Guild Wars 2

My theory is that we basically use carbon copies of mobs for pets, due to aforementioned save resources reasons (though to be honest, it is still taking a shortcut more than saving database imo).

Things like the pets turning to melee things, f2 ability tied to animations lag and the name save, sort of support this. If they changed for example the melee issue to be more responsive, then all world mobs would behave the same and it would be nearly impossible to dodge them properly.

That’s my theory, anyway. But it would be nice if they did like other mmos and made the pets saved individually.

I love axe/axe because of the excellent axe oh skills… also it occasionally synergizes well with axe #2, and also with itself if you take on several enemies.

Ah forgot to add, that’s all if having Power!

My way of playing Shatter is by thinking that ALL mesmer setups is a mesmer that can shatter. It does not matter if I am traited to be a pure phantasm dps machine; there is still times where using shatter will actually improve damage and / or burst damage. The key is to know when it is a loss to shatter over letting the phantasms stay on, and often times it is better to focus on other things. It greatly depends on whatever encounter you are in as well. The less threatened your phantasms are the less point to shatter, unless you absolutely need the blur of course.

So yes for me Shatter is a core class mechanic, but it’s not a thing I liberally spam. It is a thing I use when needed and am glad that it is there if I do need it.

I don’t use piggies often but they are unique in their way… not always practical way, hehe.

As an aside, I have arachnophobia so it’s a constant sadness to me how useful I hear the spider is. I can manage the devourer so at least I have a ranged option!

If they weren’t so expensive I would use them on every single character in at least one item set

Honestly why is the original cultural armour faction-based (other than probably cutting down on texture work)? Wouldn’t it make a lot of -sense- to be able to earn the right to wear a different culture’s armour ingame, since our characters travel so much? It would still take as much effort, or more.

And about the Flamekissed armour, I think it looks good, but it does show how overpriced the cultural set is in the first prace, if you convert its total cost into gems.

Well, I wouldn’t join the game for a reason like this, but it’s still pretty funny. I’m not sure why it is being overanalyzed so much, it’s just a harmless PR trick that doesn’t affect players already playing.

I’m sad they’re going to change it personally. But, I am in the camp that thinks the medium and heavy versions of this armour theme needs a lot more help than the light one, because they are also not distinct enough, I feel – but with a base that is a lot more common than the light one.

And yes, it will be messy when you start to consider what you transmuted over with this etc. Hope it can be reverted painlessly if needed, it would make me happeh.

I really like availability and i find that exclusive items often harm your options, so I am not against this for any of the cultural sets, which still look different. However, the pricing might need a looking at, for example in this case it’s weird that it costs less than the cultural set (which might be overpriced today, or not, I dunno, but it’s still weird). It’s also odd that the light armour set just has a higher quality base for the flame-touched version, than the other armour types.

That said, what I’m getting at, options are always nice in my book.

Also for the people talking about milking the shop etc. Of course they are going to be putting sets and the like there to try and get people to buy gems, it’s the whole business model. Don’t tell me people don’t know this? O_o I mean, an online game doesn’t run itself. It’s still optional, so you can just vote your dislike of this set by not picking it up.

The light set is nice for some races, but i think the other two are very underwhelming.

I think it’s a step in the right direction. The problem is more that phantasms get cleaved to death, and less that it should be reliant on AI that is far too limited.

I really think that phantasms should sort of dodge when they use their attack routine, i.e they cannot be killed during their attack (the entirety of the animation). It would help so much making our dps more reliable in all scenarios.

edited for being nice to 1979!

Well, it depends on which mode, imo. In group fights pvpwise it must be quite good, but it is abysmally bad in PvE. That said it feels like it can be low priority in the chsanges list.

The Clone Thrower suggestion above is awesome, but let me instead suggest a Butterfly Caster , loaded with pink awesome!

I love the ability dearly to finally play a melee wilderness stalker which almost always leans to ranged only in other mmos. But at the same time, I think it’s so lame that something as silly as buff radius should prevent ranged to ever be viable. It really is what makes me not play it – I think longbow and shortbow both has a couple of flow-feel problems, but it’s really the buff sharing failure that i hate. I like giving buffs to people.

just a thought, would it be possible to balance a system where each player’s damage condis fuel a single stack that can stack indefinitely, but you inherit some of each extra player’s damage into your own universal ticks from it?

I’m thinking the cap is mainly there to avoid the engine choking from numbers just as much as the damage concerns, so that would fix both things…. if it could be balanced. :P I’m just thinking, not only does the damage need to be balanced, it also needs to compete with the bursty nature of direct damage.

The blast finisher is why I like this weapon, and the buffs are a nice bonus. Skill 4 could prolly see a slight buff… but still, I’m pretty baffled to see this. Warhorn is one of my most used ohs as power. :o I only use axe more (for pure dps), but only when I want to see some selfish big numbers.

Although, I think your change to Call of the Wild might work out too, I dunno how much they balance it around the blast finisher though.

If you are levelling open world, I would go GS + Deceptive evasion (dueling 20) + illusions line (to 25), and sword + focus. The burst damage will level normal mobs because burst damage > normal mobs, and no weapon brings more burst to bear in the first 5 seconds of spotting an enemy, unless you start next to them. Sword/focus (or whatever offhand really) for veterans/swap to weapon once you cast izerker on groups. Deceptive evasion because it extends your life by a lot while levelling (and adds burst).

This changes at 80, others have written nice posts there.

Female Norn Mesmer here! I like the Norn tribal outfits with some more fantastic touches for the mesmer stylishness.

I have this issue with the sword and the bows as well, sort of, but i disagree that all weapons suffer like this. Greatsword is a good example of a weapon that actually has useful skills and flow, but it just suffers in damage values.

I do fully agree though that weapons based purely on auto damage is very boring, especially if your utilities has long cds. I think it’s also unreasonable to expect every weapon to have skill flow across 5 abilities (except in a perfect world perhaps) but I do think it’s nice if like 3 of the skills including #1 is used for combat damage and 2 is utility, or something like that. But as long as the flow is there, it matters less – Sword is still pretty fun to use because you can at least have a choice in utility with the offhand pick.

I find focus pretty overrated for open world stuff because well… maybe i’m just unlucky but even placing the warden well, either it dies to some spam aoe (not exactly few of those in the tower for example) or people run mobs away from it. To me it’s just really unreliable for damage, but it’s nice utility. Also, i feel like leading the GS beam through a few enemies + sigil of fire + IZerker produces enough AoE damage for this type of content.

Personally I use GS/staff or sword/x + staff. Staff usually takes my sword/focus slot because I find it’s pretty nice support/survival without sacrificing too much, given iWarlock nukes open world-debuffed champions for amazing values.

Personally I like it for world stuff just because if I’m soloing harder champs or elites etc, my condis do a bit more of the overall damage because I have to play defensive, and i’ll almost always have staff in one of the slots. But at the same time mesmer scales great with power even with the condi abilities so I definitely don’t like dropping that stat, and I go for more traditional gear otherwise.

Plus, in situations where you don’t have dependencies it’s nice to take a pretty weapon like this for a more manysided spin. Now if they could just make illusory elasticity easier to grab…

I kind of wish there was a power mainhand for range, for backup. But otherwise it looks to be a very nice guide for pveing in this style!

I really like the staff for rampager builds. I use that when soloing often because mesmer benefits a lot from both power and condi dmg, and any possible dps loss doesn’t impact that as much. I really feel like the staff is like the most Rampager-like weapon in the whole game. :P

In either case, yes Kasmeer’s staff is absolutely amazing in looks.

The most glaring error by far is the speed, it is what holds me back from really even wanting to use the weapon. The feel is so bad, while I wish it wasn’t so. I want to conduct my choir of illusions!

How about a combination of ideas?

The third hit spawns a clone, but it does NOT replace any other clone except itself (unless less than 3), allowing 3 + 1 which would count for shatter. In addition, the clone spawned shoot an Ether Nova or whatever that shreds the fabric of foes in an aoe, applying bleed. So in effect you would have a weapon that is suited for condi but also is slightly more versatile with shatters, to add to its defensive/tricky nature.

Regarding Greatsword since it is my most carried weapon, and skillwise;

#1. I think the main ‘problem’ is simply the damage. It is not completely bad, but it’s lower enough to make the 1h + oh combination be both stronger and more versatile without cost (as you can use different ohs). The only thing you gain is the smooth gap closer (roughly), everything else you can get with sword/x, and more. It wouldn’t be as much as a problem if I could choose the GS to be my primary weapon rather than the eternal backup to 1h sword for melee.

#2. Maul is fine in my opinion, of course we would all love a blast finisher but maybe it gives GS too many things. It would really increase its chance vs choosing warhorn in one of the weapon sets though. But maybe instead, the leap finisher on swoop could be turned into blast?

#3. Swoop, it is perhaps the reason why I just love this weapon because it feels awesome, helps travel and tactical target swaps. I am honestly thinking the evade should stay in the autochain, and Swoop should grant vigour instead. This means that you are still a bit unpredictable in the attack chain, and Swoop remains the tactical choice to respond to bad situations instead of having to save it for a preset condition, and thus limiting its gap-closer nature.

#4. No problems whatsoever here, great button.

#5. Hilt Bash! It is the other ability which makes GS interesting to me – awesome feel and it is very useful if you land it. You can mostly get past that if by practice, but I would not be unhappy if it got 50-100 units longer range, so that you can rely on it a bit more to do its thing. The animation includes stopping so I don’t think you could use it to gain speed even then, if that would be an issue.

Regarding shouts, is it possible to look over the cooldowns of these things? It feels like that is a lot of what holds them back, except for Guard (which is awesome with Nature’s Voice!).

Isn’t the wargs what is on the Sic em! tooltip anyway? Something like it!

I don’t know, I think they have pretty defined melee-dmg (dagger) / short-mid range (scepter) / short – long range (staff) myself. Both scepter and staff I find works good in close range (due to some ‘travel time’ skills) if you can get there, but I just see that as a risk/reward decision with each weapon.

I don’t think it’s an issue anyhows.

I only use it with Nature’s voice in a support build. Which is nice. If slightly awkward to keep having to re-sending the pet in if it’s a long fight, but it’s also situationally useful to move the pet away.

I kind of like the Wargs. But otherwise, just a bulkier cat model than just leopard/jaguar etc-style.

I personally rate centaur runes higher than Speed, but ugh, I so wish the price on Traveller was a little more sane.

And regarding the costume trick, at least it must be pretty annoying to constantly use it to make up for any perk it gives.

After 6 Norn I finally made a sylvari (I love them too, just… my norn love is great!) and it helped me warm to Trahearne a bit, though I did not find him so annoying before…

…the annoying thing is that the story ends up on a railroad speeding down the same track the whole way to the end after Claw island, despite choices in missions and such. It’s just a long orgy of “Hey, good you’re here, we’re about to use magic item of winning this fight, please help us!” – the interest is just so much less. I think that is because it’s just more interesting and also easier to write story on a smaller scale, in the episode-like fashion GW2 uses.

So yes, I mostly feel Trahearne is a victim of that.

I’ve got to agree with this one. Sounds are cool but pets that constantly make sounds tend to be pretty jarring after a while.

Regarding Mesmers, I like the changes; almost no complaints about the ones listed but here is some other thoughts:

1. Scepter autoattack. Sword already has AoE, so with the low attack speed and the slow animation of skill #3, it just cannot compete with range as the only perk, for the main hand slot. It just feels bad to use, even, for its attack.

2. Torch – iMage, I love the idea but in practice it is making the torch impossible to use in any phantasm setup, and it is never really adequate compared to all other weapon phantasms. It needs help.

3. Mesmer and conditions. Maybe there is a trend to my feedback here but I would love if it was made more ‘feasible’ to play a condition mesmer as the source of damage dealing – there are good traits and some weapons that lend itself to it, but confusion requires you to be superhuman to reliably get results out of the mob AI. My suggestion, like several other posters in the mesmer forum, is to make the scepter more viable vs the sword by having some form of condition in its auto chain, or have skill #3 apply more than just confusion.

Honestly even though I play more than just mesmer it feels like vigor fits the mesmer playstyle best, I don’t know what it is. I hope it isn’t reduced too much.

Really happy about the illusionist’s celerity move. To me it’s not only good for phantasm builds to have thait trait, but also the hybrid builds so that you are penalized less for using shatter to burst (obviously you still plan the shatters but unexpected things happen). I think that location is a good trade off between investment vs yield, 5 points was too little but 25 was too much.

Because it’s awesome! Not as awesome as pink kittens but still.

Sometimes I think they ought to combine Torment and Confusion or something like that. Slightly less damage if the enemy use a skill, but they also take continous damage and higher if they move. Bad idea direction? Don’t want to simplify things, but I always felt those 2 were like siblings.

edit: I think the main problem with mantras is they are basically made only for pvp with the charge time, or at least, where you can move from fight to fight or don’t have to dish out as much dps as possible. Feels a bit weird to rely on a trait that requires you to sit there with charged mantras as well, if you do trait for them…

Awesome screen. To be fair, for solo levelling, I would still put bows ahead of melee weapons primary (nice to have on swap though) because ranged is safer than melee for a new player. On the other hand it’s also nice to learn how to dodge early, I suppose!

I don’t think melee being strong is a problem, I’m so glad that they decided on a class that can use both styles to great effect. They just need to bump the ranged side a bit to get them to the same level of great. Honestly, the only major problem I see is the buffs range situation with the longbow.

Honestly, I think Ranger with melee weapons is at the very least adequate design at the moment, I quite love it. However, the ranged needs some help, so here’s my questions, provided there’s time to touch on questions in the guide:

1. Are you satisfied with the axe’s role? It is a great support weapon but do you think the damage tradeoff/useability of Splitblade is fair?

2. Longbow damage (and really, any other weapon such as mesmer greatsword that uses range to alter damage); are you satisfied with how this system works out in practice? The damage can be really good, at the cost of buff range and unreliability. That it is unreliable, and that you can’t swap it out in combat (out of the slot), is a pretty big reason not to risk its use.

3. Almost forgot, pets. I love pets, but is it not possible to a) make stow pet a true manual toggle (for running around) and b) make F2 more responsive?

I can only speak for myself, since I see this thread has sort of bloomed since my last visit but, the reason why it caught my eye ingame is simply because I don’t mind romance in stories/between npcs, and given the hints it was possible to construct a likely scenario. Romance is fun, like many other types of rp threads/interactions, I am a sucker for them all!

I thought it was nice to have a short explanatory setting instance solo so I can take in the story impact without a rush. It’s not like every instance in the game is locked to solo groups, it seems to be very few. So the balance seems allright to me. I also think it is a myth that there isn’t a large amount of people that enjoys solo-play once in a while in MMOs.

Of course choice is always great but in this case it did not feel like the end of the world that there was no group thing, as it is so short and almost pure storytelly.

Open world/PvE: Quicker phantasms/shatter burst build. Sometimes interrupt!
Wvw/pvp: Very rarely play WvW but if so either power or condition PU. I don’t play s/tpvp at all.

I wish I could say Sword/Torch + Greatsword power/condi interrupt hybrid for everything but well, I never quite found a configuration to satisfy my personal demands on the setup there. If I find the right traits, the torch or greatsword skills fail me instead. iMage in a power build … aka, ‘it actually was possible for this skill to get worse’. Maybe i’ll succeed someday.

I 100% wuv everything keenlam said in his post.

I think shields are cool, but only if they are small. Bucklers/wristguards etc is just so unloved by designers, out of convenience probably.

I for one will happily condone pink butterflies!

But for new skills. I want to be sneaky with the illusions/phantasms we have.

I think it is outrageous! To think they would include this joke, without my Norn being able to insult back and/or invite them to the next moot!

:)

The male set should have a revealing alternative. And the female a full-plate alternative.

Regarding male/male, there’s several sylvari cases though I’ve not seen any among the other races. Then again I haven’t seen that outspokenly among the others for female/female either.

Also I don’t really feel like there is a lot more female story characters? I feel like there is for once (unlike many other mmos) more of an equality or a “it’s the person not the gender” mentality with Anet’s direction though which I really applaud.

I actually find Engineer more difficult to level than Mesmer! But either way I think key things to remember is illusions/phantasms will nick mob attention if world-levelling so learn to abuse them (I really think clone on dodge is especially awesome for levels), and also carry a staff at least in your bags. Whenever you need to fight a tough fight, having the staff to swap to for defense helps a bunch.

I think it’s sweet. But yes, I totally read it that way too.

They sort of remind me of Rizzoli & Isles if anybody’s familiar with that, otherwise. I rather like the pair, though, and I think their stuff is the high point of the patch lorewise (albeit woefully smallish). More interesting than the whole alliance and pollen stuff. They feel a bit too generic badguys convenience teamup.

To me, there is a distinct reason why the class is called Elementalist and not sorcerer or mage or wizard. In my eyes, the class is more of a front lines magic assault class than this ritualist mage that is suited to reading tomes at the back lines to sling artillery magic. It is a vocation that uses untamed energies to do harm to their adversaries and aid their nearby friends. So in that sense, for me the class design makes a lot of sense, but mind i’m taking about overall direction here and not the lack or benefits of individual skills.

When it comes to skills, I believe elementalist is not that bad off – the biggest issues I see is how certain weapons tend to have a weak attunement that just is less useful to swap to, such as Air for staff (more often than not in pve, for example). I don’t feel like you need to have teleports to avoid things, look at mist form – admittedly, it is a skill that needs to be tinkered with again, I think, but still it did work better once upon a time. RTL is another example, although it too was over-nerfed.

I think the main conundrum that arises with defense is a common one in many MMO’s and I seldom see a real solution in place, namely that defenses are very sensitive on the number of adversaries. Take more tanky defenses, these work very well in 1v1 but they rapidly become useless when more people single you out, and things like instant teleports become stronger and stronger per skill use. But at the same time, there is a point where the cooldowns of those skills simply are too long for a given engagement and then those too utterly fail in their purpose, making the class relying on them even weaker in the same scenario. I’ve often thought defensive skills should scale with the number of people hitting you in pvp environments, whether it be absorb value, cooldown or whatever. Not to make you immortal, but to make them always serve their role.

In short i’m not so sure it’s an elementalist issue as such whether you have x teleports compared to y teleports of another class. It’s just the pvp ‘critical mass’ affecting each class differently.

Axe really only needs useability with splitblade, and a slight damage boost for the #1 initial impact hit. The #3 skill is already very good, two control debuffs in one skilluse.

I don’t think the Longbow is useless as such. But I do feel like 1. the distance should affect something else than damage, like granting a boon/special buff (Fury for the next shot or something?) at a certain range instead, and 2. The whole package is just less thrilling than the warrior longbow, it just lacks something… feelwise. But the second point is more me.