Guild Wars 2

King Noob IV.3560:

Hmmm ok so now I get that D/D, with meta builds, is useless compared to D/P in sPvP because of D/P’s ease of stealth and utility with teams. Now I don’t get why so many people play D/D in WvW. I understand that it’s more fun, but if that were the case then people would play it in sPvP too, so there must be something it does in WvW better than D/P but I don’t know what. Considering D/P has a gap closer on 3 and since WvW is very spacey for people to run away/kite I’d assume D/P is better in WvW.

The nature of stats in WvW (food, ascended armor, guard stacks etc. )means that ridiculous burst is much more viable cause you really can 1 shot the unaware, and people love doing this. WvW is also full of random things to use CnD on outside of fights such as random mobs, critters and most importantly ENEMY WALLS which allows “out of combat” stealth like P/D has(even tho you are technically in combat).

This does not, IMO make D/D better than D/P (like you pointed out the gap closer is amazing in open fields when people are running) but the gap is much shorter, and often D/D players are just relying on really high BS crits to kill their enemies before they can react. D/P still gives you more options, and is really great in groups to give out stealth via BP (just like in spvp), and can honestly do really big BS crits as well, all its really missing is the constant vuln stacks.

Yes please make this a master trait in illusions again, right now there are no good master traits for shatter mesmer there, in the traitline that used to be ALL ABOUT SHATTERS.

The only thing a non-condie mes can really take there is phantasm haste, which is really underwhelming, considering Robert (or Peters, I dont remember) said they did not want keeping Phants up to be as important, that they should be used for shatters. Honestly that trait should go be combined with some of the other phantasm traits, it really isnt great on its own.

I never really understood the mentality of having 1 class as your only focus. I play both Mesmer (which I made early when the game came out) and engi which I got to 80 a few months ago and have been enjoying ever since. Engis do have more build diversity and they are VERY strong in sPvP but mesmer has its moments aswell.

Shatter mesmer is the build most people play in spvp and it definitely has one of the worst learning curves in this game IMHO. You need to utilize your abilities and positioning pretty perfectly to survive, and there’s very little room for error that you might get when playing other burst classes, so you may feel very weak when you first start playing, but my advice is to stick with it! If you enjoy the challenge you can have a lot of fun playing, and the satisfaction of killing someone before they can react is great when you can pull it off.

Sometimes when I’m playing cele rifle engi and I beat someone in a 1v1 I dont feel like I was ever really at risk of dying which makes it less satisfying for me. I feel like I outclassed them rather than outplayed sometimes with engi.

As a mark against mesmer, they have a disadvantage when doing their job because there is one class that simply does it better in most cases; thief.

The roles the 2 classes share in any type of competitive or even casual pvp is extremly similar; roaming, decapping, confusing the enemy as to where your team is and appearing suddenly to +1 and burst someone down. Neither are first choice to go 1v1 but both classes can pull it off with experience and knowing your enemy. The biggest differences are mesmers longer range dps that is an option when melee shatter is too dangerous and PORTAL. Good portal plays are almost necessary to justify having a mesmer, and its very difficult to utilize with unorganized teams. In solo queue portal is mostly used as a survival tool for yourself, because people seem really against moving towards and using the great-big-pink-glowy circle on the ground and often in this situation some condi cleanse or extra stun breaks (or even reflects against mutiple power rangers/shoutbow warr) would be much better.

Overall if you want to play mesmer you do have to focus a bit I suppose. I still posit that playing a little of both and learning both’s strengths and weaknesses will only make you a better play in the end.

*I don’t really pve ever so I really have little experience here outside dungeons and fractals on warr, but I do remember mesmer being really painful to level until around 40 and I got the clone dodge roll trait, im not sure what lvl you need to get to nowadays to get it but once you have that you can use shatter more reliably, and mesmer is really weak below 80 in general.

Thanks Donari, yea and 200 gems isnt that much, I’ll try to keep that mentality I’ve hunted all over the wiki and learned a bunch of stuff I didnt know about the game and SW in general too, so I guess I came away with some knowledge, lol

Any mods feel free to lock or leave if anyone else finds this helpful!

It dosent go on the vendor until you complete No Refuge (A-net troll right there IMO) but you’re sure it drops from boss chest? Wiki says it only has a chance of dropping the chest-armor, I just wanna make sure before I drive myself crazy farming VW

Hey guys, I missed out on the Seeds of Truth living story so it is locked for me, I just want to know if there is a way to get carapace leggings without unlocking this myself; I’ve tried playing through No Refuge w/ a friend but you dont get the reward at the end (this is probably obvious but I didnt know that was the case, I thought at least doing it would let me buy it with crests from the vendor but no such luck).

Any other methods or do I just have to suck it up and pay 200 gems essentially for this 1 skin?

EDIT: After 3 more tries it randomly worked…I’ll leave this thread in case anyone else has this problem, but it seems to have fixed itself. Still something to look into.

When I try to leave HotM either via the portal or just hitting exit I get Error code 5: 11 : 3 : 159 : 101, something about server stability, and my game closes. I can go to WvW just fine, and its not an issue w/ my internet, I’ve been playing the game in SPvP w/ no lag for awhile before I even noticed this I’m not sure if this issue has been happening all day because I rarely go to Tyria but now I’m stuck because all my characters are in HotM. Trying to do a daily and charge some quartz crystals before bed ;(

As a side note this happened around the same time I started getting the server error/ time out when I use the TP, there’s another thread here about that one too

Nice video man, some good gameplay on your part. Music was chill as kitten, which I love, though your Asura is the stuff of nightmares o.O

On the topic of the build, I’ve been trying to figure out the best settup for MtD , I like the ranged shatter aspect of it (not needing to get up close to be effective so I can focus on kiting) but I always feel the damage is not there with full condi. I like the idea of a hybrid build for it, but I hate having to make cele gear (I already made a full set for my engi and that was annoying enough) so idk if I will ever actually get to try it outside Spvp, and it definitely wasn’t great there.

I don’t think this is a bug, I’m pretty sure it was intended, but I definitely agree it should be changed.

Yeah this is happening to me, it happened a long time ago but fixed itself after a few minutes but I’ve been pvping for like an hour now and I check every time I come outta a match.Its not working, and I have stuff in there! My OCD is SCREAMING at me to take it so the red exclamation point goes away! Halp!

In all seriousness this is a pretty bad bug, and any help would be appreciated. Get on it A-net! You cant access the GEM STORE either, for a little incentive for you guys :P

Yeah this has definitely affected my play time, I can’t get a SPvP match that I can actually play my character, instead I get games where everyone is running in place for 1-3min then suddenly I’m dead and respawning. Sometimes I can get some abilities off, and it looks like I hit the enemy, but its not really doing anything. Ping jumped upwards of 1500ms or something ridiculous like that. Really would like to finish my daily, but I hate making my team have a disadvantage, it’s essentially like playing 4v5. I havnt had lag like this since Beta back when this game was coming out. Truly horrible latency ever since patch

NA: Emhry Bay server, US eastcoast I believe.

Yeah I’m definitely gonna run travelers in wvw, cause I hate moving at base speed. Thanks for your input!

Yeah after getting bored with the normal shatter and phantasm specs I tried this out, its a lot of fun. Took it for a spin in Spvp and had some really good games, the only class that gave me real trouble were really good Condi-nadespam-engies (those buggers are tough without any stability or condi cleanse).

Tried rune of Nightmare out for the condi duration and the random fear (though I was actually finding it messing me up by wasting my blocks) what Runes have you guys been having success with? I’m also not sure whether to go Rabid or Carrion, been running rabid but I’m not sure if that’s the way to go. Running 0/4/4/0/6, staff spec using Sce/torch and staff.

To you guys running sword, do you feel like the lack of extra torment stacks and confusion is worth it for the root and lesser damage from BF? I haven’t tried it out yet but it seems kinda counter to this spec, the swap-Bf combo may not be as necessary without IP. Gonna give it a try in WvW, gotta get myself a condi sword for the first time…ever.