Post "GW:EN weekend" thoughts

Now that the sneak peek has ended, I thought it might make sense to reevaluate the new new expansion, from the Mesmer's perspective.

Overall, I must say that I am both impressed and disappointed. Strangely, my heros and henchmen did much better in GW:EN than I can recall them ever doing in Nightfall. I easily killed just about everything I faced with 7 NPCs, and only had problems when I entered my first dungeon.

I tried a couple of the new Mesmer skills. Cracked Armor seemed to do a good job, but apparently it was bugged, according to other posts I've read. I still love the fact that I got -2 degen for 10 seconds for only 5 energy as opposed to conjure phantasm for 8 seconds for 10 energy.

Confusing Images was a disappointment. While it did the job against single targets, the area effect was too limited to affect more of the foes I faced.

It seemed to me that healers in GW:EN are better than in the previous games. I tried GW:EN with my rit and noticed that the healers were VERY difficult to take down. With my domination mesmer, the usual backfire, empathy..etc took down the healers every bit as quick as before.

It seems like the style and format for GW:EN is more closely related to that of Nightfall. More weaker mobs at once, as opposed to fewer/stronger mobs like with Proph or Factions.

Overall, I think the value of the mesmer is actually better with the release of GW:EN, especially since some of the dungeons are filled with "winter" spirits, allowing us to use Mantra of Frost to perfection. We mesmers have a lot of tricks up our sleeves, and I think groups will find them highly useful, especially in those 140 hour long dungeons runs.

I'd have to say that mesmers have definitely been improved upon favor in teams as well as the game itself. It was not a challenge to get into a group, and they were all but happy to include me. To speak the actually truth, the -10 constant degen and 2 arcane mimicrys was the only thing keeping us alive at the dungeon boss. GW has done a good job to make mesmers more viable, as well as useful.

I loved strolling through the lvl 28 Jotun's with armor ignoring empathy, and interrupting the nasty ele's in the dungeon. Its been a long time since I have had a fun time in PVE with my mesmer, but last weekend was good.