This has nothing to do with f2p. The only thing that hurts the community is the veteran elitism.
We have plenty of helpful veterans in this game. However, those few people who want that sense of superiority in a video game can potentially ruin it.
I do appreciate your dedication to the game and the class and trying to offer suggestions to improvement.
But I have to agree with the above that making very long video is not the most effective way of conveying your idea. Not only Robert won’t have time to go through your suggestion, neither will any of us has enough time to watch that.
The only way I’d agree to this would be if ascended armor was given some other functionality then as opposed to only having a very slight stats increase.
Otherwise, the answer for me is a no I disagree with this.
It’s really mindblowing to me that actually there are quite a few players like you who actually sees linear gear progression kitten important and wants gear upgrade to be very meaningful. I thought games like diablo 3 or just the good old WoW would suit that concept way more.
Plz let me know what you think you would lose if the AR and ascended armor are separate. You can still do whatever level of fractals. It only helps that you can now play different professions and different armor stats more easily. Swapping different weapons would also be easy. You can even put in other infusions for their benefits.
Plz tell me what you lose to make you upset.
Although I am seeing some disagreements, but there is no one coming up with any counter argument to my 1-4 in the initial post.
Colin stated in raid announcement that it should all about the challenging content itself rather than enforcing certain type of entry requirement. I don’t see why fractals can’t be changed to follow the exact same philosophy.
The gw2 pvp has too many factors in it and making good matchmaking kinda hard.
That’s why people are suggesting separating solo and team queue again to make it a bit simpler.
Yesterday I was playing with 4 newbie friends(all like rank 20 or below). However, we got matched up with a relatively well-known guild group on courtyard. And not surprisingly, all four of my friends downed within 5 seconds of the first encounter and we got farmed 500-0 very quickly.
Also, I think they have said that fractals will be the place they expand small 5-man dungeon content.
I really can’t imagine how annoying the AR infusion requirement would be after the max level gets pushed higher and higher.
What if your AR is your reward level and you need 1 to 1 reward level to fractal scale so you gain AR as you level through the scales.
This would mean if you are 100 on a guard you are 100 on all your classes without having to make 3 different sets of armor for light medium and heavy to then stuff AR infusions in… And they then convert versatile infusions to +5 to your stat of choosing
Yeah. Exactly what I am thinking about. Make AR an account-wide progression.
Take as many screenshots as you can.
I just feel with the new raid content becoming the new PvE endgame. It’s time to lift the elitist status off the fractal content. Make it more accessible and more fun to run.
Didn’t Colin say they wanted raids as end-game for 10-man groups and fractals for 5-man?
For the record, I do not think that AR should be account-wide.
Well, let’s be honest. Even raid, as Colin said, won’t set any gear requirement. Why should fractals be the anomaly?
Plz tell me what’s the purpose of a gear requirement in this game? Just to help veterans to maintain their elitist status?
Well, we already have a boon called resistance that counters condie. Really don’t need protection to counter condie.
Also, condie overall is not that OP. It is really just burning that is a bit over the top. I woul d even say torment and bleed are a little bit UP.
And condie builds actually have some purpose in the current meta. With abundence of sustain from almost all classes, it is really hard to kill anyone with just direct damage. For example, burn guardian is one of the most efficent way to take down a bunker guardian.
Ascended armor boxes have a fairly decent drop rate once you hit 40+. Not hard to gear up alts with that.
You can easily hit 55 AR with just an ascended weapon as well as trinkets.
20 from 2 infused rings.
10 from 2 tinkets
5 from amulet
10 from infused back
10 from weapon(s)That will let you farm 40s which have a decent drop rate on ascended armor. Eventually you’ll get armor for your main and all your alts. Most people that frequent level 50 fractals have a bank filled with ascended armor chests.
I am not looking for band-aid solution. Rather, I am suggesting something better for general PvE and PvX players.
It is annoying that you have to either farm to craft ascended or run tons of fractals to get those ascended armor. I myself did probably 100 or so runs at fractal 50. I have to say the drop rate is not amazing. I can understand that since ascended pieces are the end-game gear and are for players that are pushing the that final small increase of powere.
I just feel with the new raid content becoming the new PvE endgame. It’s time to lift the elitist status off the fractal content. Make it more accessible and more fun to run.
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WvW large scale fight is ruled by ground targeting skill and cleave damage. Mesmer really sucks in those two aspects.
Most of our AOE damaging skill requires target which greatly limits their usage. izerker needs a target. MoP/MoD needs a target. Even feedback needs a target.
Luckily, devs showed some love to our new chronomancer well skills. I am really looking forward to testing them out in WvW.
I can imagine FA is a good community and recovering as well.
The only reason they can’t keep up with SoS in ppt is because we have strong OCX coverage. FA actually has more players than SoS in both early and late NA.
I think it’s nice that ascended gear actually has a functional purpose, honestly.
It’s still the best armor in stats. The stats increase is very important in say WvW fights. I think you are tunnel visioning here.
Also, I felt terrible to have to put AR in every of my ascended piece, armor or trinkets. I could have put in other stats infusion instead.
Agony resistance on armor amounts to 30.
If you do not wish to invest in ascended armor you can still infuse your trinkets and make craftable AR essences.
I believe +10 to be a good threesold, on backpiece and rings, factoring amulet and other accessories you can amount to 60 (note that this is account bound). For the remaing, crafting ascended weapons is recommended, as it has a higher stats difference than armor to get to 70.Please note that i am all for easing experienced players in fractals to use other classes. But not giving access to high level fractals for unprepared players.
I am not saying eliminating AR. I am saying separate it from armor. Make it work like magic find.
You still need to accumulate AR as an inexperienced player. However, you won’t be forced to craft ascended armor and use all the infusion slots for it.
I think HOTS should be a good time to separate agony resistance from ascended armor set. I would like to see agony resistance become an account-wide stat just like magic find.
My reason for agony resistance being a bad thing tied to armor:
1. GW2 is advertised as a no-grind for stats game. However, to progress in fotm, you have to make ascended armors which are quite costly. And the ability to craft ascended armor has no correlation with one’s ability to do fractals.
2. Anet wants every profession to be versatile. However, with AR tied to armor, one has to stick to one set of armor which greatly limits build variety. If you want to switch from power to condie, you have to craft a complete new set of ascended armor. This is not fun.
3. I am also forced to run with limited professions. Heavy/medium/light gear type can only be shared among three professions.
4. Ascended armor is end-game gear. Being forced to put on AR in the infusion slot makes me feel awkward. Just in order to do fractals, I won’t be able to put other types of infusion in the slot.
With the new fractal line in the mastery system, I think there should be no problem for Anet to separate the AR progression from the gear progression.
dd ele is great for roaming these days!
Go for 400-500 healing power and condie damage, 30 percent crit chance, 2600 toughness and rest into power.
It’s so much better and so much more fun than PU condie mesmer. PU condie mesmer has horrible mobility. IMHO, it’s a trash roaming build.
I like Air line the most for the build. Reduced CD on lightening cooldown means more RTL/shocking aura/updraft. Those are you main engage and disengage skill. Combining with lightening rod, you will have both sustain and burst damage.
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I think in PvP, mesmer/thief are using sigil of blood as as a replacement. Then they pick air or fire depends on whether they need aoe damage or single-target damage.
We have finally got guilds and commander in both EU-early NA and late NA timezones. Time for your hardcore WvWers to come over and enjoy the competition.
Very well-made video!
Would love to see more after you get better with the class.
Since I am on SoS, I will look out for you in the future haha.
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Guilds can gvg in guild halls soon. WvW and GvG should have less conflict in the future.
1. They are too good at everything
It is the best 1v1 spec can both hold point and decap. It can survive majority of 1v2s. It has one of the top mobility and can outrotate most other meta specs. It also does a lot of cleave damage as well.
2. Against damage spec, you should be able to decap 1v1 easily. When getting 1v2’d, a well-played ele knows how to disengage and outrotate. For you teammate, you should help cleanse/heal your squishies. You have a lot of cleave damage on downstate enemy.
The fight you should avoid: Against tanky spec when the point is theirs. e.g. shoutbow warrior, minion mancer.
Join SoS if you are EU. Join FA if you are OCX. That way the tier will be great all around.
Tier 2 is slowly getting balanced out and we are getting some coverage in both NA and EU. Best time to join us!
Not sure why this is considered an accomplishment at all and needs to be bragged about.
Yes, because one of the top three classes in the game needs buffs
Yes, mesmer is in a pretty good state but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look for improvements for some obviously lackluster areas.
Also, your top three perception is way too subjective. The truth is mesmer is not the top three most common class in tournament pvp, mesmer is not the top three most common class in organized wvw raid, mesmer is probably also not the top three most common class in either organized or pug dungeon/fractal runs.
Not sure if well alacrity is that useful in your trait.
Even though your build is more phantasm based, but landing shatter for the condie burst is always important for any condie mesmer these days. So I will definitely pick clone super speed shatter over well alacrity.
You may also want to test out which is better between improved alacrity and illusionary reversion.
Same for deceptive evasion and mistrust. Not sure which is better even when you rely on phantasm damage a lot.
In uncoordinated daily unranked/ranked play, vampirism is probably not needed for the dd eles. They can survive pretty well already. But I can see the vampirism rune being more important in top tier team plays where you actually have to face coordinated burst.
Sometimes you may actually die as a dd ele against unexpected burst, e.g. thief/mesmer cc/moa burst, thief gank after you exhaust your cooldowns, warrior rampage. For a good ele with vampirism rune, you can basically survive any type of 2v1 even if they use elite skills and have good coordination.
If your friend can 1v3/4 with a certain build, that only means the game doesn’t have enough merit to indicate how well the build can work. It only means the players in that game are too bad.
I recently am playing shoutbow warrior on my alt account. There are always 2-3 players chasing me around not being able to kill. But that only says they are bad players. Evidence like that don’t prove anything.
If you want to argue that bunker mesmer is viable, come up with a build and do more extensive testing on it.
If you won’t enjoy the fight, just don’t fight it. Simple rule in WvW roaming.
Most of those annoying builds have very little chasing and engaging capability.
For me, PU condie mesmer before or after patch are both trash specs for WvW roaming. Anyone with a half brain can outrun you and laugh at you.
(edited by Exciton.8942)
It really depends on your scope.
For new players learning class mechanics, obviously ranger and warrior are the easiest. Guardian and necro are probably medium difficulty. Ele, engi, thief and mesmer are harder given their more complicated class mechanics.
However, for medium plus level PvP plays, it depends more on the meta and specific builds. This is assuming you already got familiar with most classes’ basic mechanics.
this is the build i tested for my bunker mesmer role.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAseWncfClfilqBGoBEgilej6cDKhWzMAugMqeUb1XF-TZxHAB1eKAQqMAK7PYwDAAgjAAA
i didnt use decoy or blink as i have stability when needed so its hard to interrupt me .
if i dont think there will be much condi pressure i will take portal over null field or another well. for the elite sometime i take time warp and than use temporal enchanter for the resistance (good against weakness and blind and other conditions) when we burstcleasne:
compare it to bunker guard – guard can remove 9-11 conditions if used all the shouts and virtues .
mesmer can cleanse 2 with heal and null field or mantra for fast cleanse total of 6 every 20 sec or less.
boons:
bunker guards give boons like might with empower or protection stability and regen every 24 sec.
mesmer can do the same and more boons every 15 sec in average with boon share (trait and signet) and for longer time but need to build them up at the start of the fight so its not on call boons.res ability:
mesmer can res 30% faster and with quickness faster and with more health with runes. also feedback bubble protect from projectiles for 10 sec or 12 sec.
guard has shield to push back and reflect projectiles for 4 sec and give 3 boons when up.
both has stability when needed.healing abilities:
guard have more healing abilities with regen and pure of heart empower and mace.
mesmer got strong healing skills which heal you for 8.5k and allies for 5.5k and also good regen boon share with phantasm. so probably more burst heal when needed.block ability:
guard has more with aegis, shelter and mace and focus
mesmer is random aegis with chaos armor but has more blind with it also.hp bar and armor
guard 13k with 3.2k armor
mesmer 15k with 3k armordebuff conditions, boons and area control:
mesmer has slow, chaos storm, and null field and wells so more area control
guard has staff linenow i didnt talk about alacrity to the team which is nice buff not that strong but nice (with well can be nicer but is it really needed for bunker mesmer?)
also didnt talk about F5 abilities to doable the cleanse or heal skills etc…so probably there are more pros and cons for each profession. but seems like mesmer ele and guard can contest on that bunker role as each of them has unique mechanism to support the group
Looks nice on paper. But all mesmer support are so much smaller in radius compared to guardian shout (240 vs 600). Only exception is the signet. They also have cast time which makes so much worse compared to the instant shout skills.
I also don’t think all the ground targeting support is as strong in PvP setting. Small circle of null field and well of eternity is basically inviting cleave damage. Also, in less coordinated team, it is much harder to have players to get the full benefit from those ground target circle.
We have a lot of strong utilities But I really don’t believe going full support is an effective way to play mesmer.
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I really don’t think support wells will ever be able to make mesmer into a good full support role.
Well’s effect radius 240 and its 3 second delay of effect pretty kills it in comparison to shout(600 radius, instant) for support.
I can tell you that is the icon for necromancer on Chinese server. They use that because the skull icon obviously can’t make past censorship.
Anet was probably just using it as a placeholder for undesigned class icon.
Interesting. If so, i think it should be considered a bug.
It’s a nice well for sure.
But is it really that important?
We already have this minor trait in inspiration trait line that lets you share blur with teammates. And guess what? The radius for that minor trait is larger!(300 compared to the 240 of the well).
Overall great changes!
About well of precognition. I like its current form for sure but also feel a bit sad losing the unblockable function. If it can end with an unblockable buff, the well would be much more useful in WvW where block is prevalent.
Ascended rings: easiest to get from fractals of the mist by either daily chest after level 11 or buy using tokens
Ascended accessories: cheapest to get from guild commendations
Ascended amulet: cheapest to get from WvW laurel merchant
Most of the time, condition damage works the best against them.
Kolompi has it right, generic shatter build leaves you wanting.
To help overcome the deficient I go the shatter lockdown route. Using mental anguish with CS stuns from MoD price you can assure the landing of your burst with the extra punch you’ll need to get penetration beyond that last 10% HP. If you do fall short dropping your iZerker with a swap to pistol stun + iDuelist can give you some follow up burst/lockdown the torch just will not allow.
An ele might live to face another burst but locking an ele out of his skills with hard CC is a hard biscuit for them to eat.
Finally though, best to +1 on them with this approach as they can’t survive a 2v1 under such burst and heavy CC.
Against a good ele, +1 as a mesmer is usually not good choice either. Good ele should know that he/she can’t handle that 2v1 and plan an escape early. Also vampirism rune is used by a lot of them which can completely negates your cc/moa.
The best way to deal with ele is usually have someone tanky 1v1 him and have thief +1 him when needed because thief has the mobility to outrun dd ele. Skilled thief can also one-shot dd ele when they are low.
Time to design a loyalty reward track for WvW players. Basically better extra reward for players playing for a server for a long time.
Really have to judge from the actual gameplay.
Sometimes it is just obvious the person is not contributing, e.g. mesmer camping scepter or staff.
But even there, as long as the party is doing okay and the person is not doing detrimental contributions. I won’t want to kick. If the party is full of that kinda of ‘creative’ builds. I will just leave myself.
It won’t be fair.
The larger population on the larger servers naturally will have more ‘friends’. In addition to that, you have a whole queue of players waiting to bandwagon onto it.
So please don’t be too short-sighted. Locking overpopulated server is one good step in the right direction. Now they should focus on how to bring more players into WvW.
It doesn’t matter. YB has the third largest population in the game and has a bigger population gap compared to SoS and FA. So being in T1 and losing by small margin is better than being in T2 and winning by hugh margin.
I heard it opens up occasionally at around 4 in the morning. You should definitely stay up all night watching the server list so you can hop on that bandwagon.
Under the new system they are fully locked.
Don’t listen to this guy, he is just trying to get his friends in and he’s afraid you’ll take their spot. That guys saying you can use an auto click program is lying too.
The only way to be sure to get in is to stay up all night and watch it until it opens up. It may take a few days but you can do it, just stock up on redbull. I mean what’s a week’s worth of sleep if you can get into T1 right!
I think he’s actually right about the new system keeping things fully locked. I’m so glad I got my friends onto JQ before the change.
I think he is being sarcastic
Not even worth using a moa when 1v1ing them given so many of them are using vampirism rune these days.
Basically you moa burst, and he just gets into vapor form to negate the moa. Then he just teleports/RTL away and heal back.
Better yet, just double the reward and end it in four days as planned.
The current meta SA DP thief has great mobility, utility and survivability. If such build can also contest side point 1v1, it becomes pretty OP. It’s almost like another DD ele.
Remember in an 1v1 against thief, if you lose, you will surely die. The thief has enough gap closer to ensure that happen. However, if the thief loses, he can always leave and find a chance somewhere else.
Thief has always been the No.1 WvW roaming class. This says a lot in its potential of 1v1ing. It’s just that in conquest mode. Thief excels in other areas that it’s worth giving up some personal fighting power for.
Necros are waaaayyyyy better team fighters than thieves ever will be. Necros can stay in big scale fights, thieves will never be able to nor they ask for it.
Once again no thief is asking to be able to 1v1 every single class in game but at least have fair chance vs some of them. Also, once again WHERE DO MESMERS FIT IN THIS WHOLE ARGUMENT OF YOURS because they can fill exactly same role, have actually more stealth than thieves, more CC, higher burst and better survival.
I have yet to see a single post in any thread that managed explain why it is ok for mesmers to be how they are but not for thieves.
Mesmers don’t “fit in my argument” – I was under the impression we were talking about thieves. Attacking my argument by drawing in mesmers is a straw man.
My point is exactly the opposite: You can’t compare classes like that (or at least imo you shouldn’t be able to).
I think you should be a bit more specific about what you want to be able to do … in one build. And what you want to be able to do “in general”.Actually we should be dragging mesmers into this. Mesmers and thieves used to share a role of decapping and 1v1. Now only mesmer is capable of 1v1, whereas thief doesn’t survive long enough to kill anyone 1v1 (except other thieves). Mesmer and thief are a natural comparison, one was buffed, the other was not.
And as others have said a thousand times… We only want to be able to win 1v1 at least sometimes, not just against other thieves. Or is thief supposed to only decap empty points? What is your justification for that?
Almost no one will play a spec that can lose to thief 1v1 in a real game. Remember thief has the best mobility. Losing a 1v1 against thief means you are dead weight to your team. Thief can always pick the fight he wants and you will always be the victim.
The only exception is probably mesmer before patch. The class can bring important utility that is portal and moa. So with a good mesmer on team, you can choose to have a thief to babysit him. Even then, you see very few mesmer used by teams. Because you need great coordination to have a mesmer being useful.
The new specialization daredevil, however, is a chance for thief to play differently. I would like to see a viable option for thief that gives up some mobility for actual fighting capability. I remember the old meta SD thief has much better 1v1 potential. So it can happen.
(edited by Exciton.8942)