Guild Wars 2

I think the main problem with sentry duty is that it’s dead boring most of the time. I’m not sure rewards can really fix that. Some people have the personality for it, but most just don’t.

For scouting around, I think it’s just a matter of convincing people that “roaming” isn’t just about trying to start fights and ninja the occasional camp.

Swag Captain.5318:

…Spelling kitten taking over.. must.. warn.. that it’s spelled “Defense”

It’s spelled “defense” in American English, “defence” in British English. But “defensive” in both.

Dagins.5163:

Sigil of nullification is problematic, because it pretty much does nothing. It is random and unreliable. Random and unreliable mechanics should be reduced to absolute minimum in this game.

Err, boon stripping in general is like that given the volume of boons being thrown around. Sometimes you luck out and you get an enemy that’s just stacking might or just rolling protection or whatever, but usually you’re up against someone with half a dozen boons on their bar and you’re just hoping whichever ones you end up ripping create an opportunity for a burst or help you beat them via attrition.

Modify Rush to drop a loot bag if the warrior uses it while under 50% hp (ICD on loot drop: 3 minutes).

There, problem solved. Now warriors can run away all they want and nobody will complain about it.

;)

Half the reason I pack condition removal is that, if I don’t, Power builds destroy me by bursting while I’m Immobilized.

BobbyT.7192:

I never really thought the lack of boon management to be a down side, up side yes,
But really, is a warrior really missing out?
To me to be able to remove a boon is like " oh nice, that’s cool"
Where as not being able to do it is like " meh, oh well"
Certainly nothing I’ve seen cried about, unlike say lack of range or condi clear.

There are a couple of situations where it’s great. A lot of tankier types rely on might stacks to make their attacks do real damage. Also, when a necro pops Lich Form and you rip their 30-second stability, it’s a total gamechanger. They go from being this hard-hitting juggernaut to everyone’s favorite piñata.

But, yeah, it’s not like being unable to clear conditions. You die when you can’t clear conditions.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Whenever I meet a “warrior” archetype in movies, animation and games, it’s usually a large heavy character which deals massive melee damage and has unparalleled defence, but has problems with mobility. I see this, or this, or this, or at least this. The best counter to this class usually turns out to be a light agile class which has inferior defense but superior mobility, and can win by evading slow attacks and landing well timed/wide area hits.

When I first read about the “warrior” class in GW2, the first thing I thought was “WTF? Did they combine a tank with a jet fighter and called it a balanced class?!”. And that first impression was not far from truth.

Well, your examples are full of hard-hitting athletic types, aren’t they? Boromir or an Uruk-Hai leader aren’t slow and ponderous characters.

Generally, despite the fact that warriors move fast, I haven’t had much trouble evading one (I’m playing mesmer right now, mainly). I have to respect their presence in SPvP, but I’m really not at all intimidated by ’em (I do think twice before engaging a thief or an engineer). In WvW, it boils down to staying away from the front of the hammer train and accepting that some are gonna “Nike” away during smaller fights.

In my experience, the thing with warriors is that they have a very pronounced on/off kind of cycle. When the warrior’s popping stances and movement skills to try to slam you with their best attacks (they need to pop those cooldowns if they want to connect), you can focus on defense; when that stuff’s on cooldown, fighting a warrior is a bit like fighting a Risen Gorilla: sure, the big monster hits hard and could knock you around a bunch, but it’s really easy to counter just about everything it does, often just using movement keys.

Err, what’s the value of this? Why should we privilege dual-wielding weapons over a using two-handed weapon or using a weapon set with an offhand-only weapon?

If you really want to run Axe+Mace and Mace+Axe in your two weapon slots right now, nothing is stopping you.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

via a new hot key, maybe F2 ?

Err, you’ve only player warrior and thief, huh?

zen.6091:

Power PU with Greatsword and Sword / Torch is basically, let’s say 75% of a power shatter build. You trade 25% of your possible damage from higher shattering, might stacks, and decreased attack cooldowns for much, much improved survivability and easier stealth stomps when aegis ticks. It’s not an incredibly difficult build to play even with full / mostly beserker gear if you use your defensive skills quickly and wisely.

Yup. I like Power PU because it works better with how I “roam.” I don’t just run by myself all the time and I’m not really looking for duels. Power PU is very useful in small group stuff since you can switch targets instantly and burst pretty effectively, and it’s easier to cripple (with Zerker) or interrupt (Mirror Blade + Diversion) enemies on demand. For even bigger engagements, I just swap in Veil and keep a Focus in my inventory in case I want to do pulls; the greatsword laser is pretty good for killing squishies who overextend or blow their cooldowns.

I’ve tried Condition PU and it was very, very easy to survive in one-on-one but my damage output seemed to be very much reliant on having the right runes. That’s a problem because without Trav runes, getting around is slow, and you’re kinda screwed if a sizable group is trying to gank you (though you do get Phase Retreat).

Power PU is definitely less durable but you still have reasonable mobility, stealth, and lots and lots of Protection to keep you alive. It’s not a fragile build. Especially since you don’t have to go full zerk to make it work.

silentnight warrior.2714:

They fixed a bug. Nothing more.

The skill says you SWAP places with your clone. How can you swap with the clone if the clone was already dead? Doesn´t make sense at all.

Skill description also says the clone “leaps” to the target. It doesn’t really leap much, does it?
Swap stays on your skillbar for the full duration (~5 seconds) even if the clone dies immediately. How is that at all accurate or intuitive?
Swap says “Swap locations with your clone. Immobilize nearby foes.” Two separate sentences. Once could easily read that to mean two separate effects and expect to still get the second even if you don’t get the first for some reason. So, is it actually working as intended right now? Total judgement call.
IIRC Swap is still a stunbreak even though that’s not documented at all.

Basically what I’m getting at is that tooltips lie to you. Constantly. It’s part of playing a mesmer (other classes, too, but especially a mesmer).

But the solution isn’t to make skills match the tooltips, for the most part. Because the description in the tooltips is just some untested theorycraft stuff, basically. So all you’re getting is “Changed class to play more like whatever early beta design document assumed it should be like.” We’re way past that at this point. It’s much better to look at how skills behave “in the wild” and adjust their descriptions for accuracy and their mechanics for balance.

blitzkrieg.2451:

a guaranteed stun break on a 9 1/2 second cooldown

They could have removed the stun break. E.g. by making it work like Infiltrator’s Strike or by making the teleport work like Shadow Retreat (which will move you but you stay stunned/KDed/whatever).

Some ideas. Just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. (All of these assume “fix the pathing not to be terrible.”)

A. Chase skill.

• Extend the range a lot and make the clone cross it quickly (probably requires making it leap or teleport or do that warrior-style Rush thing). This makes iLeap still pretty fragile and not very good as a defensive skill, but at least it’s far better at catching people who are trying to get away.

B. Copy Infiltrator’s Strike.

• iLeap sends you to the target, then lets you return to where you were.
• Note that this is a bit weird with Swap, since it would create a clone at your old location that then runs to a target. So you don’t have quite as much control over where you go. I could see a skill that makes the clone “target nearest” (the way dodge clones do), which turns it into a limited escape button in group fights and a way to get in someone’s face while creating a clone that’s running to them (decent for Diversion) in solo fights.

C. All-in leap attack.

• You leap or blink. I’d prefer leap: better telegraph, which seems fair for a low-cooldown offensive skill; plus it’s cooler animation
• If you hit, cripple (or immobilize?) your target and spawn a sword clone.

D. Control phantasm.

• Make it a phantasm of some sort? Melee, pretty low DPS, but spreads a useful control condition like Crippled or Weakness. (Not too good because it seems like policy is that each weapon set should only get one phant skill, and this would break that. But phantasms are more durable than clones and you can customize their attacks, so this seems to fit well.)
• Secondary lets you pop the phant for a group immobilize. Probably would necessitate an increased cooldown but increased Swap availability duration also.

E. Mainhand Illusionary Riposte.

• Move Illusionary Riposte to Sword #3. By combining Riposte and Blurred Frenzy, mainhand sword now becomes a very reliable defensive weapon (let’s face it, the damage it does was never great anyway). Sword-wielding PU mesmers do get a block/interrupt out of this, but I think the big winner is lockdown/chillruption since now Sword/Focus is a very good control set with two ways to interrupt targets.
• Sword #4 can now be a brand new skill with serious offensive or utility potential. I’d go with offense because that’s very much OH Sword’s niche, I think. Maybe a much more direct and aggressive immobilize on a medium (15-20) cooldown, as a way to help shatter mesmers make up for losing iLeap? (Less spammable, more powerful/reliable.)

F. Revert.

• Just put it back and rewrite the tooltip. Easy-peesy!
• Could consider putting a red circle on the ground if the clone dies so other players have an easier time seeing where the return goes. Or, heck, give the mesmer a big glowy tether to where they would end up. I don’t care.

B and C are my favorites. I’d love for Sword to be more of an in-your-face aggressive weapon.

I think I’d be fine with the new functionality if they reduced the cooldown to, oh, about six seconds before trait reductions.
(Yes, I realize this would lead to a mountain of mesmer hate on the forums.)

Let’s have some fun in the Mists.

1. Equip GS + S/S or something similar. Take Deceptive Evasion like nearly everyone does.
2. Throw iZerker on a training dummy.
3. Throw iSwordsman on the training dummy.
4. Activate iLeap on the training dummy.
5. Pretend you’re under attack. Dodge, dodge!
6. Now try to Swap.
:/

1. Stand in front of the warrior dummy ^H^H^H^H NPC.
2. Activate iLeap targeting him.
3. Wait 1 second for the warrior NPC to swing his hammer. (Clone goes SPLAT!)
4. Now try to Swap.
:/

Fay.2357:

… and mesmer is no longer good at doing anything in the game other than roaming as a condie build.

Hyperbole!

Swag Captain.5318:

Exploiting is using mechanics that do not work the way they were intended and can give the player a potentially significant edge over those who do not use it/cannot use it.

This is GW2. Lots and lots of things don’t really work as intended. I’m not sure how iLeap being a bad version of Infiltrator’s Strike was really an “exploit,” though.

At the end of the day, they took a flaky skill with poorly-documented functionality and made it terrible. It’s still flaky. Why, it’s actually flakier now, since you’re way more likely to hit Swap and go nowhere.

TyPin.9860:

Warrior

• high HP pool, high armor, high single target and AoE DPS, good crowd control, high mobility, frequent condition removal, frequent stun breakers, high evasion
• no disadvantages I can think of…

Having played warrior a bit and fought them a bunch, I think warriors’ evasion, stun breakers, and condition removal (unless they roll Hambow, maybe) are all closer to what I’d call “middling.”

They can definitely get good DPS but overall I find it much easier to avoid their big damage than a thief or even a burst guardian.

Silent Shino.7239:

As we all know, conditions in wvw are out of control and horrendously difficult to counter.

It’s true. Yesterday I Burned down the gate of Stonemist and then Blind-spammed the lord to death solo. And then when they came to reclaim it I put Weakness on them so they couldn’t swing their rams at the door.

All conditions are OP except the super-quick-damaging one that Guardians proc constantly, and the one that exists solely to help Power builds do more damage to things.

slamb.4781:

If people are using superior runes of the Ranger the Mini pet is counted as a companion to give the 6th tier bonus of 7% extra damage.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Ranger

The fact that they’re able to do that is kinda crazy. I mean, they’re not “Superior Runes of Trade a Single Inventory Slot for +7% damage.” (I’m okay with summons and clones and turrets and things counting. Just not minis.)

Peow peow.2189:

Mesmers are there to decieve, therefore they need more access to fear and confusion – invisibility is not a deception tool, rather it is an escape mechanism.

Err, what does “deception” mean to you exactly, and how do a crowd-control condition and a damaging condition that mildly punishes skill-spam qualify?

maxinion.8396:

Nice advice. There is no scepter phant though.

Oh that’s right, #2 is a clone.

Definitely try out all the weapon as you level. It’s good to get a sense of their rhythm. And revisit Focus after level 60 so you can get the hang of Warden’s Feedback builds.

If you’re mainly a PvE player, you will absolutely want to learn Sword (MH and OH) and Focus. These are your bread-and-butter “meta build” tools. Cleaving with Sword autos is one of the best ways to fight multiple mobs. (For PvP, you basically want all the weapons. Staff, Greatsword, Sword, Focus, Torch, Pistol, and even sometimes Scepter.)

For EotM leveling, Staff and Greatsword are both pretty good for getting champion credit. You just have to put up the Warlock ASAP with staff. Focus will help you keep up with the group; you can also use it in the occasional ZvZ fight to pull some enemies around.

~

Clones don’t really do damage. They can spread conditions, though (staff clones or clones with the bleeding trait). That and you can shatter them, of course. Typical PvE DPS comes from phantasms and reflection. Reasonable DPS phantasms are Swordsman (offhand sword), Berzerker (greatsword), Duelist (offhand pistol), Warden (offhand focus), and Warlock (staff); the Torch and Scepter phants kinda suck.

Arcanis.8049:

It’s a design problem. GW1 did this by having skills that are pvp/pve specific. They’ve done it before so why stop now?

To make an entire tree not viable in one game mode is just silly. I don’t know about other professions – is that comparable or just us mesmers?

Shrug. Not being able to change out your weapon skills a la carte kinda sucks sometimes, but the thing is that “optimal” (as opposed to “tolerable”) is a very narrow band. It was in GW1 as well: how many high-end PvE mesmer builds were there, really? (IIRC, 0-2.)

I GW1, I ran entirely different builds in PvP and PvE. Cripslash and Dslash Lockdown are like night and day. Probably a good half of the best PvP skills were entirely unimpressive in PvE.

There’s pretty much nothing you can do for Greatsword that will make it as optimal as Sword in high-end PvE. Because Sword isn’t just about personal DPS, it’s overall team synergy from being able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with everyone else. That’s fine. Greatsword still has a huge niche. It’ll always have a place in WvW and SPvP, it’s fine in open-world stuff, it’s the most practical choice for a lot of world events.

Arcanis.8049:

I see that you avoided Chaos in all of your builds. Anet obviously designed it just for looks.

That particular line is strongest in PvP. It is very strong in PvP, and not just because of PU. This isn’t any different from how most classes work. A lot of the traits and trait lines are dead space in PvE.

I’ve run the 0/6/6/2/0 version with Harmonious Mantras in WvW and SPvP (mostly to get used to shorter-range fighting in WvW). I like it a lot. Traited Blink and MoR condition cleanse make it a very slippery build. I switch up utilities constantly to match the group size.

Here’s my build (yes, I’m running cheap food unless it’s big-deal guild raid night; way better than cheaping out by not running food at all).

PU builds points in Domination also still seem viable, as far as I can tell. The latest couple of patches really didn’t change much.

I adore Mantras with Harmonious Mantras and Mender’s Purity.

Protected Mantras, however, is terrible. It mitigates some damage while you’re casting Mantras. How often are you recasting ‘em right as you’re being waled on, though? Usually I reset mine while I’m in stealth or repositioning. I don’t think the 600 Toughness is going to do that much to mitigate a full burst, and you’re pretty much boned if they try to use an interrupt to make sure it lands (I’d much rather dodge, even if it means a 4-second cooldown on the Mantra).

Try Mantra Mastery (hey, if you want to go “all in” on Mantras ) or Deceptive Evasion in that slot, maybe?

Thrashbarg.9820:

I don’t unequip my weapons when I get in and out of the water.

I think the idea is that there’s so little water around that letting you keep your stacks just because you have a second copy of the sigil on a water weapon even after you switch out your real weapons.

The “dive in and lose your stacks” thing is an unfortunate consequence.

Curunen.8729:

On further thought I would like to be honest – I like the immediacy of casting Mind Stab as it is now.

I agree. It’s a really satisfying animation that just needs a bit of a bigger effect to make it feel worthwhile.

Thrashbarg.9820:

I’m not saying the stacking sigil change alone is killing build variety. It’s just another thing on the list discouraging it, and the list of reasons NOT to play alts and different builds has become far too long.

Err, the stacking sigil change is making you actually commit weapon slots to your stacks. I don’t think it’s unfair. It does slightly favor builds who “park” one weapon and only swap on occasion (since you can “hide” your stacking rune on that other set); but most of the on-swap sigils heavily favor builds who swap weapons on cooldown, so I really don’t see a problem here.

Compared to the old way of doing things, now you don’t need a second weapon with different sigils to make optimal use of your stacks.

In the distant past: You could stack buffs from a weapon, then switch weapons entirely and keep the stacks. This was nerfed.

In the not-so-distant past: You could stack buffs as long as any of your weapons still had the stacking sigil. So you could put a stacking sigil on your underwater weapon and this would allow you to swap out your regular weapon and keep the stacks. This was nerfed also.

Now: Think of going underwater as replacing your weapon sets (like if you went into inventory and literally changed your slots). If your underwater set doesn’t have a stacking sigil (of the same type as your land-based one), you’ll lose your stacks underwater. IIRC there’s some occasional weirdness with whether you can keep underwater stacks on land. But, in general, this will always work: keep one of the same sigil on your land-bound weapons and your underwater set and you won’t lose stacks when you transfer.

Alternatively, enter the water very carefully and skim over the top. You won’t change weapons and you’ll get to keep your stack (you can’t fight this way).

The dude with the rifle is a character I would actually notice in town.
The dude with the bow looks fine, but he’s not really especially nifty, you know?

I’m pretty sure you get credit for Defend events also. At least as far as skill unlocks go.

It’ll replace the appearance of the one piece of armor you use it on. Then, afterward, that skin will be part of your wardrobe. You can spend a Transmutation Charge to reskin something else.

For example:
Let’s say I have a set of Knight armor and a set of Berzerker armor. I buy a Rampart Skin on the Gem Store and I want to use it on both.
I can reskin all my Knight armor bits for free. Now they will all look like Rampart armor. This unlocks the skins in my Wardrobe (account-wide).
Later I want my Berzerker gloves and boots to look like Rampart armor, too. I can use the Wardrobe tab to skin them. It costs 2 Transmutation Charges in this case.

Okay. I’ve got a silly gimmick idea. I don’t expect it to go anywhere. I’m not, like, chomping at the bit for this particular thing to be implemented, either. But just bear with me.

Mesmers are sometimes described as thief food, right? I mean, fighting a thief is not, like, entirely a lost cause, but it tends to get pretty dicey. And Greatsword is the weapon that doesn’t have any blocks, evades, or teleports to help get them off you (though it’s really fun when you Illusionary Wave ’em right out of Shadow Refuge).

So what if…

What if Mind Stab made everyone it hits Revealed for X seconds?

I figure you could use it reactively to knock people out of stealth (guess where they are), or more preemptively as part of a burst (e.g. to make sure shatters have somewhere they can go). There seems to be reasonable room for “counterplay” since you have to place it right and enemies can dodge, &c.

• Would it be right to put that effect on Greatsword, of all the weapons?
• What would it do for mesmer-on-mesmer fights?
• Would rangers (who have a monopoly on Revealing enemies right now) feel sad that their toys aren’t as special anymore?
• Would be a Mind Stab like that be acceptable with its current cooldown?

That GW1 test area was so good (comparatively, at least).

In addition to the range-tester thing there were DPS dummies and NPCs with example builds themed around a particular strategy (as opposed to just a class), including stunlock, condition overload, and even a guy who just runs away from your compulsively. Not a substitute for PvP testing, of course, but it was a pretty good way to get a basic idea of the strengths and weaknesses of your particular build.

So, I don’t really think of myself as a roamer but I end up doing it from time to time.

If I’m running around and I see a single person just kinda standing there, I’m pretty suspicious of engaging. My assumption is that there’s a reason they’ve decided to just camp that area. Might be buddies nearby, might be they’ve practiced using the terrain in this particular spot, whatever. It’s usually sound tactics not to walk into their trap. I don’t necessarily try to evade them right away, but I’m certainly not going to try to engage them aggressively. “Roamers” who mainly camp spots trying to gank people tend to be slippery sorts. Especially if they’re of a class that’s faster than me: warriors and thieves can run like the wind, so chances are they’ll either hound you to death or get away if you have the upper hand — seems to be very little payoff to trying to get into a fight with them one-on-one.

If I’m running around and I see another player running around, I tend to be much more aggressive about engaging, since there’s far less reason to assume they’re just waiting around to screw with people. And if I kill them or drive them off I’ve presumably stopped them from actually accomplishing something for a little while.

Erm, every class needs to be on their feet in order to be useful or just avoid death. Warriors get pretty good access to stability. You’ve got long cooldowns but long duration, too, which is pretty solid for when you really need to do something through a wall of disruption. And you have a ton of ways to deal with chill/cripple/immobilize, which is a big deal if you want to stay in melee.

Also, you do have stun breaks. Time your evades, use stun breaks on long stuns, and save stability for when you really need to push.

This is pretty quick, all in all:
Get a staff.
Run around with the zerg in EotM.
Be sure to drop the Phantasmal Warlock on every boss you run into.

I got bored of it long before I hit 80 but once you hit 60 you can go back and rush through personal story pretty efficiently.

kishter.9578:

My advise is to PU condition build,

PU is a GM trait and you can’t get Deceptive Evasion (or Sharper Images) until 60. So until then you’re not really much of a PU mez at all.

You may actually be better off going for Power to get the Phantasmal Warlock to hit harder.

Hamster.4861:

almost nothing in EotM transfers over except for the zerging practice.

EotM is actually pretty bad zerg practice.

• EotM zerglings don’t actually learn coordination. You’re not doing hammer train or calling fields or even focusing fire very much. It’s a lot like zerg wars worked when the game was new: lots of 1200-range poking at each other. When’s the last time you’ve seen an EotM zerg actually push through? (That wasn’t, like, a guild group on their day off.)
• EotM zerglings don’t manage orange swords. Everyone just attacks the door because there’s no reason not to.
• EotM zerglings seldom deal with people seriously contesting the cap point. I haven’t done that much EotM myself but I’ve personally never seen someone banner a lord, for example.
• EotM commanders don’t send people to check for traps or top tap structures. Because these things aren’t relevant in EotM the way it’s played right now.

The thing that makes EOTM tolerable is that it’s not just a Frostgorge train. Every once in a while you get to do some actual PvP in the middle of grinding WXP and champ bags. (It’s kinda shameful how EOTM builds up WXP faster than most actual WvW play does, but that’s how it is :/ )

If somebody’s bunkered down in a tower or keep, it’s not that hard to build a couple of catapults or (god forbid!) a ballista instead of the usual rams. Worst case you can always go somewhere else. Seriously: it’s a pretty big map.

I firmly believe that the most fun EOTM commanders are the ones who ktrain all over and then strategically port back to home every time the enemy is about to take it. That bagfest/bloodbath keeps you from falling asleep.

WvW is about fights and PPT. Both are important. Fights keep us coming back, but PPT gives fights purpose.

“Roamers,” to me, are people who are still involved in the objectives game, just not in large groups. They can do a lot of damage to your server if you just leave them alone entirely. So, if you’re even remotely near an objective, I’m going to try to kill you to make sure you can’t claim it or disrupt it. This includes camps, yak paths, the ruins (bloodlust matters, yo). It’s also usually in my server’s best interests to make sure you end up back at your spawn point before you’re able to scout stuff.

Thus, unless you’re really really going out of your way to establish yourself as just dueling off in the corner somewhere, I’m gonna interfere in the fight and try to splat whoever’s red. It just makes sense.

Sometimes when I’m running with a mid-sized group we intentionally ignore small fights because we don’t want to waste time chasing. It’s not really a principles thing.

If you want absolutely want a fair fight, there’s Sanctum and SPvP dueling arenas. By choosing to try to start up duels all over the WvW map you’re embracing the fact that some external factor might mess up your fight at any time.

Nerelith.7360:

As I seee it One of the problems Not Just with Gw2, but with MMO’s in general… especially those without a devoted following is… the desire to cater to the casual player.

It leads to a dumbing down of content, and a simplifying of game mechanics.

GW1 had “simplified” mechanics for an MMOG of its time and that’s part of what allowed it to actually throw interesting stuff at you. MMOGs that hide the relationships between elements and make you play Spreadsheet Wars to figure out what your stats actually do are just using obfuscation to create fake difficulty.

style.6173:

@OP:

Most people don’t roam around. They fight as part of a zerg. Try it sometime and watch how many condis get added to you. It doesn’t matter how much condi removal you have since they can automatically be reapplied. That causes most people to run food that will reduce condi duration.

Condi is OP at the moment. That is true even for roaming.

The damaging conditions you pick up tend to be incidental adds from skills people are running in Power builds.

The duration reduction is a way of dealing with controlling conditions, which those Power builds can use just as effectively as Condition Damage builds. Weakness, poison, cripple, chill, immobilize. You want to keep your damage output up, you want to keep incoming healing going, and you want to stay mobile so you don’t get squished.

So, I actually do tend to have issues fighting thieves (my reflexes suck; most thief specs punish this severely). And yet, somehow, I’ve never been killed by Disabling Shot or Death Blossom. I wonder why! >.>

Seriously, though, if you want to make hay out of this, you gotta put in more work:
1. Get some actual players trying to interact with you. Demonstrate why what you’re doing gives you an advantage in some ways.
2. Find a boss with a big fire field or something, jump around, and see how much or how little damage gets through when you’re chaining evades.

MesmeForever.3612:

I’d suggest increasing the radius and applying applying like a .25 second daze to up to 5 targets and ripping a boon, with increased damage on interrupt. Balance the damage/recharge/cast time/mobility as needed.

I’d much, much rather have Mind Stab be a more useful boon ripper with its current casting time than yet another area interrupt with a higher cooldown.

“Meta” is short for “metagame.” In this context, it refers to a set of strategies that are considered viable or optimal by competitively-minded players.

Err, what do achievement points actually get you, besides the chest and skins?

You can complete (5/5) the daily without every needing to kill another players in WvW or sPvP.

Heck, most days you can complete the daily entirely in WvW without getting needing invader kills to get there.

zolton.4350:

5.The defend your place mini event.

This is seriously flawed. Repairing walls and gates adds nothing to this at all. Then if you do beat back your attackers that means little when now you have to run and pick up supply to repair walls and gates. I do not understand why when the timer runs down that the walls and gates are not repaired after the timer runs out. This would add more strategy in depth to force attackers to be more oganized.

I don’t think so. What I like about the current system is that you can make progress against a well-fortified objective without cracking it in one blow. We once spent three hours “swiss-cheesing” Bay and draining enemy supply each and every way we could find in order to steal it from a larger force.

Changing it might also remove the offensive value of fortifications as platforms for trebs that can apply pressure to adjacent forts.

If anything I’d rather a freshly captured keep only come back at half strength or something, to force attackers to fix it up a bit afterward.

zolton.4350:

6.Why commanders run their groups right at a zerg they know they can not hope to beat as they are out numbered.

Sometimes commanders are stupid. They are just players like anyone else. Many of them are clever and experienced players. But anyone with the gold can tag up and do whatever, usually with folks following them.

It could also be a miscalculation from an otherwise competent leader (it’s hard to judge the overall ability of your “militia” sometimes; smaller groups can wipe larger ones with tight play) or a delaying tactic. Shrug!

zolton.4350:

8.The defense of places taken over.

Again i don’t understand. We take a place we work hard to get it and what do we do? Immediately clean out the supplies and move to the next ignoring it even when it is being taken again.

As above, sometimes it’s because commanders are dumb. Some of them are basically just k-training.

Sometimes, though, it’s because there’s a huge advantage to resetting an enemy’s stuff (removing a waypoint or just making the walls paper so a group can come along and take it later), but there’s no way you can legitimately hold it. To hold and upgrade Lake Tower on your home map, for instance, you’ll need the ability to semi-reliably control the adjacent supply camps. All three locations are easily and directly accessible from the enemy spawn, though. In such a situation, it probably makes a lot more sense to blitz both Lake and Briar (wipe their upgrades, clear their siege, force your enemies to spend time recapping them) than to play take-and-hold.

zolton.4350:

7.Lack of chat from commanders as well as lack of them reading chat.

Have you tried it? TS/Mumble/Vent are soooooo much better for communication than the chat box. They enable much tighter play.

Using /map and /team does help you keep the “militia” organized, but it’s a pretty big headache for commanders. The most successful commanders I’ve seen make use of the chat box, but not directly. Instead they to delegate it to someone else, who can relay their important orders or read scouting info aloud in voice chat. Just like they delegate keeping track of timers. Otherwise it tends to be too much for one person to handle, and the game will flood-cap you at the worst possible times.

In combat, though, trying to coordinate anything using the chat box is pretty much a lost cause.

Broadening the area a bit would do a lot to help mesmers “tag” in big fights and support zergs with boon stripping beyond just Null Field and some haphazard shatters.

Pretty much can’t go wrong with Zerk as a baseline. Every Power build benefits from crits for more damage. Most mesmer builds want Precision to take advantage of vigor-on-crit and bleeding-on-clone-crit from the Dueling line (even if your Condition Damage is 0).

You can always throw in some Soldier/Knight/Cavalier stuff for more durability. (Right now I keep trinkets and weapons the same between PvE and WvW, but swap armor; that way I can use different runes.)

You can also mix in Assassin gear to min/max crit on reflection. See the mesmer dungeon guide thread for info about this special case.