Guild Wars 2

F1: Illusions charge your opponent as if they’d shatter, but they only deal damage and return to their initial location afterwards.
F2: Illusions throw chaos energy towards your opponent, dazing them (about the same as pistol 5).
F3: Illusions teleport and form a triangle around your opponent (retarget) and tether each other with chaos energy, crippling + slowing enemies who try to go through it.
F4: You and your illusion gain mirage cloak for 1,5 seconds, also refills illusion health to 100%.

Was hoping for F-Skills similar to this when i first heard about mirage. Like command skills for ranger pets, just for illusions. But oh well..

My favorite part was where he explained how op it could be if we just retarget 3 phantasm with 25 stacks phantasmal force unto a new player in pvp.

Ross.9612:

have a way for the mirage to provide group support, maybe allow them to give the party boons when they mirage cloak, or better yet, allow them to mirage cloak allies with skills like mirage mirror.

Amazing idea, make the current Infinite Horizon effect baseline, and give it the new effect that allies can also shatter the mirrors, granting mirage cloak to them and you. An on-demand distortion kind of.

While we’re at it, can please someone of you guys give us a buff in our bar that shows when the Lesser Signet Of Inspiration from Illusionary Inspiration is off-cooldown? That would be huge. Thanks.

Hot Boy.7138:

the lunge is cool.

Yes indeed, Mirage Thrust has increased mesmer’s jumping puzzle mastery to a whole new level. x)

I’d rather not have the mirrors disappear. They have so much potential and unique flavor they could add to mirage, their implementation is just very weak.

Removing the mirrors would reduce Mirage’s mechanic(s) to “a glorified blurr you can attack out of”. And as soon as that would be the case, people would start complaining that mirage doesn’t really offer anything new and is just uninteresting to play.

Clones
Auto attacks need to be the same speed as the main mesmers, otherwise it’s way to easy to find the real one.

Ambushs
Sword and GS ambushs need to do good dps. Not just utility like dazzing, but damage. Playing pve with spamming daze attacks does not seem fun at all, neither does camping GS (if the ambush would be actually good).

Mirage Mirrors
Duration increased from 5 seconds to 15-20 seconds. Mirage Mirrors are now capped at 3 or 4. Should you summon more than 3/4, the 1. will be destroyed, just like illusions do.
If enemys touch the mirror, it shatters, granting the mesmer mirage cloak and enabling you to use a F5 skill, which is basically Axe3 just for all illusions.
This is based on the whole thematic of “shattering a mirror grants you bad luck/terrible karma”, with the mirage enforcing it.

Axe Auto-Chain
Needs to be much faster, it feels like you’re playing a warrior swinging a greatsword. Make the individual strikes weaker to compensate for the speed increase if necessary.

Lingering Thoughts
The mirage spawned by this skill needs its duration increased to 3-5 seconds.
The skill overall needs to be more fluid (no ending lagg).

Axes of Symmetry
Replaced with another skill, maybe something similar to Revenant Axe 5.

False Oasis
This skill needs to be targetable so you can place the mirror where you want it to be. Placing it on yourself is kind of dumb, as it forces you to either stand there for 3 secs or waste a jaunt or similar port on it to return.
Also blurrs illusions near the false oasis.

Illusionary Ambush
Mirage cloak duration increase to 1 sec and ideally a CD reduce to 25 seconds.

Mirage Advance
To be honest, i’d like this skill just be reworked, its not like we’re missing simple blinks at this point. New effect would be something like: Switch the position with your target. 900-1200 range.
*If used against a defiant enemy, it instead just blinks you to it and reduces it’s cooldown by 20%.

Sand Through Glass
Distance increase to 400.

Crystal Sands
This skill should use the ammunition mechanic.

Jaunt
Distance needs to be increased to 600.

Nomad’s Endurance
Should also increase power.

Shards of Glass
Additional effect added: Chance for phantasm to turn into mirage mirrors: 50%

Speed of Sand
Superspeed duration increased to 1 second. Also grants you 3 seconds of swiftness when mirage cloak ends.

Infinite Horizon
The effect of this trait is mirage baseline now. It instead does this now:
Allies can now also shatter your mirage mirrors, granting mirage cloak to you and your ally.
Basically a distortion that allies can activate whenever they see fit.

Not sure about Renewing Oasis, Riddle of Sand and Mirage Mantle, but i feel these need to be reworked aswell. They seem pretty generic and uninspired, while they could do so much with the whole mirror thing.

Deltaninethc.7013:

I was thinking of getting back into Guild Wars 2 since the new expansion is coming out but im not a huge fan of the idea of buying 2 full priced expansions to get current with the game.

I also recently got into FF XIV just as their second expansion came out. With that game buying the newest expansion includes all previous ones so you’re not forced to buy multiple expensive expansions to enjoy the game.

Im hoping GW2 is doing the same thing but I cant find any info on whether or not they are.

So my question is does buying Path of Fire come with Heart of Thornes?

Thanks in advance.

You can’t compare the FF14 and GW2 expansions though.
FF14 included the previous one, because you need that one to even get to the level to play the actual one. All expansions kind of build up on one another there, while in gw you’re always max level when starting into an expansion and each of them is more like an optional trip to explore a new section of the world.

Also keep in mind that these expansion sells are one of the main ways for GW to make money, since unlike FF14 they do not use a monthly fee system.

The main disappointment for me was that it seems the mirage mirrors will only last for about 5 seconds.

What’s the point of having them if you can’t really plan around when you want to use them? You’re pretty much forced to instantly pick them up which will in return make you pretty predictable. That coupled with the fact that the ambush attacks themselves are predictable as is, i dont know. Guess we’ll have to see how it turns out.

1:00:06 on the youtube video for reference.

In the demo we still had 10 hero points per hero challenge and as seen from the backlash that HoT got it’s pretty safe to say it won’t be above 250.
Characters who thoroughly played HoT should have around 350 points left, so they should be able to instantly max the new elite out.

Sword ambush + confounding suggestions could be pretty evil though.

Edit: Would Split Surge work with Imagined Burden? If it does, that would be 3x 2 seconds of cripple per clone.

Nomad’s Endurance should just grant you a few stacks of might whenever you gain vigor or pulse might while you have vigor. That would boost condi and power damage alike and would be alot more interesting and thematically fitting than just the flat out increase.

Regarding Shadow Meld, the 5 second cooldown is probably an extra cooldown between the ammo uses, while the 45 second ammo recharge is the actual cooldown.

Angel de Lyssa.4716:

No, thanks. For powers build you have Chronomancer. Let Mirage be full conditions damage, especially this trait “Nomad’s Endurance” is good, +150 damage conditions is very well. I dont like +150 damage power, i prefer damage conditions.

Power dps may have been a bit better for chrono pve wise, but you could play condi just as good with it. iirc the condi chrono even was (and still is) meta for spvp to this day.

The important thing is though: Chronomancer was not supposed to do dps, no matter in what form. It’s supposed to be a tank/buffer, with mirage now being the “selfish” dps elite. Obviously, making our dps elite only viable for condi would be dissapointing, to put it lightly.

Changing Nomad’s Endurance to also increase power will probably be the number one thing the dev’s will get as feedback from the 2. beta weekend, so let’s see what changes they’ll apply to mirage after that.

I’d like such a system for twinks.

Playing through the desert the first time it really adds to the immersion that your character grows stronger as you go deeper into the desert.

But admittedly, on twinks it really turns into this grindfest. Maybe do it with the condition that you need to have 1 fully speced PoF Elite or something.

SloRules.3560:

all phantasms use weapons they were summoned from, that would suggest mesmer is getting eather a longbow or a shortbow.

Yes, just like focus summons axe phantasm and staff summons scepter phantasms. I dont see a problem as to why an axe shouldnt summon a bow phantas.

Only off-hands summoning phantasms is a good point as to why it couldn’t be possible. But then again this is a new elite spec which could dramatically change how illusions function and we have no idea what and how it will change what we know now.

I feel like we need a new phantas. Not getting a new phantas for a new mes elite would almost be like ranger not getting new pets. For me atleast.

Edit: Something worth noting aswell, with shield you could summon 2 phantas on one weaponset, so maybe mirage’s axe will feature a phantasm skill instead of clone so it adds up to 2 phantas on one weapon set again, combined with the off-hand.

Thought about something similar aswell. It appears very likely that we get a new villain group introduced, now that the elder dragons kind of lost their “super villain” rank, especially with all the “buhu, they’re part of the world aswell, and we need them to keep the magic in balance!” stuff.

Maybe the gods really turn out bad in the end? They surely have what it takes to become the new villains.

Otherwise, perhaps the mursaat? Seems really odd to me that they went through all the trouble to introduce the race to us just to let them poof up in smoke.

If I remember right, the elder dragons weren’t originally the antagonists but instead angels and demons. So who knows maybe we’ll someday drop back to that one.

Then again, they have an entire expansion, a whole story arc waiting for us, which they could probably put in anything we don’t even know yet as the future enemy and build them up while they’re at it.

Sorca.6839:

Yes I’m new and enjoying the game and obviously unlocked the weapon swop but why can’t you change weapons and stuff during combat? What would the reason be.

The reason is that you’re supposed to decide what you want to play. You’re not supposed to have access to everything at the same time.

If you could change everything in combat, you’d be forced to do so, as everyone else would otherwise have a big advantage over you.

I don’t know about you, but i don’t think I’d enjoy a fight if im 90% of the time in my inventory swapping weapons around, mindlessly throwing every move out there, before switching over to the next weapon.

Hevoskuuri.3891:

Besides, two days after the episode we have something to wait AGAIN, so better bask in this hype now because the next one will be LONG!

It’s true that we have to wait ~3 months for the expansion again, but don’t forget that we’re going to get informations about the new elite specs, masteries usw. If they do it like with HoT, we’ll get a livestream each week.

With all 9 classes that satisfyingly covers 2 months for me already. They’ll probably also throw in one or two beta weekends, allowing you to test the elite specs and give feedback if you preordered, just like HoT.

So overall I’d say, this is the last annoying waiting phase before the fun stuff starts!

flog.3485:

Desperate decoy feels so outdated and even back in the beginning of gw2, I have never found any reason whatsoever to run it whether in PvP or PvE. I would rather have it replaced or if the devs want it to stay (who knows if it could offer some good synergy with the next espec), at least change its mechanic to be an actvive like that: F2 grants invisibility. The duration of invisibility is based on the number of illusion that were shattered (40 seconds cooldown). Other than that, it would be better imo to design a trait that supports mantras. First of all, make mantras three charges baseline. I also feel like we are not rewarded enough for gaining chaos armor in general, so here is my suggestion: when you gain chaos armor (this effect does not apply with staff 4), your equipped mantras are recharged. This effect is only applied to mantras which have consumed all their charges in the first place. 35 seconds cooldown.

Agreed, in that it needs some kind of buff/rework but i really couldn’t think about anything to fit in good, so i just sticked to the QoL-Change.

Now, we most likely only have 1 class patch left before the expac, maybe another one with the launch. After being left out of the last patch, I figured that instead of complaining about being left out, we might as well give some ideas as to what they could improve with the expac launch or class patches before it. So I went through the skills/traits and thought about what and how could be changed.
Things I’d really like to see:

UI Improvement

Weapon – Sword MH:

Weapon – Sword OH:

Traits – Inspiration

Traits – Illusions

Traits – Dueling

Feel free to correct me and/or add your own suggestions.

Cynz.9437:

(Oh and as side note, did you know that downstate AI from mes ignore stealth completely and continue to attack you? I wonder how you would defend that <pulls popcorn>.)

I’d like to switch that with rangers everyday. Imagine being able to use your F-Skills while downed would be amazing. Theh.

Thiefs complaining about stuff moving to fast, “leaving barely any counterplay”. And then especially mesmer, which they counter already.
Oh, the irony.

On a more serious note, I can’t believe the superspeed on shatter is actually a topic.
Shatters pre HoT were arguably in need for some kind of speed buff already. Shatters/shattercombos are like 80% of a mesmers dps in pvp.
And with everything HoT added to the game/classes, giving superspeed on shatter so illusions atleast reach their target (in most cases) instead of being obliterated or just ignored through one of the 10 damage negation skills every class has, is not op in any way; it’s a necessity.

Cynz.9437:

So you actually defend the fact that thief cannot use withdraw or dash to avoid shatter effectively? Then i want dagger attacks go through invuls and blocks just because.

While we’re at it, will you actually defend the fact that mesmers can not use 50-80% of their skills (depending on build) vs. stealth?
Then i want illusion skills to auto target thiefs in stealth just because.

What, he defends the fact that mesmer has atleast 1 thing now that can effectively attack a thief? Have to agree with you there, that’s just ridiculous. Remove it right now.

miguelsil.6324:

You like it but truth be told many people left precisely because game changed too much from where it started and what they promised.

Yes, and many more players joined exactly because of that.

RabbitUp.8294:

Takashiro.8701:

Fashion Mage.3712:

Those classes use those abilities because they’re almost completely necessary for their survival in PvP. Most guardian builds do not need a blink to survive.

It doesn’t “need” to be generalized.

This. Mediocre mobility is really the only weak point guardian has at the moment. And similar to necro, it’s done on purpose. Not being top tier at everything is a good thing not a bad.

List me the weak points of other classes.

I think you missed the point.
What i was saying was that guardian excels in nearly anything it possibly could (in sPvP) with weak mobility being the compensation for their overall top tier performance.

If you’re suggesting that guardian is at a disadventage right now, as it’s the only class with a clear weak point, then tell me how and why it is and was dominating the pvp meta for months with no end in sight and how there are minimum 2 of them in each team, each match.

Guardians don’t need good mobility, they’re good enough as is.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Those classes use those abilities because they’re almost completely necessary for their survival in PvP. Most guardian builds do not need a blink to survive.

It doesn’t “need” to be generalized.

This. Mediocre mobility is really the only weak point guardian has at the moment. And similar to necro, it’s done on purpose. Not being top tier at everything is a good thing not a bad.

Agreed, this needs to change.
They shouldn’t be supporting weak personalities who use this to insult people without having to take responsibility (backfire) for it.

NotASmurf.1725:

That’s a very mild punishment, it should’ve been a 3-6 month account ban for any serious case.

Gaile Gray.6029:

As our investigation continues, further action may be taken should we feel it appropriate.

There’s definitely the possibility of a harsher punishment following as they get a better insight on the topic.

Either that or this was their way to give them the “final warning” before something really bad happens.

The thing with mesmer is that it’s strength lies in the combination of various traits/skills, which means that you will only start actually getting anything done in the later levels. This is a reason many people who start a mesmer drop it a few hours in, as it seems more boring at first glance than it really is.

Mesmer is also one of the classes with the highest skill cap in the game, which is why people generally suggest starting with ranger/warrior since they are easy to play and it makes it easy to get used to how the game works etc.

And yes, the elite spec adds another level of complexity to it.
But all in all I think that people tend do exaggerate on the difficulty (of almost everything btw). It’s harder than most classes, yes, but it’s nothing you couldn’t do if you are willing to spend some time learning the mechanics.

Mesmer lack own dps as a tradeoff to their amazing party-enhancing abilities. A mesmer who knows what he/she is doing is a huge blessing for the team, one that doesn’t in the other side is a huge disadventage, as it’s a dps loss without any gain in return.

But be prepared: You might have to learn it the hard way later on though. The expansion is known for crushing new players who don’t really know what to do with their class yet.

In the end, it’s really simple. If mesmer really is your passion and the class you’re sure you want to play, then play it. Don’t get scared away from it and play something you don’t actually want to play.

These traits can be extremely dangerous to classes and their build diversity.
Maybe it’s a good thing Rev doesn’t have these at all.

You don’t want Revenant to fall down the Thief route do you?
Try asking them about preparedness.

The thing is that anet mostly seems to balance classes with these traits in mind, which doesn’t result in a positive effect if you have them, but rather a negative if you don’t.

These videos are from 2011/2012. It’s 2017 now.
People change their opinions and visions almost on a weekly basis and you expect them to stick to what they said 5 years ago?

Ashantara.8731:

Takashiro.8701:

- We go back to Braham and tell him Jormag’s (probably) asleep
- he starts attacking the commander as he is unable to carry out his revenge and has no
idea where to channel his wrath to now
- we fight him 1o1 and can finally smack some sense into him, as this seems to be the
only language he understands.

I’m afraid that won’t do it. I have a strong feeling that Braham’s thoughtless actions, fueled by his hunger for revenge, will get someone close to him killed — probably Taimi. Only then will he wake from his vengence and understand where blind rage has led him.

Even though i like Taimi, it would be an interesting plot point to let her die. She’s kind of.. op.

I think the disenchanter got a treatment that every phantasm should get: The phantasm summon triggers after the initial attack hits, meaning that the phantasm will even be summoned when you cast the skill while blinded. The initial attack fails, but the summon itself not.

I don’t have that much of a problem with the GS initial attack. While admittedly It deals no significant damage, it puts 3 stack vulnerability with each hit, so in combination with mirror blade it puts 15 stacks on the enemy. That’s a 6% damage increase to follow-up skills just through the initial.

I see. The alacrity wasn’t really important to me, as i have it in abundance just through shattering and avengers. But you got a point with the group condi cleanse and group heal.

I ran a similar more tank-oriented and no-stealth build for a long time and I’m glad to see more of it happening. Maybe not as hard a tank as you got there, as I use greatsword instead of staff but yeah.

On that note, may i ask why you use well of eternity instead of signet of the ether? The 1k hp regen every 3 sec is really good and I can’t tell how much good the instant shield 4 recharge has done for me.

Topics like these appear every few weeks, so I’ll just quote myself here.

Takashiro.8701:

I hope not, tbh. While i’m not generally against new races, i think this would be an effort barely worth it. They would have to put an insane amount of ressources and effort into creating a race that the minority of people would play, which otherwise could’ve been used on new content that’d be beneficial to everyone.

I think the combat tonics they’ve started to use are a good compromise. You can play as the races you want, without them having to put all that work into the “background”.

Windwalker.7421:

Unfortunately, the age old 2.75 second channeling time that wasn’t even viable 5 years ago, is today so ludicrously outdated with today’s the pace of PvP, that neither even free “+600 Toughness” during channeling nor the 2600 point heal from Inspiration at the end of the channel, makes up for it! That is the sad truth about Mantras. The traits are fine and even the Mantras themselves are “OK”, but the core mechanic has always been broken.

This exactly. If you try to channel it, you’re most likely to either just be zerked down or interrupted.

What if Harmonious Mantras or Restorative Mantras would also give you 1 stack stability for 2-3 when you start channeling a mantra? Give it an 10-20 sec ICD so people can’t abuse it by canceling the channel and it should be fine.

Maybe Mantras would see more play if they would synergize with continuum split (restore used charges when shifting back), but sadly they don’t.

Tiresias.6473:

I last remember it as a 2% buff per hit with a cap of 5 stacks for a straight 10% damage boost. I could be remembering it incorrectly, but I’m struggling to find a way to get to a 100% boon duration boost while maintaining a near-100% effective critical strike rate. to make the most of the talent.

I think you’re confusing Fencer’s Finesse with Harmonious Mantras.

People complain that many classes have underperfoming skills and anet should fix it.
Anet starts giving underperforming skills some love.
People complain that the skills aren’t meta anyway and therefore may as well just not have been buffed.

Honestly, i don’t blame them for just not giving a kitten .

nicknamenick.2437:

Meh.. i was hoping for some sustain nerfs reverted. lets hope next time!

Anet generally doesn’t revert nerfs. It really takes alot for that to happen.

Ben answered this question in another thread already.

Ben Phongluangtham.1065:

3) Because players are awarded qualifying points individually, it sounds as though players may enter individual, different tournaments with a different team. This also suggests monthly teams competing may not be those that were played with over the month, but rather an assembly of the highest QP folks you can find. Is this intended?

Yeah. It can be pretty tough for the average team to keep the same 5 together throughout a month, so we didn’t want to have such a hard lock on your team members. Generally, I think throwing a team together for just the monthly may be some disadvantage to joining the tournament with a team you play with regularly.

Yea, I’d rather have no changes than nerfs. Though i agree that mesmer could’ve needed some love for underperfoming skills aswell.

My hope would be:
- We go back to Braham and tell him Jormag’s (probably) asleep
- he starts attacking the commander as he is unable to carry out his revenge and has no
idea where to channel his wrath to now
- we fight him 1o1 and can finally smack some sense into him, as this seems to be the
only language he understands.

VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618:

that is an awfully bad idea.

People would start ‘marrying’ just to get the buffs/teleport.

And seriously, why should such a thing rewarded anyway? Either those two really like each other – than they don’t need any rewards, or they don’t and then the ‘marriage’ would be just a joke/scam – and does not deserve any rewards

Generally:
Yes they would. What about it? If you implement a new system, you will of course try to make it attractive to as most players as possible.

Maybe the two who married don’t need a reward, but Anet does. At the end of the day it’s still additional (optional) content to an MMORPG. They’d have to put people aside for this and invest development time into this instead of something else.
If they would go through the work to make a new system specifically for this, they would of course give it something special to market it to non-rl-couples aswell.

About my idea:
I’m well aware that implementing it this way would also draw friends to use it.
But how exactly is that a problem? What is wrong with motivating you to play with your best friend(s) together? In an MMORPG?

Of course it would “punish” you for breaking a relationship (unable to use the system for a week or something), so you can’t swap partners on the fly and gain the bonus with whoever you want right now.

We’re talking about EXP and Karma here, 2 “currencies” that everyone already has stored up to the moon anyway. It’s really only supposed to be a little gimmick, to make it seem more important than it actually is.

They could atleast implement something like a couple-system.

You get a hearty-buff when you and your partner are on the same map, which gives you something like +10% EXP/Karma and get a teleport-to-your-partner-item which is basically a teleport-to-friend but with unlimited use and instead 30-60 minutes cooldown.

Euthymias.7984:

While I dont mind the current recharge/upkeep methods we have to deal with, it would be more tolerable if it were kept to healing/utilities/elites instead of tossing it on weapon skills on top of their existing cooldowns. If they were free of such, you’ll likely have a notable amount of additional energy ready for use while in combat.

I understand the complaint that energy on weaponskills feels kind of pointless, as they have a cooldown anyway, but Revenant energy usage is balanced around it being required for weapon skills aswell as heal-elite.

You would be on 80+ energy for about 90% of the match. You could fight for half a minute only using weapon skills and drop utilitys when you feel like it, without having to pay attention to energy anymore, probably forgetting the existence of energy all together. Leaving you with basically 2 whole heal-elite sets that you can mostly use however you like (without/really short cooldowns).

If they would delete the energy usage on weapon skills, they would have to like double the energy cost and/or adding a (real) cooldown to each and every one of the utilitys/cooldowns as you could otherwise use 3-4 Phase Traversal/Riposting Shadows in a row, without any drawbacks whatsoever (for example). The drawback of the these skills being so good is that you are (in most scenarios) limited in attacking options after using them.

TLDR: Only using energy to run wild with utilities sounds cool, but would most likely not be as they would’ve to immensely nerf them to balance it out.

Just because every profession has one doesn’t automatically mean revenant should have on aswell.

The problem with reducing the legend switch cooldown is (like Set mentioned) the traits you can proc through it. Using that in combination with empty vessel, would be a stunbreak on a 5-8 seconds cooldown (depending on how strong the CD reduction would be) without having to meet any special condition to use it (like Berzerk Mode for example).

It would also discourage smart usage of your energy, as you always start out with 50 after a swap anyway.

The reason why they added the revenant was because 1 heavy armor class was missing since launch.

Technically speaking though, they add 9 classes each expansion. With elite specs, the whole gameplay style of a profession changes, giving it it’s own unique feel, basically making it a “new class”.
Sometimes it does work better than others of course, but still.

So I’d say it’s highly unlikely we’ll ever see a completely new class again and to be honest i think that’s good. Continuing to expand the “class roster” through elite specs is really the best thing they can do from here on.

Did you confuse stability with resistance?

But yeah, would be great to have some condi defense on a power build aswell. Being expected to run a condi build in order to not instantly be devoured by condi’s is kind of stupid.

Don’t think it should be on glint though, that legend has way too much random stuff going for it as is, but would be a great update to staff and make #4 more relevant.