Guild Wars 2

It seems like it should be just the opposite. (Not saying it is).

To me, it seems like an MMO would be the perfect place for cosmetic only gear progression. Remember how ridiculous everyone thought horse armor was an Oblivion, there was no one to show it to. Here everyone can see your armor.

Mammoth.1975:

Who would imagine that people overstate things on this forum?

Going by the screenshot spam being used as ‘evidence’ nowadays, I guess this is conclusive proof that mesmer > ranger. By miles.

I see that as conclusive proof that ANet favors blue.

This thread is sooo last week. Why kick up the argument again?

I suggest updating the blink, inflitrator’s arrow etc, skills so that if the system can’t pathfind you a way there, the cursor isn’t green.

This would have a lot of difficulty, especially on maps where you can blink to some places but not others.

Someone is talking to you in RL and your looking around for places you could blink to get away.

Behellagh.1468:

I’ve been doing the QP and I don’t see where people are claiming to get all this money from. The big bad simply gives me a boat load of greens that are worth nothing, some gear currency, a tube of karma and that’s it. I’m not seeing the vets around them dropping anything other than some T5/T6 mats whose prices have plummeted. Where’s all the “good” loot people are claiming that they are raking in?

It’s like everything else, sometimes you get lucky. I think there’s DR on the QP, so I recommend checking out one of the Champion trains and see if that’s better. Personally, my drops are always terrible no matter what I’m doing.

Asura Guardian (main)
Sylvari Mesmer (second main)
Human Mesmer (tertiary)
The rest: Human Ranger, Asura Engineer, Human Necro, Norn Warrior, Norn Elementalist, Sylvari Ranger

John Smith.4610:

yes

My concern is that people who are bored silly by farming and are unwilling to work for gold will be left out and unable to participate in whatever comes next.

I can see something like each ascended piece of armor requiring 100 gold. That would be terrible.

Check this thread out.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Lazy-Kai-s-Guide-to-PvE-Leveling-Guide-Update/first

For WvW you need to decide on a play style. Some quick terminology, illusions refer to clones (which, generally, do no damage) and phantasms (which attack periodically doing damage).

Shatter builds focus on create illusions and “blow them up” for damage.
Phantasm builds focus on generating phantasms and maximizing their damage.
Generally a phantasm build will avoid shattering, a shatter build will create phantasms, but will generally shatter them after 1 attack.
Condition builds (not advisable for your first build) focus on applying conditions to enemies.

What sounds best to you?

I find that I can do a pretty good job in WvW if I keep a couple of pieces of PVT armor (masque and legs) and a knights staff around. If I’m going to do WvW I just swap those in. (full zerker otherwise)

Great idea, that also ups my condition damage by about 100.

Thanks, skcamow.

I didn’t think sharper images would be worth it because my precision is terrible. If I don’t crit they don’t bleed.

Low condition damage is a concern, that’s (one of) the reasons I wasn’t sure it was viable. I’ll look around for some alternative set ups and see if there’s something that increases Condition without losing too much on healing.

Edit: Thanks for the link (I think — I feel much less original now.)

Lol. Yeah, I’ve been playing a bit of PvP lately, so I’m a little condition clear happy (it stacks like crazy in there). I’ll just play around between those and see what fits best.

(if I just exchange my sword for a wet noodle, maybe I won’t bleed so much)

I’m not sure if you’re a mesmer without blink. But I’ll give it a try.

Thanks for the tips.

Anything in PvE can become easy through repetition. For example, sooner or later everyone can beat Super Mario Brothers.

Ladri, the clock tower, etc. eventually would become trivial with enough time to do it. But keeping the stuff around for only a limited time, they get rid of it before it’s widely considered trivial.

Probably. I also realize that the people doing the emoting are probably not on the forums. It’s just irritating. I didn’t know you could turn off emotes. I’ve never had to think about it before. I’ll do that. Although I still think doing it is a sign of poor sportsmanship, it is really an individual thing and not a server thing.

Regarding TC, the shift in the TC WvW community (along with long queues and life in the zergball) is the reason I left. Right now I think TC is an interesting case, since the server is full, they’ve advanced as far as they will in the rankings, which makes me think you’ll see departures soon. (at least that’s the historical pattern with bandwagon servers) which will hopefully re-balance T2.

Yeah, good times. I forgot how much I enjoyed the close matchups. Hopefully they fix these blowouts soon.

But.. back to this week: When my big brother get’s home he’s going to kick your kitten. (Lord knows I can’t do it.)

Furiousbeard.7602:

TC/FA/…. DB?

Lets fight about it

How long has it been since you’ve had that classic T2 matchup?

Everglow.2185:

TooBz.3065:

Everglow.2185:

I always assume the people who post these things and cry about laughing are the troll thieves/warriors/mesmers/etc who can’t do anything but run away from a fight. Even when you try to fight them 1v1 they just run run run.

The only problem with the emotes is that it shows no sense of sportsmanship.

When you back people up to their spawn and they keep coming giving it their all, despite being outnumbered 3 to 1 you could, idk, show a little class.

I’m providing a link in case the topic is unfamilar to you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportsmanship

And FYI, when I was on TC and we were whipping your kitten on a regular basis, I never laughed at you, not once.

What makes you think I ever do this? We don’t spawn camp. Closest I’ve ever gotten to that is camping north camp because no one will fight us otherwise – but that’s still fighting over an objective like so many people seem to love. I’ll laugh at troll thieves, when I win1v5 2v8 etc, when people hide behind siege while we’re fighting 5v15, or when someone runs from a 1v1+.

But posting some random screenshot of someone laughing at you just tells me that person is a troll.

And speaking of sportsmanship, might want to leave out that whole "whopping our kitten thing, since there aren’t any good pvp’rs left on TC nowadays. The good ones transferred and I’ve not found anyone else to give me a good fight.

I’m not saying anything about you personally. Some people from FA has been spawn camping every night I go on, all the while laughing and cheering. It wouldn’t kill anyone to be decent. I quoted you because I was responding to your comment. Not out of accusation.

My only point about TC is that when I had the upper hand, I didn’t gloat. (And even if there are no good PvPer’s on TC anymore, they still win when you guys are matched up, just like you win when we are matched up.)

I actually don’t mind when you (not you personally but you collectively) spawn camp, I just set a goal to push you back to the keep.

You can only have 1 use one type of kill stacking bonus.

If you have bloodlust and perception only 1 will proc. Probably the mainhand, but I haven’t tested it. If you have a bloodlust on weapon set 1 and perception on weapon set 2 whichever set kills something first will determine which kind of stacking you get. The other sigil will be useless.

For more damage you can use a superior sigil of force.

Hey. I’ve been working on a condition build variation.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgEQNAsdWl4zipHSTgGb9IhJFBH5nekcnPdUKue2B-jkCBIOCi0CgkIBKPqIasFhFRjVrbR1aGYKUAeEBzrYR1A-w

I haven’t had a chance to test it out, but I figured I’d give people a chance to tell me not to waste my time

Everglow.2185:

I always assume the people who post these things and cry about laughing are the troll thieves/warriors/mesmers/etc who can’t do anything but run away from a fight. Even when you try to fight them 1v1 they just run run run.

The only problem with the emotes is that it shows no sense of sportsmanship.

When you back people up to their spawn and they keep coming giving it their all, despite being outnumbered 3 to 1 you could, idk, show a little class.

I’m providing a link in case the topic is unfamilar to you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportsmanship

And FYI, when I was on TC and we were whipping your kitten on a regular basis, I never laughed at you, not once.

Hexxed.8023:

Typical FA laughing when 8 of them kills me solo. You’re so good! Dat 8v1 rofl.

You have to cut them some slack. It’s probably the first time they’ve won against those odds.

Mungrul.9358:

I’m guessing that differs from country to country. Students in the UK are typically just above the poverty line.

I just did a quick search, and you’re right. The 18-34 demographic doesn’t have the market power it use to. When I was in school (horse and buggy days) I guess things were different.

Lokki.1092:

TooBz.3065:

Compare to a guardian (the proclaimed slowest class). The guardian gets 8 seconds of swiftness every 15 seconds with the staff. That’s 7 seconds of normal movement and 8 seconds of swiftness (7*300+8*400=>5300 units / 15 seconds or an average speed of 353 units / second.

So even a guardian is faster than a mesmer.

Note: I was using only a weapon skill. However, blink gives 900 units of movement every 30 seconds, so an additional 30 u/s (provided you are willing to waste it on movement.) However, if we’re wasting utilities, the Guardian as retreat which provides 33% additional uptime of swiftness. So the Guardian will still win.

If you as a mesmer cannot outrun a guardian in combat you are seriously screwing up. I’m sorry but as a guardian myself I can outright say that any class that wants to can just leave combat with us. It is a source of major annoyance for us. Don’t go trivializing our problems with speed because you want to make your class seem slower. Mesmers and guardian are in the same boat when it comes to movement speed. but Guardians don’t have stealth, blinks, clones, and portals. Mesmers are currently one of the hardest classes to catch in combat because of this, even perm swift elementalists and engineers are hard pressed to keep up with a mesmer who wants to get away.

That is the reason you don’t have a perm 25% boost to movement speed. Compare apples to apples man. Elementalists cant disappear or create clones, they have to move faster. Basic stuff here.

Sorry, out of combat movement only. I agree in combat. Mesmers are best in class when it comes to combat movement. I picked a guardian because I main a Guardian and a Mesmer, so I know a little about what I’m saying. And ANet has said that the Gaurdian is suppose to be the slowest.

The Guardian has an easier time keeping up with the pack. In combat, the Guardian plays like the immovable rock, I waltz though the enemy zerg turn around and come back. But he doesn’t have any kind of impressive movement.

The Mesmer blinks, ports, retreats, vanishes, etc. like crazy, but is much weaker and can’t stand up to much fire.

Hell Avenger.7021:

TooBz.3065:

Hell Avenger.7021:

maybe weaken Mesmer combat ability first, then up their running away speed. No? then nope.

My only issue with Mesmer movement is in the quality of life department. Running from LA to Orr kind of stuff.

I think that combat mobility for a mesmer is up there with the best classes. That includes engaging and disengaging (if you take cripples and other things into account).

Quality of life, BUT it cause balance issue. I bet there is some food you can buy to have swiftness right? if there is, just use those for pve

IDK. Frankly, I wouldn’t use the signet if we got one. It’s not worth giving up the utility slot. I always end up the poster boy for positions I don’t support/care about cause I like to argue and tend to interject analysis when people saying things like “you have a focus”.
(not necessarily good or accurate analysis, but something that resembles an early crayon drawing of analysis).

Hell Avenger.7021:

maybe weaken Mesmer combat ability first, then up their running away speed. No? then nope.

My only issue with Mesmer movement is in the quality of life department. Running from LA to Orr kind of stuff.

I think that combat mobility for a mesmer is up there with the best classes. That includes engaging and disengaging (if you take cripples and other things into account).

Except that students tend to be the most free with their disposable income. They don’t, generally, save for the future. What comes in goes out.

Vayne.8563:

The mesmer focus has a speed boost built into it too. How come mesmers never bring that up?

As a mesmer, the speed boost from focus 4, while nice,is not enough to sustain a reasonable movement speed compared to everyone else.

However, in fact, we are all well aware of it. It’s the reason that a focus has been the required off hand weapon for a mesmer.

You get 12 seconds of swiftness (33% increased movement) every 25 seconds. And it doesn’t stack with swiftness from other areas (so it can only initiate and not extend the duration).

Normal movement speed is 300 u/s. So for 12 seconds we move at 400 u/s followed by 13 seconds of 300 u/s movement for a total of (12*400 + 13 *300 => 8700 u in 25 seconds or an average of 348 units/second.

Compare to a 25% movement speed signet. If the person has no access to swiftness they move at 375 units / second.

About 8% faster. And that assumes the person has no access to swiftness.

Compare to a guardian (the proclaimed slowest class). The guardian gets 8 seconds of swiftness every 15 seconds with the staff. That’s 7 seconds of normal movement and 8 seconds of swiftness (7*300+8*400=>5300 units / 15 seconds or an average speed of 353 units / second.

So even a guardian is faster than a mesmer.

Note: I was using only a weapon skill. However, blink gives 900 units of movement every 30 seconds, so an additional 30 u/s (provided you are willing to waste it on movement.) However, if we’re wasting utilities, the Guardian as retreat which provides 33% additional uptime of swiftness. So the Guardian will still win.

Astralporing.1957:

TooBz.3065:

I also agree, for once, I think there’s really no other way to add a low power curve vertical progression to the game. Without time gating, the “locusts” as Lanfear calls them would get their ascended whatever and start crying for more.

They will be crying anyway, just a bit later. And when they’ll start crying, Anet will have to cave in again, and introduce one more tier. Again timegaded. Eventually it will slow down everyone else so much, that they will be years behind anyway. Only, then it will be too late to do something about it.

Yeah, maybe. That’s my fear also.

I hope that ANet was buying time to get the Living Story off the ground. Once the living story gets going, the constant influx of new content will hopefully be enough to keep the locusts calm.

If it’s not, then, yes, ANet will have to decide what kind of game they want to be and who they want to appeal to. I don’t think they can take another step and still be straddling the line.

IMO, depending on how they do ascended weapons and armor, it may be too late when that stuff launches.

I don’t remember if I said this before, but I asked on another forum and many people have multiple sets of armor and weapons. I think most people had about 3-4 complete sets (for a single character). If the armor and weapons are too slow / expensive to acquire, I think we may see a huge backlash.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Hammerguard.9834:

“We’re making it easier to earn World XP points for playing normally in World vs. World by increasing the WXP rate across the board! As an added bonus, we’re adjusting World vs. World Ability Points so that your total points are equal to your current rank. New characters will start off with one ability point, and all existing characters will receive one more!”

I guess this means that WvW ranks will never be account bound like they should…

I don’t WANT them account bound, I would like to have different characters with different “functions”. Supply runner / repairer / builder as opposed to someone built to get in there and fight. As opposed to someone who is meant purely for making siege more useful/dangerous . . .

The functions are defined by how you spend the points you earn. Not how many points you have.

They could have made it so that each character gets a number of points to spend based on the WvW total of your account. Just sayin’

Soronthar.7236:

Fortus.6175:

Most people dont realize this, but getting gold only make things worse, you are pumping out gold into the system, raising its value without actually adding any items which could sink that gold, ending up with precursors which are worth 600 gold, only attainable if you farm CoF a thousnd times, which creates a vicious cycle.

Precursor are at 600gp because there is no incentive to make them cheaper, and are thus not influenced by offer and demand:
* There is no cost associated with keeping it forever stashed in the TP.
* If the seller has enough gold to pay for the transaction fee of asking 600gp, probably he doesn’t mind if the precursor sell or not. Had she want a fast sell she would have sell it so any buy order or by a lesser price.

Those priced way below 600gp for a quick sell are sold so fast that we never get to see them.

You cannot measure inflation by luxury items like precursor or dyes, or scarce items like high tier materials. In this game you must measure inflation observing commonly traded items (copper, silver, wood, etc) as they are more affected by offer and demand.

People say this to discount the importance of the price of luxury goods in the game. I don’t think that’s valid. In the real world, most of us are normal people with normal jobs who make normal incomes. We accept that most of us won’t ever own the cars shown on Top Gear, live in mansions, have manservants, etc…

An MMO is different in two ways. First, we are suppose to be the “hero”. And second, we can opt-out.

The hero is suppose to find the unique weapon, pull the sword from the stone, overcome all obstacles, etc… (As an aside, this is why people get kitten ed off that “rare” drops are rare.) For people playing the game, these “luxury” items are the goal. As the “luxury items” get more expensive the “goal” gets further and further away and that’s important.

If the goal stays out of reach, frustration sets in, and people engage in the second difference, we can opt-out. We don’t have to play. There are other games out there that are fun and engaging and that don’t keep pushing the final goal out of reach. You pay money, get to be the hero, have better gameplay, and in the end you win.

Finally, another difference between a virtual economy and a real life economy is that in the virtual economy there is no need for the “commonly traded items” beyond a point. I haven’t used copper / iron / silver / gold / platinum / jute / etc… in months. So there’s a pooling effect where as people hit level 80, more and more of there income is spent chasing “luxury goods” and practically none of their money is spend on “commonly traded items”.

I won’t call it inflation, because it’s not. But I think it’s a big fallacy to pretend that normal economic theory can be applied full stop to a virtual economy of an MMO. Or that a high price of luxury goods isn’t a problem.

Vol.5241:

TooBz.3065:

For me, the main issue is what do you do with people who don’t want to farm?

Hypothetically, suppose I have absolutely no interest in killing champions. That I don’t want to run around and hit 1 with my ranged weapon for hours.

Instead, I want to play WvW or do jumping puzzles or complete dynamic events or explore the map or level an alt. Am I to be left behind? Doomed to walk Tyria a poor man because I won’t spend my time in some mindless time sink?

You are left behind if you don’t want to dedicate the time and resources to get the items that farmers want.

Under the current system, absolutely. I will never have as much money, or the skins, or anything else as those who are willing to throw their time away. I know you play the TP, I won’t do that either. I will not, under any circumstances, allow this (or any other) game to bore me.

For me, the main issue is what do you do with people who don’t want to farm?

Hypothetically, suppose I have absolutely no interest in killing champions. That I don’t want to run around and hit 1 with my ranged weapon for hours.

Instead, I want to play WvW or do jumping puzzles or complete dynamic events or explore the map or level an alt. Am I to be left behind? Doomed to walk Tyria a poor man because I won’t spend my time in some mindless time sink?

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

TooBz.3065:

Edit: in general, my advice to devs has always been, if you want me to do something, make it fun. I do fun things. Rewarding me for doing something dull isn’t a good long term solution.

the thing is, there are many things I consider fun and those aren’t rewarding at all… I doubt that many players would continue doing that fun stuff long, when there is no outcome. Best example: I love hidden secrets, so I enjoy exploring the world. Probem is: I rarely find something valuable out there. Hidden underwater-caves with a veteran inside, and nothing else? wtf?

Right. But if there were occasionally chests or a cool skin or better loot drops from the veteran you’d explore for a long time. That’s what I mean, reward things that people already enjoy and they will love the game more.

Reward boring and tedious tasks and people will stick around because they’re stuck in a rut. But once they leave, they’ll never come back.

Guild wars 2 is my first MMO and, honestly, unless things change, will most likely be my last.

There are a lot of things about the genre and I don’t really like. So far, Guild Wars 2 is a good enough game that I keep playing in spite of those things. But I can’t see ever starting another.

ASaturnus.4980:

TooBz.3065:

Now that ascended gear is out they feel “incomplete.” They don’t have BIS gear anymore. When ascended weapons and armor comes out they will feel even more incomplete.

Although I have alts for different reasons than you (or so it seems), I can understand that. It’s a nice feeling to have a character ‘complete’. But I also played other MMOs before. Actually I still play Rift and I know that my chars in Rift will never have BiS gear, they will never be complete because I’m not in a progress raid guild and content is added faster than I can complete it. So I know how it is not to be able to ‘complete’ a character and still be satisfied. However, in GW2 I know that eventually my chars will be complete.

This is my first MMO, so I think I don’t have the context that a lot of other people bring to the experience. I had an “if you like the game play it multiple times” attitude. For example, I played through Mass Effect 2 like 4 times with different classes for each run (each class was different and made the experience fun again).

I like GuildWars so I was replicating that experience even though MMO’s aren’t like that. My friend, who plays a lot of MMOs didn’t create alts, but I didn’t understand why. At first this game seemed very friendly. I ran through with my Ranger, then a thief, then a mesmer.

Since then (and 5 alts later) the game has become less and less alt friendly. I wish I had better understood the nature of MMOs and the direction the ArenaNet was going.

@Galen Grey

Don’t know. It’s just a feeling. Oddly enough, I’m less happy with the characters I don’t play who don’t have ascended trinkets than I am with the Guardian I do play but who I chose to keep with with exotic rings because of the stat flexibility with Gems.

I am not consistent or rational about this.

Galen Grey.4709:

TooBz.3065:

Galen Grey.4709:

darkace.8925:

TooBz.3065:

I also agree, for once, I think there’s really no other way to add a low power curve vertical progression to the game. Without time gating, the “locusts” as Lanfear calls them would get their ascended whatever and start crying for more.

This way, people who favor gear progression have to slowly gear up. This has much less effect on the rest of us.

There are things I hate about time gating, but I understand the need, even if I’m sometimes frustrated by side-effects.

As someone with multiple characters, I couldn’t disagree more. The time-gating of gear makes it a huge drag to upgrade more than one character. And why is this necessary? So those who would otherwise be bored have a reason to log in every day? Is the kind of player who devours content at a breakneck speed then cries that there’s nothing to do really the kind of player ArenaNet wants to spend time worrying about?

Its a balance. Yes the reason for what you’re calling a huge drag is so people who want goals and a reason to play which isnt satisfied by cosmetics have something to do.

For people like you and me with Alts ArenaNet made it so that gear isnt necessary to enjoy any part of the game.

Unless, of course, you have a goal to “finish” a character before you more one. Then suddenly your complete character is again incomplete.

sorry, I didnt understand what you mean, could you rephrase please?

Sure. You said it isn’t necessary to enjoy any part of the game. But, of course, enjoyment is subjective. Before ascended gear was introduced I had three alts. They were all level 80 and fully decked out in exotics. I “enjoyed” the fact that they were “complete” – fully geared, really nothing left to do with them.

Now that ascended gear is out they feel “incomplete.” They don’t have BIS gear anymore. When ascended weapons and armor comes out they will feel even more incomplete.

I am not going to “complete” them. If it weren’t for crafting I would delete them. It bothers me that they are half-finished.

Frankly, I wish I had never created my first alt.

Edit: I’m actually serious about that. Right now they seem like a huge money sink. It I hadn’t created leveled and geared them out I’d be sitting on a lot more gold right now.

Ouroboros.5076:

Chase.8415:

Looks like I am going to go from 20 frames in PvE to 5 thanks to this new feature.

Stop playing this game on a toaster maybe ?

My laptop wishes it was a toaster.

I just hope the speech is instanced and not like the Quaggan magic show. I hate wasting time standing around.

IDK if the devs are on the right track (except that they seem to recognize that something needs to change.). Fighting champions and world bosses bore me to tears, I’m fine if other people like it and I’m not suggesting that the changes aren’t good for people who do.

But I would much rather seen the quality of drops increased across the board rather than in a few isolated places.

Edit: in general, my advice to devs has always been, if you want me to do something, make it fun. I do fun things. Rewarding me for doing something dull isn’t a good long term solution.

My mains are a guardian and a mesmer, if I were you I would give it to my guardian. The mesmer doesn’t do a lot of great flourishes or anything to really show off sunrise.

Galen Grey.4709:

darkace.8925:

TooBz.3065:

I also agree, for once, I think there’s really no other way to add a low power curve vertical progression to the game. Without time gating, the “locusts” as Lanfear calls them would get their ascended whatever and start crying for more.

This way, people who favor gear progression have to slowly gear up. This has much less effect on the rest of us.

There are things I hate about time gating, but I understand the need, even if I’m sometimes frustrated by side-effects.

As someone with multiple characters, I couldn’t disagree more. The time-gating of gear makes it a huge drag to upgrade more than one character. And why is this necessary? So those who would otherwise be bored have a reason to log in every day? Is the kind of player who devours content at a breakneck speed then cries that there’s nothing to do really the kind of player ArenaNet wants to spend time worrying about?

Its a balance. Yes the reason for what you’re calling a huge drag is so people who want goals and a reason to play which isnt satisfied by cosmetics have something to do.

For people like you and me with Alts ArenaNet made it so that gear isnt necessary to enjoy any part of the game.

Unless, of course, you have a goal to “finish” a character before you more one. Then suddenly your complete character is again incomplete.

Inspired by keenlam what if the iMage cast a flame burst (Elementalist Fire Staff #3)?

Helios.3598:

TooBz.3065:

Well, the gear can stay the same, because it’s basically as little defense as I feel like I can get away with.

Look at this
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-N;4VPV11P73V-71;9;4J;0OO29;537-29-LJFA;2k06Rk06Ri-FvcF35;2V1-60B1G2LZR_9308-2iV8-N1;3c;09;9;9;9;9;9;06K

and

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-N;4VPV11P73V-71;9;4J;0OO29;537-29-LJFA;2k06Rk06Ri-FvcF35;2V1-60B1G2LZR_9308-2iV8-N1;3c;09;9;9;9;9;9;06K

for traits (or wait for other advice.)

25 points in Illusions just to get IC is expensive. If you wanted to retain damage and put those points to more effective use then dump them into Dueling. Perhaps take Phantasmal Fury and Blade Training.

I’m not saying this is the best build, I’m a shatter mesmer, so I may be too focused on Illusions but it’s not “just to get IC”.

Compounding Power gives 3% more damage / illusion, Phantasm builds tend to not shatter so that’s going to be an additional 9% more often than not.

And Phantasmal haste which makes phantasm attack more frequently.

Admittedly, the minor traits in Illusions are not helpful. And the condition / shatter recharge isn’t great either. But it’s not as bad as you make it sound.

Well, the gear can stay the same, because it’s basically as little defense as I feel like I can get away with.

Look at this
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-N;4VPV11P73V-71;9;4J;0OO29;537-29-LJFA;2k06Rk06Ri-FvcF35;2V1-60B1G2LZR_9308-2iV8-N1;3c;09;9;9;9;9;9;06K

and

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-N;4VPV11P73V-71;9;4J;0OO29;537-29-LJFA;2k06Rk06Ri-FvcF35;2V1-60B1G2LZR_9308-2iV8-N1;3c;09;9;9;9;9;9;06K

for traits (or wait for other advice.)

crestpiemangler.7631:

This post comes a bit late after 500+ hours of play, but what is up?

People are so impatient now that the last CoFp1 I ran, I came exactly 1 minute late due to a slow HD from changing a couple zones (I even watched the clock), to find people having already gotten the first champion to half health.

This pervasive impatience has gotten so ridiculous that it more than often gets people killed, since they either unintentionally aggro things in their haste, or fall off platforms, or let the myriad things they’ve aggroed place enough AoEs to wipe the team.

If it’s your first time running anything and you somehow die on the way, you are kittened: people won’t go back to res you, or even start from the last WP to help out, not even if the next WP is past two legendary bosses.

Impatience when people start ignoring tactics for the second time, or going AFK for 10+ minutes at a time is understandable. What you encounter here during your run-of-the-mill CoF run, however, is just kittened.

I only sign up for gw2lfg if I’m already in the zone and ready to go.

It’s boring to wait. You’ve already waited to find a group and them someone sitting the LA makes you wait as they finish their TP trading, update their gear, and meander over to Fireheart.

Not saying you were doing this. But I’ve had it happen to me more than once.

But once we’re in dungeon, I’ve never seen anyone fail to res anyone (except from full down.)

Also, if it’s your first time, find a friendly group and let them know. I will take the time to explain everything about a dungeon path as we go to help new people learn. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Do you want to shatter or use phantasms? I use a shatter build

For WvW, something like this works for me.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-N;4VPV11y6cW-71;9;4JJ;0T09-39;525ASNF6;2k06Rk06Ri-FzcGJ5;2VD-60B1GYTZR_93WA-2iV8;6c;09;9;9;9;9;9;06k

Which is swapped out in PvE to this

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-N;4VPV11z63V-71;9;4JJ;0T09-39;525ALJFA;2k06Rk06Ri-FvcF35;2V1-60B1G2LZR_9308-2iV8-N1;3c;09;9;9;9;9;9;06F

Also watch this video for tips.

http://sittingonacouch.com/l2play-with-shawn-buell-ep-3-gw2-mesmer-with-supcutie/

MORE PWR. I NEEDZ IT. LOOTZ. PROGRESSION. RAIDZ. STUFFZ TO DOOOO!

Ahem. no. I hate ascended gear. Anything would be better.

Edit: So far, ascended gear has more stats, but you lose flexibility.