Guild Wars 2

Anyone have pictures of these 2 new armor sets?

Let’s consider some other expansions:

Diablo III’s expansion lasted 3-4 hours, with all replay ability being found in grinding harder difficulties of these levels. It costed $50 at launch.

GTA IV’s expansion episodes lasted around 10-20 hours, and were priced at a total of $40 for both.

Destiny, the Taken King, lasts around 15-20 hours, and raids were incrementally released after launch. It costs $40.

Based off of these, I’d say HoT is pretty reasonably priced, considering the amount of content it contains is actually more than any of the aforementioned examples.

Saiyan.1704:

Nova Stiker.8396:

DotA 2 is one of the most balanced MMOs/Moba’s there is. If it wasn’t for that, Dota 2 would have fallen to the League of Legends dust.

But you forgot the most important rule: ARENANET STOP TREATING GW2 LIKE IT’S AN ESPORT. Not a single one of my friends takes Guild Wars 2 PvP seriously because it has so many problems with bugs, balance and exploits.

You cannot become a sport without a supporting community, period.

And GW2 was one of the most balanced RPGPVP games there is. Arguably, it still is.

LoL is 5x easier to play in comparison. They have numerous more characters but they’re either tank, power, or support. Nothing complicated about it other than item buying (dota) and the usual forest roaming and team strat rotations therein.

Your friends can’t take GW2 PvP seriously because it’s too hard – too many meta builds with different fundamentals in each. If it was easy, tell your friends to make a team and win $400,000. There are no bugs or power creep preventing that (until hot releases :p)

Your logic is flawed. You are equating a convoluted UI/rules/gameplay system with competitiveness. This cannot be further from the truth.

GW2 is convoluted – too many animations/particles that blur the screen, skill spamming with low CD’s (causing way too much screen frenzy), and skills being balanced in conjunction with PvE (ANet is NOT a PvP-only developer). These factors combine to make GW2 PvP borderline unwatchable from an observer’s standpoint, cause a lot of slowdown on lesser rigs, and generate a greater dichotomy between “Meta” and “Non-meta” builds (offering less game diversity).

The key note to remember is that all of these points detract from GW2’s PvP userbase. The userbase and # of people playing is key to the competitiveness level of any game/sport/activity.

Here’s a real life example: the aforementioned principle is why the game of Soccer is more valued and competitive worldwide than, say, the game of Darts, Bowling, or a more complex game such as Rugby. There are simply way more people playing and watching Soccer.

GW2 PvP is not to the point where LoL, DotA2, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, CS:GO, etc. are. GW2’s userbase is not nearly as big and thus the game is not as competitive.

This, in a nutshell, is why people don’t take GW2 PvP seriously. It’s not because it is “too hard.” Its simply because it is difficult to watch (too much screen clutter), its interface is too clunky (way too many spammable skills), and the game isn’t dedicated to balancing on a pure PvP scope (huge dichotomy between “meta” and “non-meta.” These combine to make its userbase too small and thus nobody takes it seriously on a competitive level.

PS – ANet is making some good strides though – putting in a larger prize pool for its tourneys and reducing animation effects and screen clutter with the HoT release is definitely a start.

Do tomes of knowledge provide “XP” to lvl 80 characters, or is it just skill points? I’ve actually never tried one on a lvl 80.

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Mightybird.6034:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Tomes do not count as they are not a Heart of Maguuma source.

Also not everyone can play all day every day. What if they want to do raids. What if they want to do new wvw. What if they want to get to fractal level 100. In an ideal scenario if you did 10 events a day that took 7 minutes each you are looking at 1 hour of game time a day dedicated to this task just to get it in a year lol

Well if you only play an hour a day then a year sounds about right.

And this is coming from someone who can only play about an hour a day, has played since head start, and has no legendaries.

They are supposed to be rare.

You are missing my point… it’s an hour a day… of nothing but that… if not then it’s going to take you much more than a year lol

With the first legendary set, it as actually reasonable to attempt one. Doing map completion (takes around 1-4 weeks, depending on dedication) already got you half the karma/shards needed. Doing some silverwastes and WvW for a week easily got you the rest of the karma/shards and your gift of battle.

From there on, it was just about ~2000g worth of precursor/mats. Counting gold you get doing the other stuff (map completion, story, world boss rewards, dungeons runs to get the legendary specific gift), this probably took 2-3 months to farm. Or you could just fork over $50-150 bucks real cash (which is peanuts in comparison to the time) and get everything right off the bat.

In total, you could easily get a first generation legendary within the span of ~2 weeks to 3 months or so.

Now with HoT and everything being xp- gated, account-bound, and mastery-dependent, the second set of legendaries could easily take 4-5 times the effort.

I returned to playing this game around a month or two ago. I have to agree that matchmaking isn’t really the best. I started out losing something like 20 out of 25 games.

Despite those setbacks, I’m averaging a ~56% overall winrate in ranked and 58% in unranked, and these percentages are only going up. You can figure out the system and start carrying your team after a while (eg. creating 1v3 matchups that last for minutes, identifying open points for free capture, always forcing multiple opponent rotations to account for your actions, keeping treb up 24/7 in khylo, etc.)

Perhaps its because my MMR hasn’t reached what it should be yet, but I have also noticed some volatility. For example, in one game my 4 teammates zerged to our home point and simply sat there the entire game. The next game I have 2 legendary champions, 1 marauder, and 1 champion genius on my team while the other team has a troll (naked armor that just ran to mid and danced/autoattacked).

Long story short: matchmaking definitely needs work.

Just get 1st set of Legendaries and focus on Ascended/Legendary armor and raids.

The 2nd set just seems plain not worth it to even attempt.

I have had “top stats” in over half of my games played…..not sure if this is another glitch in the stat tracking system (there are many).

If MMR is working correctly, shouldn’t it be more like 20-30% of the games?

skcamow.3527:

It was Frostball and Helseth. Both were running dom/duel/illusions with your typical traits in dom/duel and compounding power, shattered strength and ineptitude in illusions. Highest damage spec available on mesmer at the moment.

I was very pleased to finally see more higher tier mesmers run this. I think PU took away some of this spec’s thunder but I personally think this has been best all along.

Seems that this build is geared towards 5 man synergy. From what I’ve seen so far in my time back in the game (my experience is limited), PU seems to be a better option in PUG’s/solos because of the mobility and survivability it provides.

Great to see a full power build used in cohesive gameplay though.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Good Tofu.9376:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Good Tofu.9376:

Also, please keep in mind that DotA only had a few thousand players when it first started….even towards the end of DotA 1.

DotA2 started with a few thousand as well…and when Valve pumped 1 million of its own money into the International 1’s prize pool, it wasn’t nearly as popular as it is today.

Now, prize pools of 15-20 million are being completely funded by the community and Valve is rolling in the dough. DotA is also a F2P game….Valve makes most of its money off of cosmetics being sold within the game.

That is incorrect. DotA 2 became really popular when League became really popular. Both are the same game types (and the only good two of it’s kind at the time) but are vastly different. Not to mention DotA 2 is more balanced, all the characters are free to play (instead of doing weekly rotations) and is more complex.

The biggest reason why DotA is around is because of League popularity, not because of money. DotA 2 does a lot of things right which League fails at, attracting a lot of people that hated League of Legends.

Not to mention the prize pools is funded by the community alone, that is pretty awesome.

They wrote a whole two paragraphs just to say they are increasing his armor by 2!!
No offense to ArenaNet, but Guild Wars 2 PvP by comparison has absolutely no love. Updates every 6 months? Bugs? Exploits? Seriously, you want to be an Esport when there are better developers that do a better job with their PvP?

Wrong.

League skyrocketed not due to E-sports, but because it was a very easy game to pick up. It casual game mechanics were very simple, well designed, and very noob-friendly. Compared to a much more mechanically complex, punishing, and intense game such as DotA, League had very little learning curve and attracted the masses. In fact, it got so popular that it took a significant chunk of users away from DotA1 and DotA2.

DotA 2 survived because Valve started putting a ton of resources into the competitive scene. High quality broadcasts, tournaments, the international, and even put in very robust spectating modes and coaching options into the game. This helped turn what was a rather complex game with a very high learning curve into a very popular one. When the first International came, tens of thousands watched. Now at the fifth International, millions have watched the grand finals. In fact, one could argue that without the E-sports investment by Valve, Dota 2 would be completely dead by now.

I agree, but Valve took DotA 2 and supercharged it, it’s the only MOBA I know that has every single playable character for free at all times. Not to mention one of the most BALANCED moba games.

The Juggernaut buff in League just did is one of the WORST balances I have ever seen and it blows my mind on how stupidly bad it was handled. It’s Dhuumfire level of terrible.

Honestly, if it wasn’t for those two very impressive factors, League would have just dominated the MOBA scene. Valve can promote it as much as they want, DotA simply has what League suffers at.

I doubt anyone would play DotA 2 if it wasn’t well balanced and offered so much variety at the very start. It would have just devolved to a overly complex ‘league’ clone.

Well, Valve does employ Icefrog, who is the “father” of MOBA’s. He created the first DotA that was a cult hit mod for Warcraft III.

He has been through years and years of balancing….and has become one of the best in the world at developing gameplay mechanics.

Icefrog is the one who does all of the game balancing for DotA 2.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Good Tofu.9376:

Also, please keep in mind that DotA only had a few thousand players when it first started….even towards the end of DotA 1.

DotA2 started with a few thousand as well…and when Valve pumped 1 million of its own money into the International 1’s prize pool, it wasn’t nearly as popular as it is today.

Now, prize pools of 15-20 million are being completely funded by the community and Valve is rolling in the dough. DotA is also a F2P game….Valve makes most of its money off of cosmetics being sold within the game.

That is incorrect. DotA 2 became really popular when League became really popular. Both are the same game types (and the only good two of it’s kind at the time) but are vastly different. Not to mention DotA 2 is more balanced, all the characters are free to play (instead of doing weekly rotations) and is more complex.

The biggest reason why DotA is around is because of League popularity, not because of money. DotA 2 does a lot of things right which League fails at, attracting a lot of people that hated League of Legends.

Not to mention the prize pools is funded by the community alone, that is pretty awesome.

Wrong.

League skyrocketed not due to E-sports, but because it was a very easy game to pick up. Its casual game mechanics were very simple, well designed, and very noob-friendly. Compared to a much more mechanically complex, punishing, and intense game such as DotA, League had very little learning curve and attracted the masses. In fact, it got so popular that it took a significant chunk of users away from DotA1 and DotA2.

DotA 2 survived because Valve started putting a ton of resources into the competitive scene. Valve produced introduced quality broadcasts, tournaments, the International, robust spectating modes, and coaching options into the game. This helped turn what was a rather complex game with a very high learning curve (which initially scared a lot of people away) into a very popular one. When the first International came, tens of thousands watched. Now at the fifth International, millions have watched the grand finals. In fact, one could argue that without the E-sports investment by Valve, Dota 2 would be completely dead by now.

Also, please keep in mind that DotA only had a few thousand players when it first started….even towards the end of DotA 1.

DotA2 started with a few thousand as well…and when Valve pumped 1 million of its own money into the International 1’s prize pool, it wasn’t nearly as popular as it is today.

Now, prize pools of 15-20 million are being completely funded by the community and Valve is rolling in the dough. DotA is also a F2P game….Valve makes most of its money off of cosmetics being sold within the game.

Baldrick.8967:

Thanks. For wasting more on some failed E-Sport dream than has been spent on wvw during it’s 3 years of existence. Wonder how many devs could have been paid with that cash.

GW2 streamers just aren’t fun to watch. The screaming child commentary on the last tourny made it sound they they were all force fed speed and other drugs then let loose with a microphone.

Of course it will attract some professional gamers from other games (look! money! small numbers playing!), but it will really be declared a success when we’re all forced into spvp by the new precursor grind releasing with HoT.

In the northwest / bay area, 400k will get you 2 to 3 devs for one year. Honestly not going to make a huge difference now that all of the game’s backend has really been established.

This is probably more of a marketing investment than anything else. Valve started off by pumping millions of its own cash into DotA 2, and entirely funding the prize pools themselves. And this was for a purely free game.

So if this was a pure power build, doesn’t that take away some of the benefits of the staff? (It’s more condi, right?)

This was in ESL weekly/monthly finals I think?

I think both Mesmers had GS/Staff as their main weapons…not sure of traits though

There are some people who have “sold” their mastery/fortune by having someone else give them the mats, then crafting a legendary, and then giving it to the person who wants the legendary in exchange for a gold fee. The gold fee covers the cost of the mastery/fortune.

Dragoon.9730:

Hi there. So Anet has debuted 3 of the new legendary weapons including pics of them being wielded. I noticed that in every single shot of them being wielded though all of the arms had transformations (i.e. the raven staff covers your arm in feathers, the pistol wreathes your arm in energy, and the axe transforms your arm into a starry sky). I know that at least a couple of the current legendary weapons have those same effects, but not all of them. I wondered if Anet was going to add any existing updates to weapons that currently don’t have the effect (currently using the Dreamer, and who wouldn’t love a rainbow arm?). Thanks for taking the time to read this, and respond for anyone who does.

Which current ones have those effects?

Zach.2618:

You don’t need to buy the expensive Agony infusions to run fractals. Just buy the 75 relic infusions, at most just buy the plus 5 infusions which only cost about 2g each or something. Don’t blow things out of proportion. A daily fractal gives you 1.4 gold alone not including drops, do 2 of those and you can already buy an infusion.

To do this though, you’d need Infused ascended trinkets/back pieces. This requires grinding lower level fractals to obtained the mist essences necessary to create infused pieces, correct?

See topic. Any tips on which ascended line to maximize the usefulness of chrono?

Will it still be berserk/assassins?

The cost to produce non-simple infusions (if you don’t want to use regular ones) is ridiculous….plus you need to commit a full set of ascended armor/weapons to agony resistance.

Is the payoff at lvl 40-50 worth all the grind/cost?

Silverkey.2078:

Focus has a niche in PvE as our only AOE off-hand phantasm + reflects. However, the problem of phantasm survivability and the positioning makes it unviable in PvP. From what we can see in raids, the problem will also occur there (enemy constantly moving). So I suspect focus will die completely. I hope for a small rework.

Torch is obviously very strong in WvW/PvP. I suspect it will remain in WvW, shield may outclass it in PvP.

Pistol is good in PvP, with a good interrupt and high damage phantasm for both power and condi.

Scepter is good in PvP, not meta but definitely viable. If they remove the phantasm overwrite, it may become meta in PvE when range is needed (probably the case in raids and high level fractals).

Shield, as I said, I suspect it will be strong in PvP and may outclass the torch. In PvE, it depends on how valuable is the extra quickness and how reliable is the phantasm for alacrity.

Torch is almost entirely used for the Prestige….but with the PU nerf may lose even more ground once HoT comes out.

Scepter is a bit underpowered….should get a buff.

We’ll see how well shield translates. Definitely seems to open up non-stealth/distortion survivability options.

Currently (taking into consideration all game modes), they seem to be:

1. GS (PvP/WvW)
2. Sword (PvE/PvP)
3. Staff (PvP/WvW)
4. Basically nothing else

Any predictions on how this will change with HoT?

Did they mention that existing legendaries will have arm effects added? I thought it was just the new ones.

dragonfighter.4098:

from what i just read its to help even out the economy of the game. well i think the economy is pretty even, pvp,wvw, and dungeons get precursors, they sell, crafter/gatherer buys, makes legendary and sells to pvp, wvw, and dungeon players i call that pretty even. i my self get enough pvp action when i go to wvw to get crest. this is a mmo not e-sport. forcing the pve players to do wvw was accepted, but pvp, i will never do it im not that type of player. Anet is beginning to forget about their pve players although were the ones whom truly support their in game economy. we also spend our hard earned cash on the game, expansion, gems, and gold just like the pvp players and wvw players so why are we being hung out to dry all the time by Anet, ive played gw since launch of gw1 and have really enjoyed it, im really upset that my time, money and endorsement of it to other people, whom buy it, is nothing to them. maybe its time for me to suport another company

Umm, are you seriously complaining about “PvE getting shafted?”

PvP has been on the short end of the stick for so long. If you max out all PvP title tracks, you get like…what? 3-3.5k AP?

You get virtually no gold and very little sellable items through PvP right now. Even with cosmetic items – you can get a dungeon armor set much faster doing the actual dungeon than going through the PvP reward track.

Here are more examples: You can get shards much faster by doing silverwastes than going through PvP reward track. You can get gold much faster by doing PvE instead of PvP. Even with HoT, the “PvP-exclusive” mats can be straight up purchased from the TP. And I have a feeling that these wont even come close to allowing PvP’ers to get a decent source of income.

PvP right now literally grants you nothing aside from rank points and titles.

PvE has always been the focus. Please don’t complain about PvE “getting the short end of the stick.”

TorsoReaper.8530:

Maybe Anet just can’t figure out pvp without the help of Morello who is now at Riot. Is it just coincidence that GW2 pvp is a mess and League of Legends is absolutely killing it?

Comparing GW2 to League of Legends is not a good comparison.

No MMO PvP mode will ever come close to a MOBA’s PvP.

MOBA is the definition of PvP: “Multiplayer Online Battle Arena.” There is literally no other content aside from the PvP within the game.

A MMO encompasses so much more than just PvP. There is no way an MMO company will have the resources to balance out PvP when compared to a company that purely develops MOBAs. MMO’s have so much more content to focus on.

Tux kitten inguin.3049:

Those titels are a joke in every point. There is no way to call you a champion after winning 150 matches. There are ppl doing this in a week.

Just…no. Let me break it down for you:

Factoring in Queue time and other delays, you can reasonably expect to play 2-4 games per hour.

But for argument’s sake, let’s just say you take zero breaks and are pumping out games at 4 per hour. Next, let’s assume you have zero losses and win every single game. 150 / 4 = 37.5 hours under the absolute best-case circumstances.

More realistically, having equal amounts of losses (which is more reasonable) can easily put the count over 80 hours.

Anyone playing 80 hours per week (or even 37.5 hours) needs serious help. This isn’t an e-sport where top prizes are on the order of millions of dollars per person (ex: Dota 2). You win maybe a few thousand per person for being GW2 world champion (and only 5 total people achieve this), which is not nearly worth the time lost.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

You can change the stats on ascended gear.

Unfortunately, this costs spirit shards that aren’t the easiest to mass farm.

Not sure what type of armor is ideal for HoT meta….should I wait until after HoT settles to craft?

Curunen.8729:

Embolism.8106:

Also, please stop conflating PU with Condi Mes. They are NOT the same thing. If you have a problem with PU say it. If you have a problem with Condi Mes say it. Don’t say you have a problem with Condi Mes when what you really mean to say is you have a problem with PU.

And really, PU Condi Mes is one of the worst Mesmer builds for sPvP, worse than non-PU Condi Mes.

The bolded part so much.

Sure many people use the PU trait when playing a condi build.

But there are so many more condi builds that don’t use PU. When we get Chrono I bet there will be even less condi mesmers using Chaos outside of wvw roaming. Because I personally believe Illu/Chrono/Inspiration or Duelling are far more useful and have more to contribute than the extended stealth+boons.

Nevermind hybrid builds…

The OP probably just lost a series of duels to a condition mesmer and tooks his grief here.

Now if there is anything to really complain about, it (was) the matchmaking (since now better) and some clear bugs in the PvP stat tracking system.

Embolism.8106:

Also, please stop conflating PU with Condi Mes. They are NOT the same thing. If you have a problem with PU say it. If you have a problem with Condi Mes say it. Don’t say you have a problem with Condi Mes when what you really mean to say is you have a problem with PU.

And really, PU Condi Mes is one of the worst Mesmer builds for sPvP, worse than non-PU Condi Mes.

I think the OP is referring to a massively overpowered “I win build” with mass conditions, infinite dodges, and ridiculous invis time. Oh and the build can probably cap while being invis as well, which is why he feels pressured to stand still on a point when a mesmer goes invis. Chaos storm is an esnare and doesn’t allow you to move when it is casted on you. In addition, the clones here cannot be killed so he needs to find the real mesmer in order to burst down. Finally, chaos armor is a taunt that causes you to autoattack the target and confusion causes you to uncontrollably spam skills.

Nier.8741:

Like seriously defending PU? It’s the same garbage as defending Turret Engi.

Just because it isn’t viable that doesn’t mean it’s healthy for the game. Why do people insist on “keeping diversity” when things just don’t take skill. Some builds just shouldn’t be viable for a healthy game.

What is so hard about forcing 1v2s on favorable match ups and making it a 4v3 advantage for your team if it’s “not a 1v1 game.”

Like for real? I can’t duel this guy so I have to ask for help, I wonder what’s happening to the other points when this guy is taking so long just to die in a 1v2 (If you can’t delay on PU mesmer then you are just bad at the game, sorry it’s THAT easy to hold a 1v2 on easy effective. Same garbage as d/d ele too) wow. It’s just so ignorant to say duels don’t matter.

It’s also so sad hearing this BS from Mesmer mains which are just fail priviledged player from the beginning anyways. Waste of time arguing with delusional people who think “this is a team game where 1v1s don’t matter” or “Mesmer is hard.”

Why would you ever sit at a point trying to 2v1 a PU mesmer? Just have one bunker stay there and you move somewhere else to help your team.

The mesmer can’t decap while in stealth. They are losing a lot of time if its 1v1 at a point and they spend a ton of time in stealth.

If the mesmer is shatter, try to read the shatters. No PU mesmer should ever be able to one shot you from stealth or even come close. Once the burst comes, heal up or dodge, then repeat.

If the mesmer is condition, get rid of the clones, and dont stand still on the point when chaos storm comes up. Don’t blindly attack against chaos armor. Rinse and repeat. Once again, they cannot decap while in stealth.

PU mesmers are great at mobility and ganking (meaning its 2v1 in THEIR favor, not the other way around). This is why many of the higher level mesmer players prefer the shatter build. Portal to/back to a point, assist your teammate in efficiently/quickly spiking down an opponent, portal back and assist at another point.

One of the biggest benefits of extended invis time is so that the enemy cannot monitor/track your movement. Using invis for dueling and 1v1 de-capping is, for the most part, not the best usage of time.

In fact, Mesmers aren’t great for efficient 1v1 de-capping against any decent bunker build.

TheGuy.3568:

Chokolata.1870:

See most people have assumed that I am either new at the game or completely oblivious to how Mesmer works. Neither is the case. I have quite a lot of games played. The issue is that the build can pump up so many conditions that I can’t keep up and simply run out of CDs to burn.

I am constantly being pressured by 6-7+ stacks of both torment and bleeding cleanse after cleanse alongside poison, burning and other fluff you mentioned. In the last game I played I was on my Ranger with the survival power build, which has as good condition removal as one can get on a Ranger, and after burning all my CDs to condi cleanse I was left exposed and my HP dropped from 100% to 20% within 3-4 seconds. I simply ran out of CDs. And I did not use my CDs to burn fluff as you have said.

So, my question from start is:

- Since Anet is very heavy handed in nerfing obnoxious spam builds, why does this exist where someone can just keep dodging, stealthing and spamming conditions at an insane amount.

There is no way you ended up in the situation if you didn’t Hit the block and eat the shatters.

Your HP no way got that low unless you spammed skills or were facing a burst power mesmer and you didn’t notice.

No matter how good you think you are you will get exposed as spammer if you are dying quick to it. There are no if and or buts about it.

Now to break it down further. The only way you got poison from the mesmer is if you sat in chaos storm or he had a sigil of doom in. In either case it should not have sustained long at 1 stack (possibly 2).

The bleeds mesmer (really) would be staff and clones (winds of chaos + sharper image) or Pistols phantasm. However if that were the case there would be no constant stealth. You could have used birds and had all those bleeds tossed back on you by the mesmer too (generosity or thievery).

Which likely means you let the clones stand or that damage came from else where.

Read 1,2, and 2.5.

My guess is you closed the gap and ate the shatters not maximizing 4->2->3 combo on long bow + taunt. Left all the clones standing and payed 0 attention to animations. Rushed in with the GS tried to land 3 and failed a lot.

In any case if you were not dueling then you just had a bad team. As a power (burst I hope so) you should have won unless you were getting reflected a lot but you said you went down to conditions solely. I have no doubt you got out played because a proper power burst with cc should have ate half his health real quick.

So if your story is true you are indeed completely oblivious to how mesmer works. Read my first post. And yes I play pew pew ranger a bit too.

This explanation is probably far too complicated for the OP to understand.

Just read my explanation (a few posts above) which has him just paying attention to movement and pressing 1 most of the time. I bet he’s literally standing in chaos storm the entire time and hitting the mesmers when they obviously have chaos armor intact.

Should work better for him.

Chokolata.1870:

I feel like this is a proper question to ask. And before you attack me that I need to learn to play, I actually know the build and what it does.

My question is, since Anet is very heavy handed in nerfing builds that are bad for the game, why is Mesmer allowed to constantly stealth and just dodge all the while pumping out insane amounts of conditions that, even if you fully go for condition removal, are simply impossible to cleanse.

This is from a Ranger and Warrior perspective.

As a war, GS with cleansing Ire is your friend. Unless you are constantly standing in chaos storm and not even using berserker’s stance, you should be able to burst most mesmers down, especially in teamfight situations.

Seems to me like you are literally just standing on a point 24/7 and taking the brunt of all damage. Wars and rangers are not the best of solo bunkers.

Chokolata.1870:

See most people have assumed that I am either new at the game or completely oblivious to how Mesmer works. Neither is the case. I have quite a lot of games played. The issue is that the build can pump up so many conditions that I can’t keep up and simply run out of CDs to burn.

I am constantly being pressured by 6-7+ stacks of both torment and bleeding cleanse after cleanse alongside poison, burning and other fluff you mentioned. In the last game I played I was on my Ranger with the survival power build, which has as good condition removal as one can get on a Ranger, and after burning all my CDs to condi cleanse I was left exposed and my HP dropped from 100% to 20% within 3-4 seconds. I simply ran out of CDs. And I did not use my CDs to burn fluff as you have said.

So, my question from start is:

- Since Anet is very heavy handed in nerfing obnoxious spam builds, why does this exist where someone can just keep dodging, stealthing and spamming conditions at an insane amount.

Mesmer can’t “dodge, stealth, and spam at an insane amount.”

Mesmer has 3 stealth skills and can upkeep clones probably 1 at a time, AT BEST, if you are using your greatsword.

If you are just running around swinging your sword, you should be able to demolish all clones. If the mesmer casts chaos storm, the mesmer CANNOT Stealth because it gets revealed as soon as you take damage from chaos storm. Furthermore, if chaos storm goes up, this is the perfect time to step aside, switch to longbow, stealth, and cast a barrage on the storm, as most mesmers will stay within chaos storm when its up. If you see the mesmer has chaos armor on (BIG ORANGE BUBBLE), just don’t attack them if you are out of cleanses.

Finally, as soon as you see a mesmer use the scepter 3 skill (which is channeling), just dodge roll toward your opponent and hilt bash to stun.

With new buffs to ranger (getting tons of stacks of might with your pet), you should be able to one shot most clones with your greatsword.

What I described literally just requires you to run around, have decent positioning, and press 1 the entire time. Occasionally a dodge roll, occasionally pressing 4, and maybe once in a while switching to longbow and casting barrage.

I can understand if you are having trouble if you NEVER switch to your greatsword (which I’m suspecting is what happened). If you are literally staying in longbow trying to kill each clone from close range, standing directly in chaos storm, trying to rapid fire burst, of course you are going to get facerolled.

I think cleansing ire is still needed against most comps these days. Most people are running condition builds, and having last stand really doesn’t help aside from having a sligthly longer berserker’s stance.

I found that I was dying much quicker without using cleansing ire.

Condi mesmers aren’t really ideal for sPvP. Sure, if you give them enough time, they are a fairly strong dueling class. But they are extremely slow in practical utility, and time is of essence in every game.

If you take 1-2 minutes to outduel someone and decap a point, its really inefficient and can be really bad against more mobile teams.

For most solo queue games, the stealth, mobility, and the use of portal far outweighs any other builds/traits mesmer has. I cannot tell you the amount of times I’ve created mismatches just through the use of portal alone.

For example: Forest of Nifthel, I invis to enemy home point and lay down a portal. Next, I pop out of invis to steal the boss. Then, I run to keep (while luring the rest of the enemy team with me) and watch their home point. As soon as everyone leaves, I portal back to their home point and cap it. Next, I wait for 1-2 enemy members to realize their home is being taken and run from keep back to home. Finally, I portal back and help team stomp keep (which is now usually a 4v3 mismatch).

This alone creates a 60+ point swing within the first minute, and does much more than any condi mesmer build that takes 2 minutes to kill something.

Now with a timer indicator, you can maximize its effectiveness even more.

This skill wins games single-handedly.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

PyrateSilly.4710:

notebene.3190:

What does P4F mean?

Someone else said something about the ‘PU nerf not going far enough’. What’s PU?

P4F or F2P = Play for free or Free to play
PU or PUG = Pick up or Pick up group

PU is a super OP mesmer build and has nothing to do with pugs. When you get burst for 30k in 1s from stealth then congrats you were killed by a PU mesmer.

This balance patch seems like the first patch in quite some time that will actually restore some balance to the game. The IB nerf is amazing, ele and mesmer and being brought back down to earth with the rest of us mortals, and the lowest classes/builds are getting buffs to bring them up a bit.

I think we are actually moving towards balance for once.

I don’t think any PU mesmer has bursted for 30k from stealth before. Even on light armor full berserk heroes, at most (assuming you get the full combo off, with them being AFK and not using any skills/moving/dodging) you can probably take out is probably 3/4 HP.

Thanks for the changes, Evan.

Also, are you guys going to fix the issue with stat tracking and PVP rank points?

I have two full champion titles (meaning I would have at minimum 300 arena games assuming 100% win rate). This isn’t even counting the number of arena games I’ve won with the same classes after obtaining champ titles or with other classes. Yet, my in-game stats only acknowledges that I’ve played slightly over 100 or so total arena games. This is mathematically impossible, and I feel that there is definitely an issue here with stat logging.

Furthermore, I only have ~310k or so rank points, but in a previous post I identified that obtaining one champion title alone would generate ~360k rank points (assuming 50% W/L). Going by this logic, I should at minimum have 700k rank points based off of the two champion titles alone (and not taking into consideration the many other arena games I’ve won/lost).

On a final note: According to the GW2efficiency site, my winrate for arenas is 53% and my total winrate is 60%. So I’d understand that my case does not reflect a pure 50% W/L (which is what all my assumptions are based off of), but I do strongly feel that my case indicates something is seriously wrong with in-game stat tracking.

Thanks for your time btw!

There is no way that the rate is 33% for clovers. I’ve literally gotten (66%)^23= 0.007071483% chance of this happening.

And another 0 for 1.

Elaborate totems, ancient woods, vicious fangs galore here.

Holy cow, I just tried the forge another 5x and went 0 for 5 on clovers.

Counting total is 1 out of 23 now. I think my acct is cursed.

Stat tracking is broken.

I have over 600+ arena wins in PvP, two full class champion titles and enough extra wins for a third, and yet the stat tracker only acknowledges that I have “90 ranked+unranked arena wins.”

This is mathematically impossible as each champion title alone requires 150 unique arena wins.

Agree on the spammable skills. All you see are a bunch of light effects and explosions that clutter the screen and make it confusing for outsider to view.

In highly popular/competitive esports, there are far fewer skills and most of them have longer cooldowns. For example, Dota 2 (world’s top esport) has only 4 skills for the vast majority of the heroes you can play.

This allows you to focus more on movement, teamplay, and makes viewing for the casual observer a LOT smoother.

The other thing holding GW2 back is that PvP and PvE share the same skill set. If PvP and PvE were separated and balanced separately, then GW2 would have a more serious shot at being truly competitive.

Coelho Nat.4697:

Spirit shards or Obsidian shards are not an issue for me. The problem is when you exchange 10 globs of ectoplasm and 10 Mystical coins for items like leather and gossamer scraps. It really hurts.

That’s literally all I got from my 18 rolls or so.

Coulter.2315:

Good Tofu.9376:

Khisanth.2948:

nekretaal.6485:

120 shards is like 15 minutes of treasure hunt in the Silverwastes.

Exaggerating, but please complain about the Ectos or spirit shards instead.

This has been a public service announcement.

Spirit shards shouldn’t be much of an issue either if you are chest farming.

How so? I spent 2 hours (farming crests and in a silverwaste train), dug up 20-30 chests, and literally got ~10 shards.

Is my luck just really bad?

You need to join a chest farm map if you want efficiency for your time, in 2hrs I got 110 chests this morning.

If you don’t mind, could you please explain how you do this?

The method I used was to farm up some crests, buy a bunch of keys, and then use the “LFG” option to taxi into a map that was led by a commander. We literally dug up like 30 chests….but I only got 10 shards or so.

Khisanth.2948:

nekretaal.6485:

120 shards is like 15 minutes of treasure hunt in the Silverwastes.

Exaggerating, but please complain about the Ectos or spirit shards instead.

This has been a public service announcement.

Spirit shards shouldn’t be much of an issue either if you are chest farming.

How so? I spent 2 hours (farming crests and in a silverwaste train), dug up 20-30 chests, and literally got ~10 shards.

Is my luck just really bad?

Excuse my ignorance, but why would you roll for T6 mats on this anyways? Ectos are really expensive….and you also need to spend spirit shards and obs shards.

Tuthan.3250:

Did you get a lot of T6 mats?

I think like 5 globs of dark matter. What a game, ANET.

Rofl, just rolled 5 individual ones and went 0 for 5.

So that’s a total of 1 out of 18 rolls.

Alongside the fact that I have over 600 arena wins in PvP but yet Anet only acknowledges 90 of them (despite 2 full class champion titles…see my other thread), I think ANET has officially ruined my return to GW2