Guild Wars 2

Having different groups take care of different parts of the map only makes sense.

Instead of “counter-blobbing” one attackers’ blob, that most times doesn’t even work, split up and own most of the map, because one blob can’t be everywhere at the same time.

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

You can go to EotM, for example, and take supply from there right back to regular WvW. Defenders can port in every 3 minutes to a waypointed keep under attack with inventories full of siege disablers and shut down any rams, catapults, or golems indefinitely. Defense runs out and kills everyone.

If defense has enough people to wipe the attackers, there’s no point in disabling the siege. Disabling the siege is only useful to gain some time for the defense to arrive and wipe the attackers.

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

On the counter side, build 10 omegas and have an entire zerg load up on siege disablers, they don’t even need to get close to shut down an entire structure’s defensive siege inedefinitely. Golems walk in and nuke everything and everyone in sight.

What’s stopping defenders from disabling the omegas?

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

And the third option: complete stalemate. Infantry beats down the doors by hand, defense rushes everyone outside until there’s nobody left, one side or the other.

If there’s no attackers left, the structure is defended. I don’t see your point here…

Ansau.7326:

For raids I’ll keep my shatter 2/6/0/0/6 and just changing Null Field for MoP.
For pug zergs I’ll try 2/6/0/6/0 GS-S/F and MoP/Restorative mantras.
For roaming, I’ve had some succes with my power PU 0/4/6/0/4 these days. With new changes it’ll be much better.
And for pve I thing there’s no changes on best builds.

I played 2-6-0-6-0 GS-S/F during our raid tonight and really enjoyed it. You can easily provide damage on the spike (iZerker, Mind Stab, MoP, Mirror Blade + Mind Wrack), healing on regroups, reflection and/or pulls when needed and you can easily run full zerk or assassin/zerk with over 22k hp (with food and guard stacks).

This is what I was playing but this other one is probably better. Will test tomorrow…

Things I tested:

• Buffed Mind Stab is nice (even if other ideas were actually nicer, the larger aoe radius is really a charm) and the bigger animation looks amazing
• AoE mantra of pain is lovely (also: animation/effect)
• The change to Triumphant Distortion is very nice, I was able to use iZerker and iWarden in group fights (12-15 of us and I’d say 20-25 enemies, with arrowcarts and stuff)
• iWarden confirmed fixed! I slaughtered countless rangers :°)
• iLeap feels weird, it will take a while to get used to it
• Illusionary Elasticity with staff feels powerful, but I didn’t test much (will test more soon!)

Things that I want to test:

• AoE mantra of distraction
• Shattered conditions

I think the nerfs and buffs to condition builds are somewhat balanced, but I’m not really into condi mesmer. The only nerf that I’ll probably “feel” is the one to decoy, but it makes sense in the bigger scheme of things.

All considered, probably the best patch for mesmers since the start of the game!

Use less siege, problem solved.

Clownmug.8357:

Using Time Warp on siege weapon - It only works on golems.

I’m quite sure it works on all channels, including treb, mortar and catapults fire and rotation. It might actually help in very narrow corner cases (eg. destroy a counter treb before it can fire).

gs is not really a good weapon for condi builds

The announcement of Scepter changes and Illusionary Elasticity fix sparked a lot of debate about how overpowered some builds, notably the PU condi builds, would be after the patch, the biggest problem being that conditions would be automatically applied by clones with the mesmer sitting in stealth or kiting.

What if, instead, the number of active illusions increased the number of stacks/duration inflicted by the mesmer autoattack and Sharper Images?

This would require some tweaking of the numbers, because the uptime would probably be lower (easier to spot the mesmer and dodge the autoattack, easier to cleanse since it’s not constantly reapplied), but I think it would provide a more skillful approach to condition play.

Please don’t flame me, I’m just throwing ideas around for you to play with

Jeknar.6184:

Menaka.5092:

Defending is not “hard”. Defending with only a handful of people sitting on arrowcarts is just stupid. With a handful of people you should be able to delay a big group of attackers, not stop them.

Because more numbers should always win, right? Why have to play strategically when you can just toss in more people and roll over anything?

The “siegehaters” for me are either:
1 – Open field people that cry everytime a enemy group toss open field siege
2 – K-Train Zergling that get mad because his 50man zerg ball couldn’t take a T3 tower with gate treb and a few ACs.

I don’t think I follow your thinking here. You’re saying that having 5 people sitting on arrowcarts should be enough to defend any objective against any number of attackers forever?

Siege is fine for scaring away a small unorganized group or delay a big/organized group, but it shouldn’t be enough to kill them all. If it was (and if you use superior arrowcarts, in most cases it already is), it would only take 25 people sitting on superior arrowcarts to defend a full borderland, and that’s just silly.

I am so glad I finished leveling all my mesmers before the stupid change they made to the leveling process.

I agree with Pyro and the others: try to reach level 60 as soon as possible, take every shortcut you can (scrolls, tomes, crafting, dungeon swapping, someone helping you with the personal story, farming EOTM, etc).

Maybe the patch will help a bit: if iWarden is fixed for real this time, it will help with good aoe and projectile blocking on the weapon that provides us with swiftness…

From a technical, cynical if you want, point of view: if you are going to be the “veil 1” or “veil 2” mesmer, make sure you have veil slotted, drop veil when asked, then use your gs to do low damage on a single target (occasionally 2 or 3 if you hit someone else with the lazer).

Outside that role, you’ll be pretty useless with those numbers and there’s no build I can honestly recommend for 40+ zergs. Maybe the next patch will give you some tools to be less useless, but we can’t speculate on that.

Run any gear you feel confident with. PVT for “training wheels”, mixed zerk/knights/cavalier for a bit of tankyness or just full zerk if you are feeling brave. Look out for retaliation damage, it will destroy you. And thieves. Oh and all those red circles on the ground…

Noah.9654:

Fay.2357:

This is outright false. Poor mesmer players didn’t utilize iLeap to its best potential. Skilled mesmer players did. This is one of the things that showed the difference.

You don’t play PvP much, do you?

I lol’d.

This has been discussed a lot, I have some suggestions in the posts in my signature (basically, have a limited amount of ammo and fix the line of sight/hit through gates problems).

Defending is not “hard”. Defending with only a handful of people sitting on arrowcarts is just stupid. With a handful of people you should be able to delay a big group of attackers, not stop them.

eldenbri.1059:

Well, I think thanks are certainly in order at this point because they are trying to address things that people have pointed out need addressing – iLeap, Warden, and elasticity on staff clone. If someone tries to do something to help you and you say “f-u” until you see if they succeed, you are not really likely to motivate them to continue to try to help you.

ANet is not a charity and these people are not unpaid volunteers; they are professionals and we are their customers. I’m not gonna thank them because they tried to fix their product… iWarden has been broken for what, 9 months now? If your mechanic failed to fix your car twice would you thank him if he manages to fix it the third time, 9 months later?

If the changes are true, are implemented without bugs and/or stealth nerfs, I can see many possibilities opening up for phantasm, hybrid phantasm/mantra and lockdown mesmers in WvW.

I don’t think the sword will make a come back in WvW, because after the nerf the iLeap/swap immobilize is quite impossible to land in group fights, but I really hope I’m wrong (having Bolt sitting in my backpack is so sad…)

The scepter changes will probably gain us more hate and I agree that is lazy/bad design.

Fay.2357:

Yeah, I’ll hold my thanks until I see these supposed changes realize in actuality.

^ this.
Even the April 15 changes sounded nice during the announcement…

• iWarden: I’ll believe it when I see it (sry ANet, but your track record isn’t exactly shiny)
• Illusionary Elasticity: again, a bugfix promised for April 15, we’ll see if it actually works. If it works, it will be a decent buff for power mesmers and a very good one for condi.
• Main the Disillusioned, I would have increased the stacks to 2 and reduced the duration to 3 seconds. Same total damage, but more pressure, easier to land and a bit harder to counter (shorter timeframe for condi removal).
• Scepter auto attack applying torment (including clones): big buff to condi builds. PU-condi will be OP now and more people will scream for nerfs to mesmer. Still, clone autoattack chain not fixed, only plays skill 1 so it’s easy to spot.
• iLeap: the change won’t fix the fact that you cannot use the skill after clone death anymore, so swords will probably remain useless for big group WvW. Will test it…
• Mind Stab: there was a lot of better suggestions on the thread. ANet went the easy way, for a straight buff… Not gonna complain, but still…
• Mantra of Pain and Mantra of Distraction: good changes, but the radius is too small considering how much combat mobility there is in GW2.
• Triumphant Distortion: nice change, but 1 second is a very short timeframe. We’ll see how it fares in WvW.
• Mimic: again, there was a lot of more interesting and more clever suggestions in the thread we had some time ago. To me it looks dull and the CD is too long.

But, to be honest, I would have traded some of the changes for:

• Changes to Bountiful Disillusionment and Disruptor’s Sustainment that are arguably our worst grandmaster traits
• A better Torch phantasm
• Lower casting time on mantras or better options to avoid interruption while casting for builds using more than one mantra
• Reduction of Into the void CD to 0.25 or 0.5s
• Increased radius on Power Break and Power Cleanse
• A reworking or a buff to Wastrel’s Punishment
• A revisitation of large scale glamour builds, maybe in connection with interrupts/CC

Kirito.9207:

From the looks of what they posted, it seems we’re getting a big possible chunk of love this time around.

even the april 15 preview did look good…

skcamow.3527:

• Rending Shatter. Shattering illusions inflicts vulnerability on nearby foes. Does anyone use this??

really feels unnecessary, considering we can easily stack vulnerability (and that there are many ways of stacking vulnerability in game, in general) on a single target

yes, this is AoE, but it’s only a few stacks for only 8 seconds and you probably want to burst one target at a time anyway…

skcamow.3527:

• Restorative Illusions. Heal a small amount when you shatter illusions. Any support mesmers running this?

tested it for a bit in a build I was using while commanding, but I don’t think it’s really worth it in WvW. Not sure about other game types, but there are better traits in that line IMHO (and a lot better traits in other lines)

skcamow.3527:

• Shattered Conditions. Using a shatter skill removes a condition from you and allies around you. Very powerful, but niche?

if only it worked with Illusionary Persona… as it is, it’s very hard to use properly in WvW

skcamow.3527:

• Vigorious Revelation. Shattering illusions grants vigor to nearby allies. A powerful, solid support trait for an adept offering.

but it’s hard to pass over mender’s purity for it…

skcamow.3527:

• Shattered Strength. Shattering illusions grants you might per illusion. Minor trait, a staple of the traditional shatter build.

still, it feels a bit underpowered as a grandmaster…

skcamow.3527:

• Maimed the Disillusioned. Enemies hit by shatter skills are inflicted with torment. Can be decent in a condition build, but harbors much untapped potential.

I’m not a big fan of condi builds, I tested it a bit but doesn’t really feels like it can provide enough condi pressure to make it worth going 6 points in illusions

my 2 cents

The announcement in case you missed it and wonder what this thread is about.

Hammer plz.
Let me smash faces and disappear in a cloud of pink butterflies…

did you say… buff ?

WvW small group roaming: hoelbrak (if we have someone sharing swiftness), travelers, I’m testing pack (+assassin) and I’m liking it

WvW raid group (12+): hoelbrak, melandru (for tanky builds)

Coulter.2315:

It would be truly terrifying if staff clones got the double hit – shouldn’t be allowed imo.

I think the real problem is that it’s hard to balance clones because they are so different and quirky.

All clones have the attack speed and direct damage from attacks toned down, BUT:

• Staff clones: the attack still applies damaging conditions
• Sword clones: the attack chain applies vulnerability
• Scepter clones: they only (re)play the first attack of autoattack chain, easiest clone to spot because it looks very different from the mesmer AA

The most “normal” one is the Greatsword clone, that replicates the autoattack at a lower pace (and with lower damage) (but can inflict bleeding on crits with the trait).

So the staff clones are the only ones that have a boucing attack that applies “real” damage on the target. Has this been considered in defining the amount of direct damage and number of stacks/duration on conditions from the mesmer autoattack? Is this the reason why staff clones are not working “by design” with Illusionary Elasticity (that would explain why ANet considers it “fixed”)? We don’t know.

This is only a small example of a subsystem of mesmer mechanics that require a full rework… but there’s bigger concerns in other areas, so I doubt ANet will ever look into it.

Blades of Sabatine.5639:

Simple scenario
Mez – copies boon with mimic,
Mez – Strip boon with null field,
Mez – copies all boon to allies,

then it gets stunned one time and dies…

I feel sorry for that ranger on far point, completely outclassed, good job!

phirefox.2568:

One Note Chord.5031:

Navi.7142:

The question is: Will they fix the existing bugs?

Of course not. They will, however, break iwarden further.

wait – is that even physically possible!?

It could start attacking you …

Chaos Archangel.5071:

For this update, we’re looking at improving multiple traits, utility skills, weapon skills, and illusions.

Oh hell, this feature patch is coming out in 2016.

Multiple: Having more than one element, part, component, or function.

So since we’re mesmers, multiple means 2… The 2 traits could be Bountiful Disillusionment and Disruptor’s Sustainment, utility skills mimic and mantra of pain, weapon skills would be scepter AA and iLeap and illusions could be scepter AA clone (maybe it finally gets a full AA chain?) and iWarden…

Sorry, I’m just trying to keep my feets on the ground because I know that if I allow myself to get my hopes up I will be disappointed even more when the patch notes are published…

I wonder if you could use the new mimic on allies aswell (doubtful, but…)

If it’s of any consolation, it was the same for us in Ring of Fire: EB is completely unplayable.

For your setup, you might consider runes of the pack. Else go traveler or centaur if you are cheap… or Hoelbrak (more balanced) or Strength for pure damage.

Apparition.1576:

Anyone care to discuss/debate why Mesmers should be able to just spam illusions (with no internal cooldown) and invisibility in PvP?

They are not able to spam illusions and invisibility.

All illusion generating abilities have a cooldown (except scepter autoattack, but that one has an intrisecal cooldown since it’s a chain skill): weapon skills, utilities, clones on dodge (since you don’t have infinite endurance), all have cooldowns.

Same goes for stealth, as someone already mentioned.

It’s hard to tell “how good is mesmer at WvW”, because WvW means some very different things to different people.

We are viable in tiny and small scale (up to 10-15 I’d say) with PU and Shatter builds, but over that number we are increasingly useless, outside the very niche use of portal and veil.

We have horrible AoE ground-cast damage (GS 3, Staff 5), glamours have been nerfed to the ground ages ago (and the current meta has a lot of condition cleanse so these builds are even less effective), the interrupt builds require too much finesse and/or luck (RNG issues with chaos storm) to apply properly in a big group setting (and mantra of distraction is still single target) and our main class mechanic (shatters) simply doesn’t work in a setting where the clones will die pretty much istantly from AoE damage (and the recent Sword 3 nerf really hurts in that regard).

At the moment, I’m only playing mesmer when we roam as a guild (5 to 12 people).

If we play in a “proper raid” with frontliners and backliners I’m usually a lot more useful as a Warrior, Guardian or Necro. You lose a lot more fights for lack of condition cleanse, stability or damage, than for lack of veil or portal.

gengaluf.1729:

Hello Guys, i am very interested in your guild.
I played pve content since Beta, so i think im pretty experienced in the game. The thing is that i am interested in pvp related content, and wvw roaming is something id like to be able to do. I am a weak pvp player, but i want to put time and effort in improoving my skills. I am looking for a Guild like yours, and im very glad that you guys play on RoF too, where i play since the beginning.
Id like to have a little talk with you guys, maybe to describe myself a little bit better. I will try to message one of you guys, and if i cant catch any of you, i got this post here to show my interest anyways

I added you in game but seems like I can’t catch you when you are online. Contact me, or one of the other leaders for an invite

I don’t think they hate mesmers, I think they don’t understand mesmers.
(or, well, their understanding and the community understanding of the class diverge)

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Prysin.8542:

How about copyrighted music streamed through a legal and paid service?

IE: SPotify, Wimp, Itunes

No copyrighted music that doesn’t belong to ArenaNet. Doesn’t matter how you acquired/streamed it.

Not even songs distributed under a Creative Commons license?

Karolis.4261:

Menaka.5092:

I became Gold Invader tonight. In almost 1400 ranks I got 2 ascended rings (one of which has zerker stats, the other is useless), a few exotics (10-15?) and rares (I’d say maybe one every 10 ranks on average?).

The other day I did a few PVE world events to gather some money. In about 2 hours I got about 10 rares and 2 exotics just spamming autoattack…

The reward level from WvW is abysmal.

And what do you do in www and eotm ? Spam same auto attack. Zerglet.

ye, pretty much, I have a lot of videos of spamming 1 in my channel

Upgraded the thread to reflect that the guild has moved to Ring of Fire

I don’t want buffs, I want to be able to rely on my traits and skills.

• a working phantasm on torch and focus
• a working gap closer on sword
• some aoe with low cooldown on staff and/or gs
• rework scepter as a proper condition main hand
• be able to use into the void to interrupt skills without the requirement to predict the future (lower the cd)
• do something with mimic (there was a threads months ago with a long list of suggestions)
• make mantra of pain and mantra of distraction aoe
• bring the radius of power break and power cleanse on par with other classes similar abilities (shouts, etc)
• rework our signets
• Wastrel’s Punishment – it’s a horrible grandmaster, get rid of it or bring it to 10%
• Rending Shatter – we have better ways to apply vulnerability, get rid of it and
• Confusing Enchantments – (why is this in a power traitline?) feels underpowered since the nerf to confusion
• Confusing Combatants – why is this in a crit/critdmg traitline?
• Protected Mantras – as I said elsewhere, give us aegis on cast (3s with 3s ICD) instead of toughness to help us avoid being interrupted
• Harmonious Mantras – doesn’t sinergyze with restorative mantras (lowers the hp/s since you have one more charge + one more CD to wait before re-casting)
• Triumphant Distortion – the ICD is a deal breaker
• Retaliatory Demise – probably the worst “on down” trait in game
• Bountiful Disillusionment – really underwhelming
• Phantasmal Strength – why is this in a vitality/healing traitline?
• Temporal Enchanter – I would rather have something that increases the glamours efficiency: more boon stripping from null field, increase damage of the reflected spells on feedback, increase the number of charges on portal (or the range), and the lenght of stealth on veil
• Shattered Conditions – (why is this in a vitality/healing/phantasms traitline!?) make it work with IP
• Restorative Illusions – (why is this in a vitality/healing/phantasms traitline!?) significantly increase the healing
• Disruptor’s Sustainment – this is a bad idea and terrible implementation. Get rid of it and give us something else.
• Illusionary Elasticity – make it work with staff
• Blinding Befuddlement – remove the ICD, it’s not like we have an infinite amount of blinds and confusion damage is horrible anyway
• Phantasmal Haste – why is this in the shatter traitline?
• Imbued Diversion – only affects one skill with 30-kitten CD. It’s powerful, but I don’t think deserves grandmaster
• Maim the Disillusioned – increase either the number of stacks or the duration

Now we have chickens playing mesmer. Where will this class go next?

(I’m sorry. I’m not a native english speaker and I find the use of that word to describe a person quite distasteful)

Curunen.8729:

Veruah.5302:

Oh oh oh!

But if it hits the Mesmer is increases chances of iLeap and Blink actually working!

All hail the new Sw/T meta!

That’s it! RNG buff on allies that makes broken skills work and a debuff on enemies that makes working skills break! xD

If only confusion worked like that…

I look forward to see the third attempt in fixing iWarden.

I became Gold Invader tonight. In almost 1400 ranks I got 2 ascended rings (one of which has zerker stats, the other is useless), a few exotics (10-15?) and rares (I’d say maybe one every 10 ranks on average?).

The other day I did a few PVE world events to gather some money. In about 2 hours I got about 10 rares and 2 exotics just spamming autoattack…

The reward level from WvW is abysmal.

BooDuh.2841:

I like this too. But consider making the scale smaller for WvW. I recall last year when the Scarlett toxic events were plugged into WvW commanders went total commando bezerk kitteny about that. Yeah, those weren’t happy panda nights. Those elements had a little too much going on to be managable when compounded with the data and people management required to make WvW an enjoyable experience. Just my 2 cents.

What do you mean with “making the scale smaller” ?

In my vision, the events would “scale” (give better rewards) with the number of opposing players present, for example 5 people successfully defending a tower with 2 arrowcarts and one ballista from a group of about 20 attackers would get a nice reward, while the group of 20 capping the tower would get a lower reward since their forces were a lot bigger than the defenders’.

The suggestions I made are, of course, only simple examples… None of them requires the players involved to have a deep knowledge of WvW strategies.

Traveler if we have a small roaming group, Hoelbrak if someone is providing swiftness.

frifox.5283:

That sounds a lot like #24 on the list. Shatter animation happened but none of the effects were actually applied to the enemy.

Actually, yes!
Then I can confirm it for Mind Wrack too, and I’m sure I noticed the lack of daze some other times, but it’s hard to tell in WvW…

Skye Terrier.3805:

Have a “map clear” boost (so to speak). Where people just trying to complete the world map are impervious to opposing player attack, and can get their dadblasted POIs and Vistas done without spending weeks doing it (waiting for color changes and such).

By the same token they do still have to watch out for the regular foes, but they do NOT get to reap WvW APs like events and such.

Trust me, we “noobs” don’t like being in your world annoying you anymore than you like us to be there, so it would be nice to have the ability to get the map clear done and get out of Dodge.

What you suggest doesn’t seem fun or even remotely feasible.

I would rather see the Gift of Exploration reworked so it requires a specific number of maps explored (say… 40? how many is now?), maybe including dungeons (story + all explorable paths to “complete” one dungeon) and sPVP maps (win a match in a specific map), but without requiring all 3 borderlands and EB. That way the achievement would easily scale with new content added to the game, instead of the current “crazy” requirement of some PVE maps (but not all of them, since some were added after the start of the game) and all WvW maps.

If ANet wants to get people in WvW, they should make WvW more fun and rewarding, instead of forcing players to be there.

my 2 cents.

unlucky.9285:

(too many stuns >.<)

all dem mesmer stuns…

Statement.2456:

They probably make more money from WvW than they realize. Guilds will buy gems for transfers. I know plenty of people who have paid for multiple transfers.

We are just organizing our guild transfer. 1800 gems for each player really hurts…
(and the fact that we are going for a server 14 ranks below our current server and with a tiny wvw population compared to the current one doesn’t count AT ALL for ANet)

1. Fix iLeap/swap or provide a viable alternative that can work for WvW mesmers too.
2. Fix staff bugs (stuck on phase retreat and illusionary elasticity not applying on clones)
3. Fix iMage not hitting moving targets (or rework it completely: I would love another AoE damage phantasm option)