Guild Wars 2

Carpboy.7145:

Qaelyn.7612:

Thanks for the replies. Lots of opinions. Lots of confusion (for me, not the other players. )

Again, I have no illusions about a build that’s highly defensive also being highly offensive.

I do like the idea of a balance, which is part of why I was looking at carrion gear. Of course, there I give up something also. No free lunch.

I don’t plan to roam solo with this character. It’s intended to be used in a small group, and I’m okay with doing less damage than others. I just want to do as much damage as I can while also being tough and supportive.

You definitely should have said youre roaming with others first. Go full cleric with rifle for some control. Id also run HT for more group heals (even tho MK is bigger solo heals). Dont forget to stack stealth with Bomb kit 4, and youre group will absolutely love you.

Okay, so in another thread Seras said small groups work better with condi. Just different views or am I confused again.

What if I were to split the difference and go with celestial? Of course that would make my healing weak and probably make me a “jack of all trades master of none”.

Seras.5702:

Qaelyn.7612:

Seras.5702:

1. Both work but right now condition engis are incredibly strong in small group encounters.

Why specifically condi in small group encounters? Not disputing the claim, just curious what the reasoning is (and it would help the OP too).

Thanks for the informative answers in this thread.

Conditions work best when you can load up a single target with them. A major strength Engi has is constant reapplication of conditions. Being able to focus on a single target and keep the pressure on is something Engi does very well. In zergs with so much aoe condition removal, you’re better off going power imo.

They shine in small roaming groups.

Thanks.

Of course, now I’m confused again, because in another thread I mentioned I wanted to go power in my healing-bomb / grenade WvW/PvE build … and everyone was recommending condition but when I said I went in small groups someone said power was better there.

Seras.5702:

1. Both work but right now condition engis are incredibly strong in small group encounters.

Why specifically condi in small group encounters? Not disputing the claim, just curious what the reasoning is (and it would help the OP too).

Thanks for the informative answers in this thread.

I agree that it stinks that this will be going away. I understand the appeal of temporary content and it wouldn’t be as fun if it were permanent, but it seems a shame to lose it.

I don’t hate the event. I just find it frustrating and think it should be adjusted. Okay? Big difference there.

I am having a bit better luck now just focusing on the fact that I can gather drops even if we fail, so the inevitable lack of success doesn’t bother me quite so much. But it’s still really annoying that I’ve now tried this a half-dozen times and the group hasn’t come close even once.

I know others are having more luck than that, and that’s part of my complaint: the degree of reliance on luck.

Again, I think most people agree that the event itself is well-designed, including me. But some of us would just like to see some of the glaring flaws fixed — like the flatly ridiculous way people are assigned to platforms — so that the success rate is higher.

Thanks. Looks like a fairly standard tanky build, and not that different from the one I want to try. Don’t shoot me.

I was thinking of it more as being able to hold a point rather than decapping other points, though.

If they’re going to nerf the ability of the engineer to do this, then what role should engineers play? They’re supposed to be a flexible class, and it’s not like other characters can’t also decap points.

Plus, as others have said, they lack stability themselves.

If they nerf traveler’s runes without giving us another practical means of permanent faster run speed — meaning, always on, not I have to press a button every 12 seconds — it will just be one more step towards my mesmer being benched in favor of another class, especially in WvW.

The first post is very hard to understand.

I’m a new engineer and am curious exactly what sort of build is being discussed here, can anyone link one that’s relevant? Thanks.

My engi is an asura and man, those Power Shoes never come off.

The only time I have a problem is with tricky jumping puzzles and even then you get used to it pretty fast.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

you do not ask to change the rules because you do not like the rules.

That’s the entire point of this forum. Which means the only real question is: why are YOU here?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Everyone gave it their best, and we prevailed. It really isn’t as impossible as you make it out to be. Yes, it is hard (perhaps harder than it needed to be), but perfectly doable by casual, unprepared players.

Well, again, it’s a matter of opinion.

I have now spent somewhere between 5 and 10 hours trying to do this event, which is a big chunk of my playtime over the last 3 days, and have not even been close once. I guess my line dividing between “fun because it is a challenge” and “not fun because you have to try too many times” is different than yours.

class.4802:

If you don’t like the content, don’t do it.

Thank you so much for your valuable suggestion.

The point of this thread is to provide feedback to Arenanet as to why someone like me, who normally looks forward to each new LW release, is feeling frustrated and disappointed, and why.

Randulf.7614:

The balance of challenge VS difficulty for this kind of encounter was nailed.

Might feel the same if I hadn’t tried it oh, five times now, and never been above 3 chains cut.

I’ve done all I can on my end. I can’t do anything about other players or the inability to get into the “right” instance.

Depends on priorities, really. If the goal is to make an event only people perfectly prepared and gear can complete .. if they get lucky and it isn’t ruined by a handful of inexperienced players or even griefers.. then yes, it’s well designed.

For typical players? It’s a shame.

Blade Syphon.4325:

…Is Vol really defending the god awful design decision of these events, and actually Arguing against people who are suggesting the events be made more accommodating for the players?

Yep.

I’ve been on the Internet for almost 25 years, and, well, it never really changes.

Okay, so I tried again. Here’s what I did to try to ensure success.

1. Went to LP 90 minutes early to try to get into main. Yes, just after the previous marionette finished. Never popped once. That’s ridiculous.

2. I went to a lane and listened to the commanders. When another lane was low, I volunteered and went to that one instead.

3. I killed tons of mobs spamming healing bombs.

4. When we got on the platform, our group killed the boss, and I raised at least 3 people by myself. We still failed because some other group ran out of time.

5. That was our map’s second failure. When we got out, I (and others) discovered 1/4 of the people in our lane had simply given up and left.

End result? We only got 2 chains cut, and I was left once again thinking: “why am I doing this?”

The goal should be for this to be challenging but completable by typical players. It’s not. Period.

If Arenanet REALLY wants to spend its time creating content that 1% of players can do, well, they shouldn’t be surprised when what they hear is 99% complaints.

Happy to duel with you sometime if you’re in NA.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

@Quaelyn: Secret Santa! That’s what I was thinking of but I forgot the name of it.
And what was the build you’ve been using for PvP? I know its a variant of PU of some sort but a bit different, no? Should post it.

It’s just a PU/phantasm hybrid. I posted it up once I think but nobody commented so I assumed it was just as boring as I always thought.

I’m game though.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Engineers give me fits like no other.

Oh, I need to play mine against yours sometime. I’m up to level 77 now and finally getting the hang of it.

Super fun in PvE and WvW events, though I haven’t gotten it into PvP lately. (Haven’t been playing as much due to actually forcing myself to get real work done!)

FWIW, as a PU/phantasm hybrid mesmer I personally find engineers usually my second-toughest fight (necros are worse). And conditions are the main reason.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

just because i do not play WvW that often does not give you the right to belittle me.

No, but your lack of experience is a reason for not putting as much credence in your claims and arguments.

You also should know that “working as intended” is not a valid argument or counter-argument in a balance discussion. Nobody is claiming that these things are bugs, which is the only reason they might be other than “working as intended”. We are saying that class is currently unbalanced, and why.

Another example: “they can flee, because their profession mechanics allow them to do so.” This is like me asking my cable company why my bill is so high and the CS rep replying “the bill is so high because we charged you a lot.” The obvious response: AND?

The arguments against warriors having high landspeed are logically sound: why should a class in heavy armor be super fast, and how does it make sense to have a class that can both take a beating in melee and easily run away whenever they want? The arguments in favor of high landspeed (other than gap-closing) are basically non-existent, and chanting “working as intended” is not even close to constructive.

It’s a matter of practice. I’m still not that great at it myself and I play mesmer.

Quoting from Supcutie’s shatter guide…

Clones:

- Never cast abilities
- Only walk forward
- Auto attack slower than real Mesmer’s auto attack
- Never dodge roll.
- Walk straight then turn then walk straight again then turn in segments.

The real Mesmer will most likely have boons than the clones don’t, but this isn’t true all the time, just majority.

Real Mesmer will have Mantra and Signet Icons.

The two that I find most useful to watch for are dodge rolls (automatic giveaway) and non-linear movement such as changing direction or moving in a circle.

But mostly it takes practice. Spectating PvP can help but mostly you just have to fight them yourself.

Well again, the difficulty by itself I don’t think is a problem. I agree with you that it’s good for them to be challenging, and even posted a thread a couple of days ago saying exactly that.

The issue for me is the difficulty combined with the other problems. I like the idea here, I just think it needs some refinement. And the rewards, for either success or failure, seem insufficient for the effort involved.

Oh, also: the thing where people are split unevenly among the platforms – I have NO clue how that got through QA. It’s shockingly bad.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I had a super epic encounter last night where everyone in my champion ring died except for me almost immediately (we were fighting the shrieker). Then, I went on to solo the boss, killing it with 20 seconds to spare, and managed to finish off the power regulator with less than a half-second remaining on the clock. All of this was happening to the cheers in /say chat from the viewers, stunned that a Necromancer of all things soloed the boss and ultimately broke the chain. We went on to win the whole thing because of that success (we had no failures allowed left before bar filled), and it made me swell with pride to think that not only had I achieved something truly great and not only had I benefited about 100 other people, but that a group of them watched it in disbelief and cheered me on. It was nerve-wracking and absolutely unforgettably amazing.

It’s moments like these that I remember forever, and for that, I thank ANet for making such an amazing and awesome fight where I could show off my personal skill and make a difference for everyone.

I’m pretty frustrated by this event personally but I know what you mean here and yeah, that’s what it’s all about. Thanks for sharing your story.

bladeofky.3067:

I usually just log on about 30 minute beforehand, when most people are still at wurm, get into the main server, and then just afk until the start of the event. Doesn’t really address your complaint, but it works for me. =)

Well, sure, I’ve done this too. But then I realized: why am I doing this? It’s not fun, it’s not likely we’ll succeed, I’m not going to get decent rewards when we fail, and I might have to choose between being with my party and being in an empty overflow.

I left my last MMO in part because I got tired of spending as much time standing around as playing. This is not a good direction for GW2 to be going in, IMO.

As for the lane defense, it was fun the first time. It gets boring very fast, because, well, it’s pretty boring.

Vol.7601:

-> this fight promotes small-scale strategy and fights. You end up having people transferring platforms and then it becomes a zerg. I don’t think Anet intended it to be that way.

I said a group should be able to help out AFTER they finish their platform. Not that it should be 25 people zerging.

Vol.7601:

Yes, this annoys me, but you have to understand WHY that happens. Players end up being ported in one by one, and they fill in the platforms by sequence.

What are you talking about? That quite clearly is NOT what is going on here, or you couldn’t end up with 5 on one platform and 2 on another.

Vol.7601:

Now see here, instead of complaining, you should offer a suggestion.

I already did: as people enter the portal they are assigned to platforms 1234512345… etc. This is basic stuff.

Honestly.

Vol.7601:

^ That wasn’t hard, was it? As a programmer, you should be thinking of solutions instead of panicking and saying, “THIS DOES NOT WORK!!!!”. Well, why does it not work, and what can be done to fix it?

To quote a famous NPC: “you’re kidding, right?”

Vol.7601:

Once again you throw this line out without understanding why overflows exist

I know exactly why overflows exist.

And I’ve also figured out that trying to have a discussion with some people around here is a flat waste of time.

Actually I can see the reason for the 2 hour timer rather than 1 hour.. it is to prevent players from being split between the two events which would make the numbers problem worse on some servers.

The real issue for me is that you have to invest an hour of your time, but it’s mostly boring time AND you get few rewards. I can handle one or the other, but not both, when there are simply better things to do both within GW2 and outside it. I mean, here’s a typical time distribution for the marionette event:
- 30+ minutes trying to get into an instance with a party / changing lanes / standing around bored.
- 20 or so minutes spamming AoE damage in a corridor.
- 5 minutes actually fighting something meaningful.

Maybe some people enjoy that, but I’ll bet they are in the minority.

Honestly, the dialog in the Lion’s Arch instance is by far the best part of this update for me so far. It also has no useful rewards, but it was fun to watch and I don’t have to waste an hour of my time only to find myself lying dead in the snow.

Vol.7601:

You want them to address it? Then add some constructive criticism and suggestions.

The forum is filled to the brim with them. Do I really need to repeat them, especially when most are so bloody obvious?

Think about a common problem with the marionette, which is a group of 20 people going in but ending up with an uneven distribution of players on the platforms. Do I really need to explain why this is ridiculous? Or lay out the obvious solution, which is to distribute players by parceling them out one platform at a time like a poker dealer rather than selecting platforms for them randomly? Really?

As a programmer myself I was astonished when I found out that it was possible to have 5 on one platform and 1 on another. I mean, this is really basic stuff!

Do I need to be the 100th person to say “let people on platforms who have already completed help out with other platforms”?

Do I have to explain other obvious solutions, at least in the short term, such as lengthening the timers a bit?

Do I really have to be the 10,000th person to say “make it easier for parties to be in the same overflow where there’s actually enough people to win”?

Or the 1,000,000th to say “have the event scale in difficulty based on the number of players”?

Okay, fine, I’ve now repeated all those points. Sheesh.

Some nice snippy little responses there, which may make you feel smug and clever, but don’t actually address the bottom line.

And that is that, even though I usually enjoy most of the LW releases, I don’t enjoy this one. I’m not alone in that.

I have a few hours a day to play GW2, at most, and I don’t want to spend them standing around, constantly trying to switch overflows. And the times I’ve participated in trying to kill the marionette we have coordinated and planned.. and then failed usually because of issues such as 1 or 2 people being put on a platform.

But by all means, please pretend it is my fault for not somehow single-handedly controlling the behavior and ability of 100 strangers, while also having to fight against some very poor game design that often makes success as much about luck as it is about skill.

.. but I’ve found I’ve already gotten bored and moved back to doing other things. And that never usually happens for me with LW content.

I like the idea of a challenging boss that requires a lot of coordination from a group.. it is an MMO after all. But these events just aren’t fun to participate in after trying them a few times:
- Too much waiting around.
- Too much annoyance trying to get a party into an OF that actually has a decent number of players in it.
- Too much failure.
- Too little reward when you fail.

I’m glad they don’t give out oodles of drops for each kill, as that would just encourage farming rather than trying to beat the event. But spending an hour and getting almost nothing for the effort stinks. And while I felt we should wait a bit before passing judgment on the difficulty, I think it’s pretty obvious at this point that these are too difficult for most people to be able to participate in a team that actually beats them.

I hope this doesn’t become yet another example of what’s all too common in MMOs: great content that clearly took a lot of time and effort to make, that gets ignored by most players because it needs to be tweaked but isn’t.

This should be called “Mesmer Secret Santa”, lol.

I’d volunteer if I actually had any good build ideas, or enough experience to give fair due to someone else’s.

Not only do I not think this will happen, I bet perplexity will be further nerfed in PvE as well.

Writetyper.1985:

It doesn’t need changing. You still haven’t given a legitimate reason why you feel forced to do all dailies, either.

Because there isn’t one.

As we say in the computer industry, this is a “problem between chair and keyboard”.

And if Arenanet needs to change anything, it’s to remove the utterly ridiculous “grinding leaderboard” that causes these compulsive people to convince themselves that they need to maintain their rank on it, as it if means anything to anyone.

clipnotdone.9634:

The fact that almost every Mesmer in WvW is running it should speak for itself.

That’s not a fact, it’s an assertion. And even if true, it is countered by the fact that just very few people play mesmer at all in WvW.

What are they playing? Mostly warrior, with some guardian. So naturally we leave those classes alone and nerf mesmers?

Then there’s PvP, where hardly any top players run mesmer, and those that do usually don’t run PU.

And then there’s PvE, where PU mesmers are basically useless.

This is NOT something that needs to be fixed. What needs to be fixed are all the problems that lead to so few playing mesmer in general.

As I wrote last night in the Balance forum, it’s a sad comment on the state of profession balance when you have good players who want to play mesmer considering switching to warrior because it would help their team more. And simultaneously, the “balance team” is talking about nerfing mesmers to death, but of course not warriors.

As for PvP vs. WvW, I’ve played both, though I’ve lost much of my interest in PvP because of all of the flaws in it they don’t fix. There’s no direct comparison, they are just different types of games. I will say overall that the average PvP player is MUCH better at player-player combat than the average WvW, for a whole bunch of reasons, most of which are obvious.

“Buffed base bomb radius” = some buff they did before I started playing I assume.

That trait almost doubles the areal coverage of bombs, so seems pretty pivotal to a bomb-centered build.

Wasn’t enhance performance supposed to be instead of HGH? I thought that’s why the build in that other thread suggested it.

Thanks for the reply, figuring this out slowly but surely.

As I wrote on the mesmer forum, I’ll agree that PU is a problem when I see PU mesmers dominating the PvP leaderboards, running in quantity in WvW zergs, or being requested for dungeon runs. Not one of those things happens now, not even close.

The griping about PU is just like the griping about thieves. Which boils down to griping about stealth. Well, stealth is a part of the game, and you’ll have to learn to deal with it. Don’t like it? Well I don’t like CC effects, and I have to deal with those.

While we’re discussing how and how badly to nerf mesmers, there’s a thread on the mesmer forum where some pretty good tPvP players are lamenting having to choose between what they want to play (mesmer) and what they think they need to play in order to help their team (warrior).

THAT is the reality of the current situation, yet Arenanet is proposing massive nerfs to core mesmer mechanics while “gently adjusting” the UberProfession. It makes no sense at all.

It was great, both in terms of the character interactions and how it advanced the plotline. I especially liked the subtle dig at some of the complaints about the Scarlet story.

Very valid points, Antara.

You think so? Interesting. I thought again that whether spamming grenades or bombs both would be more power oriented but maybe not.

And don’t I really want to run the bomb-radius buff trait and the one that stacks might? That doesn’t leave room for Shrapnel.

Maybe I really will split the difference and just go for both. I mean, I do both types of damage so why not.

As an aside, I just did one of the new living world events. One of the commanders actually asked for AoE heals and I ran around bomb-spamming the whole group, lol.

Just tried the wurm boss. We had a full map and we weren’t even close.

I think that’s great. Because we all know we are still just trying to figure out how it all works.

If you can figure it all out in a few hours, it’s dull within a few days.

It might end up truly being too difficult, but it’s too soon to make that call IMO.

Fun event too… well, except for the visual spam making it hard to see anything, as usual.

Sorry, I wasn’t trying to be confusing… I’m just still so much at the figuring out stage right now that I’m not sure which factors are most important.. know what I mean?

I’m actually toying with the idea of instead of full defense, maybe going 30/10/30/0/0 for both bomb and grenade spamming.. gear being a mix of cleric and soldier. Would that make any sense at all or am I just confused again?

I’m not asking for shatter builds to be removed. I’m asking for non-shatter builds to be not-removed.

The description of the mesmer on that same wiki starts out with a quote from the game: "When I’m done with you, you won’t trust your own mind. "

And then begins: “Mesmers are masters of mirage. They weave mental magic that confounds, controls, or evokes emotion in their enemies. With a wave of the hand, they can shatter their own illusions to produce even greater special effects.”

I want to “weave mental magic that confounds, controls, or evokes emotion”. Not make “things that go boom” that might as well be my engineer’s grenades except that they look a bit like me. Others like that style, great; I don’t.

Iavra.8510:

Well, the problem with PU builds in PvP is, that you won’t be able to cap/decap anything while in stealth ^^

So here we have the same thing again: people simultaneously saying PU is overpowered and useless.

See it all the time in the PvP forum and it makes no sense.

You should be posting this in the Balance forum. That’s why it was created, to provide a “one-stop shop” for developers. They are much more likely to see and read it there than here.

I’ll believe there’s something wrong with PU when I see PU mesmers all over the top of the PvP leaderboards, being demanded in dungeon runs, and dominating WvW zergs.

Until then, it’s just more “person X beat me and used stealth, so nerf it!”. Why any mesmer would support nerfing one of our best traits, regardless of the reason, is beyond me. It’s not like we’d be guaranteed to get some sort of improvement with it in some other area, and it’s not like PU as it is right now puts mesmers into some kind of overpowered place.

I think you have good intentions, Stievie, but aren’t taking into account the fact that some people simply don’t enjoy the shatter mechanic. I’m one of them. For me, shatter takes away entirely from the things that attracted me to the class when I signed up for GW2, which is the idea of a trickster/illusionist mage. It makes mesmer into just another “throw things at the bad guy so they do damage when they blow up” class.

If they tweak this class to the point where you have to shatter constantly to be effective on any build, I probably will mothball my mesmer permanently.

And BTW, I think you’re conflating “profession mechanic” with “profession skill”. And there are other professions also where there are builds that use the profession skills only incidentally.

Sasajoe.1509:

If the patch was only to add more PvE crap then i guess this has already become a Diablo 3 clone i.e. a dead failure game soon.

Cya, going to twitch.com in search of more popular (balanced) games

You mistakenly assumed something would be in the patch, even though it makes no sense — why would they preview a balance patch 3 days before release? — and then when it isn’t in the patch, decided the game is a “dead failure” and you’re going to play something else.

Threads like these are why developers are reluctant to participate on game forums.

Rumor that it is in fact fixed.. check the mesmer section.