Guild Wars 2

Azure Prower.8701:

Just wanted to add.

If there is an arrow cart placed here by the enemy. You’re not getting pass the beast arena any time soon.

Has entire coverage of the arena and cannot be reached with out passing the beast arena jumps. No matter what any one says to the contrary.

as one of the first to discover and use that spot, i can tell you right now that it can be hit from the ground by atleast an elementalist, depending how low they place it. there is an optimal spot where no one can reach, but there are many other ways around it.

here is one example, escort a mesmer through the dark room with invis, let the mesmer do the arena jumps until you’re just under the arrow cart spot, where the rocks are, then portal your whole team up there, kill arrow cart, then proceed the pull the rest of the campers on the beast trap down and kitten them.

i can think of and have executed many other ways of getting around arena room camp. that is, assuming you’re not ridiculously out numbered. if you are, then they are wasting their own time, and you should go take some keeps.

i have about 1500 badges from casual pvp in wvw. not hard at all. how about instead of wasting your time in jumping puzzle, go actually kill some people.

Maario.2147:

Update: Treb!

Message Body length must at least be 15.

that spot is kittendedly easy to clear out. get a mesmer and 2-3 other players, and duck your heads, cus it’ll be raining bodies.

the campers are gaining joy and happiness. end of story. the whole deny the other servers from blueprints is just a happy side effect.

people camp because they have fun doing it.

Azazeal.3689:

Been on both sides of the camping and find both fun.

yup, nothing like pulling then owning the campers. even more satisfying than camping.

Ook.9321:

@EasymodeX: Very nice analysis. I’m curious, what if we were talking about a GS shatter build? Would you be willing to add the confusion damage into your existing model to see if Rampager starts to make more sense that way?

you cant accurately model confusion damage as it depends on how dumb the enemy is. plus the vast majority of damage from shatter builds is from mind wrack. i see 5k+ mind wrack hits all the time, and you wont get anywhere near that with the lack of crit damage on rampager.

Shinzan.2908:

Lurch.9517:

Even though Blueprints are soulbound, it is possible to give them to any other player of your server.

Just move outside of the spawn area, double click on the blueprint so it appears on your action bar, press button 1 to lay the siege weapon down then any other player can pick it up.

If guys that dont like PVP but are doing puzzles for the badges, donated their Blueprints to the WvW guilds on their server in this way then they would be helping the cause and be thought of a bit better maybe.

Coud you explain how this works? When I put the siege down it starts building, how does someone else pick it up again?

drop bundle instead of placing it.

afaik, through using this skill A LOT, this is how temporal curtains work:

you essentially lay down a line on the ground, its area of effect is a rounded off cylinder centered on the line, with its radius being the max reach it on flat ground. its pull vector is the radius of the cylinder towards the center of the line. in my experience, this radius is around 500 range

this gives its ability to affect targets above and below the line. this also means it would often SEEM it would have no vertical restrictions, because its harder to judge 500 vertical distance. i can say for a fact that there is a vertical limit. as a reference, a standard keeps height is about 1000 distance?

as far as LOS is concerned, you need LOS to place the line. the pull effect as i described is whats going through walls. when you hear a mesmer place it near you, get 600 range away, and you’re good.

Cruzyo.7304:

@wads mind sharing your traits and equipment?

that sounds pretty much how i like to play my mesmer but i’m not 80 yet and didnt figure out my final build and gear yet

traits are http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.8.12.3.0.18.0.0.0.0.180.191.201.196.204.0.0.0.528.526.535.542.550.0.557.0.0.0.0.0.586.0.0.30.20.10.0.10 (edit for bugged link)

i have the last 10 points put into reduced fall damage, its better than it sounds in wvw.

i have full berserker exotics, with full bloodlust stacks have 3.6-4k attack depending on how many might stacks i have, 55% crit chance, 100% crit damage. pretty huge burst even with just 2x mindwrack.

Cempa.3645:

Nero is talking about this build below which is one of -if not THE- strongest Mesmer PvP build in the game today and some might argue pound for pound the undisputed PvP build of GW2:

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.8.7.3.0.20.31.36.0.37.180.198.201.196.204.2.2.24.526.532.0.544.550.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.591.587.596.20.20.0.0.30

Thing is you really need to be on top of your game to play it!

Though I should add Nero was talking about GS+S/P, the above is S/P+Staff. Staff or GS is completely up to you his point is the power of S/P which he is 100% right on.

thats a really powerful, but highly specific build for a shatter build for spvp. but its sub-optimal for wvw or pve. for instance, theres absolutely no reason to go that far into illusions trait line.

i’d say the basic traits you need for GS shatter build are (edit: for anything not spvp)
http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.8.12.3.0.18.5.16.0.16.180.191.201.196.204.2.2.6.526.535.528.542.550.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.586.0.0.30.20.0.0.10

with 10 points left over to put in whatever you want.

GS is best for a high dps/shatter build, as its the only weapon to have 2 illusions that spawn on your target, instead of you. they are much less likely to die to enemy aoe.

there are many times i down 5+ people at once that are clumped up with GS 2, 4, roll, then shatter. crazy numbers popping up everywhere.

if you’re rich, get divinity.

if you mostly pve, and not rich, get scholar.

if you’re poor, get ruby

me and my team needs to get scouted for our defense in fa bl, gg

I have Queues in EB almost all day long….

You do know that there are Pop limits per map and each world holds a static 33.3%, so although one world may have queues, other worlds may not.

And yes, people come and go but most stay. They have 20-40 people in there all day long from the top, to the arena and to the darkroom. Some have even sat camping the top of the well just before the Indiana Jones Trap.

As for ruffling feathers? lol… I am glad they are in there and not taking camps and towers.

As long as they are there, they are not helping their world. And that translates to a win in my pocket.

you realize that i’m not on darkhaven right, so no, there’s not been a queue since day 1. i frequent the jumping puzzle, and i can tell you that i never see more than 10 people on dome at any given time. it may feel like theres 20-40, but thats just because its an easily defensible position, and the people trying to get up mostly are bad and unorganized.

ManCaptain.3154:

Nobody here considering hacking as a possibility?

Protection: 33%
iDefender: 50%
Illusionary Defense: 9%
= 92%

iDefender would go down after absorbing a few 1000 damage (4k-ish?), killing illusions would decrease illusionary defense.
There’s also the fact that conditions would ignore all of this damage resistance.

Also I highly doubt that damage resistance effects stack additively.
More than likely with that setup you would take 0.66*0.5*0.91 times original damage (a bit below a third).

ill consider hacking a possibility when i see it, or video of it. i suspect the OP is exaggerating heavily and remembering things wrong during the heat of the moment.

there’s also a glitch where sometimes your clones are rendered invincible if they get summoned on an enemy out of sight, and just sit there until you run out of range of it or replace it. the invincible text pops up if you try and attack it.

and yes, damage reduction percentages are multiplicative, otherwise i suspect you could get over 100% damage reduction with certain classes and trait/skill combinations, which wouldnt make any sense.

Undermine.1678:

I cannot help but to think how much better Maguuma would have done if they did not flood the EB Puzzle with 20-40 people day and night all week camping the top.

That is enough people to go across several lands taking and defending points for their World. Instead, they wasted their time and their active map combatants forcing people that really want to help their realm to queue up.

Thanks for making this an easy win for Darkhaven.

by 20-40 you mean maybe 10 at the most. people come and go.

plus theres not been a queue since day 1 in any borderlands, at any time.

but i’m really happy to see people are getting their feathers so ruffled over it.

this is a case of either being really bad, or exaggerating how long the mesmer survived for, or not understanding the mechanics of how mesmers and clones work.

Arcain.9106:

Scepters are so bad. I’ve given it a try recently and I really can’t see why Anet has left it so weak. Give it’s #1 confusion like it says in the description!
Clones shouldn’t replace phantasms. If you have 2 clones and 1 phantasm then spawning another clone or phantasm will delete the oldest clone. 2 Phantasms and 1 clone, clones should delete the clone. With 3 Phantasms however I do believe it’ll overwrite the oldest Phantasm. Scepter should be no different. I can’t test if scepter #1 overwrites phantasms but it shouldn’t. Anet screwed up if it does.

it only overrides phantasms if you already have 3 phantasms up. working as intended.

and yes, if you want to keep the 3 phantasms up, stop attacking for 10 seconds then switch weapons. how hard is that.

or just stop attacking before you switch weapons?

Runningwild.4692:

The new halloween event is fun, but the www (FS server)…oh my god. Naked players camping the eternal borderlands waypoint, these guys used speedhack, teleport, invulnerability, ect… we lost the whole area.

5 sec google search:
Address auto detection, should work on any region/version ever after patches.
Zoom Hack – Larger Default Zoom, Minimum Zoom gives a First person mode.
Speed Hack
Gravity Hack
Field of View changer
Shift to Sprint – Holding left shift key will run at the slider speed
NoClip
Space to Fly – Hold Space to go up, let go to go down, Simple.
Teleporter – Save/Load Location Lists

lol, why dont you go and click on those search results. enjoy your trojans.

if such hacks were so readily available and undetectable, they would be much more prevalent.

the difference between d3 and gw2 loot system is that you can get the best possible loot, exotic 80’s, using a number of different ways.

you can craft them, use the auction house, find them, buy with with karma, buy with dungeon tokens.

where as in d3, the only way to get them is through random loot, or auction house that’s tied in to the rmah.

its always been like that

im not sure about thief stealth, but for mesmer stealths, if something is attacking you with a channeled or volley skill like the pistol unload, the shots will continue to hit you even in stealth. which makes it easy for the player to track you with damage numbers.

also, if you were in a party with your buddy, then he would see you in stealth as if he was on the same team as you. regardless if he was on the other team.

pretty sure nothing was changed.

leafy lass – bill murray 2012

theres also a new bug that let certain classes glitch through gate doors with certain skills. i witnessed some guys do this in one of our keeps yesterday after the halloween patch yet. pretty stupid.

its the same. that 5% is within random fluctuations in damage

Sabyne.6329:

I’d like it to be a combo blast finisher. That would be so nice.

i think that would be a little op, since GS already has a projectile and whirl finisher. but they should make it transfer the boon to you instead of just stripping it.

i dont understand the argument that grouping up to avoid aoe is somehow playing dirty or abusing the system. the aoe’s that grouping up counter are ones that only hit 5 players.

regardless if how many people are grouped up, only 5 will be hit. infact, grouping up maximizes the damage of that aoe, since you’re guaranteed to get max number of hits.

however grouping up does benefit allied buffs.

can someone explain to me what the fuss is about?

perhaps the stats from runes transfer, but the special effects some runes give certainly dont. are you saying your illusions getting hit can summon rock dogs for you?

the only thing they might not transfer to are runes, as sigils effects dont transfer either.

crit damage does transfer.

scholar or divinity is best for maximizing non-condition damage builds.

Krynoid.9516:

Its wipe after wipe and its not to do with noone trying their best or not kitted enough.

its precisely because of that. either you’re not geared enough, or you’re bad. either because you haven’t figured out the mechanics of a fight, or simply bad at playing your class.

yes, theres been a thread on this in the past

mine attacks immediately. the only time it doesn’t get off its first attack is if i spawn it into 2-3 heavy aoe effects, and dies right as it spawns

Lightsbane.9012:

nerva. flurry lasts two seconds, hundred blades last much more than that. a warrior can charge you, a thief can charge you, a ranger can charge you, a guardian can charge you. you have 2 seconds or less to get 1200 away from your target. (also most classes that can charge have some way of crippling or otherwise.) if you call that survivable….idk what to tell you.

normally when you get charged by anyone, they’ll be trying to burst you down with a quickness combo. in which case in your example, 100b would get countered by flurry completely. plus thats why you have blink, a second way to get out of a charge/quickness combo.

Lightsbane.9012:

and i told you why i liked it. it keeps me out of the thick of the fight while still contributing to it. i just don’t think fighting something toe to toe is that ..survivable for mesmer. would you use your sword against a warrior? or a ranger? how about a guardian?(i wouldn’t)or a thief? if not, i guess it’s for other mage classes.
scepter keeps melee classes off of you(except thief) and if it doesn’t keep them off of you, you block their attacks enough to get away. the channeling time on is about ~1 sec longer than the gsword beam. since you can move around while casting it, is it really that much of a detriment?

it sounds like you think using sword means you are there in peoples faces spamming autoattacks.

you really only fight toe to toe with sword when you have blurred frenzy up. you go in to autoattack when you have a stun/daze going on the target, otherwise you should be kiting until #2 is up again.

GS and sword for power crit build. all other weapons for condition damage.

for a mainly pve/dungeon build, condition damage is weak, because you’re going to be running with 4 other people in dungeons and potentially more for DE’s, condition effects like bleed cap out at 25, so you’re going to lose some damage potential from that.

i dont recommend only spending 55 trait points either. thats why i said you should put the rest in whatever you like. as you have all the important major traits already.

its pretty straight forward.. put everything into damage.

full exotic berserker armor and jewels, 6 rune of divinity or scholar.

traits go 30/20/0/0/5 add whatever else you want. take 15% illusion damage, GS mastery and 20% mind wrack, clone on dodge, phantasmal fury.

use blink, decoy, time wrap
you’re looking at 3.3k-3.6k power, over 50% crit chance with ~100% crit damage.

autoattacks at max range hit for over 4k vs upscaled opponents, usually its closer to 2-3k, iberserker hits for 3-7k depending on enemy toughness, mind wracks crit for 2-3k

Illusions derive the following attributes directly from the mesmer: precision, power, condition damage, critical damage, armor, and healing. Illusions do not gain any benefit from the mesmer’s vitality, condition duration or boon duration. Additionally they are neither affected by the damage of the mesmer’s equipped weapon nor by any of the various non-stat effects of weapon sigils or armor runes.

-http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusion

mesmer definitely doesn’t feel op leveling it, infact it would feel underpowered unless it was your first char. it’s hard to keep up damage compared to other classes when you’re in newb leveling gear, as you’re not only kittening your own damage but your illusions as well.

most people are referring to pvp when they say its op, once you get 80 and geared up, its very noticeable how easily you can adapt to most situations in pvp. infact the hardest opponents for me atleast are other mesmers.

also when i was leveling, i used staff as a main weapon. because staff clones are the only ones with actual damage output in form of condition damage. when traited for more bounce, it does really well in most pve encounters.

using GS requires much more gear to be as effective as staff, but once you are geared, it has much more damage potential.

what are you even talking about, the main weakness of going gs as a main weapon is that it’s lacking in defensive capabilities. if you can make up for its weakness in other ways, such as a good choice of utility, runes, traits, then gs will always have more damage potential than staff.

those bunker mesmer builds with staff that let you sit on a point with 2-3 people trying to kill you works in spvp because thats the whole objective, to capture and hold a point. doesn’t apply in wvw. you want to maximize utility and damage.

for the record, i’ve never lost a 1v1 situation in wvw, even without having to use elites. and i’ve done plenty of 1v2 or 3’s using time warp, and have come out on top. sure if i was using a staff build, those fights would have been easier, but you lose the ability to chase, kill siege weapons through walls, burst, etc.

if you dont want to sacrifice burst/dps, try using more escape skills in your utility slots. i use blink, decoy, portal. gets me out of most dangerous situations.

suedetooth.3150:

@Strill
Your simply incorrect regarding the burst damage one can bring with a staff. Don’t take my word for it… take the word of Xeph (TeamP), Winterfell, Flimp (gw2 guru)… these dudes don’t burst… they destroy other classes in seconds (side note: watch some of the vids floating you will see they can often match thieves in TTK).

Take note: All prefer Staff.

That said, I haven’t ruled out GS as a viable burst option. It’s just hard when Easymode is it’s only solid proponent (if Easymode is the Easymode from Rift pwning with warlock builds, I will concede that the dude knows mage class burst builds) and he hasn’t released any vids that I know of.

Really though, personally, I’m just waiting for some vids of pro players who prefer the GS. As the few I’ve seen that ‘think’ they’re pro… well they honestly don’t deserve mention. Particularly when vewied in comparison to any of the aforementioned players and what they can do with a staff.

all those ‘pros’ you listed made those builds work in spvp. most people are talking about pvp in wvw situations. the two are vastly different. if nothing else gs has iberserker, which is the best skill mesmers have in wvw.

illusion death happens when something kills them, or they get replaced by another illusion. shatter is shatter.

yes each illusion would give you 2 stacks of confusion if you use cry of frustration.

yes only in combat, bad skill unless you’re doing a weird support staff build for its active ability.

Eliteseraph.4970:

don’t forget to shatter when they reach under 10% of their health.

I found this interesting, because it seems like most times illusions are being one shot. It makes me feel like the trait to increase illusion HP will be a must take.

no its not. if you’re fighting a single regular mob, you use your clone summoning ability, phantasm, let the phantasm get 1 volley off, then shatter and the mob is dead.

if you’re fighting an veteran or harder mob, you just continously summon clones/phantasms and let them tank for you. you will be able to out summon any veterans dps. reducing summoning cd’s is most important. chaos 5 and whatever main weapon specialization is a must.

I have to say I cringe everytime people suggest “Just use a Greatsword!” as their solution for Mesmer PvE play. I personally use Scepter/Pistol and Staff on my Mesmer, because that’s the image I want to build of her as a character; a combination mage/duelist. One shouldn’t be forced into using a particular weapon for your character; if a single weapon is by far and away the most popular choice for a profession, then it is either overpowered and needs to be nerfed, or the other weapons are mediocre and need to be buffed.

thats like saying you want to do massive aoe damage on ele without staff, or engi without grenades, or if you want to do ranged damage as a thief, but you want the ‘image of your character’ as a dual dagger thief.

its just stupid. when you’re doing DE’s pull out a great sword if you cant tag enough mobs, then switch to your main weapon set for everything else.

stun breakers never broke immobilize, so nothing was changed. to escape root, you can still use blink to escape a quickness combo or something.

use mind stab, gs2 and shatter immediately to tag all mobs.

or use sword yourself, you tag everything just as a warrior would

decoy and blink, shatter, and glass cannon thieves are dead

or use a tanky defensive build with staff, in which case they cant do anything, but its not as useful in wvw