Guild Wars 2

MoonT.6845:

Something has to change. Season 3 EU is already a forgone conclusion due to the NA players on EU servers situation. It doesn’t matter if you pull out all the resources you have for 20 hours per day in this game, your server eventually hits a dead spot where the majority of the population have to sleep.

When another server can field 150+ players at 3 in the morning, and turn 5000 point deficit into a 5000 point lead in those dead hours and the time you are rebuilding your wooden kingdom it truly does feel as if these tournaments are a waste of time and effort.

Typical tick for EU vs NA supported EU server, effort required to hold that first night was ridiculous, 2nd night people had to sleep, and ANet say it’s acceptable, well enjoy losing the playerbase ANet, that’s all I can say.

Another desocrier here?? SFR is everything but NA. Please, stop this NA QQ. there aren’t that much amount of NA players in EU to flip PPT like this. Face it, a lot of people in EU play at night, and this is the end of the story.

But I wasn’t discussing if a majority, just a lot. No, there aren’t a lot of NA players, at least in the only EU spanish server. I don’t thing 20-30 people is a lot when we already have a french guild in our server.

Don’t fool youself Filo. At least in Baruch, 95% of players are from Spain.

About OP, merging lowest servers is a good solution, but with NA separated from EU. And merge just some servers, not most. EU going from 27 to 15 would be a completely mess. I think there’s more people for just 15 servers, while in S3 reset all servers from gold league had queues in all maps.

This build is no way viable. It was designed with a whole different meta in mind. Even there, it wasn’t that good as they stated: no veil (why to bring a mesmer if you dont have it?), reflects but no precision, useless traits, false statement on phantasms giving protection to allies, and finally, 0 spike damage, and putting a light armor profession in a frontline meta will always be bad.

Nowadays, I only see 2 good ways: shatter 2/6/0/0/6, or a phantasm/mantra support 2/6/0/6/0.

PD: I’ve seen the OP posted it in may, so I’d say this is one of the first atempts to give something usefulness after glamour confusion nerf.

You can still go PU in teams, but, generally, it will be worse than shatters. The key is answering the following question:

Do you have anyone that can clean condis, heal and give defensive boons around you?
- If yes, shatters will always be better. There, support traits from PU become way less useful, as there’s already someone doing that job, and btw, better than you. So focus on having a solid offensive burst build.
- If no, aka solo-roaming or with other shatter mesmer/thieves, you’ll desperately need all defensive stuff PU gives. Shatters become redundant, as they need to sacrifice a lot of their offensive potential to deal with heavy condi/DD bursts.

In sPvP things are a bit different. Stealth builds have no site, cause you cannot take points while in stealth. With that, all efficiency left is shatter. And if GS/Staff shatter has been the king is cause you can put a lot of pressure with it, but without the risks of melee sword shatter builds.

IGN: Ansau
Role: Tester
Server: Baruch Bay
Playstyle: WvW (Both roaming and zerguing)
Time: EU evenings and nights

So far, amazing changes for us, even I’d say OP. We’re really back to game:

- Shattered strength now works with IP (proved).
- IE working with staff clones (without attacking and Mirror Images with 50% crit, clones can put like 15 stacks of bleed, 5-6 stacks of vulnerability and nearly eprma burning). Simply totally OP.
Phantasms get 1s of distotion with TI, and CD is not changed. Also, bug with Masterful Reflection still exists.
- Scepter torment is OP. 20 stacks of torment in a condi shatter build. Now scepter trait works with IC, so you have a block every 6s.

PD: With 20 stacks of torment I’ve calculated about 5k per second if the enemy is moving.

To fix it, you need to redesign the idea of WvW. Because a 24/7 worldwide massive pvp map cannot be fixed, unless you eliminate the 24/7 fact, the worldwide fact, or the massive fact.

WvW cannot be fixed. Please, do yourself a favor, and don’t let “How to fix WvW coverage problems” eat your live…

No matter what you do or what you insist, WvW coverage wont change, and it’ll be the same 24/7 than now.
BTW, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyWxsJU4InM&t=6m19s

Dayra.7405:

Ansau.7326:

.- Any possible solution would require massive calculations (remember every second people join and leave maps). Technically is just not possible to do even in a single matchup, now count 9 EU, 7 NA and I don’t know how much chinese matchups.

That’s already calculated, or what do you think how a map decides that it is full and further people have to be queued.

You just need to put a maximum number of connections per server that are allowed to be playing that map at the same time, and all new other will be put in a queue based in the time they wanted to enter the map. That’s just an IF and a few more lines.
But knowing how much people from every server and adapt PPT based on those numbers is another whole thing.

BTW, even some of the proposed changes would not affect that much. Four days ago, at around 2 am, some of my guildmates and me (we were just 6) took 2 hills, 2 garrisons, 1 bay, 1 bluelake and like 4 camps in less than 1 hour. How this is possible, if we were just 6 people? We didn’t find anyone defending…
Now, thing about a solution for PPT so 6 people just cannot flip +100 tick points in less than one our. Our you make things much more difficult to take, and this will become blobfest, or there’s no solution.

WvW is not meant to be balanced, so better forget about fixing it. There’s not a single viable solution that doesn’t involve whole redesign, massive calculations, technical problems, dev’s mentality change…

@haqqa orbs were removed cause they were totally broken. +15% HP and +150 stats for people from a server is just silly.
And about closing maps, in which time you’d base those closes? Because there could be tons of asian people wanting to play, but they’d be stucked in a single map, just cause americans are sleeping… That’s the problem of woldwide 24h pvp maps: Your nighttime, someone else daytime, who has preference?

For raids I’ll keep my shatter 2/6/0/0/6 and just changing Null Field for MoP.
For pug zergs I’ll try 2/6/0/6/0 GS-S/F and MoP/Restorative mantras.
For roaming, I’ve had some succes with my power PU 0/4/6/0/4 these days. With new changes it’ll be much better.
And for pve I thing there’s no changes on best builds.

Oooohhh latin-americans powaaa!!!

Ok now seriously, 90% of people who plays in baruch are spanish. Just because we have a completely different time culture, doesn’t mean we’re not spanish.

About OP, there’s only 2 options: Adapt or move on. There’s also two main problems with 24h coverage.
- Any possible solution would require massive calculations (remember every second people join and leave maps). Technically is just not possible to do even in a single matchup, now count 9 EU, 7 NA and I don’t know how much chinese matchups.
- There’s also a dev’s mentality issue. This is a game made for casuals and focused on pve (WvW and spvp are adds). To do such changes in WvW it would require a full focus on WvW and months (even more than a year) of developing and testing the new changes. That’s not gonna happen…

The only way I see engis viable is though bomb healing frontline, like being a guardian, but more focused on healing and cleansing condis. 2/0/6/6/0 or something similar. You can easily heal +450 with every bomb, and do some ~2500 healing with Sigil of Renewal + Regenerating Mist and Magnetic Shield.

Nades and FT suffer a lot from Reta, and unless reta mechanic is changed, better avoid hitting that amount of enemies.

I’ll still play a power PU build. Have quite success running 0/4/6/0/4 GS/Staff this past days, it’ll be much better with the IE fix

Well, this morning I was looking at WvW classification, and rating were updated to Friday 5th September.

But I’ve just recheck them and to my surprise, data is updated up to Friday 29th August, and it seems like last week doesn’t count.

Don’t know if it’s just a temporary issue, but it could affect the start of 3rd league.

PD: Official leaderboards page is also not upgraded, so it’s not a problem of 3rd party pages.

Well, you have spent more that 7 hours/day non-stop since you started. Wasting your last 1,5 years on a game, your problem. Hope you find another game that provides so much hours of fun like this.

PD: It’s not a game flaw if people of your server don’t pay attention on refreshing siege or upgrading things…

I see people QQ so much about torment on AA scepter, but they forgot scepter block will get a nerf on torment stacks, PU also will be nerfed by more RNG and clone death traits will see a huge nerf.
Better start worrying about IE fix for staff clones…

Condi PU is a bad roaming build: bad ooc speed, slow at taking camps… Yeah, in 1vs1 is amazingly strong, but roaming is not only fighting. Maybe that’s why I’ve seen very few condi PU recently (and I’ve fought 9 different EU servers iin the last 5 weeks).

Overall, things will keep as now, with thieves ruling roaming and mesmer also being a very good option. And don’t know why people don’t use engis more. Great mobility, insane survivability, really good AoE…

@EmeriteAngel seen that video. Amazing necro that knows who to use its skills to teleport. And in 9:40 one of he’s teammates cries about being CC and condi to the death, well thats what that necro soes XD

This is a really bad idea, because simply destroy guilds experience. If this whole auto-balance idea is implemented, then it means the death of guilds in WvW. It would be just a pug fest, like EoTM, where skill is not founded anywhere.

You also haven’t thought about trolling. If a guild enters in a map, people from the other servers can just move to other maps and destroy that guild experience by forcing some of their members to leave the map cause of this autobalance.

And what would happen when a server has a lot more coverage than others in a certain period of time?
Like one server has 150 people wanting to play WvW and other server have just 5-10 people per map. This autobalance just denies more than 100 people to play whatever they want.

This is not fair by any mean, and is not a real solution to coverage problems.

4/4/6 power PU with GS/Staff. Being using this build for some months and its pretty cool and quite strong: very good at doing WvW stuff, able to manage 1vsX and the only problem are condi spam builds.

Also, with the IE fix, I’ll try 0/4/6/0/4, and turning the build more in an hybrid version.

As this is a full ranged build, yes you don’t need that much defensive stats. Personally I’d change armor to valkyrie and weapons to zerker. 16k of base health is prety low for a profession that doesn’t have healing skills apart for #6.

Yeah, even with the new changes, an interrupt version won’t be that good. AoE is small, and an erratic 1s of stun does not so much (Earthquake and Static Field apply 2s of stun, and knockback, pull… last for 1,5s).
Note that CC is not given to interrupt cast skills, but to avoid mobility, so damage spikes are much more difficult to avoid. Daze doesn’t really matter in zergs…

I’m towards more a DPS/support mantra role:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8dl0npMtFrxENUrNiqBd6mMkkQqAU6MsteC-TlCEABaq+TUKpcSZwWKBN4IAwkSlc2foDdDA8AAe4iAEAABgG9oH9oHtUAPMMC-w

Easily you can heal for +5000 when reagrouping, but still be able to tag and do some damage with phantasms and power spike.

Being using a power PU (http://goo.gl/XVeVnN) for quite a lot. I expect some nerfs, as I also run clone death traits, but I won’t see a huge drop.

Also I’ll try 0/4/6/0/4 with IE, but I might not see huge drops, as I’ll lose vulnerability stacks and phantasm damage.

Well, these changes hurt my power PU, but something was needed to nerf clone death mechanic Specially the clone death traits now can be countered. PU change is not that bad, but that might stack has no sense, why an offensive boon in a defensive trait on a defensive line?

Still will be playing the same build. 4/4/6 will still be a very well compensated trait combination, it just will need more active playstyle.

Even in zergs, DE is pretty useful to be able to use shatters when not having IP.
Mind Wrack does good damage, and distortion can save you from tons of bad situations.

Why phantasm distortion on Triumphant Distortion? Because these builds will be the best way to go in zergs and will be a good bump to our usefulness there.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsdRlknpMtFrxENUrNiqBd6mMkkQqAU6MsteC

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsfRlknpMtFrxENUrNSrBh6tcmyQqAU6JUtbC

Otherwise, I don’t see how 1s of distortion for phantasms is useful outside zergs…

Will give you some open world WvW shatter/melee footage.

Me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPzngWbj3yQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YccaoSERXUI

Others:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAzJRLYW6yE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYqfuWsjkTQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPb4dM78bvY&list=UUwDdT60iB5G_JkJSotlCb8w

If you want to be a support role, then go for guard. Mesmer support in zergs sucks. There, healing, condi cleansing and key boons (stability, protection, swiftness and might) are the main objectives for support.

It’s not we cannot provide that, but the problem is in how. Mantras cast times are really a problem in a game mode where CC flies throw the air. And our way to share boons is far from being good.

Builds:
A shatter 2/6/0/0/6 will bring you quite good spike damage, apart from utilities. But it’s also the hardest to play, as you’ll be quite squishy and reta is you biggest thread.
A more safer version, but with less damage, would be Power PU 2/6/6, and play with GS#2+F1, and dodges+shatters.

Weapons:
Best combo is GS+S/T. Spike is done with Prestige+BF+F1. And even with the nerf on iLeap, sword aa is still the best way to tag.
GS/Staff (ranged playstyle) is also a much safer option, but with quite a lot less damage.

I also roam with a power PU with just Decoy and MI, and you still are able to take credit from PU. Not only for the boons, but Decoy+MI gives you 10s of stealth. Plenty of time to scape from whatever you want.

But this is only about WvW, for PvP I also suggest to take anything else before PU.

Yep, definitely 6/6/6/6/6

Curunen.8729:

Veruah.5302:

Oh oh oh!

But if it hits the Mesmer is increases chances of iLeap and Blink actually working!

All hail the new Sw/T meta!

That’s it! RNG buff on allies that makes broken skills work and a debuff on enemies that makes working skills break! xD

NO NO NOOOO!!!

With the reputation of anet with bugs, that change would make buff enemies and make their broken things work, and ruin our fine things, like DE not creating clones, or PU making us revealed…

All coefficients from those warrior skills need to be toned down at around 2,5. Backstab coefficient needs to be toned down to 2 or maybe less.

Because all these skills have very low CD, and their animations are not much more easy to avoid than other high damage skills from other professions, while those have lower coefficients.

End of the discussion.

If you think Nev does good damage, what is doing this mesmer?

As Fay said, he really does low damage. He cannot even solo burst squishy enemies, and that’s an easy job for a zerker shatter mesmer.

Shriketalon.1937:

Ansau.7326:

When devs started developing gw2, they stated they wanted a more simplified profession/skill/trait game. Gw1 was fulled with tons of skills, which made the game pretty messy when balance patchs were coming. And that’s why gw2 has so much less skills per profession.

I don’t see them adding 20 new skills for a single profession…

The elementalist has sixty weapon skills. We have twenty four.

The engineer has twenty five class mechanic skills, not counting the ones for racial abilities. We got four.

You say nothing with this. First, just because other professions have more skills than mesmer, doesn’t mean we have to receive a ton while others don’t. What they won’t do is just add skills for mesmers, just like they did with the new healing skills and GM traits.

Then, GW2 has like the same amount of skills Prophecies had, around 400. But GW1 problems started after Factions, when they nearly doubled the amount of skills, plus 2 more professions. With Nightfall, every balance patch they had to deal with +1000 skills.

Yeah, but even this is an awesome idea it’ll never happens.

When devs started developing gw2, they stated they wanted a more simplified profession/skill/trait game. Gw1 was fulled with tons of skills, which made the game pretty messy when balance patchs were coming. And that’s why gw2 has so much less skills per profession.

I don’t see them adding 20 new skills for a single profession…

blackbolt.8160:

Ansau.7326:

I tried some while ago a shatter condi build with Maim of disillusioned, and it work quite good in hot join. People was killing themselves with such incredibly easiness.

But better focus on torment+confusion, blocking with Illusionary Counter+Mirror Images+Cry of Frustration is a pretty good condi burst: 8 stacks of torment and 6 stacks of confusion, plus 3 stacks of might. Aka 1500 with every skill activated and 1200 of torment if moving.

This is a build I would start:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArfWlknpMtdqxRNcrNitBdyakDUPkjsySGghB-TVyCABAcEAO+BAglSJm3f4S1fySZje6DGTJ40nCgAAIAzsMLzZGwMn5Mn5MnZpAgYaE-w

My concern with this build is the lack of condi clear. The multiple strong conditions of the shatters are good though. Maybe it can move out the scepter extra damage trait to the 3 time mantra trait (i suck at names) then use mantra of recovery.

You clean 2 condis with the heal. If more condi cleansing is needed, you can take mantra of Resolve, or even with just Mantra of Recovery is enough.
Scepter trait is more for the +200 condi damage than anything. This is about a burst condi build, so better have as much condi damage as you can.

Good ideas overall.

I’ve tried a nearly the same as Anton and it worked pretty well. I took shattered concentrations, Far-Reaching Man. and Debilitating Dissipation instead and played more an hybrid style.

Xaylin.1860:

Ansau.7326:

This is a build I would start:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArfWlknpMtdqxRNcrNitBdyakDUPkjsySGghB-TVyCABAcEAO+BAglSJm3f4S1fySZje6DGTJ40nCgAAIAzsMLzZGwMn5Mn5MnZpAgYaE-w

Since you’re using Menders Purity why not exploit the hell out of your Heal? I ran a similar set up and used the Mantra plus Balthazar Runes. The additional Burn is way more valuable than the slightly better Torment. It worked pretty well.

It is super boring, though, and it also involves a lot of stealthing.

Well, Chaos asked for a torment build xd There’s world to discover here with a condi non-PU build.

I tried some while ago a shatter condi build with Maim of disillusioned, and it work quite good in hot join. People was killing themselves with such incredibly easiness.

But better focus on torment+confusion, blocking with Illusionary Counter+Mirror Images+Cry of Frustration is a pretty good condi burst: 8 stacks of torment and 6 stacks of confusion, plus 3 stacks of might. Aka 1500 with every skill activated and 1200 of torment if moving.

This is a build I would start:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArfWlknpMtdqxRNcrNitBdyakDUPkjsySGghB-TVyCABAcEAO+BAglSJm3f4S1fySZje6DGTJ40nCgAAIAzsMLzZGwMn5Mn5MnZpAgYaE-w

I don’t even ask you to take a mesmer and fight with it, just try to lvl it, come to this post and reread what you’ve said.
You’ll see how wrong you are…

Wyrden.4713:

Ansau.7326:

I think people has taken the iLeap nerf too much serious. For a lot of people it was the last straw from the last year of nothing but bugs and general nerf of the class, but we still have our strengths.
We’re still really strong in roaming; rangers, thiefs and engis would kill to have at least an essential skill like veil in zergs; and in PvE we still have our unique mechanics.

Yes, we’re not in a good position, but it’s also true ours is not such horrible as some people want to see.

tried sword today when roaming, it was terribad, like, sword 3 connected just 30% of the time, it died all the time to aoes, or just leaped away from enemy instead leaping to him.

no more sword for me. i just regret wasting gold for jormags breath skin

I also hate that stupid nerf, it has been the death of sword as a roaming weapon. Just finished Rodgort only 2 weeks before the nerf, and having an ascended infinite light…
But I’ve been roaming a little bit with a power PU GS/Staff and I have had quite a lot of fun: taking camps within 1:30 min, running from people, being able to survive against a hambow+camp guards, melted condi interrupt thiefs, I laugh at necros…

I think people has taken the iLeap nerf too much serious. For a lot of people it was the last straw from the last year of nothing but bugs and general nerf of the class, but we still have our strengths.
We’re still really strong in roaming; rangers, thiefs and engis would kill to have at least an essential skill like veil in zergs; and in PvE we still have our unique mechanics.

Yes, we’re not in a good position, but it’s also true ours is not such horrible as some people want to see.

Staff only condition? Think you have never used iWarlock on a open world boss.

I roam with a power GS/Saff and I don’t spec for condi damage.

And even illusions line has condi damage doesn’t mean shatters are better with it. In fact, shatters builds have always been direct damage builds, and condi mesmer don’t spend points into that line.

Why celestial? You’ll still be quite squishy, and your damage will be way lower than zerker.

Traveler and Air/Energy are good choices.

I think I’d still play mesmer as my main. I only like mesmer and engineer designs. Other professions are the typical from most mmo.

I wouldn’t say shatter build has received nothing but nerfs. I bet it’s the only build from the release that still is going around. Very few changes, iLeap is the biggest nerf to the traditional shatter build, but since few months ago, GS/Staff shatter has become more popular.

The problem is the metagame has taken a direction where shatter build suffers a lot.

With a power PU build you can even go full zerker. You’ll be a little bit squishy, but it still has way more survivability than a glkittenter build.

As you’re new to the game, I would recommended zerker weapons and armor, soldier trinkets with ruby jewels. Talking about runes, Centaur Runes are very cheap and help with one of the main weakness of the mesmer, the out of combat speed.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Maybe you guys are the ones who don’t understand the playstyle and are getting mad because Anet isn’t conforming it to your incorrect notions. PvP is the one format Anet actually balances around, I think they generally know what they’re doing better than a bunch of randoms with questionable experience in the class.

You guys sound like the Smash players who complain about Sakurai “ruining” Smash by catering to casuals and making it less hardcore when it was never a hardcore game to begin with. Just because something happened to turn out the way you liked one time doesn’t mean it was intended or in conformity with the overall vision.

Just anyone of experienced people that has posted in this thread has more hours of experience than all devs could play with the mesmer…

You’re the only one here who knows the least about this class.

With such differences of prices I’d go for the -36% and 100% might on dodge. Their price is still quite low and you’ll notice the improvement.

For condition duration, go for Koi Cake (~4s). Gives you max condi duration for 20 min instead of 30, but at a third part of the price of 30 min version. For more healing, you can try Omnomberry Pie (~6s). And Plate of Truffle Steak (12s) for flat DPS boost.

Apart from that, there aren’t more interesting foods at a reasonable price.

Pyro, don’t waste any second to respond Guanglai. Has been whining the same things since the iLeap nerf:

Mesmer is still so OP it needs much more nerfs. Don’t know why people is crying about a bugfix when they got some bufs during last 2 years. Thank anet for giving you buffs. Mesmer damage is like infinity. Mesmers can autoattack while having 3 phantasms, other professions have to press keys to do things…