Guild Wars 2

I’m trying to understand why the ambush attacks seem to be so different in terms of output. The staff ambush attack seems tremendously better than scepter.

Scepter is a few hits of direct damage (so it could proc a lot of Sharper Images), but the output in conditions is less than a typical shatter.

Scepter Ambush: Ether Barrage (1.5s cast, 1s cd)
Ambush. Blink back a short distance and launch a barrage of chaos orbs at your foe, inflicting either confusion or torment each hit. Condition duration halved for clones.
• Dmg: (5x) 710
• Confusion: 1 stack 7.5s
• Torment: 1 stack 6s
• Shadowstep Distance: 200
• Range: 1200

The staff on the other hand is 4x the condi stacks, bouncing so it has the chance to inflict more on multiple targets, and applies boons to friendly targets.

Staff Ambush: Chaos Vortex (1s cast, 1s cd)
Ambush. Release a vortex of chaos energy that inflicts conditions on foes and grant
boons to allies.
• Dmg: 216
• Confusion( 2 stacks, 9.25s): 290 Dmg on Skill use, 1175 Dmg
• Torment (2 stacks, 7.5s): 1288 Dmg, 1288 if moving (Typo)
• Fury (3s)
• Might (3 stacks for 8s)

The direct damage is a little less, but it seems like staff is much better overall. Personally, I’m glad that staff is interesting. I’ve never been able to really use it in wvw roaming because it feels so slow and unrewarding. But this makes it a lot more appealing. On the other hand, scepter looks pretty weak.

Am I missing something?

Scepter is dishing out attacks 5 times.
So it is a total of 5 stacks of confusion or torment.

I don’t know for sure, but from all the footeges it looks like staff ambush will not bounce, just go straid thru oponents and allies.

Thx. The five attack comment caused me to go back and play WP’s video over again in (with lots of pauses). Right around the 2:10:10

Looking closely, it seems like the skill 1 icon gets replaced by an ambush icon. And sometimes, there are 5 attacks from all the illusions and the character. But sometimes, it doesn’t look like that happens. I’m guessing those cases are where the cast time plus cooldown from ether barrage being cast previously extends beyond the ambush window.

Would be really nice to get an explanation of these mechanics from Anet. I know for HoT it was probably a lot of work to produce the videos on each new profession leading up to the launch, but just a few lines of text would be really cool.

I’m a little worried about the power GS/Sword ambush attacks. The condi weapons look strong because they load up your target with a ton of condis but what about for a power build? I cant imagine Anet increasing the clones power, and gaining a boon or applying a condition like vulnerability would make it vastly inferior to its condi counterpart.

Darkfalcon.8176:

I’m a little worried about the power GS/Sword ambush attacks. The condi weapons look strong because they load up your target with a ton of condis but what about for a power build? I cant imagine Anet increasing the clones power, and gaining a boon or applying a condition like vulnerability would make it vastly inferior to its condi counterpart.

i wouldn’t worry about it too much
(besides the fact that anet can’t balance this game)

but, looking at previous mesmer skills, they typically have the same issue as this one:
you can smash a target with 20 clones, and it’ll ALWAYS be in favor of condition builds

Infinite Horizon just screams that it’s for condition builds, just like other traits that are for condition builds

the stunbreak/cleanse and maybe even the up front damage of sand shards are the go-to for power

you’re still getting your full use out of the power-based ambush on your own, you don’t NEED Infinite Horizon

i just hope sand shards gets damage buffed to be worth it (at least similar to power spike)

looks like we’ll be dropping a bunch of those mirrors, so, if it’s dealing around the same as power spike, it’s a trait that passively does more damage than a utility skill in the long run without having to channel it

just.. you know… let’s hope in pvp they don’t run from our mirrors….

-shrug-