Hi ho, its off we go - the Tuesday N00b Club vs Guild Wars: Eye of the North. After a surprisingly amount of feedback, (for which I'm most grateful), you, the readers of this blog, have chosen my Nightfall-based Mesmer to go on to face this latest set of challenges. Despite my seeming indifference to the matter, I am a little glad to be honest, and some of you seem to have rather astutely picked up on my slight preference for the somewhat more complex gameplay available to the Mesmer Primary or Secondary class.
Anyway, there's just the two of us this time, although I'm sure there will be the odd crazy PUG adventure or two along the way. My stalwart companion has chosen the same Necromancer/Monk that accompanied my Mesmer throughout Nightfall for this outing, adding a bit of continuity to the expedition.
As usual, spoiler warnings abound!
All set, we got underway. The linking bit from the previous three campaigns gets you into the new stuff, and story, swiftly and slickly. One of the NPCs in Lion's Arch /Kaineng Centre/Kamadan is concerned about sudden and recent earth tremors, and sends us out to investigate. Just outside, in North Kyrta Province/Bukdek Byway/Plains of Jarin, is a suspiciously new bit of the map with a large crevasse in the ground in it. Clicking on this transports the party to a large underground catacomb area. A bit of dungeon crawling and minor monster-bashing in, we encountered a large band of panckey dwarves, doing worrying things with a huge supply of explosives, and so the fun begins.
Turns out these dwarves, led by Ogden Stonehealer, are fighting some kind of war against a new and unheard of menace, known simply as 'The Destroyers', and are trying to collapse the tunnels, directly under our city! Our argueing is cut short when the Destroyers arrive, and we are all forced to flee - literally! A timer counts down as the passages rumble and extremely overpowered lavamonster things chase us to an Asuran Gate.
The Asura are a curious race of rabbity things, and are also dwellers of the underneath, who seem to be working with the dwarves to fight off these Destroyers. They had also created a large network of suspiciously Stargate-like gates to help with travel and trade around these far-flung underground realms, but this network is fast falling to the Destroyer armies. As we make it out the other side, one of them, Vekk, (who looks a bit like Max, and is voiced by The Brain! Outstanding!) blows the gate behind us, leaving us stranded at Boreal Station, in the far north of the Shiverpeaks, the large range of mountains spanning the continent of Tyria.
Our mission is clear - rally allies, investigate these Destroyers, and ultimately, stop them from, err... destroying the world. Again. Why don't these monsters (and, invariably, the Evil Wizard/God/Lich/Assassin Power Behind The Throne) ever want to just sit down for a nice cup of tea and a chat?
EoN features Heroes, the advanced configurable collectible AI henchmen, even for those coming to it without Nightfall, so Boreal Station gave us Ogden and Vekk as new (or additional) Heroes off the bat, and ran us through a version of the early Nightfall waypoint flags tutorial, and then its out into icy snows of Ice Cliff Chasms where we met The Norn, a race of friendly giant-people, who sometimes turn into bears, and instead of using the phrase 'Good Morning', affectionately beat each-other to near-death! Ogden thinks these people will make good warriors. Ogden is both wise and perceptive!
Ice Cliff Chasms is an extremely well-crafted zone, and flicking back and forth between here (via Boreal Station), and say, Talus Chute, (via Droknar's Forge) and you can see how much more refinement the GW world design has gained over the intervening few years of development. The snowy mountains of the expansion are far more detailed and well crafted things, and quite captivating to see in the misty half light.
The region abounds with Norn shrine NPCs, who give out a kind of bounty in reputation points, ala Nightfall's Scouts and Priests, only here you have to beat then in combat first. The bounty is for all types of enemy though, rather than the somewhat awkward four or five per zone you'd need to pick up previously; one for bugs, one for skale, one for corsairs, etc, etc. This new universal bounty also doles out a bonus buff every 25 kills too, which is nice.
Shortly after that, we found the eponymous Eye of the North, an ancient abandoned tower of strange design, currently occupied by the Ebon Vanguard, an expeditionary force of humans from ruined Ascalon (Prophecies), who are far into enemy territory and trying to keep the Charr at bay, the monsters responsible for the Searing of Ascalon in the first place. Turns out the person in charge at the fort is little Gwen, the slightly annoying child that stalks you about the place in the Prophecies tutorial area, playing a flute and getting all possessive about Red Iris Flowers. She's all grown up now and a Mesmer, and second in command of the Vanguard. Huh. We'll see about that! She's also now a selectable Hero for our party, but I don't think there's room in the Tuesday Noob Club for TWO Mesmers, thankyouverymuch, and she's likely to spend a lot of the coming weeks on the bench, if I have my way...
She showed us to one of EoN's big features - the Hall of Monuments. This instanced vault has been inexplicably waiting for us, like, forever...well, me actually! In the middle is a scrying pool which no one had worked out how to use until I came along. It then showed me Portents of Signs of Omens of some really very cross looking lava monsters - Destroyers. In addition to jollying us along on The Plot, the hall also serves hold trophies on a per character basis, of all the various Titles you've gained in your life, massively appealing to the collector in all of us. More on that later, when I've actually got some monuments to brag about!
We now have three different groups to help out, in three different story branches; rally the Norns with Ogden, locate and help the lost Ebon Vanguard patrols against the Charr with Gwen, or help Vekk get in touch with his people and their Gate Knowledge. Looks like we have to do all three eventually, but we started with Ogden and the Norn, and to begin that, we first need to gain the trust of Jora, the strapping Norn lass seen on all the box art.
More on that next time...
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One danger with any longterm character in Guild Wars, I've found, is quickly arriving at a 'comfortable' skillbar, and then just settling there. With all the expansions and campaigns added, the Mesmer gets about 140 skills in total, and about that again from the chosen Secondary profession, giving me around 300 hotkeys to pick from, to make up the eight I'll actually take out into play. Seems an awful shame to use the same old eight, day in, day out, so this time around, and rather than just 'Skill of the Night', I shall be trying to come up with an entirely different build each session, for variety's sake if nothing else.
(Note: I mostly play PvE, so please don't just post comments like 'roflolcopterzz! ur build sux!1! i will own u!' because you are probably right, and taken as read. You are not, however, a Margonite Seer, which is the real point here! If you are going to say it sucks, please do also say why, and how to improve it! Constructive comments only please, or [reaches for the comment delete button] it didn't happen...)
Today's build started as a bit of a joke, but turned out to be shockingly effective, particularly against the various Jotun giants we found in Norrhart Domains. These L28 mobs take a hell of a pounding considering they're often Mesmers and Necromancers, as well as spamming out the always hilarious 'Giant Stomp' AoE Knockdown Monster Skill.
The Daggers of Delusion
Mesmer/Assassin
Illusion; 16, Shadow Arts; 12, Sunspear Rank; 8
Equipment: Daggers, ideally with 'Increase Enchant Duration', or anything 'While Enchanted'. Avoid +% Damage though, as you aren't actually hitting the enemy at all, if you're doing it right. +Armour or +Health would both be useful. Also a Rune and a Masque to improve the Illusion attribute as far as is practicable. Major/Superior Vigor never hurts, either!
Requires Skills From: Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall.
The whole thing revolves around Illusionary Weaponry (#2), which should be constantly recast to keep it up all the time. While active, I always do 42pts of damage, per swing, NOT per hit: a build based on missing your target lots! This damage is armour ignoring too, and can't be blocked or dodged - I was consistently doing 42 per swing, every swing, on all types of L28 monsters. Without IW up, I was sometimes doing 1pt, on those occasions I wasn't evaded or blocked entirely. To make the most of this, use Daggers, a Sword, or an Axe, the weapons with the fastest re-swing timer. Avoid Scythes and Hammers. It will not work at all with ranged weapons; bows, spears, wands, staves. I go with Daggers, as spare attribute points can be dumped into Dagger Mastery for a rare chance of a double-attack, but a sword or axe, and offhand focus or shield can be useful too.
Start with Illusion of Weakness (#1) upon entering the zone, giving you a sizable safety-margin of spare 'backup HP' - you're likely to need it, as its a very hectic and 'up close and personal' melee build, which is likely to give career Domination Mesmers like myself a bit of a heart attack for the first few outings!
Size up the enemy, cast IW (#2), optionally try Clumsiness (#7) as a pulling move, then use Death's Charge (#4) to teleport in behind the enemy. Hit Critical Agility (#3, a Sunspear Rank Skill) and start swinging at the foe. CA ups the attack rate and your armour, which is always useful in this kind of melee DPS type of build. Every attempted attack will cause 42pts of damage - no resists, no evasion. The key with this build is to try and avoid unnecessary casting. Time spent activating skills is time not spent applying damage, via imaginary dagger flailing.
The exception is the two heals, which being in Mesmer Finery, you will need often. Shadow Refuge (#5) is a decent +9 Health Regen, useable in-combat, which should be the main heal. It also heals for a bit extra when it ends, if you are attacking, which you will be. Feigned Neutrality (#6) is trickier. It regens for +7 (which stacks with the +9) and also adds +80 Armour, (which typically being in a ballgown of some description, I always find handy in a knife fight!) It has conditions to it, though - it stops when you hit an enemy (No problem here, as with IW, you technically always 'miss', but still do damage anyway), but also when you use a skill, so use SR first, and add FN if the incoming damage, hexes and degens are in danger of overwhelming you. Once FN is up, just attack for a few seconds, as using another skill will end it prematurely. Illusion of Weakness (#1) is a useful backstop, giving you an extra +75% health buffer, and can be reapplied after the fighting, if you survive.
Clumsiness (#7) and Dash (#8, a basic short duration run-speed buff) were afterthoughts really and could be swapped out for an Illusion Mantra Stance or Hex, or more Deadly Arts tricks, such as a reverse 'To Ally' Shadow Step skill, to bail out if things get too hairy! Ideally you'll want to be doing as little casting in combat as possible, to keep the DPS high.
Done right, this build puts out a terrifying DPS, the whole thing uses very little energy, and a Mesmer's base energy regen is more than up to the task of powering it all. Its fairly effective against all types of target; melee, range or caster (being oblivious to defensive ability), doesn't rely on enemy conditions, hexes, enchantments or similar, or interrupt reaction timings, and its also tremendous fun, if a bit unnerving, making a fantastic change of pace if like me, you're more used to just standing at the back and laying down hexes!
An Assassin/Mesmer can probably do fairly well at it, as neither primary attribute, Fast Casting, or Critical Strikes, is especially useful here. The Assassin has 10 more base armour, whereas the Mesmer gets 5 more energy capacity. The decider for me is the Mesmer being able to use Illusion Runes. An Assassin/Mesmer would only be able to do a max of 34pts per swing via IW, not having a Sup Illusion Rune or Illusion Masque. Assassin Shadow Arts runes would make the support buffs and heals a little more effective, to compensate.
The main downside of it all is that it is very dependent on being able to keep a large number of Enchantments going at once, very few of which are optional. This means if you come up against Enchantment Removal (Monks, other Mesmers, etc), you really are screwed. Watch out for Empathy too and other hexes that punish 'attacks' rather than 'hits' - they will really tear you up. You also need to be a bit careful with reuse timers on the heals and suchlike... wait for everything to be ready to cast again before piling into the next set of monsters.
You're also quite fragile to be 'main tanking' like this, and need to wait for another player or Hero to take the initial aggro and alpha strike, where possible. If in doubt, use Koss's waypoint flag to send him off to distract them all! For solo work and actual Mesmer Tanking (Very Brave!), try a similar build, but Mesmer/Warrior, using IW again for the damage, with a good sword/axe and shield combo, and some of the Tactics damage reduction stuff, along with Mantra Stances for defence; Distortion, Physical Resistance, etc. Another alternative might be Mesmer/Dervish, and something more Scythe and AoE-based, still using the IW to ensure constant high damage. Regeneration versus actual Healing is also a bit flakey, particularly versus spike damage, so you'll want a decently set up Dunkoro or Ogden following your harebrained exploits around, but then again, that's usually the case whatever your build!
Suggestions, improvements or alternatives in the comments, but personally, I've never played a melee primary for any serious duration, so am finding the whole thing hilarious!
"Daggers? Oh, noooo, I'm sure you're just seeing things... Slash! Stab!"