Guild Wars 2

avilo.1942:

Don’t uninstall bro just re-roll warrior till the population is 100% warriors, then anet might decide they were wrong.

To be fair Warriors are also getting some hefty nerfs, actual intentional nerfs.

With Ele I have no clue what is going to happen, ANet think they are improving the class but all I can see is crucial traits getting moved deeper into Arcana/Water which we are already locked into in order to avoid getting insta-killed.

Healing Turret + Elixir Gun + Elixir R, there’s your combat medic :P

Also Elixir-Infused Bombs (Inventions XI) is getting a 50% healing scaling buff, combined with the recent bomb radius increase that could be really nice.

The class works in PvP and it’s always an “L2P” issue, but you need approximately 2-3x better skill and timing compared to your opponent or you will get flattened by literally any other class in SPvP.

Elementalist is a PvE/WvW class right now, most of their abilities were designed to fight enemies staying still or moving slow in straight paths. Almost all weapon skills are so massively telegraphed that anyone can see them coming from a mile away. Staff abilities are even funnier, relying largely on creating fields that act mostly as an idiot-test of “I wonder who will sit still in this?”.

All the damage that Ele can do in PvP while frantically running around, expertly landing hits and mashing attunements…I can just as easily do with my rifle autoattack as an Engineer while standing still from 1200 range, watching all my attacks auto-guide themselves to the target.

Elementalist requires a lot of thought, a lot of proactive/reflex-based timing and a ton of skill to pull off with the clunky double-layered cooldown attunements and ANet’s “jack of all trades, master of absolutely nothing” approach.

I do not recommend playing it unless you are interested in an extremely difficult and frustrating learning curve while still performing sub-par to any other class, as you’ve already been told by some of the ele-elitists here.

1) I don’t see how Ele’s still won’t be locked into Water/Arcana in order to be viable at higher levels of play. Ele’s didn’t just pick Arcana for the faster attunements, they picked it for Evasive Arcana. Water wasn’t just chosen for cleanses, it’s because it helped boost our tiny health pool and went well with Arcane. Playing a glass Ele still involves getting killed in ~1 second so it’s pretty much go Arcane/Water or go home.

2) Love Blasting Staff getting moved to Adept, but overall Staff is still miserable compared to Scepter/Dagger of Scepter/Focus due to it’s very design and abilities – the only way Staff works is if the targets are kept immobilized/stunned in Lava Fonts and Meteor Shower. The moment anyone actually notices the Ele and goes for him, the Ele will die beacuse staff has very few tools to deal with incoming enemies/damage not to mention it’s all locked-down into attunement cooldowns.

3) 13 sec CD baseline between attunements is still too long considering my Engineer has on-demand access to his full range of abilities – mh/oh abilities, Toolkit, Grenade Kit, that’s 15 abilities right there with no cooldowns separating them! But despite that they are not overpowered, very balanced. So it’s fine for Engi to have instant access to so many abilities but not fine for Ele’s, a class that is DEPENDENT on rapidly switching between attunements in order to be effective? What gives? It’s utterly pointless to have a double-layered cooldown system like that considering the class revolves around 20 abilities + 4 attunements and is just a button-mash-fest.

Do you not have ANY condi cleanse? Condi engi’s have 2 poison sources which will keep stacking the longer the fight goes on.

Seems like a nice idea as an optional mode.
But I personally wouldn’t play it because it puts far too much focus/importance on individual performance, resulting in people using only their most powerful 1v1 builds.

Matches will often boil down to which class/build counters the other class/build….I mean what happens when you run into a guardian super-bunker, how are you supposed to capture the point on your own if he gets there first? The better ones can tank 2 people at once for extended periods of time.
Also if you end up with even 1 newbie (or inexperienced player) on your team then you’re in trouble, that’s 33% of your team.

5v5 is a good balance between individual player skill and having the leeway to carry newbies or use sub-optimal/support-based builds.

We ran into a 5 mesmer team the other day. Our team didn’t even stand a remote chance lol, it was just a complete mess of 5-10+ clones at every point, when they got together it was like 20+ clones.

PlagueParade.7942:

What’s “simply unbelievable” is that you won’t even try. I’ve been in the same boat as you plenty of times but, hey, I’m no quitter and I’ve even won a couple times in a 4v5. It’s called learning tactics. Coordinate with your teammates. Stick in groups of 2 or zerg it. Have a 3 man group cap areas to draw people in and the 4th cap another area or vice versa. I’ll play to gain even a small amount of glory rather than nothing at all. At the very least I can try and gain some experience with multiple people attacking me and I occasionally take one down before being taken out myself. In almost every case, yea the four man group will lose but like I said, I’ve won a handful of times too. How do you think you’re going to get better sitting up there or staying dead on the ground? You think you don’t get killed by multiple people in a 5v5 while your by your lonesome capping an area or taking an orb?

What I do not need are defeatist people like you who whine about it and decide to quit making it worse for the rest of us who TRY to win even if the chances are small. So if someone in my group acts like you I’ll report you as a bot as the dev suggested. I’m here to play pvp not sit on the sidelines bemoaning my bad situation.

The only one moaning here is you. I don’t moan in 4v5’s, I play another game.
Feel free to go crazy with your “tactics” and valiant bravery getting nowhere and repeatedly dying.

For me PvP is about fairness and balance first, all that other stuff later.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Fix’d for ya. Even in a 4v5 nothing is certain, giving up when the odds are stacked against you is weak IMO.

It’s not about weakness or strength, it’s about being logical. It’s true nothing is certain, but what IS certain is that ANet still hasn’t found a solution to 4v5’s.

You guys probably enjoy the “challenge” of being outnumbered, but I do not.

PlagueParade.7942:

Is there a way to report people that intentionally do not play because their team is either losing or there’s an afker\ D/Cer (or other various reasons) in the team? Cause on occasion we have this and it gets rather annoying that they stop b/c they’re going to lose. I mean at the least they could fight for the extra glory points you can accumulate while fighting if anything else.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Until we get a report option for being AFK, I suggest just report them for botting.

Evan Lesh, are you serious??? I cannot believe this.
So ANet will take action against someone who chooses to AFK due to being on the losing end of a 4v5 (or 3v5) scenario? It’s a waste of time if they play, there is NO OPTION TO RESIGN/LEAVE and the outcome of the match has already been DECIDED. In a 5v5 I always try my absolute best to win, but in a 4v5 I have zero motivation to leave the starting area.

To someone who has faced countless 4v5’s and is completely sick of it, it’s a very tall order to tell them to play that round just for a tiny bit of glory. You know, putting aside the fact how difficult it is to score any points because whenever they try to kill someone (or cap a point), multiple enemies show up and they’re quickly outnumbered.

After facing endless 4v5 scenarios it’s incredibly infuriating at this point that ArenaNet still hasn’t done anything about it…and if you really accept “reports” of people who AFK just because the battle was already lost to begin with, then frankly I am left speechless. Treating them on the same level as botters…unbelievable.

That’s about as polite as I can get in my response to both you and PlagueParade.

Simply unbelievable.

Speaking as an Engineer who equips Rifle + Toolkit + Battering Ram the moment I see Skyhammer queue pop up…..that map seriously needs to go.

Positioning DOES NOT MATTER when I can magnet-pull someone from 1200 range and then blast them off a nearby ledge before they even know what the hell happened. If they’re busy fighting (which they often are) it’s very easy to catch them with a surprise pull/knockdown onto breaking-glass areas…if it’s broken they instantly fall to their death, if it’s not broken then simply immobilize/stun them on that spot and that’s the end of them.
Thief can do something similar with Scorpion Wire and you can’t even see it coming since they can do it from stealth. Warrior/Necro can simply fear you off a ledge.

What’s this BS about positioning? Some classes have a blatant advantage over other classes on this map, plain and simple. There is no excuse for this map to exist.

Take slow steps forward when nerfing and then observe how it impacts the overall meta. But at least do something...I know ANet is being careful, but there’s a limit to that. People are leaving PvP at a rather alarming rate.

Also instead of moving forward, only sideways steps have been taken so far regarding most of the things that are plaguing PvP for a very long time.

I’m just going to list one of the many examples of getting nowhere with sideways steps: Thanks for buffing Ele conjures and staff. But neither of those was even REMOTELY relevant to the issues that class is facing in SPvP:
1) Having only ~10-20 loose trait points after being forced into 30 Arcane + 10-20 Water
2) Being forced to tale Cantrips (with ridiculously long cooldownss on the cantrips themselves) in order to avoid dying in a single stun, immob, knockdown or fear. All other slot skills might as well not be there.
3) The only other option is to play Fresh Air kamikaze builds, but (unlike Thieves and Mesmers) have no reliable escape/evasion and simply get exploded the moment anyone looks at them funny or catches them in a single CC with cantrips on cooldown.
4) This is all made even worse thanks to the class requiring by far the most skill to play, with 20 abilities + 4 attunements resulting in TWO LAYERS of cooldowns. All other classes can put out just as much damage, survivability and utility with ~3-5 weapon skills.

Has anything changed for 4v5?
Because usually when I end up in a 4-man (or 3-man) team we have a near-zero chance of winning anyway. Since I can’t leave the match or forfeit, why shouldn’t I alt-tab out of GW2 and play something else for the match’s duration?

Attempting to win a 4v5/3v5 is just be a waste of time, and nobody likes having their time wasted.

Oceania has it’s own queue…?

Take Lava Tomb (Fire 10-point trait), you’ll be spending a lot of time in downed state with air+berserker builds. A glass-cannon Thief/Mesmer/Engineer can basically kill you in 2 seconds flat if you’re not careful.
Oh and avoid 1v1 situations against Necros, Hammer/Longbow Warriors and Spirit Rangers. Those are top-tier classes right now.

You’ll want to stick with your team as much as possible unless you’re VERY confident in perfectly timing all your abilities, attunements and dodges.

Oh and I hope you don’t lag or anything. Playing Ele while living in far-away countries (e.g. Oceania) with delays = don’t bother.

Bsgapollo.5364:

Elementalists didn’t get jack kitten last patch. Conjures are still kittening useless and they nerfed mist form even more by making it a non-capture point contribution. in the end, we got nothing while other classes got buffed.

Not true, Staff is super awesome now. If you go 30/20/0/0/20 build and convince the entire enemy team to stand still in a 10 yard circle and completely ignore you, it’s possible to Lava Font + Meteor Shower them to death!
Also we have the highest damage while downed with Lava Tomb.

See, if enemies stop moving/attacking then Elementalists are incredibly powerful, especially with staff.

Why can’t people see this.

It’s so obvious.

Full-crit build brings the most out of Rifle. Generally you’re going to have 30 in Firearms, 30 in Tools, Berserker’s amulet and crit-oriented runes e.g. Scholar.
In Firearms pick Rifle-oriented traits to maximize range/damage/cooldowns (can also pick Sitting Duck for weakness stacking with Rifle 2).
In Tools you pick Static Discharge, and something out of Speedy Kits, Scope, Power Wrench or Adrenaline Implants.
The remaining 10 points can either go into Explosives (Incendiary Powder) or Alchemy (Invigorating Speed, with Speedy Kits you can have permanent Vigor!).

For slot skills take Med Kit, Rifle Turret, Toolkit and something out of Utility Goggles, Grenades or Battering Ram depending on you. I personally prefer Utility Goggles, puts a 15-stack Weakness on enemies right off the bat and the 20sec Fury + Blind immunity ensures maximum sustained damage.

Basically engage the enemy from maximum distance, unload all toolbelt skills and use Rifle 2 and 4 smartly to CC enemies. Also remember Rifle 5 does a ton of damage if you land on enemies, you can also use it to get away or jump large gaps. This build can do some of the highest long-range burst in the game.

If you get into trouble you can use Toolkit 4 (3 sec block), Toolkit 3 also hits hard and applies 5 stacks of confusion. Oh and Toolkit 5 is a 1200 range pull…hilarious on Skyhammer or pulling enemies off capture points.
Speaking of pulling people, it’s possible to “displace” someone to a completely different location using Tookit 5 (1200 pull), Rifle 2 (immobilize), get behind them, Battering Ram (450 knockback), Rifle 3 (450 knockback). They’re now 2100 units away from where they initially were, or in Skyhammer’s case they are dead

It’s a very fun build but look out for Thieves, Necros and Mesmers! They can kill you very quickly if you’re not careful.

GL

1) Why is Ele even in that chart? Any respectable 5-man team will AVOID bringing an Ele.

2) Lets assume an Ele got brought anyway. How is he able to have an “even chance” (two-sided arrow) against anything 1v1 with Valk and 20 air / 20 water / 30 arcana? I’m also assuming it’s a full-Cantrip build? Damage and pressure is going to be absolutely miserable, nobody should ever be dying to that. A Warrior, Thief or Mesmer should have no trouble killing ANY Ele build.

3) Basically you should never send an Ele to cap a point alone if an enemy is there. You shouldn’t even have that class on your team if you’re serious about winning.

Currently I hate to have an Ele on my team, I would rather see them on the enemy team because they barely do anything.

Ele’s either use that awful Fresh Air build which dies instantly the moment anyone sneezes in their direction, dying so easily to autoattacks, random AoE splash damage, conditions, anything.
Or they’re that water+arcana “bunker” build with about half the survivability of a REAL bunker (warrior or guardian) and putting out absolutely terrible damage/pressure.

Ele players, I know you like how the class handles (15+ buttons/cooldowns, lovely), but please stick to PvE or WvW. Currently you have no role or purpose in SPvP.

If you must play then roll a Warrior or Thief, they take only a few minutes to learn and you will be VERY effective.

redslion.9675:

In spvp there isn’t a straight line longer than 1200, I guess, so it’s not that great.

But yeah, the skill is kinda clunky, the range should be fixed, as the chance to interrupt it.

Doesn’t have to be a dead straight line, can have drops/etc. Pretty much every map (even Skyhammer) has areas where long-range moves come in very handy for getting away or chasing people down. Especially Forefire and Niflhel.
Engi Grenades have 1500 range traited and I’ve found myself genuinely using that kind of range quite often

That’s it. I’m done. Roughly 30% of my matches are over before they even start, it’s by far the biggest deciding factor in all my matches and I have zero control over it.

Thread after thread after thread has been made…filled to the brim with hundreds of player suggestions, taking excellent ideas from other games, and none of them have been implemented. Absolutely none.
And then a staff member came and responded “so what do you want us to do?”. I almost cried when I read that, oh dear lord.

I don’t know how constructive I can make this thread, but for the love of god ANet…it has been 1 year and 2 months since this game released and the PvP community humbly awaits a fix to one of the most rampant issues in the game right now. What’s the point of class balance and PvP incentives if so many matches are over before they begin? 1 person can ruin the match for 9 other people.

PLEASE don’t pretend there aren’t solutions. There are many, dig through the threads and look at other games. The ball is in your court.

Till then I’m not even going to bother queuing…this is just not fun.

Dee Jay.2460:

This is roughly accurate according to my experience. But I don’t see much you can do about it. They already give players more than enough time to turn up. In fact that 2 minute wait before each match is probably why people afk.

I guess they could punish everyone who has 0 points by the end of the match.

Or they could put in an AFK reporting system that kicks players if they don’t resume activity within 1 minute, and multiple kicks = 24 hour ban. Simple?

I can’t understand why so many people keep saying “ANet can’t do anything about it”. ANet can do a LOT about it. Even Blizzard (World Of Warcraft) do something about it.

FlamingForce.6389:

And how exactly will this reporting tool not get abused?

Easy, just do it how WoW Battlegrounds does it:
1) Player gets reported AFK by their teammates
2) Player gets a message “you have been reported AFK, please resume activity within the next 60 seconds”.
3) If player remains AFK, they get kicked and punished accordingly
4) If player resumes activity or they were never AFK to begin with, they will be immune to being reported AFK for the rest of the match (or at least 5 minutes to avoid report-spam).

Simple. In fact the game already has a similar message for disconnecting idle players from the server: http://i.imgur.com/EeqT21A.jpg

FlamingForce.6389:

I’d rather get a personal blacklist to keep me from getting put into teams with certain players.

Lol, now THAT would be abused because anyone you considered a newbie (or you didn’t like) would end up on your blacklist. Within a few months literally HUNDREDS of players will be on each others’ blacklists and it would become harder to form teams. Eventually forming teams will become impossible (or we’ll have 1 hour queues) and solo PvP will be dead in the water.
Nice idea.

Brigg.6189:

Ele can do top tier burst with s/d air build, but with low survivability. I don’t have any links to guides for that build, but you might be able to search for it.

Yup, I found a few guides. S/D air build has “nice burst” but it’s nothing compared to what the top-tier burst classes can do (Mesmers, Thieves, etc). I’m also a free kill for anyone who even coughs in my direction. Necros, Warriors, Thieves and Engineers can kill me without even trying.

I thought I just sucked at Ele, but then I read that PvP Class Tier thread where everyone ranked Ele at rock bottom 99% of the time (with no other class as bad as them). So I’m not alone in thinking that Ele’s literally have zero use in PvP right now….besides being a free kill.

Sticking with my Engi and Guardian for now, at least I can be a help to the team and help win rounds.

SpehssMehreen.5897:

If people are away or disconnect or simply refuse to play even if theyve marked themselves ready, then theres little arena net can do about that

That’s nonsense and you know it. There’s only so many times people can have accidental disconnects, the rest either AFK on purpose or simply give up/ragequit around shortly into the round.

A simple reporting feature would go a LONG way towards marking repeat-offenders. A message should pop up “you have been reported AFK and will be kicked in 1 minute unless you do any action”. Any action will remove that message.

If you get reported + kicked multiple times = 24 hour ban.

Ele’s are free kills in PvP. There is absolutely no reason to play one because every prof can do their job twice as well as them.
It’s literally impossible to kill even semi-bunker builds, and at the same time you get insta-killed during any kind of CC.
As a wise man once said, “what’s the point”.

I’d love to discuss class balance issues, but currently a THIRD of matches are over before they even begin.

Is ANet planning to do anything about this in the coming months? I feel it’s too late considering how tiny the PvP community has become.

Feature not a bug o_O

Hi guys, sort of new to Solo Queue PvP. How do I report AFK players?

I think I just had 4 rounds in a row which we automatically lost due to AFK players on our team, some of them were repeat offenders. There appears to be no penalty/punishment for going AFK and no system to auto-boot AFK’s.

What’s the point of playing if my matches are getting decided like this?

Also off-topic I think something is horribly wrong with me, because I can’t even put out a fraction of the burst with my Elementalist as I can as Engineer/Thief and I seem to get wrecked so easily. Probably an L2P issue but I seem to be vastly more effective with any other class.

That was a fast response! Yes I found the NPC below deck (Professor Gorr, that story marker was hard to see alright :P). Also I don’t remember having to talk to him on my Norn Ele…or maybe things are slightly different depending on race/prof…or maybe my memory is playing tricks on me again

Anyway, thank you! Fixed now.
Wintel

Hi there, I’m currently leveling my 2nd character (Engi) and I’m stuck in my personal story called “Retribution”.
From what I did on my Ele, I know that the asura holding that box (Agent Zott) starts and then I escort him up to the tower killing stuff.
But now he’s just standing there, not doing anything. I can’t talk to anybody, I can’t find ANY way to get the mission started! My quest log just says “Join the Assault Force at Claw Island”. That’s it. Nothing on the map, no pointers, nothing. All mobs are invulnerable, the gate to the main courtyard is blocked by huge spikes. See these screenshots to see what I’m talking about:

http://i.imgur.com/4BT4lKS.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/cS7IRpg.jpg

Is there any way to reset these kind of story bugs? I’ve tried re-logging, zoning into other areas and then coming back, etc. Nothing has worked.

Thanks,
Wintel