Guild Wars 2

I really dislike the Orb buffs as well. When one server begins to dominate, it just puts things even more in their favor and what would be a close match potentially becomes a landslide. Change the buffs to be something that doesn’t impact player power such as more coin and/or better XP/karma from kills, an increase in supply rates (faster dolyaks, more supplies per dolyak, etc), gate/wall strength increases, or faster upgrades.

As a CD player I was pretty miffed when this happened, but I’m glad to hear it wasn’t condoned by the TC players as a whole. Much respect to TC for posting an apology.

Carighan.6758:

It’s still a bug fix.
You might not like it – even for balance reasons – but in most dev teams the actual balance development and the bugfixing teams are fully separate. Fixing bugs is not part of the balancing process.

If they’re going to do a bug fix, wouldn’t it make sense to fix the whole trait and not just one aspect of it? At least that way we’d get some use out of it, but now it has gone from mostly worthless to completely worthless.

I know it “feels” wrong to have your illusions die when your target dies, but would you still feel this way if Mesmers had some unique condition instead of illusions? It would be the very same effect (when the target dies the condition expires). So as others have stated, just think of them as special conditions that only Mesmers can cast and it’s not such a bad pill to swallow.

To the OP, there’s one very important aspect of the GW2 questing that you’re totally overlooking and is completely absent from the WoW questing… and that is the WoW quests aren’t really happening. They are all illusions requiring you to use your imagination in order to convince yourself that you’re affecting the persistent world. Those Centaurs aren’t really attacking the town, they are grazing in a field not bothering anyone… and not only that but somehow killing 10 of them stops the imagined invasion even though there are 10 more still grazing there. All while the guy near to you is doing the same thing, not affecting the world whatsoever (aside from hindering your progress perhaps).

That’s your idea of a true questing system?

Here’s what the notes on the Phantasmal Healing wiki page say (not sure if it’s accurate):

“Phantasms grant 5s of regeneration once every 10 seconds, first pulse occurring 10s after they are first created. Except Phantasmal Duelist, which grants 3s of regeneration every 3s, first pulse occuring 3s after it is first created.

Affects allies within range ~240 of the phantasm."

I loved GS when I first played Mesmer in beta, but quickly grew to dislike it because in PvE the foes are constantly moving closer to you which seriously hurts your DPS. I got tired of trying to keep them at a distance so it could do decent damage. Now that I’ve gotten over my love for GS and went with Staff/Scepter+Focus, I don’t miss it at all. My killing speed is so much faster, especially with Scepter+Focus. I just pop an iWarden, hit #2 twice to blind the foe (so my illusion doesn’t die), and then channel #3. Very few regular foes can survive through that, and those that do are finished off with a shatter… no kiting required.

The only complaint I have about the scepter is that the #1 skills doesn’t cycle at regular intervals (like Guardian scepter does) but rather waits until the previous attack lands before firing the next. Everything else about the scepter is perfect IMO. I like the dual functionality of the #2 skill (block or blind), and the #3 skill doing direct channeled damage as well as putting a 5-stack of Confusion on the foe is huge.

Like the OP, I felt a bit weak on Mesmer compared to my Engineer and Thief, until I hit 40 and had some decent traits (namely Empowered Illusions, Phantasmal Fury, Sharper Images, and Illusionists Celerity). Now I kill much faster than my other chars.

I run with Staff and Scepter+Focus, which I know isn’t the norm, but I found GS to be a DPS loss in PvE because most foes will run toward you which quickly diminishes the damage of the #1 skill and I had to constantly kite to keep distance. Plus the iBerserker doesn’t do that much overall damage and winds up aggroing nearby foes to boot. Sword does decent damage, but it’s cumbersome getting into and out of melee range sometimes, and if your weapon swap is on cooldown you’re doing zero damage while you back away.

I had much, much better results with iWarden from focus and Confusion Images. The foe starts attacking the iWarden with a 5-stack of Confusion on him and dies in seconds while I plink away with Ether Bolt.

For AoE, I’ll pop the iWarden, switch to Staff, and lay down Chaos Storm. Then just use Winds of Chaos on each foe until they’re dead. If there are tougher foes still alive, I’ll drop either the Phase Retreat clone or the iWarlock on them.

I’d love for them to add a key modifier to the ground target skills that force them to center around the current target. So for instance hitting 3 does the normal behavior, but hitting Ctrl-3 causes the skill to cast at the feet of your target.

Hatory.1685:

• Trash dmg – why the clones have no dmg? its so waste, they have zero dmg, they are a distraction, ok, but how the clone is call the atencion of the mob if i hit 1000…x more them a clone? What a hell Arena think when they put this trash dmg in clone?How a mob can be taunted to atk a clone? Never!

Mob “attention” isn’t based on damage. Who the mob attacks is based on several factors with some randomness thrown in just so they aren’t controllable/predictable.

My clones get the attention of mobs all the time.

SilverRule.7426:

The only projectile that has 100% combo field triggering, as far as I know, is the Earth Elementalist staff autoattack. Most ranged attacks are indeed 20%

Actually there are many skills that offer a 100% chance of the projectile finisher triggering, including two for Mesmer: Magic Bullet and Mirror Blade.

The 20% ones are typically those that have multiple projectiles (like Thief Unload or the aforementioned Phamtasmal Duelist) or those that are spammable (like Engineer Explosive Shot).

Here’s a build you might try:

Mesmer GS/S+S build

I put Blade Training in there since you like sword+sword. With this build I wouldn’t worry about shattering because it has traits to increase Phantasm DPS as well as increase your DPS for every illusion you have active. I would suggest though that you get in the habit of shattering when the foe is low health, just to finish it off a tad faster since the illusions will die anyway.

As I understand it, most key loggers work by intercepting the keystrokes from your keyboard as you type them. So whether you think you have a key logger or not, I highly recommend never typing your password on your keyboard. Use copy and paste (from an ascii chart or whatever) with your mouse to change your password, then do the same when entering the characters into the password box. If that’s too much trouble, make a file with random characters in it and paste (don’t type) your password in the middle somewhere, so someone looking at the file can’t tell your password from the randomness. Then just open the file and copy and paste your password from it into the password box. That won’t fool all key logger techniques, but it will probably fool the most common ones.

If you get the Kit Refinement trait, just equipping the Elixir Gun causes the Super Elixir effect.

I really, really wish this skill worked as Effusion described. That implementation makes much more sense to me.

Actually Gadzooks, it’s even simpler than you think. Just equip D/P and use Shadow Shot for fighting single foes (even in melee range), and Black Powder for fighting multiple foes. You’ll have to space them out enough to keep from exhausting Initiative but not so much that you take more than one hit in between applications. If my Initiative gets too low I’ll use Smoke Screen to let it recharge. I also use Signet of Malice to regain any health I lost from taking any hits.

The traits you described will make things even easier.

A rouge wood loose too a theif.

Personally I’d be more inclined to say the other professions are fundamentally flawed because most of their attacks are just letting the #1 skill auto fire and occasionally using the other skills when cooldowns expire. I remember Colin Johanson on the Manifesto video saying that combat would be different in GW2 because you’re not just swinging a sword over and over, but that’s exactly how I feel playing other professions. With the Thief and the Initiative mechanic I feel a lot more control because as long as I have Initiative, I can pick and choose which skills I want to use rather than being at the mercy of cooldowns.

Neodefination.3759:

Flanking strike is ridiculously broken.I feel it was better in the beta but i cant confirm that for sure.Now when it is used on flat ground next to the opponent, you may have a chance or not to actually be behind the opponent.Most of the time on flat ground you spin to the side stabbing nothing and needs you to once again close the distance that your skill created.On a slope surface, forget about being at the back at all.

I stopped using S/D for this very reason. Flanking Strike is so unpredictable. I would often spin to the side of the target and wind up out of melee range. The evade portion of the skill is either so short that it’s pointless or flat out doesn’t work at all.

Zplus.4217:

I have said it before and I will say it again, my problem with the nerf is that HS is doing less damage then my auto attack crit, even when the enemy is low in hp, my HS is doing VERY slightly higher damage than my normal attack, since it has a jumping animation to do I can finish the enemy faster by NOT using the “finisher” move. And hence the nerf basically killed the skill. I’d be a lot happer if they nerf the damage when the target hp is high and kept the low hp damage as it was so people won’t spam them in spvp/WvW, where all the rages were about.

I don’t see how your HS can do less damage than Double Strike, Wild Strike, or Lotus Strike. Mine certainly isn’t.

If power did affect condition damage, then everyone would just stack as much power as possible and probably ignore condition damage modifiers altogether since power would have double benefit.

As far as scaling goes, are you sure that weapon strength doesn’t affect condition damage?

Also don’t forget that Guardian sword skill #2 will literally teleport them to their target regardless of any gaps in terrain, even if the target is out of LOS.

To free up inventory space without visiting an NPC.

To me the beauty of combos is you don’t have to really do any coordination for people to benefit from them. Sure it’s better if you do, but just dropping any combo field on or in front of a group of allies and/or on a foe is going to naturally be beneficial since most profession’s weapon skills have some combo finisher they use anyway. As people get more and more familiar with the different combos and recognize the different fields, they’ll start looking for the opportunities.

It is definitely displaying a cumulative total, not a per-tick damage figure. Check your combat log to verify.

Amigo.5023:

One of the funniest skills thiefs have. I use it in spvp at capture points. The most fun part comes into play when you forget about this trap and suddenly in the middle of a battle you get teleported to your trap with low health. Full healthed enemy standing right in front of you.

I thought it put you into stealth when you teleported? Can’t you just run away if you’re low health?

Personally I’d like to see them add a large non-instanced dungeon (akin to Darkness Falls) that takes dynamic content to a whole new level. Secret rooms, hidden traps, random elite/boss spawns, passageways that open and close to make navigation different every time, events such as rescuing an NPC in the stockade who gives you a key that unlocks a secret door to a room with hidden dangers and puzzles to solve (a-la Indiana Jones!). They could even randomize the contents of various rooms so you’re constantly exploring them to see what new stuff is there.

The devs can’t easily change the outdoor areas that much because 1) it would require a lot of man hours to rework the surroundings, and 2) it might break certain events/quests. But in a controlled area like a dungeon they could have mini events within rooms that they could change frequently because it doesn’t have to affect anything but that 1 room, or even add a new room each week if they like.

I’m all for giving them a passive chance to apply an effect (could even be a different effect as something like random immobilizes might be OP) . I totally ignore the venom skills currently. Too little payoff and too long of a cooldown for devoting a utility slot to them.

I totally agree. At first I was attracted to Sword/Dagger for my Thief because I wanted to be able to stealth with Cloak and Dagger and evade/backstab with Flanking Strike. Unfortunately FS is too unreliable and unpredictable, not to mention the evade is so brief that it killed the appeal for me and now I’m running Dagger/Dagger or Dagger/Pistol instead.

In addition to what Ravoku posted, I often had a problem with FS where it would spin me out to the side of my target and wind out out of range to finish the move, much less any other melee attack I attempted.

FS would actually be very appealing with traits like Side Strike and Flanking Strikes, but because of the unpredictable spin/evade move, it’s just not worth it. Heck, I’d rather they just change it to a flanking shadowstep move instead.

Athanasius.3875:

Even Heartseeker has this issue if a mob dies from an unexpected big hit/crit and you HS again so it leaps at a new target, or just the direction you’re facing.

This proved twice lethal when I was trying to get a Skill Point up on wooden platforms in a Dredge area.

It would be OK if not for the “new target”/“no target” behaviour of both abilities, but as it is, especially with ability queues, something needs to change, i.e. stop such leaps/whirls short at the edge of drops.

I believe you can turn that behavior off in the options.

Use Scorpion Wire to pull single foes out of packs and kill them individually. As spore posted, use Shadow Shot for single foes and Black Powder for multiple foes to keep the blind up. Use Head Shot to interrupt casting.

Edit: Meant to say Shadow Shot, not Heartseeker on my post above.

Equip Dagger/Pistol. On single foes use Heartseeker every time the blind drops. On multi-foes use Black Powder as Initiative allows. Once you hit level 40, have 5 points saved up and dump them into the Opportunist trait. That’s about all you need for general PvE survivability.