Guild Wars 2

Deejjster.3702:

MailMail.6534:

Despite my opinion, there are plenty of people rekting faces in WvW with shatter, and here are some awesome videos of such:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/VIDEO-Lumenel-Roaming-Shatter-Mesmer/first#post4967505.

@MailMail, Thank you for the kind words and video link. Glad you enjoyed it! Another video coming in about…15 mins. With more of the music you like :p

<3 Lumi

Of course! I’m always trying to be helpful and supportive of my fellow Mesmers! Looking forward to your next video and of course the music! <3

CS is so underrated.

This reminds me of the Power Block nerf, except it took Anet a hot second to “fix” that, while it’s taking ages for them to fix turrets. Hmmm

ArrDee.2573:

You guys are still talking about silly maths! Crazy guys! Just crazy! This can be resolved so easily! Either it’s bugged and who cares because it’s strong enough as is! Anet has a huge list of bugs that turn into features! Or it’s not bugged in which case why the frickfrack are you guys typing in this thread!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

-1

Talking maths is fun!

Definitely best thread 2015

I am absolutely loving this thread!!! lol Statistical analyses & methods ftw.

Ross Biddle.2367:

MailMail.6534:

Came for the music. It was subpar.

lol

But in other news, I enjoyed seeing Tealots back in the game! Nice duo gameplay there!

I feel so… cheated and taken advantage of.

Came for the music. It was subpar.

The conditions part seems really insensible to me. There’s no rhyme or reason why bleeding should effect turrets. Since when do they have blood?!

While they need a significant nerf, them being susceptible to non-burning conditions makes ZERO sense. I think the ability to be critically hit and maybe a slight dmg decrease would be more than sufficient.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Fay.2357:

MailMail.6534:

Sebrent.3625:

But we have Shattered Concentration, MH Sword, Greatsword, Null Field, and Phantasmal Disenchanter for removing boons … all on shorter cooldowns (if a cooldown at all).

There’s drawbacks and advantages to all those skills you listed. Also, if you aren’t running power shatter, your use of utilities become instantly much more variable. AT is not a great skill by far, but when functioning properly, I see niche uses where it is pretty effective.

Generally speaking, AT is a worse boon strip than almost every other option in every build. It’s also a worse condition removal than almost every other option in every build.

AT is only worth putting on your bar if you get mileage out of the actual steal…and that’s incredibly unreliable unless you know exactly what and how you’ll be fighting.

I’m going to add to this that unless AT is double traited it has no place on the bar. Failing because your target happened to slip out of 900 range is just horrible. Being unable to reach your target because they’re fleeing even while still within the 1200 range effect of other ranges skills just makes the whole thing redundant.

Without the CD reduction, the skill should be wholly deleted from the game. AT is something you make work when you’re taking two traits to bulk up your Blink, and just so happen to benefit AT.

This is usually when I use it. lol

Sebrent.3625:

But we have Shattered Concentration, MH Sword, Greatsword, Null Field, and Phantasmal Disenchanter for removing boons … all on shorter cooldowns (if a cooldown at all).

There’s drawbacks and advantages to all those skills you listed. Also, if you aren’t running power shatter, your use of utilities become instantly much more variable. AT is not a great skill by far, but when functioning properly, I see niche uses where it is pretty effective.

But on hindsight, even if it did, I would rather not LOS as it’s like depending on other things to win a fight. I really dislike LOSing

That’s a really weird thing to say. lol It’s a basic tactic that players use in any fight. You shouldn’t feel bad about utilizing it!

good for you and good luck! I’ll be glad to help. Statistics is a fantastic tool for life! One of my favorite subjects.

Maybe it was a signet build (see link in my signature). They’re easy to spot if they’re using signets and distortion.

While it’s a fantastic dueler, the best way to beat it is to unload an offensive front asap. This will force them to use their signets and lose out on their passive effects and condi clears. I’d also cleave iDuelist if possible.The longer the battle goes, the more likely the signet mesmer will win.

eta- oops just looked at the video. Definitely PU condi using pistol for bleeds over extra stealth with torch.

The unicorn finisher is a perfect match for Mesmer.

I feel like people are actually coming to a point of understanding.

Fay.2357:

I’m pretty sure this was fixed quite a long time ago. I could be wrong though.

I must assume that when you say “a long time ago” you must mean like a month ago, because that’s the last time I heavily used it, and it was not fixed as the OP describes.

I’ll be testing it out soon. Hopefully it really was changed to work efficiently.

eta- Now I’m just waiting for them to combine the Manipulation traits, and it’ll make AT a lot more viable!!

Helcor.9527:

MailMail.6534:

My teams shouldn’t be punished for wanting to practice in unranked before going into ranked. It’s not our fault Anet has evidently sucked at making sure solos don’t go against premades. Instead of complaining about premades, we should be complaining that they got rid of solo q in the first place.

So you want to punish new people for trying? Seems that way bc practice has proven time and time again that its not the place for practice.

And if we were to meet on a common ground why not a practice area for teams?

Also you should understand unless youre not being truthful that people are /laugh or whatever in unranked and practice….be real at least.

I don’t want to punish new people trying. I want Anet to put solo q back in the game. In the mean time, I’m not going to hinder myself competitively because Anet wants to be ridiculous. Before I got really busy with work (before this new season), I would always play several unranked before going into ranked. This was whether I was solo or not.

Simply put, there needs to be a separate q for those wanting to solo and those wanting to go in with teams of 2-5. It’s really that simple.

I didn’t understand that last sentence of yours. Be real about what?

My teams shouldn’t be punished for wanting to practice in unranked before going into ranked. It’s not our fault Anet has evidently sucked at making sure solos don’t go against premades. Instead of complaining about premades, we should be complaining that they got rid of solo q in the first place.

If you spend more time killing npc’s before you get to lord room and timer stays the same, you will have less time to kill the lord. It’s pretty much just logic, nothing else. I never said anything about dps coordinated teams in repyling to you. I said that organized teams, assuming they have enough DPS, are very likely to kill the lord short into the game

You are forgetting that there are different issues at play here. If Archers were buffed and functioned like intended, you wouldn’t need to spend as much time killing enemy guards yourself. More time could be spent summoning heroes and stockpiling supply which is where the most pvp occurs outside of Lord fights. I know you didn’t say anything about coordinated teams in response to me, but it applies, because you’re singularity focused on increasing the play time when imo I don’t think it’s necessary when you fix other issues.

You keep saying it would bring many issues but you haven’t really stated any specifically.

Actually I did, and so has Rising Dusk. You plainly disagreed with our reasoning. I don’t see a point in going back and forth comment for comment (though I could go back and dissect your last reply on the first page) if there’s no further understanding to be had. It’s good enough to have both opinions out there to be viewed & commented on by others.

Hexin.5603:

Vod mechanic resolves all that.

Also lords and such health should regenerate out of combat. If you defend a push it should be rewarded as such. Silly to have npc’s health not recover when nothing hits them. This way its a fair battle at VoD.

All classes have the ability to spec for healing. I encountered some teams that utilized this nicely and threw me for a loop by keeping their Lord healed and buffed in between pushes. How viable this strategy would be idk, but I happen to like that the Lord doesn’t regenerate health.

Both teams can see the health bars of each Lord at the top of the screen. This helped to make the matches that much more intense in between pushes.

Laraley.7695:

MailMail.6534:

If they actually did listen to the majority of pvp community and adjusted the map, so it’s more efficient to play the map as a pvp map and not a new dungeon, the timer would need to be higher

You don’t have to increase the time limit to make this happen. One easy fix is making it harder for players to kill enemy guards and buffing Archers.

You said it yourself. It would mean there would be less time to kill the lord and more games going to timer if it stayed 15 minutes.

Your argument ‘it has to stay 15 minutes because I have work irl’ just doesn’t go along with this game mode, I’m sorry.

No, I never said it should go to timer. If you read my post, you’d know that I said I RARELY had it go to timer and didn’t understand how others were having this issue. You also admitted to not understanding how it goes to timer when coordinated teams are playing with dps builds. I agree with you. The majority of my games were with a 5 person team on ts, and I won probably 80-90% of my matches.

You can keep saying this is my entire argument all you want (lol), but like I and others have listed, there are PLENTY issues why increasing the time would be not advantageous to the game type. Being that this is gw2, if you want to bring more players into the format, increasing the time limit is simply not one of the first changes you need to make.

If they actually did listen to the majority of pvp community and adjusted the map, so it’s more efficient to play the map as a pvp map and not a new dungeon, the timer would need to be higher

You don’t have to increase the time limit to make this happen. One easy fix is making it harder for players to kill enemy guards and buffing Archers.

Thanks so much for your perspective Supcutie!!

Laraley.7695:

MailMail.6534:

I’m sorry but if you do not have time, then don’t play a game. Game mode shouldn’t be adjusted just because some people only have 20 minutes to play.

This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve read in a very long time (2 days). The forums never disappoint me.

I’m sorry but why should other players adjust to you not having time? Should we just all work around your schedule and then decide how to proceed with a new game mode built on your life? I don’t think so.

I’m going to ignore your aggressive intolerance of a segment of gw2’s gaming population and just say there are several reasons why the time limit shouldn’t be increased:

• There’s already complaints of it being too long.
• Rewards. They’d need to be adjusted and compensated for the time increase. This requires balance. Ideally, I think Anet wants to keep the formats somewhat consistent when it comes to rewards.
• Based on my experience, all of the matches (90%) were pretty close. Increasing the time could widen the gap and lower the motivation of teams. You see this sometimes in conquest when one team is utterly annihilating the other.
• There’s complaints of this format constantly ending in time-outs. While I only experienced this about 10% of the time, apparently this has been an issue for many. If you fix this issue, there is no need to extend the time limit at all.
• Increasing the time raises the risk of it becoming quite stale. This is NOT like conquest where there is a constant and intense struggle for points. There’s a lot more PvE mixed in, meaning the intensity of the match isn’t as consistent.

Onto the last point, some hate this aspect, but I love the balance. It feels like it has the potential to be much more in tune with esports. There’s a “ramp up” phase where supply is being bought and guards are taken down. Then the intense phase starts when Heroes are being summoned and Lords attacked.

I have to respectfully disagree with the OP. Shattering without the clones actually shattering makes no logical sense from a conceptual standpoint.

Unfortunately, shattering in PvE is simply unviable as phantasms do more damage over time. I’m not a PvEr, so it’s hard for me to suggest something of a rework/buff. Shattering (Classic IP) is already decently strong in PvP so it would be hard to buff them in PvE without it being OP in other formats.

Even though it’s our class mechanic, I don’t see it as such a horrible thing that we are forced down the Mantra or Phantasm route. I can see why this is frustrating to some though.

eta – maybe shatters could be changed to only shatter clones and NOT phantasms? It’d be more difficult to get a consistent 3 clone shatter, but idk. That’s a thought.

If I’m available, maybe I’ll stop in to get rekted by my fellow Mesmers. They really are my worst match ups by far when dueling. I need the practice.

So far from what I’ve seen its been Wile, BlackDevil, and friends vs you, Messiah, and MailMail over stuff like MtDs viability and the opponents y’all face.

You make it appear to be a gang war!! I think it’s a discussion worth having, but at different points, people on both sides have made the discussion non-constructive and unhelpful.

I’m sorry but if you do not have time, then don’t play a game. Game mode shouldn’t be adjusted just because some people only have 20 minutes to play.

This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve read in a very long time (2 days). The forums never disappoint me.

It’s our strongest gm in the game and rekts fools!

Pretty decent suggestions. I disagree about the hero channeling. I like that you need an interrupt to stop it, but I don’t think transformation elites should be able to channel at all. I also don’t want the game to last more than it does. The queues/wait-time are long enough. I have an actual job irl.

Great video and even better music. I’m a Mesmer main, but maybe I’ll check your stream out sometime.

If you wanna beat a thief on a zerker build, you have to have a higher skill level. There is unfortunately not much else you can do in preparation. Or you can go condi shatter and have a 60% chance of beating him.

I don’t have much experience in WvW or open world PvE, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. That being said, I don’t imagine double ranged shatter being the best in either. For roaming, I’d go with a lockdown build using sword+focus+Staff/GS. The focus will help tremendously with mobility. Despite my opinion, there are plenty of people rekting faces in WvW with shatter, and here are some awesome videos of such:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/VIDEO-Lumenel-Roaming-Shatter-Mesmer/first#post4967505
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Video-Mesmer-Roaming-Sunburst/first#post4956522

In terms of PvE, I’m not entirely sure what the best thing is for dungeons or fractals or any of that stuff. I play living story and do well enough on a zerker phantasm build using sword+focus+staff.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

Quick question since someone brought it up, what’s the use of archers? They seem like a regular NPC to me, do they have special skills?

They kill guards, but they also can be severely distracted by enemy players. They’ll probably get a buff upon release. Maybe immob, cripple or weakness shots. They appeared to be only effective under two scenarios:
1. No enemy players defending.
2. 3-5 Archers attacking an enemy player.

Maybe jportell will post his results soon. We played a few games together when I first started Stronghold, and we were both running portal. We both went offensive with IP and MtD shatter. It was fantastic.

Windwalker.7421:

I would venture to say that the majority of people participating in PvP are in the middle tier, they’re competent and experienced players, but in the game as a whole they are simply average. (I venture to say most people here belong to this group, some drifting towards the bottom, others towards the top. )

There are a ton of reasons for why a solid middle-tier player doesn’t move on to top-tier, even if they probably had at least a chance of being competitive there as well if they took the time and applied themselves: lack of time, lack of a team, no interest in making “play time” into more “work time” (I have a high paying job, thank you), etc.

People on gaming forums always act as if being a top-tier gamer is something to aspire to, but the fact is the vast majority don’t earn much more then minimum wage.
—-
snip

+1 LOL your two posts just spilled so much truth tea all over this thread.

witcher.3197:

Vamp Rook.7835:

I don’t understand this discussion:

Stronghold == GW1 GvG

So, GvG/Stronghold is not Zerg vs Zerg.

Teams of the discussion:

• WvW players who call their 20v20 zergfests ‘GvG’ and demand a gamemode for it and are disappointed that they won’t be able to zerg in the official GvG gamemode of gw2.
• GW1 players who remember what GvG actually means and welcome the gamemode.
• GW2 PvP players who understand that 5v5 is a good size for PvP.

+1

Besides, if this warped perception of GvG in gw2 is so important to some, why don’t they queue Zergyard?

I see guardian and necros being the weakest in this format. Mobility & burst or gtfo.

Yeah, I’m not seeing where Mesmer is weak in this format either. If anything, we are in the top tier along with thief, ele, ranger and engineer. I played 25+ games of stronghold with positive results, and I think I got a good grasp of our potential to do well.

When I was on Shatter, I was able to nuke enemy npcs with ease. My phantasm build also did well. I can see potential for a Mantra dps build being effective as too. And of course, I did well on MtD. I see a lot of various offensive builds being able to be used. Mostly because we don’t have to fight on a point!!! Also, Mesmer shines in small skirmishes. I can’t think of one fight where I had to engage in a 5v5 brawl. We do better in 2v2s or 3v3s.

Also, please let’s not pigeon hole portal into one role of just being for supply. Maybe Ross can account for this during our match, but I actually portaled him closer to me so that we could assault lord together instead of trickling in.

Point being, the map is freaking HUGE, and your team won’t always be roaming together. Portal is great here in several ways, especially with it on a 72s CD.

I’ve seen a lot of these opinions, and I have to respectfully disagree based on my experiences. The strategy that worked best was summon 2 archers for every 3 bombers. If you have even a single person defending the gate, your bombers WILL go down even with you there attacking and supporting. The archers surprisingly apply a lot of pressure against enemy zerkers trying to defend. I think a lot of people underestimate their dps.

Also, once the first door is down, the second is at like 50% and heroes start spawning, bombers become drastically less useful.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Build: 6/4/0/4/0 “DPS Rupt’Rounder”

Link to Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsdRlknpRtlpxGNcrNipxcyqWi0BkQDlskxB-TZBEwAGOFAh2fAwDAIbZACHBAA

Videos: http://youtu.be/PhIdujgXR6k

I’m so disappointed that I only had like 2-3 short cameos in your video. I guess I was off taking care of business elsewhere! Thanks for those games!

The only classes I see being weak in this format are guards and necros.

The stronger classes seem to be Mesmer, Thief and Ranger based on around 25 matches today. I’m not mad about it. Bring on the zerker PvE content into PvP! I’ve been having a great time.

I’m sure us folk over in the Mesmer forum will have more builds being testing and posted within the coming days. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mass-Test-Stronghold/first#post4976856

Build: Soldier’s Phantasm
Link To Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsdRlknpMtlqxWNcrNSqxc6jeqISOQAlcjuB-TJRHwANLDwa/BAnBABPCAA
Notes: Pugged all of these matches. Sigh. I typically took on the role as door breaker and guard killer.
Games So Far: 3-2
Results: Not much to say. It had good sustained damage from phantasms while also being a bit tanky which is needed at times when you’re being overwhelmed or out-manned. I’d definitely suggest this build for those wanting to play dps, but want something a bit taknier and with less risk. Worth noting is the added mobility from focus, which is just all kinds of awesome. Focus also helped to interrupt people at supply quite nicely. The reflects also are nice against enemy NPCs ranging from guards to archers. Kind of similar to my MtD build in that it uses glamours with CD trait. See above post for related discussion.

Build: Zerker Shatter
Link To Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAsfRlknpMtNqxWNcrNSrxg6rOrMSGQBlciqB-TpBFwACOCAIOBA12fYxDAoaZAAHCAA
Notes: I pugged 3 of these games. Ugh, so frustrating. Having a team makes a world of a difference. I played the role of skirmishing roamer for the most part. Nuked NPCs when given the opportunity. Didn’t try to engage in too many team fights except for the lord battles.
Games So Far: 3-2
Results: Amazing burst as I’m sure no one is surprised. Was able to really take down guards with great speed. Sigil of Intelligence ensured that my Mind Wracks would crit and do some insane damage. I will say, it was a bit harder to land shatters. I guess this is simply how it is in WvW playing dps shatter. It took a bit more time and precision (than what is already needed) than what’s needed in conquest.

Portal really helped a lot still despite being on a much longer CD. Not much to say other than that. Same issues with dps shatter mes arose in the way of not being able to take many hits at all.

I hope you guys learned a bit from my matches. It’s hard to say what state Mesmer would be in for stronghold on release, but I’m optimistic. I think a variety of dps builds or condi shatter will work very well here. One thing that I felt was a complete necessary was traited blink and portal. While that may sound a little sucky to some considering some of our other utilities don’t get much play, it is what it is…

The game runs consistently longer. That being said, I’ve found that this format heavily gives favor to offensive builds. My team was mostly offensive with condis/zerker, and we beat teams handily that had more than 1 tank/support on their team.

Our only losses were against teams that were even MORE offensive than us.

I actually love this game type. I see a lot of build diversity in this format…

Build: Maim the Disillusioned (Glamours) 0/4/0/4/6
Link to Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArfWlknpMtlqxWNcrNitBdyWUDUPkjsySGghB-TJRHwAC3fIZZABnCAAPBAA
Notes: My team -Turret Engi (Soldiers), LB Ranger (Zerker), ShoutHammer (Knights), Shout Guardian (Zerker), MtD (Rabid). Our general strategy from the start -

• Deposit supply immediately. 3 bombers, 2 archers.
• Mesmer attacks enemy guards.
• Turrets placed near our gate/guards.
• Zerkers go to the supply fight immediately.
• Depending on my assessment at the gates, I would call out what ratio of Archers/Bombers were needed in ts.

From this 1-3-1 split, we simply rotated well and called out what was needed. I generally stayed on offense and lead the charge on breaking doors down. Our engi stayed back and played defense in our lane, alternating between trebbing and on-ground fighting. The 3 skirmishers were the main supply runners.

Games So Far: 9-3
Results: Amazing results. The 2 times we lost was against teams that were even more offensive than us. Zerk Staff Ele seemed to be a decent threat at thwarting our NPCs. One team however did try unloading 5 bombers and sent 3 with them to our gate, but having someone with some a stat combo like Soldiers proved to be very good at defending. The other time we lost was our last game, because I think we were exhausted. We made a lot of silly mistakes like thinking we were the opposite color team, willingly letting the other team summon heroes. The biggest points of contention were obviously the first supply encounter and hero summons.

In terms of my build, it had a lot of mobility which proved to be very helpful! With port on CD at 72 seconds and increased range on Blink, I was able to really have a lot of mobility and survivability in several ways:

• From supply camp to the point of deposit.
• Far gate bridge area for escapes/confusion. You can also blink here from the bottom. It’s insanely annoying from the enemy POV. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
• Getting assaulted in a 2v1 and being able to waste their time long enough to port/blink/stealth away safely.
• Essentially, the map is so huge, and there’s so many points of interests in hard to reach places that portal proved to be invaluable to me. Blink also helped tremendously.

Based on my time playing, I might even say that my role would be better placed defending my lane as enemy NPCs are constantly moving, thus leading to more torment dmg. I typically rotated to handily take out the enemy hero exactly in this manner. I think a power shatter with some survivability would fulfill the role I played alot better. My next post will detail that experiment.

Back on topic though, I will say that confusion proved to be INSANELY strong against enemy Lord and the NPCs that attack at higher velocities. Watching their health bars melt away from having 7-10 stacks was very satisfying.

This thread is more about Mesmer than stronghold in general, but overall, nothing jumped out to me as being overpowered. I encountered cele classes a few times, but they seemed to be lack luster from my POV. If anything, my testings showed that support Mesmer is completely unviable in this gametype once again ( I initially tried a few). Not only that, but not many other classes were good at support/bunkering either. Those teams all lost against mine. I think the perfect ratio would be 4 offensive builds and maybe one tank/support? The tankiest class we had was a shout hammer warrior with knight’s amulet… and he was roaming.

Wile.5024:

quite enough fanboys circlejerking on these threads already, some of the comments make me cringe… no need to add more : D

I love fanboys. They’re so… passionate about their adoration of a particular subject. As long as you can hold a legitimate conversation, I welcome them!

Messiah is famous now.

Are there any suggestions on the actual mechanic? Here’s mine:

Cost: 500 Influence
Build Time: 1 day and 12 hours
Category: Economy Tier IV
Boost: 10% Track progression for 2 days

This would put it somewhat on par with the 10% Magic Find boost for 3 Days.

Thanks for the info, Sorel! That should be helpful to your fellow Mac users.

I won’t elaborate on Helseth’s lack of respectability, because he does a fine job himself of showing how atrocious he is every time he opens his mouth. And I say this with as much tact as I am capable of having.

He didn’t dispute any of Fay’s assertions. For someone so “elite” and well respected, I expect more than ad hominen attacks and hyperbole. Then again, those forms of expression is the way to viewership. Honestly, it’s a self-disservice to even engage with him. The fact remains, as pyro pointed out, that Mesmer is in a spot where many builds are viable below top tier. And even then, power shatter isn’t the most optimal build to bring to a top tier team.

eta – el oh el at Saturn literally ripping through Helseth’s credibility by bringing us the receipts!

GoogleBrandon.5073:

ronpierce.2760:

The irony (or maybe not so much irony) that he somehow managed to not notice the clear biases in the proposals. Ring of warding is some how trouble some, yet D/D ele and Cele rifle is perfectly fine. Just doesn’t really jive with me, honestly.

Btw Slick shoes is a bit more frustrating than RoW.

Considering he somehow forgot this very article he wrote four months ago, I will wisely just abandon this thread before being called a “Troll” again for daring to speak up…

#receipts #shade

The entire environment is going to be changed with the HoT expansion, so I’d rather not get used to insane changes before then. There’s definitely some stuff they could work on to make the game more balanced.