Guild Wars 2

DiogoSilva.7089:

Necros and spirit rangers are currently overpowered. Their buffs don’t need to be reverted, just toned down. And once that happens, eles (and mesmers) will become viable in pvp again.

Against Warriors and Thieves, current ele builds use mist form, lightning flash and arcane shield. I can tell you that arcane shield is a beauty versus them, especially versus thieves. Warriors and thieves also rely on direct damage, which eles can stand against with protection on earth. We also have good access to blind or weakness, depending on our MH choice, weakness toning down their criticals to 1/4 of the damage half the time. Unfortunately, being stuck at melee range is suicide because of the overpowered aoe condition spam which – again, should be nerfed.

Also, keep in mind that an ele is not as much as a 1v1 class as the other two. In a 2v2 situation, for example, an elementalist is pretty good at helping burst down one of them while healing, buffing and cleansing allies. This only gets better with swiftness from the healing glyph and RTL, which allows an elementalist to go from point to point and support their allies whenever they need help.

Also, zerker builds don’t use fresh air anymore. They keep the 20 air, 20 water point allocation as with valkyrie builds. The reason berzerker is used over valkyrie nowadays, is because vitality and higher sustain damage is better versus the defensive-condition meta.

With all due respect, You never answer why any team should bring the elementalist. All you manage to do is simply state that, some builds don’t use a trait that undermines concept of the elementalist AND you also pretty much are saying we should we have to burn all our CD to stay in the fight. Those are all nice things except for the fact you have to wait between 36-80s to get all of your CD back. So what do you do in between those long CD?

Finally, yes guild wars 2 is a team base game 2v2 and not 1v1, it funny how that only seem to matter when talking about the elementalist and not other classes.

You know a genre has problems when gamers praise a game with horrible and cheap mechanics are great and hard.

Read up SNK boss syndrome for more information and see where Liadri stands.

Lettuce.2945:

silvermember.8941:

Lettuce.2945:

I’ve played tons of mmorpgs and have dominated in pvp in them. Again, it’s my opinion and from what I’ve witnessed based on my gameplay experience and other eles WvW roaming videos…Smart eles do great in BOTH pve and pvp. I’ve seen some eles already dominating on youtube. Sure, you have to work harder to achieve the same results as other classes would (easily do). I like a challenge, keeps you on your toes and makes you think sharper. If you can dominate on an elementalist, surely you can dominate in other classes easier. Guess you aren’t one of those quick thinkers to attack a new player like this.

They are always players that can make anything mediocre seem great but that is usually less than 5%. Most of the WvW videos only show things that the movie maker wants you to see, it doesn’t show the full picture or the reality of the class.

in Pve and WvW they are a lot of factors that allow certain classes to perform better than their tPvP counterparts. For example till recently the Warrior was a boss in PvE but in tpvp was practically useless and that is because certain things only work in certain settings.

To your last point about challenge, if you want a challenge take out your gear. BUT in a team based (tpvp) game which guild wars 2 (supposedly is since it is supposedly balance around 5v5), having a class that requires 2-3 times the work for 1/2 the result other classes provide doesn’t give a compelling enough to bring the elementalist into the team.

added: btw I have pvp in other games blab blah, played the elementalist in guild wars 1 off and on for 6 years (sadly the elementalist had a similar problem for years and it was only a couple of years ago Arenanet decided to redo the class). played mages for most of my mmorpg career and blah blah.

I just did sPvp random queue (and my stats are lower in sPvP instances than outside), but did really great and my survivability and dps was good. So, idk man…Just be constantly on the move…I’m still not seeing it lol.

Anyways, the elementalist I study does livestreaming every time he pvps in wvw. So no, he doesn’t edit out the parts. Check out JetstormTV channel on youtube if you have time. That’s the playstyle I copied exactly with the exception of the number 6 skill. I just copied his movements in pvp and attunement rotations/combos and it’s doing wonders for me. Maybe study him?

I have yet to try WvW pvp but if I’m doing this well in sPvP, I can only imagine it would be better in WvW scenarios where I actually have good stats.

WvW pvp depending on the server to allow one abilities to reset and a lot things that work in WvW WILL not work in tpvp. Solo PvP, given your the that it is the first time you are playing means your MMR is super low. which alos means you are more likely playing with other inexperience players.

BtW spvp (8v8), solo (5v5) (new and lot of people just trying it out) and tpvp.

Anyways, if you are doing good in solo pvp that’s cool, but generally speaking tpvp is a lot different because it requires more coordination and working together and elementalist doesn’t bring a lot that other class don’t bring and do better at.

Kodiak.3281:

silvermember.8941:

It sucks how all out defensive skills are on such a long cool down where a mesmer has access to invulnerbility every 9.3-13 secs for 2 seconds + a decent amount of damage while ours either come with 50 second or 70 cD and the former provides no damage while the latter no longer provides any benefit.

while the necro has access to 2 hp bars and high damage.

Honeslty, I don’t think a small bump of toughness would be enough, they will have to cut the CD on our defensive abilities and reduce the need spam buttons to achieve parity with other classes.

But don’t you see how overpowered that would be! If Mistform had some sort of reasonable cool down like 60s when combined with /Focus and Obsidian Flesh we could be immune to damage for 7 seconds out of every 60 seconds while also maintaining our awesome offensive capabilities like…Fire Aura or Flamewall or Comet!

I just imagined it now and I am giggling like a little girl at how OP that would be. we would be a 1 man wrecking machine.

we already know what they say about us. We are meant to be a “jack of all fails”, also it’s PvE very few encounters require any complex thoughts other than to dps and lazily move to the left whenever you see a red circle next to you and dps even more (overly simplified but I think my point comes across).

LightningBlaze.4913:

The same phrase over and over again “having the lowest armor and heath in the game”.. It gets old to see players using this same excuse to justify why they are performing poorly with the profession. While some are complaining that the ele is awful at every aspect of the game, there are other players that are very good with this profession at every aspect of the game. What could be the difference?

Being good in WvW is different than being part of a team in tpvp. The benefit of WvW is it gives you enough time to have all your skills back into action, while in tpvp you are nearly constantly fighting, but I digress.

Playing a class that most of its mechanics are actually working to undermine you might give you some self-satisfaction, but in team setting all you are is a DRAG.

Kodiak.3281:

snip

It sucks how all out defensive skills are on such a long cool down where a mesmer has access to invulnerbility every 9.3-13 secs for 2 seconds + a decent amount of damage while ours either come with 50 second or 70 cD and the former provides no damage while the latter no longer provides any benefit.

while the necro has access to 2 hp bars and high damage.

Honeslty, I don’t think a small bump of toughness would be enough, they will have to cut the CD on our defensive abilities and reduce the need spam buttons to achieve parity with other classes.

Kodiak.3281:

cheshirefox.7026:

i somewhat disagree with your last sentence, a viable solution should have been reached long ago
the handling of the elem profession thus far is like watching a child try to get the square peg in a round hole.. the sad part is, the child eventually figures it out

It took them literally years to address the Elementalist problem in “Hard Mode” in GW1 where Elementalists had no armor bypassing moves but all the mobs had maximum armor.

This isn’t a company that moves fast. At all. I mean there are still bugs and issues in classes that still exist from day one and it’s been a full year. I hop onto my Mesmer and notice that Temporal Curtain still doesn’t give Swiftness if you already have it yet they already have the coding to make sure you only get 1 application like with the Guardian Staff abilities.

This is why I say people will either quit or find a new class. The only thing people can be sure of is there’s no changes coming any time soon.

Hey give them credit it took them 6 years to “fix” the elementalist, howerver by that time gw2 was a year a way from being released.

Navzar.2938:

Actually Leo, this is more about the cursed shore burning ember event. Doing enough damage to tag the champions there is fairly big issue. People are taking guardians reasoning that they deal better aoe damage than us, in addition to the other stuff.

dont you worry given Arenanet track record with guild wars 1 elementlist they will promptly fix it, 6 years later. Right before they release guild wars 3.

ARM.3912:

style.6173:

Why are so many of you bitter about an ele team doing so well? Be happy that the class can win. No need for jealousy.

I think we hit the nail on the head, the other team was 5 ele’s.

Best case he probably sync queue with his friends and intentionally lost or they were on a custom arena and he made his friends lost so he could take a picture.

looking at his post history he is probably a thief player.

style.6173:

Why are so many of you bitter about an ele team doing so well? Be happy that the class can win. No need for jealousy.

Because you picture doesn’t say anything. There is no context or any information about the opposition or the time it was taken.

It’s like taking a blurry picture of something as proof that big foot is real.

Another possibility is the team your fought against was bad.

You picture is pretty much worthless in any real discussion.

Finally, the discussion isn’t that you cant win with an elementalist is that it they don’t offer a lot in a team setting that other classes don’t provide in a more efficient manner.

The picture doesn’t solve the big question: Why should I take an elementalist jack of all trades for any of the supposedly 3 big roles over a more specialize and effect class?

Lettuce.2945:

I’ve played tons of mmorpgs and have dominated in pvp in them. Again, it’s my opinion and from what I’ve witnessed based on my gameplay experience and other eles WvW roaming videos…Smart eles do great in BOTH pve and pvp. I’ve seen some eles already dominating on youtube. Sure, you have to work harder to achieve the same results as other classes would (easily do). I like a challenge, keeps you on your toes and makes you think sharper. If you can dominate on an elementalist, surely you can dominate in other classes easier. Guess you aren’t one of those quick thinkers to attack a new player like this.

They are always players that can make anything mediocre seem great but that is usually less than 5%. Most of the WvW videos only show things that the movie maker wants you to see, it doesn’t show the full picture or the reality of the class.

in Pve and WvW they are a lot of factors that allow certain classes to perform better than their tPvP counterparts. For example till recently the Warrior was a boss in PvE but in tpvp was practically useless and that is because certain things only work in certain settings.

To your last point about challenge, if you want a challenge take out your gear. BUT in a team based (tpvp) game which guild wars 2 (supposedly is since it is supposedly balance around 5v5), having a class that requires 2-3 times the work for 1/2 the result other classes provide doesn’t give a compelling enough to bring the elementalist into the team.

added: btw I have pvp in other games blab blah, played the elementalist in guild wars 1 off and on for 6 years (sadly the elementalist had a similar problem for years and it was only a couple of years ago Arenanet decided to redo the class). played mages for most of my mmorpg career and blah blah.

Naab.4301:

What if I want a class that can adapt and fill most roles relatively well? Being good at everything, but not best at any one thing may be a disadvantage, but it can also be an advantage.

There is really a time where being mediocre at everything is actually a good thing. Being good at 2 things is generally better than being bad at 4 things. The benefit the ele might offer can easily be neglected due to their poor class mechanics and skills.

Arenanet doesn’t like elementalist or don’t know what the hell to do with them. I think we should just accept it and move on.

Lettuce.2945:

I have to say I really disagree with the fact that Elementalists are underwhelming. I bought gw2 for the first time 12 days ago. Already a full d/d spec’ed elementalist in full knights of divinity gear with 2 exotic weaps, bloodlust and force sigils on it…Working on my ascended gears atm, etc…And I gotta say…I love it. I’m dishing out good damage and I rarely get downed in dungeons. I just did a fractal run today with my guild…Got downed once the whole time while they got downed like 10-15 times…

I’m dishing out 7-8k aoe crits with number 5 earth skill and teleport combo…and my build isn’t nearly done. Doing 4-5k crit fire grabs, 2.5k-3k lighting whips…This is in dungeons btw…Haven’t tried wvw roaming but my gears pretty much matches Lady Sayrah and he does that much in wvw roaming so…I’m following Lady Sayrah’s skypirate build atm…And it’s doing wonders for me…And whenever my hp drops, all I do is dodge on water attunement, cast number 6, then 5, 3, then 2, then dodge again, bam easily full hp. Not to mention if you crit, you regain vigor…So you could constantly dodge to heal yourself and remove conditions. I’m loving my dd ele lol. I picked it b/c it’s “apparently” the weakest class and I always love picking the weakest because it’s more challenging…And I would say this class is more for quick thinkers who can adapt rather than people who want to faceroll a win.

I would just say play smarter overall…Realize that if you spec into glass cannon…Just think of hit and run tactics…Go in with large aoes, back out, heal yourself, go back in…etc. We are support zerg damage types. Once we embrace it, we’ll love dd eles.

Edit: I rotate a lot through attunements as I go through dungeons, storylines, etc…So the damage seems pretty consistent to me.

congratulation on buying guild wars 2 and playing it for ONLY 12 days. I am sure 12 days is enough time to form an opinion. I mean it is not like some of us have been playing since the first beta in april 12 but congratutions.

Oh btw, I am sure PvE is a great place to talk about how awesome the elementalist are, i mean it is not like PvE is mindlessly ez because PVE in guild wars 2 definitely not stupidly ez and anything with buttons can work.

Cortalia.5467:

So unlike other classes where you set up your character to operate in one or two specific ways elementalists have the ability to do whatever depending on how you use the abundant amount of skills, you can chain skills together that stack conditions, or stack abilities to give boons, or chain them for maximum damage output.

So no… I don’t think Elementalist is underwhelming, its just not as set in stone as other classes and as a whole I think its way more flushed out than your typical “mage” class of other MMO’s, I’m not stuck in the back flashing out High DPS spells hoping you don’t get one shotted by 80% of everything around you, instead I’m usually the first ones running into battle going blow for blow.

The problem what you said is that in practice what you said isn’t really true. we are so substandard at everything we do that it is better just to bring someone else and don’t have to worry about it.

A lot of the time we don’t provide enough to justify our existence in most teams in PvP, PvE and WvW almost any class can be effective.

All that shows is you can take Screenshots. Good job.

I feel like one shot attacks would be fine it they are performed by the boss and we can actually use one of the supposedly 3 pillars of guild wars 2 combat: not damage, not support, but Control. Obviously, by now I believe Arenanet has completely forgotten about that the three pillar thing and are simply trying random things to see how they work.

Nikkinella.8254:

They just need to reverse all the changes they made since beta and we’d be fine. But I don’t think they have the balls to admit that they made a mistake and own up to it, so we’re just going to keep getting worse and worse when they could just easily fix all the problems with the class easily.

OFC not they are going to claim “we are watching the meta, blah blah not trying to dictate it”.

LightningBlaze.4913:

silvermember.8941:

Naab.4301:

silvermember.8941:

Other classes could not bother with their 4th and 5th trait lines and still be viable or at least strong enough to survive.

Have you ever seen a Guardian build?

Other classes. I never implied ALL classes. maybe i should read up on the guardian, I havent played mine in a very long time.

I just gotta say your signature made me smile because it is so true. "People hate change, they want the exact same thing but different”. That’s exactly what happened to the elementalist.

I like to think most of the problem of the elementalist can be traced back to the time between it was announce and release. The idea the elementalist embodied was each attuement represented a different style, but as you can see the implementation is bad.

Then you have the first beta where most of the players were still getting used to the game and to the majority of players the elementalist was too “OP” and so Arenanet over corrected and ever since then the elementalist has never been the same. I mean they already admitted that the staff is not a PvP weapon, so I guess they win.

Hevosin.9187:

silvermember.8941:

@colin

Have you ever consider instead of having event mobs not drop loot and instead bump up the rewards and after an event succeed or fail give them players a chest depending on participation and increase the treshold for what is consider participation. So in Queendales De will give 5s and a chest for loot (3 to 4 pieces of loot) but instead with no possibility of getting a level 80 exotic or rare. But a level 50+ zone will give money (5-10s)+ a chest (with 3 to 4 pieces of loot) with a high possibility of loot exotic or rare or ascended.

This will remove the incentive for intentionally failing a DE and also reduce zerg trains because players while having other players around is nice zerging an event ISN’T.

This is a very nice idea, from the very beginning Events had very crappy rewards. Anet says they want no farming, but without farming, gold is basically impossible to get. I have played since launch and had about 40g total a few weeks ago, before cof1 nerf I did it for a few days and got another 40g, I doubled months of work in a few days. Anet either needs to KILL ALL FARMING, or buff up normal drops and rewards. I think 5s is a fair number for every event in a 1-15 zone and each zone would go up a little each time, lvl 80 zones events should give 30-40s. There would finally be a reason to do events in zones other than just to get the Exp to get a alt to 80.

Also on a side note Vets should get the old Champ loot update, for those of you who forget what that was, all champs dropped one piece of loot without fail(exept event champs) I think all Vets should drop at least one piece of loot. Whether that be armor or a weapon, mats, or w/e. but only non-event vets.

EDIT: 1s for a lvl 1 and lvl 2 event, all events past that could use a simple scale

lvl of event/2.5=Silver reward. So a lvl 15 event would give 6s, a lvl 45 would give 18s, and a lvl 80 event would give 32s. I don’t think it going to break the game econ, a simple fix to make sure it cant be zerged in high lvl zones is slap DR on it, HOWEVER, Leave the minimum reward of any event 1/3 of its max, so assuming I stay in a huge zerg and I did DR when I do a lvl 80 event I would get 10s 66c. Still good money but not nearly as good as 32s.

40s is way too high for reward it will cause things to inflate too fast. They are some players that will always farm that is unavoidable, but it will give incentive to those that enjoy DE to do more DE. Giving 40s will lead to players chaining events and that is not what should be happening. The goal of my system is to make it rewarding enough for people to do but not high enough to cause a huge spike.

Your plan will certain will certainly increase the rate too fast and devalue goal because now your 40g you have is going to be worth less far less than before in short time.

Ozx.5683:

silvermember.8941:

Solkard.5136:

I feel that the class has conflicting design issues.

Each element is set up to serve a different function for the class; fire for offense, earth for defense, water for healing, air for mobility. But rather than attuning to each element uniquely as a situation dictates, the skills themselves seem balanced around manically switching between each element and just jamming every button as quickly as possible, before switching to the next.

The end result is that while the class does have a lot of utility built into their various skills, they are for the most part wasted to just eek out a bit more dps.

One of the things that got me interest initially about the elementalist was that each attunement was for something. Fire for Aoe, water for more support, air for single dps and earth for defense. Now however it seems the class is mostly about spamming a lot of buttons.
if you look at all those guides they most talk about spamming a button of skills to maximize damage aka “combo” especially in the scepter dagger, the goal seems to be just getting things off as soon as possible and not necessarily playing smart. I mean if you are going to play like that you might as well just get yourself a macro and let it do the for you because that isn’t really playing.

scepter/dagger is about dealing burst combos to your opponent at the right time. the “skill” is more about positioning and timing. being able to burst someone down to 20% doesnt mean anything if they can heal right after back to 70% then kill you.

I totally agree there is some “skill” in coming into range to unload your heavy hitters. except that in tPvP you have to sacrifice your combat reset to close in to unload your heavy hitters then you to the possibility that one of those hitters misses due to the fact the skill is somewhat uncontrollable.

Kalarchis.8635:

Nothing we excel at? In 15-20 seconds I can:

- Apply swiftness, might, protection, soothing mist, and regeneration to a large area and heal everyone up to full and remove all of their conditions.

- Inflict burning, bleeding, blindness, cripple, chill, immobilize, and stun to a large area with lots of DoT spells, which do plenty of damage I assure you.

- Manually burst any field I want.

- Create constant combos with other players.

I can do all of that at the same time. And you’re complaing about feeling ineffective? What?

I suppose you are talking about staff. In PvE and in WvW anything goes I suppose. IN PvP that extremely slow and obvious attack certain wont work, then you got the problem most of the things they supposedly offer doesn’t really benefit the team compared to your extremely squish, slow skills and easily avoidable skillls (staff).

The point being they offer nice thins in a game mode that requires barely any competency (PvE), they are great in Zerg v Zerg but in a zerg they are standing on the back and the opponent isn’t focusing on them. They start to fall apart the moment they are the center of attention.

Solkard.5136:

I feel that the class has conflicting design issues.

Each element is set up to serve a different function for the class; fire for offense, earth for defense, water for healing, air for mobility. But rather than attuning to each element uniquely as a situation dictates, the skills themselves seem balanced around manically switching between each element and just jamming every button as quickly as possible, before switching to the next.

The end result is that while the class does have a lot of utility built into their various skills, they are for the most part wasted to just eek out a bit more dps.

One of the things that got me interest initially about the elementalist was that each attunement was for something. Fire for Aoe, water for more support, air for single dps and earth for defense. Now however it seems the class is mostly about spamming a lot of buttons.
if you look at all those guides they most talk about spamming a button of skills to maximize damage aka “combo” especially in the scepter dagger, the goal seems to be just getting things off as soon as possible and not necessarily playing smart. I mean if you are going to play like that you might as well just get yourself a macro and let it do the for you because that isn’t really playing.

Thrumdi.9216:

DevonCarver.5370:

mjharrison.3209:

WVW needs a Darkness Falls. That is all.

But why?

One reason would be an orb-like objective that doesn’t include a balance-upsetting stat buff.

Also, a public dungeon might be a way to add features only present in PvE to WvW. Perhaps a better way to get Laurels or Ascended items in WvW? Or maybe precursors?

People like to bring up Daoc a lot but fail to realize is that the market has changed, players have changed.

Aion had dungeons that were dependent on players gaining control over fortresses and that did not work out as plan. The reality is that a lot of players might WANT access to it, but wont be bother to WORK for it. Then when their servers gets perpertually stuck fighting a powerful servers players will start whining about the lack of access to it. Then you have other issue of players leaving WvW to go do that instance which defeats the purpose of WvW as well.

tl;dr
Players change from the time Daoc was out. Recent game like aion (i last played aion in 2010 maybe it change), that a lot of players might want to run the dungeon but wont necessarily work to keep it open. Then you have the other issue of fighting a far stronger server and never having access to it.

BTW i am not saying they shouldnt make a exclusive WvW dungeon, but it cannot be linked to something that requires your server to be strong or it will never work in the long run.

@colin

Have you ever consider instead of having event mobs not drop loot and instead bump up the rewards and after an event succeed or fail give them players a chest depending on participation and increase the treshold for what is consider participation. So in Queendales De will give 5s and a chest for loot (3 to 4 pieces of loot) but instead with no possibility of getting a level 80 exotic or rare. But a level 50+ zone will give money (5-10s)+ a chest (with 3 to 4 pieces of loot) with a high possibility of loot exotic or rare or ascended.

This will remove the incentive for intentionally failing a DE and also reduce zerg trains because players while having other players around is nice zerging an event ISN’T.

Dastion.3106:

Being one-shot is the easy part. It’s NOT being one shot that is hard. If you look at action games acclaimed for their difficulty and challenge, you’ll notice the theme of needing to ‘learn the fight’ as the challenge because it gives players something to work on and overcome as a single player or team.

Dark Souls, Raids in other MMOs, MOBAs, they all encompass that aspect of not requiring simply someone ‘good at games’ but instead require you learn all of the aspects of the fight. It’s an area where GW2 was sadly lacking when released and it’s good to see a change in their direction.

The Halloween jumping puzzle is another key example of this. You didn’t make it on your first try, or even your fifth or tenth. It required you to learn as you went along and get better as you go. In Dark Souls you learn that an assassin is hiding in an area after he kills you and this you ‘progress’. It’s a style that I favor for the challenge and sense of accomplishment it offers.

I haven’t played dark souls but raids in other mmo were not very hard. The had a very predictable pattern and all of so called difficulty was usually pointless if you had a very competent healer. The hardest things about raid is that the more players involve the dumber everyone gets.

Other than that you don’t need 1 shot mechanics to make something challenging. You can still provide challenge without the need cheap tricks.

If a one shot mechanic is need it should be from boss itself, not necessarily independent of the boss. The QC in phase 2 favors, running away and ignoring the boss and simply ranging her.

Naab.4301:

silvermember.8941:

Other classes could not bother with their 4th and 5th trait lines and still be viable or at least strong enough to survive.

Have you ever seen a Guardian build?

Other classes. I never implied ALL classes. maybe i should read up on the guardian, I havent played mine in a very long time.

I agree they should make a tutorial and be more clear. They are a lot of obvious things things that are trial by error or are not apparent and or things that are simply not working. I think there is currently a fundamental misunderstanding on how sigils work and how they work. I see a lot of people putting a lot incompatible sigils, because the game never makes it apparent enough.

nearlight.3064:

I feel mostly comfortable with elementalist in most game modes. Although 20 water and 30 (or 20) Arcane is required to be tough to kill, I feel like we can do a lot. The Lightning hammer might/fury stacking builds are fantastic for PvE, and can outDPS most other classes barring glasscannon warrior. Meanwhile in WvW roaming the burst from S/D is very good when on the move, and I love how using firey greatsword 3 and 4 can be a lifesaving technique. All in all the only thing I don’t like about the elementalist is that the scepter autoattacks are very bad, other than that I enjoy playing ele as a bursty DPS class.

The problem with the ele is you alway either have to be put something in water and or arcane to stand a chance at surviving. Other classes could not bother with their 4th and 5th trait lines and still be viable or at least strong enough to survive.

xbaunx.6438:

Autumn Man.6852:

It’s really sad to almost never see a single elementalist these days, it’s all just mesmers with their ridiculous mobility and damage that makes it possible to solo everything.

Mesmer mobility? I haven’t played one, but I thought they were one of the slower classes to move around on.

they don’t have passive swiftness like the guardian, but other than that they have no real problems unlike the ele.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

A lot of this has to do with certain people feeling “entitled” to free stuff.

This has very little to do with that. Are they some entitled people, maybe, but it still doesn’t change the fact that something like the last boss sucks. Just for the record I have in fact beaten queen’s gauntlet.

Difficult content is nice, cheap content is not, content that requires you to play a very specific way also is not in a game with supposedly difficult builds and difference in classes and the mechanic favors certain classes over other again isn’t or punishes others (I mean just look how ez certain class can complete certain bosses even with gambit, ie the abundance of reflect to mitagate damage in phrase 1 for mesmer). content where the mechanics are sometimes buggy also isn’t difficult. QC while nice in theory wasn’t balance at all. Personally, I think if they want to have one shot mechanics make it so that the boss is doing it and not independent of the boss.

The point being that Arenanet has the habit of making kitten content, we should not reward such cheap methods of content and hold them to some standard.

tl;dr hard good, cheap bad. Content that punish certain classes and rewards others, bad. content that forces you to play in a specific manner also bad. If guild wars 2 had only one class content like QC would have been fairer or balance for that, but we don’t and Arenanet needs to take into account for the future.

Blimm.5028:

Tupi, our profession design is not contraditory. Its “jack of all trades”. You have healing, some defense, more or less single target damage and aoe damage in every possible build.
Dagger mainhand and Staff don´t have that much single target, but thats not my point right here.
Low health pool is totally ok at the moment, atleast PvP wise. There we only need a nerf to the condition meta and ele will be top of the foodchain. In PvE the only thing is you have to be a little skilled to be efficient with ele, and even then warriors are just better. But every profession has that problem in PvE at the moment. Ither buff the warrior or be the warrior. Or go home. Warrior has way too much damage for PvE at the moment.

Sure!

You mean the bunker build? or the give everything you got build and hope someone saves your butt build?

Ultimately, even in tPvP all those so called things the ele brings is outweight or outplay by other classes. But what I do know.

Tupi.2967:

Elem DPS isn’t low, but u have to be total berserker to see this (yes, forget arcane traits). Our effective dps is higher than mesmers one. Mesmer is valuable in DGs for their reflects, portals and time warps.

In Spvp Elem feels lackluster due the meta and contraditory class design (low health and low toughness but always forced in meele range – we dont have pets or clones as meatbags, neither invisible tricks).

I can go on a mesmer full dps spec sand guardian and I will still have a lot of survivability (hp wise), cheap stuns/daze (mantra), invulnerbility every 12 seconds on sword AND every 90 seconds for 3 seconds depending on amount of clones, EZ and cheap reflects most of them provide not only damage but also reflect.

Elementalist on the other hand needs a cheap mechanic that contradicts our class mechanics. most of our defensive skills are on a long CD, if for some dumb reason we want to be full dps spec we give up the ability to ultilize our core mechanic to it’s fullest. Finally, let say you want to run arcane build we give up ALL our defensive skills which are on an extremely long CD.

The point being that the elementalist simply sucks or is bad compared to everyone else. There is no class worst than the elementalist because we constantly punished simply for existing. We get punished for our class mechanics by having 15 secs CD, we get punished for our defensive skills by having low,defense hp and high CD on all our defensive ability WHILE they are other classes that have better defensive abilities, high hp or defense. All of these doesn’t include the fact that our trait sucks.

added: you get the little problem of having to play like a macro in a game where you are suppose to think (initially anways I think arenanet gave up on that concept months ago) before using skills instead of just button mashing or relying on muscle memory.
Tl;dr
Technically you speak the truth except for the fact we get extremely punished for everything classes take for granted.

Skye Marin.3250:

Dear ArenaNet,

Keep up the good work!

Sincerely,
This guy.

I might like Arenanet, but they are doing a bad job. They might have the theory down, but their implementation leave something to be desired.
Unbalance content that favors certain class over others. Unnecessary annoyance, content that ignore long term effects, the recent transformation into “farm simulation 2” and elementalist being treated crap. This is how I imagine the balancing for elementalist go.

Dante.1508:

It should be like Secret world where the fast casting target actually casts around mob your targeting when fast cast is on. So you can just point and shoot..

Makes life so much easier..

This is the smartest thing that has ever come out of your mouth.

Now say something to counteract it.

edit: Thinking about it, it wouldn’t work for Combos too well and for certain skills like elementalist water staff 3,5 for example. So nvm, it wasn’t a good idea.

I totally agree, i have a bunch of ticket on my useless elementalist, would love to put them on my mesmer for my farming.

I just want to add that because of the current design of the elementalist (low damage) people have to compensate for by spamming their skill as soon as it leaves CD instead using their skills tactically.

Fox, The current air fresh builds relies on simply using up your blind (air 2) with no regard to whether the target can hit you or not. This design runs counter to the whole tactical gameplay we were suppose to have and more like a buy a high powered keyboard and simply let the macros do their jobs.

The only place where we seem to belong is WvW with a staff. While the elementalist if good with in a dungeon group with providign support, it is simply better just to bring in a guardian for higher support and damage.

Yesterday, it became crystal clear that the elementalist simply sucks or maybe the design for the Queen’s Gauntlet does not it favor it or maybe I suck (which is more probably). I was trying to do Ragmaw with 5 gambits on my mesmer, all I did was simply summon the gun shooting phantasm switch to my gs and summon the berserker BAM a few seconds (36 seconds) later 6 bags of money. On my elementalist did my best but it wasn’t sufficient. Obviously I don’t want the ele to be that ez, but I don’t want to be a human macro to do something others can do with 3 buttons.

Blimm.5028:

Now it hasn’t been improved but is the best thing you can do.
What does this tell you?

That nearly a year and a 3 months after nerfing the elementalist to the ground they added ONLY 1 new build?

In PvE every and anything goes. In WvW, other players in a zerg become nothing more than loot to us. Just drop a meteor and watch the bags drop.

In sPvP you are zerging to the left and right.
in TPvP and soon to be soloPvP, ahahahahahaha. We are not bad, we just are worst compared to everyone else.

We have low armor, low damage to do a decent amount of damage you have to become a human macro or use a macro, before had active defense but no Arenanet hates it when the elementalist is decent. They might throw us a bone or 2, just long enough to keep us complacent. look at a mesmer that guy has invulnerable every 9 seconds and can reflect damage AND can spawn auto dps.

Honestly, I m getting tired of this game. I hope blade and soul cn open beta is f2p.

Take out loot from events and just give a chest after the event is done, bam. No more zerg farming and people have to simply just do dE or quit.

I think this birthday is tied to your account not your birthday.

Be proud you beat SNK at their own game.

MauricioCezar.2673:

Don’t feel cheating, this is cheat:

I feel dumb what are you trying to show?

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

• $ > Gems > Gold

I am not trying to call you a liar, but do you have any evidence of that? It seems people like you keep saying that to make yourself feel better, but w/o proof all you have is nothing.

anyways anyone that can speed 700-1000 bucks probably in my book deserves that legendary (I think legendary was the wrong choice of words just like rare and exotic are), because they are funding the game for me.

Reikou.7068:

I think its a bit of both.

Anet was hoping for players to play the game and do things in game simply because they are “fun,” regardless of rewards. This mentality can be seen in all aspects of the game, PvE, WvW and sPvP. Unfortunately (perhaps other than sPvP,) we have seen that this is a very flawed concept, and it has turned out that players enjoy getting rewards as well. This, coupled with the absolute failure of the game when it comes to general PvE mechanics makes the game neither “fun,” nor “rewarding,” at all.

All in all, I do believe that the game requires a complete balance overhaul. Not so much class balance, but more regarding infrastructure and mechanics. Rewards and balance for dynamic events need to be re-calculated and redone. Some “core” PvE game mechanics and designs need to be thrown out the window (Defiant) etc. And get rid of shared loot/rewards. Honestly this is the single biggest reason why the game’s PvE is stale. This in and of itself is the reason why zerging even occurs, and zerging simply trivializes anything and everything that can be done in PvE. Remove it.

I do think that with some of the newer PvE things, specifically Liadri, that Anet is finally getting the picture. IMO, all bosses in this game should be similar to Liadri in terms of “difficulty.” From the Shatterer, to the wurm in Twilight Arbor.

This is possibly the only non bias post that actually takes into account both sides and not just blinding bashing the game because the game did not turn out to be THE MESSIAH you hyped up in your mind to be.

Personally, I would go one step further and completely remove drops from event mobs. After each event give everyone a chest (include up to 5 drops ranging from blue to exotic) that participated and the chest will depend on the player level and on the level of participation which will increase the chance of you getting loot. So this will allow non dps builds to have a fair shot at loot.

Also include Loot scaling depending on the type of event or include loot treshholds that means you most do a certain amount of damage or support you get loot. Not just simply tagging the mobs or being in a group that tags the mob. So you can still get XP, but the qualification for loot should be higher.

Finally, include loot scaling depending on how long an event as been up and or depending on the event level how many players are around. So this punishes zergs while rewarding smaller groups.

I think a combination of these things will work. But the point is that to minimize the reward from zerging and forcing the players to visit the world while still rewarding them since that is what really matters to them anyways.

Hard content is fine. Content that is difficult because it is designed to be cheap NOT fine. Having RNG based pulls, having bugged Orbs and previous spawns on the map and to top it off a camera you spend time fighting are not signs of difficult content.

If I wanted to fight a cheap boss, I will rather just play king of fighters.

I agree with the spirit of what you are saying, I don’t agree with any of those things you listed under not challenging. None of those things have any function to challenge, BUT they do add a sense of annoyance.
When You fail why should you die?
Why should they be a timer? (short timer)
why should you have to wait for someone to finish before retrying?

The problem with QG is that the bosses are cheap aka have snk-boss syndrome. Having a timer + cheap one shot mechanics on a short timer+ bad camera as a result of a small circular map+ lag + combined with RNG pulls from the orbs and the fact that some classes have a natural advantage and certain class mechanics become useless (Pets). let’s not forget for years Arenanet always talked about being able to see what your opponent and yet most of the bosses you had to take a leap of faith and dodge after 2 seconds without seeing the attacks.

the point being Queen’s Gauntlet great idea in theory, implementation is awful and cheap. IF you want to make tough content do it, don’t make content with cheap 1 shot and RNG mechanics. Leave the RNG at the black chest and mystic toilet.

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama.9586:

You guys will get your wishes , hold on to that sweet karma you’re going to need it and maybe even more of it.

So you must be a alpha tester or know someone.

HawkMeister.4758:

How about you click&watch the actual interview instead of reading that stupid IGN article?

And due to my logic and reason I can very well deduce that ATM all hands are tied to polishing the game.
Maybe you haven´t noticed the innocent little statement in Colin´s latest blog or simply don´t understand the meaning.

EVERY Dungeon will be rebalanced, repolished or even deleted and rebuilt from scratch.
This is basically half of the PvE content of this game that is being totally redone!

They took 3+ years to launch this game and now are redesigning roughly a quarter of it.
That is your expansion right there.

i am not arguing that the dungeons are not being redesigned, I am simply saying YOU DO NOT know what everybody at Arenanet is doing because they never talk about EVERYTHING they are working on, just a few things.

We can both agree that expansions are not in the picture.