You really do level up fast. I'm level 12, almost 13, and haven't even left the Monastery yet.

Hrm, then I guess I wont worry about getting factions for awhile.... If I can find the time, I may get on and play again, who knows. I do miss playing my earth ele that can tank a mob of ettins (given there is a good monk there to help).

The Nightfall (Guildwars, Chapter 3) preview event will be open to everyone september 22-24. If you haven't played the game, this is a good chance to try it out, and probably your only chance to try Guildwars for free for another six months. I recommend downloading the client from their website several days in advance, as it's quite a long download. If you own a copy of Guildwars, you can of course access the event on your current account if you have a free character slot.

I'm not sure what parts of the expansion they are showing, other than a tiny bit of the campaign and the two classes from the expansion. I'm really curious to see how Dervishes were nerfed into obvlivion, as they were ludicriously overpowered a month ago during the last beta event

I want to get me a Dervish/Assassin.

On another topic, why do I keep getting comments about how rare it is to see a Mesmer? Mesmers kick ass, and more people need to play them.

Because Mesmers are the second hardest class to play, and a lot of people don't know how to play them right. Before Assassins, Mesmers were the class that could never find a party, because since most people didn't know how to play them, they thought Mesmers sucked. Now that Assassins are in that position, I guess Mesmers aren't seen as quite as bad.

Yeah no love for assassins, since my assassin's stuck at Arborstone, and I'm not willing to go without a party!

Psh, Mesmer is easy to start, at least. See a caster, stick Backfire on them and focus on someone else; mobs will kill themselves. Melee, hit them with degen and Empathy, watch them die. Simple.

Knowing when to backfire, and being able to interrupt properly and shutdown people, that takes a while. Too many wannabe-WoW players have this silly idea that all casters are supposed to do nothing but a lot of damage fast, when in Guildwars, only eles do that, and only spike / PvE eles. And PvP touch necros, I guess. Mesmers are all about counter / shutdown, and when people don't play them that way, they're just really bad degen necros.

Really bad? I can stack max degen in 3 seconds. Though I can't really compare it to a good necro, I've never played one or seen one played so far.

It really helps if you've played a lot of Magic. Play your Mesmer like you would your blue permission deck.

I mean, not that you can't do degen in addition to other things, but what I mean is that you aren't primarily a damage dealer by any means The purpose of backfire, for instance, isn't to do damage, but to make a caster want to stop casting. The purpose of Wastel's Worry isn't to hurt them, but to make them spam their skills earlier than they want to. The purpose of Diversion is either to actually hit a spam skill, or to make them stop using skills for six seconds.

It's just the people who go, "Oh, I need to do as much damage as fast as possible so I'm actually killing things!" that give Mesmers a bad name, just like it's the people who go "Oh, I'm just like warrior, right?" that give Assassins a bad name

I'd actually prefer they spam out some spells if I Backfire them, as long that doesn't result in someone dying. It really hurts like hell, and they can quickly kill themselves. If they stop though, that's great. Then they go to remove the hex and I interrupt it, and they and I .

See, that's when they cancel Holy Viel instead of casting Remove/Smite hex Make sure you follow backfire with a cover hex, like Wastel's worry Or maybe something that costs 5 mana with a short casttime and a long duration.

EDIT: Also, in PvP, they usually use Contemplation of Purity to remove hexes. If you can interrupt that (1/4 second cast, I believe), dang you're good

It's theoretically possible, with fast-casting, but any lag and you're done.

And I haven't really gotten into PVP yet, though I will in a bit. It's going to be hideously more complicated. The AI doesn't react to most hexes, so I just stack Life Siphon, Conjure Phantasm, and Backfire/Empathy and then move on to the next person while they kill themselves.

For PVP, a Recurring Insecurity/Soul Barbs build looks like a hell of a lot of fun. I just need to get Recurring Insecurity to try it out, which means 6 or 7 throwaway PVP characters for the easy faction in the tutorial fights.

Narf.

This sucks majorly.

With the recent no-doubt-a-update thinger, it took me 15 minutes to load GW. That was bad enough.

Now, I can't even get it to connect after entering my password.

I did not wait 15 minutes to not play guild wars just to see a fancy new main menu background.

Yeah with every new update, for me, there was always a change I would not be able to log in for a day or so.

I to must admit to hating the updates since I'm on dial-up connection. Not only must I endure downloading the initial update, that gets me to the login screen, at 5Kbs. If I wish to go to any areas I must also sit at the transition screen downloading another two thousand or so files before I can play.

There for I've just opted to use the -image switch to download any and all files they put out since the update. Which when I started was around 25 thousand or so. It's been about six hours since I started downloading and still hasn't gotten half way through.

You can do those tutorial fights whenever you want. You can only gain 1,000 faction on your account per day though from fighting NPCs. I recommend doing the fights vs the illusionary weapon mesmers over and over for fact faction

And try an interrupt build that uses Migrane and Arcane Conundrum

Yes, I hate whatever hideous bastard thought this would be a good idea. I'd much rather have an hour install, and 15 minutes or so every patch. Instead, I wait five to ten minutes everytime I zone, and then again after a patch.





Shatter Enchantment ftw!

Sit on the login screen and you'll download everything.

I like mesmers for edenial the most, really. No energy for you!

Though lately I've been screwing around with my ritualist painful bond spirit spammer build. I bring 5 offensive spirits (Wanderlust, Pain, Bloodsong, Shadowsong, Dissonance) and Painful Bond, wait for the spirits to all attack the same person, and smack them with painful bond. 32 damage from Pain + 26 damage from Bloodsong + 26 damage and interrupt from Dissonance + knockdown from wanderlust + blindness from shadowsong + 17*5 damage from painful bond = much hurt.