Guild Wars 2

I’m about to be passionate again here, but why is this cancerous piece of crap of a map still in rotation?

zaxon.6819:

i agree with adapt blah blah.. but the problem is that we are being forced into 1 of 2 specs if we want working weapons.. we have a choice of 2h shatter and condi pu pretty much. these may be better or worse then what we had before all these new changes but atleast we had choice.

I just have to step in and say that Chaotic Interruption is entirely viable as a setup and I run a Celestial Scepter/Pistol + Greatsword CI build in tPvP with great success.

Manoa.5897:

kylwilson.9137:

A little bit ‘Liza with a Z’.

A little bit Burberry equestrian inspired look.

LOVE this look. Well done! Out of curiosity, what weapons are you pairing with this look?

I think I had just a rapier, and an aureate pistol!

Here’s my Mesmer after yet another makeover.

Phoenix Top
Ascalonian leggings
Incarnate (sp?) boots
Primitive handwraps

Very much Trish ala Devil May Cry.

Benjamin.8237:

It’s more than a disconnect, it’s as if they don’t even know it exists. Soon they will delete our npc in the mists like the Ranger one. Pyro you can uninstall now by the way, no need to follow this “class”.

Good lord, I didn’t even notice the Ranger sparring NPC was gone, and I’m always smacking away at them waiting for a match to start.

OH this is not a good state.

All I’m saying is it’s pretty obvious they were referring to a hack, and I’m not sure what “help” we can give you. You wouldn’t need to seek help if you, you know; had nothing to be concerned about…

But that’s none of my business.

Honestly I run this rune on my Mesmer and I run as such a hybrid lockdown build; and it solved a lot of my issues in regards to having access to pressure.

But oh absolutely, the bird does indeed last for too long, and as such I primarily run it for the might duration increase and the aoe proc of might on hit (is this affected by your personal boon duration stat?)

I did start running it because this bird would give me so much trouble when Warriors were running rampant with it in tPvP. That being said I don’t see it as often for whatever reason, but yeah it does need to be toned down in all fairness.

What makes more sense, having a stun-break on it function in the way it did; or having the skill still generally be a mess since

r e l e a s e.

It’s not even a matter of expansions at this point; PvP formats like Guild vs Guild (this is not in the game yet for what reason?) Hall of Heroes and Alliance Battles / Fort Aspenwood / Jade Quarry were the gifts that just kept on giving and giving.

AaAAAaaaaaand to a lesser extent Random/Team Arenas.

But I feel like anything we say is in vain at this point.

I’m entertained by how some people can somehow defend such a low drop-rate.

HOW has nobody from A-net commended on this yet!?

Argon.1563:

Confusion is balanced enough at the moment. Lets not break it by making it overpowered with something like this.

It’s a grandmaster trait idea. I’m laughing internally, did you really even read the suggestion? You’d need to go 6 into something to get benefit out of it, that’s sacrificing effectiveness in other areas.

“Overpowered” doesn’t even come into the picture.

A little bit ‘Liza with a Z’.

A little bit Burberry equestrian inspired look.

I must say I kind of like it being a very decisive thing, traiting it to 1200.

I mean the 1200 blink which I use in every build I can is pretty much a game changer for myself personally (vertical travel, particularly on a map like Temple of the Silent Storm), and I could never ever use Greatsword effectively without it.

But I kind of feel as it’s okay like this.

Mixing it with the other manipulation CD trait wouldn’t be the worst thing though.

All of those tPvPers who got Eternity via tPvP.

Very nice troll post A++

Lishtenbird.2814:

And since “Tsuru” is Japanese for “crane”, we will also see Cantha, yeah.

A lot of the Tengu migrated from Cantha so it’s unlikely that we’ll see Cantha, it’s still wishful thinking at this point.

I was desperately waiting for this update.

Well.

I bought Final Fantasy XIV.

This was the last straw. Oh well!

Just give me two utility spells:

Both with excellent power scaling.

Shatter Conditions.

Shatter Boons.

Damage scales to the amount of boons or conditions being removed.

It’d be totally overpowered without refinement but just image how great it would be.

Awh well shucks, but alas, leaving for the best reason.

Was always rooting for ya, will continue to!

Living story complains are outdated. That’s even worse than being cliché.

I know this but I’m saying I received no monthly laurels, and again what I’m asking is if anyone like me did not receive their monthly laurels for this month.

Refer to topic title.

I didn’t get my 10 laurels for doing April’s monthly, PvE or PvP wise. Wondering if anyone else had encountered the same problem.

Seeing as I need them for ascended equipment I’m kind of irked.

I am incredibly excited for season 2.

Origins of Madness/Edge of the Mists/Escape from Lion’s Arch: This one was where it call came together for me, and where I saw that A-net was really listening and learning from player feedback in the following ways:

- Writing had improved ten-fold. Relationships developed very organically, more soap-opera elements were introduced, NPC dialogue was a joy to witness. Really improved, can’t stress this enough.

- Scarlet was fleshed out, and her VA direction was changed. The simple act of the VA changing how her lines were said, and again the quality of writing really spoke to me (no pun intended). Began to dislike Scarlet a LOT less and recognised her as having a purpose.

- The Twisted Marionette: Has since become one of the most memorable boss fight in any game I’ve played. From the aesthetic, to the sound effects (again wow, this game has a GOOD sound team), the boss mechanics, and the progression through the fight (travelling upwards to the top of the Marionette, the sheer scale was appreciated, overlooking the wintery wilderness locked in an intense battle). Teamwork was appreciated.
And again in terms of sound: https://soundcloud.com/arenanet/guild-wars-2-twisted

This is fantastic music. I like this ‘Maclaine Diemer’ character, a lot.

Fall of Lion’s Arch: Not being afraid to lay waste to a landmark was again a good idea, gave a sense that nothing is static in the game, put the ‘living’ into ’living story.

The Breachmaker: A few things here. Impeccably designed. Scale, monstrous. And more importantly, WAVES. I don’t know if anyone else has noticed but EVERY ocean in Tyria is STILL and lifeless. We now have a precedent example that A-net is able to implement waves onto the oceans in the game, it’s a small immersion related thing but it needs to happen.

Triple Trouble: It was great and then they ruined the scaling on it so screw that. I’ll ignore it.

If A-net can keep up the quality of writing that was apparent at the end of the season, the soap opera elements and keep it up with the great world boss fights (Marionette, final world event fight with Scarlet), then we’ll be in for a treat. Again though the writing was what held the end of it together, so kudos to the writers. Whoever is on their team now, they should be proud that picked up the pieces as best as they could. It really showed.

I remember the time I thought doing away with dedicated healers was a fantastic idea.

How effing stupid I was.

I would not be surprised to find out that Ventari’s tablet had little to no real impact on the Sylvari, in the way that humans (and in the case of Tyria, a portion of every species) can have a strong moral compass with having no religious influences or faiths in their lives at all.

For the effort that it takes to rank up, absolutely nothing.

Renny.6571:

kylwilson.9137:

Like I said, if you really truly think that the main benefit of PU is the stealth, you either didn’t read the entire post and hand picked what you wanted to reply to (hence why I wasn’t fully quoted), or you really underestimate a near permanent protection uptime.

I think it’s both hon.

I didn’t quote the first half of your post because I’m not refuting that PU stacks loads of protection, but if you want to argue that too, then sure. Most boon strip and boon flip skills prioritize Swiftness and Protection before other boons. Assuming you use Decoy and The Prestige with all 8 ticks being Protection, you’d have lost 24 seconds of Protection at the cost of a stun break, blind/burn and 8 seconds of the best defensive mechanic in the game.

Besides, even if you weren’t boon stripped and managed to stay in a fight for >24sec, you’d still need to re-enter stealth for another 8 seconds to regain that much protection, and in that time wouldn’t be preventing the point from (de)capping; wherein lies the reason people choose to run traits that aren’t detrimental to the success of the match.

Oh I mean I most certainly know where you’re coming from, in terms of stealth being a huge hindrance to point capturing. Alas a Mesmer isn’t going to ever fill the role of a bunker so to speak, but the use of stealth pre-engagement along with CC skills (and our own personal form of boon stripping to handle enemy stability) sets up a great passive defence to overpower an enemy to neutralise a point (the Mesmer is in a pretty good position to dispose of decap engineers for example without having much trouble. I think the term bunker-buster is awesome).

Coupled with the size of maps, blink is invaluable (Spirit Watch, Legacy of the Foefire and Temple of the Silent Storm are where blink skills shine the most due to the nature of the maps) in order to get from point to point.

With aegis proccing so often and blocking boon removal options and a substantial vigour uptime (even slipping in and out of stealth for a second or two), you certainly have something to get the job done. Certainly not a roamer, but a bunker-buster for sure.

Please keep in mind that The Shatterer event is just used as an example of a meta event that can be improved in this way, as opposed to Claw of Jormag, and also take note of the suggestion to, along with additional rewards, extend the meta event chain, as stated in the OP

This is precisely along the lines I was thinking.

Just a thought I had today, I know a lot of people stand around waiting for a few select players to complete some meta events to get the huge fights such as say, the one involving The Shatterer (the official name for it escapes me at this time) and get it going.

Would it be reasonable to have a reward track implemented during the events which begins at the first event and tracks a player’s contribution at a steadier rate, thus the more involvement a player has in the individual pre-events, the larger the reward would be at the end of the actual meta event (the death of The Shatterer) its-self.

In some cases, increase the ‘steps’ in an event chain leading up to the beginning of one of the world bosses, because (mainly driven by player behaviour), it all seems a little ‘come and go’ as it currently stands.

I just figure, rewarding is the best way to promote players clearing content on a more map-wide basis, and hey to players who like to get through things as quick as possibly, participation would speed things up. Reward is a great incentive.

Just a suggestion. I know some world bosses do need tweaks (just using The Shatterer as an example, because personally it’s my favourite world boss aesthetically, and I dislike the fact that players can stand in one spot and afk the event. Deserves a whole lot more than that).

P.S. I’ll just note that the fight with the Claw of Jormag does this pretty well as it is in terms of pre-event length. But as I said, rewarding for the chain rather than the single fight would be swell.

Oh man, that Tequatl on the left has such a stronger aesthetic than what we have now. It’s actually quite creepy.

This looks really difficult and well thought out I can not wait. I am literally riveted on the edge of my seat.

I witnessed someone call someone a ‘selfish individual’ for asking where the champ train was at at Frostgorge on Blackgate yesterday. They just went completely off their nutter. A bunch of us chimed in to remind him how pathetic his behaviour was, but granted it’s not the first time I’ve seen it.

People’s lack of social skills really bleed into map chat all too often.

Renny.6571:

kylwilson.9137:

I regularly carry teams in sPvP with a PU power setup. Albeit a power build will be in stealth a lot less than a condition build (which makes forcing someone off point whilst still contributing to a hold a very real possibility), that’s granted.

You must consistently roll bad teammates and equally bad opponents if you’re carrying with a stealth build solo.

Like I said, if you really truly think that the main benefit of PU is the stealth, you either didn’t read the entire post and hand picked what you wanted to reply to (hence why I wasn’t fully quoted), or you really underestimate a near permanent protection uptime.

I think it’s both hon.

jefferson.8317:

He’s taking about spvp. No one uses PU in pvp and I traveler runes is not mobility.

Stealth isn’t the boon (no pun intended) of it’s use in sPvP. It’s the protection and aegis procs. With that much protection stacked pre-fight and with 30 in chaos, you can face-tank a rampaging rhino and still pump out power based pressure and burst.

It’s quite nifty.

I regularly carry teams in sPvP with a PU power setup. Albeit a power build will be in stealth a lot less than a condition build (which makes forcing someone off point whilst still contributing to a hold a very real possibility), that’s granted.

I’m absolutely beaming. If it gives me a chance to do more large scale meta events, or just more events at all really (I’ve been going through all of the zones to re-do things I’ve missed and it’s been a true blast), I’m down. Thumbs up for this one.

The end of the living story was dark and what’s more, tragic. There was no feeling of a substantially happy ending. Thousands of civilians died, countless left with permanent injuries and health issues from the miasma, who knows how many homeless and business-less.
And now the world has another dragon to contend with. I mean they always did, but the world would have been a better place for them if they didn’t know. Ignorance is bliss.

I wouldn’t need it to go darker than that, and least of all with such a tacky idea of a ‘dark lord’ kind of character. They’re starting to get back to the Guild Wars Nightfall/Eye of the North era standard of writing, with a bit more soap-opera, and I’d be delighted if they continued exactly as they are.

I’ll just say, once the voice direction for Scarlet changed, I enjoyed her character a whole lot more. Her lines were delivered less manic and more calculating with some actual emotion behind them. She almost sounded more and more frustrated with her personal situation towards the end.

You know, I feel as if the writing improved ten-fold towards the last half of the living story. They must have hired better writers because I’m impressed and satisfied.

I’d be immensely happy if they replaced the Heart of the Mists with a Zaishen outpost at some point in the future.

I’m sure they could force some kind of ‘mist instability’ reasoning and tie it to Fractals of the Mists somehow. They’ve shoe-horned things like this before. This is a shoe horn I’d actually like to see this time however.

It’s like everything Canthan related is being removed completely. If they got rid of Captain Hao Luen at this point I wouldn’t be surprised. Then along with Hao Luen the last reference to the Xunlai would be gone as well (apart from that one chest in the Hall of Monuments).

Signet of Channelling
- Passive – Channel the passive effects of enemy signets within a radius of 900.
- Active – Copy one enemy’s passive signet effects for 30 seconds for the next X seconds.

(The secondary effect essentially allows you to disengage with a selected signet effect)

Soothing Images
- Glamour – Create an area filled soothing images which drains the endurance of enemies inside.
Restore 15 endurance per second to allies in this area every second.
10 pulses.
10 second duration.

bhagwad.4281:

Rezz.8019:

This is the hardest question in the whole game. Just keep asking yourself how useful you are to the team at each moment of the match and see how you can be more useful. That way you will know if you are more useful at can stay on close points or you should go somewhere else. What you want is to have the odds ever be in your favour. That means you should always make sure the match is 5v5 or 5v>5 and for that, each member of your team has to do stuff and contribute the team at every moment of the match.

But that requires a lot of cold unemotional thinking. Contrary to what most think, just sitting tight on close can be the hardest thing to do. People feel guilty and want to help. And often ruin the outcome of the whole match.

I don’t really equate it to cold and unemotional. It’s just using the data displayed on the map and your team health-bars and rotating as quickly as possible in reaction to the changing situation.

A bunker shouldn’t be at home the entire game, it’s all shades of grey. Conquest is about creating situations of disadvantage, after all, that should be the priority.
A bunker sitting at home from start to finish will not benefit the team, at some point it’s going to be a 4 vs 5 somewhere on the map, and a skilled bunker could have made the difference. As Rezz said, no matter what role, know where you will be the most useful.

Be flexible, reactive, proactive and develop no habits. All just comes with experience really.

Abe Kleine.3568:

Sensotix.4106:

So currently there is a bug that if the thief manages to interrupt a mesmer with the basilisk venom he will proc halting strike on the mesmer which will get fixed BUT please also make sure to fix the proc of chaotic interruption as well which is the exact same thing basically

Risk and reward on thief:

The main problem I want to point out is attacking when in stealth

If the thief hits the target he will get revealed BUT let’s say the enemy has aegis it will first rip off aegis without revealing him -> attacking an enemy out of stealth should always reveal the thief imo

If the thief uses his shortbow autoattack in stealth it will immobilise the target But since you can clearly see the shot coming you will try to evade it…if the attack gets evaded (actually any attack out of stealth) it will not reveal the thiekitteno actually it is better for the target not to dodge any attack out of stealth until the stealth runs out and instead take all the damage? not a good mechanic imo -> missing an attack when stealthed should always reveal the thief -> adding risk to thief

Evasive Shot Shortbow #3
spammable evade on weaponset -> not sure if I have to explain why this is a bad mechanic
the only difference between flanking strike and evasive shot is that you can’t chain flanking strike which doesn’t make it thaaaat strong

Shortbow autoattack:
Pretty much THE counter on this weaponset vs mesmer
If you dodge on mesmer you leave a clone behind which means dodging is almost useless vs thief because the attack will bounce from the clone to you resulting in mesmer not being able to create a bigger gap between himself and the thief without taking damage – my idea is to make the attack bounce only once

I hope this thread was constructive and clear and I would love to get some constructive feedback on this

Lolwut?! Removing an aegis doesn’t reveal the thief? And missing attacks doesn’t either? I just thought all thieves were really good at stealthing and always hitting their target. This changes my perspective on this class, I thought my aegis would protect me from a 1st attack then revealing him so I could strike (mains guardian) but THIS is how stealth functions? Good lord this needs to be fixed

And yet people who say the exact same thing as you are haven’t really noticed this ‘issue’ until now.

In actual regards to the original post ~

Listen I get, that we want Mesmers to be the best they can (90% of my play is on a Mesmer), but these “suggestions” are purely geared towards the fact that trick shot effed up your A.I. placement. They have absolutely zero to do with any actual real quality of life improvements.

Whilst a thief is on shortbow with his weapon swap cooled down, they’re not stealth trying to back-stab you. And if they’re not trying to backstab which is clearly such a huge issue for some of you as well, they’re in shortbow (which is not okay either apparently) and do you SEE how this is just a circle of kittenery yet?

So what is this about the way aegis functions? Or about stealth attacks? Or about what is really just a utility weapon for a thief and nerfing it’s god kitten auto-attack? Or is it just a complete joke? Because it may be April fools and I should be laughing.

I mean are we serious now.

H o w.

I thought this was an April Fools thread after reading the first post; and then I saw the date this thread was started.

Azukas.1426:

whats broke with it?

Only one joker per thread!

OH this was a good one!

@OP: Who mentions what to do after taking a 6k backstab:

You shouldn’t be hit with a 6k backstab in the first place. You shouldn’t be hit with a backstab; your best pro-active defences are going to come from you watching movement in the battlefield.
If you do see a backstab pop up, immediately dodge and pop decoy.

That’s my general rule of thumb. You should be able to work out where a theif is from there, and this is easier if you don’t have deceptive evasion up for a thief to cloak-and-dagger off of. Deceptive evasion is a trait that can really hurt you if you’re not set up specifically for the clones to be beneficial both alive and dead.

I run two builds, rotating regularly. They’re both very strong on the defensive aspects.

The first is one I’d been running for over a year which is:

Staff (hydromancy sigil) \ Sword (Bloodlust) +Pistol (Energy)

10 Domination (Crippling Dissipation as soft CC is invaluable)
30 Duelling (Phantasmal Fury, Duellist Discipline, Deceptive Evasion)
15 Chaos (Debilitating Dissipation, weakness being the major beneficial condition that procs here)
15 Illusion (for Illusionists Celerity)

Hybrid condition and critical damage build which is going to burn out an enemy at a steady rate. Being able to stun an incoming assault from 1200 range is fantastic, as is summoning a duellist from 1200 effectively sets up a solid passive offense against heavy stealth users due to the tracking, and they stay far away enough for them to be a real chore to take out.
8 second phase retreat coupled with the chill on the hydromancy sigil means getting out of an ugly situation. ALWAYS phase retreat through your chaos storm for chaos armor. This build is incredibly slippery in terms of in-combat and mid range mobility.

The second one is a power based PU build which is very much about stacking might, that I’ve been using more and more lately to great success:

Sword (Sigil of Bloodlust)+Torch (Sigil of Battle, important to this setup) \ Greatsword (Sigil of Battle, important again)

20 Domination (Empowered Illusions and Cleansing Conflagration)
20 Duelling (Far Reaching Manipulations which is a MUST and Phantasmal Fury, who even needs DE in a non-condition build? Really?)
30 Chaos (Illusionary Defence, Bountiful Interruption which bolsters your power if you time your interrupts right and Prismatic Understanding)

The first two utilities in each build never change for the most part. Blink and Decoy are musts. The third slot, depends. WvW? Veil or Portal. sPvP/tPvP? Arcane Thievery, or even Signet of Inspiration if you manage to accumulate some nice might stacks and want to share them around, in particular your massive amounts of protection and aegis from prismatic.

The 1200 range blink is the game changer. Any player is going to have difficult dealing with you being in one place in front of them, then 1100 points away from them and behind them dealing the max damage you can with your spatial surge. Also an incredibly important defensive tool is being aware of and learning about the areas in which you can blink to different altitudes. It’s the best way to play like a Mesmer and frustrate an opponent without even having to rely on clones.

As for the elite, Mass Invisibility for WvW, Polymorph Moa for sPvP/tPvP.

Personally I’m holding onto my Assassins armor set, and working my way towards a soldiers ascended trinket set. Celestial for a hybrid will generally not change for me.

Posting these because I feel they might be useful for the OP in terms of laying out a variety of defense examples, using different weapon sets, particular in the contrast between staff and greatsword. I can say honestly that I would not be able to use greatsword without using a long range traited blink in conjunction.

phlemhacker.1372:

kylwilson.9137:

phlemhacker.1372:

No offense intended, but why does anyone care? As far a gay rights go, I simply don’t care, but I might care a bit more if I didn’t have the culture shoved down my throat every thirty seconds in virtually every form of media I encounter.

Because the gay community hasn’t had straight culture shoved down their throats in virtually every form of media they encounter.

Why do these threads even exist when it’s clear that LGBT is an absolute non-issue in the scope of lore?

You’re right, I too am sick and tired of straight pride parades, months, and support groups at my university who are always harassing me about straight rights….

And I’m so tired of hearing about all of those anti-straight laws throughout the world, all of those straight-bashings, and straight people getting stoned to death in third world countries.

Nobody is sorry that you’re put slightly out of your comfort bubble of hetero-normativity.

This thread needs to be closed immediately if people like the person I’m quoting are going to spurt such nonsense.

Malcastus.6240:

I smell elitism in here. There must be arrogant and close minded people nearby.. better hide or you might catch their lameness.

It’s not elitism. It’s recognising the fact that hotjoin should have an absolute minimal impact on anything in the scheme of things because hot-join players by nature (and yes I’m generalizing, rightfully so) don’t care as much for the health of the game as much as they do big end-game score. And it does have a minimal impact. It’s hot-join.

But regardless of this ‘elitism’, there’s no real reason why these shouldn’t have been bumped up (whilst also knowing there’s no reason they should be either, if they were I wouldn’t complain).

hedition.7261:

kylwilson.9137:

Reducing the amount of skills that area ground-targeted. Looking at you, Grenade Kit.

There is an option for ground targeting where you can cast on where your cursor is pointing. Only downside is you can’t see the aoe circle before you cast.

It is a must have for me.

This system is still horrible though for anyone who uses extensive use of the mouse. (I don’t click skills generally though, just to clear that up :P)

People keep mentioning that we’re a minority but I’d love to see a person who frequents sPvP/tPvP who doesn’t visit the forums regularly.

That’s because they don’t exist. Everyone who gives half a kitten about PvP will visit the forums. Thus they’re who should have a say. Anyone else would be indifferent by this logic.

I run with 20 points into Duelling nowadays, however I don’t bother with deceptive evasion because I find that I really don’t need it. Those points to me are better spent on I – Far Reaching Manipulations and II – Phantasmal Fury.

It really is as someone has said previously, a crutch. I rather save my dodges for when I actually need them, as I found that deceptive evasion promoted wasteful dodging if anything. I know for not taking DE, I’ve become a better Mesmer for it.

(I’d love to see it moved to 25 minor just to see what would happen)

ShakeyStorm.7180:

kylwilson.9137:

ShakeyStorm.7180:

Wish there is a way to teleport them back the moment they run away. Like that Necro skill. Besides, disorientation is one of Mesmer’s tools right?

Back to reality, PvP is fine since there is so little room to run. If they run away from a capture point I will be happy to take it back. In WvW… that’s another story.

A temporal curtain type skill, in which when they cross it, they get blinked back to your position, would be fantastic.

Back to the topic, if it’s sPvP, as funny as it sounds, I’d definitely lean more towards a power based build with access to boon removal. Most warriors are set up for massive condition removal, and I-Zerker and even I-Mage (I know right?) can put a surprisingly nice dent in their health pool.

Temporal curtain for zergs… not bad. Can mess up a zerg train to find themselves outside the wall again.

I was thinking in the line of “tagging” a player. Run into the fort? Out you go at a button’s press.

Place the curtain in front of a door and have any enemy entering or exiting the fort via the door instantly teleported into the middle of a zerg. Equally as beautiful.