Guild Wars 2

I leveled Guardian and then did a Legendary on him, after which I had tons of crafting mats. So then I just leveled Mesmer solely via crafting to 80, and then figured out how to play her.

Kind of a shortcut but after world completion and everything else I was pretty burned out. And it took kind of a while to learn to play Mesmer afterwards, during which time I looked like a complete idiot to anyone who happened by.

My FSP also has no footstep effects – it just glows and the pages turn. A minor upgrade to the visuals would be great!

boondocksaint.6529:

Dust is a high commodity low drop item.

It is now, but this has not always been the case and the current issue with this item is due to oversight rather than design. It was becoming a problem back when I was finishing my FSP and now it’s getting worse.

ANet should address the problem – just add the T6 to the drop pool of high level mobs in another zone, or another event. Supply increases (slightly), price drops (slightly), pressure eases.

Farzo.8410:

sonicwylde.2906:

So my Ranger is Lord Faren’s best friend (according to my personal story) but he acts like he does not know him on the Southsun shore stuff… so what up with that, wouldn’t he be all “bff what up”?

Well, I got the same feeling, but he’s probably busy keeping his eyes on Kasmeer.

I wish he would’ve mentioned my name at least

Seeing Kasmeer’s amazing bikini has given him short-term memory loss.

Not that he ever thinks much anyhow. Not with his brain, at least.

Does the iWarden move, and are his attacks melee or ranged? Sometimes he stands away from the target, and sometimes up close. When he’s off the target, he’s not hitting, right?

If the iWarden doesn’t move, aren’t WvW/PvP players just going to run out of range? And what happens when I pull hate off him and the mob comes after me in PvE, leaving him out of range? In which case wouldn’t sword/pistol (or GS) go better with staff than sword/focus (assuming runes of the centaur/air)?

In fact, how do I see whether a phantasm is hitting more generally? Is there a setting in the filters?

Thanks!

I’m enjoying it too. I never got into the previous Living Story events since I was finishing my Legendary, plus they were set in a cold wasteland and started right at the end of winter when I was sick of freezing snowy weather. But this one is very fun, and the setting is just right.

My only niggles are that Crab Toss is very annoying, and the weapon skins are very hard to get (no chests here, in 5 hours of play). Other than that, it’s been great.

I don’t use it either, mainly because auto-attack is so slow and because confusion got nerfed. Right now I usually go with Sw/Focus + Staff in a phantasm build with a few modifications, the sword offhand can also be switched out to /pistol or /sword. Occasionally I’ll use sword/pistol + sword/focus.

I always use two phantasms rather than three, so the third slot is open for clone – it means I have freedom to use decoy, deceptive evasion+blink, and phase retreat while the phantasms stay up and wail on the target.

…when you dodgeroll twice on your 8 foot norn guardian, then wonder why there aren’t three 8 foot norn guardians fighting the boss mob.

And yes, this happens to me several times a week.

DaShi.1368:

Archer.1658:

Ok. Phantasm build is superior to shatter build in 1v1. This is true, however that doesn’t make Phantasm build OP. What makes it OP is bad players who sit there getting fired at not knowing what to do. Blinds totally negate phantasm summon. Unless traited, phantasms are relatively easy to kill as well. Those are just two easy ways to deal with phantasms, you could spec for blocks, reflects and much more on any given profession. Hell AoE spamming works well too. People who say phantasm build can’t be used outside of 1v1 is wrong. It needs context, does a phantasm build work in WvW where zergs are massive? Nope, does it work in 5-10 Mans, you bet it does. I’m tired of people calling things OP, there are plenty of counters, use them.

This. I’ve lost against many classes until I learned how to fight them. Depending on my build, there are some I do avoid fighting alone. However, mesmers, now that I know their tricks, are no longer much of a threat. In fact, I can’t remember the last time one killed me 1v1.

Ya, here is the thread the OP started today in the Thief forum:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Request-Nerf-bunks

It’s a request to nerf any and all bunker builds.

He’s just climbing the learning curve in public. It’s ok.

You can also hang out near a couple of staff guardians since they’re going to be cranking out 12 stacks of might each every 20 seconds via Empower. I do that sometimes and it helps a lot. ^^

Meridian.8730:

Some professions have basically worthless condition damage and can’t beat a phant mesmer at all, it’s pretty much an impossibility because the chances of doing everything perfect and evading all that huge phant damage while ALSO killing a semi-bunker enemy is extremely unlikely without necro, engi, or maybe a bunk ranger.

I really loathe the imbalance.

You play Thief, right? So just use Black Powder and/or Headshot. Either will prevent your opponent from triggering phantasms.

And everyone knows Mesmers have almost no condition removal – your bleeds/poisons should work great on them.

It’s not imbalanced – you just have to incapacitate before moving in for the kill.

Also – nerf Thief in WvW!!!! Hehe, see, we can do it too!

Pugsnotdrugs.2718:

Yeah ANet. You’re missings out on loads of cash by not exploiting the males desperateness for seeing their toons in a metallic microkini.

They won’t do this. It’s human based. Metallic teeny bikini on sylvari, charr? No.

I like the “swimwear” theme idea of it, but the way they made it? Turning into tera a little bit now.
Would of been a lot nicer if it was say, pink with summery lilies, maybe a sarong, you know, BEACH and not STRIPPER.

Personal opinion on it. Don’t hate on an opinion, as I know a lot of people will not agree with that I think of it.

I think a few different options would be nice, and am guessing they’re waiting until summer to bring this stuff to the gem store.

Bikinis and shorts (various types) on hume/norn, leafkinis and sarongs on sylvari, and old-fashioned 1890’s swimwear on asurans (with stripes) all sound kind of cool.

Not really sure what to do about charr though. Maybe loud hawaiian shorts for the males and a cool 60’s-style one-piece for the ladies?

Tower Guard.5263:

It’s modeled on humans so Norn and Sylvari should be ok. The Asura get something cute. (floaties?)

But what to do with the Charr…

Cats don’t like water. Or sand, since they have to wash themselves with their tongue.

I don’t mind this, but the fact I have to stand still to channel Empower is very annoying. Usually I want it on people as we hit the enemy zerg for max effect. I start channeling it, and either move (breaking it), or noobs run past me and miss the whole thing, or people get it too early so some has worn off by the time we engage, or I cast it too late such that I’m getting wailed on by the opposition by the time it finishes.

Also, it makes my guard look like he’s straining, and a constipated 8 foot norn does NOT look nice.

Despite these frustrations it is still a great skill, just a pain in the kitten to get it right (from the animation it seems this is literally the case!).

That’s great, thanks to you both! So clone burst followed by phantasm sustain, and shatter them when can resummon, or if they die clone burst #2 before resummoning phantasms again.

Going to work on this – much appreciated! I’ve been playing guardian for months but my mesmer is still pretty new.

Actually, one of the points above made me think about phantasms vs clones. It’s a bit off thepoint, but how do good mesmers know how to keep phantasms out while maintinaing a rotation of clones? And is there any way to run a Shatter build while maintaining decent phantasm longevity?

Thanks!

dragon.8625:

No other mesmer prior to this build did stuff like that, at least not that I have seen in video’s or read on the forums. It’s things you would see a full ptv retaliation guardian do, now mesmers can do it.

Yes, I think you might be right – that’s certainly how I play my guardian, in fact was doing just that on guardian last night.

I’ll give this build another shot and see if I can get the hang of it.

Clumsy.6257:

let me add a something nobody here has mentioned: fun.
focus is better for small scale, shield for large, but nothing is funnier then knocking people off a cliff which is why i always use shield in wvw

^ This for great justice.

And all joking aside, I prefer shield offhand with mace mainhand – primary weapon set in dungeons, secondary to staff in WvW – just generally has a lot of upside for melee support.

I usually encounter thieves on my way to help the zerg. They try Backstab which bounces off Aegis, and then I pop Retaliation and Staff #3 and bail, giving their location to our side’s roamers over map chat. If they want to chase me all the way to the zerg, good luck to them.

I kind of see my guard as used for helping the main group/zerg, and thieves are not good at stopping a guardian who wants to brush them off on their way to somewhere else.

For WvW I think Staff is pretty much a given – it just has too much upside and no downside.

I usually go with Hammer as secondary since it has some nice damage, good symbol, won’t get you killed if someone uses Retaliation, and because Banishing someone off the edge of a cliff or in the JP is pure lulz.

But yeah, it’s kind of slow – best in a crowd on enemies with cripple/daze. Start with Staff, finish with Hammer. Not good in low-numbers where you need mobility – under those conditions I stick with Staff until finishing move.

So I tried this last night, albeit under non-optimal conditions since JQ WvW is a mess right now and many commanders are new. The build seems decent although I didn’t like it as much as the old pre-nerf glamour builds for use in a crowd, and it seems pretty fragile if you get caught 2v1 with no time to prepare. No blink or decoy, for example.

For zerg vs zerg it may be the best we got right now but given the choice I’d still probably go to WvW on my guardian. Before the nerf I used to go 50:50 on guard vs mesmer – they seemed equally useful. Now not so much.

Honestly I’d go Bifrost – my mesmer uses staff a heck of a lot.

But you should take this with a pinch of salt – I got Flameseeker Prophecies for my guardian, who now usually uses staff + hammer, so what do I know?

This looks cool – been looking for a way to get my mesmer back into WvW. Like the OP, I’m on T1 (JQ) and since nerf had gone back to my guardian.

Will give this a shot – thanks!

[edit – just noticed no condi removal in the build – could swap Masterful Reflection for Mender’s Purity? ie 20 10 for 30 0 – also adds Vit to the build for added survivability. Just a thought – not sure how much it adds vs removes]

I start by looking at builds already published, to figure out what other people have figured out that seems to work well for them. Then I’ll try one or two that seem smartly designed, and eventually tweak them some more and design my own stuff as the profession and my own preferred playstyle start to become clear.

In addition, I’d say that different professions have different levels of flexibility. For example, I play Guardian and Mesmer. Guardian seems to have a lot of potential builds and I can play around with it a lot. In contrast, Mesmer has a couple of weapons with broken features, and in addition it recently got nerfed pretty hard, so the build flexibility for that profession is very restricted right now – most people are using the same stuff.

I think you’re right. The problem wasn’t so much confusion per se, but the ability to drop it in stacks on an entire zerg. Rather than reduce the damage by 50%, the developers could just have altered the trait options or the maximum number of targets affected.

This would have resulted in more balanced gameplay for all while keeping multiple build options viable for people playing the professions that use the confusion mechanic. A much better solution than the giant sledgehammer the developers actually employed.

For ranged, I just use Staff with illusionary elasticity (bouncy!), since all 5 skills are decent. I gave up on GS because the zerker is busted. Scepter has slow auto-attack and confusion has been badly nerfed.

For direct damage I use sword+pistol, sword+focus or sword+torch, with blade training and knight’s/soldier gear plus a few zerker trinkets (not too many).

I use shatter with both weapon sets (deceptive evasion, mirror images, decoy), illusionary persona and mental torment.

I think the fact that scepter and GS are both a bit broken, plus the confusion nerf, has made the number of builds a bit limited right now. I’m still learning mesmer but get the feeling there are not too many viable builds, especially for WvW. Other professions are not as limited (eg my guardian could use a ton of possible builds).

Yeah, I have 2 80’s, one has 4 Ascended pieces and a Legendary, the other just has Exotics. Right now I can choose between either maxing out the first character (6 Ascended) or starting to add laurel-derived Ascended to the second. Either way it hurts one of the two characters.

selan.8354:

yeah i was not motivated to play either, thank god i am in a 85 percent mesmer guild and they all lifted me up a little.this confusion double nerf (50 percent +blinding befuddlement)really destroyed a lot for me.I always liked applying conditions, but necro is just not me at all….at least mesmer has many traits to play with, but my glam build was my favorite and i miss it and wish anet would change it back.

@ExZee: I understan your anger, believe i was there, but don’t be so harsh on the op that is trying to make use of the rabid gear…i still have mine too and am using it as i cannot just transmute everything and salvage it after working so hard for it. OP is trying to make the best out of this kittened up nerf!

I still have my condition gear in bank as well, had to replace everything to go back to shatter, overdid it and made too much zerker gear and had to replace that again with knights. And all the runes. Tried a GS/staff spec, that didn’t work so I had to rejig it all AGAIN. FInally got a decent build going in terms of effect but it is very one dimensional.

All this cost like 50 gold and it was only that cheap because I made almost all of it myself (have all crafts at 400). So yeah, I too am very annoyed by the changes to the point where now I don’t even log in. This from a player with 2x 80 in full exotic/ascended and a legendary. The devs made a big mistake and need to fix it somehow asap. No mesmers in WvW anymore – all gone.

I do appreciate the OP’s attempt to put together a replacement though – will try this. And sorry for the rant.

I haven’t logged on the last few days, the last patch broke a lot of stuff in WvW to the point where the gameplay is no longer as fun.

Instead I’m playing Skyrim or reading a book in my free time. This from a player with 2x 80s in full exotic/ascended and a legendary.

I leveled Mesmer specifically for condition build in WvW and since the nerf it hasn’t really worked as well as before no matter how I tweak it, and so I have gone back to Shatter. Then I just defaulted back to my Guardian. I’ll give this a try but the confusion change really hit Mesmer incredibly hard.

Actually, over the last few days I haven’t even bothered to log on. Pretty annoyed at all the heavy handed changes to the point where I’d rather play Skyrim or read a book.

Hi All,

I have enjoyed GW2 a ton and wanted to revisit GW1 as a result. However, I’m having issues logging in to my GW1 account.

If I have a GW2 account, are the details and login info automatically the same as for my GW1 account, or are they different? Has Anet changed the GW1 login process i any way since my last GW1 login about 3 years ago?

I thought I had the correct login information for GW1 but the password appears to be incorrect – did making a GW2 account with the same email address and linking to my old GW1 account change anything?

Thanks for the help – I have also contacted GW1 forum separately but this one is much more active.

Thanks guys/gals.

Any other paths in other dungeons that are particularly good? I always thought TA looked fun, maybe some of the others as well (HotW?).

For some reason I never got around to finishing the Personal Story, and figure I should probably do it now. I’ve leveled and geared two characters, world completion, leveled all crafts to 400 and even done the Legendary quest and a bunch of WvW – I’m kind of running out of things to do.

Is Arah Story mode fun, and how long does it take? Any other dungeons that are really good, especially particular paths? I’ve done a bunch of CoF, AC, CM and FotM but not the others – any recommendations?

Thanks! If Arah Story is boring I might just skip it and go back to WvW or try GW1, but I figure I should at least complete the game’s narrative.

Under Web.2497:

gone ‘back’ to my guardian and laugh when i get confused while mashing buttons

Same here, back to my staff guardian. I keep wondering why clones don’t pop up when I dodge.

I use the mesmer in PvE for my daily, but that’s about it for now.

Arpheus.6918:

Midnightjade.3520:

Honestly, retal and confuse were not hard to deal with before the patch and are very easy to handle now, but DPS are still complaining? Wow.

You should read my first post. I am using a bunker build. I’m the opposite of GC/DPS. And confusion is skill based. You see it you wait for a short duration. You can even remove it with condition removals. Retal is on the zerg. You cannot remove it as a ranger.

I know, and I wasn’t meaning to be rude. But if you unload on a zerg with guardians in it (and there are always guardians in a zerg since that is where they shine) you’re going to take a beating. I’m not great at WvW and even I know when to spam the retal button.

You should also look at things from the other side’s point of view. What is a guardian supposed to do, just stand there and die? The battle is offense vs defense and both sides of the ball need to have tools they can use to help their side win.

Reslinal.2359:

Kreen.3925:

Cirus.5748:

KN guilds transferring is really shaking up tier 1, I just hope that the competition is close, I don’t care who wins, I just want WvW to be interesting, and I’ve wanted this for a very long time now, even when I was on SoS and they were still winning.

This man gets it. I am surprised very few other BG posters have acknowledged the large influx of players they have received recently. Set this influx against some recent changes on JQ and we have good competition for number 1 spot. JQ needs to pull its socks up. Lets see if that can happen.

Oh, we fully acknowledge it. Without all the help we get from KN (you guys rocks!), we would have still been fighting hard for 2nd instead for 1st spot now. With all the new guilds in BG, now JQ hopefully will find some true challenges, and the ball is now in JQ’s court to decide to fight for 1st or not.

Agreed – next week should be great. And the end of this week isn’t exactly gonna be dull either!

Honestly, retal and confuse were not hard to deal with before the patch and are very easy to handle now, but DPS are still complaining? Wow.

Everyone I know with Mesmer is doing a complete respec, then learning how to play the new build. And anyone who has an alternative level 80 character with a profession more suited to WvW has switched to it.

I’ll probably be taking my Staff/Hammer Guardian to WvW a lot more often than my Mesmer unless things change – it’s simply the more potent choice right now in groups.

I haven’t even been to WvW since the patch – needed to completely respec my Mesmer which cost all my karma stash and a bucketload of gold. Now I’m figuring out how best to play the completely different build, which is gonna take a while – it’s not really a class where you can just mash buttons.

If I go back to WvW anytime soon it’ll be on my Staff/Hammer Guardian, which rocks in groups but ssssuuuucks in solo play.

The Spiral King.2483:

Some lucky guy on the TP makes a lot of money selling centaur runes for poor Mesmers. At least Engis have speedy kits, and every other class save Guardian has an IMS sig.

Yes, my guardian has three separate swiftness skills, which amount to perma-swiftness both in WvW and outside it. On mesmer, I use centaur runes and Mirror, but it leaves around 2-3 seconds without swiftness.

I could use focus to make up the difference but I don’t usually have one equipped. Since the confusion nerf scepter sucks in WvW and it wasn’t great beforehand . I could pair it with sword in PvE but it’s not great in T1 WvW, since it’s a huge zergfest.

nachtnebel.9168:

Fernling.1729:

These events in orr are very boring, which is why nobody does them.

Almost every raid in almost every other MMO is very boring too, the only thing that makes them interesting is Teamspeak.

Especially if the entire guild has been drinking margaritas. I remember doing Ouryu/BahamutV2 raids in FFXI at midnight on Saturdays with 30 guildmates and every man/woman involved was wasted. It was great. And we always won!

I just got an alt to 80 and all my ascended and my legendary are on my main.

So now I need laurels again to gear up the new character * sigh *.

I like dailies and monthlies, and haven’t missed a daily since January. My only gripe would be that the jumping puzzle monthly requirement this month is the same as last month. Moar variety prz!

And yes, I know I could just do 12 different puzzles but I already hopped around a lot last month. Can’t I just kill dragons this month instead lol?

Oinkers.7086:

I have 1 80 mesmer and the asura mesmer is just for banking items lol. You can transmute it to a white or blue item making it account bound thus allowing your other chars to equip it.

P.S. the new extra animation on kill with bolt gives a similar animation when you kill mobs with elementalist lighting attacks.

I have three Asuran mesmers, one lvl80, one 30 and one 16. I used them as jumping puzzle mules during the Legendary quest and then for extra siege blueprints, and subsequently leveled one of them to 80 afterwards.

They look almost identical (different hair) – I just pretend they’re sisters.

I completed the Legendary quest for Flameseeker Prophecies on my Norn guardian, but I play my mesmer just as much these days and she is Asuran. If I was going to do it again for one for her, I’d go for one of the flashier Legendaries since I think they show up better on a smaller model – maybe Bolt or Sunrise.

I love Bifrost but am not sure how it looks on an Asuran – it is a little more subtle than both of the above.

Actually, my Norn also has all of my Ascended items – so now I have to do that all over again for the mesmer as well, sigh.

skcamow.3527:

Nice build – for more Staff/GS build ideas take a look at this thread which is included in the stickied mesmer build list:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Ultimate-flex-build-gs-staff

Your build is very similar to this. I have a build linked in that thread as well for more ideas. The best thing about this build the elasticity trait and potential high might stacking/perma-might via GS, shatters and using the Orrian Truffle/Meat Stew food.

Thanks, I’ll take a look at that thread, and try the food.

I’m going to tinker with the armor/trinkets, switching to more conservative knight’s/soldier’s. Then I’ll test it out some more and post the results.

Dawdler.8521:

Mostly glass cannon? Ick! I have absolutely nothing good to say in small group WvW when it comes to that. They are always the ones that melt first and are a liability to the entire group (if one goes down, that’s pretty much a disaster if you’re only 5). Not even carrying the focus, a critical tool for small group WvW, is an even bolder move.

But I guess I cant really add anything to the discussion other than that :p

Yes, the armor/trinkets are still being looked at – can easily add V and T to the build. If it proves too fragile, that is easily fixed. There’s a lot of flexibility.

But the point about focus is at the heart of this build. I don’t like focus in T1 WvW because group size is very, very large and the battlefields are extremely crowded. Scepter is broken, just leaving you with sword MH, which is best used up close. Going toe-to-toe in a big zerg can get you killed very easily in T1 – it is not really a viable option in a pitched battle with 50 per side. GS can be used at range which is preferable.

RoChan.1926:

You can use TinyURL.com to make it clickable.

It’s interesting but I don’t like Mirror as a healing especially if you are producing clones like crazy. I do like the GS/Staff combo though and might also play around with this while I figure out where to go from the nerf.

Fixed! Thanks for the TinyURL tip. Glad you both like it.

And yes, for Healing you can use Ether Feast as an alternative which will still activate Swiftness and Condition Removal. It’s just that Mirror has a faster cooldown, giving greater Swiftness uptime and more frequent CR. Using EF leaves you a sitting duck for 5 seconds (I think) which is long enough for a good Thief to take full advantage.

I’ve been looking for a WvW build that combines ranged combat with mobility, flexibility and condition removal. Since my server is in T1 WvW, group size can get very large, however mesmers are also very useful in smaller groups for suppression of enemy rallies and general harassment.

This is what I have so far:

WvW GS/Staff build

The build uses GS (offense) and Staff (defense+offense), and allows for generation of up to 9 clones very quickly (including 2 on dodge from Deceptive Evasion). This facilitates Shatter, which is additionally supported by Mental Torment and Illusionary Persona.

Swiftness and condition removal are both activated by Mirror (or Ether Feast if preferred) with 6x Runes of the Centaur and Mender’s Purity. Stealth comes from Decoy (and see below). An extra bounce for both weapons is included (Illusionary Elasticity).

Finally, Utility #9 and Elite #10 are both left flexible. They can be Null Field and Timewarp for group support in the zerg, or Veil and Mass Invisibility for stealth, or Blink and Moa Morph for roaming.

Armor and trinkets are a mix of Zerker, Knight’s and Soldier’s – still messing with the balance. Sigils of Accuracy (ditto!).

I just started using this but like it a lot – in fact more so than my old glamour build. Comments welcome – how can I improve it further? Thanks!