Showing Posts For seanairt.3795:
1) I find leveling in general on any class to be tedious, but didn’t find leveling my Mesmer (first and so far only character to 80) to be at all difficult. I strongly disagree with anyone who says otherwise to the point where I’d say these folks are likely “playing wrong”.
2) Nothing’s perfect – but they are powerful. Sometimes to the point where you see QQ threads about them being OP (which I find bs).
3) Can’t help you here. I took my time and leveled strictly in PVE. My alts are leveling in WvW…some people drop coin and power level through crafting. I don’t think that’s the best way to enjoy the game though.
4) In PvE my weapon set is Staff / Greatsword. In WvW my weapon set is generally Staff / Sword&Torch, with liberal use of focus for fast map traveling.
When I first leveled, I went full staff tank/shatter spec (0/0/20/20/30 in traits) and was kitten near impossible to kill (I was always the last one standing in any fight).
Once I became comfortable with the class I traded vitality for precision (0/20/20/0/30) and got the clone-on-dodge trait. While I miss having the higher health pool sometimes, the second build is awesome for always having clones to shatter – which means generally ending fights faster.
The mesmer meetup was this thread. It isn’t a guild formation or anything, just a large gathering of Mesmer’s planned for this weekend.
In all honesty, I’m not looking to leave Ferguson’s Crossing, so if you end up there you’re more than welcome to look me up and run with me (Mesmer’s name is Avarynn). I think its a great server to play on, even in WvW (where we’re among the bottom tiers). For me its the community that makes it.
I’d be happy to join an all-Mesmer guild as long as you don’t kick people for not representing (been booted from 2 guilds because i represent different guilds with different toons depending on activity – dungeons vs wvw vs de’s, etc…).
What a cool idea! Count me in. Friday I won’t free up until 9-9:30pm CST but Saturday shouldn’t be a problem at any time.
While I think having Mesmers of every stripe and level show up in Rata Sum will be fun in and of itself, I’m also kind of digging on the idea of all-Mesmer war parties forming up to go adventuring through DE’s (Dragon raids, Orr temples anyone?), jumping puzzles, etc.
Just imagining whole armies of shatter clones tearing through stuff brings a smile to my face.
(edited by seanairt.3795)
The entire camp at Modniir Gorge. Enemies respawn upon death. Zero delay.
New one.
Harathi Hinterlands – there’s a bridge that leads into a camp with slaves you’re supposed to free by the lvl 42 heart quest. If you kill the guards at the bridge, new ones will spawn immediately upon death of the one you were just fighting, making getting into the camp impossible without a large group to zerg it.
Personally I’d avoid trying to replicate all the PC game’s mechanics, and just use what I like from the setting & lore.
For systems, I’d use one of:
Heroquest
Fate via the Dresden Files RPG
One Roll Engine via Reign.
My first pick would in all likliehood be Reign.
I was reading another thread some time ago wherein someone was complaining about spawn rates in game, and one of the devs (don’t remember who) stated that timers default to 90-120 second timers, and that if we see deviations from this we should report it as specific a bug as possible.
I never saw anything happen with that with regard to a game bug thread, and can still see some broken spawn points in game, so I thought I’d create a thread to collect specific locations.
Devs – I hope what’s provided here is enough information for you, but if it isn’t, please let me know and I’ll gladly gather as much information as you require to nail it down.
To start:
1) Fireheart Rise – west of Noxious Castrum: Fire elementals spawn within 5-10 seconds of killing them.
2) Kessex Hills – directly south of Bronson heart quest: Centaurs stationed at the gate spawn within approximately 10 seconds.
3) Malchor’s Leap – NW of King’s Passage/SW of Plaza of Lights: Orr spawn within roughly 5-15 seconds.
If you have any points of your own, please list them here so we have a consolidated point of reference for Anet staff.
Thanks.
@Aank:
True, but good luck for a new player just trying to get the basics of weapon effects, swapping, dodging, getting the feel for the CDs, etc. It’s too much for a new player to have to manage direct attacks, illusions, and shatters. Some casual players never learn to do the latter 2 effectively. Yeah, the mesmer is supposed to be a harder class to play, but requiring that much early on is bad design.
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The game doesn’t require you to do any of the things we’ve been telling you. It’ll let you stand in one spot and spam the auto attack if that’s all you want to do. But you won’t be playing effectively, and so the game will understandably be harder for you.
I don’t agree that there’s a “bad design” in this case…the game goes out of its way to ease you into play on every class, and gives you time to work out a play style before pushing you into slightly harder content. Complaining that you have to watch shatter CDs is like complaining that you have to watch your initiative for the thief, or adrenaline for the warrior, or even that shadow state thingy for the necromancer – things that are a fundamental aspect to playing those classes effectively. Its no different at all for the mesmer.
Dunno, having a event boss or similar coming after you while your clones are basically worthless gets annoying fast. Mesmers do not have the hitpoints of the necromancer, nor the direct firepower of the elementalist, meaning that illusions are how we are supposed to stay alive by having the opponent confuse them for us. Seems to work much better in PVP than PVE at the moment tho.
The part I bolded is, I think, where I think the difference is for folks who think early mesmer is hard vs those who think it is easy. While I think its great when the illusion confuses the mob, I’d say it isn’t what they’re there for. Illusions exist so that you can shatter them. While one shatter (and early in likely your summon skills) is on CD, swap weapon to throw up another couple of illusions shatter them, swap back and summon a couple more illusions (using utility skill if need be) and so on. Early levels should have all their shatters on near constant CD.
All the earlier points on staying mobile still apply.
The only part that wouldn’t apply in the early game is the freebie cripple and condition on kill.
Yes, the condition dmg output in low game doesn’t compare to high game condition dmg, but the mobs you’re taking on aren’t exactly built to be combat monsters either. When mobs ignore your clones, that’s as much an advantage as when they get distracted by them because it means they can keep doing their thing, buys more time to wait out cd’s, etc.
Best i can tell the main issue is that the obvious big gun of mesmers, the shatter mechanic, can be neutralized by mobs simply by taking out your clones.
And conditions are very much RNG.
I find myself chaining mantra of pain at present…
I don’t agree. But this may be because I play for conditions. While my clones are up, they’re putting conditions on my target. If they get taken out, my target gets crippled and another condition…and, oh look! I’ve thrown up more clones to replace them while they were wasting time on my clones. Just as well though, I was just going to shatter that first set and throw more conditions on my target anyway…
I’m in the ‘never had a problem’ camp, and never understood this complaint. It comes up often enough that I have to assume there’s something to it. But that ‘something’, I think, is that people don’t understand the class. My mesmer was probably my 4th or 5th character, but was my first to 80. Absolutely love it, and always go back to her after I get bored leveling my alts. I play full condition/toughness with Staff and (currently) Greatsword.
The folks telling you that they routinely solo large groups or champions are not lying to you. I was shocked the first time I took a (higher than my level at the time) champ solo. I was thinking that help would come that never did. I’m glad for that, because it opened my eyes to what I could do with the class and I’ve never looked back.
Others have said it but I’ll repeat it – the secret is always be moving. Throw up some illusions, hit, move, hit, move, shatter, swap weapons and throw up a couple of more illusions, dodge, hit, shatter, swap weapons again, use mirror image if you have to and throw up more illusions, move, hit, move, hit, dodge, shatter…and so on. Most fights will have finished by about the time you swap weapons either the first or second time.
The whole idea is that mesmers dance across their battlefields, creating confusion and chaos with their every move. If you can get into that mindset then going from 1 to 80 is both simple and fun. So much so for me that I’ve considered killing off an alt to level a second one.