With the preorder confirmation, it says "The game client will be available shortly; we will send you an e-mail with the download link." Does 'shortly' mean that I wait until the actual release or that they purposely delay the beta download for some reason?

EDIT: I wish this wasn't a joke. I would totally play this profession.

You missed out. A-net temporarily put that profession in Guild Wars as a gag last year.

:crying: But I want my lore-breaking air strikes!

I'm sure it will be a recurring joke each year, like any other seasonal events.

They did bother to actually put that page on their site, after all.

Wait, that class was in the game for a while?

What happened to primary Commandos when the gag ended?

Knowing Arenanet's MO for ending events, they probably all got killed by Dhuum or something, right?

It was a special side quest, like the Canthan New Year Arenas. The story was something like:

You find a lone commando who requests your aid... and accepting propels you into the future. You get a commando disguise and skill set, like with the Canthan New Year events. Then you proceed along, finish the quest (I forget what exactly you do) and you're sent back to your time at the end.

So essentially... They're soldiers from the future. That's how I remember it, at least.

Now I want to play some GW.
 

The former was too true in many ways for a while. The latter, too, mid-Factions, especially with Me/N. It's almost like they didn't know how well draining enemies worked (edit: not to imply you can't still destroy groups with Mesmers -- you certainly can!! Rather that, as memory serves, drain builds were seriously, retardedly crazy around then). But, then again, this is GW - the devs have always been kind of hit-or-miss with balance.

Anyway, if you're creative, the class really shines. More to the point, though, I still think it's a neat class that is pretty unique to GW. I have trouble thinking of any parallel in similar games. You're quite right, though, that players overall had some pretty strong opinions.


Ah well. I have one of every class and then a few duplicates, so I'd argue every class is fun in its own way (though to be fair some got played more than others).

I am sad that Ritualists aren't coming through.

Found it: the quest is called Annihilator. It was the April Fool's quest last year.

Also turns out they were from the past, not the future. Oops.

The Mesmer class was a good feature of GW due to uniqueness. I think the biggest issue with them was certain skills (a chunk of the Elites) not being particularly valuable (like Shatter Storm - why would you want an Elite that disables itself for being used?). Every profession has that problem, though, and Anet will probably have dealt with that pretty well by the release of GW2. And it's not like they're adverse to completely changing skills in patches.

I wish I had a character for each class. I still haven't finished every campaign, if you can believe that. Maybe I'll traipse through Prophecies with a Mesmer once my Elementalist trudge through Nightfall is done.

...You know, I've found that Mesmer makes a good secondary class, with Inspiration, but I don't know what makes a great secondary for a Mesmer primary. I'm thinking Necromancer for use of Soul Barbs and Parasitic Bond and SS?

For PvE, Necro's usually a good secondary for Mesmer and Monk's the catch-all secondary. You could also use a Ranger secondary for the stances or a Rit secondary for healing or any of the item/weapon spells (Me/Rt's more popular for healing, though).

It really depends on the build, but if you're doing hex stuff, Necro's probably the way to go.

Also, save SS for a Necro primary to get those extra points in Curses. Try Visions of Regret and some skills like Wastrel's Demise for PvE - you'll rack up some good damage against mindless mobs.

The Necro secondary works well with Mesmer because there are some PvE-only skills that take advantage of enemies being hexed/suffering from a condition. And there's the other obvious good stuff like extra hexes and supplementary spells.