The power and the condition duration. Condition duration is kind of awesome.
12 seconds of burning off of Drake’s Breath is plenty for me.
If all it did was give you an extra tick of burning, indeed it wouldn’t be that awesome, but condition duration also affects chill, immobilize, cripple, etc.
Final Shielding – this trait should proc on any attack that would kill the ele and block the attack instead of procing after our health drops below 25%. When I first started, this was always traited and I just didn’t notice it going off frequently enough to justify keeping it over blasting staff or renewing stamina.
yes
it should be
when an attack would bring health below 25%, you first gain an arcane shield
would make it infinitely more amazing. elementalists would be OP. nerf pls
Actually ether renewal should be the most obvious choice againt all kinds of heavy condition dmg dealers especially if you lack cond removals. If enemy team composition is more about spike/burst damage, glyph gives you the most healing.
Fair points. However, with the signet/aura build, the signet also triggers its own passive and gives you protection AND swiftness (where with the glyph, you’d have to choose). That doesn’t make up for the glyph in terms of defense, true, but what you get in return is extra damage in the form of fury. That’s a tradeoff that can be worth it, depending on your point of view.
I’ve tested rather broadly those kind of builds and I consider them rather underperforming. You can easily get those boons without spending 20 trait points in trait line that is generally falling short of expectations.
I don’t understand this
How can a trait line be falling short? If you’re investing in it specifically to get a trait, the trait you’re getting is obviously useful. And all of the trees give good attributes.
If you’re putting points in fire line just for attack (because most fire traits are completely ridiculous) it’s a waste of trait points. You need 20 points in fire to get fire’s embrace, not just 10.
The power and the condition duration. Condition duration is kind of awesome.
elaborating on my first post, as well as the post above. I actually did this for a bit. It works
scepter with condition damage build
use signet of fire and spam earth 1
profit
obv you keep the armor buff up, and you apply the AoE blind as needed. And both sets of the earth off hand skills are pretty sweet. Dagger off hand takes care of AoE damage needs. Focus off hand is good for keeping yourself alive.
Actually ether renewal should be the most obvious choice againt all kinds of heavy condition dmg dealers especially if you lack cond removals. If enemy team composition is more about spike/burst damage, glyph gives you the most healing.
Fair points. However, with the signet/aura build, the signet also triggers its own passive and gives you protection AND swiftness (where with the glyph, you’d have to choose). That doesn’t make up for the glyph in terms of defense, true, but what you get in return is extra damage in the form of fury. That’s a tradeoff that can be worth it, depending on your point of view.
I’ve tested rather broadly those kind of builds and I consider them rather underperforming. You can easily get those boons without spending 20 trait points in trait line that is generally falling short of expectations.
I don’t understand this
How can a trait line be falling short? If you’re investing in it specifically to get a trait, the trait you’re getting is obviously useful. And all of the trees give good attributes.
you have to trait for it to do half of that
compare it to other classes’ after they’re beefed theirs out as well, and it may even look UP. Guardian can stun break and give aegis to the entire party with a mere 1/3 of its profession skills
esdf instead of wasd
1234 are attunements. 1 is also M3 (middle mouse)
A M4 W M5 R are weapon skills (M4-M7 are side mouse buttons)
Z is heal
M6 M7 X utility skills
B elite
Q dodge
Tab swap weapons
C look behind. V about face. T nearest target. CapsLock next target. and I forget what previous target is because I never use it
In PvE it also counts as a crowd control skill that removes a stack Defiant. A thief can single-handedly remove 3 stacks of defiant in about 1.5 seconds (assuming that they start with a full initiative bar) setting up for an ally’s heavy CC skill like a launch or pull.
I must emphasize this. Headshot is amazing at removing defiant stacks
lv 80 builds only work at high levels, so don’t follow lv 80 guides
If you’re lv 20, you should have 10 points earth for the easiest time (or fire if you prefer direct over condition damage by enough to sacrifice the defense for no additional benefit). Traits don’t really matter at low levels. It’s the stats from the traits that matter. Earth > fire > water are statistically the best traits at low levels. Arcana is terrible until you’re lv 40 or so, and air is meh unless you have truckloads of power to go with it.
The rest of what I’d say has already been said. keep your gear up to date, etc.
Except for the part about where scepter earth 2 is OP as heck at low levels. If you use scepter, keep that armor buff up at all times and you will be mad tanky for the low levels.
Allies being able to pick our conjures is a cool idea, and it makes the skills stand out more from kits, but I’d change how it would work. Either it would be:
a) Optional – requiring a specific trait to create one/ two conjures for your allies;
b) For your allies only, meaning you wouldn’t be able to pick your conjure on the ground.
I think this would allow the devs to balance around one-usage only, so that builds don’t rely on allies NOT picking your own conjures.
I would then propose:
a) Keep their cast time, but after being cast, the utility skill would be substituted by a swap, which would allow you to change back to your 20 skills and back again to your conjure.
b) No duration, only charges. After charges are used, weapon is put on a cooldown. If another conjure is cast, the former conjure is put on a cooldown too. (= You would only be able to have one conjure cast at a time).
c) Have the conjure buffs inherent to their weapon, and have the weapon stats at level 80 be on par with level 80 top tier weapons. Split for pvp so they would have no/ less stats.
This would be pretty amazing
except part 2 b. I do agree with the only one conjure at a time though
in the Molensk area of Wayfarer Foothills, this event NPC was behaving oddly before getting stuck
If there were enemy units in the room that the other NPCs were fighting, he would stand there and do nothing, except when I talked to him, he would immediately run over and join the fight instead of opening a dialog. After he finished fighting I was able to successfully open a dialog with him, though. This happened about 4 times, until the last time, the timer on the event turn in ran out and the event ended while he was fighting. And then he returned to his spot and just stayed there forever. Attempting to talk to him while other NPCs are fighting still causes him to join the fights. And he is still there now that I’ve finished making this post.
turns out he doesn’t start fighting even if he’s being attacked, until I attempt to talk to him. He also still solicits nearby players, even though he offers no event. “Hey, got a minute? I have a deal for you.”
No speed increases stack with any other speed increases in the entire game. Additionally, none of them have any affect on moving sideways or backwards.
10-15 in water helps me immensely for staying alive, taking the condition removal trait, so if you don’t have that, that’s the first thing I’d add. Next 10 minimum in arcana (first points have a bigger impact on recharge rate than the last points.*) with the boons on attunement trait. Gain 5 s of protection every time I swap to earth? nice. Next take one or two utility skills dedicated to keeping you alive, like arcane shield. With that done, you are now invincible and free to dedicate the rest of your build to killing as fast as possible, if you so choose.
*points in arcana: attunement recharge time in seconds
0: 15
10: 12.5
20: 10.7
30: 9.4
The problem with casting them before I engage is it’d be better to open with one of my awesome weapon skills instead. like light my opponents on fire and lay down a combo field before I start hitting them with my hammer.
The two ranged ones are better about this because, well, they’re ranged. Especially frost bow since it has skills with long channels, which are nice to use before things get messy, making opening with it better. But the melee ones don’t have that benefit, and they have longer cast times. They’re the ones I was thinking about when I made the topic. I mean, would they be OP if they had the same cast time as the other two?
Mostly, though, they’re the sort of thing you cast, fire off a few shots and then discard. You don’t want to have them out all the time, or even to their natural conclusion in most cases.
Exactly. That’s why they need to come out faster: so you can swap to them mid battle more effectively
you spend a nontrivial amount of time casting that you could have spent attacking or using some support or disable, and it does absolutely nothing until you cast again
Adding stat bonuses to them is cool and all, but if you really want to make them useful, reduce the time investment
making it more fluid also makes it a whole lot more fun
always swap often
abuse the the godlike water skills as much as possible
switch to earth only for the disables (4, 5) unless I’m at point blank range to use 2. the self pull (3) sucks because it’s a self stun. Amusingly it does nothing if you have armor of earth up. And skill 1 obviously sucks. Turn that auto attack off. If you’re in earth and not casting something else, you should be switching
Oh nah, I don’t really play Guardian (my guardian is lv 40, and I’ve never pvp’d with it). I play Elementalist. Ele got quite a few horrible nerfs and bugs and nerfs that might be bugs this patch, and there’s a lot of questions in that forum and zero response, so I was just checking the other profession forums to see if devs respond to anything at all.
pretty sure live balance and mechanics bug fixing is part of where they cut to deal with no subscription fee, so they have like 2 people to do all of it. Therefore
no, you are not going to get any fast fixes of any kind
It’s more like, I want toughness + more offense, and there’s no power + toughness + condition damage, so I… get less toughness. because precision is just that much of a waste stat without a dedicated build. I don’t actually get any precision. I did consider it, but then decided it wasn’t worth it. I dunno if that’s best, but that’s how I see it.
I’d like to some toughness + healing power + condition damage. That would fill in a lot of holes. Or really just toughness + condition damage + anything not precision, the stat that synergizes least with toughness and condition damage.
And as far as I know (which isn’t very far), Anet hasn’t explained anything related to balance, or stats in general. If they have, I’d certainly like to see it.
valkyrie gear indeed always struck me as being useless. Crit damage is so weak that it’s only worthwhile if you’re going glass cannon and already have extremely high crit chance and as much power as you can get
Crit chance itself also strikes me as a glass cannon stat. Power is almost always better for damage than precision. With no traits, and with minor investment in either offensive stat, precision adds roughly 1/5 the amount of damage that power adds. It’s not until you have +1200 power and +50% crit damage that adding precision (up from +0!) has equal returns. And that’s with 0 precision, so if you already have, say, +800 precision, adding more only gives 70% as much damage as power. And also without fury. Fury is basically 420 precision.
That’s all ignoring on-crit stuff, but most of the stuff that actually matters has enough of a cooldown that you don’t gain much from addional crit rates once you have a decent crit chance.
Side note: with the given stats (+1200 power, +800 precision, +50% crit dmg) and a 50% uptime on fury, 1% crit damage gives the same damage increase as 7 power.
but yeah, the only reason I’d get crit anything on builds that balance offense and defense is itemization restrictions. can’t always pick and choose my stats
“I’ll pass it on” probably means more like
If I don’t forget, I’ll mention it to the relevant devs, and they might give it an “mm” before forgetting about it
Dunno if this has been mentioned since I never visit the forums much, nor do I even play ranger that much—just got mine to 40 yesterday—but
I think pets should attempt a dodge move when you use the return to me button. I think it’s default F3. Stick a little endurance bar underneath the health bar or something. Of course more robust controls would be nice, but they should get that much at least.
and of course they should be able to move while attacking, but pretty sure that one has been mentioned enough.
What do you ranger players think? Would this be good?
One of the best things Riot does with League of Legends is communication with the community. They not only release “Patch Preview” videos explaining some of the major changes but they frequently go on the forums to discuss and explain even small buffs and nerfs. If something gets nerfed in a way that seems inexplicable, you can bet someone from Riot, often even someone very high up in the chain of command, will find some random player’s thread on the forum and go into detail about why they made the change they made.
The best part is they do it as a normal conversation. There’s almost no corporate doublespeak in these posts. They’ll often be vague when talking about future releases, but they’re never vague in a way that attempts to sidestep the lack of information. They’ll just straight up say, “we can’t talk about this now.”
Comparatively, I’ve been extremely dissapointed with how ArenaNet is handling the Ascended Armor fiasco (literally every time they’ve touched on player concerns about gear creep, they’ve talked around the fundamental issue while pretending to answer the question), and slipping in this change to Elementalists without the patch notes even being easily accessible is profoundly disheartening. I’m losing faith that the company wants to do what’s best for us, not just as Elementalist players but as players of their game. And that makes me sad.
THIS, so hard
lack of bug fixes, introducing bugs with the bug fixes, everything else I can forgive
but lack of communication is the one thing I cannot. Tell us what’s going on. Seriously. And yes indeed, the reason I like Riot Games is that they communicate extremely well. Falling short of their level is acceptable, but not this far short. No communication at all aside from “check out this new stuff we’re adding” is entirely unacceptable
