Guild Wars 2

I have two Mesmers ^^, both come in different flavours as one is a descendant of my GW1 Mesmer while the newer (and current main) is a Norn follower of raven, I’ll list the newer one for simplicity sake

Name: Aina Vanspeil
Server: Tarnished Coast
Role: Scholar
Playstyle: mainly PvE, rarely sPvP and since my PC cant handle WvW zergs I stay away from that.
Usually Play: NA East Coast afternoons if time allows it.

Best name I have seen was a mesmer called….Mesmeralda, love it.

What is your WvW player detail setting?

Setting it to low or lowest will remove all ghostly effects from NPCs, it happens to ghosts and mesmer phantasms

I think the problem is that when they assigned clones the placeholder models for when an ENEMY mesmer uses them (so that they look the same as the enemy mesmer) they forgot to disable those models for the Player Character clones

Obviously this is a side effect of the fact that this is a WvW feature that got slapped on PvE

Bump since the new round of patches did not helped sadly.

With the new patch, Mesmer clones are affected by the Culling settings so that if you have them set to the minimum they will spawn as generic pink wearing mooks and even if you set them to the maximum setting they will still spawn as placeholder for a second before loading the proper texture.

Not game breaking but very irksome, specially since no matter how high I set my settings the placeholder will still show up everywhere regardless of amount of people for a second.

In the same vein if I set the culling to low (instead of lowest) the phantasms will spawn with no ghostly appearance making them look like clones.

Finally animations on the illusions themselves fails to load half the time making them stand there motionless (though their skills still trigger normally so it has no gameplay impact, this happens in all culling settings)

My street rat Elementalist is a Scoundrel, my guardian is Diplomatic, my Warrior who was born and raised under the long siege of Ebonhawke is Militant and my Mesmer is captivating

Taking on Korag the Jotun King with the mighty axe forged with deldrimor steel and tempered in the blood of a legendary griffin, that quest felt epic and fun, not to mention the quest before it where you learn about the jotun’s past lend it some weight.

And then of course the final quest everything about it was just right and it felt momentous!

On the flip side the pirate quest line for the OoW was the low point of the game for me.

I just created a new norn yesterday and I can say they where there, my guardian is ripped!

Rangers need to be just as mobile as thieves, so I would say yes

Another thing you can do if you haven’t done so already is complete the Orr maps, they reward level 75-80 exotic gear that you can use as a stand in or sell for good money to pay for exotic gear you can use.

I also recommend getting a starter set of 80 greens with the stats you want since those are dirt cheap, I wouldn’t recommend yellow gear though, those are a bit pricey and are replaced too quickly to be worthwhile

First time I hear that Chun Li wears the “worst color combination ever”

I think the voice is ok, the male norn one is the best in the game but the female one is not too shabby, it’s just not as memorable as the male norn or asura.

I just wish there would be an option to turn it off outside of cutscenes, it sucks having two very different characters like an Ele and a warrior saying the same things and sounding the same.

I understand how this can ruin PvP, but in PvE it doesn’t bothers me since fellow players are not a threat, I mean ideally there would be no culling but if some of it is necessary so I can at least participate in a dragon event even if at 5 fps, or reduce loading times from minutes to seconds then so be it.

My highest level guardian was 25 so I don’t know how things change in higher levels, but from what I saw guardians have a minuscule HP pool, meaning that they are most vulnerable to burst, I would recommend swapping toughness gear for vitality, or better yet soldier gear ( power/ though/ vit), this way you buy yourself some room for error.

The advantage of this is that casual players can keep up more easily since they only need a couple of hours of playtime a day to get a laurel and won’t fall too far behind the folks that play for hours and hours, it also rewards people that stays playing the game (even if only for a short time daily) versus people that leaves for 6 months and then comes back burns through content in 2 weeks then leaves again.

I understand why some might be upset but the pros outweigh the cons in my view.

Vargs.6234:

Tybalt and the Asura are the only good things about the personal storyline. You’d rather have more Trehearne and Logan?

Yes

That’s not to say I love those two but if they can keep Tybalt away I will cling to them like a scared cat.

I made a norn guardian too but I ended up deleting him since it felt wrong to me, guardians are magical warriors, now I see Norns as fighters so (warrior/ranger) or shamans (Mesmer, Ele or Necro), but judging from the norns I have seen around it seems I’m the only one who feels that way since it appears that 80% of the norn population are rangers/guardians

The story gets more serious as you advance, and some orders are clearly intended to have more serious story arcs than others, unfortunately it is almost impossible to tell what is going to be what at the moment of choosing a path, In my first character I chose the Order of Whispers because I assumed (wrongly as it turned out) that it was going to be a story arc with intrigue, betrayal and maybe even “making though choices” as agent Ihan claims, instead I got the silliest story in the game with Disney secret agent Tybalt guiding me from goofy adventure to goofy adventure.
For my second character I chose vigil and there I found a story that takes itself seriously with a more realistic mentor and was much more happy with the results.

The same is true of the other personal stories, again with the same caveat that it is near impossible to anticipate what will be more serious story wise.

I don’t understand what people are complaining about, before you could do Maw maybe 10 times or more and you would get with luck a couple rares and maaaybe an exotic, now you can only run Maw once per character but you have a really good chance of getting a couple of rares and probably an exotic, it’s win/win for everyone…

Kohler used to be able to win about 50% of the time if he had his adds with him, now that he has an infinite supply I imagine he will turn the tables on the troll

Is this thread abut Kryta or about GW2 in general? The op only mentions Kryta and I will agree that Kryta is less interesting this time around, it feels much more like a generic fantasy kingdom than the jungle kingdom with its own customs and architecture that it was in GW1

The rest of the areas outside of Kryta are much improved specially the shiverpeaks.

I like to stick around event NPCs after their events are done as I found that often the best “fleshing out” of the world occurs between event NPCs, just off the top of my head the lodge at Taigan groves and the troublemaking children there are great, watching the kids plan the bear summoning ritual and then carry it out is a lot of fun, as is watching the norn girl going around the house swapping flies with a greatsword.

When I started playing I too felt disconnected from the world but once I started noticing these and payed attention and looked for them I discovered that the world of GW2 is one of the most fleshed out fantasy worlds I have seen.

Favorite: Gwen, I started playing GW before EotN so it was a nice to surprise to see the cute little girl not only grow up but also take the fight to the murderous Charr with a vengeance, join your team and last but not least become a Mesmer (my main class in both games), the fact that she hates Charr with a passion is just a bonus

Most hated: Tybalt, this dude completely destroyed any respect I might have had for the order of whispers, I simply cannot take them seriously anymore if they allow bumbling fools like him into their ranks, not to mention that once you join up with him the story ceases to be about you as you just become a sidekick to Tybalt (although the same can be said of all the mentors and treharne)

Illusions are clones that look exactly like you, they are primarily used to distract and confuse and don’t do anything, although some traits adds functions to them

Phantasm on the other hand are ghost-like versions of you that cast powerful abilities when created and at regular intervals after that, telling them apart is easy since as I mentioned illusions look exactly like your character while phantasm look like ghosts or phantoms

As for knowing which skill creates what, the skill description will normally say what it creates, like “phantasmal warden” summons a phantasm etc.

As for shattering it is a core functionality of a Mesmer and you should not shy away from it but rather embrace it!, different builds place more or less emphasis on shattering but in the early levels is important to use it to get familiar with the mechanic

1 – Lornar’s Pass, the shiver peaks are my favorite zones and of them Lornar’s wins due to the sheer size and virety, I also love how it feels cramped in many areas really capturing a mountaineering feeling.

2 – Wayfarer Foothills – for similar reasons as Lornar’s, I love the variety between the lower valley and the upper regions a lot plus it has some of the most fun and interesting event chains that I have seen.

3 – Malchor’s Leap, of the Orr zones ML is my favorite because of it’s ease of exploration (most of it being on flat land) and the two priest events are my favorite ones because of the lore behind them.

Least liked:

1 – Harathi hinterlands, I don’t like the looks, the events or the centaurs that feature heavily in it.

2 – Bloodtide Coast, I’m not a fan of the way pirates are portrayed in the game and this area features them prominently

3 – Straits of Devastation, one third of the area is boring events outside of Orr, the other third is filled with underwater combat and the final Orrian third is a pain to navigate.

I like to play RL for the sports minigames, but the combat is awful ever since the gunpowder patch, gun classes are OP (even as a fully armored knight you can still get one shotted by people simply using auto-attack on a gun class!)

Male human, Mesmer
Male human, Warrior
Female human, Elementalist
Female Norn, Mesmer
Female human, Thief

I like it myself, what needs to be redone is the light
T3, it doesn’t looks very nornish at all and is not helped by those giant blue spikes hanging off it.

Well for maw at least if you fail to stop the summoning shaman the elemental is unleashed and you have a big fight event akin to shadow behemoth, I’m not sure if that event rewards the exact same chest as the shaman or a different one, since I did that a long time ago before maw was farmed.

Actually Kermes dye (a shade of red) was one of the most luxurious dyes next to Tyrian purple in ancient times, so that might be what Reza is wearing.

A thing to keep in mind about King Reza is that he (king doric sketched concept art aside) is the only royal Orrian we have seen, it might be that just like in Rome the royal family had a specific color scheme that only they could wear.

I would play a Norn Mesmer, female probably unless the males body proportions get less cartoony then I would go with male

The bug only happens if you skip that last group, I find it hilarious that
People go and do so and then come here and say “I messed around with your game and it broke, this is unacceptable!”

I don’t see any similarity other than the fact that both the fractal and the myth involve a being that is imprisoned, the titans weren’t actually of colossus size in Greek mythology and the use of the word to represent that is a modern construction

That being said the colossus fractal is my favorite because it feels literally epic and larger than life, and I would love to know more about the story behind the colossus

It’s a great mechanic because it gives a really good reward for a coordinated team (for example, interrupting Kohler every time it tries to pull people makes that fight a lot faster and easier)

The problem is that it is not explained anywhere in the regular game and the short tooltip is not enough for most to immediately grasp how it works so most people ignore it.

Sieran grew on me from a meh npc to feeling sad at her passing by the time we got to claw island, I was just doing the priory line again on an alt and I noticed something I missed the first time around, she says “I wanted to fall in love once before I die”

Forgal was such a kitten that when we got to claw island there was a little pride mixed with the sadness because he goes down like a boss

Tybalt on the other hand…I still don’t understand how anyone can like him, his bumbling idiot personality ruined the Order of Whispers quest lines for me

I like those two, they have a very classic fantasy ring to them that fits the norn well.

I Myself got two Norns, Hilda Hrafnsdottir a ranger and, Aina Vanspeil a mesmer

The first one uses Hrafn which is Icelandic for raven, while for the second one I tried to do something different so I went with the name Aina which means “forever” while Van Speil is Swedish for “of the mirror”

Do you think we will ever get the male body types from GW1? I was recently playing on EotN and I love how the old male norns looked like Conan on roids rather than the hairless gorillas we got in GW2, I hope someday we can get some retro body types to add to the existing ones, because I have tried and tried to make a male norn I like to no avail

But what do my fellow nornites think of the new males? Like them? Or perhaps do you miss the old ones too?

I imagine the average norn looks at humans like humans look at asura, sure you may think some of them are cute and become close to one but an actual romance would be a step too far.

Now there could be exceptions for example I imagine Hercules could get it on with any norn because the things he excelled at where the most highly prized in norn culture, in the same way if a human hero can live and exell amongst Norns then that would earn him enough respect to get a mate like it happened to the GW1 hero.

I think it would be more helpful for people to comment on what exactly they consider “endgame”

If its the old raid that you do once a week to get gear so you can run the raid again, and again to get more gear to run the same raid again, until a new raid is released and the process begins anew, then no that’s not in the game (thankfully)

I would prefer Elonian content before Canthan as I always thought that elona along with the Mesmer class where the more original things in GW1

If cantha makes a comeback I hope we can see things like the colossus fractal, the canthans seem to have been big on colossal architecture so it would be a great to render that in more detail than GW1 could

As for technology I hope they haven’t advanced a whole lot if only for variety’s sake, we already got a lot of steampunk in the current Tyria

Rare exotics like destroyer weapons are meant to be a middle ground between normal exotics and legendaries so they require a grind toget but nowhere near the craziness of legendaries

The point is that if you go and get an exotic from AC it’s just as good as any destroyer weapon or legendary, there is no grind to be geared up

For now, if they end up adding ascended weapons and armor, then you will have a point.

The people that make post like this are unbelievable, the legendaries and their gift required ilk where specifically added to be Grindy for those that like long term goals, are you like me and hate the grind? Then don’t do it, get an exotic from any dungeon and enjoy the game

Unbelievable

Depends n how much effort you want to put into this alt, elementalist are great for support but are also the toughest class to master, that being said it is extremely rewarding to play

Mesmers are probably the best DPSers of the light armor classes and have some unique mechanics to their play style, with a very good variety of builds to try out

I agree, the new dailies are more involved, while having them switch up from day to day makes them a little less zzzzz worthy as the old ones where. Add to that the changes to Orr which make playing through the zones actually fun for once and the bump to the priest rewards and this was a great patch!

Without a second thought, the game is not perfect but is miles ahead of anything else in the mmo market IMO

To be fair GW1 also had these grind-your-life-for-a-skin rare weapon drops, as long they are just skins I don’t have a problem with it, would be nice if they could be sold though, instead of being stuck with a rare valuable item you might not like the skin of.

The most fun I have ever had in this game was doing the following with my warrior:

1- Equip a longbow
2- Gather 8+ mobs around me
3- Dodge, jump, kick, punch, roll for my life until my adrenaline meter is maxed
4- Drop the F1 AoE fire Combo Field skill
5- Look the now burning mobs in the eye and say “Yippie kay-yay ****** ******”
6- Trigger the combo field with the 3rd Longbow skill and watch everything go boom and die.

Warrior is the sixth class I tried out, all have been fun but none like the warrior I wish I had rolled him first! the warrior can be boring or fun to play it depends on how you chose to play it, it’s a very flexible class in that regard.