Guybrush.4762

Well... while I recognize the new VA did a great job mimicking the old one, I prefer old lines a lot. They felt more aggressive and passionate and to be honest I have learned to love them. That being said, I am also in favor of shortening the awkward moment at the beginning of the fight. There is nothing to do which is not exiting. So... Ideally It would be perfect if the old voice line would be played as a distant echo while we fight the veteran asura just before mai trin. It would make more sense from a suspension of disbelieve stand point than just idling for a couple of second while mai trin is delivering her speech. Plus the echo effect would cover the few differences between the new and old voice.

To be fair, we did actually received new content in fractal. They have changed Mai trin voice lines (which I am not sure I like). Plus the lava worms in Sunqua peack drop an orange AoE now instead of a red one since a few months ago (which improve visibility and it is a very small yet good change). It is not the "new content" you had in mind? Yeah... me neither! As a fractal addict I am hoping for more. 😄

I have bad news for you, as far as DPS is concerned Staff tempest is indeed dead. Staff dps is rarely used in PvE and PvP anymore. For WvW, staff dps is decent but the other specs are simply better at it. For support... well Heal tempest is great in both PvP and WvW (both small scale roaming and zerg) but staff is not the weapon of choice, Dagger/Focus is. As far as PvE is concerned it is pretty much under-performing compared to other healer (even wighout staff) mainly because it neither maintain Quickness nor Alacrity which mean one damage dealer in the subgroup have to provide that boon at a sizeable dps cost. There is some other reasons but it is the main grudge. I want to be super fair and mention that while staff is not the weapon of choice in PvP, it is still decent-ish because positioning is easier with the range of staff. Basically you can stay at a very confy 600 range of your friend and still be able to provide both support for your team and pressure on your adversary. With Dagger/Focus you would still want to stay a bit behind your team to avoid focus but you would dance closer to the fire way more regularly in order to land impactful skills. For example your longer range pressure tool is Gale (that is your 900 range unblockable knockdown in Air focus 5) and that is 300 range shorter than staff pressure. All in all, staff is not meta but it sees occasional play none the less.

Note that supports are cleansing first and foremost for their subgroup of 5 people. If you only have 1 support for 20 players in your squad then you don't have enough cleansing/healing potential ; that could be the issue. If it is then you could try playing either a support scrapper or a support tempest. When we say they destroy condi build we mean it. It is not odd for these two to clean 4-5 condi per second around them (and they can burst cleanse a much higher amount when needed). If it is still not enough you could try antitoxine rune which both drastically improve the cleansing you receive and reduce the duration of conditions that do come your way. If it is still not enough note that generally speaking condition damage dealer in zerg are typically found in group when the com just gathered a lot a roamers around them which generally create a less organised entity than your average guild raid. You can abuse their lack of discipline by pressuring a selected few lost sheep. Such squad generally don't have enough support to handle spikes of damage but the nebula of pick up player is protecting the core of the squad, the ones that are actually sticking to the com and moving in an orderly fashion. Once you did enough downs and/or baited their bomb, charge forward and power through them. Hope that helps. 🙂

Elementalist is not the easiest class to learn but to be fair every class require to put some time and effort before understanding the mechanics and the controls. Yes, even the "simple" one! As far as the difficulty and the actual squishyness of the class is concerned, it highly depend on what build you are playing, Trailblazer or Celestial builds tend to be quite beefy. For example, as far as solo open world build are concerned, I would not call dagger/warhorn celestial Tempest squishy or super hard to play and that's probably the kind of build I would recommend for someone learning Elementalist (If you don't have access to celestial gear, try Carrion gear instead and slot in runes of Balthazar and a Sigil of smoldering in order to get closer to 100% burn duration). Currently I would say Elementalist is in a below average spot end-game wise. The problem is, regardless of the role you want to fill there is often at least one class that can do the same thing with less effort, more utility and in a safer manner. That being said there is for sure some decent build going around if elementalist is your jam. Here is a quick summary (it is opinion based so take it with a grain of salt) : Raid, Fractals and Strike - Good : Power Catalyst, Power quickness Catalyst ; Decent: Condition Weaver PvP - Good : Fire Weaver side-noder, Support Tempest, Decent : dps Hammer Catalyst WvW roaming - Good : Celestial Sword focus Fire weaver, Celestial catalyst ; Decent : Fresh air Scepter/focus power weaver, Celestial Double dagger tempest WvW zerg - Good : Minstrel aurashare tempest ; Decent : Staff power weaver Solo Open world - Good : Celestial or Trailblazer Sword/focus fire weaver, Celestial Catalyst, Celestial or Trailblazer tempest Group Open world - Good : Pretty much every semi-reasonable build

If all you want is some easy Gift of Battle while doing barely any WvW you could try doing the WvW daily and see if it works for you. They grant WvW reward track potion (you need 80 potions to finish a track). Some dailies are easy, like going to a merchant and buying an item, beating a veteran monster or killing five guards. It is easier but slower than playing some actual WvW ; still you will eventually progress toward your gift of battle. If you want to do Conflux though I have some bad news for you : You will need a lot of skirmish ticket and you cannot acquire them without investing considerable effort in the game mode! To be precise and assuming you are brand new to WvW, you will need to play more than 17 hours of WvW per week every week for about 6 week in order to accumulate the necessary amount of skirmish ticket (The higher your WvW rank the less time it requires hence the lower figures that you may see popping here and there). And if you don't like this game mode playing it 2.5 hours per day during 1 month and a half is... you know... a fun journey! 😅 Good luck and try to have fun! WvW is my jam personally but to each their own I suppose.

I'd recommend a trailblazer condi tempest focused exclusively on fire. Since you said she does not switch atunement I also assumed she would not use the overload hence the lack of aura and overload trait. I favored traits and skills that are passives and/or activate automatically to protect her in bad situation as well as skills that she can press on cooldown in a truly "head rolling on keyboard" fashion. For weapon I took scepter instead of dagger because it is more flashy and sparkly but dagger would also be a fine choice. The build is incredibly tanky and the elementals are there to carry the dps if needed plus they are a good source of might for both her and themselves. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgEsEWmB7itwqYk4o8U26B-zRJYkRT/YkoI6kI6PJhwm51AiPNA-e

Since you are speaking of zerg/blob I will assume you are referring to WvW. The topic of your question is vast and deserve a lot more time and explanation than what I will give you. Just to set your expectation right it requires hours of guide reading before getting somewhere and the few pointers bellow are just appetizers that could require some adaptation depending on the situation. About not playing your class well when you lead... long story short it's ok. Everyone has a specific role in the squad and yours is to be the commander ; playing your class well is a secondary goal. It is better of course if you can do a somewhat decent job but if you got to choose, your focus should be on giving proper orders and have a good combat vision. For your engage question. Here is a very basic engagement method with the calls you are supposed to make : First encourage your blob to "Stack!" on you and call for Guardian "Staff 3!" (that is the symbol that apply swiftness) Move out of the symbol then call for Guardian "Staff 4!" (that is empower). Then, immediately after, call for "Sneak gyro!" and ask people to use their "Blast!" inside the smoke field. You are ready to move forward, call for "Veil!" if you have mesmer in your squad. Right before your stealth dissipate, either call for a "Spike!" if you are at between 1200 then "Strip, CC, Bomb!" when you hit 900 or below or just the former if you are already at 900 range or bellow. When you finally get into melee range call for "Breach!". It is reffering to Ghastly breach, a very impactful necro spell that people expect you to call. It has a 90 sec cooldown so keep that in mind. Don't stop moving even if you see a lot of downed adversaries. Instead, keep moving forward a little bit past the enemy blob then ask your blob to "Turn back and finish the downed!". The specific name of the orders may change from commander to commander so adjust them to your own liking as long as they are both clear to you and your squad. Some commander like to call the firebrand Tomes as well as Stand "Big stab!" your ground, the Mantra of liberation "Small stab!" and necro shades. If you are ever in doubt about a specific skill cooldown ask your squad (Generally you can count about 40 sec between full bombs - that is the cd of Well of corruption)! When you are moving on a area threatened by enemy AoE try to curve around the enemy AoE, it makes you less predictable and make sure people falling behind can catch up. Avoid standing still when you are under enemy pressure. Use terrain to block line of sight. When possible position yourself upward. If you are on a small area, try to hug one side and move to the other side when the bomb is dropping on you. If at some point you change direction call for it or even better try to do a small countdown so everyone move together ("Go left in 3-2-1 go!"). If you are surprised by a good amount of AoE right under your feet call for a dodge fallowed by a direction like "Dodge forward!". Hope that helped! 🙂

It is a contentious topic. Essentially it is a matter of a different balance between sPvP and WvW, and a more relaxed and friendly atmosphere. I duel very occasionally and I made some good friend there. Duels are happening at the specific spot (south of Alpine borderland) instead of the Edge of the mist because of the short time needed to go there, the concentration of people passing by and nearby objectives to keep your participation rolling... and quite frankly because of habit at that point. Personally, I am not too sure about the participation argument. If a "duelist" is going to attack a Dolyak, a player that is just passing by or the camp I just caped then they are breaking the "duelist neutrality" and it is fair game to not treat them as duelist anymore ; I am ok with duelist caping the ruin and kinda ok with the sentry though. For the rest, I don't really like the current situation both from the duelist and non-duelist perspective and I wish duelists had a defined server wide purpose (like ruin does) but duels are happening whether we like it or not so it is better to give them the neutrality treatment as long as they also abide by it.

I would say it is one of the most popular EoD spec in PvP at the moment, I either play with or against one fairly frequently. In term of balance I would currently place it at the strong side of the spectrum. So to answer your question, do not worry the spec is very viable post patch.

You did not say what game mode you are interested in so here is a quick summary : Prior to yesterday patch the general consensus about the class balance was that Elementalist was more or less outclassed by other builds in endgame PvE ; the patch addressed Catalyst previous nerf and that is pretty much it for PvE. Support tempest is not really played anymore, it does not have anything unique to it. As far as dps options are concerned both Tempest and Weaver tend to sacrifice every last bit of survivability and utility in order to catch their respective benchmark and that is probably not something you want to hear. The last batch of changes improved the power dps of Hammer Catalyst a fair bit which help both the pure power dps option and the quickness provider one... I am personally not sure about how they fair currently though, the buffs look super strong on paper but the starting point was pretty subpar to begin with. As far as sPvP is concerned. Fire weaver was a strong side-noder option in sPvP but the build is currently outclassed by EoD spec and the last patch did not change that. For Tempest, support auromancer is still a thing and I would argue Dagger/Dagger Tempest is a niche but quite decent build at the moment. With the buff, I could maybe see a Catalyst build working in sPvP but time will tell. And now we got to speak about WvW. That is probably the place where Elementalist fair the best at the moment. For roaming you got quite a variety of build that are worthwhile. -Fire/Arcane sword-focus Weaver has been a solid option for a while now. It is heavily countered by kiting and with the superspeed nerf on Scrapper it is one less kiting build to worry about. Dagger off-hand may replace focus depending on your playstyle and the situation you put yourself into but I think focus will remain better for most people. -Air/Arcane Fresh air scepter-focus Weaver is a potent bursty 1v1 dueling build and nothing in the patch changes that. It is notoriously punishing to play though so don't get into it if you are not ready to die a few time while you are learning. -Fire/Earth Dagger/Dagger Tempest has been buffed last patch and is quite frankly a very solid all rounder. -Roaming Catalyst is a "thing" that people tested but it was not considered strong in the past. I am not sure how many buffs it needs to be competitive ; yesterday patch maybe enough. As far as zerg builds are concerned : -Staff Weaver deals massive dps on a stationery blob of player... but the build is a bit tricky to play and the damage it deals is not as instant as other dps option and therefore is easier to heal through. Plus it is way squishier than both power Scourge and power Herald, it doesn't provide nearly has much value outside of dps and commanders largely don't know how to utilize their kit. Yesterday patch roughly left it at the same spot in my opinion ; fun to play and definitely viable but probably not meta anytime soon. -Aurashare Tempest hanged in the verge of being good for quite some time now. Previously, the popular wisdom told us to ditch it in favor of healer Scraper but if the nerf it suffered is deemed too severe then Tempest may be back as a primary healer and condition cleanser in zerg fight. I need to consult my guild mates on that matter to know what they think and if we are willing to try. Long story short, Elementalist is in a tough spot currently but I am hopeful it will receive some buffs this summer.

Here is my modest dark humor contribution. The joke features a minor spoiler about Living world season 2, it has been a while since it was released but with the constant flow of new player so you never know :

For Catalyst hammer 3, adding a small internal cooldown per target instead of reducing the power coefficient seems like a more natural solution to address the same issue. The increased duration on the orbs is probably a good change. The number adjustment of hammer skills would probably disappoint people that wanted more fundamental changes. I guess it is the simplest most effective way of increasing the dps. And well... if it end up behing competitive then the spec will be played for sure. I just don't feel excited for it and I am afraid a lot of people aren't either. The exposed change looks like an overall nerf to condition damage at face value. As far as I know the idea behind receiving more damage from condi than strike was because strike damage is often more burst oriented and therefor can better capitalize on the small window of opportunity. Admittedly I don't think a lot of player are actively delaying their burst to land it on top of the exposed debuff outside of a very dedicated fraction of the player base so... I don't know, I like that we are speaking about the exposed debuff but I am not too sure about the specific value presented here.

Hi WvW roamer perspective here, here are the approach I came up with (I mainly play double dagger celestial Tempest) : -For Mechanist the most successful strategy I have found is to kite around the mech as much as possible. I am constantly looking for terrain nearby and I absolutely abuse the pathing AI as much as humanly possible. If I feel like I can kill the mech i'll go for it but i refrain myself from committing too hard on it and I always check for Overclock signet first. It feels bad to trade all your offensive cooldown if the Mech will just respawn immediately afterward. Since the topic of Harbringer and Bladesworn came up, I will also speak about them. -For Harbringer, the spec indubitably deals a lot of damage but they runs out of steam pretty fast and the fight is over super quick. I have found that maintaining the pressure as hard as I can is key here. If I ever spot one in a small scale fight you bet they will get a nice looking red target on their head so everyone burst them down. -For Bladesworn... well quite frankly I have not met a lot of Bladesworn while roaming. They are typically built with power damage in mind so I tend to camp earth more than usual (I run the earth traitline) but I realise this particular advice is pretty specific to the build I am playing. This humble summary is by no mean my definitive opinion on the matter, I am learning as I play and I am not a duel expert. I hope it will help you though.

Neat! 😍

Ok so you don't want Necro nor Warrior. I also assume that by "in EoD" you mean "in the current state of the game" and you are not necessarily referring to the new specs. Then I'd say Celestial Firebrand and Power Holosmith would both fill the bill for a solid build with ok sustain and tanking that can do decent damage and is welcomed into most endgame PvE group. Firebrand is indeed in high demand regardless of the content you are playing. The reason are simple : As a dps player, on the plus side it deals good damage and good cleave with a fairly straightforward rotation and has stellar utility on top of it. On the cons side it has low hp but the defensive tools are there and built into the class. As a support, on the plus side it can maintain quickness, provide stability and Aegis on demand plus it covers a lot of essential boon. On the cons side, healing and cleansing is a bit below average as far as healers are concerned. However it is generally sufficient if people on your subgroup know the mechanics and understand how to benefit from your projectile reflects. It was nerfed a fair bit on EoD release and you may find over-dramatization here and there but it is still a very solid spec in my opinion. I suggest looking for the celestial variant ; to my knowledge it is playable everywhere in PvE except raid where toughness often meddle with who get the aggro and you probably want to go for Ritualist gear instead and trust your healer for the sustain. Holosmith is a really decent option for power dps. The dps benchmark is a bit below average but actual record in real scenario place them in a very good position dps wise ; you will not be pushed away because of your build. The rotation is straightforward enough but there is definitely some thing you want to pay attention to (for example, cancelling your sword auto-attack chain is more punishing than average). In term of tanking and sustain you naturally recover some health and generate a fair bit of barrier thanks to the heat mechanic and the holosmith trait line. Compared to Firebrand you do not provide nearly as much utility to your group (if any)... I mean you contribute to break the defiance bar and you share a bit of might but everyone does that ; I guess you could grab a shield for a marginal dps loss compared to pistol off-hand. But yeah you get the picture... you deal solid damage and you are relatively safe while doing so. For gear you generally want full Berzerker but if you struggle with surviving you can mix in a bit of Vitality or Toughness. As far as EoD specs are concerned, some of them are promising but the probability that they will be buffed or nerfed in some way in the near future is high so if you feel bad about Warrior because it will be changed you should probably stay away from the new spec as well for the time being. Hope that helped.

Last patch hit the spec super hard. Pure dps in Berzerker gear is no longer viable, the new numbers does not meet what is required for this role. The Diviner support variant will most likely not see play either ; the dps and utility is simply not competitive with the other quickness provider. I guess the desirability of the full support/healer variant is still on the table but I definitely don't feel strongly about it with the sphere nerf. All in all, I am waiting to see how much dps the rotation wizards will be able to somehow salvage out of it in a real scenario (as opposed to a golem benchmark) but I don't have a lot of hope. As it stand, the Catalyst probably does not have a spot in the PvE meta. I could see a double dagger Catalyst work in sPvP and WvW roaming though.

1) Roaming is not dead per se, their is still a lot of roamer out there and a small group of competent people can still force a loose loose scenario on the adversary team by threatening a big structure. ("if you don't come you will loose a big structure. If you do come, our zerg will push your tier and you will lose two.") That being said, the previous scenario require having an allied zerg somewhere that realize what you are doing. All in all, roaming alone will not push your server very far if that is what you are hoping for. A quick word about small group fighting bigger zerg. It is difficult to achieve but it is possible and if you want to be part of a zerg-busting comp you will need to enter a dedicated guild. 2) Your mileage may vary depending on your server and what is the overall mentality out here. I am lucky enough to be on a dynamic server where even high level guild and pug commanders communicate well with confirmed player. Basically if your server looks like mine, you can find a decent level fight oriented commander easily as long as you come in the discord server and preferably play a meta build. What you are referring to (squad that avoid fight and only cap structure) is called kt or ppt commander and they will always exist. This style of play is definitely more prevalent in some server though so switching server or waiting for WvW alliance may improve things for you if you don't like that way of playing. 3) I would not say mesmer are gods currently. WvW roaming is probably the end-game mode where you can find the most varied class population. At the time of writing some EoD spec seems overturned but they will likely be adjusted in a couple of patches. Outside of new content, the most powerful and better rounded roaming profession is currently Elixir+Grenade engineer imho. The most hair-pulling and boring to play against class is probably the perama-stealth, perma-disengaging, reveal cleansing, rifle/shortbow deadeye. It requires a specific set of effect on your traits and utilities to beat them semi-efficiently and most classes do not even have access to those effects to begin with. Just to illustrate class balance, one of the best roamer in my server routinely plays Tempest and he is very successful with it even though it is probably not meta. 4) Server balance is and always will be an issue. The servers as they are does not allow for perfect pairing and the fact that people can change server right after a re-link does not help. Alliances are aiming to answer world balance though.

I was also hoping for a compensation to the 10 to 5 target transition. I mean... it is not like Tempest was super present in the current PvE meta. I guess if you somehow find yourself in a group full of catalyst you could try supporting them with a tempest for the sake of aura sharing. It is not much but it is honest work I guess... it is super niche though!

There will definitely be a couple of competitive minded alliances actively seeking players that are both fairly skilled and very active. And yes, some of them will not want to touch pick up players with a ten foot pole (people certainly have the right to play with like minded individual btw). However, I am fairly certain they will not be the most common type of alliances out there. From what I could gather here and there, the most common type of Alliances currently preparing themselves for the new system are simply gathering of people from the same server or speaking the same language. A healthy dose of caution is good of course but as far as I know, we are mostly good so far and I cannot wait for more alliance beta. EDIT : Oh and for my unpopular opinion: Desert borderland is the prettiest and most enjoyable WvW map, change my mind. 😄

I am very weary that the 10 to 5 allies transition would kill the PvE tempest. The spec is already undesired in the current meta and an uncompensated nerf to one of it's best quality is not something I would like to see. Essentially Tempest bring a lot of basic things to 10 allies (whether it is healing, cleansing or basic boons). That makes Tempest a very nice addition to any group that struggle with boon uptime and could actually use the superior healing. Changing 5 allies to 10 is a super harsh nerf in my opinion because it basically take away the one specific case where Tempest is currently thriving in PvE. To be fair it is also a change I would welcome if that means sufficient buffs in other area to make sure it has a place in the PvE meta. My point is : I assume quickness and alacrity are out of the table but can we have stuff like barrier when we over-heal, condition to boon conversion, some form of stability and why not some aegis pretty please ?

Hi and welcome to fractals, First thing first, I would like to brush off a potential point of confusion for people starting the game : Fractal is a game mode aimed at level 80 characters and similar to fast dungeons. Your personal fractal level and the level of the fractal you are doing is not linked to your character level ; it is a different thing. If you have a fresh level 80 toon wanting to get into fractals I recommend that you obtain exotic quality gear first with stats fitting for your build (you can buy a set in the trading post for a couple gold coins) and simply join a group in LFG. The people doing Tier 1 fractals (that is the first 25 fractals) will also be new and you will have a great time exploring this game mode together. Admittedly, some group have a tendency to use skip and go fast even in T1. If you want to learn the mechanics you could check a written guide or a youtube video real quick and it will tell you everything you need to know in a compact summary. But some people might prefer a more social approach. If you recognize yourself there, I advise you to open your own group in LFG and explicitly type in the group description that you are new and you are looking for a teacher : trust me, people will join and they will explain every mechanics to you! If you are more comfortable with people you know, joining a guild is the best advice I can give you. Most guilds I have been part of provided some form of fractal coaching session for player in your situation. Good luck for your fractal adventures, have a wonderful day!

As someone that immediately fell in love with fractals and have tested strike in the past then though to myself : "Well that's it ? I don't see myself doing them daily" I am kinda saddened by the direction taken by the recent blog post. Not so much about the mystic coins - even though that is a bummer - but more by the fact that this is the only fractal oriented news so far and it's not a promising one.

Long story short your strike damage taken is directly divided by your armor rating (which is a straightforward addition of the base defense of your armor, the defense bonus of your shield if you have one and your toughness value). If you have double the armor rating you have double the effective hp against strike damage. For the sake of simplicity I will assume you are wielding a two handed weapon and using ascended gear ; their is a negligible stat difference if you are dual wielding : A guardian in full ascended minstrel gear have an hp pool of 17975 and an armor rating of 3443. A necromancer in full ascended shaman gear have an hp pool of 33032 and an armor rating of 1967. If my math is correct (and using correct value for gear) your necro have a bit less than 5% more effective hp. EDIT : hey ninja up here 😄

There is several weakness to world linking. Two of them are : While the metrics that need to be examined are clear for the most part, the way they are weighed is and always will be a compromise. Do you pair the fullest server with the least populated one or even no server at all? Looks appealing right. But then their is the fact that your full server may not really have a lot of active people in WvW and therefor only behave like a heavy populated one in practice. You also have to factor in how important is the time coverage, the language barrier, the performance of the server, etc. Even if you start with the best compromise on day 1 of the relink, there will always be people transferring worlds. In a perfect universe transfers would be even between worlds but it is rarely the case. Usually, they happen from the servers that are perceived as poorly performing to the one that are already seen as the favorites which accentuate imbalances. To makes matters worse, guilds that require their members to transfer world tend to be more competitive minded than the average. Over time, the progressive transfers of competitive players indirectly create mega-servers that are hard to break in the current system. (I heard Blackgate in NA is infamous for that. In EU our designated full server packed with a lot of hardcore guilds would probably be Fissure of Woe at the moment.) Would WvW restructuring will fix the issue? I have no idea and I can only be hopeful and optimistically cautious. Wait and see I guess.