Guild Wars 2

Thought I’d just add my two cents…
Like many I was excited to test the Mirage specialization. At the start of the weekend I felt a little disappointed and had mixed feelings about this specialization.

For some reason, I presumed this specialization would be comparable to the Daredevil specialization, seeing as they both add a new dimension to each profession’s dodge mechanic. I think Mirage Cloak could be improved by granting Mirages access to a third endurance bar, just like the Daredevil, so they can utilize their dodge more regularly and to greater effects.

I disliked the lack of stealth on the Mirage. Thematically, turning invisible to ambush your enemy makes sense. It would’ve been nice if we gained access to the new Ambush attacks whilst we were invisible, which daredevils are able to do similarly.

Furthermore, I feel the Mirage Mirrors could do with a bit of polishing. I would like to see them lasting indefinitely, like a Dragon Hunter’s or Ranger’s traps, so I could strategically use them.

On a more positive note…
By the end of the weekend my faith in the Mirage was restored a little.

I enjoyed being able to play as a condition-based damage dealer. I haven’t played condition-mesmer since pre HoT.

I liked how some of the Ambush skills add a new depth to existing weapons, especially the sword’s Ambush attack.

I appreciated some of the thought that went into the designing of the skills and animations. Thematically, when you think of a mirage in the desert, you immediately think of an oasis and the new healing skill actually creates an oasis, which briefly made me laugh.

Finally, this new spec made me look into not only weapons but also trait lines I haven’t touched since pre-Hot days. I found myself selecting torches, staves and sceptres, instead of swords, and also delving into the Dueling and Chaos lines, rather than the Domination, Inspiration or Illusion lines I’ve regularly selected over the years. This felt very refreshing.

On a final random note…
Granting oneself Vigor seems imperative to playing the Mirage.
This would allow you to constantly refuel your endurance and maintain Mirage Cloak and Ambush skills.
I didn’t realize till today that Vigor now grants a condition damage buff as well as the endurance restoration.
I don’t know if anyone noticed but Dueling, Chaos and Mirage might be the three trait lines to take as a build.
Amongst these tramlines are Critical Infusion and Bountiful Disillusionment for generating vigorous as well as a variety of other traits for increasing condition damage, causing conditions or generating more clones. Just FYI.

These guys here off some excellent guides for builds & equipment, etc…
They also offer rotations if you’re looking to optimize the damage you deal.
There’s also written explanations, etc..

http://qtfy.eu

Well, if we’re gonna go by ‘meta’ standards, gearing a condo warrior requires a mixture of Viper’s and Sinister’s armour, weapons and trinkets.

Both sets equipment require a unique insignia and inscription that can not be bought on the Black Lion Market. They are bought by changing various certain kinds of currency from certain maps/ zones.

The recipe’s for Viper’s insignias and inscriptions can be bought using Lumps of Aurilium. They can only be farmed in Auric Basin.

The recipe’s for Sinister’s insignias and inscriptions can be bought using Bandit Crests.
They can only be farmed in the Silverwastes.

Sinister’s equipment include attributes for Power, Precision and Condition Damage. Viper’s equipment include attributes Power, Precision, Condition Damage and Expertise.

The reason you want Viper’s stat equipment is because they include a secondary attribute called ‘Expertise’.
Expertise increases the duration of the conditions you inflict on your enemies.
Every 15 points of Expertise adds 1% to condition duration.
Essentially, the longer your conditions last, the more damage they deal.

Since the early days of HoT, my warrior has always been a Condi Zerker. I was never concerned with out damaging anyone. I was fed up with the Power builds. I wanted something different and Condi Zerker worked for me. It’s been fun running around with a Bow, Sword and Torch. There’s a nice mixture of close-ranged and long-range damage. Coming from a mesmer background (which I found particularly close-range oriented) this was a nice change.

My Condi Zerker is currently in full Ascend Viper’s amor & weapons with 2 pieces of Sinister Equipment (Shoulders & Ring). I’m not gonna lie, it took a long time to grind and earn enough stuff to craft everything, even with something as simple as transmuting in the mystic forge.

If you do plan on pursuing the Condi route, don’t bother getting the ascend recipes. Start grinding for the exotic insignia and inscription recipes and simply transit your Berserker’s equipment into Viper’s/ Sinister’s in the Mystic Forge. That’s what I recommend.

I’d definitely recommend a power build over a condo build.
Get your hands on a main hand sword with either a sword or focus as one off-hand weapons and a shield in the other off-hand. No need for two sword main hands.

This combination of weapons offers a lot, especially in utility and survivability.
There’s an awful lot of evades (Sword #2, #4 & Shield #4) and some cool reflection mechanics for focus weapons if you select the appropriate trait in the inspiration line.
If you choose to follow this advice, you’ll find your mesmer is more melee oriented than ranged, meaning you’re going to have to get close and personal with the enemy. This becomes especially true when you start using the Chronomancer runes and begin using Wells in your utility slots. To actually gain any benefit from the wells you need to be inside of them, meaning within inches of your enemy.

Equipment wise, I think you only need exotic berserker amor till you decide to start looking at ascend stuff. With all of the evades I previously mentioned at your disposal and the fact you can dodge roll, you shouldn’t really see yourself dying.

Trait wise, I’d definitely recommend the inspiration line, in particular “Wardens FeedBack” for the reflects on your focus (if you’re using a focus) and “Illusionary Inspiration”. The later casts signet of inspiration on you every time you summon a phantasm, meaning you get regeneration and a minor heal every time you summon a phantasm. I found these invaluable when soloing Heart of Thorns content, in the past.
Domination goes with this nicely for even more invulnerability as well as some conditions. If you’re not using Domination, I think Illusion would work well too.

I’ve mained a mesmer since day 1. It was tough soloing my way to level 80, especially some of the Heart of Thorns content.
I found chronomancer improved playing a lot! I felt more buff and tankier! Its a slow but rewarding process.
Don’t expect to perform damaging attacks with massive numbers! We’re more support than DPS.

I hope this has helped.
What I recommend is consulting the “meta” builds by either meta battle or quantify.
These guys normally give detailed guides as well as written attack rotations and videos so you can observe and hone your skills/ rotations.

Good Luck

Hi Nostradus, I know far too well what you’re going through as I was similarly confused as to what Ascend gear I should craft. It can be a confusing experience but also a concerning one, cause Ascend stuff is very expensive to craft so I can imagine you don’t want to waste time crafting one set only to realize some other set is the more optimal one.

My suggestion would be the following…
If this is your first ascend geared character get the stuff that is easily more accessible.
That means going full Ascend Berserker – Trinkets, Weapons and Armour.
Most other classes tend to run full Berserker in their power builds.
This way your safe if you want to swap pieces of gear between characters.

If you want to have the most “optimal” Mesmer for raids you will want to make one of these changes to the gear you choose.

Option 1: Keep the Berserker Armor & Berserker Weapons BUT Swap out 2 Ascend Berserker Earrings for 2 Ascend Assassin’s Earrings. (Keep in mind the only way to get these items is to run and complete both the CM and Arrah Dungeons)

Option 2: Keep the Berserker Armor & Berserker Accessories BUT craft Ascend Assassin Weapons instead. Keep in mind, no other class really uses Assassin weapons.

Option 3: Keep the Berserker Weapons and Trinkets BUT craft Assassin Armor instead. This allows you to keep switching weapons (and trinkets) between characters. Weapons are a lot harder and more laborious to craft compared to armour, in my experience. Again, no other class really uses Assassin Armour.

I don’t see any reason to craft a Viper set for your mesmer or a Commander’s set. With the recent changes made in the latest patch update, I believe power comes out on top?
Furthermore, Mesmer condition builds lack AoE and can only really single target stuff.

In terms of Raids, A Berserker-Assassin mixed geared Chronomancer paired with a Herald is more favourable for Raiding parties than a Full Commander geared Chronomancer and no Herald. The logic behind this is that the Berserker-Assassin does much more damage and just Enough Alacrity compared to the other variant.

I hope this has helped.

Hi all. Im gearing up for high level fractals and heard that condi gear/ builds are the way to go. Keeping that in mind, which stat is the ideal one for running these high end fractals. Would it be Viper’s for the extra Power & precision or Trailblazers of the extra Vitality & Toughness?

Thanks all for the help

Hi all. Im close to crafting my first legendary weapon. Now I knew there’d be a lot of rare material gathering but I didn’t expect each legendary to require 77 mystic clovers. Now I’ve got… 20 of them, so far. I’m interested in learning how people farm enough of them? Do you just wait for the monthly reward, do you do WvW/ PvP for them or do you take your chances in the mystic forge? If anyone is willing to share some tips, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks.

Pretty evident by the title…

What’s the ideal healing gear for druid. I’m a bit perplexed. I’ve got a full set of Viper’s for when I run a more condition than healing spec, but what should I choose for a pure healing spec?

Magi? Cleric? Zealot for the additional power that it offers? Or is there some other stat I’m forgetting?

I imagine our new elite spec could go a few ways…

I agree with others that one possible way could be a Bard themed class. Perhaps we’d gain access to a new ranged weapon (longbow, short bow or rifle) and shout utilities. Not only do these 2h ranged weapons resemble instruments but I feel like the mesmer deserves 5 new weapon skills as opposed to just 2 off hand skills. Worse case, the bard would get an off hand warhorn, cause we all know the new weapon would have to be instrument themed and atlas summon a new phantasm. Ideally all these abilities would synergies with mantras and duelling traits. I’d like to think the Dueling trait line would get reworked in order for it to be used more frequently and appealing.

Other ideas of mine include making us more similar to some existing phantasms…

The Warden specialization would include a main-hand axe and synergies well with the off hand focus and inspiration trait lines/ reflects. We’d get a nice mixture of reflects along with melee and long ranged attacks.

Likewise, the Duelist specialization would feature a main-hand pistol and focus on long ranged attacks and synergies with he duelling tramline to inflict conditions.

As someone previously stated, I wouldn’t be surprised if instead we get something like a useless off hand but receive a variety of Conjured Weapons that are based on phantasm weapons.

These have been just some ideas off the top of my head.

Thanks. I can’t wait to try them out!

Hi all.

Ive recently begun to play as my warrior on a more frequent basis. Its a welcome change after playing as the same profession for ages.

Atm, I generally only use a Greatsword and sometimes reach for a Longbow.

What other weapons would you guys suggest to use on weapon swap?

Metabattle suggests an Axe/ Mace set for Fractals, etc… and a Mace/ Shield for raids?

On the other hand, is there any logic why I should not just stick to the Greatsword?

I was in the same situation. I need to make 600 aurilium and didn’t really know how I could make it.

1. Get an Aurilium Node for your home Instance by completing the No Mask Left Behind achievement. You can easily get 10 lumps/ day.

1. Use a Ley-Energy Matter Converter, it allows you to convert Airship parts and Leyline Crystals into Aurilium lumps. It also gives you the choice to receive a free Exalted chest key each day.

1. Run around Auric Basin, doing all of the events. You’ll amass Exalted Chest Keys which can be used to open the new chests that appear at the North, South, West and Eastern watchpoints and Pylons. Also if you’re lucky to win the Battle of Tarir, open up the Grand chests for LOTS of aurilium!!!

thanks, i really appreciate the help

Hi.

I recently acquired a few Ascend weapons by completing the Specialization Weapon Quests.

Unfortunately not all of the weapons I’ve collected had the stats I was after.

If I were to salvage them, would I acquire Greater or Lesser Vision Crystals which i could use to make other Ascend weapons/ gear.

I don’t have much experience salvaging ascend weapons, only rings, etc…

On the other hand, would it be wiser to just chuck them into the mystic forge and change their stats that way?

Ryou.2398:

Versuvious.2568:

To each his own I guess.
Not being rude or trolling, just wanted to say that If you think guard is boring, then it simply means that the class isn’t for you.

I updated to thread:) I love the guardian ow.

I’m curious what kind of build & utilities are you using now that made Guardian fun again for you?

Thanks for the info. Much appreciated.

Hi. I am interested in learning what other’s think about using Commander’s armor in a Solo PvE situation versus Assassin’s/ Berserkers’ armor.

I unfortunately do not have a set of Commander’s gear, yet, but am currently running Ascend Assassin’s armor and weapons with ascend berserker’s trinkets. To give you an idea I spend most of my time doing Meta events like Claw of Jorma, etc.. wield a Sword & Shield and run a build of ILLU/ INSP/ CHRN.

Would getting a set of Commander’s gear prove valuable? Or would it be a waste of my time and I should just stick to Assassin’s/ Berserker’s?

HEARTS & MINDS ISSUES!!!
As of 1:47pm….

I’m still having issues with the Hearts & minds battle. If you have to restart the Mordremoth fight, the fight does not reset. During my first fight, I got to the point where you have to “take to the sky” then died. Upon trying the fight twice again, I discovered that:

1) Couldn’t find any wind/ air source in the usual spots.

2) The fight never reset itself. When the area becomes stormy and parts of the battle field collapse, they never returned during any subsequent retry. Instead, during any retry, Braham and the rifts were floating in midair (view the attached omg for proof). You could not reach them at all!!! This prevented me from continuing the fight!!!

I think it would be wise to make the Mordremoth battle a separate instance. After making it through two subsequent battles. It’d be nice to restart without having to restart the Chapter completely and fight two mini bosses, like I already have to each time I encounter a bug like this one.

HEART & MINDS ISSUES. As of a few moments ago.

!!!Please ignore if you have not already reached the chapter to avoid spoilers!!!

Hi. So, as of a few moments ago, I’ve encountered some problems during the Mordremoth battle in Hearts & Minds.

When I retry after getting far enough into the fight that the floor falls apart and you are forced to glide, upon failing and retrying, the floor does not return to normal.

It remains broken & missing parts. It’s so badly bugged that not only does Braham not join the fight when it restarts but he remains floating in midair with one of the tears/ portal things suspended in midair too.

It’d be fine if you could magically walk across the thin air to still access the tear/ portal thing but you cannot!

Additionally, upon retrying, it seems that Mordremoth has access to the devastating abilities he uses mid way through battle and uses them immediately. This includes the devastating electric lava field thing.

Furthermore I encountered two another bugs where it seemed my character was trapped underground (was surrounded by what looked like the dirt/ rock texture) and another where I was pushed off the edge of the floating island and landed/ stuck to the cliff’s edge, susceptible to damage from Mordremoth’s attacks and unable to defend/ attack him.

Same situation here. I can lower her health to like the last 1/5 but then I keep on dying. I’ve tried ranged attacks and close up. Any advice for a S+F/GS mesmer (Build: DOM, INSP, ILL or DUEL)?

Hi. I’m in a bit of a pickle.

So I’m at the point in the Personal Story where you have to track down Rox through the underground tunnels of Tangled Paths through the Chac nest.

I’m at a point where I think I might have encountered a bug. It’s immediately after you find the tracks in the Chac nest… I continue going straight through the tunnel and get to a point where the green bar in the top right corner (meant to symbolize how close you are to the tracks) gets to like 85%-90% but if i take one step further after that it decreases.

Am I meant to glide across a broken bridge/ cliff or sumn or is this a bug?

Hi.

I’m having a serious problem with being kicked out/ logged out of content midway through battles and events due to ‘game issues’.

It’s a great big pain in my neck because it’s logging/ throwing me out but causing my game client to crash/ freeze. So I have to Force Quit the game then start all over again.

It’s incredibly frustrating because I am unable to train my masteries with the experience I would’ve earned in these events. Due to forcing me out for these unknown reasons, I do not gain any of the experience/ karma/ rewards, etc… I would’ve and should’ve gained from these events when I re-log in.

This sort of thing never happened before during similar events like in the silver wastes, etc… before I installed the HoT update.

It’s completely hindering my progress in the Jungle & whole Mastery thing. I actually like the new Mastery system and challenge it takes to unlock this new content so, I’m sure you can understand why I’m taking issue with this.

Hi.

I recently downloaded the Mac Beta version to play GW2. I’ve encountered two problems.

1) I cannot change/ switch my utility skills.

2) i cannot use profession mechanic attacks when I click on their respective keyboard key (F1, F2, etc…) unless I click on them via the mouse.

Would anyone have any ideas how to resolve these issues?