Guild Wars 2

I noticed something weird the other day, I had 2 clones up and used Mind Wrack, the clones happily went strolling to their target, that was sitting on a small hill. The clones went straight to the target instead of taking the longer “walkable” path, got stuck over the side of the hill and played the shatter explosion animation, but did zero damage even if they did seem “in range” to hit the target.

This was the first time I noticed this and seems quite hard to replicate, but I’ll try to keep an eye out to see if it happens again.

zerk + staff/gs shatter is pretty much standard atm… it’s the only combination that isn’t afflicted by huge game breaking bugs, general weakness or the results of months and months of nerfing and “fixing”…

DaMikenatr.7041:

Menaka.5092:

• make team chat readable across all the borderlands and EB, every message will be prefixed with the map that has originated from

• supply storage in keeps is now split between inner and outer depots, inner depot contains 1/3 of total supplies, outer depots contain the rest, once the external perimeter of the keep has been breached, outer depots become neutral and both defenders and invaders can take supplies from there

I can agree on a lot of things, many of which have been brought up on several occasions which you link very nicely too, however these 2 I just couldn’t pass up. Map chat across all maps would get way too cluttered. Most servers already have methods set up to make callouts across maps. If you’re in Red BL, you really don’t need to see that there’s a roaming group headed to S Camp in Blue BL.

I know most servers have an organized community outside of the game, but not everyone joins the public TS servers and such.

About the “clutter”, I don’t think it would be a huge problem, once the population starts using MAP chat for map-related talk and TEAM for asking help from other borderlands or coordinating strategy on a grand scale.

DaMikenatr.7041:

In regards to the supply, you pretty much just suggested that if a group breaks down the outer gate of T3 keep, they get over 1100 supply while the defenders would only be left with 600. It can already be difficult to defend depending on the situation, let alone giving the attackers what might as well be an unlimited amount of supply.

Consider that the outer supply depots would be usable by both defenders and attackers and there’s two of them (not sure about SM?) in each outer ring: it’s unpractical to prevent the opponent from taking supplies from both of those at the same time, so defenders can still use the outer supplies, but will probably lose some of those to the attackers.

Why I think it’s a good idea? Because it brings more objectives into the picture:

• as a defender, you’ll want to defend the outer ring a lot more than you are interested in doing now, since breaking it for an attacker means a partial victory;
• both defenders and attackers will have two (more in SM?) points where to focus their attention, defenders will want to resupply there first, before using the supplies from inner, while attackers will want to prevent the defenders from doing that
• I forgot to mention it, but I was thinking that the outer depots would start getting supplies only once the inner depot was full and that the workers would prioritize taking supplies from the outer ones

SlimChance.6593:

I have 2 80 Mesmers.

So when I get bored playing my Mesmer, I switch to my Mesmer.

I see your 2 lv 80 mesmer and raise my 5

Iavra.8510:

Sadly mesmers don’t have any launches.

We can still level up… ;D
(arranges epic scene with phantasms killing an npc just at the right time to level up and launch an enemy and blink-stomp him)

Edit: added the blink stomp part.

Looks amazingly well tought. I /bow to your effort.

Quality of life

• allow players to gain the option to reset wvw traits every few (30? 50? 100?) ranks
• make team chat readable across all the borderlands and EB, every message will be prefixed with the map that has originated from
• make it easier to choose a new server: provide the option to sort servers in the server list by queue length and number of players from the same geographical location
• since the servers only make sense from a WvW point of view, get rid of the “population” tab or adjust it to reflect actual WvW population (and rate transfer fees accordingly) - this has been done
• fix retaliation
• bring back the matchup forums; to access them, make players sign an agreement that what they read is not endorsed or controlled by ANet in any way, but killing the forums had a really bad impact on the community.

Some crazy ideas

• rework WvW completely and make it eventful
• enemy siege can be “conquered” using supplies (maybe 30% of the build cost?). Allies (maybe restricted to guild?) get the option to “demolish” it to prevent the enemy from capturing it.
• supply storage in keeps is now split between inner and outer depots, inner depot contains 1/3 of total supplies, outer depots contain the rest, once the external perimeter of the keep has been breached, outer depots become neutral and both defenders and invaders can take supplies from there
• consider abandoning the server system like has been done in EOTM and make an interface to join specific overflows instead, so that guilds can choose where to go and what kind of fights to face; points conquered by guilds and players could add up to the server’s total score and ranking
• “import” some good ideas from EOTM: for example, secondary objectives that give powerful tactical advantages, like the wurm tunnels or sentries

This is a list I made reworking some ideas I already posted and some new ideas I got from other posts and Reddit.

Make WvW rewarding

• scale rewards with the fight difficulty: small organized guilds wiping zergs must have better rewards than zergs steamrolling smaller groups. Capturing a well defended T3 keep must reward significantly more than a t0. (this would be fixed by The Eventful WvW )
• better achievement system and rework of the current achievements (somewhat fixed with HoT): reward long term committment with a better distribution of achievement points for long term achievements and make people want to push themselves to “achieve” amazing feats like winning a 1v5 fight or get 5 interrupts with the same skill (more examples in this thread )
• consider adding reward tracks similar to those added in sPVP: reward the player long-term commitment with unique stomp finishers and WvW-specific armor and weapon skins. - added in 2016, April 19 patch
• get rid of PPT, Glicko-rate every fight (open field and tower/keep defense) instead, weighted for number of players in the area (see the Eventful WvW and The fundamental flaw of WvW )
• fix and improve rewards for defending, running yaks, building and refreshing siege, scouting, etc (again, this would be fixed by the Eventful WvW system)
• Reaching the “legend” rank in each tier should grant a new title and an unique stomp finisher

Improve tactical aspects

• commander messages have a different color in team and mapchat (wvw only). Commanders also have a different cooldown trigger for the spam filter (so they can write more than 3 times in a row, for example)
• commanders can choose to “join” another commander, so a proper chain of command can be established - not in game but can be done with the current squad system
• each commander can register players as scouts: scouts will have a simple interface to report enemy sightings, keeps and towers under attack and so on and receive rewards if the scouting is accurate - something similar has been added in April 19, 2016 patch
• new map interface for commanders, bigger than the minimap, but still windowed, that will show scout reports and will allow a commander to assign missions to scouts and other commanders that joined him
• commanders can now choose to show the tag on map for everyone or only for their guild; if they are showing it only for their guild, they can still be seen by other commanders.
• make a new tag “guild commander” that can be purchased with a guild currency that can only be gained by doing wvw as a guild. Guild commanders can only be seen by their current guild and by other commanders.
• cap the number of rallies from a defeated player to 3 per server - this has been done around January 2016

Fix and improve siege

• arrowcarts and trebuchets should not be able to hit from behind the gates
• arrowcart damage and accuracy should falloff with distance
• all projectile siege start with a finite amount of projectiles, after that amount has been used, they are disabled and require a 10 supply recharge
• new trap options, for example an “ambush trap” that put enemies in combat with a few veterans (scaled by number of players), sold by friendly mercenary camps
• import the sentry mechanic from EOTM - sorta added with HoT (with some limitations)

Improve guilds and introduce alliances

• make it easier for guilds to move to other servers. For example: buy transfer discounts with guild influence/merits, and be able to maintain the upgrades (this has been added when guilds where made multi-server).
• alliances of guilds can provide a better framework for organizing coverage

Galandil.9641:

- Permanent sigils/rune on items. For a charge, you can add another sigil/rune on a piece of equipment which can be used forever. For example, on my weapon I can equip first a sigil of Fire, then buy the gem store unlock, use it on the weapon, and then add another sigil, for example a sigil of Bloodlust. After that, I can switch freely on that weapon between Fire and Bloodlust.

I would love this.

I would even pay for something cosmetic like changing my “yeah I have full map completion” star with an icon representing my WvW rank.

Sors Immani.8429:

No, I’m not high or on any type of drugs.

I believed you…

Sors Immani.8429:

When a class is weak, its players will make it strong . Eventually the devs will buff the class, as well, and leave the players who suffered through the nerf days in a better place.

Players cannot make a class “strong”, but playing a weaker class may help you to become a better player. Someone playing a mesmer will still be less effective than other players with similar skill level playing, for example, a Thief or Warrior.

The second part looks to me like wishful thinking. Maybe mesmer will be buffed. In the future, and we don’t even have a timeframe for that (2 months? 4? 6? …).

Lianna.6980:

Watching all the others killing the mobs 10x times faster.
Asking yourself: where is my loot?

“let me setup my shatter combo while this warrior mindlessly hacks at the npc…” “aaaaaand it’s gone”

Lana Del Rey.1873:

I really hope Anet’s silence is a good sign, that it’s on purpose, to land a big surprise. Maybe the next feature patch, given that we’ll get one, will solve many important issues.

All mesmers will be converted to Commandos

Sandrox.9524:

Menaka.5092:

“Skritt burglars are no longer affected by Polymorph Moa.”

I’m late, but I wanted to add this to the list because it’s borderline hilarious/sad. ANet please share with us the stats about how many times has this been “exploited” in game that required priority fixing over the list of game breaking bugs mesmer has. Please.

wait,so we can still tuna morph it?

Now you served ANet the next mesmer fix on a silver plate, I hope you’re proud of yourself…

“Skritt burglars are no longer affected by Polymorph Moa.”

I’m late, but I wanted to add this to the list because it’s borderline hilarious/sad. ANet please share with us the stats about how many times has this been “exploited” in game that required priority fixing over the list of game breaking bugs mesmer has. Please.

Reserved for more ramblings.

Dynamic events are a big part of GW2 open world PVE experience, yet the use of events in WvW feels – after almost 2 years – a bit lacking.

I was thinking that strategically meaningful events and event chains could be really interesting, I’ll give you a few examples:

• when an important upgrade (t2 walls, t2 gates, t3 walls, waypoint) is nearing completion, start dynamic events in the camps providing the supplies and on the dolyaks transporting those supplies. The events would prompt for allies to defend the camps and dollys and for enemies to try and cap the camps and kill the dollys.
• when starting a structure upgrade, use the same “collect” mechanic we’ve seen in some PVE events to collect money (with maybe the option to instantly start the upgrade by paying the whole sum in a single click);
• when a structure is under siege (siege weapons hitting gates/walls), defenders should see a major event that prompts for wiping or driving off the attackers (the generic “defend” event we have right now) and several minor events for building or using defensive siege; the attackers will have events around the structure that prompt for preventing defenders from getting inside and maybe even events to “tag” nearby structures that have a waypoint to prevent more defenders from joining the defense effort, events for destroying external and internal walls/gates, and finally for capturing the structure (each event rewarded separately, will require some tuning base rewards).
• after capturing a structure, the game could spawn several small events that request building some defensive siege and events for capturing the nearby supply camps.
• the completion of one of the major upgrades (t2 walls, t2 gate, t3 walls, waypoint) could start more “build defensive siege” events, since the more upgrades you have, the more you want to defend your structure;
• in a “outnumbered” situation, when even the events to take back the spawn towers fail, provide alternative guerrilla style targets: for example, cap camps and kill dolyaks to prevent enemies from upgrading towers and keeps.
• events could even take into account the 3-faction system: for example, if Red is attacking a Blue structure and attacking Blue would be better for Green, Green could get an event to “attack this Blue structure on the other side of the map” since attacking 2 Blue objectives increases the chances of flipping at least one and gives the chance to flip both. If Green is fighting in points head-to-head with Red, instead, they could have a “steal the cap” event! Thrilling!

These are only a few examples, and the possibilities are endless.

I don’t think these changes could fix all flaws the current WvW system has, but it would surely help with some issues.

Given the “dynamic” nature of those events, the rewards could scale with the number of enemies and maybe number and quality of siege involved: “yeah, good job capping this t0 keep with 5 superior catapults and 60 man blob: have this blue item” vs “wow, you capped a t2 tower with only a handful of men and normal siege? Are you a strategy wizard or something? Have this rare item for a chance of ectos!”
There could even be a “tiering” system similar to those we’ve seen in the Crown Pavillion and Zephyrites events, with better rewards for long-lasting sieges.

From a scoring system point of view, linking the results of the events (including the scaling!) with the score would help balancing the night capping and point-per-tick system: structures that see no attacks for a long time will provide less points in the same timeframe than those that are heavily contested: successfully defending T1 towers could probably give more points in time than a fully sieged T3 keep that no one dares attacking.

Having a map full of “meaningful” things to do would be really useful for new players getting in WvW (“hey, that’s an event! I know how to do that!”) and would maybe help in breaking down the blobs a bit by spreading attacks (and the relative “defense” events) in the whole map. This would help groups of all sizes to be able to enjoy WvW again.

Edit: added some terrible mockups
Edit: I posted some more ideas in another thread – if you like this, maybe you will like those also.

TyPin.9860:

Thanks for the help deciphering that build. It’s possible he used intelligence sigils. Also, if he used the unsuspecting foe trait, he would have at least 50% crit chance, once he stunned me or my clones (but he rarely could stun me… I mean that hammer burst is ultra obvious^^).

I think I’ve got a couple ideas now, how to deal with that guy, once I meet him again. Thx again and peace out

The stun effect applies before the damage, so the trait applies on the damage from the hammer stun for example.

I did some editing on the original post, and we added a few more videos you might enjoy:

• Small scale fights, Mesmer point of view
• Good 5vX fight
• 40s wipe
• Longer video with a few good small scale fights

UrMom.4205:

umm….how did you miss the nerf that mesmers got this round….

“Skritt burglars are no longer affected by Polymorph Moa.”

Un-freakin-believable, mesmers get nerfed literally every single patch…it’s insane..

With 30+ game breaking bugs sitting in the forums, feels really like they are spitting at us.

nearlight.3064:

… I know mesmers aren’t great in wvw, but every group needs at least one for veils…

You… didn’t have to put it so bluntly.

nearlight.3064:

Is the standard great sword and sw/f shatter build 4/4/0/0/6 still ideal to target enemy peripherals? Or is staff a better weapon now that the sword leap got ruined? Furthermore what types of runes gear numbers to hit and tactics do you gank squad veterans employ? Veil definitely needs to be there and I’d assume blink or decoy would be good too.

If you are only interested in focusing backliners with a gank squad (other mesmers, d/d eles, thieves), I would go for a hybrid shatter build like this

You can switch mantra of resolve for decoy or null field and timewarp for mass invisibility as required.

It’s so sad to see so many leave this class, but I can’t say I don’t understand. I’m thinking about leaving the game because it would hurt less than to leave mesmer.

Bye Chaos, have fun with RL/drawing/capoeira and whatever else

frifox.5283:

Looks like even our core mechanic, shattering, fails to actually do anything:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cs3LoYfaDM

Only affects PVE? I did notice something odd with Diversion but in WvW is always hard to tell…

Curunen.8729:

Blinding befuddlement nerf was completely unnecessary – totally agree right there. Confusion damage reduction was sufficient; they should just revert the blinding befuddlement nerf entirely.

Blurred frenzy on the other hand… well I have to say it was too powerful having 2s invuln on 8-10s cooldown. The problem isn’t invuln-evade, the problem is retaliation needs a complete rework because the current mechanics are brainless.

They also increased the cooldown on BF.

Funky.4861:

Why should you expect to swap places with a non-existant clone? Summon it and swap instantly, frenzy away then do whatever. These are not nerfs, they are bug-fixes.

Something that ANet (and many players, apparently) doesn’t seem to graps is that being able to swap back even after the clone was dead, was giving powerful creative choices to mesmers in their playstyle.

If you are supposed to swap instantly 100% of the time, just remove the “middle man”, give me a skill that creates a clone where I am, teleports me to the target and immobilizes it.

Instead we’re stuck with a broken first-part (the leap) that works about 50% of the time and a broken second-part (the swap) that is now useless because any decent pvp player will dodge just after the clone hits him, evading the immobilize, or the clone will just die to aoe/cleaves and the swap will not be possible.

This is not a “minor nerf”. To me, it shows ANet really doesn’t understand mesmer playstyle at all and they have no idea how to “fix” the class.

I’m tired of working around our list of bugged skills, traits and mechanics to have something barely playable and I’m not sure this class can be “fixed” without a major rework, but if ANet wants to try and fix it, I think they should start from that list of mesmer bugs sitting in the Game Bugs forum.

LunarNacht.8913:

@Anet: Mesmer is fine (it still breaths). We don’t need anymore bug fixes. Thx.

Mesmer is a broken class, thanks to the last few months of “fixing”.

Pinkamena Diane Pie.8054:

Deli.1302:

They do. Alt + F4 during a fight counts as a death and you get credit for it.

You used to, but guess what, the PvE team released another LS which some how, yet again, reset things for WvW!

Players have been able to Alt-kittenain without consequence again.

It’s been like this for months, surprised you didnt realise.
If they ever fix this, and the lag again, just keep a look out, when the following LS patch is released, things like this are undone!

We all know where the real focus of the dev lies, and it’s now WvW.

Welcome back to the game, I hope you like condi mesmers.
Or you really like staff+gs.
Because that’s pretty much all that you can play right now…

Swag Captain.5318:

It was exploitable because the Swap skill specifically states “Swap places with your Clone. Immobilize nearby foes.” If you have no clone (specifically one spawned by the initial Illusionary Leap skill) you can’t swap places with one. The fact that people were still able to after the clone was destroyed means this was a bug and therein could be exploited if utilized in certain ways, such as Blinking away from your immobile foes.

You have no idea of what you are talking about, sry.

Swag Captain.5318:

I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t really care about this bug fix. Started leveling my Mesmer last week, discovered the bug and was like “Huh. That’s weird.” and went about my day. Granted, it made the RP build I was going for easier (Disappearing Fencer. Uses stealths and teleports to enhance a gentleman duelist.) but the inevitable fixing of one ability didn’t break that. So I can’t pop in, immobilize, and Blink away to summon the PDuelist. Doesn’t mean I have to scrap the entire concept, just gotta work around that.

So far, all I’ve seen is overreacting over the smallest little change. I’m pretty sure within a week or two, everyone who’s yelling they’re quitting the game will find either a new meta for mesmer or a new class that’s “SUPAH UBER BESTEST”. If you truly love your class, you’d stick with it through the good and bad times and not cry fowl when there’s a change you don’t like.

I don’t want to sound elitist, but if you played mesmer in pvp for hundreds of hours you would probably change your mind about that.

I love how ANet cares so much for Mesmers that they go out of their way to find things nobody consider bugs to fix, when they have a community-confirmed list of ~35 bugs and broken spells/traits that has been like that for months.

On the other side: the last (two) time(s) they tried to “fix” something, they broke iWarden beyond recognition.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

… I obviously try to avoid a big redesign of the class …

• proceeds to change all class mechanics and requires changes to all weaponsets *

I would rather see an option to change the effects of F1-F4 skills based on your playstyle (trait selection/utility selection/gear or whatever anet can think of).

Nice vid, good job!

I play similar builds (much more tanky, usually) in raids and I can relate.

A few questions:

• I only see you use sw/torch… is it because [we have no other melee option and] with 10s cooldown it’s hard to switch set (for example to staff) and be ready with sw/t for the next spike?
• You get to play always with 2 guards and a warrior, so you know you can rely on them for stability/condi removal/etc ?
• (I guess this is a yes, but…) you feel like the added survivability from dueling XIII is worth more than the boon stripping in domination?
• Runes are… melandru?

Ty for sharing and keep up the good fights

Rank 1280 in wvw, yesterday I got my first ascended ring from a rank up chest: toughness/precision/healing/condi

I can’t even salvage it.

Sword + Torch.
I already have Bolt, but that scimitar looks so cool

Nice job, altough I prefer mantra of concentration and staff over blink/gs for that role

I really love to “work toward” something I already have on another character. Commander tag must be account bound. Could be restricted to lv 80 so that people won’t start commanding with upscaled toons in EB, but I really don’t see the point why I can’t use it on my warrior AND my guardian.

For people that already have more than one, the refund is easy, since the price is fixed.

Daew.9167:

… and adds +10% to kittenness.

now with 10% more kittens!

blakkrskyrr.7413:

when will the next tournament season begin?

PLS STAHP

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

GvGvSupACTrolls, along with all the usual ktrain players who don’t read this forum.

That should make for some interesting map chat.

“we lost 1 entire minute compared to the optimal xp/wxp/karma farming OMG!!11”

1. Portal, for its many creative uses
2. Distortion, because once mastered saves your life endless times
3. Swap (when/if iLeap works), because even in an heavy -condi meta, immobilize kills people.

globe.7238:

Saw this gem the other day.

holy cow

Jurica.1742:

Men, which armor is that on the asura? Thank you mate!

Should be tier 1 or 2 cultural chest/legs/boots and the achievement shiny shoulders and gloves.

My 5 mesmers one per race. Sylvari and Charr are my favourites, then Asura, then the others :P

I would love if you could decide when to apply the blast finisher (as you do with Temporal Curtain/Into the void). And a better phantasm.

grifflyman.8102:

Menaka.5092:

Only benefit is the appearance?!

Guild catapults hit like Superior Catapults and cost only 25 supplies to build (Superior costs 60), so you can do twice the damage with less supplies. They are expensive for a reason.

I’m talking about the ones bought with tokens, not with guild influence

Wiki don’t mention any difference between the two, are these a different blueprint?

Only benefit is the appearance?!

Guild catapults hit like Superior Catapults and cost only 25 supplies to build (Superior costs 60), so you can do twice the damage with less supplies. They are expensive for a reason.

In the last 10-14 days, telia link to ANet EU datacenter is having serious problems during prime time… my last few hops are:

11 —- 25/ 25 =100% 23/ 25 = 92% 93-63-100-133.ip27.fastwebnet.it [93.63.100.133]
0/ 25 = 0% |
12 —- 25/ 25 =100% 23/ 25 = 92% 89.96.200.114
0/ 25 = 0% |
13 37ms 2/ 25 = 8% 0/ 25 = 0% mno-b2-link.telia.net [62.115.37.213]
1/ 25 = 4% |
14 60ms 3/ 25 = 12% 0/ 25 = 0% ffm-bb2-link.telia.net [80.91.246.158]
0/ 25 = 0% |
15 48ms 3/ 25 = 12% 0/ 25 = 0% ffm-b11-link.telia.net [62.115.137.253]
1/ 25 = 4% |
16 45ms 23/ 25 = 92% 19/ 25 = 76% ncsoft-ic-306349-ffm-b11.c.telia.net [62.115.43.74]
0/ 25 = 0% |
17 —- 25/ 25 =100% 21/ 25 = 84% 206-127-157-86.plaync.com [206.127.157.86]
0/ 25 = 0% |
18 53ms 4/ 25 = 16% 0/ 25 = 0% p4-23-c0-ncdc-pub.plaync.net [206.127.158.1]

Anet please see if you can fix this on your side. Drop telia all together.

As I posted earlier on the suggestion forum I think the real problem is that the current retaliation design and implementation is broken.

Pyroathiest.4168:

selan.8354:

and just won another 30g from my guild as i predicted that they will break mes again.

Now that’s just cheating

I’d call it a low risk investment