Guild Wars 2

The living story just feels not epic. I as a player feel like a merc instead of a hero.
I feel replaceable, in a world that is endangered by dragons, I run around and do useless stuff. Why ain’t we going to confront them now, they will only get stronger.

Scarlet is a weak villain, she just feels random. Her character does not fit to the mastermind she is sold as. And she is no dragon. That is a weakness too.

For a year, Zhaitan is dead, for a year the Pact is rotting in fort trinity. Why did the living story ignore everything that was built up by the personal story. It does not feel like a new arc, but like a different game. I do not miss Trahearne, but I miss to be in a cutscene, being part of the story, not just part of the events.

The personal story was sold as one of the pillars, but it is gone, nothing personal at all with the living story.

I think this sums it up pretty well.

1. Living Story: It feels like an after-thought, it plays like an after-thought. It feels not consistent, giving very little motivation or curiousity about what’s going on. The different alliences are failures and Scarlet is the best villain only on opposite day.

2. The Zerg™: Creating stampedes that kill every challenge as part of the Living World makes the new content even worse. The Zerg™ is the one most horrible thing that could happen to GW2. It sucks any bit of fun out of the content. Unfortunately most new content is involving the Zerg™, and it kills the fun for new starters in Queensdale.

3. Ascended Gear: This will haunt the DEV’s forever. ANet has lost a lot of its credit for breaking the trust of many of its customers.

4. The Waypoint System: Way too many waypoints make the world feel tiny. It kills immersion.

5. The Currencies: A mistake made by many MMO’s over time. But GW2, after one year has so many currencies that it is getting ridiculous. Every event brings some new ones too. Short-sighted and bad at the same time, ANet creates inflation at so many different spots, that it gets impossible to control the side effects.

Too little too late, I fear.

QoL mainly, and adjustments, that will only target new players?

The stuff we have seen so far is as game changing as the introduction of pets not all being moved to the bank with the ressources. Sort of nice, sort of totally forgetable.

And removing the cost from repairs? A feature? Did anyone ever complain about that fee ever? It was so tiny, that I always thought the WP fee was the penalty for death.

I am sick at home and could play all day long. I have not logged in for days.

Sounds like an F to me.

Got a key once out of the sand.

To be honest, it is a fairly obvious way to introduce low chance RNG drops by implementing just another grind.
Grind sand so you can eventually have a chance to get the reward. My guess is that the new fashionable stuff is hidden somwhere in the RNG desert we now fill our pockets with.

GW2, the game that actually let’s you play, but if you want any reward for doing so, you have to buy the reward off the store, or be friend with the RNG gods…

This is in fact the least rewarding game I have ever played. ANet knows how to not motivate their players…

Hey, you don’t really think ANet would implement something new without some ridiculous grind?

Seriously, crafting professions will simply go up to 500 and than you need endless materials to craft items that are account bound…

You hate crafting? No stuff for you. You hate farming and grinding? No stuff for you.

Maybe you’ll get a 0.0001% chance to get it out of Tequatls box though…

The new Tequatl is a nice example for bad game design. It is supposed to be an open world event, but it does work like a closed raid encounter.

You can not mix those two qualities without kittening off most of the playerbase. The result, the more or less hardcore people get their stuff, then the event becomes deserted.
Some people will be there from time to time, but thanks to its setup, the encounter becomes unbeatalbe for those. In the end, noone will ever bother with it anymore…

You had this manifesto you might have forgotten.

Now we have vertical progression and I don’t see any horizontal progression at all (new skills, traits, whatever, all just a promise for the future after one year).

Now we have grinds on every corner, be it dailies and monthlies (which before laures have been optional but now will give you the best gear) or farming for crafting materials (seeing the ridiculous amount of stuff you need for ascended items). Grinding dungeons for gold or whatever, grinding achievements, the game and therefore the Devs don’t even try to hide it anymore.

We have to press one, one and one again, as auto attack still has the most damage potential. Play as you want as long as you are running around in Berzerker in PvE or you are not needed in a group.

I could go on, but you probably see the picture. People getting mad over things you made them expect is just a logical reaction.

For a game that was advertised not to be grindy, we have a kitten hell lot of it. Everywhere. In all aspects of the game.

Who gives a kitten’s kitten about other games that are grindier but were never advertised being not grindy?

The biological approach of Tengu with breasts would be interesting.

I, for one, welcome more realistic armor sets and birds without boobs.

Liked the map. Liked the raptor. Liked the setting. Events been standard, not a bad thing.

Disliked the need to identify items. Why would I identify crap again, oh for the chance to find some jewels in between. Feels like a forced gold sink, a forced time sink and and yet another bloody step in the bloated inventory managment…

Kumu Honua.2751:

I have to say that next to southsun, this is the absolutely worst update they have ever done.

At least at southsun, we got some nice backpiece for achievements (LS) and exotic loot + exotic trinket +20 slot bag for being there at the opening event.

Back in the days we were at least rewarded for being part of the bug fest…

darkace.8925:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Kumu Honua.2751:

I have to say that next to southsun, this is the absolutely worst update they have ever done.

At least at southsun, we got some nice backpiece for achievements (LS) and exotic loot + exotic trinket +20 slot bag for being there at the opening event.

Back in the days we were at least rewarded for being part of the bug fest…

That’s the wrong mindset for this thread. This thread is about content quality, not loot quality. Well implemented content with no rewards should be preferable to poorly implemented content with good rewards by everyone.

I just prefer poorly implemented content with good rewards to poorly implemented content with bad rewards.

I’d say, this game has gone nowhere in the last 18 monthes.

If things ever start moving, I’ll let you know.

I don’t know, maybe ANet already gave up.

Even the main discussion forum is hardly moving anymore. Yeah, yeah, all those people are enjoying the game instead of wasting time on the forums… Sure.

People are bashing ESO, but it is a RPG with roles, that are not bound to classes, that is what I actually expected from GW2. And it has a whole new story to tell, not just junks of crap every two weeks. And AvA, it blows WvW out of this plane of existance.

The funny thing is, I won’t even buy it, but others will. The combat is slower, but that is not a bad thing. It feels like combat, not like spamming 1, 1 and 1 again.

Nah, the feature patch will bring some minor features, maybe some guild stuff, if we are lucky. They do not even hype it, as they know, people would just be disappointed anyways.

I am curious how this game will be getting along with all the competition ahead.

Wow, 6 weeks to prepare the Living Story without any other content in the way.

And that is the Living Story now, waiting in some spot for 2 hours and nothing happens.

I totaly see how the LS improved now.

How can you blame them. ANet tells you to get rich or die trying. And to farm AP or die trying.
So people run the content for the AP, like TA Aetherpath and then say, why would I do this again. No special loot waiting, no new skill to gain, no progression at all.

The only feeling of progression is by amassing AP, grinding gold and farming for either ascended or legendary weapons (and grinding for more gold).

That is it. The LS is so abyssmally bad, that no person that has ever played any other RPG would log in for the story. Events can only entertain you for so long and leveling alts reset your ascended equipment status and therefore the grind back to the start with that one.

Why do people stop playing? Most of the time I ask myself why people still play.

LA was a free travel all-in-one spot, a central hub on the worldmap and had all important NPCs/places.

Yap, it was only a matter of time, till ANet would somehow make money out of the popularity.

1000 gems for what was free less than a week ago. GG.

The face, it must be palmed.

Honestly, this necro is doing 17k damage to you, in more than 6 seconds, and you think that is unbalanced? Because you lack situational awareness?

Oh god, this was a power necro, I do not expect necros to be DD, they are all condition damage.

Where is the logic behind this topic. You got outplayed, because you did expect the meta.
I won’t even start to tell you what other classes can do in over 6 sec…

1.1 Leveling Guide: Part 1 – The Basics

Leveling as a Mesmer is – unfortunately – not as lazy as most other classes. So before you can get lazy, you will have to make your way to the pinnacle of existence, known as level 80.

There are several stages in the ascend of a new Mesmer, and I will try to cover the shifts as simple as possible.

1.1.1 General Advice: Did you know?

Nourishment – Food:

There is a plethora of food in Guild Wars 2. The good point – some of it is dirt cheap. Why would you bother? Well, most food give a 10% experience boost (some 15%) for all kills, which will, over time, sum up. The food is actually so cheap, even a level 2 can get some off the auction house (just search for food and sort by price). So just buy it. You won’t get much food in the open world, unless you become a cook, but that’s another topic…

Nourishment – Utility:

As with food, utility buffs (from slayer potions, maintenance oils, sharpening stones and tuning crystals) also offer a 10% experience boost. The great thing is, one food buff and one utility buff will stack. They are all crafted by thier respective professions, or you can simply buy some off the auction house.

Boosters:

Boosters can further improve your leveling speed. They can be randomly aquired out of Black Lion Chests or directly from the Gem Store or for laurels (from daily login rewards). The new boosters are fairly straight forward to use and include the functionality of several old boosters. They will stack with potions/food.

If you happen to still own old boosters, here is some useful information. Combining an Experience Booster, an Improved Experience Booster and a Laureate Experience Booster will already give you additional 180% kill experience. This can be pushed by a further 100% with a Kill Streak Experience Booster, as long as you keep up with killing things.
If you want to invest real money to level, boosters can be a great help to speed things up, but they are in no way a necessity. My advice is to at least save your Laurels for gear instead of investing them in boosters.

1.1.2 What grinds my gears: Stuff

Armor:

Power is what you want as primary stat. Secondary is Precision. If both is on the armor, perfect. Leveling is all about killing things fast, this will help.
Personal advise: Armor is cheap on the trading post, most of the time, you can get level accurate stuff for about the same coin it will give you back when you sell it to a merchant. Keep your gear up-to-date.

Weapons:

Greatsword + Sword/Focus, same stats/advise as armor.

What to put in slots:

While leveling you will change your equipment – a lot. In early levels probably several times a play session. So buying upgrade components is not the best idea. You will probably find yourself running around with empty slots on your armor most of the time.
You can find some upgrade items from different sources, use them if they offer useful buffs.
Later on it is very helpful to at least choose a sigil for your weapon to help you with an area you feel lacking (probably condition removal or simply more damage).

Gathering and salvaging:

The first things you should buy the moment you earned your first few coppers are some gathering tools and salvage kits.
Gathering will give you experience and resources you need for crafting, that again will also give you experience (you can level a character completely with crafting).
Salvaging will also give you resources and will help you to manage your limited inventory space.

Nah, as we get tons of content in the next quarterly update, we will be distracted from all the drama.

Oh right.

Playing a mesmer is like:

“Kitten, I logged in on my wrong char…”

The LS was the worst thing that could happen to GW2.

By now we could have had about 4 to 5 big content releases and probably a real expansion.

All that was sacrificed for temporary bug fests.

The veteran chicken is half chicken, half dragon AND half undead.

To be honest, event chests themselves are not worth the time of the event. Lately I am happy if I get some green item out of the box. Overnerfed by a mile, but I think it’s ANet’s way to tell us, don’t do them…

1.2 Leveling Guide: Part 2 – Leveling

1.2.1 Leveling 1-20: Me, Myself and I – How to blow up the guy in the mirror.

Here we go, after wasting hours on the character creation screen to find a name that is not taken, you have arrived in the world of Guild Wars 2, Tyria.

The good news is that you are wielding a rusty little sword right now, a formidable choice. Swords will be your friend on your way to 80, so get some practice with it. Do not replace it unless you find a better sword or – even better – a greatsword. Well, you can fool around with other weapons and you should, but for leveling itself everything with the word “sword” in it is your first choice.

The third sword skill will generate an illusion – to be more specific – a clone. There are two kinds of illusions, clones and phantasms.
Clones are as pretty or ugly as you are, doing close to no damage and are as durable as ice cream in a melting pot. Sounds promising? Do not despair, clones are mostly seen as a resources for the Mesmer’s profession skills – aka shatters. More about that in a bit.
Phantasms look like you too – sort of – just without textures and more transparent. They actually do good damage and can take a hit, and they also are a resource for shatter skills.
The maximum amount of illusions you can have at a time is three, if you cast a new illusion with three illusions out, one of four things will happen:

1. If you cast a clone, the oldest clone will be replaced by the new one.
2. If there are three phantasms, the clone will replace your oldest one.
3. If you cast a phantasm, the oldest clone will be replaced by it.
4. If there are three phantasms, the oldest phantasm will be replaced by the new one.

So what to do with all those illusions? The same thing you do with all stuff you no longer need in real life – blow them up! Shatter skills (F1-F5) will cause an effect which will get stronger the more illusions you have available. While you can use all shatter skills without a single illusion, which can be very useful in certain situations, it is more often the wiser choice to cast a full shatter (three illusions) to maximize damage.

Your first shatter skill “Mind Wrack” will unlock at level 5. It is our bread and butter and what else you would put on a bread skill. It will be hard to get enough illusions on the screen below level 10 to cast a full shatter, as the mob will be pretty dead until then anyway. Remember, illusions are bound to the enemy they got cast on and will disappear the moment this enemy dies. It is therefore better to cast a Mind Wrack with only one or two illusions, if the enemy is close to dying anyway.

When you reach level 6, you will get the choice between a greatsword or a torch. This is actually not a choice, it is a test. If you pick the greatsword you have been reading the guide carefully up to this point. If you take the torch, god help you. I surely can’t. Only excuse, you found a better greatsword on the way, or on the trading post…
The greatsword is a great weapon. It is ranged, everything hits more than one target and its fourth weapon skill, which gets unlocked conveniently at the very same level as your first phantasm skill, is the “Phantasmal Berserker”.

Now that you got your first phantasm, you also got a decision to make every single fight: To shatter the phantasm or not. Sure, while the phantasm is alive, it will cause great damage, but if it dies, you have missed the opportunity of a stronger shatter. If you ask me, and you should, let the phantasm do its job once and then, with some clones around create butterflies – which means use it for shatter fodder. Later on you will get a better feeling for when it is right to wait, but for now, you should get some practice on how to shatter in the first place.

Mesmers simply have no bugs to be fixed.

dekou.6012:

“Casual” and “hardcore” are stupid terms that don’t mean anything anymore. GW2 used to be a game for skilled people without much spare time. Now it’s a game for unskilled people with lots of spare time. That’s the big shift and TBH I don’t like it.

Well the game was advertised as a non-grindy game where everyone would have the same gear level and content was open for everyone, without raids or raid timers.

Didn’t work out. ANet adapted to:

A game that is grindy where only the people with tons of time have the best gear and giant raids on fixed timers.

Looks like every other MMO to me now. So this game is for everyone who loves classic style MMOs like WoW or similar.

BobbyStein.2315:

gidorah.4960:

BobbyStein.2315:

You’ll have to wait and see how we integrated story into the release. I think it works pretty well but I’m biased. I am looking forward to the feedback we receive next week.

you also thought scarlet was a good villain.

I also know the entire plot a year in advance.

And you didn’t fix it? Shame on you. ^^

OK, things that have to happen to make story telling bearable:

1. Don’t make your players ingame characters feel dumb

Like we all know there is a new dragon. But our characters do not. This creates a big disconnect between the player and the character, breaking immersion non-stop.
A story writer could fall into the trap to think that most players are curious to learn how the character ingame discovers the truth (about the dragon), but in the end, now that the players knows about the dragon, they more likely feel like all content up to the “reveal” of the dragon is just filler content.
Actually, nothing but the dragon itself will satisfy many players. No need to defeat him, just meeting him would be enough to close the former LS1 storyline (awakening of the dragon) and offer some new chance for suspense and curiousity, instead of feeling like killing time.

2. Make me a hero

You know, your new group of random heroes (Destiny’s Edge 2.0) is OK. I do not care about them too much, but hey, variation is good. Unfortunately, the story writers have decided, that variety is no longer needed.
Every. Single. Living. Story you introduce includes them. I am as tired of dumb Braham as I was of Scarlet.

I am a Commander of the Pact, second in command (until I get a chance to feed Trahearne to the rabbits, which will make me number one), and so is every other player who has finished the Personal Story (which is sort of the story line you expect people to have completed). Now that we know, there is a new dragon (see 1. Don’t make your players ingame characters feel dumb) it is time to mobilize the troops and confront the new evil before he gets too strong.

Put the “personal” part back into the story. Make it about me, not about a brain-amputeed norn, two girls who actually need a time out and have some serious fun desperately, a nerdy kid and a pet with a pet. Let them be part of the story, but not the story itself. And give the player the illusion, that he/she is discovering things, and pushing the story forward.

3. Give me back my cut scenes

Let my character actually talk to people, like in the Personal Story. Give my character some character. Why did you get rid of the conversation cut scenes anyway? Are the voice actors too expensive?
This was a really cool feature, which I am very sorry that it is gone. Monologue and dialogue are very strong vehicles to transport a story. Giving it enough room to happen sets the important parts of it apart from the random chatter.

I could go on, but hey, I was very generous already…

Oh the irony.

People here are bashing ESO, but the truth is, the only hope for a better WvW lies in ESOs AvA.

If ANet fails to adapt to the far superior new competitor in matters of WvW, they will also fail in keeping any WvW guilds interested.

It’s a chance for ANet to improve their game.

Sorry, but this is just very, very poor scheduling.

Doesn’t ANet work with time tables? Who in any meeting would have thought, that splitting up the LS again was a good idea?

It is hard to see the LS as season, if there are more and longer breaks in the season, than there are between other seasons, like on TV. Too random.

Work with a timeline, work with a scheduler, or hire someone who will actually coordinate things for kittens sake.

Well yeah, let’s throw some snowballs from last year for 4 weeks, that is really what your playerbase wants. Doesn’t feel like this whole Mordremoth story got streched out too much at all. C’mon.

We get more LS season 2 free periods than we actually get content. What is this a competition for minimalism? And who gets two weeks off for christmas anyways?

Lazy Kai’s Leveling Guide: Updated 2013/06/27

Leveling as a Mesmer is – unfortunately – not as lazy as most other classes. So before you can get lazy, you will have to make your way to the pinnacle of existence, known as level 80.

There are several stages in the ascend of a new Mesmer, and I will try to cover the shifts as simple as possible.

What grinds my gears:

Armor: Power is what you want as primary stat. Secondary is Precision. If both is on the armor, perfect. Leveling is all about killing things fast, this will help.
Personal advise: Armor is cheap on the trading post, most of the time, you can get level accurate stuff for about the same coin it will give you back when you sell it to a merchant. Keep your gear up-to-date.

Weapon: Greatsword + Sword/Focus, same stats/advise as armor.

Leveling: Beginner Stage 1-40

Step 1: Level to 10, not much to explain here, grab every weapon you can use and kill stuff. Get Decoy as your first slot skill, Mirror Images as your second. Healing skill stays Ether Feast.

Step 2: From now on, put your first 10 trait points into Dueling, where you want to pick IV Blade Training.
The third slot skill is personal choice, I would recommend Signet of Inspiration.

Step 3: Put the following 10 trait points into Domination, with I Mental Torment as major. The left-over trait points will go into Illusions where you want to pick up I Precise Wrack (until you get a chance to retrait).
Elite skill of choice is Time Warp.

General playstyle:

Start with your Greatsword from distance, using Attack1 (Spatial Surge), followed by Attack 2 (Mirror Blade) and Attack 4 (Phantasmal Berserker).
Switch to Sword/Focus, get in range and use Attack 3 !twice! (Illusionary Leap + Swap). Time for F1 (Mind Wrack). Cast Attack 5 (Phantasmal Warden) and than Attack 2 (Blurred Frenzy). If the mob health is already low, you can skip Attack 5.

When traited Sword with level 20, things should die faster – Sword will hit 3 targets at once, so it is prefered for leveling as long as you miss the real punch of endgame gear.
Mirror Images and Decoy are both clone generators, so if you are short one or two for a full shatter, use the skills. Decoy is also an out-of-jail card.

Leveling: Advanced Stage 40-60

Time to retrait: Put 20 trait points in Dueling (I Blade Training, X Deceptive Evasion) and 10 trait points in Domination (I Mental Torment).
Switch skill slot Mirror Images with Blink. You now generate clones on dodging, should be enough shatter material without Mirror Images.

The next 10 trait points go in Domination for X Greatsword Training, after that, all in Illusions.

General playstyle:

Open with Greatsword Attack1, followed by 2 and 4, dodge to the target (dodge clones will always target the closest enemy), F1 shatter (F2, if F1 is on cooldown).
Switch to Sword/Focus, and finish off the mob.

You left one game, tried something new and didn’t like it.

Now you are back to the game you were not satisfied to begin with and praise it?

Sometimes I have a hard time to understand people…

Remember the Manifesto?

Adding some more grind? Sounds perfectly logical as progression in this game seems to be all about grinding.

I’d say yes, one more reason to not log in anymore. At least then I will not regret to spend my time with something utterly boring for the sake of doing something in a game.

On the other hand, I could become a legendary tailor, master of the needle, the hero of the yarn. That is the most heroic thing I could have ever done in a game ever.

“Take this you dragons, I stab you with my needles so that in a hundred years you will die from an infection.” See, I also use conditions in PvE, down with the zerker mantra.

The only thing legendary about legendary items is the grind. And the boredom that is the grind itself. How anyone would not love this is beyond me.

For now, HoT looks like very little content on very little space which has to be repeated to death to fill your masteries so you can see a bit more of the little content. With a hefty price tag on top.

I might be wrong, but for now, I am on the let’s wait and see side.

I am too old and experienced in the MMO genre to get hyped just because.

At level 10 you will finally unlock the ability to swap between two weapon sets – good times ahead. While one of the sets will be the greatsword, your second set should consist of a sword and a focus. You might have expected a sword in the offhand too, as I said everything sword it good, and yes, a second sword would be a good choice, but for leveling, the focus is simply better. Especially the skill “Temporal Curtain” which gives you swiftness is great. Besides making you run faster it also has many other uses.

Now that you can swap weapons, it will be fairly easy to produce enough illusions for a full shatter. General rule is:

Start with greatsword skill 1 (Spatial Surge), skill 2 (Mirror Blade, your clone generator) and skill 4 (Phantasmal Berserker), swap to sword/focus and cast skill 3 (Illusionary Leap, your second clone generator) which gives you a full shatter for F1 (Mind Wrack).

Now you still have your focus phantasm left, which gives you some nice damage for the time when your shatter is on cooldown. The sword is also preferable in melee range as it does more damage, which is why we start the fight with the greatsword and then swap to the sword/focus and not the other way around.

At level 11 two things are happening. Firstly, you get your second shatter skill, “Cry of Frustration”. It is called that way because you are mad that Mind Wrack is on cooldown and you have to use this inferior shatter to cause damage. But until level 21, you can mostly ignore this skill.
Secondly, you can now pick your first utility skill. My personal advice is to spend four points into “Signet Training” to get both, “Signet of the Ether” – your new healing skill, and “Signet of Inspiration” – your first utility skill.

Signet of the Ether will give you some passive healing, a good base heal and a way to reset your phantasm timers. So even if you do no need healing, you can use this skill to greatly buff your damage. Signet of Inspiration is very nice, as it gives you swiftness and together with the focus you can have permanent swiftness uptime.

At level 15 and again at level 19 you will unlock your next shatter skills and a utility slot. The two shatter skills “Diversion” and “Distortion” are only of very limited use for leveling, so I will skip them for now.
Your second utility skill should be “Blink” which is to be found under “Manipulation Training” and your third the “Signet of Illusions” from “Signet Training”.
Blink is just awesome. Getting out of tight spots never was easier and you can also use it to get faster from A to B. Signet of the illusion keeps your illusions alive a bit longer which is not bad, but the main reason we are picking this signet is the active part. Being able to reset shatters will be very useful later on, especially when you start producing even more clones with the upcoming traits.

1.2.3 Leveling 45-70: Leveling 45-70: Nothing but an illusion, until it blows up in your face.

So you made it this far. Good. Level 45 offers you another choice to make. Which trait line will you unlock next? If you want to make the choice by yourself, go ahead, if you want to make the right choice, read on.

The best choice (with exception of all others) would be investing heavily into Illusions. You will benefit greatly from the minor traits Illusionists Celerity and Master of Misdirection as well as getting a serious amount of extra punch from the major traits.
The traits you want to pick are Compounding Power (adept), Shattered Strength (master) and Master of Fragmentation (grandmaster). With Illusions as second trait line, you will generate illusions faster, have a shorter cool-down on shatters and hit harder than ever before. A win-win-win situation, especially for the play-style we use with this leveling guide.

Not much more to say here, all you need is to safe up 52 hero points for level 71. Depending on your focus (PvE/WvW) you should have enough hero points to spare for getting Time Warp by now. If not, remember that filling up trait lines as soon as they unlock should be your Nr. 1 priority.

1.2.4 Leveling 71-80: All good things come to an end.

If you have been following this guide and reached 71 by blindly accepting my questionable decisions, you will have at least 52 hero points to spare and a choice. Yeah I know, choices have not been a thing I have offered before, but it is time to learn standing on your own feet.

Luckily for you, I will give you some clear advices first. Your third trait line to pick shall be Domination, dump your 52 hero points there. Good.

Now if you liked the way you have been leveling your Mesmer the last few dozen levels, you should get Empowered Illusion (adept), Blurred Inscriptions (master) and Mental Anguish (grandmaster). Your play-style won’t change much, but your shatter damage will significantly improve.

If you want to relax a bit while playing you can also simply use the trait setup found in the Lazy Kai Build below from now on. It is top efficient in open world and quite fun. You can also fool around with different weapon setups with your free secondary set while mainly using a greatsword.

That’s it, thank you for following this leveling guide.

2. Build Section

2.1 The Allrounder: The Lazy Kai Build 2.0 Now with 100% more useless explanations!

For years the Lazy Kai Build has been a very popular build (at least for myself) and as we got all this new trait stuff happening everywhere, it was about time to give the build some love.

If you are new to the Lazy Kai Build, you will probably ask yourself what is this, it looks great(sword)! Or, if you are a PvP fan, probably not. The Lazy Kai Build is in it’s core an optimization for PvE open world play. It is efficient and simple, so that you do not feel like you have had a math exam in quantum physics every time you log out of GW2. If you like that kind of stuff, the Crazy Kai Build might be something for you, to be found here soon.

So here we go, time to sing along together!

Trait lines: Domination/Dueling/Illusions

Domination: Who wants to live for greatsword?

II Empowered Illusions: Could it be that it’s just an illusion?
VI Furious Interruption: Like a virgin, interrupted for the very first time.
VII Imagined Burden: Stop – greatsword time!

Dueling: It’s one on one (on one on one on one) tonight!

I Phantasmal Fury: It’s the hard knock life for us!
IV Blinding Dissipation: Close your eyes, give me your loot, baby!
IX Deceptive Evasion: Papa was a rolling clone…

Illusions: Is this the real Kai? Is this just fantasy?

I Compounding Power: I are family!
IV Shattered Strength: There’s a thousand clones, there’s only one of me!
VIII Master of Fragmentation: Phantasms and clones may break my bones!

Armor: Berserker for all slots, we are too lazy to search for something else!
Rune: Superior Rune of the Centaur x6. Just because it has always been that way.

Extra lazy advise: Zhed’s Armor is exactly what you want!

Weapon1: Berserker’s Greatsword gets it all done, no need for other fancy stuff!
Sigil 1: Superior Sigil of Air for more damage, and it is cheap too.
Sigil 2: Superior Sigil of Stamina for more dodges -> clones -> explosions!

Weapon2: What ever rocks your boat, you won’t need it anyway.
Personal advise: I like the focus. This is my guide, so you like the focus too.

Skills:

Ether Feast: And when I get that feeling, I want illusionary healing!
Blink: Right here, right now!
Decoy: It wasn’t me!
Signet of Illusions: I got a little something for you!
Time Warp: Let’s do the time warp again!

Most important advise for lazy players:
Go Options/Combat: Activate Fast-Cast Ground Targeting!
Clicking twice for an attack, sounds like a chore!

Genereal GS playstyle:

Attack 1: get aggro so the mob does not kill clones
Attack 2: clone (and tagging event mobs)
Attack 4: iZerker (and tagging more event mobs)
Dodge to target: clone (and closing gap for max shatter dmg)
F1: shatter

Most mobs are dead or sort of dead by now.
Veterans, just go on: generate more clones/ iZerker and shatter.
Boss with AoE damage, go with rotation, if not, be extra lazy, avoid shatters let iZerkers do the damage.

Additional skills that could be useful if you are not super lazy:

GS 3: More AoE damage if you feel the need for it.
F2: If F1 is on cooldown and you want to shatter.
GS 5: There are some mobs around and it looks like one is using a skill. Free quickness.
F3: There are some mobs around and it looks like one is using a skill. Free quickness. Used preferably if you have no illusions around.

Here we go, ready to kick some kitten without even lifting a foot. Safe that energy for potsing all the loot you got without effort.

Have fun – the lazy way!

The Lazy Kai Build

Cliffhangers in MMOs can and do work, as long as the episodes told are feeling completed.

GW2 fails at this. Ending an episode in front of a closed door? Wait six weeks to open it? That is not a cliffhanger, that is just a sad decision.

You create an arc. A meta story so to say. You create episodes that follow the arc, but at the end of each episode you give the players a conclusion. While a player won’t get the answer to the arc itself, he/she will still feel they have accomplished something.

You know what ANet story writers? Watch “Breaking Bad”. Do it.

Seriously.

Do it.

MercyKilling.8519:

Snoozey.2790:

mercury ranique.2170:

ESO is far away from being able to compete to GW2. They are doing some things right but so many other things wrong, it is at best on par with gw2, but then there is something called monthly fee that makes it far far under par.

ESO is not even close to GW2. Have you played it? The combat is so bad.

I played two beta weekends and now that the NDA has been lifted I can honestly say….

I had more fun playing over this last beta weekend than I have over the MONTHS that I’ve played this game. Combat was fun to me, and way more action-packed than this game’s combat model.

I, for one, will happily be paying a sub again once this game comes out.

ESO past level 10 is a blast. Combat “connection” has vastly improved the last beta weekend.

Why do you think ANet is preparing something big for end of March? ESO gives you the freedom of skills of GW1 combined with a whole new world to explore.

It is probably more a successor to GW1 than GW2 is.

GW2 combat has not evolved. It feels stale and boring. Zerging got old fast. The vertical progression is no fun (I do not mind vertical progression, but all this crafting kitten…).

And people jump the ESO bashing train without knowing kitten.