Guild Wars 2 Roll Call

[Martinus]

More on a necro: it seems to me that necromancer's pets are somewhere in between mesmer's and ranger's, when it comes to durability. I think they are more fire and forget kind of abilities that you need to resummon several times during bigger fights than pets in the same sense a ranger has them.

For example, right now my necromancer has two pets in utility slots and one pet in the healing slot - in bigger fights, I can rotate them so there is alwasy at least one pet up, but there is no hope they are stay alive. They are good at the beginning of a fight with multiple enemies, though, as they tend to occupy foes, so I can whip up my staff and lay down the marks on the ground, and then switch to my direct damage set, ramp up some life force and then unleash death shroud on them.

Edit: Although now that I reached second tier skills and can summon the shadow cloud pet instead of the little bone ones, it tends to stay alive through most of the fights (my second utility pet is the ranged attack scorpion).

[sbr]

I hit 30 on my Charr Elementalist yesterday.  I'm still learning to play it, I very rarely change attunements, but with the sceptre/dagger and fire attunement there is rarely a reason to.  I am going to start to play with some different weapons, maybe Marti's dagger/dagger I haven't done much with that yet.  I assume I will need to get a better handle on other parts of the class than just burning everything I see to a crisp before joining a random group in a dungeon.

As bad as leveling Jeweler from 25-50 was the jump from 50-75 was the exact opposite, it took me about 5 minutes.  Those filigrees are amazing, each discovery was ~3000 XP.  By the time I discovered the recipe for the 5 gemstones I had I was almost there; a couple of amulet discoveries got me there pretty quick.

I also finished 100% the Norn starting areas (Hoelbrak and Wayfarer Foothills) with my Elementalist.  The rewards werent as good as when I finished the Plains of Ashford but the 40 copper ore definitely helped in my Jeweler crafting.

[frunk]

The Gem market is definitely based on price per 100.  I bought 1400 gems for extra bank space and an extra character slot, and it came to roughly 3 gold 80 silver.  Now the price is higher, and I don't anticipate it coming down much.

[Grallon]

My lvl 25 Elementalist has reached the point in his personal story where he must chose to become a member of one of the 3 orders.  Which one do you recommend?  I hesitate between the scholars and the spies.




G.

[sbr]

My lvl 25 Elementalist has reached the point in his personal story where he must chose to become a member of one of the 3 orders.  Which one do you recommend?  I hesitate between the scholars and the spies.




G.

I joined the Vigil, I like fighting though.     I haven't gotten far with with the rest of the story after choosing them.

[Grallon]

I chose the scholars after all.  Since they maintain they can destroy the Elder Dragons - as opposed to the spies which merely wish to 'put them to sleep'.

Speaking of fighting...  I was accompanying a caravan in the swamps and we got attacked by waves of undead - we were perhaps a dozen players.  At some point I couldn't see a thing with all the visual effects and flashes and so forth.  What's the more efficient way to handle this?  I mean the mobs were so fast I couldn't target before they were somewhere else.  That's one of the reason I dislike fidgety playing.



G.

[Martinus]

I chose the scholars after all.  Since they maintain they can destroy the Elder Dragons - as opposed to the spies which merely wish to 'put them to sleep'.

Speaking of fighting...  I was accompanying a caravan in the swamps and we got attacked by waves of undead - we were perhaps a dozen players.  At some point I couldn't see a thing with all the visual effects and flashes and so forth.  What's the more efficient way to handle this?  I mean the mobs were so fast I couldn't target before they were somewhere else.  That's one of the reason I dislike fidgety playing.



G.

The best approach in such cases is to use ranged AoE and support. For most casters staves are the way to go.

Also, I think it really makes sense to disable double click ground targetting in the settings - that way, the ground targetted spells get cast where your mouse pointer is located, without you having to click on the ground again - makes firing them off much faster.

[Martinus]

I gotta say - I am really loving my necromancer, especially compared to my elementalist. Going through the same storyline (human, raised in the streets, lost sister), some of the personal questline fights that gave me a lot of pain on my elementalist (e.g. the veteran bosses around level 10), where I had to restart from a checkpoint frequently, are a piece of cake to solo with my necro - I just keep summoning my pets as they get murdered by the boss, and keep laying down conditions with scepter/dagger and staff. The death shroud is also a great "oh shit" ability, when you need to buy some time as all your heals/pets are on cooldown and your health is approaching zero.

I also find the utility skill choices much more intuitive - you've got pets for soloing (when you need something to soak some damage for you), signets for damage where aggro is not a concern (e.g. you are in a group event) and wells for support.

[crazy canuck]

Also, I think it really makes sense to disable double click ground targetting in the settings - that way, the ground targetted spells get cast where your mouse pointer is located, without you having to click on the ground again - makes firing them off much faster.

Yeah, that is the single most important piece of advice to anyone playing professions with range aoe.

[Berkut]

I've been having quite a lot of fun with both my ranger and my warrior, and even my elementalist.

The ele is interesing - I am going with a air focus, which is pretty cool. I can handle pretty much anything and take very little damage, if any. Thing is, I have to work at it though - you can't just stand there and blow everything away like you can with fire.

But I am also pretty sure I can take on much harder targets with the air, since I can control them, dodge them, etc.

For example, with a tough target that can kill me with a few hits, my "rotation" is pretty much:

Start of fight:
Windlown Speed and Arcane Power for higher attack rate and guranteed crit for my first 5 attacks.
Start auto-attack on the target
Drop static field on target (ranged) or between me and the target. THat gives me a 2s stun on them, and negates their first attack
Then they come running up to me, wait until they get to me, hit them with Gust to shove them back 400m.
As they come back in, hit them with Lightning Surge, which blinds them, so I know their first attack is going to auto-miss.

So now we've been fighting several seconds, and if I've done this right, they haven't even hit me yet.

I wait for that first miss. Keep blasting, of course. Wait for their next attack animation, and hit my back dodge.

At this point, I might switch over to flame in order to drop a burn on them and use my flame dodge skill.

Back to lightning, hit blind again. Next attack misses.

Wait for next attack animation, hit them with Gust which blows them away, so THAT attack misses.

I can keep this up for quite some time, and if I execute correctly, I pretty much never get touched.

The only problem is that when I am fighting kind of same/lower level targets, I still need to "work" a bit, since I don't kill fast enough to just ignore their damage. Which can be rather tedious when you are NOT fighting something challenging.

I think I am going to start some PvP. I would think an air mage could be pretty annoying.

[crazy canuck]

I think I am going to start some PvP. I would think an air mage could be pretty annoying.

Yeah, with a lot of the skills I keep thinking that while they are fun in PvE they would be a real blast to try in PvP.  I just havent had the time to try it.  My normal stretch of play is under 30 min and I havent tried to get in yet.

[katmai]

Anyone playing mesmer besides the enigmatic mr
Grey?

[Kleves]

So far I have been trying an engineer, warrior, and mesmer. Any suggestions about what other two classes should I try?

[frunk]

Personally I'd go with Ranger and Elementalist, although I don't think you can go wrong with any of them.

I just started up a mesmer katmai.

[crazy canuck]

So far I have been trying an engineer, warrior, and mesmer. Any suggestions about what other two classes should I try?

Engineer and ranger have fairly similar mechanics.  If you want to try something with different mechanics from what you have already played I suggest rogue (although somewhat similar to warrior) necro which is completely different and ele which has its own unique attunement mechanic.