User:Lania Elderfire/rant1

As I suspected, Guildwars 2 was released as a unfinished product. My biggest complaint is the completely lackluster personal story and dialogue. It reads like a high school level script. The whole system is instanced and non repeatable so they could have done a story line that was as good as Balder's gate, mass effect, or heck, even as good as final fantasy. But as of now, it's worse than GW1 and much more "cheesier". It's like they took every single cliche from every mass market crappy fantasy novel and put it into the game. The characters are completely forgettable with no uniqueness to them. Only Forgal is a decent character and sort of likable. I also hate the cinematics. Since it said WIP the whole time in beta, I thought that they would do something different for the release, but very single cinematic is just a bland background with a simple 1v1 conversation. I liked GW1 cinematics much better since things would be happening rather than just having 2 people stand there awkwardly.

My other complaint is the terrible balance. Anet really thought that they can do some esports with this game? They really need to learn how to balance the characters better! Warriors, Guardians, Rangers practically destroy PvE, and does very well in pvp. Engineers, mesmer, necro are decent in PvE, and somewhat lame in PvP compared to the other 3 mentioned above. Thief does okay in PvE but is also a powerhouse in PvP. The elementalist on the other hand was handed the short end of the stick here. Crappy in PvP and PvE. Staff damage is garbage unless the target is so big that meteor shower hits multiple times. Scepter is decent in damage but only if you are 1v1ing a mob and in DE's it's usually a zerg vs a big mob that dies in 5-10 seconds. In PvP, scepter is just about the only thing that is halfway viable in PvP. About the only weapon that is viable in most DEs without champion bosses is going dagger/dagger and spam PBAoE or other AoE attacks like a suicide bomber or else you won't do enough damage to the mob before it dies to get any loot because every other professions have better AoE skills and deal more damage. Usually I have to use burning speed to dive into the mob, hit arcane shield and blast for quick AoE damage, then ring of fire, and dodge backwards towards your allies. Apply more burning and AoE damage with drake's breath, and finish with fire grab and usually the mob is dead. But you can only do this once every 45 seconds. Other times its just a combo of burning speed, drake's breath, and earth attunement for ring of earth but it's crappy as the mob dies before the bleeding really does any real damage. If I get downed, the mob dies within seconds so I get insta rally. Against champion bosses, it's either scepter or staff... and if I can help it I'll stick with scepter but sometimes you really need that range and the crappy staff is the only option. Good luck getting anything past bronze especially when you came in where the champion boss is already half dead and being a little under leveled. But yeah, to even be somewhat competitive in damage, you have to play suicidal as a elementalist... and even playing like that I hit the max on my monthly survivor achievement so it's survivable... its just a lot of work with dodging, moving constantly, circle strafing etc when others like the guardian can just spin aoe with their greatsword while blocking or negating damage.

Air and water magic is almost useless in PvE. Weak healing with water and some blind with air just isn't that great vs champion bosses that spam attacks and 1 hit KO most people, or vs mobs where you need decent AoE that doesn't have a delay. Cleansing wave is about the only water skill that I use frequently because of it's condition removal. Air is only useful for moving fast in PvE. Underwater combat is also pretty bad for Ele as well. Water does decent damage with tidal wave but it's hard to aim and use properly.

Also the game isn't that great. There isn't enough hooks to keep you playing. Exploring is kinda boring, DE's are getting cut and paste sameness and it feels boring, renown hearts are even worse... WvW is fun sometimes but it can get stale fast. Dungeons are long and annoying... and I don't have time to sit for hours on end to clear one. I'm not even going to try sPvP until they fix the balance issues, and I just don't really feel like doing PvP anymore in any game. The guild I'm in now was hopping with activity when the game was released but is now a ghost town less than a month after release. I only see like 5/80 or so people on anymore. I'm still only level 67 on my main which is my ele... and I'm struggling to find the motivation to play and hit level 80. Even with the vigil story line as good as it supposedly is... I still don't care, and it really isn't that good... it just seems good because in comparison, the rest of the personal story which is utter garbage.