Guild Wars 2

I’m kinda glad there aren’t any skeletons. The biology, physics, and magic of it is just too hard to comprehend! (Recalls all the flying skeleton debates from Dwarf Fortress…!)

Vorch.2985:

EDIT: Sorry, I thought you meant HEART vendors. Yea, those weapon vendors are there just so that you always have access to a barebone weapon of your liking.

Yup, I think this is the primary function of these junk gear sellers. You’ll notice them in most games. I think they perform the function of allowing players who have (for whatever reason) have no money and weapons to at least acquire a starter weapon again. Environmental weapons give a bare-bones way of killing some creatures to get some money to get a white weapon or white armor. It’s the safety net for any player who must start again, no matter the reasons.

Without them people can become locked into a terrible situation that they might not be able to get out of.

If/when my boyf returns to GW2, I will gladly grab a pic for this thread! fingers crossed

Yup, some sweet sweet ideas here for flavouring this class. There’s so much potential for doing this to all the professions! This would be a great new step for MMOs.

- Make spiders actually climb freely on walls and ceilings. Make knockback effects knock them onto the ground. (haven’t seen an MMO play their spiders on walls and ceilings. It’d be truly creepy to play in cave like that!)

I’m interested in discussing ideas to help this game get better at making a living, breathing fantasy world like the devs really want it to be.

There’s a great post here about making night activities for city NPCs reflect real day/night cycles. It also talks about tweaking lighting to make night have a better appearance and effects for players.

Some things that would make this world stand out as living and breathing are:
- Making the neutral wild animals more skittish. Make them run away from foes, and scatter in a radius away from any player or other NPC.
- Make wild animals and aggressive NPCs do more than walk around a spawn spot. I love seeing cats/tigers stretch like a real cat would, but other than that they don’t seem to act or behave in any way that might make you think it has an existence beyond being a combat target. I occasionally see NPCs attack animals or each other, which is fantastic, but there’s much more to do here.
- Ensure most, if not all ally npcs are willing to revive their fallen npc comrades. It feels a bit silly to have a group of npcs stand around their fallen leader, not doing anything or without dialogue explaining why they don’t care. This seems to be an AI issue rather than a plot point. Stop fallen allies being the stinky dead elephant in the room that everyone knows about but no-one is saying or doing anything about!
- Make each profession have a great presence in the world. What’s it like being a Necromancer in Tyria? Do the Elementalists get together for any reason? Do Guardians have a guildhall or citadel where they further their cause? What are these professionals doing when they’re not on the frontline or when there’s no wars to fight? When no fighting skills are needed what makes them be their “profession” and in what ways do other Tyrians need them?

Lovely ideas! Really would help make this game a “living, breathing world” as they wanted it. Great post!

Some concept images copied from the nets.
1) A Wayfarer with spirits
2) A Hero Spirit
3) An Enshrined Remnant (would be more than a little rock grave, probably something like a small elegant kneeling table, but you get the idea).
4) A Scythe-bearing Wayfarer

A guy at work said he’s looking at a treasure, he followed where he was looking and found something, but hadn’t heard anything like that anywhere, esp. since he’s not looking at anywhere that wouldn’t be stumbled across.

Seems to be a fairly common request across MMOs. I don’t understand why it isn’t standard yet. It’s 2013 and Australia, New Zealand, and the Oceanic countries have shown they are avid gamers and community members.

Might make a nice option for players to choose for themselves to toggle.

Bring back the Ritualist theme. My concept here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/A-Wayfarer-Profession-Linking-Rits-and-Dervs/first#post1225936

I find I have a strange behaviour of exploring and completing areas I’ve already done on alts, and only carefully and not very often going into new areas. So I’ll play a character through most of the starting areas up to Lion’s Arch, and then feel ready to play a new character and do it again. I could blame the level scaling for this, but it really happens when I don’t get over my own anxieties of going into a new area.

I posted a list of altoholic requests here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/From-Altoholics-for-Altoholics/first#post1197124

Rather than nerf AOE damage, is it possible to just increase AOE cooldowns and then reduce the cooldown for each foe hit?
That way players can still use them against individuals, but they won’t use them as often unless they are actually hitting groups.

As an example, Mesmer Chaos Storm currently has a 35 second cool down.
It could be made so that it normally has 40 second cooldown and recharges 1 second faster for every unique foe hit by it (including new foes that come into it’s field).

I also play my Necro as a Wellomancer, it was the most enjoyable class and build for me to play to 80. I am like many others who haven’t heard how AOEs have been a problem in PVE, so this discussion in the Q&A was a bit of a surprise, and makes me feel very protective of the class/build I enjoy. I would really like to understand what the problem is, and how it steps away from the way the devs hope GW is played, especially with builds like the Wellomancer taken into account.

Created a new suggestion for AOE nerfing here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Longer-AOE-cooldown-rather-than-less-dmg

Yay yay, I finished my concept for a Ritualist/Dervish profession for GW2 (given some other professions are already amalgams of GW1 classes….looking at you Guardian!)
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/A-Wayfarer-Profession-Linking-Rits-and-Dervs/first#post1225936

Equipment

The Wayfarer is an adventurer profession, and thus wears medium armor. They fight with melee weapons, defend their shrine, and strike with ranged magic.

Weapons

Two-handed

• Greatsword: A Greatsword in the hands of a Wayfarer is a deadly scythe used for mowing down wheat and foes alike. With a scythe the Wayfarer attacks in a full sweep from left to right and back again. The Wayfarer can maintain painful doses of bleeding on foes surrounding them, and cripple those that want to get away. The Wayfarer’s strikes with the scythe become more powerful as enemies weaken.
• Staff: A staff provides the Wayfarer a way to channel pure spiritual energy at foes. The Wayfarer strikes the foe with projeciles of lightning and blasts of ethereal energy. Some traits duplicate some staff skills by either the Hero Spirit or the Shrine, or both.

Main-hand

• Axe: An Axe in the hands of a Wayfarer is a deadly sickle for plucking fruit and rending enemies. With a sickle the Wayfarer is capable of striking and parrying in a successive series, cutting wide gashes in an arc smaller than the Scythe. A rapid flurry in front of them causes weakness and vulnerability. The sickle can also do more damage the more boons the Wayfarer has.
• Scepter: A Scepter provides a conduit of spiritual energy for a long range single attack, an unblockable burning of the spirit, and the drawing of health from the Wayfarer or Hero Spirit to heal self and allies.

Off-hand

• Sword: As a sickle this weapon can root a foe to the ground until the player moves, or removes conditions from the foe to deal damage.
• Focus: The focus is capable of summoning a companion of the Ancestral Ghost for melee or ranged damage, and create rift of spiritual agony across the ground.
• Torch: A torch can be used to remove a condition from nearby allies and deal damage to foes, or summon a Spirit of the Land to provide healing around it.

Aquatic

• Trident: A ranged weapon suitable for thinning the barriers between water and the mists.
• Spear: A halberd-like melee weapon for doing sweeping attacks, reaping conditions for extra damage.

Crafting

The following crafting disciplines can create items that are useful to the engineer:

• Weaponsmith: Axes, Greatswords, Swords, Spears.
• Huntsman: Torches.
• Leatherworker: Medium armor.
• Jeweler: Jewelry.
• Artificer: Urns, Staves, Scepter, Trident.
• Chef: Food.

Personal story

In the biography step of character creation, Wayfarers may choose a great Hero that interests them.

When a Shrine is not established (on timer?), the Wayfarer keeps the remnant of a cherished hero close to them. This is called a Union, and provides the Wayfarer four unique skills in the f1-f4 slots based on the Hero. When the Hero is enshrined and summoned, these skills are no longer available, and the Enshrine button is used to deconstruct the shrine and unsummon the Spirit.

Finally, when the Wayfarer is not striking foes from afar with rift energies from the Staff and Scepter, they can equip sharp farmer’s tools to reap pain and vengeance on the plagues of the land. In melee combat the Wayfarer sweeps their scythe back and forth across the bodies of their foes, and speeds up this deadly dance by gaining bursts of quickness for ending boons.

The Wayfarer’s utility skills include powerful “Flash” skills/signets, instantly consuming boons to gain short spikes of quickness. Each Flash skill passively grants a boon every few seconds. When the signet is activated, the boon is removed and the player gains quickness for 2s.
The Wayfarer is also capable of turning their surrounds into whirling storms of chaos and magic, bringing harm to nearby foes and aiding allies. “Whirls” follow the Wayfarer wherever they move.
Finally, the Wayfarer is able bring vengeance up from the land itself. Spirits and energy seep up from the ground in the form of “Bindings”, allowing the Wayfarer to change the battlefield.

Special skill types (Prototypes!!)

Weapon Rites: Available to the Wayfarer in the 4th or 5th weapon slot when engaged with the Shrine.

• Brutal Rite: Adds damage to every tick of damage caused by the next skill.
• Wailing Rite: Causes damage to nearby creatures struck by the player.
• Vengeful Rite: Causes 2s Weakness and steals life from all nearby foes on skill use.
• Nightmarish Rite: Causes 2s fear and 3s chilled to the target of the next skill.
• Spirit Light Rite: Give 3s Aegis to player and causes 3s blindness on foe.
• Ghostly Rite: Next skill is unblockable and causes Vulnerability
• Empowering Rite: The player gains Might and Regeneration on skill use.
• Furious Rite: The player gains Fury and transfers all conditions to target on skill use.

Flash skills: Flash skills provide a boon every few seconds when not used. When the Flash Skill is activated (instant), the player loses the boon and gains 2s of quickness.

• Harrier: Gain swiftness every 5 seconds for 3 seconds. Gain vigor every 7 seconds for three seconds. Lose vigor to gain quickness.
• Cloak: Stealth every 20 seconds for 2 seconds. Lose stealth to gain quickness.
• Thorns: Gain retaliation every 5 seconds for 2 seconds. Lose retaliation to gain quickness.
• Conviction: Gain stability every 8 seconds for 2 seconds. Lose stability to gain quickness.

Whirls: Whirls create a storm of wind and earth around the Wayfarer, moving with them as they wind their way around the battlefield.

• Mystic Twister draws all creatures to the Wayfarer, doing damage for the distance pulled. It applies the Wayfarer’s boons to nearby players, but with half duration.
• Winds of Disenchantment removes a boon from foes every second and turns it into a condition.
• Mystic Sandstorm does damage and applies 1 second of confusion every second.
• Cloaking Winds grants stealth to all nearby players.

Bindings: Bindings cause the spirits of the earth to reach up and join the fight. They are targeted areas of effect that last for 5 to 15 seconds. If the Hero has been enshrined on the battlefield, bindings create large areas of effect between the Wayfarer, the Hero ghost, and the Shrine instead:

• Dissonance: Foes are knocked down every 7 seconds (ethereal field)
• Shadowsong: Foes gain 1 stack of confusion for every skill used within this binding (dark field)
• Anguish: Deals damage and adds a stack of burning every second, and another stack everyime a condition is gained. (lightning field)
• Preservation: For each foe within and entering the binding a ghost is summoned. The ghost attacks cause 1 second of fear on foes or 2 seconds of regeneration on allies (not spawned by this binding). (light field)
• Restoration: Allies take half damage while downed in this Binding, and downed skills recharge 1/3 faster.

Traits

A Wayfarer has five trait lines to choose from:

• Zeal : Increases Power and Condition Duration
• Prayers : Increases Precision and Boon Duration
• Communion : Increases Toughness and Condition Damage
• Restoration : Increases Vitality and Healing Power
• Mysticism : Increases Critical Damage and Union Skill cooldowns

Wayfarers – Bringing Ritualists and Dervishes to GW2 in a unique way

Their motto:
“This land, this history, has a right to fight too!”

Wayfarers are defenders of the homestead and emissaries of the land. They wield hand-worn weapons from the fields and workshops to repel their foes. In strife they use their folkways to call on the spirits of ancestors to protect the land and people that they love. As vicious blade wielders or wrathful spirit channelers Wayfarers bring hurt and utility in plenty. In large battles they can cover large areas with devestation and enhance the automatic strikes of allies with weapon rites. Toe-to-toe they can sacrifice their own boons to get bursts of furious combat speed.

Background

The Wayfarer is a grass roots champion. Living in Tyria in wartime is hard for the people, and Wayfarers know this more than most. They cherish the beauty of Tyria, and value the quiet dignity of it’s people when faced with adversity. As Wayfarers come from lives of toil on farms and dirt they also believe in their right to defend what they love. When beaten down by the hardships of war and conflict, Wayfarers become empassioned by hearing and telling the deeds of great warriors gone by. They feel a great debt of gratitude to those who have fought and perished in the pursuit of peace. After sundown when the fields have had their due, they gather with their families and friends and gladly share the stories of the magnificent and empowered heroes of Tyria. They have collected all the bits of wisdom they can, and espouse these at every opportune time. Such is the way to honour the sacrifices of our ancestors.
If it weren’t for the threats to their loved ones and the land they nourish the Wayfarer would never think to take up the farming scythe or sickle to do harm. But the familiar feel of these homely tools coos the Wayfarer to take vengeance on the Dragons and their twisted ilk. Standing in the face of impending loss gives the Wayfarer the courage to place themselves between foe and friend, and their desire to keep the world safe makes them headstrong and heartdriven adventurers.

Abilities

The Wayfarer’s profession mechanic is the Urn of Remnants. The Urn of Remnants is an equippable weapon that can be crafted by artificers and slotted with special upgrade items called a Hero’s Remnant. The Wayfarer finds remanants of unique heroes across the land of Tyria, particularly in special lore locations such as statues to fallen heroes and grave sites. The Remnant within the Urn can be swapped out from the inventory screen, but not while in combat.

When an Urn with a slotted Remnant is equipped, the Weapon Swap button becomes the “Enshrine” button. When the Wayfarer activates the “Enshrine” skill, they form a small shrine on the ground to the hero whose remnant they carry. At the completion of this ritual a shrine object is created and the spirit of the Hero is summoned into battle.

The Hero Spirit is an uncontrolled NPC ally that represents a profession of Tyria and has a unique combination of profession skills available to them. Think of the ghosts of Ascalon: a blue, ephemeral person of times long past. While the Spirit is a wild and powerful companion, they a completely bound to the vicinity of the shrine (usually a range of 600 or so). The Spirit has no health and is not affected by any attacks on it or it’s location. Instead, the Shrine acts as a world object that can have health reduced to 0, at which point the Spirit is exorcised and disappears.
There are many Heroes of Tyria that can be found and honoured, and all professions are represented.

In addition to summoning a spirit, the Shrine also acts as an environmental weapon station usable by any ally. When engaged at the Shrine the player has access to new combat skills in their 1-3 slots, 4-5 only available to Wayfarers. These skills draw on the deadly and ethereal powers of channelling with the spirit world, directing powerful snaps of energy at foes and soothing resonances of the mists at allies. Some skills create rifts of power between the shrine and the spirit, affecting all who cross the line. Some strikes come in pairs from two directions, once from the Wayfarer and again from the Hero Spirit. These dual-projectiles can make the spiritual wrath of the Wayfarer hard to avoid.

All Shrines have a Weapon Rite in the fourth or fifth slot accessible only by an Wayfarer. These rites enchant the weapons of all nearby allies by either adding extra effects to their #1 skill or by adding a new skill to the #1 skill chain. For example, Brutal Rite adds damage to hits of the first weapon skill; Wailing Rite causes damage to all nearby foes on hit; Vengeful Rite causes 2s of Weakness and life steal on all nearby foes on hit; Ghostly Rite creates a new 3s chill chain and then a 2s fear chain skill. Some weapons spells also affect the weapons of enemies to debilitate them and reduce their impact.

I lament with the OP and others who miss the themes, style, and methods of the Ritualist. I had worked on a suggested class for Ritualist, but couldn’t get the mechanics to be really catchy and new.

Guilds
Vision:

• Guilds are extremely important to the game: …need to ensure there is a volume of content to foster this strong community/social bond

Plans:

• adding new types of content to the game in early 2013 that will allow guilds to go on missions together
• …missions may be content designed specifically for the guild to accomplish within certain constraints or time requirements, while others will see the creation of new content by a guild/s everyone in the world can experience
• new guild rewards, missions, and tools to allow guilds of all sizes to play a stronger part in solidifying the communities

WvW
Vision:

• to ensure [the existing WvW experience] shines in every way possible is a major goal for us which requires addressing major areas we know need a lot of attention
• encourage players to stick with a single server for WvW and fight for the pride of that server

Plans:

• adding paid server transfers, with time limitations and WvW restrictions, and guesting ability, which allows players to visit friends on other servers in every part of the game except for WvW… server changes will incur a fee and have time limitations
• make improvements to culling… move towards eliminating as much culling from WvW as possible… our hope is 2013 is the year culling ceases to exist, or is as minimal as possible in the WvW experience
• introduce a system of prestige and advancement specifically designed for WvW… give players a progression path where they earn new WvW-only abilities and bonuses, and with them gain prestige and visible titles/recognition
• add a new motivation to the WvW domain that goes beyond the overall weekly score to give more short term reasons to be winning in WvW as well
• discuss all these features in more detail as we get closer to release!

PVP
Vision:

• adding systems that make it easier for players who are less competitive to get matched only against people with similar skill sets, and stronger methods for players learning PvP to do so in a safe and fun environment with more information to help their skills grow
• make it easier to play games against good opponents
• more to help drive the growth of this competitive PvP community alongside our less hardcore PvP players
• make it feel more rewarding and exciting and to give you reasons to log in and compete every day
• adding the core features required to truly make Guild Wars 2 shine as a competitive game

Plans:

• evaluating our PvP reward systems
• overhauling the way PvP operates
• being able to watch other competitors and see major ranked matches to learn how to play better
• the ability to host your own custom arenas to set up your own rules and host your own team practices
• visible places for everyone to see rankings of the best teams/players in the world
• give the ability to compete in games where ranking matters quickly and easily
• have major tournaments, prizes

Anything Else?
Vision:

• identifying existing parts of the game that can be improved and made more fun/exciting, and investing the time to ensure everything we’ve built really shines as we move forward
• improving the new player experience to make it easier for new players to learn how to play GW2, enter the game world, and more quickly learn the game without being overwhelmed

Plans:

• leaderboards on our website where you can compare your abilities with other players to find out who is the best in the world
• expanded and re-designed encounters for bosses in dungeons and the open world.
• new types of achievements which tie into the new systems of achievement rewards
• continuing to improve the security of the game fighting botters and hackers, as well as improving the games stability by addressing bugs as quickly as possible when they are reported
• improving the “looking for group” tool to make it easier to find other players to play with in the game
• the improvements and fixes to the Fractal dungeons, detailed in Isaiah Cartwright’s blog post here

Closing
Vision:

• with your feedback and support, we’ll learn from those mistakes, grow from them, and be as transparent about them as possible

Plans:

• January release will be a relatively small one, setting the stage for the story that will play out in February and March
• the January release will also provide the groundwork for the major feature additions you’ll see in the larger February and March releases

I was refreshed to read Colin’s vision for the game, and impressed by some of the courageous and honest statements he made. I am really heartened to see so much passion and belief in what has given me nearly 400 hours of play time, and I am still excited to think of what’s ahead.

Below is a dot point summary of Colin’s post. My intention for making this is so I could more clearly see what he was saying.
But this is also more than a dot point list. I loosely and subjectively separated out what I thought were the general Vision statements Colin was making from the specific details and Plans he was telling us. I understand any summarising or cherry-picking quotes carries risks, and it’s not my intent to misrepresent Colin in any way. If I have done so please let me know where and how. You may also find the difference between Vision and Plan as I’ve categorised here rather thin , but I’ve hoped that the benefits of this exercise is clear overall.
I also hope that this abridged version helps other players focus their problem-solving brilliance around the principles Colin and the team are pursuing, and to shape and communicate their feedback in ways that make easy sense to the devs.
Ultimately our own communication helps make the most of what we get from this amazing development team and their incredible game, so summarising his words is my way of helping achieve that.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/colin-johanson-on-guild-wars-2-in-the-months-ahead/
Uniqueness and Success
Vision:

• build on the areas of the game that were successful in 2012
• to learn and apply lessons from things that didn’t work as well
• community and player relationships…will be a massive part of the game as we evolve it further.
• players are encouraged and rewarded to interact as a community, to support each other
• the flow of the game ushers players to go places where they run into other players across all levels and have shared experiences
• Special events and living stories : Since launch, we’ve shown our capacity to really build and expand on this system of dynamic events with more unique events that are a living story

Living World
Vision:

• building a world that has truly unique storylines and event experiences that play out over extended periods of time, that shape the future and world of Tyria, creating stories for everyone to tell about the game for years to come
• ensure we create content that is inclusive, community driven, and most importantly fun
• build on and strengthen our existing open world and its persistent content
• to give reasons for players at all levels to explore these areas, to reward them for their time, and to encourage them to play in locations where they will run into each other and experience the community-driven features that make Guild Wars 2 shine
• make sure our existing world is as strong as possible gives reasons for people at all levels to go back and play and explore in the entire game

Plans:

• The more persistent events we can provide in a specific area, the less often each of the events in that area needs to occur, which in turn adds to the sense of an ever-evolving open world

Systems and Rewards
Vision:

• you should be able to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to play the game in order to reach the most powerful rewards
• help drive players to different areas of the world and play together
• to develop systems that are uniquely Guild Wars 2
• Our reward systems need to be exciting, and include things you want to earn over time
• use our existing reward systems and build new ones that are fun and exciting that step away from the stale gear grind reward systems you see elsewhere
• expanding and leveraging our achievement system
• progressing down achievement paths that take advantage of the open world experience

Plans:

• … we don’t want to force our players on endless gear treadmills for new tiers of gear we add every 6 months
• make it rewarding enough for players to spend their time there across all levels
• allow players to earn new rewards for achievements
• add tokens for your achievements that you can turn in to select from a list of rewards, including new reward types like Ascended gear and Infusions
• add support so daily achievements will be different each day of the week
• adding a system that lets you complete a subgroup of achievements to fulfill your daily. For example, if there are 6 daily achievements available, you’ll only need to do 4 of the 6, so you can choose the achievements that you’re most interested in
• You won’t see another tier between Ascended and Legendary in 2013 for example
• Later in 2013, we’ll begin to introduce more of these [reward] systems once we’ve finished rolling out the remaining Ascended gear and Infusions

When I play my ele I would love to know how my earth ele is going because he’s usually tanking for me. A health bar would be great if it means I can get out a water heal on him to extend his fight before he becomes dust.

I’ll admit I haven’t read it all but I think your suggestion is wonderfully outside the box and a good possibility, if not for GW2 then some MMO out there eventually!

Here for a Blind Build:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Blind-Confusion-Build/first#post1168886
Mesmer blinds are nearly synonymous with confusion because of the traits.

Which incidentally relates to here for discussion on making confusion more usable in PvE:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Does-Confusion-need-a-buff-in-PvE/first#post1217285

I so so so so want to help and fill it out, but I don’t want to participate when there’s the flawed questioning such as the age one.

Could someone help me understand what Colin and the OP meant by “culling”?

I tried a confusion build but it damaged so infrequently every 1v1 pve fight took far too long.
I wonder about perhaps making confusion do x dmg per second, and +y damage when the target uses a skill in that second. For example, confusion could do 20% of the per-skill-tick every second, and then somewhere between 75%-100% of the regular damage instantly or by clockwork when they use a skill.
That way it does consistent damage over the short time span, still punishes for skill use, and assists players in pve.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Ascended gear was added because people asked for it. Before the lost shores update the forums were filled with nothing but “I’m at endgame with full exotics which were too easy to get, and now I’m bored, I have nothing to go for but a legendary.” and anet responded.

Anet have stated Ascended gear was added because it was always intended to be in the game from the beginning, it was just late. In that sense it has a natural place in gear progress, but implemented in a delayed way.
I believe they have said they are also looking at ways of players being able to acquire ascended gear outside FotM, from other areas of the game inside and outside PvE.

Wanting to know if they get the rune effects of being hit and such.

Also:
1/ Right click on Recipe→ Teach <alt name here>
2/ Mouse-over recipes shows who can learn it and who already knows it

Raze.8467:

You seem a bit stuck on the mandatory 15 points, but the traitline is already a mandatory 20 point line for the dodge roll clones. You’d have to hand both those out for free to change that and I don’t see it happening.

Now I’m confused. I haven’t mentioned the dodge roll clones. Is that also informally standard across Mesmers? Is it’s use different across pvp/pve?

Just wee little bars extending up from each illusion dot above the skills would be nice. Would help to know roughly how many hits that illusion has left. One of the great things about illusions is being able to turn your back on them at any time. A similar thing could possibly be done for each of the other pet skills for other classes above the utility skill button.

Yea, I miss some of the theatrical elements of the mesmer’s background. Currently I see them more as a sword-dancer with illusions, even with staff/scepter. Because of that, and their lore, I question why mesmers weren’t put as adventurers and engineers put as scholars. Mesmers are by far mid/frontline fighters compared to engineers, and engineers are a clear profession ascribed to academia, study, theory, and (explosive) research.

Anywho, I agree with sentiments that the Mesmer is a very indirect support class, and in many ways that matter, uncontrolled. I guess it fits the chaos theme very well, but not the way I would like to play a class. I’d like more control of how and when the support happens.

I also wonder whatever happened to the inspiration third of the mesmer? It’s a little surprising we’re not capable of generating illusions that target allies and provide ongoing bonuses or simply cloning for them (doubt they should be able to target the caster). Mebbe ally-targeted illusions will be in a future update.

Interesting stuff! Thanks for clarifying on the extra bounce trait, too.

Was also wondering if a third option could be:
c) Illusions have 50% chance to apply confusion on crit.
50% might be too high/low, but the idea is there, makes sense with these mystical illusions doing severe effects on foes as their crit, and helps put the mesmer’s confusion condition at a fundamental level within the class.

Gab Superstar.4059:

They should do what WoW did here. First of all, give the NPC’s unique names, and secondly, make drop loot relevant to the NPC.

I mean, certain NPC’s in WoW like the elusive Broken Tooth have become actual legends among the population. Seeing him (or taming him on a hunter) was a feat reserved for only the most dedicated of the dedicated.

And remove the stupid “Veteran”, “Champion” tags etc. They are stupid and out of place.

Generally all Champions do have unique names, don’t they? They’re not always proper nouns, often the regular name with an adjective before it, but something still a bit flavourful.

Could you imagine what it’d be like if Champions got tagged somehow after they interacted with a player? For example, if a Champion downs and kills a player, the Champion gets a subtitle such as “Slayer of <playername>” until it is killed and respawns. It could keep a list that shows on mouseover or on the edge of the screen when targeted, and give extra experience bonuses per player killed this way. Some players might become so determined to get off the list that they might organise their guild or friends to get retribution on it and end it once and for all.

Of course, such bonuses shouldn’t gamed in a way that people could sacrifice themselves, alts, or low level characters just to build up the bonus, but the bonus should still be a nice stipend for the heroics.

Max.8563:

All clones can cause bleeds when traited, anything more would be OP.

For leveling I used GS clones for thier bleeds. (15 duelist.)
Staff works ok aswell, especially for harder mobs.
you want to maximize your crit chance for this, also get the clones on dodge trait when you can, plus decoy and mirror images.
Additional condition damage helps, but condition duration wont affect the clones bleeds.

clones adopt your crit rate, crit damage and CD damage, plus toughness, but not vitality, power, or condition duration. ( your pre-boons stats )

3 Clones will kill fast and you can spawn them faster than phantasms.

HF

Yea, I would like to argue here that perhaps either
a) All clones cause a dot condition on crit, without needing to be traited (fill the trait with something else), or
b) Add conditions to the weapon #1 skills without it, or
c) Something else to make this steady damage by clones as standard regardless of traits.

Now that I’ve just found this significant trait, it’s going to give the Staff have a whole new meaning to me, with the bouncing attacks and all.
TO THE MESMOBILE!!

Apathy.6430:

Stuff

These things we forget can be drowned out by the dominant story often in other threads. Please help support the tone of this thread, or create your own space to make these points.

Yea, I remember talking about these things back in beta, wanting Mesmer to be more like how I wanted to play. Now that I’m playing higher levels I can understand the way it works with traits and all, but it’s also been a hard slog to endure getting here.

This thread makes me smile, and I can remember joy and delight at finding most of the thing said here

I love the skritt, their cute voices, and fixated attitudes (did you do the gorgeous dynamic event or heart in Brisban Wilds where you carry hurt skritt in your arms back to safety? That made me Awwwwww!)
At the moment I’m standing near some cubs in Diessa Plateau watching them chatter away together (kitties!!)

I usually hunt them down when I see them, but I’ve also felt the declining inspiration to see what they drop.
I do love finding a chest in their caves and lair, although the gains aren’t that spectacular, either.
I know that foes that haven’t been killed in a long time award bonus xp, but that’s not something to lure people back to the fields.

The first time I ran into the ghosts, particularly the mages, I got all excited because I thought they’d be using the retro spells and skills from GW1 (like Firestorm, Fireball, and Meteor, etc). It’s a pity they don’t.

I have also winced a bit when attacking the peasants. :’(

Also, what’s with ghost cannons, trebuchets, and minions??

I’ve played my Mesmer up to 55 without realising how awesome and valuable Sharper Images is: “Illusions inflict bleeding on critical hits”.
With this trait a pair or trio of clones can take down a trash foe. Posters here have said how fundamental this trait is to many builds, or life as a mesmer generally.

Clones do the #1 weapon skill you have when you summon them, but they do none of the damage you can do with the skill. They do, however, apply whatever condition that the number 1 skill does. The weapons that have conditions caused by #1 are:
a) Staff (randomly bleeding, burning, or vulnerability).
b) Sword (Vulnerability on the first and second of three chain skill)
c) Trident (Currently clones cause Confusion, although the skill doesn’t cause confusion, it only gives does might, swiftness, vigor to allies)

Weapons that don’t apply a condition are:
a) Scepter (though the wiki says third of three does confusion?)
b) Greatsword
c) Spear

So without Sharper images trait (15 points in on the Precision trait line), only Staff and Trident clones can hurt foes and contribute to your damage outlay before you shatter them.
Even then, the Trident is bugged to do this, so eventually only the Staff will be capable of causing condition damage from clone attacks. Sadly, the Mesmer is the only class I enjoy getting into the water with because of the Trident bug.

I’ve read a lot of comments, and experienced for myself, how tough and boring a Mesmer can be up until higher levels. It doesn’t really get good until about two Master Traits are possible.

So I wonder if clones should always be able to apply a damaging condition? Two possibilities for this are:
1) Make Sharper Images standard for all Mesmers. It makes sense that when an illusion crits, it doesn’t literally stab the foe in the heart or eye or brain, but instead crits in a way that makes sense as an illusion. A critical hit of 0 damage clearly is no crit at all.
2) Give all Mesmer #1 skills a condition that clones can apply, mostly all damage-dealing conditions hopefully, and not necessarily on every hit.

If clones become known for applying conditions, the 1-70 levelling experience for players would no longer be a laborious trek of newbies asking “Why do these clones seem so impotent?”. Players would learn faster the value of putting clones on multiple enemies, and would have a greater sense of contribution to groups and large events.

Even if a condition on every hit is too overpowered, then there are ways of balancing it that don’t require 15 points in one trait line, and everyone can still benefit from it.
Could clone conditions become standard to make it a more effective class for the whole journey?

Been playing on and off for a few months and only now did I find out my mailbox was full. The heart event mail (which I don’t bother deleting) gives the impression your mailbox has a huge limit, but you can have only 9/10 mail from other players.

Yea, I’ve missed window shopping too, that I care more about the looks of my characters. They will bring it back so the shopping will be more glorious than eva! :p

I found for PvE it takes so much time to finish the fight that I now keep a Sword/Sword in my other weapon slot and use it for trash creatures, and the blind/confusion for veterans and above.
It’s a slight pity I can’t have one trait build for one weapon set, and another for the other.

I opened a discussion here to get ideas for what Altoholics would like to see in this game. Here are the compiled requests from players who love to play more than one character.

Features:
- View the hero page of any alt
- View the craftable recipes page of any alt
- View the inventory (including bag types) of alts
- Optional toggle to bring up the “currently equipped” tooltip for alts that can equip items that are moused over.
- Be able to easily share account-bound items and currencies across alts, including town clothes, minipets, weapons, armour, tonics, etc. Make this possible without visiting the bank for “swap overs”.
- Be able to view (but not transact with) the bank from anywhere
- Making dyes account wide, or having the means to upgrade a dye to account-wide
- Allowing your alts to appear in your player housing instance, and interacting with their info, skills, and inventory there
- Ability to remove soulbinding from items, or upgrade items to account-wide
- Ability to access the Karma of alts (a high trade rate maybe?)
- Account-bound Gear with stats that scale with level, possibly rewarded from personal story

Improvements:
- Better incentives to play in any area for equal or higher level characters, attracting players back to all areas of the world
- Wider variety of stat combinations (likely through special runes from holiday events, etc?)
- Make Personal Stories more unique than they are, keep them unique and relevant from 1-80.
- Add more unique “factions” per race, and keep these relevant from 1-80
- Add more uniqueness to dynamic events across areas and level-strata
- Add more standard cultural armors for level <80 so each race can keep wearing culturally appropriate level all the way up
- Allow cross-cultural wearing of cultural armours (I’m sure any tailor worth their salt can remeasure and custom make their culture’s clothes for whoever turns up! Extra fee perhaps?)
- Turn tokens into currency that doesn’t take up bank space
- Streamline the character select screen for reviewing your characters easier (option for all on one screen, etc)

What’s new or great already for GW2:
- Making every area replayable regardless of level.
- No limits on number of crafting professions per character, with no waste of progress
- Biography and motivation choices

I bought the pants for Human Cultural Tier one as they gave a nice straight leg cut, but I didn’t see the flap thing at the back that covered his butt, so I went back to embroidered.

You’ve made a very well written and thoughtful post. I wonder if what you might be asking for is:
a) instanced dungeons
b) Areas of the world that have linear paths, like dungeons, and any number of people can enter “through the front”. Perhaps even with some sort of triggered gate system so it’s only available at certain times or after certain circumstances, and thus seems rarer. Everyone is scaled to the area, and bosses scale to what is coming down the road.

That way guilds and groups can do dungeons, while pugs, randoms, guilds, zergs, and anyone can join the slaughter and get loot.
There are already some mini dungeons in the open world as it is that can’t be completed alone, but I don’t know what the rewards are compared to dungeons, and I think they can all be accessed at any time.
Mebbe alongside story mode and explorable mode, dungeons could operate like this (i.e., be open world, triggered gate, have valuable bosses and events).

Welcome! It’s lovely to see someone with some deep experience with Lotro come and give a fair appraisal of this game. I hope you like the Sylvari!

Alloy.2839:

Hi, hope you continue to enjoy the game. I still get a kick out of Asura doing backflips and cartwheels when they dodge.

I love the Asuran “toppling” jump, the way they launch themselves, flail a little bit and then right themselves mid air. The Charr run is just gorgeous, too!

I also couldn’t go back to stand-to-cast or quest-hub games (although SWTOR piqued my interest for a little bit). And I love the way Guild Wars 2 incorporates the art and painterly effects right into the interfaces. Quite remarkable!