Guild Wars 2

@SolarNova will definitely look at the i3 3250. I was looking at the cheaper i5’s but dismissed them on both cost and power concerns. Will give them another look.

@Fermi I had thought about replacing the PSU myself, but it’s one more thing and I am on a pretty tight budget. Plus, as far as I can tell the PSU you suggest is an ATX PSU. Will it fit into a Micro-ATX case? And an HP case at that (I know they LOVE proprietary fittings)?

Thanks again for your help, guys, The discussion is really helping me clear up where my focus should be.

Wow! After getting some pretty dismal results when posting this same question on Tom’s Hardware (“just save up and get an i5 and a 670—it’s worth it”) I’m blown away by how helpful you guys are being. Thanks!

So after reading all the responses and doing some digging around online everything I found said that the 640 drew a little more power than the 7750, with the a10-6800k drawing the least power overall. With that in mind, I jumped on and threw a couple of comparatively-priced parts lists together. I was hoping your guys could jump on and take a look at these and tell me which avenue would yield better results in Guild Wars 2 (my gf isn’t a big PC gamer generally so this will realistically be the most taxing game she plays).

My first build was for the original a10-6800k I was looking at. I heard it ran hot, so I threw in a better cpu cooler and some higher speed memory, as I heard that makes a big difference due to the architecture of the APU.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/234FK

The second build was based around the i3 and 7750 model you guys were discussing. This one would be sticking with the lower speed 1333 memory and stock cpu cooler, but my understanding is that in an intel build these aren’t as important as with the APUs.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2350T

Thank you so much for your help on this guys—am really looking forward to getting this together so that I can play this with her .

Hey guys—hoping to get a little help from those more experienced than I with PC hardware .

So, I am looking to do a budget rebuild on my girlfriends PC so that she can play Guild Wars 2 with me. I have done basic things (replacing optical/hard drives and installing graphics cards) but nothing on this scale and I feel that I’m a little bit out of my depth.

She has a PC currently with a dead mobo, so I can cannibalize parts from that to hopefully bring down the price of the rebuild—all in all I am hoping at the end of the day to have a system that can play PvE at around 30fps, med settings on 720 resolution. And I’m hoping to do it for under $300. A tall order, I know—but I’m hoping you guys can help me with that .

Parts available from her old PC:

Case: Micro-ATX
PSU: 300w
Mobo: DEAD
CPU: Athlon II x4 (will prob have to be replaced anyway)
GPU: None
RAM: 6gb (DDR3 1333, I think, but it doesn’t say on the sticks)
Optical Drive: DVD Burner
HDD: 1tb

I was looking at maybe picking up an a10-6800k APU and an FM2 mobo to try and keep costs down, but am concerned that most reviews tend to say they run hot and the case only has one fan (well—plus the PSU fan and the stock cooler that will come with the APU). Also—I’m a little concerned about if they could handle the game. I’ve seen youtube videos that show less powerful a8 and a10 APUs getting that type of performance even with fraps but I have also read reports of people getting as little as 15fps with low settings. Not sure what is causing the discrepancy. But with only 300w to work with, the APUs are looking like a decent option.

So…yeah. Help? I’m not married to the APU idea if someone has a better solution.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Hey guys.

So, I’m pretty new to the game and after cutting my teeth on a Silvari Mesmer for the last month I think I’m ready to try something a little different. So far the Asura have been by far my favorite race so I want to make one of them but I’m not sure which way to go for profession. 

The two choice I have been waffling between are a Minion Master Necro or an Elementalist (any kind, really). I know they aren’t considered power characters, per se, but they intrigue me.

Now, I know that generally speaking racial skills are weaker than class skills. But I’m wondering if the Asura racials fit one of those profession archetypes better than the other in a PvE focused character? And if so, why?

Just a warning—I am really very new to both Guild Wars and MMOs in general, so kindly use small words for your explanations .

Thanks in advance for the help guys!

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Hey Jon, reading the OP really took me back. In the MMO I played before this (Champions Online) I had pretty much posted the same thing. Quick question: Do you use the mouse to click some of your skills? It’s a very common thing for people new to MMOs to do (unless you come from some other CPU game like Starcraft. I, unfortunately, came from consoles and had to learn all this frustrating keyboard stuff) if so, it may help to keybind your 6, 7, 8, 9, 0 to something more like Shift+1, Shift+2, Shift+3, Shift+4, Shift+ 5.

Explore EVERYTHING! Try out WvW, try out PvP, don’t be afraid of dungeons. Never be afraid about being judged by anyone or that your performance is gonna drag anyone down. Especially don’t let that hold you back from exploring any and every bit of content that’s avaliable to you… And don’t be afraid to use sPvP (The Mists, Crossed-swords icon at top of your screen) to practice and experiment with builds. Even if you don’t go into an actual match, there’s a big playground where you can test all skill effects, weapon abilities, play around with your traits, ect with test dummies and enemy NPCs (fist symbol all the way north) you can screw with.

Also, don’t be afraid to PM anyone here who’s responded to you (and a few others around the boards) with questions or concerns whenever ya need. Really helpful bunch. I’ll post some parts of the Mesmer guide here that may help ya out… The full guide (as linked above) can be found in my signature.

Wow—thanks for the info! It’s going to take me a little while to digest, and dig into the guide, but that’s a great start. I can start to see why I haven’t been as efficient as I might have hoped.

As for the OP, I think it was important to let people know how little experience I was coming into this with. After all, pretending I’m less of a newb than I am isn’t going to help anyone

To answer your question—a bit of both. I am trying pretty hard to force myself to use the keys in order to get used to it but it doesn’t feel super intuitive. But then, neither does movement—I’ll just have to get used to it. That’s actually one of the reasons I have been trying to use Mind Stab in my opening volley: It’s a skill that I really need to be using from the 3 key or it takes twice as long to cast (because I have to place it).

I will try PvP eventually. WvW looks more interesting that sPvP to me right now but I’m sure I’ll try both. I am just generally a “campaign” and “co-op” player. Usually have a lot more fun with those aspects than the competitive mp so I am focusing on PvE for now. Definitely plan to do the Dungeons but I think I have only stumbled across one or two so far and the only one I really looked at had a level of 50-55, I think? The Nightmare Court one in Caledon Forest.

Anyway—I really appreciate the help. Looks like I have some reading to do!

Xyonon.3987:

May I ask you if you are EU or NA? And are you maybe even german? I really respect somone that gives a nice picture of himself with the nice text. I can now know what you are looking for. So it probably would be easier ingame or even with teamspeak or something. I really enjoy your wall’o’text more than a simple “hi need dmg what build shall i go? solo”
greez

NA I’m afraid. And from my understanding GW2 does not allow cross-region guesting. Shame as I would have definitely taken you up on the offer

As for the long front end to the OP, I just felt like it was worth letting people know how little experience I was going in with.

Thanks for the offer

Pyroatheist.9031:

Smart choice on sylvari mesmer by the way, that’s the best class/race combo in the game, hands down.

So, something that needs to be kept in mind about mesmer is that it is incredibly trait dependent. You’ve heard that shatter is incredibly powerful, and it is, but only if you trait for it. Phantasms can be incredibly powerful, if you trait them. Mesmer can have high condition pressure and mobility…if you trait it.

Since you seem to be focusing more on phantasms, I’d advise you to use Signet of Illusions as your third skill slot. That allows your phantasms to be significantly more beefy.

You shouldn’t necessarily shatter more than you do…I personally use shatters incredibly rarely when running a phantasm build. The reason for this is I’ll often put my phantasms/clones on separate targets, allowing me to spread out my damage significantly more than any other class can. Shattering destroys all illusions though, and it’s very rare that all of my targets are about to die at the same time.

Now for some more general stuff.

Mesmer Damage
Phantasms can deal very high damage, and they are in fact the best sustained damage mesmer has, leading to the almost exclusive use of phantasm builds in PvE. The key traits for phantasms are domination III, dueling II, and inspiration 25 minor.

That being said, shatter can also pack a punch. Shatter is much more burst damage oriented, and therefor fits PvP much better than it does PvE (while phantasms can do both). Shatters are even more trait dependent than phantasms, requiring illusions XI to really do good damage, along with domination I.

Now, clones are more or less useless for normal power damage, excepting their role in shattering, but they can be used in condition damage builds. Sharper images, dueling 15, allows all illusions to bleed on crit, and your illusions inherit all of your basic stats except vitality. Additionally, since clones use your basic autoattack, staff and trident clones both apply damaging conditions, and sword clones will apply vulnerability AND strip boons.

Your general damage combo is pretty good. When you use temporal curtain (not sure if you already do) make sure you place it in a creative spot that allows you to group up all your enemies effectively. Keep in mind that you can use that detonation of it while casting other skills, so I’ll generally drop the curtain, start casting iWarden, and detonate the curtain mid-cast, before going into leap/swap+blurred frenzy.

As far as feedback goes, try to save it for when you actually need it. The combo finisher only applies confusion, and that really doesn’t do anything at all in PvE (a f ull list of combo finishers can be found here).

With regards to guides/help, there’s quite a few fantastic resources available to you.

• The official guild wars 2 wiki
  • Most of the technical information is available in it, if you look
• Comprehensive Mesmer Guide: Lyssa’s Handbook
• Fantastic Leveling Guide by Kai
• Official Mesmer Forum Guild
  • This is a community driven guild that is full of helpful people that can offer advice and suggestions

Thanks for the suggestions. I am beginning to realize just how clutch the traits are. With only 10 trait point right now (currently all in Dueling) I haven’t really seen their potential in action yet.

I’ll try out Signet of Illusion as a more offensive (by way of the phantasms) option vs Mirror Images (at least how I was using it).

kingsman.3179:

I’m with maxinion, Kai’s leveling builds https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-Kai-s-Complete-PvE-Compendium/first#post2848334 are awesome and work wonders. At lower levels, mesmers really don’t deal the greatest of damage (feeling more tanky than anything), but once you start getting some good phantasm/shatter traits, it gets much easier to kill things. Phantasms offer you the safest playstyle, and I highly recommend that you cut your teeth on Phantams before trying anything else. When leveling, you will want to use shatters only when the mob that the phantasms are attacking is close to death, and you want to burst it down (see Korusef’s post above).

For traits, Kai’s build offers some basic suggestions on what to use when. (My paraphrase of his work follows) Early on, you will want to consider what you already have (decoy for clone/stealth, feedback for reflects), but also consider a few extras. I recommend Blink for mobility/stun break, null field for condition removal, and that’s all I can think of atm. Again, Kai’s guides offer great advice on the “laziest” ways to level. I’m not implying that you are lazy, but Kai does such an excellent job of breaking it down for beginning mesmers, and (speaking from experience) it’s hard enough to keep track of 3 illusions + mobs + allies, you don’t need the headache of anything else

Yeah—I kept hearing that Shattering is super powerful but when I’ve played around with it it always seemed pretty weak. For the most part I was more successful—or at least I FELT more successful—leaving the summons stood up to attack.

As for the skills you suggested, I’ll check them out. I ended up slotting in Mirror Images as a defensive skill (stun break and give the enemy something else to focus on if I have to get out and heal) for now but I worry that unless I seriously micro manage it it might end up wiping some of my better phantasms when I cast it.

I’m of two minds on the lazy factor . On the one hand, I have pretty restricted gaming time so quicker leveling is good. On the other, I want to try and make the early levels/fights challenging in order to become a better player. Already I know I need to dodge and move way more than I do but as someone unused to keyboard/mouse gaming it feels really unintuitive compared to a gamepad. And I know I SHOULD shatter more than I do (certainly just before a kill if for no other reason than the fact that I am about to lose them anyway—may as well get some splash damage).

maxinion.8396:

Feedback won’t help on non-ranged enemies, so better to hold onto it for when you need it.

Your strategy is good! Keep it up. Phantasms are a great source of damage, sword is the best melee damage (and best auto-attack you have), and greatsword is the best range weapon (in terms of damage). Greatsword usage is contentious in dungeons, but for open world leveling, I don’t think anyone will disagree that it’s useful.

Higher level characters get scaled down, but their traits do not— they’ll have all the +15% damage, +10% damage, +etc etc. stats that come every 5/10 levels still. That, and their gear is scaled down, but scaled down exotic level 80 zerker gear is still better than level 20 gear.

Mesmers are notorious for a somewhat tricky leveling process— people often will say that we don’t feel like we’re really dealing damage till level 60 or so, and that might be what’s happening for you. Just keep going, and every level gets better~

If you want some more resources, the best ones today are probably https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-Lyssa-s-Grimoire-The-Mesmer-Handbook and https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-Kai-s-Complete-PvE-Compendium/first#post2848334 . The latter in particular has a nice leveling guide for exactly the weapon combination that you’re using. You might find some suggestions and tweaks there that can tighten things up, but it sounds like you’re doing things right.

Good luck with leveling! Things will get better

I’ll keep that in mind and check out those guides. I hadn’t thought about the gear/traits at all, actually, but that makes sense—I can understand why they were doing much better (beyond just experience). Thanks

Question though—for Feedback I was using it (even against enemies without range) to start fights in order to trigger the combo from Mirror Blade. Do you think it’s worth it for the combo considering it draws the attention of the enemy before Mirror Blade’s clone hits? I don’t really know how useful the confusion is—might be better to keep the enemy focused on the phantasms?

So as the title implies I’m brand new to Guild Wars 2. But more than that, this is the first MMO I’ve EVER played. This hasn’t been from lack of interest, but because I refused to pay $10-$15 a month for a game that my schedule only allows me to play for 2-5 hours a week. But then I heard about Guild Wars and solid review scores and no subscription fee won me over.

Going into this, I decided to try and stay away from forums/blogs about builds and strategies until I could form my own impressions. Maybe I would form some bad habits that would need to be broken, but at least when I DID start exploring the possibilities and tapping into the community I would know WHY people were saying what they were saying (or have a better idea, anyway). To that end, I picked the race/class that seemed thematically interesting (Silvari Mesmer) and headed out to explore Tyria.

Now—a few weeks and 20 levels later—I have decided that I have enough of a grasp of the basics that I can talk with some intelligence with the community and understand any help they provide. To that end, I finally get to my questions: what makes a good (PvE) Mesmer? Or more importantly, a good Guild Wars player generally? And what should I be doing NOW to help improve (both my skill as a player and goals I should be working towards for the character)?

So, based on observation and some party chat my understanding is that the majority of the damage that the Mesmer can deal is focused in their phantasms (and, notably, not clones). To that end, I have been running a Greatsword and Sword/Focus set with Feedback and Decoy (don’t know what to do with my brand new third skill slot yet—unlocked it just yesterday).

My general strategy has been to drop Feedback onto a ranged enemy (or the biggest, if none are ranged)> Mirror Blade> Mind Stab> Phantasmal Berserker, then switch weapons and use Temporal Curtain> Illusionary Leap x2>Phantasmal Warden. Blurred Frenzy, Mirror and decoy as needed defensively, switching to Greatsword when at range (usually after retreating as far as possible to heal up and letting the Phantasms draw some fire).

This SEEMS like a solid strategy to me but it seems much less efficient at dispatching enemies than what I have seen other higher level characters do in Heart Quests and Dynamic Events (considering the level scales down their level shouldn’t matter, right?). Am I missing something? I know I am probably missing some potential as I almost never shatter my illusions as I want them around to distract incase I have to retreat. Are other builds more ideal for lower-level PvE content? Or am I just not playing it right?

I will say that I realize that there will likely not be one “best” spec for a character, but I would like to know what people enjoy running and what is relatively newb friendly. I also want to note that I DID look around before posting and found several threads asking similar questions to mine, but decided to post a new one because A—my experience level with MMO’s may change some of your answers as I don’t have as much of a frame of reference and B—there seemed to be wildly different answers to similar questions across the threads as the game continues to be patched and balanced (Greatsword seems to be where the most contention comes in, though I am really enjoying it). Looking for a fresher perspective from active players.