Guild Wars 2

Power/toughness/vitality → Ascalonian Catacombs set, easy tokens, fast set.
Never ever craft any exotic weapons/armors, just farm dungeons, making money in the process.

How much crit dmg have you got, what on-crit effects are you running?

You guys must have ignored the part where i outlined that i’m talking about PvE, even though i did so twice.

You have only a few bleed/burn-inducing skills, and if you want to keep your target bleeding, you are bound to spam 1-2 skills all the time, which is not viable on an elementalist. This, by default, defies any condition damage builds on ele.

Going for precision requires speccing some crit dmg and using crit-related sigils and/or traits, otherwise you have no use of 70% crit chance.
We have kitten poor major traits that proc on crits. Most crit-based sigils are condition-inducing.
More so, going for both precision and crit dmg requires a really heavy stat investment, making you give up too much on survivability – and we really need extra vit and tough as we have the lowest hp/armor pools.

I’ve ditched precision and all crit-related stuff completely, went full pow/tough/vit armor, pow/tough/vit weapons and sapphire/cleric jewelry, along with dolyak’s runes – extra passive hp regen is awesome on 900 healing and stacks with the water’s passive regen.

0/0/10/30/30 traits, though the 10 in earth is movable, but only to air for a neat major trait if you feel like it (bolt, glyphs or one with air).

The floating bridge pair of goggles is also missing on Gunnar’s Hold.

MF is good if you’re not that good with ele, if you’re in an unknown dungeon, doing something for the first time. MF might be good if you’re running glass cannon build and one hit from a boss eats 3/4 of your hp.
But for open-world PvE, every second you’re not tagging mobs you’re losing potential drops – AS not only doesn’t lock you out from tagging, not only grants enough protection for all the mobs to die to the zerg at a temple/defense event, but also provides additional mob-tagging for loot.

Power/toughness/vitality is everything you need then, maybe except for full berserker for raining death in W3 from behind your allied zerg.

Let me be more precise:
You haven’t mentioned what format of the game the build is for. You need different things for open-world PvE, explorable dungeons, W3 and sPvP, although the first three can be somewhat mixed up.

You haven’t mentioned what the build is for.

It’s not the damage – you said yourself you’re there to farm mobs for loot, and you need to tag them to get a chance at looting their corpses.
3 blocks are enough out in the open, and if they’re not, you’re just doing something wrong – wasting dodges, running glass cannon or hop into the biggest group without any thought. The Arcane Shield’s blast is, however, enough to tag all the mobs hit, potentially granting you more loot – and you’re not locked out of using your weapon skills in the meantime.

@silver – yes, because Arcane Shield potentially tags 5 more mobs for loot, while Mist Form does not.

I’m maining an ele since the release, been to Orr farming for long hours. Been to the probably ‘toughest’ mob farm out there, aka Grenth’s, many many times.

With my d/d set on, i’m at over 3k attack, ~2850 toughness and nearly 19k health. There’s literally no reason to slot Mist Form, wasting my DPS/mob-tagging potential – Arcane Shield / Arcane Wave / Glyph of Elements is not only enough to survive (yes, with d/d), does not only deal extra dps, but also each of those skills let me tag more mobs.

What i’m saying is – if you’re wasting a utility slot for Mist Form just to be sure you don’t die when tagging mobs, Arcane Shield is not only enough to dodge out, but may also tag more mobs for you.

Dungeons yield stat combos on gear unattainable via crafting, like power/toughness/vitality. They also let you get your exotic gear not only without spending a penny, but also while actually making money.
Above all, they are FUN if you run them with a proper guild group of friends.
Nuff said.

Having done all explorable routes except for Arah, and done them more than once, i can’t agree with the OP that it’s about trial and error.
CoF1 corridor? Sorry, but it’s pretty easy if you watch the rolling rocks, even without cheesy skills like Lightning Flash.
CoE laser puzzle? A bit more demanding, still pretty easy.

I never take my armor off for those, and i never feel upset if i have to repair my armor afterwards if i made a mistake when jumping – that’s how it was designed and should be. My mistake – my repair costs.
The obvious solution is to practice jumping outside of those dungeons and get better at feeling jumps with your character, so that those puzzle parts aren’t painful but actually enjoyable, as i find them

It doesn’t. But then – popping Mist Form for farming or tagging mobs makes no sense whatsoever simply because it locks your weapon skills.

Getting into a group of mobs doesn’t need any blocking or invulnerability.
Popping instant AoEs doesn’t need any blocking or inv and if you do, Arcane Shield is your skill of choice mainly because it tags even MORE mobs for your phat l00t.
Getting out of a group after popping all the AoEs is as easy as proper dodging.

Mist Form is only useful when you have to be stationary and keep your cast bar up on an object or when reviving an ally, as you can start reviving, then pop Mist and keep on reviving, being invulnerable. Same goes for all interactable objects with a ‘cast bar’, like the torches in CoF3 – hit F and then pop Mist to do it the easy way.

It’s not – because there are better major traits from Arcana line.
Arcane Shield utility and Earth’s Embrace all the way, especially that Embrace also pops stability.

Still, bleed/burning options of D/D are limited enough NOT to warrant speccing for cond damage, while your close range coupled with low hp/armor pools require you to spec more toughness and vitality.

I have over 3k attack and ~2850 toughness, along with nearly 19k hp, when roaming with D/D on my ele, all backed up by 900 healing power.
No need for precision, crit hits or any cond dmg.

You have enough ranged AoEs not to suicide into 6+ mobs at once, especially that you can only tag 5 with one AoE spell.

So how are you doing it? Popping Mist Form, rushing into a group of 10 mobs and what? Dropping Arcane Wave to tag 5 mobs, then dodging away?

You can jump in with Arcane Shield on you, and not only survive longer, but also tag more mobs with the Arcane Shield’s blast after three blocks
Not only that! Arcane Shield doesn’t restrict you from using your weapon skills!

Condition damage is useless in dungeons, where you should be running staff.
Condition damage is useless in bigger/defensive W3, where you should be running staff.

Condition damage is very mediocre in open PvE when running scepter/dagger.

Condition damage is useful in sPvP, but that’s a whole other matter.

It’s all about elimination – no cond dmg needed, no prec unless we’re going for crit dmg or crit effects, which is not viable for eles.

The problem of Mist Form is that you’re doing something wrong in PvE if you ever need it… UNLESS in situations like CoF3.

If you are glass cannon built, you’re doing something very wrong in the first place – eles should never ever spec glass cannon in PvE – but if you are and you use Mist Form, you’re wasting your high DPS potential by not slotting offensive utilities.

If you are not glass cannon, you are doing something wrong if you need those silly few seconds of invulnerability from Mist Form, especially that you can’t fight when in Mist, you still die on traps and you retain all your conditions you had, aka you still can die or stay immobilisied.

If you need extra 2 seconds to pop your heal or dodge away, seriously slot Arcane Shield – it not only blocks stuff while letting you use all your weapon skills, but also blows up in a critical AoE. Awesome for farming, awesome for dungeons – and the only defensive utility you will ever need on ele once you’ve learnt how to use it.

In PvE – neither.
Slot Mist Form only if you are about to really use it – like lighting torches at the beginning of CoF3 or traversing the corridor there.
Armor of Earth is very meh, Earth’s Embrace major trait from the Earth traitline is really enough.

If you want a survival utility skill, Arcane Shield all the way.

Power/toughness/vitality armor and weapons, with sapphire jewelry.
Raw power and survivability is all you need on ele.

How to test it:
Lose all your health ->
Get into downed state ->
Get 1 level of death penalty and get downed skills ->
Use 2 – Vapor Form – and fly around until it ends ->
Go back to downed state and discover you have less health than before ->
Don’t rally, don’t get up, but don’t get defeated either – stay in downed state until Vapor Form recharges ->
Vapor Form again, fly around until it ends ->
Discover you have less health again ->
Repeat until you accumulate enough death penalty from using Vapor Form that you go straight into defeated state after exiting Vapor Form.

So his target range should be of at least 1200, as i was still hitting him when he decided to ignore me.

Just an update:
The problem is still there

http://imageshack.us/a/img213/6866/gw019yr.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img69/3726/gw020yl.jpg

Long story short:
We got to Lupicus. Got him down into the second phase.
Three people died pretty soon, me and our warrior kept up for longer. We both kept dealing damage with occassional hits at long range.
Lupicus focused on the warrior, got him downed. I was still being shot at with the green orb, i still kept dealing my silly staff ele damage. Couldn’t really revive the warrior and didn’t want to risk us both dying, so i just focused on keeping myself alive and keeping Lupicus from resetting until the previous trio got back, as one of them was really close already.

The best part:
So Lupicus finished the warrior off and then decided to ignore me, to just reset back to his spawnpoint and go back to full health. As you can see in the first picture, i am still seen as in fight, as i kept hitting the boss when he was killing the warrior.

I never left the room.
I haven’t broken aggro in any way i know of.
I used the elite a while earlier but then only used the leap skill (3, Pounce) as it serves as a third so-so dodge and i don’t really have anything better to slot there as a norn ele – for that particular fight, with phase 2 in mind.

We had the same problem a few weeks ago when attempting Arah for the first time.
We got to Lupicus, got him down to phase 3. I was downed in one side of the room, not in a corner and still insde, but far from others; was using Bandage to get up on my own. The boss got one of the other three party members down and the other two rushed to revive him, only to get downed by Lupicus together.
Before they got downed, i managed to get back on my feet, and was still seen by the game as ‘in fight’. On the other side of the room, we had 3 downed players – not dead, downed – and Lupicus right at them.
And then he decided to reset. Completely.

I revived the downed ones, but it made us ragequit that night.

I tried using the paper as you have suggested, Knifemare, but it seems that norns don’t use it that way, at all

…probably not, but maybe i’ve missed something.

Enter attuned to air, have One With Air slotted = profit.

Up, ’cause more folks out there need a hint at the Tower.

Thieves and eles have it MUCH easier.
Do it on an asura guardian

Up, so it’s not lost in the Act3 madness.

No need for an NPC when you have youtube.

Because the statue is destroyed only once, and the portal is opened only once. It’s about keeping the world persistent, and not instanced for everyone.
They did overhype the cutscene, but that’s just marketing. You shouldn’t have been pissed in the first place, even if you might have missed the ‘one-time event’ not knowing what it was, since ANet made it quite clear it’s not something achievement-related nor something that will impede your progress, but something to watch (the YT and streaming comments).

DISCLAIMER:
Please keep this thread whining-free.
Please keep this thread bragging-free.
There are lots of places where you can cry how that puzzle is taking your fun away, how hard it is, or how good at jumping puzzles you are.

This thread is intended to point useful tips and hints for everyone to use, and THAT’S IT.

The Clock Tower is very much doable with any character, of any race and profession. You don’t need any speed boosts, although they are really helpful if you are familiar with them. Since most people fall pretty quickly, asuras are not at any real disadvantage.
I’ve done the puzzle six times so far:

• with a shortest human necromancer, twice – once using a warrior’s banner, second time without using any speed boosts;
• with a shortest asura elementalist – using One With Air;
• with a shortest norn elementalist – using One With Air;
• with a shortest norn guardian – without any speed boosts;
• with a shortest norn ranger (level 5) – without any speed boosts.

Here’s a video of the guardian run:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5MY3EjEmpU

General tips:

• watch the video above and learn the route by heart – sometimes there are two or more platforms you can jump on, and only one will save you time; while it’s not the perfect run, it shows possibly the best route to follow;
• as you may see, i’m not the first person from my group in the beginning, and yet i got some extra time later on to hesitate and withdraw from a jump without being swamped with the green goo; there really is enough time to do it;
• stay as close to the tower as possible – those few steps may save you enough time;
• don’t jump like crazy – jump only if you need to cross a gap or jump over an obstacle;
• the run has to be fluent, but not really rushed – keep calm, don’t let the adrenaline take over;
• don’t focus on your character – by now, you should already ‘feel’ where your character is on your screen, so don’t look at them, focus on the next platform you have to get to;
• it may help to colour your armour flashy pink, but again – try not to focus on your character, don’t look at them when jumping, focus on the next leap, not your current position;
• keep in mind that you can navigate your character mid-jump – jump keepin forward pressed, but then you can press left, right or even backward to navigate as needed!;
• try not to strafe and never move backwards, unless you’re worried you will over-jump something – use your mouse to change your facing and try to move forwards, as this is the fastest way of moving;
• BE PATIENT – this puzzle is NOT meant to be doable in the first try (although some players probably have beaten it first time – gz to them!);
• learn bits of the puzzle piece by piece – even if you fail 15 times on the first quarter of the puzzle, it will help you memorise that part and proceed onwards, possibly to fail again – but somewhere farther this time.

As i said earlier, speed boosts are NOT required but they DO help A TON if you can manage them – that is, if you know how far you will jump having that particular speed boost on you.
This is why warriors bring banners and if you notice that swiftness on you soon enough, it may help you tremendously, even when popped on you mid jump.
Weapon and utility skills do not work, but there are some things omitted by ANet that can be used to help you:

• warrior’s banners – pick one up and use skill 3 to get swiftness;
• traits granting speed boosts – one example is One With Air, ele’s air major trait which is AWESOME for this puzzle;
• the Black Lion speed boost works there, too.

If you have any other tips, share!

@Nox Aeterna:
End-game, once you have all your characters equipped in full exotic stuff (and best at least 8 characters, one of each profession) isn’t skin-hunting, although you can stick to it if you WANT to; as in all other MMOs, the true end-game is PvP. Even PvE points at that [SPOILER SPOILER] – some of the rewards for story completion are W3 blueprints.

It’s fine to be done with a game once you have achieved what you’ve wanted, and played through the content you wanted. I for one never liked playing a bad guy in Fallout, so i never experienced a considerable chunk of the game and easter eggs – and that’s fine, because i wouldn’t enjoy the gameplay too much; instead, i played through each F installment a dozen of times as the good guy, having fun each time.

@Volomon:
Because all gambling is bad if you’re not ready to take the risk of going away with completely nothing? Because even if the drop rate of cool items was 70%, you would still have 30% chance of wasting money and/or gold?
It’s a matter of principle, first and foremost – if you’re not ready to lose, don’t gamble. In fact, don’t play games if all you expect is constant winning and breezing through content, beating opponents and winning all the time at everything. But that’s getting carried away a bit.

Even without that, you could have waited a day or two until others went over and started gambling. There are dozens of whining threads on this very forum, akin to this one, making me not even think about gambling my in-game gold with the BL chests.

Instead, you thought that if you pay real cash, you are sure to get something in return. Based on what? High hopes only.
If you wanted something sure and certain for gems, you should have bought the two awesome costumes, all the minipets (here i will agree – making us pay 1k gems for 4 pets is a rip off, but an open one, one we may consciously agree on or deny) and enjoyed the in-game content we got for the holiday, which is truly epic even if you can’t complete the tower jumping.

If the amount of gems you get for $50 isn’t enough for you, don’t buy them.
If the odds of gambling with BL chests and/or forge aren’t high enough for you, don’t do it.

I bought 2 packs of minipets to get the rare mini and the witch costume to farm costume brawl achievement later on – although i find it cute in its own right, too. Used in-game gold for all of that.
Never bothered with gambling, and if i did, i was in full mental power to understand that it is gambling and i may get nothing interesting in return, at all.

You feel ripped off simply because, using your own words, you supported the company with gems but got nothing in return, although you should have understood the gambling part in all of that. I don’t feel like betting my real cash – or even in-game gold too often – on random chances, so i don’t gamble; simple as that.

Shortest human necromancer, no boosts.

Shortest ASURA elementalist, although using One With Air.

Then Griffonrook should be fixed, not the Tower broken.

Where’s the achievement in just TRYING to do something?

And you think that people who don’t read the short description before a match will come to the forum and read a tutorial?

I just went through the whole book hunt with a lv15 character, just got a hand from puggies and guildies.

Seriously guys, what’s with that ‘i have to do everything solo’ mentality?
It’s an MMO, organise a team and go get it.

Yup.

Don’t get me wrong – i’m hoping ANet removes ALL the speed boosts, both from traits and the banners when at the tower, but in the meanwhile… use them instead of whining about them. Cope with the design or move on.

Get yourself a banner – the warrior spawning the banner can’t pick it up until the summoning animation is over, so just swoop it yourself.
Solution far from perfect, but then if everyone had a banner, there would be no problems and everyone would have it much easier – inbefore ANet fixes the issue.

Traits still work

So make friends in LA.
MMO is not a single-player game.

I believe they assumed that people would have achieved lv40+ by now, after all the game’s been out for two months and getting one char to lv80 isn’t that hard nor long. I believe they assumed that the newcomers who just started playing a week ago would join a guild and get help from their guildies to get into the harder spots. I believe it’s wrong to believe that soloing everything despite of your ALT’s level should be fine.