Guild Wars 2

Your design is rather cool. However, I think that one of the well already applies slow on ennemies.

I don’t think that the amount of CC on this elite is too much. Unlike on “Entangle” for example, or any transformation elites, the ticks on the Gravity Well are easy to see, so it’s easy to stun-break just after the first tick, and dodge out of the well during the second. If you don’t have any stun-breaker, tough luck, but in that case the well is only a tad more powerful than, say, Slick Shoes, Ring of Warding, Entangle, Earthshaker, and other lower CD disabling abilities.

Do you think it happens often? Since december I had maybe five 4v5 from the beginning in total, and I played a lot.

JustChillin.6095:

I just came back to the game after taking a year or two long break. Why is the leaderboard not based on MMR? Shouldn’t skill be the biggest factor in a leaderboard? If they want to make GW2 into a competitive PvP game, why the hell isn’t skill rewarded?

You know why? Because Anet listens to the forum a bit too much. Every week, there was a new thread about how “broken” the LB was, because of some guy on top with 40 games. I tried to explain how MMR volatility worked, how it would settled down with time, how Glicko 2 was the best LB system for a casual-friendly game like GW2, but I was pretty much alone in this fight. All these “pro-hardcore-players” were so delusional about their skill that they looked for a way to grind their way to the top. Now they have it, and still complain. Sad really.

HoT will likely reduce the queue time. Before that, I don’t think we should be forced to wait in the Mists. It’s cool when I have friends to talk to, it’s not when I soloq.

P.S. Tron Jeremy, you’re officially the best thief NA, everybody knows that after seing your performance last Sunday.

ronpierce.2760:

Not sure you understand the concept of escelation of frustration.

You need to work on your anger issues. I am frustrated by certain things in this game (mainly the leaderboards at the moment), but I won’t lose my cool nor my politeness over it, and I suggest you don’t either.

I would really like to see a Black Lion reward track though, with maybe two-three keys as intermediate rewards, and a couple of gems in the end. But yeah, cosmetics are a big part of Anet’s profits, so I doubt they’ll be obtainable in game anytime soon.

Darkness.9732:

Timston.1976:

You guys are prime examples of what is wrong with this community

For sure you don’ t play pvp. You play only pve. Becouse if you played pvp..you would realise how not balanced is this game..look at ranger status in pvp for example.
People who spent money on this game have all the reasons to complain. Of course Always with polite manners.

Moreover for me..you are a prime example of what is wrong with this community

I only play pvp, and though balance is not perfect, the devs seem to listen to what is said on the forums. I think Timston’s point was about the devs’ don’t commenting on the forums much because of all the hate they receive. Some recent changes (Skyhammer, the turret nerf, and most importantly the trait revamp) proved that the devs read the forums and take our suggestions into account, and yet they don’t comment, probably because of the hostility we manifest towards them.

Oh, and about balance: we’re WAY better off now with our boring shout bows and medi guards than with a lot of past metas. Should I remember you of Dhummfire necros, hambow warriors, spirit rangers, HB warriors, SB quickness rangers and all that stuff? If you want to be useful on your ranger, keep your LB in your inventory and play condi, or get as good as Eurantien.

Well, being serious now: LB rangers are very good roamers on the alpine borderlands, because there are very few LoS spots. That doesn’t make them OP. If they are a problem for you, try to lure them into places where you can fight them more easily (in camps, near a ruin, etc.). And bring reflects. You’re lucky though: 99% (made-up stat) of rangers in WvW are absolutely terrible, so they are not much of an issue. They just made winning outnumbered fights a bit more tricky.

On a side note, rangers are crazily OP in water combat because Lick Wounds (the downstate skill #3) out heals even a full zerker damage with poison on, and you can’t stomp in the water. But nobody fights in the water anyway.

Dawdler.8521:

A new map everyone will probably dislike, traits thats totally gonna mess up the balance and lag thats never going to be solved.

Oh and the same stale matchups.

Sorry.

WvW was never balanced: the balance issues will be worse in pvp. Did you notice how four professions completely over-shadow the others? And why would you assume that everyone will dislike the new map? That’s the HoT feature I’m the most hyped about, personally.

Gyler.8150:

I do agree with most, Anet should really expand their workforce, this stagnant months of no content is proof that they are unable to retain old players. Also they could work with better communication, since they usually ask for feedback but rarely act on it.

Easier said than done. Workforce costs money. You can’t expect the same amount of content for free than you would find in a subscription-based MMO. Many people play GW2 because it’s BtP. HoT will probably fill Anet’s bank account, so we will have a lot of new content released for a while (just like in winter 2012), until the next expansion. Some games are just not designed for hardcore players.

Dude, there are plenty of subscription-based, trinity-based, hardcore-focused MMOs out there. Guild Wars 2 is obviously not for you. Anet designed an awesome combat system, but tough luck, they wanted to innovate on other aspects of the genre as well, by focusing on casual players more and getting rid of the trinity. This game is maybe not what you’re looking for, and it’s not very likely to change in the direction you want it to.

I like the idea of fall damage traits as masteries. But I would much prefer to see fall damage traits being more powerful. I mean, these are so situational that the devs could go a little crazy with them. What about a Shadow Refuge on fall damage? A Time Warp on fall damage? An AoE Moa on fall damage? A triple grenade barrage?

Well, I hope this trait will get back, in a better iteration, in the definitive engineer traits.

If it is of any consolation, I use a great sw/wh-GS cleric ranger in WvW, and it does amazing. Maybe you could “recycle” your ascended armor that way?

segman.3560:

No it doesn’t because you do not exclude bad rolls so your chance gets a “reset” for every try.

Again, it depends how you look at it. If you’re unsuccessful 9.999 times, you have the exact same probability of getting a portal (P) on your 10.000th mordrem than a guy who’s killing his first. However, PRIOR to your 9.999 failures, you had 10.000 times more chances to get a portal than the casual guy. It just happened that you didn’t get a single successful realization.

Lascax.2163:

RabbitUp.8294:

Actually, it does. There’s always an RNG factor, but your chances of getting the protal increase based on how much you farm.

That’s a false misconception. The chance of the single try is not related to the other ones, so the sense of having a greater chance by time is not real. Prove of that is that even if unlikely, there are people out there who farmed since the announcement and still didn’t get anything.

You’re getting two things confused here. Yes, saying “I’ve been farming for ages, so I should be able to get a portal soon” is definitely wrong: if you’ve been farming for 60h without getting anything, you don’t have more chances to get a portal than someone who’s just started.

However, if the probability of a random mob dropping a portal is P, someone who slays 10.000 mobs has in total a probability 10.000P to get a portal, while a player killing a single mob has a probability P. So yeah, your chances of getting a portal don’t INCREASE if you play more, but you’re more likely to get one if you farm like a Corean (no racism intended).

BlackTruth.6813:

The thing about power builds right now is.. its just so much RNG now. At least the Quickness Meta required you to HIT your important things, but now its a matter of proc’ing fire/air. It’s literally hearthstone 2.0, specially on match ups much like Guardian vs. Guardian for example.

You only have two builds in the game using the RNG component of air/fire for their burst: SD thief and meditation guardian. On d/p thief, mesmer and scepter ele, you use these sigils on your initial burst (I have been killed in 1/4s on my mesmer by a Steal+BS and both sigils procs), but you still have well defined burst combos you have to watch for. On mesmer, after the opening, air and fire sigils are just a way to deal with the unreal weakness of the GS auto-attack.

Tarkan.5609:

Sagat.3285:

Doggie.3184:

All pulls are broken and they’re apparently impossible to fix.

Not the engi one at least for me.

actually it is – i mainly play engi and thief, and the pull bugs out so often
sometimes the opponent doesnt get pulled the whole way or even bugs back to the place he was originally at – making you have to interrupt pry bar by weapon switching out of the kit if you started channelling already (which often fails -> important skill on cd)

Same here: I play a lot of both engi and thief, and both pulls are equally bugged imo. The most common bug being the foe being knocked down, but not pulled to your character. Magnet pull is a bit more useful though, because it is unblockable.

Because the role of the thief has changed a bit. D/p offers more burst, at the cost of weaker 1v1 capabilities on a point. I still run SD in soloq at times because it carries your team if need be, but d/p is better in the role the thief has to fulfill. It works very well in coordination with a burst mesmer, which is why a lot of EU thieves run d/p. Saying that one is more fun than the other is just a matter of preference.

jbondo.9817:

2. Should be based off of kills, caps, winning pivotal fights, ressing allies.. etc.

Dude… It’s a team game. That’s why every member of the team has to be rewarded (or punished) for the same amount.

Frankly, being rank 80 doesn’t mean you’re good. I’ve seen shark rank players rotating better than some 5k+ games soloq heroes.

I agree except on the soloq part. I remember how soloq was, and if it was reintroduced, you can bet your boots that people would stop playing it after a month, just like most solo players played in team arena during the old days.

Carighan.6758:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Mesmer was my main for over a year and the only class I could not regularly own was thief, so I tried it, and stuck with it.

Which sounds like a rather strong – some would say overpowered – position to be in. Unless the goal of the class balance is supposed to be counter&countercounter, but then I bet a lot of sPvP-players would cry bloody murder because it undermines the basis of their favorite game mode (as you cannot fit 8 counters into a team of 5).

It depends on the professions and the current meta builds. For example, engineers are extremely strong against some builds (power thieves and medi guards especially), and can almost 1v2 these builds, but can’t do anything about certain other builds like condi necro or condi ranger. Some professions are more “balanced” in the sense that you have the tools to deal with pretty much everything. That’s the case for mesmers (with the exception of thieves) and warriors. Both types of balance are fine.

Donut.6914:

Tudd The Party Cow. Bringing the disco to a party near you.

Dang, now I have to pay 800 gems to make a Charr character. Thanks for nothing.

So many handsome mesmers in this thread…
Here’s my contribution:

We have to see what the thief’s specialization is going to be. The power shatter mesmer will get some nice utilities to fight thieves (blind on shatter and the new CS), but will lose iInvigoration (I stil hope they’ll add it in Illusions as a Master trait), so I don’t think it will be any easier. On the other hand, the new Mental Torment looks so strong that we are pretty much certain to insta-kill the thief if he makes one single mistake. If…

Why don’t you try to play on the chinese servers? They’re closer geographically, and you’re almost in the same time zone. Maybe they speak mostly chinese, but I imagine that japanese or thai people are speaking in english.

Bubi.5237:

You can probably make a build which has everything to make good use of the sword mainhand in a condi-build, but dunno how good that can be besides having fun with it (you can have fun with a lot of mediocre builds).

In a condi shatter build, sword mainhand will be better than ever, because of the now baseline IP that works so well with the immob and teleport of the sword #3 skill. The #2 skill is also great for the invulnerability it provides.

I think they meant that clone death builds were not healthy (and let’s face it, it was equally boring to play with and against). But phantasm builds on which you rarely shatter will still be viable, and lockdown builds will probably perform better after the patch. In any case, you should use your shatters in a pvp situation (at least F3 and F4), and even more after the patch, because IP will be baseline.

I think the man has a point there, even if he doesn’t express it quite clearly. There is no real trade-off for being a Chronomancer it seems (I’ll wait for the stream to be sure). You will lose some skills, gain some, but in the case of shatters, you just gain one.

The new F5 looks a lot like our current Distorsion. It’s technically an immunity to all incoming damage for 1-4s (I’m pretty sure about the length, though it hasn’t be confirmed). The differences are:
- The new F5 will likely be on a slightly longer CD.
- You cannot wait for your skills to recharge with the new F5 (since you return to where you were in space-time)
- You can cast skills and they will be recharged instantly after the F5 ends.
- You can maybe die during the new F5 if you’re not careful, but that’s not even sure.

A logical choice would have been, regarding the similarities between the two skills, to just replace Distorsion by this new shatter. But since we can use both, I fear that not picking the elite specialization will be a bad choice, no matter the build.

On the one hand, I’m sad we got yet another OH weapon. On the other hand, sw-sh/GS mesmer will look SO DOPE!

I guess that, like in most trait lines (EXCEPT ILLUSIONS!), we will be able to chose at each lvl (Adept, Master and GM) between one trait more shatter-focused, one trait more phantasm-focused, or one used in both variants.

They all work the same. What you describe is a bug happening frequently with pulls. I get it on my thief, but also on my engineer, so that’s not related to this skill.

Agreed. It should really be added, especially that in its current form, the new illusion trait line has NO SHATTER TRAITS in the Master slot. In a line dedicated to shatters, that’s a bit lame.

BlackTruth.6813:

Even Guardian is kinda magic oriented.

I would say start Guard because it’s an all-time easy mode class since launch.

It’s melee focused. So I don’t think that’s really what was asked for.

Welcome! You should try at least the three light armor professions.

Mesmer, in power builds at least, require you to be constantly switching between range and melee, and are less of a traditional “mage” class (they use swords and greatswords), but they do offer a lot of interrupts and daze.

Elementalist ressembles the mage of WoW, but its best build at the moment focuses on melee. Some range builds (with staff or scepter) are on the other hand perfectly viable. It doesn’t rely on CC that much, on the other hand.

Necromancer relies on CC on condi builds (fear mostly), and is mostly a ranged profession. It seems to fit what you’re looking for in that way. Power builds are a bit more melee focused and don’t CC that much.

Finally, you should try ranger. It’s not magic-based, but it excels at range (with both short and long bow), and in crowd control (mostly immobilisation). You might like it.

Most importantly, unlike in WoW, you don’t have to invest much in your characters to perform well in pvp, since all traits and stat sets except a few are unlocked, and your gear doesn’t matter. It means you can play with a lot of different professions to see which one you like the most. A lot of pvp players even have four, five or even more favorite professions. Have fun!

Dondagora.9645:

Sorel.4870:

Levetty.1279:

Still an Illusions GM, just got bundled together with a lot of other shatter traits in the new Master of Fragmentation trait.

I see! Would someone mind telling me exactly what’s in this MoF trait? I can only read the Mind Wrack page.

Assumingly, there’s the Extra Crit-Chance on Mind Wrack trait, the Retal on Cry of Frustration trait[pending, because devs said they thought retal wasn’t very fitting for mesmers], then Imbued Diversions[AoE Daze], and Masterful Distortion[Reflect on Distortion].

That’s not a bad trait if that’s the case. With the blinding on shatter and maybe the inspiration line for the condi removal, you could make a really solid shatter spec. The question is: will it be enough with all these new OP specs running around?

Levetty.1279:

Still an Illusions GM, just got bundled together with a lot of other shatter traits in the new Master of Fragmentation trait.

I see! Would someone mind telling me exactly what’s in this MoF trait? I can only read the Mind Wrack page.

Hi all. I couldn’t watch the stream, but I can’t read anything about Imbued Diversion. I have thought, for a long time that Diversion had to become an AoE, because the skill animation is an explosion and it’s very confusing to see it hit only one target. So I’ve read that IP, iElasticity and all that stuff are gonna be baseline now, but where is Imbued Diversion? I really hope I missed it, because that’s the only change I really really wanted.

Sebrent.3625:

I’ve honestly been running around lately under the concept of “Let’s assume IP is overrated … let’s not use it and see what we can do”.

This has freed me up for other builds that leverage a traited focus which is probably one of the most underrated weapons in the game due to its phantasm.

Amusingly, I’ve been inducing rage in even dual melee warriors with it.

The use of IP for the other shatters is pretty obvious, but has anyone ever actually done the math for how much extra damage we get from IP? The damage per clone is less and less for Mind Wrack as you go from 1 to 2 to 3 clones. IP just makes you the +1 clone up to 4. Going with that trend, it’s an even worse damage per clone than a 3 clone shatter … obviously doing more, but going from 1 to 2 or 2 to 3 would be a larger increase.

Well sure, but you didn’t count:

- 1 more diversion
- 1 more second to distorsion
- centered on yourself. For Diversion especially, that’s the only thing saving me from thieves most of the time.

You can do without it, but it’s definitely not overrated.

Edit: I forgot to mention that power shatter is all about burst. So you don’t want your mind wrack to be 4-clones all the time for max damage: you want it to hit! For example, the Prestige → GS2 → Blink → MW opener is actually a 2 clones shatter, including IP. And it insta-kill stuff, which is the goal. If you’re aiming for sustained damage, there probably are better options.

I want both! But DE might be a problem for mesmers in pve. And Diversion AoE, please.

Engineer and thief main here, working on my Champion Illusionist title since recently. I think the mesmer needs some of the following tweaks, considering its main issues are mobility, fragility against thieves and low synergy between traits.

1) Nerf Plasma. This thing is insane.
2) Make Diversion AoE non-traited. It looks AoE, it feels AoE, but it’s not. It could really help against thieves and mesmers would then become a major asset in team fights.
3) Deceptive Evasion should be a class mechanic, or at the very least an Adept trait. That trait alone is responsible for the lack of diversity for mesmer builds.
4) Add a reliable way of getting swiftness or 25% movement speed, as a trait. Traveler Runes are absolutely suboptimal.
5) Compact the damage ticks in Spatial Surge, reduce their number, and reduce the cast time. As it is, this skill is one of the weakest ranged AA, even at max range, and relies too much on air/fire procs.

Well, professions need to stay different. Sure warrior has excellent dps, but I much prefer to play a burst mesmer build than a boring warrior in pvp and WvW. The big offenders here are the bosses doing crazy one-shot AoE damage. If Anet doesn’t change its way to design dungeons, mesmer is not likely to be really useful in the near future.

That being said, without even talking about phantasm life-span, there are some inequalities in damage that make no sense! Why is Spatial Surge one of the worst ranged AA in the game? They should compact the damage ticks and reduce the cast time.

I take it you mostly play in soloq. Against a premade or just against good solo players, every death is a punishment. Games are lost in soloq because one death results in a snowball effect and a tricap impossible to overcome. Watch some of the tournament games on this channel:

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2

There’s the Go4GW2 cup tonight. Watch it and tell me again that death is not punishing.

Supreme.3164:

Lol welcome to the life of a solo player in GW2, one thing to keep in mind is that you will lose over 50% of your matches as solo player..no matter what you do or play

That shouldn’t be the case. You should win about half of your matches. I never had a ratio under 50% in my soloq experience.

Why on the pvp forum though? Good luck, let us know how it goes.

I’m amazed by what I’m reading. If there’s a thief in your team, never AA in downstate while getting stomped! When the stomp animation starts, you have the choice between:

- A super week AA
- 3-4k damage on a necro untraited, if your opponent is very dumb
- 2s of chill (woo…hoo)
- doing nothing and NOT GETTING KILLED

Fat Disgrace is only rank 43, but he gets it. It’s so annoying, not only on thief, but also on mesmer and engineer, to risk a cc and time your stealth at the very end of the animation, and if 2 people are stomping, or one from stealth, it’s pretty much gg anyway. I know it feels unnatural to not roll your face over the keyboard all the time but this is not me playing Mortal Kombat: sometimes in this game you just have to wait for your team mates to do the job and not interfere.

Josh Davis.6015:

Hi all,

Trying to achieve the Lavish Llama at the current rate would be, as someone aptly noted, madness! The good news is, next week will bring some concrete details on how you can start earning them at a much more rapid pace through participating in select tournaments.

-Josh

Could this be… the return of in-game tournaments? HYPE!

I started playing pvp with the April 2014 update, and yes, soloq queue has been a masochistic experience since then. How can it be different? When you’re winning everything’s fine, but when you lose then suddenly everyone on your team is a scrub while everyone on the opposite team is rolling cheese mode easy builds (and as a premade, good sir!). GW2 is known to have a better community than most other games, and yet: afkers, rage quitters, salty nerds and sore losers are part of the everyday experience, due to the unreal aggressiveness that overwhelms us when we’re behind a computer screen.

Overall, playing with your friends in a dedicated team, without fearing that your team mates will be bad/salty/sore losers is a more enjoyable experience. But many of us like the gameplay and mechanics of this game so much, that we’re ready to suffer a little, just to get our daily dose. My final advice: don’t take soloq too seriously, you’ll just get angry.

Miss Lana.5276:

Linthenius.3704:

Guessing earning gems is a long term investment then? Doubt i’ll get the 800 for an extra slot any time soon without buying some.

Yeah the quickest way is just to buy them with cash, but it is possible to farm the gold and buy gems that way. It does take a bit of self-control and dedication though.

Taking the “where the kitten is that ascended trinket?” to the next level.

I tried that once, and it made me drop the orb as well. Quite frankly, it would have been incredibly broken if it didn’t.