Guild Wars 2

Artistically the changes to the Sylvari cultural sets make sense and are well done. It is simply covering up hours and hours and hours of our work. YOU DID A GOOD JOB and should be thanked. In your place very very very few of us gamers would have foreseen the stress these changes caused.

I see a lot of negative feedback on this thread, much much more than the positive, and I would like to try to explain some of this frustration.

One of the things Anet advertised about GW2 concerned player time being negated and having to be re-done. In most (all?) other MMO’s it is very very common for a player to spend tons of time getting gear only to have it become obsolete with the addition of new gear.

Now we players all realize this is a little different, but only a little. You have to understand some of us have put countless hours into the development of our toon’s appearance. Between earning/saving gold for T3 (120g) finding weapons that match well (80g) and dyes that are perfect (130g) I have spent 330 gold on my Mesmer’s appearance. That’s alot. It sounds like a lot to ANYONE. Now consider how much of my personal time it took to get that. I am not a teenager with ridiculous amounts of time to grind gold. I play for fun, mostly with a close-knit guild of real life friends. So it was literally MONTHS of play time to get what I have. Now all of a sudden the entire appearance of my character has been changed. Following the rules of this forum I cannot tell you accurately how this makes me feel. ANGRY does not even begin to cut it.

I used to play Aion. I had a legion of my own with a full compliment of officers helping noobs and participating in siege events. I was one of the handful of people who sat down to create parties and alliances on siege days. I was a strong participant, and dedicated to the game. Then all of a sudden I stopped playing. Why? Because I spent 3 months working for and elite armor set (Fenris) and then a week later the lvl cap was raised and gear better than what I had was added to the game.

I will never support a game that takes my hours of play and makes them meaningless. I put in at least as much money into your micro-transaction system as I did paying monthly fees to Aion. I am a dedicated and useful player in GW2. Please please please find a way to ameliorate our frustration on this subject. I have submitted a ticket on getting some kind of replacement/reimbursement. I need some kind of answer – either a replacement or a good explanation.

It will be easy for anyone who reads this to wonder why I am making such a big deal on just aesthetic issues but it is the time I put in that matters.

Why would anyone invest time into your game if there’s a chance that time will be thrown out the window? One of the cornerstones of MMO play is the ability to CREATE something.

I believe in the progress you Devs have planned and have faith in the future of GW2 as a wonderful game, and understand you cannot cave to every player’s whim. Nonetheless no development team can ruin hours of player work without making amends and say they listen to the gamers.

Thank you for the wonderful game, please continue to listen to us.

Dawdler as I re-read parts of this thread I saw you said you couldn’t quite get condition tanking down. The toughness in the rabid set definitely helps me survive, but the tons of rolling helps at least as much.

Also, remember that with a class like the Mesmer it is not always about mitigating damage through stats as with other classes.

Paraphrasing Mr Prometheus from an old youtube video: “From a design and flavor perspective the mesmer is a wizard that uses deception and chaos to gain advantage over their opponent.” He goes on to say many useful things that you probably already know. But the essence of that statement is embodied in the staff condi build I outlined earlier.

I tank bosses many times when the group needs to all help each other up not by absorbing all the damage but by distracting the boss and avoiding his/her hits. Sometimes even going so far as to start rezzing a fallen ally, to bring me at the head of the aggro list, only to stop and teleport away leaving clones and slowly dragging the boss away so that someone else can finish the actual rezzing.

I know many GS zerkers say they can do the same thing – and we’ve all seen it done – but the margin for error for them is really quite low and you’re comment was about tanking.

This type of build can be used for spvp capturing and holding points as well, not just pve bosses. I hope this helps a bit, if you have further questions feel free to message me in game or post here and ask for my specific trait setup.

Early in this thread someone thought they might start seeing bunker condition builds using the staff for conditions due to the addition of this armor. That’s an interesting idea (especially the 0/0/20/20/30) with Dire; however, you all should keep in mind the value of precision and the dueling trait line to a staff condition build is less tied to Sharper Images than you think.

Critical Infusion (5pt Dueling minor) gives vigor for 5 seconds. I cannot express fully how valuable this has been to me. Staff condition builds need staff clones, and while a rabid setup with no domination points leaves you with low power, shattering is still a valuable way to add to your damage output. If you run outta clones to apply conditions because you shattered then the low damage of your shatters becomes a hindrance. But with Critical Infusion and Deceptive Evasion you can generate a ton of staff clones as well as avoid damage. I am never without the ability to shatter and create a full compliment of staff clones.

In addition to shattering, clone generation can become a problem when facing very high damage foes who rip through your clones like paper. This trait combination helps in that situation as well.

Since it is always possible to bust out a full compliment of clones Ether Feast is always a beast heal.

And finally, Sharper Images adds icing to the cake with this set up. Add in the extra bouncing trait and you’re set for some wonderful condition application. Now a build like this takes a while to get its damage up and is not made for fast kills; but between phase retreat, blink, blurred frenzy, distortion, mass invis, chaos storm, several ways to get chaos armor, and your clones you have plenty of ways to avoid damage while taking almost any opponent down.

Hey I don’t know if you’re still keeping track of the posts on here, hope you are. I’d very very much like to duel you. This build is the first one I have seen that I like as much as mine and might give mine a run for its money. I am not used to fighting players (mostly pve) but fighting you would still give me a great comparison. I will message you in game (probably with mail) and see what we can set up.

#130705-000302 Resolved. TY TY TY. I had given up considering this is not as major as some people’s issues. Again Thankyou.

#130705-000302 It has been more than 3 days. I used a hoard of karma items, along with the usual Karma Booster (50%), Ice Cream (5%), and Karma Banner (5%) to boost it. None of the boosts were applied, though they showed up above my utility skills. I have a screen shot (already submitted). Missed out on 125k karma. Would very much like this karma added to the appropriate character: Maniac Magee. Thankyou for a wonderful game, and for your time.

Anyone else notice that the Superior Sigil of Smoldering doesn’t work? Its even noted as bugged in the wiki. How is a simple equipment malfunction overlooked this far into the game’s life?