[Art Issues: Characters, Weapons, Armor - [Merged]]

Sylvari Female Daredevil

 

Medium Antique Leggings + Nika's Coat = Big space between body and legs.

Here is how bad it looks.

Here is the screenshot of the items in my inventory.

[I don't want to be rude, but the writing...]

11 hours ago, KnightofPhoenix.3679 said:

But I will contest the idea that GW2's dialogue is not appropriate for "fantasy."  Let's assume that GW2 is a fantasy game (heavily debatable but let's not get into that) - there is a misconception that fantasy means medieval or ancient times, but the truth of the matter is that GW2 is clearly not medieval at all and not all fantasy has to be medieval.  If we really had to pinpoint a time period that GW2 is set in that's equivalent with periods of our own history, it would be the early-modern to modern period, what with the Charr's industrial revolution.  Heck, some elements namely Cantha and the Asura are almost sci-fi (transferring a consciousness onto a golem anyone?). 

 

Well, I agree with you there. It is alright for me that it is not medieval. That misconception about fantasy is one that I am quite happy that you corrected. See, I personnally love fantasy and to me fantasy does not implicates "medieval" at all. As you pointed it out well, the fantasy we get in GW2, if it weere to be compared with a period of our own world, would probably be closer to modern times and not medieval times. That is great, I have no problems with that. 

When I used "good cop bad cop" as an exemple of poorly writen, I ment that by using those expressions you ncessarily invoque "cops" whcih do not exist in GW2. There are many mistakes like this (I'd call them mistakes, without a doubt.) I don't mind a modern tone. But as it was also well pointed out...

 

7 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Often our characters are cracking jokes and displaying flippant snark in the face of life-and-death struggles.  Perhaps in the case of some characters it could be played off as a defense mechanism, and sometimes its even charming, but when it's practically all characters all the time it's hard not to arrive at the conclusion that the writers simply don't know how to handle this type of writing.

This goes beyond getting the tone wrong.

The setting is good, the world-building elements and the frame of the story is alright, and has lots of potential. But when it comes to dialogues, it all goes very wrong. It seems like it's one edgy personnality expressing itself through all the NPCs, almost all the time. I mean, I can watch Rick and Morty, or Futurama or such things and actually enjoy continuous sarcasm and sillyness, but please spare me those unidimentional constant blabbering-tier dialogues when I play a Fantasy Heroic MMORPG !

I reall don't like to rant so I'j sorry for doing it, but I really wish this game had a better writing.

Also, I don't know if this is the case for every races, I almost only play humans.

It did seem a bit better on the sylvari side if I remember correctly.

But obvious someone with a lot of influence on the dialogu end has a very intense penchant for sarcasm, cynicism and narrative shortcuts.

Actually I found a dialogue bwteen two NPCs in End of Dragons, and it was clearly an argument between two writers being made into an interaction in the game. In the NPC'S dialogue, seemingly an exchange between an artist and an editor, the guy in the power position (the editor) was explaining to the artist that character devoloppement is a "no" while quickly getting to the point of the next event in the plot was the "way to go".

The writer was being made fun of, he was calling himself a lover of litterature but in a very pathetic way.

That caught my attention and if it is what it looks like it is, it seems sooooo wrong.

Because of this, I have very little hope for the narrative future of this franchise.

Someone up there thinks he's right and that he's doing GW2 a favor by streering the writing in this way.

Amd while writing for a game is VERY different than writing in a novel, HE IS STILL SO WRONG.

Hypothtically.

[I don't want to be rude, but the writing...]

The writing is a real problem indeed. I love the game and I also don't wan't to disrespect the work of anyone, but the honest truth is that sometimes I have to stop playing because of the writing. The dialogue is light-hearted and quasi-witty at bestm and cringy at it's worst.

The tone is always the same (sarcastic / cynical / edgy) and that is true for all the characters almost all the time. The abondant use of common expressions, play on words and one-liner attempts proves to be a very poor choice for a fantasy setting. Hearing the people of Tyria use things like "good-cop, bad-cop" in their vocabulary happens all the time; at this point I almost expect the characters to mention "having a burger at McDonalds" or "I'll just take a cab don't worry about me!".

The Guild Wars lore and setting has everything it needs to take itself seriously, at the very least a little bit more. 

Also, about the voice acting. You can feel that the actors just read the words without really being invested in the situation. It's hard for a voice actor to make a good performance if the dialogue doesn't carry you, and if you don't have the key references for the scenes and characters you are voicing, the result will lack coherence. Just doing your best with a few directions and the dialogues on a sheet isn't gonna cut it. Actors need to be involved a little more deeply in the process.

That is when you know you have good dialogue. You have to feel it when you read, that the voice actors will need to immerse themselves, read between the lines and demonstrate subtlety, otherwise the quality of the writing will go to waste. That is when you know you got something.

That of course requires more budget. But that is not why they won't do it.

It is because it is probably quite hard to find an actual good writer.

 

And someone out there think it is too risky.

Or the writer is close to management.

Or everyone likes it and we are the only ones complaining XD

Anyways, please hire new heads in the narrative department!

Isn't it time for a revolution?

Anyways, awesome game still.

Peace.

[Please Areanet, Fix the Mesmer !]

@Moradorin.6217 said:As I recall, people didn't like it when Mirage could time its skills to chain blocks, evade utiliies, dodge evades, and distortions. Well timed play could make it pretty hard to damage. That said, it always has solid counters when facing skilled opponents.

I'm sure people didn't like it. I still think that a small cooldown on Infinite Horizon would solve everything, right ? I mean, it would make it so that Mirage still would have a pretty good evade rate if played well, but not to the point of being OP, (I mean they gave mirage a special dodge for kitten's sake, it is SUPPOSED to be it's strengh, now it's a weakness !) and it would also prevent it from stacking condi damage too much with nothing but an ambush skill and clones.

Really, small cool down on IH is the way to go.

[Please Areanet, Fix the Mesmer !]

Well, When I said "something like aegis" I truly meant something better then aegis, I didnt want to say invulnerable but something like that.Or like when you dodge they get invulnerable for X seconds. Anything they can get creative all they want cause we need at least "something".

And I think it might happen, because they worked their ass to give us a nice elite spec like mirage and now it's garbage. If Anet is revered for making a balanced game, then they cant just nerf things down to oblivion, they also need to buff when its needed.

@Veprovina.4876 said:It really wasn't overpowered in the first place and is the core gameplay mechanic of all professions that the entire game is balanced around.

This up here. They can't leave it like that, someday someone has to realise how unfair to the Mesmer players that is. Just kitten find some NOT LAZY way to nerf it and give the kitten dodge back. God their kitten thing is working, i'm writting kitten myself now every kitten time XD

[Please Areanet, Fix the Mesmer !]

I say give back the 2nd dodge but put a small cooldown on ambush skills.

Then to make the clones more usable in WvW, have a trait or a rune maybe, that can give them something like aegis or some evasion when they go shatter themsleves on a target.

[Expert Mesmer can answer this please ?]

@Veprovina.4876The Support Chrono from metabuilds, I actually thought it was very weird altoghether...And when he suggested swapping for inspiration I really didn't get it, my intuition said it was stupid but I thought het, There are surely things i don't get...All in all everything you said about the build is something I considered when I was examining it, but wasn't sure enough of myself to conclude anything.

Thank you for your explanation, It kind of confirms that I can trust myself with my personnal evaluations of the builds I look at. So that's a good thing I'm gonna let myself progress naturally from now on. And of course advice is always nice hehe.

The builds you're showing me make lots of sense, except maybe that restorative mantra trait in Inspiration ?I mean you got no mantras in your skills, so that's probably just a mistake -_-

I'm currently trying something very similar to your bleed-crit kitten, and I'm trying to get a little better using continuum split in an optimal way.

[Please Areanet, Fix the Mesmer !]

I think the Mesmer is the most original and interesting class I have ever seen in any video game.The work behind it is truly inspired and the result is perfect.Bravo to the minds behind this, in my humble opinion, masterpiece of a class.

That being said, I'm so sad that it is almost completely out of the meta for WvW and for PvP.The nerf it got that removed his endurance was certainly needed, but it killed it.You guys did this to solve a problem I guess, but it created an new one, Mirage is completely dead in WvW and PvP.Please find another way to adress the same problem. A "one dodge only" has killed the class.

I think you should eventually give it back and find another good and fair way to nerf him.Of course when a class is too strong people will react strongly and you have to do something rather quickly, but now the class is dead and you can take your time to bring it back maybe ?Having 2 dodges is too important to the general mechanic and gameplay of every class. It is part of the things that are so fondamental that you cannot remove it. This nerf prooved it. Give 100 endurance back when you found a real way to nerf the mirage without killing it. Take your time but please do it !!

Are you guys maybe already working on that ? Can you give us a hint if that is a thing, or if at the moment Mesmer Mirage is satying on the bench for a long time ?I sure hope the team is working on something cause Its a shame to leave such a nice class behind !

Have a good day everyone !

[Expert Mesmer can answer this please ?]

@"Veprovina.4876" said:I can't speak for PvP as i don't do that, but Mirage was thrown into the garbage kind of with the 1 dodge nerf in WvW. You don't see many Mirages in WvW anymore, everyone just switched to power Chronomancer for a few simple reasons.

Every medium/large AOE is bigger than the distance you can cover with mirage cloak dodge. So since you're stuck with 1, you can't get out of the AOEs and need to tank the damage. Furthermore, mirage cloak is used for ambush skills so you literally have half the damage now as you can't stack so much confusion and torment as you would in PvE. This forces you to slot "evading" utility skills, meaning you further lose on potential damage.

What's more - condi in WvW is not really good in general. Everyone has some form of condi clense, so your strategy there is either burst your opponent down with 1 huge condi spike, or die. Like @"Hannelore.8153" said, burst with conditions, pray your opponent doesn't immediately clense them, and when you disappear or disengage, as they're using their skills and moving, Confusion and Torment do damage. This usually amounts to either you getting enough condis in one burst on someone to then keep the pressure until they're dead, or waste all your cooldowns, your condis being clensed and every class can outheal your damage (due to how endurance was nerfed). Trailblazer is your friend here to survive the onslaught when your burst doesn't work. And yes, start with CC.

Power is more forgiving in that matter as it's direct damage.

Chronomancers in WvW are reduced to Minstrel's support builds. There is only one (NOT the one on metabattle, that one is horrible), and your job in blobs is focus pull, gravity well and null field. Or if your commander wants, Veil or Illusion of Life. Maybe portal. That build is pretty good, except, most of Mesmer skills are either bugged and unreliable or hevily nerfed compared to their counterparts from other professions. You can't rely on your clones for healing/clense/boonstrip because they die instantly, phantasms don't summon but go on cooldown and Null Field can be blocked by Aegis (the only boonstrip that is not unblockable by the way, every other profession has unblockable boonstrips), and so can focus pull be blocked and negated with stability or evading.

Still, it's pretty fun build to play, just be sure to take Inspiration traitline to take advantage of the minstrel gear. If you want to use that Metabattle support build, don't use Minstrel's use Wanderer's.

Anyway, that's why you see people talking about how bad Mesmer is, because at its core, the skills aren't working 100% of the time in all situations like all the other professions. You don't see a Spellbreaker cast Winds of disenchantment and all of it being blocked by the enemy team or the skill refusing to go off. That's what Mesmers are dealing with. Cause you can summon a phantasm mid fight while your target is alive, the next second the target dies from AOE spam, and you just wasted your skill on full cooldown. Not to mention bugs where phatasms stand there doing nothing for seconds, or pathing errors where they just don't appear etc. So as a Mesmer you have to learn to play around that, meaning, you're doing double the work everyone else is doing for half the gain.

In PvE, open world, it doesn't matter what you run, it's all good (albeit still bugged phantasms and some skills), but your clones will survive most of the time. I run a crit/bleed Chronomancer and it's super fun! In raids however, Chronomancer is meta in a lot of them, but as you saw, the rotation to pull that off takes a lot of practice. Mirage, not so much because only some of the raid bosses are weak to condi. So you better have both if you want to run raids, or a backup profession where Mirage isn't wanted.

As for your Ineptitude question, it doesn't trigger on all shatters it only triggers on interrupts.

This is all so sad to hear. But thank you for making it all much clearer. I hope Anet will fix this wonderful class, because I truly love it.Well ok then. I'll ask you where you think I should look for good mesmer builds for WvW aside from metabattle ? I'm interested to know what is "the one" interesting build that you speak of. I guess I'll keep practicing Mesmer for PvE cause it is so much fun and also in case they fix it, and I'll put more energy into my Elementalist. Weaver is quite fun, but I hadn't really thought about Tempest... I guess its's time to look at my Elementalist in a more general and serious way.

Thank you for your reply it helped !

[Expert Mesmer can answer this please ?]

@Hannelore.8153 said:All outgoing Blind conditions also inflict Confusion, from any source. The interrupt just blinds the target.Yes I know ! Hence the fact that only shatter 2 and 4 will get confusion stacks, the 2 becuse it does anyway, and the 4 because Ineptitude.If you read the build when he speaks of rotations and explains the way to fight with it, he implies a few times that shatters will all apply confusion. I think the guy making/explaining the build got confused...

@Hannelore.8153 said:For competitive play you need to take some stealth. You can do this on condi builds by using Axe/Torch, (#4 stealths), the +Expertise signet, and maybe Desparate Decoy instead of Duelist's Dicipline if you don't use Pistol off-hand.

If you're still struggling then also add in Decoy (the actual skill).

The idea is simple, you load your enemy down with conditions and then disappear and let them tick away a bit before ambushing them again. Any skills they spam trying to hit you while in stealth will further damage them from Confusion.

Remember to always open up an ambush with a CC like F3.Thank you ! Very good advices indeed. I will write them on my white board train with those in mind for a while and see where this gets me.

@Hannelore.8153 said:You'll have more success running something like Dire or Trailblazer and foregoing Power damage and %damage bonuses entirely. Its very difficult to pull of Power/Condition Damage hybrid builds in competitive modes because they're glassy.If you really want to try to do both then you can use something like Celestial stats.Trailblazer was what I had in mind, you saying it's good idea or bad ? Cause trailblazer IS hybrid isn't it ?Celestial is something I'm actually drawn to, I was thinking of getting a set of Celestial as a basis and getting like just three pieces of each other interesting sets to complement it. Like, say my torso and head and boots are always celestial, and I adapt my leggins, gloves and shoulders to be oriented more specifically depending on the build. Doe that make sense ? I like this approach but I guess min maxing is kind of mandatory... I'm not sure where I'm going with all of this...

@Hannelore.8153 said:Remember that you can port 5k units away using portal for 60sec, which is useful if you're losing a fight.O.O !! YES. That is... right. Thanks =D

[Expert Mesmer can answer this please ?]

I'm a returning player and I'm having a blast. Mainly I'm finish all the PvE stuff having lots of fun and experimenting with various mesmer builds, in order to find my confort zone with this marvel of a class. (Best class in any mmo or even game that I've played yet.) So, I'm dancing between 1. thinking that I get a grip on how the class works in PvE because I'm getting good with rotations and experimenting a goos ynergy between skills etc. and 2. and realising how much I'm wrong whenever I try PvP or WvW, wich tells me that I do not master the class like AT ALL yet, or that it is simply a poor choice for anything PvP. But I hope its just me being bad at it for the moment, cause I love the class and I wanna raise my gameplay with it to a top level.

Is a Mirage Condi DPS a viable option in anything PvP ?Or did the recent endurance nerf just throw Mirage into the garbage ?

Hmmm funny that was not at all my intended question when i initially started this thread, but I really do want you guys opinion on this.

So I'm going to get to my initial question now I guess.

I've run into a build meant for Raids on metabattle, this build : http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mirage_-_Condi_DPS_IllusionsIt is built upon the infliction of stacks of confusion. But there is something very (actually) confusing about it.When you read the rotations and the usage of the build, it implies that any of the 4 shatter skills can trigger Ineptitude.But to trigger Ineptitude, you need to interrupt the enemy, and there is only the Diversion shatter that interrupts (because daze).Si isn't Ineptitude useless with anything else than diversion ?

Is there something that I'm not seeing ?

[Please rid us of Rytlock and Ryland by the end of this season!]

Rytlock's tone and attitude is the only thing that makes me hate the story of guild wars 2.Without Rytlock I could enjoy every bit of it, but him throwing his cringy comments with his annoying tone or voice all the time..I swear it hurts me inside everytime he opens the mouth, I'm like oh god when will this be over. It's a shame because voice acting is great in a game, just not Rytlock's.He sounds like someone in the storytelling department has a very immature notion of what being a badass is, and it transpires in the worst possible way with Rytlock.It is fine that characters have flaws and sometimes bad personnalities, it's what makes them good characters usually, but with Rytlock I simply feel over-exposed to someone else's very poor concept of a badass. Cringy is the best term. I also wish Rylock would go away.

[Mirage build, endurance is different in Pvp ?]

@"Sobx.1758" said:"I wanted to play perma evade mirage build, but it got nerfed in pvp, anyone knows why?"

...really? :p

@"Ragnar.4257" said:I wonder if there might be a reason why a permanently invulnerable build might be something they'd want to prevent in PvP. Hmmmm......

Lol. I'm not wondering why they would nerf this kind of build. I was wondering if there was something I was missing from PvP mechanics and endurance. I only play mesmer and so i wanted to know if endurance was working different in PvP.

Of course they would nerf an actual real perma-evade build (It wasn't really a permanant evade state that was just the name of the build, but sure maybe it was unbalanced in pvp i wouldnt know i didnt see this day), this game seems very well balanced and it is a fabulous thing indeed. They will always make new classes exciting and end up nerfing them, this has to be. Millions of people playing it and finding every possible exploits or synergy is a good test, better than any beta tester will ever be, so yeah this is bound to happen. All the time. Somethimes a buff, but straight-out-of-the-box-class usually gonna get a nerf.

It just seemed a little odd to me that their way of nerfing a build would be to remove a dodge to the class as a whole... it is a very lazy and unappealing way to adress the situation, in my eyes at least. They should have found something with a little more elegance. But hey maybe they actually did spend hours upon hours trying to think of something and they foud that the very best thing was to remove a dodge. I don't think so but who am i to judge, I'm not a dev.

You two seem to think I wanted to play a OP build even if it would givet a bad experience to others. No need to be sarcastic about it : you are both wrong. I wanted to enjoy the dynamic state of always keeping the mirage cloak as much as possible, I liked the way it played, and it changes everything without the normal endurance that every other calss should have as a baseline for the general gameplay. I wouldn't mind if they reduced the time window in wich you become in "evade" or anything like that. And the ambush thingy as others say seems to be the real problem ? I think your assumptions shows a lack of creativity and even a lack of Faith in humanity, but hey again, who am I to judge eh ? Anyways, sarcasm is also lazy and unappealing to me, espescially when it's implied contempt is based on briskly speculations

I hope your having fun with your classes and builds.

@"Armen.1483" said:Hello, yes mirage got a very heavy nerf recently which let them have only one dodge in PVP and WVW only. You weren't able to "permaevade" before anyway, but the mirage mechanics of ambush attacks while dodging was quite annoying to deal with. And developpers came with the terrible idea of removing a dodge from mirage instead of nerfing the Infinite Horizon trait. So mirage in PVP now is arguable the weakest class out there due to them having only 1 dodge. Apart from that sigil of energy has always been and is the meta sigil choice for mirage (and nearly everyone else), and while missing your 1st dodge for the rest of the fight you still have the same amount of dodges to "permaevade", because if you do constant dodges you wouldn't need 2nd dodgebar anyway, because even with 2 dodges you'd run out of dodges pretty fast if you did them recklessly. And also bear in mind that sigil of energy in PVP is different from the superior sigil of energy in PVE, it doesn't make you instantly have the whole endurance bar, but the half of it, so thanks God permaevade has never been an option, or nobody would ever play PVP, it is already broken enough.

Thank you for the explanation :) I agree with you.

Except for one thing : missing one dodge is not the same at all. It is not calculated in terms of how many dodges you have but in terms of percentage of endurance. 50% of 100 endurance is a full dodge, meaning if you swap weapons you can automatically dodge again. 50% of 50 endurance is 25, and you need 50 to dodge.

Anyways I'm still having fun with all the ways that mirage has to go into evasion... And I'll try the chronomancer soon, it sounds like so much fun to play in WvW.

[BLACK LION COMMEMORATIVE COIN]

I use it as visual seperator in my inventory, to distinguish between categories of items.

[Mirage build, endurance is different in Pvp ?]

Hi guys, I'm a noob returning player, and I've never really been into Pvp but now I want to go into it.

I was looking on youtube to see some ideas for builds and I found one that interested me, a Mesmer Mirage build of "perma-evade", where you use sigil of energy and rune of the adventurer, in order to give you back your endurance during the fight to help you evade as much as you can, so you have mirage cloak active as much as possible. It is super fun in PvE and it works great.

But I just tried it in PvP and it doesn't really work because my endurance bar is now only one bar and not the usual two. So like, I have 50 endurance instead of 100 in PvP ?Why is that ? Is this like this for everyone ? Does this mean that this buid I'm trying is not viable in PvP ?