Guild Wars 2

I was at the part where we need to defend Magg as he plant the explosives. Our group consist of 3 mesmers, 1 warrior and 1 engineer. We failed the first 2 times and the engineer complain that the mesmers are not using feedback, null field, time warp and not using swords.

I myself is running a shatter build with greatsword, sword/focus while atleast 1 other another mesmer is using staff. I will admit that with 3 mesmers we could have coordinate instead of saving time warp til the last 90%. However, I don’t see any of the mobs using conditions so null field should be useless. I normally slot feedback, but for this fight, since that everyone is on the move constantly, and with the amount of knock downs, I slot mirror image instead. The other 2 slots are decoy and blink, my staple for dungeons.

He did bring up a good point about swords, since that sword #3 has an AoE immobilize. However, since that the assassins spawn randomly around the room, greatsword seems to be a better weapon as it can attack from range, and does have a AoE cripple with the beserker. It also seems to be that focus #5 will hardly do any damage since that the assassin is constantly moving and has stability. The only damage will come from blurred frenzy and the auto attack, which hardly seems to overcome the range disadvantage.

To be honest, I treat sword/focus as a very situational weapon and only use it for its invul (against subject alpha), the focus pull, against stationary targets (focus #5) and the autoattack cleave when the party los the mobs together. In all other cases I vastly prefer the greatsword for the safer range.

My question is, is he right, especially with the part about swords? And if you are doing CoF path 2 with a mesmer, do you expect the mesmer to perform these utilities? Lastly any advise for doing this part more reliably? Seems that every few runs I will get a party that fails here a few time before succeeding.

Your group comp was sort of low DPS to be honest, but for that event it’s more about coordination and bursting the Assassins, which your team should have been able to do fine. A couple shatters and the warrior doing some burst DPS should be able to take out the assassins with no issues, especially if the engineer is helping out with (I assume) grenade spam for vulnerability. Proper coordination, awareness, and target calling is key.

Greatsword sucks.

The first Mesmer adds a lot to your team. Second Mesmer can be useful too for morecool down coverage. The third Mesmer is not useful. Add a guardian, warrior ir anotjer engie in his place and it would be a cake walk.

And dub is correct, Mesmer gs sucks and is a lazy weapon.

I use GS/ sword+focus. The GS is good for the push back and the zerker cripple. Other than that I just have the sword out the whole time. You could potentially just go sword+focus/sword+sword.

The engineer could be only familiar with glamour/confusion builds on a mesmer, which null field and feedback are two utilities that they would bring, causing confusion and blindness.

I think decoy, mirror images, and blink are find for that part. You just have to save bursts for the assassins, which is easy. The hard part is having enough AOE to take care of the rest of the mobs. I’ve noticed that people tend to focus on the assassins that part, but if you leave the trash up for too long they start to accumulate and wipe the group.

Cymric.7368:

I myself is running a shatter build with greatsword, sword/focus while atleast 1 other another mesmer is using staff. I will admit that with 3 mesmers we could have coordinate instead of saving time warp til the last 90%. However, I don’t see any of the mobs using conditions so null field should be useless. I normally slot feedback, but for this fight, since that everyone is on the move constantly, and with the amount of knock downs, I slot mirror image instead. The other 2 slots are decoy and blink, my staple for dungeons.

Feedback can actually be useful in this encounter, since the ranged mobs don’t really move. You plunk a feedback on top of them and they just fire into it. And having 3 stun breaks equipped seems like overkill. . .

That said, if I know I’m doing P2, I usually bring my thief, not my mesmer, so I can’t give too much advice here. . .

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

The first Mesmer adds a lot to your team. Second Mesmer can be useful too for morecool down coverage. The third Mesmer is not useful. Add a guardian, warrior ir anotjer engie in his place and it would be a cake walk.

And dub is correct, Mesmer gs sucks and is a lazy weapon.

Isn’t GS the preferred swap weapon, with Sword/Focus being the main set? GS can at least pop (crappy, buggy, hardly ever hitting as much as it should) iZerker and mirror blade while gap closing enough to pull out Sword/Focus. What else would you be swapping to, Staff? Ugh.

Staff. Chaos Storm alone wins over the whole greatsword.

Dub.1273:

Staff. Chaos Storm alone wins over the whole greatsword.

Staff is OK. Great in some situations even. But how have you been arguing that mes are not that useful because of low dps and then recommend staff which is a purely defensive wep?

I find that at Magg, the sword is great. I use the same setup as you , GS and S/F. When I see an assassin spawn I target, GS4, swap to sword, s3, s3 again, and blurred frenzy.

Frequently, causing the assassin to pause for a second is the difference between success and failure.

On the other hand, the engineer shouldn’t be complaining. Was he using net turrets and rifles?

Note: It’s possible that the assassin’s don’t stop. But it seems like they do.

S/F, S/S or S/P. Full melee always.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

S/F, S/S or S/P. Full melee always.

This. mes should try to always be in melee. S/F best

Me Kill You.9035:

Dub.1273:

Staff. Chaos Storm alone wins over the whole greatsword.

Staff is OK. Great in some situations even. But how have you been arguing that mes are not that useful because of low dps and then recommend staff which is a purely defensive wep?

Lots of AoE Vulnerability (Daze), Protection, Aegis. Also iWarlock pulls out much more damage than berserker and dies less often than warden.

@Ethics.4519
Interesting point about the trash mobs accumulating, I usually focus on kiting them. Perhaps I should spend more effort to dps them down.

@TooBz.3065
I think he is using pistol and shield. Don’t think he is using net turrets, even if he is I think it will get destroyed too fast by all the mobs running around anyway.

I am surprised that so many people recommend melee. Is melee recommended because of the cleave or the dps? I am using p/v/t armor with berserker trinkets and I always feel too squishy to melee for long. With so many charrs running around wouldn’t it be much harder to kite them with melee?

I am also surprised at the greatsword hate, I am shatter build and greatsword can generate a clone every 4.8s so it seems to complement the build nicely. The auto attack can also hit up to 3 targets in a line now, which seems nice for clearing trash mobs here.

Staff is a nice defensive weapon, but it take time to build up conditions, so I feel it lack burst against the assassins.

Idealy the best way to do this is have everyone wearing berserker and went all out aoe dps and kill them all. Even if you die, you’ll quickly be rallied since other people kills so fast. So that’s why people suggest you meleeing.

The problelm is if you are the only berserker and try to melee, you’ll probably die very fast. Since everyone else is probably running and you grab agro on everything and can’t rally because no one is killing.

The best class to use for this is probably a class with good aoe dps. I’m not sure if mesmer have the capability to do so. I usually run cof path 2 with my staff guardian, grenade engineer, or d/d elementist. I havn’t figure out how to do it easily with mesmer beside having 4 other berserker groupmate

This probably doesn’t help OP but another way I’ve seen this done is to maintain blackpowder around magg so the assassins are always blinded when trying to do damage.

Cymric.7368:

I am surprised that so many people recommend melee. Is melee recommended because of the cleave or the dps? … I am also surprised at the greatsword hate

You’re playing a Mesmer. Your damage output is mid-tier at best. The one thing that you excel at is disrupting the enemy – repositioning them, reflecting their projectiles, luring them, absorbing attacks with clones and invulerability, crippling and immobilizing dangerous targets, stripping away boons and Defiant stacks, and interrupting major attacks.

Greatsword is on-par with Sword/Focus when it comes to crippling enemies (because Phantasmal Berserker recharges slightly faster than Temporal Curtain, and the cripple effect on Illusionary Leap is unreliable). For all of the other stuff that I’ve listed above, and for damage output, Sword/Focus is superior.

The major advantage of the Greatsword is simply “survival” due to its long range; it’s a good weapon to use while you’re learning GW2 (and its various dungeons). But once you recognize most of the important enemy skills (e.g. their cues/animations, the approximate danger zone of each one, whether it’s interruptible/reflectible, etc) then you’ll contribute more to your team by wielding a Sword and remaining in melee range whenever possible.

Cymric.7368:

I am surprised that so many people recommend melee. Is melee recommended because of the cleave or the dps? I am using p/v/t armor with berserker trinkets and I always feel too squishy to melee for long. With so many charrs running around wouldn’t it be much harder to kite them with melee?

It’s both. Sword auto attack is highest auto attack for mesmer. Beats GS by 2-3 times and staff is mainly defensive/condition.

Now a days I mainly fotm and wvw with my mesmer, but do some CoF runs. I’ve become comfortable enough to go full berserker in PvE and switch to Rabid for WvW.

When using sword, try to stand behind any bosses. You’ll automatically reduce a lot of damage taken by not being in cleave, then you’ll just have to watch out for big aoes that usually have a huge tell. If you start to take aggro, which rarely happens, switch to a range weapon and use some invis/mov skills like decoy or blink.

Remember, it’s okay to get downed sometimes. Doing say 300K damage to a boss over it’s life and getting downed once is better than doing 80K damage and staying alive.

I love GS as my Off set weapon. I start most fights with iZerker-mirrorblade-Dodge-Mind Wrack then weapon swap to S/F for the majority of the fight. If I’m taking to much pressure in melee i will swap to GS then go ranged for 10 seconds while my endurance/distortions recharge. For a couple of the the fractal bosses i will stay in GS for most the fight (grawl dredge.) Nothing against staff I just like GS and Pure melee is kinda crap too. I wish we could get fast swaps like wars get and i think GS could really shine.

1. Mirror Images, Blink, Feedback for defense
2. Use sword (with sword trait) to immobilize assassins and burst using Mirror Images.
3. After killing an assassin, switch to GS and cripple mobs as you help your team kill them.
4. Dodge roll + blink to get out of knock back
5. Switch back to sword/focus, summon iWarden on assassin, immobilize ASAP when they appear.

At least that’s my main setup for this run. I like to take clone on dodge trait as well for shatters and defense.

nonono
get the 20 in illusion trait, blinding beffudlement!!
once you rotate between feedback and null field.. with some cc from gs and staff,,
its really impossible to fail with 3 mesmer!! .,