Guild Wars 2

The best way to know is to test it yourself. How much defense you need is a personal thing, so buy 1 Bowl of Lemongrass Poultry Soup and give it a whirl. See if you notice a difference and if that difference is beneficial or not. See if it lets you adjust your traits/utilities to be more aggressive.

My Engi has a full Celestial armor set with 6/6 Traveler Runes….the changes should be interesting. Doing the math is easy enough now but the practical application will be what I’m anxious for. As an engi, an overall increase in all the stats feels like it’ll be more beneficial than the loss of crit damage. What I love most about that set is the lazy versatility it offers me: easily swapping trinkets for various builds.

Napalm

cuz Flamethrower needs more love

I agree with OP that low-level zones are too easy for geared 80s. But scaling needs to be adjusted. Not the difficulty of the zones.

Also, you can remove a couple pieces of armor to manually scale yourself down more.

Also, join an active and helpful guild. A lot of nice people play and are willing to lend some time to help guildies. I paired up with a guildie I’d never even talked to before and I helped him finish 100% on a zone, then he helped me do the same on another. Sometimes being a fellow guildie is enough.

It’s true. Open the gem store and you’ll see an option on the left for gem/gold conversion. It looks like 2 arrows cycling on themselves. You can exchange gold > gems and gems > gold.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/d/d9/Black_Lion_Trading_Company_interface.jpg

Gather everything you see. Do full exploration, not just the hearts. Get the POIs and vistas and WPs. Exploration gives great XP, especially early on. Fully explore the Grove. And do your personal story; they give a lot of XP too.

By the time that’s done, you should be level 15. However, if not, do what goodbugs said and take the portal in the Grove to Vigil Keep where other portals are. Go through them into another racial city and explore that city and the 1-15 zone outside of it.

With the sole exception of not liking melee, you’ve described a Guardian. I’d honestly give that a try.

Ele is another that fits the bill, but they’re squishy, not resilient. Lots of magic and healing, but not much defensive boon sharing or anything. Just raw healing.

Mesmer is fun, flashy, and has lots of boon sharing. Not much raw healing but a lot of reflects and ethereal fields.

As for taking forever to kill stuff, what profession are you and how are you fighting? Some professions take a few levels to unlock traits to get stronger, others feel strong right off the bat. Be patient. Read all skill tooltips and understand what the skills do and what hits hard. Button mashing and standing still will not work in GW2.

Just being in a fairly successful guild will net you some passive bonuses. It will also give you access to some potentially helpful people who can adventure with you and give you pointers.

Gather everything you see. It’s easy XP and money on the TP.
Kill yellow animals. They’re often ignored and will give more XP the longer they’ve been alive.
Hearts, DEs, and exploration (as you’ve been doing) are great.
When you get to level 35+, you can do dungeons. Each path will net you almost a full level.
GL

/Roar (I want more emotes!)

You’re basing the changes on the effect it’ll have on your guardian only, ignoring the fact that the changes will hit everyone. The draw of guardians is the support and that won’t change. Your damage will be reduced, but so will everyone’s. You won’t become irrelevant.

Having said that, the way to reduce the Zerker meta isn’t by stat adjustments. The Ferocity change is being instituted to make gear more consistent and balancing easier for Anet. To change the Zerker meta however, Anet will have to 1) boost the necessity of support builds and 2) boost the availability to strong support builds.

Generally, I like the spirit of the proposed changes. As is, many of the passive signet effects are boring and don’t encourage any clever play. I like that these changes would not just be static stat boosts but rather synergize with gameplay that is encouraged by various traits. Guardian’s Sig of Wrath change would work great with a burning build.

Nike.2631:

A position so powerfully put, so compellingly framed, so eloquently stated that we know the Devs will have no choice but to capitulate completely and do as you say (like drooling zombies).

…Unless we band together and ignore it until it slides of the front page.

I laughed so hard at this my coworkers are looking at me funny.

You’re making very large assumptions here Kulvar. They’re making changes to sigils and runes. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to make similar changes to traits that don’t need to be changed. Don’t expect this to happen. The traits are designed to synergize with their lines an other traits. The sigils are being changed to work with a broader range of builds.

Norn …because huge bodies with tiny heads are funny

Wait till 4/15 for Megaservers to hit those starter areas and the cities.

Since you’re clearly looking for a 1-hand sword, take a look at dulfy’s gallery of GW2 1h swords.

Couple good ones for you:
Golden Sword
Honor of Humanity
Krytan Sword
Lionguard Sword
Seraph Sword

Engineer don’t suck. They’re just a bit harder to play well than warrior. If you want a pure ranged class, Engi is the only one you won’t be making huge sacrifices for just to make it work. P/P + SB thief is awful, LB/rifle warrior is awful. LB/SB ranger or SB+A/x ranger can be alright, but ranger deals better damage with sword in melee. Engineer is built to be ranged. Just don’t expect to stand still at 1200 range and pew-pew mindlessly.

If Engineer’s #3 wasn’t on such a long timer, the pull would make sense. Interrupt a stomp or pull a target to you, then ‘splode em. That’d be alright. Also, #1 needs better conditions or no conditions and more damage.

If the Megaservers end up doing what they/I hope we’ll be seeing a lot more people in zones. This means that instead of 2-4 players jumping into a DE and having their conditions be worthwhile, we might see 8-10 players joining in on a DE and seeing conditions overlapping and overwriting.

Kinda makes a PvE condition fix even more important now.

It could be like Engi’s Supply Crate lol. Teleport away and summon a collection of illusions, including an iDuelist, iWarden, iDefender, and 2 clones. Cannot be shattered. All new illusions replace the Elite illusions.

My experience:

Open world easiness- necro>Mesmer>elementalist
Dungeon desirability- elementalist>Mesmer>necro

Lol, yea. They’re all completely fun and viable in open world PvE. I personally enjoy the Mesmer because I’m not hampered by the long cooldowns as with Ele and it’s more dynamic than necro. Plus, it’s got lots of build options.

That’s what I thought. Was hoping it was the other way around specifically for the situation Chaos described.

Thanks guys.

I really see this as a kick-kitten GM trait for….open world PvE.

As long as the new armors are introduced into the game and not the gem store I’ll be happy. I don’t want more RNG box ticket scraps and gem store only buys. I’d like to see new content involve new permanent drops. And even old content.

Seamus McPlatofart.7269:

Here is my PVE set. I just wish there was a helmet that matched better; I don’t like any of the Asura cultural helms.

Gloves & Boots are from CM
pants are T1 cultural
coat and shoulders are T3 cultural
hood is from CoE

If you got the Scarlet helm from the LA event, try that. Or the gas mask. They both look good on Engi.

It was when they were announcing the professions during development.

Also, I’m pretty sure Distortion doesn’t stack. Which means you can kill 5 people at once or 5 people in under 3 secs and you’ll still only get 3s Distortion. Which means you have to be judicious with your glamour spam and get a little lucky. As Xaylin mentioned, you’re mostly relying on others to kill. So tag, let ’em die, tag, let ’em die, repeat.

Ether Feast increases its heal depending on how many illusions are out. Is that calculated when I activate it or when the cast ends and the heal is given? I’m guessing the latter.

The World Boss Schedule (WBS) should have overlaps. I see no reason why 2 bosses can’t be out at the same time in different zones for the sake of variety. Especially because now the number of scheduled times for the 3 mega-bosses will be drastically reduced.

At 1900EST on the WBS the Megadestroyer will be up. If I’m only playing for an hour or 2 that evening I’ll have no chance of seeing the Evolved Jungle Wurm at 2300. Why not have that boss run simultaneously? They’re in different zones anyway, so I see no issue. Running 2 events at a time over different zones, especially with the mga-bosses, would be hugely beneficial for anyone who wants to take on specific world bosses.

Even with Guild triggered mega-bosses, that’s still contingent on enough active guild members being on at the same time, having enough merits, and wanting to do it. Gives a single player no control over their content choice.

What I mean is: after 4/15, when we receive an AP chest, will we get anything new to replace the currently rewarded PvP skins box? Will we get a Skins Box that has a couple skin unlocks, basically replacing what the PvP skins will become? Or will we just not get anything to replace it? Or more WvW badges? Simply put, what change will the AP chest see due to the removal of the PvP box?

Right now, AP chests have a PvP skin box inside of them that gives you about 6 PvP skins. Which I’ve always just deposited into my PvP locker because I don’t PvP. But on 4/15 those skins will become available for me in PvE, which is awesome.

My question is, will AP chests opened after 4/15 have a box in them containing skin unlocks, much like the old chests did?

Right now, AP chests have a PvP skin box inside of them that gives you about 6 PvP skins. Which I’ve always just deposited into my PvP locker because I don’t PvP. But on 4/15 those skins will become available for me in PvE, which is awesome.

My question is, will AP chests opened after 4/15 have a box in them containing skin unlocks, much like the old chests did?

I’ve never bought keys, and I won’t either unless something drastic is done with the drop rates of items inside. As it is, most of the crap inside isn’t worth the cost of the key.

All of my opened boxes have been with keys that’ve dropped for me or via the PS. Actually, I just got 1 the other night and don’t know if I should use it now or wait till after 4/15.

Fixed the Signet of Swagger skill description, making it only swap with a random illusion. Loses some of its ability to strategically position in combat but still works as a good escape and reposition.

Wow, I wasn’t expecting 125 items actually being on the list.
And then when I saw there are 125, I wasn’t expecting them to be good, quality ideas.

Kudos to OP for this list. I think that a lot of these are really needed QoL improvements, some would just be cool, and some are stretches (independent shoulder armor hiding, really?). But many of these changes I’d be cool with.

I’d like to see a red post just generally letting us know if these are the kinds of changes that they’re currently looking into or if it’s something that a future CDI would be good for. If so, start it by pasting this OP into it.

Initially grouping up with fellow RPers and joining their map will help to consolidate RPers into one place. Might take a bit of community cooperation but that’s the essence of RPers right?

Also, pick a location that is ideal for hanging out. Major cities might not be a good place anymore, but perhaps one of the larger outposts in a lesser explored map might be appropriate. Stormbluff Isle in Bloodtide or Ebonhawke in FoR.

Well it’s been established that it can be done. CoF flames were dyeable in beta but apparently that was too much fun so it got removed. No clue.

Also, the glowy bits on medium Magitech armor are dyeable. Mine are bright lite blue.

PS – Chaos axes in GW were my favorite cuz of how they looked when dyed.

I love E-gun. It’s got it all: sun break, escape backward, aoe heals, aoe cleanse, weakness, cripple, blast finisher.

You have to think what the thing you’d sub in for it has that E-gun doesn’t and if/why that’s better. For instance, if you’re running a P/S condition build and have no reliable burning, I can see slotting Rocket Boots. Otherwise, E-gun.

I agree with Xyonon. The Echo portion is too limited and weak.

Defensively, it works well against, say, a ranger’s Rapid Fire, but the Echo is abysmal.

For returning any decently hard-hitting attack, it means you have to eat it first, which is terrible. Mimic a warrior’s Kill Shot (why he’s using it, don’t ask) and you eat a massive shot, hopefully not enough to down you, just so you can return it. Or you choose to Mimic a Kill Shot, get hit by some thief’s bouncing shortbow or something, and end up Mimicing a crappy skill but block the Kill Shot. I can’t even decide which is better, cuz neither is ideal.

Adamantium.3682:

Knighthonor.4061:

Adamantium.3682:

Knighthonor.4061:

Use it as a melee weapon. Forget the look and feel of it. pretend you are playing melee. same concept.

Not exactly. Since each is on a delay you can’t treat it as any other melee weapon or you won’t hit anything unless it’s stationary (which I would assume is not the situation this thread was created for).

They have a radius, and you can lay out multiples for this very reason. Spam them in a melee oriented way, controls the field.

Try it.

And when you are being kitted, thats when you switch to a ranged weapon. Same exact concept as playing a melee weapon actually.

If you try to chase someone while dropping bombs you will never hit them, even if you are in range when dropping the bombs. This is contrary to a melee weapon.

That’s one scenario. If you’re chasing someone, net shot or glue shot or magnet them. Then continue to “melee” with bombs.

Dastion.3106:

Personally, my favorite Mesmer build was to burn away all of their energy and then use Aneurysm on them. It filled their energy bar but inflicted damage based on how much they recovered. Cover your hexes with Backfire and watch people pop.

GW1 Mesmer was all about the lose/lose situation. Create a situation where there is no good choice for the enemy, just one that might not make them kill themselves.

Edit: better guys?? lol

Signet of Swagger: Passive- increase run speed by 25%; Active- Breaks stun. Instantly swap places with targeted illusion. If no illusion is targeted, swap with random illusion. Does not require LoS. 900 range.

After familiarizing yourself with the available traits and skills, you’ll want to decide what the purpose of your build will be. I’ve seen people posting for advice on builds with no focus, which means they’re weak in almost everything.

Decide which kit(s) you want to focus on
Decide if you want to be power or condition damage
Decide if you to be damage or support oriented
Decide if you want to play risky or safe
…you get the idea.

In general, you’re going to want medium-high damage output.
In any non-PvE you’ll want some reliable condition removal and stun breaks.
Your support should be based on what your chosen profession excels in. For instance, engis can might stack really well, but can’t exactly boon share, so don’t try. Mesmer, on the other hand, can’t might stack that well but can boon share well.
Because of the predictability of dungeons, builds tend to be offensive with just enough defense to survive. Pretty much the opposite for PvP/WvW.

It needs to be more on the order of Arcane Blast or (better yet) Arcane Wave

I’m confused. So instead of stomping a downed player you just smack him once to interrupt his self-heal and then move on? Repeat every couple seconds?

Could add 2 sigil slots in the Hero panel where the 2nd weapon option normally appears. There an engi can equip sigils that are activated only when a kit is being used. Otherwise, the actual weapon sigils are treated as active when no kit is used and the weapon is out.

As for ele, no idea.

I’ve read the arguments both for and against moving DE down to Adept. It seems like it’d be a good thing in the sense that it’ll open more trait options for shatter mesmers, but it doesn’t really promote build diversity since it’s still a necessary trait.

I guess a better idea would be to keep DE where it is, but add some traits that create more diversity for clone creation, like a trait that creates a clone on interruption, or creates a clone whenever you crit with a 10-15sec cooldown. These will create other ways to pump out clones without necessitating DE.

Also, as it is clones are good for one thing: shattering them. And I get that that’s the mesmer mechanic. But it’d be nice to have more interaction with them, such as swapping places with them or refocusing a clone’s target, etc.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Does Illuionary Persona work with Restorative Illusions? I mean if i had 3 our would i get extra healing seeing as the shatter effect happens on me as well?

Yes, you get 4x heals rather than 3. Actually, according to the wiki, there’s a bug that doubles your healing when both RI and IP are traited.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Seras.5702:

Staff alone is great defense
Staff #2, Blink, and perma-vigor from minor Dueling trait
Decoy is my fav

Not really a fan of the staff. Decoy is nice but i am talking about defense after you have taken a 6k back stab. With my ele i would go Water and be pretty much full health in seconds. Mesmer doesnt seem to have any of that. Even the new Heal they got is kinda weak seeing as its every 3 seconds.

In my opinion, the best defense is avoiding the damage. But that can’t happen all the time obviously. In my experience, Ele is better suited to eating a hit and healing, while Mesmer is better suited to avoid the damage in the first place.

Restorative Mantras is nice, giving you an available heal almost all the time. And Restorative Illusions keeps a shatter mesmer topped off constantly.

Also, I find that being able to stealth, blink, and heal while my illusions continue to pound on my enemy is helpful. I disappear and they have to decide to abandon me and take out my phantasms (giving me time to heal) or ignore them and chase me (allowing my phantasms to whittle him down).