Guild Wars 2

The cost of an extra character slot is about the same as a month’s subscription in an average MMO.

Clever girl!

I think its main purpose is social. Not many MMOs in the past have allowed any player (i.e. not just “healers”) to indulge in altruistic instincts. The desire to help each other is really strong, and it’s a great step forward to have an MMO that rewards this behaviour. That, combined with the impossibility of griefing, makes the social atmosphere of this game really quite friendly (I find).

Plus, as a player above said, it’s another interesting game choice: sometimes you put yourself in danger when you revive, so you have to weigh the value of an extra fighter in the battle versus your own survival. (Also I think most classes can Trait to make oneself more survivable while reviving – another choice.)

It’s actually a brilliant mechanic IMHO.

The Mesmer isn’t a pet class really, and it’s best not to think of it that way. Clones are aggro management skills with fancy graphics, with a secondary burst damage/cc capability, Phantasms are sort of like DPS “turrets”.

And they’re all meant to be easily disposable, they’re not supposed to hang around. It’s not a class where you’re meant to “have pets out”, the general idea is to constantly summon and (situationally) shatter, summon and shatter, summon and shatter – bish, bash, bosh. It’s a fairly active and busy class to play.

Cromx.3941:

Yeah I am unhappy with the mesmer. There is so much juggling involved, constantly respawning phantasms, gettingkitten everytime a clone overwrites a phantasm. The clunky nature of having to all the time respawn my “pets”.

Having them die when the enemy dies….krappy DPS with anything other than pistol in offhand and then I have to use the lame scepter which overwrites my phantasms at a greater rate. I wish I had rolled something else…I did not want a micro manage pet class…I did not think it would turn into that.

Yeah that’s the whole point, it’s a moderately heavy micro-management class and if you’re not into micro-management you won’t enjoy it. But if you do, there’s no substitute

I was reminded recently about how it’s like a Loremaster in LOTRO. Those had a similar stigma, also heavy micro-management, and definitely not a class for everybody. But boy, if you mastered it, you could do ANYTHING.

Getting “bad link” from this, sorry

Wonderful vids, fan of the first two, enjoyed the third. Keep up the good work! Your method of explaining is so lucid and meticulous that I’m looking forward to your Guardian guide, and I hope you get into some other alts too!

Derpinator.2894:

Here, it feels a lot like everyone’s the same class just with a different skin.

Wow, that’s just so totally not my experience. My Mesmer plays totally differently from my Warrior, absolute night and day.

In fact one of the marvels of GW2 for me is just how precisely defined and distinct the classes are.

They are all soloable and survivable, if that’s what you mean, then I’d agree (no kittened-for-solo healer, etc.) – but when you get to teaming up, you can have very distinct functions in a group.

Roven Leafsong.8917:

gurugeorge.9857:

The long and the short of it is that the Mesmer is a “busy” class to play. You are supposed to be pressing lots of keys a lot. At the end of the day you’re doing the same job with lots of keypresses that some other professions can do with only a couple of keypresses.

(emphasis mine)

If that statement were true (and I don’t agree with it myself), then regardless of personal preference it would seem to be a classic example of very poor design, wouldn’t it?

Complexity is fine, unnecessary complexity for identical results, not so much.

It’s not poor design if it satisfies a certain portion of the playerbase. Some of us just like to be busy and to master patterns of keypresses, it’s part of the fun for us. Other players (or even us busybodies, at other times, for an alt change) like to spam a few buttons over and over. No big deal, just different preferences, which developers try to satisfy.

The end result is always the same: dead mobs.

But every MMO has less fiddly and more fiddly classes. The Loremaster in LOTRO is another absolutely classic example of a fiddly class. Lots of buttons to do what a Hunter can do with 2.

That’s a great idea! All the have to do is get an actor in to record a set of voices occasionally and it’s easy money. I would absolutely definitely buy several voice packs for middling amounts of gem and I’m sure many other players would too.

Birdy.4816:

ChairGraveyard.2967:

The people that have level capped and claim they have nothing to do are outright lying. None of them have legendaries thus far.

Hmmm, a well thought out end-game with tons of dungeons and challenging rewards, interesting mechanics and content for more than 5 people at once.

Or mindlessly grinding 1000s of ores and leveling 100 times over for an aesthetic slightly flashier weapon.

OH THANK YOU FOR THE AMAZING END-GAME.

You cannot compare the endgame content and endgame character progression of a game that’s been out 8 years with one that’s been out 2 weeks. It’s frankly absurd to do so.

When WoW was freshly born, you saw almost exactly the same complaints on the forums there as you see here now. “Waaaah, I’ve gotten to level cap and there’s nothing to do.”

Waaaah. Waaah, waaaah, kitten waaah.

RaCio.6891:

Wouldn’t people who are lazy want to keep things the way they are? They would be able to do plenty of damage and have plenty of utility using their phantasms.

Eh? What I’m seeing is requests to change the profession to be even more Phantasm-oriented than it is, or could be, even Traited. IOW, what I see is people trying to skew the prof away from its core summon/shatter mechanic, and wanting semi-permanent Phantasm pets.

As to the question of “efficiency”, there is no such thing as efficiency in the abstract. It’s always efficiency-relative-to-a-person’s-preferred-playstyle. If the playstyle of the Mesmer doesn’t suit, then leave it alone and try something else. (But anyway, in another thread, we’ve seen EasymodeX question the DPS counts that people were claiming for their Phantasms.)

I suppose basically I’m sick to the back teeth of the whining people do on class forums in MMOs trying to change developers’ visions, instead of trying to see if what the developers have given them makes sense as something different from what they might expect or be used to. It’s like some sort of tic, people just instantly whine in automatic mode and the forums are cluttered with whiney groupthink.

Normally, in subscription MMOs this has meant a continual rebalancing by developers in an attempt to accommodate the whining, till eventually you get a bunch of bland hybrid classes that all basically all do the same things.

I’d say that I wouldn’t wish this to happen to GW2 – but of course, since the game is non-subscription, it’s extremely unlikely to happen, since the developers don’t actually have to heed the whining at all. Which is both hilarious and glorious.

So I guess what I’m saying is: whiners, just give up, give up this silly dance. Play what Anet has given you the way it was intended (and it’s already intended to have quite a bit of versatility, including more Phantasm orientation if you want it), or try another prof, or just go.

Sure, things can be tweaked and a few things changed here and there, but this is never going to be a class where the Phantasms are like pets, or even pseudo-pets. THEY ARE MEANT TO BE DISPOSABLE AND EASILY DISPOSED OF. They are not pets, they are “illusions”, that’s the concept.

For God’s sake give the concept room to breathe and be distinct.

True Seeker.3682:

While I agree with the general assessments (Use both Phantasms and Shatters as situation dictates. Mesmers are “busy” so don’t expect to just AA everything) I don’t think we need Yet Another Shatter Thread. It’s been (and is being) talked to death already in more than a few threads.

Yeah, but the other threads have been started by complainers. I thought it worthwhile starting a thread that takes a stand in the other direction.

Razamis.1062:

Are you kidding? GW2 is a little over 2 weeks old and already people are level capping and finding that there is absolutely nothing to do in this game.

Correction: “some people are level capping”. But some people were level-capping two weeks into WoW too.

Some people level-capping 2 weeks into an MMO is not a measure of anything, because it happens in every MMO.

What matters is how the bulk of the population is faring, and that, only Arenanet have the relevant datamining capability to know.

I must admit, I do enjoy more active crafting systems like EQ2’s and Vanguard’s, where crafting is more of an actual mini-game. But I have absolutely no problem with GW2’s crafting system as a “crafting lite” system. It fulfils the function of an alternative to combat and exploration, some “down time” in the game, and unless your heart and soul is in crafting, it’s pretty satisfying. But if your heart and soul is in crafting, you should be playing EQ2 or Vanguard

There’s so much nonsense being spoken about the Shatter mechanic. It seems to be coming from people who want to play “lazy” with the Mesmer and keep up Phantasms for DPS.

Now I’m not denying that’s possible to some extent. The Trait options are there to beef up Phantasms.

But you’ve got to figure with the lo-o-o-o-ong 5-6 sec cooldown between Phantasm attacks out of the box. Surely that’s a clue as to how they are meant to be used as a baseline? A clue to the general mechanic of the profession?

Summon-Shatter-Summon-Shatter-Summon-Shatter … that’s the general Mesmer playstyle, all the while interspersed with constant use of the many other tools in the Mesmer’s box of tricks.

The long and the short of it is that the Mesmer is a “busy” class to play. You are supposed to be pressing lots of keys a lot. At the end of the day you’re doing the same job with lots of keypresses that some other professions can do with only a couple of keypresses.

BUT THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT. Some of us enjoy being busy at the keyboard and pressing lots of buttons. The Mesmer is a class for us.

If you don’t like being busy at the keyboard and pressing lots of buttons, if you’d rather just press a few buttons at a more leisurely pace, then please do us all a favour and drop the Mesmer profession and pick another, and stop whining on the Mesmer boards and trying to change the profession into something that requires you to be less busy.

/facepalm

The charging is a mechanic. If you don’t like keeping an eye on your bar to ensure you have mantras ready, then don’t use mantras. Mantras are for people who LIKE micro-management and multi-tasking. I know multi-tasking is so 90s, but please kids, let us at least have something that we have to be alert about managing.

Christ almighty, has nobody ever heard of “keybinds”? Sure, it’s a nice treat to have a fancy schmancy mouse, but any standard 4 button mouse nowadays is quite sufficient, in combination with figuring out some non-default keybinds (using keys like Q, E, R, F, G, Z, X, C, V, plus utilizing shift variants of these as well as numbers 1-5 for common tasks). For instance, I have my weapon switching key as Z, and for Engineer I have my kits on C and V. Easy as pie.

Aih.6892:

I write here why i won’t be playing this game anymore, because as there is no monthly abonment, it’s the only way for me to give my feedback to Arenanet.
It’s one thing to sell 2 millions boxes on promesses and massive advertising, it’s another thing to satisfy your customers with the real product you give them.

Basically, what i don’t like in GW2 (but in fact it’s the tendency of these last years in PC games) is that it’s not anymore a mmorpg, but it’s an mmo"action game".
Fast fast fast, always faster, always more action, “fast-paced” fight, “dynamic” gameplay which in fact very soon fail to hide a chronical lack of richness and depth, just like these zillions of hollywoodian movies where there is always more action, faster action, shiny effects, and the scenario is always poorer…
I’m not a teenager, and i don’t want to play console type games on my PC. I don’t want to be permantly under a frustrating stress. Maybe this game is mainly made to attract the new generation, but for my part i find absotutely no pleasure in it.
It’s not too hard by its cleverness, it’s artificially too hard by unfair and unpleasant mechanisms based on reflexes over reflexion.
If i want such a game i buy a console. On my PC i want to play something more intelligent, more interesting than endlessly and aimlessly fighting monsters in such a chaotic way.
Of course, i don’t have to play GW2 if i don’t like it, and that’s why i have removed it from my PC. But as paying customer, i have the right to give my feedback as much as the ones who like this game, for i have payed the same price.
I could just forget it and go play something else, but the problem is that it’s not an isolated case, most PC games nowadays, be it online or not, tend to become console games-like.
Then what’s left for people who don’t enjoy this hysterical gaming experience and prefer something more slow paced, but with a deeper content and richer mechanisms ?
Really not much.
But my question finally is : are we really such a small minority who don’t enjoy the way the new PC games are designed ? (and all entertainment and cultural products in general).

I’m 54 and I have absolutely no problem with the pace of the game – not least because the game also offers lots of opportunities to just hang out and smell the roses. There’s a ton of detail you can get into if you just hang around a place listening to NPC conversations and talking to the NPCs. Also because of the teleport system, you have the choice of walking to get immersion and atmosphere, but the option of using teleport when you just want to get from A to B.

If you’re talking about taking time pondering builds, this game has a VERY deep build system that you can spend hours beard-stroking with.

If it’s the combat gameplay itself, then I’m afraid it’s just a L2P problem. Are you a keyboard turner? If you want to feel more comfortable with modern games, then you have to make the effort to find a tree and learn to circle strafe using mouse and keyboard; you will also have to spend some time pondering keybinds and finding keybinds that are really comfortable and enable fast play.

Then you will actually enjoy the fast-paced nature of the combat – and therefore enjoy the alternating rhythm of fast-paced combat with an incredibly rich and detailed virtual world to just mosey about in at your leisure.

Frankly, this game world feels more alive than any MMO I’ve ever played.

There is a real holy trinity, there always has been, and it applies in real life combat as well as in games. That trinity is CC (or in real life “Intel” and the various clever methods of feinting and fooling the enemy that warriors have developed over the centuries), Support, and DPS.

(As an aside: there has never been such a thing as a videogame “tank” (high HP low DPS high “taunt”) in real life combat. Real tanks are both tough and DPS monsters. Tanks are a threat precisely because of this.)

The only reason for videogame “tanks” and “healers” has been because of the dumbness of AI (or perhaps, sometimes, developer laziness). As soon as you have smarter AI that doesn’t glom on the guy who’s armoured up to the nines shouting “yo momma” at them, then you have to fight smart.

In this game you have to fight smart. Sure, people can be more tanky or healery and divide their roles a bit, but fundamentally the division of labour has to be more spread out in the team. Everyone has to have some Support skills, and a bit of CC. Everyone needs to be somewhat tough, as well as doing some DPS. That means that tactics can be fluid and shift somewhat. Instead of one team composition, the team composition has to be fluid, such that nobody is fixed in any particular role.

Just adding my voice in agreement. Most of the comments and background convos are really good, and I do want to hear them, it’s all just that they’re all a bit too frequent. I’d say make the gap about 150% or 160% more, or something like that.

And one’s character’s ability calls are great atmosphere too, but again, they need to be triggered less often; probably about half the frequency they have.

God, I’m glad it’s not just me. I’ve tried this so many times I’ve just given up and left the personal story languishing at that lvl 30 mission, and I’m now lvl 41 (Mesmer)! Good to hear it’s being tweaked. Here’s to the 17th, when I can continue my personal story

FWIW I’ve never not had a Gold completion (not unless I’ve come very late to the party, e.g. when a Champion just has an inch of health or whatever). If I’m there from the beginning, or even come in at 3/4 health bar (say), I always get Gold, no matter how many people are there.

Again, the key to the Mesmer is that it is a very busy playstyle. If you’re not pressing a lot of keys in quick succession constantly, you’re doing it wrong. The class is meant for people who prefer to do with lots of keypresses what other classes can do with one or two

They’re a necessary gold sink.

I think one does tend to adjust to whatever a game has to offer. After playing Champions Online for a solid period, I thought I couldn’t go back to a game that didn’t have a blocking mechanic, but I got into EQ2 shortly after that. You’ll just “ghost” dodging/blocking for a while till you get used to the downgrade

But yeah, so many great QOL innovations in this game, it’s fantastic. It’s evolutionary rather than revolutionary, but it’s soooo well made.

This seems to be a new thing, I’ve had mine on small since launch, and it’s only in the last few days that the TP text has been garbled-looking.

Well, at level 30-38, depending on my level of concentration and focus, I’ve been increasingly able to handle +2, +3 and even +4 mobs. (Yesterday at lvl 38 was battling against lvl 42 Centaurs, groups of 2, 3, even 4, even with vets sometimes, though that’s awfully risky).

That’s about right for mid-level in MMOs for me, so I’m very satisfied.

nidwin.6731:

You charge a mantra
You cast the charges

My bad. Me know nothing.

And even if the tooltip is wrong it makes no sense and it’s complete garbage. Because you charge your mantras before a fight starts to be ready and at 100% of your possible efficiency. You’re NOT going to enter a fight with uncharged mantras except if you’re a newbie and forgot it. Mantras should heal when you use them, not when you charge them. It’s already bad enough having our mantras being subpar.

My two cents of course.

Well, the fact that you can Trait them for combat charging (+armour, – cast time) means it’s envisioned as something people will do. Also, the fact that you can charge while moving and dodging.

Yeah it’s precisely the lack of “carrots” that makes this game fun for me.

At last, an MMO in which the game world around me feels alive in a way that was previously only matchable (in a videogame) by GM-led Persistent Worlds in NWN and NWN2, or by games with player driven content like EVE.

IOW, it’s a sort of pseudo-sandbox in which I can just wander around and encounter things, in a world that feels like it’s going on by itself and doesn’t feel designed around me.

Plus, the PvP is just infinite content, basically. Nothing so varied and random as other players, to keep you entertained.

PIken Square is still busy as hell in the early to mid levels.

Plus, it’s when the zergs start thinning out that the DEs get really intersting and really … dynamic.

i.e. when the zergs are nipping everything in the bud in the early levels, the zones don’t change much, in the later zones, when not all DEs are cut off in their prime, the zones shift and change quite a lot.

Also, it gets more interesting later on in that you have to call for assistance if you’re the only one starting a DE – or you can be in a roving party looking for them.

I think combos are actually where you get into the real depth of the gameplay. It takes a while and a bit of thought to understand precisely what your own combos can do (your own fields and finishers), and then it takes a while again (and probably some alt-ing with the other profs) to understand how you can lay down fields to help others and exploit others’ fields.

Shriketalon.1937:

Right now, however, we have minion bombing. The current Mesmer creates NPCs, and either leaves them DPSing about, or commands them to rush the target and snuggle it to death.

Not the way I play it. I have F1, F2, F3 and F4, each of which have situational uses and are quite powerful ways of disposing of illusions.

Either way……I know you clearly don’t like pet classes,

Oh I love pet classes in general (CoV Mastermind ftw ), I was just emphasizing that the Mesmer isn’t one.

but how is the current design not somewhat pet-class like?

In the fact that illusions are disposable and meant to be disposed of quite often, for various reasons, with various effects, and in various circumstances. That is, precisely, the shatter mechanic. It’s this constant flashing into-and-out-of existence of the illusions, combined with things like decoy swapping, blink, etc., that give the Mesmer the mercurial quality you (rightly) note as the hallmark of the class as a “magic” class.

In every MMO, there are some classes that require you to press half a dozen keys to do the same job as other classes can do with one. The Mesmer is a busy class to play, for those of us who like to keep busy. Part of that busyness constantly making illusions pop into and out of existence, and shattering illusions is part of that mechanic, sound and integral.

I’m sure things will be tweaked here and there, but I’m not at all convinced that the class needs any sort of major overhaul such as you propose.

weird mispost thingy.

Seems like a pretty fair assessment of both the negatives and the positives.

Shriketalon.1937:

And further still…

I’m sorry to have to say this, but this seems to me to be basically an eloquently-written class whine post.

Class whine posts pollute most class forums on most subscription MMOs. Fortunately (and happily), this is not a subscription MMO, therefore Anet don’t need to give any weight to class whine posts. I’m sure this must be immensely liberating for them; I’m certain it’s a great relief to those of us who are sick to death of class whine posts from self-assumed “experts” on MMO forums.

It seems to me (correct me if I’m wrong) that you conceive of the Mesmer as a pet class, and you want to make it a better pet class.

The Mesmer is not a pet class. Repeat after me: “the Mesmer is not a pet class”.

Did I mention that the Mesmer is not a pet class?

In a sense, the pets are almost merely cosmetic, just flavour. They have very minimal AI.

They are supposed to be disposable, throwaway aggro management/burst damage, that you pump out, let them do their thing, and shatter.

If this were a slower-paced game, then I might agree with some of what you say. But it’s not, it’s an extremely fast-paced game. Fights are too quick to be faffing about treating illusions like pets (not without beefing up their AI to the level of Ranger pets). Phantasms are meant to do one volley and die, they’re not meant to hang around “doing DPS”. The clue to this is their 5 second attack rate. In this game, 5 seconds is an eternity.

IOW Phantasms pump out a quick burst, shatter is a quick burst, phantasm is a quick burst, shatter is a quick burst … etc.

The “equal value to all illusions so far as shatter is concerned” is in fact excellent game design – it’s a limitation. In the right hands, the Mesmer is already bordering on OP as it is. If that limitation weren’t there, the Mesmer would be OP in anybody’s hands. i.e. if the Phantasms were more like persistent pets, they’d be doing damage way beyond the level of Ranger pets, and some rebalancing would be required elsewhere.

Also, the ability to emphasise one aspect or another of the Mesmer’s bag of tricks via Traits is what’s usually known as “flexibility”.

Another point: it’s way too early to be making these kinds of judgement, what I call “beta orthodoxies”. Beta testers are not hugely representative of the gaming public at large. The game has only just started, so the kind of consensus that goes “shatter is a crap mechanic” is premature. The real data that Anet will go on when it comes to making changes has yet to be gathered, and it will be based on datamining from large numbers of players.

What is this, I don’t even …

You can zoom right out with the mouse wheel, and you can look at the sky.

The camera bounces a bit in a few cramped areas, that’s about the worst you can say about it.

What are people talking about here, it sounds like there are several topics being mixed up.

Automated LFG tool, no, no, no, a thousand times no. Improvement to the LFG tool that’s already in the kittening game, yes. City of Heroes or DDO are good examples of highly functional non-automated LFG tools.

Nikijih.1075:

Second: Shatter skills do have a heafty time to execute: whatever time is required to summon three clones.

i.e. instant, with Mirror Images plus a weapon clone summoner.

I don’t understand how people can talk about Phantasm “DPS” when their attack rate is so low. It’s what, like 5 seconds? That’s an eternity in this game.

It feels to me that this is one of those “beta orthodoxies” that solidifies early in an MMO’s life before a bigger cross-section of players have been able to get the measure of it the class so that a true consensus emerges.

I didn’t really know anything about them (didn’t even know about our bioluminescence!), but I found the Grove such a beatiful and intriguing place I just fell in love with it. Plus, I managed to make my walking cabbage look cute as all get out

Well of course everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, but these kinds of reviews baffle me. It sounds like you’re playing a different game from the one I’m playing!

I feel that dynamic events do change the world around me a lot (not earlier on where zergs are beating everything and nipping things in the bud, but later on, when some events “fail” because there are fewer players to join in at key points, there can be quite lot of variation within in the zones over time). I think the gameplay is extremely rich and rewarding (combos are a major key to the added depth, I’ve only recently realized). The PvP is amongst the best I’ve experienced in any game, both from the poit of view of intrinsic fun and from the point of view of the way it’s organized and set up.

Last night, I geared up and re-traited (lvl 35) and tried the methods outlined in the video – and I have to say, it’s much, much better than my previous haphazard method.

What’s interesting is that I was actually doing ok bumbling along, but it’s clear now that I was missing a HUGE aspect of the gameplay out by not really understanding how combos work and how to exploit them. Thus proving Anet’s idea that “you can play it how you want and you will function fine”, but “there’s more depth and precision if you want it”.

I’m going to transfer this knowledge to my other characters now too and think deeply about their combo synergies; now that I’ve twigged how important combos and their exploitation are to my Mesmer, I can see that they must be an essential part of the gameplay of every prof.

Wow, that was an eye-opener! I was very fuzzy on combo fields and finishers, this has clarified the subject for me tremendously!

Yeah, I don’t think you really know what all the classes “are” (i.e. what they do) until you’ve played them, so psychologically you tend to notice the class you are playing until you’ve played a few alts to moderate levels.

Zen.1740:

nvmvoidrays.2158:

Zen.1740:

Let’s see them review Ascalon Catacombs, its overflow shards, forced difficulty and hour waiting times. Oh wait, they aren’t paid to.

so, basically:

ascalonian catacombs wasn’t that hard.

overflow is actually a good idea; it’s just currently buggy/awkward to use.

forced difficulty? wat.

WvW times are different for everyone. on my server, the queue times are usually around 5-10 minutes. some people on henge of denravi are reporting 5+ hour queue times because everyone wants to coast on an easy win.

“Overflow is actually a good idea”
- Guild Wars 2 player, 2012

How are you managing to get a pug that isn’t made up of special cases? Even people in my guild aren’t able to play properly. The mobs target me because I do the most damage, and no one manages to dodge the boss mechanics. Having a graveyard next to a boss encounter for running back (because the game is meant to make you die) is forced difficulty.

Overflow is a great idea, since your choice is either overflow or not getting into the game when you want to play.

Check the dungeons thread for some good advice on dungeon running. Combos (both setting up combo fields for your team, and exploiting combos others set up) and everyone having some survivability and some support/cc skills are the key to elegant dungeon running. It’s just a new form of gameplay that you have to learn and adapt to.

Thank you Arenanet, for reviving my faith in the intrinsic wonderfulness and potential of the MMORPG genre. This game is pure class in every way, from the gameplay to the engrossing build system, to the art design, to the music. I’m constantly amazed at the attention to detail and the amount of polish. Clearly, this game was the product of passion and energy.

I tried GW but didn’t really get into it much, even though I recognized it was a well-made game, mainly because I do prefer a large persistent world feel to an MMO. I was wary of the hype for GW2 and I didn’t even like the screenies and the vids very much. But actually playing the game is such a fun experience, you’ve made a convert out of me. I was not before, but I now am, an Arenanet fanboi

I’ve done it twice now by accident, but on the second time I twigged what it must be (I didn’t know about banners, don’t have a warrior that high) and now I’m aware of it I won’t do it again (unless the group is moving along and the warrior’s forgotten about it, I guess?)

Some people find it difficult getting their head around the difference between:-

1) A fight is over when someone’s inert.

2) A fight is over when someone’s inert, but there’s a stage inbetween where they’re partly active and partly inert.

It’s really just a different mechanic and all it takes is to get used to it, strategize around it, and stop expecting a mechanic from other games you’ve already played.

This game is not those games.

Miraculously, the Professions seem pretty well balanced out of the box. I can’t see that anything more than a bit of tweaking here and there is required – but no major overhauls.

So pick the one you have the most fun with (which usually boils down to, if you like multitasking with lots of buttons or if you like to faceroll a couple of keypresses over and over).

draeath.8536:

The empty period between pieces playing. Put it to short and you’ll have less time between pieces, put it to long and you’ll have periods of no music between.

EDIT: I believe. I’m not 100% though.

Yeah this is correct, I lived with it at far right for a bit, then lived with it at far left for a bit. It controls the interval between tracks. I have it just to the right of middle now.

Malakree.5912:

In my experience the mesmer is a damage profesion with ramp up time that also brings amazing utility. As a support profession you lose out to guardian, warrior, engineer and ele (providing he’s built right).

It’s fundamentally a Support Profession because it’s a massive buffer/debuffer. Also a nifty combat rezzer.

Malakree.5912:

Mantra’s are awful, the trait trees don’t support them either.

Huh? There are quite a few traits that support mantras. You can up your armor while casting, you can bump the no. of instacasts up to 3, and you can up the recharge and damage, and you can autoheal allies when you cast them.

Presumably what you mean is, they are awful for your preferred playstyle.