Guild Wars 2

Ozymandias.5704:

gkrit.9416:

Attunement swapping should NOT have to be a must to be an effective elementalist.

As opportunistic as it seems, it can carry some severe disadvantages. One of the more obvious disadvantages is linear strategies (if you can call it strategy).

If you want to play as a support, you should NOT have to sift through your elements to do so.

If you want to play tanky, you should NOT have to sift through all 4 elements to achieve maximum effectiveness.

Its a fact, Elementalists just play off cooldowns due to how many skills there are at our disposal. Elementalists mentality — Blow all your skills as often as you can.

Should spam = reward?
Should skill = reward?

The fix is simple… the skills within each element are not sufficient and do not fulfill their purpose to play a role(s) effectively.

ANSWER: Skill re-work. Keep the same visuals. Just change what they do.

Elementalist is probably the least straight forward profession in the game due to their mechanics. So, achieving a satisfactory standard for them will take longer.

I rather like the attunement swapping, makes the class more unique. Just as my shatters and my virtues makes my mesmer and guardian unique. One can build around itt, but using the inherent abilities of the professions can yield good results.

Sure, one get a long cool down on the attunement last used, but then again you got 4 attunements in total that you are free to swap to fairly directly.

That said, some rework on the skills of each attunement might be OK, but I still like it that in order to be even more effective one should have to switch attunement, just as I need to shatter with my memser, or pop virtures on my guardian, and swap weapons (!) on both of them, to achieve full potential.

This is the mentality I feel people have been brainwashed into one way or another.

Why should you need to use ALL elements to be effective?

Elemental attunements are there to compliment a particular playstyle. Not dictate they way you use your elementalist. They are OPTIONS. However, too many options can complicate things.
You shatter your illusions at opportunistic moments to gain maximum effect. You’re not just spamming them wildly to output as much damage as possible or achieve as many effects as you can (cooldown being a factor).

Cooldown is not really a huge factor when playing Elementalist. Thus, the godly “Attunement Swapping is the always way… Learn to play” mentality came about.

Define > Design > Refine

This will take time.

Attunement swapping should NOT have to be a must to be an effective elementalist.

As opportunistic as it seems, it can carry some severe disadvantages. One of the more obvious disadvantages is linear strategies (if you can call it strategy).

If you want to play as a support, you should NOT have to sift through your elements to do so.

If you want to play tanky, you should NOT have to sift through all 4 elements to achieve maximum effectiveness.

Its a fact, Elementalists just play off cooldowns due to how many skills there are at our disposal. Elementalists mentality — Blow all your skills as often as you can.

Should spam = reward?
Should skill = reward?

The fix is simple… the skills within each element are not sufficient and do not fulfill their purpose to play a role(s) effectively.

ANSWER: Skill re-work. Keep the same visuals. Just change what they do.

Elementalist is probably the least straight forward profession in the game due to their mechanics. So, achieving a satisfactory standard for them will take longer.

Nice.

I’ve been working on a power, crit, critdmg% build also. My stats are a bit scattered stats wise but it does the job at this stage.

Great we found 1 way to play elementalist effectively!

…wait…do we just settle for 1 play style? Then again, we could go support.

…but… I’ve been hearing they’ll be nerfing healing numbers.

I think it’s safe to say the game does require some more balancing.

I appreciate they’re taking their time seeing as it is still early days… but there are so many bugs that exist in a number of ele skills. If there is no significant amount of bug fixes next patch… i will not be a happy chappy.

^ They make most sense. Not sure why this was not implemented through the development of the game.

^ Thats how it should be now

In that case, I feel like the elementalist loses synergy.

I guess we cant have everything…

Many others have said it. Staff fits a certain purpose and 1v1 is not one of them.

Theives on the other hand have a role of dropping targets quickly. So dont be so surprised.

As far as I am aware, vulnerability is supposed to increase “incoming” damage.

I just noticed today that if you apply burning to an enemy dealing 500dmg per tick and then apply 10 stacks vulnerability to the target while the target continues to burn… the burn DoT does NOT increase.

However…

If you burn a target when they already have 10 stacks vulnerability, THEN your burn will do its [base DoT + 10%] for the rest of the burn duration.

So my question is…

If vulnerability increases all “incoming” damage… shouldn’t the burn damage adjust according to how many stacks of vulnerability there are on a target at any given time?

Aussie lag i guess is 1 thing I will have to come to terms with.

I can tell just by looking at these videos how much more responsive actions are. Im jealous.

Also stuck.

My cousin was able to complete it but when i try … I’m unable to go through the door when they guy has his speech.

Fix ASAP plz … i wanna continue my story

I posted this in a thread under the elementalist category but i feel like its more of a general suggestion and not particularly aimed only for elementalists

I feel when it comes to refining how you want to define your characters role, it gets a little too difficult and there are things that I find quite unnecessary in order to do so.

—

ALL traits (1-12) should be accessible in all 3 trait slots (Adept, Master, Grandmaster)
These should really just compliment whatever build you wish to use. Just give us the options please!

Less restrictions = more creativity.

At the moment, its a fairly restrictive system. The current system — where, the further up you go in a trait line the better the traits become (in theory anyway) — can actually create a distinct line between USEFUL and REDUNDANT traits.

—

Re-mastering your traits should be FREE and customizable outside of battle.
I don’t understand why this needs to be another money sink. One of the reasons I LOVED Guild Wars 1 was how easy it was to customise your character and at no expense or no restriction. Guild wars 2 has so many unforgiving systems set in place… some I understand but others are questionable.
When you pull armor runes into the equation, decision making is made even more difficult, which eventually becomes another expense.

—

Runes & sigils need reviewing
It is obvious which runes and sigils are most desired. Their expense in the trading post is a dead give away. The appoach is simple: either buff those that are never/rarely used (75% of them) or nerf/refine the other 25%

Highly situational sigils (such as sigil of destroyer slayer) need to show that they really are effective in doing whatever they are required to do. Otherwise, where’s the incentive.

One suggestion would be to add another effect where you receive 10% less damage from [specified] enemy.

—

Quick Travelling to Lions Arch, Rata Sum, Hoelbrak and The Grove should cost little or nothing
For us non-farmers quicktravel can be quite an expense. There are already heaps of money sinks in this game (quick travel, repairs, listing costs, soulbounding (indirectly) etc) but I dont see why quick travelling to Main locations incurrs a cost.
Maybe I’m being petty, but if others don’t see this an issue then how about donating a few silvers my way :P

Will update if I have more

discussions are good!

only, my aim for this thread was entirely different.

Signet of restoration works best with a regen type build. I wield daggers and have maxed the water tree (i only have 300 healing power) so im healing on average for 300 health every second while attacking.
If not attacking, i heal for 100+/- health (while attuneed to water obviously).

i actually paniced when i read this post.

… but then I checked… and everything was still the same so no need to panic.

I kinda a hybrid. And from what I’ve experienced (being full power once and full condition also) hybrid is quite effective.

I used D/D generally main the water side of things, but pop to fire for flame breathe for some OP burn duration.

Tryyololol! Honestly, the more i thought about it… the more i lol’d.

I think we should all post an elite worse than whirlpool

(starting with you guys)

I agree. Scepter water skills have no synergy and serve no real purpose (to great effect anyway).

Sure Shatterstone is useful for the long stacks of vulnerability but why would I use this when I can easily use the auto attack in daggers to inflict vulnerability with high DPS and just as effective (if not, better) as an AoE skill.

Using water with scepter is definately NOT for those who try to solo PvE and is probably more suited towards team scenarios but even then its a bit of a lack luster skill set.
It probably just needs to inflict “chill” or function similar to how it worked in GW1. Which was deal damage on use, then deal more damage 2 secs later.

Playing one element does NOT make you noob.

Its the inability to adapt to a scenario that makes you noob. This does not necessarily mean you need to switch to all elements as soon as they are ready to be effective in all situations.

2 ppl who think they’re good… get over yourselves.

Element swapping is ONE way to play elementalists but NOT the only way…

( *. *)

What Im gathering overall… ele’s just dont compare.

Other classes can do everything an ele can and much better.

But im willing to wait till next patch…

I agree. There are a number of useless traits. Maybe not useless… but unjustifiable when compared with some of the other traits.

I think elementalist trait trees and locations needs refinement. For example:

- Spell cooldown reduction trait should NOT be element specific.
There should be a trait slot within Arcana that reduces ALL spell cooldowns by X%. The percentage could be reduced to 10% as it would now be global but could also stack with other cooldown reduction traits such as “Cantrip Mastery” which reduces cantrips cooldowns by 20%.

- ALL traits (1-12) should be accessible in all 3 trait slots (Adept, Master, Grandmaster).
These should really just compliment whatever build you wish to use.

- Character/Build customisation is too linear
Less restrictions = more creativity. At the moment, its a fairly restrictive system. Also, the current system where, the further you go up a trait line the better the traits become (in theory anyway) has actually created this distinct line between GOOD and BAD traits.

- FINALLY, Re-mastering your traits should be FREE and customizable outside of battle.
I don’t understand why this needs to be another money sink. One of the reasons I LOVED Guild Wars 1 was how easy it was to customise your character and at no expense. Guild wars 2 has so many unforgiving systems set in place… and for what?
Character customisation should have not be one of these.

Elementalist damage cannot be justified by how much skill they are required to play. It’s as simple as that.

Whirlpool nerf… LOL!

I highly doubt a powerful skill that can be used every few minutes under water (of which only 4% of my total PVE game time is probably underwater) should be considered broken/overpowered and in need of a nerf.

Can we ask for a Tornado buff now?

This guys thinks hes good because he killed something…

Ive killed things too and for all you know, I could be the kittenest player playing gw2 thats died 500 times!

What we are basically trying to say is “digging a hole in the ground with chopsticks is much harder than using a shovel”.
In the elementalists case, they are the chopsticks… they can do a job, but just not as well as other professions.

I think its about time Anet start balancing skills, seeing as the community is starting to take this stuff seriously. It’s still early days, but you gotta do what the community demands at the time. Fix bugs… but prioritise balance in the next patch (and spend time on the next patch rather than just wait a week and do a few petty tweaks) and listen to what the community is saying.

Majority of the time “we” know what we are talking about. There is no time to be “proud”. Think deeply about changes that will be made and it may not be as simple as changing a few numbers… skills may need to function differently because in theory, things sound good… but in practise, they may not fulfill their purpose as intended.

haha! Well there have always been the “2 gud 4 u” guys in online game.

The main thing I tried to point out more than bugs, was how skills function rather than take the UP vs OP balance approach.

Still early days i guess

Out of the hundred issues/bugs elementalists have that the community have pointed out… these few changes (that are barely noticeable or effective) were made?!

Can’t wait to see what net patch is like!

As for whirlpool having several minutes for cooldown… it totally makes sense to nerf the damage by a 1/3

Finally after that 401 forum error I get to post a few things… congrats!

Overall, Elementalists have been the most fun profession I have played, even since BETA.
The way they function to various number of fancy visuals they display make them for a very unique experience.

However having said that, there have been a few things I have encountered over the duration I have played this profession that I find VERY lack-luster and disadvantageous.
Some of the things sound good in theory but when tested out on the field they are never quite able to fulfill their purpose. I’ll be going over a few of the things that are of most concern to me ranging from visuals to sound to functionality (discussing ele’s can go on and on and on so imma keep it more focused on scepters : )). <- btw thats a mole on my second chin

Earth Attune/ Scepter/ Auto attack [sound] – Very annoying!!! Fix ASAP
1. Hearing “AAHHH!” after every cast of this auto attack makes me wanna mute the game and considering I main in the earth element (mmm bleeed), it would be very quiet.
2. “SHUGSHUGSHUGSH”… also very annoying. The sound for an auto attack should be more subtle OR vary in pitch/range (dunno technical speak) to change it up a little.
There is a sound effect I remember from the Elementalist spotlight videos on the guild wars 2 site that I could not get over (churning earth video… check it, you’ll know which one)

Earth Attune/ Focus/ Obsidian Flesh [particle & sound]
Ummm… is there one? My character just instantaneously goes grey-scale (booorrriinng). Not even a small explosion of dust particles or sound to indicate you have activated the skill? Would be cool if you could see glowing molten cracks in the skin

Earth Attune/ Scepter/ Hurl [particle bug]
Sometimes I only pull one stone out of the ground (the very left one) and other times I dont pull out any.

Air Attune/ Scepter/ Arc Lightning [particle bug]
Depending on when the skill is used, the particle can continue balling up in front of your character. Clicking the skill again generally breaks it.

Spell Animation vs. Cast delay
I feel like this is what is hurting the elementalist a lot.
Too many elementalist skills take too long to do things and generally have very little impact.

Dragons Tooth – Takes way too long to fall after cast. Also requires a target to use. Says it all really…

Phoenix – Travel speed is VERY slow. Thus, making it difficult to track the partical in the midst of battle.
Also, the phoenix fades if you run far away from initial point of casting resulting in no endurance buff (intentional?).

Churning Earth – Sure its a powerful skill but by the time you actually finish it… you are either dead (usually when solo’ing) or there’s no one around you which is most likely due to all enemies have been killed already by other members of the community. I feel to make this skill more functional you need to make it’s crippling mechanic take effect of its maximum range from the very beginning of casting the skill.

Comet – Good luck using it as an interrupt.
To be honest, I think it would be good if it took effect in 0.5 of a second for the purpose of timing pro interrupts and not just have it used for its daze duration. There’s nothing more satisfying than having the ability to interrupt skills and with confidence.

… I also feel Elementalists need a number off buffs/tweaks/durationfixes etc but seeing as this can change in the near future I will refrain from dwelling in this area for now.