Guild Wars 2

Thanks, that looks interesting. Also somewhat foreign to me, I’m not even sure how I’d play it. I don’t have a lot of experience with the med kit in particular.

Any tips on sequences, when to use what, and so forth?

I’m surprised the condition damage isn’t higher with all that apothecary gear.

How well does that build hold up in solo encounters?

Thanks!

Thanks for the advice. Usually this all happens in a few seconds before I can even do much to respond, but I’ve never considered stealthing, blinking, and then coming back a few seconds later. Which is a good idea.

I’m still getting adjusted from PvP, where I run with better dueling utilities and the stats are lower so it’s not as easy to burn someone down that quickly. (And where there aren’t WvW buffs and equipment tier differences.)

Thanks, but that looks like an offense-oriented, bomb-based build.

That’s ridiculous.

I find it inexcusable that Anet continues to not respond to the very valid complaints about this map being in solo queue.

I was going to say I only fear being outnumbered, but I’ve recently gotten absolutely demolished by a couple of necros who have taken me down so quickly I couldn’t even respond. I have no idea what they were doing (which is why I need to roll a necro) but it seemed to be heavy condition damage and also some direct damage.

Unfortunately WvW also really isn’t an even playing field. I don’t have ascended gear or WvW buffs, and that I’m sure plays a role. Plus I had the skills enabled that I use to help out in my havoc group, such as portal, rather than the ones I use for dueling classes like necros.

Still, I need to find ways to adapt to them.

Sorry you guys aren’t happy where you are. :/ I’ve seen you around the last few days.. it’s been an epic battle this week, the most enjoyable time I’ve had in GW2 and possibly any MMO.

I hope your guild will seriously consider your current nemesis, Tarnished Coast, as well.

I started playing GW2 in October and was first convinced to come to TC because of one factor: how friendly the people were. Since then I’ve met even more of the nicest folks I’ve ever had the pleasure to deal with online. My past experiences with MMOs have been spotty but TC players are so wonderful sometimes I forget this even is an MMO.

Since I’ve gotten involved in WvW the last few weeks, I’ve noticed two great things about TC, and they’re reasons I’d recommend anyone join us.

First, we have a lot of heart and fighting spirit. On many occasions I’ve noticed that when our server is up by say 5k or 10k in the middle of the week, our opponents seem to say “oh well, we’ll try again next week” and we end up winning in a landslide.

This week, we were the ones down as much as 10k at some points. But instead, we pulled together and fought back and now there’s a good chance we’ll win this week. Even if we lose, we tried our best, and didn’t give up, and that feels good.

The second reason TC is great is that we have fun. Sure, it’s not fun all the time, like that evening earlier in the week when FA was ticking over 400 and it seemed like we couldn’t make anything work. But in the end, this is a game and we remember that. Sometimes it’s the small things that remind you to stop taking things too seriously, and to balance trying to win with enjoying yourself.

At this point I think of TC as a family, not just a server. I hope you’ll think about joining us.

Hey all,

Getting my engineer close to the magic 80 and thinking about builds. I’ve recently gotten into WvW and have particularly noticed two things: engineers being very effective at long-distance AoE with grenades, and people on my team complaining about engineers being “impossible to kill”. These both appeal to me greatly, and so I’m looking for a build that can combine high resilience with the ability to lay down the hurt on people, in open field battles, when attacking keeps, or when defending them.

I nearly always run in small groups or solo, so I don’t care about zerg-specific optimizations. And since I’m relatively new I should stay away from anything that relies a lot on fancy combos.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

I’m impressed by those who make money regularly on the TP, and apparently so easily. I’ve dabbled with it but always find that it gets tedious after a while, and that it’s hard to find items I can trade consistently without sometimes getting stuck with stuff and having to dump it.

Suggestions for how to find good items for doing this are most welcome by PM.

I certainly won’t tell anyone how to play, but in my limited time in WvW I have found that running in a small havoc group of 5-10 people is more fun, more rewarding, and is a much better way for my mesmer’s abilities to shine.

Oh, and BlackDevil, just in the last two weeks I’ve been involved in some incredibly clever uses of portal that I never would have imagined. I don’t run it all the time, but I use it far more than you’d think.

Loco: I run a build that sounds like it’s somewhat in between the two you described and would be curious to know more details about what exact traits and gear you use, if you’re willing.

a t s e.9614:

Well it is actually the truth. He managed to get tanky as heck, with perma protection and regeneration. My autoattack was doing 200 dmg. And he was doing 0. Literaly 0 dmg , just some bleeds that lasted for 2 seconds. He had a Staff if you want more details.

Either he found a weird exploit of some kind, or you’re very confused. I’m going with the latter.

a t s e.9614:

Well im not saying its overpowered. Im asking what is this?

It isn’t anything. What you’ve described makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, so you are either very confused or just trying to stir up the pot.

If this incident actually happened, and you can find ways to describe it in terms that people can actually understand, then maybe someone can advise you.

Not only should this NOT be done, I think the game would be better off if AP totals were hidden entirely.

a t s e.9614:

I couldnt kill the mesmer he was just there using moa skill on me and nothing else.

Really? He was just using a 10 second ability with a 180 second cooldown on you over and over?

I don’t think the mesmer is the one doing the trolling…

ArrDee.2573:

tomlin.8204:

Run dungeons – for what purpose?
Farm gold – for what purpose?
Champ trains – lol
WvW – for what purpose?
PvP – for what purpose?

how about for fun? yes i know a real phenomenon playing a game to have fun.

What’s especially funny is that he only put “lol” for champ trains, when indeed, many people do those for fun. The one in Queensdale in particular is very slow and it’s obvious many people do it because they get loot, but can do it at a leisurely pace.

I’m on TC and there are tons of people who hang around in Queensdale or Divinity’s Reach or Lion’s Arch doing RP. They get no “reward” for this, I wonder why they do it?!

Oh, I should also add: you can make a lot of money through living story updates. Every new update there’s some new material that people want and are willing to pay handsomely for. Couldn’t count how much $ I made off candy bags, candy corn, pristine spore samples, wintersday gifts, etc…

Spiuk.8421:

NewTrain.7549:

If the purpose was to have fun, why aren’t those things fun?

(Preempting the “fun is subjective” argument)

They are to plenty of people.

If you keep playing a game you don’t have fun with that means you have a problem.

IMO after several years of playing MMOs, this is the core issue behind a big chunk of what you see on MMO forums. Players start a game all excited, they play it to death, and then expect the developers to keep pumping out gobs of content to help them maintain their “honeymoon period” indefinitely. It never happens to their satisfaction, but rather than recognize that maybe they’ve gotten all they can for their $50 and moving on, they spend the next N years on the forums complaining about how the “game isn’t fun”.

Even worse are those who never enjoyed the game because it wasn’t a good fit for them, but they hang around like zombies anyway, constantly griping about it.

Always amazing that people ask “what the point is” of doing things in a game.

I’ve been playing only about 3 months. Rarely do dungeons. And have spent a lot of time in PvP where you make very little gold (and none before a month ago).

I still have about 200g and that’s after equipping 2 characters with exotics. Basically, a combo of simple TP work and the great tips Tobias provided… except I salvage greens and blues unless they’re worth more than about 2s.. got my MF up to around 85%.

It’s actually pretty darned easy to make a decent amount of coin just by regular playing in PvE as long as you don’t waste it on stuff you don’t need.

Arganthium, your PM box is full.

That would simply serve to pigeonhole all mesmers into one type of build.

There’s a report option for verbal abuse. Use it.

I do have a bit of power and critical damage in there, but it’s mostly condition/precision.

Sounds like Blackdevil’s hybrid would be up your alley: http://intothemists.com/guides/1793-phantasm_hybrid_20

That build is much more offensive than mine, which is a “hybrid hybrid” between Blackdevil’s and the classic Blackwater PU build.

That’s basically what I run. 20/20/30, GS and scepter/torch or scepter/pistol (depending on my mood) with rabid pretty much everything and traveler’s runes.

I think Pyro is playing Socrates here.

Your build is very similar to the classical Blackwater mesmer build, but with a couple of key traits different. You may find this worth reading: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Build-The-Blackwater-Mesmer-Condition-WvW

bhagwad.4281:

That “dysfunctional behavior” is the sole reason to play the game for many, many people. It is after all, an MMO.

Actually, all of the studies I’ve looked at suggest that the majority of MMO players are on for a fairly moderate amount of time each week. The dysfunction comes in when people play to the point where they feel they “have to” do things or they obsess over their “rank” on a table that measures absolutely nothing of meaning.

The speed boost is incredibly useful in PvP too. I use centaur runes even though they don’t fit my build all that well and even though I don’t use the mantra heal.

Arriving at a point 5 seconds earlier rather than later routinely makes more of a difference than any stat or ability I could get from other runes.

LOL. What, mesmer swarms don’t qualify?

But what is there to talk about? The problems with solo queue have been hashed and rehashed a zillion times. We’d all like to see them addressed, but we have no power to do that. Only Arenanet does.

There are only two options: deal with them or do something else. Some people don’t mind the problems that much and so they keep doing solo queue; others hate them and so avoid it.

Choose one or the other, but please stop pretending you don’t have that choice. You do, just like everyone else.

No, they really aren’t. It’s basically about a dozen people in here constantly with the same complaints over and over again.

Even if it were more of them, it wouldn’t matter, because their complaint is invalid. It is not reasonable and not fair to have game decisions based on the demands of people who have turned it into a job and then demand that the “job” be made easier.

Nobody cares about your “rank” on a “leaderboard” that measures only how many hours you spend grinding meaningless tasks. Do them or don’t do them, but stop expecting the 99.99% of the rest of the game to have to change to deal with your lack of self control.

If anything should be removed from the game, it should be the achievement “leaderboard” itself, since it serves no purpose other than to encourage this dysfunctional behavior.

There’s an issue, but it’s with a small number of people who have lost perspective on both the game and life, not with GW2.

I asked a similar question in the general forum a week ago.. why people didn’t play sPvP. Was surprised at the variety of answers… but many were the same as in the OP here.

I think it’s a dangerous road to go down when we start judging people and how they spend their time doing this or that. There are a LOT of people who would judge every single one of us negatively for playing GW2 at all.

But there’s a big difference between someone who chooses to play a game a lot because they like it and someone who feels compelled to grind the same things every day despite not even enjoying the process. Some of these achievement-obsessors have been in here constantly since these new dailies came in asking for them to be removed or changed because they seem incapable of saying to themselves: “hey, this isn’t fun, maybe I should find something in the game that’s fun rather than doing this, or try a different game?”

There was one thread a week or two ago where some guy was talking about getting his girlfriend to grind AP for him and how it was causing problems in his relationship. I mean really, if that’s not a wake-up call, what would be?

The “achievement leaderboard” is part of the problem. Removing it would be a boon for all concerned, most especially including all the people at the top of it.

Baldric.6781:

Actually he is.

Actually, he’s not. This is a game, not survival after a nuclear war.

He chooses to engage in a meaningless grind to maintain his meaningless place on a meaningless leaderboard. That means doing whatever meaningless grindy tasks the game imposes.

He can choose to get off the hamster wheel whenever he wants.

hihey.1075:

What we (or at least I) are appointing is the completely low skill floor to play this spec, since it is a low risk, high reward build.

And how many “low risk, high reward” near-immortal stunlock warriors are there running around in PvP or WvW? PU mesmers are one of the few builds keeping them even slightly in check. Nerf them and we’ll have even more.

I’ll agree to a nerf of PU mesmers and other counterplay builds when I go into WvW and don’t see some huge percentage of the players as otherwise-unkillable, and usually uncatchable, stun-spamming warriors.

I’ve hung out in 1v1 servers before, though not those ones.

And you can shout at me if you can beat me.

My mes is what I’m good at in PvP though, and I don’t like shatter play much. I’m leveling an engi now, but I’m mostly losing the taste for PvP altogether, honestly.

I’d be happy to no longer use team queue solo if I could actually find a team. Unless you already have friends who PvP or are in the top part of the leaderboard, nobody has any interest in you for a team. That’s why so many individuals are in the team queue.

I’ve played a couple of games that did this. A lot of people liked it and a lot of people felt it created another grind treadmill.

Freeelancer.2860:

@Qaelyn: It wasn’t a strawman, it was a mockery of your rigidness. It was probably out of place, but put yourself in my shoes where almost every argument goes something along the lines of “I am better then others but I can’t rise because people I play with are bad”, and most of the people with that same argument scoff when someone mentions being more adaptable as their solution.

Well that may be justification for using a strawman, but it still was one. :P

At any rate, the fact that you use the term “ELO hell” and refer to yourself as being “lucky enough to evade” it means we aren’t really that far apart on this issue.

Curunen.8729:

I must say, comparing traveler and speed runes I can’t see why one is so much more valuable than the other – speed at least stacks on stat (vitality) making it easier to focus on other stats through gear, whereas traveler is a mess of stats – ok boon duration and crit damage is nice, but not game changing.

10% condition duration boost is nice on its own, and you add to that a bit more health and toughness and a boost in overall damage of 3-4%. It’s not a gamechanger but the runes are IMO pretty clearly better.

Freeelancer.2860:

And any and all of those factors are relevant for the opposing team and every individual player.

But let’s ignore everything and assume that player X is always teamed up with braindead useless scrubs while the other team is tip-top… because that makes helluva lot more sense then statistics, maths and logic.

For someone who wants to try to take the scientific/mathematical angle, you sure are big on ignoring real-world complexities in favor of gross oversimplifications. (Not to mention flatly nonsensical strawmen like that second part.)

Yes, in theory, eventually better players rise to the top. But in practice, this process is slow, uncertain and frustrating. And there are some characters that would do well at the higher levels but will never get there because they do not function well on a team with 4 people running around like headless chickens. (I’m not necessarily saying the one I play is in this category, just taking issue with your “look it’s so simple!” silliness.)

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

The best reward we PvPers could get is the Monthly and Yearly Official tournaments with good prizes, just like we had in GW1.

Only if they make these tournaments for ordinary mortals too, not just people who spend 80 hours a week on the game.

Wish you the best of luck, iPenguin. Just to warn you, I’m new too and even though I’m now up to R30 I have never been able to find a team. There’s a paucity of options for newer and casual players.

Freeelancer, I’m pretty sure you and I have had this discussion before. As I said then, your argument is an example of this Albert Einstein quote: “In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.”

The math is technically correct but ignores the sheer amount of time required to actually move up the board given the small pool of players and huge variability in their ability and desire to even play properly.

Your argument also ignores synergies and interactions. There are builds that work well in a team of good players and not in a team of clueless ones.

yanniell.1236:

What do u condition mesmers do?

Traveler’s in PvE/WvW, centaur’s in PvP.

Just got the traveler’s this week and wish I had done it ages ago. No, it’s not optimal for my hybrid build. But it’s a night-and-day difference in convenience and mobility.

I see this issue as a variant on the old saw about a dead player doing zero DPS: it doesn’t matter how good you are, if you aren’t there.

Just my 2c.

Coulter.2315:

This is what you should expect playing a team PvP game solo. If you want a better experience get 4 people you know and play teamq. Seriously random teams are random and you will just need to accept that often you’ll be put on the worse team. I’ll log on and do 3 matches in soloq and the outcome is irrelevant to me (i’ll still try hard in the game because its polite for the other players).

It’s good advice. As they say: disappointment is caused by expectations. And I really should know by now not to have any in there. Thanks.

Coulter.2315:

You just need to come to the realisation that random queue will give you random results and if you want to play where you have more control over that result you need a team. You’ll enjoy yourself more and have fun with friends too. Trust me I know it sounds a bit scary but try teamq with a team – you’ll have a better game experience.

I absolutely believe you, and I’ve been trying to find a PvP guild or team to play with for over a month. But it seems to be impossible for a newer, mostly casual player to find a team, especially when maining a mesmer (and not even a shatter mesmer).

I’m leveling up an engi, maybe that will make it easier. I dunno. Regardless of profession I never see teams looking for people unless they are at the higher echelons.

Just a bump for a great guide.

Also, for those who saw it before, it’s been updated. I worked with Supcutie to restructure the document into sections, it has a clickable table of contents and the tips should be easier to find and read now.

Leadfoot.9071:

I’m just pointing out that in general it’s a slippery slope to start blaming teammates and stuff like that and that it doesn’t do any good because all you are doing is getting yourself worked up over things that are beyond your control – I do it too and ralize that it’s stupid but it’s a very easy thing to fall into.

You’re right, and I appreciate your reasoned response. I do have a tendency to get down on stuff and last night was especially frustrating.

Leadfoot.9071:

On the other hand, I totally sympathize especially regarding Spirit Watch and the tendency for people to overvalue running the orb and completely ignore the capture points. I feel like that map in particular is tough for soloq becuase it seems to me to require a more coordinated strategy that you have a hard time getting in that environment.

It’s also that team composition has a huge impact on who wins.

Why team queue is spared from being forced to play broken maps but solo queue is not I will never understand.

Mochann.5298:

Sounds like you just don’t like losing. Or are not a good player. Most likely both.

Yes, both.

I’m okay. Not great. Not horrible.

And I don’t like losing just as most people don’t. But I hate losing when it happens because my team was not outplayed, but just thoughtless (or worse, AFK/absent).

Like most GW2 players.

And like most GW2 players, I’m increasingly becoming convinced that PvP is not worth the frustration involved.

If Arenanet wants this to be a viable game mode, they need to encourage people to play it because it’s worth playing for its own sake and not just because they toss them a couple of AP or silver pieces. Until then, “not good” players like me will just go elsewhere, leaving a tiny handful of you uberplayers wondering why queue times are so long.

Sure, there’s a tendency for people who are unhappy to post on forums more than ones who are happy. But many of the same complaints get repeated over and over again because they are valid complaints that do not get addressed.

Complaining may not fix anything but shooting the messenger or sweeping stuff under the rug doesn’t either. And frankly, it’s getting to the point where it’s more enjoyable to debate PvP than to play it.

stale.9785:

As it is, everyone who doesn’t PvP (that is, the majority of the playerbase) suffers to keep “balance” in PvP – a game mode based purely on one’s ability to sit in one spot and not die for as long as possible.

… and which still isn’t balanced anyway.