Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone!

Since ranger runes have been taken from us, I’ve been wondering if the recent patch might change something for us. So I waited til the trait reworks with buying new runes and sigils to update my Mes. To be sure wich equip is the best, I’ve been using the dark evil magics called . . . MATH !!! insert dramatic music + lightning sounds here

What I’ve discovered is:

With the ferocity boosting “Fencer’s” trait, precision aka crit chance seems to be utmost important. It almost doesn’t matter how much power I’ve got, it doesn’t even matter if I use scholar or eagle runes (eagle runes seemed to be the “lesser ranger runes”, so I chose them, also they give excellent stats). The result was always the same: having more crit chance = better dps.

Overall these are the results:

• If you are using full berserk equip, use eagle runes, even over scholar.
• If you are using assassin armor + berserk weapons and trinkets, you should stick to eagle for fotm or reflection action, but you can go scholar for no-reflection dungeons if you got 68%+ of the time over 90% HP.
• If you are using full assassin equip, use scholar runes.
• If you are using any runes without ferocity or precision, better change them.

• Try to get near 100% crit chance, full buffed.
• Try to be able to use scholar runes over eagle, yet not if you lose more than 5% crit chance while full buffed.

(you only have to look at the bold and underlined numbers on the right | kitten on the left side means assassin armor, further assassin equip is noted with a + | no spotter included)

If you think I’ve made a mistake, let me know. Otherwise, what do you think? (Looking at you frifox >_>)

Thanks for reading, greez!

Edit: Updated image for clearer results! greez!
Edit: Made a tiny mistake, thought banners give 180 instead of 170 stats. Changed that, final results remain the same though! greez!
Edit: Added reflected damage for zerker armor too, to show how they are inferior compared to the assassin armor! greez!

You have to be careful with ‘@ss’ because the forum kittens it…
But I just checked precisely that and got basically what you got (not exactly the same value, but most likely an error from my side).

Hm… sooo I already got my berserker armor…. gonna build an as_sas_sin one for pve now

Btw: I used +7% crit chance sigils on every weapon set. Sry I forgot to mention this

which build is this? I’ve seen so many builds floating around since the patch that numbers are great to back it up – but I dont know what build to try it with.
Thanks in advance!

This thread is about equipment rather than about a build. The only important thing is “Fencer’s Finesse”.

Check this out: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/PvE-Mesmer/first#post5214816

posted “my build” there

If you’re in an organized group where you can count on Banner of Discipline (170) and Spotter (150), with Master Fencer you can achieve 100% Critical Chance for both yourself and your phantasms with minimal excess (wasted) Precision.
All you need is a minimum 2277 Precision.
There is no dependency on Food or Utility Nourishment.
There is no dependency on Sigils.
Even without banner/spotter, you and your phantasms are at 85% at least 75% of the time.

The following is assumed:

• All gear is Ascended (with the exception of Water Breather)
• Masterwork Gavebeorn Breather (or Berserker Rime-Rimmed Mariner’s Rebreather)
  For FotM AR:
• x2 infused rings, +10 Agony infusions
• Infused back, +10 Agony infusion

Eagle Runes
Link

• Berserker Head, Shoulders, Gloves, Trinkets
• Assassin Chest, Leggings, Boots, Weapons

Due to the lack of Assassin’s trinkets, this optimization is more difficult to achieve with Scholar Runes.

There are assassins accessoires from having all items in caudecus manor and arah. But yea, that’s what I noticed too. Going for Eagle runes, you don’t need that much kitten equip, but if you have it, scholar runes are better and both sets touch the 100% crit chance mark when full buffed.

Also in high fotm levels, mobs thend to be over lv80, wich makes a for example 105% crit chance reasonable, since it’s against them like 100%.

I didn’t count spotter towards full buffed since I rarely see any (good) rangers. They aren’t as essential as warrior and ele.

On your chart does the Assassins/Eagle account for berserk trinkets? Cause that appears to be the best DPS.

Also could you do this same chart with a condition build based on Ramapager and Sinister stats?

Assassin’s / Eagle is assassin armor + zerker weapon and trinkets.

I probably won’t do condi since it seems lackluster compared to power atm. I will first go for engineer since it’s my other main, maybe after that

Xyonon.3987:

Assassin’s / Eagle is assassin armor + zerker weapon and trinkets.

I probably won’t do condi since it seems lackluster compared to power atm. I will first go for engineer since it’s my other main, maybe after that

Actually so far support that rampager and sinister beat out zerk and assassin. We need more accurate numbers though, Plz consider doing this for condi

Xyonon.3987:

Btw: I used +7% crit chance sigils on every weapon set. Sry I forgot to mention this

So Accuracy sigil > Force? Slaying sigil?

I did a rampager vs assassin comparison here assuming a match start.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mesmer-PVE-PVP-guide-after-update/first#post5216755
The DPS is basically identical but it takes about 1s more time for rampager to reach the same damage as assassin. Rampager beats assassin only if you have 3 duelists up or when your mantra charges bonus ends (about 10s if you use them all in the beginning).

I’ve been using force and accuracy together…

Silverkey.2078:

I did a rampager vs assassin comparison here assuming a match start.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mesmer-PVE-PVP-guide-after-update/first#post5216755
The DPS is basically identical but it takes about 1s more time for rampager to reach the same damage as assassin. Rampager beats assassin only if you have 3 duelists up or when your mantra charges bonus ends (about 10s if you use them all in the beginning).

Is the playstyle identical? I doubt it due the additional condition damage. MoP has become essential too and the damage modifiers won’t apply for condis either, aswell iSwordsmen has gained at hidden attack speed buff if I’m not mistaken (now 4.5 sec cd).

But the main reason why I really don’t like rampager at all is the lack of ferocity to be able to deal huge damage with reflected projectiles.

But overall, do you have your math sheet somewhere, rather than just a picture showing that the damage is about the same :P

greez

So what I used for this is a rotation
phantasm1-phantasm2-signet-phantasm2-AA for ever
and because I didn’t want to bother, I assumed the mantra fully stacked for the assassin.
So the playstyle is identical except it’s a different phantasm2. All equipments are exactly the ones on metabattle, but I didn’t add food. I assumed 25 might, ferocity, 25 vuln just for the damage multiplier on domination minor. I also took into account the faster swordsman.

I initially got excited around this build because the announced bleeding damage was quite higher than the one finally released. When I did the calculations with the new bleeding, the DPS was mostly identical to assassin which meant the build was inferior to assassin because of the slightly longer time it takes to build up + higher cooldown on duelist compared to swordsman. It’s only if you can’t keep much of your scholar bonus and your mantra charges that the rampager comes back. On the opposite, the rampager does not react as well to time warp because the sword AA does not do as much damage while the phantasms don’t benefit from quickness.

I could then advertise the rampager as a viable alternative, but since the playstyle is not amazingly different, that’s not so valuable.

I am still hoping for a buff to bleeding…

PS: no math sheets as such, I wrote a dumb program since counting the bleeding stacks was awful.

I think the reason why condis are somewhat viable is because the mesmer does not benefit as much from damage multipliers since only our personal damage (around 40%) is affected.

For the reflect point, I perfectly agree, and that’s why I stopped trying to find ways to make condi-reflect build. I first thought that investing in conditions would allow to drop domination for inspiration, to keep the nice phantasm haste from illusions (=full reflect with only 2 wardens). But in absence of ferocity, I don’t expect it to be so good + the only viable condi-main hand has a phantasm overwriting.
I’m still hoping for a weird condi, precision, ferocity stats mix

Silverkey.2078:

PS: no math sheets as such, I wrote a dumb program since counting the bleeding stacks was awful.

Bleeds are pain in the kitten , but possible… see columns AQ to BP here: linky

But now with additional possibility of bleeds from the pistol trait… it’s going to be even worse :/

OOh, so you did the calculation too. Do your conclusions match mine?
Since my work heavily uses programming, it didn’t take me that much time to write a small program for that and I trust my results better than when I started counting the bleeds on a sheet.
Yes, the pistol trait is the key to the rampager build, but right now it does not work, so, one more reason to burry this build :p

That sheet is pre-patch, haven’t bothered updating it post-patch yet… I have some other plans in the works regarding dps estimates

Shatter PvE build? :p

The good thing with condi build for a reflect build is that you also get distortion sharing which works well with signet. This can be useful in fractals. As you can’t take mantras, this may be better than the usual assassin.

Is the article on the wiki still correct about what stats transfer from the caster to the illusions?

Most of an illusion’s base stats are inherited from the caster:

Same as mesmer: power, precision, condition damage & duration, boon duration, critical damage, armor, and healing power. Illusions will benefit from the mesmer’s might stacks, as well as any effects that increase the above stats, such as Banner of Discipline or Spotter.

I suppose you guys are already taking it into account, but according to this they benefit from Harmonious Mantras stacks, right?

I’d really like to see the math on a Rampager’s/Sinister’s pistol build, I think that even with maybe some reduced damage the utility it would bring from..lets say Pistol 5 and Power Block Domination GM could really make life easier in FotM and some dungeons, keeping some attacks on a permanent cooldown. And honestly it would be refreshing to have a proper damaging condi build for pve.

But for that the pistol trait would have to work, then you dudes already experienced with the math could sort out the proper balance between Ramp/Sin.

I don’t think they benefit from harmonious mantra. It’s a damage multiplier, not a damage addition. Fencer’s Finesse should work, the increased damage from Compounding Power should not work, but the added condition damage should work.
I think this is a weird thing in general, and I do not understand if it is an on-purpose thing or a code limitation.

When doing DPS calculation, it is difficult/impossible to include effects that depend on the enemy’s reaction. So yes, power block is a thing which can increase spike damage on mobs. Most boss are defiant, so this is a different question. Now the pistol 5 is a good interrupt skill, but sword 4 (used in assassin’s build) and focus 4 can also interrupt. And the damage output of power block is higher on assassin’s build (rampager is at least 25% less direct damage), so this is not much of case for rampager…

The ramp/sin balance is similar to the zerk/assassin balance. Ramp+krait is very much assassin+scholar in terms of stats. It is difficult to reach 100% crit with sinister, and we need high crit to get a good bleeding output on pistol, even more so as we don’t have phantasm fury. The loss of crits is too strong to benefit from the increased condition damage.

So sinister can work if you boost on crit food/utilities and have a spotter ranger, to get close to effective 100% crit chance (which is still only 80% crit for your phantasm).

But even if I now say that assassin is better while I was one of the first and foremost supporter of the post-patch rampager build, the difference is minimal. In the optimal situation that we can create in the calculations, rampager is a 1s loss of DPS compared to assassin, which is nothing except if you want a record run. So go and play what you like, nobody should kick you off because one a 1s delayed DPS simply because they would loose more than 1s DPS doing so

@Eliavres.4910 and Silverkey.2078:

• Your quote from the wiki says “power, precision, condition damage & duration, boon duration, critical damage, armor, and healing power” and this is an old information. Ferocity didn’t exist back in the old days, so items gave critical damage. So ferocity will also be transfered to the illusions.
• Phantasms and clones copy only raw stats of the mesmer like power or precision, yet not resulting stats or modifier like the mantra trait or fury.
• Fury will affect illusions if they have fury themselves, but not if the mesmer has fury (since it’s a resulting stat -> 20% crit chance).
• Might will not affect illusions, but if the mesmer has it, they get the power / condition damage (since they copy these raw stats)
• So +20% dmg is a modifier and WILL NOT affect phantasms (mantra trait), but Fencers Finesse will increase their ferocity wich makes wearing a sword very important.
• Illusions wont be affected by weakness if the mesmer has weakness, but they will be affected by weakness when they got it themselves.

That the mesmers damage is cut in two pieces – phantasm damage and mesmer damage – is true. But the recent changes have shifted this damage by a huge amount to the mesmer’s side.

Pre-patch I’d say it was like Mesmer 50:50 Phantasm vs trash mobs and M 25:75 P vs bosses. But now it’s more like M 75:25 P versus trash and M 50:50 P vs bosses. We gained our well deserved personal damage buff with all those traits and the modifiers are very very VERY important, especially when you reflect things with curtain or feedback. Reflected projectiles are unaffected by our power, but affected by our crit chance and crit damage, aswell by our modifiers. If a phantasm (iWarden) reflects, their modifiers count (+15% from domination).

I hope I could help you with this stuff ^^ I know – wall’o’text sry ._.

!!

I have updated the image of the first post, to point out the results more clearly and also added taps who show how much the damage difference between scholar and eagle is. I’ve also added some notes to make it clear WHAT i used. I hope you like it!

=^._.^= meow!

What you say is basically how I understood it. There is one thing which I am not sure about though which is boons and conditions. All stats modifiers (might essentially) applied to you affect phantasms, while if they are directly applied the phantasm, they do nothing. On the other hand, if I understand well, all % modifiers (weakness, fury…) do the opposite, they only affect the phantasm if they are applied to it, right?
But let’s say a ranger blows his warhorn for party fury, if phantasms are in the range, can they also get fury? So to get straight to my point, can phantasms have fury without having the trait?

Yes they can, but most skills have 5 target limits so they will favor players over pets over phantasms over npcs. This means, you in duo with a ranger, the ranger can give your phantasms fury, in a party with 5 ppl though, he can’t.

Edit: made a tiny mistake, thought banners give 180 instead of 170 stats. Changed that, final results remain the same though

Thanks so much for your hard work on these stat calculations Xyonon. Though it would be really nice if you did one for condition damage for a few reasons. Condition damage as we all know has been buffed where some believe that it can actually be more viable than assassins in terms of the amount of damage accumulated. The fact that this theory is even debatable could call the attention that it would be nice to have facts to support this theory.

Now going by your charts that assassins armor/eagle runes mixed with berserker accessories and weapons outputs the most damage wouldn’t it be safe to assume the same would be said for condition stats? In other words a theory that I have is that going by your numbers the best stats for a condition Mesmer would be viewed as rampager/krait armor equipped with sinister weapons and trinkets. If I knew how to test this theory I would do it myself but it would be great if someone like you could view this against other stats such as full sinister, rampager, and other condition weapons and armor. Thanks again though for your hard work gone into this.

Hey Aither!

The highest damage is assassins armor, weapons and accessoires + zerker trinkets with scholar runes. If you don’t want to use scholar runes, it’s assassins armor + zerker weapons, accessoires and trinkets with eagle runes. You could add assassins accessoires, but then you would get over 100% crit chance wich may be viable in high level fractals where mobs can be over lv80. I will check on this one later I think.

I probably will not add a condition based calculation since I’ve tested condi mesmer post patch with a full equip and it seem extremly weak compared to the power alternative. Reasons for this are:

• no cleaving condition spam
• confusion deals extremly low damage atm (compared to the other damaging conditions)
• staff auto only works well in solos (bounces to allies instead of 2nd time to the enemy)
• lack of ferocity makes our reflected damage extremly laughtable low
• mantra of pain still deals more damage than our condi autos – just much less than in power builds

I’ve been playing condition mesmer quite a while and also did so pre patch. While playing I slowly started to become a condi shatter mesmer due to efficiency and after that a power shatter mesmer, since the utility of shatter itself stays but the dmg rises. Power shatter is quite good in pve now.

Edit: Added reflected damage for zerker armor too, to show how they are inferior compared to the assassin armor! greez!

Another problem with condi currently is that duelist discipline does not proc bleeds.

Hey Xyonon, thanks for that information. Currently I don’t have any assassin accessories or trinkets so I just went with the second option of assassin armor/eagle runes with zerker trinkets, accessories and weapons. It’s good to know that I had the availability of the second output for highest damage.

For the condition build it’s a shame that the damage is not as good as a power build as I was finding condition to be pretty fun. It would’ve been nice to get some sort of condition build going that would at least be on par with the assassins build.

I do have one more question for you though. The DNT build still uses ranger runes and is suggesting it to their viewers post patch. Now wasn’t the ranger runes nerfed when it comes to using minis for the +7% damage output? In fact I am pretty sure that it was proven clones do not give the damage increase either by a user on reddit, I assume that is the reason you suggested eagle runes on your chart. So why is DNT misleading their viewership to still utilize the ranger runes instead of eagle runes?

Aither.2859:

The DNT build still uses ranger runes and is suggesting it to their viewers post patch. Now wasn’t the ranger runes nerfed when it comes to using minis for the +7% damage output? In fact I am pretty sure that it was proven clones do not give the damage increase either by a user on reddit, I assume that is the reason you suggested eagle runes on your chart. So why is DNT misleading their viewership to still utilize the ranger runes instead of eagle runes?

It’s you misleading yourself. Brazil in his video does NOT recommend ranger runes. He even mentions why he personally equipped Ranger runes but still recommends others to run SCHOLARS instead.

And Eagle runes? Where did that come from??

The eagle runes are the one advised by Xyonon in the very first comment of this thread if using berserker to compensate for the lack of crit (eagle = ranger + low but working 6th bonus)

And @Aither if you find condition build fun, go for it! Yes it’s not as good, but is not absolutely awful either and the prime goal is to have fun.
If you pug, just stay away from “zerk only”, there are still people playing dungeons who do not care about the extra seconds/minutes taken. This is especially true as mesmer is not the best DPS anyway but mostly brought in parties for its utilities. As long as you play well, support well your party and have fun, it should not be a problem.

I’m a little confused. I thought trinkets are amulet, rings, & accessories. But I keep seeing “Zerk trinkets & ascended accessories”

Is that Zerk amulet and rings? (Ascended)
And assassin accessories? (Exotic)

So would the full build be the above plus full ascended assassin’s armor + scholar runes and assassin’s weapons with force + accuracy?

Does that mean force + 20% sigil is not optimal?

Finally frifox you are here I missed you :<

Yea I was using ranger runes until they died for us. So the most similiar alternative was eagle. After that I wanted to know how much the difference between eagle and scholar is, since you once told me that scholar was pretty on pair with ranger. So following step by step, the result is what you see in the first post.

The whole thing started for me, after reading a book about common fallacies of humanity. So I made use of the confirmation bias. “Noone used eagle runes, why start now?” is what some may think. I also don’t want to become a victim of the social proof effect, so I’d probably add some more runes later.

@Silverkey, thanks so much for the encouragement of running a condition build. I would absolutely love to find out what type of build is the best for condition which I am seeing duelist as a viable option. I was hoping to find out the damage output from someone like Xyonon who knows how to run the numbers. I am assuming at this point that rampager armor along with sinister weapons, accessories + trinkets would be the best option but I have no evidence to support this theory.

@frifox, I didn’t mean any offense to DNT or Brazil. Their guild puts out some of the best builds for every class which is very helpful. I always have appreciated the time and effort they use to enlighten the GW2 base on which builds are best for DPS. All I was saying was why Brazil uses ranger runes instead of eagle runes. Some people don’t realize the nerf that has occurred to the ranger runes just a few months back, so even though Brazil recommends scholar runes in his video for those who have mesmer as a main there are a few things that would confuse the viewers which is why Xyonon’s post is so helpful.

1. Not everyone has assassin ascended trinkets, accessories, and back pieces thus they would not be seeing the same damage output with runes of the scholar.

2. While Brazil doesn’t necessarily recommend ranger runes outright he does make a statement that he personally uses ranger runes to obtain more reflect dps against foes such as Luppi. As mentioned before not everyone knows that the #6 buff on ranger runes no longer work for the Mesmer with or without a mini or clones. This would be very misleading to those who do not research the nerfs for each rune. I personally was unaware of the nerf to the ranger runes and was still using them because Brazil also used them on his own Mesmer. Once Xyonon did this post that is when I did the research and found that the ranger runes are no longer viable for the +7% damage output so I switched them for the eagle.

3. As Silverkey mentioned the eagle runes was started by Xyonon. So either you didn’t read the original post and just came in here to amass your own opinion, or you have a severe case of memory loss which in that case I feel sorry for you and hope you are getting medical treatment for it.

I am happy that Xyonon did this graph and brought to light the best dps option for those of us who use Mesmers as a main. I am sorry if you got frustrated by my comments about Brazil but I wish you didn’t take them so personally.

Aither.2859:

I was hoping to find out the damage output from someone like Xyonon who knows how to run the numbers. I am assuming at this point that rampager armor along with sinister weapons, accessories + trinkets would be the best option but I have no evidence to support this theory.

@ Aither:

About the condi thing. I’ve made a huge excel file about condi engi, but it’s still not finished. Condi means every skill behaves differently and rampager / sinister also means, you still DEAL POWER DAMAGE aswell. Many people forget that and only see the condi numbers but don’t add the power numbers even if they are only medicore.

What I’ve discovered there so far is that condition damage seems superior to duration if you use any bufffood supporting that stat. I would suggest you koi cakes but they are unbelivable expensive – Veggie Pizza is 80% cheaper and only a tiny bit weaker. It gives you 36% condi dura and 60 condi dmg, it’s the best food for ya! Also at engi full sinister is much stronger than rampager or a mix. This has some reasons:

• rampager overkills crit chance
• more crits only give you better power damage (on engi! but mes has illusion crits = bleed traits … but …)
• sinister has also precision and on engi i’m almost on 90% with it (with condi build).

I expect sinister to be superior but rampager may work nice on mes. I haven’t done deeper math so I can’t tell you for sure. I just say I expect sinister to be better.

Aither.2859:

I didn’t mean any offense to DNT or Brazil. Their guild puts out some of the best builds for every class which is very helpful.

I thought so too but they lost reliability with their necro guide wich is clearly a marked manipulator and money maker for them. To support this they also did a vid who says “fast lupi kill – replaced war with necro” but infact you could have replaced the war with anyone. Mentioning that in the guide made my comment get removed wich is fine for me

What I want to say is … well … google “The Authority Bias” and “Social Proof”. Those two combined is exactly what happens here.

The other guides are perfectly fine, but necro one is against anything they said wich really bugs me.

Aither.2859:

Not everyone has assassin ascended trinkets, accessories, and back pieces thus they would not be seeing the same damage output with runes of the scholar.

There are only assassin accessoires, but no other trinkets / backs. Use zerker rings, back, necklace.

Aither.2859:

Once Xyonon did this post that is when I did the research and found that the ranger runes are no longer viable for the +7% damage output so I switched them for the eagle.

Yay I’m useful! =^._.^= meow

Aither.2859:

As Silverkey mentioned the eagle runes was started by Xyonon. So either you didn’t read the original post and just came in here to amass your own opinion, or you have a severe case of memory loss which in that case I feel sorry for you and hope you are getting medical treatment for it.

Wow wow easy easy chill :o frifox is one of the most omniscient mesmers here, espeically about dps and numbers. I was hoping he get here sooner or later. Don’t get too insulting, he just didn’t read the first post wich … uhhh … FRI!!! WHY DID YOU NOT READ THE FIRST POST!?!? ò_ó

Aither.2859:

I am happy that Xyonon did this graph and brought to light the best dps option for those of us who use Mesmers as a main. I am sorry if you got frustrated by my comments about Brazil but I wish you didn’t take them so personally.

I don’t read his comment to have taken it too personally. Just be friends with each others. After all we are all mesmers here – we are all scholars! Unlike those uncouth warriors! snooty laugh (@ 20 sec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PbkoVCEDgU)

(nothing against wars, just a joke :P)

Xyonon.3987:

Don’t get too insulting, he just didn’t read the first post wich … uhhh … FRI!!! WHY DID YOU NOT READ THE FIRST POST!?!? ò_ó

Yes, I did read the OP and was following new posts here pretty much as soon as they popped up. I just didn’t feel the need to jump in since I haven’t done any post-patch math regarding direct dps and I don’t like rambling about dps without something to backup myself.

Aither.2859:

All I was saying was why Brazil uses ranger runes instead of eagle runes

For a simple fact that he stated, he brings his mes only to nuke lupi. Lupi transitions above 50% so both Rangers and Eagles are equally at that point, which is probably why he just stayed with Rangers as opposed to investing and slotting in Eagles because he already had them. However, you complaining about him recommending Rangers (he didnt) and implying that Eagles are the better option (they aren’t), is exactly what prompted my reply.

Looking at his goal, maximum feedback dmg for lupi, let’s theorycraft the possible scenarios.

Reflecting one Lupine Blast (no food)

• 24,087 dmg – Scholars above 90% HP
• 21,898 dmg – Scholars below 90% HP
• 23,003 dmg – Eagles above 50%
• 24,384 dmg – Eagles below 50%
• 23,003 dmg – Rangers

Reflecting one Lupine Blast (with food)

• 24,544 dmg – Scholars above 90% HP
• 22,312 dmg – Scholars below 90% HP
• 23,153 dmg – Eagles above 50%
• 24,543 dmg – Eagles below 50%
• 23,153 dmg – Rangers

For reflects, Eagles are better than scholars only below 50%, which does not happen at Lupi (he transitions at 75%). As soon as you eat the 100 prec / 70 ferocity food you are now above 100% crit. Granted, a bit above 100% is good against lupi since he’s not lvl 80 but for the rest of the bosses now Scholars caught up and will reflect even better than eagles below 50% HP.

From this it’s pretty clear that if you want to min/max for lupi, or reflects in general, Scholars are the most optimal runes to wear.

As stated in my very first post Eagle are just “the best” option if you don’t want this 90%+ HP restriction wich is really not optimal for new players or when I duo / trio fotm 50 to sell it after.

I also prefer to have almost 100% crit chance for fotm, due the fact that there are parts like bloomhunger where mantra of pain crits oneshot the adds, but if you don’t crit once you have to recharge again, the spirit stays, time goes on, the buff stays on bloomhunger etc.

But I’m so glad you posted your sheet here fri, I noticed you have “modis” there and I totally forgot about a very very important fact! That multipliers get stronger together!

For my calcs I only have the +6% or +10% multilier applied, wich is exactly +6% or +10%. But the +10% become more compared to the +6% if adding other multipliers like sigil of force, mantra charges or vuln and vuln boost trait! I will add all multipliers we have and see what the new result will be! Definitly in favor for the scholar runes!

frifox.5283:

However, you complaining about him recommending Rangers (he didnt) and implying that Eagles are the better option (they aren’t), is exactly what prompted my reply.

But they are o.o I mean lupi drops below 50% sometime and then they kick in. Everything is better than a wasted 6th rune slot – even an Opal for raw stats!

A tiny little wisdom from me:

There was once a test where subjects were told to find the rule who matches the following numbers: 2 4 6 _ _ _. The test subjects could ask as many numbers as they wanted to, but could only try to find the rule once. So most of the subjects say … “hmm 2 4 6 … is the next one 8?” The scientist answered “8 works with the rule”. “8 10 12?”. The scientist again: “8 10 12 works with the rule”. So almost all test subjects said “The rule is to add +2 to the last number!” The schientist replied with “wrong”. Just a few asked wild numbers like: 7? yes. 3? no. 29? yes. -52? no. And so on. So only a few got the correct answer: The next number has to be higher than the one before.

This is called the confirmation bias and will lead us to beleve we found the results, just because it works that way. But we truly find the result if we can’t find anything that disproves the result and then do the same to that result again and again. Until the chain stops.

I just did the same with my calcs. I did everything correct with the math I thought. So I’m “done”. But fri disproving my results with showing me that I’ve forgotten to take the modifiers into count makes me start over again for better results!

Xyonon.3987:

But they are o.o I mean lupi drops below 50% sometime and then they kick in. Everything is better than a wasted 6th rune slot – even an Opal for raw stats!

Under 50%, yep they are better for sure, but for that nuke right after 75%…

It may be a personal preference but I’m simply not a huge big of constantly going over 100% crit with a$$/eagles setup. With Scholars that’s not an issue anymore. I’ve been running Scholars ever since Rangers got nerfed and gotta admit, that move did make me a better player too. I now actually can keep my HP at 100% much more often thanks to them forcing me to actually pay more attention to my HP and dmg mitigation during fights ever since then.

So for me, Scholars are better than all runes above 50% HP and are still as good as the Eagles below 50% HP.

Also, another point to consider – Warden doesn’t use any of rune modifiers so this means Eagles will be better than Scholars for Warden every single time. Only if we could re-slot armor mid-fight to min-max the reflects even more… but that would never happen, lol

But with kitten armor and zerk weaps / trinkets i get 99% crit chance and that with a +7% crit sigil. So you could even get over 100% and replace that one for a dungeon specific sigil, replace it like bufffood :o

I didn’t think about warden at all, wich I will add aswell, thanks!

The question isn’t scholar vs eagle at all. Scholars are ofc better than eagle with the proper equip. I’m just using eagle because I have zerk weapons and I don’t want to change them to kitten since sigil of force is 10g :/ And the whole thing is just for a few % more personal dmg … and apparently less for warden So I don’t bother chaning them now. Especially if the jungle may become too difficult to stay at 90%+ :P maybe …

Well this has been an interesting conversation to say the least for anyone who runs mesmer as a main. Thank you for your input Frifox you do know how to run the numbers I must say. Although I do have to agree with Xyonon that no matter how you look at it Eagle runes are better than Ranger runes when it comes to mesmers since the nerf. Once the transition to below 50% HP occurs no matter how you look at it the damage is better than rangers for sure. I too rune fractals consistently so scholars really would not apply to helping my damage output so in the end I will stick with assassins/eagle for now until a better rune becomes available for mesmer.

@Xyonon thank you for the information regarding the DNT build and Necromancers. I actually had no idea that they would try to manipulate the market like that and now I will inform a friend of mine who runs necro as a main that the DNT build is probably not the best option for him. It is sad that they would do something like that but at least all their other builds are viable.

On a side note I would also like to thank you for providing information about the sinister stat set on the engi. Although I don’t know how viable that build set would be for the mesmer for a variety of reasons the main being as you pointed out that on mesmer better crit damage = more bleeds = more condition damage. So while sinister is better for engi I still have this gut feeling that a mix would be best for mesmer but again I don’t have the numbers to back this up.

I again would like to thank both Xyonon and Frifox for taking the time to give us mesmers better insight into what builds deliver the best damage. I know it takes time to calculate numbers like this on spreadsheets so your time and effort is not wasted as it is all very insightful.

PS:

Frifox I hope there are no hard feelings as I find your information to be very insightful as well. I haven’t forgotten the assassins vs. zerkers debate we had and still look back at my miscalculations. I honestly didn’t want to believe I made the wrong ascended armor for my mesmer so was just trying to defend the zerker meta. Now that I have assassins ascended armor though there is no doubt that assassins is the best armor when it comes to mesmers. I hope you continue to do these calculations for the chronomancer when it is released.

So just for clarity, what is the best setup for Mesmer right now?

define “setup” ö.ö and for what :P

Dps and reflects for pve, I’m seeing a few different combinations of trinkets/armor/weapons and different sigils I just want to know which have been recognized as the best

I see that scholar runes have been agreed upon

I’m assuming it’s assassin’s armor with scholar runes
Assassin’s weapons with sigil of force and 20% sigil
Zerk trinkets (but I’ve seen a lot of assassin’s accessories with Zerk trinkets)
And +pow +ferocity food because in party you’ll buff to 100% crit

But I know I’m wrong somewhere in there which is why I ask

Read the first post then

The best thing you can do it going as much assassin as you can do: armor, weapons, accessoires, and then zerker back, rings and amulet. For allrounder use +5% dmg sigil and +7% crit chance sigil.

If you already have a zerker armor or zerker weaponset or both, use eagle runes instead.

As for a good build I recommend:

Domination: 2 | (1* or) 3 | 3
Dueling: 1 | 3 | 1
Inspiration: (1** or) 2 | 1 | (1*** or) 3

→ * for boon heavy enemies aka dredges or monks (asc fractal)

→ ** if you expect your allies might die against a projectile heavy enemy, like grawl fractal enboss, or if you got a dead npc you can abuse like molten twins endboss → frostbite, rox, braham

→ * underrated trait wich creates tons of passive damage if your allies notice him and know what he does. Thus, probably better in organized parties with friends – it allows you to facetank some hits from normally oneshot enemies, letting you dps longer in melee. It’s sometimes awesome, but it’s easier to just use trait 3 for feedback and timewarp.

Use all weapons according to the situation. Rarely use the healing signet anymore, mantra became better. Mantra of pain is almost always a must have. Mantra of distraction is darn good if used correctly but you sometmies can’t have it since double feedback (mimic ~?) is too good.

questions?

greez!
- Madame Le Blanc

PS: if you are on EU servers you can add me and we can meet ingame for some direct talk or play together