Guild Wars 2

Palindrome.8904:

runeblade.7514:

Can Ele be viable without Elemental attunement or Evasive arcana?

If so, it doesn’t need to be baseline.

I think most of the argument is that people feel like they can’t be competitive in PvP (and maybe in WvW) without it. That said, since people rarely state the game mode they are operating under for their argument, it’s difficult to say.

No it’s really not the power level, it’s about how the class feels & plays. The attunement mechanic is largely pointless without EAtt.

runeblade.7514:

Can Ele be viable without Elemental attunement or Evasive arcana?

If so, it doesn’t need to be baseline.

I’d say no. I take EAtt in every build, because the class feels wrong without it.

Which goes to my core point – surely the real question of whether something should be baseline boils down to: “does ele feel right without EAtt?”, to which the vast majority of Eles would say “no”. EAtt is probably the most baseline-worthy trait in the whole game.

No , your friend is mistaken. conjures (and conjure traits) have been buffed more than any other skill in the game, and they’re still widely regarded as crap outside of PVE.

The mechanics are just too clunky and giving up 20 skills plus a utility slot just to get 5 mediocre skills is a terrible, terrible tradeoff.

Diovid.9506:

phys.7689:

DanteZero.9736:

In terms of build diversity, I don’t care for having some insane number of available build options but only using maybe a handful of genuinely useful builds. I would rather have a smaller number of manageable and more useful builds. If HoT were to reduce the amount of possible builds down by a factor of 10 or so, then I would expect the each of the remaining build possibilities to be incredibly useful. In short, I want quality, not quantity.

not clear here, are you saying you would rather have 10 good builds out of 20 than 20 good builds out of 100?

I’m pretty sure, he means he’d rather have 10 good builds out of 20 than 5 out of 100.

More like 3 good builds out of 20 instead of 3 good builds out of 1000. What HOT really kills is the small variations/personalisation of builds, and I really don’t think it’s a net improvement.

Making traits more impactful is good but limiting choice to 3 lines only is bad.

Agree, fall and downed traits are universally weak and dull, and more in line with the scope of mastery options.

FrownyClown.8402:

scerevisiae.1972:

it’s clearly due to latency (lag), but that’s besides the point. the point is their implementation sucks. the position of the target is known at the beginning and end of the animation and at every tick, there’s no excuse for an implementation that overshoots a fully stationary target, that’s just kitten coding.

where is your degree in kittening coding

well, i’m a 15 year software veteran who, up til last year was a snr server programmer for wargaming. so i know a few things…

has been said over and over and over, they seem determined not to listen.

meanwhile, mesmers get their 2 strongest GM traits (PU, IP), plus a GM minor trait, 1 master and 3 adept traits as baseline. it’s all a bit WTF.

I still haven’t gotten over the disappointment that arcane and water have been made more required than ever, Elemental Attunement is easily the most class-defining and baseline-worthy trait in the whole game.

How Ele Attunement didn’t make baseline while making PU and IP baseline, which are currently the 2 strongest mesmer GM traits, is beyond me. Doesn’t give me a lot of confidence that the elite spec will be much good.

and please no more buggy skills like RtL that overshoot fully stationary targets.

i presume there must be a fix because a skill that overshoots a FULLY STATIONARY target is clearly broken.

it’s clearly due to latency (lag), but that’s besides the point. the point is their implementation sucks. the position of the target is known at the beginning and end of the animation and at every tick, there’s no excuse for an implementation that overshoots a fully stationary target, that’s just kitten coding.

bug still exists, any ETA on a fix?

bug still exists, any ETA on a fix?

Elemental attunement should be baseline.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Elemental-attunement-should-be-baseline

Let’s face it, with the current changes every pvp/wvw ele is going to spec water/arcane/?, just like we have been doing since release.

With mesmer’s 2 strongest GM traits, PU and IP, becoming baseline, plus the new stuff, I’m probably going to be playing my mesmer anyway.

let me generalise further and say:
conjured weapons should be made not to be pieces of kitten suckitude in WVW/PVP.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

I can’t bring myself to play a Warrior without Warrior’s Sprint. I just can’t do it – the class feels clunky and sluggish without that extra mobility, to the point where 10/2 Discipline became completely essential on both my Warriors, usually running up to 20/4. I don’t really see that changing in Heart of Thorns either – slow Warriors are bad Warriors.

Does that mean that Warrior’s Sprint should be baseline for the class?

I think if some aspect of the game is not fun, tedious, or is really weak without its accompanying trait, such that virtually every player takes it, then yes, it’s only commonsense that this should be part of the class. Because it’s not really a choice.

I’d argue that EAtt is one of the most frequently taken traits in the whole game, because the class doesn’t play well and just feels plain wrong without it (fire-camping PVE specs excluded, obviously), yet it’s now a GM trait (which everyone will still take).

Contrast this with the mesmer trait Illusionary Persona (IP), which has been made baseline, even though it was nowhere near as popular as EAtt, and mesmer plays just fine without it.

removing stats from trait lines is a great move; tying stats to specific trait lines was always all downsides and no upsides from a design POV.

Agree, the only issue is sPVP, where one’s ability to allocate stats is already very restricted. It will no longer be possible to don zerker gear and balance it out by traiting lines with defensive stats.

We can only hope the missing stats can be re-allocated in a similarly flexible manner, eg: something similar to the amulet + gem system we had previously.

FrozenChinchilla.5249:

I agree. It would be a huge buff to a really strong class though.
And Arcane traits would feel not that impressive after.

EAtt is strong, sure, but the reason for its popularity IMO is not its power level but rather how much it comlements the base Ele mechanic (attunements) — it makes changing attunements worthwhile.

I agree that Ele (at least in the current game) doesn’t really need buffs, which is why I suggested making baseline a caster-only version, perhaps with reduced boon durations, then adding a trait for the full (current) AOE version.

I fear if EAtt is not made baseline, we’ll just be back in the same predicament Ele’s have been stuck with since release: arcane + water + ?, which after 2.5 years would be such a kitten result.

I realise noone is being truly forced to spec their Ele into water/arcane, but 2.5 years of playing Ele (and various Ele builds) a whole lot have taught me that

To me (and I note, many/most Eles), Elemental Attunement (EAtt) is an integral part of the Ele class, IMO to such an extent that it is as class-defining as the attunement mechanic itself. I’ve tried not playing with EAtt, but to me at least, the class just plain feels wrong without it. I’d rather lose access to the 5 attunement skills of an element or 2 rather than lose access to EAtt.

Consequently, 1 of my speclines in HOT will always be arcane, which is the same as it is now I guess, so why complain? Well, a bunch of other “compulsory” traits were just made baseline because the skill/class was crappy without it, and it seems plain to me that EAtt is the textbook definition of this category of traits.

So yes, I would strongly argue it should also be baseline to Ele, even if it meant nerfing the AOE aspect (ie: make a solo version of it the baseline, with a trait to restore the AOE aspect) and/or the duration of the buffs it gives, and/or some other aspect of Ele to bring it into balance.

I think it sucks you can’t partially invest in a line, it’s the whole line or nothing, that will certainly be a big regression in terms of build diversity and the fun of build-crafting.

Agree with almost all of this, though i’d probably rate Survival of the Fittest among the best ranger traits. You also can’t talk about trap traits without pointing out the sheer silliness of condition skill traits being found in the precision/crit line.

The most annoying thing about ranger traits though (besides traps being in the wrong place and the 600 range) is that basically every build has to include Survival of the Fittest for condition removal. The Brown bear pet and renewal signet don’t cut the mustard, and the 10 sec period of empathic bond can’t be relied upon.

Ardid.7203:

I think it would be nice to have pets that don’t forget their names.

It would be nice to have pets that were either optional or didn’t feel like a handicap.

should be +/-20%, and the single duration versions should be stronger.

fracture.9754:

More, because you can weapon hop as well due to how casting works, which I think is amazing game design.

While there are 4 times the weapon skills, nearly half are filler, so part of learning Ele is learning which skills are decent and which are never worth casting.

Don’t listen to this guy. Seriously, this is flat out wrong. Looking at just staff, only ice spike and lightning surge are not really useful (although pretty OK if you happen to lock yourself out of your desired attunement), all other skills are amazing when used properly. That’s 2 skills out of 20.

Don’t listen to this guy, he’s a flat-out PVE-runner. You can successfully complete any PVE encounter in the game using the worst skills in the game, so that makes them all useful right?

Watch any highly-rated Ele, they only use 1-2 skills from each attunement before switching. Most will only use half their available skills in any given match. There’s a reason for that, it’s because the other skills aren’t worth the opportunity cost of casting them, aka they’re not worth casting.

Rhyse.8179:

Learn to attunement-hop. You have 4 times as many weapon skills as anyone else, and you need to master them all to play to the character’s potential.

While there are 4 times the weapon skills, nearly half are filler, so part of learning Ele is learning which skills are decent and which are never worth casting.

I should add that RtL has been broken since the RtL implementation was changed shortly after release. Before that, it never missed.

Xillllix.3485:

It was working fine before all the nerfs.

It was broken by an implementation change that occurred a few months after release, and has never been fixed.

This is why GW2’s B2P model is broken — once they have your money, they stop caring. At least with a sub, they have to earn your money each and every month.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Pets. If they don’t want to fix them, don’t make us rely on them.

This.

The only things i feel ranger is missing now from a WVW perspective are:
1) build options. in WVW, it’s power LB or GTFO. Traps need range love. Pets need some level of AOE resist. SB needs some kind of buff.
2) group support. shouts could be a thing if the effects were more useful.

witcher.3197:

[Ride The Lightning] was changed because of PvP. Ele mobility between capture points was just too insane, and with 20 sec CD it was too OP for disengaging too. That’s why now it has 40s CD if it’s not used for combat purposes.

Except that RtL is broken and usually goes on 40sec CD anyway.

as shown in the video, RTL overshoots for me even on a completely stationary target.

the skill implementation is totally, totally broken.

dietzero.3514:

It is even worse for Oceanic players. You pretty much count on the increased 40 second cooldown. They really need to change/fix this skill.

yeah i don’t even bother trying to land Updraft with RtL, it’s so unreliable vs moving targets.

because of the RtL bug, i too usually end up using LF to land updraft→BS, reserving RtL for escape. It’s not as good, but it’s more reliable than trying to land RtL on a moving target and it overshooting and wasting updraft.

Yep. What a nub.

Yep.

Ele skill “Ride the lightning” has been broken since its implementation was changed shortly after release. It frequently (almost always) overshoots, even on stationary targets, which leads to the usual followup spell “Updraft” often missing.

This is gamebreaking if/when trying to play ?/D Ele. It’s even worse when trying to updraft a moving target.

The first 2 clips are in WVW, the 3rd is in PVE. I play from Australia on a fast connection. The extent of the overshoot seems to correlate with increasing network latency.

Ele skill “Ride The Lightning” has been broken since its implementation was changed shortly after release. It frequently (almost always) overshoots, even on stationary targets, which leads to the usual followup spell “Updraft” often missing.

This is gamebreaking if/when trying to play ?/D Ele. It’s even worse when trying to updraft a moving target.

The first 2 clips are in WVW, the 3rd is in PVE. I play from Australia on a fast connection. The extent of the overshoot seems to correlate with increasing network latency.

BlackDevil.9268:

scerevisiae.1972:

coglin.1867:

I am a little confused here. When did they state we were “forced” to do it?

It’s “forced” because the super weapon is gamebreakingly strong. Nothing should be that strong for starters, and rather lame PVE quests (killing mobs and fedexing items) is the kind of thing that belongs in <level 10 PVE zones, it should definitely not be the “IWIN” mechanic of a WVW borderlands map.

It lasts an hour and opens up the probability for guild to massively farm people there if actual blobs gonna do it. If not it opens the probability for roaming guilds of 5-10 people to have nice fights there.

In this hour it will bring down wooden gates T1 from 100 to 0
It will bring down T2 to around 20%
It will bring down T3 to around 40%

Now don’t tell me you can’t repair all that in matter of minutes. If the enemy wants to take your lovely tower or keep they can also just ram it for 30 more seconds and have the same result.

While I still think the superweapon is too strong (nuking every enemy gate in the BG to 50-0%), which for a lot of people will only result in a lot of mind-numbingly boring repairing of gates over the following hour, the exact opposite of epic-ness, it’s really the lameness of the “kill 10 rats” PVE quest element that bothers me the most.

It doesn’t fit the WVW game mode. Why not make it a capture point? 3 capture points spread around the oasis? An orb that you have to carry back to your keep? Lots of people would like to see the orb escort in the original WVW brought back.

There are numerous potential superweapon capture mechanics that are much better fits for WVW and how WVW is played, having to kill 10 rats and fedex items is the lamest of lame capture mechanic they could possibly have implemented.

coglin.1867:

I feel you are confusing your subjective opinion with that of objective fact here. As I see it, it is simply a mechanic, with a long cool down on the event (I believe they said 3hrs) that I feel will possibly draw a nice, large fight to it. Hopefully like a good 3 way garrison fight.

I’d love to see more open-field fights, i just don’t want it to be over the completion of a pedestrian PVE “kill 10 rats and fedex the tails” quest. That is lame with a capital-L.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Hmm, someone, who hasn’t experienced something, presumes to inform others of its capabilities?

Have you even watched the video? The developers presented it’s capabilities.

I am simply expressing my OPINION that a) PVE quests should be peripheral to (as in, not directly impacting) the core WVW gameplay of large-scale fights and objective ownership, and b) the super-weapon’s capability is too strong.

HTFU people, they requested feedback, I provided some. Don’t like it? provide your own kitten feedback or comment why the mechanic is GOOD, don’t whine and argue petty semantics.

Gern.2978:

The “don’t rez the dead” rule exits to encourage players to not be lazy, and to obey fight mechanics by actually dodging/not standing in red circles, etc. It’s the GW2 equivalent of the “don’t heal people who stand in fire”policy in games like WoW.

This. Please don’t res people mid-combat.

coglin.1867:

I am a little confused here. When did they state we were “forced” to do it?

It’s “forced” because the super weapon is gamebreakingly strong. Nothing should be that strong for starters, and rather lame PVE quests (killing mobs and fedexing items) is the kind of thing that belongs in <level 10 PVE zones, it should definitely not be the “IWIN” mechanic of a WVW borderlands map.

Ravezaar.4951:

Oasis Event (PvE) in a WvW/PvP Map = wont be buying Expansion

Watching the video this was my first thought as well. What the hell is this crap doing in a WVW map? Even worse, it has a large gameplay impact.

Why force players to do some boring PVE/fedex quest? PVE quests in WVW should be small and peripheral and certainly NOT result in game-changing rewards.

Yep it’s pretty disappointing but LB is really the only reasonable weapon choice. I think 6(RtW)/0/2/6(SotF)/0 with GS is the strongest of those. GS, mainly because of the GTFO mobility and the block.

Traps could almost be a thing if the range on them wasn’t so short (600), and the trait placement so plainly stupid — short-range condi utilities in a crit chance/crit dmg line, so stupid. Notwithstanding the difficult range, traps also fall a bit short on the condi removal side as well.

Nothing else comes close. Melee/tank is not an option, at least in T1 — warrior/guard is so much better.

Arguably, you’re still better off playing your GWEN class but there is something of a role in ele/commander sniping, but it gets dull pretty quickly.

I’d like to see the channel removed and fewer but higher damage arrows falling, because the retal damage in WVW is nearly as high as the skill damage.

Supreme.3164:

Well thx guys, shame the build wasn’t well received, but that’s to be expected.
The majority of players simply won’t move from meta unless they see the build used in ESL or similar;

No, it’s because many have tried a whole bunch of wacky builds and found they aren’t as good.

Curring.9752:

Renewal is very easy to interupt

With 6 in earth, most would also take the stab on earth attune master trait so they could use renewal reliably, plus there is also the stab from 2x armour of earth, focus invuln.

Curring.9752:

Thankfully, to take Diamon skin they’ll have to forgo arcane or water, either one cripples them defensivly overall as they’ll have less condi clears if they forgo water and less attunement swapping/evasive arcana if they forgo arcana

Btw, this isn’t true at all, 0/0/6/4/4 will get all the good stuff, and ether renewal for heal will take care of condis.

I have more trouble with typical cele ele than diamond skin but thats just me.

he was using cele.

the ele just didn’t play very well in that fight. his choice of signet heal prob wasn’t the best either.

easy, don’t go 100% condition dmg. personally, i would never run 3 traps either, i prefer 2 traps and LR, which does decent damage, even in a condi build as is ofc a stun/immob breaker.

that said, i don’t see many DS eles out there, if ever. or D/F for that matter.

there hasn’t been any truly new build in this game for a long time.

the closest thing to a viable signet build IMO involves aura share and the fire aura on signet use trait, but even then, it suffers from the same thing all non-cantrip builds suffer from – it doesn’t have cantrips, so survivability is low without really bringing a lot to the table.