Guild Wars 2

Pyriall.5027:

You should probably use it to make items you already have and then just salvage it again and repeat…at some point, you’ll understand A-net’s plan.

To waste our time and not waste dedicating their scant resources to a failed mini-game?

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

nice!

errr when will the feature patch kick in?

not 18 march 2014 right?

how many months after that?

Well considering that the WVW season 2 is starting March 28, and ending May 30 AND that they have previously said that they did not want to do any balance changes during a WvW season (as that would be too traumatizing for us, or too overwhelming for our tiny brains), this would lead one to conclude:

First Balance Patch = earliest June 6!!!! So soon! (If its ready by then, do not keep your fingers crossed).

Which leads me to wonder… they claim they want a “shaving” approach to balance. Shaving to me leads me to think of many small changes occurring rather frequently. Kind of like… shaving every morning. So to extend that analogy… instead of shaving every morning, this is closer to shaving once a quarter. Granted, I am not a hairy dude, but if I were to try and use my small daily maintenance razor on a monthly basis – I would have one fugly mess of facial hair. So.. why continue the shaving approach when we have only 1 – 2 balance patches a year?

Thaddeus.4891:

Fresh air is a popular build, but its a not good pve build. Its a sPvP build.

- snip -

Scepter/Dagger have a terrible DPS, and should not use as your main weapon in PvE. Right now there is 3 family of build for the Ele PvE.

- snip -

First, true, Fresh Air is a pvp spec, and not terribly useful in pve. Its one of our better pvp specs, but ele in general is rough at the moment in there, relative to the power creep of other classes.

Second, I would counter and say, S/x might not have high sustained damage (unless you count conjure/might stacking builds), but in open world / leveling pve, you don’t need high sustained dps. That only becomes important for things with tons of health, like a boss. For standard exploration / leveling, burst is fine because most stuff is dead by the time you finish one burst rotation. The plus side is that this can also prepare you for might combo fielding/conjures if you want to use that as your dungeon spec.

The reality of course is that anything works in world pve, so I hope that the OP has found some good suggestions in the thread that help him out.

Vash Past.4385:

If conditions/burning were really that useful, why is Berserker build massively prevalent in meta?

Umm, except that berserker is only the “meta” in pve. In pvp its condi-tank all the way….

Best part about ele is that it is hands down the most enjoyable class to play. If you’re used to other mmos where you manage 12+ cds and spells, and like options, than play ele (if you also don’t mind being considered one of the weakest classes out there).

My breakdown:
PVE: Easy in this game, play whatever is fun. Ele is fun, and also does incredibly well in pve, both world and dungeons.

SPVP: Currently faces some difficulties. Because pvp is not competitive in GW2 due to low population, slow updates, and a general lack of focus by Anet, this doesn’t matter too much if you enjoy the class. That being said, the problems with glass eles is generally a properly played thief is a hard counter, low health means you are susceptible to well, everything, but conditions (dots) in particular, and your burst recharges the slowest out of the high burst potential classes. That said, if you land most of it, stuff melts. If you don’t… back off, apply what little pressure you can before really going for it again.

WVW: I don’t enjoy wvw as much, so do this the least of the 2 game modes. (I spend most of my time in the mini-game mode “spvp”). I think we are mostly fine here, zerging is mindless, organized guild groups enjoy staff eles for their aoe and water fields, and there are builds that allow decent roaming. On the plus side, speed boosts are easy for eles, so at least you won’t be slow like a mesmer running around the map.

Harukazee, I would say its most likely largely related to your gear. Lvl 50 gear at lvl 70 is a rather large hindrance. Anytime you are downleveled, your armor stats are as well, by a significant amount. So, lets say you have green lvl 70 gear and get down leveled to lvl 50 – it will be like green lvl 50 gear. If you have green lvl 50 gear and get down leveled to lvl 50, it will be something like having lvl 30ish gear (unsure of the actual math, but its noticeable and painful).

As for the rest, for solo stuff, mobs I pull get hit by stuff I cast. In groups, yeah, it may be slightly different, but not often, don’t know, I don’t have a problem landing my pve spells – small groups or not. Zergs… are zergs, who cares what you land, just aoe anything. (hate zerging…).

This informal census is going well…. So far… 1 NA team in nearly 2 weeks. Sounds pretty accurate to be honest.

In before lock! Grats on realizing its time to move on with your gaming life!

Burjis.3087:

There’s one fix to this map:
Remove it from solo queue rotation!

That’s the only fix.

While I too hate this map, and if for some horrible reason I accidentally soloq and get this by mistake, I just log out.

BUT, the current in-game solution is to just not soloq. Just run teamq (even without a team). The matches are generally better, and to be honest, there are so few real teams, you don’t have to worry about going up against a well-run premade. Put another way, the amount of times that you fight a decent pre-made is far fewer than the amount of times you get this complete failure of a map. (far far far fewer….)

To address your primary concern (why no mesmers/eles in “high” level pvp):

Essentially glass thieves hard counter glass eles and most glass mes. On top of that their burst recharges faster, hits more reliably, and some also bring limited team utility via stealth resses etc…

Its not only a matter of how much damage or mobility an ele or mes has. Its simply that a thief preys on glass classes very efficiently.

Marcos.3690:

PVP is dead (pve manages)

FIFY

silvermember.8941:

According to colin they are more people PvPing now that ever before. The leaderboards only show people that care to leave hotjoin, which a lot don’t.

I suppose hotjoin counts – but only if tallying the total population of anyone that ever sets foot in the spvp part of the mists. Which is to say, it includes a lot of pve-achieve hunters too. So, the total would be artificially inflated, as many of the pve-achieve hunters would not classify themselves as pvpers, and many/some do not even enjoy pvp at all, but feel compelled due to the achievement points (and complain about as much to boot).

Besides, I think the real question here is how many competitive pvpers are there? Let’s take a very loose definition of competitive here – I am not talking about competency, rather the desire to participate in actual tournaments (not soloq/teamq, but something more akin to the early version of the tourneys that had entrance reqs and real rewards). I would say that the competitive pvp population (using this definition) is very low. Which is dangerous, as without a top competitive level, there is little incentive beyond running it for sh*ts and giggles. Which means it is more of a mini-game really…

Sirendor.1394:

When will SPvP close it’s doors?

It already did? The lights are out, and the doors are locked, just so happens they forgot the formal announcement, so some of us are left here wandering around in the dark.

Here’s a question:
Why the aversion to team death-match or something of that nature? I heard once that it was because in early testing they determined it just came down to whichever team blew its elites first… But that clearly is not the case if you take a look at any group fights that occur in current conquest matches….?

Are these meant to be pvp questions or questions just for Allie about herself? Cause… umm, one seems mildly interesting, the other mildly invasive…

Why was pvp turned into a minigame?

Why were the resources used towards creating other mini-games not used towards improving the spvp minigame?

Why the obsession with conquest and only conquest?

evilapprentice.6379:

EnRohbi.2187:

evilapprentice.6379:

infantrydiv.1620:

No. No PvP patches until April.

You better watch yourself sir or you will get an infraction with posts like this.

Arenanet has had just about enough with trolls like you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

Since I have no idea if you’re being serious or not, I’ll just say I was honestly under the impression the patch was supposed to be today. Was that the case, and then it was pushed back? Or was I entirely mistaken?

Both. Kind of.

The patch is on the 18th (Next Tuesday), not today. So you were mistaken on that part.
But the patch next week is only a maintenance patch (See last post). As Anet said some ambiguous things that lead the community to believe the 18th was the feature patch. When they came out and said it was, in fact, not the feature patch people got kittened.

Thanks for the information.

The development time for patches in this game is frankly the worst I’ve ever experienced or witnessed.

Agreed, but careful. Criticism is not tolerated here.

8/10 – mildly amusing, significant haul.

stof.9341:

Actually, all it’d take in sPvP is to remove all amulets and jewels except the Celestial ones as was already suggested quite a few times since the game release

That’s not the solution that came to mind from reading the rest of these suggestions.

Besides, as interesting a limitation like that would be, I wonder on the overall viability. It would certainly gut particular specs, but I suppose that is the point – to encourage new ways of playing the classes. Things like this would be fun for particular custom arenas/limit based tourneys. Those 2 items, however, rely on a healthy competitive pvp population, which is currently below what I consider a desirable level.

Agree with Chuck here… have you ever seen a banner regen warrior in wvw? A friend of mine would go /dance in the middle of siege while being rushed and arrow carted… and come out unscathed. It was unreal… Granted, he did squat for damage, but it was funny as hell to watch. Besides, the issue with warrior HS vs ele healing is that warriors can maintain higher sustained damage + CC while healing a ridiculous amount. And ele that wants to achieve that sustain does far less damage and CC.

Back to the OPs post – pretty funny..

Sorry, I’m still having difficulties visualizing your problem. You say you don’t do enough damage, and are squishy? Well, ele is squishy, but in pve at least, where mobs politely get hit by your full rotations, we do insane damage, while granting ourselves tons of might and fury. Try out what I listed above, and see if that helps (if you’re lvl 70 you could do 30/20/10/0/0). You say you’re “literally using all skills”? Umm, don’t? The idea isn’t to 1-5 each attunement, use the ones you need, and then move on.

I’m confused why this topic is getting attention. The solutions are essentially an overhaul to the core of the game. This is completely outside the realm of financial or physical possibility. Financially, it simply doesn’t make much sense, and physically – ok, you can debate this one, but my faith in the balance team is low.

In fact, if I were to read this, and agree with the premises that:
1) GW1 was more engaging, enjoyable, and balanced, and
2) GW2 requires a near full overhaul to reach that level

then I would have to seriously consider a few options:
1) Revise GW1 graphically (unsure of actual workload for this, may also be unreasonable). Release a new expansion and refocus on a prettier version of GW1
2) Ignore both GW1 and GW2, and start on a new game entirely. Financially it seems GW2 has run its course (for pvp), so ignore spvp, and cater to the remaining playerbase in GW2 – the pvers. Ideally with a minimal investment on high-return items, gem-based vanity items/sets come to mind. ((Oh wait… this sounds familiar…, also not a criticism, it makes sense))

As devoted, and passionate as the devs are, the ultimate decisions for any business are financial (and only occasionally ethical or passion-driven).

Pve you really shouldn’t have any problems. Just be sure you are blasting your fire fields for might. If you want a roaming world spec, try speccing scepter/dagger 30/30/10/0/0

I roam anywhere with it, and have no problems with group pulls, even in Orr. Most stuff is dead in one blast rotation. If you have condis to deal with, swap to ether renewal. On the plus side its close to a meta dungeon build (assuming you want to provide might and fury).

Edit:
- Example rotation for group world pulls: Fire2 (Dragon’s Tooth), Fire 5 under the DT, Fire 3 + Arcane Wave in the Ring of Fire, Swap Earth, Earth 4, Heal, (most stuff is dead by now, if not – Swap Air, Air 2, Arcane Blast on survivors).
- For Skill points, killing vets is simple. Do the same thing as above, most are 90% dead if not fully dead. If there are champs guarding it, or its in an annoying part of Orr, use a focus, and use the focus invulnerability in earth.

There’s a thread somewhere (probably spvp forums) with a dev confirming that Warriors will be able to proc more ‘on swap’ sigils than any other class with the fast hands trait, and he goes on to say something like “they can do pretty amazing things” with it.

I see a few areas you may consider focusing on.

1) Dodges – you blow several useless dodges, and don’t dodge the incredibly telegraphed knockdown by the husk, opening yourself up for quite a bit of damage.
2) You auto-attack a lot… – Ele damage, utility, etc, all come from using our other skills frequently. Additionally, you’re using staff air AA, if you want to AA, do it in fire at least.
3) You don’t blast finish fields – you could heal yourself for much more, chill, apply might, etc… all useful tools to us. Learn your fields and blast finishers in and out – we rely on these in many specs.
4) You also seem to focus on Vets – kill the easy targets first, like all the regular adds you aggro.
5) Review your spec possibly. 30/30/10/0/0 or 30/30/0/0/10 is a nice easy setup for staff.

I am not sure what you are running trait-wise, but consider using a different heal as well. Staff attacks are slow, the signet relies on quick casts for heals. If you have the points for it, the arcane blast finisher is a great heal, especially for staff, as you can drop a water field, and hit your heal to get a blast finisher-heal out of it as well.

I don’t want this to come off the wrong way, and my points above are meant to possibly help you play ele a bit better, but if you are not enjoying it – then perhaps focus on something more in-line with your enjoyment and effort level. Ele is fun for me, precisely because it is slightly more complex. I enjoy having to stance-dance, and pull off combos.

GW2 overall though is an incredibly simple MMO – most classes don’t even have many options beyond auto-attack with the occasional other ability every once in a while, and for many classes AA is simply the best damage option… Which means GW2 gameplay is overly simple – this may lead you to conclude ele is out of place in this situation. Which is true, but thankfully it is, otherwise I’d be bored to tears! I guess, tldr: if you don’t enjoy the complexity, re-focus on a different class.

I appreciate how much effort you put into Mesmers, Chaos, but I am not so convinced on using MoC. It fits a mantra build well, but even then – your burst is weak relative to other classes thieves. Perhaps it fits your lockdown build, but it is an unusual choice – personally I just prefer other utilities, but if it works for you great.

My bigger issue is two fold:

1) Why are your teammates relying on you for stability? Granted, in pug spvp a lot of people fail to bring appropriate stomp-utilities, and indeed forget to stomp in general. But if you are only making the case for pug pvp… well, anything works there to be honest.

2) Mesmers hardly need the additional stability to stomp – Distortion is a great stomp mechanism, and if that’s on cd, you can portal stomp or stealth stomp. Mesmers truly have few difficulties stomping. Portal stomp can even be used by your teammates if they know how, plus it still allows you to bring portal (if that fits your / your teams playstyle).

I just log out when Skyhammer pops. Anet already indicated approval that we could safely do this 4 times every 5 days. Problem solved!

Only missed that that was meant to be the new system – didn’t seem like substantial changes to me. Although I do like the following:

“With gear unification we will also introduce a system that allows players to set goals for rewards in PvP and work towards them. We are not ready to discuss this system in detail yet, as it is still being developed, but more information will come as we get closer to being able to release this system.
Once this new system is in place, glory will be retired as a currency, and gold will be the standard currency across the game. All existing glory vendors will be removed at this time.”

Guess they decided doing it backwards would be better.

Mostly people who ask dangerous questions. Hit ’em hard with censoring, infractions, etc…, and you may come out unscathed.

Look at the pve meta builds in the stickies at the top of the forum. Most are S/F anyhow. Essentially, S/F you would run virtually the same as S/D, just /F is somewhat more defensive (although since you mention healing, less heals too – granted not much, but water 5 dagger is a heal vs. no heals on /f, same number of blast finishers though, just in different spots).

OP, watch out – you are calling out a player (the OP) in your video, may result in censorship and/or infractions.

BryBry.8409:

This thread is not constructive, prepare for impending deletion.

Worse, it has degenerated into bickering! Double lock and more infractions for us all… (dissension is frowned upon, please assimilate your ideas.)

BakiSaN.9281:

Wow This Got Long—What About PvP?
The addition of custom arenas, rated play, leaderboards, and spectator mode have already been big steps for Guild Wars 2 PvP in 2013. Going forward, we’ll continue to work with and support the rapidly growing competitive PvP community with our eyes towards an extremely exciting future as we work towards solidifying the base. We know we have a lot of work to do to continue that momentum and ensure our PvP experience is everything we ever wanted it to be, so what are some of the things we have coming to get there?
The major focus of the PvP team for the second half of the year will be tied to improving the sense of reward in PvP. In the spirit of the high-level strategy listed above for PvE/WvW rewards that ensure players feel rewarded for their time, we’ll need to build systems that achieve the same goals in PvP. Our PvP team will go into more details on these systems once they are further along.
The addition of new skills and traits on a regular basis will of course mean expanded variety of abilities, builds, and tactics in PvP as well. As these additional skills and traits are added, they’ll be automatically unlocked and available for competitive PvP just like all existing skills/traits work today
We’ll also expand the competitive options for game play: providing a queue and leaderboards for solo rated play separate from team rated play, adding new map types, adding the ability to gain legendary weapon skins in PvP, providing additional rewards; and growth to our major competitive PvP tournaments, hosting our own Year One PvP Championship at PAX, and more!

Personally I like “Our PvP team will go into more details on these systems once they are further along.” - apparently half a year later, they still are not further along.

Another great gem: “As these additional skills and traits are added, they’ll be automatically unlocked and available for competitive PvP just like all existing skills/traits work today” - so much for that idea, guess it got kittencanned somewhere in the last few months as they determined this would overwhelm and confuse us.

Of course, this is exactly why they prefer the “say nothing” strategy – prevents us from bringing any ideas they’d mentioned later on and shoving it back at them. It’s the old, “ask no questions, I will tell you no lies” adage.

Secrecy is the best policy here.

Kadin.2356:

Molch.2078:

More particle effects is the last thing this game in general and this class in particular needs.

It’s an art team thing vs a design team thing. Making a quick change should not come at the cost of any bug fixes. If anything this would delay the next town clothes set release by 10 minutes, big wopty-doo.

I don’t think he’s talking about the length of time it takes to implement, but that this game has too many particle effects and over-blown spell/action effects in general making combat unnecessarily cluttered. This is particularly the case in pvp, but also has an effect in larger scale pve. I’d agree with him actually. The ice bow is awesome – casting it freezes the ground, shatters in a puff of ice, and you have what looks to be a rather icy bow left – what’s not to like?

Are you talking pve or pvp?

From the sounds of it I am guessing pve, in which case, we rock… Decent to high aoe damage, good (for pve) defensives, active play-style (which for many eles, including myself = fun) You can play as a long ranged staff ele, just learn to use the crowd controls you have to mitigate damage, and learn to heal yourself not only through the abilities, but also by blasting your water fields. Arcane Wave, and Flame Axe conjures provide easy access to blasts, in addition to those on staff itself. Additionally, might stacking is a great means of boosting your damage, and you should get used to effectively blasting your fields – this is part of what eles do.

For pvp… umm, I love the playstyle, we do great burst, but we are hands down the squishiest things out there, and in spvp if you do not enjoy the high risk-moderate reward playstyle, I recommend trying anything else out.

For wvw… no idea, I hate zerging, and find roaming to pick a fight once every 5 minutes also dull. Someone else will be able to chime in though.

Woah, they didn’t like all the separate threads complaining about their lack of proper communication (or development) and merged them! My bumping of each thread now looks a bit strange….

A while back, I was excited that perhaps pvp would see some much needed focus to improve it, as the combat can be fun at times. LOL, it’s funny to look back at those noob moments!

15/23 of the threads on the first page relate to the upcoming pvp patch! We must all be quite excited to have Glory removed (and nothing added!)!

Sounds pretty revolutionary really, and might finally put an end to the current meta’s dominance.

Destiny.6738:

kylwilson.9137:

Realist.5812:

Proven.2854:

The big pvp patch will happen later.

You mean Soon. ™

When It’s Ready.™

Never.

This guy has an accurate grasp of the Anet development cycle.

Sciva.4865:

I’m confused, wouldn’t this be better to do it in all one big patch? :|

But then you wouldn’t be able to claim to have done 2 (two!) pvp patches in one year!

Thoth Divine.8642:

JonSnow.5610:

The new reward system is down the road, with no real ETA given at this stage.

The discussion is about how ladders/seasons can be implemented effectively and provide sufficient rewards for everyone. Not about the entire new reward system in pvp.

Still, that means we are not getting any new rewards until this new reward system is implemented, which judging from how slowly ANet usually implements stuff for PvP could be anywhere from 3 to 6 months (if not more)…

Sounds pretty accurate actually.

Easy answer: Never! Makes the most sense too!

Kicast.1459:

when not : March
when : I don’t know . stay tuned & hold your breath

Don’t do this! You will pass out if you try, it could be quite dangerous actually.

Expect it “never” and rejoice when you are proven correct!

Eh – why waste resources on changing things for the small vocal minority? Save the resources for people who actually enjoy the game still ! Should scrap pvp entirely honestly, free the servers for more pve, and free the employees to focus on the actual game, not this crap mini-game they never finished developing.

xantosnightwish.5438:

Rallar.2986:

Hence my inquisitive post.. lol

I think 3 months is enough time to give more details.

I totally agree with you, I just wouldn’t be to optimistic for a response if I were you

3 months isn’t enough time for Anet to do anything yet – they are still in the brainstorming / preplanning stage. Keep your expectations low and you will find things work out more often!

Blackwyn.8127:

Does it really mean that the PvP rewards will suffer to being extremely horrible from the 18th March til the proper new rewards will be added? Or am I missing something?

No, I think you’ve got it summarized pretty well actually.

New pvp patch? March 18 they will be changing pvp by removing Glory. We should count that as the one pvp patch they will give us – the rest will be living story / pve. Rejoice! PVP patch soon!

Leeto.1570:

Is game balance a new feature or maintaining current?

Game balance would be a new feature, since we have never had balance in the game previously – hence “new”.

Hope this helps!

NOWHERe

Manage your expectations to avoid disappointment.

Mystogan.4157:

My burst 1 shots thieves, glass else and most rangers. the damage i do amnts to about 20k in total after burst. ive tested numerous times on dummies and on guildies. i start in fire, ring of fire- phoenix behind enemy- dragon tooth- arcane wave-earth attune- earthquake-churning for might. then i switch to ele and burst. at the end i have 12 stacks of might. ill even drop fb if i have it and deep freeze then do aoe. still only goes to 1/4 and then endure pain pops and its back to square one while all of my skills are on cd. ik how to burst and might stack. thats basic stuff.

If you know how to burst and might stack, then you should have no problems either killing the warrior. If the warrior is truly tanky enough to simply bunker down through your burst, then you should have no issues disengaging and resetting.

Regarding your burst, why are you churning earth? Yeah it stacks 3 might after a long telegraphed cast, and during this time you are doing 0 damage to the warrior and letting his heal siggy heal back a lot of the damage you just did. There are times to use it, but simply for the 3 might is often not one of them. Deep freeze is OK mid fight if your opponent is slow enough to eat the freeze, but its a better opener, and again – its another slow cast. You’re just letting the warrior heal back up, and good ones will interrupt the cast or dodge the attack. As for your admission that burst and might stacking is basic, then I do not understand why you are having problems if you find it so basic and are capable of higher level play? You can modify the listed sequence to get more up-front damage out of it, although you sacrifice some might stacks.

I guess the short of it – yes warriors are a hassle with healing signet, but many are readily taken care of. If it’s a true bunker warrior, well, bunkers are meant to bunker – they wouldn’t be much use if they died to one burst rotation of any class, so learn how to adapt your burst to draw out more sustained damage with sporadic burst shots that pressure and draw out his “oh-kitten” skills. Pay close attention to the enduring pains (if they are specced for 2 of them), and just halt all your attacks until it is off. I see a lot of eles (and people in general) burning high damage attacks on a warriors endure pain, or shield blocks, and then of course it is more difficult to deal with them then – your cds are burnt and they aren’t flinching.

Mystogan.4157:

land everything? i did.. i have 10% mod from elec trait, i have 10% mod from water wen health about 90% i have scholar runes. i did arcane blast and arcane wave and i hit my 2 electric while auto-ing and it only got him to 80%. wen i switched to fire he was already healed up.

While I agree the warrior in general is … umm, good, to say the least, especially in the sustain department – I get the feeling you are not running s/d burst chains properly. You listed that you AB, AW, Lit2, and then AA… That’s not going to kill many people period.

S/D burst chain involves might stacking, and using our fire skills followed by a quick Air swap for the double Lit. The sum of the quick casts is our massive burst. So, for example, (there are other ways to run this), dragontooth (won’t hit him, but will make him move – used to blast finish), ring of fire, phoenix, arcane blast (the aoe one, I forget the names), firegrab, air swap, lightning strike, arcane wave (the single target one)… this is one burst. If you are traited for arcane upping your crit damage you can open with the instant single target to increase your crit damage at the start, and 16-20s later it will be ready to fire again. All in all this chain will hit hard while stacking 9 might. He should be seriously hurt after all of this, so you have the upper hand, now keep up pressure using quick AAs (aka, not lightning or fire), to proc as many air swaps as possible until you can burst again, but while doing this, don’t forget your other useful skills, like CCs, and healing yourself. Good luck.

Yeah, this needs to be done – preferably in-game too. Easily done, a simply mail to everyone notifying them of the upcoming glory booster destruction, and a short list of how best to prepare for the change. As of now, it is too vague. I’m also not sure when to use all my pvp Mystic Forge mats by? By the 18th? By later?

Too little information, and too much confusion will just further upset the small tiny population of dedicated pvpers. (yes, you have “internal metrics” showing a lot run spvp, I’m going by the % of resources it seems you dedicate to pvp vs pve.).