This has been the biggest issue of WvW for a long time. The whole WvW transfer system is essentially a large-scale hotjoin where people just bandwagon to win.
I know that WvW is not designed to be a balanced game-mode but the current entirely lopsided matchups are killing a lot interests in the game mode. This game mode has great potential but devs have abandoned it for so long that it is in a very bad state
We really need immediate attention from devs on this as the expansion is a perfect chance to restructure the WvW system, not just the maps, but also the reward, the server population balance etc.
Ok throwing a prediction into the ring. This update will be 07/21. Unless they start to do 2 reveals a week then I would say 07/07. I don’t think they would release the week before 07/04 since they might have staff heading out for vacation which means if its not in next week then it will probably be after the holiday. Unless they are going to skip the rest of the reveals which would give the marketing team grey hair if they did. Hope I am wrong and it is next week mind you.
07/21 would be super inconvenient time for WTS final. There could be some crazy imbalance in the new specializations and completely ruin their esports event.
It really has to be either within June to give some time for balance tweaks or after WTS final. Another possibility is obviously that LA patch comes first and specialization changes come right after WTS final.
It really comes down to personal experience and no point in arguing any more.
You choose a build you enjoy playing the most and get good at it. If people feel themselves that they can play well with IP shatter build in solo queue, why persuading them to change?
stance, mantra, meditation…I don’t know. There are quite a few possibilities.
In terms of tier choice, it really comes down to personal preference. T1&T2 provide a lot of large-scale fights which a lot of people like. T2 off-hour is lighter and there may be more coverage gaps compared to T1. You can probably play with smaller groups in those time zones. T3 is pretty solid as well but their off-hour timezones can be more lopsided but if you are mostly NA player, it can be solid choice as well. Not sure about T4 and below. They could be more ideal for roaming players who just look for small-scale fights.
You are welcome to come and check out Sea of Sorrows community website http://sosgw2.com
We are happy to provide help and info if you are interested in joining the server.
where does all this info come from?
They say next content update.
I would be very surprised if it comes before the WTS final(in August) since it will completely alter the current balance and meta.
This means it is still quite faraway.
I think a lot of you are over hyping PS/EA. i also did this when until i watched a pod-cast yesterday with Brazil, Nemesis, and some other guy… anyways the party wide dps increase is nice if your fellow players can manage good dps uptime and they know how to play their class ex. they could be a staff ele with one of the highest theoretical dps’s over a 30 second period of time, but as soon as they die or as soon as they dont know that they should be using Meteor storm or 100% uptime lava font etc… the effectiveness of PS/EA drops significantly. PS/EA will not make bad players good. It will make mediocre players look better and it may even detract from a team where an engi or ele is solo stacking might before a fight. PS/EA is a band-aid for mediocre players. Good players will combo field and bad players dont benefit enough from PS/EA to make it useful imo.
I also watched that. But I have to say Nemesis is underestimating pugs these days. I have been pugging fractal 50 every day recently. The vast majority of players I found through lfg know what they are doing and we clear 50 rather smoothly. Yeah, occasionally(mostly weekends), I get poor groups that die often. But I am fine with that once in a while.
Depending on your build, condie mesmer(every kind) can be very hard to fight 1v1. But similarly to condie ranger who also excels in 1v1, their teamfight potential is lacking. Even though they spec for condie, they are still squishy and can be taken out by sneaky attack in team fights.
Additionally, many condie mesmers actually lack condie removal themselves and can be wrecked by other condie builds.
I heard that CN server has been plagued by such exploits in a much worse way. I really hope this does not happen to NA server. Anet should take this srsly even if it is just posted on the forum. If such behavior becomes prominent, it gonna put death sentence to the WvW game mode at least.
It’s really not that zerker is too effective and makes other stats combo obsolete.
It is that players have completely figures out most of the content and have them completely trivialized so that the only thing that matters is to dish out the highest dps possible
Actually in more challenging content, like high level fractal, you can try to build a more support orientated build and use some other gear stats to optimize it and be very useful to your group.
Same thing with mesmer power block. With HoT coming out, it is perfect chance to make it work on thief and rebalance everything.
My suggestion would be have power block stop initiative regen for 1-2 seconds.
In other games I play, competitive, when a profession is not balanced, is banned by the community itself. Here, sadly, if you are op you play it and if not and you are bad even promote the use of hacks. This game will never be a esport, until the rules are inviolable and/or the community respects them, even though they may break.
This last thing I see quite complicated if not impossible.Developers need to implement better anti-cheaters if they want to turn this game into something important in the international competitive arena.
Players like this should be recorded before they change their account. Perhaps we will record a new star…
Because we don’t have completely out-of-line op class. We only have class that are meta or class that are slightly below meta. GW2 is simply one of the most balanced MMO I have seen.
I hope the majority of players can learn a bit more about rotation and risk management. I see too many players too engaged in fights and completely forgot about bigger picture. They sometimes don’t even realize they are in outnumbered fights.
Also, some players take too many risks to 1v1 or 1v2 players they shouldn’t be fighting. To make things worse, they go for those fights again and again, hoping something different would happen.
what counters mesmer – thieves and condi pressure
most thieves are bad and it’s not rare to see mesmers outsmart them.
thanks to ele and warrior cleansing, condi builds are played much less.mesmers counter:
shout warriors – meta
dps guards – meta
power necros
power rangers
cele rifle engie – meta
turret engie
d/d ele – meta
fresh air ele
staff elemesmers arent the best at holding points and their mobility is crap. but the poor mobility is somewhat compensated by their portal.
I used to queue with a good thief and together we’d prevent anyone from reaching our points held by downing them in less than 5 sec.
Out of everything on that list, mesmer really only counters the celestial classes, meaning no DPS guard, no sf ele, no power necro, no power ranger, turret engi ok but that isn’t played much anymore.
Even against cele class, it is only a soft counter since you can remove their boons in team fight. But that is it. It is not advisable to waste your time 1v1ing a cele ele or cele warrior. A good cele ele and warrior have about equal chance to beat mesmer as well. I can probably even beat a lot of similar skill level mesmer on my shoutbow.
That list is kinda hilarious to begin with. DPS guard counters mesmers. How can it be the other way around? SF Ele and power ranger are about equal depends on LOS.
The only 1v1 a shatter mesmer is likely to take is probably against cele engi.
(edited by Exciton.8942)
Here is my 2 cents on Mesmers.
Currently on a personal power level Mesmers are a quite bit weaker than the rest of the meta. What mesmers bring to the table though is portal which is extremely strong.
If the personal power level of mesmer is to rise, which it seems to be judging by the trait changes, then Mesmer will become mandatory because portal is just that strong.
Solution? Well there is 2 options as I see it.
1. Balance Mesmers personal power level around the current cooldown of portal to a place where taking Mesmer is plenty viable. IMO this would mean the personal power level of Mesmer just ever so slightly rises in the current state of the game.
2. Increase the cooldown of portal and significantly increase the personal power level of mesmer to that of other strong classes/builds.
This.
I am voting for 1 since portal is one utility you can substitute in games below tournament level. With slightly buffed personal power level+one more fight-oriented utility is enough to make mesmer good.
I don’t want to see portal cool down increase since nice portal play is so enjoyable to watch in high-level play.
Except mesmer loses vs thief, ranger (condi especially), dps guard, shoutwarrior (unless perfect plays from the mesmer) and more.
If we’re really talking about 1v1 then DPS guard (if you know when they are going to use gap closers) burns down fast, and you have so many options when it comes to shattering the ranger (illusion IV is especially hepful).
shoutwarrior? XD
the only one I can agree with is condi ranger, the axe flies everywhere
the whole thread made my day
He was right. There is no way a good mesmer should engage into any of those matchups 1v1. You are the one making others laugh.
No. That mantra activation buff is just some small damage buff not something that is gonna change your playstyle.
Troll or not. Take the OP seriously at your own risk.
I would guess or would like to see a scepter being the range option instead. More magic orientated assassin type, exactly what I like most.
Sniper type is hard to implement in this game since you lock a target by clicking.
Sniper gameplay sounds like it should revolve around aiming. But how do you aim when you already target lock someone.
Then it either becomes warrior killshot or ranger pewpew? Both are stupid and boring. Don’t want a third spec like that anymore
I think PU shatter should be pretty good.
decoy + desperate decoy + mass invis = a lot stealth and boons. Very high gank potential
It is possible for ranger since they already have good long and mid range options.
Warriors will most definitely get something else, likely to be offhand pistol or dagger.
It’s a direct result of many players asking for more challenge content.
It’s gonna be difficult for Anet to cater players from both ends.
The way female norn walks for me is a bit weird.
You can ago for valkyrie stats(Power, vitality, ferocity) with hidden killer trait.
But in the end, thief is very squishy in terms of raw stats but actually excel in survival in WvW environment. Play more carefully and seize the right moment to engage.
I don’t understand this game mode very well yet. But it seems a large number of games I played so far are blowouts with minimum PvP action. Not sure what went wrong.
Here is reason why you should come SoS.
It is important to know how it is like currently in WvW to have a constant outnumbered matchup week after week. And on SoS we are probably outnumbered 3:1 for most of the day.
The server is really more suitable for T3 but the glicko system will prevent it from dropping in a long time. Then also the T3 servers probably won’t like to go up to ’enjoy ’ such a lopsided matchup either. Sure there are dedicated players on the server who always try to recruit and tag up to rally people. Then Anet enforced a stupid full status to prevent all the positive things from happening. In the mean time, the rival servers keep getting bigger because they are the only two that are not full in top 6 servers. Very soon, every fairweather player in this game mode will join those two servers and situation will get worse day by day.
So please come join us who still remain fighting on the server, although we are fighting more for the server pride rather than for the fun.
Fa full too
Not until very recently. The server already picks up enough people to sustain it for a while. Now YB becomes the only non-full server and I am sure their population will slowly catch up as well.
I find it will be pretty good for coordinated team fights but horrible for all solo/duo players, at least at its current state.
Here is reason why you should come SoS.
It is important to know how it is like currently in WvW to have a constant outnumbered matchup week after week. And on SoS we are probably outnumbered 3:1 for most of the day.
The server is really more suitable for T3 but the glicko system will prevent it from dropping in a long time. Then also the T3 servers probably won’t like to go up to ’enjoy ’ such a lopsided matchup either. Sure there are dedicated players on the server who always try to recruit and tag up to rally people. Then Anet enforced a stupid full status to prevent all the positive things from happening. In the mean time, the rival servers keep getting bigger because they are the only two that are not full in top 6 servers. Very soon, every fairweather player in this game mode will join those two servers and situation will get worse day by day.
So please come join us who still remain fighting on the server, although we are fighting more for the server pride rather than for the fun.
Come SoS. Get some experience of fighting outnumbered most of the time. The should provide a better all around taste of what current WvW is like
This benefits condirupt. I made a build that uses these types of traits, and the immobilize on interrupt you can get in chaos.
Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.
- summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
- blind with scepter 2, 2 stacks confusion
- interrupt as they attempt to clear blind with pistol 5, 7 stacks of confusion
- scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, 7 stacks of confusion
This chain can then be repeated. All you need to do is lock down condi cleanse.
Also remember that maim is for shatter builds.
Combining interrupt and confusion is a little bit counter-intuitive to me. Confusion is a condition that punishes foes that activate skills while interrupted foes can’t use skills. Similar story with blind. I just don’t see the synergy there at all.
But I do get the part that it can benefit players use non-shatter-centric condie builds. However, the question is that will it still be vastly inferior to the maim shatter condie build especially after Anet wants to push mesmer to use shatter more.
play how you like and how your comfortable and get good at it.
<never followed meta
but yes it is very manic thanks to people playing as mesmers, thieves and the like where half their gameplay is going invisible, throwing illusion effects at other players, or doing random, passive damage with minimal tells. I wish the spammy classes would go but we’re stuck with them. Brawling is infinitely more enjoyable to me.
Complete bullkitten. Shows how little you play mesmer/thief and has zero idea how the class works.
I am a mesmer main playing double range shatter(the meta). The only stealth I bring is decoy which I save for the most rough spot. The passive damage(auto+izerker+conditions+air/fire proc) I can do would be even less than warrior’s auto heal. The burst damage I do(mirror blade+shatter) is just as telegraphed as any of your warriors’ big hit.
I am so tired of the random accusations of mesmers from people without even the basic knowledge. OP is a returning player. Please give him more constructive advice rather than throwing out all the bullkitten.
It’s funny that your weapon mastery suggestion is exactly same as what the game used to be like . Then they changed it last September to make weapons skills level gated.
So the new blinding befuddlement combines the current one with master of direction and becomes the new GM trait.
Cause confusion when you blind a foe. Confusion lasts longer. 5s cooldown
This is a condition damage related trait and will be directly competing with maim the disillusioned. Maim will be much stronger after IP made baseline. This trait, despite of benefiting from the new blinding dissipation trait, still looks like the obvious inferior one to me.
Even if they improve the numbers to make it on par with maim, I still feel people will go for maim because investing into two different types of conditions give better damage potential. Mesmer already has good access to confusion. Getting another high stack of torment will almost always help more.
How do you like this trait as an idea? Is there any creative way of using it that you can think of? Any ideas of improving it?
I am thinking about changing the trait to the following:
Cause blind and an extra stack of confusion when you confuse a foe. Confusion lasts longer. x second cooldown
So the effect is reversed and mesmer can have more access to blind which can be a great deal to improve the class survivability. And it will not be directly competing with maim by just pure fire power.
TBH, I find the balance in this game pretty good, better than starcraft 2 which receives way more frequent balance updates. However, more frequent small balance tweaks are definitely needed to fix some most obvious problems. e.g. midair immob
Both ele and warrior are great in all game modes. DD ele might not be as dominant as they were in pvp before, but they are still quite good
In PvE, they are top dps plus some support and wanted highly in both coordinated and pug groups.
In WvW, they are the essential component in any organized raid groups. They also have decent potential in roaming.
All in all, ele is still one of, if not the best class in the game atm. It will definitely take a bit more time to learn than warrior but you should by means give up if you like the class.
I think on EU side. Both TCG and Orng were able to take out the shoutbows from the other team constantly as well.
condie ranger is quite strong in 1v1. But that is just not enough make them viable in a fast rotating team game. I checked their new specializations which can make them kinda immortal in 1v1. I am not sure if they will become the new turret engi for which no one uses in tournament but causes a lot of grief in unranked/ranked.
LB ranger is slightly trickier to play but has more team fight potential. They are actually already pretty good in legacy of foefire because you can join a fight from 1500 range away. I would say that is enough of something special to have a team taking a ranger. However, such 1500 range becomes much less useful on some other maps where you can’t open fight from 1500 distance. However, they are really good in WvW settings where there is so much flat terrain.
Complaining about ranger being ineffective in tournament level is legit. Complaining that ranger is not in unranked/ranked is probably not. Most of your opponents are not very coordinated even if they are premades. You should be able to do your thing relatively easily, even compared across all other professions
EU seems way more interesting in terms of competition.
Sorry no answers from me I’m in the same boat. I just wanted to ask how most people deal with condi heavy builds. I just find myself getting overrun and no way to clear them.
Yeah, those condie tanks are hard for shatter mesmer to handle. Try bringing mantra of resolve instead of portal. This way you will have much better 1v1 capability.
TBH, some condie specs simply counters traditional shatter. e.g. condie ranger, condie signet elementalist or even condie mesmer.
Against dp thief:
You need to predict his movement and watch for small signs of him approaching, e.g. being blind, black lines. They will most likely start with a stealth teleport burst on you. You can use your blurred frenzy to counter since it provides a long evade. After the openning, you have to pressure him as hard as u can. Be sure to avoid his cluster bomb. You don’t always have to immob him then shatter. Stay close to your clones and try to seize the right moment to shatter. This surely takes a lot of practise and a good thief can probably always outplay you.
The most difficult part is probably after he stole on you and got consume plasma and then use shadow refuge. He essentially resets the fight and has another chance to stealth open on you. There is really not too much you can do other than guessing and watch for any signs of attack coming(black lines again.)
Against power necro:
Avoid the wells. If you get immob/long feared, use your cooldowns. Their auto in deathshroud hits so hard that can literally down you in a couple of hits. It’s better to stay in range or find some line of sight. So you basically go in for burst and then LOS and wait for next burst. Against Lich, you either moa him or you run away.
Against tanky warrior:
I also find it pretty hard to deal enough damage on them. It’s the kind of fight I probably don’t want to take 1on1. You might win in the end but it’s probably not worth the time. If you use gs/staff instead, you might have better chance of beating them.
Against cele engi:
I actually find they are not very tanky at all. They do have amazing healing but if you can interrupt it he is basically dead. Otherwise, just burst hard and often.
Against guardian:
If it is meditation guard, you have to kite him. His burst can down you in like 2 seconds. Distort right away the moment he teleport and ring on you. Don’t think too much about killing him unless he is already low.
Bunker guardian I am not too sure. Don’t see too often. But it really shouldn’t be too hard a matchup.
I think rather than finding the easiest profession to solo open world PvE content, maybe OP should consider choosing a profession you find most fun to play with.
I am pretty sure if you spend a bit of time getting adapt to the mechanics for most open world mobs you can solo with any class.
mesmer gs always 450 KB range 450 also Guess what 5 TARGETS.
Ranger Pbs :
at short range LESS than 300 yards = 600KB
At range greater than 600 = 400 KBthe pbs rangers has different Variation of play while the gs has a better all round push back, just a mesmer alone can use the wave to push people off the map if he uses it at the 450 range limit , yes it is 150 shorter than pbs but it does not have to be below 300 yards to get that decent push.
apples and oranges.
if you want to use wave to push people down or off skyhammer using a mesmer gs get your postioning correct and range judgement correct and they can also do the same thing only the target has to be 150 yards closer to the edge of the map which is quite easy if you chain it with a terrormancers or a team mates fear.
30 sec cooldown vs 15 sec cooldown
medium dmg weapon vs high dmg weaponAint comparing PBS to all other skills because its the total package… the total package from ranger longbow is low risk high reward. very easy to setup..
I am “ok” with its dmg, but not if they also have a low cooldown easy knockback (with greater knockback distance) it rewards them ALLOT!! so atleast make it dodge able..1/2 with the speed of bullets is really fast.
People saying about yeah but engie have knockback on rifle and mesmer etc etc.. sure but look at its total package.. engie gets a small knockback also and the mesmer knockback is 2times longer cooldown + its weapon issnt a high dmg dealer. (most dmg comes from fire/air on AA… shouldnt be there also but that a different topic)
Lmao, talking of total packaging, mesmer’s GS and engie’s Rifle are rated much higher, than ranger’s LB in PVP.
Mesmer GS ignore projectile reflection, pierces, trigger fire air like no tomorrow, break most range blocking skill through GS4, boon removal, and best push skill to counter thief’s shadow refuge. (Point blank shot need to GUESS the location, and the success rate is extremely low).
Engi rifle is the weapon that makes them to the meta, pierces on default too, immobolize, instant knockback 600 range + LAUNCH (target will lay down there unable to do anything) with no animation (the aftercast is like 0.5 second only), high double burst AOE that ignores projectile reflection and LoS. Add that along with some kits and slick shoe, boom.
Stop talking as if LB is stronger than the other 2 variants. They’re of equal strength (or slightly inferior strength for LB) with different functions. There’re reasons why Rifle Engi and GS mesmer make into the Meta and in Top teams while Ranger’s LB doesn’t.
That’s so wrong to say mesmer and engi make into meta because they had a superior weapon!
Mesmer is only taken by a few teams because of portal. W/o portal, I don’t think any team will take mesmer. Mesmer GS burst also makes a lot more sense because it’s heavy burst comes from close range. At long range, it does decent damage but not that bursty.
Engi has tons of utilities and can roam really fast. On top of that they have decent sustain. They are indeed the jack of all trades. However, their burst from rifle or combination of skills takes way more setup than ranger longbow.
Ranger’s LB is a super strong weapon. But ranger class as a whole does not provide a better package than some of the other profession in PvP. They do have the advantage of being able to carry a large amount of bad players to do decent in pug groups.
If you have trouble dodging point blank shot, then you’d have trouble dodging Engi’s overcharged shot, or Mesmer’s push from Greatsword, both of those skills are nearly instant, with no sign of arrow flying to you or anything. Maybe this is entirely intended?
Not quite comparable. Mesmer GS wave has long cooldown and short range. A well-used one is definitely hard to dodge though.
Overcharged shot also cc engineer himself and has be close as well.
PBS has both short cool down and long range, making it much easier to use.
Only ranged dps, no utility.
Only as a backup in most dungeon plays. But pretty useful for tagging when braindead farming.
I mostly use staff in PvP but I like s/t better for WvW roaming.
In WvW, you get additional stats from various source to the point that s/t burst can be much more deadly.
Additional stealth means better gank potential and disengagement. In WvW, you also get less terrain to phase retreat kiting. In some 1v2 bad players, with torch you can easily take them out 1 by 1. With staff, it will be much harder.
I swap to staff in WvW if it is some dueling against tanky opponent but stick to s/t in all other situations.
The passive on the signet should be conditional. Have it scale off of their adrenaline. example- 70hp/sec at full adrenaline, 362 when empty. This way it rewards active play (using burst skills).
It absolutely needs something done to it though, its ridiculous that it heals more than the Mesmer’s signet when mesmer’s need to keep and maintain 3 illusions for their passive.
Because that is what warriors do, they have no dps, they have interrupts and the ability to soak damage that is it, and that is the way we like it.
They can still deal respectable damage even if you are a shout bow thanks to might stacks. If you do hambow, the hammer can actually hit quite hard even with a soldier amulet.
Or if you go for zerker, you can actually beat mesmer of similar skills 1v1.
Anyway, mesmer’s signet is a separate issue. That is just one pathetic skill that needs overhaul way more than warriors’ healing signet.