Guild Wars 2

est.9210:

thx guys for the nice inputs, i was asking indeed for both situation: open world/ and raid,
but i see that i cant use staff for both of them

Well in theory at least you can.

Nontheless, I highly recommend GS for open world and sword main hand in raids.

If you want, you can try my open world build (click the link in my signature). Tell me if you like it. ^^

Bah, ranger/druid is just not acceptable compared to other classes.

I tried to love my druid and made it my main (after leveling and getting world completion before hot on my ranger for it) and played it fairly exclusively for over two monthes.

Some fixes and tweeks here or there won’t save the profession. I went back to my mesmer and even though alacrity will get hit by the nerf bat (hard), I see no point switching back to ranger/druid.

Too much is broken, druid gives too little benefit to general PvE that it would matter.

Maybe the next elite spec will be less of a disappointment.

The reason is, in open world mobs die. You want some options to keep going when your stuff is on cooldown. So you want an easy accessible phantasm. You can go with weapon swap and be maybe trapped in you off-set.

You can go with iChanter, which has actually a shorter cooldown, but it doesn’t make too much a difference with the rotation.

So I go with iDefender which might save my other illusions from an unlucky AoE between spawn and shatter.

Also, I had calamity in my original build (when I first posted it) and I use it quite often as third utility. Other options for third slot are Signet of Illusions for if you need to get your shatters back up (mostly for soloplay) or blink for mobility.

If you get better with the build, starting off with two iZerkers (with SotE) will give you absolutely great burst before you even reach the target(s), that is why the original build is with resetting your phantasms at the beginning of the fight.

But this is not always possible as SotE might be on cooldown, so I go with iDefender as backup.

The Lazy Chrono Kai Build

Right above your first post, or just look in my guide in the signature… ^^

Xyonon.3987:

As I said – GS is good as a ranged opener and never touched again. That it is good for tagging is out of question. But it’s not optimal for either melee or ranged because of the reason WHY you go ranged.

Did you even read everything I wrote? :P

As chronomancer, GS is a melee and ranged weapon. If you run my build (variation1), you will never have to worry about weapon swap.

You go:

2,4,iDef,F1(full shatter)
2,F2(full shatter)
4,2,iDef,F1(full shatter)
2,F2(full shatter)
2,4,Well of Recall,iDef,F1(full shatter)
2,F2(full shatter)
.
.
.

From any range, at any time, without any downtime – nonstop. With SotE if you ever run out of phantasms.

There is no reason to use anything else in open world, unless you dislike the playstyle.

Xyonon.3987:

Greetings!

As a ranged option in open world I recommend staff over GS. GS is sort of a noobtrap. With it, you go ranged against enemies you wouldn’t have to. If you really have to go ranged, better take a staff instead. Let me explain my toughts:

---

If you are facing an enemy, you have two simply options: ranged or melee.

Melee…
…means you have to be able to dodge or block attacks in order to survive, but you’ll be rewarded with much higher damage. If you need some time off, you can still go ranged for the time you’ll be recharging Mantra of Pain and get your CD’s back from your heal skill or well of precognition for example. You don’t really need ranged here.

Ranged
If you decide to go ranged tough, you’ll better have a good reason to. If the enemy is a melee enemy, he will walk towards you so you’ll end up in melee anyway. You can use a GS for openings and then swap to sword and never touch the GS again tough. But if your enemy is so extremly dangerious that you have to go ranged from time to time (like the Chak Lobber hero point in Auric Basin) a staff is the way to go. You replace the GS and the staff aa with Mantra of Pain anyway, so the weak aa issue is off the table. The staff has the survivablity you need against an enemy you don’t want to fight all the time in close combat. The GS has not. I made a vid to demonstrate this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6oc_LRPiHA

---

If you are facing the world events in open world, all those champions, oh boy you’d be ready for the damage you’ll be doing by picking a staff there. I see so many GS mes just spamming 1-4, but instead they could make use of all those conditions on your enemy and do this: (uploaded screenshot)

---

If you got questions, just ask

Greez!
- Madame Le Blanc

This is just not true. Staff is a terrible weapon for open world. And only because people do not understand how to use a GS doesn’t make it a bad weapon.

The GS is the best open world weapon period. This was true for the vanilla mesmer and is even more true for the chronomancer.

The GS skills you use as chronomancer are not 1 and 4 but 2 and 4. And you want to be in melee range for IP all of the time, but it is nice to have the option to start from range.

Take my build, variation 1 with iDefender as secondary phantasm (it is just a bit harder to keep up with signet of the ether and two iZerkers, but the damage is great).

You will have perma alacrity, you will have full shatters all the time on ultra short cooldown, you are back in business after a battle in no time.

You will tag tons of mobs in bigger events for xp (like in DS) you will have burst and sustain and still a choice of utility.

Staff just fails, as clone generation is a pain, and in open world the phantasm is crap 95% of the time compared to the iZerker.

Melee is nice on paper, but will cost you too much time to get started, especially in bigger events.

Nothing beats the greatsword in open world. Not by a 100 miles.

Comparing indeed doesn’t help very much.

People feel different about games today. Is HoT a great expansion? Nope. It is very lackluster in matters of content and story. That is what many people complain about.

HoT is a step back from the game design of the original GW2, with events being on rails instead of being dynamic. That is one reason why the new maps all feel boring after a short amount of time (maybe not to all people, but hey, don’t tell me the maps are not repetative).
This is getting worse from map to map. VB has at least a great amount of events, then you get to AB, where events are limited to three hubs. Then you get to TD and suddenly, events are a rare things here and there. Last and least you get to DS, where you have three lanes which all play the same, but if you have finished these lanes, you have seen everything on the map.

The maps get less interesting while you progress in HoT. Which is an abysmal design choice. The more you progress the more boring the game gets.

So what matters is what you get. HoT did not give us enough.

Hey, for open world, you can go with:

2.2 The Lazy Chrono Kai

Finally got my Chronomancer Build online:

2.2 The Lazy Chrono Kai

The guide still misses some flavour text, but should be solid enough to give you a picture of what is going on.

I really enjoy it greatly and am curious on your feedback.

Hey there!

If you play a non-chronomancer mesmer, you can try my Lazy Kai Build, which is not too far off of what you are playing right now.

I have a druid/ranger and reaper/necro (both fully unlocked) and to be honest, you won’t get the easy survivability of these professions on your mesmer.

I was maining the druid since HoT launch (don’t tell anyone here though, might damage my rep) but am right now back on my mesmer, testing out all possible chronomancer trait setups for soloing open world.

Even though I am a bit late, I am faithful that I will be able to present my results in about a week (right now moving to my new home, preparing for a new job and a whole more stuff is going on so, maybe it will take a month)…

My guide is build in a fashion, that it will actually introduce you to the basics of mesmer (shatter) playstyle.

Pure phantasm builds have been butchered by ANet quite some time ago and I do not recommend them at any point in PvE. Back in the days when phantasm builds were strong I actually thought about rewriting my guide towards this playstyle, but now I am happy that I did not.

Get used to shattering if you want to play a mesmer. Feel free to use my guide for the information it offers besides the shatter stuff, but I fear there might not be too much to be found…

The guide in my signature might be helpful.

Easiest zerker professions for me are:

Reaper necro: Just get the grandmaster trait Unholy Sanctuary in Death Magic and live forever. I like GS and A/W.

Druid ranger: Get master trait Natural Healing in Beastmastery, slot Signet of the Wild. Switch to druid whenever you need more healing (like possibly every ten seconds) press 4 then 3 and you are back in action. I run S/A and longbow.

Juclesia Elcritian.8410:

beefjus.9347:

At this rate, I’m probably gonna get my ascened weapons by xmas 2016.

By which time you’ll have to stat-swap it for something else. Enjoy the “no gear treadmill” or “no power creep”. Coz Viper’s is totally not much better than Sinister’s. And there’s totally not gonna be some better stat combination in the future to make your current one less useful.

Yeah, the funny thing is, ANet has a tiered gear treadmill now.

But instead of resetting the grind on an update and putting everyone on the same level, ANet just raises the gear score on their ascended items (like from sinister to viper) to hide the fact, that ascended items having different values.

So there is no new level and no new rarity but we clearly have a power creep going on.

BloodyNine.7504:

Supernaut.2684:

But how on earth are new players supposed to ever think about raiding? Those poor sods are waaaaaay behind the curve. And most probably will burn out before they ever get there.

TL/DR: If ANet wanted ascended to be the standard gear for raiding, they should have put some reasonable, progression-based methods in the game to acquire it. But they didn’t.

This so so so so so much. I am one of those new players. It is downright discouraging. I have already thought about looking into a different MMO. Not because I don’t like the thought of “needing” this gear. But because, as a new player, obtaining looks like a near impossible mountain to grind.

I feel so sorry for new players. This expansion is already tough on veterans, but it must feel totally futile for the new ones when they realize the timegated grind ahead to get into endgame.

This is worse than catching up in WoW… No gear grind my lower back.

The “idea” of balancing ANet came up with is a sad joke.

Every three monthes they will kick working classes in the teeth and broken/useless classes need to wait three monthes to get fixed.

Meanwhile they nerf the ranger/druid whenever they want just because they can.

Professionals at work here.

The druid is a result of poor design, poor planning, poor implementation and poor testing.

I am surprised this didn’t work out.

Meanwhile on my reaper – feels good man.

Vayne.8563:

My intepretation is the best interpretation given the word you used period. Feel free to disagree, but I will not say that my professional opinion on this subject, and it is a professional opinion, is less than yours.

It might not be what you meant. It was absolutely what you implied. If it wasn’t you’ve chosen your words poorly.

Well, I show you the facts, you with your superior interpretation skills make something up – a product of your fantasy.

I will stay with the facts. You do not.

With your constant attacks on any feedback you do not like and your forced interpretation on stuff, it feels like you are purposefully derailing this thread by trolling other people’s posts.

Please stop.

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

What now? This is your quote…

“That’s OK. For some white knights ANet could sell an expansion with absolutely nothing in it for $100 and they would still defend an love it.”

So the implication…hell you’re just about saying it, is that this game is only liked by white knights who will defend Anet over everything.

Nope.

What he said is that some individuals (which he calls white knights) would love, “it.” Not that only white knights like the game, etc.

He did, after all, state that he likes the game (at least aspects of it).

Really? lol

This is the entirety of his FIRST post in this thread:

“That’s OK. For some white knights ANet could sell an expansion with absolutely nothing in it for $100 and they would still defend an love it.
For each their own.”

This is what I responded to. AFTERWARDS he said he likes the game. Do you get that from this post? Because I sure don’t.

Anyone who denies the implications of this post is not paying attention.

1) I was responding to the post that quoted his, not your previous post.

2) Saying that person X will love something does not mean that only person X could love it.

My sister is planning a trip to Disneyland. My nieces will really love it.

This does not translate into, “only my nieces love Disneyland.”

You can defend him all you want. But English isn’t just my first language, it’s my profession. When someone says White Knights will enjoy it, white knights be used as a derogatory term, since he’s basically saying they’ll like ANYTHING there’s another implication here. You just want to argue with me.

If you said my nieces are going to Disneyworld and I said, oh a lot of morons enjoy that, you’d naturally take offense.

There really is no other way to interpret this, unless you think White Knights is being used as a matter of fact thing, or being used lovingly. It’s not. He’s denigrading white knights by saying theyd’ like anything Anet does.

Well I’m a white knight and there are things ANet has done I didn’t like and I’ve said so. But yeah, the English here is pretty clear.

Seriously?

English is not my first language, and it is not my profession. Still I know what I wrote, and I will point out that your interpretation of what is written is just your interpretation, no matter how “good” you are with your mother tongue.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Probably still in the honeymoon phase.

After playing a bit more and realizing how little there actually is, you might feel different.

Sorry.

This is an answer to: “Even having only scratched the surface yet”

This shows that the OP has very limited experience with the expansion, he is probably still in the honeymoon phase. See, there is a probably in my answer, because it is an educated guess.

Furthermore I am pointing out the possibility that his love for HoT may change, I don’t state this as a fact. “You might feel different.” and not “You will feel different.”

Kaiyanwan.8521:

That’s OK. For some white knights ANet could sell an expansion with absolutely nothing in it for $100 and they would still defend an love it.

For each their own.

All I say is that some people will defend ANet no matter what. I do not specify these people but label them as white knights, as they are commonly refered to this in MMOs.

I didn’t label you there as white knight Vayne. In fact, the only person in this whole thread calling you a white knight is you:

Vayne.8563:

Well I’m a white knight and there are things ANet has done I didn’t like and I’ve said so. But yeah, the English here is pretty clear.

But this is your interpretation of a white knight not mine. You are actively victimizing yourself in this context to support your point. But again, I did not call you a white knight in my post.

Look I love GW2 and play HoT. I just think we got very little content for the amount of money we paid. Which is disappointing.

So your interpretation of what I said:

Vayne.8563:

So the implication…hell you’re just about saying it, is that this game is only liked by white knights who will defend Anet over everything.

makes no sense at all.

Stop using your “knowledge” of the English language to make things up that do not exist.

Vayne.8563:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Vayne.8563:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Probably still in the honeymoon phase.

After playing a bit more and realizing how little there actually is, you might feel different.

Sorry.

And they might not, sorry.

Saying someone might eventually feel something because you feel it is a pointless exercise. I’m pretty sure I won’t feel it.

That’s OK. For some white knights ANet could sell an expansion with absolutely nothing in it for $100 and they would still defend an love it.

For each their own.

This is offensive. You’re implying that the game can’t be liked, because you don’t personally like it. But I’m not the only person who likes it. The OP clearly likes it. I have many people, not a few, but many in my guild who like it quite a bit.

So trying to play it off that no one could possibly like it except for a white knight is essentially putting your opinion above theirs.

I respect the fact that you’re not enjoying it. But that doesn’t mean that people who aren’t enjoying it are white knights, or that their opinion is worth any less.

Sorry, my statement was a generalization. You might have missed that.

I actually enjoy/ed various aspects of HoT. All I say is that there is not very much content in this expansion, and when you have done what is to be done, the maps feel terribly event starving and empty.

VB is the best map, you will find action all over the place at any time. But they are on rails and not dynamic at all, which makes them fairly stale after some time.
AB is OK, fair amount of events, but the map feels limited, kitten much of it is simply the central city.
TD is a riddle to me. I was heavily exploring the maps four layers and came to the conclusion, that 80% of the map is just empty space. Either ANet plans something for this map in the future or this is a giant waste of dev time and money.
DS is not a map, it is a single big event, more like a dungeon. The exploring is severely limited and in the end there is not much there in the first place, as the map is fairly small.

After that, you can raid, or grind your achievement/collections/masteries. Raids and daily grind is the answer for GW2 future? WoW.

I paid $35 for a boxed version of the expansion (well actually $70 as I bought two copies).

It was the worst content to price ratio in an MMO for years. God forbid, people actually paid $50 for three maps, a medium size instance for 150 people and three raid bosses.

One can argue that elite speccs are content too, and they are. But from my personal experience, most expansion ship with new skills and talents for existing classes and at least one new class, this is just standard MMO treatment.

Maybe I was expecting too much. Not just the stuff that all other MMOs put on the table. Now we got exactly that, just less of it. Meh.

And don’t even start, that we might get more stuff in the future. Who cares if people leave now. That argument is just a carrot on a stick and I have seen other MMOs offer more content in patches than what we got with LS2.

So what now?

Vayne.8563:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Probably still in the honeymoon phase.

After playing a bit more and realizing how little there actually is, you might feel different.

Sorry.

And they might not, sorry.

Saying someone might eventually feel something because you feel it is a pointless exercise. I’m pretty sure I won’t feel it.

That’s OK. For some white knights ANet could sell an expansion with absolutely nothing in it for $100 and they would still defend an love it.

For each their own.

Probably still in the honeymoon phase.

After playing a bit more and realizing how little there actually is, you might feel different.

Sorry.

Hey Vayne,

actually I was just joking around. I got all my pets in the first week. Funny thing is, I even got my electric wyvern with just basic gliding and got an achievement for advanced gliding to the area (thought that was funny).

Look, I understand where you are coming from. When HoT went live, I told my wife that the expansion might be to difficult for her to enjoy. Nontheless we bought two copies, as she asked me to teach her to get better at stuff. She is what I would call an extreme casual, playing maybe 2 to 4 hours a week.

She made great progress. She created her own, more defensive build (before that, I managed her traits), she learnt how to read tells and when to dodge. We are now working on utility skill functionality – and what to equip in what situation (like stun breaks).

Next will be combo fields and finishers, which will be great fun.

So long story short, she got a lot better at the game. She sort of got more invested.

This won’t solve the problem that the game is on timers though. While she got better, she still misses out most of the stuff, because she does not have the time to do the metas.

Before HoT we went to Tequatl once in a while (she got an ascended box on her first successful try, yay RNG), did some stuff here and there and it was all great fun.

Now you have to find a map, do events to get participation high enough for whatever reason, be lucky with the players on the map etc. And her masteries will take years to complete (probably will never happen).

The game is more punishing than ever before, and I am not talking about the difficulty here. That is what I got a problem with. Not because of me, as I really think the game is still super easy and I got a bit more time to play, but for all the people that wanted a casual experience and got kicked in the teeth. They might get better in the game, but they are excluded more from the content than ever before.

That’s sad.

Sure – show me how to solo my way to the electric wyvern and tiger pet.

Thanks.

While I understand that the druid release with HoT going live was a bit of a messy adventure after one beta weekend, I have a hard time to accept that even over a month later, the druid is still in beta.

I am not talking about minor tweeking here and there, but profession defining decisions, which have an influx on all druid mechanics:

- AF generation right now is counterproductive to healing.
- Glyphs are underwhelming at best, the elite version is a joke.
- Staff is pretty bad in design even for healing. Skill 3 still puts us in combat.
- Celestial Form skills 1, 2 and 5 are pretty much useless, which leaves us with only two out of five skills that are usefull
- One trait got nerved by what – 400%? Can we still expect stuff like this to happen, or are some traits get more rework or replaced?

There is probably more points, but the thing is, this is not a release version of a working elite specialization.

So we should get an update like the other classes got after their beta weekends. What is the direction, what is the game plan. How is this all intended to work together.

Whoever is responsible should take some responsibility and clear things up a bit, because this mess needs some serious love.

Best regards -

A druid that is playing his reaper lately.

I don’t even know why ANet and Irenio are trying so hard to make the AF generation so gated.

Here is how it should have been from the start and how it should work.

10 Astral Force will generate from 0-100 in 10 seconds
20 When entered, Astral Form will last for 15 sec or until canceled
30 All Astral Force is lost when leaving Astral Form
40 goto 10

Look, I wrote it in c64 basic, so anyone that is coding can understand what is going on.

Loosing all Astral Force on leaving Astral Form should be a decision to make, but with 10 sec in between shifts, this should be not too punishing.

I left the Astral Force bar in for visibility, but you could even get rid of that if you want.

nacario.9417:

LughLongArm.5460:

Remember that glyphs proc by proxy grace of the land, which is a nice dps bonus while not in CA form.

Could u elaborate on this? Im not familiar with glyphs atm, do they have passive effects or only actives, and the actives are based on non CA or CA right?

Grace of the land will proc from all your skills while in CA and from all your glyphs when activated, no matter if in normal form or CA.

Maybe I am too optimistic, but I expect a lot of balance changes to the druid with the release of raids. So I think we will have to wait for the patch to get enough information.

If the game is up to date, it is up to date.

I bought a physical version and simply entered the code without touching the disks.

That is all you need to do (or update the version you got by downloading the needed data for your client).

Wait a day, than we know more.

Right now, everything is more or less speculation. With the raids going live tomorrow, we will actually have some information on how much and what kind of healing is needed.

Patience I say.

For the time being, here the original focus text:

1.3 FAQ: Don’t say I didn’t tell you…

Why using the focus as off-hand?

The focus is the Mesmer’s swiss army pocket knife. I normaly only talk about the run buff, but it has the greatest amount of utility of all available off-hands:

- run buff
- cripple
- pull/knockdown
- combo field (light) -> Retaliation
- AoE with fairly long duration and great damage, phantasm will still do damage even if the target dies (as long as the animation goes on)
- defensive bubble, protecting from all projectiles

Ate The Cat.9340:

How did you find the guide on the forum?
[ ] I found it by myself.
[ x ] I found it by a link in a post leading me there.
[ ] I saw it in Kaiyanwan’s signature and followed the link.
[ ] I googled for a mesmer leveling guide
[ ] else (please specify)
More specifically, I googled for a mesmer leveling build, came upon a thread, and you had posted in it telling to click the link in your signature._

I use (used) the guide and it:
[ ] is exactly what I was looking for
[x] is helping me a lot
[ ] is sort of helpful
[ ] is not helpful
It does great at helping understand and play the class as a whole, but I feel some minute details in your guide could be explained better. For instance you mention the Focus’ speed boost skill, “Besides making you run faster it also has many other uses.” and then you never follow up on that. What other uses does it have? Where does it come in handy? A few other details like that are left out leaving newbies like me confused, again for instance you mention Cry of Frustration as "until level 21, you can mostly ignore this skill. " Why level 21? Does level 21 do something with the skill? Does it become useful after that? Cry of Frustration was never again mentioned afterward so why is that detail there? Why not just say ignore it? This among others makes me feel that you need to give your guide another read through and fix through some info.

Should the guide be more visible and easier to find in the first place?
[x] Yes, new players and new mesmers should have an easier time to find the guide.
[ ] A clear maybe.
[ ] It is easy enough to find the guide in the first place.

Thank you for your great feedback!

My previous guides involved a separate chapter about the focus, our swiss army knife. I probably planned to put a chapter in this one too, but I obviously forgot.

Cry of Frustration also needs some better explanation, you are right. Still undecided if I will put a separate shatter chapter somewhere or if I just add some information directly in the guide.

I will address both, the focus and the shatter skill as soon as I have some time to spare.

Thank you for your feedback!

Sometimes i really wish this guide was more visible. Since the release of HoT, there have clearly been more topics about leveling a mesmer.

So I say it is survey time:

How did you find the guide on the forum?

[ ] I found it by myself.
[ ] I found it by a link in a post leading me there.
[ ] I saw it in Kaiyanwan’s signature and followed the link.
[ ] I googled for a mesmer leveling guide
[ ] else (please specify)

I use (used) the guide and it:

[ ] is exactly what I was looking for
[ ] is helping me a lot
[ ] is sort of helpful
[ ] is not helpful

Should the guide be more visible and easier to find in the first place?

[ ] Yes, new players and new mesmers should have an easier time to find the guide.
[ ] A clear maybe.
[ ] It is easy enough to find the guide in the first place.

Thank you. ^^

Valiant.8016:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Leveling without DE? Madness!

Isn’t that what everyone does up until about lvl 30 anyway? o.O

I’m liking the GS S/F setup anyway. Greatsword is pretty much absolutely necessary when dealing with mobs at range, especially in events where there are a ton of trash mobs. The damage also isn’t half bad at maximum range(group boss).

I think I might enjoy some utility over damage when you remember that we’re wearing light armor, and your illusions don’t necessarily draw aggro consistently.

And this is the reason why most players that give mesmer a try stop before that. DE is such a boost to the profession and the killing speed, that neglecting it massively cripples you.

DE is what makes leveling feel like a totally different experience.

Esplen.3940:

The main thing is that Dueling is almost mandatory to make leveling less brutal. Almost.

Leveling without DE? Madness!

The damage rotations are in my guide, you start with GS burst, than switch to sword for sustain.

I got some general leveling advices in my signature, even though it is a mesmer leveling guide.

I’d start with marksmanship for the opening strike and beastmastery as second unlock.

Go with GS training and Remorseless and longbow in open world pve. If you need more precise help, you can write me a PM, but I am very busy and it might take a while till I can answer.

GS is king in open world and solo leveling. Later on, most things will be dead before you even get in melee range, which will save you time.

Focus is more than just a speed buff. It is our swiss army knife especially for leveling. I highly recommend to fool around with the focus for a bit longer.

There is a leveling guide in my signature, feel free to give it a try.

If you like it and it works, you might even give it a bump… ^^

GW2 Druids are just a castrated version of WoW Boomkins.

Visiual and design wise we got some copycat here too:

Cosmic Ray = Moonfire spam
Lunar Impact= Starfire (stronger with cooldown)

Just that we got healing (yeah, since when is an astral theme used for healing?) instead of damage.

Creativity looks different.

At least a WoW druid can do all kinds of stuff.

Because NPC = master race!

Why would we keep calm?

The druid is mostly useless and still gets kicked in the teeth with a 10t hammer.

It is not our fault that we only got one beta weekend. It is not our fault that the specialization didn’t get enough testing.

The rangers experience is, that if you wait for things getting better while keeping calm is that you can wait forever and things will only get worse.

So here we go, from what we have learnt in the past:

FIX THE EFFIN’ DRUID AND WHEN YOU ARE ON IT FIX THE EFFIN’ RANGER! YOU HEAR ME?!

That’s how much I will calm down…

Druid has a crappy mechanic with crappy uptime.

Druid doesn’t feel like a druid at all. It is an astromancer with one or two skills on the staff that are sort of nature.

Druid is useless in most all of the content, and as long as raids are not available what is it good for being maybe useful there.

The concept of a druid in GW2 is pretty much a total fail. And I was so looking forward to it when they first announced the elite spec…

Shaving you said?

This is how it works for rangers:

Step 1: Click the link in my signature.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!

Better.

Seriously.

At one point in development the druid had more than one aspect.

Probably was too awesome and all non-ranger players would have been whining about how great a druid with so many options would be.

Rangers being looked up to or being on par? Nah, so we only got the healing form, which is fairly mediocre (if you are generous).

Now that they skipped the concept, I don’t think they will reinstall it. Sorry.

Seriously. This is why we cannot have nice things.

If I’d released a game, I would pay people (this includes employees) to vote 10 on metacritic all day every day.

Funny thing is, HoT rating went below 4, before ANet woke up in this matter. They missed the headstart in making HoT look awesome there, what poor planning.

Sometimes I think ANet should hire me, so I can tell them all the things they should know but obviously miss all the time.

Ustaf.2953:

Would you consider making this into a video Guide?

Hey there.

I am not planning on creating a video guide for several reasons. But the most important one is, that I do not want to take away the moment of discovery from playing a mesmer.

Look, all I give in the guide is advice, but in the end, the reader has to figure stuff out by himself/herself.
If you watch a video and just copy what you see, there is very little learning involved. I want the players looking for advice getting help, not less creative.

I hope you understand.