Guild Wars 2

I won’t reveal any spoilers here.

That being said, the final encounter in my personal story was horribly anti-climactic, awkward, *dis*engaging and unrewarding.

The fight was “on-rails”, did not really engage the characters, was awkwardly executed and provided lousy rewards.

I am truly disappointed someone(s) at ArenaNet believed this final encounter was worthy of shipping.

Mammoth.1975:

I want to get it pregnant.

Take it behind the bleachers first.

Depends on what you are using him for. The duelist still has higher uptime for Phantasmal Healing, so if you’ve specc’ed for Phantasmal Healing and Illusionary Membrane, you’re going to want to do sword/pistol.

So if you want good damage and high survivability, go sword/pistol.

You forgot to add “make sweet sweet love to that trebuchet” and drop hot love into your opponents’ glory hole. Your opponents will lovingly clump up for you too, so keep pumping your massive loads on them until they cant move anymore… then do it again.

I have one:

Replicant

Tteleport to a target location and become invisible, leaving behind an exact copy of yourself. While invisible, you are rooted and all your abilities and movement are executed by your Replicant. Lasts 10 seconds.

The Sylvari skill “Healing Seed” has extremely high aggro – so much so that it will pull any nearby mobs directly onto it. This renders the skill fairly useless.

Healing Seed should have no aggro radius.

Kimbald.2697:

Since this appears to be a team game, I would like to ask the following:

- apparantly many agree on the fact that a bunker guardian takes 2 to take him down.
For the reason of this not being a 1v1 game I guess.

- so if it’s really a team game, we must assume that guardian has at least 1 helper too.

- so… if those 2 come to kill the guardian, and he has 1 helper.

will the bunker die?

A condition necro can kill a bunker guardian 1v1.
A bunker mesmer can kill a bunker guardian 1v1.

So, yes the bunker will die 1v1.

Let’s keep things in perspective. GW2’s sPvP at launch was undeniably far more balanced than the vast majority of PvP in other MMO’s, and arguably the most balanced. I’m quite happy they’ve hit so close to the mark so soon from launch.

It will be nice to see some kind of PvP manifesto coming out (if that happens), and we should be patient. After all, this game is already quite good off the bat and there’s no subscription fee! :-)

Zyrusticae.7245:

I still fail to see how a situation that necessitates two players in order to counter one player is in any way fair or balanced.

Because it’s not that way. A properly specc’ed conditionmancer will drop a bunker guardian 1v1. It will just may take a very long time, and will definitely give the opposing team enough time to supply reinforcements.

Boggler.7519:

What is the maximum condition duration on Confusion?
Lets whip out the calculator and have a looksy!

Base time is 4 seconds via Cry of Frustration
4 Seconds

and…

+33% longer via Master of Misdirection
5.32 Seconds(4*.33=1.32)

and…

+30% condition duration via Domination
6.916 Seconds(5.32*.30=1.596)

and…

Nightmare Rune Set
+10% condition duration
6.8156 Seconds (6.196*.10=.6196)

and…

Veggie Pizza
+16% condition duration
7.9060906 Seconds (6.8156*.16=1.090496)

If all of the above is correct and the times stack:
7.9060906 is the Longest possible Confusion Duration.

Let me know if I missed something that lengthens condition duration!

You missed that duration increasing talents stack additively and not multiplicatively.

1 + (.33 + .30 + .16 + .10) = 7.56 seconds

Anela.3867:

Thedenofsin.7340:

How did you do this? I tried today, wasn’t working.

Where we were, there were a lot of bots but not all of them were picking up loot, some were just casting/shooting. You have to find the ones that are “interacting” to pick up the loot. When they interact, they use your portal. Then you can move them wherever you want. We were laughing so hard!

I was trying this, dropping my exit portal right over the mob they dropped. It seemed like they looted and simply moved on.

Perhaps different bot technology?

Too bad too, because there were 3 bots running around in Orr by the Pact Rally wapoint just outside that enormous mountain with the Vista. I was trying like heck to get them to click the portal and take a header off the top of the mountain.

How did you do this? I tried today, wasn’t working.

Before:

iWardenCDNew = 0.2*iWardenCDOld

After:

iWardenCDNew = (1-0.2)*iWardenCDOld

Stupid math. lol

teviko.6049:

Your only bypassing walls if the original mesmer was able to get beyond the wall in the first place!

You can’t have a mesmer log off in WvW and ccome back to a taken keep and just open up portal and bring in huge zergs. Somehow, that mesmer got over the wall in the first place, and had to get BACK over again to drop the exit portal.

Can you even do this?

Also the trebuchet transport does wreck the metagame.
Also, they’ll need to address the ‘stealth army’ issue as well.

They’ll probably do something like:
– players cannot use portals while equipped with special items (i.e. repair kits and the like)
– portals vanish if the mesmer is killed
– portals cannot be placed inside enemy keeps

Let me provide some perspective on this by interpreting what Jon was saying regarding the meta game. He was not strictly saying that a pure burst build is intended to counter a bunker build, rather burst damage was the means by which to counter a bunker build. The difference is subtle, but significant.

What he is proposing is a coordinated effort by two players with well-timed burst should be the way to counter a bunker build. In the meta-game there will still not be a build that flat out counters a bunker build, unless they too are bunker-ish.

For example, let’s say a power/condition necromancer + thief take on a bunker guardian. I believe the meta he is looking for is for the necro to put the guardian in a deficit and, with well-timed cc and thief burst they should be able to put the guardian into his death throes.

Currently that situation would put the guardian in a steep deficit but practically kill off the thief in the process, which would give the Guardian the opportunity to kill off the thief and potentially recover.

A more extreme case would be thief/thief vs bunker guardian. The 2x thief team should be able to finish off the guardian, but instead will probably kill themselves.

We’ll have to see what kind of adjustments they have in store. Personally I love Portal. It’s as class-defining as Illusions. IMO.

I run such a build as the one the OP has mentioned, but run with the Dwayna rune set for even more regen and healing. I don’t think there is a way for a straight dps build to beat this 1v1, as I have too many ways to shut down ranged dps and my regen + toughness is too hard to overcome in melee range. In sPvP I’ve managed to fend off as many as 3 people for an extended period of time by stripping boons and tossing players around with “Into the Void”. I’ve taken down Bunker Guardians with this build rather handily due to my continual boon removal.

The best way to beat this kind of build is to focus on taking the point and not beating the Mesmer. Mesmer’s really have no access to stability. Stack moderate healing and knockback + stuns. Knock the mesmer off the node and try to keep him off as much as possible.

OP’s numbers are meaningless. He ran 30+ games with the same players approximately 60%+ of the time. Effectively these are stats for 10 games played, and he includes himself in the stats.

No meaningful conclusions can be drawn from this data, and ArenaNet already has the data for all games played. QED – thread holds no value.

Very good suggestion!

Donate to the PAC

http://qkme.me/3r4yu0

Oh yeah… wow!

Staff and Sword / Focus.

http://tinyurl.com/9stwuar

(Edited to fix “bad link”)

If you see a necro coming, quickly swap blink for Null Field. If you see a ranger or ranged warrior, swap blink for Reflection. This build has gobs of survivability even though it has under 2k hp. You will have regen running nearly constantly ticking for around 300hp, and protection will be up nearly 50% of the time.

The biggest problem I have with this build has been heavy conditon necro’s, which is why I strongly recommend swapping out Null field if you see one coming. Aside from that, 1v1 this build has eaten everything it has come across, even bunker guardians.

The only sore spot for this build (and mesmers) is that it lacks stability, which is really helpful when trying to hold a node. In my opinion it’s essential for any bunker-type build to have some kind of knockback. This means that either the focus or greatsword should be in the build. Since the staff is so good for a positional game and survivability, I went with the focus.

Rhyno.7084:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Rhyno.7084:

Enlighten us – on what occasion do you need to use the scepter over every other weapon, in PVE?

Seriously? Clone generation and range obviously.

Are you one of the people like “zexion” who say stuff along the lines of “Auto attack is low damage, weapon must be garbage.” If so I don’t want to bother. I still can’t believe there are people who are blind to everything except immediate damage.

The hilarious part is when people (zexion) talk about auto attack damage but they don’t even understand how it displays.

Seriously? Range? Greatsword has far better range and is superior at maintaining it. Staff has far better range and is superior at maintaining it.
Clone generation? I suppose if you want to generate a clone that does nothing, then, sure. Staff clones fire Winds of Chaos, which is far better and synergizes well with iWarlock.

Are you one of those people who makes blanket statements and can’t actually support it with a good argument? Yeah…guess you are.

The Greatsword is a 2-handed weapon.
The Staff is a 2-handed weapon.

If you are going to tell me that off hands aren’t worth using, just stop posting and learn the character.

Your “argument” is that scepter clones don’t auto attack for a lot of damage. Are you seriously dropping clones for their auto attacks? I sure hope not. Seriously though sit down and read the Mesmer’s traits and go watch some tutorial videos, save me the time of explaining it all.

You should take a heavy dose of that advice you are doling out. You clearly don’t know what you are talking about, and you failed to comprehend my post on a basic level.

Yes, but with a warrior, you can actually see him charge you with his rush. With a thief, you don’t know you’re being stunlocked by a thief until you’re at least down 25% of your hp. The spike is too large. It is unreasonable.

If you are being stunlocked, you should have enough reaction time to assess the situation. Right now you need to basically pop your stun breaker the moment you are stunned in case a stealthed thief is about to unload on you, and that’s simply silly.

I agree as well. This should be changed.

Arcane Thievery will not steal all the boons from your opponent, nor will it remove all conditions.. This can be tested by having an opponent wear the 6 piece superior runes of lyssa and use their elite skill (Ttis will give them all boons), then using Arcane Thievery. It will not take all their boons, but only some (?4?) of them.

Here is a video showing Arance Thievery failing to remove all conditions:

Edit: Forum stripped the time offset. Skip to 4m 14s. (&t=4m14s)

Fundamentally the problem is a combination of things: abilities like pistol whip/backstab, combined with stealth, combined with haste simply make this build too powerful for your typical hot-join PvP match for any profession that isn’t specced as a bunker build. Glass cannon builds are fine, but this is over the top. The PvP in this game was should have have tactical fights. In order to do so, there needs to some back and forth between the opponents. This requires at least a modest amount of time.

Being blown up from 100%→0% health in 2 seconds without warning is neither tactical, nor fun.

Shukran.4851:

as thief i react fast enough to take only 6-8k damage max by another thief whipping. if i see he is under quickness, i wait for his PW to end then i go to him and i kill him because he can’t do much.
half HP vs a thief dead, i prefer half HP.

This game was not intended to blow people up in 2 seconds – that’s Rift PvP, not GW2 PvP.

Liav.7598:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Shukran.4851:

blind opponent and he will waste initiative.
dodge or breakstun and hw will waste initiative.

do you know how many hp has a cannon glass thief? 14k
do you know how much armor has a cannon glass thief? 1.9-2k
do you know how strong is a thief with no initiative? it is useless.
do you know after haste thief lose all endurance and stop regeneting it?

do you need some more help to learn to fight against thief? ask
can you stop whine? ….

Assume a nominal amount of lag, say 200ms. Assume further the thief is stealthed, so you don’t realize it’s a thief until he’s already attacking, give that another 0.5s. Now you have about 1 second to react before you’re dead.

It doesn’t matter if the thief loses all endurance if the fight is over.

You can attribute that to a character culling issue with the game engine. I get anywhere from 100-200ms pings on other MMOs (Dark Age of Camelot), and this issue is not present. Dark Age of Camelot also has indefinite stealth, until you are engaged in combat, however the character appearing on your screen after leaving stealth is nearly instant.

You can’t nerf classes based on inherent issues with the game engine.

I agree that Pistol Whip is a bit much due to its inherent spammable stun component, and I would definitely have the devs look into some alternatives for that. Especially in combination with Quickness.

I am of the belief that Quickness is a stupid gameplay mechanic altogether, so I went with a Condition build to roll just about any build that relies on Quickness. Pistol Whip is the only spec that gives me trouble, due to the fact that dodging/stun breaks are useless against it.

If you get out of range, they have a spammable immobilize. If you’re in melee range, they have a spammable stun. There aren’t many counters to it unless you’re a bunker build, which is not an option for all classes.

However, let me reiterate: YOU CAN NOT NERF CLASSES BASED ON INHERENT GAME ENGINE ISSUES.

Umm… yes you can. And you do. You see if there is an inherent issue with the game engine (I don’t believe this to be the case), and you cannot remedy it, you balance the game around it.

Shukran.4851:

blind opponent and he will waste initiative.
dodge or breakstun and hw will waste initiative.

do you know how many hp has a cannon glass thief? 14k
do you know how much armor has a cannon glass thief? 1.9-2k
do you know how strong is a thief with no initiative? it is useless.
do you know after haste thief lose all endurance and stop regeneting it?

do you need some more help to learn to fight against thief? ask
can you stop whine? ….

Assume a nominal amount of lag, say 200ms. Assume further the thief is stealthed, so you don’t realize it’s a thief until he’s already attacking, give that another 0.5s. Now you have about 1 second to react before you’re dead.

It doesn’t matter if the thief loses all endurance if the fight is over.

Pistol Whip does an incredible amount of damage. When hastened, they blow up players within 2 seconds, which is simply not enough time to react in a match. Given how frequently thieves can get their haste (every 30?ish seconds), it’s imbalaced in hot-join pvp.

This needs to be appropriately adjusted.

I call bunk. The only way you are getting killed that fast is if you are getting assist trained down and have no escapes or defensive cooldowns available.

Ditto

/15char

I don’t think you’ll see any nerfs to Mesmers until the current bugs are fixed. Then the developers will be in a better place to make appropriate changes to the class.

Phantasms are the secret ingredient in the Ragu sauce of Mesmers.

My bunker spec mesmer eats bunker Guardians for lunch. A slow, slow lunch, but a lunch nonetheless. The part that’s really striking is I will end the fight with near full health still.

Basically Taurgrim’s Legion build, but using OH sword instead of pistol. Pistol, imo, is superior.

Yes or no? Searching didn’t give me an answer.

Thanks in advance!

If you have a pet, put the pet on the mesmer’s phantasms.
Alternatively, if you have a reflect ability, put it up/on the mesmer’s phantasms.

Phantasms are the mesmer’s source of everything. They deal damange, they can proc regen and they can proc protection. If you kill the phantasm, the mesmers are pretty easy to deal with.

Drakos.3510:

I would say, Mesmer -should- be fixed so that all clone-producing skills clear a Ctrl+T targeting off of the player.

I get that it infuriates other players to not always get the Mesmer on the first attack, but that’s our class. If we had non-combat mechanics that straight up nullified other classes core combat mechanics and styles, they would be fixed.

I concur. This core mechanic should work properly. If that means rebalancing by adjusting other mechanics, then so be it.

Happened to me today, it was hilarious. Clone popped out, ran past my target, up a hill, around the corner (I think he stopped for a smoke somewhere too) and started smacking another mob.

Rhyno.7084:

Enlighten us – on what occasion do you need to use the scepter over every other weapon, in PVE?

Seriously? Clone generation and range obviously.

Are you one of the people like “zexion” who say stuff along the lines of “Auto attack is low damage, weapon must be garbage.” If so I don’t want to bother. I still can’t believe there are people who are blind to everything except immediate damage.

The hilarious part is when people (zexion) talk about auto attack damage but they don’t even understand how it displays.

Seriously? Range? Greatsword has far better range and is superior at maintaining it. Staff has far better range and is superior at maintaining it.
Clone generation? I suppose if you want to generate a clone that does nothing, then, sure. Staff clones fire Winds of Chaos, which is far better and synergizes well with iWarlock.

Are you one of those people who makes blanket statements and can’t actually support it with a good argument? Yeah…guess you are.

Rhyno.7084:

The issue is that people don’t know how to use the scepter, it’s pretty embarrassing.

Enlighten us – on what occasion do you need to use the scepter over every other weapon, in PVE?

I think the progression is more akin to:

Short = Sword
Middle = Scepter/Staff
Long = GS

The scepter isn’t awful, and I think it really only needs a couple of tweaks to be useful. As it is right now, I agree the Scepter #1 attack is dreadfully slow, packs very little punch, and the clone has no meaningful attack.

The shatter mechanic is not as bad as people make it out to be. Fundamentally I think the mechanic is weak in its base form and only really useful when traited heavily.

Clones, as the OP points out, are simply too weak in their current form, considering they do no damage and really cannot take any either. I do not think it unreasonable to make a large adjustment to the health pool of clones (not phantasms, mind you) to allow them to sustain a few hits before falling to pieces.

Having clones that die in 1 hit marginalizes the entire shatter mechanic. It’s equivalent to giving the Engineer’s tool belt a large chance to malfunction on equip: it’s not fun.

The other problem I see with the scepter currently is that it falls short of of its big brother, the staff, in terms of damage output and survivability. For a mid-range weapon, I can’t think of a scenario where I’d choose scepter + OH over the staff the way that the scepter is currently configured…. well, at least not in any way that would encourage me to make heavy use of the shatter mechanic. I could see the scepter + pistol working, but only insofar as I’d use Scepter #1 to spawn clone meatshields to protect my iDuelist, and that’s not really much fun either. Maybe this is where the torch is supposed to shine…. ?

Ding ding ding – you hit the nail on the head.

Is it just me, or does that seem a bit excessive/expensive?

Intel i7 2600k / ASUS P8P67 PRO Rev3 / 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3
2 x Radeon HD 6870 Crossfire / 128GB Crucial M4
640GB WD Black / 64-bit Win 7 Home Premium

I dunno – looks like you had no problem plunking down $1200 on a computer to play this game. Can’t see how you’d see spending less than 1% of that on a character slot to be excessive.

I’d really like this as well. A significant part of the learning curve in this game is learning your opponents attacks and associated animations. It is extremely difficult to learn this in the middle of a pvp match.

Here, try this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgAQNAW8alwzqqHUThGZNJhJF9G5nZw8ojWQJF8O3A;TwAA2CnoAzAmAMLYOwkgtwYgxGkJBA

Don’t let the low toughness fool you. If you know how to play a good positional game and stay close to your duelists, you’ll have 100% uptime for regen and protection, which is amazing.

If it works for you, stick with it. On paper, it has some shortcomings:

The major problems I see with this build are:
– low healing
– no condition removal / protection
– 6th Dolyak rune sucks (swap it for something else)
– Sigil of Blood won’t do you much good with a 19% crit chance
– no knockback / denial capability for the node
– the last time I tested Superior Leeching on my sword + pistol it was bugged and the leech proc vanished before I could ever use it.

A conditionmancer would chew through your hp pool in no time flat, and I think a Guardian would win a battle of attrition.

I can confirm the OP that the warden does not move into melee range appropriately. It’s as though the attack range value of the mob is set to a different value than the attack range value of the ability.
We should add this to the bug list.

The PvP players that stopped playing went ….where? Back to WoW? Back to lol-Rift? Back to SWTOR? The good PvP players are still here as this is the best mmo pvp out there currently.