Guild Wars 2

NikeEU.7690:

No one said his logic was wrong. The problem is the the micro-management is atrocious.

That’s good because none of us is actually micro-managing: only Weth does that kind of work.

Don’t tell me it’s atrocious to click on a few buttons to vote once a week …

And look, Weth just suggested a rule change that solves everything. Where is your “this is out of control” now?

I find no flaws in the logic of Wethospu.

What he presents here is simply the implications of the voting that took place in the weeks before. If anything, it is great that he points out so clearly the changes that our voting entails. He is provoking a reaction. Now it is only our responsibility to act if the implications of our voting do not match our conception of the rule set.

We can reopen our past votes, or we could vote on additional rules, that build upon what we already decided, in order to shape the scene to our liking. All we need to do is design a rule that bans wallsploits on Lupi.

I find this unfair to blame Weth for doing his job with such assiduity. Reshaping a constitution is a bumpy process but it is also a democratic process: we can only blame ourselves.

(also, Nike, rT is not managing anything here … * sigh *)

I need to add this:

if you’ve never dealt burst damage with a staff or think that it’s impossible, you have no idea what you are actually doing.

Just because you can’t burst with a staff ele yourself doesn’t mean that it’s not possible.

On the old leaderboards I was ranked about as high as you were in team queue, with 7 times more matches played than you. Sunshine appears to be ranked higher than you with even more matches played than me. In solo queue Sunshine and I were ranked in the top 50 while you never even entered to the top 1000.
I have never encountered Sunshine, and I dislike using arguments of authority, but seriously you should stop saying that we are unable to do this or that and that we do not know what we are doing in game.

The suggestions proposed by Sunshine respond to problems that have been identified by the community for a long time. We may or may not agree with the specifics of the details, but the changes are proposed with a sensible perspective. You may discuss the details and the perspective, but please do this constructively.

It is not constructive to say something like “all you do is increase the cast times and the projectile speed” while Sunshine deliberately states that cast times and projectile speed are exactly what he thinks should be improved. Thank you for describing what Sunshine already stated clearly in his paragraphs explaining his perspective! And anyway, his suggestions achieve much more than you think.

Erasmus.1624:

Sunshine didn’t believe me when I said that all he was doing was making damage come faster (and therefore easier) because it was so hard to deal damage as staff ele apparently. So, I was more explicit.

That is because you are wrong. That is not all Sunshine suggests. Also, at no point do you make your critique clear. If you want to contribute to the discussion you should:
- be respectful: do not fake-quote people
- be constructive: cynicality is useless
- read
- explain why a change is not needed instead of saying that each change is “not much”.

Erasmus.1624:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

So you argue that we don’t need burst, but then you argue that we already have burst. If we already have burst then why would you argue that we don’t need it?

That’s a good point.

A good point: so you agree that you contradict yourself, ok.
Anyway what you described is spike damage, not burst.

Erasmus.1624:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

(Edit: I forgot the Geyser part. Sunshine suggests reducing the effectiveness of healing power and you somehow translate that into “remove it from the game”! Please don’t be an other Kodiak.)

The guy effectively nullified the healing power quotient in Geyser. I’m fairly certain that means that it was removed from the game.

Sunshine suggests:
Reduce healing scale with healing power by 25%
Increase base healing by 15%.
Currently Geyser has a healing power scaling of 0.75, which is very high. His suggestion would bring this scaling to 0.56, while increasing the base heal (from 2,424 to 2788). Remember what I said in my first paragraph? Read.

Erasmus.1624:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Balance is done in relative terms.

Anet balances by […

It does not matter how you perceive Anet balances the game.
The point is that it makes no sense to say something like “this particular weapon of this particular class is the standard. We must change the entirety of the rest of the game according to this particular standard”. Staff has difficulties sustaining damage pressure in PvP, therefore it is legitimate to investigate whether staff should be buffed. In contrast it is completely illegitimate to ask to change all of the other weapons on all of the other classes just so that they become relatively on par with our lacklustre weapon.

Erasmus.1624:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Most of the ele community argues that we need a buff to the fluidity of our attacks so that we can land them more easily (efficacy).

Ele attacks are extremely fluid if you just have decent timing, positioning and movement

Yeah that’s essentially the definition of not fluid
If the staff attacks were so fluid then top players in pvp wouldn’t have to resort to using runes of the pirate in order to pretend to do damage. Also, if staff was so effective then it would actually be used in top PvP!

Erasmus.1624:

doesn’t make anyone press 1 or 2 differently

At this point I must indulge into quoting an over-used adage: different is not necessarily better.
I am going to say this for the third time now: no one cares if we change a lot of the ele or little of the ele, we care about changes that make sense. Hopefully we can find a lot of changes that make sense, but each change does not have to be huge in itself.

Erasmus.1624:

anet has slid the game down into a skill ravine since mid 2011.

Wonderful. Can we talk about the future prospects of the ele? Or can we at least talk about a period of time when the game was actually released?

Legendary grawl shaman

Glad you asked!

Erasmus.1624:

Sunshine.5014:

• Flame Burst
  Make it instant cast

Make it go faster.

• Burning Retreat fine as it is

It’s already instant; we can’t actually make it go faster, so it’s fine.

This is an example of how you contradict yourself.
Besides when you spam “make it go faster” it is impossible to logically understand whether you mean faster cast time, faster projectile speed or faster cooldown.

(Edit: or everytime you are making comments they are cynical? As in: you are not suggesting that these spells should “go faster” but you are describing with clumsy cynicality that Sunshine would like the spells to go faster? If you are just being cynical then you have no point. You are required to make actual contributions for me to contradict or disprove them)

Erasmus.1624:

Sunshine.5014:

1) Fire
Staff lack burst.

Why does it need it? […] Besides, if you’ve never dealt burst damage with a staff or think that it’s impossible, you have no idea what you are actually doing.

So you argue that we don’t need burst, but then you argue that we already have burst. If we already have burst then why would you argue that we don’t need it? Unless your point is that we need less burst, your argument is nonsensical.

(Edit: I forgot the Geyser part. Sunshine suggests reducing the effectiveness of healing power and you somehow translate that into “remove it from the game”! Please don’t be an other Kodiak.)

Erasmus.1624:

Staff’s damage potential is fine. The rest of the game is out of whack.

When you drive on a highway and everybody drives in the opposite direction, do you tell them all to turn around? Balance is done in relative terms.

Now, if I understand you correctly the only thing that you argue is that we need to change “much”. Well, as I have told you before in an other thread, the magnitude of change is irrelevant. What matters is what and why.
Most of the ele community argues that we need a buff to the fluidity of our attacks so that we can land them more easily (efficacy). Sunshine makes suggestions that go in this direction.
Your critique of his suggestions contains nothing but the fact that they are “not much”. This is a comment on magnitude, therefore your critique is irrelevant.
You have not expressed any sensible critique against the view that we need more efficacy.

Erasmus.1624:

sirrrock.7940:

i don’t see what would be so wrong doing that with staff ele

Nothing if you want passive effects to dominate combat. Clearly you have no qualms with that. No one does except the guy who rebalanced the elementalist class in a week 6 months ago; long before anet further dented the minds of its playerbase with silly buffs, unnecessary trait streamlining and a further dumbing down of their game.

Wait, you talk about yourself in third person now? …
Maybe if you spent more than a week working on balancing then you would understand that your input does not contribute anything.

The earth and air skills of the focus are fine, even maybe good by ele standards
The fire and water skills however are terrible.
- The damage of comet should be increased drastically and its animation should be made more obvious => force the opponent to dodge, reward clever use.
- Freezing gust has a bugged casting animation, and it is extremely weak.
- Firewall needs a strong buff in mechanics and damage: it is clunky to use and it has little effect on the battle field with its 1s burn per tick (compared to 5s per tick for ring of fire… a skill that has 5s less cooldown, faster cast time, more damage, and a larger area of effect!!)
- Fire shield does not even do what it claims to do (no condi duration reduction), and it is extremely weak.

These are sensible changes!

Also I like the suggestions by BlackBeard
Don’t mind Erasmus, he is just frustrated because his ideas are not well received in his suggestion threads.

Some things I would add:
- decrease the cast time of Impale (dagger earth 1) a lot
- decrease the cast time of Churning Earth (dagger earth 5)

Some notes:
The channel time of Drake’s Breath and Cone of cold are lower than you think: it is 1.5s at the moment. But there is a cast time before the channelling takes place, this takes 0.7s. The after cast time is 0.6s. So the total animation time is 2.8s, which is quite long indeed. However I find that drake’s breath is strong enough. I would like to see a buff to Cone of Cold though. I think it should freeze targets for 1s each tick or something like that. With this change in mind, a cast time reduction from 0.7s to 0.5s would be nice, as well as a little reduction in the aftercast time.

Erasmus.1624:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

without a proper description of the big picture. All we get is “make aspects of gw2 combat less clunky and open up more playstyle options by not relying so heavily on global, passive effects”. The suggestions are supposed to be examples. Well there is no explanation on how this perspective is appropriate, and there is no explanation on how the overly detailed examples fit this view.

Have another class that got the same sort of treatment when I was bored 6 months ago: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/A-good-necromancer/first#post5026965

That thread has no replies. Are you trying to make it even more obvious that your approach is fruitless?

Erasmus.1624:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

I might be judging harshly, recidivism in fraud doesn’t help

Don’t be so upset that you were rused on the internet. Although, it’s interesting to see how people approach everything with cautious optimism if it’s from the hand of anet, but are automatically much harsher and more narrow-minded when they see someone else suggest something that doesn’t feature anet-tier balance decisions (i.e. “Give it [boon]/[condition]/an invulnerability period,” “increase this number” or “decrease this number”).

I was not deceived by your clumsy lies. It took me no more than a split second to confirm my suspicion: we know from Anet that Elemental attunement will be a minor trait, yet you listed it as a major adept. By the way, you completely ignored minor traits.
Anyway this is not the least of what you overlooked. I regard your view of the way Anet balances the class (tweak few specific factors) just the same as I regard your complete overhaul approach (change all the things \o/). Both present little value. This is because it does not matter how much you change factors. What matters is why a factor should be changed. Once the reason and the purpose of a change are clearly defined, producing factors and adjusting them for balance is the easiest task in the world. When Anet suggests changes to the class I can most of the time understand the mindset that leads to the adjustments. In your case, Erasmus, I don’t.

Also, your arrogance does not make me want to try harder.

Aktium.9506:

Instead of reverting the RtL nerf I think introducing the same nerf to every other long range leap skill is a much better idea.

Yes, and I want them to go on double cooldown if they hit targets that are dodging/blocking too, because this makes as little sense for them as it does for our RtL.

Can you add Bloodstone Dust and all the spam of useless currencies to the wallet please?

Thank you

Erasmus posted these suggestions the first time a few days ago. Except he did in the form of a revelation of expected changes: he told us these modifications were planned by the devs. As people expressed doubts, he replied telling them to wait and see, and that they would be surprised when the devs speak out. So he lied twice. Eventually mods cleansed the forum of his forgery.

Now, I read most of his suggestions, and I have a few problems with them.
First, these suggestions do not take into account the expected changes actually revealed by the devs.
Second, there is too much. It is great to provide a lot of details, but an overhaul like this cannot be evaluated without a proper description of the big picture. All we get is “make aspects of gw2 combat less clunky and open up more playstyle options by not relying so heavily on global, passive effects”. The suggestions are supposed to be examples. Well there is no explanation on how this perspective is appropriate, and there is no explanation on how the overly detailed examples fit this view. So there is nothing to comment.

I might be judging harshly, recidivism in fraud doesn’t help

Erasmus.1624:

People weren’t happy last time

This is the part where you apologise for lying to us?

If only they would communicate with us here on the forums ….

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/A-solo-arah-run-ruined-in-less-than-10sec/first#post5104093

The dungeon forums do provide counselling from 9am to 3pm, anger management lectures are available from 3pm to 7pm and we dedicate the rest of the evening to resolving the social issues of our patients. Welcome!

Hurl is not a channelling skill

Are you talking about PvE or PvP (or WvW) ?

Definitely a good suggestion!

Also, for those who don’t know what we are talking about when we mention the devs judging that stacking damage modifiers is “too OP”, here is what we are referring to:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/December-10th-Elementalist-changes/page/8#post3150604

SirMirex.8543:

When you’ve got Evasive Arcana, attuning to Earth sets off “Shock Wave” which has a combo finisher as a blast.

Attuning to Earth is not a blast. Dodging while in earth with EA traited is indeed one blast though.

SirMirex.8543:

So, if you cast Staff Water Skill 5 “Healing Rain” > attune to Earth > and dodge into the field… how many blasts is that?

Attune to Eart = no blast
Dodge while in earth = one blast
One blast in total

Viable – not viable
Good – bad
Enough to pull your own weight – not enough
Carrying the group – Being an anchor

All these qualifications are subjective and they depend on the skill level of the player, the content he chooses to tackle, and his team-mates. So we will never find a qualification system that works for everybody. Even “completing the content” is subjective as it could mean anything from speedrunning to killing the final boss after 15 hours of chaotic attempts.

Luckily Avador explained his perspective clearly: he wants to do as much damage as possible while not dying all the time.

This is good, because this is exactly what leads to a build being efficient. An efficient build should:
- enable you to fulfil the role that you like to perform
- match its defence contribution with your skill level so that you have an enjoyable experience, which in turn will allow you to improve your skill level even faster
- deal as much damage as possible once the first two goals are achieved. This implies that your output will be maximised, given the play-style options that you have picked.

It is very easy for any player to know what play-style they want and how much defence they need. However it is not easy to know how to maximise output – that is: maximise damage. Considering this, I think it is sensible that a build that could do more damage given its play-style choice should be called “bad” while a build whose damage is optimal for its play-style should be called “good”.

This way, it makes sense to say that the initial build propositions by the OP are bad, his updated proposal is definitely better (nice job understanding that direct damage stats are the best for optimal output), and the suggestions by Thaddeus and Neko would make his builds good.

_

To contribute to the discussion, I would advise the OP to draw inspiration from the “meta” builds suggested here and in guides. Then tweak them to fit your needs.

From what I understand you hate to die often, and this leads you to dislike zerker gear. This is understandable. However I would suggest sticking close to zerker gear and change as few pieces of equipment to more defensive stats as possible. This is because passive defence from stats is generally less efficient compared to the defensive capabilities offered by traits and utilities; and zerker stats combination is the best way to increase damage output.

Yes I understand, I played through many popular MMOs at high level.

The difference is that in most of these mmos, combat was indeed static, while gw2 combat is balanced around being dynamic.

Edit: in your arguments against FGS you used to say that such burst trivialises combat. Don’t you think that static mobs also trivialises combat?

NikeEU.7690:

phys.7689:

NikeEU.7690:

Good PvE doesn’t require now, nor has it ever required in the past, good AI. The best raid bosses in the history of MMOs don’t even have what could be called AI. They just spit out their mechanics in a semi-scripted order and challenge you to deal with them or die. Better AI is what you ask for when you want PvE mobs to act like players, which really isn’t the strength of good PvE encounters in the first place.

Are you saying that the distinction, for you, is whether the enemy adapts to what the player is doing or not?

I would say good PVE design either has a really well designed script, that requires you to execute pretty well, and make you feel good when you do execute well, or having an enemy that better responds to player behaviors, or a combination of those things.

I will say GW2, in both styles is fairly lacking.

Please see this post as to why I find “make pve mobs behave like pvp players” to be a really dumb idea…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/General-Dungeon-Discussion-Thread-Part-2/page/52#post5077603

You bring up some valid points in that post, but unless I skim-read too much I did not see anything about mobs voluntarily crippling themselves by refusing to move and attack at the same time.

This AI failure is what creates the largest imbalances between pvp and pve, fixing this would go a long way to make this game mode more interesting.

Zenith.7301:

Smarter than the AI who will happily stand in your lava font till it dies however is another matter. Speaking of zerglings since you prefer to paint with a broad brush

Ok so if I understand your points correctly, the zerging part of wvw involves smart decision making, which forces players into trinity roles. One of these roles being the tank.

Zenith.7301:

The point is, in GW2 someone is taking care of the damage absorption/avoidance part. Someone, based in proximity, is baiting the aggro.

And so the tank takes care of damage mitigation from the enemy zerg. A role which is enabled by his ability to bait the smart enemy zerg’s attacks thanks to his proximity with them.

The enemies smartly focus the tank just because he is close to them.

That does not seem so smart to me. But again, I don’t play wvw. So either zergs are not smart (but we will discard this possibility because I trust your wvw experience) or the role of the tanks is not what you described.

Let’s explore the second option.
The trinity is commonly described as DPS-heal-tank. But this is a misconception. The real trinity is damage-support-control. Now if you look at it from this perspective then you will understand that we require these three elements everywhere in the game, yes even speedrunning PvE. No class has a monopoly on any of these, and no class is truly lacking in any either. This is why there is no explicit trinity in GW2: it is actually internal to every character.

Although now that I read your posts again before sending this message I realise that maybe this was your point all along, in which case we agree

Zenith.7301:

Go out in WvW where the opponents are actually smart

Well…

HoT is LS guys, you know what you get.

I really like how you keep ignoring the reality that time matters even for casual groups Kodiak.

Correct: the optimal DF rotation does 39 casts (counting no other utility cast than arcane brilliance) in 28.25s, that is about 45% more casts per minute than simply spamming lightning whip.

But then we all knew that DF is superior, there is no debate here

(Edit just to clarify: obviously you wouldn’t be casting arcane brilliance if you were using the signet of restoration, but you would be casting RoE instead, which does not change the numbers much)

NikeEU.7690:

In regards of D/F vs staff “complexity.”

D/F requires you to land comet
Sorry couldn’t help myself
Don’t hit me
Love you <3

Gokil is right
Miku made a lot of very valid points though

Also:

Signet of Restoration:
with nothing but Lightning Whip autoattack,
60/0.75 = 80 casts/min, healing per cast = 202
80 * 202 = 16,160 hp/min

The total animation for lightning whip is 0.95 not 0.75
60/0.95*202=12,758 hp/min

Give spoj some love!
#Spojlove15

Iris Ng.9845:

Or OP can use lightning hammer while kiting around the pillar.

Yeah that works too but it’s so scepter-like in terms of gameplay, so, meh! :p
lalala I’m never biased lalala

Raggy.4602:

I’ve been gearing up by doing flame citadel to get Berzerker exotics and I’m doing P1 often in Flame Citadel still to get more gear. But for example, every time we get to the pillar part just before the last boss, I die very quickly, even in water attunement while spamming myself with healing skills and with full water traits, I die quickly. Should I give up on berzerker gear and if so, which set should I try to get?

Thanks very much.

Never give up

This event is quite easy for elementalists. Contrary to what most people tell you in this thread, the best way to overcome this challenge is to focus on killing the waves of attackers rather than tanking them.
Of course this means that you should use an offensive build, therefore you will die even more easily. But here is how you can make sure to stay alive long enough to kill many waves:
- Glyph of storm in earth: constant blind for more than enough time it should take you to get rid of the first attackers (maybe wait until a number of them are on you before using this)
- Glyph of elementals in earth: will take hits for you and give you protection, there is a reason why we call it the best thank ever
- Use a focus off-hand: the invulnerability in earth is better than any heal you could ever use instead
- Ice Bow: the ice storm will shred foes to pieces. It requires to stay still for a while though, so use it while your elemental tanks or in conjunction with arcane shield. Also make sure to aim the IB cast near a friend, so your party can use it too.

Glad to hear this, and thanks for your kind words

petyr baelish.9675:

zerker gear is op.

This is not quite true. In fact this leads to many misconceptions.

Here is one thing people need to understand: this is an action game. Action games are designed so that better instantaneous decision making makes you prevail. This is done so that skill is rewarded. Now, offensive gear improves your attacks. In contrast, defensive gear improves your defence. No-brainer, ok, but here is the catch: our attacks are active, while defence is overwhelmingly passive. All the defensive attributes from gear affect our passive ability to survive (arguably even healing is passive since you take the hit and only then you react, it is not proactive). The only active defences there are require no stats: dodge and control. In an action game it makes sense that passivity has limited potential. If your character is strong without you having to work on your input (passivity) then you take no risk, Action games must reward risk. Offensive gear improves your action potential, which enables you to achieve much more, but it is risky: a few bad decisions and you will fail. Therefore zerker gear is not OP, it simply enables you to achieve more if you have the skill. But using it does not necessarily imply that you will be automatically stronger: you still need to bear the risks associated with it.

Kodiak.3281:

I was sure this was going to say, “Increase base Ele HP” or “Stop designing/balancing our class thematically and instead balance or class like every other class in the game.” because those are both things that are simple and would totally fix everything.

If the Ele theme and attributes are you problem then maybe an other class would be better suited for you

MauricioCezar.2673:

What White Hunter said is one of the examples of why ele need to keep changing his skill bar. While fighint trash mobs you need to use sandstorm, and notice that this skill only becomes “Sandstorm” while you are attuned to earth.

But for most of the boss fights, or dps-dedicated fights (Such as anomalia) there isn’t much use for this particular skill.

Well then you use it in air to make a lightning storm which is vastly beneficial for party dps

Thaddeus.4891:

Iris Ng.9845:

Pre-stacking might before the fight will allow to stack up to 2 minutes of fury.

And how could you do that on your own? With 10sec of fury for each blast that mean 12 blast. I guess you can by swapping weapons, but i don’t think that count. People in party have 2min because it’s not only 1 S/X ele that blast might. If you have two S/X Ele then yes you can reach 2min. But by your own in one shot you can’t.

12 would be difficult, but 9 is definitely doable
http://dulfy.net/2014/07/11/gw2-elementalist-pve-class-guide-by-haviz-and-zelyhn/#Pre-fight_rotation

Hey Gokil, thanks for the kind words. This data is not the result of my doing only: Keyz did the majority of the work. And yes, we did everything manually Since we started consolidating the data my main account has been banned from these forums, therefore I cannot update this thread (nor my old DF thread) anymore.

Keyz maintains the data here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WjYuAahQmaF4YwQuFBBfnqP9RkcmcGvCO0JOlYl-R0o/edit?amp;usp=sharing#gid=1
It is not fully up to date though, so your input is definitely valuable. Hopefully Keyz will read this and act accordingly

The ele is effectively the best class for offensive support (indeed might=support), but it turns out we are also the best class for “true” damage

We are the best PvE class, if you can deal with having little passive survivability.
Check out my guide on Dulfy.net for more insights on the PvE aspect of this magnificent class!
(Link at the bottom of my signature)

ApaWanka.2698:

the HUGE sinergy between LingeringElements and StoneHeart

HUUUUUGE

@OP

There are many tweaks and techniques to learn with DF. You started well because you picked the best build in the game! Check out the guide I wrote with Haviz on Dulfy.net for detailed insights on the matter
(Link in my signature)

Anjoys.5367:

fifth attunement

Movement impairing effects also affect the range

I completely agree with BlackBeard

DarkSyze.8627:

Neko.9021:

And so they day has finally come. When the update comes, no more tons of boons and free spells on dodge. Eles must choose what to put in that GM tier if they go Arcana!

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/33qrg0/specialization_ama_livestream_notes/

No hard-work, No effort, No reward with No risk, No challenge= No more free anything.

You are correct!

Sooth your fervour my friend, Anet is not turning us into warriors yet.

They take away half of our active mechanisms and instead they give us a flat 20% damage reduction. Are you sure this means more hard-work, more effort, more risk, more reward?

And I was thinking that I had failed at time zone conversion….

Dulle Griet.8436:

Elemental Attunement was a Minor trait. Then a Master one. And now will be a GM (without gaining improvements).

The regeneration and swiftness durations are projected to be increased by 60% and 100% respectively (no change to might and protection durations though).

Valento.9852:

Am I the only one who doesn’t like the concept of conjured weapons?

Nope. No one likes them. At this point I wish they would simply remove them from the game and give us other utilities instead.

In the past two and a half years they:
-Nerfed FGS into oblivion (including a nice taunt in the tooltips)
-Removed all possible tricks with Tornado but added a combo field \o/
-Reworked Elementals to give us more control and be more powerful, although they initially imposed absurd cast animations to command the pet to begin its skill cast on the next attack – a cast in as cast!

Recently they removed the cast-in-a-cast absurdity on Elementals.

And now you ask for buffs? Do you even realise how ungrateful you are???
:D