Guild Wars 2

How would Veil give you increased duration after the fact…?

If you really wanted to play with your friends and family, you could have them help you buy all the crafts to 400. That should get you near level 80 (especially if you start at level 15, which is where the experience curve becomes “slower”). From there it’s a few dungeon runs and you’re good to go.

Skieth.5601:

Kaz.5430:

It’s an elite specialisation rather than just another trait line.

Personally I think that they should have made it so that instead of picking three normal specs or 1 elite and 2 normal, that you should always pick 1 elite and 2 normal.

Each of the original trait lines could then get a special elite trait that only gets used if you’ve picked that line as the ‘elite specialisation’. The new elite specs having access to a unique weapon and utility skills would then make more sense IMO as it would be the ‘elite’ trait for the line.

Well Elite specs are meant to sharply define your party role: They forcibly bind you into traits designed for a certain role and alter your profession mechanic.
The 5 trees that are the core specs generally focus on : Burst DPS, Condi DPS, Support, Control and improving the profession mechanic. Picking 3 of these lets you fill at least 2 of these roles based on how that role is defined for your class (Condi Guardian = Burning, Condi Necro = poison, some bleed).
By giving up one of these potential roles or the ability to up your profession mechanics, you’re getting access to a new role in the form of the Elite spec.

Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for a better class-expansion system. Hope they add new weapons/skill types going forward

With the idea of more Elite specs coming (not just one per profession), I like the idea of locking yourself into that role, but that wouldn’t mean that you just swap between elite lines willy nilly.

I’d like the re-introduction of profession trainers in towns, to allow players to swap between elite professions in major cities (once they’ve done what is necessary to unlock them). That way, if you’re a Dragonhunter, you can equip your DH weapon regardless of what lines you run, but the only elite spec you can run is the Dragonhunter one. The Fskill changes are built into the elite spec, so if you don’t want the Fskill changes (and don’t need the weapon), then you’d either swap to a different spec or just run “specless”.

That’s how I interpreted it initially, but obviously I was way of the mark. I do still prefer my interpretation over just hotswapping (elite) lines.

Embolism.8106:

Esplen.3940:

Meanwhile Asura still hold their GS.

This. It’s height discrimination, I say.

If anything, we should be one of the few to not hold our weapons since we have to make up for our physical strength with our mind, be it through gadgets/technology or mental prowess. Hmph, clearly the Human Bookahs at ANet didn’t think it through.

Meanwhile Asura still hold their GS.

It’d be easier if we had Warrior weapon swap recharge (iLeap pRetreat).

I swore there was a giant bug where IE didn’t affect WoC clones and that was a huge Staff IE complaint.

Eodwen.2613:

Levetty.1279:

On no please do tell me how Mesmers have more surviving tools then eles who have more heals then a game with actual monks and immune to conditions when their health is above 90% or Theifs who can evade nonstop and have better access to stealth and stuns?

I like how you put thieves and eles on the same level there. Right now in spvp thief has to run away the moment another player looks at him. But yeah I get the ele part.

SEE? THIEF IS OP. HE CAN RUN AWAY!!!oneone!

AlphatheWhite.9351:

first hit doesn’t count as a bounce.
Enemy -> Ally -> Enemy
The arrows are the bounces.

This is the same number of total targets as before the patch, with IE.

Although now it affects Clones, too!

Mikkel.8427:

Esplen.3940:

Wait wait wait. Why is it that people keep bringing up “Rampage can just be moa’ed” in threads arguing against PU? Does nobody see the irony?

Um… bc unlike all the other professions, Mesmer’s can 6/6/6/6/6 and use ALL utilities and elites all in one build… DUH!

O yah, also they use Illusionary Elasticity to boost the bounce of WoC to 3 from 2… and they still have clone death traits on. And clones hit as hard as players. And you can have 9 clones up.

Curunen.8729:

ASP.8093:

Things that are also OP:
.
.
.
Not logging into the game.

The art of fighting, without fighting.

:p

You don’t lose 100% of the fights you don’t partake.

Not losing = winning.

You win by not playing fights.

Mesmer has stealth and movespeed. They can also log out.

Mesmer is invincible.

Wait wait wait. Why is it that people keep bringing up “Rampage can just be moa’ed” in threads arguing against PU? Does nobody see the irony?

No

But it’s so op, nobody can kill you since you’re op.

EremiteAngel.9765:

i’m quite tired of all these mesmer is OP threads.
they should ban all these threads.

But no other profession class is able to both stealth and retain movespeed oneoneone111exclamationmark11eleven!!1!

Maybe Tongku needs to show us a video of his full stealth combo burst.

Eh, I mean it’s not even that good of a troll, since they’d have to go down to end up down. It’s basically the same as IoL right now, actually.

Although I can see a major downside of people trolling in JPs. Huehuehue.

But Fay, clearly we all run the 6/6/6/6/6 Mesmer build with every weaponset equipped. Come on… don’t troll me and say you DON’T run that build.

Why not remake Illusion of Life to Illusion of Vengeance.

Up to 5 allies in a target area gain Illusion of Vengeance. Allies who go or are downed with this buff instead get revived to your current health (can overheal allies, each ally can only be revived once in this way). If you are downed, allies affected will instead be healed to half your maximum health (including you, if you’re downed and affected by it). Any ally who was revived in this way and is downed at the end of this duration gets killed. The remaining revived allies are downed.

This makes it so in a fight, PvE, PvP, or WvW, you get a moment of Vengeance for a group. If you know you’re about to be overrun you can drop it on your team pre-emptively and allow your team to down and pop back up. Afterwards, instead of rallying, you just have to revive, assuming you managed to kill off your opponents (in WvW, you might not, but that’s just something you’ll have to deal with).

Night = Slaying > Force = Bloodlust > Frailty

Accuracy is usually worse than Force/Bloodlust, but if you’re min-maxing for reflects, it can be very good. I personally run Accuracy/Energy which gets me to 80% with Oil + Heal-on Crit Food (neither are expensive versions). Team gives me Fury and bam, 100% crit chance.

Honestly, though, the only reason why I aimed for that 100% is because I run Arah as often as I can. Otherwise, I’d run Bloodlust + Night/Slaying/Force. Although I might not give up the Energy ‘cause I’m lazy.

apharma.3741:

Why is your expected crit damage modifiers lower than the base 1.5 crit damage we get?

Effective modifier = crit chance * crit damage = Average damage bonus (as a %)

Don’t worry, Cyninja. I don’t think you can wear your Shield if you don’t have the Chrono line equipped.

Maybe our second specialization will give us phant-based Fskills that don’t focus on shattering but instead buffing or controlling our phants.

It feels more natural, but the #3 becomes ridiculously strong. I’m not sure if baselining the attack speed is justified, but moving it down a tier might make sense (not sure what to trade with it).

X/Torch + Staff is fun for the blast, but be careful with PU, it makes the timing awful.

I went into a Fractal and I used Scepter vs Molten Dredge Boss and Mai (Block’er).

Traited, it was pretty good (bar when the Dredge would turn on my clones) since the DPS was equivalent to a ranged Sword. Notably Scepter 3 was ridiculously good since it was quick and painful with a short CD.

I actually didn’t really care about the bugged part where other casts are on a shorter CD, since the only skills I had with a cast time longer than half a second were: Offhand Phant and MoR. I rarely had to use MoR, ohPhant was not too useful compared to just auto attack and shatter.

I understand it can be super strong with Mantras (and stomping) but there aren’t that many other skills that it can be that great with (bar Shield Phant to get faster Alacrity out).

They’re watching to see if people will have lower cooldowns!

Still haven’t seen anything, so clearly it’s fine.

For a GM I think it’s in a fair position, bar stomps.

@Tongku

I know of very few cases where I would want to use MI in a Fractal, much less over TW, and I only run 50s.

Let’s go over every fractal:

Aquatic Ruins: People still run this? Time Warp is a sphere here and speeding up the slow boss fight is always a great plus (just be careful with underwater confusion). The trash mobs and running parts don’t need (or can’t use in the case of Dolphin) stealth.

Swampland: Umm… at what point is MI useful? Do you need help going underwater? Is Mossman being annoying? Underwater MI won’t do anything. Mossman annoying you at the Wisp section is easily bypassed with a Portal Entre/Exeunte since he doesn’t spawn at the outskirts (where the Wisps actually spawn). Bossfight, TW is king.

Urban Battlegrounds: If you ran MI, you’d skip one fight… wooooooo. If you run TW, you’ll get the boss significantly lower (and slow his animations so he doesn’t bend everyone over and whip out his greatsword real quick-like) before having to range (if even at all).

Uncategorized: MI helps get you to the top of the first and final segment, skipping the harpies. Of course, at the higher levels, they drop Powerful Blood which is nothing to scoff at alongside the fact that you’re a Mesmer, the profession with the best access to Reflections (post-patch, woooo) and the Harpies only use projectiles.

Snowblind: Mass Invis can be used to assist in the Bonfire and Post-Crystal phases. Post-Crystal makes sense (but 10s is not long enough, so it’s whatever. I can run Prestige Veil Mimic Decoy Decoy Prestige Decoy Prestige Decoy… to solo run that part with PU basically letting my allies revive at the end). TW is much better on the Crystal (if you’re having trouble with ads or just want to burst it) or on the final boss since he’s a poo head. If you don’t use TW on the Crystal, sure, run MI… but that fight is kinda silly since you can just do the ole’ throw dead bodies at it to win trick.

Molten Furnace: Umm… yeah Portal is king here. The only time MI is useful is right before the final boss (skipping trash is hard lyfe) and on the Lever phase. However, the Lever phase does not require stealth and MI will actually screw over anyone on the Lever unless people on the sides reveal themselves (MI is too big a range here). Also, you can’t cast while on the Lever and I personally believe it’s better to have a Mesmer on the Lever while having a Thief stealth them or someone just run back and forth pulling the mobs away. Mesmer isn’t going to be doing much in that part, anyways.

Cliffside: Umm… it’ll help us… umm…

Aetherblade: We can… uhh…

Volcanic: THE BOULDERS WON’T SEE US, BOIZ!

Thaumanova: Oh darn, we got spotted by weak patrolling wolfies because I was running TW.

Underground Facility (Braham/Rox): WE CAN USE IT AFTER THE TUNNEL TO HELP US GET TO THAT SAFE SPOT GUIZ. Or we can use TW to kill everything at the safe spot and use Veil to get past the trash if we REALLY needed stealth.

Solid Ocean Fractal: Umm… the trash runs are too hard, guys…

Molten Boss Fractal: I need help crossing a bridge. Can you hold my hand give me stealth?

Captain Mai Trin Boss Fractal: MI in the cannon phases can be useful, but since everyone just does the revive trick, it’s better to run TW to burst phases (or on the final phase). Although if you use MI, you can time Horrik phases since it lasts 50/60/70s and you can count that with MI cooldown, I guess. But 10s out of that duration isn’t going to be uber helpful, so… yeah…

Out of 14 Fractals, only 2 of them have a use for MI over TW and one of them prevents you from getting Vials of Powerful Blood (the other involves you hoisting a useless elite on an annoying bossfight, unless you use it during that fight to… run to your group?)

Embolism.8106:

A Druid, hands down.

They don’t have hands. When they gain the elite spec, they let their hands fall off to become one with Tyria.

The shatters are going to grant you Might, and (if you took Chaos with Chronomancy) BD which is going to share…. Might, Vigor, Fury, and Regen.

A team of 4 Ele won’t need Might and Fury. Vigor maybe, but it’s not worth you going down the Chaos tree just for 5s of it.

Maybe, maybe, maybe you might apply Vuln, but if you’re running with 4 Ele’s, they will have Vuln applications. Air GM Minor applies Vuln 60% on Crits. Every weapon combination has an application of Vuln on their Water Attunement, and there’s an Adept in Arcane to apply Vuln 33% on crit when in Water. I doubt 4 Vuln is going to be significant.

Also, if you F3, you might break Defiance (SH, THERE’S NO DEFIANCE BAR YET SO SH).

Not saying it’s not worth it, but it seems to me to be a waste of effort. If you want to press more buttons, I’m all for it, but if it doesn’t do anything, then it’s up to you whether you want to or not. (Like spamming the 1 key with auto attack on. It’s fun, but not necessary… unless you have no target.)

Sword 3 has an ICD before you can use Swap because reasons… :/

I wouldn’t put the duration of the portal as a buff/debuff on a player, but instead make it a ring that completes (or drains) on the portal itself, similar to capturing points. Sure, the enemy can see it, but so can your teammates… and easily.

Treetoptrickster.4205:

Giving alacrity to base Mesmer is thematically justified for the trait, but shouldn’t be done. Alacrity was meant to be and should remain a Chronomancer specific buff that gives people a reason to want to take the spec.

I would agree with this point if there were more specializations per profession. However, since there is only one specialization per profession (thus far), it’s basically a: “everyone will be their specialization and they just have to equip/dequip their bar to remove the elite spec”

Since when has hotjoin ever been a criteria for balance?

Also…

MrKahwk.9524:

Fay.2357:

And I haven’t gotten a single match with more than 2 mesmers on a team at all.

Hooray, I can give meaningless anecdotal evidence too!

It’s not only ONE experience, everyone can tell you about how mesmer population skyrocketed ever since the last patch. I find it funny how people always try to find any kind of’’evidence’’ to disprove a fact. Fact is; mesmer is overpowered. And if you say otherwise you are probably maining mesmer yourself and don’t want to leave the OP train or you don’t play pvp at all.

Countering anecdotal evidence with anecdotal evidence? Good plan.

tobascodagama.2961:

Start of fight combo: Weapon Clone + Dodge Clone -> F5 -> TW -> Mimic -> Well of Recall -> Well of Action -> Well of Recall -> F5 (reset) -> TW -> Mimic -> Well of Recall -> Well of Action -> Well of Recall -> Phantasms -> AA

I count 26s Quickness + 12s Alacrity. Not sure exactly how long it takes to execute the combo, which will affect whether we can summon Phantasms during F5 and therefore how long we delay the start of our DPS. Unaffected by Quickness, I think we can execute all those utilities in ~2.75 seconds, and we should have at least 5s of Chronoshift to do it in. iCap has a super long channel time and we probably won’t proc it, so we’ll want to start off with our non-shield weapon set and summon its Phantasm during Chronoshift instead (and then summon another after the reset).

You’re going to want to waste your shatters while casting your Wells (which, along with Mimic, should get cast pretty darn quickly with Quickness) and then cast a Phantasm at the end (do Phants get destroyed when you break F5? if yes, idfk, otherwise idfk). You get bonus Alacrity when shattering and since you have IP, you’ll get yourself 3s of Alacrity in 1.5s (0.5s band-aid internal cooldown which is now “working as intended” T_T).

It’s not much, but why not get more? Although if breaking F5 returns your boons to where they were when you cast it, don’t bother since you won’t get anything out of it.

Keep in mind the 10,000 hour rule assumes that you’re doing the task (job, idea, etc) correctly or striving to. Even if it’s a natural progression of getting better, that counts.

However, it is possible to do a task for 10,000 or more hours and still be bad (or worse than the mean) at the task.

A good example of something that you will become great at is reading. If you read for 10,000 hours, by the end you should be able to read competently and not have to say the words out loud (and there are a lot more people that do this than most people think. Plenty of people have to read it at least with their mouths and others have to say the words out loud).

An example of the reverse is using a computer. In the current day and age (of first world countries), people tend to use computers every day (that includes phones). However, many people are not masters, experts, or even great at doing so. People use browsers but don’t necessarily know how to USE browsers (browser shortcuts, hotkeys, bookmarks, tweaks, edits, and more). Of course, you could then argue that “well, they only USE tumblr and they’re decently good at it”, which may be true (no offense tumblrians), but I doubt the majority of people who have used tumblr have looked at pictures and text posts for 10,000 hours (and if they have, they better kitten well be good at it, or I don’t know what they expect out of life).

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

@Esplen
You can’t really stack TW though, since each pulse only gives 1s quickness and its pulses every second. Unless I misunderstood your suggestion :O.

@Pyro
Well that’s a pity, the quickness part still stands though. So the only way to share alacrity is via well?

Drop 2 TW, they each pulse every 1s for 1s duration, therefore every 1s, you get 2s Quickness and the enemy gets 2s Slow.

Test it in a party with 2 Mesmers, they almost always stack TW nowadays (unintentionally) but it no longer lowers DPS (unless the Slow lowers DPS, but that’s a different matter entirely).

I haven’t crunched the numbers, but you could use that build to instead be sharing Quickness instead of Alacrity (since I doubt most fights are going to last long enough for Alacrity to be more than nice in PvE). Otherwise you could slot alacrity well instead of SoI (or Mirror Images) to give 4-8s of Alacrity. Also consider using Shield skills in the middle of your rotation (start in Sword so when you pop F5 again weapon swap is off cooldown).

Turn off auto attacks, this isn’t PvE. If you want to auto attack, press 1 manually.

Nike, that’s a nice rotation, but I would suggest canceling F5 (you can press again to destroy the rift) as soon as you’re done and re-doing the rotation. Now that Alacrity and Quickness both stack duration, there’s no downside to plopping down 2 Timewarps on top of each other. You could then hold off on the Mimic SoI if you wanted to min-max the duration of boons.

The only nice thing about 2 Shield Phants is the Alacrity, but it’ll probably get uptime similar to iMage, meaning that all players affected will have 100% uptime with 2 (assuming they’re properly synced since Alacrity isn’t affected by boon duration and doesn’t look to stack duration).

You’re losing a significant amount of personal DPS, but you’ll boost the DPS of your team slightly. Conceptually (in PvE), it’s similar to running PS as a Warrior (at least, before the trait revamp) where you had to lose personal DPS to give party-wide DPS (in the form of Might).

Assassin’s is cheaper and you can always stat swap later.

I doubt Rebound is going to make Alacrity useless.

Think about it… your next skill is now at 75% cooldown. If you maintain Alacrity, it drops to 50% cooldown.

Alacrity is still potentially stronger than Rebound since it drops the cooldown of a spell by 66% (if maintained for 66% of the spells cooldown). Rebound does not need to be maintained and…

You know what, think of Rebound as Mimic. Does Mimic make Alacrity useless? Does it outshadow the concept of Alacrity? Do we not need to become Chronomancers because we have Mimic?

I mean… if MoR has the best hp/s that’s fine, imo, because you’re not attacking for 25% of the time, meaning you’re dropping your dps by about 10-20% (not actually 25% because you can use it when you’re in the middle of your low damage skills, such as auto attacks while waiting for phants/other skills).

If you’re complaining about the skill reduction skill, the way I interpreted it was it instantly reduces the recharge to 75% and only affects utility abilities. Since we’re all on the speculation train, that’s just how I feel it works, meaning it’s like a weak team Mimic. Even if it affects Elites and Weapon Skills (not healing skills, pls anet), it shouldn’t be too, too stronk (if it affects weapon skills, you’ll not only screw over dps rotations but also punish auto attacking or miscasting and would require a tonnnnn of coordination).

People are just knee-jerking right now. I’m interested in seeing what the skills mean for Ele. They can be extremely support-oriented, but cause the Ele to lose damage (especially dat stunbreak).

tobascodagama.2961:

Necrotize.2974:

Null Field and Time Warp can be taken as well as taking Medic’s Feedback. One share the second you drop a Glamour means allies get around 6 seconds of resistance. Pretty substantial IMO.

What’s your Stun Break, then?

I use tempests for my stunbreaks. flips hair

walks away

This is a better place to ask

Trait/Specialization-wise, I would suggest going for Domination and Dueling with your choice on the third line. Dueling is a great one to go for first because the traits are well-rounded (go for Phantasmal Fury, Fencer’s Finesse, and Deceptive Evasion). However, with Fencer’s Finesse, you’ll want to camp Sword moreso than Greatsword.

I think you missed a comma. “I give up, rerolling mesmer” is not the same as “I give up rerolling mesmer” is not the same as “I give up rerolling, mesmer”.