Guild Wars 2

George Steel.1804:

Please tell me how overcharge shot will knock you down even if you have stability, and will fail to knock your enemy down if they have stability.

Easy: It doesn’t. I’ve shot that thing plenty of times under stability and I haven’t been tossed back once.

And annoying as the self-cc is, I’ve never actually found myself in danger for using it, and it’s an auto-cure for all movement-impeding conditions—which can really hurt on an Engi.

Jump Shot’s animation could be a little smoother, and it’s currently snagged by Rifled Barrels I think (I don’t have that so I don’t get the hitch), but it’s still a very strong and versatile skill, effective as either a gap-closer or gap-creator, steering yourself out of the enemy’s frontline, and kicking someone pretty violently in the teeth. And it stacks vuln.

I also don’t think max range = most effective range—rifle is a very mobile weapon, it’s well built for moving in on an enemy so that you can use it close up—and then you can lock them down away from you, and continue firing them while they may need to get back into range to hit you. Hip Shot and Net Shot have such long ranges so that the gaps you create aren’t actually a handicap (because Overcharged Shot still knocks the enemy away even if it doesn’t kick you down), because you can continue to fire at them and lock down an enemy.

I don’t understand the envy for the Warrior’s rifle, beyond people just wanting more damage, because it’s so bland—it keeps an enemy at range and shoots them. That’s it. That’s all it does. kitten, that’s still what our rifle can do. Ours can also do so much more and has excellent synergy with itself to do it, and makes for excellent control to allow us to get the range we desire for whatever kits we’re using as well—because you can lock a target at range too if you want, and your grenade kit might appreciate that.

Do you mean PvE? At the moment there’s no way to adjust the culling in PvE because it’s still mostly server side (in contrast to WvW which recently gave more of the load to player systems, so you can toggle culling options), so whatever the server can handle is what you get.

Personally, I don’t have the time nor make the money in-game that I could keep up with the ever-climbing price of the precursor I need (the Legend), so I’m just going to throw occasional bouts of Exotic staffs into the forge and hope for the best, because RNG is the only real chance I have for it as is.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

athuria.2751:

B) So compare GW1 Prophecy’s diversity when it came out to GW2 as it came out, don’t try and draw comparisons between them when one gets an extra few years of development the other one hasn’t had, that is the part that’s inequal.

This is an analogy I haven’t really understood. It would make sense if Guild Wars 2 was built by a completely different team or, really, was a completely different game. But Guild Wars 2 builds on Guild Wars 1, so part of the development time should apply to the ideas and refinement that was made in Guild Wars 1; it’s not a completely fresh start.

Obviously you have to give some measure of development “grace” (as it were) when a new iteration comes out. But to say that we can only compare the beginning of GW1 to the beginning of GW2 seems to leave out all the development that GW2 ostensibly built on.

I’m saying compare them both in their base iterations for quantity, because learning lessons through your development =/= you can pump out the same amount of content in half the time as you did before, even if that content takes a significant step in another direction where the mechanics aren’t the same. Being able to take the time it took to make Prophecies (idk if we have a timeframe for this like GW2 but ~3-5 years is pretty average for a game like that) + the 3-4 years expanding past it to create over 1000 skills does not mean you will be able to churn out over 1000 skills in the beginning of what is largely a new game that has had a lot of time and resources spent developing other things like the art, event system, storyline, maps, etc.

Hell, even the skill system between the two is totally different—GW1’s freeform mechanic against GW2’s weapon sets, which need some base synergy within themselves so that they’re actually strong and useless and not a sloppy hodgepodge of unrelated ideas. And a lot of GW1 skills/playstyles (the way a Mesmer shut things down) were cut out for not fitting into this new style of play, so the pool of existing skills (which they did draw from, and made up new skills alongside it) is more limited than that.

To be honest you can still run a pseudo-shutdown build in the form of control builds, they’re just not very popular because control is so inconsistent in PvE and sees limited use in large-scale combat in WvW. I think it has more of a place in PvP (1v1, kicking people off points), but it’s also more intensive to play managing a very mobile target/having to be familiar with using a largely variety of control types (including conditions such as blind) and what player skills look like to disrupt since you can’t just watch the UI.

clay.7849:

athuria.2751:

And it’s of disingenuous, then, to compare GW1’s skill-diversity after years of expanded material and GW2 before its first expansion has even happened. Of course it has less customization than GW1—it hasn’t had the time to build up as many weapon sets, utilities, elites, etc.

This is not true because prophecies was the first campaign, and had WAY more build diversity then GW2 does now. So… what now?

A) I did say skill-diversity there, which isn’t exactly the same as build-diversity and I’d say there’s a strong schism between the two in GW2 than there was in 1 where builds were entirely around your skillbar.

B) So compare GW1 Prophecy’s diversity when it came out to GW2 as it came out, don’t try and draw comparisons between them when one gets an extra few years of development the other one hasn’t had, that is the part that’s inequal.

C) Which, yes, GW1 still had more skills coming out than GW2, but that’s because GW1 was based around skill-diversity because… that’s really all your build was. GW2 is a much broad base in build-diversity, where traits have a very strong presence in combat and are part of your customization, rather than just which utilities you toggle on for which fight. There’s also that we have access to more skills at once than GW1, so picking-and-choosing isn’t as significant an issue as it is learning to play all these skills off each other/being aware what every skill you have can do so you know what is good for which fights. Kind of like special enemy weaknesses/strengths did in GW1, where you had to change your skillset around sometimes to counter a specific group of foes (which GW2 has at a smaller degree, you just get to toggle them on in the middle of the field/dungeon instead of having to run back to town).

Guns and Giblets.9308:

CakeGuy.4735:

one should consider if the game is truly balanced or not.

People keep talking about balance, but that is not what this thread was about. It was about customization—the amount of skill options a player has, build diversity.

I don’t think anyone here is arguing that GW1 had fantastic balance. The issue is not how the system was implemented, but what the system consisted of. It had a great deal of variety. Even if some are going to argue that this variety was largely (or completely?) an illusion and/or poorly implemented, people like the idea of having a lot of options and a lot of choices and some (many?) players enjoyed working through the variety to grow and build their character.

At the end of the day, balance is irrelevant to the discussion because all that’s being said is that some players desire more customization. That GW1 produced customization at the expense of balance doesn’t mean we should be satisfied with GW2, which has produced balance at the expense of customization.

GW2 is more build-based and your customization is through your traiting, not your skillbar, and that you technically have much more free-form customization between fights because you can toggle in and out your weapons, utilities, elites, heals, and major traits at no expense (or need to go somewhere like a town) as long as you’re not in combat.

Not that there isn’t a disbalance between skills for viable builds/the necessity of CD reduction traits doesn’t limit you, but at least the first can be fixed (and Anet is trying to fix) to increase the breadth of customization, and the latter… I doubt if a change well be seen, I personally would have kept skill CDs lower and nixed reductions out of traits completely so it’s not such a problem for keeping up with the fast pace on combat.

And it’s of disingenuous, then, to compare GW1’s skill-diversity after years of expanded material and GW2 before its first expansion has even happened. Of course it has less customization than GW1—it hasn’t had the time to build up as many weapon sets, utilities, elites, etc. Your format is a little more locked but I honestly don’t think that spells the be all, end all of customization because each section can still be expanded upon to have more internal choice. Most classes at 5-6 different weapon sets to combine for two weapons sets (sans Ele and Engi, and Engi has even less weapon choice,) looks limiting when each weapon has a set skillbar, especially because not all weapons are of equal viability, but if we were looking at more like 9-10 weapons that could be combined into two sets, of weapons that are actually equally strong, would it really feel the same?

SirDrygan.1823:

athuria.2751:

Telling Anet to stop “wasting resources and time” and citing a project that was done entirely in someone’s spare time for it is, yes, dictating what people should be doing with themselves and is extremely entitled of you to say.

How are we defining relevance? Relation to the Living Story? That’s a new thing, what was relevant before? How do we define the relevance of the other holiday events? Relation to the Personal story? That’s pre-every GW2 event that has happened since. Relevance to the people working on it? It’s a holiday event, it’s totally relevant for the holiday people to work on it (in fact, they have been added to the Living Story team now, so they’re even going to get to add new content to the world outside of events like SAB! Aren’t you excited).

I am failing to see how SAB, something that actually used Anet resources, is “irrelevant”, except maybe irrelevant just because you don’t like it.

Wintersday and The Mad King are all lores in the world of Tyria right?

SAB is?

Yes, technically—it was designed less obtrusively, probably because it does stretch the “Asura Magitech” idea (and because it’s April Fools) and because there have already been complaints about how it breaks the ambiance, but the idea is that this is a thing that an Asura created and exists in the world of Tyria. There’s even ambient dialogue added in (such as the Consortium guy trying to get Moto to sell it) that addresses it as a thing that actually exists there, rather than every other NPC just ignoring it completely.

Telling Anet to stop “wasting resources and time” and citing a project that was done entirely in someone’s spare time for it is, yes, dictating what people should be doing with themselves and is extremely entitled of you to say.

How are we defining relevance? Relation to the Living Story? That’s a new thing, what was relevant before? How do we define the relevance of the other holiday events? Relation to the Personal story? That’s pre-every GW2 event that has happened since. Relevance to the people working on it? It’s a holiday event, it’s totally relevant for the holiday people to work on it (in fact, they have been added to the Living Story team now, so they’re even going to get to add new content to the world outside of events like SAB! Aren’t you excited).

I am failing to see how SAB, something that actually used Anet resources, is “irrelevant”, except maybe irrelevant just because you don’t like it.

Space Cow.2431:

GW1:

-7 of 1026 normal skills (roughly 125 per profession, everyone has 2 professions, second profession can be changed. 81 skills are common across all professions).
-1 of 293 elite skills (you can choose to drop an elite for a normal skill instead)
-200 attribute points (to distribute across 1 primary attribute and 8 of 36 secondary attributes)

But how many of these were added in expansions? I’m getting about half that just counting Core (which idk how many core skills were added later) and Prophecies skills, across 6 professions, which would be what was available when GW1 first came out.

You can’t compare the number of skills in a game expanded on for years to a game that hasn’t even hit their first expansion and it’s 8 months in. That’s not a fair assessment.

GW1 was a more skill-combination based, GW2 is more build based. GW1 locked you into your skills unless you were in a town because the synergy of those skills were important. GW2 lets you change everything but where you spent your trait point out of combat on a whim, because it’s based around the underlying structure built with your trait points. You’re also allowed two weapon sets in combat unless you’re an Engi or an Ele, who instead get kits and attunments/conjur weapons (which, if you want to see “limited weapons” try Engi, we have four: a two-hand, main-hand, and two off-hands).

They’re honestly very different combat systems—it’s not just a matter of “GW1/2 did it better” because they don’t have enough overlap, I don’t think, you make an objective assessment on that. Because part of it will be just how individual players grasp it, and where they’re preferences lie.

Someone mentioned above they found the traits unintuitive—I honestly had no problems diving right into that, and getting into habit of toggling major traits as I do/don’t need them for different situations. I know a lot of people really liked the dual-profession system in GW1, but for me that was highly unintuitive—try as I might I just specialized in one profession or another because I felt either I was locked into only a few attribute lines in each profession or felt far too split and under-performing trying to split myself across 6-8 lines total.

clay.7849:

Where’s the bull’s strike? Where’s the frenzy that gave you 33% faster attack but traded with taking double damage? Where’s deep wound?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Frenzy_%28warrior_skill%29 <—- You’re looking for this? The numbers aren’t the same but it’s the very same effect.

Deep Wound has the healing ineffectiveness through poison. I can see where they didn’t add the axe to the health pool, because HP in this game has so much variance by profession/vitality points.

Aegis still exists too, it’s just a 100% block. Healing class getting axed = lots of healing mechanics get axed, but healing is not the be all, end all of mechanic depth.

I do miss hexes, but Mesmers do still have a lot of ways to punish enemy behavior and force a split of attention kitten if you, kitten if you don’t situation. The Immortal build is a really good example of this. Other parts of hexes (like health degen) do exist in conditions, too.

GW2 has a lot of interesting if/then mechanics and extra utility for doing certain things, but they’re mechanics that come from traiting, or they’re types of skills specific to classes that are designed more strongly around “utility”. Classes in GW2 are not built with equal difficulty or complexity of play, which I’m sure Anet did on purpose so that people who like different levels of play can find a class they like.

(A lot of classes have build options well beyond “sit and dps” too, it’s just a matter of getting people to actually play those builds.)

clay.7849:

GW2 isn’t nearly as ambitious as GW1 was. That game actually tried to break the mold, and did quite successfully.

Sure did. By not being an MMO.

There are probably a lot of ways you can compare GW1 and GW2, but how they “break the mold” of the MMO market isn’t one of them. GW2 is trying to be different by turning some core ideas of the MMO market around while still maintaining what it is to be an MMO. GW1 was different by being a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

To say Anet is not being ambitious is, I think, disingenuous. But their ambition is different than what it was in GW1, and different than what they’ve done before, and it’s going to take a lot of trying and failing as they really feel out where they want their game to go.

You do not wake up and say “I’m going to do something different, different than everyone before!” and churn out this glowing unique piece of work, especially not with something that’s going to require years of constant development being funded, effectively, by the customers; where you have to try and compromise what you want to do, what you can do, and what your players want you to do. It’s just not that simple, and it’s not going to come out that smoothly even 8 months after launch which, let’s be honest, is still pretty young for an MMO.

Which doesn’t mean Anet shouldn’t be given feedback on what they do (and boy, do we players give it) because input is very very important, but you’re really undermining the sheer challenge of what Anet is trying to take on, in a game model that is very long-term and very expensive and intensive to make.

Also I can’t find any indication that “eSport” every equaled “GvG”—in fact, the only statement I’ve found about GvG is one why they weren’t planning to implement it, and nothing to contradict that stance. What was important in GW1 =/= what will be important in GW2.

ShadowGryphon.6257:

Just tossing this out for consideration: instead of gear progression how about skin progression?
Rare skins that don’t have any higher stats but have u.nique *e.ffects and looks.
Hey Anet could even hold a monthly contest for people to submit fully fleshed out skin ideas.

Honestly it was the stories behind the “gear progression”, not to mention being forced “rent” the game that I already paid for, that prompted me to avoid WoW, and other similar games, like the plague
But I could see hunting for new, difficult to find skins as a viable middle ground.
No one gets over powered but you still get something for your effort.

This is precisely what GW1 did with elite armor, and I have yet to see a single person speak out against vanity progression anywhere (which we already have, really, with Legandaries, dungeon armor, special MF weapons) because that’s what horizontal progression is. It’s skins and titles and trophies and achievement points and bragging rights. And that’s okay, it’s just the power progression that a lot of people come to GW to avoid, and those that do want it honestly have most of the rest of the MMO industry to look at, because strictly horizontal progression is still a pretty niche idea.

Hell, I personally don’t even mind ascended since the stat difference isn’t that big from exotics, and its unique mechanic is only for one small area of the game, which I can still experience without it because the lower levels don’t have agony. It is totally optional, and I am opting out of it.

Iruwen.3164:

Azure.8670:

Im rambling now sorry for to close this case, no. We arent overpowered, but we are extremely well balanced and one of the few classes that has many different viable weapon sets.

Exactly.

It’s pretty much this. Mesmers look so much better than a lot of other classes and have a stronger presence in more areas of gameplay because we’re actually a really well-balanced class—We’re effective, we’re versatile, and just about all our utilities and traits and weapon sets are viable (and actually function). We’re a point that Anet needs to bring other classes up to, not the other way around.

clay.7849:

I agree with this a lot. We really don’t know that much about the PvE side of things because they simply cannot do the same things we can. I don’t even think I have seen an enemy dodge in PvE.

If nothing else, GW1 combat was good at creating the feeling of playing PvP even with trash mobs. If this feeling could be replicated in PvE using what skills and classes we have now – it could go a long way to making combat feel better.

Agreed on the second part too. The lack of healing combined with capture points leads to bunkers being the obvious choice for at least 2 classes in a team. If there were other game modes we would also know better how these skills and classes really felt in combat.

Very very good points.

I’ve seen bandits dodge, but that’s it. I don’t know what the limitations are and since it’s usually Cutpurses I suspect it’s just the actual Thief skills, but man I would take just being smart enough to walk out of AoE circles/having more complex skill usage both from bosses and add groups. Dredge are annoying but the Disaggregators on Rosavich in the Underground Fractal do add an extra layer of difficulty (buffing him up constantly/dazing you) you have to take into account or you might find yourself getting trashed.

clay.7849:

The idea of a healer is to create deeper combat. Instead of everyone worrying about how fast they can DPS something, you need to account for the ability for enemies (in PvP or PvE) to be able to effectively heal or prot through your DPS.

[…]

In addition to adding a healer, you would also benefit from adding something to balance both healing and DPS – namely utility. In GW1 this was primarily the mesmer class. It could effectively shut down both monks or DPS when specced for one or the other (or both). This also added wonderful depth and strategy to a game.

I won’t say GW2’s comabt doesn’t have areas it could really stand to improve to add engagement—especially on the PvE side of things. But these mechanics like bosses/players being able to out-heal/out-survive/prevent DPS is already there, a third utility (control) which can be used to dismantle the flow of both support and damage is there. You have mechanics like Lupicus’s grub-eating, shield trapping, Alpha’s crystals, your positioning (verses attacks like Howler’s shout, how about?) that force you (or the people around you) into doing something other than punching the boss.

If the PvE content is shallow, it’s because not enough bosses take advantage of these things and because the enemy AI is not intelligent enough that running class-canon DPS builds get off easy because they don’t really have to play a lot better (which then allows them to ignore mechanics like the Searing Effigy’s healing crystals) to make up for their lacking survivability (control just… gets really waysided in PvE and a lot of classes I don’t think can make builds that are still totally effective through dungeons and I wish it wasn’t because I love control). And fixing either of those things could improve content without the slightest necessity for a dedicated healer on either side of things.

And sPvP has only one mode of gameplay, I am not at all surprised to see bunkers excelling so far there because they’re a build designed around being effectively immovable and unkillable, or being able to prevent players from getting in through control/area denial, which makes them very strong for a point-control objective game. And in hot-join where you’re probably not communicating with your team as much (don’t have time, don’t know who they are) it’s even more important you be able to handle things on your own. I’d say the sPvP game mode itself is currently limited, and thus limiting combat.

RebelYell.7132:

Nick.6972:

Ignore the trinity. Why not 1) Frontline 2) Midline 3) Backline. As in GW1’s PvP.
Never mind, with the current system that would never work.
Everyone’s a DPS till the end of GW2.

That’s why I frequent these trinity threads. Not because I want tanks and healers. I want definitive roles that aren’t “do nothing cool until we need you for Time Warp, Feedback, Temporal Curtain, or Portal”.

People seem to demonize all specialization systems for whatever reason, though. I guess it was so horrible having to tab out when queued as damage in the Dungeon Finder that all games have to be punished for it.

Engaging, specialized combat with different classes put into different roles that synergize with each other isn’t bad, necessarily, but it’s also not inherently better than a versatile system, where every class can be multiple things and people can adapt and flow between roles, and any combination of classes has the potential to be successful, and any class can be successful in more than just a single direction of builds, which makes group synergy more individual and intimate and gives the individual more personalization and capabilities on their own (and the idea of GW2 is to get here).

For those of us who like the latter, it’s nice having a game that’s really trying to go into that and make that work—and it’s not perfect right now, no, but I think it has the potential to improve, and I’d rather see them continue to flesh out a genuinely versatile set of classes and combinations with gameplay that compliments them, than see it drift to specializing. I liked GW1’s combat too, but if I wanted to play that I would go play GW1.

Do you mean you went into stealth after the Phantasm fired an attack, or before? I’ve never seen a Phantasm attack a target that stealthed first, they just sit there and wait for them to show up.

Stealth won’t break summoning a Phantasm, though, because it’s a channel skill and all channel skills will follow all the way through as long as they started before you went into stealth. I’d say it’s likely that iDuelist and maybe iZerker’s attacks are channels as well, if the skills they’re based on are (iirc Unload is a channel, which is what Duelist does).

Are you gonna run with a rifle or pistol-pistol/shield? The latter’ll let you fit two sigils at once, so you could probably fit sigil of strength with any other one and not have to choose between.

I wonder about Sigil of Battle since we can swap in and out fast enough it’s a easy proc for 3 stacks at 20 seconds, and taking Might-duration runes which are percentage based so you might be able to get a bigger bang for your buck with that if you have to take one or the other. But you could take both + might duration runes + Juggernaut + Enhanced Performance, you’d be able to keep probably almost, if not entirely, full stacks of might (Esp. since the duration would stack on your 20% boon duration from 20 in alchemy).

I run with rifle, though, and actually take Sigil of Energy for the on-demand dodge, because I have no endurance-regen traits. If you can fit invigorating speed in there (although I personally have a hard time justifying it over DM and self-regulating defenses/protection injection) and carry a med-kit/elixir B/some sort of on-demand Swiftness it’s a lot less necessary. If you mostly fight in combat with a lot of enemies you can burn down easily, Sigil of Stamina is a full endurance on kill which makes for a really nice alternative.

It should affect the cooldown of iDuelist too, but the tooltip won’t show more than a 20% decrease so if you have Illusionists Celerity it won’t update (idk if the tooltip updates even without it, but afaik the cd does reduce). And summon out of range without the trait is possibly a bug that’ll get fixed, like the projectile finishing. Someday.

Phantasm range is pretty buggy as a whole, though—iWarlock does the same thing, as well as running up into the enemy’s face sometimes, and Disenchanter still has a spawn location on the opposite side of the enemy.

I don’t see this idea of KR being more useful that it’s current incarnation—it’s equally reliable regardless how many kits you’re toggling through, but it also has a lot less utility and probably wouldn’t be able to give a +200 stat increase at an adept-trait anyway. Maybe more like 50-75. I’d say your Juggernaut is also too powerful for a Master trait and would still need to be up in the GM tier, with which you might as well keep the +200 toughness on it.

I would like to see its base damage and some traits (like DM) adjusted to make it a little less trait-reliant, or give it more broad utility because at the moment it’s a good primary kit, but really not worth it if you’re not investing into it—a problem I don’t think the other kits have near as much of.

To be honest what I’d really like to see is Air Blast being usable while stunned, since it is an instant cast. Gives the kit two non-damaging, melee-range pseudo-stunbreakers which I don’t think would be overpowered since they’re mostly time-buyers and the Mesmer staff has basically the same thing with Phase Retreat and Chaos Armor.

Pyroatheist.9031:

athuria.2751:

I have auto-targeting off for the sake of my Engineer and don’t care for toggling it on/off between characters

It really is beyond me how people can be so lazy as to noticeably impact the performance of one character because they refuse to take an action that will literally take 3 seconds to do.

I had auto-targeting on for months before and it doesn’t have a noticeable impact on performance at all keeping it off, actually. Auto-targeting doesn’t go after something the “target closest enemy” won’t or, usually, first touch on the tab-target key. And I have both of those in immediate reach so I can grab my targets instantly without having to stutter my skills or movement.

I have auto-targeting off for the sake of my Engineer and don’t care for toggling it on/off between characters, and I just make use of tab-targeting/target nearest enemy controls on my keyboard to select what I’m going to hit.

Mesmer is more convenient with auto-targeting on, but the target controls are customizable enough that you can manage it all manually and be fine (I just wish we had a proper “drop target” toggle).

I don’t have a mouse with bindable buttons so I stick exclusively to keyboard controls unless I really need to move my cursor/looking around with my camera. Profession and weapon skills, weapon swap, and tab-targeting are all default. Q, W, E are utilities, R is my heal, T my elite. A is nearest enemy, S take target, D call target, then I’ve got my UI window toggles on the bottom row and space for my interact.

Movement keys/UI toggle/screenshot button are all over on the num pad. Overall it’s really good for me being able to hit everything important with ease, and not shifting my hand too much to risk it getting out of place to mash the wrong keys. Ground target it just a little more unwieldy for me (I usually pre-place my cursor and just move around a lot more to reposition it), and sometimes I accidentally smack my screenshot button trying to dodge away.

As far as GW2 lore is concerned, being “defeated” is just being knocked unconscious and unable to continue the fight. Anything revivable isn’t actually dead, which is why they can be brought back to their feet.

Disenchanter removes two boons and two conditions, and bounces to three foes/allies (and the projectile is rapid fast, too). Is it a little less reliable because it doesn’t prioritize the player (but it does prioritize allies as a whole) and the spawning position is bugged, but it is a low cooldown to pop up another and really handy to have up for fights against enemies who boon themselves frequently or who will continually stick the same conditions on you over the course of the fight, plus it can remove conditions from your teammates as well. It does well enough and gives me an extra illusion that I carry it as a default, but if I absolutely need reliable condition removal I usually switch it out.

I run a Phantasm build, with dual swords/staff. They have good offensive/defensive capabilities and I have strong in-battle sustainability while still being able to pump out decent damage, so that’s right up where I like to play. It’s also similar to how I used to play my Mesmer in GW1, which was a focus on damage and hexing to punish enemy behavior (albeit doing the second part more defensively now).

Doesn’t Proximity Anguish tick for like, 5-30 damage anyway? I’d like to see a combat log where it went up to 15k, because I have heard of that happening all of never.

Oh, don’t twist words. I didn’t say “Timewarp is a crutch”. I said “you shouldn’t use Timewarp as a crutch”. You should be just as capable of handling a situation like 2-3 party members down without Timewarp as you are with it, because it’s always possible to get stuck in a situation where you won’t have it. And 50% faster is still 50% faster—that’s still a lot of extra speed for ressing people, or for rolling through channel skills, or for spiking damage.

Khal Drogo.9631:

Cataca.3867:

dani.1956:

Love the sunday players posting troll mesages on forums ! When an elite skill is nerfed 50% its a big nerf mate , so l2p ! And if you didnt play mesmer in PVE for the TW then YOU played the mesmer wrong !

Not to bash you bro but if you are playing mesmer for just that one skill, you really should delete yours.

a. We are the only class that can stack 24 stacks of vulnerability, instantly and on multiple targets if you trait for it. thats a 24% damage bonus right of the bat for the entire group. This actually will outtrump TW over time, cause its up every 35 seconds.
b. We are the only class that has a group teleportation spell. Situational? Yes, but useful nevertheless.
c. We are the only class that supplies glamour fields for confusion and chaos armor. Chaos armor is an incredibly powerful defensive boon.
d. Signet of inspiration doubles buff durations on the group for everyone but the mesmer, and doubles might stacks.

And TW is still the single longest quickness buff and has zero downsides. While we deal less damage than warriors, we still have craploads of utility. And our damage isnt that bad.

I dont play mesmers only for the shatters; if you do, I think u should delete your mesmer too. So if 5s cd were added to shatters for PVP balance, you guys would have no problems with it?

Obviously these pro mesmers never actually used their TWs to rez ppl. The horror of playing with multiple players who get downed.

I am a bad mesmer yet I dont think I needed TW to faceroll COF P1.

A class mechanic that is a center of a number of builds still isn’t comparable to an almost 4-minute cooldown elite that we couldn’t even trait for, that uses an effect that was not unique to use that was blanket-reduced across the board.

I’ve used TW for ressing people—I’ve also been in situations having to res people without it because it wasn’t up, or because the Mesmer was one of the ones down. It makes things a lot easier if you didn’t have a one-shot attacks or heavy AoE coming your way, 50% faster will still make things easier—but it’s not necessary and shouldn’t be a such a crutch because what happens when you don’t have it?

Yeah, the orange parts were just telling you to go visit the Commander Core/Rytlock’s office for the new Living Story instances, you’ll find them at the top level on the Black Citadel by yellow instance-markers.

Glad I could help!

That’s really the issue with multi-kit builds—kits themselves aren’t in a bad spot, but they don’t have a lot of utility together, and they clutter up your utilities so you lose a lot of space for condition removal, or stun-breaking (or a defense against stuns), unless you want to give something up. Or a lot of somethings.

Kit traits are scattered and we have, what, Backpack Regenerator and Kit Refinement that benefit all of them? Elixirs have how many traits about them? All turret traits affect all turrets. Kit Refinement stood out as giving us a lot of utility to compliment are kits that we needed—stacking up small abilities (1-condition per removal, running med kit, FT and/or EG, that’s 2-3 conditions removed) to be as strong as actual utility options.

I think a total reliance and having a build hinging around a 10-point trait was messed up, but it really highlights an issue of versatility a supposedly versatile class has—that is, that we don’t actually have room to be versatile in a lot of builds.

Kit Refinement’s change didn’t blow my build up, but it is going to make me more reliant on outside sources (teammates, foodbuffs) to do things I can’t on my own, for the sake of my survivability.

Flexibility of range is pretty important in PvE, and unfortunately none of our weapons but staff actually have that: GS is best at long range and mobs will be chasing up to you—especially if you’re soloing. Scepter is better close range because it waits until the orb hits before it continues the chain, but the damage isn’t enough for the risk of melee combat to be worth it. Sword is a powerful, melee range weapon but you’ll be in a sorry state against enemies you need to try and keep away from. Offhands are more flexible in range, but not going to make up the damage a proper mainhand would have. Our weapons also carry a lot of utility for mobility and survival, which is why it’s particularly crippling for a Mesmer to not be swapping and why we’re advising against it.

The best builds I can think of for prioritizing one weapon set over the other are staff condition or a power sword/shatter build, since shattering will grant you more AoE and defensive buttons, and clone generation with swords, Deceptive Evasion, and utilities would be more than enough.

Image-uploading is fighting with me so I can transcribe it:

“Call To Arms

To all Vigil available for activation:

A situation in Wayfarer Foothills and Diessa Plateau has come to our attention. The Vigil are responding, and all active Vigil representatives are being deployed—that means you. We’ve learned about a major military offensive by an alliance of Flame Legion and dredge. Vigil forward scouts have arrived in the area and are leading the response. The invaders have taken Innocent Tyrian civilians as prisoners, and that is unacceptable.

Report at your earliest convenience to Tribune Rytlock Brimstone in the Black Citadel. The city has also organized a defense quorum in the Imperator’s Core. Check in at the Core and offer your services to the war council. We must confront this invasion with a combined effort and as much force as possible.

— General Almorra Soulkeeper"

There’s also some new dialogue from Almorra and Laranthir in the Vigil Headquarters related to it.

Literally the only reason people want those kinds of set-ups is optimizing speed runs, which you don’t have to do. There are plenty of people who aren’t interested in that and will take anybody—or will join any group that doesn’t tell them they’re not allowed.

No, because irregardless of a broad nerf to quickness (which isn’t even specific to our class and was hardly the only utility we were good for) We’re still a powerful and well-defined class, in a much better place than some other professions.

And Timewar kitten till one of the better sources of quickness due to its length, lack of penalty, and the fact it’s a combo field.

Are we assured that FT’s fire aura still won’t remove a condition? That was honestly the main reason I took it because I don’t have much room for removals and Med Kit only drops one. I could probably work around the long cooldown, but I guess it’s time to bounce between Saffron Poultry soup and Rare Veggie Pizza for my food buffs. B(a

Magnetic Aura on Med Kit’s not bad, but it’s got a real short duration (unless it magically lengthens in-combat, but I kinda doubt that).

I did like the Elixir U change when I heard it—having a guaranteed projectile reflection on my Engi like my Mes is gonna be great for fights that need it, now I just need some sort of teleport ability like every other class I play…

I probably won’t turn back to turrets at this point, but I’m glad to see them recognize and addressing the ridiculous cooldowns related to them, since that was my deal-breaker. Here’s hoping gadgets and some of our other toolbelt skills are next.

Zepidel.5349:

athuria.2751:

Zepidel.5349:

athuria.2751:

Which can have a long delay before it applies and you might find yourself with no phantasms by the time it does (also they will fix that 200% HP eventually). Signet of Illusions does let you lean a little more towards Berserk, but I’d still have at least half knights so that they don’t get burned down before the effect can actually trigger—916 is way too little toughness to hope they just don’t get hit or live through it, and that extra HP will also mean a lot less when everything hits them for more because they have so little defense.

1 to 10 seconds right? meaning on avg 5 seconds. If your illusions are dying in 5 seconds chances are you are screwed anyways. and remember GW2 IS ALL ABOUT ACTIVE MITIGATION not passive. doding/invuln/block etc… the extra hp and toughness you will have out of zerker will let you live about 1-2 seconds longer. compared to the extra damage you and your phantasm would have its not worth it.

Yes GW2, and especially the Mesmer class, are strong on active mitigation, but your phantasms can’t actively prevent damage to themselves. It’s not in their behavior. Their survivability is entirely dependent on how much their health and toughness can soak up—and an extra 1-2 seconds of survival isn’t much for you, but it is for them, and it is for buffering between your cooldowns so you can keep them up as consistently as possible.

And phantasms are a damage over time mechanic—the extra damage is nice, but doesn’t really mean as much in a fight about consistent pressure as much as as keeping that pressure—and passive strength for an attack that can’t defend itself goes a long way towards keeping that pressure reliable.

>And phantasms are a damage over time mechanic

what r u smokin m8? phantasms deal huge dmg in a burst every 5 seconds or so and instantly after being cast, damage over time my kitten its burst dmg. If you think your auto attacks etc are doing more dmg than your phantasms then idk. And if you phantasms do die in less than 5 seconds it takes for the sigil to take hold (rarelly unless your ikittenerg) whoever was aoeing just took a huge amount of retal dmg. and with phantasms hitting for upwards of 5-8k i never run into a situation were the other person hasn’t blow all their active mitigation before me.

Where did I say my autoattack was ever doing more than my phantasms? That phantasms continue to attack every 3-8 seconds (because that varies per phantasm) as long as they’re alive is precisely what makes them such a good DoT ability—if you can keep a phantasm rotation going constantly you are constantly hitting the enemy with that damage (and constantly hitting in stagger, because good luck trying to sync your phantasms attacks up, but it’s actually better for DoT) and putting them under pressure where there’s only so many hits they can block and so much room they have to heal before they start to get whittled down again—but that means nothing if they aren’t up.

Burst is about a rapid onslaught of damage—phantasms hit hard on their own, but setting up multiples takes longer and it’s very hard if not impossible to get them to hit together, short of right at spawning and because of the differences in attack time they’ll very quickly fall out of sync. If I were to play phantasms as a burst it would be to throw two up + a clone rapidly and then shatter after their attacks—which would rack up considerable damage, but it’s a long set-up and long cooldown, and preventing one phantasm from spawning or hitting can leave a significant gap in your burst. Really, if I wanted burst in a phant build I would go for a hybrid—DoT pressure until I have them down and then burst to finish it off.

Also retal is per-hit, so “huge amount” is pretty questionable—phantasms only have a little over 2k health on their own, probably about 2.5kish with the 20% trait. One getting busted pre-signet could easily only be 2-5 hits—so maybe 700-1.7kish damage with full Berserk. Pretty decent punishment for daring to kill it, but nothing that’s going to stop someone intent on flattening you.

Blowing cooldowns is separate to the kind of build you play, because you can get someone to waste them on crap and then use a burst build to shred them or you can wear them down and counter them with pressure until they crumble under it because they lost their mitigation before you did.

Zepidel.5349:

athuria.2751:

Which can have a long delay before it applies and you might find yourself with no phantasms by the time it does (also they will fix that 200% HP eventually). Signet of Illusions does let you lean a little more towards Berserk, but I’d still have at least half knights so that they don’t get burned down before the effect can actually trigger—916 is way too little toughness to hope they just don’t get hit or live through it, and that extra HP will also mean a lot less when everything hits them for more because they have so little defense.

1 to 10 seconds right? meaning on avg 5 seconds. If your illusions are dying in 5 seconds chances are you are screwed anyways. and remember GW2 IS ALL ABOUT ACTIVE MITIGATION not passive. doding/invuln/block etc… the extra hp and toughness you will have out of zerker will let you live about 1-2 seconds longer. compared to the extra damage you and your phantasm would have its not worth it.

Yes GW2, and especially the Mesmer class, are strong on active mitigation, but your phantasms can’t actively prevent damage to themselves. It’s not in their behavior. Their survivability is entirely dependent on how much their health and toughness can soak up—and an extra 1-2 seconds of survival isn’t much for you, but it is for them, and it is for buffering between your cooldowns so you can keep them up as consistently as possible.

And phantasms are a damage over time mechanic—the extra damage is nice, but doesn’t really mean as much in a fight about consistent pressure as much as as keeping that pressure—and passive strength for an attack that can’t defend itself goes a long way towards keeping that pressure reliable.

Which can have a long delay before it applies and you might find yourself with no phantasms by the time it does (also they will fix that 200% HP eventually). Signet of Illusions does let you lean a little more towards Berserk, but I’d still have at least half knights so that they don’t get burned down before the effect can actually trigger—916 is way too little toughness to hope they just don’t get hit or live through it, and that extra HP will also mean a lot less when everything hits them for more because they have so little defense.

Zepidel.5349:

full zerker always on anybuild thats not going for bunker… phantasms only get your power/precision/crit damage anyways. This game is about active mitigation (dodging/blinks/invis/invuln etc…) the extra 3-4k hp and toughness you would get from grabbing knights or w/e is equal to about 1 auto attack from a warrior/thief (you’ll live 1/4 second longer). Compare that to the damage boost you and more importantly your phantasm will get and its obvious which to go.

It just comes down to learning when to blow those defensive skills.

Phantasms inherit your power/precious/crit damage/toughness/healing power and I believe condition damage, but not durations and not your vitality. The damage their phantasms can cause will be nothing if they’re not up, and outside of iSwordsman being able to evade during attack they have no way to prevent damage they receive.

You can totally run a phantasm build in all Berserk, but I think roaming in a PvP area puts too much risk on someone/someone’s AoE burning them right down instantly and leaving you with a long wait before you can pop another.

I’d go with knight’s gear, and pepper your weapons/accessories with Berserker’s (Or Valkyrie’s if you think you need the health buffer, because you look low on condition removal) where you see fit. Especially since you don’t have any points in Chaos for toughness, and decent toughness goes a long way towards keeping your Phantasms from getting one-shot in two seconds and you’re stalling for the cooldown.

You can salvage both the rare and the exotic dungeon armor. I’ve salvaged exotics from AC and rares from CoF for ectos since I’ve had no other use for those tokens.

Nobody ever does at first—as long as you’re actually paying attention to what’s going on around you, it’s something you’ll just pick up over time. You’ll catch yourself doing just the right thing, you’ll put together the animation and the effect, if it’s something that’s really confusing you can ask people with more experience to explain, so don’t sweat it that you’re still getting the hang of some things.

Bah, I started this game on an Engineer and a Mesmer, if it’s what you want to play then play it—you’ll learn and improve as you play like with any other class, you just have a lot more utility to get a handle on. Play around in HotM some, maybe have practice fights with your guildies, talk to other Engineers (like you are here, hi). One build won’t teach you everything because there’s a lot of different things we can do, and a lot of different ways we can chain and combo our skills.

(Also, fighting Thieves and Mesmers really is just learning their mechanics so you know exactly how to counter them—they’re classes that have key unique abilities to them, but when you get past them they can be very vulnerable.

… And yes, you will find yourself getting very good at dodging.)

Damage, control, and support are a “trinity” insofar as they’re the general aspects of combat that people can decide to specialize/spread themselves out around—I don;t think anybody could say that they can’t see where people have a place planting damage, buffing/healing their party, or controlling enemy behavior. Some classes are much better at some roles than others, but in theory (theory) every class can at least partially fill ever role, even if it’s just an aside to their main focus. The trinity GW2 removed was the one that certain classes are limited to filling specific roles, which is what most people refer to.

And it also doesn’t mean you need every aspect of combat for a fight either—such as the 4W/1M Cof speedruns, or that most people will just sans control for most fights than try to break through Defiant (and it’s useless on some enemies like Abominations with their unstoppable).

The Guardian and Warrior are the best of the best for their roles if they max out into it, and Mesmer has the most diverse group utility (but more importantly has Portal—we’ll see how important they stay when that ability gets spread to some other classes), but their necessity over other classes really isn’t anything more than shaving 3-5 minutes off a dungeon run, and if you’re not optimizing to speedrun then prioritizing these “tiers” really isn’t important at all. So, in the game as a whole I wouldn’t consider them GW2’s class trinity—I would consider them the most optimum set-up for a very specific intent in a specific area of the game.

OnionXI.6735:

Case in point, in beta I came up with a hybrid shout/banner build for my warrior that focused on giving a group ~12 stacks of might and 100% regen uptime + lots of condition removal. It also has nice, steady damage. I thought this build was the kitten and I never deviated from it since beta — until about 3 days ago when I put together a cookie cutter berserker build and…wow. The massive increase in personal DPS far outweighed the benefits of my group-oriented build. My other characters pretty much follow the same model of max dps above all now too.

However, I don’t think GW2 should change. I don’t think it could change at this point and it is as it was advertised. They took the stance that waiting around for a healer or a tank isn’t fun — a DPS player issue mostly — and what we got was a DPS zergfest as a result.

That’s at least partially because you’re playing a Warrior—in full Zerker’s you have the highest damage output in the game. And any Warrior who can play glass cannon and not get pasted all over the floor can shred through the PvE in this game like paper, they put out that much damage. Other classes don’t see near this output trying to straight DPS everything down—and it doesn’t mean that your support build was ineffective either, just that support isn’t as optimum for the Warrior as DPS is.

And yes, because the game tries to give room for a variety of party make-ups you can straight-DPS everything down if you’re good, but that’s not the only way or play, or for every class the most optimal (people like their Guardians support for a reason). You see so much Zerker’s and trying to just DPS, though, for the same reason you see more people play the DPs classes in the trinity system—because they just want to punch things in the face and get the reward for punching things in the face (loot). The Trinity is basically a teamwork band-aid to this, and games without it are just letting players do whatever the hell they want. Playing support based roles is still possible, though, and they do provide good utility to groups that aren’t a bunch of crazy DPS (and even those that are). Control… is a little trickier because of mechanics like defiant, it’s a stronger area of combat in PvP—but it can have its place too, in some builds/fights.

I mostly heal in games. I enjoy it and get more satisfaction from excelling at it than I do from dps or even tanking. There’s triage and resource management involved and it’s nice when you’re with a tank who keeps a fast pace and pushes your limits. It’s not for everyone but to me this is all extremely fun. I’d wager that many others find it fun as well and that many people that play DPS find it more fun to have somebody else watching their health or soaking up damage for them.

Well, not necessarily. That reliance—the fact that I am entirely dependent on someone else for what is a significant part of combat (healing, handling aggro), is precisely what I hate about the trinity system. I want to be able to handle myself, I want to be self-sufficient, and when I know I am then I can look to supporting my group—and there are other ways to support each other in dungeons than just carrying the aggro or healing them up. Really, GW2 has just reminded me how poorly that kind of class-setup was a poor fit for me, because I like to be far more independent.

Their names come from the Dream, like the rest of the knowledge they’re born with. There’s actually an interesting conversation about this with a Sylvari named Pherick behind Dreamer’s Terrance. Non-Sylvari characters can ask who named him such, and he just responds with a confused “It’s my name. Nobody gave it to me.” and makes a comparison to him knowing it’s his name just as we know our ears are ours (because they’re just part of us, I guess, the conversation kinda stops around there).

Where those names come from, I’d assume either other races (there are some humans who have names from the same RL origins as Sylvari names) or they’re just made up out of letters/sounds from New Krytan—Sylvari never seem to suggest their names have any actual meaning behind them like ours do, so that might explain why they come off as foreign despite not coming from centuries of a pre-established culture and language.

Swords are more direct damage, yeah, but honestly how you trait yourself is less dependent on your weapons and more dependent on which mechanic you’re going to make the most use of: shatters, phantasms, mantras, boons, etc… So it’s hard to recommend something beyond personal preference or looking at builds (there’s a link in the sticky section of the forum) that use sword/sword (or what you can tweak to use sword/sword) and see what suits your fancy.

I take both weapon cooldowns (swords and staff for me) since they stack with Illusionists Celerity and I can pop out phantasms faster. I lean more heavily on the utility side and use them for passive support for myself as much as direct damage, so I run 0/15/20/25/10, having dropped Phantasmal Fury, Empowered Illusions, and Phantasmal Haste and picked up Compounding Power and Illusionary Defense.

Ooh, I completely forgot about “I’m wilting.” It’s from trying to dodge with low endurance.

I also like “my destiny is taking root” from discovering areas because plant puns.

“This rose has thorns, and here they are!” is what the female Sylvari says when she gets retaliation.