Guild Wars 2

For the Chronomancer,

While I disagree with what the Mesmer has become in gw2 compared to gw1 (both mechanically and thematically), they have had the power to slow and speed up since the original.

Although there were more mental based skills in gw1 (Panic, Frustration, Sum of All Fears, Migraine) than gw2, the Mesmer still had reality warping powers.

Fast Casting— “Mesmers have the ability to cast spells quickly, which can make all the difference in the heat of battle.” It is (was) the primary attribute of the Mesmer profession. Then we have the fast casting skill “Stolen Speed” which is basically the gw1 version of Time Warp.

It wouldn’t surprise me that Chronomancy is a more concentrated and refined version of fast casting. Well of Recall could be an area concentrated version of Persistence of Memory and Gravity Well could be a powerful version of Psychic Instability (although that sounds more like mental magic than reality warping, and in my opinion, Psychic Instability > Gravity Well mechanically)

Robert Gee.9246:

Wow, everyone I’m really touched to see a thread like this and I’m really glad to see everyone having so much fun with mesmer since the patch. We’ve all been working on these changes for many months and it’s a really weight off my chest to finally be able to play these changes on live.

I want to clarify though that a lot of the changes you see aren’t my work alone. While I was driving most of the mesmer changes and pushed some of the more… shall we say “extreme” examples coughmimiccough, many other significant changes (like Illusionary Persona becoming baseline) wouldn’t have happened without feedback and suggestions from other folks on the skills team like Roy and Karl as well as our dedicated team of testers.

Praise Lyssa and have fun with the new traits!

Unicorns 4 Life
—Robert

Thanks ! I definitely remember those GW1 days, my poor Mesmer would never be invited into a group.

Now about those Unicorns… are we getting shortbow soon because I would love to use the Dreamer on my Mesmer

I prefer male thief, although I already have a male medium armor (Ranger) so I have a female thief. She definitely feels more nimble too, but that is just what I think. Also, I was a huge City of Heroes player and the Arachnos organization had a whole branch of female assassins (widows)

A lot of cool armor sets are available for males too, I like the T3, Sneakthief sets but I am usually mixing and matching clothes. If I were to wear a whole armor set though it would be T3/2 human male.

Female thieves are not bad either! Some of the trench coats actually look great on them if you are not the type for revealing clothes. Currently wearing Aetherblade armor on my female thief. Usually I dye her on a darker scale, but I try to avoid black dyes (abyss and black). I like the darker purple, it’s a bit more “assassin”-y color scheme. That or dark blue.

I just hope that less coats are available. Glorious armor from PvP is a step in the right direction for both males and females. I’m hoping for Assassin armor back in GW1 to make a leak here.

Palador.2170:

First of all, are we sure of what was in that cargo? Who knows what it might have been, especially given his ties to Ash Legion. Hidden in that cargo may have been any of a dozen things, including information on things like Glint’s Egg.

It could have just had also been random trash such as spikes from WvW people. Or T1 claws. I’m guessing more on random stuff because if it was information on the egg, then it would’ve been part of the story.

Also, I think I took pictures during the attack on LA, I’m pretty sure it was him who shut off the portals. I could be wrong though I will check.

Gonna sound nit picky but it was Aeromancer back in gw1 (I think it’s still here in gw2 not sure)

But yeah, I’ve often thought about this and whether elementalist should get a GM trait for each trait lime where weapon skills were locked to an attunement but weapon switching would be unlocked as well. It would also have to disable the other GM traits that do the same thing

Charge is a warrior warhorn skill already.

If you really want to change it’s name, take a look at its GW1 predecessor, “Fall Back!” and “Incoming!”

Fall Back was also used for its speed boost (party wide) and more often than not, used to engage enemies faster

Incoming would be a better name because it’s kind of ambiguous. “Incoming!!!!” okay should I retreat or charge them? Or it could also mean you / you’re group would be incoming.

I doubt their going to change the name of a skill though.

rapthorne.7345:

Chronomancer got a skill to make them key to party content, as well as a 25% speed boost in their kit (something requested for a long, long time), dragonhunter (crappy name aside) gets powerful long ranged attacks, something they were sorely lacking.

Reaper? All reaper gets is what we’ve always had. damage. Necro still has no decent party utility and will still be an outlier of the metagame. On top of that the greatsword skills look so sluggish that to be viable in pvp as a reaper would require almost 100% shroud uptime (chill doesn’t mean jack with the about of condi cleanse)

Mesmers needed a new main hand and got an offhand. The chronomancer makes them attractive to more group content though.

Also, like you said: Mesmers needed more party skills they got it, Guardians needed a long range weapon they got it. Necromancers needed a cleaving melee weapon and that’s what they got.

Another thing, Chill is probably one of the most detrimental conditions on classes with little condition removal (Mesmer….). They also have constant application of stability in the new death shroud. Yeah their sluggish, but they have great stability and constant chill.

Why couldn’t they have just stuck with the 20,60,80 trait books and left hero points for elite specialization… I also haven’t made a new character since the NPE was released, wasn’t going to bother with that train wreck.

I have 3 mains, 2 of them have 100% map completion, the other only has 35%. I have 10 alts, who have roughly 10-30% map completion.

This is honestly really annoying. Why would they lock up content, especially something so important to the game that has been there from the start (and was readily accessible through the purchase of 3 trait books)

I think the saying, “don’t fix what isn’t broken” matches this problem.

Greatsword is still 1200 range also Blink will inherit 1200 range too, and although not buffed in an update, Phase Retreat still exists.

Necromancers and Mesmers got along real nicely in GW1 though, since both had access to some dangerous hexes. Dear Lord I can remember having Empathy and Insidious Parasite on my assassin already.

kwrpk.9235:

Legolas Greenleaf (character name King of Smirkwood)

Hey! I saw you yesterday. It took me a while to guess you were supposed to be Legolas because I couldn’t really see you’re face and I thought you were just a play on the word Mirkwood. I was a dancing Mesmer in Divinity’s Reach.

Anyway here is mine:

Well they gave Guardians traps, which was a bit random but their name kind of justifies and they gave Mesmers wells, which was even more random.

I’m thinking something more out of line, like Thanatos said, maybe consecrations? or even cantrips lol

BlazBlu Fighter #1

The Wheel of Fate is turning…. Rebel 1… Action!

I mean, they have Well of Calamity (Calamity Trigger), Continuum Shift (Blazblu 2) and Chronophantasma (Blazblu 3).
Maybe “Lambda-11”? She is my favorite, I didn’t like Nu-13.

CureForLiving.5360:

LumAnth.5124:

They seem to have powerful Mesmers in that secret society.

Well the thing about secret societies is that we don’t really know what goes in inside of them. So for all we know the Mesmer collective could be Kasmeer, two random Asura and Hobo-Tron.

Well, it was stated that powerful Mesmers (includes Countess Anise) are part of the society in a blog post I think.
Here’s the wiki link and their source: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mesmer_Collective

Also, yeah I agree, I don’t like that the group might be representative of the new elite specializations but I can handle it. I mean, they have already somewhat trashed most of the GW1 lore already, so I’m pretty used to some of the story writing they’ve been doing now.

If you are referring to Human males, I agree.

The Norn (both male and female) staff stances are great.

I only play human as well, and most are male (my 3 mains Mesmer, Guardian and Ranger). I have a little back story where my 3 mains are (great?) grandsons of my GW1 assassin.

Only time I usually play another race is on female asura in PvP (because they look cool with Orrian Lich armor) as an elementalist and my engineer, who is a Scarlet look alike.

My Mesmer is a male, but for PvP, I made a female human Mesmer for the new Exemplar outfit. She is a PvP only character though.

Chronomancy could be a skill found/taught/invented in that one Mesmer group, the Mesmer Collective or something like that.

They seem to have powerful Mesmers in that secret society.

There seems to be some massive speculation that the elite specializations are based off of “DE 2.0”, where Marjory gets a greatsword, which coincides with the integration of necromancer greatswords. Also, some people seem to speculate even more so, that Guardians are dubbed “dragon hunters” with a bow because of the theory that Braham will find Eir’s bow in the expansion, hence seeking vengeance.
If that becomes true, then since Kasmeer is a member of the Mesmer Collective, perhaps PC Mesmers will be able to learn it through them too.

I’d like to see a major gay couple too.

I think they should be a happy couple, then have one of them die to some threat, the other to live. The one to live would seek vengeance, all that. Eventually he would be fleshed out to be a “bad kitten”, serious and more vengeful type of character, a contrast to what he was when he was with his lover.

Would be cliche, but I think it will really break the mold of the stereotypical “flamboyant gay.” A gay guy is still a guy first and foremost. They (we) can still have as much passion about American football too (although I’m not into sports at all). On the contrary side, a hetero guy can be just as flamboyant too, see Lord Faren.

Sad and happy that we got shield. On one hand (no pun), we only get an offhand when we so desperately need a new one-main handed weapon.

On the other hand… I get to use Flameseeker Prophecies, my favorite legendary

Xenrocs.9468:

Those who complain about mesmer getting shield, propably haven’t played as mesmer pvp in gw1 or any spellcaster back there.

No, you switch to shield/martial weapon because it gives you more damage protection against spikes (Like Backbreaker assassins) and you are a target of one such spike, and then switch to you’re main casting weapon, which is the 40/40 scepter and focus set when you need to fire off your skills.

There are exceptions of course, like a monk staff switching for Guardian and switching back to whatever weapon set was necessary.

…. the truth is that, weapon sets work differently in gw2 than in gw1, so no point in comparing Mesmer (or caster) general gameplay in PvP about weapons.

:)

Time sure does fly by

I’m an alt, but I’m an exact mirror image of the main guy. We even share the same name, one could say that I’m one of his Mesmer clones. We have the same hair, same face, same body, same height, same skin color, same eyes, same hat! Did I mention same NAME? The only difference is that his last name is Shepherd, mine is Ellis!

But I do get most of his shinies, and I’m in a better spot than the other alts! We share the same legendary skins! I get Sunrise, Bifrost, Bolt! Heck I even have the real Flameseeker Prophecies for now (until the main guy becomes a Chronomancer cries).

Am I his clone, with Guardian powers? Or come to think of it… We both had missing parents as a child… Maybe we are twins…

Tahlkora or Alesia

Great video

If you were to use it in a team fight, which healing skill would you prefer? Brilliance still or one of the other ones?

RoyalPredator.9163:

Eww no? There already tonns of skins that ruins any kind of lore that AN managed to make at all. Don’t let the game became like Aion/usual fashion bs-mmo, where you cross furry costume dudes, etc…

Town clothes are just as Lore “ruining” as the Ancestral Outfit in the gem store. In fact, I think they actually add to more of an immersion.

What’s “Lore Friendly?” If I may ask hmmm?

A (Warrior) Sylvari with their plant-like townclothes fighting, or a (Warrior) sylvari with the ridiculous Wintersday outfit?

Ironically, the legendaries I do like, I didn’t make…

I like :
Flameseeker Prophecies
Meteorologicus
Kraitkin
Rodgort

I think are OK or better but not my favorite
Predator
Frostfang
Sunrise/Twilight/Eternity

Rest, I think are not so noteworthy.

I like the Dreamer though! I even made it hoping one day I can use it on my Mesmer.

Unfortunately, I craft legendaries for their functionality and made Bolt, Bifrost, Sunrise as a result. I am very close to Meteorlogicus though, just need the mats and the clovers.

As much as I love my Mesmer and being a total sadist to people near ledges, the most rewarding (and awful) way I ruin someone’s day is through my Ranger especially in EoTM.

If some unaware person is near ledge, I target them and “snipe” by using point blank. Yes, it’s not aoe (although it can Pierce if traited) but that makes it all the better for me. I can single out one person out of the many others and I choose that person.

I just had a game where a new PvPer refused to help downed allies.

I managed to survive a condi fight but being a mesmer, bled out. However I got to a safe spot and landed near the warrior and he refused to ress me (or was blind to me, either way). Cue 2 enemies heading for the home point where we are at and he still refused to ress even though it’s been a good 3 seconds on the floor.

I wasn’t mad, but so… Profounded by such ignorance.

His mentality was that ressing a downed = death in PVP even when there are no enemies.

I just got to thinking, of all the most common animals they have miniaturized, they forgot to do a mini Skelk. Saddens me a bit since I love their design.

Very informative, thank you.

I’m mainly a Power Shatter mesmer but I’ve also recently been using the MtD condition Shatter. It is effective in the lower end PVP (I’ve been doing lower PvP since fall now since I can’t find a stable team and I’ve been pretty casual as of lately).
One of the reasons I think it’s effective their is because people don’t expect it. When they see a mesmer, they are thinking of a power build most of the time. They blow their cleanses on the slightest conditions like some torment and conditions from scepter/staff clones because they are not expecting the full burst of MtD torment (up to 6 torment stacks per shatter, and if you generate clones quickly enough using a CoF Mind Wrack chain, they can get up to 12). It’s essentially the same as baiting someone in a power build.

Good players, however, should know how to counter this, especially since the real burst comes from only scepter block + shatters, which can be dodged and cleansed. Also, there is almost no boon ripping from the build, which power shatters really excel at and is one of their valued strengths in a team fight.

My mini Kunnavang from GW1

A mini waypoint would be fun

For the love of your (un)chosen deity, do something about Disruptor’s Sustainment

It is, by far, one of the (if not THE) most useless trait in the game. You have to interrupt an action to get a boost on healing power, of all the stats available. It also costs 6 trait points and competes with the (not so great, but still better) other grandmaster traits.

Actually, inspiration trait line itself is a huge mess, having traits that encourage phantasm builds, but the two other grandmaster traits focus on shattering.

How strange would it be if they inverted shields to be a main hand, ranged (more offensive) weapon.
They reversed the Great Sword, why not shield?

I am curious what name you are trying to get.

My names are somewhat common, they are from real life sort of.

It usually goes… (My Real Life first name) + (Common/Friend’s/VideoGame Character’s last name)

Then again, my real life first name isn’t common at all.

I’m still lost on the OP.

I assumed he was talking about elemental magic but I guess mage can also be interpreted in different ways. (I usually see other games do Mage = Elementalist, Sorcerer = Necromancer/Mesmer)

I would think GW1 Nature Rituals would be a bit far off the normal elemental magic, but it’s technically not elementalism and rangers weren’t/aren’t considered “Mages”

Looking at some old GW1 spells now, I’m guessing that some skills were in certain attributes [which could technically be in 2 elements accounting realism] for mechanical reasons, but we can never be certain- Freezing Gust, Obsidian Flame, Sandstorm, Bed of Coals and Meteor come to mind.

Perhaps Wards? They were a bit strange, and were mainly placed in Earth Magic besides Ward Against Harm. Ward Against Harm/Melee would be the more odder ones but I can actually see Earth magic protecting against elemental/knockdown and causing weakness.

I’m not sure what you mean but the Zephyrites have actually gone beyond the basic earth/water/fire/air.

I believe it was even stated in the game that their sun magic ( you could use it in the Aspect Arena ) was a derivative fire magic. (I’m not sure though, my memory is shaky)

Also, the idea of wind and lightning being blended into one element. In GW1, air magic focused mainly on lightning with ~2 spells <I can only think of Gust and Gale> dealing with actual wind power. Which the Zephyrites have once again specialized in, the power of wind and splitting it up with lightning.
Same goes for Water Magic, which was mainly ice in the original GW, even Water Trident made ice like projectiles! The only “water” spells that come out of my mind are steam, mist form, blurred vision and maybe Freezing Gust.
edit: I forgot Vapor Blade too

I hate this new Living World series.
Guild Wars 2 is a game, an MMO; not a TV show. I wish they would cut the annoying Game of Thrones wannabe type of content. They need to stop treating it like some TV series which has “All the critics raving!”
If I wanted to watch a show, I could turn on my TV and watch Supernatural.

Scarlet was right
Scarlet for president of Tyria woohoooooo
Lol…

I’m an advocate for removing Moa!

Instead, we should get this as our new elite skill!!!

Condition shatters are a lot harder to land then power shatters, at least in some of the builds I played. Usually a good torment burst consists of getting a Scepter block and mirror image + clone shatter on someone.

I like the buff though, but I think they should have added “reduced the cooldown of Cry of Frustration by x%” instead of doubling torment stacks.

Staff is not a crutch especially if you use it in high skilled situations (like backwards Phase Retreat or using it to blink to higher/lower elevation)

I use it every now and then to break the monotony of Sword + x / Greatsword shatter

I was thinking more of the Paragon Gw1 armor where it would show more skin like the midriffs.

I thought this was a good example. Like the sun spear armor too, just exclude the blatant… Nipple…

More primitive charr armor too, I tried to make a Charr Shaman elementalist but I just couldn’t get past it.

Monk tattoos could also make a good return. Ritualistic armor too

Sadly, for this to be fixed “soon”[sooner than 6+ months], then (a lot) people have to really “exploit” this…
The dev team is honestly so slow at bug fixing (or just being aware of bugs in general) unless it really breaks their game and the bug is right in their face.

I have no clue how they broke it. Maybe they were trying to stealth nerf it and wound up breaking the whole skill, cause you know, incompetence.

The normal flag impalement seems (in my opinion) to be the most modest of all finishers.

Phoenix and the store bought dragon is also pretty neutral in my opinion.
I use the mad king finisher because Halloween is my favorite event in GW1.

More docile finishers would be nice too

Neox.3497:

Either I’m just unlucky or you are lucky.
Did many sandstorms and never got that much money.

it could be your magic find %.

ummm… Teleporting is a massive aid in combat. Especially in PvP.

Mechanically, they can’t let you teleport anywhere you want —it would be too game breaking.

In fact, I believe that one of the strengths (pre-September patch) of the S/D Thief was that they had an escape teleport in almost every situation. Combine that with Steal (sadly, it seems to be bugged atm), Infiltrator’s Signet and Shadow step.

Mesmers also have teleports that help them massively. Phase retreat is on a short cooldown, if you know how to do the 180 turn quickly, it can turn into a mini forward blink (or you could select a target behind your character and it would also make them teleport forward.) Blink is almost always on my utility, which can also be traited.

Elementalists have lightning flash. It’s a good utility, but it’s on a longer cool down. It’s nice to have, and I usually have it on my utility bar almost all the time too.

It lets you re-position your character instantly, and also allows you to skip field effects like Ring/Line of Warding and Unsteady Ground (which would be unpassable unless you have stability).

I used a condition build earlier this week, but I’m too deeply rooted in Shatter Mesmer play to use condition mesmer skillfully.

If you have IE you can opt for Torment Shatter or Condi Clone. I’ve had more condition burst with Torment Shatter Staff / Scepter, getting very high Torment stacks (10 in most cases) if I get a good combo right.

I think IE synergizes with Debilitating Dissipation more because either they kill your clone and eat some conditions (even though it was nerfed a bit) or eat staff clone bolts. In theory, I thought it would be a good build, but it’s a really slow killer. Also, some mediocre survivability.
It’s good to see some viable condition builds though. I was on my Necro earlier and had faced a really good condi mesmer, we both ended up going down state, but I won because lol life steal on downed state.

Yes Bifrost does look nice with IE though.

Ignore the underline, I have no clue why it’s underlined…

Or maybe the real Mesmer? J/k

Lol I can see the amount of complaints now if they re release some of the Mesmer skills.

R.I.P Diversions, Backfire, Power Leak and Empathy. You will be missed.

This is actually depressing.
I’ve been a long time Guild Wars player and have been really supportive (most of the time).

I must agree with the people complaining here.

• I still find myself doing the same World Bosses
• WvW has been severely neglected. I had to transfer off my server because my guild (100 active players) have left to play AA. Now I’m alone in my guild
• My only PvE is mainly helping newbies, World Boss here and there, rarely going to Orr
• PvP has seen a lot of improvements actually, but this is the case of too little, too late. Also, exploits were rampant earlier in the game.

I loved the final chapters of Living Story 1,Twisted Marionette and Battle at LA with Scarlet. Hopefully they can recreate the same “epic” feeling later. But I’m starting to sadly realize that the Living Story has been a massive failed time investment for anet.

Spray N Pray.9876:

I noticed this too the day after patch day. After mulling around for a bit, I noticed that it always lost the third charge when your effective level was changed by downleveling or upleveling in a zone that is less than 80.

I can confirm this.

I have pics included, but if someone could show a video, it would be much better.

edit: I’ll do this with Mantra of Resolve instead because it has a recharge time

Take note of the level change (8 -> 9) and the mantra charges.

A year (?) old bug has returned.

Clones no longer show their offhand weapons.