Guild Wars 2

Yes, it absolutely should be.
That was how GW1 worked, and what many people (including me) loved about it. You could spend your time in the game doing whatever you liked, whatever you thought fun, without ever having to worry about falling behind other players and feeling obliged to farm content because of that.
Players’ skills and individual builds and tactics were what set the “top” apart from the more relaxed or casual bunch, not numbers on gear and hours of invested time.

From what the developers communicated before release, I though this was going to be the deal I was buying when I pre-ordered GW2, and like all the other “whiners” on here, I am sorely disappointed.
A game with gear progression like this is not a game I want to play. There’s too many of them around already. (Heck, some people even seem to think that that is the way it has to be for a game even being allowed to call itself MMORPG now?!)

Personally I see WvW as my sort of “endgame”, and I hope that in the near future there is going to be a way to easily obtain gear with Ascended stats in WvW, too, because I don’t find it right to be forced to play through lots of PvE grind in order to be able to be on par with my opponents on the battlefield.

Just another disappointed voice here.
I liked GuildWars2 because it promised to be different from the majority of MMOs out there. If I had wanted new gear and new “challenges” in my end game, there would have been plenty of other games out there that offer more of that.
I bought (pre-ordered) this game because based on what the developers communicated, it would be similar to GuildWars1 in many ways, e.g. you can play it on and off, don’t need to keep your gear and progress up-to-date with other people or keep falling behind.
Maybe for hardcore players, collecting their exotic dungeon gear was easy and not a difficult task. For me it is rather tedious and I still don’t even have my first set completed! It makes me really angry to think that all of the effort in getting those pieces was more or less obsolete in the end because now all of a sudden it isn’t going to be the final set you can wear.
Sorry, but there are enough other games with this philosophy out there already, I don’t need or want to waste my time on just another one.

I abandoned one of my favourite mesmer builds because the “Agony! Torment! Pain!” voice from frequently casting Mantra of Pain was driving me (and the person sitting next to me) nuts.

I’m having the same problem. Tried the jumping thing, but it was driving me nuts. ;( So I guess I’ll just wait until this is fixed.

Thanks for all your replies. I fixed my links to tinyURL ones and hope they work now.

Nidwin, I’m quite happy to see that my trait points are only slighty different than yours, so I just need to re-slot things in order to try out your suggestions. Sounds very much like what I had in mind but was unable to produce. That really helped a lot, thanks a million.

Yay, thanks in advance!

Hello fellow mesmers!
I’m wondering if anyone has successfully played a support-heavy, healer-type mesmer build and would like to give me some input.
I’m currently playing a conditions and boon staff build: http://tinyurl.com/c3js92s

I’m quite happy with that in PvP and WvW, but I’d love to have something more “passive” for dungeons, where I prefer playing my super healy guardian: http://tinyurl.com/covz97x

The thing is, mesmer is really my favourite class by looks, lore and everything. But I’m very much a healer type person at heart and would love to be able to play that way without having to wear heavy armor and cast blue spells.

I guess the closest a mesmer can get is by using a mantra build with Inspiration trait X? I’ve been meddling around with that and trying to get something working, but I just haven’t been able to get things right.
Any thoughts and suggestions would be much appreciated!

Whoever did the voice acting for the male sylvari – you did an absolutely awesome job!

I’m a female in real life, but tried out a male sylvari during the beta and was totally hooked when I heard my character talking for the first time, during the introduction video.
I eventually made a female sylvari character too, but I think the guy’s voice acting catches/represents the spirit of the race so much better (at least how I see it). All that quiet mystery and wonder, gentleness, dreamy innocence.. there’s so much feeling in it.
The female voice seems a lot less emotional to me, while my male sylvari actually makes me think “nooo!” when he drops down and sighs that he might not make it. Part of why I love playing that character definitely is the great voice acting, and the way it makes me connect to the game world.

In short: Mister Sylvari Voice Actor, I absolutely adore your work.