Guild Wars 2

wads.5730:

Daishi.6027:

congalong.9620:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusion

Illusions derive their precision, power, condition damage, critical damage, armor, and healing directly from the mesmer’s attributes. Illusions do not gain any benefit from the mesmer’s vitality, condition duration or boon duration. They are neither affected by the damage of the mesmer’s equipped weapon nor by any of the various non-stat effects of weapon sigils or armor runes.

That is what I also believe. How much it scales, hard to tell for certain unless someone did accurate tests on a dummy.

So to clerify… Percision, power, condiiton damage, crit dmg, armor, and healing. are the EXACT same stats as the main mesmers?

it used confusing words like “derive” and “benefit” makes it hard to understand what’s specific.

they obviously aren’t exactly the same stats as you, this is easiest to see since clones do very little damage.

they scale with your stats, but they have their own stats.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusion

Illusions derive their precision, power, condition damage, critical damage, armor, and healing directly from the mesmer’s attributes. Illusions do not gain any benefit from the mesmer’s vitality, condition duration or boon duration. They are neither affected by the damage of the mesmer’s equipped weapon nor by any of the various non-stat effects of weapon sigils or armor runes.

Redscope.6215:

After reading the above quote, see the top of this post for irony.

I guess it is a bit ironic no? :p

Then again, I said I would prefer but I’m not crying out to ANET to FORCE people to play that way unlike some posters here.

Sure, I can understand the desire to have, more monsters killed = better loot, but only if it could be averaged out in the long run vs a speed runner. aka, if I speed run and let’s say I do 3-4x more runs than you, my loot should be similar to yours if you did 1 non-skip clear. I think that would be fair and wouldn’t hurt many players except those that are basically just wanting things their way. Of course that would mean each dungeon would have to be tweaked on rates for the time invested in an “optimal” speed run vs a non-speed run. (See 6-8 min COF P1 runs). This kind of goes in line with D3’s Monster power level farming. Some choose to farm MP0 for faster runs and get the same amount of legendaries/rares in the long run vs those that do MP4+.

I don’t run conditions in PVE because I usually have a necro or ranger that bleeds better than I do and can spread it better (read, Epidemic). It’s not dependent on my clones staying alive. (Staff sucks balls to me as the time it takes for the staff projectile to travel and hit the boss, I could have already almost gotten 3 ticks off GS if I was max range. This is referring to the staff 1 skill only, not iWarlock. iWarlock is awesome.)

It’s kind of disappointing that our main “condition” confusion, can never be stacked to 25 reliably on our own unlike some of the other condition dmg classes (nec/ranger) (hell, I’ve never even seen above 15 being spread by myself) and that it’s so worthless in PVE.

So it’s better to just force everyone into the same decision and not give choice? You’ll make the community even more divided with no way to have the other “half” feel satisfied. At least in it’s current form, people can find groups that don’t want to skip. Sure it may not be as popular but I can guarantee you that forcing no skips via something like never de-aggro trash would make the game a lot less fun for many people. Hell, some dungeons would never ever be done (see Arah) due to the time it would take given the amount of trash.

At most, dungeons should take a maximum of 1 hr, at the minimum, 10 minutes for a skilled group for short dungeons, 30 for an average group.

Part of what makes GW2 so awesome is the amount of choice you have. Limiting the choice by forcing people into one way is NOT the way to go.

I usually run blink/null/feedback for the most part in FOTM. Blink is invaluable because you can blink out of situations if you make a bad decision or blink over to a downed ally to res faster. Especially given that mesmers don’t get speed boosts like other classes.

What I find hilarious about these posts is that it’s basically summed into this.

“I don’t like the way you do things and things should be done my way.”

You are free to make non-skip LFGs and find like minded people. People that want to skip can find groups that want to skip. That’s the beauty of it, choice. Forcing people into something they don’t want to do is basically asking for something to be not done.

Sure, fix exploits which trivialize an encounter but making mobs perma-aggro is NOT a solution. Nor is “stacking-MF on kills” as that basically rewards players who put in a lot of time/have a lot of time.

I would prefer dungeons have low amounts trash that is relatively low HP but test certain mechanics and skills such as dodging on time, reflecting on time, etc.

And people who complain about a guardian/tanky character skipping because they can endure all the damage and get away so the mobs de-aggro but they can’t….that’s a L2P issue. My glass cannon mesmer (full zerkers) can skip just as well as any other character and most people, at least in my guild don’t seem to have a problem with it.

So people are basically kittening that having a mesmer is required in PVP matches due to mesmers having TW.

Isn’t that basically begging the question, why does every PVP team have a guardian? NERF GUARDIANS PLOX.

If the devs really choose to listen to the QQ, then it will only be a matter of time before the slippery slopes starts to turn into a landslide where either PVP will die or again, become a generic have this class, this class, and this class = win if the other team isn’t the same match-up.

SteepledHat.1345:

That is the one upside to this, they no longer have an excuse for when they lose. I was over in the SPvP forum and they were already talking about another mesmer “exploit”.

I saw that and laughed. Oh it never ends.

I wouldn’t mind a GCD if they improved the shatter skills somewhat…shorter CD or whatever if this were to be a perma-fix. As it stands, it’s definitely just a flat-out nerf that was meant to fix a bug.

SteepledHat.1345:

Everyone that keeps saying the GCD is temporary, have you seen anything said to that accord? I haven’t and I have no reason to think it will be changed. Please, realize this is the case and push for it to be changed back soon!

I’m really hoping it’s a quick fix to satisfy the sPVP crowd.

Inferring the way they program (object oriented C++) the game based on their development job openings it’d be pretty easy to code a fix that doesn’t screw over people by putting in a lame kitten GCD. Of course it’s assuming a buncha stuff (such as every clone/illusion being it’s own object with it’s own set of properties, else, how could you have every illusion/clone have buffs/debuffs, etc?) and I could be totally wrong.

But we can pray.

Though I am looking forward to the next round of mesmer QQ to see what the good players are using to own the bads. ^^; (I’m guessing Distortion and Blurred Frenzy)

Pinch.4273:

congalong.9620:

You could have just coded something up like

if(shatter used) {
shatterable_effect=0
}

or something instead of a band-aid “fix”

Yes, I’m sure you have it all right and know their code better than them.

It’s just a high level example. (I’m just guessing because I’m guessing that illusions/clones are treated as their own objects that have a set of properties, this is strictly from an OO programming perspective) But fine, I’ll take back what I said about it being lazy and just hope it’s a band-aid fix.

Back on topic, Macro’ers can still macro to accomodate for the 0.25GCD. It isn’t an effective stopping them but now you’re punishing legit players because you have to actually wait and see if you’ve actually shattered. Now if GW2 had a sort of action queue similar to some other MMOs it’s not a big issue. But if a mesmer is doing a shatter combo -> Distortion to avoid damage then it can potentially be fatal for a mesmer unless he’s button mashing repeatedly.

SS was expected.

GCD, lazy fix IMO. Hopefully it’s a band-aid fix.

Shattered strength nerf was expected.

0.25s GCD was not. What a lazy kittening way to “fix” something. You legitimately screw players who have faster reflexes.

Let’s hope it’s a band-aid fix.

Edit: I hope ANET realizes that a lot of the macroer’s can still macro/program their macros to accomodate the 0.25GCD and never miss it anyway.

@Aleph you are awesome. Math FTW.

I run a 10/30/0/0/30 GC build for PvE. Mainly because Blurred Frenzy > GS mastery. When you’re a GC you need every tool to dodge and mitigate damage. A shorted BF CD is a god send. Especially in high level fractals. Mesmer is one of the few classes that can get away with no agony resist gear if they are skilled due to Distortion+Blurred Frenzy.

Also, for swap I use:

Sword (sigil of force (5% dmg)) / Focus (sigil of battle(3 stacks of might on swap))

Main GS (sigil of perception) Debating if I should swap this with the power stacking one, need to maths it

iWarden is awesome and can really save your kitten due to it’s reflect attack. It’s also very high damage, I personally prefer it to pistol as I feel that the iDuelist takes too long to cast and the Magic Bullet skill isn’t as useful as the Focus 4 skill.

Focus 4 gives swiftness, a combo field, a cripple, interrupt, and a grouping skill. Run with a bunch of melee? Drop your focus 4 on a wall and slam all the mobs into it for easy AOE grouping. Need to pull a mob away from you? Focus 4 to slow then pull away. Can also affect more mobs than Pistol 5.

Skyro.3108:

Khyras.8021:

Skyro.3108:

It’s not 1v1 or 5v5, they balance around the conquest game mode. I think they are trying to put each class in certain roles based around this game mode, i.e. bunker, roamer, etc.

Specific XvX balancing is for deathmatch type games.

Every time someone says they balance game around conquest mode my stomach starts to turn,because that is the stupidest thing i have ever heard.What happens when new mode is introduced like CTF? How you gonna balance the game around conquest AND CTF for example?Or are you saying 1 game mode with different maps is all we get from GW 2? I would rather have 3 game mods on the same map than 1 game mod on 15 maps.Just blance the game around 1vs1 (or try to do so to the best of your ability) and give us more pvp modes that are actually fun to play before its too late and you end up with your few “top teams” playing on empty servers.

So far ANet hasn’t said anything about new game modes unfortunately. I do think new games modes would be fun and bring back more of the casual audience even if they don’t fully support it with rankings and tourneys and such. I am hoping they give the users a lot of customization in custom servers to create different game modes but I know that is just a pipedream.

But the point remains that there if very very little reason to balance 1v1 unless your official game type is 1v1 deathmatch. In no other scenario does it make sense. Even CTF you’re going to have spec/classes specifically for this role which has little to do with 1v1 balance. It’s quite simple from a game design perspective, you fit the classes in certain roles and balance those roles around your supported game types whether that be conquest, CTF, or deathmatch. And even in deathmatch you would balance around team vs team, not 1v1. I don’t get why people don’t understand this. Was the medic in TF some 1v1 juggernaut?

Agreed.

Also, maybe not 1v1, but a pair of medics were/are an unstoppable killing machine. xD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDwphqM6CmU

XiL.4318:

congalong.9620:

Fourth.1567:

Jjaja.7218:

Balance should always be done from the top to the bottom. Your experiences in PuGs or hot-joins should be disregarded because it does not always represent the meta or the full potential of any profession composition. Top players will always present the full potential of a profession (it’s what makes them top players) and balance should be based off that. I don’t care if a half-decent Mesmer is able to beat a similarly half-decent Necromancer every single time; it’s a totally different scenario at the top.

Sorry but this is just completely flawed. Balance must be done for both synonymously. If casual players don’t enjoy the game there cannot be a competitive scene. I probably wouldn’t be considered a casual player myself but I at least understand where the foundation of a game comes from. If I don’t see a true casual interest I know my time trying to be competitive will just be wasted.

The competitive scene needs to be dynamic. As in have proper progression of new players into competitive players so there is always new ideas being brought to the table. Who is really going to be interested in watching the same top 5 teams play in every tournament? The game has to minimize barriers for new players in order to grow interest and viewership as well as act as a resource to build new teams.

New players joining the game to get bursted by a thief or warrior or end up in an endless fight with a bunker is really going to jade their experience which just undermines the whole competitive scene. That’s even if the game is perfectly balanced at the competitive level.

Is there ONE popular game out there currently that has balanced play at both at the casual level and top level?

Yeah they are the games all the PvPers who left GW2 are back to playing.

Which are? Or are you planning to avoid the question as well by just giving me vague answers?

Fourth.1567:

Jjaja.7218:

Balance should always be done from the top to the bottom. Your experiences in PuGs or hot-joins should be disregarded because it does not always represent the meta or the full potential of any profession composition. Top players will always present the full potential of a profession (it’s what makes them top players) and balance should be based off that. I don’t care if a half-decent Mesmer is able to beat a similarly half-decent Necromancer every single time; it’s a totally different scenario at the top.

Sorry but this is just completely flawed. Balance must be done for both synonymously. If casual players don’t enjoy the game there cannot be a competitive scene. I probably wouldn’t be considered a casual player myself but I at least understand where the foundation of a game comes from. If I don’t see a true casual interest I know my time trying to be competitive will just be wasted.

The competitive scene needs to be dynamic. As in have proper progression of new players into competitive players so there is always new ideas being brought to the table. Who is really going to be interested in watching the same top 5 teams play in every tournament? The game has to minimize barriers for new players in order to grow interest and viewership as well as act as a resource to build new teams.

New players joining the game to get bursted by a thief or warrior or end up in an endless fight with a bunker is really going to jade their experience which just undermines the whole competitive scene. That’s even if the game is perfectly balanced at the competitive level.

Is there ONE popular game out there currently that has balanced play at both at the casual level and top level?

Zerker set in dungeons/PvE IMO.

PVP I’d also use zerkers.

Xom.9264:

Zenith.7301:

Xom.9264:

Sprawl.3891:

This is quite funny.

100b – l2dodge noob
thief spam – l2dodge opener noob
mesmer shatter – omg OP if u dont dodge u die!!!!

Yes melee in MMO’s is popular and always have a large number of people that feel they should kill everything all the time.

All three classes need damage nerfs just like bunkers need defensive nerfs.

Not in PvE mesmers don’t. Play a mesmer in PvE where your illusions get killed the moment they come out from mob autoattacks and get steamrolled by mobs whose hp you can only take 1/7 out of with a full shatter.

You’ll find these mesmer glass cannons are not so good then, and then guardians and eles and warriors with better sustained damage and survivability blow everything else out of the water in PvE.

They need to do PvE/PvP skill splits.

I have a mesmer in pve its leveling very well and easy I will never understand or agree with mesmers that claim they are weak in pve….. My main is a necro mesmer is no harder to level and in alot of cases better. That said I dont glass cannon on my mes for pve… dont know why anyone would do that.

Because glass cannon is all mesmer can do in PVE dungeons IMHO. You’re far better off letting the elementalist/guardian give boons, have the necromancer for condition damage via all the stacking they can do + epidemic. So what do you do as a mesmer if you don’t want to hinder your teammates? I’m really curious to see what kind of build you’re using in dungeons/pve if you aren’t glass because AFAIK, every other class does what a support mesmer can do better and more reliably.

Biohazard.2043:

Confusion replaced hexes from the first game like “Backfire”, “Empathy” and “Visions of Regret”. Confusion in its current stay is no where close to the strength of any of those hexes.

If a mesmer is able to stack 10 confusion stacks on you for 5s then I would be impressed (it seems possible at least) but I never see confusion builds. Overall they are less effective than other condition builds for the exact reason that you are stating:

You have a choice to take the damage from the condition or not.

Right there that makes confusion a less effective damage dealing condition than bleeds or poison. If you can’t avoid taking more damage from the mesmer by dodging and such for the 5s confusion spike then that is something you should learn to do. A mesmer cannot keep 10 stacks of confusion on a target, considering their best confusion stacking skill is on a 15s cd (less if traited maybe?), their confusion shatter is on a 30s cd, and their confusion phantasm is also on a 30s cd.

Or if you’re terrible and you actually let a mesmer who runs scepter channel all 5 stacks onto you xD

I honestly hated leveling my mesmer before lvl 40. One of the main reasons I quit about 3 weeks after launch (I didn’t reroll because I had bought a bunch gems to buy bank and character bag slots on my mesmer and I didn’t want to do it again). Came back, craft leveld myself to like 65 and had a blast from 65-80. It’s so much more interesting and fun once you have the grandmaster traits such as illusionary persona and learning to position yourself safely for a 4 shatter without getting cleaved by AOE for example in dungeons or solo vs champion mobs.

Yes it’s possible to level a mesmer from 1-80 traditionally but 1-40 is going to be boring and painful as hell without the higher traits. I recently leveled a elementalist and it is a lot more engaging and interested at the lower levels than the mesmer.

I remember someone said somewhere either on the forums or the GW2 subreddit,

“Mesmers have like 20% of their full potential before lvl ~40, and they get the last 80% after they reach lvl 40+. Other classes have 80% of their full potential before level 40 and get the last 20% after 40+.”

I found the above so true.

Halo.8976:

My leveling build: gold.
20~ish gold and several hours of crafting = alt lvl 80. Neat.

As for your question – yes, go for Scepter/Warhorn and staff. Cripple, chill, fear – to slow down mobs, plus some aoe for you too.

Leveling with my GF so power leveling via crafting isn’t an option :p

But thanks for the confirmation!

Starting a necro now that my Mesmer is lvl 80 (after a long break. I stopped leveling my mesmer at like 35 3 weeks after release after being so frustrated with the mesmer leveling) so I’m wondering what people recommend as a good leveling build when paired with an elementalist (D/D).

Is the standard still Scepter/Warhorn as the normal build found in these guides?

http://www.guildwarsinsider.com/death-becomes-you-leveling-a-necromancer-from-1-to-40/

http://www.guildwarsinsider.com/death-becomes-you-leveling-a-necromancer-from-41-to-80/

Thanks guys!