Guild Wars 2 had its Beta Weekend Event 2 (BWE2) this past weekend. I played in the first one and this one. I had some fun trying out the various professions I would want to play at release: Mesmer, Thief, Necromancer, and Engineer. Although I played all four the during the first BWE, I just continued with the mesmer and thief this time around. I say continued since we were able to keep the characters we had at the end of BWE1.
Given my love of controllers, I was really looking forward (before BWE1) to making a mesmer. The devs had basically said that the mesmer profession would be the most difficult to master, and I can see that. Most of the mesmer 's skills inflict various conditions on the enemies along with some skills granting you and allies buffs, this seems like a good thing. What's not good is the fact that more then a few of those skills do so randomly. I don't mean that they randomly apply the conditions but rather that the condition they apply is randomly chosen from a list. Granted most of their skills have set conditions that are applied but I much prefer to use skills whose effects (damage/buff/debuff/etc) that I can rely on. I would much rather use a skill that has a 30% chance of applying confusion each time it's used than a skill that applies a condition every time it's used but only 30% chance of that condition being confusion.
Another big thing I disliked about this version of GW is the effective de-leveling of your character when you go into a lower level area. I understand the need to do this but it's the way it's done. The is no notification what-so-ever when this happens. You are just have your effective level reduced to what the game thinks you should be at for that area. I dislike this game mechanic a LOT. Two things that would make this more acceptable is an in-your-face notification that your effective level is being adjusted whether up (if your moving to a more level appropriate area) or down. I also want to be able to constantly see what my effective level is if it's not my actual level. A combination of these the additions would make this unfortunate game mechanic more acceptable.
On more positive notes, I did enjoy running around with the memser. I definitely feel that I need more experience with it to truly get the hang of the profession. I have all of the weapon skills unlocked except for the trident (yes, trident. Underwater combat action, baby!) That one I didn't get around to using, mainly since I didn't have one. My favorite combo so far is the sword and pistol.
The thief on the other hand I am in love with a lot. Right now my favorite weapon combo here is dual-wielding pistols. I can definitely see why the thief is a dps profession. A skill unique to the thief is the Steal skill. It lets you shadowstep to your target and steal one item from that target. This replaces the Steal skill from a skill based on the item stolen. This new skill lasts until it is used at which point the Steal skill returns and goes on cooldown.
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