Guild Wars 2

There have been many posts about this in the past. And a lot of non-WvW players share in your frustration. In fact, most WvW players do as well. Someone coming through for map completion isn’t really contributing to the fight. If there’s a queue, then we’re short a person who does want to fight!

If the RNG gods of randomized matchups favor you at all, relief should come soon. Last week, my server was the lowest ranked server of the matchup and we were red. This week, we are still the lowest rank, but we are green. Hopefully something similar will happen on your server as well.

Seras.5702:

What are the expected uses for portals? Are there any times in a dungeon that a mesmer is expected to use portal other than for exploits?

Many parties want the mesmer to portal people past tricky puzzles. (Like the laser beams in CoE, or the ramp with electric fields in the Uncategorized Fractal.) These aren’t difficult puzzles, but the portal can help people clear them faster.

The portal is a godsend in the Swamp Fractals. Once you learn the map, this is actually pretty easy to clear without a portal. Having the portal for the furthest essences, however, can keep a group from getting tangled up.

At any rate, run dungeons with friends and guildmembers. They’ll let you know where a portal is appreciated. (Pick-ups sometimes have higher expectations and get annoyed when a portal doesn’t work out. That’s been my experience anyway.)

Bolt looks pretty awesome with clones and blurred frenzy. I almost always have a 1h sword equipped, so you’ll get some use out of it. We’ve got a lot of purple in our character design, so I ultimately chose to avoid getting Bolt because of the blue weapon animations. That’s just a personal preference.

Mesmer with a Bolt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po4BONOtCbI

The GS is overrated, imo. I see lots of them running around. And I don’t often use a GS. Many of our builds make use of a staff, however, so if you’re into rainbows, Bifrost could be the way to go. (That’s the one I’m after.)

Too bad the off-hand ones are terrible. The torch looks cool enough, but it rarely gets used. The focus is underwhelming in terms of design. And I can’t stand the pistol’s sound effects :P

Aitadis.8269:

Not very good quality, but incase kaineng was wondering, here is how we ninja’d castle from you an hour ago. http://www.twitch.tv/aitadis/b/415108542 also skip the first 50mins

Oh the life of a Mesmer. If I read your chat log correctly, you were in there for almost two hours? Nice work, Illusionary!

The longest I’ve ever hidden is just north of 30 minutes. And I did some of the same things. Play with my inventory, check out what crazy dye options are available. At one point I tried to figure out how to play the Trading Post so I could at least make some cash, but I ended up losing on my first investment. Go figure. :P

Osi’s got some of the most clever tricks around. Definitely great videos. (I’m still trying to get that portal stomp down.)

If you’re going to try hiding in keeps and towers, make sure you have your portal routes rehearsed. Do test runs (in the keeps especially) so you know exactly where your portals will reach, what the best exit paths are, and where to direct people. Nothing is worse than hiding in inner Hills, then overextending the portal for the ninja team. I should know

Insider tip: Portal range reaches from inner to outer on all keeps except Bay.

Tyrlis.8072:

Thanks YB for providing a zerg to fight against during my Zerg Ball training this afternoon.

D’aw! I missed the Zergball match today. Just when I got a new racket for it, too.

This is a great site. Very useful tool to have, and great design. Thank you for developing it!

Just to make sure I’m reading the points/objectives per hour charts correctly, are the hours in server time (Pacific time), with 0 being midnight?

Also, I’m sure you have a list of things you’re working on, but it would be interesting to separate out the weekends from the weekdays for these charts. It seems behavior is much different on the weekends, though (if I’m reading them correctly) the charts incorporate the entire week. Just a thought!

With the new matchups, I’ve come across players who are very good at executing this. I seem to be locked down, or locked out of a tower, even after I’ve burnt all my “Get out of Jail Free” cards. (Mesmers come with quite a few.)

I am frustrated when this happens, but I would not support diminishing returns on CC. It takes a lot of skill for a group of people to be effective with this, and skilled gameplay should be rewarded.

Instead, I’m revisiting my build and utilities to see where I can get some extra wiggle room, and avoiding situations where I see it happen most often. My immediate response to locking people out of towers is that I start portalling reinforcements in through the back instead of having them charge the gate that is swarming with enemies.

Hickeroar.9734:

Armor damage ONLY happens on death in GW2. In other games (WoW) simply engaging in combat would damage your armor. In GW2, this is not the case. Combat in general does not damage your armor.

Proof link: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Armor#Repair

Ah, I could have sworn armor takes damage while being. The Wiki is somewhat ambiguous in that it doesn’t comment on damage from combat either way, so I’ve edited my post in light of not spreading misinformation.

Dagraan.2854:

its just 2 servers can’t have the outmanned buff at the same time. so if the dominating server outnumbers your server by 6 to 1 and the server lower than you by 10 to 1 if the other server has even 1 person on that map your server won’t get it even though the winning server has 10x as many people than both of the losing servers.

This I can confirm is incorrect. I have definitely seen two servers be outmanned. Odds are there are at least one or two players from each server on each map, it’s just rare to see them both outmanned because being “greatly outnumbered” requires one server to have huge numbers and then other two to only have a few. When one server has huge numbers, it’s usually because they are being attacked.

Armor damage happens anytime you take damage. So, if you’re getting beat up a bit, you’ll see some wear and tear.

The outmanned buff removes armor damage on death. When you die, a random piece of armor is automatically damaged (instead of incrementally like being hit does). This drastically reduces repair costs, though some will still be incurred.

EDIT: There’s a good change I’m wrong here. Feel free to weigh in.

Khailen.5031:

the reason I hate this idea is simply because of how easy it is to find your way around in WvW in this game. I doubt many commanders would even bother using it, and the ones that did would probably stop using it once they start presuming that spies are probably using the info more than atual newbs.

I’ve noticed a lot of new players on my server recently (I think sales went up when the price of the game dropped). Learning the ropes is difficult, and coordinating between commanders is sometimes difficult. I’m all for anything that increases communication.

So far as spies go, they are always going to be there. Spies are typically more advanced players who can glean far more information than the herald will provide by monitoring the map and map chat anyway.

I like the initiative for increased communication. The communication system in place is problematic.

While commanding, situations can turn on a moment’s notice and your original plan is suddenly useless. Sure, I may have planned a karma train, but the enemy responded and we’re pushed to defense. I also can’t leave the map because others on my server are pushing elsewhere and I’m keeping the enemy busy. (This is just one example.)

Sometimes I have a hard time coordinating the TS channel and typing into map chat while still fighting/strategizing. Updating the herald would become one more thing to add to the mix.

Perhaps to make it easier, have check boxes with preset categories such as group composition (Pick-ups, Guilded, Both) and activity (Offense, Defense, Havoc). I can click lots, but typing takes a bit more effort.

Xavi.6591:

I predict this week goes down to the wire.

We should start taking over/under bets. I know an indiscriminate logistician who serves as a top-notch bookie.

Is it bizarre that I’m totally loving the match-up I have now? Crystal Desert is paired with Kaineng and Yak’s Bend. It’s a challenging matchup for us, and we’re finding a lot of reasons to keep pushing ourselves.

Of course, there has been a learning curve for a number of reasons. One of them is hearing things like “Yak is almost into Hills!” over TeamSpeak. At first I panicked thinking, “Kitten! There aren’t even swords up. Must be a YB golem rush.” In reality, someone was referencing a dolyak bringing in supplies.

Testament.9538:

Because I am hovering over them with my mouse. The only one I have not Key bound in, is my 0. Since you really want to know and are so curious about my key binds. 6=r, 7=f, 8=tab, 9=caps and OMG the one I actually click on my elite!!! Now that we have that settled can we move on?

Inb4 you get trolled.

The video makes it look like you click on a number of skills. (The keybindings show your utilities mapped as numbers, not letters.) But, hey! To each their own. Personally, I have two skills that I always click on, and one of them is also the elite. The other is most often decoy. Those are time sensitive skills and I’ve found I’ve accidentally activated them before when I did not mean to, so I removed the bindings.

Mesmer is all about precision and less about button mashing; you handle the class well. Hope to see more footage.

If you don’t mind deleting all of your characters, the transfer is free. Items in your bank will go with you, as will things like laurels and whatnot. If you’ve put a lot of time into your characters, however, starting over is a hassle.

The only downside to guesting is that you don’t have access to server/guild buffs. Also, if you plan to WvW, you won’t be able to play together there.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Press +1 if you agree.

This makes it sound like you’ve just update your FaceBook status and are seeking validation.

Servers need some stability. The weekly matchups work well because populations vary across a week. Also, I would be really sad to see the Friday night reset disappear. It’s a great event on my server, and we all have a lot of fun with it. If it happened everyday, the magic would disappear.

Sorry, but no +1 from me. I did throw one to the person who takes pride in upgrading their keeps, though. That’s underappreciated work (and expensive!)

Hickeroar.9734:

Figulus.2709:

Nikked.7365:

Your note on armor repairs is awesome. When the outmanned buff is up, players push harder, have more engaging fights. They don’t worry about repairing their armor, so it’s a reason to go in head first. If armor repairs are free in WvW, though, a lot of people are going to pop into a BL just for the free repair then leave and go back to PvE. Adding some kind of guild/server buff might work, or putting a few “repair vouchers” into each reward chest might help.

Could avoid that problem by making it so that you just don’t sustain armor damage while in WvW, like the outmanned buff already does. This means that if you got damaged doing something out in PvE land, you still have to pay for it to fix it.

Yeah, this is pretty much what I meant, and then they could remove the repair merchants from WvW entirely.

Heavens. You all make entirely too much sense! (Or perhaps I over analyze. Haha.)

Great post! For the WvW chests, I —like many others--are a bit underwhelmed by them. It’s my secret hope that they will increase these rewards after some monitoring/players clearing their backlogs. I don’t pretend to understand virtual economies, but I can see where they wanted to play it safe on the release of WvW chests.

Your note on armor repairs is awesome. When the outmanned buff is up, players push harder, have more engaging fights. They don’t worry about repairing their armor, so it’s a reason to go in head first. If armor repairs are free in WvW, though, a lot of people are going to pop into a BL just for the free repair then leave and go back to PvE. Adding some kind of guild/server buff might work, or putting a few “repair vouchers” into each reward chest might help.

The only other thing to add to the table is the cost of upgrades. I find the costs to be reasonable, but I think that individual players having to shoulder these costs is unreasonable. Keeps cost just over 4 gold to upgrade, and there are three on each BL. Homeland defense teams are seeing less action (so getting fewer rewards) while contributing directly to their server through upgrades. Some kind of system to spread this cost out would be appreciated, though I don’t have any immediate ideas on how to do that.

Fuzzion.2504:

There is a test server

You just dont have access. Its meant for in house testers and a select few from the beta pool.

Right. And that’s not enough people to find all the bugs. Larger groups would have found the map-wide siege cap bug in a flash, for example. Or some people are affected by bugs where others aren’t, (such as the one person causing siege to disappear when building).

GW2 is pretty enormous, and there are a lot of different aspects to test. (World maps, WvW, sPvP, instances, new content.) Testers have to divide their time among all of these.

Anet relies on us for bug reports already and works with the forums to get more information. One of the devs noted that he sometimes brings printouts of forum posts to class balancing meetings. Most of us are happy to contribute to a game we enjoy, and it’s time for some public testing.

Chris.3290:

When the East Coast logs off, CD gets REALLY paranoid on their BL. You so much as tap a supply camp, the largest zergs they have lose their minds!

No touching!

Fujikura.6754:

So SoS is currently siege capped with no siege? Kinda confused with this one.

EBG was bugged out hard tonight. I didn’t venture there myself, but I heard only golems could be built. Saw a thread in the forums about this earlier. I can’t speak for SBI, but CD also experienced it.

I’ve noticed this before the patch. I’ve had it happen just a couple of times over the past week.

Seras.5702:

Yendorion.2381:

When you had mained a Necro, alting a Mesmer makes it your new main, no contest.

I main an Engi.

My first character was an Engie. Loved her to pieces, but I was awful at WvWing with her. A lot of the changes that came through for the Engineer made them a lot more viable, and I enjoy playing her again, though I still consider Mesmer to be my main.

If you were more WvW oriented, I would definitely recommend an alt Mesmer. As you are primarily PvE, I’m uncertain it will be a good fit for you. The Engie is a demanding class because of kit swapping and juggling all the CDs. Mesmer sometimes feels the same way with burst rotation and damage mitigation.

Still, both classes are a ton of fun.

EDIT: Ah, I should have read the full thread. Looks like I also misinterpreted what you were looking for in relaxed play. Hope you’re enjoying the class!

Aberrant.6749:

Hot Boy.7138:

I would also like a timer on it cause at the moment I just have to judge how long I think 60 seconds is if I’m trying to wait for the right moment to use the exit portal.

How I time the 60s portals… by playing this in my head twice.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWuQVpBeqLs[/video]

Oof, I’ve got enough things going on in my head when timing a portal. Playing the Jeopardy theme wouldn’t fit in there

I watch my other skill cool downs. Distortion is usually my go-to. If it’s on cooldown, note how many seconds and pop it again. If it’s off cooldown, pop it and keep an eye on it.

Back to it, the action this weekend has been great! Tons of action across the BLs, and the SoS NA presence seems to have gone up. At one point I was responsible for getting a bunch of our golems killed, and I woke up this morning to find naked pictures of my character on the internet.

In other news: I’m completely out of whiskey.

Awesome reset! SBI and SoS gave us a run for our money. While CD burst out of the gate, the other servers were relentless. Glad to have fought against you all, and looking forward to the rest of the week.

Odds are this will be our last week together, and while new opponents are very much appreciated, I have a hard time imagining they’ll be as formidable.

Chris.3290:

snip

Ah, you captured my thoughts perfectly (and with better articulation). +1 and thanks for the fights.

Ah, ignore what they’re saying about the build. It takes a bit to learn a class well enough to know how to create a build for it.

Speaking to mobility, thieves have easy access to it where mesmers have to work a bit for it. I use a focus and Runes of the Air. This keeps swiftness up reliably. Add in Blink, and I can stay at the front of the pack no problem.

So far as getting into range goes, the focus has great synergy with the 1h Sword. Pull with the focus, then Blink or iLeap to get into burst range. Eles often elude me, but catching other classes isn’t too difficult.

Which one is more fun? No idea. Thieves were giving me a bit of trouble, so I recently rolled one to learn the class better. He’s only lvl 11 right now though :P

20 pts into Dueling for Deceptive Evasion trait. You’ll be a clone factory.

Edit: D’aw. Ninja’ed.

Crystal Desert is abuzz with the arrival of KWBH. Glad to have you all on board!

This is the transfer from ET right?

Yes.

zuroism.2471:

Norn ftw, i have been trying snow leopard form as elite lately as you get for 30 secs, 3x sprints, a stealth and also a cripple which is fun for chasing someone down

^ That’s my approach too. That dash skill exceeds portal range. It’s awesome.

Crossplay.2067:

I’ve thought of one counter but it has the potential of being just as boring. After a quick sweep, have a small, perma-stealth party stay behind while having everyone else make a show of leaving the keep. With luck, it’ll give any stragglers a false sense of security and you can use that brief moment to mow them down. The worst case scenarios are either both parties stay in stealth or there are no stragglers left and the defenders just wasted their time.

Not a bad thought, but the stealth party would have to stick around for at least 5 minutes. There is RI on all objectives, and once initial sweeps are dodged, the Mesmer typically won’t move from that spot unless found out or until his party is ready for the portal. It’s rare for parties to be ready in under 5 minutes.

Also, the party wouldn’t even have to be stealthed. You can’t see much around you in most hiding spots in Keeps. Towers have some scouting spots though.

The two things that get me found out the most: other Mesmers performing sweeps, and high foot traffic after dodging sweeps. (Someone comes through to pick up supply or build defensive siege kind of thing.)

Ralathar.7236:

How do you counter Mesmer’s in Tower/Keeps other than simply sweeping? Keep in mind that people do make Mesmer parties specifically so they can stay stealthed.

This is a tricky answer. I’ve spent a lot of time measuring where my portals will reach, knowing which falls I can take with or without 50% fall damage, tracking LoS when charging from gate to Lord. There are common hiding spots, and your Mesmer friends should be able to show you them. Just remember when you are sweeping, you aren’t looking for only Mesmers. There are all kinds of tricks to be played, and they all come with visual cues.

Aside: When hiding, I never run with a thief. Extra players require careful coordination, and that coordination can often be unreliable.

Hiding isn’t only about quick recaps. It’s about juking and getting people to freak out in map chat: “Mesmer on the loose!” I’ve pulled decent numbers from a zerg to keep them busy chasing. If one of me can distract 5 – 10 of them, I’ve done my job.

Hiding isn’t about evading sweeps. It’s about observing zerg behavior. Objectives near enemy spawn points get more foot traffic. Objectives on enemy BLs will be defended more fervently. Steamrolling zergs cap fast and move on, and I’ve found that hiding from them is the easiest.

Hiding isn’t always fun for the Mesmer either. There have been times where I’ve sat in a tower or keep for over half an hour waiting for my team to distract the enemy zerg. At that point, I often become a map chat scribe for whoever is commanding in the VoIP channel. The feeling of cleverness is brief, then the tedium sets in.

Finally, if a Mesmer is just standing in a corner trying to hide, s/he’s doing it completely wrong.

In T4 I rarely ever see skill lag, though it did crop up a bit today. I’d be happy to take a breather to come down to the server room and give the machines a hug.

Back on track, had a lot of fun tonight. SBI kept us busy on CD BL with several pushes on major objectives. We managed to keep them at bay, mostly because they owned that keep on our map.

Thanks for the fights!

RNG is a finicky creature. You can track your data, but there are times when probabilites have a bad day—it’s a hazard of any statistic. This is why stats are reported with confidence intervals. As individuals, we may be on the receiving end of a bad day, but across a population, drop rates are performing as expected.

Take for example, Dr. Daryl Bem. He’s a psychologist that statistically proved ESP exists. He only beat the flip of a coin by a thin margin in some of his trials, however, and failed in other trials. Critics of his study declared, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Related to drop rates, we need more data than just one person to form any sort of hypothesis here.

Aside: Devs are usually forthcoming with changes that were left out of the patch notes when questioned. Drop Rate threads have come up a few times and Devs confirm that no changes have been made.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/science/06esp.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

(If you want a laugh, Google: Darylm Bem Colbert Report)

Johje Holan.4607:

There’s no way they can consult with us. We don’t agreee on anything.

For every suggestion, there’s someone who hates it. For every complaint, there’s someone who disagrees. For every change, there’s people who asked for it and people who threaten to quit over it.

+1

We all remember how the WvW score reset went. Lots of people wanted it. Then ANet announce it and lots of people freaked out.

A few notes:

Identifying the mesmer is not based on boon icons or OH hands. Clones only stand there and auto-attack. The real Mesmer will strafe, dodge, use other skills, etc. Always put a target on the real Mesmer once you identify him to keep track.

Mass Invisibility only stealths 10 people. Timewarp only increases attack speed by 50% and only affects 5 people. These are both elites, so we have to pick one. Personally, I go with the Norn Snow Leopard in WvW.

For the portal, the range is commonly referred to as “radar range” (approx. 5000 units). A mesmer can only portal friends into a tower/keep if he dropped the entrance there and then ran out. This requires hiding in a tower/keep after it has been capped by the enemy, which is very difficult.

Clones can only inflict conditions when they are killed if the Mesmer is specced for it. My experience is that most builds do not use these traits.

Maximum number of clones we can support is 3. If a mesmer uses the shatter, s/he can produce more clones while the original clones are charging the target. The theoretical max is 6 clones due to this, but it’s impossible to have 6 out for more than a few seconds.

Finally, Mesmers are illusionary duelists. We have a steep learning curve to be effective, which means fighting a Mesmer also has a steep learning curve. If you can’t believe your eyes, then I’ve done my job right.

Godmoney.2048:

I checked mine last week. I have just over 1300 hours on the mesmer and over 1700 deaths. Heck, I actually got beaten by a warrior last week 1v1 who caught me with a 10k eviscerate catching me totally off guard. I’m still chapped about it.

A Warrior! Heavens. I didn’t think Warriors actually existed.

I was knocked down by a Ranger last night. An ally came to my rescue, but he started reviving the downed clone while I was getting spiked. Go figure.

At any rate, I remember celebrating my 1000th death a few weeks ago, so I can’t be too far behind you, Godmoney!

Another troll thread with lots of incorrect information?

Please know that—as a Mesmer—I die more than anyone I know. If I were in game, I would post my death count to prove it. Anyone else have their death count handy?

Disagree. Every so often we get really close to taking a door down when a ram or cata is destroyed. 5-10 people can finish the job without having to leave, resupply, and start all over.

It’s realistic enough. A door that is that damaged should be able to be broken into with weapons.

elkirin.8534:

I am currently levelling an engineer in WvW. If you happen upon a little asura engineer with a toybag backpack, please feel free to open fire.

I greatly enjoy the jumping around chasing, fighting and different mechanics of the engineer and in particular wish to thank the EB roamers for bringing the pucker factor.

Good luck all, enjoy the game.

Moar Engies! My first class was an engineer. Loved it for the longest time, but I could never figure out how to work the kitten thing in WvW. That said, some of the best fights I’ve had since then have been against engineers.

Hope you enjoy the class! (And CC all the thieves.)

There are always going to be trends in profession choices. The fact that you saw only one mesmer means something. There used to be tons of mesmers. People bandwagon. Killing bandwagoners is far easier than killing someone dedicated to their profession despite nerfs or buffs.

boak.6258:

Yes, many people use exploits. That doesn’t mean they’re accepted by the server’s community. Many guilds on CD will kick players when they are caught exploiting, SBI have done the same in the past.

Absolutely. Today I came across a blatantly speed-hacking Necro on my server that I reported. He didn’t have a guild, so I assume it’s the one that people have reported to our community (and to ANet) before.

To echo Boak’s sentiment, exploiters are most certainly not welcome on CD.

Welswift.9813:

tl;dr: In tier 1, the long term efforts of a small team are quickly rendered pointless by a very short-term, unplanned effort of a zerg. Q: At what tier does the work of a small group begin to benefit a team for a prolonged period of time?

Tier 4 and lower.

I appreciate the initiative here. The problem with any population solution is that it singles out players who do not play in a popular time zone for their server. This makes their efforts less recognized than players who are in a popular time zone. 10 skilled players are superior to 30 unskilled players any day no matter which time zone people are one.

What you’re pointing out here is that there is a problem with the scoring system.

I completely disagree with the OP.

I’m excited when a lowbie comes around. While commanding I had a guy that actually apologized for following me so closely; he said he didn’t know what else to do. We got him into our VoIP channel and found out that he had only been playing GW2 for a few weeks. So I explained everything as I went, which at one point included how to get supply and build an arrowcart. He had a lot of fun, and I was very happy to contribute to his gaming experience. He still runs with us and has developed a lot of skill in a two short months.

Get off your elitist horse and learn how to train the people that want to help you. Even if they have other level 80s, it’s not about exp leeching. It’s about the experience.

Peetee.9406:

Change a letter

^ This.

As a commander, I can shout all kinds of thing in rapid succession. I rely on pick-ups a lot, so I also type a lot. For all the talking I do, I’ve only been suppressed once. It seems the suppression is designed to target people who repeat themselves (such as bots, or those spamming guild recruits).

The workaround (albeit a lame one) is that commanders are never suppressed in Squad Chat. Whether or not I’m flying my pin, I personally never use squads. As a commander I can’t rely on the fact that my followers joined my squad, because there’s a good chance they didn’t. As a follower, I never join squads because I want to know where all the commanders on the map are (once you join a squad, you can’t see other pins).