Guild Wars 2

I agree with making Mirrors more tied to Shattering. It could potentially create some interesting skills that could be tailored to different types of gameplay.

First I would add a new ‘shatter’ to the spec… consumes all Mirrors on the field to gain Mirage Cloak. The duration would NOT scale with the number you have (as it would basically just be Shatter 4 then), but it would be a way to have on demand Mirage cloak when needed. It also has a cost of clearing out your mirrors, which as noted below would have other nice bonuses.

Then the mirrors add additional effects to the current shatters… Shatter 1 would cause the standard Shatter 1 effect for your illusions but also cause it around the locations of the Mirrors. Shatter 2 will do it’s normal effect of shattering illusions for confusion, but also generate a new clone (based on current mainhand) at the location of each Mirage Mirror. Shatter 3 could give you alacrity or endurance for each mirror shattered (in addition to standard effect), and Shatter 4 could give you barrier for each mirror shattered (once again in addition to the distortion).

Then you could also have a grandmaster trait to switch things up (which is a pretty common theme with a lot of the new elites). This GM trait would make it so mirrors no longer interact with the normal shatters (but still w/ the 5th one mentioned above). Instead they pulse confusion to a radius around them until they expire. This changes their function in to zone control and makes it so you have a non-shatter based playstyle (also probably works well for PvE dps build).

I’m just brainstorming here, but I think ultimately at the end here I agree that Mirrors just seem lackluster. Littering the playfield with a new type of illusion in addition to our standard clones/phantasms does have promise, but not as just a short lived pickup that is going to be a pain to collect most of the time.

Hey all,

I’ve recently decided to spend a little more time on my mesmer in PvE, just for a change of pace, and have settled on S/S, as I found I enjoyed that more than the standard S/P builds.

I am running pretty much a full set of Knight’s gear, but I have some Pow/Tough/Vit pieces worked in. I have a fairly high crit (about 50%) but I was trying to figure out what Sigils I want to use on my 2 swords.

I was thinking of on-crit effects, since I have high crit… but can I have two of these at once? Or will only one effect occur?

Anyway, since I’m trying to keep my cost down, Sigil of Strength is out… it’s over 6g and I’m not gonna do that for the time being lol.

I was thinking of Sigil of Purity for Condition removal (since I don’t have a large amount of it or anything), but the Life Stealing crit proc (forgot the sigil name) seemed decent too. Sigil of Air was something a friend said would be decent as well.

Anyway… does anyone have any good suggestions for what a high crit / pow build should do for some Sigils on their 2 swords?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Hopefully we can do this again next year and get 2 more of the ones we don’t have. If that’s the case, I’m ok with that. If it’s 2 per account, EVER, that is a bit more extreme

I’ve been playing around with Staff / Scepter+Torch and Staff/S+S builds lately, mostly trying to find a build set I like for dungeons (particularly in Fractals).

One thing I feel Scepter has over the Sword is defense. Yes the Scepter is not as high hitting as the sword, but it’s also inherently harder to kill. The fact that it’s ranged obviously works in it’s favor, the fact that you have a very short cooldown block skill (and can supplement that with offhand sword for another block if you want), and then the Confusion 3 skill can be very damaging if you use it properly. You also generally don’t have to take the clone on dodge trait really, meaning you can save your dodges for actual defensive purposes.

I’m not saying Scepter is better than Sword, but it is definitely the ‘safer’ and more defensive option of the two. I would like to see the damage on the auto attack chain increased some though, I think that’s all the skill really needs to be viable at this point.

Greyfeld.7104:

Berethos.4526:

Boomstin.3460:

Reclusiarh.2674:

Meant to say PvE, but the point stands. You’ll still be able to do all of the old PvE content with exotics (like we already do). But more than that, how are people making estimates before it’s out?
Anyway, if that is true, and it is about a 40% increase in effectiveness, that’s utter insanity—I don’t think ANet would make it that hard.

Lfm dungeon run , ascended geared only, whisper gear or no invite.

“LFM dungeon run, Exotic geared only, whisper gear or no invite.”

Last I checked, that hasn’t taken over the game. Ascended gear won’t either. The sky isn’t falling just yet, Chicken Little.

If you’d taken the time to read how FotM worked, you’d know that your assumption is just blatantly untrue. At a certain point, you’re going to be absolutely required to be kitted in Ascended gear with X rank infusions in order to keep progressing deeper into the dungeon.

I promise you, no more than a month after release, you’re going to be seeing a lot of, “LFM FotM, full infusion only” or some variance of that.

I have issues believing this will happen en masse. Considering how the only dungeons I see spammed in chat is usually the path of least resistance (AC explorables, CoF path 1 & 2, etc.) and the harder Dungeons / Paths (Arah expl, Sorrow’s Embrace Path 1 post buff, etc) are all but ignored. I really have a tough time believing pugs are going to be lining up by the boat load to do content that is supposedly even more difficult than the hard stuff they don’t bother to run already.

While it may or may not be true, most WvW Yaks Bend players feel that we lost a match against SoR purely because our opponent got a sizeable influx of high quality players. At the very least most admit that those transfers ruined our week of WvW. So you are going to find a lot of people on our server are sensitive to it happening again.

While we know we have the lead (and honestly, FA has their work cut out for them to make up the deficit), many people are just sensitive to highly visibile and large-ish transfers occurring mid match. And while not all the transfers may happen, you have your recruiters admitting they had a 70ish guild already join, a 100ish man guild that supposedly joined today, and I believe a 40ish guild join? And those are WvW dedicated guilds. No matter how you slice it, gaining 200ish dedicated WvWers is going to cause their opponents alarm

I find it funny, it seems most servers accuse people of hopping to the winning server in a matchup, but here on Yaks Bend it always seems our opponents get the large influx of transfers mid match…

Will be interesting to see how this affects the matchup this week!

For non Zerg farming I think Mesmer is a great class. Because of the inherent defense of our clones and abilities we have, we can focus far more on DPS stats and still be very effective in chain pulling. A lot of other classes have a harder time doing this as effectively. A solid Sword/XX + XXX shatter build will give you all the tools to be a fast and effective farmer as you get used to it.

For Zergs… yea we are terrible. Honestly though, zergs are just not fun for me anyway, so I don’t miss it. The only problem I had before was that zergs are the best way to make Karma, but now with the new Liquid Karma and Dungeon Karma, I have other activities I can do and still get it.

Personally, I’m a fan of Sword/Sword + Staff. I view my staff as my secondary weapon for either situations where melee is not safe, or for when I need to have some additional defense.

I use a Power/Precision build as well, which limits a bit of my damage from the staff. iWarlock is still very good with that build though, and I build up some decent bleed with the staff clones if I need to go that route.

In general though, my focus is getting in, getting a 3 clone shatter, Blurred Frenzy, drop an iSwordsman and swap to staff and Phase Retreat out (assuming the mob is still standing). At that point I usually just play a little defensively until I can Mind Wrack again and then swap back to Sword/Sword.

I used to do Sword/Sword and Greatsword, but I’m liking the staff as my secondary far more.

I’m not quite sure what to do with my build, I know 10/20/0/0/30 is mandatory. It’s those last 10 points I’m not sure about yet. I have been putting it in Inspiration for reduced Glamour cd’s for now.

I really enjoyed the Clock Tower, it took me quite a while to get it down, but it was worth it. If I had one criticism it would be that we need a few less people per instance of the tower. The only frustrating aspect about it would be when you had a pack of people all getting to the harder jumps at the same time.

This has definitely been the best Holiday Event I’ve ever participated in. I will admit Act 1 started a little slow, but Act 2 kicked in to overdrive.

The 2 minigames (Lunatic and Reavers) are both genuinely fun game types. I’m going to be sad to see them switched off for a year!

I enjoyed getting some lore on the Mad King finally, the scavenger hunt chains really helped show how horrible the Mad King really is. In the past we knew he was ‘bad’ but for the players he was just a fun dude who told jokes and did a fun simon says game. Now we really get to see him as a threat to the world, a fitting Holiday villain.

Of course the Ascent to Madness was fantastic as well… it’s one of the more fun boss fights I’ve had in the game so far.

I really think you guys outdid yourselves. This is dramatically improved over GW1’s events, and if I can make the comparison I think it’s better than any other MMO holiday event so far.

@Icecat I like how you compare the ‘fun’ events in WoW to the most tedius optional achievement part of this event. WoW has their share of tedius holiday achievements too, remember Halloween Masks?

GW2 wins IMO. The event is far larger in scope.

Yes there are more things to buy in GW2, but go ahead and show me all the cool free weapons we got in GW1. I’ll wait, don’t worry. I’ll probably be waiting a long time, since the only non rng free things we got were two costume hats (and we’ve already received a free hat and backpack, so we’ve received the same amount of free items already). There were also some toy items like tonics and ghost in a box you could get from ToT bags, which had to be farmed.

To say GW1 was a better event than GW2 shows you are looking back with very rosy glasses. GW1 was a fantastic event and I loved it, but GW2 has the potential to be vastly superior. I reserve the right to change my opinion as Acts 2-4 roll out, but I see no reason to believe these will somehow fall short of GW1.

1. Will you or will you not be buying black lion trading company or random number generation materials again?
Yes

2. Did you buy them in the past?
No

3. If you would not buy trading post material/gamble, would you support direct to buy weapon skins and what general price do you find acceptable from a business standpoint both as a customer and realizing that they must make money as a business?
Yes. I have no problem with keys, but I also have no problems with some skins being direct purchase as well.

4. Do you believe that future events will also be handled with random number generation to make profit based on limited time item acquisition?
Yes

5. If you believe that the future events will be handled in the same manner, does this realization negatively effect your trust of Arena Net in regard to handling micro transactions for permanent content?
No

6. Did you obtain a skin or whatever it is you were looking to get from the black lion trading chests? From the Mad King Chests?
I got 2 skins. One from Mad King Chests that was a nice surprise, as I didn’t really expect to get any skins. Another I purchased from the TP for 90 silver.

I really really hope Arena Net gives this serious consideration. It would be a HUGE improvement for the transmutation system.

I’ve also seen posts of people getting the Greatsaw after opening a single chest. It’s pretty amazing how Random is Random.

I will agree, don’t buy keys if you are expecting a guaranteed return of a skin. That isn’t how it works. Buy the keys if you want to gamble with the chance of getting a really unique and rare skin.

I must be one of the few that have no problem with the Town Clothes system. We already have purchasable combat skins in the Gem Store, the advantage of the Town Clothes is that they can have abilities. I for one am excited for the Witch Outfit (picking it up tonight). The Cauldron will be a great way for people to spontaneously have fun doing a costume brawl at any point in the year! In WoW my wife had the Foam Sword Rack item and it was always good fun dropping that down in a crowded area and watching everyone go at it.

I do like the Witch outfit, and while it would be cool to have a combat armor version of it, I’m still pretty happy with it as Town Clothes.

Everyone needs to take back and realize that the Black Lion Chest items are not the main draw of the event. They are cool no doubt (I really wish I could have a Greatsaw!) but there is SO MUCH OTHER CONTENT in the event… and it’s only Act 1!

See this is the exact problem. People don’t care about the book… why? Because it’s something EVERYONE can get easily. It’s value as a skin is nothing… you won’t stand out using it. People fail to realize that if the Greatsaw was easy to get and everyone got one with a medium amount of effort, that the coolness of it (and uniqueness) would diminish greatly.

I seriously cannot believe how many people overlook the fact we have 2 easily obtainable rewards so far, in Act 1. Devil Horns and Book. Everyone instead chooses to say “but I want the candy from the top shelf!” and focus on ONE set of skins.

I can sympathize with the people who think that the gambling aspect of the chest is bad. Because I do agree with that for the most part, I just chose not to get worked up about such a small thing. I can not sympathize with the people that think all the skins should be something that most everyone can get.

Yea, while I don’t think I’ll be able to gather enough to actually make any of the craftable weapons myself, I think it is unreasonable to say there isn’t content for everyone. Completing the scavenger hunt gives you a unique (and cool) backpack I believe, there is also the really awesome and fun Costume Brawl. And this is only Act 1, there is going to be more content to do to boot.

Just because the unique weapon skins may be a bit out of reach doesn’t mean that ArenaNet didn’t provide content for all levels of ‘commitment’ from players.

I wouldn’t say I’m offended. I am just saying it makes you look like a sore loser.

The truth of the matter is, when a server is dominating it attracts the PvErs and the fair weather people who like ‘winning’… consequently when the chips are down usually you only have the most stalwart and usually better players stick around. So it stands to reason that the Yaks people you see running around is not indicative of the force you would face when the match was competitive.

And for the record, I consider myself quite average at best. I know my class fairly well but I am sure I have a large amount of room to grow.

Meurto.8520:

Subtle.4596:

Sigh, ok man. Lemmings.

It is probably the kindest way of describing the level of play I have seen. And I didn’t say all, I said most of what I have seen so far.

You’ve sure been laying it on thick trying to belittle the Yaks players. Just letting you know, constantly trying to say your opponent are bad players and “only win because of numbers” just make you sound like a sore loser. Regardless of whether it’s true or not. But whatever helps you sleep at night!

But I’m sure Yaks will take your expert opinion on their forces ability in to consideration.

Signed,

A Lemming.

I think people will stop suggesting that Transfers played a large part in your victory when you acknowledge that they had a definite role in it.

As far as I we see the situation over here on Yaks; Friday we came out strong and did very well. SoR started fighting back and were starting to make headway. Saturday, TW and a number of other ex-JQQ guilds transferred on to SoR. SoR gains almost full map control, as well as has superior numbers in most of the borderlands at this point. Night falls and the map gets swept up at that point. You ride your morale boost from your fantastic comeback (which no matter what you want to believe, your new guilds helped with!) while we are having to deal with the demoralization that occurs from losing such a large lead coupled with being outnumbered in EVERY map by this point (due to fair weather WvWers no longer queueing in).

Ultimately it doesn’t matter what really happened. SoR was a very strong server. They are now an even stronger server. I know you like to say that this is a familiar song and dance, that every other week you are accused of gaining transfers, etc etc. But the fact is, you got an infusion of T1 quality guilds at the start of this match, during a crucial time. NOTHING you can say is going to make your opponents feel better. If we got an infusion of T1 guilds too maybe we could have felt better about our loss. You absolutely could have won anyway… but we all got our spirit crushed because over the space of one weekend your server turned in to a MUCH better one than we faced last week.

No defense is going to be able to really change the perception other servers have of the matchup. It’s nice that you can be the winning server and preach on about how we shouldn’t have given up, etc etc. Despite you having good intentions in your advice, all it does is come off as preachy and pretentious.

No matter what you want to say, the ‘evidence’ is there to paint your win as something that came due to transfers, regardless of if it’s the truth or not. Unfortunately, Perception is a lot more powerful than truths that can’t be proven. In the end, this is just a roadbump in your servers rise to glory and I applaud the JQQ guilds for actually dispersing to other servers. I’m just sad my server was a casualty in this dispersion.

I wish SoR the best in T3… I truly hope you don’t start to run in to the same problems that many of the upper tiers run in to.

The only thing about this thread that irritates me is some of the attitudes some people have on display. People on SoR seem to get defensive and think that the other 2 servers think they only won due to the xfers… I don’t think many think that. What most of us DO think is that the magnitude and severity of your win WAS affected by the transfers.

If you fail to see that a group of top quality WvW guilds transferring in while you were down helped you immensely, I don’t know what to tell you. Could you have overcome the deficit you had without the transfers? Absolutely, you are a good server and it was totally within your power. Could Yaks have potentially made it a competitive game? Absolutely. We just won’t know. The simple fact is, from Friday to Sunday, you turned from a T4 or 5 server in to a T3 or 2 server. I have nothing against the JQ refugees that transfered to SoR, you left your server for good reasons… I only hope you are as dedicated to your new server as you were to your old one before it became a mess.

It’s a huge letdown to me that we didn’t have another good match like last week, but unfortunately that’s just how the cookie crumbles. Overall, the JQ transfers are doing exactly what needs to be done. The problem is that as SoR becomes more dominant (or SoS, or Blackgate) the whole process will repeat again, until ANet does something about it.

The only thing that truly has me irritated is that I worry about the state of Yaks WvW force after this beating. Between fair weather guilds transferring off due tot he massive loss, to the potential of some of our commanders may have left, I hope we still have a decent group.

Long Story short; Good Job on your win SoR. Good luck in the upper tiers. I truly hope the state of WvW in the upper tiers doesn’t make you another HoD. /salute

Guys… I get it’s frustrating, but lets have some class. All 3 servers here are good honorable servers.

SoR is doing what ANY server with full map control would do. Do you think they should just pack up and let us take stuff back? How would that make any sense?

They have more people in WvW at the moment. That is either due to recent transfers or low morale on the other servers… there is no way to really know for sure. Sure a handful of people are posting things that are not exactly sporting, but Yaks/GoM guys are doing the same. Be the bigger man, don’t rise to the bait.

Take a step back. It’s a game. All anyone is doing at this point is making themselves look bad.

SoR will take a big step up in the rankings this next week. I wish the best of luck to them. If they picked up a bunch of fair weather players, they will shed them at the first sign of a loss. They know it too… numerous posts in this thread shows many of the community knows what may be in their future.

I’m just trying to remind you guys to keep it classy. As a Yakker myself, I’ve always been proud of how we carry ourselves. We are losing, it sucks. Lets just focus on fixing the problems instead of raging.

Good! Kill the tar out of those Bots please!

Man I hate Bots

The funny thing is, I went and re-read the beginning of the thread. I didnt see much of Yaks talking trash, if anything people were talking smack at us and mocking us for getting the orbs.

/shrug

I guess it’s time to start planning for Maguuma and Darkhaven, as that is who we appear to have next week. Darkhaven is riding high and are a tough server with a strong night crew. They will be a rough group to take on I think.

@Mara

Unfortunately you are going to see people who are a little bitter. Expectations were high on our server for another fun and exciting match. What happened was anything but that. It looked promising for awhile in day 2. I am proud of Yaks coming out swinging on Friday and making a strong effort. I was sadly working myself and couldn’t be a part of that I also think it’s awesome that SoR made such a great comeback.

However, since then it’s very apparent that SoR has an overwhelming numbers advantage right now. It’s not their fault at all… anyone that thinks it is is just being bitter and shortsighted. Yaks is a little frustrated (and I’m sure GoM is too) because every large loss usually means a loss of WvW population as well (from server transfers).

I think etsmith summed it up perfectly; be proud of your guilds, be proud of your server. You guys are top notch opponents and a good community. But don’t be arrogant, because I think all sides involved know that it’s a stomping due to a numbers advantage. If the numbers were closer I’m confident this could have been another top notch match But alas that’s just not how it flies.

I truly hope the upper tiers treat you well. With luck maybe server transfers will get closed down before you have to suffer at the hands of all the underhanded stuff that goes on up there.

/edit/ I just want to be clear… you guys didn’t win just because of numbers. You showed that last week. But you had total domination due to numbers.

It doesn’t help that the server transfers are making it hard to build a community and a servers makeup from one week to the next can completely change, making it hard to actually match servers up in the tiers they belong in.

What a disappointing week in WvW it seems like. Last weeks close match is what really inspired me to start doing more WvW, but this week when you look at the matchups website for NA, it looks like every single tier is pretty much a one sided stomping.

I’m extremely disappointed by the people on Yaks who are trying to take away from SoR’s win here. They are a solid server who I have much respect for. Sure, they have received some high quality transfers this week and last week, which probably also brought some fair weather transfers along with it. That doesn’t mean they didn’t ‘earn’ their lead. They have a fantastic and healthy attitude concerning WvW. They have some great commanders and some good organization. If we had even numbers it would STILL be a very tough fight for us, I have no doubt of that.

They obviously no longer belong in the mid tier brackets, but I will be rooting for them as they work their way up in to the higher ones. I’m sure all of us were hoping for a close matchup similar to last week, but that’s just how things are until Arena Net does something about free transfers. A server can be vastly different one week to the next. You can’t make excuses though. Yaks came out swinging with an early gambit to hit fast and hard in an attempt to demoralize our enemy… and you know what? That tactic would have probably worked on a number of servers. But SoR is actually KNOWN for their Tenacity… they called our early push and managed to dig out of that. In turn our early gambit demoralized our OWN server, as we lost a commanding lead.

I hope Yaks will use this opportunity to try and refocus our group. I’ve only recently been getting in to WvW myself, but I have no desire to leave Yaks Bend. I feel we have a great bunch of people that actually care about having a fun game and not just a soulless victory. We have a very healthy attitude towards WvW and with some growth we could just as easily be in the same spot SoR is now, running up the brackets.

Anyway… long rambling post. I will miss having SoR in our brackets but I seriously wish them the best. I have as much respect for your server as I do my own.

The game is still young and while I have trouble believing we can make a comeback against SoR’s current advantage, anything can happen. It’s not over till Friday after all

TL;DR – Yaks stop whining… it’s not very becoming. SoR has earned their lead and we should be doing our best to show them we don’t just give up when the chips are down.

@ Sirenic

That’s not a problem unique to GoM That’s a problem most servers have. I have the utmost respect for SoR’s general attitude towards WvW, as they tend to fight harder when down. Most servers it’s very easy to see a massive dropoff occur as soon as one side gets a commanding lead.

Hopefully Yaks wakes up during the week, last week we managed to keep it close. But if SoR has another full night of pure dominance it’s going to be a pretty deep hole to dig out of.

I wish I knew what happened to people on Yaks yesterday. When I logged on in the evening (prime time PST) there was basically no queue for any BG, and my guildmates said it’s was like that most of the day.

Did people think our early lead was just going to win the game after only one day? C’mon guys we can’t let SoR just steamroll us for the rest of the week! All our servers deserve a better fight than that.

Kitrick.1967:

This matchup proves server pop > skill.

Actually all it shows is that people need to stop whining after only one day in to the matchup. Yaks had a very strong first day but if all the people whining and slinging mud in this post gave up because of it, they deserve to lose.

preech.4071:

Keep posting pics you Yaks bend girls …… its the only week you’re gonna get this. An ill say it again sucker punch tactics with a run and hide flavoring is the only strat you got. I guess Yaks as a whole decided they cant beat SOR unless they have a buff, I think we oughtta be flattered SOR, I take it as a compliment that they had to organize an entire realm to defeat a realm full of players who werent even trying to begin with. But i digress good game so far Yaks ……. enjoy this victory while it lasts, this wont happen again!!

At least you aren’t being a sore loser about it…

Kind of says something if you think SOR aren’t trying, with how close last weeks game was, why would you have not brought your A game?

People put too much stock in being a ‘top tier’ server. As long as you are matched up with servers of similar ability / numbers, you are going to have great matches.

This is by far the best WvW match I’ve seen for Yaks yet. I had honestly kind of counted us out, as it looked like we would end up being a ‘close third’ place, but we are starting to creep back in to the running today. Go Yaks!

AoE farming on Mesmer is fine… there are plenty of videos of AoE farming out there already. If you haven’t watched them, I would do so.

DE Farming… yes. We aren’t as good as every class. Not all classes are going to be equal for EVERY aspect of the game. That’s just kind of the way things are. That said, people blow our DE farming issues out of proportion. There are a select few classes that are WELL ahead of the curve (Ele and Guardian for example) and everyone likes to compare to that. The majority of hte classes don’t come close to those in large Orr DE’s. Maybe they’ll get nerfed? Maybe they won’t? Who knowns.

The only thing that is certain is that Mesmers are not THAT bad off in DE’s. Roll in to a group and explode with Illusionary Persona. Toss out an iBerserker when they spawn. You won’t get every mob, sure. But you WILL get a solid amount.

People are making such a big deal about a small aspect of the game. Mesmers are a fantastic class I feel. Simply put, if the class is not living up to your expectations, you should consider a different class, because Mesmers are NOT weak.

While Ranger support is not in the best spot right now, they are still solid and fairly viable.

Healing Spring is flat out amazing. It alone is probably propping the Support Ranger up. Fast CD, fairly long uptime, and when used in combo fields ends up providing a pretty large amount of healing over it’s lifespan.

CotW on the warhorn is also fantastic, especially with the traits to make it close to 100% uptime.

Spirits definitely need some work, but they are not completely useless.

Search and Rescue is good, but probably needs some tweaking as well.

Pets can bring a lot of utility and support, but in order to make them work properly you will most likely be having to micro manage them to try and keep them alive.

My wife plays a support ranger currently. While she gets a little sad at some of her toolbox being really difficult to use properly (Pets / Spirits), overall she likes it and does not feel like a drain on our group. The only advice I can really give is to build around Healing Spring and CotW, as well as to not forget that Support does not mean “Dont do damage”… you will have a pretty good power stat with your Cleric armor set after all. Since spirits are lackluster, it makes your Utility choices more limited… so don’t be afraid to grab things like Sharpening Stone for additional DPS if you don’t want to use a slot with spirit.

Pipwin, a descendant in a long line of mesmers, descended from the ascendant Pip Tallen.

Right now I’m just using a level 80 Masquerade set, but when I get my exotic set crafted, I plan on transmuting back to this look.

I would hope iBerserker doesn’t get nerfed. It’s pretty easy to kill them, and other classes have plenty of options with Ground Targeted AoE’s that do pretty much the same thing. If the enemy doesn’t pay attention and just lets a host of berserkers swing around and tear them to shreds, they probably need to pay a bit more attention.

Fantastic info to share with us, props to ANet.

I really really hope some of the larger WvW guilds use this info to spread around some. The game will be much better for all involved if people stop piling on to the ‘top’ servers. Unfortunately it’s human nature for a lot of people to pile on to the top servers.

Huh, yea it was broken for me too. Not sure what got messed up! Anyway this one appears to work:

http://tinyurl.com/8cvqto3

So I’ve been really happy with my GS / Sword+Focus build so far with leveling. Just to give an idea of what I’m working towards:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgAQNAR8dlwzqqHVzoGaNJyJFM3yhqA2RSRplalUgbXIA;TwAA2ytEOJ1S9kyJKuMcJ4yyljLJXA

Basically a Power / Crit build, but I made sure to throw in some survivability and group utility with some points in Inspiration. My goal is to have some utility in Dungeons while still providing decent dps. Also, most likely in dungeons I’ll go Mantra of Distraction instead of Decoy.

Anyway, with all these videos and posts lately of Staff builds, its got me interested in playing that. However, as far as I am aware, it will require a completely different gearing (Condition and Precision as opposed to Power). Anyway, these builds all look fantastic in open world farming, but can anyone comment on the viability of them in a dungeon? My typical group runs with a Banner / Shout (he can’t decide which he likes better) Warrior and a Spirit based Nature Magic Ranger. So I worry about our dps in our group if staff ends up being a bit more support / defensive in nature.

Anyway, I will probably try out a staff condition build just to see how it goes, but I’d love to hear opinions on the specs if anyone has em.

Ranger pets (the dps ones at least, like a cat) do a crazy amount of damage. On the flip side, most mobs kill them very very quickly, unless you are BM specced (which means you usually do less damage with your Bows as well, unless you go pure glass cannon).

Ranger Pets and Mesmer Illusions are really apples and oranges.

One is designed to be a permanant pet. Rangers are balanced with a LIVING pet. This means that one your pet is dead you are at 80% effectivness at best, worse if you are BM spec. They do more damage and live longer, but that is because without them functioning, a Ranger is sub par.

The other is designed to be a disposable pet. Clones exist to distract and soak up hits, to be summoned very quickly, and sometimes adding some debuffs that help us out. Phantasms are clearly designed to do one or two rounds of their damage, at which point if they manage to live longer it’s a bonus. Phantasms are NOT balanced with the idea you have them as a long term turret, if we can get that situation to occur that means the odds have worked htemselves to our favor. We are meant to have them last just long enough to have the spells CD to reset.

I really think that all the people that feel Clones should be more like a Ranger pet or Spirit Weapon, should actually go play a Ranger or Guardian respectively. There is no reason to make the Mesmers defining mechanic copy another classes skills. If you like the other classes skills, well you can play that class!

@EasymodeX

Ranger pets take forever to revive if they die. Currently the only way to bring a pet back to life is to swap pets. If you swap a pet that is currently dead, you trip a 60 second cooldown (45 if you take a trait to reduce it). So you can say if a pet dies it is ‘instant’ to revive them, because you swap to pet #2 instantly. However if that pet dies, you are stuck with a dead pet until that CD is finished.

In short, Ranger pets have a very long CD if you can’t keep them alive. And a dead ranger pet hurts them a lot more than a dead clone, since the pet accounts for a good 25-30% (or more, depending on spec) of their total DPS. This is why Ranger pets take longer to die and are effected by heal spells… their death hurts the ranger quite a bit.

Meanwhile, a dead clone barely affects a Mesmers current DPS, and can be typically resummoned anywhere from instantly to 5 seconds. This is why Illusions die so easily. The cooldowns for the abilities are very short and their relative addition to our power is smaller. They are the epitome of a throwaway tank.

Since pets are becoming a focal point of this discussion, just want to make sure the info and facts are out there.

This idea would fundamentally change everything this class is. It would be like Warriors asking for pets.

Your clones are designed to actually die. That is their purpose. They do almost no damage. They have a number of traits that make them put status effects on enemies when they die. The ONLY weapon that wants to keep it’s clones alive as long as possible is a Staff.

If you get Deceptive Evasion your clone supply is out of control. With a build that has any degree of crit, you have Vigor up almost all the time, allowing you to dodge CONSTANTLY.

Making Illusions in to some sort of Spirit Weapon would make us a turret based class. Last I checked, Engineers have that role pretty well handled.

You don’t have to wait until 40 for the class mechanic to start working… it just starts getting more powerful then. Up until 40, my clones still distracted mobs, they still took hits for me, my Phantasms still did their damage / effects before being killed. And they also worked as shatter fuel when they were close to death. None of that was ineffective at level 10.

The only thing that starts changing at level 40 is that you get access to some nice traits that make an already effective playstyle even more effective. Now your clones can take hits for you, but when they die they can leave status effects on their destroyer. You can have Sharper Images to make clones provide some DPS if they ARENT targetted. You can have Deceptive Evasion to up your clone production substantially.

However their role still doesn’t change. They still are expendable and still soak up hits that would be directed at you if they weren’t there. They just do all that better. You know, the same way EVERY class gets better when it opens up it’s T2 traits.

I can’t speak for PvP… but anyone that ever thought clones would be a worthwhile distraction clearly thinks poorly of their fellow gamers. No AI is ever going to match a human… so clones will always be pretty obvious. They still bring value if they are ignored however, as shatter fuel or bleed applicators.

There are some bugs and issues that need to be ironed out for the class, just like for any class in the game right now. But the mesmer is in a good spot still. If you want to see a class that is really hurting, you should look over at the Necro camp

I’ve been a big fan of the class since we first started getting details on it way back when. I generally have found that this class, more than ANY others, illicits people who feel it should be changed in large ways. The class mechanic seems to be the most polarized of all the professions.

While I do agree there are some issues that really need fixing (bugs, our ability to effectively tag mobs in large DE’s for loot) the core of the profession is great in my opinion and I hope it’s not changed. I enjoy the relationship between the Clones/Phantasms and Shatter, I love the aesthetics of our spells, and I love the utility we can bring to any group.

Just wanted to heap my love for the class on top of the pile.

People just really want to hurry up and get their dungeon armor, so they can get on with the next part of their plan “Complain that they have nothing to do and GW2 should have planned better end game with longevity”.

Seriously though, I do agree that dungeon armor is a tiny bit excessive right now… 70 runs for a set of armor is a LOT. Especially since there are not universal tokens so you are forced to do the same dungeon. Arena Net clearly still has some kinks to work out of the system.

I agree 100000% Tokens should be universal. I don’t mind if I’m asked to run dungeons a ton of times to get my sets / gifts, but the one aspect that really makes me hesitate is the fact I have to run the SAME single dungeon over and over. There are a bunch of dungeons in the game, let me play in them and still feel like I’m working towards my long term goal!

I don’t mind the change, but with this change I feel the Token system needs a rework. Since it is now encouraged to run different dungeons instead of repeating the same one over and over again, we need the Tokens to reflect this mindset. Making the tokens a universal currency (instead of making them unique to each dungeon) would make it so that we feel like we can still work towards our long term goals (specific sets / legendaries).

Honestly I think that we should have had universal tokens from the start… with the sheer number of runs required to get dungeon sets / gifts, asking players to run the SAME dungeon over and over again is a bit cruel. Variety is the spice of life, and there are a bunch of dungeons in GW2! This will also make it easier for groups of friends targeting different sets to play together.

I have to say I’m fully on the side of EasymodeX and co. I think shatters work just fine how they are now. I know early on I always defended against the anti shatter crowd on Guru and I still think Shatters, Phantasms, and Clones all work well together as a class mechanic.

I really do think the crux of the issue is people thinking of Phantasms as a turret. There are certain viable ways with traits to make this a powerful way to spec, but also a very difficult one to manage due to unavoidable clone death. Sure, if you can get 3 iDuelists up during a fight, the damage output is going to be amazing. But I just don’t see it happening often enough to be a playstyle I would pursue.

Instead, I just view my phantasms as a single attack. Once they have performed their initial attack, they are basically dead to me. Oh sure I try to keep from shattering before my CD for recasting them are up, but after that initial volley they have served their purpose IMO. It feels like that is how they are designed as well, since their lifespan is incredibly short.

I think people are overexaggerating how ‘useless’ a shatter is, even to a Phantasm build. It is still a way for you to erase all your clones (end of fight burst? they are about to die to aoe?). There are also 2 great utility shatters (the daze and invul) that you can use despite everything else.

I strongly feel that Phantasms should NOT get any additional effect from Shatters or uncoupled from the Shatter system. If they do damage (good damage too, it is nothing to sneeze at) AND they shatter for comparatively more damage, you are just putting that one spell on your weapon on a pedestal. You make the class all about the Phantasms. They would probably have to balance this out by just making Phantasms worse all around (less damage while alive to compensate for more damage in a shatter).

I love the mesmer as it stands. I feel there are some areas they can be improved for sure (I think killing a clone should do SOMETHING baseline… and I still think it takes too long for them to run to their target to explode)… but personally I hope they keep the clone/phantasm/shatter mechanic as it is now.