Guild Wars 2

I’m assuming it’s WWW that they are considering. If they think there is not enough risk in using AoE’s then make all AoE effects hit everyone in the given area in WWW. Friendly fire and all.

That would add a whole lot of strategy to using AoE and would allow them to be powerful, maybe even bumped up in power.

Only a Mesmer can go kitten himself. Quite happily perhaps.

jazzllanna.1278:

I know! I try to make a new build.. maybe try something out that traits 30 points in 1 tree only to find it corresponds with something 30 points down another and maybe 20 in another lol. It is scattered everywhere!

It’s an attempt to make different viable builds.

If they took all traits that increased condition damage (for instance) and put that into a trait line that has +condition damage and +condition duration as the two base bonuses you begin to limit the amount of viable builds, and you end up with just one or two super builds, that everyone uses.

You can see this in other mmo’s where there is the “right” build and everything else is subpar.

Now don’t get me wrong, this also exists to a degree in GW2 but based on the number of different builds floating around out there Anet is doing a pretty good job at build diversity. (having no damage meters helps too.)

That, at least, is the theory.

cesmode.4257:

Think positive my friends, condition mesmers are not as bad as you think.

No they are not, in fact I enjoy playing my condition builds (especially bunker builds which always are condition heavy to help limit DPS). It’s just that regular damage/burst builds are more easily useable in both PvE and PvP. Condition damage is by its very nature slow and steady, which is not what you want in PvP. It allows for reaction to damage.

And like the poster above me says, Mesmer conditions are even more slow than most other classes. My trap based Ranger can lay down huge stacks of bleeds, burns and poisons in a matter of seconds.

LordByron.8369:

Hi all…

Also to tell the truth i’d like some help on using shatter, because i almost don t use them at all…..i like the damage from my phantasms (usually a couple of pistol and a GS) why should i shatter them >.< (shatter dmg doesn t seems high enough to compensate for the costant dmg output).

Illusions typically have short cool downs, and they have rather long periods of times between attacks. Unless you have the “on illusion death” build or are trying a very passive defensive build it is always going to be best to shatter your illusions after they have attacked, then resummon them.

Every phantasm/clone that dies without being shattered is a big loss of damage/utility.

edit: forums are borked this morning!

Pinder.5261

Exceptions exist: the norn, for one. It’s been said many times in this thread, but I feel it’s important to reiterate just how nauseatingly preposterous the norn female sounds.

Yah that is the worst “girl trying to do a deep voice” I have ever heard. Maybe they should try employing a really small guy to do the female Norn, you know, work it from the opposite angle.

Personally I think the biggest problems are the cut scenes. They pull you out of your environment and present to you a static, dull backdrop that only serve to amplify the sometimes overly emotional, other times not emotional enough conversations. It just highlights the whole “actors on a stage” impression.

The reason SWTOR’s work better is because they are shot from varying angles while you are still in the environment, and more than two people can be on screen at a time. Sure they are only fun the first time around, but with GW2’s format they are terrible even the first round.

Personally I would like it if they just trashed the cut scenes altogether. I think it would actually be better if the conversations just occurred in chat bubble format (freezing your character in place for the duration of the conversation, unless you hit skip or esc of course). It would be far less of a jarring transition.

Bleeds stack intensity, and use the bleed that has the longest duration for the duration.
So let’s say 2 bleeds:
1. 500 damage over 4 seconds
2. 750 damage over 3 seconds

Result: 1250 damage for 4 seconds, and it shows as 2 stacks on the icon.

Things like burn stacks duration and uses the largest damage.
So let’s say 2 burns:
1. 500 damage per seconds for 4 seconds
2. 750 damage per second for 3 seconds

Result 750 damage per second for 7 seconds.

This is how I understand it to work.

Once the stack in bleed is full I am pretty sure it is like digiowl says, the stronger ones push the weaker ones aside. They also seem to always reset the timer, even if it is a weaker one.

mulch.2586:

But it’s absurd to complain about your choice. Cuz you’re the one wot made it.

I think it’s absurd to tell someone that they shouldn’t voice their concerns on the games forums, since that is what they are here for…

The complaint is not about the choice, but the lack of choice since half the builds in the game are far less viable than others.

Agree here also. Don’t really understand the reasoning behind it.

If you take any group with direct damage they scale perfectly linearly. A group with condition damage scale linearly until they hit 25 stacks of something, then they flatline.

Yes. If I were to stop now it was well worth the $60.00. Every day I continue to play just makes it more of a bargain.

I’ve watched every one. But then, I’m in no rush to do stuff.

I usually run a condition build with primary chaos/inspiration/illusion traits. I tried a shatter build similar to nero’s and have to agree that it has a good amount of survivability and is a pretty fun (read hectic) play.

I was surprised at the amount of AoE you can pull off in a PvE environment. Thanks for the video. I drank the “shattering is useless” koolaid way back at release and would not have bothered to try a shatter build without this glimpse.

Was gonna say…teleporting into the same spot is the least of your worries. I regularily telport into the environment around me, or under the ground.

The worst seems to be in and around water for some reason. Usually I just stay in the same place…

At first I thought staff was a ranged weapon but the more I played with it the more I realized what a great melee weapon it was.

First, to get the “bounces” from the Winds of chaos you need to be closer than 1200 range (about 600 I think).

Second, staff 4 only works if you are being actively hit, so playing keep away from a melee mob makes no sense if you are planning to use chaos armour.

Third, Chaos storm is at it’s full potentiall only if you and the mob are inside of it.

Traiting heavily down the Chaos line and the Inspiration line (for protection from the regeneration proc from the chaos line) will give you virtually endless Chaos armour if you combine your Glamour skills (and Chaos storm) with staff 2 for the chaos armour combo (using the traits reduced staff CD, and reduced Glamour skills CD) and it adds toughness and vitality to boot.

Your dps will be pretty low this way but you can easily pull 4-5 mobs (including veterans) and slowly whittle away at them all the while safe behind chaos armour and all the boons from WoC and Chaos storm.

This build also seems to meld well with a sword/OH combo as you will be in melee range most of the time.

It’s interesting. For some reason the “Weapon Damage” stat on the hero screen listed on mouse over under “Attack” is averaged between both main hand and off hand weapon. However I can confirm with the rest of you that off hand seems to have no affect on the “damage” component of an attack on the main hand, and vice versa.

This is why I thought the two weapons were added together to get a final “Weapon damage” that would affect both main and OH, but this is evidently wrong.

Main hand and off-hand are added together. Also note that it seems 2 handed weapons are counted twice, once for main hand and once for off hand. (If you watch your weapon damage stat on the hero screen you can verify that swapping to a two handed does not halve the damage when you have 2 similarily statted weapons in each hand.

I think the damage done by phanatasms is affected by power rating if they do straight up damage. I think this vecause when I trait for straight up power bulid my iberserker does way more damage than when I have, for instance, a condition damage build, even though weapon damage is the same.