Guild Wars 2

I am sure this doesn’t need saying and yet I rather want to anyway because I think it is important to speak up when a discussion is being held and the outcome is important to you.

I never want to get into another game situation in an MMO where I need to memorize my part, memorize the meta, and where the outcome is entirely predictable as long as the people with the “aggro me” buttons remember to press them at the right times. To me that’s just abusing game mechanics – if you are going to build a threat system it should mirror the decisions made by actual players in PvP scenarios and you should not be able to press a button which, if you tried to use that ability on a real player, would do nothing, and instantly “manage” the situation.

You know, they explicitly said Hexes were banhammered into the pages of history when they discussed the Mesmer concept for GW2. I hated losing them too, I miss my old Mesmer and go back and play him in JQ or FA sometimes. They were very, very definite about the fact that they wanted the “hex” as a debuff type to become something that the players could manage without just having to bring the condition clearing skill and the hex clearing skill, like in GW1. Ergo phantasms. Those are your hexes, sadly.

Target-breaking illusion creation is mandatory in my opinion, but also will never happen. Too much cheese and whine the only likely result, however profitable the outcome as far as encouraging the mesmer to be able to use clones as more than just shattertaxis and buff/debuff sources.

As for my inclusions, I’d absolutely build a real 2-handed melee option for the mesmer, because as of right now there’s exactly 1 melee choice (1-h sword) and it’s great but mostly predictable and has been since the beginning. I’d also like to see, as others have suggested, a main-hand ranged combat option which does damage and nothing else. Does it have to be straightforward? No, there are ways to jazz it up, such as an attack chain into an AOE trigger or a plain and simple auto-attack with a trait option to give it a single bounce. Clone creation on 2-skill but rather than make it proc on target hit treat it like the blocks and make it proc clone creation on target miss/block. That’s a great example of old-school mesmer gameplay where you offered your victim a range of bad choices and then forced them to choose how they take their damage. In this case it’s either eat the projectile damage or give me a clone spawned in your vicinity for a quick shatter-punish or just some free debuff auras from traits. Then, of course, 3-skill is an AoE which spawns a phantasm with a warhorn that applies debuff auras (or whatever. The point is AoE damage first, then bring in the illusion) Or, if you want to get creative, AoE into a phantasm whose skill is a PBAoE KD with little to no damage.

Hey now, I think a shield would fit the mesmer brilliantly, although it wouldn’t be my must-have weapon of choice if I were purely wishlisting. Think of the lightly armoured Highland clansman, with his sword and targe or the Venetian nobleman – The mesmer’s combination of combat mobility, toolkit versatility, burst damage, and general trickeration would fit those archetypes perfectly. However, instead of blocks I think the shield should have no blocks at all and instead have a melee range cleaving stun and a phantasm which does an iSwordsman jump-in style attack, but which launches/kb’s with the shield.

Now, if we’re wishlisting for things from GW1/new things, then I have a few thoughts including Amber weapons (because Kurzick kit brings back happy memories and I liked the amber staff skin fairly well)

Going forward, I’d really like to see the Halberd as a 2-handed weapon option for various classes including the mesmer so that the mesmer can actually have another melee option aside from 1h sword and I think the halberd would be rather cool to have for different classes.

Flail would be another good option

Anyway, back to topic: Tormented shield is always a fun option although the tormented set wasn’t what I most missed from GW1

This is perhaps a day late and a dollar short but I should like to write this anyway if only because I think it offers a point of view I haven’t yet seen expressed.

I liked the zerg.

There, I’ve said it. Now, that being said, don’t get me wrong – zerging content in general is very frustrating since while it may make the content do-able, it takes away a lot of that feeling of risk, adrenalin, and then the rush of success. However, there is something else that takes that away too – let me tell you a story: My go-to moment for when I knew GW2 was working right is still from beta, when a random Ranger and I, not in a party together, decided to tackle as Svanir champ. We were unbuffed and still learning what worked but the two of us worked for what felt like forever, dodging, trying to hold aggro, and ultimately succeeding after picking each other up off the floor time and time again. It was no doubt an ugly fight. The pros out there would have done it in a quarter of the time solo, I’m guessing. But I don’t care, we had fun! That moment I think we both felt like we could take on a whole other server in WvW and win.

Do you know what the point of that moment was? At least for this discussion it was that we didn’t have to train or prep or practice our ballet steps for the content. We didn’t have to “game” the mechanics of the game in order to be successful. We didn’t need some bluebadge to yell at us about taking our pots, eating a balanced meal, and designating add-handlers to manage the immediate vicinity. We found what worked for us, made it happen, and then left. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that guy again – if I did I expect it was as a red name in PvP as I have changed servers since Beta. But in that moment we tackled the content we found together, did it our way, and left feeling like the real champs, tag on our name or not.

So what does that have to do with the zerg? Well, the zerg was working. It may not have been elegant, but it was an option, we learned about it, and we found that it worked and it suited the reality of overflows, pick-up groups, and casual players chasing that next hit of story. The zerg had its own organization, of a sense, and it allowed players to carry each other. This thread has seen a lot of complaints about AFK leechers but I am actually reminded of content where I, as a mesmer, have helped carry other players through content with portals, temporal barriers, and the like. I didn’t feel like they were leeching off of me, in fact I rather liked that players would help each other through jumping puzzles and past tricky bits. The zerg may have let some player who’s just gotten into the game have a shot at loot and achievements that would otherwise be nearly impossible, which is a great reason for them to keep playing and get involved in the community.

However, there is one, ultimate reason why I think it’s a shame the zerg was feared and punshed:

It was beautiful.

How accurate to the circumstances and how rewarding was it to be a part of that army of PCs charging across the ruined face of a once-loved city? An army to fight Scarlet’s army? An army of righteous (it may be cheesy, but still righteous) wrath, rampaging through the occupying invaders, sledgehammer smashing clockwork alchemical terror-weapons back into scrap iron and making that chunk of civilization a little bit safer? I loved that moment when I first saw the zerg happen and it felt right. This wasn’t a precisely timed commando raid where every group has to get their job right for you all to succeed, this was a hundred bodies or more all saying “we’re done with this, we’re done with finding your tendrils everywhere and trying to fight your plots after they’re already underway. We’re coming for you.” Just to see all those different characters charging away and diving into the water, swimming to the next Assault Knight, kerb-stomping mobs en route as an afterthought was fantastic because it fits the story. That’s what should be happening! People are supposed to be mad about what Scarlet has done, they should be upset to see what this proud city looks like, and they should want to crush everything they find in that zone that looks like Scarlet’s handiwork. To force players to focus on game mechanics, to institute rigid game limits on the ability of people already in the map to participate feels like it numbs the experience and encourages people to farm the assault knight of their choice rather than beat the event and be part of the story.

After having seen the beauty of the righteous zerg it just seems a shame.