Guild Wars 2

Just some comments for what they are worth…

While not optimal in dungeons, if you happen to be the only condi-spec and leave your scepter at home, you can still do decent dps against champs and bosses while providing quite a lot of support (especially with IE). I did solo 75%→0% final encounters in PUG with a staff and a condition build (I switch to it after 2 wipes). Only speedrunners will kick you, normal dungeons runs will go fine.

PvP, PU Condi still does ok. Not as dominant as it used to be due to loss of tankiness but still a really strong 1v1 spec.

WvW Roaming, same as above.

Shatter conditions are also making a comeback but dust hasn’t settled there.

I’m playing it but with sword/torch as I hate the scepter. It is doing fine vs some specs, but any condition build is a hard counter. I can’t beat a Sw/Sw-Longbow warrior. Also it’s hard to damage DD eles due to their movement and AoE (staff clones do miss a lot). But more static/power builds just melt.

Rabid armor is usually the #1 choice for pvp condition mesmer as you are a slow killer and need to survive while your opponent is bleeding. Check the build sticky post and look for Blackwater and PU/Condition. With time you’ll realize your sword is more defensive than offensive and your staff will do most of the damage, so power isn’t that useful.

I went back to sPVP to test PU, so far it feels quite similar to what it used to be. Less aegis/protection, so it becomes even more dangerous to stay visible when ‘bunkering’ a capture point. I also tried a PU build illusionary elasticity. Staff clones are real killers now and the extra bounces do bring some team utility, which old PU was missing.

But the lack of condition defense (no more removal on torch skills) hurts a lot. Condi-removal sigils are not enough to keep up.

New scepter is not cutting it for me, AA sucks even with torment on it. Plus on hit/on crit sigils proc less, making point above even worse. I’ll most likely go back to sword as evade + immobilize + jump combo brings more options to the table.

I like the blitz too. If one of your guilds is large enough, there is always someone on a good server with 6 commanders who can get you on his map. And unlike Teq or Wurm there is a lot of people going in and out so you can make it 99% of the time. Once there it’s pure farming, with 6 different bosses and slightly different techniques (i.e. for the Ogre, Shuraksomething, I go scepter/sword on my mesmer, which is nice change from zerg-oriented-GS). Do all 6 once, log out, lots of karma and T5/6.

Then it’s hilarious when logging back to some default server and seeing a huge zerg trying to bring down Boom Boom still at 95%, rage on mapchat, no one focusing the turret, no one listening to advice, etc…

Honestly no matter how frustrating it can be for unorganized (and come on, it’s not that hard to ‘organize’), it’s change in the right direction (like Marionnette was) that makes you feel something else than just a auto-attacking-part-of-the-zerg.

Agree, personal score should be removed … but you will see pure PVE/achievements player coming for their daily 3-cap and 10-kills, standing together on close at startup, and zerging roamers on the map.

Don’t take it personally. Hate is towards the map, not you or your class.
Who never raged after being OS with a single skill from Skyhammer 3 times in a row ? Ranger, Necro, Guard, War, whatever, I hate them all the same during my fall to death

I see this as phantasm/power PU mesmer, much has been said already but:
– any mesmer using staff will spam conditions, but those will not tick for much if he uses spec above
– removing conditions is a pain for all memser, although with lyssa and both sigils it may look like he removes them all (hint: keep the pressure, loaded with condi and lyssa on cooldown makes me very unhappy)
– ‘heal while in stealth’ is weird, but most PU mesmer (at least I do) actually simply use their heal while invisible to prevent interruption, so it’s not something automatic. The regen PU sometimes give in stealth will not be very noticeable.

My advice for those:
– put conditions (or direct damage & poison, I hate poison) on mesmer while he is visible
– kill his phantasm when he disappears
– if you can spam AoE. do it (warrior longbow, thief shortbow, etc…)
– don’t worry too much about the conditions or his autoattacks. his damage will come from phantasm (kill them when he stealth) and occasional shatter (dodge when they run to you)
– a lucky large AoE knockdown/interrupt if you see him go invisible on low health will mean victory if you hit him Always worth a try – very useful with a hammer warrior in sPvP (where mesmer tend to stay in the circle).

If you are looking for that kind of gameplay (disclaimer: probably not optimal, just trying to get warlock-like):
Weapons: Staff for its dots and kiting. Secondary would be scepter (wand), and focus (spellstone)/torch (torch fits condition/dots but is more popular as a PvP weapon though).
Trait: Staff-related (Chaos line) and maybe phantasm tankiness
Equipment: Carrion provides a large health pool and is more warlock-like than Rabid. Gives you decent sustained dps with staff as the power you get from Carrion makes your Phantasmal Warlocks (…) hit like trucks.

Shortly after ascended weapons crafts were introduced, trying to turn hard wood logs into planks, and wasted all the planks I had saved in dowels instead.

It’s also a fact that it’s harder to click-select an Asura necro MM hiding behind its golem. tab-tab-tab wastes precious seconds. We should have a checkbox option to ‘make ennemy team human’.

If it was really bad this forum would be empty and people wouldn’t be here trying to push the game where they want it to go. I think most players know deep inside the game has potential. Balance isn’t that bad until the top level. Even in the 80-bracket you still see quite some variety of classes and specs.

Daily still grants pvp crafting mats. No idea what to do with them, I used all my glory to buy equipment tokens and craft stuff before the patch as recommended, and I’m not regretting it.

But I’m wondering why we still get orbs/crystals/…

I tried, I loved it but realized my lack of in depth knowledge of other classes is really preventing me from shining with it. PU condition is more generic, sure you adapt to your opponent but most of time knowing his spec is enough, you don’t need to be able to read every move he makes.

SoloQ is full of phantasm mesmers, evade thiefs, hambow warriors, decap engi, bunker guards and worst of all MM necros. Which I all tried. Interrupt mesmer is lightyears ahead of those in terms of skill ceiling.

Don’t forget taking that GM trait means not taking another one. It’s not like all mesmers will have it. Plus interrupt mesmer is very hard to play compared to most other PvP specs.

I’m planning to go for Celestial for the ‘hard to get’ trinkets (backpiece & the one that cost 50 ectos) so I can switch templates without worrying about them. I’ll still have zerk or rabid for amulet depending whether I PvE or WvW. I hope it won’t hurt too much, but with T6 mats at 40s/piece, it’s 80 laurels + 135 PO. They don’t make grindy games, sure. Liars.

+1 for people insulting you for ‘running PU’ – from experience most 2-2-2-2 thiefs and hambows will label you PU if you go invisible once during the fight, regardless of your spec.

Winning as PU is one thing, winning and not losing your node is where the fun starts. If you are learning, first focus on winning, go fight at non-capping objectives like buffs (temple), treb (kylho) or red/blue lords where you can use all the stealth you want to get used to the spec.

Once you get the feel for rotations and cooldowns, start doing the same while staying more visible. Act as a clone, take risk by staying in place (inside the circle), use F4, scepter or sword 2 to avoid damage, use chaos storm and armor, make sure your staff2 teleports keep you on the node, etc… You may lose more duels, but win more games.

I wish more weapons, across all classes, were balanced like the mesmer staff.
I can be used in both power/phantasm and condition, and nothing protects your mesmer like a staff does.

Ever watched hambow warrior #4726 trying to hit your chaos armor, with aegis up, inside your chaos storm, just to see you blink away undamaged at the last second, reapply chaos armor, while your clones and your autoattack keep conditions up, and the occasional warlock hit brings the extra surprise touch.

Now if you like to blow things up fast, it’s not the weapon, and arguably not the class for you. But if you are patient, I see the staff as the most rewarding weapon around in PvP – WvW is another story since ‘running away’ there is a more viable strategy than in sPVP.

I joined one once to finish a daily quickly before heading to work (and because I was curious with all that forum talk).

No idea why people are still doing it. It’s not efficient (got like 85 rank points out of it for 5 minutes – do the math) and it’s boring. Plus what is the point in having a shark stomp animation that you will never get to use in a real game since you never learned how to play.

Skyhammer farmers are not an issue now, just PvE achievement hunters looking for a quick 4 points.

even a 1/3 ratio of wins in SoloQ brings more rank points than any organized farming. Check how much you win in a 500-24 hotjoin – sometimes less than 100 for 5 minutes play. A 10 min soloQ win gives > 700. Skyhammer is only for daily achievements now,

And is so boring and tedious, I can’t believe how one can stand that…. at least in SoloQ, despite all the negativity in forums, I actually have fun -probably because I mix PvP, WvW and PvE so I don’t get burnt too fast.

Well, considering there are only 2 mesmers left in the top100 tPvP players, and they are about to reroll thief, I wonder were all the top 100 teams find them…

That’s Skyhammer calibration, ask any sPVPer !

You should also consider the fact that DD burst and much more difficult to mitigate than the regular ticking of conditions. There is not surprise with condition, just heal when needed and that’s it.

Ambush someone at 1/2 HP with a power build, you’ll destroy him. With a condi build, you’ll just force him to heal a bit sooner during the duel.

Ascended should have been same as exotic stats but swappable stats.
That would have make them worth grinding, even multiple sets for skin addicts, without affecting the game at all.

There are ways to counter PU:
– it is very, very weak to condition spam. 1v2, if both are condi-based, mesmer is toast.
– it does very little damage. Versus bunker, fight will last forever.
– most of it damage is caused by oppenent himself (meleeing clones, hitting chaos shield)
– staying far mitigates half of the conditions (on deaths clones traits will not kick in much).

After such 1.5 years of GW2, I’m still surprised how most opponents fall for stupid tricks. They sit in Chaos Storm, they auto-attack you when you have shield on, they cleave my clones, they stomp the clone, then bash you for playing AI based (PU condition is not AI) and complain on forums how OP PU is without even knowing what PU stands for or what it actually does. I even got these comment while playing shatter: ‘playing PU is cheese’ – ‘Well, I’m shatter, not PU’ – ‘Liar, you went invisible twice’.

I see hambow warriors in every single game. And 95% of them just run at you with their hammer trying to land a telegraphed attack on one of most evasive class. This is guaranteed win for the mesmer. Now if they just switch to their bow and keeps applying fire in large areas, it becomes very very difficult for the mesmer to both damage the warrior enough to go through the signet and stay alive at the same time. But I rarely see them doing that.
Same with thieves trying to backstab you inside your storm (with your aegis up), then 2-spam while confused.

I honestly all these can give a PU mesmer a run for its money:

Long bow warriors
Bunker guardians
Smart thieves
All engineers (especially the ones going condi-immune)
Condi necros
There is even a ranger spec I haven’t identify yet that really destroyed me a few times (but it may have been the player).

In the current ‘domination’ game types, PU is not OP due to its inability to decap (offense) or prevent decap (defense). If new game modes come out I’ll reconsider this however.

I posted that in bug forum and got a reply that really helped: /sit unblocks you. I macroed it.

I once faced an opponent that just let me stand there and went on capping other nodes. Had to wait for an enemy orb runner to pass by to unstuck myself using sword 2,. My team was 4v5 for 2-3 minutes

Remember to /sit, as silly as it sounds.

Mesmers can randomly get stuck in place after using staff 2 (not new). There doesn’t even need to be a wall or trees or whatever, it can happen on more or less flat ground too.

Re-using Staff 2 doesn’t help, but sometimes Sword 2-2 can do it (if an opponent is available). I noticed opponent’s death can also unblock the Mesmer sometimes.

It’s been going one for months, but it starts to be really really bad when your opponents know the bug, notice you are immobilized, and let you live, making the game 4v5 (unless you are lucky and are stuck on a cap point of course).

The rank chest I buy are ok, it’s the bonus one that I get from gaining a rank that seem to have less items. Not that this is gamebreaking or anything.

What I don’t get it – if PVE-only player are sooo uber in WvW, why are they complaining about going in WvW for LS in the first place ?

BTW, you all paid for the full package, I encourage everyone to play all three modes, it’s fun and way less repetitive

Warrior – two handed axe
Guardian – land spear
Mesmer – whip
Thief – claws
Necro – scythe
Ranger – slingshot
Engineer – chainsaw
Ele – nature attunement

I noticed that too, my last rank reward were 2 plain aquatic weapons. It used to be 4-5 objects. And glory boosters, if you plan to remove glory, please replace them by something else…

I don’t agree, I’m playing a warrior at the moment because of how absurdly OP it is. When opponent comes in I know I’ll kill it, unless it’s another warrior. I don’t like heavy melee style, if it wasn’t so obviously broken I’d play some mage-type class. And I’m not the only one who decided he was fed up playing like NPC whose only purpose was to entertain warriors.

Breakable floor is not half as bad as edges. Cannon room is the worst design ever. Feared→Dead. Just add some fences on A/C/Cannon and the map is fixed for me.

Sending someone through the breakable floor requires more precision & timing that just bumping it off the edge.

I joined the hambow warrior bandwagon with a spec I found on the net, it’s hilarious. My health only starts going down when 3 people target me, I don’t pay attention to conditions applied to me, I just make wide moves with my hammer when icons light up. I can both bunker and DPS, and if I go afk only glass canons will take me down. Other bunkers can’t go past my passive regen

This said, I think the 8% nerf to Healing Signet is underestimated. Let’s say I regenerate 1000 when my opponent deals 1100, I get 100 damage. If I only regenerate 920, then I get 180 damage. That’s 80% damage increase. I think in 1v1 it will restore some much needed balance.

I think it may be something like WvW skins, where for a fee or for free you could get your PvP skins and apply them to PVE equipment.

Condi PU mesmer works, it just takes some time. Avoid red circles, have a tp or dodge ready to avoid hammer, try to keep staff clones out mainly, watch it melt. If he runs don’t bother trying to catch him (you’re not equipped for that), just recap the point.

Queensdale champ run with a reroll is:
– quick and brainless levelling (great when doing something else at the same time)
– karma (for obsidian shards)
– loot (look at the price of soft wood or linen)
– effortless daily (events, event mentor, kill variety, kill, krytan kills, krytan event, group event, veteran killer, champion killer, gatherer, recycler, leveller, skillpoint, crafter + some living story ones, all available in Queensdale)
– the occasional special exotic that sells for 30po (got that purple sword on spider at lvl 60 something)

But never do it with your first character, you’ll spoil the fun of the game.

I don’t think mesmers want to avoid the chop. I think they want to have it targeting what is really needed (clone death spam of condition) and not affect on-demand clone creation, which is the core of the class.

Make it a % chance to apply condi, or reduce the condi duration/stacks but don’t kill other specs by nerfing PU (I play cheese PU/Condi btw).

One thing I especially don’t like is that the real ‘AI’ build everybody seems to hate (condi on clone death and shatter are not AI builds, it’s purely player action) is actually even buffed.

Now Phantasm specs can safely dodge out of AoE without overwriting their phantasm or revealing their location. Yay.

What I find weird is that:

- at my level of play (65-70%), where PU mesmer dominate (both in numbers and in 1v1) and I don’t expect much change, my clones get annihilated faster than I can generate them because many players still can’t figure out where the mesmer is (hint: these days, it’s the one with the flashy purple glory booster icon).

- at higher level of play, where mesmer are under represented, clones are less targetted and team-oriented mesmer don’t play PU (can’t kill a bunker fast enough, or cap, or keep a cap). There the nerf hits hard the shatter specs where positioning the clones for defense or for shatter was more important than the ‘on death’ condition.

This is why I hate ascended gear. As a casual I finally crafted my first ascended weapon last week. Took ages to farm all that softwood, so I could roam without being the ‘noob in exotic’ in WvW again. If crit damage is nerfed well, I don’t feel like starting again. WvW is definitely over.

I use QWES as movement (instead of the more common WASD – easier to reach numbers for skills, and who cares about backpedaling), so I bound dodge to A. Never going back to double tap, I almost never miss the dodge direction.

After that, all sylvari players become corrupted, promoted to ‘champion’-level and targets for other players. Their stuff + bank can be looted. ANET loses 1/5th of their player base but makes a buzz for largest manhunt (well, sylarihunt) in MMO history.

Yes, find if your server as some world boss train (most have), if not ask around for one that has, guest there, join the guild that runs it if any (usually very large, open guilds), so you can quickly see where they are from guild panel. It’s fast and provides many ectos and mats on top of dragonite ore.

‘Skinifyers’ instead of Transmutation stones/crystals.
Use on whatever armor/weapon to change it to a skin you can use at will later (like the achievement ones).
So we can slowly create our collection of skins as in sPvP.
Will keep achievers, collectors, roleplayers & fashion victims in game for a loooong time.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Was this soloq or hotjoin though?
If you tanked your soloq team, I understand perfectly where the hate is coming from.

Well, OP said ‘After one map change’, so this must be hotjoin,

Tman.6349:

practicing on moas or centuars in Queensdale would be better than trying do so in a competitive setting

When did hotjoin become ‘competitive setting’ ?

I like Spirit Watch. I think most of the hate is due to the orb spawn zergfest that attracts baddies like a magnet in soloq (not that I’m a top player, but at least I try), which can make it a painful experience for anyone trying to actually win. But on the other end, I think it’s also the map where a slightly better team will steamroll the other one.

Class: Mesmer (PU/Condi – sorry guys I have fun with that spec…)

1) Engineers
2) Thief
3) Necro

And there is always the occasional ‘special’ player that annihilates you with a class you almost always win against (still traumatized by a ranger I met in hotjoin 2 weeks ago…)

As many pointed out this depends heavily on the ennemy team.

In SoloQ it is safe to assume chaos reigns, and capping an unguarded remote is generally a good thing. I keep doing it anytime I get a chance and other locations appear safe, especially on maps like Khylo where it’s easy to see if no one defends. If one comes, I’ll 1v1 him. If I win, good, if things go bad, or his friends are coming, I’ll run away and go mid back mid. It’s very rare respawing ennemies regroup and rush close or mid together, they’ll go wherever they feel like going.

Overall, what I noticed so far in SoloQ is: the team that kills the most wins at the end, as capping follows naturally.

OP has a point, never suicide, on far or elsewhere. If 3 or more are coming, use to ‘get away skills’ and live to fight somewhere else. I used to try to ‘keep them busy while my team caps the rest’ but this turned out to be a bad tactic in SoloQ. Not only your team is not aware of it and will most likely not take advantage of it (and shouting ‘Im 1v4 why you no cap noobs!!!’ will not help – they may be absorbed in a 1v1 fight or going for another map objective), but the temptation for a roaming ally to come and die with you will be high.