Guild Wars 2

Keiel.7489:

I recently went through P1-3 again (also tried 4 but person who open the path ragequit) after 6-7 months, I found Path 1 to be the easiest, I think the hardest part was the trash runs. It could also be because Lupi in that fight went a lot smoother.

1 has easy boss fights but the trash runs will murder inexperienced players.

obal.3218:

25 Grub Lupi

http://youtu.be/9fUEc4FhR10

Holy hell, 9k life drain tick. You weren’t kidding when you said he hits hard…

Xae Isareth.1364:

In most situations you’re in far greater risk if try meleeing. Lupi anyone?

I disagree. Phase 2 Lupicus is actually more dangerous at range because his single target projectile attack (which can 1 shot squishies) does not affect you while in melee range, and his swipe is not too hard to dodge. Phase 3 Lupicus isn’t any more or less dangerous at range because he moves fast enough to necrid trap you even if you’re using a ranged weapon.

I sold my first two. I kept my third legendary.

redkat.1892:

What are the easiest dungeons to complete solo or with a partner?

I want to experience and enjoy the content and adventure of a dungeon. My first three dungeon runs with a group of five (all very friendly and nice guildies) were all about speed runs and boss stacking; a huge disappointment despite the great fast loot.

As luck will have it my two 80 characters are a Necro minion master and a Thief P/P, which i have read are the worst to bring to dungeons.

So any dungeons i can try to complete with those classes and average-poor playing skill?

If you want to get better you can duo Lupicus with me.

Anicetus.1253:

Where the kitten did my signature go?

nerf anet moderation pl0x

Dolan.3071:

What the hell is bullnyerk?

Much like the way “kitten” substitutes swear words on the GW2 forums, “Nyerk” substitutes swear words on the Aion forums.

This one from a duo I was doing recently just kitten ed me off.

So I dodge out and hit dolyak signet for stability. I evade the first tick on necrid trap and actually get outside it. However, it pushes me back inside, even though I’m outside, and stability doesn’t activate even though I did press the key.

Q_Q

sorrychief.2563:

a t s e.9614:

Yes please I need thief advice . How to increase my hp to 14k with a berserker gear??? I can’t get more than 12

Master Chief , help bro .

You shouldn’t be too concerned with your HP as a thief as the class has alot of stealth, teleports and evades. You probably wanna focus on damage but hey whatever floats your quaggan I know some thieves who like extra vitality in their builds.

You can run 15 acrobatics as a thief but I don’t think it’s necessary unless you’re soloing. In my experienced the dagger endurance regen and signet of agility is enough.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

The p1 trash runs are exceptionally punishing to a new player, the second one being especially tough. P4 is just long and has dumb boss fights.

Yep.

rfdarko.4639:

Torch gets me through a number of skips in arah when I pug. An extra 3 seconds of stealth can come in useful, and unless your going straight into a fight after a run there’s not much reason to use oh sword or pistol. I wouldn’t put it in the same category as staff or scepter – it has decent utility.

I can see torch being used in a few cases but its usage is so situational that I cannot consider it part of a standard mesmer dungeon weapon set.

Would you guys be interested in doing record-setting runs or kills of certain dungeons/bosses?

durend.6237:

For pugging I think the extra reflect helps, for for the type of organised runs [DnT] is used to I’m not sure a fight would ever last long enough that the warden + feedback wouldn’t be enough, and in those situations they’d probably have a guard for WoR or SoA.

The only time I think of where fights would take long enough to need a traited curtain for an organised group would be high level fractals.

Fair point. I am so used to being the primary source of reflects in my runs that I cannot imagine running an untraited focus.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

I will probably run 10/30/0/10/20 after the patch. Get the key traits and still have glamor cooldown reduction from 10 in inspiration.

You’ll lose reflects on focus. I would go 0/30/0/20/20 or some variation on that, with minimum 15 in illusions.

AndrewSX.3794:

Mesmer’s GS DPS nuclear war in 3…2…1…

The mesmer’s phantasm is great AoE dps. The GS is a situationally useful weapon, but I see many mesmers who camp gs 100% of the dungeon, which is not good gameplay.

Oxxy.7068:

^
Why beat a dead horse? It makes sense to start a debate on the class specific forums since most people in there doesn’t know that much how dungeons works, but here is just a waste of time, generally speaking.

The people in the class forums are 70% PVPers and couldn’t care less about dungeons.

How to play a Mesmer and why

So, now that you have proper traits, armor, two swords, a focus, a pistol, and a greatsword, what do you do?

Control

The first role of the Mesmer I mentioned, which I personally think is the most underutilized and one of the most important, is control. This is where I see the majority of Mesmers fail – they do not effectively position the enemy in such a way that minimizes their killing time. Instead, they let the enemy run about, which can make them take 10x longer to kill and increase the odds that they will wipe your team.

Temporal Curtain (Focus 4) is the bread and butter of the Mesmer’s control tools, and Illusionary Wave (GS 5) is occasionally used to push single targets into corners or walls. How do you use these effectively? Temporal curtain has a pull radius of 600 units, and is frequently used to pull enemies into corners or walls. The following video demonstrates: http://youtu.be/fLfeDzsfy3o

Why corners or walls? There are several reasons. First, Temporal Curtain has a tendency to overshoot enemies that aren’t backed into a solid object. An improperly placed temporal curtain can scatter enemies rather than grouping them up, and by choosing a wall, you limit (or eliminate) this possibility. Second, grouping enemies into a wall or corner dramatically improves your party’s damage, as melee weapons will cleave through them with ease. Instead of hitting a single stray target, you are now hitting a full group.

In addition to grouping enemies up, Temporal Curtain is also used to clear or split enemies on trash runs. Since the pull from temporal curtain does not generate threat, it can be safely used to split enemies off the main path of a trash run so your group can run past them without drawing their attention.

If you want to learn how to focus pull, this is an excellent video guide: http://youtu.be/ajFtp6mnM1k?t=18m28s

Reflects

Another critical, and often underutilized role of Mesmers, is mitigating and enhancing your party’s damage through reflects. Many Mesmers blindly spam feedback on bosses or use feedback at the wrong times. When to use feedback is a lengthy discussion unto itself, and requires a thorough understanding of each enemy in particular encounters. Nevertheless, it is a good idea to use feedback against enemies in dungeons which are projectile heavy. They include Caudeceus Manor, Sorrows Embrace, Twilight Arbor, Crucible of Eternity, and Arah, One of the most frequently missed reflects I see is against the first trash pull in CoE, in which many players do not use reflects. Strife demonstrates why you should feedback them in the first 10 seconds of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B--IxGbvmIc

Boon and condition management

A secondary role Mesmers offer is boon/condition management. Often, if you are a Mesmer in a pickup group, you will have to fulfill this role, as your teammates may not be using builds or classes with effective condition removal. Null field, as of this writing, is the best condition/boon management a Mesmer brings to a party, though the Mesmer’s ability to remove conditions via mantras is going to be buffed soon. Condition management is hugely important, as stray bleeds, poisons, and burns in some fights can mean the difference between barely finishing an encounter and wiping.

Boon removal is less frequently used, but when it is important it makes a tremendous difference. Off the top of my head, some of the most important enemies where boon removal is key are the security golem in Crucible of Eternity, Dredge in Sorrow’s Embrace and fractals, and Risen Hunters in Arah. The security golem maintains permanent protection, which will reduce your group’s damage by 33%. The Mesmer sword and clone auto, in addition to null field, will strip protection off without requiring your team to destroy the protection turret. Boon removal is tremendously important against Risen elites in Arah, as Hunters will buff them with stability and fury. With stability on, you cannot pull or stun them, so either kill them before they get it or remove it as soon as possible.

Hopefully, this helps at least one Mesmer become a better player. Over time , I’d like to see more dungeon-specific class guides that can help players.

How to play a Mesmer in dungeons

I have spent close to 800 hours playing a Mesmer (for a total of over 3000 hours in game time so far). I see so many bad Mesmers in dungeons that I think it’s time I write a guide on not just how to build a Mesmer, but how to play one effectively. This guide will spend less time on builds and more on explaining the how and why of playing a Mesmer (though builds and weapon choices are still discussed).

The Mesmer fills several important roles in dungeons:

• Controlling and positioning the enemy, primarily through effective use of Temporal Curtain
• Mitigating and enhancing damage through reflections
• Boon and condition management, by removing conditions on your team, enhancing your teams boons, and removing boons from the enemy
• Speeding up runs through use of portal

While the Mesmer is by no means a “mandatory” dungeon class, it is often highly beneficial to include one because of its aforementioned versatility.

Slot Skills

There are some utility skills that a Mesmer will find more useful in dungeons. Switch out your utilities when necessary. Here is a list of what I use most often:

On my utilies bar almost all the time, no matter what:

• Feedback

On my regular rotation:

• Mantra of Concentration (Stunbreak and stability)
• Mantra of Resolve (Condition cleansing)
• Null field (Condition/Boon management)
• Blink (Stunbreak)

Occasionally used:

• Signet of Inspiration (For copying boons)
• Portal Entre
• Veil (for runs)
• Illusion of Life (Useful when pugging Arah)
• Mirror Images
• Decoy

Rarely used, but still used for some specific encounters

• Mimic

As for healing skills, what you use depends on your builds. If you are using mantra damage multipliers, go with the healing mantra. Otherwise, take ether feast.
For Elites, Time warp is ideal most of the time, but for some runs mass invisibility is preferred. Any other skill aside from these 2 is usually a waste of your elite slot.

Traits

There are some traits that are mandatory for a Mesmer in dungeons. They include:

Minimum 20 Inspiration for:
1. Reduced recharge on Glamour skills
2. Reduced recharge on focus skills, while granting them the ability to reflect projectiles

Minimum 20 Dueling for:
1. Permanent vigor on crit
2. Reduced cooldown on sword skills
3. Reduced cooldown in pistol skills
4. Clones on dodge, which help immensely with setting up shatters

To maximize reflect damage, you want to get as many % damage increases as you can. The rest of your points are preferably distributed into Illusions (for 9% bonus damage with illusions) and Domination (for some additional power, increasing illusion damage, or enhancing your shatters), along with optional enhancements to the Dueling and Inspiration lines. The Chaos trait line offers very little for dungeons, so points in it are generally a waste.

Armor and Weapons

Colesy gives an excellent breakdown of the Mesmer weapon types and their strengths and weaknesses in this thread. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-PvE-Dungeons-Phantasm-build-s As such, I will not spend much time covering this, as it has already been covered.

A Mesmer, optimally played, will use a sword mainhand and alternate between focus, pistol, and sword offhand a majority of the time. There are some situations where a ranged weapon is necessary or preferred, in which the greatsword can be used as a secondary weapon. However, use of the greatsword should be minimized as much as possible, as the weapon has low DPS and its other abilities are generally not suited for dungeons.

If you are going to be running dungeons a lot, you will almost never need a torch, staff, or scepter. I like to carry at least one of every weapon in my inventory, but the use of these three weapons is rarely, if ever optimal in a dungeon environment.

With permanent vigor, invulnerability on the F4 shatter, a 2.5 second evade with blurred frenzy, and a block on offhand sword, the Mesmer is actually one of the most durable professions in dungeons in spite of wearing light armor. Wear full berserker or assassins gear, and if you time your dodges and skills properly, you will take a minimum of damage while dealing maximum damage.

As a basic guide I thought it was pretty good. I’m glad to see Izzy promoting “melee zerker scholar rune deepz” as one of the better styles of play versus “bearbow ranger.”

I would really like to see how Izzy’s Ranger build compares to the builds created by the leading dungeon guilds.

Funny how people were screaming it would be OP…

In what context do they say this? Is it ambient dialogue?

Sell it. The staff is not a PvE weapon, it’s primarily a conditionspam weapon used in competitive (PVP) environments. You would be better off using a rare sword focus + sword offhand in PvE settings because while they might have less base damage (as weapons) compared to the exotic, the weapons offer higher overall utility and damage.

This was needed. T5 silk and leather have been worthless for the longest time. They are still selling for barely above vendor on the TP.

Guardian sounds right up your alley. They wear heavy armor, use a variety of melee and ranged weapons, and have a good mix of offensive utility/defensive utility spells.

Agony.3542:

1) Unique abilities that require some sort of counterPLAY not counterGEAR (I’m talking to all the guys that want soldiers/knights to be a requirement)
2) Decent animations, no champion frost wolf type of bullkitten
3) Damage/Abilities that fit to the “action rpg” combat style of GW2 (similar to 1))
4) Better rewards, not in gold, but in other USEFUL items, not 100000000000000 stacks of bloodstone dust/emprythingy fragments
5) Challenge modes
6) Different ways of aproaching Dungeons. This isquite well done in the original dungeons, not that well in ta newfu. IMO you should have a real choice between killing or skipping trash. Yes that means killing trash should be worth the time AND involove some mechanics different from “may become invulnerable”- Take some arah trashgroups for example, killing these is interesting if you do it- Aeterblade mobs on the other hand? Nothing that would require you to actually think about what do, just autoattack.
7) Rewarding experience, but not making it a requirement- Some of it is done by the notes under a mobs hp bar, but “steamlining” some abilities while still having some unique abilities/enviroments/adds would help quite a lot.
8) Buff mesmer
9) Buff necro
10) Buff…. Nevermind. Avoid general bullkitten happening. For example bugs that cause bosses to not spawn or not get hostile, mobs appearing out of nowhere, gorillas, high priest of melandru, waypoints not spawning, bosses not correctly resetting.

Pretty good list. I would also add that bosses in general should use fewer monster-only skills and try to use more player-skills.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Perhaps, it would be best to post in those threads, or at least in the Game Bugs sub-forum.

Where they have languished and died.

Birthday boosters do not, or no longer give a 100% bonus to karma gained. I had recently been running around in WvW with my guardian using a birthday booster and the math wasn’t adding up – I was completing vents and getting less than an expected total on karma returns.

Apparently this has been found by other users as well.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Birthday-booster-bug/first#post2978999

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Birthday-Booster-1

You want to zerg? Shortbow 2 and dagger storm with signet of malice are your mainstays. See https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Thief-WvW-zerg-builds/first#post2567088 for ideas.

Copper → silver doubloons is a great idea.

I’m wondering if any exist, or if anybody would be interested in making one.

You shouldn’t be allowed to kick whoever opened the instance, period. That’s just beyond stupid since it breaks the instance.

Awesome work. Is a guide coming out for the new TA path?

People skip dungeon trash for one reason – the reward/effort ratio for killing them simply isn’t worth it.

For people to not skip trash, you can:
- Decrease the time it takes to kill them
- Increase the reward for killing them
- Make them required for dungeon progression

So, I think, if Arenanet wants to encourage more people to kill trash (which, the design of the more recent encounters seems to require), the following are some options:
- Every elite mob dropped 3 dungeon tokens
- Every elite mob dropped a certain amount of karma
- Every elite mob is downgraded to a normal mob
- Killing everything in a dungeon counts as a “vanquish” which adds bonus rewards to the end (similar to GW1)

Good work everyone! I will send out rewards when this week’s cycle concludes.

As for Korga – I agree he’s not particularly challenging, but he’s really a test of patience.

We have our winners, and rewards have been sent out.

1. Solo the Legendary Imbued Shaman at Fractal 48.
Unfinished – challenge changed to: whichever team can duo this at level 48 will be rewarded 100g to be split among 2 players.

Tier 1 challenges (20g each)
1. Solo the Champion Destroyer Crab in CoE P3.
Winner – Sanderinoa.8065
http://youtu.be/zovCxO2W6qM

2. Solo Mossman in Fractal 30
Winner – Sanderinoa.8065
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKONEej6EJ8

Tier 2 challenges (10g each)

1. Solo Korga, Lord of the Orrian Gorillas in Arah P1. – Unfinished

2. Solo the Champion Risen King in Azabe Qabar, the Royal Tombs.
Winner – xmtrcv.5236
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DbNk4pnQBg

3. Solo the Legendary Svanigandr in Honor of the Waves P3. – Unfinished

Tier 3 challenges (5g each)

1. Solo Champion Frainn in Timberline Falls –
Winner – xmtrcv.5236
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBeP_ngXdT0

2. Solo the Champion Risen Captain in Straits of Devastation (Chapel of Lady Glaive) – Unfinished

3. Solo Kudu in Crucible of Eternity, Story Mode – Unfinished

4. Solo the Champion Orrian Drake in Arah. – Unfinished

In 1 week, unfinished challenges will have their rewards amended, and the challenge will continue.

I’d be interested in joining.

It’s called A Pimp Named Slickpack.

“Here we’ve encountered our first clash: the scrub is only willing to play to win within his own made-up mental set of rules. These rules can be staggeringly arbitrary.”

azizul.8469:

also the idea will destroy the market for most item since everyone will undercut each other to make sure their items are sold….

Not true.

The original title is apparently too long, but should read “Unsold items should return to seller after x days.”

Items that are sitting way out of bounds of the current equilibrium prices are just dead weight and would be better off being returned to the seller after a certain period so they can re-enter the market.

Not sure how many days, though. I think 30 is a reasonable period that takes into account the time it may take to sell some expensive items.

Yeah, where it can languish and die here.

Better yet, you should be allowed to kill them by throwing them off the map.

AndrewSX.3794:

New TA path is replacing one of the original 3?

Wow.

Just. Wow.

When finally a small light of hope, the idea that Anet finally started pushing out permanent content over temporary one, finally starting adding stuff to the game…you discover that in order to put permanent content they take away some permanent content?

Just.

Wow.

…The lord giveth and the lord taketh away

Sagittario.8102:

Hahaha! Kinda funny that the entire f/u path in TA is going to be removed tomorrow. =P
It will make Vevina fight not accessible any more. =P

Yes. I am going to come up with something to replace her.

Jeremlloyd.6837:

@Killer, which Champion Orrian Drake do we have to solo? The one after Simin or the one on the way to the Tar Elemental / Abomination?

They’re all the same.

haviz.1340:

Reflections make him very easy. If I were you, I’d remove it.

Ah yes, someone has found the trick.

The 5g champions are ones that should generally be beatable by someone who is above-average and/or dedicated.

The 10g ones required solid, good players.

20g challenges require exceptional players.

God-tier challenges – the name has it all.

Vox Hollow.2736:

More than anything it seems like some decent fight dynamics are getting drowned in a sea of unintuitive confusion by the use of recycled animation and a lack of consistent visual language throughout the dungeon that associates somebody being hit with the consequence of something spawning.

I think this is an issue with most of the dungeons in this game. I can dodge Lupi’s grub consistently, but the act of lifting a hand is not logically connected to the spawning of a grub.

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

If you want to play something challenging, competitive games offer infinitely more challenge than PvE ones.

GW2 has ESPORTS ESPORTS ESPORTS though!

The problem I have with the PvP in Guild Wars 2 is that it’s a tacked-on feature that AREENET is trying to market as the game’s primary focus. The most successful Esports are intrinsically competitive games in that their primary game mode is pvp-based. See: LoL, StarCraft/StarCraft 2, CounterStrike. Guild Wars 2 is not like this.

If you want to play something challenging, competitive games offer infinitely more challenge than PvE ones.

Too bad I’m a filthy american. But if there are any Rangers out there who would like to try this out and see how it performs, I’d be very interested.