Guild Wars 2

Xaylin.1860:

Ineptitude looks super fun for large scale fights. What a pitty we won’t be able to combine it with Evasive Mirror plus traited Sword.

With alacrity I think it should be ok with untraited sword, and I can’t wait to try out ineptitude.

Going to be a tough choice between that and MoF.

On another note, I can’t believe we can take MtD and MoF at the same time! Amazing.

Vieux P.1238:

All looks good on paper.. Let’s hope it works for real this time.

Haha, the eternal optimist.

Dondagora.9645:

Dulfy links are screwed up, I thinks. Am I wrong?

Doesn’t seem to have been updated for the changes yet.

Keep going if you’re having fun.

If you have any tomes of knowledge, use them as well – or get crafting and level up that way.

If you enjoy the class you’re going to want to have it at 80 asap, because mesmers will still live and die by their traits (although now we do have some good stuff untraited).

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Diru.4531:

I see your point. Does swapping “Warden’s Feedback” with the new minor trait “Inspiring Distortion” make more sense?

Anyway, I hope there’s something they can do. I don’t see many mesmers raid much anymore so a change like this is pretty disappointing.

Keep in mind you may not even be using Focus for much longer once Chronomancer drops, the Shield offers a lot of possibilities and kind of overlaps roles with the Focus.

Can shield fling people off ledges?

;)

Focus will still have a place I’m sure. Curtain is too much fun.

Swap Restorative Illusions (GM major) with Temporal Enchanter (master major). RI should be the grandmaster trait here.

Swap Protected Phantasms (master major) with Healing Prism (GM minor).

So overall that would mean choosing between traited focus, traited glamours or buffed aoe healing. Then having Protected Phantasms an automatic minor choice, and the choice between RI, II and iDefender on evade for grandmaster.

I’m sorry I can’t think properly at the moment but I’m sure there are many other ways to juggle around the Inspiration traits to make it a more coherent line.

Oh, ok then. Strange decision, but I can accept that they’re solid skills currently, although I am a little disappointed to miss out on a traited recharge reduction for ether feast.

Thanks.

I agree. It encourages players to sit in stealth for ages to get the same recharge back – and seems to be directly tied in with PU – as if no other build will be using the torch…

I would like to see this modified before next week, even just stick the flat 20% recharge back on with condition removal. It doesn’t need to be changed.

Exciton.8942:

If you actually look through thief changes, they got quite buffed as well. So I am really not sure how it will turn out.

Yeah this.

I’d say no one truly knows how it will play out. We might still be prey in a different way.

It’s all up in the air at the moment – we’ll just have to play with it for weeks/months and see what happens.

Anomaly is much cooler. I don’t really like Spirit Links.

Am I missing something or has this not been assigned to a skill type?

We’ve got Mirror as manipulation and all the elite skills have been classified.

Still has the difficulty of our limited 3, or should I say 2 utility slots if using mimic.

I love the idea, but going to be tough to decide what two utilities to take alongside if using mimic.

I also kind of miss bubble shield, but I suppose the shield block skill should make up for that.

kitten stream broken… I hope mesmer is soon – got to sleep. :/

jportell.2197:

Curunen.8729:

jportell.2197:

Curunen.8729:

I’m crossing my fingers hoping they don’t slap a horrible ICD on Evasive Mirror…

RIGHT! it is just sooo good lol. +

Thank you – another reason for zero ICD.

I don’t think it will because like anything else that is on dodge for mesmer it is totally dependent on endurance.

On evade => should be on blurred frenzy as well (and underwater weapon skills, but who cares about those anymore…).

Edit: I just drool at the thought of blurred frenzying against rapid fire and reflecting everything after evading the first shot.

jportell.2197:

Curunen.8729:

I’m crossing my fingers hoping they don’t slap a horrible ICD on Evasive Mirror…

RIGHT! it is just sooo good lol. +

Thank you – another reason for zero ICD.

I’m crossing my fingers hoping they don’t slap a horrible ICD on Evasive Mirror…

Levetty.1279:

Oh God the power creep so far.

All classes have evolved to super saiyans.

Goodness knows what the interplay will be, but it’s nice to have everything properly shaken up.

Edited above – sorry I messed up the numbers.

Yeah… my mouth is watering too for the sheer quantity and versatility of condition shatter builds.

Now to find out what Ether Feast will become – hoping for Illusion skill that might have 20% cooldown reduction if traited with IC.

Torment damage while moving… :o

So say if condition damage = 1800, => One stack would do around 237 damage per tick? (They had 3 + (0.45 x level) + (0.11 x condition damage))

And then add Malicious Sorcery… :o :o

Wow, that’s going to be good.

:o

Edit: Colour me gullible…

I enjoyed that.

(especially that first piece of music! :p)

Currently as 4/4/0/0/6 condition shatter with sword/torch and staff, using traveler runes – s/d perma evade thieves.

Yeah I know, I should take scepter and condition runes – I’ll take both when we can do sword/torch + scepter/shield, but at the moment I find sword more fun.

My favourite reason for Whispers is as you say all the random undercover npcs scattered throughout the world with funny dialogue.

But I prefer Priory from a RP perspective. Flame me if you like but I prefer Sieran over Tybalt, and the interaction between Gixx and Sieran is priceless.

I really want to play with melandru runes, poultry soup and time marches on, just to see the effect on cc conditions (is taunt also likely to be affected by minus stun duration?).

Should be able to take this on power shatter/phantasm with domination/duelling/chrono, trade some raw damage for toughness and I think I’ll enjoy that.

I agree that MoF is most appealing for power builds because any condition build going into illusions would naturally take MtD at the moment, and add to that the master major traits serve no purpose for a power shatter build it seems silly.

Phantasmal haste needs to be moved/merged and introduce something like “shattering a phantasm has additional effects over shattering a clone”:
1. MW – more damage?
2. CoF – an extra confusion stack?
3. Div – 2s daze per phantasm?
4. Dis – 2s distort per phantasm?

Ok distortion could be overpowered as you could get 7s if shattering 3 phantasms, but it might be ok because most of the time in a shatter build you would be shattering one or maximum two phantasms.

I like the idea of stacking this with MoF which should give a solid reason to pick the illusion line in a power shatter build. Otherwise as it stands, chrono or chaos (or even inspiration for sustain and condi cleanse) are clearly better choices for power.

The Grove and Caledon Forest.

The Grove is just stunningly beautiful, especially the lower floor – my favourite “city” by far.

Caledon has a good mix of environments that I like (no desert or snow), the most fun jumping puzzles, fun although easy dynamic events, and is just generally a fun zone to chill out in.

Will Antitoxin Runes also be modified I wonder?

Solori.6025:

So I wonder if they are balancing this for the soon to be global condi-duration nerf.

That would be a good thing tbh – higher intensity but shorter average durations.

StickerHappy.8052:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

I think it will work with blurred frenzy.

how? BF is not a distort anymore.

Not Masterful Reflection – we’re talking about Evasive Mirror which is supposed to work on Evade – which hopefully means any evade including dodging/BF or Trident #3 and Spear auto.

I seriously cannot wait for Evasive Mirror and pray to every Deity they don’t ruin it with a horrible ICD. Probably my most anticipated trait.

It should be enough of a sacrifice that you have to burn endurance to gain reflect – and that you have to time it for an evade, not just a random dodge.

The only other skill we can get this with on land is blurred frenzy, so it should be fine with no ICD or a very small (1-2s) ICD.

Please may it be good….

As a side note, the change to vulnerability is interesting for condition builds with staff AA. Same for sword AA and clones (together with bleeding/confusion on crit).

I speculate that Sword/Shield could see a lot of use in addition to torch. Maybe if Inspiration becomes interesting enough to take with Domination and Duelling, traited Focus could come back for Sword/Focus.

It’s going to be a tough choice between the 4 trait lines (Chaos/Inspiration/Illusions/Chrono) to add to Domination/Duelling for power shatter (I still believe DE will be necessary), so hopefully there will be a good variety of builds at all ends of the scale.

Usual Sw/D perma evade counters MtD condition shatter pretty well.

Key thing is to dodge/evade the shatters, just lime with power shatter. As said above, don’t expect to burst the Mesmer down quickly, so be prepared for several attempts and the need to avoid condition application.

Once the patch hits you won’t need to worry about clone death anymore, so the main things will be condtioj interrupt, condition shatter and condition phantasm (or hybrids/mixtures).

Learn the key condition application skills and how to avoid them (eg scepter block, shatters, magic bullet/iduelist burst, staff aa, prestige burn)… Staff aa is difficult, but shatters, phantasm bursts and iCounter should be avoided at all costs.

Quadox.7834:

Curunen.8729:

Jurica.1742:

@Chaos, sw/t is better against thieves than staff because you’ve got stealth and more invulns vs staff which, yes, has more constant pressure from clones which hurts no matter if were in a zerk build or no, but you are an easier target.

Yea this is the key.

Trouble is Sword/Torch => easier time vs thieves but harder time vs some other classes (ie guardians)
Staff => harder time vs thieves but easier time vs other things

Swings and roundabouts.

In a pug/unorganised/soloq definitely take something like mantra of resolve because you can’t rely on anyone else to help you with conditions.

Quadox.7834:

Personally, i love fighting good thieves in soloq (red levin, chosen, panda, whatever). The game gets really boring if there is no thief in the other team.

SD thief is excluded from this, i hate them.

I agree with the sentiment that fighting thieves as power shatter is one of the most fun things in the game – a game of high mobility, evasion, teleports, and high damage. Yolo, but in this case it’s totally worth it.

But please add P/D perplexity kittens to that list of things I hate (sure a wvw thing) – they’re no fun at all, like mosquitos…

Condi remove is not necessary in this meta especially if you run Generosity sigil. If the opponent has a thief + necro condi + engi + condition warrior or something, then you can definately take condition mantra!

I don’t play power shatter as much as I used to anymore (granted now I’m a solo casual scrub that barely plays as I have drifted away from guilds) and as a mostly solo player I preferred to always take MoR to remove things like immobilise in a tight spot or other crucial conditions such as poison. Allows quick cleanse/dodge out of things like entangle or similar skills and meant I never had to wait on a heal. I’m not too fond of generosity sigils, preferred energy/air on both sets for more single target burst on squishies – seeing as I like fighting thieves I prefer the extra dodge over fire/air and air gives more single target damage.

I found portal horribly cumbersome unless coordinated with a team, and even then with traveler runes and good map awareness/positioning between points it wasn’t too much of a problem to run “manually”.

I’m preparing myself for a huge time gated grind for the precursor… :/

Already got 3 gifts ready for bifrost but I’m not going to buy the legend right now.

Jurica.1742:

@Chaos, sw/t is better against thieves than staff because you’ve got stealth and more invulns vs staff which, yes, has more constant pressure from clones which hurts no matter if were in a zerk build or no, but you are an easier target.

Yea this is the key.

Trouble is Sword/Torch => easier time vs thieves but harder time vs some other classes (ie guardians)
Staff => harder time vs thieves but easier time vs other things

Swings and roundabouts.

In a pug/unorganised/soloq definitely take something like mantra of resolve because you can’t rely on anyone else to help you with conditions.

Quadox.7834:

Personally, i love fighting good thieves in soloq (red levin, chosen, panda, whatever). The game gets really boring if there is no thief in the other team.

SD thief is excluded from this, i hate them.

I agree with the sentiment that fighting thieves as power shatter is one of the most fun things in the game – a game of high mobility, evasion, teleports, and high damage. Yolo, but in this case it’s totally worth it.

But please add P/D perplexity kittens to that list of things I hate (sure a wvw thing) – they’re no fun at all, like mosquitos…

Good stuff – interested to see what they do to all the minor traits.

Neptune.2570:

<snip>

As for all the GS complaints. Your complaining GS has insane damage. No kitten. GS is a 100% offensive weapon. Every skill on it is about dps with little utility and no defense. A shatter mesmer who just swapped to GS is literally the easiest focus target in the game.

So much this.

If a mesmer is in GS, beyond dodging F3, F4 and blink/decoy/portal, there is literally NO defence. Only iWave could be used defensively to buy some time, but otherwise once those very few cooldowns are burned it’s gg.

What is this I don’t even…

:o

penelopehannibal.8947:

It says part way through “and the revenant will be the first profession to use the staff as a melee weapon in Guild Wars 2.”

Please. Please. Please tell me there will be another profession that uses Melee staff! Preferably one that isn’t heavy armour class. Wink wink!

If they ever give thief a melee staff in the future I may consider switching mains. :o

kdaddy.5431:

Curunen.8729:

Liam McColgan.7689:

It really annoys me when you get idiots saying ‘omg why do you care, rank means nothing’ crap.
So why even post that? It’s hypocritical. If you don’t think people should be caring, don’t post said opinion. It’s pointless and a pretty brain-dead thing to do.

But for the others, who created this post and agree…..i feel for you.

No matter what people say, most of us play an MMO because its social, competitive (lol), and for the self fulfilment and bragging rights. No matter what game it is (CS, LoL, FiFa, DOTA, WoW, SC), people play online pvp to compete and have bragging rights over their fellow gamers. If you didnt care, you’d probably be playing a solo RPG like Witcher etc. Thats why nearly every MMO has titles, ranks, achievements, gear to aspire towards. To play an MMO and get good, a certain time investment is needed. Now most don’t mind investing that time because you get rewarded for it through said titles/ranks etc to show a) you are a veteran of the game and/or b) you have skill in a certain class/area/mode of the game.

If people were not competitive or concerned about their online egos, there would be no ESL or esports.

That’s your opinion and personally I don’t agree with this one point – I play because I enjoy the combat and having unpredictable human players as opponents. Of course it’s more fun to win, but that’s not the sole reason for playing.

You don’t get that unpredictability in single player games – and this is the reason pve in gw2 is also boring because enemy AI is predictable. There’s not many single player games where the enemy AI is good enough that you can play repetitively for a long time without getting bored.

The only “flair” I care about are skins which look good. I grind AP because I love the zenith skins. I grind gold because I like some of the expensive weapon skins. I don’t care whether another player thinks it’s prestigious or not.

Ranks still unlock finishers which provide new players an incentive to log on and spend time in pvp.

I understand your stance and the many who say who shouldnt be about ranks. There needs to be something to say about end goal in games. For the many after being bumped up to 80 and the fact that hrs and hrs were spent in matches/ tourneys felt cheated. Also being lvl since the patch bump, there has really been nothing for me to do in the game. Im not working towards anything, to be honest of my friends and guild members from the game they literally log on and maybe do a daily and leave.

Titles should mean something, playing the game and doing certain things should mean something. ANET took it away the day the bump happened. You can buy legendary s and get skins from buying gems and have tons of gold from farming. When the game first came out they gave us glory and pvp skins. They left the old pvp community in a complete confusion with many of us saying well if they were gonna make it so easy why didnt they do it earlier?

To end it all i understand people saying who cares about ranks but i would like for you to see it from the other side. The fact people needed 250,000 glory to level from 60-61 and the fact shark and phoenix finishers use to mean something. The Maruder/gladiator/ etc titles use to mean something. Today for many of us we go about the game in a daze because we enjoy the game but have nothing to work towards that is pvp related.

I agree that systems should be there to cater to players who like titles and the current system doesn’t really do that.

The tablet sounds… weird. Not sure if I’m going to like that.

Good for players who want to enjoy a healing/support spec.

I like the sound of the staff, but I would probably be more interested in other Legends instead of this one.

Liam McColgan.7689:

It really annoys me when you get idiots saying ‘omg why do you care, rank means nothing’ crap.
So why even post that? It’s hypocritical. If you don’t think people should be caring, don’t post said opinion. It’s pointless and a pretty brain-dead thing to do.

But for the others, who created this post and agree…..i feel for you.

No matter what people say, most of us play an MMO because its social, competitive (lol), and for the self fulfilment and bragging rights. No matter what game it is (CS, LoL, FiFa, DOTA, WoW, SC), people play online pvp to compete and have bragging rights over their fellow gamers. If you didnt care, you’d probably be playing a solo RPG like Witcher etc. Thats why nearly every MMO has titles, ranks, achievements, gear to aspire towards. To play an MMO and get good, a certain time investment is needed. Now most don’t mind investing that time because you get rewarded for it through said titles/ranks etc to show a) you are a veteran of the game and/or b) you have skill in a certain class/area/mode of the game.

If people were not competitive or concerned about their online egos, there would be no ESL or esports.

That’s your opinion and personally I don’t agree with this one point – I play because I enjoy the combat and having unpredictable human players as opponents. Of course it’s more fun to win, but that’s not the sole reason for playing.

You don’t get that unpredictability in single player games – and this is the reason pve in gw2 is also boring because enemy AI is predictable. There’s not many single player games where the enemy AI is good enough that you can play repetitively for a long time without getting bored.

The only “flair” I care about are skins which look good. I grind AP because I love the zenith skins. I grind gold because I like some of the expensive weapon skins. I don’t care whether another player thinks it’s prestigious or not.

Ranks still unlock finishers which provide new players an incentive to log on and spend time in pvp.

Well for the first time ever I’m actually enjoying using Pistol in a build.

Tried so many times in the past but never liked that weapon – though now I’m trying Sword/Torch + Scepter/Pistol MtD and it’s a lot of fun.

A shame to lose phase retreat, but apart from phase retreat staff is a very one dimensional weapon and it gets boring fast – so got to mix things up every now and then.

Fay.2357:

Curunen.8729:

apharma.3741:

The difference between a thiefs steal and ele attunement swap is it doesn’t gut half of if not more of your dps for using it. Well unless you’re a staff ele going out of fire in PvE.

I have no problem with being encouraged to use class mechanics, I like that. However it still doesn’t change a thing in PvE. If phantasms do more damage than a shatter and you have no clones or poor clone generation (which current phantasm builds do as no DE and only sword 2) then you’re not going to want to shatter.

The only way they would make a shatter build work in PvE is if they specifically said in mental torment: Does 200% more damage to NPCs. Anet doesn’t want to do stuff like this so it won’t happen.

Also before some smart alec turns round and says the meta will change for PvE, I don’t see anything the will change it except for open world and that’s already a “play how you like” type of place given how brain dead easy it is.

Well it should change.

I’m gonna downgrade this to could change.

The meta could change. It might not, but it could. We’ll just have to wait and see.

I should clarify – when I said “should”, I meant “ought to”, as in it is the right thing to happen given that we have shatters as our class mechanic instead of illusion generating skills.

apharma.3741:

The difference between a thiefs steal and ele attunement swap is it doesn’t gut half of if not more of your dps for using it. Well unless you’re a staff ele going out of fire in PvE.

I have no problem with being encouraged to use class mechanics, I like that. However it still doesn’t change a thing in PvE. If phantasms do more damage than a shatter and you have no clones or poor clone generation (which current phantasm builds do as no DE and only sword 2) then you’re not going to want to shatter.

The only way they would make a shatter build work in PvE is if they specifically said in mental torment: Does 200% more damage to NPCs. Anet doesn’t want to do stuff like this so it won’t happen.

Also before some smart alec turns round and says the meta will change for PvE, I don’t see anything the will change it except for open world and that’s already a “play how you like” type of place given how brain dead easy it is.

Well it should change.

Otherwise we shouldn’t have got shatters as our class mechanic – but instead Illusion generating skills, because they would be universal – then shatters would be on weapon sets instead.

But seeing as we are stuck with shatters as the class mechanic then all game modes should be modified so that shattering illusions is a good thing in any mode – at least that’s the way I see it going for mesmer seeing as we are now going to be encouraged to shatter much more often in any build.

I don’t do pve but from what I can see perhaps chronophantasma, signet of the ether and quicknes/alacrity/vigour on shatter would be very useful.

Me Games Ma.8426:

I think there won’t be specific shatterbuilds anymore since every build is going to use them in the future. Right now there are 2 kind of builds. Builds that use shatters and builds that do not use shatters.
With the traitchanges it seems like arenanet wants every mesmer regardless of what they are playing to use the profession mechanic. But does that destroy other build types? No!
There is place for every kind of build. Not only the traitchanges but also the traits that become baseline encourage our build diversity.
With IP becoming baseline they open up every door for us. Now one of the strongest traits is going to be baseline. The trait which made a shatterbuild a shatterbuild. With the changes there will not only be one shatterbuild but many of them.

There will be builds like “support mesmer” who shatters for condition removal and buffs.
There will be “interrupt mesmers” who will also use shatters to increase damageoutput and their interrupts.
There will be “dmg/dps mesmers” who will try to shatter with Mental Torment being triggered most of the time.

Think of it as a thief thinks of steal. I haven’t seen any thief build not using their F1 skill. Think of shatters like that. It’ll be a thing every mesmer is going to use.

Btw OP. 30% phantasm dmg is still a thing! 15% going to be baseline and 15% are still in domination. Before making such a claim pls inform.

I agree with this – it’s like calling thief builds ‘steal’ builds or elementalist builds ‘attunement’ builds.

Sure some builds will still shatter more than others, but since pretty much every build should be encouraged to use shatters for some reason (condition clear, quickness, vigour, healing, boon strip, damage, conditions, stability, utility (MoF), alacrity…) I see the term ‘shatter build’ as being an inadequate description in the future.

MSFone.3026:

As others have said, for roaming, unless you really enjoy having anyone with a brain just run away from you, you need to make sure you take appropriate weapons, which unfortunately aren’t the most optimal in terms of condition pressure (e.g. sword). Even then, if someone really wants to get away they probably will. This is why GS is such a good weapon for roaming, it is very hard for someone to get away from you.

Basically if you really want to go full condi as a roamer, get used to not getting to finish a lot of your fights and not being able to chase someone. Of course, it is totally sensible to give up some dmg for increased ability to chase, just be aware of the choice.

Runes of Tormenting and torment traits partially solve that – sure some escape but equally I’ve had a good number melt while running.

The trouble currently is movement speed which is why I would run with focus instead of torch, but it isn’t good enough when trying to run from a group compared to stealth and permanent speed boost. With chrono and hopefully signet of inspiration this won’t be an issue anymore. Also the hopefully buffed malicious sorcery…

Don’t you mean motivation for playing before HoT launches.

MSFone.3026:

I don’t run condi currently, but I’ve tried and I would like to. As others have said, the damage over time play style is one I’ve always preferred in mmos, and in GW1 I liked the hex them and watch them kill themselves play style of mesmer (loved it actually, best pvp experience ever imo).

I think right now condi is still a little weak, but with new core specializations I will be running more condi (probably hybrid). I think MtD+IP is going to be absolutely awesome. Plus the dueling traits and 50% more torment dmg from illusions, it just looks so good.

I may give it a go before the traits release, just to get in shape, but playing without IP in a shatter build is a bummer.

Yeah, knowing we’re going to get IP, it’s hard to play without it at the moment.

Also I would prefer to run sword/torch and either staff or scepter/shield, but currently sword/torch in mtd just doesn’t output enough damage – once we get the new confusing combatants as well as the free movement speed trait allowing use of better runes, it will be a lot more fun.

Trolldom.6182:

Is there a OMFG guild based on EU shards aswell? In so case, what server?
Im definitly interested!

IGN: Snôtr
Playstyle: PVP/PVE/WVW
Server: Piken Square
Role: Scholar
Time: Evenings 19-00 GMT +1 and weekends occasionally.

Everyone’s all over the place, no need to worry about regions. Plenty of people here in EU.