Guild Wars 2

Haha, thanks for the replies

Sadly there are two reasons I can’t easily swap runes – 4are on transmuted karma armour, and those same transmutations are order armour from another character, which more than each rune is worth.

I’m starting to love the town cloth toggle to alter the speed, and I’m also starting to get used to the speed anyway, so maybe it’s just a matter of time. I do sit quite far from my monitor, so will move and see what happens.

Hope they don’t get nerfed – not my intention if this thread to cause that, just unfortunate that there is no easy way to toggle from jogging to sprinting.

The one thing that would fix a lot of the problem is simply having a separate volume slider for footsteps.

I remember now on my asura thief with SoS.

I just switch to town clothing now in towns so it’s less of an annoyance.

If I could just turn the footstep volume down while keeping other effect volume up, that would make it more bearable.

Update with new backpiece.

Still need a couple of hundred AP to get the zenith spire, and maybe some dye changes.

Yeah, it looks kind of comical at the moment.

Asura players with these runes, please tell me you find it ok!

Maybe it’s just me, but am finding asura running animations to be very weird with the permanent speed buff and no way to slow down – it’s too fast if anything, without any variation in speed. Footstep noises are annoying as well – have turned sound effects volume down to compensate.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the speed, but it would be nice to have an option to slow down and sprint when necessary – even walking is weirdly speeded up.

I dunno, having a bit of buyer’s remorse – wish I’d just stuck with centaur – at least you have some control over when you want to run fast and when you want to move slowly (stealthily – no not invis, just moving slowly and sneakily).

Ascended cleric – oh dear!

Ah right – so it’s more of a situational/defensive feature, which makes sense – I imagine the main challenge is working it around phantasm cooldowns.

I still think it would be the missing utility trait for pure shatter/IP builds at the moment, although can understand if it would be best left where it is.

PU – the trait, and only this trait – needs a nerf.

Either:
- remove aegis
- increase boon interval to >2s
- reduce boon duration from stealth

That’s about it.

RedCobra.7693:

with the build im currently using, (power PU mantra) i can beat perplexity mesmers in duels thanks to the menders purity and high health per second heals through restorative mantras :P

But that means 20 in inspiration!

Ah, too many traits, not enough points!

Can’t remember exactly, but to clarify, doesn’t mirror blade do nothing when echoed?

Also IIRC echoed wind of chaos only gives you the boon?

Ah, would so love to use mimic however I have to take mantra of resolve because of all of this condition BS flying around. Definitely one of my favourite skills, both feature wise and the animation too – just looks awesome.

Spotting the real mesmer is one thing – getting your fingers to press the right buttons to reselct them as a target is the harder skill IMO.
Edit: As Qaelyn said, with practice you’ll just know which one is real – also if you know some skills then it makes it easier – for example if they’ve just used phase retreat, you know that they will be the target directly behind the clone (unless dodge/phase retreat combo).

Nearest target, next (and maybe previous) target and call target all need to be easily accessible so that you can retarget and highlight them in the space of a couple of seconds.

Alternatively you can also use the cursor to select them, as long as there is enough clearance between them and their illusions, and you are not under any immediate pressure.

RedCobra.7693:

Curunen.8729:

MI is also fantastic at preventing a stomp and rezzing an ally.

unless working in Voice chat, the player will 99% of the time just keep attacking and waste the stealth, i dont bother wasting it any more

True, there are times when I kick myself for wasting 2 or 3 cooldowns including MI to rez someone and they throw it back in your face by continuing to attack. :/

Although I’ve had a fair amount of success with players stopping their attack once stealthed so in general I still try to help.

Of course a lot easier if you can slap down a chaos storm, use chaos armour, and or diversion with IP.

MI is also fantastic at preventing a stomp and rezzing an ally.

Condition necros mainly. Going up against good ones is very tricky if you don’t put them on the back foot immediately – that or kite like a sheepdog.

Condition anything for that matter…
Maybe it’s a pet peeve of mine, but in general my arch enemies are not thieves or bunkers, not builds that can run for all eternity or regen like freaks of nature… No, I detest condition builds and will do everything in my capacity to survive against and/or destroy them!

It’s a sad fact I have joined the dark side of traveler runes for roaming (yes I feel dirty), because I love to laugh in their faces with full -condition duration runes+food – at least until the ticks all add up and I need to keep on kiting.

;)

Ansau.7326:

Just a note, this trait is bugged with IP, so activating a shatter without any illusions won’t clean any condition.

The trait is placed in the right line. But there’s no other good enough trait from that line to become GrandMaster. In fact, since it’s buff, Shattered Conditions is the best trait from Inspirations.

I think Inspirations is the least messy line of mesmer. Only Malicious Sorcery is bad situated. The rest? All are related with buffing phantasms, glamours and aoe support traits.

Oh? That’s a shame, although in the current state it doesn’t matter fortunately.

Inspiration is a great trait line – adept and master majors have some of the most useful choices. I just find both XI and XII don’t fit very well with the tree, given the point investment. At least vigorous revelation only requires 10 points, although I don’t know many builds which use this.

Great guide.

I don’t like to play competitive pvp, whether solo or team, because I don’t enjoy the point capture game mode – prefer to just play for fun in spvp and test builds – but all of this information still applies in spvp as well.

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

I personally like the trait (ik im insane right?) for hybrid shatter phantasm builds. Of course this wouldn’t be a solo roaming build since PU right now is the meta but in a group It saves my life quite a bit <3. Also, who said you needed 30 points in the illusions tree to shatter? I can see why in spvp since the damage is lower but in wvw my shatters still hit hard without IP.

How does it work? Do you let the phantasms do their stuff for a bit, and then shatter when you get loaded with conditions?

Yeah, can definitely do it without IP, but moving it would throw full shatter players a bone and spread out player builds.

Even though many players are using full ascended, I’d wager the majority don’t yet have ascended gear (or even intend to, for that matter).

Personally would just focus on finishing trinkets and stick with exotic armour. If you’ve got the resources, then maybe ascended weapons – but you need to be 100% sure about the stats you want.

I’m sticking with exotic armour+weapons until we get some kind of stat change feature for ascended gear, either free in game or as a gemstore item – going to assume the latter as they won’t want to outdo legendaries.

Yeah – no shatter build is going to have enough points left over to go 30 inspiration, and I’m not aware of any bunker shatter builds – most bunkers would be phantasm or condition oriented, so both inspiration XI and XII seem very odd.

I think moving it to illusion master would give an excellent alternative for shatter builds seeing as their big weakness is usually condition removal, and the AoE will be decent in support.

I love your charr’s outfit.

Great video, nice to see some shatter play!

Why is it in inspiration, and why a grandmaster major?

Maybe I’m missing something, but this seems to be the most misplaced trait in our entire set – in a tree where every minor revolves around buffing phantasms, why are both grandmaster major traits shatter based for that matter?

Should it be moved? If so, where?

Personally I think it should be in illusions, master major – knock illusionary elasticity down to adept major and replace something there – most likely 10% on mind wrack, which could be moved to duelling – replace desperate decoy or something. Would certainly help shatter builds with all the conditions flying around, and would have some meaningful choice between illusionary invigoration or shattered conditions.

Nearly always MI in any game mode, whether playing PU or not.

TW if doing some pve farming.

Kitten, I forgot about generosity/purity.

If they make the cooldown lower (maybe 5seconds?), or maybe 2 conditions on critical then I may stack up on those instead.

Iavra.8510:

Unless they nerf Energy too much it will be Energy + Accuracy on both sets. Same as now, but i will be able to put both on my GS now.

If i manage to stack 60% critchance without Accuracy, it will be Energy + Battle or Doom (to handle bunker builds), most likely.

This pretty much.

If enough accuracy then I’ll either run fire, force, battle or doom as the second, unless some unknown sigil gets a massive buff.

Fenrir.3609:

Mimizu.7340:

You and Azure Prower should get together and form a club.

The condi/bunker and general PVT facetank meta dominant in WvW and spvp does clearly need resolving.

Yeah it needs to change – quite fed up with the current condition/toughness meta in pvp and wvw.

shimmerless.4560:

Curunen.8729:

I think the DE change is good – from what I understand, it shouldn’t affect shatter at all – will still be able to do diversion/MW bursts with 6 illusions out.

I’m happy it’s making on-death builds require more planning and active clone generation from weapons – but as stated earlier, hopefully the scepter’s auto attack is modified to support this.

What I’m concerned about is not seeing any mention of PU in there – hope they tone it down (and this is coming from a PU user) because build variety at the moment is pretty low.

Also concerned about our direct damage being too weak for the current state of the game – high toughness, condition meta – personally believe mind wrack and blurred frenzy both need a damage buff.

I’m fed up with losing direct damage for other little bits and pieces – for example scepter counter losing damage for torment, and sword auto losing damage for boon strip. Need MH pistol now, with heavy direct damage and possibly mobility!

This proposed change affects shatters quite badly, the specific ways are nuanced but they are there and they will have a tremendous impact on the spec’s performance in the future.

It’s a terrible and misguided change, and I really hope it doesn’t go through.

Critical infusion I can understand because less dodging = less clones for shatter. However if I understood the weapon sigil fixes correctly then we should be able to use sigil of energy on everything without affecting the cooldown of the second sigil.

With DE it seems my initial statement is wrong – so from what I understand now we won’t be able to do shatter combos using DE with >3 illusions out at once?

Edit: Ah, lightbulb moment – now I get it, with clone placement, positioning and targeting. Yeah, that sucks.

What are your first two characters?

How about a lightning hammer ele, maybe the tiniest asura you could make?

Stievie.6128:

LumAnth.5124:

Stievie.6128:

Blackhat.4016:

There might be some buffs coming since they only announced the big changes, not all of them.

The nerfs are questionable but I don’t think they will destroy the Mesmer like some people do. You will still be able to use the same builds and some of them will be weaker.

Giving Mesmers more ooc mobility would be nice (although that’s a big change which would have been announced). Your idea seems to be too strong though. 25% speed boost + a random boon is better than any other speed boost signet in the game.

you wont spawn any illusions from DE anymore if you shatter from range for example, allready shattered illusions count towards the new DE cap. so yeah shatter mesmer is dead basicly unless we get a big effin buff somewhere else

Proof? I was hoping this wouldn’t happen….

Good bye Bolt!

i got it from an insider, but out of respect i wont reveal his name.
the source is legit , I can say that much.

And this will be the sad truth

Seriously? :o

Kitten, I hoped that was not the case!

Adrianna.3092:

i think mesmers need to be nerfed even further… and phantasms and stealth removed from the class… because mesmer is still too OP in 1 vs 1.. and thats how they balance the game right? so yay more nerfs.. bring it on! i want everyone to quit mesmer so i can be the only mesmer left in GW 2!!!

Don’t forget to put portal on a 240s cooldown, spatial surge a reflectable projectile, oh and remove phase retreat.

;)

Maybe in 5 years or so.

:p

I think the DE change is good – from what I understand, it shouldn’t affect shatter at all – will still be able to do diversion/MW bursts with 6 illusions out.

I’m happy it’s making on-death builds require more planning and active clone generation from weapons – but as stated earlier, hopefully the scepter’s auto attack is modified to support this.

What I’m concerned about is not seeing any mention of PU in there – hope they tone it down (and this is coming from a PU user) because build variety at the moment is pretty low.

Also concerned about our direct damage being too weak for the current state of the game – high toughness, condition meta – personally believe mind wrack and blurred frenzy both need a damage buff.

I’m fed up with losing direct damage for other little bits and pieces – for example scepter counter losing damage for torment, and sword auto losing damage for boon strip. Need MH pistol now, with heavy direct damage and possibly mobility!

cyyrix.6105:

The nerf won’t be too big of a deal if they increase the speed of the scepter auto attack chain, which everyone has been suggesting for the last few months. Trading passive clone generation for more active clone generation seems fair. We’ll see.

Would be great if they followed it up with faster sceptre AA. Probably more fun to play then.

Hmm, I didn’t see the DE change.

But I noticed the critical infusion cooldown increased to 10s? And also sigils will work together and two sigils on two handed weapons, so… sigil of energy on everything?

Dawdler.8521:

I fear really good players :/
<snip>

Heh, this.

I just ran into the tankiest kitten hambow warrior in our borderlands.

Was running the sw/t sc/f build below – I think even if I’d had say the daze mantra or AT to strip some boons I doubt I’d have got him down to below 50% let alone to 0.

Turned out a stand off – he could barely land much damage on me either. Kept trying to give signals to quit and go separate ways but took a while for him to get the message. shrug

Yeah, seriously amazing play, and great commentary.

Love the scepter counter block!

Orpheal.8263:

Once we receive legendary Back Items, those 2 back items should be upgradeable via mystic forge or by crafting to turn them that way into their legendary versions imo with better more epic effects.

The Light of Dwayna as legendary version for example could have then some slightly bigger and more epic animated transcendent wings that have a bit more of angel wings and the legendary version could give the character a better glimmering paerticle effect when moving around together with changing the blessed finisher move into a move epic version, if you are wearing the Light of Dwayna, when performing a finishing move with the blessed finishing move that lets angel wings appear, which could be more shiny and a kind of Halo could alos appear then and explode into a big glimmering ring above you, once the finishing move animation is about to disappear again..

I think all ascendent back items should be able to get upgraded into legendary versions.
Think of all the different quivers, which could turn as legendary versions into a multitude of many new realyl required epic quiver skins…. would be so fabulous to see that happening.

While I agree with a alot of that, especially upgrading them if legendary gear extends to back items as well, I would not like to see any excessive animation on the light of dwayna.

I hate those constantly moving, flapping backpieces such as the dragon wings – one thing I love about this backpiece is that it is largely static, but the feathers still get caught on the breeze when your character is running.

At the moment I’ve resigned myself to slotting signet of inspiration, or swapping to focus for a bit of swiftness if needed. That with blink + phase retreat + stealth.

Absolutely dislike the stats on traveler runes. Speed similarly although considering building a separate armour set with them for backup (shame swapping armour has to be done one piece at a time).
Never particularly fond of centaur/air to use heal for running.

I’ve got a funny feeling there may be new ways to access faster speed in the future – new utilities (or modified SoI), and possibly ascended infusions – I think infusions may be expanded (whether a bad or a good thing) to include new possibilities.

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).

Fasyx.9347:

Godmoney.2048:

Mesmer needs a buff like a fish needs a bicycle.

This!

I don´t main a lvl. 80 mesmer, but I know the basics of the class. I play an ele(when there is a class which needs buff, it´s elementalist after we got nerfed to the ground) and everytime I encounter a mesmer it´s gonna be tough. Especially the shatter builds will bring my ele down to 10% of life within two seconds [F1](it´s crazy). F1 has a 10 sec cooldown…eles defensive skills have 75 sec(mist form), 40 sec(teleport), 90 sec(armor of earth).

Mesmers are in a good, no, very good position right now.

Yeah I kind of feel sorry for eles at the moment – got to put in 10x the effort to hold your own in a fight (from my very limited experience as one).

Adrianna.3092:

spacebar? i use shift… what do you use for jumping then?

On my keyboard I can swap caps lock and left ctrl positions – for jumping I use left ctrl in the caps lock position (so just left of A).

Always used caps lock to jump in games – stems from an old habit when I used to use arrow keys and right shift to jump, right ctrl to crouch.

I always use spacebar for sprinting/dodging in any game, so it comes naturally in that position.

Shift is left free as a modifier key here – too useful for the numerous keybinds. Usually I would use left shift for crouch.

Double tap? Yuck, no way, never!

Dodge on spacebar – feels more like an action game.

Or a puzzle that restructures itself regularly? Paths change and so on?

Less jumping, more maze, but much bigger than any already in game.

VIVorcha.7853:

1. Largo (as long as they sound like the Quarians from Mass Effect. I can’t be the only person who thought Sayeh reminded them of Tali)

<snip>

Renegade Tali with a very big shotgun. :p

Don’t forget blurred frenzy could be used defensively at any range – 2s invuln on a ridiculously low cooldown.

The only way I can think of to come to some sort of compromise with what you want is to make the invuln/evade contextual, similar to what they did with ride the lightning.
- if BF does not hit any enemy you only evade as it is now.
- evade becomes invulnerability if you hit something with one of the strikes.

That would encourage using in melee range, while not making it god mode at all ranges.

Personally would take Bifrost – but then I think Rodgort is ugly (Zenith Flame > Rodgort) and Eternity way too flashy.

However if Rodgort suits your dark theme better, then by all means go for it!

GreenLentil.3927:

What Pyro said. The mesmer main mechanic revolves around shattering and illusions, and then there are secondary things (manipulations, mantras, signets even) but these are mechanics. I believe a build is more of the purpose with which one uses these mechanics, not the mechanic itself.

Sums it up nicely.

I would love open world duelling in pve.

Perhaps players could be put “our of phase”, but still very much visible to onlookers in the area – with a cloudy effect similar to a mesmer phantasm. So a visible instance for the duel.
Players in a duel have no ability to affect anything or any player outside of the duel.
All players should have the option to enable/disable themselves from being open to duel requests.
Onlookers can have the option in a menu to enable or disable the ability to see those players in a duel, if they want to avoid clutter on the screen.
So anyone who doesn’t care for this feature could just disable both of the above and neither allow duel requests or see any players in a duel.
Some locations could be off limits – such as LA traders forum. Duel free zones.

Would be nice to have open world 2v2 as well, providing all players accepr.

Yes I agree with the thread title, despite the ascended gear “grind”. It’s still very fun to play.

If there was no dodge I probably wouldn’t be playing. I don’t like traditional mmo combat mechanics – the main attraction of gw2 is the more action tps style combat, although with an archaic targeting system.

Having said that, pvp combat is fun whereas I find pve combat a boring waste of time – no satisfaction, the only fun comes in the loot gained from a pve mob. So yes, giving pve mobs an ability to dodge would be fun for me.