Guild Wars 2

You’ll see a lot of burn guardians because it is one of the few competitive builds for players who don’t have HoT.

What was the solution?

WARIORSCHARGEING.2637:

I need to make my toons more brighter and flasher !!

At least he’s dressed for the weather in that rain slicker.

Disappointed that there aren’t any more surprises in PoF. It left me underwhelmed.

Here’s an idea I have for Ambush:

Ambush becomes the new F5 skill for Mirage. However, it is inactive until after a dodge. Then it will remain active for about 8-10 seconds. During that time, a Mirage could hit the F5 to trigger Ambush for themselves and their clones. At which point, it goes on a 10 second cooldown. Traits that affect shatters will also affect Ambush.

While it is a shatter that doesn’t destroy illusions, it is balanced by needing to be activated and having a cooldown. This gives Mirages a little more control over when the Ambush triggers, and allows Mirages to try to surprise (ambush?) their enemies with it. Making it effectively a shatter, allows it to sync better with other Mesmer traits and abilities. This should help make you feel like a more powerful Mesmer (like Chrono does) rather than a kitten Mesmer, like Mirage did during the demo.

Thanks for the vid. Sadly, it just reminds me of how slow the axe is.

I haven’t preordered yet. I was planning to after the elite demo, but Mirage has me seriously reconsidering. I too wish Anet would say something to convince us that they are taking our concerns seriously.

The whole concept of Mirage is buggered.

With Chrono, you ditch one Core trait line for Chrono traits and get a whole lot more in return (team support wells, alacrity, clone and phantasm support, faster base speed w/ reduced conditions, an elite that can replace Moa, and continuum split). With Mirage, you ditch one Core trait line for mediocre Mirage traits and new dodges that are situational and a cumbersome mirror mechanic. All of the Core mesmer trait lines are better than Mirage’s.

You don’t get enough good stuff to make taking Mirage worth it. Elusive Minds is really nice, but that and vigor giving +Condi is about it. Mirage cloak can actually work against you and costs an evade to use offensively. Deception skills are slow and lack what every other shadow step has. The mirrors are difficult to use and more likely to be wasted or drive you toward bad positions. And Jaunt makes you sad every time you use it.

Mirage is an elite spec that makes mesmer’s weaker.

The advice here sounds like you should drop whatever you are doing and run and hide for 20 seconds. If that’s the case, the Deadeye doesn’t even need to shoot you. Are there other things you can do?

The new specs aren’t that great. This just isn’t about staying competitive. PoF is about whether to play GW2 anymore.

Dunno. Never saw one.

This is good feedback Trevor. Added some of my own experiences.

Scourge – Played against. I originally thought Scourge would replace the auramancer in a support role, but it has been surprisingly strong as an individual fighter. The power version feels a bit stronger than the power Reapers. Like all necro builds, it has many of the same weaknesses to cc and focus, but much stronger 1v1.
Holosmith – Played. I wasn’t able to do much with this. But I think that’s me, because others have been praising this one. However, I also never saw this amazing DPS that others have been talking about. The only really troublesome ones for me were the ones built to survive.
Firebrand – Played. I had a little trouble getting really into this spec. I didn’t experiment with it much. Biggest concerns where how long it took activate the books. I’m used to using virtues being on demand, but the books have quite a cast time. When I need one to save me, I’m often dead shortly after activation. So I didn’t feel they were very reliable. Probably just haven’t found the right build yet. Haven’t played against these much, because most guards I came across were still using Dragonhunter. I never came across a Firebrand that made me worried.
Deadeye – Played. This class decides matches. High damage on all attacks, lots of stealths and evades. Currently, the only counterplay is other thieves. Thieves have the problem of too many very strong builds (D/P, P/P, D/D, Staff, S/D) that require very different approaches to deal with. Only DHs and Scrappers can really stand against these other thief builds, and Deadeyes deal with both DHs and Scrappers. So teams with Deadeye and another thief build are painfully one-sided. They could use a bit more risk and a tone down on the damage. Actually, thieves overall need to be looked at in the context of pvp in general. Right now, matches are significantly more pleasant when neither team has them.
Spellbreaker – Played. I experimented with a lot different builds. I said this in the warrior forum that I kept tuning the build away from Spellbreaker. Full Counter is really good, but I’m debating whether Zerk Mode is better. Daggers aren’t bad, but I feel like I only use them for the gap closer. Boon stripping…necro/scourge is a better option.
Weaver – Played against. This class really seems dependent on the skill of the player. Some were quite impressive while others seemed to have no presence in fights at all.
Mirage – Played. I loved the Chronomancer. Everything was smooth and in synergy. This felt the exact opposite. Part of it might be because I’ve been spoiled on Chrono, but everything felt really slow and prone to unpredictable and costly failure. I gave up on it rather quickly. Didn’t play many matches against it, but still saw a lot of Chronos. Generally, much easier to fight these over Chronos.
Soul Beast – Played. I tried a lot to make this work. Got it close but never quite there. Tried many different builds and a few different pets (most didn’t feel worth taking). Couldn’t get much damage out of it (without Sic’ Em….) and it lacked the survivability of the Druid. I gave up on the daggers quickly because I couldn’t find a build that made good use of them. Stances…some didn’t work and the others couldn’t compete with Survival, Signet, and Shout skills. I said this in the Ranger forums, that traits and skills that affect pets should also affect the Soulbeast while in Soulbeast mode. Do that and adjusting some of Beast skills (lower cast time and better effects) could help this spec a lot.
Renegade – Played against? Honestly, I saw a few revs in my matches, but I think they were all Glint. If I played against this class, I never noticed.

Mikkel.8427:

Levetty.1279:

Will-o’-the-wisp

Heal spec that requires Illusions up to heal.
Gain access to your group heals by shattering.
Off hand dagger.
No trait that competes with Grace of the Land.

To keep it balanced- Illusions cant move, they are now stationary objects.

Still too much passive AI. But that’s why I’m a mesmer player.

Scourge and Holosmiths are strong, but manageable because they actually need to get in close to do their damage. They have counterplay that doesn’t require strict building around them. They also don’t have as many escapes as the Deadeye. The Deadeye takes all the worst things about thieves that dials them up. Not sure why Anet did this. It’s bringing thieves back to pre-nerf levels where they utterly destroyed pvp making it unplayable for anyone else. I don’t expect it to last. When a single profession decides the outcome of a match, Anet tends to lay the nerf hammer pretty hard.

Back to Mirage, it’s about as competitive as core mesmer atm. Although much harder to use. There’s no reason to choose it over Chrono, unless your bored of core and Chrono and want something else to play that is still mesmer. Deadeyes destroy all of them though.

The more I play spellbreaker, the more I find myself adjusting my build away from it to improve performance. Now it’s down just Full Counter. I’ll next evaluate whether that is better than berserk mode.

My impression on Soulbeast is that it is rather weak and doesn’t bring anything to a Ranger that core or druid could do better. It really feels like they put all the effort into the animations, and then called it a day.

The new beast skills. Most have too long a cast time for too little value. You enter beast mode, start a beast skill, get interrupted. I’d like to see all their cast times cut in half and/or give more value for using them. Celestial avatar is always better than beast mode.

Beast mode itself is lack luster. The pet skills have always been buggy on pets, using them yourself isn’t much better. Except for a few interrupts, they don’t offer much. Especially, for the amount of DPS and abilities you lose. So many skills and traits rely on pets that don’t work in beast mode. Every trait and skill that affects a pet should have an equivalent effect in beast mode. Some, like sig of renewal, will need different effects, but they need to do something.

Deadeye damage is insane. Even with little to no marks, they hit hard and are able to do so frequently and from a safe distance. There’s a reason that there are now 3+ in a match. Just stack damage, add a few evasive utilities and you will dominate every match.

Anet will also need to retool Svanir and Chiefton. A DE can take them out in 7 seconds from initial encounter.

I didn’t say all mes.

Um…all the best mesmers use Well of Eternity. Its fast cast time, high healing, condition removal, and team support make it the superior choice for pvp.

The other non-elite wells were used when Chronotank was a thing, but they were heavily nerfed and are now rare.

There are a lot of things that the mesmer lost that would have been useful on this spec: clone on death or clones doing damage. Either are interesting concepts to build an elite spec around. A stationary dodge mechanic with no dodge support was not a good idea.

Daredevil is the perfect example. They nerfed acrobatics and gave a lot of those ability to Daredevil. They based Daredevil on dodges, but gave them everything they needed to use dodges effectively. Plenty of ways to build up endurance. And extra dodge. And reasonable offensive and defensive abilities using dodge. Hell, replacing the Mirage trait lines with the Daredevil trait lines would be a huge improvement.

I also noticed this. Dolyak doesn’t do anything at all.

I also agree that zoomborg is spot on with his analysis.

Mesmer is back to feeling like that it works against itself with Mirage. Part of might be that we are spoiled by Chrono. Chronos felt fast and smooth to use. Mirages feel slow and clunky. A bit part of it is that the cast times are so long. Mirages are asked to play more like thieves, but need to take twice as long to do anything.

The whole profession feels like they went ahead and nerfed every skill ahead of time because they knew people would complain if mesmers were too competitive.

Just some observations of the comments.

Weaver: “Fun, during the short period that I’m alive to play it.”
Holosmith: “We are so going to get nerfed.”
Firebrand: “Traps are awful. They will never see play. Oops, I meant mantras. kitten , copy/paste.”
Mirage: “Meh. I wasn’t expecting it to be good anyway.”
Scourge: “Just a sec. Finishing up my 300 page thesis on what is wrong with Scourge.”
Soul Beast: “It’s the end of the world!!!”
Renegade: “Seriously? Can’t we have anything nice?”
Deadeye: “I lost one fight. Thief needs a buff! Also, killing is too slow. I spent 15 seconds in one fight. Also, why am I dodging? This isn’t DD, I shouldn’t have to dodge. Also, there aren’t enough conditions on Deadeye. Mesmer has more conditions. Also….”
Spellbreaker: “Sigh. We went from that to this?”

If they want us to complete hearts, just make the hearts automatically completed when we enter the map. Or make hearts interesting. But the point is that they shouldn’t be forcing us to do things like this just to manage loot.

Loved the feel of the mount. Movement was very smooth. The story beginning was not very engaging and the forced heart was tedious. I wanted to run around with the new mount, but was locked behind a rather dull event. The unidentified loot really makes me not want to bother.

It stopped the story dead for me. The heart was so boring that I just didn’t care to play it anymore.

Ugh, why are they bringing back the worst of GW1 into GW2?

Come on Arenanet. GW2 was supposed to innovate and in many ways it did successfully. But this is a major step backwards.

Wow! What a terrible idea and a step back. Glad I haven’t prepurchased yet, PoF looks like one disappoint after another.

No dodge jumping on a mirage. It’s daredevil all over again!

Zaoda.1653:

I just hope the axe has 1) a fast attack, 2) deals nice damage, 3) doesn’t summon any clones or phantasms, 4) deals AOE damage as the main attack – as in, hits multiple enemies.

You want to play ranger.

I don’t even know what’s going on in it. There are so many plants in the screen, I can’t see anything.

I report the bots I see. And I’ve been seeing a lot lately. Remember Anet does read these reports and checks them out. However, don’t expect them to be immediately banned.

Ah, thanks.

15 charr…

Or the new Fractal. We might be getting the Abaddon fractal.

Oddly, I’ve been seeing a lot of bots in unranked lately. Almost always a turret engy.

Is that voice in the beginning Brahm lecturing us?

SloRules.3560:

Ok let’s write this the long way.

1. A mesmer would not be using 2 pistols to execute any skill, since offhand can be different. Meaning that you can have torch, focus or sword instead of a pistol in your offhand. Unless ofc, ANet gives mesmer skill 3 similar to thief. Also that purple splash on screen seems to be in the background.

1. We’ve seen p/p mesmers already in game. I’m just pointing out that there is another one in the trailer.
2. That doesn’t disprove anything. You’re a making things up. In fact, you are making a lot of assumptions about the game and about me.

I’ll never understand how people can’t just post something interesting without someone else spoiling for a fight.

Again. I can’t parse the sentences you wrote, or understand why are you linking to a necromancer. I don’t know how to reply to you.

I have no idea what you are talking about.

Another p/p mesmer in the latest trailer. :o

Looking at the responses here, people don’t want to counter it. Even before the condition change people were still complaining about conditions.

Magnito.6187:

DaShi.1368:

Wow. Even those defending it can’t help but make personal attacks here. This is not the type of behavior that should be encouraged.

In another thread, someone had the great idea of just having the two teams face each other and bow.

Anet, I know you made special pedestals for this, but this is another misstep that you can easily fix.

Or those defending it are just the ones being able to suck it up.
You can’t make it personal (“I don’t like it because it humiliates me”) and then expect the defending ones not to make it personal.

Yes, you can. There is no justification for personal attacks.

Wow. Even those defending it can’t help but make personal attacks here. This is not the type of behavior that should be encouraged.

In another thread, someone had the great idea of just having the two teams face each other and bow.

Anet, I know you made special pedestals for this, but this is another misstep that you can easily fix.

Unranked matches count toward rated.

I think I saw the same guy. If it’s any condolence, he’s not a very good player. Your team would probably perform better with him afking in base.

It’s classless.

15 charr

The worst thing for a roaming class is having non-roaming classes think they are roamers. It totally throws off rotations and puts your team at a huge disadvantage in team fights. I’ve lost so many matches because of guards and necros who thought they should be roaming over the thief or mesmer.

1. My least favorite classes
2. My second least favorite classes
3. Classes I don’t care about at all
4. My favorite classes

They are giving me migraines.