Guild Wars 2

Tetra Bug.7134:

Staff guardians are vital in a good zerg. Initiating with line of warding and empower for the might+heals is awesome, while they may not be dishing out the damage staff provides excellent group utility. I’m not sure what server you’re playing on, but most organized zergs attack by hitting with a melee train and guardians are a vital part of the zerg frontline, providing support in the form of stability/retaliation and walls and providing good damage from hammer/greatsword. Running into a zerg and throwing down a ring, dropping symbols and using them for area retaliation and condition cleanses and the heals that sort of fall out your pockets make guardians an excellent front line class. If you want to go ranged, try necro or mesmer or engie or something because you’re missing out on the most effective roles that guardians can fill.

^I was going to post something like the above, but this guy nailed it. This is a perfect guide. Staff and Hammer for the win in WvW, with a good set of traits.

I’m moving to a power/shatter build – I only hit 80 on Mesmer recently but glamour build sure was fun. Pretty pink bubbles and a lot of kills in WvW.

I tried out Lilyfay’s mantra build last night with GS and Sword/Pistol – can see how good it could be but not sure I have the patience for it. I may go to Osicat’s shatter cat or a variant of it, either with Sword/Pistol + Staff or GS+Staff. After that I’ll start making my own and see what I can come up with.

While I’m figuring it out, I’ll go back to Staff Guardian in WvW, and heal everybody until they beg for mercy.

SmokeyNYY.7841:

Yay can’t wait to log on and have my elementalist nerfed

And my mesmer too. No more cute pink bubbles * sob *.

Back to my guardian, I guess – an 8 foot Norn with a target on his kitten :P

cbabd.8053:

Since WvW drop rates (including badges) were buffed a month or two ago, since seems fair enough to me. Getting 500 through play wouldn’t take an unreasonable amount of time. (Not nearly as long as getting the Gift of Exploration, for instance.)

Depends a bit on profession. Staff guardian, Ele, or confusion Mesmer get a lot – whoops, except that last one no longer exists. Single target DPS often get a lot less since they tag fewer players.

Gift of Exploration honestly isn’t bad, and by the time you’re done you’ve made a lot of cash. WvW is fun but it costs money rather than generating money.

Really bad idea. I know lots of people who supplement WvW play with running the BL JP on a couple of mules at the end of the day. Either for a bit of siege, or (more often) to help with their Legendary quest.

I don’t know what Anet is thinking with this patch. You don’t have to annoy players working on Legendary just because you made siege account-bound. That quest is tough enough already – I know because I’ve done it.

I like making and using arrowcarts, but I enjoyed my glamour mesmer in WvW as well.

I think the changes in this patch will increase the power of the zerg in the open field, and the changes in siege are there to balance it.

I’ll be going to WvW on my guardian, and manning an AC, I guess.

Entropy.4732:

I agree, this patch could theoretically destroy WvW. But the confusion nerf is/will be a huge part of the disaster to come. Confusion was fine and it was one of the only counters to massive zergs balls. If they wanted a nerf it should have been 25%. At 50% decrease it eliminates glam Mesmers and you’ll see much less Mesmers in general. Which means less portals, leads speed buffs, less WvW utility. If the 50% dam nerf is accurate I’ll be re-rolling condition Necro as will a big chunk of the glam mesmer confusion build community. The remaining Mesmers will run shatter cat, which basically turns them into glorified thieves with high single target burst potential. Which leads to more ganking of new players. Which defeats the purpose of all this “Dumb WvW down so new, fickle players can play it with zero difficulty” philosophy. Oh the irony.

I changed my mesmer over to power/shatter last night and all the other mesmers I know are doing the same. Actually I’ll probably go back to guardian in WvW most of the time.

I can see how they feel the need to buff thief but it won’t change much. The problem is the profession is very fragile and gets hammered in a zerg setting. Buffing their damage still doesn’t get them into the heart of the battle. And tbh if you get ganked by a thief while running into position you just respawn and head back there via a different route. It’s an annoyance but not really much else.

Carmine….
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(Tandino)

datawais.7209:

It’s purpink.

Or thistle

Magenta, clearly.

Israel.7056:

Staff is pretty awesome with power builds though. Especially with the Illusionary Elasticity trait. Phase Retreat clones can do a lot of damage.

Yes, maybe Staff + GS for WvW? But what armor/trinkets to use? Staff has a lot of conditions whereas GS seems more direct damage. Advice welcome, thanks!

I switched out my confusion build for a power/shatter build last night, still getting used to it. I’ll try it in WvW this week and see how it goes.

Honestly I don’t think it’s going to be great in T1 WvW – the numbers involved in battles are really large and it feels like more of a small-numbers/roaming build. I’m guessing Sword #2 in the middle of a zerg is NOT a good idea.

I think Staff is still very viable in WvW but Scepter definitely is not and there’s no other viable option for second weapon set. Killing confusion kills scepter, which in turn kills staff build making Mesmer one-dimensional. Bad change by Anet and not fully thought through at all.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Dess.4391:

Ross Biddle.2367:

The thing is, nobody is going to be focused on the solo mesmer who’s just appeared in the middle of their zerg. Everyone is worried about the big DPS Giant that’s in front of their zerg.

You have tried this?? Cos i love to go all emo suicide kamikae on zergs to make some chaos and maybe create an opening for others to attack but ppl in zergs tend to focus me a lot more than you would expect.

Tho ill have to admit it, its quite fun to be runing away with 20+ ppl chasing you while you spam all your stealths/invulnerabilitys to get them just that lil step further away from main zerg

I spent three hours straight last night in Tier 1 doing this :p

You have to be mindful about their and your zerg positioning, which way their melee train is moving etc. But rarely do I ever get caught out. Last night I noticed one of my group mates down where I was behind the enemy line. I stopped to res him. After I said “That was lucky.” To which he replied “Yeah, I over extended myself.” I laughed and replied “Funny, that’s where I spend most of my time in these fights.”

I was on my mesmer in T1 last night as well, and I agree – the enemy just doesn’t notice little mesmers, especially asurans, and particularly if you stay away from Confusing Image spam (the pink beam gives us away!).

Last night I had 49 kills and 2 deaths, one of which was to a gank thief as I was running into position. That was partly due to luck and to the fact I was running with a very good group, but honestly my guardian would have died a TON more in the same situation.

My guard is a max size norn with spiked green shiny armor and an enormous hammer, while my mesmer is a 3 foot asuran carrying a stick and who can disappear at will. Who do you think the opposition goes after? Not the asuran, that’s for sure. And if they even notice her, catching her is another matter.

It’s really not that bad. If you need badges and don’t want to WvW, just go to the JP on your own BL when the neighboring towers are in your server’s hands. Running it will take about 8 minutes once you get it down. Then come back with an alt and do it again. Rinse and repeat. Also go into the EB JP when your side has it, and get ported up by a friendly mesmer – happens all the time. Note that the BL JP gives fixed rewards whereas the EB JP is level-dependent.

I’d recommend at least trying WvW though – I expected to hate it but now absolutely love it and get my badges that way instead.

I think my main worry is that the change will take scepter out of the game since it’s so heavily confusion dependent. This makes condition build less viable – what are you going to use behind staff?

Not sure about shatter builds in T1 WvW – the group size average is really, really large right now. Glamour build is very effective in this situation – and also allows the mesmer to remain unnoticed so long as they don’t totally spam confusing images. My little Asuran even hid in the middle of an enemy group last night to get out of a jam and they didn’t notice or attack me at all! I got clean away.

And honestly, in a pitched battle even good players tend to spam skills until they see the purple boxes going up – then the good ones stop but the bad ones keep going.

The problem with the nerf to Confusion is that it takes scepter out of the game since that weapon is heavily confusion-reliant. This makes condition spec less viable – what do you use as second weapon behind staff? Not GS or sword – not really compatible.

This is going to push mesmers out of condition spec and into power or support spec, out of large groups (except as support) and into small ones. Huge change for the profession and one I don’t think Anet has fully thought through. I play guardian and mesmer and this will give my guardian a big edge in WvW groups.

Great fun on BG BL last night, thanks to [SF] commanders and our BG opponents for the good battles.

I just hit 80 last night on mine, and am currently running a Glamour build. Oh well, at least I get to use it over the weekend.

I’ll be heading over to Llyfay’s excellent website to pick out templates for a new build or two, good thing the class is so flexible.

Jedbacca.6297:

JQ is begging for more SEA players, we are horrendously outmanned!!!! Please see illustration below that will back up and prove my point with screenshots!

LOL @ including HULK in that schematic, well played!

Green and purple Norns ftw!

I was a Guardian main, so I made The Flameseeker Prophecies. Then I started leveling a Mesmer alt, but I like it so much I play it way more than the Guardian.

So now I have a Legendary I almost never use. Go figure.

I only hit 80 last night, and am really just learning. Right now I use a Glamour+Blind confusion build and hang back,. Usually Feedback into the enemy zerg, aiming for possible zerker/GS warriors or other potential glass cannons. Then Chaos Storm and Phantasmal Warden, Phantasmal Warlock. Scepter 2, Staff 1. Mirror Images. Null Field as needed.

If we’re stomping them I’ll use Cry of Frustration. If it’s even I leave the illusions up until CD are done, and try to give us theedge with Time Warp. If we’re getting rolled I don’t break until the commander says to go, then I’ll use Phase Retreat, Decoy and Focus 4 to get to deep water (nobody ever looks there) or Waypoint.

I don’t use a more aggressive style since I’m new to the profession and not good enough at it yet. I stay away from Confusing Images most of the time since it shows the enemy where the opposition mesmer is in our zerg. And my mesmer is small asura in grey nondescript robes – hard to spot, easy to hide. ^^

This is pretty much exactly what I did to level my mesmer alt except I did the first few levels via crafting. It’s also almost my exact spec currently in WvW.

Thanks, that’s super helpful!

I play WvW a lot and leveled my Mesmer partly that way, so am used to the condition spam. In fact my Confusion Mesmer is a major culprit!

So long as I have at least 2 abilities to remove conditions, I think it should be ok – I was just a bit worried that the CD on Null Field is pretty long. Inspiration IV will be a huge help.

OK, I’ll give it a shot – I guess it does have the shorter cooldown.

Not much experience with Mantras so far so it will a good way to learn.

Nretep.2564:

Inspiration IV … done.
If not, use the condition removal mantra.

Yep, in fact I just found this in another thread as well. I think with this and Null Field I should be good to go.

While I’m here, how do Mesmers handle Swiftness – just use Focus 4 and/or Runes of the Centaur with Mirror?

Thanks!

Hi All,

I just got my mesmer alt to 80 last night, and am currently running a fairly standard confusion build in WvW while I learn the ins and outs of the profession, since this build is pretty easy to handle.

I am finding that compared to Guardian, condition removal on Mesmer is an issue. How do you guys handle it? What are the viable options and what works best? Right now I use Null Field but don’t routinely have Blink for stun break.

Thanks!

CuddleStrike.8215:

Score Update!

Enjoy!

And I’ve decided plant people scare me!

Nevermind plant people, that Asura with the scarlet Afro scares the heck out of me!

Yoji.5610:

You should do the 1 Clover recipe. The variance for the 10 Clover recipe is higher, therefore it is way more of a gamble. I got unlucky on the 10 Clover recipe and ended up with 22 Clovers after 250 Ectoplasms used. Do not make the same mistake.

^This. The overall drop rate is the same but for the same amount of ingredients used the number of attempts for the 1 clover recipe will be much higher than for the 10 recipe. This means that the variance for the 10 recipe will be much higher ie it is more unpredictable and therefore much more of a risk. If you use the 1 recipe, the outcome will be smoother and more predictable – much less of a risk.

If you use the 10 recipe, there is a chance of a stunning win against the odds but an equal chance of catastrophic failure. In general using it is a bad idea.

Chris.3290:

I wish that the KN/WM rumors would get an official signing off or not.

KN is going to T3 and I imagine they are ripe for an implosion. After all, it’s going to be a PvDoor campaign of epic boredom against Maguuma and YB.

For my money, I want them to go to SoR. No hating on BG, but a 3-way fight at night would be good for all of you.

If the guild split, it would make sense for members that want to continue in WvW to just server hop to another big and reliable SEA guild. FOO, for example.

Don’t worry, I’m just kidding. I have no idea what they’ll do.

Crafting mine took 4 months, 2 of which were spent doing World Completion and gathering mats, 1 month in WvW and the final month finishing the karma and doing the crafts, clovers etc. Main way I got karma was doing dailies and monthlies – I think I missed only about 7 dailies in that 4 month span.

I’m not doing another and in fact the project I started immediately afterwards was leveling a mesmer alt who doesn’t use the one i already have. Go figure.

Queen in Tatters – Asuran female with black skin, white dreads and gray robes, blindfolded.

Named in honor of Hastur, the god of confusion and madness.

This happened to me – I had one vista and two POI remaining at/close to the Blue Keep in EB, and they didn’t change hands for weeks and weeks, nor did server colors rotate (JQ has been green in T1 for months). In the end I had to server transfer for a week, grab the POIs and vista and then stay out of WvW until it was time to transfer back, to avoid being accused of spying.

Not a good way to finish World Completion at all, but pretty much the only way in the T1 environment. I think we may not have managed to take that keep in the time since, although it has changed hands from BG to SoR once in the interim.

I think the two JP are used differently and should be treated differently. The EB JP is used by guilds to get siege for their side, so fighting in there makes sense strategically. Mesmers port everyone up to grab the loot, and stopping it denies that side a significant supply of blueprints. I’ve even seen folks take the whole zerg in there and port like 70 people to the chest in under 60 seconds.

BL JP is a bit different – carebear country. Folks in there are usually working on their Legendary weapon, and ganking them seems like bad form – too easy and not really serving any strategic purpose since most of them are never gonna use the siege.

That’s how I look at it, anyhow, but to each their own.

Vayne.8563:

Kraitkin will be the second legendary I go for…I’m very close now to getting the Predator. Honestly, I think it looks AWESOME. I’m not sure I want them to change it.

Same here, I think it looks awesome. I just finished my FSP and can’t face another Legendary quest right now, but if I ever do another one it will be that one.

Waage.2047:

It is the number one reason that a Guild will win a outnumbered fight is that they will not run and will fight to the death where randoms will break to early.

I think it also depends on who is in charge. I was with a very good commander last night, everyone knows he’s good and did what they were told. A couple of times we were outnumbered but he still went straight for the jugular and the enemy broke. Very impressed – not many can hold a PuG group together like that.

Must admit I was wondering what was going on on Friday night – that defense of our EB Keep at 2am was rather frantic what with SoR knocking on the back door and BG at the front. One of the few times I’ve seen FOO members on the EB itself, actually. When that happens you know something is up.

Things seem back to normal now though. Had a great time over the weekend on my Mesmer. Thanks to the folks on JQ and our frenemies on SoR and BG for all the fun.

Witzard.6829:

Rozbuska.5263:

So I just finish my 2nd legendary – Frenzy and I am bit disappointed by glitching and effects on my Engi.
- There are NO skill changes.
- There are NO footsteps or aura only few fish swim around.
- Weapon on back is horizontaly reverted compare to preview so its badly glitching with Capacitor and it looks very wierd.

Please give harpoon some love because weapon itself looks great:-)

Same for all legendary without footsteps/particle animation …

Yeah, my FSP could use a little love as well – atm it’s nice but not super. Although right now I spend most of my time on my Mesmer in WvW so whatever.

I usually leave JP mules alone since I remember doing badges for my Legendary. Many of mine came from regular battles but I supplemented them from JP.

Actually, doing the Legendary is what got me interested in WvW in the first place – I quickly realized it is a ton of fun and now spend all of my time there.

So yeah – usually I leave JP mules alone in the hope the WvW bug will bite those players the same way it bit me. If they get stomped all the time, they won’t be coming back and that aspect of the game will be missing a player it could have recruited.

Fuzzion.2504:

FOO and EMP are so large that both have over 2 dozen commanders. Even if half of them left(as in emp case) the guilds are still so large that fielding half of the full time players will still shift the tide.

JQ is huge, players loyal and skilled.

I come from a DAoC background.

And in the 10 years of playing rvrvr aka wvw warfare, i have seen guilds reach peaks and suddenly vanish, reform or merge.

The only certainty in life is uncertainty.

Rawnoodles is a good young teenager , but if he had planned this 1 week in advance with everyone getting a chance to hear why, it would have been better. Look at his posts, just a few days ago his thanking JQ and how well we have done. Then poof!, Hey guys we are now moving. Im not sure this is the reason why 80% of the emp crew stayed,perhaps they are like me, JQ for eva, but any respect i have for raw is greatly tarnished. With that said, im sure oxy will accept raw back, but i doubt he would allow raw to be GM again.

I don’t know anything about EMP except that a lot of their members are still on JQ WvW. FOO haven’t gone anywhere, as the SEA score update illustrates.

And yes there are a lot of MMO vets on JQ. I came from FFXI after 8 years and there are several other folks on JQ from my old FFXI server (Midgar) including at least one commander. A hard habit to break, indeed.

Berserker is certainly great in PvE assuming you have support, but I’d hesitate to use it in WvW unless I was in a group with heavy support and condition removal.

Experienced WvW players can spot a glass cannon very quickly and as soon as they do, that person is dead unless somebody else keeps them alive.

Jahn.7019:

JQ queue’s up all 4 maps during SEA.

This is from Waha himself because he isn’t able to jump FOO around. He is committed to one BL.

I know they split maps up by guild, and I’m also pretty sure they don’t take a guild to more than one map or jump them around very much. Specific guilds favor EB vs BL as well. Beyond that I think you’d have to ask them directly.

Other than that, from talking with FOO members I can say that I am not sure where they are all from but a lot of them speak excellent english, and also that all of the ones I have talked with have been super nice.

I used the quest as a way to explore the game. The quest required that do dungeons, go around the entire game world, try my hand at WvW (shock horror – I found I enjoy WvW a ton!), figure out crafting, and many other things. It became a grind towards the end but I’m glad I finished it.

Now that I’m done, the experience has triggered a whole new set of goals in the game for me. For example, I found that mesmers are cool in WvW and became interested in the class, and so am leveling one. I found I really like crafting, so am slowly working towards Master Crafter. And I even found I like Jumping Puzzles and so eventually look to complete all those as well.

Amins.3710:

Real players roam as a Guardian.

Only thing is, I love my AH. Plus it gets kind of slow when Staff3/Retreat/SY wear off.

When I was doing World Completion solo it felt like I was driving a bus around the zone. Sure, enemy players bounce off, but you’re not exactly a speed demon.

Jeknar.6184:

I don’t see any love for rangers there…

Fuzzion.2504:

Someone mentioned Necro! Necros are at the bottom of the list with engies. Even below rangers.

Condition spammers aren’t on the bottom of the list…

Yeah, my heart always sinks when I see a bunch of green wells appearing from the enemy group. Incoming condition spam always a bad sign, even if you have a lot of condition removal sometimes it’s not enough.

Zen.1965:

Guardian, mesmer, ele, necro. No specific order, but in WvW those are power classes in and of themselves. Glass thief can be strong but honestly any of those classes, given good reaction time, shouldn’t have much trouble w/ glass. All those listed classes also offer a lot to a zergball so….. Yeah.

Honestly though Jeknar was on point. Anything played well within the confines of their role is a serious kitten to deal with.

I’m usually on Support/DPS Guardian (Staff/Hammer), and it’s great in a group but getting caught on your own can be annoying. Trying to down a competent player with Guardian support build DPS takes kind of a long time. Then again, I’m not the best WvW player – pretty average actually.

On the up side, Thieves (even good ones) have trouble with Guardians. Retalitaion or Aegis and they just bounce off, and after that they’re on cooldown. Getting away is not that hard.

My favorite classes in WvW are Mesmer and Ele, and I’ve also seen some great Necros.

I think it’s an OK way to get to 80 so long as you then put in the hours to learn the class in depth. You could level with crafting then go straight to WvW or PvP – that would really teach you quickly.

I think this is best for folks that have already leveled at least one class the regular way. If you already have world completion and just want to level another profession for WvW, it would be ideal, and in fact I am planning to do this for my next alt.

OK, figured it out. Here’s a shot of the completed shield. ^^

Well, I finished the AC runs I had planned for this week, to complete my Legendary weapon (which is now done and looks nice).

I enjoyed the new Spider Queen, and really liked the new versions of the P1 and P3 bosses. I did not enjoy the fact that the final encounter of P2 is bugged and doesn’t start correctly some of the time.

I especially didn’t like the persistent knockdowns in Graveling tunnels. I have two Stability skills and used them both, and it still wasn’t enough a couple of times. It felt like a cheap gank to make the dungeon a bit harder – the devs could (and should) probably have come up with something more imaginative.

Overall I’d give P1 and P3 7/10, and P2 5/10. Scores would increase if they change the knockdown (to 8/10 and 6/10) and debug the final P2 encounter (8/10 across the board).

Oh, and I skipped Kholer 80% of the time – scores go down if they make him mandatory. Right now he feels like an overpowered trash mob who takes up too much time for no particular reason.

I finally finished The Flameseeker Prophecies last night after 4 months. Will post a screenshot after I figure out how the hi-res thing works.

Now that it’s done, I’m not sure what to target next. Was tooling around in game aimlessly. Maybe finish the Story I guess.

urek mazino.4026:

Overly stacked in EB

Upon seeing the picture in the above post, my hand excitedly reached for the ‘Fire Trebuchet into a Crowd’ key. Then I realized I’m at work. kitten

I’m running AC atm for Gift of History – the final Gift for my Legendary. Currently at 399/500 tokens. I had taken a break from AC for a couple months. Last night I ran P1 and P3 in PuGs and they went OK.

I found it was important to make sure some folks are experienced with the dungeon and can lead, and that the others (me included) have read the guides to see how it has changed.

I’m not sure strict setups are necessary so long as you bring enough DPS and support generally – the latter especially for Colossus Rumbulus since that can turn into a race between doing enough DPS versus keeping people up with AH.

Good luck.