Guild Wars 2

Can I ask why you guys don’t just craft the weapons? That seems faster than hoping it drops.

I agree that stacking is dumb, but we can’t dictate how others choose to play the game. If ANet wants to do something about stacking, they can/will. Otherwise, I prefer fractals since its pretty rare when stacking actually works there.

I just finished the fight as my Mesmer and this wasn’t nearly as difficult or time consuming as you make it out to be. I learned quickly that my clones weren’t going to work, but thankfully Mesmers don’t just rely on clones to do damage.

~Staff condi stacks wore him down
~Sword AA and Sword #2 work well
~Clone Death traits were made for this fight
~Mantra of Pain

I pretty much won the fight by spamming Staff #5. What I’m saying is don’t pigeonhole yourself into relying on your clones or you’re going to have a much harder time.

I laughed a lot harder at this thread than I should have…

I refuse to play any other class other than Mesmer. On that note, I think all thieves should burn and die. I crack open a bottle of wine every time I kill one in PvP.

I know that hotjoin is terrible for competitive play, but if someone kittenes me off in a hot-match or is a really good player, I will relentlessly hunt them down—forgoing my team’s score—until they leave the arena.

I can honestly say that I have supported almost 100% of the decision ANet has made with their game. The very few things that did upset me (gem-conversion scandal) were rectified quickly. As a businessman, I respect their values.

Even though I am a gay man, a Mesmer main, and my fiance is a Necromancer, I absolutely HATE Kasmeer for one sole reason: she cheats. How is she able to just drop a portal wherever she wants, phase retreat sideways (its not a Blink, I’m sure), and drop Time Warp once every 10 seconds is beyond me. Whats worse is that I’ve seen players expect me to do the same thing. -.-

Despite my mini-rant, my Mesmer looks like a genderbent Kasmeer. So much so that my guild thinks she could be my mother/cousin/twin brother.

P.S. – I spend way too much time at the bars in Divinity’s Reach. I may have a problem.

Yeah the OP probably should just stop playing. You are obviously not interested learning about the different aspect of this non-classic MMO, its mechanics, or its lore.

I love the level scaling. I have a fun challenge no matter what map I go on. I can either go to Or for lv80s or chill in Queensdale escorting pact bulls. Either way, I win.

Honestly, I can’t tell if you’re trolling or not. If you don’t like the game, there is nothing we can do for you. Go play your iOS games I suppose /:

1) Guardian
2)Ele
3)Mesmer
4)A good War
5)Anything else
6)Other warriors

I absolutely hate a lot of the pug war’s attitudes. They are either way too arrogant or run 4-5 sigs and I just automatically kick them.

People who complain about ANet need to actually read first and know what they’re talking about.

A GM asked the player in question to stop, moved him to another instance where he could keep killing ambients—exactly what he was doing before—but he instead gets back into the previous instance to kill ambiants of the other players. He completely deserved to be suspended.

You guys keep forgetting that this is ANet’s game. When we made out accounts, we agreed to their ToA. They reserve all rights to make the rules and decisions. If you decide to intentionally break their rules on their game, consequences happen. Its as simple as that.

You say this is for the devs, yet give no constructive suggestions on the game…..okay.

Well enjoy your break. You’ll always have a free MMO to come back to.

Using PU in PvP (more so soloq than teamq) makes you dead-weight for you team. You can’t efficiently fight someone on a point because you give the cap to them (you can’t cap if you go invis and if the opponent is on the node, they cap it instead). In team fights, PU builds generally just aren’t as powerful kittenter builds or phantasm builds. Your best bet is harassing far but its rare when you have enough coordination in soloq to not put your team at a disadvantage in doing so.

TheFool.4589:

fellyn.5083:

TheFool.4589:

fellyn.5083:

TheFool.4589:

fellyn.5083:

TheFool.4589:

They could find away to allow two sigils on each single hand weapon. When there’s no off hand, both sigils are active. When there is a off hand, only the first sigil is active along with the off hand sigil.

Edited in main post.

They do. They’re called two-handed weapons.

Why would they take time to create 1 handed weapons that have the exact same benefits as two-handed weapons?

It literally doesn’t make any sense to do so.

So we’re not forced to use a off hand, and forced to lose a sigil because of it?

What?

Using a 2 handed weapon – you don’t use an offhand, and you get 2 sigils? And 5 skills?

And using one handed weapons only give you 3 skills one sigil. What I’m saying is give us the ability to use ONE handed weapons only. Not two, one! Just to be clear again, ONE hand, ONE weapon, Two sigils, 5 skills. That’s NOT a two handed weapon. That is a weapon used with ONE hand…….did I make it clear?

Yes, you’ve made yourself clear. It still doesn’t make sense, from a play-ability stand point or a balance stand point.

You do realize that having 2 less skills would make you less effective overall right? It would be intentionally gimping yourself.

Either you’re trolling or not reading.

We’re reading, I just don’t think you understand where we’re coming from. Single handed weapons—from a combat standpoint—can only do so much. If you notice, all swords, foci, scepters, torches, maces, warhorns, pistols, and axes are much smaller than all greatswords, staffs, spears, tridents, hammers, and riffles. Because the weapons are bigger (most 2H weapons are twice the size of most 1H weapons), you can do much more with them—hence the 5 skill slots.

It just doesn’t make sense to have 5 slots for a single handed weapons because there is only so much you can do with these weapons. If you’d want to utilize more skills for a single handed weapon, you would have to dual-wield. You can do more with 2 swords than 1. :P

TheFool.4589:

fellyn.5083:

TheFool.4589:

They could find away to allow two sigils on each single hand weapon. When there’s no off hand, both sigils are active. When there is a off hand, only the first sigil is active along with the off hand sigil.

Edited in main post.

They do. They’re called two-handed weapons.

Why would they take time to create 1 handed weapons that have the exact same benefits as two-handed weapons?

It literally doesn’t make any sense to do so.

So we’re not forced to use a off hand, and forced to lose a sigil because of it?

What exactly is so bad about using an off-hand weapon? What advantages do you have only using a sword against someone using a sword and a pistol? This is just how the GW2 combat system works.

The average time spent in games priced at $60 is 80 hours. You’ve received your money’s worth. If you just do the personal story and nothing else, you’d still receive your money’s worth.

Sooooo…….bye Felicia.

People will complain about anything nowadays…. Just turn off the content guide.

daft inquisitor.1605:

Noah.9654:

Seriously, people need to stop complaining about how ANet keeps trying to take our money. Any respectable/successful business has to make money; and that is exactly what Arena Net is—a business. You’re not paying $15 a month to play this game so stop crying about the gem store.

And once again, I will point out, most of us understand ANet needs to make money, and don’t have issue with that.

What we DO have issue with is the shady ways the go about trying to make their money. The kittenty business practices, the high prices on what is generally considered poor store content… there are better ways for them to earn money. I’ve said before that they could likely generate far more revenue by going with an “impulse buy” system. (Lots of little interesting things at low prices, rather than a handful of big-but-not-interesting things at very high prices. $5 for an extra character slot? I paid it a couple times, but I’m not happy about it…)

For example, the Mining Node Pack. There is absolutely no reason for that to be $10 by itself. That’s just ridiculous. All it is is a couple of low-end mining nodes in your home instance that you can harvest once a day. Is that really worth $10?? Just for the aesthetic value, I wouldn’t think so, and those nodes are nothing you couldn’t do by going thirty seconds out of your way during any normal daily endeavor…

I think a lot of us are watching too much TV if we think that overpriced gemstore items are shady business practices. There is nothing illegal, unethical, or otherwise against standard business practice about overpricing exclusive items. ANet has every right to make the Mining Node Pack—their own ‘creation’—$10. We as consumers can just decide not to buy it. That’s how economy works. We as players don’t like the system but that does not make it ‘shady’ at all.

Personally, I don’t agree with the small impulse buy marketing strategy. Their is no reason players will spend real money on something that is more cost effective to buy with in-game gold (a fake currency that has no weight as far as a real live business is concerned). Under pricing items will not make larger companies any money.

kins.3294:

This Anet is far from the Anet that brought us GW1 dude.

They got money hungry and are looking to empty your wallet on every turn.

Or they became a larger company and need more revenue to sustain their larger employee-base as well as keep the game sub free?

Seriously, people need to stop complaining about how ANet keeps trying to take our money. Any respectable/successful business has to make money; and that is exactly what Arena Net is—a business. You’re not paying $15 a month to play this game so stop crying about the gem store.

ANet already knows that they screwed up with the conversions and they said that they’ll fix it. Any further ranting on this thread without constructive criticism is only going to take up space. If they take too long to fix the conversion system, then you may complain. Until then, cool it.

Anyone that takes part of PvP, WvW, dungeons, jumping puzzles, or fractals are not allowed to be fat. Seriously, have you guys ever thought of what life would realistically be like in Tyria? Work out central XD

In all seriousness, I think it would be cool to have different body types. I can’t really see how any hero could be out of shape, but it would still be nice to have.

Sharen Graves.1276:

Kabolt.7283:

I’m planning on buying my legendary From the trade post

This is the reason Legendary weapons are not Legendary anymore.

They were never really ‘legendary’ to begin with lol. If the guy wants to shove out ~$300 to buy a legendary, more power to him.

Hello all!

I run a fairly new gaymer guild spread across many different servers and we were hoping to get into WvW together. We are planning to migrate all of our members to a single server hopefully by this weekend and have decided on Devona’s Rest as its fairly cheap and seemingly populated.

I was wondering if anyone could give me some insight about how active the Devona’s Rest WvW community is and whether or not it is a good idea for us to move there. Also, if this information is publicly known (on some form of leader-boards or website), I would greatly appreciate if someone could send me in that direction.

Thanks all!

I really love your videos as well! I’m just now starting out WvW and so far its pretty fun. Would you mind sharing your build or giving some pointers?

Guhracie.3419:

Yes, but you’re saying he is learning about his traits now. Is he playing on a new character or one he created back then? If it is newly created, it has a whole different system than one he created prior to April of this year.

Sorry I didn’t make that clear. He is still using the same character back then as he is now. I however, deleted my character and started a new one when I started again in May.

Astralporing.1957:

Simple question. Did he play on his old char, or did he create a new one? I’m asking because the most problematic part of the whole NPE is the trait change from the previous feature pack. If he made his character before that was introduced, or didn’t get to the levels where traits start to get important, then he really didn’t experience that problem yet.

Neither of us got to the point to earn trait points or skill points when we quit the first time. By the time I started playing again without my fiance, the trait revamp had already happened so it didn’t affect either one of us in the slightest luckily. I have heard that the trait system kinda put a lot of veterans in a weird position, and I would like to hear more about that.

Orpheal.8263:

Angry, unimportant snip

I’m sorry that you are so angry that ANet is sticking to their business model of catering to players who may have never had to deal with general MMO settings, but that is more of a you problem than theirs. Every casual player that I’ve talked to that started after the NPE was introduced has had no problems with the NPE. Every player that is still low leveled that I’ve talked to after the NPE had only one complaint within the first few days; there was a very sudden jolt of pace in gameplay. None of the newer players that I have talked to have complained about the game being too easy. None of them are offended that ANet is teaching newer players how to dodge.

Quite frankly, I don’t think GW2 is for the players who say that a little help in gameplay is ‘brain dead’. Your angry rant will go on deaf ears because the NPE isn’t for you. It doesn’t need to help you, nor does it owe you anything. The NPE is for the people who actually have a life outside of gaming and play the MMO because (surprise, surprise) they just want to have fun for a couple of hours. Because they only want to spend a few hours gaming, they are not going to have the skill that we veteran MMO players have. Does this mean they shouldn’t play a game that was basically made for them? Absolutely not.

TL;DR – Your veteran opinion of a system that helps casual players is irrelevant.

Hello all! I would like to share another form of insight of the NPE from the perspective of a ‘newer’ player who has been around from before the NPE.

My fiance and I bought the game about a year ago. At first, we both really loved the game. Exploration was/still is a blast, the lore was waaaayyy ahead of any other MMO, the classes were innovative, and gameplay is stellar. We played for a few days but ran into some problems that were very overwhelming. I’ve played MMO’s for roughly 11 years, however the downed state was new. I’d never encountered something like this in MMO’s and I was very clueless on how to react. This coupled with the fact that I was given a ton of freedom slightly overwhelmed me and made me think twice about playing.

My fiance on the other hand is what ANet caters more to: a casual player who has never played a MMO in his life. His kind of games are the old PlayStation Spyro and racing games. I had to beg him to even try a fantasy game. Needless to say, the freedom, downed state, inventory system, lack of a real quest system (one of my favorite parts of GW2), underwater mechanics, lack of guidance, the fact that he didn’t know how to get passed lv9, AND the Halloween Event that just so happened to be running when we started scared him away very quickly.

We both decided to stop playing the game as school was also happening at the time. I picked up the game again in late May and its been the best decision of my life ever since. My fiance did not. I learned how to play the game. I learned how to use my traits, I learned how not to have a panic attack in the downed state and rally, I learned that this game is SO. MUCH. BETTER when you have a community to play with (Guild Wars 2).

Just this weekend, I finally talked my fiance into playing again as now he would have an entire guild backing his adventures. Thanks to the NPE guiding him along and telling him how to dodge, manage his inventory by selling things, guiding him on the downed state, giving him hints as to where to go, and pretty much making this game less of a sandbox, he had a much better time playing. Its not so much of a chore to learn the game now!

I would like to thank Arena Net to really catering to the casual player who may not be as seasoned in MMOs like the rest of us. Those are the kind of players who really appreciate the NPE. Keep doing what you’re doing

Maybe GW2 isn’t the game for you….. dodges bullets

I’m totally kidding. I don’t mind playing the healer role in other games. It makes me feel like their life is in my hands and if they kitten me off, they don’t get healed XD

That being said, Eles and Guards can play a really cool healer support role if speced for it. My guild plays tPvP alot and we always skype while doing it. Whenever a certain Ele friend of mine and I finally get out of a fight for a node, he’ll always use Cone of Cold on me—usually healing me to full HP—while yelling on skype “TAKE MY HEALING” lol. I know its not the same as your standard healing role, but at least we have something :P

I kinda like healing the way it is now. Every class has some form of healing and we don’t have to depend on another class to make sure we don’t die.

Others have said it best; you completely deserved to lose.

Mesmers are not the only class that you need to try out to understand—and therefore fight in PvP. If you want to be successful, you need to learn how every class plays and fully understand them. That is what separates good players from bad ones. You don’t even have to reroll as a class if you really don’t want to, just fight comprehensive guides on YouTube and really learn the class. It won’t be the same, but I guarantee that you won’t be completely swept by a certain class.

You choosing not to research the Mesmer class, along with your crying without actually knowing the build, says that you choose to be mediocre.

Spider.3109:

Iavra.8510:

There are MF recipes that need luck essences…

Yep there are. But that shouldn’t be an argument. Those things can be changed…
Or you could simply keep the possibility of an artificer crafting essences of luck by reducing your account Luck.

Changing the way a game is designed is not going to happen. That would take way too many resources that could be used to make new content.

If you’ve ever done a dungeon marathon before, you’ll understand that the bags are a blessing. I have 80 slots in my inventory and I only need to clear them after every 5-6 dungeons instead of after every 2. Its a convenience to myself and to my party/guildmates.

ghaleon.2861:

If you’re able to beat them, on a zerker spec other than medi guard… You’re out playing them… And I don’t need attention from a forums full of clueless trolls that are in denial. So, at this point, you’re just being annoying…. /thread

This is exactly my point. To beat a thief, you have to outplay them. You can’t just faceroll your keyboard and expect to win. If you come across a good thief, you need to step up your game or you will be swept, but you can beat them. I’ve done it.

I don’t think you realize how steep the learning curve is for thieves. You can spot a bad thief a mile away. If the thief is skilled, you have to outplay it and the one with the most skill wins. Simple as that. No need to QQ about lacking the skill.

ghaleon.2861:

Noah.9654:

ghaleon.2861:

Narkodx.1472:

This thread is not even about that though.. he is simply QQing because he plays zerker mesmer and gets rekt by zerker thieves

This is not about Thieves having a role in conquest that no one can replace them for being mobility and decap – things you pointed out that I agree with

While that would have made a much better thread this guy is simply QQing for 1v1 reasons – none of which are warranted

/thread

I’m not qqing, at all….. the thread was about theif countering zerkers, but you all decided to take it to a different direction. And I don’t get rekt by anyone, even though thief does hard counter my class hard. I’ve learned how to deal with them a long time ago. Idk why you all think this is a qq post, it’s not. If you all want to deny to yourselves that thief does in fact hard counters other zerkers specs go ahead. But don’t come here talking bullkitten like know me and know how I play, cause you don’t. This is why I like to stay away from the forums, only trolls……… that don’t know wth they’re talking about can’t have a discussion about what’s being discussed like man.

We’re saying that this is a QQ thread because that is exactly what it is, whether you intended it to be or not.

Someone has said it best; Thieves are able to fill a unique role that negatively effects zerker builds the most, but the only thing that Thieves hard counter now are newer people who don’t understand how thieves work.

Nobody is denying that Thieves are strong, but we know how to beat them. To say that they ‘hard counter’ all zerker sets is just incorrect and to continue to complain about it does more of a disservice to you than it does to us.

I know how to beat them too thx… lol But they do hard counter the other zerkers specs. Please get off that denial train… And people can’t say w/e they want… IDGAF

I run a zerker spec, and since the Sept 9th I’ve beaten Thieves consistently. I’ve learned how to beat them—ergo I am not hard countered. If you’re able to beat them, you’re not being hard countered.

At this point, you’re kinda just trolling for attention /:

ghaleon.2861:

Narkodx.1472:

This thread is not even about that though.. he is simply QQing because he plays zerker mesmer and gets rekt by zerker thieves

This is not about Thieves having a role in conquest that no one can replace them for being mobility and decap – things you pointed out that I agree with

While that would have made a much better thread this guy is simply QQing for 1v1 reasons – none of which are warranted

/thread

I’m not qqing, at all….. the thread was about theif countering zerkers, but you all decided to take it to a different direction. And I don’t get rekt by anyone, even though thief does hard counter my class hard. I’ve learned how to deal with them a long time ago. Idk why you all think this is a qq post, it’s not. If you all want to deny to yourselves that thief does in fact hard counters other zerkers specs go ahead. But don’t come here talking bullkitten like know me and know how I play, cause you don’t. This is why I like to stay away from the forums, only trolls……… that don’t know wth they’re talking about can’t have a discussion about what’s being discussed like man.

We’re saying that this is a QQ thread because that is exactly what it is, whether you intended it to be or not.

Someone has said it best; Thieves are able to fill a unique role that negatively effects zerker builds the most, but the only thing that Thieves hard counter now are newer people who don’t understand how thieves work.

Nobody is denying that Thieves are strong, but we know how to beat them. To say that they ‘hard counter’ all zerker sets is just incorrect and to continue to complain about it does more of a disservice to you than it does to us.

What are you talking about? Not only did they fix Sword#3 in the Sept 9 patch, they seriously buffed it.

Hey all! My guild and I are finally planning on getting into the WvW scene and I was wondering what kind of builds I can try. I’m an avid PvPer but I’m told that my PvP builds don’t always translate well into WvW.

Side note; are PU and mantra builds viable in WvW after the patch? I’m really interested in using MtoP.

Thanks!

Complaining about it over and over again will get you the exact opposite results of what you want. Do you think ANet will really listen to someone who does nothing but complain? Instead, how about making a helpful post?

Yes, 4v5s suck reaaaallllly bad. But ANet has already said that they are trying to figure out how to solve this issue. The ‘ready’ button just won’t cut it. Be patient.

ghaleon.2861:

manveruppd.7601:

ghaleon.2861:

I know that, but that’s not the point. Ele is forced to play d/d, because s/d or s/f has no sustain and a thief will eat the ele alive if he plays anything else than d/d or staff bunker.

The reason ele scepter has no sustain is because they run it with berserker amulet, to take advantage of fresh air/lightning strike procs for maximum burst. Nothing inherently glassier about scepter as a weapon!

plz stop telling me things i already know………and you don’t get it

Saying that we don’t get it because we don’t agree is not how it works. We already know that Thieves are strong. But we got over it and learned how to beat them.

I used to think that Theives hard-countered Mesmers—my main—and was pretty frustrated about it. However, instead of constantly complaining about it, I practiced with some guildies and became better. I run a zerker phantasm build and I’m actually able to beat a lot of good thieves. The trick is learning how thieves play. They are not invincible, just invisible. AoE around you, knowing when they can/will come out of stealth, knowing that good thieves will be behind you about 90% of the time, and knowing when to dodge and when to preserve your energy and skills are the keys to fighting a thief.

A lot of times, if a good thief knows that they can’t win, they will retreat and reset the fight. This means that you can cap the point, try to heal up, or run away. Bad thieves will just stay there and die.

This is honestly just one of those times where you just need to learn to play (absolutely no insult intended) and I promise you will be able to beat them.

Hey Bryce! My friends and I are leading a very active and growing gaymer guild called Arcus Pride! We’re a PvX guild that does it all; dungeons, fractals, tPvP, map exploring, and soon we’ll start WvW! We skype often and most of our joke shenanigans go on there XD

We’re on multiple servers, but unfortunetely, we are stationed in the North American servers. However, the guild chipped in just this morning to move one of our new members from the EU servers to NA and we would be more than happy to work something out for you as well!

If you’re interested, you can message me on here and we can work something out. You are also absolutely more than welcome to join our Facebook group. We hope to hear from you soon!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/GW2gaymercommunity/

If you’re truly not happy with GW2, leave. It really is that simple.

I never played GW1, but I honestly don’t see what people are talking about when they say that they can’t connect to their characters or the NPCs. I for one am in love with my character. GW2 gives your character a basic back story that is pretty customizble compared to other MMOs that just give you a toon, drop you off in a city, and tell you to grind. As with most MMORPG’s, the RPG part really needs to come from you. You need to come up with the fleshy backstory for your character. You need to give them personality. You need to work to make your character unique. The only thing I wish ANet would touch upon in terms of personal story is give some explanation as to where most of the player’s magic/fighting ability came from.

As for the NPC’s saying that they no personality—or something you can attach to—is downright wrong. Every major character in the Personal Story and Living Story is more fleshed out than any character in any other MMO I’ve ever played. You cannot honestly say that you don’t have some form of opinion on Trahearne, Destiny’s Edge, Faolain, Queen Jenna, Countess Anise, Phlunt, Rox, Taimi, Scarlett, Kasmeer, or Brahm. Personally, I absolutely hate Trahearne, Phlunt, and Kasmeer, but its either because of their infuriating personalities or because they somehow hogged all the glory from you when you killed an Elder Dragon….Anyway, kudos to ANet for making me feeling ANYTHING about NPC’s; further kudos to them for making me want to dislike them.

I personally LOVE GW2 more than any video game I’ve ever played. A big part of this is because I see it for what it is; a social MMO that gives your character a lot of room for development if you put in the actual effort.

Windwalker.7421:

Nah, I think the real point is they fixed it. It was almost not worth using before, and now I can’t wait for the timer to be up on it. It hits hard, removes a boon, and has a very good AoE radius now.

It was the most obvious path to fixing it, and I applaud them for not going off the deep end with it and giving us something crazy that either is useless (bugged) to begin with, or gets nerfed into useless 1 hour after the patch. ;-)

Could not agree more with this. The AoE from Mind Stab is sooo good for us. It gives us a solid edge in group fights (coupled with the fact that GS phant hits multiple opponents) and gives us a reason to actually use GS in dungeons and fractals!

• Using GS poorly in PvP
  I hate when I see people in PvP litereally just stand there and spam GS AA. They don’t even use any of the other skills….just #1. Sometimes I figure that they are just trying to act like a clone—which is cool I guess for newer players—but when they run out of illusions they still just spam AA. o_o

• Most Mesmers dress very similarly
  I get that we don’t have a lot of choices in the light armor section, but I promise that not every Mesmer has to dress in black/purple cloaks. We look good in other colors too… .-.

• We complain about EVERYTHING
  Nobody can deny this. You hear more complaining out of the Mesmer community more than any other part of the forums. We complain whether we get something good or bad. I get that there have been some bugs, but seriously guys, we’re not paying a subscription so we should be thankful. That really kills a developer’s morale. I’m surprised that Mesmers get any buffs or bug fixes with how we treat the devs lol. Why can’t we all just bake a cake out of happiness and rainbows and eat it together!?

Spanny.9256:

Ross Biddle.2367:

General thoughts:

Some nice changes.

Most major meta issues still unresolved.

this is why anet hates us

they give us a bone and forum mesmers be like, “ugh nothing IMPORTANT fixed might as well nerf us”

they give us an inch and you guys complain about not being given the mile

This! If I were working for ANet (speaking as a programmer) I wouldn’t give the Mesmer community anything. Most of the forum community do nothing but complain whether we get anything bad or good. Whether we see it or not, the programmers have to put in full time hours into this game and we give absolutely no gratification for their work. Thankfully, the Mesmers that actually play the game instead of trolling the forums aren’t nearly as pessimistic.

I’m pretty stoked for all the Mesmer changes. I’m a little confused about Mimic and will need to test it once the patch drops, but there is absolutely no way Mesmers will be in a worse state than we have been. We can only go up!

They say that only unhappy people write reviews. After reading the recent post about how satisfied the entire (forum) community is as well as reading through all of the whining from forums, I decided to actually make a post about how thankful I am for ANet and GW2.

A little bit of background: before starting this game in May/June, I was helping the development of a Pokemon MMO. The game was made on a faulty system and as such, no matter how much we tried or how good of programmers we were, the game would always have bugs. Our community knew that and still played because we all enjoyed the great sense of community we had. Nintendo of America then shut us down after a year and a half of work.

I decided to try a new MMO and Guild Wars 2 caught my eye because I assumed that it would be a community-based game…..since it has ‘Guild’ in its name. The deciding factor to buy the game was because I really wanted to get Bonetti’s Rapier. I really love rapiers and there aren’t many games that allow me to both use one and magic. The combination of magic, a rapier, and a pistol is what made me choose Mesmer as my class.

Skip to the part where I started reading the forums and about how the Mesmer class was ‘garbage in all game modes,’ how there were a ton of bugs, no endgame content, PvP—Skyhammer in specific—was somehow flawed, and something about only wanting players who attained some non-existent ‘skill’ to be able to play. To put simply; the forum community was not happy.

However, I always was. I founded a great guild of people who have very similar lives as I do. I found that sense of social community that I was longing for. I think that the Guilds in Guild Wars 2 is the best part of the game. Even if the game itself is flawed, you still have a great community—friends—that you can play with. Everything you can do in the game is so much better if you do them with your community/friends whether is be PvE, PvP, of WvW. I think that was what ANet was striving for and I think that it is absolutely brilliant!

TL:DR – Great job on an awesome community game, ANet. Keep doing what you’re doing.

John.8620:

The Shatterer does deserve a buff and so does the Claw of Jormag

No. Just. No. ._.

If anyone is giving anything remotely related to a buff Claw of Jormag, the fear needs to go first lol. I agree that the fight itself could be more engaging, but making a lv80 world boss harder just spells faceroll’d disaster XD

I would like to be a bit more engaged with CoJ and actually fight it. Most of the time, I spend 50% of the fight running in ‘fear’, 10% spamming ranged AA, 30% in my downed state, and 10% laughing too hard at the people who have never fought the dragon before and were just crushed because they didn’t move when it landed.

It would be cool if all world bosses were more engaging. I just feel like I’m spamming AA for almost all of them until they die.

Exile.8160:

Well yeah there is a minority of people that actually like the map, but the majority of them really hate it and they are being force to play it in soloq, that’s not fun for them. I’m not saying remove it but just leave it in hotjoin where people have the option to play it or not.

Another solution could be that when people get skyhammer have the option to leave the que and have someone else that’s que up take that stop. The amount of 4v5 and 3v5 is huge in that map because so many people are being force to play and not have a choice.

Again, I honestly don’t see the majority of players hating Sky Hammer in the soloq. That doesn’t mean that its not happening, but I really don’t think the hate is anywhere near as bad as it is on the forums.

Instead of getting rid of this map that actually can be pretty fun, maybe ANet could just tweak the map a bit. Putting up a few more walls would make a lot of players happy.

Shockwave.1230:

ANet has said the majority of people like sky hammer. The forums just flame it.

This. Most people I talk to in-game actually like Sky Hammer (or at least don’t hate it as much). Its always fun to fight for control of the hammer and then smite enemies XD

zaxon.6819:

“for the sake of balance in wvw” there is no balance in wvw.. and pu dosent run travelers runes.. that is your balance.. a super slow low pressure roamer.. is… super slow.. and has low pressure. see the balance.

I know that PU Mesmers have no mobility, but then why do people complain about it? Again, this train of thought it from what I assume ANet must be thinking; if players complain about it, then there must be a problem?

blakdoxa.7520:

Noah.9654:

This. Seriously. This.

The worst problem is that according to polls, it wasn’t even the majority of the Mesmers complaining. It was the minority plus other professions crying about it. No matter how you look at it, the Mesmers were ‘nerfed’ because the minority threw a tantrum. Frankly, nobody has the right to be upset about this lol.

PU needed to be nerfed. I’m absolutely fine with this. The clone death issue is something we’ll need to see first hand. If you have to blind the clones themselves (which would make sense) then this isn’t nearly as bad as the QQers think. If you have to blind the Mesmer, we may need to adjust our gameplay a bit and thieves will be a bit more annoying than they already are.

The buffs will outweigh the minor nerfs. Everyone can stop the panic now.

PU is a 1v1, roaming build.
In sPvP, you will not see this build outside of hot join or SQ.
In WvW, this will be nothing more than a roaming build that kittens players foolish enough to fight one.

Since when did dueling even matter in balancing? Are you telling Anet shifted their focus to 1v1 jerking fest over coordinated team-play?

PU has barely to no value in team-play and Anet just lopped off a limb for whatever crazy reason…

I don’t understand crippling a build like this even for the scepter change cause who is going to seriously think the scepter will become “team viable” after the torment change?

I’m not sure what you’re refuting, but I absolutely agree that PU builds are terrible in sPvP and tPvP (they are only a minor annoyance on hotjoin).

Apparently, when ANet was looking for ways to solve the PU issue, they were testing via 1v1s and duels. Why, I have absolutely no idea.

My reasoning for wanting PU to be nerfed was just for the sake of balance in WvW (many other changes should probably take place too). I feel like ANet could have nerfed PU a lot harder and I’m happy that they didn’t. People may now even stop calling PU a ‘cheese build.’

zaxon.6819:

the main problem is.. you cry when they buff you.. you cry when they nerf you.. people would have been better off just taking the buff and closing thier mouths. who begs to get themself nerfed on the forum.

this is a lesson to all the torment tears. torment isnt a problem to them.. but if you cry for 20 pages about pu they are going to nerf you. zip it.

This. Seriously. This.

The worst problem is that according to polls, it wasn’t even the majority of the Mesmers complaining. It was the minority plus other professions crying about it. No matter how you look at it, the Mesmers were ‘nerfed’ because the minority threw a tantrum. Frankly, nobody has the right to be upset about this lol.

PU needed to be nerfed. I’m absolutely fine with this. The clone death issue is something we’ll need to see first hand. If you have to blind the clones themselves (which would make sense) then this isn’t nearly as bad as the QQers think. If you have to blind the Mesmer, we may need to adjust our gameplay a bit and thieves will be a bit more annoying than they already are.

The buffs will outweigh the minor nerfs. Everyone can stop the panic now.

Yes!

I’ve already made my opinion clear on maybe 7 different threads and in-game so I’ll refrain from repeating myself. Many people here have already went in depth about how this change is better for the Mesmer and why many people should not just theorymon until we get a chance to play it.

Every buff the Mesmers are getting is seriously helping us in all modes of gameplay. I can think of 4 different build sets that will love both Scepter AA, Staff fix, and GS buff. PU Mesmers kinda have a way of punishing people who run away from them (although as someone pointed out already, it won’t help by much) in WvW. And now Mesmers have a cool addition to condi builds as well as defensive builds (read: Mesmers who want their enemies to stay the hell away from them) in PvE.

I would also like to say that after reading the comments, I am very happy that a statistical majority of the Mesmers here are not whining about these changes. I’m very happy that we are all voicing out opinions in what I think is the best possible way!

Kudos to the OP for the poll
Kudos to the Mesmer community for being awesome and optimistic

Fay.2357:

You say this as if it has no counter. The skill still has a cast time, and the clone can still be killed in a single autoattack unless you swap instantly….in which case it can simply be dodged by someone that dodges when they see the clone appear.

So if its not OP and has counters, its bad? That isn’t good logic whatsoever. And, as you’ll read below, good Mesmers do swap instantly.

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? Rhetorical question since you’ve stated that you don’t play at all. No good Mesmer (read: 90%) tries to ‘play mind games’ with the swap. If you look at tournaments or high level play, you’ll see that it was used solely as a gap closer. There isn’t really any ‘mind games’ going on in skilled play because its hilariously easy to tell a real Mesmer from his clones and put a target on him. Our only saving grace from this is that we have skills to drop the target. I have no idea where you got this ‘mind games’ idea from the swap.

Fay.2357:

I call it lazy/bad design because it makes the game less skillful. It takes no skill to spam autoattacks to apply conditions, and the counter to that is simply spamming condition removals to remove them. Skillful play is when you have high impact skills that need to be countered in some way. By placing conditions on autoattacks instead of making more high impact skills, it reduces the amount of skillful play possible. This makes it lazy/bad design.

Read my previous post about skill. Because ANet has stated over and over again—even making it their marketing brand—that this is a casual MMO (meaning anyone should be able to play despite actual playtime), skill isn’t their first concern. Now, we all know that ANet will accommodate players who invest their time and money to develop skill in the form of tournaments, but in these tournament play, nobody will use PU builds. At all. At worse, I can see Mesmers running much better condi-shatter builds but I think that will just put us on par with better tier classes. And again, at worst, ANet will just take away torment from our clones and we’ll still be better than we were.

Fay.2357:

This is where I have an issue with PU. There’s nothing wrong with playing the build that you choose, the problem is when it starts to become the only viable set of builds. PU is the only viable set of builds while solo roaming in WvW, and it’s the only build you can use in PvP without being immediately hard-countered by a thief on the other team. Limited build diversity is always bad, and overnerfing mechanics as Anet is wont to do leads to limited build diversity.

This part is blatantly false and under the assumption that you’re actively trying to 1v1 a Thief. The general rule is if you can cripple the Thief with iZerker or mark it with iDuelist, you will have an upper hand for most of the fight. Mesmers have some up with multiple ways to deal with a Thief and even more will be available once they are nerfed after the patch. Many videos on this thread even show that you can beat a skilled thief with lockdown builds.

tPvP and to some degree sPvP should never have you trying to 1v1 anything unless you are a bunker build. Yes, I know that its pretty stinking hard to get out of a 1v1 with a thief, but as you’ll see in higher level play and tournaments, players will know how many thieves are in-game and plan accordingly. If they are pressured by a thief, you go on the defensive and communicate with your team. This is much harder on sPvP but I feel like it is more of a Thief problem than a Mesmer problem

Fay.2357:

I used to play mesmer. I used to enjoy playing the class, and that’s why I’m here. I no longer enjoy playing the class, and subsequently I no longer enjoy playing the game, so I can be found in Firefall and more normally in Dragon Nest. That being said, I want to enjoy playing mesmer and GW2 again, and so I take every opportunity to do what I can to cause positive change for this class.

If you no longer enjoy playing the class or no longer play the game, why waste anyone’s time complaining? I could understand a little angst if you were actively playing the game and looking for ways to work through the Mesmer’s problems but that obviously isn’t the case. You’re kinda just complaining for the sake of complaining.

Fay.2357:

iWarden has been “fixed” before. The devs no longer deserve the benefit of the doubt, and so until I see it in front of me working correctly, I will assume that not only will it not be fixed, it will actually be broken even worse.

This is the complaining I’m talking about. I will now refute your arguments.

Fay.2357:

Not exactly. I’m not entirely sure what you’re referring to with immensely buffed at all actually. Having the clone summon on target basically gives us the functionality that it is supposed to have, just without the pathing issues that they were unable to resolve. However, it leaves us with quite a few downsides.

Read my latter comment as to why its much better to have the clone summoned at the target than to have the clone run to the target. Its not an almost unavoidable Blurred Frenzy. That is much better than the previous iLeap even without the bugs. We don’t know if it will or won’t work without LoS, but we have no reason to automatically assume the worst. Very few Mesmers in PvP tried to ‘play mind games’ with their iLeap. It was a gap closer. No more, no less.

Fay.2357:

Firstly, conditions on autoattacks is simply bad/lazy design. It was apparently too difficult to come up with a creative way to make scepter autoattacks interesting (despite no lack of suggestions), and so torment was added. This is overall bad for the class and bad for the game.

This is the part that perplexes me. Who exactly are you to decide whether or not something is lazy/bad design. If you were working with ANet and thus shared thier vision of their game, I would respect that. However, because it is something that you dislike, you opt to deem it as ‘lazy design’?

Fay.2357:

Next, this is going to be incredibly strong. Incredibly strong things leads to incredibly loud complaining, and incredibly loud complaining leads to heavy-handed unnecessary nerfs (see confusion, glamour builds, blurred frenzy). So ultimately this change gets us a month or two of fun, followed by some enormous unspecified nerf that’ll probably kill a good subset of mesmer condition builds, and pidgeonhole us even more into PU.

I make this statement out to everyone. I agree that PU is a so-called ‘cheese’ build. It doesn’t take a lot of skill to create or execute. However, does it every occur to anyone that this game is a casual MMO? The need for skill to play isn’t supposed to be a priority. The only places where you need skill (t/sPvP and to some degree, WvW) are the places where PU Mesmer builds aren’t that great. In PvP, PU can’t hold a point and bunkers can literally ignore the mesmer, decap, and even full cap. In WvW, you can choose to runaway from the PU Mesmer (which might now require a condi cleanse because of torment). So after the hype has died down, I doubt there will be too much complaining. People will never use PU builds in tournaments; plain and simple.

Now, as most people have been discussing already, the torment buff will most likely not even be used on PU builds. In short, the buff is giving us a better option for condi builds that could very well take us out of the low tier class level. If they have to nerf us because we might be too OP after the update, that will be fine. At worst they’ll just take away torment from our clones and we’ll still have great condi specs.

Fay.2357:

We don’t have to search hard to find things to complain about. They’re handed to us on a silver platter. Yes, there were some very significant good changes…but there’s also a lot of not so great. I’m far too jaded to applaud the devs for the proverbial ‘a broken clock is right twice a day’, and so I’m all too happy to point out and pick on the stuff that is still horrid and needs work.

If you’re actively searching for reasons to be unhappy, why are you still here? With all due respect, the Mesmer community—given all that its already been through—really doesn’t need your negativity. All you’re doing is dissuading new players from rolling Mesmer. I don’t even see how you still play a Mesmer (if at all in which case, why complain) if you’re so unhappy about it.

Hello Vee Wee! I love how you always introduce yourself in every post. Welcome to the wonderful world of Mesmer! I hope you enjoy your stay.

As for the build, I think it looks pretty solid. I really wish that these builds could afford to go 4 into dueling for Deceptive Evasion (in my opinion is the best all-around trait for Mesmers) but alas.

Most others will tell you that sc/focus + staff is the best weapon set for this build. However, I’m biased and I don’t really like the focus in PvP. Pistol gives you the ability to interrupt as well as secondary DPS via iDuelist.

Hope you have fun

Chaos.3579:

ileap was not buffed. it was simply fixed. now its reliable (need to test before we really know). however even with the change to ileap it still is completelly uselss because iswap has been nerfed to hell(cant swap when clone is dead). our assurety that iswap would work 100% (assuming enemy does not get out of range/dodges) is gone while that nerf remains.
and our “juke” mobility needing skill, set up, and having tons of restrictions that no other mobility skill on any other class has is also totally useless in the process.

anet should revert their nerf to iswap. or follow through with their logic and nerf every other leap in the game so they match their tool tip “leap at your FOE”

no more leaping at empty space.

I see it as a buff. Your clone is no longer prancing to the target practically yelling “INCOMING BLURRED FRENZY BURST” lol. Its immediately at the target, and unless you’re trying to melee a War of Guard (why?), there is a good chance your clone will survive the 1s needed to preform the swap.

I don’t know where, but someone made a really good point about not being able to leap to a clone that’s already dead. Why should Mesmers be able to leap to a clone that isn’t there if turrets should not be allowed to blast finish a healing turrets water field if an opponent destroys the turret before a turrets self destruct is activated, blood fiend should not be life transfer healing the necro once it is destroyed, or shield of avenger should not be putting up its defenses to destroy projectile once it is killed by an enemy player?

All in all, I think we’re going to come out in a good place.