(edited by Lanhelin.3480)
I have a question to the EU community regarding map chat – I have disabled the chat filter: It seems that only german speaking players use the map chat for the purpose to chat. Except for guild advertisings I never saw more than one or two lines in a row in other languages by different players, be it English, French, Spanish or something else. I have been on various maps and in different cities since the Megaserver went live, and there never happened longer chat communications in other languages than German. Was I just in the wrong place at the wrong time or can someone confirm this?
My Necro can take down a veteran faster than my Mesmer can kill a basic grunt, and I don’t have any confidence in taking on a champion solo with my Mesmer the way I do with my other two.
Do it like a Mesmer. Swap a trait for Inspiration VI to run faster in combat. Without it you’d have to dodge more often. Use a staff, three staff clones and auto attack the champ down. Adds showing up occasionally will be affected by the bouncing attacks too. Champs in general (with few exceptions) hit slow and just have tons of HP, so it takes a while but down is down.
I can recommend a dps/condi hybrid like 0/3/5/2/4 or 4/0/4/2/4
For these builds the new GM traits are not relevant.
GS and Staff are both range weapons. Open with Berserker and Mirror Blade, swap to Staff and cast Phase Retreat. Then you have two illusions in melee range and one illusion next to yourself as range casters who do AoE attacks and/or buff the Berserker with might. Sometimes GS alone is enough, sometimes Staff alone works better, it varies from encounter to encounter. You may also swap skills as you prefer.
I play regularly with a friend of mine who runs a Mesmer and when I’m on my Elementalist, I’m literally pulling in twice the loot drops that he is due to almost non-stop AoEs. I run a Staff build that has increased AoE size and I’m able to tag just about everything within a 1200 range by cycling through each of my different attunements. It may sound like a weak reason to run a profession, but it made a huge difference to me in terms of money and gear.
Regarding the leveling phase: As long as the illusions and/or the Mesmer have the aggro, the Ele can shine. When the Ele gets the aggro of all the mobs, then it’d be a rather unshiny performance I guess. I also prefer the Mesmer over the Ele, especially when soloing. Larger groups are not a big problem for a Mesmer using GS+Staff. Larger groups for an Ele or fast respawn are very dangerous when he’s on his own.
I don’t want to excuse the harsh mix up of different languages by introducing the Megaserver and the poor try to safe the situation by the chat filter hotfix, but yesterday I made an experience, which without Megaserver I wouldn’t have ever made, I guess.
I was leveling an alt in Kessex Hills, when suddenly a player in the /tell channel nearby me said: “J’aime ton costume” – I had french in school about 15 years ago and remembered that J’ means I and ton means your and apart from that the words aime and costume are not hard to understand, so I replied “merci”, although I am an austrian player using the german client on a german server, with the chat filter deactivated. We played a few minutes side by side and also killed the toxic spider-queen champ.
I could have answered in german or english, but I understood what she/he was saying so I answered in french, though it was a very basic conversation. If it would have gone deeper, I probably swapped to english.
Just a very short story that not all different language confrontations have to compulsory end in a flame war. It’s still babel, but fortunately the tower stays solid.
Certain Hearts are harder to complete, while others are easier now, because of related events starting more frequently. Although Anet stated that they nerfed the 1-79 Mobs because of the new trait system, for some professions until they reach lvl 36 or beyond, certain encounters/skill point challenges indeed are a pain and help is needed to survive/achieve them. Thanks to Megaserver help is not far away in most situations.
Eg. even if I equip the best items, eat food to buff toughness or vitality or power, my lvl 19 Elementalist faces death more often than before the patch. Especially archers do incredible high and fast damage to him. A mixed group of melees and archers is extremely dangerous now. Dodging 2 times and then it’s over in seconds. I don’t know if it’s my playstyle to blame or the patch – I tend to blame the patch^^
I also level a Guardian, Engineer and Mesmer. The Engineer has the most easy life because of his turrets, although they get destroyed pretty fast once they get the aggro. The Guardian feels pretty durable – as long as he attacks the mobs (it happens from time to time that he doesn’t do anything after a double click on a mob, not attacking, not turning around or attacking only one time and then stop – when this happens, then former easy fights become a real challenge).
The Mesmer seems to suffer the least from the changes of the patch. At least I did not notice a significant increase of difficulty playing him.
Sounds pretty interesting to be honest. I’d play it. Issue is, if we need another profession, it’s a Heavy Armor profession, not a Light Armor profession.
Hm, Monk would be the next profession and I’m sure it’s already there to launch, but not announced yet. But aside from Monk the Enchanter should be there too^^
Split a Warrior from another MMO and get: Warrior, Guardian
Copy Hunter and get: Ranger
Copy Wizard and get: Elementalist
Copy Thief and get: Thief
Mix Wizard and Hunter and get: Necromancer
Mix Warrior and Hunter and get: Engineer
Mix Thief and Hunter and get: Mesmer
Is it time for more unique professions? I’d like to see one of the most impressive professions I’ve ever played in an MMO and this was an Enchanter in DDO. A Wizard specialized in mind controlling foes that changed side.
In GW2 it would be interesting to balance such a profession but it’d be possible by turning hostile foes into neutral NPCs, who fight against red NPCs but attack players who do too much damage to them.
I always loved to interact with hostile NPCs more than just beat them down.
Psionic/Enchanter
wearing light armor using
focus (main hand/off hand)
staff
club (main hand)
Skills could be various NPC enchantments that have condition effects. And turn a Player hostile for 10 Seconds (like Moa) and make him use his equipped skills against his friends.
The idea is to make the Enchanter squishy like an Ele but short-term and indirectly powerful like a GS Warrior.
Is it time for a new profession?
2/2/1/5/4 dps phantasm build, with the most necessary traits to survive. But for PvE and survivability I’d recommend a condi build instead. Especially when you solo.
Winds of Chaos is not chaotic enough – the staff auto attack for Mesmers inflicts three conditions by chance. Staff is considered a defensive weapon. I suggest to remove the Vulnerable condition and replace it with Chill, Confusion or Torment because this would fit the defensiveness more, and also be more useful for staff using Mesmers. Bleeding and Burning is ok, but Vulnerable seems to have nearly no impact, especially for staff Mesmers.
If you want to easily survive and solo pve vets and champs try this staff build
Swap Signet of Domination for the skill u need. Do not shatter, let the illusions die and recast them. Gear consequently for condition damage.
Try 2/0/6/6/0 – because Deployable Turrets is inferior to Accelerant-Packed Turrets. Especially because of no points in Firearms.
Else, before and after the patch a solid turret build would still be 4/3/6/1/0 – with RTB of course instead of the new GM trait.
I always use a Staff as second weapon in PvE. It has great utility, because
- its auto attack is AoE
- PR clones do not need an obstacle-free LoS to and no successful hit on the target to be summoned, one just has to be in range (this is unique and excellent for kiting purpose, there is nearly no champ that cannot be soloed because of this)
- Staff clones do condition damage too, though random and not continuous but more than any other clone
- PR clones can be used as a shield if one doesn’t move, because they are summoned straight in front of the Mesmer
- PR clones can be used to cd-wise cheaply catch the initial aggro, if one jumps out of the auto attack range without the need to deactivate auto attack or swap weapons
- Staff clones and the iWarlock are range casters, so if there is enough space and they are placed far enough apart, it forces melee mobs to reach them first before killing them, which means another few seconds for anything else
- Chaos Storm can contribute huge benefits to group events (just keep an eye on the fast decrease of Mob HP when confusion stacks 20+ times)
Staff is much slower because of low direct damage and only random condition damage, but it has some other advantages I wouldn’t want to miss in many situations.
Oh! Or did you mean at the time? Lol, it’s late..or very early here.
I just don’t want to give the impression to be impolite. The player most likely had the new chat filter enabled, and currently there is no other way to say thank you to players using another client except in the forums or writing a letter ingame.
… resurrected me yesterday while we were fighting the champion giant slime in Metrica. I typed it already in the /map, /say and /whisper channel but she or he probably couldn’t read it. So to the unknown female Warrior: thx4res :-)
Or should I have written a mail?
Making a whole tier (Grandmaster) available on 80 only is a decision I do not understand. Especially for leveling alts 6/x and 5/x builds pre 80 are impossible now. Sense?
i went on my level 20 warrior and i was surviving noticably longer and dealing noticably more damage than my level 80 mesmer ever did.
i havent got much power or precision in my mesmer build but even if i tried to max it out i am sure if i max it on my warrior he would be have even more of a noticeable advantage.
i like the mesmer its a very unique class and its alot of strategy but both damage out put and defences seem quite weak to me
I made the exact opposite experience in PvE: There are far more situations where my Warrior did not survive, but with my Mesmer it was no problem. I do not feel weak, just slower than others but for the benefit of awesome survivability. I play a Staff Condition build, mainly with clones instead of phantasms.
Eg there is one Champion in the Wayfarer Foothills, in the north of the outpost with the crafting stations who spawns quite frequently, every 15 minutes or so (a Svanir walking around with three dogs) and therefor good for testing purpose. I tested to solo him with my Warrior, Guardian, Elementalist and Ranger but none of them could do this as easy as the Mesmer or even failed, better: I failed^^ All of the toons were in the 20 to 30 Level range, with only crafted or found equipment, so very low geared and nothing special. No gems, no sigils or runes, no buff foods. Sure, they do more damage than a Mesmer, but they also die much faster. Maybe a Turret Engineer could be nearly as successful as the Mesmer under these circumstances.
The key is to not rely on illusions staying alive but to count in and “work with” their death. So do not cast phantasms (or just in case everything else is on cd) but clones only. Phantasms will withstand one or two hits like clones too but have a very high cd. They are more suitable when in party and when it’s less probable to get aggro. The main condition damage comes from bleeding and burning and the three staff clones can apply these too.
Mind that even if the clones don’t do any direct damage, they can critically hit too and apply additional traited effects or do other traited things to the enemies when they are killed. Staff clones also have a significant advantage no other illusion/clone skill has: they can be cast around a corner, without the need to be in an obstacle-free LoS nor the need to hit the opponent.
(edited by Lanhelin.3480)
When you say 1-15 areas you mean Queensdale right?
and Metrica, and Wayfarer (though they are not that popular like Queensdale, but there are trains too). While I think that the mechanics of trains is good but in high level areas only it’s bad in starting zones.
I know I probably shouldn’t feel this way over a game
It’s because you do not feel this way over just a game but its players. And this is good. I do it too. The champ train in starter areas where players for the first time should get in contact with other gw2 players and ask, learn, or just chat via zone channel is a no-go.
1) ANet pls consider this before your China launch.
2) …
3) profit.
:-)
working as intended = wai
I’m really interested whether this is wai or not? Champ-trains in certain zones. Especially 1-15 Zones. If it is wai then you, ANet, probably have some good reasons to allow this. But I do not get it. Shouldn’t Starter Areas be challenging and Champs “the crown” of area completion? Nowadays it’s “champ-zerg-farming” (the train) what’s common. The chat is very busy in those areas – with train-related issues.
“train?”
“train there?”
“oak”
“whers train?”
“wasp”
“goto [insert Waypoint here]”
“troll”
and so on.
Is it wai to allow highest equipped level players to farm 1-15 areas without caring about really low level players there?
Is this really wai? Or, what I’d suggest: put the trains to 70-80 areas, please. Thank you. (and make low level areas more interesting for high-level players too – but not because of champ-trains).
I also prefer Charr, mainly because of their Elite Skill Warband Support, it suits my playstyle with illusions the most, as my Charr friends do the same job like they are supposed to: keeping the mobs away from me. In party I swap it for another one, but in solo pve it’s great.
I also play the Mesmer primarily with the staff, because it has some advantages all other weapons don’t have (PvE):
- Clones every 6 seconds
- These Clones do not need an obstacle-free LoS to be created (this seems to be unique, but is only valid for Phase Retreat; eg. Clones from Mirror Images won’t be created when the LoS is blocked but just consume the cd)
- WoC and conditions from Clones too
- one can easily give the Staff Clone the initial aggro by teleporting out of one’s own WoC range, without the need to deactivate auto-attack
- due to these advantages some champions are easy to kite solo, though it takes a while, but it’s possible
There are several combinations of traits viable (in addition to the OPs), like
0/0/25/25/20 or
0/0/30/10/30 or
0/25/25/0/20 or
0/20/20/10/20
and with the upcoming feature patch maybe there will be even more.
Personally I won’t put 10 points into Domination but Inspiration, because I like better to run faster instead of the cripple effect, especially in longer lasting fights and against mostly stationary mobs.
Personally I know of only one other MMO that doesn’t (really) use the Holy Trinity too. But there are many possibilities to cc, what is a big difference to GW2, where everything is short term and useful cc doesn’t exist.
Healing in GW2 is sufficient I guess, but there is nearly no cc and with useful cc I mean some sort of “Let’s cc this mob to deal with it later”
But GW2 could allow this type of cc by eg. adding a defensive stance to one of the various Illusion/Minion/Turret-Skills of each class to bind a mob for say 30 seconds or more – the Illusion/Minion/Turret should not do any damage in Def Stance and the bound mob should not be able to kill it during this time (Aegis or something like that) but stay bound to it. Breaks on Damage.
This would add the possibility to structure the fights a bit more instead of just dodge-zerging.
problem is; a lot of gamers (mmos especially) are really young, or angry people.
its an immature gaming genre i think.
Yep. And that’s the reason for devs to allow themselves to behave like they want.
Dev: I promise you A.
Community: Great. We’ll buy it.
[some weeks and a few patches later …]
Community: WTF about A???
Dev: Uhm, I never ment A when I said A, because there’s a difference between meaning and saying, u know?! In fact, I promised a.
Young Gamer: Never mind. a is ok. It’s not A but fortunately it’s not B.
Dev: b.
YG: yes, yes, yes. never mind. stop about it. I’ll keep playing.
[some weeks and a few patches later …]
YG: hey dev, I know you promised us a, but this feels like B.
Dev: No, no, no, no, no. You’re totally wrong. Maybe it feels like B but it’s more like a with a slight flavour of b. But allover it’s a.
YG: Ah, thanks for the explanation. well, “allover” is more than 50% i guess? I’ll keep playin’.
[some weeks and a few patches later …]
YG: hey dev, this could never be a, this is obviously B now.
Dev: No, no, no, no, no. You’re totally wrong. Because it’s c. Better than a and b together. I promise.
YG: Wow! You’re so great. tbh, I never thought about c till now. You’re fantastic. I’ll keep playin’.
To be continued.
Or not.
(edited by Lanhelin.3480)
I quit playing GW2 because of the post-release-introduced vertical gear treadmill and the reaffirmed vertical progression on reddit by Chris. I’m playing another MMO now. I do not have enough time to play two MMOs. And I do not want to have time to play a game, whose developer lied to the customers. Some years ago I might have given a kitten about such issue and still kept playing an otherwise good game, but the older I get the more I feel kind of bound in honor not to accept such behavior anymore, especially when shown by “holy devs”. It’s sad for my guild, but to my mind being against vertical progression and not quitting would be bigot. Everybody has to make her/his own decision about how to react proper as a player and member of the mmo-community to this and my conclusions drawn from it was to quit.
1. I check the forums sometimes, if there was a reversion to the old design philosophy.
2. On Monday 12th when the rumor about the changes came up, I stopped playing and so far I have not doubleclicked the GW2 icon on my desktop anymore.
3. Disagreement with changes in design philosophy caused me to quit the game.
My guess is, these people are indifferent to the idea, and presumably they far out number us here.
No, they are not more than us. Because the ingame chat is pretty unimportant while playing, if you do not look for a group. When I noticed this patch news, I couldn’t stay logged into the game, because there was nearly no response to my thoughts about it in the ingame chat. So I decided to go to the official forums. These people who participated in LA’s event probably never have heard a single word about this issue. Join the strike.
Occupy Lion’s Arch!
rp against progress!
In case of policeforces reading this forum, I have to admit: we have no leader! there’s nobody to make responsible for the strike, there’s just the 99%. And yes to rp against progress!
They dont care about loggin in to the game, A-Net cares about our money….or is it NC-Soft? I decided not to buy anything here since this came up, this is not the game i bought.
You shouldn’t log in, because the only way for Anet to get predictable information about players is their ingame-statistics. If you log in then you are one of those, who are potential gem buyers in the future because of upcoming “features for progress”. If you do not want these patch changes, and do not support Anets way they are going right now, do not log in to the game until Anet rows back. Join the strike.
I think we really are in the minority. I haven’t seen anyone complain about this in the game. If anything people seem happy about it. I’m sad though.
No, we are the majority. The reason you haven’t seen complains about it is because the majority is not in the game anymore.
We have to go on strike. The We-just-log-in-for-Skin-Strike. No playing, no trading, no gem buying, nothing. We only log into the Forums to declare our displeasure until Anet rows back. This might take a few weeks, but it is necessary. This is the only way to get what we want. Less logged-in players results in less countable data and is unfortunately the only statistics Anet and NCSoft will react to. Forums are designed to give enough time and space for sstorms, but this is serious. We go on strike. And it’s done, when it’s done (:p at all developers out there).
I haven’t logged in to the game since Monday when the news about the patch arised – and many players participated – and do so till now. Because we are the community and we are the customers and we decide about rise and fall.
If you like to join us, stay out of the game but stay logged in to the forums. And keep declaring your displeasure. We are the majority.
wejustlogin4skin – because we are the 99%
Sounds like, sometimes you get Ascended, sometimes you get one with a free Infusion in it. I could be wrong.
Hope you’re right and rare infusion-built-in Ascendeds have the same stats as normal infused Ascendeds. The blog article should have been more precise about this.
“Ascended gear works a little bit differently than other gear types. The stats and functionality normally added to gear through upgrade components are actually built into Ascended items. Instead of upgrade slots, Ascended gear has Infusion slots, and rarer versions of the items also come with additional Agony Resistance built into them.”
source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/
So will we get:
Rank 3. Exotic
Rank 2. Ascended
Rank 1. Rare Ascended/Legendary
? What do you think about it?
“Combat in Guild Wars 2 is flexible, fast-paced, and dynamic. You’ll achieve victory through timing, dodging, and quick thinking, not immobile number-crunching.”
Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/
So how does this fit to “slightly better” armour and infusions “that make characters even more powerful”? I thought there would be a limit at max level for Numbers, but apparently you can always count a +1 … even in GW2.
Anyone think that maybe, just maybe, these new “ascended Items” are just gear pieces made for this particular dungeon (and likely for similar future dungeons), where you might have to upgrade your “infusions” based on certain fractals?
In a Skill&Skin-Game like GW2 probably not.
@2:14 orly? … lol, nah.
For example, the ~50 something champion Spider Queen in northern Fireheart Rise – I kited this thing to the nearby fort, then cripple kited it around inside the fort for ~20m until finally downing it. No other class in the game could solo that thing.
True. Yesterday I soloed two Champions in Frostgorge Sound. Both in the very north of the map, near the skillpoint challenge. It was this walking plant and a melee hitting Iceguy, who also throwed his Sword/Axe and used a backkicking bubble. It took me a while (about 10 Minutes each), and during the first fight several normal mobs and during the second fight two veterans respawned too, but all of them died before I did. All I had to do was running in a circle constantly, autoattack with my staff, putting Chaosstorm on the ground and resummon my Illusions.
I’m pretty sure no other profession could do this alone. Especially with respawn during and/or other mobs joining a kite-fight.
But there are Champions too that even Mesmers can’t solo, e.g. the Hylek Champ in Brisban Wildness or the Fire Shaman in Iron Marches. You need at least two players for reviving issues^^
@Dwelve
Mesmer isn’t a burst class. Fights will always last a bit longer compared to certain other professions, like warriors or thiefs. But the survivability is unrivaled.
If you like the Staff I’d recommend a condition build with passive phantasm enhancement like 0 / 15 (II) / 25 (V, X) / 10 (VI) / 20 (III, VI) – which I am using currently and have used in the champ-fights mentioned above. This is not a shatter-build, the illusions are much more effective when alive or killed by mobs. Burning can crit (and can be applied by yourself and your three staff-clones spamming Winds of Chaos). Phantasms get fury, bleed on crit (as do clones) and retaliation. I prefer 10 Points in Inspiration, because mobs not always target illusions, and in this case I like to run faster than they do ;-)
I feel while the utilities and gadgets are fun, they hit like a wet noodle.
I play a Turret-Build, with Pistol/Shield too (lvl 61 atm). I think the “wet noodle” feeling results from comparison with glasscannon builds. While they allow much burst damage, and are great for a group of normal mobs not moving and/or close together, those players often have problems with certain veterans and champions or nearly instant respawn or many enemies doing ranged dmg, because everything that’s still alive after the burst or joins the battle later, is dangerous because of cooldowns and hardly any defense skills.
I tried a grenade build, but I hate the button smashing and love the Pistol/Shield Turret Build instead, so I switched back. I prefer to do lesser damage but survive most encounters, especially longlasting fights due to nearly instant respawn. Or soloing events because there are no other players.
In general I’d say, it depends on the build: if you want to survive most situations, you have to accept lesser dmg done and longer lasting fights. If you want to do more damage, you have to accept, that you will die a lot more often and need help in much more situations.
I’d like to know what causes the “bad link” error, when I post a link in the forums and try to get there? It also happens with links posted by other users, most of them are links to skillbuilders. I use Safari and Firefox and it happens with both.
I do 0/15/25/10/20 (dungeon/solo – pvp not yet tested) :
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgIQNAW8dlwzaqXazgGaNJhZGBH5nKQdUKwe2LfA3A;TEBAzypESJlSNlSKqmMNJay2krJZTLRGLciYDyLCA
Most of the time I use the staff, I only shatter my illusions in dungeons and use the null field instead of the signet there. In Open World PvE I buff them and myself with Battle Roar which grants an additional 20% critchance (burning, bleeding on crit, direct damage for iWarlock/Warden) and two times might which increases power and condition damage. If WoC hits me (or other players affected by br), it increases the might-boons up to 4-6 during the whole fight, fury lasts longer too. I’m pretty sure the Charr Racial is the one and only skill out there which can strengthen your illusions a while, when you are on your own.
But nevertheless I think this build is suitable for all races, e.g. use the signet of illusions instead of the racial or whatever you might prefer.
10 Points to Inspiration to get the Move faster trait, because with the condition build I do a lot of kiting and like to run faster than most of the mobs ;-)
(edited by Lanhelin.3480)
i don’t remember the name of the zone, but somewhere in a level 40-50 region i guess, there’s a cave with a big chest in it, and four(!) skritt veterans guarding it. when i was there with my engineer, i managed to kill three one by one, but when i startet to fight against the fourth the first one respawned and i got its attention, because i had to avoid some attacks by rolling around. i killed the last one and fought the first one – when the second one respawned – and so on. about 20 minutes non-stop-solo-fight later i stopped it, just ran to the chest and opened it, tried to flee, but all the other trash i killed on my way there clearly did respawn too and i died in that cave. i didn’t see any other player there :/
We are actively improving our means of detecting ‘bot’ activity in the game automatically.
bots detect bots?
For me. I’m a new player. Hi you doing. First time I entered here I didn’t know what to expect. I found myself worthy to play a great game that is crippling the top mmo and shattering it into a thousand pieces.
I converted to guild wars 2 and I have no shame in that.
tru bro, 4 me 2