Guild Wars 2

If you’re levelling whilst doing map completion get yourself a speed sigil as soon as possible, so you can actually stack swiftness up to an acceptable level and don’t have to deal with the awfulness on focus. When you hit 60, get centaur runes.

Surely it would have been better to offer up multiple means for obtaining insects. How about a chance to obtain an insect when refining Raw Ambrite or when harvesting wood in Dry Top? After all that’s where these fossils are supposed to be from anyway.

If you are having horrible luck with the chests, I can only recommend that you use all your geodes to get the recipes you need first. This zone will inevitably be abandoned in the future, so unless Anet remove the tiered reward system to compensate…….you’re gonna have a bad time.

Those are two very good trait mergers. I still think that Time Warp should be reclassified as a Glamour now. A Mesmer with a Time Warp on a 168 second CD that lasts for 12 seconds would be a real boon for every game mode. Would also give non-phantasm builds a reason to go deeper into Inspiration.

LordByron.8369:

As a mesmer player, the old glamour build for WWW was one of the most overpowered thing this game ever seen.

Confusion hit so hard back then and the player base was so unexperienced with so few people bothering to bring condi clear – it was pretty hilarious. A couple of glamour Mesmers with an Epidemic Necro could bring large groups to their knees in WvW. Was a nice mini-zerg buster that one

The runes should have never been introduced into the game. If anything, the confusion on interrupt should have been a new GM trait for Mesmer.

Well I find Mesmer shatters, Engineer tool belt and Elementalist attunements to be the most interesting professions mechanics.

I’ve always found The Steal mechanic of Thief and Adrenaline mechanic of Warrior to be the most disappointing.

frifox.5283:

Oh haha, forgot about that one. Talking about which, added another warden video to #1:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm4K_YhhV6w

At times Warden’s AI simply amazes me, for better or for worse… lol

That’s just brilliant. As irritating as the bugged iWarden is, it’s also quite entertaining.

Best to start off with a full set of rabid and a full set of zerker’s. Rabid is all you really need for a strong condi build in WvW and Zerker’s is all you need to be effective in PvE. For power builds in WvW, I usually mix in Knight’s, Cavalier’s and/or Assassin’s gear into my zerker set-up depending on what I’m doing in WvW. If you’re zerging go full zerker’s, if you’re roaming without support I recommend increasing your toughness to a level where you feel you can comfortably participate in most fights.

warriorjrd.8695:

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

The two most Active servers in the EU are Desolation and SFR, but I’d like to think people could spread out a little and go to Servers like Gandara or some other Silver League Server.

Then again I don’t know what’s going to happen to Silver League Servers in the future with some Guilds moving up.

Gandara aren’t silver, they are 4th, PPT heroes from Gandara have awoken. They probably tanked to win silver league too, they shot right up after leagues, tsk tsk Gandara.

Still feeling the repercussions of the free transfer window before season 2. kitten you Anet! shakes fist I miss T5

Well although some of the comparisons brought up on these forums are somewhat questionable, it’s actually really important to compare classes for both cross-class balance as well as providing role clarity for the player. It’s better to debunk specific comparisons made instead of being dismissive of them all.

I’d like to the see the CD reduced to at least 40 seconds and also just have the skill more reliable to use.

Troll buff: Arcane Thievery now also steals 50% of the enemy’s endurance

Well Inspiration is the Phantasm themed trait line, so that’s probably why it’s there. All the Minor traits in each line are actually grouped together well – it’s when you start looking at the major traits where things begin to get a little…..non-thematic.

Whirling Axe is pretty hilarious, but I don’t think it’s half as bad as Ice Shard Stab. I understand that Anet made the stolen skills powerful in order to not make Steal just a glorified gap closer – but a 10 second chill is pretty mental.

Dry Top is wonderfully designed, offering the verticality of design that I was disappointed to see little off in the rest of the game. However, it would have been nice to see a few non-aspect methods of traversing the environment. A few bridges and rope ladders to allow for the content to flow better when you’ve had your fill of aspect collecting.

Yes I solo AFK’d him by simply ranging from the central platform and sometimes moving out of the range of a Big ’ol Bomb. It was no better or worse than any of the other story bosses.

It’s only really an issue in WvW and unfortunately there’s no such thing as class balance in that game mode. That makes me sad

moonreft.2138:

I took Osicat’s napalm build and made an interrupt build out of it 0/4/6/0/4. Here is a thief dead in 8 secs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HzmEj5k7Kk

I would argue he killed him self.

That is one truly terrible Thief you came across there

I think this is being derailed into another ‘passives’ thread, which is not what the OP intended. I quite like the idea proposed by the OP. Healing Signet in its current form is rather lacklustre by design and the buff was obviously a band-aid fix in an attempt to address the fundamental design flaws of the Warrior class. The active is just horrible to the point where in might as well not exist. I find it bizarre, because the Mesmer healing signet is so well designed in comparison – offering a conditional to allow for player management and a strong active effect (heals for the same amount as base heal Ether Feast) with a unique class specific flavour in the form of immediate illusion recharge.

It just seems lazy to leave Warrior healing signet in its current form when it could be so much more interesting to use and actually more versatile as the OP has shown.

You are correct OP. Mesmers are not needed for any sort of large zerg encounters in WvW, but then neither are Engineers, Rangers and possibly Thieves. You can get by in a zerg of course, but you would be much more of a boon to your zerg by just being another Guardian. Although it can be useful to have at least one Mesmer to hide in a tower/keep if your initial assault fails.

Mesmer does have a small role in largish GvGs as a Veil bot, if either of the guilds involved need one. But it’s small group roaming where Mesmer is actually able to shine, along with Engineer, Ranger and Thief.

I keep getting that shared cool down bug, usually when using portal. Anyone have any tips for avoiding this? Has kittened me over in some frustrating ways.

Uncertain times are these. This bug fix came out of absolutely no where and wasn’t confirmed as a bug until it was actually fixed which is weird and kind of frustrating. In the context of what has been happening to this class recently it’s not surprising to see so many outraged.

Now….what will happen to Mimic? Will it lose the non-projectile block functionality or will the tooltip be further updated? Answers on a postcard to Pyro’s banned account.

Low visibility sandstorm battles could be equal parts hilarious and infuriating. I just want some proper open world PvP. Some sort of ‘invasion’ mechanic. It’s all the rage in games development these days. Come on Anet!

It’s quite disappointing to see a high level feature of main-hand sword removed. Even if the clone was destroyed either before it reached the target or before you could activate the immobilise, you were still able to to do a mini port to the location of the spawned clone, so the skill wasn’t completely wasted. This allowed for some interesting use of iLeap as a defensive skill and gave shatter Mesmers using sword an extra GTFO card, which they really needed. Now it’s quite one dimensional and has absolutely no use in any part of the game where illusion upkeep is especially low. I struggle to see why anyone would use main-hand sword for Mesmer now, especially in WvW.

Stand on the middle platform and basically just range him until it’s over. Try not to accidentally walk into the useless crystals unless he gets his shield up at which point you just need to pick up an orange crystal and hit him with that. Then just stand on the middle platform again and kite around the Big ol’ Bombs.

Maybe Anet will bring in that dreadful proposed DE change to prevent this from happening…

…please don’t do that Anet, I will actually /cry.

The story was fine, but much of the accompanying gameplay was not particularly involving. Exploring the Zephyrite crash site worked well, but the fights with Aerin were dreadfully dull and you learnt nothing of his personality and desires outside of the following exposition. He basically just stood there throwing grenades and obviously posed no threat to anyone that was there. I’d quite like to see Anet work on unification of story and gameplay a bit more. There’s no reason why these things can’t be more immersive.

This is what it must feel like to be a Ranger

Well that truly is the nail in the coffin for MH sword, especially in WvW.

Mesmers can’t have nice things.

Yep confusion damage is halved in WvW/PvP. It does mean your confusion damage is pitifully weak against NPCs, of which there are many, in WvW.

So….in WvW once again I managed to kill an Elementalist that had Vapour formed into a tower by casting a Warden on a gate and it changing target and yeah…

So bugged. So stupid.

Hitman.5829:

Currently they can go in stealth and just sit there for eternity waiting for the stance to wear out.

That’s just counter play. You just used a skill that makes you immune to one of the two types of damage in the game, so your opponent has to wait it out by playing defensively.

Definitely keep Illusionists Celerity to get your Phase Retreat down to 6 seconds.

As you are using Balthazar runes, I would also recommend picking up Illusionary Elasticity to increase your burn potential. Could be quite noticeable.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Simonoly.4352:

frifox.5283:

Another one:

• WvW bonus “Defender” (x% damage reduction against monsters) applies versus enemy phantasms

This means, in WvW, phantasms become weaker and weaker as the week goes on right up until the wvw reset. Defender bonus usually gets up to around 7% by Friday.

And another one,

• Mind Spike is hitting 10% less than what tooltip claims.

I’ve tested pretty much all Sword skills their damage all aligns with the tooltip perfectly yet the Mind Spike actual damage is always 10% less, both in PvE and PvP.

Eugh. Need to test these. Front page!

It’s Frifox. This has been tested and is confirmed.

Fair enough. The horror!

selan.8354:

Simonoly.4352:

Both suggestions by Ross are great.

Invulnerability window on phantasm summon sounds good, but it should only be applied to Phantasmal Berserker and end immediately after the first attack. I just don’t like the idea of duellists and Wardens being invulnerable for the durations of their long attacks as that would definitely have an adverse effect on smaller encounters. However, Berserker has a short attack duration and is almost never killed before attacking anyway in small encounters, so would be fine for this buff. It would be nice to see the AoE phantasm actually perform its tasks in larger battles.

I’d happily see Crippling Dissipation replaced with a direct damage on clone death trait.

hm definitely a better aoe option for shatters and clonedeath. i dont think phantasms are the solution at all. if shatters want to be more viable, then we need a way to viable shatter in groupfights without having to spec into ip. maybe make clones invul when they go for the shatter. u can still dodge them though, but at least they would reach the target.
i still think though we need something non ai in order to be viable in raids.

Yep I would definitely choose a non-ai source if possible. Buffing of Glamour traits would be a nice start. I think Anet mentioned that they want to change Mind Stab to provide better AoE options.

Stealth is a bit weird in this game in that it has very little in the way of counters whilst being incredibly facilitative for the user. The fact that you cannot be Revealed unless you land damage on a target, makes attacks from stealth very accommodating of mistakes, removing much of the risk that one would expect from high stealth up time.

Alas, this is simply the GW2 way and it’s better to just deal with it then hope that anything will change for the better. General cleave/AoE spam and prediction of stealthed opponent movement can keep the pressure up, but this requires the Thief/Mesmer to play rather stupidly whilst in stealth so there is a limitation to this. Being able to counter Shadow Refuge is a game changer as most Thieves just do not know how to recover when being knocked out. PU Mesmers can be forced to a CD wall with their stealth abilities, although a PU Mesmer that is not easily spooked will not succumb to this. I suppose there’s always Sic ’Em for poor Rangers.

Both suggestions by Ross are great.

Invulnerability window on phantasm summon sounds good, but it should only be applied to Phantasmal Berserker and end immediately after the first attack. I just don’t like the idea of duellists and Wardens being invulnerable for the durations of their long attacks as that would definitely have an adverse effect on smaller encounters. However, Berserker has a short attack duration and is almost never killed before attacking anyway in small encounters, so would be fine for this buff. It would be nice to see the AoE phantasm actually perform its tasks in larger battles.

I’d happily see Crippling Dissipation replaced with a direct damage on clone death trait.

frifox.5283:

Another one:

• WvW bonus “Defender” (x% damage reduction against monsters) applies versus enemy phantasms

This means, in WvW, phantasms become weaker and weaker as the week goes on right up until the wvw reset. Defender bonus usually gets up to around 7% by Friday.

And another one,

• Mind Spike is hitting 10% less than what tooltip claims.

I’ve tested pretty much all Sword skills their damage all aligns with the tooltip perfectly yet the Mind Spike actual damage is always 10% less, both in PvE and PvP.

Eugh. Need to test these. Front page!

There should be no traps that have an adverse affect on PvP as they will be horribly abused and ruin open field combat. All traps should be WvW themed, such as:

Golem trap – puts all golem skills on CD for 30 seconds (or more), buying the defending force some time. Golems can still move to allow attackers to retreat.

Dolyak trap – either the Dolyak is permanently rooted until the trap is destroyed OR the Dolyak loses all of its supply. Could be used to pre-emptively disrupt supply flow into a structure, instead of having to send people to destroy dolyaks.

Guard aggression trap – when an enemy activates this trap, they take more damage from enemy guards.

WvW rank trap – when an enemy activates this trap their WvW rank siege machine abilities are disabled for a certain amount of time. No gate vulnerability or increase cata damage etc.

Beacon trap – when an enemy activates this trap, a beacon sets off alerting friendlies to the presence of enemy forces. Beacon is visible on minimap and any enemy caught in the radius of the trap are also displayed on the map as an orange/red dot for 10 or so seconds.

Trap of crazy OPness and infinite trollinity – a trap that must be attached to the gate (of maybe wall) of a tower/keep. It is activated when an enemy is in range and they have 2 seconds to get out of range of they are instantly downed.

DeWolfe.2174:

Reading threads like this actually makes me appreciate why the Dev’s were hired to build the game and not the player base.

My only two gripes atm would be the traits, Diamond skin on Ele’s and the DD/DE/PU combo for Mesmer’s. Diamond skin should be condition reduction not outright immunity. For Mesmer, maybe have DE clones have an evaporation rate of 1sec or a leash range of 450 and then they go inert. Something to reduce a PU builds potency. It simply feels out of spec in this game.

Anet were going to change DE to try and address the strength of PU builds. But it would have been too detrimental to other builds so they decided against it (with a little bit of help from the community). The best way to reduce the potency of PU is to nerf the trait itself. Stealth is already a great defensive mechanic, but also giving a Mesmer protection and Aegis (and regeneration that will further proc protection) is just too much.

As someone who has been playing non-PU, low stealth, clone death builds since release, I would hate to see my dps and survivability reduced just to compensate for one overpowered grandmaster trait that I have no interest in. In fact, by nerfing anything else other than PU, you’d probably end up with more Mesmers using it.

Andele.1306:

Simonoly.4352:

Crossfire is probably one of the best designed skills in the game because you can actively counter-play the condition application through positioning. It’s nowhere near as ridiculous as other condi auto-attack skills like Blood/Rendering/Putrid Curse.

Except that Necro staff 1 has harsher LOS rules and shorter range (even at base, both ranger bows shoot for more than their indicated range) all while having a 0.35/0.35/0.5 power scaling pre 3 seconds (total 1.2 pre 3) vs the rangers 0.4 pre 0.6 (totaling 2 power scaling pre 3).

Dont you dare say Scepter 1 (nor warrior 1) spam is insane, since it truly isnt, both skills are weaker than average in total power (yes including condi damage)/animation time than any viable power build bread and butter attack.

Was your reply meant for another poster? I was simply comparing the efficacy of two condi auto-attack chains and that if the OP cannot handle Crossfire, how one earth is he/she going to handle a Necro scepter auto-attack chain that has none of the requirements of Crossfire.

Crossfire is probably one of the best designed skills in the game because you can actively counter-play the condition application through positioning. It’s nowhere near as ridiculous as other condi auto-attack skills like Blood/Rendering/Putrid Curse.

Just to clarify, two things need to be changed to improve the new stacking sigil system:

1) On-land stacks should not be lost when going underwater. Having to equip stacking sigils to underwater weapons just to prevent this is kind of silly. If this particular interaction is intended, then Anet need to say.

2) Swapping between weapons with the exact same sigil should not remove your stacks. Swapping weapons on the fly situationally is now being punished by this new system, which is so weird as the on-demand trait reset was very much promoting quick character changes and now with this change some of flexibility is being removed. I don’t really get why this was changed. Again, Anet need to tell us what’s going on here.

1) Moa Morph – just very funny to use and at times a very important skill for transformation override and incapacitation of dangerous targets when outnumbered. Also great for quickly purging a tower/keep of Mesmers and Thieves in WvW.

2) Decoy – a very cool utility that’s so fitting of the class themes. Instant target drop + works through Revealed makes it possibly one of the most important utilities in the Mesmer repertoire.

3) Phase Retreat – such a wonderfully flexible skill and incredibly fun to use when playing defensively/kiting. Also, got to love that reverse Phase Retreat. You get to pretend you’re a shortbow Thief….kind of.

Well it’s pretty common knowledge that Necros hard counter Engis (as well as Mesmers, probably Thieves and, like every other class, Rangers). Necros have an intended susceptibility to CC and can buckle under ranged pressure, so bear that in mind when building your Engi.

As for Lich Form, yes it is quite ridiculous and if you don’t have any boon strip to get rid of the stability, you’re going to have a horrible time and most likely die 1v1. After that reflects are good and generally just abusing LOS until the transformation ends. Alternatively, just get a Mesmer to override it with Moa Morph.

Yes I was under the assumption that servers tied for the same place would receive the same reward. At least that is how I hope it will work so more people have access to greater rewards.

Well we already have a +33% duration, so any further duration increase probably wouldn’t be needed. But yes, a Grandmaster that adds +25% confusion damage would be great. Any trait line except Duelling would be good, this way you can’t take PU, DE and this trait.

Magi.8061:

Its not trolling the newbies, its telling them how it is in WvW, there might be balance in spvp but as soon as nourishments and WvWstacks come into play…

Every Warrior capable of pressing more than 2 buttons will leave the fight as soon as he thinks you might be able to slowly outdamage his passive healing.

Sad but true. Although the OP isn’t doing him/herself any favours by using Rampager’s in a phantasm spec.

Illusionary Riposte and The Prestige are both great skills that don’t need changing.

However yes, Phantasmal Mage should have an CD reduction (or a viability buff) and Confusing Images channel should be shorter (or the base confusion duration increased).

I’d accept any buff to glamour traits, because nobody uses them anymore. Time to get rid of that Blinding Befuddlement ICD (Chaos Armour has an ICD now anyway).

You basically need to play like a Thief that hasn’t bothered to equip shortbow. So you want to be moving along the edges of the enemy zerg, bursting down squishes, making sure you have an escape plan for when you inevitably get focused. Other than that, Mesmers have very little use in a zerg outside of casting veil and maybe Timewarp and even those are rarely needed.

That would make sense. But I could have sworn I was getting stacks from killing mobs in there on Thursday. Although I might just be going mental in light of the spurious stacking changes.