Guild Wars 2

Time for an update with the new (old) backpiece and that amazing crimson red dye.

Theres a rule that suits for every forum: If you want a detailed answer, ask a detailed question.

Whatever reason it happens to be that the necro is the first target in teamfights, the result is always the same: The necro gets focused and his lack of sustain is what kills him in the end. That’s why they suck and you seem to agree with me in that point. So I don’t see the error.

Don’t roll a necro. When GW2 was released, I played a necro, mainly in PvP. The class made me quit the game after a couple of weeks before I came back after about 6 months to play an elementalist. I saw other classes jumping around (thiefs), gaining boons (ele), doing tons of damage (warrior). Some had great and useful utilities (portal, timewarp) and what I had was a kittenin second health bar that locked me out of my other skills. As a necromancer, you have

- the worst mobility in the game
- the worst access to boons
- no useful combo fields or finishers

Necros currently suck in high level PvP and they are also bad in PvE. In dungeons, it’s usually all about ele/warrior/guardian/mesmer. There is nothing what you can that other classes couldn’t do better in PvE. For support there’s guardian, for damage ele/warr/thief. So if you want to play a class that is good in PvE, play an elementalist.

Who uses mist form nowadays? It’s very weak.

It’s strong because you can get a guaranteed stomp on every class except ele, thief or mesmer.

For those of you who don’t know, let me quote the author of this thread:

I dislike how Dhuumfire is now. I main pve.

He’s not a pvp player and therefore you shouldn’t pay too much attention to what he writes here. Especially if you’re considering that he wants to make a point using a video which was taken before the dhuumfire nerf.

I think 1,5 years past release it’s clear now that the devs doing the balance are complete idiots who know very little about their own game and don’t care about feedback which is why it’s pointless to post suggestions, as sad as it is.

The most recent example of broken game mechanics I came across are power necros spamming lich form auto attack. Even with 1,9k toughness, the auto attacks hit you for 4k and there is nothing you can do about it except for running away. Now if you run a necro with condition spec, you’re already dead because of your non existent mobility. I ran a powerbuild myself for a while and it’s really that easy – pop lich form, 30 seconds of stability and increased hp pool, auto attack -> gg.

Second example: 1,5 years after release there is no sPvP amulet with condition damage, toughness, vitality. Every class running a power based build gets every combination they could possibly want, zerker, knight, cavalier, zerker combined with vitality. If you run a condition spec, you’re forced to use precision or healing power in addition to toughness and condition damage. This is beyond my understanding.

Spectral grasp is buggy as hell. I often use it at around 900 range and as it reaches the enemy it bugs out saying “out of range”. Most of the times opponents won’t get pulled to me but get stuck somewhere in the middle. When opponents are in front, but close to a wall of a tower in wvw it says “out of sight” which is beyond any logic. Every little edge in the ground will also cause it to fail. Overall, this skill fails quite often due to badly designed game mechanics and is therefore not reliable.

We are the only class that doesn’t have to worry about cooldowns. There is no double edge to this. It is pure benefit.

What you dont see is that our important spells have the highest cooldowns ingame. Firegrab, Frost Aura, Cleansing Wave, Updraft and Earthquake in d/d spec are on a 40-45 second cooldown.

On the other hand, our low cooldown spells are mostly close to useless. Let’s keep talking about d/d spec for one moment. Frost Explosion does about 0 damage and inflicts only 3 seconds of chill. The blast finisher is basically useless because if you want to stack might on your fire field, you switch to earth, dodge once with evasive arcana, use earthquake and then ring of earth to keep it on cd. Water, earth and fire auto attacks on d/d are completely useless.

Fire 2, earth 2 and lightning 2 are only used as gap fillers because you have to kill some time to get your important spells ready again. But they all have low damage/dps and short debuff times. For example, every good d/d elementalist will stay in lightning attunement a little bit longer (if the situation allows it) to kill some time using lightning whip, although it only crits for about 1,5k assuming you have balanced gear and let’s say 10-15 might stacks.

So: What might feel like many usable skills off cooldown is in fact just chaining small effects while other classes can achieve the same effect with fewer spells. THATS the double edge.

As a thief player myself, I must admit that I didn’t manage to handle the class in the beginning, but after a long and hard time of learning, I finally reached the point where I can effectively beat other players with a unique combo on my d/d thief that takes years of practice to master. From the following lines, that are written as some sort of diary, you can reconstruct my learning process.

1 – 2 – 5: I’m stealthed and confused.

2 – 5 – 1: Kinda nice, but my heartseeker doesn’t do enough damage.

1 – 5 – 2: Wait, the big number from the previous try, where is it?

5 – 2 – 1: Same problem as before.

2 – 1 – 5: Not working either. Man, this class is really hard to play.

5 – 1 – 2: NAILED IT!!!!

You’re handicapped by picking ele and you have to make up for it with skill. Simple example: Your access to stability (earth armor):

- 6 seconds of stability on a 75 second cooldown, stunbreaker

Compared to what warrior has (balanced stance):

- 8 seconds of stability on a 40 second cooldown, stunbreaker

And this is the result of such “balance” (quoting an engi player):

Every time I see an ele comes at me alone to pick a fight, I think it’s cute.

In what way did celestial gear get destroyed? Edit: Aight, it’s the critical damage nerf.

Hi guys,

I created two builds for my powernecro for WvW and I would like to hear some opinions on these two builds.

Build 1: http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRBIbdG2IHNt02ajxNc4mAXog+NDgWIqLg6zIMeWA-T1CBwACs/gnqKr0FowEEWlYSeCAAOJAeVegTtiWaFmoEkMA5TA-w

Build 2: http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRBIbdG2IHNt02ajxNc4mYYogKLjOAigJg6oYJyVA-TlSBwA7UVh2+Dq0FkwEUknAQXlf3UrAlWBJKBBcSAIDQ+EA-w

I’m currently running the first build which works quite well, but I’m thinking about switching.

Pros and Cons:
Build 1:
- more power and +20% damage to enemys below 50% hp
- slightly more condition duration/damage

Build 2:
- less damage because the lack of “close to death” trait, but +100 toughness, fury in ds, might duration and (that’s why I’m thinking about changing my build and equip) weakness on critical hits

Question:

1. Does withering precision have an internal cooldown?

2. What do you guys think?

7/10

Decent colours, but I think if you use dry bones armor, you should wear some helmet.

It is true that as an elementalist (if you go fullzerker) you draw insane aggro. This is just fair since you have the lowest health pool and poor defense compared to other classes which will not be attacked while you’re present. But I didn’t know that the aggro range is different than for other classes. I also didn’t observe that phenomenom so far.

Our low defense is compensated by the aggro system to make you the primary target for mobs because minus times minus equals plus.

If you feel you’re dying too fast, take s/f and arcane shield. As enemys approach, pop arcance shield and do your might stacking combo, including arcane brilliance which should put your hp back to 100% in case you got it. As you switch to earth, use focus 5 to get invulnerable to attacks. After that, you have your lightning hammer to spam aoe blindness and two dodges. This should be enough for most of the fights.

The only good thing about these new traits is that I don’t have to get used to a new build.

juno.1840:

You have a lot of conflicting info in your response. I’ll illuminate some of it, but I doubt it’s worth discussing with you beyond this…

1. Water fields are not trait dependent — you have them with Staff, period. So you can have water fields and aura share. Simple sequence: Earth #3, Earth #2, Water #3 (aura share, prot, water field, blast, heal). Not sure why this is confusing.

2. Protection comes from multiple sources. Elemental Attunement doesn’t require any investment in Water to get it. If you are thinking only Elemental Shielding + Aura Share then yeah you need Water traits.

3. Stability doesn’t come from the healing line at all (purely Earth)

I totally agree this new trait blows with the current game mechanics (I listed multiple reasons why I feel this way in a previous post). However don’t down play Elementalist as a bad support role. I also dispute your 95% figure… nobody knows the figure. It’s also very easy to play a Guardian compared to an Elementalist — maybe that’s why you see more.

I totally forgot that earth #3 on staff is an aura skill, sorry about that. I was thinking about frost- and shock aura on d/d. Of course, that would also imply a second source of protection with the earth V trait.

The reason I threw protection/stability and healing all into one pot (which might cause confusion) is because I understand roles in a teamfight to be very specialized. Thus, if I was to pick a build, I would go either full support or full damage. Going full support implies to me to pick up traits that grant stability/protection AND healing as well as condition cleanse.

I also don’t think eles are bad in support, I just think they are worse than guardians. We have some passive traits to gain protection and stability, but they are locked behind attunements. They are not like ulitity skills that are accessable on demand. IMO the utility skills of guardians will always be better than the passive boons from elementalists, at least in dungeons.

Toss in water fields, condition clears, regeneration, self-blasts, protection, aura-sharing and the Ele is definitely on top imho.

That doesn’t even work in theory. Tell me how to toss in water fields and share auras at the same time. It’s useless to mention a list of features that will never be accessable in the same build.

Besides, if staff ele was the best support in the game, why is the support class in 95% of all groups a guardian? Because no one knows about it? I dont think so. And if you talk about open world, regeneration, water fields and self blasts are something that a full zerker staff ele already has. Some protection, 2 seconds of stability and 1 more condition clear is not worth to go full healing at all, which would be the only reason to make this trait we’re talking about useful.

No one will ever take an elementalist as supporter into dungeons because the classes support capabilites are much less effective than what guardians have. For example, eles dont provide stability for the group. So in terms of dungeon runs, this trait is completely useless. And in open world, staff eles should do damage instead of healing. So I don’t see why this trait would be of any use, unless they increased the amount of healing in some tremendous way.

I’ve had no error messages so far but the game is laggin like crazy. Already made a speedtest and my connection is fine. Problem occured today.

Thanks for your suggestions. I think I will go with a stunbreaker, lyssa runes and the patience → kiting concept.

I agree with spectral mastery, I still have that because I used to take spectral walk as well as spectral wall. Soul marks is one of the best traits for a necro in my opinion, it creates a very nice amount of life force during a fight. Spectral wall is a very strong skill in spvp, especially against thieves. I will try to use spectral walk again as a stunbreaker but I dont think this will solve the problem since I dont see how I’m supposed to win against a class that does way more damage than me and is almost immune to CC.

Is it even possible against a warrior who has played spvp for more than, lets say, an hour? This is the build I run

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vQAQNBLhZakjmebLvxoG2bTIQP2FcBEjUcMBDlC4hdA
with precision/toughness/condition damage gear.

Everytime I fight a warrior I see “immune” “immune” “immune” “0” “0” while they outpressure me hard and I’m not able to do anything about it besides my two dodges. You cannot CC them while they can stunlock you and do tons of dmg even with their BOW (!). So what exactly do you do against them? I’ve played necro now for 700 spvp games and I can handle almost every class except warriors.

Let’s talk about PvE. Basically, Ganathar already mentioned it. The only reason why eles are decent at the moment is the abuse of conjured weapons. The whole class is reduced to conjures because besides that, there is no reason to take an elementalist into dungeons if you have a group of mesmers, warriors, guardians.

You have the potential to deal high amounts of damage with your lightning hammer, but even if you use all your potential, the maximum you can usually achieve is to be at the same level with warriors. But then there are several disadvantages:

- People take your second lightning hammer, which is your main DPS source; have you ever seen someone grabbing a warriors greatsword out of his hands?

- you have to be in melee range as a class with the lowest base stats and hp pool

- the group support you provide with might stacking and fury on fire fields is often neglected because of guardians setting down light fields or mesmers with their chaos fields. No one takes away the banners of warriors, no one cancels a mesmers timewarp, no one removes the stability guardians give you

- the aggro system: if you run zerker gear, you will get focused most of the time. Considering the second point I mentioned, you are downed more often then any other class in dungeons

- your great cc and defensive utilities are useless because two of your three utility slots are occupied with arcane wave and lightning hammer, the third is usually signet of fire

Now consider the effort it takes to master the elementalist compared to a warrior, for example the might stacking combo followed by lightning hammer, which lets you rotate through 3 different attunements within a very short amount of time while they have to place down the banner and press button “2” and “3” with greatsword to deal huge amounts of damage. I have seen videos of warriors dealing 49k crits to the first boss in cof p1 with hundred blades. What’s the point in mastering a class when it’s not rewarded because there are classes that can achieve the same output with lesser effort und less disadvantages? Besides dealing damage, there is no “role” that the elementalist class fullfills in dungeons because 4 warriors can easily stack might and fury for themselves.

Let me conclude with this thought: What would be left if they nerfed conjures? You could basically dump the class.

Under optimal conditions eles are the best PvE class but it’s too bad that optimal conditions rarely occur. This means that warriors and guardians are usually better.

qft

That ele in the video kinda reminds me of this guy

If you use a defensive dagger/dagger build for leveling, you can kill anything, even groups of enemys, quite easy and your elementalist feels really strong. Hit 80 and that story is over.

If you want to play a mage kind of class in pvp I suggest you roll a mesmer. It’s one of the strongest 1v1 classes and winning battles against other players in a straight duel is usually what keeps people playing the game when they’re new to it. When you hit 80, you will also be useful in dungeons with portal/timewarp.

I see no point in playing an elementalist in pvp as a new player since it takes 3 times more effort to be as succesful as other classes.

If they fixed the kittened aggro system it wouldn’t be that much of a deal since if you use staff, you can stay at 1200 range. But the way it is now is totally ridiculous, my ele gets focused by almost every aimed attack from bosses, doesn’t matter if it’s open world fights or dungeons. In cof, when I run it with my s/f build and lightning hammer, bosses focus the kitten out of me while there are 3 warriors standing next to them being ignored. The elementalist is already the weakest class and in addition to that, it’s the primary target for mobs. I could live with that if my damage was by far the highest in the game, but as we all know the best you can achieve is to be at the same level with the warrior class.

Rarely do you quit a game that you really like because the guys responsible for the balance do such a poor job, but I’m getting closer and closer to leaving GW2 because of that particular reason.

I love my necromancer in WvW because the conditionmancer is a very strong pvp class. If you want to do pve or both pve/pvp, then you’re better off rolling a mesmer/guardian/warrior. Of course a necromancer in PvE isn’t completely useless but.. the pet of a ranger isn’t useless either, yet no one would play it as a class.

Press enter, then [ /laugh ] when he is nearly down and stand there pressing F1 realizing he doesn’t have Life Force anymore.

Why would you press F1 as you realize the necro doesn’t have life force anymore?

My Sylvari Necro after I re-designed her a little bit. I think she looks fabulous now.

If you have bad reactions and/or cannot avoid burst, you shouldn’t play zerker. Being able to cheese people down with a faceroll on the keyboard also doesn’t necessarily mean that the class itself is viable in pvp. Also, compare the burst of an Ele to thief burst. An ele has to press a lot of buttons within short time to do his burst, thiefs for example only have to hit two buttons for cloak and dagger + backstab (or just heartseeker).

Make a warrior. Has always been overpowered and since this game is now out for over a year and anet hasn’t done anything in terms of balance to change that, you probably won’t get nerfed in the future. LFG messages are still something like “speedrun, zerk warrs only” and always when the group needs damage, people raise the question who can log onto his warrior.

So make a warrior, get happy with it and enjoy the game. Oh, and welcome to GW2.

Arcane Shield really needs some work. It’s just ridiculous if you compare it to Endure Pain from warriors.

Endure Pain: 4 seconds of immunity to direct damage, stun breaker, 60 second cooldown
Arcane Shield: Blocks (only) 3 attacks, doesn’t even last more then a few seconds in case you don’t get hit, stun breaker, 75 second cooldown

It’s less effective but has a higher cooldown. Oh yeah, it does damage, great.. but my glass cannon ele needs at least 1 utility that grants her some kind of shield and the only option besides arcane shield is earth armor, which has even higher cd.

Considering that this shield only blocks 3 attacks, a 45 second cooldown would be appropriate. They can even remove the damage of it, I don’t care, but give us some defense anet..

If you want to be sure not to make a mistake with your gear selection, then go full zerker.

Use ruby orbs or scholar runes with that.

glass ele builds are perfectly viable, since bosses die in under 10 secs, during which time you can avoid all dmg via 2x dodges, fgs 3, hiding inside wall/feedback, relying on aegis from guard, relying on blinds from lh/guard

Can you show me the part of the OP’s post where he says that he only runs fractals/dungeons with totally organized groups in which he can rely on his teammates 100% so he doesn’t have to care about survivability at all? Because i don’t find it.

Also Anierna’s arrogance is irritating.

+1

Other classes can allow themselves to go full damage without defense – elementalists can’t. You have the lowest base stats and health pool in the game while still having to fight at close combat range to do damage, so with this build you will be downed most of the time and therefore be useless for your team.

Your build lacks

- condition remove
- stamina regeneration
- defense in general

Disregarding the fact that you will die very often with a full glassy build as an ele, if you want to run something like this, here are my suggestions:

- arcane wave as utility because it’s another blast finisher
- take 5 points away from air to get fire XI
- remove the 10 points from earth and put it in water VI

This is the highest dps build on an ele, but I can promise you that you won’t be happy with this.

Also, take Divinity or Scholar runes and remove the lifeleech sigil for +5% dmg

Why do you guys even bother playing ele

Do you know that Al Gore documentation about the climate change when he comes up with this example with the frog in the glass? So, if you put the frog into a glass of boiling water, he would jump out immediately, but if you put him into cold water and you heat it, he will stay there and probably die.

Something like that.

lipstick on a pig

this

Even considering moving up Renewing stamina together with Elemental Attunement to Master tier means that they have no single idea what to do with the Elementalist

Yeah, it’s pretty funny. While other classes get this trait basically for free, they wanted to make it a master tier trait for the elementalist (which is already the weakest class). Seriously, what the kitten Anet? Even publishing these patch notes in the way they were before shows that there are guys working who know absolutely nothing about balance.

Well, I tested it by letting a ranger give 3 conditions to me in PvP in a clean 1on1 environment. You see the animation but somehow, you still have all your bleeding stacks.

So, it’s either intended to be a crap trait or it just doesn’t work. Also, in the tooltip of Air IV it says nothing about being in combat. Seems that there are professionals working on the ele traits.

Cleansing fire does nothing unless you have the cantrip equipped, then it uses it for you. The reason why someone would want this is beyond my understanding.

At some point, you start asking yourself if Anet is making fun of elementalist players. Why the kitten would you use such a trait?

So I tried two new traits of the ele. One is air IV which is supposed to grant you super speed if you attune to air. I see absolutely no difference.

Second is the new cleansing fire trait, which is supposed to trigger if you have 3 conditions on you. Just did a round of Ascalon and couldn’t notice the trait working. Had a lot of conditions on me, no automatic removal.

So, for me it seems like this kitten is not working at all. Anyone else had the same experience?

My PvE build got buffed slightly. I’m running the S/D Might Stacker and I’m quite happy with the cleansing fire trait for condition removal, +5% dmg boost and the new healing skill which is a blast finisher.

In regards of pvp… wait, you play an elementalist in pvp? lol xD Play a thief bro, I just hit 80 and I love this class. It’s amazing how you can take down an enemy with three strikes while your d*** gets harder and harder.

Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.
Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier.

This was one of the few nice things to have on an almost broken class and now you even take this away from us. It’s like you want everyone thats left to stop playing ele.

I run the S/D might stacker build (the guys from anet probably dont even know what this means) and now I have to use Arcane VII to compensate for this. The other changes are useless for me except the 5% increase in Damage to burning foes. So in the end, this is just another NERF for the ele by reducing his already laughable defense via -50% endurance regeneration.

Final look of my ele

ThiBash.5634:

I’m guessing there’s only 2 options in your view right? Either instakill burster or undefeatable bunker?

That sums up quite well why many think the elementalist is broken in PvP. You just have to cut the “instakill” and the “undefeatable”.

It’s not like I run around alone to satisfy my ego – lol – I just don’t see what staff has that makes it worth giving up my 1on1 capabilitys. Of course, after a lot of practice, you will be able to kill lowskilled players, but you will always lose against people that are equally skilled. Besides, have you ever heard someone saying “oh kitten they have a staff ele, kill that one first”.