I need a veil down in front of me after we blast finish this fire field. 3-2-1 GO GO GO, veil #2 drop —- veil #3 drop. Ok, drop the bomb on the wurm guise. Everything you got.
Google how much AMD opteron/Intel Xeon cost (especially the faster models). Then realize this game doesn’t have subscription. Where do you think they find this amount of money for 50 servers? I’m afraid it won’t happen. The problem is just to small for Arenanet to pay this much money for. (with small i mean, for me i get this skill lag for about 5-10% on a global scale, although some days are really bad, like weekend).
You need to take a math course. ANet has sold 3 million copies of the game at an average price of at least $50. I don’t honestly know how many hardware servers ANet runs to handle all the various realms, but we’re probably talking something on the order of 1% of sales even to totally replace them with top end hardware. The ability lag may indeed be due to insufficient hardware, but I’d bet that the barrier to fixing it has far more to do with the software side … game engine or whatever software they use to merge server capacity for WvW (which they in fact do). Either that or the active WvW population is so low relative to the rest of GW2 that Anet has decided even 1% of sales isn’t worth it to keep us around.
Yeah, because the one-time purchase of hardware is the ONLY cost a company like Anet will incur, right?
Well, they probably spend quite a bit on plastic cups to hold all the tears this forum spews out from time to time. I imagine they accumulate these cups of tears and bring them to a special room at the end of each day. This entire room is dedicated to gallons of tears with details on where and whence they came, neatly placed in test tubes / containers of varying sizes and quantities.
Other than that, I heard ANet employees work for free.
well.. looks like we are heading for T3 next week.. at least, a tier where it would be fair to our NA crew, and the Oceanics would not have to worry about PPT game…..
Not sure about next week, but i’m pretty sure you won’t be in tier 3 long if you go there. Also TC is doing their utmost best to keep you here. Which is kind of hilarious.
Because in 80-man doom zergs, who has time to look at their skill bar, let alone have time to fire off skills before the enemy is dead? And if you’re not in an 80-man doom zerg… well, then you’re just not meta bro.
I tried the sPvP stuff, where you get the free PvP gear and free respecs and that wasn’t much better. Maybe this game isn’t for me, because I don’t like dying in under 5 seconds. What I hate worse is joining a game where people do nothing but stand around…had to join and leave 3 of them before I found one where people were actually doing something other than dancing on rooftops.
You likely joined a server that was “dueling” or 1v1s. You can learn a lot from your enemy in a 1v1 if you ask and they’re kind enough to give advice. As for me, I don’t play guardian so I can’t help you there, but there’s plenty of advice in this thread to guide you in the right direction I believe. If you have some good friends to play with you can practice with them. I found having a friend who would walk through some of the typical patterns of attack on different classes helped tremendously in predicting what future enemies would do and how I would have to react in order to survive. If you have a friend like that who can help you, I highly recommend trying it and having them walk through some of the routines of both the enemy and how you should react step-by-step.
Mesmer isn’t so much easy to play as it is a learn-to-play issue for many newer (and maybe even older) faces. Most mesmers I run into (in hotjoins anyway) know how to break a target lock with decoy and expect you to fumble looking for the real target. THAT is usually when the mesmer sets up for a burst – when you spend too much time trying to find the real one. Lots of people get caught up re-acquiring the target and fall for the iLeap + Blurred Frenzy combo (or Torch #4 + <X>).
Maybe I’m ranting a bit, but I see so many people complain that mesmer is OP and “easy to play” when in reality it is neither – it is the enemy who needs to learn how to defeat them (and trust me – there are plenty of ways, but learning to re-acquire the target as quickly as possible is key).
Ah, so you’re that really good longbow warrior I versed the other day. You put up a good fight despite the fact that warriors are currently the most underpowered class in Tpvp. Your build seems very solid, most warriors won’t expect Longbow as their main weapon of choice, while the mace/shield for defensive play. This must be the revolutionary build that replaces GS, axe/shield!
I versed both you and Yoshioka a week or two back. You were that thief (Malfis) who hit like a train. Yoshioka was also very good.
If you guys ever want to duel sometime I have both of you on my friends list :p
EDIT: Forgot! As for this build, this could breathe new life into my on-the-shelf warrior. Thanks
Someone today told me that I made an AMATEUR mistake, picking the Necromancer, and I felt like eermm..
On the other side, I’ve read everywhere “build around it” can you explain me what that phrase mean?
Also, your favorite leveling weapon set?
It’s not so much what class you pick but how well you can perform with it in different scenarios. I find that necro works much better in team scenarios than in 1v1 (although still quite powerful there). I play my necro as a back-side, condition-bombing bunker for my team (small ops wvw). Other classes (like mesmer) are a bit more versatile with their builds and can really excel in 1v1 scenarios. My guess is the person who said that was referring more to 1v1 scenarios since necros can be hard to master for 1v1.
I think the new one is cuter actually. I like the way the helmet looks now. Looks comfy.
That’s because they restored it. The earflaps are once again small, as it should be.
Still bugged for me. The most annoying thing, however, is the weird gap between the leggings and the chest-piece and the shoulder bug (when my character moves their arm in any direction but the default position [right shoulder from the back]).
Once those two are fixed, I’ll be a happy camper. I can provide screenshots if you need em.
And somehow I have 90% by sitting around in hotjoins and dueling with friends and randoms most of the time. Weird how that works.
So you’ve never tourneyed enough to be considered for the ladder? That’s not too surprising even if that’s the case since players who haven’t tourneyed still have a neutral rating like guilds did in gvg even if they never did any guild battles.
The bottom of the top 1,000 seems to have almost a 50/50 win ratio on average, so below that is probably the norm for players not in the top 1,000. Thus if you have never, or rarely, tourney, it’s not surprising that the neutral rating would be above the majority of players.
Yeah I hardly do tourneys at all. I tend to stick to dueling (since I don’t really have a team to roll with in tPvP). Seems weird that neutral players would be above those who do tourneys more often. Don’t they take into account the number of matches played?
if you’re not in a big guild, or at least not in a WvW-heavy guild, you have basically no support, no communication, no engagement whatsoever. If you don’t happen to trip and fall into a WvW portal, there’s no way to even know what the point is, or why you might be needed as a new WvWer.
And if you ARE in WvW but not wanting to follow the zerg (for whatever reason), there’s absolutely no attempt to, say, explain the mechanics of scouting. Or sitting on siege equipment in a tower. Or heck, doing anything at all other than sitting around in the citadel wondering what to do next.
Well, at TC we have several people (like Jadon with his weekly lessons on Thursdays helped by Theon & Coral with his TC University) that explain WvW to new players, with a patience that everyone admires.
And every day, people explain in TC map chat basic WvW concepts as ‘what are the blue icons’, ‘what is supply’, ‘why kill Yaks’ and give the mumble coordinates.
That’s the advantage of a RP server, I think. The communities on RP servers tend to be nicer than on other servers. At least that’s what it feels like, in every MMO I ever played.
Anyways, score update…
It’s a shame you guys have to zerg in order to get anything accomplished at all. I have yet to encounter a TC with his/her salt in a 1v1 or even small ops scenarios. Just doesn’t happen.
Oh and RP-ers teaching RP-ers WvW. That’s rich. Thanks for the laugh.
Keeping it classy. Glad you guys went to FA instead of TC.
if you’re not in a big guild, or at least not in a WvW-heavy guild, you have basically no support, no communication, no engagement whatsoever. If you don’t happen to trip and fall into a WvW portal, there’s no way to even know what the point is, or why you might be needed as a new WvWer.
And if you ARE in WvW but not wanting to follow the zerg (for whatever reason), there’s absolutely no attempt to, say, explain the mechanics of scouting. Or sitting on siege equipment in a tower. Or heck, doing anything at all other than sitting around in the citadel wondering what to do next.
Well, at TC we have several people (like Jadon with his weekly lessons on Thursdays helped by Theon & Coral with his TC University) that explain WvW to new players, with a patience that everyone admires.
And every day, people explain in TC map chat basic WvW concepts as ‘what are the blue icons’, ‘what is supply’, ‘why kill Yaks’ and give the mumble coordinates.
That’s the advantage of a RP server, I think. The communities on RP servers tend to be nicer than on other servers. At least that’s what it feels like, in every MMO I ever played.
Anyways, score update…
It’s a shame you guys have to zerg in order to get anything accomplished at all. I have yet to encounter a TC with his/her salt in a 1v1 or even small ops scenarios. Just doesn’t happen.
Oh and RP-ers teaching RP-ers WvW. That’s rich. Thanks for the laugh.
Mesmers are as squishy as thieves with the limited access to stealth… An ele will never die to a thief… And they only way an ele will die to a Mesmer is the shattered concentration trait…
Pretty much this. Mesmers are relatively straightforward to kill once you stop panicking and conserve your dodges for the big bursts (obvious signs – clones running at you, a clone LEAPING at you, phantasm spawns, etc). If you’re having trouble killing mesmers as an ele, it’s a L2 kitten ue unfortunately or he the mesmer is simply more skilled than you.
It seems AoN has rubbed off on the rest of FA everyone running when they see a TC name.
Only time I’d ever run from a TC name is when I see a doom zerg behind it. Individually I have yet to see much skill from players on TC, but yeah… doom zerg away.
Other than fun (if you enjoy skill lag in huge zergs or occasional crashes), there really isn’t much incentive. The WxP really doesn’t add much, hardly any gold to be made (compared to PvE) and very unforgiving unless you jump into the whole turtle/doom zerg meta (which is extremely boring).
I’d recommend WvW to those looking to do small ops stuff (small skirmishes, camp flipping, etc). Much more fun with a few friends instead of a doom zerg.
When I’m on my necro, I usually laugh at any mesmer attempting to duel with confusion. Staff #4, Dagger #4 and Plague Signet make it too easy to send confusion back where it came from (even if the mesmer uses arcane thievery).
Not bad, but I probably would have gone full zerkers. Similar to the build I’m using now, but yours has much less crit damage and with all the toys the mesmer has to escape situations, you’d be better suited with full zerkers.
@wookie: The swordsmen attack every 3 seconds or so. That’s not a whole lot of time. Duelists are on a slightly longer recharge, at around 6.5ish seconds. Still not very much time. Trying to attack a mesmer inbetween those phantasm attacks when the mesmer is actively running away and has blocks and a 2s invuln to pop whenever is a very difficult task.
@wookie: The thing about the phantasms is that they aren’t burst. They are sustained dps. They are difficult to kill, difficult to dodge, and can be resummoned faster than they can be killed. They do massive damage, and keep that massive damage sustained at a high rate. You summon them, forget about them, and they act as your own personal chainsaws, eating at your opponent. You then use the rest of your skills to avoid any heat that your opponent tries to apply on you. Normally using all of your time to avoid things will mean you do no damage, but with your phantasms eating them, your opponent will die quickly.
I really need to get up some video of this build in action.
A 3 second rapid fire from pistol, an almost instant hit from an illusionary swordsman, a whirlwind burst from a phantasmal berserker have segmented BURST attacks. Sure they can attack more than once, but if you avoid the initial BURST attack, you can start chipping away at the real mesmer with what little time you have (especially with your build). I don’t need a video of you to prove it because I’ve been using a modified version of this build for weeks now with great success offensively (see first reply). Phantasms can be killed, believe it or not, and there is enough of a window to kill the mesmer before they can spawn more. If you can’t see that, then I can’t help you unfortunately.
Like I said, I play mine more offensively, but don’t expect more than average players to simply keel over to this build. It’s not unbeatable. Enemies just need to avoid the segmented attacks from the phantasms and go after the real mesmer. Keeping pressure on the real mesmer is paramount to defeating this build, be it AoE, direct damage or conditions.
@wookie: I think you misunderstand how I designed this build to be played, and additionally why I take the scepter and sword over the greatsword, for example. This build relies purely on the phantasms for damage, and on everything else for defense. Using skills like blurred frenzy for offense reduces your defense. The point of the trait setup and gear is that you don’t need to augment the damage from your phantasms. They are enough to tear apart any build in the game in short order.
Due to the fact that your phantasms are enough dps to handle any build, you have the luxury of utilizing all of your other skills for defense.
Any half-decent player can avoid getting bursted down relatively easy if they keep the heat on the real mesmer. If you’re solely relying on phantasms to kill your opponent (who is equally as good), you’re going to have a bad time.
In any event, my build is very similar, but it’s clear we have different opinions on weapon choices and playstyle. To each their own. It’s an interesting build, but I prefer a more offensive one that is capable of taking down half-way decent players (not ones who sit there and eat the burst).
@wookie: I’m not missing out on any dps. I don’t attack with this build. I run around in circles and let my phantasms attack. Every single skill on my bars other than the 2 phantasms are for defense.
If you run around in circles letting your phantasms do the work, then yes. You’re missing out on a LOT of DPS. It’s a good build, just built with the wrong goals in mind — this is not a bunker build that should heavily rely on defense (and your traits clearly contradict that sentiment). You’d be much better off playing it offensively… not defensively.
What I’m trying to say is the traits are right. Everything else could be reworked for more effectiveness.
@People talking about scepter: Scepter is there for the block. That’s it. Sometimes I’ll cast confusing images just cause I’m bored. The block is a potent defensive tool, and on a separate cooldown from blurred frenzy. Generally, after blurred frenzy I will swap immediately to have the blocks available, and swap back as soon as I can so that blurred frenzy will be up again.
I still don’t think equipping scepter for one block is worth it. You’re missing out on a lot of DPS. Offhand sword, blurred frenzy, and distortion should be more than enough for a decent mesmer. Again, just my two cents.
I will add that I’ve been using my build in wvw with great success. Greatest counter to this build is, in my opinion, blinds. If you can blind the mesmer, the phantasms can’t be spawned while they’re blinded.
Hehe we can indeed forum fight all day hehe I just wanted to post my point of view on such a build, because I simply don’t see it as unkillable in WvW (also a single auto attack crit that proc’s my 4sec burning will finish a phantasm off, for not talking about the wonder Stastic Shot and it’s bounce do on them!) hehe
So yeah for sure one of the good 1vs1 duel builds, but unbeatable? no :P
It’s not unbeatable and I never said it was. Is it a very hard build to beat? Yes.
@Knight I’m sadly on the EU server’s, and they both play on NA server!
@Wookie, You would have to give up three of the following things: Blink, Stealth or Clone life (I assume it would be Blink and stealth), and while I do agree that I will be put on pressure at the start, I still sit in with 2x low CD easy to land burning Skills, with acces to a thid and a chance to get it on crits, I got 2 different skills to get 5 stacks of confusion on you with, which in WvW means total lockdown unless you got a removal for 10 seconds (one being on a 12 sec CD, the other 18)! Still not counting all the other crap I got! :P The point is, I I will be put on pressure, put if I just paly defensive at the start and don’t double stack my CD’s, then the match will turn easy for me when your two removal is gone! At least in WvW, sPvP have showed to be quite harder for me vs that kind of builds :P
I doubt it will be easy for you, but we can forum warrior all day bro. Both my phantasms sitting at 16s cooldowns deal out 10k+ damage in a single burst. You fail to kill them, you die. You kill them, I make more, you die. The choice is yours.
All I need to do is not apply al my condition in a burst, and watch when you send back and just walk away when you hang out in a Null Field, Osicat tried that, and while it will complicate the fight, and help a lot out on the condition removal, it won’t be an automatic win!
May not be an automatic win, but I can assure you you’ll be under a lot more pressure than me as a condition engineer.
Your build have a major weakness vs Conditions, you got one condition removal on a 20 second cooldown (removing one single conditions)! If I met your build on my Condition build on my Engineer I would melt you away! Having acces to 10 seconds duration on 5 stacks of confusion, able to stack up to 30 seconds of burning and high uptimes of several different other conditions to soak up that single removal I can’t see you lasting long with less active defence skills then the Mistcat build (which I can manage to get past!)! I’m sure it’s an awesome 1vs1 duel build, and that you can kill most melee builds quite easy, but vs a good Condition Engineer or Necromancer, I can’t see your build as “unbeatable”! ^^
Vs a condition engineer all you need to slot is null field and arcane thievery. Enough for me to get any engineer down very fast.
There are a few reasons I opted for scepter/sword instead of greatsword. First, the sword phantasm is vastly superior to the greatsword phantasm, both in damage and reliability. Additionally, the greatsword has almost nothing in the way of defensive/evasive utility. It is all offense, which is fine, but doesn’t fit this build. You don’t do offense yourself, you let the phantasms take care of that, and your focus is on defense.
I play mine pretty offensively, but yours seems a bit more defensive. It’s too easy to sit there and just let phantasms do the work for me — that’s just boring. :P Plus, the greatsword #5 is great for knocking thieves out of refuge – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done it. Scepter isn’t bad, but I’d prefer it in a condition build more than a phantasm one. You’d be better suited with a sword/pistol + sword/sword combo. Scepter really has no place in this build.
As for GS evasive/defensive utility, you don’t really need all that much in this build. Most players freak out at the phantasms bursting their health down and those that do try to get close oftentimes find themselves eating a second round of phantasm burst before they get their’s off. This, on top of the fact that I sit around 21472hp in SPVP means I can eat a fair chunk of damage and still burst the enemy down. Decoy, blurred frenzy/distortion, and phantasmal defender have worked just fine for me in lots of 1v1s (and even 1vXs) for bursty builds. When facing condition builds, phantasmal disenchanter, arcane thievery and null field all have their special purposes and I swap through them frequently depending on the situation (arcane thievery works very well against confusion mesmers). Matter of preference really.
I’ve been using this exact build for a while now with only a few changes. Looks like the cat’s out of the bag now. :\
Only difference is I use a GS + Sword/Pistol with two sigils of fire and a sigil of accuracy.
Other than that. Exactly the same one I’ve been using for weeks.
If you’re looking for some random hotjoin footage of how to play it: http://www.twitch.tv/dohliath/b/380767723 (reminder: I use greatsword and in this video two sigils of energy). At 44:20 I duel another mesmer a few times.
If you want to see damage potential in WvW: http://www.twitch.tv/dohliath/b/383993243 (Skip to 1:28:40 – decent battle between a few friends on some enemies who enter the camp — watch the crits).
Honestly the one thing I want to see nerfed on a thief is the Mug trait damage. It’s absolutely ridiculous. This in conjunction with taking a bit off the top for shatter damage should help balance things out. I’ve gotten 11k mind wracks before and also feel this could be toned down a bit.
The only rangers I lose to more often than not are perma-regen beastmasters. I find it difficult to burst them down even after removing most of their boons, but trying to defeat a bunker with a glass cannon is not easily done.
Engis aren’t typically a problem if you spec utilities properly for conditions or for burst (which is pretty easy to spec for).
Eles are mostly about avoiding fire attacks and churning earth (at least in my experience). The rest is just kiting and stun breaking.
Aside from the last fight, it wasn’t bad. I’m not a big fan of bunker mesmer builds, but you pulled it off pretty nicely. Prepped for both burst and conitions with null field and phantasmal defender. As for the last fight, you nearly got downed from the 14 stacks of bleeding from the caltops you walked right into and stood in. You should be more careful where you step or perhaps equip a blink for situations where you’re immobilized or stunned.
Overall not bad though. Hard to judge your real skill level in hotjoins, but good video nonetheless.
I took a Mesmer to try some PvP and I barely read skills descriptions and even traits and I was doing good damage and facerolling people. Got kill because of course I didn’t really knew what I was doing. But no class should be that easymode, I can’t see the satisfaction of playing like this.
Mesmer isn’t “easymode.” Anyone with half a brain and decent reaction time can handle a mesmer. Phantasm build – dodge the initial phantasms’ burst and kill them, then target the mesmer. Shatter – roll through the shatter when the clones come at you and keep pressure on the mesmer (get close!). Confusion – a joke for the most part in spvp (not necessarily in tpvp).
People think mesmer is “easymode” because newer players don’t know how to counter them or other players just don’t want to learn how to. Once you figure it out and find ways to shut them down, it’s relatively easy to win a fight against an average mesmer.
I’ ve been reading the other profession and WvW forums and concluded a dodge nerf is coming. There is a lot of frustration in the ele and thief forums about targets dodging their high powered dragon tooth and backstab attacks. Why have high damage attacks if players can just dodge them? Arenanet must be looking into this as dodging is imbalanced for professions that rely on stationary targets to hit their combos.
Remove dodge altogether for every class. It’s OP and prevents players from getting off burst skills effectively.
In all honesty, without the vigor/dodges on mesmer, we’d be toast to any other class. I disagree with you wholeheartedly. If a mesmer dodges all of your attacks, it sounds like you need to time your strikes a LOT better or get the mesmer to burn their dodges.
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