Guild Wars 2

My Mesmer build is a bit unfocused, but it’s enough of a generalist to be a strong team support.

GS/Sword+Focus with Ether Feast/Decoy/Blink/Portal/Time Warp or Mass Invis (situationally) as my skills

20 dom (gs training), 10 duelling (sword training), 20 inspiration (warden’s feedback for reduced focus CD and warden reflects), 20 illusions

Stats: Mostly toughness/vit/healing power, with a bit of power/precision just so I’m not completely toothless. Most of my utility comes from staying alive and dropping movement speed buffs/debuffs and scouting, so I don’t really need combat stats.

Generally, I aim to do the following:
- Drop portal just before getting near a zerg so that there will be an escape route
- Pull enemies off walls with temporal curtain, then pin with Illusionary Leap -> Swap combo so my team can finish them
- Pin fleeing enemies with some combination of iZerker -> Blink -> Temporal Curtain -> Illusionary Leap so that my team can finish them
- Burn down siege with iZerker/iWarden

and, of course
- Stealth/blink behind zergs at chokepoints, into control points, on top of siege, and portalbomb.

I can’t count how many times I’ve portalbombed 5-10 behind a group of 15-25, to see the group of 15-25 immediately break and start running. It’s a psychological thing, I guess. If you suddenly see red behind you and you’re taking damage, your first instinct is to run, rather than to assess the situation.

Peetee.9406:

Svarty.8019:

Shishi.6729:

Unless you had a lot of very, very synchronized necromancers who were also invisible.

It could happen!

Mesmers would call that ‘Working as intended’

Mesmer is not OP
Mesmer is not OP
Mesmer is not OP
Mesmer is not OP

I can correlate the CPU vs GPU stuff. I built a new computer essentially just because I wanted to play GW2. Quad-core Core i5 3.4 GHz stock, turbo to 4.0 GHz out of the box, 8 MB DDR3, nVidia GFX 560.

I first played the game with nothing but the stock OC on the Core i5. On maximum settings and 1920×1080, I got about 35 frames per second in the Norn starting areas. As the processor was already overclocked, I went on to EVGA Precision GPU overclocking first. I increased my 3DMark 11 benchmark significantly with this, but saw a performance increase in GW2 of only about 5 FPS or so. I went pretty all-out, even upping the voltage on the GPU when I started getting artifacts, and still no truly noticeable performance gains.

Then, I overclocked the Core i5 further from 4.0 GHz to 4.3 GHz, and immediately I’m hitting the 60 FPS frame cap in just about any area except huge WvW zergs.

The CPU appears to definitely have been the limiting factor.

nerva.7940

how to be a mesmer in WvW: portals. the end.

There is more to it than that. Yeah, portals may be Mesmer’s #1 tactical asset, particularly if you’re running with a big organized zerg. In smaller strike teams, the ability to throw out immobilizes, reflections, cripples, team invisibility, and pulls are just as important, if not more so. Portals also become more useful as escape devices to get your team away from the angry zerg than as offensive devices.

And, iZerker/iWarden are beautiful for destroying tower/keep siege.

I’ve seen this same thing suggested many times. Heck, I’ve posted it myself. Bumping one thread isn’t going to make the Anet game devs notice if they haven’t already.

Scorpio Shirica.1286:

Lol I love commanding when outmanned as Tarnished Coast. You guys in the SoR Borderlands, funny stuff tonight.

Just about to get off work, keep it up until I get there <3

Kiamar.1820

Yshyry is our guild Mesmer Commander and sets up our portal bombs.

Reallly? That’s… beautiful

Prime.8792:

No one is getting paid to wear a commander icon.

Man. I wish I could get paid to wear a commander icon.

You know, I’ve never seen a Mesmer commander. Seems like it would be pretty OP, they could drop a portal, turn off their icon, drop the exit, then boom, instant zergbomb.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I propose Anet add a new feature in the game: TEAM KILL!

This would add so much fun to the game! Imagine seeing 7 bots farming Skrit or Krait. A map Commander could allow for a Team Kill vote or something, and then have a temporary window to attack allies.

Or another plus would be if your server owns the entire WvW map. You have to wait around for others to cap towers or camps before you could do anything. Instead of waiting, you could just have an insane free-for-all in a safe zone.

It sounds so yummy just to think about it!

That could work, but just make all people on one team hostile towards each other if they control 90% or more of the map. Then, the other teams could get a foothold while the battle royale ensued.

You may only pirate talk on the forums if you RP a pirate 100% of the time.

By official decree of Falafelhu the Fabulous

Unless you had a lot of very, very synchronized necromancers who were also invisible.

The prime-timers wake up and all of a sudden people are trash-talking again o.o

SoggyFrog.4170:

I never said culling was client-side.

I was responding to others who were saying that their computers were still at 60 FPS, etc., and that culling was bad for them. Just pointing out that their computers had very little to do with it. Apologies if it seemed I was taking issue with what you said.

Culling isn’t client side, it’s server-side. For instance:

2 people fighting in a 1v1 = server sends data about 2 person to 2 people (4 transfers per update).

4 people fighting in a 2v2 = server sends data about 4 people to 4 people (16 transfers per update)

40 people fighting in a 20v20 = server sends data about 40 people to 40 people (1600 transfers per update)

As you can see, the amount of data the server has to send per update increases dramatically. Cutting down on the amount of data the server has to send (culling) keeps load on the server manageable. Ever been in a huge zerg at the central point in EB? At times, it will take 2-3 seconds for a skill to activate. That’s because the server is so overloaded from all of the people doing stuff at once, stuff gets backed up as it flushes out those inbound and outbound queues. It would be even worse if it rendered all of them.

Ah, the wtf was to the number of wurms, not the link Scary!

Klawlyt.6507:

Excellent points, OP! My only contribution is to say, “Ew” to the name of the thread. Carry on.

I see what you did there.

mesmers are not OP
mesmers are not OP
mesmers are not OP
mesmers are not OP

Svarty.8019:

Spotted in WvW just now. The server borderland map crashed a few moments later:
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v227/svartalfimposter/GW2/gw505.jpg[/img]

lolwtf

Unloveableone.6082:

SoR. No matter what you do to us we will never give up. Viva La Resistance! Well make this week hell for you ;D

Ha! I’m looking forward to it

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

They still would go grab them if they made the orbs be worth as many points or even almost as many points as say the castle. Which may be a much better idea than the way it currently is with the orbs giving OP stat bonuses. It might also help prevent one server from completely running away with the match leading to overall boredom for everyone.

That’s an excellent idea. Here’s hoping Anet game devs actually read the forums.

I agree with Urrid.4593 completely. My guild specializes in small-scale surgical strikes and guerrilla warfare, and that’s something we can’t do if we don’t have 20-30 person zergs keeping the enemies distracted elsewhere. If they have enough people to cover everything and you don’t have enough people to distract them, you’re not going to get a foothold on offense, no matter how well organized you are.

>plays support mesmer
>will never get these achievements

1. Swap Orb buff for Outmanned buff. That way, the winning team goes and farms (instead of spawn camping), while the underdogs get a boost.

2. Give +siege damage to the Outmanned buff, making it a bit easier for underdogs to get a foothold if they’ve been pushed out.

@fishergrip.4082

I’m a big fan of swapping the Outmanned buff for the Orb buff. That way the winners are encouraged to go farm and stop spawn camping while the underdogs get a bit of a boost. Someone else recommended having the Outmanned buff give +siege damage. That makes sense to me too.

Only thing is, if they nerfed the Orb buff, no one would bother trying to defend them :/

Enenion.8127:

A couple of things:
…

Personally, I think the Outmanned buff should increase damage dealt by siege weapons. This is because siege weapons should be at the center of both attacking and defending objectives. It would make it easier to hold objectives and attack objectives despite having low numbers, making taking over the entire map much much harder than it currently is. Taking the last few towers and keeps a team owns in a map should be incredibly hard, while in the current system it becomes easier and easier to take the last few towers.

That’s a great idea, I hadn’t thought of that. I’ve been preaching about the Outmanned buff all over this forum recently. My previous case was that the Orb buff and the Outmanned buff should be switched. That way, the winning team is encouraged to go farm and stop spawn-camping the losing team, while the losing team got a bit of a boost. Adding +siege damage to that would be an excellent balancing mechanism.

Miu Xie.5872:

There is an Outmanned buff – a.k.a. “a slight advantage.”

…

Different tiers of outmanned buffs might be a better idea, though, to counter this and encourage more people to try. The point of the game is to have fun, but people tend to care too much about score to really put up good, coordinated fights and enjoy doing so.

As many people have said, swapping the Orb buff for the Outmanned buff would be ideal. That way, the winning team with the Orbs would be encouraged to go and farm (with +XP +Karma), dragging them away from spawn camping, while the losing team with fewer people would be compensated for somewhat.

As has been suggested elsewhere, I’m a big fan of swapping the Outmanned buff effect for the Orb of Power buff effect.

Radiodread.8469:

Isn’t the per map per team player cap about 70? Not quite 1000+.

Is it that low? I was under the impression it was much higher than that…

Radiodread.8469:

Killing a Yak does give resources to the players around the Yak.

Really!? If this is true, then I’ve missed that aspect for the last 2 months.

Yep! It’s pretty nice too, you can go over the normal 10-suppy cap with the 5 supply yaks drop.

On the subject of guild transfers, I’m a member of Caedas. Caedas is a relatively new arrival to Sanctum of Rall, having transferred just over a month or so ago. I definitely understand and empathize with the arguments and emotions that I’ve seen expressed in these threads about the impact that guild transfers have on the balance of WuvWuv, but Caedas coming to SoR has been a very positive experience for me.

Before Caedas came (and a number of bandwagoneers followed), there were virtually no organized WuvWuv guilds around. As a native Rallian, I spent quite a bit of time in the BLs, running around on my own, generally being useless, with my own casual guild only making half-hearted attempts at doing anything in it.

Caedas and guilds like it bring their organization and experience to servers that haven’t had the chance to develop it. As a result, the general skills-base and discipline of the WuvWuv-ing player base of SoR has increased. Contrary to what seems to be popular opinion, I do not believe this increase in overall skill-base of the Rallian population is because of the influx of players from more WuvWuv-focused worlds, but rather because they have trained natives like me to be better, more disciplined players, bringing this discipline and organization to the zerg.

As a result of this, I think we’ll see the skills of WuvWuv players globally increase, rather than stagnate, as the cycles of server transfers continue.

EDIT: No disrespect intended to the WuvWuv guilds on SoR who predate Caedas, I just never saw/interacted with you much.

On a serious note though, there was some beautiful defense from TC last night. We seemed to generally have the numbers, but the TC response times were great. As soon as we started sniping yaks, the entire area was covered in TC players protecting them. That alone stalled our keep siege for about three hours while the walls were continually repaired.

It was rather amusing at one point when we took a tower with 8 people, destroyed 5g of siege inside it, and lost it again, all within fifteen minutes. I believe it was pretty effective. We distracted a zerg of 45 TC invaders for ten minutes with 8 SoR.

I have to agree that the snowball effect from the Orb buffs is somewhat OP. It’s not game-breakingly OP, but I was able to do some really dumb, risky stuff last night on my squishy Mesmer that would have gotten me killed if I hadn’t had an extra 7k HP from 3 Orbs.

EDIT: Putting several hundred supply-worth of siege in an un-upgraded, undefended tower is a great idea. You should keep doing it.

Ascii.9726

AND WHY YOU NO LET THE CANDY MAN IN…

Candyman is OP, nerf Candyman ASAP.

Candyman is the reason SoR is winning.