Mesmerising!

Okay, so I withdraw my previous statement. Arenanet are still capable of trolling. The good kind though.


It's also a good feeling when I found I was almost completely off the mark about how the GW2 Mesmer really works. The class is designed to never fight fairly, there is always meant to be something between the mesmer and anything trying to tear them to pieces, be it illusions, conditions or a myriad of other baffling concoctions.

The Reddit AmA Jon Peters hosted was quite enlightening, here are a few of my favourite scraps of information that were teased out:

MESMERS

• "Every profession has one biography question that deals with their starting equipment. Every mesmer starts with a harlequin/theater style mask and their question determines the face represented on that mask." [Source]
• A mesmer's portals can be placed minimap range apart, (2500 units/208.333 ft./63 metres) [Source]
• "We're still working on the distances and timing for it but we have a number of limiting factors on it currently you cannot place an exit farther then a radar and after the exit is placed it will expire after 20 seconds. We've found a number of crazy uses for it all ready one we used today was Chap dropped a portal while I was taking a the Mansion point and then placed a portal inside the clock tower so right as I finished capping the point I could jump through the portal and help him in the fight. ~Izzy" [Source]
• As discussed before, other effects are being used instead of 'pure' interrupts. "Here are the ways to interrupt:

Stun, Knockdown, Launch, Knockback, Daze. Interrupts as just interrupts were just a wierd mechanic that were hard to explain." [Source]

• With regard to illusions in PvP "If it's a clone, they [the opponent] will see something that looks like you. If it's a phantasm, they will see an illusion with a purple color to it." [Source]
• Describing illusions and their use as a way of hiding the real mesmer "I don't think they are supposed to be so deceptive so much as a temporary distraction. They die in about one hit so even AoE attacks tend to melt them pretty quickly. The more interesting decision is how to build up sets of them to shatter in interesting ways." [Source]
• Phantasms are "Somewhat purple and carry a purple weapon." [Source]
• The phantasm with dual pistols is an 'Illusionary Duellist' [Source]
• The difference between clones and phantasms: (check the source for a giggle) "Clones are really just deception. They are there to utilize the shatters and create temporary dps and distraction. Phantasms are more like "in world" hexes. There is a Phantasm called Backfire that does a powerful attack to foes casting skills." [Source]
• "Clones are copies of your character they use a weakened version of your 1 skill making it hard to tell you appart.
Phantasms do different things depending on which ones like Duelist(one in the video) is all about raw damage, granted he triggers cross profession combos which is awesome. Others might stand in place whirling around reflecting projectiles becoming a burden for the enemy, or another is named backfire and attack the enemy with big damage anytime they use an attack." [Source]
• Shatters "are all just normal skills like anything else. You use F1-F4 to activate them, and they are instant skills that can be used in the middle of another cast." [Source]
• "...any shatter, destroys all clones and phantasms." [Source]
• "All get shattered, of the at most 3 you can have out. There are 4 shatter skills, one does damage, one applies confusion, one stuns, one protects the caster, each one has their own separate cooldown.
  As a follow up if you summon an illusion and you already have 3 out the oldest one goes away. we call this dissolving, at least internally." [Source]
• "Also the more illusions you have out the more effective the shatter is, just fyi..."  [Source]
• Discussion about the use of veil
• "Veil stealths all allies every 3 seconds, if an ally attacks an enemy they will become unstealthed until veil pulses again." [Source]
• "Once you learn your illusions and how they work, you start to realize what they look like to your opponents. Then you can start behaving like illusions to really throw your opponents off!" [Source]
• Illusions break targeting [Source]
• Chap and Jon will be doing several mesmer themed interviews. [Source]
• "We have an Elite that turns your target into a Moa bird for a short period of time giving them Moa skills like Peck, kick, Screech." [Source]

ELEMENTALISTS

• Jon on why elementalist weapon summons are badass: "How about a Lightning Hammer that lets you summon a lightning storm, leap at enemies, encircle them with a static field and send them flying with a blast of wind?" [Source]

ENGINEERS

• The engineer's elixir gun has these skills:

Elixir Dart: Fire a dart that makes your foes weak or vulnerable.
Elixir F: Fire concentrated Elixir F that bounces between targets crippling foes and applying swiftness to allies.
Elixir Spray: Spray elixir fumes in a cone pattern poisoning enemies and removing conditions from allies.
Acid Bomb: Leap back blasting the ground with acid damaging foes that touch it.
Super Elixir: Shoot an elixir orb that heals allies on impact and creates a healing area.
Toolbelt skill: Vent a healing mist that applies regeneration to yourself and allies. [Source]

• Q:  "Can opposing engineer's mines be destroyed, or could one team assault someones treb, destroy it, place all five mines next to it and then blow them up as soon as the treb was repaired inflicting a good chunk of damage if not outright destroying it?"
• A: "you cannot destroy an engineers mines, and yes that tactic does work. You can also run up to an enemy treb drop a thumper turret, rifle turret and run away laughing as your turret cause havok. (Shakes fist at Tyler our QA tester and most feared engineer) ~Izzy" [Source]
• "The only limit is one type of each turret per person. ultimately to place a turret you have given up some other utility skill. That is how they are balanced. It's one reason Gw2 skills don't need big drawbacks. A much more fun drawback to turret is that you didn't bring flamethrower, not that you can't have a turret near someone elses turret." [Source]
• "there is no limit other then the number of turrets one character can bring, but turrets downside is they can't move so in PvP you would just avoid that point, treb them or use aoe/reflection skills. In PvE respawn timers make this only so effective but might be a fun way to beat a dungeon boss or two. : ) ~Izzy"  [Source]

GUARDIANS

• Another guardian spirit weapon:

"Bow of Truth: Summon an arcane bow to remove conditions from you and your allies.Activate it to summon a barrage of healing rain." [Source]

• "Guardians can equip a trait that creates a small aoe heal at the location they dodge to. This makes for an interesting style of play where the guardian relies on being nimble and dodging strategically to support their allies." [Source]
• There's a new guardian elite skill called "[Tome] of Wrath, it locks the Guardian in place for it's duration and gives them access to 5 new skills. One of those skills is called Judgement which knocks down all targets for 5s. (Which is the big blue light). The other skills are. Conflagrate: AoE Burn. Affliction: A projectile that cripples and weakness foes and bounces 10 times. Smiter's Boon: A swiftness and Might buff for all nearby allies. Zealot's Fervor: Grants frenzy to all nearby allies." [Source]

RANGERS

• Ranger utilities have been made more diverse [Source]

THIEVES

• Izzy on support thieves: "my support thief uses a trait that allows you to apply venom's to nearby allies and runs around giving venom's to nearby allies. it's a pretty funny build." [Source]
• "There is another blog post coming with some information about changes to Thief (even newer than stuff in the G Star build) coming next Tuesday." [Source]
• "Blog coming next Tuesday on thief improvements. I can promise you they are not bad in PvE or PvP." [Source]

NECROMANCERS

• Other classes will be able to inflict the confused condition, such as the necromancer with  "Warhorn - Wail of Doom (skill #4)" [Source]
• "...we have an elite called Animate Flesh golem, that summons a large flesh golem who is very mean. You summon toggles to a skill called charge which sends your golem charging after your target knocking any foes in his way back. ~Izzy " [Source]

WARRIORS

• Q: " I like to play classes that can just dish out big damage. Which profession would you recommend I try first?"
• A: "Axe warrior, use Signet of Might. Use the activation while leaping through the air with your F1 skill eviscerate. Very fun very big numbers. ~Izzy"
• A2: "Yeah izzy gave me the business end of one of these in a PvP test about 5 hours ago." [Source]

OTHER

• Changes were made to the longbow: "Longbow is the long range heavy hitting weapon. Short bow is more about flanking and movement. Basically at one point in development we realized, oh wow it more fun to move and shoot, let's just balance around that and only stop you from moving when it really makes sense. - Jon" [Source]
• "The longbow still wants to be at range we made the weapon do more damage the farther it is away, while the shortbow does damage and effects based on flanking (being to the side or behind a target). The shortbow also has a spread shot skill which can hit up to 5 times if shot at point blank allowing you to do a lot of damage up close. So the longbow tends to try and stay back to maximize damage while shortbow bounces back and forth between ranges to maximize damage. ~Izzy" [Source]
• The classes in order of health:

"High: Warrior Necromancer
Medium: Ranger Engineer Guardian
Low: Thief Mesmer Elementalist" [Source]

• Jon's opinion on global cooldowns
• The official line on GW2's 2011: "...it's not over yet" [Source]

Well, that's quite a bit to take in, I'll revisit some of this material later, particularly after Tuesday's blog post. Looks like the game's really shaping up for the final straight.