Guild Wars 2

Zplus.4217:

HiddenNick.7206:

I’m not trolling… So your wrong.

My wrong what?

Lol. also snicker. +1.

Thought he was talking to me, Mika – and I’m the one who paid for 18 people to come with me to GW2 – they couldn’t afford it at the time, I made it happen. Up until November, I was probably Anet’s biggest fanboi.

That, more than anything else, is what upsets me when they go and completely change their approach to gameplay philosophy. The ideal they toted was “Skill over gear. Best in slot will be easy to get, and once you got it, that’s it.” Grind would be purely cosmetic.

They changed that – I say they lied, Vayne says they simply changed their minds after the fact. Changing it after the fact makes them liars retroactively. It’s not a small change, it’s a change in their core gaming philosophy. If it’s not as grindy as everything indicates it will be, I’ll likely suit up one character.

Not sure why I’m taking part in these anymore, mind you – it’s abundantly clear Anet doesn’t care one whit about what their customer base actually wants, and I know I’ll never invest in their products again. This is just something to hold me over till the new DA game comes out. In the meantime, if I pipe up, it’s only to request (should be insist, but that never happens anymore) some quality in the product I bought.

So very much of what’s wrong with our society would be better if customers always spoke up when they got the shafted. Granted, the only thing I have to sway them with is my potential willingness to buy gems – something I don’t foresee unless they do yet another 180 and go back to their core philosophy.

Toss it, too much work to give a kitten .

Later, eh?

Stale

Just want to see who’s with me here – no need for arguments. Straight up agree/deny.

The game will be better off if the ascended gear is the final tier of gear, ever, and becomes the new best in slot, for the lifespan of GW2.

A simple:

We’re good now, never increase.

or

I want more gear progression, eventually.

you can copy/paste them – they should meet requirements.

(note, I’ve given up on arguing whether ascended is good or not – just want to see where opinions are about stopping at ascended.)

Vayne.8563:

stale.9785:

Accept it – they lied, again. There was a dramatic change in Anet’s structure right around release (2 of the 3 founders left, almost the entire dev team quit/were fired, and now we have about 6 people of the original team left.)

The people in charge now are about making money from everything – and we’re getting what you’d expect from it. Content that requires 24/7 game play, or cracking open your wallet.

It’s disappointing, and vaguely upsetting, but frankly, what I’ve come to expect from the “new” Anet.

Lie implies intent. What evidence do you have that when Anet devs made these quotes they didn’t think them true.

Fair enough – and like I said, I know that there’s virtually nobody left at Anet from the days when the game was in development. Nonetheless, literally thousands of their paying customers bought the game under those terms.

I fully agree with anyone who says that they’ve been lied to or betrayed by Anet. For all practical purposes, we weren’t given the product we PAID for upon release.

Imagine if any company other than a gaming company did this – at best, they’d be out of business. Far more likely, there would be large and costly lawsuits to cover.

“When I bought the car, it was implied that the motor would be an integral part of it. One day, I took it in for service, and the dealer told me “We no longer support the internal combustion format.” and removed the motor."

“I paid for the contract on the understanding that I would get a month’s worth of cable. After 3 days, they stopped my service, and advised me they were in the business of phone service instead.”

“You’ll get a game where all grind is for cosmetic items. Our tradition of best-in-slot gear not requiring an effort, and skill over gear, shall continue. Until a week from now.”

They done kittened up dude.

They repeatedly said, in development, in interviews, in random in-game posts, that ALL progression would be cosmetic, once you hit the gear cap.

This isn’t something the fanbase came up with on their own – for 5 years they beat the same drum, then a piddling 3 months into live release, they did a 180. Now they’re making it worse. I’m not surprised people are kitten ed – I’ve reached a point where not only can I not, in good conscience, recommend this game to friends – I advise them to avoid anything Anet or NCsoft has had their hands in. They’ve become worse than EA ever dreamed of being.

Vayne.8563:

Yep Anet made changes to it’s originally plans. 100% true. They went in with one intention, it didn’t work out and they changed mid-stride. kitten ed a whole lot of people off in the process.

I really believe the Anet devs thought they could get away with only cosmetic upgrades…and then the game met the real world. Sucks, but what did you expect them to do. Say goodbye to most of the game’s population?

Do you guys really think Anet devs woke up one day and I said, I have a great idea. Let’s screw over our strongest fans. That will be fun!

Because I don’t think that’s how it happened.

Vayne, you know as well as I do that the founders left, the dev team changed dramatically, and the company is now co-headed by someone who firmly believes in making money from everything. I know you’re the Anet white knight, but this time around, you’re flat out wrong dude.

I’ve had your back before – but in this instance, they lied. They didn’t even pretend otherwise – they looked at the entire fanbase who enjoyed GW1 and said “kitten YOU!” To pretend otherwise is just silly.

Accept it – they lied, again. There was a dramatic change in Anet’s structure right around release (2 of the 3 founders left, almost the entire dev team quit/were fired, and now we have about 6 people of the original team left.)

The people in charge now are about making money from everything – and we’re getting what you’d expect from it. Content that requires 24/7 game play, or cracking open your wallet.

It’s disappointing, and vaguely upsetting, but frankly, what I’ve come to expect from the “new” Anet.

Kelnis.1829:

Astralporing.1957:

Alastar.2863:

Is the debate on Ascended gear STILL an issue after almost a year?

Ascended gear is not an issue.

This and other threads prove you wrong. You can’t declare something “not an issue” just because it’s not an issue to you.

It is an issue with a small, but very vocal part of the community. I try my best to be tolerant of people’s opinions, but the way those that are “against” ascended items communicate their distaste for them… is some of the most toxic swill I’ve seen in any MMO.

I’ve said this in a different thread, but I’ll restate it here: Your fears regarding a treadmill, regarding the inevitable inclusion of a level cap increase, which require us to do it all again, are completely unfounded. We may get small, tangible ways to improve our character power via gear, but so far these methods have not been game breaking. Nor have they, aside from high level fractals, been a requirement for participating in WvW, PvE, or (obviously) sPvP.

The immaturity of those quoting the manifesto as gospel is appalling. Game development is a constantly evolving, constantly iterative, process. Evidence is there to suggest they wanted Ascended items in the game at launch. If this had been the case we wouldn’t even being having this debate.

That said, I hope they spend more time on horizontal progression with the introduction of new skills and weapon sets for each class. This would be a great deal more entertaining, even if they required the same amount of effort to acquire.

Let me reiterate, they spent 5 years promising, in every live stream, in every blog about it, and in all their interviews, that there would be no vertical progression, and grind would be for pure cosmetics.

They changed their tune on this post release.

This, and the fact that it’ll take a new player a solid minimum of 5 months to gear up to best in slot – when they promised best in slot would be easy to get – is what has people upset.

The power creep is an off-putter, because the people who played GW1 – the ones who funded the bloody sequel, have all gotten a collective kick in the sack from Anet.

I’ve put my share, and far more than that, into this game in terms of hard cash – they won’t see another dime again. It’s a time killer till the new dragon age comes out, or something equally compelling. It’s a shame, because GW2 had great potential, but they immediately caved to the gaming-locusts, (the dramatic change in development team didn’t help this, I’m sure – you are aware that the only GW1 people left are 1 of 3 founders, about 3 devs, and the PR people?) to the detriment of what the game could have been/was advertised as being.

But what we need are panda hats, and rainbow pooping unicorns, and plush backpacks. There’s no danger! Only fun and light! What dragon?

Variations on this complaint have been going around since BWE1. They’re not going to change, I swear at least one or two of the lead devs are atually 12yo girls.

Touch of an exaggeration, Xae. No two points were an hour apart in GW1, unless you were attempting to WALK to drok’s from ascalon, or something absolutely goofy like that.

Rangers require a pet to do their total potential damage. If for any reason the pet isn’t hitting a target, you’re doing 40% less damage than any other class with the same spec would be.

Sadly, the pets have, at absolute best, a 50% hit rate. So, as a universal truth, the ranger won’t do the damage that any other class can. If you can live with that, and the fact that when new ascended gear comes out the ranger is going to be even weaker when compared to other classes, knock yourself out!

The theme/flavour of the ranger is hands down the most fun in the game – it’s the execution that sucks.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Totally agree.

They need to count how many Champs you kill, and then dole out all of the loot bags at the end when you complete the invasion.

This was my suggestion the first day of the bloody invasion, when people starting harassing those who were completing the event, because it got them less champs, the poor darlings.

It doesn’t. GW1 was magic: the gathering to this game’s solitaire. The only thing this has that’s better than GW1 is the mobility/combat system. They could have made this so much better, but they made a hack n slash instead.

-Skill hunting is gone.

-Build diversity is gone.

-Easy best-in-slot gear is so gone it’s laughable (hi ascended 100 day minimum weapons, 3 month minimum trinkets!)

-The story is gawdawful. The only people I could envision enjoying it are the folks who think Twilight is high literature. It’s terribad.

- They forgot how to animate cutscenes? (we got 3 good ones during F&F) current cutscenes look like an art students first year attempt at computer generated entertainment.

- We were supposed to only have purely cosmetic grind – lolwut? Power creep! Power creep everywhere to satisfy the game-locusts! (only comparable grind in GW1 was the LB/SS titles, and they were optional!)

-PvP modes! GW1 pvp was superior to any other pvp I’ve ever played. What we got for PvP in GW2 is just… sad. Worst part is they believe it’s an e-sport. There could have been hope with WvW, but they’re unwilling to take steps that would burst the zergs and make people actually PLAY instead of spamming 1 mindlessly.

I could keep this up for a while, probably 4-5 pages, but I’ll only end up depressing myself.

The complaints are because it’s counter to Anet’s gaming philosophy that they operated GW1 under (best in slot was easy to get upon hitting max level) and that they promised this game would be like.

They lied, again – and this time their lies leave anyone who’s not in-game 24/7 at a disadvantage. That is not what they told us the game would be, nor how it would play – it’s a change they put in to satisfy the game-locusts – the very players who WILL move on when a grindier game comes out – leaving everyone who was supporting GW2 based on GW1 with the mess left behind.

This is why people are upset.

We’re already at a point where best in slot for trinkets along will take an absolute minimum of 3 months (assuming you don’t do fractals) and possibly as long as 6 months – for one set of trinkets. Heaven help you if you use more than one spec, because you’re doing it all again.

Add the ascended weapons to that – which are to include (based on the video linked in the other thread) 100 of a material you can only get one of per day which puts us at a hard minimum of 100 days per weapon.

This is insane, and horribly punishing to people who play alts. Also, if the stats that were on the Legendaries when they “accidentally” had the ascended stats are accurate, between the stat difference and the damage difference, the weapons will offer a nearly 20% damage increase over Exotics. See previous comments about how best-in-slot was always supposed to be easy to aquire.

If the new ascended gear isn’t trivially easy enough for someone who only plays 2-3 hours a week to get, then Anet has quite deliberately kicked their entire GW1 fanbase in the nuts, again.

I’m not surprised, I’ve hit the point I’m not even depressed. What does upset me is that as soon as another, grindier game comes out, the wowgrindboys will move onto that, and the people who wanted to enjoy GW2 are going to be left with the clusterkitten caused by trying to please the grinders.

Bleh.

Ah, the elite suggestion was actually random, since I don’t know what the various forms do. My necro is a salad, the other characters are all human.

PvE, WvW and dungeons (I have a very dim view of the style of PvP Anet has given us). Was thinking marks because, though the damage isn’t huge, in a zerg context an AoE snare/condition transfer could be fun, and area regen couldn’t be that bad. Same thought on the wells.

Also, really didn’t like the feel of the dagger gameplay, which was part of picking staff. Scepter is too blatantly condition (though conditions right now in wvw seem stupidly huge) I could see having a second build/gear set for conditionmancering (that’s so not a word).

The siphon was chosen just as filler, before the staff trait. Spiteful removal was just a passive condition management. (consume condition or plague signet looked like the only other options). Surprised you picked weakening shroud over the ritual mastery,

Thanks for the feedback! Since I’m only lvl 25 right now, it’s only theory, but any advice can only help.

Wondering what the people think of:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQUQNAW3dlQaq0mpRZDgOFhkir9sJFebcQKcvuiKMMA-jAyAYLBZCCARAmKAl8KiGbxtIas6aMlLRUtMA6LA-e

only theorycraft, since I’m lvl 23 atm. Am I crazy, or is it workable? My thought is that I can do reasonable damage outside of DS, and DS itself seems pretty hardcore at lvl 23, I’m just hoping it scales well as I level.

Suggestions?

Oh – apologies – the most hated Dev at Anet is still part of it. Izzy Cartwright – the man who smiter’s booned smiter’s boon – the skill balance dev who didn’t actually play – he’s still involved.

Zero Day – remember, the only people this game has in common with GW1 are the PR people, and the company head. The devs all moved on to other projects before GW2 was released.

It’s not being made by the same people, nor is it being made for the same fanbase. It’s entire design is based around getting you to spend more money.

The requirement to get ascended everything to stay competitive will result in either 1) people never playing an alt, or 2) people buying their way to the even playing ground with the 24/7 grinders, 3) people quitting when they can’t stay competitive.

How so, RJ? The first thing that was truly limited to one character was the laurels (pre-wallet). Getting one character into Ascended gear, if you don’t do fractals, requires roughly 6 months of Laurel collecting, per build, per character.

Exotic gear was/is trivially simple to get, even on a rarely played alt, which is how it should be.

The character exclusive stuff is what’s really got people upset – and I don’t blame them.

Ok, people are bashing the OP – but a core philosophy of Anet was always that best-in-slot gear should be simple to get. Skill is supposed to outweigh gear. As it stands, the WoWgrindboys have agitated for a gear treadmill, and are being rewarded with one, at the expense of everyone who doesn’t live in the game 24/7.

It ruins diversity (the trinkets, at least) because if you don’t do fractals till your fingers bleed, and are dependent upon Laurels, you’re looking at six months for a set of trinkets, for one build. You want a different style of trinkets, that’s another six months for best-in-slot gear.

I don’t imagine the ascended weaponry will be any easier to get – nor the upcoming ascended armour. The entire approach has been alt-unfriendly, and will likely be more so.

A core theme of GW has always been that best-in-slot gear is easy to get, because skill counts more than gear. This changed with ascended trinkets (they also lost thousands of players overnight when introduced this) and is only going to get worse.

Someone further up nailed it – the experience he’s getting in a zergball is reduced because he’s not tagging as many enemies. It’s the only explanation that fits. I’m one of the wiki editors, and the work on the experience page was reasonably complete in September. Unless something has changed that nobody but OP noticed, it should still stand.

BlackBeard.2873:

Halcyon.3140:

You are still able to heal in mist form if you have evasive arcana.

This is very true. It was the mistform—>ether renewal that was too much. It healed back up to like 70% and removed all condis. A reset like that is just too much.

Tell that to thieves.

For all the people who are pro subscription – google “skinner box rat” then think about your favourite sub game.

skill, depth and fun.

The thief is broken, from a balance perspective – between initiative and stealth, there’s no way to truly balance them against the other classes, who all have to deal with actually losing when things go bad, and managing their cooldowns.

I know you weren’t talking to me, Nitross, but realistically, no, there’s no way to balance them without scrapping the initiative system.

Also note, their core mechanic isn’t initiative, nor stealth – it’s steal. I know thief players argue this, because they love the perma-stealth/inst-gib builds, but nonetheless, it’s true.

Llyren.3904:

I would have no objection to having a skill which ends your downstate and puts you in dead state. Whichever way you get there though the opponents should still get full benefits from your death.

Heck, I’m in the camp which thinks the opponents should get full benefit for defeating you if they run you off

That just shows you play against thieves – the only profession where making them disengage is a “win”. (This shows a truly glaring balance issue, for all that thieves deny it.)

You didn’t bother to check the second page, where there are 3 suggestions for this, all full of no. Two of them are by the same guy.

Nobody wants to give the elitist tools more ways to be elitist tools. Live with it.

Crossplay.2067:

I feel you guys and arenanet are looking at this the wrong way. The problem is every elementalist is expected to constantly swap attunements. That severely limits builds and promotes common combos that might as well be telegraphed on loudspeakers. Then there’s the weapon range limitations. Almost all staff skills are ranged so staff users have to stay at range to be effective. Almost all dagger skills are melee so all dagger users have to stay in melee to be effective. Combine this with traits that are only work when in certain attunements and the long attunement cooldowns and you have a profession that’s pulling players in many directions but not allowing them to stand where they want. In essence, we can’t play our way.

In my opinion, the way to fix this is to stop insisting all elementalists rotate through all attunements. While it is nice to have the option of swapping, it shouldn’t be mandatory just to be effective. Some of us want to focus on one or two elements and there’s nothing wrong with that.

The second thing is to allow in-combat weapon swapping at the expense of attunement swapping. One way would be allowing elementalists to disable 2 attunements to gain the ability to weapon swap. This will limit their available weapon skills to 20 but improve their combat adaptability greatly. Another is to create a new grandmaster trait for each elemental line that allows weapon swapping while in that attunement. Since there’s only enough points for 2 grandmaster traits, it will limit itself plus obtaining these traits will mean giving up on traits that benefit from constant swapping. I’m also willing to bet players whom choose them are likely to stay in the attunements with them so, even though they technically have access to 50 weapon skills, they will limit themselves to 20. The third option is to create a signet with a passive that increases the current attunement’s effectiveness with time (like stacking might per second while in fire) and swaps weapons when active at the cost of the passive buff. The cooldown and the desire to keep the passive up will make players think hard about using the active.

The third thing that is needed is either more active defensive powers with longer effects or more hp. The reason why few eles go with a full berzerker build is because they simply don’t last long enough to get the damage out. I would suggest EVERY aura lasting 8 to 10 seconds and providing 10% damage reduction on top of their usual effects.

Last but not least, eles need skills with faster casting times. This is a game with twitch-based combat yet several skills are so slow that opponents can casually walk out of an aoe’s target reticule. There is something seriously wrong with that. No cast time should be longer than 1 second and I’d gladly take a reduction in damage if a recharge reduction comes with it.

I’ll have to discuss other opinions later as I really need to sleep.

This is actually a very interesting suggestion.

Guardian, mesmer, necro, ele, in that order. If they ever do something to fix the bloody pets, ranger would top the list.

I’ve had 3 chars since headstart, no present yet. something is borked.

Pre-emptive list of the blatant problems, before someone goes asking;

Attunement swapping is far too long when untraited – it should match weapon swap (10s) with a minimum possible time of 7s when traited 30 into arcana.

Earth and Fire are useless lines – they’re both two concerned with their own attunements. Making the effects more universal would help.

Water is too good as it is – all our survivability is in water. Add to that the blatant need for HP ele’s have, and it’s a no-brainer to blow 1/3 (minimum) of your points in water.

Every weapon attack is too slow, barring air 2 on staff. Our hardest hitting skills don’t require an opponent to dodge – they can literally walk out of the area before taking damage. Shortening the animation time, aftercast delay, and recharge would go miles toward making ele’s more offensive.

Focus – swap the water skills on dagger offhand with the water skills on focus, and you’ve done two things – one is to make the D/D spec less survivable, which would go a ways towards mitigating future nerfs. The second would be to improve focus offhand.

Base Health is far too low. I know thieves and guardians share it, but thieves have effective immortality if they’re paying attention (ability to leave any fight on a whim when it’s going poorly) and guardians have far better armour/boon application/healing than ele’s can put out. Ele’s need either a boost to our base HP, or some mechanic that offsets the weakness we’re operating under.

There are others, but the above are the one’s that would be easiest to fix. Each one has been suggested numerous times, and each time some keyboard hero comes along and claims that ele’s are perfect as they are.

Erebus.7568:

haviz.1340:

Also:

Ele is a very high skill celling class, pro’s do extremely well, and new players get destroyed.

Pros rerolled.

this.
this
and should be more then a CLEAR sign that something is utterly broken when the best players reroll simply to be able to keep competing.. its a sad sight when that happens

Don’t forget the ones who outright left the game.

ThiBash.5634:

stale.9785:

Skill doesn’t matter when the class itself is boned. Seriously, you could be god’s gift to ele’s, and you’re still not a threat to another player controlled character. Seriously, any player who’s paying attention will only ever allow 2 ele skills to land. Most of the skills can be stepped away from, no dodge needed. There are a very few where someone will have to burn a dodge, but that’s it.

Were ele’s alright, they’d have a heavy presence anywhere other than overworld PvE.

My guess is you’re the one who’s boned, because I’m not experiencing the issues you’re mentioning. But since very few people will even TRY to duel with staff, how can you expect hordes of staff eles in WvW? It’s circular reasoning: eles suck so nobody will play them so nobody will play them well so they suck. Sure, staff was never meant to be the top duelling weapon, but claiming you won’t land a hit is just plain false.

Feel free to disagree, because I disagree with you.

Dude, I played ele, a lot. Then I just stopped, completely. Doing more work for less output, regardless of the situation, is bad. The truly sad aspect of this is twofold; one is that it would be extremely easy to fix. The second is so many people who deny there are problems.

Each blatant problem has been brought up before, and as always, the people who believe the ele is fine crawl out of the woodwork and actively object to suggestions that would improve the class.

If you recall, Thi, I’ve suggested numerous things that would improve the ele – and we don’t get them. Since I’ve grown tired of bashing my face against a wall to no avail, the simplest option was to roll another class, and actually have fun.

Anyway, there’s no so blind as those who will not see, so there’s no point continuing this.

Later, eh?

Stale

People keep claiming that spending nothing beyond the box price is bad – but you know what? It’s what Anet expected. They kept flogging the point that everything in the gem store is optional. All of it. IMO the only worthwhile items are extra char slots and the bag expansions.

Using the gem store for anything is more in the nature of a tip (note: this makes more sense outside of the USA, where tipping is apparently obligatory). You got good service, above and beyond what was expected? Buy some gems! Convert them to gold, get a useful extra, buy a skin, whatever.

You don’t want to spend more money on a game you already own? Not a big deal, that’s what they expected.

Remember folks, it’s about expectation vs. hope. They only hope people will drop a mint in the gem shop (hence the RNG boxes, to capitalise upon the whole gambling mindset – and the true reason people gamble is for the thrill of the risk – not for the reward), they don’t “expect” it of you.

My main in gw1 was a ranger. In oblivion/skryim, I always rolled characters with bow main, sword for a fallback. GW2 comes out, and the ranger… sucks – HARD. Matter of fact, all ranged damage sucks, HARD.

So, my preferred main was a craptastic mess, because they’re only really viable as a beastmaster. I stop and say to myself “self, what’s the next best thing to being a skirmisher/survivalist type? Be a cleric/paladin – after all, self, one can never be self sufficient enough, right?”

Besides, having the name Riva Iron Grip, in heavy armour, with a flaming greatsword, fighting in melee and using magic? How more fitting is that? So, my alt became my main, and is far more generally useful than any other class. Damage, healing, group utility (condition clear and buffing) – we do it all, and we do it at least as well as anyone else.

So we lack a bit in condition applications – so what? We get blue flames. That’s right, BLUE FLAMES. Build a man a fire, he’s warm for a day; Set a man on fire, he’s warm for the rest of his life.*

I honestly view the guardian as the most balanced class in the game.

Later, eh?

Stale (previously Stale Bongwater, before forced name change.)

• - Tao of Prachett, according to Dresden.

chemiclord.3978:

Aberrant.6749:

My summery of what goes on…

HEY, YOU GUYS OVER THERE FARMING… STOP! WE NEED TO DO THE EVENT, SPLIT UP!

Dude we need gold n stuff.

YOU’RE MAKING PEOPLE ANGRY

Dude there are small groups of people over there doing what you want.

NO, PLAY HOW I TELL YOU TO PLAY, OR YOU 30+ PPL MOVE OUT OF MY WAY!

A more ACCURATE summary of what REALLY goes on:

Farmer: WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING????!!!!!

Player: Completing the event.

Farmer: **** YOU YOU *!!!! * **** ******* * I’LL **** ****** * ****** **** I’M GOING TO REPORT YOU!

Farmer #2: DIE IN A FIRE ******!!!

Farmer #3: STOP ATTACKING, YOU ****!!! ****!!!! I’M GOING TO **** **** **** KILL YOU THEN * YOU IN THE ******!!!!

Don’t forget the most offensive one today: “This is exactly how it’s meant to be, the devs said so, you kittening godkitten ed useless noob. Nobody wants the events, you’re lying, now stop it or i’ll kittening fly to your house and gut you, you kitten”.

^this being an exact quote from the 8pm EST invasion. If I bothered to report all the abuse going on in chat (from the zerg, which I was part of this time, towards normal people. I won’t be doing that again, because I refuse to be associated with such filth.) I’d achieve nothing at all for the rest of the night. It wasn’t one person, or two or three, there were dozens.

All of it aimed at what looked like an organised set of guild groups, doing the event as intended (groups of 5-10 people each, knocking out the events in minimal time. They were pretty much single-handedly responsible for success on the map, and got nothing but grief, because they were reducing the number of targets for the zerg.

If anything, it’s getting steadily worse.

ThiBash.5634:

stale.9785:

The difference, I suspect, is those that are very good don’t play other professions. There is literally nothing an ele brings to the table that another class doesn’t do better. Especially since the other classes don’t have to sacrifice everything to do it.

Burst? Warrior and thieves have you beat, hands down, and are still survivable while they do it – and they haven’t lost their sustained DPS or utility to get the burst, either.

Group support? Guardian, banner warrior and necromancers all come out on top – and again, they haven’t sacraficed anything to achieve it.

Bunkering? Ele used to be king of that – but the ranger bunker, guardian bunker, and even the current flavour of the month healsig warrior has better survivability than an ele – and they still do damage while set for survival.

And that’s the flaw in your reasoning. You’re comparing the ele against individual professions when the ele does all of that combined. My current playstyle mixes damage, support and good self-survival. Can your warrior do the same? (And summon an earth elemental that can tank just about any ingame boss?)

The problem is the ele doesn’t do any of that well. In any instance where you’d take an ele for a function, another class is always going to be a superior option. The current meta warrior can indeed be damage (far beyond what an ele is capable of) support, and survivability. So can the guardian (which outperforms the ele in every respect), as well as the necromancer (the ele is faster than a necro).

As I said before, there is nothing an ele can bring to the table that justifies bringing it – being a “jack-of-all-trades” in this game means being a failure at everything.

ThiBash.5634:

silvermember.8941:

ThiBash.5634:

Your friend just doesn’t get the profession. No worries, not many people do. Those that do know most complaints are way over the top (and having been on both sides of the fence, I can say it’s not nice to hear you need to shap up to play ele, but sadly I have to admit it’s true).

I am sure that is totally the problem. It is not the classes it is most people, oops I mean noobs, having the problem. Afterall ballers like you don’t have a problem.

Over the years are I have played MMO, they always people like you that claim they are no issues with a class, it is because everyone else is bad, they are a pro at that class.

The reality generally is that be good at the class, but they are only good against noobs. Elementalist is one of those classes that against noob it is a strong class, in PvE there is almost no thinking involve so the elementalist in that scenario is also great. IN WvW, most of the flaws in the elementalist is made by the fact that gear+food + the downtime between fights is+ effect of the nerfs are less significant in PvE, but mainly because a lot of WvWers are not PvPer.

Like I said, it’s hard to have this discussion because there will always be people that won’t accept it (and I don’t blame them).

I don’t claim to be a top notch ele player. I’m not the guy that invented the evasive arcane style, nor the D/D bunker ele. But when it comes to eles, there’s 2 groups: those that get it and those that don’t. Unlike some professions, the ele’s effectiveness is directly scaled to the player’s skills. That’s a harsh reality to face for some, but that’s just the way it is.

Truth be told, after the recent patch, I don’t find many flaws in the staff ele anymore. Pretty much anything that was a true issue (and not just exagerated by unskilled players) was fixed.

But I get it that you won’t accept that from me. Just like I wouldn’t when I was in your shoes way back.

Skill doesn’t matter when the class itself is boned. Seriously, you could be god’s gift to ele’s, and you’re still not a threat to another player controlled character. Seriously, any player who’s paying attention will only ever allow 2 ele skills to land. Most of the skills can be stepped away from, no dodge needed. There are a very few where someone will have to burn a dodge, but that’s it.

Were ele’s alright, they’d have a heavy presence anywhere other than overworld PvE.

I’m actually happy with guardians, even if we lack conditions. Of the available classes, we come closest to actually balanced.

Want to play a class that is actually in desperate need of fixes? Roll and ele or ranger. Then you’ll swap back to the guardian with a sigh of relief.

Seriously, Lettuce, if you’re killing anyone in wvw with your ele, they are terribad. The only things there’s any excuse to be hit by is the lightning on attuning to air, and air 2 on staff.

How I approach an ele in wvw. Check his weapon set – that gives his range (either d/d, so pure melee, s/d, again, melee range, or staff.) He can’t change, so there’s no surprises. If he’s d/d, it’s trivial to stay out of range of his attacks – maintain range and kill him. S/d is the same thing. Staff? Close to melee and kill.

I think the last time I died due to an ele was probably before christmas. There’s literally no excuse. I play guardian these days, and I can 1) outrun an ele, 2) outheal their damage, 3) clear any condition they put on me, 4) outdamage their healing, unless they’re a bunker, in which case, you ignore them, because they’re not dangerous.

Seriously – the class is in desperate need of love (same with ranger) and people tucking their heads in the sand crying “we’re really ok – we’re better than ok – we’re greeaaatttt!” doesn’t help any.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

stale.9785:

You forgot to point out that the problem is the PvP node control mini-game that the entire game is balanced around. Were it balanced around, say, deathmatches, or perhaps actual group content, we’d have a completely different meta.

You are forgetting WvW. That is pretty much Deathmatch, when you are fighting 1 Vs1 and guess what – Ele suck here as well, laughable damage they say best defense is a good offense, i guess thats why ele die all the time they have no offense.

I cant remember the last time i saw an Ele and was curious, every other class i will be wary – check the surrounding and see if i can get an idea of the build. I see ele and think “nice free kill”

While they might be decent/good at group fights, they still offer very little outside of support due to the laughable damage.

stale.9785:

Right now what we have is what one would expect when balancing for “how long can I sit on one spot? Make it longer!”

Yeah i agree with this, this makes certain classes weak at capping Mesmer is another example as well as Thief both who use stealth as a defense but of course stealth doesnt count for capping.

Though even when not on caps the same problem arises – damage, you cant kill anyone the damage is seriously weak, having to jump around attunements is terrible as well from a design standpoint.

Even if they added Deathmatch or Team deathmatch ele would still not be wanted, for the fact the damage is terrible. Team death match could be added, deathmatch wont be due to just how unbalanced all the classes are and in this situation it moves from skill to class as to who will win.

stale.9785:

This is also why people are so upset about the spirit ranger – spirit ranger, frankly, sucks. It’s a weak, weak build for anything other than sitting in one spot controlling. It excels at that. It’s not that spirits are OP (they’re weak, and easy to kill) nor that their bonuses are huge (far weaker than banners, or a well played support build) it’s the venue they are in.

Same as Ele bunker then.

stale.9785:

Ele’s suffer from far more than that – there is nothing they do better than another class, other than self heal. Direct damage? Warriors and thieves laugh in your face. Bunker? Rangers and guardians have you beat. Condition damage? Every class except guardian has you beat. Mobility? Well, ele’s are more mobile than necromancers, at least!

There is nothing they can do, the ONLY thing they are “good” at other classes do better and easier. direct damage i think EVERYONE laughs at them, Bunker i agree, Conditions i agree, Mobility they have Mesmer beat as well in my opinion Portal and Blink are rubbish and only have Focus as an option for reliable swiftness

You missed part of my point with the deathmatch comparison. If we had deathmatch as our primary pvp venue, then they’d have to balance around it, and all around ele would become more viable.

As it stands now, the only “balance” consideration involves moving the spirit watch orb, and ability to control more than one node. As long as there’s no mobility advantage and no dual node control, Anet views that as “balanced.” Bleh.

Quick comment on ele “balance”. Roll any other class, do the same content. You notice how much easier literally everything in the game is when you’re not kitten?

Ele’s right now rival ranger for complete bottom of the barrel. In a group for anything (fractals, dungeons, pvp, even a squad in wvw) I wouldn’t voluntarily take either class. The other professions all outperform ele and ranger at everything – to bring one is to waste a slot.

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?

The difference, I suspect, is those that are very good don’t play other professions. There is literally nothing an ele brings to the table that another class doesn’t do better. Especially since the other classes don’t have to sacrifice everything to do it.

Burst? Warrior and thieves have you beat, hands down, and are still survivable while they do it – and they haven’t lost their sustained DPS or utility to get the burst, either.

Group support? Guardian, banner warrior and necromancers all come out on top – and again, they haven’t sacraficed anything to achieve it.

Bunkering? Ele used to be king of that – but the ranger bunker, guardian bunker, and even the current flavour of the month healsig warrior has better survivability than an ele – and they still do damage while set for survival.

The only things ele’s have going for them are they are (slightly) more viable in a group composition than the ranger – which isn’t saying much, since rangers and ele’s are tied for the bottom of the barrel, class wise.

I’m ignoring the LH build, since any build that requires 4 teammates to keep you viable isn’t, in my mind, truly viable.

TGSlasher.1458:

Wryog.5073:

Fortus.6175:

The class is in some serious need of love and buffs. Im looking specifically at you, staff.

We have a focus too! And it’s actually worse!
0 healing abilities, terrible damage scaling, ridiculous cooldowns and bad conditions. The only actual + is projectile defense and invulnerability(so I guess it’s kinda good vs rangers… maybe).
At least staff has some nice combo fields and AoE damage. It’s actually useful in WvW.

Swap dagger water and focus water … revert RTL

+10 million. yes.

It’s a mix of bad traits (only really desirable traits are in arcana and water), the need to go 20+ in arcana for attunement swapping to be anything but painful, the extreme cooldowns on all ele skills, and the animation/aftercast times.

As things stand right now, if you let any ele skill hit you (other than the lightning strike on attuning to air, and staff air 2) you’re bad, and should feel bad.

To “fix” the ele, you have to:

1) Bump up the base HP. Seriously – gaurdians get heavy armor to offset their low HP, + perma vigor and massive healing. (I say guardian is the only balanced class atm) Thieves also have the low HP – but they are so unbalanced they shouldn’t enter the calculation. The ability to reset any fight at whim means their HP is meaningless in the first place.

2) Lower the attunement cooldown before the arcana calculation. Again, this is probably 50-60% of why people trait 30 arcana – the other part being evasive arcana. The default cooldown is far too long. Untraited, it should be 10 seconds, and at max arcana, it should be 7. This would allow for a lot more build diversity on it’s own (even if alone this would just get us x/x/x/30/x builds)

3) Adjust the traits in fire/earth to as useful as the water/arcana trees. This would require making all the fire traits that only affect you while attuned to fire more universal, and probably breaking up the cantrip traits, so they’re not all in water.

4) Reduce the animation times, cast times, aftercast or cooldown on most of the ele weapon skills – preferably all 4. Like I said above, if you’re being hit by any ele skill other than the 2 inta-casts, you’re bad, and should feel bad.

5) Take a good look at the ele utilities, and buff as needed. Cantrips are good – too good, which is how we got where we are. Signets are pure meh – not actually bad, but certainly not good. Glyphs are terrabad, outside of the healing and (occasionally) glyph of storms in earth. The conjure weapons are lolwut bad – other than the ultra-niche lightning hammer. (FGS is good, but it’s also the only useful ele elite).

6) I’m sure I’m missing something – but in their current state, ele’s are one of the two weakest classes in the game (ranger and the uber-useless pet mehcanic say hi!") There is literally nothing an ele can do that can’t be done far better by another class, without the pitfalls of playing elementalist. Ranger has the same issue, for slightly different reasons. (craptastic pet mechanic, kitten damage to offset the pet, minimal group utility… yeah. That’s for a different thread though)

Ah – I only broke the ember farm once – and that was purely to carry on with the meta event. The lyssa one I broke either to get stuff from the karma vendor for myself, or to help guildies carry on with a given event. I won’t go about finishing events just to be a kitten about it – if only because I’m too lazy.

You forgot to point out that the problem is the PvP node control mini-game that the entire game is balanced around. Were it balanced around, say, deathmatches, or perhaps actual group content, we’d have a completely different meta.

Right now what we have is what one would expect when balancing for “how long can I sit on one spot? Make it longer!”

This is also why people are so upset about the spirit ranger – spirit ranger, frankly, sucks. It’s a weak, weak build for anything other than sitting in one spot controlling. It excels at that. It’s not that spirits are OP (they’re weak, and easy to kill) nor that their bonuses are huge (far weaker than banners, or a well played support build) it’s the venue they are in.

Ele’s suffer from far more than that – there is nothing they do better than another class, other than self heal. Direct damage? Warriors and thieves laugh in your face. Bunker? Rangers and guardians have you beat. Condition damage? Every class except guardian has you beat. Mobility? Well, ele’s are more mobile than necromancers, at least!

Seriously, one build (the 0/10/0/30/30 bunker) being stupidly hard to beat, in a venue entirely about controlling a point, has resulted in the overnerfing of ele’s and rangers. (I’m torn on who gets the shorter end of the stick. I have both an ele and a ranger, and as things stand right now, I wouldn’t let those two classes into a group for anything, given any alternative.)