Guild Wars 2

This thread is comedy gold.

D/D ele’s are running around panicking because a profession might be able to put them into a downed state solo. That’s crazy talk.

Sunspots.9861:

Lol, another one for my collection. You realize I’m not the Mayor of TC right? You don’t get extra wxp for assassinating me ;P

Lies. He’s won the Meatoberfest barbecue contest ten years in a row, so he’s qualified.

Dynamic events are more important than quest hearts, so drop what you’re doing to participate.

Don’t fall for the karma gear trap. Buy your gear off of the TP every 5-10 levels.

Don’t overlook map completion.

Greatsword is probably best for leveling, but try other weapon sets to see what you like best.

Appreciate Charr apple salesmen.

Pyroatheist.9031:

datawais.7209:

What would be interesting would be if confusion would be put back onto the scepter auto, and that’s the reason they’re halving the damage.

It would nerf engi discharge builds and buff the hell out of scepter.

It still doesn’t give mesmers a fantastic option for wvw, though.

Well, that would be a lovely and sensible change.

For that reason, it’s probably not happening.

All the time spent playing mesmer, and I only succeed in deluding myself.

What would be interesting would be if confusion would be put back onto the scepter auto, and that’s the reason they’re halving the damage.

It would nerf engi discharge builds and buff the hell out of scepter.

It still doesn’t give mesmers a fantastic option for wvw, though.

Pyroatheist.9031:

selan.8354:

soooo what condition does a mesmer have left then?none…ty anet! oh well be looking for a new class then or a new game.

See ya

The confusion nerf is a poor choice. It makes confusion (and glamour builds) pretty much completely useless in wvw now, since confusion does effectively no damage. That being said, mesmers are far from broken…removing 1 condition doesn’t destroy a class.

I’m just concerned about wvw viability overall, though. Mesmers don’t have a lot of enticing options for aoe. They’re doing a terrible job of making scepter a viable weapon choice as well.

Ekstra.5264:

Wow, awesome response! Thank you Pyroatheist. I’ll go and respec and sniff around the trading post for the gear you suggest right now!

Green gear shouldn’t be all that expensive. Less than a gold. Remember to upgrade every 5-10 levels. Save your karma for the armor in Orr, and gold for weapons and jewelry for your lv 80 exotic weapons.

Also, your best weapons in wvw are teamwork and communication. Look into running with your server’s better wvw guilds, or your preferred commander in Mumble.

I liked the versatility of it. A mesmer can do a little bit of what all the other profs can, and then some.

WyldKat.4712:

Jski.6180:

…old meaning…zergling

I still swear if they make a Starcraft MMORPG I am SO totally going to be the cutest rabid lil crackling EVER!

Been saying that for years. Blizzard should’ve gone with World of Starcraft and Bioware should’ve done Jade Empire Online.

Bad commanders will:

Put on a speed signet and get upset when other professions have to rely on swiftness boons to keep up.

Tag along with other commanders

Troll from the jump puzzle

Run, or escape combat without giving direction to the zergball/guild squad

Always play offense

Recommend/demand that players only run specific professions

Thresher.3049:

datawais.7209:

You’re right. I’m living a lie. Here I was considering that necros have long-cd stun breaks, no hard cc, and no combat disengage; or engis who have to spec to get reliable condi removal. I was even deluding myself into thinking we got better longbow options than rangers. No, since you probably ran into your t8 borderland with a greatsword and no stun breaks, you’re showing me the truth I’ve been denying all this time even after I spent the evening spiking glass cannon thieves and guardians: my warrior is the worst ever at wvw.

Yep,
After 1800+ hours on a Necro, just in wvw, I find playing Warrior pretty much rolling on ‘easy mode’. Tonnes of condition removal, manoeuvrability, speed, buffs, stability, group heals, raw damage and heaps of CC that just makes people cry. Pretty much everything in the utilities and traits just does what it says on the can and works.

Think the nicest part of it all is just picking the tools for the job on the fly to switch out and do what’s required, if you can’t figure it out you’re probably just a bloody terrible player and should stick to hitting mobs in happy carebear land.

Plus he’s obviously never tried to run, escape, or withdraw from combat as a necro.

P.S. Blackgate, come back to T2

Niim.9260:

Oolune.4357:

Post bashing opposing server for being a unified force.

Continuation of post bashing opposing server for running away from a fight.

Post insulting opposing server for not being able to unify.

Post about how my server’s preferred style of WvW play is superior and how opposing server is stupid and/or incapable of enjoying themselves.

Post something with no context and thus makes no sense.

Diplomatic post favorably generalizing opposing servers punctuated with a lolcat.

Dico.4815:

Hello everyone. I am not here to discuss that Warriors is the worst class in WVW cause it is a fact, my question is: what warrior’s are supposed to do in wvw ? We doesn’t have the best damage, best CC or best survival. What we have is mobility so warrior’s are supposed to run at wvw ?

You’re right. I’m living a lie. Here I was considering that necros have long-cd stun breaks, no hard cc, and no combat disengage; or engis who have to spec to get reliable condi removal. I was even deluding myself into thinking we got better longbow options than rangers. No, since you probably ran into your t8 borderland with a greatsword and no stun breaks, you’re showing me the truth I’ve been denying all this time even after I spent the evening spiking glass cannon thieves and guardians: my warrior is the worst ever at wvw.

I guess I’m not in it for the damage?

With a more defensive build, you’re looking at an aoe weakness, and a cone cripple that you can trait to turn into a cone immob. I run with a wvw guild, though. I can take the alphas, then knockdown, cripple, debuff, and rely on the rest of the teammate to cover the damage.

My perspective is different. Usually, I’m not caught alone in the open, and my targets are mashing buttons, not activating anti-warrior combo #463. Hammer on its own suffers a lack of mobility and an overall short range that will ensure you’re kited to death if you find yourself without a ranged option on which to fall back.

It depends on your situation. If you’re with an organized team on mumble, you’ll see a difference with the cc options and aoe control you bring to the table. If you’re in the EB zerg running with pugs, few melee options will seem viable, since the majority of those with you will watch you die while they kite the front lines for solo kills.

Aesthetically and historically, this would be more accurate as knights and thanes of medieval Europe saved easily-breakable, expensive swords for single and urban combat while using cheaper, easier-to-use haft and pole weapons like hammers, axes, and maces for the battlefield.

OutspokenAardvark.9781:

This Burts kid cracks me up. Please keep the posts coming. For the record, I think you picked the perfect server for your personality.

But he has a point. Kaining has been letting us win. We really don’t deserve to be in t2 as much as FA if you look at the evidence:

Kaineng has time after time let us win by running past our groups and letting us flank them or jumping off the ramp at hills so we could face them at half health.

We have knowingly and willingly participated in pvdoor by taking towers and camps while enemy forces were somewhere else instead of nobly letting even numbers in to man the seige. I’m even ashamed to admit that commanders asked me to cast line of warding to keep people from going into towers!

We knowingly and egregiously participate in zerg tactics. I witnessed as a well-known and respected commander refuse to count our numbers or face the enemy with a valiant frontal assault with even numbers. He instead charged them from the side with more people and even told them to dodge the static fields our opponents generously laid down for us.

I can’t live the lie anymore! The shame is too great! We’re in T2 because we’re a bunch of cheating zergers that Kaineng has chosen to give mercy which we clearly do not deserve!

Cameirus.8407:

standing on walls wondering why you picked guardian because you are useless in keep battles.
Chasing the zerg as it perma swiftness’s into the distance and only letting you catch up just in time to miss the cap on a supply camp for the 900th time.
Nuking down a rogue only to watch it just run away with impunity, laughing at your buringblue tennis balls following it uselessly.

Mesmers have the same problems, if not more in wvw.

Temporal curtain’s swiftness doesn’t stack, so you’re forced into air or centaur runes or you’re the last to the party and maybe get the last hit in. Even then, you’re forced to use focus in wvw, which you have only one viable mainhand option.

iZerker’s los was fixed, so your weapon options are mind stab, which roots you, or chaos storm on a 30s cooldown for damage in a seige.

Your only cone aoe’s are sword cleaves. Your best damage comes from phants and shatters, which require targets. Don’t get me wrong, you rack up the solo kills, but you won’t see bags ikittenerg battle, especially with skill lag.

Sebrent.3625:

Dahkeus.8243:

@ ODB: Necromancers have no teleports like mesmers and have crap for mobility, so a 25% sig isn’t making them into thieves.

Oh really? No teleports like Mesmer eh?

• Summon Flesh Worm – Not only does it give you a pet that can attack, but it also gives you your own point to teleport back to. It can also be cast and then instantly teleported to to be treated as a teleport.
• Spectral Walk – your own personal teleport … except rather than being able to also teleport others, it has 30 sec less cooldown and gives you swiftness with a base duration of 30 seconds.

Mesmer has what?

• Blink – just a 900 range teleport & stunbreaker (your worm is 1,200 range, a pet w/ range attacks, and you poison anyone at the location you ported to)
• Portal – place it at one location, run to another location, have to be standing on the portal to portal to the other one (spectral walk you start it and move as you please … port if you want during the duration … enjoy swiftness

I’d stay they aren’t exactly the same but you definitely have things like them.

Yeah. Flesh Worm and SPectral walk work more like Portal, and you’d have to know things are going to get pear-shaped beforehand, so why enter combat at all? Necros have a themed teleport that gets them out of the fray called Death. Signet of the Locust won’t get you out of combat, and Necros really can’t escape somebody shooting them in the back.

That said, a 20-ish% speed signet for a QoL change is a mixed bag.

Xeph.4513:

Anyways simply said, mesmers don’t need this buff at all, the class just needs nerfs in the utility department, other than that its perfectly fine.

When was the last time you used a scepter?

Dastion.3106:

Having actually listened to the interview now, I have some comments.

1) Xeph broached the question poorly. Any good Mesmer should know to differentiate IP Shattering with non-IP Shattering, they are too different in damage/utility potential to just lump into a basic “Shatter is too powerful” comment.

2) Xeph backed them into a corner where they had only one logical answer. That being that the Mesmer, who is heavily reliant on Shattering for AoE damage, is receiving more AoE on their weapons. Therefore, Shatter may need to be tweaked for balance… Nothing was said one way or the other, it’s simply a logical vague response that can be attributed to just about any change. You add somewhere, you may need to take away elsewhere.

3) Did anyone else notice that just as the Mesmer portion began Karl seemed to be asking Jon for permission to talk about something and was told emphatically “No.” ? I can’t help but wonder what kind of changes are on the horizon.

All in all, IF they do nerf Shattering.. Hopefully they do it to the build and not the base mechanic. Nerfing Mental Torment or adjusting it to reduce it’s effect on MW while having it also boost COF might be a better route.

Finally watched the whole interview. Xeph’s approach in general seemed “buff me, nerf everyone else”—or just seemed that way because he gets a little excited when he talks about profession mechanics he finds OP. So you’re right. It seems like they’re defending mesmer gameplay in context.

I’m a little discouraged that none of the interviewers played or prepared for Necro. That’s for another forum.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Shriketalon.1937:

“We would like to get more build diversity for the Mesmer out there.”

You know, it would be a lot easier to balance build diversity if we could customize our shatter bar.

It’s a lot more difficult to try to balance a single bar working well for every single situation and playstyle than it is to provide a choice of different skills for different situations. Trying to make Mind Wrack viable as both an AoE attack and a single target burst can easily tip towards either side of unbalanced, and making Mind Wrack/Cry of Frustration function for condition builds and power builds is simply inefficient design.

It’s also potentially harmful for us to have our eggs in a single basket. Part of the big concern brought up by the video is the way shatters can do a little bit too much, removing boons/inflicting vulnerability/granting healing/inflicting confusion/AoE damage, all in one ability depending on traits. But we need that level of customization to those abilities, since every Mesmer in every situation is expected to make use of them. Approaching mesmer balance with the simple method of Buff Shatter/Nerf Shatter is extremely dangerous for our profession, since it can lead to a nerfbat taking us out of the competition with one swing.

There are a lot of builds on the site that are extremely well crafted that have found nifty niches within the Mesmer’s utilities and trait system, and it would be excellent if the class mechanic showed them some well deserved tender love and care. If we had ways to customize the class mechanic directly rather than depending entirely on the trait system, it could end being far easier to balance AND provide more love for the different Mesmer playstyles in one fell swoop.

Your rational arguments have no place on the forums!

Even if it is a good one and makes a lot of sense.

Of course they might just not want to, despite how good of an idea it might be.

They hire people to make those decisions, and perhaps have their own solutions. I have heard that companies are loath to take player suggestions for fear of royalty demands.

Hydrophidian.4319:

Vagrant.1094:

EB has been odd.

The whole match has been kinda odd so far.

Should be interesting to see how long it continues in this vein.

It’s kind of predictable. It’s the same not-double-teaming strategy since last week. KN tries to take Anz/Spel, FA tries to take Pang OW. Right now, KN is taking Mend while FA took Spel and Anz.

We wipe FA at OW, KN will show up, take Pang, siege OW, and FA will make a play at Anz and Spel.

KN took Durios and Umber once yesterday, and FA had Gol when I logged, but that’s as far as they’ll go. Neither server needs to split their forces because KN can quit NA coverage after the weekend and FA—as far as EB’s concerned—doesn’t want first place.

pinkbunnies.4620:

I dont think it would be so bad if the burst from shatter specs were toned down. People say its our only “viable” spec but i think what they should say is that its our most powerful. A shift in the meta of mesmer build optimization couldnt hurt if it led to a diversity of more equally viable options.

This. While the shatter build is potent, we’re really one-trick ponies with a lot of possibilities, but only one min/max option. I’ll take a nerf to shatters if it means a buff to scepters and an overhaul of skill and traits that complimented features removed in beta.

In addition, the devs are reworking condition damage seeing as they based a profession around it (necro) and capped the damage. This will open a lot of doors for us as well.

Magiofdeath.2745:

That green keep in the middle of all blue objectives on EB is an eyesore!

Interesting – just noticed something. Look at the triangle formations that is 2 towers and 1 camp on each side of blue’s and green’s sections. Now look at red’s section and see how the 2 tower/1 camp (pang, ogrewatch, that other tower) triangle is rather uniform then look at speldan’s, anz, mendon’s triangle and look how its a right triangle (meaning the distance between the two towers from the camp is not equal). Anet must of been tripping when they made that part of the map. 5 rather uniform triangles then one right triangle on the entirety of the EB map.

We noticed that awhile ago. Speldan’s out in BFE, and Anz has a mountain blocking it. Map disadvantage goes to the team in 3rd place. (Even though, IRL, it would probably be reversed. The lowlands would be harder to defend and the overlook would be the ideal position)

Magiofdeath.2745:

It seems more common now to just take keeps that aren’t on your BL or your own section of EB just for quick ppt. It doesn’t seem like people defend “foreign” keeps (keeps that aren’t on your own BL or your own section of EB) as well/as much, but I partially blame the orange sword change for that. It seems people defended “foreign” keeps much better in the past. I guess 15 mins of having a keep (7 ticks of 25 – 15/2 rounded down – or 175 points) is better than nothing. I could also be completely wrong, but I’ve seen several times when I’ve been playing that “foreign” keeps do not stay in the hands of the server that just took it for very long, a lot of the time due to lack of defense.

I think that was the big reason for the sword change. One or two zergs could sweep a map during offpeak and steamroll any hint of resistance for the rest of the week. It’s in the same vein as the change to the buffed Supers.

When we (TC) were up against Blackgate and the entire map was green, the second swords shot up on our keeps, towers, or camps, we’d see a flood of 50 invaders with nothing else to do. It took till the evening (central) to take our 3rd back anywhere. I’m sure other servers had similar problems.

Now servers have to communicate and diversify. It’s easier to take empty points when everyone’s across the map on zerg offense, or waiting around in their own 3rd for something to flip. Anet wants strategy and seige winning over numbers and pop times.

Btw, I love this matchup. Flirting and cookie talk beats smack talk and QQ’ing any day. . even though neither of you drop exotics and trebs like Maguuma.

Stay on the real mesmer.. Most players in pvp/wvw will have trouble keeping still. Staff clones are a little dangerous because they drop the same conditions staff does. Sword clones vuln. Greatsword and scepter clones are decoration. If you hit something and the health bar drops to half after the first swing, switch targets.

Mesmer condition removal is less than ideal. It’s the only class besides Engineer that comes to mind that doesn’t have a heal which removes conditions. They have to trait to do that, and they usually won’t. After that, there’s the choice of Null Field, Arcane Thievery, and Mantra of Resolve. The mantra has the shortest cooldown, but it needs to be reset.

Mesmers don’t have a speed signet or a long duration on their swiftness from focus. Chills, cripples, and immobilizes hurt them more than stuns, which can be blinked or phased out of.

Mesmers have a base health pool slightly higher than thieves without the bells and whistles of sneak attacks. I’ve seen few that don’t go full glass cannon.

Paradox Xion.1038:

My necro is set up as conditionmancer. In PvE and dungeons, most enemies/mobs melt in my conditions applied with epidemic. I can take down most regular 80 level enemies in Cursed Shore in 20 seconds or less solo. I run staff/scepter-dagger. All elite armor/weapons. Max condition stats, traits. Rabid weapons, trinkets and condition maxing runes. I pretty much run Lopez’s conditions build with slight modifications to the trait lines.

Ive pretty much given up on my necro for WvW because the skills just seem to hit like a wet noodle. I never seem to do enough damage to any one or anything. Being limited to hitting 5 people on AOE gimps that damage even further. Limiting the AoE to 5 players has done nothing to dissuade the zergs, if anything its made them stronger because they dont have to worry about wide spread AoE.

I hardly ever get any honor badges on the necro since those apparently drop based on damage.

I tried my warrior and in a couple of hours I got as many badges as I had gotten in days on the necro.

Ill still use the necro but not as often and only if its needed for the situation at hand.

I’ve had the opposite experience. I understand these are the forums and I’m supposed to disown all the professions I play, but I made 4g and 60 badges tonight in WvW.

My first 2 80’s were a warrior and a mesmer.

The mesmer is fantastic for open-world skirmishes, but if we attack a keep—or defend one—the LoS on iZerker is about as good as it is on Grasp now. Which means it’s terrible. (I’d at least like Anet to give some sort of advantage from shooting down from battlements. You know? Like real life?)I have nothing do do but autoattack the gate and maybe pull someone off of seige or off the wall. That mesmers have no consistent speed buff means I’m among the last people to shoot a target, and I need one for AoE (let’s be realistic about GS#3. You’ll never use it except for filler). Which means like in the pen/shelt groups, the skill is blown because the Invader dies before I hit Tab+2/4. 1v1-3 or 4, my mes is amazing. Zerg/squad vs. zerg/squad or either direction in seige, I don’t have a lot of options.

So I rolled a warrior. More to handle income in orr and event farming than actually to WvW, but I heard they’re amazing in WvW, so I gave it a shot. . .and was kited. to. death. As I got the playstyle down, I made kills, but with no blink, and with trash mobs always conveniently there for autotarget, getting away was problematic. The thing about pugs in WvW is that they want kills more than actual victory, so they will watch your kitten die while they’re running from that ranger who just pushed forward to spike you. If the line buckles, with those glass cannon theives and tank guardians targeting the warrior who’s trying to get away with a brisk jog. With bow, I had one reticle aoe, two if the burst was up, so there was a little more to do with warrior. I refuse to use greatsword. It’s kind of a playstyle thing, so I’m sure I could have done better, or made a more serious attempt. I did learn that with a sword/shield condition build I was making more WvW kills just because EB is full of people who spec glass cannon (profession) and hope someone in the zerg will save them. So I looked at Lopez’s conditionmancer guide.

Now, I’m not going to lie and say that on my necro I have more to do than the warrior and the line buckles when the pugs want to kite the enemy zerg for their OWN personal kill. I won’t say that Necro is amazing when you’re jumped by that warrior/guardian duo while trying to run across the map to the commander dorito. That’s frustrating, but it’s not the most of WvW. Zerg/squad vs. zerg/squad and seiges are more important. As a necro, I can use marks to direct traffic. I can push, fear, and aoe tag. I can put marks on walls and watch the glass cannons’ health tick away with 3-6 stacks of bleed and a poison. That said, I’m sure we’re both having grass-is-greener issues, but I AoE’d the heck out of some zergs tonight, and came out with 2 rares and an exotic.

Spartyr.6795:

Invictus.1503:

We need a cleave. I say give us a scythe with cleave effects. We have “fake” scythes with a few staff skins, but why not the real thing. Hopefully we’ll see with a future expansion.

What is cleave? I only ever see this mentioned in the Necro forum…

Cleave is just melee cone attack. Like a sword hits 3 targets per swing on all other professions?

That said, I’m against greatsword for necro. Greatsword on every other class is so good, the devs got lazy with the other weapon sets. They forgot a ranged weapon set for guardians, and they broke—-ahem, “balanced” scepter in the middle of beta for mesmers because they just assumed that either class would just use one weapon. There are three greatsword legendaries (though Eternity only counts for the merit), and the whole game is balanced around greatsword. One more class is just too ridiculous, or just give one to engi’s thieves, necros, and ele’s.

Daendur.2357:

Great thread. Made my day.

Maybe instead of 5 stacks of vulnerability, 2 second weakness and 1 second cripple they can receive a 72hours ban that can be converted to permanent if they miss again

Backstab has been changed so that if the the thief misses, he/she shadowsteps to Soviet Russia where back stabs you

Black Powder should blind the thief instead of the enemy. Can be traited so the thief can also receive 26 stacks of vulnerability when blinded.

Pistol Whip will cause a knockback instead of a stun. The thief gains 4 seconds of immobilize

Dagger Storm throws daggers that heal hostile targets to full health. Casting causes the thief to gain 20 seconds of poison and 29 stacks of bleed.

Shadow Refuge has had the particle effect changed to a lighted neon sign. The thief gains 20 sec of burning. All hostiles in 1200 radius gain 32 stacks of might.

Downed Skills for thieves have been altered. The bouncing projectiles grant targets 1 gold for every strike. Damage has been removed.

All thieves killed in WvW grant 2 extra tokens, a precursor, and a quaggan backpack.

Thieves killed by mobiles upgrade them a class from normal to veteran, veteran to champion, champion to legendary.

Skyro.3108:

It’s difficult to say what exactly is needed since this will require a total rework of all 3 of the Scepter’s skills, but given that the Mesmer lacks the cover conditions necessary to combat cleanses I think the focus should be on the shorter, higher burst conditions like burning and confusion. This would fill a needed niche in the current meta as well (a bursty condi-based class). I think a good baseline to work with would be an auto-attack that applies confusion, a DPS-oriented ability that applied burning, and then lastly a true defensive-oriented ability (such as a channeled block). Also either the DPS or defensive-oriented ability would create clone somehow.

Not really. The problem with scepter is that it has one of two weapon abilities that stack confusion, but it’s only the one, channeled ability. It takes a lot of work to maintain even one stack of confusion during a fight. The other one is iMage, who always fires her rabbit off just after an attack, and the confusion wears off just before the next with a ~5s(?) cooldown.

Put confusion into the autoattack (and the clones), similar to the necro scepter with bleed, and mesmer scepter would be a hundred times more viable. Hell, condition builds for mesmer in general would be a hundred times more viable.

CM, TA, HotW, and Arah are the only ones that offer Rabid (Prec/Tough/Cond)options. 4/6 of the karma pieces are available as well. The TP option is just expensive.

That said, Arah. Easy. I like the TA weapons better, though.

killahmayne.9518:

Condition Builds in my experience is meh for a warrior especially if you are using rifle.

With rifle, you are only really stacking maybe 5-6 bleeds on a single person at one time, provided they don’t remove the condition. From a WvW and an SPvP perspective, you basically aren’t doing kitten and being completely useless.

With sword, you can probably stack 5-6 bleeds on 2-3 people and with your F1 you can get 10 more stacks of bleed on two other people. Now granted they don’t cure it it would do marginal to ok dps. But why when you can constantly hit 2k crits on 3 people with your axe every half second or so.

With Longbow, it might be somewhat of a viability in WvW if all you do is spam your F1, the burns would tick for pretty good damage, is a fairly large AoE.

Simple math, at 1,200 CD bleeds to 102.5 and burns do 628. You need approximately 6 stacks of bleed to do roughly the same DPS as 1 tick on the burn. And that needs to be built up over time while burns keep ticking for its full damage. On top of that burn applied by a warrior pulses so it is pretty much stacks intensity like a bleed does. In short, burn is way better than bleeds, by a long shot.

In short, condition builds aren’t terrible when focusing mostly single target (for bleeds) and using the longbow burns for AoE damage. You just gotta kill with your conditions before it is removed, because you may have to wait awhile before you can reapply them in bursts.

I mostly agree? Gearing for condition damage isn’t going to make you a wvw god(/ess), but it has a lot of utility in WvW in the very least since you’re always taking camps with the buff up and seige bleeds and burns are affected by your CD stat. Completely kitten useless is the guy with the commander tag sitting in the JP.

I have a glass cannon shatter-build mesmer, and so when I got my warrior to 80 I wanted to do something tanky. Seeing as the build and gear set for WvW tanking wasn’t working, and with the spirit of adventure (i.e: it was cheap and I was bored) I went for a sword/sword/rifle condition spec (0/10/30/30/0)with carrion sigil and jewelry, undead runes.

There was a definite difference.

Why? Any skilled player would have a condition cleanse on his/her hotbar.

Let’s be honest with ourselves here. How many skilled players are in WvW at any given moment? On the one hand there are a lot of guilds that run with military precision. . . but when they can’t all get in, it’s diluted by the mob that tries to dps the SM gate down and stand in red arrow cart rings.

Anyway, I’m finding that most WvW players, in zergs and roamers, will eat the 12s of bleed from sword and rifle autoattacks. Most notice the crit numbers from my mesmer’s burst, and will run and heal. Few (by few, I mean: mostly guardians) will stop to cleanse the 6-8 stacks of bleeds. Most just run and dodge. (Thieves are especially funny. Their basic heal is a cleanse, but three times yesterday, they used the house to get away and when it was up they were sitting there downed and bandaging.) More often than that, the response to Flurry is HB or Dagger Storm (when I pop EP).

So in short, a CD spec will not replace burst. For now, since it’s generally unexpected, bleed stacking in WvW is somewhat effective and keeps me from getting kited to death.

No. The mesmer sword block from the oh sword does no damage and summons a clone. Of course a mainhand skill is going to be stronger than an offhand block.

I usually go sword/shield/rifle in WvW (0/10/30/30/0), and I noticed that a lot of people actually don’t cleanse. They’ll just wait out the 12s bleed.

So today I geared towards condition damage—which wasn’t that expensive (undead runes, corruption jewelry, karma armor, sup. corruption sigil).

It was amazing! I tore through whole zergs with condition damage and laughed as I raked in the badges!

Just kidding. I’ve been winning some 1v1’s and 2v2 because I block alphas and they run away with 5-6 stacks of bleed on them which is about 6k of damage. In pvp they spec for survival. In wvw zergs, they spec for spike damage. All in all, I’m liking condition damage for sword since it gives time to recover from crowd control while unnoticed damage ticks away.

alanis.6094

Next time you go wvw, be aware of how much of it requires you to hit someone on top of a wall, and how much of it is ‘everything else’. You’ll spend a lot more combat time doing ‘everything else’. As I mentioned, there are other things to do at an offensive siege that is more influential than hitting someone on a wall. For example, my Necro can do stupid things to people/groups on a wall, but nothing near what I can do with an arrow cart of ballistae.

Who did create a mesmer to fire a ballista or arrow cast ?. The class where just fine before they nerfed our AOE down the drain. LOS fine 50% damage reduction is WAY to much. What you say is that unless you find a arrowcart or Ballista a mesmer is useless in siges now. And you are right

I don’t know the full details on the GS4 damage nerf — I presume that is a bug that hopefully will be fixed.

I also stated that, during offensive sieges, I’ll work to cut off reinforcements from getting to the keep/tower — which is much more important than trying to kill someone on a wall (who will likely be rezzed anyway).

In defensive sieges, I don’t have limitations to my gameplay at all.

Stop trying to poke holes in his theory with logic. Mesmers were totally destroyed by the nerf. If you’re using weapon switches or building seige instead of realizing your life was ruined after they fixed a bug, maybe you should roll another class.

Discord.1543:

I’m upset that one unique utility option we had was removed (being able to clear siege where others couldn’t). I never saw that as game breaking, because any auto attack will take it down in 1-2 hits, and even if you have 3 iZerkers out attacking a treb, it’s still going to take AGES to take it down.

But…. I can’t believe everyone didn’t see this coming. How do nerfs happen? people complain is how. who complains the most? no-skill whiners who sit on wall siege all day and can’t take 1-2 seconds to kill the thing killing them. so who gets nerfed? the people using really flimsy, but marginally effective skills to clean them out. these are the same people that don’t equip a stun breaker to get deal with thieves, so guess who else got a ton of nerfs? uh huh…

I’m sad to see that utility go, and if the claims that the damage of the iZerker are accurate (I haven’t seen any noticeable degrade along these lines, and I still am easily as effective in open combat), then that’s no good, but really… this doesn’t break the class at all, it just changes some aspects for what we can do.

As a caster class, I’d like to see SOMETHING make up for the fact that we have TERRIBLE AoE options, though…

I agree, to a point?

The iZerker was great for clearing seige, and I’m disappointed they fixed it, but I’m not surprised. I didn’t think it contributed that much to anything else, since it didn’t contribute to keep offense more than the 5-7k pea shoot that was healed before the next cooldown. I find focus#4 more useful to the team dynamic (pulling people off of seige, down from walls, etc), as well as setting down counter-siege (which I think is ANet’s overall intent).

We all knew the LOS on iZerker was a bug. We knew this day would come. It sucks. They still need to fix hitboxes and obstructions, but we’re still viable in WvW.

Definitely noticed a difference without the orbs last night.

All week, there wasn’t enough siege we could lay down to keep SoR from overpowering or portalbombing us (that is, despite ballista bolts, aoe’s, direct damage etc. hitting the mesmer), so points were recaptured in a matter of minutes.

Last night, definite progress. My next beef is with trebs on the upper deck of SM—or at least moving QL out of treb range so that SM isn’t more of a threat to the blue side than the others. (To be fair, I hate it when we do it too. )

But, I enjoyed the fight with SoR. I’m looking forward to facing you against a third live server.

To ET, we ran across a couple of you last week. We almost wiped when we stopped to take pictures. You’ll be happy to know that we pulled some strings and put Eredonus Terrasicus Wuvius on the international endangered species list, so anyone that kills you in the wild is likely to get picketed by PETA.

Voodoo Tina.4180:

Staff isn’t good for melee? Really that’s where it’s best.

Chaos armor only works if you are taking hit. It’s wasted if you are kiting or not taking hits.

Chaos storm is largely wasted if either you or your targets aren’t in it. You can’t do that at range.

Phase retreat is pointless if you’re already at range, it’s main purpose is to get you some distance.

Winds of chaos is usually best if you stand closer to your target than anyone else, so you soak up the boons. The only exceptions being when you have 3 enemies balled up and want to just spread conditions, or if you have a tank you would rather buff instead of yourself.

Warlock is the only staff skill that does its job as well at range as in melee. It is in that sense the reverse of the GS – staff works at range, better close in, and is defensive, while GS works in melee but better at range, and is offensive.

They work beautifully together.

Stop trying to refute his points with your logic denial!

iLeap is tricky, a)because the clone has to be at the target, so if it’s running away, chances are you’ll miss, b) if you’re out of range, the clone won’t spawn at all, and c) if the target is moving at all, you may leap to the wrong direction.

So the best advice is spawn the clone proactively when you think you’re target’s going to run, before you use decoy, or before you have to dodge. It takes some finesse and practice. If you try to spam it, you’ll end up in a bad place.

We were taking Danelon, and I was with a small group flanking the defenders who dug themselves in and built ballista. The main force was getting hit pretty hard, but they started to push through when they saw us round the bend. In the back there was a human rifle warrior and a charr longbow ranger shooting away, the former was at half health and kneeling for a kill shot, the latter was at a quarter and was just finished backing away from the front.

I ran up to them and dropped a feedback bubble, and I had this thought when the numbers pop up—we all think it when we drop feedback:“whoa! I’m glad that didn’t land on me”. The warrior crit himself and the ranger just popped on his #2 and they both dropped. I’ve been meaning to send a “thank you” note for the badges. That was the second (and third) time I actually watched someone kill themselves with feedback.

Our advantage is pvp/wvw just because the mob AI knows where the damage is coming from and clones don’t have any kind of taunt aura. Risen run right at you, poison aura and all.

The damage output looks weaker from just “you”, but when you factor in your phantasms, you’re really coming out on top. They take time to set up, but once they’re all on the field you see the difference.

Really, you’re all professions rolled into one. Greatsword is similar to Ranger’s longbow, sword/torch and sword/pistol work similar to Thief, Scepter/Sword is tanky, staff is support and aoe, etc.

So in short, we are still epic at 80, but soloing takes longer than other professions. Moa Morph and Time Warp to your heart’s delight.

Vorpal.4683:

. . . but SoS has gained a metric kitten ton of people since we beat them last and are currently rolling all over maguuma and dragonbrand. It’s not even funny.

I agree with you for the most part, except for the above. When Maguuma gets rolled, it’s pretty funny. My favorite servers are TC and whoever’s beating on Goon.

mcl.9240:

Yeah. If there’s one problem with TC, it’s that without a good commander on the field, the folks in WvWvW seem at a loss as to what they should be doing.

This. Definitely. Last night was the best example. There was bickering on team chat about whether people should run supply to QL and repair the walls with the three trebs bombing it from the SM tower or abandon it. Then Chuk and Odin (I think)signed on and asked for the sitrep, and everyone fell in line.

When no one’s leading squads, people argue about or suggest stupid things (taking SM when we have no resources, the jump puzzle when we have no keep, the grub when we’re under attack, the price of tea in china, etc.)

But even in the mornings trying to get things going when the whole map is green, it’s almost impossible to keep people from the spawn camp without an icon or icon-cred. My only complaint on the server, really.

Sorry for the necro.

Yesterday in WvW, I got jumped by both a max-height norn guardian and a charr warrior at the same time. They were both huge and manly, wielding big jagged exotic greatswords and heavy armor. They probably had names like Pwns Facemelter and X Assassin X.

I killed them both.

How did I do it?

With pink butterfly magic. That’s how.

/kittenolol