Guild Wars 2

Yep. I had to relog a few times already because it showed that I was no longer in a guild. I was also in a party and while people in my party said I was still in, it showed that I was no longer in a party. My status was also set to offline/invisible, and after changing it back to online, it switched right back to offline.

I couldn’t see my party on my map and they couldn’t see me. I also couldn’t whisper anyone and they couldn’t whisper me. Hope the maintenance works out these kinks

Adine.2184:

last i checked the real world doesent have Charr, (thank Lyssa) Sylvari , Assura, or Norn either

Oh of course not, silly. LOL I was hoping that this sort of response wouldn’t be the first retort….but sadly….

Anyway, that’s not what I’m playfully pointing out! Gosh!!

What I’m simply saying is that inevitably these online communities take on a sort of reflection of reality. After the initial rush on the gates of every mmo, I’ve always marveled at how our real world human society begins to show through the fantasy facade of the game.

Inevitably, the in-game society chooses hub cities because of the amenities and convenience factors that are present there. (much the same in real life) Humanoid races seem to become the most prevalent because they’re more easily relatable.

I’m not really arguing with you all I’m simply offering a different perspective to the conversation!

There are also way too many humans in the real world too. People flock to cities that have become main hubs like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Paris, Tokyo, Shanghai and Rome (to name a few) thanks to convenient access to various forms of quick travel, food, jobs and simply being able to connect with a large variety of other people and groups easier. The towns of people’s birth and origin have languished into ghost towns or stay sleepy and rural.

Yes, some benefit from a resurgence as people become tired of the city life and feel a need to reconnect with their roots. Other towns and villages find luck in being a tourist trap due to historical significance and/or unique attractions.

Society is a fickle beast

Human Mesmer
Just completed 4x in an hour without buffs.

Running the puzzle with a group can be frustrating, BUT it was great to commiserate as a group!!

It’s definitely tricky – but honestly after completing it the first time, the next 3 were a lot easier.

Human Mesmer – took about an hour to smash into that clock.
But I did it!! Quite the challenge whew!

I’ve actually decided skip the Halloween skins and just sock gold away in preparation for the Wintersday skins that will inevitably come during that holiday. And seeing what the Halloween skins require will give me a good idea of what to save for.

I’m actually more excited for a Wintersday event than I am about this Halloween event. I just like snow and christmas :P The way they’ve redecorated Lion’s Arch for this event is pretty impressive and I’m so looking forward to a Wintersday redecoration!

But I couldn’t really care less about the silly black lion chests and keys. I’m just not really into gambling Hopefully they’ll analyze how stuff was implemented/handled/received in this event and do some things differently.

It will continue past the Halloween event according to the news post explaining the costume brawl.

Halloween costumes will be unavailable to purchase once Halloween is over, but the brawl will continue to work and the fun will go on with existing costumes and tonics. If it’s popular, we plan on supporting it with even more toys, more transforms, and more features!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Costume-Brawl-for-All/first#post507346

I get that effect when I eat some of the Halloween treats like the Omnomberry Ghost.

OMG YES! I so hope we can finally get a better FOV soon. I succumbed to a massive eye-strain headache this weekend and haven’t been able to play since Friday night.

Would love to play the game without it stabbing me in the eyeballs.
Please make it so!

Guild upgrades are not exactly “lost” on transfer. Your upgrades will continue to exist on the server you created the guild on. If you move to a new server, you will have to start earning influence from scratch. However, if you ever return to the server where you started, you’ll still have whatever upgrades and influence you left there.

It doesn’t completely fail if you build for it. If you don’t want to build for it, then yes, shatter won’t be very powerful or useful. I’ve built myself for it. I’ve got 30 Illusions for the Illusionary Persona trait which allows me to shatter myself. I’ve also got Greatsword cooldown reduction and piles of points in crit/power with a 20% higher Mind Wrack damage trait. I also have clone on dodge. All of this allows me to pump out clones, get off one attack with my phantasms (iberserker) and then crit like crazy with my Mind Wrack and spread oodles of confuse with CoF – which also gives retaliation.

I’m also constantly moving, dodging and kiting. Sure, if you’re not into that sort of gameplay, mesmer might not be for you. It’s a very active class relying on good timing and good knowledge of your skills and utility. Shatter was amazing in WvW yesterday coupled with a few glamours and Greatsword sniping.

Listen. I understand shatter can be mediocre if you’re squeezing in clone regen, phantasm damage and health traits, but in that case you shouldn’t be focused on shattering as much as I am. Use your shatter for a death shatter after your phantasms have gone a couple rounds. Again. Shatter is very strong and useful when you build specifically for it. I do and I love it. Cursed Shore PvE has been much less frustrating since I started learning this build and the mechanics that make it strong. WvW has been much more fun once I learned how to play with it. It takes time and it takes some dedication, but it’s completely worth it.

But if you don’t like it, there’s no reason to punish yourself. If you just want to spam phantasms, there are plenty of phantasm builds out there that don’t rely on shatter to kill things. Build those. You’ll still use shatter, but not nearly as much. More as a death blow than anything.

Shatter is amazing. My 30 Illusions build makes me happy every day I throw out tricks and deceptions and then I ravage my target by ripping apart those illusions and Wracking their Minds.

Seriously. Shatter is delicious.
Shatter is integral to the Mesmer class.

— signed devoted mesmer

If 10 seconds of quick/confuse is the end of your team, then you’ve got bigger problems.

I use Time Warp mainly during sieges but otherwise it’s a ridiculous cooldown and if you can move out of range and get the people huddled under the bubble to chase you – effect is over and the mesmer is left with a crazy cooldown on his/her elite.

sigh

Next?

Greatsword + sword/focus
Illusionary Persona (illusions 30) Greatsword Training and Focus cooldown reduction trait. Power/Precision/Crit armor with toughness/vit accessories. Typical utilities are blink/portal/feedback/mirror images/decoy and moa/time warp/mass invis for elites. (all swapped out as needed depending on the situation)

A little tanky, a bit of a sniper, plenty of shatter spam and an iBerserker in a pear tree.

I did the Arah gates event, Plinx, Champ Abomination and Shelter’s Gate and got DR.

It’s definitely an issue. I didn’t notice as much as a mesmer, but it hit me hard when I started playing my guardian alt. There were times when I could barely make out my character – let alone see where to position my targeting circles (or mouse for that matter).

One nice thing I remember from my very brief time with TERA was a little option to scale down effects in groups. Effects in big group fights were deminished enough so that you could still see what you were doing and what your teammates were doing.

The glowing blob of particles and lights is pretty, but it makes me feel like I’m fighting with a flashlight in front of my eyes.

While it’s not entirely distracting nor even game-breaking for me, I do notice the zone-breakup. And when I notice it, I really notice it and it makes me wonder why the decion was made to make the world this way. I came from LOTRO and often when I’m exploring zones here in GW2, I am reminded how awesome it was to be able to travel seamlessly from the middle of Bree to the middle of Hobbiton without a zone or from Bree to Rivendell.

GW2 feels big on many levels, but at the same time, the zone blocking and walled-in feeling of each area does erode the “big” feeling a little – especially when you notice it.

On the other hand, Middle-Earth feels massive and is made to feel even more so by the overall lack of zoning and area walls. I’m not limited to only going by one or two paths into the next zone – I don’t even have to be on a path!

The saving grace, I suppose, is that the zones themselves don’t feel too stifling when you’re actually in them. At least it’s not a bunch of copy-paste terrain cough FFXIV cough. But zooming out on the map and seeing the neat little graph-paper zoning makes me sigh sometimes :(

Dev has confirmed that this will be tied to the October holiday event.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/October-monthly-achievement-error-Merged/first#post358011

Completely agree!! A nice little achievement or title for a full collection would be lovely

That said, I’m still going to catch them all!

LOTRO’s cosmetic system is pretty brilliant. Instead of binding a skin to your armor, it simply temporarily displays over your armor skin if you choose. You get a couple of free cosmetic display slots and if you want more, you just buy more from the store. They also sell cosmetic wardrobes to store all the outfits you’re not wearing.

The transmutation idea in GW2 feels like another heavy-handed approach to pushing the cash shop. I completely understand that the cash shop is a major source of income post-game sale, but the corralling towards it could be a little less obvious and could use a little less cattle-prod.

Selling outfit slots instead of perma-binding a skin to another would give players more freedom and flexibility which in turn makes people happier. The option to have more sets to swap to for purchase allows Anet to make money off of this, which makes Anet/NCSoft happy.

I admit I had trouble at first in Orr with regard to tagging mobs in events. I retraited a few times and tried a few different weapon sets/swaps. Finally I found a 30 Illusions build that allows me to tag and bag with relative ease.

I say relative because it is still arguably more work than other classes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do it. It just requires more button dancing and to be a little quicker on the spawn than others.

I put 10 into Domination for the 20% Mind Wrack damage, 20 into dueling for the clone on dodge and 30 into illusions for Illusionary Persona. The past couple weeks I’ve been grinding the penitent/shelter’s gate camps on and off and get gobs of loot from the events there.

Typically I do this: Camp the spawn (spider spawn at shelter’s gate for example) because you sadly need to do that so you can get to the mobs before the legion of bots tags everything first. shakes fist Then I drop Chaos Storm -> dodge into the mob group -> Mind Wrack -> Phase Retreat out to the front of the mobs -> CoF. Then I just autoattack until they’re all dead. If Chaos storm is on cooldown, I knockback the spawn with greatsword and drop an iBerserker into the mix. Then maybe a GS #3 and a GS#2 and a Mind Wrack/CoF with a dodge.

So yes, it takes more work than another class and a lot more keyboard tango, but it’s very effective and doable. Learning the spawns and learning my “rotations” (for lack of a better term) took some time but I’m easily looting from a majority of the spawn groups now.

It also means that if you prefer a phantasm/single target build for your mesmer, you’ll be frustrated to have to learn a IP/Shatter build, but IP/Shatter/Staff/Greatsword allows us to utilize all of our AoE abilities effectively so that we can be incredibly viable in DE zerg situations.

I realize arguments against this will run along the lines of “Well we shouldn’t have to do this or shouldn’t have to pigeonhole ourselves into this build to be DE viable.” And I agree that it sucks to be pushed into one genre of builds to be competitive in the AoE/Zerg spam that is GW2’s dynamic events (especially in Orr). And I’m not here to argue that point. All I’m offering is advice on how to be competitive and viable using the tools that we have at our disposal.

Maybe we’ll see a change down the road. Until then, Good luck!

Hey! I run an Illusions 30 build and I love it but I use Illusionary Persona

You’ve taken a lot of traits that make your illusions tankier, but if you’re going all the way to 30 illusions, I’d recommend IP. You’ll be able to shatter a lot more and spread generous amounts of confusion and bleeds using staff/greatsword.

Therefore I’d suggest something more along the lines of what Ocellaris said. The Chaos line is nice for some extra staff toughness and cooldown reduction (especially in light of the recent nerf we got to our staff skills). Sharper images is nice in the Dueling line for helping your clones actually do some damage when they crit – and before you shatter them.

As for weapons, I use staff/greatsword because I’m farming events in Orr and want to tag as many things as I can before the bots do shakes fist :P Beyond that though, Greatsword has a nice range and has the amazing iBerserker phantasm and a knockback as well as the bouncing blade for might building (as long as you’re in melee range).

Here’s my build for reference. I also take deceptive evasion (dodge on roll) to help pump out clones for shatter fodder. It’s also really nice when you’re getting chased by zombies in Orr and need to keep them occupied while you “run, Forrest, run!!”

Keep in mind that I’m mainly farming Orr these days so it might not be exactly what you need at the moment.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQJAWRlwzaqHVzgGa9IiJFBHyh6B2ldfXJF42FC

Seems this is an issue for a few people. There’s a thread in the bugs section.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Character-deletion-solved-Not-so-much/first#post373507

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Is there any good reason for them to be opaque about different skill properties in PvE or PvP?

This puzzles me too if the supposed secrecy is true. I don’t understand why keeping the split hush-hush would be necessary. But if a split does exist, it needs to be strengthened to be even more segregating than its current state.

The phantasm cooldowns getting longer does indeed hurt, but that shatter bug is killing me as I run a Illusionary Persona build. All of these things makes me very sad right now. Please Anet, please go through that bug thread and work on fixing that lot before we get any more nerfs. Please?

it’s on the front page of the forums and in the News and Announcements section and also shows as a big red banner until you refresh the front page.

but linky for you :P
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Update-Notes-October-1st-2012/first#post317543

PvP influencing changes (nerfs/buffs) has always been a problem for the PvE side of things in MMOs. It hurt WoW and SWTOR (as notorious examples). The ongoing lack of segregated skill behaviors has the tendency to hurt PvE folks a lot.

In light of this “nerf-tastic” patch it seems especially obvious that a good number of these adjustments will have more of an effect balance-wise for the PvP end of the spectrum and end up hurting the PvE experience. I’m looking at you, Mesmer nerfs.

I wonder how much of these changes were influenced by pvp. I wish mmo devs would someday make separate skill bars (same skills but different behavior/cooldowns) for pvp and pve. We already have separate gear.

ah well.

But tomorrow morning would be peak hours somewhere else.

I did a double-take with this too! I just barely completed Cursed Shore and one of the rewards was … more basic Transmutation Stones – good for lvl 79 armor and below.

sigh

Yep! Sorrow’s Furnace is up!

I love the idea of having more zones scale for lvl 80s! It’s already starting to feel pretty empty when I go back and clear zones and Orr is getting more and more packed.

Sure, keep the exotic karma vendors in the Orr temples, but scale up events and drops in other zones for us 80s to incentivize us to mingle in the other zones instead of just moshing in Orr. This way, we could still get the karma and xp we need while playing and helping lower levels through these rapidly emptying zones.

There’s no incentive to go back to other zones right now, beyond chasing the 100% world complete status. Give me a reason to go back and I’d do it in a heartbeat! So many pretty zones and no reason to visit. :(

My favorite surprises me because I usually go for something different and humans typically bore in in MMOs, but….

Fav: Human – they’re just really aesthetically well made in GW2
Least Fav: Charr & Norn
Fav Non-playable: Quaggan & Kodan

Honorable Mention to the Sylvari. They’re not a favorite but the level of design that went into them is amazing.

1. Were you satisfied with the Guild Wars 2 launch and your first week of play?
Yes

2. As of today, do you think ArenaNet has done a good job of taking care of bugs, communicating with their customer base and making most players happy?
Some things have been handled well, but I feel it’s a No overall

3. Are you still recommending Guild Wars 2 to friends?
Yes

4. If no new content has been released will you still be playing Guild Wars 2 six months from now?
Probably not. Grinding for skins won’t keep me around without actual content.

5. Overall would you say Guild Wars 2 delivers as the game you envisioned it to be?
It’s everything I expected it to be after tempering the PR buzz with realistic expectations.

Hey all :)

I’d love some input from you mesmers out there that are running a shatter build utilizing Illusionary Persona (Illusions 30). I love using this with GS/Staff for event tagging in Orr, and I’m wondering if I can build something to work in dungeons as well.

I’d like something a little tanky for dungeons so I’m not sure if I should take some traits in the Chaos or Inspiration lines or put my points into domination and precision for the extra mind wrack/fury/clone on dodge and then use Carrion gear or a mix to make up for my lack of vitality and toughness.

Help a girl out please! :)
Any feedback is much appreciated!

Sorry, I don’t think it’s lazy at all and in fact very much in line with the overall motif and aesthetic of the profession.

Read your post until the last line. straight-faced

read last line…..tried not to laugh.

laughed out loud

Started a mesmer and played for a while. Then I started a necro/ele/guardian.

Went back to my mesmer and got to 80.
<3 her so much now. Find it entirely too hard to return to my alts.

I came for the butterflies. I was not disappointed

Butterflies or DEATH!

Since this is a “Gentleman’s” guide, I’ll assume I’m exempt since I’m a girl. Yay!

Six.8051:

When Mesmer Illusions die or are shattered, the weapons they hold remain visible and float in the air for about 2-3 seconds after the illusion is gone. This visual bug began to occur after the larger patch earlier today (10/1).

Noticed this too. After shattering my staff and warden illusions, I had floating weapons just sitting in place. Very odd. And it did indeed start happening after yesterday’s (10/1) patch.

Anet seemed to look at the way previous MMOs utilized various mechanics and did a lot of “how can we do this better” work. In that respect, they’ve done some innovative thinking and tweaking to the way we play this MMO compared to others.

However, the thing that makes my head spin is that after all of this “how can this be done better” work, they implement a version of FFXIV’s Fatigue system which throws mud all over any innovations that have been done. Fatigue got so much hate and backlash because of its xp limiting (and ultimately play limiting) effects, that Square Enix ultimately killed it.

It’s too bad, because overall AreaNet made a good many evolutionary (not revolutionary) steps forward, but the DR system is a big leap backwards.

I’ve recently retraited to an Illusionary Persona build with Staff/GS and I LOVE it! I tag all the things!!

I’ll dodge roll into the pile and Wrack → dodge out → bouncy blade →Wrack/Cry!

If you really like the class, learn it. Be flexible. Retrait often (it’s cheap) and try out new utilities. Also learn all the weapons and carry 4 or 5 on you for swapping. Mesmer makes you work for the love, but at lvl 80, I’m smitten. Don’t hands-down refuse to use other weapons. Learn to use them all. Sticking to 2 or 3 will weaken you overall. You need to know their strengths and weaknesses and their situational uses.

And when it comes to traits, use what can maximize your current state and don’t build for the future. You can retrait anytime your in a city and it’s quite cheap. If you’re constantly running scepter and staff, then you should focus on shattering often. Scepter is a clone factory and it’s main condition is confusion, not bleed. Confusion is also super weak in PvE as mobs do not attack often enough for the condition to affect them. In PvP and WvW it’s much more useful. Balance your condition damage by looking for some more immediate dps/cripple traits and weapons. This is also where going pistol would help if you really want to hang on to your scepter. Otherwise, mainhand sword is awesome when running tandem with focus.

MH sword has the leap and swap resulting in the immobilize. This allows you to leap clone, throw down warden, swap (immobilize) and let the warden peel away the mob or mobs hp pool. You can supplement that burst by sword #2. Then swap to staff -> phase retreat -> autoattk until dead. Or warlock for a heavy hit and shatter. The synergy of sword/focus is beautiful like that. You can also drop a chaos storm -> leap (clone gets chaos armor) -> warden -> swap (immobilize) -> warden (confusing bolts) and all clones get block while in the storm making them very tanky for a few seconds.

Just keep playing and experimenting with combos and finishers like that. Soon you’ll become more of an expert when you begin to learn the depth of the class and then you’ll love it.

And I do highly recommend the GS. Between the berserker, the might building, the knockback and the super long range of the autoattk, it’s beautiful

Sorry I wrote a book for ya, but I hope it was a little helpful. Do post your build specs if you want some more advice or a critique for your level.

Sorry, no tl;dr on this :P

Hey Pyronix, can you post your build specifics? I’d like to see your trait layout for the weapon sets your using and also what utilities you usually run with.

I hit 80 on my mesmer last week and have been roaming Orr solo and with zerg for the past few days. Let me tell you that Orr is a very different beast from the rest of the world – forcing you to constantly be on your toes and test your knowledge and confidence in your profession. You can’t just smash and shoot like a ranger/warrior/guardian.

Mesmer is much more of a micromangement profession with slower fights but massive utility and (tbh) huge survivability – unless you’re a glass canon spec.

Pre Orr, I ran a staff, sword/focus setup and it worked pretty well for soloing most zones. The thing about Mesmer is that you can’t just find 2 or 3 weapons you like and never ever change.

Now, in Orr, I run mainly staff/greatsword for the overall dps/defense/survivability. The recent changes to GS have made it an amazing weapon!

I’ve also swapped my traits for a shatter factory build and Orr went from being a nightmare to being very manageable, albeit still annoying at times :P. I’ve supplemented my toughness (necessary for soloing around dangerous areas as we have low toughness to begin with) with armor and trinkets, as well as balancing high power and precision because our conditions (bleed, confusion) will NOT do the trick on their own. You need power.

A typical fight for me is a keyboard tango. I’m always, ALWAYS moving. I have clone on dodge so I’m producing illusions like crazy and shattering for spike damage and confusion. Illusionary Persona (Illusions 30) allows me to dodge roll through a couple mobs and shatter myself and clones, dodge again and either throw out a warlock or berserker, let them get off one attack and shatter. Fights can still be slower but they are NOT boring And as long as I can keep clones popping out and give phantasms a second to launch one attack, I’m barely getting scratched. High toughness helps and a few points in vitality to round it out helps ward off the waves of conditions that Orr mobs love to dump on you.

You’re also fresh into your 40’s and this is honestly where mesmer begins to feel more powerful due to having access to more traits. It’ll still feel weak if you’re constantly jumping to other front-loading damage classes like ranger and guardian, but less weak than it was in the 20s.

And that brings me to one other thing. Comparing mesmer to a ranger and guardian is simply not fair to the mesmer. Ranger and guardian and warrior even, are front-end DPS focused – completely different! Sure the guardian has low base vit, but they also have massive amounts of defense skills and can smash stuff with their heavy weapons. Mesmers are a more delicate class. We can’t (and weren’t designed) to deal massive dps inherently. To make up for that, we have a plethora of tricks (illusions) and utilities to keep our opponents busy while we whittle away at them. Yes it’s slower and yes it requires keyboard dancing and micromanaging, but that’s the meat of the profession.

I love it! And fortunately, I haven’t felt the “bug ridden” aspect of the class. Sure some things are a little bumpy sometimes, but overall, it’s been a blast. At the very beginning and for the first 25 levels, I was experiencing a love/hate relationship with my mesmer. I started some alts, but kept coming back and finally decided to get invested in learning mesmer and all of it’s idiosyncrasies.

davc.3569:

you mean 3piece Knight 3 piece rapmage?

or 2 and 4 or 1 and 5 Build an armor set that gives you your desired mix of stats ^^

Not yet apparently. I sent in a support ticket with this very request and this is the response I got:

We intend to add a feature which will allow players to change their own Display Names at some point in the future, but it’s not possible right now. We do not have an estimate for when such a feature will become available.

Report it, take the money and delete.

See this post by Anet
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/New-Wrinkle-Dilemma/first#post294841

It is certainly a bit heavy-handed and reminds me vividly of back when I played FFXIV and their “Fatigue” system. Only here, I can’t just swap to a different class and continue getting xp and silver. Nope.

Yesterday I joined the Straits of Devastation zerg as it roamed from each (non-broken) temple DE to another. After about 30-40 minutes DR hit me hard. I went from getting about 12-13k xp and 350 karma per event to dropping below 5k xp and 70 karma per event – after only about a half hour of game time!! And this just so I can try to get that quarter of a million karma I need to buy a set of Orr exotics.

It’s a little disheartening to have my gameplay and gametime corralled along a certain path because the devs want to punish a select few from farming for RMT. But many others like myself are farming (as we’ve done in many, many other MMOs) for the “end-game” equipment and fancies.

What’s even more frustrating is that the DR system was implemented without a whisper and then commented on in the most evasive manner by any dev that is forced to address an issue pertaining to DR.

As much as I love GW2 and ArenaNet as a developer, this whole thing puts a damper on my enjoyment and my respect for them and their game – just like it did (funny enough) with Square Enix with regard to FFXIV and their heavy-handed nature towards xp gain there with “Fatigue”.