Showing Posts For HappyHubris.1096:
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We should be able to keep multiple phantasms up to allow for full usage of our weapons. If anything, it seems like the “slot” system shouldn’t apply to them, as they’d no longer be a shatter input. It would be more intuitive to just give phantasms a duration limit. We do need a soft cap on Phantasm numbers, or else 50 duelists per Mesmer would wreck both frame rates and bosses handily.
I’m uncertain on making phantasms invulnerable. It would be a handy PvP buff and bring the class closer to GW1’s hexes, but they would no longer tank AI damage.
(Or do you plan on allowing Mesmer to generate Max 3 clones AND as many phantasm he can spawn?) – which will never happen.
This. Your 3-minion limit would apply to clones only. Phantasms could be timered (or even short-duration invulnerable minions that can be dodged but not destroyed?) to prevent infinite stacking.
One of the long-standing oddities of the mesmer class is that the three core mechanics – shattering, illusions, and phantasms – are conflicting in practice. If you have a strong roster of phantasms up you’re disincentivized from using your shatter skills, and high-end PvE builds often direct you to avoid illusion/clone skills and shattering as much as possible. It doesn’t make sense to punish players for using a core class mechanic.
What if phantasms were exempt from the 3-slot/shatter mechanic? This would mesmers full use of their shatter damage/utility, smooth out sustained and PvP damage, and make the class more intuitive. If 3+ phantasms prove too strong we could limit their duration (making them more like GW1 hexes), tweak their damage, or cap their number. Skill would shift to properly using shatter timings, limited “bodies”, and phantasmal positioning.
What do you think, fellow Mesmers?
OW PVE is alot of elements that require optimization, DPS and travel time being two of them. Like I said, post a build, I will let you know how it fairs compared to what I run. I’m always looking to ‘speed run’ OW because I benefit from doing it as fast as I can, just like people doing dungeons, fractals and raids benefit from doing those PVE things as fast as they can too.
I can already tell you a few things that aren’t good with your ’build:
1. Insp will suck because nothing you get from it helps you in OW. You said it wouldn’t matter, it matters quite a bit. Do you throw away a whole traitline when you make a dungeon build?
2. Staff offers little in OW PVE on trash. Don’t need it for the runspeed with Chrono traited. Not sure if the other skills compliments GS too well either.
3. I guess you decided to not bother to provide hotbar skills or the traits. Not much of a considered build there;; dropped out of the challenge before it even got off the ground.All in all, I think you have some work to do before I take you seriously about how much it doesn’t matter to think about optimizing OW PVE performance. I already know the “don’t care” build isn’t going to do better than the one I’m using.
Again, literally don’t care.
Do you really need me to tell you signet heal, blink, well of calamity, well of recall, and tw.
Is there anything else even worth putting on those slots in the bar? Other than another well?For OW PVE, I think there is because I believe I’ve optimized my build for it. If you want to prove me wrong, then you need to give me a build I can test to see if it’s better. Just telling me it doesn’t matter and you don’t care is not an objective test.
Nobody wants to argue about your secret sauce Queensdale build, because every build is “good enough” for OW mobs. PvE balance is generally focused on cutting-edge content, because that’s where your class limitations will keep you from getting a spot.
So, faster reworks!
Simple one in regards to Phantasms:
- Removed
- Phantasm skills temporarily empower a single clone closest to the target or target area to do task X, and become invulnerable while doing so. The clone will also temporarily ignore shatter commands while executing its function.
- This new type of skill lasts for one use of a skill only. That is to say, a clone doesn’t get “upgraded” to a berserker, it whirls and then is just a clone again.
- Cooldowns decreased respectively skill power increased to compensate.
I really like this. Or we could simply limit shattering to illusions/clones and allow phantasms to run out their duration as standalone effects. It should be easier to balance them when they stand on their own instead of being both a minion and a shatter…
GW2 Mesmer Phantasms have always bothered me.
One core mechanic is summoning temporary pets that do a significant portion of your damage and have powerful effects.
Another core mechanic is blowing up your pets to deal damage and gain benefits.
This means that I’m sacrificing my special pets constantly, trading off pet help for shatter help.
It would be much better if shatter worked on your clones/illusions only, allowing phantasms to do their thing.
I’ve been trying out HoT with the Elementalist and Necromancer, but am interested in something new. I always enjoy high-skill-cap classes in MMO-type games, and the engineer seems to be the closest to that in PvE and PvP. My biggest annoyance with most GW2 classes is that you camp autoattack and supplement with a few skills, which is a fairly passive way to play. Elementalist is a bit more button-driven, but the “optimal” specs are still very constrictive: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Tempest_-_Staff_DPS#Usage
1) Do you find tool-swapping to be a satisfying mechanic? It seems overwhelming to build reflexive use of all those tools/skills!
2) Is engineer effective in world PvE/instanced PvE/sPvP?
3) Is this type of build typical for the engineer class? (http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Scrapper_-_Power_Grenadier)
not scepter
.
Heh.
I suggest staff as it’s pretty much the weapon to go for in PvE. Awesome damage (unless you solo and can’t keep your target in your AoEs), great party support.
Scepter is pretty meh. You can also try Dagger/Something with a Fresh Air build, though that’s a lot harder due to melee.
Also keep in mind that you can change the stats on your Ascended gear using the Mystic Forge. You lose the runes, but that’s still cheaper than crafting a new set should you ever want another stat combo.
Staff is so ungodly boring, though. I hope that sceptre isn buffed in the future. Until then I’ll soldier on suboptimally.
I’m new to HoT, so every time I try something new and challenging. GW2 is probably not the best game for you if you’re motivated by loot.
Crafting has never been something that I enjoyed. I’ve generally steered clear of MMOs with a heavy crafting element or stuck with only gathering professions.
Guild Wars 2 at launch was perfect for a player like me. I could acquire gold or run dungeons for exotic gear, and happily assembled many sets with crafting level 0.
After taking quite some time off, I read that many strong PvE builds leverage brand new prefixes on gear. A quick auction house search for “Viper’s” turned up not a single piece of armor, and further research turned up a frustrating fact: crafting is the only path to these new types of gear!
So a characters that uss berserker’s gear can get a full exotic set in dungeons, PvP (with token rewards), the auction house, and crafting. But builds that need Viper or Sinister? You’re going to have to level up THREE professions to 400+ just to get your exotic gear. This isn’t fair, and it means that I have to do quite a bit of profession grinding. It might be easier to find a different game at this point…
Please allow for trading of the new items and change some of the dungeon token sets to these new prefixes!
Jon Peters also indicated that a condition cap fix was pending nine months ago; I imagine that he will be making similar assurances during summer 2014.
I think your tinyurl build links might not be lining up with the descriptions. Some have identical traits, etc.
While I’m agnostic on the D/D changes, the lack of fire/air/earth viability improvements us unfortunate. Especially because the May patch is supposed to be a bug fix patch instead of a class-tweaking event
Why do you switch if a class is tuned to be less powerful? If you enjoy the playstyle it will be largely intact, and balancing isn’t going to make you useless. Do you pick a build because it looks enjoyable or because you really want an edge over other players? If it’s the latter you’ll never be happy in any MMORPG.
The solution would be to make trait lines apply to all attunements and spread damage out instead of commentating it in fire. That way you would never feel “locked out” of your damaging element. D/D works like this, but is boring for other reasons.
eldain, when you’re soloing you either want to burst down enemies before they can hurt you or swap to non-fire attunements to prevent incoming damage (e.g. snaring a melee enemy with water 4 or using earth 3 vs a ranged enemy).
The key to using a Pyromancer’s Puissiance build is to know when to drop out of fire in group content. For example, using water to heal injured allies or water/air/earth to snare and stun certain enemies. Damage dictates fire, but you want to keep your group running smoothly.
I think it depends on the challenge of the content. For easier content (e.g. everything but fractals and PvP), your group probably won’t need help surviving and max damage dictates that you stay in fire. I’d recommend 30/10/0/10/20 with Pyromancer’s Puissiance.
Staying in fire seems to be close to optimal when running staff Pyromancer’s Puissance with reduced fire cooldowns.
Clearly you swap out for utility spells, but that’s a trade-off with damage.
Gw2lfg.com 15 chars
My ranger is shelved until the class becomes more viable in group content
Instead of a dead pet, low damage, and questionable utility I’ll either provide massive utility and good damage on my mesmer or killer healing and decent damage on my elementalist.
GW2LFG.COM is leveraged by a minority of the population, so we have a smaller pool of people looking for groups, longer wait times, etc. It’s also a pain to tab out if you’re on an older computer.
Not having a LFG interface is pretty kitten embarrassing in 2013.
I love the new AC and can’t wait for similar changes to hit all the other GW2 dungeons!
Loved your previous shindig and QAs; will there be an Arenanet presence in Boston this year?
Workarounds should not become part of the long term “skill cap”.
Both ranger and engineer are currently unwanted for high level content.
Fun to level, though.
Would adult person care that much if he misses few days of play? Some would, some not. There are “adults” that live with their mothers, have no jobs and play for 16 hour a day. Then there are adults with jobs and familys that have bigger things to care about than purple pixel necklase and catching up.
So gw2 is not supposed to be adult-friendly but casual-friendly, which it is since gear that allows you to experience all aspects of game is reached fairly easy.
Ignore the word “adult”. GW2 punishes players that cannot set aside time EVERY day. not twice a week. Not four days out of seven. Every single day. That’s not what I would consider casual.
Worse, time-to-completion scales linearly with each additional character. Want your alt to be competitive in top fractals? Add 100% to your chronological wait. Share your account with a significant other or child? Add 100%. Decided to swap your specialization and require an alternate set of gear? Add 100%. It would be easy for one person to end up waiting a year or more to properly kit out a few slots on a few characters. Utterly insane.
I want to be able to play GW2 around my schedule and favorite areas without being punished. On days when I get some time to play, the daily system forces me to choose between ascended gear and doing that dungeon, DE chain, or questing that I was looking forward to. I appreciate new ways to obtain gear, but they should be in addition to current avenues. Players should log in for compelling content or as they feel like, not because of an artificial obligation. I’d want my players to remember most of their sessions as dominated by fun, not chores. GW2 is perfectly designed to “play your way”; let’s keep that feeling alive.
(edited by HappyHubris.1096)
Fun and achievement (overcoming challenges, not obtaining in-game rewards).
I hate dailies because they punish me for not logging in every. Single. Day. Camping for the weekend? Tack on 3 days to your next upgrade. Date night? Whoops, we don’t like that.
One of my favorite aspects of GW2 is its adult-friendly, play-at-your-own-pace mentality. This is slowly being eroded, turning a fun diversion into an obligation and grind. I can’t ever catch up; I can’t skip a day; I can’t play my own way. Please give me multiple avenues for progression.
For solo play I tend to run blink/decoy/feedback; survivability is king. In group dungeons personal stealth can be traded for team boon doubling via inspiration. All in the eye of the beholder, of course..
I see this as an improvement. Mobs will no longer run away and regen if I want to kill them while stealthed. Rare, but annoying.
Mesmer didn’t really come together for me until level 40 and deceptive evasion: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Deceptive_Evasion
For lower levels, I’d recommend greatsword and staff. They’re both ranged weapons and are very safe against strong enemies. By 30 I was soloing champs with that combo.
20/10/10/30/0 for auramancer support
or
x/x/x/x/30 for evasive arcana combo field popperUr choice on what you value more.
Which trait choices, though?
Can you folks recommend good trait selection for PvE solo and dungeon damage/support? I’m playing with staff traits, but even given tiers (e.g. 30/0/0/10/20) I’m not sure which staff traits are best. Thanks!
I’m looking to switch up my Elementalist’s play in the final 8 levels, and thought that scepter/focus could be a refreshing change. But how would I trait?
My D/D aura/cantrip build could be slightly modified: http://tinyurl.com/crny79c
Or I could go for something more glyph-centric with glyph of storms?
Unfortunately I have a tough time seeing synergy in our traits, which are often attunement-specific instead of weapon-specific. This waters them down 75% (e.g. fire traits not helping during air combat).
Advice appreciated.
Advice: Don’t look back.
Ranger could be interesting, but the flimsy pet and snoozeworthy autoattacking is painful very quickly.
I got my ele to 72 mostly as D/D. It’s a fun class, but very rote in aura D/D PvE (you execute the same sequences over and over). I might try going further with S/F just to switch it up.
Mesmer is most to my liking, as it feels the most dynamic.
I love this guide; thank you for helping the mesmer community!
I’ve started to use signet of inspiration as my third dungeon utility slot; double-stacking everyone’s boons at the right time can quickly amp up the might. Have you done the same?
Does the clone-on-dodge skill conflict with your illusions, due to hitting the 3-cap?
Did you try dodging?
I remember having a bit of difficulty when I first started playing, but with practice 3 separate storylines have been a breeze.
Tips:
-Keep your armor, trinkets, and weapons up-to-date. Otherwise, life will be painful.
-If you rely on your group to fulfill a certain role in dungeons (healing you, doing heavy damage, etc), you might want to use different traits and weapons for your solo content E.g. my ranger is not going to use a buff/spirit build for story missions, because it’s only good at buffing a full group. There’s no way to balance story missions for non-solo-viable build; doing so would make such content trivial for most players.
-Evaluate your weapon/build against this particular story mission. Is there one extremely strong enemy? Groups of weaker enemies? An AoE build will be weaker against a champ, and single-target-kiting setups may leave you vulnerable against groups of ranged combatants.
Mesmer weapons get the job done, but they certainly feel a bit schizophrenic.
Greatsword requires you to be at a range for max damage, yet our only viable main-hand is a melee weapon.
Staff is a hybrid of condition damage and power; there’s no proper weapon switch to match.
Scepter is mostly clones, with a side of power and condition.
Weapon design and GW2’s dual-slot requirement makes Mesmer much less intuitive than it has to be. This class would be much smoother if the weapons were ironed out a bit.
“Casual friendly” does not mean “you can complete all content without ever learning game/class mechanics”. It’s not reasonable to expect to die your way to rewards, and allowing a community to do so long-term kills any skill in the playerbase. It’s possible to get exotic gear without running capstone dungeons.
Then what was the point of Anets big montage of information and video’s before release trying to exemplify how it will cater to all levels of differently skipped players.
Your not making since because your exclaiming something that has no place within this game.
It doesn’t take a genius to learn the mechanics of the game, just as well as it does not add up when your at your point of comfortability within the game yet your still being kept from reaping the rewards your working towards.
Sure its not reasonable to “die towards completion” noone wants the rewards handed to them for free, but what does it mean when you have a strategy or assimilation in a game and its not only taken away from you, but it also makes it so that your new way of assimilating is impractical with other variables such as personal lives, time spent in game, and even the fact of in game learning curves being slowed by others ignorance.
I’m having difficulties parsing this; are you saying “GW2 was supposed to cater to players of all skill levels, but this change makes Exploration Mode Dungeons less accessible to bad players.”?
Exploration mode content is supposed to be more challenging; it’s not necessarily designed to be completed by all players. Yes, GW2 does a good job of offering avatar advancement paths to players of varying skill levels and schedules. No, it does not mean that all of these paths need to be foolproof. Dungeon sets are optional for advancement, and EM dungeons are a rather small chunk of the world of Tyria.
I also think that players are overstating the challenge of many boss fights; once they are forced into clearing them without GY zerging they will climb the learning curve quickly.
“Casual friendly” does not mean “you can complete all content without ever learning game/class mechanics”. It’s not reasonable to expect to die your way to rewards, and allowing a community to do so long-term kills any skill in the playerbase. It’s possible to get exotic gear without running capstone dungeons.
There should be a two-pronged approach:
1) Make trash more interesting to fight (better abilities, better rewards, and smaller quantities).
2) Remove mob leashing.
MMO players will always take the path of least resistance. If people could log in and hit one button for dungeon tokens and gold, the majority of the player base would do that instead of fighting bosses at all. Players love exploiting bosses, glitching past pulls, and anything else that lowers the time:reward ratio. I reject the “I don’t want to complete content, so give me the option to skip it” stance. These people will never be happy with any configuration of the content and you can’t design around them. Just like how waypoint zerging was the “fastest” way to gain rewards without skilled input, eventually skipping will be toned down.
Nothing is more boring than an MMO that discourages combat.
Great change. Allowing people to die their way through content does not create an incentive for good play or learning the ins and outs of their class. Without some sort of skill in the playerbase, it would be impossible to deploy challenging end-game content.
Not everyone is entitled to complete 100% of the content just by logging in.
Do you recommend IP for a PvE Dungeon build? The GS/S range mis-match and melee risk would seem to be weighty reasons not to pursue a ranged feel. If you do like that extra 33% on shatter, how do you mitigate risk?
Would you recommend XI: Illusionary Persona for a GS/Staff user? It would seem like the extra shatter is going to be wasted.
1)Less Trash
2)Better Trash Drops
3)Trash mobs don’t lose aggro with distance. Ever.
The skipping is really getting out of hand in some of these dungeons.
The last boss of AC part 1 can also be terrain exploited with ranged attacks for riskless kills. There are some stairs and a ledge around his pit that allow you to pewpew from afar. Please fix.
I’ve been trying Greatword/Staff in Dungeons and it seems to work decently. Much safer than GS/S+F, but I’m worried about a lack of scaling. Does anyone use this combination endgame, and how do you cope with the diverging gearing (e.g. power vs condition damage)? Do you recommend a power or condition damage staff?
I was thinking of focusing more on shatters and going for something like this: http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/mesmer#0|0|0|0|0|0|0|20|1764|1750|0|20|1759|1815|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|30|2227|1775|2223|0|0|1|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|
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