Black Autumn

Mesmer.  Flat out brilliant class design, beautiful aesthetics (I like the pink effects and that I can carry a giant sword as a caster), the most entertaining combat of any class in the game.  As the saying goes, "It's not enough to do it well, you have to look good doing it."

Pegged on all measures.

HUGE fan of the second picture.  But I like the mask in the first, too.

Emolesbian, on 16 April 2013 - 07:06 AM, said:

Started out with a Warrior and Elementalist but once I got my Mez to around 70, I haven't really been interested in any other classes.  With no defensive stats at all I can handle larger, nastier groups than my Warrior ever could.  My Mesmer is my new main and I seriously doubt anything else will be as rewarding to play to me.

I think what I really love about the Mesmer is that if I'm off my game, I can die really fast, but if I'm on it, the fights are fun, fast-paced, and I neither completely destroy everything nor am I commonly fearful that I will go down.  At the end of the fight, I know I was in a fight, but if I played well, I'm the one walking away from the corpses of half a dozen monsters.  I am a better combatant on my Mesmer than I am on my Warrior, and she's no slouch.

And I'm sure I'm sub-optimally specced and equipped (Greatsword/Staff - all the pros seem to use a MH Sword and Focus for at least one set...I must investigate this again).

So anyway: a vote for Mesmer as a highly rewarding class.

Other people have intelligent thoughts on most of the points so I'll restrict my comments to the one portion that really disappointed me: the trinity.

When I read the hype and watched the videos and talked to people online, I got the impression that the trinity wasn't going away so much as it was being overhauled.  True they wouldn't use the terms tank or healer, but over and over they emphasized that we could play how we wanted, that every class could fill every role. For me, the implication was that the roles would still be around, though weakened, and that any class could take on any of them successfully.  The thought of a Warrior healer and Mesmer tank is what really got me excited.  I'd have bought it anyway, but that was what I was hoping for that I didn't get.  Healing is too weak, the dodge mechanic is...dodgy...  Rift very nearly nails what I thought GW2 would be, though there still aren't Mage tanks and Warrior healers.

People that say DPS > all are right IMHO.  There is very little reason or benefit to most classes doing anything else.  One anchor and 4 dps most often being the optimal setup does not make for a game with a lot of breadth in spec or playstyle.  My cynical side thinks the dodge mechanic is nearly solely responsible for this.  I was hoping for an evolution of GW1s, role system or even something similar to Rift or CoX (the best game ever made with roles that weren't mandatory but that people wanted around nonetheless (tanks, healers, dps, buffers/debuffers, crowd control...) and I was hoping for something closer to that, but with characters that could spec and gear for those various roles rather than their AT/class/profession binding them to a select few.

For those unfamiliar, City of Heroes/Villains had tanks, healers, buffers and debuffers, and crowd controllers.  You could get by without ANY of them...but it was always nice to have them around, any of them...all of them.  It was - for me - almost the perfect MMO party-role system (throw in a bit of Rift role-switching and BAM!).  Sure the game had its flaws (they all do), but the way characters worked together on teams was not one of them.  Support could come in the form of crowd control (in many flavors, including the tanky flavor), the force multiplication of buffing (the community considered healing a form of buffing) and the neutering action of debuffing.  It was beautiful.

So there, GW2 has failed me.  I still enjoy the game, but it's not the crowning achievement of the genre I was hoping for.  In my mind, CoX was far more revolutionary than GW2.

YMMV

I've commented on this stuff before, so I won't do so again except to say that I don't currently make condition damage builds (bleed builds specifically) because they seem actively discouraged by game mechanics when compared to more direct damage.  In what scenario does it really seem okay to say, "Look, even though 4 of you brought your bleed toys, only 1 or maybe 2 of you get to contribute.  Thanks!"?

Confusion seems to work better, but even it could use a little bit of help in PvE.