He keeps showing up every time Tequatl returns, so I think it’s safe to assume he somehow manages to waddle to safety each time.
Low-Effect Activism
I will be ending every post I make with “And the new tag system should be changed.” and I encourage you all to do something similar. It’s the kind of low-effort activism that may just catch their eye and make our universal displeasure on this topic clear.
The problem with passive-aggressive tactics such as these (which would include using expressions like “COMPLETE idiots”, regardless of how oblique, or “cave to our pressures”) is that they undermine credibility and actually work against whatever you’re trying to accomplish. You could tack “And you may safely disregard this post” at the end and achieve the same effect.
Asserting “universal displeasure” on the part of players also makes a claim that is highly dubious, further undermining credibility and alienating players who may not object to the tag system changes, but might otherwise support further refinements.
For all its length, your opening post doesn’t even explain what you want ArenaNet to do, which makes most of it noise that developers simply don’t have time to decipher. I think it would be more constructive to focus on what you don’t like about the upcoming changes and what you would specifically prefer instead.
My two cents. YMMV.
And you may safely disregard this post.
Perhaps high amounts of toughness cause localized distortions in the way mathematics work.
The Daily Beast
Do you not think that dailies should be something you go out of you’re way to do though?
Nope. The way they are designed suggests the developers don’t, either.
I don’t think making large hoops into much smaller hoops would be an improvement over the current achievement system, which is why I doubt that’s going to happen.
I do, however, agree that there should be more to do on a daily basis, believe the replayability of Season Two will help, and am totally on board with any move that will add more options to the “end game” and keep GW2 fresh and interesting on an ongoing basis.
How specifically to do that will be, as always, a subject of debate. I think the best place to improve the experience isn’t in the dailies, but in many other areas of the game.
YMMV, of course, but that’s my two bits.
I have a hard time believing Zojja would ever let Taimi’s golem beat up Mr. Sparkles.
If she did, however, we could safely interpret that as a sign of affection for the little tike.
I play all the professions (four of each) and enjoy them all, but I keep coming back to the Mesmer whether I “want” to or not.
Why? Because it’s fun.
Nothing else really matters in the end.
Absolutely.
Right after Detroit.
Awesome idea, a great way to leverage the new Wardrobe system and a value improvement for minis in general.
+1 for awesomeness.
Illusory Challenges
Thx guys … well last time i tried necro, mesmer and thief, necro being my main, and i enjoyed all of them, but this time i’ll focus on my mesmer, i heared they are good in pvp and pve too. Tho, i don’t know how the thief dose in pve.
Congratulations and condolences.
Mesmer is my favorite profession, but leveling my first was a nightmare in the beginning (the next three were an absolute blast, though). Mesmer doesn’t really open up until fairly late in the leveling process, but once it does, the world is yours.
Don’t forget the Mesmer forum is there for you, and that sometimes the best solution isn’t obvious.
Just as it should be when it comes to mastering the art of illusion.
Warrior is the most popular, if things haven’t changed from the time of the last Anet infographic, and burns through most PvE content nicely.
As for the most fun, that differs from player to player. Having four of each profession (I know, I know), I have found the Mesmer to be the most fun, but only because I like torturing things to death rather than killing them outright.
YMMV, and whatever you go for, I hope you find it enjoyable. 
It’s not about “what you enjoy”.
What, do you think this is some sort of game?
Well in that case, turn them loose on the rest of the game world.
The Curse Of Impermanence
Because in fact the season 2 is much better quality, but your overall quantity of content isnt enough for such a audience, specially because the lack has been for near 2 years.
Content is a problem because the “Mandala” model for Living World Season One turned out to be a bad idea (who could have ever predicted that?).
Season Two thankfully put a stop to that madness, and that is fantastic news, but it took a long time to dig in, and it will take a long time to dig out.
The silver lining is that, given what little I know about what’s going on at ArenaNet, I strongly suspect what we’re seeing right now is just the tip of a very large iceberg, if you will.
I have learned not to presume too much, but if my suspicions are correct, content is not going to seem like such a problem by this time next year.
Lettuce prey.
Just paying Jeremy Soule to sit down and crank out whatever he wants to GW2-wise for about a month would produce some very nice results.
I think the music’s awesome, there just needs to be more of it.
And don’t worry, though Mr. Soule specializes in orchestration, he’s done a ton of different soundtracks and is quite capable of bringing whatever makes sense to the table.
Respect.
My favorite build for everything is Scepter/Pistol because I really like clones. Lots and lots of clones.
It’s horrible and I love it.
Bug fixes are some of the biggest buffs we could get.
Now gold spammers won’t even have to run instances of the game.
Sweet Indecision
I play them all, and don’t feel I’m losing anything by doing so.
I understand the desire to want to specialize, but if you really want to do it, you’ll do it naturally, and the profession you specialize in will naturally be the one you play the most. In other words, I don’t think you really need to worry about it, nor do I think anyone else can tell you what you will like the most.
You have already gotten a good idea of how each profession works, although some of them really don’t open up until much later (I’m looking at you, Mesmer). You also have some reasonably specific ideas of what you want to do and how you want to do it, so that narrows things down nicely, and I think you already have a pretty good idea of which professions can do that.
But you may find, as I have, that even if you discover the “perfect class” for you (which for me, it turns out, is apparently Mesmer), it may still not be enough. You may still crave variety, and if so, I hope you won’t feel that by jumping from one character to another you are wasting your time.
As the saying goes, time you enjoy wasting isn’t wasted.
Less-Than-Ideal Conditions
Zerker is definitely not the only DPS build. There’s Assassin, too!
The problems with condition damage are inherent to the game design, and as much as I wish it were not so, severely punish their use in groups.
Of the twelve conditions, seven of them don’t do any damage at all — though Vulnerability increases incoming damage, which does increase effective DPS from other sources by up to 25% at the cap, which is definitely not trivial.
But the cap and the nature of effect stacking are where the fundamental problems with conditions lie.
Conditions like Burning and Poison only stack in duration, which means it doesn’t matter how many players apply them. Moreover, weaker conditions applied by players with poor condition damage traits can overwrite stronger ones, and many autoattacks apply conditions.
So a condi Guardian standing next to a power Guardian, for example, will be trading off Burning from their automatically-applied Virtues of Justice, one weak, one strong. And even if both have strong condition damage and enough duration traited to maintain 100% burning uptime, the Burning DPS for both of them will be the same as one of them. Add more Guardians and DPS stays the same, no matter how many more you add.
Conditions like Bleeding, Confusion and Torment stack in intensity to a maximum of 25 stacks. Many autoattacks apply Bleeding automatically, whether the player wants it or not, which contributes to the stack, and makes it very common to see bosses constantly afflicted with 25 stacks of Bleeding.
The problem with this arrangement is that it is quite easy for condition users to hit the cap, and once the cap is reached (two of just about any decent Bleeding build can easily maintain 25 stacks), DPS is capped along with it.
That means a HUNDRED identical bleed-stackers pounding away at a boss will do no more damage than TWO of them. That is not good scaling.
Meanwhile, there is no such restriction on direct damage: a hundred direct-damage dealers will deal a hundred times as much damage as one of them.
That’s why the PvE “meta” relies on direct damage, and why it doesn’t even matter if a single condition build is better than a single direct damage build.
For solo play and PvP situations, condition builds can be devastating. But in group situations, the game world itself is literally stacked against you.
Sorry.
I suppose they could improve it so that it automatically kicks people who aren’t in your guild right before the final boss.
Playing A Mesmer Is Like…
…I just do it because it’s fun.
Swordplay
I have four level 80 Mesmers, absolutely hated the first time I leveled up, and that was under the old trait regime when it was much, much easier. Mesmer seems to be my favorite profession, given how often I play it, but I can sympathize with anyone starting out for the first time now, and my heart is with you.
These days my favorite way to PvE with my Mesmers (and even WvW sometimes) is Scepter/Pistol clone spamming, but that’s traited and I wouldn’t recommend it untraited. It’s not a fast killer, but I can solo more kinds of champs with it than with any other build, and it’s utterly insane underwater with the Trident.
But leveling up, the very same weapon combo led me to give up on Mesmer for quite a long time. When I came back after trying out all the other classes to give it another go (around level 21 I believe), I decided to try just focusing on killing stuff as fast as possible to get through the content. I ended up settling into Sword/Sword, came up with a routine that worked best for me (sending in the phantasm first may seem counterintuitive, but it works best for me), and before I knew it, I was level 80.
That was my first level 80 character, despite how awful I thought the profession was at the time, and after I got the hang of it, leveling three more was fun all the way from level 1.
I’m not sure how well Sword/Sword would work for leveling now, because keys to that approach involve getting Deceptive Evasion and sword traits as soon as possible, but I will always appreciate swords for getting me “over the hump” on my first (human) Mesmer (who is now my “main”).
Staff Action
On subsequent Mesmers, I experimented with other weapon combos for leveling. Swords can really lay out the damage, and Blurred Frenzy is awesome, but I wanted to try different approaches for the others as I leveled them up. I went with Staff next, and went all the way to 80 with it. Definitely viable as a main weapon, but as with many things Mesmer, not always intuitive.
For example, the Staff has a range of 1200, which allows sniping from a relatively safe range. Given how squishy Mesmers are, it’s tempting to always use it that way. But if you get close, you gain the advantage of self-buffs as well as reducing the travel time of the slow-moving projectile, which can really improve your kill rate.
And, of course, any time Chaos Storm is off cooldown, casting that on both yourself and your enemies buffs you and debuffs them to a crazy degree. Whenever I cast it, I try to cover myself as well as any enemies around, and will run or dodge into a group of mobs to maximize its buff/debuff benefits.
Phase Retreat out of the combo field for a bonus Chaos Armor to evade melee mobs, and remember Chaos Armor itself buffs you and debuffs enemies whenever they hit you, but only when they do.
Undersea Adventure
Something I found helpful whenever I was feeling gimpy leveling up was to find a map with a decent amount of water (Caledon Forest, Kessex Hills, Gendarran Fields, Harathi Hinterlands, Bloodtide Coast, etc.) and bust out the Trident.
The key to the Trident is bearing in mind that you and every clone you spawn each stack bleeds with your autoattack. If you start combat with Trident #3 and autoattack while evading, you will melt most mobs very quickly. The fact the attacks bounce allows the same effect for multiple mobs.
Add Deceptive Evasion as soon as you can for “dodge clones”, and you will be an absolute GOD underwater. Great for relieving stress.
Dispelling Illusions
Anyway, as the saying goes, your first Mesmer is always the hardest, and if you get discouraged, I can definitely understand, because I sure as hell did.
My tales above describe as very small cross-section of my own experiences, but yours will naturally vary, and you may find a much different path that better suits your tastes. In fact, I hope you do, because the versatility of Mesmer is one of its greatest strengths. Experiment and see what “clicks”.
And if it just isn’t working out, play other professions for a while to “cleanse the palate”. I did, and came to appreciate each class for its own qualities. I have four of every profession now, most of them 80s, so there’s usually a character to suit my mood.
I also came to appreciate what Mesmer offers that no other profession can, and I hope you will as well.
(edited by Majic.4801)
Trait Answers
I wouldn’t confuse silence with apathy on the part of the developers. They did start this thread for a reason, after all, but it was to hear what we think, not tell us what they think.
It’s been a few months, and while there’s a lot of feedback here, I’m sure the devs are looking at how players are actually dealing with the new trait regime in game. How many do the required unlock deeds? Which deeds do they complete, and which do they never complete? How many buy the traits instead? How active are players at the sub-80-level now versus before the change? And so on.
As frustrating as it may be, it’s unlikely we’ll see major changes to the system soon, not because the devs don’t care, but because it takes time to decide how best to move forward. Gathering and analyzing all the information they need to do that takes time, and even more time to make the necessary design decisions based on what they conclude.
The current system offers things players have been requesting since beta, and took a fair amount of engineering time to implement, so I doubt ArenaNet will want to scrap it entirely. Rather, we can expect them to “iterate”, as they are wont to do, and refine the system so it better suits players needs.
Locked Away
To that end, I expect they will adjust many of the unlock requirements to make them more appropriate for the levels at which they become relevant (i.e., no requirements to run level 80 content at level 60) and reduce the preponderance of group-only content needed to advance characters.
The group-only requirement is one I’m pretty sure the data shows issues with. I know Colin has indicated a desire to push players out of their comfort zones to get them to try other aspects of the game, but some things just won’t happen.
To wit, I enjoy the personal story aspect of the game, but as long as group-only Arah sits at the end, none of my 32 characters will ever complete it. Not a single one of them. Almost two years and counting, 27 level 80s, it ain’t happening, and that’s not going to change.
It’s not because I don’t like group content. Indeed, when I’m in the mood for it, I absolutely love it, and when I’m in the mood for WvW, good luck trying to lure me away from the Mists. But when I’m not, absolutely nothing anyone does is going to make me like it, because what I like to do and how I choose to spend my free time is never up for a vote or debate. Period.
That’s obviously a non-negotiable for me, but I do otherwise enjoy the game and have high hopes for the future. Thus I counsel patience, though I can understand why that can tend to be in short supply.
The scarcity of patience, however, only confirms its value.
(edited by Majic.4801)
I hate ddos… people with no lives.
Who eventually end up in prison.
Or working for the NSA…
I’m sure this has been posted
With good reason.
Oh well, at least repairs are free now, so cowabunga!