Guild Wars 2

aophts.9862:

DaG.5103:

aophts.9862:

Legendaries are useless, i mean, they have the same stats as exotics and exotics cost wayyy less. Imo, legendaries should have better stats like 240 Power instead of 179 power and some unique sigils.

But i know people want the look/skin and all that, but, imo, almost all the legendaries look horrible, The Moot is pathetic, only the Twilight is nice.

I think an rpg made by Blizzard would suit your tastes more.

One of the selling points of GW2 is that you do not have to devote a massive portion of your time in order to enjoy the game. If Legendaries provided a higher tier of weapon (ESPECIALLY to the degree you are postulating), you will see groups excluding players who haven’t spent the requisite hours farming mats or gold to get one. It fosters an elitist mentality that is very off-putting to so many players. There is no good reason to do such a thing.

Groups excluding players and elitists it’s what this game have more, so, can’t be worse.

This game has more elitists and group excluding players than, say, World of Warcraft?

I’m sorry, but have you played endgame there?

The only requisite you need to play endgame in GW2 without getting called out is skill. If you lack skill, you will get called out. Your gear will only matter if you run SPECIFICALLY to be doing something fast and efficiently, namely CoF p1. If you’re trying to farm CoF p1 without being a part of the “meta” for it, then you’re doing it wrong. It’s like going to WoW and expecting to be main-tank as a Rogue ALL THE TIME. You’re just not going to have a fun time.

Sure, this game has elitists. The mentality was fostered from GW1 which had truly astonishingly hard achievements which people got (namely Vanquisher and GWAMM). But the game didn’t force you to be one of those players. You could easily join an UW group or any elite dungeon (in EotN when those dungeons were released) simply be researching and building your skills appropriately. This meant that you had some knowledge and/or SKILL of the dungeon to help speed up the process.

There is an exception with UW where groups would be elitist. This occurred because of the excess amount of unskilled players who slowed groups down, if not failing groups entirely. The solution to that problem was to join a guild specifically made to do dungeons, helping you learn and play UW (and other dungeons) with relative ease.

The same can be applied to GW2. Every world has beginner friendly guilds. If you choose not to join them, so be it, but be ready to deal with pugs and pug-mentality. If you’re unskilled in a pug, you’re going to get called out. If you’re unskilled in a guild, you’re going to get help.

Silverkey.2078:

There was a fairly long list of bugs for all professions, mesmers included. They would have definitely not written the description this way if they intended it not to work for iDuelist. Plus, the bleed on pistol 5 is fairly anecdotic. It was clearly meant to work for iDuelist but they just didn’t have time to fix mesmers yet (we were not very high on their priority list). Now, when they will start seeing a mesmer stack 50 bleeds on her/his own, they will definitely nerf it, so I’m only mildly optimistic about it.

This is true. 3 Duelists will maintain roughly 18 stacks of Bleed with a peak of 24 (assuming synced). They then have the possibility of getting 48 more stacks of Bleed (72 total) with an average of 16 additional stacks (38 total). Whether or not you have Condition Damage, you’re still looking at a hefty amount of damage (especially with the Chronophantasma… let’s hope they get de-synced like Robert said so it’s harder to cleanse the Bleed, huehuehue).

With 0 Condition Damage (and Might) you’re looking at 2640 damage with only Sharper Images, 7920 with 72 stacks (assuming you have the improbability of getting all procs), and an average of 4180 damage.

The DPS gain from 38 stacks is 836 with no CD or Might. Also, let’s hope they don’t add an ICD because it would be OP for us to have Bleeding on such a “short cooldown”.

Just a warning on the new backpack, it stretches while you run and looks very displeasing. Also the stripes are unmodifyable and do not correspond to any of your guild colors.

The class concept revolves around having no cooldowns and resorting to skill management. It’s the equivalent of a cooldown system and I have no beef with it. This coming from a non-Thief who has played Thief.

Also, if they removed Initiative, Thieves would just be a weaker Warrior.

Oh I forgot to bring that up. I knew it was long, but I actually thought it was 3s not 2.25s.

IIRC, from the dev video, they wanted it to be punishing if you were playing super safe with it.

Noerknhar.3826:

My answer would be Tetris as it was the only perfect balanced game I’ve ever seen. I get your point while I also guess you misunderstood me. Of course, GW2 came out 6 months ago. That makes those 2months look pretty short in comparison. I also hope that the polishing will make this great game even better, but in the mean time it’s about grind, grind, grind or playing the TP.

Stopping you right here. GW2 came out in mid-August, which was 5 months ago.
Semantics.

I think it is also important that enough people complain about those facts in the forums. I also think that it is more important to fix bugs and get your hands on broken things, mechanics or design principles than to implement new events every 2 weeks or so. But that is my personal thinking about priorities and I guess it won’t affect the devs’.

But I guess we’re a bit off topic right now.

Inflation isn’t a bug or broken mechanics or design principles. The only way to get rid of inflation is to have a set amount of gold circulating at any given time with no influence from anything else.

To give you an example of a system like this (using no real set laws or game) the game would have a system similar to as follows…

• Fresh game with 100,000,000 gold dispersed across NPC’s and mobs alike (less in non-humanoid mobs to account for realisticality, although allow some in chests to compensate/accommodate).
• Players start playing game, gathering items and gold from mobs.
• Players sell items to NPC’s gathering some of each NPC’s gold count.
• Players buy from NPC’s giving to each NPC’s gold count.
• NPC’s/Players get attacked and killed, mobs gain gold.

What would this do?

• No new gold would enter the economy, all the gold is limited.
• Inflation would get hindered.~(More expanded on later)

What problems can arise?

• Players stockpiling gold would cause inflation on high-end/tier objects while deflating low-end/tier objects. (I may be wrong on this one, but it sounds sound to me. I am no economic major, so feel free to prove me wrong.)

This would happen due to less gold circulating, therefore less gold being used to buy low-end/tier items. For high-end/tier items, the stockpiling would probably be BECAUSE of said items.

• No new gold enters the economy. New players will have a hard time gaining gold once the “economy” settles.

“Economy settles” when most NPC’s run dry, most mobs run dry, and there are very few ways of gathering gold other than by other players. This also creates a dry and empty economy, void of any activity until the game maker decides to release a gold sink (in this case, method of spending gold to get the economy moving again).

Why will inflation be hindered?

Inflation is caused by gold/money/currency entering the market. Say 1/3 of all players run one dungeon every day. If there are 100,000 active players, that means that 33,333 players are doing a dungeon. Each of those players are getting 41s+ (final boss loot + finish loot).

Again, this is a rough sketch of inflation, as each dungeon run nets more than 41s, especially when adding in Omnomberry Bars and other whatnots.

Back to the sketch, that means that every day, 1366653s is entering the economy.
This is the equivalent of 13,666g 53s entering the economy every day.

Now, the active playerbase of GW2 is well over 100,000 and the active dungeon community is well over 33,333. They also run more than 1 dungeon a day.

If you want inflation to stop, you should address other issues than bots and market manipulation; namely gold gain versus money sinks.

Onto money sinks:

This is the only way to attack inflation. Creating systems where the player benefits from SPENDING their money in a way that prevents it from circulating. Salvage Kits are one method. Gold —> Gems are another method. TP tax is another one. They are, indeed, not enough. If you can think of a method that will keep the game intriguing, fun, unique and not break it, while combating inflation, feel free to post that here or in the suggestions section, but just complaining about inflation for the wrong reasons will get nobody anywhere.

tldr; Don’t roll Skritt when you can be Asuran. (RP and forum metaphorical joke.)

Might and Magic actually cost about the same as a Precursor, but you at least have progress shown on your way there.

Aegis Fang.5394:

So, back to my original question since the two repliers answered nothing obviously not understanding the question, is there other ways for gaining armor other than buying or grinding mats to make it?

Well you said you’ve “gotten the meta gear” multiple times over the course of the games lifespan. I’ve “gotten the meta gear” multiple times over the course of the games lifespan as well. I’ve also gotten non-meta gear. The meta has not changed.

My first armorset was Knight/Soldier mix so I could survive in PvE and learn encounters. I progressed to Zerkers using dungeon tokens which cost me nothing except time (while also giving me money and materials). I then crafted and bought (again, using dungeon tokens) multiple armorsets including, but not limited to:

• Valkyrie
• Givers
• Rabid
• Rampagers
• Magic Find (forgot which) currently sitting around as statless
• Celestial
• Berserkers again
• Assassin ascended

Do note that these are all on the same character. The only “meta” gear on that character are the Berserker and Assassin, with the Celestial only barely being useful meta before the April patch. All gear except the Assassins is exotic and soulbound to that character. Most of the gear, if available, was gained through dungeon tokens and not bought or crafted (except Assassins, Celestial, and Giver’s for obvious reasons).

Now if your question isn’t answered by my obvious hinting of use dungeon tokens to not buy or craft gear, because you’re still “buying” the gear using “dungeon tokens”, then no answer will satisfy you other than being handed free gear because you misread the meta multiple times and keep going on hiatus.

There is no way of “earning” gear other than through currency (TP, WvW, Karma, Dungeon Tokens) or crafting unless you wish to grind for the off chance that you’ll loot the exact stat you’re looking for, also the right weight type for your profession.

If you’re trying to make a large and loud complaint so some support guy comes along and gives you a free level 100 Draenei Shaman 80 Norn Warrior decked out in full ascended Berserker because you’re a returning customer and they want you to stay, you’re not playing the right game.

circuitnerd.5863:

Well what doesn’t make sense to me is why you’re given 2 opportunities to create a phantasm by either blocking, which spawns it sooner, or waiting till the skill ends which creates it later.

You don’t choose to block, by the by, it either happens or doesn’t. The point of the skill is to intentionally be in a position to get hit and reduce the cast time to lower than that of a normal Phant summon, or just deal with the ridiculous “cast time”.

Basically, since every weapon set has a Phantasm tied to it (offhand or 2h), the Shields is also a block. Having a 1s block skill is extremely high skill floor and since it’s the first elite spec, ANet probably doesn’t want to make it difficult to use. The reason why I bring up 1s is because that’s the time it takes to cast a Phantasm.

The only way I can see this “pleasing everybody” is by giving it a “cancel skill” similar to almost all other blocks in the game, where you can instantly summon the Phantasm. This skill would either not have a cast time AND only be available after 1s of blocking, or have a 1s cast time and be usable instantly.

Tl;dr: It’s a block. That’s how blocks do.

Was there a wall and were you facing it?

Draehl.2681:

The number skill on the bar is fine IMO, the issue is with how dull and un-impactful most skills are.

I’m going to assume you play a Warrior.

So you’re assuming that Mirage is going to be good because it’s a possibility that they can make changes?

I agree with Kirito. You don’t want to camp Greatsword. It should never be your go-to camp weapon. The only time I will camp on my Greatsword is if it’s a ranged fight where I have 3 Phantasms up (typically 2 Duelists 1 Berserker). Otherwise, I run S/S + F and run melee.

All the fractal fights where you want to use Greatsword:
Molten BOSS Fractal if your group doesn’t want to melee the Berserker. Ask before you enter boss pit.
Grawl Lava Fractal (Both boss fights), rotate between Sword + Pistol (if vs Grawl) or Sword + Focus (if vs Elemental).
Dredge Fractal (final boss fight), rotate between Sword + Pistol and Greatsword. Use Feedback if vs Dredge or slot a Mantra for more personal DPS if vs Elemental.
Mossman, what I do is jump onto the house (or tree) and spawn 3 Duelists, then camp Greatsword or rotate onto Sword and Blurred Frenzy.
Ascalon Boss, Greatsword to fight his Greatsword for all the Greatswordy Greatswordness.
Cliffside Boss fights.

But, for the most part, I don’t use a Greatsword. Those examples I just listed although plentiful, don’t make up the majority of the run.

PU will not burst down that fast. You might want to look into shatter. The “standard” for sPvP is a 4/4/0/0/6 Shatter Build, you can find it almost anywhere.

But I think you’re talking about WvW, where you can still run shatter (I believe GS + Sword/Torch is the weaponset for WvW). You’re going to want to roam in a small group and not run with the big crowd. You can even go solo, but that takes more effort. To practice soloing, go to a side borderland that is NOT YOURS and is NOT OWNED BY YOUR WORLD, during off-peak hours and slowly try to solo the camps next to your spawn. If you die, respawn and go to the opposite camp. If someone comes and kills you, go to the opposite camp. if you die again, to players, change borderlands.

To practice WvW, enter during peak hours but enter a borderlands that you do not own more than 20%. Run around soloing things (if you can’t take on camps, just go yakslapping) until you find some other players, then run with them. DO NOT RUN WITH GROUPS LARGER THAN 10 PEOPLE.

Puandro.3245:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Iruwen.3164:

Puandro.3245:

What is the new internal cooldown to life stealing foods? This change affects many builds that rely on it and it would be nice to know a # instead of just a mystery number you guys like to give out, thanks.

There are builds that rely on food?

Yes, there are. Many of the glass cannon builds rely on the food buffs for lifesteal that is greater than healing. I added a 1 second cooldown after each proc to stop abuse using certain skills that could heal a character from near death to full health due purely to critting with a food item.

Alright 1 second seems fine and i thought they were too good but 1 second leaves them viable while not overly nerfing them to oblivion. 2 seconds or more and i would probably just go back to Mango Pies.

Looking forward to the AC changes as soon as my guild is on later today, any word on changing the current Warrior “meta” for dungeon runs.

This is coming from a guild that runs with at least 1-2 guard and 1 mesmer in dungeon runs with 2-3 warriors.

It basically means you can’t abuse them by doing something like 100b or BF and get all your health back via Omnomghost or what have you. I agree completely with 1 second being just right.

Priests can’t be MF’ed, I don’t think.

Mikkel.8427:

Esplen.3940:

Wait wait wait. Why is it that people keep bringing up “Rampage can just be moa’ed” in threads arguing against PU? Does nobody see the irony?

Um… bc unlike all the other professions, Mesmer’s can 6/6/6/6/6 and use ALL utilities and elites all in one build… DUH!

O yah, also they use Illusionary Elasticity to boost the bounce of WoC to 3 from 2… and they still have clone death traits on. And clones hit as hard as players. And you can have 9 clones up.

I feel like a lot of the problems are actually with management and not the devs. I’d hope that the devs love the game and want to do their best to improve it, but I could be wrong…

Ithilwen.1529:

If anything I expect to see Mirage nerfs. I don’t think the spec needs it.

What I’d like to see is serious nerfs to all the HoT specs.

I don’t think that’s quite the right approach either. Mirage definitely doesn’t need nerfs in its current state and Chronomancer is in a stable position.

Nerfing Chronomancer leads to it being a useless traitline, unless your ideology is to make it equal to Mirage instead of making Mirage equal to Chrono.

And that’s not to say that Mirage needs to be as powerful as Chrono, but there should be a reason to pick Mirage over Chrono in at least one aspect of the game (hopefully more, as options and build variety tend to be signs of a healthy game).

EremiteAngel.9765:

i’m quite tired of all these mesmer is OP threads.
they should ban all these threads.

But no other profession class is able to both stealth and retain movespeed oneoneone111exclamationmark11eleven!!1!

It doesn’t affect Illusion-Summoning Skills because although they are staff skills, they are only skills that are given by staves because they are categorized as Illusion-Summoning Skills.

To reduce cooldown on those, go down the Shatter trait tree 5 points in. Because of that trait, they don’t get reduced by other weapons or it would stack and be ridiculously short (e.g. 11 second warlock).

Also, your Auto-Attack has no cooldown, just a cast time. 0 – 20% = 0.
As for Staff 2 not getting affected, I’m not sure about that.

I think the main problem is that everyone thinks of support as the cookie cutter mmo support role.

Support exists in PvE and it’s used. The reason why there are comps for speedruns is because each profession can bring different support to the fights (bar Necro, sorry!)

Dangit, now my joke makes less sense.

tobascodagama.2961:

Fay.2357:

Tbh I think it’s way strong. I think it would be balanced if it didn’t apply the blur to a downed body, that way they could still poison/cleave to try and prevent the res. This way it’s literally a free res every time you use it.

Yeah, this is potentially over the top. Potentially.

Silverkey.2078:

I hope not… I think kitten is fine as it is.

edit: why does “45” “s” get kittenized?

The kitten filter will always trigger on specific “naughty” words. But it also randomly triggers on innocent words, by design, presumably because it’s funny.

Off-topic because 4 is A and 5 + s = SS.

Although you can just say Assassin gear but no shortened form (that is to say something shorter than assass.

Medicarejunkie.6032:

I have been using Sw/Sw+Staff in PvE, mostly Silverwastes. So far, its my favorite weapon combo for aesthetics, practicality, and mobility for when i pug. I use staff because I like chaos storm. Its pretty and can daze interrupt, giving me quickness. Phantasmal Warlock may not be as strong as duelist, but it hits hard. And i figure it doesnt matter what ranged you use as long as you dont sit on it.

Even in SW, I find Pistol better due to it’s faster projectile speed on interrupt (and bouncing versus line … yness? Also if you trait it (sure you don’t get bleeding) it stacks very nicely with staff for interrupts (although your pistol 5 doesn’t reduce cooldown on pistol 5).

I’ll buy 10 kind words and 800 friendly smiles for a Glob of Ectoplasm.

The bottom skill is the first in the chain. Some of these chains are auto-activate, other are sequence skills.

Examples:

Your example: Slash —> Kick —> Pounce —> Slash —> etc
Automatically goes through the attacks and repeats itself. Hence a chain skill

Another example: Mimic —> Echo
If Mimic connects, then Echo will be available. Hence a sequence skill

It really depends. If you have the name trademarked, you can’t redeem the name, but you can permanently get the name on the “this name can’t get used” list.

:D

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I think that if you threw in nothing but Exotics, your rates are double over using just Rares? I’m only speculating of course.

You have a 5x higher chance of getting a precursor using only exotics than rares, but that’s because you have a 1/5 chance of GETTING an exotic using rares versus a 5/5 chance of getting an exotic using exotics.

^ Gotta agree with Onshi.

redux.1502:

THEY KITTEN LISTENED OMG
I realize it’s not set in stone but WOW they actually are taking a look at the things we have been pointing out about the class.
I know they’ve disappointed in the past, but I’m kitten excited!
:)

Prepare to be disappointed and dis… excited?

Get as much Power as you can. If you find yourself too weak, mix some Toughness and Vitality in there.

While leveling these are what you want to go for:

Healing Skills
Don’t bother with these (yet), Ether Feast is, for the most part, the best heal you have and you start with it.

Utility Skills
Tier 1
Signet of Inspiration. Free boons? Heck yes.
Decoy. Stunbreak and invisibility. Let’s you take a breather. You’ll use this a lot at 80.
Blink. Stunbreak and teleport. You’ll use this a lot at 80 if you aren’t already using it.
Null Field. Situational skill that can be very handy.
You can get any of the tier 1 utilities at this point, even a Racial. It doesn’t really matter (especially since you’ll get all of them eventually).

Tier 2
Mirror Images. Let’s you use your shatters more.
Illusionary Defender. Free defense.
Feedback. Free defense and one of your most useful glamours.
Pick any 2 Tier 2 skills, including Racials.

Tier 3
Signet of Illusions is useful for leveling.

Elites
Time Warp.

Traits
Shatter
Adept Level 11-39
Start with 10 in domination. Grab Mental Torment (I) if you shatter F1 a lot, otherwise grab Empowered Illusions (III)
Work 5 points into Dueling.
If you’re feeling a bit squishy, put 5 points into Chaos for the regeneration effect. Otherwise, put 5 more points into Dueling.
Grab I, II, IV, or V in Dueling depending on how you play.
Last 5-10 points go wherever.

Master Level 40-59
10 in Domination. Grab Mental Torment (I)
20 in Dueling. Grab (I or IV) + (X)

As you’re leveling put 10 more points into Domination to get (X).

You will only have 10 points left, so put 5 into Chaos and then the last 5 go anywhere.

Grandmaster Level 61-79
20 in Domination (I) + (X)
20 in Dueling (I or IV) + (X)
10 in Illusions (I, III, or VI)

As you’re leveling up, put points into Illusions if you’re not having trouble against enemies, otherwise put the 5 points into Chaos again and then go back to dropping points in Illusions.

For the Master and Grandmaster trait slot, get (VII) and (XI) respectively.

Once you hit level 80, prepare to respec.

Phantasms
Adept Level 11-39
In this order, grab…
10 in Domination, Grab Empowered Illusions (III).
10 in Dueling, Grab Phantasmal Fury (II).
5 in Chaos.
4 anywhere.

Master Level 40-59
Start with…
20 in Domination. (III) + (X)
15 in Dueling (II)

Then grab as you’re leveling…
10 Inspiration (IV)

Last 4 goes anywhere.

Grandmaster Level 60-79
Start with…
10 in Domination (III)
15 in Dueling (II)
25 in Inspiration (IV) + (II)
or
10 in Domination (III)
15 in Dueling (II)
25 in Illusions (III) + (X)

Work towards…
Anything.

Once you hit level 80, prepare to respec.

Gear
Greatsword + Sword/Focus for both Shatter and Phantasm.

Playstyle
Shatter = Drop as many illusions out then F1. (Wait a little bit for your Phantasms to finish their attacks.)
Phantasms = Drop as many illusions, then replace your clones with Phantasms and sit back while auto attacking.

Brutal Arts.6307:

No Walking.6349:

Who cares, TESO will come out before the next dragon does, so it’s not like any of us will still be playing GW2

That’s not how you spell Wild Star

Sorry, you spelled Guild Wars 2 wrong… both of you.

Your opinion is so bigoted it hurts.

You only lose your 1-5 skills because they are attack skills and you’re replacing them with mobility skills. You retain your 6-0 skills, which allows you to retain some part of your profession. In fact, this makes sense in the overarching game mechanics that have been promised to us since the beginning.

Remember those mystical things people ignore called Environmental Weapons? Yeah, well, when you walk into a Crystal, you gain an innate Environmental Weapon that lets your character channel the power ofGlint. You’re still whatever profession you are, as seen by your 6-0 skills, but you also have these newfound powers for a short time.

However, if you like to slowly trudge your way along the ground, feel free to do so. I’ll sit up here on my mighty bamboo post.

Your words have potential, but they don’t really have any depth. They’re just all these words that make sense and are scattered on the ground like dice, trying to form a point.

I came into this thread, expecting a wall of text. What I got was a tripwire of text.

Regardless, they probably threw around the word reward a lot because they’re talking about their new reward system (makes sense, right?) I think you’re not giving Arenanet enough credit. Think about every player that plays this game. Arenanet has to cater to every individual; the grinder, the casual, the super casual, the super grinder, the achievement finder, the completionist, and more. And if they displease ANY of them, they get a stick shoved up their…

With that in mind, they have implemented a great system, it’s just abused (as anything and everything get, in any video game) in a way that it wasn’t meant to be. Because of that, they’re redoing the system to a method that will prevent it from getting abused (as hard). This new system will allow players to do that RNG skin grind they’ve always wanted (and yes, I am saying that they’ve always wanted this, I’ve seen so many complaints and suggestions, both ingame and out of game, asking for RNG on bosses for unique skins) That’s what’s happening. Arenanet is changing based on what the populace wants/needs.

The redundancy of content to get gear is not a problem. Why? Because you’re:
A: Working for pretty gear which you don’t need to do (you can easily play while looking ugly, there’s nothing stopping you).
B: YOU’RE working for that gear. Nobody is stopping you. Nobody is forcing you.
C: How would you propose new gear be attained WITHOUT reusing content? WITHOUT forcing players to do a task, or two, or three? How would you propose players get rewarded in a method not done with carrots (players love carrots)?

Think about it. Sure, you can add rewards tied to objectives done only once. Kinda like the Aetherblade Jumping Puzzle. Oh, that went well. But wait, there’s also the Achievement Points, you’re not forcing players to follow a carrot, you’re rewarding players who play how they want. Oh, that went well. But wait, there’s also the Fortune Scraps, which can be obtained while playing the game how you want to play the game (as long as it involves some sort of looting). Oh, that went well.

Want me to continue?

Carighan.6758:

Staff does really good damage, especially in PvE where it’s easy to plan around it’s AE and bouncing to maximize buff potential on the party.

Greatsword to me has always been a weapon I use for two reasons: a) Cripple, b) Knocking people off ledges. It excels for that, but the Staff wins out for total damage (since it also provides buffs on friendly players).

And since Warlock is the strongest Phantasm based on full potential numbers.

I think they’re flashy enough, being gigantic circles with effects similar to their field type.

Smoke Fields already have Smoke on them. Water fields have drips of water all over. Poison fields have, well, green poison. Lightning fields are charged with lightning, either big amounts of little bits all over the place. Light fields are lit up with blue or white light. Dark fields are very rare, but typically full of darkness, can be confused with Smoke fields on lower settings.

If you have a hard time distinguishing fields, try cranking up your settings.

Im Mudbone.1437:

One of the best things from GW1 was the ability to save build templates, GW2 needs this ability as well, but, don’t see how it would be implemented seeing as how it costs to re-build your character.

I guess if you walk to a trainer, you could load a build for the same price versus retraiting.

Vayne.8563:

I never left, and still enjoy the game. But mostly I’m looking forward to what the game will be in two years time. It’s going to be amazing.

This.

This game is potential heaven, and while they aren’t even remotely close to what they can be, they are actively striving to be the best they can (unlike most other MMO’s)!

If you had to ask that question, then assume the answer is yes.

You cheated yourself of the challenge.

You did not, however, cheat the game.

Colin Johanson supports Evon.

QUICK, RALLY TO ME! VOTE KIEL!

@Niila, it gives 1/3.

An Error Prevented Saving:
Message Body length must be less than 6000.

Dang.

Skuzz.6580:

Are we playing the same game?
1) Mirage is better than any other SINGLE core trait line, obviously, it is not stronger than 2 or 3 combined.

Oh boy, you just opened a can of worms you shouldn’t have. Here we go

A single core trait line that is better than Mirage:

Illusions. Dueling.
Inspiration.

Each of them is better than Mirage by themselves. How so?

Illusions:
Major Adept: Compounding Power gives you a huge damage boost no matter what style of play you choose. Additionally, you can finagle it to gain the bonus damage on all of shatter hits with well-timed illusion summons.
Minor Master: Reducing the cooldown on Illusion Summoning Skills means you now have Weapon and Utility skills that have lowered cooldowns (on top of traited weapons). This skill alone is a huge, huge, huge damage increase in all game modes (including PvE where you don’t want to be summoning all the time). Why? Lower ramp times, higher burst uptimes, and more tools to use.
Major Masters: Having options on Shatters or Phantasm AFK builds? Hell yes, and unlike Riddle of Sands, this bad boy actually scales per Illusion.
MoM: Reduced recharge of shatters is good unless you don’t use them (which is entirely possible). However, even without using this trait, it’s still good to have if you ever need to panic F4 (or F3).
GM: Phantasmal Force and Malicious Sorcery are both huge damage increases. Additionally, Malicious Sorcery improves your cast speed on all abilities, effectively giving you mini-Quickness (that stacks with Quickness). That means you can get both your damage and utility out faster. Compare that to Infinite Horizon and Dune Cloak and this is significantly better (20% increased speed on all actions is effectively 20% bonus damage, slightly lower, but that’s significantly more damage than being able to shift 300 Expertise into a mixture of Power/Precision/Condition Damage).

Try going into windowed mode (unless you’re in windowed/borderless windowed, in which case go full-screen) and try it again.

If it works, try swapping back. If it doesn’t, well, that’s going to be a hassle, but you can always press the | key (it’s actually \) to make it transparent/invisible.

Wear the staff in one hand and the greatsword in the other?

Dueling:
Minor Adept: Critical Infusion. This skill has been and will still be our main source of Vigor. It used to have 100% uptime, but now requires 100% boon duration to reach that. Still, having 50% Vigor uptime with no investment is a huge power bonus, especially compared to Mirage’s “Gain 3s Vigor when Shattering” oh boy!
Major Adept: Phantasmal Fury means that you don’t have to account for your Phantasms maybe having Fury, which is nice when attempting to maximize damage output. Duelist’s Discipline is one of our largest sources of Condition Damage, outside of weapon skills. The other largest source is…
Minor Master: Sharper Images will always be good. Paired with Phantasms having Fury (or not, if you want DD), this skill is just free damage no matter how you play Mesmer. Even if you’re a power build. The only time this trait was ever bad was when condi caps were at 25 and that’s if you had a condi person in your group, which was rare.
Masters: Reflects after successful evades? That means you only have to use one dodge against ranged attacks instead of blasting both to survive huge harass. Blinding Dissipation helps immensely keeping melee pressure while giving you some relief. This gives you a LOT more relief than Mirage Mantle. Fencer’s Finesse is huge. Reduced Recharge on sword skills means that you get more Sword dodges, Phantasms, Leaps,and Blocks. Additionally, 10% Critical Damage is just icing on the cake if you’re using a power build.
Master Fencer: 100% Fury Uptime vs targets below 75% hp? Um, sign me up. Oh I don’t even need to sign? Well then. I think this is much better than getting movement in our dodge… back…
GM: Superiority Complex oh boy, this guy got swole super fast. Harmonious Mantras went to the Gym and figured out how to use the weights. Now he’s back and better than ever. 15% Critical Damage is roughly equal to 225 Ferocity, except that it’s not Ferocity so it MULTIPLIES your ferocity. That means you get more out of Fencer’s Finesse. Oh and if the enemy is below 50% health, this multiplier goes up to 25%. Considering Mesmer is almost always at a high crit rate, this is just a flat damage increase on non-Illusion damage, and not one to scoff at.
Ineptitude is back and better than ever, but it now has to fight with a Superiority Complex, and that’s a hard battle to win. However, it mixed two traits, and applying blind to someone who has blind still inflicts confusion, so that’s really nice. Toss in a whirl onto a smoke field and you’ve just added a condi burst equal to whirl on chaos field, but you’ve also blinded them.
Deceptive Evasion has and always will be a useful trait. However, this guy is in an awkward spot because his brothers are finally major contenders in the PvP scene.

Inspiration:
Mender’s Purity is huge. Usable in PvE and PvP. Heck, with Mantra of Recovery you get 2 casts (sadly the charge does not proc this). Do be careful, if you finish your cast while in mid-air (jump or falling), the trait does not cast. RIP.
Medic’s Feedback has it’s uses. It increases reflect uptime, particularly when your group is bad. If your group isn’t bad, you can do an F-cancel on NPC’s to drop the Feedback. This is particularly useful in dungeons.
Restorative Mantras is my go-to. It makes my Mantra of Recovery a powerful on-demand heal skill that also condi-cleanses. If I know I’m safe, I’ll hold the charges. If I know I’m going to need heal, I leave it uncharged and then proc all 3 heals back to back. Sure, it’s weaker than Ether Feast and comparable with SotE, but I like the flexibility in the uses and I don’t feel guilty when using it (unlike SotE). Additionally, if you use this trait with all mantras equipped vs Crystalline Entities, you can have ~75k dps while surviving to near 30 stacks of Green Light without any teammate help (Arah shenanigans).
Persisting Images sort of helps with Phantasm squishiness. I think this guy is pretty weak compared to his brothers, but worst case scenario he adds a tad bit of DPS. I liked when he gave Phants perma Retal. I don’t know of many people who use this unless they don’t see themselves utilizing the other two.
Inspiring Distortion is an amazing skill. This is useful in PvP and PvE and is actually how many mechanics in Raids are circumnavigated. This skill is a godsend by itself since, without taking other traits into effect, it’s effectively on a 45s cd. That’s still amazing, though.
Warden’s Feedback gives Mesmer’s huge reflect uptime. Not sure what else I can say about this guy.
Restorative Illusions is on-demand condi-cleanse + panic heals. Solid choice and good fallback if you won’t utilize the others. You can always utilize this.
Protected Phantasms, ok I think this one is worse than Persisting Images and should probably be merged, but the synergy on with Persistence of Memory is… interesting.
Healing Prism is great. It used to be really, really powerful and I think the ICD should be removed or lowered and the healing should instead have a small base and scale with the amount healed instead of a static heal amount. Regardless, this guy paired with Restorative Mantras means you get some nice passive heals on allies.
GM: Free Phantasmal Defenders, Regen + Free Signet of Inspiration, and Resistance + Superspeed? All of these are solid choices depending on your usages. The Regen + SoI is amazing for boonshare and absolutely necessary for most support builds. The Glamour one is outshined, but it can still be useful (unlike Protected Phantasms).

I mean, sure, you’re slowing them but is it really worth it?

But in your first paragraph you state that games must have vertical progression if they wish to last.

He’ll be there when you finish your storyline. You’ll see why.

atheria.2837:

Esplen.3940:

Join within 10 minutes of the invasion and you’re good to go. Invasions start at the beginning of every hour.

You are wrong, the timings are WAY off and many of us are being left in a ZERO zone with no events!

This is the THIRD THREAD of this problem so far, and I, for one, am sick of the naysayers.

SYNC IT OR REMOVE the map travel!!!

I don’t see how my timings are off. Every single invasion I have attempted to participate in has succeeded and I have participated in 16 invasions. I have joined both Overflows and my home world in partaking in events and have had succeeded greatly in both.

If you are having a problem, you might be interpreting something wrong or you may be in need of hardware help instead of software complaints.