Guild Wars 2

While I agree with your points, Guild Wars 2 is much more comparable to a first person shooter, then it is to a real-time strategy game. It’s about the player to player action. The build up can be conveyed through commentators, before the game starts. Talking about the current meta-game, what each player is playing, and how their builds work together.

Meanwhile in tPvP, sword is the only viable weapon :P

Ohoni.6057:

I think it’s a much needed achilles’ heel for the Mesmer. If we also had permanent swiftness, or just 25% movement speed, we would pretty much have everything.

I think most classes already do, and should have “everything.” At least in some sense. I mean, my Mesmer is certainly not my main, but I wouldn’t consider it “too much” for Mesmers to be given better movement speed. I’m more concerned when a given class hits way too hard or takes way more damage, not if they’re able to jog along at the same speed as everyone else.

Mesmers can have crazy burst damage with a shatter build, or just play a condition build, or a bunker build, or a boon support build. They have some of the best support skills in the game, they can solo camps with illusions, they have the most interrupts of all professions, they are the best confusion casters, they have some of the best elite skills in the game, they have the most stealth skills second to Thieves, they have a ton of condition removal, they have a lot of ways to avoid damage, and they can escape fights pretty easily.

What they don’t have, is a lot of swiftness or 25% movement speed.

Thief and Mesmer

The Mesmer has illusions that makes it much easier for a due to fight against players, as they provide a lot of distraction. And with a staff, the Mesmer can give out more defense to the Thief. The Thief can provide stealth to make you sneak past areas, or to escape if everything goes bad, and can also add to the Mesmers illusions with thief NPCs. Thanks to all the distraction from the Mesmer, the Thief also has plenty of room to take players out without being spotted.

You can also solo camps quite easily with this due. The Mesmer can “tank” NPCs with illusions, while the Thief provides a higher dps with burst skills and thief NPCs.

Ohoni.6057:

Mesmers really do need a better speed option. Most classes have perfectly good 25% perma-buffs, with plenty more ways to apply Swiftness on top.

I think it’s a much needed achilles’ heel for the Mesmer. If we also had permanent swiftness, or just 25% movement speed, we would pretty much have everything.

You should really only do this when you don’t have swiftness on you, so when you turn around, you don’t run to far back. This is how you do it:

• Bind the ‘Autorun’ and ‘About Face’ keys.
• Press the Autorun, so you don’t have to hold down your finger on W. This makes it easier.
• Now comes the tricky part:
• You need to press your About Face key, and then Phase Retreat (or any teleport/roll back skill), right after each other.
• Then, right after you press Phase Retreat, and as you’re teleporting, you use your mouse to manually turn back 180 again. So you basically turn while Phase Retreat’s animation is happening. The reason why you want to turn back manually, is because you can’t use the About Face key twice, too rapidly, because the animations can’t stack. But, it is possible to turn your character camera around, while you’re holding down the right mouse button, without interrupting the teleport/roll animation.
• You need to do these three things (About Face, Phase Retreat, Turn 180) in one movement.

Some things to keep in mind: If you press About Turn and Phase Retreat too fast, or at the same time, you will just teleport/roll backwards, as you normally would. Because the two animations can’t stack. You also need to practice your manual mouse turn, so you end up running straight again, and don’t end up turning 270 degrees, instead. It’s not as hard as it sounds =)

I really don’t see an issue here. I see plenty of guys wearing pink shirts in the real world. It’s just a color. Butterflies can also look very menacing (like the owl butterfly), and they are a metaphor for transformation. The Mesmer is perfectly neutral.

I’ve pretty much been sticking to PvE and WvW, ever since the game was released. I don’t expect this update to change that. Even if they mange to balance professions, sPvP still lacks so many other basic PvP things. Maybe sometime next year it will be in a good place. But for now, sPvP is just nice place to test new builds..

Dual.8953:

@kas: You’re running an all ranged set with access to blinds, dazes and escapes and you’re telling a melee set do what you do except without blinds, dazes and escapes, all while at point blank range. And once again, S/D isn’t a burst spec. It’s more akin to a contol spec.

What are you talking about? All weapon sets has some form of escape skill, and your utility skills and traits offers plenty of ways to avoid damage.

I’m not sure what you are replying to in your last line. Are you saying that adding a burst skill to sword/dagger makes it bad?

I play this build as well (Rune of Lyssa, Signet of Inspiration, and staff). It’s a lot of fun, as you can stack up quite a lot of boons. However, the only place that Rune of Lyssa are really useful, is when you need to escape a fight. You get stealth from Mass Invisibility, plus swiftness, protection, regeneration, aegis, and stability, which is all great when you’re running away. Alternatively, it can also be used with Time Warp, if you need to do a party wide revive (the boons will prevent you all from being interrupted and keep you alive).

When using Rune of Lyssa, it’s important to know that the majority of boons are defensive, so Rune of Lyssa are really bad in an offensive build. In a fight, you’re going to be playing mostly on the boons you get from your staff (Winds of Chaos) and Signet of Inspiration, plus the boon you get from Rune of Lyssa when using a healing skill. Going into a fight, it’s a really bad idea to pop your Mass Invisibility, because this is your best defensive skill (even without the Rune of Lyssa). You really don’t need to have a whole group using Rune of Lyssa, though. One or two players are enough. I recommend the others go for Rune of Altruism.

Neither is better, it simply just depends on your build.

• Damage over time slowly drains the health of your opponent, so obviously you need more survivability. The upside of this is that you also have a higher chance of escaping encounters.
• Burst damage rapidly drains the health of your opponent, so you don’t need to spend as much time in combat. But the downside of being able to defeat your opponents fast, is that you don’t have a lot of survivability, as all your stats go towards damage.
• It is possible to do burst damage with condition damage, or damage over time with direct damage. If you quickly stack a lot of conditions on an opponent, you drain their health very fast. If you don’t have a lot of critical damage on top of your power, you will slowly drain the health of your opponent instead.

I think someone has been playing for too many hours.. :P

What’s wrong with it is not the daily, is that ArenaNet made the rewards for it too valuable. So instead of just getting the dailies as you play the game, people now think they have to grind for them.

You don’t need to go out of your way to complete the daily. Just play the game like you normally would, and then 30 min before you log off, have a look at what you’re missing. I guarantee it’s not going to be much.

The only daily that can be a bit annoying is the veteran one, if you only play PvE. Other then that, it’s fine as it is. I never felt like I had to grind for the daily, I usually just get it as I play the game, without even thinking about it.

Xavi.6591:

Ruufio.1496:

The Mesmer is OP because:

- Class with one of the highest amount of access to boons and a LOT of boons.

LOL What? Really?

It is true. Play with a staff and Signet of Inspiration, and you can ramp up boons very quickly. Next to that you can get a random boon from traits when you either interrupt, or use a stealth skill (both are grandmaster traits in chaos).

It’s not overpowered, though.

Dual.8953:

The problem being is P/D without condition damage lacks killing power and its only viable condition skill is sneak attack.
S/D is in a similar boat where Flanking Strike is better used for the boon strip the evading or damage dealing. FS’s evade status isn’t immediate so its defensive uses are limited and it’s less then perfectly accurate, limiting its offense. As this is the case, S/D’s only damage dealer is the basic combo, and that alone isn’t enough to be effective in encounters. Especially when you factor in PvP and dungeoning.
In short, nerfs to stealth hurt S/D and P/D tenfold compared to D/D and D/P. (if you ask me it’s dagger main hand that’s overpowered, I mean all the usually complaints are toward Dagger mainhand skills, and most arguements are assuming the thief is D/D.)

I don’t disagree, I just don’t see the problem. If your only reliable source of burst is the 5-1 combo, then it probably means the weapon set is not meant to primarily deal damage. But it’s not like Cloak and Dagger would be removed from the game, it would be replaced by another skill. It could even be a burst skill. And you still have access to stealth from steal and all three utility slots.

Maugetarr.6823:

First of all, can we stop this argument about how the thief is not supposed to be an assassin? The included picture shows an assassin that uses both thief and ranger skills and stealths. I doubt it was the intention of the game designers to make the thief at the exclusion of the assassin. The thief is a catch all term used to include a variety of different builds and playstyles.

Secondly, for the most part, P/D and P/P do not harmonize particularly well. One emphasizes condition damage and one emphasizes direct damage and would require and odd combination of traits and armor yielding a character that specializes in nothing. Furthermore, unless you are running in a group that deals a lot of direct damage, you would be better off saving the initiative of body shot for another used of unload.

Actually, it was the intention. The Thief is build up around movement and trickery, which is very different from an Assassin. Stealth burst skills were made so the Thief could keep pressure on opponents, after coming out of stealth, because while you’re in stealth you can’t deal any damage. The current playstyle that we see today, was not how the Thief was advertised to play as. Personally, I just think ArenaNet became afraid of toning stealth down, as the Thief would then not have any real role anymore (like it doesn’t have in tPvP). Because before this whole burst fest came about, the Thief was not a very popular profession. So ArenaNet just kinda let it become an Assassin. But that is not what the Thief is, or what it was originally played like. At all.

Lofat.2406:

Why don’t you remove your main damage dealing attacks and your best defenses and learn to play your own class that way. While it is a possibility, it’s not what every thief wants to do. And it is very limiting when you play a thief without stealth.

I play a pistol/pistol/shortbow Thief, and I don’t find it limiting at all. I’m not suggesting that all stealth skills should be removed, just that it should be toned down. Hoping that Thieves learn to deal damage in other ways then spamming 5-1, and learn to use movement as much as they use stealth.

Laika.8795:

Cool. And what about adjusting our abilities? Because, outside of heart seeker (highly situational) and pistol whip, NONE of our abilities are designed for damage. The whole thief dynamic is to acquire stealth and apply damage, everything else is a means to that end.

You’re suggesting a rework that requires all thieves to run GC builds to front load as much damage as we can, because otherwise we are wholly ineffective.

I feel like no one really understands the plight of the auto attack dependent thief outside of stealth.

Who cares about design, when the weapons deal plenty of damage. It’s a Thief, not an Assassin. The point is to deal consistent damage, with some burst in between, while evading attacks from your foe. Stealth skills are just a way to keep the pressure on your opponent consistent, to make up for the damage you lose while you’re in stealth. The Thief was never meant to be totally dependent on stealth, but I can see how someone could think that. The Thief is designed to rely on movement, with stealth being a tool to further improve mobility and survivability.

Dual.8953:

What do suggest for the non-burst sets that live off their stealth skills for attack and survival? Sure you can buff survival, but they’ll still lack thier ability to be offensively effective.

Well I suggest you learn to play without relying on them, of curse. Just like all other professions, the Thief has different weapon sets, for different situations. It’s mostly in the third skill. Unload is the classic burst skill, that pairs well with the vulnerability from Body Shot. But if you put in an off-hand dagger instead, you suddenly get a much more defensive weapon set, that’s meant to keep the distance to a foe. Say, if someone want’s to attack you with a melee weapon, it’s probably a good idea to have a weapon that prevents him from coming close to you. But if he has a ranged weapon instead, you have your burst weapon set to bring him down. Luckily, you can have two weapon sets, meaning you can use both options.

This is what I don’t understand about the Thief:

• ArenaNet says the Thief is not problem at a higher skill level such as in paids, but is a problem for low to medium skilled players.
• No one plays a Thief in high level paids, because it offers no valuable role.
• Everyone plays a Thief in casual sPvP and WvW, because of stealth.

So isn’t the obvious solution to remove some of the stealth, to make the casual and WvW players happy, and then give the Thief some more protection and support in return, to make it more valuable in paids?

Less stealth + more protection and support = a lot of happy players!

This is hard to say without knowing both your builds, and your experience with playing the game. Whenever I play against a Necromancer as a Mesmer, they seem to go into Death Shroud pretty often, and I play a condition build. When I think about it, I don’t know that I’ve ever been defeated by a Necromancer in 1v1. They are a lot of fun to play against, though, as you get some very dynamic fights.

Also, when I tried playing a Necromancer in sPvP a few weeks ago, I had a very hard time making a build, as their damage always seemed really low. I never really felt like I could defeat anyone on my own. So no, I don’t think Necromancers are overpowered, at all.

It’s sad that so many people have lost grasp of what it means to play a game in the first place, and instead craves for something to “work for”. Games were never meant to be work, but something you do for your enjoyment, in the same way you also do when you watch a movie, or read a book.

So yeah, just play for fun! (that should be the Guild Wars 2 slogan :P)

The game is what you make of it. If you feel the game is very overwhelming and demanding, well then stop playing 6-8 hours a day! You’re talking like the game is forcing you to play.

It’s funny that you say gameplay is the key to success. People don’t grow bored of Guild Wars 2 because it has bad gameplay, they grow bored of it because it’s not like every other WoW clone out there. In other MMOs, it takes a stupidly long time to level up, and after that you have this endless quest to get the best gear in the game, plus repetitive content like raids. All of this is made to always give you something to earn, like a dog barking for a treat, while drawing out the time you have to spend in the game. What Guild Wars 2 does, is remove most of this grind, repetitiveness, and time waste, and replace it with gameplay and story. So basically, if all you play MMOs for is gear and grind, then you will grow bored of Guild Wars 2 a lot quicker then with other MMOs. If gameplay was enough, you’re friends wouldn’t be leaving, because the gameplay in Guild Wars 2 is a ton of fun.

I would use the greatsword as an offensive weapon, and the staff as a defensive weapon. I.e. when you are low on health, cast Chaos Storm/Armor on yourself to get swiftness, retaliation, aegis, protection, or regeneration, while using the illusions from staff for Distortion or Diversion if you are desperate. Then switch back to greatsword again for the attack.

Illusions are what makes you survive in PvE, so get Illusionists Celerity at level 16, and Deceptive Evasion at level 40. These two traits improves your illusion generation a lot.

Sounds like the problem here is you trying to please other people, even though you really don’t want to. Just learn to say “no”. It’s not like it’s hard to find a new party..

If you’re just playing PvE, anything is viable. But the staff is always going to be better, as it will stack up conditions from both the attack itself, and any trait of sigil you add on top. While the greatsword will only apply conditions you get from traits and sigil.

I use Signet of Inspiration and the focus with a Sigil of Speed on it. Both Signet of Inspiration and Sigil of Speed stacks, and Sigil of Speed doesn’t have any recharge, so I can ramp up quite a lot of swiftness during a fight.

I don’t recommend using runes to get swiftness, as you miss out on quite a lot of damage (Rune of the Undead) or utility (Rune of Lyssa).

To those who don’t know, this is all the ways a Thief can go into stealth (with duration and recharge times):

Weapons
Cloak and Dagger (3 seconds – 6 initiative) (can easily be triggered twice or more)
Black Powder+Cluster Bomb (~6 seconds – 6 initiative/3 initiative) (does AoE stealth)
Black Powder+Heartseeker (~6 seconds – 6 initiative/3 initiative)

Healing
Hide in Shadows (3 seconds – 30 seconds)

Utility
Blinding Powder (3 seconds – 40 seconds) (can be used on top of another skill)
Shadow Trap (5 seconds – 30 seconds)
Shadow Refuge (10 seconds – 60 seconds) (does AoE stealth)
Smoke Screen+Cluster Bomb (~12 seconds – 30 seconds/3 initiative) (does AoE stealth)
Smoke Screen+Heartseeker (~10 seconds – 30 seconds/3 initiative)

Steal
Blinding Tuft (3 seconds – 0.5 seconds) (stolen from Thieves)
Blinding Feathers (3 seconds – 0.5 seconds) (stolen from Moas)

Downed
Smoke Bomb (2 seconds – 20 seconds)

Traits
Hidden Thief (2 seconds – on stealing) (really lasts 3 seconds because of Meld with Shadows)
Instinctual Response (3 seconds – when losing 10% health in one hit)

And all of this stealth can be improved by 1 second (or more in the case of combos), by picking the trait Meld with Shadows. You can also stack up more stealth with the smoke combos, by using the trait Infusion of Shadow (gain 2 initiative when using a skill that stealths).

You should try to make a balanced build (around 1500 toughness and 19000 health), although with a focus on power and critical chance. Leveling a Ranger can make you feel like you have a lot of survivability, because the pet does a lot of tanking, but in WvW, no one is going to be targeting your pet.

You should also get all the quickness you can get; Quickening Zephyr, Zephyr’s Speed (trait), Sigil of Rage. This will improve the damage output of your longbow and greatsword a lot.

There’s nothing remotely interesting about Opening Strike. We can already get vulnerability from the longbow and the off-hand axe, plus several pets. The 100% chance to gain a critical hit can be obtained from a simply weapon swap sigil. Like many other Ranger traits, Opening Strike is just plain out boring..

They should just redesign the whole Ranger trait tree in my opinion.

HeatBlast.9346:

I’ve just made a mesmer and I can’t seem to kill anybody. I’m know I’m not doing it right, are you able to tell me how to do it. Do you create loads of illusions first or somethin

Mesmers a famous for being hard to play the first 40 levels, because you have a slow illusion generation. So the best advice is to just hang in there. Get Illusionists Celerity at level 16, and then Deceptive Evasion at level 40, that will improve your survivability. If you have some gold to spare, then buy masterwork armor for every tier level, so you always have the some good defense.

If you’re playing WvW it’s actually a bit easier to level up as a Mesmer, because you are scaled up to level 80. And as long as you’re running in a zerg, you always have allies to help you.

The game shouldn’t just be balance for a higher skill level minority, it should be fair for everyone, regardless of game mode. This whole idea that Thieves are fine, as long as you’re playing on a higher skill level, is just ignorant. Most players will never have the skill level of someone who plays in paid, but that doesn’t mean their experience with the game is less important.

It feels like ArenaNet are just being stubborn at this point. No one likes the map, so why put any more time into fixing it? Just remove it from the game, learn from the mistake, and lets move on..

I love the Owl.

5 seconds chill, swiftness, leap finisher, precision, and pretty good survivability. It’s a very well rounded pet.

Prism.5649:

You misunderstand. Mesmer has extremely high mobility in combat, which means we can be anywhere on the battlefield extremely quickly and we never need to be still during combat. I never meant we were good at running long distances.

Well that’s what I meant =)

But Mesmers are very mobile when it comes to combat, yes. We can literally be in two places at once.

HeatBlast.9346:

How are they at lasting long than, do they die easy?

That depends on your build, but generally, no. Mesmers are capable of going bunker, as they can have a lot of boon control, interrupts, stealth, and clones. I run a semi bunker/boon build on my Mesmer, and I have close to 1700 toughness and little over 19500 health, while still being at around 1050 condition damage without any boons/food/signet. I have fought 1v5 in WvW several times, and lived to tell the tale. As mentioned, the problem comes when you are trying to run away with low health. That usually means you’re dead, as you can’t outrun anyone. But I’ve always felt like it’s a fair drawback to everything ells the Mesmer can do..

The skill is meant to be used as a party wide stealth skill, while also being a combo field. The fact that it allows you to stealth twice is just a nice bonus really. I’m very sure ArenaNet made the skill this way on purpose, so the Mesmer wouldn’t have 10 seconds of stealth.

Prism.5649:

In WvW Osicat already showed you proof that Mesmers are beasts. To anyone who believes Mesmers are bad at escaping…Torch #4, Decoy, Mass Invis, Focus #4, Blink, Shatter #3, we have plenty of tools to gtfo so I can’t really see how people think we’re bad at escaping.

12 seconds of reliable swiftness, a few seconds of stealth, and one teleportation skill, is not extremely high mobility. That’s just false advertising. A Mesmer can escape situations where there’s a lot of chaos, or corners to hide behind, sure, but when foes are chasing you on open ground, you won’t get away.

Mattamis.8143:

Thank you for your comments, I wanted to have 4 mantras to take advantage of the damage increase from traits and that they will not have to be recharged until used 3 times. I am definitely going to try your sigils since i do not want this to be too much of a glass cannon and some toughness would be a great fit. Mantra of domination fits my play-type better since i did not want to use a utility slot for an attack that does not cause a lot of damage since i am not without a wide variety of those currently with the weapon choices. Some sort of control for single target fights sounded appealing.

You have to keep in mind that you have to channel your mantras at some point. Each mantra takes 3,25 seconds to channel, which means you’ll be doing 13 seconds of channeling with four mantras, in between fights. And if you are fighting against multiple foes, your mantras will need to be recharged while you are fighting (you use mantras a lot quicker then you’d think). The difference between 4% damage is not that much, considering you’ll still get +12% damage from three mantras, and +9% damage when you have three illusions up.

What mantras you choose really is a personal choice, as it depends on how you want to play. The dual daze is great on it’s own, and a ton of fun to use, but you shouldn’t underestimate the damage from Mantra of Pain. It has a base damage of 324 (x3) with a range of 1200, and is a great way of keeping damage on your foe, while you are channeling another mantra, or while waiting on weapon skill recharges/weapon swap.

Nurse.1085:

Kasama.8941:

I’m not sure why you are trying to push for a stealth reveal, when the only problem with stealth is the Thief and Mesmer. And Mass Invisibility, Veil and a Thief’s Mass Invisibility (House) and their other utilities that makes their team mates invisible

Fixed!

I don’t want to turn this into yet another Thief stealth topic, but you just can’t compare the Thief and Mesmer when it comes to stealth.

• The Mesmers stealth works as it should; short durations, with long recharge times. The Thief’s stealth is endless, has short recharge times, and the Thief gets a ton of bonuses on top for being in stealth.
• Only very few Mesmers play a full stealth build, whereas 99% of Thieves play full Cloak and Dagger stealth builds.
• You only get a maximum of 14 seconds of stealth as a Mesmer, if you use all four stealth skills. While you can get 10+ seconds of stealth with a Thief, from just one skill.
• The Mesmer has next to no swiftness and movement skills, so while being in stealth, you know he won’t get far. The Thief can get permanent swiftness, and has a ton of mobility and shadowstep skills.

• Considering you have four mantras, I would defiantly get the trait Protected Mantra, which gives you +250 toughness when you channel a mantra. Though, I would also recommend going with a maximum of three mantras, as channeling four mantras can be hard to keep track of.
• Unless you’re expecting to run into a lot of stun, you really don’t need Mantra of Concentration. Especially when you already have Mantra of Resolve. I would also pick Mantra of Pain instead of Mantra of Distraction, as you already have three interrupts between your focus, greatsword, and shatter. Mantra of Distraction would be favorable if you had 30 trait points in Chaos, instead of Domination.
• Going with sword and only having 916, just doesn’t match. Going with Valkyrie’s Amulet and Rampagers Jewel, will give you a much more balanced build. I would then also change your sigils to +5% critical chance, instead of +5% damage.

So that would give you this build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAsdRl4zCpHRzpGb9ICqCYHpHtWptaleEbXosB;TsAA0CqowxgjAHLOOck4sIYQxkAA

I leveled up my Mesmer from 11 to 75 in WvW, and the only real thing I’ve had problems with, is escaping. Mesmers have next to zero swiftness and movement skills, so you have to always be mindful of your surrounding, as you have to be one step ahead if you get attacked by a zerg. The Mesmer also doesn’t have that many AoE skills. But other then that, we are golden. We have Time Warp to help beat down gates faster, AoE stealth skills to help allies out of bad situations, AoE swiftness on the focus, Portal to get allies past various obstacles or to help golems move faster, intimidating skills like Feedback and Chaos Storm that are great for pushing foes back, and clones that help when fighting in small groups, as they make it look like you are more players. With a lot of illusion generation, and bit of stealth, you can also solo camps (this takes a lot of time, though).

capuchinseven.8395:

True enough but many classes say the same on their forums as well as making the “we are fine at x but useless in y” statements. That doesn’t make our issues any less important but our issues are no more important than other classes who suffer issues.

I don’t fully agree with that. Other professions can play into more then one type of build, all the Ranger can basically do is various sword/x 1v1 builds. But what makes the Ranger even more different to other professions, is that our damage is split up in two; the pet and ourself. So when the pet dies from AoE, or doesn’t always hit when it’s suppose to, we are at a greater disadvantage then other professions. The sword and traps snares the foe, but once you lose that, you get very unreliable damage.

The utility of the greatsword is underrated, but the damage is not. As it is now, the greatsword is a great second hand weapon, for when you need to escape or get close to a target (Swoop), when you need a block (Counterattack), or you need a quick interrupt (Hilt Bash). But as a main weapon, the damage is just too low.

The tanky sword/x 1v1 builds have always been there. Try playing something that isn’t a trap or vigor/dodge build, and it becomes really obvious. Longbow/greatsword direct damage builds, support builds, pet builds, and spirits builds, are all horrible.

I’m not sure why you are trying to push for a stealth reveal, when the only problem with stealth is the Thief. It makes a lot more sense to tone down the stealth for the Thief, instead of making new skills for the Ranger.

The Ranger already has two sources from which you can gain stealth. One is the trait Hide in Plain Sight, which gives you 3 seconds stealth when you are disabled, the other is from the saimoth pet skill Forage, which has a 2/3 chance of giving you a 3 seconds stealth skill.

Anthrage.2519:

That’s all fine and good, except it did not go to the nearest…my expectations are fine, the functionality is simply incorrect.

At 00:14 of this video, you can clearly see that the downed supervisor is much closer to the pet when the skill is activated than the downed player the pet ran to. Nearest is not what it did – it is not working correctly.

That’s a horrible example. You ran into a huge pile of players in WvW, which means you are probably not seeing half of the players there, because of culling. So how can you possibly see which player is the nearest, let alone expect the skill to work as intended? Of curse Search and Rescue will be less effective in situations where the game is suffering from loads.

I have used Search and Rescue a lot in fractals and dungeons, and the times it hasn’t worked as I expected, I can count on one hand.

The point of the Mesmer playstyle is to confuse you, which is also why it’s so annoying. But there are plenty of counters you can use against clones.

• First of all, you are playing a Necromancer. They have the absolute best condition control of all professions, and some fairly good boon control as well. So saying you couldn’t do anything about it, is just not true.

• The Mesmer can only have three illusions up at a time, and even though it might not seem like it, the illusion generation is limited. The Mesmers greatest strength is also the Mesmers greatest weakness. If the Mesmer doesn’t have any illusions, he is very exposed. So use that AoE.
• If you are in a party, you can use “call target”. This will make the Mesmer much more obvious, at least until he goes into stealth, in which case “call target” will be removed.
• The Mesmer cast skills faster then illusions, so pay attention to the “clone” that has a faster cast animation then the others. That’s the Mesmer.
• Look for the clone standing the furthest away. A lot of Mesmers want to create as much distance to you as possible, to have a good overview, and so they can escape a lot easier once their clones disappear. So if you don’t know where the Mesmer is, just go for the clone that’s standing the furthest away from you.
• A lot of new Mesmer players tend to dodge too much when they’re in combat. Clones don’t dodge.

You should always learn the rules of a skill, before you set up expectations for it. The pet will revive the nearest downed or defeated, player or NPC, within about 600 range of the pet. Not yourself. So when you trigger Search and Rescue, you have to keep in mind where the pet is, and who’s closest to it. Guild Wars 2 has no skills that effects a selected ally, only a selected foe. But you can use “Guard” to send the pet to a selected location, and then use Search and Rescue.

That depends entirely on what kind of damage you need more survivability against. You can’t just draw a line across toughness, vitality, and healing power, and then say “this one is the best of the three”. They each exists for different reasons. If you’re having problems against burst damage, then get more toughness. If you’re having problems against condition damage, then get more vitality. If you’re having trouble surviving prolonged fights, then get more healing power.

On top of this you can also add different boons and conditions, depending on what you need more survivability against. For instance, vigor and blind is good against burst damage. Condition removal and regeneration is good against condition damage. Control skills, weakness, and regeneration is good when you need to stay alive.

I agree with the OP.

People can argue about what the Thief needs, or how difficult this is to pull of (it isn’t though), but the bottom line is, this is not fun to play against. The Thief should be the best burst profession, yes, but it should not be downing players in one second. The first priority should be that the game is fun to play, and being downed this fast is not fun. No matter what profession you play against, you should always have a chance to survive the encounter, even if that means only being at 2000 health after the first couple of hits.

Kodan – Giant polar bears that resemble buddhist

Tengu – Bird men that have knowledge of the Elder Dragons’ origins

Largos – An aquatic race with a different clan for each profession would be really cool

I do a bit of a mixture of reviving, using Blink and Decoy to move around, and some tanking, by taking advantage of illusions. In between that I use the Mesmers usual skills, like Portal and Mass Invisibility to sneak past areas, Time Warp to speed up killing bosses, Feedback if there’s a lot of ranged mobs, and then I also use Mantra of Recovery with the trait Restorative Mantras that heal allies. If the party is in trouble, I take advantage of my Rune of Lyssa with Signet of Inspiration.

Supervillain.8617:

Kasama.8941:

…
Look at it this way; all this boon duration is going to be primarily for your own benefit, as Signet of Inspiration is the only way you can “transfer” that boon duration to your allies. The boons from the staff and from Rune of Altruism, are going strait to your allies, which means those boons aren’t affected by your boon duration at all.
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I’m confused by this statement. Are you trying to say that boon duration applies only to boons you receive? Because that’s not the case. Boon duration applies to whatever boons you apply, to yourself or others. The only time it doesn’t apply is when you use Signet of Inspiration’s active effect to copy your boons. They get copied exactly as they are on you when you use it.

I thought boon duration was only applied to yourself. My mistake.