Guild Wars 2

I hate how I am running and they appear behind me. They seem to appear late, sometimes way after the kill and it means I have to keep stopping and going back.

I too had this thought. The shirts are really nice and I love the waistcoat sort of design that comes with them. They look great on asura.

Needs the pants though or the effect is ruined.

I wouldn’t worry about boosting might duration. I routinely have ten stacks of might and it seems to do very little for a staff user.

Mystic.5934:

is there any usable difference between the purchased (green) and the found (yellow) skins? like, once you apply that skin to a weapon.

One is given by luck and makes you rich. The other is earned by hard work and makes you poor.

There is also a system at work when it comes to skill delay. The server appears to prioritise certain players and penalises others. Effectively, it chooses who to listen to and thus only certain people can get their skills to work.

My theory on that one is that it prioritises those who have been in the area the longest. I have had crippling skill delay after joining a map, only to see it wear off if I manage to remain on the map without being kicked off. I have run into enemies who are unable to defend themselves when I have no issues.

As it stands, not every player on the map is equal and that is flat out wrong.

One again, despite double-teaming, the augury and riverside hordes are driven back from Piken Keep in EB.

No doors, no walls, two teams and yet they still cant make progress. Hang your heads in shame and go skulk in your towers, because this isn’t the first time.

As someone who uses ground targeted aoe, I suffer badly when this occurs. These days when I see I have skill lag, I just log off.

I`ve started running into others suffering from it too, enemies who cant fight back. We know it occurs when the server hits 100 percent capacity, as has been stated by arenanet, so surely its time to upgrade. As it is, those servers are now crashing and may even be taking damage from the pounding they are getting.

We do know something of the asura diet, in that lore says their sharp teeth were made that way so as to eat “rock fungus”.

Considering the hyperactive nature of asura, I would suggest that rock fungus and whatever they eat now is highly rich in energy. Those teeth may well constantly fall out and be replaced, like that of a shark, so tooth decay may not be an issue for them. Alternatively, they may simply be super strong, or may have a regenerative surface, which makes sense if you spend your life chewing stuff off rocks.

As to their childhood, from the progeny we see, they seem to be in proportion, roughly, to adults. It is not unusual for certain animals to be mobile in their herd within a matter of hours and asura are likely very quick to gain independence. Their high intelligence would make them naturally curious and thus they would likely be mobile quite quickly.

As to their birth, its possible that asura have some form of pouch or that their hips and birthing process allows for a much higher degree of flexibility than a human. Asura seem to be quite a bouncy race, so their skeleton is likely somewhat flexible, which would help their mobility in enclosed underground spaces.

I thought I would add another screenshot of a battle I had the other day that lasted the best part of 2 hours outside stonemist castle. At one point, all one could see from the castle walls was red names, covering the ground up to the horizon.

5 man aoe limit is a drop in the ocean when it comes to WvW. As it is, the only way to get this situation sorted was to go down into personal combat and there its a matter of who can kill the other guy first, one on one.

People complain that they see a lot of ele’s, but what they mean is dagger/dagger eles. There are a few staff ele’s around and frankly, you can just ignore them. The aoe limit turns us all into the thief class, so if you really want to spend your last 3 seconds of life seeing a “ride the lightning” and then instant death, then by all means support the aoe cap.

The alternative is that you see a red circle on the floor and you step out of it. Which would you rather have?

You could purchase one of the Halloween shoulder skins, which come with a variety of skull types, from bovine to bird, for all armours. They are pretty cheap too. You can get them direct from the auction house.

If you look at how many dagger/dagger elementalists there are now, then yes, natural selection exists in classes.

I`m one of the shrinking number of staff elementalists and we have become very specialist animals within a limited environment (wvw).

Still, given any further worsening in our habitat or abilities, we will die out.

Zenith raises an interesting point. I would also like to add that the chests should not be limited to one run a day. I`ll happily repeat the content, but I find it odd that I should have to make a new character over and over to do so.

As it is, I`ve got 30 of the 50 bauble bubbles I need to get my staff skin. I don’t do or enjoy dungeons as I do WvW, so I don’t have a lot of money washing about to buy things with. Even so, I could have bought it, but I wanted to hold a staff I had earned rather than simply paid cash for.

I want to say “I collected the baubles myself, by doing super adventure box and by opening chests in the open world”. However, its going to take me another few days and another few alts to be able to say that.

Those ears )

Progeny are such a pain they need the cuteness!

Invisible tornado may be the only time it ever sees use.

Even for humor purposes, it is seldom effective.

For a far better skill, see Mesmer and their ability to pull people. Or the thief ability where they become a spinning, arrow proof whirling cloud of death.

Clearly, actually being a tornado is less effective than simply spinning around in a circle.

I am loving it, its actually quite cool music with good retro feels.

Excited about the new super box and I really think the new weapon skins are wonderful.

I would have made them turn more slowly, but give them some sort of minor turret attack that shoots while the heavy pushback is slowly turning to target. This lets a mobile, aware player fight it with some pew pew, whereas the slow, or innatentive player gets pushed over and shot by the mini gun.

Circle strafe should be enough to avoid the knockdown, but knockdown shouldn’t be its only trick.

As it is, they are cool at first and then very very annoying.

Chaosky.5276:

Minion of Vey.4398:

Worst problem with scepter is lack of an appropriate 900 range offensive offhand to go with it. Offhand scepter, or pistol, or whatever.

Eh, I’d really prefer it if the scepter was just better, because I’d a ranged/melee hybrid. Kinda like a Rifle + Greatsword warrior.

Rifle/ Greatsword warrior is I think of as one of the effective examples of weapons swap. It offers two playstyles, two ranges and is effective, even impressive, at both. Heck, warriors even get banners for all the useless speed boosting etc our staff air does.

Our “weapon swap” is like the same weapon twice, but with slightly different flavours and half the abilities of the warrior banners stuck in clumsily. Some of our attunments barely contain any damage dealing powers, like staff air or are so build specific they may as well not be used by a generalist.

The problem with them is their abilities are so unreliable. I once saw my earth elemental go into some sort of crazy, knockdown rampage. Most times though he barely uses any of his powers. Likewise, the water elemental….I don’t think I have ever received a heal from it.

As to the air one, sometimes I wonder if its doing anything at all.

Vekthor.8914:

Male or female, that is one extremely creepy asura that will surely haunt my dreams from now on.

I`m sure its against peacekeeper sub-laws, like the offense of being too tall.

Moto is like the warcraft goblin of asura.

I like menacing titles that suggest being a high tech assassin, like “Regulator”, “Enforcer” and “Liquidator”.

A bit like the Ferengi in star trek had liquidators as their combat accountants for the revenue service.

Bacon filled bacon balls wrapped in bacon.

We eat flesh – tm.

I never thought much of them before, but that baby one was very cute and I enjoyed its behaviour in the story mission.

The consortium are super dubious.

I`ve got my eye on them.

Those “super” skins are amazing.

I want a super staff and a super greatsword.

In fact, I want them all. I`d even pay for them, they are that awesome.

I think if my name was phlegm, I`d cough up the cash for a name change.

If my name was snot or bogey, I`d pay through the nose for one.

bows and exits stage left

I paid 50 gold and the rest by purchasing gems to sell.

Frankly, only those who really want it get much use out of it. Even then there are days when its just a trouble magnet.

I think that those who view it as some sort of “vanity tag” are very soon turning it off and never thinking about it again.

Makes sense really. Cannons are usually blown to pieces in the first ten seconds of the battle and ballista require a straight line of sight, meaning that they only tend to be put down in limited situations anyway.

You could double their damage and in all honesty you wouldn’t see much difference. Mainly in that anyone getting on the cannon will be aoe’d to death almost instantly and the ballista will likely be zerged down or simply avoided.

Giving that bonus to arrow carts would be a lot more frightening.

A lively evening in EB, with Piken’s majestic keep holding out against both enemy teams working together.

We were backed up to the lord room numerous times, with Riverside trying to get through the broken gate and augury trying to push through two holes in the wall.

And we killed each and every one of them. Perhaps 4 times, over the space of an hour.

Then after a heroic rally, we kicked them out, retook our holdings and took stonemist for good measure. A glorious display of the old style piken spirit.

Slamz.5376:

Guard/NPC killers:
Waste of points. Two people can wipe a camp as-is.

Supply boost:
Basically a waste of points given cost-to-benefit ratio but I imagine most people will get it eventually due to lack of other options. It’s not that it’s bad it’s just that it takes a TON of points for a relatively minor personal benefit.

Cannon boost:
Nice but how often do you run a cannon? You’ll spend a lot of points for something that you generally won’t get to use (or at towers, won’t get to use for very long — cannons are quickly killed and cannoneers are exposed). Often there will be cannons but someone else is on them in which case your points are wasted.

Ballista boost:
Easily the best and most useful of the bunch. At least ballistas can be readily available.

Siege bunker/might:
Eh. Again not a great cost-to-benefit ratio but at least it’s generally useful.

All in all pretty underwhelming.

I agree entirely. I went over and concluded that the bonus given is so small as to not be a bonus at all. I also concluded that the ballista skills seemed the good choice, though I would have loved to see trebuchet and arrow cart bonuses, considering that I seldom use a ballista.

Except, for some reason, there aren’t any trebuchet or arrow cart abilities.

By investing one point in ballista, it seems to have given me a new skill to use with the weapon, which is an interesting sounding unlock.

If Treb mastery existed, how about alternate animals to fling, like plague dolyak? Or a reduced cooldown time? A quicker turning time perhaps? So many easy suggestions and none used.

This is what I see as a staff ele.

5 people out of that really is a drop in the ocean.

Something needs to be done. Its like a fog of text.

Scrambles.2604:

WvW Staff ele here. This may be a dumb question, but have you tried casting your AOEs on yourself?

i run a 30water/30 arcana bunker build with PVT gear, so i am fairly tanky. I have had a lot of success vs melee by dodging/tanking them, while spamming AOEs on myself. The Thiefs and Wars i fight tend to get tunnel vision trying to down me and don’t realize they’ve been getting pounded by AOEs til it’s too late. That, or they retreat.

Yes indeed. I would say that any of the few staff ele’s who remain have become masters at making best of their situation. I`m a WvW commander and I am usually in the thick of combat. Even so, being good at a bad weapon doesn’t redeem it, it just means that the alternative, ie going dagger dagger, is so abhorrent to my playstyle as to be the lesser option.

I, like the other staff ele’s, am here because we have nowhere else to go except to reroll and as a commander, I am also chained to my character by the vast cost I paid for my commander badge. Now I am further chained by the fact that WvW experience is gained not by account but by character.

I just cannot understand how there is no change to the situation in patches. I have waited a long time and all around me, the ele class is becoming something it should not be. Arenanet and I both know this and yet nothing is done and the only patch notes I see are nerfs to bizarre things like tornado, again that everyone agrees is suicide to even use.

As an mmo veteran I am used to the flow of nerf and buff and routinely had two or three classes on the go at the same time, moving between them when a nasty bug or balance issue made playing them unpleasant. I cannot do this here.

But even I am reaching the limits of my endurance and I can only hope that someone hears this and that there action taken and not just more “we are aware of…” which I have grown deaf to hearing.

It’s hard being an asura female. We struggle to maintain our ladylike side and most bookah think we are men. Skirts exist only on winter apparel.

But Moto – you are the poster child for confusion. Your name indicates you are female, but by the alchemy, it would take a full committee of asuran gender experts to ascertain the truth of your boy/ girl indeterminism!

Zerging solved by raising the stupid 5 target cap on AOE.

I didn’t roll and elementalist to play the dagger/dagger assassin that the class has rapidly become. I had this apparently misplaced mental image of wizardy types being mostly ranged spellcasters, you know, lobbing fireballs and all that but being quite limited when it came to the rough stuff up close.

I certainly got the “limited up close” part, but the ranged part….well that seems to have not been included.

I`ve soldiered on in WvW with an AOE build for the longest time. Despite the AOE limit being a ridiculous 5 people. Seeing how big a zerg actually is now that culling has gone has only emphasised just how pathetic that limitation really is. A drop in an ocean of red.

So many regard the staff ele as a free kill and rightly so. I last a lot longer than many and I can often hold my own one on one, but my most valuable skill is knowing when to run away and I use that gut feeling constantly. If I so much as see a thief or dagger ele I know they are going to come right for me as the target of choice and I take to my heels. I`ve seen them be so rabid in trying to down me that they completely lose sight of their own ability to get away afterwards, its like they enter some sort of frenzy in their pursuit of the tempting target.

To make matters worse, the weakness of the staff isn’t even up for debate, as everyone agrees on the fact that ele’s need some other functional spec alternatives and weapon choices. Arenanet is quite aware that ele’s are becoming thief type assassins and they don’t like it….but constantly they refuse to give us any alternative that isn’t a joke. Even just buffing our number one auto attacks would be a start, but as it is the staff is limited to a support role that guardians do so much better.

Staff ele is the poor man’s guardian and I see no justification for having the lowest hit points and armour of all the classes.

For Tyria’s sake, I am one of the few staff ele’s left, so please give us something or Gandalf will be getting out his daggers and putting on a ninja costume.

Be glad that there are Asura there to do all the mental heavy lifting. It’s only natural that an intellect based faction comes to be dominated Tyria’s intellectual giants.

You bookah are all just jealous that your ability to maybe speak a single ancient language, badly, just doesn’t cut it in the circles of academia. Honestly, and as to letting norns in, well, that’s just an act of charity, really, on behalf of the priory.

Still, someone has to barge down all those doors when the golems are being polished.

rhodoc.2381:

Tornado: Allows you to use a utility skill on elite slot.

Better.

So true, I would love to simply have that elite as an additional slot.

I`d put in earth signet for immobilise and I`d be a killer of men.

Andovar Edoras.2143:

What in your opinion is a huge mistake while playing an ele? What makes an ele player noob? What would you avoid at all costs?

Ill start: i have a friend who i play with, we both have ele alts, i like scepter focus and he likes staff. What makes me cringe though is the fact that he uses fire 99,99% of the time…. Just spamming fire 1 and sometimes fire 2 and 3. He only switches to air only while travelling for the speed buff..

I just… cant handle his style of ele playing… So much wasted potential…i guess he is used to playing those dull warriors and rangers only..

ok your turn.

That’s a perfectly acceptable way of playing staff ele, mainly because the earth damage is so low that its weakness becomes pointless. You are better off sticking with fire and getting a quick kill.

Earth only comes into full effect on staff when you have the stats and traits to back it up and even then its best used as an opener and then followed up by fire.

This isn’t a problem with your friend’s play, its a problem with staff and the fact that so many of the traits only function when using fire. I think most agree that if they changed the fire bonuses to work in all elements, then it would be a much needed buff to the staff.

I play a staff ele and every time I see a thief spamming cluster bomb, I wonder why I bother. Whose Idea was it to give them that?

The problem came in that all classes were created to have equal damage and abilities. Unfortunately, not all classes were given the same armour and hit points.

The upshot of this is that the elementalist is a poor man’s guardian.

Likewise, the warrior, for having all its survivability and a surprising range of group friendly benefits….pays no real price for this and also has impressive damage.

All the unfavoured classes, like the elementalist, ended up changing themselves into daft specs like dagger dagger in order to serve a purpose. Did arenanet really intend the ranged caster class to occupy the same role as the thief?

I`m a staff elementalist and if I don’t see some significant buffs in the coming patch, I`ll be rolling something else as dagger/ dagger does not appeal to me. I have the worst hit points and armour of all classes and got nothing in return.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

The numbers aren’t reasonable but there’s no point to fixing them as long as achievement points are meaningless.

It’s the titles that are the concern.

People who do WvW would like the chance to get the titles that were intended for…doing WvW.

Removing downed would make a good few classes unplayable, especially in defence. The amount of damage incoming to the defenders on top of walls means that anyone exposing themselves to fire would be killed and unrecoverable, especially as the ranged classes tend to have the lowest hit points.

As a staff ele, I reach the downed state a lot, but its rare for me to actually die as my fellow defenders will get me back up, so I can return to the front line. Defenders need the opportunity to recover and continue the battle, especially as they are prevented from getting easy reinforcements by the massive army that is parked on their doorstep.

Moles and underground creatures often have hair that was once more useful as a sensory organ in areas of limited light. Likewise, hair retains heat and the head will lose a great deal of heat if not covered. It makes sense that asura would have hair at certain strategic areas.

Also, the large ears that dogs have are a useful tool for helping waft scents towards their sensitive noses, which may explain why asura have those big floppy ears. One of our sceptre animations involves “sniffing the air” too.

I always believed that Plumbo was more significant in its analysis of the psychological effect of “power item fixation”, whereby she could only fly if she carried the “lucky gizmo”, but later learned to believe in herself and not in the presence of the unrelated tool. A valuable lesson for progeny to learn that just because two things may seem connected does not always make it so when the association is tested.

However, it is also an interesting study in the area of mental power, whereby the mind can produce impressive bodily control when a placebo is employed and later with training. Humans have often suggested that with proper mental training they can slow breathing and control autonomic processes, so just think what wonders an Asura could work with similar techniques? Perhaps our lack of a religious caste has hindered this interesting area of development.

As to flight, well, the ears to wings theory is a popular and amusing topic, but I think that we have all established that the lack of rigid structures, such as pneumatised bones, in the ears, renders them unable to support weight in flight.

As a Synergist, we are the glue that keeps our society together. Without our big picture, blue sky thinking, the others would be without guidance and their discoveries would see only limited use.

Synergists double-plus bellyfeel EternalAlchemy.

Pedra.4381:

Has Chrono fallen into shadow?

No, I have not fallen into shadow, but having read Xell’s reply, I have instead thrown myself into the thick of the mist war, where my passions and energy are appreciated.

I am destined to remain an Asura alone, for my martial ways have doomed me to a life of mediocrity among the bookah, shunned by most of my own kind.

I am wed to war and victories are my progeny.

Chrono, Mist Commander, Synergist and Tactician.

Golems are awkward, delicate and only function well when used in numbers. They are most effective when used in surprise attack and after that they often get dumped in a keep somewhere and forgotten, due to the impractical nature of their use.

They also function as a way of breaking stalemates where everything is fully upgraded and foot slogging just ends in death and frustration.

I would say that they are fine and the general opinion I see when golems bash something in is that if people wish to spend that much cash on an attack, then they deserve to see success.

Well, let me be the first to declare that the good times are back, for piken square. The queues are low to non-existent, morale seems high and the battles and scores of this match up seem even.

The enjoyment of WvW seems to have returned much quicker than I would have anticipated and this tier and our opponents seem to be working out positively.

It remains one of our only decent skills. I use it constantly in wvw as an area denial tool and for the fact that it renews the debuff frequently, so cleansing effects don’t prevent it.

If my other aoe was as good, I`d be very happy indeed.

Clearly air elementals need legs – er….what?