Guild Wars 2

^Yeah, something like that.

You wouldn’t be able to down your ally with one stack, more like tickle them. But add in vulnerability and max stacks then you’d have to be careful (particularly with AoE skills).

More importantly would be the added distraction of not knowing who your enemy is, even for a few seconds. It should cap at maybe 5 allies (to appear as enemies), with maybe one additional ally every 5 stacks.

But if we had 2 elites, one as I listed above in a post (illusion of peace), and a second – say illusion of chaos, which made all allies in the AoE appear as enemies (no cap), with some additional effects – grant all allies and enemies (yes, even you who cast it!) 3 stacks of might and 3 stacks of vulnerability – this would be pretty funny to watch.

“Made by Zojja… genius.” – a fantastic line from Mr Sparkles; I love the the intonation.

bobross.5034:

so wait, confusion is on me, and all of a sudden, I can attack my allies-but they still can’t attack me? Can’t imagine that being exploited in WvW…

You wouldn’t be able to damage them more than a few % of your attack damage per stack (we’re talking slightly more damage than clones do for one stack). What it would mean is wasting cooldowns and time by focusing on the wrong target – more distractions if you like.

Group condition removal would be akin to throwing a bucket of water on the player’s face saying “wake up, we’re your allies!”.

I just feel it would offer a lot more than a simply a basic form of indirect damage which is what it is now.

Oh I have no problem with the damage – my first pvp spec was a full sc/t glamour confusion back on launch and I never ran it in pve/wvw, so I’m used to the lower damage anyway.

I’m just wondering if it could explore another dimension and really mess with players’ minds.

Imagine an elite: “Illusion of peace” – time warp like AoE which
- makes all names/health bars turn blue/green
- grants aegis to all players (or protection/regeneration?)
- duration – at least 6s or so?
Of course the main worry would be of players just outside the AoE, but maybe somehow all affected players appear as allies not only to each other, but to their entire team/faction?
Would need some refining of course, as I’m not sure how useful it could be other than for reviving and granting a brief respite from combat (allowing players to heal up, etc). Could be overpowered.

… made it difficult to tell friend from foe?

For example, what if all names and health bars turned red for a player under confusion, so they don’t know who is the real enemy?

What if a confused player ran the risk of doing damage to their allies, not just themselves? Say 4% damage per stack of confusion?
It could be chance based, on attack.

What if this effect scaled up with the number of stacks of confusion? For each stack => one additional friend “becomes” a foe.

What if mesmers gained a different unique condition/ability, opposite to the above that made all enemies appear as allies, and all attacks do reduced/no damage? What if this could be an AoE that affects enemy and ally alike, so in effect no one can harm each other for the duration (or do reduced damage per stack)?
Edit 2: I’d use that as an elite.

Overpowered? What do you think?
(Edit: most relevant analogy are the pacify/frenzy skills from skyrim)

Yeah it’s a shame. At least the first third of the personal story is good for some races such as the asura.

The rest is just one big cliche, but to be fair it is reasonably well executed (depending on which choices/decisions you take – eg, some Vigil quests had me cringing a lot compared to the Priory, which I thought was pretty good).

Open on any EU?

Yeah I agree.

I do like the idea of clones moving around, and would certainly make for more interesting playstyles than just being pure damage fodder (shattering, conditions or whatever). Simple circle strafing, or even more random movement patterns – they key is they should all stand still when the mesmer stops moving.

Dodging I’m not too sure though, I think that should be unique to the player – for me it wouldn’t be visually appealing to see 3 clones all flipping at the same time as my character does, and add to that the whining that would come from every other class.

Bloodgruve.6038:

Stop using your keyboards, game as our great 8 bit forefathers intended, D-Pads!
<snip>

I wouldn’t give up my Noppoo choc mini for any game pad.

Definitely needs to be some way of making emotes more easily accessible. I’m in support of this.

For any new player it must be a pain having to look up and type words every time.

Yes, it is one downside to the mesmer.

You can get speed increases from:
- runes (ie, centaur, air…), which give you swiftness on heal
- focus #4
- signet of inspiration (RNG swiftness)
- staff #5 (RNG swiftness, short duration)
- inspiration major trait – compounding celerity

I might have missed something, but those are the most common ways of moving faster.

kylia.4813:

One of your Mesmerized Caster’s Setups:

Ok that looks amazing. :o

And interesting movement keys OP, I’ve never really thought of having forward/left/right all on the same row.

Anyway, pretty simple for me although I am using the combat mod so have weapon skills bound to the mouse buttons. I believe this is a very compact setup which makes it easy to access skills and remain mobile.

WASD – forward, strafe left, back, strafe right.
Q – heal
E – mind wrack

F – Toggle combat mod on/off (a minor annoyance is having to type capital “F” in chat all the time)
R – Autorun

Leftclick – skill #1
Rightclick – skill #2
Shift + leftclick – skill 3
Shift + rightclick – skill #4
Front thumb button – skill #5
Back thumb button – lock target
Middle mouse button AND scroll down – swap weapon
Scroll up – dodge (underwater)
Shift + scroll up – zoom in
Shift + scroll down – zoom out

Shift + E – utility #1
Shift + R – utility #2
Shift + front thumb button – utility #3
Shift + F – elite

1 – CoF
2 – Map
3 – Diversion
4 – Distortion

Spacebar – dodge (land), swim up (underwater)
Shift + spacebar – swim down
Left ctrl – jump (in caps lock position, so just next to A)
Tab – use
Z – stow weapon

One thing I’m not happy with yet is dodging underwater. Shift + spacebar and spacebar is very natural for swim up/down, but it messes up my dodge key, so I have to use the mousewheel.

All the time now.

It pains me to not have temporal curtain, but GS is hands down my favourite weapon and staff is so useful for defensive play that it’s sort of a necessity for me (especially because you can buff both weapons and the trident with illusionary elasticity). Sw/F only comes out in wvw, situationally.

As such I’m currently testing 10/25/10/5/20 with these two weapons (all on death traits, bouncing and damage). Think I can make it viable, although still in the experimentation stage.

Parlourbeatflex.5970:

I know its a age old suggestion now, even to where anet have actually said its something they consider, but wont confirm/deny it… But id seriously love to see an extra set or two of weapon skills in the future.
Im talking utility skill style choice with your weapon set. Im very happy at the current max amount available while fighting, but i feel anet could easily add depth to the system and give the players more choice within their own build.
Could increase the feeling of team synergy aswell with min/max building aswell… Having a few players pick full dps skills where a full time supports would have a set of 5 support abilities.
Would cull a hell of alot of complaints in my opinion.

Agreed.

I think they should be split in groups, so:
Skill #1 (auto) – a choice of two different auto attacks
Skills #2 and #3 – 2 additional options (so 4 skills you can mix and match)
Skills #4 and #5 – 2 additional options (longer cooldowns, choice of 2 out of 4 skills).

At least that would be a start, and allow grouping/splitting skills for MH/OH weapons sets as well as two handed sets.

Engineer is the most complex, without a doubt. Not only are there a lot of skills, they require a good deal of knowledge, both of that class and other classes to be used effectively.

Ele isn’t complex at all – just because it has a lot of skills available doesn’t make it complex – you can literally mash any buttons you like in pve. In pvp/wvw you need to pick and choose abilities and watch attunement cooldowns, sure. But it isn’t a difficult class to figure out. Mesmer is harder (and more rewarding/fun) than ele.

It’s one step closer to action rpg where you want to use the right skill/ability/power at the right time, and where movement/positioning/timing are everything.

So much better this way – in fact they could have pushed it even more… (better camera, crosshairs and targeting).

Can’t wait for Tengu tbh; got a character all planned and ready to go as soon as they are available.

Beau ter Ham.3709:

The current light armor resembles heavy armor, which is why I like it

What armour is that?

Order change – YES (can be done as quests)
Class change – YES (gem store item or whatever)
Race change… that is the only bit of customisation I think should not be possible directly.

As an alternative, how about importing your level 80 character into a “new game plus” (second playthrough), like many singleplayer rpgs have now?

On import you keep:
- gear (will be unequipped)
- skillpoints gained (will all be refunded)
- level gained (and all trait points refunded)
- map exploration
- any currencies

You get to change:
- race
- class
- name
- looks

You should need to buy manuals to unlock trait tiers again, especially if changing class.

Oooh, now this is nice!

I would post mine but I’m still working up an alt to get Vigil light armour for her (my favourite looking light armour, apart from the headpiece) to transmute across.

Seriously, asura in Vigil light armour looks boss.

One thing I find really useful is swim up/down to spacebar/shift+spacebar (underwater dodge is on mousewheel up and land dodge is on spacebar). Makes navigating underwater easy.

Land jump I use left ctrl in the place of caps lock (keyboard allows switching position of those two keys).

Autorun on R is nice and easy to hit when necessary.

Skills definitely need improvement underwater – for some classes underwater combat can be a horrible experience (ie, thief), yet for other classes it can be more fun than on land (ie mesmer)!

If they do that, so all classes have sufficient variety of skills underwater, then I am in support of more underwater zones.

They are connected, so there’s not much benefit in running two of the same (sadly).

You can get away with it using MH sword and the -40% on iLeap and -20% on blurred frenzy – the cooldowns are low enough that you can use S/x, S/x.

The only class you can make a serious build around the same weapon set is thief, and traits like gaining initiative on weapon swap, or even might stacking sigils.

I agree something needs to be done with it, either increasing the confusion duration, increasing the number of stacks, making it proc on phantasm death, or something else…

It’s nice to spend that extra 5 points if you’re playing an “on-death” trait build (because generally you’d be going for DE anyway), but at the moment it is the most useless grandmaster trait available.

I must admit, one thing that bothers me about the downed state is being able to get up again on killing a target – this makes no sense at all.

I think the downed state should stay, and you should be able to revive yourself/be revived by allies, but that should be the only way of being revived. Otherwise you should remain down and only able to use those skills until you bleed out.

Yeah it is a little… ugly.

Would be nice to see as a gem store item in the future (of significant value), because it is a bit of a grind once you get to level up your nth character.

Of course all gear, skillpoints and traits will be unequipped (and I say the trait trees should also be locked so you have to purchase the manuals), so you’ll have to buy new gear and so on.

And yes I imagine anything like this can be abused by “flavour of the month” players, although if the cost were high enough (in gold and items) then it might put some players of that disposition off doing it.

What the benefit would be is saving time for casual players who feel like trying a different class, without having to go through the levelling process.

I came in here to “inb4 blast finisher”, but Crossplay has already done that! ;D

I don’t want to see much else changed with it – it is a very satisfying ability to use, both aurally and visually. So yeah, I’m in favour of keeping the rooting animation, and the ground targeting, but need to have something else to make it useful in pvp/wvw. Maybe damage reduction while casting? Maybe launch enemies into the air? Maybe blast them apart with knockback from the target centre?

Might not be the most effective combo, but nothing is more satisfying (not even the guaridan/warrior/ele hammer moves) than GS#5, GS #3, GS#2 and then “HE-MAN” GS#4!

Interesting and pretty good idea. Yeah except the healing one (should have to trait specifically for that one).

Ranger might be a interesting choice – I’ve not played one so can’t comment from experience, however I have been tempted by the skills/utilities and weapons available.

I know what you mean though, once you’ve played mesmer it’s hard to play anything else, although extended play on any class will become monotonous after a certain amount of time.

Poison might be good, but I don’t feel it fits thematically with the mesmer. I’d rather see a balance made with the other conditions, than adding poison.

Did you try conjured weapons on your ele (hammer/axe/bow, or even be quirky and make a build around the earth shield)?

I’m in a similar boat as a mesmer main (well second main – first was a thief but that got boring fast so I deleted it), and need a change of pace/style. Guardian is one class I’ve found almost as fun, particularly with a hammer build, however now I’m finding the ele with conjured weapons a little more fun (guardians have some good utilities like judge’s intervention, but the lack of mobility and many “meh” weapons outside of the hammer made me turn away from it).

You could also try warrior – plenty of weapons to choose between there.

Mind you I’m saying this because of looking for a class with more physical abilities, so not taking into account things like the necro.

Phase retreat #2 is one of the best skills we have access to, on any weapon (or utility for that matter). I agree that staff lacks that… satisfying punch to it, compared to say sword or GS. All the skills are a little wishy-washy, effects wise, however don’t let that fool you – you have five amazing abilities at your disposal.

Two easy ways of gaining chaos armour, access to important boons (ie, aegis), the phantasm hits hard if you make sure to load up as many conditions on the target as possible, and clones auto attack buffs you too!

Taking illusionary elasticity increases the effectiveness of your auto attack – depends whether you feel it’s worth 20 points in illusions (if you take GS as well, and underwater trident then it is a must have trait).

It is primarily a defensive weapon as most people have said, and always worth having there to swap to. I’d prefer not to use it, but it’s just too kitten useful.

Maybe when we get MH pistol, or even a two-handed hammer, or MH focus (yeah I can dream!) then I’ll put it down.

Spear clone update sounds good.

45, should be the fun part now for the next 35 levels. Don’t rush it!

What weapons/skills/traits are you using so far?

That’s pretty cool! :o

Caledon Forest, easily (even though I don’t play any sylvari). I love the giant plants and psychedelic colours! Wayfarer foothills second because of the bunny area.

Despite all my characters being asura, I only rate metrica province third – it’s got some great areas and architecture, but not enough to be at the top.

Queensdale has some nice areas (like the swamp), but otherwise nothing special. Plains of Ashford is my least favourite.

Erm, not only does mesmer iLeap require a target to even spawn a clone, half the time the clone gets stuck on terrain or doesn’t make it to the target for whatever reason, and then you have to swap to blink to your target. It also has a smaller range. Very different from RTL.

Hehe, fair point.

I agree with you, and no one should feel obliged to use portal just because other players tell you to. If you feel in a generous mood then say yes. If you don’t feel like it then everyone should be able to shift their own weight.

selan.8354:

just check how many condition mesmers u got in spvp..and there is your answer.

So any suggestions for it?

It’s not strictly speaking there for a pure condition build anyway, more like crowd control and additional damage for a power (or similar) build.

Probably the most underwhelming GM minor trait, not affected by master of misdirection – seems like it will go from mediocre to completely useless following the patch.

I used to use it in conjunction with debilitating and crippling dissipation for a suicide clone hybrid build. While weak on it’s own, together with clone spamming, confusion on shatter, CoF, and the asura pain inverter racial – for a sustained damage build it was another string to the bow, not to mention helping with the staff iWarlock’s damage.

Now it seems to serve no purpose at all, especially with players using condition duration reducing gear/food or whatever.

Should it be changed (easiest seems to be increased duration or number of stacks), or completely replaced? Or does anyone think it will still be fine?

Yeah #2 just prolongs the misery, and by the time you cast #3 chances are you’re close to death.

Number 1 only really shines underwater, where you can stack confusion ridiculously fast.

Fantastic, thanks.

Thanks.

I’ve never done this before, so do the exotic stats themselves remain the same when changing the looks to Vigil?

Question in the title.

I’ve had a search here and on other forums – most discussions seem to be at least a month old, so I just wanted to check before going for this.

Have an asura mesmer in the Priory and I’d like to use the Vigil light armour for her, so I’ve started levelling an asura guardian to join the vigil and get the armour. Just to check the method:
- buy armour
- transmute to white items
- transfer to mesmer
- transmute looks to armour (exotic?) with stats of choice.

Is it still possible to do, or has the recent patch changed anything?
If I transmute the look onto exotic armour, will it keep the exotic stats or will they be scaled back to rare stats?

Cheers.

Hmm, I didn’t realise Echo used your stats.

I use the combat mod to avoid aching fingers/wrist – it’s absolutely horrible to hold rmb down constantly, and I would not be able to play without it. Probably the single thing I dislike most about the game.

I have the toggle for it bound to “F” – hitting F centres the cursor to the crosshair in the middle of the screen for full mouse control with rmb held down. Hitting F quickly allows me to move the cursor anywhere on the screen to select a target/object before switching back to the crosshair.

I’ve now got used to swiping the crosshair around 180degrees for a forward phase leap (“about face” key does not work with combat mod active, so you have to turn manually).

^All true, but we’re talking about two skills, neither of which really need the trait, especially if you’ve already got Illusionists Celerity for iLeap.

Unless you are repeatedly hitting BF as soon as it comes off cooldown (same with iLeap), I find this particular trait to be unnecessary; again it depends on build – if your build has you using iLeap and BF regularly, staying in S/x most of the time then I could understand.

But for me, anytime I’ve used S/x I find sufficient other things to do in the time it takes iLeap to cooldown – auto attack, OH skills, utilities, dodge, shatter. And then after iLeap you’ve got a small buffer of time to wait in case BF is still on cooldown (do a few auto attacks if you like).

Now for the spear on the other hand… well that with Illusionists Celerity makes a significant difference with that weapon. Shame I stay in trident most of the time when in combat, even without the trident trait! ;D