Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone.

I’ve been playing a Mesmer lately, picking up ideas on a build from various thread. Now I’m 76 and nearing 80… time to make the tough choices.

I’m mostly a PvE player: Open wold, some dungeons… plan to begin fractals with the new update.

At the moment I like very much the staff and I’ve built around it:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAW8NlwzqqJQjteExkigD5Q9A7yOvrkCc7CB-jwBBIgAUEA5PFRjtMsIasqapWjETBTICA-e

It’s a hybrid condition + phantasm build (at least it seems to poor unskilled me…).
Elasticity it’s the core, to give a little bit of AoE and spread conditions… I can evade with staff 2 and dodge, and create clones on both. Then run circles till everyone else is dead. If I find a boss/champion the clones are substituted by warlocks. They hit like a truck on bosses with stacked conditions.
I rarely shatter, as stuff keeps dying without.

I’ve got very little money in the bank, so I need to chose carefully the endgame gear/runes.

I’m mostly inclined towards Berserker or Rampager, to fuel bleeds from crits and give a little power boost to the paltry staff damage.
Berserker could help a lot the warlocks… Rampager should improve the clones’ conditions. A mixture of the two maybe? Or better to concentrate on one side only?
I usually don’t have issues surviving with all the evades. (Maybe this will change in Fractals?)

Regarding runes I’m quite open.

I also need advices on secondary weapons. Now I use sword/focus, mostly for focus 4.
But I don’t know if it is the optimum for my build.

Thanks in advace for the advices!

Too tired to type up a full response right now, but just to let you know, elasticity doesn’t work on staff clones.

Sometimes you don’t have to pyro. What you said was enough

Pyroatheist.9031:

Too tired to type up a full response right now, but just to let you know, elasticity doesn’t work on staff clones.

This brings up the old wound of clone balance again. Some of our clones are very powerful compared to some other clones, and some traits would make this even worse.

I mean, Staff clones are already awesome compared to say, Spear or Scepter clones. Or any clone, really, except maybe Sword. If Elasticity worked…

The way I see it, either they need to eventually give all clones secondary utility, or remove it from all and buff the corresponding weapons in turn.

Pyroatheist.9031

Too tired to type up a full response right now, but just to let you know, elasticity doesn’t work on staff clones.

Yeah, already discovered.
But is still nice to kill things alone with 2x hits for every 1 press…
Hit enemy, give condition – Hit me, give boon – Hit enemy again, 2nd condition.

From your previous posts I will try to “conjure” up an educated guess: go the power way, as Staff is a power weapon and in PvE conditions aren’t really good.
Is it right?

But when you’ve got the time I will gladly read your full response. Before reading your other posts I was pretty sure on going condition… now I’m in doubt.

KrotaVoida.8243:

Pyroatheist.9031

Too tired to type up a full response right now, but just to let you know, elasticity doesn’t work on staff clones.

Yeah, already discovered.
But is still nice to kill things alone with 2x hits for every 1 press…
Hit enemy, give condition – Hit me, give boon – Hit enemy again, 2nd condition.

From your previous posts I will try to “conjure” up an educated guess: go the power way, as Staff is a power weapon and in PvE conditions aren’t really good.
Is it right?

But when you’ve got the time I will gladly read your full response. Before reading your other posts I was pretty sure on going condition… now I’m in doubt.

Yeah, that’s about the size of it. When I first posted on the forums I was trying to make a staff + sword/focus hybrid build as well for PvE. Pyro advised against it and of course, rightly so.

Conditions are in a bad place ATM in PvE, even for condition heavy classes like necros.

I mean, you could use condition damage in PvE and still kill things with ease, just a lot slower than a zerker build. In that first aforementioned visit to the forums, I was trying out rampager’s gear as well. Pyro worded it along these lines: with rampager’s gear, you are as squishy as a zerker, just with less dps output.

DeathReign.7821:

Yeah, that’s about the size of it. When I first posted on the forums I was trying to make a staff + sword/focus hybrid build as well for PvE. Pyro advised against it and of course, rightly so.

Conditions are in a bad place ATM in PvE, even for condition heavy classes like necros.

I mean, you could use condition damage in PvE and still kill things with ease, just a lot slower than a zerker build. In that first aforementioned visit to the forums, I was trying out rampager’s gear as well. Pyro worded it along these lines: with rampager’s gear, you are as squishy as a zerker, just with less dps output.

I’ve read some past topics regarding conditions/zerker but never figured it was so bad. It seemed to me that the full impact of he conditions sitution was limited to “dungeoneering” with condi heavy classes.

Just a couple of questions:
Do you still use Staff or changed for sword/greatsword?
How do you cope with situations needing AoE if you go zeker (ex: pulling 4+ enemies in solo PvE exploration/mining runs)?

Thanks!

KrotaVoida.8243:

DeathReign.7821:

Yeah, that’s about the size of it. When I first posted on the forums I was trying to make a staff + sword/focus hybrid build as well for PvE. Pyro advised against it and of course, rightly so.

Conditions are in a bad place ATM in PvE, even for condition heavy classes like necros.

I mean, you could use condition damage in PvE and still kill things with ease, just a lot slower than a zerker build. In that first aforementioned visit to the forums, I was trying out rampager’s gear as well. Pyro worded it along these lines: with rampager’s gear, you are as squishy as a zerker, just with less dps output.

I’ve read some past topics regarding conditions/zerker but never figured it was so bad. It seemed to me that the full impact of he conditions sitution was limited to “dungeoneering” with condi heavy classes.

Just a couple of questions:
Do you still use Staff or changed for sword/greatsword?
How do you cope with situations needing AoE if you go zeker (ex: pulling 4+ enemies in solo PvE exploration/mining runs)?

Thanks!

I use my sword/focus set for general purposes, but swap to a Greatsword when I desperately need range. (I usually do fractals with my Mesmer). I swap the focus to sword or pistol depending on what boss I’m up against (last boss in svanir fractal etc) and if there are no threats of projectiles. I also usually initiate with an iZerker and swap to sword/x for the rest of the fight. I do have one of each weapon in my inventory though, just in case.

For AoE, the warden is amazing. Use focus 4 to clump them together and then put a warden on them for AoE damage. Throw in a leap and blurred frenzy and they should mostly be dead. iZerker deals AoE damage as well, so for open map exploration it’s pretty nice.

Uhm, now I’ve got something to try this evening…

I’d go the power route. If you’re looking into Fractals, I’d change around your build to provide more support. Like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQJAWRl4zSqHRTgGaNJhJF9G5nZAdnTShqTdZBA-jwBBIgAUEA5PFRjtMsIasqapWjETBTICA-e

This build gives you lots of tools, especially for fractals:
* you can group heal by spamming mantra of pain
* Phantasmal Defender takes 50% of everyone’s damage (not just you)
* group regen
* Time Warp

Plus, it’s hella flexible so you can change your support on the fly:
* Swap GS for Sword + Focus, Warden’s Feedback and Feedback for strong projectile reflects
* Swap Mantra of Pain for Disenchanter, Shattered Concentration for condi cleansing + boon stripping
* Pick up Bountiful Interruption for huge might sharing

I like the choice of Signet of Inspiration. When I get in a dungeon run, I’ll often shout out ‘GIVE ME MIGHT’ to get some group might stacks. Then I share it right back and double everyone’s might stack, then hit time warp = very powerful.

Thedenofsin.7340:

I’d go the power route. If you’re looking into Fractals, I’d change around your build to provide more support. Like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQJAWRl4zSqHRTgGaNJhJF9G5nZAdnTShqTdZBA-jwBBIgAUEA5PFRjtMsIasqapWjETBTICA-e

This build gives you lots of tools, especially for fractals:
* you can group heal by spamming mantra of pain
* Phantasmal Defender takes 50% of everyone’s damage (not just you)
* group regen
* Time Warp

Plus, it’s hella flexible so you can change your support on the fly:
* Swap GS for Sword + Focus, Warden’s Feedback and Feedback for strong projectile reflects
* Swap Mantra of Pain for Disenchanter, Shattered Concentration for condi cleansing + boon stripping
* Pick up Bountiful Interruption for huge might sharing

I like the choice of Signet of Inspiration. When I get in a dungeon run, I’ll often shout out ‘GIVE ME MIGHT’ to get some group might stacks. Then I share it right back and double everyone’s might stack, then hit time warp = very powerful.

Thanks for the tip on Mantras as a support tool, never really thought about them that way…
I’ve seen that in your build there’s no Illusionist Celerity, I thought that it was almost mandatory for every mesmer build.

Yesterday evening I’ve tried to use the sword more in-depth. All good. Killing things more quickly than staff/conditions (even if still level 77 and with masterwork rampager gear). But with staff I could solo some champions… with sword I cannot.
It’s probably just me getting something wrong. You should be able to solo Champions with Sword and off-hand as a zerker build?

KrotaVoida.8243:

Thedenofsin.7340:

I’d go the power route. If you’re looking into Fractals, I’d change around your build to provide more support. Like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQJAWRl4zSqHRTgGaNJhJF9G5nZAdnTShqTdZBA-jwBBIgAUEA5PFRjtMsIasqapWjETBTICA-e

This build gives you lots of tools, especially for fractals:
* you can group heal by spamming mantra of pain
* Phantasmal Defender takes 50% of everyone’s damage (not just you)
* group regen
* Time Warp

Plus, it’s hella flexible so you can change your support on the fly:
* Swap GS for Sword + Focus, Warden’s Feedback and Feedback for strong projectile reflects
* Swap Mantra of Pain for Disenchanter, Shattered Concentration for condi cleansing + boon stripping
* Pick up Bountiful Interruption for huge might sharing

I like the choice of Signet of Inspiration. When I get in a dungeon run, I’ll often shout out ‘GIVE ME MIGHT’ to get some group might stacks. Then I share it right back and double everyone’s might stack, then hit time warp = very powerful.

Thanks for the tip on Mantras as a support tool, never really thought about them that way…
I’ve seen that in your build there’s no Illusionist Celerity, I thought that it was almost mandatory for every mesmer build.

Yesterday evening I’ve tried to use the sword more in-depth. All good. Killing things more quickly than staff/conditions (even if still level 77 and with masterwork rampager gear). But with staff I could solo some champions… with sword I cannot.
It’s probably just me getting something wrong. You should be able to solo Champions with Sword and off-hand as a zerker build?

Eh, soloing champions is a bit more of a niche thing. I find that greatsword works the best usually, since you can just kite away and let the zerkers cripple the mob.