Guild Wars 2

So I admit I run this dungeon a lot. My fav weapon for mes pve IS the GS, but I’m beginning to question why groups want this weapon for CoF1? I’ve been recently trying out scepter/sword instead of GS.

GS in CoF1
- cripple/aoe from zerk has no purpose here
- boon removal useless
- DMG at max range useless since you are probably out of range from banners
- #5 skill useless since you have focus

vs

- Scepter/Sword in CoF1
- Both blocks do a crapload of burst dmg in a short time + add torment which is just a bonus..also adds survivability.
- In Range of buffs without losing damage.
- #3 hits decently hard
- ISwordsman > Zerker

what do you guys think? Is the GS overrated in CoF1?

GS on Mesmers in general is just terrible, and I cry whenever I see a Mesmer with sunrise/twilight

I used to use greatsword as well but then someone in my farming group recommended I use sword+pistol along with my sword+focus so that I would have 20%+ damage from the night and smothering sigils, plus it meant that I wouldn’t have to alternate between going to 900 range for GS for as much damage as I could and then having to close distance when switching to sword. By purely using sword it meant I had full melee uptime and both weapon sets would have blurred frenzy which meant I always had it up if I needed it.

I always thought pistol was pvp only since the GS seems to hit harder, but it’s actually a legitimate dungeon weapon as well.

I disagree with that. I think it’s the best all around weapon we have in terms of general PvE, but I don’t think it’s optimal for CoF1.

-referring to mexican cookie’s comment.

Habu.8920:

I disagree with that. I think it’s the best all around weapon we have in terms of general PvE, but I don’t think it’s optimal for CoF1.

-referring to mexican cookie’s comment.

General PvE as in, open world? My statement is just within the context of dungeons. It’s just a really bad weapon in dungeons.

well you said “in general” so..yeah

Its arguably a better ranged weapon in PvE than the staff or scepter, since both are condition based. In the few cases you need 1200 range its your best option, but CoF is not one of those cases.

I wish I could disagree with you since I’m working towards sunrise on my mesmer, but I go in to COF, COE and Fractals, and just think “kitten I want to, but greatsword is so useless”. I mean 3 is useless, 2 doesn’t do enough and 5 is basically what you do if you want your team to hate you.

You can GS5 the slave driver into the wall instead of using focus 4. GS5 is quite useful as an AoE interrupt against the risen berserkers in COE as well.

TheKillerAngel.3596:

You can GS5 the slave driver into the wall instead of using focus 4. GS5 is quite useful as an AoE interrupt against the risen berserkers in COE as well.

Yeah, you can, but why would you when focus 4 does the same thing it’s really a waste.

Scepter 4 > Warden > 3 3 A A A 2 > Shatter > dead.

rfdarko.4639:

Its arguably a better ranged weapon in PvE than the staff or scepter, since both are condition based. In the few cases you need 1200 range its your best option, but CoF is not one of those cases.

Staff is an interesting weapon. On the assumption that you’re running the trait that gives you +% damage per illusion up, staff is neat because it has 2 abilities that will generate illusions, and one of them is a phantasm that will park itself and generally provide you with one maintained illusion. Chaos storm is kind of neat, I won’t make an argument for why it’s great – it’s just neat; buffs/debuffs on one skill is pretty cool. Phase Retreat is also handy for getting out of lame area of effects such as Lupicus’ life drain in phase 3.

I’m not really saying that Staff is a better option than say, pistol off-hand which will give you the same, if not better buffing abilities via the duelist doing the same thing as the warden, but I think it has more merits than the GS.

I don’t know anything about Scepter, so no input there.

Habu.8920:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

You can GS5 the slave driver into the wall instead of using focus 4. GS5 is quite useful as an AoE interrupt against the risen berserkers in COE as well.

Yeah, you can, but why would you when focus 4 does the same thing it’s really a waste.

Scepter 4 > Warden > 3 3 A A A 2 > Shatter > dead.

Can’t you just go focus 4 > signet > time warp > warden > duelist > frenzy > leap > shatter?

I’m not seeing what’s good about scepter here which mainhand sword wouldn’t just do better.

I tend to use the gs push on the slave driver instead of focus. Just because theres no delay and its just habit to start the fight with my gs beserker and then switch to sword focus. I havent run cof since getting a pistol though (I use sword focus + sword pistol in every other dungeon now). So i prob will just end up using focus instead. I do find the GS has its uses in some places. Soloing the husk in CoE p2 it can be useful for the extra push and good for clearing the thorns.

colesy.8490:

would have 20%+ damage from the night and smhering sigils,

Too bad +%damage sigils do not stack.

Dub.1273:

colesy.8490:

would have 20%+ damage from the night and smhering sigils,

Too bad +%damage sigils do not stack.

They do. Just +% of the same type don’t. i.e. 2xnight, 2xslaying.

Slaying/force, slaying/night/, force/night. These all stack like this. Well, based on some very, very basic tests Agony and I did, anyway.

colesy.8490:

Habu.8920:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

You can GS5 the slave driver into the wall instead of using focus 4. GS5 is quite useful as an AoE interrupt against the risen berserkers in COE as well.

Yeah, you can, but why would you when focus 4 does the same thing it’s really a waste.

Scepter 4 > Warden > 3 3 A A A 2 > Shatter > dead.

Can’t you just go focus 4 > signet > time warp > warden > duelist > frenzy > leap > shatter?

I’m not seeing what’s good about scepter here which mainhand sword wouldn’t just do better.

Yeah, I meant Focus not sceptor for the driver.

On effigy though, after you drain your Feedback/warden/frenzy the boss will attack and you can block it with scepter 2 or sword 4 which hits super hard with stacked might. Then you can scepter 3 for decent damage and block again for another good burst. Then Swap for another Frenzy boss should be about dead with a good group.

Pretty much you’re not wasting time dodging, but constantly putting out dps shaving off time overall.

By the time you’ve reflected one or two knockbacks (if the RNG hates, or loves you depending on your view of it) the effigy should be close to dead so you shouldn’t need blocks.

it’s not just for the knockbacks. It works on all of the effigies attacks, and does more damage than sword AA/any of GS skills.

colesy.8490:

I wish I could disagree with you since I’m working towards sunrise on my mesmer, but I go in to COF, COE and Fractals, and just think “kitten I want to, but greatsword is so useless”. I mean 3 is useless, 2 doesn’t do enough and 5 is basically what you do if you want your team to hate you.

I find that the GS is more useful than ppl think specially in fractals. 5 is always nice as a positioning skill when focus 4 is not appropriate or available. 4 for an aoe cripple, 3 for aoe boon removal, 2 for added might b4 sig of inspiration and bit of vulnerability, and 1 well besides it being 1200 range…yeah 1 kinda stinks

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Staff is an interesting weapon. On the assumption that you’re running the trait that gives you +% damage per illusion up, staff is neat because it has 2 abilities that will generate illusions, and one of them is a phantasm that will park itself and generally provide you with one maintained illusion. Chaos storm is kind of neat, I won’t make an argument for why it’s great – it’s just neat; buffs/debuffs on one skill is pretty cool. Phase Retreat is also handy for getting out of lame area of effects such as Lupicus’ life drain in phase 3.

I’m not really saying that Staff is a better option than say, pistol off-hand which will give you the same, if not better buffing abilities via the duelist doing the same thing as the warden, but I think it has more merits than the GS.

I don’t know anything about Scepter, so no input there.

It certainly has more utility than GS, but it has significantly less damage. In the few cases where i need to range (say, the imbued shaman) I want to maintain decent direct damage. Yeah, I can phase retreat away, give myself a chaos shield, give my party some buffs with chaos storm, but the only thing really doing damage is my phantasmal warden. The strength of the staff is the ability to pump out clones and bounce auto attacks with all those clones to quickly rack up a colorful palette of condis on your target – a strong dueling tactic in wvw, but not something that works well in pve. The gs has very little utility, but it works for what i do when I range in pve – kite at max range and auto attack.

Yes Gs can be used by mesmer in CoF runs just like the other said :
Slave Driver – gs5 slave driver into wall + gs4 for some dps switch to ur sword+focus;
Acolytes – u rly dont need/want to go melee with the fast cc and dps u can get on u there so gs does a good job killing 1 acolyte really fast and its good if some ppl are dead u start with gs kill 1 then move in melee for a second kill etc;
Searing Effigy – same kitten u start with a gs4 and then switch to sword+ focus ;

Its not like u have to use it, i consider it useful for some extra dps, but are not going to aa with it in melee Oo like ive seen some mesmer do it or just use gs and play it safe, thats not right in cof speedruns or any other melee team.
As for other dungeons, u will know ur spots where u need a range wep for dps and thats not staff or scepter lets be real. And dont tell me when u pug all day long u are in melee all the time, some teams are just fail and u need to adjust or leave, ur choice.

Undead Slaying and Force do not stack.

GS=Mesmers worst weapon, besides scepter/torch. kitten damage (staff does more the moments you are on), no helpful utility (don’t kittening use #5!) and nothing else.

I can live with people beeing 100% unable to dodge. But anyone who uses ranged weapons (except staff for chaosstorm)
and doesn’t change to sword/focus after i told him to, it’s a kick.

I dislike GS mesmers.

but … dat sound effect

Dub.1273:

Undead Slaying and Force do not stack.

Bottle tested?

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Bottle tested?

Bottle couldn’t test anything. Though my short test told me those sigils stack.

I’ve been mistaken, they do stack. Random critluck sucks.

phew, I thought I bought a bunch of useless sigils >_>

I get naked and untrait when I want to test that. usually gets rid of enough spread to be able to test it well enough.

it feels like necroing even though the thread is just a day old.

gs has a readily accessible interrupt (no dual cast with delay necessary) and a push which works well. even on uneven terrain.
both slavedriver in CoF and alpha in CoE (first room) are standing in unfortunate locations. for some reason, like a miniature crack in the floor, temporal curtain sometimes only pulls either of those guys only around 200 when they jerk to a halt instead of flying further. slavedriver works most of the time but I did have a a few runs where it didn’t work. gs never failed me so far. in CoE temp. curtain nearly never works in my experience (only talking about first room, rest the curtain works perfectly), while gs#5 only fails about once every two full runs.
for this reason, I often use gs in CoF as a mesmer.
the endless delay they added to focus #4 makes this choice even easier. focus is a great weapon, but the pull sometimes is just too unreliable. for trakitten’s not that bad, but if you mess up a pull on a boss everyone’s gonna hate you.

apart from that, yeah, I agree. against single targets scepter/sword is really cool. you completely forgot to mention the free (as in you don’t have to sacrifice all your phantasms or an utility slot) and pretty fast interrupt on sword #4#4. even the blind on scepter #2#2 is very neat – just a shame defiant makes it useless in dungeons.

ps: I’ve seen (and experienced myself) too many guardian hammer #4’s gone wrong to even consider this an option. alpha flying high in the air and landing in the exact spot of where he was before. or flying behind the guardian into the middle of the room (ok, this had to be bad positioning in the first place). hammer #4 really sucks sometimes.

I don’t see why Greatsword is a bad weapon. Skill 2 can give you 6 Might on top of all the Might you get from Shattering to spread to the group. Skill 4 does a ton of damage like Warrior’s Whirlwind Attack. Skill 5 knocks the Slave Driver back into the wall or I think it can at least

I personally love the GS. I use GS + s/f for anything I do.
My GS dishes out a lot more damage than any other setup I’ve tried. With cof1 for example, when we kill those tribute things (and you run down, then back up and repeat)
I press 2, 4 shatter. Boom, dead. But my build is pure berserker on phantasms. Deals massive damage compared to other builds I’ve tried. Number 1 attack hits 2k at the moment.