Guild Wars 2

@FranzM:
No doubt … that’d be nice in several specializations … but we have to pick only 3 :-)
Darn having good choices and only 3 at a time … good place to be though

I’m currently wondering about combining Chaos, Inspiration and either Chrono or Dueling to shatter often for boons for myself and allies. Chrono looks like it would provide more support and we’re seeing how it could be useful with keeping up our number of illusions for shatters. Dueling is a tried-and-true clone generator with Deceptive Evasion.

I’m also curious about a flood of shatters with Dueling/Inspiration/Chrono. Dueling and Chrono providing quite a large amount of illusions for shattering while Inspiration is giving out Vigor (more illusions with DE), Healing, and Condition Removal … holy butterflies, Batman!

@Kelthien:
Heck, we may even have a Phantasm-Shatter hybrid thanks to Chronomancer.

• F5 – set
• Summon phantasms w/ shatter resummon trait
• Shatter phantasms
• New phantasms unload their attacks
• Shatter phantasms
• F5 – reset

Might be a Phantasm build centered less on keeping phantasms up and more churning through them.

Back when GW2 was in beta, there were whole threads on trying to get the optimal balance of shatter timing so you could benefit from shatters and get potentially more attacks out of your phantasms through proper timing of shatters and resummons.

TyPin.9860:

A Chronomancer in Dueling and Illusions could well just spam shatters left and right all day…

This is my hope … all you tiny Mesmers will see the true might of a giant Norn Mesmer constantly churning out more and more copies of himself and shattering them … flooding our enemies’ field of view with a tide of giant Norn bodies, butterflies, shattered glass, and their own tears … mmmmm.

Aye, we still need to see the actual finished Chronomancer Specialization’s traits … but I think we can all agree that with the current information it is looking like there will be several quite viable ways to play a shatter mesmer beyond our current simple choice of “Cond or Power Shatter”.

Aye, we have yet to confirm whether or not there are any sources of confusion from the Chronomancer Specialization’s traits.

That list of sources of confusion I listed was just our sizeable list of currently known sources of confusion.

As I pointed out in the other thread … why not take both. Especially if you want to spread confusion like candy … Chrono/Dueling/Illusions … you’re welcome

Where’s the confusion come from?

• Clone crits (Dueling minor)
• Mesmer crits (Dueling minor)
• Interrupts (Dueling GM major)
• All Shatters (Illusions minor)
• Blinds (Illusions GM major)
• Chaos Armor (Staff and Ethereal combo leaps/blasts)
• Confusing Images (Scepter)
• Cry of Frustration (Shatter)

Just looking at this … if you wanted to be the confusion guy … Chrono/Dueling/Illusions with Staff / Scepter+X

DanteZero.9736:

StickerHappy.8052:

Miku Lawrence.6329:

• Note that you can pick glamours too (they’re select-able in the Utility slot).
• CONFUSION PULSES OMFGFGGGGGGGG

Snippy

How do you get the confusion pulses? Sorry dumb question.

From the recorded videos that were played, confusion would do X amount of damage per second and would do more damage when a skill was activated.

Well that just made dueling even cooler … I may very well go back to rocking my Rabid or Rampager’s sets …

Let me be clear … I still want the traps to trigger when an opponent runs over them.

At the same time, I’d like to be able to trigger them myself when I think the opponent is not going to and I can still gain some advantage from the trap’s fields.

Fire Trap and Frost Traps are great examples of this as I can still shoot projectiles them through, leap through them, blast in them, etc. to still benefit from them despite my opponent playing smart and avoiding running over them. They aren’t as useful as they’d be if my opponent ran over them on top of this, but they are not being completely negated.

It’s looking more reasonable but still feels a bit overloaded and unfocused to me.

If I want a trait focused on making my pets’ crits hurt … make everything about it focused on that.

I don’t see myself wanting both condition damage and increased crit damage in the same build unless I’m running Rampager/Sinister/Celestial … two of which I’d be taking with +0 Ferocity outside of this trait.

I also don’t see why we would want to move the +450 Ferocity from an auto-included Minor trait to an optional Major trait … but I’m tired and perhaps forgetting something said days ago.

I’m not sure how I feel about the stunbreak … my intuition tells me that would be a bit weird. I’d have a stunbreak, unless they ran over the trap before I could use the secondary?

That said, it would be nice to be able to fill up on traps and still have ways to handle stunbreaking/cleansing.

Ah man … look at the damage on the shield abilities too … If that’s not with Zerk stats … woot.

@Chaos … where is that “I told you so thread” … I’m getting more and more stuff I want to add to it too :-p

<edit>
Is that 3 seconds per illusion for Continuum Split? /grin
</edit>

@WonderousWall:
I too have been thinking for a while that it would be awesome to have a second activation on our traps so that we could at least leverage their combo fields against more ranged opponents that are harder to get to run into the traps to trigger them.

It would also help Rangers be useful with the Might stacking common in PvE as we’d have an on-demand fire field.

The only problem I see with it is that this could prevent us from doing what we do now where we throw down a trap and the cooldown is done before the trap is triggered; allowing us to immediately hit them with the trap a second time after they’ve triggered the first.

Just you sissy, little (see: non-Norn) races wait till I get home.

I’ll show you what a real, male Mesmer looks like ;-)

If all of that is true … good lord, this definitely has what’d you want in a shatter build …

Hey Chaos, you want to go grab Pyro’s quote about thinking Chrono was only good for interrupt builds and add that to your “I told you so” thread? :-p

Wait … the Greatsword is supposed to shoot?! All these years I kept trying to swing mine and it kept shooting out sparks … I just thought mine was defective :-p

In the end, the skin won’t matter as much as the character wielding it … Norn (maybe Charr) with a shield is so much better than you tiny Mesmers ;-)

Male Norn Mesmer
Honor of the Waves light armor
Guild Tower Shield
3 Clones

Shield wall!

Or the same guy and he has a plan for different types of builds … and designed the other specializations with this one in mind as well … though I hope it doesn’t end up feeling auto-include.

The Sword is a liability because the tools you have don’t matter during the animation for the 2nd and 3rd attack in the AA chain as you can’t interrupt them. A smart opponent knows this and will try to take advantage of it by timing their burst attack to hit during that animation. Thieves are especially good at this due to how quickly some of their burst can hit thereby making the proper timing easier for them to achieve.

The sword is a great weapon, but this one flaw makes it a liability against any good opponent.

Did you still miss the long list of cons to balance out what the Warrior has? You didn’t address it.

You can doubt, assume, etc. all you want about what I do/don’t play, kiddo. Some of the more reasonable people on these boards have actually gamed with me and know what is what.

I explained to you already why the Warrior has those things. They are far from the only class that can have a utility bar full of stunbreakers. Please take a look at all the classes you claim to know so well.

If you’re unable to play “rope-a-dope” against a warrior because of their abundance of stunbreaks, I’m sorry; that’s on you.

Instant stunbreaks? I didn’t realize there were stunbreaks that had a cast time other than things like Lightning Reflex which break it immediately but have you evading for a brief moment. I hardly consider those types of stunbreaks as having “cast times”.

Honestly, I hardly ever take Shared Anguish because it competes with several other excellent traits in the current Trait system and I don’t feel like I need it. For example, I’d rather take Vigorous Renewal and dodge more … likely dodging those CCs. I find more dodges more useful since it can counter CC as well as damage. Shared Anguish is only a CC counter.

Unlike you, I don’t feel like anti-CC traits are such a dominating aspect of the game.

If you think Warrior can get a large amount of passive healing … perhaps you should look at what a properly spec’d Ranger can do. Check the history of these forums. I and several others have shared this information before. It’s just always left the front page after a week or so as it gets washed away with the same old griping, crying, and complaining from often the same people.

As far as your claim that I "overestimate a pet can do other than being an utility tool of CC or boons …

• I mentioned that a pet is a % of your damage … is that incorrect? No.
• I mentioned that a pet can CC … you even admit this … so that isn’t incorrect
• I mentioned that a ranger can continue to apply damage while LOS-ing (implying via the pet) … is the pet not doing damage? No, it is.

… so please, explain how I’m overestimating,

Also, if you’re having trouble delivering pet-to-face, there are plenty of discussions on these boards about what you can do to help your pet land more hits against a moving target … even videos illustrating this. A pet that is supported by its Ranger returns the favor by better supporting its Ranger. It’s this crazy synergy where if you properly use your class mechanic, it works well for you.

Complaining about Ranger pet when you use it like garbage is like complaining about

• Mesmer shatters when you shatter 0-1 illusions … or against someone up on a wall
• Warrior burst skills when you have 1 bar
• Necro Death Shroud when you use it with an almost empty Life Force Pool
• Elementalist when you don’t manage your attunement swapping
  etc. etc. etc.

Oh whoops, I was talking about the tooltip for Protective Ward … which would give another source of Weakness.

Got it and Beastly Warden mixed up there :-/

@Toxsa:
Perhaps you missed the …

• Warrior’s trait is on a 90s cooldown … so used twice for every 3 times ours can trigger
• The ICD on Warrior’s trait clashes with their use of the actual Balanced Stance utility
• A CC’d Warrior is doing 0% damage as opposed to whatever % your pet is doing (spec-dependent).
• A CC’d Warrior can’t counter CC someone without breaking the CC first … a Ranger can … hello canine pets.
• A warrior can’t be continuously applying damage while LOSing a target … a Ranger can

… since you only mentioned the one oversight.

If you have an issue with someone calling out trying to “strengthen” your argument by saying “I think people that disagree just don’t know as much” … then don’t say it. Should’ve realized the age-group is resembled. I’ll call that out all day long alongside people not posting facts to support their statements … because it’s essentially the same thing.

Warriors utilizing stances goes far beyond just anti-CC traits. Given that being CC’d allows them to be kited more, Warriors are obviously going to gravitate towards stunbreaks. When one of those stances gives them condition immunity and another gives them stability so that they are now immune to movement impairment of any form (unless stability is stripped) .. no duh they will be taking that.

They are a very different class though. They are quite direct and need to be able to better combat CC because that inhibits their more direct playstyle more than it does other classes.

Engineer actually has multiple anti-CC traits currently. Less damage via protection when CC’d. Drop a smoke bomb when CC’d. Less damage passively when KD’d or stunned. Do you think Engineer’s play similarly to Rangers? I sure as heck don’t. It’s very different when I’m on my Engineer than when I’m on my Ranger. Same when I switch to any of my other 80s.

Additionally, protection is great when CC’d … except when you’re against a condition build. My condi Ranger loves seeing that when my dog KDs the Engineer … because it is almost a completely wasted trait for them against me.

See how there are pros and cons to things?

See how things aren’t slow black-and-white?

See how things are a bit more dynamic than the simple scenarios in your head?

As far as why it is “imbalanced for years for Rangers and Necromancers” … please see my earlier comment about how I see tournament-going Rangers still coming back to our forums asking questions about core mechanics of our class. Perhaps it’s more of an issue with the pool of people available or simply how much time those people have been willing to invest in the class for any number of reasons.

Now, I can’t speak for the Necromancer community, because I’m not nearly as active there as I am here so have not noticed the same from their tournament-goers … but …

Last I checked, Terrormancer is a build currently used in tourneys.
Last I checked, trap rangers were the downfall of the Tanky Guardian holding points.

These classes have taken part in the meta. These classes have even shifted the meta.

Lastly … I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but several things are in a rather sizeable state of flux. It’s going to be difficult to accurate gauge how good/bad things are within the context of classes once all the changes are official since (1) We don’t know how everything is going to settle (2) You are comparing the current incarnation of new traits to the current incarnation of old traits.

@mistsim:
I agree with you if Beastly Warden ends up working the way it is currently worded … but I keep hearing people say that the tooltip is worded incorrectly and that it works for the pet, not us.

I’d edit that to be “in a Multi-opponent scenario or vs any opponent that brings AI (Mesmer, Ranger, etc.).”

this restricted flow of information is such a tease :-/

Yes and Maybe

… Frost Field as my Axe #3? Heck to the yes! Gimme! I want it now!

… Smoke Field could be useful … I’d have to play around with it a bit more as a Ranger … it’s uses for us are not as obvious as those of Frost Trap given that some of us already have extensive experience playing around Frost Trap.

@Toxsa:

Just ignore that:

• Warrior’s trait is on a 90s cooldown … so used twice for every 3 times ours can trigger
• Warrior’s trait still has them initially interrupted by CC
• The ICD on Warrior’s trait clashes with their use of the actual Balanced Stance utility
• A CC’d Warrior is doing 0% damage as opposed to whatever % your pet is doing (spec-dependent).
• A CC’d Warrior can’t counter CC someone without breaking the CC first … a Ranger can … hello canine pets.
• A warrior can’t be continuously applying damage while LOSing a target … a Ranger can

How exactly do you quantify “proc more meaningfully” … I’m curious.

The squishiness of a Thief warrants them being able to handle 1 CC every 30s as that one CC can be the death of them. Play a Thief against anyone with a modicum of skill and you’ll know what I’m talking about. A CC’d Thief is a dead Thief.

I’m not sure how comparing Thief’s heal (Withdraw) to … what exactly … somehow got into the discussion on counter-CC traits. The heal isn’t a stunbreaker … and is only one of their heals … and, no, not all thieves use it … a large number of viable Thief builds use Hide In Shadows … some even use the Signet or Venom.

Could you elaborate on your various claims that other classes are just better than Ranger at everything? Or is that some sort of dogma we’re not supposed to question?

<sarcasm>
Obviously, those who don’t agree with you just don’t know nearly as much about other classes as you
</sarcasm>
… says the person who just practically quoted the crap I have to deal with when reasoning with my 5-year-old son

… I’m just waiting for the next lines … “you just don’t understand!” … and “you’re just not listening!”

I’m getting too old for this kitten.

<edit>
To make another point … some of the Rangers we’ve seen playing in the tournaments have, after those tournaments, been seen asking questions in these forums about basic mechanics of Rangers … like beastmastery points. Things that have been clearly explained and discussed on these forums over the past several years. Heck, I even have a post from over a year ago showing the exact stats affected by beastmastery points, by how much, and what that translates to as far as Direct Damage, Crit Chance, Base Health, and Damage Mitigation.

I don’t see that with those tournament-goers playing the other classes. They know their classes forwards and backwards.
</edit>

Dom/Dueling/Chrono – Mantra

@Chaos: I’m pretty sure if you look at some of his “ANet will never” posts … you already could make several such threads … or one big one :-p

“Always” and “never” are two of the quickest ways to be wrong ;-)

I think your “I told you so” is based on something quite different than mine Levetty :-)

I can already “tell you so” that there are assumptions flying about ;-)

My logic is infallible … :-p

Stop making me feel my age… I have a two months before 30.

mumbles about “darn kids” as he walks off

Leonhardt.8164:

Sebrent.3625:

you say boss Chronomancer … I say “Time Lord” …

The Doctor always takes charge/command :-p

Negative tons of points to those who don’t get the references … you just lost at the game of life … sorry :-p

what if you think dr who sucks ?

Then I can’t help but question your judgement in all things from this point forward, of course ;-)

@Chaos:
Lol. If you’re right, feel free to create that thread. I’ll have a good laugh from it too

You’ll have been right and I’ll be right that it was an assumption before then ;-)

I feel that’s different than the naysayers that are naysaying based on assumption :-/

Rampant assumptions … the new donkey nation.

Interesting. I wouldn’t consider Rampage as One as a viable condition cleanse. You’re only cleansing one condition per shout and RaO has a substantially long cooldown.

You are quite light on cleanses so you will need to be very careful against any condi build. Evade those applicators.

First … if your pet is that large of a percentage of your damage … you shouldn’t be taking shared anguish as you are running a tanky (see: Nomad) set of gear and spec’d into your Beast.

Second … being completely immune to CC in that it doesn’t even interrupt your current action is very powerful. Want your rapid fire not interrupted … here you go.

Sure, the Thief’s new traits stunbreaks … you’ll still have interrupted that Thief … they just won’t be locked out by that daze/stun.

As already stated several times in this thread and previous ones like it (way to not read … just spew the same garbage) … many other classes’ anti-CC traits still leave them CC’d. They just apply a CC to whomever CC’d them.

Stop asking to have anything other classes have. We have different classes … they are supposed to be different. You have been, again, given several reasons that validate the balance for this trait. If you take a build that doesn’t fully benefit from this trait … then why the heck are you taking the trait … it’s an option after all.

Try to think at least twice as much as you type … and that’s lowballing it considerably.

I agree with waiting until the expansion to craft … if you can wait.

The current meta for fractals is still largely zerker and fractals are the primary reason to get ascended gear. So if you couldn’t wait, that would be your “safest bet”.

While you’re waiting, you can always get lucky and loot ascended chests from the daily fractal chests

Personally, I’m not as interested in it as an particular eccentric I’ve briefly discussed it with :-p

Having ferocity on my Axe which has the worst power scaling of our weapons (unless getting double-taps on the AA) doesn’t appeal to me … I’m also curious why it isn’t 150 Ferocity per Axe like the Warrior’s Axe GM trait.

Turning my 3s Chill on a now 8s cooldown into an AOE isn’t that appealing to me either … though we’ll have to see how the AOE is.

If it’s a large AOE … awesome. If it’s just an AOE centered on my target … meh.

I do like inflicting chill … but I just don’t get the same “warm fuzzies” from this as I do when I look at several other traits.

But I’ll still test the crud out of it when given the chance

….good points about frost trap. I love me some Frost trap … add in shooting projectiles through it and you’ve just ruined someone’s day if they don’t have a cleanse. Easily something to giggle about.

Real men giggle by the way.

Life-tip:
If you get to a point where nothing will change your mind about something that isn’t a moral… you’ve dug yourself a bad hole and are honestly just being stubborn/ignorant.

Your post shows a perception where you think everything should have been already thought up by the developers and the players just led by the hand the whole way.

I’m sorry, but welcome to the real world where what you’re asking for is largely infeasible given the sheer complexity, resource constraints, etc.

Not to mention actual good game design.

Did you even watch the bloody video?

That is often touted as one of the best explanations of this topic … and your reaction is “nothing is ever going to change my mind on this.”

Which begs me to ask … are you some experienced game developer? Or an experienced developer at all? Or even some sort of engineer with experience with construction/development?

What exactly makes you feel so qualified in your belief in how things should be? I’d love to know.

As far as it being “bad design” that a given choice is worse than another choice in differing situations … seriously?!

Knowing the ins-and-outs of when the different choices are [sub-]optimal is part of becoming a good player in a game.

They are part of that “knowledge” and “skill” that separate an experienced player from a new player. They are what a new player generally aspires to acquire.

Have I stepped off into the twilight zone?

Are you wanting them to just say “here’s a board with a nail in it… it’s all you’ll ever need because it’s optimal in all situations … and your only option”.

Or are you wanting them to say “hey, you just stepped into PvE where people often stack and cleave down groups of mobs, I’m going to force you to make the right decision because I assume you’re not smart enough to do it on your own”.

Just good grief.

Sword could enjoy this.
Shield CC … Illusionary Leap … Swap (Immobilize) … Shield CC hits target again since it returns to you.

As someone else stated in another thread, scepter could enjoy the quickness in order to get off confusing images in a more “reasonable” amount of time … or the AA chain.

Mind Wrack is direct damage … the damage per clone isn’t (dmg * X) where X is the number of clones … as the damage per clone goes down the more clones are involved … though total damage does increase overall.

Cry of Frustration stacks confusion … stacks are different than duration.

Diversion’s daze is not increased per clone. The only way to increase is with passive daze increase or proper positioning of your illusions so that they shatter >= daze_duration (base 1 second) apart.

Diversion is the only actual duration one between all of them.

Like I said, I understand what you’re basing it on … that doesn’t make it any more/less of an assumption.

Speculation, assumptions, etc. are great … when presented as such … when presented as facts … meh.

you say boss Chronomancer … I say “Time Lord” …

The Doctor always takes charge/command :-p

Negative tons of points to those who don’t get the references … you just lost at the game of life … sorry :-p

No offense, but I strongly dislike these numbers I keep seeing thrown out in different threads that have no basis other than per speculation based on current shatters’ cooldowns/durations.

Since it does something quite different than distortion, I don’t think assuming distortion duration per clone is necessarily what we’ll get.

Now, given its potential power, sure, I could see its duration being longer than distortion’s … but we have no information … so seeing hard numbers posted like facts chaps my butterflies.

I think the one ability we’ve been shown from the shield is already pretty darn good. If its other weapon skill is just as good, then I could see that alone justifying not being given a 2H weapon.

As I’ve stated before, there is an advantage in getting an 1H weapon over a 2H weapon in that you have more options for pairing those new weapon skills with other existing weapon skills while a 2H weapon has all of its weapon skills as a full set … no options there … all or nothing.

We don’t have enough information about the alacrity, continuum shift, etc. to really know … but the Shield is looking nice so far as are the high-level concepts for these.

I’d say, yes, I think what we’ve been given is looking just as good, if not better, than getting a 2H weapon.

Though I want a MH Pistol sometime :-p

Chaos Archangel.5071:

• Block the next attack, create a Phantasm that mimics the blocked attack.

We would have to have a thread dedicated to links to videos of this.

Warrior Burst Skill … blocked … then dealt to their face.

Thief backstab

Ranger maul

and so on…

The question then would be … would the Phantasm continue to mimic that ability every X seconds … a phantasm that eviscerates/backstabs/mauls/etc. every X seconds … scary.

Why not play around with traits like with weapons … it’s not like it was at release … changing traits is free these days and only requires being out-of-combat.

I think you’ll enjoy the class more and get better at it if you experiment with it yourself. If you have a thought “what if” … test it yourself rather than asking. It’d likely be faster that way anyways.

Now, if there is something you don’t understand or don’t know how to test … ask away. We’re here to help.

Possibly this with my Fractal Sword:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/9/9e/Fractal_Shield_wielded.jpg/714px-Fractal_Shield_wielded.jpg

Lol, Xaylin. I feel ya. I like options, but I do always look back after my decision and wonder … what if I made that other decision instead.

It’s a good thing swapping specializations is going to be free and easy.

I’m excited that this looks like there will be more than just power-shatter and condition shatter … be different types of each … and hybrid I imagine.

I feel like:

• Alacrity (reduced cooldowns) feeds into more illusions
• More illusions feeds into more shattering
• More shattering feeds into alacrity

I think it’s a nice cycle that could end up being very fun.

I recall we’ve several times on this forum gone over the max rate of illusion generation a Mesmer can get … this should hopefully increase that.

aka, you want the “immunity frames”.

Aye, the pet gaining distortion or something similar when we dodge roll would be nice. Anything else such as the pet itself performing a dodge as well would impact AI.

Wow … I mention one line that mentions that Ranger specialization was thought of after the Staff as opposed to the Mesmer specialization being thought of before the Shield and you guys find some way to turn it into all sorts of assumptions that then lead you to immediately thinking things are going to be bad …

Just wow …

I feel like they could drop an I-Win button in your laps and you’d still complain about the tactile feel of the button or that you have to click a target for the button to work … or some other ridiculousness.

If you’re new, I hope you’re paying attention to how ridiculous those that are often griping about Ranger can be and instead pay attention to the actual numbers, the existence of all sorts of very happy and capable ranger players, and all the videos further exhibiting this.

Sadly, this is a game forum and you have to wade through the “saltwater” at times :-/

@Tigaseye.2047:
Before you continue making such long posts about how everything should be just as easy / “noob friendly” / etc..

… please take look at this video:

Also, while you want the devs to “remove red herrings” … that assumes they know what all of those are and how to remove them without inhibiting the abilities of those at the higher skill levels.

What is so wrong with letting players have a bit more control? Letting players make mistakes? Let players make choices even if some of those choices are less optimal than others.

Let people us their brains however they want and reap the results.

Do you have any videos of you fighting condi builds with your build?

Sword is a liability against a Warrior/Thief because they can take advantage of you being animation locked in order to hit you with some solid burst … else you are not using your auto-attack … so why use Sword as a Zerk .. unless the only point of using it is for the mobility/evades … which I don’t think are sufficient versus taking a Greatsword instead for PvP.

Pick 2 weapon CCs
Pistol / Shield / Focus / OH Sword / Greatsword
Throw in Mantra of Distraction, Signet of Domination, and/or Diversion

F5 … Repeat

Make players feel like they couldn’t do a thing during the fight … and smile :-)