Guild Wars 2

Lord Trejgon.2809:

Virtuality.8351:

Lord Trejgon.2809:

technically speaking if his changes were approved and introduced we could se a surge of players – like revenants for example following zergs doing literally nothing but running behind them with proper setup and maybe somewhat trying to protect themselves in harsher encounters – maybe.

Uh…why would anyone ever want to do that anyway?

If aiming to maximize his or her own loots, one would, aside from applying boons to teammates, attack and tag enemies as well. It is just not as rewarding, plus not as fun, to merely run along the zerg, serving as a boon bot without doing anything else productive.

I’m sorry I just couldn’t fathom anyone would ever intend to do that.

well you’d se surprised how lazy people can get.

and then we had some of this already present – the only difference is that they spam 1when enemies are nearby – and being able to get all the loot without even that much would make them not doing even that much.

don’t get me wrong – I don’t understand “why” these people are like this myself – I just know these guys exists and their existance may be reason why we cannot have nice things

Straegen.2938:

Scary that it used to hit for substantially more.

Even more scary it used to hit 15 targets.

Dear developers, please give squad leaders the option whether their squads are allowed to be merged by other groups through LFG.

It has been seen sometimes, that when two or more LFG hosts are competing for limited amount of interested players to join their maps, often during off-peak for world bosses or meta-events, one would merge other smaller groups to effectively take down their advertisement and re-organize to benefit his or her own.

This is just terrible experience for players, particularly for those not living in NA/EU region or those who do not play during NA/EU prime. Larger guilds could just dominate the LFG, drawing most interested people into their map, often hard-capped already, while there could have been two maps with workable amount of people in each, if smaller groups on LFG had not been merged and manpower had been distributed evenly.

Such issue could grow worse with the arrival of the new expansion, with even more end-game open world contents available and the player base potentially spread even thinner(or in another word, the competition for players growing ever harsher). I believe this problem needs to be addressed.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

technically speaking if his changes were approved and introduced we could se a surge of players – like revenants for example following zergs doing literally nothing but running behind them with proper setup and maybe somewhat trying to protect themselves in harsher encounters – maybe.

Uh…why would anyone ever want to do that anyway?

If one aims to maximize his or her own loots, he would, aside from applying boons to teammates, attack and tag enemies as well. It is just not as rewarding, plus not as fun, to merely run along the zerg, serving as a boon bot without doing anything else productive.

I’m sorry I just couldn’t fathom anyone would ever intend to do that.

Vegetation.6419:

This player is already putting some minimal effort by following the zerg, why would he just stand there and do nothing in fights? That seems counter productive, since you want your zerg to win.

Also +1 for an updated tagging system

And I have to side with Vegetation here. You want to win the fight, or else there is just no loot for you. So why would one not try to carry his or her own weight?

Zephyra.4709:

Wow I literally just replied to a similar thread.

I did not notice that by the time I started this thread, there had been already a thread on the same topic. Unfortunately half of that very thread turned into a sour debate on relation between guild groups and pugs.

Oh well, at least I’m glad that some people still appreciate quality discussion.

This had been on my mind ever since they introduced the Nomads stat.

Zephyra.4709:

…because of the way the build works being melee heavy it’s hard to land hits in the first place despite pumping out 8k+ heals and boons galore to allies.

It is exactly this kind of experience that the reward system needs to be improved! The disproportionate rewards to the actual influence dedicated healers put out on the field is sometimes just frustrating and disincentivizing.

For serious and productive discussion on tagging and rewarding mechanics, come to this thread instead.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Discussion-On-How-Reward-System-Works/first#post6695214

Now, if only we could solve the problem of people being booted from squads for arbitrary/exclusionary reasons

Is this common in your server? Personally I have barely experienced such unfriendly act throughout all these years.

However, I do believe that it is reasonable for a guild group to have their own raid session with guild members only in the squad, so that everything is organized. And I do consider that it is reasonable for a guild group to prioritize the distribution of boons and other support features on guild members first. And for the kick thing, to me it seems more of a communication problem.

My suggestion would be that you join an organized guild yourself and join its raid sessions. Also running a more defensive build could also help. Assuming your group is fighting enemies of equal number (15, as you stated above), there will most likely be gankers lurking around, waiting for opportunities to focus damage dealer (you) down, and you will certainly want to have better survivability on your own.

Further suggestion:

With boon-stripping focused classes, most notably the Spellbreaker, coming in the future expansion, whether boon-stripping should be taken into account of the current ‘tagging’ mechanics is another thing to be considered.

First, to quote from patch note Jan 26, 2016:

Supporting your allies will now contribute toward earning rewards for killing enemies and damaging event bosses. The actions listed below now cause a percentage of the target ally’s damage dealt for the next several seconds to also count toward your participation. In addition to that, damaging an enemy’s defiance bar will also grant you some participation toward receiving rewards from that enemy. In order to discourage AFKing with boon-applying auras, you must still be actively attacking targets to receive rewards from them.

• Applying boons to an ally (small percentage).
• Removing conditions from an ally (small percentage).
• Reviving an ally (large percentage).
• Healing an ally (percentage scales based on how much healing is given).

This has been a great step made by developers for WvW community, promoting build diversity by providing incentives to play roles other than damage. However there could be still some room for improvement.

One is the mechanic how you share ally’s ‘tagging’(attacking) credits, as stated in the patch note:

In order to discourage AFKing with boon-applying auras, you must still be actively attacking targets to receive rewards from them.

Basically, it means that in order to share ally’s credits from killing something, you have to at least score a hit on it. The credits gained from supporting and healing your ally only serve as a bonus on top of that (if I understand this correctly).

For PvE, I believe such approach is necessary, as we have already been seeing a considerable amount of people AFK farming and such act should be and have been disincentivized. However, for WvW there is really no such concern, since anyone who’s gone AFK in a fight scene is an instant kill for the other team anyway.

While on the other hand, players in support and healing roles often find themselves in situations requiring complete focus on support/healing action instead of attacking. And by dedicating to the team, they gain less material rewards under current credit-sharing mechanic.

Furthermore, weapon types excelling in support, healing, and/or self-sustaining are often bad at tagging (lacking five-target AoE, with long cool-down, slow firing, short range, extremely low damage coefficient and so on). The reward gained by supports and healers is thus even more disproportionate to the influence they actually put out on the field. And all these could be solved simply by lifting the must-tag limit for WvW mode without introducing unintended AFK farm play.

Another thing is the ‘tagging’ mechanic itself. To again quote from the patch note:

…cause a percentage of the target ally’s damage dealt for the next several seconds to also count toward your participation.

(Italic emphasis added by OP)

While damage dealt is a good indicator of a player’s offensive output, it certainly does not represent the entire picture. Many offensive skills are powerful and influential without inflicting any damage upon the enemy. Just take Time Warp for example, which applies ‘Slow’ condition to five enemy targets for a relatively long span. Also, crowd control is another thing not explicitly taken into account, yet it is essential in any PvP scenario. To address this problem, I believe we need to extend the tagging mechanic, from only damage to non-damage-inflicting conditions and control skills. Some classes and builds are absolutely great at these aspects, yet they do not receive rewards proportionate to their contribution to a kill under the current system.

TL; DR:

To conclude, the current reward system does not reward players proportionate enough to their contribution in WvW.

First, ‘tagging’ as the least requirement to share credits for rewards from a killed target is not preventing unintended AFK farm, which hardly exists at all in WvW scenario, while on the other hand crippling down the material rewards gained by support/healing classes.

Secondarily, based on the patch note, the ‘tagging’ mechanic itself does not seem to take non-damage conditions and crowd control into account, while some classes/builds are very effective in the latter two aspects and such aspects are essential, perhaps even more important in any PvP scenario.

A possible way to provide more proportionate reward to supports and healers is to cancel the requirement to attack something as base requirement to receive credits for, and to share credits from, buffing/healing allies. Additionally, on tagging mechanic itself, take non-damage conditions and crowd control into account.

Edit: fixed typo and polished.

For people gaming on mid- to low-end computers or laptops, graphic setting has always been to be compromised. We make tweaks here and there, trying to get the best appearance while preventing lowering the frame rate to an unplayable stage.

However, Guild Wars 2 is a game with huge diversity in it’s landscape. And with diversity, comes difference in render load for the system. For example, Many people experienced serious frame rate drop in Ember Bay with the same graphic setting that had been totally fine elsewhere. The same issue happens in Amnoon, the oasis city in Crystal Desert, while the system runs smoothly with the same setting at the adjacent country side.

And this is even more true for players who constantly engage in different kinds of activities. The best graphic setting for a WvW zerg fight and Tequatl is certainly different from the graphic setting for map exploration alone or in a small party.

Some might suggest that one can simply use the ‘Autodetect’ function. However in many cases, ‘Autodetect’ fails to provide the best possible appearance within the limit of certain frame rate—not to mention that even the desired frame rate limit could vary from player to player. On the other hand, the ‘Best Appearance’ option is just often too laggy while the ‘Best Performance’ option is just painfully dull.

For players, a custom graphic template option is therefore much in need. With preferably at least 2 slots of templates for player to customize and choose from based on the scenario, instead of the laggy ‘Best appearance’ and painfully dull ‘best performance’ presets, player experience could be drastically improved.

When it comes to DPS, qtfy is a good indicator, as contrary to the ‘sub-optimal’ ones in terms of DPS you mentioned. Though I’m, and certainly was in the original post, neither saying that qtfy is the only approach, nor that I went with qtfy build brainlessly. So you might really want to take your build variety advocacy elsewhere.

Secondarily, ‘easier ’ in terms of? The time spent? The rotation and reaction needed to complete the task? The gear acquisition? What was the exact approach? There’s no point throwing an overgeneralized baseless comment stating that ‘hey I did it with ease’ to argue that an issue does not exist at all.

First of all, could we please have a challenge/retry mote for the first combat scene of story stage “Shining Blade Secrets”, LS3EP6, the one for achievements ‘Precision Blade’ and ‘Hold the Line’?

It is utterly painful to be forced to sit through 5 minutes of dialogue and cutscene for every retrial.

Secondarily, based on the community feedback, the achievement is basically a AoE-DPS check. The problem is, that some classes inherently do not have the chance at all to make it.

Take mesmer for example, the class ranking at the very bottom on [qT]‘s benchmark (http://qtfy.eu/benchmarks/). The condition DPS listed is for single target, and the direct DPS listed is with full boons in raid scenario. In a solo instance, a mesmer can at best clear 3 waves before shadow escapes and that’s pretty much it.

This brings up some questions on design philosophy:

Is the achievement arguably class-specific?

If yes, then, should achievements ever be class-specific? To answer this question, one needs to ask:

If the achievement is de facto class-specific, could it be arguably regarded as punishing players for picking the ‘wrong’ class from the head start?

And, If the achievement is de facto class-specific, does it implies that the game is not following through the statement that players can do anything with any class, the groundbreaking class design philosophy when it was announced back by 2012? Or in another word, balancing is not kept. And if this is true and difficult to improve in near future, which is totally understandable, then doesn’t it make the idea of setting an achievement based on AoE DPS, despite knowing that some classes might not be able to achieve it at all, fundamentally flawed?

That’s what I could think of so far. Thanks for looking into this!

Edit: I am aware of that one is possible to lure Countess Anise/Kiera to tank and kill the mobs without getting yourself into combat since Anise is unable to be downed, and this could serve as an alternative approach to complete the achievement for people running classes that could be arguably impossible to complete the achievement the way developers intend.

However, I believe the frame should be kept within intended gameplay when discussing on design philosophy.

If the achievement is best solved and seemingly only to be solved by meeting enough AoE DPS with few to none alternatives, I believe it could be arguably regarded as the intended gameplay by developers? And if some classes is by design utterly difficult to impossible to get the achievement the intended way, I’d argue that it could be flawed.

Most order weapons and armors cannot be salvaged, except the ones from Vigil Weapon Crates (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vigil_Weapon_Crate).

I just couldn’t see the point to assign these particular gears unable for players to salvaged. Have the developers mentioned it somewhere before?

Now with the WvW gears becoming savalgeable after Hot, the gears of the three orders of Tyria still remain unable to be salvaged.

It is understandable that Anet decided to make WvW gears salvageable. Players can now finally retrieve their expansive sigils and runes for a reasonable cost, and recover a small portion of the effort and money spent on their now unfit gears to invest into experiencing the new meta after HoT.

On the other hand, just like WvW gears, upgrades on the order weapons and armors are utterly difficult to retrieve. They also cost a lot, or perhaps even more. A full collection of weapons and armors of one single order, 36 pieces in total, now cost nearly 90 gold, and with the current prices of materials on the trading post, no one would ever purchase them just to salvage for profit, because it is simply no way profitable.

So, why can’t we salvage them? There is just no reasoning behind the design that players can’t even get their sigils/runes applied on those gears back without purchasing the extractor from the trading post gem store, which is another great cost.

Also, the rarity of order gears is also questionable: it is now level 80 rare (yellow). I’d like to suggest that it would be much better if it were exotic (orange). Here’s why.

The act of the orders is a great part in personal story, where players develop identification with the order they pick. However, if I were a new player with my character just hitting level 80, the first set of gear I would acquire would never be the order armors even if they were the armor set that I could best relate to (I did!) — simply because they were merely of rare stats, while I could have purchased a full set of exotic stat gears with less gold from the trading post. The fact that these gears are designed to be of rare stats makes them merely skins, and requires additional cost of another set of actually practical exotic armor and transmutation, which is another great cost (same goes with the cultural armor). And all these obstacles are just frustrating for new players eager to acquire their short-term end game gears (often exotic) with the desired look on them.

And by changing the order gears to level 80 exotic stats and making them salvageable, the two issues mentioned above could be solved all together. What do you think about this suggestion?

Just fixed a couple typo. not my native language so if there’s anything confusing you’re all welcome to point out :P

And thanks for all the [Feedback] <3
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Not going to reply to any specific comment, but will do a general discuss.

On boon stripping:

No much experience so can’t really tell accurately on this.

I always want to build around boon ripping support to counter stability. However, the boon strip of mesmer is plain random as far as I know. And therefore, theoretically it could only be possible to counter stability well with a bunch of necromancers doing the same thing as well on call (and perhaps necro just do even better if massed up and focus firing).

Pity that my guild never really favors necromancer much since we often struggle to get more of the soldier class onto the front already at the late night.

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On reflection:

Not sure about the situation in the other servers, but I’ve been seeing less and less projectile reflected, but only trivia damage being reflected. Maybe it’s the class preference, since the more popular necro and ele DPS so well with no reliance on projectiles.

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On confusion epidemic:

Actually thought of this before but never had a chance to carry it out. Could work well in small scale fight between roamers I suppose. And the scepter #3 of mes could sync well with necro’s epidemic with around the same CD.

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On bag counts:

Yeah sure you still can earn bags with glamour confusion…it’s basically a large scale tag machine. Just difficult to create enough intensity/to access to cooperate with allies.

This discuss is on zWvW, i.e., WvW zerg fight, in which the effectiveness of condition builds for mesmers. Hopefully this detailed guide could help new mesmer players interested in condition builds for zerg fight.

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From what I’ve seen on the forum, some would suggest a 15 on 15 GvG match is already a zerg fight, while those fighting on the scale of 40+ v.s 40+ all night long would definitely disagree.

But anyway, here’s the rules of thumb: the more enemies on the other team, the less effective your conditions are going to be. Also the more organized (i.e., consisting of good guild groups) the other team is, the even less effective you will be.

And here’s why:

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Contents:
1. The mechanics
2. The source of condition damage
3. The trade-offs
4. The guild group factor

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1. The mechanics

The reason lies within the game mechanics. Since The majority of condition removing skills prefered in zWvW are AoE (typically of the warrior & guardians) and the very fact that the conditions from all sources would eventually stack into the same 12 pools (of which at least 5 typically have very short duration and easily expire), a single removal effect could neglect the focused output of a dozen of people.

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2. The source of condition damage

Secondarily, before investing into condition damage, you need to look these 3 variables of your condition source:

• Intensity: the damage spike—the number of stacks and your condition damage.
• Accessibility: how often can you apply those conditions.
• Duration: no need to be excessively long but must not be too short, since the damage ticks per second and the duration is often neglected 20% to 40% by the popular duration reduction food.

For example, the illusions, one of the main source of mesmers, never works well in a zerg fight. They are too easily destroyed before applying wanted amount of bleed/fire damage if not shattered, and even more before reaching the target if ordered to shatter. On the other hand, the conditions on death effect only causes trivia output. Another example is the glamour confusion, which was once popular before the nerf of confusion. All three variables are now just too low.

With the lackluster of the utility source and the illusion source, it leaves you mostly of the weapon skills to rely on. There are three weapons considered condition spec: the staff, the scepter, and the torch. The staff is known for it’s low DPS and regarded as a defensive weapon mostly. The torch/scepter set do have 3 skills with a good spike, a good duration and good accessibility of conditions, but the torment is on single target (AoE, even just cleeving, is more prefered in a zerg fight) while the torch is a point-blank AoE, which limits the application for a condition spec backliner.

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3. The trade-offs

Third, you need to look into the trade-offs. For zerging, the main concern is, how much survivability you would lose if you’re going for a certain build. For the melee frontliners (usually of the heavy class), survivability is the key, but much less so for the backline casters. However, not every single battle takes place on the open field, and there are definitely certain terrain features where backliners will have to go face to face. The trade-offs under such scene has become important.

And to make your conditions effective, you have to achieve a favorable status of the 3 key variables mentioned above, requiring even more stat investment than direct damage and thus rendering you less survivable with those points could have been invested in Chaos and Inspiration traits and the defensive stats actually into condition damage.

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4. The guild group factor

Almost needless to say, a well organized guild group should be highly resistant to conditions. I’ve been changing from tier 8 to tier 1 servers gradually, and the condition resistance differs greatly, mostly based on the quality and quantity of the members of guild groups. The better the opponent you’re fighting against, the less you should rely on your conditions as the main damage source.

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It’s not like that conditions are worthless for zerging, but if you’re aiming on the damage output, conditions are just much less reliable compared to direct damage. I mean, if you’re following a guild group hammer train with condimancers, surely you could still have a chance to be effectively dealing damage as long as you listen to orders and focus fire with the others. However if then…I would just swap to my necro character for better intensity, accessibility and duration of conditions.

The Glamour Confusion build was strong before Anet cut the confusion damage to half of the original number in PvP/WvW.

It was strong because it’s an AoE field with no limit on the number of affected targets. Everybody stepping in the field gets one stack of confusion and another stack for walking out. You could easily get 4 stacks of confusion on to the whole zerg within seconds, and with a full set of condition damage gear, it did spiked before nerf.

Nowadays you still get tags by running this build (I’’ve run it myself after nerf), but I’d say it’s not actually helpful for your team. If you’re running in an organized group in a server ranking at the top tiers, I’d suggest not to go for it.

selan.8354:

i think i run exactly the same build and weapon set as ansau and yeah i gotta say the veilbot duty is starting to get old.
we need non ai aoe builds again and also more build options for large raids

Simply to be a veilbot is the least favored.

I believe the dev would find it difficult to figure out a method to create/modify AoE skills other than the AI-dependent shatter skills since it could affect to much under PvP circumstances, which is better recognized by ANet.

However, AoE-wise or no, we do need some buff for ZvZ. As BlackDevil mentioned:

BlackDevil.9268:

Though this (Portal) is not really of any use in-combat. That’s what I’m getting annoyed about, is that almost everything we’re good at in raids is before or after combat.

This is what makes the mesmer class wishy-washy in ZvZ. The uniqueness of mesmer is too much about the logistics, which is, for an organized group, something good-to-have rather than must-have, and often the least of the concern of the pin other than conducting a golem rush.

And by the way, this is also where Aurika’s approach really shines, putting the logistic ability into group combat maneuver, which can only be done in a well organized group and under good communication.

However I still consider the mesmer class in great need of a ZvZ combat wise buff.

BlackDevil.9268:

Sorry but spamming 1 on greatsword is not the ‘’true value’’ of a mesmer in raids. 1 shatter deals more damage than 20 seconds of spamming 1 greatsword and also removes boons from enemys + immobilizes & pulls.
Theres not much interesting to see with mesmer anyway these days. It’s in a really, really poor state. It’s that we have veil else we would be nearly useless in raids against big blobs.

Sorry I didn’t make it clear. By “true value” I was describing the versatile use of Portal, especially in the first video of Aurika. The other two however does not really appeal to me though, regarding the quality of JQ PuGs in EB.

Of course the term could be much exaggerated, but regarding the poor state of the Mesmer class as you’ve also mentioned in the latest post, the application of something unique to this class other than veil should be appreciated, at least in my opinion.

And for the weapon skill part, I personally wouldn’t even be using GS under most of the circumstances in the video, but that’s just my approach/build. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t affect much on how I value the overall work.

Btw is there something wrong with twitch? :\ I really want to check out your channel but the stream’s been so laggy in the past few days.

For #22, I just made a specific new topic for this. Please also check out here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Mesmer-Long-Living-Portal-CD-Bug/first#post3744639

Hello, This bug has been there for a very long time. It happens under the following circustances.

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0. During the whole process, the character is out of combat.

1. When none of my utility slots (#7/#8/#9) is equipped with Portal, I trigger one of those utility skill, for example, #7.

2. Now #7 is cooling down. The CD clock’s ticking.

3. Then I swap one of my the other two utility slots, both of which are not in CD, to Portal.

4. The portal abnormally goes into CD, with the same timer as the CD of the #7 utility skills.

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Known Solution:

During step 3, swap one of the 2 unused utility to something else than portal, and then swap either of those 2 to Portal, then the bug does not occur.

However this is very annoying, time-consuming and inconvenient, when you find somethings wrong, trying react and adjust yourself to the situation before you’re forced to enter combat.

Thanks for spending time looking into this. I really hope this will get fixed.

p.s., Oh and, by the way, I heard that about 10 hours ago, 2 thieves just used some sort of bug/hack to ninja the waypointed Garrison in JQBL. I’d suggest you take this as your priority and make sure it will not happen again, especially before the second season starts. I don’t even want to imagine the wrath such thing could cause if it ever happen again during the season.

p.p.s., According to other sources, I’ve learned that the bug occurs the other way around as well, i.e., when you trigger your Portal twice, getting it into CD, and then swap one of the other 2 utility skills into something else, the swapped skill goes into CD with the same timer.

Would the moderator please pin this thread at the top of this forum? The contents serve as very good reference for mesmer players interested in WvW zerg fight.

Much appreciate to those who shared the footage.

p.s After checking over 2/3 of the links, I really think Aurika’s approach really show the mesmer’s true value in a zerg fight. Nice work.

By roaming, you gain more overall control of the sitaution, able to expect and time things well, and personal skills excels much.

Zerging is really another thing. Run with a guild group or at least join the teamspeak or whatever comm in use, otherwise it would be plain boring imo.

For the confusion part. Although confusion, as one of the many conditions, doesn’t crit, it does spike when the opponent spams skills, just not as much as it was pre nerf. Now to me it’s kind of wishy-washy.

1. No, conditions don’t crit.
2. No, power does not affect confusion. Your condition damage value does.

Is condition build good in zerging? It depends on the tier of your server and who exactly you’re attacking at. For example, a well-organized tier 1 guild group should have very good AoE condition cleansing and runs in a tight formation, both of which could render your conditions least effective on the DPS aspect (though you still get bags).

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/madness/When-will-Scarlet-s-Secret-Lair-be-closed/first#post3642609

Telling us that Scarlet’s Lair “will be sticking around” but not telling us that the chests inside will be no longer available…really Danicia.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I don’t understand why you would save these…

because moving from one end of the map to the other and then vice versa repetitively is a colossal waste of time.

Suggestion: would it be better to separate the WvW builds into two section, roaming (solo or small team) and GvG (or zerg fighting, etc)? it should be easier for people to look up for the builds they need for particular circumstances.

And thanks for this post very helpful.

Hi, I have seen several posts asking people to vote but without a “poll” function collecting every single reply, it seems a bit difficult to measure which option people lean on to the most.

Therefore, I’d like to suggest the dev team to add in a new “poll” function, letting people to host a real post and save us the time to count through every single post xD

plz take this into consideration and thanks in advance!

voting for #2. I’d consider #2 essential.

However, if #2 is applied, either the issue in #3 should be fixed as well to prevent the 4th skill focus become half-functioning, or the mentioned weapon skill should be replaced with something else.

For the options not chosen…#3 literally is another totally non-relative issue, to the fact that we don’t have the passive signet speed buff as other professions do. #4 would be a kinda useless update in my opinion, since we already have the 4th skill on focus functioning alike. And, for #1, it does make the mentioned focus skill much more useful, yet i can expect people failing to escape from enemies with a mesmer included, every single time.

Morfedel.4165:

You know, between temporal curtain and blink, I have no problems keeping up with my zerg in wvw, none.

…I HAVE to use two skills to keep up with someone using one skill, and that doesn’t seem quite right.

… except for the stacking issue. Failing to get my speed buff from my focus even though I run across it perfectly

I strongly agree with your statement. I don’t usually have a problem keeping up with my mates, when I have the focus, the utility skill “Blink”, and the trait “Warden’s Feedback” equipped.

Recently, however, I started to wonder if the 16.5% (33% * 10 sec effect span / 20 sec cool-down span) all-time speed buff is worth the 20 points invested in Inspiration in order to get a single trait.

In an other word, in order to make up the speed gap between the other professions and me, I had to use the phantasm, the iWarden, which is much less capable in WvW and PvP scenes, in exchange for 66% of the speed buff off other professions(16.5% / 25%). And that was when I had the Warden’s Feedback trait(costing me 20 trait points into Inspiration line, which I never really wanted), or it would be only a 52.8% buff of other professions (33% * 10 sec effect span / 25 sec cool down). And this really make no sense to me…

In my opinion, if the officials stated that mesmer would be the second agile profession, then it should be, for example, 25% all time buff just like the other professions, plus Blink.

Wonder if this has been discussed before…

In the local (.tw) forum here there was a post stating that, a Phantasm Duelist does less damage if summoned with the trait Duelist’s Discipline equipped on the player, compared to the situation when the said trait was not equipped.

To prove this I’ve run several test in the Mist on the golems, and I can confirm this statement is correct.

*The Method:

All armors, jewels, and sigils on the weapon were removed. Most traits were refunded, while only the needed traits was allowed(for example, in this test, the Dueling line was maintained at 20 since we need to test on the said trait).

The test was conducted on the light golems. First the test is run while traited with Duelist’s Discipline, and then untraited. The damage was recorded in total, when only the series of attack (all 8 hits of the iDuelist) were all non-crit.

*And there was a noticeable difference between these two conditions.

I furthermore ran the same test, with fewer samples, on 2 other kinds of Phantasms, the iSwordsman and the iWarlock, with or without their corresponding traits providing -20% Weapon Skill CD.

For iWarlock, There was no significant difference between traited or untraited situations. However, for the iSwordsman, it seemed that the damage range discrete more when traited than untraited.