Guild Wars 2

It’s the sort of vertical progression I really do not want to see and like the OP is one of the reasons I was drawn to this game in the first place.

Have they confirmed what sort of Ascended items they will be adding? I was under the assumption that Anet would not implement any further gear progression and instead were going to add new skills and traits.

DevonCarver.5370:

While we appreciate the feedback, and we are going to make changes soon that will at least partially address these types of concerns, it is absolutely 100% not the case that WvW is declining in people playing, play time, etc. We’ve seen steady improvement on all those counts since the start of the year and I’m hopeful that some of the changes coming soon will bring even more people into WvW.

I imagine many more people are playing WvW now as they come to the natural conclusion of their time in PvE and are looking for a sort of end-game challenge. But the quality of WvW play is definitely on the decline. This is why I hope future updates bring in changes that affect the way WvWers have to play and organise themselves instead of just another carrot on a stick. I’d be really disappointed to see more people flooding into WvW just to farm a new currency or new source of loot.

Caid.4932:

Simonoly.4352:

Eugh. This matchup is going to do nothing for the Gandara WvW community which is very much on the decline. Elona can expect a very much empty Gandara borderland, with a karma/Wxp train recapping Gandara structures on EBG. Other than that, you won’t find good fights outside of organised GvG.

Pfft, speak for yourself.
It’ll probably be pretty boring for elona but if they have smaller sized guilds they’ll get good fights during the week.
An empty Gbl with a karma train recapping stuff on ebg sounds like every week for us anyway.

Strange reply. You seem to “pfft” in derision but then go on to agree with me. Probably a little harsh to say there will be no good fights for Elona outside of GvG, but Gandara as a server feels a little fragmented at present, and its becoming harder and harder to rally people for active defence. I’m sure it will pick up at some point, but it’s all a bit messy at present.

Eugh. This matchup is going to do nothing for the Gandara WvW community which is very much on the decline. Elona can expect a very much empty Gandara borderland, with a karma/Wxp train recapping Gandara structures on EBG. Other than that, you won’t find good fights outside of organised GvG.

Okay I’ve given it time to settle etc, but the current WvW matchup server is not getting any better. Rank 3 Elona Reach Vs. Rank 16 FSP? That’s beyond ridiculous. It’s so hard to engage with the mechanics of WvW in an intelligent way with such huge population imbalances. Points and ratings are of no interest to me – interesting, fun and balanced battles are.

I feel that the current matchup system is undermining much of what was intended with WvW.

I honestly don’t care about ratings or points, I simply want to play against servers with similar WvW populations. It’s simply not fun engaging in the mechanics of WvW when you’re outnumbered 10-1 almost all the time and it’s similarly unfun when it’s the other way around and you’re forced to PvD in the absence of an enemy presence. My dream matchup right now is against Miller’s Sound and Aurora Glade because I know we have almost identical WvW populations (as our rankings portray) and therefore PvD and steam rolling will be kept to a minimum.

Maybe every three weeks servers of the same tier should face each other, so players like myself who enjoy balanced matchups where success in battle is based on skill instead of overwhelming numbers can have some fun……..

I don’t think she needs a nerf per se, but the whole encounter just needs a little bit more thought to avoid cheesy game design. Things like: not having a mesh-like floor that makes it so much harder to see the edges of the AoE rings; not having the one-shot clones spawn right on top of you; not confining the arena battles to enclosed domes that cause all manner of camera issues; not spawning legendaries below the arenas which inevitably leads to lag and sudden drops in FPS due to the zerging; not creating content that is obviously going to take many attempts to complete and expecting players to pay out sizeable amounts for armour repair and waypointing.

A few thoughtful tweaks would remove much of the frustration without eliminating the challenge. I think many players love a good challenge, but aren’t prepared to deal with much of the associated tedium involved.

I’ve got to say I’m not a big fan of this update. Being trapped in a big ugly arena underground with the PvE shiny zergling patrol has often made me feel claustrophobic, longing once again for the beauty of the GW2 overworld. These sort of updates are great for tunnel vision loot mungers but for those that love a bit of world and lore exploration it’s all a bit meaningless. I look forward to seeing if next months update has something equivalent to Southsun Cove or Labyrinthine Cliffs. I want MOAR pretty places to explore!

Also, is it safe for the PvE zerglings to be underground for the next two weeks? Vitamin D deficiency is a very real issue, at least for the humans….

It’s about time the other classes got access to some Mesmer themed bundles. I highly doubt anyone will bother to build more than one maybe two of the new portal items when they realise how expensive they are in comparison to simply bringing a Mesmer along.

Engels.8537:

Simonoly.4352:

Aww, but the funnest part of being a Mesmer is leaving your corpse inside an enemy structure for a long period of time as the enemy huddles around you nervously anticipating a res from a perma-stealth Thief. I’ve had 10 people camping my corpse before: that’s 10 less people that my guild had to worry about that evening ;-)

You are a very very bad person… shame on you :P

I know. I feel like I should stop doing it……but it’s so much fun!

As much as I love the Scepter for that torment block and not being lumped with main-hand sword all the time, it sometimes does feel like I’m wielding a rather sparkly feather duster. Ether Bolt chain is ridiculously slow, easy to dodge and incomplete (there’s been no compensation for the confusion removal). Confusing Images is also far too slow for potentially just 5 stacks of confusion if your opponent happens to not dodge the great big pink beam slapping them in the face. The piercing beam affect is interesting but buggy and also wholly impractical compared to traditional AoE effects as it’s very rare that 4 people will line up in front of your target so they can soak up some of that confusion (unless you’re PvEing). It doesn’t particularly help that confusion damage is so pathetic in both WvW and sPvP now.

I still consider Mesmer Scepter a work in progress. It has quite some way to go before it’s as solid as Necro or Guardian scepters.

Beri.3156:

Simonoly.4352:

Beri.3156:

Hai TDA and gandara =) Hows the match up ?

AG is having pretty much fun with FSP and UW ^^

I’m kinda jelly. It’s hard finding good fights this week outside of chasing Riverside Omegas around EB. Great for loot bags, but not a particularly interesting week. I really would like an AG vs Gandara vs Miller’s matchup sometime soon. Call me old fashioned, but I kind of preferred the old matchup system…..

“Heretic, burn him!”

Omega golems what are those ? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRttwEMMxM0

Okay, if we come up against AG we will have to organise an open field golem battle. None of that Omega nonsense – I want everyone punching each other to death in Alphas.

P.S. Kites are mandatory

Beri.3156:

Hai TDA and gandara =) Hows the match up ?

AG is having pretty much fun with FSP and UW ^^

I’m kinda jelly. It’s hard finding good fights this week outside of chasing Riverside Omegas around EB. Great for loot bags, but not a particularly interesting week. I really would like an AG vs Gandara vs Miller’s matchup sometime soon. Call me old fashioned, but I kind of preferred the old matchup system…..

“Heretic, burn him!”

Aww, but the funnest part of being a Mesmer is leaving your corpse inside an enemy structure for a long period of time as the enemy huddles around you nervously anticipating a res from a perma-stealth Thief. I’ve had 10 people camping my corpse before: that’s 10 less people that my guild had to worry about that evening ;-)

New WvW abilities…who cares?

New wallet to put all those badges in, permanent finishers and improvements to the effects system? Hell yes. Good update.

Van Hamster.2018:

Simonoly.4352:

Oh Riverside, what are you doing?! You don’t need to blob and do golem rushes at 4 o’clock in the morning. Be free and wild…..see if you can tame that Grub! When you hopped to our undefended border after the good fights we had in SM, you missed out on further good skirmishes involving Augury Rock. We missed you guys, we would have liked for you to be there. Wxp is overrated – you don’t need it. Come and fight us instead! :-)

did you ever matched against vizu? every morning they seem to have an doctor´s appointment in one of your keeps. sadly they can´t rememder which so they just ran around and search for the right one. like pr.oak said:“it´s dangerous to walk alone” so they bring 40+ friends but walking sucks so got some nice fancy omega-golems to carry them…..the only way for us to get points against them are such golem rush in the middle of the night, at a time only ~20 vizu-ac-zombies are sitting in thier keep. i thnik after 4 weeks tier1 servers it just got a habbit of us^^

That’s understandable. Darn Vizunah. Sounds like you guys needed a break.

Oh Riverside, what are you doing?! You don’t need to blob and do golem rushes at 4 o’clock in the morning. Be free and wild…..see if you can tame that Grub! When you hopped to our undefended border after the good fights we had in SM, you missed out on further good skirmishes involving Augury Rock. We missed you guys, we would have liked for you to be there. Wxp is overrated – you don’t need it. Come and fight us instead! :-)

I’d really like these WvW ability lines, but only if Wexp points functioned in a similar way to character traits, i.e. we earn a limited amount of resettable points over time and allocate them based on preference to create ‘WvW builds’ (you’d still get increases in rank with loot, but no Wexp ability points would be awarded after a certain rank is reached). Currently though, as you can gradually learn every single ability in WvW there’s very little point in having WvW abilities that distinguish between casual more PvE focused players and the hardcore zerg busting WvW players.

Hmm, maybe Anet should create specific WvW traits lines separate to the WvW ability lines, so they can use your ideas ;-)

Even when kitten hits the fan (poor kitty) and everything goes to kitten (yay kitty) most commanders in my experience just state what went wrong and move on.

However, as with anyone in WvW, if a blue dorito person starts losing their rag in chat and generally being rude, call them out for their ridiculous kitten behaviour and report away if they start getting truly offensive. You’d be surprised just how many people will buckle and cease their rude, rampant ramblings after a good telling off.

Oh I never noticed that Eles give 0 Wexp after using Vapor Form. Sounds like something Anet didn’t take into consideration when implementing Wexp. Best post something on the bug forum too.

I didn’t even realise team colours could be switched off. Must have overlooked that on my ventures through the settings menu. Pah, learn something new everyday.

I think it would be cool if the last attack on the Ether bolt chain transferred one condition from the Mesmer to the target. Scepter clones should also do the last attack in the chain and would therefore be chucking any conditions that are applied on them at their target. A nice punishment mechanic for those targeting our clones with their conditions ;-)

Sounds fun but, to your opponent, won’t your armour just appear red, blue or green depending on your server’s colour for the week? Still looks cool though :-)

keenlam.4753:

Simonoly.4352:

Signet of Domination now has a cast-time of 1/4 second, instead of 1 second. Oh my.

This sounds so good to be true. Will test it out soon.

I was able to use it to interrupt a Thief casting Hide in Shadows earlier by using the skill as the Thief was channeling instead of having to pre-empt. So it can actually be used for interrupt builds now, which is great.

Signet of Domination now has a cast-time of 1/4 second, instead of 1 second. Oh my.

On my condition build I very rarely use shatters and if I do it’s usually diversion with my clones staggered for chain daze/vulnerability stacking. You don’t need to constantly shatter in all Mesmer builds but it would be to your best interests to at least shatter opportunistically.

Vena.8436:

Simonoly.4352:

Alpha golem rushes are cheese but fine, however Omega golem rushes are out of control at the moment. You don’t even really need to bother with portals as they move pretty quickly relative to Alphas (although my Mesmer is most pleased by that part). It’s hilarious just how easily you can plough through a T3 keep with a bunch of Omegas and the abundance of golem blueprints facilitates this craziness. Eventually I imagine most people will be fatigued by Omega Golem rushes but until then, WvW will continue to resemble a much less metallic version of Cybertron.

Wall of Reflection = Omegas shooting themselves.
Feedback = " "
Daggerstorm = " "
Whirling Defense/I-Defender = " "
Shield of Absorption = No missiles contact the game.
Swirling Winds = " "

They are certainly over the top, but if you can coordinate the above, at all, then they are actually far less of a threat than Alphas.

I’m actually yet to be on the receiving end of an Omega golem rush, as they always seem to occur where I am not. But I will certainly give this mass projectile reflection a try when I finally do come up against 10 Omegas. I have however been a part of Omega golem rushes (for shame) and it all just felt a little cheap to be honest.

Alpha golem rushes are cheese but fine, however Omega golem rushes are out of control at the moment. You don’t even really need to bother with portals as they move pretty quickly relative to Alphas (although my Mesmer is most pleased by that part). It’s hilarious just how easily you can plough through a T3 keep with a bunch of Omegas and the abundance of golem blueprints facilitates this craziness. Eventually I imagine most people will be fatigued by Omega Golem rushes but until then, WvW will continue to resemble a much less metallic version of Cybertron.

Personally, I want to see more control and punishment mechanics given to the Mesmer and less phantasm/shatter based attacks. More active trickery and less passive external dps sources.

Also I would really like to see the Scepter reworked into a purely condition focused weapon.

I enjoy scepter but I have to admit I often feel like I’m using an incomplete weapon. The fact that neither Ether bolt or the scepter clones apply conditions means most people don’t even use the Scepter auto-attack at the risk of over-writing useful staff or sword clones. I highly doubt anyone uses scepter for clone generation as the auto chain is so long and arduous, plus mirror images and deceptive evasion has clone generation covered.

Illusionary counter is fine, but I do think it would be cool if Counterspell activated automatically at the end of the channel if no block occurs.

Confusing Images is satisfying to use, especially if you manage to get the beam effect off, but there’s no denying that the cast time is far too long for only 5 stacks of confusion, especially when you consider that Engineers can stack up the same amount of confusion unchanelled with a single hit of the Prybar.

Stealth is very harsh in this game as there is no way to remove it (apart from that siege trap in WvW) or see through it. The Thief class has the largest amount of stealth based skills and with D/P has stealth pretty much on tap. So it’s actually very easy for me to see why Thieves receive so many complaints.

Stealth definitely needs to be fleshed out now so it’s more fun for classes without stealth to deal with, and also to make the Thief gameplay that little bit more skilful and ultimately much more satisfying.

They used feedback on you whilst you were using dagger storm……….yeah you found some very poor Mesmers ;-)

What’s your tPvP condition build? There’s many decent WvW condition builds now and chances are your tPvP build will do well in WvW with a few tweaks.

The massive surge in golem usage is due to all those badges we got in our achievement chests plus the golems being available on TP for a fraction of the cost. I’m seeing far too many Omega Golem rushes now and it’s really starting to make things boring. Golems need rebalancing to take into account how much easier they are to obtain after the last patch.

I struggle to solo camps with my Staff, Scepter+torch condition build, but it’s no problem for my greatsword, sword+focus phantasm build.

I recommend going for the scouts first, because then you can easily kite the supervisor and guard whilst you chuck out phantasms or go in for a shatter burst. Projectile reflection on the scouts can speed things up quickly too. Also, you can lure a single scout out and solo them first if need be, but not at every camp.

Hmm I don’t think many builds use Mantra of Pain outside of a healing mantra spec. You could always try one of the many scepter+torch condition builds that, with Prismatic Understanding and Cleansing Conflagration, have huge survivability. Also very fun to play.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Simonoly.4352:

As others have said it’s a buff for Chaos Armour in general, but a nerf for the Mesmer Chaos Armour skill. It was a great way to punish spammy classes (similarly to confusion pre-nerf) and the great big purple ball around the Mesmer was a sort of “don’t you go touching me right now” signal for opponents. With this change it’s guaranteed that an opponent will only ever have to potentially deal with 3 condition applications no matter how spammy they are. Before, when fighting a staff Mesmer that had used Chaos Armour, I would stop using spatial surge to avoid stacking up confusion and cripple, but now I can continue to spam spatial surge safe in the knowledge that at max I will only get 3 condition procs. It’s great that the blind now works, but it’s definitely become a less interesting skill. I really think Anet are nerfing the wrong things on Mesmers.

That’s interesting. I think that’s a good point, the ICD should only be for the boons, not the conditions.

Also, I think the problem is with auras in general. When you have this big globe-barrier around you, you wanna feel safe; not potentially safe. Chaos Armor would be fine if it gave say a flat 10-15% damage reduction ontop of the boons/condi.

Precisely. I’ve never felt entirely safe with Chaos Armour as it reduces my ability to integrate with my clones, but the trade-off before was the punishment it could inflict on less vigilant players. Now I never use Chaos Armour with my Staff/Scepter+torch build as that trade-off just isn’t worth it anymore. I agree, if anything the ICD should be for boon generation and not conditions.

juno.1840:

Simonoly.4352:

As others have said it’s a buff for Chaos Armour in general, but a nerf for the Mesmer Chaos Armour skill. It was a great way to punish spammy classes (similarly to confusion pre-nerf) and the great big purple ball around the Mesmer was a sort of “don’t you go touching me right now” signal for opponents. With this change it’s guaranteed that an opponent will only ever have to potentially deal with 3 condition applications no matter how spammy they are. Before, when fighting a staff Mesmer that had used Chaos Armour, I would stop using spatial surge to avoid stacking up confusion and cripple, but now I can continue to spam spatial surge safe in the knowledge that at max I will only get 3 condition procs. It’s great that the blind now works, but it’s definitely become a less interesting skill. I really think Anet are nerfing the wrong things on Mesmers.

After reading this, it seems you are really saying it’s a ‘nerf’. Opponents were scared of attacking when you had chaos armor pre-patch — and now post-patch they can simply ignore it as it’s only three condition applications (and similarly only 3 boons for the player with chaos armor).

Pretty much yeh. The ICD is most definitely a nerf and the protection procs on hit are at best a pseudo-buff. But overall, the use of Chaos Amour and how its use could effect opponent activity has been well and truly nerfed.

Definitely a lot of Kodash PvE focused people in WvW this week. I’m fine with going up against anyone that wants a good fight, but I recommend at least strafing a bit, maybe using a dodge every now and again. I’m not a meta event boss that poops a Glorious Chest when you’re done – I will actively avoid damage and kill you. I’ve actually had to walk away from some groups because I honestly think they mistook me for The Maw.

As others have said it’s a buff for Chaos Armour in general, but a nerf for the Mesmer Chaos Armour skill. It was a great way to punish spammy classes (similarly to confusion pre-nerf) and the great big purple ball around the Mesmer was a sort of “don’t you go touching me right now” signal for opponents. With this change it’s guaranteed that an opponent will only ever have to potentially deal with 3 condition applications no matter how spammy they are. Before, when fighting a staff Mesmer that had used Chaos Armour, I would stop using spatial surge to avoid stacking up confusion and cripple, but now I can continue to spam spatial surge safe in the knowledge that at max I will only get 3 condition procs. It’s great that the blind now works, but it’s definitely become a less interesting skill. I really think Anet are nerfing the wrong things on Mesmers.

The wording of the OP seems ever so slightly trollish and deliberately misinformed. Not gonna bite.

Hi Naovi. Nice vid.

Link to your build? Always nice to have a build to match up with a gameplay vid.

Having good fun with 20/0/30/20/0, scepter+torch and Staff with a mixture of Carrion and Giver’s gear with a splash of Rabid to get the toughness up. There’s quite a few ways to approach the condition Mesmer.

I’d happily trade Kodash for Miller’s so we were up against opponents with very similar coverage. However, after last weeks empty kitten fest against RoF and Drakkar’s, I’m just glad to have lots of people to fight again. Looking forward to making some pushes into Kodash BL next week. Ima gonna take your Hills and never give it back! ;-)

Fine with me. Would make landing those back stabs much more satisfying knowing that there was a risk of being revealed if I don’t get my timing correct. I’m up for anything that makes stealth more interesting.

Devon hit the nail on the head with his comment. Also, don’t forget that this is an MMO and therefore full of people who also want to help you. If you’re not used to PvP or holding your own against other players, ask for some help in EB (or Lion’s Arch) before you venture on. I, like many others, enjoy ruining a ganky badge farmer’s day with some swift smackdowns ;-)

It’s very underpowered at present. The cooldown should be at least half of what it is now and the poison effect should be around 8-10 seconds.

Do I enjoy firing pink laser beams out of a massive sword at 1200 range? Yes, yes I do.
Honestly, it’s one of the reasons I chose a Mesmer for my main.

Separate from any aesthetic preferences I have, I find greatsword to be the least mobile weapon available to the Mesmer and I feel quite a bit more vulnerable when I use it over staff or even scepter. So I understand why many people don’t enjoy using it. It’s superb for chasing people down in WvW though, especially with a Sigil of Ice attached and when combined with a 1200 range blink.

Seems like an unnecessary nerf to me, but hopefully now Anet will swap out that swiftness for a boon that Mesmers would really need and feel the benefit of when on the defensive. How about some stability? Mesmers don’t really have any access to stability unless they use power break (just, lol) so could make chaos armour more interesting.

Gandalf wouldn’t mind a bit of Miller’s Sounds next week with a nice big dollop of FSP on top.