Guild Wars 2

Turamarth.3248:

The german community manager has already denied a new crafting discipline.
It is just for convenience.
https://forum-de.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Neuer-Beruf-im-Anmarsch/first#post383394

And he reacted pretty fast. Nearly suspiciously fast^^

• The Additional Crafting License is now available in the Gem Store. This license allows players to have up to three active crafting professions on all characters on their account for the low price of 800 gems in the Upgrades category.

From the latest patch notes. Why else should ANet do a thing like this, if there is no new crafting discipline coming soon? What discipline could that be? Fishing?

The most versatile level build and beyond I can recommend:

0 / 2 (IV) / 5 (V, X) / 3 (VI) / 4 (III, VII) Staff, Sword/x

Staff for conditions and kiting purpose (vets in early levels, later champs & groups only)
Sword/x for melee
Second minor trait in Inspiration for the regeneration boon while being close to a phantasm

There are many possibilities to swap traits that are situationally needed, like Dueling IV for II or Inspiration VI for IV or Illusions VII for X to either make yourself more durable or push Phantasm dmg output a little bit or being able to kite with nearly no problem. For Utility skills I recommend Signet of Ether, Mirror Images, Signet of Domination, Signet of Inspiration. For Elite skill I have no preferences. If you do not take Inspiration IV swap Mirror Images for Mantra of Resolve.

KaeKae.6270:

My Dilemma however, is finding a class. I’ve tried to remind myself over and over again that this IS NOT WoW so trying to pick a class based of their class line up is of course impossible.
[…]
My question is of those classes which class, if played correctly, has the potential to be all around useful (Endgame, PvP, WvW)?
[…]
If it helps at all, in WoW I’m always the healer, I know in GW2 every class has its own survival options, but being support and being able to “save” a group is what fascinates me.

The main differences of GW2 to WoW are:

• No Tank-Healer-DD-Trinity. Tanking in GW2 is more about avoiding damage by active/skill based dodging or using weapon/utility skills that make you invisible, give you invulnerability, reduce/reflect incoming damage or make you distorted for a few seconds. While every profession has more or less possibilities to heal, most of the burst heals are self targeting ones only and have a long cooldown, the only AoE thing that works like this is a water-field & explosion combo, most other healing effects work like HoTs, some of them just for a limited amount of time, others continously as long as certain premises are fulfilled.

• Every profession (class) sooner or later has access to all weapon skills, utility skills and traits the profession offers. You don’t have to choose a path that will limit you, you can change weapons, utilities and traits everywhere as long as you are out of combat. Some traits support certain weapon set ups more than others, some utility skills profit more from certain traits than others. But it’s totally up to you and your preferences what build you want to play and in case of doubt I’m sure you will play a build better you like, than a build you dislike but think is fotm.

• Every skill (except auto attack) and its related effects have a much shorter duration and a much longer cooldown than similar ones in WoW. Because of this, timing is very important. Watch your enemy, how does it attack and especially when to time your skills properly, otherwise it would be a waste with no effect.

• While in WoW it is possible to level a toon to cap in dungeons/instances, in GW2 one gets access to the first dungeon at lvl 30, but due to the downscaling mechanic it is recommended to first get up to 80, equip some exotics and then start the dungeon career. Because a downscaled lvl 80 toon will always be stronger/more durable than a true lvl 30 toon.

• Do crafting, because crafted items on crafting level 400+ will make your toon be well prepared for “endgame”.

If you have the impression of being too weak yet for the next heart quest on your map (which can happen easily on every starter map in a certain level range), travel to your capital city, enter the asuran portal to Lion’s Arch, then go to another capital city and enter another starting area to do some quests, skill point challenges, events and sightseeing there. You won’t suffer any disadvantages by being downscaled but continue to level up. When you have gained a few more levels, return to your starting area by simply clicking a way point there on the world map.

Go to Gendarran Fields, there are 4 easily accessible champs and one event-related, that are more or less easy to defeat.

• Troll (wp Shiverspur Front, to the south in the cave) respawn: 8 min
• Spider (wp Almuten Estates, behind the house all the eggs must be smashed to spawn the champ) respawn (eggs): 12 min
• Centaur (wp Talajian Piedmont, in the caves west of the wp, enter the caves either at the northern or southern entrance, the northern one should be faster) respawn: 12 min
• Risen “Ketsurak” (wp Lionbridge Expanse, to the south in the Lawen Ponds; extremely tough fight if you are alone, can even fail when you are in two) respawn: 15 min
• Special: Warbiest (wp Northfields, in the north at the point of interest; requires the event “Prevent the Centaurs from capturing Nebo Terrace” to fail.) respawn: 6 min

Server choice doesn’t matter (only for WvW), because since April 15th we got the Megaserver system that puts players from all servers on the same maps, just NA and EU servers are seperated. You will meet lots of other players on all the PvE maps.

In general mobs behave like this:

phantasms > Mesmer > clones

and

damage received > no damage received

If your phant misses the mob at first attack, it won’t grab the aggro, except you are too far away. If it hits, in 9 of 10 cases it also gets the aggro. If you summon no phants but only clones, then 75% of the time you will have the aggro. If you stop doing damage (eg. when kiting) sooner or later the mob will focus a clone.

Astral Projections.7320:

I don’t know about the times, but it’s my understanding it suppresses when the messages are identical. Try varying them.

Thank you. Then linked way points seem to not count to message variation too. And also not different words, only the amount of words.

1. spider at [way point]
2. troll at [way point]
3. centaur at [way point]
4. Your message was suppressed due to excessive messaging.

As the title says. I’d like to know how exactly chat suppression works. Sometimes I announce something in chat every 8 minutes or so about three times and get suppressed at the fourth attempt. Then the suppression not always lasts the same time. Sometimes I can post again 20 min later, sometimes 10 min, and recently I was suppresed for almost an hour oO. Do attempts to post and getting the suppression message prolong the time of suppression? Or is it a set-in-stone timer, no matter what I do?

I’m asking because currently I try to figure out a new champ rotation. Because it’s new and players are not used to it yet, announcements in chat are necessary to let other players know where to go. I can do this three times and then get suppressed for minimum 30 minutes -.-

Is there a way to circumvent chat suppression like a gem store item or another possibility? I find this extremely limiting for an MMO, although it was made to prevent spam, it doesn’t prevent the annoying whisper spam.

There are still champs in Gendarran that do not scale with player numbers. These are: the spider at Almuten Estates, the troll in the cave in Shiverspur Front, the risen abomination in the Lawen Ponds, the centaur in the caves in Talajian Piedmont. The Warbiest, although it is fightable only after the “Prevent the Centaurs from capturing Nebo Terrace” event failed. I’m not sure about Captain Wiley who used to be a champ too.

The major part why GW2 attracts me the most. I do not play pvp or wvw, just pve and rarely dungeons but the most time open pve. I hate Orr and Karka Islands. But I love all the rest of the world, the events the dialogues, the living world (but not what ANet titled as Living World). I don’t do jumping puzzles, because super mario is already done and nostalgia. The events are entertaining all the time, I really enjoy it to meet other players whose intentions are not obvious at first sight. I wished Open PvE would be pimped with more events and unexpected happenings. In comparison I cannot imagine to change GW2 for another MMO regarding Open PvE.

Do you consider Open PvE as a major part of GW2 too? Should it be “expansioned” or rather reduced? Why, why not?

Lord of Rings.5371:

It is a hard game to quit because it is addictive.

One reason for the disappointment is the realization that no matter how much time one spends in this game there would be another carrot coming to tempt you and there would be seemingly endless carrots after that one. Why would one lose time for rest and sleep over it?

I recommend to try DDO parallel to GW2. DDO is not so shiny graphic-wise, but can be extremely addictive if you stay there for a while. And, most important, it’ll be you who swings the carrot, not the game mechanics.

nethykins.7986:

Just because they haven’t hit the others now doesn’t mean they won’t or that it’s an indication they’re fine with player driven strategies.

It took this long to get to QD.

Yeah, it doesn’t mean they won’t. But they easily could if they want so. Because it’s ANet who knows best about what’s going on in their MMO I guess. It’s not us, it’s them. We will never be able to discover “secrets” and if we do so, it’s a bug/exploit and gets patched soon.

Destroying champ trains in starter areas, but leaving champs in other areas untouched is an indication that trains are considered no problem as they are still possible to organize and participate. The intention to make the initial experiences easier in starter areas is nothing to wonder about. This happened and happens in all MMOs.

It would be another thing if ANet made all open world champs vets and move champs just to dungeons exclusively. But the Open World is one major part of ANet’s game design for GW2, so I guess champs will remain and will stay “trainable”.

FGS remained untouched and the train can still be found there. The patch just changed things in the 1-15 areas. So the QD fugitives try to find another map and viable rota in the 15+ zones. Gendarran is just an example, as champs there spawn pretty close and ~fast.

yeah, please fill him into the rota and post it.

Duran.3196:

posting it here = big mistake

ANet is not against player driven strategies in a whole. They nerfed the champs in the starter areas, but left all other champs as they were.

Today I was in QD with a fresh toon and the chat was much more newbie oriented than it was before. This is and should be absolutely ok. Actually it’s nice to have a conversation with a newbie without being interrupted by train issues all the time.

But the champ train wasn’t made impossible, there are other maps where it can happen. I enjoy participating the train from time to time myself, for the loot or just for the mmo feeling in the open world as open PvE is the major part why I play GW2. It’s just about us to find new ways.

Commanders should never be subject of suppression. In the rare case they spam and annoy (and due to reports about them) suppress the commander status for a while, but communication never should be limitated. Especially not in situations where coordination is absolutely necessary.

So new train in Gendarran Fields might be

Warbiest
Troll
Spider
Warbeast
Centaur
Troll
Warbiest, aso.

pretty much to remember. Kessex is another option, but no rota described yet, just toxic spider (which spawns every 4 minutes or so).

What about the other 15-25 and 25-35 Zones, Diessa and so on? No rota there? Unbelievable^^ At least in Diessa I know the Champ Worm requires the collection pre event to be completed to spawn.

I tried it, but Centaur didn’t work. maybe there is an event pre, I don’t know. Otherwise your rota is pretty good.

Kessex is another option. I’m (we are) interested in a rota there too – if it exists.

Unfortunately I’m not that good at math, as too much numbers irritate me more than I’m able to keep cool about, but to calculate the optimal rotation, I can contribute some respawn times. QD was destroyed by developers, yes. But champ train can still be alive in higher zones. It’s about us to find a new rotation (until it gets nerfed again, maybe). That’s all.

So I was in Gendarran Fields. My results are:

Champion Warbiest respawn time: 6 min
Champion Spider Queen respawn time: 12 min (respawn of eggs required to be destroyed to spawn her)
Champion Troll respawn time: 8 min
Champion Centaur respawn time: 12 min

I did not include the champs in provern crypt, as getting there probably kills 2/3 of the train =) What could the rotation be regarding these 4 champs (including at least 2 minutes of travelling+defeating)?

GW2 is a fantastic game with plenty of things to enjoy – as long as one doesn’t focus on a single goal, like getting a special item. Because then it turns into the probably most expensive and heaviest grind game by chance on earth. So try to avoid wanting anything specific to prolong the fun as much as possible :-/

SkyFierce.2071:

3, one day, I crated a Nore, at the starter area, ran down to the bear shine, planning to kill some lvl2 or 3 animals on the way, existing about the new journey upon on me… suddently, 2 Lvl9 Son of Sy dorpped from tree top, and my l2 Nore stood no chance, they killed me with one hit, apparently they didn’t level down at that area, then they kept running down hill. What on earth was that?

I remember those two, they killed me too. It’s a bug I guess, as they are the only 9th level mobs in this area where all players are downscaled to lvl 3 or 4 if I remember correctly.

Top left: one of the Mesmer starter masks
Top right: one of the necro starter masks
bottom: the other two necro starter masks

To get these, you need a free character slot. Then just create a toon and when you enter the starter instance the skin will be added to your wardrobe automatically. Log out, delete it and create another one with different starter gear. It doesn’t matter which race you choose, the skins will be available for all races as long as they wear the same armor class. So a Mesmer with Elementalist starter jewel is possible the same way like an Engineer with Thief masks or a Thief with Engineer glasses and so on.

I don’t know how many of you read the quite long interview with Chris Whiteside, ArenaNet Studio Design Director, which was published recently on relicsoforr. I did and I found a statement there, that is imho worth a thread and a discussion about.

Chris: (…) I don’t know how well known this is, but we didn’t kill Tequatl before Tequatl went live internally. That’s not how we do our reviews or our balance testing. We don’t need to kill it to know how well balanced it is, which is interesting and maybe one day we can do a podcast about that and I can explain how that works. (…)

Source

The word kill easily could be replaced by play as killing is a major part of playing this game. Then it reads: “We don’t need to play it to know how well balanced it is”.
Because the software tells us whether it works or not.

Now this explains pretty much everything, from ridiculous (but “working” ofc) trait requirements that nobody seemed to have noticed before the feature patch went live, to the growing gap between developers and players regarding the sense of equity, the relation between time spent and reward, the effort and its outcome, and so on.

Apparently balancing in case of Guild Wars 2 is not the expression of the will of designers or a well thought about result based on the experiences made by human testers, but the result of a brainless and emotionless software or process, which just tells no or go but cannot simulate human sentiment, perception and gameplay experience.

This leads to the assumption that we will see a lot more things that we don’t agree with in future, because overstated it’s a bot that decides what’s right or wrong, what’s fun or not :-/

southbeatz.2780:

The reward versus time spent should never be so unbalanced ever.

It’s because:

Chris: And you know other things, like Crystal (Crystal Reid) who works on our legendary boss encounters, you know, she led the building of Tequatl. Playing that, I don’t know how well known this is, but we didn’t kill Tequatl before Tequatl went live internally. That’s not how we do our reviews or our balance testing. We don’t need to kill it to know how well balanced it is, which is interesting and maybe one day we can do a podcast about that and I can explain how that works.

Source: http://www.relicsoforr.com/?p=3256

This should explain an occurring gap between effort and reward pretty well.

Ceno.1763:

• A not-inconsiderable hit to getting new players/alts to higher levels quickly and easily (no one wants to stay in the starter zones for an eternity, and the trains were a fine way of getting you up to level 30 fast)

At least since the feature patch changes this is inconsiderable. All Professions without utility skill based movement speed increase but traits only, and especially Mesmers without focus (even when used, the speed buff didn’t last long enough) and Engineers (moving speed trait slot available at lvl 60) were easily overtaken by the majority of downscaled lvl 80 rune-of-traveller players, without the chance to land even one hit on eg. the Bandit. That’s why many of them skipped the Bandit or the Wasp and those who didn’t, didn’t do the train for leveling from 1 to 30 purpose.

No champs, except world bosses, in starter areas anymore was a great decision, imo. Especially the annoying Krait in Caledon surrounding the underwater skill point challenge and the giant ooze in Metrica, as there nearly never were trains in these zones, they easily could frustrate (new) players encountering them and getting no help.

There are so many champs in the other areas, that most of the time simply were ignored. I leveled a few different toons in higher zones in the past few weeks and even in Gendarran Fields, crowded with players, it was a challenge on its own to find just one other helping hand for killing champs. I had to do many of them alone (or was killed by them, eg. the Hylek Queen in Brisban Wilderness). These times are gone now, hopefully.

I’m pretty sure the former QD train now will transfer to a 15-25 or higher area.

I also participated the QD train from time to time, but not for leveling or achievement purpose, just for the loot. If I want the bags now, I’ve to go to another area, I don’t see a problem.

I guess there is a chance for a change regarding trait unlock requirements, when Chris Whiteside reaches Level 36 with his fresh female Mesmer on the Chinese server. Actually he’s in the Level 10-15 range, so it still might take a while until we get some changes :p

Source: http://www.relicsoforr.com/?p=3256

Conner.4702:

It’s not all about information on new content. It’s about acknowledging mistakes.

Chris: (…) I love the feature patch, and I’m enjoying playing that (…)

Source: http://www.relicsoforr.com/?p=3256

According to Chris Whiteside ArenaNet didn’t do any mistakes. At least not regarding the whole feature patch. He rather loves it. We are wrong. Obviously.

A strange thing happens when teleporting often on a map.

This frequently happens to me (and was confirmed by another player in the german general forum) when I often teleport to way points on a map without leaving the map: during the loading time another instance of the map seems to be created with very few players and me in it. There is no message that announces the creation of a different map (like it was in the past regarding overflow).
It’s obvious especially when I follow eg. the train in Queensdale, suddenly after a few teleports the train is gone, or rather I am gone. First it’s not apparent, only when facing the next Champ and being just in two or three, then I know it did happen again. I can get back to the/a train after leaving the zone and porting back or logging out and in again, but it’s nevertheless a strange thing.
Using a way point and during the waiting time in the loading screen a background mechanism seems to count me out of map population, then to count me back and when at this moment the total number of players on this map exceeds a certain limit, another instance of the map is created. So there seems to be no difference between players who already are on a map or who are “new”, teleporting there from another zone.

This mechanism should be changed to not seperate players who are just using way point teleports.

One of the great advantages of GS is, that the Berserker (combined with Sharper Images) with its multiple attacks very much likely adds some bleeds and the warranted cripple and grabs the aggro too. Then swapping to Staff, summoning a clone and the warlock. The Warlock – thanks to staff-auto-attack-conditions by clone and Mesmer and condis by Berserker – will do much higher damage due to the overall sum of applied conditions. The Swordsman doesn’t apply any conditions and also bleed from Sharper Images is much less likely due to its only single attack.
I build for condition damage and illusion death effects, even in PvE. 0/3/5/2/4 never disappointed me so far. GS&Staff ofc =)

Although traiting Deep Strike was recommended, due to the new trait system I’d suggest to trait it later and put the first two points into either Defense or Tactics to gain more survivability. At Level 48 when one has four points available, Arms could be an option, but even then I’d rather take Deep Cuts over Deep Strike. Take DS at level 60 or 66 when the Master tier is available and you have enough points to both make you more durable and increase your damage output.

If you decide to roll an Ele, make sure to: wear the best items you can craft, eat the highest available food and get help when leveling, because you’ll still need help. Since the last update a new Ele probably suffers the most of all professions from the lack of +stats and the late access to traits. I tried to level an Elementalist but deleted it at Level 22 when I was frustrated by not being able to beat many “easy achieveable” skill challenges in the starter areas, despite using different weapons, attunement swapping, food and utility skills and despite ANet said they adjusted the mobs to the new system -.-
Unfortunately I didn’t always get help and compaired to other professions now the Ele is more squishy than he ever was before the patch. Leveling alone now is a pita. I’m not that patient enough. Maybe you are

Until you reach Level 80 and unlock the whole GM minor and major traits, turrets are very useful. Even after reaching max lvl turrets still do a good job, at least in Open PvE. All events where waves of mobs have to be defeated the turrets will hit 95% of them. When they start firing it’s also a hint for other players from which direction the mobs are approaching.
Until you reach Level 36 though the turrets are very fragile and can be destroyed easily. Try to place them either somewhere above on roofs or rocks to make it harder or impossible for enemies to reach them, or place them far away from each other to not lose all of them when mobs aoe melee one of them.

Slotting another weapon kit along with turrets is an option, if I do so I mainly use the bomb kit as it suits me the most, and although it requires melee range I prefer it over the tool-kit, as it’s aoe too – or I slot a third dmg turret instead. For the purpose of kiting champs the rifle, rocket and flamethrower turrets are very useful, I use Pistol+Shield while strafing. I also play a Mesmer and it seems that regarding aggro the turrets are treated more like clones than phantasms, which results in the Engineer having the aggro most of the time unlike the Mesmer, who pretty fast loses the aggro to summoned phants. The turrets are also very handy when running through a bunch of mobs like in a cave or mine or tunnel without the intention to fight them, as they will focus the turrets while the Engineer can run out of range.

2/0/6/6/0 (turrets explode) or 0/0/6/6/2 (turrets are throwable) or 4/3/6/1/0 (Inc. Powder, either reduced cd on Pistol or increased range and the buffs at 75% HP) or 2/3/6/1/2 are all viable builds.

With the new wardrobe you should have plenty of possibilities to combine different pieces of armor and weapons that before the patch weren’t available to all your toons. Like the starter equipment or the cultural armor/weapons. To get the skins of cultural armor you just have to buy them once, no matter whether you can wear them or not. The racial limits are the same, but you won’t have to buy them again if you ever delete and start again.
Regarding starter gear: You can create eg. an Engineer and let him wear a helmet that previously was exclusive for Thieves. Or both the Engineer’s backpack and glasses. Or create an Elementalist wearing a Mesmer’s Mask. So before you create a toon that you want to level I’d recommend to create and delete one toon of every profession with every piece of profession specific starter armor to make the skins be stored in the wardrobe.

I mostly play Open PvE and there are several situations where a condi build feels superior to a dps/phantasm build:

• Mesmer alone fighting a group of mobs
• Mesmer alone fighting a Vet/Champ/+adds
• Mesmer alone exploring a not-so-used-to area

A condi build is slower but much more secure regarding mobility and survivability. Killing things fast requires things being killable fast, but in GW2 the path to success primarily results from avoiding damage by dodging, kiting, and so on, especially in the situations mentioned above. The dps Mesmer has to rely on phants, but when his phants only live three seconds and because of their high cd, a dps Mesmer could easily face his limits soon. It’s like a dps Ele who can shine as long as he doesn’t get focused by mobs, but without an elemental or other player he’s busy with avoiding damage instead of dealing it.

A dps/phantasm build on the other side is superior when one can be sure to not get the aggro or the chance for it is very low – so everytime there are one or more players joining the fight.

In general when I eg. kite a champ down, for about 90% of the time I have the aggro, being chased by the champ, who ignores my clones. I usually use the staff when strafing and staff clones, from time to time mixed with a warlock (who usually gets killed within seconds). If I summon only phants instead it’s more likely that I lose the aggro and that they will be destroyed as fast as possible. But as soon as another player joins the battle and lands one hit on the champ in 9 of 10 cases I lose the aggro instantly and the other player gets it, no matter whether champ HP is at 90% or 10% and I’m able to summon two or three warlocks that stay alive until the fight ends.

So regarding aggro it seems that mobs behave like this:

• Mesmer + Clones: attack the Mesmer
• Mesmer + Phants: attack the Phants
• Mesmer + Clones/Phants: attack the Phants, then the Mesmer
• Mesmer + Clones/Phants + other player: attack the other player

The last Mesmer I leveled I tried a hybrid build with, which seemed to work in most zones, but when I went into the higher level zones like Orr it felt weaker compaired to a pure one, so I rebuilt for condi again.

Although we have the Megaserver now, there are maps and situations where one easily could be alone and no other player in range. Eg. last saturday night somehow the queensdale train disappeared, but the map was still active, with two players left, a Thief and me. We continued the “train” for a while until we left the map too, but we killed all the champs in two, it was fun and my condi build allowed to both doing some dps with phants as long as the Thief had the aggro or kite them with clones.

But I wished that there was an easy and fast way to save and swap builds by just one click. Currently it takes quite some time to swap from condi to dps and back including equipment and weapon setup, meanwhile I keep the condi build most of the time.

That’s my favourite rota, as it was on my server before the megaserver patch regarding respawn times.

What’s your favourite rota?

Although we have the Megaserver now, Southsun Cove EU is empty. Anet, please convert all group events there to normal ones, that scale in difficulty with the number of players in range. It’s not fun to get there for the first time and there’s nothing completable, because of loneliness and difficulty. Since I met the Karka, I love the Risen :p

BenHUK.3869:

I have 11 unspent skill points, not quite sure where to spend them – http://imgbin.org/index.php?page=image&id=17399

I’ve heard about traits and spoken to the profession trainers, but am a little confused. I purchased a fire one from the trainer but the menu option is greyed out – I take it I cannot select traits at all until L30? I’ve read to avoid the fire traitline.

Kalarchis mentioned “Try a mix of power, vitality, and toughness gear while levelling” – but I tend to just use the gear that I find, not focus on ones which have certain qualities – where can I easily find the power, vitality, and toughness gear?

Also, is there any guide to what these numbers mean (e.g. “0/0/2/6/6”) ?

Try to advance to the glyph of lesser elementals, as an elemental catching the aggro will help you a lot. There are enough possibilities to get skill points in the entire game, as sooner (for traits) or later they are used as a currency too. After you have reached lvl 80 there still is a progression bar that lets you earn XP, granting you one skill point when it’s full, the same like when leveling.

The trait from the book you bought from the trainer is available at level 36 if you then put two points into the related tree. When you reach lvl 30 the trait menue will be accessible, and the traits will also show you what activity they need to be unlocked. You can also buy the traits from the profession trainer in case you decide to skip the related activity.

The easiest way to get a mixed power, vitality and toughness gear is to craft it. Go to the tailoring npc to learn the crafting skill, then combine components with signets at the crafting station to get items with either vitality or toughness or power or later a combination of two stats.

The numbers are related to builds, specificly to the distribution of trait points. You can go to eg. http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/ and do some planning for your build.

After the feature patch it’s possible to create camouflaged toons like this one and do unexpected things

I wished the number of applied conditions by WoC would scale with the number of active staff clones (not warlock), like

no clone: Burning (30%), Chill (70%)
one clone: Burning (50%), Bleeding (30%), Chill (20%)
two clones: Burning (30%), Bleeding (30%), Vulnerability (20%), Chill (20%)
three clones: Burning (20%), Bleeding (20%), Vulnerability (20%), Chill (20%), Confusion (20%)

to make non-shatter builds more viable, to put in more tactical options and to allow a staff Mesmer with no clones to run away by slowing an opponent down.
Or to mix different clones/phantasms. Eg. I summon the iBerserker but to push its damage I need two more staff clones for Vulnerability. In a party with eg. another phantasm Mesmer I can decide to support his iWarlocks with three clones and 5 conditions or rely on conditions applied by other party members and summon phantasms myself.

I don’t feel the need to push the direct damage output of WoC, as it’s primarily a condi attack with possibly three clones spamming it too.

Staff clones behave the same way when they follow an enemy. They move to the most far away distance possible, stop and attack instead of firing at the estimated position. This should be an easy fix – if Devs want to fix it. Simply let the illusions behave like some mobs already do, like stone spitting worms for example: when you are strafing, they do not fire at your current position but at your expected position in two seconds. One can still avoid the attack by either dodging or changing the direction while the stone/projectile is approaching.

It’s because of your toughness runes. Toughness reduces direct damage (the white one). But it doesn’t affect condition damage like bleed, burning or poison. I’d recommend to swap some runes for vitality ones. As armor smith/leather worker you can craft a signet that works like a rune which increases your HP by 20 points / each item. In early levels this would help you a bit.

With your Warrior take the heal skill Mending to remove three conditions.
With your ranger equip the Signet of Renewal for its passive condition remove effect.

You have five possibilities to survive conditions: 1. raise vitality, 2. use a condi remove skill/trait, 3. heal yourself for more than the condis do damage, 4. avoid condi attacks by dodging them or walking/running out of the shown AoE field, 5. kill the enemy before it’s able to apply its conditions.

If you didn’t already do it, go to the cook and jeweler crafting trainers and craft some jewels and food. Jewels like rings, ear rings and amulets are the most rare drops in Open PvE, the ones for karma which are of equal quality to crafted ones you will find only in much higher zones.

Regarding the Ranger: Due to the new skill system until you reach lvl 60 you won’t be able to share boons like regeneration with your pet – except you both fight side by side. For Open PvE I can recommend a Hyena, you can tame one in the Charr starter zone. Its F2 skill summons a second Hyena which is also able to knock down opponents. Use a sword and a torch and equip Healing Spring. Try to stay in melee range and near your pet to apply the regeneration effect to both of you. After reaching lvl 60 you can put one point into the minor trait Fortifying Bond in Nature Magic, then you also can heal your pet from a distance.
If you prefer a range weapon like the Longbow, use a spider. It has an AoE poison attack, you can push an enemy back into the poison field with the LB knock back skill.

Many events are part of a small chain of more events, often combined with dialogue a/o NPCs moving around between the events. The break between the events could last up to five or more minutes, often depending on the distance the NPC has to walk/run.

Eg. there is a Charr NPC in Diessa (lvl 15-25 Charr zone) in a village who is asked by a cook to collect eggs of caveworms for some omeletts. After this dialogue the NPC moves outside the village to a nearby cave. Once there and only then the event to help collecting the eggs starts and is visible on the map by the orange event circle. After the event is completed all players who helped get a reward. Most of them then move away but this event was just part one. The NPC moves back to the village, talks to the cook and a minute later part two starts. The NPC is asked again to collect eggs, moves again to the nearby cave, but instead of a collecting-event now a giant champion worm appears that players have to defeat.
This is just a small chain of two events, linked by NPC interactions. If you do not follow the NPC and its interactions you won’t get the hint that both are linked. The champion worm will never spawn as long as the collecting “pre” is not completed or fails.

Another example in Caledon (Sylvari starter zone). The chain contains two events and starts with the task to rescue a caged Hylek from hostile Kraits. The two events are linked by a moving and dialogue interaction between the Hylek and her xenophobic village chieftain daddy. At the end and after another dialogue sequence you can convince the hostile Hylek of your benevolence and are invited to visit the village, and the former hostile and killable villagers turn into friendly ones, even two npc traders are accessible to you. If you just click on the medal after the second event ended and move away, you will miss this "quest-candy".

nerubians.7598:

My issue is this: when I’m traited into power and precision, it feels like it takes forever for mobs to die! I am currently level 43, using a staff/greatsword combo, and now I have put my (only 3) trait points into my illusions to see if I would have more luck there. I’ve been playing around with my limited traits a lot to see what I can make happen. Things don’t die very fast at all, or I die very fast (the latter makes sense and I know why that happens.. I am pretty dang squishy).

Put your first two points into Chaos (V) and the next two into Inspiration (swap between IV and VI). During leveling without the proper gear a power build won’t increase your direct damage significantly. Better make yourself and your illusions less squishy. Chaos V lets your Illusions distribute conditions when they are killed, which they will be pretty often and fast. Use Inspiration IV to remove two Conditions every time you heal. Swap to VI when you expect to fight a champ, or a larger group of mobs.

You can still use GS and Staff. When you get better gear with higher stats, put 4 points into Domination for III and X and the last points in Chaos X and Illusions III and VII.

This would be a hybrid condition/direct damage build: 4/0/4/2/4

I’m currently leveling a Mesmer with this build, lvl 75 atm. Usually I open with iBerserker followed by a Mirror Blade clone, then I swap to Staff and summon a Phase Retreat clone or the iWarlock. Some fights are easier to survive with Staff only, and always try to keep circling around too, if possible. If you still have trouble in fights also eat some food that increases your stats like vitality, power or precision or condition damage.

For slotted skills I use: Signet of the Ether, Mirror Images, Signet of Domination, Signet of Inspiration and Warband Support (Charr Elite). Swap the skills for the one which suit you the most or are available to you.

Compaired to other professions the mobs will die slowly, regardless if you use GS direct damage or Staff condition damage – but you will survive most of the fights. The last time I died was in Dredgehaunt Cliffs on my way up to the vista in the mine, ignoring the dredges on the way, who all followed me. 8 dredges, one vet and a turret were too much^^

1. You can max all crafting skills on one toon, but only have two of them active. You maintain progress and recipes in the inactive ones. Swapping a crafting skill costs some silver, depending on your skill level.

2. Every toon can collect all crafting ressources, independent of the chosen active crafting skills. By the time you will get a lot of ressources and even use some slots in the shared bank to store them when your ressource slots are full. The fastest way to progress a crafting skill is to “invent” new recipes instead of repetitively craft one item again and again.

Before the patch went live exploring a city was rewarded with three lesser transmutation stones = three transmutations were possible. Today one gets only 1 charge as reward, which is pretty disappointing. Especially low lvl chars want to experiment with different stats and they actually find better items continously, but also look as they prefer. A complete change requires 8 to 10 charges (depending on one- or two-handed weapons).
Now I only transmute items for one toon in its leveling phase, but only every 10 lvls or so, the others are doomed to look “funny”, without transmutation.