last couple days, so trust me, I feel you. I think one concerns voiced that is shared among devs, happy posters, angry posters, etc. is: Keeping good #s of players in PvP/nurturing PvP. The other areas are important too of course, they just don’t potentially have this problem at this time.

Honestly, some of these updates could be pretty cool(Check my posts, I have been pessimistic poster, so I am with you people that have concerns). I do have an idea for planting in Earth with Stone Heart with the staff, and boys n girls, it’s not going to be for low damage/bunkering. =) Also, I’m not sharing this build idea at this time, cause I’m gonna try n kick butt with it first. =) The problem then, is even if these updates end up working out great, there are already some unhappy campers here at this point(me included, but trying to be Optimistic), and 3 weeks longer might really see the Mists close to empty. =(

So my question for you posters wanting change is:

If they just loaded up the new TeamDeathMatch as seperate que RIGHT NOW, like, TOMORROW, but as a ‘beta’ with Zero/Zilch/Nada for rewards so they didn’t have to worry about all the balancing and whatnot, would that be a good hold off until the rest of these changes arrive with the next update?

I figure they would get feedback they need on it anyway, we would have something totally fresh to play with, and we could give Anet the rest of the time they need to get this stuff done.

I remember GW1 constantly developing as I played, and that was totally cool. I still remember when the enchantments got timer bars, it was super. Just stick things like that in with a huge BETA stamp on them, with no rewards, and just let us slaughter each other. =)

So, players, would that be cool, or not so?

Devs, I know it’s ‘not the plan’, but you could be like that slick parent that decides the family’s going to DairyQueen on a whim, just to be kewl. What do you think?

This is the only way Front/Mid/Back lines will finally be relevant I think. Hope so anyway.

Eh, I would have preferred this to be a game mode… but at least it’s here, that’s a start. Been dying for deathmatch for over a year now, I’ll take it any way I can get it.

I do think these make Ele super survivable, but that’s not really what Ele needed…

“Elementalists are multi-faceted spellcasters that channel elemental forces, making fire, air, earth, and water do their bidding. What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.”

Where is my ‘massive damage?’ Also, guardian got burning effectiveness increase instead of Elementalist? AMAZING. Thieves master of invis, Rangers masters of poison, Necros (jeez, masters or Mad Conditions) etc…. But Ele doesn’t do max burning damage/master of nothing? SO kittenED.

“Elementalists are multi-faceted spellcasters that channel elemental forces, making fire, air, earth, and water do their bidding. What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.”
Quoted from GW2 main page at launch.
Do I think these buff could make Ele more likely to survive? Surely. Is that what Ele needed? Not. Really. Ele has always been squishy n high damage in past, I don’t understand why they keep moving away from that. If you spec for damage as needed to actually kill someone in PvP, you still can’t trait these anyways.
Also, Guardian master of Burning? REALLY? How is the Master of Fire not the Master of Fire?!!! There is no viable burning build in PvP, and there should be. Last time I posted this, someone argued, but then agreed it couldn’t be done in PvP and wouldn’t face me with Condi Ele build.
OVER. IT.

There should be a serious Gold reward for PvP for the winners, and jack for the losers. Than, you would have people PvPing a lot, and those with higher skill would be signifigantly rewarded.

Sorry Mal, this whole thing has me grumpy. Apologies.

Wildstar looks way Cool!

So did GW2. =( Don’t be a sucker, company fails you once, it will fail you again.

Also, this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Collaborative-Development-Topic-Game-Modes
Most requested change in PvP 4 months ago when full survey was done(more requested than ‘balance’ or new traits:
New Game Modes – notice the number of people in this 9 page thread that mention GW1 PvP, and the tone they use in comparison with people who requested other game modes. The people asking for GW1 style are kinda giving you that ’isn’t it obvious?’ tone. Like, “Yes, i bought GW2 because gasp I liked the style in GW1.”
Why even bother asking in the CDI if you’re going to do whatever you want anyway guys?
Still no Dev answer to my thread when it would literally take less than 5 keystrokes to answer. Uncool.

So probably one map in the rotation, and no deathmatch mode then. =(

That’s fine, whatevs Devs. Just remember fails like this are why people came to your company in the first place and why they won’t come back in future.
When Blizzard released Starcraft 2 w all campaigns seperated, it felt like slap in the face, and so I literally never spent a $ with Blizzard again. Don’t get me wrong, I happily torrent those same games now sometimes(SC2 did end up being bomb kitten fun) but feel like I have to have ‘policy n procedure’ just like these big greedy corp.s do.

My policy n procedure says if you kitten me over in the pure pursuit for profit, I can never help you profit again. So I will never spend a $ with Anet again, pure n simple. Might sign onto those servers on occasion and take up space, but I’ll never spend real money there, knowing the probability of return is low.

As has been mentioned, us PvPers and forum posters are a small but vocal minority. We are the same vocal minority that did you all your free advertising for you before this game ever released. We reviewed on internet, heckled WoW players for playing such an unbalanced game, signed up friends, etc. See how your next game release goes without us. Your PvEers will be too busy chopping down digital trees for digital rewards to ever bother writing your reviews or making friends to tell about new game in the first place…

You didn’t come up from the unknown out of nowhere Arenanet, we came up together, and you forgot us when you got here. Keep your Conquest mode n shove it.

I don’t play ranger, but I do play staff ele. Hitting with my auto attacks is rough, I feel your pain guys. =(

GW1 PvP was like Crack: It was always super good, but you could never get enough.
GW2 PvP is like cupcakes: A match or two will be tasty, but anymore and you get a sour tummy.

I paid the money GIVE ME MY CRACK!

Malcastus:
I’m not sure you’re really getting me on this post.

We all have things we want, or would think are fun, game modes in mind etc. I have an awesome idea for WvW would be, but really, I’m not a game dev. and so in ‘what i want or think would be cool’ my opinion generally only goes so far.

I bought a sequel game to GW1. GW1 PvP was so strong it literally has more active PvP players right now than GW2 even though the game is like a decade old now and WoW had more advertising.
Deathmatch is the core mechanic to GW1 PvP combat. This is a fact. Guild battles were a little different, but much more akin to deathmatch then ‘cap the point.’
So when I ask ‘Will there be deathmatch?’ it is not whimsical question, it is not just my fancy, it is a reasonable question.
To expect the core mechanic of a popular game to be represented in a sequel game (especially when the only reason it’s not is because ‘devs like the other mode better’) after spending hundreds of dollars on the franchise, is a reasonable expectation.
Please don’t hijack my thread.

Devs: This questions is clear, concise, and totally fair. I have waited 1.5 years, and even though I’m sure to get flamed for this, bought 3 GW2 accounts on release month. I did this for PvP with friends, because GW1 was widely respected across internet as great/best MMORPG PvP. Loved it, had mad faith in Anet after the experience. I don’t want to sit here kitten or wondering, I still think you generally made a great game, I just want to know if I am waiting for something that I will never get(that I paid for). So…

Q: Will there be DeathMatch added to PvP April 15th update? Yes/No answer required, no context required.

Deathmatch could be totally broken, unbalanced, whatevs… but no one would ever be forced to play that mode, and many people have been asking for it(and are Justified asking for it since it was the core mechanic in GW1 PvP).

You could dress my character up in a pink tutu, take away all rewards, and make my title shameless noob, I don’t care as long as I get to have a real battle finally, or know it will never happen so I can move on. Please.

Funny, I was totally challenging you in another post elsewhere Rickster, but I totally agree with you here. =) I was litereally just about to post almost the same thing.

I think I can boil it all down to a seriously clear and fair question to ask Dev team if they would bother to respond. I think also if they will not answer this question, it is literally the other answer people really want.

Q: Will there be DeathMatch added to PvP April 15th update? Yes/No answer required, no context required.

The real reason this question is important is the answer will really show after 1.5 years whether or not the Dev team is even making attempt to cater to customers, or narrowly sticking to pre-planned vision of game. Deathmatch could be totally broken, unbalanced, whatevs… but no one would ever be forced to play that mode, and many people have been asking for it(and are Justified asking for it since it was the core mechanic in GW1 PvP)

Lol Rickster basically ’can’t be bothered to back up his own claims’ even when doing so would take ten minutes of his time. Rotfl Amurika!

@Rickster Your grandmother could play staff? Really? You have clearly never used the staff in PvP. Try it, then come back to this thread and apologize. You are more likely to die fighting any class/weapon combo with staff ele than anything else. Those AoEs are mad easy to dodge, even impossible to hit with unless you have a very fast cpu…

Sure you hit lots in WvW, but that’s just because you can’t miss when assuming at a 20+ zerg army. If you don’t agree, meet me in PvP mists, you choose my class and weapon set, you take staff ele, we see how it goes.

Rotfl

This:
manveruppd.7601

1. Introduce GUILD-BASED RATING. This is important for everyone who ever wants to try out a new build, or mess around casually, without jeopardising their ranking. It’ll allow people to play as a team under a guild tag whose ranking matters, and then switch to a “smurf guild” whose ranking they don’t care about if they want to mess about casually on join solo.

2. Autostart the next match for winners! Any team that wins a match gets automatically invited to join the next one. Repeatedly playing with the same people will help you get to know them and encourage the formation of teams. It’d be technically easy to implement, and you could apply it even if you didn’t follow any of my other suggestions – you could even apply it to solo queue.

3. Rewards for consecutive wins! This would encourage PUGs to stick togehter if they’re having a winning streak.

6) Uninstalled GW2 and looking for a new PvP game to play
7) Playing the forums. Player vs Forum/Developer is the real PvP.
Reinstalled GW1, playing with new builds in RA. Graphics look nice now on my super fast computer compared to what I had 6/7 years ago. =) GW2 = Dead in the water like RIM blackberry. Quote me on this. To poster that said getting ready for Wildstar, why sink more money into company that failed with such a great potential product as GW2? GW1 fabulous PvP, talked about all over internet in comparison with leading MMORPG of time(WoW), thought to be much better, all of a sudden PvP in GW2 flop city. Too weird.

Don’t get me wrong, I think PvP needs some love(I’m always crying about wanting deathmatch) but some people here are seriously underestimating PvP rewards right now. I signed in after being away for a couple months with a lot of unspent glory and found this new rewards merchant in the mists. I bought close to 90 of those instant-level books rightfoff the bat with glory and gold. I also found with glory boosters(which I have hundreds of) I get 3-6 more books per hour if i reque quickly and Nick but in matches(which I do. =) ). This means between the gold and glory rewards in PvP right now I can level any character on my account at a rate of 3-6 levels per hour. It’s super sweet, I can’t imagine why everyone isn’t in PvP right now.

I took two of my characters and leveled them 60 levels in a minute a piece each, it was awesome. They were blasting like little supernovas!

to add to my post, since i may have come off negative towards GW2/devs.

I’m kittening DYING to fight deathmatch in GW2 like GW1 style. I literally dream of the destruction. It would be so glorious. There are many like me who got GW2 to satisfy the PvP Bloodlust cause gw1 deathmatches were the best anywhere.

Just my two cents but well….
With all this talk still going on after years about how to do PvP correctly, I don’t really understand why the PvP models from the original GW game are not given a shot in any way shape or form.
Is it like a pride thing or something? I don’t mean to be challenging to Devs in any way, I super enjoy actualy PvP combat in this game, but I’ve honestly been dumbfounded since release (still dumbfounded honestly) on the obsession with point capping in this game. Be it the 3 same ole points over n over in s/tPvP, or the groups of zergs running up against doors, it seems to be the only fighting model available.
I don’t understand this for 2 reasons honestly:
1. People ask for, like, and fight Deathmatch style in games all over the place. Especially for a Team game, as a poster above mentioned, the first thing you do when fighting for points in PvP is split up, and the first thing you do in WvW to get those points in group into massive zergs. Neither battle is ever really a balanced team vs. a balanced team. Can it hurt to set up some PvP like this and see if people like it? The only reason I seem to get is ‘we decided in the beginning on point cap, so it’s all we’ll ever do’
2. The Much Bigger Reason:
PvP in GW1 was 4v4 Deathmatch w the occasional kill the lord, or Guild vs Guild to kill the lord and essentially wipe the guild. Even after years, while competing with WoW and whatnot, this playstyle remained very popular. RA(random arena) was not friendly to people who sucked, but was more fun then a barrel of monkeys for people who liked a challenge and enjoyed creating cutting edge builds. No, you did not just buy GW1 and start playing RA. You had to learn first, you had to fight PvE and test your skills, build combos, see the effects happening.
So the big thing I don’t understand with some companies these days is how you can make a sequel to a game and just leave out or massively change certain aspects of it that were very popular? If you want introduce ‘cool new concepts’ that’s great, but don’t do it at the expense of your successful endeavors. When you make a Sequel game, you are attempting to sell me a new game based on the merits of the old one, so where are those merits?
Every single form of PvP combat from GW1 has been absent from GW2, and this is not an ignorable factor for a gamer who thinks about their purchases. Give up some 4v4 or 5v5 death match, some kill the lord for victory, and some of those old school guild battles instead of all this point capping, and you will INSTANTLY see people move back that way i think.
Popular game franchises over many years still successful: Super Mario, Legend of Zelda, Halo, CoD, Streetfighter, basically all the FPSs really… What do they all have in common? The do Not take away gameplay people enjoy to experiment with new stuff that will be ‘more fun.’ You add to what is already there, you don’t knock it down with a bulldozer, put something new there, and call it ‘The Old Game 2’

Do I like the actual skills/movement/combat in GW2? Absolutely. I just wouldn’t call it Guild Wars, since there is no more balanced PvP combat or Guild fighting literally at all. Guild wars, no guild fighting. Guild wars, no guild fighting. Guild wars, no guild fighting. See, doesn’t make sense. I would call it like ‘SteamFantasy Point Capping Wars’. There. I said it.

Can’t speak for the D/Ds and the Scepters, but for the Staff Ele…

I recently discovered just how awesome Tornado can be. I too thought it was flat useless at first, until I read somewhere about OPs Tornado/Meteor Shower combo. I have actually been Murdering people with it now.

Today, two assassins thought they were being slick roaming together and thought they were going to just slap me on this point. I self casted Meteor Shower as they came in, switched to Tornado, and just let the 1 attack spam. Before tornado had even run out and before they got a single attack off, they both became visible again downed. It was AWSOME. 2v1 with a staff-ele in tPvP, who does that? Also, i run with a friend who is a mesmer, and constant counfounding bolts as he put mesmers fields on top of me(think Time Warp plus Tornado while Meteor shower still coming down, constant super fast confounding bolts…) was also pretty bad as. Another day recently I downed 3 people with it before the battle for the point even started, and me and one other squishy easily took the point.

You definitely want Meteor shower coming down first, and ideally an ally or 2 to take advantage of the chaos with you, but so worth it that way.

For those who think this would be broken, consider:
A couple posters mentioned burning being up to 850ish/tick, which is in the higher ends of what you can get. For even someone with as little as 15k health, this is still over 17 seconds before they die from burning, without applying any heals or condi removal. Talk about a someone with high vitality and 30k health, now they can sit n laugh at you for 30 seconds before finally popping one cond removal and a heal. And as an Ele, when you spec for that high condition damage, especially in PvP, you’re not getting much damage from your actual attacks, them’s small potatoes.

Sure, this 850/tick would be dangerous if you were applying poison/torment etc on top of it, but you only have access to bleeds as an ele, and good luck applying all this burning and all these bleed stacks before someone hits you twice and your down (because again, you know, lowest life pool n all).
If anyone here really thinks this is wrong, I would love to attempt to prove via Duel. I take my staff ele(notoriously known not be strong for 1v1s) and you go full Ele condition build(carrion/settler/rabid) and any weapon set you prefer, and we see how the battle goes. With my glass cannon build, I will have little life or toughness, and you will not be able to burn me to death before I spike you out(you will also likely not be able to apply enough bleeds). I won’t even take any cantrips or extra condi removal from trait lines/utilities, it won’t make a difference.
If conditions/burning were really that useful, why is Berserker build massively prevalent in meta? Because condition builds don’t apply any real pressure, which is what they are supposed to do. Enemy should know when they get hit with lots of condit. damage that it’s time to end battle quick or retreat, but instead, they ignore the petty damage and continue doing whatever they were doing. Again, burning was massively more relevant in GW1…

For those who think this would be broken, consider:
A couple posters mentioned burning being up to 850ish/tick, which is in the higher ends of what you can get. For even someone with as little as 15k health, this is still over 17 seconds before they die from burning, without applying any heals or condi removal. Talk about a someone with high vitality and 30k health, now they can sit n laugh at you for 30 seconds before finally popping one cond removal and a heal. And as an Ele, when you spec for that high condition damage, especially in PvP, you’re not getting much damage from your actual attacks, them’s small potatoes.

Sure, this 850/tick would be dangerous if you were applying poison/torment etc on top of it, but you only have access to bleeds as an ele, and good luck applying all this burning and all these bleed stacks before someone hits you twice and your down (because again, you know, lowest life pool n all).
If anyone here really thinks this is wrong, I would love to attempt to prove via Duel. I take my staff ele(notoriously known not be strong for 1v1s) and you go full Ele condition build(carrion/settler/rabid) and any weapon set you prefer, and we see how the battle goes. With my glass cannon build, I will have little life or toughness, and you will not be able to burn me to death before I spike you out(you will also likely not be able to apply enough bleeds). I won’t even take any cantrips or extra condi removal from trait lines/utilities, it won’t make a difference.
If conditions/burning were really that useful, why is Berserker build massively prevalent in meta? Because condition builds don’t apply any real pressure, which is what they are supposed to do. Enemy should know when they get hit with lots of condit. damage that it’s time to end battle quick or retreat, but instead, they ignore the petty damage and continue doing whatever they were doing. Again, burning was massively more relevant in GW1…

@Grevender –
Sigil of Fire
Cleansing Flame
Lava Axe
Fiery Greatsword
projectiles through fire fields after switching out…
Just to name a few burning sources out of fire, still lots of reasons to switch anyways, always good to know the uses for all elements(again, combos).

Any reason you wouldn’t want ele condition build to be viable? If so, how then?

So I played GW1 a lot, and one of the roles I liked playing with my Ele was the burning/condition builds. Burning was truly significant in the first one. You could only drain someone at max 10 ticks/sec, and burning could account for 7 of them right off the bat. All the other conditions the Eles have are great, don’t get me wrong, but really you only get burning for damage(i’m not even going to talk about bleed, seriously.).

Many people have mentioned that burning can be easily removed, or can’t be applied enough. I disagree. I think it is perfectly able to be applied for long periods on a target, or sprayed in short periods over groups easily, which is appropriate. Some people think the Ele should get something like poison or torment, I also disagree there. They should continue to be the masters of the four elements solely. So I think the following is frankly the ideal solution for opening up many condition builds for elementalists.

Replace the ‘Persisting Flames’ train in fire (11) with ’Wizard’s Fire’

Wizards Fire: Burning damage is doubled.

Boom. Over. Done. Elementalists can now focus on burning as their primary attack, because elemental wizards should be able to burn people to cinders if that’s their thing. Burning, which is stacked in time, could still be easily removed, and people would remove large stacks because not removing them would be bad otherwise. Condition removal would be more important in matches. Elementalists in this trait line would have to use 30 points in fire and GM trait to achieve this(and of course would still be Ultra-Squishy as usual), so balanced easily.

Also, they could probably achieve this with like 5 lines of code, so it could be implemented like yesterday.

If you want to be a condition elementalist, +1 this post and ask for Wizard’s Fire!

So I played GW1 a lot, and one of the roles I liked playing with my Ele was the burning/condition builds. Burning was truly significant in the first one. You could only drain someone at max 10 ticks/sec, and burning could account for 7 of them right off the bat. All the other conditions the Eles have are great, don’t get me wrong, but really you only get burning for damage(i’m not even going to talk about bleed, seriously.).

Many people have mentioned that burning can be easily removed, or can’t be applied enough. I disagree. I think it is perfectly able to be applied for long periods on a target, or sprayed in short periods over groups easily, which is appropriate. Some people think the Ele should get something like poison or torment, I also disagree there. They should continue to be the masters of the four elements solely. So I think the following is frankly the ideal solution for opening up many condition builds for elementalists.

Replace the ‘Persisting Flames’ train in fire (11) with ’Wizard’s Fire’

Wizards Fire: Burning damage is doubled.

Boom. Over. Done. Elementalists can now focus on burning as their primary attack, because elemental wizards should be able to burn people to cinders if that’s their thing. Burning, which is stacked in time, could still be easily removed, and people would remove large stacks because not removing them would be bad otherwise. Condition removal would be more important in matches. Elementalists in this trait line would have to use 30 points in fire and GM trait to achieve this(and of course would still be Ultra-Squishy as usual), so balanced easily.

Also, they could probably achieve this with like 5 lines of code, so it could be implemented like yesterday.

If you want to be a condition elementalist, +1 this post and ask for Wizard’s Fire!

So I played GW1 a lot, and one of the roles I liked playing with my Ele was the burning/condition builds. Burning was truly significant in the first one. You could only drain someone at max 10 ticks/sec, and burning could account for 7 of them right off the bat. All the other conditions the Eles have are great, don’t get me wrong, but really you only get burning for damage(i’m not even going to talk about bleed, seriously.).

Many people have mentioned that burning can be easily removed, or can’t be applied enough. I disagree. I think it is perfectly able to be applied for long periods on a target, or sprayed in short periods over groups easily, which is appropriate. Some people think the Ele should get something like poison or torment, I also disagree there. They should continue to be the masters of the four elements solely. So I think the following is frankly the ideal solution for opening up many condition builds for elementalists.

Replace the ‘Persisting Flames’ train in fire (11) with ’Wizard’s Fire’

Wizards Fire: Burning damage is doubled.

Boom. Over. Done. Elementalists can now focus on burning as their primary attack, because elemental wizards should be able to burn people to cinders if that’s their thing. Burning, which is stacked in time, could still be easily removed, and people would remove large stacks because not removing them would be bad otherwise. Condition removal would be more important in matches. Elementalists in this trait line would have to use 30 points in fire and GM trait to achieve this(and of course would still be Ultra-Squishy as usual), so balanced easily.

Also, they could probably achieve this with like 5 lines of code, so it could be implemented like yesterday.

If you want to be a condition elementalist, +1 this post and ask for Wizard’s Fire!

I gotta be honest with you guys….
So I Staff Ele, in PvP, and Elemental Surge is one of the only things that keeps some builds in the game. You have to know your timing and attunement swaps well, but it gives you access to ridiculous condition combos that impact the match greatly. You can easily (at least with staff, i can’t speak for daggers/scepter etc) launch massive amounts of Chill and or/permablind a group for a good 5-12 seconds. You have to have smart teammates that go in n finish up, but they shoulnd’t have a hard time doing it.

Now, I wouldn’t mind if, say, it included the 20% recharge for Arcane skills with it. =) Like the poster above said, hard to cram it all in on Arcane builds, but either way, I wouldn’t call it useless by ffaaaar. If you’re not finding uses for it, test more by launching attacks n switching attunements and letting it’s effects go off that way.

Ex:
1. Cast Firestorm on group at Mid point during battle, as soon as casting starts, switch into Lightning, activate Arcane Power. Hit Arcane Wave in middle of group for good measure if anyone close to hitting. Then spam Lightning 1. Meteors and L1 now blasting and blinding everywhere for 5-7 seconds, plus of course all critting.
2. If you like conditions: Cast Glyph of Storms on Self in Earth on cap point, activate Arcane Power, Switch to Fire, self spam AoE’s (lava font, W2, E2, etc) again, fire Arcane Wave for more burning in Fire or save for one more AoE Blind in Air. Each tick of Dust storm from provides bleeding, blind, burning while covering for AoEs.
Etc.
Love me some Elemental Surge. =)

Also, of course forgot:
1. Weapon. Sigil. Just 1, when Every Single Other Weapon/profession combo gets 2-4 weapon sigils, which really do make a huge difference.
More balance needed to fix this. Either somehow add sigil slot, or maybe even some kind of effect on element switch for staff. Maybe like .5-1 second of quickness or something, for those blowing through the elements or actually trying to hit with a skill when they switch.

I get kills, points, n wins with the staff All the Time, don’t get me wrong. But only after mad practice, and only in Sole Que in games where people ignore me raining down chaos on them till it’s too late.

To anyone who disagrees, I first challenge you to AutoAttack duel. You take a staff ele, spec up anyway you want, and I take any class you want with any weapon sets you choose, and we see how our autoattack duel goes, let alone if you ever land a hit besides in lightning before your downed….

Came back after months recently, and still sad to see Staff Ele is useless in PvP.

Been playing the staff ele since day 1, and that auto-attacks especially are horrible. As another poser mentioned, all the staff auto attacks have the lowest dps ratings in the game for the most part. Add this to the fact that aside from Lighting1 they all also constantly miss and fire too slowly on top of the lackluster damage makes them useless.

Since the game came out, people have been calling for some changes, and often in forums, others reply:
“But they are great in WvW, where you hit hordes of players at a time with AoEs…”
Seriously? You mean they Finally work in WvW because there are so many targets you just can’t miss! That’s a terrible justification! They are just running targets in PvP, not matter how you build them. Add to that the fact that the amulet choices make your choices so condensed(Can’t build say, P, Crit%, Toughness), there’s no way to work even a little survivability(remember, you have lower starting health then Every Other Class) into a build and kill something. Even if you forego all survivability, and go into a match with Full Berserker gear etc, some heavily toughed up characters will literally just take your hits with no sign of damage, then smack you once to twice and your down.

“There just not good in 1v1, they do better in group fights” I don’t really understand how one specific weapon happens to be improperly equipped to evenly fight every other weapon set in the game and that’s supposed to be ‘balanced?’….. But by the will of magic, they will suddenly become more useful in these magical large battles in PvP? not how it turns out, unless other pvpers simply ignore you like fools.
If it’s just you and a Staff Ele going 1v1, whatever your class, weapon set, etc, don’t worry, cause it’s not like Staff Magic in this fantasy roleplay universe would be like powerful or dangerous to you in any way.

Well, I signed in recently, and my the PvP zone in my world looks like a ghost town. Funny thing, whatever anyone says, this is a Roleplay Game. It has it’s roots in fantasy, and a huge % of the people that like and invest time/money in a game like this want to play a Classic Old School Wizard with a Staff. Sure people can sign in, choose a warrior/necro/assassin and just wander into PvP first time they’ve ever played, press buttons repeatedly, n kill people. But no one that cares about this kind of game long term stuck around, obviously. Talk about awards n accolades all you want, where is everyone at when i sign into Heart of the Mists? 3 minutes load times, when games take ten minutes? seriously…… LeagueoLeg free to play, looks like crap, has mean player base, still has mad more players at any given minute online.

What’s up Anet? Can’t ignore Ele class, that’s your bread n butter, n silly to do so.
Fix:
Make Fire, Water, n Earth Skills like the scepter attacks where they just hit automatically, not like projectiles, n make a tad faster. Perhaps even just make them tagetable AoE attacks just like the rest of Staff, SO WE COULD AT LEAST HAVE ONE FORM OF SYNERGY IN WHOLE UNIVERSE Leave lightning alone, or at least leave bounce effect. Why? This way, attacks actually hit. Long range Ele pecking at you is at least as effective as other long range staffers/bow fighters etc. this way. Also, KEY: Eles’ have super low health, and again as it stands, with any damage built in at all, they are Ultra-Squishy. At least this way, they have an extra half a second or so before someone figures out where they are attacking from sometimes(I.E – they can’t see the attacks).
Lightning 2 – been terrible since day 1. Unimaginable that an attack could cause blind and high damage and still be terrible, but well, anyone who’s ever played staff knows: just. not. worth. it. Replace this with a push/blowback AoE on self, or a knockdown oldschool GW1 style(or fix Air3 maybe, which is still kittened hard to hit with, compared to say the mesmer sword sweep skill. why is the air skill not the best for blowing people back? Seriously?)
Water 3 n 5 – If my health bar is the size of a Snickers Bar, they should at least do enough healing so that I can see the effect on my peanut-sized healthbar.

An ele with full berserker stats, who is literally so squishy an assassin can appear and down him in (2) strikes should at least be able to pressure people at long range, and maybe even Hit with Auto-attacks, consistently, and they should be doing it with high damage. My Meteors look awfully scary, but plenty of people run right through the meteor shower on a regular basis, and that just ain’t right either.

Funny to see how far off topic everyone got from original post.

Anyone who would argue this point should first accept an Auto-attack duel. You take a staff ele, n other player picks pretty much ANY character/weapon set of your choice, see how it turns out for you. Any character can just walk a little back n forth constantly and never be hit by you.

Been playing the staff ele since day 1, and the OP is 100% correct. As one player in this post mentioned, all the staff auto attacks have the lowest dps ratings in the game for the most part. Add this to the fact that aside from Lighting1 they all also constantly miss and fire too slowly on top of the lackluster damage makes them useless.

Since the game came out, people have been calling for some changes, and often if forums, others reply:
“But they are great in WvW, where you hit hordes of players at a time with AoEs…”
Seriously? You mean they Finally work in WvW because there are so many targets you just can’t miss! That’s a terrible justification! They are just running targets in PvP, not matter how you build them. Add to that the fact that the amulet choices make your choices so condensed(Can’t build say, P, Crit%, Toughness), there’s no way to work even a little survivability(remember, you have lower starting health then Every Other Class) into a build and kill something. Even if you forego all survivability, and go into a match with Full Berserker gear etc, some heavily toughed up characters will literally just take your hits with no sign of damage, then smack you once to twice and your down.

“There just not good in 1v1, they do better in group fights” I don’t really understand how one specific weapon happens to be improperly equipped to evenly fight every other weapon set in the game and that’s supposed to be ‘balanced?’….. But by the will of magic, they will suddenly become more useful in these magical large battles in PvP? not how it turns out, unless other pvpers simply ignore you like fools.
If it’s just you and a Staff Ele going 1v1, whatever your class, weapon set, etc, don’t worry, cause it’s not like Staff Magic in this fantasy roleplay universe would be like powerful or dangerous to you in any way.

Well, I signed in recently, and my the PvP zone in my world looks like a ghost town. Funny thing, whatever anyone says, this is a Roleplay Game. It has it’s roots in fantasy, and a huge % of the people that like and invest time/money in a game like this want to play a Classic Old School Wizard with a Staff. Sure people can sign in, choose a warrior/necro/assassin and just wander into PvP first time they’ve ever played, press buttons repeatedly, n kill people. But no one that cares about this kind of game long term stuck around, obviously. Talk about awards n accolades all you want, where is everyone at when i sign into Heart of the Mists? 3 minutes load times, when games take ten minutes? seriously…… LeagueoLeg free to play, looks like crap, has mean player base, still has mad more players at any given minute online.

What’s up Anet? Can’t ignore Ele class, that’s your bread n butter, n silly to do so.
Fix:
Make Fire, Water, n Earth Skills like the scepter attacks where they just hit automatically, not like projectiles, n make a tad faster. Perhaps even just make them tagetable AoE attacks just like the rest of Staff, SO WE COULD AT LEAST HAVE ONE FORM OF SYNERGY IN WHOLE UNIVERSE Leave lightning alone, or at least leave bounce effect. Why? This way, attacks actually hit. Long range Ele pecking at you is at least as effective as other long range staffers/bow fighters etc. this way. Also, KEY: Eles’ have super low health, and again as it stands, with any damage built in at all, they are Ultra-Squishy. At least this way, they have an extra half a second or so before someone figures out where they are attacking from sometimes(I.E – they can’t see the attacks).
Lightning 2 – been terrible since day 1. Unimaginable that an attack could cause blind and high damage and still be terrible, but well, anyone who’s ever played staff knows: just. not. worth. it. Replace this with a push/blowback AoE on self, or a knockdown oldschool GW1 style(or fix Air3 maybe, which is still kittened hard to hit with, compared to say the mesmer sword sweep skill. why is the air skill not the best for blowing people back? Seriously?)
Water 3 n 5 – If my health bar is the size of a Snickers Bar, they should at least do enough healing so that I can see the effect on my peanut-sized healthbar.

I get kills, points, n wins with the staff All the Time, don’t get me wrong. But only after mad practice, and only in Sole Que in games where people ignore me raining down chaos on them till it’s too late.

Oh, also, POSTER WHO SAID KEEP BUMPING WISE. Keep bumping the posts above for exposure.

Yes. OP nailed it exactly.

Sadly, today is the first time I’ve signed in in about two months. I saw all the updates to Ele weapons, which I was waiting for and am stoked about, and now can’t play until resolved. Suuuuper sad, please fix quick! =(

Yeah, I deposit all collectibles… Like I said, over 100 chests stacked up. How long do you think it would take to salvage all of it piece by painful piece?

Anyone else having this problem? If not, what are you doing instead?

Just wish we could have like an autosalvage feature, or at least take the “Are you sure?” from pvp salvage.

At pvp level 35 right now, most chests give me nothing new, some give me only one piece of armor. So even to open new chests, I must salvage all the extra garbage armor it has given me. This takes so long with the “Are you sure?” that I just don’t bother anymore. I already have more than enough PvP salvage materials (that it seems I can’t do anything useful with anyway). Plus, I’m not a fan of all that crafting jazz, and there’s no way for me to sell all that junk even if i’m willing to get less back doing it quickly like i would in PvE.

Currently I have over 100 PvP unopened win chests stacked up, just sitting there growing dust. =(

“S” moving backwards like I’m talking about = 1 button, 0 camera changes.

‘X’ to turn around (1 button press, 1 camera change), “W” to run, and ‘Y’ (either mouse camera movement or ‘look behind’, another button press and camera change)= 3 button presses, 2 camera changes, while having to hold the run, camera, or look behind buttons – exponentially more complicated and time consuming.

I think. =) Replied to someone earlier, came up with this idea:

In a nutshell:

I do mostly PvP, and feel like condition damage is waaay less effective than direct damage. I play a staff Ele and couldn’t burn and bleed someone to death if my life depended on it. I would point to my original post, but actually have a NOVEL idea that would make all condition builds immediately more effective without actually touching them. GET READY FOR THIS.

Get rid of walking backwards. Boom. Done. If a character just turned and walked towards the screen instead of walking incredibly slowly backwards when you press the ‘S’ key, it would change everything for the better. Think about it…

DoT builds could ‘poke and run’ much more often, making that DoT more important. Unless you ran forward again, your back would be turned to the opponent, so Thief/Ranger/(do you crit automatically from behind?) type stuff where you receive bonuses for that would still be effective, if not more so. Speed buffs like Swiftness and debuffs like Cripple and Chill would also be finally be much more relevant in combat because battles would become a little more linear and less distributed on one spot like they are now.

Fact is now, I can start running in one direction, turn the camera with the right mouse button, and boom, I’m running looking backwards, but it takes too long. Allowing me to run backwards would still expose my back, which makes it fair for the attacker(i’m the retreater here), but allow me take a step back on occasion without having to use up a roll to do so.

What do you think?

I do also like OP’s thoughts though btw.

I have an earlier post on this, see that one if you want detail, but in a nutshell:
I do mostly PvP, and feel like condition damage is waaay less effective than direct damage. I play a staff Ele and couldn’t burn and bleed someone to death if my life depended on it. I would point to my original post, but actually have a NOVEL idea that would make all condition builds immediately more effective without actually touching them. GET READY FOR THIS.

Get rid of walking backwards. Boom. Done. If a character just turned and walked towards the screen instead of walking incredibly slowly backwards when you press the ‘S’ key, it would change everything for the better. Think about it…

DoT builds could ‘poke and run’ much more often, making that DoT more important. Unless you ran forward again, your back would be turned to the opponent, so Thief/Ranger/(do you crit automatically from behind?) type stuff where you receive bonuses for that would still be effective, if not more so. Speed buffs like Swiftness and debuffs like Cripple and Chill would also be finally be much more relevant in combat because battles would become a little more linear and less distributed on one spot like they are now.

Fact is now, I can start running in one direction, turn the camera with the right mouse button, and boom, I’m running looking backwards, but it takes too long. Allowing me to run backwards would still expose my back, which makes it fair for the attacker(i’m the retreater here), but allow me take a step back on occasion without having to use up a roll to do so.

What do you think?

Wanted to add my 2 cents here because I’ve been thinking the same thing recently.

I do all my testing in PvP, mostly tPvP. I’m currently pvp lvl 32, Wolf, and I win fairly often with my staff ele so I feel like i have a fair grasp of what I’m doing.

I always preferred condition builds in GW1, but can’t seem to make one very successful or threatening, at least with the Ele so far.

At last attempt at condition build, I basically did high condition damage (1692) and armor (3010) with low attack/medium crit (2227 / 48%). With this build I’m basically under protection and fireshield non-stop, so anyone i fought was basically burning non stop and usually under 5-14 stacks of bleeding (and of course I keep hitting them with basic attacks, chills, vulnerabil, cripple, etc).

With the amount of extra time non stop Protection and that high armor should afford me, I couldn’t burn/bleed just about anyone to death. Most characters would continue trading attacks with me without even bothering to take the burning off and punk my character out before I could get them below half life. With the extra long time that takes their basic heal is also always ready again, and they finish battle at full life. Especially with all bonus downright poored into condition damage (1692), this seems awfully ineffective.

On the flip side, I can pump up the power and crit, use all my fun trait slots on damage bonuses instead, and just punk out a low armored character in one quick 4-5 second burst, or just apply the same burst to a higher armored character two to three times. Do I like having to finish every battle in under 10 seconds or die? No. Is it effective currently? Yes. As an Ele, I don’t even carry cantrips or all those condition removing water traits, and high crit burst is still the only thing i ever really worry about.

I think the crit thing (because you really can hit 100%) has gotten a tad out of control, and I think the best fix is to raise the condition damage signifiganly, and raise total life some, or something to that extent, because currently Crit death – just too fast and extreme even when it’s only one player spiking, and condition death – just not enough pressure/too slow to actually work.

Again, just my 2 cents, but tested a lot and seems to be the way it is.

I feel, as an Elementalist, we desperately need this. I would like each of my AoEs with each element to be on the same buttons for example with the staff. Anything else is very difficult with the larger amount of keys I have to use now with everything extra that’s going on. And it should be very simple to add a drag and drop. here’s to hoping.