Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone,

I would just like to leave here a discussion point for two specific skills for the mesmer profession : Time Warp and Winds of Chaos.

I. Time Warp is surely the most used and actually iconic Mesmer elite skill.
Quickness (1s) : Skills and actions are 50% faster.
Number of targets: 5
Pulses: 11
Duration : 10 seconds
-2 things to notice right away: one is related to the A]Quickness proc and the other is the B]Targets selected randomly. So the Quickness proc seems to last 1 second, but we get 11 pulses in 10 seconds, which means either 1 proc never happens or we actually get this proc every 0.91 seconds (approximated).

So, ArenaNet, i’m just wondering is the tooltip incorrect or is this this skill over-performing due to safe margins? As for the Targets selected for the Quickness buff, I would like to confirm that in many cases, especially large scale battles, the caster is left out and thus will not receive the Quickness buff. Isn’t it rather silly to have skills that may benefit only others? What do you guys think? __________________________________________________________

II. Winds of Chaos (first Staff skill): Bounce and orb of energy between foes and allies that applies random boons to allies and random boons to foes.
Boons: Fury and Might (1 randomly)
Conditions: Bleeding, Burning and Vulnerability (1 randomly)

Now, aside from the projectile speed which is way too low considering it will deliver random effects, the whole random proc’ing rates seem to favor certain conditions. Take a share of say, 20 mobs and follow the procs for conditions. In my case, it’s almost exclusively Burning or Vulnerability and rarely Bleeding (of course i had Illusionary Elasticity on). This forces Condition Damage Staff to be so low in damage output and thus avoided by many players.

Cheers everyone!

Enter Fay to level your stipulations to the ground.

(II)
Best we as a community can tell, Staff procs its effects evenly. Sorry. Your limited testing can ofc return highly biased results, since well, it was limited in scope.

(I)
11 ticks 1 second apart fit exactly into 10 seconds. At 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 seconds from the cast. 11 ticks.
The first tick also always affects the Mesmer. I don’t want to commit to saying anything about later ticks without re-testing but I believe they don’t have to target you yourself, yes. Why would they?

Carighan.6758:

(II)
Best we as a community can tell, Staff procs its effects evenly. Sorry. Your limited testing can ofc return highly biased results, since well, it was limited in scope.

(I)
11 ticks 1 second apart fit exactly into 10 seconds. At 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 seconds from the cast. 11 ticks.
The first tick also always affects the Mesmer. I don’t want to commit to saying anything about later ticks without re-testing but I believe they don’t have to target you yourself, yes. Why would they?

II. “We” ? Either you represent an organization or you speak for yourself. Furthermore you have no information to decide upon, how far or extensively i’ve tested it.

I. Counting starts with one, i thought you knew that. It’s shocking to see i have to tell you what the first number is.
Also no, as i previously stated, using Time Warp doesn’t always affect the caster. Go to a largely populated area, a zerg event or world boss event and try it. When you’re done, come with valid arguments and post here in an intelligent manner. Thank you.

i can do with staff 25 bleed stack and burning and vulnerability with 3 clines and IE
so i think it ok

i prefer burning as is around 7 bleed stacs

No, you can not do 25 Bleeding stacks on a normal monster. It would die before you could even reach 15. The 25 stacks you’re referring to, is probably from champion fighting or legendary monsters. And in this case Bleeding that is displayed is not all yours and you can not see how many stacks you’ve applied, but you can only guess from the damage output ticks. (Put your cursor over the conditions displayed and you’ll see a different name than yours).

“i prefer burning as is around 7 bleed stacs”
It depends on how many times Bleeding failed to stack, because of the RANDOM effect

Tested. Time Warp has 11 ticks, the first happening at 0 seconds. Hence 11 ticks in 10 seconds. Just went online to re-test it before I reply again.

Fosio.8217:

Carighan.6758:

(II)
Best we as a community can tell, Staff procs its effects evenly. Sorry. Your limited testing can ofc return highly biased results, since well, it was limited in scope.

(I)
11 ticks 1 second apart fit exactly into 10 seconds. At 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 seconds from the cast. 11 ticks.
The first tick also always affects the Mesmer. I don’t want to commit to saying anything about later ticks without re-testing but I believe they don’t have to target you yourself, yes. Why would they?

II. “We” ? Either you represent an organization or you speak for yourself. Furthermore you have no information to decide upon, how far or extensively i’ve tested it.

I. Counting starts with one, i thought you knew that. It’s shocking to see i have to tell you what the first number is.
Also no, as i previously stated, using Time Warp doesn’t always affect the caster. Go to a largely populated area, a zerg event or world boss event and try it. When you’re done, come with valid arguments and post here in an intelligent manner. Thank you.

Wow, if you’re going to try to be wildly condescending, you should at least do it on topics that you’re knowledgeable about to avoid looking like a fool.

Winds of Chaos

Due to this being our best condition autoattack, it has been tested extensively and can be demonstrated to have a roughly equal chance for all three conditions. The fact that you didn’t come to that conclusion simply indicates the presence of flaws in your testing methodology.

How to Count

When you’re about to time a race, what does your stopwatch say before you press ‘Start’? I’ll tell you: it says 00:00:00. You begin the first pulse at time 0, the very start. After one second has passed, the stopwatch now says 00:01:00. This is the point of the second pulse. I’ll let you keep working this out for yourself if you so choose, but the last 11th pulse will occur at time 00:10:00.

They should probably replace vulnerability with poison or torment (plz no more confusion) for more consistent damage since vulnerability is pretty much a dps loss for a condition build. Other than that winds of chaos is fine.

I’m amazed any of you bothered to write on this topic with earnest answers..

This is clearly an ill-informed and grumpy child.

Or its a painfully obvious troll.

To save face for the Mesmer community as a whole, in the future I would suggest you all just skip over these type of topics and put attention and energy elsewhere.

Swish.2463:

I’m amazed any of you bothered to write on this topic with earnest answers..

This is clearly an ill-informed and grumpy child.

Or its a painfully obvious troll.

To save face for the Mesmer community as a whole, in the future I would suggest you all just skip over these type of topics and put attention and energy elsewhere.

We’re a community that’s sensitive to flaws. If we see anything ill-informed, we destroy it right away. If we see anything that’s mechanically broken, we test and report right away. If anyone asks earnestly about something he/she[gender equality] doesn’t know, we generously help them. Something about our collective mindset, I believe, makes us want to defend our profession against any flawed logic that might, through some random and extremely improbable cause, generate a flawed nerf.

That’s my psychoanalysis

Dondagora.9645:

Swish.2463:

I’m amazed any of you bothered to write on this topic with earnest answers..

This is clearly an ill-informed and grumpy child.

Or its a painfully obvious troll.

To save face for the Mesmer community as a whole, in the future I would suggest you all just skip over these type of topics and put attention and energy elsewhere.

We’re a community that’s sensitive to flaws. If we see anything ill-informed, we destroy it right away. If we see anything that’s mechanically broken, we test and report right away. If anyone asks earnestly about something he/she[gender equality] doesn’t know, we generously help them. Something about our collective mindset, I believe, makes us want to defend our profession against any flawed logic that might, through some random and extremely improbable cause, generate a flawed nerf.

That’s my psychoanalysis

I personally can’t stand people attempting to wield the bludgeon of mathematical accuracy in an incorrect manner. That was my primary reason for making a response, and I figured I’d mention something about winds of chaos since I was already typing.

Fay.2357:

How to Count

When you’re about to time a race, what does your stopwatch say before you press ‘Start’? I’ll tell you: it says 00:00:00. You begin the first pulse at time 0, the very start. After one second has passed, the stopwatch now says 00:01:00. This is the point of the second pulse. I’ll let you keep working this out for yourself if you so choose, but the last 11th pulse will occur at time 00:10:00.

Well, I think this thread is dead anyway, so I won’t worry too much about not contributing outside of LOL. +1 Pyro.

Fosio.8217:

No, you can not do 25 Bleeding stacks on a normal monster. It would die before you could even reach 15. The 25 stacks you’re referring to, is probably from champion fighting or legendary monsters. And in this case Bleeding that is displayed is not all yours and you can not see how many stacks you’ve applied, but you can only guess from the damage output ticks. (Put your cursor over the conditions displayed and you’ll see a different name than yours).

“i prefer burning as is around 7 bleed stacs”
It depends on how many times Bleeding failed to stack, because of the RANDOM effect

i guess you are pve player ( i am pvp/wvw players)
dont say NO if i said yes as i know what i am talking about as i tested it many times b4.
here is the proof by me pooff
made it just for you
also noted that the burning was ticking every sec so it was around 3.5k dps
also didnt use weapon swap (3 stacks more if needed)

Carighan.6758:

Tested. Time Warp has 11 ticks, the first happening at 0 seconds. Hence 11 ticks in 10 seconds. Just went online to re-test it before I reply again.

Yes, that’s true. The first pulse is instantly given, so the second pulse is what is being counted at second 1 of the Duration of the skill. Did you try it out in massive fights, i.e. zergs or with more than 5 players around you? Did it happen to you to be left out and not receiving the Quickness proc., yet others around you would?

Vizardlorde.8243:

They should probably replace vulnerability with poison or torment (plz no more confusion) for more consistent damage since vulnerability is pretty much a dps loss for a condition build. Other than that winds of chaos is fine.

I agree on vulnerability being a dps loss for condition build.
On a 17 to 20 proc’ing base, vulnerability rates are around 50-50 with Burning, but Burning deals good damage instantly, so the more Vulnerability procs, the less damage you’ll do. (i guess its a condition that refers to the dual nature of Staff, being also supportive)

effect skills ticking always start at 0..never seen a case starting later…

Kicast.1459:

effect skills ticking always start at 0..never seen a case starting later…

Yes they do, but they don’t create a new time for each new instance of the effect.

That is to say:

• At 0,0 seconds, I hit a target with bleeding for 4 seconds. It creates a new timer, the target didn’t have any conditions so far.
• At 1,0 seconds, the timer fires the first time. It checks for conditions to apply, finds bleeding, deals damage.
• At 1,3 seconds, I hit the target with another bleeding effect. This one lasts 1,75 seconds. Not enough for 2 ticks of its own.
• At 2,0 seconds, both stacks of bleeding deal combined damage.
• At 3,0 seconds, again both stacks of bleeding deal damage (the second stack has 0,05s remaining). A gained 2 ticks from a 1,75s lasting condition.
• At 4,0 seconds, the first stack deals damage again, then expires. As no conditions remain the server now destroys the timer (so a new one would be created again on subsequent conditions).

I am pretty sure things are not working how you describe it.
When i put my 3 on guardian staff I have immediately a first speed buff.
When i put nullfield with my mesmer first conditions disapear immediately.

Kicast.1459:

I am pretty sure things are not working how you describe it.
When i put my 3 on guardian staff I have immediately a first speed buff.
When i put nullfield with my mesmer first conditions disapear immediately.

The interaction Carighan was referencing only occurs with applied conditions, no other effects except maybe regeneration (though I haven’t actually tested that).

Interesting point, never tested it for Regeneration, either. For when I’m bored and done with Dragon Age, I suppose.