Guild Wars 2

Awe.1096:

Why I dont eat 6 bowls of chinese sweet and sour pork every day even though I love eating chinese sweet and sour pork? Think about it. This analogy is in fact very accurate. If you ever was on a fat-loss diet you would know that placing excessive amounts of some food a person loves in front of that person is evil.

Well in Western society anyway, excessive amounts of food are all over the place anyway. If someone can’t stop themselves from eating 6 bowls of food they like every day instead of a reasonable amount, the solution is for that individual to get some help, not to shut down all the restaurants.

Awe.1096:

Some day you will get hit with something that you care about and then some bystander will say that it is “mind-boggling” that you care about something so stupid. Then you will understand.

I never said the pursuit of achievement points was mind-boggling. I said that deciding to quit the game because of new optional achievements was.

Awe.1096:

That does not compute. Want to get as many AP as possible means you go for as many as possible. Doing all dailies each day is possible. So go for it.

Why would I bother? It’s a game. I play it to have fun. Grind is self-imposed and I don’t impose it.

And IMO, the “achievement leaderboard” is just a list of people with some combination of excessive free time and severe gaming addiction.

pupupuly.8792:

HA, another PLAY-FOR-FUN player come in and try to make them self looks smart.

Of course you can said every thing easy, CURSE YOU DONT EVEN PLAY THIS PART IN GAME

Next time just add a screen shoot to show how much AP befor you say anything ,will you?

Was that intended as satire? I certainly hope so, as the alternative is a bit scary to think about.

Awe.1096:

The only thing for which those new dailies present more options to, is maxing out the AP score.

They are a way for those who are going to play a lot of PvP to get some extra APs out of their matches.

That’s it. The rest of this is a bunch of overwrought emotion from people who lack any sort of perspective.

Awe.1096:

And actually I agree about the “if you don’t want to do something, don’t do it” part. I stopped playing GW2 two days after patch with those dailies went live. Didnt logged since over a week now. Despite the fact that I played it pretty much every day since release and I enjoyed it.

That would be a textbook example of “throwing the baby out with the bathwater”. Why on earth would you stop playing a game you enjoy because something new and completely optional was added? Mind-boggling.

Awe.1096:

I am not going to come back unless some sort of hard-cap for daily AP is going to get introduced. Is it a sin to advocate for such change? Especially if I dont see any downsides of it for general population?

Of course it has a downside: there are people who want to get as many AP as possible and who do it without driving themselves crazy. You want to take the option away from them because you don’t have the ability to find middle ground you can live with.

Malediktus.9250:

The game is not playing us, anet is playing with us. They add most of the dailies to improve their beloved metrics or the economy (daily food eater, daily gatherer, etc.). Not because they make the game more fun but because they deliver better metrics for the investors.
Anet seems to go further and further away from their “Play as you want” philosophy.

Sorry, but that’s complete nonsense.

If they had removed existing daily achievement milestones and put only these longer ones in, you might have a valid complaint. They didn’t. They added something new and extra that you can do or not do as you choose, and that’s entirely consistent with a “play as you want” philosophy.

I’ve reached one of these achievements one time since they came in 2 weeks ago. They have had no impact on my gameplay or life in any way, except that I now have 1 extra (meaningless) achievement point.

The problem is entirely in your head. Sorry.

Malediktus.9250:

People saying so are intolerant towards other playstyles / playing habbits.

Except that it’s the players complaining themselves that are intolerant towards their own playstyles.

All people like me are saying is: if you don’t want to do something, don’t do it. Stop trying to remove options for people who like them because you lack the self-control to pace yourself and decide what to do and what to skip.

If you are doing something in this game for hours every day not because you like it but because you feel you have to, then you aren’t playing the game, the game is playing you and you need to get some help.

Even as a scepter lover myself I use a sword in PvE. The main problem is that much of the damage from the scepter comes from the block, and it’s difficult to time and make sure it gets used unless you are fighting 1 on 1.

Malediktus.9250:

I am more amused about people telling us we dont have to do everything.

What’s amusing about it? Too simple and honest — and true?

Kenny.3476:

this achievement hunters are so funny lol….

Actually, I feel sorry for them. Some incredibly strong evidence of gaming addiction in this thread.

I usually get my PvP daily reward chest within the first hour I PvP after the reset, without even realizing it. It’s incredibly easy. The other achievements I never get because I don’t play enough, and so what? It’s not necessary to do everything.

Reminds me of the people who complain about the “grind” for certain items, which are also entirely optional and unnecessary.

Do people here really think anyone cares about their place on the “achievement leaderboards”? Really?

There’s never any end of carrots to chase and the people who cannot stop themselves from compulsively doing it even when it’s not fun need to get some real world help.

Eyia Hellhide.7320:

Guys… It’s not nice. Don’t try to teach people how to play or how to live. It’s his choice and his question is simple, he deserves to receive an answer.

It’s his choice of course, but when he comes here telling everyone what he’s doing, and how he’s making himself miserable, then the responses he’s getting are predictable and appropriate. We’re not trying to flame him, we’re trying to get him to understand that he’s doing something completely and totally unnecessary and that the solution lies with him, not Arenanet.

Eyia Hellhide.7320:

And I find it so cute that his wife is trying to help him. I’d do the same for my bf if he was a gamer by any chance.

If I were his SO and saw this sort of behavior, I’d urge him to log off the game either permanently or for at least a month, and seek counseling on the possibility of a gaming addiction.

I’m not writing that as some sort of a jab, I am 100% serious. Deciding you want to spend hours hunting achievements in a game is fine if it’s something you really enjoy and it’s not having a negative impact on your life. When you’re doing it to the point where you have to involve your wife and she gets to the point of “crying out”, you probably have a problem.

Artorias.5231:

How can I do anything else in this game after spended more than 7 hours on daily, then go to work for another 8 hours?

Patient: Doctor, it hurts when I do this.
Doctor: So don’t do that.

I find it amazing that people have so little ability to control how they spend their time that they actually demand that something optional be removed because they can’t stop themselves from doing it.

And I hope that stuff about your wife was a joke, because if not, you need to delete your GW2 account and go get some marriage counselling or something. Wow.

PS Nobody actually cares what your “achievement point” rank is. Really. Honest. Stop driving yourself crazy over it.

I’ve been told to report them using “LFG Abuse” which seems about right to me. If they were verbally abusive, you can use that.

I just was in a team queue match where someone complained about the other team and quit in the middle, and I reported that individual. Everyone needs to pitch in, in order to purge the selfish players from this activity.

You want to know why I don’t run team queue?

Because I just did, and we lost 500-40. And when it was over, these were the ranks of the players.

Their team: 40 – 40 – 49 – 47 – 48. Average, around 45.
Ours: 40 – 12 – 22 – 1 – 1. Average, around 15.

This is during prime playing time on a weekend in the US.

Any questions?

Silentshoes.1805:

I can almost guarantee that you probably play a roamer and look for 1v1 fights.

No, you can’t.

I’ll assume you meant well but this is not at all how I play. I usually bunker a point and then help out adjacent points when necessary.

Mesmers in PvP are not particularly team-oriented, but I do a pretty good job in most regards. Unfortunately, being stuck in the 30% range of solo queue, I cannot afford to take team-specific traits and utilities because most of the teams I am in are like a herd of 5 cats.

I’ve been trying a defensive warrior, don’t like the style. I tried guardian, that has potential but I have a lot to learn.. and to be honest, I feel like I bunker better with my mesmer than half the guardians I meet.

Was looking at engineer. Ranger is one I’ve never considered before. I don’t know either class though, so it would be a learning curve.

Well I was hoping that was the case, but was looking for confirmation. I often have a low personal score because I don’t work to maximize it.

Does the closeness of the game have an impact?

Does one’s personal score in a match have any impact on movement in the leaderboards?

Thanks.

I haven’t used it in WvW per se, but it sounds like you might do well with Blackdevil’s hybrid build. It’s usually on page 1 or 2 of this forum’s topic list.

Skyhammer really would be better with a Godkitten.

With all due respect, until you guys fix the 4v5 and similar issues, none of the rest matters.

I’m serious about that. If you can’t even have an even team match, it doesn’t matter how the bells and whistles sound and look.

Evan Lesh.3295:

I describe exactly how dishonor works here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Dishonored-Details/first#post3389177

I want to reiterate that we will continue to watch the numbers and change them as we see fit. Obviously we don’t want to punish people with poor internet, but players who consistently disconnect should expect to gain dishonor. Disconnecting is no different than leaving. If you have disconnected twice in one night, you should probably take a break until your internet is more stable before trying to play more.

I just want to thank you, and I mean this sincerely, both for the good communication and for sticking to your guns on doing something about people who leave matches.

Like others, I don’t care if someone’s Internet stinks. When I had bad Internet, I didn’t play games that impacted a team. And my guess is 99% of these claims of disconnections are bogus.

Because as kittenolo queue is, I have more of a chance at a fair fight. Going to the team queue as an individual means a high chance of being slaughtered by an organized team.

If I had a team, I’d use the team queue. But nobody wants to make teams with newer players.

skcamow.3527:

I’ve seen a couple here and there, maybe Pyro will post his some day
I’ve posted a build called the utility wizard which works decent, even better seemingly with the new heal signet in my limited testing. That one doesn’t run blink. As for phase retreat, you learn to use it at the far end of the circle so you appear at the opposite edge. There are some other really nifty phase retreat tricks you can do in PvP, just search youtube.

Thanks. I’ve tried them and not had much luck. I’m just too dependent on the stealth I think.

I feel a bit lost in mesmer-land right now. I can feel the limitations of my PU/phantasm hybrid but nothing else works for me. I’ve had some success with a berserker-type phantasm build, but I die too quickly and.. I really hate dying. Maybe that’s why I always end up playing defensively.

I’m sure a good lockdown/shatter build would be effective. The learning curve though…

Drudgen, your build looks like a fairly standard Blackwater. The thing with this build is that it is really almost entirely defensive and it relies on counterplay and a lot of running and dodging. I like to open with scepter #3 because it’s slow but does decent damage and often lures the opponent into an attack, which I block with #2. You could then try to throw the mage up (though he’s pretty weak) and then swap to staff, toss a chaos storm, summon a warlock, phase retreat and dodge around, etc.

skcamow.3527:

PU certainly has some nice staying power in PvP but you’ll rarely if ever see it in team play (especially as a bunker) due to the stealth heavy play style. Can’t hold those points if you’re in stealth.

Are there better options for making a bunkery mesmer? Stealth has the obvious drawback, but most of our other mitigation tools also have problems: blink takes you off point, staff #2 the same, and so forth.

This is prompting me to try to come up with a bunkery build that makes less use of stealth. But I still can’t see dropping PU if I’m going 30 in Chaos, and with a bunker build, I probably am. Even if I only use it for Decoy, it’s just worth taking, seems to me.

No, I didn’t on this particular opponent. I’ve tried it in the past and just found it evaporates pretty quickly.

To be clear, I’ll happily admit my (still) relative lack of experience in the game, and that may be a factor. I need more practice and I guess I may have to get used to the idea that I’ll have to get rid of one of my utility standbys and devote a slot to extra condition removal.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I personally feel that PU in sPvP is for people that either really love the playstyle or are relatively new to the Mesmer class and need the survivability to learn the ropes.

Guilty on both counts.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Otherwise running up 30 in Chaos for all that defense is frivolous when it could go to other things. Having stealth and Blink AND torch should be more than enough defense to handle most situations as a Mesmer.

Depends on what you’re trying to do.

A defensive PU setup allows me to bunker a point against most enemies; nothing else I have tried does. The stealth means I occasionally do lose control of the point, but in most cases I can drive off the enemy without dying or being forced to flee. I can even sometimes hold on in 1v2 or even 1v3 situations for a while. All of the defense matters for this use.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

PU Mesmers lose so much effectiveness in group fights that they’re practically nonexistant. Suddenly the clone deaths aren’t nearly as potent and you have to rely on Torment and Confusion for damage, both of which can get easily cleansed. PU Power Mesmers are just weaker-than-average Phantasm Mesmer that, while effective in some 1v1 cases, also seem like they’re gimping themselves for all that silly defense.

I think this applies to the classic Blackwater variety. A hybrid PU build that combines phantasm damage with defense can do a fair bit more.

Dawdler.8521:

Stability mantra ftw. I choose it over blink even with only 2 charges. Cant even begin to count the times it has saved me, allowed me to stomp uninterrupted and let me charge the heal. Only become better with healing mantras. Combine with another skills such as decoy, torch, blink, stuns, distortion or mass invisibility and you can counter interrupts and give time to charge the stability mantra as well.

Interesting idea, but basically means I have to expend a utility slot just to make the stuff in the other slots viable? I’m sure it works, but I don’t know if I want to gear a whole character around making mantras work. I just haven’t found it effective, at least at my current skill level.

The problem with timing the cleansing is that he could literally apply more conditions faster than I could remove the existing ones.

As for the mantras, they would be fine except for the 3 second “pseudo-self-stun” and the insane 5 second cooldown when (not if) they get interrupted. They work fine in most situations but they don’t work well enough to counter a condition build, IME.

The new heal is useless in PvP unless you want to play a throwaway berserker build that dies every minute. The disenchanter would have died to this engi’s AOE before doing a thing.

I’m sure I could make a mesmer that would beat a class like this. The problem is that it would lose to just as many other ones that I can beat now. Perhaps that’s part of game balance, but as conditions continue to show up everywhere I think a lot of existing mesmer builds are going to become unviable.

Lys.8621:

The point of this thread was to find out which are those “strong against” classes and builds.

I and others have provided those answers multiple times over the course of several days — yet you persist with the flatly false implication that PU mesmers cannot be beaten.

Go find a decent condition-based necro, warrior or engineer and show us a video of you beating him 3 times in a row with a PU mesmer. In fact, it would be nice to see any video evidence at all of your supposed “immortal” experiences with a PU mesmer so we can see exactly what sort of opponents you’ve been facing. My guess is that it will be a lot less impressive than the text descriptions you keep providing.

Simply put, I not only don’t think mesmers are “overpowered” in the current meta, I think they have an Achilles’ heel: condition clearing.

Last night I was goofing around in a private PvP server and there was a condition engi who was able to stack up multiple conditions on me in a very short period of time. He was also very tanky and there was no possible way I could take him down quickly.

I acknowledge that he was likely a better player than me in general. But even if we had been of equivalent skill levels, I doubt I would have even come close to beating him.

I’ve had similar experiences with condition necros and now condition warriors are all over the place too.

The torch clear trait for PU builds doesn’t cut it. Mender’s Purity doesn’t cut it, even using the clumsy and cumbersome mantra heal. In fact, it seems like you’d have to orient your entire build around clearing conditions to even survive against these classes, and that would leave you ineffective at doing much else.

This thread is a combination frustrated rant and solicitation for advice. Also somewhat of a reaction to the constant tedious claims I read about how mesmers are “overpowered” and “can’t be beaten in 1v1” and so forth.

Lys.8621:

Qaelyn.7612:

Anyway, I think it should be abundantly clear by now that the idea that PU mesmers cannot be beat is simply false.

No, really?

Yes, really. In fact, the further the thread progresses, while I pay more attention to how I fare personally against other classes, the more obvious it becomes that you have no experience playing a PU mesmer against other classes that are strong against them.

This entire thread is predicated on either ignorance of PU-based gameplay, or deliberate falsehood for some hidden agenda, and is a gigantic waste of everyone’s time.

Oh I agree and that’s why I want to do PvP. The problem I’ve found is that with a new class I end up just mashing buttons and getting slaughtered even in hotjoin and don’t learn much about the class that way.

Anyhow, can anyone recommend a solid build that will work well for a new player?

Relatively new player here, never played engineer before. I’ve been around for around two months now, mostly playing mesmer, dabbling with thief, warrior and guardian.

I want to do WvW but not until I get good at player combat, so I’ve been spending time in PvP. And I keep running into engineers that pump out tons of damage yet seem unkillable.

So I want to do it too!

I know nothing about the class but I’m a pretty quick learner. Any suggestions for a good place to start?

Am I better off leveling up in PvE to learn the class, or diving right in with PvP? I normally PvE to get used to a new class but I’m a bit bored of PvE right now.

Thanks.

Well, it’s a good build but I’m not sure it’s for me. I just miss my defenses and find I die too easily. Might be better in WvW where it’s easier to get the right stat mix.

And I still can’t make peace with the mantra charging thing. On paper it looks like 3 heals and 8 condition clears every 15 seconds or so. In practice, I constantly get interrupted, often at the worst possible time, and the time you have to wait after being interrupted is ridiculous. Again, I think this probably is less of an issue in WvW.

I still think mantras need a change in their charging mechanism to be viable. They’re just too much work and hassle for most players right now. But your build seems as close as any I’ve seen to really being viable.

Thanks a lot. I have a lot of learning to do with this class.

Well I don’t like rampager’s in the PvP version, just too glassy.

And even with 6 condition cleanses in 15 seconds I had no chance against a condi-spammer necro. I think that’s one place where PU is flatly better — it doesn’t have as much condition clearing but it has more avoidance tricks. Still though, just a mesmer weakness overall I guess.

Just tried it. Not bad so far. It’s obviously much less defensive than my PU hybrid but it hits like a ton of bricks. I like it better than the more conventional phantasm builds I’ve tried before. And I like getting the 3 charges thing more than the heal-on-charge thing.

I kept the scepter in my build because I figure this is supposed to be hybrid and, well, I’m a scepter guy. Even the scepter #3 hits pretty hard with the 30/30 up top. Also swapped cripple for greatsword training.

And I’m trying my auto-mantra-of-pain thing again too because I am determined to find a way to make that work.

Going to try rampager amulet next but that probably won’t end well as it will leave me rather glassy.

Morinmeth.9823:

Lion’s Arch map chat shows up on your screen too, but I can assure you, it has nothing to do with you.

This would be a superb analogy if I were trying to coordinate a competitive PvP match with people in Lion’s Arch.

I keep trying to make a build that works with mantras.. trying again now.

I’m a bit confused though as to why this is set up as a hybrid build. There’s not much that does condition damage here, just bleeds on crits. Is that significant enough to justify the condition damage gear?

I might try a variation of this in PvP, though the problem there is much harder choices to be made about what stats to bump up. Probably have to go rabid (which I run on my current hybrid) but that’s going to leave power a bit low.

Ah, I’m only really in PvP right now, still not ready for WvW.

Snorcha.7586:

I use d/f, dodge air auto makes short work of any clones / phantasms leave the mesmer with? Not saying it can’t sometimes be hard, but far from not doable. The real problem is it’s exceptionally annoying.. I guess that’s the point of the class tho hehe.

I don’t know much about elementalists but I’d love to duel you sometime and see how it goes.

So I just tried this out, just on some NPCs in the lobby. I like the playstyle.

My only problem is.. um.. how do I actually kill anything?

Morinmeth.9823:

If they’re enjoying themselves, in a manner that has nothing to do with you, in a chat you have no control over, you have no right to complain in the forums about that, in my opinion.

Well, actually, I have every right to complain about it in the forums, unless a moderator decides otherwise.

And what they said in teamchat does have something to do with me, because it showed up on my screen. If they wanted to trash some guy privately, that’s what whisper is for. The idea that I should turn off teamchat, making it impossible to communicate with my team, because a few people abuse the channel, is nonsense.

Frankly, given some of the names they were calling the other guy, I was being generous in starting this thread rather than just reporting them.

And I don’t have fun or not have fun based solely on whether I win or lose. Having to watch people clog teamchat with sex-related epithets rather than just playing — that’s not fun.

Ludus Rex.1562:

Don’t get me wrong, I also wish the Negative Nancys would pipe down and help rather than gripe, I’m just saying that helping doesn’t necessarily involve prioritizing “fighting” over “talking”, when both can be helpful.

Strategizing is helpful talking. Exchanging rude epithets about the other team’s players not only doesn’t help anything, it makes it harder for those who want to use team chat appropriately.

Obviously I cannot control what others do. And suggesting I turn off team chat because some people abuse it is utterly thoughtless.

I just wish people would understand that the team’s goal is to win the match and that’s best accomplished by working to capture points and kill players, not scroll the teamchat with name-calling.

Every time I see a line from you in teamchat about how awful you think something is about the other team, all I actually think is “less talking, more fighting”.

Especially love the match I was just in where two of my “teammates” decided to chat endlessly about how horrible the thief was on the other team, because apparently that was easier than actually killing him. We lost by under 100 points in part because the other team knew to get the 8:30 buff and these guys didn’t.

Finally started having a bit of success in solo queue.. and now I’m back to losing matches because of absent “teammates”.

And I really, really hope that revamping the system that creates matches and decides when to start them is at the top of the priority list.

What exactly do you consider a “sweep”?

Was just thinking about trying a guardian bunker-type in PvP, come to this forum, and here’s this thread – perfect timing!

Thanks. Now just to learn a whole new class..

ETA: If I wanted a more “selfish” bunker guardian, would it be better to adjust this build or use a different one? Thanks.

Overkillengine.6084:

A PU Mesmer is almost tailor made to obliterate the usual high offense low strategy builds that are endemic in a game that emphasizes ending fights before your opponent can react.

So it’s no surprise many people have issues when facing one because fighting them requires actual thought and observation instead of max possible damage output in the shortest possible time.

Precisely. And also precisely why it is good that this sort of build exists AND that I don’t care when people whine about PU being “cheesy” or “OP” or whatever they come up with next week.

A pure PU/Blackwater mesmer is like the porcupine of GW2. Leave it alone and it can’t do much to you, but charge in head first and you get a face full of quills.

I’m not sure if I said it on this forum or maybe in OMFG guild chat, but I can judge the quality of a player now solely by how he responds to scepter #2. If I put my arm up and the guy runs in and attacks me anyway, and then lets the torment sit and tick for second after second, I know the guy’s probably not very good. If he attacks and clears the torment quickly, more of a challenge. If I hit scepter #2 and the opponent waits until my arm goes down before attacking, I’ve got a fight on my hands.

Anyway, I think it should be abundantly clear by now that the idea that PU mesmers cannot be beat is simply false.

akamon.2769:

if you spot someone is new, and they don’t seem to know what they are doing, have you tried explaining to them, in a respectful tone, and offering advice?

Actually I do try to help. But there’s not much you can do in the time allotted. Players should really have some idea what they are doing before they join the queues.

Fine, so under ideal circumstances a highly-skilled and highly-experienced player can deal with not having stability in situations where it’s extremely useful. But those situations still exist, and mesmers are pretty weak in that regard.

Carighan.6758:

If you press it while being moved to the target location it immediately aborts the movement and frame-resets you to standing “ready”-pose. It’s the equivalent of a one-more cancel in some fighting games.

I dealt with a thief doing this to me just the other day. The pull takes only a fraction of a second, and it’s often done while the thief was stealthed. Interrupting it with a stunbreaker while simultaneously doing all the other things going on in combat would require superhuman reflexes.