ASP.8093

This is more based on observing thieves than first-hand experience at the moment, but… Staff is the go-to zergy melee weapon and it's actually fine in a small fight, imo. In big fights you're looking to chain evades so you can "float" over the enemy zerg a little; in small fights you want to mix in stealth and time your Vault to "punish" their big attacks (evade them and do big damage). Note that PvE sustain traits designed around "you will always hit the enemy, they're just a damage sponge you need to evade-tank for a minute" like Invigorating Precision or Acrobatics won't get you as far, though; like all PvP thieves, you get more value out of positioning, blind, and stealth. Most thieves fishing around for big dramatic single-target "delete!" moments will pick Dagger/Pistol or Rifle. Both give a lot of access to stealth (with Rifle you gotta take Silent Scope). This is your traditional thief burst gameplay. Note that WvW/PvP Rifle has different scaling coefficients compared to PvE so you'll likely use Skirmisher's Shot much more than you would in PvE. Shortbow is the critical mobility/utility weapon. You can kiiiiiinda get away with D/P + Rifle on the Deadeye super-stealth meme build but even then I think Shortbow will do more for you when you're trying to reposition or escape. Running SB with Sigils of Cleansing and Energy is like having a second Shadow Return on your skill bar. Camp clears are pretty easy in general; remember you can just switch weapons if you really need to, since the guards are just sitting there passively while waiting for you to walk up.

someone's going to read this thread and decide to nerf skirmisher's shot

PvE: chrono is a great damage+support spec, and a decent base for casual open-world builds. The full rotation is pretty involved but you're durable, powerful, and lay down a lot of valuable boons for your team. Sometimes "off-meta" but seldom actively bad. PvP/WvW: Chronophantasma does -50% damage compared to the PvE version, boon-sharing group comps don't usually focus on Alacrity/Quickness quite so much, not being able to use Diversion or self-shatter (for blind/interrupt) means you are probably even more fragile than a normie mesmer. Also the "competitive mode" version of Gravity Well does zero damage.

Seems easier to just make control conditions partially affect the warclaw in wvw.

Sooooo, by "avoiding fights" you mean "skipping random 1v1 / 1vX in the middle of nowhere?" This is, like, the mirror image to that complaint post about having to interact with other people while doing your dailies. It's not even that this would be a worse design (unless you want the waypoint animation to immobilize them or something), it's just that I don't see why this should matter unless you're spending all day fishing for easy ganks. And, fundamentally, you're not going to get those ganks: most likely, avoidant players will just learn to mash the waypoint at the earliest opportunity since they won't get one later.

Technically, jumping someone who's out there trying to flip a camp is closer to the design intent for "roaming" than this kind of run-around-looking-for-duels/have-a-picnic-in-the-ruins culture that's developed among a lot of self-identified roamers is. Again — most of the dailies are designed to get you at least tangentially involved in fights and PPT. (Getting too involved in PPT is how I massively burned out on this game the first time around, so I personally try not to worry too much about it! But the game mode falls apart if people don't at least sort of half-heartedly care about the score.) It's not like they're ganking level 75s in green gear who are just trying to make it to Cursed Shore to complete their personal story. I get that sometimes being on the losing side of these interactions is Not Fun but that's true of a lot of outnumbered/outgunned type scenarios that are also the bread-and-butter of this game mode.

I love discussions that turn one player's farming routine into the yardstick for all "newbie" or "casual" experience. You can make an exception for the normally-out-of-the-way "Veteran Creature" daily, just as people used to make exceptions for the jumping puzzles even before dailies were added to the game. But most of the dailies are trying to get you to actually play World vs. World — seize some objectives, kill some enemy players, get your hands a little dirty! Even the rawest of players are "flipping camps," not "killing 5 guards and then logging off until tomorrow."

ok, but just the basic aoe cap mechanics will allow 30 players to pretty safely soak your big Meteor nuke with its 1.1 damage scaling per impact.

Necro does feel like it has trouble finishing downs compared to a lot of other classes (before anyone asks: I'm mostly a mesmer player), and it would be thematic a.f.

I would suggest that utility skills are better when there isn't some kind of tedious mini-game mechanic to learn in order to unlock the full functionality of each one.

imo, if you're just starting the game altogether, you'll want to focus on: Greatsword. A powerful and reliable ranged weapon for open-world and story mode content where enemies die fast and it's often your first time seeing any particular boss' mechanics and animations.Sword/X (Sword/Sword or Sword/Focus). To learn the mechanics of melee fighting with a lightly-armored class: moving to avoid basic attacks, Blurred Frenzy evasion frames, dodging the big stuff. Note that your #1 skill is a three-hit chain so your DPS goes up considerably if you don't constantly interrupt it. I suggest Sword or Focus for your off hand since both give you some extra damage from their phantasms when you need it.Both these weapon sets rely on Power for their damage, so prioritize that on your gear. (Later on you will want Precision and Ferocity as well, to make big consistent critical hits happen. Some amount of Toughness or Vitality is ok as well while you're learning the ropes, just be mindful that trying to play slow-and-steady can actually be harder than mopping up enemies quickly in this game.) Mesmers generally want all the offense they can get because the class is built to use a lot of active defense but doesn't have the biggest raw damage numbers. Power also straightforwardly boosts your Mind Wrack (F1 shatter) damage, so you can start getting used to shattering your clones to kill enemies faster. Eventually, you'll also get a lot of value out of shattering clones using Diversion (F3 shatter) to break through Defiance (the little blue bar) on bosses as well. For Utility skills, experiment a lot, but you'll probably be happiest with: At least one stun break (e.g. Blink or Mirror Images)A condition cleanse skill (i think Power Cleanse is the easiest to use)These will help you when you've been stunned, knocked down, chilled, immobilized, &c.With this setup, the Dueling and Domination trait lines will help you get your damage up quickly. ~ N.B. during leveling, gear is cheap (and often shoddy enough that it doesn't really matter as much), and enemies are relatively easy, so you have room to experiment and dabble. It's much better to reach level 80 having at least tried all the weapons for a few minutes than to not know half of the options available to your class.