Guild Wars 2

Bought this game on release, came back only recently. Already quitting again due to the terrible state of sPvP, primarily due to this function and solo queue being missing.

This game has done more good for MOBA’s than anything the MOBA developers have ever done. One of if not the most popular MMO outside of WoW has treated its PvP with such insane disregard that it absolutely boggles the mind. I do not think I have ever so quickly decided to go back to DOTA/LoL from “taking a break to play another game” in the many years I have been a gamer.

Still not having a good time of this. Everyone is so mobile that it really seems like you need a “perfect opportunity” to use the Warden, and even then it really doesn’t do any more damage than any other combination you can do and it provides no defense at all unless you have a perfect scenario.

Also curious about this.

One thing that still bothers me is the fragility of the Warden. With the prevalence of AE and cleave the fact that it must get dropped right into the middle of the fight to do damage usually leads to its quick death.

Using offhand sword or pistol, your phantasm seems to have a better chance of at least completing one attack cycle. (albeit at a single target only).

To give the Warden any time you are almost forced to use the Temporal Curtain pull into the last second of the warden summon, requiring the use of both abilities to accomplish anything at all with the Warden.

I frequently find myself just holding it until someone goes down and dropping it on the crowd when someone attempts to rez them, giving it some actual time to do damage. While nice, typically this doesn’t really stop the rez however.

I have never gone into Inspiration for sPvP/tPvP, I usually just use a shatter build. I will have to look at getting reflection into the build for some test runs.

Do many of you run Signet of Illusions for the added HP? I find that without this the Warden tends to die before he even finishes his first attack rotation.

Lots of great information here!

I think one very obvious mistake I have been making here is performing a sword combo before making use of the focus skills in a fight.

Typically I would lead into a fight with Greatsword, then switch to Sword/Focus and immediately do a 3 – 3 – 2 – F1 combo for burst on someone. It sounds like I could get some significant benefit from getting the light field and warden out prior to making use of that combo so as to benefit from the retaliation and to use sword 3 as an additional mechanism to trap someone near the warden.

I’m trying to understand why I see so much usage of the Focus as an offhand in sPvP and tPvP for Mesmer.

Temporal Curtain: Obviously the swiftness is nice, and basically the only mechanism through which a Mesmer can get between points quickly outside of using the Portal. However, I find that in actual combat it is fairly lackluster. Foes seem to simply avoid these lines when thrown in combat, I expect due to being trained to avoid the similar items from Guardians, Necro’s, etc that have somewhat more significant effects on the target when touched.

The Pull effect of the Temporal Curtain also seems fairly questionable to me, particularly if you are not with an organized 5 man team. I won’t argue its useful for pulling people off high ground, but this doesn’t seem to occur very often. Also, using it simply for the knockdown in combat can be detrimental to your allies, as yanking away their target can screw up their own fighting.

Phantasmal Warden: I really can’t get much use out of this at all. The abililty to deflect projectiles seems very lackluster because standing still in its area would just be suicidal, and your opponent(s) will likely be constantly moving as well. It can’t even really protect itself, as the deflection does no good if the entire area is a massive swarm of AE which kills it in a matter of seconds at best. Combo’ing it with the Temporal Curtain can be nice, cleansing bolts are useful though usually shortlived due to the short life of the Warden itself. Using a timed Temporal Curtain Pull -> Phantasmal Warden summon such that people are knocked down around it when it appears can be nice but it does not seem all that difficult for an enemy to interrupt you during the course of summoning and waste both abilities.

Any insight anyone could provide here as to the usefulness of these abilities?

I log in only to spend around an hour in queue to get to play WvW only to end up in the middle of a fight so overwhelmingly one sided as to instantly kill any interest I had prior.

I also had this occur to me in the past few days.

I completed one of the colored battlegrounds and EB and received only level 48 items while I am at level 80.