Guild Wars 2

There are multi-guild guilds and guilds who don’t allow for guild hopping reasons:

Community: Maintaining a solid active community within guild wars 2 requires, you can guess activity. If people represent other guilds then they aren’t contributing to solidifying the guilds community.

Influence: For the guild to provide guild bonuses they require influence which is only gained from members that represent.

Loyalty: It’s an extension of community, but it’s still very important. Why be in a guild if you don’t want to spend all your time with them? As a guild leader I’m loyal to my members, dedicated. I expect everyone to be the same at least somewhat. It makes for a stronger community. Why should I be the only one to dedicate all my time to work hard for the guild if my members just take advantage of the ‘perks’ yet not contribute accordingly?

There’s plenty of guilds who allow guild hopping. If that’s what you want you can seek those out but don’t start raging at guild leaders trying to keep their guild strong if you do not understand their position.

Guilds and it members share responsibility for the guild, if you just want to do whatever you want to do with whomever you want to do it with then that’s your prerogative but guilds aren’t all about ‘you’ it’s about ‘us’

Edit: At least guilds focused on social communities, not specialized guilds which the guild hopping system is designed for.

I would love to see a hardcore mode added to the existing non fractal dungeons. Have the existing ones become ‘PuG Mode’ and some of the fights tuned down, rewards balanced where needed.

Then add a ‘Harcore Mode’ for more organised party’s with better rewards. Rather than nerfing so much of the existing content trying to please the pugs in stead just separate them so both the hardcore and the pugs can enjoy the content.

Me and steady dungeon party did all the dungeon paths a month or so after release. We weren’t lvl 80, we had no tactics, we weren’t even properly geared for the most part. We still managed to do it just fine.

Dungeons can be played fine at lower levels just less ‘efficient’ (though that’s debatable since plenty of lvl 80’s are terrible at dungeons). So the problem isn’t that it can’t be done it’s just people only care about speedruns, exploits and their precious money per hour gain ‘how much content can we skip!’ over the actual enjoyment of the content itself.

I love CoE, It’s great the way it is. It’s one of the few dungeons that truly holds individual party members accountable (that and Arah). People can’t be ‘carried’ so much in CoE now. I will cry if they make subject alpha easier. He’s my favourite encounter.

If you die a lot on subject alpha you’re doing it wrong. Sure everyone makes mistakes but you shouldn’t be dying loads.

First month of launch me and my steady dungeon party did caudecus’ manor without knowing any tactics, with terrible gear and being lower level.

It is not ridiculous, it’s harder than at lvl 80 of course but it’s not impossible. You don’t need specific professions to do it, it’s about learning the tactics and figuring out a way to best counter it with your party.

Dungeons were intended to be hard content, if anything I wish they’d make all dungeons harder (Hard mode please!) since everyone now seems to think it’s casual content and should therefore be doable by everyone with any group.

PuG mode and Hardmode should definitely be added.

DeathPanel.8362:

Ungood.3054:

Fay.2735:

Why can’t everyone just be satisfied that 85% of the game (an MMO at that) is doable solo??

The same could be said,

Why should anyone have a problem if someone wants to do a dungeon solo?

It does not cause you physical pain nor does it rob you of money if someone wants to play solo in an MMO so why does anyone have a problem with it.

Because there are some jerks out there that think that everyone needs to play by their rules or not at all.

First of I’m not a jerk, I have no problem if they were to add solo dungeons. To each their own. I’d no doubt would play them myself alongside the multiplayer ones. I have no problem with people playing solo, I don’t always group either. You totally missed the point of my post if you think I have an issue with solo play.

Second, My problem with this thread is that some people are shouting words like ‘forced’ when the game was advertised as being a multiplayer game. If people want solo dungeons then they can suggest it but don’t start saying you are being forced and it’s not fair etc. etc. when you must’ve known it would have some grouping elements when you bought it.

You can’t then expect it to be there or demand it to be added since you’re being ‘forced’ into it. You aren’t being forced and there’s no reason why you should’ve expected all the content to be single-player in an MMO Multiplayer game.

I’m all for extra content, extra options. I just baffles me why people seem so shocked the game has some multiplayer only content.

You could make a race of skritt that have been enhanced by Asura to be intelligent then they could be a playable race?

It’s why I would like to see the scepter bounce between targets or cause a sort of aoe damage affect that has a small radius around the person you’re hitting. I think the scepter is a great weapon but it being single target is it’s weakness.

The bolts are fairly slow and of course there is the shorter range. I do longer distance almost instant higher damage using a greatsword. I find it odd that the scepter involves power damage when the number 3 ability is about condition.

It’s like it doesn’t know what it wants to be, If you want shorter ranged power damage the sword obviously makes more sense, multi-target, high damage. If you want ranged power damage you’d go for greatsword, longer range, instant damage, more damage.

If you want ranged condition damage, apart from the confusion on nr 3, staff does better condition damage + it’s multi-target as well.

All the other weapons tend to do all these things better than the scepter. I like the scepter though, it makes for interesting play and it’s not useless either as some people say I do think it could do with either making it multi target or adding condition to the auto-attack.

I know it’s meant for shattering but although it produces clones well enough it’s still considerably slow when you could just as easily dodge to create clones, use utility or the other weapon abilities to create clones faster making the auto-attack feel slow and almost redundant.

Pandabro.8743:

I’ve tried this build in sPVP and in a Dungeon. Really didn’t like it in sPVP. The action is so constant that it’s hard to find time to charge mantras.

I really liked it in the Dungeon though. I was able to keep a steady stream of healing coming to my team which helped minimize the impact of individual’s mistakes. I’m thinking about dropping Mantra of pain out of the utility though. It seems very lackluster to add to the standard rotation and keeping three mantras charged can take away from other valuable actions I could be taking.

Yea, Mantras are hardest in sPvP by far, as soon as your opponent learns what you are doing you will loose your moment of surprise and it becomes infinitely harder.

That said I wouldn’t advice taking away mantra of pain because it will allow you to spam heal your party when there’s particularly high amounts of damage being taken. I’ve kept up many people that way who don’t know the word ‘dodge’

Also mantra of pain allows for sustained damage much better while you try to charge the other mantras, rather than standing there doing nothing you can use power spike in the meantime, still adding to the fight or when charging mantra of pain you can blink towards someone needing to be healed, so you can be very pro-active if you manage your mantras well.

Sure there are some moments where you have no choice but to stand there and cast a mantra but that’s the sacrifice you make for the challenge and nice damage/heal output.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Fay.2735:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Dwarves would require retconning or deus ex machina, as only a few of them are left (and it’s hinted that Ogden might even be the last one) – certainly not enough of them to justify a playable race.

Well according to the wiki dwarves are still around but turned into stone, living in the depths. There could easily be a plot devised where the magic that transformed them is reversed or a cure made (not deeply familiar with dwarf lore so I don’t know but I can imagine it wouldn’t be hard to explain it).

That isn’t what I was referring to. Stone dwarves are still very much dwarves, but most of the stone dwarves have died in their war against the Destroyers for the past 250 years.

I can’t find any information saying they have mostly died out?

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Dwarves would require retconning or deus ex machina, as only a few of them are left (and it’s hinted that Ogden might even be the last one) – certainly not enough of them to justify a playable race.

Well according to the wiki dwarves are still around but turned into stone, living in the depths. There could easily be a plot devised where the magic that transformed them is reversed or a cure made (not deeply familiar with dwarf lore so I don’t know but I can imagine it wouldn’t be hard to explain it).

Skritt

Dwarves

Largos

(Also allow sylvari to be smaller than humans as originally intended, head smaller than smallest current option, they feel chunky to me!)

MMO = massively multiplayer online game, It’s intended to be played with other people, it’s what these type of games are designed around.

That said GW2 has an exceptional amount of content doable solo even some dungeons can be done solo if one is very skilled. The only exceptions in GW2 are tPvP and most dungeons (perhaps a couple of group events). This is only a small portion of the games content in it’s entirety.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_game

There are a number of factors shared by most MMOGs that make them different from other types of games. MMOGs create a persistent universe where the game milieu continues regardless of interaction. Since these games emphasize multiplayer gameplay, many have only basic single-player aspects and the artificial intelligence on the server is primarily designed to support group play. As a result, players cannot “finish” MMOGs in the typical sense of single-player games.

However single player in MMOs is quite viable, especially in what is called ‘player vs environment’ gameplay. This may result in the player being unable to experience all content, as many of the most significant and potentially rewarding game experiences are events which require large and coordinated teams to complete.

Why can’t everyone just be satisfied that 85% of the game (an MMO at that) is doable solo?? That you never have to rely on others as generally the game does the grouping for you when it’s needed? No need to be social or talk, other players become like NPC to you.

For those so keen on playing an MMO alone you can’t expect to always have solo-able content or even demand it, saying you are being forced. You bought the game knowing it was an MMO and now you’re shocked there’s some content that can only be completed multiplayer?

That’s like saying you bought an online FPS and are shocked to discover it has online team versus team exclusive maps and content and say you are forced to group up, demanding it changed.

I’m sorry but if you don’t like grouping up at all (which baffles me why you’d even play an mmo) then you should play an RPG like skyrim/oblivion that are made specifically for that playstyle, which are very good games catered to you, you never have to bother with a single person and all content can be done alone.

I mean as a solo player you still have access to the vast majority of content in GW2, hours upon hours can be spend playing this game alone, money well spend I’d say. Just don’t be so surprised there’s a few things you can’t do alone. Surely that’s not a weird notion for an MMO to have Multiplayer content. It just really baffles me these kind of topics.

Not to mention with the technical problems involved with balancing professions and solo dungeons when the professions are build around teamwork. In it’s most basic design structure GW2 is not a single-player game.

I like scepters but I think they’d be better if they’d hit multiple targets (kind of like the guardian’s underwater trident).

The staffs auto-attack is too slow by the time the bolt reaches the enemy in wvw zerg on zerg they’re already dead and it usually takes a couple of hits as well before I actually get credit despite using a condi/power/crit build (been playing around with builds a bit last couple of days out of boredom). Unless I use chaos storm but that has a pretty long CD nr 5 ability.

I’d say increase staff auto-attack speed and make scepter bounce between targets.

First picture is the first screenshot I ever took in guild wars 2 on beta weekend 1, Made a human Mesmer (I was originally going to make a Sylvari but fell in love with Asura, They weren’t around in early beta’s).

Second is the first one I could find of my main, Asura mesmer and the third a more current one

P.s. there’s a limit of 999 screenshots, Had to move old screenshots into another folder and now have nearly 2000

Pyroatheist.9031:

Ok, there’s a couple of conversations going on here. Easiest first.

@Fay: you seem to be getting hung up on the difference between harder and better. It is harder to play a Mesmer better, but a Mesmer can be better than any other class if you are good enough.

You keep mentioning traits that are poorly placed, or utilities that are bad. Other than 1 signet, mantras, and mantra traits, I’m curious as to what these traits and utilities are.

@EasymodeX: I’ve used mantras in a pure glass cannon ranged nuker build, and they work fine. The problem isn’t that mantras are completely useless, it is that their usefulness diminishes sharply when put in other situations, where other utilities retain their value.

In my tank build, I have also tried mantras. I have not spent hundreds of hours with them, but I have spent enough time to know they are a poor match for my build, and I’ve already been through the reasoning on this.

Here is the thing. Every point I make, you rebut with how mantras can be used in a full glass cannon ranged nuker build. I know that. They work great like that. That is also the ONLY place they work great, and that is the problem. The fact that mantras are relegated to just one specific nuking build is the telling sign that they need buffs.

And come to think of it, mantras being underpowered could be the root of a lot of Fay’s issues regarding Mesmer utilities and traits, as the mantra traits are all over the place in dumb locations, and the mantras themselves are underpowered.

Gaiawolf has already responded to the first part so I’ll get to the second part about mantras (Btw veil is very effective in zerg vs zerg in WvW). If you have a look at my build it’s NOT a glass cannon nuke build, yet it’s very effective.

The reason I suggest a buff in mantra of pain is because against high vitality/toughness healing builds like p/d thief with v/t healing and d/d bunker ele with healing it just doesn’t do enough to match it. The only way I found to beat them 1v1 is by either surprise, making them use their major abilities before bursting or dazing them at the exact right time.

That said a lot of other professions and builds also have problems countering these builds so I don’t think mantras are alone in that and this might be more an issue with those builds more than anything.

Master of Timespace.2548:

Seriously, if in a fight you have time to walk around doing nothing for more than 3 seconds, your enemy has serious l2p issues.
Good luck against a sword thief who dazes you every 2 seconds.

As for the 3 second cast, you have your dazes, cripples, blink, timewarp and being able to use healing while casting it. Remember that you might have dazes on your thief mantra mesmer (that uses a build like mine) has 5 dazes (you can chain these). A good mantra mesmer will know how to use these effectively. A sword thief isn’t a problem.

Gaiawolf.8261:

There are plenty of subpar skills and traits ( all classes do), and we have plenty of posts outlining them. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to buff some underused abilities to promote build diversity.

Thank you, this is pretty much exactly what I meant but you worded it much better than I did!

Basically there’s a lot more potential for diverse builds with the mesmer but most of them are a bit neglected or don’t work as well as they could making a few balancing adjustments to traits/utilities would give them the oompf they need to be more in line with other builds/professions. That’s all I’m asking for.

What I meant with other professions being able to do things better I meant that they can do so easier than a Mesmer not that they are ‘better’ at it per say just easier. That said I don’t want mesmers to be easy I like that they are challenging to play but the reward for doing so isn’t reflected well. Specifically with the harder to play builds and thus the above balancing of some utility and traits would improve this.

They nerfed a lot of abilities but in return they didn’t buff the underpowered ones, leaving us pretty bare-boned at the moment as to build diversity when there is so much more potential there.

Kazhiel.8194:

I’m also going to throw in a I completely disagree with Fay…. Mesmer has so many really awesome traits and utilities that there’s a reason there are “useful traits that would work well together can’t be matched up without losing other valuable things.” Yeah, you have to sacrifice some traits to get other traits but if you didn’t talk about OP. You keep mentioning how much you play mesmer, have you tried playing other classes as well? Because I really don’t see this identity crisis thing you bring up at all and as far as oompf I really doubt that’s the case when I can use Pyro’s build and pretty much 1v1 anyone and often 1vX and win. I think maybe you’re spending too much time trying to make mantras match up to other mesmer abilities/builds when they just don’t, not in the way you’re trying to use them anyway.

I never mentioned anything about making mesmers OP, not sure where the animosity comes from but I think you’re completely misunderstanding my posts. All I asked for is they improve the lackluster traits/utilities, I don’t see how that is a bad thing.

As for the mantra build it works great and I have no trouble with it other than with p/d vit/toughness thieves and d/d bunker ele’s. So no, Mantra builds do work just their difficulty vs reward needs some balancing, maybe an improvement to Mantra of Pain and maybe another look at mantra related traits. If you don’t like my build fair enough, no need to be so hostile about it :/

I’m not here to criticise your build so I wont point the problems with it out, it’s a really nice build and as I already stated there are viable builds that do pretty well.

But it’s entirely beside the point of my post though, All I asked is for the builds that we have to be made more viable, to be more clear cut instead of all the random stuff that half the time doesn’t synergies and useful traits that would work well together can’t be matched up without losing other valuable things.

There’s clearly an intend there with the mantras etc. but as it stands they are neglected quite a bit. As I said I would like to see the underpowered traits/abilities to be buffed, traits to synergies better and the various playstyles be put in line more making them more viable.

I feel like the mesmer profession doesn’t know what it wants to do. Maybe they tried to squish in too many ways of playing one making some more redundant than others and causing the issue of not being truly versatile. I don’t know I just feel they miss some oompf compared to other professions and thats after playing one for about 1600 hours (and still playing).

So, please don’t be offended I’d just like to see them give some love to the mesmer profession

I also accidentally select things all the time with right click camera turn it’s really frustrating. I hope they add an option for this even though they said they aren’t.

I’ve been wanting an audible sound for queues for so long. Waiting for queues sometimes takes so long especially in Tier 1 WvW servers. I like to be able to alt-tab etc. and do something while I wait and keep an ear out for a sound. I don’t like being forced to keep paying attention.

The healing one is one of the easiest ones to do. There’s so many dead npc laying around or wvw. For example in gendarran fields there’s an area called bloodfields where there are always a lot of dead npc that keep appearing there. Just hang around the area for about 10 minutes and you have your achievement. There’s also an event in Nebo terrace right behind it where a lot of the npc tend to die. It’s really not that hard.

Pyroatheist.9031:

However, you are 100% wrong with respect to your other comment insofar as anything you can do on a mesmer can be done on another class with less difficulty and bugs. It is true that it is more difficult to do x on a mesmer than it is on most other classes. The kicker is that if you are really good at doing it, you can do x better than those other classes at the same time you do y better than another class and z better than a third class, all in the same build.

Mesmers are more versatile, have a higher skill cap, and consequently have a higher ability cap than any other profession in the game, hands down.

This is exactly what is a problem with mesmers. Sure we have versatility but it’s too forced in a way. It’s like the profession can’t make up it’s mind and you are forced to be too versatile making all the builds to some extend compromised or extremely lacking.

There are so many play styles you can use as a mesmer, rolls you can fill but at the same time you are worst at all these play styles if you were to specialise too much you’d disable yourself competitively as you would be a sitting duck versus various other professions. If you try to balance you become subpar at all rolls.

Sure there are some viable builds that do pretty well but all of them suffer in some way. If you want to make a versatile profession make sure it’s truly versatile. Maybe rework trait lines for mesmers? So it’s more in line with the various innate playstyles rather than a randomly thrown together mix that’s more aimed at stats than actual build styles.

I played my mesmer a very long time, I love the profession and wouldn’t want it changed too much. All I would like is the different playstyles to be more efficient and more in line with other professions.

They nerfed a lot, some of which rightfully so but they didn’t buff the things that needs buffing in return leaving us pretty bare-boned at the moment with a lot of useless subpar traits/utility and underpowered abilities.

The truth is that the only reason people want mesmers right now is timewarp (and sometimes portal/veil). If we didn’t have timewarp or portal nobody would want us.

What’s the worst part of it is the skill cap requirement, We work so much harder for less of a result. I’d like to work this hard but but with better results overall.

Nobody at all feels the same about this? That there’s some balancing issues with mesmers? Difficulty vs Reward not where it should be?

They should show both how long someone has been offline as described in OP as well as a separate way of seeing percentage of time representing the guild. That way if someone goes over a % amount lets say. You have a full time representation guild if someone represents less than 90% of the time they have been online you could talk to them about it kind of thing.

Me and my guild did a naked AC run a month or two ago. It was good fun and definitely demonstrates that gear is not nearly as important as skill!

There will be another EU mesmer meet this friday (I believe). For those who want to I’ll be there so if you have any questions about mantras etc. I can answer them in game. Would be nice to compare mantra builds as well

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/EU-All-Mesmer-Meets-Fri-21-00-GMT

Hope to see some of you guys there again this Friday!

I think the thing with mantras or at least the idea was that because they are instant cast they are therefore pretty powerful on their own merits. They are largely immune to other abilities and can’t be interrupted like other abilities once they are readied so the logic conclusion was probably to make the results less significant.

However, This advantage swiftly becomes of little note when you take into account the long cast time (that can be interrupted and leaves you vulnerable), The lack of better survivability utilities that you are forced to put aside leaving you exposed more and the sheer difficulty of playing such a build well (with so many skills having to be used at once, using complex combos and timing CC’s perfectly).

Compared to any other build I’ve played skill requirement is far higher and result far lower with higher margin of error. I think this kind of game play should be rewarded more than easier builds.

Perhaps mantras were more intended as a side effect of other builds, a choice to use one or two rather than be used as an entire build devoted to them but I’d love to see mantra builds be made more viable.

So I definitely feel they need some love. I already feel since we’ve been nerfed to the ground that running a Mesmer is harder than most other professions. Almost everything I do on my Mesmer I can do better on other professions or with less difficulty and/or bugs.

Pyroatheist.9031:

But that is exactly it right there. It is great for restorative mantras because of the low cooldown it has. However, by using restorative mantras, you are now tacking on utility to the skill. Without restorative mantras, it has no utility, and has no place on a utility bar. Every utility should have utility by itself, you shouldn’t need to trait for that particular skill in order to actually give it ANY utility.

The only way it would be better is if the heal is added to the damage mantra by default so you heal without having to trait it and in stead have a trait to in crease the damage done by mantra of pain (Kind of like there is one for Mind Wrack). One that is in Mastery rather than Grand mastery.

Pyroatheist.9031:

In my opinion, the problem with mantra of pain isn’t the damage it does. The problem is that it only does damage. You are sacrificing a utility slot for a utility that (untraited) simply does a bit more damage. In order for mantra of pain to be worth anything, it needs another effect, or preferably just a completely different effect. If it applied some conditions, that would be better, or (I just thought of this, would be really cool) applied a damage amplification effect (separate from vulnerability) on the target.

Point being, MoP isn’t a utility. It is a damage skill, and therefore has no real place on a utility bar.

Edit: No offense to your mantra build fay, but it simply isn’t as effective as other builds I could and have made to do the same thing. I appreciate you doing your best to make it work, but the bottom line is that it just isn’t as good as everything else.

Personally I think mantra of pain is fine the way it is apart from the amount of damage it does. It’s one of the more useful mantras in restorative mantra builds because of the lack of cooldown which is awesome.

I very much agree that Mantra of Pain needs a buff. Mantra builds are arguably the hardest mesmer build I have ever played (any build on any profession I have personally ever tried for that matter). I feel the damage done versus the difficulty of the build are askew.

Mantra of pain needs to do more damage, not a huge amount but more. It feels more in line with a skill used by someone wearing blues or greens in effectiveness rather than someone in exotic/ascended gear. It doesn’t have enough oompf to combat enemies with vitality/toughness gear.

Seeing how mantra builds leave you pretty exposed in general we need more damage to balance this out.

As for spell effects, I think it’s fine. You can see on your opponents nameplate as to whether it worked or not.

Rexlent.1607:

Hi, just want to point out that some of the hyperlink for the mantra builds share the same URL.

The builds are mentioned on the same topic but if you have previously visited the thread then it will safe your previous location rather than go to the hyperlinked post (it’s rather irritating but oh well). Basically most of the recent mantra builds are on the same topic

I completely understand your issue though I don’t run a RP guild I’ve been continuously trying to assign officers to share the work load but they always end up not really taking initiative, going inactive etc. I find it near impossible to find people with initiative and loyalty it’s very frustrating.

People just expect someone else to do all the work for them and if the person doing the majority of the work doesn’t pull their weight for a bit it’s instantly evident that people start leaving, going inactive etc. rather than stepping up and organising some things for themselves.

This apathy towards guilds and attitude people seem to have that they are disposable and they can just move on is discouraging. There’s nothing you can really do about it other than hope to be lucky to find someone who does have initiative and a similar view.

woopwop.9281:

Nice of you to put this guide up Fay. I had gotten sort of tired with my mesmer after hitting 80 but this is a completely different playstyle from anything I’ve tried before so it’s been fun tweaking it and trying it out both sPvP and PvE.

If there’s one complaint I have, it’s the amount of times I have to hear the mantra charge-up line… they really need some new ones or less or none even…

I quite like it, Something satisfying about saying ‘Agony, Torment, Pain’ and then the person/npc dies.

In all seriousness though it can help time the mantras better to begin with for those starting out with mantras.

I do however think it would be better to have the three words separated and randomized so with each cast you either get ‘Agony’ or ‘Torment’ or ‘Pain’ so it’s not quite so repetitive or lengthy.

Personally though it doesn’t bother me after a while you just tune it out because you hear it so often that you get used to it being there. I barely notice it now.

I’ve added the Mesmer Meetup links to the list for both EU and US since I think it’s a great opportunity for people to meet and talk/share information on Mesmers. There’s links to the livestream I did during the event when we did an all mesmer dungeon on my build thread for those interested: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Videos-Guide-Panacea-Mantra-Build-PvX/

What applekwisp already explained, if you see here on the forums we all have a name with a number behind it (mine being Fay.2735) this is your definitive contact name in game. Everyone has one if you add these contact names of your friends to your list they should appear correctly.

I think legendary armour would be really cool as long as it’s not in the same way they’ve done the weapons that require way too much gold and mats. Would love to see it be a more skilled based system if they release armour.

Well there’s a couple of problems with that. First the dungeons were intended to be hard and so not exactly PuG friendly which a lot of people don’t seem to realize (which is why they start to make them harder and about teamwork).

They’ve already said they are going to improve the LFG tools so a dungeon finder isn’t required.

I also think it’s important to remember that the dungeons are about communication, coordination etc. such an automated tool doesn’t generally account for the experience of the players and the way they would like to do the dungeon in.

I’d be worried the speed running issue will get even worse, newcomers already have a terrible time because of people with this attitude. Such an automated queueing tool will make it far far worse.

Also I like that you have to travel to the dungeon to enter it (or at least one person does).

The major thing that needs improving is some sort of LFG channel that doesn’t have such an absurd suppressed message limit and having something like gw2lfg inside the game.

There’s a list of builds stickied on these forums maybe you can find something to work with:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/List-Find-your-Mesmer-Build-Guides

Malvagite.3254:

Mossman stealths every 6-15 seconds as of the last build. Before he fully renders he throws his axe and his target is downed.

What counter is there for that?

You can blindly dodge 2x and hope to get lucky. You can blow a long cool down defensive skill and hope for the same luck. This is skill based , well designed play?

When hes stealthing that often, it isnt long before your luck runs out, because your cool downs arent as fast as his.

Your harpy strategy is also pure theorycraft. The red circles are larger than many of the platforms. So you cant even see them, because they extend past the edge of the platforms. And you suggest jumping from platform to platform while under attack?

Thats funny, because under direct combat your move speed and jump are reduced to a snails pace making jumping a short distance in combat an epic feat in itself.

Fractals are not new. over 2 months old in a 5 month old games is not new. Since the last patch where they changed the archers in the frozen fractal to melee, i have had only 2 groups that didnt wipe at least 1 time there. Depending on group composition ive had groups wipe 3-4x passed that point at the elemental from chain knockdowns.

These poorly balanced fights are not fun and the groups i have been in say so in chat. There is no skill involved in dodging a knockdown, then dodging another, then being knockdown because you are out of resources to dodge.

So there’s possibly one balancing issue with mossman in your opinion that they recently introduced (I wouldn’t know I haven’t done it since) so that immediately means all dungeons are horrible? All one-shot mechanics are impossible?

I’m sure they will fix it if they find there is an issue with it, Robert does an awesome job working through the bugs systematically and even made a blogpost explaining the upcoming fixes to encounters.

As for harpies, are you serious? I always use that tactic without a problem and don’t get knocked off at all (unless I’m distracted which is my own fault), you can jump to another platform in combat they are close enough to each other to do so and if you position yourself right you can always see the AOE so no it’s not theorycrafting it’s a proven method that works well not just for myself but for others also.

Also I don’t see you mention any of the other dungeons, have you done them? Because there are definitely no issues with the one-shot mechanics in any of those dungeons that I can think of.

That they are horrible and impossible one-shot mechanics is your opinion. You can’t use one example of where this ability may be overtuned in your opinion as proof of ‘horrid dungeon design’ it takes time to balance them out and fix all the issues with dungeons but the majority of the dungeon experience is great and the one-shot mechanics are very doable. They’ve already fixed a lot of things since launch so dungeons are getting better and better and more polished.

I’m looking forward to the new improvements to boss healths and additional mechanics added which I hope have more one shot mechanics and other more fun mechanics.

Malvagite.3254:

No one said “everyone”

You cant make any statement without someone saying that it doesnt apply to them.

The dungeons in this game are full of horrible designs. ie, …

1 shot deaths (mossman even does this from stealth with zero way to react to his attack)

bosses that carpet bomb football field size areas with red circles (dodge the red circle being the core boss mechanic of guild wars 2)

Defensive stats that basically dont work ( 3000 toughness = just as dead as the base 916 toughness in many, many fights)

many boss fights where melee is sub optimal or flat out impossible, yet your trait points are spent to enhance your greatsword ..

Encounters like the knockback shooting harpies in fractals where your options to fight them totally depend on long cooldown skills that not every class has. the end result being death zerging them down.

thats garbage design.

You enjoy that? great….there are people that enjoy opera and burnt toast as well.

But most people do not.

As Fortuna already said. There are people who melee all bosses without dying (I for example like to melee subject alpha on my mesmer), It’s not impossible just harder.

I personally like the one shot mechanics it forces you to counter or dodge the ability properly which requires some skill, knowledge of tactics and good timing. If you’re dying from one shot mechanics you’re doing it wrong.

As for fractals, it’s a new dungeon still in need of some balancing. Personally I’m not huge on fractals I prefer the old dungeons so I’ve only gone up to lvl 11 in fractals so I don’t know what the moss man is like on high levels but he certainly didn’t one shot people at those levels.

As for the harpies they’re so easy to avoid, stand on the edge of a platform so you can see the AOE and you can move to the other edge to avoid it or jump to nearby platform. I still don’t understand why people haven’t realised that and just stand on the middle of platforms or on the tiny ones being knocked off repeatedly. You don’t need stability, if I can do it on my mesmer you certainly can as well.

All your complaints to me sound more like you’re not countering the mechanics properly rather than an issue with the mechanics. The problem is with all these speed runners people are used to just rushing and dpsing through the dungeons and not actually doing the fights efficiently using the tactics and are then surprised they die a lot (rez rush magg is a great example of this and people letting troll fight kholer because as soon as they actually have to fight him they drop like flies etc.).

Malvagite.3254:

Dungeons in guild wars 2 are no fun.

Horrible rewards except for token gear for the time spent.
Horrible fight mechanics, ie, being 1 shot, being beat down in 3 sec with 3k armor after your 2 dodges are gone.

Triple AAA mmorpg with combat and rewards worse than a free to play korean grinder.

If it werent for tokens, people wouldnt even step foot in these horrible dungeons.

Please don’t speak for ‘people’ as if everyone feels that way. There are a lot of people who love dungeons myself included and apart from too much health of some bosses and some balancing/extra mechanics added they are great. Rewards in dungeons are pretty good now as well compared to before and compared to WvW/Open world PvE.

People who love dungeons don’t do them just for the tokens but for the content. I still do dungeons A LOT, I’ve done them all MANY times over and my bank is full with tokens because I simply enjoy it.

The key is to find a steady dungeon group of like minded people where you can learn the tactics together as a group and take your time to socialize, communicate, wipe and gain victories together. That’s how we did it, those who went through the dungeons in the first month or so we weren’t told how to do it we had to solve the problems ourselves.

The problem is with PuGs, Many have elitist attitudes and/or speed through dungeons as the OP described without knowing the word dodge and dying repeatedly being carried by the one person who has some more skill.

Before you search a PuG group make sure to state you do not want to skip any content or speed through the dungeon. Repeat this again when you have a group to make sure everyone agreed. Usually you can find more people with the same attitude to dungeons.

If anything people ask me for dungeons often because they had such bad experiences with PuGs and want to actually enjoy them. Either way I would highly recommend finding a good set of people to do them with rather than PuGs (preferably people that are patient and can shrug off a few wipes etc.). Trust me the experience will be far richer and fun.

I decided to get some quick footage in Orr and made a tutorial video demonstrating the tactic I described in the guide and a couple of variations (It’s important to vary it up or you will become predictable).

http://youtu.be/b2vLtCOC0cU?hd=1

(Note how I’m finally used to my new mouses key-binds so no more clicking I feel I’m definitely improving with the build and it’s a lot of fun!)

Also for those asking for footage of a dungeon run, I did record some but then the Mesmer meetup happened and I livestreamed our dungeon run. It’s far from a great dungeon run with my delay in game from livestreaming and some of the others not having done the dungeon before! But it still demonstrates the mantra build:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

(Note how I swapped mantra of pain for nullfield a lot of the time and am also using mantra of resolve in stead of mantra of distraction)

I have a Sunrise and I like the effect, That said I wouldn’t mind being able to see clouds within it a bit better so it’s clearer that it’s meant to be the sky. To be honest if anything I think the Sunrise sword effect itself could do with a little tweak.

At the moment I feel it looks dull dark orange too often and I have to put the camera right at the ground to get the cool blueish/pink look to the sword which I think looks a lot cooler.

At the very least make the orange a bit more vibrant/deep in colour. I did notice though that Sunrise looks nicest in Orr.

Add another WvW map!

But seriously in stead of trying to get into borderland during primetime on reset night, go to sleep early with your entire guild and get up at like 4 am to ensure there’s an early morning coverage.

No, whats the point in raising it? None.. new content is the key after they fixed existing bugs.

Me and several mesmers are there right now, Come fellow mesmers join us still 4 minutes to go You can guest over to gandara easily and for free. Great opportunity to talk the nerdy mesmer talk!

Done it, couple strange questions but hope it helped

Hey guys thanks for all the really good builds and ideas! I’m finally feeling a bit better so I should be able to focus better on video editing. So expect some soon. I’ve included your builds to the new build list.

I’ve also decided to rename the build to something more memorable. After the greek goddess of healing Panacea (Took me forever to think of something). Since half part of the build is about mantra healing.

I’ve added some recent builds and I’ve already had to split up the post because of character limit. When I reach the 3 post limit I might have to start being more picky about which builds should be listed unless Anet can allow additional characters to be used and/or an extra post added for additional space.

Also, Thanks Osicat for the above response. As Osicat said, Please keep this topic for discussion of the build list, To request builds being added, Point out things that need to be fixed etc. You can talk about the individual builds in their topics.