Guild Wars 2

Good to see this condensed into one thread, and that it is being looked into.

ronpierce.2760:

Curunen.8729:

ronpierce.2760:

Well if we still get no sympathy after you can taste it, good riddance, I hope this bug lasts just as long as the moa one did. Also you can stealth cast moa, so it’s not always predictable/noticeable. Also, clones don’t die when the target stealths, they die when they try to attack (time counter) and the enemy stealths, so they don’t always die, mostly to thieves because their stealths last longer. I guess learn to deal with it like MM have to. >_>

Using one of the few stealth skills available (taking all 4 stealth skills is generally unnecessary) to cover the cast of a long cooldown elite is smart play.

I’m with DuckDuckBOOM on this – unless you’re 1v2+ or more mesmers all with moa, I don’t have much sympathy with necros on that, given how easily they can melt mesmers with conditions.

However back to the topic, that seems more interesting with illusions dying because they don’t have a target when they attack. Still worried about playing shatter vs thieves (or PU mesmers) now, but I’ll reserve judgement until I’ve tested it myself.

Make an MM I bet you 100 bucks I can get you every time with moa. The other thing is, in tpvp you can stealth before being seen and moa them. Do you even use your brains to think about REALISTIC scenarios? You can STEALTH cast a doom spell on an entire build. No sympathy, really? Just goes to show this entire forum is greedy “I don’t want counters but other people can be countered by me, no problem. It makes sense”. You people are childish and ignorant.

No thanks – I have no interest in playing a necro.

Moa is a cheese skill (which is why I never use it), but it remains a waste of two cooldowns – only if the build is pure glass and follows up with heavy burst to finish is it deadly. That’s not specific to necros, but any class, so I don’t see why MM is so special.

But that’s a one trick pony, and will get kittened once a second player comes along.

Edit: And “don’t want counters”? What nonsense, of course I want counters – stealth is already enough of a counter and fighting a good thief with a shatter mesmer is one of the most fun things in the game for me.

ronpierce.2760:

Curunen.8729:

ronpierce.2760:

You guys keep giving inaccurate information. It’s not when the enemy stealths. Its when the illusions attack is ready and they try to attack but have no target. There’s a big different between the two. >_>:

Interesting, thanks for the clarification. I’m hoping to get in game later this evening to test for myself, but it doesn’t look as bad as I initially thought.

It’s not as bad as people thought, and in fact many people think it’s just thieves who the bug pertains to, but that’s not the case. The real case is that most stealths are so short that the illusions don’t try to attack in that time frame, and don’t die. This happens pretty frequently still even against thieves. You can, however almost bet on them dying if you see either a shadow refuge, or black powder HS combo (assuming he does it twice).

Not short enough for most illusions.

Again, I’ll reserve judgement until having played with it, but it still doesn’t feel right.

Leadfoot.9071:

I would hope thats a bug – sounds very unreasonable. However, clones/phantasms reacquiring a target after they stealthed automatically is also BS and unreasonable. This is certainly not the way to fix it though…

Agreed – phantasms tracking and attacking immediately on the target reappearing is cheesy, but likewise having to resupply shatter fodder in that short window when a target destealths is just as bad.

How about simply have all illusions go idle when they try to attack but can’t acquire a target that has stealthed and pause the phantasm internal clock – they can only attack the target again after you have reaquired and begin to attack the target.
Perhaps phantasm cooldowns could be reset so they don’t immediately attack, but have to wait a few seconds?

I dunno, just throwing some ideas out there, because this change is very crude.

ronpierce.2760:

Well if we still get no sympathy after you can taste it, good riddance, I hope this bug lasts just as long as the moa one did. Also you can stealth cast moa, so it’s not always predictable/noticeable. Also, clones don’t die when the target stealths, they die when they try to attack (time counter) and the enemy stealths, so they don’t always die, mostly to thieves because their stealths last longer. I guess learn to deal with it like MM have to. >_>

Using one of the few stealth skills available (taking all 4 stealth skills is generally unnecessary) to cover the cast of a long cooldown elite is smart play.

I’m with DuckDuckBOOM on this – unless you’re 1v2+ or more mesmers all with moa, I don’t have much sympathy with necros on that, given how easily they can melt mesmers with conditions.

However back to the topic, that seems more interesting with illusions dying because they don’t have a target when they attack. Still worried about playing shatter vs thieves (or PU mesmers) now, but I’ll reserve judgement until I’ve tested it myself.

ronpierce.2760:

You guys keep giving inaccurate information. It’s not when the enemy stealths. Its when the illusions attack is ready and they try to attack but have no target. There’s a big different between the two. >_>:

Interesting, thanks for the clarification. I’m hoping to get in game later this evening to test for myself, but it doesn’t look as bad as I initially thought.

ronpierce.2760:

I support this change. Moa kills all minions, stealth kills all illusions. Minion’s don’t have a “master”, illusions don’t have a target, I mean. Fair is fair! It’s okay to have hard counters against mms, but Mesmer’s aren’t allowed to have one?

Just kidding, being a vengeful kitten . I feel for you. Just remember this though the next time you moa a Minion master.

Moa has a 180s cooldown. Stealth is far more accessible for two classes.

I have not been able to get in game and test yet, but from reading this seems like it negatively affects phantasm builds, and is a huge kick in the teeth for shatter builds when fighting thieves or other mesmers – just not having illusions up on your target neuters shatter dps.

If anything it makes the already overpopular PU builds even more attractive…

I have not been able to get in game and test yet, but from reading this seems like a kick in the teeth for shatter builds.

Pyriall.5027:

Arcturus.8109:

Oh my… broken mechanic of stealth neutralize broken mechanic of A.I. combat. Thats horrible!

/thread

Does not take into account shatter fodder – AI is irrelevant in this case, just not having illusions up on your target neuters shatter dps.

MIrra.3604:

Buwahahahhahahhaa

So this is what it sounds like when Mesmer can no longer hide behind AI to wtfstomp other players.

Give me more options that allow me to be useful without illusions (for example manipulation utility skills), then you have something to back that up.

There is one – one OP feature at the moment, and that is the PU trait.

Illusions are a core mechanic of the class, without which shattering for one becomes kittened (nevermind phantasms and so on). That’s neutering most of our dps. I haven’t been able to get in game and test this, but it looks bad for shatter builds fighting thieves or other mesmers.

What?

I agree it’s not the easiest to counter sometimes, but at the moment I’d say there’s nothing wrong with mist form for a downed ele – given the state of the class at the moment I find it hard to read complaints about their downed state.

3 choices with finishing them:
- get very lucky and position/time a tele stomp correctly (of course won’t work on any half decent ele).
- daze/interrupt them to prevent them using mist form when downed.
- just attack them normally to drain their health and don’t bother stomping – ranged attacks, melee, whatever.

When/if eles get buffed back near to the crazy level they were at last year, then I’ll consider this a problem. At the moment it’s a non-issue. (For the record I don’t play ele)

Oh dear, this is bad…

I haven’t been able to get in yet.

Not the least popular, but I’d be surprised if they’re more popular than warrior/guardian/thief.

I’d say somewhere in the middle.

I might be seeing this wrong, but in the clip he had 4 conditions right before the warlock hit, so that combined with vulnerability stacks and if he was glassy could account for all the damage.

Maybe it registered the hit before that condition dropped off?

It can do a huge amount of damage when a target has many conditions on them.

Staff is a a defensive/utility tool that works well in any type of build – power or condition.

*Ah, good point – use the spectator option and watch matches.

Pick a build template for your class from any forum guide or video – select the appropriate gear/skills/traits.

Test some rotations with the golems and class npcs at the back of heart of the mists (don’t forget underwater golems too, to pick your underwater skills). Mess around here for a bit till comfortable with key bindings.

Then just dive into hotjoin, die a lot (or not!), and improve.

One tip – change your chat to combat only, if you want to avoid reading anything not in chat bubbles. Doesn’t happen often, but occasionally some unpleasant things – easier to ignore if you don’t see them.

Scratch that.

Mesmer:
- Land spear
- 2H hammer!
- MH focus
- MH pistol

Both sides have a reasonable argument – it’s not as straightforward as you’re making it out to be in the OP.

While in theory it can make sense that over an extended period of time (or moves), any random flucuations in player actions/skill will be ironed out, such that the better player will beat the weaker player, in practice the game has so many effects to take into account that this is not entirely true.

Again, in theory Zerker requires more active skill to survive – should be no question here. But taking into account passive skills/abilities, stealth and so on, this too is not as clear cut as it seems.

I don’t want to spend time on writing a wall of text, so I’ll just say it depends entirely on the individual build and the situation.
Different builds and different classes will have different skill ranges – some overlapping, but you can’t split them with glass builds at one end of the scale and tank at the other end – perhaps a zerker build for one class will be easier (requires less skill) to play than a tank build for another class for one player, and perhaps that tank build is easier than another zerker build for a different class.

Curunen.8729:

Agreed (this is on an asura).

Also it floats way too far from the back, making it look even weirder with the small size. A little bit closer so there isn’t that ugly huge gap would be nice.

I am a little disappointed on having crafted it now because of these two issues (yes I did preview thoroughly and find all pictures/videos before going for it).

I’d like to take that back – over time I have become very happy with how it looks – both the size and the particle effects, so I don’t want to see it get any larger.

I have also got used to the spacing/gap between the back of the character and the backpiece (which makes it look like it’s floating).

So all in all I’m very happy with it now, just took time to get used to it.

Justice.3608:

I agree that’s how it works.

For more than a year, I ran on the default bank space. But since the last sale I bought 3 extra tabs… the thing is I still have the same amount of space relatively, cause now I’m holding onto all this random junk and bloodstone dust/emp stars that I used to trash.

I’m starting to see this now. Fortunately I’m not a hoarder and haven’t spent a single gem on bank/inventoy space.

At least with bloodstone you can turn it to bricks which saves space. Will probably just end up deleting these code fragments and similar stuff.

Block yes, blind yes – great ideas.

Evade… no I think they should still remain in stealth.

Hotjoin – because idgaf about the capture mode enough to do it in solo queue.

I only jump into hotjoin when I get fed up spending ages searching for small scale fights, solo roaming in wvw – hotjoin just gives me instant pvp action, where I don’t have to think much, don’t have to search for players to fight, and never make a loss in coin.

I can understand where the OP is coming from just about.

However, don’t forget how much time those “100 moves” can take up in a match compared to bursting someone down fast enough and capping a point before 2 other players show up (for example).

Yes when both players have to set up carefully and coordinate skills in order to down each other in defensive setups, it is harder overall (depending on build) than one/two punch backstab/shatter, llucky burst or whatever. But pvp doesn’t give you the luxury of time that sort of fight will need. In wvw sure, go ahead knock yourself out – can extend a fight indefinitely (providing you don’t get ganked).

Haha, yeah all that random junk does get annoying when you don’t need it.

I’ve tried the 0/10/30/0/30 PU/IP shatter, but didn’t find it that great – personally I feel the loss of sharper images and DE isn’t worth it, just to gain PU – having the stealths from torch/decoy/MI is enough with standard heavy shatter.

So that’s what I’m playing at the moment – your heavy shatter build, just with elasticity instead of illusionary invigoration.

Am also using zerker/soldier/cavalier mix – need power as primary stat, so unfortunately knights doesn’t help much. If there was pow/pre/tough with power primary, then I’d use a lot of that.

With traveler runes, min cooldown phase retreat, max range blink, stealths and IP, I’m mobile enough to engage/disengage many encounters.
I am weaker vs thieves though – missing that sceptre/sword block to kitten them, and also blurred frenzy on higher cooldown, so have to play the mobility/positioning game to avoid attacks – doesn’t always work out well, especially if they get the jump on me.

The biggest problem I have with traits is deciding between duelling I and duelling IV – sometimes that cooldown on sword is more important (ie, vs thieves), but other times the 1200 blink is better – ie when running from a group.

Edit:
I’m not happy with power sitting below 2000, but I can’t raise it any further without might stacks – fortunately staff auto does that, so easy to buff up before going in for burst.
Like to keep precision above 40 for staff and below 50 for sword/x – I do like to shatter in staff, and crit damage >80%.
Toughness is around 1600 – again trying to boost, but I think when I decide to go for ascended armour that will help a lot, with resilient infusions.

Ouch, that’s tough.

Why don’t you hop over to the Mesmer forum – I’m sure you’ll find some players in there to help.

High toughness, condition is in now. Power still good, but need some sustained pressure because of all the tanks out there.

Can still play glkittenter for example, but very risky.
Check out builds in that subforum – if you want to be different and develop more skill, stay away from PU builds – can start with one as it offers a lot of room for error while learning all the mechanics, and then transition to something else, ie shatter/lockdown/mantra, and so on.

I don’t agree with free swap on ascended and below – stat swap should be earned, in some unlockable fashion., through crafting, mystic forge, gemstore or some sort of quest.

Cost should be cheap enough to make it practical, but expensive enough that it doesn’t write off all exotic gear.

However once a stat is unlocked, then you could have repeated access to it in the drop down list. So a high initial investment that pays off in the long run.

Excellent post – provides a continuous vertical/horizontal gear path without any dead ends.

Vigil chest + vigil gloves. Makes light armour look tough.

Guardian.5142:

Curunen.8729:

I dunno – the Catalyst in ME3 could give her a run for her money…

I actually liked the ending. Remember, regardless of whether is a TV-show, a movie or a video game, its a sci-fi first. Even bad sci-fi is actually still kinda good sci-fi. Besides, they could have just ended it at the final clutch point and rolled credits… and it would have still been a pretty good sci-fi, just a whole lot more ironic.

Different strokes I guess..

I wasn’t an ending hater as such – in fact I found it quite emotional at the time, even though it made little sense.

I do think starchild is tied with scarlet in this though.

Radian.2478:

I do a bit of solo roaming in enemy borderlands. I don’t recommend ebg because structures on each side are closer together so you are more likely to run into people and get repelled when trying to solo enemy supply camps and stuff.

Yeah, the layout of EB doesn’t lend itself to a lot of small fights. Enemy borderlands is the way to go.

I may drop toughness a little and take more crit damage, depending on the change.

Otherwise I doubt I’d change anything – don’t play dungeons, so no need for full zerker.

I dunno – the Catalyst in ME3 could give her a run for her money…

I know this has been asked for before, but no harm in suggesting again.

1. Achievement rewards skin area expanded to be general multipurpose wardrobe for all kinds on in game armour/weapon/backpiece skins.

2. Consumable gemstore item that extracts the skin from a piece of armour or a weapon (or backpiece) and “uploads” it (using some fancy asura technology) to this wardrobe.
Can be single use or have charges, though I imagine single use would make more sense. Item from which skin is salvaged is destroyed in the process, including any applied upgrades.

3. Can withdraw this skin in the usual way the zenith skins (and radiant/flame) work, with the same restrictions.

4. Does not work on legendary items or precursors.

5. All extracted skins withdrawn and applied on new items automatically become accountbound and unavailable to sell on the TP.

Some concerns:
- unsure whether it should work on ascended (particularly backpieces).
- maybe there should be a limit to having only one or two copies of the same skin withdrawn and in use at any time, so as not to abuse for unique exotics – ie the anomaly, etc.

With power you can also deal decent damage to structures – one of the main reasons I don’t like condition builds anymore.

Doesn’t take too long to get gear you want – in fact you can also gain silver with zero loss in hotjoin pvp (15 per win, 10 per loss? I can’t check at the moment).

By the time you hit 80 you should have enough karma for temple exotics (make sure to do dailies/monthlies for karma and use karma boosters whenever you can) – armour and trinkets.
Fill in the gaps with gold – if necessary run around some world bosses or the champ trains (not excessively, just as a top up – say a handful of world bosses a day using a timer, and maybe a few train loops). Salvage/sell as much as possible on the TP – empty all your mats collection and sell those too.

I’d say you can do it within a couple of weeks – few hours here and there. Maybe even less. Get cheap runes like centaur if really tight on gold.

Expanded weapon skill system, as you described in the OP. More choices of #1 to #5 skills.

Thief – staff (combat, not magic)

Mesmer – land based spear (mh pistol is a given, and I don’t use the offhand much anyway).

Almost complete. Trying different dyes in place of starry night. Most likely going with indigo/royal purple.

They’re just perfect. More floppyness indeed!

I only have one criticism and that’s with +movement speed effects (runes/swiftness) and animation/footstep noises. Underwater is particularly funny – their legs go faster than a propeller on a power boat.

Almost complete!

Need a good purple/blue version of starry night – thinking maybe royal purple.

They betrayed the law…

Razamatazz.9628:

Curunen.8729:

Razamatazz.9628:

Go play sPvP if you want perfect balance.
<snip>

And be forced into a point capture game mode.

WvW offers more enjoyable pvp than PvP itself. I would love normalised stats in an open world pvp environment.

Whoa, kind of cut out a lot of what I had to say there, including the part where I said I understand your point.

The issue with your statement of “I would love normalised stats in an open world PvP environment” is that it swings both ways. I would not like it, for the reasons I stated before. The thing is, if they were to normalize stats you would have two game modes that offer your preferred style of play (from a stat standpoint) while I had none. As it stands now we each have one, though sadly I will agree with you that sPvP isn’t nearly as enjoyable as WvW, and I do empathise with you guys on that.

I would say the gap isn’t really too big between just a short amount of time put in and a large amount of time (at this point at least, I do agree with Juno that we don’t want a huge gap) to be completely impossible to overcome via skill, which is all people who want normalized stats are seeking, skill to be the determining factor, not gear/stats. That is my personal opinion/experience though.

Ah, my apologies – I didn’t mean it to come across so bluntly!

The problem is the normalised gear in pvp allows swapping builds as much as you want with no cost, unlike wvw where every piece of gear costs something – which for the average player takes time to acquire.

I’m lucky because I tend to play very few builds and only one class – often simply adjusting my main build whenever I feel like a change, so I can afford instant regearing when I want it.

I hope EotM is the start of more pvp game modes – would love a medium size map using pvp gear with unique objectives, or even simply a team ffa.

Razamatazz.9628:

Go play sPvP if you want perfect balance.
<snip>

And be forced into a point capture game mode.

WvW offers more enjoyable pvp than PvP itself. I would love normalised stats in an open world pvp environment.

Are you going to use it right now? If yes, I’d say go for it.

Depends on their level of tankiness.

Usually have no problem avoiding their attacks, unless they have a couple of friends to also keep an eye on. As for killing them, well I like to sit in staff and kite, while letting the auto attack (with elasticity) gradually wear down the hp – depending on the rate of hp loss I’ll jump in for a quick shatter burst at an appropriate moment after they’ve burnt a crucial skill or something.

Osicat.4139:

<snip>

The ultimate tPvP build atm is a tree who root it to the ground, deal no dmg, apply cc and don’t take dmg. Wery boring pvp meta, Ty god for wvwvw

/osicat

lol, I can just picture a sylvari bunker build taking root on point and sitting there for the entire match.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Curunen.8729:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Curunen.8729:

Either way, we’ll see what happens when the patch hits – I’m not going to hold it against them.

I’m sure someone in there has a good overview/vision in mind for the mesmer.

They’ve never displayed it. Not once. So whoever this guy is he needs to open his mouth and get involved with the rest of the development team.

Fortunately I didn’t watch the video, so I’m blissfully ignorant about the way they handled it. I’m hoping by being positive it might encourage any of the devs who care about thus class to step up and make the changes needed.

Ironically it was overwhelming negativity that made them have a change of mind.

Yeah, sad but true.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

Hello.

If ArenaNet added a new race, say the tengu, would you be dissapointed if the female model and the made model looked exactly the same, had exactly same animations and only wear male armour, just like charr and asura?

I’m asking this because I’m surprised that people don’t seem to mind that charr and asura share the same model for both genders.

I’m surprised that people do mind – I think it’s fantastic that charr and asura share armour and have similar male/female models, instead of the usual fantasy nonsense.

I hope the tengu follow in a similar fashion.

Belzebu.3912:

I actually HOPE that Tengus share the same models for both genders, besides small characteristics just like Charr.

Agreed. 100%

Well, I almost always open with trident #5 in underwater combat (followed by 4, dodge, 2), so will be nice to deal a decent opening spike in this case.