Guild Wars 2

It’s healthy right now. Time will tell if it’s still healthy months from now.

He’s a bot! I smell auto-clicker.

I’ve posted many times in this topic (and a few others) about how enjoyable this trait has been in large group WvW.

After using it in small groups and solo roaming in WvW, it’s definitely niche. I find it lack luster in those situations, to the point where I don’t trait it.

In PvE I find it situationally useful. In most situations it doesn’t provide enough benefit as the ele will drop below 90% very quickly. There are a few where it shines though (try opening a gift box full of princess dolls).

In short I’m not using it any longer as there are better traits for my investment. I’m really enjoying a 0/30/10/20/20 fresh air build with S/D. The DPS is pretty amazing with celestial gear — my survivability is still fragile (I’m not sure this is unavoidable on the ele tbh).

The manifesto had some tripe about not needing to craft lots of useless items simply to level crafting. It was fairly accurate until ascended crafting came along.

Brother Grimm.5176:

They obviously DON’T want 20 damask a day being made for whatever reason but lets all be realistic, the only reason anyone would do this is to sell the materials on the TP and cash in. Seriously, if someone had the situation I mentioned above, they would NOT be making 20 sets of Ascended….they would be making one set 20 times faster (then possibly multiple sets after). Those 2 reasons are the obvious reason why they don’t allow it. Sure the guy with 20 characters can get Ascended armor, but is it fair he could do it 20 times faster than a player with one character? See how that logic twists both ways?

I have 10 characters and see both sides of this. Alt-aholics have a clear advantage in material gathering (both nodes and once per day items) and Anet felt that advantage (and the possibility of abuse) was too high in this case. To be honest, I have no intention of pursuing Ascended armor as I don’t do Fractals and see no reason to need it.

One reason is to make armor — not just to sell the damask. It’s already been mentioned (along with many other good points) that the price will eventually make it unprofitable to craft+sell — so that’s not the long term goal of the limitation.

Alts may have advantages to grabbing resource nodes, but they didn’t get that advantage for “free” — they have to level the alts and they still have to spend time running to the nodes to harvest.

Finally having many alts does not equate to “free damask”. It costs the same PER damask regardless of how many you can make per day. In this case the Player with many alts paid a bit more because crafting had to be at 450.

You could argue market stability of various materials like linen and such, but Players have had months to prepare for this (and they have if you look at how gossamer tanked). Ultimately it just makes ANet look bad since it’s something stupid that less progressive MMOs would have done… and ANet did it.

EDIT: I’ll put it a different way… you’re saying someone with 20 alts at 450 crafting EACH doesn’t deserve to make 20 damask?

Brother Grimm.5176:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Unfortunately, this is “working as intended”.

Anet wants us to work for “character progression” but as usual there is no reward for doing so.

First, the reason this is in place is to keep players with 20 ALTs from making 20 of these in a day (yes, I know having that many characters with 450 crafting is unlikely, but it IS possible). It is very likely that this restriction will be modified in some manner after some period of time.

Second, your suggestion that the crafting result is not a reward is part of the problem with all these whinny complaints.

So someone with 20 alts doesn’t want 20 sets of ascended armor?

So I have an armorsmith and a tailor both at 450 and 500 respectively.

I can only make one Silk Weaving Thread per day per account. I would have thought I could make one per day per crafting skill (so two in this case).

This seems a bit severe to tie the cooldowns to account rather than crafting skill.

Doomdesire.9365:

Nikkinella.8254:

Well boohoo, eles are no longer guaranteed free kills for condi theives/necros/and engies. Sorry if i don’t feel sympathy for any of them. Time to adapt and change your build and playstlye the same way eles have been forced to do over and over again JUST to remain mediocre after non stop nerfs in every single patch while other classes recieve ridiculous buffs. Guess you’ll have to spend longer than 2 seconds now to try kill an ele with mindless condition spam.

I like how at first people thought I was a necro then started attacking the class. Now that I play a thief and Spvp engi people are attacking those classes now. Lets stop with the ridiculous class insults and start focusing on DS.

---

Yes people, I know there are D/D thieves that can kill you easily. I don’t play a D/D DPS thief, and if it eles need more balancing in that aspect then so be it, but lets focus on Diamond Skin against Condi classes, as this topic was originally about, not Ele vs DPS thief.

You can’t really take DS in a vacuum like that. Examining DS vs only condi builds will definitely come out in favor of DS — that’s what it’s designed for. In the entire spectrum of builds, DS is not god-mode.

lordkrall.7241:

juno.1840:

I don’t claim “buying the box has paid for every single update since release”… ANet has claimed such. It’s part of their current and previous advertising (“buy once, play forever”, “free DLC every two weeks”).

Again I’m not arguing the reality of the situation, but don’t try and tell me my purchase doesn’t entitle me to everything the game has to offer for the rest of it’s life — because that’s exactly what I was sold.

Because they ARE releasing free DLCs.
You don’t need to pay a single thing other than the initial payment in order to access the DLCs, thus they are, by the very definition of the word, free.

They are however paid for, by people that buy gems, which is the only reason you can keep playing for free.
And no, you are not entitled to anything at all except what you got at the time of payment for the product.
They could decide to terminate the 2-week release plan at anytime and you have no rights to demand that they don’t.

Per the EULA I have no rights at all — period. You are jumbling up a number of different discussions which on their own are all valid. My point is the game is clearly marketed as I’ve described (even more-so if you include the now defunct manifesto which clearly falls into the realm of game marketing).

lordkrall.7241:

juno.1840:

No, what would happen is ANet would come up with something meaningful that Players would buy.

But that is a completely different thing.
You claimed that buying the box has paid for every single update since release, which is very much false.
What have paid for the updates are people like me who keep buying gems.
If suddenly everyone stopped buying gems (ArenaNet adding something meaningful in the store is beside the point, there are already meaningful stuff there, anything more meaningful would cross the line towards P2W) the game would die quite fast, due to lack of funding.

I don’t claim “buying the box has paid for every single update since release”… ANet has claimed such. It’s part of their current and previous advertising (“buy once, play forever”, “free DLC every two weeks”).

Again I’m not arguing the reality of the situation, but don’t try and tell me my purchase doesn’t entitle me to everything the game has to offer for the rest of it’s life — because that’s exactly what I was sold.

cobalt.1846:

Deathpanel might not be able to win 1v1 with staff in wvw but i can. Haven’t tried it out after patch yet but before patch in full celestial and bunker I can win 1v1 roaming wvw solo, and no i am not talking about just taking out that are low rank.

You are an exception my friend . Maybe you can share your buidl since that’s what the OP was asking for in the first place.

The “learn to play” and “get use to it” arguments are getting very aggravating.

The buff does not outweigh the nerf when specifically examining the D/D combo chain.

If you cannot see the difficulties a D/D ele has executing a multi-stage skill combo then there’s no need to continue this discussion. There is no alternative to replace Arcane Wave in this specific use case, so in short ANet has decided that it’s not important (most likely unintentionally). The new heal is not a substitute that is worth the trade-off compared to the old Arcane Wave.

A pure PU mesmer with staff is going to have a hard time with Diamond Skin because the staff does trivial direct damage with the auto attack. In addition the iWarlock damage scales with conditions, so it’ll just tickle while Diamond Skin is active.

The mesmer scepter however is a hybrid weapon (if you look at the power coefficients). You might be able to pop thru the 10% barrior with the confusion beam but it would still be an uphill fight.

I can see where Diamond Skin shuts them down. That being said I have little sympathy as the PU build is extremely strong in WvW. No tears if the PU mesmer has to run away in frustration.

Durzlla.6295:

hyman.7526:

Actually, it was strong against my pure PU mesmer (staff and scetper/torch). There’s no way to break a d/d eles hp with that. A simple fix was just to respec to hybrid variant of condi PU. But, I dont like how I am forced to play hybrid now or stand no chance to diamond skin.

I run like 0/20/20/0/30 on my mes all I did was summon a phantasmal disenchanter and a phantasmal warlock, wait till my clones were putting condis up and then blasted him with so much confusion that his great grandchildren were punching themselves in the face.

I think the community will catch on really quick and change their skill rotations to counter the diamond skin. It’s not hard unless you have no direct damage what so ever.

DeathPanel.8362:

You can’t win any 1 v 1 with staff in wvw regardless of build anyway. Might as well go full zerk in zergs.

This sums it up pretty good. I’m not in favor of full zerk, but the point also extends to traits so might as well roll with 30/30/0/0/10 for pure AoE havok.

Jeydra.4386:

Linnael.1069:

Besides, no amount of better is ever going to turn “press button, aim, release” into faster than “press button”.

No, but it’s enough to reduce the difference to a tiny fraction of a second. Combining that with the other effects of Arcane Wave being ranged (like its ability to stack Might or hit targets without having to go into melee range, or its ability to stack Swiftness without also entering combat) I’m inclined to view this as a buff. It’s not a major one, but it’s a buff nonetheless.

1. Stacking buffs at range is situationally more advantageous and is excluded on D/D weapon set regardless of situation.

2. stacking swiftness with Wave at range isn’t any different for entering combat than stacking swiftness locally with the old PBAoE Wave.

3. It’s a nerf with regards to execution time depending upon your skill with mouse-keyboard operation. Since Wave is instant you can cast while doing something else. Now you have to slip some click operations in there while doing that.

Oniyui.8279:

What’s all this talk about aiming? Unless you’re clicking on your utility bar to use your skills you shouldn’t have to aim anything.

Arcane Wave is ground targeted — you have to aim and click to activate the skill (depending upon your UI settings). Where you been in this conversation?

lordkrall.7241:

juno.1840:

And that’s why they’ve advertised “Buy Once, Play Forever” correct?

And that’s why they currently advertise “Free DLC Every Two Weeks!” correct?

Yes, because that is all what it takes for the regular user.
But if suddenly every single player in the game stopped buying gems, the game would die within a couple of months.

No, what would happen is ANet would come up with something meaningful that Players would buy.

Senjun.8149:

Because gw2 revolves around 1v1. This trait is rendered useless in group fights. Unless you all happen to be running carrion. In which case condition builds are overpowered and over used and now have a hard counter.

Actually I find it the most useful in group fights (including zergs) where your team is providing healz through combos and other skills. This keeps you topped above 90% health (especially considering our health pool is so low that any group heal is effective).

I find the trait least effective in solo except under very specific scenarios (i.e. pure condition foes with little direct damage). In PvE this scenario doesn’t seem to exist.

I really enjoy this thread because I spent the last two days defending Diamond Skin in these forums from Ele’s who were shouting “this trait sux”.

Unfortunately for the OP, I think a majority of the Elementalist community would like to see the health threshold for Diamond Skin lowered to 85% or 80% in order to make the trait even more effective.

From my play experience so far Diamond Skin has only been useful in WvW. When I’m in PvE, the trait is essentially worthless because there’s always direct damage coupled with conditions which blows past the 10% health buffer in one hit. I have not evaluated it in PvP.

I’m not going as far as saying the new skill is broken or unplayable. On it’s own a ranged Arcane Wave is nice, and I appreciate that the new ranged skill is useful to some Players.

However you can’t deny that the new Arcane Wave has made some skill rotations more difficult to play, and some combo chains impossible unless you have incredible mouse-keyboard-finger mashing skills.

I think ANet didn’t even realize this was going to be an issue to a portion of the player base. This is really disappointing as it means there’s no Champion inside ANet for the Elementatlist — someone that would have reviewed the change and said “hey wait, that’s going to cause some problems…”.

It would be nice to have both a ranged and PBAoE version of Arcane Wave. Maybe we’ll get lucky and somehow have access to both, but I think we’re stuck with what we have.

Justine.6351:

why in gods name would you use charged quartz to lvl crafting if you need it to craft celestial ascended armor? Certainly not to the point where you gotta go back to TP and buy more and start charging again lol. Supposed to use all those other t6 mats you should have been saving since ascended weapon crafting came out knowing armor was on the way.

This was exactly my approach, however I had been getting lots of charged quartz from the gifts (which are around for weeks still). So it became the most cost-effective method to level tailor (free charged quartz vs. 40s T6 mats).

I’m mostly mad at myself for violating my own conservative nature, however it was in the interest of cost-efficiency.

I should have predicted that the charged quartz was a bug — hindsight is 20/20.

oZii.2864:

Wave with range takes predictability from its use. You can open with wave all on its own heck you can put someone down close to 5k health with d/d as long as your in 900 range with out pressing a weapon skill.

There was not much thought to using wave or blast with d/d

Before you just used it within your rotation just a extra button press.

No there definitely was plenty of thought on when to use it. You’re confusing thought with ease-of-use. It requires no more thought then before — which is setting up a desirable combo.

However now it’s definitely more difficult to use in a rotation that’s tight on execution time (due to duration of combo fields). That’s a nerf.

Nobody was shouting for an Arcane Wave buff before the patch.

Buff or not, the change messes up finisher rotations which is one of our strengths as an elementalist.

I’m enjoying the trait changes, but I have been hampered by the new ground targeting requirement.

Comon guys… u make a mistake on charged quartz:

1. players start using their charged quartz because it’s dropping like candy. It’s great to help level crafting to 500.
2. Quartz on the TP drops in price

Now you “fix” it without warning and:

1. Everyone who used their charged quartz to level is screwed because they blew 60 days worth of materials with the expectation that more is available via drops
2. Quartz triples in price on the TP

So not only did I blow a couple months of time-gated charged quartz, but it will cost me triple just to restock the regular quartz to recoup my losses.

… nice …

Ok the quartz drop “fix” in this patch maybe should have came with a head’s-up to the community.

I just spent 30 days worth of charged quartz to help level crafting because I expected to get more via the gift boxes. And now it’s reverted so I’m screwed back to time-gated acquisition.

It’s just a game, but I feel a bit jerked around… sigh…

@Talindra: are you using translate.google.com or something? Honestly it’s like mashed up words.

…nail your fellow players with snowballs during the dolyak escort in LA?

I’m still chuckling over a few of my throws that “missed”

I second this recommendation. Revert Arcane Wave, make Arcane Brilliance the ranged skill instead (and thereby making Arcane Brilliance more powerful as a heal).

mtpelion.4562:

juno.1840:

mtpelion.4562:

Players buying gems is what allows you to log in for free every day.

Don’t hate on ANet for that.

Really? I thought it was the $60 USD that I coughed up for the game in the first place (of which I would gladly cough up another 35 for an expansion, but not for gem store fare).

Nope. $60 buys you the right to use the software. The servers are maintained via players buying gems. Your $60 right to use will become pretty useless if people stop buying gems and the servers go dark.

And that’s why they’ve advertised “Buy Once, Play Forever” correct?

And that’s why they currently advertise “Free DLC Every Two Weeks!” correct?

EDIT: You can argue the reality of the situation all you want — it’s an engineered situation based upon decisions ANet has made (i.e. no expansion, free 2-week content). What they’ve pushed forward as part of their sale’s pitch is what I’ve stated.

@Scerevisiae: Maybe you should pick a better zerg? Maybe a better set of traits to pair with your 30 in earth? Did you try it for more than 10 minutes? Were you glass cannon otherwise?

My experience was quite positive.

Well consider that other Arcana traits are now only 10 points. Arguably Evasive Arcana and Elemental Attunement are much more “Arcana” than Blasting Staff or Windborne Dagger.

It’s nice to have all the weapon traits from Arcana available for only 10 points. We don’t have weapon swapping so a single weapon trait will have 100% usage for an elementalists (when on land I guess).

This provides some flexibility to builds which desire a weapon trait but nothing else in arcana.

I love the attunement switching boons and dodge spells like everyone else, but I’m also open to try out some new possibilities with a 30/30 build that has only 10 in Arcana.

woutterr.5974:

Ever tried to tornado through a meteor shower, and spam your 1 skill?

No — I’ve heard this is effective, but honestly thought it was a bit gimicky. I was also running D/D so no Meteor Shower. I would hate to think this elite is only useful for buffing meteor shower once every 150 seconds.

Jabberwock.9014:

I suppose I tried an offensive build with 25 in fire and carrion amulet which may have contributed. Maybe soldier’s amulet would fare better. But like you say, in wvw zergs with teammates topping your health off it’s probably better. For sPvP or solo roaming I don’t think it’s worth it.

What kind of gear did you have? Healing power? Toughness? Vitality?

I was running a 0/0/30/30/10 D/D build with aura sharing. My gear is PVT armor and Celestial jewelry. I pulled this build out of my kitten because I wanted to try diamond skin.

Honestly I was surprised at how good it worked — I suspected it would totally suck as there’s lots of damage flying around in ZvZ. That’s my perspective (ZvZ), not PvP nor any other usage discussed so far.

As has been mentioned already, drop below 90% and the trait does not function. So part of the strategy of using Diamond Skin is to get your health back above 90% and purge the conditions you have. If you execute this recovery successfully, it’s like you’ve reset the fight. I achieved this because: (1) I was still using Ether Renewal and Cleansing Flames cantrip, (2) I was still traiting for cantrips to receive vigor and regen, and (3) I had 30 in water to help recover health. So maybe this is a build around diamond skin — I don’t know. But I found it very effective, felt like I was supporting my team, and felt that I hampered the opposing zerg satisfactorily.

Make the heal the “ranged” version — this is actually a better solution for players because you can maximize the heal to hit 5 foes. It also preserves the pre-patch mechanics of Arcane Wave.

Is anyone seriously using Arcane Wave purely for the damage? Seriously?

I don’t recall anyone screaming (or even whispering) for another ranged blast finisher before this thread started. To say it’s now necessary to have Wave be ranged is not really fair.

mtpelion.4562:

Players buying gems is what allows you to log in for free every day.

Don’t hate on ANet for that.

Really? I thought it was the $60 USD that I coughed up for the game in the first place (of which I would gladly cough up another 35 for an expansion, but not for gem store fare).

Silas.8630:

juno.1840:

It would be nice if there was a detailed explanation from ANet as to why time gating is necessary. Assuming the explanation was reasonable, I think the community would be a little more satiated with the current situation.

Here I’ll answer for you.
Anet: We currently use time-gating to keep people logging in day after day in the absence of compelling content. If/when we figure out how to create engaging and non-repetitive methods of play, you’ll see these types of systems phased out as players begin logging in to play the actual game, rather than click 1 button and log out again.

EDIT: saw you edited while I was responding, looks like you figured it out already XD

I like your verbiage better than mine .

I like D/D with aura sharing (30 water) and protection on aura (10 earth). I love applying Shocking Aura and Frost Aura to my team mates. You can share some stability with Rock Solid (20 earth). Lastly water will heal and regen (5/15 Water) when in it along with some healz with water dagger 2 and 5.

The fire fields and earth knockdown/cripple/immobilize also work well with team mates.

Wraistlin.6072:

Aside from the hard counter to condition classes, I feel this is also useful to the perma immobilize openers that more often than not are the cause of my death.

I also found it great when running away. If you choose not to fight, just turn and run. All immobilize, cripple, fear, etc. doesn’t even touch you (and if I observed it correctly, doesn’t even throw you into combat!). I outran some zergs while a few of my team mates succumbed to the mob. Of course stability is still required but that’s where Rock Solid and Armor of Earth pays off.

Jabberwock.9014:

This trait is an absolute mess. It renders 1v1 against condition necros a 100% win, but is subpar against almost literally everything else. Anything more than 1v1 you are at a huge disadvantage because that 10% buffer will be gone in a millisecond. Additionally power builds will still destroy you since you can’t take evasive arcana for healing.

The only benefit I can see this having is forcing necros to build some power with their condition damage so they aren’t hard countered by a single trait.

I’m going to ask if you’ve tried it — because I did. It was in 20 on 20 zerg fights in WvW and I thought it was amazing. I could clearly see a difference. I avoided all initial condition spam. In addition, when I top my health off I’m immune again. In fact I don’t have to try sometimes because my team mates are also throwing out group healz which keeps me immune that much longer.

I found myself laughing out loud multiple times last night and probably convinced at least two other players in our guild to dust off their elementalists and give it a go.

Too many theory crafters have crafted this trait as useless, and it’s far from it.

Belzebu.3912:

HappyDale.5398:

Definition of ‘Monopoly’ …

I know the definition, that is why I wrote it in quotes, it wouldn’t be a pure monopoly, but instead would be a selected few with virtually no competition, for the sake of making the post smaller I wrote it, but assume good sense was a mistake of my part.

HappyDale.5398:

I like “working” for my things, and don’t mind it. I’m not asking or wanting people to get ascended items like candy.

I agree that Anet could reduce the time game, but not remove it, otherwise ascended gear would be like candy.

Who cares if it’s like candy?

It saves time — not cost/materials — that’s one of the OP’s points.

I’m not going to feel more special because it took 54 days to craft up my ascended armor. The only detriment to myself is the time gate.

Yeah I can buy the time gated cloth for crazy prices right now, but how is that crafting?

It would be nice if there was a detailed explanation from ANet as to why time gating is necessary. Assuming the explanation was reasonable, I think the community would be a little more satiated with the current situation.

EDIT: Oh I know the reason — it’s to boost the daily log-in numbers.

Zerg on Zerg can make a mesmer feel pretty helpless, especially with certain weapon choices.

About the most satisfying experience for me in ZvZ is GS with Sigil of Fire and iZerker, along with feedback.

I think there are diminishing returns on the Dolyak Escort in LA. I can’t prove it but today I went from 23 boxes to 13 to 14 to 9 to 11. Not sure what the mechanic is that determines box drops from the dolyaks.

Also Ho-Ho-Tron is broken and we’re stuck only with one dolyak to escort right now.

I disagree that it’s mandatory.

I do have a similar problem with Guardian where I can’t get away from AH (without it I feel extremely vulnerable). It comes down to my playstyle and comfort level. I believe with some effort I could run with a different build — it would be a training effort on my part to overcome my dependency on AH.

I think the same situation exists here with Evasive Arcana. You can live without it — it just requires training yourself on another build. Stepping out of your comfort zone so to speak.

Etay.8096:

juno.1840:

Is that some kind of prose?

need help with my ele dont know what im doing wrong is that simple enough for you?
please tell me..
there must be trolls..

This is even more eloquent than the original post — well done! You are a prose master (or at the very least, gifted).

Tried this for the first time in WvW last night and was completely underwhelmed. This is how I thought it would play out:

1. Zerg’s clash in open field
2. Pop Tornado
3. Rip through opposing zerg line
4. Unorganized zerg line to break into chaos due to knockback and fear of the epic ele-nado.

Reality:

1. Ele turns into a nearly invisible tornado
2. Opposing zerg doesn’t even flinch
3. Ele dies because the risk didn’t yield any reward

I expected many players in the opposing zerg to go flying due to the knockback. I also expected many AoE damage number to go floating up. I saw pretty much none of that — maybe one round of 900pt damage to five players, and never any knockback.

Seriously is this elite useful at all? Lava-font is more impressive tbh.

Senjun.8149:

The only time this is any good, is runinng away at 100% hp or if a necro comes up and randomly blows all of his wells on you first thing.

But what he can do is have his golem ram you for like 3k dmg, then blow all of his wells on you and you aren’t recovering from that because u now have a useless GM trait.

Not true — the trait is not suppose to be “god mode”… nor is it “easy mode”. It’s simply another tool available to you as a player (and it’s a good tool).

If you get hit for 3k, then top yourself off so you’re back above 90%.

What did players expect for this trait? Seriously? I think it’s very good, but I see many complaints about the 90% mechanic. I’ll ask you this: What threshold would make this trait “good” for you? Can you provide an answer that doesn’t make people laugh?

I think they did create more meaningful traits — so much so that players are upset they don’t have 90 points to spend in the talent tree.

When you have a more than two good GM traits it forces build choices — and therefore build diversity.

If Evasive Arcana was available for “cheap”, everyone would take it and it would be mandatory. With the addition of the the new traits this patch we have more choices — and for some those choices are difficult.

Not sure what game you’ve been playing ThiBash, but GW2 is full of rock-paper-scissors (and so was GW1, even more so).

You cannot make a singular build that will beat every other build merely on skill — nor should you be able to as skill/trait selection should have meaning.