Guild Wars 2

I’ve heard about it before getting bombarded by it. Now that it has happened I find it unacceptable. Never mind people with views on whether buying gold is legit. Now my chat box has turned into an advertising platform. With eye catching maroon and a message designed to cover the entire box without being truncated, it’s hard to miss even when you’re being chased by 10 people in wvw.

Anet needs to implement the option to allow only people in my friend list to PM me, (and possibly, also a gold charge to be deducted from the whisperers not on my list).

Well, high invuln up-time might be good for commanders (tho the build is kinda high in attention upkeep).

It could be a tanky option, but mesmers don’t really have a zergging weapon, and if you aren’t using glamors in a zerg, I’m not entirely sure why you wouldn’t take a warrior or guard instead—way easier unconditional blocks and invuln, high defense even off invuln, etc etc.

When pugging I often bring iDefender as well. No one dies. Not even the face mash warriors.

Sodeni.6041:

StickerHappy.8052:

Why do you even bother get affected what other people say? I mean common. Its just a game.

Because they told me to leave the server, said insulting words and other things to me. And so i wrote this here. I often saw that players blame other players for their builds and i thought it’s time to mention that.

Welcome to the internet. If you ask around more you’d find that you encounter less abuse in GW2 compared to other games.

If you really want to test your skill level as a phantasm mesmer, you could always pick fights with blind or stealth heavy opponents, or other opponents who can exploit the AI and use them against you. P/D thieves, stun lock warriors, all the other similarly criticized builds are fair game.

The people who’ve already lost to you are not worth your time. You’ll never know how good you are until you fight someone who’s better than you—whether by out-maneuvering you or by stacking odds against you.

Arikyali.5804:

Wow, didn’t expect this thread to turn into a full on debate.

Soooo in a nutshell, there’s no real need to get some new gear/jewels to boost the staff, as a zerker mesmer. And if I happen to want both weapon sets to be ranged, maybe…instead go for scepter/appropriate offhand?

There’s no cut and dry answer. Take the last event in the Grenth temple for example, high power chaos storm is your best bet at tagging the most number of mobs as a mesmer.

Ideally, you want to carry every weapon set and switch according to the situation at hand.

Carpboy.7145:

colesy.8490:

LH chain does area blind, warriors have mace 5, mesmers have pistol 5 and sword 4 as CC. Guardians have blind spam and binding blade. What would an ethereal field do here? Not give might since it isn’t fire? I find it ridiculous that I barely play my Mesmer and yet know it and its synergies with other classes better than most of the people here who probably have 1k+ hours on theirs.

Chaos armor gives blind and protection. Granted you have to be hit for that to happen, and its RNG, but its not as useless as you think, especially with pugs.

It’s not RNG when there’re enough triggers. In TA Aether path, the quickest way to finish the trash rooms are full room aggro and kill all at once, in that situation none of the skills mentioned by that farming drone will work, only ethereal or water fields.

colesy.8490:

I’m sure lightning hammer elementalists love blasting ethereal fields of all things, that OP chaos armour is great

Yup. Allows you to tank all the trash mobs, regardless of how many there are.

The iwarlock does a lot of dps on high health targets as already mentioned, then there’s perma fury if you have even the smallest boon duration bonus (can be food). Otherwise there’s really not much point to using staff in dungeons. A quick chaos storm can sometimes be beneficial, but expect to switch to the other set asap.

Personally I prefer Shattered Concentration for lockdown builds.

Chaos.3579:

Its a solid heal.
I am glad that the interval of the heal is 3 seconds. Giving you a max of around 333 hps (healing per second) for the passive. Very fair in comparison to the warriors healing signet because unlike warriors us Mesmers will actually need to use the active to survive.

The active heal is not that special when comparing the hps in to its cool down. Although the phantasm cool down elimination is very nice.

However…I don’t like that because anet added this skill they are buffing a type of mesmer spec that is already too strong and takes very little skill to use.
That of course is high passive defense phantasm/condition specs that usually have 30 in chaos.
They take no skill to use because you don’t have to pay attention to timing or execution, and the survivability is insane. They play off passive play and thus are auto piloted to victory

I don’t see how this can be considered as a buff to passive phantasm specs. It gives you another option to be more bursty, but at the cost of a heal. If anything it added a strategic layer by having you manipulate the battle such that your heal and multi phantasm burst can line up properly.

Sublimatio.6981:

Mimic should be like GW1 Mimic. So this is the description: “This skill is replaced with the last skill used by this ally. Ends after one use.”

I think in GW2 when you activate Mimic and use a skill, then Mimic should turn into this skill.
For example:
1) turn on Mimic
2) use Phantasmal Warden
3) Mimic turns into Phantasmal Warden
4) you can cast Phantasmal Warden again
5) Mimic recharges

I know it’s not the exact effect as in GW1 (it’s like GW1 Arcane Echo), but we need only a resemblance, it’s still GW2, not GW1

I suggested that before X)
But it’ll be better if they simply add Arcane Echo as a new utility. Double Chaos Storm returns!

==

That said though, if they must change mimic, I hope they make it work somewhat like thief’s steal, in that it turns into an ability according to the class of the target you mimic from, plus a mesmer twist

Some examples:

Warrior: Charge towards your target, up to 1200 range. If you hit, create a clone and teleport back to your original location. If you do not have a target, you charge forward 1200 range and does not create a clone. Inspiration: Bulls charge.

Guardian: Create a shield to block the next three attacks, if the shield isn’t destroyed, create a phantasmal paladin with a 3 hit hammer attack chain. Third hit from the chain does a small knockback. Inspiration: Shield of Wrath, Spirit Hammer.

Etc.

Aniltiger.9186:

In my opinion it is one of the best utilities a mesmer could have, however, it’s also extreamly situational. It is almost useless against melee opponents.
If they could somehow make the first melee and ranged attack to get absorbed (and recieving it’s damage+condition) and then block plus reflect after, then I would use it all times.
Even if the duration would be nerfed.

Mesmers don’t really have any problems keeping range in a fight, anti-melee is actually one of the mesmer’s strengths. The same avoidance tactic doesn’t work for ranged attacks, so mesmers have some abilities that are specifically anti range.

Look at it this way, it’s about as situational as mirror or feedback.

DaShi.1368:

Vortex will not put you in combat, so I often use it when travelling to keep any pesky mobs from getting crippled and slowing me down.

This is what I do too. Just press the pull button as soon as you step on it.

If they could pull off releasing revamps for existing classes (via new skill/weapon or otherwise) in a way that would sate people’s need for new classes, then GW2 will truly have hit the holy grail.

Zenith.7301:

Heinel.6548:

Don’t let the traits dictate your playstyle. This is not Soviet Russia. The game doesn’t play you.

First determine what you enjoy doing, then add traits that compliment it. As long as you have feedback on the bar most groups won’t say anything about your build.

No.

Mesmer damage is low to begin with. You don’t bring it down even further by going into a 48 fractal and putting out no DPS.

There’s no such thing as no DPS. The game is not flexible enough for you to create a build that cannot attack. On top of that, you augment numerical outputs via equipment stats, not via traits.

That aside, at lv 48 player skill comes into play as well. There’s at least some manual dexterity required to succeed in those encounters, and that is more valuable than the non-existent DPS meter. Too many times have I seen zerker warriors that basically have to be carried (read: they’re dead the whole fight) through encounters such as grawl final boss. That is a clear example of the build playing the player, where the player is not able to cope.

Don’t let the traits dictate your playstyle. This is not Soviet Russia. The game doesn’t play you.

First determine what you enjoy doing, then add traits that compliment it. As long as you have feedback on the bar most groups won’t say anything about your build.

IMO the best way is to just stay out of sight. Clone up → Stealth → Run through and behind the enemy. People usually expect one of the mesmers on their screen is the real one, so make sure you are not among the choices on screen.

Will we get a CDI on the new game modes?

Thing is, even if you get 2 pistols, you can’t fire them both at once like thief unload, because the weapon skills for mesmer main hand and off hand are separate. It’s uncool.

Are you sure your damage isn’t just being mitigated?
Shatters are very obvious and easy to dodge, so it just might be that your opponent has dodged all your damage.

Classic shatter builds are very do-or-bust. If you didn’t kill someone in one or two tries it’s time to stealth away. Alternatively, try shattered conditions for a more sustainable build.

Arewn.2368:

What I’m suggesting is that it is buffed (the scaling is increased) only to a point where it is on-par (or at least in the same ballpark as) other stats.

So in other words, you simply want scepter #1’s damage increased. That’s actually a smaller change than what everyone else is asking for, and most definitely should be in the scepter revamp thread as one of the suggestions.

===

Also, do note that condition damage also has 3 stats. Condition damage, Condition Duration, and Critical chance. Most classes that has a condi build also has crit proc condition traits.

You can keep PVT armor for when you want to do logistics. There’s no need for damage in order to portal. It’s one of the unique roles of the mesmer.

Arewn.2368:

Heinel.6548:

If it’s only about power scaling, that is due to the promise that the classes are supposed to all be capable of self sustenance with well rounded abilities and that the system will not allow you to create a build too lopsided to function (unlike gw1). It’s a design decision.

I struggle to see how the poor scaling on Scepter supports that design choice, if anything it works against it. Currently, by building power and choosing Scepter as a weapon you are making a build that is “lopsided”: it functions poorly and is not self sufficient. On the other hand they have the potential of increasing build diversity and getting rid of that lopsided choice if they increase the power scaling on scepter to an acceptable level. Such balance tweaking would need to be carefully done so as to not make certain builds (such as hybrid builds) over powered, but given the current state of affairs they have a lot of buffing to do before reaching that point.

This is not the correct way to view the situation.

If power scaling were to increase, then power will grant a benefit greater than other stat combinations, this will force everyone to roll high power builds.

A similar argument to yours was made about healing power in the guardian forums. The answer to it was the same—if healing power was boosted, then everyone will roll bunker builds to troll the cap circles. The game is balanced around each character being capable of applying damage as well as self sustain together with the same build. You will always need both and while you can favor one stat over another, it will never be like trinity games where you can completely specialize into one to the detriment to the other.

===

If it is as I suspected and you just simply want a scepter rework because you have already chosen power as your stat of choice and cannot fit the scepter into your build (in other words your argument isn’t about stats), then I will again direct you to existing scepter rework threads.

Jae.5138:

runeblade.7514:

Jae.5138:

Heinel.6548:

Jae.5138:

runeblade.7514:

That is what retaliation suppose to counter: Multi-hit attacks.

Aegis counters strong single attack.

aegis ‘countering’ is based on basically hidden RNG. if aegis was meant to counter strong attacks they would put in more skill based aegis skills rather than automatically popping ones.

There are just as many precision aegis skills as there are auto popping ones.

there’s retreat (which almost no one uses to counter single hit attacks)

and then there’s virtue. that’s it.

In that case, there are more precision aegis skills than auto-popping ones.

oh really? the only ‘precision’ aegis skill that I see (realistically) is only virtue.

And auto popping one… let’s see:

virtue passive
Protective Reviver (you and the ally you revive)
Guardian tango icon Pure of Voice (when removing burning)
Guardian tango icon Valorous Defense (when your health reaches 50%)
Warrior tango icon Quick Breathing (when removing burning)
Engineer tango icon Armor Mods (upon being critically hit)
Mesmer tango icon Prismatic Understanding (gain randomly when you are cloaked)

(copied from wiki)

not only are you wrong, it’s just just silly to think that retaliation is fine where it is just because of the existence of aegis.

for the game to truly become an e-sport you gotta minimize these RNG’s. That’s the same reason why LoL got rid of starting crit chances and such. these are unnecessary RNG’s that add almost nothing but frustration to the game.

the reason why the thread title doesn’t include aegis is that the mechanic is difficult to tweak. it is not for retaliation.

You count boon conversion as “auto popping.”

Good luck.

Jae.5138:

runeblade.7514:

That is what retaliation suppose to counter: Multi-hit attacks.

Aegis counters strong single attack.

aegis ‘countering’ is based on basically hidden RNG. if aegis was meant to counter strong attacks they would put in more skill based aegis skills rather than automatically popping ones.

There are just as many precision aegis skills as there are auto popping ones.

If it’s only about power scaling, that is due to the promise that the classes are supposed to all be capable of self sustenance with well rounded abilities and that the system will not allow you to create a build too lopsided to function (unlike gw1). It’s a design decision.

Well, sword 3 does no damage. I don’t see anyone complaining about that?

Each ability has it’s own function, and it’s not always to produce big numbers (though both scepter 2 and 3 can produce huge numbers, just not in the same build).

If this is another scepter 1 revamp post, please keep it in the existing thread, so it’s easier for devs to see, and also allow others to comment.

Valarauka.2719:

Don’t need a special circle or anything, just an “out of range” bar on the Portal Exeunt skill. (And a buff timer for when it’ll run out!)

Best quality of life change!

By now, the more likely scenario seemed to be them introducing a new rune set for retaliation that’s just as OP as perplexity on warrior/engi, but ineffective for guardians…

Helios.3598:

I’m not sure what blobbing is.

BG only has blobs, so there isn’t a distinction. In lower tiers, there are large “spread out” fights as well. They behave more like trenches, where two large groups shoot at each other (feedback fodder ^0^).

===

I also use GS/Staff in large groups. PTV armor, zerker everyting else. Sigil of stamina/bloodlust. Melandru runes. Anti condi food+oil. 20/20/30 with confusing enchantments, phantasmal fury (may change after update), deceptive evasion, the 2 clone deaths, and the 2 interrupts (PU if veil).

Utilities are mantra of concentration (hate hate hate it but only way to get stab), null field and veil (if against melee train) and feedback (against shooters), TW.

Instead of looking at the scaling, look at how hard you hit in practice. Confusing images is a ranged, non-projectile, non-strafable, non-self rooting burst on 12s cooldown.

Usagi.4835:

So are they nerfing PU/Blackwater?

The scepter auto attacks currently does not work with the common Blackwater build, so any change to the skill cannot be a nerf to that.

Ray.2640:

Allow XP share? Guild members can set to share their XP with a guildy who stays behind to guard / scout a keep, runs dolyaks, trebs for 7 hours straight (wtf?)

This really needs to be done. But instead of guild wide, I think it can be party wide.

Currently logistics mesmers also do not get the kind of rewards the average zergling gets, even though the role is more important than just another 11111 spammer.

If they can’t figure out a way to reward supportive roles, then at least let them get the same thing the grunts get.

I personally just want bigger lasers.

Like so: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6z0rn-eR2k

Kysin.6349:

Week 6 on roster for BG SoS and Mag… I have been ignoring the thought of it for some time now.

I actually thought it neat to be able to have a week off before the T1 finale.

blackoil.2673:

Then you’re saying that yes, stealth is useless and it doesnt work in PvE, right?

Mobs also fight my clones often enough. But myself I found many times where stealth could save me and he didn’t bc of how aggro system works.

Maybe for you it’s not needed, but i’m not changing my whole build for a game system that’s not working properly. I love the way I play my build.

I’m just not sure what your complaint is. If you want to not fight, roll a thief?

MokoToko.6890:

UnrepentantProcrastinator.7420:

I can’t believe someone is actually arguing that PVT is pointless because apparently with boon stripping people die to 12k hit meteor showers regularly.

Next, I’m expecting something along the lines of,

“It’s pointless to take camps because you never know when someone with treb mastery will hit you on your way to an objective, causing you to lose all your supply.”

Not my fault the only meta in T1 is to stack PVT. Take your strategy anywhere else without the skill lag and you’re just a walking target since your entire group will hit like a wet noodle.

So run against our zergs more often. We want to see your awesome damage spike in action.

Mobs fight my clones often enough. No need for stealth. Maybe try a scepter some time if you want tanks.

Jeydra.4386:

Blackgate commanding:

Takes Stonemist
“OK guys I really want to be able to push on SoR later tonight”
“Build these ACs. Build this treb too. You can treb Klovan from here right?”
Zerg builds 3 ACs 1 treb in Stonemist
15 minutes later …
Scout calls 20 SoR SM inner west gate, rams down
Commander decides not to defend SM
What! You built siege in SM and then decide not to defend it??
“I … changed my mind”
“Feel free to tag up if you don’t like it”

---

I don’t have an issue with mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. Earlier for example I did a bad portal into inner SM, getting everyone killed and delaying us taking SM by a long while. But I do take issue with making mistakes and pretending it wasn’t a mistake. Some people spent a lot of time running supply to SM, building more ACs, as well as scouting, under the illusion that we were going to defend SM. If the idea was to not defend SM in the first place, make it clear from the beginning and we could’ve saved time, blueprints and supply. We could’ve done some roaming, flipped some camps, or joined the main zerg.

Shame on the people who defended the commander too. Yes, she’s from one of BG’s most prominent WvW guilds and yes, blood is thicker than water, but mistakes are still mistakes and should be recognized as such. It’s only when mistakes are recognized that they can be fixed and not repeated in the future. To do something like offer to compensate the people who were building ACs does not help, and in fact is the kind of thing that makes me less inclined to join said commanders’ zerg in the future.

On that, I actually stopped following that commander at an earlier time when she did not get on SoR’s tail as they get on durios, giving them full retreat back into SMC. Sure, we didn’t lose anything, but we had all that was needed to wipe them. And to me, a lost opportunity is a lost.

That said though, no one else was willing to tag up at the time and this hour has always been BG’s slowest. Skill can be honed over time, I’d much rather we help each other improve in a positive environment, that invites people to learn together, rather than pointing at fingers when things don’t work out. The accusations do not help the server, all it does is discourage people from taking up the commanding role.

And if you are going to do your own thing, kindly do not speak up. The negative vibe will spread. We’ve done a good job keeping morale higher than our enemies, don’t let a small thing spoil the enjoyment out of the game.

Shriketalon.1937:

shimmerless.4560:

It’s a non-sequitur of a question. Staff is competitive, by the way, but it’s kept in line by a few factors (some of which, like WoC, are almost certainly by design because of our class mechanic):

It is a direct sequitur. You’re earlier statement was declaring that condition damage on the autoattack is not fine and that Mesmer clones inflicting conditions are a “balance nightmare”. But the staff has a condition damage autoattack and clones who inflict conditions. If you’re saying that it is a competitive weapon, but not an overpowered one, that says something extremely relevant about condition autoattacks and clones that can do something useful on the battlefield.

Now, I agree with you that the “defender” part shouldn’t come down to what stats the player equipped, and that the weapon itself should require skill. Simply slapping conditions onto everything and calling it a day won’t do that. What the weapon probably needs is to find a way for the clones to help party members or reduce enemy damage in some clever way. Barring that, some excellent Mesmery debuffs on the scepter would be excellent.

But what I am stressing is that condition autoattacks and clones-that-do-things shouldn’t be taken off the table. If you’re okay with the staff and think it’s in line because of its various features, then the hypothetical scepter can also be equally in line while still fulfilling the role of a good condition weapon.

To add to this, I can see that if someone’s experience in game is primarily mesmer, then they would find spammy conditions to be a problem. This is because it is a problem for mesmers, and it is by design. Mesmers have the most invulnerability up time built in and, coupled with clones and stealth, is meant to be extremely difficult to kill via direct damage. It is intended for them to be less capable of dealing with conditions.

With other classes like say elementalist, where multiple conditions drop every few seconds for an indefinite amount of time, they’re practically invulnerable to condi spikes, and the only way to ever have hopes of killing them as a condi spec, is to keep reapplying stacks to hopefully get some damage in before they are cleansed. On the other hand, a direct damage burst build can usually bring down an ele in one combo if they are on cooldown (which are over 1 minute), that is also by design.

To say spammy condition is overpowered is not seeing the big picture. The game was never balanced around solo 1vs1 and there will always exist builds and counter builds. When asking for balance, you should focus on picking out roles that mesmers are good at, and can fulfill, given it’s current skill set, and not tunnel vision on eliminating its weaknesses, as no matter what, there has to be some weaknesses for every class.

Pyroatheist.9031:

jportell.2197:

JonPeters.5630:

I think we have a pretty good understanding of the mesmer scepter auto attack problem. I would really like to design a chain of auto attacks here that end with something good, and then allow the clones generated from scepter to also do that thing. That being said, we are trying to avoid just condition spam overload with that weapon because that would be greatly compounded by clones spamming as well.

Because you know nearly everyone else can’t condi spam like crazy….

Just because others do it doesn’t make it any better. I may have serious doubts about the balance team’s competence, but they’re right on with this. The less spammy conditions in this game the better.

Pretty sure that is not the point. Condi autos are fine, it is what allows degen builds to work. It is just that mesmer clones make the otherwise manageable stacks go overboard. Staff clones circumvent this phenomenon via RNG. Presumably they don’t want to duplicate this for another weapon, so it needs something new. AoE is an option as there currently isn’t one aoe clone.

Redscope.6215:

Me Games Ma.8426:

Zen.4678:

It’s not the only class. I watched a thief stealth on his fall damage reduction trait while having revealed (unless it ended right before his impact which is unlikely as he was targeted and I didn’t see it go down). And no, it does not need “fixed.” Its duration does not stack with other stealth skills.

Sorry I believe you just didn’t notice that it has ended short time before.
Do you have a proofe for the thief thing? This is the proof for my post.

I just tryed out the falling thief thing and I was Immune to stealth!

Oh you caught the misinformation going out about how non-OP the Mesmer is. Thank you, I was going to have to post those screens myself (which don’t exist yet…so I’d have to go make them :p)

I do believe Mesmers getting exactly the same amount of stealth as thief would be a welcoming change for all.

I use 20/20/30/0/0 PU since it allows me to easily swap into a zergging build.
If you don’t ever zerg then just put 30 points into chaos for PU then get whatever weapon cooldown traits you use.

On confounding suggestions, I’d really much rather it proc at 100% chance torment on daze. Then if it swap space with furious interruption then maybe condi shatter can become a thing. But in any case torment synergizes well with daze, allowing for some soft movement denial, some degen panic, and no stupid RNG.

Valenthor.4052:

It will be a permanent dungeon, but you will have to sacrifice an already existing dungeon. Anet, the only MMO developer that removes content from their game.

Are people still seriously harping on about this?
All other MMOs phase out old content and leave them barren. Be glad Anet actually take the time to reclaim unused areas and make them new.

I would be extremely disappointed if it is a private instance. This looks like a very good opportunity for a more communal experience with continuous meta events and a final world boss finale.

I actually like that there isn’t “the one build” so i can tailor my mesmer to my own needs. Aside from sub par tagging I really have no complaints. And tbh the problem is in the tagging mechanic, not the class.

I still find my mesmer more enjoyable than my guardian, which gets allllll the bags but has just the one build

Wouldn’t the more important question be, is a net open to having a new build around CS to be added to the meta, given the large number of destabilizing changes in the other classes?

It’s rather obvious that the CS change is just fiddling for the sake of a longer patch note. The meta most definitely will shift after the patch, and everyone will have to readapt. There at quite a few moving parts already and if it means the mesmer have to sit this one out-

At least we should know.

Meh. I prefer it to do something like Guardian staff 1 (and clones also gets the atk cone) so I can tag in WvW without confusing enchantment.