Guild Wars 2

Yeah. The game I’m in right now has a condi mesmer on the other team, and when I look at my death recap it’s like “LOL 26k confusion” haha.

So far definitely having a better time today trying out that build. Compared to some MMOs, and some classes even in GW2, this is very much so less straightforward (fun, when it works! but far and away more difficult to pick up) between the class mechanics and all the little tricks added via traits.

I’m noticing I seem to get wrecked pretty hard by Conditions. Is that a weak point to this build, or am I missing something?

Thanks for the replies! I’ve yet to give all of this a read – just woke up – but I’ll definitely do so.

I’m sure I might learn better in a more structured environment than practice, but I thought I might be able to just get a very basic understanding of playing against other players. My only experiences in the past have been roaming as a Thief in WvW, which A) it takes way too long to find someone most of the time I’m extremely poor in GW2 so my gear isn’t really up to par.

Silverkey.2078:

I think in general, a good advice before jumping into the mess of a PvP fight, try on a smaller scale. If you know someone in-game, try dueling. If you don’t, try to join a guild and find help from them.
Spectating some PvP maps can be useful also, though I think it usually goes too fast to be able to get what is going on when you’re not used to it (actually sometimes even after :p ). But really dueling is a very good way to learn your class and how to handle the enemy class.

I don’t really know anyone, no. I haven’t played in nearly a year. I have tried spectating though, but yeah, it’s a little hard to follow.

I’ve just been messing around in practice mode or whatever it’s called? Despite winning some matches, and going a few without dying much and with a huge number for my contribution to my team’s victory, I don’t feel as though I’m contributing at all (capping nodes, etc. isn’t the part I’m having trouble with!)

As for the build, I was trying this: http://intothemists.com/guides/5518-shatter_mesmer

More or less just picked out a build that used weapons I like, Shatters, and seemed alright. I realize it’s tagged WvW, but I think there’s very strongly a l2p issue here more than anything.

Like I said above, I’ve by no means been terribly successful PvPing on other classes in GW2 either, but the Mesmer definitely seems less straightforward than my other two characters. And that’s fine, I don’t mind a learning curve. I’m mostly concerned at the moment with the simple fact that I can’t ever seem to actually make use of my illusions.

Never PVPed before, never played Mesmer before and while I realize I shouldn’t just waltz into PVP and stomp people I’m honestly at a complete loss.

Even on Guardian or Thief, I’m utterly clueless about PVP. And I don’t mean doing the objectives, I mean actually fighting someone else. I don’t do anywhere near the amount of damage I’m receiving, nor am I recovering anywhere near the amount of health I see other people recovering.

General advice is absolutely welcome, but in line with the topic title I’m wondering how in the heck to play a Mesmer here. I cannot seem to get more than one illusion up at once. My illusions die or vanish the second they appear (I don’t know what the deal is; even if I’m fighting someone 1v1 and they completely ignore my illusions, my illusions just up and die).

Needless to say, I don’t understand what the heck I’m supposed to be doing, then. Shatters are pretty much the entirety of the damage I’ve been dealing in PvE thus far, but I can’t manage to use them whatsoever, my illusions simply aren’t there when I need them, or at all, ever.

I haven’t played the game in ages and I’m not sure where to begin. At the moment I don’t even have a gold to my name. I’m in a full set of exotic armour (a mix of soldier, knight, and cavalier, IDK) filled with superior runes of strength and the only weapons I have are a greatsword and hammer (I like both).

With the changes to the trait system, I’m at a bit of a loss. I’ve searched a few builds to get an idea, but I’d really like to stick with my runes of strength because the prices on runes are ridiculous. How can I get the most out of this setup?

Thanks! I wasn’t playing at the time of the update, so I wasn’t sure.

Lame.

Old patch at this point, but I just noticed one of my characters has a single transmutation stone left. Since the exchange rate is 3 stones = 1 charge, is there actually not anything that I can do with it?

P.S. As someone prone to playing alts in every MMO, it sucks that I don’t have a stash of pre-80 stones for use solely on my mid-level characters. I don’t like seeing the same 3 models recycled for every piece of armour from 1-80, but I’m definitely not wasting transmute charges on this.

Has there been any word on if and when ANet is going to allow us to disable the tracker at the top right corner of ours screen?

I’ve done the personal story once. I don’t care about it anymore. There are plenty of things about this game that I enjoy, but the personal story wasn’t one of them.

Just let us enable/disable all of the clutter trackers from our screen already. Dailies, monthlies, personal story, living story. I don’t want any of it, and while I’m sure some people do, that doesn’t excuse the inability to choose whether or not we want that information shoved in our face.

That’s odd. The tooltip is wrong, then?

Am I reading it wrong, or does the Patience trait grant 1 initiative every 10 seconds? i.e. It’s “Quick Recovery” or Infiltrator’s Signet, but only happens while stealthed?

I apologize if there are topics on this, but the word patience doesn’t exactly bring in narrow search results. Maybe I just didn’t look hard enough, but in any case…

What’s the point of this trait? You can’t maintain stealth for long, and unless I’m ignorant to some huge exploit after the nerf to Infusion of Shadow (did that also affect Hidden Assassin, by the way? I build might stacks, but not per application of stealth, simply every few seconds while stealthed)

I don’t get it, I suppose. I’m running Infusion of Shadow regardless because regaining 2 initiative every time I use Cloak and Dagger seems way, way more useful than regaining 1 initiative every 10 seconds when I’m only stealthed for ~20 seconds at a time, tops, and by way of stacking Shadow Refuge, Hide in Shadows, Blinding Powder/Heartseeker, and whatever other cooldowns grant stealth.

When I logged on today I didn’t notice any notification for the living story, etc. Curious how to, y’know, do that stuff? Over the last few months I’ve logged on occasionally, but it looks like to actually get anything out of the living story you’ll have to be a very active player. By that I don’t mean putting countless hours into the game necessarily, but rather just playing on a daily basis.

I guess a big part of my discouragement from doing anything at 80 is that every time I take a step away from GW2, I come back a month later to everything being different and no clue where to begin again.

P.S. Soloing dungeons sounds like a neat time, but I know they’re certainly not designed with the intention of soloing, and your level scales down (loosely related, it always bothered me that you’re forced to level sync in the open world). Out of curiousity, which dungeons would you say are “soloable”? I mostly play a Guardian, by the way, and that’s my only level 80.

Hard to say really. I have no interest in crafting, and the time I’ve spent in wvw amounted to zergs which I didn’t enjoy or nothing going on whatsoever because there aren’t many players participating at the time.

Fractals are moderately of interest, though I think I’d rather do the other dungeons (hooray for cosmetic gear). That said, the idea of running the exact same dungeon a ridiculous number of times to amass enough tokens to buy anything isn’t appealing and what experiences I’ve had with partied pve has been extremely chaotic and nonsensical. Personally, I attribute that to GW2’s lack of the holy trinity, or mostly that and to a lesser extent the gimmicky feel of the dodge roll.

Should I come back? If I do… where to begin?

I’m considering returning to Guild Wars 2. At the behest of a friend, I’m thinking I just might start playing again, which shouldn’t be a difficult decision considering there isn’t any monthly subscription.

But the same question comes into my mind that I had when I left. “What can I do in Guild Wars 2?”

When I stopped playing, it didn’t seem like there was anything to do but A) Grind crafting professions Grind Orr C) Grind dungeons. And on top of that, it felt like there wasn’t a great deal of direction at level 80, like I was just supposed to know where to go, what to do, how to do it.

So I’ve been poking about and reading this or that on the game lately, and I see we’ve now got Ascended armour – all of which is crafted? And the crafting cap was raised as well? I think I widdled away what little gold I had just getting 3 crafts to ~250-300 before, so that doesn’t exactly appeal to me as a returning player. Making money has never been a skill of mine in MMOs.

Anyway, I hate to come across as one of those people saying “Give me ONE good reason to play this game”, because that seriously is not my intent, but… kind of, yeah. I’d like to play again, but I’m at a loss for what to do in the game. Too many aspects felt inaccessible to me once I hit 80, be it crafting or dungeons or just rushing around with a zerg completing events (okay, zerging isn’t inaccessible, it was just unenjoyable)

tl;dr GW2 want, what do?

Having just hit 80, it’s come to my attention that I really don’t know what to do with this character. I leveled almost exclusively using the greatsword – with a sword/torch switch – but I’m built essentially as a glass cannon.

This build

Is what I’m currently using. I’ve dropped the sword/torch in favour of swapping to a hammer or staff, depending on which I want at the time.

Basically, I’m just not sure how to build what I want. I have an idea of what I’m looking for, that being DPS/Support, but I’m having a tricky time building it. I’d like to use a greatsword, and either a staff or a mace/focus or shield for my switch.

I can’t see myself playing a build that lacks Two Handed Mastery or Writ of Exaltation, and while I don’t have my heart set on any utilities in particular, I am fond of Purging Flames (Fire Field! drool).

I hope this isn’t too specific a request, but I’ll appreciate whatever help I can get on this.