Jairyn

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Let's hope they can fix the problems without making it uninteresting. Maybe just a cap on the # of people who can use it?

Ah well, smoke 'em if you got 'em.

http://www.mastodont...les-professions

TL;DR: the above question

I just can't stop fiddling with my character in gw2skills.net, at the moment  I feel a little torn between 0/20/30/0/20 and 20/0/30/0/20, as well as whether to stat Carrion (power/MALICE/vitality) or Rampager's (power/malice/PRECISION/vitality).

Domination feels like a waste to me because, while 20% condition duration is nice, its minors feel like wasted points, whereas I like Dueling throughout. As a staff//scepter/torch fan, atm, I'm something of a condition build, which Sharper Images seems very sexy for. I just can't reconcile myself to a stat balance, and it seems like precision is eating most of the points.

So what's the minimum amount of crit I should stat to in order to make Sharper Images "worth it?" I know it's something of a more is always better scenario, but how close can I skirt the edge? Is 32% too low?

In the end, I suppose it was my own silly, silly user error. After waiting a day or so to hear back from customer support about where my 75 transmutation stones were, I was randomly cleaning out my mailbox and, despite it saying I was at 9/10 for letter capacity (whatever that means with more than 10 letters obviously in there), suddenly everything I was waiting for loaded in, including other items mailed from friends we thought were lost.

The more mail I deleted, the more "missing" new mail came in. It seems we have a rather small cap on the number of messages we can save. Purge, purge, purge. Worth a shot if you're experiencing the same issue.

As opinions rage over our humble mesmer forum, an amusing trend stands out to me: generally speaking, even the mesmer's most impassioned defenders admit there are flaws with the profession and things they'd like to see changed. Over the course of the betas I've given and read a lot of feedback, and I've hammered it down to three easy steps that I think would make the mesmer play beautifully in any content without being utterly unbalancing.

1. Baseline Illusionary Persona. Mesmers should always count as an illusion for their shatters, this helps front load the damage so that, while a 3 illusion shatter is ideal, a 1 illusion shatter is still pretty good. The other effect of IP is it causes the mesmer's personal effect to be delivered instantly and unerringly, at range. Shatters need to be slick and responsive, hitching on terrain and people sidestepping them at a casual stroll do not become them.

Quicker/compromise solution: keep Illusionary Persona's self-illusion power boost as a GM trait, but normalize the instant shatter delivery, or at least make shatters into (non-projectile) missiles. "I cast Magic Missile!" Ever seen arcane missiles in WoW, or magic missiles in NWN? What if illusions shattered on the sport and delivered little sparkling, whirling bolts of butterflies and motes of light to strike their targets?

2. Baseline punishment on illusion death. Crippling Dissipation, Confusing Combatants, and Debilitating Dissipation are great traits. They smooth out all the frustrations of illusions dying early, overwriting each other, or mobs dying too fast to be effective. I like the idea of making all illusions AoE confusion on death and have Confusing Combatants increase the stacks. Even a simple little burst of direct damage could be fine, the point is ensuring that illusions never feel like they were a waste, they'll always at least accomplish a condition or a little damage.

Quicker/compromise solution: make the Crippling Dissipation, Confusing Combatants, and Debilitating Dissipation traits Adept- or Master-level minors in their respective trees, ensuring mesmers are promptly provided with these valuable tools.

3. Illusions immune or resistant to AoE/untargeted damage, possibly even immune to any damage not directly from their target. Illusions are too fragile and being single target while vulnerable to everything is worst of both worlds design that doesn't even adhere to the logic it supposedly preserves (if only the target sees the illusion, how do others attack it?). Single AoE skills and cleaves not even intended to hit the illusions can completely wreck the mesmer, especially in larger PvE engagements. Just a little AoE resistance, at the very least.

Quicker/compromise solution: give illusions even a little more health, still. About equivalent to a Signet of Illusions would do it.

I'm not even 100% sold on #3, but 1 and 2 make this profession play like magic. Seriously, go to the mists and try them today's stress test and tell me you don't love these traits and want them at level 1. They band-aid everything. Bake them into the base class and watch everyone's complaints start to evaporate like clones in a Wave of Wrath.

I find it just a little strange to make a non-human character in GW2 and then begin "my" story while wearing human clothes. I understand that cultural armors are intended to be something that is a mark of achievement, but I think the time invested in making simple, starting gear equivalent outfits for beginning asura, charr, norn, and sylvari cultures is worth it. it would increase cultural identity and immersion.

Just a random thought.