Guild Wars 2

So… after beta and at least some hour of us being able to spend on raids – what is your opinion about chrono state in raid envirnoment.

I was able to run it just once on 1st day before they turned it off. I went in with rabid gear staff/scepter+shield. The amount of controll and support with alacrity/quickness/slow seemed OK and I was satisfied I guess.
As for condi gear it feels not so good. I was expecting it to be much more constant dps while it was quite bursty. Ok I got lots clones to shatter, but overall the high confusion application was not so constant. Ticks were quite qood, bosses seem to attack more often than in vanilla gw2 but Im not sure if it was better/as good as power build (let zerker alone since we are not sure if full glass cannon can be meta in the future)
Staff also seemed awkward with its random daze application.

So what are your thoughts fellow mesmers? Will we be required members of raids for something more than alacrity bots? Will power be still way to go, or will we be at least competitive as condi dealers compared to eles/guards/engis?

i’m not sure on having high toughness in raids.. since you’d become an aggro magnet.

Condition damage if you rely on shatters is going to be bursty and not consistent. but if the boss requires you to be bursty in seperate intervals, it’s all good. Also, shield isn’t exactly a condition damage weapon if you’re looking to deal better damage and sinister will deal more damage than rabid considering you’ll be specced into duelling/illusions/chrono for condition damage output. (though i understand that the only choice in bwe was rabid)

Power is better than condition on vale guardian if you look at the mechanics. that doesn’t mean that power is going to be used for the whole raid, that also doesn’t mean it’s either rabid/sinister if not zerker/assassin.

Try not to forget.. in raids.. there are mechanics to follow.. that includes moving around, dodging stuff, forced healing etc.. it’s not going to be a faceroll dungeon mechanic where you stand together and dps fast and hard and compare dps while standing still. We cant compare damage to an ele or an engi.. our phantasms/clones still dps while we do the required mechanics.

Only chaos storm from staff applies random daze.

Most importantly.. “alacrity bot” is a far fetched word atm.. we’ve played 5% or lesser of the expansion.

As for condi vs power what I meant was that power on mesmer is already pretty bursty and condition as bursty dmg seems weaker. For balance purposes I’d expect condi to be consistent dps if power is bursty or vice versa. We can argue that there are bosses/mobs with high toughness require condi dmg but with party being mixed dmg with condi and power builds it seems (for me and for now at least) mesmer would still be better power and others do condi job.

Moving to the weapons – ofc shield is not a condi weapon but on the other hand is much more control/suport offhand than anything we have (at least IMO). And I’d like to believe that HoT will bring utility over dmg. Ideal situation would be if we can have 2 offhands but with our weapon range it seems bit impossible with sword not fitting to condi and using 2 scepters being quite weird. 2 sword MH seems much more natural due to skillset. Maybe it could be any good with sw+shield/scepter+pistol with sinister hybrid.

I see 2 possible condi setups – ilu/inspi/chrono suport with staff/scepter+shield or more dps oriented ilu/duel/chrono with staff/scepter+pistol. Not so sure for the hybrid one for sure replace staff with sw+shield and leave scepter+pistol i think? and traits being prob ilu/duel/chrono.
Whats sad for me almost all phantasms are scaling of power – warlock, swordsman, duelist, warden, berserker. Only mage scales of condi. And somehow traited duelist.

Chaos storm is arguably one of best skills in game and making us not use it cuz of random application of dazes (well its not said that it would be a problem but it might. lets hope not cuz staff is only 2nd weapon choice imho)

And personally I dont think that phantasms can make up dps when players are required to move. They died very fast on every vile guardian aoe which required us, players to move.

Well it came very pessimistic but I somehow tend to always show the drawbacks if other are listing bright points and vice versa.

I hope you are right since I prefer condi/hybrid mesmer playstyle but I have some worries of it being replaced by engi/guardian in everything other than alacrity

I think we will be more of a support, but im just guessing at this point. I say this for the reason that phantasms just die way to easy to any aoe, which will probably be a huge factor in raids. However, there may be some fights where a band of duelists may be safe to fire most of the fight and provide great sustain.

My guess? Support most of the time, with some fights being dps, but only when you can reliably have your phantasms active.

Chronomancer is definitely top tier for raids. With alacrity + quickness + CCs chronomancer is boss in raids. Something of the sort like this for the first boss: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAsc8encfClph9fCmfCUrhlVjqcDGhAo+Yj2pFd6OjrD-TxRBABXt/o8oQ9Diq+DZKxe4kAAwTAwMlgBAOAGuwFuwBrv+6rv+6N8wDP8wDPGg8A-e

Docfranz.5382:

I think we will be more of a support, but im just guessing at this point. I say this for the reason that phantasms just die way to easy to any aoe, which will probably be a huge factor in raids. However, there may be some fights where a band of duelists may be safe to fire most of the fight and provide great sustain.

My guess? Support most of the time, with some fights being dps, but only when you can reliably have your phantasms active.

The NPC’s in the raid do not do any damage to player pets, so you can fully utilize clones for shattering. At least this was the information I was getting from the Mesmer in my group, and when I tested out using my Golem Elite on Necro I could confirm he did not die (standing right on top of the boss’ cleave) unless I went down.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Chronomancer is definitely top tier for raids. With alacrity + quickness + CCs chronomancer is boss in raids. Something of the sort like this for the first boss: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAsc8encfClph9fCmfCUrhlVjqcDGhAo+Yj2pFd6OjrD-TxRBABXt/o8oQ9Diq+DZKxe4kAAwTAwMlgBAOAGuwFuwBrv+6rv+6N8wDP8wDPGg8A-e

Why Dueling over Dom?

Jerus.4350:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Chronomancer is definitely top tier for raids. With alacrity + quickness + CCs chronomancer is boss in raids. Something of the sort like this for the first boss: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAsc8encfClph9fCmfCUrhlVjqcDGhAo+Yj2pFd6OjrD-TxRBABXt/o8oQ9Diq+DZKxe4kAAwTAwMlgBAOAGuwFuwBrv+6rv+6N8wDP8wDPGg8A-e

Why Dueling over Dom?

Also why assassin over berserker if going for power. You didnt take any reflects and if not for reflects I think bers is better than assassin. At least it was some time ago

IDK which is mathematically better. I just chose dueling. Domination could be better IDK. And I chose assassin figuring you wouldn’t want to get a 1 set for raids and 1 set for fractals/dungeons. And difference between assassins and zerker is non existent except for reflects really.