Guild Wars 2

For Hero Points, there are often some groups around doing them. Just check the lfg tool, that might be helpful. Auric Basin should be pretty easy, as you don’t have to glide as much as in Verdant Brink. With regard to masteries, map meta events (AB mostly) give a ton of XP.

Looks pretty impressive.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

How could you possibly argue that blurred frenzy isn’t weak offensively? It’s one thing to say it should be weak because of shatters or something but seriously? You really think blurred frenzy is a strong offensive skill? It’s not even a learn to dodge thing. People can just walk out of it easily.

Sounds like the hundred blades phenomenon. Big number at the end, so people totally ignore how long it took to get to that number.

onevstheworld.2419:

With the exception of a few fractals, even mediocre T4 pugs rarely struggle.

Bloomy <3

Can’t remember how often I and my colleague were the last survivors when all the PUGs had died to him.

You die?

/15 charrs

Would be an interesting option, but I’d prefer to go one step further: finally give us the option to save a bunch of different builds in PvE and WvW (PvP got such stuff, didn’t it?). That’s something I miss so much when I think of other MMOs – saving builds and gear and then changing all with just two clicks.

There must be someone RNGsus hates, so the rest of us can get their chests.

Blaeys.3102:

Because they didn’t fail.

They did. Multiple difficulty modes introduced a crapton of organisational difficulties and stress into WoW raiding, but nothing positive.

Golemancer.6215:

3. Poison trails damage can not be negated by any means. I main warrior, i run endure pain, i still die, its still painful. This just makes no sense in light of every other instability having the opportunity to have its damage negated, evaded, etc.

In fact, there’s a pretty simple way to negate poison trail damage: l2p. Get your positioning right.

I’m with yLoon here. Bring the support your group needs and when that’s covered, put the remaining resources into the last bit of DPS. It’s not as if those 5-20% (at most) damage will slow down a group noticeably when no one else is able to bring stuff like reflects – down states resulting from a purely selfish guard build would be worse.

In the end, it depends on your environment. Have an (organised) group where someone else (e.g. a chrono) easily brings utility? Go DPS. Otherwise, utility wins.

I’ve heard far too often from WoW raiders how LFR drove the skill level of raiders too far down to recruit proper players for real raids. LFR mode remains a bad idea.

Longbow’s only advantage in PvE is 1200 range, which you rarely (if ever) need. For pretty much anything else, scepter with the proper offhand is superior.

Berserker. Most of the time, you’ll be on sword anyway, which is a pure power weapon. Ranged combat is a rather rare exception.

I tend to disagree. Mesmer has a nice tool box for high level fractals, especially for those where reflects are useful (underground, uncategorised and chaos spontaneously come to my mind). Some wells and null field also offer great utility. At least in groups that aren’t fully optimised and organised, I’ve often had the impression that runs are more smooth with a mesmer than without.

With regard to commander gear however, I’m a bit more sceptical. If you already have it, I guess you can simply try/use it, since mesmer dps isn’t great anyway. But be aware that there’s quite a bunch of cases where you won’t be able to give out any meaningful buffs because your group is all over the place.

Astralporing.1957:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Raids are intended to be the most difficult content in the game

Are you sure? Some people seem to disagree:

Malediktus.3740:

The raids are not hard at all, basically 10 man dungeons.

I find it funny that i see those two arguments used (often even by the same people) interchangeably, depending on what the poster wants to prove.

Now if both statements were anything like mutually exclusive. Hint: they aren’t.

Ardid.7203:

There isn’t anything harder than get people to act as a coordinated team. The more people, the harder it is. Even more if you also need time and practice. Raids are hard as hell, because they involve 10 people.

10 people is super easy. 20-25 still isn’t difficult, unless you’re trying to do it in a dying game. At good old 40, there it becomes pretty nasty.

Fair point, maybe the proportion of randumb players was a bit lower than I’d estimate it. Didn’t play a lot back then. Still, those coordination issues are mainly due to the >100 people open world nature of those bosses. I’ve led raids in other games – can you imagine how difficult it can be to find just 20-30 good players? Going to Teq/Worm numbers adds a massive dilution effect with regard to average player skill. Honestly, GW2 boss mechanics are just primitive when I compare them to proper raid bosses in other games, like Kael’Thas, Illidan, Kalecgos, System Daemons or Avatus.

Anyway, I agree that a few more bosses of this kind in GW2 wouldn’t be bad.

Randulf.7614:

Tequatl and Wurm at least took the community time to figure out and nail down. Sure, Tequatl became straightforward content in the end, but at least there was a period of figuring out time. I hope we see more of that.

Apples and oranges. Those open world bosses just take longer for two reasons: first, they are time-gated and a failed attempt results in a long waiting period. Second, the proportion of braindead and useless players naturally is higher in open world content, resulting in higher rates of failure, which closes the circle.

maddoctor.2738:

kurogane.9681:

I think the only way to get more people run dungeons, at least to revive them, is to have a separate daily for them like fractal daily. Put some reasonable reward and I’m sure this daily will encourage runs.

There is a daily already for dungeons, if you run unique 8 paths, you get 5g and 150 tokens of your choice.

Which is, unfortunately, pretty poor. Fractal dailies give higher rewards for less effort.

messiah.1908:

mirage for mesmer also sound cool but what can it brings that we dont have already….
mirage – meaning “to look at, to wonder at”. we already have clones which does nothing and easily notice and killed…so no really mirage here

I somehow hope it translates to “wonder at” the mesmer suddenly doing proper damage. That means sacrificing a substantial amount of support and the current illusions/shatter mechanics in order to finally get a build with substantial power damage and real cleave.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Pretty much goes for any game ever. Players figure out how to ‘game’ stuff more quickly than devs can release new stuff. About the only time that doesn’t happen is when there are artificial barriers imposed.

Indeed. The question usually is just how long people have to wait for the next raid, not whether they do. At least in case of progress guilds.

I know. But at least in unorganised groups, my experience is utility >>> damage.

€: To clarify, as long as you already have a certain base damage. But that’s easily achieved without stuff like torch or max damage utility skills.

Dunno, I honestly see little reason at all to run torch in fractals, unless you have an organised team which blazes through them anyway. Shield simply has better utility.

insanemaniac.2456:

you wanna get away from it? find a speed run guild. until you do, stop doing a disservice to your fellow pugs by dying while you try to kitten out dps (good job if you arent).

So true, so true. Just did T4 runs with a guard who never changed his utility from Bane/ToF/PoB and a mesmer who ran i-don’t-know-what (but hardly any wells and no reflects). Guess stuff like reflection is overrated for fractals like underground.

Oh wait, for some reason, quite a bunch of people went down. Must be magic.

Head Kracker.4790:

its only available from laurel vendors and the like. its not on any drop table that I know of.

Drops from fractal chests, though I probably wouldn’t try to rely on that kind of RNG.

Jaymee.1560:

Is anyone else experiencing this? Cause, it’s… rather annoying.

Indeed, it’s annoying. But I think it has been there for longer than Bloodstone Fen. Should be fixed asap.

Other people’s avengers may be a substantial problem, but at least as a mesmer it’s simply random whether you can avoid your own or not. When RNGsus hates you (more often than not), #2 will simply port you half a metre to the other side of the avenger and you still get stomped.

Xyonon.3987:

Instead the most powerful ranged weapon is currently the scepter. If correctly used it’s even a dps increase together with a sword instead of using a sword all on it’s own. And no the scepter is not a condition only weapon. :P

Scepter #3 is our strongest power skill and even tough the auto attacks are only average, they are still better than those of the GS or staff. But most importantly, you can use Sword + Shield with Scepter + Sword, so you still have the shield AND the strongest dps phantasm we have.

I remembered the scepter as pretty terribad, but apparently that’s no longer the case. Didn’t feel that horrible in today’s swamp. Still, it has a number of drawbacks compared to GS, mainly lower range and its AA being a projectile.

For open world, anything will work indeed, but that’s beside the point. Get a berserker sword first (for your mainhand), that will be something you can also transfer to your guard if you want to. Focus next and then maybe a second sword for your offhand, as long as you plan to get the class shield via the collection. With those weapons, you’re mostly fine for fractals. I recommend having a ranged weapon (GS or maybe staff) as backup in your inventory, since there are some bosses where meleeing isn’t the most glorious idea unless you have a really well-coordinated team.

Don’t miss them, the old scenes killed immersion far too often with easily avoided errors. Stuff like a character that was lying on his bed a couple of seconds before, mortally sick, now happily standing and talking as if nothing ever happened in the cutscene.

EU “meta” is pretty much the same. But seriously, that’s old news that sub-optimal group compositions (still) are viewed as “meta”. I still remember stuff like 4 warrs + mesmer, still heavily in use when there were much faster combinations. The current one probably simply is meta for the fact that necros are just faceroll easy and many PUGs are too dumb to adapt to the new instabilities.

FrostDraco.8306:

I do in fact use rise. Power necro here. Was ressing someone when the champ oakheart knocked me down. Then bloom did his jump attack. Which i couldnt dodge because I was still knocked over.

It’s one of those WTF moments. Everyone is acting like it’s a regular occurence or that it’s clearly a sign that i don’t know what dodge is, as if they are the only ones that can think of that. I just think it’s BS being punished with an instant K.O. on a slightly tanky build for being hit by one attack. But of course on the forums, keyboard warriors will act like you can dodge ‘every’ attack, to make themselves seem better.

‘sigh’ The champ oakheart moves with the speed of a snail, so getting knocked down by him almost is an achievement in itself. No need for that and if safely rezzing a downed player isn’t possible, just let him die. You can still rezz when the oakheart is dead.

I can only repeat what I and others have said about a thousand times: You made a capital mistake and got punished accordingly. That’s fine.

Absurdo.8309:

There’s probably a lot of confounding variables in there. I’m sure you would see subscriber decreases in GW2 too, even though there’s only one mode.

Still, wow is a much different game than GW2, and I generally dislike the LFR comparisons. What works for one may not work for the other. In particular, wow content only needs to last a couple of years, while GW2 content needs to last the life of the game.

I won’t dispute anything of that, because it’s pretty close to my ideas. As I said, we’ll probably never definitely know why certain things happened, as we simply don’t have a proper control experiment. There’s just one kind of argument that I question and that’s the kind “LFR/easymodes/whatever worked so well in WoW, we need it here”, because there’s no data to support such claims.

Constant growth while there was only one mode of raiding (Classic and BC), more or less stagnation when they introduced easymodes (WotLK), constant decline with the usual short bumps from addon releases ever since Cataclysm, with which they introduced LFR. That’s certainly a strong point for the effectiveness of easymodes and LFR.

Data: https://www.statista.com/statistics/276601/number-of-world-of-warcraft-subscribers-by-quarter/

Your claim about LFR is little more than guesswork without any reasonable foundation. We’ll never find a final answer due to the lack of control and replication, but subscription data from those times definitely does not help to hold up your claim.

FrostDraco.8306:

Can’t dodge while I’m knocked down. Can’t use shroud if you get one shot. Endurance regen isn’t even a factor for something you couldn’t dodge.

Did you even read my post? 32k hp in ONE hit. That’s a bit much don’t you think?

Nope, it isn’t much in a game where you can negate almost any damage by pressing one button (same for getting knocked down). Also, I don’t know exactly what attack you’re talking of (guess his big circle below 75%), but I wouldn’t mind if that was 500k. Any of his attacks are pretty easy to avoid. If you don’t, it’s the consequence of a pretty big mistake and you may get punished accordingly.

Neither on my guard (12k HP) nor on my mesmer (17k), I have any problems staying alive at bloomy. In the rare case I go down in that fight, I know exactly where I failed. Unnecessary stuff when I didn’t pay attention.

Shiren.9532:

I’m honestly baffled why GW2 doesn’t have different raid difficulties like much more hardcore MMOs like WoW does. An easier five or ten player raid would likely be a very popular feature with a bigger audience and it would ease a lot of pressure on raids to avoid popular or exciting lore. It’s a system that works incredibly well in successful MMOs like WoW, who learned the hard way that designing a hard raid ends up restricting some content to the minority of players (like how a minority of players ever killed Illidan before the expansion was legacy content).

Does it work so well in MMOs like WoW? I doubt it. Its subscription numbers don’t back up that claim and I know both the things I’ve seen myself as well as what other raiders told me after I quit. Not pretty stuff, because the two raid sizes didn’t get along well and LFR massively drove down the average skill level, which made it hard to find raiders for the hard modes at all.

Hypairion.9210:

And dont you see a problem with the fact that many glassy people have no pb with this fractal, while you’re dying as a necro with 32k hp? So either you’re a troll, or you need to learn to dodge (not very difficult)

Surprisingly many people seem not to know that a dodge button exists. Had a necro in my swamp run yesterday who managed to go down in approximately every second charge. Guess he only survived the others because they didn’t go in his direction. And that’s a kind of player I regularly encounter when swamp is daily.

If his few and obvious attacks weren’t deadly, he’d be just another trash mob. Actually, he almost is, since it’s incredibly easy to avoid them. No need to get hit at all and if you do, it’s a sure sign you’ve kittened up something.

I wonder how all those whiners are actually playing fractals. Blindfolded with one hand tied behind their back (or to something else that’s not mouse and keyboard)? Bloomy does not require anything but a minimal amount of attention. His deadly attacks have clear and rather long windup times, so you can usually simply walk out. If dodges are needed, you have plenty due to the wisp regeneration buff. Trash in the onslaught phase dies from a few autoattacks.

So wtf is supposed to be difficult about swampland? Paying a little bit of attention for a few minutes? Very demanding …

What a wonderful nonsense. I’ve had no substantial problems (apart from the usual ups and downs with randoms) with pretty much any kind of mixed group after the patch.

Yseron.8613:

I did browse the whole gallery of great swords trying to find one that:
- had not a handle longer than the blade
- had not a blade the size of a whale
- had not spikes everywhere
- had not a guard bigger than the handle and the blade combined
- was not more dangerous for its weilder than for the opponent
- did look like a sword like, i mean… a sword

Love those descriptions. It’s a pity that most weapons have utterly ridiculous and ugly skins that aren’t even remotely related to a proper (great)sword.

With regard to PvE, it’s what apharma quoted. Mesmer is brilliant in (instanced) group content, but poor at any kind of solo PvE due to their class mechanics and lack of core damage.

Obtena.7952:

The premise of this thread from the OP is that Mesmers aren’t capable of the basic things that they need to for success in PVE … that’s just wrong. It’s not a problem with the class if people don’t learn how to play it. That’s not a question of balance or DPS. The tools are there; Mesmers are not your ‘press 1’ kind of class.

Which tools? Those for an upgrade from “mortally miserable” to “just miserable”? Possibly. But that’s it and I don’t think it’s a reasonable state of balance.

Mostly sticking to something similar to the raid build, though I usually have scepter as the off-weapon instead of sword. And bane signet/procession regularly get kicked out for more utility.

Levetty.1279:

Obtena.7952:

ACtually, i think the contribution is significant

Well yeah, thief players always think kittenting up the mesmer board is a valuable use of their time, doesn’t make it so.

At least the other guy is actually trying to make an argument, no matter how flawed it is. You are just coming in here without bothering to read what people are saying and declaring everybody is bad at the game while you are a genius who figured out how to really play Mesmer.

Nah, he’s a mighty burn guardian, not a thief.

Rednik.3809:

Too bad that there is only “some people” (and by some fun coincidence, almost all of them run guild premades). Majority will simply reroll to necroparty or will be frustrated and simply stop doing 8x at all.

Possibly, judging from my experience with PUGs after the patch. But then I’ve also got the experience that those people are a bunch of clueless whiners who can’t be bothered to actually pay a little bit of attention to their environment.

Worse, if I’m not mistaken. But anyway, that’s fine for an alternative path to ascended items.

Max melee was indeed no problem on my mesmer with sword.

KickzNGigglez.4958:

3) Most people who have done uncategorized knows that the bunny 1 shots with it’s high jump kick skill. Just dodge it and you should be able to down it before it gets its next one off. The fact that your party wiped to the bunny in the first place sort of says a lot about the skill level of the party.

This, it’s a simple l2p issue. Anyway, the instability bunny vanishes after ~10 seconds if you don’t kill it.