Guild Wars 2

When will people stop making threads “Nerf every class but mine please”
Mesmers are fine. They are CLONES for a reason, they are intended to deceive your opponent, making them blatantly obvious (like they aren’t already?) is beyond stupid.

Mesmers are already extremely easy to spot, but regardless.. yes I would imagine this needs a fix.

The Kurt.2518:

The rewards are more than enough, if you’re playing PvP you’re supposed to do it for fun, getting rewards (about one reward per game, that’s a lot!) is just a bonus and some incentive for people to try PvP out in the first place

Couldn’t the same be said about PvE though?

You also get silver for participating in SPvP now, I think you forgot about that?

My Sword #5 phantasm crit for 8.3k earlier, was pleasantly surprised.

That being said, what is Smoke Bomb anyway? never heard of it o.O

This happened to me today.
I was on my Mesmer and a Condition Warrior was on me, I had something like 797 health left and out of nowhere I went back to 20k health after a daily complete. It was pretty funny, but I can imagine how he felt.

level 12 costs like 2g doing 400 chef. Plus, I don’t think the missing armour does make a difference.
Also, getting 20 skill points is super easy aswell. You get scrolls very common from the boxes with the new reward track, if not champion bags from farming.

MM is extremely easy to play because of how bad the target system is in this game.

Would be nice to see 1s awarded per rank per win. 50s/lose.
So rank 80 = 80s win, 40s loss.

Lopez.7369:

No, it’s impenetrable as any condition build. Double regeneration and Signet of Restoration completely outheal direct damage from condition builds.

Then get one of the other 4 people in your team to hit them.

I made a long reply to this but I got an internal error and lost my post =.=

So..

Mesmers are better in WvW/SPvP in my opinion, Time Warp, reflects and portal are really useful. I’d say they do much more damage aswell.

Elementalists are definitely a lot harder to play.

Mesmers are probably the most tedious to level though, phantasms are most of your damage and they don’t really get good to higher levels. Great at 80 though.

10 month old gravedig.

I’m playing zerky phantasm build in SPvP at the moment and it’s pretty amazing.
People tend to throw “Nerf” and “OP” around loosely though. It’s fine.

Mesmer is probably the worst to level since most of their damage comes from phantasms, and you don’t get any significant buffs until you’re a higher level.

That being said, Mesmers are amazing at 80. They have great utility and their damage is insane.

Zerk gear with phantasm build and you do incredible damage.
I’m playing Zerk in SPvP at the moment, and Sword #5 Phantasm crits 8k’s on squishy, and it hits every few seconds.

Pteor.6421:

Watch lots of video. WvWvW or Spvp, doesn’t matter. I can’t stress enough how important this is for the harder classes like Thief and Ele. Specifically, watch for skill combos, attunement priorities, and when to use important cooldowns.

This is what I run for D/D SPvP as a fairly new player and I have a fine time with it usually. Some games when I run into a very good thief or ranger I’ll be forced to just run from them, but almost any other matchup is possible.

If water attunement isn’t on cooldown and you aren’t full health, you’re doing it wrong. The heal from F2>2>5 with dodges as necessary (proccing EA for more heals) is quite huge, and it removes enough condis that you shouldn’t need to worry too much about them.

Focus on the capping, not the kills. If you wait around a corner where the guy can’t see you until he leaves, you cap the point faster than if you charge in immediately and fight him. And you live, so that’s good too.

The hardest part of Ele is remembering everything you have available to you. This is what’s keeping me from learning S/D and Staff, because the crowd control that lets them survive is just so hard to keep track off.

Well.. I had a level 20 or so Thief back from when I first started that I crafted to 80 maybe a month or two ago. I bought FULL zerk gear and jumped in WvW. I picked it up right away, even to this day I’ve barely died. They have tons of escape, survivability and ofcourse damage. Elementalist on the other hand.. I’m really struggling to better at.

Azingly.2064:

I have found success in hotjoin pvp and solo arena pvp by running d/d strength runes and a zerker trinket (start with knights or soldiers if your not comfortable with a low hp pool). Running 0/4/0/4/6 taking:
Zephyrs boon and bolt to the heart in air
Cantrip mastery and cleansing wave (think thats what its called) in water
Invigorating precision (vigor on critical hit) Elemental attunement (boon on attunement swap) and evasive arcana. Apologies for any incorrect names.
The true challenge with ele and why its such a loved class with a dedicated playerbase is because the class is difficult and requires skill. No build will give you experience so just practice and experiment in hotjoins and tweak the build until it suits you. Elementalist is a naturally difficult class that you wont get the hang of immedietly. As for why your dying or forced to run away think of what is happening. Are you dying to conditions? Try taking ether renewal or cleansing the conditions before fighting. Dying to raw damage? If you are taking that much damage with tanky stats they are probably glass and you should turn on then try to kill them before they kill you. A good combo to get you started would be air: ride the lightning, updraft (target is on the ground), shocking aura, fire: burning speed (can be combined with lightning flash when your comfortable to stack the flames under them), ring of fire, get some distance between you and the enemy; 500 units or the distance of a norn lying down on the ground, fire grab, then either go into water and use frozen burst for the blast finisher or earthquake (groundpound!) in earth to stack might.
Goodluck. Post back with any other issues so that we may adress them!
Edit: i run mistform, arcane shield and lightning flash on utilities. Tornado skill 3 can keep enemies off a point long enough for allies to come or for you to de/cap it.
Try trlling us what your running so far in terms of weapons traits, runes, sigils and trinkets. ^^

I believe that’s very much similar to what I use at the moment.
I feel forced into using X X X 6 4 (spare traits I move around alot) at the moment.
Condi clearing is fine, I just feel like I’m constantly being forced into Water Attunement to heal and then I don’t do any damage within that.

I guess it’s a case of continual practice..

Hi folks,

I’ll begin by saying I mainly SPvP & WvW. I have an 80 Mesmer, Guardian, Warrior, Necro & Thief currently. My Elementalist is level 42, however with the latch patch I’ve moved into playing SPvP much more often.

As it stands, Elementalist is the one class I really want to play out of all I have. Though, it’s the only one I can’t seem to do well on at all. I know there’s a difficult learning curve, however.. I’m looking for tips from you guys to point me in the right direction.

I like to think I’m fairly competent in PvP with the rest of my characters and can do well when I put the effort in. Elementalist on the other hand leaves me frustrated, because when I do try.. I still seem to get close to no results.

The only thing I’m capable of doing on Elementalist at the moment is escaping fights and healing. I feel like I’m forced to go full heal/survivability or full damage. I’ve tried mixing the both, but can’t seem to grasp it at all.

So yes, could anyone give me some tips you think would help a newbie Elementalist?

Appreciated.

Get 400 cooking, at level 2 you get +10 levels and it only costs a couple of gold.

There’s bound to be some 8v8 custom arenas.
Also, just join a match and spectate until there’s an open slot. If you don’t get an open slot, then you should definitely get a free slot at the beginning of next game. Not a big deal in my eyes.

I played full zerk Thief before patch with 10 30 30 0 0.
After patch I’m still using full zerk but with 30 10 30 0 0.

If I’m being completely honest, yes my DPS MAY be less (I haven’t properly checked yet) but I’m still getting great burst. still hitting 6k Cloak and Dagger, 8k+ backstabs. I’m more than happy to continue roaming on it.

With the new grandmaster trait in the Deadly Arts line, I get 3.3k~ power when I backstab from stealth and for a few seconds after. Still hitting for near 3k auto attack on dagger aswell.

I was really looking forward to coming home from work to see all the lovely updates, been several hours since I got home and still nothing. Making me sad.
Looks like another slow day at work tomorrow.

Yes, i’m that sad.

Personally I think you should be allowed to ressurect while in down state if you kill someone (or finish them like currently). However, I don’t think you should be allowed to heal. If you’re not playing a Thief (even as Thief sometimes) it can be difficult to stomp someone because healing them is so kitten fast.

Takes an eternity to get a decent sum of cash from WvW, and even then.. you’re stuck with 1 stat set. They try to encourage build diversity but spending months and months of time to try and get best in slot gear only for it to work with few builds (if not only 1).

Wasn’t this only recently added with one of the patches though?
I think it came out with the EoTM patch.

This really doesn’t make much sense to me.

If you’re that worried about not helping your party, then how does not playing WvW at all help?

What’s the real meaning behind this thread?

They need to remove the 5 player limit on AoE. That’s why people stack up.
Stacking reaps the benefits of granting allies AoE buffs, but incoming AoE attacks only hit 5 people. So, it’s easy just to hope you don’t take any damage and stay stacked to keep being buffed.

Until they fix that, it will always be lagfests and zergs spamming autoattacks.

This is exactly why I choose to roam.

If you are perma stealth you don’t have initiative to kill anyone, and your utilities will be on cooldown. What’s the issue?

I’d like to see chests awarded for holding a structure after the contested timer runs out. The only thing is though, that could easily be farmed as many people just contest them to pull enemy towards it.

I’d like to see maybe double or triple WvW XP from killing players within X radius of the structure.

I’d also really like the ability to dump your supply into structures as it takes a very long time to upgrade like you said, only for it to be taken in mere minutes. Even longer to upgrade if a zerg comes and kills your Dolyak.
Being able to run the supply from camps to structures and dump them in ourselves would be an excellent patch in my opinion.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

One very effective Psychological tactic to use is juking. Thieves are a king of juke moves.

One thing I some times do is drop an SR and shadow step away from it to create a gap. Some times I drop SR to force an Elementalist to cast AoE on it so I can sneak behind them while they are channeling their skill.

To make them think that I’m staying inside SR and see them blow all their knockbacks but nothing is coming out is priceless.

You lose stealth if you leave SR early.

a t s e.9614:

Why there’s such a huge imbalance between sets with the thief, D/P is a good weapon set but the rest is terrible. Well S/P isint that bad but again its more for team fights rather than 1v1. I mean lets face it, D/D is pretty bad you miss 1 CnD and you’re dead, Im not even gonna talk about pistol, the damage cant even kill an Afk warrior with Healing signet, Whats left is S/D which still has a rather low DPS for such a squishy class.Whats the point of doing sustained damage on a thief?

So thats just my opinion , being pigeon holed into 1 build is extremly lame. Im mainly talking about Spvp by the way.

This is all wrong.

Just because you don’t like the other weapon sets, or you’re not very good with them, doesn’t make them “terrible”.

I can play D/D and S/D equally as well as D/P (and D/P is extremely easy in my opinion).
This is a matter of opinion and not fact.

I wouldn’t really say this is insane might stacking.

You can do better using Hidden Assassin (2 stacks every stealth for 17~ sec)
Combined with Orrian Truffle if you wish.

Superior runes of the Noble are also excellent for Condition builds.
+40% might duration and you gain 3 stacks of might every time you use heal skill (10 sec CD) which works wonders with Withdraw.

Something like this
So much might stacking it’s great.

Any MMO -or online game for that matter- has Elitists. They like to try and prove they are better than everyone else. If you’re using something that’s easier than what they are using, you’re automatically “bad”.

Play what you like, someone saying “you shouldn’t play X” is beyond stupid. It’s in the game, it’s intended to be used. If you want to use it, then use it.

Don’t let people like that bother you, if anything you should pity them for being so self obsessed.

Clear.8512:

There is nothing they can do. The people that have the free time during the devblog will always have an advantage over you. If they closed the TP and opened it in..8 hours. There would still be an advantage of people who log on before others do. There is no possible way to have every active GW2 player in existence log in at the same so its fair.

Even then..advantage to the smaller servers who don’t lag out. No matter what would be done…it will be unfair in some way or another.

if they refunded the duplicate Dyes opposed to Unidentified Dyes it wouldn’t be as much of a problem.
There’s far more people who bought cheap dyes to profit from, opposed to people who would have Abyss (for example) refunded.
The reason the likes of Abyss and Celestial etc are among the priciest dyes is because of their rarity and good looks. That isn’t going to change with the update, and so will still remain the priciest dyes on the TP. I can’t imagine they’d have changed too much if they deed indeed refund dyes.

If not that, then they could atleast award these new transmutation points (or whatever they are called) for each dye we would be refunded. Obviously getting more points depending on rarity of dye.

mtpelion.4562:

Zach.3264:

Maybe not losing anything directly, but I spent the money to have multiple dyes across my characters, now everyone gets that free.
Not only that, but people who were able to get online first also managed to make hundreds if not thousands of gold from the cheaper blue dyes on the TP.

You still aren’t losing anything. They are gaining stuff and you are gaining stuff. Any negative emotions you have are the result of comparing what you are gaining with what they are gaining. Focus only on what you are gaining and you’ll be happier, especially since what they are gaining has absolutely NO impact whatsoever on you or your ability to enjoy the game.

Again though.. I paid for the privilege of having the top tier dyes across multiple characters. Now everyone gets it free.
It’s somewhat disappointing that I only get a measly Unidentified Dye in return.

mtpelion.4562:

Zach.3264:

mtpelion.4562:

You are looking at this the wrong way.

If you have an Abyss dye on 2 of your 5 characters you are not losing 1 Abyss dye, you are gaining 3 free Abyss dyes and 1 Unidentified Dye.

How so?

Have I completely misread the changes page (and the rest of my guild it seems)

From what I understand, I was losing all duplicate dyes, and having them replaced with Unidentified ones?

You aren’t losing anything, you are gaining an Unidentified dye for each dye you have more than one of unlocked already.

Every dye you have unlocked so far will become account unlocked. If you have an Abyss unlocked today, then on April 15 you will be able to use Abyss on ALL of your characters. If you have Abyss unlocked today on 2 characters, then on April 15 you will be able to use Abyss on ALL of your characters AND you will get 1 free Unidentified Dye.

Maybe not losing anything directly, but I spent the money to have multiple dyes across my characters, now everyone gets that free.
Not only that, but people who were able to get online first also managed to make hundreds if not thousands of gold from the cheaper blue dyes on the TP.

mtpelion.4562:

You are looking at this the wrong way.

If you have an Abyss dye on 2 of your 5 characters you are not losing 1 Abyss dye, you are gaining 3 free Abyss dyes and 1 Unidentified Dye.

How so?

Have I completely misread the changes page (and the rest of my guild it seems)

From what I understand, I was losing all duplicate dyes, and having them replaced with Unidentified ones?

Yes, it’s probably been said a hundred times (i’d like to hope so). But my god.. this update is beyond confusing.

Why on earth are you awarding the lucky few who got online first, with thousands upon thousands of gold through dyes, opposed to refunding the people who are actually going to be hurt by it?

I’ve personally spent over 200g on Dyes across my 5 80s. In return I’m getting a measly 1g in return (probably not even). Yet, there’s most likely people out there who have spent next to nothing on dyes, but get to make a fortune off the update?

The correct way to work the dyes is so obvious that I cannot understand why a full staff team cannot think of it.
Surely the best choice would be to refund the players the duplicate dyes. Not Unidentified dyes, but the actual dyes that are duplicates. That way we would only receive back what we paid for (prices might be different, but that’s not a huge issue).
This way it can’t be abused to make money out of it.

I have absolutely no idea why you thought giving a 20 silver Unidentified Dye in return for Dyes that could be purchased for less than 1 silver each was a good idea. I really don’t.

I hope to god this is an April fools, because it’s a complete joke.

Dirame.8521:

Zach.3264:

Huh? Did you mean to paste the same link I did on original post? :O

No I did not lol. It’s been edited now

Aha. I was looking through it thinking this looks awfully familiar :>

EDIT: Your build looks good, but I’m a tad confused by the Greatsword and why you have Monk’s Focus traited with only one Meditation?

Fashion Mage.3712:

Aomine.5012:

this forum tend to assume their class is the worst and bleh bleh bleh because they never try any other classes

Don’t you get tired of making baseless assumptions about other people?

I’d say it’s pretty accurate though.

Huh? Did you mean to paste the same link I did on original post? :O

Hi folks,

I’ll begin by saying I played my Guard for quite some time, but have shelved it recently to play my Thief. Though, with the upcoming traits patch I was looking to possibly try out a burn Guardian for WvW primarily.

Here is what I’ve managed to come up with so far

This build focuses purely on pumping out the Burn condition for extremely high damage ticks. We all know that Burn is one of the top damage conditions already, with the upcoming patch we are going to see a +33% in damage!

Through this build, we have several means of applying the Burn condition. I have attached an image below for reference.

Without 25 Stacks of Corruption our burn deals 841 Damage per tick.
With 25 Stacks of Corruption our burn deals 908 Damage per tick.
With the 33% increase in burn damage, burn deals 1207 Damage per tick.
With 33%

With 25 Stacks of Corruption and +33% Burn Damage our Burn ticks for 1207.
Furthermore, using Empower on Staff (12 Might) and Virtue of Justice (3 Might) Burn ticks for a whopping 1381.

Shimmering Defense looks beautiful in this set up.
When struck below 25% health you burn up to 3 targets in a 240 Radius for 14 seconds.
With the upcoming Grandmaster Trait this will tick for roughly 16,900 damage.

Pros

• Excellent Condition Damage.
• Somewhat tanky stats.
• Two teleports.
• Virtue of Justice spam in heavy fighting areas. (AoE blind spam too)

Cons

• Sadly no +25% movement speed here.
• Little healing power.
• Only one Stun Break
• Only one Condition Removal.

The reason I’ve set the build with Exotics, is because realistically that’s what most people (including myself) will be using.
I feel like this build could do with some improvement in terms of survivability. If anyone has any changes they think would work, please let me know.

I’d also like to point out, I’ve never really made a proper thread for a build before, so excuse this one looking messy. I’m simply looking for some pointers in what people would change to suit themselves. I’ll definitely be trying something along these lines when the new patch hits.

EDIT: Please note, the image below only shows the passive effect of Virtue of Justice. Activating it triggers 8.5 seconds of Burn and is renewed everytime you kill an enemy. It’s perfect in zergs where it’s spammable for AoE blind, AoE Might and applying 8.5 sec burn to you and your allies next attacks.

There’s always someone who has to complain. If anything gets changed on YOUR class that’s not a buff, you’re quick to complain.
Just be happy that the “nerfs” aren’t all that bad.

McFribble.2349:

Carpboy.7145:

Its great in late game PVE. Some of the highest DPS in the game (second only to ele) perma blind, perma weakness, and stealth for skipping. But you’ve gotta remember the thief isn’t meant to be a buff/support class. You can’t compare it to guardian

This is flat out wrong.
Shadow’s Refuge him and get his kitten up with ZERO chance of the boss stopping you.

That’s not exactly 100% accurate either. Some bosses can AoE, others have cleave that can hit you if someone else is by you unstealthed. Others can knock back.

Looks ok but do you have full ascended like the build shows?
That being said, I’m not keen on Venomous Aura unless running condi build.

I hate the whole " X AP ONLY" requirement people place on groups.
What has AP got to do with anything?

Someone could spend their time getting every achievement they can before they hit 80 and end up with say 8k AP, or someone can power through to 80 and play for months with 300 AP. Why on earth would you want the fresh 80 over the guy who has months of experience at 80?

Well..

I’ve still only got less than 200 hours on my Thief and I crafted to 80. Though, I jumped straight in with full Zerk gear (and still use it to this day). Because of all the evades and stealth it’s really easy to play effectively.

Even then I barely died. You only really die to signet burst Thieves or zergs if I’m honest.
Might aswell enjoy it while it lasts.

I’ll get a link for what I started with in a sec.

This is what I used to begin with. You can also use Pistol offhand. It’s arguably better but not as enjoyable in my opinion.

Yes, the health looks low.. but honestly you can stealth every few seconds and heal around 600/second in stealth, you’ll be bouncing up to full health tons.

Well..

Plenty of people run Venom Share in WvW because it’s good.

The sad truth though, is that it’s not that great in PvE. Until they change the mechanics in PvE, full damage gear (Berserker) will always be best in slot. It would work in PvE, but someone else using Berserker gear is more valuable to the team.

Karolis.4261:

+Swords gotta be on the back not on the sides.

Not exactly this, but I suggested a long time ago that all weapons sheathe on back. They look extremely ugly on the sides. Certain armours make them look even worse because of the angle of the armour where the weapons are held. Some end up facing away from your leg at a 45 degree angle and it’s such an eye sore.

All weapons should be sheathed on backs, even dual wielded weapons. Crossed Swords on back etc.

Nothing that makes me jump with joy.
Revealed Training put a smile on my face until I remembered the crit nerf.

I’ve also seen several posts of “calculations” – legit or not – with results of around -40% less critical damage. I really hope it’s not that bad.

Fairly basic and straightforward but here’s what I use.

Yes, it’s Perplex cheesiness, but it works.

I’m a tad confused at how the new Spite GM will work.

Every time you tick condition damage, you heal 5% of it?

That may be very nice tied with Vampiric Precision (heal on crit).