Guild Wars 2

If you’re talking about extra dialogue based on race, I rather like the fact that my character isn’t defined by their race. Like I rather like being an Asura who isn’t an elitist kitten to everyone around him. He also has little to no personality just being the “savior-hero” type character. But I’ll just chalk that down to either bad writing because the story has never been Guild Wars’ strong suit (Though certain moments had me with goosebumps. Claw Island(Tybalt) and The Source of Orr come to mind) or they just had to make him generic enough to fit with everyone’s character so he(or she) was not allowed to have a personality.

It always irks me in a fantasy setting when a character is all like "I am like this because I am “insert race here” or “I am strong because I am orc” or “Clearly my vast elf intellect is superior to your dwarf pint-brain” or all dwarves drink beer and have beards… etc etc.

Guild Wars has it’s share of this but I rather like that they break away from those stereotypes a lot of the times I love that every race can be any profession where many MMOs are guilty of making what class you can be depend on race (WoW comes to mind and is especially bad with this). The many different races are almost seamless in their existing in the world. Almost but it’s close.

It’s actually kind of weird, I’ve only seen one fantasy setting where race is completely seamless in that you’re treated no differently for having fur, scales, skin or even wings (Ivalice) and I really like to see more. Because choosing your race really should be just a cosmetic choice, it shouldn’t matter. People should just be people. Defined by themselves, not by their DNA. Well, that’s my philosophy on race in games at least.

Hazz.8109:

Since we are on the topic of power Mesmer, what are your builds? (for PvE, PvP etc)

I use Sword/Pistol + Greatsword for my weapons

My heal is Ether Feast

My utilities and elite of choice are Feedback, Decoy(I sometimes swap with Portal when needed), Null Field and Time Warp (Though I do sometimes whip out the Asura Golem elites for funsies and I use Moa for PVP)

My spec is:
Dueling: 133
Illusions: 121
Domination: 131

Alright, alright. I should have been more specific because that only helps you if you’re shatter build. Phantasm builds are still left with nothing.

Yeah, but you guys get what I’m saying. I did say Chrono can be used effectively as a power shatter build but for some reason that was censored. Even still, Chrono is better as condition.

The fact of the matter is that Chrono, being utility based, still offers very little for power builds, especially if you’re phantasm. It’s still too defensive. So as a result, I’ve no interest in either elite spec since they don’t do much for me. Bottom line, we still need a power based elite spec for mesmer.

This wouldn’t be much of a problem if anet released specs more frequently than one per expansion but that’s what we’re up against here. What can ya do?

First off, let me give you feedback from my playtesting session this Friday about Mirage: It’s underwhelming. It’s fun to fly around with the axe but it gets me killed a lot. That 2 skill needs to be an evade and axe, in general, doesn’t do nearly as much damage as sword. Why would I want to use it? That skill 3 is pretty sweet though. Mirrors are kind of janky and don’t really help in the heat of battle but otherwise would be good for condition mesmers. Mirage in general just doesn’t seem to be good at all. There’s not much of a selling point aside having a few minutes of fun with the axe mobility. I have no interest in these utility skills and I’d rather use Sword than Axe. I just don’t see what it’s supposed to bring to the table Buff it. Wish I could give you feedback on EVERY spec as I played all of them but I don’t want to type up a thing for each one. But there’s another reason I’m here. I’m sure you’ll get plenty of feedback from other folks so you ain’t losing anything by not getting mine so here’s the real reason I’m here:

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, I have a bone to pick with you Anet. You seem to think that only condition mesmers exist. Why? They aren’t even that good or fun. Here’s what I’m getting at: As a power phantasm build mesmer, Elite Specializations offer nothing for me. Chronomancer is too defensive for my tastes and Mirage is underwhelming but both are geared towards conditions builds (though chrono can be used effectively kittenter but not phantasm). What I’m saying is that I don’t want to be stuck with Base Mesmer forever, I want a cool spec but like I said, Chrono and Mirage do nothing for me. I really wish you didn’t only add specs on an expansion to expansion basis because it means I’m going through another expac as Base Mesmer.

So, Anet, here’s what I’m telling you: WE REALLY NEED A POWER BASED ELITE SPECIALIZATION FOR MESMER. We already got two specs geared toward condition, enough is enough. Power mesmers exist and we should have a spec too. Do it for the phantasms, Anet, do it for the phantasms.