Guild Wars 2

Leveled without problems till 80 with a staff/condition build.
Mr. Prometheus videos are really nice to learn the ropes. I must say it was a very safe way of leveling, especially after having the double bounce trait.

Some things to take into account:
- Terrible damage to objects just like Zeoli said, you have to switch to another weapon for that.
- Hard cap of 25 stacks per mob, which means that lot’s of damage is wasted in big events, if you want to do damage in those occasions, you have to adapt your playstyle (afk heavy phantasm use, or switch weapon and go shatter and have fun).

I like a staff/condition heavy build but here are lot’s of things to consider.

I’m trying to reach the maximum condition damage possible (just a personal objective for fun). Been playing with a max condition build/gear, carrion jewels, rabid armor/weapon, all damage comes from condition/thoughness(10%) and nothing else, the problem is that with this set of gear your stats will be spread out between power/precision, you’ll have no crit damage, so your phantasms will never hit or crit by that much. Then you’ll have those runs/events where bleeding is already at 25 stacks, so lot’s of your damage is wasted.

Staff is a great support/defense weapon, limited condition damage, to have a bit more fun I got IP, at least I can farm events “decently” while shattering.

My playstyle is very mobile, always in and out of melee range to get the most use of shatters. Running with 1608 condition damage, 1858 with 25 stacks in the sigil, and not all armor is rabid yet. When you have all your conditions rolling you’ll have lot’s and lot’s of numbers, but none of those will break the 4th digit (maybe a burning from time to time). To break the 4th digit you’ll have to summon a phantasm or shatter. At least you can rezz people while your illusions continue to apply damage to the mobs.

Resuming, if you want a max dps/pve mesmer build, it’s very easy to see a Greatsword/Power/Precision/Crit damage/Mantra build as the maximum dps possible. Not much support with mantras, but you can always use staff as a secondary weapon for those defensive moments.

Cloaking, Portal, 10s Moa, you don’t need to pvp to understand that some skills may be over the top.

After all you are the self-proclaimed mesmer masters, that created a lvl 80 and understand everything about a class, still, you don’t know how to read the trait tooltips to try to understand what could cause the imbalances. You could have created a post about a specific skill, or trait, but no… you had to go to the obvious. Nerf the mesmer, the class that have illusions and can shatter them.

Imbalanced or not, what ever happens, you will always complain.

And Blood Red Spider :-P, I don’t think that’s the problem, to calculate the staff damage you have to sum all those factors, conditions, illusions uptime, shatter damage, staff damage, is the damage in 12 seconds that much to handle? How much time to setup? With or without phantasm? how much of that damage is avoidable or cleansed? What can be imbalanced for a weapon may not be a problem for another at all.

Breaking it down

Crafting: agree with the last paragraph
Socializing: it’s different, you have to “work” more for it, not necessary a bad thing
Open world PvP: did not exist in GW1 also, ANET decided it this way.
Role-playing: The need to “sit” :-), it could have been done better, but let’s also be honest, good role-players can work around everything.
Trade window: Lack of time? I don’t know why this doesn’t exist.
Auction House: It works “when it works”, I don’t have problems with it. There are books around it in WoW because of the huge player base, not because it’s a good AH. Check EvE if you want to see a full economy working.
UI: For me this is the best MMO UI out of the box, I understand the need of UI customization for some, specially for people that are used to play games with terrible UIs where the installation of MODs are mandatory. A checkbox to unlock/lock UI elements GW1 style would be a nice addition.
Travelling: No problems with it, don’t forget that the waypoints here have a double purpose, they are not only for travelling but also for rezzing. Maybe in the following expansions they will add mounts, not really important for me.
Endgame: Or is it PvE or is it PvP? What matters is the journey and WoW in the same sentence? Your examples do not make sense. I agree that there are lot’s of things to improve(add) endgame wise.
Being distinctive and untouchable: I really like the way this game is in that regard.

I don’t understand why you were looking for something fresh, different, then complain why some things are not like the game you played before.

Size =/= Quality. The fact that a game had 10m players do not mean much to me.
I understand why you see WoW as a standart, for me the most closest to perfect MMO is EvE Online which is running for more time than WoW but with much less players.

Good post, there are lot’s of flaws in GW2, lot’s of things to improve I give you that.
But lot’s of your ideias are things I’m not interested in seeing in GW.
To each their own.

I understand the need of UI customization, I was fanatic about it in other MMOs.
Truth be told, I still didn’t have the need of changing the GW2 UI, which can only mean that they made an amazing job with it.

In all MMOs I had played this is the best MMO UI out of the box (imho).

You still have my vote for UI customization, the possibility of changing the location of some UI elements would be nice (an UI ‘unlock’ mode)

You should check this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Melee-Mesmer-in-Explorable-Mode

It’s the playstyle you are looking for, with tips on how to survive, support or do better damage.

When travelling, focus in off-hand is a must for speed boosts.
Shatter your illusions when the mob is bellow 20%, like you said, the illusions vanish when the mobs die, don’t let that happen, it’s wasted damage :-P

Traits really define the mesmer you want to play, things will get better at higher levels.

There is a passive skill that increases illusions hp, it’s a very good skill at the level you will be able to attain it, and it is easy to replace it at higher levels (because of traits).

Honestly, I don’t get it.

Leveled to 80 with staff/sword+focus without a crit/bleed spec (20/0/30/0/20) and I had no problems at all. It’s really difficult to die, even with the respawn rate of Orr.

I prefer to roam killing anything that moves while gathering mats for a while than farming DEs. This is not a DE mob tagging spec, and I have to be honest, all those guys with IP and shatters of 10k, do you really can tag the amount of mobs you say you can? No pun intended, but lot’s of DEs have all people spamming skills at the exact spot where the mobs stop being invulnerable and mobs die in less than 0.5 sec unless they are an elite. Best way to tag mobs in my spec, is to go 1h sword, choose the right place, put a stone in top of my “1” key, and get out for a while.

I think this is a DE problem, not mesmer specific, and if Arenanet wants to sort out the bots problem and enhance the current DE farming, they have to add other types of mobs into this events (reflectors, kamikazes, whatever), something that makes DE events more interesting and not a “spam one skill feast”.

Dungeons, I think my spec is a very good dungeoning spec, is not top dps’er for sure, but in all dungeons I went I feel useful. The truth is, with all problems that the class may have, I’m still having fun. I may not kill as fast as other classes, but I doubt I die as often as them.

New character, leveling from 1 to 11 yesterday night, decided to go with tailoring.
At level 11 I was not able to create 4 bags, there is no cloth… it’s very difficult to level tailoring at this low levels without going to the trading post. It was not like this 2 weeks ago.

Don’t know the implications of butter and chocolate with everything else, but now leather and cloth drop rates look the same of rare materials.
No problems with ore or wood of course.

From another player (level 7):
https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/6163/gw001.jpg

With all due respect, I don’t know how they work and none of you really knows how they work.

Are they for real? Can someone explain how they work?
Are they a bug? Not meant to exist in certain areas, levels, etc?

It seems this is happening while leveling in the starting areas.

- Is this working as intended?
- Is this a bug that you are trying to fix?

I really don’t understand your silence about this.
I usually only play around 2h a day, and I’m being hit by diminishing returns? Really?
How can I recommend this game to co-workers now? I understand that certain objectives must take time, but diminishing returns???
If you want people of certain level ranges to stop farming certain events why not increase the respawn timer of those events?

Thanks