I’ve been testing Restorative Mantras (trait X in Inspiration) in PvP, and they don’t seem to be healing, for balancing reasons does that trait only work in PvE?
They definitely work in PvP
It only works once you finish casting the mantra not upon using the readied mantras.
You should make some PvE videos, Fay
You should make some PvE videos, Fay
I will make one today if I can of several different encounters in dungeons to demonstrate how mantras are a great addition in dungeons also
I’ve got some footage of a couple of dungeon runs I did with another Mantra Mesmer So expect double awesome Mantra action for one!
I’ll have to edit it to demonstrate the various examples of mantra usage in dungeons. So it might still be a couple of days till it’s ready and uploaded
Great build Fay! Mantras have always looked pretty interesting to me, so I may have to give this a shot, when I can collect the gear!
I do have a slightly off-topic question though: Earlier you were discussing Mantra of Recovery, and I was wondering if it was worth using even with no traits into mantras, in comparison to our other heals?
I looked into the question in regards to healing on a mesmer in an earlier post:
Mantra of Recovery = 10.8k every 15 seconds (With RM trait) – 8k (Without RM trait)
Ether fest = 7.7k every 20 seconds (depended on whether you have 3 clones up or not)
Mirror = 4k every 15 seconds
I personally feel that Mantra of Recovery is the best Mesmer heal because even without the 3x mantra trait and Restorative Mantra trait you can still use the heals regardless of situation and you aren’t depended on having clones up and the cooldown is faster but the downside of course is the charge.
That said I feel that if you don’t us either the 3x mantra trait or Restorative mantra trait both Ether or Mantra are fine depending on what you prefer. Whether you prefer to charge or get clones up they’re both effective and good in different ways.
Good luck with trying out a mantra build I had some positive feedback so far from various mesmers that whispered me so it’s certainly worth a try if it intrigues you.
(edited by skcamow.3527)
I checked the vs thief videos because I was curious how the fights look like but there’s no most basic scenario you encounter in WvW which is:
1. 11k Backstab
2. 2k Sigil of Air
3. 6.5k Steal’
4.(optional) Cloak & Dagger (6k)
Any order of those skills basically but it usually starts with Backstab
You’re dead in <1sec.
Combat Log shows you were killed by Unknown because the thief hasnt even rendered on your screen before you were downed.
So how do you counter it? Assuming you have no idea of thief going for you there’s no way you will even react with poping Blurred Frenzy for immunity.
(edited by PadmaN.7820)
I checked the vs thief videos because I was curious how the fights look like but there’s no most basic scenario you encounter in WvW which is:
1. 11k Backstab
2. 2k Sigil of Air
3. 6.5k Steal’
4.(optional) Cloak & Dagger (6k)
Any order of those skills basically but it usually starts with Backstab
You’re dead in <1sec.
Combat Log shows you were killed by Unknown because the thief hasnt even rendered on your screen before you were downed.So how do you counter it? Assuming you have no idea of thief going for you there’s no way you will even react with poping Blurred Frenzy for immunity.
To be fair the videos aren’t the best ever. I don’t normally do any sPvP at all I mostly do WvW and dungeons. The mantra build was also fairly new for me as I had switched to it a week before and played around with it till I felt I had something solid to practice and I wasn’t used to all the keybinds etc. The video is to demonstrate how roughly it works. I don’t profess to be an expert with the build yet
Although I feel I’ve improved a lot since the videos.
That said, I’ve had plenty of occasions where a thief tries to jump out at me in WvW out of nowhere. Sometimes if I’m busy chatting or particularly slow that day they will get me but 6/10 I just blink away, then keep them from going into stealth by chain dazing them and burning them down quick. Because daze stops thieves from using stealth timing it right leaves them completely exposed.
That’s why if I react fast enough all manner of thieves are generally really easy for me if I time my dazes well and burst and don’t mess up. It’s thieves with a lot of vitality/toughness that I struggle with which I see far less of when skirmishing than the glass cannon type as the tougher ones tend to be with the zerg more.
Not to mention that they don’t expect me to daze them so much so they are taking off guard and start to mess up. It’s a very successful tactic and I guess you’d have to practice yourself to know what I mean
In WvW, a competently geared / prepared Thief using the backstab build will not allow you time to react. The burst will be executed within a total of 2.0 seconds, with 0.8 seconds of actual contact time (where you take damage), and will be executed from 900/1200 range. This is basically a guaranteed death unless you dodge their opener at range, or have prot/aegis up from a prior event.
That aside, Dazes troll Thieves hard if the above situation does not occur.
That’s why you want a lot of vitality in your gear for WvW (It’s why I’m really unhappy having to sacrifice precious Vitality from runes for some swiftness) but without the burst you wont have the edge either so you do need some power and precision as well. It’s a fine balance and that’s why the build is more for others to use to figure out what they feel most comfortable with, integrate it into their builds. like with all professions you have some builds that are harder to counter than others.
Unlike in dungeons where if you know what you are doing you can go with a lot less Vitality, it’s important to have some to give you a second to react in WvW to thieves especially. The only times a glass cannon type backstab out of nowhere thief has gotten the better out of me is when I was either distracted and slow to react or I made a different kind of human error.
Otherwise you should be able to deal with those type of thieves fairly easily overall at least from my experience I’ve had no major issues. I actually secretly find it quite satisfying knowing they probably expected an easy kill and in stead got dazed to death probably left completely confused by the experience (Which is perfect and apt for a mesmer).
Oh hai!! You may remember me from this thread as being the guy who said this build wasn’t for me. Well, I made a little variation of it and, combined with the correct gear + food supplements, I’m in love.
I’ll just drop it here for your enjoyment:
build
Weapons: AC pow tough vit
Armor: AC pow tough vit
Jewelry: Beryl orichalcum ( pow vit crit dam ) for all except rings
Rinsg: Ascended berserker rings
Back: Pow tough crit
Runes: undecided
Food: Master maintenance oil and Bowl[s] of Curry Butternut Squash Soup
Using all this, my stats are around:
power 1993
precision 1602
toughness 1439
vitality 1707
crit damage 76%
Survivability is good, very good.
I went the 2 mantra activations route for some extra healing. All in all, I’m satisfied with this.
Thoughts? ( also, don’t mean to hijack your thread Fay
but this seems like as good a place as any to post a mantra build )
EDIT: changed the build a bit, more oomph. All in all, loving this last version. Thanks Fay, for introducing me to mantras
(edited by Rhogall.4179)
Sorry for not releasing the video yet. Very ill at the moment so can’t concentrate on editing videos at the moment. I will get right at it when I feel better though!
Rhogall, Interesting build! I’m glad my build inspired you to at least play around with mantras which is my main intend for sharing the build Mantras have a lot more potential now with the decreased cast time. It’s just a matter of getting used to the playstyle.
Panzen, Give it a try for a few days see how it goes! I tend to swap mantra of distraction with resolve for dungeons as a lot of bosses don’t respond to dazes but do apply conditions.
Sometimes I also swap around either blink or mantra of pain for certain fights as well with nullfield or feedback that kind of thing. I like using mantra of concentration for fights like searing effigy in CoF. Basically you have to be more versatile with utility in dungeons overall
Mantra of pain is a great way to support your party in dungeons though with restorative mantras you help top people up nicely. I’ve saved many people and stopped wipes by spamming mantra of pain. It’s not an amazing heal as it doesnt heal people all the way up but it does top up health nicely to give people another second to respond, buy people time to heal up/pop some defense or safe their cooldowns.
(edited by Fay.2735)
Stuff about being sick …
Rhogall, Interesting build! I’m glad my build inspired you to at least play around with mantras which is my main intend for sharing the build
More stuff …
Hope you’re doing better.
A few extra notes on my build:
- You have a 2.8k group heal every 5 seconds ( mantra of pain ) I just spam that mantra when I see my group’s health pool going too low. It’s not a lifesaver, obviously, but it helps quite a bit.
- If you change empowering mantras to duelis’ts discipline + switch out 1-2 mantras for other skills ( blink, decoy, … whatever tickles your fancy ) you instachange into a wvw machine :P.
- Phantasms hurt a LOT in this setup
- Consider for wvw also switching Empowered Illusions to Crippling Illusions … you now … for cripples.
- Greatsword auto attacks crit up to 1.9k, phantasms range between 3.5k and ( swear to god I saw it at least once ) 5k.
All in all, this build offers survivability while still hitting like a truck. I would be very curious to see what you could do with this build tbh fay ( subtle hint at a video :P ). I would make one myself, but I would need to get into movie editing and stuff first :P
(edited by EasymodeX.4062)
Hey Fay (remember me? Lol),
After testing this mantra build in dungeons (mostly CoE), I’m still confused about couple of things.
1.When to Shatter? I’m used to playing with a Shatter build, so it comes natural to me to Shatter asap, which may not be good for this build.
2.When to use Mantra of Pain? I mostly use it when doing the “burst” pattern and when I spam Spatial Surge (when I have CD on skills). Also should I charge it in combat, when I’ve used the charges, but have no one to heal?
I have enjoyed this mantra build, as it is so different from what I’ve used to and it’s mostly dmg build, but by spamming the mantras I become a healer.
EDIT:
Third question. What Sigils should I use in dungeons? I mostly do dungeons on my Mesmer, so I don’t think boon removal is so great, as I can just spam Sword 1 to remove boons. Also 15% stun duration isn’t that great in dungs and the vulnerability Sigil isn’t that good, as hitting F3 will put 25 stacks of Vulnerability on the enemy.
(edited by My Sweet Lily.1952)
I decided to get some quick footage in Orr and made a tutorial video demonstrating the tactic I described in the guide and a couple of variations (It’s important to vary it up or you will become predictable).
http://youtu.be/b2vLtCOC0cU?hd=1
(Note how I’m finally used to my new mouses key-binds so no more clicking I feel I’m definitely improving with the build and it’s a lot of fun!)
Also for those asking for footage of a dungeon run, I did record some but then the Mesmer meetup happened and I livestreamed our dungeon run. It’s far from a great dungeon run with my delay in game from livestreaming and some of the others not having done the dungeon before! But it still demonstrates the mantra build:
(Note how I swapped mantra of pain for nullfield a lot of the time and am also using mantra of resolve in stead of mantra of distraction)
There will be another EU mesmer meet this friday (I believe). For those who want to I’ll be there so if you have any questions about mantras etc. I can answer them in game. Would be nice to compare mantra builds as well
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/EU-All-Mesmer-Meets-Fri-21-00-GMT
I’ve tried this build in sPVP and in a Dungeon. Really didn’t like it in sPVP. The action is so constant that it’s hard to find time to charge mantras.
I really liked it in the Dungeon though. I was able to keep a steady stream of healing coming to my team which helped minimize the impact of individual’s mistakes. I’m thinking about dropping Mantra of pain out of the utility though. It seems very lackluster to add to the standard rotation and keeping three mantras charged can take away from other valuable actions I could be taking.
Yea, Mantras are hardest in sPvP by far, as soon as your opponent learns what you are doing you will loose your moment of surprise and it becomes infinitely harder.
That said I wouldn’t advice taking away mantra of pain because it will allow you to spam heal your party when there’s particularly high amounts of damage being taken. I’ve kept up many people that way who don’t know the word ‘dodge’
Also mantra of pain allows for sustained damage much better while you try to charge the other mantras, rather than standing there doing nothing you can use power spike in the meantime, still adding to the fight or when charging mantra of pain you can blink towards someone needing to be healed, so you can be very pro-active if you manage your mantras well.
Sure there are some moments where you have no choice but to stand there and cast a mantra but that’s the sacrifice you make for the challenge and nice damage/heal output.
(edited by EasymodeX.4062)
Been trying out the build and doing my best to wrap my head around it. The one that still confuses me is Mantra of Pain. Testing it* reveals its abysmal DPS, i.e. 594 DPS. This is compared to 846 DPS with the Mind Slash chain or 780 DPS with Greatsword Spatial Surge.
At best, it’s a 2k heal every 5.25s. But I have to weigh that against a stun breaker (Blink), daze (Distraction), and Portal for WvW. For PVE, as noted, it’s DPS is lacking and classic dungeons don’t have situations where a badly injured character wouldn’t be better off fully disengaging from the fight to heal up. I’m not sure how effective it is at counteracting Agony as I don’t run Fractals.
Curious to have your (further) thoughts of this. Is Mantra of Pain really worth the slot?
Mantra of pain is brilliant to spam heal people around you when required as well as provide an additional burst which balances out the dps loss from using vitality for protection.
Also you will find my build actually has blink, you will need it to survive and Mantra of distraction. As for portal unless you run with a zerg that specifically requests it of you there isn’t really a need to have one equipped as 9/10 there will be a mesmer around you who will have one equipped. As for spvp I have to say my build is hardest in spvp setting and you might have to play around with it more in that setting.
I’m currently playing around with some builds. I’ve been testing a glass cannon power mantra build and wow so much damage output but of course it makes you drop like a fly in no time if you make mistakes.
I’ve also devised a support build which uses mantra of pain as well as the normal boons/buffs to do some stellar support. I will be posting all my build ideas when I finalise them.
The point of the Panacea build for me was to balance doing decent damage with not being squishy and doing support all in one. In WvW especially you tend to go from zerg to skirmishing to requiring more support in a matter of minutes.
But I also wanted something that worked in dungeons and spvp without having to re-spec/swap gear/change playstyles all the time.
Most builds tend to specialise a lot more so where you will shine with one thing, as soon as you’re put in another situation you will tend to be at a disadvantage. I wanted the versatility of combat in WvW to reflect in the build.
It’s a solid start, you can play around from there decide whether you want more dps or more support. That said in PvE if you are familiar with the dungeons you won’t really need the vitality at all and can quite safely go without additional gear/rune vitality and you should then have a lot more damage output.
I also tend to swap a mantra in favour of a more supportive utility in anticipation of certain dungeon fights. It’s important to stay flexible in dungeons I barely find any need for dazes in dungeons for example. The condition removal mantra is far better for dungeons.
I’ve decided to make a website to host my builds and guides. You will find I added two new builds as well as a very simple starter guide.
One of the new builds is a support mantra hybrid and the other one doesn’t use any mantras at all but rather is a condition/shatter build. Let me know what you all think
(edited by Fay.2735)
As someone who is new to Mesmer (as in, level 9 and really struggling with wrapping my head around the core mechanics of the class) I have to say… I didn’t like your Basics guide. Basically, all the guide said is “try everything and use what you like best”
With no offense meant.. I didn’t need to read a two page guide just to tell me to “try different stuff out”. What I’m looking for, as a new player, is something that tells me things like how to handle the clones, or the shatter effect, to make the most of those. What each weapon is useful for. Stuff like that.
Yup that is coming I build the website in about two days so I haven’t had a chance to write a more in-depth second part to the basic guide but I will be doing that no worries
At the moment trying to juggle fixing my computer, running my guild and some other things with making the guides. I’ll keep you posted when I finish writing in-depth information.
Edit: Made some adjustments to the link description to indicate better that there is a more in-depth version coming soon.
(edited by Fay.2735)
(edited by Fay.2735)
Your new Kydoi build trait setup is exactly what I have that I’ve posted here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Glamour-Builds-I-m-New/first#post1688405
However, weapon-wise, I went with scepter/focus + GS. I’m having a lot of fun with this setup and I’ll be giving yours a try too! I am also looking forward to the new ‘beam’ improvements and hope there will be more than just that!
Thanks for sharing such great builds!
Your new Kydoi build trait setup is exactly what I have that I’ve posted here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Glamour-Builds-I-m-New/first#post1688405
However, weapon-wise, I went with scepter/focus + GS. I’m having a lot of fun with this setup and I’ll be giving yours a try too! I am also looking forward to the new ‘beam’ improvements and hope there will be more than just that!
Thanks for sharing such great builds!
Same point division but different trait choices but you know what they say great minds think alike! I think a build like it will be very viable with the improvement to scepter and there will definitely be room for more build variety now that the scepter is not a complete waste of time anymore (in pvp anyway).