Guild Wars 2

is there any info about shield skills or if it´ll be condi or powerbased, or maybe nothing of both haha? cant find anything, cos my google foo is weak.

Nazer.7301:

They gave mesmers WoW mage abilitys, should be fun.

You know what happened to mages since WoD? Or all other HARDcasters in pvp?^^

does it bleed? if it bleeds, you can kill it.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

i’ve been playing harmoniously for a while and I only see this issue on rare occasions and only in the following situations:

• When recently transformed through game mechanics, e.g. Thaumanova or Ascalon fractals.
• When recently revived via waypoint or “return to checkpoint” mechanics (as opposed to rallying or being healed by an ally).
• When dropping an environmental or summoned weapon.

The vast majority of the time, I get 3 charges for each mantra and those only reduce when I invoke the mantra.

25.04.2015 still able to confirm that.
possible solution: dont use full mantra specs at all, cos it makes absolutely no sense using an already “weak” spec. unless u just do a few worldboss events per session, where it doesnt matter at all what spec u use…

damage isnt the only problem. i just specced full mantra 66002 with the maximum crit i can get with an average equipment, exotics armor and weapons and ascended rings etc. and gs/scepterpistol (jsut for the sake of being a ranged mesmer)
if the tequatl fight is somehow an average test for average players for a long enough fight with lots of movement, dodge and jump escapes and on top of it condition cleaning, hp reg etc.
this spec shows somehow what is wrong. u are constantly out fight because you: rebuff mantras instead of fighting almost permanently (no difference if u have 3 mantraloads or jsut 2 tbh), rezz people here and there, recast your phantasms for “full damage” almost permanently and WALKING (comapred ot other classes speed) between the combatlocations.
you are dumped down to make a "kitten"load of damage or nothing, and i mean “kitten” not load.
its the constant feeling of hmm.. a guy waiting for his girl to get dressed up and makeup ready for the club, while others already have their drinks at the bar.

but anet has a solution for it!. just pickup the eles icebow!
sure, you can use better specs . or go melee weapons only. but this can´t be the status nor the solution for a profession, after more than 2 years tbh. just using a weaponsetup givne by teh classdesigners and…being subpar with damage (i usually dont care about the damage tbh) AND selfgimping mechanics during bossfights (i did all dungeons including arah -no speedruns no eploits no cheesing- and a few fractals before i quit the game for over a year).
anyway who cares^^. i just have a foible for weird classes (i played warlock and HoX before)

Geneaux.9547:

Never saw the point of use for town clothes beyond role-playing, which I don’t do.

considering that many players dont rpg beyond combat or pve, or evrything else than just staying or walking around somewhere and talk or else, its a pretty strange business decision.
ok i forgot: dancing around…

why exclude such a big player base from buying good looking armor at the shop? who knows.

little example: my char walks into a heavy snowy area to to some quests or else. my imidiate reaction as a more casual rp player (some calls this IMMERSION) is: “i would like to fight in appropriate armor for this area. where is my kitten awesome inuit-suit?”
just to find out, its in the tab, locked forever (in a could and would status) and kitten its outfit anyway….but why?

Captain Mesmerica…i can´t wait no longer.
Meanwhile:
comicon challenge 2015 “AquaHulk” and “Doc OctoConan”

Captain Mesmerica…i can´t wait no longer.
Meanwhile:
comicon challenge 2015 “AquaHulk” and “Doc OctoConan”

Photoloss.4817:

Nice to have, the question then is whether sacrificing burst capacity for constant recharges would be worthwhile in PvP. That’s something for the PvP theorycrafters or playtesters to figure out though, especially since it has to be balanced around playing against such a spec.

hardloop von edgehoven.8512:

sounds reasonable to me.
maybe adding in-combat recharge only to it, just to maintain the players responsiblity to manage the handling from time to time inbetween combat situations

That’s utter BS though, “managing the handling” only means wasting time on tedious clicking, something we already have enough of in this game.

you mean clicking on a button once in while, out of combat (and not once a day and then forget about it), is complelety overstraining your brain?

let me post your stuff from a view posts here:
“The big appeal I see in PvE Mantras is that they just work. They’re quick, they’re efficient, and most of the time you have to actually try in order to get interrupted during the chant. "

here is my answer:
“That’s utter BS though, because its wasting time on tedious clicking, something we already have enough of in this game.”

in short terms: u like a mechanic, which already IS clickintensive in combat and calling it bullkitten, when a semi to full automatic handling forces u to click not even half of the time out of combat?

…

Sebrent.3625:

Was there something wrong with keeping the cooldowns and cast time the same as they are now, but allowing a passive 1 charge per X second recharge as long as you have 1+ charges?

In that case, they are just adding the passive recharge aspect. Thus, if it needs to be buffed/nerfed, they can just tweak the X second recharge and leave the current cast time and cooldown as is.

sounds reasonable to me.
maybe adding in-combat recharge only to it, just to maintain the players responsiblity to manage the handling from time to time inbetween combat situations

can u imagine youre goin to louis c.k. on stage 24h and he s telling the same joke 24h?
ok,
besides i could imagine louis c.k. is willing and able to torture the audience this way (but for sure not himself haha),
when reading all this hypocrite mourning about a relation between a computer char default pose and a real tragedy
(while playing a game 24hours where u fight virtually ennemies to death…sure),
despite the fact im pretty bored about the joke, i demand arenanet to turn on louis c.k. mode and prolong their april joke for the next 2 weeks…

moving looks more like spongebob being nailed on the cross. but maybe thats part of christian ambitions on being funny. who knows.

Sebrent.3625:

given how high most Mesmer builds have crit, I think that would be OP.

ok then 25% or 10%.

percentage based chance for recharge on crits? maybe? 50% like sigils?

getting rid of outfits is all i care about. who needs outfits? make it a wardrobe skin buyable in the shop. and y the hell are there outfits u cant even buy shown in the collection tab? u cant even get it anymore or hardly get it. old event stuff should go into shop tbh. the more there is to buy the more anet will generate money for the FREE status of the game.
got a friend who started to play gw2 after insisting on him since years. he was pretty amazed about the armor quality and all sorts of stuff u can get, but had a major downer when i told him that outfit is just for standing around doin nothing. i didnt saw him logging in since.
have no probs with the transmutation system too. i buy the charges from time to time in shop. sometimes i change gold for it. its ok as it is. its the money anet needs to maintain the FREE status, again. although one could debate about too high prices, but not the function.

i would buy A LOT of armors, if they please my definition of aesthetics. if there is a chance for people to get it via playing content and have it exlusively for month before shopusers, thats ok too.

opens the possibility to have 3 offensive phants out for damage plus one with defense quality for damage reduction or condi cleansing. although it would take more time to manage it, its one step away from gimping around with clones for phantasm builds. and maybe one step back at the same time haha.

hm dunno, as a mesmer point of view, it more feels like being kitten all the way if not going full melee sets.
gs: 1200
staff: 1200
but heres the trick
u either go full gs with power or full staff with condi dmg. u can hybrind of course, but tbh if you do so, u decided to play all alone in gw2.

next ranged weapon is scepter with 900 range , so u have to move a bit during fights, when switching (which gimps down your gs damage, which already isnt that good tbh)
and guess what, mesmer has the worst mobility of all professions (i played so far).

this could be easily solved with TWO greatswords,
but guess what, a weapon swap between two greatswords shares the same cooldowns.

i dont think melee is underpowered or subpar. its more like there are some really strange designing ideas behind some professions.

why not downscaling traits too if anet wants overgeared 80s to act like being lowlevel chars?

you can downscale power and conditions
you can downscale health
you can downscale toughness and even ferocity u can downscale to 100%
no problem with it at all (the massive damage on worldevents IS a mess tbh)
but if u start downscaling stats like crit (or maybe boon or condi time) THAT much and
affecting certain procs on sigils or runes or until affecting playstyles at all(if things run totally worth),
then theres no reason at all to not downscale traits.
even if that means thatyou have to play without traits at all in certain areas.

evrything else is half kitten d, to be honest.

Azhure.1857:

hardloop von edgehoven.8512:

exactly. but y not just making the eventmobs and bosses harder instead of?

This is a downscaling issue. The power divide between a level 80 character and a lower level player that is equal to that lower zone has always been noticeable. In many cases it is so extreme that maxed characters can plow through mobs while they’re lower level counterparts can’t even get a hit in before the mobs are destroyed.

Fixing downscaling to a level that makes maxed characters more equal to the zone they’re playing in makes sense. I support it.

However if they simply made the content harder, as you suggest, lower level characters would be punished for it. How? Yes, if they were surrounded by 80s when they’re in these zones, it may mean that they can get their hits in. Maybe not. But what would happen with harder content if those maxed characters weren’t around to help? Its like demanding Plains of Ashford foes to hit like they’re from Fields of Ruin instead just because there are level 80 toons that don’t like the thought of being downscaled appropriately.

dynamic content system.
plus i never saw any worldboss event without 80s around. not a single one. the worst case was a bunch of 80s in the maw who managed to get owned by the boss, more than one and half a year ago.
at least they could make the preevent mobs a lot harder.

although your arguments are discussable.

Rauderi.8706:

Part of the perception problem is we’ve been living with overpowered 80s in downscaled areas for almost a year. It started with the Traits redesign, when the mobs were reduced to account for the lack of stats through level 30. (Yes, it was a bad idea to begin with, but I’m theorizing the rationale.)

The legion of 80s would plow through events much faster than was appropriate, so their next step was to scale the max-level characters more appropriately. I guess the crowd crowing about how “easy” the game is just got an artificial difficulty bump. /shrug

exactly. but y not just making the eventmobs and bosses harder instead of?

leebe.2093:

My crit chance is useless now when im down scaled

not to mention the chance on crit sigils are pretty much useless now unless u stay in highlevel areas.

helping lowies system now?

affects world too.
my crit percentage for excample went down from 75 to 44 percent (with buffood and 25stack!) in lowlevel areas.

StickerHappy.8052:

Fay.2357:

hardloop von edgehoven.8512:

Fay.2357:

Well, if you’re using scepter in PvE, you’ve made a massive mistake, so there’s that.

.

No wonder Devs dont even bother to think about changing stuff. Why should they, if evryone is playing with the same kitten anyway once they figured out/limiting themself in one meta playstyle.

You don’t make any sense. Using scepter in PvE is a massive mistake because scepter is an awful PvE weapon. It’s not the fault of the players that scepter is absolute trash, it’s the fault of the devs. Blaming people for playing with non-trash equipment is simply ludicrous.

As I always say, feel free to use whatever you want, just keep in mind that using scepter in pve means you are bad.

I agree with Pyro, Stepping out of the Meta is a good thing, But Using Scepter in PvE is utter garbage.

UNLESS you wanna finish hearts or map completion or LS for x5 more time.

Technically thats correct, but its not very clever to use it as an argument, when it is about making it better. it just disencourages many to not even think about testing the weapon under any cirumstances.

Fay.2357:

Well, if you’re using scepter in PvE, you’ve made a massive mistake, so there’s that.

.

No wonder Devs dont even bother to think about changing stuff. Why should they, if evryone is playing with the same kitten anyway once they figured out/limiting themself in one meta playstyle.

1. getting rid of distance 900 limitations. mesmer is 1200 or closecombat. evrything else makes no sense at all
2. give mesmer one source of run speed buff which doesnt rely on randomness
3. make greatsword 1 pure singledamage
4. make greatsword 2 to spawn phantasms not clones
5. make full mantra builds versatile

last and overall main wish: faster weapon swap trait would fit into mesmer playstyle

I wouldnt be very astonished too, if Mesmer gets a MAINHAND shield…Captain America heeeey…
Otherwise, its offhand and skill4 will be a block mechanic and skill5 will be a phantasm/clone (or maybe jsut the otherway round, just for sake of confusing the players) with defense mechanics and no damage at all.

scepter/shield…the new “stand around and block” mesmertank gameplay…worst nightmare tbh

just my cynical cents

i loloed hard about SHIELD for mesmer. sounds like a holinka issue hahaha

rainpool.7189:

No scepter is not terrible at all. It’s absolutely amazing at what it does. But it mainyis a condition weapon, so using in PvE is the first mistake. There are exceptions to this, but those are only in pvp. In dungeons and fractals you’re gonna be using a main hand sword+sword/focus setup, so you have to get used to meleeing mobs anyways.

thats what i played til i stopped playin gw2. either this setup or sw/sw as second. i did a few fractals, but it wasnt quite a joy with mesmer tbh.

thing is, i somehow like the combination scepter/pistol wiht gs, but scepter feels so kitten awful. like its desing wasnt finished or they could decide for which purpose other than “hey lets give mesmer scepter too”.

i always recommended to switch places of scepter 1 and scepter 3 attack, tweaking the animation so it gets rid of these awful delay and of course changing the damage a bit.

Ross Biddle.2367:

If you want to PvE just take an entirely different class.

Leveled a ranger recently to 80, but i already had a warrior, a guardian and an engineer on 80 before i stopped playing gw2 for almost a year now. so thats not that sort of a problem. mesmer was just my first and “main” so to say.

I recently used scepter/pistol in world events, because after using using gs/sw+sw(sw+pistol, sw+toch etc) i wanted to maintain distance AND avoid timeholes where u just stand around waitning for the next weapon swap.

while waiting for the boss to spawn i stacked my 25 precision stack and doing pre events. during those pre events the already awful feeling about scepter(compared to sw/sw for example) getting worse and worse.

scepter still is terrbile handling.
awfully long animations before doing any damage at all.

the damage itself seems to be awkward too. looks good on numbers but practically it feels like doin nothing. while others just rampage thru the mob, the scepter-mesmer looks like he is preparing a really big thing just to end up shooting holes in the air on an already dead mob…doh). it even feels as if its not a distance weapon, but no melee weapon either. so what is it?

is scepter really THAT bad?
in combination with pistol (or torch or focus if needed) it could be a pretty cool setup for mid to long range together with greatsword. but i see some synergy issues too.

and that handling…omg i dont wanna know how it feels in dungeons, not to speak of fractals.

The question i asked myself is, can u build a setup around axe offhands abilty to stack vulnerability very fast, if u use it with longbow and items of evry sort, which prolong condition duration on the target.
i mean, 25stacks of vulnerability isnt that bad, but again, is it viable under usual aspects of the game (and i am sure were not talking about questing/lvling or worldboss events here)?

anduriell.6280:

With the latest changes to Torch. Wouldn’t you think it deserves a try?
For me does wonders, easy to kill groups once the are on top of you…

indeed. recently melted down a group of moles in no time. 6+ or so. veterans included.
torch plus traps plus evades from sword/dagger does it so far.

Taku.6352:

In dungeons and fractals I tend to run sword/axe & longbow. Longbow is only for the initial burst which is undeniably good but nothing to fuzz over about if you prefer going full melee. Sword/axe & warhorn/torch/dagger are perfectly reasonable choices to use for their utility and survivability.

Main hand axe on the other hand is not that great for PvE since its auto attack is very lackluster damage in power builds and condition builds are rather bad in instanced content/world bosses.

If you want to be a good asset your team the I’d suggest getting full berserker gear with superior rune of the ranger or superior rune of the scholar for good personal dmg output and set your traits as:

6, I, VII, XI
5, I, V
0
3, IV
0

And your skillbar should include: Quickening Zephyr, Spirit of Frost, Signet of the Wild and Rampage as One. And as pets you should have a jaguar for best pet dps and river drake for best cleave damage.

With this trait and gear setup you will provide excellent personal dps while also increasing your party dps output by 14% thanks to frost spirit and spotter.

If you have any more questions feel free to ask.

sounds reasonable to me.

and i am a reasonable man.
very reasonable (guess i a was watching too much of the wire haha)

kk thx dudes for the response. appreciated it. makes my decisions a lot easier.

will play further on without bows, except events, til i hit 80 and run some dungeons. then its time to evaluate whats best for the team without gimping the damage too much.

torch and fire-dmg is amazing against mobs, especially with mobgroups with veterans. works well so far. no need for a bow^^.
poison-dmg is very special. lasts long, but no initial burst. very sustained. plus bleeding stacks.

but, i remember my first runs in the ruins of orr, thought im king of of the hill after all the other dungeons and got melted in seconds.^^
sometimes u need just fast delivered damage.

First things first, i had a huge pause in playing gw2 and started again around 2 weeks ago.
To get a starting point i decided to play a ranger from scratch since it was the only class i havent leveled yet.

While leveling i decided to avoid bows and played sword/dagger + Axe/Torch (or warhorn from time to time just for the sake of the running speed).
Worked well so far til lvl 50+, even on champions from time to time, even with lousy equip (using lvl40 weapons til now at almost lvl60) . Of course i stacked condition dmg stuff on all items.
Recently i tried bow combinations of all sorts and ended up with either bow/bow or bow/greatsword (which for me is a pretty boring weapon).
only negative side i experienced with nobow was the event bosses, where i generally experienced problems wiht nobow due to the massive amount of players dropping down my fps^^.
lazy bow/bow works way better on events.

I now decided to go back to no-bow-ranger (aka pseudo thief), but i have no clue how it will work later on and how to distribute the traits (in terms of viability or general style, for example going completely into def and regen or so).

If there is any ranger with experience in playing the ranger like that in dungeons or at lvl80, i would appreciate comments or hints or even “dont do it, i tried and its not viable or doesnt make sense for teamplay”.
and i dont think i will play pvp/wvw in the near future with this ranger. thx so far

after checking evry armorset, i mixed up a bit to fit a more theme based outfit.
some player once told me it looks somehow “druidish”.
somehow yes. i would describe it more like a warlock style mesmer
it still misses my fav armor for chest.

mix of:
t1 and t2 cultural armor (i like parts of t3 but its far too expensive for me)
headmask from lvl1
dungeon set pieces:
twilight arbor
arah

i use it on my new lvl80 warri together with longbow hahaha.
but pve only. but its fun.
perma fury (stacks go up to 1min50secs if u time it properly) and mightstacks with boonduration 80% and condi duration on enemies at 60% (even though my gear is still bad and not optimized) and mobs are bleeding burning like mad, rest is rifle 3 or 5 crits. they even bleed like mad from longbows pinshot alone.

fun for boring pve roaming at least^^.

the possible changes to mantras are not even close to be excited about tbh…

another dumped down “support” crap cahnge it will be.

if they really wanna push mantras they first should rely on their main strength which is

no support, just strengthen the mesmer itself. which means pure mantra build is destined to be a pure dps build imo.
no halfarsed stuff. at least if u decide not to go the halfarsed way for what reason ever.
as someone said, give back mantras 5% dmg for each readied one and maybe change the active part to more viable selfish ones for mesmers.

so my solution is
- increase dmg for full mantras ( dont use linear progression like its actually the case)
- increase damage for powerspike (its a joke atm)
- give one mantra a strong group support utilty
- cut that random crap from apply boon mantra
- 3 mantra charges are a joke for 30point trait. increase it or add a cd reduction for casting

asf

im off anyway useless effort here…

colesy.8490:

@hardloop

OP asked for the best build, not post whatever the hell you want builds.

so then mr. communicationtheory can answer me the question what the hell he meant with “best build for pve”

1. best dps
2. best roaming build
3. best allover no trouble build
4. best dungeon build

or
maybe

5. best mr. coleslaws personal and therefor opinion for all theory about what is “best” for evryone?

20/30/20 is good enough too for pve roaming and stuff. and its for lazy players, cos u dont have to bother with utilities that much^^.
i recommend multiple weapon and armor setups, cos u can tweak your build into some directions (pure mantra glasscannon, sensotixs styled interrupt build with solid to very good stacks of might and vulnerabilty asf).
u can use, like me ^^, greatsword + scepter/pistol or even gs/staff (cd reduction traits).

actually i run around with maxed boon-duration tryin to tweak my setup in sensotixs bounty-build.

if u dont bother about not being a maxed out dps char, u have plenty of space to experiment with your armors and weapons.

my actual gear, which is probably an average casual “krautundrüben”-setup ;D, has these stats
around 3100 attack
around 1500 toughness
around 60% crit with food and stacks
around 70% critdamage
around 17k to 19.5k hitpoints depending on weapon setup and armor
condition duration 30% (i still cant decide between cond duration and boonduration armor ^^, but with mainly berserker gear u go just power/crit anyway)

all in all decent amount of stats and in a nutshell its all about mantra dmg boost and cooldowns for gs and pistol or staff (or sword if u prefer. unfortunately for me no scepter trait is available ^^) + u can go full offensive or more defensive with traits and gear.
big downside is the lack of team utilities, if u dont wanna sacrifice mantras for them. but hey, u cant get it all ^^.

Xaylin.1860:

I think you might be having a wrong idea here. It is a PvP build. Not PvE. Interrupts aren’t that great in PvE, especially against bosses since many are immun to it.

When constantly swapping weapons, you should be able to maintain 9 stacks of might which will require 3 weapon swaps (20s might duration on swap +50% duration).

yes its not pve build, i just try to compare the applying of vulnerability with might stacks and therefor the runesetup for my armor (max boon duration or not).

whats the average mightstack u can get or sustain during a lets say cycle of one or two weapon swaps? think its hard to kepp 25 stack up all the time even during bossfights in pve. and whats the damage equivalent in % for 25stack (which is 875 power according to wiki)?

just asking cos i want to compare it with my actual daze/vulnerabilty sort of dumped down mantrabuild (which massivley lacks of utlities for groups of course^^)

one question to the relation between fully traited phantasm damage (without IC) and damage from the player itself by mantras 16% boost (which means 10+/30/x/x/x based builds) in:

is it comparable damage?
not even in pure dps or sustained, but in terms of evryday average fights.

i run 20/30/20/0/0/0 a while now in pve with gs and either staff or scepter/pistol cooldown traited, mainly using scepter to apply torment /if enemies ever came too close thru ports e.g.)
and got next to no probs even in champ fights. sometimes i switch one mantra for the stun/condi sigil sigil to get decent bleednumbers.

most important is of course precision and critdamage to get more or less constant critdamage, otherwise that build wouldnt work that well tbh, and to switch weapons after the 25stacks to max out dmg% (5 or +10 at night which gives a total boost 21 or 26%).

but im still not sure if the dmg from player can do enough pressure, which means in pvp enemies should have a hard time deciding between killing either phantasms or the player, AND if its viable to use less than three mantras to have more utilities, than stun from sigil and block from scepter plus pushback from greatsword plus moa.

no need for that much defensive tools in pve, but im not sure if this setup works well enough in wvw.

good to know. now ^^. you just have to avoid that u get instagibbed by her now^^.

it is still pretty much halfarsed implementation for mesmers. u cant build stacks with short runtimes, long animations on weapons and poor traits( which means taking all confusion traits leads to total kitten builds…imo).
my norn does more damage wiht owl bleedings than with confusion. and hes not even specced for conditiondamage (except a decent 45% condition duration for bleeds).
the solution via runes is an absolutely ridiculous admitting of anets fails with confusion tbh…

since when are spider poison attacks reflected?? pretty curious cos i never had any reflection on that boss, and i run ta pretty often. although its a ferw month ago i have to say.

as far as i can tell. in evry build else than a shatter build, the shatter mechanisms are not that much of a deal.
f2, f3, f4 i hardly use anytime.
f1 is only justifyable in aoe circumstances and even then not that big dealer (its even worse than mantra of pain, and this IS already not the jackpot).

i wouldnt say anything, cos its pretty ok with some builds not using the shatters regularly, but
it is supposed to be a primary profession design for ALL builds, as far as i understand the sense and use of these bars in evry profession i played til now.

therefor i can say that i use, at least, F3 next to never, cos its a waste of combatflow

Master of Timespace.2548:

The retarted phant spam spec should definitely be tuned down .That build is cheesier than d/p thief and about as dumb as a Spirit Ranger.

u mean no more tarts´n´vicars party all night long? c´mon dude, dont be rough…

i have a great idea how to nerf mesmers.

anet throw out that pile of kitten called “structured” pvp from gw2. end of all the jammerlappen posts will then happen soon

they even should update the mechanics of shattering and distinct between clones and phantasms.
would be nice if one could decide if he shatters only clones or phantasms at any time.
especially non-shatterintensive phantasm specs which have to deal with clones from time to time, especially with some traits, would have a boost of tactical gameplay.

im not sure if it is that big deal of thinking about illusions atm.
u just spam them more or less until they die (fast as we all know…) or u need a certain shattereffect. its spamming unless u are really in desperate need of the tipitop of dps with a perfect “rotation”.