Guild Wars 2

Excellent idea. I think this should be implemented whenever you are placed in a queue on an overflow server too.

I’m on Gandara and I have days where there are Mesmers all over the shop and days where I struggle to find even one to help sync up portals for Golem transportation. On a typical day though it’s mostly Rangers and Warriors I see.

The only class I almost never see is the Engineer. Which I think is a real shame, so I’ve just started levelling one :-)

Nope. Apart from culling, current WvW is fine with me. Anything else they add in February is just a bonus.

OP, I get where you’re coming from, I really do. There’s been many occasion when I’ve got a couple of people into a downed state and then they’ve been rezed by a few more entering the fray and then got away, with me shaking my fist as my ultra slow Mesmer struggles to chase them down.

But as I’ve always understood it, if I haven’t managed to overcome an enemies downed state then I haven’t ‘won’ anything. Downed state is just another part of my enemy’s life. I still need to actually kill them before I can fist pump and /dance. I need to strategise ways to overcome an enemy’s downed state quickly or take advantage of it in some way. It means my builds and skill choices aren’t just centered around how quickly I can burst an enemy to death before moving onto the next, but also how well I can secure those kills too. I just find it to be a much more interesting way to have to play personally. I kind of like having to work harder for my kills.

Edit: The only thing I do dislike about the downed state is the disparity between classes. The Engineer downed state is just rubbish compared to say the Thief or the Mesmer. Are some classes supposed to have better downed skills than others?

I don’t think this will really solve the problem of zerging and could potentially exacerbate it.

I think zerging is just something we’re going to have to live with. Some people genuinely enjoy the laggtastic, cluster-kitten, culling-fest that accompanies zerging, whilst others, like myself, do not.

Just ignore the herd, find a small group and focus on small group objectives. Whenever I see a commander icon, I completely ignore it unless my server has the outmanned buff. Also, not all servers rely purely on zerging. I recently switched from Desolation (tier 1/2) to Gandara (tier 4/5) and reliance on zerging was significantly less and therefore far more to my liking.

Raasclart.6719:

This post assumes everyone who does WvW wants to be on a tier 1 server which is certainly not the case

Nailed it.

Only a Mesmer can use portals to repeatedly fall off the same small cliff over and over again until the cumulative damage is enough to kill them.

Go on, try it. I know you want to

I love WvW JP. You get some hilarious battles and not knowing whether the red guy coming around the corner is going to run past you or gank you off a cliff, can be quite tense at times.

You have to remember that not everyone playing WvW is obsessed with points and many are just there to explore different methods of waging war. Personally, I usually retreat to the EB JP when there’s too much zerging going on in the open.

But I can definitely get behind the instancing of JPs if it makes everyone happy. Well either that or they somehow make JPs more significant in WvW.

Maybe…

Scepter 1:

Ether bolt – fastest projectile speed, lowest damage
Ether burst – lower projectile speed, higher damage
Ether clone – lowest projectile speed, highest damage and one or two stacks of confusion. No clone generation (having auto-attack clone generation is just irritating). Would need to be renamed…

Scepter 2:

Ilusionary counter – Block the next attack. Counter by blinding your foe.
Counterspell – Summon clone at target that uses illusionary counter once (on spawn) and then casts ether bolt.

Scepter 3: Not too bad actually. But either reducing initial charge or overall channel time would make it more fun to use. Could balance by dropping a stack of confusion.

From the skill description I’ve always taken it to be 10% of the base damage value and not 10% of the cumulative damage value.

So I think in this case, 832.2 would be correct.

I’d love to see the Engineer class being able to set-up mini Asura gates. It’s a class that gets very little love and it really does need that little something else.

I don’t think other classes, especially Thieves, need anything like this.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Simonoly.4352:

Pyroatheist.9031:

Simonoly.4352:

*Illusion of Life – used in dungeons and fractals to allow downed players to get up, run away and self-res if it’s too risky for a party member to help when they initially go down. I also use it in WvW when defending keeps, to allow team mates who have been downed outside the keep to get up, run inside, fully res and help bolster the defences.

You are wrong with this. Illusion of life revives your allies for 15 seconds. If they kill something, they are fully revived, but if they do not, at the end of the 15 seconds, they completely die, they don’t go back to the downed state. It could be used in wvw, but you would be reviving a dead person, not a downed person.

Illuison of Life does not work like the Warrior downed skill “Vengeance”. When the 15 seconds are up they do not instantly die but instead go into a downed state again. I used it in WvW yesterday to allow two people in downed states to get up, run into the keep and then they both went into a downed state and I helped them rally.

It used to result in death if you did not get a kill in the 15 seconds, but it was changed sometime just after release so now when illusion of life wears off, you just enter a downed state again.

Perhaps it works differently in wvw than it does in normal pve. I have used it at lupicus before to allow people to get out from directly under the mob, and run to the side of the room for safer ressurection, but they always die after the time runs out.

It should be the same in PvE. I used it twice during a PvE event earlier today in Straits of Devastation and at the end of the duration they were in a downed state again. I don’t think there’s a skill separation between PvE and WvW, I think thats only with sPvP.

But, because of downed penalties, I suppose it is possible to cause instant death by the end of the 15 second period. I think Illusion of Life gives 2 downed penalties, so if you use it on someone who has already been downed three times, I guess they will die at the end of the 15 seconds unless they rally with a kill.

I’m struggling to find good information on the finer details of Illusion of Life. I feel like I need to test it some more. Must find some willing Guinea Pigs… ;-)

Pyroatheist.9031:

Simonoly.4352:

*Illusion of Life – used in dungeons and fractals to allow downed players to get up, run away and self-res if it’s too risky for a party member to help when they initially go down. I also use it in WvW when defending keeps, to allow team mates who have been downed outside the keep to get up, run inside, fully res and help bolster the defences.

You are wrong with this. Illusion of life revives your allies for 15 seconds. If they kill something, they are fully revived, but if they do not, at the end of the 15 seconds, they completely die, they don’t go back to the downed state. It could be used in wvw, but you would be reviving a dead person, not a downed person.

Illuison of Life does not work like the Warrior downed skill “Vengeance”. When the 15 seconds are up they do not instantly die but instead go into a downed state again. I used it in WvW yesterday to allow two people in downed states to get up, run into the keep and then they both went into a downed state and I helped them rally.

It used to result in death if you did not get a kill in the 15 seconds, but it was changed sometime just after release so now when illusion of life wears off, you just enter a downed state again.

I tried out a signet build a while back with the following traits with sword/pistol and greatsword equipped:

10(VI)/20(IV,VIII)/30(VIII,IX,XI)/0/10(IV)

It wasn’t a perfect build (lasted about 2 days before being changed) but to be honest as the above poster said, signets just don’t synergise well. I ended up trying to capitalize on boon duration and the distortion applied whenever a signet was used (reflection on distortion).

I’m sure someone has come up with a slightly more viable signet build somewhere…

I don’t think that’s strictly true. I think a lot people are happy with PvE elements in WvW, just as long as they are meaningful and interesting. Although currently I don’t think they really are.

Personally, I’d like to see more interesting PvE encounters to shake up WvW. I love the idea of all servers being at constant risk from larger bosses in EB at least. It would be awesome if during an open-field battle a great big dragon comes crashing through the zergs with everyone running away screaming, confused as to whether they should be attacking the dragon, or the other server. The successful server in this situation would of course be the server who knows best how to handle a three-way battle and the server that can strategise best on the fly.

Dragon attacks would of course be quite rare or maybe triggered by joint server activity. I love the idea of getting a notification on screen saying “You woke the dragon. Now you’re ALL screwed!”

I don’t know how they would implement it into WvW, but I do love the idea of driving around in one of those Pact Tanks you see in Orr (or a Charr tank).

Personally, I’d like to see more small defence weapons implemented for supply camp protection etc. Maybe permanent syvari seed turrets?

Great fun in the small hours of the morning on EB. Us Desolites were outmanned often, but we bunkered down and had some great fights against VS. Didn’t see much of SF other than the rather large zerg that seemed to appear out of nowhere and consume my poor little stealth Mesmer.

Looking forward to the rest of the week.

This has happened to my Mesmer on numerous occasions. I thought that I was just being immobilised and the condition symbol wasn’t showing up on screen, but it can happen out of battle too. I usually have to use blink to get moving again.

The best thieves set-up ambushes, back-stab for 10K, heartseeker until down, invisi-stomp, collect badges……rinse and repeat.

The worst thieves rely on the above to bring down every opponent they encounter and then panic when it’s shrugged off/blocked.

Yes please. I’d love for my Mesmer to have both a main-hand and off-hand fan.

Killing an enemy using a combination of confusion, retaliation and projectile reflection.

“Why are you hitting yourself?”

Brilliant work by Deso on BT borderlands today. Great commanders, helpful and friendly PuGs/Guilds everywhere and more importantly – no whining or moaning in chat! Very impressed today ;-)

Esplen.3940:

I’ll repeat myself:

Simonoly.4352:

I’d rather see the Mesmer utilise more illusionary weapon skills like Greatsword skill 2. Maybe they could have something like a mainhand shield with skill 1 a sort of illusionary shield thrown like a discus, skill 2 an AoE defend with clone generation and skill 3 a targeted AoE attack. Skill 1 could be the opposite of Greatsword skill 1, where the closer you are the greater your damage output.

Captain America is not a Mesmer.

Huh. Wha?! I don’t even remember posting that. But still, I kind of agree with what that past version of myself said. I’d like to see more illusionary weapon skills. I’m not particularly interested in a main-hand pistol.

Mesmer’s are an unconventional class. So I’d like to see more unconventional weapons in their repertoire.

1) More siege equipment. I want one of those cool tanks or some siege towers for inserting small groups into keeps. That would be awesome.
2) More rewards for protecting your servers assets. I spend so much time reinforcing stuff when everyone else is just zerging. I want a reward for doing my part.
3) Siege Commander needs to be more interesting. Maybe we can tame some animal mobs to bulster are numbers with equipment only available from the siege commander. Maybe we can recruit the Skritt to help bump supplies when we’re struggling in our own borderlands with help from the siege commander.

Rainu.6871:

Simonoly.4352:

I have no problem with the new update. It’s obvious that shatters were never meant to be used in the way the exploit allowed and that 3 stacks of might for shattered strength was a mistake. Only support builds that focused on buff generation and transference using signet of inspiration will be really hurt by this as the Mesmer was already pretty darn good in a fight in sPVP without the need for large stacks of might.

Most people couldn’t care less about spvp, what this patch did was remove one of the only reliable ways mesmers could tag enemies enough to get loot in DEs. A split would be optimal since at the moment any balance changes will either gimp or buff pve or pvp.

Hence why I specifically said sPvP. But I agree, a PvP/PvE split would be ideal.

Nope. I’m afraid if I see a 1v1 in WvW I will always step in unless the person from my server asks me not to.

If you really want to 1v1 uninterrupted do some sPVP or find a secluded area in WvW and invite some randoms passing by for a duel.

Mesmers are supposed to be more susceptible when they have no illusions up (i.e. when the Mesmer has used a shatter). In theory, when using a shatter a Mesmer risks its personal safety (no clones for hiding) or it’s DoT (phantasms) in favour of a small AoE burst from a shatter. Therefore I think it would be cool if the Shattered Strength trait was something available to the Mesmer to mitigate some of the risk of a shatter by granting some protection to reduce the increased damage that the Mesmer will in theory now take as there are no illusions available to take agro.

So instead of the 1 stack of might that is granted at present, you now gain 1 stack of protection per shatter.

It was just a thought, as I like the idea of traits being used to address the shortcomings of a class if a player so chooses to do so.

I have no problem with the new update. It’s obvious that shatters were never meant to be used in the way the exploit allowed and that 3 stacks of might for shattered strength was a mistake. Only support builds that focused on buff generation and transference using signet of inspiration will be really hurt by this as the Mesmer was already pretty darn good in a fight in sPVP without the need for large stacks of might.

@Pannonica – Don’t be like that. I know it’s frustrating when you’re outnumbered, but it’s unrealistic to expect everyone else to play the same way you do. In the heat of battle you can’t expect deso to just stop, count all the enemy players (that can be seen) and then have a commander tell everyone to not use anymore trebs all because of your expectation for ‘proper etiquette’. Deso have no idea what you have planned or if you have reinforcements incoming, so they’re obviously going to want to take your last keep as quickly as possible to secure a defensive foothold. People want to get as much out of WvW as they can, and as siege equipment is a big part of WvW, people are going to use it as much as possible.

Also, trebs are fun. I absolutely loved blowing the kitten out of everything this evening. I don’t care if there’s 1 or 50 of you, I want to make things explode! I want to participate in everything WvW has to offer :-D

Advent’s build above is really fun, especially for Wv3. During sieges if you throw down your null field, chaos storm and feedback at the same time on a zerg you get to watch lots of pretty pink numbers fly up on screen as everyone starts hitting themselves ;-)

In a 1v1 situation, I like to use my “Why are you hitting yourself?” attack combination. I just time my Phantasmal mage attack (torch 5), along with confusing images (scepter 3) and a full cry of frustration burst to get 12-14 stacks of confusion. Stunning them first really helps with this as confusing images is easily dodged. Then I block with scepter 2 and laugh at the pretty pink numbers ;-)

You’re right, confusion is never as effective as direct damage, but it’s a fun condition to play around with.

I know a few people who have chosen Asura Mesmers, Thieves and Elementalists as alts for Wv3/sPVP simply because they know the animations are so much harder to spot and that tracking an Asura can be quite a bit more difficult than tracking anything else.

It’s not a huge problem (yet) but I think Anet might want to standardise classes better for this whole esport thing to be successful.

@Veprovina – When you transmute, you’re basically merging 2 items to create 1 new item and you choose what appearance and stats you want the new item to have from the 2 items you are merging. So if you want to keep your Mesmer mask appearance indefinitely, during the transmutation process you will always select the appearance of your current mask but choose the improved stats of the new headgear you’ve acquired.

I’ve been transmuting headgear to keep my starting Mesmer mask appearance right the way up to level 80. I think I must have transmuted to keep the appearance around 10 times now.

Hmm Thieves aren’t that bad. I do think addressing the culling issue will help a lot in making the class a bit more consistent to fight against. Other than that I think the Thief class is working as Anet intended, even if I don’t quite agree with their design.

Sigh. I’m sorry OP but you have misunderstood a lot about the class and how it works. As many others have already said, roll a level 2 Mesmer in sPVP and you will quickly understand what other Mesmers are doing to beat you and therefore what you need to beat them.

If you haven’t got time to do that, I recommend asking on the Engineer forums how to combat Mesmers. I guarantee you there will be many people rolling Engineers who know exactly how to take down Mesmers with the skills available to them.

When I die, sometimes I like to spin the camera around and observe the rest of the battle taking place around me because I’m interested in how people from my server are doing with the possibility of a res if we succeed. Therefore being forced onto the map screen sounds pretty boring to me. Do we really need to make the game more boring, just to prevent the odd person from corpse spying? I’m going to go with no.

Braile.3894:

http://i.imgur.com/NGeHS.jpg
: /

Gosh ER have been busy. My friend from Cologne always joked that German’s don’t bother with Christmas. I’m starting to see that maybe she was telling the truth XD

Anyway, hope everyone’s having a nice Christmas!

I think the breakout event is great. When you have a server with little to no presence on one of the maps and no organised guilds/commanders present it gives groups of pugs something to rally behind. It makes no difference where the breakout event takes place as each map is designed to have all the facilities and features needed to create battles on that map. Also, it gives the dominant server something to do if they’ve capped everything else.

The breakout events encourage more battles. Wv3 is about battles. Therefore the breakout event serves its purpose.

Trahearne might be quite a wet character, but I like that for once the player character wasn’t the destined one of whom the whole plot revolves.

It’s so boring being told repeatedly in various other RPGs that your character is the “chosen one” and that you are the centre of everything going on in the game world.

Do some dungeon runs
Do some fractals.
Get involved with WvWvW activities.
Test your skill with your class in sPVP.
Do all those jumping puzzles (some of them are quite excellent).
Get 100% map completion for a nice star next to your name.

The hyperbole is strong with this one…

The last time I saw a star was on someone from the same server as me, over a week ago now. Haven’t seen a star on the enemy in ages.

Would be nice if Anet confirmed this.

Thanks for all the info guys. Always good to have to reassess your play style to deal with a relatively new threat.

Well, new for me anyway.

Thanks for the tips guys. I’m definitely going to be roaming with a few more stuns and boon removals equipped (I do love Arcane Thievery). I never thought of trying confusion as the Elementalist d/d builds seemed to have pretty good condition removal, but I’m willing to give it a shot. I have been getting quite successful with confusion stacking with scepter/torch/cry of frustration (10-12 stacks depending on traits) which works wonders against glass cannon thieves. So I think I might try it on a few Elementalists. XD

What’s the best way for a Mesmer to counter this Elementalist build?

I fought 3 of them individually yesterday and every battle was long and almost impossible to end. They seem to have limitless healing power, various AoEs that instapop my clones and a huge amount of mobility. Also they seem to have a fairly decent dps from what my combat log said.

I tried stunning or crippling and giving them a full shatter of clones to the face but they seem to be able to escape from battle so easily and heal up. My Mesmer just can’t keep up with them to prevent them from running off, healing and then returning.

I got bored of fighting one of them and tried to blink and swift away, but they were able to close me down so quickly that in the end I just let him kill me so I could go to the pub. XD

Any tips? Maybe I should have gone to the pub earlier?

I’d rather see the Mesmer utilise more illusionary weapon skills like Greatsword skill 2. Maybe they could have something like a mainhand shield with skill 1 a sort of illusionary shield thrown like a discus, skill 2 an AoE defend with clone generation and skill 3 a targeted AoE attack. Skill 1 could be the opposite of Greatsword skill 1, where the closer you are the greater your damage output.

Been my first week on Desolation and it’s been really fun. The fights in EB have been especially cool during prime time. Lots of BB gankers on the JP to jump on my corpse ;-)

Personally, I like the addition of the breakout events. It’s a good rallying call for guildless newbies who have just entered Wv3 and on my past server where numbers were quite low, it kept things interesting for the dominant server. Although I will admit it could do with a few tweaks like maybe removing the invulnerability window from the siege.

I tend to not bother with 1v1 during WvW. It achieves nothing in the long run and it’s honestly not why I’m playing WvW. I get my fill of fairer, much more balanced 1v1 from spvp.

Also if I see a roaming stealth thief or a d/d elementalist I will usually just go the other way so I don’t get locked into a long drawn out 1v1 that drags me away from my more important group role in WvW.

Happens every now and again. I actually find it quite fun to see what objects I can get stuck in. Also, more often than not it’s saved my life in Wv3.

Thobek.1730:

florence.1674:

I just wish I can go back in time and find the first MMO that decided that stealth means total invisibility in bright daylight out in the open fields.

you’re right, its not stealth its invisibility. Its something a mage or wizard would have. I’ve never liked it in any MMO I’ve played because it gives players such an advantage.

but thieves are telling everyone thieves are fine, just a L2P issue. Anet is telling everyone you just use AoE and conditions. Don’t they know how long the cooldowns are on AoE and how little damage they do. The AoE on my guardian is a tiny little circle, my mesmer AoE is on a very long CD, My Hunter AoE hardly does any damage at all.

its just stupid they haven’t solved this problem by now.

That’s exactly how I feel when I play my thief. I feel more like an illusionary mage than anything else.

Shadow refuge isn’t an issue. Just pull them out. That way you don’t have to waste any AoEs if it turns out they’re not in there.