It comes as welcome news today that for the final Beta Weekend Event the Asura and Sylvari will be playable races. Of course, this isn't a huge surprise given that Guild Wars 2 is set to be released a little over a month later so having these races polished up would be a generally good idea.
The Sylvari were what captivated me about GW2 from the very start. I'd already been sold on Guild Wars from the beginning, so I was planning on buying GW2 from the first mention of its development. I bought all the magazines to get the special mini pets and read up on any new sliver of information I could get my hands on. So every time they mentioned this elusive Sylvair I couldn't stop but wonder how this race would pan out, and I have to say I couldn't be more pleased with the way ArenaNet developed them.
I've played my fair share of fantasy games so having this totally unique race pop up is huge. They're totally awesome and there's nothing quite like them in any other universe out there. If you haven't had a chance too yet I'd highly recommend you go through the older ArenaNet blogs about the Sylvari. There's a lot of good information there. And if you're not planning on playing a Sylvari then read up all the more, afterall you should probably get to know your new neighbors. They sound pretty nice.
Showing posts with label arena. Show all posts
Showing posts with label arena. Show all posts
Monday, July 9, 2012
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
GW2 Looking Really Good
I have to say, after I vanquished some salty pirate dogs and stole all their treasure, my Mesmer is Looking Really Good.
If it was up to me I'd like to go for something a little more regal, but the claw hand gloves are super awesome looking and I like skulls, so it's a tough decision to make.
The mask is from the story mode of Ascalon Catacombs so I'm super happy that ArenaNet didn't wipe our characters because I ended the last Stress Test a level below the required 35 for the mask. This upset me a little considering you only need to be level 30 to complete story mode and the rewards at the end have lvl 35 requirements and now there was the potential chance that I'd never be able to equip the mask. Maybe the level requirement discrepancy is just a minor oversight on ArenaNet's part, but still it did leave me with a bitter taste even though the whole dungeon was so much fun.
At any rate, this time around I could finally equip the mask and use the gear I'd worked so hard to achieve. Even if it took a month to finally wear my gear, I was happy.
As you read previously, I actually spent nearly all of my time this weekend parked in areas taking screenshots so even though I was logged in for nearly all of the BWE I didn't actually get that much playtime in. That being said, I was pleased with how GW2 has structured itself so that you can play the game for a very small amount of time and still feel satisfied. In the last BWE I spent close to 30hours of total playtime grinding and rushing around getting 100% in every zone I could, and this time around I maybe spent a handful of hours finishing up some things and playing sPvP and WvWvW events.
I was satisfied. GW2 is coming together brilliantly.
Apart from playing around with some of the new content I also started an effort to catalog the ugly monsters I came across. Initially I was just questing around and filling out some hearts in Gendarran Fields, but once I came across these guys it really hit me. There's some crazy monsters up in Tyria.
This Risen Abomination started the whole idea with his spectacular grotesqueness. I just had to take a screenshot of him. God is he ugly. And unstoppable, or so it says. I hope you're happy First Haven, dealing with the undead threat isn't pleasant.
The big guy, Veteran Ettin Chieftain, was on a skill point I needed to get near Icegate Gorge so I made him take a dirt nap. My advice for you, if you're ever faced up with the big guy, don't get hit. It's not a good way to start your day.
On a final note, I made sure to stop by the local Quaggan and say "Hi." They quite friendly once you get to know them, just be mindful of the sharks.
What stuck out for you this time around? I just can't get over how amazing GW2 looks. It's straight up gorgeous.
Monday, June 11, 2012
GW2: The Beauty of Tyria
For this Beta Weekend Event I decided to do something a little bit different.
I made a time lapse showcasing Tyria, and how amazing the land is to look at. I realized that I'll have plenty of time to play the game later, and since all this effort to level up and build my characters will eventually be wiped it made since to take a more casual approach to enjoying the BWE. This way I could have something of value to take away from the BWE that's more than just a couple screenshots, or some shiny new shoulders. And you can enjoy it too.
The one thing I didn't think about, but got a good kick out of once I started putting together all of my footage, is how often people would unsuspectingly photobomb my video. In the actual video you hardly notice them, but some of them are quite funny if you take them completely out of context.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
GW and Mesmers. A short history pt.1
I've realized that I'm developing a common theme among my posts. It's definitely Guild Wars, and probably Mesmers. I don't want go and say that for sure all I'm going to write about is Mesmers, but given that's what I have the most direct experience with right now, I'm going to make the most of it and work towards developing this trend. So let's get started properly and work through a some lessons on Mesmers for those of you who are new to the Guild Wars universe, or for those of you who have been here a little while and are only just now considering rolling a Mesmer. In this first installment we're going to go back in time and take a brief look at Mesmer background and history and how they pertained to Guild Wars from the start.
First of all: What are Mesmers, exactly?
In as few words as possible the Mesmer is an Arcane Trickster, my single favorite class description of all time. It gets right to the point. They're not Elementalists, or Mages but they are magic users. At the same time they're also deceivers intent on causing confusion and misdirection. They do damage, but not directly. They have plenty of hexes, but usually the hex comes with a caveat. Something like, the hex will only work if your foe performs and action, or doesn't, or whatever. Though their amazing interrupts and energy denial made them a staple in the PvP format. You can, of course, make a Mesmer revolve around doing direct spike damage and that furthered their roles in structured PvP, but even the Mesmer spike relied on your target having energy to deal it's damage. If your target could hide their energy then most of the spike tended to fall short.
Mesmers: Tyria's Neglected Child.
All these factors served to increase the confusion of "why bring a Mesmer" specifically in a PvE situation it didn't make sense to bring a character who could only deal damage under certain circumstances. Even with all their usefulness the Mesmer tended to be very contextual. Mesmers were a class that was complex by nature and the massive pool ArenaNet had developed with their skill system (1319 total skills to be exact, of which a player could use any 8 from 2 different professions. Giving them anywhere from 222 to 281 skills to pick from at any given them) only worked to compound this complexity. Furthermore there wasn't typically something that a Mesmer could do that another class couldn't also do. After all, with the secondary class system anyone could take a Mesmer skill if they wanted. And in PvE, when the goal is to kill mobs as quickly as possible, people usually just went for the damage. It just made more sense.
You tank the mob, you heal the tank, you kill the mob.
A Mesmer was a big question mark in that equation. On their own, were too niche to handily fit into the standard Holy Trinity template. They were great for soloing, and specific builds, but general PvE didn't have a place to fit them in. Mesmers were almost too specific of a class.
If you're interested in some deeper reading on the Mesmer's lack of a role in PvE I suggest this post, it's quite lengthy but it goes into great detail on the issue.
Introducing ... Hard Mode.
Turn the clocks forward to the Hard Mode update. The days of Normal Mode and mass nuking were over. Previously all that the party needed was tanking, healing, and damage. They could clump up the mobs and decimate them all in one swoop. Elementalists were great at that. The introduction of Hard Mode improved monster AI dramatically, and increased their health and damage. Packs of mobs no longer stayed clumped up under meteor storms. They would scatter and avoid damage. Nuking, in the old sense, was no now impossible.
The group now needed a way to control the mobs as well, mitigate damage, reduce their healing, and shut them down. So much so that if you're going to run any Hard Mode PvE content today you'll always want to consider including Mesmers. It turns out that the way most Mesmer abilities worked made them perfectly suited to exploit Hard Mode and the mobs' increased attack speed and altered AI. Since Mesmers had always done damage best whenever mobs performed actions, now that they were performing actions 33% faster it meant that the mobs were actually now killing themselves 33% faster as well. It became a perfect situation for Mesmers to flourish. Then take into account Mesmer's amazing interrupts, they became crucial to killing any mob that had a lot of healing potential. The Mesmer could shut down the healer and the rest of the group could do their job and finish off the pack.
That's where it turns out the Mesmer fit in after all, by controlling how and when their foes perform actions. When you can't act, you can't fight, and when you can't fight, you die.
-----
I hope you enjoyed this short lesson on Mesmers. In the next part I'll be looking at the new Mesmer and how she fits into the Guild Wars 2 universe.
First of all: What are Mesmers, exactly?
In as few words as possible the Mesmer is an Arcane Trickster, my single favorite class description of all time. It gets right to the point. They're not Elementalists, or Mages but they are magic users. At the same time they're also deceivers intent on causing confusion and misdirection. They do damage, but not directly. They have plenty of hexes, but usually the hex comes with a caveat. Something like, the hex will only work if your foe performs and action, or doesn't, or whatever. Though their amazing interrupts and energy denial made them a staple in the PvP format. You can, of course, make a Mesmer revolve around doing direct spike damage and that furthered their roles in structured PvP, but even the Mesmer spike relied on your target having energy to deal it's damage. If your target could hide their energy then most of the spike tended to fall short.
Mesmers: Tyria's Neglected Child.
All these factors served to increase the confusion of "why bring a Mesmer" specifically in a PvE situation it didn't make sense to bring a character who could only deal damage under certain circumstances. Even with all their usefulness the Mesmer tended to be very contextual. Mesmers were a class that was complex by nature and the massive pool ArenaNet had developed with their skill system (1319 total skills to be exact, of which a player could use any 8 from 2 different professions. Giving them anywhere from 222 to 281 skills to pick from at any given them) only worked to compound this complexity. Furthermore there wasn't typically something that a Mesmer could do that another class couldn't also do. After all, with the secondary class system anyone could take a Mesmer skill if they wanted. And in PvE, when the goal is to kill mobs as quickly as possible, people usually just went for the damage. It just made more sense.
You tank the mob, you heal the tank, you kill the mob.
A Mesmer was a big question mark in that equation. On their own, were too niche to handily fit into the standard Holy Trinity template. They were great for soloing, and specific builds, but general PvE didn't have a place to fit them in. Mesmers were almost too specific of a class.
If you're interested in some deeper reading on the Mesmer's lack of a role in PvE I suggest this post, it's quite lengthy but it goes into great detail on the issue.
Introducing ... Hard Mode.
Turn the clocks forward to the Hard Mode update. The days of Normal Mode and mass nuking were over. Previously all that the party needed was tanking, healing, and damage. They could clump up the mobs and decimate them all in one swoop. Elementalists were great at that. The introduction of Hard Mode improved monster AI dramatically, and increased their health and damage. Packs of mobs no longer stayed clumped up under meteor storms. They would scatter and avoid damage. Nuking, in the old sense, was no now impossible.
The group now needed a way to control the mobs as well, mitigate damage, reduce their healing, and shut them down. So much so that if you're going to run any Hard Mode PvE content today you'll always want to consider including Mesmers. It turns out that the way most Mesmer abilities worked made them perfectly suited to exploit Hard Mode and the mobs' increased attack speed and altered AI. Since Mesmers had always done damage best whenever mobs performed actions, now that they were performing actions 33% faster it meant that the mobs were actually now killing themselves 33% faster as well. It became a perfect situation for Mesmers to flourish. Then take into account Mesmer's amazing interrupts, they became crucial to killing any mob that had a lot of healing potential. The Mesmer could shut down the healer and the rest of the group could do their job and finish off the pack.
That's where it turns out the Mesmer fit in after all, by controlling how and when their foes perform actions. When you can't act, you can't fight, and when you can't fight, you die.
-----
I hope you enjoyed this short lesson on Mesmers. In the next part I'll be looking at the new Mesmer and how she fits into the Guild Wars 2 universe.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
GW2 A look back at Ascalon Catacombs
In case you've been living under a rock for the last couple years it might be worth pointing out that Guild Wars 2 has done a few things to the typical MMO party dynamic (you probably already knew that). But with the recent Beta Weekend Event, and Stress Test we've all finally gotten a first hand look on how these new dynamics actually affect the standard MMO structure, which for some of us couldn't have come soon enough. For the last 5 years I've been on the perpetual Guild Wars merry-go-round in wait for this foretold sequel. I definitely had my ups (finally completing a Vabbian armor set) and downs (solo vanquishing Cantha... definitely never doing that again) so this breath of fresh Tyrian air was a more than welcome change to the constant grind random arenas had to offer.
Fortunately enough for me not only did I have the entire weekend free, I managed to stumble into a beta guild with enough like minded (over zealous level grinders) to be able to test our might against the Ascalon Catacombs early on in the weekend and get an even deeper look at how party dynamics had been completely thrown upside down.
First of all our group consisted of: Necromancer, Necromancer, Mesmer (me), Engineer, Elementalist (I guess you could add Rytlock Brimstone, and Eir Stegalkin as well since they do help you out quite a bit) but the first thing you would probably notice is that we didn't have a tank. Not even remotely. Our heaviest armor was on the Engineer and he's a ranged support class. Also worth pointing out, the engineer, elementalist and I were all slightly under leveled for the Catacombs. It's a level 30 dungeon and we were 26, 27 and 28 respectively, but given that the necromancers were slightly over leveled (32, 33) we figured we'd give it a shot and see if we couldn't send some ghosts to their ultimate end.
And we did. Eventually.
The run started out a little rocky as everyone was trying to figure out their class and how to work as a proper team. The question was even brought up, before the first boss, if we should just abandon ship and try again some other time. We even wiped 3 times on the first staircase. So far things were not going smoothly.
I get the feeling that a lot of initial groups in Guild Wars 2 will run through the same problem. You see GW2 isn't the typical "tank and spank" that we've all gotten so used to, and the mobs often hit hard, like 2-shotting caster classes hard. You can't stand around and watch the pretty lightis. The priest is not going to heal you up, and the tank is not going to magically taunt the aggro off of you. At first glance it would appear that you have the distinct responsibility of looking after yourself, but eventually it becomes more than apparent that the best way to take care of yourself is, in fact, to look after everyone else instead.
And once the whole party realizes that everything just starts working.
This isn't some weird, hippie, everyone heals each other drum circle. It's a unique and dynamic control system where each of the classes uses their strengths in a way to complement the rest of the group. For instance, as a Mesmer, I figured that my strengths were in confusion, interruption, and misdirection. I could best support the party through my ability to stun, cripple, fear, and daze mobs. My primary goal, it turned out, was not to deal direct damage, but instead to prevent and redirect damage and Mirrored Feedback was a spectacular way to do that. Not only could I keep ranged mobs from hitting any of us I could actually redirect their arrows back and turn their attacks into our attacks. Then if they were still alive I could daze and stun them further preventing those pesky ghosts from doing much of anything.
I can't even recall when I came to this epiphany. It may have been lingering in the back of my head the whole time and I just needed the right moment to realize it, but it appeared that the rest of the party came to this realization at around the same time. The fights kept going better and better that by the time we got to Master Ranger Nente he was a total pushover. This dynamic is something distinct to GW2. The fights can be complete chaos, but at the same time there's a distinct and underlying level of control. It's this orchestrated chaos that made the Ascalon Catacombs the most stressful, dramatic, fun, and rewarding dungeon run I've ever had the chance to complete. Everyone in the party, without any instruction or communication, somehow begins to know exactly what they're supposed to be doing. And there's instances (I'm looking at you Lovers) where it feels like nothing goes right and still by what would seem to be some form of divine intervention the fight ends up in success.
We were dropping like flies, slowly chipping away at Vassar's health, getting pounded by Ralena's lightning storms and managing to just barely keep the party afloat by the slimmest of margins. Naturally though, with Vassar at a sliver of life, everyone drops dead. And we think, "Well this might just be the end of it. Good job team but let's throw in the towel." I can only hazzard a guess, it might have been Eir, or her dog, or maybe one of the necromancers managed to run back just in time to keep Vassar in combat, but by some miracle when I had returned to the fight Vassar was still on a sliver of life and dying rapidly. Everyone was alive again (you see you can revive at a waypoint and run back to the fight if you want) and in mere moments Vassar was dead and all that left was to clean up the vaporal body of Ralena. I think during the entire ordeal there was only one line of text written between the whole group.
"Res at the waypoint. Run back."
After that King Adelbern's death was all but written in stone. Our team had come together and even without a true tank there was no spirit in the Ascalon Catacombs that could defeat us.
-------
also, special thanks to Syp over at Bio Break for mentioning my blog in his NBI post today. The Newbie Blogger Initiative is a great system that he's developed and I'm delighted to be able to take part in it.
Fortunately enough for me not only did I have the entire weekend free, I managed to stumble into a beta guild with enough like minded (over zealous level grinders) to be able to test our might against the Ascalon Catacombs early on in the weekend and get an even deeper look at how party dynamics had been completely thrown upside down.
First of all our group consisted of: Necromancer, Necromancer, Mesmer (me), Engineer, Elementalist (I guess you could add Rytlock Brimstone, and Eir Stegalkin as well since they do help you out quite a bit) but the first thing you would probably notice is that we didn't have a tank. Not even remotely. Our heaviest armor was on the Engineer and he's a ranged support class. Also worth pointing out, the engineer, elementalist and I were all slightly under leveled for the Catacombs. It's a level 30 dungeon and we were 26, 27 and 28 respectively, but given that the necromancers were slightly over leveled (32, 33) we figured we'd give it a shot and see if we couldn't send some ghosts to their ultimate end.
And we did. Eventually.
The run started out a little rocky as everyone was trying to figure out their class and how to work as a proper team. The question was even brought up, before the first boss, if we should just abandon ship and try again some other time. We even wiped 3 times on the first staircase. So far things were not going smoothly.
I get the feeling that a lot of initial groups in Guild Wars 2 will run through the same problem. You see GW2 isn't the typical "tank and spank" that we've all gotten so used to, and the mobs often hit hard, like 2-shotting caster classes hard. You can't stand around and watch the pretty lightis. The priest is not going to heal you up, and the tank is not going to magically taunt the aggro off of you. At first glance it would appear that you have the distinct responsibility of looking after yourself, but eventually it becomes more than apparent that the best way to take care of yourself is, in fact, to look after everyone else instead.
And once the whole party realizes that everything just starts working.
This isn't some weird, hippie, everyone heals each other drum circle. It's a unique and dynamic control system where each of the classes uses their strengths in a way to complement the rest of the group. For instance, as a Mesmer, I figured that my strengths were in confusion, interruption, and misdirection. I could best support the party through my ability to stun, cripple, fear, and daze mobs. My primary goal, it turned out, was not to deal direct damage, but instead to prevent and redirect damage and Mirrored Feedback was a spectacular way to do that. Not only could I keep ranged mobs from hitting any of us I could actually redirect their arrows back and turn their attacks into our attacks. Then if they were still alive I could daze and stun them further preventing those pesky ghosts from doing much of anything.
I can't even recall when I came to this epiphany. It may have been lingering in the back of my head the whole time and I just needed the right moment to realize it, but it appeared that the rest of the party came to this realization at around the same time. The fights kept going better and better that by the time we got to Master Ranger Nente he was a total pushover. This dynamic is something distinct to GW2. The fights can be complete chaos, but at the same time there's a distinct and underlying level of control. It's this orchestrated chaos that made the Ascalon Catacombs the most stressful, dramatic, fun, and rewarding dungeon run I've ever had the chance to complete. Everyone in the party, without any instruction or communication, somehow begins to know exactly what they're supposed to be doing. And there's instances (I'm looking at you Lovers) where it feels like nothing goes right and still by what would seem to be some form of divine intervention the fight ends up in success.
We were dropping like flies, slowly chipping away at Vassar's health, getting pounded by Ralena's lightning storms and managing to just barely keep the party afloat by the slimmest of margins. Naturally though, with Vassar at a sliver of life, everyone drops dead. And we think, "Well this might just be the end of it. Good job team but let's throw in the towel." I can only hazzard a guess, it might have been Eir, or her dog, or maybe one of the necromancers managed to run back just in time to keep Vassar in combat, but by some miracle when I had returned to the fight Vassar was still on a sliver of life and dying rapidly. Everyone was alive again (you see you can revive at a waypoint and run back to the fight if you want) and in mere moments Vassar was dead and all that left was to clean up the vaporal body of Ralena. I think during the entire ordeal there was only one line of text written between the whole group.
"Res at the waypoint. Run back."
After that King Adelbern's death was all but written in stone. Our team had come together and even without a true tank there was no spirit in the Ascalon Catacombs that could defeat us.
-------
also, special thanks to Syp over at Bio Break for mentioning my blog in his NBI post today. The Newbie Blogger Initiative is a great system that he's developed and I'm delighted to be able to take part in it.
Friday, May 18, 2012
GW2 Mesmers and Melee
I figured I'd preface this post with a little bit of background, over the last few betas for GW2 I've been playing a Mesmer almost exclusively. Sure I've leveled up some other classes (Guardian, Warrior, Engineer...) but the class I've been having the most fun with has definitely been the Mesmer, which honestly surprised me a lot. Back in the original Guild Wars days I went full tilt with a warrior (40/50 Hall of Monuments and all that jazz) and definitely enjoyed every minute of it. I had tried plenty of other classes, but the warrior was one that I always kept coming back to. So going into GW2 I was almost convinced that for sure I'd end up going with a warrior or guardian. I just like heavy classes, even in WoW I had warrior a deathknight mains. There's just something about plate mail that gets me excited, maybe it's the shoulder pads. Also I definitely enjoy hitting like a freight train. With that in mind, you can imagine how it would be hard for me to fathom playing a caster, a cloth wearing, squishy, fragile, paper thin caster. And not only that, but a support caster no less. Up until this time my entire gameplay experience has been based around getting up in the thick of battle and carving my way through the horde like Paul Bunyan felling a forest of bodies. I enjoyed the feeling of combat. All this wishy washy magicy stuff just never was my thing.
Boy was I wrong. What I had not considered is that it tuns out I enjoy deception EVEN MORE.
Now, for those of you who haven't quite gotten your feet wet in Guild Wars the Mesmer is what's being referred to as an "Arcane Trickster" and they are amazing. It's a class that revolves around controlling the battle, through either conditions, clever use of invisibility, or the ability to control who has boons and who doesn't. They also have the unique advantage of being able to create Illusions, clones of themselves, which can be used either for straight up damage or can be shredded to confuse, daze, or spike your enemies. The best part of the Illusions is that they're more than willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, and with the right build they're never in short supply. Of course you're limited to only 3 illusions at a time, so you do have to be clever about how and when you use them, but with the right decision making shredding your illusions for a clutch daze can change the tide of battle in a millisecond. It's a highly complex class, so maybe the Mesmer isn't for everyone, but I'm always up for a challenge, and the satisfaction of being able to completely get into the head of your opponents in the way the a Mesmer only can is simply astonishing.
Now that you have some idea about how Mesmers work you might recall that I'd mentioned at the start I'm the most comfortable getting right up in the face of my enemies, and recently everyone and their mother has been complaining about melee in GW2 being underpowered. I figured, this being the beta, I would take that as a of challenge and see if Mesmers could actually hold their own in melee. Noted being a melee caster you can't tank a mob straight up unless you like being gibbed in a second so I wasn't getting my hopes up for some stellar performances, but with the Distortion mechanic you can completely negate the bigger hits mobs can dish out, combine that with the main hand sword abilities like Blurred Frenzy or the torch's ability to make you invisible Mesmers have a surprisingly high level of melee survivablitiy. Furthermore the sword's auto attack applies stacks of vulnerability and removes boons which gives your party a hefty damage boost. So far so good, it would appear that building up a melee Mesmer wasn't completely out of the question and actually complemented some of the other classes quite well.
For weapon and gear suggestions what I was tending to lean towards a sword/sword or sword/torch primary set with either a greatsword or scepter/focus secondary set. The sword/sword main set gives you a good level of damage output and distortion with a block option on the offhand to negate even more damage. Having the torch offhand grants you the aforementioned invisibility escape and a phantasm that stacks retaliation on all the allies in the area which can be useful in the right scenarios. Personally I felt that from a playstyle perspective the sword/torch works much better in the pvp realm than it did in pve given that invisibility isn't the best escape mechanic for pve and having the extra block from the offhand sword makes staying around in melee range much easier. The secondary set really depends on how your trait build is, if you're heavily stacking power and precision then the greatsword is a good option for it's damage output at range. The greatsword also has a good cripple and knockback for those 'oh shit' moments when you absolutely have to get away. On the other hand if you're leaning more towards a truer 'melee support' role then the scepter/focus option shines for its illusion generation and confusion stacking. You can also take advantage of some of the Inspiration, and Illusion traits to get some more utility out of your Illusions than you would normally. Since this build doesn't rely on conditions to do it's damage you are primarily going to want to look for toughness, vitality, power, and precision on your gear to make sure you can stay alive when you're in melee range and still be able to dish out enough damage to merit getting in close.
So for those of you who are looking for a little bit of a challenge, and something quite a bit different, I highly recommend trying out a melee Mesmer. You might be surprised at how much fun you end up having. And definitely keep checking back, in a later post I'm going to break down traits and builds to really get in and show you how to optimize your Mesmer.
Boy was I wrong. What I had not considered is that it tuns out I enjoy deception EVEN MORE.
Now, for those of you who haven't quite gotten your feet wet in Guild Wars the Mesmer is what's being referred to as an "Arcane Trickster" and they are amazing. It's a class that revolves around controlling the battle, through either conditions, clever use of invisibility, or the ability to control who has boons and who doesn't. They also have the unique advantage of being able to create Illusions, clones of themselves, which can be used either for straight up damage or can be shredded to confuse, daze, or spike your enemies. The best part of the Illusions is that they're more than willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, and with the right build they're never in short supply. Of course you're limited to only 3 illusions at a time, so you do have to be clever about how and when you use them, but with the right decision making shredding your illusions for a clutch daze can change the tide of battle in a millisecond. It's a highly complex class, so maybe the Mesmer isn't for everyone, but I'm always up for a challenge, and the satisfaction of being able to completely get into the head of your opponents in the way the a Mesmer only can is simply astonishing.
Now that you have some idea about how Mesmers work you might recall that I'd mentioned at the start I'm the most comfortable getting right up in the face of my enemies, and recently everyone and their mother has been complaining about melee in GW2 being underpowered. I figured, this being the beta, I would take that as a of challenge and see if Mesmers could actually hold their own in melee. Noted being a melee caster you can't tank a mob straight up unless you like being gibbed in a second so I wasn't getting my hopes up for some stellar performances, but with the Distortion mechanic you can completely negate the bigger hits mobs can dish out, combine that with the main hand sword abilities like Blurred Frenzy or the torch's ability to make you invisible Mesmers have a surprisingly high level of melee survivablitiy. Furthermore the sword's auto attack applies stacks of vulnerability and removes boons which gives your party a hefty damage boost. So far so good, it would appear that building up a melee Mesmer wasn't completely out of the question and actually complemented some of the other classes quite well.
For weapon and gear suggestions what I was tending to lean towards a sword/sword or sword/torch primary set with either a greatsword or scepter/focus secondary set. The sword/sword main set gives you a good level of damage output and distortion with a block option on the offhand to negate even more damage. Having the torch offhand grants you the aforementioned invisibility escape and a phantasm that stacks retaliation on all the allies in the area which can be useful in the right scenarios. Personally I felt that from a playstyle perspective the sword/torch works much better in the pvp realm than it did in pve given that invisibility isn't the best escape mechanic for pve and having the extra block from the offhand sword makes staying around in melee range much easier. The secondary set really depends on how your trait build is, if you're heavily stacking power and precision then the greatsword is a good option for it's damage output at range. The greatsword also has a good cripple and knockback for those 'oh shit' moments when you absolutely have to get away. On the other hand if you're leaning more towards a truer 'melee support' role then the scepter/focus option shines for its illusion generation and confusion stacking. You can also take advantage of some of the Inspiration, and Illusion traits to get some more utility out of your Illusions than you would normally. Since this build doesn't rely on conditions to do it's damage you are primarily going to want to look for toughness, vitality, power, and precision on your gear to make sure you can stay alive when you're in melee range and still be able to dish out enough damage to merit getting in close.
So for those of you who are looking for a little bit of a challenge, and something quite a bit different, I highly recommend trying out a melee Mesmer. You might be surprised at how much fun you end up having. And definitely keep checking back, in a later post I'm going to break down traits and builds to really get in and show you how to optimize your Mesmer.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
GW2 What is your story?
ArenaNet recently posted an amazing story about the real world inspiration for Ameranth, a Sylvari NPC who's decided to venture every corner of Tyria. They mention that you can find her outside of The Black Citadel, which is definitely true. I stumbled across this particular Sylvari during the beta and was definitely curious why she was standing there on the steps of the Charr fortress. Not only was she completely across the continent, the towering structures of iron and flame were a massive contrast to the Sylvari standing at their steps. The designers have definitely put quite some time into polishing the GW2 world and living up to their claim to create a living and breathing Tyria.
To think that it's entirely possible that there could be any number of other characters in GW2 who have been inspired by such stores is great. We already know that the ArenaNet team is going to great lengths to build community for GW2, and given that they've said that they will be making sure to add post-launch content there's no question that any other stories or events worthy of praise could get included into the game with ease. They even go on to add that anyone could go out and have a similarly epic real life quest. You don't have to be superman, you just need to get up and walk out the door. ArenaNet keeps asking in GW2 "What is your story?" maybe now is the time to find out. After all, you could be next to be immortalized into Tyria, forever standing as a hero against the Elder Dragons.
To think that it's entirely possible that there could be any number of other characters in GW2 who have been inspired by such stores is great. We already know that the ArenaNet team is going to great lengths to build community for GW2, and given that they've said that they will be making sure to add post-launch content there's no question that any other stories or events worthy of praise could get included into the game with ease. They even go on to add that anyone could go out and have a similarly epic real life quest. You don't have to be superman, you just need to get up and walk out the door. ArenaNet keeps asking in GW2 "What is your story?" maybe now is the time to find out. After all, you could be next to be immortalized into Tyria, forever standing as a hero against the Elder Dragons.
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