Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Fafnir wrote:
Playing a character to level ~30 is not experienced enough to have anecdotal evdience to count for anything.

Right, so stop claiming you somehow know better when you don't even have most of the classes that high. Nevermind the fact that you have not-- no, you haven';t, don't be a liar-- tried every weapon combination or every build (Even just limited to coherent builds) to a significant degree to really understand how to best apply them. For example, playing a rifle warrior is drastically different than playing a longbow warrior, even though they're both warrior ranged types. They have different specialties and different focuses, with different weaknesses and strengths. Same with greatsword/warhammer, or twin swords versus sword/warhorn, even though the primary weapon is the same.

 Fafnir wrote:
People know things

Yeah, like how people "know" that the Earth was created 5000 years ago. Like I give a gak what "people" may or may not know, it's irrelevant and worthless. The judgement of the masses is meaningless. These are the same masses that paid me 50 copper per copper ore. I have long since run out of feths to give about their opinion.

As for why I'm hostile, I hate people who ignorantly cry out that "only X and Y are useful". Just because you lack the imagination and talent to utilize certain classes does not mean that the classes are useless. It just specifies a lack of talent on your part-- not every class suits everyone the same way, and some don't suit people at all. The metagame, such as it is, isn't really based off of intelligent thought, rationality, or numbers anyway. It's really closer to fashion trends than any of those-- most "powergamers" don't do anything but copy the classes and builds of the most successful players, while the most successful powergamers are developing new builds or remastering old builds in order to get a leg up on the metagame. Staying ahead of the game, not playing with it.

Just because the game is more complex than you are willing to admit doesn't mean that I should find it okay for you to spout nonsense. I'm not even convinced you really understand the maths anyway-- because even THAT is more complex than you seem to be willing to admit.

 Melissia wrote:


As for why I'm hostile, I hate people who ignorantly cry out that "only X and Y are useful". Just because you lack the imagination and talent to utilize certain classes does not mean that the classes are useless.

It's not ignorant when you're comparing statistical information, and the evidence that others have presented. If class X does everything class Y does, except with better numbers and more reliably, class X is empirically better.

It just specifies a lack of talent on your part-- not every class suits everyone the same way, and some don't suit people at all.

Or maybe just a critical view of the variables in place. Not every class may suit every style of play, but it's not difficult to understand what each class is good at. Similarly, not every film critic must be a maker of films.

The metagame, such as it is, isn't really based off of intelligent thought, rationality, or numbers anyway.

Never play a fighting game. Ever.

It's really closer to fashion trends than any of those-- most "powergamers" don't do anything but copy the classes and builds of the most successful players, while the most successful powergamers are developing new builds or remastering old builds in order to get a leg up on the metagame. Staying ahead of the game, not playing with it.

Not everyone who likes to discuss the issues of balance is a "powergamer," or only runs lists/skillsets posted by others. Some people just have a genuine interest and concern in the balance of the mechanics within the game, and would only hope for it to be as good as possible. If everything was perfectly balanced, you wouldn't have to worry so much about "powergamers" in the first place.

Besides, if trends and powergaming were my thing, I definitely would not be maining a Necromancer.

Just because the game is more complex than you are willing to admit doesn't mean that I should find it okay for you to spout nonsense. I'm not even convinced you really understand the maths anyway-- because even THAT is more complex than you seem to be willing to admit.

You can call it nonsense as much as you want, but you still have done nothing to refute any of my arguments. You can ignore me as much as you want, but that doesn't make me wrong. Disprove my claims first, please. Let's start an actual discussion.

I like being a Ranger. I do fairly well in PvP (Usually 3rd or 4th), but that's because my Sword/Dagger and Shortbow Ranger can bind, cripple, and poison the gak out of everything can move.

 Fafnir wrote:
It's not ignorant when you're comparing statistical information

Statistics is the easiest to abuse form of mathematics, and there's even a science around twisting statistics to support your viewpoint. I don't want to get in to a rant on statistics, however, so suffice it to say... I don't buy it. You haven'[t sued any statistics yet anyway, you've just vaguely said "the statistics support me!" and then tried to pass that off as an argument.

 Fafnir wrote:
but it's not difficult to understand what each class is good at.

If that was the case, more people would actually understand it. But they don't, so it's not the case.

 Fafnir wrote:
Never play a fighting game. Ever.

I'm sorry, did you say fighting game? I thought we were talking about something relevant.

 Fafnir wrote:
Some people just have a genuine interest and concern in the balance of the mechanics within the game

I'm not convinced yet that you are one of them when you're discouraging people top play certain classes because of your misguided and frankly ignorant ideas on what is "optimal" or not.

 Fafnir wrote:
You can call it nonsense as much as you want, but you still have done nothing to refute any of my arguments.

Your arguments are nothing more than sweeping generalizations with no basis in reality. They practically refute themselves.

 Corpsesarefun wrote:
No condition based Guardians? Tonnes of Guardian skills cause burning and blind

You need bleeding to go condition damage. Burning can't be stacked, and blind is a control ability (in my logic). Burning can do a good amount of damage but it's like poison. It's duration can be stacked but you can only have 1 tick going at a time which limits its damage potential. The real point of burning is to use the abilities in the trait trees that boost damage against targets effected by conditions and burning, which is a straight damage/crit build not a condition build in my book. EDIT: Guardians are more about boons than conditions with better conditions control than most classes.

Also, on the subject of conditionmancers in PvP, as Corpses brought up, I would consider rethinking the strength of the build. Condition control and mitigation isn't particularly difficult, especially wheb many classes can remove multiple conditions at once. Hell, guardians have a single skill that completely shuts down Conditionmancers instantly. Necromancers are not a happy class right now. They work for a few things, but they don't have nearly as many options as most other classes. It doesn't help that a lot of their abilities are bugged/don't work as described/don't work at all, and that their trait lines are a mess.

It depends on the class you're playing. A condition Ranger is gonna get destroyed because only 1 ranger skill removes conditions (unless you're human, which somehow once again humans have the best racials?). If you're using a build that stacks bleeding, the necro is just gonna take all your bleeds and throw them back onto you which is gonna kill most bleed based Rangers, Warriors, and Thiefs. It's libel to shred staff Mesmer's too I think, but I'm not sure. No one handles conditions like the Necro. A Necro will burn through a teams condition removals in a few seconds if the opponent is heavy on it, leaving them only the passive traits that only remove 1 (and not every class has them). Not saying the class is flawless, just that this build does work (if slowly).

I'm not convinced yet that you are one of them when you're discouraging people top play certain classes because of your misguided and frankly ignorant ideas on what is "optimal" or not.

If the statements of a few game theorists are enough to discourage someone from doing something (in a game no less which is libel to be patched eventually) then they obviously weren't very invested in the first place. And no, they don't refute themselves. Problems with the Thief and Ranger in PvE are already widely noted, and the OP state of the Mesmer is accepted by SPvP and WvW players. It doesn't take long to realize either of these things. Really we should be grateful that that's the worst the balance is right now, cause honestly, we could be WoW (shutters).

 Melissia wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
It's not ignorant when you're comparing statistical information

Statistics is the easiest to abuse form of mathematics, and there's even a science around twisting statistics to support your viewpoint. I don't want to get in to a rant on statistics, however, so suffice it to say... I don't buy it. You haven'[t sued any statistics yet anyway, you've just vaguely said "the statistics support me!" and then tried to pass that off as an argument.

Statistics, not in the sense of surveyed information, but rather, the actual numbers within the game's systems.

 Fafnir wrote:
but it's not difficult to understand what each class is good at.

If that was the case, more people would actually understand it. But they don't, so it's not the case.

And your basis for that claim?

 Fafnir wrote:
Never play a fighting game. Ever.

I'm sorry, did you say fighting game? I thought we were talking about something relevant.

So, I'm not playing GW2 yet, but I am planning on joining in someday. I'm a big fan of Elemental manipulation, and Earth magic in specific. So, here's a question for you:

Just how tanky can you get an Elementalist? And what's Earth do the best?

 Fafnir wrote:
Statistics, not in the sense of surveyed information, but rather, the actual numbers within the game's systems.

You haven't provided any. All yo'ure doing is blindly and ignorantly saying "but the facts support me!" without actually making any statement of fact. People try to claim I state my opinions s fact, but you're doing it far more than I am.

 Fafnir wrote:
And your basis for that claim?

Your posts are as good as any.

 Fafnir wrote:
Where am I discouraging anyone to do anything?

When you claim that the only classes that are good are X Y and Z.

You're not doing critical discussion, you're just spouting off unsubstantiated vomit.

Anvildude wrote:
So, I'm not playing GW2 yet, but I am planning on joining in someday. I'm a big fan of Elemental manipulation, and Earth magic in specific. So, here's a question for you:

Just how tanky can you get an Elementalist? And what's Earth do the best?

Elementalists can't get Tank-y, sadly. But they can do an absolute massive amount of damage, and earth is their main damage causer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, am I totally fethed as a Norn Ranger?

Nope. Rangers have a very strong variety of playstyles that they can work from. If one style doesn't work try another. You'll definitely find something you like. Sword/dagger is a highly nimble melee build for example, lots of evades and decent damage, and the main sword combo gives you might every three hits. The longbow, meanwhile, does more damage the further you are away from the target, and has some knockbacks and such to tyr to keep the enemy away, and some good AoEs.

 Melissia wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
Statistics, not in the sense of surveyed information, but rather, the actual numbers within the game's systems.

You haven't provided any.

Okay then, let's do a comparison then. Ranger spirits to Warrior banners. Let's start by comparing Frost Spirit to Banner of Strength, since they're fairly similar in their effect and utility.

First off, let's start with the utility, since that applies to all banners and spirits.
-Spirits are immobile, while banners can be picked up and planted when desired. When being held, banners can be used to grant swiftness to the party.
-Spirits are fragile, and can be easily destroyed by mobs. Late game, they'll likely go down in one or two hits, before the spirits can even fulfill their use. On a positive note, against mobs that can only hit one enemy at a time, there's the chance they could tank a hit or two. Banners can be destroyed as well, but they can also be carried. If a banner is being carried, it cannot be destroyed (which can be used to ensure it's useful for its full active time), and can be used to grant swiftness to allies.
-Banners always provide their benefits. Spirits only provide benefits 20% of the time (35% if traited).
-Banners typically have longer cooldowns than spirits.
-Spirits require a heavy investment in Nature Magic in order to get their full utility. Banners tend to perform well regardless of your trait setup, and speccing into banners as a Warrior gives banners the abilities to proc regeneration on allies.

Although this isn't an entirely objective analysis, Banners tend to provide much more utility than Spirits, at the cost of longer cooldowns.

Frost spirit gives you a 10% increase in damage 20% of the time. So that's effectively a 2% increase in normal damage (3.5% if traited) (has no effect on condition damage).
Banner of Strength gives you 90 power and condition damage.

Right away, condition damage builds and skills are seeing a bonus from Banner of Strength that they can't get from Frost Spirit. As far as normal damage is concerned, it varies according to build. Frost Spirit will likely do more for a pure power build, while a more balanced build would benefit more from Banner of Strength. Assuming we're traiting into a support build, the Warrior's banners also provide regeneration (ie, they do more).

Comparing Battle Standard and Spirit of Nature, Battle Standard revives allies on cast, provides more and more varied buffs (STABILITY being a huge one), and provides them after reviving, ensuring you get the maximum usage out of it. Spirit of Nature must be summoned, and then commanded to provide its revival effect, which takes more time, and leaves the spirit vulnerable to being destroyed.

Storm Spirit, Stone Spirit and Sun Spirit provide buffs that are entirely too weak compared to other classes support or basic actions, which give the same or better buffs with much easier access, so they're not really worth mentioning.

On a whole, using spirits to support just isn't particularly good. Since that tends to be the backbone of a lot of ranger support, using rangers as support isn't particularly viable.

 Fafnir wrote:
And your basis for that claim?

Your posts are as good as any.

 Fafnir wrote:
Where am I discouraging anyone to do anything?

When you claim that the only classes that are good are X Y and Z.

So? Pick the class that you want to have fun with. As I keep saying, and as you keep ignoring, I play a dagger necromancer, even though (as I have said before), it's an entirely underwhelming build and class. Just because something isn't good doesn't mean you can't use it.

You're not doing critical discussion, you're just spouting off unsubstantiated vomit.

And I'd hardly call spouting insults anything better.

Actually, the Sword gives your pet might, and cripples on the second strike.

I really like the dagger, as the warhorn takes way to long to charge up a skill, and the torch is just meh. Daggers are crazy fast and cause horrifying damage.

 Chowderhead wrote:

Anvildude wrote:
So, I'm not playing GW2 yet, but I am planning on joining in someday. I'm a big fan of Elemental manipulation, and Earth magic in specific. So, here's a question for you:

Just how tanky can you get an Elementalist? And what's Earth do the best?

Elementalists can't get Tank-y, sadly. But they can do an absolute massive amount of damage, and earth is their main damage causer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, am I totally fethed as a Norn Ranger?

Iv tried out scepter/dagger ele primarily focused on earth magic, you can apply alot of bleeds quite fast. Scepter skills have a range of 900 which is decent but the dagger skills you need to be in close.

How tanky you can make an ele Im not sure, at the moment Im more focused on fire attunement but when I get to 80 Im going to craft a new armour set with condition damage/power/vitality. There are alot of traits and slot skills which increase your toughness and survivability, so I think it will be fun spec to try.

 Chowderhead wrote:
Actually, the Sword gives your pet might, and cripples on the second strike.

I really like the dagger, as the warhorn takes way to long to charge up a skill, and the torch is just meh. Daggers are crazy fast and cause horrifying damage.

My bad, it has been a couple days since 'I've played.

I'm not convinced yet that you are one of them when you're discouraging people top play certain classes because of your misguided and frankly ignorant ideas on what is "optimal" or not.

Not that tanky. Ele's are prety squish. But you will have some escape options to stay out of melee range and you should be able to stand up to most at range. Just don't box yourself into 1 element. Ele is all about the right element at the right time for what you're trying to do. Changing elements is your weapon swap, so learn what to use for different situations (will vary on weapon).

Fought a Hydro/Pyro ele the other day. Complete pain in the butt for my guardian. Always managed to stay away from me, would dash away with Lightning, heal with water, and start throwing out fire damage. I eventually forced him to run for it cause my party came in, but I was never going to kill that ele without more cc than I had.

EDIT: fancy char available from GW: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/john-smith-on-the-state-of-the-guild-wars-2-economy/ Spiffy chart at the bottom.

I'm playing a condition damage based ranger, and quite a bit of my time has been spent in WvW. I really don't see myself anywhere near bottom of the barrel in that forum. I can't two button my way through like a warrior, but the utility I provide my group is pretty spectacular. I usually run shortbow/longbow, or shortbow/sword dagger, with
Quickening Zephyr, Muddy Terrain, and Entangle, with the other slot being used for whichever signet/trap is most useful for the mission we're on.

Between Muddy Terrain, Entangle, Crippling/Concussion shot, Barrage, and my spiders Paralyzing Venom and Entangling Web I am quite the pain in the ass. It just requires timing and practice.

My personal favorite tactic if I'm all alone or my group is getting rolled is to jump off a nearby cliff and see if anyone follows me, since I take half fall damage I can usually turn around and kill a couple.

Yeah, I found oiut I think I actually like shortbow more than longbow. It can stack bleeds like crazy when played right.

I'm playing a condition damage based ranger, and quite a bit of my time has been spent in WvW.

That's because as I've stated several times, the difference from most optimal and least is tiny. Really tiny in WvW. If you're playing smart there's no reason you shouldn't do well.

Try SPvP. Its pretty much Mesmers, Guards, Engis, and Thiefs in tourney play right now. You hardly see the other classes at all in comparison.

My personal favorite tactic if I'm all alone or my group is getting rolled is to jump off a nearby cliff and see if anyone follows me, since I take half fall damage I can usually turn around and kill a couple.

I've done that and it's hilarious. I've also used the Guardian shield 5 to toss people off cliffs.Not working as well as it used to though. I run around with raid groups, and when I get into a fight its usually with other raid groups who seem to take the half-fall traits more and more as time goes on : /

I Liked the longbow in BW2 but it feels like its rate of fire went down to me. Shortbow fires so much faster, and the longbow will only do more damage if I keep the target at max range. Still keep one handy for sieges though.

Or rather, because most people don't actually know what's optimal anyway.

The people saying "optimal" certainly don't.

At any rate, anyone want to organize a wpvp run?

 Melissia wrote:
Or rather, because most people don't actually know what's optimal anyway.

The people saying "optimal" certainly don't.

Yes. Because maths is hard. (It is, that's why I leave it to people with better maths than me )

 LordofHats wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Or rather, because most people don't actually know what's optimal anyway.

The people saying "optimal" certainly don't.

Yes. Because maths is hard. (It is, that's why I leave it to people with better maths than me )

No one I've seen who has actually talked about "optimal"-- in game, on the forums, or elsewhere-- has ever actually used any math in their conversations.

Therefor I don't give a gak.

Now, to repeat myself: Anyone want to organize a guild WPvP event?

You can get into World pvp ?

I'm used to a 3hour Que just to get in.

Longest queue I've faced was 5 minutes.

edit: This was on Desolation.

 Melissia wrote:
Yeah, I found oiut I think I actually like shortbow more than longbow. It can stack bleeds like crazy when played right.

You mean just attack once and leave it?

WvW on Whiteside Ridge needs no queues, but I think we're losing quite a bit.

It's also about positioning and keeping aggro off of you. If you start stacking so many bleeds on a boss, it WILL face you and and attack you specifically.

Shortbow applies bleeds if you hit the enemy from side or back, not from the front.

As an aside, the reason we're losing so badly is because we're facing off against the number one pvp world.

No one I've seen who has actually talked about "optimal"-- in game, on the forums, or elsewhere-- has ever actually used any math in their conversations.

Probably don't feel like wasting their time, cause people will ignore them anyway. Go read a forum for twenty minutes and you'll find plenty of threads noting the weakness of the Longbow compared to the Shortbow (granting the LB better utility tho). I'm not going to waste my time. If others wish to live in ignorance its their hang up. Any look at a SPvP forum will have a dozen+ threads about the big four (and a dozen more begging for Heart Seeker Strike to be nerfed ).

Hell, I'll even spend twenty seconds linking this:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/60383-pvp-profession-rankings/

But I expect it to be ignored.

You can get into World pvp ?

WvW ques will vary by where you're trying to go and on what server. Anvil Rock has probably, 30 min que to get into the AR Border, and 0-2 hours to get into Eternal. You can usually get into the other servers borderlands pretty fast. 5 minutes tops.

I have a friend on Darkhaven. 5 hours ques at peak hours he says. Don't even want to know the horror of Henge or Stormbluff.

Are server transfers still free? If you don't like the que and its killing it for you, there are over a dozens underpop WvW servers that need more people.

As an aside, the reason we're losing so badly is because we're facing off against the number one pvp world.

I really, really, want to see a fight between Henge of Denravi and Vizunah Square. Henge got ranked slightly higher, but I don't think they mixed NA and Euro in the past 3 weeks did they? 1v1 no hits below the belt I wonder if Anet will ever have a continental WvW ladder.

 LordofHats wrote:
(and a dozen more begging for Heart Seeker Strike to be nerfed ).

For the record, Anet actually did nerf it a few days ago.

It's still a solid skill, but hopefully you won't be seeing a bunch of thieves using nothing but HSS anymore.

Yeah I saw. Still people demanding a nerf though XD (granted I don't think they know it's been nerfed).

LordofHats: I read that and, amusingly enough, the various rankings that were posted were all rather inconsistent-- very little could really be agreed on any of it aside from Elementalist being low on the list

Poor elementalists. Actually my problem with Eles is that their trait system does NOT mesh well with their "switch between various attunements" playstyle. The class itself is fun but I worry about it becoming hard to make builds for at higher levels.

If you read it then you'd have noticed that the bottom 3 were Ranger, Ele, and Necro in about 75% of those posts (and most of those that weren't listed at least 2 of them in the bottom 3). Not a intelligent discussion of class balance, but is quite telling as limited look at how the classes have boiled down in people's minds and there are a lot of people on Guru that do math on this stuff.

Poor elementalists. Actually my problem with Eles is that their trait system does NOT mesh well with their "switch between various attunements" playstyle.

This I agree with. The Ele's trait lines to readily support specialization into an element. Arcane has some awesome stuff in it for attunement switching and frankly all that awesomeness needs to be spread out into the other trait lines cause the stat bonuses for Arcane are too meh (to warrant going 30 into it that is).

I actually disagree heavily with most people about Ele though in an overall respect. Too many in SPvP try to play the GW2 Ele like a WoW ele which just isn't going to work. Mixing hydro, eath, and either a straight damage or a crit build (fire/lightning) produces a very powerful character that I think is horribly underestimated (not top of the line, but not as bad as people say).

Practically no one agrees with me though except the Ele I know who does this and both of us lack the conviction to really spend hours mathhammering and data mining the numbers to prove it or producing video to support the game play style. Ele can work well. There's just a lot of hoops that need to be jumped through to do it.