Guild Wars 2

I am running 30/30/10/0/0.

Traits: Mental torment (20% more shatter damage)
Rending shatter (shatter causes vulnerability)
GS training (+50 power greatsword 20% CD reduction)

Phantasm Fury (phantasms have fury)
Desperate decoy (stealth + clone at 25% health)
Deceptive mastery ( clone on dodge)

*I will swap out and pick up Blade Training and/or Retalitory shield depending on the fight.

Debilitation Dissipation (clones cause random condition when killed)

As far as skills go that varies widely. Generally the heal I use is Mirror. Timed right it reflects a projectile back at the attacker. It also has a short CD.
The only other hard and fast skill I use is signet of illusions.
1. Provides them with enough health that they will make it in for shatters.
2. In PVP they can take more than 1 hit which further confuses people to waste attacks on them. Your mileage may vary.
For general PVE I like feedback and mirror images.

Nearly all my gear is power/precesion/crit damage with a few power/precesion/toughness pieces mixed in.

Main weapon is a greatsword.
Secondary I generally run with a scepter/sword. I do have a staff and focus and pistol that I swap out depending on the dungeon/boss.

The secondaries have a LOT of defense to them. Blocking attacks can be a huge bennefit since you take 0 damage. Sword MH2 is 2 seconds ( every 8 seconds – traited) of damage immunity. Sword OH4 is a block. Scepter 2 is also a block.

The setup has plenty of survival in its secondary weapon set. The blocks + dodges are usually more that sufficient to survive for PVE and WvW. In PVE especially dungeons I seem to always be stuck with agro.

Damage really comes in cycles. Initially you can GS4 then 2, dodge, shatter(mind wrack). Signet mirror images , dodge shatter(mind wrack) again.
On an off or defensive cycle Scepter 3 + shatter ( cry of frustration) stacks a LOT of confusion. Timed right it can cause substantial damage.
I am also a huge fan of feedback. Against ranged attackers they eat their own damage. It is also a field combo so it picks up some extra damage that was as well.

Ultimatly though, you have to find and do what works best for you. I STRONGLY recoment swapping out weapons and skills based on what your fighting up against. THAT is going to make you the best you can be. Trying to find 1 all powerful build just wont work.

Cheers.

Funny thing.
I hear that Mesmers are OP.
I also hear Thieves are OP.
And Warriors are OP.
And Guardians are OP.
And Necromancers are OP.
And Rangers are OP and engineers are OP and and and…

Poor elementalists. Although there is a nice Video of an ele in a 4 vs 1 match up and the ele was the only one still standing. SO, I guess an elemetalist is OP in the right hands.

diabluz.2860:

Tirien.1326:

See what you are doing OP it’s fairly obvious.

If gw1 worked, gw2 will work aswell. No worries, i usually don’t care what other people say, i’m afterall strong not weak Cough.

It’s very rare that a game dies, look around you so many games that have been “dead” since release and yet are still here. Why bother to speculate, you have no idea what will happen next week let alone a few years from now. But gw1 has been with us for 7 years, and gw2 with its hype and amazing gameplay/PvP it will be with us for atleast 10 years, why not you know.. just go with it.

Speculate all you want, but if gw1 managed gw2 will manage… Since most people like this game i see nothing to be worried about.

That is where you are so totally wrong. Most people don’t like this game. Most people actually find this game boring and have left. Hence the title of the thread, Welcome to the Minority.

Of all the US servers. on 1 was at medium population. ONE !
The MOST were FULL and the rest were all HIGH.

So your right, most people left the game because you know, all the servers are low population ghost towns.

Well think of it this way.
If the jump puzzle chests were awesome.
Everyeone would get them.
I mean its not like there are guides/videos out there that show you where and how to get them.

1. The fact that anyone can resurrect downed or fallen players is amazing. It is one of those quality of life aspects of this game that you sorely miss when you play something else.

2. “Zerging” bosses. While I get what you are saying Most runs are substantially long enough that you cant really “zerg” them. (Not to mention 5 people is not exactly a zerg). A lot of them hit HARD and can down you in just 1 hit. Some bosses because of their mechanics if you go down, your dead. This makes the fights binary in a sense that IF you dodge on time, you live. IF you miss a dodge ( out of endurance, lag, miss timed it) your dead. Not being able to run back is punitive.

3. If people are being reckless with it …Let ….them….die.

4. In WvW its generally pretty easy to finish people off. If someone is downed they are [almost] as good as dead.

Its a good mechanic. I am glad to see that they thought different when they added it to the game.

I seem to recall those same people saying Guild Wars sucked. It was fail, It was not an MMO, blah blah blah, etc, etc, etc.

And oh look…They only sold what ? 6 million copies ?

7 years later the game is still going. Funny that considering the “majority” didnt like it.

Sorry. 5000g in WoW is nothing. Thats like saying I made 50 silver in GW2.
The currency cap in WoW was 214,000 some odd gold.
The cap is now 999,999 gold.

There are plenty of screenshots online of people who have reach the gold cap. Go take a look.

Heck. Some of the mounts in Warth of the Lich king ( thats 2 xpacs ago) were 12,000 and 17,000 gold each. You should see the gold cost on some of the pandaria mounts. The vendor would laugh at your 5000g.

Sorry to troll on you like that but…

Agreed. There is no “right” way to level.

As you do the hearts I would suggest participating in the dynamic events (DE’s). The DE’s offer XP, coin, and karma as rewards. They also count toward the heart completions in most instances.

Map completion. The Vistas and points of intrest are worth XP. IF you 100% a map you get bonus materials, items and coin.

Gathering. You get more xp from gathering resource nodes than you do from mob kills. If you opt to craft you will have resources you need. If you opt to sell the materials then you will have plenty of coin.

Killing yellow mobs. Kill EVERYTHING as you go. The longer a mob lives in the world the more bonus XP its worth. Generally most people run past yellow mobs since they are non-agressive. They are also (not always) worth a TON of bonus xp. Sometimes 2 – 3 times a normal kill.

Crafting. IT is possible (but exceedingly spendy) to level by doing nothing but crafting.

Personal story. The quests for it are genaerlly worth a LOT of xp.

Dungeons. Do the story mode when you can. They will generally net you about a level or so.

Dungeons. Explorer modes*. Explorer modes are worth a lot of xp as well at tokens that you can use for gear. Its HARD to get groups for explorer modes “on level” for a couple reasons.
1. gear. It DOES make a difference. When leveling your probably in blue or green gear.
2. A lot of people do them at 80 and want to get it done fast. Your mileage may very.

WvW (World vs Wrold ) CAN be worth some pretty good XP. You get xp by completing the WvW objectives. Below level 30 you will not have access to all your skills and will be more hindrance than help. Gear also makes a BIG difference. A level 80 in full exotics will destroy you very abruptly.
If you do go the WvW its certainly a lot of fun. At 35 is a good launch point since you can at least clad yourself in head to toe Rare (yellow) gear. You also have access to most of your skills which will help significantly.

Genaerlly speaking. Run around, enjoy the game. Don’t focus on leveling. It will come.

Even in WoW the finised products are, in most instances, less than the raw materials on the auction house.

The one thing that WoW has that sell really well are the rare drops from raids. Only a select lucky few get those recipes and can craft and sell those finished products. Even then most of the raid drops were better (eg set bonuses).

Gold in WoW is trivial. Go check the people that have reached the maximum gold limit. They are out there and that was a few xpacs ago. There are very few gold sinks in WoW so accumulating currency is pretty easy. I am suprised that there is any sort of “economy” in WoW.

As stated there are PLENTY of recipes that can be made VIA the mystic forge. Those sell and for a LOT of gold too.

There is a ton of crafting to do.
I would suggest looking deeper into the rabbit hole. ( → The mystic forge)
There are a bucketload of recipes that have yet to be discovered.

Dual swords is exceedinly powerful on the mesmer.

2 makes you invulnerably for 2 seconds with a 10 second CD.
4 is a block.

thats 2 abilities that let you avoid all damage IN ADDITION to your dodges.

3 pops out an illusion and lets you swap places possibly avoiding an attack.
5 pops out a phantasm that does pretty good damage

Combined with your shatter skills you can get some nice damage or damage mitigation with it.

Not ever weapon/skill set is about dps. Some are more about damage mitigation/avoidance.

Take a quick look.
Warriors are overpowered.
Thieves are overpowered.
Mesmers are overpowered.
Necromancers are overpowered.
Guardians are overpowered.
Rangers are ovwerpowered.
Engineers are overpowered.
Elementalists are …ok they could use a few small tweeks.

So if everyone is overpowered then I guess things are rather well balanced then arn’t they.

There is no need to split them. The mechanics are robust enough that you can make changed with minimal impact on the other side of the house.

The core issue is that people are afraid of change. They get set with the mentlity that they MUST use XYZ skill in PVE ( or PVP ) and they can’t use anything else. And when changes happe they cry that its the end of the world rather then try/use something different.

Yes.
Getting to the level cap and then running dungeons to get obsolete gear is better.
Running the T784 raid to get obsolete gear is great.
Running the T785 raid to get slightly less obsolete gear is a wonderful thing.
Running the T786 raid to get gear that will be obsolete when the T787 raid comes out is a timeworthy endevor.

New expansion comes out so all previous gear is obsolete.
Get to new level cap.
Run dungeons to get obsolete gear.
Run the T9,000,000,000 raid to get obsolete gear.
etc
etc
etc.

Yes…“progression”

Yes x60.
But then again you track player metrics so you already know!

Depends on the fight but mesmer can make life substantially easier for groups.

Have to get 3 people over a moving laser field?
Plop down a portal and hop to the other side ( using blink) and plop down the other end of the portal and Poof ! no waiting 20 minutes for people to stink at jumping.

Fighting a boss that stacks tons of boons or conditions? Phantasmal disenchanter to the resque. 3 of those bad boys will pretty much keep every boon off a boss permanently and every condition off your party.

Annyoing ranged mobs? you have solutions for those ! ( focus anyone ?)
Annying melee mobs? more solutions! ( dual swords / scepter sword FTW )

And yes. Mesmer can spit out some pretty amazing dps too.

Make sure you keep your weapons and armor up to date as well. Makes a difference in damage output and survival.

If your dying a lot scepter (main hand) 2 is a block.
Sword ( offhand ) 4 is also a block.
Sword (main hand) 2 makes you immune for 2 seconds ( 10 second timer)
Focus (offhand) 4 is a ground target that cripples foes and give you a speed boon. 5 phantasm substantially reduces ranged damage.

There are plenty of defensive skills at your disposal, just have to put them to use.

edit: @passive agressive…wow…there is making a troll post and then there is making a troll post. gg.

Its because there is a specific build that has one and only one purpose and that is to gank other players.

There are several factors that make it excessive.
1. Immobilize. You can’t move, you can’t dodge. In and of itself isnt too bad.
but.
2. stuns. You can’t do anything when stunned. Granted they are exceedingly short in duration but the stuns are suffient in many cases to interupt abilities.
AND.
3. Stealth. Generally you don’t see it comming. Again, not a huge deal but when combines with immobile and stuns its a tough pill to swallow. The most nefarious part of this though is the current character draw issues in WvW. Stealthing in many instances will keep you from being drawn back in especially in larger engagements. This makes retaliation almost impossible.
4. Damage. As if the immobile and stuns and stealth were not enough. It only takes 3 maybe 4 attacks to finish someone off. And yet again. If it was just raw damage it wouldnt be such a big deal since you could actually dodge to avoid it.

Its a perfect storm of getting your kitten handed to you with little to no chance to fight back. I have been on both ends of this. Its no fun getting complety destroyed. And its no fun obliterating people like that.

In the end there is only 1 skill that make the build as offensive as it is. I wouldnt be suprised to see it reworked or take a massive hit with the nerf bat.

WoW combat lacks depth too.
More abilities on your bar =/= more engaging combat.

In WoW there is no movement what-so-ever. You just stand there and dps. Unless you need to move out of the fire. That’s it.

Warrior DPS “rotation”: 1,2,3,2,1,2,3,2,1,2,3,2
Rogue DPS "rotation: 1,1,1,2,1,1,1,3,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,3
Mage DPS “rotation”: 1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,1,2

And yeah, you have have an extra ability or 2 you use once per fight…and thats about it.
So how is any of that more engagin?

I will agree that the static nature of the weapon abilites can get a bit stagnet. Hopefully they will make it so that you can change out weapon skills in addition to the weapons themselves.

you can always buy a set of rare gear (yellow) off the trade netowrk.
Its cheap.
And you should be sufficiently well geared that you can do dungeons for tokens for gear.
You could also Karma far for gear…but I would save your karma for other things.

50% crit is about 1800ish precesion. ( maybe a few points more)
Crit is not all that great unless your also stacking +crit damage.

The berserkers set has power, precesion and +crit damage.
The Knights set has power, precesion and Toughness.

I forget what the other sets have on them off the top of my head. Ultimately your going to have to figure out what gear your going to want on your own. There is no 1 set formual for what gear you should have.

3 shatter a cry of frustration and use your scepter #3 and watch a player or mobs health bar melt.

Havent noticed the changes much in PVE or PVP.

Signet of illusions increases the health of phantasms as well.

Chaos storm CD was increased by 5 seconds. Its a pretty OP skill. It applies some pretty hard conditions on enemies and some really good boons on allies. It also have a pretty big area AND its also a combo field.

Dont forget you have other weapons besides the staff and greatsword that are VERY effective to use as well.

I have no issues with the 1 set of skills that works in PVP and PVE.

I play a mesmer.
I have a greatsword. I have a scepter, and a sword.
I ALSO have a staff, pistol and focus.
I swap out my weapons based around what I am doing to make best use of the various skills that those weapons offer.

I ALSO have all of my skills unlocked.
AND
I change then out depending on what I am doing and what the situation calls for.

The point is this:
There is no 1 build that works for every PVE situation.
If your doing DE’s you probably want to stack on lots of AOE and DPS skills.
If you running solo gathering resources you want speed and defensive buffs.
If your running a dungeon ( depending on what duengeon and boss your fighting ) want group boon/utility/healing/defensive skills.

Good suggestion.
I second this!

I miss GvG from GW too. Hopefully they will add it in to GW2 in some way shape or form.

At the momment I am not super fond of SPvP. Don’t get me wrong, its a ton of fun to play, my issue with it is that it is its own seperat game. There is no corssover between the PVE/WvW and SPvP at the momment.

The game is young still. I am expecting that they will add in more maps and gametypes to SPvP.

1. Gather what you need.
2. Gather what you do not need.
3. Sell what you do not need.
4. Buy what you do need.

Crafting the Rare recipes are worth a T O N of xp. And a T O N more if you use a crafting boost.

YES!

Warrior, Thief, Ranger, Mesmer, Necromancer, Elementalist, Engineer and Guardian can solo a champion.

PVE and PVP are one in the same. There is no difference bwteeen the 2 gear wise.

The forge is useable at pretty much every level. It allows you to transmute materils up to a higher tier. As mentioned you can plop in 4 armors or 4 weapons and it will spit something out.

Its a gamble so just be aware you may get something good, you may not.

I loved rangers in GW.

There was a Thumper ( hammer knockdown build)
Trapper.
Interupt/lockdown.
Beastmaster.
DPS/spike.
Spirit master.

I have to agree with the original poster. It would be nice to see other options for the ranger other than the pet.

Being a CoE junkie myself +1 to you for a great guide!

Top row is : Back, Ear, Ear.
Bottom row is: Neck, Ring, Ring

The back is only obtainable via personal story and guild armor crafter.
The others you can craft, purchase with karma from various vendors, purchase from the trade post, or rewards from personal story/random drops.

Mystic Salvage kits have a 25% chance to get rare materials. 80% chane to get runes back.

Black lion salvage kits have a 50% chance to get rare materials. 100% chance to get runes back.

So if your after rare materials ( eg ecto’s ) black lion has double the chance to net you rare materials.

Yes. But when you go back to those lower level zones you are at a SUBSTANTIAL advantage compared to when you were first there.

1. you have access to your full range of skills and skill slots INCLUDING your elite skill.
2. you gear (hopeuflly) is well upgraded including a full set of accessories.
3. you should probably have a substantial number or rare or exotic gear.
4. you have more ( if not all) of your talent point.

These all contribute to allowing you to put out more damage as well as mitigate/defend against incoming damage.

So your right, the cost of travel and repair are still higher BUT you can kill faster for more loot to offset travel costs. With more damage output and survivability you should have close to 0 repair costs.

Again. People are missing the point.

WoW TELLS you that you raid for “end game”
Its boring standing around waiting for 10 …let alone 25 people to get their act together and get going.
Fighting over who gets what gear when.
This so called “progression” you speak of goes something like this:
T56 raid comes out. Grind to get full set of T56 gear.
T57 raid comes out. T56 gear is obsolete. Grind to get full set of T57 gear.
T58 raid comes out. T56 AND T57 gear are now obsolete. Grind to get a full set of T58 gear.

In GW2 YOU get to choose what you want to do for your engame.
100% map completion?
World explorer?
WvW?
sPVP?
Legendary weapon?

And yes. You can level from 1 to 80 doing nothing but WvW, OR Pve, OR yes even crafting.

The point is you dont have to get to the level cap to “play” the game.

Or you can simply carry 2 different sets of tools. In the grand scheme of things the price difference is not all that substantial.

No need to be such a miser.

Another thread where people are all focused on the “end game” rather than being focused on “the game”.

Maybe GW2 is not the game for you?

IF you want to play WoW By all means play WoW. I hear that they just released a great new expansion that added in all sorts of “new” gameplay. Enjoy.

I will share this.

There were 5 enemies chasing one of my allies in WvW. They were running toward where I was coming down one of the hills on the west side of the map. I saw them, popped out a couple clones and charged in after them.

They all turned and ran. They had a 5 on 2 advantage in WvW and ran away.

THAT is what a mesmer brings to the table in WvW.

You can use karma to get a lot of unique weapons and armors (rare and exotics) that you cant get by any other means.

Run around the world and explore I am sure you will find them.

warrior downed #3 is not a rez.
Read the tooltip.

Raids do not make events epic.
Frodo and Sam saved middle earth and it was just the 2 of them. THAT was Epic.

no issues with taging mobs with a great sword.
GS2 bounces to multiple targets.
GS3 is a small AOE. I would suggest the instant AOE from the options menu. (casts the AOE on your mouse cursor.)
GS4 will whirlwind and hit multiple targets as well.
and GS5 is a cone attack and will hit rather a few too.

Staff #5 will net you a nice AOE, but its a longer CD so its harder to cycle.

There is a “things to do at 80” thread.
I would suggest giving it a read.
Lots of progression to be had there.

“To be honest I’ve never considered the Guild Wars brand to be bogged down by such outdated MMO concepts as ‘endgame’ content.”
Thanks Arte.1768

If only people were focused on “the game” thing would be a whole lot better.

This will sounds silly.
But the best way to make gold is to not spend it.
Sell. Sell. Sell.

All of those resources you gather along the way as you quest. They sell. Unless your planning on crafting.

Sorry. Play a mesmer ( on HoD…you know the #1 WvW server) and I Am still waiting to get killed in 2 seconds by a thief.

I am willing to wager in fact that I am still waiting to be killed by a thief …period.

I am also still waiting to get 1 shot by a warrior. Still havent had that happen yet either although there are plenty of threads about warriors being able to kill people in 1 shot.

I am going to put this out there.
You are stacking power, precesion and crit.
And yes, you are going to die fairly quickly doing that.

If you stack Tougheness and vitality…you may live longer….just a though.

Most people have issues with dungeons because they fall into the “holy trinity” mentality.

They expect the tank to hold agro.
The expect the healer to heal.
I cant tell you how many times I have heard the phrase " I am a dps!"

If everyone in the group takes the time to swap out their weapons and skills that SUPPORT the group things go very nicely. Pretty much every class in the game has skills and weapons that provide boons/buffs/support for the group.

Dungeons are very well done in this game. They can be quite challenging and really do require the group to work as a group.

This game does not need any sort of raid frames.
Some games do groups of 4.
Some games do groups of 8.

In a party CTRL + T calles out the target for the group.
T will target the called out target.
The called target gets a target marker over its head.

I have yet to encounter any group even that requires such precesion in assist targets. Most trash is dead on arrival.
And the veteran, champion, and super elite mobs are VERY clearly marked already for you.

Any boons and or support is genaerlly an AOE and its effects are granted to everyone in the radius.

As for healing, you have your OWN heal skills and your OWN defensive skills. Keeping yourself alive should not be a big issue, especially in the open world.

I think a LOT of people are kinda missing the point on #8.
This IS an MMO. The level scaling is awesome because you may be 70, but what if one of your friends picks up the game and is say level 20. This allows you to group together and do content together without the level 70 person 1 shotting everything and obliterating the XP curve.

On a lighter note I find PLENTY of reason (cough copper cough) to go back to low level zones and run around.

This game.
This game.
It does do a LOT of things right.

Because looking at armor alone is an oversimplification of how things work.

You can spec to gain additional toughness and/or vitality.
Many skills have passives or active bennefits that increase survival.
Its not just about you. Its about the party working together. EG a guardian can tank by virtue of providing boons/healing to others and letting them “tank”.