Guild Wars 2

We’re at the point in the game where almost every class has an awesome dps build where they can get pretty massive auto attack crits and even bigger crits on their other abilities. Every class except for the Mesmer…

Why is it that our one melee weapon does so little damage? I get higher auto crits on my greatsword half the time.

Fully zerked out I usually hit in the 1-2.8k range with sword auto, and that’s with quite a few buffs on as well. Meanwhile any other class I play has a weapon that yields around 2-4k crits with less buffs.

I honestly would still be fine with blurred frenzy continuing to do the crap damage it does considering the distortion effect on it, but it’s really starting to suck that I can’t bring damage on my mesmer. Only portals, pulls, feedback, and debuffs for coe.

What do you guys think about this? Where do you think the line on it should be drawn? I know we can’t have it all since our utility is good, but I hope some day we can just have enough.

No, because our phantasm provide good sustained DPS combined with our fair weapon attacks, and shatters are awesome AOE bursts. Anything more would be OP given the utility and support we can provide without sacrificing much of our DPS.

If you want damage try out a good phantasm build. If you want burst, try a shatter build. Fay has a great list of builds in the sticky.

Is the third attack of the chain still bugged and does less damage if we have a boon?

Gaiawolf.8261:

No, because our phantasm provide good sustained DPS combined with our fair weapon attacks, and shatters are awesome AOE bursts. Anything more would be OP given the utility and support we can provide without sacrificing much of our DPS.

If you want damage try out a good phantasm build. If you want burst, try a shatter build. Fay has a great list of builds in the sticky.

Phantasms aren’t good sustained dps at all.

They wanted to keep away from the PvE / PvP split skill balancing system. But at this point I see it as a necessity if Mesmers are to remain as viable in PvE compared to the other classes.

Mesmer lack of “% Damage Trait” compared other class.

Example from Warrior’s Trait=
- GreatSword damage +10%
- Increases damage to bleeding foes by 10%.
- Hammer damage is increased by 25% when a foe is disabled. Reduces cooldown of hammer skills by 20%
- Deal 3% bonus damage per boon on your target.
- Increased damage based on how much adrenaline you have built.

And many more.

While on Mesmer? Not many option like that.

how high is your power?

In PvE, Mesmers are indeed a low DPS class, but don’t let that get you down. They’re one of the best utility classes with Focus Pull, Time Warp, and Feedback. Those things alone make Mesmers uniquely valuable to PvE. So I wouldn’t get too beaten up about it.

Nevhie.6079:

Mesmer lack of “% Damage Trait” compared other class.

Example from Warrior’s Trait=
- GreatSword damage +10%
- Increases damage to bleeding foes by 10%.
- Hammer damage is increased by 25% when a foe is disabled. Reduces cooldown of hammer skills by 20%
- Deal 3% bonus damage per boon on your target.
- Increased damage based on how much adrenaline you have built.

And many more.

While on Mesmer? Not many option like that.

Our GS trait is -20% c/d and +50 power. The power is equivalent to +5% damage (at 1000 power).

While that power bonus is pretty shabby it’s coupled with a 20% c/d on the skills. Most weapon traits for other professions do not combine c/d with damage boost. They are typically two separate traits.

1000 Power? In a group setting you should have about 3500 Power (not attack).
Mesmers have a 4%/Mantra multiplicator and 3% per illusion. Usually you don’t use any mantras, sometimes 2-3. All in all that makes up to a 1.09*1.12 amplifier which is extremely low. Also Mesmers Skill Coefficients are the lowest of any profession.

With four mantras and three clones you are at +25% damage which is very good. Although that’s not what the OP was talking about. Also it would be nice if you could actually back up your “lowest coefficients” statement — although not really relevant to the discussion about traits and +wep damage.

My point is +damage is not typically combined with CDR in a single trait and that’s what the GS trait is providing (although I clearly stated “shabby” on the damage from the meager power boost). We are lacking in general +dmg traits for specific weapons, but as I said our traits include CDR with another beneficial bonus (usually).

even if u consider the 50 power non existent, the 20% on cooldown wasnt worth losing 10points distributed in other traits. and imo its still not worth it. maybe if they would change the condition duration in domination with crit damage from dueling…

25% from traits is… probably still lowest in the game.
And theese have to do with this discussion. Damage in gw2 is calculated by (Power*(1+Critchance*Critdmg+0.5)Traitamplifiers)Weapon Damage * Skill Coefficient/Targets Armor. Also, reducing cooldowns is mostly useless. Highest DPS is autoattacking anyway in most cases (melee weapons).

Percentage damage, or increased crit (ot derived from stats) doesn’t even affect Illusions does it? Mesmers benefit the least from +% damage and the like, so the loss isn’t as much. Perhaps this could be substituted with +% stats as an alternative.

Also fixing the bugged Sword auto attack should be a must… hopefully not the usual way of “fixing” these sorts of bugs though (“We’ve changed the tool tip to better reflect the bad skill”).

They should simply make swords coefficients multiplicated with 1.75. Mesmers still don’t deal impressive damage then, but it won’t be as bad as it currently is.

I’d say it does need a buff. But the problem is, it keeps getting nerfed since apparently Pistol OH is immune to nerfs.

Even with the +16% from Mantras, 9% from 3 illus Sword MH deals less damage per chain than a Thieves/Warrior/Guardians when they have no traits.

Although damage might not be the answer. Since they went ahead and gave Thieves a Boonsteal with Larcenous Strike why can’t they give us that on the last hit of our auto chain. They could very well also make it easier for us to stack up a decent amount of Vulnerability by ourselves by increasing duration to 8s to make it the same as Greatsword Warrior chain.

But I’m dreaming big here. You could pretty much play without the Mainhand weapon and just have a pistol equipped in offhand if it keeps going like this.

Levetty.1279:

Is the third attack of the chain still bugged and does less damage if we have a boon?

Mind Spike is still bugged. It essentially makes mesmer sword auto DPS 12.5% less than it should be for most PvE content, assuming the skill tooltip represents how they intended to change the skill.