Interview with the Live Team – Part 2, The Elementalist update

I didn't see this posted anywhere.

GWOnline.net: Interview with the Live Team – Part 2, The Elementalist update:http://guildwars.incgamers.com/blog/...ntalist-update

Seriously? People call it that? That's very wordy.

So they think having a fixed 5 instead of a conditional 10 (0 with enchantments on, and what ele goes around without enchantments?) makes it less heavy? It doesn't make much sense. And here I thought they made it to prevent mindless spam of some skills...

And so that's a reason why they only worked out elites first...it may work for now, but counting they're changing the rest as well in the future, how will power creep from ele bosses be adressed at that point?

Ive already seen this part 2 posted before, but wheres part 1?

I tried looking through the blog and couldnt find a part 1, I hate blogs because they are sorted by chronological order than part 1 and then part 2.

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No, it just shows how much BS the live team is full of, and how little they know about all the people that actually play PVE in this game.

The live team is mostly made up of hardcore PVPers with little to no understanding of PVE.

Part 1 was about WoC. It's here.

Maybe that's why the dervish update was a disaster for PvP when it came out, but has been extremely well balanced for PvE since day one. And mesmer's update was spot on for PvE, with the exception of some damage numbers that were/ still remain a bit too high.

Ironically though, I can agree that the ele's first new changes are more noticeable for PvP.

That's obviously not true, else they wouldn't ruin PvP more and more with each update. And with this update they made PvE easier for everyone, they obviously care about PvE and don't care at all for PvP.

It's clear that the live team only works on paper theory and zero testing.

Their updates which 'care about PVE' come far too much later than they should have been made. They put these updates out far too late after everyone that was complaining have already finished or left the game, so all it really affects is new players.

This update didnt make PVE easier for everyone, it only made it easier for Ellys using anything other than AP, Invoke or ER, and definitely harder for Rits and Mesmers with the few nerfs that were made to them.

Actually this is a much more accurate description. The PVP changes that they make tend to be completely abysmal. The paper descriptions are also rather hilarious - I fail to see how Thunderclap is creating 'a massive shockwave at target foes location'. The original Thunderclap was so much better than all the versions it was changed to.

You raise a good point I think. I've always wondered why they never gave elementalists a way to remove exhaustion more efficiently than waiting and intimately linked with energy storage. They could even add something like this to attunements...Each time you cast an [element] Magic spell, you lose 1 Exhaustion for every 10 ranks of Energy Storage.

Whilst there isn't a convenient way to remove exhaustion, exhaustion remains a more interesting throttle on skill usage than energy. Provided of course, the skills that cause it have short enough recharges for it to matter.

I found it very odd that this was omitted from his comment. Yeah 10 was "heavy" but it was avoidable. The unavoidable 5 is much worse imo. He noted that it was the "deep wound" of energy storage...deep wound can be removed, exhaustion cannot. Imagine a skill that caused unremovable deep wound condition on its use that was unavoidable. I doubt many ppl would use such a thing.

I am still baffled why they simply don't use the easy fix of ele PvE only skills to solve the issues of ele bosses becomming too hard, and not overflowing into PvP. Intensity is worse after it's rework than it was and Elemental Lord is lackluster. Changing the functionality of either of these could have been a simple fix for eles, but they chose a far more complex route. Work harder not smarter I guess.

I am enjoying the creativity of some of the skills so far. MoM is awesome.

Yeah MoM is looking decent, except there are hardly any skill to use it with. Not only have they not redone the elites well, they've neglected the non-elites entirely.

Armour of frost buff? Fireball has a lower casting time? I didn't realise these were such important skills and deserved such powerful buffs./endsarcasm

The problem is the damage formula. Monsters in PvE deal too much damage, and players deal too little. But tweaking the damage formula would be too risky.

The tweaks to Fireball and Ice Spikes made them decent enough to be used now, and the tweaks to Obsidian Flame made it a strong but balanced skill. You see, sometimes small tweaks is simply what some skills need, and so says the new Unsteady Ground and the new Churning Earth. This is especially important for a profession that has been lacking on good non-elite options and/ or has had some almost-good-but-not-entirely-there skills that were asking for small buffs to make the difference (between being used or not).

Anyways, many of the new elite skills will probably fit better in the builds once the second part of the update comes.

You are either a troll or severely misinformed. The live team is completely made up of casual PvEers who know nothing about PvP at all.

Did you... read the interview? That's a quote of GWOnline.net, not a live team member.

Robert Gee was the person interviewed, and his role on the live team is PvP designer.

Its fitting that he likes exhaustion a lot ... I would really like an explanation of how exhaustion is any good for PVE.

Mr. Gee's comments on exhaustion don't hold much water with me as enemy Hard Mode ele's have huge pools of energy. By reducing the amount of exhaustion on some already powerful skills it really still hurts the players as I have NEVER been in a fight long enough with a Hard Mode Ele monster that ran out of energy before a player due to exhaustion.