Showing Posts For Contrition.8945:
It’s a win, can’t argue with that. But in the absence of doing nothing, you’d think they could do something else.
I can’t say I call a preview to a #5 water cc skill to be a preview of anything coming at all. Either nothing is coming, or something is and they’re not opening it for discussion.
Development cycles are timeboxed. Most companies follow SCRUM, and they pulled X things into their sprints, to fill up the time allowed and many times you don’t go back to the backlog to pull more stuff in (especially because they are probably pretty late in the cycle now). I am guessing the bulk of the development and testing time has been taken by what are probably a lot of changes to runes and sigils. At any rate, any time they took on DE changes is sunk cost .. any additional time that was estimated for it is usually allocated to other stories in the current sprint(s) before another story is pulled in (if allowed even, most SCRUM teams I have been a part of do not pull additional work in if something is dropped).
Also, things that end users think are tiny changes are many times massive undertakings at the code level.
I agree with you though .. I would certainly have liked, as a player, to see more of a preview on the runes and sigils .. especially for planning purposes.
Why? How did it get through QA in the first place? It isn’t hard to realise what the response would be.
I don’t think QA’s responsibility is to try to ascertain what kind of backlash the item will bring from some of the player base. Now, if it didn’t work or something, that is another story …
Maybe they thought with a liquid enough system where you can trade gems, gold and real money, players wouldn’t be upset over a few sprockets that can be had by other methods?
And in a society where you routinely replace your electronics with newer, faster, better every seemingly month … that people wouldn’t care all that much or just cough up for the new pick.
I’m sure they wouldn’t have released it if they knew it would kick off the great “sprocket arms race of 2014” where if you don’t have this pick you are at risk of becoming obsolete.
Would you also find it acceptable if Arena Net sold a unique Legendary with a bonus 10% damage that no other weapon in the game has?
This is the same situation and telling us you can still use gold hold no weight in this argument.
I would be completely fine with that. As far as I am concerned, any legendary for what many would consider a “casual” player is out of reach anyway, unless we are talking massive time spans. If they have the cash, why not?
There’s nothing stopping a player who doesnt want to spend money from getting it. They could save up for it just as if they spent massive amounts of time on working towards it. Just like I could go on the trading post right now and buy a legendary for $$ (via a gem conversion).
That being said .. I wouldn’t make that my first choice if I were Anet. Better would be 3 avenues, a awful RNG grind for someone who dislikes spending anything BUT time, in game gold for someone who has a distaste for gems, and gems for people who don’t have time but have money.
Notice the last two are really the same thing.
(edited by Contrition.8945)
For my crazy example:
Lets say you could buy 5 additional trait points,
Or you can buy armour that gives an additional 10% damage reduction over any game-play obtainable set.
But it is all attainable via game-play (in game gold). Let’s say they simultaneously released the pick in the gem store, and on a new vendor for gold, and the price of the item on the vendor was set at the gold price for the same amount of gems.
Would that not be fair?
This sounds like a good solution. I hope they read it.
You mean minus the extra window and clicks it takes to convert gold to gems? I guess they could just have a vendor that used the current exchange rate for gems, converted it to gold for you, and then let you buy it in game at a vendor.
Problem solved?
There comes a point when you are no longer playing the game then.
do remember at it’s basic level a game is there to be played through and experienced, as a secondary it is a competitive environment where players show off their skill and in game wealth/accomplishments.I know this is a really small step but it’s where it leads that’s causing people the concern.
Imagine Cluedo where a player can buy extra clues, or monopoly where someone can buy a house they haven’t landed on or gotten a card for.
At some point it just becomes cheating.
I see where you are coming from, I really do. I guess my opinion on this kind of thing has changed over time. Back when I had a lot of time in my life, I would rabidly argue that money should never buy any kind of advantage in a game, even if the advantage was that someone didnt have to spend time to achieve something.
Now that I have little time, I don’t see the big deal honestly because I can see the difference.
Let’s take an even crazier example. Let’s say Anet offered a ticket in the gem store that instantly leveled your character up to 80 and gave you 100 gold (knowing full well that people that bought it would be bypassing a lot of game content of course .. but maybe they already experienced it with one character, or want to play with someone else’s 80 character in WvWvW).
This person would still never be able to achieve the kind of skill that a (for example) college student is able to achieve. There is simply not enough time in the day compared to when I was in high school or college to practice at a game enough to be better than anyone who has the time to play it a lot!
All items are ultimately achievable without real money, right? It’s just you are spending time instead.
Now, if this pick became the sole source of sprockets in the future, and sprockets would still be useful, that would probably be a problem .. but we don’t know that will happen just yet.
I just don’t see the big deal because you can convert gold that cost nothing in terms of real dollars to gems at any time.
In the a Guildwars 2 equivilent, to get 800 gems for a single armor skin without money I would be required to farm approx 60g, which would take me at least three days of active play which does waste my playtime.
But if you don’t want to waste your playtime (that is do something else other than get gold to get an item) .. why not buy it from the gem store? That seems like a good tradeoff to me …
The only player that wouldn’t want to do that is someone who doesn’t have time or money .. which begs the question of why they are wasting time playing a game!
I consider the cash-shop a crutch, used to give players unable to keep up a little boost,
Ultimately skill must trump real world money, otherwise why play if I can just buy everything?
Why shouldn’t a player that can’t play hours and hours a week be able to keep up if they pay extra money? Why should someone with a lot of disposable cash play this game if it requires time and not money? Does Anet pay their programmers with players time or money?
Can’t someone who has hours to burn in game just grind gold, convert gems, and accomplish the same thing?
I don’t see the difference really.
(edited by Contrition.8945)
The fact you can convert gold to gems does not give free reign to stick anything into the cash-shop, a player should be able to have best in slot for everything without encountering the cash-shop at all.
Why is that the case? Why can’t “best in slot” be something you have to pay for? It’s not as if you can’t play the game without it. You might not arguably be “the best” I guess, but this could very well be considered a convenience item if there are other outlets for what it gives you that just take a lot more time.
A second raised point is that it renders the old infinite tools obsolete, why would I buy anything else from the cash shop if it won’t retain its relative usefulness overtime?
This I agree with. It’s also very hard to get around that as things evolve. New products make old products obsolete all the time unfortunately.
I don’t really understand all of this … unless you assume the ONLY way to get said things is the pick, then doesn’t the argument just turn into “X player payed Y dollars to do the same thing I am not willing to do”.
That is already happening with $$ → Gems → Gold.
Personally, I would LOVE to see an item that allows instant level to 80 for a goodly amount of gems. As the MMO audience gets older, they don’t have the time they had in highschool and college to play the game, so I would rather pay Anet to get my character to a stage where it might be fun to play, in say WvW or high level PvE without putting in many hours that I don’t have.
People that don’t want to spend money because they don’t have it, they are free to spend hours accomplishing the same thing.
2/10
I didn’t think the +duration even worked on those runes …
Between the ICDs and that fact, the runes are not all that great actually. Your story is a bit unbelievable.
It’s not that new players don’t know how to play, or that they are messing up the “environment” .. or anything related to that.
The train basically transforms all the champion encounters in Queensdale, the most popular starting area, into mindless incredibly short encounters. They might as well put bags of karma that spawn on the same timers. The functional result would be the same, except new players would not get to see the pretty graphics of the many abilities they don’t yet have access to.
Taking what can be interesting encounters and turning them into uninteresting ones is probably the worst mistake you can make in a newbie zone. As I said, it is just one less interesting thing that COULD have kept someone playing, if it does come down to that.
Many things still affect you even if they don’t seem to directly. Anytime a new player is robbed of an experience, it is a lost opportunity. If a certain percentage of those players don’t become permanently players, and a certain percentage of permanent players buy gems .. then that is lost revenue. Lost revenue is less money available to fix bugs and enhance the game.
“Nerfing” the train in Queensdale is not a nerf. It would simply mean the most efficient way of getting karma or whatever people are after is somewhere else and people would move on. It would have an immediate impact on new players encounters with champions, for the better.
Imo, leveling is far too easy. You shouldn’t be able to craft to 80, you shouldn’t get exp from gathering, you shouldn’t get exp from wvw (outside of ranking) and you shouldn’t be able to switch out your toon out last minute in dungeons. They should also get rid of instant 80 pvp toon. Make ppl work for that.
They need to make character progression harder and more rewarding. After all, MMO’s are about character progression not instant rewards. This is the downfall of GW2 and its what made WoW a terrible game. Anyone can hop into the game and do w/e they want just because they logged on. Garbage. If ppl want instant brain dead rewards they should stick with Xbox fps games.
I haven’t played WoW in almost a decade (since 2005) .. but this statement is dubious at best. Whatever my or your opinion of WoW is, it’s success is undeniable and every company wants a piece of the monetary pie it represents, hence try to copy what it does well.
Back in the days of Asheron’s Call (which you might call the first or second generation, depending on your timeline), you might have liked it. AC had no level cap, it was the endless grind. It was harder to level and the death penalties were ridiculous. Honestly, I think what we have now in the future generations of MMOs is progress.
Don’t misunderstand me, I think the less complicated nature of many console games is eating away at interesting computer games .. however I can’t fault companies for chasing money. The golden age of PC gaming is probably never coming back.
The “reasons” for ending the Queensdale Champ Train are so bad I don’t even know what to say here… lol
The reasons for keeping it hinge on what exactly? “You can’t tell me how to play!”?
Anet has every right to tell you how you can play in a starter zone because the starter zone, especially the human one, is where they make sure the game, the new players encounters, quests, EVERYTHING, is as polished as possible in order to draw new players in the game world.
A train of 40+ players that a level 10 player can’t keep up with, can’t impact, can’t really participate fully in, and also changes all champion encounters in said zone to a faceroll clickfest … is the epitome of abuse of low level content.
You can have your trains anywhere else basically. Having them in newbie zones is a detriment to the long term survival of GW2, at least until Anet doesn’t want new players to come into the game.
Having the area empty and making the new GW2 players make their impressions based on that would obviously be better.
I think when GW 2 enters the phase in an MMO where new players are rare .. that might be a compelling argument. I don’t think we are there yet .. therefore the new player experience should take priority. Between old players rerolling and new players installing the game, there is enough. The champion might be alive for a while, for sure.
My argument isn’t that new players are confused that running trains is the game. My argument is that one of the fairly unique aspects to Guild Wars 2 is the dynamic events system. The champions that spawn in the most popular low player zone are KEY to drawing in new players into the game.
The fact that there are 40+ veteran players that want karma and some loot turning what could be a meaningful encounter to a new GW2 player into a mindless clickfest where the outcome is predetermined and they would have zero impact .. just takes away from the game for a new player.
Does it mean they will quit on the spot? Probably not. Does it perhaps not get some “hooks” into new players that will turn them into long time players? Maybe so. My point is that the content for new players is precious. You only have X hours to make an impression on a new player to turn them into regular players, especially in a game that is not subscription based.
I should say furthermore that I am not really against “trains” .. while I think that the system should try to make encounters more interesting, you can’t completely stop them probably. That being said, I am completely against anything that lowers the meaning of any encounter in a newbie zone. Those zones should be treated with the utmost care and should be protected from abuse as much as possible, for the reasons I mentioned.
(edited by Contrition.8945)
For that matter, why are people complaining about how someone else is playing? Me? I detest farming and pvp, so I will never do either activity. EASY. Problem solved.
Has the “champ train” affected my gameplay at all? Pff. No.People need to worry less about what someone else is doing and worry more about what THEY THEMSELVES are doing.
It’s a seemingly compelling argument, until you take it to it’s natural conclusion. Griefing and high level players abusing content meant for lower level players is something that is as old as MMOs. Guild Wars 2 has had the foresight to allow higher level players to experience the content in a (somewhat) meaningful way (by scaling) .. but right now I don’t think anyone can argue that the content is being abused.
I could care less how other people play, to a point, but when it starts to impact a new players enjoyment of the game .. it just means more possibility of a new player not playing the game for a long time, which means less revenue for Anet, which means less improvements, which means less enjoyment for everyone. It’s in everyones best interest to keep lower level content interesting, challenging and not abused by large amounts of veteran players.
I actually enjoy the champ train, and I think if it was the first thing I saw in the game, I would probably be really interested =D
The 3 seconds the champion is alive is epic for a new player <sarcasm>.
While something should probably be done across all zones, and there should be more interesting things for experienced players, knowing about the monthly rewards, etc .. I still think it is not the best for most new players to be exposed to that kind of mindless facerolling. That’s assuming a new player can even participate, which they can’t because they lack the ability to impact the outcome.
Smaller scale battles, with appropriately weighted content, are more enjoyable I think.
Another thing that might help is the scaling algorithm. Scaling the players stats, equipment and even utility skills (as in if I am in level 10 in Queensdale, I don’t have access to my elite skill, just as a true level 10). Hopefully the nerf to crit damage will help as well.
The champions could also scale higher based on the average (true) level of all the players around it, and gain new dangerous abilities.
I have to agree with this thread. I played the game last year near to when it was released and found (for example) the swamp champion extremely enjoyable, and the ogre as well. There were no trains back then. The ogre spawned and actually spilled out into the fields and the players that were in the area banded together spontaneously to defeat it. Sometimes many died during the exchange. The swamp champion, being even more massive, was a similar story. It felt very “epic” and enjoyable.
Fast forward to this year, actually last night, and I had introduced a friend of mine to the game and we were just leveling new characters in Queensdale (level 9-14). I didn’t really want to spoil the swamp champion for him, so I was just waiting for it to happen. The ogre had already been a disappointment because of the train .. it died in seconds.
Well, we were just hanging around the swamp and a three commanders and a massive train waypoints in, the swamp monster spawns .. my friend just happens to be a short run on the other end of the swamp. The thing dies before he is able to do any damage essentially. He only gets to see it.
It is very disappointing that the kind of events and interactions that really built a love for this game (for me), are impossible in the current environment. It really takes something away from the game for new players. He was not impressed, I will tell you that much.
I am not sure what the solution is, but I don’t think the rewards from killing it should be very great for high level players .. not that high level players don’t deserve rewards, but they need to be encouraged to move to other areas where the impact will not be so great on the experience for players that are playing the game for the first time.
This isn’t something new. Every MMO has to deal with players figuring out the system and exploiting it for maximum potential. The “magic” of a new game is certainly lost over time on any single player since you figure out the system .. however, we should try to at least keep some “magic” for players that are just installing the game, so that they can be similarly pulled into the game, rather than given a “yawn .. nice graphics, interesting .. yawn” moment that probably makes them dread the next 80 levels rather than look forward to more experiences of the same.
“replacing clones not triggering Debilitating Dissipation”
Still fail though.
I thought you quit? And you decided not to “wait and see”. Because you got an offer you couldn’t refuse.
Debilitating dissipation, and all clone death traits were always supposed to be, if an enemy killed your clones. It was never meant as an ability to grant conditions by dodging. It was a neat unintended trick, that was never supposed to be that way, and there fixing it.
If this is the case then the number of useful traits keeps shrinking for mesmer. Why would anyone purposely kill a clone? Maybe a staff clone since it can actually apply conditions .. but other clones barely do anything at all.
If what you say is really what the “design” was, then they should just remove those traits altogether. They really aren’t worth it in the majority of the situations unless you can pop the clones faster than someone or something chooses to kill them (if they even choose to).
The layers of bandaids applied to mesmer appears to be growing. Speaking from a software development point of view .. we call massive amounts of bandaids in a software product “technical debt”.
Debts must always be paid eventually … and most of the time they charge interest.
I kind of feel like a lot of frustration with PU comes from the basic frustration with invisibility in this game. You drop your target, and its getting the right target back is extremely twitchy and clunky. The same frustration people feel with thieves that have mastered maximizing stealth.
Why not just not drop targeting for invisible players? When they go invisible, you are not targeting them. If you do nothing (don’t target anything else in the interim), then when they appear they are automatically targeted again. The AI does this.
I will point out that not all classes have a lot of skills/weapons that can hit someone untargeted very effectively (which is necessary when someone in stealthed, since you can’t target a stealthed character).
The aspect of this that is frustrating is stealth and how using your initiative effectively means blipping in and out of stealth fairly rapidly. I have seen a thief keep an inordinate amount of players busy for a time, even manage to kill unsuspecting ones that are still learning how backstab works (hint: thieves that stealth are probably going to be trying to backstab you .. keep moving).
Stealth gives all the advantages that it gives, but the major advantage that is not particularly accounted for when we talk about balance is that for human players it loses the targeting. Targeting in this game is not very fluid to begin with .. and while the AI picks up the target instantaneously, we do not and have to deal with the clunky targeting mechanics.
We could just automatically target a stealth player once they come out of stealth, if you had he/she targeted previously. I think that would fix a lot of heartache out there when facing thieves and PU mesmers.
A minor victory, at least there will be some discussion. I would certainly like clarification on what exactly the thinking was as you answered in that thread. Do they really think Debilitating Dissipation is so overpowered? That is really a curiosity ..
When have I ever said on death traits are OP?
Don’t put words in my mouth.
In fact, I said that on death traits are horrible without other traits for synergy, but according to warrior biased devs, it’s too powerful.
DE nerf affects Condition with the “unintended” effect of nerfing shatter. Tell me, how many shatter mesmers do you see now?
I wasn’t quoting you. I was speaking generally because it has been something that has been assumed by many as the reason for the change since the devs giggled and laughed “no clones for you”.
I agree completely. I don’t see shatter mesmers at all .. which is a shame since it is the class mechanic.
In another thread someone did some math regarding in X minutes exactly how much the on death traits could put up (if you had all of them, even the one no one chooses that applies confusion) … and it was largely underwhelming.
I really did not notice amazing backlash at how “powerful” the on-death traits were prior to this change. Was anyone really complaining? I know people complain about PU because it is an invisibility trait, and invisibility in this game is very frustrating to an opponent. Obviously the on death traits still work, you just can’t use DE to pop them (almost) on demand. You have to use DE to get clones up rapidly and finish with a weapon skill if you want an immediate pop.
It seems like they made 1 too many changes at once. DE was paired with vigor on crit that had 100% uptime essentially in many builds. Why not just take away the vigor like they said (something that has already been done to other classes), and leave DE the same and see if that accomplishes the unknown goal of eliminating “cheese”.
It would be infinitely better to balance around that. Let’s assume that the bleeds are too much (though I can’t see how).
- Reduce effectiveness of Debilitating Dissipation by 33% (reduce stacks by 1)
- Reduce effectiveness of Crippling Dissipation by 50% (reduce time)
- Increase Confusing Combatants (minor Grandmaster) to 3 stacks of confusion from 1
- Make shatters go to your target, not the random thing they were fighting (don’t play shatter, don’t know if this is good or not).
- DE clones should prefer to attack your target, if no target, closest thing
- Keep vigor nerf as is.
Again, I still don’t understand how the dissipation traits are “OP”, if that is the “cheese” trying to be addressed .. but if they are, then why not address them directly and also make Confusing Combatants more attractive since it is a grand master.
lol, I’m with you. Why not play a class that has 458293484848 finishers, 2923848438 weapons, strong defense, strong offense, mobility, healing, stunning .. I only have a level 20 warrior, but it is fun to play for sure.
I chose mesmer because it was the “odd” class that seemed unique. Unfortunately, right now we are so unique and odd even the development team doesn’t really understand how to play us!
I still don’t understand why people label the clone death builds overpowered. Annoying, yes … but overpowered? Annoyance is practically the class purpose of the mesmer .. to confuse an enemy.
I don’t know .. I use that build and never felt unstoppable. In fact the only reason I use it is it is fairly effective in 1v1, but also can at least do SOMETHING in a zerg (since I can spam clones that the other zerg kills). I mean, I barely think I dent a zerg .. it’s not as if I am wiping them out, but at least I got to see numbers over their heads when if I was a phantasm build I would have what tool to use? Chaos storm (if I even had staff)?
Respec every time I want to run with a zerg is not really acceptable to me personally.
I am a bit confused too. They certainly seem to have an odd definition of cheesy.
I’m not sure that is a solution. Clones really only serve kittenter fodder or for their death explosion .. since they do basically no damage (some are marginally useful to apply conditions, also depending on builds). Lacking the ability to explode them ourselves, an enemy could just ignore them completely. It would mean all mesmers must shatter.
Let me try to clarify further. They don’t hate mesmers, they simply don’t understand them. The changes they make are in the name of some arcane ‘balance’ that ultimately doesn’t work because they have no clue what they’re doing, and the changes to Mesmer are made from the perspective of people that don’t even begin to understand the class. They simply don’t understand.
Just to build on what Pyro is saying .. he is absolutely correct. I don’t think anyone on the development team hates any class .. but just like any team based job it is made up of a number of people (probably less than you think). Each of those people plays the game, and has a favorite. Each class probably had a group when the game was being actively designed, but those groups are probably largely reassigned after release.
Of the small team doing class balance, etc, there are probably 50-70% quiet developers who just do their job. The rest are vocal and will actually steer development efforts to what they think is important (along with the analyst or whatever ANet calls them).
It seems to me that
1) Mesmer is a rarer class, and I didnt hear anyone in that live stream talk about their mesmer main.
2) Hence, we probably don’t have that presence in a developer meeting or planning meeting, or whatever they have to start a development cycle.
3) Our mechanics are not really understood, they are understood through whatever the original official purpose and whatever can be gleamed from the subtext of each trait, weapons kill, etc.
Be prepared for continuing disappointment until someone has our back on the inside.
I could be pleasantly surprised and a developer admits to loving the mesmer and playing it ad-nausea (please surprise me, please .. of course you would immediately incur the wrath of all mesmers .. but at least we know someone in there is thinking of us).
I think part of the problem is the forum is the only place really for feedback, and while they have created stickies that explain “good feedback” and what it is structured like, and that they are constantly monitoring .. it is largely a mystery whether your feedback is heard or not unless 1) a developer comments (personally I would rather developers develop than monitor forums, I am sure any development manager agrees) or 2) you see it in the patch notes when it is finally addressed/affected.
I realize we have a bug forum, but perhaps something a bit more obvious would help. For example, my company lists official bugs publicly for customers, and then they “add” themselves to watch the bug. This, combined with the development teams ratings on severity and impact of the bug, contribute to an overall “weight” score that is used to prioritize issues.
This allows issues that more people care about to bubble (allowing for the development team to always prioritize other things of course) .. and gives a concrete and easily understood way to affect the prioritization of issues and suggestions.
I applaud the community based development efforts to get feedback as well, but it might be valuable to know in a more democratic and non-subjective way what is actually valued by the customer base.
Note that this is not perfect for this situation because X people play mesmers and Y people play warrior (for example). X is likely < Y, so you would have to weight things appropriately within their respective classes (when you talk about class based issues). No system is perfect .. but the forums are a huge mess of opinions and I have a hard time believing that the development team is able to sort it out efficiently.
It’s hard to say without knowing how they prioritize development effort. I have a sneaking suspicion that forum posts/complaints are pretty down the list as far as things that elevate priority since they are highly subjective.
If I were them I might look at X number of people that play a class, and X number of people using a trait (compared with the whole) to see what is terribly unpopular and what is not .. assuming they have that capability.
Of course they may do everything subjectively and just have people trolling forums and the bug forum and then having an analyst of some sort apply a ranking so that it is prioritized in the development backlog.
Also. Off topic, but their grammar was horrible according to Dulfy ’s report
Programmers come into work in shorts and t-shirts, code in their cube dungeons and generally avoid talking to other non-programmers. When your entire day is spent looking at C++, writing and reading it, sometimes you forget the English language exists.
Isn’t it likely that mesmer needs some rework here? Looking at many of the builds, this was a must have trait that many, many builds used. Something that is a must have really sends a red flag out to the development team I am thinking ..
That being said, we don’t know yet if anything was done to actually fill the void .. or that the nerf will be as kittenome think. It certainly appears to make deceptive evasion more difficult to use, but before it was just basically dodge when you had the bar for it (assuming you want to put out as many illusions as possible in as short a time as possible to allow die, shatter, etc). Now you likely use it to fill, and if you are interested in popping you have to use weapon skills, and if you want shatter fodder you have to be a bit more careful if you want to maximize it.
Going through the mesmer traits again and trying to go through it as if I was a player who doesnt read other’s build posts on the forums, etc .. I am really at a loss as to what lines I should go through because they are scattered all over hell depending on what I want to “be”.
It really sort of lacks the organization a lot of other classes have (warrior) and someone needs to take a hard look at it. I am not sure they are well understood on the dev team. Being a developer myself you would have a fairly small group of vocal developers on any team, and each would have their favorite “pet” professions (a natural human bias). It doesn’t seem like we have a voice.
Pyro had a zerg build at https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-Build-The-Zergmower.
I have no way to compare to other people and other classes, but using clones that explode for conditions, the +33% confusion duration trait, the minor that clones cause confusion on kill, and traited staff, Illusionists celerity, and deceptive evasion .. (in a full condition build and equip) .. I spam chaos storm, and then spam as many clones as I possibly can into the opposing zerg .. it seems to get a lot of bags.
Not the strongest in a zerg for sure.
Btw I run a strange 0/25/30/0/15 condition build much of the time.
I play almost exclusively WvW and a full condition build. With the zerg I mostly use staff and if I stay with them the AOE speed buffs are fine.
When I roam (which is a lot), I just use blink and phase retreat to get some extra if I think I can with reasonable safety, and sometimes I swap in the focus if I am in a fairly safe area (like borderlands citadel to north camp, etc).
I sometimes swap out the torch (on my PU build) for pistol for the stun, to help from people running away.
I am sure that travelers or centaur would make it a lot easier to get around, but I think I am making due alright .. just have to be a lot more aware of your positioning relative to enemies and probable enemies because pretty much every other class has the ability to run me down if I don’t want to engage them. If I have all my invisibilities available and blink, I can (most of the time) escape from an engagement that I don’t want to have.
I have to say that this is the most fun build that I have played for mesmer and I don’t even PvP primarily at all yet. I have been using this build to get my armor and 100% completion and I just really enjoy the survivability. In PvE it is enjoyable just because I know that I can handle as many mobs as the game can pretty much throw at me, and at the same time deal damage out based off of that.
I have tried glass cannon builds with GS and dual swords, etc .. but I really always miss the staff and actually having health and not always being close to dying if the situation is not 100% controlled. With this build I can find myself in crazy situations and either get control over them or at least get away.
Anyway, just wanted to show my appreciation for this build. I have full AC (yes I was grinding it) gear power+toughness+vitality .. plus the karma trinkets from Grenth that are soldier’s stats (missing a ring, still need to get another). On items that I have not gotten soldier’s yet .. I have been going carrion for condition damage and have been pretty happy with it.
Btw I use Illusionary Elasticity instead of Illusionary Invigoration right now, but all others are the same.
For gear I am actually using 2x rune of water, 2x rune of the monk, and 2x rune of the earth for the boon duration and protection duration. Not sure whether that is significantly worse than full soldiers ..