Guild Wars 2

phaeris.7604:

Honestly though….it’s boring. I can see why people play it, they don’t have the ability to do well with high risk, high return burst classes. It’s the go to spec for them.

You know, it would be nice if people could at least entertain the possibility that some folks actually prefer this playstyle. I’ll freely admit that it’s easier than a shatter build, but since everyone flatly states a good shatter player is stronger, I would invest the time to learn it if I enjoyed that style.

I don’t.

I was attracted to the mesmer because it is the only class I’ve ever seen in an MMO that is somewhat similar to the illusionist specialty wizard in D&D. I like the idea of a character that deceives, confuses and confounds his opponents, frustrating them into making mistakes and turning their offense around on them. The PU/phantasm build I run allows me to do that.

In contrast, shatter builds IMO just turn illusions into yet another way of damage delivery. Every one I’ve tried has been fairly “in your face” about how the opponent is fought, and while still involving more misdirection than something like a warrior, I found it much less interesting to play. Challenging, perhaps, but not my thing, because it’s not in keeping with how I envision the class.

If they nerf PU or whatever I’m not going to just start playing shatter. I’ll find a way to adapt, or play something else.

No, that’s not a problem. It’s an inherent part of the class. Mesmers are in many ways “arcane thieves”.

Flissy.4093:

Qaelyn.7612:

I can deal with a hambow warrior just fine if it’s only 1 of them. The problem is that this class is now seen as such a ‘no brainer’ that you routinely run into teams with more than 1. They can very quickly overwhelm anyone, leaving you just standing there like a fool waiting to die.

The game isn’t balanced around hotjoin lol.

I used the word “team”.

I did not use the word “hotjoin”.

Thanks for all the replies. Appreciate the interchanges, even if they leave me somewhat confused.

I’m a somewhat tricky place right now. Eventually I would like to play guardian to help in a team setting, but right now I’m in the middle of the leaderboard (50th percentile or so) without a real team. In the solo queue, or when soloing in team queue at this level, “team play” is like trying to coordinate a herd of cats. So a build focused on intelligent teamwork is not going to work well.

I actually came to guardian via warrior, where no matter how tanky I made the build, I found I seemed to just get DPSed down. Maybe again just a matter of practice, but I thought guardian was a more natural fit for the role I was looking for, which I would summarize as “mostly defensive, but not offensively impotent”. I realize there are always trade-offs in that respect.

Thanks for the reply.

I was just looking at another build with meditations and they do seem somewhat appealing. Build I found referenced in a video. Seems similar but more defensive.

I don’t really want something oriented around DPS, that’s not why I want to run a guardian. And I don’t really want something so weak that it can’t win a 1v1. I guess I’m looking for something reasonably balanced, mostly defensive, but at least capable of decapping a point reliably if not killing someone on it.

And yes, I need a lot of practice, but I need to find a build that suits my playstyle first.

Discordia.7293:

Build Phantasmal Mesmer for far assaulter 1v1, 1v2, 1v3
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-NFRg;1VPVz097RV-71;9;4JJT;029-19-34B;4URk6;2KJG4KJG45BC

That’s a very odd build.

- You don’t have “stealth up all the time”, you’ve got a few seconds every 90 seconds worth, because you eliminated the torch, a primary stealth source in a PU build.

- The zerker amulet makes it glassy, and it has virtually zero condition removal. So you will melt within 15 seconds of meeting a condi bomber, which is what 50%+ of players are running now.

- You need runes of the centaur for any mesmer PvP build where mobility is a priority.

Seems mostly like a “disposable” character meant to cause havoc and then die, in which case you’re better off forgetting about the defense and going for illusionist’s celerity and other offensive boosts so you can spam phantasms before you get nuked.

Amir.1570:

Mesmers who cry about Warriors “taking less skill” are BAD PLAYERS who are all mechanics and have zero logic. Those classes are both brainless and I do agree that Warrior is the better class when you are good at this game.

However, to say Warrior is more brainless than Mesmer when those two classes spam invulnerability while cleaving is ignorant. Plain ignorant.

Take two brand new GW2 players who are in their first MMO. Put them in sPVP in a duel, one as a mesmer and one as a warrior. Anyone want to bet on the mesmer player winning?

Not me.

Wolvenheart.9681:

The problem is, people don’t want to understand the class. They want to play their own class, and know which buttons to press to win.

I think it’s even beyond that. Some people have flatly complained especially about the PU build because it’s “passive”. A lot of players simply don’t like the idea of counter-play, they want to be able to run in there full speed ahead and have it always work, and the idea that they can blast with all barrels and have someone not only survive it but turn it to their advantage, drives them nuts.

I like to play a defensive style and so figured guardian would be a natural. But I keep trying various bunker/support style builds and getting my butt handed to me by glassy thieves and other high-offense characters.

I realize much of this is just my own lack of experience but I’m not really sure what I’m doing wrong as I don’t seem to be getting much better.

Most recently I’ve been using this build and it seems like it has all the tools, but I am not sure how to put them all together.

Is there maybe a build better suited to more “selfish” solo play? I want to be able to take and hold a point fairly reliably, and right now at least, I’m in the solo queue or a single player in team queue so my ability to synergize with a team is limited.

Thanks.

I’ll entertain this question seriously when I run a PvP match that does not have at least two barely-sentient warriors running around stunlocking everything and spamming entire cap points with fire fields.

Just sayin’. I have about 30 too but they don’t really last that long.

Unlikely. It would be inefficient to code that way, and I know that it doesn’t work that way for boxes in PvE at least.

One reason to open them now is glory boosters. You can actually make some rather decent coin off glory with those winter’s day boxes right now, and I don’t believe there’s another way to reliably get boosters (I suppose you could buy them with gems but I won’t do that.)

The training NPCs are, well, NPCs. They’re pretty stupid. I sometimes use them when I am completely new to a class before going to hotjoin, but that’s about it.

Put it this way: if you can beat the NPCs it doesn’t mean anything. If you can’t beat them, you need a lot more practice.

Hot join has the same maps as solo queue. You can go into the browser and pick a match/map you want to play on, or just click the button top left and it will choose one for you.

I don’t have a lot of experience playing warrior but see way too many of them in PvP. And what I will contribute is that many of the defenses of the stun playstyle are based on ‘telegraphing’ and stunbreaks, both of which really only apply in 1v1 situations.

I can deal with a hambow warrior just fine if it’s only 1 of them. The problem is that this class is now seen as such a ‘no brainer’ that you routinely run into teams with more than 1. They can very quickly overwhelm anyone, leaving you just standing there like a fool waiting to die.

I’m sure there are other classes where that is also true. But there aren’t other classes with the same combination of high defense, high HP, high regen, high CC and high damage.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

I want to focus more on WvW, however, I’m terribad any time I get into small skirmishes. So, would like to work on my PvP skills.

This is why I got into PvP, and while I haven’t actually been back much to WvW, it has definitely worked in that I don’t freak out in PvP nearly as much now.

If you care about not annoying others, stick with hotjoin until you are comfortable with your classes. Both solo and team queues are now overfilled with players who have no idea what they are doing, but it’s your call if you want to contribute to that or not.

Just thought people would find it interesting to see what people think needs nerfing, and how they don’t get what our more and less important traits were. I didn’t call the guy names or anything.

Oh well, I always wanted to look like a kitten anyway. Everyone likes cute.

Exhibit A: Guy suggests nerfs to mesmer class in PvP forum; mesmers alternate between laughing and wishing they would happen.

I play mostly mesmer, just hit rank 30 and am interested. Also learning engineer and possibly guardian.

Entioch.6594:

What makes a good phantasm mesmer?

Breathing.

See this stuff is just pointless. Even if the build type is newbie-friendly, there is definitely skill involved in playing it.

JETWING.2759:

The great problem are stealth + AI, this itself transfer the target to summons while the user just wait them make all work. When the stealth ends, he just replace the summons and restart the circle – Mesmers, Rangers and Engineers are doing this all time in every place.

Even if your complaints had merit — and I don’t think they do — your suggestions do nothing to solve what you think is a problem. I play a stealth-heavy mesmer and I’d pay real money for your proposed changes.

Yeah, these “nerfs” are so bizarre I had to read the post twice because I figured I must be reading it wrong. In addition to the Deceptive Evasion hilarity, the change to Empowered Mantras would have a bunch of mesmers I know dancing in the streets.

OP should learn the class before trying to change it.

JETWING.2759:

- Move Blade Training to master tier.
- Move Desperate Decoy to grandmaster tier.
- Move Empowered Mantra to adept tier.
- Move Deceptive Evasion to adept tier.

I’d honestly have a hard time finding a mesmer who would oppose these changes. They would quite literally enable at least 2 or 3 different builds I’ve been trying to make work where I couldn’t fit in everything I wanted.

The idea of “nerfing” mesmers by reducing the cost of Deceptive Evasion is particularly hilarious.

That will lead to a lot more rage-quitting both of games and of PvP as a whole. If my progress depended only on the behavior of the people I see on most of my teams, I’d have left PvP permanently a month ago.

There are always secondary effects.

I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. Saying that one should never die is definitely oversimplified nonsense, but it’s true that “going down in a blaze of glory” is often selfish and pointless. And I am definitely getting better at realizing when trying to fight would be futile and a waste of time and resources.

In other news, just hit rank 30. Still losing most of my matches, especially in team queue.

I’d assume they’ll review your logs and decide if you are pressing buttons in a way that a person could actually do manually or not.

In case you don’t know, if you have one button programmed to send more than one button code at a time, you are macroing.

I don’t have much experience with guardian, but since I play a PU hybrid I can give you a few suggestions about the areas where I have trouble or perceive my own weaknesses to be, and places you should focus your attention.

1. Practice, practice, practice getting good at telling the real player from the clones. The real player will move erratically, toss his hands in the air to cast spells, and especially, dodge. Clones never dodge. If you get the mes down on health, also pay attention to health bars as clones usually have low health and so are usually either full or close to empty. If the player is using signets these also appear only when the player is targeted, though a lot of PU mesmers don’t use them.

2. Mesmers are weak to conditions in general and many PU mesmers only have condition removal on torch skills. Though I think applying conditions is not a guardian forte.

3. PU mesmers do a lot of their own damage via conditions. Stock up on condition removal, and you greatly remove their ability to do damage.

4. Unless they take utilities for the purpose, mesmers are weak on stunbreaks. Nearly all PU mesmers run Decoy, but that’s just one break every 40/32 seconds. Stunning them breaks up their routine. I have a lot of difficulty against necros using fear, engineers that blow me up, (good) stunlock warriors, etc.

5. Most PU mesmers have poor mobility. If you aren’t fighting for a capture point, moving around a great deal will mess them up, as they can’t chase very far, most don’t have swiftness, and many phantasms get messed up if the opponent is moving quickly.

6. Sometimes you may be better off fighting on a cap point just to decap rather than capture. If you pressure a PU mesmer he will have to use stealth, and it’s pretty easy to get the point decapped as that takes only 5 seconds. Keep up the pressure and you may take the point without even killing your opponent.

7. Many PU mesmers are substantially tougher in a 1v1 than a 2v1. Bringing a friend even for part of the fight can make a big difference.

Hope that helps a bit.

LOL. Anyone who believes this thread title doesn’t spend enough time in the solo queue. Or lately, the team queue for that matter.

Sally: At least you have a group to play with, I’m still working on that and dealing with PUGing the solo and team queues. Yuck.

Gates: Thanks, but I prefer the phantasm/stealth playstyle over shatter. I don’t think the style is nearly as dependent on the actual characteristics of PU as some do, but if they change it I’ll re-evaluate then. If they force all mesmers to play a shatter style, and I still don’t like it, I’ll just play a different class instead.

In the meantime, I continue to find ways that I can improve my gameplay with my current build and I tinker with new builds as well. If I hit a ceiling, again, I can reassess.

My last two team queue matches in the winter map, I was the only person (out of 10) to even try to get Tranquility at 8:30. That tells you a fair bit about the state of the average player these days.

Both times I got it, and we lost because nobody could hold the points.

Honestly, I’ve given up at this point. I used to try to communicate with my team, strategize etc… and 99% of the time everyone just runs around like headless chickens anyway. So until I get on a real team, I prioritize my blood pressure and just don’t worry about it.

Yeah. I wanted to try one actually but thought to myself: am I really bringing much to the table as yet another hambow? Meh.

Usually something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAR7flwzKqnUToGZ9IipH9WwBckUoavWJF42FC-TsAAzCpImRNjbGzMyZszMEZ9xuAA

Ironically enough, I was just in a group and we got nuked because they had 3 warriors. It was quite frustrating as you’ve observed.

Gorani.7205:

Just here to see what troubles the Warrior profession has compared to other professions and the most important thing in post #1 is: “Don’t come here to complain about Warrior.”
You are indeed blessed by ArenaNet.

Pretty much. Some of the complaints against warriors are overwrought, but on the whole they are definitely at the top when it comes to power-to-difficulty ratio.

There’s a reason I see more warriors than any other class in the queues, by far.

Then you may do well with one of the stun/lockdown builds. But don’t buy into the “PU is useless in PvP line” as it is not true, at least, not for typical players (I can’t speak for the higher levels).

That build has little defense and a newer player will get eaten alive by any decent hambow IME.

I run a PU/phantasm hybrid, scepter/torch+GS. I sometimes lose a point temporarily but I usually get it back. There aren’t any mesmer builds that can realistically just stand in a point in the face of an offensive onslaught, at least that I’ve found, though admittedly there are others more experienced who may have.

I think it depends what level of play you are at as well. At my level (now around 50% ranking, so right in the middle of the leaderboards) I find most hambow warriors to actually be fairly easy prey for my mesmer. There are a lot of hambow players who are attracted to it for its reputation as being OP and they don’t have a great deal of skill at dealing with fights where things don’t go their way.

In particular, most deal poorly with defensive builds. When I’m on my defensive-oriented PU/phantasm hybrid I can usually wear them down. It does take a while (longer than it should) but I win most of these matches.

My guess is that a build with heavy stun/lockdown would also give them fits.

I honestly don’t know what I would do without such helpful teammates.

My main problem with hot join is that I like to use it to try out builds before taking them into the queues, but so many matches end up with annoying zerg teams not even trying to hold points which makes it impossible to tell how a build will play in a real match.

alanis.6094:

Even with Hoelbrak, there is no way I’m running around with only the Torch as my condi cleanse. After the MP buff, I’m dumbfounded that people take the Torch trait over it.

In a PU build I often find it sufficient, occasionally supplementing with something like the Disenchanter.

If the comments are merely childish, ignore them.

If they are abusive, report them.

In no account should you pay any attention to them. Play as you wish and ignore the nonsense.

Assassin X.8573:

ive killed plenty of mes that moa me, while still moa’d lol

just have to look at what the skills do and use them correctly

If you want to practice this a bit, the mesmer NPC in the PvP lobby is a big fan of moa’ing opponents.

hooma.9642:

well it seems you are just to bad to play the easiest build for thief.. i mean if a build needs no skill and u cant play it what does it say about yourself?

What it says is that I am a player who doesn’t have enough skill to play a thief effectively, which was my point in saying there’s no such thing as a ‘zero skill build’.

That’s your example? Laughable. Sure you can dance around a lot as a thief but to actually be effective takes considerable skill. I know, as I’ve tried.

I have yet to find a single claimed so-called “zero skill OP build” that actually was.

I’ve been trying to find an alternative build that doesn’t use PU since I feel too reliant on it. After tinkering with various more offensive phantasm builds I think I found one I like.

I won’t claim that it’s any sort of great innovation or anything, but I find this particular setup works well for me. It uses dual CD reduction to allow you to get hard-hitting phantasms out quickly, while maintaining a good amount of defense so you aren’t too glassy.

Weapons: GS / scepter/sword + pistol. I use scepter but if you prefer sword it may actually work better in this build.

Traits:
- Domination 20 (III / X)
- Dueling 20 (II / IX)
- Chaos 0
- Inspiration 15 (IV)
- Illusions 15 (III)

With IC and the weapon-specific CD reducers, the iZerker and iDuelist are both on 12 second rotations and can be summoned almost immediately every time you swap weapons. With the scepter I get the nasty torment block every 8 seconds and Magic Bullet has just a 20s cooldown. On the GS Mirror Blade’s CD is just 6.5 seconds so you can use it twice per swap pretty easily.

Manta of Recovery is probably best to take advantage of Mender’s Purity, but I usually use Ether Feast. Utilities can be as you prefer, I currently run Decoy, Defender and the third I rotate. The Defender is extremely useful in keeping both you and your little illusionary friends alive. I often use the Disenchanter as well because of all the condition spamming. For elite I used to use MI but now use the Moa because when strategically placed it can turn a battle in seconds.

For gear in PvP I use Centaur runes exclusively (because I hate being slow) and I use a rabid amulet. Berserker would do more damage, especially with sword, but I find I melt too quickly in 1v2s without the extra toughness.

Anyway, just a fun little build if anyone wants to try it.

Build link

Thanks. How do you play it? Unsure why you have Confounding Suggestions when it seems a shatter on a 45-sec CD is your only daze source.

Awe.1096:

Just pointing out that what is optional and what is not is in the eye of the beholder. Look at the amount of outcry that ascended gear introduction created. Is ascended optional or not? You could argue that it is but for some people it will be mandatory becouse they will feel they will be loosing the power wars in WvW or dungeons if they dont get it.

Ascended is optional and I do say pretty much the same thing to the people who whine about that. But this is even worse, because ascended armor at least has some impact on gameplay, while AP totals really doesn’t.

This really, truly, honestly is entirely optional, and the only problem is that some folks have warped the AP system into some “obligation” that’s not really there. The solution is for those people to get over it or move on, not have the developers and community have to run in circles so they can pretend to be “great achievers” only by virtue of the number of achievements being restricted.

And the more I think about it, the more I realize the devs don’t really need to comment on this. Their job is to add new content and new options and new ways of getting things, and that’s what they’ve done. If you don’t want to use the new stuff, don’t use it.

Right, the CD reduction is the other one. Need more sleep.

I’ve tried Blink and see its value but usually slot something else. I may be in the minority there.

Interesting that you prefer shaving a few seconds off Blink to something more generally applicable like Deceptive Evasion or Blade Training. I clearly still don’t really “get” Blink if it’s worth a trait by itself, especially in such a competitive slot.