Guild Wars 2

PvE builds almost universally lack condition clear.

Just a thought.

Happy hunting, indeed.

It is unfair to the squad to not allow them an invisible tag.

Tags make it obvious where a squad is.

Lacking a tag makes it difficult to follow the commander.

This puts people leading a closed squad into a conflict of interests.

Either be forced to use a tag and make it easier for out-of-squads to follow, rallybotting the squad or ruining the small group experience zerging/blobbing people down.

Alternatively, don’t use a tag and make it extremely difficult to follow the commander, putting themselves at a great disadvantage.

I don’t support a WvW game mode that is about forcing people into mindlessly blobbing people down. This is what is killing the game mode, a lack of skilled gameplay whether it be from blobbing people down or getting blobbed.

It’s pretty obvious you got bursted by a glassy power mesmer from stealth and/or you had berserker stat (which is terrible for wvw, you need vitality on that guard…like 17k would do?).

There is counterplay and counterbuild to everything, and your dh if you had a good build would probably wreck the mesmer if played okay. The link below would be a good start.

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Dragonhunter_-_Meditrapper_roamer

Ryudnard.2587:

Anet, would you consider adding one of the HoT stats (Concentration/Expertise) to the Celestial gears? Nobody uses Celestial these days, right?

Celestial is a core stat, so they can’t add expertise or concentration as those are HoT stats. Yes, it is used in WvW and is meta for many builds.

Reverence.6915:

HoneyBadger.5691:

Reverence.6915:

In regards to thief, their Vault skill is way too overloaded, combining damage, mobility AND evade all into 1 skill that can be spammed 3 times before you run out of initiative. Besides that and their perma stealth trapper build, thieves are fine.

I’d disagree. It has a massive telegraph and rarely lands, it’s more of a get-lucky ability unless they steal to you with basi-venom and you don’t have a way to get out of it.

On the contrary, Surge of the Mists does massive damage, cc, evade, and has no telegraph. Yet, people don’t complain about it now (although it’s damage was halved? In sPvP).

Whether it’s telegraphed or not isn’t the issue, it’s the fact that the skill itself is overloaded. Heck, most staff DDs I come across now use it as an evade/mobility skill rather than a damage skill, basically resulting in no way to lock them down with their 3 base evades + weapon evades + sigil of energy procs.

Surge of the Mists was nerfed for the exact same reason. I don’t see why Vault can’t get the same treatment.

It could probably use some amount of damage nerf, but not the nerf hammer that was SotM in sPvP.

SotM probably does more damage than Vault in WvW since it wasn’t nerfed here (as far as I know, can still 100 —> 0 thief/ele with it alone).

Reverence.6915:

In regards to thief, their Vault skill is way too overloaded, combining damage, mobility AND evade all into 1 skill that can be spammed 3 times before you run out of initiative. Besides that and their perma stealth trapper build, thieves are fine.

I’d disagree. It has a massive telegraph and rarely lands, it’s more of a get-lucky ability unless they steal to you with basi-venom and you don’t have a way to get out of it.

On the contrary, Surge of the Mists does massive damage, cc, evade, and has no telegraph. Yet, people don’t complain about it now (although it’s damage was halved? In sPvP).

If you’re having problems with mesmers dodge the shatters. Alternatively, if a condi mesmer hits you, condi clear. Most people waste their dodges on attacks that do hardly any damage.

Think Signet of Illusions and Mimic. Yea, a very silly choice of utilities in a well-rounded build, but I’ve seen it done…and it’s super annoying until it’s on cooldown. 25 easy.

Dodge and cleanse/resist/block/evade/invuln/transfer/conversion 2stronk against condi mesmer.

Nurf all other builds plz kthx.

To the original poster, in all seriousness, the mesmer probably blew all their shatters and used Confusing Images, leaving them with nothing to do but run away until their cooldowns are back.

So, if you would post your build, I’d fathom we could help you figure out how to fight that pesky mesmer.

To use Seraph stat on a mes you need dueling/inspiration/chronomancer, for Sharper Images (bleed on crit), Duelists Discipline (pistol bleed), and Illusionary Inspiration (regen from phantasms). Think x/pistol/shield, maintaining illusionary duelists.

It’s going to be a mix of bleed damage, alacrity/quickness, and regen. The viability of it will be determined by how well people can figure out how to balance these three qualities and frankly how well it can synergize with a comp. I think it can be useful depending on how much dps it can push out, while factoring in the loss of quickness over Domination, loss of alacrity over iAvengers, and how much more damage the healer can do since their burdon is lighter.

Maybe druids can make use of this stat too for higher damage output? Who knows, it’s going to take some serious tinkering and at the moment seraph stat is very expensive, needing map currency, laurels, and unbound magic just to play with it.

jamesdolla.3954:

TC just got rocked on reset in T2. Thought they’d be tougher.Maybe they’ll wake up tomorrow.

TC confirmed rocked. Despite vastly winning by score. But, I’m sure some forum qq’ing will give Mag the buff they need to (maybe) climb to 2nd place by weeks end.

I’d hate to see TW or anyone go. Except maybe our Blackgate spy who yanks all our tactivators 10 minutes before inc; y’all can have him for free.

It’s just 15 stat total for infused rings plus back item. You’re not a victim of ‘being forced to grind pve’.

I’ve seen it not work a few times lately but that was due to bad lag spikes I’m getting since the recent patch. It definitely does work as intended if it’s popped.

Levetty.1279:

Condi Mesmers don’t use torch

Posting in a thread isn’t stalking

Wtf is going on here?

You’ll see torch quite often in WvW because there isn’t a point to hold control of. It synergizes well with a stealth build, due to Prismatic Understanding (50% increased stealth duration, random boons in stealth) and The Pledge (torch skills recharge faster in stealth, torch skills remove a condition).

I think the danger in any ‘masterable’ mechanic is that it is, easy. Once you know how to beat it, you can just faceroll your way to victory. And, as you said, easy isn’t interesting.

To me, an interesting mechanic is one that always has to be mentally engaged for and always ‘coped’ with. The moment any pve content is a predictable script, is the moment it becomes a bore. You need some randomness. It would be neat to see a ‘randomness’ dial available for top-tier fractals (lets say wound higher = greater rewards just to make it fair). The group could dial up as many randomly applied mechanics in addition to existing ones as they want…..but go too high, and bite the dust. They could even scale damage output along with npc hp, etc etc into it.

Of course making Fractals stepping stones to raids is stupid. Fractals are not raids; their mechanics aren’t similar. They cater to people with different interests.

I’d like to see Fractals remain mechanically different, away from ‘viable comps’ and railroaded strats. It reminds me of Brontes NiM and Revan HM in TOR 4.0. Brontes is a wipe fest even for the best…‘elite’ raiders don’t usually want to clear it more than once. It’s predictable and mechanically repetitive. Absurdly abusive numerically. It was a roflstomp for me because I could churn dps like none other on my class by abusing mechanics and strats unforseen by the devs. Revan? Comparatively gentle and forgiving…numerically. Absurdly difficult to keep track of all mechanics for all players. A true skill test. Never easy, never masterable, always fun.

One comp will always be ‘best’. But, good design allows most builds and comps to work. Think…adaptable mechanics.

Then don’t tag, I and many others could care less. I play games to have fun, and if ranger is what’s fun that day to the exclusion of others, that’s what’s being played. If someone running around with a tag has a problem with it, they should re-evaluate why they’re playing a video game.

DeWolfe.2174:

It’s just a huge “un-fun” mechanic that sucks the fun out of the game through sheer annoyance.

Awwww BOOOOOOO!!!!!

It’s probably like, 20% of the fun I have in this game.

Carighan.6758:

What, 60%-75% less DPS than other classes still too good? :s

Not sure where you get that idea, mesmer easily does 20k plus dps in an individual dps build.

You’re trying to compare I think an individual dps build of other classes against a mesmer raid support build. The build provides quickness/alacrity to a group that, when added up, makes mesmer total dps contribution massive. So it really doesn’t need to be buffed.

If you hear a cmdr complain about ranger/thief just bring one, it’s not like there’s anything they can do to stop you from playing what you want.

Tl;dr

I don’t know how an ability is effectively used,

pls nerf it before i continue to lose by not knowing how to counter it.

P.S. I LOVE moa’ing cmdrs, it’s absolutely hilarious

P.P.S. There’s nothing “op” about it. You can still dodge in it, and have an evade (moa 5). It’s false a good player won’t get moa’d, but there’s a good chance you can evade some/most of the damage if you’re good.

Found them all soloable on my mesmer pretty easy, except mushroom queen that I needed a group for. Although, you can find a vid on youtube of someone soloing mushroom queen pretty handily.

And, there are lots of HP trains.

Adding friendly fire to all siege would prolly be healthy.

Jumpin Lumpix.6108:

I am an experienced raider with 15 yrs of experience

[…]

TLDR: raid content is too gimmicky (not hard but filled w/specific cheese mechanics + you need specific builds), makes players discriminate against pugs and not take/teach new players. No way of really telling who is good vs bad, your’ either EXP or NOT. Dunno why they chose 10 man content to be difficult, why not 2 or 5 man content? No auto join system, trying to get a group and organize is painful if your not in a raid static/guild

You make a lot of good points. Can’t really disagree on anything, anet class balance is beyond atrocious for pve and if they’re going to have raids, they need to implement raid specific balance (that does not affect other pve/wvw/pvp) to tweak dps. It’d be as easy as altering damage from each ability.

I don’t think you’re going to find a way around players’ attitudes without having tiered difficulty. In their current iteration, raids are basically a glorified farm/grind for some skins people haven’t seen, and no matter how mechanics are changed to de-cheeze/de-gimmick raids, I think you’ll still have a meta that farms LIs fastest.

This is just going in circles at this point.

Tl;dr

Anet should make tiers of raids so most players can experience them.

or

Anet should not make raids easier for casuals because other players enjoying content in an easier tier detracts from the feeling of superiority gained from clearing said content in a different mode.

or

Casuals won’t beat content no matter how easy it is.

Eval.2371:

I have to say this though, DB is nothing like BG. At least when we fight BG and show up with half the numbers we get ran over by them. In contrast DB either run away or fold like cheap cardboard despite out numbering 2-4 to I. I am not just trying to talking smack here, the kdr of every week speaks for its self, this is the first week DB has been higher than 0.7 kdr since hitting tier 1. Despite totally dominating the scoreboard.

That’s really the absolute truth.

DB loses almost every single fight against TC on even terms. And, when they outnumber us by a large margin, their odds of not dieing/running away are still poor.

Although, they are good at ppt/pvd. I wish we had BG back because they have many good guilds and made for many good fights.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

People came back to play the new map and flooded the market with all those delicious rares. Plus, it’s now super easy to salvage everything with one click too.

That’s precisely it.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19721

Note the volume moving average sharply going up the day following LS3 release.

greenarrow.2784:

mesmer is good for 1 thing in wvw atm and thats support sharing boons seems to be the only option now

You’re forgetting roaming. Mesmer is strong 1v1 or even 1v2 vs. much less skilled opponents.

Yes, please change this, it is beyond irritating when you’re hit from a range the player can’t reasonably react from. Mordrem in HoT maps were actually pretty good about this; if you got too close, without stealth, you’d take a good hit, but the player could reasonably deal with it. Good mechanic.

Getting hit from outside a semi-obvious visual range is cheezy.

I saw lots of players with different levels of skill and experience having fun.

virus.4370:

JTGuevara.9018:

Ensign.2189:

JTGuevara.9018:

How is the PvP team not involved in balancing their own game mode!

The PvP team is a sales and marketing team comprised of brand and community managers, not designers. As you would expect in any other context, sales and marketing give feedback to, but do not have control over, design and development.

I think there’s a perfectly valid complaint that the balance team is not keeping up with the evolving demands of the game. The individual balance changes and bug fixes that have been made since the departure of John Peters have generally been really good – well targeted at real problems with appropriate fixes – but the scope of balance passes has been too limited for a 3 month release cycle.

Still, that’s an argument for funneling resources to or restructuring the balance team, not for handing design authority over to the marketing team.

I can accept that argument, but my primary point still stands.

Balance philosophy needs to change. Anet needs to properly balance PvP independent of the other game modes.

It’s the only way that PvP can possibly thrive in the long-term. Otherwise, PvP will die.

like i said why not make players use their pve gear, stats, and skills. works for gws 1 and thats been running 10 years…you use what you are wearing that you have earned.

Because sPvP is inherently a competitive game mode based on the ideal of having fair conditions, including team size, composition, build variety, stat quality, etc.

The purpose of gear in an MMO, is a grind to artificially extend content beyond it’s natural lifespan. The addition of more grind is detrimental to the playerbase. The current system where players can alter build before a match, to choose how they will counter the enemy team’s composition is very important in making a match fair and competitive.

Condis work fine, the problem is people not bringing a cleanse.

Too many people qq’ing over a ‘build carrying someone’ when the reality is they don’t know how to set up their own build to counter what they’re going to go up against.

Yes there should be different difficulty modes. I see no reason Anet can’t incorporate what it seems every other game successfully has.

First there needs to be an easy mode. The current raids are catering to an extremely small number of players. If you want people to raid with you, an easy mode is the best way to learn, not wiping for hours. If that works out, and the numbers exist to make a hard mode version of current raids a viable business choice, that’s great. But, continuing to cater to a very small number of players will simply cause people to quit because of the content drought.

Now, I can hear the extremely small minority of ‘elitists’, who see some false sense of superiority by being better button pressers, groaning “but casuals will have legendary armor, how will everyone know I’m better than them?”……fear not, there need not be LIs given in easy mode. Just come up with an appropriately scaled reward system.

Really not hard to get 23k dps with bis gear. So no, our dps is not that bad.

Too many mesmers with terrible builds. Want good dps, need a good build.

Sustained phantasm build requires Domination, Dueling, and Illusions. Not Chronomancer. Any substitution will see a large dps loss.

Power shatter demands Domination and Dueling. Chronomancer or Illusions, not sure which is better but really should take one of the two. Prolly Illusions.

Way too many people running around open world with Inspiration. It’s a group support option vastly outclassed for solo play by any other choice. Chaos can be substituted to a build to make it ‘tankier’.

Haven’t played necro, warrior, or ng, but mesmer is god-tier compared to the other classes in open world. You can faceroll almost all content with the right build (prolly condi with chaos).

If you’re trying to support a large group that can stack, swapping to the raid utility dps build on metabattle works well.

Other than that, I’ve personally found (my own variant, others I’m sure work well too) the wvw condi roaming build to work super well, especially anything where there’s only a few people and nasty mobs. Scepter torch staff, dire stat, illusions/chaos/chrono, you can do a lot of dps compared to damage taken. Taking decoy, mass invis, blink, and mimic (or an extra cleanse), it’s easy to skip mobs, escape, and very mobile. Since it’s very hard to die in dire gear with stealth, it’s pretty relaxed in that errors aren’t harshly punished like a glassy build (which direct damage really has to be for good dps).

If anything spec into something close in sPvP land and try it out on the dummies. Easiest and cheapest way to try-before-you-buy.

Just keep in mind it’s heavy on confusion and torment, so the DoTs don’t tick hard on a passive dummy.

Crowley.8761:

for PvE bosses it’s pretty useless outside of ulti.

But that’s the thing, there is more than dps to consider in a fight’s success (as you said, utility), and with chrono the net dps of the player pushing quickness/alacrity to others is large.

For curiosity’s sake I went to the aerodrome to try a selfish build matching the linked performance numbers’ ‘All Buffs’ variables. Note that some chosen traits were irrelevant to dps.

~20,500 dps consistently as follows

Domination — Empowered Illusions | Blurred Inscriptions | Mental Anguish
Dueling — Phantasmal Fury | Fencer’s Finesse | Harmonious Mantras
Illusions — Compounding Power | Phantasmal Haste | Master of Fragmentation

Sword/Sword /Pistol
Ascended berserker weapons and trinkets, armor is assassin — exception, exotic berserker pistol — superior sigil of force/concentration — superior rune of the chronomancer

Plate of Truffle Steak, Superior Sharpening Stone

2 mighty infusions, 5 resilient in the gear

Rotation — Phantasmal Duelist, Phantasmal Swordsman, Blurred Frenzy, Mind Slash chain, spawning two more Phantasmal Swordsman when the ability comes off cooldown. Auto-attack until golem is dead.

Note the absence of a dps-relevant 2nd sigil and 6-piece rune bonus. Substituting a sigil of air, better rune, and utilizing precision infusions to bring crit chance to 100% then the right into power, dps would be considerably higher. Maybe using mantras to add a 15% dmg bonus via Mantra Strength would be better, or a complete different build in general, I don’t know, but mesmer ‘selfish’ dps doesn’t seem as bad as many would have us believe.

EDIT: I forgot scholar runes don’t apply to phantasms, so scaling dps by 10% is unreasonable.

EDIT II: Phantasms account for 46% of dps in my dummy test.