Mungo Zen.9364

1 - Your gear stats should reflect the type of build you want to play. Berserkers is typical for Power DPS builds while Vipers is for Condition builds. However, there are dozens of stats combos available so you may want to read a guide on your preferred profession and build to get some guidance as it will start teaching you how al the systems work that makeup your character. 2 - Runes and Sigils are available through many sources although the easiest would be Trading Post or Crafting. 6 Superior Runes of the same name will give you the 6 piece bonus, anything less and you don't get the set bonus (so you may want a 7th Rune for your Aquabreather kit). A lot of Sigils and Runes are very cheap and can be tried out just for the experience of 'what does this do for me?' 1+2 - You may be best served exploring builds via two methods. One is to go to a site like Metabattle and find a community build which matches the playstyle you enjoy and then look at what gear they use. A lot will also have alternate builds if you can't afford the more expensive items right away. The other method, which can be inexpensive and fun, is to just buy different armor, runes and sigil sets and trying them out. It will involve a lot of trial and error but after a few go rounds you will be well versed in how these systems work for you. 3 - Skins are applied under the Wardrobe tab and use Transmutation Charges per item being changed. Just select the item to be skinned and on the left you will be shown all available skins you have that match that item (must match armor weight and slot or weapon type). You can then go to the Dyes tab to color the skins as you please.

Selective Quoting for the win!!! But to your point in the OP: It should not be giving you a pop-up if you have enough XP but not enough Mastery. I confirmed on my secondary account in Core, Hot and PoF that having the XP but not the Mastery Points does not cause this message. I also confirmed that you may not get the pop up if you have both the XP and the MP to spend. It appears this message was intended to alert players to unlock the Mastery system on their account after they reached their first level 80. It also appears there was a known bug which was then resolved where this message would not go away after unlocking the Mastery system. Going back to your above quote, it sounds like you have unlocked the Mastery system, and since you shouldn't be getting a pop-up for having the XP and not the Mastery Points, I wonder what is actually happening here.

Scepter doesn't really have a home as a primary weapon for any Mesmer build. Prior to EoD I was playing a Scepter/Shield Chrono Tank that was very capable of soloing Champ Bounties but the changes to Alac/Quick have rendered that build less playable since EoD.

Likely repeating some but…. new Runes and Sigils meta events lining up against each other so you can finish one and move maps to the next meta event more events and variety on each map between meta events Adventures, Races and Bounties A more populace and active New Kainang utilizing a lot more of the vertical space in the map. This map feels half finished and lastly, I would have preferred they invested in balancing all the eSpecs before the launch of the game. Having multiple eSpecs being unplayable for weeks or months was a terrible experience and inexcusable.

Yes, celebrate that for once the devs didn’t push through a half baked nerf for Mesmer. I am wondering how many other changes will be reverted for Mesmer now……oh that’s it? Wake me up when they have actually balanced the professions and the game mechanics work as intended.

Well Masteries are part of the game and all you need to do is open the mastery window and select a new mastery to train and/or spend a few mastery points. If you select a completed Mastery Tree I believe it will stop letting you know it can be upgraded. I don’t really understand though, that someone who has played the franchise for 15 years would be so against one of the primary features of progression and opening content in the game. As well, so reticent to actually just click a few buttons to stop the pop ups. I mean, if you really don’t want to see them you don’t have to log in either but that is probably a less desired alternative.

This game doesn’t really reward players the same way WoW or other MMO can. Specifically the support roles are not actively making decisions in game about what to do (like am I healing tank or raid and which heal all I using). You aren’t usually making decisions that can wipe the raid so you are also not getting the dopamine for excelling at your role and rarely ever saving the raid This game rewards playing in groups with a variety of different passive Boons being shared about and zerging stuff down. And since downed exists, you can play poorly or have bad luck and ultimately still come out victorious. Perhaps being efficient with your role is what players strive for in GW2. As such I usually recommend finding the profession that has mechanics and play styles you enjoy. Elementalist, Revenant and Mesmer offer unique and challenging eSpecs that can be incredibly dominant in the right hands. I’d avoid Necro, Guardian, Engineer as being too ‘easy’ and Ranger, Thief and Warrior are a bit middle of the road but might have some spice you like with the new EoD specs

Didn’t you state you stopped playing Mesmer in another thread? Just the one espec or the whole profession, core and all three especs??

The people who got exactly what they wanted probably don’t post on the forums about it.

It’s like they didn’t know that by homogenizing the roles they would have to actually share every part of the Quick/Alac/Heal roles to every profession. Here comes standard 24/7 boon sharing across the board. Good News:, Mesmer will end up being as useful as a Guardian or Engineer Bad News: It may still take years Ugly News: It will cost all professions and especs parts of their core identity

From todays news release:

I’d suggest doing reset Tequatl with as many XP buffs on as possible. I typically break 300k XP on that fight by double and triple dipping on the multiple event areas when defending the cannons. You could also camp Silverwastes for an afternoon. Run the RIBA event circle to victory. This would likely be the easiest choice.

Couldn’t you start a second account on Steam, buy Gens on it and then gift your Main account any gemstore items you want?

Cele Guardian (Firebrand) and Cele Elementalist (Core, Tempest and Weaver) are both good choices, however Guardian will likely be easier to play overall compared to Elementalist. That said, any profession can rock Celestial to some level of effectiveness. I’d focus on professions that you enjoy the play style of. Use the boost to play in Silverwastes or join the PvP lobby to get a sample of what they all are like.

@Ariurotl.3718 Show us your build. I tend to think the choice is fairly easy with most PvE builds. Go get Jade Tech Defensive Overcharge and spec into Chaotic Potency. Chaotic Transference doesn’t matter with Jade Tech Defensive Overcharge in the game. Opening Solo combat with 30 seconds of Regen and 10 seconds of Protection is far better than 5 seconds regen every 15 seconds, if you can trigger it yourself. In group and instanced content you can anticipate having both boons up all the time from support specs. Anytime you ‘need’ a boon for an OW build just look at the Jade Tech Offensive and Defensive Protocols.

More people should be posting about this user experience. The developers have taken so long to rebalance the professions around EoD that the only thing anyone can say with confidence is that yes, any profession you choose will be nerfed and most likely had its core changed in some way over the next year or two. And that when the next expansion drops, you will probably have to change mains again since they will likely ‘rebalance’ everything again with a new and different philosophy. Since EoD and seeing some of my fav builds be destroyed and then the rollercoaster that other professions have been through since, I basically stopped playing. I have no confidence that Anet actually cares about profession balance across all game modes and seeing how much every profession has been changed this year (we are into our 4th or 5th profession update since January) I don’t want to ‘pick a new main’ because odds are whatever I pick today won’t be viable or play the same in a year from now. At least, that is what history has shown us.

Does Scepter see use anywhere these days? It hasn’t been touched in a long while and AFAIK isn’t in any meta or off meta builds.

I like this idea, I think the 10 second window matches up with the Exposed mechanic nicely, although I wouldn’t mind if it was as long as 20 seconds to really let players get deep into their rotations. I’d put the CD at 30-40 seconds as well to keep the ebb and flow of combat. This would help push players towards maximizing when they use these Alac/Quick skills and popping other long cooldowns like Elite skills

If you are happy to use different eSpecs and builds (including gear) then both are good choices for all game modes. However, I’d strongly suggest Ranger being easier to play in all game modes over Elementalist. Elementalist builds generally have high APM and high skill ceiling that can make it challenging to play.

In most cases I’d suggest adding collector editor to your existing account. You already have an investment there, and unless you specifically want to use a second account, you won’t gain any benefit from having two or more.

Who cares anymore. I basically stopped playing after EoD. While I’ve hung around waiting for the big balance patches and updates each one was a reminder that Anet gonna do what Anet want, and that apparently is to leave multiple eSpecs and builds in a terrible state. The joke that was their ‘look into Mesmer Weapons and Chrono’ update should make it clear enough. They have no idea what they are doing, and if it frustrates you, you should probably play the game less until they replace the big brained devs they have with new big brained devs who will likely skew the game in another differently unenjoyable way.

Hahahahahahaha Comedy gold right there No, being politically correct, Anet has shown that they do not have the staff to do that type of work given they don’t have the staff to QA or Balance their game in a timely manner. Developing, filming and editing videos as a company is not a simple task. Especially if you are creating content meant to introduce people to your product. If the company makes a bad video, it could turn off players, where as a content creator makes a bad video, that’s on the content creator not the game itself. As such, companies waste time and money on grooming videos of this type. Usually multiple edits and rewrites, making sure that everything is on brand and nothing controversial. And after that investment, the video usually ends up needing to be reshot in a year or two as the game has changed enough that the video is outdated and incorrect.

I’m intrigued by this statement. Do you feel Heal Chrono with Alac or Quick is viable in instanced content? Do Chrono Heals actually stand up in T4 or CMs?

The GW2 social media team does promote community made tutorials and guides on Twitter and the News page, probably elsewhere too. This has included introductory tutorials among a wide range of content. The GW2 community has built some very strong resources over the years with new content creators joining in and providing fresh updates on the game all the time. Even the GW2 Wiki is community driven, all of which allows Anet to focus resources on developing and updating new and existing content. If anything, I’d ask Anet to promote the content creators and community driven resources and events even more than they do now to help build a bigger community of GW2 fans.

That is a great question. However not all boons are created equally. I don’t find binary boons to be interesting to build around. Alacrity and Quickness are binary as they are either on or off. That is simply the way the mechanic was implemented in GW2. These two boons affect your actual gameplay and APM which other boons do not. Might and Fury are examples of linear buffs, they scale with other sources of Power and Crit. You get incremental gains with each source of these stats be it boons, armor, food etc. These boons increase your power without impacting your gameplay or APM Healing and Barrier are applied incrementally and their impact doesn’t affect gameplay beyond keeping a player alive. Boons in general in this game have become so easy to get that I think you could get rid of most of them and still have fundamentally the same game. I’d prefer to have tactical use of boons rather than always on boons.