Guild Wars 2

Silverstone.4539:

They have not even finished delivering on the last expansion? I’m still waiting, yes, STILL WAITING for the full set of second generation legendary weapons that were promised to use back at the start of HoT!

Now I hear they are about to announce a New expansion?!?!?! Do they have any moral compass at all?

I’m sorry but I have been fooled once. they won’t fool me again!

So your solution is for arenanet to have aproximately 70% of their staff do nothing while the art department puts in extra hours to finish the missing legendarys?

Do you even know how developers work? Or asked differently, do you honestly think that every employee at arenanet is part of the item design team or even capable to be part of the item design team?

I love your enthusiasm but yes, it’s only the announcement.

As far as the next elite specialisation (I am prebuying the moment it becomes available, but that’s just me. I fully support people not preordering or buying in the current gaming market, I just love GW2) just don’t get your hopes up. Mesmer are in a unique spot here to be honest. We have a very strong support spec (which I assume even arenanet did not forsee by the amount of rebalance they had to do, which was required unfotunrately. Can anyone say 66% alacrity on release? 0_0) and 0 viability beside that with a very unfavorable mechnic design wise.

I’m just hoping the new elite specs are fun and don’t turn is into portal bots again since even that can be done by other classes with a https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/White_Mantle_Portal_Device.

Same here, no node visible and quite a few guildies were affected by this too.

Some could see the node for purchase, some couldn’t.

To straight up answer your question: mesmer.

Though if you have to ask this type of question, I have my doubts you are in any shape or form participating in any type of game content where this would matter.

Elementalists are prime damage dealers in raids and fractals, can be played as tempest healers (though druids are the go-to healer atm) and provide might next to warriors.

Mesmer is the primary support bonn share class at the moment in a group/raid enviroment.

None of this matters though unless you plan to play fractals/raids. In either case it would be way more important that you actually enjoy the class, especially with an expansion on the horizon which will shake everything up anyway.

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

Cyninja.2954:

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

People say Mesmer is a support class only. I think that is not accurate, I play my Mes and take the Commander position alot. I have 2, Norn and Sylvari. My Sylvari is my favorite. She is fast and very agile, we can’t stand still so the quicknesx of the Sylvari comes in handy. I always look for a perch or rock to fight from, and use Phants etc, this frees me to direct my squad. I normally run Berserker, with Chrono runes, but I got interested in DS armor so now I use chest and leggings from DS and the rest Temple of Grenth Berserker. I last a lot longer now with the added health. I use Chorbens Greatsword since I prefer ranged, and an exotic zerker staff until I get another Ascended chest from Teq lol

I really think some wanting more dps really don’t put the wrench time in learning how to fight and stay alive. Mesmers are deceptively dangerous, you just need a game plan. I used to hate running around DS now I love it, Mordrem only catch a glimpse of me, then they wonder what hit them.

To be fair though, I was a runner on my Assassin in GW1, getting around mobs is second nature now.

You are providing subjective evidence to a factual disscussion.

Here the damage rotations and builds of one of the top raids guilds:
http://qtfy.eu/benchmarks/

The next step for you is to test your build, see if you can outperform top tier players in their class, if so share your build and findings with the community.

No one is talking about open world, dungeons or wvw which are absolutely meaningless (and you’d still be miles behind top tier dps classes). This is a raid/fractal top tier disscussion where classes are pushed to their peak performance.

Install a damage meter like bgdm or arcdps (better use bgdm) and actually log your damage rotations. No one cares about subjective “I am great” stories. Back them up with data please.

Also by support class people mean the actual support role withine a group setting. Being commander or not has nothing to do with this. I’ve commanded open world and raids on multiple characters including my mesmer, that’s not what people mean by role though.

You can calculate minutae, or enjoy the game. Ignore stats, ignore, specs, and play. You’ll be much happier. Mesmer won’t be click click boom, who cares? Learn to play and stay alive, stop blaming the class.

That’s my opinion. Worrying over every change, every nerf or adjustment sucks all the fun out of the game. I have run with guilds in other games where you had to get a degree in your class. Ridiculous. Just play, wear your underwear on your head, and have fun. Game, remember?

True and that works great for non group content.

It won’t help you get into raids though. Not sure what you are arguing for. We are both talking about 2 very different game modes in this game, one of which you are not playing.

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

People say Mesmer is a support class only. I think that is not accurate, I play my Mes and take the Commander position alot. I have 2, Norn and Sylvari. My Sylvari is my favorite. She is fast and very agile, we can’t stand still so the quicknesx of the Sylvari comes in handy. I always look for a perch or rock to fight from, and use Phants etc, this frees me to direct my squad. I normally run Berserker, with Chrono runes, but I got interested in DS armor so now I use chest and leggings from DS and the rest Temple of Grenth Berserker. I last a lot longer now with the added health. I use Chorbens Greatsword since I prefer ranged, and an exotic zerker staff until I get another Ascended chest from Teq lol

I really think some wanting more dps really don’t put the wrench time in learning how to fight and stay alive. Mesmers are deceptively dangerous, you just need a game plan. I used to hate running around DS now I love it, Mordrem only catch a glimpse of me, then they wonder what hit them.

To be fair though, I was a runner on my Assassin in GW1, getting around mobs is second nature now.

You are providing subjective evidence to a factual disscussion.

Here the damage rotations and builds of one of the top raids guilds:
http://qtfy.eu/benchmarks/

The next step for you is to test your build, see if you can outperform top tier players in their class, if so share your build and findings with the community.

No one is talking about open world, dungeons or wvw which are absolutely meaningless (and you’d still be miles behind top tier dps classes). This is a raid/fractal top tier disscussion where classes are pushed to their peak performance.

Install a damage meter like bgdm or arcdps (better use bgdm) and actually log your damage rotations. No one cares about subjective “I am great” stories. Back them up with data please.

Also by support class people mean the actual support role withine a group setting. Being commander or not has nothing to do with this. I’ve commanded open world and raids on multiple characters including my mesmer, that’s not what people mean by role though.

Blaeys.3102:

I agree in spirit, but Im not sure the proposed solution would fix the underlying issue.

Groups will still look for builds that can maximize uptime of particular boons, most notably might, quickness and alacrity, even if they aren’t 100%. In fact, it is more likely to exacerbate the issue, encouraging groups to bring 3 chronos or might sharing warriors.

It isn’t an easy issue to solve and i don’t pretend to know the math. My first reaction is the one Ive seen many share – boons need to cap at 10 people. That alone would lessen the demand for particular professions in more difficult content. Beyond that, mesmers need a high dps build for PVE that is separate from the boon sharing build.

Again, I agree that something needs to be done to change the current boon sharing meta and encourage more profession/build diversity, but im not sure eliminating 100% uptime is the answer.

This guy gets it.

Boon duration being permanent does exactly 1 thing:
- it removes boons from group composition and group balancing

Yes, this does make it more boring. Yes, this also means that class composition becomes more flexible since you don’t have to worry about boon uptime on a majority of classes.

Here is what is going to happen if boon duration is not permanent:

- the first classes to go are medium or subpar dps who bring no boons at all
- the next to go are classes that achieve only low boon uptimes for the group
- the classses that remain meta are those that provide sufficient boon and damage to compete in the raid

End result:
- raids are composed of more elementalists and warriors in order to provide maximum might and fury uptime.
- chronos are forced to hold back on quickness and alracrity rotation for key moments of the fight (revenant remain useless since they provide terrible alacrity uptime while sacrificing a lot of damage and providing no quickness)
- the toxicity in group composition and the discrimination against classes is increased 10 fold

If you want to basically have raids be composed of 2-4 different classes while the other 4-6 classes get to whine on the forums about them not getting taken along: making another balancing factor important is the way to go.

Don’t expect your favorit class to be one of the select few that wins the fotm lottery though.

maddoctor.2738:

Cyninja.2954:

GW2 when it originally launched was received with an outcry of “it’s to hard” because people were not used to active damage avoidance and selfreliance in MMOs. The breakup of the trinity was for many very hard to adapt to.

I believe that was on purpose. Just like the players weren’t used to the mechanics of the game, the developers weren’t either. As the community matures and becomes better at playing the game, doesn’t it make sense to make the encounters more complex as well?

That’s exactly what they are doing. Hence the introduction of raids and occasional slightly more difficult living world episodes.

This does not solve the fact though that a big chunk of the playerbase will not move past “basic” skill levels. A modern MMO has to appeas a huge crowd. The industry leader WoW does this by dumbing down content on a regular basis and/or letting players easily outgear content which they previsouly were not able to complete, as do many other traditional MMOs(just take a look at the gear treadmill in most traditional MMOs). GW2 can’t take that route, at least not to the same extent as their competition, thus the developers have to be very careful with alienating players, escpecially in open world content.

The alternative is to become a niche game with a tiny player population of hardcore players. That would hardly work in their current business model though.

maddoctor.2738:

If by casual you mean “easy”, as in the context of this thread, then you are wrong. The same outcry the game got with Heart of Thorns, we had it back when the game was released. “GW2 has the hardest dungeons!”, was rather common. Even “This personal story part is way too hard!”, or “Elementalists just die too easily!”. That Human Street Rat final personal story step for example was notorious for its difficulty. Or the Fire Elemental in Thaumanova.

Yes and no. You are comparing 2 different types of difficulty and arguing as though they were the same.

GW2 when it originally launched was received with an outcry of “it’s to hard” because people were not used to active damage avoidance and selfreliance in MMOs. The breakup of the trinity was for many very hard to adapt to.

That made the game subjectively hard. It was not until some months later that people slowly adapted. Objectively (meaning looking at how hard mechanically the game was) it was not a hard game.

The difficulty added with HoT,raids and recent living story instances was of an actual mechanical and intelectual difference meaning you actually had to achieve harder and harder feats playerskill wise (measured in of action per minute) as well as more and more refined builds (since not all builds would work).

So yes, in both cases the game was hard. The difference though is, we are now arguing from a developed established MMO with a playerbase that has matured (or not matured if you look at open world content) and adapted.

Official stance on the matter has been:
- open world is for everyone
- instanced content is for people who want more difficulty

This has been apperent in most balance changes accross the board.

Azoqu.8917:

- Support class not even used as support (and I believe we’re 2nd last in DPS as well)

Actually guardian is 2nd highest in damage to large hitboxes and 7th in damage to small hitboxes with some of the easiest rotations available on damage builds:

http://qtfy.eu/benchmarks/

Damage is not the reason guardian does not get taken along in raids. The class doesn’t offer anything unique (similar to necromancer) which makes it enough of value. Similar to thief, which is in a way better spot damage chart wise.

My guess is, there is still enough guardians being played accross all game modes that arenanet does not see the need to make the class the most played again as it was for 3 years of vanilla.

I basically only use my guardian for wvw now myself.

zealex.9410:

other specs can get support capabilities as long as they dont get iframes which further trivialise content.

and what if they do? Pure hypothetical question.

Fact is, you have 0 idea of what elite specs get. Thus you have 0 ability to ask for balance changes to classes now or in the future until those specs are released.

zealex.9410:

raids fractals and dungeons are not aimed at hardcore players either so what are they aimed at and why di they exist in a casual game then?

Please reread what I actually wrote.

I’m not going to repeat myself 3 times only because you can’t take the time to understand what was writen in clear, plain english.

zealex.9410:

idk find me some articles or blogposts by the devs saying this game is targeted to casuals. That also say that the instnaced pve like dungeons fractals and raids were also targeted at that casual playerbase.

That’s not how burden of proof works. I don’t need to find anything. I have close to 5 years of open world GW2 to prove my point (and balance changes going with those years). It’s the status quo.

You would have to show that the developers have failed for over 5 years in developing content aimed at hardcore players though.

I also never said dungeons, fractals and raids are aimed at casual players. Especially raids are not, though none of those contents are that hard and have received balance changes as well over the years to make them more accessible.

zealex.9410:

Cyninja.2954:

zealex.9410:

It root for half a century. Also no disrot isnt the reason you brink a chrono thats mostly because the boon system is badly made to begin with. But that doesnt andervalue how strong distortion and aoe at that is. If you werr to choose from 2 dps’ that deal the same dmg but one has the ability to completelly negate mechanics which would you pick? :thinking:

Which does you a lot of good in the current raid meta because we have to root stuff only 1 time. Or wait, no every single encounter where roots are useful you have to reaply them.

Good point about the 2 dps you would bring. 1 of them would definately not be a mesmer. The other? Probably a druid.

zealex.9410:

Oh and dont bring me the arguement of racials even alot of mesmers humans will use balthazar’s dogs or w/e that a dps increase because tw or gw or moa arent needed all the time.

Definately not in raids.

Wait, are you now arguing for mesmers? How is mesmers taking racial skills to increase their damage show the class being overpowered? You have a very selsctive and confusing way of arguing and trAin of thought to say the least.

Overpowered doesnt mean everything it does is the best at that would be just broken. And i was talking more long term when mesmer gets a dps spec because they wont keep making suport specs. Then mesmer will have the ability to just go in have on par dps with other top dps classes and have distort to ignore mechanics.

Sure, once that actually happens we can discuss balance.

How about we wait for that to actually happen before we start asking for nerfs and balance changes based on pure rumor and speculation.

Here’s a train of thought for you:
“If the new mesmer specialisation does not make mesmer a viable dps class, and other classes receive viable support specs, how exactly will you balance the game then?”

Never balance around future maybe scenarios. You balance based on actual fact and current models. Everything else is unjust, unfair and pure stupidity (or as I pointed out earlier spite and envy).

zealex.9410:

Trollish as it was the opposite os the case. Ppl who dont play games casually come to gw2 and they dont find anything particullary interesting to keep them. the game forces them to play casually or leave so why is the opposite a bad thing?

You are so off base…

GW2 started as a casual experience. A big part of the playerbase came to GW2 because it is so casual friendly. The outcry and complaints about HoTs difficulty still come up even now after almost 2 years of nerfing and simplifying stuff.

To now demand the game be changed around and made harder would alienate a big part of the (paying) customerbase.

People who hardcore play MMOs can raid or fractal in GW2 and have been doing so ever since those game modes were introduced. This is a new feature and as long as people enjoy it, more power to them.

This does not mean that the core customer base needs to get removed and even less that people should be happy about them leaving. Any type of loss of players is bad.

zealex.9410:

If a game isnt for someone then he can do other stuff and there are countless demographics of players with diff needs so whats bad with one demographic getting smaller and 1 getting bigger during a game’s life?

Because the hardcore player demographic in GW2 is tiny compared to the casual players. You are trading an Aston Martin for a Lada in terms of customer count.

zealex.9410:

Cyninja.2954:

zealex.9410:

Tongku.5326:

Genesis.5169:

Can we make this game more difficult across the board? Practically everything except sPvP is zerg the boss or tank and spank with minor aoe avoidances.

I’ve never wiped at dragon stand ever, or any meta event.
Fractals of the mist is easy too its made difficult thru AR if your over the AR suggestion you can face roll all of it easily hell 1-49 can be done with 0 AR with exception to bosses who have the AR check at the entrance.
Never failed any world boss ever since launch, not one ever…
Raids are not hard don’t say they are hard.
For dungeons except for TA and Arah all of them are tuned terribly low.
Personal story got nerfed hard as well.

I think the game is mechanically sound but the difficulty for an action game is lacking maybe increase damage taken by 10% and monster hp a little higher? Possibly decrease the time your in downstate.

Because honestly, only obstacle thats really in your way in this game is time, i don’t think there’s any achievement in the game that anyone could consider difficult its just time consuming.

Also for WvW please reduce the size of commander squads so we can have actual pvp instead of 50ppl following a diamond literally not doing anything else but following that diamond. If there were small groups there would be more activity across the board more points of interest thus a more fun and warlike feeling instead of a giant train running around the map there should be multiple fronts of war not just 1 of them.

Remember that in general game has to designed for average player, not the super high skilled. Unfortunately, average player bar in this game is rather low in comparison with other games. So…. Deal with it or move on.

As for your WvW comments, the largest part of it is the community. If all you do is follow a dorito or server hop to whatever the current bandwagon might be then thats on you, not the game or its playerbase.

The game can choose what the average player is. And if some arent.. dont worry the game while get them in shape >:)

Or have them quit…

Both work

Man am I glad you are not in charge of literally anything in GW2.

trailofsalt.6571:

So your proposal is to make Guild Wars 2 hardcore and force out the casual average players to other games? That doesn’t really make good business sense. That also sounds incredibly self-centered and elitist so I am hoping that it was a mild troll or a joke.

I know right?

zealex.9410:

It root for half a century. Also no disrot isnt the reason you brink a chrono thats mostly because the boon system is badly made to begin with. But that doesnt andervalue how strong distortion and aoe at that is. If you werr to choose from 2 dps’ that deal the same dmg but one has the ability to completelly negate mechanics which would you pick? :thinking:

Which does you a lot of good in the current raid meta because we have to root stuff only 1 time. Or wait, no every single encounter where roots are useful you have to reaply them.

Good point about the 2 dps you would bring. 1 of them would definately not be a mesmer. The other? Probably a druid.

zealex.9410:

Oh and dont bring me the arguement of racials even alot of mesmers humans will use balthazar’s dogs or w/e that a dps increase because tw or gw or moa arent needed all the time.

Definately not in raids.

Wait, are you now arguing for mesmers? How is mesmers taking racial skills to increase their damage show the class being overpowered? You have a very selsctive and confusing way of arguing and trAin of thought to say the least.

zealex.9410:

Tongku.5326:

Genesis.5169:

Can we make this game more difficult across the board? Practically everything except sPvP is zerg the boss or tank and spank with minor aoe avoidances.

I’ve never wiped at dragon stand ever, or any meta event.
Fractals of the mist is easy too its made difficult thru AR if your over the AR suggestion you can face roll all of it easily hell 1-49 can be done with 0 AR with exception to bosses who have the AR check at the entrance.
Never failed any world boss ever since launch, not one ever…
Raids are not hard don’t say they are hard.
For dungeons except for TA and Arah all of them are tuned terribly low.
Personal story got nerfed hard as well.

I think the game is mechanically sound but the difficulty for an action game is lacking maybe increase damage taken by 10% and monster hp a little higher? Possibly decrease the time your in downstate.

Because honestly, only obstacle thats really in your way in this game is time, i don’t think there’s any achievement in the game that anyone could consider difficult its just time consuming.

Also for WvW please reduce the size of commander squads so we can have actual pvp instead of 50ppl following a diamond literally not doing anything else but following that diamond. If there were small groups there would be more activity across the board more points of interest thus a more fun and warlike feeling instead of a giant train running around the map there should be multiple fronts of war not just 1 of them.

Remember that in general game has to designed for average player, not the super high skilled. Unfortunately, average player bar in this game is rather low in comparison with other games. So…. Deal with it or move on.

As for your WvW comments, the largest part of it is the community. If all you do is follow a dorito or server hop to whatever the current bandwagon might be then thats on you, not the game or its playerbase.

The game can choose what the average player is. And if some arent.. dont worry the game while get them in shape >:)

Or have them quit…

zealex.9410:

They dont have all that together tho hence its balanced. And human characters canuse the avatar of melandru to root for an eternity adds or w/e

We were talking raid viability as argument that distortion was unbalanced. At least Azoqu was thus I was responding to his argument.

I was answering on that basis.

Are you seriously comparing a 180 second cooldown shapeshift racial (not avaialable to everyone, massive time loss from shapeshifting, activating skill and shfting out) to a 60 second cooldown class elite to make a point? Wow.

Are people even realising how biased they are arguing? It’s selective pick and chose in a valiant effort to somehow make something stick.

Cyrin.1035:

We need to move on from GW 1 and make it possible for players in this game to get the skins for this game.

Also need to make gem store items, especially skins, available more often.

No we don’t. See what I did there? It’s opinion versus opinion.

To TC, if it’s about the skin, you can get:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Jormag%27s_Breath

which is the same skin just in blue.

If it’s about completion, get a guide and put in the sub 1 week playtime into GW1 and earn the rewards. https://www.reddit.com/r/GuildWars/comments/iu3qw/a_hom_guide_to_3050_aimed_at_beginners/

perilisk.1874:

Mapping to a controller might be possible, but it isn’t exactly fun or intuitive — going from 4-button sets to 5-skill sets is a little wonky.

That said, hopefully GW3 is built from the ground up to be more console and controller friendly. Maybe they could go full-on action adventure MMO, instead of the clunky platforming and kinda-sorta-action combat they have now.

Let’s deal with that when the time comes, in probably 5 years or more.

Looking back to Season 2 and how they setup HoT, absolutely.

Trying not to get myself hyped to much and will try to just enjoy it.

The new fractal will be nice too.

Let’s hope the release is more or less bug free (who are we kidding, let’s hope nothing to big gets broken. though I do think stuff will be smoothened out by wensday).

Azoqu.8917:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Azoqu.8917:

Double the DPS but 2nd lowest DPS in the game so pretty useless especially since it brings nothing to the table.

Thank you. You’re absolutely right, which helps make my point that the defensive utility of Distortion on the Mesmer isn’t even remotely the driving factor in why you bring them to raids when something very comparable but slightly different on a DH doesn’t even remotely justify their presence in a group. Alone without any of the other shiny things a Mesmer brings it just wouldn’t be enough to justify their usage, and that clearly indicates how it is not even close to OP in its current form.

If anything it shows that it is OP because the Mesmer is not brought for distortion but has it anyhow in addition to what it actually brings. And why would you bring a Guardian for Shield of Courage/distortion type effect when a Mesmer, who is brought anyhow, does the same better?

All this shows is that guardian currently does not provide anything unique enough to get brought along for raids. That’s no proof that distortion on mesmer is overpowered.

Simple question: if guardian had the exact distortion possibilities as mesmer, would he have a raid spot? No.

Followup question: If mesmers had no boon share or superb support skills and only distortion, would they have raid spots? Absolutely not.

Does the extra distortion make for a strong argument to bring mesmers and is it a boon to have on top of what mesmer provide? Absolutely, no one is disputing that.

It is far reaching though to deduct that this ability is overpowered based on the fact that mesmer gets taken along for their boon share and support abilities. By the way, the only thing mesmer is good at compared to other classes.

You want to talk overpowered? Focus on ranger/druid who provide multiple essential roles in raids and are top tier in all of those:

- top dps build
- top healing support build
- superb kiting
- unique group damage buff
- aoe root (entangle) to bypass or nearly make useless certain boss mechanics

Even if one of those roles were toned down in favor of say healing tempest (oh wait, not needed since tempest have the 3 highest dps specs in the game) ranger/druid would be in a very good spot. That’s overpowered, not some situational skill which if arenanet wanted would play 0 role in the raid meta.

zealex.9410:

Thats skillful play by everyone one the group dos rushing that is. Distorting isnt.

Actually that’s exploiting the overpowered nature of some classes to overcome game mechanics. There is enough dps classes who can’t field enough dps so easily to achieve this or it’s a lot easier on some. Let’s call all top dps classes overpowered now.

Still the argument stands, if arenanet were unhappy with distortion of certain attacks, they can flip a switch and make the attack undistrotable.

By arguing distortion is overpowered you are asking for a skill to get changed which affects all 3 game modes when the solution to this (by you perceived problem) is simply some extra coding from arenanet when designing bosses.

That line of thought and approach makes this entire argument clearly biased not for balance, but simply against mesmers out of simple spite and envy.

narcx.3570:

TexZero.7910:

What even is your list….of them 4 are Raid wipes and 1 of them is wrong, you can distort Deimos Ward, you can also just use a block.

That’s not true… You can block it, but you can’t evade or distort it. That’s why Chrono’s bring Well of Precog for challenge mote. (Or some groups rely on DH’s for Aegis, I guess.)

Exactly, obviously arenanet is okay with distorting certain attacks (which again is not that easy to do) otherwise they would make more attacks undistortable (since they have that ability). It’s the same as skipping stuff with to much dps or making fights easier since the fights duration gets cut short by dps classes rushing down the bosses lifebar.

TexZero.7910:

skarpak.8594:

TexZero.7910:

Show me a mechanic in raids currently that ignores distortion, please.

I’ll wait.

Already applied conditions.
Gors World Eater.
Escord mines.
Xera Magic Dome.
Deimos Ward Attack.
KC bombs.
Cairn sweep (reddit, can’t confirm right now).

…not sure about MO spears / cm blue fields, but yeah.

do you even raid mate, let alone do you play mesmer?

What even is your list….of them 4 are Raid wipes and 1 of them is wrong, you can distort Deimos Ward, you can also just use a block.

Gors World Eater
KC bombs
Xera Magic Dome
Deimos Ward Attack

Carin Sweep can be distorted….Do you even mesmer ?

That leaves Escort mines…okay so 1 thing which you’ll never run into as a raid mechanic.

Congrats you have 1 thing that ignores it that isn’t a guarenteed Raid Wipe specific mechanic ?

You asked for raid mechanics that ignore distortion. You were provided with raid mechanics that ignore distrotion.

The thing about dealing in absolutes like you did, the moment when someone provides you with even 1 example of you being incorrect, your entire argument devolves.

Congratulations, obviously arenanet has the ability to circumvent distortion if they so please. Kind of makes this:

TexZero.7910:

No, you know what makes distortion broken….

0 counters. That’s all you need to know as to why its broken. Plenty of things ignore block, strip boons. Nothing in this game removes a status, let alone one that gives you complete immunity. That’s the problem and if you fail to see it, i don’t think anyone can help you.

untrue. You make it sound as though arenanet does not have the ability to bypass distortion (which would be a huge design problem) when obviously they can and have not opted into doing so for certain attacks. Big difference in validity of the argument there.

I’m just going to leave this here:

http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/politics/difference-between-dictatorship-and-monarchy/

and this:

http://www.governmentvs.com/en/dictatorship-vs-monarchy/comparison-33-14-0

In this case, Tyria is a monarchy simply by definition of it’s head of state. The fact that it is highly similar to a dictatorship is secondary since both share a great amount of similarities. The deciding difference is in how the government is structured, and in this case it’s a monarchy.

Ayrilana.1396:

Can be killed with a party of players. I’ve seen it done with as few as three. It only fails because people do not use CC and for whatever reason try to throw more players at it without understanding how scaling works.

This. Oh god yes so much this.

It’s like people running headfirst into a brick wall which grows with each person joining in. Yet no one is smart enough to just use the door…

No rumors or leaks, those would not be allowed to get shared on the official forums anyway.

Personally I’m not getting my hopes up. The devs haven’t been all to promising in the past in showing that they even understand the mesmer class and how it works.

That paired with our very disadvantageous class mechanic (relying on temporary summons to do damage) and our current position in the damage table (deadbeat last, by a mile, no actually by a galaxy) makes me not all to hopeful that within the scope of some rework we might become viable (raid or fractal damage wise). Even if so, the damage which would have to be given to our phantasms and the strip of defensive abilities required to keep our class balanced in spvp and wvw would make short work of any higher tier damage build we might get.

Does this put me off the class? Not really, I’ve accepted my mesmer fate. The only question that keeps me occupied is only if (and how hard) chronomancer gets nerfed and will some other class outperform us in our current strong fields (raidtank, superb group support, group damage amplifier).

With all this doom and gloom let me say though: I am looking forward to the expanion and especially axe on mesmer. I’m not usually someone who gets put off by his main not being the flavor of the month cookie, though I would miss playing my mesmer. Then again, I have 22 other characters which can fill raid/fractal spots or get used for world pve stuff after I map complete everything on my main (she has to stay 100% always!).

Please don’t double post. You made exactly the same post in the general disscussion.

Tryant.9027:

So i really want start farming my legendary armor for my mesmer, but i really dont know how to start it. Most groups require 150+ LI so no way of me getting there even if i know how the raid works. Also, gold is required to do raids or the legendary armor ? One of the reasons that i wanna do the legendary armor over a weapon one is because weapon precursor is total rng. Right now i am playing on blackgate.

- https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/How-do-you-even-start-your-legendary-armor

Rikimaru.7890:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Rikimaru.7890:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Rikimaru.7890:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

A while back when Shared Inventory Slots were introduced many players thought you could use them for infinite gathering tools, but as we know they don’t work when put inside them, so it is not much better than using the bank.

They are a lot better than using the bank

Using the bank
1) waypoint to nearest bank
2) run to bank
3) unequip tools, put in bank
3) switch chars
4) waypoint to bank
5) run to bank
6) take tools from bank, equip tools

Using account wide slots
1) open inventory
2) click on non permanent tools in account wide slots which places permanent tools there
3) switch chars
4) click on permanent tools in account wide slots which equips them

Now account wide slots may not be perfect for this but it’s certainly far better than using the bank to switch.

I come up with a solution to the whole problem, yet instead of writing critique on that you argue on how much shared slots are superior to using the bank to move gathering tools?

Then don’t use hyperbole to make a false point. Stick to true statements and you won’t have people pointing out that what you said was false.

Otherwise I don’t see a problem with your design. It could work as stated.

I’ll give you false statement. I said “not much better” which can mean anything. As for you, your rant only applies if you have 3 free slots, if you have less you would have to do multiple relogs. Unless you remove some items from other slots, but then you would have to relog anyway to put them back in place. You also forgot about going to WvW to reach the bank. Finally some people have a little something called Permanent Bank Access Express, in which case the bank becomes superior to the 3 free shared slots.

1) it’s part of your OP and it’s part of the argument you were using to say that account bound slots are insufficient
2) since it’s part of your argument for the need for this item then it’s fair game to point out that it’s false for all who don’t own a permanent bank access and not necessarily true for those who do (I own a permanent bank access and for me the account wide slots are still better than using it).

May I suggest that in the future that you don’t bring up points in your OP that are both not true and that you do not wish to discuss, as everything that’s in your opening post is fair game for discussion.

Aha I knew it you are trolling. Because I do in fact have a Permanent Bank Access Express and I know for a fact that the bank is better than a Shared Inventory Slot. Because you can move things in and out the bank by double-clicking which is much faster than pulling it from one slot to another.
So you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. You just came here to annoy me, which I suspected from the start.

My shared inventory slots hold:
- Royal Terrase pass
- Copper-fed-Salvage-o
- Silver-fed-Salvage-o
- Infinite Omnimist Potion
- Consortium harvesting Sickle
- Chop-it-all Logging Axe
- Molten Alliance Pick
- all 5 current LW Season 3 scrolls

I’d say the quality of life increase versus having all those items on the bank is huge.

Just a flesh wounds argument is sound, don’t hyperbole if you want to make a serious argument valid. Shared inventory slots are far superior to bank slots and they function as a value multiplier for a lot of gem store and ingame items.

Your suggestion is basically a quality of life increase versus having to spend a couple of seconds exchanging tools from your shared inventory slots. I’m sure most players would agree that this is a quality of life change.

Have to disagree here. The last thing I would want to see is the afk plague to extend to every single new living world map.

I think the karmic boost is a great idea concept wise but its effect on the game has been such that I’d prefer they remove it entirely and definately not spread it even more.

That said, should afk issues finally get under control I’d love for them to add karmic retribution to new maps.

zealex.9410:

Cyninja.2954:

zealex.9410:

“extremely op” aka being a weapon set build around dps. Also moght i add the weapons skills hit like dogshit because there wasnt any nerf done to chrono’s buffing capabilities. Since the next spec WONT BE another chrono it is only logical that the numbers will abjusted in such a way to further empasize the elite spec’s focus on dps.

That will have to be one insane buff though, we are more than half behind sustained dps on any type of leaderboards, and that’s only condition dps not even power.

Let’s not even get into burst dps which we are even worse at and which is actually more important on many boss fights.

What about warrior and elementalist 25 might stack uptime while providing unique buffs and/or being top dps? Stop looking at only 1 class but actually take a look at the entire picture.

zealex.9410:

OriOri.8724:

A MH phantasm skill wouldn’t be a DPS increase unless the phantasm itself is just absurdly strong. All it would do is lower our ramp up time if we use the new MH weapon.

Ahem recebt mmesmer update which made most phantasm skills perform an attacj before summoning. Something something you deal a hardhitting attack then a phantasm spawns that too does something hardhitting

I doubt they will balance with instant phantasm attacks. The attack would literally ahve to be so strong that it would 1 shot people to even remotely help with our dps problem.

Again you are just picking random things from all over, add some mumbo jumbo and expect exprienced mesmer to agree or take your argument seriously.

In pve and sepcifically raids burst is just normal rotations the concept of burst and tomig it doesnnot exist sincenperma buffing is a thing. Outside of pve mesmer has really strong sustain and burst.

Wth are you talking about?

I’m not talking alpha burst but short time burst and ramp up time for pve damage which is of significant importance in some boss encounters like KC, Gorse and evey boss who has limited damage windows.

Mesmer is especially weak there because we have the longest rampup time for our damage due to our phantasm mechanic.

Have them do some of the adventures daily (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Adventure). There is some very easy ones and by doing those and getting a gold award you get a free 100k xp per day per adventure.

Tendril Torchers, Salvage Pit, On Wings of Gold, The Ley-Line Run and Beetle Feast are very easy and allow for very simple gold rewards daily. Drone Race is also super easy but requires poison immunity to be able to be rushed through easily.

Otherwise join meta events like the golden city in AB when those are up. Or just do the quest chains on the new maps. Doing the Hero challenges grants a lot of exprience too and has the benefit of allowing you to unlock your elite specialisation as well.

As far as movement skills, if you stick to only VB you will get tired of the map. Most of the new maps don’t require a lot in term of movement requirements (gliding and jumping mushrooms is all that is needed actually) so there is absolutely no reason to not venture to the other maps and explore.

Playing the HoT story and the Living World Season 3 story provides with tons of experience as well.

Honstly, this seems to me a lot more like a “we don’t actually know how to make experience” as to there is none. HoT has been out for close to 2 years. If you haven’t been able to reach experience cap by now, that’s on you. If you joined later or have just started, don’t expect to finish masteries in 1 weekend of casual play. That was never the intended goal.

zealex.9410:

“extremely op” aka being a weapon set build around dps. Also moght i add the weapons skills hit like dogshit because there wasnt any nerf done to chrono’s buffing capabilities. Since the next spec WONT BE another chrono it is only logical that the numbers will abjusted in such a way to further empasize the elite spec’s focus on dps.

That will have to be one insane buff though, we are more than half behind sustained dps on any type of leaderboards, and that’s only condition dps not even power.

Let’s not even get into burst dps which we are even worse at and which is actually more important on many boss fights.

What about warrior and elementalist 25 might stack uptime while providing unique buffs and/or being top dps? Stop looking at only 1 class but actually take a look at the entire picture.

zealex.9410:

OriOri.8724:

A MH phantasm skill wouldn’t be a DPS increase unless the phantasm itself is just absurdly strong. All it would do is lower our ramp up time if we use the new MH weapon.

Ahem recebt mmesmer update which made most phantasm skills perform an attacj before summoning. Something something you deal a hardhitting attack then a phantasm spawns that too does something hardhitting

I doubt they will balance with instant phantasm attacks. The attack would literally ahve to be so strong that it would 1 shot people to even remotely help with our dps problem.

Again you are just picking random things from all over, add some mumbo jumbo and expect exprienced mesmer to agree or take your argument seriously.

Henry.5713:

I want to see an incentive to bring a different tank or healer based on the things these classes can do rather than having our current top positions be nerfed or reworked to the point where even the debatably overpowered class specific buffs are no longer enough of a reason to bring them.

This.

I wish people would actually play a class before going out of their way suggesting how to best ruin it. How was that idiom?:“Walk a mile in someone’s shoes.”

Instead it’s all about:“my class can’t this, my class can’t that, etc.”

Having some more options as to raid composition would indeed be nice and more fun for everyone. Now there will always be a “perfect” meta because balance to near 100% equality is impossible. Still it should be possible to near enough a level where multiple characters can fill a role (like many dps can atm).

starlinvf.1358:

Hype is bad….. should stick to excitement.

Quoting for truth.

In bevor the hype about mounts results in massiv forum posts about people being disapointed because they are zone specific. You heard it here first.

On HoT, I preordered it, played the kitten out of it, took a break, returned and am still loving the game. Probably close to 1,000 hours spent since HoT launched (total of about 3,800 hours on account). It’s rediculous how high the expectations are from players regarding MMOs. I can’t even remember the last single player game I’ve spent this much time on for 60 bucks. Baldur’s Gate or Chrono Trigger maybe over all the iterations of those games I’ve played.

The thing about Duelling is, it’s a decent trait line, all the others used (Domination, Illusions, Chrono) are just better.

Giving up Domi means:
- you give up vulnarability plus bonus damage against it
- distortion on signets plus reduced signet cooldown
- 15% more illusion damage

Your gain from Dueling will very likely not cover those losses, not even the pure damage one.

Most mesmers (myself included way way way back when the game launched) enjoy the idea of having a greatwsord wielding caster. That and for a majority of the game no one was checking damage dealt, rotations, boon uptime, etc. This all changed with raids and damage meters coming from those. Many mesmers are stuck in their old habits (though sw+sw/sw+f was better pre HoT already) and refuse to try melee only weapon combinations.

Things to use together when possible:
- Tides of Time + SoI
- Continuum Split after summoning 2 phantasms (2x shield or focus+shield) and a clone (sword 3) early allows you to use all your wells on the hopefully focus pulled enemys
- F2 and F3 can be used on cd when no illusions are out or you plan to resummon anyway. Free alacrity. F3 is an interupt though, useful especially when clearing wvw camps to prevent their heal.
- portal+mimic allows for a free portal every 90 seconds pre alacrity. Place entrance portal, active mimic before placing exit portal.

Those are some of the more basic and easy things. There is tons of stuff mesmers can do some of which you can see here in action: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Advanced-Continuum-Split-Tricks-VoD/first#post6648909

Graymatter.4723:

One of my pet peeves is that it’s impossible to get into a completed meta map unless someone starts a LFG to help people out.

Read up on what AB multi loot was.

Now read up on why and how it was fixed.

That’s your solution as to why you can’t join finished AB meta maps.

Build looks solid, do change you Inspiration mastery trait to Illusionray Inspiration.

Signet of the Ether is trash, exchange with either WoE or Ether Feast.

I haven’t used GS in a long time unless I need long range tagging. Against stationary pve enemys focus with pull and warden will outperform.

You’ve unfortunately run into the problem most experienced mesmers call: we are kitten at damage.

If your main was a necromancer, ranger or warrior this will hit you the hardest simply because you might be used to running in, hitting some skills and watching things die.

Mesmer play works differently. You try to group your enemys, cycle through your phantasms and let them attack 1nce, shatter and then rinse and repeate. The cooldown time inbetween you need to manage with your evades, blocks, invuls and dodges. Especially timing the shield phantasm for blocks to get in a 2nd one is quite useful.

As Ithilwen said, as mesmer you’ll also have to be flexible and exchange utilities and weapons (mostly offhand) as needed. If there is something close to an all-purpose weapon set it would be sw+sh/sw+focus (lacking longrange ability) with sw+sh/sw+GS being the long range alternative (which will be weaker for close range and groups of enemys unless you plan to kite a lot).

Now you might ask: why all this work when other classes have it way easier?

The answer being: because we are mesmers.

zealex.9410:

Phantasms are not its only feature. And neither these niche sutuations present feedback as a non supportive item. Most of the utility skills are utility / support skills with like a tiny amount of exceptions. The phantasms might not be all that supporty (even tho warden is really good safe zone from projectiles) but usually the other skills on the bar provide a form of cc or buffing. To say its not a support because the phantasms are there to deal dmg (which makes sense because mesmer dps is 40/60 personal and phantams and withoutit it would be just trash) is just bad logic.

Actually i’ts bad logic to argue from todays perspective about how mesmers supposedly were designed.

Most of those support skills you mention did not exist during vanilla and the skills were changed in such a way as to allow mesmer to perform a support role simply because making it a viable damage dealer was to much work.

Here’s a hint though since you are either a new mesmer, a no-mesmer being a smartkitten or just out to argue: there is a few mesmers who over the years have shown to be quite knowledgable about the class. One of them has a name that is 3 letters long and answered shortly in this thread. Never a good idea to pick an argument there unless you are very very well informed about the class (hint: which you are not).

Firebaall.5127:

I’m not looking for a drop rate. I’m asking about a drop possibility.

You can’t be serious…

rate1
re?t/
noun
noun: rate; plural noun: rates

1.
a measure, quantity, or frequency, typically one measured against another quantity or measure.
“the island has the lowest crime rate in the world”

big differences against

possibility
?p?s??b?l?ti/
noun
noun: possibility; plural noun: possibilities

a thing that may happen or be the case.
“relegation remains a distinct possibility”

As far as game mechanics are concerned these 2 can be seen as synonymous.

Firebaall.5127:

So you’re saying we are on a quest!

Suddenly the salvage confirmation of GW2 items becomes more interesting than the Fedex missions that Anet donkey slaps us with constantly.

Either that, or the great guild wars quests are actually getting a developer to answer a simple question.

Not sure why the sarcasm. It’s industry standart to not answeres these kind of questions.

Go check on any other majoy MMOs and you’ll get the same answers. Droprates and other internal mechanics always have to be player datamind/figured out.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Those look like clones not phantasms. Main hand axe, if following conventions, would only provide illusions of the axe wielding clone variety. However that picture looks like two clones with a bow so…
1) new weapon is bow not axe ( leaks have changed before)
2) conventions have changed for this elite spec
3) story npc mesmer doing npc things.
My bet would be on 3.

The chances of us not getting a mainhand weapon next specialisation are as close to 0 as can be.

Mesmer is the one class which has been in lack of a decent extra mainhand weapon since release. This counts double if they plan to make us viable damage dealers.

As to why there is phantasms on offhand weapons: simple balance really.

I was entertaining a thought that they might break the mold with axe and allow us the use of 2 phantasms for simple dps increase. This would only be the case if axe were mainhand only though. I do think we will be seeing dualwield axes for mesmers, similar to dual wield daggers for warriors.

Amaimon.7823:

Exactly, I wouldnt be having this issue if there was another normal scythe ingame, but there isnt. We get a detailed bat wing and a scythe thats on fire.
Where’s the normal rod with a curved blade? Thats right, behind a 6000 gold paywall…..

See and that’s exactly the reason why it’s 6k gold. Your “solution” can be summerised as: make the skin less rare and thus less valuable.

I have a better solution: have them add a different scythe skin.

Sazukikrah.5036:

I wonder how the mechanics would work for Mounts? Right now Gliding is just a re-skin of Falling ; meaning they just changed falling speed and put a glider over it. So how would mounts really work? Would they have strafe and stuff or do they turn and move like mounts in other games?

I predict mounts will be area specific and usuable from certain mount areas similar to GW1.

Also that comment on gliding; first you talk about mechanics, then you decide to call gliding a derivative of falling which is so oversimplifying the difficulty off adding that mechanic, if I were a dev I would most certainly be offended.

First off, learn the orb spawn locations. You definately don’t want to be near one of them when an orb is about to reapear.

Second, definately take 1 person with you who deals with menders. It allows you to focus on fear wards and orbs. Damaging the statue is secondary.

Pick a class that has good long range damage. Take some condi cleanse to remove chill and slow should you get hit.

If need be optimize your sigils. Maybe take Superior Sigil of Energy for that extra dodge every 10 seconds.

I did this achievement way back without safe spots. Eventually you get a rythm to things and it will work out. (I did it solo but helped a friend on his, 2 people is ideal I think)

Firebaall.5127:

Yes, but the fact that it does refund that 500 unbound on salvage tells me it’s a different item compared to the vanilla ascended amulets.

Which means, there’s a separate salvage table. A super low chance at the salvaged excellence is better than no chance, which is why I’m asking. If the chance is the same, I’ll keep salvaging them.

This is the kind of thing I need an Anet staff member to address. I thought I’d try here before I wrote up a service ticket.

Makes sense though I wouldn’t get my hopes up. I doubt you’ll get any type of confirmation about drop rates.

These kind of things usually get datamined or most often figured out by big sample sizes of testing by from the community.

You can try your luck.

Data on amulet salvage is quite low. We can only assume the drop rate is similar accross all amulets.

Also the 500 Unbound magic you get back are just that, a slight refund to the cost of purchasing the amulett in the first place (for 125 Orchids and 3000 Unbound Magic).

Going by the sort of stable price of Salvaged Excelence on the TP, the drop rate for it does not seem improved for any recently added amulett into the game. By that I mean, it’s still super low and you are taking a big gamble on salvaging amulets no matter from where.

Doflamingo.6957:

The sudden shift to the story direction that ArenaNet took isn’t really good at all. Guild Wars 2 was unique because it was focused on the Elder Dragons as main antagonists and each expansion was supposed to be based on one of them but for some reason they gave up on that with living world season 3 and changed it to other random things making it impossible to kill another dragon in next expansion which is a turndown. We waited for so long to find out which Elder Dragon we will fight next only for them to change their mind and give up on the unique story it had.

Simply put, they realised that the story arch:

- elder dragon appears
- random filler stuff
- elder dragon gets beaten
- start from step 1

gets quite repetative. In fact most of the filler stuff was what was more interesting than the actual fight against the dragons.

Now fill in some tie ins to the way better storylines and lore of Guild Wars 1 and you have a solution how to liven up the series story. Longterm this gives them more flexibility as to how to design the story but will make it harder to keep a congruent narrative.

SloRules.3560:

Ok let’s write this the long way.

1. A mesmer would not be using 2 pistols to execute any skill, since offhand can be different. Meaning that you can have torch, focus or sword instead of a pistol in your offhand. Unless ofc, ANet gives mesmer skill 3 similar to thief. Also that purple splash on screen seems to be in the background.

2. Here is my suggestion as to what mesmer reveal was in this trailer.
If you look at the background of the necromancer, you can see 2 phantasms that are apparently using bows, which suggest a npc that is using those 2 phantasms or it’s part of new elite specialization for mesmer and since all phantasms use weapons they were summoned from, that would suggest mesmer is getting eather a longbow or a shortbow.

Links are there as proof.

If you don’t understand me now, you are eather trolling me or are blind drunk.

Not sure what you are getting at, you do know that axe was already leaked as next mesmer weapon right?