Guild Wars 2

I have noticed this as well. Something I made note of, is it seems to be related to dodge roll. If I avoid rolling through the symbol I almost always get the swiftness buff, but when I dodge roll through it, or start a dodge roll that finishes in it, I will more often than not fail to receive the swiftness buff.

Recently I’ve been experimenting with my guardian and have come up with a very nice build I enjoy immensely both for solo farming and dungeon play.

Traits:
0/15/20/30/5

Radiance: Signet Mastery
Valor: Retributive Armor, Strength in Numbers
Honor: Superior Aria, Empowering Might, Pure of Voice

When solo I will sometimes swap Empowering Might out for Two-Handed Mastery for the 20% faster CD on 2-hand weapons.

This build combined with 2 pieces of soldier gear, 4 knight, and knight weapons, I have great survivability and utility in groups. I can clear conditions like crazy running Hold the Line, Purging Flames, and Stand your Ground, with either healing book or Renewed Focus as an elite. I of course will swap Purging Flames for Reflect Wall, Smite Condition, etc. depending on the situation.

With Master Maintenance Oil and Plates of Truffle Steak, my crit is 50% and power near 3000. With Empowering might I pass out might with each crit, and I have 2x Superior Rune of the Monk (from AC tokens) and 2x Superior Rune of Water, for a total of 30% additional boon duration. The remaining two runes are Crest of the Soldier.

OK, so here is my problem:

This build is very boon/condition-centric, and relies on buffing the party with a steady stream of might. I will of course swap GS to Staff to buff Empower every time it is up for a quick long-lasting 15 stacks, however I am also built as a semi off-tank mele with greatsword, and I need to be doing as much crit damage as possible to keep stacks refreshed and rolling during Empower’s cooldown, while unloading some respectable damage.

The issue I have run into here is that certain AoE skills, specifically GS Whirling Blade, does not appear to calculate correctly with the Empowering Might trait.

The ability itself does 9 hits to nearby enemies, each of which should have the ability to crit.

However, after much testing it appears that regardless of whether there are multiple crits, there is a MAX of 1 stack of might added by the Empowering Might trait when using whirling blade.

What Kazhiel says is true, with one major exception: Orr.

Read what many have said about these zones. The mob density and respawn rate is insanely high compared to all other zones. Not that I am complaining. But it does make roll clones more of a hazard than a boon as most of the time when running solo, I can just clear a path and move up before mobs I’ve defeated are respawning behind me, and with the roll clone glitch more often than not, they are aggro’ing these rear packs instead of the ones I am engaged in.

You need to keep some range from a lot of these mobs too, due to PBAoE and other mechanics, and roll dodging to safety is the best way to do it. I would just turn off the trait completely, but so much of Mesmer damage/survivability depends on having clones up to shatter for various effects. In a high pace zone like this, you really can’t be sitting there waiting for weapon abilities even when swapping. Plus those are needed more for timing to counter specific mob abilities.

The thing with the warlock seems to have cleared up, so perhaps there was just a lot going on in the zone causing lag. I only really started training staff recently.

But the thing with the roll clones, is really disappointing. I rely on them to build up three quick for a shatter in tense situations, and if they’re off aggro’ing the next room instead of helping me clear my current target with more powerful shatters, well…

I’m sure it’s on the list.

First of all, I LOVE the Mesmer profession. I have always wanted the opportunity to play an illusionist type character, and I feel the balance of abilities and debuffs works really well in this case. That said, there are a few major issues that have been leaving me with a bitter taste and logging in my Guardian more and more often.

1) Clones are stupid: Specifically roll clones seem to suffer this, but I have seen it on any indirectly created clones, like the ones made by the ability that instantly creates two. The problem is they completely ignore the enemy I have targeted, and stupidly run off forty miles away and aggro a room of enemies I am not even in combat with. This makes running with Mesmer in dungeons not even worth the trouble half the time. Created clones should ONLY attack what I currently have targeted when I create them. This is the biggest bug which I have heard MANY complaining about, and needs to be fixed ASAP.

2) Phantasmal Warlock doesn’t work right: I have to stand completely still and spam the button for it to ever show up, and even then it only fires half the time. Even when it does fire there is a full second lag at least before it actually shows up and the ability goes on cooldown.

3) Having clones out seems to trigger zones that scale the number of mobs around based on player count. Example: I was just in the volcano completely by myself. I solo cleared a tunnel where no one else was and had just finished defeating two lava crabs and a troll, the last enemies in that section, and had three clones out at the time, and suddenly 7 MORE MOBS appeared completely at random right on top of me!

Also, the tunnel I had just cleared with packs of 2-3 mobs respawned all with packs of 3-5 instead. Needless to say this makes solo’ing virtually impossible in any reasonably difficult encounter.

Overall I think the class has great potential. It is my first 80, and the staff/GS combo I am using is really a lot of fun. They just need to work out these few major issues to keep the game play fluid and prevent frustration burnout.

I think the most helpful addition would be the ability highlighting on combo-capable abilities when in a combo field, color coded by effect.

While it can be argued managing cooldowns on alt weapon sets within existing constraints is part of mastering a class or gameplay in general, it is very much an issue that larger scale encounters can result in a particle fountain making visual cues unreliable.

One of the most touted and talked about features of GW2 has been its moving away from the classical model of tank, DPS, and healing (the “holy trinity”) roles in MMO gaming. In theory this could allow for more dynamic and exciting game-play, as players are required to adapt the tool-set they bring as situations demand, thinking more about group synergy and less about individual class or role responsibilities, and reacting to a broader set of stimulus.

To a certain extent I feel it has done impressively well at this, however there is still a need for some further “tweaking” to establish a lasting and enjoyable balance on the PvE side of things. The problem I have had thus far is the content seems to demand a level of flexibility that often isn’t practical with the level of UI information and in-combat extensibility currently available to players, with available information being the biggest concern.

Let’s consider some of the primary limitations:

1) Weapon swapping: You can only switch between two “sets” or profiles of weapons during combat, and cannot change these sets during combat. Also, an additional cooldown is triggered when swapping weapon sets during combat, preventing you from freely switching back and forth without adding additional cooldowns to your cooldowns. You are also unable to track the status of your alt-weapon cooldowns while using the other set.

2) Skill abilities: Only a handful of these (in addition to weapon abilities) can be added to your bar at a time, and you cannot change what abilities you have assigned to your bar while in combat, or while any of them are on cooldown, making that aspect of adaptability highly ineffective. You either know what abilities you will need for the entire encounter until you leave combat to swap them out, or you are stuck with what you had set up when something pulled you into combat.

3) No Team UI: This is perhaps the biggest problem. There is simply no effective in-game UI to coordinate group abilities, combos, and cooldowns, and yet combat is highly reliant on such coordination to effectively offset the loss of the trinity. Relying on visual effects is only practical in smaller groups as this quickly becomes a “particle fountain” of indistinguishable chaos in any larger-scale encounter. This implies reliance on third-party voice-chat solutions most players simply do not wish to use, especially in a role-play game where hearing a bunch of real-life voices and Leeroy Jenkins jokes in Vent might tend to disrupt any semblance of immersion.

Possible solutions:

One possible improvement would be to display two tool-bars at all times, one for each weapon set (one active and one grayed but visible above it depending on what set you had equipped), and remove the in-combat cooldown for swapping weapons. This would allow us to use any of our configured abilities when they are available, and keep better track of them, rather than having to rely on two cooldowns during situational combat.

Another possible improvement would be to allow skill swaps during combat so long as that specific skill slot wasn’t presently on cooldown. Template swapping would also be very helpful, perhaps a five-ability favorites pop-out for each ability button, allowing abilities to be assigned to the favorites bar of multiple slots, making it easier to set up a dynamic strategy with minimal downtime.

It would also seem critical to establish a more team-oriented UI. One extremely helpful and easily implemented improvement would be to simply highlight certain personal abilities when a combo field is down (and you are in it), perhaps color-coding the highlight effect based on field type. Also, even though aggro is much more random in this game than other MMO’s, some way for the group to track who actually has aggro at present would also be very helpful in attempting to coordinate group reactions. A simply target-of-target option in the UI could handle this.

Generally I feel that GW2 has done a very good job balancing their unique strategy of role-independent combat. With a little additional tweaking, it has the potential to truly “click” without limiting the potential complexity of encounter mechanics, or requiring too much of players to experience certain content.

Actually, never mind.

We’ve only just begun! If you plan a stay on Anvil Rock, come help us represent! Be a part of Tyria’s (and humanity’s) future: Live for hundreds of years! *

We are presently a newly formed guild, looking for members to help expand our influence. Initial goals will be to establish a shared guild bank, primarily for exchange of excess crafting materials, but we hope to quickly expand to other services and perks. We will focus primarily on group PvE play and leveling, guild crafting, as well as team WvW PvP. But above all, we hope to foster an interesting and enjoyable community.

We’ll be doing our best to moderate guild chat to ensure the environment remains non-exclusive to friends and families alike, and will maintain a zero tolerance policy for any form of discrimination or abuse.

Though not a requisite, our guild is founded by an individual with a strong background in science fiction. Therefor, discussion of such material is always a plus and to be expected. Theories on space exploration, biotechnology, and the future of human longevity are a major plus! I am also a Theosophist, and respect and find interesting and valuable the beliefs of any and all of religious denominations, presuming they uphold a philosophy to do no harm, and share the same wish for mutual respect and tolerance.

Contact Keter Maya on Anvil Rock to apply.

• Living for hundreds of years sold separately.