Guild Wars 2

RipJaw.6791:

Hmm, maybe I’ll have to give HoT a go as soon as possible then… Thanks for the advice.

Regarding deleting characters, are birthday gifts that valuable though? I mean the lvl 20/30 boosters I have received thus far are quite useful especially in cases like these when I’m creating new toons, but I’m not sure whether they are worth the £8.50 that a new character slot costs. That’s the only reason I haven’t bought any more slots yet really.

Well it depends on what you find valuable. From a pure gold value perspective, yes the birthday gifts are worth it because the dyes alone you can get from them are worth more then the gold or gems it takes to buy them.

The thing about brithday gifts is, the older the character, the better they get (at least that’s how GW1 handled them). In GW2 we’ve mostly seen improved level up scrolls, new dyes and more boosters (the exact gifts you get can be read up on here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Birthday_Gift).

I would definately give the elite specialisations a go before deciding on what to delete. Good thing with getting HoT is, you can use the instant level 80 boost to try different classes out before deciding if you enjoy them or not.

RipJaw.6791:

Hey all

So I’m wanting to start a new character (I’m a bit of an altaholic at the moment) and I have one character slot left – not buying a new one for the time being. I don’t currently own HoT, but I’m planning to buy it in the near future.

Honestly, I would not start a new character when you haven’t tried elite specialisations. Those alone will keep you on your toes for you current characters.

That being said, I’d probably recommend guardian. Not sure if you play fractals, without HoT you definately are not playing raids. Mesmer is quit complex and a tad more tricky open world wise compared to guardian.

I’d advise against deleting characters. The cost of getting an extra slot is minimal and you lose all your age on the existing character as far as birthday gifts go.

SaltAndLight.4652:

I’m just thankful mesmer wasn’t nerfed again.

This.

I’m always amused when obviously newer mesmers complain we didn’t get buffs. Any longterm mesmer knows exactly, if we have a niche that works, pray that we get no balance changes at all. They have never been in our favor.

Overall usefullness without breaking meta, yes.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Cyninja.2954:

Fallesafe.5932:

I lost two RL friends from this game because they also couldn’t stand the stupid, tedious level-up. That’s why, anymore, I just tell people to buy HoT and use the level 80 boost.

Compared to other MMOs, GW2 has barely any level-up worth process mentioning. Try hitting cap level in any other mainstream current MMO in a shorter time than GW2, I dare you (that’s not counting tomes or crafting or other shenanigans which let you hit level 80 in minutes).

Fallesafe.5932:

The game doesn’t actually start until you hit level 80. It’s so bad that people will kick you from Ascalonian Catacombs for being less than 80. But it’s a level 35 dungeon!!

Not really, Ascalon story mode is level 35 (and quite rough for inexperienced players), ascalon exporable modes (meaning path 1-3 which 99% of the players do) are level 80. This does not get very well explained ingame though so I get how people still make this mistake.

I’m afraid you may be mistaken.

Ascalonian Catacombs (story) – Required Level 30
Ascalonian Catacombs (explorable) – Required Level 35

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascalonian_Catacombs

I believe Arah (Story and Explorable), Crucible of Eternity (Explorable), and Honor of the Waves (Explorable) are the L80 Dungeons.

Ah I stand corrected. It’s been to long I guess.

Yes because someone under this amount of surveilance and protection would absolutely go unnoticed for 250+ years not aging or getting replaced at some point in time.

You do realise Jennah is part of a lineage dating back all the way to king Doric. Countess Anise maybe since she has way less story tie ins and is by nature a mysterious figure to begin with.

IF Jennah turns out to be Lyssa (which I highly doubt because some flashy effects and smart preperation a god do not make) it would be very poor writing. She is probably the last human who could be Lyssa with the amount of attention she gets from all sides.

Fallesafe.5932:

I lost two RL friends from this game because they also couldn’t stand the stupid, tedious level-up. That’s why, anymore, I just tell people to buy HoT and use the level 80 boost.

Compared to other MMOs, GW2 has barely any level-up worth process mentioning. Try hitting cap level in any other mainstream current MMO in a shorter time than GW2, I dare you (that’s not counting tomes or crafting or other shenanigans which let you hit level 80 in minutes).

Fallesafe.5932:

The game doesn’t actually start until you hit level 80. It’s so bad that people will kick you from Ascalonian Catacombs for being less than 80. But it’s a level 35 dungeon!!

Not really, Ascalon story mode is level 35 (and quite rough for inexperienced players), ascalon exporable modes (meaning path 1-3 which 99% of the players do) are level 80. This does not get very well explained ingame though so I get how people still make this mistake.

Episcopos.5206:

Having said that, she did reach lvl 40, but by then i think the enjoyment she was getting out of doing the ‘heart’ events to lvl up was diminishing fast and becoming a bit tedious.

No no no no no! Why would you let her continue on this path? Heart quests are ment to guide people to different areas to experience the game. They are in no way ment to have people grind them for leveling. Please, if you do get her to continue playing the game, make sure you establish a gaming habbit in which she does things she enjoys. Those will get you levels just as well in GW2. My personal favorites:

- uncovering maps and just running around taking in the beatiful game world (still one of my favorit ways of leveling characters when I get burned out. tomes kind of took away this aspect though)

- stoping here and there to join one of the events that pop up left and right

- do some of the skill point quests to unlock more stuff

- crafting and gathering the materials for said crafting

- story missions every 10 levels (granted if she did not enjoy the story a race change might work or some other background picks during character creationg.)

That being said, mesmer is definately the toughest pick for someone new to the game. I’d recommend going with warrior, ranger, necromancer or thief. Especially ranger and necromancer might be intesring with their pet mechanics (and in case of ranger the mini game of finding your pets makes exploring the world more interesting).

tl;dr: heart quests are not the only way of leveling. make sure you explore all the options the game offers. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Experience

No there won’t be.

There will be 9 new elite specialisations, 1 per class.

RandomWolf.3986:

I’ve been playing this game since summer of 2015. I was really into it at first, but my interest slowly decreased until I fully stopped playing it for five months. Then I came back and… really, what’s the point?

Fun.

RandomWolf.3986:

This game finds a way to punish players every chance it gets.

Not sure I agree, GW2 currently is one of the most relaxing MMOs in the market as far as pressure or required playtime goes.

RandomWolf.3986:

I’ve been giving competitive modes a shot, and it’s just… beyond broken. I’m not a fan of the meta. I strongly believe people have the right to play how they want and be original to come up with their own sort builds while corresponding to a role.

There is not 1 competative game out at the moment where this holds true. Literally every single competative game available at the moment has a meta. GW2 is actually quite off meta since a lot of stuff works and people actually use their own builds in wvw.

RandomWolf.3986:

That’s what I tried. And I got punished for it. Whether it’s PvP or WvW, none of my 22 characters is able to do anything.

Spvp has everyone on equal footing and gives no player any type of gear advantage. If you are having troubles here, it’s you and not the game.

RandomWolf.3986:

A lot of players in WvW hold a major advantage most. How in the world did this mode once attracted low-level characters? I feel useless in group fights and I can’t solo against any type of class unless the other player is utterly inexperienced. The same goes for PvE as well.

WvW is for 80s now. Has been for ages (probably 4 years now). Getting to 80 and geared out in exotics takes nearly no time at all.

RandomWolf.3986:

Let’s not forget about how grindy this game is. How disappointing its latest content has been. The story was one of the main reasons why I stuck around, but ever since HoT came out it’s been just getting worse where I’m literally cringing at the thought of it.

Story is mostly subjective taste. Sorry to hear you are not enjoying it.

RandomWolf.3986:

It also doesn’t help that I feel quite lonely in-game. I’ve been trying to find new people to play with and joined several types of guilds. People aren’t just interested in me whatsoever. I don’t consider myself to be a saint or an kitten; I try to be friendly and even help new players. What I get are people who end up using me for some of their own goals, including new players. I give them my support, tips and ask and they just end up ignoring me once I ceased to be useful to them. The community is not what it once was. It’s bad. The people are just cruel and moronic. I was even stalked and harassed by a player. I got proof of its actions and reported it several times. I even sent tickets to ANet and nothing happened. The player is still out there, making new accounts to reach me again and again.

Not sure what to say, harassment is never okay and you should definately report players. Not sure how you got someone so ticked off that they would keep stalking you but it’s definately a downside of having free access to the base game.

Can’t agree on the rest. GW2 is still one of the friendliest and most helpful communities MMO wise I have ever played and engaged in.

Weapons not used in raiding as mesmer:

- Staff
- Greatsword
- Pistol (except as condition damage build on 2 raids bosses)

Go and read through the metabattle guides (or better quantify guides for raiding http://qtfy.eu/builds/ ). They are quite clear on which stats work on gear for raids and which weapons to use.

Sorry to say, but as far as raids go, if you are unexprienced you are best off starting with a metabuild and get to know the class from there.

Also don’t buy trinkets. Get them as ascended versions off of the Living World Season 3 maps.

Orangensaft.7139:

yes it is a bad system

I don’t mind the cost and i don’t mind the timegate

But the provisioner token system is just pure annoyance
zero skill needed, no real commitment needed just so incredibly annoying having to put a char aside with all his inventory slots permanently in use until you are done with this thing is just bad design tbh
And combine it with the unnecessary “Waypoint is contested and there is nothing you could do about it” its even more annoying

I understand that there need to be timegates
but they dont have to be so boring and annoying

First off, you can turn in 7 items daily for 7 provisioner tokens (excluding the 2-3 gold items) to merchants who are always available (4 in VB, 1 in AB and 2 in VB). Those are your baseline merchants. The rest are available after completing some events which makes sense to keep the maps active and give players more incentive to play the events. Something that will become important in the future of the game.

Second, the moment you make timegates more involving, a part of the playerbase will not complete them, thus adding to the difficulty of the timegate (look at the new backpack and the complaints about having to do heartquests). Also no matter how interesting or fun you make a timegate, by the time you’ve completed it more than 20 times it will always be boring.

As far as annoyance and difficulty factor, provisioner tokens are not the worst this game has timegate wise. They are just the most convoluted (having to read up or check spreadsheets or the wiki which merchants wants what items etc.) and least payed attention to until one needs them, and then one needs a ton of them at once.

Is it fun? No.

Is it hard? No.

Does it serve a purpose? Yes.

I had everything collected before Legendary armor was added except provisioner tokens. Took me 6 weeks to get the amount needed together for the full set. That’s just about as nasty of a wait as it can get.

That being said, all it takes is 3 things to manage this:

- gold for the items needed
- one or more characters you can leave at a spot which you log in 1nce per day to turn stuff in (3 characters works best, 1 for each map)
- patience

Manage those 3 points and provisioner tokens are half as bad.

maddoctor.2738:

You can do raids just fine without talking but you do have to listen

This.

Ready checks are the usual method especially once the timers get tighter in T3 and more so in T4.

Also remember, not all whisps are equally challenging. Many people have a hard time carrying the 2 northern ones in time to the trees.

Four small hints to make life easier on your pug group for this step. These are not gamebreakers but you’d be suprised how much they help with shaving off 2-3 seconds run time for T4 pugs:

- wait for all ready signs from everyone, especially if you are running one of the easier whisps

- learn to run the far whisps, it will make your life with pugs in fractals better

- leave the tree closest to the far(north) whisps unused. For the north-west one this would be the west tree (since usually the runner will run down on the left side of the map), for the north-east whisp you’ll want to leave the middle tree empty (since most runners take the center path down after picking it up)

- stay at the tree you turned in your whisps to make it easier for other runers to pick an empty tree.

First off, what content are we talking here?

Berserker will outperform commanders dps wise since even with the increased total stats on commander, berserker provides more damage stats. That is not counting runes, personally the stat increase from leadership runes beats just about everything in game (because 30% boon duration is a ton of concentration, 450 stats worth of concentration to be exact). Then again, mesmer does not get taken along for his damage, so this is not that important.

If you have no problem hitting 100% boon duration, this too is no reason to change gear. Thoughness provided by commander gear in a raid setting though very well might be. A full commander armor set will provide 196 thoughness not counting any other toughness bonus from more commander gear. This might place you above your raid tank and will definately make you prime target in fractals.

Besides the additional fractal attention (which can be useful to your group if you can deal with the extra pressure) and the tanking aspect of raids though, I wouldn’t say it’s absolutely necessary to switch to berserker from commander.

LucianTheAngelic.7054:

Cyninja.2954:

LucianTheAngelic.7054:

I do not recommend using shatters to give yourself alacrity unless you’re in an open world pve setting. In a raid setting I recommend just maintaining 2+ shield phantasms as much as possible.

I think I should have explained what I ment with “shatter when possible”. I was refering to those situations where you have no phantasms up or are about to override old phantasms with new ones. If you are doing your rotation properly, your group should be alacrity caped no matter how many shield phantasms you run. No reason to override old phantasms with new ones (or worse with clones) when you have Chronophantasma.

VG – on phase switch, you lose all illusions anyway, shatter F2 and F3 with no phantasms
Gorsevale -on phase switch, you lose all illusions anyway, shatter F2 and F3 with no phantasms
Sabataha – no extra shatters

Sloth – no extra shatters
Trio – it’s trio, doesn’t matter what you do
Matthias – no extra shatters

Escort – inbetween towers, shatter those F2 and F3
KC – on phase switch, you lose all illusions anyway, shatter F2 and F3 with no phantasms
Xera – depending on if you get ported or not, shatter F2 and F3 or not

Cairn – no extra shatters
Mursaat – no extra shatters
Samarog – on phase switch, you lose all illusions anyway, shatter F2 and F3 with no phantasms
Deimos – depending on if you are tank or utility, on phase switch, you lose all illusions anyway, shatter F2 and F3 with no phantasms

Telling people to not use a mechanic which literally gives no disadvantage to being used is silly. There are ample opportunities to make use of those extra shatters, especially F2 and F3.

Your explanation makes 200x more sense than your original statement of “shatter when possible” which is super misleading, especially to new players. My warning was largely aimed at the fact that your original statement essentially implied using those shatters on cooldown, which is awful advice for new mesmers. I’m glad you added the above though, because it is comprehensive and good guidance.

True, after reading through my original suggestions I noticed this too. I should have explained that one better. I was sort of giving advice on an experienced mesmer level to beginner mesmers. In that way you were correct to point that out.

To be honest, F1 and F4 is all one needs and to expand on that, the only absolutely need to use shatter is F4 in pressure situations to skip mechanics or relieve pressure on your group/raid. The rest is just fluff.

LucianTheAngelic.7054:

I do not recommend using shatters to give yourself alacrity unless you’re in an open world pve setting. In a raid setting I recommend just maintaining 2+ shield phantasms as much as possible.

I think I should have explained what I ment with “shatter when possible”. I was refering to those situations where you have no phantasms up or are about to override old phantasms with new ones. If you are doing your rotation properly, your group should be alacrity caped no matter how many shield phantasms you run. No reason to override old phantasms with new ones (or worse with clones) when you have Chronophantasma.

VG – on phase switch, you lose all illusions anyway, shatter F2 and F3 with no phantasms
Gorsevale -on phase switch, you lose all illusions anyway, shatter F2 and F3 with no phantasms
Sabataha – no extra shatters

Sloth – no extra shatters
Trio – it’s trio, doesn’t matter what you do
Matthias – no extra shatters

Escort – inbetween towers, shatter those F2 and F3
KC – on phase switch, you lose all illusions anyway, shatter F2 and F3 with no phantasms
Xera – depending on if you get ported or not, shatter F2 and F3 or not

Cairn – no extra shatters
Mursaat – no extra shatters
Samarog – on phase switch, you lose all illusions anyway, shatter F2 and F3 with no phantasms
Deimos – depending on if you are tank or utility, on phase switch, you lose all illusions anyway, shatter F2 and F3 with no phantasms

Telling people to not use a mechanic which literally gives no disadvantage to being used is silly. There are ample opportunities to make use of those extra shatters, especially F2 and F3.

As far as mesmers role in the current meta game, as bearshaman said, we are desired for our utility and support role (and tank role in raids next to support). Damage wise mesmer is easy last place from all classes.

The utility support role goes against our condition spec since it requires specific traits and utility skills and the condition damage spec requires its own set of utility skills and traits (add in the fact that we are a poor damage dealer to begin with) thus mesmer is usually not played as condition build in high end fractals or raids. Not saying it’s impossible, just very very unlikely.

That being said, this goes only for mostly raids and maybe high tier fractals (though high level fractals work on condi too). As far as open world, dungeons and any other content, feel free to play whatever you want. Ascended is overkill for those game modes/areas though.

Read through this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Chrno-for-PvE/first#post6609243

I made a summary of what our different stat combination options are and for what they are good for. I’d strongly advise against rushing into getting that first ascended set before you are absolutely certain and semi experienced with the class. It’s just to much of a gold sink the first time around to wing it imo.

All that considered, until any change happens (maybe with the next expansion) I’d still recommend berserker armor and weapons as first ascended stat items for any new mesmer, simply because with trinkets you can fill desired utility and tank roles (via exchanging trinkets if need be). Condition while nearly unkillable in trailblazer and quite powerful in open world and wvw just doesn’t add the same flexibility.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Obtena.7952:

Anet has successfully decoupled gear treadmill (the reason I don’t like other games) from the ability to be successful and rewarded. They have done that by recognizing that the pablum of gear treadmill linked to progression that other MMO’s give you is NOT the only way to provide players an engaging MMO experience.

That is also wrong.

GW2 has gear treadmill because of poor balance and design. When you grind to get a full set of berserker gear, and then get into raids or high level fractals and you find yourself get kicked because you don’t have condition gear, what is that? Is that not gear treadmill?

I give you: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stat_changing

You are welcome.

Also all you need for raids is exotic if you can pull your weight. Hardly a gear treadmill when you can get a full set of decent gear in aproximately 3 hours or less.

I’ll chime in on this since you seem to be a very new player (or never active on the forums).

You’re stat combination of choice is trailblazer. Great choice, it will work very well in all pve except for raids and wvw. It will also cost a ton of gold, not kidding, you are looking at multiple hundreds of gold for a full set and you won’t even be sure that you’ll enjoy the gameplay.

Here’s my suggestion: instead of going for the just about most expensive and total overkill ascended trailblazer, make a couple of builds with exotic items using rabid, dire and sinister stats. Maybe spalsh in some vipers trinkets since those are easy to get in the new maps. Then once you’ve decided you enjoy, spend a ton of hours in grinding for gold to make your traiblazer gear.

The difference is literally between maybe 100 gold for a full exotic set with runes and so on versus 1,000+ gold for full ascended trailblazer. Also realise that traiblzaer ascended is not the choice of gear to go for in the 2 most difficult areas of the game (fractals and raids). As such trailblazer ascended is definately not the first ascended set to go for, that honor still goes to berserker for mesmer.

Here you go TC: http://game-maps.com/GW2/GW2-zones-and-levels-map.asp

There is multiple zones per level range until you hit 70+. If you actually world complete while leveling to 80 without using any tomes or experience boosters you will hit aproximately 40-45% world completion on vanilla zones.

If you stick to only 1 leveling path, yes you will run short on exprience and have to redo events. Best suggestion in this case is, visit another races leveling areas.

The way experience works in this game, you’ll want to stick to events slightly above your level. Otherwise feel free to play wherever you enjoy the area, it will all give decent exprience.

There is at no point in this game ever a reason to grind repeat events or maps for leveling purposes.

Vinceman.4572:

Open your own LFG with your own requirements.

Don’t blame others because theirs are too hard because it’s annoying to wipe over and over again with a new player if you can oneshot bosses with experienced ones.

We have a winner.

@TC Don’t blame other people for not wanting to take risks on unexperienced players. You aren’t even willing to put in 15 seconds of creating your own lfg for a first clear.

Tumult.2578:

Cyninja.2954:

Tumult.2578:

Let me give you some perspective.
I believe raiders have been extremely lucky that Anet needs to relearn that ever increasing difficulty, and reward, is unsustainable. They learned it once from the first year personal story but game control changed hands.

Here’s what you would have gotten in the past. The rewards for raiding would be simply standing on a leader board. That leader board would have levels. Each level gives you better standing and additional permanent AGONY in everything you do. That would be the only reward.

Accept that challenge and show how good you really are.

Not saying you bought your way to play difficult content instead of earning it but it seems like it. That makes you miss 90% of the fun of the game.

Raiding gear is in no way better than gear from any other part of the game. Not sure what you are refering to. Unless you consider legendary armor an upgrasde to ascended, which from a pure stat perspective it is not.

Leaderboards were out the window the moment arenanet noticed how little interest people have in them with adventures.

I didn’t use gear anywhere in my post. Not sure what you are referring to here.
You make it sound like all the raiders have deleted their Legendary armors. Lol.
It’s the reward, clearly established so you know what you are playing for. It is unavailable anywhere else in the game. That makes it a significant reward whether you choose to recognize that value or not. Delete it if it is so inconsequential for you. I would.

As far as leaderboards go, you do understand that there are current leaderboards for structured PvP, WvW Ranking and Acheivements right? I’m not surprised that Anet would drop any extra effort it can, regarding raiding, given the chance. My post talked about what you could have gotten for rewards. Rewards could have been, and in my opinion, should have been, ranking on a leaderboard and the additional Agony you earned with it.

You are equaling reward with stat progression. The one makes no sense to argue against, the other I already addressed in my comment about legendary armor. No, I did not make it sound as though legendary armor was getting deleted, I said it provides no stat advantage versus ascended thus not providing power creep, the main topic disscussed in this thread.

You can have ever increasing rewards in a game, as long as they are not affecting game balance.

As a matter of fact, all the spvp and wvw changes made and coming are an increase in rewards to the game modes.

So no, raid rewards are fine. Ideally spvp and wvw will get their own set of unique rewards just like fractals have, spvp already has and the way arenanet has been creating incentives to play all the game modes in GW2.

Mesmer rotation is definately on the more confusing end of all the classes due to all the synergy our skills have and the fact that we are probably the only class that doesn run a dps raid spec which works on 90% of all fights.

I view it more as a priority system based on what you want to achieve.

This ofcorse means you need to in advance know where you want to go with your current rotation.

For standard stuff the go-to rotation in PvE I use is:

1.) offhand phantasm + sword 3 + weapon swap + 2nd offhand phantasm + CS
as opener (remember to Tides of Time or other offhand weapon skill if needed)

2.) use whatever skill you want to copy while CS is up (usually all your wells and often elite, prioritise important skills first incase you messup and CS runs out)

3.) repeat phantasm and clone summoning as needed until CS is close to being ready again

4.) use unimportant shatters (F2,F3) when possible to gain alacrity and get rid of illusions

5.) use out of rotation utility skills if need be

That’s what you start out with and then fill in the blanks with whatever the encounter requires. Raid bosses can change up the rotation drastically if certain utility or elite skills are required or if your group needs distortion immunity on a regular basis.

Same goes if you are tanking as mesmer. The rotation slows down most of the time because you have to use specific skills at certain times instead of providing maximum boon uptime.

The really anoying part is you can’t properly train this kind of stuff in open world or on the golem because many fights are unique in slight rotation changes they make. I’d suggest getting comfortable with the base rotation and understanding which skill to use where for raids.

Carighan.6758:

Cyninja.2954:

Shiro is pure power and with all the cooldown nerfs not really worth using for mobility.

Shiro makes you attack faster and gives you mobility skills. Nothing about it says “Power”.

It just so happens that the extra attack speed isn’t worth the energy invested for condi specs.

Shiro’s heal has power scaling.

Atack speed affects autoattack mostly and has little to no effect on skill cooldowns, which revenant has on most of his weapon skills and key utility skills. It will up your mace condition damage minimally at the cost of providing almost no useful utility skills. Most autoattack builds are power based.

I’d rather take Glint over Shiro for both group and open world content if mobility is an issue.

Damage wise Impossible Odds it gets vastly outperformed by Dwarf hammers in both group damage, single damage and energy cost especially considering that you’ll run out of energy before shifting back to Mallyx when using weapon skills.

Carighan.6758:

It just so happens that the extra attack speed isn’t worth the energy invested for condi specs.

Yeah, exactly why I said it works for power builds.

Moonyeti.3296:

Okhu.7948:

Grinding is normal in MMOs. Get over it or don’t do the grind.

Complaining in online posts in normal. Get over it or don’t post the complaint.

Wait, are you actually complaining about someone complaining about someone complaining?

Nice.

Most people have already given their advice, which I’ll summarise:

- find realistic goals which work for your possible time commitment (this is the main one since gaming should not dictate your life or responsibilities).

- legendary armor versus weapons has a shift in commitment. Legendary weapons only require mostly gold (season 1) and thus can be aquired at any pace and even bought. Legendary armor requires a certain amount of time commitment and are limited to specific content.

- your argument about guilds is off. There is enough casual guilds that raid 1nce or 2 times a week and take along any willing members members. Ofcorse if you expect them to take you along you might have to make friends with people first.

- the actual time commitment for raids is not that high once you have a certain amount of experience. Getting to the point though takes quite a while

- there is quite an active pug community for this game. Many have made the step to clearing some and even all of the raids with only pugs.

Yvilthi.5413:

Absurdo.8309:

How many hours did it take you to get legendary weapons? I highly doubt you’re a casual.

Launch date was 28 August 2012, I’ve played for 1986 hours over 9 characters since then.
That’s a average of 1.14 hours each day (1745 days).
I think i have spent half of that time on the legendary Kudzu

Is that casual enough for you ?

Considering you are by your own admitionan on/off player and your forum activity has huge gaps, for the sake of argument, try to be honest. During the times you are “on” and not taking a break you certainly are not playing casually.

Yvilthi.5413:

Absurdo.8309:

So legendary weapons are out of reach for casuals too. 1000 hours is not casual.

Dude … Whatever

See my comment about getting on peoples good side earlier. Going by your forum communication with people who tried to help or disagree with you, this might be part of your problem.

Being an on/off player creates problems since you will have a harder time connecting with people or remain interesting for guilds. This is a selfmade problem though and not a problem created through the implementation of legendary armor.

AliamRationem.5172:

Has anyone tried Trailblazer’s in open world before? What was your experience with it? Or have ideas on a more survivable power-based build? I’m just getting started and I’m open to ideas.

What game content are you aiming for? Only open world? Dungeons, fractals, raids?

Traiblazer will perform fine for open world and dungeons and have more than enough damage here. It will perform decent enough in fractals but the added toughness will have you be the main target of most enemys most of the time, which might increase pressure on you. Not recommended for raids since vipers will outperform trailblazer.

That being said, if you want gear for open world and dungeons, trailblazer might be overkill cost wise. A mix of Rabid and Dire will perform well enough for a condi build in these areas.

Countess Aire.9410:

Why does every back piece for ascended type becomes a money and time sink? You have to do the same thing over and over just more material to upgrade the back piece. The developers use to think outside the box when this game was released but now we can count on grinding to get achievements and triple grinding for ascended back pieces. I shudder to think what we are going to have to grind to get in the next expansion. Please for the sake of six find a different way to allow us to earn these back pieces. Grinding is becoming the norm in GW23.

Given the new maps are maybe 3-4 days time sink for backpieces. That’s not counting the Winterberry one, which is farmable in 1 day if you have enough characters or 2 days if you have the base 5 characters at 80.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_back_item

Wth are you talking about?

Tumult.2578:

Let me give you some perspective.
I believe raiders have been extremely lucky that Anet needs to relearn that ever increasing difficulty, and reward, is unsustainable. They learned it once from the first year personal story but game control changed hands.

Here’s what you would have gotten in the past. The rewards for raiding would be simply standing on a leader board. That leader board would have levels. Each level gives you better standing and additional permanent AGONY in everything you do. That would be the only reward.

Accept that challenge and show how good you really are.

Not saying you bought your way to play difficult content instead of earning it but it seems like it. That makes you miss 90% of the fun of the game.

Raiding gear is in no way better than gear from any other part of the game. Not sure what you are refering to. Unless you consider legendary armor an upgrasde to ascended, which from a pure stat perspective it is not.

Leaderboards were out the window the moment arenanet noticed how little interest people have in them with adventures.

kyrnik.7352:

Thanks, Cyninja. I appreciate the response. I’m still relatively new to GW2 and Mesmer but this information is incredibly helpful. I’m trying to keep track on what meta builds are currently preferred as I work to build up my character. I just finished obtaining my elite spec and some core masteries, so now I’m looking to start figuring out a plan to craft some better gear. For the time being, I’m limited to whatever I can buy at the auction.

In that case, here a small rundown of what I would recommend in general and specific to mesmer:

- meta builds are not that importent until you reach certain areas of the game like high level fractals and raids. They should be viewed as guidlines to work off of until you are familiar enough with your class as to make your own deviation.

- familiarize yourself with your class (and give multiple classes a try). Try out stuff, you never know what gameplay, weapon setup, trait combination etc. you might enjoy.

- rare items are fine for dungeons, open world, events and great for trying out new builds (the biggest difference will be power versus condition most of the time). Otherwise try out builds in the spvp area free of charge, who knows you might even enjoy the spvp aspect of the game

- if in doubt, stay away from toughness and vitality. Splash those stats in only once you are absolutely sure you can’t do without. Try changing utility skills and/or traits first. That will save you money and force you to practice challenging are of the game

- full exotic is what I would recommend for HoT areas of the game. They can be quite challenging with some of those HoT enemies which hurt a lot.

- gear off the auction house will cost you quite a bit more than aquiring the same gear as drops. For example, the first HoT map has very easy map currency to aquire and the bladed items have berserker stats as a choice. That can be a lot cheaper than spending multiple gold on the trading post. This goes tripple for trinkets which are very easy to collect from the new living world maps and will outperform exotic items from the trading post.

- for mesmer, I’d still recommend berserker as first item stat set to get. First and most important weapon currently is definately your sword. The caladbolg questline is a cheap way to aquire an ascended sword. The mesmer specialisation is a cheap way to get a great looking ascended shield. You can use the same mainhand weapon for both weaponsets by leaving the mainhand slot open on one of both and just placing an offhand weapon there. 1 ascended weapon for both slots, in the case of mesmer, your trust sword.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Mine would be: 10 players who knew their prof, like a challenge, are willing to learn, take the encounters seriously, and also have fun with each other. With such a group, I could care less about the the profs or builds, because people would work together to succeed, with whatever folks wanted to bring (and folks would want to be helpful, so we wouldn’t see ‘useless to us’ builds).

This.

People need to move away of looking at the class they add but rather care about the type of player they take.

kyrnik.7352:

Can someone link the meta condi build? I see it referred to often, but haven’t been able to figure out which one is the standard. Metabattle has 2-3 different variations depending on play type.

Here is the one on quantify for raids: http://qtfy.eu/build/mesmer

It’s a mix of viper’s and sinister and berserker runes (another problem of not running leadership runes versus our power builds).

Feel free to exchange gear as you see fit for open world content and fractals. Basically you can profit of the condition damage itemisation only requiring 2 stats (condi damage and duration) and get toughness or power on your third slot which makes it so powerful for most non raid pve. For raids, you definately want maximum damage itemisation.

Djinn.9245:

phys.7689:

I am not pro gear treadmill, but a lot of standard defenders of the no gear treadmill side are missing the real point of the gear treadmill, incentivizing game goals.

There are plenty of incentives for me.

Wrong game, wrong forum.

Try BDO, BnS, WoW, SWToR, FFXIV, Archage, insert any number of other mainstream MMOs currently on the market.

Yakez.7561:

Fluctuations of ruble was dealt with… in early 2015 I suppose (as most of game market in Russia done after late 2014 ruble drop)
But since then 2,5 years passed, and main trend was ruble slowly going up (from 80 per USD, to 56 per 1 USD today). I’m okay to pay 560-600 Rub per 800 gem, but not 700 Rub per 800.

This is 2,5 years of non existent price update.

And man, why THE HELL GW2 even charge in rubles??? We have 0% support of Russian so far (we even not allowed to type in chat in Cyrillic). I’m ok to pay in USD as any other “small” country.

Arenanet doesn’t charge anything, their business partner Digital River who handles all e-commerce on arenanets behalf does. They have a russian branch which is likely responsible for any electronic transactions in Russia.

Now as to why they charge this amount? Take it up with their customer support.

Long story short: the GW2 forums are not the place to argue pricing of gems since no one here is responsible or can help you as far as that is concerned.

phys.7689:

I am not pro gear treadmill, but a lot of standard defenders of the no gear treadmill side are missing the real point of the gear treadmill, incentivizing game goals.

I don’t think most people against a treadmill for gear don’t understand how this concept works or why it is there. This would most likely only be the case for anyone who started MMOs with Guild Wars 2 and has not played any other MMOs at endgame. Most others likely stick with GW2 exactly because they understand how this works and are sick and/or tired of it in other MMOs.

phys.7689:

gear treadmill, is not synonymous with grind, you can have grind with no treadmill, as gw2 clearly shows. Gear treadmill, is how most developers answer the question of continuing the game.

No, gear treadmills are how developers extend a games livespan with minimal effort. Expansions, story addition and new content continue the game. Changing some numeric values on items and enemys is the easiest way to keep people occupied until actual content gets delivered.

Case in point: WoW subscriber numbers after each expansion ever since their overdumbing and streamlining during and post Wotlk are high spikes with huge active player drops after 1-3 months. That’s the usual time it takes for people to see most of the content and get bored of the low amount of between expansion content.

phys.7689:

my point is this, regardless of whether gw2 has gear treadmill or not, they need to answer the question of how they can incentivize content, and set up compelling goals.

True, this is a lot more difficult for a game where you aren’t required to go somewhere to stay on par.

phys.7689:

some of this is a war of perception, and while many of you will say its the player’s fault for having different expectations, i think its primarily the game’s fault for not communicating, or defining their overall reward paradigm. In general, gw2 doesnt feel very rewarding, not because they dont give you tons of crap, but because most of the crap they give you seems like junk. You dont particularly want it, you probably werent looking for it, and it doesnt usually bring you much closer to your goals.

Absolutely, GW2 is terrible in getting people to stay after hitting level 80. This has a multitude of reasons one of which is certainly the very open nature of the game and no clear “endgame” area. Something which is very confusing to new players of the game.

phys.7689:

the flipside of this, is because the game rewards are poorly utilized to incentivize play, many people are happy they can do what they want and get access to everything. so there are some advantages.

That flipside is quite a huge factor for many people though. The ability to play anything you like and still aquire/progress towards your goal (be it ascended, legendary, gold for a skin, etc.) is one of GW2 biggest USPs compared to many other MMOs.

Nova.2890:

And that is exactly why I left this game. Casual should not mean fashion wars. There needs to be something to work towards and not just…“oh look, my weapon now leaves footprints on the ground” Where is that sense of power you feel when you defeat a boss and get that nice piece of armor you worked hard to earn?

When i realized i was paying money to in gems to just buy nice looking flavor armors/outfits i decided that it was time to move on.

As i keep coming back to the forums to see if anything big has changed, I don’t regret leaving. Jumping puzzles being implemented in every kitten corner of the game (no need to make an interesting solo boss fight or anything that would require skill, lets just see if you can jump from point a to b), no gear stat increase that would justify wanting to raid or do any type of end content. These are just the reasons I will never return unless things change.

Sad to say because I’m not a huge blizzard fan, there is a reason WoW still continues to be the largest MMO. They are doing something right, and if you want to cater to only casual players and give zero reward to those that actually put time and effort into the game, then this is what you should expect. Craft everything (no work needed, just real money for gems to convert to gold to level the professions, and buy the materials)

True, and you know what the best part is? You can go and play literally almost any of the other MMOs on the market right now and get exactly what you desire, a gear treadmill to your liking. In your case WoW.

For everyone else who does not want that, GW2 will remain a valid and enjoyable option.

End result: everyone is happy with a game of their choice.

Rhysati.4932:

mtpelion.4562:

Adding new tiers of gear (i.e. higher stats) is a trick used by game companies to fool people into thinking that they are being rewarded but what they are really doing is stealing money from you every month to play the same content over and over.

Since this game doesn’t have a subscription, they don’t need to fool people into running on a gear treadmill, so higher stats have no place in this game.

Ahh, I see! So it’s a trick used by game companies to add new challenging content that rewards your efforts! That must be why GW2 adds in lots more casual content with no point or reward then. Thanks for clearing that up!

Actually you have that wrong. Increasing the difficulty devalues existing gear and forces players to reaquire better gear with higher stats. The power increase versus older content creates the illusion of an increase in power, where in reality all players do is remain on equal footing with newest content. If you call getting your old gear devalued, being forced to reaquire new gear in order to stay competative and having a constant pressure applied to stay up to date “rewarding”, be my guest. I’ll call it by what it is: a treadmill which keeps you occupied indefinately.

Rhysati.4932:

mtpelion.4562:

Adding new tiers of gear (i.e. higher stats) is a trick used by game companies to fool people into thinking that they are being rewarded but what they are really doing is stealing money from you every month to play the same content over and over.

Since this game doesn’t have a subscription, they don’t need to fool people into running on a gear treadmill, so higher stats have no place in this game.

Though, I’d have to question why GW2 has the 1-80 grind, the copious amount of gear upgrades you’ll get along the way, the grind for the best gear, the grind to unlock specializations, the gear to unlock all the new HoT stuff(gliding, jumping, lore, mushrooms, etc), the crafting grind, and so on. If being on a treadmill is something other companies use to trick their playerbase, then why does GW2 have any of this? Why not just give you a max-leveled, best-geared, min-max’d toon so you can just play the game? Why have any of that grind to work through?

Funny you should mention this. The original concepts for GW2 had just this type of progression in mind. Characters would get downscaled (still happens in lower level areas) and upscaled in all open world zones removing the actual need to level. In spvp they kept the leveling completely out of the games system. Utility skills were in no way tiered and most characters could be done by level 30 with their build.

What was discovered though was that the complete absence of structure as far as levels, skills, gear and zones is considered was to different from what players were used to. Thus a middle ground was used and we got no upscaling, tiered utility skills (which is hilarious since there is no power curve here) and ascended gear as well as HoT masteries.

The difference? The entire progression was always gameplay and skill based and not tied to gear in GW2. The HoT mastery system stays true to this.

Rhysati.4932:

Or do higher stats only have a place when they suit your argument?

I don’t see where mtpelion was advertising for a stat increase, which argument do you mean?

Before GW2 came out, Sylvari were definately the “new kid on the block” (anyone get the referance or am I that old?). That and they basically had to flesh out Sylvari the most with all the other races having had some type of appearence in GW1.

Combine that with the first expansion being Sylvari focused and yes, the story has been quite Sylvari heavy thus far. I do think this is about to change with humans (and maybe Charr) taking more of a spotlight coming the next expansion going by the current Living World story.

That being said, personally I enjoyed the sylvari race story and background almost the least from all 5 races. That might have been because during most of the sylvari personal story steps you get to fight undead, only to lead into helping the orders fight undead and ending with fighting zhaitan with his army of undead… It was terrible.

FrostDraco.8306:

Cyninja.2954:

Oneira.7691:

snip (read top, shortened for visibility)

snip (read top, shortened for visibility)

Raid condi isnt meta but still out dpses most pugs in raid, so i bring it anyway. Also you have a little versatility with 1 util slot and ur elite, since those pretty much arent used for damage.

I just made a completely new mesmer. One commanders, and one viper. I honestly raid more and do more stuff on the viper, cause soloing is too easy with the damage (can solo on both).

Condi mesmer def lacks aoe damage, but if you clump mobs you can cleave them pretty good with etherbolt and shatters.

Yeah, I have to say I do enjoy running condi and especially trailblazers on mesmer in most stuff but raids (I usually just run standard support or tank or cPS, no room for condi fun). The class feels powerful (condi outperforms on longer fights/tougher enemys, normal or veteran enemies don’t really matter since they die after 1 shatter anyway) and feels quite tanky (mesmer natural evasion/immunity skills plus toughness). I can only imagine how vipers performs damage wise (that and I’m literally to lazy/cheap to switch stats on legy armor and spend ressources on yet another full viper trinket set). Definately a way to play mesmer atm.

I just like warning people that current meta and expectations from others might not mesh well with condi setups on mesmer.

Wvw wise I’d absolutely recommend vipers for roaming, small scale or even big scale zerg fights. Organised groups might be better off with commanders still.

An amazing new sword would be great.

Currently thinking on if I want Bolt or not. Doesn’t work that well with my mesmer main and I would love to have an amazing sword legendary to fit Astralaria (if we get axe with the next elite spec).

Besides that, I just hope it looks great and people enjoy it no matter which weapon it might be.

Ryou.2398:

All you need to do is lower the price a bit, just make it a decent deal compared to the current price.

Since he already listed the item, this would effectively cost him his 5% listing fee and the cut in price he demands.

The btter approach is to wait a couple of days more and since no economic balance changes are set to be patched in, the risk of a drastic market shift down are lower.

Chris McSwag.4683:

From a speedclear perspective, power is preferred on a bunch of bosses(at least when it comes to tempest). This is based on a faster burst as well as utility, as a fair bunch of condi dps builds lack in cleave and cc department meaning that it’s rarely optimal to have most of your dps as condi.

Condi dps optimal: sabetha, matthias, cairn, mursaat
Power dps is optimal on pretty much everything else assuming speedclear strats and skilled player. As the average player is about as skilled as a potato however, it may be that there is a shift in what’s better(looking at you 0 cc trash dps no updraft ppl) but that really isn’t different to before.

and yet cPS outperforms on just about every raid boss except for KC.

As far as tempest, yes you are correct because their power and condi build are similar in optimal output. Looking at current quantify benchamrks shows a bigger gap for most other classes dps wise though: http://qtfy.eu/benchmarks/

Thus your analysis of power beating condi is not necessarily accurate, especially on those classes where condi beats power by over 5k or even 10 top dps (basically every classes besides tempest and Dragonhunter).

Smoochoo.1086:

Furthermore, the original guildwars didn’t operate under this conclusion either. Every elite area offered the chance of high end equippment even more so if you did them in hardmode. So please get your facts straight before making such a statement.

Careful there, especially when you are so wrong.

GW1 had no gear treadmill. It worked quite similar to GW2 in a way in that you could get a max stats basic set dirt cheap, then get better skins with similar stats.

Those challenge mode items might have had perfect stats, this made them no different then self combined items though.

tl;dr: GW1 had no item treadmill.

Oneira.7691:

I’m curious as to whether for general PvE (metas, world bosses, fractals) ppl are still using Power builds mainly or are switching to condi builds?

I’m back to my chrono after toying with an Ele for a while and have a straight power build Insp/Dom/Chrono, sw/sh + gs, zerker gear, and durability runes. Is condi stronger in PvE now and if so, what build?

I have multiple sets on my mesmers, here is small summery:

Berserker/Assassin – our bread and butter. Works fine in open world and is a great baseline to start exchanging items on.

Commander – getting that toughness for tanking, power wvw gear for bigger scale.

Minstrel – love it. Great for not tryharding raid content or when you want to go half afk or tank stuff in places which hurt (kiting VG into the next active third for example). Suprisingly terrible in open world. The very low damage makes me prefer berserker for open world. Very expensive too.

Trailblazer – Have a full trailblazer set on my 2nd mesmer and I’m guessing results will be similar for Dire/Rabid. Nearly unkillable in open world, very decent damage. This would probably be my new go-to set IF conditions were useful for endgame content. If you want to be near unkillable as with Minstrel and still put out decent damage, go Trailblazer for open world. The go-to for condi mesmer for wvw.

Viper – haven’t run this yet on mesmer, my guess is it will work fine on most pve open world (what doesn’t) and similar to the other condi sets just with more damage versus survivability. Raid condi is not meta except for 1-2 bosses where the class does nice damage.

To answer the question:
Yes, condi mesmer does outperform regular mesmer in open world and most easier content. Main problem for condi is the builds run a lot of Signets (you can run 5 signets condi if you want) meaning you lose quite a bit of support. Trailblazer makes you quite durable while keeping damage decent (from a mesmer perspective).

The problem remains, the moment you move to condi mesmer though you bascially need to own 2 sets because mesmer support remains power.

Fallesafe.5932:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

So,you’re saying you want a continuous gear treadmill? Because eventually you’re going to hit max stats without one if you play long enough and you’ll be right where you are right now.

It depends on your definition of a “gear treadmill.” I think that:

1) There should absolutely be some concrete incentive to do fractals and raids.
2) Every new expansion should introduce gear that’s at least a little better than what was previously available.
3) “Legendary” weapons and armor should offer more than a drop-down box for stat combos… and a trail of glitter on the ground.

1.) There are incentives:

Fun – yeah I know, today all MMOs are about getting that carrot and for most people the constant chase is fun. Then again, some people enjoy playing a game just because they “enjoy playing it”.

Challenge – get to fractal 100, complete challenge mode, then say you are done, because you sure aren’t challenge wise before that. On a similar note: “Have you killed every raid boss at least 1nce yet?”

Achievements – granted most are quite easy, have you completed all of them yet?

Legendary and expensive skins – the game is called fashion wars for a reason.

2.) Absolutely not. Then again, they did just that with HoT and 4 stat items on a limited scale.

3.) Legendary items are fine.

I’m going to put this as plain and simple as I can: GW2 will not make you happy unless you chose to change your gaming habit/priorities.

The game is specifically designed to NOT add repeated item grind. Many find ascended already to trying to aquire and arenanet have been vigilant in making ascended trinkets easier and easier to get (not to mention exotics left and right). A big part of the core playerbase enjoys GW2 exactly because of this.

Unless arenanet decide to risk alienating a big part of their core playerbase, I doubt what you are looking for will find it’s way into this game.

My suggestions:

1.) find a guild and friends, it makes the game enjoyable even without chasing that gear carrot
2.) get into raiding, it will keep you occupied quit a while. Not to mention you will be likely required to master multiple characters (and gear them too)
3.) try out other professions. The game is very friendly to running alternative characters. Mix it up race wise too, the unique story up to level 30 is quite fun.
4.) aim for a legendary item. The process can be quite fun.
5.) if all else fails, take a break.

Can be anywhere from 1-3 days to a couple of weeks and beyond.

Mostly depends on if you catch the market in an up or downswing and the amount of sellers versus buyers.

Unless you get really unlucky and get cought off guard from an economy rebalance or such which shifts the price point for months to come.

Best advice: try to forget about your listing and get suprised when it sells. Either that or take a hit from the 5% listing fee, which I would not advise after 2 days. Maybe after 2-4 weeks IF you absolutely need the gold.

Ryou.2398:

I noticed the only builds for condi for anything pve is either using assasin or dwarf.

Hmmm no.

The current condi setup is: Mallyx/Jalis.

Main reason being that there is no 2 condi legends and Jalis hammers are good single and aoe damage.

Shiro is pure power and with all the cooldown nerfs not really worth using for mobility.

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Yes but there are multiple factors which play a role. If toughness has any effect is also dependant on where in the game (open world, fractals, raids, etc.) and against which enemy you are fighting.