GW2 Elementalist - all the news!

[Gorani]

My first attempt at video editing (please have mercy).

A little video to kill at least 01:20min of waiting time for the release of GW2.



Time will tell if I can make some decent videos for e.g. Skills of Interest in the future.

PS: Traffic to this forum - especially from people guesting - has increased during the last few days. I hope everybody is finding the information he/she is looking for. Remember that registering at the site is just a few clicks away, if you want to join discussions.

[Gorani]

I am cleaning up some threads & polls I kept running through the beta process of Guild Wars 2. Here are the results:

What race are people planning to chose for their Elementalist?

Over 300 people took part in that poll. It turned out to be a close finish between Asura & Humans and just slightly lagging behind - Sylvari (in that order). The Charr seem to be the least favoured race, finishing last in the poll.

Your favourite pre-release attunement was...

Water. The abilities to control and support, mixed with vulnerability was the most interesting to the people participating in that poll. Noteworthy is the strong comeback of Fire Magic, which was stuck with 0% for a long time and made it to a 3rd place, just behind Air Magic. Earth Magic finished last, but the difference between all the four elements isn't that great. Looks like people are ready to swap their attunements!

And, what about the weapon of choice?

Not many people voted on this one, but the longer range of Staffs & Scepters was preferred by the few, Dagger finishing third and the poor environmental weapons created by the Conjure skills did not get a single vote. With people having had quite some time to play around with the Conjures during the betas, this is a little hint for Arena.Net to have a close look on those skills again - IMO.

PS: Site news just in.

Rushter, the site's main back-end Admin has added a feature that allows you to

Like this post

You can now rate individual posts as well as the whole thread, which is still possible at "Rate this thread" in the top menu bar. The plug-in needs some fine tuning, IMO - but we will have to see how it will be in its permanent stage.

[Gorani]

Finally, the day arrived!

If you are happy enough to get in (I am currently unable to get back into the game, as the log-in servers don't respond to my calls) you will notice that unlocking of weapon skills is a little bit faster now.
I advice you to try to unlock skills during dynamic events with lots of spawning foes. That helped me a lot. I have reached level 8 at the moment and have unlocked my Scepter (except Earth) and my Staff (except Earth).
Try to unlock your Trident skills early in the Norn starter area (water & foes are close). The Krait I encountered in Ventari's Bay start out as Lvl 10, so they are hard to kill with limited skills.

See out there roaming the world!
Gorani

PS: For those not getting their Hall of Monument Portal Stone:

I do not see a Hall of Monuments Portal Stone in my inventory.

If you have linked your accounts and wish to access the Hall of Monuments, you can use the Portal Stone in your inventory to do so or you can obtain a Portal Stone by following these directions:

In Lion's Arch, head northwest into Hooligan’s Route.
At the Undermarket Point of Interest, find the charr karma merchant named Scornheart.
View Scornheart’s offerings and, on the second panel, select the Hall of Monuments Portal Stone. The stone is available at no cost.
Use the Portal Stone to access the ruins of the Hall of Monuments.

Was not being able to pick it up myself yet, so I don't know if it really works.

PS: I am still on lock-out. European players seem to have a lot more problems than NA players.

[Gorani]

Final news flash, before I go to bed today:
Unlocking weapon skills is done as planned. I am now Level 12 and have all but two #5 Trident skills unlocked. This in considerably faster than in the BWEs, so one of my rants can be set aside. I also had enough money to buy my Adept Manual to spend trait points. I am down to 1 silver right now, but I have not really bought a lot of things (harvesting items, one headgear and two "defeat" repairs").

Tomorrow I will try to gain some low level skill points in the other races starter areas, so I can perhaps unlock my first tier 3 skill.

[Gorani]

After being totally entangled in my PvE game play right now, I have not done a lot "for the Elementalist's cause" today (well except playing one for hours.
>> Travelling with the staff looks like the best option, because when you are attuned to Air, you can pretty much keep up a speed boon with GoEH and Windborne Speed.
>> I played S/D most of the day. Most of the time I started out in Fire (Tooth, Ring of Fire, Flame Grab, Phoenix - cast into the Ring for Combo to gain Might) - swap to Air - cast Blinding Flash & RTL. If the foes weren't dead by then, I switched to Water and got me some healing with the skill 3-5 and fell back to Earth to kill off the rest with #4 & #5
>> I chose Tailor & Artificer as my crafting professions. This way I can use all the basic materials I found. I started some discoveries with Artificer and made bags with the Tailor. I seem to be lagging behind with the crafting, so I don't use any of my crafted armor pieces.

This is how days two ends

Gorani

[Gorani]

Ok, this was my day 3 as an Elementalist:

>> Played with the Staff most of the time, because travelling is so much faster. switching attunements is much more important to a Staff user than with Dagger or Scepter, as the skills do not recharge fast enough compared to them. Air was kind of lacking damage, or at least that's how it felt, so I started out in Earth when fighting, summoning an lesser Elemental and doing great damage with Eruption. Stoning with its Weakness is better than I thought, although the duration is marginal. Then I switched to Fire, Lava Font'ed, Burst, Retreat, MS, pretty much spamming the stuff (I get swarmed a lot, because I seem to be so squishy compared to other classes?). If it looks bad, switch to water, and use some support skills. Earth should be available soon. Although it seems like a lot of button smashing, I get better at aiming it.
>> I finished Metrica Province today as well as the cities.
>> My personal story (req. Lvl 16) puts me in the middle of Brisbane Wildlands, where all the mobs seem to be Lvl 22. I think I will keep continuing in the low level areas for the other races for a while, as I need more materials for crafting. I will use some exploration bonuses to level a bit tomorrow. Going both Tailor & Artificer make the progress slower than with other professions that just sell "unwanted wood" for mats they need.

PS: side-note =>If you wonder why your guildies are so far ahead of you with their achievements, they probably have done jumping puzzles which award "unbalancing" 10 points each.

[Gorani]

My final "GW2 intro" experience post, before going back to regular news:

>> I am still focused on PvE, as it is it is "player friendly" for me (I can take breaks when I want etc.) and have not changed a lot of my setup since the last post.
>> I have reached Lvl 30 today & took the Elemental glyph as my elite. I really need a "decoy" and might want to drop the lesser Glyph for Armor of Earth or Lightning Flash
>> I am doing OK going "semi-alone" like 99% of the server population on Aurora so far, which is kind of nerve-wrecking when people leave you at the mercy of the mobs once they got a skill point of seemed to have finished their Heart Quest. My very few defeats almost were due to that fact (one was from resetting a Centaur camp out of thin air and I was surrounded by a dozen of them, the other one was from a Veteran Troll, which I conjured up by curiously picking up a Troll Idol in a cave)

I will take some time to cross-check the skills & traits for major changes, but I do not think there were significant ones, which I should have noticed (at least for the unlocks I have). I might do some WvW before the monthly achievement gets reset (and deaths don't matter to me anyway as I won't get tier 2 or beyond in the next 48 hours).

[Gorani]

Small news items for all of you Elementalists, who wondered why they get progression in the weapon master achievements for "Sword Mastery":
>> Direct kills for Glyphs (e.g. Glyph of Storms) and Arcane skills (e.g. Arcane Blast) count as "sword kills"
>> Kills from summoned Elementals don't count
>> Conjured Items do not contribute as weapon kills (e.g. Flame Axe kills don't count towards Axe Mastery)
>> Signets? Unknown. Will check out tomorrow and update this post

Concerning Achievements:
>> Only direct damage kills count towards your weapon masteries. When a foes dies from e.g. Bleeding, the kill does not seem to be counted (tested this while using the bleeding skills for my Trident).

A lot of Karma items you get (and they are better than the normal Vendor ones, but slightly less powerful than crafted ones or drops) have "+ to Power" attributes, so adding non-Power upgrades to the piece of armour (or weapon) makes your Elementalist more balanced.

Kiting your PvE melee foes is much more effective than kiting the ranged attackers. The later ones usually hit you, even when kiting, while melee ones try to face you and stop before using a special skill (e.g. to charge or breathe fire). Kiting melee foes is also effective at your Dagger range of 300-400 as long as you stay out of melee sweep range (150).

[Gorani]

Site news again:

>> The overhaul of the [Basics] has begun. Expect all of them to be done within the next few days. I have started with Boons & Conditions.
>> Redean's Tipps & Tricks thread is the one he and I posted some beginner's advice in, so this thread will focus on news & updates again.
>> GW2wiki still has to be under close surveillance, as not everything there error free. Minor flaws will eventually go, the same as with the [Guide] and [Basics] threads here.
>> I still lack some insight into sPvP and WvW. Any input with a Elementalist focus is welcome here.
>> The next Skills of Interest is scheduled after the threads overhaul.

[Gorani]

September changes, (14th of Sept. 2012)

Elementalist

Signet of Air: No longer has infinite range.
Whirlpool: Now works underwater in PvE.
Glyph of Renewal: Resurrection effects of Earth, Fire, and Water now surround the caster, not the target.

Signet & Whirlpool are bugfixes, Renewal is a functionality change

PS: I have not forgotten the [Basics] & a check up on changes. So far, just from playing the Ele I think everything is still good with the pre-launch lists. But the devil is in the details I might not have spotted.

and this one just out:

The good old Guild Wars 1 Elementalist got his update to the normal, non elite skills, closing the gap to the GW2 experience by adding the "overcast" synergy (which makes skills better, when you got "exhaustion") and good cross attribute combos.

Take a look
http://www.guildwars.com/gameplay/de...l_balances.php