Guild Wars 2

Yes I want to see it.

However I do not under any circumstances want to see it locked in to particular activities such as fractals – instead it needs to be obtainable through a variety of methods (perhaps mini quests?) and of course be accountbound on acquire so it cannot be sold/bought off the TP

Pretty much same traits, although the pvp amulet choices (wish they’d add more variety) and lack of condition removal food causes me to make a few tweaks.

I prefer to have a static trait setup, switching major traits and weapons where necessary.

Definitely keep the knockback on iWave – that’s the best part of the skill.
If anything, iWave should either have a slightly lower base cooldown (25seconds?) or deal more damage on impact.

I would prefer Mind Stab be made into a defensive ability for the GS, giving it some versatility.
What I would suggest is:
- Increase the cast time to 2s
- Rooted for final part of the cast when thrusting the sword into the ground (first half, sword is lifted into the air with blade pointing downward and you can move, blocking an attack).
- Blocks one attack while casting.
- As soon as an attack is blocked, mind stab triggers at the target who attacked you, like Counter Spell or iRiposte, stripping a boon as usual.
- If no block, then it remains ground targeted at your cursor location.

- Backwards dodge (asura) + phase retreat.
- Forwards dodge
- Plain jump
- Stand near to it for a minute before slowly walking through (although the loading screen instantly pops up when you touch it…)

GS 3 is a possibility, although there is another option to improve it without making it a blast finisher (make it similar to iRiposte of OH sword instead).

The problem is mesmers have so much access to ethereal combo fields, that any blast finishers can destabilise the power balance.
Torch 4 is easy to combo with chaos storm anyway.

I’m of the opinion not to spend money on gear at all until you hit 80 – just use what you loot from exploring.

Greatsword is pretty good in pve levelling – fairly relaxed and you can stay at range and doesn’t require much of the finesse of MH sword.

Grab decoy and blink asap – useful to avoid things you can’t be bothered to fight.
Explore maps for xp as much as possible and don’t be worried about running away from things if necessary.

More #1-5 skills per weapon, more utilities and elites.

Perhaps expanded/diverging trait lines and more trait points?

Woodland Cascades zones.

Built in crosshair toggle.

Hebee.8460:

I typically do not play anything human. The more non-human, the more likely I’ll play it
<snip> I look at a male human in the mirror everyday.

Inverted.7439:

I will NOT play human….

<snip>

Agreed – you already are one and you see them every day in RL.
I never play human in any rpg that has non-human races.

Besides, human/norn are so incredibly cliche in this setting: “When I grow up, I want to be a hero!”… vomit :p

- I will not play a male charr, because they’re cats with horns (I do love them as npcs though).
- Despite loving them as npcs, I will not play a sylvari because they look too human.
- I will not play a ranger because of the pet and cheesiness.
- I will not play a necro because all the abilities are pretty nasty by description.

There, that’s all my subjective prejudices!

Jericho.4521:

I really wanted to love the GS, I like the weapon both in skills and aesthetics. However, I stopped using it actually because of thieves.

It’s just really hard to stop a good thief with a GS. They’ll close the gap instantly and then you’re blowing long CD’s just to stay alive it seems. You have the knockback on number 5, but once that’s gone it’s really hard to kite them or protect yourself unlike staff.

It’s a shame because it has such fast clone generation, and the berserker can hit like a truck when it actually works. It’s just that the staff is so awesome at holding off any sort of melee class and is just too flexible for me to give up.

Yeah I agree. No matter how fun the GS is to use – and I find it a lot of fun – it just cannot compare defensively with the staff in cqc.
I prefer not to use it outside of pve tbh.

Seras.5702:

I can never find em. Granted, I’m not actively looking. But nothing ever sticks out to me that it’s the beginning to a JP. Only ones I’ve ever stumbled upon were Morgan’s Leap, Vizier’s Tower (cuz there’s a vista up there), and Urmaug’s Secret (cuz it’s next to a vista).

Some of them are horribly difficult to find without a guide – like Scavenger’s chasm or Troll’s End (I would have never noticed these by myself).

Hmm, which post should I quote that saves me time typing… ;D

(In short, No).

Do you mean GS?

MH sword only has auto attack and BF as melee.
iWave on GS, mirror blade and even mind stab almost feel like melee.

But mesmer’s not about extensive “in your face” melee like a warrior – dance around, leap in for a quick melee and leap out again.

OH sword has a block too.

Yep, good idea, would certainly enhance trading.

Male norn necro.

I wonder how many people play that combo?

I thought he said “I’ve beaten you”, not “I’m defeated”.

Male asura PC is excellently voiced – one of the best in the game (I’m serious).

Optional checkbox of course, for those of us using fast-cast ground targeting.

Idea is to have a small number to the side of the cursor indicating the distance from the player the cursor is currently positioned at. Players will know the max range of their ground targeted skills, allowing for accurate placement (similar to green/red circles on normal ground targeting).

Not visible when holding right-click.

Distance given as in game units, so numbers from 0 up to 1500 or whatever the furthest ground targeted skill is (I don’t play all classes so not sure if it is 1200 or 1500 or something else).

When the cursor is out of range of any skill, no number is shown.

Reason for this suggestion: yes with practice you can easily guess what is out of range for a particular skill. However when close to the boundary it is easy to overstep and that mistake can be costly.

A further enhancement to this, which may or may not be possible is for the game to detect what ground targeted skills the character is using, and using the max range for those skills colour code the cursor for each boundary – 600, 900, 1200… whatever the boundaries may be.
And if the player is not using any ground targeted skills, it automatically disables this feature.

Southsun Cove jp near the portal has to be the easiest in the game.

Dawdler.8521:

Skirts skirts and more skirts. Will light ever get pants? I mean that doesnt cost gem and look like something a cheap stripper would wear?

Yeah I’d like to see more light trousers.

AC trousers are too plain, and I don’t like the back flap on the student’s or country pants.

All that’s left are really the light Vigil leggins, although horrible clipping issues with weapons on asura…

Ryuujin.8236:

Huh, I consider myself relatively casual yet some of the folks here calling themselves hardcore make me look like a crazy person xD

- Love taking classes and builds to their logical extreme, taking them beyond simple theorycraft and maximising their effectiveness within my playstyle.
- In a similar vein I like sticking to a couple classes I really enjoy and utterly mastering them.
- Over 1,300 hours played.
- Have the gifts and gold, but not actually interested in any of the extant legendaries
- Fractal level 38

I just consider myself fairly casual because I’m always game to party with non veterans to show them the ropes, havn’t bothered to sit down and complete dungeon master (Though I am most the way there by accident) and don’t actively grind stuff for gold.

Having “mostly exotic” isn’t hardcore that’s undergearred in my books xD

Heh, similar here.

I consider myself casual, although I tend to commit to one game at a time for months on end – GW2 is pretty much the only ongoing thing I play atm, apart from the odd singleplayer title that comes along with good story (ie bioshock infinite).

I’m a “main character” kind of person – don’t really care for alts due to the extra time, and also I like to perfect one class/role/build.

I don’t play a lot in terms of quantity/number of hours, but I do like to play well.

So you could say I’m sort of a “focused casual” – play one thing, play it well.
Same motto for RL tbh.

Target nearest → run/dodge past → phase retreat, coupled with the odd blink. Or if no mobs, about turn and phase retreat? Fully traited on both of course.

I’m not much of a dungeon player – not my cup of tea, but surely you can cover distance pretty fast that way without TC.

^Nice, that’s a crazy amount of protection.

I’m running something pretty similar in stats, and it struck me as interesting how with a few small changes (traited blink instead of SoI, different gear/runes/sigils, 25 duelling and 10 inspiration – I, IV or VI) you can end up with a very different style of play.

None of them apply to phantasms unfortunately.

Confusing combatans should, by the description, but it only applies to clones as well.

Zoser.7245:

Perhaps that’s the problem with the iMage. We are talking about the phantasm not the weapon itself, torch have it’s utility, about all if traited. But iMage, even in a specialized confusion build, isn’t enough good to reach other phantasms which works well in almost any type of build. In a not confusion build seems weak. And phantasms should be widely used as one of our strongest/best attacks.

After confusion nerf, iMage needs adjustment. Perhaps adding a bit of burn, base damage or something else. Although I’m scared to think about a possible adjustment. Sometimes when they adjust something, ends worse … We still suffer some of these settings, as in the iBerserker or bouncing attacks.

Burning seems like the most logical fix for iMage.

3 stacks of confusion + 3s of burning on enemies; 3s of retaliation on allies AND pulsing 3s of retaliation to nearby allies in a small AoE (5s cooldown between pulses). Numbers of course up for discussion.

Could also inflict 3s of burning in an AoE to nearby enemies?

Thanks!
Condition damage is supplementary on that build, and I can still get decent burst with BF and shatter.

If, and I mean IF the trait redesign at the end of the month moves Cleansing Conflagration down from IX to I-VI (similar to what happened to the sword trait in duelling?), then I would shift 10 points to get it.
But duelling 20 is a must for me, and I like to have one on-death trait for the visual effect (works great with stealth) so spec 25 in that. And inspiration 5 for retaliation on phantasms, plus insp 10 gives me three choices I switch between – IV in pvp for condition removal, VI solo for speed, and I for the feedback bubble in large groups.

So it’s tough for me to move 20 trait points unfortunately, although 24s cooldown prestige (20s if you sit in stealth) would be amazing..

I would prefer it to remain at the end when you break stealth, but there could be an active ability while stealthed that allows you to blast it any time, similar to Swap or Feign.
Edit: Just hit the button twice.

I’ve been trying out a similar build in pvp, although more power instead of condition damage.

The Prestige is amazing – I hadn’t used it since they changed the way it worked, and it’s great now with prismatic understanding. I’m officially a torch convert.

Running:
- 0/25(IV, X)/30(III, X, XII)/10(IV)/5
- Sw/T + staff, with sigils of purity (and battle on torch)
- berserker amulet and valkyrie jewel
- ether feast/blink/decoy/veil/mass invis (sig of insp underwater and whatever else I’m in the mood for).
- melandru runes in pvp for the extra toughness as the amulets provide pitiful toughness, and a little protection against conditions

Yeah I give up cleansing conflagration, but I can’t justify sinking 20 points in domination. If it were 10 points then I’d drop confusing combatants or 10 from inspiration.

Still in process of deciding wvw/pve gear – will be using hoelbrak runes instead of melandru, because plenty of toughness already and lacking power, and mostly knights/cavalier gear, with sigils of battle on both weapons – 30s of might duration on weapon swap with the hoelbrak runes!

It’s great fun in pvp so far – I feel so much safer with the number of escapes compared to my previous build. The only difficulty is rationing your usage of stealth (I say difficulty, so nobody moans about how powerful it is :p)

You know, they could just give a backpiece like the Fervid Censer which causes butterflies to fly around you for the visual effect. I’d like that.

But otherwise the stats are a very fine line – we have so many ways to avoid/block/reflect/absorb/invuln/invis… damage as it is.

On reading the OP again, this would have to be an active ability on a relatively high cooldown.

It could be a trait which gives you 30% chance to proc this armour/aura for 5s or so when hit, with a 10s ICD (just throwing arbitrary numbers out there).

It would look pretty – for that reason alone I’m in favour of it!

I really don’t understand the negativity – as far as I can see the OP is not complaining about stealth at all – these changes not only make sense (surely you should be able to see a stealthed player if you are for example holding a torch and they come within say 100 range?), but they would enhance the gameplay.

Note: I said “stealthed”, not “thief”, referring to any form of stealth through combos or even mesmer.

In order to balance it out, there could for example be more opportunity for chainable stealth – say maybe you could chain 2 stealths in a row before Revealed would kick in (on the 3rd stealth).

I really like the OPs ideas, despite it negatively affecting my build (mesmer stealth) – I can’t counter any of the suggestions in the OP, because they all make perfect sense.

What if the Revealed debuff was completely removed in favour of this? So you could chain together stealth indefinitely, but each class would have some active means of detecting you, with similar suggestions as in the OP?
- water field footsteps
- light revealing you – torch skills/light orbs, etc…
- ranger per “sniffing you out”
and so on…

The only problem I could think of is how challenging this might be to implement.

It would make players actively use skills to try and find stealthed players.

Yeah agreed – there should be at least one Mist variant of every weapon.

Ah I see. Well that makes sense, I can understand why you’d want to have the option of a toggle.

What do you use it for?

Just asking, because I use ctrl for jump (switch positions of caps lock and ctrl on my keyboard), so a toggle would be a hindrance for me. Unless it was an optional checkbox…

I’ve been reading through this thread and it looks like people are putting in a lot of effort to give assistance guidance for your build.

Mesmer is not a class where peak efficiency (in this case dps) can be achieved by simply racking up the numbers.

There are tools – utilities, skills, traits – for every situation which can be used to augment damage (through reflects/boons/conditions…) which can also help with supporting your team. A large part of this class is knowing what to use in each situation, and being flexible with skills/traits.

Yes you can go at it with consistent brute force, although this will be less of a cannon and more of a pistol – ultimately you will perform better (put out bigger numbers) by remaining flexible and adapting to each situation.

I use the “lock autotarget” key for this – funny because the name doesn’t fit the description. With promote skill target and autotargeting on, the only time “lock autotarget” is used is to deselect your current target.

More skills on weapons is a must, even if there are only 2 choices of auto-attack, and a handful of choices for #2 to #5.

Whether it comes sooner in a patch, or later with an expansion we’ll have to wait and see, but I would be very surprised/disappointed if we never see alternative skills for weapons.

^That’s a bit of an exaggeration. Sure some people like to moan a lot, but that’s a minority.

The GS is still a decent, useable weapon, no question about that – but izerker underperforms, mirror blade boon stacking is affected by the bouncing issue, and mind stab while useable is not a great skill.

It’s a tough one to call because in some cases I actually like it when this happens, because I tend to run and dodge towards the opponent, initiate an attack (maybe BG) and it gives me 5 seconds for a free blink/escape/repositioning.

Mirror blade really does suffer with this – poor GS.

At least the staff and trident have plenty of other utility, but the GS is in a sorry state at the moment.

^Interesting thoughts if:
- veil obstructed LOS/targeting for enemies
- enemies that run through it “phase out” of reality for a few seconds, unable to see any of our allies.

I’d like to see the base curtain duration increased to 7s, with 3s base stealth duration, and a cooldown of >60s untraited.

However I do think it should stay as a single curtain, and not several lines.

Rangers are the one thing that scare me underwater.

Otherwise the only major threat is another mesmer (or just a very good player!)

Deceptive evasion + trident clones + elasticity (before the “bug”) is crazy, although recently I tend to favour the spear in combat so each weapon is seeing 50/50 usage, and not just as a mobility weapon.

I like purple, well more violet/deep blue tbh – my favourite colour, although that has nothing to do with me playing a mesmer.

But I love pink too, so I’m happy.

Hehe, well no harm in asking, although plenty of other things with higher priority like iZerker.

Maybe they should just increase the base stealth duration to 3s for a run through?

Yes that is a fair point, in those situations it can be powerful.

In small scale/fast encounters and pvp I find it a little lacking. Ah, maybe it’s fine and I just don’t get how to use it properly.

Is the 90s base cooldown really justified?

It’s a great group stealth ability, but the cooldown seems abnormally high for the duration of its effects.

Seems like it should be something around 60s.

Ah kitten .

Despite playing GW2 since release, I’m somewhat of a newcomer here (having been preoccupied for months with ME3 multiplayer), so I’ve only recently started watching your videos and properly getting into this game.

Your builds and playstyle have been an inspiration – the stealth, toughness and relaxed gameplay, and I look forward to seeing what you manage to achieve with ESO if you decide to get into that. Cheers.

Esplen.3940:

Hot Boy.7138:

dual swords all the way! I use dual swords for everything.

S/S + S/S FTW! WEAPON SWAP? THAT’S JUST FOR SWITCHING FROM RUNES OF FIRE/WATER TO RUNES OF AIR/EARTH!

LOL! If only there was some cooldown benefit for duplicating the weapon set, I might run with quad swords.

Edit:

<snip>
If you wnat to answer this one is fine but, for the looks, what do you think is better. Human, Sylvari or Asura?
Oh and am I crazy if I delete on of my lvl 80 characters? I’m tired of them and because of them I almost leaved the game, and I want to use the name of one of my lvl 80 (I have 2) on my Mesmer

Asura, you know you want to.
But I’m biased, and sylvari/human look cool as well.
Go ahead and delete one if you want to reuse the name – no point in having a slot used up with a character you don’t want to play.

Ah, with this and Seven’s videos now I’m sorely tempted to pick up the torch…

At least it’s one weapon that can (should) only get better with patches (he says…)!