Guild Wars 2

slinkiestyew.6823:

This is not because I am under geared!

Lol!

You said you where level 67. So yes you are. It doesnt matter what kind of gear you have, you’re always undergeared below 80. When you got full exotic/ascended then you can talk about not being undergeared. 80 is a completely different world for any class.

In other words, no need to worry yet.

Come on people, Anets RIRO is good enough.

That’s Random In Random Out for those that dont know.

Keiel.7489:

Staff Ele’s aren’t really that readily replaced. the bring good water fields and static fields, possibly still the best wall siege clearers.

It really depends on how extreme you want to be in terms of classes being replaced.

30 mantra Mesmers would be fun to see. Each healing 13000HP AoE roughly every 5s, that’s 390K HP every 6s. Combined HP in the group is around 600K I guess, so that’s 65% of the entire groups HP recovered. Note that this is one skill we are talking about. Then add phantasmal regen on top and constant chaos storms for aegis and protection. People would just explode from having power spike come from any direction at any given time, even if the train is running in the opposite direction. None of them would actually use the 1 button for added hilarity. But of course the skill would never actually work because there is 30s skill lag for added irony instead.

But anyway, warriors and guardians are obviously the most seen professions. Eles, necros and mesmers are good classes that you must have a few of. Rangers, theives and engineers are basicly pointless. They can bring some good stuff (ranger stun, theif scouting, engineer support) but its not enough compared to the others. Basicly trash that you stack on an already feature complete group.

So you are saying that 5 bleed stacks will do about 3000 damage per second per player stacking it?

Sounds fun. Not OP at all. If you face 5 condition builds you only gonna have 15000 dps on you. Guardians heal that in like a second.

It leads to the forums, clearly.

Beldin.5498:

Its a lot damage when you are maybe downleveled to 20-25 or whatever in Kessex.
And yes these Elite Mobs do absurd damage often and it isn’t visible at all, took sometimes only 2-3 seconds to loose 90% of my life on my warrior with Knights gear.

Well was it upscaled or not? I can imagine fighting an elite solo when there is 30 players fighting doing a toxic event nearby to be it a little tricky, but a solo elite is easy peasy.

I recorded a quick video when I was doing my daily: http://youtu.be/Y22QZFGvqOg
I see no spike damage at all, its just boring

Raine.1394:

I remember one release where the champs in Orr were instagibing for 20k+.

They hit like a little kitten.

Keep lords in WvW can hit 2200+ toughness builds for 50K damage.

Arikyali.5804:

The last area for me to explore are the Orr regions, and my general tactics for soloing don’t seem to be viable there. My biggest weakness is being immobilized – which there seem to be a lot of in Orr. And consistent poison damage, bleh. I also can’t seem to rely on my seed turrets either, since they aggro more enemies than I can handle. Usually if this is the case, I’ll summon either the Druid spirit or Sylvan hound (other racial skills), but the cooldowns are too long for my preference.

Being immobilized shouldnt be a problem – Even half a dozen Orrian mobs can barely hurt a decent Mesmer. Either you live with it or you bring condition removal. The Mesmer have some pretty strong instant condition removal in null field, cleansing mantra and remove a condition on heal.

You can easily use Mass Invisibility as the elite. Decent way to run away from mobs.

Regarding the overall tactics of choosing a build… Orr open PvE actually has a great way to test yourself, the Veteran Risen Giants (try not to mistake that single Champion for one though, lol). They arent your average veterans, they are pretty darn tough and you can measure your dps by them… if you die before them you’re doing poor dps no matter your build. If you want to up the challenge, just aggro more Orr mobs into the battle.

Go try to kick one in the balls and see how it goes.

If you kill it easily, you’re all set for PvE.

Well obviously the loot should be better from elites. IMO the elite mobs where badly missing before. Veterans are too easy, period. A single player can solo WvW camps and that’s still more veterans than seen in pretty much any 20 player upscaled PvE event. It never made any sense because they barely upped the challenge.

At least the elite mobs seem to be considerably tougher, to the point where they can actually down a few players. Still too few of them though. If we assume 30 mobs against 30 players, there should be like 10 elites and 20 veterans. Not 1 elite, 2 veterans and 27 trash like now.

scribbles note

Take low level characters to Queensdale and do random champ events. Remember to type “I didnt know!” in the chat every time someone complain

Does Queensdale attract elitist noobs or something? When we do the champ run in Frostgorge (which actually gives decent loot instead of crap like the downleveled champs in Queensdale) sure we sometimes see people “interrupting” the chain. But it doesnt happen that often and if it does, its like meh just continue to the next champ, faster than typing in chat

Well, there is a problem.

If you remove “black” from the title, you’re going to be called a rasist since creating an African Norn would sort of assume a common African appearance. This is not generally say… green.

If you remove “African” from the title, you’re still going to be called a rasist since you created an African looking Norn and just called him a black Norn. He is clearly not black though, just a shade of brown (you can create completely black skins ingame). Which imply that the “Black Norn” is indeed not just “black”, but rather of a black African design.

If you remove both words from the title, then it will simply be called “Norns”. Which doesnt really explain what the thread is about and probably go against forum rules of conduct too, you cant create thread titles like that in the Norn forum.

So you’re in quite a pickle here.

Downing a solo enemy (NPC or player) by actually doing damage isnt very effective anyway so I dont really see the issue.

At least NPCs cant regen faster than 2-3 players are doing damage, like certain classes cough ranger underwater hark.

On my build:

In terms of raw healing (ignoring conditions removed) anti-toxin is 4118+547 per condition every 30 second. Lets assume that party members have 3 conditions, that’s 192hps (self) +55hps (aoe) if I calculate correctly.

Mantra of Healing is 5504+2666 about every 10 second (mantras arent exact since you pop them whenever, but lets assume a continous usage). That’s 817hps (self) +267hps (aoe).

Yeah great deal, I’ll take anti-toxin please!

Go Norn or go home!

Also, shiny fluffy rainbows >>>>>> dark n edgy

I have played my main Mesmer for 950 hours now (~2000 in total, so I began late). I have done all the dungeons, all the paths, all the zones, every event since the beta. I know every weapon, every skill, played pretty much every build combination and raid in WvW daily.

I’m still cant play the kitten thing anywhere near its fullest potential

Oh I forgot about that. If they are complete idiots you will be able to kill them too!

I am guessing that whatever happens is exactly the same thing that would happen if 3 other optimised builds in the same class roam together – yes, the three of you will be able to kill a solo roamer.

Level 1-10 – easy as kitten
Level 11-20 – brace yourself
Level 21-40 – boring and weak as kitten
Level 41+ – back to easy as kitten

Endure. That is all. Go full berserker and try – try so very hard – to enjoy yourself as you level up. I recommend crafting.

Unfortunetly there is a bit of conflict between the GS and staff when it comes to trait. Basicly, its like this:

You need 20 points in the toughness tree. You want 30 points in the precision tree. But if you aim for WvW durability, you need at least 20 points in the vitality tree as well. Now here’s where it become tricky. Traited GS require 20 points in power. You can easily take 10 points out of precision but then you start thinking about going phantasms and realize that 10 more points in vitality give you some nifty high end traits for just a little less damage than 10 points in power. Something has to give and unfortunetly its a traited GS and power.

In the end, IMO (very much so) the best “high damage yet very survivable” build is 0/20/20/30/0. Its not perfect, but it give you tons of flexibility and offer good traits. I use it as an “omni-build” that does WvW zergs, solo roaming and small scale action without respeccing – you just shift some traits around to what suits the moment. Same for skills. The build easily handle glamour, healing mantras and manipulation.

You can go 20/20/0/30/0 if you want to go GS trait instead, but personally I cannot survive without lower staff cooldown and protection on regen (along with constant regen from phantasm) is a pretty good deal.

For gear, just go knights and cavalier. You wont do as much damage someone in berserker gear (guessing you can only reach ~50% crit chance and ~75% crit damage), but on the other hand ~2000 toughness will leave many broken blades. I would strongly advice slapping traveller runes on your armor set. perma-speed increases survivability more than your entire build.

Sven.3680:

Piken used to be fun to fight. But you are just an example whats wrong with wvw at the moment. Hiding and running all the time and waiting until you outnumber the enemy 3:1.

Oh the irony, considering how many times I saw CoN do a 180 and run away this evening. Sometimes there is honor in defeat, especially when fighting outnumbered. Other times… Not so much.

But dont worry, both AR and RS will surely field guilds 2-3x the size of what PS has during the week, your time will come again.

Sven.3680:

Cmon whats wrong with u rs&ps? Is zoneblobbing mandatory during prime on your server?

Poor little thing, how many times did PAL wipe you? We’d send a bottle of fine wine to cheer you up but well… its all gone.

Ultimate Besieger – “Arrowcart? whats that?”

If you change Invincible under the Sun to “Arrowcarts? We got 10 and sit in them all day!” it be more of a match.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

MANTRA OF PAIN-TRAIN
Staff/Greatsword 30/5/0/10/25 or 30/20/10/0/10 – Mantra of Pain, Blink (or Decoy), Mantra of Resolve

Domination: III, X, XI / Inspiration: I, / Illusions: III, X or Dueling: II, X / Chaos: V

Mantra of Pain is another under-explored skill that few people find reason to stick into their skillbar. In a zerker build, each charge can do over 1k damage, which could be a significant damage boost to ranged phantasm builds. It also allows you some extra damage while playing defensively with staff. I feel like there’s a bit of untapped potential with MoPain, especially with weapons like Staff & Greatsword, and this build attempts to capitolize on that.

Well that’s just silly. The only meaningful use for MoP is mantra healing – you’ll get none of it in any setup due to not having 20 points in the vitality tree. And you dont want the 3 mantra trait as that will only delay the channel by another second.

BlackDevil.9268:

Lol blink selfish? If you dont have any stunbreaker with shatter build you’ll be most likely kittened 90% of the fights..

And we have 2 stunbreakers that give 2×2s of AoE stability to your group. Untraited its on the same cooldown as traited blink.

How exactly is Blink not selfish when compared to Mantra of Concentration?

RedCobra.7693:

with only 2.6k toughness youre gonna get rolled, keep planning as you can get higher tougness without loosing any dps, im currently at 3.4k tougness with the same offensive stats as you apart from power which is at 2.8k, (thats easily boosted form team members) :P

Armor is not toughness.

Sorry for being anal, tired today :p

Butter.3024:

What if the other melee train just Zerg straight at you? Should I blink away from fight or blink to my melee train?

Neither – you shouldnt have blink on your skill bar. Its selfish.

There is usually only two ways a melee train zerg clash end – either the backline is broken quickly or the large group scatter too much and get small groups singled out and killed.

Even if you choose the cowards retreat and blink away from the fight, you’re not helping. Melee trains rely on everyone being on the commander.

Of course its possible, I just wouldnt advice it. And that’s coming from someone with 2000 toughness that is constantly running in the frontline, lol. Most Commanders set the bar really high by running immortal Guardian builds as well, expecting every other class to survive what they survive.

Thing is, since they nerfed the sword the Mesmer is left starved for invoulnerability. Sure you can survive for 3 seconds just fine in the initial melee impact while being knee deep in AoE circles, but after that poof you’re dead. Saying “well duh, use blink, stability mantra, mesmer got mobility fool!” doesnt help. That is seriously oversimplifying a situation where CC is being applied 10 times a second.

IMO the “train” Mesmer is far more suited for the offensive flanking roll, especially considering the intimidation factor (a Mesmer is the most visual class when assaulting).

I would suggest having some Cavalier in your backpack and equip when needed – this shift your high crit chance towards more crit damage instead. Keep in mind that chances are high you’ll get fury from Warriors and the actual damage will be better than the chance. This is especially good if you want an “omni-build” that can roam decently as well.

Yes, SFR is loosing because Vizunah and Piken has an alliance. Of course. That has to be the reason, there’s just no other way.

If you think this is bad, wait until the Riverside-Piken alliance is upon you. Piken got the open field melee trains, Riverside got arrowcarts and half the server waiting inside keeps. All bases covered.

I am always swapping between the gear, but if I’m not mistaken its 3 Knights/2 PVT/1 Berserker with Traveler runes, 2 Cavalier/2 PVT trinkets with Knights amulet and PVT/Knights backpiece. Knights staff and Cavalier Greatsword. All parts Ascended (or Legendary) except armor and backpiece.

Buffs are 16 bloodlust, 50 border, 4 guards, precision oil and precision/crit food. For zerging I just use different food, this was in a fairly small group where I didnt care.

0/30/20/20/0 build.

Just mix em up. PVT, Knigths, Cavalier (you may even sneak in a Berserker there). Its all good. Here’s the stats of my slightly buffed Mesmer (only got 16 bloodlust)

Mighty Ice Arrow.9268:

PS to PS, yor 8-9 guys sometime looks like 80-90 in my PC…

Well you know Piken. Our big Norn Warriors dualwield Humans as beatingsticks, wear Sylvari for boots, flattened Asurans as armorplating and Charr as furry cloaks.

Its easy to see how you can confuse 1 of these brutes for 10 peeps. It also explains all the running away.

Enjoy a week of constant queues because that’s all you’re going to get.

Thing is, PvEers join WvW to get the achievements without doing much use. That’s alright, we expect them too.

But WvWers do as well, because anyone actually wanting to raid in WvW will grind achievements even harder to get them over with ASAP.

So basicly, a week of grinding no matter what you do. Many grinders will get tired after the first week and slow down.

Of course its PvE nonsense in disguise. Anet earn money from PvE, so they have to bring PvE into WvW. Simple.

thiste.2845:

Then you go and generalize what you think happened to a supposed lack of sportsmanship from the whole Vizunah server… quite unfair I think.

… I guess some people fail to see what guild he was in. What, you’re going to tell me that massive blobs like that are rare over at Vizunah? Glorified pvp, lol. I do enjoy solo romps in between guild raids and zerging with a pug commander.

But hey, I’m not even showing everything in the video. Before that I tried to engage a Ranger with his pesky little pet. Guess what? He ran for garrison. He only fought back when 4 more came or so. Vizunah sure know when to fight.

But I got some satisfaction moments earlier from Seafarers. At least they can stand their ground and fight even when they clearly met their match.

HA! Hows that for generalization?

http://youtu.be/fz9_vjT6lY0

There’s too little fun videos and too much boring discussion in this thread.

Well played Vizunah. Well played.

I find it interesting that some people are putting SFR in front of Vizunah. Sure SFR got the superior skills but Vizunah can literally create a red blanket wherever they go. Unless SFR ups their game and bring at least 3 or so 80 man zergs, they got nothing.

MoP + healing mantras = recover ~20% HP on all members in your berserker group every 4 second (and do a little damage on the side).

Yup, its really that simple. You can be berserker geared all you like but that single trait and skill make everything 10x easier for the entire group. If the other 4 berserkerderpers in the group dont die, you wont either. Remember that the mantras are instant, meaning they dont interrupt weapon casts. You only got that 2s channel to worry about, when your phantasms should be working the dps.

Crawford.4135:

They did cross breed. Where do you think Charr came from ?

So if we pair a Charr and a Human, we get a Norn back?

I wonder what would happen with a Sylvari and Asura. I’m guessing Quaggans. Small size and dumb as hell. It make sense if you think about it.

Double teaming would imply some sort of organisation. I’ve barely even seen any Piken commanders the last couple of days because no one want to command achievement pugs while its lagging like crazy against 60+ enemies.

Niteip.8301:

I am surprised that no one else seems to notice how inconsistent the queues are.

Lolwat?

We have noticed them for over a year and Anet has done nothing. Nobody has even the slightest hope that they can fix their game anymore. If you want to play, random queues are just the way it is.

Today I was queueing for 1.5 hours, then gave up. Relogged to another char, did some some crafting for about 5 mins, logged back on the main and thought “might as well queue while I’m logged on”. Insta-pop.

All classes that cannot stand still and bunker down are “done” in PvP due to the single kittened gameplay mode that only encourages standing in a tiny area rather than actually defeating your opponent in PvP combat.

Well I’m sure the “PvE scrubs” wont be going away for at least another two weeks so its just to endure and face facts. The matchup outcome will have as much to do with overall server skills as finding a precursor has to do with farming.

Regarding the lag, either Anet has broken something in the game (which would not be surprising, considering the Bloodlust patch) or the game servers are getting blobbed to death. It is nearly unplayable to run in small groups :/

Knote.2904:

If a 1% drop rate gives you an AVERAGE of 1 rare per 100 mobs, then 100% MF (2% drop rate) would give you an AVERAGE of 2 rares per 100 mobs.

Which would be completely ignoring the agressive DR the game have. Getting more per 100 mobs means faster loss of MF effectivness.

Knote.2904:

kokiman.2364:

Dawdler.8521:

300% more spines, you’re going to need more bags!

You got something wrong. MF doesn’t increase the loot you get, it improves the loot you get.

How much MF can you get now? 300%100%40% Food+ 50% Booster + 15% Banner + 10% Guild + 20% Infusion = 535% or did I miss something?

Do you have a source on that?

I’m pretty sure it just makes it so the “valuable” drops, like blues/greens/rares/exotics and certain mats increase in drop rate.

So if you get 3 rares an hour, 100% MF = 6 rares an hour, on average.

Lol no. Nobody know the real MF that’s actually working behind the scenes, ie how the loot table calculate drops. Most peoples experience with the game prove its very, very random.

To take an extreme example, if the real drop chance is 1%, then 100% “MF” bring it up to 2%. Whoopdidoo.

300% more spines, you’re going to need more bags!

Epic.3950:

(Im mostly zerker, none of that PVT garbage but its condition damage so armor doesnt even matter just want to point out I have my fair share of damage and still cant put them down before the blink/invis and full hp)

In other words its pointless to tell you how to kill me because you pretty much cant.

PVT garbage, lol… I usually roll all over zerkers. Sure there are plenty of really good players, but luckily they arent too common. 2 skills and most will have lost 50% of their HP. Easy to go in for the kill. The only classes that can consistently survive no matter their build are Thieves and Mesmers due to evasive skills.

The most dangerous foes by far are hybrids. Tough enough not to get scared by your initial attack, enough damage to equally counter it.

I dont really see how a mantra discussion became a Mesmer vs Guardian rant thread. Because that argument is real easy – Guardian is the better bunker, Mesmer is the better damage dealer, end of story. It doesnt matter what kind of hybrids, variants or extreme builds you do. With the changes a mantra Mesmer is pretty much the best group supporting bunker build we got but the Guardian is still better at it.

Gonna stick to a Mantra build a while, see if I can improve. GS/Staff, MoRec, MoP, MoC, veil, timewarp. Currently on a 0/30/20/20/0 build (gear stats goal is around 2000/2000/2000/1500, no healing or condition). Screw backline, this can easily frontline together with guardians
Might change to 30/20/0/20/0 if I decide to go 3 charge mantras but I am a little reluctant to loosing that much toughness. Worth giving it a chance I guess.

I have been running with a 3 mantra build in 20-30 man guild raids since the patch and its real easy to sum it up:

- The channeling remain a very poor system that require alot of “maintenance” from the player. Hell I even forget to pop my other skills because all focus go into mantras and I’m very used to it, I have played mantra builds long before this patch.

- You still have “too few” skills for everything. Assuming veil (a WvW guild Mesmer always need at least veil), that leave you with just two mantras. You want 3 (plus healing). If you loose MoP, you miss a significant amount of healing. If you loose MoC, you have no stability. If you loose MoR, you have no cleansing. Yeah you can skip MoD, but none of these losses are good. This gets the argument that you might as well trait glamour and have MoC, veil, null field. All the good stuff at the loss of healing, less maintance and less/lower tier traits making a more efficient build.

+ The new AoE is good but as others say, the range is just bad. It should be twice as wide.

= Its pretty much as good or bad as you thought it was before the patch. I love the idea of mantras, I can live with skill handicap and IMO its one of the toughest builds you can make on the Mesmer but the urk channeling blargh…