Guild Wars 2

Just an example: Engi granades and D/D Ele on cap point… Still explosions left and right and over all just chaos^^ At least that is my impression^^

But I think that still some things could be done for WvW. First the number of billions of icons from certain banners and food buffs are kitten annoying. Why do I care that this dude has increased magic find and karma gain and what not? And tuning down explosions a bit for the sake of a shiny effect above a character to indicate boons like retaliation or stability would be very welcome… by me at least^^

Either way would be fine imo. I don’t like that you have to read on wiki or the forum about certain skills and how they work/don’t work. I personally would love those traits synergizing with each other. If they don’t: fine. But let the players be able to find out without external research or testing it themselves.

EDIT:
I mean it’s relatively easy to find out those traits don’t synergize. However, other traits and trait combinations are harder to figure out in term of limitations that are there, but not in the tool tip.

The philosophy of GW1 – and as far as I remember also GW2 – was to make effects in battle visible. This was very well done in GW1. I remember that after some practice, I had no issue figuring out what the visual effects of a cast or boon indicated.

However, in GW2 this visualization has gone over board, especially in zerg fights. Combo fields and explosions left and right. It lost any meaning. Rarely can you identify a single effect. It was important for the developers, if my memory doesn’t fool me, that you are not supposed to watch health indicators and little signs but can focus on the actual battle (one reason they removed concepts like skill targeting friendly players).

However, lately I have started to be really annoyed with invulnerability skills. Many don’t really have an indication except for a little sign on a bar with way too many sings already and the fact that it says “invul” or dmg “0”. Both of which become increasingly unnoticeable with an increasing number of players involved in the fight.

When a player has chaos armor, an armor that got nerfed into the ground, everyone sees it clearly. The same with an elementalist going into vapor/mist form, Guardian focus block, or even the shield of warriors or the tool kit thingy from engies (at least that works well in small scale fights). You can also easily identify a warrior that rallied himself with his down skills. But that ranger signet, that offers invulnerability, or the warrior stances, that do the same for condition/direct dmg don’t. And especially in WvW, where the icon bar is often full with little signs, I have sometimes issues realizing that I can’t touch that dude atm.

Other players have those issues with confusion and retaliation, especially in zerg fights. I mean figuring out, that you have a certain effect on you, is often not that big of an issue. But the more people are involved in a fight, the trickier it gets. Especially boons like retaliation, protection and stability are hard to see in big fights (unless you check all the opponents icon bars).

I wish there was a clear indicator (that stands out from the other effects, which could anyway be tuned down a notch) for such significant boons/buffs/skills, so that you don’t have to circle through your targets to find out about them and they don’t get lost in the see of icons they have in their icon bar already.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Don’t let the meta define you.

Define the meta instead!

(sorry, had to add it, it was too tempting^^)

Tseikk.9032:

TyPin.9860:

Maybe even all NPCs can get a sort of downed state. Would make camp flipping with smaller groups or solo certainly more interesting.

Sometimes i’m glad ANet doesn’t listen to suggestions.

I am not

Though I like the idea, I do not think it will have much of a consequence, unless players actually care for the dolly. But if they do, it would be a great help for the ones caring.

Maybe even all NPCs can get a sort of downed state. Would make camp flipping with smaller groups or solo certainly more interesting.

Hehe. That is really interesting. I am very different than you. I usually seek out stronger targets. Either I have a build, that is weak against my target or I fight outnumbered. For example I sometimes go hunting thieves with a IP power shatter build. Not impossible to win, but the odds are against me in this case^^ Of course my success is often moderate, as I try to bind as many enemies in one place as possible. Theoretically I prevent them from doing anything else for the time but if that has any impact on the result is hard or even impossible to measure.

If I win against some1, when the odds were in my favor from the very start, I don’t feel satisfied having won the fight. I tend to get into impossible battles. Baiting zergs and 5+ groups to follow me, hoping to be able to separate one or two targets and kill them. But mostly I get rolled by the zerg, if they decide to follow me through half the map. But then they didn’t do anything else either^^

This is but not what I call honorable, if someone wants to come back to this. This kind of fighting is more suicidal and megalomaniac^^

@Fay:
That is actually not the case. Neither my position (the “?” in the title actually has a function^^) , nor the position of “everyone” (as you say it), that responded. I also do not feel ridiculed at all. No idea where you get this from…

There are disagreements on how to interpret this defensive AI reliant fighting style, granted. But where have I claimed my definition of honor to be the only right one? Where did anyone say, that how this guy played was actually honorable? They said it was clever, it was strategic/tactical, it was smart and that I got outmaneuvered. But, unless I missed it, no one said this guy fights honorably. If at all the general idea seems to be that it actually doesn’t matter for it is only a computer game. A position I very well understand and with what I do agree with.

Do not project a position into my words or the words of the responders (whose responses were very diverse in fact). I am not the general QQer and I was actually interested in the ppl’s opinion on this. Even though my expression on this may not have been the best :P

@MandJ:
Actually honor is in most cases a social concept connected with norms and expectations. One can also have personal honor, that might even differ from how their peers define it. But honor is not just honor. It is a bit more complex

Rapid fire in combination with the piercing trait kills you? Hm… what about… well… not using rapid fire then? You hit many targets, potentially laying down much dmg… if your team doesn’t boon strip well… then… well… that’s bad luck then. I don’t see why this needs changing. What would an elementalist say? Don’t they hit like a million targets all the time?

Paraphrasing: “Fortification decay would support PvD play style”

Fair point, that could be a problem. It comes down to the details there. And don’t forget, that the actual reward is coupled with the upgrade level of of the fortification. I came to think it would be a good idea to also couple it with the amount of PPT this fortification created for a server. This means tower/keep flipping would bring almost no reward.

In a scenario, where one server greatly outnumber the other server, it would mean that flipping low tier fortifications would grant almost no reward. While owning many fortifications would cause decay for the server, that keeps owning them (making supply a potentially scarce resource). This on the other hand would give the loosing server the chance to take towers with havoc groups, which have suffered from a decay and their walls are almost down. Those towers/keeps would grant a significant reward, because it had created many PPT for the previous server. How this plays out depends on the speed of decay itself.

In a very balanced matchup it may play out differently. Decay, as I imagine it, works very slowly and starts after some time of ownership. Flipping towers over and over again would be without much reward again. Holding a fortification and defending it on the other hand would offer rewards (tied to a defend event, reward scales with tier of fortification and PPT it has created). Even attacking a well fortified tower and failing would offer a reward (tied to the same event). However, event contribution must be redesigned for this, to prevent players from simply tagging a tower and therefor getting a reward from the triggered event.

So you must see the reward system and the decay system working hand in hand:

• the reward system aims to make high value fortifications (high tier, created many PPT for a server) more valuable in terms of giving the players gold and karma rewards. Flipping of low value fortifications (low tier, was just recently flipped) however would offer just few rewards.
• The decay system aims at making you work to maintain what you have (and plays a a bigger role the more unbalanced a match is). Owning more towers/keeps makes it more expensive to maintain their condition. Making it easier for havoc groups to capture them.

Ideally the supply is never enough. So that one must make decisions. Use it to attack, to upgrade or to simply maintain fortifications.

Maybe you could even say that towers, who were neglected for some time (long time decay), become NPC owned (pirates, bandits). Who make the tower/keep ruin their new base. They then would start looting dollies and such.

It feels good to win 1v1 duels. I had this mentality for like a year after the game was released. It took me a while to understand that the games wasn’t even balanced around 1v1 situations, especially in WvW.

But you are right. If a player enjoys this kind of play style, there is no actual down side except that you are barely able to stop anyone in their path. But that is an issue for Mesmers anyway. But as I have said, I would even recommend this kind of play style to players, who aren’t that dedicated into training their solo play skills. I think that is even the point of this kind of playing. To give the not so skilled players a tool to work with and enjoy the game too.

It becomes funny, when players, who use such play style, challenge you to duels, claiming they were the better players. But hey, there is something for everyone in GW2 I guess :P

Of course I want only support coming to this forum. This is a realistic expectation, isn’t it?^^

The reason why I come back to my actual intention is that some ppl seem to missatribute my words to the build, not the actual play style. That’s all. A simple correction

Why did I fight him several times? Because I like a challenge. But I thought that became self explanatory at this point.

Some ppl seem to miss the point. Again, I don’t attribute the play style to the build. PU builds can be played more offensively and can be used actually to fight. You will see, if you ever meet this guy. It was ridiculous (even compared to the many other PU Mesmers I fought). He wasn’t retreating into safety. He simply stayed at max range and taunting you to attack. While this might be smart, a thing I never disagreed with, I find it a very cheap way of fighting.

Btw. ppl seem to be under the impression I lost to this guy. I did not. We had several fights and I just ended the fights, when I wanted to and ultimately gave up on trying to get him.

Tribio.8531:

TyPin.9860:

This guy was really just running away and let the AI fight for him. That took the Mesmer play to a new level of… well… AI exploitation.

Ever encountered the good old Beastmaster rangers? They do the same: Buff the pet and let it do all the work, meanwhile pew pew away.. ;-)
No exploitation at all, working by design.. And, you have to admit it, his tactic did work..

I already said I don’t mean by exploitation a violation of game rules or smth. in this direction. It was a poor choice of words. I know that AI play was intended by Anet. But that is not the point.

Exciton.8942:

I kinda like the idea of upkeep for a large army. Similar to Warcraft3, larger army will cost you more gold. We can have larger armies here in GW2 cost supply to maintain. Same goes for structures you are holding. This way, it will be more costly for the server with larger population to maintain everything they have.

Yep, that’s the idea behind it

Indoles.1467:

Is it really this dead on the lower ranked servers?

Yep. Just a few play WvW there, so the server ranks low. And because the server ranks low, just a few play WvW. Or maybe the other way around^^

The bad massage is, if you want more WvW action, then you may have no other choice than to actually transfer…

@Synosius.9876:
I don’t think the idea is too complicated. But maybe I didn’t explain it well enough.

The part about the rewards is actually nothing the player has to worry about. The bigger and better the thing you capture or defend, the better the reward. That’s quite easy to understand I think.

The other part is supply. Let’s not hang up on details. Those need testing and balancing anyway. But the main idea is, that fortifications slowly decay. The goal is, that the better populated server, which holds most likely more structures, also needs more supply to keep the structures in tact. Supply may be “broing” (I see that differently), but I believe it would be a good way to keep a balance. I have not been a commander myself though. But teaching ppl that supply has more function than building siege (what is the function 99% of the time, when I run with a zerg) would be a necessity in my proposal.

But as the idea of Svarty.8019 shows, there are other ideas to balance. Balancing through a limited resource, which is spread thinner the more people try to use it and the more fortifications you actually have, would be imho a good way to decrease the gap between servers with different numbers of players.

Yep, and that’s what I did in the end… as I have said^^

@Me Games Ma.8426:
My complaint is not against the PU build. I fought plenty PU mesmers (won and lost), who actually fought and didn’t circle you at max possible range. My complaint was against his way of using the build…

my definition of honor may be weird^^ But that’s why I explained it :P

No feedback? TyPin sad… sniff

Fay.2357:

TyPin.9860:

Well… I find this kind of play style still honorless. Valid as it may be, clever as it may be. It still lets the AI do the main work.

So….if this type of playstyle is honorless, what type of playstyle is honor-full? Standing toe to toe trading autoattacks? I’d recommend you go play a warrior if that’s your sort of thing.

I wonder, which mindset lies behind this warrior comment^^ I think I have to explain more, because I feel ppl project an opinion in my words that actually doesn’t lie behind them.

Firstly GW2 is a game. Main thing is fun and entertainment imho. So when I talk about honor, I am not talking about serious real life Japanese Samurai style honor. And any form of honor is far from mandatory. When I talk about honorable play style, I am talking about skill, tactics and reaction based play style. Where split second decisions matter, where you have to make risk/reward decisions and that actually challenges a player to improve himself.

So no, trading auto attacks is not what I find honorable…

@Simonoly.4352:
It is quite possible that he didn’t wanna fight. The fight occurred west of the SE tower in BL. But he wasn’t running. He was watching me standing in front of the wall and I decided in the moment to engage him. The tower was his server’s. He was not retreating towards the tower. He actually moved away from it. So I am quite confident he was baiting me to continue fighting and suiciding into his clones^^

But it is true. Interrupting doesn’t help much against PU condi unless timed very well. However it is hard to interrupt what you can’t see^^

Well… I find this kind of play style still honorless. Valid as it may be, clever as it may be. It still lets the AI do the main work. I didn’t say he was cheating, I didn’t say it was unfair, I didn’t say nerf it. Of course it is a valid tactic, as is maneuvering so that you outnumber your opponent all the time or leading your opponent into siege fortified traps and such things. I used the word “exploit” in the first post, but I didn’t mean that he violated game rules. It was a bad choice of words.

@Ross:
I really just wanted to share my experience. Maybe you are hold up in a mental stronghold yourself. Because not everyone talking about his experiences and opinions demands changes or judgment. Read my initial post again and rethink what I wrote. You may understand, that I actually don’t take myself seriously.

@Ross Biddle.2367:
-deleted due to stupidity on my part^^-
I don’t think he studied Sun Tzu. His build excels in… well letting the AI do the work while running away. That’s what he did and I thought I can outmaneuver him, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t morally defeated though. I expected such an outcome as likely. I simply decided to share my experience, and what I think of his tactics/fighting style. That’s what a forum is for, is it not? Sharing experiences and opinions.

@Alex.9268:
I didn’t kill myself I almost did, but I didn’t. But that is stated in the first post already.

You missunderstand me. I am not complaining about the condition build itself. I have beaten plenty of condition only users (including PU condie) without a single cleanse with shatter and lockdown builds (cleansing conditions is totally overrated, especially as a Mesmers. Mesmers can easily [painfully easy, I don’t care about conditions any more besides thief condi builds] avoid being hit). I am more questioning the way this guy used the build…

I was thinking a bit more about WvW balance. Being on FSP I don’t have the feeling that fights are massively unbalanced… well at times it is but over all it seems fine there to me. However, I see often threads about unbalanced matches due to player population imbalance. So I was thinking:

Limit supply
What if we let balance follow a limited resource. This resource would be supply. Rethinking how supply is… well supplied might help. Supply would only come from camps (as it is now), but it would be generated much slower. Dollies would transport supply generated in camp. I mean really generated supply. Not just spawn with supply, but spawn and then carry 35 of the previous (for example) 100 supply. Leaving the camp with only 65 left. This is meant to slow down supply production and make supply production vulnerable to roamers. Empty camps wouldn’t be able to transport any supply and either the dolly waits for 35 supply in camp or just walk with the supply that is there (not sure here). This may make roaming play more effective for the over all match outcome and would make dolly defending necessary, if you don’t wanna lose that 35 supply for your server to a singly roamer. On the other hand upgrading supply camps would work without the use of supply (to avoid supply usage conflicts). Tower upgrades still would need supply.

Decay
Another thing that could be introduced is decay. Decay of player armor as well as decay of fortifications. Armor decay would result (after having received a certain number of hits – maybe tracked with a stacking decay icon) in gradual loss of player armor points (marginal, but it would accumulate). A player can then repair the armor by spending his supply with a button next to it on top of the screen or by returning to the spawn.
Fortification decay would in a very slow rate lower wall and gate HP and needs a repair “upgrade”. Players can also manually put supply in the wall/gate to repair it. NPCs also would use up supply (role play wise for food and medicine) and constantly lower supply reserves. More NPCs would lower supply reserves quicker. Siege would also suffer from decay. Siege would have no refresh timer any more, but would also decay and be in need of repair.
The outnumbered buff would prevent player armor decay.

New reward system
I would also tie rewards to supply stealing/destroying/defending as well as upgrade level. This means, capturing/defending a low tier fortification with no supply would give only a marginal reward in terms of karma, money and drop quality/quantity. A fully supplied (at beginning of defending/attacking event, which only ends 5? min after attack actually ended), fully upgraded fortification on the other hand would offer much better rewards for attackers and defenders. Killing dollies with supply would give a reward tied to the amount of supply (players wouldn’t see how much supply a hostile dolly carries). Player kill rewards would not be tied to how much supply they carry for it doesn’t destroy or steal the supply.

Aim of that system
This proposal follows the idea that with more soldiers in a war and better, bigger fortifications the need for supply rises. This would lower a bit the number advantage of a better populated server. Farming an empty server on the other hand with fortifications in a bad condition gives less reward than capturing high tier fortifications and may be a way to answer the population imbalances on low tier servers. I have no dreams of this system fixing everything. But I believe it could lower the gap between certain unbalanced matches. What do you guys think?

Okay… that might sound like a rant… but it’s really not.

I was some days ago in WvW on a power based CI lockdown build. Had my fair share of losses and wins. Then I came across another Mesmer. Judging from his food I could see he was a condition based Mesmer. Well so far so good. “If he is shatter, I can shut him down.”, was my thinking. I engaged him. And the first he did was using torch stealth… “Okay, I thought, most likely PU”. A clone and phantasm popped up. So I dodged a possible shatter, just in case. But there was no shatter. After he reappeared he had a bunch of boons on him (so my PU suspicion was confirmed)… but he also reappeared far – and I mean out of 1200 range far – away. I was like: “really, you gonna play it like that?”. Well this went on for a while, clones and phantasms popped, I could avoid much of the damage and stayed away from any illusion to avoid clone death hits. But I also didn’t manage to interrupt him and put some serious burst on him.

The fight went on for some time. I got him to around 30-40% health without being in too much trouble but he went further and further away and to continue to reach him, I needed to close in on his illusions. I did so… and almost died. Not having any condi cleanse put in much trouble… I managed to get away though and survive with like 50 HP…

We then had several similar engagements. He constantly was running away, not even really attacking himself and do the AI do its thing. In the end I realized, I could have made different choices in the fights… but I decided to let it be.

I had fought plenty of PU condi mesmers before. And they all seemed to fight similarly. But they at least fought. This guy was really just running away and let the AI fight for him. That took the Mesmer play to a new level of… well… AI exploitation. I’m not really sure, what I wanna say here. I was a bit annoyed of the way he fought and suddenly understood all the complaints against PU condi builds, if they are played like that. I guess I just had to let it out… I find this kind of fighting a bit… well honorless. On the other hand, WvW is war… and in war there are no rules and probably also no honor, if that brings you the win…

On the other hand, if my GF gets back into GW2, I would recommend her that build and play style myself. She, not being the most serious and dedicated player, would certainly have much better chances surviving in WvW with it… Well… from this perspective things do look a bit different… bah, whatever, never mind me

I would drop torch and use Staff to get one additional interrupt (sword off hand would also work for nice interrupts). Then I would take Chaos VIII over Chaos IV (so you get might on interrupt) and drop cleanse mantra for mantra of distraction (so you have 2 interrupts more, the condie cleanse is really not needed, especially if you change your heal to mirror images). This way you could have nice might stacking to make celestrial work better… in the end I would drop PU for CI… and you would have a nice condition damage might stacking lockdown build. And if they are not locked down, they will take confusion and torment dmg… it’s a win win for you^^

Yeah, we gonna see, what those infusions do. But maybe they are more PvE related… maybe something like Agony Resistance or connected with the new masteries. So probably nothing to worry about WvW wise.

Thx for the hints.

I tryed yesterday this version (I love traveler though, I hate to walk slowly^^). Was a lot more survivable in 1v1 and 1v2 engagements and due to the might stacking the dmg actually quite good. Although repeatedly trying to daze targets with stability is kinda counter productive. D/D elemetalists seem to be problematic for me.

I think that those lockdown builds require way more adaptive behavior to your opponent, while traditional shatter can better dictate the pace of the battle.

Rly? I threw already so many ascended trinkets away… weapons and armor don’t drop so much (of those I probably had like 2 or 3 drops myself) … but trinkets… I get rly annoyed when they drop these days… You gotta love RNG^^

It seems I am part of the conspiracy. Outrageous^^ Some1 could have told me that sooner, so I’d know what I am part of

@The argument of too expensive:

To get ascended trinkets is actually very easy… I am now throwing most of the ascended drops I get away, cuz… you know, there are tons of them in my inventory and bank already. Also weapons is fairly easy to get. To get a full armor is harder… but with weapons and trinkets the (already small) gap is closed a bit further… so I see no real issues here unless you wanna 1v1 duel all the time…

Let me rephrase that:
I wanna broaden my horizon beyond pure Phantas and pure Shatter builds.

However, there is unranked… because there is this button in the game… that let’s me do… you know… unranked matches. Yes technically there is a ranking too for there is a match making system as far as I know. But no1 sees that ranking… so I am okay with nobody seeing that I am a nub^^

But thanks for the insight though

EDIT:
Also, I am a communist xD …. sorta

Nah, no need for ascended armor. I have ascended trinkets though, but armor wise I am still running exotic. No problems there. In some builds, some of my weapons are ascended, but I don’t feel that it is much of a difference.

In a duel of 2 equally skilled players with equal able builds the armor ascended vs exotic might make a difference. But such conditions apply rarely to WvW.

Helly my fellow Mesmers,

I am lately experimenting with lockdown builds in unranked PvP. Wanna increase my horizon above phantasm AI and shatter builds^^ I used latest this build. I experimented also with some CI builds… and decided to drop the 4 points in illusion in my CS build and put it into chaos for the boony booniness of things^^

However, my main problem is that I do not really know, which role I should fulfill. Is it similar to shatter in means of a roaming build? Or should I more go for team support. Regarding the rotation I am playing this like a shatter mesmer atm. But I feel lockdown excels, when you are not fighting alone. Allowing your team to hit hard, when the enemy can’t do anything…

So I am a bit lost here. I play mainly PvP unranked, when I play PvP, so I really don’t care what applies for for tournements and ranked PvP.

How do you guys play lockdown, what role in a team do you fulfill?

Curunen.8729:

TyPin.9860:

Curunen.8729:

Erm, you can take boon strip – no one holding a magic bullet to your head to take cleansing conflag. I do all the time (need to correct my sig link tbh).

No, you are using torch… so use the appropriate trait or else…

Yes sir!

Is that before or after greatsword training? :P

GS is different. Everyone knows that. GS is awesome by itself, while torch looks ugly, so it needs to be flavored with a tasty torch trait… now go out there and do as I say.

Curunen.8729:

Erm, you can take boon strip – no one holding a magic bullet to your head to take cleansing conflag. I do all the time (need to correct my sig link tbh).

No, you are using torch… so use the appropriate trait or else…

Saturn.6591:

Well yeah, I use phase retreat to run away from people all the time when needed (if I’m using staff). But then I’m usually in combat anyway, so there’s absolutely no harm in spawning a clone at those chasing me to phase retreat forward.

I also sometimes run away, when not in combat. For example I spotted a zerg and quickly wanna reach the tower/keep to defend and disable their siege, when they get there.

I also use the ambient creatures and animals in the area to phase retreat forward even out of combat. Just target one, run past it (or target one behind) and as soon as the range indicator turns red, you can phase retreat forward away from it, when it’s far behind you without spawning a clone. That works for a certain range until it retreats you backwards again. This way you don’t need the 180° turn trick.

EDIT:
As this thief in my party asked once: “How do you teleport all the time? That’s my job^^”

Saturn.6591:

Jurica.1742:

If you mean blink and phase retreat, it can also be done out of combat.

Well yes, but in combat you don’t need to cover the same distances as you need out of combat. Also, Phase Retreat (almost) slows you down out of combat, and surely does not help your traveling speed at all. That’s because travel distance is super-short without a target (doesn’t make up for having to turn 180 degrees twice), and with a target you would get into combat.

Nope, not when u’re far away enough. Sometimes, when I am for instance running as double ranged shatter mesmer in WvW, I use blink and phase retreat (with wild life as target, or some foe, who is following me) to boost my speed. The low cool down of Phase Retreat combined with blink makes it very easy to get away from some1.

seems legit. I guess could work. I prefer this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArdWlsnpMtNqxWNcrNitBdyasCUPkjsySGghB-TJRHwAp3fIZZAAnBABPCAA

It offers less straight forward dmg, but has nice reflects (rangers and engies are often easy picks with this build) and frequent pull from focus.

I use sometimes this shatter build for WvW roaming:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAR8flknpNtlpxRNcrNSrxg6tyqMSGQBlciqB-TlCFwAy3fYpSFAPAgrKBFcEAQqMwpSKaq/kR3wiLCApAMXZE-w

Good survivability due to the additional stealth + condi removal from torch and nice melee shatter damage with The Prestige’s reappearance effects. With the proper weapon swaps after going invisible with torch you can do some pretty amazing melee shatter dmg with GS.

However, don’t expect to catch anyone, who’s running away. I much rather prefer GS/Sw+F with Domination IV (chattered concentration) over IX (Cleansing Conflagration) to be able to CC my targets more and remove protection and stability.

EDIT:
For PvP I guess GS/Sw+T shatter would work too. You are losing the boon stripping from traditional shatter build though. Also melee shatter in PvP is very risky. Double ranged shatter would be safer imho. Well… but I usually also go for GS/Sw+F in PvP. The additional pull is very strong and can screw up anyone’s rotation nicely^^

from rezzing xD

My experience from 3h 4/4/6 CI in WvW:
I suck at it in 1v1… especially against D/D eles… for some reason though, when I fight with allies (3v3, 4v4, 5v5) my performance went through the roof. Everything died so quickly. They couldn’t really do a thing. If I have time to think about what’s happening (e.g. not being focused in a fight^^) even I can do amazing things with this build.

And for some other reason, I exceeded at 1v3 battles. Had a few 1v3 battles, one of them in the enemies upgraded camp… I lost that one, but I managed to fight the camp, a necro, an engie and a guradian. The necro went down even^^ However, after my cool downs were through, I was too^^

In the early days of GW2 I was running a phantasm build in WvW. Thieves often fell victim to it, unless they played smart and actually killed my main auto targeting dmg source: The phantasms.

However, these days I am hunting thieves with power shatter in a mix of assassins and zerker armor and some trinkets with toughness. I am not full glass canon, but almost:

Si Lly shatter – hunting thieves

It is true though, if I make one too many mistakes the thief will kille me. However, if I am on top of my game, thieves usually end up running from me or dying. Shadow refuge usually is no issue, having focus and GS to pull/push them out of SR. Unless I used it already. D/P is fun, when they try to stealth via blinding powder and heart seaker and they fly in a very awkward manner towards me as they try to go invisible^^

Playing shatter mesmer requires experience. And having a shatter mesmer and thief in a 1v1 it can go either way very very fast. And a 10k shatter is not a rare event, even against heavier targets…

However, I am also playing sometimes a condition shatter with some reflection: click me

This build is much fun. It has decend toughness, better in combat mobility than the power shatter with GS and wrecks people usually. S/F is usually to disrupt enemy rotation or chase/pin down target for shatter. Also fun is to fight longbow rangers with this. They usually have no chance^^

Reading throhgh this thread and the contradictory demands makes me wonder, if Anet even has a chance to satisfy. Also it is way harder to create an even semi balanced map for PvP than for PvE. So the demand for as many new WvW maps as new PvE maps already is unrealistic. Especially considering that the PvE player base is bigger than the WvW player base.

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Just a quick show of hands, when you play WvW do you want to

1) Navigate treacherous heights?
2) Have to constantly worry about falling to your death thanks to “traps that blow your foes to the depths below”? *cough*EotM*cough*
3) Fight people?

I want all 3 of them

Menaka.5092:

Defending ain’t boring. Siege wars are boring.

I love siege wars. Especially do I love the way roamers sometimes fight each other over the whole map. This weekend I tracked a thief, who killed me earlier, just by looking at objectives on the map. I found him and got my revenge. In the same time I prevented him from killing more dollies. This is what I do day in and day out in WvW. This is what I enjoy and what helps supply flow into keeps and towers.

Another time a mesmer surprised me. I managed to fend him of and made him run. But he knew where I was going and ambushed me when I absolutely didn’t expect that. I died. I would have most like taken him in a straight on dojo style 1v1. But via strategy and map exploitation he won the upper hand. This is what WvW is for me. All those fights happen outside the main Zerg movements and are part of the siege war.

I understand, that that’s not for everyone. But don’t assume something is generally boring, when just you don’t like it.

I have come to realize that my reaction time actually is kinda pathetic. Recapping the fights I had, I understood that I fight on rotations and timings. It’s almost like a puzzle, where I use certain chains of actions as a package queing them together in a fight.

Also my doges, evades and such follow a rotation or a feel of it being a good point in time to use it. Watching some of the videos I made of myself it sometimes looks as though I have amazing reactions. Although that dodge, shatter, blink or whatever just was due according to the rotation.

How do you fight? Are you reacting, do you do split second decisions or do you just simply, as I, follow your “inner programming” and do your rotations?

Tom Gore.4035:

I really don’t envy the task of those responsible for balance for the classes and all the new toys they’ll get in the x-pac.

And the kitten storm they might receive, when players fidured out the meta and the “new OP thing”.

@Topic:
I’d like to see it work with a new trait line, that replaces another trait line. So that with one spezialization there are technically already 2 specializations: The base setup and the specialization setup^^.

I liked those videos. Only the texts should be a longer time there. It is sometimes impossible to read them in real time (at least for me^^).

johnnymiller.5968:

Yaro.3251:

johnnymiller.5968:

If players are spying for other servers how much success does it lead to in reality?

Funny you have mentioned “success in reality” in computer game forum thread

Haha, yes lol you know where I am coming from.

Hehe, I don’t see the contradiction. Reality not only refers to physical existence. Though, every piece of date is physically stored somewhere and thus is even physically existent. But I digress. As you were^^