Guild Wars 2

Quick impressions in old map PVE environment. I tried the new Mesmer, Necro, and Guard skills on big Vet Karkas in Southsun as a test. I find they are the best to see how various combat skills and traits work concerning survivability and speed of the kill. I play mesmer most so much of my discussion is on that. To be honest I was surprised how good Necro reaper is!

1) Mesmer still has to rely on shatter illusions way too much for adequate dps. The new chromancer skills are interesting and provide for more shattering. The wells in combination with slow don’t work as well as they should. Slow should be replace by chill or stun to hold mobs in the wells better. The new skills are pretty although casting seem slow to me. Was disappointed that levitate when the timer expires doesn’t work against those big karka (levitate should work even against defiance). Survivability was improved but to be honest I’d forego that since mesmer survive pretty well and rather see more damage output.

2) Necro reaper is awesome. Survivability and proper traited with stability had no issues against big vet Karka. I wouldn’t change a thing. I even had no issues against 2 big vet karka which shocked me.

3) Guard was interesting as I restricted myself to bow (no weapon swap) and traps. Had no issue taking on a Karka vet and I would say that you did a good job on those utilities. The trap effects are awesome! The bow AOE shot though is disappointing in animation and dps-wise.

Greatsword feels pretty weak and clunky. It needs a boost in damage for how slow it is. #1 is just too slow regardless of damage and the chill from it is really short. Gravedigger needs 100% recharge bonus and it should continue spinning until it doesn’t hit a foe below 50% HP. #3 is unreliable for LF gen, needs a shorter cast time. #4 should pulse every second and have less aftercast. #5 aims where your character is facing instead of where the enemy is, making it hard to use. To be fair, it’s issues in PvE are partially alleviated.
Reaper Shroud feels great and powerful, though #2 is awkward to use since it doesn’t stop at your foe.
The shouts are pretty meh. They aren’t terrible, but they aren’t exactly great. “Your soul is mine!” needs a bit more healing and LF, or a lower cooldown. “Suffer!” needs a lower cast time. “Rise!” needs better minions to summon (personally I have the idea of blood minions that naturally degenerate 10% HP per second). “You are all weaklings!” should have longer stability (1 stack for 5 seconds for each target hit). “Chilled to the bone!” should have a longer stun that’s unbreakable, as well as a lower cast time.
A couple of the traits aren’t very good; Shivers of Dread feels short, Chilling Nova got overnerfed, Deathly Chill just deals very very low damage.