Guild Wars 2

Breathtaking work, truly. The old Lion’s Arch was a bit too “barnacles and wood-rot” for my taste. This clean alabaster aesthetic is a huge step forward in appeal for me. Could not be more pleased with it.

Please do not nerf Mesmers back into being teethless Feedback/Time Warp bots in PvE and Thief food in PvP. Thank you.

MtD is not something you’d take over Phantasmal Haste in Dungeons/Fractals anyway.

Nothing wrong here. Pretty much every other class has as much or better self-Might as Mesmers do now. Good and needed change.

Bloodgruve.6038:

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

snip

Is it a field thing or a Temporal Curtain thing? Guards can drop their symbol and gain swiftness if they already have a source of swiftness.

If you phrase it like that, it’s a Temporal Curtain thing. It’s because of the run-through nature of the skill, as mentioned. There are a million ways the skill could be altered to fix the problem, but nope, still broken after three years, on purpose.

It’s definitely not. See, I can make baseless assertions too.

Bloodgruve.6038:

Not getting swiftness from focus 4 if you have swiftness from Signet of Inspiration active either. I’m guessing this is a bug.

That’s not a bug, just willfully broken functionality. Because Temporal Curtain is a field that grants Swiftness, it’s not allowed to stack or people would repeatedly cross through it again and again to build up Swiftness.

This, of course, makes it by far the worst Swiftness source in the game, but despite it being like this since launch, they’ve refused to rework the skill in some way to get around the issue, and here it is screwing us over again.

Either give us sustainable Swiftness on the signet alone, like you had originally been planning to, or finally do something about Temporal Curtain, please.

This surely has to be an intended change, to make it easier to maintain Mantra Strength stacks. Wasn’t that everyone’s big concern before? That you’d have to burn your precious mantra charges to maintain the damage bonus? This change ties directly into allowing us to do that more easily.

You people need to shut up. We finally have something that lets us take on Thieves on even terms, and all you want to do is find ways to ruin it?

This is an appropriate and fair resolution to the issue. It’s just a shame it took such an amount of drama to wring out what should’ve been the initial pitch. Oh well, it’s a win for the consumer – and a proof that Anet aren’t completely enslaved to NCSoft’s bottom line, which is a very good thing to be reassured about.

FrozenStarRo.7240:

I skimmed through the 5 pages but found no mention of what happens to the skin. I’ve crafted a few for the skin/color combination (don’t judge me) and would like to know if this forging only affects stat or skin as well to the color-coordinated stat change. I’m a bit reluctant to throw mine down the forge atm.

This was answered by the devs on Reddit. Basically, when you forge the items together, it creates a completely new item, so it will have the appropriate color for its type of stats. And yes, this means if you transmuted your weapon to something else, it will be reverted to the base Ascended weapon look, of the appropriate color.

The good news is, this makes it much easier and cheaper to unlock colors you might’ve wanted but had bad stats.

In your particular case, all you would need to do is reforge your weapons into the stat combo you wanted, and then transmute the color you’ve already unlocked onto it. This will obviously cost a transmutation charge though.

Obviously that stat change system was something that was going to go in anyway, but I really wonder if you were going to make it go up to 10% but decided not to at the last minute, as a way to salvage some good PR in the current situation.

Still, even though I recognize that possibility, this is fantastic news, and has restored a great deal of my faith. The 10% thing was far more of a concern to me than pre-purchase packages. In fact, I’ll probably be buying Ultimate just because of this news. Thanks for you and your team doing the right thing for the game, Colin.

Also, I’d just like to add that the ability to change stats in this fashion is thematically appropriate for “ascended” gear, since being ascended in GW1 was what allowed you to change your secondary. Probably not intentional, but a nice effect to my mind.

callidus.7085:

This new ascended stat switching requires you to Mystic Forge the item with the insignia for the stats you want (ascended insignia, not cheap)

You read it wrong. Colin said you needed an exotic inscription or insignia, not ascended.

People. The OP said after the balance changes, not after HoT. We still have several months potentially before Chronomancers are available. Talk about PvE meta immediately after the balance patch.

So after much wailing and gnashing of teeth by Engineers, it turns out that they are getting to keep perma-swiftness after all.

Meanwhile, after much anticipation for the proposed Signet of Inspiration change, we are still only getting 5 seconds of uptime, and that for equipping a utility specifically for that purpose, instead of as a bonus to Engineer kits which are useful all on their own. Moreover, we get no core +25% movement trait, which is instead locked to the Chronomancer spec.

Please, just give us this one thing. I know I should be more grateful for the huge amount of buffs we are getting, but our mobility is still one of the worst aspects of the profession, which IMHO is totally contradictory to the image of the finesse-based magical duelist Mesmers are billed as. Please give us sustainable swiftness on SoI. Please.

DE is so 2014 at this point. Honestly I don’t use it much anymore, and there will be so many other options now. With the host of buffs to scepter, I’m thinking that might be the new optimal way to pump out clones for shatter, and DE was never wanted in phantasm builds anyway.

I like the idea of it a lot, but in group content I think it’s a hard sell against Illusionary Inspiration and Temporal Enchanter, both of which are amazing. MD could be very helpful in challenging solo content, though – depending on the recharge.

All of which and more we will need to stay even in the bad place Mesmers are currently in vs. the new and vastly improved Thieves, thanks to the devs in their infinite wisdom giving us no reveal tech, giving it instead to Engineers(?!) with Lock On.

You actually believe that copypasted non-statement means anything? You must not have experience with dev interactions. That’s not a slight on you, on the contrary, I envy your innocence.

Rest assured though, this is the first step on your path to becoming as calloused by disappointment as the rest of us.

I’m one of them, and I’ll say here what I said there: I’m not pre-purchasing, and I’m a ten-year GW player who’s bought everything since Prophecies. So far, I’ve been shown nothing that warrants $50. HoT had better include a MOUNTAIN of content for that price, and right now I’m just not seeing it. The dubious benefit of playing in beta tests will not counteract this; giving in-depth details on exactly what and how much content is included might, as well as offering a character slot to existing accounts on the $50 option.

Surprised this thread hasn’t been locked, like mine was for no good reason and without explanation. I guess there’s too many to silence now. Raising awareness was the point of mine, so I guess it succeeded anyway. This change goes against everything they’ve said about lack of vertical progression and we heard not a whisper about it from the devs. Now the silence still continues, so we’ll also continue to speak out against this change in the hope it is thought better of before it’s too late.

Draknar.5748:

They are buffing existing armor that has been in the game since the first year of release. You are seriously going to cry “treadmills” and “power creep” for a tier you’ve had years to obtain and has been the de facto top tier? Like seriously?

If they added another tier, sure, we could talk about gear treadmills (although Legendary is a tier, and at some point they will likely have Legendary armor, so I guess start writing about how Anet is starting a treadmill with Legendary armor, save it, and whip it out down the line), but to buff a tier that already exists and has existed for years? Give it a rest…

Conski Deshan.2057:

This change is not a treadmill:
Ascended is still the highest tier, your existing ascended armor is still the best armor.

I’ve already addressed this. In terms of power creep, this is no different from adding a new tier of gear. It’s simply another way of doing the same thing, making best-in-slot more powerful, and thus more mandatory, than it was before. It doesn’t matter that it already existed. It should not be becoming more powerful than it already was.

Varezenem.2813:

Are you really taking some random website seriously instead of waiting for the official patch notes?

I certainly am, when they claim they were sent them directly from Anet, and the notes contain everything else that we already knew to be coming. If this change isn’t true, let it be clarified as incorrect, and everything will be fine. However, I suspect no such correction will be coming.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

This is the buff because of the removal of stats from trait lines. We’ve known about it for months now… Sorry you missed the memo I guess…

Incorrect. This is changing the ratio of power between Exotic and Ascended. Even including the overall increase from moving trait-based stats to gear, that ratio should not be changing.

Azure.8670:

good. it should of been this way all along. Its not gear treadmill at all, people should work to get ascended gear.

You just completely contradicted yourself, saying that it isn’t a treadmill, then in the same breath demanding that people go “work” to get it.

According to this,

http://www.dragonseason.com/activity/390/

Anet sent them the complete changelog for the upcoming update, and it includes this little tidbit that was never mentioned in all the lead-up:

• The attribute difference between exotic and ascended gear has been changed from 5% to 10%

This is a complete contradiction of Anet’s assertions that there would be no treadmill, no gear-based power creep. I’m sure I don’t need to remind anyone who was around for it of the massive uprising that was caused when Ascended tier equipment was first added into the game. Many people left the game over that mess. I myself stopped playing for many months due to the bad taste it left.This is the exact same thing all over again.

The fact that it is a buff to the existing top-tier gear instead of a new one is nothing but semantics, a sneaky way to force people to get Ascended who were doing just fine without it. The game has been and should’ve continued to be balanced around Exotic-tier power levels.

It seems Anet has, once again, betrayed the spirit of the vaunted Manifesto by forcing players to get on the treadmill and grind for ridiculously expensive Ascended gear if they want to remain competitive. This will also certainly lead to “ascended only” LFGs and other elitist nonsense.

Why have we heard nothing of this until now? Was the plan simply to hope no-one would notice it amongst all the other changes? What possible justification can be made for starting this gear-based power creep all over again?

Changes look INCREDIBLE. So much fantastic stuff.

Makeover kit choices still load slowly. Not AS slow, but enough to be annoying.

Same issue, and I’d also like to point out that trying to use makeover kits causes the same problem with Beldin has with character selection: options take forever to load and scroll through, making it slow and annoying to try to look through choices. Please fix ASAP.

I appreciate that Anet has learned – or rather RElearned, since GW1 costumes did it years ago – how to add dyable “hair” onto headgear, thereby avoiding the baldness that plagues so many headgears. Now please release an updated top hat headgear skin that actually has hair as part of it.

As for the outfit…certainly a very faithful translation of the original avatar concept, although I hope the Lyssa one won’t be nearly as literal, as that one was, frankly, incredibly ugly in GW1.

Same issue. Please fix this ASAP. As someone who routinely runs out of bag space, this is a major issue.

Crowing about specific abilities when they haven’t even been finalized and still subject to huge change and rebalance is hilarious, and would be inappropriate on this subforum either way. Go back to the Necro forum with this.

Mattmatt.4962:

MailMail.6534:

Continuum shift alone make chronomancer way stronger than Mesmer … who is already fine, who is in a solid spot with all incoming baseline trait …. So basically something stronger than something strong is balanced #legit

While I can always count on Mesmers crying about how unfair everything is, I can equally count on people crying about how OP Mesmer is/was/will-be. Your statement is wrought with a lack of knowledge of the Mesmer profession and also lack of facts to back up otherwise empty speculation.

Fact:
Shatter mesmer is currently more than fine

Fact:
Trait line are enhanced. only mentionning IP baseline

Fact:
continuum shift is a very strong mechanic

Fact:
Trait from Chronomancer are insanely strong

Fact:
you can spec Chronomancer and still keep a strong shatter build (domination + dueling)

Enough fact ? Dare tell me one of them is false

Shatter Mes is overrated and has been for a long time. It requires a ridiculous amount of luck and set-up and your opponent making the right mistakes to work. Also of course, Thieves delete us from PvP, essentially.

Also I personally don’t think Continuum Shift is going to be all that great. Basically “every minute and a half you can shatter three illusions and then have your rift instantly AoE’d, gaining you nothing.” Easily the least interesting part of the Chronomancer as a whole.

So what does this mean for the proposed buff to Signet of Inspiration always giving Swiftness? Are we still getting that? Because having Mesmer’s only movement buff locked behind an elite spec would be seriously bad.

Yeah, and notice Guards, one of the professions that fears Thieves the least, gets a trap that reveals stealth, and yet we get nothing.

Maybe Anet gave them proportionally less because they actually realized Guardians are already unarguably the best profession in the game, indispensable and godlike in every type of content.

But I doubt it. Anet being Anet, it no doubt just happened that way randomly.

Anet continues the apparently proud and certainly frequent tradition of removing more content from the game than they add. We’re still waiting for our idle animations to be returned, why don’t you do that before stripping even more personality away from our characters?

Clearly the only fair thing to do now is to unlock the three legacy armors for everyone.

Thanks for the responses. No amount of messing with graphics settings myself seems to help. Although it’s unlikely, I’ll give her Rose’s tip. Is there balm in Gilead?

Capricorn XI.4390:

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

Capricorn XI.4390:

I look at these forums, and sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who’s happy with having mainhand sword. I have no desire for another mainhand, because the sword fits exactly what I want.

You don’t know what you’re talking about. All the years I played GW1, I ached for Mesmers to be able to really use a sword outside of Illusionary Weapon shenanigans. If nothing else, GW2 realized that dream.

However, the doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be supplemented by a ranged power-based mainhand. It’s not one or the other, so stop presenting a false dichotomy.

Did I ever say that we shouldn’t have a ranged power-based mainhand weapon? No. Did I say that everyone should play the same way I do? No. So please, don’t act so presumptuous. Chaos was asking an opinion-based question, and I answered it with my opinion

Presumptious was speaking for everyone else on the forum and pretending you had the only contrasting view. Maybe don’t do that in future.

Capricorn XI.4390:

I look at these forums, and sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who’s happy with having mainhand sword. I have no desire for another mainhand, because the sword fits exactly what I want.

You don’t know what you’re talking about. All the years I played GW1, I ached for Mesmers to be able to really use a sword outside of Illusionary Weapon shenanigans. If nothing else, GW2 realized that dream.

However, the doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be supplemented by a ranged power-based mainhand. It’s not one or the other, so stop presenting a false dichotomy.

Knox.8462:

Giving a powerful skill a counter is being shafted? What? It lets you use your elite skill twice, what more can you ask for?

It’s counter is its long recharge, and the fact that there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to make effective use of the reset. There was absolutely no need to create yet another point of failure. Anet has never learned from the mistakes of GW1, where being able to AoE down player created entities, like spirits or minions, made them useless in PvP. Having one of those randomly and pointlessly attached to Continuum Shift will make it completely unviable.

My best friend and I tried doing Dry Top together, but during the sandstorm phase, the visuals gave her a really bad headache, and it happened again today when she tried again.

Is there any combination of graphical settings that will disable or greatly diminish the sandstorm effects?

(Note: “Just don’t go there during a sandstorm” isn’t helpful advice, thanks.)

F5 will never be good because, in true ANet fashion, they had to a create a destroyable marker that enemies will make a priority target. Continuum Rifts will be AoE’d to hell the instant they appear, making the whole mechanic pointless. Enjoy your 1.5 minute+ recharge before you can even try again.

Remember, if your answer is Tormented or Wall of the Mists, your sense of style and originality as a Mesmer is slipping.

For me, Golden Wing Shield. Elegant, light, and won’t look like you’re carrying a turtle shell on your back when stowed.

Also Guild Defender, which for me will be a shield with a customizable emblem.

Xenrocs.9468:

Those who complain about mesmer getting shield, propably haven’t played as mesmer pvp in gw1 or any spellcaster back there.

I played GW1 since launch and Mesmer was one of my favorites to play in PvP. So no, wrong.

From a mechanics and profession design standpoint, Thieves totally own Mesmers. Even to the devs, the match-up is something to make jokes about, but they sure aren’t doing anything about it.

Until we get skills and abilities that actively remove stealth, the answer is and will remain a resounding no.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/hidden-arcana-creating-the-chronomancer/

“An early idea for the specialization’s new weapon even involved rifles, but the team eventually felt that the offhand shield would be the most thematically appropriate choice.”

So instead of giving us rifles, we get yet another offhand, bring us up to five, with only two mainhands, only one of which is actually viable. Not because shield made sense from a mechanics standpoint, mind, but because it was “thematically appropriate”. Or in other words, they sacrificed giving us five completely new weapon skills for the sake of flavor.

Not impressed with this style-over-substance design choice at all, Anet. Please do better next time. As it is, I’m much more interested in the core trait changes than this elite spec.

Although, since everyone will be expecting me to play Chronomancer in every game mode once it’s available, I may just have to give up Mesmer main altogether.

Casia.4281:

I did find it funny Braham is the only male member of Destiny’s edge 2.0
Whats Frostbite?

its even more noticeable if your are a female pc. Quotas are dumb. but when you line up and its 5 to 1 it looks funny.

Canach.

Toxsa.2701:

Then this passive swiftness will beat all classes’ 25% speed signet :/
Might as well buff the signet of other classes to 33% speed too.
I also support the idea of 25% speed boost + random boom on 10 sec basis, unless anet want to revamp all signets to give 33% speed boost. (Not to mention most 25% speed signet’s active skill is terrible)

No. “Equal does not mean one-to-one.” – devs.

You know what’s “equal”? Giving us the best speed boost in the game after suffering THREE YEARS as the slowest, most sluggish profession in the game.

That’s equal.

Giving Mesmer such godawful mobility was against the profession’s theme as finesse-based magical duelists. Giving us constant “magic” (i.e. boon) based speed will put it right, FINALLY.

Celtic Lady.3729:

And yeah, the actual evidence (dialogue and actions as written and presented by the writers in the story) is much more supportive of the examples I gave regarding their friendship than it is of romance.

In your opinion.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

Especially when they suggest they can offer compelling “evidence” but then, of course, don’t actually do so.

lol I did, actually, in my original explanation.

Oh, really? Yet you stated more recently that you weren’t going to “spell it all out”, naturally implying that you had not already done so. If you felt you had, you would’ve pointed it out at that time. Yet you declined on the grounds of preserving the thread’s topical integrity.

Which is it? Did you present concrete “evidence” originally, or refrain from doing so? You can’t have it both ways, I’m afraid.

Either way, you’ve said nothing that shows the Rytlock/Logan relationship was written with the intention of excluding even the possibility of romantic interpretation – and can say nothing to show it. That’s not evidence you possess, because only the writers themselves could speak to their own intentions.