Guild Wars 2

i was curious as to whether the cursed shore map completion (2 lvl 80 rares) has a chance to reward a precursor? and if so; any videos/pics?

three main options are

sparks farming is probably the best way to get them directly (currently going for foefires essence and azureflame myself, 78/200 lodestones) i average 1/2 per hour with 100-200% MF… but thats still a long time and horribly tedious

CoE farming is where i got most of mine though its extremely RNG; ive done runs where ive gotten lodestones/core every other chest, and then ive done runs where i havent gotten any charged anything over all three paths… but has the bonus of tokens and gold (the tokens you can trade in for rare helms and transmute for ecto or use to furnish alts)

gold farm>buy

- fractals are even more random than CoE in my experience

Zackie.8923:

nobody will get an underwater legendary unless the whole continent sinks in the new expansion pack

but i have to agree it looks cool

and i like your signature

its the legendary that most appeals to me atm (even if the only place id use it would be jellyfish fractal/hotm)
… plus i already have the gift of battle/metal and 77 clovers clogging up my bank

ive been in a fractal run with a warr that had one (although we didnt actually do jellyfish; he just linked it to boast xD)

i saw on a warr vid on youtube that it makes projectiles mini sharks; was wondering what spear of light looked like but couldnt find any vid for a guard; anyone have it/know where i can find a video of it?

not just scepter; no clone should destroy a phantasm, deceptive evasion, decoy, blocks and mirror images

Manekk.6981:

I don’t think we or anyone should be able to see through stealth with any abilities channels should also stop following stealthed players, I think the fix is to give thieves less access to stealth it seems totally broken to me the way it is to have stealth be a combat mechanic that is reused over and over virtually endlessly, I know you weren’t really talking about the stealth mechanic in that sense btw I just kinda slipped in that direction.

id agree with you; only if stealth traits were nerfed to the ground, have you fought a p/d thief? to stop them healing you need to keep them away from you so they cant C+D; then they can pop out of stealth at full health; though this becomes much harder since they can just C+D off pets and other random mobs

hmmm i was wondering what caused this (i cant swap to water whilst strafing); but i have a decent keyboard (TT esports ultimate); thats a shame "/

swinsk.6410:

What class do you play? Why don’t we invent a trap for rangers that doesn’t allow them to evade for 30s?

dont thieves have nearly constant evasion if built right?

Curo.2483:

I personally wouldn’t charge for my portals for the following reasons:

1) People will flame you in chat for it.
2) Another mesmer will most likely offer it for free.
3) People are less likely to give you money because they think you are greedy.
4) I find charging a large amount excludes the poorer players.
5) I get enough money from tips.
6) I’d feel bad about taking advantage of people that can’t do jp’s.

if im on my mesmer i purposefully go and complete the same puzzle just so i can port for free

gold find for dungeon farming (many bosses give 10+s)
magic find for any other kind of farming (lodestones/des)

oh look; i get to share my pictures again
atleast your sylvari is heavy armour (so all that i can see clipping – aside from the sword – is one of the TA spikes); go for light or medium t3 and any backpiece clips like crazy

id like to know this too; i wasnt attacking for half of the fights because id end up killing myself

Munkee.3542:

Maybe even a fear unique to the Mesmer similar to how Necros are getting a unique condition.

like a lure; ‘come here’ sort of anti fear?

you would have more luck posting this in the engi forum…

StinVec.3621:

Linguistically Inept.6583:

“…but only one attatchment per post it seems”)

1. Choose an image to attach
2. Preview your post
3. Attach another image
4. Repeat until 10 images or whatever the maximum is

ah ty; dont see why it needs to be that work-around ish though

I think every back piece should be dyable…
but my annoyance is how it clips so badly with t3 light and medium shoulders (i also have a pic of one of my necros; but only one attatchment per post it seems "/)

SkylightMoon.1980:

Today while ive played ive tried to keep an eye out for hints about the living story. Hopefully we can get this thread bigger to draw more attention, gather more opinions. I think Canach is the villain behind F&F as well. Its pretty certain that he is the villain for southsun, after consulting the achievements list. We see the need to subdue Canach, Subdirector Noll, some golem, and an ancient Karka. Canach is also a sylvari which raised my suspicions even more as to whether or not he was behind F&F. Is he with the nightmare court? Also, back in F&F, one of the Molten Alliance prisoners said a silver-tongued, SNAKE-NOSED, figured betrayed them. Or at least the figure was the instigator of all of this. I dont know if snake-nosed is an expression, but if its to be taken literally then that fits a sylvari perfectly. The question is what is the connection with southsun? Did Canach rain all hell down upon the shiverpeaks and diessa just to get some folk down to southsun? For some sort of sacrifice? Does this have to do with bubbles the deep sea dragon? I did suspect it might after viewing the sclerite weapon skins and back piece, they look very Cthulu like. Perhaps some ritual needs to take place, I dont know. Anyway let the speculation begin!!!

im holding out for a largos; dont see enough of them

for dungeons go zerk or rampagers (with a bit of knights/apothecary mixed in if you want a bit more durability)

a mixture of zerk and knights is the best imo; but a trapper could get away with condition damage

Kanto.1659:

Sword:

• Did not test. Being in full berserker gear and attacking in melee range is not an option for many and that includes me. I have a guardian for melee, and I prefer to play range on my mesmer.

*
*
*

you are missing out; sword+focus is beastly in pve (dungeons specifically) and has enough mitigation (blurred) and projectile control (all focus skills if traited and feedback) to survive easily in most encounters (whilst wearing full zerk; i have no trouble)

ileap+blurred frenzy makes sword+x i good choice in pvp/wvw too

Yamsandjams.3267:

The scepter damage on my mesmer was really awesome, with as many clones as I could need, a block combo, and the nice confusion stacks. Then the torch would give me some burning, blast finisher, and more confusion with retaliation. It was really boss.

Then I used iZerker..........................

torch is a really bad offhand; i seem to recall seeing some numbers that showed that duelist/swordsman outdpsed it (duelist can even work as a good cond phantasm; mine do 6+ stacks of bleed per volley - and traited each hit is 100% finisher; which could be combined with feedback for nice confusion)

AlBundy.7851:

Maybe you want to hear us say poor Mesmer’s they have it so hard

no; im trying to say they’re different (and thats what this thread seems to be; apart from being from the warrs perspective)

Firefly.5982:

Why is this funny to you? You are taking ONE mesmer GS skill and complain about it...the rest of mesmer GS skills are useless dmg wise, which can not be said about warrior GS skills. Seriously...warriors complaining about not enough dmg output, really? O_o

^ this; except #2 is pretty nice
#1 does horrible damage (even at max range; at lower than max range its basically tickling the foe)
#3 im fairly sure is a dps loss over max range spatial surge; is too small to strategically target to hit multiple foes (so why isnt it target centered or a blast finisher?)
#5 is situational (and hella annoying in dungeons; ive almost ragequitted because of mesmers spamming this so often); you can use it to get back some distance but 450 distance means your AA is going to do crap all; izerker will be on CD, in pvp /wvw classes (with good players) will close the distance very quickly (oh look; whirlind is 40 range \o/) which leaves you with only #2 (if its off cooldown), the best use for it is knocking mobs into walls (although i prefer focus for that), thieves out of refuges or enemies off points

- im not saying its a horrible weapon though

AlBundy.7851:

izerker does terrible damage? really? Mesmer’s usually can get away with rolling glass with lil to no downside and that izerker does way more than 2k damage. I just got hit with it a couple times in wvw and it was 6k each time.

thats because its extremely random
go over to the mesmer forum and you’ll understand
most of mine only hit one spin, compared to any other phantasm (except maybe torch and staff; havent used those in a phant build) they are low damage

(im also curious; is your char a norn/charr? ive been wondering if that affects amount of hits; though i still hit only 2k~ on bloomhunger; which id guess has a massive hit box – im a full GC phant build)

also WW;
- gives the user evasion (even i zerks dont evade during their attack)
- is easily targetted into a wall or rock for better damage (more so in pve)
- is a whirl finisher
- has a 10s cd (izerk has 16 with both traits)

michael.1735:

that mesmer greatsword ability phantasmal berserker do more dmg then warrior whirlwind attack its only a clone and they can even summon 3 of them over 30 seconds

izerker does terrible damage (well… its extremely random; but mine tend to hit for 2k), my duelists hit 5k+ and wardens 7k+, any phantasm build mesmer should be using scepter+pistol(/sword)

WW>izerk

banner of disc is one of the best warr utilities in dungeons (along with FGJ)

Setun.4368:

For the OP, next time you and a ranger are both down at the same time aim for his pet. If his pet is dead he can’t use it to heal himself.

incorrect; lick wounds heals a pet if its dead; and the ranger can swap pets (f4) then lick wounds

Forestgreen.7981:

Ranger downed state in the water is absolutely broken, get a bear pet and have him endless res you while your stalling capture in underwater point.

I have no idea why A-Net left that oversight, it’s impossible to kill a ranger atm with less than 3 players in the water.

^this i agree with (except you dont need the bear; any pet works as it continues ressing once the pet dies – which; along with the no water stomps; is why its so broken)
i can see an ele and another high dps class duo killing a ranger underwater though; ele has a ton of sinks/floats that can be used so the ranger cant activate lick wounds

Razor.9872:

There are so many legendaries that are “designed” towards the ranger.
For example:
Frostfang -> Winter’s Bite
The Howler -> Call of the Wild [Mix of snake/wolf]
Kudzu -> [It’s just nature-y]
Frenzy -> Feeding Frenzy [both the legendary and the skill involve piranhas]
Kamohoali’i Kotaki -> Dart [Sharks!]

rodgort fits pretty well too
ranger even has a few lightning based abilties that can be used to argue for bolt

Skelemiere.3094:

Before all you rangers get biased..think about it. Who would win in a one vs one downed state, a profession that can revive himself in a downed state(ranger), or a profession who cannot..(others) To be honest, only a Warrior stands a chance against a ranger in a downedstate. But they have to be real close or the invulnerability will run out..

i think you can interrupt the pet whilst its licking the ranger; i recall seeing a thread on the necro forums and the advice was to save their down#2 fear for when the ranger used lick wounds

but your comparison is flawed; thief can get out of group fights whilst downed easily, guard can still support pretty kitten well whilst downed (ive been ressed and have ressed by/as a guard whilst downed from the healing symbol – it even heals the person trying to res the guard; OP), different classes downed states excel at different things

LameFox.6349:

Scoobaniec.9561:

LameFox.6349:

Forestgreen.7981:

Sadly unlike an engineer who can just revive themselves twice…

um… what?

Hes talking about tossing elixir r before getting downed i believe. Not sure if that was fixed but engi was able to rez hisself in downed state – just like vengeance but without vengeance debuff at all.

People actually use that in practice? I suppose it wouldn’t be too hard in PvE or maybe on a wall in WvW (though why you’d not back out of incoming damage idk) but otherwise I figured it’d just make whoever killed you wonder what you were doing.

Rangers can do the same with spirit of nature renew; its the only benefit of spirit actives having a cast time

- i actually think vengeance is quite a nice downed ability; if it comes down to a ‘downed battle’ vengance is pretty good (definitely comparable with lick wounds and… the guardian symbol heal i cant recall the name of)… though having to trait it (or fight with RNG) is bad… and you should rally if you leave combat (so people cant just run away and leave you to die)
warr downed #1 hits pretty hard
warr downed #2 sucks… but its not as bad as engis imo (both have a very obvious wind up)

… mesmers down state isnt OP unless you’re an idiot who attacks through the confusion; #2 is very obvious as the real mesmer always unstealths after the clone (and its a fight with RNG as to whether they teleport far enough away to cancel the stomp – if they time it properly they should still be stealthed at completion of the channel thoguh)

ranger has a really strong downed state though; aoe stun whilst retaining full control of pets (canines and spiders whilst downed <3) is really nice (and underwater lick wounds… well… nothing is killing a ranger underwater short of an army), thats balanced (except underwater; which needs nerfing) by it hitting like a wet noodle with #1

(
faster cast
combined charges into one weapon (30-50)
remove charges
only 1 conjure spell that functions like a glyph (conjures the weapon depending on what attunement it is cast it – might function oddly with attunement swaps; making the weapon change with your attunements hurts the PvE LH build, but could be interesting in pve/wvw)

fire axe #2 should be a blast finisher
shield #1 attack half as fast whilst hitting twice as hard
shield #2 pulls enemies towards you on its way back
shield #… icr; but fortify, should either allow movement (adding a tunneling toy like effect to the bottom) or reflect projectiles
hammer #4 instant cast
bow #1 should be buffed to be comparable to water blast (more damage or more healing; or something that makes it not plain worse)
bow #2 pierce

BlackBeard.2873:

They could even make them be “pre-charged” like mesmer mantras if they don’t think weapons appearing out of nowhere makes sense.

really like that idea

shield is amazing in dungeons (any with projectiles; not just fractals)
ive seen a few people use bow in dungeons too; but it doesnt… have a great impact

GS sounds nice; but doesnt really need another reason for every warr to use in pve (fire field&gt;bannerblast; takes away one of longbows niches)

axe... not too keen on the sound of; vulnerability is nice sure; but its... a bit... meh

mace... love it; but itd be mostly used at 1bar just for something like an instant savage leap/evis through

sword... nothing really to say

longbow,... like; but i think itd be more fun (/annnoying) if it were ground targetted (and the same size aoe as a single nade), or maybe a line (with similar targetting to WW)

rifle... nice; how much range/damage though

hammer... bit too similar to RoW for my liking

shield; nice... but that +endure pain+endure pain trait+shield stance+whirlwind attack+dodges seems like a lot of mitigation; maybe balanced by a slower move speed as well?

warhorn... like; not used enough

warr is a blunt simple upfront fighter in theme; i dont think superior combo abilities would make sense and also has crazy access to finishers
-all banners are basically 2 blast finishers each (though the second require them to be picked up again
-blast finishers on arcing arrow, call to arms and earthshaker, three different weapons
-leap finishers on savage leap, eviscerate and shield bash
-whirl finishers on GS and axe (whirling axe inside a field is absolutely crazy)
-physical utilities (blast and leap afaik; i dont use them though)

the easiest comparison is S/D ele which has 1 fire field (thats all) and…
dragon tooth
phoenix
earthquake
churning earth
evasive arcana dodge in earth (30pt trait)
arcane wave (utility)

when you switch to staff you gain four fields (2 water, an ice and a lihgtning), but go down to one finisher on weapon (which is a bit tricky to land) and one on utility

… and then look at ranger; healing spring, bonfire, fire trap and frost trap… but
2 leap finishers (monarchs leap being a bit more annoying to do if you havent already hornet… stung…. stinged… used hornets sting)
1 whirl finisher… which lasts for a long time; but OH axe is such a weak weapon on ranger, its only redeeming feature being the projectile defence; but the cost of that is total immobility

you could probably count the drake blast too; but pets dont always use their abilities as you want

edit
forgot to mention projectile finishers
traited longbow auto attack is a 2* 100% combo finisher
s/d gets 5 100% projectiles (that i can recall; havent used scepter in a while); the rock barrier; which means sacrificing defence

Thrashbarg.9820:

Lightning hammer won’t get near it’s damage potential unless you re-stat and at least partially re-gear. It’s damage comes from maximizing crit-damage and % damage add traits. Boon duration runes and 30 arcane takes several hundred off your power and a good chunk from precision and crit damage.

i didnt mean have lightning hammer with my current set up; but since ele is my next char in line for asc gear i want to make sure i get it right (also i dont want to keep wasting transmutation stones)

Thrashbarg.9820:

If you want to get a feel for it just re-trait to something like the lightning hammer dps build floating around this forum, keeping your same armors and weapons. It won’t be quite as hard hitting, but still benefits from the aoe blind and blast spam.

again; i dont plan on keeping my current armour if i do switch to a hammer build

Thrashbarg.9820:

I like staff and scepter better for most PvE than D/D. Staff works good with auramancer build, better than D/D even since the shocking aura nerfs/fixes. Scepter/X only has one aura, so really kinda a waste of traits for those weapon sets, when using a scepter, just swap aura traits to something that adds damage or other useful majors.

im aware of the weapons (i have 376hrs on my ele, 1700 hrs total… wow thats… excessive), im more interested in how people approach them in dungeons

Kirbyprime.2645:

I honestly don’t think Thor is worth it in pugs. The build relies on others to buff you so that your multipliers shine, something you will not get in pugs.

thats what i was worried about; but then i realised that vulnerabiltity is really common (even if its only a couple of stacks), whilst guardian ele ranger (cond damage though "/) and engi (nader) can all keep pretty decent burn uptime (i could never give up vigor on crit; so it only needs burning and vuln for multipliers – if i guessed the traits wrong; was too lazy to check)
… but then my current ele puts out perm 9-12 stacks of aoe might, perm fury for myself (decent uptime for team) and nice group healing/cleansing ability

(i realised i didnt attatch my current eles pic; that one on the first post is what im planning on it looking like finally; but i dont want to waste transmutation stones -the gear is still a bit messed up; crit damage not optimised; need to get celestial trinkets and was planning on swapping out my soldier daggers for berserker ones)

in pug dungeons; which do you think brings more to the table?

im currently running auramancer with might stacking (standard 0/10/0/30/30, 60% boon duration with knights/zerker armour, soldier daggers(battle+bloodlust) and (2/5) celestial trinkets), but the lightning hammer (and staff/S+X) really appeals to me

i dont really have the resources to deck him out in an alternate set of gear atm, so wanted an opinion before i invest more time/gold/transtones into it

ranger, warr and guard

- mesmer is horrible to solo level imo

if a dungeon is contested my first ‘blind guest’ is always to viz as it seems to have them uncontested more than most servers; so they seem to be pretty good with those (although you dont need to transfer to enjoy it)
- if you dont speak french then id suggest desolation too; the only problem is we have major trouble getting wvw completion

mesmer and ele from low level imo, necro at a bit higher level

you need to know the mesmer class
- know all the ways to identify the real mesmer
—attacks faster
— move in any direction (illusions will only move towards you – except iswords…)
—jumps
—uses skills
… basically… if they do anything; its not a fake
- know the builds
— if that mesmer has a staff; your CC isnt going to work well
- knock out phantasms as much as possible (especially against phantasm mesmers)
- be careful when mauling through illusions (could be traited to inflict conditions on death)
- watch for ret and confusion
- expect (and dodge INTO) shatters

and dont blow everything; always have something up your sleeve… gauntlet, and try to identify what kind of build they are using

Michael.5179:

Thank you all for your feedback, it was very helpful. I love the fact that Mesmer have some really nice utility skills for almost any situation.
I’m curious a little about this BM ranger I’ve been hearing about since patch with the extra buffs to pets…How viable is a BM ranger in a dungeon? Is it all just tank and pet do most the dps?
Also with the mesmer, I just don’t want to get people all kitten if I decide to say no on portal and or time warp at times. I’m sure it gets somewhat annoying after a bit?..especially for CoF.

BM ranger isnt great at dungeons… ranger is horrible at dungeons… i love my ranger… its just… not a dungeon class imo (it has some nice things; healing spring… fury… S+R… but… its not… good)

people asking for portals doesnt annoy me (but i dont exclusively play my mesmer; so i dont get it all the time), it just makes me feel more awesome, because i carried them past some ridiculously easy spacebar test
… TW on the other hand… is annoying… its good… but the others just suck in comparison (i mean dungeons of course), moa morph is only really useful in pvp/wvw and mass invisibility is too situational to use consistently

they’re available at the commendation merchant
… but they dont look as good as that picture…

mesmer>ranger for dungeons
ranger>mesmer for open world PvE
wvw… is subjective, im sure many people think mesmer is better, but i much prefer my ranger (mesmer is undoubtedly better in a zerg vs zerg though)
spvp… is subjective, i like both, but my BM ranger is more fun imo

what is skill queing?

1. imo knights is the best gear for solo pve, zerker shines in dungeons and groups
2. blood, fire, bloodlust, force and accuracy are normally used for pve warrs
3. mainhand axe is a good weapon for pve; offhand sword doesnt synergise well with it though (on the flip side MH sword and offhand axe synergise brilliantly), longbow is good due to its aoe ranged capabilities (and the ranged trait projectile finisher is underrated in field heavy dungeon comps)
4. for dungeons; the favoured banner is discipline (+prec +critdamg), for great justice and shake it off are almost always solid choices, signet of stamina is nice for when you have to dodge often (but shake it off is better otherwise), endure pain and balanced stance also have their place in certain encounters… others are more build orientated imo… (but dont go 5sig warr in dungeons), as a general rule its always best to keep a cleanse and stunbreaker on your bar (luckily shake it off functions as both)

-though im not pro so; salt and stuff

go for sword/focus on your mesmer? its much more… involving than GS, group mobs up with temporal curtain, lock them in place with ileap, cleave through them with auto and warden (phantasm build wardens hit ridiculously hard), whilst reflecting projectiles with your wardens feedback trait (and you have to pay extra attention to dodge/blur attacks)

… it sounds like you just sit and ranged, which is boring on every class

i assume you mean somewhere in the green third of EB? but i still dont understand, if they arent submerged they wouldnt be able to use the supercharged underwater lick wounds

- as to the stomp fails; if you didnt get hit by paralysing venom, canine (/porcine) CC or the lightning flash (not that it recharges fast enough to stun three times in a row on its own – ive managed lightning>howl>lightning>wolf leap quite a lot on players who dont hurry up to finish me) then it sounds fishy or laggy (ive tried to res people only to find out that they’re in a different place to where they appear to me – and the other people standing around them spamming f to no avail)

i hate my warr in wvw… i had a tanky build that was fun abusing the reflect on block… but i just feel so… meh with anything else
i didnt find sniping nubs with rifle as fun as people claim either "/

Blackbird.4382:

Like I said, it was more like a swamp. We were in water, but not underneath the surface. It wasn’t deep enough to go under.

so it wasnt underwater? were you interrupted three times by the lightning flash, wolf howl and then lightning flash again? as soon as a ranger goes into water their pet should switch to an aquatic version
(im sorry; i just dont understand what you mean- ive stood next to underwater downed players on temple -near tranquility- and dont get an option to stomp)

Blackbird.4382:

I downed a ranger the other day in a swamp area. Not enough water to go underneath. I had some pressure, so it took me about 5 seconds to get to him to try and stomp. He interupted me, so I started attacking. His pet got there and started to heal. I went back to stomp, and I failed on 3 straight attempts. Any why that might have been?

you cant stomp underwater? if you could then ranger would be a lot less OP there

i cant really see it "/

lick wounds is pretty OP underwater

… actually thats an understatement… its basically god mode once you use it
dont think it counts as an exploit; but Anet does need to nerf it; ive only been killed once underwater; and that was by a smart team who alternated sink/floats so i couldnt activate lick wounds (whilst DPSing me ofcourse), but it was 4 people; and atleast one was an ele (3 underwater controls)

-i make sure the enemy know that my downed state is kitten OP when im on my ranger
-i also mutter and curse under my breath when i fight a non-GC ranger underwater

honestly; both are very lacking in taking down groups; though id have to say it probably tips in necros favour; wells, DS4, epidemic, locust swarm… etc… but sadly it has no weapon with an auto attack that cleaves, which leaves its only reliable aoe damage condition based (marks and epidemic)
… i levelled mine with a power build; use staff one to grab mob aggro then well/mark bombed and they normally died… but then id have to wait a bit for recharge (so id take mobs 1 by 1 with dagger+warhorn

mesmer is a pain to level because its aoe and repetitive killing power is weak (phantasms take so long to recharge; and shatters are a massive pain to pull off continously)… i finally got levelled mine using a staff build; but you really need 3 illusions up to do as much damage as any other class… its more fun in dungeons, wvw and pvp than necro though imo