Guild Wars 2

While it’s true that all classes have to move around to some extent, mesmer’s have a lot of ways to mitigate damage. We have two block abilites, one on the scepter and one on the off hand sword. We can trait our glamour abilites to provide AoE blinds to all those inside them. We have the abilite Feedback which is the bane of ranged enemies. We can also trait the off hand focus abilites to reflect projectiles too. We have the Phantasmal Defender to share pain with. We have various dazes to interrupt foes. On top of all this we also get the class specific ability of distortion, applicable by way of sword or shatter.

Mesmers need to dodge and move out of red circles like everyone else, but we’ve no need to kite every enemy. The only time I kite is when soloing elites and all my defensive abilites are on cooldown. Besides, confusion applied by the scepter hits like a truck but only if the enemy attacks, and they attack far less often when they’re chasing you around.

I’ve grouped with randomers before and after a while we were also spread out across the same map. This actually came in very handy however, we all told each other about DE’s that were goin on near us and this meant we ended up chaining DE’s around the map for hours. Never a dull moment really. While this could be done in map chat to notify all people, I’ve noticed that most people don’t even pay attention to or join in with map chat. So grouping with a few people will sometimes get you into a DE that you may otherwise miss if you’re just breezing through content.

I love all my classes and think each one is well designed. I play mesmer, thief, necromancer, guardian and elementalist. I plan on making an engineer at some point too. The only time I haven’t been too keen on a class is before I’ve found a build with them that fits well to my playstyle. Once I have this worked out on a class everything else about them just seems to slot into place. Which is the best piece of advice I could give to anyone not happy with their chosen class: just keep at it trying new things until you find something that seems to fit. If there truely is nothing, it may be worth looking at other classes.

Kailthir.6384:

Budg.3064:

Rush, tell us your definition of hardcore. Tell us what it means to be a hardcore player.

Well that the rub isn’t it. There are may different concepts on what a hardcore and casual gamer is. I gave a good examole earlier in the thread. Some people think that having the best gear is hardcore, some think playing alot of hours is hardcore, and some think that skipping content to get to 80 as fast as you can is hardcore.

Point is… it’s all personal opnion. For anyone to say otherwise is just a lie.

Precisly, well said. This was a point I was trying to make earlier. It all comes down to how you play the game and what your perception of the game is.

Rush, tell us your definition of hardcore. Tell us what it means to be a hardcore player.

My bad, I’ve never noticed the effect but multiple sources prove you to be correct Carighan.

Rush.8239:

@budg

obtaining titles,gear, reputations that no other guild/player has got or being first to achieve is what makes you a hardcore gamer competing against each other for such thing etc

takin what content gives the best rewards and achieving them before anyone else, it just so happens in most other mmos raiding gave us those rewards .

in gw2 tell me what is hardcore

Because if there is no challange to this content then obtaining these things first is simply a matter of being the quickest guild to organise the neccessary members to run through the content. Content that is, more often than not, locked out to most players until they have the right gear to be able to compete for such rewards (which is a whole other basket of eggs for a different time).

I’m not trying to tell you its wrong to be competative among your peers, however, competition is only worth something if there is a challange present. After obtaining this server first title, what do you do then? Wait around until more content comes out? Replay the old content that no longer offers any form of challange or competition? Personally, I don’t find 20 people waking up at 5am to secure a server first hardcore at all. Dedicated yes, but at the end of the day the content is still nothing more than time consuming. Where is the pride in being the first group to beat easy content? Just try to understand, I’m not trying to belittle anyones achievements, I’m just trying to make the point that not everyone is the same and I suppose it’s probably hard to balance content for people of all ability ranges.

This all comes down to what each individual person defines as hardcore, as each person will be capable of different amounts of effort to put into these games. You are welcome to the content you enjoy, I would never try to take that away from you. I would just personally like to see more games with harder (not more time consuming) content to play.

And finally, I never implied GW2 was hardcore, nor have I ever stated it.

It’s a sad day when people think ‘end game raiding’ in modern games is ‘hardcore’ or even hard, rather than just very time consuming. The amount of time put into a game should not alone provide your ability to play the game, without challange you’re simply being carried by gear. I don’t see how the reward at the end of something dictates the difficulty of the task rather than the task itself.

While GW2 is a step in the right direction, I would personally like to see this game made harder to play than it is at the moment. While I know this might not be eveyones cup of tea, I would be delighted to see a server or two where the game world was harder to survive in with smarter enemies hunting me down.

I’d rather Cry of Frustration applied confusion to surrounding foes, rather than to the targetted foe.

Mesmers are more survivable than elementalists in PvE.
Elementalists are far from weak, just dont go over to their subforum and say this

The sylvari racial skill ‘grasping vines’ has saved me on more then one occasion. It doesn’t mention in the tooltip but the vines also damage the enemy over time while they hold the foe, however, they can miss the target if they are moving around. Oddly enough, if they miss they seem to enrage some foes who will stop attacking you to turn around and tear the vine apart.

Just incase anyone doesn’t know this, the block skill on the scepter also damages the enemy on a successful block. The damage isn’t low either, the block is one of our highest hitting attacks, its stronger than an untraited mind wrack (to a single enemy) and on a shorter cooldown too. It’s probably my most used skill in PvE after Confusing Images, the other scepter skill, which is the mesmer highest damaging attack and apllies 5 stacks of confusion, which is stronger in PvE than it is in PvP if anyone didn’t know.

I’d rather see other classes changed to require the same work needed to play an elementalist instead of making the elementalist just another faceroll class like in most games.

Krait, especially the krait witch in caledon forest. When she uses that pull move that pull in everyone around her and often one hits people into downed state. Then seals everyones fate by laying down the poison AOE, completely nullifying any and all healing and attempts to get back up. I’ve seen this mob wipe out groups of people at a time.

Make a new character of a different race/class/crafting proffession and go through it all again.

Definatly tengu. They even have an area sectioned off for their own main city, it’s almost like they planned to included them in the future all along…

I guess teleporting would be the wrong word to use for this skill. It seems to accelerate your character across the terrain at a very high speed towards the selected location. This means any obstacles in the way will hinder this, including walls, ledges, gaps, rocks, trees etc. All because your simply moving towards the selected area and not actually disappearing and reappearing there. A lot of games treat their ‘teleport’ skills like this.

This thread is probably the only chance I’ll get to say this, but I love the scepter. Yes, that’s in its current state. Everything about it, each skill I use on a regular basis and have done since launch. Well done Anet, while I know a lot of people feel the scepter is underpowered or doesn’t have much synergy with anything else, I honestly can’t see any changes I would make to it, it’s perfect.

Sounds like a great idea for a new elite, but not a new function of the F1-F4 keys. For starters, it goes against the philosiphy behind the elementalist class, switching between attunments regularly to suit the situation. If there was anything the elementalist needed, it would be a slight decrease in the cooldown between attunment switching.

Good work Kryos. I’ve been reading this thread since the start and agree’d with you the whole way. I play an elementalist myself and have found there to be so much more to this class than with, say, my mesmer or thief. The game is still fairly new and people are still learning the kinks to each class. The elementalist is a class that requires more thought than most, with so much choice of what to do next its a lot easier to make mistakes, and I can see this being where most of the comaplaints stem from.

I’m not gonna tell people to learn to play or anything. But just keep a cool head, step back after a defeat and ask yourselves: “What could I have done here to prevent this?” instead of raging about unproven balance issues in untested circumstances.

Churning Earth hits for more than dragons tooth, cripples and gives 8 stacks of bleed for 8 seconds

The elementelist has a lot of flashy attacks, don’t get distracted by them. Learn where your defensive skills are and use them, an elementalist can lose their entire healthbar fairly fast if you’re not watching your surroundings.

Bad luck with all the bugs man. I’ve only run into one so far, which I reported then went to play a different character. Next day when I came back it was fixed.

I have 5 characters so far and will probably end up with more, especially if they add in new races/professions in expansions. My characters all have different playstyles so I normally end up playing the one I feel like at the time. I’m in no rush to finish the game and don’t mind playing through the same areas multiple times at all, the result is there only being a small difference in the levels of each character.

This is fantastic for crafting as one character alone won’t make use of all their supplies so I end up with massive stockpiles of supplies from each area. I’ve never yet run into the problem of having to go out and purposefully farm for crafting supplies. It also means that each character I have can be more or less fully equipped with fresh gear every 5 levels, which makes levelling that little bit easier.

The only downside to all this is that dyes are not account based, they’re character based. But, I suppose dyes are just a nice bonus to have and don’t really affect my game at all really, so I can deal with it.

Without the trait, the Warden will only absorb projectiles. The trait allows both the Warden and Temporal Curtain to reflect projectiles.

Confusion can be extremely useful in PvE, but only if you are familiar with your enemies attack patterns. Since it only activates when the enemy attacks, you really need to either cast Confusing Images from range and then block with Illusionary Counter when they get close enough to attack, or make sure you have a few illusions up to draw enemy attention while you stack confusion.

I do agree that mesmers would benefit from more ways to reliably stack confusion on an enemy. This doesn’t include illusions stacking confusion, I mean a weapon skill that applies confusion. People say scepter need a buff, add confusion into #1 skill chain second attack or something.

I don’t think I’ve ever played an MMORPG game where zones haven’t been craters surrounded a ring of mountains.

I think it must be a bug or something tbh. I killed an ettin earlier from range and it respawned in the few seconds it took me to run to its corpse for loot. I killed it again and everything went back to normal, it didn’t respawn for a while after it’s second death.

vidiotking.1928:

Budg.3064:

I would personally love to see spears in the game. In past experience, the only MMO games that let me wield a spear are eastern grind-fests. I don’t mind if they’re one handed or two handed weapons, spears are flexible.

aren’t spears already in the game in the form of under water weapons? Or am I hitting the pipe too hard again?

They are, but I completely forgot about their existance when I made that post. I would still like to see spears as a non-aquatic weapon though.

I would personally love to see spears in the game. In past experience, the only MMO games that let me wield a spear are eastern grind-fests. I don’t mind if they’re one handed or two handed weapons, spears are flexible.

Cry of frustration is very good at what it does best, which is adding a few more confusion stacks. It can be used while channeling Confusing Images to reach a confusion stack of 8, or activated when confusions stacks are about to fall off to extend the confusion condition on the enemy.

The hard data is the low damage of mind wrack, it hits for less than some of the mesmer weapon skills. I dont know how much better it gets when you trait into shatters however.

I would like to see mind wrack given a damage increase and/or make it count as a blast finisher.

Off hand sword and focus.

The sword provides a high damage block (never thought id ever say that) and Phantasmal Swordsman which hits hard and its attack counts as a leap finisher. Get 3 of these swordsmen up in a combo field and watch as they become wreckingballs of madness.

The focus provides the legendary Phantasmal Warden, which is like throwing a lawnmower an your enemy that also absorbs projectiles with its body. According to the wiki, the Warden’s attack also counts as a whirl finisher. The foucs also provides decent control with Temporal Curtain, which gives swiftness to allies and cripples foes. Activating Temporal Curtain again turns it into a skill called Into The Void which flings enemies across the curtain as if it were a mirror. The curtain also acts as an ethereal field. On top of this, the focus can be traited to apply projectile reflection to its abilites, meaning the Warden will reflect projectiles instead of absorbing them and the Curtain will act like a guardian reflection wall while still giving the movement boons/conditions.

nidwin.6731:

The issue is the scepter. As mentioned by someone they only kept confusion on 3 so simply the scepter moved away from being full condition damage.

I’m still trying to figure out how that 2, Confusing Images, is supposed to work.
Block the next attack -> Ok that’s an easy one but
Counter by creating a clone that casts Either Bolt -> and where is my clone here?
I’ve never seen it pop a clone as the only clone that pops is the one from 1, Ether Clone.

I would like, if any of you boys or girls, could explain me how 2 is supposed to work as I find it quite frustrating.

The entire scepter should be moved to Power based stats and I’m not sure it’s actually the case.

The scepter is also the beginners weapon and it’s just too weak at the moment.

The scepter is a great weapon and my personal favourite. The block is one of the mesmers strongest attacks damage wise, a successful block will inflict more damage to the enemy that a 3 illusion mind wrack (untraited). The clone only appears on a successful block, if you happen to block too early just use the skill again and it will blind the enemy. The blind can also be activated by just quickly pressing #2 twice, giving the scepter a 4th skill that shares a cooldown with the block.

I’ve found that the most effective way to utilise the scepter is to cast Confusing Images at the start of a fight and then block when the enemy is about to make their first attack. This results in heavy confusion damage from the full 5 stacks, burst damage from the block, a free clone and all this while you retain full health. If the enemy is ranged then replace the block with Feedback and watch them rip themselves apart with their own attacks and confusion while you and your illusions play cards or something. I should also mention, the block skill on the scepter can also block a ranged attack.

I’ve been looking at the Become the Raven and it offers some nice control abilites that may help a group escape a wipe situation and run away, such as a knockback on a 5 second cooldown, an area daze on a 10 second cooldown and a cripple condition given on the autoattack. It may only cripple for 2seconds, but if you spam #1 I reckon you’ll be able to cripple an enemy for the full duration of the transformation (30 seconds). Where else in the game can you obtain 30 seconds of cripple?

I agree that we need another mainhand weapon. We only have 2, the sword and scepter, while we have 4 off hand weapons: sword, focus, pistol and torch.

Best:
Feedback
Both scepter and sword blocks
Phantasmal Warden/Confusing Images (cant decide)

Worst:
Mantras
Veil
Mantras

Scepter/sword will get you through PvE.

Scetpre/sword is a godlike weapon set. It tears through enemies while keeping you alive.

For a multi-enemy varition the closest thing is sword/focus.

The only frost bow attack that counts as a projectile finisher is frost volley, so that attack alone would be your frostfire arrow.

Check the tooltips of the conjured weapon skills in game and it should tell you if counts as a finisher or not.

Illurim.6059:

Budg.3064:

No mention of the scepter/sword combo?

I covered it in the options, but I personally don’t use it as a combo. Your major benefit of scepter main hand is about laying confusion. Sword off hand doesn’t really add to that; it gives you a block and a Phantasm that doesn’t apply conditions. So at least to me, they don’t synergise well.

Your experience might differ and I’d like to hear about it as it might be a useful addition to the guide! I’m guessing if you’re using Sword off hand you’re not focusing as much on conditions?

The scepter/sword combo gives the mesmer a lot of surviability, I’ve been able to solo same level veteran enemies in PvE with their regular enemy friends spawning around me. The thing about the two mesmer blocks from the scepter and sword is that they not only just block and create a clone, but they also damage when they block too, and not a small amount of damage.

For comparison, at my current mesmer level (31), my mind wrack when used with 3 illusions does 228 damage according to the tooltip. The scepter block causes 252 damage to the enemy on a successful block and the sword block causes 235. Both block abilities do more damage themselves than a full 3 illusion mind wrack does to a single target. They also have secondary uses however, activating the block skills again will perform a counter attack. The scepter counter attack will blind the enemy and the sword counter attack dazes the enemy. Both very handy in certain situations.

On top of all this, putting only 5 points into the illusions trait line will grant you illusionists celerity, which reduces the cooldown on illusion creating abilites by 20%. Both blocks benefit from this, allowing you to use them even more frequently in a fight.

The best use of blocking I’ve personally found is to start a fight by a casting the sceptre skill confusing images, get the full 5 stacks of confusion up which should give the enemy time to run up to you, and then block their first attack. Heavy confusion damage, a strong attack, a blocked enemy attack and a fresh clone is how I start all my encounters. If the enemy is ranged replace the block skill with the feedback utility skill and watch the ranged enemy literally kill themselves. I’m not joking, have you seen enemies that say ‘throws daggers’ under their healthbar? Usually pirates or bandits. 5 stacks of confusion, feedback bubble, killed itself with its own whirling dagger throw attack.

Finally, onto the phantasmal swordsman. Again, he has a strong attack compared to our others, being 253 at my level. But its the fact that each attack he does counts as a leap finisher thats important. Just using the mesmers own ethereal combo fields gives the phantasmal swordsman chaos armour, which means when he goes down in 1-2 hits, he’s gonna at least give the enemy some sort of condition. If he manages to stay alive, he’ll be applying those conditions regularly. If you manage to get 3 of them up, like on an event champion or something, this effect is tripled. And this is only using your own ethereal fields, get a fire attuned elementelist and they’ll be stacking burning as they attack, or constantly applying darkness to the enemy with a necromancers dark field.

Anyways, looks like I got a bit carried away. Sorry for the wall of text.

Time confusing images from the scepter and a feedback bubble right and an enemy ranger pretty much kills themself.

Get the Feedback utility skill as soon as you possibly can, it’ll save your life often and also works as an ethereal combo field.

No mention of the scepter/sword combo?

I’ve heard rangers are fairly easy to play PvE

By adding more of the same rune to different pieces of armour. The more runes of the same type you add, the more of the attributes you get.

From my understanding, it is the Tornado elite skill. When you go underwater it becomes a whirlpool/vortex skill. It might not how this in the skill point menu however.

Warriors can trait their rifle abilities to pierce enemies, if that appeals to you.
Pistol/pistol theif gives me the biggest gunslinger vibe, and offers to fairly decent single target ranged damage with a smoke combo field to help you survive.

From my personal experience, the mesmer. Solo questing in the world as a mesmer is the most demanding experience I’ve found in the game so far, and I love it.

The GW2 wiki has this list of conditions that should be able to help you.